Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs: The History of a National Idea 9781805390435, 9781805390442

Table of contents :
Contents
Illustrations
Preface
Introduction. The Naming and Origins of the Yugoslav Idea
Chapter 1. In Search of a Path to Yugoslav Unification
Chapter 2. Marko Kraljević in the Age of Capitalism
Chapter 3. Turning the Austro-Hungarian Yugoslavs against the Serbs
Chapter 4. The Memory of Fallen Soldiers as a Seed of Discord
Chapter 5. The Father of the Modern Yugoslav Idea
Chapter 6. Creating the New Nation-State
Chapter 7. Celebrating the Unity of the Nation with Three Names
Chapter 8. The Yugoslav Nation-State as a Mosaic, Not a Melting Pot of Peoples
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

YUGOSLAVIA WITHOUT YUGOSLAVS

YUGOSLAVIA WITHOUT YUGOSLAVS The History of a National Idea

Božidar Jezernik Original Serbian Text Translated by Lucy Stevens and Vuk Šećerović, with New and Revised Text from the Author

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

Published in 2023 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com English-language edition © 2023 Božidar Jezernik Serbian-language edition © 2018 Božidar Jezernik This book is a revised and supplemented version of Jugoslavija, zemlja snova by Biblioteka XX vek (2018) All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Jezernik, Božidar, author, translator. Title: Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs: the history of a national idea / Božidar Jezernik ; translated from the Serbian by Božidar Jezernik [and two others]. Other titles: Jugoslavija, zemlja snova. English Description: New York : Berghahn Books, 2023. | “Originally published as “Jugoslavija, zemlja snova” by Biblioteka XX vek (2018).” | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023000715 (print) | LCCN 2023000716 (ebook) | ISBN 9781805390435 (hardback) | ISBN 9781805390442 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Yugoslavs—Ethnic identity. | Yugoslavia—History—Philosophy. | Nationalism—Yugoslavia—History. | National characteristics, Yugoslav. | Group identity—Yugoslavia. | Balkan Peninsula—Ethnic relations—History—20th century. Classification: LCC DR1248 .J4913 2023 (print) | LCC DR1248 (ebook) | DDC 305.8918/204971—dc23/eng/20230118 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023000715 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023000716

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-80539-043-5 hardback ISBN 978-1-80539-044-2 ebook https://doi.org/10.3167/9781805390435

Contents

List of Illustrations

vi

Preface

ix

Introduction. The Naming and Origins of the Yugoslav Idea

1

Chapter 1. In Search of a Path to Yugoslav Unification

36

Chapter 2. Marko Kraljević in the Age of Capitalism

54

Chapter 3. Turning the Austro-Hungarian Yugoslavs against the Serbs

80

Chapter 4. The Memory of Fallen Soldiers as a Seed of Discord

103

Chapter 5. The Father of the Modern Yugoslav Idea

129

Chapter 6. Creating the New Nation-State

159

Chapter 7. Celebrating the Unity of the Nation with Three Names

190

Chapter 8. The Yugoslav Nation-State as a Mosaic, Not a Melting Pot of Peoples

215

Bibliography

258

Index

291

Illustrations

Figure 0.1. Ethnographic Map of the Yugoslavs (1918). “Serbs, Croats, Slovenes—Yugoslavs—are one people. For this reason, they seek the unification of all their lands into one free nation-state.” Unknown author and publisher. Source: private collection of the author.

4

Figure 0.2. Miroslav Hubmajer as an insurgent in Herzegovina. Published in the Humoristische Blätter, October 10, 1875. Drawn by Karel Klíč. Source: private collection of the author.

21

Figure 2.1. Yugoslav rally after the Serbian victory in the First Balkan War. Dubrovnik, November 24, 1912. Photographer unknown. Source: private collection of the author.

55

Figure 2.2. The Smile of a Fallen (Serbian) Soldier. “It is sweet to die for the fatherland!” Photo from the Great War Album, by Major Andre Popović (1918–20). Source: private collection of the author.

58

Figure 2.3. “The famous event of two Slovene volunteers.” Caricature from the publication Balkanska vojna v karikaturi in sliki (The Balkan War in Caricature and Picture), April 12, 1913. Source: private collection of the author.

61

Figure 2.4. “Gosposvetsko polje—Slovensko Kosovo” (Zollfeld— Slovenian Kosovo). In Slovene history, Zollfeld was important as it was where the Princely Stone stood. It was at the Princely Stone that the Dukes of Carantania were installed. Published by Umetniška propaganda, Ljubljana, 1918. Source: private collection of the author.

67

Figure 3.1. “Hurray, to Belgrade / Serbia must be ours!” AustroHungarian propaganda postcard. Published in 1914 by Ludwig Mayer, Munich. Source: private collection of the author.

81

Illustrations • vii

Figure 3.2. “On the graves of our enemy.” Unknown photographer. The photo was taken in eastern Serbia in early 1915 and sent as a postcard to Ljubljana. Source: private collection of Milan Škrabec. Used with permission.

91

Figure 3.3. Avgust Jenko, a Slovene volunteer from AustriaHungary in the Serbian army. Killed in action on August 16/17, 1914. Source: private collection of the author.

96

Figure 4.1. The Kosovo Temple (or Vidovdan Temple), model (1918). Designed by Ivan Meštrović. The temple was never realized. Source: private collection of the author.

105

Figure 4.2. Monument to the fallen (Serbian) soldiers in Mladenovac. Postcard published by the bookshop of Jele Ilić (1918). Source: private collection of the author.

109

Figure 4.3. Unveiling of the monument to the fallen soldiers, “Kranjski Janez” ( John of Carniola). Dovje, May 24, 1925. Photographer unknown. Source: private collection of the author.

121

Figure 4.4. “For the heroes of our homeland, for our compatriots.” Monument to fallen (Slovene) soldiers in Trebnje, unveiled in September 1933. Source: private collection of the author.

122

Figure 5.1. “Minister without portfolio Dr. Niko Županić, the Spiritual Father of Yugoslavia.” Photo published by Ilustrirani Slovenec, February 7, 1925. Ilustrirani Slovenec commented on the photo that it was not known who “the spiritual mother of Yugoslavia” was, adding ironically that “this was apparently not Zupanić’s party colleagues Lazica Marković or Velizar Janković.” Source: private collection of the author.

150

Figure 6.1. Scene from the play The Empress of the Balkans by Knjaz Nikola and the Knjaz’s family. Postcard published by N. S. Bjeladinović, Kotor. Published before 1910. Source: private collection of the author.

167

Figure 6.2. Commemoration of the fifth slet (literary “flocking of birds,” used for mass gymnastic festivals) of the župa (union) of Svetozar Miletić. Sombor, June 5, 1927. Unknown publisher. Source: private collection of the author.

179

Figure 7.1. “The Founding of Yugoslavia.” A manifestation that took place in Ljubljana, October 29, 1918. Photo by Fr. Grabietz. Source: private collection of the author.

201

viii • Illustrations

Figure 7.2. Vera Bojničić, October 29, 1918. Published by Rudolf Polaček, Zagreb. Source: private collection of the author.

204

Figure 8.1. “On the World Stage.” Published by Umetniška propaganda, Ljubljana, 1918. Source: private collection of the author.

220

Figure 8.2. “Do you want good for your country? Vote for the Radicals!” Pašić and the National Radical Party defend the Vidovdan Constitution against Stjepan Radić, leader of the Croatian Peasant Party, the communists, and envious foreign powers. National Radical Party leaflet published before the elections in the 1920s. Source: private collection of the author.

235

Preface

It has been a hundred years since Yugoslavia emerged as a child of World War I, dubbed the Third Balkan War by some, and more than a quarter of a century since it disappeared from the geopolitical map of the world. Nonetheless, it lingers in the public imagination as a fascinating mystery, a persistent source of conflicting mythologies. Indeed, contemporary narratives about Yugoslavia recall the Indian parable of the five blind men and the elephant: each put his hand on a different part of the elephant’s body, and so one—after feeling its leg—claimed that it resembled a tree, another—after grasping its tail—claimed that it resembled a snake, and so on. In some versions of the story, the men came to suspect that the others were being dishonest, and they clashed, for each of them claimed absolute truth on the basis of his subjective experience, while at the same time ignoring the subjective experiences of the others. The process of Yugoslavia’s collapse in the 1990s yielded horrific images and caused large amounts of bloodshed, from which one usually concludes that the tragedy of its sudden dissolution offers proof that it was built on unreliable foundations, that it contained too many contradictions to survive. Four wars that broke out in the short span of the first half of the 1990s were interpreted as evidence that this country was burdened with a “surplus of history,” with too much internal strife, too many intolerant nationalisms. This, however, was not the case. In fact, the fundamental difference between Yugoslavia and the other nation-states of the time was not an excess of history or an overwhelming social and political weight that the young nation could not throw off, nor were Yugoslavia’s nationalisms too vicious for its disputes to be settled at the ballot box. Closer examination reveals that the story of surplus history lacks any foundation, that Yugoslavia’s problem lay not in a surplus but rather in an absence of nationalism. Yugoslavia first appeared as an idea in the Habsburg Empire, in the wake of the Revolutions of 1848, also known as the Springtime of Nations, as a romantic icon of modernization and progress. Yugoslavia was imagined in the early days as “a bridge over which people pass from slavery to

x • Preface

freedom,”1 from the here and now to the Land of Dreams where all South Slavs, regardless of differences in language, former affiliations, and beliefs, would live happily together as a single nation, large and strong enough to compete successfully under the conditions of a new, capitalist system. In the mid-nineteenth century, the Revolutions of 1848 awakened national consciousness in the Slavic South. Sima Marković, for instance, had little trouble proving that the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes had independently developed into three distinct nations.2 At the time of the formation of these three nations, however, the name Jugoslavija appeared, denoting an “imagined community” of all Slavs in Southeastern Europe. Thus, the Yugoslav idea, which imagined a common nation-state of all Yugoslavs, was not a singular and coherent one from the beginning. Rather, several versions of the idea existed simultaneously, and their proponents, competing for the hearts and minds of the people, variously cooperated with each other, counteracted each other, and fought against each other.3 Since hopes for the establishment of an independent state within Austria-Hungary were rather unrealistic, such hopes were instead channeled into the Yugoslav idea, which was disseminated as a specifically cultural association that could exist within the imperial framework. And although the Yugoslav idea was presented as an essentially cultural concept, the nascent Yugoslav nationalism that inevitably emerged from this ideology was, like all nationalisms, charged with clear political tendencies. As a contemporary Swiss politician and jurist, Johann Kaspar Bluntschli, wrote, it was a zeitgeist shaped by the general conviction that the world should be divided into as many states as there were nations: “Each nation, one state. Each state, one national entity.”4 Nations, then, sought political unions that included all people of common ethnicity and language as equal citizens and sovereign peoples. Yugoslavia, however, was always more than just a name. Although clashing views about the past and the future led to the disintegration of Yugoslavia at the end of the twentieth century, that does not mean that the dreams of a better future from which it was born have lost their appeal. Indeed, we can use the words of Walter Bagehot and say that Yugoslavia was the product of men who were regarded by their contemporaries as dreamers who, as the saying goes, “walked into a well from looking at the stars.”5 It is one of the aims of this book to rescue these dreamers, as E. P. Thompson put it, “from the enormous condescension of posterity.”6 That the dreams of Yugoslavia were in harmony with the spirit of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the aspirations of the Yugoslavs is best illustrated by the fact that, in its short history, it was founded not once but twice. Moreover, although it disintegrated twice, it never “died a

Preface • xi

natural death”;7 first, it was crushed by external enemies, and in the end it disintegrated due to internal rivalries. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, nationalisms flourished most during the bloody tragedies of wartime, as if they drew their vitality from the bloodshed of the people: the more blood that was spilled, the stronger the national pride. Gathering under opposing banners instilled patriotism in people, who felt the urge to rally around a common cause and take action; it fostered and celebrated courage, self-sacrifice and heroism, ambition and greed, but also fear and hatred. This book, therefore, examines how the Yugoslav idea grew and changed, from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to the end of World War I, when the victory of the Entente and the legitimization of the principle of the self-determination of nations gave birth to the nation-state of the Yugoslavs. The Yugoslav state could not have existed without the principle of self-determination proposed by President Woodrow Wilson in his Fourteen Points for the Paris Peace Conference. But it would not have come into being if the Yugoslav political leadership had not credibly represented, on the international stage, the idea that the Yugoslavs wanted to unite as a single nation in a common nation-state, and if, at the same time, the Yugoslav people had not accepted this idea as their own. When Yugoslavia was founded, it united within its borders, for the first time in history, almost all Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, as well as Montenegrins, Bosniaks, and Macedonians, who had been separated by geography and history for centuries and had had almost no contact with each other, yet had never been completely isolated from each other. It was conceived as a nation-state of a single nation; nevertheless, it was not christened with one name, but rather as a nation-state of three “tribes,” one nation with three names. Although the people of Yugoslavia enthusiastically cheered the founding of the state, a dispute soon broke out between the political parties over the question of whether the Yugoslavs were one nation or two or three nations—or perhaps even more—which eventually determined the entire political life of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. For five years, this question was debated; the political parties were concerned exclusively with the interests and problems of the nation to which they belonged. A deep gulf formed between the peoples, giving rise to mistrust, which made any common identity impossible. After just five years in the common country, in the elections of March 18, 1923, the people rallied behind the Serbian, Croatian, and Slovene national flags, and abandoned the Yugoslav one. In short, each part of the single nation with three names voted for itself and for its particular interests: the Serbs for the centralist system, the Croats and Slovenes for autonomy.

xii • Preface

The Yugoslav idea was thus practically dead long before King Aleksandar gave his kingdom a single name to preserve “national and state unity and integrity.” By christening the state with a single name, the king sought to emphasize not only the unitary form of government, but also the homogeneity of that government and the unity of the nation that formed it, with a view to balancing the existing tribal diversity and division.8 The poet and diplomat Jovan Dučić was enthusiastic about this bold and cheerful cutting of the Gordian knot created by the “name that emphasized the difference between the three tribes rather than the identity of the blood of the nation and the ideal of the nation.”9 One blood and one state! One nation and one name! One destiny and one formula for life! One homeland and one patriotism! One future and one duty! One language and one national culture! One tradition and one history!10

King Aleksandar was held in such high esteem by his subjects that he might have succeeded in creating the Yugoslav identity.11 But it was not to be, for the fear that the king might succeed guided the hand of the assassin who shot him in Marseille on October 9, 1934. My analysis is not based on the common practice of deciphering the past specifically through documents, treaties, and proclamations. Indeed, it is obvious that many contracts containing false promises were signed and numerous documents were written with secret intentions that cannot be discerned between the lines. A vivid example is the Corfu Declaration, which served as the legal basis for the newly established nation-state of the Yugoslavs: it was signed by Ante Trumbić on behalf of the Yugoslav Committee and by Nikola Pašić on behalf of the government of the Kingdom of Serbia. They put their pens to paper after weeks of negotiations during which the content of the declaration had been thoroughly discussed, and yet each left with his own distinct impressions of the words and their meanings, and his own motives, which led to immediate discrepancies in the implementation of the declaration.12 The same was true of the other participants in the Corfu Conference of July 1917. The stated aim of the Corfu negotiations was to unite the South Slav citizens of the Dual Monarchy with the citizens of the kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro in a single nation-state, and yet the oldest Yugoslav state (Montenegro) is not even mentioned by name in this document13—a telling omission that speaks volumes about the fickle nature of political documents and their trustworthiness as communicators of social reality. Like any other product of historical development, the idea of the Yugoslav nation-state was subject to dissent and change; however, this does

Preface • xiii

not mean that, from today’s perspective, we can fully understand the motivations and emotions of those who identified themselves as Yugoslavs. Now that the belief in an afterlife held by those buried in the ancient Egyptian pyramids has disappeared, we might consider the pyramids monumentally absurd. However, as Andrzej Mencwel (2013) has reminded us, such a view does not tell us much about what the pyramids meant to those who worked to build these massive architectural marvels. The same is true of those who worked hard to build the Temple of Vid, as Ivan Meštrović called it, and make the Yugoslav dreams come true. If we exclusively look at the hostile attitudes of the different Yugoslav nationalities toward each other, which led to the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, we cannot see that those who invented the Yugoslav idea envisioned the Yugoslavs as a single nation along the lines of Italy and Germany. It would be unusual for a story that begins in the wrong place to end with the right explanations, especially if that story begins with a tragic ending and seeks an explanation for why a happy beginning was impossible. This is the case with the history of the Yugoslav idea, typically examined through the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s and usually interpreted by projecting the present onto the past. The bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia and the establishment of seven nation-states on its former territory is taken as the ultimate confirmation of the impossibility of the Yugoslav idea. It is not that those who use this method of interpretation are ignorant of the basic facts; rather, they isolate them, omit them, or simply ignore them when they do not fit into their story. In this way, they have constructed a story that is now taken for granted, with the result that any effort to find a more viable interpretation seems superfluous. Today, decades after Yugoslavia’s disintegration, it is easy to argue that such an outcome was inevitable; however, Yugoslavia could have survived the 1990s if the nation-state had succeeded in turning peasants into Yugoslavs after its founding in 1918, and if all the special circumstances had not converged in a widening and ultimately unstoppable stream. Politicians and journalists may be the main culprits responsible for this state of affairs, but they are not solely to blame. Historians also do their part. In order to find a way out of the labyrinth they have erected, we must look at the history of the Yugoslav idea from the beginning and trace its increasing popularity over time, taking into account its strengths and weaknesses. This is the aim of the present book: to examine the period in which the Yugoslav idea received its name, what gave it strength over the years, and what went wrong after it successfully led to the creation of the Yugoslav nation-state.

xiv • Preface

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Proroković, 1902, 2. Marković, 1923a, 108. See, for example, Malin, 1925, 5; Gross, 1968–69, 140. Bluntschli, 1870, 23. Bagehot, 1872, 187. Thompson, 1963, 12. Magaš, 1993, xiv. Kostić, 1934, 2. Dučić, 1929, 1. Ibid. See, for example, Dobrivojević, 2006, 51–54, 324. See, for example, Jedan koji zna, 1919, 1; Paulová, 1924, 497. See, for example, Popović, 1919, 20–21.

Introduction

The Naming and Origins of the Yugoslav Idea

R

If we wish to understand the concept of a nation and its great power, both creative and destructive, we must examine its history. And what do we find there? First of all, we find that the concept of národnost (nationality) is a “fruit of modern times,”1 and that the idea of the nation was a novelty in the nineteenth century, without a historical precedent.2 Previously, all that counted was belonging to a town, a village, a state, or a religion—not belonging to a nation. Political group consciousness only emerged with the notion of a sovereign political community, communitas regni. Almost simultaneously, we encounter the political concept of patria (otadžbina in Serbian, Vaterland in German), which was primarily an expression of a class-based “state patriotism” closely linked to the concept of fidelitas (political loyalty). Thus, although people were aware, to some extent, that they belonged to a particular nationality as early as the Middle Ages and early modernity, this nationality did not signify a political community for them, nor was it central to their political loyalty.3 In the nineteenth century, the idea of the nation was still unknown and unimaginable to most Central Europeans. Thus, in the period between 1844 and 1851, the editors of Kmetijske in rokodelske novice (Agriculture and Handicraft News) felt compelled to explain to their readers the difference between the words narodno (vernacular) and nerodno (awkward).4 People in other Central European countries had similar difficulties in understanding the concept of the nation.5 As things began to change across the continent and all of Europe was being reshaped and influenced by the

2 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

concept of nationhood, the Yugoslavs did not want to be left behind; they too wanted to develop and prosper.6 The nation is an idea that was conceived by a few national awakeners— that is, poets, philosophers, historians, and philologists—who constructed the collective spirit of their nation by employing emotionally charged language, evocative symbols, and powerful rituals to inspire the people and “to nationalize their non-national community.”7 As used to be said, a nation does not fully awaken from its long slumber until it can freely develop all of its potential and participate in the general competition for social progress. In a relatively short time, the idea of the nation proved to be a powerful galvanizing force that was historically unprecedented and stronger than dynastic loyalty or religious affiliation. In the mid-nineteenth century, as the idea of the nation became increasingly dominant, there was a geopolitical reshaping of the European continent according to the new principles of nationality. Thus, the Count of Cavour argued that Italy was not just a geographical designation, as Prince Metternich used to say, but also a political fact. Austrian chancellor Count Friedrich Ferdinand von Beust, on the other hand, resentfully said that he no longer saw Europe (“Ich sehe kein Europa mehr”).8 In order for the imagined kingdom of South Slavs to come into being, it first needed a name. Today, there are three theories about the origins of its name. Some believe that the name was coined in Croatia by Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer, who was “the uncrowned king of Yugoslav intellectuals for more than half a century.”9 Some think it was conceived in Belgrade.10 Still others claim that “Yugoslavia” was invented by Petar II Petrović Njegoš, Prince-Bishop of Montenegro, whose epic poem Lažni car Šćepan Mali (The False Tsar Stephen the Little) was published in Zagreb in 1851, with an inscription on the title page that read, “in Yugoslavia.”11 None of these theories, however, is correct. The name Jugoslavija (Yugoslavia) first appeared in an article in the newspaper Slovenija in Ljubljana on Friday, October 19, 1849.12 The author of the article declared that he was interested not in politics, but only in the literary unification of Yugoslavs within the AustroHungary Empire. For this reason, he referred to the language they spoke as the common Yugoslav language and said that he was not calling for arms, “but only for spiritual, literary union,” and argued for the assertion of the “one and only Yugoslav literary language.”13 In his opinion, the Yugoslav language and the attachment to the Yugoslav “national tree” should also be accepted by the Slovenes, who were “a small nation with many enemies” and therefore needed a strong ally, which—according to Bukovšek—they already had because they were “a branch on the great, strong Yugoslav tree”:

Introduction • 3

Our task is only to take care that this branch does not break off, lest it should dry up naturally, which would damage the whole tree. If a limb is cut off, the flesh will soon rot and decay, and the rest of the body will lose strength and hardly be able to perform its functions. If the Slovenes were to separate themselves from the rest of Jugoslavija, they would lose strength and in time perish, as unfortunately happened to so many neighboring peoples in Carinthia and Styria who were Germanized, and the rest of Jugoslavija would become weaker.14

In the mid-nineteenth century, many Slavs, hoping for Yugoslav unity, also looked to the Habsburg Empire in hopes of Yugoslav unity—first in culture, then in politics. Among the Slovenes, the most active organization in this regard was the Slovenija Society from Graz. In 1848, Matija Majar, a member of this society, wrote a paper in which he explained the necessity of unification with Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia. A good example of cooperation between the highest representatives of the Yugoslav peoples was the proclamation of Count Josip Jelačić as Ban of Croatia. He was enthroned by Patriarch Josif Rajačić and warmly congratulated by Vladika Petar II Petrović Njegoš: “Here everyone, young and old, prays to God for your health and well-being.” In his speech, Ban Jelačić told those present, “We are all one people; we have left behind both Serbs and Croats.”15 In 1849, Bishop Strossmayer wrote that the most important “task that lies before the Yugoslavs is to come together, to unite, and to unify.” In 1850, at the invitation of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, Slovene, Croatian, and Serbian scholars and writers met in Vienna, where they agreed on a common literary language. Similar meetings took place in Zagreb and Ljubljana, where, in addition to literary topics, “unity to the end” was discussed.16

Celebrating a Glorious Past The new idea of a single, permanent, and indivisible nation required the firm foundation of a homogeneous, coherent historical perspective, free from doubt and uncertainty, which signified a predestined continuity that justified and vindicated the nation for all time.17 A common name and language were a sine qua non in the process of nation-building, but knowledge of the glorious national past was also necessary in the creation of a common path that would lead to a bright future through modernization and progress. If a nation does not know where it has come from, it will never know where it is going. Remembering the glorious past was a way of encouraging the members of the nation to overcome the trials and tribulations in the present by looking toward a better future. This was probably

Figure 0.1. Ethnographic Map of the Yugoslavs (1918). “Serbs, Croats, Slovenes—Yugoslavs—are one people. For this reason, they seek the unification of all their lands into one free nation-state.” Unknown author and publisher. Source: private collection of the author.

4 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

Introduction • 5

what the Slovene politician Lovro Toman meant when he said: “The future is the offspring of the present and the past.”18 Through legends about famous historical events and figures from their past, members of the nation constructed a sense of self-worth in relation to members of other nations, learned to stand in solidarity with one another, and thus contributed to cultural homogenization within their nation and drew a line of demarcation between Us and Them. These legends were carefully selected for the writing of history. The awakeners of the nation created a fabulous national past by emphasizing the great, the noble, and the admirable, and leaving out all that was inglorious and shameful. The selection of historical events and personalities to be remembered by society had far-reaching significance. Although it was not made explicit, this selection showed that national leaders propagated certain political and ideological beliefs and social, political, and cultural values. They used the past as a kind of storehouse from which they selectively chose events and personalities they wanted members of their nation to either remember or forget. “Memory,” James Young wrote, “is never shaped in a vacuum; the motives of memory are never pure.”19 In 1882, the French philosopher and linguist Ernest Renan said in his much-cited lecture at Paris Sorbonne that forgetting is an important aspect of the process of nation-building. Every nation must have its history, its collective memory. However, the preference for certain historical figures and past events that members of a particular nation must know necessarily means that there are others that have been selectively consigned to collective oblivion.20 “Where the service of the past has been urgently needed, truth has ever been at a discount.”21 In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there were many enthusiasts eager to discover new information about their historical ancestors; all nations wanted to reconstruct their history and assumed that they had a glorious past. This spurred many researchers to eagerly search for forgotten information about literature, art, music, and folklore.22 Knowledge of a nation’s history and traditions helped its members better understand themselves and their nation’s status in the international community. In this way, an active and living connection was established between the present and the past; doubts and ambiguities were effectively abandoned and hope was aroused among the nation’s members. Indeed, everything was done with the aim of making one’s nation, its culture, and its past admirable, worthy of all the hard work and care of the nation’s members, and even worthy of fighting for.23 The nationalists constructed the national past according to their ideas and beliefs, thus determining the path of the nation’s future progress and development.24 Given that the Slavic lands in the nineteenth century were “backward,” “underdevel-

6 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

oped,” and “inactive,” and that their societies were still in their “infancy” and lacked modern institutions, such as industry, railways, and educational systems, the nation’s emancipators, impressed by the zeitgeist of the “century of miracles,”25 saw history as a ladder on which one moved from lower to higher stages of development.26 “The Germans,” the Bohemian poet sings, “have reached their day, the English their midday, the French their afternoon, the Italians their evening, the Spaniards their night, but the Slavs stand on the threshold of the morning.”27 The patriots who worked diligently and selflessly for the spiritual and physical well-being of the nation were aware of the importance of history to national identity, for it was historical consciousness, in their view, that gave legitimacy to the new political communities (nations). In their efforts, they also received ample support from academia,28 which described new political groups (nations) as entities that had always existed as such. The romantic historicism that patriots resorted to in the study of their nations’ pasts provided evidence for their view that national feeling and identification existed continuously. Thus, the idealists and dreamers tended to attach great importance to the evidence they found without being critical of their sources, leading one Hungarian scholar, for example, to claim that he had “proved” that Adam was Hungarian.29 Historians made it their business to interpret what was authentic folk history; ethnographers, in particular, strove to discover authentic—that is, characteristic—elements of material folk culture, ethnic traditions and customs, folk songs, and art. Thanks to the press, the facts discovered by scholars were made accessible to a wide audience, while exhibitions in galleries and museums presented these as self-evident and permanent. Since the present did not support the glory of the newly awakened idea of Slavic nationality, the (South) Slavs established themselves historically through a “utopian projection.”30 According to this conception, the Slavs were the most glorious of all peoples in the world; this was confirmed by the most popular interpretation of the etymological origin of their name, derived from the word slava (glory).31 However, slava implied that the ancient Slavs were warlike and some found it unacceptable that as peaceloving a people as the Slavs would choose such a name for themselves, so another interpretation of their name was proposed, according to which the original word contained the vowel “o” (slovo) instead of the vowel “a” (slava). Slovene Catholic priest Franc Serafin Metelko held, for instance, that the ancient Slavs called their Latin neighbors Vlachs, a name denoting those who chatter or babble, derived from the verb vlachovati, meaning to babble, while they called their Germanic neighbors Nemci, viz., those who are mute or dumb, as opposed to a person who spoke the language of

Introduction • 7

the Slavs, who would have been called a Sloven or Slovan (Slav), that is, a speaking person.32 As sources of national pride were not easily found either in the present or in the known past, the most ardent enthusiasts endeavored to find them in unknown past ages. In their emancipatory zeal, they followed in the footsteps of nationalists throughout Europe, claiming that their language was the oldest language in the world and had once been spoken by Adam and Eve. The veracity of this claim was bolstered by the “fact” that Adam, the first man, supposedly received his name when God called out, Od-amo! (Come here!), and when asked where his wife was, Adam replied, Evo je! (Here she is!).33 After the first man and woman, there were many other famous “Slavs.” Among the most glorious were Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, whose Slavic ethnicity was “confirmed” by his name, supposedly spelled Ne buhod no tsar (Not God, but King),34 and Napoleon, the conqueror of Europe, who supposedly received his name in a manner similar to how the first woman received hers: Na pole on (He is in the field).35 The glory that the Slavic peoples enjoyed in those ancient times, and the national pride that they felt, are illustrated by the “fact” that the city of Vienna was called Viden, according to such interpretations, because the city was then a “Vendo-Serbian village.” In those ancient times, the city of Berlin was their brlog (den), where they kept and fed their cattle, and what is now Leipzig was Lipiska, their altar, where they prayed and worshipped under the branching linden trees to Perun, their supreme god who rules the heavens and the thunder, “while the Germans worshipped the frog as their Mother Hulda.”36 These illustrious names and the glorious past of the Slavic people made a great impression not only on the Slavs themselves, but also on many foreigners, causing the Slavs to forget that historically they were still in their “early youth,” and lulling them into dreams of instant modernization and progress. The eyes of the national emancipators were fixed on the West, which they all admired; at the same time, they were aware that their traditional society was backward and underdeveloped. Modernization was a very popular, albeit noble and difficult, goal that could not be achieved by clinging to the old traditions. By definition, it is a form of development in which traditional social norms and values are abandoned in order to achieve progress that runs counter to tradition and traditionalism.37 The national emancipators were aware of the difficult task ahead of them and realized that the goal of modernization could only be achieved with the help of heroes with superhuman powers, and folklore was teeming with such figures. If Marko Kraljević had not been late for the Battle of Kosovo on that fateful day of Vidovdan, history would have taken a very different

8 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

course! If Kralj Matjaž38 wakes up, woe betide anyone who does evil to the Slovenes!

The Emancipatory Power of Yugoslav Nationalism Despite defeats at the Battle of Solferino in 1859 and the Battle of Hradec Králové (Königgrätz) in 1866, which led to the creation of the new nation-states of Italy and Germany, the Habsburg Monarchy made great efforts to turn the tide. As a result of these battles, the Habsburg Empire lost its territories on the western and northern borders, paving the way for widespread nationalist ideology in the multi-ethnic monarchy. Chancellor Count von Beust persuaded Emperor Franz Joseph to accept the Compromise that led to the creation of the Dual Monarchy. By the end of 1867, dualism was officially accepted, despite strong Slavic opposition; Slovene politicians Luka Svetec and Lovro Toman commented that dualism meant “the grave of our [national] life.”39 The newly established Empire and Kingdom of the Double-Headed Black Eagle had a common ruler, His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty, who had power over the army, navy, foreign affairs, etc., but the Austrian government in Vienna and the Hungarian government in Budapest enjoyed roughly equal status in their respective parts of the monarchy. By drawing the border between the German and Hungarian parts of the monarchy, the Compromise divided the Slavs, separated the Czechs from the Slovaks, and left the Slovenes and Dalmatians on one side of the border and the Croats on the other. In an editorial published on October 15, 1870, Josip Jurčič, the editor of the first Slovene daily newspaper Slovenski Narod, explained the impact that the state structure based on dualism had on the national cohesion of the Yugoslav people in the following words: They invented this dualism, and since then it is as if a rock had been put between us and our southern brothers; we are “cis-,” they are “trans-,” but we are both ausland to each other, and when we get newspapers from Croatia we have to pay a kreutzer as compensation for their having come over this rock. We have become much more estranged from each other than is good for our future.40

The statement attributed to Count von Beust, “One must press the Slavs against the wall!” (“Man muss die Slawen an die Mauer drücken!”), speaks volumes about the situation for the majority of the Slav population after the Compromise.41 Thus pressed against the wall, many Slovenes looked to the future with great pessimism. According to the weekly Slovenski Gospodar, most Slovene patriots closed their eyes in anticipation of this final

Introduction • 9

blow to their nationhood, and the general mood among Slovenes was best summed up by France Prešeren: “The old pillars of Slovenia lie on the ground.”42 Frozen to the core by the cold, iron hand of Germanization, they saw their salvation in dependence on other Slavic peoples. In such an atmosphere, Fran Levec wrote to Janko Kersnik on December 29, 1869, that the Slovenes did not need scientific literature, but only fiction and schoolbooks. “What is scientific literature good for? We have no future anyway! We will either be Prussians or Russians!”43 The German-Hungarian Compromise inevitably provoked a reaction. The division of the state caused great concern among the Slavic citizens of the empire and kingdom, who formed the majority of the population. Czech historian and politician František Palacký noted that the day when dualism was proclaimed also marked the birth of Pan-Slavism, albeit in a not-so-friendly form.44 Consequently, the increased pressure on the Slavs increased their resistance.45 The wisdom of the proverb “What is pressed harder jumps higher” was not heeded by Chancellor von Beust and his government, who thought themselves strong enough to stop the clocks—a mistake that had long-term consequences. The conservative, Catholic newspaper Slovenski Gospodar, which first appeared in Maribor in 1867, assured its readers in an article entitled “Is There Still Hope?” that the titanic Slav, who was imagined to be similar to Kralj Matjaž, will make the “old Europe” tremble. After the Compromise, Slovene deputies and members of the intelligentsia focused on their political activities and tried to find solutions to certain problems that people faced. However, they were numerically weak in the Viennese Parliament, so they looked for allies. They found natural allies in other Slavic deputies, an alliance that furthered their common aspirations for the unification of Slavic peoples and strengthened their resistance to pressure from the Germans and Hungarians.46 However, although they considered all Yugoslavs to be their brothers, in reality the Slovenes knew very little about these brothers of theirs. How little they actually knew is best illustrated by the recollection of an Austrian officer who was a native Slovene. In 1866, while sailing on the Sava River from Zemun to Belgrade, he saw a ship with a tricolor flag but did not know whether it was a Serbian or Turkish flag. When he learned that it was a Serbian ship, his heart leapt with joy and he was happy that, for the first time in his life, he had seen a ship with a Slavic flag.47 With the democratization of social life, the idea of the nation began to take hold among the masses and eventually mobilized the broadest strata of the population; it became a material force to which, above all, the blood spilled on the battlefields contributed. It was as if only human blood could sufficiently stimulate people’s imaginations and breathe life into the idea

10 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

of the nation. To this end, every war was desirable and useful, not only wars involving the Slavs, because the most important thing was that the people could associate the realization of their dreams with the victory of one or other of the war parties. Thus, even the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 aroused pro-Yugoslav sympathies among the South Slavs of the Dual Monarchy. When weighing up which side to support under these circumstances, the prevailing opinion among the Slovenes was that allying themselves with other Yugoslavs from the Dual Monarchy represented their only chance of securing their existence and leading a decent life in the future. According to the historian Vasilij Melik, Slovene intellectuals in the 1870s and 1880s interpreted political events in the light of conflicts and competition between three major groups of people: Latins, Germanic peoples, and Slavs.48 This notion was behind the newspaper Slovenski Narod’s interpretation of the outcome of the Franco-Prussian War as a victory of the Germans over the Latins; it also predicted a future conflict between the Germans and the Slavs, in which the Slavs would have to fight “not for domination, but for their freedom, in order to save themselves from these ‘civilized’ people.”49 The Prussian victory in this war came like a bolt from the blue for the vast majority of people and had unforeseen consequences for the political fabric of Europe. The defeat suffered by the French reverberated across the continent. In Austria, Pan-Germanic attitudes and the German influence were strong. There were frequent German nationalist manifestations celebrating Prussian victories, which frightened the Austrian Slavs, who feared that awakened Prussianism meant “national death” for them.50 The idea of a common Yugoslav future as a bulwark against Prussianism seized the masses and became an active force. The Yugoslavs living within the borders of the Dual Monarchy felt the need to “stretch out their hands to one another as true brothers and viribus unitis strive to achieve legally what no tribe alone could even hope to accomplish.”51 At the beginning of Franco-Prussian War, the conservative newspaper Novice gospodarske, obrtniške in narodne sided with the Germans. The day after the war began, this newspaper blamed the outbreak of the war on the “arrogant” Emperor Napoleon III, who allegedly wanted to wage war because he wanted to dominate all of Europe and who should therefore be taught a stern lesson.52 On the other hand, even in the first months of the war, Slovenski Narod took the position that a Prussian victory would also mean a victory of Austrian Germanism over Slavdom. Fearing German arrogance, Slovene and Croat politicians converged in their thinking about the political idea of Yugoslavism. At a meeting in Sisak in November 1870, they decided to work together with the aim of gathering the Yugoslavs into a single community that would unite with Hungary

Introduction • 11

by virtue of Croatian state law and remain within the Habsburg Monarchy.53 However, at the final meeting in Ljubljana on December 1, 1870, the participants did not endorse this plan and, at the request of the Slovenes, refrained from adopting a state-forming resolution. As “honest Austrian citizens,” the participants adopted the resolution known as the Ljubljana Program, proclaiming the “union of the moral and material forces of the South Slavs in the field of literature, economics, and politics.” The South Slavs of the Habsburg Monarchy planned to direct their efforts toward supporting their “brothers living across the border, with whom we are one and the same nation.”54 The Ljubljana Program, which was the first attempt to realize the Yugoslav dream, was supported by the representatives of all the Slavs of the Dual Monarchy, with the exception of Svetozar Miletić, a member of the Hungarian and Croatian parliaments and the mayor of Novi Sad, who was one of the organizers of the first assembly of the United Serbian Youth and later became president of the Association for Serb Liberation and Unification in Cetinje. Of course, the “millennial dreams” and the Ljubljana Program did not come out of nowhere; they were, rather, a by-product of the political struggles that had taken place in the second half of the nineteenth century. Much more radical in his views than his Slovene and Croatian colleagues, Miletić believed that the Ljubljana Program was an endeavor of Austro-Hungarian Slavic politicians that required of him and his people efforts “to preserve something that has no future.” Indeed, he posed the question of what the Habsburg Monarchy was at that moment. In answer to this question, he declared that “it does not exist today,” that in reality there are only “two states, one of which does not even have its own name,55 while the other bears the name of the crown, not of the people; one is in decay, the other in decline.”56 The assertions he made, however, did not quite correspond to the real circumstances at the time. As he stated in an article in the newspaper Zastava on November 22, 1870, Trojedinica (Triple Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia) could not and should not be the “nexus for the crystallization of southern Slavdom, the point of convergence around which people from Old and New Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Dalmatia gather.”57 In other words, for Miletić, who was, “above all,” a Serbian nationalist,58 the unity of the Serbs from Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Montenegro came first. Therefore, he wrote, in order to achieve this unity, “we have blood, money, zeal, and commitment, but for something else [a union that included Croatian and Slovene lands] we have—nothing.”59 Miletić was thus dissatisfied with the Ljubljana Program because he had a different idea of the unity of the South Slavs: while his Croatian and Slovene colleagues, who upheld the principle of legitimacy, looked to the West, Miletić directed his ardent revolutionary gaze to

12 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

the south.60 As the Slovene press observed, he publicly rejected the Ljubljana Program even before he had become acquainted with its content, because, unlike other Yugoslav-oriented Croatian and Slovene politicians, he was guided by the ideal of the “Greater Serbian Crown.”61

Mobilization for the Yugoslav Idea “Wherever I look there is deep peace, the scene of domestic and foreign politics has not been so orderly for a long time as it is now,” wrote Alois von Seiller, the Austro-Hungarian envoy to the Royal Palace in Berlin, on July 10, 1875.62 This idealized picture was shattered when the Herzegovinian Uprising broke out on July 9, 1875. Upon first receiving news of the uprising in Herzegovina, neither governments nor public opinion paid much attention to the event, but the Nevesinje Rifle63 echoed loudly, far and wide, over the hills and mountains of Herzegovina, and “struck straight to the heart of Turkish Empire.”64 The uprising became not only the topic of the day among the highest state dignitaries, but also the subject of numerous reports by a whole network of consulates on the Balkan Peninsula. As a result of the enormous impact it had both on the Balkan Peninsula and abroad, this peasant uprising eventually became a struggle “for the Honorable Cross and Golden Liberty,” a struggle on life and death. Three emperors (the Austrian, German, and Russian emperors) made a concerted effort to pacify the uprising, but each of these three powerful rulers viewed the uprising of the Slav peasantry in the northwestern region of the Ottoman Empire differently—namely, in terms of his own interests. Austria-Hungary and Russia, in particular, watched further developments closely and tried to use the opportunity to realize their expansionist ambitions. Due to the outbreak of insurgencies in Herzegovina and Bosnia, the Dual Monarchy found itself between the Scylla and Charybdis of having (too) many Yugoslavs on its territory and the creation of a large South Slav state on its borders that would emerge after the annexation of BosniaHerzegovina to Serbia and Montenegro.65 The dilemma faced by the empire and the kingdom was much discussed in the press, which viewed it more or less through the lens of nationalism; this made the proper solution to the dilemma seem much easier. In the course of these discussions, the German press in Austria-Hungary hardly had a kind word to say when it came to the ustaši (insurgents) in Herzegovina. In the opinion of these German publications, the uprising was not a real insurrection, but only an “insurrection,” or, more precisely, a “coup of peasants evading the payment of taxes.”66 A few days after the outbreak of the uprising, the pro-

Introduction • 13

government newspaper Neue Freie Presse, in an article dedicated to the Herzegovinian Uprising, spread the rumor that the insurgents had hoisted the Austrian flag. The author of the editorial wrote that he did not believe this and went on to say ironically that he did not want such “compatriots who wear cotton shirts over wool trousers and wipe their noses with their hands.” To make matters worse, the author noted that these people liked to cut off the noses of their enemies.67 The newspaper Laibacher Tagblatt published an editorial entitled “Zur südslavischen Wechselseitigkeit” (On South Slavic Mutuality), in which it claimed that the uprising in the border provinces in “Turkey” only showed “the ugliest side of human nature”— namely, all the “cruelty and savagery” of the people living there.68 In short, the Viennese press portrayed the Orthodox Herzegovinian insurgents as the most evil and primitive people, lacking any cultural sophistication. The failure of the Ottoman authorities to quickly suppress the uprising horrified the press in Vienna and Budapest. The Herzegovinian “savages” were portrayed in all their glory in the pages of these newspapers, giving readers of the German and Hungarian press a clear picture of the “Pan-Slavistic horror, threatening and bloody-faced, in the south.”69 Worse still, should the insurgents be victorious and the Muslim state withdraw from the Balkan Peninsula, an ungoverned territory would be left for Serbia and Montenegro, the two Orthodox principalities, to take possession of under the auspices of Russia. And such domination of the Balkans by the Slavs, argued the author of the editorial published in the Neue Freie Presse, would endanger Germanism in Austria. After this portrayal of the uprising, the author of the article asked his readers a rhetorical question: can Austria-Hungary afford to have the Yugoslav Kingdom on its borders?70 The March Revolution of 1848 brought democracy to the Austrian Empire, and democracy predictably went hand in hand with nationalism. Thus, the Springtime of Nations came to the lands of the centuries-old empire. Nationalism in Austria thus diverged from the Western model and did not become a cohesive force because each of the many nations pulled in a different direction.71 The newspaper Slovenec illustrated the confusion that reigned in the Dual Monarchy in the mid-nineteenth century in the following words: “The Hungarians are drawn to Constantinople, the Germans to Berlin; the Slovenes sympathize with the Serbs; the Croats are repelled by the Serbs; the Czechs lean toward the Russians; and the Ruthenians inevitably want exactly the opposite of what the Poles do.”72 In such a situation, it was only natural that opinions should differ on the Herzegovinian insurrection. Consequently, public demonstrations took place in the Hungarian part of the Dual Monarchy, and donations were collected for the “brave Turkish people.”73 As a sign of their sympathy, students in Budapest wrote letters to the Sultan and his military command-

14 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

ers. They described the Sultan and his government as “noble-minded” and called the Ottoman army “defenders of European civilization.”74 Meanwhile, the hearty Slav nationalists were fascinated by the fabulous heroism of the insurgents, “who wrote Slav history with their iron,”75 and in their visions they saw a wonderful future for Yugoslavia. Excited by such romantic notions, the most ardent of these dreamers expected that the harvest would be reaped before the fields were even planted, and that there would be abundant fruits to reap, and they believed that in a short time the Yugoslav peoples would drive back the “Asiatic barbarians to their deserts” and that soon “the Balkan Peninsula would see the revival of the Old Classical Age.”76 On September 3, 1875, the Gorizia newspaper Glas published an article, which somehow slipped past the censors, about the differing views of those in modern European diplomatic circles and local Slovene peasant politicians on the uprising in Herzegovina. The peasants still believed, said the anonymous author from the Gorizia area, that highly educated people not only had a lot of knowledge, but were also kind and righteous people. The Herzegovinian Uprising, however, proved to be a stumbling block for the German and Hungarian statesmen, who loved culture but detested the Slavs. According to the corresponded to Glas, their hatred of the Slavs was reportedly so great that the Slovene peasant intelligence surpassed even that of high diplomacy: Not that he can argue any better, but he has more wisdom in his heart, and so he pities his brothers who are suffering. For him, it is no longer a question of whether it is right and whether it is the right time to chase the Turks out of Europe back to Asia, their homeland; it is only a question of who will be the ruler in the South. Therefore, any government that sympathizes with the Turks despite the uprising of the oppressed Christians will receive an indelible “black mark” from the people.77

When the Herzegovinian Uprising took place, many spoke and wrote of “Yugoslav integration.” The Slavic press in Austria-Hungary expected Serbia and Montenegro to actively support the ustaši in the name of this integration. In particular, the newspaper Slovenski Narod was emphatic in relation to this issue, often demanding that the two principalities not only help the insurgents unselfishly and as much as possible, but also clearly profess the “Yugoslav thought and feeling” and reach out to “their brothers.”78 The Slavic press was full of appeals to Serbia and Montenegro to show their heroism and liberate the Bosnians; the newspaper Zastava from Novi Sad was at the forefront of these efforts. The newspaper Glas from Gorizia warned Serbia, which was urged to “liberate the Yugoslavs under the Serbian flag,” and the Montenegrin prince, that they would condemn

Introduction • 15

themselves and fall from grace if they did not show compassion to their brothers and make good on the promises they had made to them from spring to autumn. Moreover, Glas warned that—if the insurrection were put down—they would have to wait many decades for another to break out.79 The Serbian government’s attitude toward the uprising caused strong discontent even among its leaders. Some of them—those around Miroslav Hubmajer—expressed their feelings publicly, threatening that Serbia would not get any part of Bosnia, and if Montenegro could not get all of Bosnia and Herzegovina, “they would like to divide it in such a way that Montenegro would get what is below the Neretva, and Croatia would get the rest.”80

Austria-Hungary Thwarts the Yugoslav Idea When reporting on the insurgents in Herzegovina and Bosnia, the pages of the Slavic press in the Dual Monarchy, as well as in Serbia and Montenegro, were full of statements about “Slavic brothers” and “Slavic togetherness,” and they also made frequent use of the word sloga (concord). Journalists liked to tell unpleasant cautionary tales from history about Slavic disunity and division and urged readers to change in this regard. In the newspaper Slovenski Narod, the author Karel Slanc advised Yugoslavs to learn the lessons from the many bad experiences of the past, both distant and recent, and to finally get wise. Taking into account the basic arithmetic whereby four times one equals four—that is, a whole—while four times zero equals zero, the Slavs should strive for unification. Even if this unification would be of no use to the Yugoslavs, they should strive for it, for the unification of divided tribes into nations was then the last word of modern times, and they should not allow themselves to fall behind.81 In these appeals, it was repeatedly emphasized that only united would they have a chance to exist among the great nations surrounding them: “The Germans see themselves as one body, one soul; may we Slovenes, especially we Slovenes who are exposed to the greatest danger, do the same and feel and act as one body, one soul. Each to his own, and our defense will be strong!”82 The liberal Slovenski Narod and Soča even went so far as to invoke Yugoslav unity and proclaim that no barrier in language, religion, grammar, time, or space should separate them from each other.83 Differing views on the future of Yugoslavia soon became apparent. Lofty claims about Slavic unity were readily repeated in many public discussions, but although everyone repeated the same words and told the same stories, in their hearts they each prayed to their own gods. Romantic nationalists in

