For me, there is no contradiction between rigorous research and personal convictions—or rather, the coherent consequences that follow from the results of past research. Every historian—whether he admits it or not—approaches the past with a certain worldview and emerges from his research with a certain opinion, sometimes identical to, sometimes different from, his initial assumptions. The important point is intellectual honesty: arguments must be grounded in sources, methods must be transparent, and conclusions must remain falsifiable. My own civilisational convictions are not imposed on the source material; they arise from long-term patterns that emerged across my study of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern Europe. Thus, when I warn about Europe’s decline or advance the need for cultural self-defence, it is not out of ideological passion but out of a historian’s concern for the actual consequences of his studies. In other words, conviction provides the direction, scholarship the testing ground, and the results of the research the practical lessons—and the task of the intellectual is to ensure that all three remain in dialogue rather than in conflict.

2. How do you see divided states within the future construction of Europe?

Europe has always included divided, composite, and pluricultural states. The essential question is not whether a state is internally diverse, but whether its diversity is embedded in a meaningful civilisational framework. A future Europe must avoid two extremes: the atomisation into dozens of micro-states incapable of defending themselves, and the oppressive Brussels centralisation that erases local identity. The only workable model is a patriotic, conservative, civilisational confederation—what I call „Hesperialism“—where subsidiarity is respected, but strategic competences are exercised jointly. In such a structure, divided states can flourish: their internal complexity becomes a microcosm of the European whole rather than a source of permanent instability.

3. Do you believe in the cyclical nature of history?

Yes. Civilisations do follow long structural rhythms: a slow preparation, a period based on transcendence, an antithesis based on materialism, a synthesis in which tradition and reason are combined, and then a slow fading into fossilisation. This is evident in Egypt, ancient China, India, the Greco-Roman world, and many others — and of course also in European civilisation. Obviously, these cycles are not exactly repetitive in content, but they remain strongly comparable in form. The late Roman Republic, for example, offers striking analogies to today’s Western world, as I have shown in my book “On the Path Towards Empire”: demographic decline, institutional paralysis, mass migration, de-sacralisation, globalisation, social polarisation, populism, bread and circuses, moral exhaustion, and finally civil war and Empire. Recognising these patterns does not condemn us to fatalism; rather, it gives us tools to act in order to make the best of historical necessities and to fulfil our potential as well as we can without becoming unrealistic. If history has a cyclical dimension, it is only because human nature itself remains tragically constant.

4. What kind of reception does your research and contemplations receive in Western Europe?

Reactions are, unsurprisingly, divided. In academic circles, my work is generally respected for its comparative methodology and for a series of individual parallels I draw between different past civilisations. But of course, as soon as I speak about the consequences of these studies for the modern West, many colleagues disagree with my conclusions, as they contradict their own, generally linear and progress-centered worldview. As for the broader public, the reception depends largely on ideological orientation. Those who sense that Europe is undergoing a profound civilisational crisis are often relieved to see their intuitions articulated within a historical framework. Others, especially within the progressive mainstream, view any reference to civilisational identity as suspicious or regressive. Yet even critics are slowly forced to acknowledge that the crises I have described—migration, demographic collapse, cultural fragmentation, geopolitical weakness—are now at the centre of European politics. In that sense, reality itself has become my most effective argument, even though those who criticised me 10 years ago and now come to the same conclusions would never admit so or refer to my work.

5. You also come from a divided state. Can you draw parallels between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Belgium?

Belgium and Bosnia-Herzegovina are of course extremely different states, but they share at least the structural problem of being political entities without a shared civilisational narrative and looking for ways to increase instead of decrease internal cooperation and dependences. In Belgium, Flanders and Wallonia coexist under one federal roof but increasingly live in separate cultural and political worlds, constantly fighting for who controles Brussels and how to create fiscal justice between the two very unequal parts of the country. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the divisions are much deeper, as they are rooted in religion, history and geopolitical orientation and were exacerbated by a real civil war, though at least, unlike Flemish and Walloons, all Bosnians share the same language. In both cases, the state functions only as long as external pressure or single elements such as the situation of Brussels holds it together; once the integrative framework weakens, however, fragmentation steadily increases. The lesson is clear: political unity cannot be engineered by technocratic means or institutional paralysis alone. It requires a shared moral horizon, a symbolic centre, a sense of destiny, as is for example the case with the equally diverse but much less conflictual Switzerland. Without that, a state becomes a mere temporary arrangement rather than a community.

6. You promoted the Serbian translation of your book „Defending the European Civilisation“, published by the CSPR. What place does Southeastern Europe occupy within your idea of Europe, especially after your recent visit to the Republic of Srpska?

Southeastern Europe is often considered as being situated at Europe’s periphery, and indeed, from Byzantium and the Holy Roman Empire to the medieval Slavic kingdoms, from Orthodox spirituality and Catholic influence to the centuries-long struggle against Ottoman expansion, the region has been often torn apart. But at the same time, it is generally at the border zone that the spiritual and psychological particularities of a given civilisation become the most pronounced. During my visit to the Republic of Srpska, I was struck by the cultural resilience, the attachment to family, faith, and historical continuity—traits that Western Europe has often abandoned under the influence of relativism and consumerism. A future Hesperialist Europe must include Southeastern Europe not as an annex, but as a pillar. If Europe is to rediscover its identity, the contribution of Belgrade, Banja Luka or Sofia may prove just as important as that of Lisbon, The Hague or Copenhagen.

7. Is there a constant in German policy within the European constellation of relations?

Yes — Germany’s fundamental ambivalence. Since 1945, German policy has oscillated between two impulses: a desire to dissolve national responsibility into supranational structures in order to escape its own problematic past, and a structural dominance that makes Germany the de facto centre of the EU. This creates a paradox: Germany shapes Europe economically, but refuses to assume explicit political leadership; it promotes integration, yet often according to its own material preferences; it embraces moral universalism, but sometimes at the expense of European strategic autonomy. This is particularly obvious today, as Germany, for ideological reasons, is trying to impose its politics of mass migration, climate neutrality and wokism on the entire continent, extending its suicidal deviation to our whole civilisation. The true constant in German policy is therefore its unresolved identity: a great power that no longer wants to admit it, and whose hesitations or errors increasingly paralyse the entire European Union. Once again, the future of Europe depends on Germany: once Berlin finally decides to abandon wokism, the destiny of all its neighbours could change from one second to the next — for the better.

Чланак Decline of Europe – interview with David Engels се појављује прво на CENTRE FOR SOCIO-POLITICAL RESEARCH OF THE REPUBLIC OF SRPSKA.

In this context, it is particularly important to bear in mind the assessments of relevant European institutions. In its 2024 report on BiH, the European Commission stated that gas still occupies a limited place in the country’s overall energy supply and that BiH remains entirely dependent on a single external source of gas supply, while earlier reports also pointed to reliance on a single gas corridor. In such a framework, the Republic of Srpska may be perceived as an actor that regards the issue of energy development as a part of a responsible and long-term policy, seeking – through its own initiatives and a more active approach to gasification – to contribute not only to its own stability, but also to the broader energy security of BiH and the process of regional interconnection. Starting from the fact that both the Republic of Srpska and BiH, as a whole, remain an area with limited gasification, all new activities in this field acquire a significance greater than that of an ordinary infrastructure undertaking. They may be seen as part of a broader process which, if it continues to advance and is implemented, could mark the entry into a new phase of energy development, with effects that go beyond the question of supply alone and extend into the wider framework of the developmental, economic, and strategic positioning not only of the Republic of Srpska, but of BiH as a whole.

In such an environment, the Eastern Mediterranean is increasingly emerging as one of the important hubs of the new energy dynamics that are also spilling over into Southeast Europe. Security risks, LNG infrastructure, maritime routes, commercial arrangements, together with the efforts of various actors to expand supply options while strengthening their influence over future directions of energy interconnection, all intersect in this area. For that reason, the relationship between the Eastern Mediterranean and internal energy flows in the Balkans must now be viewed as part of a broader energy geopolitics in which questions of sources, routes, logistics, and political stability are deeply intertwined. It is precisely within this broader context that the importance of the southern route of gas supply to BiH, via Croatia, should also be understood.

