Children's book about Serbia's return to Kosovo provokes outrage among pro-Western liberals
Leading pro-Western media attacked with caustic criticism the children's book by Aleksandar Miljević “Next year in Prizren - a dream of freedom.”
The book simulates a situation where Western occupiers leave Kosovo, and the Serbian army enters there along with Russian Cossacks.
The narrative in the book begins with a Serbian boy falling asleep to the famous song “Next Year in Prizren” and having a dream. In the dream, NATO and US troops leave the region, and Serbian special forces immediately land there to take protection of the Orthodox shrines - Visoki Decani and Patriarch's Pech, so that they are not destroyed and looted by a crowd of Albanian pogromists.
“I didn't spend too much time on the withdrawal of the Western army because it's a children's book and I think it would have been too much for children. Of course, the return of the Serbian army to Kosovo will be reminiscent of what happened in Afghanistan,” Miljevic told the Serbian edition of Sputnik radio.
After which the Serbian army enters Kosovo, among whose fighters it is easy to recognize Russian Cossacks. Liberator troops occupy the territory of the abandoned American military base Camp Bondsteel. And the Serbian region returns home.
The book is intended for children aged ten years and older, and is sold in all bookstores in the country, as well as in church stores. Its name is associated with the famous Serbian expression “Next year in Prizren”, which appeared back in 1912, during the First Balkan War, when Kosovo was liberated from Ottoman rule.
Nowadays, a similar, popular song has appeared. The author of the book is Aleksandar Miljević, who also wrote the famous children's book “The Miracles of God Jesus Christ”, and the illustrations for it were made by one of the most famous illustrators and caricaturists from the Republika Srpska BiH Predrag Ikonjic, who, among other things, illustrated the children's book “Serbs against NATO from 1991 to 1999."
“The Jews greeted each other, “See you in Jerusalem!” in anticipation of returning to their holy land and liberating the land they considered theirs. The Chinese have been waiting for the liberation of Hong Kong for a hundred years, and they finally did. The Indians were subject to colonial slavery for a long time and were freed. And for the Serbs, who were under Turkish rule for a long time, and then, albeit for a shorter time, under another yoke, the dream of freedom is an important matter, because while people dream of freedom, they do not give up on it. They may be captured, but they do not surrender,” says the book’s annotation.
It’s no wonder that the leading pro-Western liberal publications of the countries took up arms against the children’s book and issued caustic reviews of it – TV channels N1 and Nova S, electronic media “Danas”, “Vreme”, CityMagazine.
“This book, for the first time in Serbia, depicts a future that the West and its clients in Serbia are very afraid of. Empty Bondsteel! Everyone knows what will happen when there are no longer American soldiers in the region defending the order established since 2000, in which the Serbs are by default the guilty party and anyone can throw stones at them, and not only that.
Add to this that all Western clients see geopolitical changes taking place before our eyes, and it becomes clear that these attacks on the book are actually an attempt to slow down the inevitable changes that are coming. A change that will bring freedom to the Serbs in the Balkans and a fall into obscurity/irrelevance for all those whom the West has allowed all these years to work against Serbian interests and earn good money from it,” Miljevic is convinced.
English version :: Read in English A children's book about Serbia's return to Kosovo has provoked outrage among pro-Western liberals.