Organizers of world tennis’s largest annual staff occasion confronted a Balkan backlash after all-time nice Novak Djokovic and his Serbian teammates had been launched and feted ultimately weekend’s Davis Cup finals with a tune seen by many as endorsing a so-called Better Serbia.
The tune, Rejoice, O Serbian Nation, requires Serbia’s tricolor to be flown over components of neighboring Kosovo — a largely ethnic Albanian Muslim former province that declared independence in 2008 — and Montenegro, a NATO member that broke away from its union with Serbia in 2006.
The Worldwide Tennis Federation (ITF), which phases the Davis Cup for males’s nationwide groups and the Billie Jean King Cup for ladies, has maintained official silence over the furor that erupted after the tune was performed throughout participant introductions within the southern Spanish metropolis of Malaga on November 25 and at different essential moments within the weekend competitors.
The Davis Cup is billed as the most important annual staff competitors on the earth, held in a wide range of European places, and has grown to incorporate round 120 groups since its origins as a U.S.-British affair in 1900.
The ITF declined to reply to RFE/RL’s questions on Davis Cup tips or whether or not it’s trying into the matter. However the Davis Cup’s official social media channels quickly deleted posts of the tune blaring by way of the sector because the Serbian staff took to the court docket to face eventual champion Italy. Different accounts, nevertheless, together with pro-Serb ones, shortly reposted clips of a few of the deleted scenes. Neither the Serbian Tennis Federation, Serbia’s Sports activities Ministry, nor Djokovic’s representatives responded to questions on the usage of the tune.
Kosovar media outlet @kos_data was amongst those that shared clips of the musical introductions earlier than Serbia’s semifinal matchup with Italy, which it misplaced 2:1.
It additionally shared video on X, previously often called Twitter, of the tune taking part in after Djokovic closed out an earlier Davis Cup match in opposition to Britain’s Cameron Norrie.
Rejoice, O Serbian Nation is a homage to Serb nationhood, Orthodoxy, and historic battles and causes. It was first sung in 2020 by Montenegrin Serb singer Danica Crnogorcevic to mark an Orthodox vacation that honors troopers in the important thing 14th-century Battle of Kosovo to defeat Ottoman troops.
The tune was shortly adopted by protesters — led by Serbian Orthodox monks — who had been encouraging voters to assist a extra church-friendly Montenegrin authorities in August 2020, a shift that finally led to the exit of longtime chief Milo Djukanovic. Round one-third of Montenegrin residents regard themselves as Serbs, and the 2006 independence referendum and break with fellow post-Yugoslav republic Serbia stay delicate matters.
The tune denies Montenegrin identification and Montenegrin statehood. The tune additionally promotes Serbian borders through which each Montenegro and Kosovo are components of its territory.”
Serb nationalists at residence and across the Balkan area, nonetheless recovering from the ethnically fueled wars within the Nineties, have embraced Rejoice, O Serbian Nation, with lyrics similar to, ”Let the Serbian flag fly from Prizren to Rumija.” At a protest on November 25 in Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the tune was sung to protest the celebration of Bosnia’s ”statehood day.”
Prizren is Kosovo’s second-most populous metropolis, with about 200,000 residents, and lies about 50 kilometers from the closest border with Serbia. Rumija is one in every of Montenegro’s highest peaks and is greater than 100 kilometers from the border with Serbia. Lengthy an emblem of interfaith concord, Rumija was the scene of a infamous standoff between secession-minded Montenegrin authorities and the Serbian Orthodox Church backed by troops in 2005-06, forward of Montenegro’s choice to desert a political union with Serbia.
”The tune denies Montenegrin identification and Montenegrin statehood,” Balsa Bozovic, a longtime member of the Serbian parliament and a frontrunner of the Regional Academy for Democratic Growth, a Serbian NGO, informed RFE/RL’s Balkan Service. ”The tune additionally promotes Serbian borders through which each Montenegro and Kosovo are components of its territory.”
Bozovic expressed disappointment that Djokovic — arguably tennis’s best-ever males’s participant — ”does not present that he understands that his actions legitimize not one tune, as a result of it is only a tune, however a harmful ideology that resulted in 150,000 deaths and 4 million displaced folks within the Nineties.”
Serb media routinely seek advice from it as an ”anthem for all Serbs,” and it has progressively made its approach into official occasions. It was additionally performed at Belgrade’s joyous welcome in September for recent U.S. Open champ Djokovic and the nationwide basketball staff after its second-place end on the FIBA World Cup.
The Kosovo Tennis Federation referred to as it an extra ”provocation in opposition to Kosovo by Novak Djokovic and Serbian consultant[s]” and vowed to complain to the ITF and the Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC).
Greater than 100 nations acknowledge Kosovo’s sovereignty, however Serbia, its ally Russia, and China don’t.
Spain, the host of the ultimate rounds of this 12 months’s Davis Cup, has grappled for hundreds of years with independence actions in its northern Basque nation and northeastern Catalonia group. It’s one in every of 5 EU member states that don’t acknowledge Kosovo’s independence. Cyprus, Greece, Romania, and Slovakia are the others.
Though it’s unclear whether or not the Serbian nationwide staff was finally behind Davis Cup and Spanish organizers taking part in the tune, it’s the newest in a string of incidents that trace at Djokovic’s willingness to make use of his standing to advertise politically delicate nationalist causes, together with opposition to Kosovar independence.
After a victory on the French Open in Might, he scribbled, ”Kosovo is the [heart] of Serbia. Cease the violence,” on a digital camera lens in a well-recognized Serb chorus that takes intention at Kosovo’s proper to independence. French Sports activities Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera referred to as it an inappropriate motion that was ”militant and really political.” On the time, Kosovar officers appealed unsuccessfully to worldwide sports activities authorities for disciplinary motion.
”I am not a politician,” Djokovic commented later, ”however as a Serb, what’s taking place in Kosovo hurts me. Our persons are expelled from the municipalities.”
Djokovic was talking days after Serb protesters clashed with NATO KFOR peacekeepers amid Kosovo’s efforts, regardless of worldwide warnings, to forcibly substitute ethnic Serb mayors in largely Serb areas with ethnic Albanian officers.
”That is the least I may do,” Djokovic mentioned. ”As a public determine, I really feel the duty to indicate assist for our folks and all of Serbia. I believe many individuals do not know what the long run brings for Kosovo, however you will need to present concord in conditions like this.”
Greater than three months later, one Kosovar police officer was killed in a confrontation with dozens of gunmen in northern Kosovo through which three of the attackers had been additionally killed amid a daylong standoff. Djokovic drew criticism after he appeared to specific sympathy for the attackers, who Pristina alleged had been led by a Kosovar Serb politician with ties to Serbian officers, Milan Radoicic. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic later mentioned Radoicic had confessed in Serbian custody to crimes in reference to the incident.
After he tweeted criticism of the Davis Cup for permitting ”a nationalist tune that requires the Serbian annexation of Montenegro and Kosovo,” distinguished Montenegrin blogger Ljubomir Filipovic mentioned he acquired ”over 1,000 insults and demise threats in simply 24 hours.”
He and different critics of the Davis Cup organizers, particularly from Montenegro and Kosovo, additionally grew to become the main target of right-wing media in Serbia that characterised criticism of the tune as ”outpourings of hate” and ”ridiculous” accusations ”from a faux nation,” amongst different issues.
The tabloid Blic mentioned there have been ”no phrases of hate, solely love” within the lyrics of Rejoice, O Serbian Nation.
Written by Andy Heil based mostly on reporting by Iva Martinovic