Today, the Eastern Mediterranean is significant not only as a geographical space where energy and security interests meet, but also as one of the broader sources of dynamics that, through LNG supply chains, Adriatic infrastructure, and regional transport systems, influences internal energy planning in the Balkans as well. Therefore, the connection between the Eastern Mediterranean and BiH may be understood as part of a more complex energy network in which Mediterranean, Adriatic, and overland routes together shape new supply options. At a time when Europe is seeking to reduce its vulnerability to a limited number of supply routes and strengthen energy stability, this broader southern area is gaining additional importance for BiH and, indirectly, for the Republic of Srpska as well.

Within such a broader geo-energy environment, the southern gas supply route acquires particular significance. In that sense, the so-called Southern Interconnection represents a potential route for linking BiH with the Croatian transport system, the Adriatic LNG infrastructure, and the terminal on the island of Krk, thereby tying the issue of supply more directly to the wider Adriatic and Mediterranean area. Its significance, viewed from this perspective, derives from the fact that, should the project continue to develop and the necessary preconditions be met, it could open an additional entry point and thereby strengthen the possibilities for supply diversification in BiH and, indirectly, in the Republic of Srpska.

In this way, the issue of the route in question would not be viewed solely in terms of expanding supply options, but also in terms of strengthening the conditions for a more stable continuity of supply, with significant implications for energy security. This is precisely where the connection with the Eastern Mediterranean assumes its proper place. The Eastern Mediterranean should not be understood as the only, predefined source for this part of Europe, but rather as a broader energy space whose significance is transmitted through LNG supply chains, maritime routes, terminals, and overland transport systems. In that sense, the southern route may be understood as one of the potential links through which part of that broader Mediterranean dynamic could be transmitted to the Balkans.

From that perspective, the Southern Interconnection may also be viewed within the broader context of European efforts to gradually strengthen the overall resilience of the system in conditions of heightened energy uncertainty and a growing awareness of the vulnerability of existing supply chains. Publicly available information on the operation of the Krk terminal further points to the increasing importance of the Adriatic dimension in broader regional energy interconnection, which also underlines the project’s relevance for BiH. Nevertheless, this option should likewise be approached with a certain degree of caution. Should it continue to develop, its value would primarily lie in broadening the range of choices and gradually reducing structural dependence on a limited number of supply routes.

However, this mode of supply is not free from uncertainty either. Disruptions in the broader Middle East area, the sensitivity of global LNG flows, and the importance of key maritime chokepoints demonstrate how quickly crises in that part of the world can be reflected in the European market, affecting security of supply, price movements, and overall market predictability. In that sense, even routes that are often viewed as diversification options remain subject to broader geopolitical dynamics. For precisely that reason, from an academic and analytical perspective, it is more appropriate to speak of the Southern Interconnection as an option with significant potential rather than as a predetermined and final solution.

Its possible importance does not lie in the fact that it would eliminate all forms of energy vulnerability, but rather in the fact that it could contribute to greater flexibility, the gradual expansion of choices, and the reduction of dependence on a limited number of supply routes. In other words, diversification does not mean the disappearance of risk, but rather its redistribution and potential reduction. That is precisely why the value of this route should be assessed within the context of the broader energy architecture, and not exclusively through the prism of a single project or a single political moment.

Within that framework, the Eastern Interconnection with Serbia, that is, the eastern route of gas supply for the Republic of Srpska and, by extension, BiH, is increasingly emerging as one of the relevant routes within the broader gasification policy. From the perspective of the Republic of Srpska, its significance derives primarily from the fundamental importance this route has for supply and the further development of gasification, as well as from its geographical position, existing energy links, and its potential to contribute to a more stable supply and the expansion of gas infrastructure in the Republic of Srpska.

At the same time, the issue of broader diversification at the level of BiH must be viewed within a wider and more complex regulatory and geopolitical framework, especially under conditions of external disruptions. In that sense, both the Southern and the Eastern Interconnection can objectively be regarded as potentially complementary elements of a broader energy policy, rather than as necessarily mutually exclusive choices. Still, the further development of these processes does not yet allow for definitive assessments, which is why it is more appropriate to speak of routes that are gradually taking shape rather than of already finalized outcomes.

From the perspective of the Republic of Srpska, the key issue, therefore, is not how to replace the existing mainstay, but rather how, alongside primary supply through the Eastern Interconnection, to consider other options that in the long term strengthen stability, reduce structural vulnerability, and leave room for development. Such an approach is also grounded in the obligations assumed by BiH as a Contracting Party to the Energy Community, particularly in the area relating to security of gas supply. In that regard, risk assessment, the preventive action plan, and the emergency plan are of particular importance, since they constitute the basic instruments for managing disruptions and crises in the gas supply sector. For that reason, the issue of gasification should not be reduced to a narrow debate about individual routes, but should instead be viewed as part of broader institutional, developmental, and security planning, especially at a time when disruptions in the Middle East, the sensitivity of global LNG flows, and the political conditionality of infrastructure projects have become enduring elements of the wider security environment.

Taken as a whole, the connection with the Eastern Mediterranean shows that the issue of gas supply in BiH can no longer be understood exclusively within a local framework. On the contrary, it is increasingly becoming part of a broader energy geopolitics linking the Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Balkan areas. The Southern Interconnection, as a potential link with the Adriatic and the wider Mediterranean space, is gaining importance within the logic of diversification at a time when Europe is exposed to pronounced energy vulnerability, price disruptions, and geopolitically conditioned risks.

Within that framework, the Eastern Mediterranean also remains important as one of the broader energy spaces from which, indirectly and through a more complex supply chain, new supply opportunities may be shaped. Viewed from that perspective, the Eastern Interconnection with Serbia also acquires additional significance, given that for the Republic of Srpska, it has primary importance in terms of supply and the further development of gasification. At the same time, consideration of other routes shows that this issue is not viewed merely as a technical or infrastructural matter, but within a broader and longer-term strategic framework. In that sense, the Republic of Srpska may be regarded as an actor which, while relying primarily on the Eastern Interconnection, seeks to preserve openness to other gas supply routes and potential sources, viewing gasification within the broader framework of strategic flexibility and energy stability.

Such an approach, if further developed, could have broader significance not only for BiH but also for regional energy connectivity. At the same time, with this approach, BiH would no longer be viewed exclusively as an area of structural limitations, weakness, and external interventions, but also as a space in which security of supply is strengthened, and the conditions for economic stability are reinforced through concrete initiatives and responsible energy planning, which, as a whole, constitutes an important prerequisite for longer-term sustainability. In that sense, the constructive approach of the Republic of Srpska would acquire significance that goes beyond the internal level and would become relevant for the wider regional energy framework as well.

Such an orientation would also be consistent with broader European efforts to strengthen security of supply, reduce vulnerability to external disruptions, and reinforce economic stability through the diversification of supply routes and sources. That is precisely why the connection of BiH and the Republic of Srpska with the energy dynamics of the Eastern Mediterranean and new forms of regional gas infrastructure would no longer represent a secondary issue, but rather part of a broader reflection on how contemporary risks and new opportunities are incorporated into energy and development planning. Ultimately, that is where the broader meaning of such an approach lies, because in conditions of uncertainty, its greatest value rests in the ability to preserve freedom of strategic choice.

Magazine in its entirety is available at the following link:

Serbian Strategies International

Source: Serbian Strategies International

Чланак The Republic of Srpska in the New Energy Geopolitics between the Eastern Mediterranean and Bosnia and Herzegovina – published in magazine Serbian Strategies International се појављује прво на CENTRE FOR SOCIO-POLITICAL RESEARCH OF THE REPUBLIC OF SRPSKA.

Observing from perspective of society and science, to what extent do we understand today what happened to the Serbs during the Second World War? Did 1941 truly represent, for the Serbs, a year of biblical significance? How did the Serbian people respond when confronted with evil in form of a state system, during the greatest conflict in the history of civilization? These are just some of the questions to which answers must persistently be given, not only in order to understand the past, but likewise so that we, as descendants of both victims and heroes of resistance, may define our stance toward the present and the future of the Serbian people and the Republic of Srpska.

