7 Answers
I admire the Serbs and I envy them. Here's why. Where my nation, Romania, has bent with even the slightest wind, the Serbs have stood tall and straight, despite being given the same short straws of having to fight against the Turks, the Germans and the Russians. They love and fight for their country where we would hang a "For Sale" sign over ours if we could. They have a vibrant national culture were ours has become a mix of the worst of Western and Oriental ones.
When WWI started, the Austrians threw their best troops at Serbia, in overwhelming numbers. The Serbians beat them back so bad the Austrians had to run squealing to the Germans for help. When Romania entered the war, we did it because we thought the Austrians were as good as beaten , and we attacked them with 500 000 men to their third grade 100 000. They beat us back and with German help they occupied most of Romania. We generally gloss over this in our history.
When WWII started, the Serbs had no ally and they expected no one to come to their aid. They got beaten badly by the Germans, but raised back up and fought as partisans. The rest as they say, is history. We Romanians were allied with the mighty nation of France and we expected them to fight on our behalf.They didn't and we had to cede land to Hungary and Russia; then,when the French collapsed we allied with Germany, France's enemy. When they collapsed - and only then - we allied with Russia, who had just taken land from us, and was Germany's enemy. Romania ended up being plundered by both Russians and Germans and to this day with an unshakable reputation for being spineless, duplicitary and treasonous, where the Serbs are proud , unyielding and would die rather than renounce an acre of their country.
It gets worse. Of all the countries bordering Romania, Serbia is the only one who has never attacked us. It is what they used to call "an historical friendship", hundred of years in the making. In the 2000s, during NATO's assault on the Serbs, NATO asked Romania for military bases. The government at the time, going fully against national sentiment and opinion ("The Romanian people is often stupid", said the Romanian Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time) granted refueling rights to NATO planes bombing Serbia, for the dubious benefit of NATO membership.
I apologize on the behalf of my nation to our friends , the Serbs. I know, that if ever Russian T-72s will come rolling down, it is in them that we will find such help as they can offer, two poor, small, bitter nations helping each other, rather than from countries who cannot even point either of us on the map.
The moment we crossed the border from Bulgaria to Serbia I noticed this guy watching me in the bus. This kinda freaked me out. I knew nothing about this country except that they exported hitmen and warlords... I know, it's so judgemental, and I ain't proud of it.
So at a certain point he sat down next to us and started chatting. He was a semipro soccer player and had been to England an Luxembourg for soccer exchanges and he loved it. Before I knew we were engaged in a very interesting conversation and by the time he got of the bus in Belgrade we swapped names for facebook and he offered to show us why Belgrade is the coolest city in the world. We did meet up again, and I have to admit, Belgrade ís a very cool city!
Not too much later we were hanging out on a terrace in the beautiful city of Novi Sad, about an hour of the Hungarian border. I was sitting on a bar stool and this guy was nervously kicking my chair, which was kind of annoying. I asked him if he could stop it. Which he did, without hesitation, and before we knew we were again engaged in a really cool conversation.
He offered to show us around Novi Sad and we drove around the area for a day. Sightseeing this beautiful city and it's surroundings. He took us to a local place for a delicious meal, took us wine-tasting and told about the days the bombs came down on Novi Sad...
Not too much later we were hanging out on a terrace in the beautiful city of Novi Sad, about an hour of the Hungarian border. I was sitting on a bar stool and this guy was nervously kicking my chair, which was kind of annoying. I asked him if he could stop it. Which he did, without hesitation, and before we knew we were again engaged in a really cool conversation.
He offered to show us around Novi Sad and we drove around the area for a day. Sightseeing this beautiful city and it's surroundings. He took us to a local place for a delicious meal, took us wine-tasting and told about the days the bombs came down on Novi Sad...
All the Serbs i have met were nice, friendly and intelligent people.
Not quite statistically significant, but answers the question as asked… :-)
Not quite statistically significant, but answers the question as asked… :-)
The Serbs were allies of both Britain and America in two World Wars. Their country was overrun in World War I, but they didn't give up. The remnants of their tough little army were moved to Salonika in Greece, where they participated in the critical final offensives of World War I. I have read many accounts of Allied soldiers in WWI who were deeply impressed by the Serbs' fighting abilities.
