A century after they were recorded by a priest, the prophecies of two illiterate Serbian peasants are offering a hope and a vision of redemption to Serbs. PNS commentator Branko Dimitrovitch, one of Belgrade's leading playwrights and directors in the 1970s and early 80s, has lived in exile in the United States.

After three years of fighting for their dream of a Greater Serbia, Serbs are turning to their most famous prophets for hope, as they have done for nearly a century. Ironically, the Kremna Prophecies, named after the village where the prophets lived, predict that the dream will never happen.

The last time I saw the village of Kremna 15 years ago, it looked like any American frontier town -- with one hotel and bar, a steam-powered sawmill, a narrow gauge railway for passenger trains traveling from Belgrade to Sarajevo and points beyond. Since then, the trains have grown faster and bigger and been rerouted.

Kremna is where Mitar Tarabic lived in the latter half of the 19th century, an illiterate shepherd, a loner who enjoyed the company of his flock of sheep more than the company of men or women.

When and why Mitar started predicting things is not known. But at some point he began confiding things he'd "been told" to the local Orthodox priest, including -- it turned out with absolute accuracy -- the time and circumstances of his own death. After Mitar died his nephew, Milos, inherited "the gift." Whereas Mitar attributed his knowledge of things to come to "some force," Milos said his knowledge came directly from his uncle.

Skeptic that he was, the priest Zachary Zacharic nevertheless wrote down the predictions out of pure curiosity. The Tabarics predicted there would be three World Wars and that the priest himself would die the same year the first war ended. When in fact Serbia was occupied by Austrian and Bulgarian troops in World War I and the Serbian army was bogged down in Macedonia, troops in the trenches had only one question for those who made it through enemy lines with news from Serbia: "Is the priest from Kremna still alive?"

The priest died and the war ended in the same year -- 1918.

Not surprisingly, World War I gave the Kremna Prophecy new currency. The Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences published those portions that remained of the original manuscript, along with commentaries from distinguished academics.

After World War II, the communist authorities tried to bury the prophecy. Not only had the Tabarics predicted Tito's death "at the old age, after loosing one leg," they also claimed the death would be followed by "lots of troubles with neighbors who would all unite against the Serbs." Ultimately, the Serbs would have to accept the fact that they would be living "here and there," never realizing their ambition for a Greater Serbia.

A new book about the prophecy, prepared by two Belgrade journalists in 1986, has gone through numerous editions, indicating that like myself many Serbs have it in their homes.

Despite its grim predictions about a Serbian diaspora, the book offers Serbs a reassuring vision of the future. World War III -- presumably between the "big empire across the water" (the United States) and "the Red Emperor" (Russia) -- will begin "when aroma deserts the wild flowers, when mercy deserts men, when rivers lose their health ... Those armies that will fight on land will not suffer that much, neither will suffer too much those that will be on sea. But those that will be flying in the sky will take the biggest casualties."

Serbians themselves will not be involved in the war, the prophecy claims, although "the war will be fought in the sky above our heads..."

The prophets do not say who will win World War III. Rather, they predict that it will be followed by one world government, one universal faith (a word they used not just for Christianity but for communism), and one clean source of energy that will replace oil, coal and atomic energy. In this period people will live long and happy lives -- so long, in fact, that "they will forget when they were born."

As Serbia becomes the pariah of the international community, the Kremna Prophecy describes a more redemptive role. That many Serbs are eagerly embracing it is clear from the numerous quotations that now appear on the Internet, often accompanied by lengthy commentaries.

Yes, Serbia will have to accept defeat, these commentators aver. But hasn't Serbia always stood up to bullies -- from the mighty Austrian Empire in World War I to the Nazis in World War II? This time around it is not the Saddams and the Milosevics who threaten world peace, it is the United States and its trigger-happy foreign policy. While those who try to mess with Serbia may win in the short run, they will ultimately lose the big war. Unless they wake up and smell the wild flowers.