The Genocide against the Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia (1941–1945) was an attempt by that state to completely destroy the Serbs within its territory. (In its briefest definition, genocide is an attempt at the systematic, premeditated destruction of a racial, ethnic, religious or national group.) The Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was established on April 10, 1941, following the Axis powers’ attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It encompassed most of the territory of present-day Croatia, the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina and smaller parts of Serbia (Srem up to Zemun and part of Raška for a shorter period). The execution of the genocide against the Serbs in the NDH and the creation of an ethnically pure Croatian state had been planned even before the outbreak of the Second World War. This was shaped by the ideology of Croatian Party of Rights and the activity of the Roman Catholic Church, united in the idea of the so-called Croatian state and historical right, that is, in the concept of a single political nation, which matured in Croatian circles in the mid-19th century, although the historical roots of intolerance and the dehumanization of the Serbs are much deeper. The leaders of the terrorist Croatian Ustaša movement, while still in exile in the interwar period, studied forms of mass violence – such as the genocide against the Armenians carried out by Turkey – with the intention of applying similar methods against the Serbs. Later, during the war, after taking power in the NDH, they continued consultations with their Nazi partners and role models.

The target was around 2,000,000 Serbs, who had been the indigenous population and lived within the then territory of the then Independent State of Croatia for centuries. NDH had an overall population of about 6,000,000 and was proclaimed within the framework of the Nazi order. The expulsion and forced conversion of Serbs to Catholicism were only one part of the project. The more drastic and most visible aspect of this effort, in addition to individual and mass killings, included the establishment of a large number of extermination camps. One of the characteristics of the genocide in the NDH was the particularly brutal manner in which the crimes were carried out: victims were thrown into karst pits in Lika, Dalmatia and Herzegovina, as well as in other areas. A defining feature of the monstrosity of these crimes was the direct contact between perpetrator and victim and a difficult-to-explain degree of sadism: throat-cutting, killings with mallets and other blunt objects, hangings… Even members of German and Italian units were appalled by the monstrosity of these crimes.

From the very beginning, the genocide was approved and directed by the state. The NDH used its entire bureaucratic, military, police, transportation and other infrastructure to carry out the crimes. Racial and anti-Serb laws and decrees were part of a system of destruction modeled on Nazi racial regulations and legislation. In addition to the numerous perpetrators, a large number of people in NDH society supported these crimes while there were also those who observed everything and did nothing to prevent it. The few, more courageous individuals who condemned such actions ended up in camps or joined resistance movements. A large number of Muslims took part in the crimes against the Serbs in the NDH and, especially at the beginning of the war, enjoyed a special status within this ally of the Nazi order. Across the NDH, major mass crimes were committed against the Serbs. Places such as Prebilovci and Pridvorica in Herzegovina, Stari Brod on the Drina, Drakulić, Šargovac and Motike near Banja Luka, Garavice near Bihać, Glina, Livno and others became scenes of almost unimaginable atrocities against thousands of women, children and men who were killed because of their Serbian Orthodox identity.

From across the entire territory of the NDH, railway transports carried large numbers of Serbian prisoners who were destined for extermination. According to historians, 24 camps and hundreds of other detention and transport sites operated within the NDH. The two largest death camp systems were Gospić–Jadovno–Pag, which functioned from April 1941 to August 15, 1941, and the Jasenovac death camp system, which operated from the end of August 1941 until April 22, 1945, when the last group of Jasenovac prisoners staged a breakout. Most Serbs were killed at hundreds of local execution sites throughout the country, while the large camp systems became a symbol of the overall suffering in the NDH. The two major death camp systems, Gospić–Jadovno–Pag and Jasenovac, operated sequentially throughout the entire existence of the Independent State of Croatia. In a way, they constituted its essence—the axis of its (meaningless) purpose. The primary goal of the NDH was the destruction of the Serbs, followed – in accordance with the new Nazi order and with very little outside initiative in aligning with the European Nazi framework – the destruction of Jews and Roma. These were closely interconnected events on the ground, though they unfolded with different dynamics. The destruction of the Jews was also carried out within the broader European context of the Holocaust.

The Jasenovac death camp system became a symbol of what the Serbs endured in the NDH. This camp system, notorious for its brutality, covered an area of 210 square kilometers and included camps (which in historiography are numbered I to V: Krapje, Bročica, Ciglana, Kožara and Stara Gradiška), as well as execution sites, among which the largest was Donja Gradina (today located in the municipality of Kozarska Dubica in the territory of the Republic of Srpska), and other camp locations and facilities. The Jasenovac suffering escalated particularly after the German-Croatian offensive on Kozara. Nazi Germany thus played a role not only as an international patron of the genocide against the Serbs in the NDH but also as its direct executor. As a consequence of Jasenovac, specialized NDH camps were also established solely for Serbian children: Jastrebarsko, Gornja Rijeka and Sisak. Likewise, numerous sites in the NDH operated where women and children were imprisoned and executed. This will remain recorded in the history of civilization.

To all of this, the Serbian people – faced with total annihilation – responded with a mass uprising against the NDH in the summer of 1941 and an anti-occupation movement whose sole aim was survival. Only later was this movement divided into the communist–revolutionary faction and the royalist, or Chetnik, faction, which sparked a brutal civil war on an ideological basis and brought new losses to the Serbian people. The majority of the partisan movement across the former Yugoslavia—which, after the war, became a state under an atheist communist party aligned with the Allies—was composed of Serbs who carried the weight of the anti-fascist and anti-occupation struggle. Although the official postwar Yugoslav narrative was based on a false, ideologized image of equal contribution by all peoples and nationalities to the struggle, as well as a false symmetry in their sacrifices, the Serbian people preserved an alternative familial memory outside the communist ideological system, creating a kind of defensive reflex to prevent Jasenovac and the NDH from recurring.

At the moment when, in the early 1990s, Yugoslavia was disintegrating under external and internal pressures, the Serbian people as a defensive mechanism, alongside the existence of Serbia, established the Republic of Serbian Krajina and the Republic of Srpska. This was a form of collective “NO” to the repetition of the crime of genocide. The Republic of Serbian Krajina disappeared under the assaults of the Croatian army in 1995, while the Republic of Srpska was recognized by an international peace agreement as an entity with significant state powers within Bosnia and Herzegovina. Together with Serbia, we are today obliged to systematically research, preserve the memory of the victims and strive to understand the lessons from the difficult past of our people.

The Serbian Orthodox Church has included the New Martyrs of Jasenovac and others in the covenantal vertical of the Serbian people’s memory. Their suffering is today understood through the perspective of Golgotha and the Resurrection. Likewise, the focus on the personal and family stories of the victims, from this eschatological perspective, aligns fully with the contemporary multidisciplinary approach to memorialization.

Чланак Genocide against Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia се појављује прво на CENTRE FOR SOCIO-POLITICAL RESEARCH OF THE REPUBLIC OF SRPSKA.

The European Union has for decades sought to position itself as an autonomous political actor on the international stage, capable of shaping the course of global processes. Yet today, despite its economic strength, single market, and the appeal of enlargement, it is increasingly evident—under the influence of numerous global factors—that its reach and influence remain limited. In key security and geopolitical matters, Europe appears less and less as the one who decides, and more and more as an object of other actor’s decisions. Although it is one of the world’s most economically developed regions, its material power has not been matched by proportional strategic autonomy. Amid intense global realignment, the Union aspires to a seat at the table, but is ever more visibly finding itself on the table, where others articulate their own interests. The rift between Europe’s self-perception and reality has laid bare a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the EU project: it has failed to build power as a geopolitical subject in the classical sense, and has instead evolved into a system of technocratic and normative governance, aimed primarily at disciplining its own member states. Within that system, Germany has asserted itself as the central axis by embedding its legal, economic and regulatory models into the very foundations of the Union. It does not manage Europe through overt, formal domination, but through control of institutional levers, the normative framework and regulatory rules that shape decision-making across the entire system. The paradox of the modern era is that the state which twice in the twentieth century caused the greatest upheavals and calamities on the continent became, after 1945, the center that defines the boundaries of what is possible, desirable and permissible in Europe. From the combination of fear of a reawakening of German power and the political realism that demanded its permanent institutional anchoring in the West emerged the Schuman Declaration and the European Coal and Steel Community, originally conceived as a means of containing German industrial strength. Over time, however, a historical reversal occurred in which the very mechanisms designed to restrain Germany became instruments for expanding its influence. Germany did not seize control of Europe abruptly; it achieved this gradually, by embedding its own models into Europe’s institutional architecture.