16 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

Serbia and Montenegro longed for the fulfillment of their long-cherished dreams, believing that the long-awaited and longed-for “certain hour” of liberation and unification of “all Serbs” had finally arrived.84 But in Croatia, too, many dreamed of the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, or at least part of their territories. While radical Serbs hoped for the restoration of Tsar Dušan’s empire, the Croats gathered around Ante Starčević believed that the uprising in Herzegovina and Bosnia would lead to the resurrection of Greater Croatia.85 Great hopes and dreams about the resurrection of the glorious past proved to be more deeply rooted than ideas about unity, and ultimately the general attitude in the Yugoslav area surrounding Bosnia-Herzegovina depended more on memories of historical figures such as Tsar Dušan the Mighty and King Zvonimir than on the mythical narrative about King Svatopluk. For example, when Mihailo Ljubibratić, one of Ilija Garašanin’s86 most trusted confidants,87 came to Herzegovina as a volunteer, Prince Nikola lost more sleep over him than over the “Turks” because of his connections with secret societies in Serbia and the fact that he was an outspoken opponent of both the Russians and the Montenegrins.88 The Montenegrin prince did not stand idly by and watch what this “Herzegovinian Stephen the Little”89 was up to; rather, he sent Vojvoda90 Peko Pavlović to Herzegovina to arrest him and pacify the insurrection. This “old Turkfighter” did so in his own way. He captured Vojvoda Ljubibratić, confiscated his weapons, money, and personal property, and marched him across the border to Dubrovnik with his hands tied behind his back.91 On the way to Linz, in March 1876, the Austrian authorities led him through Sinj, Split, Šibenik, Zadar, and Trieste. In all these cities, the prisoner Ljubibratić was met with enthusiastic cheers from the local (Slavic) citizens, who greeted their hero by waving flags and singing patriotic songs.92 In Trieste, the Slovenes presented him with a silver-plated laurel wreath with the inscription, “To the national hero, glorious freedom fighter Vojvoda M. Ljubibratić.”93 Many Croats supported the insurrection until the Bosnian insurgents swore allegiance to the Serbian ruling dynasty and the Herzegovinian insurgents proclaimed the Montenegrin dynasty as their rulers. In fact, they were instigated to do so from abroad. This proclamation proved to be a turning point in relations between Serbs and Croats, for the Croats suddenly became “open enemies,” hostile to the Serbian cause and cold in relation to the Bosnian insurrection. During this period, Zagreb newspapers published a statement by Croatian academic youths claiming that the Bosnian Uprising had nothing to do with Serbia and the Serbs and that Bosnia was in fact Croatian, “a jewel in the crown of Croatian King Zvonimir,” without making any mention of the Serbs.94 Vasa Pelagić emphasized that the Croatian intelligentsia committed a “great mistake” in

Introduction • 17

doing this because they “degraded the science that advised them not to worship the crown of Zvonimir, as the Hungarian disciples bow to the crown of St. Stephen and the hand of the Sultan, but rather to justice and freedom, truth, equality and human brotherhood.” Calling the insurgents Croats is absolutely inappropriate, Pelagić said, because of the nearly two hundred thousand insurgents who fled Bosnia and Herzegovina, “none called themselves Croats, only Serbs.” As Pelagić goes on to point out, the Catholics from these provinces did not consider themselves Croats either, but mostly referred to themselves as Šokci, Christians, Latins. And, more importantly, all these “rebellious people did not give a penny, a chicken or a basket for all the kingdoms and crowns of the ‘great’ Zvonimir and the ‘mighty’ Dušan; but they sacrificed their homes and their households and risked their lives and the lives of their families because they longed for justice and freedom, for happiness and progress.”95 Unlike the Serbian and Croat newspapers, the Slovene press, which viewed the uprising from a broad Yugoslav perspective, could not take a clear stand on resolving the question of the future of Bosnia-Herzegovina. One moment, they advocated that it would be best to join the Orthodox Principalities, and the next they pleaded for the Austro-Hungarian occupation of these two provinces.96 Thus, on July 28, 1875, the newspaper Novice gospodarske, obrtniške in narodne demanded, “The Slavs in Bosnia and Herzegovina must be freed from the Turkish yoke, and then Peter or Paul should take possession of them!”97 On several occasions, they tried to convince the Austro-Hungarian government that it was in its interest to send its army to support the military intervention of Serbia and Montenegro, with the aim of driving the “Turks” out of Europe. In their “unbiased” interpretation, which few outside the Slovene territories accepted,98 a new independent Yugoslav state would be the best neighbor of Austria, because it would be a well-organized state, like Serbia; there would be no obstacle to the opening of its markets to Austrian industry; Austria would be a teacher, educating her little sister in all matters of statehood. And the Austrian Slavs—as soon as their legitimate national claims were satisfied—would also be satisfied in their old homeland.99

Slovene newspapers kept emphasizing the positive effects that the expansion of Austria-Hungarian into Yugoslav territories would yield, although it was obvious that this argument was flawed in many ways. It seems that the real motivation for this argument was not so much to convince the public to agree to the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but rather to boost the self-confidence of the Slovene people by showing that their German and Hungarian compatriots feared a strong Yugoslav nation. According to editor Josip Jurčič, this state of affairs was due to the fact that

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both Germans and Hungarians were used to believing that when two (nations) live in one country, one must always be a hammer and the other an anvil. To save this view from the censor’s scissors, he referred to an article published in the Kölnische Zeitung on August 4, 1875: The Germans and Hungarians have long known that Slavdom threatens them not from without but from within, and that the external Pan-Slavism would not be weakened by the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, while Deutschtum and especially Ungarentum would give way to Slavdom within the monarchy. This is the point to be reckoned with, but it is consistently evaded by the official press.100

The Austrian authorities in the Slovene lands quickly understood which way the wind was blowing, and as soon as the insurrection broke out in Herzegovina, they imposed strict censorship on the Slovene press with the aim of slaying the Pan-Slavic dragon before his claws grew larger and his fangs became deadly. At first, they repeatedly confiscated newspapers that expressed sympathy for the insurgents or called on the public for financial support, while the government in Vienna also put pressure on the provincial authorities not to collect donations for the fugitive relatives of the ustaši. Without this state pressure, many more volunteers would probably have come forward to help the insurgents.101 The authorities confiscated newspapers that published articles about the ustaši and their struggle and were critical of the Dual Monarchy’s official state policy on the uprising, Serbia and Montenegro’s position, and otherwise contradicted the official policy of the government in Vienna on the Eastern Question. There were no formal legal grounds for such confiscations, but they were carried out for political reasons, with the aim of preventing the further development of a consciousness of Slavic mutuality.102 Newspapers were also confiscated if they were critical of “German Turks in Ljubljana,” which railed against Yugoslavia in “true drunkard fashion,” thus “inciting one nation against another.”103 The censors were particularly harsh on Slovenski Narod and its editor-in-chief Josip Jurčič. At his request, a court hearing was held on November 4, 1875, after the confiscation of issues 206, 207, and 209, in which eight articles about the “Yugoslav insurrection” had appeared. According to Josip Jurčič, it was not incitement when the articles in question claimed that Austria-Hungary had a “not strict but rather neutral attitude” toward the ustaši, as this information had already been published in Croat, Dalmatian, and other newspapers that had not been seized. Likewise, Jurčič continued, it did not constitute agitation against the government to claim in an article that “Austria-Hungary is against any form of strengthening of the Yugoslav idea” when this was done by quoting statements from the newspapers Neue Freie Presse from

Introduction • 19

Vienna and Pester Lloyd from Budapest, which, in his opinion, took a very hard and firm stance against the strengthening of the Yugoslav idea. He asked the court: “Why should a Slovene journalist be charged if he only informs about it?” Finally, Jurčič disapproved of the prosecution’s claim that criminal intent was particularly clear because Slovenski Narod represented the idea of “uniting all Yugoslav peoples in one state.” Jurčič confirmed that the journalists of Slovenski Narod did indeed desire the unification of Austrian Yugoslavs, but added that they “never wrote or thought that now was the time to unite ourselves with the Bulgarians and all the other non-Austrian Yugoslavs because we know very well that this is unattainable under the present circumstances.”104 In defense of Slovenski Narod, Karel Slanc, a writer and jurist, reacted by arguing that a national idea can grow into a strong tree only when the people are united. A dialect extended only a few miles, he argued, and nations could not be distinguished from one another by such dialects, since they denoted only “differences between two villages.” That, he concluded, was as easy to understand as two times four equals eight. And if the prosecutor banned the Slovenski Narod on such grounds, he would “give mathematics a resounding slap in the face, and if an answer is needed, a glance at united Germany and Italy, at Bismarck and Cavour, will suffice.”105

A Volunteer in the Service of the World Revolution After the outbreak of the insurrections in Herzegovina and Bosnia, committees were formed in all the bordering areas to help the insurgents and their families. Committees were formed in Belgrade, Cetinje, Zagreb, Kostajnica, Sisak, Stara Gradiška, Nova Gradiška, Zadar, Šibenik, Split, Dubrovnik, Herceg Novi, Metković, and Trieste, but also in Rome, Vienna, Prague, Paris, and London. As documented by Knjaz Nikola, these committees succeeded in collecting a considerable amount of relief. The committee in Trieste alone spent 104,967 forints on grain, while in Montenegro 28,877 forints was spent on grain.106 Slovenski Narod and its editor-in-chief Jurčič advocated the establishment of such a committee in Ljubljana and repeatedly called on the Slovene public to show their Slav solidarity in reality as well. Such appeals to the people to contribute by paying a national tax were made many times, but a great appeal on August 3, 1875, for the collection of relief supplies for the insurgents and their families was probably the most important of all. According to the authors of this public appeal, the Slovenes should show themselves to the insurgents as true “brothers in heart,” just as the Austrian Germans did in the Franco-Prussian War. Therefore, Slovene

20 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

reading clubs should organize veselice (fêtes) with the aim of collecting financial aid. This appeal was quickly challenged by the regional authorities in Carniola (Kranjska). On the same day that the appeal was published, the praesidium of the regional administration in Carniola banned this edition of Slovenski Narod and issued a written instruction to the district administration and the magistrate in Ljubljana that the collection of any donations and contributions for the insurgents and their families was strictly forbidden.107 The regional authorities offered no explanation for this decision. They probably feared the possible consequences that such an action could have, that is, increased national consciousness of the Slovene people and the strengthening of the radical political demands of the Slovene nation.108 However, the ban did not achieve its goal; on the contrary, fundraising continued and there were ways of circumventing the ban. As the Slovenski Narod informed its readers at the end of July and the newspaper Slovenec at the beginning of the next month, the ban on collecting money for the Herzegovinian insurgents did not prohibit anyone from sending money to charity committees in Dalmatia and Croatia.109 The ban on collecting contributions for the insurgents and their families was strongly condemned by the Slovene press. Five days after the ban was announced, the Slovenski Narod published an article entitled “Insurrection in Herzegovina and the German Liberal Ministry.” The author of the article urged readers to continue collecting relief supplies and sending their contributions, arguing that it was a Christian act to sympathize with the sufferings of “our unfortunate brothers” who were fighting bloodily “for the honorable cross and golden freedom.” The author concluded his plea with the following words: Such an act of humanity cannot be forbidden by the government in Ljubljana, because it was not forbidden by the government in Zadar or by that in Zagreb. Slovenes, let us be Christians, human beings, and Slavs!110

Austria-Hungary officially took a neutral position toward the insurrection that broke out in the two provinces on its southeastern borders. This fact provided the pretext for a ban on the sending of humanitarian aid and a ban on the export of arms. Along the long border, however, where many “loyal subjects of His Imperial, Royal, and Apostolic Majesty” wore caps embroidered in golden letters with the initials of Prince Nikola of Montenegro, it was impossible to order or implement measures that would prevent the import of arms and ammunition into Herzegovina.111 Old and new, real and alleged, “Turkish” bloody killings provoked indignation and popular solidarity among the Yugoslav people: “All, rich and poor, joyfully

Introduction • 21

Figure 0.2. Miroslav Hubmajer as an insurgent in Herzegovina. Published in the Humoristische Blätter, October 10, 1875. Drawn by Karel Klíč. Source: private collection of the author.

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and wholeheartedly opened their purses.”112 Gunpowder and weapons were smuggled out of Ljubljana with the same aim.113 The Slovene newspapers, like the rest of the Slavic press in AustriaHungary, were not content with expressions of sympathy for the Herzegovinian insurgents, but called upon all Slavs, especially the Yugoslavs from Austria-Hungary, Serbia, and Montenegro, to help their “brothers” in distress with all their hearts. “If a brother has to defend himself with a rifle,” they wrote, “he cannot continue to occupy himself with matters of peace.”114 The newspapers called on Yugoslav youth—who showed such enthusiasm for Pan-Slavism in many speeches and at many meetings—to follow the example of Polish and Italian students and express their passionate enthusiasm, to take up their sharp swords and ride Marko Kraljević’s piebald horse named Šarac: “This is how we create the Yugoslav state!”115 And those who were most carried away by the greatness of the moment sang the song, “From the Balkans to Triglav Mountain, Mother Slavia calling, calling . . .”116 Miroslav Hubmajer (Friedrich Hubmayer), a typographer and former Austrian artillery sergeant, was the first to answer the call of Mother Slavia. His German work colleagues in Ljubljana accused him of constantly openly displaying his (Slovene) nationalism.117 Hubmajer set out to join Vojvoda Ljubibratić and his comrades at the Duži monastery near Trebinje, only three weeks after the Nevesinje Rifle had been fired.118 Small and large groups of volunteers from Serbia, Vojvodina, Bohemia, Carniola (Kranjska), Italy, France, Germany, Poland, Russia, Greece, and other regions traveled to Ljubljana and Zagreb to join Hubmajer.119 The exact number of volunteers remains unknown, as does the duration of their presence. However, if one takes into account the letter published by the newspaper Zastava, their number was anything but small: in Dubrovnik alone, on December 3, 1875, 284 French volunteers, 390 Italians, 53 Englishmen, 2 Americans, 1 Swede, 83 Greeks, and 22 Germans were all waiting to join the insurgents in Herzegovina.120 Interestingly, although there was a large number of foreign volunteers, Vasa Pelagić complained that the Slavic peoples (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Carniolans, and Croats) sent “altogether scarcely a hundred volunteers to help” before the SerbianTurkish and Russo-Turkish wars, and claimed that the help they sent in money amounted to barely 20,000 ducats. Pelagić believed that his claims, which were not true, clearly showed that “the sympathy and ‘mutuality’ of the Slavs stood on very weak legs,” and he pointed out that the desire for Pan-Slavic unification and a Pan-Slavic empire was “even weaker.”121 The Swiss citizen in Ottoman medical and diplomatic service Josef Koetschet noted that while the insurrection was taking place in the surrounding provinces, Dubrovnik looked like a city that was “in open warfare.”122 Moreover, according to the report of the Zastava newspaper’s special correspon-

Introduction • 23

dent from Sutorina, published in February 1876, Italian volunteers were arriving in the city on a daily basis. At the sight of “these honest people, the most zealous freedom fighters for Serbian liberation,” the correspondent thought of Serbian youth: “While other people are shedding their blood for us, our young men are courting women.” Therefore, the journalist advised Serbian women, “if you are patriots,” to preserve their national dignity and “give these cowards an apron and a spinning wheel.”123 In the eyes of Miroslav Hubmajer, the Herzegovinian insurgents showed “no drill and no discipline,” because “nobody obeyed the commanders.”124 Moreover, some commanders saw the insurgency as an opportunity for personal enrichment. As a certain Bjelopavlić told Knjaz Nikola, “the priest Žarko and his company took loot and plunder from the insurgents, converted it into money and sent it home, and they did the same with the donations they received from various committees in Serbia.”125 Disappointed, Hubmajer left Herzegovina for Bosnia, where he tried to create a “foreign legion,” as Petar Karađorđević noted in his diary, composed only of “Carniolans and Catholics.”126 He intended to launch an insurrection along the Austro-Hungarian border, liberate parts of Bosnian territory, abandon minor cross-border gun battles, and advance with his troops through determined military strikes to the lower reaches of the Neretva River to unite with Vojvoda Ljubibratić’s forces.127 Hubmajer’s disappointment with the rayah of Bosnia-Herzegovina perhaps resulted from the fact that he was convinced that illiterate peasants took up arms as convinced supporters of Pan-Slavism or the world revolution. “The people of Herzegovina have revolted against their oppressors,” argued the Belgrade newspaper Istok, “and the poor do not think of any kingdoms and other nonsense, but of how to protect their livelihood and property to some extent, but now that it has come to the fore that kingdoms and kings are at stake, this will only incite them more against their oppressors.”128 The high principles of Slavic mutuality that Hubmajer himself espoused and embraced when he joined the uprising did not match the expectations of the peasants who went into battle to gain some measure of freedom for themselves and more equitable conditions for their agricultural production. The gap between his ideals and expectations and the harsh reality of the insurgency was a great disappointment to Hubmajer and, eventually, distanced him from the local insurgents. The European press published pieces about Hubmajer that sounded like fairy tales, with him being called a hero, a fearless insurrectionary leader,129 a skilled strategist who inflicted heavy losses on the “Turks.” For example, it was claimed that he caused two thousand Ottoman askeri (members of the military) to flee.130 He showed the greatest heroism during the siege of the fortress in the village of Drijen, when he led a small group of fel-

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low insurgents and challenged the enemy commander Ahmet Begović to a duel, during which Begović shot at Hubmajer while he was standing still.131 Since the troops in the fortress refused to engage in open combat, Hubmajer took some dynamite under cover of darkness on the fourth day of the siege with the intention of destroying the fortress. Late at night, he approached the fortress, sought an embrasure, and threw the dynamite into it. But no sooner had he lit the fuse with a match than one of the guards threw the dynamite back outside, where it fell beside Hubmajer. He began to run while the guards shot at him “like crazy.”132 According to Neue Freie Presse, when the insurgent commander Hubmajer returned to Ljubljana for a short time in early November 1875, he was greeted by the Ljubljana population like a “triumphant general.” On the evening of Wednesday, November 10, sixty-one members of the local nationalist intelligentsia gathered in the Glass Hall of the Ljubljana National Reading Room. On this occasion, many speeches and toasts were made. However, the correspondent for Neue Freie Presse did not share the enthusiasm with which the people of Ljubljana greeted Hubmajer. On the contrary, he pointed out that Hubmajer was a reservist in the Austrian army, and Austria was not at war with the Ottoman Empire; moreover, Hubmajer had not even officially announced his leave.133 On November 17, the conservative newspaper Novice gospodarske, obrtniške in narodne reacted angrily to what it called the product of “Jews and Slavs haters,” calling it a juicy bone for hungry journalists and correspondents of “Turkish” newspapers.134 In this sense, the German newspapers, going after the rabbit of Slavic mutuality, released the wolf of passionate anti-Germanism. Josip Jurčič summed this up in his editorial for the liberal newspaper Slovenski Narod: “We just do not want to become Germans, just not that (sure, we do not want to become Hungarians or Gypsies either). We are fighting to the death against Germanization.”135 Three days after the banquet in Ljubljana, the academic youth and students in Zagreb hosted another gala dinner in honor of Hubmajer. About 180 students and other guests greeted the hero who was ready to lay down his life for his Slav brothers to “free them from the clutches of the bloodthirsty Turks.” A toast was raised to the Yugoslavs who were fighting for their freedom, as the Italians and Germans had recently done for themselves, and Hubmajer said that the Herzegovinians fought for the freedom of all people.136

From Villain to National Hero As soon as the insurrection broke out in Herzegovina, Knez Milan and Knjaz Nikola arbitrarily divided the spheres of interest between them-

Introduction • 25

selves: one took Bosnia, the other Herzegovina. Similarly, there were attempts at dominance over the insurgency by some members of the Main Committee in Zagreb, who held the view that Bosnia was a “Croatian country.” This struggle for dominance over the insurgency led to disagreements between the members of the committee in Belgrade and that in Zagreb.137 However, another pretender soon laid claim to Bosnia—the deposed Prince Petar Mrkonjić.138 Barely a quarter of Bosnian territory had been liberated and Bosnia already had two rulers: Prince Milan Obrenović and the pretender Petar Karađorđević.139 Within the insurgency, there were clear signs of discord, the “daughter of the devilish serpent.”140 Petar Karađorđević’s invasion of Bosnia was greeted with enthusiasm in the insurgent camps, but his advance received little attention in Cetinje and left an “unpleasant impression” in Belgrade. The Serbian government sent a battalion of its standing army to the border to prevent volunteers from Serbia from joining his četa and ordered Captain Djoko Vlajković to leave Bosnia with his troops.141 When the insurgents retreated to their winter quarters around December 15, 1875, the command was so fragmented that it was difficult to even count the troops and leaders.142 In this situation, it was clear that without organization, the insurgency had no chance of success, especially in military operations. In order to unite all the insurgents for a “fraternal agreement,” an assembly was convened in a school in the village of Jamnica, near the border, on December 16 and 17, 1875. The meeting was attended by about eighty representatives from all over Bosnia, from Bihać to the Drina, who gathered to decide whether the war should continue during the winter. After long negotiations, they decided to continue the war until Ottoman rule was brought to an end and to reject reforms that they considered incomplete and unfeasible. The representatives of the insurgents agreed that it was necessary to suppress all factional hatred and to act together. They also approved the launching of an attack on Turska Kostajnica. A proposal to appoint a new insurrectionary council as a provisional government was unanimously approved, and Miroslav Hubmajer, better known as Crni Miro (Black Miro), was elected commander-in-chief “because of his boldness and courage, which guaranteed triumph.”143 One issue facing the Jamnica Assembly was the necessity of making a black-or-white decision regarding Petar Mrkonjić and his movement. According to the newspaper articles of the time, Petar Karađorđević wanted the insurgents to declare him their leader and Serbian prince.144 But despite a fairly strong četa of volunteers accompanying him to Bosnia, his demands were not looked upon favorably. The newspaper Zastava of Novi Sad, for example, called Petar Mrkonjić a probisvet (villain) and referred to his supporters as smutljivci (troublemakers) who were “conspiring against Serbian unity.”145 It was clear to the people on the Bosnian committees

26 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

that if they accepted Petar Karađorđević, they would have to sever relations not only with Milan Obrenović himself, but also with the Principality of Serbia, which was under his rule at the time. The insurgents were powerless without the support of the Principality of Serbia, so it was unanimously decided at the Jamnica Assembly that the presence of the pretender Petar would hinder the uprising and national liberation. They asked him to leave the uprising within eight days, “because we are not interested in any dynasties here, we are fighting for freedom”; otherwise, there would be drastic consequences.146 The power struggle between the Obrenović and Petrović dynasties from the beginning of the Herzegovinian Uprising until June 1876 had significant consequences for the uprising, as well as for the Yugoslav cause in general; moreover, mutual relations between Serbia and Montenegro were not excellent.147 The very idea that Serbia could claim Herzegovina for itself seemed not only “absurd but also insulting” to Montenegro. Such public insolence on the part of Serbia was outrageous and an insult to the Shkodra Montenegrins, especially since they were already “soaked in blood” in Herzegovina.148 In Montenegro, an insurgent leader or soldier or volunteer who spoke, acted, or thought in any way other than on the assumption that Herzegovina must join Montenegro was considered a traitor and could be tried as such.149 Herzegovina became a bone of contention between Belgrade and Cetinje, as Prince Milan wanted to annex this region together with Bosnia to the Principality of Serbia, while Prince Nikola was also interested in Herzegovina.150 As Laibacher Zeitung reported on November 12, 1875, the political rancor between Serbia and Montenegro spread to the Herzegovinian insurgency and gave rise to a “sharp disagreement” between the leaders of the insurgents. Namely, while the supporters of the Serbian party were upset that the fighters from Cetinje only came to the aid of those insurgent leaders who explicitly supported Prince Nikola, those who sympathized with Montenegro complained that the Serbian aid committees only supported insurgent leaders who fought for the interests of the Principality of Serbia.151 In the wake of the May coup of 1903, the Karađorđević dynasty was restored to the Serbian throne; the crown on the head of the former insurgent leader King Petar I shed new light on past events, including Mrkonjić’s guerrilla war in Bosnia. It suddenly became clear that he was “the most suitable person to take general command of all the insurgents.”152 Official propagandists praised King Petar’s courage and his enduring allegiance to the free Western world, which he proved by fighting under the name Pierre Kara in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, when he was awarded the Legion of Honor. His freedom-loving nature and his willingness to

Introduction • 27

make sacrifices were demonstrated in 1875 when, under the name of Petar Mrkonjić, he participated in the organization of the Bosnian Uprising, in which he took an active part, and as proof of his truly democratic nature, the propagandists made it known that in his youth he translated On Liberty by John Stuart Mill into the Serbian language.153 Historians described the accession of King Petar as the beginning of “a new era in the history of our nation”154 and him as “the greatest ruler of the Serbian nation, far greater than Dušan the Mighty.”155 Under his scepter, from the sea of blood that had been spilled, there emerged an “enlarged, liberated kingdom in which the Slovene nation, together with the Croat and Serb nations, forms a state greater than even the wildest poetic imagination could have imagined.”156 On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the national liberation and unification of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, the Belgrade newspaper Politika informed its readers that “Petar Mrkonjić had taken over the leadership of the insurgents,” while Miroslav Hubmajer, distinguished by his “extraordinary heroism” in Bosnia-Herzegovina, “became vojvoda of a četa among his Serb and Bosnian brothers.”157 The story of Vojvoda Mrkonjić was no longer the story of a troublemaker who obstructed national liberation for selfish reasons and whom “Turkey supported with her money,”158 and after he ascended the Serbian throne, many fictional accounts and legends were spun about him.159 In these romantic stories, Petar Mrkonjić was portrayed as the only person of esteem and importance in the entire Bosnian insurgency. The tradition of the “Serbian Uprising in Bosnia 1875–78” began to be cultivated upon the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the uprising, when the Western Bosnia region was declared Krajina Petra Mrkonjića (Petar Mrkonjić’s Borderland). The first monument dedicated to King Petar was officially unveiled in Dobrinje on November 8, 1924.160 In this context, a new story was concocted, testifying to the Herculean effort that King Petar the Great exhibited in the struggle for the liberation of the nation, demonstrating his selflessness, his love for the fatherland, and his personal bravery. For the permanent exhibition in the Museum of Vrbas Banate in Banja Luka, the then director of the museum and painter Spiridon Bocarić painted several figurative compositions and portraits, among which the dignified figure of the insurgent leader Petar Mrkonjić stands out. Over the years, such testimonies grew and became more and more poignant. The drama of the story was also heightened by anti-heroes in the form of secret agents sent by Prince Milan and his government, who allegedly plotted against Petar Mrkonjić and instigated conflict and discord among his men, with the aim of ruining his reputation and wiping him off the face of the earth.161 If his high Pan-Slavic ideals alienated Black Miro from the Herzegovinian and Bosnian peasants, his political naivety left him helpless when,

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during his participation in the Herzegovinian and Bosnian uprisings, he found himself in the midst of a fierce dynastic rivalry, especially after he took the leading role in the Bosnian uprising. Black Miro was famous as a hero and military leader not only among the ustaši, but also far beyond the borders of Bosnia-Herzegovina. His heroism saved him from enemy bullets, but it could not protect him from the intrigues of his rivals. To better portray the life and deeds of the future King Petar I, these schemers painted Miroslav Hubmajer, who had been his rival for the post of commander-in-chief of the ustaši at Jamnica Assembly, in much darker colors. Years after he had left Bosnia, some of them suddenly realized that Hubmajer had actually came to Bosnia-Herzegovina to join the ustaši as a volunteer only to prepare the ground for the Austro-Hungarian occupation of these two provinces.162 Unfortunately, these authors failed to explain why Hubmajer continued his activities by joining the ranks of the Serbian artillery during the Serbo-Turkish War of 1876–77163 and later participated in the Kresna Uprising, which took place in Pirin Macedonia in 1878–79.164 When the nation-state of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was officially renamed Yugoslavia, historians began to “definitively” assess the merits of the individuals who had distinguished themselves in the process. In accordance with methodological Piedmontism,165 Hubmajer received no recognition or praise for all the years and sacrifices he made as a volunteer. On the contrary, a history professor and former member of the revolutionary movement Young Bosnia blamed Hubmajer for the failed march on Turska Kostajnica. According to Vaso Čubrilović, this failure showed “how things turn out when serious matters are conducted by frivolous men.”166 He probably assumed that his ignorant readers would believe everything he claimed, including his demotion of Black Miro two decades after his death. In fact, Čubrilović wrote that Hubmajer joined the Serbian army as a volunteer in the war against the Ottoman Empire a few months later and received the military rank “that best suited him, namely sergeant.”167 However, Čubrilović’s claim is not correct. As the correspondent from the Principality of Serbia wrote to Slovenski Narod on October 17, 1876, the Russian general Mikhail Chernyaev appointed Hubmajer a lieutenant at his own risk “because of his abilities.”168 In Chernyaev’s military unit, Hubmajer was eventually promoted to artillery major. But when the Serbian army suffered defeat in the war and the Serbian state faced bankruptcy, most officers—and especially foreign officers, including Hubmajer—were dismissed.169 Vladimir Ćorović, the author of the influential Istorija Jugoslavije (History of Yugoslavia), went even further than Čubrilović. Although Yugoslavia as a state and political entity was a more recent creation, he argued that the ideology of Yugoslavism that led to the founding of Yugoslavia

Introduction • 29

preceded it in time. Guided by this principle, he strove to give a truthful account of the fate of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, highlighting particular moments in the history of the South Slav peoples that showed that political borders were not real barriers between the various “tribes,” that they actually “had contacts, close ties, and common actions, which shows that people had some awareness of their commonality, or that these far-sighted individuals had long expected this.”170 Of course, Ćorović also paid attention to the Bosnian Uprising in his comprehensive study. He describes Miroslav Hubmajer passionately following his dream of helping his unfortunate Yugoslav tribesmen against their oppressors, disregarding the essential facts of Yugoslav political reality. Historians who favored the Karađorđević dynasty attributed a deeper meaning to the events of the past and believed that they led to the true dynasty coming to power at the right time; thus, Ćorović portrayed Hubmajer not as a proponent of close relations and reciprocity between the various Yugoslav “tribes,” but rather as an anti-hero. According to him, the Jamnica Assembly elected Hubmajer as the supreme vojvoda instead of Petar Mrkonjić because its members were “divided and confused.” Under these circumstances, he claimed, the assembly failed to elect a worthy vojvoda and chose a man “whose abilities are not worth mentioning.” In Ćorović’s opinion, Hubmajer was not only “unsuited for the task entrusted to him,” but later in life ended up “as an Austrian confidant in Sarajevo.”171 Reading history backwards and interpreting past events and personalities through his own ideological lens was the most convenient way for Ćorović to support his point of view. In order to construct a credible history, he did not even shy away from sacrificing certain historical figures and events that did not fit into his picture by bricking them up in the foundations of his construction, following the example of the builders of the Shkodra Castle. Apparently, he believed that human sacrifices, even if they were only symbolic, would strengthen the stability and permanence of his vision of Yugoslavia and its ruling dynasty. These sacrifices, however, were not merely symbolic. This is evident from a letter written by Hubmajer’s daughter Olga, in which she complains that Hubmajer’s widow was deprived of the pension she had received from the Austrian government immediately after the liberation in 1918. Without this income, Hubmajer’s family could not even mark his grave properly.172 Hubmajer’s story is a good illustration of how far some Yugoslav historians were willing to go to pursue their particular political interests. As we have seen, they did irreparable damage to what they claimed to be advocating. To buttress their point, they did not even shy away from throwing the baby out with the bathwater, as they did when they portrayed King Petar as a worthy freedom fighter. In order to portray Petar Karađorđević in bright

30 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

colors, they blackened Hubmajer, a hero who had the potential to become a unifying figure for all Yugoslavs. Hubmajer cut an ideal figure for a common Yugoslav hero. He was a man of a hundred talents, of appealing appearance, fluent in foreign languages, the only Slovene who had a name in the European and American press in the mid-nineteeth century, and above all, he was willing to take the greatest risk in his struggle for the Yugoslav idea in Herzegovina, Bosnia, Serbia, and Bulgaria. Among the historical personalities, no other has done that. Nationality is full of latent antinomies, that is, potential conflicts between its principles.173 This is undoubtedly true of the nationalism of the nation with the three names. As we have seen from the cases of the uprisings in Herzegovina and Bosnia, when people rose up against the adversities suffered under the “Turkish yoke,” intolerance and narrow-mindedness often came to the fore, with disastrous consequences for national unity. Thus, Svetozar Miletić quoted in Zastava the words of a Serbian deputy— “Brotherhood to the brothers, but war to the Turks!”174—which not only incited Serbs to “brotherhood” but also slammed the door in the face of a rather weak sense of national unity among Christians and Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina. When the ustaši directed their actions against the land holdings of the local beys, the Muslims countered by destroying Christian villages.175 The attacks on the “Turks”—that is, the Slavic population professing Islam—acts of arson and looting of property, were justified as acts of revenge for five centuries of subjugation of the Christian masses and deepened the rift between the Slavic peoples in these two provinces. Particularly destructive was the so-called “Turkish custom” of the ustaši, who used to cut off the heads and noses of dead and wounded “Turks” as proof of their bravery in battle.176

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Kollár, 1839, 58. Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983, 7. Suppan, 1999, 25. See, for example, Jezernik, 2008, 27–28; 2013, 30. See, for example, Fishman, 1972, 6; Iggers, 1986, 136–38; Kořalka, 1991, 218; Deák, 1992, 14; see also Namier, 1944, 107. L. S., 1866, 323, Mitrović, 1918, 23. Doering-Manteuffel, 2010, 101. Borovnjak, 1936, 24. See, for example, Šišić, 1937, 82; Vilder, 1957, 84.

Introduction • 31

11. See, for example, Stojković, 1850, 144; Novak, 1930, xxvii; Kostelski, 1952, 305. 12. Bukovšek, 1849, 333. Bukovšek was Slovenija’s correspondent from Prague. In Czech, Slavija connotes the land of all Slavs, and Jiho-Slavija the land of South Slavs. Bukovšek simply replaced Czech Jiho with South Slavic Jugo. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Pavlowitch, 2002, 47. 16. Borovnjak, 1936, 22–23. 17. Schultze, 2002, 119. 18. Toman, 1862, 9. 19. Young, 1993, 2. 20. Renan, 1882, 7–8. 21. Plumb, 1969, 32; cf. Čolović, 2008, 119–32. 22. Jászi, 1929, 259. 23. Jezernik, 2013, 25. 24. This view is still present among some nationalists and conservative thinkers. In Radule Knežević’s view (2012, 338), national identity is not an immutable fact that is passively handed down from generation to generation. Knežević argues that national identity is not a constant, but rather a set of interconnected tendencies that usually go in different directions. For that reason, each generation must decide which of them to embrace and develop. 25. Jezernik, 2013, 11. 26. Berend, 2003, 1. 27. Evans, 1878, 32. 28. See, for example, Jászi, 1929, 264–65; Bartulović, 2013, 140. 29. Jan van Gorp, for instance, tried to prove that the Dutch language, especially the dialect spoken in Antwerp, was the language of Adam in its purest form. Therefore, the biblical names have meaning only in Dutch. For example, he derived the etymology of the name Adam from hat (hatred) and dam (dam or dyke), since Adam had to resist Satan’s hatred just as a dam resists the waves of the ocean (Goropii Becani, 1569, 539). 30. Schultze, 2002, 119. 31. Kollár, 1824, 37; 1830, 19–20; 1839, 9, 59; cf. Gardner Wilkinson, 1848, I, 11, 32. Metelko, 1849, 13. 33. Gardner Wilkinson, 1848, I, 10–11. 34. Skene, 1853, I, 61; Creagh, 1876, I, 110–11. 35. Golovin, 1854, II, 161. 36. Nenadović, 1889, 134. 37. Smith, 1999, 708; see also Lewellen, 1992, 152–54. 38. Kralj Matjaž (King Matjaž) is a legendary king in Central Europe, who, over time, gradually became associated with the real King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (1458–90). 39. Bohinjec, 1918, 1. 40. J–, 1870, 1. 41. Komitet vystavki, 1867, 370; Clementis, 1943, 47–48. 42. Slovenski Gospodar, July 11, 1867. 43. Prijatelj, 1940, 48. 44. Prelog, 1931, 35. 45. Hribar, 1929, 189. 46. Tuma, 1912, 228. 47. Novice gospodarske, obrtniške in narodne, March 21, 1866.

32 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63.

64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86.

87. 88. 89. 90.

Melik, 1997, 17–18; cf. Ušeničnik, 1914b, 290. Slovenski Narod, October 18, 1870. Slovenski Narod, October 8, 1870. Novice gospodarske, obrtniške in narodne, December 7, 1870. Novice gospodarske, obrtniške in narodne, July 20, 1870. Radojčić, 1928, 94. Lončar, 1912, 353–54. The Austrian Empire was officially referred to as “the kingdoms and lands represented in the Reichsrat (Imperial Council).” Zastava, December 4, 1870; see also Milutinović, 1931, 6. M-ć, 1870, 1. Milutinović, 1931, 15–16. Zastava, December 4, 1870. Radojčić, 1928, 92, 101. Novice gospodarske, obrtniške in narodne, December 21, 1870. Wertheimer, 1913, II, 248. The uprising of the Christian Orthodox population in the Nevesinje region, known as Nevesinjska puška (Nevesinje Rifle) was a revolt against the oppression in the Ottoman Empire. It broke out in the summer of 1875 and spread from Herzegovina into Bosnia, where it lasted until 1878. Srbin Bosanac, 1897, 6. See, for example, Jakšić, 1941, 2. Laibacher Zeitung, August 22, 1875. Neue Freie Presse, July 23, 1875. Laibacher Tagblatt, October 5, 1875. Slovenski Narod, August 11, 1875. Neue Freie Presse, July 23, 1875. Jezernik, 2013, 19. Slovenec, January 27, 1877. Rüffner, 1877, 292. Pelagić, 1880, 73. Slovenski Narod, July 28, 1875. Glas, May 7, 1875. Glas, September 3, 1875. Novice gospodarske, obrtniške in narodne, July 28, 1875. Glas, July 30, 1875. Ekmečić, 1973a, 144. S–c, 1875, 1. Ω, 1875a, 1. J. V–v, 1875, 2; V–v, 1875, 1. Milutinović, 1953, 58. Biankini, 1925, 12–13. Ilija Garašanin was prime minister of Serbia in 1852–53 and 1861–67. In 1844, he wrote Načertanije (The Draft), a nineteenth-century declaration of the Serbian nation and its vital interests in “Serbian” Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as the root of the aspirations for a Greater Serbia. Vukčević, 1950, 115, 130; Vego, 1953, 27. Vukčević, ibid.; Buha, 2003, 189. Kos, 2006, 67. In Serbia, vojvoda (duke) was the highest military rank.

Introduction • 33

91. Stillman, 1877, 11; 1901, II, 111; Jakšić, 1928, 110; Buha, 2003, 189–90, 195; Musa, 2018, 186. 92. Novak, 1925, 122–23. 93. Ljubibratić and Kruševac, 1958, 275. 94. Rüffner, 1877, 292; Pelagić, 1880, 85. 95. Pelagić, ibid. 96. Luković, 1977, 97. 97. Novice gospodarske, obrtniške in narodne, July 28, 1875. 98. One of the few non-Slovenes who subscribed to this idea was Arthur John Evans, a correspondent for the Manchester Guardian who observed the uprisings in Herzegovina and Bosnia from the perspective of an English patriot. In his Illyrian Letters, he reported that it did not require “a prophet’s eye to perceive that Austria can only exist as a Slavonic power.” According to him, Austria’s “destiny” to expand southwards and consolidate herself as “a strong South Slavonic power,” thus creating “a bulwark against our rival in the East” (Evans, 1878, 67). 99. Ω, 1875b, 1. 100. Jurčič, 1878, 1. 101. Luković, 1977, 45–46. 102. Ibid., 84, 91. 103. Slovenski Tednik, October 10, 1875. 104. Slovenski Narod, November 7, 1875. 105. S–c, 1875, 1. 106. Petrović Njegoš, 1988, 306. 107. Luković, 1977, 124. 108. Ibid., 125–26. 109. Slovenski Narod, July 30, 1875. 110. Dr. K–č–, 1875, 1. 111. Evans, 1878, 69. 112. Biankini, 1925, 11. 113. Vošnjak, 1912, 59. 114. Slovenski Narod, September 30, 1875. 115. Glas, July 30, 1875. 116. Toman, 1926, 10. 117. Fischer, 1983, 94. 118. Edinost, March 11, 1876. 119. See, for example, Hubmajer, 1875b, 5; Rüffner, 1877, 25–26; Koetschet, 1905, 12; Biankini, 1925, 18; Novak, 1925, 115; Vuković, 1925, 79, 87, 175; Stillman, 1877, 16, 19; Bersa, 1941, 271–72; Vego, 1953, 36; Tejchman, 1985, 112. 120. Novak, 1925, 119. 121. Pelagić, 1880, 77. 122. Koetschet, 1905, 24. 123. Zastava, February 24, 1876. 124. Grujić, 1956, 118; cf. Vuković, 1925, 75; Petrović Njegoš, 1988, 298. 125. Vuković, 1925, 75–76. 126. Mrkonjić, 1983, 64. 127. Grujić, 1956, 196, 205, 211; Ekmečić, 1973, 150. 128. P. U., 1875, 3; cf. Proroković-Nevesinjac, 1902, x–xi; Dedijer, 1967, 53; see also Evans, 1877, 336. 129. See, for example, Holeček, 1878, 59. 130. Slovenski Narod, April 16, 1938.

34 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs 131. Holeček, 1878, 59–60. 132. Hubmajer, 1875, 4; Aléšovec, 1878, 18; Vošnjak, 1912, 58; see also Grujić, 1956, 69; Luković, 1962, 123. 133. Neue Freie Presse, November 14, 1875. 134. Novice gospodarske, obrtniške in narodne, November 17, 1875. 135. Jurčič, 1876, 1. 136. Zastava, November 22, 1875; Novice gospodarske, obrtniške in narodne, November 24, 1875. 137. Slipičević et al., 1952, 127. 138. This name was primarily intended to refer to the swarthy complexion of his face, that is, to serve the same purpose as the name Karađorđe (meaning “Black George”), and to paint the picture of a man who fought relentlessly against the “Turks,” like Petar (Pero) Mrkonjić, a famous hero from the coastal area who appeared in epic poetry of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and was “indispensable in guerrilla warfare.” According to Ferdo Šišić (1937, 215), Petar Karađorđević chose this name after reading the Serbian Folk Songs collected by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić. 139. Jelenić, 1923, 172; Petrović, 1924, 13; Jovanović, 1926, 284; Milutinović, 1953, 59; cf. Mrkonjić, 1983, 30–31. 140. Vuković, 1925, 37. 141. Ibid., 79–80, 175. 142. Yriarte, 1876, 301–2. 143. Zastava, December 22, 1875; Soča, December 23, 1875; Krasić, 1884, 87; Ivić, 1918, 48; Petrović, 1924, 15; Čubrilović, 1930, 140–41; Slipičević et al., 1952, 128; Ekmečić, 1973, 144–46; Mrkonjić, 1983, 55–57. 144. Zastava, September 15, 1875; Glas, December 24, 1875; cf. Ivić, 1918, 46; Čubrilović, 1930, 140; Ćorović, 1933, 527. 145. Zastava, September 15, 1875. 146. Slovenski Narod, January 12, 1876; Zastava, January 23, 1876; January 27, 1876; see also Ivić, 1918, 49; Čubrilović, 1930, 135; Ekmečić, 1973, 144–46. 147. Jovanović, 1977, 206. 148. Vuković, 1925, 67. 149. Ibid., 147; Jovanović, 1977, 207. 150. Wertheimer, 1913, II, 252; Vuković, 1925, 84, 170; Seton-Watson, 1931, 14; Radonić, 1938, 221; Milutinović, 1953, 38, 48; Luković, 1977, 58. 151. Laibacher Zeitung, November 12, 1875. 152. Ivić, 1918, 47. 153. See, for example, Petrovitch, 1915, 154; Dimnik, 1924, 22–23; Pavlović, 1924, 51; Milevoj, 1935, 31; Šišić, 1937, 214–15. 154. Radonić, 1938, 190. 155. Ivić, 1918, 20. 156. Pavlović, 1924, 52. 157. Milanović, 1938, 12. 158. Slovenski Tednik, October 10, 1875. 159. See, for example, Dimnik, 1922, 78–80. 160. Teinović, 2006, 5. 161. Ivić, 1918, 35, 47–48, 51; Vukićević, 1923, 14; Petrović, 1924, 14–15; Toman, 1926, 10; Mrkonjić, 1983, 51–52, 58–59. 162. See, for example, Krasić, 1884, 86; Ivić, 1918, 49–50; Karanović, 1921, 41. 163. Slovenski Narod, October 24, 1876; Jutro, March 4, 1910; see also Krasić, 1884, 89; Čubrilović, 1930, 141.

Introduction • 35

164. Prijatelj, 1966, 402; Kermavner, 1966, 628–30; Luković, 1977, 202; Doïnov, 1979, 159–64. 165. Jezernik, 2021. 166. Čubrilović, 1930, 141. On September 6, 1930, the Zagreb newspaper Novosti published a similarly disparaging opinion piece: “Hubmayer was defeated by the Turks, he was incompetent, and besides, the whole affair with Hubmayer turned out to be an Austrian diplomatic intrigue.” 167. Ibid. 168. Slovenski Narod, October 24, 1876. 169. Jutro, March 4, 1910. 170. Ćorović, 1933, 1. 171. Ibid., 527. 172. Hubmajer, 1926, 1. 173. Hertz, 1944, 22. 174. Miletić, 1876, 1. 175. Tepić, 1988, 431. 176. Stillman, 1877, 48; Holeček, 1878, 99–100; Vuković, 1925, 211; Mrkonjić, 1983, 52, 58; Tepić, 1988, 398; Buha, 2003, 243.

