Belgrade -- Serbia's position in European geopolitical imaginings -- Highlanders and lowlanders -- Tender-hearted criminals and the reverse Pygmalion -- Serbian jeremiads : too much character, too little kultur -- Glorious pasts and imagined continuities : the most ancient people -- Narrative cycles : from Kosovo to Jadovno -- "The wish to be a Jew," or, The power of the Jewish trope -- Garbled genres : conspiracy theories, everyday life, and the poetics of opacity -- Mille vs. transition : a super informant in the slushy swamp of Serbian politics -- Conclusion: Chrono-tropes and awakenings -- Filmography.