Late Mr. Sretenovic, one time a member of the St. Sava Church Board, told me a long time ago how he was tired of my Cyrillic alphabet. He, a person from Serbia proper, is tired of my Cyrillic! I am from Slavonia, today a part of Croatia! After sixty Five years of living in a land of Latinica I am still fighting hard for my national alphabet, an alphabet second to none in the entire world, and I am not saying this for some chauvinistic reasons but strictly linguistic. While I was teaching German here in this country my students were telling me that German was weird, illogical from their point of view. When I illustrated to them in a few examples the lack of logic in English language, I introduced to them my native Serbian and my alphabet I proved to them that our Serbian language and our alphabet in particular were probably among the simplest and most logical of all. They wanted me to teach them Serbian, but that was out of the question if I wanted to keep my employment here in this country.
During one of my visits to Beograd I stopped in front of one of the newsstands to buy the newspaper „Politika“, a paper still printed in Cyrillic alphabet. The lady behind the stand asked me if she could help me, and I told her that I realized that „Politika“ was sold out, and how I was looking for some other Serbian newspaper. She was quick to tell me that I had in front of me a whole lot of other Serbian publications.
– I don’t see any, -, I answered, all I see are publications published in Latinica.
The lady gave me one of those looks as if to say: -It takes all kinds of people in this world.-
When visiting another Serbian town, Sabac is the name, I stopped at a very popular and well stocked coffee store, and the aroma that hit me was out of this world. When I asked why the name above the store was in Croatian alphabet the lady hesitated at first, and then simply replied that she just worked in the store, and that the owner was not here at the moment.
And so, example after example throughout our beautiful Serbia. I am told that Serbia is a free, unoccupied land without some foreign government which would prevent us from speaking our language, or, writing in our own beautiful Serbian alphabet.
And what is it that characterizes a nation? Two of the most important determinants are the language and the way they speak, the language. These two are inseparable, in my opinion. I was often wondering why this big, free and progressive country uses the language and the script of England, a country they had trouble to get rid of!
Recently I read in “Novosti”, a Serbian publication, how a certain JelenaM. (The paper only listed her First name, probably to protect her from being attacked!) experienced all kinds of problems when she attempted to fill out some pharmacy form in Serbian alphabet when the sales lady insisted that she was not allowed to do that. Allegedly, this was a foreign company, and that was the reason. Interestingly enough, Bulgarians and so called North Macedonians are allowed to use Cyrillic in the same store! The “rule” only applied to Serbs.
When “Novosti” contacted the company (Dr. Max), they were told that there was no such restriction for filling out the so called Loyalty application, the store lady did this on her own.
This, of course, is even worse, when it comes to Serbs and Serbia. We are the ones who voluntarily push our necks in foreigners ‘yoke. There is a saying among Serbian people which states that we should be beaten without being allowed to cry.
5.30, 2025