Formally, the European Union is a community of equal states, in which decisions are made by consensus or by qualified majority. In reality, it functions as an order in which power derives from control over norms, regulations and institutional mechanisms that determine how decisions are made in key fields. It is precisely in this domain that Germany has, over time, gained a structural advantage and become the principal holder of real authority. This authority manifests itself through the directorates of the European Commission, whose technocratic apparatus continuously produces standards, procedures and normative frameworks that define the behavior of states, markets and institutions. Germany recognized early on that real power is forged in these seemingly technical spheres. That is why, in core areas such as competition, the economy and finance, it has structurally embedded its legal, economic and industrial matrix. The logic of ordoliberalism—that is, the German conviction that the state does not manage the system directly but instead sets the framework of rules which must be obeyed—together with fiscal discipline, formalism and debt control, has become a dominant lever of European policy and one of the key instruments through which Berlin secures its central and privileged position within the European order. However, the power Germany has accumulated within the EU has not been built as classical geopolitical power, but rather as supremacy in the domain of rules and regulations, grounded in a neoliberal paradigm that prioritizes fiscal discipline, market logic and a limited role for the state in the strategic projection of power.

The current administration in Washington is increasingly viewing the prevailing European model—shaped under German normative leadership—as a source of ideological and security vulnerability for the broader Western space. From this perspective, the European Union is building an ever more complex system of norms and procedures, while simultaneously losing strategic clarity, demographic stability and the capacity to effectively stabilize its immediate neighborhood. The new American approach therefore gradually departs from the partnership paradigm in which the EU was seen as one of the pillars of shared security and shifts toward a policy of pressure, correction and the reshaping of Europe’s institutional framework and identity trajectory. In the American perception—more openly than at any time since the end of the Second World War—Europe is increasingly seen less as a guarantor of Western security and more as a source of risk that must be actively managed. This shift was further and unequivocally articulated in the new United States National Security Strategy, published in early December 2025.

In that strategic document, Europe is not presented as a bearer of a security role, but as a zone of internal instability, institutional inertia and political ambiguity. Particular emphasis is placed on challenges linked to mass migration, demographic decline and ideological concepts that displace Europe’s own traditional foundations. From such a framework follows the conclusion that, from the American perspective, Europe needs to be reshaped ideologically, civilizationally and institutionally—not so much as an equal strategic subject, but rather as a problematic security space within the broader Western system. Later in the same document, it is specifically stressed that Europe carries the burden of deep internal structural problems, including regulatory practices that constrain sovereignty and freedom, migration policies that transform the continent and generate social conflict, demographic decline and the erosion of national identities. This is coupled with an American assessment that, if these trends continue, the reliability of certain European states as allies becomes questionable. Within this American perspective, a clear distinction is drawn between the European Union as an institutional framework and Europe as a security space in the broader geopolitical sense. Accordingly, the EU appears in the United States National Security Strategy only in a limited and mostly indirect way, while Europe is treated primarily as a security space and as a set of allied states within a wider security framework. This is an indicative signal of political hierarchy within the Western bloc. Precisely for that reason, part of the political elite in states such as Estonia—consistently pro-Atlantic and existentially tied to the American military presence—has expressed concern that the new U.S. National Security Strategy could, due to this shift in focus, call into question the stability of the eastern flank and the EU’s role as a guarantor of security. That concern does not stem from resistance to Washington, but from the assessment that the American strategic framework is increasingly counting less on the European Union as a partner and more on direct bilateral management of allies and pressure on the very foundations of the European project.

These fears are further intensified by the fact that European states have built their strategies on the assumption that Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty constitutes a firm and almost automatic security guarantee by the United States, which allowed them to focus on economic and social development while investing relatively little in their own defense capabilities. Yet even at the Alliance’s founding—under the influence of the U.S. Senate—the collective-defense obligation in Article 5 was formulated in such a way that each state, in accordance with its own constitutional procedures, undertakes those measures it itself deems necessary, rather than automatically going to war. In essence, what in Europe has been perceived as an almost unquestionable guarantee has always depended on political will in Washington, not on legal automatism. This reality was indirectly acknowledged already in the early phase of the Cold War by Konrad Adenauer, who on several occasions insisted that only American officials in key military and civilian positions could hold the Alliance together—thereby confirming that NATO cohesion and the security of Western European states in practice rest on the continuous political and military presence of the United States. Precisely for that reason, the question of U.S. political will is crucial for allies who for decades have treated their security as something essentially guaranteed by default.

Parallel to this shift in American strategy, initiatives within the European Union to develop a security and industrial infrastructure of its own are gaining strenght, beyond complete dependence on U.S. influence. The most concrete expression of that ambition has become the new instrument Security Action for Europe (SAFE), formally established by Council Regulation (EU) 2025/1106 of 27 May 2025, through which Europe seeks to build an autonomous defense-industrial complex less tied to transatlantic supply chains and decision-making processes. However, although SAFE is presented as a common European project, it is clear that its concept and priorities to a large extent reflect German industrial and normative-legal interests, which Berlin—through long-term positioning within the directorates of the European Commission—has managed to translate into policy for the entire Union. In that sense, SAFE is a logical continuation of a German strategy in which supremacy in the realm of rules and standards, first consolidated in the domains of markets and finance, is now gradually being transferred into the sphere of defense and armaments. In practical terms, through SAFE Brussels is attempting—via new financial mechanisms—to restore the strategic self-confidence of Europe’s defense industry. Joint procurement and production subsidies for ammunition, armored combat vehicles and associated systems, air-defense assets, and missiles are meant to create the image of a Europe that, for the first time since the Cold War, is investing more seriously in its own military power. However, when one moves from the level of political decisions to the level of concrete weapons systems, it becomes clear that the scope of that power is structurally limited by the configuration of the combat systems themselves. Most key components—from aircraft platforms and radar and electro-optical sensors, through command-and-control and communications systems, to cryptographic protection, guidance and satellite support—are technologically and by standards integrated into the operational and technological framework of the United States and NATO. Operationally, this means that functions such as tactical data networks, satellite communications, positioning and time synchronization, battlefield-management software and certain layers of guidance depend on standards, infrastructure or licenses over which Europe does not have full control in crucial segments. Without that key aspect, Europe’s current security architecture could not function at full capacity and with that dependency, any proclaimed autonomy remains confined to rhetoric and industrial programs.

An additional paradox is that key Western European military-industrial capacities—such as Rheinmetall, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann/KNDS, Airbus Defence and Space, BAE Systems, Leonardo, Thales, and Saab—are largely privatized. It should be borne in mind that these corporations have different ownership models and degrees of state influence, but this does not change their market orientation or limited production of expensive platforms. This means they are to a significant extent driven by the logic of profit, shareholders and high margins, so SAFE, instead of creating a broad base of cheap, mass production, primarily results in vast public funds being channeled toward a few dominant corporations which, due to numerous structural constraints, in practice deliver only relatively small production runs of extremely expensive platforms with long delivery timelines—thereby producing a fundamentally limited effect on Europe’s operational defense capabilities. Precisely within such a balance of power—where SAFE fails to secure broad, mass and low-cost production—it is logical that the United States will not allow the emergence of a European defense architecture in which the American role becomes secondary. This is not only because Europe currently cannot function without the American technological base, but also because any serious attempt at genuine autonomy would entail a weakening of U.S. influence over Europe.

On that front, a symptomatic example is the deepening of bilateral cooperation between Germany and Turkey in the fields of defense and the defense industry, whereby a national initiative acquires a European dimension as Berlin seeks to integrate Turkey into European defense-industrial supply chains and, indirectly, into the SAFE framework. Such an approach sends a clear political message about Europe’s ambition to choose its own partners in defense and armaments independently, rather than having Washington decide. However, by late November it became clear that Turkey would nevertheless not enter the program, making the entire endeavor an even more striking mirror of Europe’s powerlessness. A further dimension is added by the normative condition built into SAFE itself—that at least 65% of the value of components in the final system must be of European origin—which, if implemented in practice, would constrain the previous dominance of American suppliers and gradually redirect procurement toward Europe’s defense industry. Accordingly, SAFE is, on the one hand, ambitious enough to articulate what Europe wants; on the other, its implementation reveals the fundamental dependence of Europe’s security architecture on the United States and its limited sovereignty when it comes to choosing partners and technologies. The very same American strategic document that describes Europe as a space of instability rather than as a partner in shaping global security also sets the frame within which the outcome of this instrument is viewed. This means that Europe may plan greater security spending, but the effective reach of SAFE will nonetheless remain constrained by Washington’s strategic priorities.