Chapter 1

In Search of a Path to Yugoslav Unification

R

The uprisings in Herzegovina and Bosnia, though they did not lead to the liberation of the two provinces and their annexation to Serbia and Montenegro, aroused the passions of the Slavic population of the Balkan Peninsula. Montenegro was already deeply involved in the Herzegovinian Uprising, while public opinion in Serbia was increasingly convinced that Serbia could not simply observe the events taking place in its immediate surroundings and stand idly by. At the end of August 1875, fearing the permanent loss of Bosnia to a more powerful neighbor, the Serbian Parliament, at a meeting in Kragujevac, decided by a majority to support the uprising by all means.1 The newspapers Istok from Belgrade and Zastava from Novi Sad wrote that the day of reckoning when revenge would be taken for Kosovo had come, and that anyone who did not acknowledge this was a traitor.2 People were excited and began to prepare for war. The most enthusiastic among the supporters of the military action even saw unusual signs and omens in the Serbian sky. One such heavenly omen was described by Arsa Pajević, a publisher and bookseller from Novi Sad, who said that under the heavy clouds four grey falcons rose into the sky, two from Bosnia, two from Herzegovina. The falcons from the proud country of Bosnia rose and flew straight to the country of Serbia and the other pair from Herzegovina rose toward the heroic country of Montenegro. The first pair of falcons flew to the high Avala Heights. There, from the mountaintop, the falcons screeched several times so that all Serbia could hear them, and then flew to the court of the Serbian prince in the white

In Search of a Path to Yugoslav Unification • 37

city of Belgrade. The other two falcons flapped their wings and flew to the proud snow-capped Lovćen Mountain, where all of Montenegro could see them, and from there they flew to the chivalrous house of the Petrovićs in the center of the town of Cetinje.3 The patriotic fervor reached the boiling point. The Serbian and Montenegrin princes stated in their declarations of war that they took up arms to liberate and unite the Serbian people. According to some accounts, since the collapse of the Serbian Empire in the Field of Kosovo, the Serbian people had never been so joyful and exuberant in anticipation of their holiday, the Vidovdan, as they were in 1876. However, this passionate enthusiasm was not to determine the outcome of the war. There were no diplomatic preparations for the war, and it was not well balanced financially.4 According to the testimony of an anonymous Slovene volunteer in the Serbian army published in the daily Slovenski Narod, Serbian warfare was poorly organized, discipline in the Serbian army was abysmal, and Serbian soldiers contemptuously referred to Slavic volunteers from the Dual Monarchy as Švabe.5 During the battle in the village of Bjelina, this Slovene volunteer, who had a company under his command, wanted to send one of his sergeants (a Serb) to reconnoiter the terrain, to which the sergeant replied, “Go yourself . . . you f***ing Swabian, you get paid better than I do!” The same report said that if there were no Russians there, “the Turks would certainly already be chasing around Belgrade by now.”6 Another problem was that the Serbian elites were not ready to shed their own blood for the territorial expansion of the Serbian state, although they had the greatest interest in it, preferring to leave this to the peasants and workers. For this reason, the working class in Serbia sang the following song during the Serbo-Turkish War: The gentlemen are the suppliers, And the merchants the purveyor. The clerks at the stations, And the peasants on the border Shed their blood to kill the Turks So that the rulers may continue to rule, While their wives and children starve And the masters prosper.7

The Bosnian insurrection spread along the Croatian border. AustriaHungary did not support the insurrection itself, but its people did. However, as soon as Serbia entered the war, the Dual Monarchy immediately banned any collection of aid and support for the insurgency on its territory, as a result of which the insurgency soon weakened.8 When the Serbo-Turkish War broke out, the Dual Monarchy informed the Serbian state

38 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

representative that it would never allow Ada Kaleh9 to pass into Serbian hands. And during the war, the Serbian representative in Vienna was informed that the Dual Monarchy would never allow Bosnia to be under Serbian rule or Herzegovina to be under Montenegrin rule.10 As soon as the war began, the Hungarian authorities charged Svetozar Miletić with high treason and imprisoned him. The people of Vojvodina were probably the most enthusiastic and openly excited, eagerly looking forward to the war. It was rumored that about ten thousand volunteers were ready to cross the Sava River, all of them “hardened frontiersmen.” In fact, some of them did cross the border individually, but certainly not in large numbers.11 The principalities of Montenegro and Serbia, which were otherwise very much interested in the outcome of the uprising, each had their own goals and interests at the time, and if these were not “against the idea of liberation, they were certainly against the idea of unification,” which significantly limited the possibility of realizing the idea of unification.12 Instead of fighting in terms of “common interests” and working together, they acted in parallel, “each for his own particular interests.”13 Prince Nikola, who fought the war “for the liberation of the Serbian people,” determined at the time that it would be more convenient for him “to hold high the flag of the liberation of the Serbian people rather than to end the heroic and glorious struggle of this war for the benefit of Montenegro, which was small for him but fatal for the common national cause.”14 Thus, he decided to continue the war until the conquest of all of Herzegovina, including the city of Mostar, and then return to Podgorica to proceed from there with his army to capture Shkodra. However, his plan was foiled by the Austro-Hungarian government’s declaration that Montenegro would not have Herzegovina for itself even if it conquered it. Therefore, he entrusted the Montenegrin army with the task of opening a route to the Adriatic Sea for his principality.15 Slovene newspapers reported on the development of the Eastern Question, consistently defending the ideas of Slavic and Yugoslav solidarity, while expressing concern about the national selfishness of the Serbs and Croats. They stressed the urgency of the present historical moment and the need to show Yugoslav unity in the face of common enemies. “We, the Slovenes, have never claimed to impose our leadership on the Yugoslavs, although we are somewhat more educated,” wrote the Slovenec newspaper, “therefore we think it is high time that the Croats and the Serbs stop arguing about who is first among the Yugoslavs.” The author of the article goes on to write, “We want everyone to be equal, and we will honor all who contribute the most to us, whether they were born in Slovenia, Croatia, or Serbia.”16 The Slovenes wanted to remain neutral with regard to the rivalry between Zagreb and Belgrade. They were simply against any kind of sepa-

In Search of a Path to Yugoslav Unification • 39

ratism and felt “sick at heart” when they criticized Zagreb and Belgrade as two rival centers of South Slavs.17 Even if the Serbo-Turkish War did not live up to expectations, the enthusiasm of Slovene observers for the “final solution” to the Eastern Question was nevertheless enormous. The Slovene newspapers wrote about it daily in a manner that showed more pathos than reason. When, on April 12, 1877, the Russian Tsar Alexander II ordered his army to cross the Ottoman frontier and liberate the Christian peoples living there, Russia became the hero of the day, deserving of “eternal memory.” The newspapers Slovenski Narod from Ljubljana and Edinost from Trieste portrayed Emperor Alexander II as the mythical Kralj Matjaž, who slept in an underground temple until his beard grew around the table therein nine times. Then he attacked and destroyed the faithless and bloodthirsty enemy with his huge army.18 Slovene newspapers fervently encouraged their readers to support Russia’s aims in the war. On May 1, 1877, the Ljubljana section of the Sokol Movement19 organized a meeting on Šmarna Gora, near Ljubljana. On that occasion, the newspaper editor Josip Jurčič proposed a toast to the victory of the fraternal Slavic-Russian forces on the banks of the Danube and the shore of the Black Sea; his words were enthusiastically received by the crowd, which happily sang the Russian anthem.20 Everywhere in the Slovene territories, people were joyfully toasting the Russian victories and Slavic happiness and prospects. At that time, children in Ljubljana played the game “Russians and Turks,” in which Slovene children played the role of the Russians, while German children played the Turks.21 Women in the villages eagerly awaited news from the front.22 In the villages in Lower Carniola (Dolenjska), Janez Trdina heard many interesting stories that the locals used to tell, such as: “Turks are not people, they are peslajnars.”23 These reports and stories of Russian warfare in the Balkans gave a strong boost to Slavic national aspirations. Slavic representatives in the Austrian Parliament vehemently advocated the idea that the Austro-Hungarian army should immediately invade Bosnia-Herzegovina.24 Henrik Tuma, a Slovene politician and writer, argued that this would be in the best interest of all Austrian Slavs, especially the Slovenes: in this way, Austria would either become a Slavic state or perish.25

The Balkan Powder Keg The Russo-Turkish War ended with the San Stefano Peace Treaty, which was concluded in early March 1878. The agreement established the autonomous Principality of Bulgaria, with a territory of 163,000 km² on the land between the Danube and the Balkan Mountains (Stara Planina), in

40 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

the area around the cities of Sofia, Pirot, and Vranje, as well as the Morava Valley, Northern Thrace, and almost all of Macedonia. Bosnia-Herzegovina was to be under the administrative rule of Russia and Austria-Hungary.26 Through the creation of Greater Bulgaria, Russia established a large Slavic state, contrary to the conventions it had concluded with the Dual Monarchy. Thus, Bulgaria was in the Russian sphere of influence, instead of the Austria-Hungarian sphere, which also violated these conventions.27 San Stefano Bulgaria had direct access to the Mediterranean Sea, which opened the possibility of a naval base on the Mediterranean for the Russian navy—a possibility that the Great Powers, and above all England, were unwilling to accept for fear of Russian “aggression.” A congress was convened in Berlin to untangle the Balkan knot. Prince Otto von Bismarck chaired the congress, while the English Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and the Foreign Secretary the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister Count Gyula Andrássy, and the Russian representatives Prince Alexander Gorchakov and the Tsar’s advisor Count Pyotr Shuvalov were the main speakers. The congress did not give the floor to the representatives of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian insurgents, even though it had met with the aim of finding a solution for the pacification of the two provinces.28 The mood of the Serbian people was expressed by Jovan Jovanović Zmaj in a poem that was often quoted at the time: Now it is over—with a magic stroke, And signed with golden pen, And celebrated by the Lord’s feast, And the Serbian ruin is called peace.

The Berlin Congress began on June 13, 1878, and lasted until July 13, 1878, but many of the participants were unhappy with the outcome. After a month of redrawing the geopolitical map of Southeastern Europe in order to create a lasting peace in the Balkans, the Treaty of San Stefano was declared invalid and a new balance of power was formulated through a new treaty of sixty-four clauses, which, in the words of Ignacij Žitnik, cut a new robe for the Ottoman Sultan and provided him with a new turban.29 Thus, the congress not only redesigned the Sultan’s robe; what was cut from it was sewn into the clothes of the emperor and the king.30 The Eastern Question, triggered by the Herzegovinian Uprising of 1875, was thus solved, at least officially. In reality, however, the Berlin Congress sowed the seeds of discontent throughout the Balkans. The Bulgarians could not regret the creation of Greater Bulgaria, the conflict between Greece and the Ottoman Empire had been ignited, Austria-Hungary’s war against the Muslim population in Bosnia-Herzegovina was provoked, and Serbia felt aggrieved, first, because it had been denied the right to the “Ser-

In Search of a Path to Yugoslav Unification • 41

bian” territories in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and second, because it suspected that Bulgaria would not forget the majestic robe that had been tailored for it in San Stefano. Serbia believed that it had to wear a badly tailored suit with sleeves and trousers that were too short, which led to great discontent among the population and protests against the dependence on Austria-Hungary in Serbia’s foreign policy,31 which eventually resulted in the May Coup of 1903, during which King Aleksandar Obrenović and Queen Draga were killed.32 Before the Berlin Congress, there were no disputes about the territorial ambitions of Serbia and Bulgaria. The Serbs aspired to a state of all Serbs and hoped to annex Bosnia-Herzegovina and unite with Montenegro. After the congress, however, Serb nationalists turned to Macedonia, the so-called Southern Serbia, hoping to realize their dreams of territorial expansion there. In the first edition of Vuk Karadžić’s Rječnik (Dictionary), published in 1818, there was no entry of Stara Srbija (Old Serbia), which appears for the first time only in the 1852 edition, defined as the “land of our nation on the other side of the Stara Planina mountain,” that is, the Balkan Mountains, or the ancient Haemus Mons.33 While the first edition describes Peć as die Stadt Ipek in Albanien (the town of Ipek in Albania),34 the 1852 edition defines it as “die Stadt Ipek, in Alt Serbien (“the town of Ipek, in Old Serbia”); a small town located in Turkish Serbia.”35 For a long time, the geographical definition of Old Serbia was interpreted differently from author to author, largely because of the historical and political contexts in which it was used. However, it was never disputed that Kosovo was “the cradle of our tribe, that it is old Serbia—as the name implies.”36 The name “Old Serbia” was thus invented out of the need to emphasize the historical right of the Principality of Serbia to certain territories that were under direct Ottoman rule and that had been part of the Serbian state in the Middle Ages.37 “One can argue about the historical right of Serbia to Albania, but the historical right of Serbia to Old Serbia is self-evident.”38 Thus, Serbian nationalists directed their aspirations for the liberation and unification of Serbian lands toward the places and territories of the glorious Serbian past described in folk songs, renewing and strengthening their aspirations in accordance with the economic and vital needs of the Serbian state.39 Serbia’s strategic orientation toward the southern territories was also supported by the Dual Monarchy.40 In 1881, the AustroHungarian Empire signed the Secret Convention with Prince Milan, in which the prince undertook not to allow Serbian propaganda against the interests of the Dual Monarchy and not to enter into negotiations or political agreements with other states without Austria-Hungary’s consent, while Austria-Hungary, on the other hand, agreed not to oppose his proclamation as king, to support the Obrenović dynasty, and to be sympathetic

42 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

to the possibility of Serbian territorial expansion southwards (toward Macedonia).41 Not unexpectedly, the Serbian aspirations in the south aroused opposition and jealousy among the Bulgarians. As a result, tribal and traditional contradictions intensified and hopes for a unified solution of the Yugoslav question faded. The ideals of Greater Bulgaria, Greater Serbia, Greater Croatia, and the United Slovenia flourished to the detriment of the common Yugoslavism.42 In short, instead of resolving the Eastern Question and creating a lasting peace on the Balkan Peninsula, the Berlin Congress—as King Nikola I recalled—paved the way for new, great, future events.43 “The smell of gunpowder was everywhere. Just a small spark was needed to set everything on fire.”44

Divide and Rule Some participants in the Berlin Congress remarked that there would be difficulties in occupying Bosnia-Herzegovina, but the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister replied that the populations of these two provinces would welcome the Austro-Hungarian troops with open arms, adding jokingly that the occupation of these two Ottoman provinces would require only a hussar regiment accompanied by a military music band.45 Count Gyula Andrássy ended his colorful speech with the pleasing promise that once the Austro-Hungarian army occupied these two provinces and established order there, these lands would flourish and experience freedom and prosperity.46 Seduced by the charming words of Count Andrássy, the envoys of the Great Powers forgot the old folk wisdom that one should not count one’s chickens before they hatch. As soon as the Austro-Hungarian army set foot on Bosnian land, it became clear that the occupying army was not prepared for the kind of reception it would receive from the local Muslims.47 Bosnian Muslims were very disappointed with the decision of the Berlin Congress. They said that Bosnia was their vatan (homeland), that the Sultan could cede Istanbul but not Bosnia, and they announced that they would not do it, even though the Sultan asked them to do teslim (surrender). In those days, the term Švabo, a contemptuous term for all inhabitants of the Dual Monarchy, was widely used among the population for the first time.48 The Austro-Hungarian army, more than 150,000 strong and equipped with over three hundred cannons, overcame the resistance of the insurgents.49 After almost three months of heavy fighting, there were many casualties on both sides. According to official figures, the AustroHungarian army lost 5,198 men over the course of the three months.50

In Search of a Path to Yugoslav Unification • 43

But although the insurgents submitted to the stronger force, they did not lose heart. They retained their hatred for the enemy, who had become their master by force, and waited for the right time to gather, raise the green flag of the Prophet, and strike down the hated enemy.51 The occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina was not a triumphal procession, but a bloody adventure across the fields and valleys of these two provinces, where the occupying forces encountered resistance from small groups of local Sokols ready to fight back with arms—“to the death!”52 Bosnian Muslims defended their vatan “with furious religious hatred.”53 In his report of August 28, 1878, General Josip Filipović reported that there were also Christians who sided with the resistance fighters against the occupation. According to Filipović, Christians, both Catholic and Orthodox, were used en masse by the Muslim insurgents as beasts of burden to carry their ammunition and pull cannons. The Muslims did not trust them enough to give them weapons and instead forced them to run ahead of them as human shields. Neither Serbia nor Montenegro supported the joint resistance of Muslims and Orthodox Christians. The Serbian government prevented and suppressed the activities of the Herzegovinian emigration and Prince Nikola did this to an even greater extent in Montenegro.54 In general, the German and Hungarian subjects of the Dual Monarchy did not support the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but rather considered it a “Trojan horse” that would only strengthen the status of the Slavs in the Double Monarchy.55 The Slovenes and Croats, however, enthusiastically supported the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina for the same reason that the Austro-Hungarian Germans and Hungarians opposed it. Convinced that the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina would change the status of all Yugoslav subjects for the better, they made far-reaching plans for a bright future, relying on the logic that the mere desire to solve a problem would bring about its solution. Given that fewer than five million Hungarians enjoyed privileged status within the monarchy, twelve million Yugoslavs who were “gifted in every way” were to be granted at least equal rights. Having solved the problem of equal rights for all subjects of the Dual Monarchy so efficiently, the author of the article in Slovenec continued to build castles in the air. Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs are undoubtedly striving for unification, he thought aloud, their dialects are becoming more and more similar, and their national character is basically the same. Therefore, Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs are one people, whether you call their respective idioms a language or a dialect. “If we are one people,” the author concluded, “why should we fear to be united with our brothers?”56 A similar position to that expressed in Slovenec was held by Slovenski Narod. The organ of Slovene liberals advocated the occupation of Bosnia-

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Herzegovina for the first time on September 30, 1875. According to Slovenski Narod, Serbia ceased to be a decisive actor in the Slavic South because of its passive attitude during the Bosnian Uprising in 1875, and its mission as the Yugoslav Piedmont was turned into a “caricature.” “Serbia is present and it is not present,” the anonymous author argued, concluding that it would be better for the political aspirations of the AustroHungarian Yugoslavs for Austria-Hungary to lead the Yugoslav movement and not Serbia, “which has so far only hoisted the flag of exclusive Serbdom.” Moreover, the occupation of these two provinces would mean a significant increase in the Slavic population of the monarchy, which would lead to the dissolution of dualism and the improvement of the status of non-German and non-Hungarian peoples, including the Slovenes.57 Unlike the Slovene and Croat subjects of the black double-headed eagle, who welcomed the occupation, the loss of Bosnia, which many Serbs dreamed of, seemed to Serbs like a “new Kosovo.” Serbian nationalists spread the idea that Austria-Hungary occupied both provinces not with the intention of improving them and eliminating the reasons for the Nevesinje Rifle, but in order to drive an “iron wedge between Serbia and Montenegro, our two brotherly countries, and us, who with great agonies and great sacrifices have freed ourselves from the old, rusty and loose Turkish chains, to drive us back on all sides into their newly forged steel chains, to surround us with the Great Wall of China and to begin the execution of their plans.”58 Many Serbs, outside and inside the Dual Monarchy, developed a “hatred to the extreme” toward Austria-Hungary as a result of the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina; in their eyes, it became “a greater and far more dangerous enemy than the Turkish Empire.”59 They sought comfort in the fact that Austria-Hungary had only received a mandate for a temporary occupation and that Serbia would be sufficiently strengthened to defend Bosnia against Austrian covetousness by the time of the final settlement.60 For the Yugoslav national romantics, the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina seemed to be an important milestone on the way to the realization of their “centuries-old dream.” Indeed, in their view, the only question that remained to be answered was who would unite the Yugoslavs: Greater Austria or Little Serbia, which could become dangerous to Austria because of its “invigorating idea.” In fact, the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina did not strengthen Yugoslav unity, but rather dealt it a severe blow. The Croatian nationalists believed that the entire Bosnian land belonged to Croatia alone, while their Serbian counterparts thought just the opposite. Since the Serbs wanted the occupation to be temporary and the final solution not to be determined in advance, and the Croats wanted these territories not to be abandoned but to be united with Croatia and Dalmatia, the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina placed them at two com-

In Search of a Path to Yugoslav Unification • 45

pletely opposing political poles. The contradiction in their attitudes led to an aggravation of their mutual relations and struggles between them that were maliciously fomented by the Austro-Hungarian regime, which alternately supported them when it suited its own interests.61 All this led to Serbo-Croatian discord and strife that lasted for more than a quarter of a century and caused enormous damage to their common cause.62 These disputes between Serbs and Croats were detrimental to Yugoslav unity,63 which is why Slovene writers also raised the question of Bosnia and its affiliation. In early March 1878, Slovenec published a long editorial on this subject. In it, the author argued that if Bosniaks could decide on their future, they would choose Austria. The main task of the new regime in Bosnia, he went on, was to develop and civilize the country and its people, which Serbia could not do because it was not civilized itself. Thus, under Serbian rule, Bosnia would have little to gain culturally: instead of the enlightenment of the people, there would be strife and discord between Orthodox Christians, Catholics, and Muslims. This would not happen under Austrian rule, because there was no longer persecution on the basis of religion in the Dual Monarchy. However, if Bosnia was left to the Croats, such strife and persecution could not be ruled out. This would be possible only if all former Illyrian territories were united with the Croats. Serbs and Croats will always quarrel, which would present the Slovenes with the task of mediating between them by supporting all just demands; justice could be on the side of the Croats today and on the side of the Serbs tomorrow.64 The Dual Monarchy, however, did not intend on increasing its difficulties by allowing the population in the occupied territories to unite politically with other Yugoslavs. On the contrary, it took precautionary measures to isolate the population from contact with Serbia, Croatia, and Dalmatia. Thus, its efforts were not aimed at the spiritual advancement of the Slavic population. “For my mission,” said Governor Benjamin von Kállay, “one gendarme is worth as much as five teachers.”65 In fact, during his reign, until 1893, only one gymnasium was opened in Bosnia-Herzegovina; it was built for a population of more than 1.5 million people in place of the Serbian gymnasium in Sarajevo, which had closed. The second state gymnasium opened in Mostar in 1893 and the third in Tuzla in 1899.66 The Austro-Hungarian administration in Bosnia-Herzegovina feared the rapprochement of Muslims and Orthodox Christians and therefore tried to disturb the good relations between them. In order to do this as successfully as possible, it left the (feudal) agrarian question unresolved and even forced the serfs to strictly perform their duties, even though the delegates of the Dual Monarchy at the Berlin Congress had identified the agrarian question as the main cause of the Bosnian unrest. The administration pursued a policy of oppression of Serbs and encouraged Bosnian

46 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

Croats and Muslims to cooperate.67 However, the most effective means of dividing the population into smaller, opposing units was the careful division of political positions on the basis of religion. Joint Finance Minister von Kállay, author of a history of the Serbian Uprising and uncrowned king of Bosnia, worked to prevent the national unity of Serbs and Croats from Bosnia with Serbs from Serbia and Croats from Croatia, and forbade all associations with (Serbian and Croatian) ethnic names. He even banned Serbian history, a subject on which he himself had written.68 At the same time, he constructed an interconfessional Bosniak nationalism on a “scientific basis.” The idea of Bosniakism, which included all inhabitants of Bosnia-Herzegovina regardless of their religion, had already been initiated by the Ottoman authorities as part of the reforms in the mid-nineteenth century, and Topal Osman Pasha, a military officer and administrator of Bosnia, had worked particularly hard on it.69 Bosniak ideology and language was represented and propagated through the newspaper Bošnjak and the official calendar book of the same name. The Bosnian flag, coat of arms, and language were also introduced and promoted, and it was forbidden to call the language people spoke Serbian or Serbo-Croatian.70 Serbian books and newspapers bearing a Serbian or a Croatian name were banned.71 Bosniakism came to the forefront of political life in 1891, when Mehmed-beg Kapetanović founded the newspaper Bošnjak as a Muslim newspaper while defending and propagating the Bosniak interconfessional national idea. In 1893, as mayor of Sarajevo, Mehmed-beg Kapetanović wrote, among other things: “As for the Croats and Serbs, they are branches of the chivalrous Yugoslav people, just as we are a branch, and we stand first. If only they would not look at us with a wrong eye, if only they would recognize our nationality, we could well live in harmony with them.”72 However, the second issue of Bošnjak included a poem dedicated to Bošnjak by Safvet-beg Bašagić, which contained two suggestive verses: From Trebinje to Brod stretches our homeland, Where Serbs and Croats have never had the upper hand.73

War or Peace? For the same reasons that they supported the occupation of BosniaHerzegovina, the Slovene press and politicians also supported the annexation of both provinces on the grounds that Serbian cultural and political conditions “make the Serbianization of Bosnia undesirable.”74 As a result of the annexation of both provinces, they expected the end of the “tragic

In Search of a Path to Yugoslav Unification • 47

period” of their history, that is, proof that “Marko Kraljević is not dead, nor is his Šarac, and that his mace is not rusty,” but that he was only sleeping in some cave, waiting for the fairy Slovinka to wake him up to win freedom for his people.75 One of the most influential Slovene politicians, Janez Ev. Krek, in his speech of January 16, 1909, to the Carniola Provincial Assembly, hailed the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina as an “important fact for the South Slavs” because it finally gathered almost two million of “our brothers by blood, land, language” under one dynasty. In his speech, he emphasized that one language was spoken by one people from Carinthia to the Black Sea, “that it is not possible for the philologist to find in these dialects a transition from the Zilja River (Ger. Gail) to the Black Sea.”76 Krek devoted a part of his speech to the Serbian nation, that is, “our Neapolitans,” who talk a lot, which shows that, among them, “poetry, not reality,” prevails. This nation has created everything it has itself, and so it is not surprising that it has set itself some unattainable goals, such as Greater Serbia. I assert coldly and briefly [said Krek] that this ideal would be fatal in general, not only to Austria. For if the Serbs on the one side aspire to the realization of their ideal through unification, provided they touch the aspirations of the Croats, it is clear that antagonism cannot cease. In my opinion, precisely because the possibility of realizing the ideal of a Greater Serbia has disappeared, the time has come for the brothers, who have hitherto wandered in the confusions left them by their ancestors, to embrace each other even in great mutual infatuation. The two brothers will then live together in brotherly embrace, and they will no longer wonder what the difference is between Croats and Serbs, for there will be none.77

The way events unfolded also led to the first attempts to realize Yugoslav dreams in the field of politics. The Yugoslav Social Democracy was founded and held a conference in Ljubljana on November 21–22, 1909; this was attended by deputies from the Slovene lands, Croatia, Slavonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as guests from Serbian, Bohemian, Italian, and the Austrian-German Social Democratic Parties. They succeeded in devising the so-called Tivoli Resolution (after the Tivoli Hotel in Ljubljana), which was the first to concretize the Yugoslav idea. The resolution called for the unification of all Yugoslavs (namely Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, and Bulgarians), regardless of name, religion, alphabet, dialect, language, or constitutional or political boundaries, into one entity. Although the Yugoslavs were divided into eight state territories, and culturally into four nations, the conference felt that they should be united into a single nation because the life of their people at that time was “only fictitious.” The differ-

48 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

ences between them, the resolution stated, were not so great, either in kind or degree, as to justify the separatism of individual parts, especially as none of them possessed sufficient power to develop a national life of their own. It was only necessary to agree on a common national language and script, which was a prerequisite for a unified national life for all Yugoslavs.78 The conference saw historicism as a significant obstacle to the creation of a Yugoslav community, that is, the ideas of Greater Croatia, Greater Serbia, and Greater Bulgaria. It saw another, even greater obstacle in the differences between the Orthodox and Catholic religions, which were closely linked to nationality and culture through the Latin and Cyrillic scripts, respectively. And finally, it claimed that the third obstacle was progressive nationalism, which sought political power through the rise of the middle class and saw this as the basis of nationhood. In Serbia and Bulgaria, the national parties were also the state parties and thus the bases of the respective dynasties, but, according to the Yugoslav Social Democrats, the very existence of the dynasties was one of the greatest obstacles to Yugoslav unity.79 However, the conference’s great pivot from the west to the east came too abruptly. For people whose fathers and grandfathers had been loyal soldiers of “Habsburg reaction and avarice,” and to whom the cities of Padua, Mantua, Verona, Vicenza, and Milan were more familiar than Trieste and Gorizia, the turn to the south and the east, to Zagreb, Belgrade, Sofia, and Varna, came almost overnight. According to the Slovene politician Albin Prepeluh, the leading advocate of Slovene autonomy within the Yugoslav nation-state, this sudden turn was so poetical and unexpected that it did not appeal to the rank and file of the people. Now, as Prepeluh says, “neither the police government nor the local bourgeois parties” showed any interest in the resolution.80 The search for an acceptable path to Yugoslav integration did not stop, however. Three years after the Yugoslav Social Democratic Party conference, a joint meeting of representatives of the Party of Rights from all Croatian countries and representatives of the All-Slovene People’s Party was held in Ljubljana. With the acclamation of all present, the meeting adopted the resolution proclaiming Croats and Slovenes as “one national whole.” The supporters of both parties would work together “in the spirit and direction of the program of the Party of Rights for the unity, law, and free development of the Croat-Slovene nation within the Habsburg Monarchy,” and the leader of the All-Slovene People’s Party Ivan Šusteršič concluded his speech with the enthusiastic exclamation: “The Croat-Slovene nation is one body, one heart, one soul!”81 Yugoslav ideology was most zealously espoused by a segment of the youth; for Avgust Jenko, for example, Yugoslavia’s mission was “great and sublime.” He expected Yugoslavs to take the place of Western peoples and

In Search of a Path to Yugoslav Unification • 49

prove to the world that it was possible to create a new concept of a nation; he believed that they would do this through their love for their country, their faith in their people, and their relentless struggle against an alien, “enemy race.” “And to achieve our highest ideal,” exclaimed Jenko, “we should first realize our great task: to instill in our people a longing for the sun, to give them the strength to realize what they have dreamed of for centuries, to rise from the living rock and let the mighty army of Kralj Matjaž swarm over the fields of ancient glory.”82 On the other side of the state border, the authorities in Serbia and Montenegro, as well as the Serbian press and public opinion, saw the annexation in a very different light. Every night in Terazije Square in Belgrade, people could be heard shouting, “War on the Austrians!” Branislav Nušić recruited volunteers for the Legion of Death under his command; within a few days, 5,170 people enlisted. The people demanded that the army cross the Drina, while the Crown Prince Đorđe exclaimed in front of the monument of Prince Mihailo in Belgrade: “Who wants to live, let him die, who is ready to die, let him live!”83 In the great hall of Kolarac, Prince Đorđe, who was apparently the leader of the war party, kissed the Serbian tricolor. The members of the National Defense cut their hands and drenched the flag with their blood. Every morning, the Crown Prince practiced his shooting skills by firing shots at a huge eagle on the Millennium Monument in Zemun, then on Hungarian territory.84 Crown Prince Đorđe, according to the Times special correspondent, was “the hero of the day.” In countless interviews, he and Nikola Pašić expressed their conviction that Russia would not accept annexation; otherwise, Serbia would have no choice but to engage in a suicidal war.85 At a reception in the Russian embassy in Belgrade, the Crown Prince told everyone present that the Russian Tsar was a “liar” because he had told him, Đorđe, that he would not allow the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. He then turned to the Dual Monarchy envoy and said, “Your emperor is a thief and a scoundrel who steals others’ lands.” Austria-Hungary demanded a sanction for this scandal. The Russian envoy suggested that the matter be settled by the Crown Prince apologizing to each envoy for his outburst. However, he refused to do so, preferring to renounce his right to the throne.86 While large crowds were demonstrating in the Serbian cities, General Filipović’s regiment number 70 stood in Zemun. Eight thousand people of Serbian language and Orthodox faith performed the heaviest kind of border duty for several months, day and night, in mud and sun. According to the famous Austrian writer Alexander Roda Roda, not a single Austro-Hungarian soldier deserted during this time; all of them eagerly waited for the attack against the Serbs and sang war songs.87 The people in

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Austria-Hungary, aware of their great military power, observed the public demonstrations in Serbia with much arrogance. According to a report in the Celje newspaper Domovina (Homeland), these resembled a veritable “operetta comedy,” which had the sole aim of “throwing a little sand in the eyes of these animals”—as high-society gentlemen in Montenegro allegedly called the common people—and giving them an opportunity to shout a little and take to the streets. “There has never been such a big and daring farce as the one old Nikica is playing with his people,” the author of the report wrote. “If the Serbs think even a little, they will realize that their royal houses are the greatest obstacle to the healthy and peaceful development of the Serbian people.”88 Slovenec strongly condemned the “Serbian provocations.” In an article entitled “War or Peace?” this newspaper argued that no one in Austria wanted war and that peace was in Serbia’s best interest because there was no point in needlessly shedding blood and wasting millions that could be better spent on various socio-economic needs. In the same article, the anonymous author threatens Serbia, stating that Slav regiments would be the first to move to Belgrade and suggesting that perhaps Serb regiments would be the first to turn their guns on the Kingdom of Serbia “because the Serb officer and soldier in the Austrian army is good and disciplined.” In conclusion, the author tells the Serbian government that it should have no illusions about the loyalty of the Slavic soldiers, for Austria was strong and would defend the borders of the fatherland if necessary and fearlessly repel any irredentism. He also advised the Serbs against engaging in political agitation against Austria, since it would only be possible to realize many of their Yugoslav ideals by cooperating with Austria, “which they will never do with malice and delusion.”89 Russia, however, was not prepared for war and therefore had to accept the annexation. But the victory of the black two-headed eagle against the Russian bear had been dearly bought: “Austro-Russian relations were now worse than ever.”90 Without Russian support, Serbia was forced to bow to the Austro-Hungarian threats and, finally, at the end of March 1909, officially declared that “the rights of Serbia had not been violated”; moreover, Crown Prince Đorđe, the leader of the Serbian “war party,” promised to abdicate.91 But even this came at a price: since the annexation, Austria-Hungary had become Serbia’s “enemy number one.”92 In the eyes of the Serbs, the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina meant that brute force had secured victory over law and morality. The feeling of distrust that crept into the souls of the Serbs “poisoned the whole atmosphere”; Serbia and Montenegro began to hastily prepare for war.93 As was noted in Austrian military circles, the annexation resulted in a significant change in the idea of Yugoslavism. More and more voices were claiming that the Balkans be-

In Search of a Path to Yugoslav Unification • 51

longed to the Yugoslavs. South Slavs in Austria-Hungary leaned less and less on Strossmayer’s concept of Yugoslavism, which aimed to unite the Yugoslavs as an autonomous part of the Dual Monarchy. Irredentist ideas, which, in the narrative of Austro-Hungarian propaganda, amounted to the idea of a “Greater Serbia,” began to gain a foothold even among those who had previously been the Dual Monarchy’s “most faithful friends and most loyal subjects.”94 Instead of bringing peace to Bosnia, the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina fueled nationalist passions to the extreme. It opened the Yugoslav question, which became a vital issue for the Dual Monarchy.95 The Balkan Peninsula became a great bone of contention that threatened to provoke bloodshed at any moment.96 The German journalist and politician Alfred Frankenfeld stressed that during the annexation crisis, the thought of the possibility of a world war became a real possibility.97 And diplomatic historian F. Roy Bridge added succinctly: “From here the road led straight to Sarajevo.”98

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

Jovanović, 1926, 251. Ibid., 254. Pajević, 1891, 115–16. Jovanović, 1926, 303, 312. Švab (Swabian) was a pejorative term for a German. For Serbs, there were three kinds of foreigners: Turks, Latins, and Švabe. “By the former they mean all Moslems, including Albanians, and even their kindred Mahommedans of Bosnia and Hercegovina; the Latins are Roman Catholics, in particular those of Dalmatia and Italy, while the Švabe, or Swabians, originally the Austrians, are Central Europeans in general, so that švapski in Serb corresponds to the Turkish alla franga, that is, in the European way” (Burr, 1935, 340). Slovenski Narod, October 24, 1876. Pelagić, 1880, 82. Jovanović, 1926, 323. Ada Kaleh was an island in the Danube on which there was a settlement with a “Turkish” population. It was flooded in 1970 by the construction of the hydroelectric power plant Iron Gate (Djerdap). Jovanović, 1926, 331. Ibid., 324. Ibid., 270–71. Ibid., 292–93. Petrović Njegoš, 1988, 416–17. Ibid., 472. Slovenec, August 24, 1876. Slovenec, November 7, 1876.

52 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs 18. Slovenec, January 27, 1877; Slovenski Narod, May 15, 1877. 19. Sokol (Falcon) was a gymnastics organization first founded in Prague in 1862 by Miroslav Tyrš and Jindřich Fügner. The founding fathers of the organization, which eventually spread to all Slavic territories, saw it as a physical, moral, and intellectual training for the (Slavic) nation. In Slavic languages, soko(l) is a bird that, because of its speed and energy, symbolizes the activity, vigor, and effort that were the ideal of the Sokol movement. In the Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian languages, soko is also a synonym for a hero. 20. Slovenski Narod, May 17, 1877. 21. Melik, 1997, 17. 22. Trdina, 1987, III, 819, 824. 23. A mythical creature with a human body and a canine head; Trdina, 1987, III, 826–27. 24. Vošnjak, 1912, 56. 25. Tuma, 1913, 132. 26. Ristić, 1898, 132–33. 27. Jakšić, 1955, 21. 28. Ristić, 1898, 184; Žitnik, 1912, 1; Stojanović, 1958, 9. 29. Žitnik, 1912, 1–2. 30. After realizing that the Dual Monarchy played a dominant role in diplomatic relations, and after becoming disillusioned with Russia, Jovan Ristić made a proposal to Montenegrin envoy Božo Petrović in Vienna that Serbia and Montenegro should abandon the idea of relying on Russia and focus on the Dual Monarchy, in the belief that, with its support, the South Slavs could even establish a great nation-state ( Jovanović, 1977, 305). 31. In der Maur, 1936, I, 28. 32. On May 9, 1909, a group of conspirators led by Dragutin Dimitrijević Apis formed an organization called Ujedinjenje ili smrt (Union or Death), also known as Black Hand. On September 3, 1911, this secret society began publishing the newspaper Pijemont, whose basic idea was “the unification of all Yugoslavs or death.” According to the Austrian officer and publicist Gilbert von In der Maur (1936, I, 125), its basic motto was Fiat Yugoslavia, et si pereat mundus (Let there be Yugoslavia, even if the world ends). 33. Karadžić, 1852, 712. 34. Stefanović, 1818, 552. 35. Karadžić, 1852, 497. 36. Belić, 1912, 1. 37. Jagodić, 2016, 36. 38. Ibid., 31. 39. Cvijić, 1914, 11. 40. Ristić, 1898, 226; Kapidžić, 1958, 284. 41. Tunguz-Perović, 1922, 24; Terzić, 1959, I, 11. 42. Brzin, 1913, 5. 43. Petrović Njegoš, 1988, 529–30. 44. Vukčević, 1950, 48. 45. Wertheimer, 1913, III, 153; Südland, 1918, 484. 46. Ljubović, 1895, 3; Fournier, 1909, 77. 47. Svetek, 1888, 431. 48. Kreševljaković, 1937, 18–19; Tomasevich, 1955, 108. 49. Luković, 1977, 325. 50. K. k. Kriegs-Archiv, 1879, x. 51. Tunguz-Perović, 1922, 21.

In Search of a Path to Yugoslav Unification • 53

52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83.

84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98.

Ljubović, 1895, 6. Pelagić, 1880, 216. Kapidžić, 1958, 15. Slipičević, 1954, 7–8. Slovenec, July 13, 1878. Slovenski Narod, September 30, 1875. Srbin Bosanac, 1897, 8–9. Nikašinović, 1904, 96. Jovanović, 1926, 429; Petrović, 1968, 206; Bogičević, 1969, 325; Petrović Njegoš, 1988, 536. Borovnjak, 1936, 36. Marjanović, 1913, 142; Wendel, 1925, 494; Stojanović, 1958, 11. See, for example, Artuković, 1991, 11. Slovenec, March 2 and 5, 1878. Buchan, 1923, 210. Stojanović, 1958, 13. Tunguz-Petrović, 1922, 68; Kapidžić, 1958, 61; Sked, 1989, 245. Wendel, 1925, 491; Banitch, 1933, 18. Čulinović, 1962, 20; Hadžibegović and Imamović, 1998, 251. Kurtović, 1914, 10–11; Rizvić, 1973, I, 69. Ćorović, 1925, 81; Slipičević, 1954, 16–17. Ćorović, ibid. S. B., 1891, 2. Slovenec, October 7, 1908. Edinost, October 8, 1908. Slovenec, January 19, 1909. Ibid. Tuma, 1912, 243–44; Lončar, 1921, 78–82; Prepeluh, 1938, 71–72. Tuma, ibid. Prepeluh, 1938, 71. Slovenec, October 21, 1912. Sanov, 1913, 2. Slovenec, October 8, 1908; Domovina, October 23, 1908; Svetovna vojska, 1914, no. 1, pp. 17–19; Lončarević, 1929, 596; In der Maur, 1936, I, 92; Schilling, 1939, 35; Milićević, 1967, 556, 560–61. Svetovna vojska, 1914, no. 1, 18. The Times, October 30, 1908. Meštrović, 1961, 83; Dedijer, 1967, 382; Horvat, 1967, 57. Svetovna vojska, 1914, no. 1, 18. Domovina, October 23, 1908. Slovenec, February 19, 1909. Bridge, 1972, 311. Terzić, 1959, I, 59–60; Horvat, 1967, 57; Miličević, 1967, 569; Sked, 1989, 253. Horvat, 1967, 58. Ćorović, 1936, 296. Krek, 1908, 156; cf. In der Maur, 1936, I, 123. Hobus, 1934, 38. Debevec, 1908, 64. Frankenfeld, 1928, 124. Bridge, 1972, 321.

Chapter 2

Marko Kraljević in the Age of Capitalism

R

The beginning of the development of capitalism in the Balkan countries in the late nineteenth century led the local bourgeoisie to strive for the expansion of their national territories and consequently their national markets, with the possibility of opening up the way to the Mediterranean coast. Rapidly growing state expenditure made them all aware that they had to do something in order not to “lag behind the others in every respect, so that they must either advance or fail.”1 Therefore, they formed a military alliance with the aim of national liberation of the Balkan peoples, some of whom were still living under the “Turkish yoke.”2 In order to achieve their national and state goals, the Balkan states gradually allocated more and more resources to their armies and prepared for the inevitable war. In the Kingdom of Serbia, for example, the military budget accounted for a quarter of the total state budget in the period from 1904 to 1912 and ranged from between 20 and 30 million dinars per year.3 In the autumn of 1912, the First Balkan War broke out. On October 8, 1912, Nikola I, King of Montenegro and the Mountains, Lord of the Lands of Zeta, Littoral and the Skadar Lake, issued a proclamation in which he called on Montenegrins to rush to the aid of their brothers in Old Serbia out of a sense of duty and love for their kinsmen: “I know that you would have done this with your innate courage even if you had not listened to Me and waited for the outcome of My peaceful efforts to protect the martyrs across the border.”4 As much as King Nikola did not want to disturb the European peace, it was simply not possible to free their

Marko Kraljević in the Age of Capitalism • 55

“brothers” from the “Turkish yoke” without weapons. The day after king’s proclamation was announced, the fighting began. The military band played the Onamo, ‘namo, za brda ona (Yonder, yonder, over the hills), and the cannons began to thunder.5 To be sure, the war did not begin as an improvised opera buffa; it was preceded by years of public preparation for the inevitable armed conflict, during which the war was presented as a holy war to liberate their “en-

Figure 2.1. Yugoslav rally after the Serbian victory in the First Balkan War. Dubrovnik, November 24, 1912. Photographer unknown. Source: private collection of the author.

56 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

slaved brothers.”6 Especially in the years leading up to the war, the Balkan states were transformed into a “huge workshop for educating the people in one direction.”7 For years, moral preparation for war was carried out in schools and drilled into the minds of Balkan youth: “Free your brothers and unite with them, or you, too, will not exist much longer.”8 Serbian newspapers kept reminding their readers of the bloody battle of Vidovdan, on June 28, 1389, when Tsar Lazar was killed and the Serbian people lost their freedom. From childhood, every Serbian and Montenegrin soldier heard stories about the cities of Prizren, Prilep, and Skopje, the Battle of Kosovo, and the national heroes of the Middle Ages, while the newspapers kept warning that this renowned Battle of Kosovo, the subject of the most beautiful Serbian epics, would go unavenged. In September 1912, on the eve of the war, the newspapers in Belgrade kept repeating that the “Serbs” in the south were suffering from the “Arnaut zulum (cruelty).”9 On October 5, 1912, the Belgrade newspaper Politika formulated the goal of the war in three words: “Asiatics to Asia.”10 At the beginning of the twentieth century, the growth of capitalism in the Balkans led to a “great economic need” for territorial expansions, which were presented by local elites as being fully in line with Balkan traditions. The desire to liberate their “oppressed brothers” was universal, lending moral value to the war effort and giving meaning to the vast, corpse-strewn fields of the Balkans. In Serbia, for example, the constantly repeated call for revenge for Kosovo after the lost war of 1876 finally won the hearts and minds of the nation and conveyed to the people the “strength of Marko Kraljević.”11 How deeply this propaganda took root is best shown by an anecdote from 1915. In the second year of the war, a group of Swedish officers came to Serbia to analyze the structure of the Serbian army. When the Serbian soldiers learned why they were there, a sergeant asked the Swedish officers, “Do they have Marko Kraljević over there? Do they have Miloš Obilić and Tsar Lazar over there? Do they have epic poems like us, and do they also have the ancestral oath to avenge Kosovo?! Because if they do not have all that, they came here for nothing, and their army will never be like ours.”12 At the beginning of the century, according to Branko Lazarević, the Serbian people still had the same mentality and psychology that had been shaped by Serbian epic poetry, and led their lives in conformity with the historical, social, and moral traditions of such poetry. And so, when they thought of the war, they thought that, in the great historical times, the heroes come from the past to see what those in the present were doing. Viewed through this lens, the world appeared “as a stage on which everything that has happened and is happening takes place; it took on the

Marko Kraljević in the Age of Capitalism • 57

appearance of a gigantic meeting place of two great milieus, the Middle Ages and the New Age; a pageant of their deeds and ours.”13

Honoring the Kosovo Pledge King Petar issued a mobilization decree calling on all able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and fifty to march under the flag of war to free “their brothers” across the border, who were languishing in “Turkish slavery.” So many men answered the call that some had to be sent back to their homes.14 A number of the soldiers were even enlisted as officially dead men. Indeed, they were “dead” for military exercises, but they were very much alive when it came to “avenging Kosovo.” It was rumored that there were several thousand of them, with people commenting that even the dead rose from their graves to avenge Kosovo, which meant that the words from the epic, which prophesied that Marko Kraljević would come back to life, had come true.15 The Serbian politician and writer Dragiša Vasić, in his work on the character and mentality of a generation, interpreted the mass response to the mobilization and the general enthusiasm it generated among the Serbian people as the result of the great patriotism of his contemporaries and their desire to prove how worthy they were of continuing the mission of their ancestors.16 This attitude gave them extraordinary strength and endurance and raised their morale to unimaginable heights. They did not need to be forced into war; they “plunged into the bloodbath with enthusiasm,” convinced that there, beyond the distant mountains, lay “the treasure of the people that the Turks had stolen from the Balkans and without which the Balkan Federation could not live.”17 Jaša Tomić, a Serbian war correspondent, described this enthusiasm as “boundless fanaticism,” an enthusiasm that “already bordered on madness.”18 Reportedly, some soldiers fought for several days “on an empty stomach.” They were helped by the thought that war was “a task that must be done well” and that they would eat when the task had been successfully completed.19 Taking revenge for Kosovo was to be a moral satisfaction for a generation willing to make sacrifices for its nation and fatherland, and free access to the sea was to provide a practical benefit in exchange for the sacrifices made. Supposedly, all of Serbia—the entire Serbian nation—was obsessed with the idea and belief that there was no life without access to the sea. For years, newspapers had informed the masses that Serbia had no economic future without full economic independence; they presented the exit “from the cauldron of the Balkans to global markets”20 as the first and most im-

58 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

portant condition for free economic development. Thus, a real need was added to the old desire to avenge Kosovo: free access to the sea.21 When the war was over, Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro almost doubled the size of their territories, while Bulgaria lost as much territory in the north to Romania as it had conquered in the south, and Albania emerged on the former territory of the multinational Ottoman Empire.22 However, the newly conquered territories were paid for dearly by those involved with their own blood. The beginning of the war might have seemed theatrical, but the corpses left on the stage at its end were never resurrected. According to data collected by Richard Hall, 32,000 Bulgarians died in the war, while 110,000 were wounded and 34,000 died of various diseases. At the same time, 6,732 Greeks were killed and 42,809 were wounded or sick, 3,037 Montenegrins were killed and 7,563 wounded, while Serbian casualties amounted to at least 36,550 dead and about 55,000 wounded. The number of Ottoman casualties remains unknown.23 The nationalist propaganda in the Balkan states sought to justify the sacrifices made. By sacrificing their lives, the fallen soldiers were only “repaying the debt we all owe to our nation.”24 Moreover, the dead were not even really dead: “They died to live forever.”25 War correspondents portrayed war as “something natural” that no nation likes, but that nations, both uncivilized and highly civilized, that de-

Figure 2.2. The Smile of a Fallen (Serbian) Soldier. “It is sweet to die for the fatherland!” Photo from the Great War Album, by Major Andre Popović (1918–20). Source: private collection of the author.

Marko Kraljević in the Age of Capitalism • 59

velop and progress accept as a “necessity with which they sympathize and which they admire.” Fear of war, on the other hand, said the Belgrade daily Pravda, is a sign that a nation is in a stage of “decay and decadence.” As an example of such a nation, the newspaper cited neighboring AustriaHungary, where people were afraid of war and “cried” when it broke out, not hiding the fact that they were afraid of war. According to the analysis of the propagandist of Pravda, their northwestern neighbors were like “some old women who are afraid of war,” from which he drew a prophetic conclusion: “How afraid they will be when they wage it!”26 The drama of dividing the country using arms and marking the borders of the Balkan states with the bodies of fallen soldiers was followed closely by the entire European public: all the major news agencies sent their correspondents to the battlefields. European newspapers reported daily on the progress of the war. The Balkan War was followed particularly closely by the press in the neighboring Dual Monarchy. The German press made no secret of its great concern for the status quo, preferring a weak Ottoman Empire to a strong Slavic state. The author of the editorial that appeared in Neue Freie Presse on October 18, 1912, informed his readers that “Turkey” was fighting not only for its own sake, “but also for the sake of Europe,” and a day later Marburger Zeitung claimed that every “decent person” in Europe sympathized with the “Turks.” Reading between the lines of the reports on the Balkan Wars published by the German newspapers in Austria-Hungary, one can see that they were afraid of a victory for the Balkan allies, mainly because of the repercussions such a victory would have in the near future.27 The Slovene press, however, portrayed the Balkan War quite differently. On its pages, the war was presented as the just revenge of the Christian rayah for centuries of humiliation, as a struggle between civilized, progressive slaves and uncivilized Ottoman barbarism,28 as a holy war between the Cross and the Crescent, which was supposed to bring freedom to the Christian Slav population.29 In the eyes of Slovene publicists, the German chauvinist attitude was unacceptable, and they wondered ironically whether it could be that “modern Austria is really so degenerate that it will remain a power only as long as Turkey keeps the poor Balkan peoples in bondage?”30 Austro-Hungarian citizens not only followed the course of the war, but also more or less passionately supported one or other of the sides involved. At a time when the supreme ethical principle was “blood is thicker than water,” the choice of one of the two belligerents resulted in a split along national lines: the sympathies of the Austro-Hungarian Germans and the Hungarians were on the side of the “Turks,” while the Slavs passionately supported the opposite side. People in Ljubljana and Zagreb, in Dalmatia

60 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

and on the islands, in Sarajevo and Mostar, in Novi Sad and Dubrovnik enthusiastically expressed their sympathy for their “Yugoslav brothers.” The nationalist youth, in particular, were overjoyed. Serbian victories in the Balkan Wars provided Yugoslav nationalists with the best means of agitation. Their battle cry evoked the ultimate utopia: “We want freedom and unity!” To win over the masses, the nationalists turned Serbian heroes, the Serbian army, and Serbian politicians into stars, creating the impression that Serbia was Piedmont. “A cult of everything Serbian emerged,” recalls a Yugoslav nationalist youth activist, Niko Bartulović, “and the masses began to accept this cult.”31 According to historian Josip Horvat, the Balkan War contributed more to the South Slavs’ sense of identity than all the ideologues and advocates of the idea of Slav commonality, because the idea of the commonality of the South Slavs had previously been limited to the highest political leaders and a rather narrow section of the intelligentsia, while the masses remained more or less indifferent. The war for the liberation of the Balkan peoples immediately brought about a new situation: the masses were put into a sentimental mood, all means of agitation, the hitherto dead letters on paper, took on a living, bloody meaning. The masses, inclined to romanticism, began to see in these events the realization of an atmosphere which they had believed to exist only in times past; heroism became a reality, as a reality it fascinated. And it was the events on the battlefields of the Balkans that seemed particularly poignant in comparison with our reality. In the circumstances of enforced political inactivity, the public felt the victoriousness of the events.32

In the cities of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Slovenia, and Vojvodina, considerable sums of money and other items were collected to help the wounded. In Ljubljana, the Balkan Red Cross was established to collect donations, and teams of doctors and nurses volunteered to go to Serbia to help their wounded “brothers.”33 There were tens of thousands of men who went to war as volunteers in the Balkan armies.34 When they returned from the battlefield, there was never a shortage of listeners to hear their stories of war. Miha Čop and Blaž Lipar aroused the most interest with their story of how an old Montenegrin, having placed a “Turk” on his rifle, raised the rifle above his head and sang a heroic song while making the “Turk” to beat the rhythm with both hands and both legs. As a souvenir of their heroic days, they placed a “Turk” in formaldehyde and brought him home triumphantly to show to all who wanted to see a “Turk” with their own eyes.35 Opposing views on the foreign policy situation were an expression of dissatisfaction with the internal situation in the Dual Monarchy, however,

Marko Kraljević in the Age of Capitalism • 61

Figure 2.3. “The famous event of two Slovene volunteers.” Caricature from the publication Balkanska vojna v karikaturi in sliki (The Balkan War in Caricature and Picture), April 12, 1913. Source: private collection of the author.

