Populist misuse of history: fight against “Western enemy” among contemporary Serbian historians

As the result of lost wars during 1990s and failed nationalistic policies of Slobodan Milosevic that ended in NATO intervention in 1999 different conspiracy theories about the desired “destruction of Serbia and Serbs” became popular in last decade of 20th and first decades of 21st century in Serbian society. What has changed in last few years since the increase of fatigue of European integration and decline of the support towards EU accession is that some established historians took over populist narrative of right-wing politicians including the theme of fight against the “Western enemy”. In our research we will try to explain (1) how historians use this theme and (2) what role their statements play in further development of populist narratives. More precisely, we will focus on the most prominent among contemporary historians in Serbia, i.e., their important works and public statements. Content analysis will be used in order to understand how the fight against the “Western enemy” is incorporated in their statements. Results of our paper suggest that historians are trying to provide politicians with “scientific” explanation to why “West hates Serbia” by creating new historical narrative that is explaining binary Serbian past like a struggle between the Good – East and Orthodox and the Evil – West and Catholic / others non-Orthodox.