Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic attended a ceremony in Belgrade on Sunday to unveil a monument to Gavrilo Princip, the 1914 assassin of Austria-Hungary’s crown prince Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie.

Nikolic referred to him as a freedom fighter and a hero.

Apart from serving as another example of some of the bizarre behavior that still occurs in the Balkans, the construction of the 6-foot bronze statue of the 19-year-old killer can be seen only as evidence that Serbia has given up on being accepted as a member of the European Union. Both Austria and Hungary are EU members and would likely veto Serbia’s request for admission on the basis of this misguided tribute to a murderer.

It would be as if someone put up statues to U.S. presidential assassins John Wilkes Booth or Lee Harvey Oswald, although the Franz Ferdinand assassination was worse in that it led directly to World War I. That lasted four years and claimed 14 million lives, transforming Europe probably forever.

A country that had previously put up a statue to Gavrilo Princip is Bosnia-Herzegovina, which did so last year in its capital, Sarajevo, where the assassination took place.

Both monuments were financed by the Serbian Republic, part of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It, too, is very interested in being accepted for accession to the EU. It, too, doesn’t seem to feel the need to restrain itself in honoring an assassin as it seeks to move forward in a more modern mode with Europe and the world.

Balkan ghosts don’t seem to go away.


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