62 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

the passion with which they were accepted or rejected by the various ethnic groups could not be without internal consequences: The cohesion and stability of the Austrian Empire were seriously undermined. Some even began to dream of more than just Yugoslav unity. The idea of Yugoslavia, which had hitherto been propagated exclusively within Austria-Hungary, crossed the border for the first time.36 At the same time, events on the southeastern borders of the empire and the kingdom had a resounding effect that the local authorities could not suppress and that worried both Vienna and Budapest.37 Field Marshal Conrad von Hötzendorf called for a pre-emptive war against Serbia, which he had also called for during the Annexation Crisis. He had the support of Leopold Berchtold, who was the imperial and the royal Minister of Foreign Affairs. “I am convinced,” Berchtold said, “that if things continue to develop in this way, the Monarchy will have no choice but to put all its eggs in one basket.”38 Ambiguity, however, became a significant feature of the Habsburg Monarchy’s attitude toward the Balkans. There was no clear, unchallengeable opinion. To each question, there was not one answer, but several, often contradictory ones. While the German press in Austria-Hungary appealed to the “dignity of the state,” which should not tolerate “provocations by little Serbia,” the Slovene press condemned this attitude as an attempt by the Dual Monarchy to “deprive Serbia of the fruits of its victories.”39 In this way, a climate was created in which no fact went undisputed, since neither side trusted the other. Moreover, distrust on one side increased distrust on the other. When German politicians and the press openly and vociferously expressed their distrust of Slovene loyalty to the Dual Monarchy, where there was no shortage of accusations of treason, this caused an outcry in the Slovene newspapers: how can something that used to be taken for granted, namely compassion for one’s blood brothers, suddenly become a betrayal of the state and the faith! When answering the question, whether the Slovenes could be accused of treason if they wanted the freedom of their brother nation, and whether it was treason when they hailed the victory of the Cross over “the most terrible enemies of Christianity,” conservative circles replied: Clearly, we would prefer Austria to march at the head of the Balkan States in the fight against the Turks and to stand up for Christian culture, but it is not our fault if it does not do so; and we would certainly prefer all the Balkan states to be united with us in the Catholic Church; but nevertheless we prefer the Holy Cross to the Turkish Crescent.40

And distrust on one side reinforced suspicion on the other. Slovene politicians and the press closely followed the progress of the Slavic kingdoms (Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro) on the battlefields,

Marko Kraljević in the Age of Capitalism • 63

and imagined that the Yugoslavs would grow ever more united, which would be of the greatest importance to the Slovenes, since they were “most exposed to the pressure of our northern neighbor.” Ivan Cankar, one of the most prominent Slovene social democratic writers, in his public lecture in Ljubljana on April 12, 1913, described the mood of the Slovenes at that time—“dithyrambically, but mostly truthfully”—41 saying that the cannon thunder in the Balkan War announced the “Yugoslav Easter.”42 When the first shot was fired in the Balkans, it echoed in our remotest village. People who had never been interested in politics all their lives were now following this great drama not only closely, but with compassion in their hearts. Something not unlike the longing of a prisoner awoke in each of us. At the same time something else, far more important and valuable, awoke in us—the spark of power, of self-assurance, of vitality, which was already in full swing in the South, now fell upon Slovene soil. The weakling saw that his brother was strong and began to believe in himself and his future.43

Attentive to the progress of the war, Slovene observers became aware of how little they knew about their “southern brothers.” Among the respected Slovene politicians of the time, there were few who were familiar with the political situation, parties, and factions among the Croats and Serbs. As Albin Prepeluh wrote, Serbian recent political history was a very rarely read book; moreover, it was mostly full of high-sounding phrases such as “Let’s go, Slavs!” but it did not examine a single Slavic question in detail or seriously.44 Ivan Šusteršič, the “uncrowned leader of Carniola,” honestly admitted, according to the Viennese newspaper, that he did not in fact know any Serbs. The only thing he knew about them was that their surnames ended with the suffix “-ić,” that their eternal prime minister was called Nikola Pašić, and that some Serb politicians earned a lot from procuring weapons in France.45 In order to better follow the progress of the war, a geographical map of the Balkan Peninsula was hung in front of the editorial office of the newspaper Dan in Ljubljana, with flags attached to the map to show the current situation on the battlefields. Every day, many people gathered around the map and, together with the editorial staff, studied the geography of the Balkans for the first time, since most of the former centers of the old Serbian state were not even known to them. However, the sight of the flags moving first to Skopje, then to Bitola, and then through Albania was sufficiently revealing and convinced them that victory had been won; no one could doubt that a new page had been turned in the history of the Balkans and Slovenia.46 With the aim of giving Slovenes a better understanding of the Serbian struggle for freedom, Professor Fran Ilešič gave a lecture on

64 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

“Marko Kraljević, the Hero of Yugoslav Epic Poetry and History” in the Great Hall of the Ljubljana Magistrate’s Office on November 18, 1912. Ilešič introduced Marko Kraljević as a Serbo-Croat, Bulgarian, and Slovene hero, with all his virtues and faults, to the large crowd of attendees. Ilešič concluded his lecture with a warning that Marko Kraljević had woken up and had already drawn his sword.47

Slovene Rivers Flow toward Belgrade The Balkan War prompted Slovene parties, politicians, and journalists to address the question of what the national and legal situation of Slovenes was at that time and what future awaited them. In all the discussions of this period, the Yugoslav idea came to the fore as the most important and undisputed consequence of the Balkan War. This idea, supported by all three Slovene parties, included Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, including (or sometimes excluding) Bulgarians.48 In the years before the Balkan Wars, much had been said and written about the Yugoslav question, but the wars opened up a completely new perspective. To begin with, the Yugoslav territory expanded, which, together with the idea of Habsburg rule, brought to the table the idea of the Yugoslav trialism of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, or sometimes the trialism of Bulgarians, Serbo-Croats, and Slovenes. Some began to wonder whether the Slovenes wanted to continue their existence as Slovenes. Did or didn’t they want people to still talk about high Slovene culture, and maybe even glorious Slovene history, in the future? Were they ready to give up their national individuality and disappear into the Serbo-Croat nation? Were they ready to sacrifice their nationality for the sake of the tribally and linguistically united Yugoslav nation, which was to emerge from Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes?49 In his lecture on these and similar questions, Ivan Cankar took a clear stand, stating that he regarded the Yugoslav problem as an “exclusively political problem.” For him, the Yugoslav question did not exist at all in cultural or even linguistic terms. “In blood we are brothers,” he asserted, “in language at least we are related, but in culture, which is the fruit of centuries of separate education, we are farther apart than the peasant from the Gorenjska region is from his counterpart in Tyrol, or the winegrower in Gorizia from his counterpart in Friuli.”50 The leaders of Austro-Hungarian Slavs and the Austro-Hungarian Slavic press, pondering the Yugoslav idea, were gripped by the same dilemma. According to the newspaper Slovenski Narod, the Yugoslav idea made sense to any serious and reasonable political party only “insofar as it could be shaped within the borders of our monarchy”; everything else was

Marko Kraljević in the Age of Capitalism • 65

supposedly “crazy political childishness.”51 Thus, even before the outbreak of World War I, most Slovenes saw Austria as their future, although they increasingly distanced themselves from the official position of their imperial government and were increasingly dissatisfied with its attitude toward the Balkan nations, and especially toward the Slavic nation.52 Among Slovene politicians, Janez Ev. Krek reacted most emotionally to the Balkan War, which prompted him to make great plans. “To the Slovenes in the borderlands,” he said, “we should say: look, these heroes who are performing miracles of valor in the Balkans and who will inherit the greatest part of European Turkey, these are our brothers, they are one and the same nation with us!” And during a public lecture, he declared that “our nation” settles where our rivers flow: “Our rivers flow toward Belgrade and the Black Sea, none of them flows toward Vienna, for example. Furthermore, the area along the Sava River, from Triglav to the Black Sea, is inhabited by the same people as we are.”53 During the Balkan War, Krek, called by Slovenec the “greatest Yugoslav our Slavic South has ever seen,”54 gave a lecture in Split entitled “The South Slavs in the Present and in the Future,” in which he argued that “that great moment has come which is more significant than a whole period of perhaps 100, 200 or 300 years.” According to him, in the past, the South Slavs were characterized by low numbers and consequent poverty. “But that has changed now! We are no longer small, neither in ourselves, nor in our own eyes, nor in the eyes of the world, which is afraid of us.”55 National consciousness must be awakened—one often hears this—and in this respect more has been done in a few weeks than in a hundred years; for a man who reads—and he who does not read hears—has this feeling in him and says: these are ours, these are my brothers, people who speak as I do, this is my homeland; in it our brothers, like our fathers, have suffered under the Turkish yoke, but now they are free.56

The victories that the allied Balkan States, especially Serbia, won on the battlefield awakened the Yugoslav idea among all Slavs of the Dual Monarchy.57 These victories provoked the feeling, especially among the Yugoslavs, that they had been treated like slaves.58 During the Balkan Wars, the Yugoslavs in Austria-Hungary felt encouraged by Serbia’s military successes, it was rumored that Marko Kraljević had been resurrected, and the people looked up to Serbia as the “Piedmont of the South Slavs.”59 After the victory at Kumanovo, when Serbian rule was restored in the small Field of Kosovo, in the imperial city of Skopje, in Marko Kraljević’s Prilep, and in the magnificent city of Ohrid, the Yugoslav idea gained greater luster and Serbia became a “beacon of the Yugoslav idea.”60 Since the first half of the nineteenth century, Zagreb had been the center of the idea of Yu-

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goslav unity, but after the victory at Kumanovo, the center of Yugoslavism moved to Belgrade.61 The people of the Slavic South were ecstatic. Tin Ujević and Oskar Tartaglia congratulated Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pašić on behalf of the youth by telegram from Split, “bowing to the avengers of Kosovo and the creators of Yugoslavia.”62 Boguslav Mažuranić and Buda Budisavljević, two deputies of the coalition in Croatian Sabor, eagerly awaited the day when they could make a pilgrimage to Kosovo. In Croatia, people were no longer talking about harmony, but about brotherhood with the Serbs, and they were also talking about state and national unity.63 The glorious Yugoslav victories in the Balkan War caused Yugoslav national feelings to flare up among Slovenes as well.64 A question mark began to loom over Slovene Austrian patriotism and loyalty to the Habsburgs. This did not go unnoticed even in the capital of the Dual Monarchy: Emperor Franz Joseph did not sanction the sixth, unanimous election of Ivan Hribar as mayor of Ljubljana. However, this in no way diminished Hribar’s sympathy for Serbia. He interpreted the victory at Kumanovo as a turning point in the national life of the entire Slavic South and believed that the day of the battle marked the beginning of Yugoslav national unification.65 Hribar even visited Belgrade, where he asked Pašić to pursue not only Serbian, but Yugoslav politics.66 The most radical stance, however, was taken by the independent political newspaper Dan and the youth newspaper Preporod, which united the nationalist youth of the universities and high schools. Preporod enthusiastically celebrated the Serbian victories as “our” Yugoslav victories. In them, they saw the birth of a powerful young hero, driven by a strong love for his oppressed race and a fiery hatred of their oppressors. Thus, they began to dream of the arrival of Kralj Matjaž and to seriously think about the future of the Yugoslav idea outside the Austro-Hungarian framework.67 In their romanticism, some young people even “longed for a utopian Yugoslav unity beyond the limits of reality.”68 They rejected an exclusively Slovene, “tribal attitude” and unequivocally held that Slovenes had to be Yugoslavs, with whom they were connected not only by ethnicity, language, and sensibilities, but above all by their shared present (slavery) and their common future (freedom).69 This is our Easter! And this is our Great Day, unique in history: the Yugoslav has risen from the grave, risen from the dead, renewed, rejuvenated, and strong, and he has proudly ascended to heaven, not to disappear in it, but to fulfill his mission: to show that we are brothers, all Slovenes, Serbs, Croats, and Bulgarians, that we are the sons of the same mother who longs to embrace her loved ones.70

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Considering the course of the war and the numerous casualties, the nationalist youth held that the nation was like a river. Although individual droplets of water form a river, they all disappear into it. The history of those droplets is not what matters. When we follow the course of the river, we do not explore the fate and action of individual droplets; rather, we are interested in the aggregate, in the “river of the nation,” although one could sing many, many songs about individual droplets.71 In any case, we do not think about the droplets if we want the river of the nation to break through the wall that stands in its way. A nation that does not regret its sacrifices succeeds, wrote Ivan Kranjčević, a school friend of Gavrilo Princip. That is why nationalist youth no longer dreamed of victory, their personal happiness, and a better life, but instead eagerly awaited the opportunity to sacrifice themselves: “Sacrifice is the goal, for the beauty of triumph and victory is not enjoyed by those who have laid their lives on the altar of the fatherland.”72 Lovro Klemenčič, one of Preporod ’s most active associates and a member of the Yugoslav National Revolutionary Youth, publicly claimed that a great idea requires a great sacrifice—blood. In his opinion, it was not enough to live and work for the nation; one must also die for it.73 When Kosovo was avenged and liberated, the authors of Preporod raised the question of the difference between Kosovo Polje and Gosposvetsko

Figure 2.4. “Gosposvetsko polje—Slovensko Kosovo” (Zollfeld—Slovenian Kosovo). In Slovene history, Zollfeld was important as it was where the Princely Stone stood. It was at the Princely Stone that the Dukes of Carantania were installed. Published by Umetniška propaganda, Ljubljana, 1918. Source: private collection of the author.

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Polje.74 In reflecting on this, they determined that there was a significant difference between the members of both nations in terms of their behavior in slavery. As one of these authors wrote, even in times of the greatest hardship, the Serbs never forgot or left Serbia, while the Slovenes were mostly Swabianized, meaning that they felt “like an inferior mass” compared to the “Swabians.” In his opinion, the Serbs were not afraid of anyone in the world and thus truly resembled Marko Kraljević from the folk songs. For the Slovenes, on the other hand, 1,500 years of slavery had destroyed their self-confidence, their resistance, and their sense of freedom. It was a gradual but continuous process. Slowly but surely, Kralj Matjaž had fallen asleep, though he had not died. The Serbs also spent five hundred years in slavery, but they knew how to settle their score in blood, which strengthened their self-confidence and national pride, and their national tradition became even stronger. Moreover, they had recently took up arms again, which awakened in them “their hero who went to the seashore to take Marko’s mace.” Having thus made his point about the differences between the Slovenes and the Serbs, this publicist asked the question, “And what about us? What will we do when the hero comes, when the hero awakens in our nation and draws the sword of Kralj Matjaž to raise a mighty army and free our land from the foreign yoke!”75 However, the young idealists who rallied around the newspaper Preporod, “full of Cankar’s yearnings without foundation, without direction, and without goal,”76 failed to gain ideological support for their warlike fantasies from older (Slovene) nationalists. Left to their own devices, without broader popular support, they were easily crushed by the AustroHungarian authorities, who sentenced their most prominent representatives to long prison terms.77 At the same time, the language barrier kept them largely cut off from like-minded Croat and Serb enthusiasts, and vice versa.78

The Quandaries of the Bloody Yugoslav Tragedy Only the supporters of the social-democratic parties were not enthusiastic about the war. Thus, Serbian Social Democracy claimed that the division of the Balkan Peninsula would lead to friction and that “the Serbs would liberate the Serbs under Bulgarian rule, while the Bulgarians would liberate the Bulgarians under Serbian rule.”79 The Social Democrats’ disagreement with the policy of the Balkan states, which led to the war against the Ottoman Empire, provoked a violent reaction. Their opponents were not particularly selective in their choice of words, with which they discredited the opponents of the war, contending that it was not a war of conquest,

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but a war for freedom. The majority of the Bulgarian, Greek, and Serbian population, which was not used to political differences, saw only what they wanted to see and not what was really happening. The main goal of the governments and dynasties of the Balkan states was not the liberation of their own compatriots, but the conquest of territories. As “Šumadinac” explained in the Ljubljana newspaper Zarja, the warmongers spoke of freedom, but in reality they were interested in strengthening their power. Under Ottoman rule, the Christian population longed for freedom, which served as an excellent pretext for this unspoken intention of territorial expansion, thanks to which the Balkan War gained great popularity. When the war was over, however, many facts came to light that had been successfully covered up by the war drums and war propaganda. This became most obvious when the soldiers of the formerly allied armies loaded their rifles with bayonets and began to pierce the bodies of their “brothers.”80 At the beginning of the Balkan War, the allied countries had their memories of the glorious pasts of their states. More than that, they remembered most fondly the time when their glory was at its greatest. The promise that guided the Greeks was the Megáli Idéa, the Serbian government channeled the dreams of the people into the idea of avenging Kosovo, while the Bulgarian nationalists presented unification with Macedonia as their highest ideal. All these claims stood on very shaky legs. For instance, the Bulgarians claimed all the territories conquered by Emperor Simeon as their rightful inheritance, which was the equivalent of the French claiming all the territories conquered by Napoleon. And the fact that Tsar Dušan was crowned in Skopje carries about the same weight as the proclamation of Wilhelm I as German emperor in Versailles.81 Nevertheless, these claims represented a riddle that no one could solve. There was no territory in European Turkey that was not claimed by at least two Balkan states. Even if the peninsula had been twice as large as it actually was, there would not have been enough territory to satisfy the conflicting claims of the neighboring states that had emerged from the Ottoman decline.82 The realization of great national ideas through the formation of Greater Bulgaria, Greater Greece, and Greater Serbia on the ruins left by the Sick Man on the Bosporus could not lead to an agreement, especially not with the war proclamations of some statesmen who explicitly demanded, “What was once ours must be ours again.”83 The magnitude of the problem became clear after the victory in the war, when the question of how to divide the Promised Land fairly among the three claimants arose. In the past, only Marko Kraljević had succeeded in doing this when he cut Musa Kesedžija “into three halves.”84 However, while Marko Kraljević may have been believed to have participated in some battles of the Balkan War,85 he stayed out of the peace negotiations. In these, the Balkan allies unani-

70 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

mously invoked the national principle, which meant that they were always ready to take something if the opportunity arose. In contrast, they were never willing to give up something they had once gained if they could somehow preserve it. This inconsistency, which was characteristic not only of the Balkan allies, complicated the already difficult situation on the Balkan Peninsula, as well as having unpleasant consequences that affected both mutual relations and the balance of power in Europe. During World War I, the Western Allies, especially France, tried to draw Bulgaria to their side and advised the Serbian government to make territorial concessions in Macedonia. This attempt by the French failed because the Bulgarians demanded too much and the Serbs would give away nothing. 86 The Serbian nationalists claimed that Macedonia was rightfully Serbian because the “Turks” had taken it from the Serbs and not from the Bulgarians, and the Serbs had gotten it back from the “Turks” and not from the Bulgarians.87 The Second Balkan War introduced a new concept into political military history—the question of guilt. Before this war, there had been no distinction between the side that was the aggressor and the side that had been attacked, but this started to change.88 The asking of this question put Bulgaria in a delicate position, as it violated the agreement on the military alliance and started a new, fratricidal war over the division of the spoils of war. General Mihail Savov admitted that on June 17, 1913—on the instructions of Tsar Ferdinand—he had ordered an attack on the Serbian army near the Bregalnica River. He defended his action in a Bulgarian newspaper by saying that in the early days of June everyone in Bulgaria had been for war. No one was ready to sign the death warrant for the Bulgarian ideal by agreeing to the partition of Macedonia. When the war ended badly for Bulgaria, everyone claimed they were against the war. That would mean, General Savov said, that they all agreed to the partition of Macedonia, which was certainly not true.89 As Nikola Pašić explained at the fourth session of National Assembly on June 7, 1923, the border between Serbia and Bulgaria was defined as “a line that was not precisely national,” but that had been established on the condition and assumption that Bulgaria would send a much larger number of soldiers to support the Serbian army in Macedonia and Old Serbia. However, Bulgaria did not fulfill its obligations under the agreement. When the war ended, the territory was divided.90 Bulgaria considered Macedonia as “all ours”91 and Skopje, Veles, Prilep, Bitola, and Ohrid as purely Bulgarian cities. When Serbia claimed part of Macedonia for itself, Bulgaria saw this as a claim on its property.92 Just as Bulgaria insisted that the partition of Macedonia was out of the question, Serbia was equally determined that Macedonia should be partitioned and that Serbia should “at least receive the part without which it cannot exist.”93

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Serbia, which “shed so much of the blood of its children in war to liberate the territories inhabited for centuries by our Serbian brothers and unite them with Mother Serbia,”94 was supposed to withdraw voluntarily from the “liberated” territory. From the Serbian point of view, however, it was completely incomprehensible that there were people who “could see neither the love that Serbia has for its sister—Macedonia—nor the vital interest of our state: not to give an inch of this land to anyone, certainly not to a murderous and uncivilized people like the Bulgarians.” Their message was clear: Macedonia is ours! And the proof that this was so was even clearer: “The Turks took it from the Serbs, not from the Bulgarians, in Kosovo; the Serbs won it back from the Turks, not from the Bulgarians, in Kumanovo and Bitola.”95 The Serbian soldiers reportedly could not face the prospect of withdrawing from the conquered territories: “If our fathers and mothers want to visit the graves of their dead sons in the area of Štip, Bitola, and Prilep, shall they ask for passports and permission from the Bulgarian government?”96 War was inevitable, and yesterday’s allies in war became enemies in peace. Before the outbreak of the Balkan War, the Belgrade newspaper Pravda described the Bulgarians as the nation closest to the Serbs: “By race and language, Serbs and Bulgarians are very close, and there is no other nation closer to them. By faith, Serbs, Bulgarians, and Greeks are one and the same.”97 But when the war was over, this view changed. Serbian propagandists emphasized that the Bulgarians were not of Slavic origin, but “a mixture of various Turkic and Tatar tribes.”98 The veracity of the new interpretation was supported by the claim that they could never be so savage and inhuman “if even the slightest amount of Slavic blood flowed in their veins.”99 It seems that there was no ugly word they did not throw in each other’s faces, and no crime they did not ascribe to each other. The Greeks did this to the Bulgarians, the Bulgarians did it to the Greeks and the Serbs, and again the Serbs did it to the Bulgarians. Therefore, Serbian propagandists fomented hatred against the Bulgarians by portraying them as “Balkan savages, like Arnauts, only lightly smeared with European culture.”100 It was alleged that the Bulgarians threw those who died of cholera into rivers to spread the infection among the Serbian ranks; it was also claimed that they mutilated the bodies of wounded Serbian soldiers with bayonets, cut off their noses and ears, gouged out their eyes; they even burned them alive at the stake.101 To complete this black-and-white picture, the Serbian soldiers were portrayed as the exact opposite of the Bulgarians: it was claimed that they diligently collected injured Bulgarian on the battlefield, tended to their wounds, and sent them back “without making any distinction between them and our own.”102 Analyzing the objections and complaints from both sides to determine who was a wolf and who was a lamb, the social-democratic Zarja con-

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cluded that Bulgarian Tsar Ferdinand, Prime Minister Stoyan Danev, and General Mihail Savov were responsible, as well as Serbian King Petar, Prime Minister Nikola Pašić, and Vojvoda Radomir Putnik. After the end of the war, Bulgaria refused to demobilize its troops, its chauvinist press pleaded for another Slivnitsa, and its militarists rattled their sabers loudly. But things looked no better on the other side. Serbia did not enter into an alliance with Greece to facilitate reconciliation with Bulgaria. The Serbian insistence on not ceding an inch of conquered territory, Pašić’s speeches at the National Assembly, and the chauvinistic language of the Serbian press were hardly signs of peaceful intentions. According to the Serbs, the war had been started by the Bulgarians, who secretly launched an attack on the Serbian troops at Bregalnica, while the Bulgarians held that they had been victims of Serbian and Greek provocations. The only thing that is beyond doubt is the fact that the war started immediately after the first skirmishes, which makes it clear that both sides were ready for it.103 Intoxicated by their triumph in the First Balkan War, the leaders of the Balkan states did not look to the future and forgot that they would still need each other for successful development and liberation from foreign influence. At some point, they called on the “Turks” for help and ended up under their rule. The real tragedy of the Second Balkan War was that, after freeing themselves from Ottoman rule, some of the new nations involved turned to Russia and others to Austria-Hungary.104 Instead of devoting themselves to the task of putting into practice the glorious poem of liberty and happiness for all the Balkan peoples, the allies in the war—striving for supremacy—began to quarrel among themselves about the division of the spoils of war. As the Slavs shed the blood of other Slavs, it was clear that the much-vaunted victory over the “Turkish” infidels had not resulted in Jerusalem coming to the Balkans; rather, it had torn Slavic unity apart.105 As Ljubo Leontić, one of the members of the Yugoslav nationalist youth, said, the Second Balkan War not only embittered the souls of the Yugoslav nationalist youth in Austria-Hungary and opened a nasty wound in their hearts; it also revealed an ugly truth that had been hidden behind lofty phrases.106 The interpretation of the Balkan War as a holy war of the Cross against the Crescent, that is, as a “centuries-long process of national emancipation of the Yugoslavs,”107 aroused great hope for a better future for the Slavs in Austria-Hungary. In this atmosphere, the Slovene bimonthly journal of science and culture Veda, published in Gorizia, conducted a survey in 1913 on the Yugoslav question, that is, on the prospect of a closer union of Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, and Bulgarians. Anyone who did not vociferously support the war was immediately denounced as a “Turk.” When the whole world seemed so beautiful and full

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of sense, it suddenly turned out that the struggle for freedom was in reality a struggle “for power, for hegemony.”108 From the (Southern) Slavic point of view, it was irrelevant whether this or that piece of liberated land would belong to the Serbian state or the Bulgarian state. Nevertheless, a war broke out between Serbia and Bulgaria, in which the Serbian government, wanting part of the Slavic land to be Serbian, accepted Greece’s claim to a large part of it, thus reducing Slavic territorial possession in the Balkans. Moreover, Serbia also supported Romania, which mobilized its army not to defend its territory, but to launch an attack on unsuspecting Bulgaria and take Slavic land from it. The straw that broke the camel’s back came when Greeks, Romanians, and Serbs negotiated a wartime alliance with the “Turk”—the very “Turk” about whom all the Slav nationalists in Austria-Hungary had previously spoken so disparagingly. The Slav nationalists were faced with the question of how to understand and accept that the leadership of Slavic Serbia would allow large parts of the Slav territories to be torn away and left to Romania and Greece. For Zarja, it was clear that the orgy of nationalism had never been so insane, so repulsive: “Never was it so clear that the nationalist chauvinists are the greatest enemy and plague of nations.”109 But there was worse to come. The thundering of arms on the battlefields of the Balkans presented the Slovene nationalists with a new dilemma: should they support the Serbs or for the Bulgarians? When the Balkan allies joined forces, it was easy for the Slovenes to take a stand against the “Turks,” since the Serbs and the Bulgarians were “our brothers.” But what was the right position in a fratricidal war? To whom should one give one’s Slavic heart, and at whom should one direct one’s Slavic curse? To the Serbian brothers? Or the Bulgarian ones? The Bulgarians’ attack on the Serbs was considered anti-Slavic; as such, it could serve as the basis for taking a stance against the Bulgarians, who, in this case, were not really Slavs anyway, but Slavicized Mongols. On the other hand, the Serbs had made a pact with the Greeks and Romanians, who are not Slavs, against the Bulgarians, who are Slavs, because they, the Bulgarians, had already forgotten that they were once “something else.” As long as they fought against the “Turks,” Bulgarian heroism was legendary, just like Serbian heroism. But what about when Serbs and Bulgarians were at war with each other? To whom should courage and heroism be attributed, and to whom should cowardice be attributed? To make matters worse, these Balkan brothers called each other barbarians, savages, bandits—all bad things. Not only in the press, but also in official pronouncements, they vividly reported how the other’s forces burned homes, murdered, raped girls and women, looted, and pillaged.110

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The clash between Bulgaria and Serbia also led to a redefinition of the term “Yugoslavism.” When talking about the South Slavs, those in official circles in Belgrade always left out Bulgaria, although this meant a completely new construction of the Yugoslav community, as the community consisting of all South Slavs except Bulgarians. “The unification of the South Slavs is not complete without the Serbs, or without any other branch of the South Slavs,” Svetozar Pribićević argued. “Anyone who does not recognize the Bulgarians as South Slavs is in no way a supporter of the Yugoslav idea. I do not know why, for example, the Slovenes should be closer to the Serbs from Serbia than the Bulgarians.”111 For all those who were used to seeing things in black and white—that is, the majority of people—it was very difficult to cope with it not being clear who was a “brother” and who was just a “bastard.” Of course, there were those for whom everything was clear. For the editors of the independent political daily Dan, for example, there was no dilemma. In their view, the Bulgarians were the descendants of Cain, who slew his own brother: “Curse be upon you, Cain, and vengeance upon your whole family!”112 For the proponents of this view, Bregalnica constituted the most important historical reference point. A large part of the Slovene public had already turned to the Serbian side, which did not decide the Battle of Bregalnica, but influenced internal struggles. Serbia became the center of the great Yugoslav political force.113 The Slovene nationalist youth, who rallied around the newspaper Preporod, also sided unconditionally with Serbia. Their absolute enthusiasm for Serbia went hand in hand with their absolute condemnation of Bulgaria and the Bulgarians. As Lovro Klemenčič argued, the Bulgarian–Serbian war provided the Yugoslav national idea with the “right basis”: The antagonism between Serbs and Montenegrins disappeared completely, as did that between Serbs and Croats and between Slovenes and Croats. It also explained the inclination of Bulgarians not to want to be Yugoslavs. It led to the realization that sooner or later the Bulgarians should be forced to become Yugoslavs and abandon the chauvinist, separatist aspirations artificially created by the Bulgarian-German Tsar and his clique.114

Most of the observers on the southeastern borders of the Dual Monarchy were not, however, so steadfast in their views. Moreover, the triumphalist dreams fueled by the great victories of the Slavic “brothers” increasingly eluded the problematization of the very idea of Yugoslavia. Greater Bulgaria, Greater Serbia, and Greater Croatia, a writer in Slovenski Narod reflected, had, until recently, been the exclusive ideals of our fraternal peoples. As a result of the war waged between Bulgarians and Serbs,

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a new ideal had arisen among the Serbs, namely, that of a new nation of “Yugoslavs,” comprising Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but not Bulgarians. Such Yugoslavism, in the Slovenski Narod writer’s opinion, only meant that instead of four small nations, there would be two strengthened nations in a state of eternal rivalry. They would no longer wish to be brothers, but would, rather, strive to enlarge themselves at the expense of the other. In this way, the complete unification of the two nations into a single Yugoslav nation would be impossible, and the differences between them would only increase. The unification of all Yugoslav nations into one organism and the development of the Yugoslav language on the basis of the four languages spoken by the people, he continued, could be the ideal of the Slovenes. To this end, he argued, the Slovene intelligentsia would be obliged to learn, at least passively, Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian; the same, of course, would be required of Bulgarians and “Serbo-Croats.” But even more important than the understanding of the language, all these nations “should be imbued with the Yugoslav spirit.” This development should be peaceful and should take place without pressure, so that no nation would feel that it was losing something of its own in favor of a common ideal. These were the reasons why the exclusion of the Bulgarians was unacceptable to the Slovenes; equally, they could accept a Yugoslavia in which there would be no linguistic difference between Bulgarians, “Serbo-Croats,” and Slovenes. “For the sake of such a Yugoslavia,” the author concluded, “perhaps even a Slovene would sacrifice his nationality.”115

Russian Soldiers Washing Their Feet in the Adriatic Sea The Balkan Wars and their impact on the new geopolitical map of Europe significantly disturbed the European balance of power, which seemed rather unstable after these two wars. The ruling circles in Austria-Hungary followed the situation on the southeastern borders of their empire and kingdom with great dissatisfaction. They saw a Greater Serbia that not only shared borders with Montenegro but was also held in high esteem by the Yugoslavs in Austria-Hungary. As long as Serbia remained small and inconspicuous, Vienna and Budapest could have been carefree, but after Serbia’s great victories, the Yugoslavs in Austria-Hungary seemed ecstatic. They always referred to Kosovo, Kumanovo, Skopje, Prizren, Bitola, the army, the generals, and everything else as “ours.”116 The bad feeling of Austria-Hungary was reinforced by the idea that the coalition of the small Balkan states was organized by the great Russia. They looked with fear at the possible consequences for the future. But fear had big eyes, and with these eyes the imperial and royal commanders saw Russia standing right

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behind Serbia and its advance on the Adriatic. “And Russia on the Adriatic—this is a matter of life and death for Austria!”117 Austria-Hungary did not interfere in the Balkan Wars, but rather made efforts to deny Serbia access to the sea through northern Albania and to persuade Montenegro to withdraw from Shkodra, for which it paid dearly in blood. These efforts were successful, but the threat of war hovered over Austria-Hungary and Serbia like a sword of Damocles. 118 Enlarged and strengthened after two Balkan Wars, the Kingdom of Serbia served “as a guiding star for the Serbs and Yugoslavs in Austria-Hungary.”119 Instead of Serbia gravitating to Austria-Hungary, the southeastern provinces of the latter gravitated to Serbia.120 Austria-Hungary feared that Russia would use the Balkan coalition to seize some of its territories. Those in power were looking for a pretext to start a new war. That pretext was found in 1914, when Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Habsburg heir to the throne and his wife. Thus, the war that went down in history as World War I broke out as the Third Balkan War. The decision of the government in Vienna to declare war on Serbia in 1914, which drew the whole of Europe into a bloody and merciless war, was aimed at destroying the independent Serbian state and thereby finally crushing Yugoslav dreams of unification.121 But World War I, intended as a war to ensure the survival of the old empire in Central Europe, ended with a redrawing of the geopolitical map of Europe. This new map was drawn at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919; however, there was no longer any room for the old empires, the rivals for domination of the Balkan Peninsula, Russia, and Austria-Hungary.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Tomić, 1913a, 46. Terzić, 1959, I, 172. Ibid., 200. Nikola, 1913, 237. Sušnik and Šarabon, 1913, 74; Durham, 1914, 181–82; 1920, 230. Politika, September 26, 1912; Tomić, 1913a, 6. Stanojević, 1928, 206. Tomić, 1913a, 45. Popović, 1936, 83. Politika, October 5, 1912. Vukićević, 1923, 111. Tomić, 1914a, 188. Lazarević, 1919, 9, 12. Terzić, 1959, I, 321; Marković, 2014, 187. Tomić, 1913a, 60.

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16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63.

Vasić, 1919, 10. Tomić, 1913a, 6–7. Ibid., 45. Vasić, 1919, 65. Bakić, 2004, 312. Tomić, 1913a, 45–46; Gavranić, 1922, 59, 99; Stanojević, 1928, 159–60, 206. A Diplomatist, 1915, 353; Vukićević, 1923, 117; Hall, 2000, ix; Andrijašević and Rastoder, 2006, 277. Hall, 2000, 136. Dačić, 1914, 58. Ibid., 59. M. N. N., 1912, 1. Sforza, 1940, 86; Scheer, 2015, 307. Slovenec, October 26, 1912; Bezenšek, 1912, 2; 1913, 2. Žitnik, 1913b, 2; Ušeničnik, 1918, 22; Dolenec, 1921, 370. Knaflič, 1912, 556. Bartulović, 1925, 25, 49. Horvat, 1990, 319. Oražen, 1913, 5–6; Rostohar, 1913, 9; Vukićević, 1923, 117–18; Lah, 1925, 57; Stanojević, 1928, 197; Rus, 1936, 122; Horvat, 1967, 87; 1990, 319. Zarja, October 15, 1912. Balkanska vojna v karikaturah in pesmih, 1913, no. 1, p. 36. Ušeničnik, 1914b, 290; Kovačič, 1922, 18; Scheer, 2015, 314. Horvat, 1990, 320. Ibid. Slovenec, November 20, 1912. Ušeničnik, 1912, 59. Ude, 1972, 56. Cankar, 1913a, 1. Ibid. Prepeluh, 1938, 146. Ibid., 147. Lah, 1925, 56. Slovenski Narod, November 19, 1912. Abditus, 1913, 137; Biber, 1959, 285; Melik, 1988, 526. –x–, 1913, 9. Cankar, 1913b, 1. Slovenski Narod, April 14, 1913. Lah, 1925, 53–54. Dolenec, 1925/26, 162; Kranjec, 1928, 36; Kolar, 1930, 91. Slovenec, October 9, 1917. Brajević, 1918, 6. Ibid.; see also Krek, 1913, 1. Đorđević, 1918, 24. Gavranić, 1922, 161; Sked, 1989, 257. Hribar, 1929, 172; Kostić, 1939, 7. Lazarević, 1919, 58. Belić, 1915, 16; Horvat, 1967, 89–90. Bartulović, 1925, 24. Horvat, 1967, 87.

78 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74.

75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85.

86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98.

99. 100. 101. 102. 103.

K., 1913, 1–2. Hribar, 1928, II, 13. Ibid., 58. Kolar, 1930, 86. Ušeničnik, 1914b, 290. L. K., 1913, 1. G., 1913, 1. Tomić, 1913a, 11–12. Kranjčević, 1954, 14. L. K., 1913, 5. Gosposvetsko polje (German: Zollfeld) is a plain north of Klagenfurt (Austria). In the second half of the seventh century, it was the center of the Slavic principality of Karantania (Slovene: Karantanija; German: Karantanien). M., 1913, 4–5. Tuma, 1913, 135. Prepeluh, 1938, 73. Bartulović, 1925, 13. Lapčević, 1925, 101. Šumadinac, 1913, 1. Eliot, 1900, 367. Gavranić, 1922, 73; Jezernik, 2004, 170. Tomić, 1913a, 98. Danica Ilirska, 1836, no. 32, pp. 125–28. Several contemporaries recalled that at the beginning of the First Balkan War, a rumor circulated among Serbian soldiers that Marko Kraljević was riding ahead of the army on his Šarac in shining armor, with a long sword in his hand. When word spread among the troops that Marko Kraljević was leading them, the Serbian soldiers rushed like a storm toward “the Turks”; each of them wanted to be a worthy descendant of Marko Kraljević (Oražen, 1913, 79–80; Plut, 1913, 99; Tomić, 1913a, 136). Pribitchévitch, 1933, 11. Đorđević, 1918, 19. In der Maur, 1936, I, 151. Tomić, 1914b, 9. Belić, 1913, 10; Stepanović, 1913, 134; Životić, 1926, 109. Ovčepoljski, 1918, 77. Tomić, 1914a, 51–52; Kiproff, 1916, 12–13, 30; Ivanov, 1918, 25; Popović, 1936, 143. Tomić, 1914b, 9. Đorđević, 1918, 18–19. Ibid., 19. Tomić, 1914a, 51–52. W., 1912, 1. Tomić, 1914b, 13; Hinković, 1917, 4; Đorđević, 1918, 16–17; Kossich, 1918, 5; Ovčepoljski, 1918, 12–14; Obradović, 1928, 5; cf. Brückner, 1916, 163; Selešković, 1996, 27. Dačić, 1914, 15. Tomić, 1914a, 146. Dačić, 1914, 9, 17; Tomić, 1914a, 48. Dačić, ibid. Zarja, July 5, 1913.

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104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121.

Zarja, July 10, 1913. Napredna Misel, 1913, no. 1, pp. 1–4; Horvat, 1967, 111. Leontić, 1914, 2. Vošnjak, 1913a, 9. Zarja, July 4, 1913. Zarja, July 10, 1913. Zarja, July 3, 1913. Pribitchévitch, 1933, 7. Mars, 1913, 1. Lah, 1925, 60; Kolar, 1930, 108. L. K., 1913, 6. –x–, 1913, 9. Popović, 1936, 90,100. Ušeničnik, 1912, 57. Slovenski Narod, November 19, 1912. Stojanović, 1958, 89. Lazarević, 1919, 62–63. Bošnjak, 1918, 16; Dimitrijević, 1939, 32.

Chapter 3

Turning the Austro-Hungarian Yugoslavs against the Serbs

R

In explaining the structure and nature of the state, the historian Arnold Toynbee compared it to a living organism. As such, it cannot remain static: to survive, it must grow. This means that all states are either in a process of growth or decline. In the period up to 1866, Toynbee argues, AustriaHungary wasted its strength and endangered its future by failing to recognize its Danubian character. Bismarck and the Risorgimento taught it a rude lesson that the true field for its expansion lay neither in the direction of Italy nor of Germany, but rather in the direction of the Danube. From 1866 on, Austria-Hungary turned its gaze unflinchingly to the southeast. The Drang nach Osten (drive to the east), however, “took on a very sinister complexion, and even occasioned the present war.”1 The black double-headed eagle made its first step toward the southeast by taking over the administration of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1878. But this was a move that forced Serbia and Montenegro to prepare for war. Austria-Hungary’s route to Thessaloniki was undoubtedly via Belgrade.2 There, the Principality of Serbia stood in the way, whose independence had been officially recognized at the Berlin Congress. After the victories at the Balkan Wars, many believed that this obstacle was “insurmountable.”3 In strengthened Serbia, Austria-Hungary soon saw not only a direct obstacle to its expansion, but also a threat. This led to extremely strained relations with Serbia. In order to justify the need for an aggressive course toward Serbia, Minister-President of Cisleithania Karl von Stürgkh stressed the fact that the “unprecedented rise of the Balkan states” was causing serious

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damage to the prestige of the monarchy. Indeed, in his opinion, Serbian victories made a “very strong impression” on the “temperamental population” of Yugoslavs in Austria-Hungary; at the same time, confidence in the strength and vitality of Austria-Hungary declined in inverse proportion to its growing fame. For this reason, Count von Stürgkh saw the looming danger in the immediate future and estimated that Dalmatia and the Littoral, inhabited by a Yugoslav majority, “would be morally lost to the Monarchy.”4 The Dual Monarchy explained and justified its policy toward the Kingdom of Serbia on the basis of (Greater) Serbian aspirations allegedly emanating from Serbia, especially since 1903, whereby all Serbs under the Karađorđević dynasty should unite into one independent state—Greater Serbia. According to this view, the entire Yugoslav movement of the early twentieth century was nothing but a Greater Serbian movement under a different name.5 In order to support the Austro-Hungarian aspirations in the east, the German and Hungarian press in the Dual Monarchy, whether clerical, liberal, German national, or social democratic, engaged in strong propaganda that portrayed the territories south of the Sava and Danube rivers as backward and the Balkan nations as incapable of self-government.6 The main target of this propaganda war was Serbia and the aim was to position it in opposition to Montenegro, Albania, and Bulgaria and to discredit

Figure 3.1. “Hurray, to Belgrade / Serbia must be ours!” Austro-Hungarian propaganda postcard. Published in 1914 by Ludwig Mayer, Munich. Source: private collection of the author.

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it before Europe.7 During the Annexation Crisis in 1908, the propaganda war against Serbia reached a “point of brutality” that was unprecedented in the European press.8 In the years leading up to the outbreak of World War I, the idea of a reckoning with Serbia increasingly spread in AustroHungarian political and military circles. Memories of Shkodra and the 1913 ultimatum to Belgrade after the capture of Durres only heightened Austria-Hungary’s desire to resort to violence. That this was the only language the Serbs would understand became conventional wisdom.9

Vidovdan, 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand himself presided over the Austro-Hungarian military maneuvers, and when they ended on June 28, a great military parade took place in Sarajevo, the city was decorated with flags and garlands of flowers, and the streets were crowded with people. On this day, the archduke, as the heir to the throne, solemnly renounced his unborn descendants’ right of inheritance on account of his morganatic marriage with Sophie Chotek, Duchess of Hohenberg.10 However, June 28 was also a “feast day that served to call and remind each and every Serb to take revenge on all tyrants who wanted to keep the Serbian people divided and disunited in bondage and darkness.”11 Hence, many people saw the parade as a “deliberate insult to Serbian sentiment.”12 The parade in Sarajevo on Vidovdan in 1914 was interrupted by shots fired by Gavrilo Princip. Even though the shooting shook the world, it did not come as a surprise to many people. “He is the embodiment of Miloš who killed Sultan Murad on Vidovdan,” many posited.13 The Austro-Hungarian authorities had been officially informed that part of the Serbian population in Bosnia-Herzegovina was very indignant about the maneuvers and the visit of the Habsburg heir to the throne to Sarajevo. The Serbian ambassador in Vienna, Jovan Jovanović, had drawn the attention of officials in Vienna to the danger to which the heir to the throne would be exposed during this visit.14 But his words went unheard, and the authorities in Sarajevo took no precautionary measures.15 With historical detachment, the historian Fred Singleton commented that he was unable to say whether the inadequate security arrangements, which were in stark contrast to those made during Emperor Franz Joseph’s visit in 1910, were the result of “monumental inefficiency” on the part of the Austro-Hungarian authorities, or whether there was a “more sinister explanation.”16 According to historian Alexander Watson, in the first days after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, a sense of curiosity,

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of morbid fascination with the death of a celebrity, rather than belligerence, determined the mood in Vienna.17 The press satisfied this curiosity with extensive reports on the transfer of the mortal remains of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Duchess Sophie von Hohenberg by special train from Sarajevo to Metković, from there by naval ship Viribus Unitis to Trieste, and then from Trieste by special train to Vienna, passing through Ljubljana, Maribor, and Graz. Large numbers of people gathered at the stations and landing stages along the route to pay their respects with lit candles in their hands and tear-stained faces.18 The Austro-Hungarian press eagerly reported the popular anger toward the assassins and those who had hired and trained them; those who dissented from the prevailing opinion were rebuked and even banished. Voices were raised on all sides demanding for Serbia to stop supplying bombs to Yugoslavs living in the Dual Monarchy, to stop sending money to pro-Yugoslav newspapers and agitators, and to stop supporting murderers. There were warnings that, despite all the internal turmoil, the Dual Monarchy had great power that it would unleash when needed. Despite the fact that some were already toying with the idea of dissolving the Dual Monarchy and proclaiming its imminent disintegration, the assassination of the crown prince and his wife only strengthened the consciousness of the common state and dynasty, at least in public statements. The crown prince was dead, but he had dragged millions to their deaths, as the propagandists interpreted it. The transfer of the remains of the murdered couple from the scene of the crime to the capital of the Dual Monarchy strongly influenced the population’s attitude toward Serbia, which became increasingly hostile. Public indignation was further fueled by reports in the Serbian press that Austria-Hungary was primarily responsible for Gavrilo Princip’s crime due to its misguided policy on the Balkan Peninsula;19 it was also fueled by the results of the police investigation, which implicated the Serbian authorities in the Sarajevo assassination.20 In the wake of the assassination, there were calls for revenge, such as those heard at the meeting of the Croatian Sabor immediately after it had taken place. At that time, the deputy Aleksandar Horvat said to his Serbian colleagues, “You have avenged your Vidovdan state, the state of the Battle of Kosovo. Now we also have our Vidovdan state. We must avenge the blood of our crown prince!”21 Such calls, however, were isolated; the population’s emotional reaction to the assassination had not yet developed into a unanimous demand for revenge. A month later, there was a major shift in popular opinion in Austria-Hungary that led to acceptance of, and even belief in the necessity of a conflict.22 In the words of Alexander Roda Roda, published in the Vossische Zeitung in Berlin in 1914, the Dual Monarchy stood idly by in 1909 and 1912 when

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it could and should have reacted. But when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated, all the Austro-Hungarian peoples demanded revenge for the heir to the Habsburg throne. Dozens of military bands played the “Radetzky March,” which had been composed to commemorate the victories against the Italians, and the “Prinz Eugen March,” which had been composed in the course of the Balkan Wars. As Field Marshal Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Chief of the General Staff of the Austro-Hungarian Army, recalled, these were the most popular marches of the time, which, in his opinion, was a true expression of the “people’s instinct.”23 The black double-headed eagle’s battle against the white double-headed eagle enjoyed even greater popularity in the monarchy than ever before. The Germans, Slavs, Hungarians, and Romanians demanded revenge for Franz Ferdinand.24 In a number of towns around Austria-Hungary, as well as in the capital, there were vociferous anti-Serb demonstrations as an expression of a “vengeful zeal,”25 and the Serb population was subjected to pogroms carried out in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, and Slavonia. In the process, Serbian property was looted, Serbian shops and houses were robbed, Hotel Europa in Sarajevo was demolished, and Orthodox churches were desecrated. And all this happened under the watchful eyes of the Austro-Hungarian police and military authorities, who intervened only when the rioting and destruction had ended, when the violence against the Serb population threatened to escalate into complete anarchy—but not a single pogrom participant was arrested. The pogrom against the Serbs took the most brutal form in Sarajevo and in the towns bordering Serbia and Montenegro, where there were even murders.26 The journalist Ivanka Klemenčič wrote that the Sarajevo assassination should make Slovenes even more aware of what Austria means to them: because they have been ruled by the Habsburgs, they have made progress that other Yugoslavs admire and envy. Therefore, she wrote, it is the duty of Slovenes to swear allegiance to Austria, to which they have been loyal for more than seven centuries, in front of the tomb of the heir to the throne.27 In particular, the Catholic clergy passionately declared that Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were “two heroic souls for whom millions upon millions of faithful hearts bleed and grieve inconsolably” and that the assassinated heir to the throne lived, worked, and even died for the “integral, great, powerful Austria built on the golden foundations of the Catholic faith.”28 The Catholic press engaged in extensive propaganda against the “primitive Byzantine imperialism of Greater Serbia”29 and assured readers that Serbia was not and could never be an attractive prospect for Slovenes and Croats because of its “barbaric” treatment of Bulgarians, but also because Slovene and Croat nationalist movements, being ethical, could operate only within the limits of the law and cultural

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goals. According to the Catholic priest and philosopher Aleš Ušeničnik, the legal boundaries of Slovene and Croat nationalism coincided with the boundaries of the Habsburg Monarchy, while the boundaries of their cultural goals were defined by the principles of Christian ethics and the teachings of Catholic culture.30 There was a wide gap of mutual ignorance between Slovenes and Croats, on the one hand, and Serbs and Bulgarians on the other, Ušeničnik continued. “For the most part, we know the Balkan Slavs only from Serbian epic poetry. And these songs tell the history of the Balkans as a great poem of freedom and glory.”31

All for Faith, Home, and Emperor! However, Yugoslav revolutionary youth, sincerely spellbound by Serbian epic poetry, took a “youthfully exaggerated” view of things. Believing that battles are fought not with “shining weapons but with brave, heroic hearts,” and judging that there were not many heroic hearts willing to fight for Austria-Hungary, the Yugoslav revolutionary youth was convinced that the monarchy would “surely collapse” when war broke out. They discerned two possible eventualities: either the persecution and oppression of people in a certain part of the Dual Monarchy would trigger a revolution, which would then be joined by all other nations in the monarchy, so they had better be ready and prepared for such an event, or the Dual Monarchy would declare war on Serbia, which would lead to a general uprising. In both cases, Austria-Hungary would crumble and fall apart because there would be unrest and mobilization could not be carried out so quickly, while, in the case of a war against Serbia, all Slavic soldiers from Austria-Hungary would join the Serbian army, while the rest of the other soldiers would flee to their homes, with the result that there would be no fighting at all.32 As it turned out, however, the course of events took a very different direction. With the help of mass media propaganda, police repression, and censorship, the citizens of the Dual Monarchy underwent an emotional journey in less than a month in the summer of 1914, culminating in an acceptance and even a belief that “relations with Serbia must be clarified.”33 In this respect, the assassination of the archduke and his wife acted as a catalyst for subsequent events. As the propagandists of the time put it, the blood of the murdered couple—“so beloved by the Austrian peoples”—was spilled on the ground, and from their spilled blood grew a rose of virtue. This rose blossomed into a flower of heroism, sacrifice, unity, Christian love, and many other things.34 One month after the assassination of the Habsburg heir to the throne, the Dual Monarchy used the assassination as a pretext to declare war on the Kingdom of Serbia.

