From Renan to Kosovo, a reflection on what unites us.
Driven by a navy-blue electoral wave, the question of identity has imposed itself on all political debates in Europe. This notion, used indiscriminately and often imprecisely, has sparked major controversy, largely because it has never been clearly defined.
During the first Congress of Serbian Youth, organised in Vienna on 7 June 2025, the debate among those present had only just begun, with the aim of determining a strategy for the development of Serbian diaspora organisations. However, the discussion quickly turned into a reflection on what it truly means to be Serbian.
Very different ideas immediately emerged, revealing just how difficult it is to define identity. This shift in the debate towards such a vast and unresolved question points to a broader problem: can collective identity still be defined in a clear and shared way? And if not, what is the point of discussing it?
The issue of identity remains unresolved. Yet, as with “wokism”, its use in public debate should have allowed for a clear definition. We might therefore have thought that the lack of agreement on the definition of identity explains the divergences over what it means to be a member of a nation. The truth is that agreement on the definition remains impossible: the Congress alone could not resolve a debate that is several centuries old.
Identity is defined by the CNRTL as the “character of that which, under different names or aspects, is one, or represents one and the same reality”. It therefore seems to be closely linked to the notion of the nation, which is also at the heart of our political debates. It might therefore have been more useful to speak of national identity, in order to avoid any confusion with individual identity. The question of the nation has been at the centre of a deep philosophical reflection, one that is worth addressing in order to understand that the debate which took place at the Congress in Vienna is certainly legitimate, but endless. Yet the endless is abstract and exceeds our rationality: the debate therefore seems vain and useless.
The very idea of the nation has divided European societies, sometimes even neighbouring ones. Thus, when Prussia collapsed following Napoleon’s takeover of its territory, Fichte, in Addresses to the German Nation (1808), called for a spiritual and moral rebirth of the German people by awakening their national consciousness. For him, the nation refers to a community of language and culture, not a legal-political creation. It precedes the state, which merely serves it. The people are united by language, education, and culture.
Later, Renan would develop the “French vision” of the nation in his famous speech at the Sorbonne in 1882. At a time when nationalism was gaining momentum in France following its defeat by Prussia, Renan sought to define the nation from a republican and rational perspective, in response to certain identitarian excesses. He therefore argued that the nation is a historical and political construction founded on the will to live together.
The nation is therefore neither a race, nor a language (which allows people to come together but does not force them to do so) and even less a religion or a geographical border. A nation is characterised by a shared past, through a collective memory made up of shared suffering and shared glory, as well as a present will to continue upholding this common heritage: he called this the daily plebiscite. This French vision has, moreover, existed for a long time. Jus soli, the right of the soil, finds its customary character in a ruling of 23 February 1515 by the Parliament of Paris: a child born to foreign parents was a subject of the king, and therefore French. After the Revolution, the Napoleonic Code allowed foreign children born in France to request French nationality in the year following their majority. In 1889, the Third Republic made every foreign child born in France automatically French, unless they refused to become so. This right is today at the centre of much criticism, particularly in Mayotte, and has been revised many times.
Yet today it seems clear that French philosophy has been validated by reality. Although it may be difficult for some to accept, this was demonstrated at the Congress.
In Vienna, language or religion can no longer be used to characterise a nation. Without even needing to address the fact that many people know the French language and French history but do not feel French at all, the example of Kosovo is more than sufficient. After the Second World War, Marshal Tito decided to welcome Albanian refugees and to make Serbs leave this territory, although it was central to their history, since it was there that they managed, against all expectations, to resist the Ottomans in 1389. The Albanians associated with Serbs, attended their schools, learned their language and history, and benefited from the wealth of a Yugoslavia that far exceeded anything they could have had in Albania. We might therefore have legitimately believed that they would become Serbs within one or two generations, if only out of gratitude. Yet, despite all this, they did not hesitate to form an armed organisation classified as terrorist by several states, the KLA, in order to secure independence in violation of all the rules of international law, obtained because it was militarily supported by NATO. If the West made a strategic error here (since it too massively welcomes foreign populations, and Russia today relies on this bloody violation of international law to justify its “military operation” in Ukraine) it nevertheless remains true that the nation is not a matter of language, culture, or religion, but rather of feeling. It therefore remains clear that, regarding this question, so precious in the eyes of Serbs, the debate should not have taken place.
This also raises the question of Serbs whose ancestors emigrated to other countries and who have lost all connection with the homeland. Would they be less legitimate in claiming to be Serbian? Simply because they do not speak the language, or because they are in the process of learning it? And what about someone who has fallen in love with Serbia and wishes to become Serbian?
The question remains without a definitive answer. But it seems to me that this debate, if it must take place, cannot ignore this reality: being Serbian does not necessarily mean speaking the language or belonging to a particular faith, even if these things matter greatly. Above all, it means wanting to transmit a shared heritage, through a deep attachment to a history and to a people. A nation is not an essence. It is a will, a bond of memory and of the heart.
Nikola DIMITRIJEVIĆ