This article will analyze how indigenous Balkan and Russian imperial motifs influenced Serbian national discourses from the second part of the nineteenth century until the First World War. It will focus especially on how the Russian Slavophil and Pan-Slav ideologies affected Balkan national myths, such as the Serbian myth about the Battle of Blackbird's Field (Kosovo Polje). The authors will describe main motives of the myths under study: Russia as an Orthodox brother, an �eternal ally,' and a future liberator. The article will explain how these myths, rather than being based on reality, tended to create it. Further the article will focus on the way and how these myths influenced Serbian domestic politics and foreign affairs, identity and national sympathies nowadays. The authors conclude that some features of modern Serbian political culture (such as significant support of strong political leader, great respect to authority persons) and international relations (unclear vector of the Serbian foreign policy that drifts between eurointegration and cooperation with Russia) were influenced by the studied myths.

This article will analyze how indigenous Balkan and Russian imperial motifs influenced Serbian national discourses from the second part of the nineteenth century until the First World War. It will focus especially on how the Russian Slavophil and Pan-Slav ideologies affected Balkan national myths, such as the Serbian myth about the Battle of Blackbird's Field (Kosovo Polje). The authors will describe main motives of the myths under study: Russia as an Orthodox brother, an �eternal ally,' and a future liberator. The article will explain how these myths, rather than being based on reality, tended to create it. Further the article will focus on the way and how these myths influenced Serbian domestic politics and foreign affairs, identity and national sympathies nowadays. The authors conclude that some features of modern Serbian political culture (such as significant support of strong political leader, great respect to authority persons) and international relations (unclear vector of the Serbian foreign policy that drifts between eurointegration and cooperation with Russia) were influenced by the studied myths.