In that context, other attempts to expand SAFE—above all with the United Kingdom—also appear as further confirmation of the same limitations. Despite initial political momentum, the process stalled at a relatively early stage due to pronounced financial, institutional and security-related problems. In substantive terms, such outcomes can be interpreted as an indication that within the Euro-Atlantic space the ultimate scope of SAFE continues to be determined within a framework in which American interests play a decisive role. Washington encourages Europe to significantly increase defense spending, but within limits that remain aligned with transatlantic priorities. In this context, it is difficult for European initiatives such as SAFE to develop a full capacity for autonomous decision-making on any matter of essential importance. SAFE therefore functions precisely as a test of the boundaries of European autonomy. Any partnership that is not aligned with transatlantic priorities ends up in a legal and political dead end. Internally, member states participate in decision-making within a legal and fiscal model that is to a significant extent shaped according to German standards, which makes them simultaneously participants and objects of discipline. Externally, the European project operates as a security framework whose actual role, limits and partnerships are ultimately determined by an external factor. The European Union thus appears as a subject that initiates and designs mechanisms, yet remains an object in the final shaping of the order within which those mechanisms operate. For smaller nations and states on Europe’s periphery, the real question is no longer whether they will sit at the table, but whether they can avoid becoming part of what is being served on it.

For the Republic of Srpska, such a configuration of the European order does not merely mean that the European Union must be viewed as a space in which external interests intersect, but also that all of this is refracted through the complex Dayton constitutional framework of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Formally, the EU appears as a partner of Bosnia and Herzegovina, yet in practice European levers of power are most often applied through the layer of joint institutions and through the involvement of external actors in the internal order, with the original Dayton framework increasingly interpreted as an obstacle rather than as a governing framework.

The practical consequence is that the Republic of Srpska, engaging with the European Union through the institutional framework of Bosnia and Herzegovina—which, according to the original Dayton logic, should reflect its status as a constituent subject—cannot reduce its strategy to a mere line of EU approximation without simultaneously opening the question of which institutions conduct that process, on the basis of which interpretation of Dayton and under whose security and political conditions. The smaller the EU’s real autonomy in relations with key global actors, and the greater the role of external factors in the internal processes of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the greater the risk, by all indications, that the European agenda may in certain scenarios be transformed into an instrument for the gradual dismantling of the Dayton position of the Republic of Srpska under the guise of reforms.

For that very reason, strategic reflection must also encompass work on one’s own structures of key importance—above all the strengthening of constitutional status, institutional stability and long-term social and economic capacities that make it possible to absorb external pressures, rather than merely endure them passively.

The essential challenge for the Republic of Srpska is not merely whether it will move closer to the European Union, but also which Union it is in fact approaching: the illusion of an autonomous and stable Europe, or the reality of a Union that is willingly subordinating itself to external geostrategic imperatives and ideological and political patterns that undermine its civilizational foundations. To the extent that the Union is being transformed under the pressure of internal contradictions and the simultaneous influence of Washington, it becomes uncertain not only what kind of Europe will emerge, but whether it will even survive in its current form as a political subject. It is precisely this uncertainty that requires the Republic of Srpska to make its long-term decisions not on the basis of a static image of Europe, but on the dynamics of its potential weakening, fragmentation or restructuring. If today’s Europe is simultaneously at the table and on the table, then the Republic of Srpska finds itself in circumstances in which its position is shaped not only in Brussels and Berlin, but also in Washington and other nodes of Euro-Atlantic power. At the same time, outside that framework, alternative global centers of power are taking shape, with which the Serbian people are historically and politically connected and in relation to which more active strategic ties can be built. Under such conditions, the struggle for the subjectivity of the Republic of Srpska—within the framework of the original Dayton Agreement and in relation to the European Union—is not a matter of tactical positioning, but a condition for survival as a political subject. This implies long-term work on the structural foundations of survival, above all on institutions, the demographic and rural base, education and sectors of the economy of strategic importance, in order to reduce vulnerability to external shocks and to projects imposed from outside.

This does not mean that the alternative to the European Union is geopolitical isolation or a simple substitution of one external anchor for another. For the Republic of Srpska, the real alternative does not lie in abandoning the European framework, but in viewing Europe as one instrument rather than as destiny, while simultaneously preserving internal stability and the capacity to engage with external actors on the basis of clearly defined national interests, rather than on the projections and expectations of others.

Чланак At and on the table се појављује прво на CENTRE FOR SOCIO-POLITICAL RESEARCH OF THE REPUBLIC OF SRPSKA.

In Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina, all these decades the political struggle has not been about forming a new parliamentary majority or gaining power at the level of local communities, but about the very nature of the state as negotiated and established by an international peace agreement. That is why every talk of “functionality,” the “European path,” and “reforms” is most often just dust thrown in people’s eyes, meant to obscure a deeper reality. In the background there is a structural clash between two concepts of legitimacy whose mutual relation is not that of political competition, but of civilizational opposition. One concept is the Dayton consociational Bosnia and Herzegovina—established by an international peace agreement as a constitutional compromise among equal collective entities and as a mechanism for preventing domination. The other concept is a model of statehood grounded in the ideology of political Islam and its normative maximum, where the state is understood as an instrument of a “higher” norm—namely, where Sharia, as law given by God, stands above every human law, that is, above democratic society.

Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina is a consociational democracy in a similar way to, for example, Belgium or certain other cases in Europe, where the collective has a constitutional guarantee of its rights that takes precedence over individual rights. In such a democratic concept, the state is not a single unitary will, a single center, or a single truth; rather, it is a consensual mechanism based on the assumption that social divisions are deep and cannot be bridged by, for instance, granting one side a moral monopoly while assigning the other the status of a perpetually suspected subject. In this kind of democratic state model, it is understood that institutions must ensure that no one can be outvoted on issues that determine the democratic rights of a given collective. That is why, for example, veto mechanisms exist, along with entity competences, constitutional protection of collective rights and proper procedures as safeguards of stability and peace.

In contrast to that stands a concept whose deep code is ideological-theological—namely, political Islam as a normative project of society and the state. This is not Islam merely as a faith, but political Islam as a program that turns religion into an organizing principle of public life, law and institutions. In its classical form, as articulated by Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb, the state is not a neutral instrument; it is a means of establishing the proper order—that is, Sharia as divine law. In that logic, democracy as popular sovereignty is not the supreme source of legitimacy, but at most a transitional phase toward the establishment of a Sharia-based Islamic state.

This ideology and social model—and the structures that draw their political action from it—are in direct conflict with any democratic order, and thus with the Dayton consociational system as well.

Hasan al-Banna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928, established within political Islam an organizational formula of Islam as a system that must encompass all spheres of life and therefore must also have a state expression. Sayyid Qutb goes even further by sharpening the ideological edge: he argues that if the secular order is, by definition, jahiliyya, then compromise with it is not a permanent condition but a temporary stage, and that an Islamic vanguard is necessary to lead a total transformation. For Qutb, jahiliyya is a term for contemporary Western democratic society, but also for secular Muslims who live in a “new pagan darkness” because they do not base laws and the state order on the divine order—that is, on Sharia. Alongside jahiliyya, other key principles that form the foundation of political Islam include the claim that sovereignty (ḥākimiyya) belongs to God alone and that all human legislative authority is illegitimate; the Islamic movement as an avant-garde group that must “return sovereignty to God”; and the impossibility of coexistence between an Islamic order and a democratic society and state.