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Franz Ferdinand has a terribly splendid funeral. More than 20 million armed men and boys—the blossom of all Europe—the gloomy escort of the dead; the sky red with cannon fire, the fires of burnt fortresses and cities piercing the clouds—lightning and fire shine at this terrible funeral, the thunder of cannon and guns shakes the earth to its core, and wild cries and voices of fear and trembling echo from the firmament—in honor of the cruelly slain, unforgettable departed. Innumerable streams of blood will be shed for every drop of his blood; for every teardrop shed for him by the young orphan—streams of tears. All Europe is weeping! This is a funeral. The angry will of the Austrian peoples, the ardent love for the sovereign and the fatherland, calls with war trumpets, with the rattle of sharp swords, with the hard, brave steps of our army, under which the earth trembles, to demand justice and lasting peace from the enemy. Terrified, the treacherous, repulsive Serb and his worthless crony are cornered. He must go to the “bloody funeral” of his victims and bury with them forever his savage hatred, his murderous intentions and his Serbdom so that no trace of him remains on earth.35

Conducting a successful mobilization in a multi-ethnic monarchy was a much more complicated matter than leading the nation-state to war. Mobilization for a war campaign required unity, which was not easy to achieve among Habsburg subjects. Not only did the posters announcing the mobilization have to be printed in fifteen different languages; a much greater problem was the lack of a common identity. In the Dual Monarchy, where national ideology divided rather than united peoples, the mutual connection between citizens who were aware of their belonging to different nations, many of which were in conflict with each other, was rather weak.36 For example, the Slovenes who were drafted into the war against Serbia were no closer to the Serbs of Bosnia-Herzegovina than they were to the Serbs they were marching toward. Austro-Hungarian war propaganda tried to create the image of a cooperative multi-ethnic community that practically never existed in reality. Despite assiduous work to shape the image of interconnected and cooperating nations, at every turn there was cause for concern about whether members of the subjugated nations, especially Slavs, would support the war effort of the two-headed black eagle. Would the increasingly important national question have any bearing on the war effort? Due to the general enthusiasm for punishing the perpetrators of the Sarajevo assassination, as well as censorship, this question was not often asked in public.37 The Austro-Hungarian press presented as unifying elements loyalty to the “beloved emperor” as the bearer of the idea of the equality of peoples, for which “our Slavic, Yugoslav people” were ready to lay vitam et sanguinem (life and blood) on the altar,38 as well as fidelity to the “holy

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Catholic faith”39 and hatred of the “uneducated, vicious people who provoked a bloody war with their constant warmongering against Austria.”40 Chaplains, priests, and imams taught their flocks in military uniforms that the solemn oath they had sworn to the emperor and king was sacred, that the word given was to be kept, and that they should sacrifice themselves for him with merry hearts.41 Officially, since the declaration of war on Serbia, all the citizens of the Dual Monarchy stood united at the side of their emperor and king and his glorious army. Neither Slovenes nor Croats nor Muslims nor Serbs, although related to the citizens of Serbia, were an exception. Citizens were told time and again that he who insults Austria-Hungary insults them, and that their Catholic convictions dictate loyalty to the emperor and the fatherland. Therefore, they allegedly never doubted their duty. By those in ecclesiastical circles, the soldiers were taught to be “heroes,” ready at all times to shed blood and sacrifice their lives for the ruler and the fatherland, as true men worthy of their “heroic ancestors.”42 The soldiers were told that they did not have to fear for their lives and should not be afraid of death, because they went to war for a “great and holy cause,” and if someone lays down his life, he does so for the highest ideal and will die as a martyr for the earthly fatherland and thus enter the heavenly fatherland.43 In terms of military propaganda, their sacrifice was something to be celebrated, not lamented.44

The Language of Ljubljana’s Streets The declaration of war on Serbia was cheered by large crowds at public rallies organized by the civil and military authorities in the cities of Austria-Hungary, while the press greeted it in bombastic editorials that adhered to the official instructions for reporting the declaration of war. The demands made on the Kingdom of Serbia were “unpleasant,” even “difficult,” but also “absolutely justified and necessary,” according to the AustroHungarian press. The day when the army of the black double-headed eagle arrived at the Serbian border was presented as the day of manifest destiny in the name of the goddess of vengeance, and the war itself was presented as “the war of justice against wickedness,” “the struggle of honesty against baseness,” “civilization against barbarism,” “chivalry against vulgarity.”45 Ljubljana had remained quiet while military manifestations were taking place in numerous towns around the Dual Monarchy. It was not until the day of the declaration of war that a large rally in support of the Austrian monarchy and the emperor and against Serbia was organized in the capital of the Duchy of Carniola, unprecedented in the entire history of that city: in a city of about twenty-five thousand inhabitants, up to forty thousand

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people gathered there. The houses were decorated with Slovene tricolor flags and black-and-yellow imperial flags as a “sign of enmity against Serbia.”46 When the inhabitants of Slovene capital spoke out, the warmongers claimed that Ljubljana spoke the ancient language of Austrian patriotism. “Long live Austria!” was not a popular cry among Slovenes, at least not after September 1908. Now it echoed in the streets: “Down with Serbia!”47 There was no sign of opposition anywhere in public, except for a small group of students who distributed leaflets with the message: “Down with the war! Down with the clergy! Death to Šušteršič!”48 The change was so great and abrupt that some people wondered, “Ljubljana, Ljubljana, how do your streets speak today?!” But they kept their wonderment to themselves, without sharing it with others.49 However, even if the propagandists wished for the language of the streets of Ljubljana to be the language of all Slovenes, the celebratory mood evoked by the declaration of war on Serbia was not shared by all. If it were, the Catholic priest Ignacij Breitenberger would not have deemed it necessary to publicly warn the members of the Catholic gymnastics society Orel (Eagle) that there were “heartless people among the Slovenes who do not mourn this shameful assassination” and admonish them to stay away from such individuals, who, he said, were not few in number, especially among the educated youth, who held liberal and social-democratic views and shared “ideas and convictions that are neither Catholic nor Austrian.”50 The rally for the war in Ljubljana began in front of the illuminated Ducal Palace. On the balcony stood a decorated statue of Emperor Franz Joseph, and above it shone the glittering initials of his name: F. J. I. A large crowd in front of the palace greeted the soldiers with shouts of joy. Standing on the balcony, Marko Natlačen declared to the crowd below, “We have a war!” For seven years, he explained, their neighbor on the southeastern border had threatened and rattled its saber. Austria was like a huge lion observing the mischievous little mouse. But while Austria behaved chivalrously, its neighbor gradually became a serious menace and threatened to take away part of its territory. The crime of Vidovdan cast a glaring light on the idea of Greater Serbia. Austria had to take up arms to protect its rightful possessions and secure peace. The assembled crowd reacted to Natlačen’s words with approving cheers: “Down with Serbia! Long live the army! Long live Austria!” He continued: The sacrifices that our people must make on the common altar of our common homeland will be great and arduous, but the Slovene nation will make them gladly because they know that nothing great can be achieved without great sacrifices.—For six centuries our Slovene people were under the scepter of the glorious Habsburg dynasty. For six centuries our

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Slovene people were loyal to the Habsburg rulers. There is no stain on the Slovene tricolor flag! Aware that our future is possible only in Austria, in a multi-ethnic great power, the Slovene nation remains faithful to the traditions of their ancestors, loyal to our Emperor and loyal to Austria, even in these difficult times. We will prove once again that Koseski was right when he said, “The hill and the oak shakes—the loyalty of a Slovene does not fade.”—Long live Austria!51

At the rally, the mayor of Ljubljana and the leader of the so-called Liberal Party, Ivan Tavčar, and the Prince-Bishop of Ljubljana, Anton Bonaventura Jeglič, addressed the crowd. Tavčar addressed the assembled soldiers, warning them that every stone of this old house loudly proclaimed that the Slovene nation would have “crumbled into nothingness” long ago if the “glorious Habsburg dynasty” had not taken it under its wing. He therefore exhorted Slovene young men to always remember that the fist of a Slovene soldier never went down “until the enemy had been beaten to the ground and the black-and-yellow flag had been proudly hoisted over the shattered enemy troops.”52 In the numerous clashes before World War I, Mayor Tavčar and Prince-Bishop Jeglič had usually each been on his own side of the trenches, but now both spoke the same confrontational anti-Serb language. In early August 1914, Jeglič addressed the soldiers at a Sunday mass in the courtyard of the Home Guard barracks before they took the solemn oath to sacrifice vitam et sanguinem for the emperor. In his speech, he encouraged them by stressing that the current war was a just war and that it was their duty to take revenge for “so many years of utterly criminal efforts to disintegrate and destroy our wonderful Austria under the scepter of our long-established imperial Habsburg fatherland.”53 In the days when Austria was forced to “write its history with the sword and strengthen the foundations of its state with cannon, for the good of all its peoples,” the leading Slovene political parties and other ideological leaders, as well as the press, unanimously embraced bellicose rhetoric. In an article with the telling title “Long Live Austria! Down with Serbia!” Slovenec reported on the enormous enthusiasm for war among Slovenes. The reservists had been called up for recruitment with great zeal, and they flocked to Ljubljana in a boisterous mood, cheering and singing: “The heroic blood is boiling. We long to punish cynical, vicious Serbia, the bandit state, the stain on the body of Europe, this disgrace to our culture today.”54 Slovenec could not hide its feelings and put fiery verses on the front page: We shall greet you, Serbs, with cannon fire; To the gallows we shall send you with our ire …55

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Knowing what lay ahead, the Kingdom of Serbia declared general mobilization on July 25, 1914. On July 31, Russia declared general mobilization, making it the first to respond to Austro-Hungarian’s declaration of war on Serbia. Following the Russian mobilization, Germany declared war on Russia on August 1 and on Russia’s ally France two days later. After the German attack on Belgium on August 2 and on France on August 3, Britain entered the war on August 4 and Montenegro did so on August 6. Turkey followed suit, siding with the Central Powers on November 1. In 1915, Italy entered the war on the side of the Entente, and Bulgaria entered it on the side of the Central Powers. Finally, in 1916, Romania entered the war on the side of the Entente. Similar sights appeared in the streets of cities all over Europe, from Vienna to Berlin, from London to Saint Petersburg. The only difference was that in Vienna the crowds shouted, “Long live Austria! Down with Serbia!” while in Saint Petersburg they shouted “Long live Serbia! Down with Austria!”56 Crowds embraced and sang, tears of joy flowed, flags fluttered, and the streets echoed with cries of ecstatic patriotism. Church dignitaries played a significant role in fueling patriotism by blessing men before they left for the battlefield, as did the women who waited at railway stations for trains carrying soldiers, offering them flowers, cigarettes, coffee and sweets.57 All kinds of poets and rhymers gave vent to their strong emotions by composing marches with a more or less warlike mood, such as: “Hey, you brave son of Croatia, / Take me across the Drina, / Ferdinand and Sophie’s blood / Is not yet avenged.” Their counterparts on the other side retorted with similar rhymes: “On June 15, on the Vidovdan / Swabian Ferdinand died, / A Serbian hand killed hiiim, / A Serbian gun took him awaaaay.”58 In Vienna and in Budapest, in Prague and in Ljubljana, in Innsbruck and in Krakow, the press spread an image of spontaneous popular enthusiasm for the war against Russia and Serbia.59 The Slovene press also portrayed the general mobilization as a festive event that the young men eagerly responded, “with the blessing of Heaven and the whole nation.”60 There was no question of despondency among the recruits; rather, it was pointed out that their families also displayed a heroic character as they sent the soldiers to the battlefields: “The father is a soldier-hero; why should his wife or children be any different?—The son a soldier-hero; is not his mother who brought him into the world and raised him also a soldier-hero?”61 Slovenec encouraged the Slovene youth and men on their way to war to be brave and cheerful; the fatherland would watch with pride as they fulfilled their duties “to the fullest” even if “one in three or two would perish,”62 while the Slovenski Narod presented the outbreak of war as a fairy tale: The emperor firmly believed that his cause was just, he had confidence in his brave army, he had confidence in the nations under his rule, and he was not wrong.

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Figure 3.2. “On the graves of our enemy.” Unknown photographer. The photo was taken in eastern Serbia in early 1915 and sent as a postcard to Ljubljana. Source: private collection of Milan Škrabec. Used with permission.

When he called them to war, all rushed to him like children to their father. Forgetting their mutual quarrels, they united with a common aim: to save their fatherland and to enforce justice with blood at the behest of their emperor. Among the many peoples who answered the emperor’s call to defend their fatherland was “our little Slovene nation, hitherto unknown to the world.” The Slovenes went to war singing: We are hard Slovenes, We go out to fight for justice, for home, for the Emperor!63

Teaching Culture with a Steel Fist In the Dual Monarchy, the outbreak of war provided an opportunity for leading political figures of the vast state to publicly declare their allegiance to the empire and the dynasty. On August 5, 1914, for instance, Mayor Tavčar said to Ivan Hribar, “War is war, so caution is required, in such

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times sometimes a sentence, to which no one would pay attention under normal circumstances, can be dangerous. Therefore, I will behave like a real hypocrite, so that the world will wonder!”64 This implies that such statements were not made out of blind obedience to a higher authority, but on the basis of a tacit calculation that the emperor would somehow reward them after the war. Nevertheless, these constant oaths of loyalty to the monarch created a sense of his inviolability, which became an indispensable part of every public utterance, with the result that such silver-tongued statements were made even by the pro-Yugoslav and pro-Serb newspaper Dan.65 The fact that it was considered necessary to proclaim loyalty to the monarch is itself, according to the historian Aviel Roshwald, an indication of both the archaic political culture of the Habsburg Monarchy and its potential for cohesion.66 With the declaration of war, all political life was more or less brought to an end throughout Dual Monarchy and especially in the Slavic South. In public meetings, the will of the military authorities became decisive—confidants and denunciators rolled up their sleeves and worked at full steam.67 The Austro-Hungarian press reported mainly on the course of the war and foreign policy, and also more or less sincerely urged its large audience68 to make patriotic sacrifices. Anything in the press that the police censors did not like was deleted. Nevertheless, some newspapers were seized and confiscated, as in the cases of the daily Slovenski Branik and the weekly Slovenski ilustrirani tednik,69 while others, such as the pro-Serbian Dan, offered their sacrifices on the altar of the Yugoslav idea and ceased publication.70 Censorship seized not only the written word but also unspoken thoughts. Oskar Tartaglia made this glaringly clear with his pieces published in Zastava on July 13, 1914, when he wrote an editorial entitled “How to Plant Cabbage (‘A Topic Permitted to Write About’)” and alongside it an article entitled “On Freedom of the Press (‘A Topic Forbidden to Write About and Hence to Be Confiscated by Editors’).”71 Writing against the regime’s views in any direct way was simply impossible, especially in the first two years of the war, but certain carefully selected messages managed to escape censorship. Such messages were intended to reach newspaper readers who were able to read “between the lines.”72 Even the sections of the already formatted newspaper pages that were left blank spoke volumes. The reason for leaving such sections blank was the censorship, which suppressed and restricted even such a strongly Catholic and pro-Austrian movement as the Orel gymnastics club in its publication. Jan Hajšman, a journalist for the Prague newspaper Čas, reported that newspaper vendors in the streets of Prague shouted, “What is white

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is the truth—what is black is a lie!”73 In this, the Habsburg war censors seemed to embody Viktor Adler’s epithet about the Dual Monarchy as a whole: Absolutismus gemildert durch die Schlamperei (Absolutism tempered by sloppiness). It happened every now and then that a story was banned in one newspaper but appeared in another.74 Despite the state of war, however, some of the earlier political freedom remained. Parliamentary speeches were printed, except for the most critical ones, and some banned articles were secured thanks to subsequent interpellations in Parliament. Thus, even texts calling for the reorganization of the monarchy from the ground up found their way into the pages of the press.75 The ruling circles in Vienna were aware of the powerful psychological effect of Serbian victories in the Balkan Wars on the Yugoslav subjects of the Dual Monarchy. In their eyes, the war was a means, first, to destroy Serbia as the representative of the Yugoslavs outside the monarchy and, second, to suppress the growing national sentiments of the Slavs within the monarchy. “We all agreed, and our attention was focused on Serbia,” Ilija Bošnjak wrote. “Austria saw this, and so in 1914 it attacked Serbia, not because of Serbia itself, not out of grief for Franz Ferdinand, but in order to stifle any hope of liberation in us.”76 The measures taken to secure this end proved effective, at least if one judges on the basis of the publicly visible aftermath. When the soldiers of the Fifty-third Regiment went to war from Zagreb in 1914, adorned with flowers and Croatian flags, the citizens of Zagreb greeted them effusively, reflecting the official mood in the Croatian capital.77 In this jubilant mood, many mobilized Croats went to war full of fighting spirit, believing that the annihilation of Serbia and the victory of Austria-Hungary would be their victory. Therefore, they went to war in the hope that Austria-Hungary would achieve a Greater Croatia and consequently “devour the Serbs inside and outside the borders of Austria.”78 Voices to the contrary were not heard in public. Those who supported the Yugoslav idea were either sent to prison or to the battlefields, or they were forced to keep their mouths shut and remain silent. “Official AustroHungarian patriotism celebrated its glory.”79 Finally, the vociferous mobilization gave way to an ominous silence. By declaring war on Serbia, the Austro-Hungarian rulers hoped to completely extinguish the Yugoslav movement, which had been discredited by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, and to smother the flame of Yugoslav nationalism that was still burning. At that time, any sign of Yugoslav sentiment was regarded by the authorities as high treason and treated as such. Consequently, no one felt free to talk openly with others and no one knew for certain what was happening even in nearby villages. Even the old and dusty weapons that many people kept in their homes as mementos were taken away from them,80 and many owners of such souvenirs were

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court-martialed and sentenced to heavy penalties for insulting His Majesty, disturbing public order, and similar “crimes.” On August 24, 1915, Ivan Brence, an innkeeper from the village of Dovje in northwestern Slovenia, was executed by firing squad in Suhi Bajer, not far from Ljubljana, for saying in July of that year that the “foolish emperor” had started the war and that it would have been better for him to establish relations with Russia instead of Germany. On October 15 of the same year, Janez Kromar, a blacksmith from the village of Radoha in southeastern Slovenia, was sentenced to death and shot because an informant claimed to have heard him say, “Serbia is right!”81 The entry of the Dual Monarchy into the war against Serbia also meant the beginning of the ruthless suppression of all Serbs, as well as other Yugoslavs suspected of sympathizing with Serbia. Those who had to bear the brunt of the monarchy’s displeasure were, first, the political leaders who had expressed Yugoslav sympathies in various forms before the war, and second, all “Serbs,” that is, Yugoslavs of the Orthodox Church.82 Immediately after the outbreak of the war, police forces carried out persecutions in all Austro-Hungarian lands in which the Yugoslav population lived in order to teach their subjects a lesson in loyalty to the dynasty. The authorities carried out many raids and brought charges against members of the nationalist youth, resulting in the internment of about a hundred thousand people, mostly Slavs. Saying something “careless” was enough to end up at an execution site.83 Many respected Serbs were taken hostage.84 In general, people did not believe that the hostages would really be killed. However, the threat eventually became a reality: six hostages were shot one day and twelve others executed the next. With the aim of making the effect of their crimes more effective, the authorities ordered “that this heinous task should be carried out by Bosniaks.”85 Of course, not only did this discrimination stand in stark contrast to the glittering façade of patriotic euphoria, such unfair treatment of people from some ethnic groups within the multi-ethnic monarchy as “unreliable” citizens led them to feel increasingly alienated from the aims of the war.86 People became suspicious and began to speak to each other in a “diplomatic” language, so that when someone mentioned “our” army, it was impossible to know whether the person meant the Austro-Hungarian army or the Serbian army. If someone asked a friend, “How are you?” and the friend replied, “Thank God, our army is doing well!” he would assume that the person was referring to the Serbian army. Or if the friend said with a twinkle in his or her eye that the Serbian army was doing badly, this was an unmistakable sign that it was in fact doing well.87 Despite the great danger of being severely punished, however, people managed to find a way to express their disapproval. According to an article

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in the Marburger Zeitung, when the special train carrying the bodies of the assassinated crown prince and his wife from Trieste passed through Slovene territory, the telephone wires along the railway line were painted white, blue, and red, that is, in “Slovene-Serbian” colors, as the author of the article explained.88 Even more provocative was the call written on the wall of the cemetery in Split on All Saints’ Day 1914: “Arise, you dead! Franz Joseph is making the fourth levy for his army.” The authorities offered a thousand crowns for information about the author of this outrage. The next day, however, they found written the question “Will it be in gold or paper?”89 written in the same place. People even found ways of showing their disapproval of the war while scrupulously obeying the orders of the authorities. When Austro-Hungarian troops marched victoriously into Belgrade on December 2, 1914, the authorities in Zagreb ordered flags to be hoisted everywhere. However, after the fleeing Austro-Hungarian troops left Serbia, the flags remained hoisted. When the defeat was officially admitted, police went from house to house asking residents to remove all the flags immediately. “The prestige was broken forever.”90 In the end, it was indeed so, but in the summer of 1914, it was not obvious to most that the monarchy’s prestige had been broken for good.

Miloš Obilić Has Turned against Marko Kraljević Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia, partly with the intention of turning the Slovenes and Croats against the Serbs and driving a wedge between them. Even in the early days of the Austro-Hungarian mobilization against Serbia, rumors spread in Zagreb that a number of high-ranking military generals were meeting to discuss whether Yugoslav troops should be sent to fight Serbia. At the conference, one general was said to have ended his speech with the words, “Let the dogs slaughter each other!” It is not known whether this meeting actually took place and whether these words were really used, but everyone knew that this was entirely in the spirit and tradition of the Austro-Hungarian policy of divide and rule.91 To this end, the war propagandists eagerly portrayed the situation on the battlefields in black and white. On the front line, “our heroes” fought bravely against “Serbian savages.” In reality, however, there was no such clear dividing line between the white side and the black side, as evidenced by the fact that one of the first Slovene casualties in World War I in Serbia was Kladivar Avgust Jenko, a “young knight from the army of Kralj Matjaž,” who, as a Yugoslav volunteer, fell on the night of August 16–17, 1914, in the Battle of Cer.92 When Vladislav Fabjančič, Jenko’s friend, was in hospital, Niko Zupanič wrote to him about how shocked he was by the death of young

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Figure 3.3. Avgust Jenko, a Slovene volunteer from Austria-Hungary in the Serbian army. Killed in action on August 16/17, 1914. Source: private collection of the author.

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Jenko: “I am very sad for Jenko, who was as beautiful as a girl and as young as a dewdrop, and he had to die.” And to these words he added: “But I am proud that the hills of Cer were also sprinkled with Slovene blood.”93 With the aim of binding the Serbs as much as possible to the monarchy, the Austro-Hungarian state authorities sought to stir up the Croats’ hatred of the Serbs. A legend was woven around the name of Archduke Franz Ferdinand to show the Austro-Hungarian Yugoslavs how much they had lost with his death. He allegedly wanted to liberate Croatia and make it an equal member state of the Habsburg Monarchy. It seemed irrelevant that the Hungarians had been told that the archduke was their great friend and that his intentions were not directed against their government. Some Croatian politicians, under the guise of Croatian patriotism, preached with fiery words about how the Serbs had “destroyed all the hopes of the Croats.” In this, they had the support of the state authorities, but also those in Catholic circles, whose greatest hopes lay in the murdered archduke. Franz Ferdinand was shrouded in an aura of martyrdom for the Croatian national cause. The Croats were told that Serbia was the enemy of Croatia, not the monarchy, and that this was a war of the Croats against the Serbs. In this way, an atmosphere was created in which Croatian soldiers willingly went to the battlefields.94 The mobilized soldiers went to the battlefield to realize the old ideals at the call of God, to “defend our emperor, our home!,”95 that is, to throw the Yugoslav idea into the Sava and the Drina. The press reported dozens and dozens of heroic deeds every day from the battlefields of Serbia, Galicia, and the border with Italy. According to these reports, the Slovene and Croat soldiers were true heroes, showing “indescribable courage” even in the most terrible battles. They attacked the enemy laughing and gloating and only reluctantly retreated from their position in battle.96 Their conduct on the battlefield was said to have proved that they were truly “a civilized nation, healthy, industrious, impeccably loyal, steadfastly devoted, and without precedent in their heroism at the front.”97 At the end of August 1914, Slovenec published an article comparing the heroism of Yugoslav soldiers in the Austro-Hungarian army with that of their Serbian enemies. “It cannot be denied, and our war command explicitly acknowledges, that the Serbs are fighting with great courage,” the author wrote, before adding: “But the courage of our army is even greater.” In his opinion, the Croats in particular stood out for their heroism in the war. “One Croat is worth three Serbs,” the author concluded, “that is the lesson of the Austro-Serbian war so far.”98 On August 1, 1914, the Belgrade Politika published an article on the “usefulness” of the Yugoslavs in the war against Serbia. According to the author of the article, Austria-Hungary threatened Serbia with sending its

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Slav regiments, which consisted of eight corps (each with sixty thousand soldiers). The author wrote that Austria-Hungary assumed that it would have nothing to fear if the Austro-Hungarian Slavic regiments defeated Serbia. But if Serbia defeated them, the defeated Slavs would harbor a “terrible hatred for Serbia.”99 The Slavic soldiers of Austria-Hungary, “those Croatian and Serbian swine,” were often sent to the first line of battle to slaughter each other.100 In the battles near the towns of Šabac and Valjevo, Croatian soldiers, believing they were fighting a war for themselves, raised the Croatian flag; when the Hungarians caught up with them, they “disgracefully dishonored” it.101 On the Serbian front, in the front lines of the battle, Serbs in Austro-Hungarian uniforms were sent to war to fight “against their brothers and their freedom and for their slavery.”102 According to some reports, a large number of the soldiers mobilized in Bosnia-Herzegovina were Serbs. When asked if they wanted to go into the line of fire in Serbia, only eighteen out of a thousand Serbs answered that they wanted to go to another battlefield.103 In order to properly understand and evaluate this tragedy, Jovan Banjanin, a pre-war Serb politician from Croatia and a member of the Yugoslav Committee, warned in a text published in Niš in 1915 against making a general judgment that all those who fought in the ranks of the AustroHungarian army had the same motives for fighting in it. In his opinion, neither education nor national consciousness is equally developed in all people of a nation, and this was also true for the Serbian nation. However, Banjanin added, one should not forget that the Serbian population in the Dual Monarchy included a large segment of the generation whose favorite song was “The Serb gladly enlists in the army” with the famous refrain: “If the bright emperor wills it, a frontiersman leaps to his death.”104 The troops gathered under the black-and-yellow flag, composed of Yugoslavs who went into battle and fought bravely, proved to be a great success of Austro-Hungarian propaganda and the heaviest blow to the Yugoslav idea. Their heroism in the war was praised in public by Austria-Hungary, while in Serbia it was spoken of with a heavy heart. Therein lies the greatest tragedy of this war for all of us South Slavs, especially for us Serbs. How could it come about that after such a developed national movement and so many manifestations of national solidarity, the regiments of South Slavs, which have a large number of Serbs in their ranks, should fight against Serbia? Was it all a lie and a deception, and is this evidence of a slavish spirit acting with resentment against the freedom of their brothers and their own freedom? Were the South Slavs and especially the Serbs able or even obliged to hinder Austria in her intentions by rising up in any rebellious movement?105

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When the war against Serbia broke out, it hit many hard. Not a few thought at the time that it would have been better if Patriarch Čarnojević had not led his people to Vojvodina, for then they would all have remained together. And if they were to fight an enemy, they would fight united as brothers, as worthy descendants of Miloš Obilić and Marko Kraljević. “But should Miloš fight against Marko?! And Marko against Miloš, a Serb against a Serb, a brother against a brother? Can there be a greater sorrow and tragedy for a nation?”106 Austro-Hungarian propaganda was successful in deepening the divide between Yugoslav subjects by portraying “our Yugoslavs,” especially Croats and Slovenes, as being in opposition to Serbs. The propagandists portrayed such subjects as true heroes,107 distinguished by their bravery in battles against the Serbs. In these battles, they showed the world that the “old Austrian heroism” was not dead, and by their heroism in fighting the Serbian soldiers they proved that self-confident belief of the Serbs in their martial virtues was only an illusion.108 Allegedly, during the war, the Serbs used the meanest means and the dirtiest tricks: they threw poison into wells, laid ambushes, used all kinds of tricks, and mistreated the wounded in a way that “no words can describe.” Therefore, the rage and heroism of the Austro-Hungarian troops were supposedly more understandable, because they fought not only to punish brazen murderers and avenge crimes, but also to defend themselves against savages.109 The clouds of World War I over the Yugoslav lands eclipsed the sun that had warmed the Yugoslav idea for some years. Trialism was dead and buried, along with the heir to the Habsburg throne, while Russia had a plan to establish Greater Serbia. Yugoslavia was a dream that only a handful of refugees abroad still dreamed of, while at home strong propaganda was targeted against the Yugoslav cause, which was presented as an idea that was “neither ethically nor politically correct.”110 The influential Catholic ideologue Aleš Ušeničnik said on several occasions that Balkan and Austro-Hungarian Slavs had the same dream, that the great Austria-Hungary would liberate the Balkans and “bring its glory and freedom as far as Thessaloniki,” but the Dual Monarchy overlooked its great mission. The Balkan nations went to war of their own accord, and after many long centuries, Serbian glory and freedom revived on the Field of Kosovo. No wonder, Ušeničnik argued, that young Slovene hearts began to beat faster and that they dreamed “wonderful dreams of glory and freedom,” and that such romantic feelings led some young hotheads to yearn “beyond the limits of reality for a utopian Yugoslav unity.” But, according to Ušeničnik’s interpretation, this longing was brilliant only in appearance, for in reality behind it lay “political amoralism,” a feature of modern nationalism that led to the creation of united Germany, united Italy, Greater Greece, and free Albania.111

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The Slovenec and Domoljub newspapers, publications of the Slovene People’s Party, translated Ušeničnik’s ideological views into the everyday language of the masses and emphasized the difference between pro-Slavic policy, which was wrong, and pro-Austrian policy, which was right. The correct policy, according to these publications, was the one aimed at eliminating the idea of a possible common future with the Serbs, because the Slovenes were not Serbs and would not become Serbs. The Slovenec firmly rejected any form of agitation for the view that the Slovenes and Croats and Serbs were one nation. Allegedly, the goal of such agitation was for Catholic Slovenes and Croats seek their future in the Serbian state “ruled by the king whose hands are stained with blood.”112

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27.

Toynbee, 1915, 108. Hobus, 1934, 126; Woodhouse, 1920, 63. Ćorović, 1936, 487–88. Petrović, 1967, 728. Ćorović, 1936, 144–45. Konstantinović, 1960, 109; cf. Mandl, 1918, 42–43. Ćorović, 1936, 134. Konstantinović, 1960, 110. Sked, 1989, 254. West, 1942, I, 351; Fraser, 2014, 35. Obradović, 1928, 6. Bartulović, 1925, 45; Obradović, 1928, 6; Ćorović, 1936, 594; Carmichael, 2015, 52. Obradović, 1928, 7; see also West, 1942, I, 339–43. Klemenčič, 1914, 18; Jovanović, 1924, 10; Ćorović, 1936, 602; West, 1942, I, 352; cf. Mandl, 1918, 152–54. Poincaré, 1921, 178; see also Dedijer, 1967, 409; Jelavich, 1977, 261. Singleton, 1985, 115; cf. Lilek, 1927, 24–28; West, 1942, I, 356–59. Watson, 2014, 54. See, for example, Klemenčič, 1914, 22–25. See, for example, Pravda, June 17, 1914. Watson, 2014, 55–56. Slovenec, July 1, 1914. Watson, 2014, 53–54. Conrad, 1921, 170. Svetovna vojska, 1914, no. 1, pp. 17–19. Jevtić, 1923, 43. Klemenčič, 1914, 17; Banjanin, 1915, 20–21; Anić, 1919, 7; Jevtić, 1923, 42–43; Paulová, 1924, 4; Bartulović, 1925, 45–47; Obradović, 1928, 7, 17; Graham, 1930, 235; West, 1942, I, 382; Purivatra, 1974, 21. Klemenčič, 1914, 2–3; Pečovski, 1914, 135.

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28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76.

Pečovski, 1914, 130, 133. Slovenec, July 1 and 11, 1914. Ušeničnik, 1914a, 1; 1914b, 307–8. Ušeničnik, 1914b, 290. Kranjčević, 1954, 16. Watson, 2014, 56. Svetovna Vojska, 1914, no. 1, pp. 2–3. Domoljub, 1914, 3. Watson, 2014, 90. Orzoff, 2004, 162. Klemenčič, 1914, 8–9. Breitenberger, 1914, 89–90. Turšič, 1914, 105. Hafner, 1914, 7–8; 1915, 4; Palir, 1914, 150; Limbarski, 1914, 181; G. P., 1915, 89; Pečovski, 1915, 93; Holeček, 1915, 4; Šegula, 1917, 27; Horvat, 1967, 157. Hafner, 1914, 155–56. Bogoljub, 1914, no. 11, 359; Hafner, 1914, 156–58. Flerè, 1916, 43. See, for example, Slovenec, July 30 and August 18, 1914; Bogoljub, 1914, no. 9. Slovenec, July 29, 1914. Slovenec, July 30, 1914. Šušteršič, 1922, 109. Lah, 1925, 100–1. Breitenberger, 1914, 90. Slovenec, July 29, 1914. Slovenski Narod, July 29, 1914. Jeglič, 1914b, 1; 1914c, 280; see also Jeglič, 1914a, 84. Slovenec, July 27, 1914. Slovenski Narod, July 29, 1914. Vukićević, 1924, 102. Ludwig, 1915, 32. Horvat, 1967, 151. Herceg, 1919, 13; Blašković, 1939, 79; Cornwall, 2000, 16. Slovenec, July 29, 1914; Flerè, 1916, 28. Flerè, 1916, 34. Slovenec, July 30, 1914. Slovenski Narod, August 17, 1915. Hribar, 1928, II, 110. See, for example, Dan, July 8, 1914. Roshwald, 2001, 71. Hribar, 1929, 195; Horvat, 1990, 332. See, for example, Erjavec, 1928, 263. Ibid., 221. Lah, 1925, 97. Tartaglia, 1928, 78–79. Hribar, 1929, 195. Hajšman, 1932, 31. Orzoff, 2004, 167, 179. Prepeluh, 1938, 82. Bošnjak, 1918, 16.

102 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112.

Stopar, 1938, 19. Obradović, 1928, 13. Stopar, 1938, 19–20. Banjanin, 1915, 20. Pleterski, 1971, 23. Buchan, 1923, 191. Banjanin, 1915, 20–21; Vosnjak, 1916, 42; Lončar, 1921, 94; Bartulović, 1925, 46–58; Erjavec, 1928, 221; Mal, 1928, 1112. Banjanin, 1915, 21. Blašković, 1939, 82. Buchan, 1923, 191–92; Cornwall, 2000, 18. Hribar, 1929, 195. Marburger Zeitung, July 4, 1914. Buchan, 1923, 226. Horvat, 1967, 191. Banjanin, 1915, 14. Kolar, 1930, 5; Paulin, 1936, 135; Ristanović, 1989, 60. Ristanović, 1989, 64. Banjanin, 1915, 22–23. Turšič, 1914, 105. Ilustrirani Glasnik, September 24, 1914. Tedenske Slike, March 13, 1918. Slovenec, August 27, 1914. Politika, August 1, 1914. Banjanin, 1915, 14; Potočnjak, 1915, 6; Anić, 1919, 6; Paulová, 1925, 84; Supilo, 1970, 474. Potočnjak, 1915, 6. Obradović, 1928, 8. Blašković, 1939, 81. Banjanin, 1915, 18. Ibid., 15. Obradović, 1928, 19. Kosi, 1914, 22. Slovenec, August 23, 1914; Slovenski Narod, August 25, 1914; Slovenski Gospodar, August 27, 1914. Ilustrirani Glasnik, September 3, 1914. Ušeničnik, 1914b, 289. Ibid., 290. Slovenec, July 1, 1914.

Chapter 4

The Memory of Fallen Soldiers as a Seed of Discord

R

When the war was over, the victors and the vanquished, after many years of mutual hatred and enmity, drew closer to each other as they paid their respects in the military cemeteries. They paid tribute to the fallen soldiers of all nationalities, from all battlefields, and from all battles. Intergovernmental agreements required the signatory nations to establish and maintain military cemeteries without regard to state or national affiliation, solely out of gratitude and reverence for the comrades who sacrificed their own lives as they performed the most difficult of tasks for their homeland. To this end, the signatory countries established a special international fund and donated considerable sums of money. In the years following the war, thousands and thousands of monuments and other memorials were erected throughout Europe in honor of the fallen soldiers. Their basic message was the commemoration of the sacrifices, the sufferings, and the names of the fallen soldiers. The only exception was the nation-state of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.1 Eventually, critical voices were raised, complaining about silent, hidden, and abandoned graves. A few years later, critics used the term “our disgrace,”2 or “disgraceful treatment,” to describe the condition of these graves.3 In accordance with the Decree on the Establishment and Maintenance of Our Military Cemeteries and Graves in the Homeland, issued in mid-December 1919 by the government of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, “all military cemeteries and, where they exist, individual graves of fallen fighters for the freedom and unification of our na-

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tion without regard to the religion of the deceased” were to be put in order and maintained “as sublime reminders of the difficult days of the struggle for freedom and unification and as testimonies to the incomparable selfsacrifice in the defense of our homeland and our triple-named nation.”4 The prevailing “Thanatopolitics”5 disregarded the graves of soldiers who died fighting in Austro-Hungarian uniforms, as the decree did not mention these soldiers. However, the mere fact that the royal government explicitly acknowledged that the cemeteries and graves of the fallen soldiers of the Serbian army and volunteers promoted the idea of the national unity of the Yugoslavs showed clearly enough that soldiers who died fighting in other uniforms were excluded from this unity. On February 22, 1922, the National Assembly passed the Law on Military Cemeteries, which described in more detail what should be done to address this problem. It also included more specific guidelines for the construction of ossuary memorials with chapels, churches, and mausoleums.6 Meanwhile, large numbers of the cemeteries and graves of fallen soldiers remained neglected or even in ruins. The press published moralizing articles condemning this situation, including criticism of the state and society for forgetting the graves of their heroes.7 In this atmosphere, in June 1925, Prime Minister Nikola Pašić proposed a bill to the National Assembly for national recognition of King Petar the Liberator, as well as a law regulating the issue of financial support for living freedom-fighters and the construction of the Pantheon, akin to the French Panthéon or the Germanic Walhalla, for the burial of the remains of fallen soldiers.8

From the Kosovo Temple to the Pantheon of the Liberators In the years before World War I, sculptor Ivan Meštrović made a design for the Yugoslav Pantheon. He exhibited his first wooden model at the International Exhibition in Rome in 1911 in the pavilion of the Kingdom of Serbia, where he was awarded first prize.9 As early as 1908, under the influence of the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Meštrović began sculpting for the Kosovo Temple. At that time, he created caryatids, a sphinx, Miloš Obilić, Srdja Zlopogledja, Marko Kraljević, the wounded, fighters, guslars, Kosovo widows, shepherds, Mother Jugović, and the Kosovo Maiden carved in relief. Meštrović imagined the Kosovo Temple in the open air somewhere in the Field of Kosovo, as a “temple of the religion of the ultimate sacrifice.”10 After the liberation and unification of the country, Meštrović sent a model of the temple to Belgrade at the request of Nikola Pašić. The wooden model was exhibited in the auditorium of a high school, where

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Figure 4.1. The Kosovo Temple (or Vidovdan Temple), model (1918). Designed by Ivan Meštrović. The temple was never realized. Source: private collection of the author.

Pašić personally explained the concept of the temple to members of the government and the deputies. As Meštrović recalled, the high-ranking guests did not like the fact that the Kosovo Temple would be built somewhere in Old Serbia, and Pašić was averse to the original concept for the temple. In his opinion, the heroes of epic poetry from before the 1912–18 wars were “an idealistic image, like a myth,” while after the Serbian victories in the wars, “our dreams became reality.” Those who achieved victory for Serbia in these wars realized the centuries-old dreams of their people. Pašić believed that he had the unanimous support of his ministers on this issue, and that the temple should be transformed into a pantheon where “all our great people from this present epic, beginning with Vojvoda Putnik,11 and so on, would be buried.” The pantheon should be built in Belgrade on Kalemegdan, where it would be visible from all over the Srem and Banat plains and become a place to which people would “go on pilgrimage.” Part of the pantheon could also be devoted to the exhibition of those Kosovar fragments that the sculptor had already carved, but the great men of the present time should be presented “as they are, as the whole world has seen and perceived them, and remain in this form for posterity.”12 The Pantheon, as Pašić envisioned it, would inaugurate an ideology that defined Yugoslavia as the result of the victory of the Serbian army. Pašić’s idea of the Pantheon was thus as far removed from Meštrović’s vision of the temple as Meštrović’s idea was alien to Pašić’s intentions. It was a bad

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omen for the realization of the sculptor’s idea of the Kosovo Temple as an “architecturally” explicite fiction about Yugoslav identity.”13 Astonished, Meštrović tried to explain that he imagined the temple as an embodiment of something different to a victory won at Kajmakčalan or Vojvoda Putnik with his šajkača and epaulettes, French cannons, and a diplomatic coat, nose, and beard; that all events and heroic deeds, as well as individual people, are best viewed after the passage of time, which is necessary to determine the true merit of great people.14 In the meantime, a number of Belgrade sculpture experts came forward and demanded to see the model; some of the most impatient even invaded the hall where the model of the temple was being displayed. Both the experts and the public primarily criticized the price of the project,15 though some of them found a deeper meaning in Meštrović’s figures. They perceived that “the most outstanding son of Yugoslavia,” as Meštrović was called in the Yugoslav Society gazette of Buenos Aires, was not sufficiently at home on “Serbian national soil,” so he was unable to “rise to the original Yugoslav thought.” In support of their concerns, some cited the appearance of his temple, which supposedly looked like a mosque from a distance.16 Meštrović’s grandiose idea was never realized, and all that survived of it was a wooden model that was discovered in New York in 1968 and brought back to Belgrade—“when no one needed it anymore.”17 Pašić’s radical government insisted that the ideology of the state and national unity should be given a place in the public sphere and that later generations should be provided with a visible sign of how much contemporaries appreciated the sacrifice of “our brave nation.” This sign was to take the form of a dignified temple monument to the liberators, in which the bones of the soldiers who had fought for liberation and unification would be reburied and their names engraved on the walls. The law listed some of these soldiers by name: Vojvoda Radomir Putnik, Vojvoda Živojin Mišić, Andra Nikolić, a former speaker of the National Assembly, Stojan Novaković, a former deputy and prime minister, Dr. Laza Paču, a former Minister of Finance, Dr. Milenko Vesnić, a former deputy and prime minister, and Prota Milan Đurić, a former deputy. In addition to the names explicitly mentioned, the law acknowledged all the other deputies “who withdrew with the army and fulfilled their duties as deputies during the war, as well as for all commanders of divisions and brigades who fell or died during the war of liberation.”18 Many deputies felt that the law had been tailored to fulfill Pašić’s desire to “push” himself into the Pantheon. Thus, during a parliamentary debate, deputy Miloš Moskovljević exclaimed, “He wants to get there, whatever the cost!” The Democratic Party member Milan Grol added ironically, “So, Pašić Barabbas at the side of King Petar!” A little booklet entitled

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Pašić Builds the Pantheon. Dramatic Play in One Act. Written by Giovanni di Medua, circulated among deputies in the opposition. The title page featured a picture of the Pantheon with Nikola Pašić’s head drawn in. The characters who appeared in this drama were Pašić, Voja Janjić, the sculptor Ivan Meštrović, Ferhat-beg Draga, Djenan Zija, Hans Moser, Miloš Bobić, the vice president of the Belgrade municipality. In the drama, Pašić expands on Janjić, that is, those who would enter the Pantheon: So, I’ll be in the main hall. Not yet. It’s too soon. After a while. Next to me will be Marko from the Cabinet. And we’ll bring everyone together. The next one will be Ljubo from the Assembly, and Momčilo will be close to us because of Rijeka. Next is Feratović from our other club. In front of him is Velizar. Then one from the cabinet, then Kenan. Before Kenan comes Lazar or Ćirko. Then one of the Germans who speak Serbian. Let’s say Mr. Klozer (Moser) . . . And from the other side of the river: Žarko, Grga, our man Grga, well, maybe Majkić. Then, from the wartime, those who led us: Zeka, Okan, Pera, Uzun . . .19

One of the central tasks of a nation-state in commemorating fallen soldiers is, as Timothy Ashplant indicates, to maintain or secure the unity of the national community, and its associated narratives and rituals, in the face of sometimes acute social divisions.20 In the nation-state of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, this inherently complex and demanding task could only be accomplished through converging attitudes and concerted efforts to find cohesive elements of memory, and the suppression of those elements that could not accomplish this task. Had political leaders truly understood liberation and unification as the fulfillment of centuries-old dreams, they undoubtedly could have found enough such elements, whether in epic poetry or among historical figures and events. Those who had the duty to accomplish this task, however, chose to give priority to those years when Yugoslav soldiers in different military uniforms looked at each other through the sights of their rifles, that is, they gave precedence to old prejudices over new possibilities.

