Despite all the difficulties that have arisen in bilateral relations over the past 80 years, along with the difficult international situation, the Russian/Soviet memorial heritage has been almost completely preserved in Serbia, and popular assessments of the contribution of the Red Army are mostly objective, Milana Živanović writes.
In October 2024, ahead of the 80th anniversary of Belgrade’s liberation from the Nazis, the British Ambassador to Serbia Edward Ferguson published a text on the blog of his country’s Foreign Office in which he claimed that “the fact that Bulgaria changed its position and declared war on Germany in 1944 encouraged the (Yugoslav) partisans to carry out a series of offensive operations. Bulgarian soldiers, along with Yugoslav partisans, took part in operations to disrupt German communication lines, while units of the Red Army’s 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts, estimated to be 65–70% ethnic Ukrainians, pounced from the east.” This downplaying of the contribution of the Red Army soldiers to the liberation of the Yugoslav capital during the Belgrade Offensive Operation (from September 28 to October 20, 1944), in which, according to Professor Alexei Timofeev, about 300,000 Soviet soldiers and 40,000 Yugoslav fighters were involved , along with the politicisation of the memory of the war, is part of the war of memory regarding the role of the USSR in the victory in World War II, which has lasted for several decades.
The distortion of historical facts about the events of 1939-1945 is clearly happening in several European countries: history is being rewritten and monuments to Soviet soldiers are being destroyed. Such attempts to falsify history are opposed by a considerable number of countries in the world: Russia, the Asian countries and some European countries, including Serbia, although in the past even Belgrade did not take an unambiguous position on this issue.
Over the past 80 years, in Democratic Federal Yugoslavia, the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and its legal successor – the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro, and the Republic of Serbia, the historical memory of the war and the role of the USSR in the liberation of the country (almost the entire territory of Serbia, as well as parts of Croatia and Slovenia) has undergone various transformations. The official narrative was constantly changing and was based both on historical facts and on their distortion. The combat experience of Soviet soldiers, who used modern heavy weapons, brought the enemy rear into chaos and facilitated the breakthrough of Yugoslav divisions into Serbia, which in turn prevented the Germans from organizing reliable resistance on the approaches to Belgrade . This, along with the figures given for the strength of both armies, has not always been recognized in political, military, and even academic circles in Yugoslavia.
During the first post-war years (1944/1945–1948), the Yugoslav public space glorified the feat of the Soviet people, noted the decisive contribution of the USSR and its army to the liberation of Yugoslavia, and named streets in the capital after Stalin, the commander of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin, and the commander of the 4th Guards Mechanized Corps, General Vladimir Zhdanov. One of the central streets was even named Red Army Boulevard.
However, following the Soviet-Yugoslav conflict, which began in 1948 and lasted until 1953/1955, the country began to distort historical facts: Josip Broz Tito, in his report at the Fifth Congress of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, downplayed the role of the Red Army, noting that it “helped us liberate Belgrade, eastern Serbia and Vojvodina. They gave us great help.” Mass changes in the names of the capital's streets also followed, and during the period of maximum aggravation of bilateral relations, the activities of Soviet military personnel were even assessed as sabotage in Belgrade newspapers. But in 1964, on the twentieth anniversary of the capital's liberation from the Nazis, the official narrative underwent significant changes: government officials acknowledged that the Red Army, together with the People’s Liberation Army of Yugoslavia, liberated Belgrade. At the same time, in connection with the death on Mount Avala (near Belgrade) of Soviet veterans who had come to attend celebrations dedicated the anniversary of wartime victories in October 1964, streets named after Marshal Tolbukhin, Chief of Staff of the 3rd Ukrainian Front Sergey Biryuzov, and General Zhdanov reappeared on the map of the capital, and one street was renamed Red Army Boulevard.
However, already in the following decade, in 1975, representatives of the Yugoslav authorities again began to downplay the contribution of the USSR, emphasising that the country had liberated itself with the help of a small number of states, primarily the Soviet Union. Marshal Tito himself stated in May of the same year: “The point is that we liberated our country ourselves. By the end of the war, we received significant assistance, since there were no opportunities before,” although the congratulatory telegram to the Soviet leadership noted that “we remember with admiration the heroic struggle of the Red Army”. In 1985, only at the end of the report dedicated to the parade honouring the 40th anniversary of the victory over fascism in Belgrade, under the heading “guests”, was it mentioned that the event “was also attended by delegations from member countries of the anti-Hitler coalition: the USSR, USA, Great Britain and France”. At the same time, the congratulatory telegram from the Chairman of the Presidium of the SFRY to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR stated that “the peoples of Yugoslavia always remember with the deepest respect the heroic struggle of the Red Army and the peoples of the Soviet Union, who suffered the greatest sacrifices and made an immeasurable contribution to the victory.” In a telegram to Mikhail Gorbachev, the Chairman of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia noted that “the peoples of Yugoslavia, under the leadership of their Communist Party headed by Tito, in a difficult struggle against Nazi Germany and its satellites, with great losses, shoulder to shoulder with the peoples of the Soviet Union and other countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, won their freedom.”
