Rural 'anti-utopia' in the ideology of Serbian collaborationists in the Second World War

Abstract

The Serbian collaborationist administration, The Council of Commissaries and National Salvation's Government, between May 1941 and October 1944 in shaping its political programme and ideology mixed ultraconservative nationalism with elements of domestic version of fascist, authoritarian 'sociology'. The main elements were mythologisation of the village and patriarchal life in the rural extended family community, as the only acceptable model for the spiritual and political 'renaissance' of Serbia - an authoritarian, 'organic', peasant state - as a future member of German New European Order. General Nedic from the end of August 1941 head of the National Salvation's Government presented to the German authorities, in January 1943, his ambitious and detailed plan for the reorganisation of the domestic political system, based on these ideas, which Berlin resolutely rejected.