{"id":12576,"date":"2026-05-22T09:39:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T08:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/?p=12576"},"modified":"2026-05-27T10:40:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T09:40:58","slug":"does-croatia-appropriate-the-serbian-slava-unesco-says-thats-not-how-cultural-heritage-protection-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/2026\/05\/22\/does-croatia-appropriate-the-serbian-slava-unesco-says-thats-not-how-cultural-heritage-protection-works\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Croatia \u201cAppropriate\u201d the Serbian Slava? UNESCO Says That\u2019s Not How Cultural Heritage Protection Works\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

Original article<\/em><\/a> (in Serbian) was published on 21\/5\/2026; Author: Stefan Kosanovi\u0107<\/em>\u00a0
<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this week, several Serbian tabloids published articles claiming that Croatia was \u201cappropriating the Serbian slava\u201d after Croatia\u2019s Ministry of Culture and Media added the custom of celebrating a family patron saint among Catholics in the Neretva region to the National register of cultural heritage. As evidence, the pro-government tabloids pointed to the fact that Serbia had already inscribed slava on UNESCO\u2019s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2014, as well as to the fact that neither Serbia nor Serbs are mentioned in the Croatian document. However, UNESCO told Raskrikavanje that the inscription of a cultural practice on heritage lists \u201cdoes not imply exclusivity or ownership of that heritage by a state.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several tabloids published articles earlier this week claiming that \u201cCroats are officially appropriating the Serbian slava\u201d and \u201cstealing the Serbian national identity\u201d after Croatia\u2019s Ministry of Culture and Media added<\/a> \u201cSlava, krsnica, krsno ime, krsna slova \u2013 the celebration of a family patron saint among Catholics in the Neretva region\u201d to the country\u2019s national register of cultural heritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tabloids portrayed the move as \u201cthe seizure of Serbian cultural heritage,\u201d claiming that Croatia was ignoring the fact that Serbia had already inscribed<\/a> slava on UNESCO\u2019s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, UNESCO protection and national cultural heritage registers do not function in the way the tabloids suggest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a response to Raskrikavanje, UNESCO said that the inscription of an element on its list \u201cdoes not imply exclusivity or ownership of that heritage by a state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As UNESCO explained, the aim of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage is \u201cto ensure visibility and encourage dialogue,\u201d rather than to determine which country a particular tradition \u201cbelongs\u201d to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The convention was adopted in Paris in 2003, and both Serbia and Croatia \u2014 along with other countries in the region \u2014 are signatories to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The convention itself makes clear that every state has the right, and even the obligation, to identify and safeguard intangible cultural heritage present on its territory. This also means that similar or identical traditions may exist simultaneously in several countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe convention also provides for the possibility of multinational nominations and the extension of already inscribed elements to additional states parties where communities share similar practices,\u201d a UNESCO spokesperson told Raskrikavanje.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UNESCO further noted in its response that shared or similar cultural practices among different countries are not unusual when it comes to intangible cultural heritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One example of a multinational inscription on UNESCO\u2019s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity is \u201cArabic calligraphy: knowledge, skills and practices.\u201d No fewer than 16 countries are listed as bearers of the element, including Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Sudan, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A geographically closer example is transhumance \u2014 the seasonal movement of people and livestock between summer and winter pastures. The element was inscribed on UNESCO\u2019s list in 2023, with Albania, Andorra, Austria, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Romania and Spain all listed as countries where the practice is recognized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tabloids also took issue with the fact that neither Serbia nor Serbs are mentioned in the Croatian document. However, there is no UNESCO rule or principle of international law requiring a country, when registering cultural heritage at the national level, to mention other states that have similar traditions or that previously nominated the same element before UNESCO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Croatian document itself does not claim that slava is an exclusively Croatian or Catholic custom. On the contrary, it states that the tradition exists \u201camong Orthodox and partly Catholic populations in Southeastern Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In academic literature, slava is predominantly associated with the Serbian Orthodox tradition, and it was presented as such in Serbia\u2019s UNESCO nomination. At the same time, ethnological research records similar customs among many Orthodox communities, including in North Macedonia and parts of Bulgaria, as well as among Catholic populations in certain areas of the Bay of Kotor, Herzegovina, the Neretva Valley and other parts of the Balkans, as a result of centuries of cultural intermingling in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue was the main front-page story in yesterday\u2019s edition of Serbian tabloid Srpski telegraf, while the same narrative was echoed by the portals Srbija Danas, Kurir and Republika.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What these reports had in common was that they all carried statements by Miodrag Linta, president of the Alliance of Serbs from the Region. His remarks also served as the basis for articles in a number of other outlets, including Tanjug, RTV, NS U\u017eivo and many others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Linta said Croatia was \u201ccontinuing to appropriate Serbian cultural, spiritual and historical heritage,\u201d arguing that the aim of such policies was the \u201cCroatization of everything belonging to the Serbian people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, he proposed establishing a special state institution \u2014 a \u201cMuseum of Serbs from the Region\u201d \u2014 dedicated to preserving the cultural heritage, customs and traditions of Serbs originating from neighboring countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The media largely carried Linta\u2019s statements without additional context or verification of how UNESCO\u2019s system for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage actually functions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Serbian Inscriptions on the UNESCO List <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Serbia has so far independently inscribed six elements on UNESCO\u2019s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity: \u201cNa\u00efve Painting of Kova\u010dica,\u201d \u201cSocial Practices and Knowledge Related to the Preparation and Use of Traditional Plum Brandy,\u201d \u201cZlakusa Pottery,\u201d \u201cSinging to the Gusle,\u201d \u201cKolo, Traditional Folk Dance,\u201d and \u201cSlava, Celebration of the Family Patron Saint.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two additional nominations from Serbia are currently underway: \u201cPirot Carpet Weaving, Knowledge and Skills\u201d and \u201cTranshumance, the Seasonal Movement of Livestock Between Pastures.\u201d The latter is also the first nomination in which Serbia is participating jointly with several other countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Original article (in Serbian) was published on 21\/5\/2026; Author: Stefan Kosanovi\u0107\u00a0 Earlier this week, several Serbian tabloids published articles claiming that Croatia was \u201cappropriating the Serbian slava\u201d after Croatia\u2019s Ministry of Culture and Media added the custom of celebrating a family patron saint among Catholics in the Neretva region to the National register of cultural […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12577,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[316],"tags":[28,364],"class_list":["post-12576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fact-checks","tag-serbia","tag-unesco"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12576"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12578,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12576\/revisions\/12578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}