Youth governments are lifesavers

It would not be a precedent in the history of the modern Serbian state (1804) and the Serbian "government" (1805-2025) if a completely new generation of young people took over the leadership of the state and formed a new government. As historical experience teaches us, it would be said that it would not even be a mistake. There have already been such experiences in the 220 years of the history of Serbian governments, mostly very positive ones. They are known as "youth generations" in our statehood and came as a remedy for society for already spent ideas, compromised personalities, ossified patterns and whole sets of politicians who had nothing new to offer, when the state was stagnant or even itself was questioned.

Already in the 19th century, young people brought into Serbian political practice the ideas and concepts of a just society, the rule of law and the rule of law instead of personal will, the concepts of changeable power, the responsibility of ministers, officials and all members of society (especially those who deal with the public good), proper electoral systems, competition of ideas, democracy, parliamentarism, social justice and a hierarchy according to which civil servants are servants of the people, and they are paid, and not the other way around.

The entire Serbian state was created on the wave, strength and uprising of young people, of military age, in the Serbian Revolution (1804-1830), when the Ottoman Empire was overthrown on the territory of the Belgrade Pashaluk, and the Principality of Serbia was proclaimed on its territory, which was immediately recognized by all the great forces of that era. An entire empire was overthrown in insurgent battles and the entire socio-economic order (feudalism) based on it. The first Serbian government was formed by Prota Mateja Nenadović (Roverning Soviet) in 1805, at the age of 28. Even his ministers ("supporters") were not much older, some were even younger, and they only brought one Dositej Obradović, from Europe, as the minister of education, because without schools and educators it was not worth building a state. The idea of ​​the uprising meant defining the concept of the state idea, and it consisted in the fact that Serbia, with the First Serbian Uprising (1804), moved to Europe, leaving the East, and that the backbone of the state and its future is the youth and investment in its education.

The first insurgent state briefly collapsed in the context of major European upheavals and the Napoleonic wars (1813), but Serbia remained enrolled in some international treaties (Treaty of Bucharest, 1812), so one of Karađorđe's dukes, Miloš Obrenović, took advantage of that fact and immediately started in the reconstruction of Serbia in 1815 (Second Serbian Uprising). He was then only 32 years old. He completed Karađorđe's work, officially proclaimed the state (1830) and abolished feudalism forever (1835). When it was necessary to move from the feudal era to the capitalist one, with the development of the then city economy (crafts and trade), he listened to the advice of learned Serbs and foreign consuls from Europe in Serbia, and first started with the introduction of the rule of law, through the constitution (1838) and the laws that separated three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial. Capitalism implies firm and precise laws and rules, the inviolable right to acquire private property and assets, not other people's property, its appropriation or taking from the public good, most often from state and social property, which is even contrary to capitalist principles and positive laws of the country.

The constitution was adopted, and in Europe the first generation of our youth was sent to foreign universities (Vienna, Paris, Heidelberg, Munich...) to study "political science" and to take the most important positions in the state administration upon their return. They were given scholarships by the state, every year 10 students from the Lyceum (Big School).

Miloš went to war with the opposition (defenders of the constitution) and fell from power (1839), soon followed by the Obrenović dynasty (1842), and the defenders of the constitution brought Karađorđe's son Alexander, but to the honorary position of prince (electoral, not hereditary throne), in order to continued to build institutions and organize the European state. They ruled for 16 and a half years and laid the foundation for a legal state ruled by institutions and not by individuals and someone's authoritarian will. The personality of the prince was marginalized and served only for ceremonies, symbols and the promotion of tradition and historicism of the state idea. At that time, Serbia was one of 18 European countries.

Already after 1842, the first generations of our students with diplomas from foreign universities began to arrive in such Serbia, recognizable by their European suits, redcoats, half-tops, long zulufs (sideburns) and pointed "goatee" beards. Those educated people occupied the highest positions in the country - adviser, minister, mayor and similar - and they led the country. With huge success.

