Конфесионално-етничка панорама Неготина
Confessional And Ethnic Panorama Of Negotin

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to investigate (1) the status of national minorities in contemporary Serbian society, which is legitimizedthrough the establishment of European standards of minority protection and (2) the relationship of the majority and the minority in terms of religion, the media, and political representation in the municipality of Negotin in eastern Serbia. The context in which research takes place is a crisis, as a usual décor of Serbian society in the last two decades: Serbian society has been going through numerous stages of transition, whose immediate consequences are devastation of the economy, society, and culture, but also a profound demographic transition. The effects of the transition led to a metamorphosis of the society: the adoption of the neo-liberal paradigm of development influenced the change of their social organization, the reconstruction of relations between different groups (social, ethnic, and confessional), the manner of their political representation, as well as their positioning in the media. The paper discusses the following aspects of the border region, the so-called Negotinska Krajina: (а) confessional and ethnic characteristics of the population in the municipality of Negotin; (b) political representation and institutions of ethnic minorities in local government; (c) cultural and media institutions of national minorities. The analysis of these aspects enabled us to conclude that the key relations for the quality of life in the studied area are those between the Serbian majority and the Vlachs, as the largest ethnic minority, and that these relations have traditionally been good. The Serbs and the Vlachs are Orthodox Christians and adherents of the Serbian Orthodox Church. In addition to the Vlach (Daco-Romanian) language, the Vlachs also use Serbian and consider Serbia as their home country. Accordingly, they expect Serbia to help them ‘defend’ their identities from the attempts of ‘romanization’ and to be more ‘present’ in the eastern border region.

• Details
• Contents