When these principles are combined, the result is an ideological and political model that, by its very nature, tends toward centralization, ideological discipline, and the monopolization of legitimacy—and therefore toward the discrimination of non-Muslims, which has a direct foundation in Sharia itself. Depending on political circumstances and the surrounding environment, this model can, over time, change its methods and vocabulary; it can be packaged in “civic” terms, but its internal logic remains the same: one political center, one ideological vertical, and one Sharia-based order as the ultimate goal.

The transfer of that ideological matrix onto the territory of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and later the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), is highly important for today’s Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina as well. Through the organization Young Muslims, founded in Sarajevo in the 1930s by Muslims who had studied in Egypt, the first organized channel for the reception and adaptation of political Islam in a European, Yugoslav, and Bosnian-Herzegovinian context was developed. The Young Muslims were inspired by the Egyptian model, which is evident in their programmatic focus on Islam as a normative-political system and in their refusal to accept the secular structure of both Yugoslav states. It is precisely within that ideological framework that the young Alija Izetbegović emerges, whose intellectual development would be permanently marked by the ideas of political Islam.

With certain variations shaped by local historical circumstances, the core concepts of the Muslim Brotherhood found their explicit expression in Alija Izetbegović’s Islamic Declaration (1970/1990).

Understanding the Islamic Declaration as a political-ideological document is not possible without reconstructing its intellectual and ideological genealogy. Although it emerged under the specific conditions of Yugoslav socialist society, its underlying matrix is neither local nor the product of Alija Izetbegović’s individual theological reflection. On the contrary, the Declaration fits into the broader transnational ideological current of political Islam, whose foundations lie in the thought of Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb—the founders and principal theorists of the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun).

Alija Izetbegović’s Islamic Declaration consistently follows Ikhwan doctrine, according to which the state must be subordinated to religion where political authority is merely an instrument for realizing the Islamic ideal. In practice, this means that an Islamic order is not only desirable but also normatively binding, while all other forms of rule—democratic, secular, national or civic—are temporary and illegitimate. It is precisely this doctrine that made it possible for the Islamic Declaration to serve as the ideological basis of the SDA (Party of Democratic Action), which in the early 1990s sought to politically articulate the idea of Islamic governance within the Muslim corpus in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and later—through the “Bosniak project”—to encompass the entire traditional Muslim community from the territory of the former SFRY. The founding of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) in 1990 represents the institutional moment in which that project was materialized. The SDA did not emerge as a classic national party aimed at articulating ethnic interests, but rather as a political instrument for implementing the ideological postulates of political Islam. In that sense, the Islamic Declaration, as noted, became not only a theoretical document but also the programmatic foundation of party practice, while the SDA assumed the role of a political bearer of a historical mission formulated as far back as Egypt in the 1920s.

This intellectual trajectory—from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, through the Young Muslims and the Islamic Declaration, to the SDA—represents a continuity that produces long-term implications for the political architecture of Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina, regional security and the entire concept of European multiculturalism.

In that context, it is important to understand that the SDA was the first political party in Europe ever to be openly founded on the ideological corpus of the Muslim Brotherhood, with the total and constant support of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina and beyond. Consequently, both the content and the essence of the identity of the newly formed Bosniak nation in late September 1993, at the Holiday Inn hotel, were determined by Ikhwān doctrine. This can be seen in what is, in a sense, an ideological pathology of all Muslim parties in Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina, their insistence on unitarization and the dismantling of Dayton consociationalism. It is also visible in the pressure placed on all Muslims from the former Yugoslav republics to accept a Bosniak identity, even though they never had any geographical or other ties to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Islamic Declaration is a symbol of a political consciousness that clearly states that a secular democratic state is not the ultimate goal, and that political compromise is only a temporary instrument. It holds that institutions are the terrain on which, over a longer period of time, the primacy of a particular normative—Islamist—code must be achieved. And this is where the essence of the structural clash begins: between Dayton consociational democracy as a lasting compromise and a kind of safeguard that prevents instability and conflict, and political Islam as a totalitarian project that treats compromise as a transitional phase toward the establishment of a Sharia-based order.

When this is translated into practice, we get two phases—or two faces—of the same strategy. The first is jihad in wartime conditions, marked by identity mobilization, the verticalization of power and an attempt to create, by force of arms, a political fact that can later be converted into an ideological and statehood outcome. The second form is action in peacetime, that is, “civilizational jihad,” where what was not achieved through war is pursued through democratic institutions—as in the case of Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina. Here, unitarization is packaged as “functionality” and centralization as a “European standard.” In public, the rhetoric is not “we want dominance” but “we want a state that functions”. And in Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina, given the nature of its demography and history, a “state that functions” in such narratives most often means a state that operates in the interest of a single ideological center—one controlled by the pan-Islamist structures of the Muslim Brotherhood.

That is why, in the post-Dayton period, the modus operandi of these structures is not frontal, but largely capillary. It does not overthrow the constitution in a single stroke; rather, it undermines it day by day through interpretations, rulings, procedures, imposed rules and quasi-moral narratives. Present here as well is the contemporary practice of legal-political warfare (“lawfare”), in which the judiciary becomes an instrument for achieving the political objectives of political Islam—acting in cooperation with ultraliberal globalist structures.

The mechanism is obvious: the constitutional positions of one constituent contracting party are declared a “danger,” the constitutional mechanisms of protection are labeled “obstruction,” and then institutions are misused to discipline political opponents.

A useful example of how political Islam thinks and operates within long-term strategic time horizons—and how it treats “soft” methods as a key form of struggle—is the case of the United States. In the American context, an internal document that entered the evidentiary record in United States v. Holy Land Foundation (known as the “Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America,” 1991) contains a formulation about a “settlement” process described as a “civilization-jihadist process”—that is, as a long-term, civilizational jihad that does not necessarily insist on overt violence, but rather on gradual, systemic action “from within”.

The best way to understand “civilizational jihad” is as a strategy of institutional infiltration, cadre networking, narrative production and the use of the freedoms of a democratic system as leverage to reshape that very system. Its aim is not to subjugate society head-on, but to alter its normative backbone over time—what is considered permissible, what is considered normal, what is “progressive” and what is “retrograde”—that is, to establish a Sharia-based society. And that is precisely why this concept is relevant for Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina as well: in this case, too, the issue is not merely elections and laws, but the gradual shifting of the boundaries of legitimacy and the replacement of Dayton’s logic of balance with a logic of centralization and Islamic-majoritarian rule.

When we apply that logic to Bosnia and Herzegovina, we get a clear picture of a civilizational clash. Dayton consociationalism requires a lasting compromise and institutional symmetry. “Civilizational jihad,” as a strategic concept of political Islam, seeks a long-term reshaping of the order so that compromise is only a temporary stage, while a Sharia-determined normative center becomes the final outcome. One is an international and social contract among equal constituent parties, the other is a project aimed at dismantling that contract in order to reconfigure society into a totalitarian, theocratic state for adherents of a single religion.

When this is compounded by the monopolization of the judiciary—through which a projected “truth” about the character of the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina is established, along with its “Srebrenicization” and the dehumanization of an entire collective—the whole system begins to function as a machine of unitarization. The constitutional safeguards negotiated and signed in the Dayton Peace Agreement become “brakes on progress”, collective rights become “nationalism” and entity competences and constitutional self-protection become a “threat” to Bosnia and Herzegovina and to EU integration. In such an application of civilizational jihad, the institutional struggle ceases to be a matter of legal or constitutional reforms and becomes, in essence, a question of survival and a struggle for civilization.

Because of all of the above, the dilemma—the Islamic Declaration or Dayton’s consociational Bosnia and Herzegovina—is, in essence, a question of a civilizational choice: whether the state remains a democratic framework in which differences are managed through compromise, or becomes an instrument of a single ideological-religious framework. If we preserve the original Dayton consociational arrangement, we will preserve the only realistic foundation of peace. If we fail, then the Dayton Peace Agreement remains only a temporary obstacle to a unitary Sharia-based order—an obstacle that, within that logic, must be dismantled.

Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot simultaneously be a stable Dayton consociational democracy and a state that contains within itself the political-Islamic drive toward normative wholeness and centralization; it can only be one of the two.

