The Politics of Prophecy and the Prophecy of Politics: The Kremna Prophecy from Its Origins to the First World War

Abstract

This paper offers a diachronic overview of the origin, evolution, and political utilization of the prophecy made by the clairvoyant members of the Tarabić family from the village of Kremna, covering the period from the late 19th century up to the First World War. The aim is to demonstrate how prophecies concerning the future of the state, its people, and rulers were incorporated into day-to-day politics and strategically instrumentalized by the media, whereby political forces played a decisive role in shaping the final form of the predictions themselves. Major events in Serbian history, such as the May Coup, are described in various versions of the "Kremna Prophecy", which underwent continual additions and modifications. This case study, with particular attention to the roles of Pera Todorović and Čedomilj Mijatović, seeks to show that the primary social function of the prophecy was not to forecast future events, as it claimed, but to legitimize the present and reinterpret the past in line with current political circumstances. Prophecies thus become narratives used both to interpret and construct reality, and to legitimize the political establishment that disseminates these interpretations through the media. The accuracy of the predictions themselves, as will be demonstrated, is of secondary importance; the credibility of the prophets is established retrospectively, through the repetition of supposedly fulfilled predictions concerning events that occurred prior to the prophecy’s public disclosure. This "vicious circle" offers valuable insight into the way politics can use prophecy as both a symbol and part of national identity, ultimately serving to resolve specific societal crises by framing contemporary political developments as the inevitable outcome of destiny or the will of a "higher power."