Petrified Opanaks and Šajkačas Immediately after World War I, monuments to fallen soldiers were erected en masse in villages and towns throughout Serbia. These monuments, bearing the names of fallen soldiers, were erected as a result of spontaneous initiatives of the citizens themselves, who were brought together by grief and pain. The death of a son, father, brother, husband, or friend became a sacrifice for the freedom and unification of the nation, at least in public; thus,

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the gain outweighed the personal losses. These deaths constituted a seal of approval for Serbian war aims; they also provided the nation with martyrs whose graves became the shrines of popular worship.21 Over time, keeping the memory of fallen soldiers alive was increasingly taken over by local committees for the erection of monuments, which often included members of professional and war veterans’ associations.22 Long lists of victims, whose names were engraved on the monuments, illustrated the immense sacrifice that the Serbian nation had made for liberation and unification, while highlighting (Serbian) unity and its moral victory. In this way, the commemoration of the victims of the war manifested a clear propagandistic and ideological purpose, which sometimes involved the maintenance of mistrust toward former opponents in the war.23 In time, with the support of the state, magnificent public monuments were erected alongside family and local monuments, exclusively as tributes to Serbian victories. State commemorations and celebrations of important anniversaries glorified the heroism of Serbian soldiers, while war gravesites were “pantheons for the heroes of the Serbian wars of liberation and unification.”24 The statues of soldiers usually showed their Serbian identity through their military uniforms, typically with šajkače (wool caps) on their heads and opanci (soft leather shoes) on their feet, which represented the Balkan Wars and the Great War as one and the same war; this was meant to testify to the view that Serbia fought for the liberation and unification of all Yugoslavs in these wars.25 In this way, the Serbian wars that had been fought from 1912 to 1918 were inserted into a Yugoslav history as the event that led to the formation of the common state.26 Although the losses on the Serbian side were enormous, the numerous commemorations and monuments for the war veterans of the Serbian army, which stood in contrast to the lack of commemorations and monuments for veterans of the Austro-Hungarian army, were a consolation that transformed the suffering and sacrifices of the Serbs into a contribution offered on the altar of liberation and unification of the whole nation. The attack on Serbia, the defeat of the Serbian army, the retreat of the Serbian army across the Albanian mountains to Corfu, the occupation of Serbia by the Austro-Hungarian army, and finally the Serbian victory in the war against a far more powerful enemy became constituent elements of the Serbian war narrative, which served to give meaning to the military experience. For example, the inscription on the monument at the Zejtinlik cemetery, which honors seven thousand soldiers, “the greatest heroes of our time,” states that their parents were the brave Serbian nation “whose fighters lost their lives to bullets, to hunger and thirst, crucified on the cross, on Golgotha, but they never lost their strong faith in the final victory.”27 Although this cemetery was established at a time when the

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Figure 4.2. Monument to the fallen (Serbian) soldiers in Mladenovac. Postcard published by the bookshop of Jele Ilić (1918). Source: private collection of the author.

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Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes had already been renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, “nowhere in the cemetery is the word Yugoslavia or the adjective Yugoslav mentioned.”28 Thus, while fallen Serb soldiers and volunteers were honored, the gap between them and those who fought in other uniforms deepened. After the establishment of the nation-state of the Yugoslavs, the commemorations held on important historical anniversaries and at sites of triumphant battles fought by the Serbian army and volunteers acquired state-building significance. The heroism and martyrdom of the Serbian army and volunteers in war were interpreted through the symbolism of the Kosovo myth. As regent and later as king, Aleksandar Karađorđević was actively involved in shaping the collective memory of Serbia’s role in World War I, occasionally as a keynote speaker at public events. In his speeches, he particularly emphasized the importance of Serbian sacrifices for Yugoslav unification.29 On the other hand, the Serbian soldiers who lost their lives in AustroHungarian or Bulgarian uniforms were not commemorated by the common state and no memorial ceremonies were held in their honor. As soldiers who died fighting for another, defeated army, they were consigned to collective oblivion. The authorities of the united nation with three names propagated the view that in the Balkan Wars and World War I people fought for liberation and unification and shed rivers of blood, which excluded most of the citizens of the newly founded state. Thus, their interpretation did not contribute to the creation of a common Yugoslav identity, but rather to the (symbolic) domination of one part of the nation over the others.30 Just like the dead soldiers, the surviving war veterans of the AustroHungarian and Bulgarian armies did not enjoy equal status in the nationstate of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. John Paul Newman quotes an anecdote about a Croat war veteran who asked for the financial support to which he was entitled. The official asked him if he had been a combatant on the Salonika Front and then rudely sent him off to beg for money from Emperor Karl instead.31 The army of the common state remained firmly in Serbian hands. Former officers of the Austro-Hungarian army, whether they were Croats, Serbs, or Slovenes, were severely restricted from progressing up the ranks, and Field Marshal Svetozar Borojević von Bojna did not receive a pension and was not allowed to return to his homeland, so he died in Austria.32 The precedence of the war veterans of the Serbian army over the war veterans of the Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian armies only reinforced the internal division between those who belonged to a select part of a nation and those who did not. According to Serbian army general Pavle Jurišić

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Šturm, it was a division between those who belonged to “a bloody, but true, centuries-old line of historical continuity, the beginning of which lies in the Karađorđe Uprising and the Šumadija, which was revolutionary until yesterday,” and who created the “Yugoslav Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes,” and those “who always, even during the war, dreamed of a Habsburg Yugoslavia” ( Jurišić names Stjepan Radić, Anton Korošec, Mehmed Spaho, Halid-beg Hrasnica, and Todor Aleksandrov as representative of this latter group).33 General Jurišić strongly opposed the proclamation entitled Our Country Must Not Be Divided into Winners and Losers! As he maintained, the real truth was that in the nation-state of the Yugoslavs there were “both winners and losers.”34 The winners, he continued, were those who embraced the national and state ideology that developed from the ideology of “avenging Kosovo” and transformed into the ideology of the “liberation and unification of all Serbs,” which was then expanded into the ideology expressed in the king’s proclamation of 1914 on the “liberation and unification of all Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.”35 The other ideology, which had been defeated in World War I, according to Jurišić, was the ideology of the “deluded separatist and Austrian part of Zagreb, Ljubljana, Sarajevo, etc.”36 General Jurišić obviously spoke from the heart and expressed his opinion sincerely. That he was not the only one who subscribed to this point of view is evidenced by a satirical poem about Yugoslavs, shown to a Slovene volunteer named Ernest Krulej in the Serbian army on June 1, 1918, by his good friend Joca Kočić, a Serb: “Where there is food in abundance, / Where there is something to drink, / And people dancing a kolo, / There you will find, oh, Yugoslav, / A Croat. // Where there is plenty of goulash and women, / And barrels of wine, / Oh, Yugoslav, / There you will find, oh, Yugoslav, / A Slovene. // Where there is fighting and bloodshed, / To defend the fatherland, / There you will find, oh, Yugoslav, / A Serb.”37 The heart generally prefers the language of prejudice to the language of reason. The division of the triple-named nation into winners and losers not only connoted a historical truth; it also placed both sides in an unequal relationship with post-war Yugoslavism. Yugoslavism needed all of Yugoslavia—Greater Serbia was too small—so concessions had to be made on all sides for it to work.38 Only in this way could all South Slavs feel equally distant or equally close to Yugoslavism. This was important because a Yugoslavism that was closer to the Serbs than to the other Yugoslavs, for example, could not become a common, unifying ideology. In creating a Yugoslav idea that was acceptable to all, there could be no division into winners and losers. To this end, the facts should have been transformed into a myth of a common, modern future that would shape people’s consciousness through symbols they could understand and with which they

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could identify.39 The cultivation of separate collective memories among the subjects of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes did not build bridges of mutual understanding, but rather reinforced efforts to maintain the gulf between them. Through the barrage of questions fired at his opponents in a sharp, polemical tone—“Why did we fight? Why did we shed our blood? Why did we scatter so many millions of graves on distant battlefields all over the world?”40—General Jurišić clearly showed that he was a proponent of viewing politics as a struggle that must end with the unconditional surrender of the opponent. Such a view might be suitable in wartime, but it was certainly not suitable in the period of building national unity and common identity. For who can say that the Yugoslavs, though they wore different uniforms, fought and shed their blood so that the future of their nation would not be common but divided? Therefore, after the establishment of the new nation-state, the memories of their struggle and sacrifice should have been woven into an inclusive narrative that was acceptable to all sides. But some of the Serbian political leaders got so carried away with the story of the heroic struggle of David against Goliath, the sufferings of the Serbian nation, and the martyrdom of the Serbian army and its final victory that they did not want to add anything else to it. Stubborn adherence to such a fixed narrative had political consequences, which became clear, for instance, when Milan Stojadinović, the then prime minister, said at a pre-election rally on November 8, 1938, that all (Serbian) sacrifices in the war were made “in order to have our own unified state.”41 Thus, twenty years after the end of the war, Prime Minister Stojadinović offered (Serbian) voters the opportunity to pay tribute to the heroism of Serbian soldiers in the Balkan Wars and World War I by casting their votes at the ballot box—for his political party. Commemorations on the anniversaries of important battles were intended to alleviate the traumas left by the war. However, the numerous monuments to liberation and unification erected on the territory of the pre-war Kingdom of Serbia were not matched by an equal number of similar monuments in the territories on the other side of the Danube. For instance, there were no monuments to Serbian soldiers who fought in Austro-Hungarian uniforms, while those who fought in Bulgarian uniforms were completely erased from collective memory. Most of the monuments to soldiers who died in Austro-Hungarian uniforms were erected in the Slovene part of the country. Five years after the end of the war, the mortal remains of the executed insurgents from Judenburg were transferred from Austria to Ljubljana and buried there with state honors. In their honor, a Monument to the Freedom Fighters was erected in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Ljubljana, while the soldiers who

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died in Austro-Hungarian uniforms received no memorial. The state forgot them, but their relatives did not: each of the deceased had been a father, a son, a brother, a husband, a friend. The (Slovene) public was divided over their fate. Slovene liberals and democrats largely endorsed Jurišić’s point of view,42 and there were even some who openly doubted that there could be any heroes at all among Slovenes. Josip Ciril Oblak, a lawyer, for example, claimed that Slovenes had no heroes at all, only martyrs. He claimed that the only heroes were the Serbs, while the Slovenes were the people of Črtomir, “who was baptized on the island in the lake,” and Primož Trubar, “who fled and died in exile and was not a hero.”43 The supporters of the Slovene People’s Party took a completely different stance on this issue. Slovenec, for example, rejected the view of the Slovene liberal intelligentsia, which “has long despised its own people and humiliated them everywhere.” Since unification, the newspaper said, people like Ilešič and Oblak had endeavored to show that Slovenes were “not worth a penny” and that their only merit was that they had produced fugitives like Primož Trubar and figures like France Prešeren’s Črtomir. According to Slovenec, however, this attitude was “an even worse crime than the pact with Italy.” The critics who denounce the Slovenes from such a high standpoint do not even know where and why the poet Prešeren had his Črtomir baptized (at the Savica waterfalls and not in the church on the island in Lake Bled), and therefore, according to Slovenec, they had better keep silent.44 For the majority of Slovenes, of course, the view propagated by Slovenec was more acceptable. When Slovene voters had the opportunity to choose between the point of view advocated by the liberals and democrats (centralism), on the one hand, and the point of view advocated by the clericals (decentralization and autonomy) on the other, it was no surprise that the former lost the support of the electorate, while the latter—their political opponents—greatly increased their share of the electoral vote by comparison with previous elections.

Stone Soldiers Strike Back In 1923, a few days before November 1, Slovenec published a letter entitled “Our Shame.” France Bonač, the author of the article, noted that photos of the unveiling of monuments to the combatants of World War I could be found in every German illustrated newspaper, as well as in every Italian newspaper, and so it was in every other supposedly civilized nation in the world. “But it is not like that everywhere,” the author concluded, “because the only exception seems to be us Yugoslavs, and that without distinction, whether Slovenes, Croats, or Serbs.”45 After years of suppression of the

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commemoration of fallen soldiers in Austro-Hungarian uniforms, under pressure from their compatriots who had been deprived of a place of remembrance and mourning, voices were raised that it was “shameful” that there was not even a modest public memorial to all the fallen soldiers and that no commemorative ceremonies had been held in their honor.46 According to part of the Slovene public, the appreciation of the fallen soldiers merited an appropriate tribute by the civilized people. The survivors were therefore obliged to commemorate with gratitude not only those who had fallen in the battles against Austria, but also all those victims of the war who had been buried on Slovene soil, “and above all our compatriots, because they are ours, because they suffered and fought for us and for our sake, because our freedom comes from their graves.”47 At the end of October 1923, Slovenec demanded that this situation be corrected: Enough of this negligence! We have repaired our bells, we have repaired our churches and houses, and now we will set to work to repair the graves of our abandoned brothers, to put tablets on the walls of our churches, to erect monuments in cemeteries and public places with the names of our martyrs. For the noble act of Christian and national gratitude of civilized people! Parishes, communities, associations, relatives of the fallen, all of you who have a guilty conscience because of neglected duty, take care of the graves, cemeteries, put up memorial plaques with names, erect monuments, be dutiful every year and bring the holy sacrifice to your brothers who may be resting in foreign lands without a grave and without a cross on their grave!48

Monuments to fallen soldiers were intended to provide a place for the friends and relatives of the soldiers to mourn them and celebrate their martyrdom. However, this had political consequences for the living. Preserving the memory of wartime suffering and commemorating fallen soldiers became an expression of certain groups’ desire to speak publicly about the past and to gain wider social recognition of their views. Monuments, as one author wrote in Gorenjec, have historical value because in them “the idea of what the monument represents is immortalized, and this idea is a signpost for the nation.” Monuments animate an idea and strengthen it, the author continues, because in them the nation expresses the will to realize itself, “and at the same time they are a form of protest, therefore they should be encouraged”49 The Association of Slovene Soldiers actively promoted the erection of monuments to fallen comrades in Austro-Hungarian uniforms and organized commemorative events and rallies. Of particular importance was the meeting of war veterans in Brezje, which took place in mid-August. The first rally in honor of the fallen soldiers in Brezje happened at the very

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beginning of the war, on August 16 and 17, 1915, when several thousand members of the “Marian nation” came to Brezje to celebrate the eightyfifth birthday of the emperor and to pray for “our brave soldiers at the front and for the happy future of our nation.”50 In the invitation “Why go to Brezje again?” published in mid-August 1915, Domoljub explained that the participants in the Emperor’s Day Meeting would go there to commemorate Emperor Franz Joseph and to offer a prayer “for their loved ones on the bloody battlefields, for the protection of the Queen of Battlefields, for the protection of the Queen of Troops, so that she may lead them from victory to victory,” as well as for “men and boys lying in foreign lands.”51 Probably the largest gathering took place ten years later, on August 15, 1925, the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is estimated that about twelve thousand people came from all parts of Slovenia and also from outside the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. On this occasion, a memorial plaque for the fallen Slovene soldiers was unveiled; its location was chosen so that it could be seen from everywhere in the church. On the tablet was the head of Jesus Christ, below which there was a dying lion and an inscription in golden letters: “Saved from the horrors of war, we pray to the Queen of Peace: God reward the fallen! In this holy place the Slovene soldiers of the World War gathered on August 31, 1924.” The meeting in Brezje constituted a dynamic shift in the honoring of the fallen Slovene soldiers. The most common form of commemorating the soldiers who had lost their lives in the battles on the Soča, in the east, and on the Southern Front was a memorial plaque, usually mounted on a church or cemetery wall; memorial plaques bearing the names of fallen or missing soldiers were also carved into more artistically sophisticated monuments. The names, which were usually arranged in alphabetic order, maintained the equality established on the battlefields, proclaiming all fallen soldiers as heroes.52 Inscribing names in stone—into objective reality, so to speak— an honor that had once been exclusively reserved for the upper class, now commemorated and cherished the common soldier. Catherine Moriarty establishes that the inscriptions, which invoked a profound private feeling of grief, were thus transformed into a source of national pride.53 On the other hand, the important role of villagers in mass public commemorations strengthened the role of the peasantry as important members of the Slovene nation and at the same time consolidated the position of the Slovene People’s Party, which built its political base on the peasantry.54 From the very beginning, the erection of monuments and the commemorative rituals in honor of fallen soldiers were instrumentalized as symbols of Slovene cultural distinctiveness, even though they were supposed to be exclusively acts of piety. The ceremonies organized by the Association of

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Slovene Warriors were characterized by an increasingly clear and distinct language derived from the politics of the time, which actively opposed centralism and advocated Slovene autonomy.55 The language of the speakers at these commemorations was regularly quite radical, and there was no lack of insults. The former leader of the warriors and industrialists from Ljubljana, Stane Vidmar, was even convicted of slander and defamation against the (liberal) minister and senator Albert Kramer, which he had uttered in his speeches at various rallies in 1934.56 Many citizens followed the organization’s actions with sympathy; on the other hand, it was repeatedly accused of promoting “Austrianism.”57 France Bonač strongly rejected such accusations, saying that Slovene soldiers who had taken their military oath and been loyal to a “foreign” state would be even more loyal to their “beloved, native” state, especially “if the sacred rights of our homeland and nation are upheld and not the sordid speculations of those for whom war is only a good opportunity to line their own pockets.”58 The Slovene war veterans carefully covered up the political side of their movement by expressing their loyalty to the king. On the occasion of various rallies, public meetings, and similar events and gatherings of the Slovene War Veterans’ association, they usually sent a telegram expressing their loyalty to King Aleksandar and emphasizing the non-political and non-partisan character of their actions.59 Sometimes the name of the king was mentioned alongside the names of the fallen soldiers. When, in 1935, in the municipality of Vodice, the local monument to the fallen soldiers was restored by the provincial organization Boj (Battle), the names of the soldiers were gilded, while the name of King Aleksandar the Unifier was engraved in a special position on the monument.60 The engraving of the king’s name next to the names of the fallen Austrian warriors offered a truly new perspective on their historical role and significance. Commemorations and rituals at the unveiling of monuments to fallen soldiers served to create a distinct collective memory, and the cultivation of this distinct collective memory in turn supported the construction of Slovene identity as a non-Yugoslav identity. The funds for the erection of monuments to fallen Slovene soldiers were raised in villages and parishes through voluntary donations. Since the common state did not support the erection of monuments to fallen soldiers of the defeated enemy army, the sense of division in society became even more pronounced. The commemoration of the Slovene soldiers who had lost their lives in battles while wearing Austrian uniforms was organized by the association of Slovene war veterans, which presented itself as strictly non-partisan and non-political. Its first public meeting “around the throne of the Queen of Heaven” took place in Brezje in 1924.61 The seed fell on fertile ground. On the initiative of the association, memorial plaques were unveiled almost

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weekly around Drava Banate.62 The number of monuments grew rapidly; by 1926, almost 150 monuments to “Slovene heroes” had been unveiled.63 Ten years after the war, there was almost no parish left without a monument or memorial.64 These monuments were to serve as “permanent testaments for our descendants to the reverence for our fallen comrades and the culture of our nation, holding fast to the idea: ‘A nation that cherishes and respects its dead forges a golden future.’”65 In addition to smaller monuments in villages and parishes, the secretary of the association, France Bonač, announced as early as 1926 that “a dignified, large monument to all the victims of the war would be erected in Tivoli Park in Ljubljana.”66 The Association of Slovene War Veterans regularly organized commemorative events on the occasion of the unveiling of monuments and on certain dates, especially Catholic holidays. The commemorative events emphasized their own non-political character, but had one striking common feature: the mobilization of the masses for specific political goals. As Minister Ivan Pucelj, speaking for the Alliance of Slovene Warriors, explained, the organization was completely apolitical in its mission, but “some gentlemen introduced it into the political arena” with the intention of transforming it into a political party. 67 Indeed, at gatherings for monument unveilings or commemorations, political statements were frequently made, albeit in relation to the present rather than the past. In the nation-state of the nation with three names, whose citizens had very recently fought on opposite sides of the war, the memory of the war became one of the most important arenas of political struggle. Over the years, this struggle intensified, and in the first half of the 1930s, it resulted in “real national manifestations.”68 Although all this took place far from the national capital, such incidents did not go unnoticed by the Belgrade press. In late 1925, Politika angrily pointed to Ilustrirani Slovenec, which repeatedly published photographs of monuments to fallen soldiers that had been unveiled with the participation of local authorities: We have no objection to the families of the dead, who lost their mad heads through accident, misfortune, or lack of conscience, tending their graves out of reverence, but we wonder how these frequent solemn manifestations are to be qualified, which pay homage to and glorify those who fought in the name of Karl von Habsburg against the Allies and the Yugoslav cause. For it is clear and beyond any doubt that the fallen soldiers fought against the liberation of this country—perhaps against their will, perhaps without knowing what that really meant.

The author ends this article with a warning to the “Slovene brothers” to have no doubt that “all Serbs will willingly raise their voices if anyone

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should dare—in the same spirit of ideas—to erect a monument to the Serbian renegade Field Marshal Boroević, the commander of the Austrian troops on the Soča front.”69 The concerns raised by Politika were dismissed as “unfounded allegations” by the main board of the Association of Slovene Warriors. The board pointed to the fact that soldiers, including enemy combatants, who fell in other countries had proper graves, including Germans who fell in the attack on Belgrade. Therefore, the Slovenes could not remain silent and thereby “spit on the bones of their brothers and sons” who fell on the soil of Gorizia and the Littoral, where they defended “our country”; and thus they expect that “our Serb brothers who know how to cherish the sacred bones of the fallen soldiers” will not prevent them from doing so.70

Chaplain France Bonač The former war priest France Bonač, the agile “secretary and soul” of the association of Slovene war veterans, was particularly active in agitation and advocacy for the erection of the monuments to the fallen Slovene soldiers. He personally went from village to village and town to town, often riding a bike, encouraging people to erect monuments to the Slovene soldiers, and he delivered solemn speeches at numerous commemorative events and at the unveiling of monuments. In his speeches, he advocated the right to a “dignified grave and a proper commemoration” for fallen soldiers buried on “Slovene soil,” regardless of their nationality.71 He often referred to stories from the Holy Scriptures, such as the story of Saul’s concubine Rizpah: In the second book of Kings, we are told that King Saul was very angry with the Gibeonites and wanted to slaughter them with fire and sword despite the word given. There was a famine in the land of Israel that lasted for three years until it was revealed to David, Saul’s successor, that it would end as soon as the terribly offended Gibeonites were fully satisfied. And they demanded the blood of Saul’s descendants, and the king gave them seven of his men, including Saul’s sons; and they were crucified on the cross on the mountain before the Lord. And Rizpah, their mother, took sackcloth, and spread it upon the rock; and she did not let the birds touch them by day, or the wild beasts by night, until they were all buried with dignity beside the bones of Saul and Jonathan. So says the Bible. Just as Rizpah guarded and watched over the poor bodies of her crucified children, so the Association of Slovene Soldiers guards the graves of its fallen comrades and encourages our nation not to forget its sons, and urges every village and hamlet not to forget its sons, but at least to put

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up a modest memorial plaque for them and to pray for them and honor their service, love and loyalty to us.72

In his solemn speeches, Bonač repeatedly referred to the non-political character of the association of war veterans, yet he did not shy away from current political issues. In his speeches, he emphasized that the Slovene nation loves its country and demanded that the country’s leaders show the same love by “lightening the heavy tax burden and returning it to all nations in the country without exception” and not neglecting their disabled veterans “who have laid everything they had on the altar of their homeland.” These were all explicitly political themes, of course. The same is true of Bonač’s dismissal of those who expressed doubts about the patriotism of these soldiers. The doubters who accused him of his “Austrianism” were rebuked by Bonač for their “Byzantinism” and “spinelessness.” In the years 1914–18, Bonač said, the former soldiers were trained in “a school of torment, of indescribable hardship, and they thoroughly shook off not only all Austrianism but also all Byzantinism and spinelessness.” And the prayer Bonač said for the “fallen heroes” at the meeting of Slovene veterans in Brezje in 1925 was unequivocally a step toward revising history.73 The theatricality of the rituals, the touching songs, the rhythm of the music, the sublime prayers, and the solemn speeches left a strong emotional impression on the participants who gathered to pay their last respects to the deceased, who were often their relatives, neighbors, friends, or acquaintances. Shaken as they were, they were not necessarily aware of the political dimension of such events. However, this does not mean that they were not influenced by the messages of the speakers. In essence, these messages aimed to show the bad side of the evil state that does not care for the graves of the fallen soldiers, does not look after the war invalids and orphans, and, on top of that, levies heavy taxes. Moreover, in such a state, the Slovene language and Slovene ethnic individuality, especially the Catholic faith, were allegedly endangered.74 Compared to the territory of the former Kingdom of Serbia, the Drava Banate was not rich in figurative monuments of soldiers in uniform. The first of these monuments, referred to as “our Janez,”75 was erected in the Ljubljana cemetery Holy Cross. The statue depicts a simple infantry soldier on a stone pedestal, with a rifle at his side, carrying a bag and a cartridge belt, and holding a hat in his hand.76 The monument to Janez of Carniola was to be erected in Ljubljana as a monument to Slovene heroism and loyalty to Austria.77 In the spring of 1917, the military command of the Reserve Battalion of the Imperial and Royal Provincial Infantry Regiment “Crown Prince” No. 17 sent a letter to Mayor Ivan Tavčar informing him of the desire to erect a monument to the heroes and asking

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him to designate a place for it in Ljubljana. The mayor accepted the idea and suggested the park in Tabor Square or the square in front of St. Peter Barracks.78 However, Janez of Carniola was not erected until 1923, when the remains of the Judenburg victims were brought to Ljubljana. Carved in honor of the heroism of the Austrian soldiers from Carniola, it was eventually erected to commemorate the rebellious soldiers in Judenburg who, on May 12, 1918, when it was time to march onto the battlefield, trampled the Austrian flag and turned their weapons against the “tyrant.” As stated in the joint appeal of the Committee for the Repatriation of the Bones of Ivan Endlicher and the Committee for the Repatriation of the Bones of Judenburg Victims, published in Slovenski Narod in May 1923, five “great souls” died a martyr’s death “for a better future of the Yugoslav people.”79 Two years later, another Janez of Carniola was erected in the local cemetery in the village of Dovje, “as a token of heartfelt remembrance and a reminder for future generations.”80 The monument was blessed by the celebrated Catholic priest Jakob Aljaž in the presence of numerous priests; the ceremonial speaker was France Bonač.81 When considering what the statue should look like, it was decided to use the figure of a soldier of the “Slovene Infantry Regiment No. 17” in the regimental uniform of the time. The organizing committee for the erection of the monument took the position that “history cannot be falsified” and that the monument should be a “document of that time, a sad reminder of an even sadder past, when Slovene boys and men were forced to take part in the worldwide slaughter.”82 Obviously, not everyone shared this point of view. One night in 1938, the monument in Dovje was demolished because “it allegedly depicted, as they claim, a soldier in an all-too-recognizable Austrian uniform—and some people had been complaining about that for a long time.”83 The statue was pushed to the ground and the perpetrators removed its head and took it with them.84 An even more interesting example is the monument in the town of Trebnje, unveiled on November 26, 1933. For Trebnje, November 26 was a “special holiday” because it was on that date that the faithful “duly commemorated their soldiers who died in the Great War.” The day before, the town was decorated with flags for the occasion, and on the day of the solemn unveiling, a mass was celebrated in memory of all the fallen from the Trebnje municipality. During the mass, Bonač delivered an address in the crowded church, and “the congregation was moved to tears by his words.” He pointed out that it was in the spirit of the Slovene nation to erect appropriate memorials to the victims of the war and to pray for them. As he said, the graves other nations created for their unknown heroes were beautiful and honorable, but “our Slovene mother” goes further and is not content with wishing her beloved sons rest in peace. The monu-

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Figure 4.3. Unveiling of the monument to the fallen soldiers, “Kranjski Janez” ( John of Carniola). Dovje, May 24, 1925. Photographer unknown. Source: private collection of the author.

ment, erected in honor of the ninety-eight fallen soldiers of the war, is over 6 meters high, its sheer size serving as a reminder of the immensity of the sacrifice. On a 4-meter-wide stone pedestal stands the carved stone figure of a soldier in full military gear, looking sad and helpless. Behind him stands Jesus Christ—the Comforter and Helper—who delivers him from despair. As the mixed choir sang “To the Fallen Soldiers,” the curtain fell and Dean Tomažič, with a large number of priests in his entourage, blessed the monument and said a prayer for the fallen soldiers. The second part of the ceremony took place in the hall, which was filled to capacity. A boy and a girl poignantly recited “I have no father and no brother” and “He has fallen,” while the male choir sang several Slovene folk songs. Former military chaplain France Bonač gave a memorial speech about “the patriotic love with which our boys and men fought and fell on the battlefields.” At the end of the ceremony, a telegram of tributes was read to King Aleksandar as the crowd cheered, “Long live our king! May the glory of the fallen be ever and everywhere upon us!”85 The most fascinating part of the monument in Trebnje is the inscription on the marble slab on the pedestal, which reads, “To the heroes of the homeland, our compatriots”; strangely, it is does not clarify to which country “the homeland” refers. Of the many newspapers that reported on the unveiling of the monument, only Slovenec carried the inscription.86

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Figure 4.4. “For the heroes of our homeland, for our compatriots.” Monument to fallen (Slovene) soldiers in Trebnje, unveiled in September 1933. Source: private collection of the author.

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However, there was no explanation of how the somewhat enigmatic words should be understood. For which homeland did the soldiers from Trebnje die? For the one whose uniform this soldier carved in stone wears, or for the one in which the fallen were commemorated and whose soldiers wore a different uniform? How are we to understand the fact that not a single newspaper commented on the meaning of these words? Was it because they did not want to openly state that the stone soldiers, made in accordance with historical facts, in fact represent the continuation of the war by symbolic means? Whatever the case may be, the contrast between the stone soldiers in Austro-Hungarian uniforms in the northwestern part of the new nation-state and the stone soldiers in Serbian uniforms in the eastern part of the common state were a bad omen for national unity.87

Monument to the Unknown Slovene Soldier The first tombs for unknown soldiers were erected in Paris and London in 1920, and in Rome and Washington the following year. A year later, similar tombs were erected in Brussels, Prague, and Belgrade, and in 1923 in Bucharest and Vienna. Their central locations underlined the symbolic importance of the monuments as symbols of the sacrifices of the nations united in the struggle for a better future.88 Through a series of commemorations and rituals performed on important national holidays or anniversaries, they remained present in the life of the nation, in which they were assigned an important role of social unification through collective identification with a fallen soldier.89 Their centrality in collective memory emphasized their exclusivity (in each state there was only one such tomb). The Yugoslav reality, however, was unique. The unknown hero atop Mount Avala was not Yugoslav, but Serbian. On November 23, 1921, a special commission officially determined that in the grave atop Mount Avala, which bore the inscription Ein unbekannter serbischer Soldat (An Unknown Serb Soldier), there was indeed “a Serb soldier whom no one knew, so that a monument to Unknown Soldier could be erected there.”90 And when a delegation of representatives of all major Croatian cities visited the grave of the unknown hero on the Avala, the solemn speaker pointed out: “The Unknown Hero of Serbia fought for his Fatherland, he fought and fell for the freedom of his Fatherland, he laid down his life for the liberation and unification of the whole nation.”91 Satisfaction with the successful erection of the monument to fallen soldiers encouraged the association of Slovene war veterans, in 1927, to think about erecting the “Pantheon of Slovene Soldiers.”92 The various tombs of unknown soldiers across the world symbolized national unity above all

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else. That was why each state had only one such monument, erected in its capital. Therefore, the idea of erecting a tomb for the unknown Slovene soldier was politically sensitive. Although it was presented to the public as an exclusively religious act, in reality it was an attempt to symbolically locate the Slovene nation in space and present it as a separate entity. The initiators of this project wanted to avoid a public scandal and opted for the village of Brezje to Ljubljana when choosing the location, as they could present the commemorations in Brezje as non-political and purely religious, since it was a traditional place of pilgrimage for all Slovenes.93 Commemorations of fallen Slovene soldiers with a large number of participants in the capital of Slovenia would have been much more difficult to present as non-political and could thus have been banned by the state authorities. Since this was a highly politically sensitive idea, its realization was rather slow. The architect Janez Valentinčič came up with a design involving a park on the land in front of the basilica, with monuments to deserving Slovenes, the worshippers of the Virgin Mary. The tomb of the Unknown Slovene Soldier was also to be erected there. The monument was to commemorate all Slovene soldiers who had died in World War I, and it was to testify to future generations “what great sacrifices Slovenes made for their freedom while fighting for the good of others.” In the park, there was to be a column from which water would spring, symbolizing the heart of the Virgin Mary as the source of love, with a statue of Mary, the helper of Christians, at the top of the column. The veterans’ association took on the realization of this project, with the goal of honoring fallen comrades and strengthening faith in Mary’s help. They asked for financial contributions from all Slovene parishes, districts and municipalities, financial institutions, and individuals who would, through their contributions, help to show the whole world that Slovenes are truly “Mary’s nation”94—in short, a nation of their own, not Yugoslavs. The political motivation behind the commemorations became most evident in the mid-1930s, when the association of war veterans began to organize the so-called tabors (meetings) of the Slovene nation. The first tabor took place on Sunday, August 11, 1935, in Komenda. Several thousand people attended, including schoolchildren, firemen, folklore groups in national costumes, and the Domžale district brass band. The honorary speaker for the occasion was Ban Marko Natlačen. He did not speak about the past, but rather focused on the present; in particular, the relationship between Slovene and Yugoslav national consciousness, that is, the question of how “we understand the Yugoslav nation and Yugoslav national unity.” In his opinion, it was essential to distinguish between the idea of the Yugoslav nation in the constitutional, political sense and the Yugoslav nation in the ethical, cultural sense. As he pointed out, all citizens of Yugoslavia,

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including Germans and Hungarians, constituted the Yugoslav nation in the political sense. In the ethical, cultural sense, however, as he said, the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes were “three distinct national entities,” each with its own characteristics, which should be respected and nurtured in linguistic, cultural, and other respects, in public life in general, and in the field of schooling and education in particular, all linked to the idea of a “higher Yugoslav community.” Therefore, the hegemony of one nation over another could in no way be tolerated.95 When we united with the Croats and Serbs in a common state in 1918, we did not do so in order to abandon our Slovene language and our Slovene characteristics: we did so in order to become stronger in fraternal union with Croats and Serbs, in order to strengthen Slovene consciousness in every respect. Today, too, we are entering into a closer political alliance, with the intention and the conviction that we shall also successfully serve Slovenedom.96

At the solemn ceremony on the last Sunday in August 1937, in the presence of the highest ecclesiastical dignitaries and representatives of the authorities, as well as a record number of “pilgrims,”97 the foundation stone for the monument was laid with the blessing of Prince-Bishop Gregorij Rožman, and the military choir sang the lament “Lord, Hear Our Plea.”98 A meeting followed, opened by the president of the association of war veterans, Mirko Ratej, who greeted Lieutenant-Colonel Pavlič, the special envoy of King Petar II and Regent Pavle. The crowd enthusiastically cheered the king, the regent, and the royal family while the orchestra played the national anthem. The solemn speaker was Ban Natlačen, the patron of this ceremony. He emphasized that the tomb of the unknown Slovene soldier, that is, the Slovene victims of World War I, was an honorable expression of gratitude to thousands of Slovene soldiers who had “shed their blood on various battlefields and died for the redemption and liberation of our nation,” and that as such it should become “a hearth on which all our nation, and especially our youth, will warm themselves in a deep and inextinguishable love for their nation and for their homeland!”99 The leaders of the action to erect the monument to the unknown Slovene soldier stated that they would not erect a monument to any particular country or nation, let alone to politics. If Slovene military monuments celebrated the military objectives of any country, they claimed, it would be best to tear down all military monuments around the world. The importance of monuments to fallen soldiers goes beyond any particular state or national policy, for all civilized nations erect monuments to their fallen soldiers. Therefore, such monuments are an expression of reverence for the victims of war who lie on the battlefields “in brotherly human com-

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radeship,” former enemies and friends alike. They all equally deserve to be remembered by the living. “It’s not about who was right and who was wrong,” argued Gorenjec, the newspaper of the Catholic community in Kranj. “And who knows? They all fought, loyal to their military oath, loyal to their homeland, and all, without exception, on this side and the other, deserve respect and glory.”100 The tomb of the unknown Slovene soldier in Brezje was thus to play a vital role in the formation of a distinct Slovene national consciousness, as a proud testimony to future generations “that the Slovenes were aware of their identity, appreciated those who had sacrificed themselves for their freedom, and showed great respect for their fathers and brothers who had suffered the terrible pogrom in the world war.”101 According to the plan, each Slovene parish was to receive a special place on the monument, on which the names of the fallen and dead of World War I were to be engraved in golden letters. In order for this plan to be realized, considerable funds had to be raised, so the relatives of the fallen soldiers were to contribute 300 dinars for each name to be engraved on the column next to the monument.102 In 1938, 1939, and 1940, respectively, the war veterans’ union organized several fundraisers and charity events to raise the needed funds.103 Work on the construction of the monument lasted until 1940, when “the leader of the Slovene nation,” the Minister of Education and the President of the Senate Anton Korošec visited the construction site before Soldiers’ Day.104 However, the monument was never erected, and after World War II the idea was consigned to permanent oblivion.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

F. B., 1923, 3; J. H., 1923, 2. F. B., ibid. Orjuna, October 31, 1925. Manojlović Pintar, 2014, 202. Kuljić, 2014. Manojlović Pintar, 2014, 203; Šarenac, 2014, 171. Manojlović Pintar, 2014, 205. Meštrović, 1961, 154. Car, 1911, 66; Banac, 1984, 205; Palavestra, 1991, 42; Machiedo Mladinić, 2007, 133. Meštrović, 1915, 1; see also Đurović, 1994, 65; Gavrilović, 2010, 39–40; Šijaković, 2015, 45. 11. Vojvoda Radomir Putnik (1847–1917) was the first Serbian Field Marshal and Chief of the General Staff of the Serbian Army in the Balkan Wars and World War I. 12. Meštrović, 1961, 153–54. 13. Ignjatović, 2007, 48.

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14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61.

Meštrović, 1961, 154. Jelić, 1930, 87; Meštrović, 1961, 22–25; Đurović, 1994, 65–66. Jelić, ibid. Šijaković, 2015, 55. Politika, June 13, 1925; Jutro, June 14, 1925. Politika, June 13, 1925. Ashplant, 2000, 263. Cf. Mosse, 1990, 35. Manojlović Pintar, 2014, 134–36. Šarenac, 2014, 173. Newman, 2015, 56. Ibid., 57. Troch, 2015, 91. Manojlović Pintar, 2014, 206. Ibid., 207. Bokovoy, 2001, 248, 251. Drapac, 2010, 97. Newman, 2015, 56–57. Ostović, 1952, 126; see also Mitrović, 2004, 549. Jurišić, 1924, 5–6. Ibid., 48. Ibid., 28. Ibid., 48. Krulej, 1936, 205. Jakovljević, 1923, 38. Cf. Mosse, 1993, 27. Jurišić, 1924, 50. Stojadinović, 1939, 28. See, for example, Govekar, 1922, 1; Zupanič, 1922, 2. Oblak, 1920a, 1; see also Oblak, 1920b. Slovenec, November 21, 1920. F. B., 1923, 3. J. H., 1923, 2. Ibid.; Bonač, 1931, 1–2; K. M. H., 1935, 1. J. H., 1923, 2. K. M. H., 1935, 1. Dolenjske Novice, August 6, 1915; Slovenec, August 10, 1915; Slovenski Gospodar, August 19, 1915; Domoljub, August 19, 1915. Domoljub, August 12, 1915. Van Ypersele, 2010, 580. Moriarty, 1997, 138. Cf. Bakić, 2004, 296–97. See, for example, Domovina, May 17, 1934; Spindler, 1934, 2. Nova Doba, February 21, 1936. Slovenec, August 10, 1926; Bojevnik, April 15, 1934; Domoljub, June 13, 1934. Bonač, 1924, 2. See, for example, Slovenec, August 10, 1926; January 8, 1934; Bojevnik, April 15, 1934; Slovenski Gospodar, May 30, 1934. Gorenjec, March 9, 1935. Bojevnik, April 15, 1934.

128 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs 62. Stelè, 1931a, 412. 63. Slovenec, August 10, 1926; Bojevnik, February 15, 1933a; April 15, 1934; Dobida, 1929, 430; Bonač, 1931, 1–2. 64. Gorenjec, August 18, 1935. 65. Bojevnik, April 15, 1934. 66. Slovenec, August 10, 1926. 67. Jutro, July 17, 1933. 68. Osrednji odbor Zveze bojevnikov, 1933, 3. 69. Z., 1925, 5. 70. Glavni odbor Z. S. V., 1925, 2. 71. Bonač, 1929, 407–8. 72. Ibid. 73. Novi Domoljub, September 10, 1925. 74. See, for example, Bojevnik, April 15, p. 1934; Slovenski Gospodar, May 30, 1934; A. L., 1934, 3. 75. Bonač, 1924, 2. 76. Slovenec, February 1 and March 11, 1916; Čopič, 1987, 168–69. 77. Slovenec, March 11, 1916. 78. Slovenec, April 4, 1917. 79. Odbor and Odbor, 1923, 1. 80. Slovenec, September 29, 1938. 81. Jutro, May 20 and 21, 1925; Slovenski Narod, May 20, 1925. 82. Slovenec, September 29, 1938. 83. Slovenec, September 28, 1938. 84. Slovenec, September 29, 1938. 85. Jutro, November 27, 1933; Slovenski Narod, November 27, 1933; Slovenec, November 27, 1933. 86. Slovenec, November 27, 1933. 87. See Jezernik 2017. 88. Mosse, 1990, 80–93; Van Ypersele, 2010, 579–80. 89. Manojlović Pintar, 2014, 222–23. 90. Belić, 1925, 786. 91. Politika, December 19, 1929. 92. Gorenjec, November 2, 1935. 93. Častni odbor, 1937, 1. 94. Ibid. 95. Gorenjec, August 18, 1935. 96. Ibid. 97. Gorenjec, September 18, 1937. 98. Slovenski Gospodar, August 18, 1937; Slovenec, August 30 and September 5, 1937. 99. Slovenec, August 30, 1937. 100. Kranjski Zvon, 1938, 6, 25–26. 101. Gorenjec, April 23, 1938. 102. Slovenski Gospodar, April 20, 1938; Gorenjec, April 23, 1938d; Kranjski Zvon, 1938, 6, 25–26. 103. Slovenski Gospodar, March 9, 1938; Slovenski Narod, April 16, 1938. 104. Slovenski Gospodar, August 21, 1940; see also Velikonja, 2003, 88.

Chapter 5

The Father of the Modern Yugoslav Idea

R

In the nineteenth century, when the national idea became the leading ideology among the South Slavs, the existing state borders caused several smaller flames to develop, instead of one big fire. To combine the smaller flames into a single great fire, Yugoslav nationalists commenced an intense search for evidence of a common past and culture. In the creation of a Yugoslav consciousness, a significant role was assigned to ethnography, history, and archaeology; the understanding of the nation as a community united by the same language (culture) and the same blood led to a significant part of this work being assigned to physical anthropology. One of the Slovene intellectuals who had turned his attention to the national question of Yugoslavs was Niko Zupanič. He was born in the village of Griblje in Bela Krajina on December 1, 1876. His origins in Bela Krajina shaped his worldview and he perceived the region as a mythological land containing “everything a peasant’s heart desires.”1 As Zupanič later recalled, before the advent of modern capitalism, Bela Krajina still lived according to ancient custom, when women and men wore white clothes and spoke in a patriarchal language, so to speak in proverbs, when few could write, when weddings lasted a whole week, and peasant tools and other utensils were mostly made at home and seldom bought at fairs, a time when everyone was dressed alike, rich or poor. In those days, owners in Gribelje did not lend each other money for registered debts and in front of witnesses, but did it secretly, in private. They had trust in the word of a man and his honor.2

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Throughout his creative life, Zupanič strove to breathe life into the image of Bela Krajina from his youthful memories, as it was in Bela Krajina that he had “intuitively seen the synthesis of the positive traits of all Yugoslav countries.” He saw the bearer of these traits in his own family, in his mother Katarina and his father Miko, who resembled “a kind of Cossack hetman.” As a village financier, his father went on to become one of the richest men in Bela Krajina.3 His wealth had a great influence on his son’s character: “determined and proud, he would not allow himself to be humbled before anyone when it came to the honor and benefit of the Slovene nation.”4 Deeply at peace with himself, without fear of starvation, he always uncompromisingly fought to the end for the nationalist cause, regardless of the obstacles, and did not hesitate, if necessary, “to crack a German bursch’s bones and grab him by the throat.”5 After Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina fell under the Ottoman Crescent, the inhabitants of Bela Krajina found themselves on the border between two empires in a hostile relationship. Many inhabitants of Bela Krajina subsequently lost their lives or were enslaved, expelled, or displaced. When hands were needed to work the land and defend the borders “against the bloodthirsty Turks,” the large landowners lured settlers with the offer of a piece of land. From 1530 onwards, Uskoks arrived in several waves from Western Bosnia; they had preserved the pure Ijekavian dialect for centuries, as well as songs about Tsar Lazar and Marko Kraljević.6 Through these migrations, Bela Krajina became an “ethnographic mosaic,” a place where one could encounter a diversity of dialects, characters, and material cultures.7 However, these differences in Bela Krajina never led to conflicts; all inhabitants had the same hero—Marko Kraljević.8 Zupanič realized that he needed more than a scholarly approach to revive the mythical Bela Krajina, so he began to use journalism and politics to achieve his goals. Starting from the image of the land of his youthful memories, Zupanič built an “Illyrian patriotism,” an awareness of the special bond between the peasants and merchants of Carniola, Croatia, and Bosnia, which he believed was most evident at the great fairs in Karlovac, where peasants and merchants from these provinces gathered. In this colorful society, cultural differences were a reason not for separation, but rather for mutual respect. “The heart of a patriotic Illyrian would beat in joy,” the then Belgrade curator Niko Zupanič recalled, “at the sight of these different elements chatting and trading with each other, when a Muslim from Cazin or Bihać paid wine to a man from Carniola and the Carniolan paid him black coffee in return.”9 During his Belgrade period, his “Illyrian patriotism” developed into the “Yugoslav idea.” In a speech to American Slovenes, he explained that he found inspiration for the idea in his childhood experiences. His father’s house, he recalled, was often visited

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by nearby villagers from Bojanci and Marindol (Serb immigrants from Bosnia), Kajkavian Croats, Uniates from Žumberak, Črni Kranjci (Black Carniolans), and finally Beli Kranjci (men from Bela Krajina), “who spoke to each other as if they belonged to the same nation, which was indeed the case.”10 Bela Krajina, which is identical with the Črnomelj regional administration, is ethnographically a small Yugoslavia, our future state, because all three main Yugoslav tribes live there, and experience in Bela Krajina teaches us that they really understand each other. The same thing happens at the fairs in Karlovac, where the people of Bela Krajina talk to the Muslims (Mohammedans) from Bosnia and the Bulgarians who grow various vegetables there. You don’t have to learn these dialects, you just have to adapt and get used to them. The small space between Karlovac and Črnomelj thus represents all of Yugoslavia in miniature, which has already passed the test with great success.11

Projecting the Present onto the Past A critical examination of Zupanič’s account of Bela Krajina is offered by Christian Promitzer.12 He argues that Zupanič, as a champion of the Serb and Yugoslav cause, used Bela Krajina as a case study for the peaceful coexistence of different South Slavic “national communities.” However, according to Promitzer, this was not an “inclusive multi-cultural approach,” as Zupanič was allegedly a staunch opponent of the Albanians and was convinced that this national group had been “artificially created by the imperialist politics of the Habsburg Empire to endanger the position of the Serbian nation.”13 Promitzer sees Zupanič’s belief in the single Yugoslav nation as an empty ideology and claims that from the beginning of the twentieth century, the Slavic-speaking population in Southeast Europe belonged to different “national communities,” while those who spoke Albanian belonged to the same nation.14 Promitzer thus reads history backwards and tries to “update” the events of the past in such a way that they correspond to the present, which is possible only at the price of a more or less strong distortion and mutilation of the past: since there is no Yugoslav nation today, in his interpretation it never existed. He does not explain, however, how it was possible that many Yugoslav intellectuals at the turn of the century, especially younger intellectuals, felt they belonged to a single Yugoslav nation.15 For example, Ljubo Leontić declared in his introduction to the first issue of the Prague journal Jugoslavija, “We are Yugoslavs, and not in particular Slovenes, Croats, or Serbs.”16

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One is not born into a nation, belonging to a nation is an individual decision. Only an individual can decide how he or she feels; politicians or journalists or scientists cannot make that decision in his or her place. Obviously, the answer to the question of whether there is one Yugoslav nation or several such nations was not as clear at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries as it is today; the same is true for the Albanian nation. The present seems to us to be ubiquitous, even if it is only a stage on a long and winding road. Some of the steps taken on this road were forced, but by no means all. Nations were born and disappeared, merged and separated, mixed and refounded. Geography and history, religion and political ideology, economic ties and relationships, language and ethnicity—each of these factors played a role; each left its mark. In other words, the path our ancestors took was by no means the only possible one. On the contrary, the majority of European nations chose the path of unity, so from the perspective of the present, the Yugoslav nation appears to be an exception to the rule. The stronger the national consciousness of the Yugoslavs in the nineteenth century, the more cautious the multinational empire of the black double-headed eagle. From the perspective of Austria-Hungary, it was a “very wicked thing” to think of the day when the Serbs might be united with “their unredeemed brothers.”17 To prevent the creation of a larger South Slav nation-state, primarily an “independent Greater Serbia” that would be a strong obstacle to the push to the east, Austro-Hungary relied on “tribal fragmentation” and worked to divide the entire Balkan Peninsula into smaller units.18 Supposedly, the differences in the cultures and religions of Western Slovenes and Croats on the one hand and Serbs on the other were too great for them to form one nation.19 Austro-Hungarian propaganda systematically spread this “truth” as late as October 1918, claiming that the southeast of the empire was populated by three different nations, not just one, which “incessantly quarreled with each other.”20 In short, they invented a myth about a traditional quarrel between the South Slavs and handed it down as scientific and reliable truth.21 On the other hand, Austria-Hungary, when it suited its interests, advocated the idea of a single Albanian nation on the Balkan Peninsula— regardless of cultural and religious differences—and campaigned for the recognition of the Albanian nation’s right to its own state, using military force if necessary, in order to stand in the way of the formation of Greater Serbia.22 The vociferous proclamation of “vital interest” in a free Albania, repeated by the Austrian pro-government press as “a muezzin repeats Allah il Allah,” was ironized by the Slovene press. The clerical Slovenec, for example, wondered how it was possible for German nationalists to shout “Free Albania!” unhindered, while anyone in Zagreb who shouted “Free