To those who understand the ideology, concept, strategy and doctrine of political Islam and the pan-Islamist structures of the Muslim Brotherhood, it is crystal clear that these structures neither can nor will abandon the goal of establishing a Sharia-based—and therefore unitary—Islamic state in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Thirty years ago this process of civilizational jihad lead Bosnia and Herzegovina into a bloody civil war. Today, we are witnessing the same process in the western countries. It is not beyond the realm of possible that past of Bosnia and Herzegovina might become future of the West.

Чланак Islamic Declaration and/or Dayton consociational Bosnia and Herzegovina се појављује прво на CENTRE FOR SOCIO-POLITICAL RESEARCH OF THE REPUBLIC OF SRPSKA.

Within the activities marking the 850th anniversary of the birth of Rastko Nemanjić—Saint Sava, on 3 February a facsimile edition of the book The Nomocanon of Saint Sava – The Tvrdoš–Sava Manuscript was presented at the “Rajko Petković” City Gallery in Srbac. The edition was published by the Foundation “Knez Miroslav Humski” from Trebinje. The event was organized by the Srbac National Library.

Speaking about the book and the importance of Saint Sava for the entire Orthodox world were historians Predrag Lozo and Dejan Došlić, as well as Dušan Pavlović, Director of the Centre for Socio-Political Research of the Republic of Srpska.

This monumental work—one of eleven preserved manuscript copies, which for a time was kept at the Tvrdoš Monastery in Trebinje—stands as a foundation of Serbian statehood and spirituality, a mirror of Serbian history and spiritual heritage, and carries key significance for the historical and cultural continuity of the Serbian people, as well as of other Orthodox peoples.

The audience was first addressed by historian Predrag Lozo, who said that the work is a collection of canonical church law and secular law compiled by Rastko Nemanjić—later a monk and Saint Sava—thereby laying the foundations of Serbian legal statehood, spirituality, and the organization of both church and state. He emphasized that the Nomocanon is a document of crucial importance for the overall system of values by which the Serbian people still function today.

“The edition presented is a facsimile edition of the Nomocanon, published by the Foundation “Knez Miroslav Humski” from Trebinje, and it bears witness to the effort of a generation that possessed the awareness and responsibility to once again highlight the importance of this work. Because of our turbulent history, we do not have the original copy of the Nomocanon from Saint Sava’s time, but the Serbian Orthodox Church, through its monastic and priestly ranks, preserved eleven manuscript copies of this work. This testifies to the perseverance and safeguarding of the Serbian people’s tradition under the most difficult historical circumstances,” Lozo said, adding that even today we still do not have all known editions collected in one place, nor their comprehensive analysis and a translation into contemporary Serbian—something that clearly points to the need for systematic, institutional engagement by the state, since this is one of the foundational documents of Serbian historical existence in these lands.

Dejan Došlić, a historian and senior teaching assistant at the Faculty of Philosophy in Banja Luka, said that Saint Sava’s Nomocanon represents a unique codification of civil law and church canons, based on the Byzantine—i.e., Roman—legal tradition. Došlić noted that Saint Sava introduced that system among the Serbs, and that through Serbian manuscript copies the Nomocanon was later adopted by the Bulgarians, Russians and other Orthodox peoples as well. Its significance has been particularly recognized in Russian scholarship, where from the 19th century to the present day scholars have continuously pointed to the role of the Nomocanon in shaping the legal system of the Russian state.

“Today it is important that we return to studying the Nomocanon, not only as a legal monument, but as a mirror of our relationship to our own tradition. It cannot be interpreted exclusively from a contemporary perspective, but through an understanding of the harmony between secular and ecclesiastical authority—the symphonia of the two powers—on which both statehood and church life rested in the Nemanjić era. That model can still, even today, be a key for reflecting on our Church, our state and our society,” Došlić emphasized.

Dušan Pavlović, Director of the Centre for Socio-Political Research of the Republic of Srpska, also emphasized the importance of the Nomocanon, stressing that it is the most significant document in the Serbian people culture and history after the translation of the New Testament, and that it is a work that shaped the Serbian people’s system of values, mentality and relationship to God, to others, and to life in general.

“At the same time, the Nomocanon represents a state-legal and civilizational continuity of the Serbian people spanning more than eight centuries. Thanks to Saint Sava’s work, the Serbs already in the Middle Ages became part of European civilization, long before some peoples whom we today consider the bearers of contemporary culture. Although much was lost during the centuries-long period of subjugation under Ottoman rule, the Nomocanon endured even then. Later, it also served as a foundation in Karađorđe’s Serbia, as well as in subsequent state forms. That tradition is still visible today in the relationship between the state and the Church across all Serbian lands. When we speak of the Nomocanon, we are speaking about who we are and what we are—about the fact that we have been civilizationally present for almost a thousand years and that from this heritage we can draw strength and guidance for the future historical course of the Serbian people,” Pavlović said.

Slaviša Stojković, Director of the Srbac National Library, expressed his satisfaction that the presentation of such a significant book was held in Srbac, adding that it is necessary to speak about it—especially at a time when our people are facing various crises.

“In these difficult times it is very important for the institutions of the Republic of Srpska to show due regard for our olden works that bestowed statehood. Here, statehood was given in the thirteenth century, which we often forget. We are guided by constitutions from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, yet we already had a Constitution in the thirteenth century and rules by which to live. That is why our only true answer to these times of crisis is a culture of remembrance and memory, because in that way we preserve our tradition and our faith,” Stojković said.

Among the many attendees at the event were Mayor Mlađan Dragosavljević, National Assembly of the Republic of Srpska MP Radojica Vidović, members of the Srbac Municipal Assembly, directors of public enterprises and institutions, Hieromonk Ilarion from the Osovica Monastery, Archpriest-Stavrophore Dalibor Đekić from Derventa and clergy from the area of the Municipality of Srbac.

Gallery:

Чланак Promotion of Saint Sava’s Nomocanon in Srbac се појављује прво на CENTRE FOR SOCIO-POLITICAL RESEARCH OF THE REPUBLIC OF SRPSKA.

On that occasion, in a morning news programme, Dušan Pavlović—Director of the Centre for Socio-Political Research of the Republika Srpska—and Prof. Dr. Zoran Čvorović, professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Kragujevac, spoke about the significance of the Nomocanon and the figure of Saint Sava.

Dušan Pavlović emphasized that Saint Sava brought the Serbian people and state into the circle of the Christian and European civilization of the time precisely through the Nomocanon, stressing that it was not only an ecclesiastical document, but also a state-legal one. As he noted, the Nomocanon established a model of “symphony” in relations between the state and the Church, providing Serbia in the 13th century with the foundations of the rule of law, an orderly society, and a unified legal and linguistic system.

“The Nomocanon is a civilizational, cultural, state-legal, geopolitical and identity document whose significance cannot be explained simply. It is evidence of our centuries-long continuity of statehood and legal culture,” Pavlović emphasized.

Professor Zoran Čvorović pointed out that Saint Sava understood that there can be no lasting state without a firm legal foundation, and that the Nomocanon functioned for centuries as the constitution, legal code, and moral compass of the Serbian people. He recalled that it is a nomocanon — a collection of church canons and the most developed Byzantine legal regulations of the time, which, in terms of legal-technical sophistication, were ahead of the contemporary Western European legal practice.

It was particularly emphasized that Saint Sava adapted legal norms to Serbian circumstances, creating a Serbian legal language and carefully selecting commentaries that corresponded to the Serbian spiritual and state context. According to Čvorović, the Nomocanon became “the first major export product of Serbian legal culture,” adopted not only in Serbia but also in Bulgaria and Russia, where it served for centuries as the foundation of state and ecclesiastical law.

The participants also underscored the exceptionally modern character of the Nomocanon, noting that it clearly defines norms for the protection of the most socially vulnerable, children, the elderly and the infirm, as well as provisions regulating conflicts of interest and responsible management of property — topics that remain relevant in contemporary societies.

Pavlović emphasized that the symposium was organized precisely in order to reassess, within today’s geopolitical and identity context, the significance of Saint Sava and the Nomocanon, and to recall the deep roots of the Serbian tradition of state-building and legal culture.

The scientific and professional symposium begins at 9:00 a.m. in the Government of the Republika Srpska building, while the ceremonial promotion of the edition “Saint Sava’s Nomocanon – the Tvrdoš–Savin transcript” will be held at 6:00 p.m. at the “Banski Dvor” Cultural Centre in Banja Luka. All presentations and discussions will be recorded and made available to the public through the organizers’ media outlets and social media channels.