Despite being occupied by the Nazis in WWII, and suffering brutal repression, they continued to resist and virtually freed themselves at the end of the war. My great uncle was in the American OSS. And he had great admiration for the Serbs, who rescued many downed American airmen. The OSS had a deep suspicion of the Croats, who were widely viewed as Nazi collaborators.
The collapsed answers were very informative. Too bad they were collapsed due to downvotes by Serbs themselves.
Whatever you criticize, you will untimely get "massacred" with the number of downotes you receive from the Serbs involved in this question Or...either: the number of upvotes you may get from the same Draganovics, Stojanovics, Etceteravic, if you love them.
(I once also got reported for "fake name" on Quora by a Serb, I won't mention the name, who is also participating in this conversation, apparently. )
Whatever, Quora then verified my name with an ID. :)
So, this makes the answers biased and insignificant and more : it creates a sort of fake preview throughout some anecdotal opinions, which really aren't instructional, whatever the "you" in this question might mean.
Secondly, the Serbs are not a whole, and they differ in their ways of being, country to country, town to town and individually, they also have, each of them...different psycho-social traits, if we're still talking about secular point of views.
Especially today, living in a mini-globalized world where everyone in the Balkans is condemned to listen to turbo folk music in wedding celebrations, drinks mastika and eatskebabs what does the term "Serbs" even mean ?
Now if you are a serb and interested in tossing you a few good words...This is what I have to say :
I love Goran Bregovic (as an artist) and I know a very nice Serbian friend who introduced me to the wonderful Serbian band S.A.R.S, the same guy with whom I sometimes eatplejskavice and argue about the recent criminal history of his country.
As an outsider, the only way to think something about "Serbs" in their own country, is the people who represent them, which means, their elected politicians in the today's government. What I think? "All of them where involved in war crimes. "
Dacic > Actual Foreign Minister > Milosevic's port-parole
Vucic, actual Prime Minister > Friend of Sheshel (war criminal), and Ex Minister of Information in Milosevic's rule.
As long as "Serbs" don't elect liberals such as Cedomir Jovanovic, open-minded and civilized people from Belgrade, they will have hard time into creating a good reputation in the Balkans. (of course, this is just an exemple).
Also, I think that this "Serb's" song is wonderful.
I will be embarrassingly honest: I think Serbs are probably generally nice people, but I can't say I know much about them. I have never visited Serbia, but I am sure that when I do, I will have mostly nice experiences. There is no particular reason, and definitely nothing related to what I know about the Serbs, that has kept me from going there. It's just one of those countries that I simply do not know anything about to make me really want to go there.
I will also admit that the only Serb I can name, apart from a handful of war criminals, is Nikola Tesla. And I know that he had to emigrate in order to live out his potential.
All in all, I think the average person of my country, Norway, probably has about as much of a clue or opinion about Serbs, as the average Serb has about Norwegians.
Sure, we may harbor some more or less stereotypical ideas about you, but that will mostly come from how we think of the Balkans in general, and this is, of course and sadly, heavily influenced by the annual performances at the Eurovision Song Contest. Because at most other times, we hear absolutely nothing about Serbia in the news.
It's the curse and blessing of being a citizen of a small and non-exotic nation. Personally I think it's mostly a good thing. Unlike Russians, Americans, Englishmen, Germans and French, you can go out and meet the world and be judged on how you behave, and not on some imagined impression of how you must be.
Oh dear......
In my heart I associate Serbs with a truck driver who I met who tried to impress me with the story that he had killed people a couple of years before in the troubles. He succeeded in impressing me, not in a good way. My emotional reaction is very negative toward the Serb national image for that reason, one bad encounter can cause a big impression in the mind of an ignoramus (which I am in this respect- I know nothing at all worth knowing about Serbia).
In my head I know that this one particular **** is likely to be the exception to the rule, and when I meet another Serb I'll still be interested to know what they are up to, I'll ask about language, if it is in the Slavic family, and maybe, if they don't want to avoid the subject, how the troubles affected them and the people they know.
I'll be interested how they see the transition from Tito's Yugoslavia to the many state solution, whether the transition to a capitalist economy has been/is going to be worth the price. I'll be interested in how they view other countries, France, Poland, Russia, UK. I'll want to know how they feel about Serbia and if they live here in the UK, what they think of the UK.
I'm going on too much. In one word;
... Interesting.
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