It was the first "youth generation" in the history of the Serbian state. Foreigners in Serbia also noticed signs of exaggeration and superficiality of people who admired individual "Parisians", as these young educated people were generally called: William Gabler, the teacher of the prince's children, illustrated this when welcoming Jovan Ristic, when the people of Belgrade were enchanted his appearance and suit of the "latest Parisian fashion", exaggerated with admiration for "that rascal" that even in his "black tailcoat and shiny saw the salvation of the fatherland in the cylinder". In addition to Jovan Ristić, Filip Hristić, Jevrem Grujić, Ljubomir Nenadović, Kosta Cukić, Kosta Nikolajević, Dimitrije Crnobarac, Đorđe Simić, Laza K. Lazarević, Rajko Lešjanin, Jovan Belimarković and many others occupied a prominent place in Serbian history. It is interesting that one of the greatest scientists and statesmen like Stojan Novaković was not educated abroad.

Photo: Marija Janković

The first generations of that educated youth, who had to go to foreign universities to get diplomas, because the local Great School did not have accreditation until 1905 (when it became a university), were imbued with liberal ideas, some of them were caught by the great European revolution in 1848 in Vienna, Berlin or Paris, so they brought those ideas to Serbia. The next few generations brought socialist (Svetozar Marković) or radical ideas (Nikola Pašić), aimed at workers and peasants, democracy and parliamentarism, so during the second reign of the Obrenović dynasty (1859–1903) they fought against their personal rule. But Serbia was constantly growing, and the changeability of government began to be understood, not only party but also dynastic, along with the entire concepts of the civil or national state.

The "youth generation" and students with the idea of ​​legal order, the rule of the constitution and social justice played a crucial role in all of this. Middle-aged and older people, by definition, did not have new ideas, while the youth always did, so this was reflected in the plan of the common good. When older generations looked to enable and guarantee young people the opportunity to improve public life and not get in the way, and that often happened, Serbia easily kept pace with international values, and the greatest national ideals were realized: the declaration of complete sovereignty of Serbia (1878) and the kingdom (1882), the liberation of Old (medieval) Serbia in 1912 (Kosovo, Stari Ras, Macedonia) and the creation of Yugoslavia (1918).

When the Yugoslav kingdom and the Serbian dynasty at its head were dethroned at the end of the Second World War (1945), a student, youth generation appeared again to breathe new life into the newly proclaimed republic, both at the republican and federal levels. At the head of the Serbian leadership appeared a young doctor, partisan, Blagoje Nešković, young but the oldest in the government whose members were on average 27,5 years old. And they breathed life into a state that lasted for the next half century, which ensured social, health and educational justice and a fair distribution of income and goods for all its inhabitants according to socialist principles. No one has ever abolished such a state at the level of Serbia, but it ceased to exist in the public eye only when the people who robbed the public good (social and state property) told us that we have been living in "capitalism" for a "long time", regardless of the fact that no one for that, he did not prepare laws, capitalist principles, rules of the game, and simply announced the beginning of new socio-economic relations with equal rules and rights for all in the manner of the rule of law.

The people who robbed the public good three and a half decades ago do not like the change of government because they are still robbing and selling off, and they are calling for some kind of "democracy" and "capitalism" in their opinion, without laws and any moral principles. They call themselves "Serbia" and wave the flag, like a certain bird over the nest. They don't like students either, because the youth demand from them what they cannot fulfill - responsibility, governance of institutions and the rule of law.

The Republic should be returned to the youth because tomorrow belongs to them, not to the people who stole it. The people who hijacked the republic are afraid of the "bathing of the state" because they know that it follows when the students form the government. Students don't like anything dirty. The whole society understood that.

Undesirable factor

Along with changes of ideas and changes of political generations, there were sometimes also changes of entire ruling dynasties or the entire form of government. During the 220 years of modern statehood, Serbia changed 180 government cabinets, which lasted an average of 13 and a half months each, two ruling dynasties (69 and 71 years each), two forms of government (monarchy for 141 years and republic for 80 years), 10 rulers who ruled for an average of 14 years and four presidents of the republic, who had more power than any king before 1945. During those four presidents, the youth was treated as an undesirable factor in Serbian politics, seduced by foreign services and recommended to go to foreign universities, but not to return. Their regimes were at war with the students and their ideas, which were considered treasonous and foreign, and the students were only asking for the return of the "stolen republic", the legal order and the rule of institutions instead of the personal will of the president.