After the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, streets bearing the names of General Zhdanov and Marshal Tolbukhin disappeared from the map of Belgrade again. which were returned in 2010 and then in 2016, when changes in the official narrative in Serbia were recorded. In October 2009, at a gala event to mark the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Belgrade, which was attended by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Serbian leader Boris Tadić called for “precisely for the sake of the future, to look back, to remember our common struggle against fascism and to protect it from oblivion”.
A few months later, on Victory Day 2010, wreaths were laid in Belgrade at the Cemetery of the Liberators of Belgrade, where the soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army of Yugoslavia and soldiers and officers of the Red Army are buried, including at the monument to the Red Army soldier, which was erected in this cemetery in 1954, although in statements by officials, the celebration of the anniversary was linked with the celebration of Europe Day.
The celebration of Belgrade’s next major anniversary – the 70th anniversary of its liberation from the fascists – was of a solemn nature. At the state level, tribute was paid to the memory of Yugoslav fighters and Soviet soldiers: In the Serbian capital, the first military parade since 1985 was held, called “Step of the Winner”, which was attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Serbian leader Tomislav Nikolić, in his speech at the parade, spoke of the joint struggle of Yugoslav partisans and Soviet soldiers: they “shoulder to shoulder” liberated “every street, every building in Belgrade, and left the sign ‘No mines’ … Belgraders remember the brave partisans and Red Army soldiers who brought them freedom.” The country’s Prime Minister, in turn, during a conversation with the Russian leader promised that “Serbia will never forget the efforts your soldiers made to liberate Belgrade”, and one of the ministers, speaking at a ceremonial event dedicated to the anniversary of the liberation of the capital from the fascists, on behalf of the Government of Serbia and the Prime Minister of the country, noted that “the victory won then by our and Soviet heroes is a historical feat that we must prevent from being forgotten.”
In public, Serbian leaders recalled not only the Red Army’s contribution to the liberation of Serbia, but also the role of the USSR in the Great Victory. After participating in the 2015 Victory Parade in Moscow, President Tomislav Nikolić spoke about the USSR’s significant contribution to victory. His successor as president of the country, Aleksandar Vučić, who attended the Victory Parades in Moscow in 2018 and in 2020, admitted in 2017 that “the Russian people, of all the peoples of the world, suffered the greatest losses in the Great Patriotic War (...) With their heroic deeds in World War II, they managed to destroy fascism and save the whole world from this dark force.” On Victory Day 2019, in a telegram to Russian President Vladimir Putin, he noted that the “brotherly Russian people” had “won a great victory” in the war.
Congratulating the citizens of Serbia on Victory Day in 2021 in Russian, the Serbian leader focused on the falsifications of history: “Never before have fewer countries, in fact, celebrated Victory Day over fascism. Our task is not to hide the truth, but to speak openly so as not to allow lies to defeat the truth. It is no coincidence that the role of the Red Army is belittled, facts are falsified and it is hidden that more than 22 million Soviet citizens, of course, first and foremost Russians, gave their lives for the liberation of Europe.” Three years later, in 2024, in his speech “Revision of Historical Facts and the Resistance of Freedom-Loving Nations,” Vučić rejected the narrative that the United States had played the key role in the victory and that the Normandy landings were the most important battle in the war.
This topic was also addressed by the Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia Aleksandar Vulin, who promised on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Belgrade from the fascists in October 2024 that Serbia “will never agree to rewrite history or belittle the role of the USSR in the victory over fascism,” adding that it is very important to remember the feat of the Red Army: Serbia “will always remain on the side of the winners, together with Russia.”
In 2015 and 2020, the 70th and 75th anniversaries of the victory over fascism were celebrated not only in Belgrade at the Cemetery of the Liberators of the Capital, but also in other cities of the country, where wreaths were also laid at the monuments to Yugoslav and Soviet soldiers. Over the past 10 years, this tradition has been associated not only with anniversary dates. Every May 9, citizens and officials remember the contribution of the USSR, and in many cities of Serbia there are memorial events: since 2016, Immortal Regiment marches have been held in Belgrade, and in 2019 this memorial event took place in 10 Serbian cities. In addition, the country preserves, restores, and even erects new monuments and memorials to Soviet soldiers. Today, there are five secondary schools in the republic and seven streets in Belgrade which are named after 9 May, four streets in the capital are named after General Zhdanov, and three named after Marshal Tolbukhin. Even a village located near Belgrade received the name of the Soviet engineer Viktor Viktorovich Verbovsky, who is buried there.
Today, there is a consensus in Serbian society on the role of the USSR in the liberation of Serbia. Despite all the difficulties that have arisen in bilateral relations over the past 80 years, along with the difficult international situation, the Russian/Soviet memorial heritage has been almost completely preserved in Serbia, and popular assessments of the contribution of the Red Army are mostly objective.