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Croatia!” would be arrested by the authorities.23 The liberal Slovenski Narod reported that after the First Balkan War, students in Split liked to pin ribbons with the names “Yugoslavia,” “Kosovo,” “Kumanovo,” “Karagjorgje,” “White Eagle,” and the like to their hats. These fashionable accessories disturbed the authorities, so they banned them under threat of severe punishment. The students responded by using ribbons with the inscription “Long live free and independent Albania” to their hats; these were not banned by the authorities.24 Before the outbreak of the Balkan Wars, diplomatic relations between Austria-Hungary and Serbia were tense.25 The Serbian government wanted to reduce tensions and focused its propaganda on influencing German public opinion. To this end, it sent Niko Zupanič to Vienna in 1912 to advocate orally and in writing “the historical and natural right of Serbia to the coastal strip between Ulcinj and Durres.”26 In 1912, Zupanič published in Vienna, under the pseudonym K. Gersin, the pamphlet Old Serbia and the Albanian Question to “refute the Austrian lies.” The Dual Monarchy repeatedly portrayed the peoples it wanted to rule over as inferior, culturally and civilizationally backward, and incapable of ruling themselves.27 Zupanič turned the views expressed in Austro-Hungarian propaganda on their head by arguing, in line with Serbian propaganda,28 that the Yugoslavs were indisputably a single nation capable of becoming an independent state, while the “Arnauts,” on the contrary, were “not a nation at all,”29 but simply a “wild, bold, and untamable tribe living in wild freedom and irresponsibility,”30 or “a complex of linguistically related tribes that have neither a common tradition nor a cultural and political past.”31 By using the name “Old Serbia” instead of “Kosovo,” he substantiated the Serbian claim to a living connection between this area and Serbia in the historical, cultural, economic, and anthropological senses. Consequently, “Old Serbia” and the Kingdom of Serbia would form a “geographical unity,” which would also give the latter the right to appropriate this territory because of its access to the sea, even if it was predominantly Albanians who lived there and notwithstanding the fact that the Serbian population had long since left Kosovo en masse and moved to Hungary and Croatia.32 In a short review of Zupanič’s pamphlet, Milan Pajk mentions that he believes the author when he says that due to tribal divisions, militancy, and the inhabitants’ low level of culture, the state of Albania was “not recommended.” However, Zupanič’s arguments about Serbia’s right to gain access to the sea because the Albanians were not a nation, as they lacked a historical and cultural past, he rightly likens to the stances of the “ruling nations” that denied the smaller nations the right to independent development.33 But despite the validity of Pajk’s warning, the fact remains that the Dual Monarchy supported the idea of an independent Albanian state

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because of its own strategic, anti-Serbian calculations, and not because it respected the right of the Albanian nation to self-determination.34 In the eyes of the black two-headed eagle, the Albanian right to self-determination served, primarily, as a rampart against Serbia’s access to the sea.35 Or, as Dimitrije Tucović put it, they wanted to create “a new pygmy in the Balkans, incapable of life, so that the other pygmy that wanted to break its chains would never be capable of life.”36 As Serbia sought access to the sea to emancipate itself commercially and economically and reduce its political dependence on Austria-Hungary, it began to expand trade with France and Germany. The Dual Monarchy responded with higher tariffs, leading to the Pig War (so called because 80 percent of Serbia’s exports consisted of livestock), between 1906 and 1910, which forced Serbia to purchase cannons from Škoda in Plzeň, as opposed to Krupp in Germany or Schneider in France.37 The prohibition on the export of livestock and meat from Serbia “struck a nerve,” because prior to the tariff conflict, around 90 percent of Serbia’s external trade came from the north or went to the north.38 Although Western European imperialism, including Austria-Hungary, liked to pay lip-service to Christianity and European civilization, its propagandists were mostly too pragmatic to believe in it themselves. The Albanians, perhaps precisely because they were Muslims, were seen as a God-given instrument with which to hinder Bulgaria’s “boundless ambitions” and keep Serbia at bay.39 Nevertheless, the threat of military intervention by Austria-Hungary dealt a heavy blow to the Serbian nationalists. Whether they liked it or not, they had to accept as a fait accompli that the Serbian “Obilić,” although “he married the sea with the sword,” was forced to give up the sea and hand it over to “the enemies to whom Europe gives autonomy and makes a state.”40 However, the threat of armed force against Serbia did not meet with the approval of all citizens of the Dual Monarchy. On the contrary, the support for the Albanians caused great frustration among the Slav nationalists, who saw in them “the wildest among the wild Mohammedans!”41

A Great Yugoslav and a Small Austrian In Vienna, at the beginning of the twentieth century, Niko Zupanič and Franc Derganc founded the magazine Jug, which was the first to promote the idea of Yugoslav unification. Zupanič, as the editor, advocated that Austria “unite all Slavs in its organism, with the exception of the Russians and other smaller nations on its periphery, which cannot exist as states alone.”42 In his youthful vision, Austria was to be a federal state incorpo-

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rating the national unity of Bohemia and Poland to the north, Germany (Alpine Germans) to the west, Slovenia, Serbo-Croatia, Bulgaria, Albania, and Greece to the east, and finally Hungary and Romania. This would make it, along with Russia, the largest state of the future, with a population of about seventy million (forty million Slavs, nine million Germans, six million Hungarians, nine million Romanians, three million Greeks, and 1.5 million Arnauts). The Austria of the future was thus to be based on sincere patriotism, love of nations, and justice—in other words, on foundations that no force could undermine; these foundations were to confirm the truth of the saying “Austria erit in orbe ultima” (Austria will be the last (surviving) in the world).43 Jug ceased publication after seven issues, but Zupanič continued to disseminate his ideas elsewhere. In 1902, he published an article on Yugoslav romanticism in Ljubljanski Zvon. In that article, he discussed the importance of history, defining it as a guide for a nation that leads it “to the true goal,”44 and recommended that Slovene readers read Serbian folk poetry, among other things. All Yugoslav nationalists, who believed that Yugoslavs should form a single nation, placed great emphasis on language. That is why Zupanič often declared that all Yugoslav dialects, from Istria to the Black Sea, formed a continuous chain.45 Almost as important was the discovery of a common cultural practice, which could be framed as something that united the various Yugoslav groups into a single community. The common language and the existence of a common culture enabled the promoters of the national ideology to discover the roots of the nation in the mysterious past, predating any present political arrangements that could hinder contemporary national unification.46 They strove to popularize elements of culture that were dear to many people, especially folk epics. Folk poetry attracted the attention of Croatian Illyrians, who hoped to use it, along with language, as a means of unification. Yugoslav-oriented nationalists later used it as a powerful argument for Yugoslav unity, presenting Yugoslavs as singers of traditional songs dedicated mainly to Marko Kraljević.47 This also resonated with Zupanič. He, too, considered Serbian folk epics very important because they created a sense of mutuality, and, more importantly, they spread among the masses the “scientific truth” that Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, and Bulgarians belonged to one nation. They were politically and diplomatically divided into four artificial groups, but they were so close to each other that it was impossible to draw clear, natural boundaries between them because the dialects they spoke slowly and imperceptibly merged into one another.48 In 1903, under the pseudonym K. Gersin, Zupanič published in Vienna a political and informative pamphlet entitled Macedonia und das türkische Problem (Macedonia and the Turkish Question). The pamphlet gave an

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overview of the history of the Balkan Slavs, especially the Serbs, for the political public of Central Europe, in order to convince the European masses of the importance of dismembering European Turkey. This attitude was based on a widespread European assumption, dating from the early twentieth century, that “Islam is not a cultural idea, that it contains no germs of culture.”49 Therefore, in a short period of two years, the great imperial Austria of Zupanič’s political imagination became a thing of the past; he replaced it with the idea of a Yugoslav nation-state. The pamphlet excited great public interest. Since it was written “as it should be, in the Yugoslav spirit,” the Serbian geographer Jovan Cvijić came to Vienna in May 1903 to meet the author, who was still a student at the time.50 In a letter to him, he said that Zupanič had the gift of prediction and divination with regard to cultural-political issues.51 After finishing his studies in the autumn of 1905, Zupanič applied for a position at the Court Library in Vienna. He did not receive an official reply because those at the library allegedly considered him “a great Yugoslav and a little Austrian.” A friend advised him to stop trying to get a job in Vienna and instead to keep searching for knowledge and facts. As for his Yugoslav idea, it would gain value only if he had the courage to preserve and defend it against all odds: “Only he who stands up for his convictions and the ideas he preaches has power over nations.”52 After an unsuccessful job search in Vienna and Ljubljana, Zupanič moved to Belgrade in 1907 following a call made by the United Serb Youth.53 For the young founder of neo-Illyrism, that is, the new Yugoslav idea, Serbia was the “Piedmont of South Slavism”54—its appeal was even greater at the time because it had its army and could “trust the gun to speak in the name of Yugoslavism.”55 He began as an assistant at the Royal Serbian Museum for History and Art; shortly before the war, the Minister of Education transferred him to the Ethnographic Museum, where, on his initiative, the Anthropological Institute for Racial (Tribal) Studies of the Serbian Nation and Other Yugoslavs was founded.56 Following the example of Jovan Cvijić and in the firm belief that “from the German border to Constantinople there is no greater nation than ours,”57 Zupanič, as curator of the Ethnographic Museum, actively engaged in national-political issues, that is, “Yugoslav politics.”58 According to some accounts, he was “half politician, half scientist.”59 The alpha and omega of his “cultural-political gospel” was the conviction that Bulgarians, Croats, Slovenes, and Serbs were not “real nations but tribes of a single Yugoslav linguistic group” and that their languages were only dialects developed under foreign influences, so that some use the Latin alphabet and the others the Cyrillic alphabet, which was detrimental to the whole. As the “creator and champion of the new Yugoslav idea,” he was convinced that from these dialects and their

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speakers, “one language, one nation, one homeland, and one state” could and must emerge.60 In the conservative Catholic monthly Dom in Svet, he voiced his opposition to linguistic particularism. He argued that the Slavist Vatroslav Jagić discovered the “power of Yugoslavism” through his studies of the history and structure of the unique language of South Slavs, while the geographer Jovan Cvijić demonstrated this power by referring to the “magnificent creative forces” of the “wonderful land of Illyria between Trieste and Istanbul, called by our first poet ‘the ring of Europe.’”61 Cvijić was in a different class to “our Slavists” who looked for “philological trifles” and exaggerated them just so they could divide the Slavic peoples, and who understood nothing but philology and thought they were the be-all and end-all of ethnological and national questions. It was Slavists, Zupanič continues, who created Russians and Rusyns (= Ukrainians = Little Russians = Ruthenians, etc.) out of the Russian nation, who separated the Slovaks from the Czechs, and who wanted to separate the Bosniaks (which he puts in quotation marks) from the rest of the Serbo-Croats. In the end, these Slavists, with their skillful dialectics and knowledge, would support the splitting of the historical and linguistic material into the “Carniolan,” “Styrian,” “Carinthian” nations, etc., “which certainly suited the opponents of our nation.”62 In the liberal Ljubljanski Zvon, Zupanič published a patriotic reflection on the linguistic and cultural unity of Illyria, which, in his view, was “the greatest asset” of the Yugoslavs.63 In the article, he reiterated the great importance of history, which had the power to arouse the deepest of passions in people. In arguments and ideas about the past, he argues, there is energy similar to that of coal, and it is this energy that diplomats and educators use to ignite the passion of the people.64 Just as in Western Europe the national idea quickly swept the old empires into the dustbin of history, so, in Zupanič’s opinion, the idea of the cultural unity of the Yugoslavs was to be the force that could unite the scattered and alienated South Slavs into the original “glowing crystal that shone like a magic gem above the Balkans.” How fantastic and unrealistic these notions were is best attested by Zupanič himself, who contended that Yugoslavs at the beginning of the twentieth century knew “absolutely no unity,” remarking that “even the Antipodes were not as alienated as the Yugoslav intelligentsia.” “What does a Serb care,” he wondered, “where Ljubljana and Trieste lie? And what does a Slovene care about Belgrade and Sofia and Istanbul?” To which he replied, “The general geography, statistics, culture, or political history of the Yugoslavs are secrets, unattainable and inaccessible to a Yugoslav.”65 This alienation between the members of the “one and single nation” was, in Zupanič’s eyes, a consequence of foreign pressure, which they did not know how to resist and, in any case, did not have the strength to resist. “We

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should be made of granite,” he said, “but we are made of clay, out of which the foreigners make their own creatures as it suits them!”66 He thus called for the improvement of national education. The need to improve general education was stressed by all propagandists of the Yugoslav idea. However, they disagreed on whether to follow the West or turn to the East. Zupanič opted for the former, claiming that Yugoslavs needed to be “more Western than the West itself ” to be able to defend themselves against the Germans with their own weapons, in every sense of the word.67 Seeking to discover and explore the “coal reserves buried deep beneath the surface of the earth,” he began to study the “physio-ethnological data” on the Balkan peoples of the past and present. He published the first of his studies on this subject in a treatise entitled Sistem istorijske antropologije balkanskih naroda (The System of Historical Anthropology of the Balkan Peoples).68 In this period, he also finished his treatise on Trojans and Aryans, in which he asserts that the ancient Trojans of the pre-Homeric period did not belong to the Aryan family, either by blood or by language, but rather were of darker complexion. In the spring of 1912, he embarked on a long scientific journey to the “Greco-Turkish Orient” to study the Pelasgians. Due to the outbreak of World War I, he was only able to publish ethnographic and anthropological findings about “Croats” from the vicinity of Athens.69 As a curator in Belgrade, Zupanič was the “living bond between free Serbia and the unfree Slovenia.”70 In cooperation with the editors of Politika and the Belgrade municipality, he organized a reception for Slovenes in the capital of Serbia in July 1910. The visit was a “true triumph” for Zupanič and his activism, because during the visit the Serbs had the opportunity to admire Slovene singing and harmony, while the Slovenes could admire Serbian hospitality and freedom. Cannons fired from the Belgrade Fortress to welcome the Slovenes, while military music played the marches “Naprej zastava Slave,” “Triglav,” and “Mladi vojnici.” A company of honor paraded according to orders similar to those of the Sokols in Ljubljana. The Slovene peasants, who were invited to a cold meal with tea at the court, could not eat from the excitement and did not want to smoke the court cigarettes, preferring to keep them as souvenirs.71 In January 1911, a Slavic masked ball was organized in Belgrade by the Russo-Serbian Kolarac Endowment club. More than a thousand people from Belgrade high society were present, including members of the royal family, Russian and German ambassadors, and other distinguished guests. According to a note in the Belgrade Tribuna, Slovene folk costumes could also be seen at the dance. The Slovenes were represented that evening by Miss Milana Mijatović, who was attending her first social event and whose costume was declared the “most beautiful and interesting at the dance.”

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She had an avba (mobcap) as large as a turban and trimmed with gold on her head and she wore a cherry-colored silk skirt, an apron, a waistband and necklace, and a colorful scarf over her blouse. Unlike the ladies, the men wore no costumes, and only Zupanič came dressed as a “real Slovene.” He wore a loose white shirt, a short coat over his shoulders, a colorful waistcoat with round silver buttons, a carnation on his hat, and knee-high boots.72 In the spring of 1911, the Slovene pilot and aircraft designer Edvard Rusjan died in Belgrade. Despite the strong Košava wind, he had been planning a flight in Belgrade as part of his Balkan promotional tour. When people tried to stop him from flying in such strong wind, he replied, “If I die in Serbia, I will not regret it, because I died in my own country.”73 He took off from a field in the Lower Town, flew over the walls of Kalemegdan, and circled above the bridge on the Sava River. However, the strong Košava broke the wings of the plane and it crashed onto the city walls.74 The Serbian press celebrated Rusjan as a true hero, the officer corps organized a magnificent funeral in his honor, and a parade marched through the city. At the funeral, Branislav Nušić gave a speech from the balcony of Hotel Moskva: “Who broke your wings, my falcon?”75 Of all the speeches at the funeral, the one delivered in the deceased’s native language made the greatest impression; it was delivered by Rusjan’s compatriot, the Belgrade citizen Niko Zupanič. As the officers brought the body out of the Catholic chapel, Zupanič, standing under the window of the Austrian embassy, gave a speech about a falcon that flew into the sky to the kingdom of the air, but subsequently fell dead to the ground as if it had been hit by an arrow. He called Rusjan the “Slovene Icarus.” Among his expressions of grief, he included slogans about Yugoslav unity and hope for a better future: Irresistible is the power of blood, and the potential force of the feelings and thoughts that lie dormant in it awaken with a primal force, and, sooner or later, they are brought to life. And as the dead are raised to life at Judgment Day, so one day the kinship of blood and speech will unite the kindred tribes into one mighty assembly of a nation.76

The Dilemma of a Yugoslav Anthropologist Niko Zupanič repeatedly referred to blood in his texts. As sociologist and deputy Mirko Kosić explained in his speech in the National Assembly on February 24, 1937, this “blood” was the belief in a common origin, “that is, a fiction.”77 Zupanič, it seems, was aware of this, which is why he referred not exclusively to biology, but also to culture; the “mysterious power of blood and language,” as he put it, was enormous.78 He later elaborated on

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this by saying that “the soul resides in the blood,” adding that a person’s upbringing, character, and mentality are determined “not only by racial potential and mental qualities inherited from parents, but also by a person’s environment and upbringing, by parents and nation.”79 The blood he refers to, then, is the “blood” referred to by the ideologists of the Slavic liberation movement in the mid-nineteenth century. These were, for example, the Czech (and Slovak) ideologists Pavol Jozef Šafárik80 and Jan Kollár,81 and later the Slovene “national awakeners,” who, during the process of national differentiation after 1848, directed the flame of national propaganda against their kinsmen who had not voted for the Slovene party or who had acted against it, even though they were of “Slovene blood.” For them, national affiliation was not the object of Ernest Renan’s daily plebiscite, but something permanent, ascribed from birth, innate.82 In the first half of the nineteenth century, scholars had a large amount of empirical data on the differences between the various peoples. They realized that a verbal description could not make the characteristics of these peoples sufficiently clear, which led them to seek firmer, more objective bases for their classifications and analyses. As a result of these efforts, a new scientific discipline emerged—anthropology. The measurement of heads was the preferred method in this discipline.83 In 1842, the Swedish anatomist Anders Retzius introduced the so-called cephalic index into scientific use. The index is the ratio between the width and the length of the head (width multiplied by 100 and divided by the length). Elongated heads with an index below 75 were dolichocephalic, the broader skulls were called brachycephalic (above 80), and mesocephalic was in between.84 Despite scholarly efforts, the new method of determining and explaining differences between people could not dispense with subjective criteria. Researchers still linked cultural differences between particular communities to physical differences between their respective members. Anthropologists, citing accumulated empirical evidence, portrayed the long-headed, blue-eyed, and blond members of the Nordic race as more civilized than members of other races, thus finding justification for dominance over the so-called inferior races, including the Slavs. Thus, the Viennese geographer Erwin Hanslik postulated that the German–Slavic linguistic border also ran between “civilization” and “backwardness.” He supported his thesis with various statistical data on different economic and educational developments.85 Zupanič was not indifferent to the aforementioned attitudes of his Viennese teachers. He saw in them evidence of the “incompetence” of German scientists in dealing with the “delicate question of the inferiority or superiority of certain races and peoples.”86 And when he later began to engage in racial science himself, it was for him a “protest and rebuke against the unfathomable outbursts of incompetent German scientists” and their

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postulates about the superiority of the “Nordic race.” In his works, he pointed out the flawed nature of their postulates and offered arguments against Slavic inferiority.87 To make his evidence as convincing as possible, he attempted to make detailed measurements of members of various races. During his first research visit to Bela Krajina, he began to take anthropological measurements. However, due to the superstition of the locals and their distrust of the anthropometric procedure, he was only able to take anthropological measurements of schoolchildren; the adults did not agree with this attempt.88 The “Croats” he discovered in Attica could not be measured either, until he used a kind of trick, “as he had done before [in Bela Krajina].”89 After the Balkan Wars, he conducted anthropometric studies on prisoners of war from Anatolia.90 But anthropometric measurements of head shape, eye color, and skin in members of different nations, regardless of their accuracy, could not provide answers to questions about cultural differences: a nation is simply not an anthropological constant; it is, rather, a historical phenomenon.91 Zupanič continued taking anthropometric measurements during World War I, when he began collecting material for the “physio-ethnology of prominent Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes” in anticipation of the establishment of the Yugoslav nation-state. He performed anthropometric and cephalometric measurements on the writer Ivan Tavčar92 and the scientist Jovan Cvijić.93 One of the first on the list of his potential subjects was Nikola Pašić. However, he did not take any anthropometric data from him, although he desired to do on several occasions. This was not because Pašić would not allow it, but rather because Zupanič found it “inappropriate to take measurements of a man who had always been active in politics and who possessed so much authority.”94 Zupanič’s dilemma clearly and eloquently demonstrates that head measurement was never merely a scientific technique; it was a means of establishing the relationship of superiority and subordination. Zupanič’s anthropometric research was not only ethically questionable, but it also illustrates the “objectivity” of physical anthropology. The data collected through precise measurements were intrinsically worthless. Only through interpretation they received a meaning, and even then they served the self-interest of the researchers. This also applies to the “racial historian” Zupanič, who, for instance, calculated from his measurements that Ivan Tavčar belonged to the “so-called Adriatic type (Homo adriaticus), to which Serbs and Croats belong, then Slovenes along with some other Alpine tribes, with their tall stature, round head, and brown skin.”95 Although he fought against the supposed inferiority of the Slavs, he used the theoretical-methodological foundations developed by German racial

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science, except that he used them to prove the superiority of the Slavs rather than their inferiority. The key point in this process of determining the character of the Yugoslavs was establishing links with the Aryans.96 This led him to portray Pašić as a “representative of the Aryan or Nordic race,” although he had not taken any of his measurements.97 According to Zupanič, Pašić was a typical representative of the “active race,” that is, the Yugoslav nation, which was characterized by a great intellect and a marked talent for creation and organization, a strong tendency to strive for ideals and self-denial, and sacrifice in the realization of their ideals.98 He made this assessment based on his observations and confirmed it by referring to the work of the German anthropologist Hans Günther, Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes (Racial Studies of the German People), published in 1923. In this work, the German anthropologist, known as Rassengünther or Rassenpapst, included among the prominent representatives of the “Nordic or predominantly Nordic race,” besides the photographs of the German Emperor Frederick II and some representatives of the old German nobility, a photograph of Nikola Pašić.99 Zupanič adds that one should not deduce from this that Pašić belonged to a German race, “for such a race has never existed and does not exist today, but that Pašić bore in his physique the main characteristics of the xantodolichocephalous homo europaeus, to which belonged not only the ancient Germans, but also other Aryan (IndoEuropean) peoples, including the Slavs of ancient times.” Further, he compared the “dolichocephalic” Prime Minister Pašić with Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who was “not only brachycephalic, but also hyperbrachycephalic, if not ultrabrachycephalic,” commenting that German anthropologists, for this reason, did not like to address his anthropology.100 The rise of German National Socialism, and “racial science” in its service, completely discredited the theories of physical anthropology. Nevertheless, Zupanič and his contemporaries believed in their validity, and, as Andrew Wachtel says, rather than castigating them for scientific naiveté, “we should rather recognize their attempts at nation building.”101 Promitzer, however, disagrees with Wachtel and emphasizes the similarity between the ideas put forward by the proponents of the creation of a single Yugoslav nation, on the one hand, and the theory used by the Nazi regime to legitimize the Holocaust, on the other.102 Indeed, similarities cannot be denied. But only at first glance. A closer look reveals that Yugoslav nationalists emphasized the racial unity of Yugoslavs to counterbalance religious differences between them—that is to say, as a means of uniting culturally divided peoples, rather than as a means of establishing a relationship of superiority and inferiority. Zupanič’s reference to the spiritual characteristics of the so-called Aryan race (Homo europaus Linne) cannot be read as indicative of his tendency to idealize the ideas of “racial scientists” about the Aryan

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race at the turn of the nineteenth century but must instead be interpreted as an attempt to lend scientific validation to the political emancipation of the Yugoslavs. His attitude is clearly expressed in his review of the book Rovnocennost evropskýh plemen a cesty k jejich ušlechtování (The Equality of European Tribes and the Road to Their Ennoblement), which appeared in Etnolog in 1934. In it, Zupanič argues that the “imagined superiority of the ‘German race’” is only a “false racial hypothesis created by German anthropologists.”103 He also unambiguously expressed his rejection of the positions of German scientific racism in his presentation at the International Congress for the Scientific Study of National Problems, held in Berlin in 1935, where he presented a critique of the so-called Nuremberg Laws adopted on September 15 of the same year for the “protection of the German race.”104 By equating the emancipatory role of Niko Zupanič’s anthropological work with racial science in the service of imperialist and colonialist policies, Promitzer is obviously comparing apples and oranges. Promitzer’s attempt to prove, by reason or sophism, that Zupanič was not right at all led him to conclude that Zupanič, who had studied in the capital of AustriaHungary, was in no way influenced by its turn-of-the-century aesthetics— the Vienna of Gustav Klimt, the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, or the composer Gustav Mahler—but was, rather, influenced by what he calls “Hitler’s Vienna.”105 An old saying offers the following advice: to see better, one must climb a mountain; to understand the past, one must put aside the present.106 Instead of heeding this wise advice, Promitzer seems to have simply adopted the wisdom of an American author, a supposed Balkan expert, who discovered the origins of Nazism in the Balkans: “Among the flophouses of Vienna, a breeding ground of ethnic resentments close to the southern Slavic world, Hitler learned how to hate so infectiously.”107 With research conclusions like these, difficile est satiram non scriber (it is difficult not to write satire).

Only God Came from Nothing, Yugoslavs Needed a Creator After the declaration of war by the Dual Monarchy, the Serbian Crown Prince Aleksandar issued a manifesto that mentioned Yugoslavism, but only listed Yugoslav territories as far as the Kupa and Sutla rivers.108 At the beginning of the war, the Serbian government was mainly concerned with the fate of the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina and how to provide Serbia with access to the Adriatic Sea. The prime minister of Serbia, Nikola Pašić, was not a known supporter of Yugoslavia, nor was Tsarist Russia, an important ally of Serbia. As Milada Paulová wrote, the Russian Minister of

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Foreign Affairs Sergey Sazonov in 1915 was “reserved and indifferent toward the Croats” and “almost hostile toward the Slovenes.”109 According to the same source, Sazonov told members of the Yugoslav Committee that Serbian soldiers during the war “showed heroism admired by the whole world” and that Serbia deserved to be enlarged “several times” after the war. As for the Croats and Slovenes, the Russian minister had a less favorable vision of their future: “They are fighting us, and I tell you: If the Russian nation had to fight under arms for only half a day to liberate the Slovenes, I would not agree.”110 That Slovenes became a part of the three-named nation is arguably the result of the work of Niko Zupanič. More than four months after the beginning of the World War I, the Serbian government had not mention the Slovenes with a single word. This made Zupanič fear that they would be forgotten. To prevent this from happening, he penned an informative article about the Slovenes and their homeland. In it, he mentioned, among other things, that the great European war would also determine the fate of the Slovenes, because, in the event of a victory by the Central Powers, they would have to reckon with the “most furious attacks” by the Germans, since their territory lay on the way to the Mediterranean. He answered the question of who and what the Slovenes were by emphasizing their linguistic and ethnic kinship with the Serbs and Croats and prophesied the historical mission of the Serbs in unifying Yugoslavia: How are they related to Croats and Serbs? To someone from Zagreb, I would say:—Slovenes are mountainous Croats. To someone from Belgrade, I would answer: the Slovenes are a North-Western Serbian tribe that, after living politically separated from the rest of Yugoslavs for centuries, has formed its dialect into a literary language and considers Ljubljana its cultural center. And, if a Slovene in Ljubljana were to ask the same question about the Serbs, I would tell him:—Serbs and Croats speak a Slovene dialect, beautiful and melodious. The Serbs are the heart of Yugoslavism, they fight heroically for all of us; the Serbs are destined by nature and divine providence to liberate and unite the rest of the brothers with their heroic army and thus revive a liberated Yugoslavism.111

Zupanič made ten copies of his article and gave them to Serbian ministers and politicians. After reading it, they admitted that they should not forget the “unfortunate Slovenes.” In this way, Zupanič sowed a “seed of interest or even compassion for us Slovenes.” Soon he saw the seed grow and bear its fruit. At a meeting in Niš on December 7, 1914, the Serbian government adopted a declaration “with content more significant and glorious than all Serbian victories.” It also mentioned the Slovenes and called

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for the liberation and unification of “all our unfree brothers, Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.”112 During the war, one of the leaders of American Slovenes in Cleveland, Louis Pirc, said that “what Zupanič did at the beginning of the war on behalf of the Slovenes will never be forgotten by history, and the people will remain eternally grateful to him.”113 However, this did not prove to be the case. During the war, the Slovene public had no knowledge of the work of the Yugoslav Committee, so after the war and the establishment of a new state, they easily forgot who had “opened the doors to a free Yugoslavia.”114 After volunteering at the end of July 1914, Zupanič as an Austro-Hungarian reserve officer was sent by the Serbian Ministry of Defense to serve as a military censor in Niš. At the beginning of December of the same year, he was released from this service so that he could devote himself to national work for the liberation and unification of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes from the Dual Monarchy. He spent the end of 1914 in Athens and the beginning of the following year in Rome, where he became the first Slovene to become a member of the Yugoslav Committee.115 The members of the committee were political émigrés from Austria-Hungary who wanted to cooperate with the government of the Kingdom of Serbia and participate in the creation of the nation-state of the Yugoslavs. The committee consisted of twenty-three respectable members: The man with the biggest, worldwide name is the Dalmatian Ivan Meštrović, the most famous sculptor in the world today. Antun Trumbić is a brilliant orator, Milan Marjanović is a writer, B. Vošnjak is a fantastic jurist, etc., but our Zupanič differs from them in one and the most important sense: he is a Yugoslav from head to toe. He is the creator of the modern Yugoslav idea, and while his fellow committee members, Croats, Serbs, or Slovenes, may still be fighting a political battle against each other, as Serbs against Croats and vice versa, Zupanič relentlessly spread the idea of unity, and ideologically created long ago what many thought impossible at the time and what we are trying to achieve today. Zupanič is the creator of the beautiful and extended Yugoslav idea in the political and cultural sense. Many well-known concepts and slogans, which are cheered today from Timok to the Adriatic, were thought up by our Zupanič. Nothing comes by itself, only God came from nothing, so someone had to create a Yugoslav too.116

The Yugoslav Committee was founded in Rome in 1915; in May of the same year, it was moved to Paris, and after a few months it was transferred to London, where its members, on their own initiative and with limited ties to the homeland, began to lay stone upon stone to build the Yugoslav state.117 The committee settled in London on the assumption that the

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United Kingdom would call the shots at the peace conference, hence the importance of getting public opinion on their side. To inform the British public “about our lands, our past, our culture, and our suffering under the Austro-Hungarian lash,”118 the committee began publishing the Southern Slav Library and the Southern Slav Bulletin. In April 1916, the Serbian government sent Zupanič to the United States to agitate among Slovene immigrants for the unification of Yugoslavs into one state.119 At the time of his arrival, the atmosphere was unfavorable for Yugoslav agitation. “For our immigrants,” Bogumil Vošnjak recalled, “the memory of Austria-Hungary remained in all its glory, in all its power and strength. It seemed ridiculous to them to try to break such a colossus of a state.”120 Moreover, the rallies and assemblies of Slavic migrants were obstructed by Habsburg confidants and sympathizers using any means possible.121 Zupanič informed the Serbian government and the Yugoslav Committee that the struggle between Yugoslav representatives and Austro-Hungarian agitators was in full swing and that he was “attacking Catholic priests, many of whom are Austrian agitators.” In his report, he wrote that the Austro-Hungarian consul issued an appeal to the Slovenes on the birthday of Emperor Franz Joseph to celebrate this holiday solemnly and to collect donations for Austria. Zupanič countered the consul’s call with a speech about Emperor Franz Joseph as the “butcher of Slovenes.”122 Thus, as Slovenec reported, Zupanič found a fertile “field for sowing his treasonous ideas” during his stay in Cleveland.123 Zupanič remained in the United States for several months. There, he delivered many speeches, the most important of which was delivered at a meeting in Cleveland on April 28, 1916. This meeting resonated with the entire American public and even prompted the American press to report on the Yugoslav movement. In his speech, entitled “Slovenia, Arise!”— which could be translated as “Pereat Austria! (Let Austria perish!)”— Zupanič asked his audience, “Can a people be content while witnessing its own diminution and the greedy Germans taking its land?”124 He depicted Slovenia as a colony where Germans “rule and count money, while Slavic peoples toil in German factories and buy industrial products from German employers.”125 After Zupanič’s speech, the resolution was adopted by American Slovenes and sent to President Woodrow Wilson, with expressions of “warmest sympathy” for those “fighting for the ideals of true democracy and the liberation of small nations.” The signatories promised to work for the national unification of the Yugoslavs, as they felt “by blood, language, and common suffering as one nation with Croats and Serbs.”126 After his return from the United States, Zupanič was active in London, primarily as a politician, although he never completely neglected science. Besides attending the meetings of the Yugoslav Committee in London,

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Paris, and Geneva, where its branches were located, he wrote informative articles on the Yugoslav question, drew geographical maps, and visited English scholars, especially historians. At that time, even experts on Yugoslav lands, such as the historian Robert William Seton-Watson, did not consider the Slovene territories part of Yugoslavia.127 Therefore, Vošnjak and Zupanič tried to familiarize British opinion leaders and the general public with Slovene geography and history. In London, Vošnjak had four books published by English publishers,128 while Zupanič published several articles and pamphlets and drew the “Map of the Southern Slav Territory.” After a dispute erupted between the Serbian government, which remained devoted to its stance on the creation of a “Greater Serbian” nation-state in the Slavic South, and the Yugoslav Committee, which remained committed to the idea of an “integral Yugoslavia,”129 Zupanič sided with the Serbian prime minister and “abandoned Trumbić’s cynical cabal.”130 Rumors about Niko Zupanič’s partisanship for Pašić undermined his reliability and his work with the Yugoslav Committee, which was confirmed by the Belgrade newspaper Tribuna of August 10, 1919. This was also the reason, according to the same source, why he was unpopular with “Trumbić, Ninković, and others, who kept many of their intentions secret from Zupanič.”131

Yugoslavism as a Burden Zupanič left London in the summer of 1919 and moved to Ljubljana in the summer of 1921. He had never lived in Ljubljana before and perceived the attitudes and moods of the citizens according to the stereotypes he and his peers had created in their struggle against Austro-Hungarian domination rather than according to reality. It could be said that during his time in Ljubljana he lived in a foreign city where he did not put down deep roots. His ideology, his political engagement, and even his scientific work remained a curiosity, the work of an eccentric idealist who was “ridiculed” by his fellow Slovenes.132 His first appointment, and an important recognition of his successful work during World War I, came when he was made a member of the Ethnographic Section and chairman of the subsection for the Slovene–German state border in Carinthia, Styria, and Prekmurje and the Czechoslovak– Yugoslav corridor at the Peace Conference in Paris.133 After almost fifteen uninterrupted years living outside Slovenia, Zupanič had moved to Ljubljana in 1921 to continue “among his brothers, in his immediate homeland,” the work he had pursued “for two decades with so much zeal,” now as our “well-known national worker.”134 His return, however, did not go

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as his comrades had imagined. Thus, the organ of the National Radical Party, the Belgrade Samouprava of July 19, 1921, expressed surprise at how he had been greeted during his first visit to his home municipality in 1919. Zupanič and his party comrades had expected him to be greeted as a “friend of the nation, its leader.” “But, what happened?” wrote M. S. Jovanović. “It is as if the old hatred never dies. All sorts of people have gone after Dr. Županić.”135 But Zupanič was not one to give up. On the contrary, these circumstances drove him to work even harder. In 1921, the National Radical Party was established in Slovenia. After December 1, the Radical Party paid little attention to the provinces where there were no Serbs.136 It took some time before the Radical Party begin to be established in other regions. In Slovenia, Zupanič published a pamphlet entitled Narodna Radikalna Stranka Kraljevine Srbov, Hrvatov in Slovencev (The National Radical Party of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes),137 in which he presented the program of the new party and conducted active propaganda for its expansion and principles in the Slovene part of the state. At the beginning of August 1921, the Local Committee of the Radical Party was founded in Kočevje, and in autumn the first Radical Party organ, Radikal, appeared in Slovenia; it was published from the autumn of 1921 to the beginning of 1923. In mid-1922, the weekly Samouprava was founded. In January 1923, the Action Committee of the National Radical Party was created, with the task of holding elections and organizing the party in Slovenia. This was followed by the founding of the daily newspaper of the Radicals, Jutranje Novosti (called Narodni Dnevnik from January 1, 1924, onwards), and meetings and assemblies were held throughout Slovenia.138 After the 1923 elections, Pašić, the leader of National Radical Party, decided to enter into a coalition with the clerical Slovene People’s Party. This decision proved particularly unfavorable for the National Radical Party’s organizer in Slovenia, Niko Zupanič, and his political future. Zupanič attracted public attention in Slovenia with his biting anti-clerical and anti-separatist articles.139 In the heat of the political fray, he used to quote the pugnacious words of “the greatest of our novelists” and a “radical nationalist,” the then mayor of Ljubljana Ivan Tavčar: “Better that the Slovenes fall to their last soul than that they succumb to clericalism!”140 These statements, of course, earned him little sympathy in clerical political circles, and his political opponents did not spare him either. Zupanič, they said, felt “more like a Serb than a Slovene,”141 and was “politically a Greater Serb, and merchant of Slovene national achievements for the benefit of the nemčurs”;142 they called him Orthodox, which meant the same as “a German-minded Slovene.” In the words of a Slovene opposition newspaper, Minister Zupanič was a deputy elected not by the Slovene people, but by

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the Serbian Radical Party. According to Jutro, he was “dr Niks (Niko)143 Zupanič.”144 Straža, the independent political newspaper for the Slovene nation, derisively referred to him as a “hero” from Šumadija: from Piedmont, where he enjoyed hospitality for fifteen years, which is truly a pleasant and beautiful fate, compared to the life of Yugoslavs who suffered and bled together with Serbian soldier-peasants from the Balkan Wars to the present day, and returned to “Jugovina,” hated and exiled, after the takeover of Greater Serbian chauvinists. Dr. Zupanič, of course, settled in better, Miklavž or Nikolaj became “Niko”, joining the powerful Radicals, did politics while others lost blood and head, so he really doesn’t know what it’s like “when a man is bugged by God and a Radical.”145

Finally, Kmetijski List, a few days before his election as minister, called Zupanič a “political dead man.”146 Niko Zupanič, however, remained loyal to Nikola Pašić, even if it was to his disadvantage, and despite their completely different views on Yugoslavism. The election newspaper of the Slovene branch of the National Radical Party, Samouprava, of which Niko Zupanič was one of the founders, stated that there were four Yugoslav ideas: (i) a great Croatian idea, which was the greatest opponent of the Yugoslav idea; (ii) the Austrian Yugoslav idea, which was also unfeasible and would have led to even more fragmentation and subjugation; (iii) the vague Yugoslav idea of the Democratic Party, which did not yet have a clear program of goals or tactics; and (iv) a purely Yugoslav idea of the National Radical Party, which had a clear program of goals and tactics. Samouprava added that this purely Yugoslav idea was the reason why “Niko Županić, in accordance with the Roman maxim Salus rei publicae suprema lex (The security of the state is the supreme law), joined the National Radical Party and with it overcame all the trials and tribulations of the Serbian nation.”147 However, Zupanič thereby also gave up his own Yugoslav idea. With the declaration by the Slovene branch of the National Radical Party, which he led, that its ideology was based on “consistent national and state unity” and the rejection of any substantial changes to the existing Vidovdan Constitution,148 he gambled away his political future. While Zupanič prided himself on being “the father of the modern Yugoslav idea,”149 Pašić found the terms “Yugoslav,” “Yugoslavism,” and “Yugoslavia” “foreign, incomprehensible; and all too reminiscent of Austrianism.”150 Accepting Pašić’s view, Zupanič embarked on the difficult path of bringing together these opposing views between which there could be “no truce, let alone peace.”151 It was like the marriage of fire and water. In Zupanič’s eyes, Yugoslavia was still “the sun around which all the planets

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of our parties and tribes revolved centripetally,”152 but as a minister in the exclusively Radical government and organizer of the National Radical Party in Slovenia, he agitated by asking voters to accept the ideology of the major (Serbian) party and forget about their autonomy.153 By deviating from his original Yugoslav idea, he sided with the ideology of the Radical Party, behind which was a strong defensive wall of guns and cannons. “Only an ‘iron currency’—a well-armed army,” he wrote, “will raise our prestige in the world.”154 Indeed, the Yugoslavs gained their statehood not through cultural means, but through the roar of guns in war and unprecedented bloodshed.155 One perspective that Zupanič also accepted was that opposition to the side that emerged victorious from the war and liberated and united the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes would mean an insistence on the positions of Austro-Slavism, “which lost any right to exist after the disintegration of Austria.” Such an insistence, Figure 5.1. “Minister without portfolio he once declared, would constitute “a quixotic struggle against an idea that Dr. Niko Županić, the Spiritual Father has already won.”156 For the Slovene of Yugoslavia.” Photo published by Ilustrirani Slovenec, February 7, 1925. opposition party and the vast majorIlustrirani Slovenec commented on the ity of the Slovene electorate, however, photo that it was not known who “the these attitudes were unacceptable. They spiritual mother of Yugoslavia” was, strongly disapproved the beliefs and adding ironically that “this was apparinterpretations of the “Greater Serbian ently not Zupanić’s party colleagues hegemony teachers, who consider us Lazica Marković or Velizar Janković.” ‘war booty,’ and above all Pašić, who at Source: private collection of the author. best confuses us with Slovaks.”157 It was characteristic of Zupanič that he took ideological-political positions in a “crude and naïve” way: first Illyrism, then Yugoslavism, and finally “Yugoslavism” as interpreted by Pašić. Thus, before the elections of March 18, 1923, Zupanič did not shy away from deals with Germans in relation to joint candidacies in Maribor—the “national outpost of the hero

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Maister, for which blood was shed!”158 Zupanič, who fought with heart and great tenacity for the goals of the Radicals, cast a great shadow on his own image as a fighter for the (Slovene) nation. An even greater disadvantage for him was Pašić’s flirtation with the Slovene People’s Party. Nevertheless, he remained steadfastly loyal to Nikola Pašić even after Pašić’s death, as he expressed in his speech at the funeral of the great Serbian statesman. In this farewell speech, one heard loud and clear words of undying hope for the future of the political project that voters rejected in all the elections after unification: Nikola Pašić, our friend, your great soul will go to a heavenly settlement where you will be awaited, where the blessed King Petar the Great will reach out to you, and the military leaders Vojvoda Putnik and Vojvoda Mišić, and you will all pray that your Yugoslav program will be completely fulfilled. Then you will all look with joyful hearts at the children and sons who have turned from the wrong path to the right one.159

Zupanič wanted the post of commissioner for education, and when he was denied it, he resigned.160 Instead of becoming a government commissioner, he accepted the post of director of the Institute of Ethnography in Ljubljana, which had been founded by the Belgrade government on July 21, 1921, as part of the former Carniolan Provincial Museum “Rudolfinum.” Two years later, the institute became the Royal Ethnographic Museum, and Zupanič its first director.161 He was director of the Ethnographic Institute only until May 2, 1923, when he was appointed minister in a purely Radical government, and then “minister at disposal” until May 1924, when he returned to the post of director of the Royal Ethnographic Museum in Ljubljana.162 Taking the post of director of the Ethnographic Museum instead of commissioner was seen as a demotion, especially by his political opponents. In the Ljubljana newspaper Jugoslavija, a writer using the pseudonym Cheddo Mrinyavchevich cited Zupanič as an example of a person who was lifted by the tides of a great time and eventually stranded on the shore as a “historical curiosity and museum object.”163 And before the 1923 elections, the newspaper Domoljub wrote that Niko Zupanič, a candidate for the National Radical Party, should be sent to the museum to “keep Egyptian mummies.”164 In the new state, the activity of the Royal Ethnographic Museum was no longer limited by the provincial borders of Carniola; rather, its sphere of action “could automatically extend to the ethnographically defined Slovenian territory and then to the Croatian and Serbian territories.”165 This change, according to the custodian Stanko Vurnik, marked the first step toward systematic ethnographic activity in the Slovene lands, finally beginning to make up for the centuries-long delay that was the reason why,

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until a few years previous, the Slovenes could not present to the world a single admirable ethnographic work about themselves “that could serve foreigners for scientific purposes and us as a cultural document.”166 The museum collection grew rapidly and, after nine years, the number of exhibits exceeded twenty thousand.167 Despite the rapid growth of the collected materials, the museum was still unable to present a picture of the life and work of the Slovene nation “in the right way”168 due to the lack of exhibition rooms to meet the needs of the Ethnographic Museum. The existing rooms were already “all full and crowded, so that it was difficult to get an overview of all our national treasures,” and books lay in piles on the office floor. Zupanič began to think about possible new premises. During his search, he was offered, in 1932, the opportunity to buy the former Baron Sigmund Zois mansion in the city center for the Ethnographic Museum; it was in this building that Baron Zois had planned on establishing the Illyrian Museum. The mansion had been converted for modern use by the businessman Peter Kozina. As neither the state nor the Banate could raise the necessary funds for the purchase, the Ethnographic Museum, which had the potential to become “the cultural mirror of our nation,” was left without “its home.”169 For the “Rudolfinum,” the provincial borders were also the borders of its sphere of activity; it never extended its activity to the entire “ethnographically defined and linguistically delimited territory of Slovenia.”170 The Provincial Museum of Carniola, as one of the Austrian provincial museums, had been dedicated to collecting and exhibiting objects with the intention of presenting the colorfulness of the multi-ethnic empire.171 Or, as Zupanič said in his report in the Glasnik Etnografskoga muzeja u Beogradu (Herald of the Museum of Ethnography in Belgrade), the ruling regime had no interest in the development of Slovene and Yugoslav ethnography in general. Thus, for its centenary, the Ljubljana Ethnographic Museum had to make do with a smaller room for the exhibition of ethnographic objects and, moreover, in accordance with the legitimist-provincial German policy, limited itself only to the territory of the Duchy of Carniola. In this exhibition room, therefore, there were no objects of Slovene culture from Styria, Carinthia, Prekmurje, the Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca, Slavia Friulana, Trieste, and Istria on display, “let alone the handicrafts of a Croatian or Serbian peasant.”172 The Slovene Ethnographic Museum was a too obvious concretization of the program for the Zedinjena Slovenija (United Slovenia), a politically unacceptable idea within the Austrian Empire. In the newly formed Yugoslav nation-state, ethnographic museums were given a new task—to collect and present material evidence that would give legitimacy to the idea of a common national and racial source and identity of Yugoslavs, their

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historical development, and their progress. The presentation of a nation’s past should bring about a change in the present. Thus, Zupanič gave the Ethnographic Museum a propagandistic meaning, where the “word propaganda is to be understood in its noble sense,” because “our small nation” needed propaganda the most, since the world needed to know “that we are alive,” to awaken its interest in the fate of Slovenes and to recognize their “right to live.”173 His scientific work was finally rewarded in the summer of 1939, when he was accepted as a corresponding member of the Serbian Royal Academy in Belgrade.174 However, his ambitious and successful work on the foundation and development of the Ethnographic Museum, as its longtime director, as well as his involvement in the publishing of the first Slovene ethnological journal Etnolog, went unnoticed by the authors of the history of Slovene ethnology, who did not mention the differences between Carniolan and Slovene ethnography, and consistently minimized or ignored Zupanič’s role.175 As with the founding of the Ethnographic Museum in Ljubljana, the founding of the Department of Ethnology and Ethnography at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana was “primarily the work of Zupanič.”176 Although he expected to receive a professorship after returning to his homeland at the end of the war, this did not happen until twenty years later. Minutes of meetings of the Council of the Faculty of Arts from 1920 to 1940 contain records of interesting discussions about the prospect of his professorship. Professors Josip Plemelj and Marijan Salopek, as recorded in the minutes of the second regular meeting of the Faculty Council in Ljubljana on December 16, 1924, were not ashamed to openly question whether it was “necessary at all” to have the Department of Ethnology at the University of Ljubljana, and Professor Ivan Prijatelj made mention of (“private”) statements made by Professors Vatroslav Jagić and Jovan Cvijić, who allegedly “both thought very badly of Zupanič’s scientific work.”177 With such “arguments,” Professors Prijatelj and Salopek and others successfully obstructed Zupanič’s candidacy until the 1940 academic year, when he finally became a full professor. Thus, it was that on June 27, 1940, at the suggestion of the Minister of Education Božidar Maksimović, Regent Pavle of Yugoslavia, in his capacity as prince-regent, appointed Dr. Niko Zupanič professor of “general and national ethnology.”178 The saga of Professor Zupanič, in turn, was very much influenced by his political activities. As the Belgrade newspaper Samouprava noted, chairs at the newly founded University of Ljubljana were even given to “poisoned Austrophiles,” who hindered Zupanič’s academic career. “The Austrian environment,” it was said, “did not tolerate the spirit born in the healthy political atmosphere of Serbia, nourished by principles which he had imbibed

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in Šumadija.”179 Slovenec, reporting on this article in Samouprava, added a brief and unequivocal comment: “Just let Mr. Zupanič go, we beg you!”180 Zupanič gave an introductory lecture on the ancient homeland of the Slavs and the beginnings of the Slavic peoples at the University of King Aleksandar on November 22, 1940. He distinguished between three phases in the history of the Slavs: the ancient homeland, in which the Slavic peoples were still united by a single language and a single culture; the historical period just before the schism; and the period of the emergence of the Slavic peoples, which lasted until Christianization. Among the Slovenes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there were many adherents of the Illyrian theory, which claimed that there had been Slavs on the present territory since before Christ. Among the “enthusiastic Illyrians,” he counted Valentin Vodnik, who changed his attitude after an encounter with Russians passing through Ljubljana in 1799. Afterwards, Vodnik wrote that the Russians came “from the plains on the other side of the Danube, which is the root from which the Slav ancestors came.” In closing his lecture, Professor Zupanič rejected those who believed there was no need for “such theoretical disciplines that bring no practical benefit to the nation.” Such, he said, were the claims of the materialists who won over the masses after World War I, not only in Yugoslavia but throughout Europe and the world. For, as he explained, the human mind has long asked the question, “Whence and whither? That is why peoples have long been interested in their past and will always retain that interest.”181

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Pirc, 1916, xii. Zupanič, 1939, 118. Baš, 1961, 141; 1962, 64; Promitzer, 2001, 11. Pirc, 1916, xii. Ibid., xii–xiii; see also Županić, 1934, 171–72; Zupanič 1939, 116, 126. Zupanič, 1922, 13–14. Županić, 1912, 10; see also Zupanič, 1939, 116. Smolej, s. d., 22–23. Županić, 1907b, 618. Zupanič, 1916, 52. Ibid., 52–53. Promitzer, 2001, 11; 2003a, 33–34. Promitzer 2003a: 33–34. Ibid., 33. See, for example, Dugandžija, 1985, 19–20. Leontić, 1914, 7.