Чланак Dušan Pavlović and Zoran Čvorović on the 850th Anniversary of the Birth of Rastko Nemanjić – Saint Sava се појављује прво на CENTRE FOR SOCIO-POLITICAL RESEARCH OF THE REPUBLIC OF SRPSKA.

The Nomocanon, a Rhomaean (Byzantine) corpus of canon and civil law, was further adapted and compiled by Sava Nemanjić and introduced into the Serbian Church Slavonic language and into the Serbian political, institutional and ecclesiastical context. In this way, through the introduction of written law, the Serbian people and state entered the currents of Greco-Roman legal civilization—not as a periphery subjected to assimilation, but as an active participant and bearer of its own normative order.

Saint Sava’s codifying act—the Nomocanon—shaped the Serbian system of values, from the personal to the state level. It was precisely this value system that enabled the rise of the Serbian state to the rank of an empire and the preservation of cultural and national identity through centuries of Ottoman-Islamic occupation. Drawing on the strategic foundations of Nemanjić-era statehood, ecclesiastical life and culture, Serbian society both recognizes its roots and gains guidelines for action in today’s geopolitical circumstances.

Given the historical and civilizational significance of Saint Sava’s work for Serbian identity across the centuries, today and in the future, as well as the multi-layered nature of his legacy, and with an understanding of the Nomocanon as one of the foundational historical documents of Serbia’s historical development, during the days marking Saint Sava the Public Institution Centre for Socio-Political Research organized the scientific and professional symposium “Saint Sava and the Nomocanon—Culture, State-Building, Geopolitics, and Civilization.”

The symposium was opened with an appropriate address by the Minister of Scientific and Technological Development and Higher Education, Mr. Draga Mastilović. During the symposium, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Srpska, Mr. Savo Minić, also addressed the guests and speakers. Prime Minister Minić and Minister Mastilović emphasized the importance of the event and the need to highlight—and continually return to—the work of Saint Sava.

During the symposium, presentations by the distinguished speakers were divided into three panels:

• The Nomocanon and Culture / Strategic Culture
• The Nomocanon and Statehood
• The Nomocanon, Geopolitics, and Civilization

Eminent authors, university professors, researchers, and thinkers—whose scholarly and professional work is recognized across various multidisciplinary fields—took part in the symposium. They spoke about the significance of the Nomocanon from the time of its creation to the present day.

Within the first panel, Bishop Ilarion of Novo Brdo spoke on the topic “The Liturgy as the Foundation of Serbian Culture.” Dejan Došlić, MA, from the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Banja Luka addressed the gathering with the paper “Saint Sava’s Nomocanon in Scholarship: A History of Research and Interpretation,” while Zoran Stefanović — Director of the Drama Department at the National Theatre in Belgrade and organizer of the international cultural network “Project Rastko”— prepared a presentation entitled “From the Core of the Spirit into Culture and Strategic Culture: Saint Sava’s Nomocanon as an Operational Basis for a New Serbian and Slavic Civilization.” The panel was moderated by Dr. Gordana Bekčić.

The second panel was moderated by Prof. Dr. Zoran Čvorović of the Faculty of Law, University of Kragujevac. The first speaker in the second panel was Prof. Dr. Dalibor Đukić of the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade, who addressed the audience on “Saint Sava’s Nomocanon as the Foundation of State Independence and Ecclesiastical Autocephaly.” The second panelist, Marko Romić, MA, of the Faculty of Law, University of Banja Luka, titled his presentation “From Rhomaean Nomocanons to Saint Sava’s Nomocanon,” while Đorđe Stepić, MA, also of the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade, spoke on “The Nomocanon as a Source of Law in Modern-Era Serbia.”

Within the third and final panel, moderated by Predrag Lozo, MA, the speakers were Prof. Dr. Đorđe Bubalo of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade; Prof. Dr. Zoran Čvorović of the Faculty of Law, University of Kragujevac; and Dr. Srđan Pirivatrić, Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Byzantine Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Professor Bubalo spoke on “The Names of Saint Sava’s Nomocanon Through History,” Professor Čvorović titled his presentation “Saint Sava’s Nomocanon, a Light for the Orthodox Slavs,” while Professor Pirivatrić presented “Saint Sava Amid the Geopolitical Challenges of His Time.”

The symposium was held on 2 February 2026 in Banja Luka, at the Administrative Centre of the Government of the Republic of Srpska.

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Чланак Scientific and Professional Symposium “Saint Sava and the Nomocanon—Culture, State-Building, Geopolitics, and Civilization” held in Banja Luka се појављује прво на CENTRE FOR SOCIO-POLITICAL RESEARCH OF THE REPUBLIC OF SRPSKA.

One of Saint Sava’s enduring contributions to the foundations of the Serbian Church, statehood and tradition is the Nomocanon, a compendium of secular and ecclesiastical legislation through which the Serbian people integrated, within its very core, a Christian understanding of the Church, the state and society.

Sava Nemanjić adapted and compiled the Nomocanon and introduced it into the Serbian Church Slavonic language, as well as into the Serbian state apparatus, institutional framework and ecclesiastical context. With the introduction of written law, the Serbian people and state entered the currents of Greco-Roman legal civilization—not as a peripheral object of assimilation, but as an active actor and bearer of an indigenous form of original normative order.

The promotion was opened with an appropriate address by the Minister of Scientific and Technological Development and Higher Education, Mr. Draga Mastilović.

The following intellectuals took part in the promotion:

Prof. Dr. Đorđe Bubalo, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade,
Prof. Dr. Zoran Devrnja, Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Belgrade,
Dušan Pavlović, Centre for Socio-Political Research of the Republika Srpska,
Dejan Škrivan, Endowment “Knez Miroslav Humski” from Trebinje.

The promotion was moderated by Predrag Lozo, MA.

Чланак Promotion of the Tvrdoš–Savin transcript of Saint Sava’s Nomocanon се појављује прво на CENTRE FOR SOCIO-POLITICAL RESEARCH OF THE REPUBLIC OF SRPSKA.

The final session was also a unique opportunity for participants to discuss the Oscar-winning film “Son of Saul” with Prof. Greif. Namely, the film was based on the book “We Wept Without Tears” and was produced with the author’s expert consultation.

We would like to thank the Faculty of Political Sciences at University of Banja Luka, as well as Prof. Dr. Ranka Perić Romić, for their support and outstanding cooperation. We also extend our sincere gratitude to our participants for their work, effort, and dedication, as well as for the excellent essays they wrote.

Чланак Prof. Dr. Gideon Greif delivered the final lecture at the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Banja Luka, as part of the educational program on the Genocide against Serbs and the Holocaust. се појављује прво на CENTRE FOR SOCIO-POLITICAL RESEARCH OF THE REPUBLIC OF SRPSKA.

During his appearance, Professor Greif spoke about the importance and necessity of maintaining a culture of remembrance of the horrific suffering in history—both of the Serbian and the Jewish people—about the dangers of denying the Genocide against Serbs and the Holocaust, efforts aimed at revisionism and the distortion of facts about the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), as well as the work and significance of the independent international commissions on Srebrenica and Sarajevo.

You can watch the full interview in English at the following link:

Чланак Interview with Prof. Dr. Gideon Greif on RTRS. се појављује прво на CENTRE FOR SOCIO-POLITICAL RESEARCH OF THE REPUBLIC OF SRPSKA.

The aim of this program is to provide students with a sociological and political science theoretical and methodological framework for understanding the Holocaust and genocide.

This seminar is organized by the Faculty of Political Sciences Center for Lifelong Learning and the Center for Socio-Political Research of the Republika Srpska, within the framework of the project “Through Facts and Truth Toward Dialogue and Reconciliation,” implemented with the support of the Office of the President of the Republika Srpska.

Чланак The first lecture by Prof. Dr. Gideon Greif was held at the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Banja Luka, as part of the educational program on the Genocide against Serbs and the Holocaust се појављује прво на CENTRE FOR SOCIO-POLITICAL RESEARCH OF THE REPUBLIC OF SRPSKA.