i.

As with all my work, the primary purpose of this book is to alter the political universe of its readers. It, primarily, is meant to expose the modern world, with its liberal-capitalist ethic, as a graveyard of broken promises. The modern world, to the extent it can be identified, generally, with the overthrow of specifically Christian monarchies and their replacement with oligarchies, or the rule of capital, is based on an array of myths and lies that are too extensive to measure. Along with this came the growth of squalid cities, the destruction of the free homesteads of agricultural workers and the growth of massive armies and armament industries. Therefore, a serious and objective study of the Middle Ages, either east or west, permits one to see what was lost, and how little has been gained.

My secondary purpose is to show that the Slavic world, or the east Orthodox world, was in essence distinct from the western and, as a result, that there is no unified “European” identity of any substance. Such imaginary entities exist only in the imaginations of western conservatives.

Thirdly, my work in Slavic history has revolved around the question of oligarchy, and the role of a strong monarchy and church in controlling it. Without monarchy, the world grows deeper and deeper into oligarchy and the vapid ideologies that it has created in the modern world to justify itself.

Lastly, my work here is to counter Christos Mylonas’ fifth-rate work, Serbian Orthodox Fundamentals, published by George Soros’ Central European University Press. There is currently nothing in print that deals with Slavic Orthodoxy effectively, and the laughably oversimplified and cliche-ridden work such as Mylonas’ cries out for rebuttal.

In modern academia, nothing can be published, or survive peer-review, that does not assume either liberal or Marxist notions of the world. Whether in classical or post-modern terms, the situation is the same. Therefore, serious scholars have been forced to publish online, or within very small and marginal publishing houses.

The same situation exits among journalists. Once an honest profession, today, journalism is tightly controlled by a handful of oligarchic families that control the global press, and journalists who make the cut within these organizations must view the world in the same manner. For both academics and journalists, the final payoff is a comfortable life and plastic respectability. The likes of me, however, are relegated to obscurity, and it is there we are likely to stay.

ii.

I would like to thank my parents, first of all, who believed in me enough to help support me during my education.

Additionally, I want to thank the librarians at Fairleigh-Dickinson University, who assisted me with obtaining several rare documents in the libraries’ collections.

I would also like to thank Project Rastko, a Serbian online database, for providing me with some of my baseline translations of the epic poetry. Further, the website www.sv-luka.org is the only institution to publish some of the more important work of Sts. Justin Popovic and Nikolaij Vermeilovic. It is from their site that I obtained St. Nikolaij’s The Serbian People as the Servant of God, likely the best short history of Serbia ever written.

I would like to thank St. Luke’s Serbian Orthodox Church in Washington D.C., who baptized my children into the true faith, and whose friendship within the context of Orthodox worship caused this work to become one of my central goals. Of course, I also want to thank my kumovi, Chris and Mike Cacic of St. Luke’s.

I definitely should thank Mr. Milan Opacic, whose music I listened to continuously thought the writing of this book. I’ve always thought that if one is to write about a specific people, one should listen to their folk music regularly. It’s a shame that I’ve quit drinking slivo, or I could have become even more authentic.

Lastly, I want to thank the Serbian heroes, both past and present, who have maintained the integrity of the Serbian lands against all comers: from the papists, Bulgarians, Byzantines, Hungarians, Germans, Austrians, Croats, Muslims, Marxists, the Red Army, Venetians, Albanians, Turks, Cumans, Mongols and Americans. You are all now being regularly slandered and mocked by the court historians and court journalists of the Empire. This book is written to set the record straight as to your accomplishments and your true greatness, which lay far beyond my abilities.

As to those who are involved with the occupation and destruction of Serbia, Serbian Bosnia and Kosovo; those who are actively spreading lies about her, the Tim Judahs, the Christos Mylonases, the Branimir Anzulovics. Your time is coming: whether in this age or the next is not mine to say, but it is truly coming. Did the Ustashe succeed in destroying Serbia? Did the Turks? Did the Communists? Well, if they did not, then neither will you, but God will judge you, and then your pseudo-prestige and your connections to the Empire will not help you, they will be your justly earned damnation.

To the papists who belong to a church which has sanctioned the mass killing of Serbs from the Middle Ages to the Croatian Ustasha to Operation Storm, I ask you to objectively examine the tenets of Orthodoxy from a truly patristic and canonical perspective and come out of the hellish, neo-pagan sect you currently belong to. The Church of Rome is of the devil, not of Christ. It seeks worldly power above all things, and no one can be saved who is a member of her impious system. I was once a papist and I realize the tremendous psychological pressure the institution of the papacy can exercise upon its members, but know that God will forgive all our past sins and errors, and it is not too late to come to the saving truth of Orthodoxy.

This book is dedicated to my wife Angela, without whose support I likely could accomplish nothing.

MRJ, 2005