Quotes of the Day

It was a hero's welcome such as Serbia has rarely seen: more than 50,000 people gathered in a central Belgrade square on Sunday night to welcome home Marija Serifovic, the winner of the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest. Prior to her arrival from Helsinki, police cleared the 16-km road from the airport into the city in order to speed her passage, and a banner draped across the City Hall read Ave Marija.

"I won for Serbia, I won for all of you!" the 22-year-old singer proclaimed to the cheering crowd. "It's a new chapter for a new Serbia." If, indeed, there is a tonic for struggling nations to be derived from triumphing in this annual contest of camp and kitsch — won last year by a Finnish rock band in monster costumes — then few needed it as much as the Serbians did. Days before Saturday's Eurovision finals, the parliament chose the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party leader Tomislav Nikolic as its speaker. A divisive holdover from Serbia's tortured past, Nikolic had served as vice premier in the government of former dictator Slobodan Milosevic. True to form, he caused an outrage recently by vowing to cut Serbia's ties with the West and eventually merge the country with Russia — no easy task, considering the countries are not neighbors. Nikolic was forced to resign only hours before Serifovic's plane landed from Helsinki. Soon after her return, Serifovic became the object of a parliamentary debate, as legislators from various parties each claimed her support. "Marija Serifovic and her mother Verica both endorsed our party during the [January] election campaign," claimed Rajko Djuric, a chairman of the Serbian Roma Union, a party representing ethnic gypsies. "This is a shameless lie," retorted Aleksandar Vucic of the Radical Party. "Jasko Serifovic, Marija's grandfather, has been a member of our party since 1995." The debate was interrupted by the singer herself, when she paid a short visit to the parliament on Monday. "I am politically neutral and I intend to stay that way," she told the legislators in the parliament's lounge. "I keep my hands off politics, and I expect the politicians to keep theirs off my music."

But staying away from politics is hard in Serbia, as Serifovic must be aware. In the weeks prior to the Eurovision contest, the ascending pop singer was subjected to vicious attacks by Serbia's virulently nationalistic tabloids, some of which focused on her gypsy ethnicity. Others derided her looks, declaring that she was "too ugly to represent Serbia," or purported to expose her as a lesbian. In interviews, Serifovic has persistently declined to discuss her private life and her sexual orientation.

The most outlandish story about the Eurovision singer appeared in the Serbian tabloid newspaper Press a few days before the contest took place. It claimed that an alliance of Western powers was looking to fix the event in order to ensure Serifovic's victory. Explaining this conspiracy theory, the paper wrote: "Lulled by a triumph in Helsinki, Serbs are expected to calmly swallow the imminent secession of Kosovo." The status of Kosovo, the southern Serbian province populated mostly by ethnic Albanians, is currently being debated in the United Nations Security Council. The E.U. and U.S. favor granting the territory independence from Serbia, while Moscow sides with Belgrade in opposing it.Still, the same newspaper was no less ecstatic than its rivals when Serifovic actually won: Euromarija! screamed a giant headline, accompanied by a sycophantic story. For one day, at least, old conflicts were forgotten and the nation was united in celebration.

• DEJAN ANASTASIJEVIC
• As Serbians hail their returning Eurovision hero Maria Serifovic, the country's political factions clamor to claim her as their own. Where pop and politics collide