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17. Baerlein, 1922, 214–15. 18. Krasić, 1884, 59; Orešković, 1895, 8; Nikašinović, 1904, 46, 62, 469; Slepčević, Leontić, and Fabjančič, 1916, 9; Ćorović, 1936, 152; Radonić, 1955, 9; see also Buchan, 1923, 211; Seton-Watson, 1931, 11. 19. See, for example, Pribićević, 1897, 56. 20. Savić, 1918, 33; Anić, 1919, 36; Lončarević, 1929, 314; Domazetović, 1938, 30. 21. Jurković, 1934, 21. 22. See, for example, Mandl, 1912, 33; Đorđević, 1913, 4; Schurman, 1914, x; Gavranić, 1922, 108; Hannig, 2015, 235, 248. 23. Slovenec, November 16, 1912. 24. Slovenski Narod, April 14, 1913; Tartaglia, 1928, 71; Popović, 1936, 100. 25. See, for example, Slipičević, 1957, 5–6. 26. Jovanović, 1921, 2. 27. Jurković, 1934, 21. 28. See, for example, Balkanicus, 1913a; Đorđević, 1913; cf. Tucović, 1914. 29. Gersin, 1903, 27. 30. Gersin, 1912, 44. 31. Ibid., 45. 32. Mandl, 1912, 34; Tucović, 1914, 8–10. 33. Pajk, 1913, 55. 34. See, for example, Devine, 1918, 59; Ćorović, 1936, 529–30, 573, 619; Popović, 1936, 95. 35. Krek, 1912, 1; Ludwig, 1915, 11; Savić, 1918, 199; Vopicka, 1921, 31; In der Maur, 1936, I, 140; Horvat, 1967, 92; Mikić, 1987, 174–76. 36. Tucović. 1914, 76. 37. Ćorović, 1936, 81–92; Šišić, 1937, 241; Vucinich, 1954, 184, 190–92; Terzić, 1959, I, 37. 38. Cvijić, 1909, 8; 1913, 5; Knaflič, 1912, 75; Pogany, Renner, and Kautzky, 1913, 2, 30–32; Tucović, 1914, 80–81; see also Durham, 1920, 158. 39. Knaflič, 1912, 73; Balkanicus, 1913, 63; Campbell, 1913, 12, 38, 197; Pogany, Renner, and Kautzky, 1913, 8–9; Tucović, 1914, 67. 40. Oraovac, 1913, 49. 41. Slovenski Narod, December 6, 1912. 42. Zupanič, 1901, 52. 43. Ibid., 55. 44. Zupanič, 1902, 833. 45. Gersin, 1903, 20. 46. Wachtel, 1998, 31. 47. Ibid., 33. 48. Zupanič, 1902, 838. 49. Gersin, 1903, v. 50. Županić, 1929a, 154. 51. Pirc, 1916, xix. 52. Ibid., xxii–xxiii. 53. Pirc, 1916, xxii; Jovanović, 1921, 2; Franić, 1936, 11; Zupanič, 1939, 125; Baš, 1961, 138; 1962, 61. 54. Županić, 1929b, 223. 55. Pirc, 1916, xxiv. 56. Pirc, 1916, xxv; Franić, 1936, 11. 57. Radovanović, 1929, 7.

156 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107.

Pirc, 1916, xxiv; Franić, 1936, 11. Pirc, 1916, xi. Ibid. Županić, 1907a, 264. Ibid., 268, 270; cf. Kovačič, 1920, 154–55. Županić, 1907b, 616–17; 1920, 138. Županić, 1907b, 485–86. Ibid., 554. Ibid., 557. Ibid., 619. Županić, 1907c. Županić, 1914. Franič, 1936, 11. Pirc, 1916, xx. Slovenski Narod, January 26, 1911. M. M., 1911, 24. Deroko, 1983, 64. Ibid. M. M., 1911, 24. Kosić, 1937, 39. Zupanič, 1916, 7. Županić, 1926/27a, 79. Šafárik, 1837. Kollár, 1824. Melik, 1997, 18; 2002, 183; cf. Turda, 2004, 26. Boas, 1940, 169. Barkan, 1992, 16. Promitzer, 2003b, 190. Županić, 1908, 44. See, for example, Županić, 1908, 45; 1920, 178–79. Županić, 1912, 26; Lénard, 1920, 1. Županić, 1914, 116. Županić, 1926/27b, 89. Hösler, 2006, 33. Županić, 1921a. Županić, 1929a, 154. Županić, 1926/27a, 74. Županič, 1925, 665. Milosavljević, 2013, 729. Županić, 1926/27a, 76. Ibid., 79. Günther, 1923, 56. Županić, 1926/27a, 77. Wachtel, 1998, 70. Promitzer, 2001, 10. N. Ž., 1934, 222. Županić, 1936, 2; see also Šmitek and Jezernik, 1995, 180. Promitzer, 2001, 24. Neubecker, 1913, 100. Kaplan, 1993, xxvii.

The Father of the Modern Yugoslav Idea • 157 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155. 156.

Zupanič, 1916, 58. Paulová, 1924, 55. Ibid., 54; cf. Masaryk, 1925, 287–90; Dimitrijević, 1939, 53; Meštrović, 1961, 45. Županić, 1916, 2–3. Zupanič, 1916, 61; Jovanović, 1921, 3. Pirc, 1916, xxix. Ogris, 1921, 6. Pirc, 1916, xxviii; Stelè, 1956, 269. Pirc, 1916, xi-xii. Zupanič, 1916, 64; Ogris, 1921, 7; Vošnjak, 1928, 10–11; Franić, 1936, 11–12. Zupanič, 1916, 64–65. Trgovčević, 1986, 124, 187, Vošnjak, 1928, 319–20. Franić, 1936, 12–13. Trgovčević, 1986, 189. Slovenec, September 16, 1916. Zupanič 1916, 9. Ibid., 11. Seton-Watson, 1911, 2. See, for example, Seton-Watson, 1911, 2. Vosnjak, 1917; 1918; Vošnjak, 1916; 1917. Paulová, 1924, 320. Jovanović, 1921, 3; Almanah Pašić, 1924, vol. 1, pp. 6. p., 1919, 3. Ilešić, 1913, 126. Jovanović, 1921, 3; Z., 1928, 86; Županić, 1929b, 223; Franić, 1936, 13–14; Stelè, 1956, 269; Baš, 1961, 138; 1962, 61; Urbas, 1960/61, 22; Bižić Omčikus, 2003, 276. Jovanović, 1921, 2. Ibid., 3. Janković, 1959, 106. Županić, 1921b. Almanah Pašić, vol. 1, pp. 61–66. See, for example, Jutro, December 17, 1922. Županić, 1921a, 1. Domoljub, December 20, 1922. Tabor, February 15, 1922. In German, nix means nothing; an equivalent for Serbian niko (nothing). Jutro, February 16, 1923. Straža, December 20, 1922. Kmetijski list, March 13, 1923. Samouprava, January 6, 1923. Perovšek, 1991, 70–71. Zupanič, 1916, 56. Čubrilović, 1958, 461–62. Stojanović, 1927, 70. Zupanič, 1921a, 1. Straža, February 5, 1923. Zupanič, 1921b, 1. Vošnjak, 1929, 21. Samouprava, January 11, 1923.

158 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs 157. Slovenski Narod, November 19, 1912. In the summer of 1912, a group of Yugoslavoriented Slovene students visited the Yugoslav countries (Croatia, Serbia, and Bulgaria). A member of Preporod Vladislav Fabjančić, a volunteer in the Serbian army since 1914 and a participant in the Battle of Cer, was received in an audience by Prime Minister Nikola Pašić. He greeted them by saying, “You two are Slovaks, students . . .”—”No, we are Slovenes.”—”Yes, yes, I know that, Slovaks, Slovenes . . .” (Kolar, 1930, 48). 158. Tabor, January 12, 1923. 159. Županić, 1926b, 8. 160. Jovanović, 1921, 2; Almanah Pašić, 1924, vol. 1, 61 161. Županić, 1926a, 40; Vurnik, 1926/27, 144; Franić, 1936, 18; Wider, 1936, 137; Jagodic, 1956, 9. 162. Franić, 1936, 13–14; Kranjec, 1939, 86. 163. Mrinyavchevich, 1921, 3. 164. Domoljub, May 2, 1923. 165. Županić, 1926a, 40–41. 166. Vurnik, 1926/27, 144–45. 167. Etnolog, 1930/31, 4, 212. 168. Etnolog, 1939, 12, 152. 169. Etnolog, 1931/33, 5–6, 295–98. 170. Etnolog, 1926/27, 1, 139. 171. See, for example, Šmid, 1905/6, 168–69. 172. Županić, 1926a, 40. 173. Slovenski Narod, February 23, 1939. 174. Promitzer, 2001, 23. 175. Slavec Gradišnik, 2016, 14. 176. Baš, 1961, 141; Kremenšek, 1978, 38. 177. Zapisnik II. redne seje filozofskega fakultetnega sveta v Ljubljani dne December 16, 1924. 178. Promitzer, 2003c, 313. 179. Jovanović, 1921, 3. 180. Slovenec, September 3, 1921. 181. Jutro, November 23, 1940.

Chapter 6

Creating the New Nation-State

R

In the era of post-war renewal, the fathers of the liberated and united nation of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes faced the complicated task of creating a new nation-state out of a people that had been separated for centuries by history, religion, different dialects, scripts, culture, and economic interests. Drago Ljubibratić once said that “Yugoslavia should wear a clean, white shirt” ( Jakovljević 1923: 42), meaning that Yugoslavia should be more modern, civilized, progressive, free, clean, and beautiful than its parts. To achieve this, the founding fathers of Yugoslavia had to encourage the peoples to discard their traditional costumes and put on modern white shirts. Clearly, the fathers of the newborn nation could accomplish their task if they worked together as a well-coordinated team, thinking through as many steps as possible in advance. The difficulty of this task can be compared to that of a person who has to swim across a wide river and bring a wolf, a goat, and a cabbage to the other side, alive and unharmed, without being able to bring all three at once. Instead, in the euphoria resulting from national liberation and unification, they did not recognize the seriousness of the problems they were facing and instead gave priority to jockeying for privileged positions.

Celebrating the National Unity National holidays play an important role in the formation of common memories of the past, as they mark historical events and personalities that

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must be known to all citizens, thus establishing the symbolic unity of all members of the nation. The special significance they have for the community is expressed through mass gatherings, the hoisting of flags, and the playing of the national anthem. Such holidays are celebrated in the central squares of capitals or in front of public monuments, emphasizing the unity of the nation and strengthening national pride.1 The red-letter days in the calendar of the newly established nation-state and the way in which they were celebrated provided an exceptional opportunity to create a sense of national unity. Given the important role such days play in building national unity, it was expected that the selection of historical events and personalities with which the vast majority of the nation could identify would not exclude any categories of citizens. According to Milan Marjanović, the Vidovdan in Kosovo marked the beginning of an era, but the Vidovdan in Sarajevo ushered in a new era in which, after the builders would realize the poetic dream of the blind guslars who sang of Kosovo: “Our new task is to build. What we are building is a temple of harmony and spirit, a light of joy and wisdom. The Temple of Vid.”2 At the beginning of December 1919, Svetozar Pribićević, the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, proclaimed three new national holidays: December 1, Unification Day; July 12, Petar’s Day, the birthday of King Petar; and June 28, St. Vitus Day (Vidovdan)—in honor of the fighters who had fallen for their faith and homeland. The events and figures chosen by Minister Pribićević, one of the most prominent advocates of centralism and unitarism, were in line with his vision of a new national community, but did not fulfill the task of strengthening the sense of national unity. Of the three new national holidays, Vidovdan was the bearer of the most emotional and traumatizing historical memory. Vidovdan has long been considered a particularly fateful day in Serbian history. On this day in 1389, the fateful Battle of Kosovo took place; on this day in 1878, the Congress of Berlin granted Austria-Hungary the mandate to occupy Bosnia-Herzegovina; on this day in 1914, Gavrilo Princip assassinated Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, which was the reason for the outbreak of the Great War; on this day in 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed; and on this day in 1921, the Regent and Crown Prince Aleksandar Karađorđević proclaimed the new Constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, also known as the Vidovdan Constitution. Originally, Vidovdan was an Orthodox religious holiday commemorating Tsar Lazar and the Serbian martyrs who laid down their lives for the faith in the Battle of Kosovo. As Dušan Nikolajević put it, Vidovdan was the Serbian “Good Friday.”3 It retained its religious significance even later, when it became a state and national holiday. In Ljubljana, for example,

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memorial services were held in the Orthodox chapel in the Vojvoda Mišić barracks for “fallen Kosovo heroes and all fighters for the freedom and unification of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes,” and after 1937 the ceremony was held in the new Orthodox Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius.4 The close intertwining of secular and religious (Christian) authority was made clear by the fact that services in Slovenia were held in Catholic and Protestant churches with the participation of representatives of the military and civil authorities. Until 1923, Muslims were required to worship on this holiday.5 That year, the Minister of State for Religion, Vojislav Janjić, issued a decree exempting Muslims from their previous obligation to offer prayers in mosques for their non-Muslim fellow citizens on the Day of Saints Cyril and Methodius, May 24, and on Vidovdan; however, they were still obliged to close their stores and not send their children to school.6 In the nineteenth century, it was common to present the Vidovdan as a tradition stretching back to the time of the famous battle, which the Serbs could not or would not forget. Thus, the author of Beograd bez maske (Belgrade without a Mask) spoke passionately about this phenomenon, which is without precedent in history: “From the year 1389 to Anno Domini 1912, the entire Serbian nation longed for the revenge of Kosovo through the infinity of long centuries.”7 The field where the Battle of Kosovo took place, Gazimestan, was said to have been uncultivated, abandoned, and overgrown with peonies since 1389. Every spring, the field glowed red with peonies. According to the tales of Kosovo peasants, these red flowers grew from the blood of the fallen Kosovo heroes; thus, their descendants were reminded every year to take revenge.8 But the tradition seemed old because memory was short. The famous reformer of the Serbian language and ethnographer Vuk Karadžić, for example, searched everywhere in the first half of the nineteenth century for songs about Kosovo, which he had written down partly on the basis of the songs handed down to him by his father, but without success; this shows us that they were not very well known in his time.9 It was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that the Serbian elite began to spread the cult of Kosovo, making it a source of inspiration and hope. Their choice was a success that exceeded all expectations. The Kosovo cult proved to be a powerful instrument for mobilizing the people: it made blind guslars see and interpret celestial signs that were invisible to mortal eyes.10 They saw the shape to the avengers and martyrs of Kosovo, the immortal heroes who refused to surrender for five centuries and fought tirelessly year after year to protect Serbian descendants and Serbian shrines from Musa Kesedžija, Black Arabs, Đerđelez Alija, and others. Through their perseverance, they

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set an example that encouraged contemporaries to fight for the liberation and unification of the entire Serbian nation in one state: But then, when that great, sublime, holy, sacred hour came, when the hearts of all Serbs beat for the General, the Common and Greatest, the Most Exalted, the Most Holy, when the wicked became good, when small hearts became great, when the end came for “the life that longs for a larger piece, and in which one lies, crawls, and tremble,” . . . in these days it has come true—echoing, crashing, exploding with the thunder of the almighty inner voice of the whole Serbian, national, tribal, racial Soul, which for more than six centuries had been mute, frozen, petrified: Let us avenge Kosovo! Let us avenge Kosovo! Let us avenge Kosovo!11

Enthralled by the past, with its dramatic ups and downs, dazzled by heroes with supernatural powers—fairies, demons—the romantic poets, like the folk poets before them, blended myth and history in the narration of the most fateful event of Serbian history, the day of the fateful choice of the Celestial Kingdom, in order to prepare their people for liberation from the “Turkish yoke.” They put the past at the service of the great idea of freedom, which they sang about in their epics. In the heat of the moment, of course, they had no time to research “the exact date of the death of Tsar Uroš.” In fact, the great idea of liberation from the “Turkish yoke” seized the entire Serbian people like an irresistible current, sweeping away not only the poets but also the historians. “Who dares to lament when he leads the people into battle?!” the writer and politician Jaša Tomić asked rhetorically, explaining, “A nation consists not only of the living, but also of those who were and those who are yet to be born. Miloš and Marko must become bigger and stronger if they want to arouse the enthusiasm of the living.”12 However, in the late nineteenth century, there was controversy over whether Vidovdan should be declared an official national and religious holiday. In the calendar of 1892, it was recognized as a religious holiday. It was not until the official calendar of the Serbian Orthodox Church for the year 1864 that June 15 was recorded as “Vidovdan” instead of the Prophet Amos and Prince Lazarus. Although the center of revolutionary Serbdom in the 1860s was in Novi Sad, in 1868 the Omladinski Kalendar (Youth Calendar), which propagated the ideas of the Ujedinjena omladina srpska (United Serb Youth), stated: “Emperor Lazar, Patriarch Ephraim II, Jonah Mitr. Moscow, the Prophet Amos, the Martyr Vitus, Vidovdan.” In the years of Omladina, Vidovdan became a symbol of armed resistance against the “Turks,” but in the second half of the nineteenth century, the holiday was still marked in Serbian calendars in black letters, as opposed to red letters, which meant that it was not yet considered a national or religious

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holiday. Only after the celebration of the five hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, in 1889, was it declared a national holiday.13 According to Milovan Milovanović, who was prime minister of the Kingdom of Serbia before the Balkan War, the fall of Kosovo “left a much deeper and much more lasting impression on the Serbian people than all the successes and glory of Dušan and his great ancestors!”14 At the end of the nineteenth century, Vidovdan, the “holiday of Pain and Pride,”15 became the focus of Serbian nationalism as a symbol of the “bloody, merciless revenge against everything Turkish, Muslim in general.”16 The most obvious evidence of the enormous power of the Vidovdan cult was provided by Serbian victories in the Balkan Wars. According to Ante Tresić Pavičić, at that time “every Serb” was “ready to die, unlike the people of any other nation, and would do so as willingly as Lazar, Miloš, Toplica, Kosančić, Orlović, Jugovići, Strahinja, Srđa, and countless other knights fell in Kosovo.”17 Vidovdan is marked with red letters first in Prosvetin Kalendar (Prosveta’s Calendar) for the year 1914, printed in 1913, after the Serbian victory at the Battle of Kumanovo. In the same year, Vidovdan was included in the calendar of the Kingdom of Serbia as one of the nine holidays officially celebrated each year.18 The retreat of the Serbs over the Albanian mountains after the victory of Austria-Hungary in 1915 gave new strength to the legend, again with an emphasis on sacrifice and struggle, on the choice between the Earthly or the Celestial Kingdom.19 From then on, Vidovdan was presented as the programmatic backbone of Serbian nationalism, to which traditional Kosovo celebrations were also adapted.20 For the Serbian political leadership, the celebration of Vidovdan served as a means of using the past as a signpost for the future. According to this interpretation, medieval Serbia was a free, self-governing, and egalitarian country until the quarrels and greed of its nobles resulted in it being taken over by the “Turks.”21 In this context, the holiday was presented as a signpost and a goal, and the Serbs as the eternal fulfillers of the Vidovdan oath. The nine brothers Jugović and the entire army died for the “Cross of Honor,” because they believed that “the ‘Cross of Honor’ is a symbol of eternity, and those who die for it die in it, which means that they are resurrected in the ‘Celestial Kingdom’ and thus become immortal.”22

If a Kernel of Wheat Dies, It Produces Many Seeds During World War I, the Kosovo cult spread beyond the borders of the Kingdom of Serbia and, like the Vidovdan ideology, assumed a Yugoslav character. In the spring of 1916, the Yugoslav Committee in London declared Vidovdan a national holiday for Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, who

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“as a single nation with three names, strive to free themselves from AustroHungarian domination and unite in a common democratic state.”23 The committee used the so-called Kossovo Day to familiarize the British public with the position of the Serbs and the other Yugoslavs and to win their support for “suffering Serbia,” so that soldiers decorated with laurel wreaths would rush to Zagreb and Ljubljana and plant the flag of freedom on Triglav Mountain, “the flag of our future state: The Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.”24 In London and other British cities, meetings, lectures, and concerts were organized, leaflets distributed, articles and letters to the editor published. In twelve thousand schools, the speech “Serbia, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” which Seton-Watson had written especially for the occasion, was read out publicly. British sympathizers gave lectures in several major schools. Students were encouraged to write essays about the Battle of Kosovo.25 As part of the first commemoration of Kosovo Day, Bogumil Vošnjak, a member of the Yugoslav Committee, gave a lecture on Kosovo and national unity at the University of Leeds. Vošnjak began his talk with these inspiring words: Kosovo is the past, the present, and the future of the nation. It is the dream of the shepherd, the political ideal of an unquiet student and the intellectual, the action of the man. Kosovo is more than a battle—it is a program, a political ideal; it is the state of the morrow; it speaks of resurrection and national happiness.26

Kosovo Day was also observed in the last years of the war, even though the British public was more interested in the end of the war than the liberation of the Yugoslavs. Nevertheless, the appeal was “very strong.”27 Memorial services for the souls of Kosovo’s heroes were held in British and French churches presenting Serbian contributions to the Christian faith over the centuries, and teachers taught schoolchildren about the glorious history of the Serbian people. On the streets of London and Paris, ladies sold red peonies in aid of the Serbian Red Cross. This flower “called mysteriously . . . without words: avenge, avenge, avenge.” Church bells on June 28 invited the citizens of the two great allied countries into the churches for prayer and reflection on the transience of human life, and the sounds of the bells seemed to blend into one chord: “South Slavs, sursum corda! (Lift up your hearts!)”28 Observances in 1918 were even plainer. After the death of the Scottish physician and suffragette Elsie Maud Inglis in November 1917, it was decided to honor her memory by creating a chair of medicine named after her; the celebrations in England were mainly devoted to raising money for this chair.29 After liberation and unification, the Vidovdan ideology was accepted as a fundamental myth of the new nation-state. “While the Vidovdan past

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was a historical legend, full of beautiful mysticism,” Milostislav Bartulica said, “today the Vidovdan glory is more and more clearly becoming a religion, our national religion, our Yugoslav faith.”30 The myth was formulated in such a way that it could be understood and accepted by the vast majority, like the parable of a kernel of wheat that produces many seeds when it dies. According to the narrative, Kosovo is the starting point of the historical drama of the three-named nation, because later all generations in the area between the Triglav and Timok mountains felt the consequences of the great and bloody Kosovo sacrifice. The folk song “This Ark of the New Testament” about the downfall of the Dušan Empire gathered together the previously divided tribes with the same blood and the same future. From a blind guslar in a small village in Šumadija to a humble Slavonian house where Strossmayer drank Kosovo milk, from the court of a Dubrovnik nobleman to the houses of Croat plum planters and Slovene villages, everyone felt, according to the sublime Vidovdan words of the poet Luj Vojnović, that they were sons of the same light, heirs of the same great thought, and laborers in the construction of a new, even greater edifice. “This miracle is the direct fruit of the Kosovo sacrifice.”31 Vidovdan was declared a national holiday and it was celebrated with great festivities throughout the country. In the years between the two world wars, tens of thousands of St. Vitus Day celebrations were held throughout the kingdom, with King Aleksandar himself participating in numerous ceremonies.32 Kosovo symbolism was strongly emphasized at the enthronement of Serbian Patriarch Dimitrije in Peć on August 28, 1924. King Aleksandar and Queen Marija were greeted with the national anthem and the firing of honorary shots on their way to the church. At the Dečani Monastery, the king was greeted by the head of the monastery as the “Avenger of Kosovo, Liberator and Unifier of our people and true heir to the throne of the Nemanjić dynasty.” King Aleksandar, the avenger of Kosovo, lit the candles of Tsarica Milica, the wife of Tsar Lazar, and, at dinner, he toasted with the chalice of Emperor Dušan and the patriarch toasted with the chalice of Tsar Lazar.33 While the celebration clearly evoked the Kosovo myth, it is unclear how Kosovo’s non-Serb Muslim majority perceived it. After the change of regime on January 6, 1929, King Aleksandar promulgated the Law on State Holidays for State Employees, according to which Vidovdan was no longer a state holiday. The new law provided for only two state holidays in addition to religious ones, namely, the king’s birthday and Unification Day. The law stipulated that, on Vidovdan, services should be held in churches to commemorate the heroes who had fallen in the wars, and it also ordered that the state flag should be hoisted on the buildings of all state and administrative offices, as well as on build-

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ings of public-legal importance, and in towns, municipalities, and at town halls.34 In 1932, the Ministry of Education issued a decree stipulating that Vidovdan should thenceforth be celebrated as a holiday of national education. On this day, popular lectures, student concerts, rallies, and youth events were to be held throughout the country. On this occasion, the best students were awarded with savings books, each worth 100 dinars, and donations were collected for associations for the education of adults, universities, libraries, and other educational institutions that would enlighten the Yugoslavs.35 The goal of enlightening the citizens was to teach them how to choose between sound ideas and utopias. The new pedagogy, based on the folk songs of the Kosovo peonies and the piety of the blue graves was to produce “enthusiastic and nationally conscious Yugoslavs.”36

The Yugoslav Piedmont A few decades earlier, it seemed that the role of the Piedmont of Serbdom would be taken over by Montenegro, in particular the “first Serb” Prince Nikola, who was considered the bearer of Serbian national politics.37 Nikola Petrović Njegoš came to the helm of Montenegro in 1860. For this Montenegrin prince, as had previously been the case for Petar II Petrović Njegoš, the author of Gorski vijenac (The Mountain Wreath), writing patriotic poetry was an important means of disseminating political thought. He wrote poems that evoked the Battle of Kosovo and highlighted Montenegro and the Petrović dynasty as guardians of the memory of the medieval Serbian Empire and leaders in the struggle for its restoration.38 It was in this period and spirit that a romantic story emerged in Montenegro, according to which a handful of Serbian nobles fled to Montenegro after their defeat on the Field of Kosovo in 1389. In Montenegro, these “children of freedom” resisted their old enemies the “Turks” on their own for five hundred years. Although this story was believed by many, it was a pure invention made to seem like folklore with the intention of strengthening Montenegrin patriotism in support of Prince Nikola, who dreamed of restoring the former Serbian Empire.39 Through this “politics of memory,” as Ivan Čolović calls it, Prince Nikola established the historical and political significance of his little state and presented it as an invincible bastion of Serb refugees from Kosovo. Montenegro’s freedom-loving past naturally imposed on Montenegrins the obligation to fulfill a “national mission” in their surroundings, as well as the obligation to be the political center of the not-yet-liberated Serbs.40 Prince Nikola’s ability to use the Kosovo myth to arouse Montenegrin patriotism and Montegrins’ willingness to sacrifice is well illustrated by the proclamation he delivered in Cetinje on Vidovdan in

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1876. In his proclamation, the prince encourages his fellow Montenegrins to take revenge for the lost Kosovo: I will not encourage you, for I know that your chivalrous hearts flare with the desire to fight the Turks, the desire to avenge Kosovo and revive the long-buried freedom of the Serbian nation. I will not warn you today about the order and obedience of the army, for you have joyfully proved that to me on every occasion. I will not even summon you, as Prince Lazar did: he who does not come to the battle in Kosovo! . . . I needn’t do so, because I know: you will all follow Me! Before there was discord, now there is unity! Murad took our empire, from Murad we will take it back!41

The Kosovo myth proved to be a major driving force even later, when the role of Piedmont was taken over by Belgrade.42 When The Balkan Empress, a play by King Nikola I, was performed at Belgrade Theater, the auditorium was always packed. Even before the performance began, the crowd cheered enthusiastically for King Nikola, the Montenegrins, and unity. The performance itself was interrupted several times by thunderous applause, and when the leading actor shouted, “Fight the Turks, fight to victory!” the crowd applauded with such enthusiasm that the performance could hardly be ended. Long after the play ended, rallies for the army were held near

Figure 6.1. Scene from the play The Empress of the Balkans by Knjaz Nikola and the Knjaz’s family. Postcard published by N. S. Bjeladinović, Kotor. Published before 1910. Source: private collection of the author.

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the theater, and a new greeting rang out in the streets, inns, and kafanas: “See you in Kosovo!” Kosovo became a “sacred word.”43 Serbian soldiers who wanted to avenge the lost Kosovo fought and made great sacrifices from 1912 to 1918. For the sake of Kosovo, Vladimir Čerina vehemently asserted, no father would mourn for his son, nor would a son mourn for his father; no mother would mourn for her only child, nor would a single child mourn for his mother; no wife would mourn for her husband, nor would a husband mourn for his wife. They all knew that the “long-awaited great day of vengeance” had come and that lives must be claimed, thousands upon thousands of the best and strongest lives. The editorial staff of the revolutionary newspapers Pijemont, Slovenski Jug, and Preporod not only wrote about all of this. They closed and almost the entire staff went to war, along with the editors, “to turn words into deeds, to free their brothers, about whom they wrote most passionately, to die for their brothers, as avengers and men, as heroes and gods.”44 As Jovan Cvijić, one of the most eminent Serbian scholars, argued, this enthusiasm made Serbia a “country with a mission.” It was not just the aspiration of a dynasty or the military and noble class, but the will of the entire nation. According to Cvijić, this was a very old, primordial characteristic of the Serbian national soul, which was possessed and obsessed by the “urge to seize and secure its place in the world and leave its full mark.” He likened this collective feeling to the striving and mission of unusually strong and creative individuals. Later, he said, it was shaped by historical development, and the “national soul created its aspirations and programs, which were outlined in folk songs.” Serbia drew its strength from its glorious past, beginning with the Nemanjić dynasty and the fateful battle in Kosovo, as well as the associated songs and traditions, in which the fundamental characteristic of the Serbian national soul is expressed: a national sensibility and a high level of national pride that does not accept the insult, the loss of the earthly kingdom, which has led the Serbs to think for centuries about how to repent and avenge that insult. As a result of many years of perseverance in the struggle for justice and freedom, the countless martyrs of the past, and the great heroes of the Karađorđe period, there emerged a “national soul” that, “despite centuries of slavery, is not the soul of a slave, but that of a revolutionary seeking equality, rights, and ‘divine justice.’” The people were heartened by the consciousness of coming from “a long and great line of glorious emperors and heroes and great martyrs.” They considered them all ancestors, members of the Serbian nation, and their deep national sensibility prompted them to share in great deeds and sufferings of their ancestors.45

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When the Italian nation-state was founded, Massimo d’Azeglio famously said, “Italy has been made; now it remains to make Italians!” By this he meant, as Ušeničnik explains in his essay on the Yugoslav question, that the difference between the north and the south of Italy was so great in every respect that there was a danger several nations would be created.46 About half a century after the founding of Italy and Germany, the nation-state of Yugoslavs was founded as the first common state of the “nation with one blood and one language, one soul and one heart,” as stated in the address of the National Assembly of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs published on October 1918.47 After December 1, 1918, Yugoslavia was no longer a beautiful and distant dream, but a living reality. Bogumil Vošnjak said: “We have Yugoslavia, but we must be careful that Yugoslavia does not become an empty concept. The task of a generation is to give Yugoslavia genuine, grand, ideological content.”48 Contrary to expectations, this did not happen. The use of the cumbersome triple name, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, as the official name, unknown before World War I,49 for a “single and indivisible” nation,50 did not contribute to the integration of its citizens, but rather further solidified the previous “trinity and division.”51 Instead of providing a firm foundation for the construction of a common identity, the official designation of the nation-state only contributed to putting the question of the identity of its citizens on the agenda. In 1921, for instance, Minister Svetozar Pribićević and the predominantly Serbian Education Committee in the National Assembly introduced new bills in the National Assembly that would have made the idea of national unity the mandatory basis of school teaching. However, their definition of Yugoslav unity was based on Serbian assumptions about language and history, which subsumed the Croats and subordinated the Slovenes. The political opposition successfully prevented this law from being passed before 1929. As a consequence , in Vojvodina, Kosovo, and Macedonia, the Serbian side disseminated its pre-war textbooks, which made virtually no mention of Croats or Slovenes. Elsewhere, however, the Habsburg pre-war textbooks remained in use; in these, the ethnic affiliation of South Slavs in the Dual Monarchy to the Serbs was hardly mentioned and there was no mention of Serbia as a South Slav Piedmont.52 When France was turned into a nation-state, the ruling elites—as the title of the well-known study by Eugen Weber reads—turned “peasants into Frenchmen.” In the Yugoslav nation-state, the ruling elites in most parts of the country continued to turn peasants into Serbs, and in the Croatian and Slovene parts of the country, the ruling elites turned peasants into Croats and Slovenes respectively.

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Since only nationalism gives ideological content to a nation-state, only Yugoslavism could bring people together, unite them, calm passions, and inspire faith in the national future. Or, as a British diplomat and secret agent, well acquainted with conditions in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, put it, “everyone who wants to see a happy Yugoslavia must foster the Yugoslav idea.”53 The idea that it was necessary to create a Yugoslav nation after the death of King Aleksandar was first publicly expressed by Mirko Kosić in his assembly speech in March 1937.54 Kosić’s words, however, remained unheard because of other, louder, more emotional words about the unity of the nation, “from the generals to the simple peasants,” “from the kings to the peasants,”55 which appeared in the media during the preparations for the celebrations of the 1939 anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo. The “Serbian nation” from “all four sides of the fatherland” was called to rush to Kosovo to line up side by side: “karstic Dalmatians,” “proud Bosnians,” “sons of flat Vojvodina,” “eagles from Montenegrin nests,” and “knights from the flat fields of the martyr and heroic Šumadija.” Indeed, a huge crowd gathered in Pristina to participate in the ceremonial unveiling of the monument to Serbianize Kosovo. The “Serbianization” of Kosovo led to threats against the “Shiptars” (Albanians), who were loudly urged to emigrate to Turkey. Among the participants were conspicuous Chetniks in black uniforms, heavily armed and specially selected for the occasion. Their behavior showed that the unveiling of the monument was only a pretext for their gathering and their actions. They paraded through Pristina and the surrounding villages, openly threatening the local Albanian population that they would come to “avenge Serbian Kosovo again” and make it “Serbian” again.56

The Nation-State Is Founded, What Shall Its Citizens Be Called? The name “Yugoslavia” appeared during the Spring of Nations as a metaphor for a better future, along with other national ideas that appeared as its counterparts or in opposition to it.57 The main idea was to unite Yugoslav groups that shared a similar language into one large community capable of independent development and successful competition with other large groups. The former Montenegrin minister Andrija Radović illustrated this process with an example from his family history: “My father was Montenegrin, I am Serb, and my son is Yugoslav.”58 To be sure, the road from naming to building an “imagined community”59 was long and bumpy, and it was a path on which one could easily slip or get lost. But it was the first

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step that was crucial to the successful formation of a new political entity— the nation—because the second step would not have been possible without it. Without a common, unifying name that would be accepted by all who wished to be included in the new community, the project was doomed from the start. The task of the nation-state was to put Yugoslav caps on the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and teach them to wear them with pride. In other words, when the first nation-state was founded, the Yugoslavs did not yet exist; they had yet to be created, like the peoples of all other nations. The nation’s emancipators envisioned the Yugoslavs as people who spoke a similar and mutually intelligible dialect, and as descendants of the great Slavic family that had moved from their ancestral homeland toward the European south and settled there. Because of their geographical location in relation to other Slavs, these Slavs are called South Slavs. The term “South Slavs” referred only to the geographical relationship with other Slavs and did not in itself have the same meaning as “Yugoslavia” or “Yugoslavs.” For this very reason, Bukovšek did not name Yugoslavia Južna Slavija (South Slavia). With the aim of creating Yugoslavs, the Society for Yugoslav History and Antiquities was founded in Zagreb in 1850. Its sponsor was Ban Josip Jelačić, who contributed 500 forints. Its members were Bishop Strossmayer, Ljudevit Gaj, Eugen Kvaternik, and Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, Jovan Subotić from Serbia, Prince Mihailo Obrenović, who contributed 100 forints. The total number of members was 250, including Ante Starčević. According to the Croatian politician Većeslav Vilder, if they had truly followed the Yugoslav path, they would have “finally created one nationalism in the entire ethnic area.”60 But since it was not possible to group them all under one name, because the Yugoslavs were divided into two or three states, two names and two nationalisms arose. Then the two began to compete with each other. Every nationalism must have its own past, a past as glorious, as great, as “grandiose” as possible. Since, despite all efforts, it was not possible to make up for the wars in the past between the two nationalisms, both parties resorted to the division and separation of Serbs and Croats, from time immemorial.61

The first to publicly raise the question of what the citizens of the first nation-state of Yugoslavs should be called, what language they should speak, and how they should write, was the philologist Milan Rešetar in Književni Jug on the first Unification Day.62 In his opinion, the name “Jugoslavija” would be helpful to both Serbo-Croats and Slovenes, it should be “accepted only with sincere love, firm faith, and philological moderation,” and people should not worry too much that the name does not fully conform to “the rules of our school grammar.” Rešetar goes on to state

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that “logically and grammatically” a citizen of Yugoslavia can only be a Jugoslaven (a Croatian name) and in no case a Jugoslovan (a Slovene name) or Jugosloven (a Serbian name).63 It is not entirely clear whether his arguments did not find sufficient support because he started from the idea that the name Jugoslavija originated in the same way as the name Srbija, with the foreign (Roman and Greek) suffix -ija, or because people preferred to make much ado about small differences. What is certain, however, is that the name—that is, the element that should be the most solid foundation for building a new nation—did not create the cohesion that it should have. When the first nation-state of Yugoslavs was founded, the question of a name that included all its citizens was a high priority. In a nation-state, people are no longer a sum of all individuals; rather, they form a political and cultural community, a nation. With the establishment of the nationstate, one of the most important questions on the agenda was: what does Yugoslavia embody and express? If it embodied belonging to a nation, the idea of national and spiritual unity, and if it expressed something new and greater than what existed, then it should bear the one name that signified the bringing together of the elements united in it and their merging into a whole.64 However, the Constituent Assembly, which adopted the constitution by a narrow majority on Vidovdan in 1921, did so in defiance of the fact that it is not only what is said that counts, but also how it is said, and accepted the cumbersome triple name, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, despite warnings that the primacy of the SCS65 over Yugoslavia “meant preferring gusle to violins, carvings on the raboš to writing with quills, burning candles to electricity.”66 In the transformation into a new nation, sacrifices had to be made on the altar of general happiness and progress on all sides. But the creators of the first nation-state of the Yugoslavs closed their eyes, each for their own reasons, to the old wisdom that there is no gain without pain. Instead of building the newly founded nation-state from scratch with united forces, long and heated discussions were held, for example, about its name. The constitutional proclamation of the bizarre idea of a Serbo-Croat-Slovene nation in which people spoke the Serbo-Croat-Slovene language gave supreme sanction to the trinity of different, mutually incompatible notions of a unified state. In the nineteenth century, political elites in Belgrade and Zagreb developed potential plans for Yugoslav unification based on Serbian and Croatian ideas from the period of romantic nationalism about the state as an ethnic homeland, that is, a state within historical borders.67 At a time when the country was overwhelmed by general enthusiasm, the triple name determined the uncertain future of the community of the three nations, rather than uniting the previously disunited elements into

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a new nation-state. As Stojan Protić, the first prime minister in the joint government and one of the leaders of the National Radical Party, argued in the constitutional debates, the name “Yugoslavia” was unacceptable to Serbian radicals because it was a “translation from German.”68 Although the main argument of the National Radical Party was a linguistic one, it had fatal political consequences, precisely because of the fact “that every nation that has a name also wants to preserve its own feelings.”69 Since the most difficult task of political leaders was to work on the creation of spiritual unity and to merge the united parts into a whole, so that there would be a permanent, firm national ideal for everyone, in all parts of the common state, that would be accessible and clear to all, the three names of the united state of a single people were the best proof “both for the nationals and for the foreigners that we are not one, but three.”70 Thus, by choosing the triple name, political leaders erected walls of exclusivity that separated the “three brothers” from each other and steered them in three separate directions, instead of building bridges between the citizens of the newly formed nation-state. And on the trinity of basic ideas, three imagined communities were built. Or, as Milan Stojadinović stated in his memoirs, the state consisted of three national elements (Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes), and Serbs would never accept a Croat as leader, while Slovenes and Croats would never accept a Serb. In fact, the National Radical Party under the leadership of Nikola Pašić gained prestige and a number of supporters in the elections in the common state not only within the pre-war Kingdom of Serbia, but wherever Serbs lived, “especially in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Vojvodina, Montenegro, and Macedonia.”71 It turned out that the nation with three names—that is, the three nations—knew how to “die decasyllabically,” but not how to live in harmony and work together for a better future.72 Whether the abolition of the Vidovdan Constitution in early 1929 and the change of the official name of the state, which was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia on October 3, 1929,73 occurred too late for the emergence of a Yugoslav consciousness to be possible cannot be judged. Although King Aleksandar enjoyed the prestige and respect of the vast majority of citizens, his rule was violently interrupted in Marseille, only five years after the adoption of the new name and the establishment of integral nationalism. Contemporaries did not see the new name as an incentive to create an integral nationalism, but the question was what to call the people living in Yugoslavia. Were its citizens Jugoslovani, Jugoslaveni, or Jugosloveni? Moreover, what was the status of the Bulgarians? Were they Yugoslavs, or South Slavs? Or, as some used to ask, “Are they human beings at all?”74 Preoccupied with other, seemingly more important and lucrative business, party leaders kept convincing their constituents that

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spiritual unification through coexistence would soon become a reality by itself.75

Пијемонт vs. Piedmont With the Vidovdan Constitution, “the unification of all three Yugoslav tribes into one nation-state” received its legal basis. After the adoption of the constitution, the daily Jutro enthusiastically reported that Vidovdan had once again become the “milestone of an important period in the life of Yugoslavism”; the day on which the Kosovo Vidovdan of 1389 was avenged and the Sarajevo Vidovdan of 1914 was awarded.76 Those who were supposed to conceive the whole nation and all the territories of the new kingdom as one whole, as one state, were faced with an obstacle in the form of the threefold name of the nation and the new nation-state. Two leading political parties, the National Radical Party and the Democratic Party, refused to accept the name “Yugoslavia,” claiming that Yugoslavism and Illyrism were “Austrian inventions.” Pašić insisted that the word “Serbia” should appear in the name “to indicate nominally the importance of Serbia in the creation of a new state and its political pre-eminence in the new community.”77 He did not say this publicly, of course, but he did say: They are all in their own state. For example, if a Serb wanted to live in Ljubljana and call himself a Serb, let him be a Serb, and again if a Slovene wanted to live in Belgrade, let him be a Slovene, just as Peter and Paul must be Peter and Paul everywhere. We wanted it to be like in our former kingdom, that we only know people from Šumadija, Užice, etc., according to the different areas, and that all are one and the same nation.78

This was also the position of Stojan Protić, who argued that there was no need for a common name: “Let the name Serb and the name Croat and the name Slovene be honored and respected.”79 The same position was taken by the National Radical Party organ Samouprava, which wrote during the discussions on the name of the nation-state that the threefold name was a worthy tribute to the past and corresponded to the wishes of all three tribes: “The names Serb, Croat, and Slovene are glorious and bright enough that we not only need not be ashamed of them but can be proud of them.”80 In this sense, leading Serbian politicians actually maintained the view that the lands of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire were annexed to the Kingdom of Serbia, just as six nahiyas were annexed in the time of

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Prince Miloš, when the Niš region was annexed in 1878, and Old Serbia (Kosovo) and Southern Serbia (Vardar Macedonia) were annexed in 1913.81 In accordance with this view, the new nation-state should be called Serbia.82 As Jutro reported, Pašić told the Council of Commissioners of the National Radical Party in Belgrade on February 14, 1923, that, in his opinion, the new nation-state should be called Serbia, “because the Serbian tribe is the strongest and has been fighting for freedom for centuries and has achieved victory together with the Allies, whereupon the unification of all three tribes followed.”83 Others, however, did not want to adopt the name of the “elder brother” and could not win a majority for the name “Yugoslavia” either.84 The creators of the Yugoslav nation-state from the ranks of the ruling party liked to imagine Serbia as the Piedmont of Serbdom. This idea was also adopted by the secret organization Black Hand, which was founded to “unite the Serbs.” The organization’s motto was, “Unity or death!”85 From September 3 (August 21 according to the Julian calendar), they published the newspaper Пијемонт.86 However, despite frequent and vocal references to the Italian model, there were about as many similarities between the Italians and the South Slavs in the implementation of this idea as there are between the words “Piemonte” and “Пијемонт.” They sounded similar, but conveyed two very different meanings. In the former case, the new nation-state bore a single name, the capital of Italy was moved from Turin to Florence in 1864 and to Rome in 1871, and the ruling elite turned the peasants of the Apennine Peninsula into Italians. In the latter case, the nation-state bore a triple name, the dynasty did not even think of moving its court, and the ruling elite in most cases turned the peasants into Serbs, not Yugoslavs.87 According to some claims, in 1912 Crown Prince Aleksandar made his personal contribution to “nationalization,” as they called the process of transforming the Macedonian population into Serbs. Some pro-Bulgarian authors hold that during the First Balkan War, Aleksandar stopped a twelve-year-old girl in Kumanovo88 or in Prilep89 and asked her about her nationality. When she answered that she was Bulgarian, he allegedly slapped her.90 This matter cost the Serbian nationalists dearly, but did not bear the desired fruit. Croatian and Slovene identities were too firmly rooted for such a change to take place,91 and experience showed that even “the second eye in the head” (Montenegro) could not be turned into a purely Serbian one. Since the creation of citizens is, “to a significant degree, a process of institutionally organized impersonation,”92 the founding fathers of the nation with three names had to find historical events and personalities that best represented the “imagined community” as the realization of enduring historical aspirations. In the nation-state of the South Slavs, the Vidovdan

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myth became this symbol, which, with its meanings and interpretations, was tasked with strengthening social and cultural cohesion. Aleksandar Karađorđević, himself “a staunch Serb,”93 was actively involved in the formation of the post-war memory of the Serbian role in the Great War. In his eyes, victorious Serbia had invited Croat, Slovene, and Bosnian Serb representatives to Belgrade after the end of the war in order to incorporate their former Habsburg territories into a Serbian state, to which his army’s advances had already added Macedonia, Kosovo, and the Vojvodina.94 In his speeches, Aleksandar spoke routinely about the history of Serbian sacrifices for liberation and unification.95 After the bloody World War I, various individuals, groups of veterans, and the state apparatus attempted to portray heroism and sacrifice using symbols and representations from the myth of the Battle of Kosovo. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Montenegrin and Serbian societies were rural, poor, mostly illiterate, and generally unenlightened. The prevailing political idea was inclined toward egalitarianism and collectivism, without a developed notion of individual freedom,96 and there was a distinct lack of tolerance. According to Olga Popović-Obradović, in this social mindset, the national idea was mostly reduced to territorial goals to be achieved through war, with the myth of Kosovo and its “revenge” playing a particularly important role.97 The Vidovdan mythology, or “the faith of Obilić,”98 founded by Vladika Petar II Petrović Njegoš and completed by Knjaz Nikola, was a product of the pre-modern era. The sacrifice of the individual for the sake of the community corresponded with the ethics of a tribal society, and these ethics appealed to people in the era of the spread of nationalism, that is, in a time when people still believed that “on Vidovdan the rivers Sitnica, Morava, and Drina turn red with blood, and that this will last until Kosovo is avenged and the yoke of slavery is completely overthrown.”99 Both the content and the interpretations of the myth were intended to strengthen the social and cultural cohesion of the citizens and encourage them to sacrifice themselves for the goals of the community. In this respect, they served well in Serbia and Montenegro at the beginning of the twentieth century, but after 1918 it was not possible to build a modern, multicultural, and religiously tolerant society in the Slavic South on this basis. The Serbian leadership, looking only at the Serbian past, did not see the situation accurately and felt increasing distrust toward the non-Serb part of the nation with three names. According to Alex Dragnich, the choice to proclaim the constitution on Serbia’s historical holiday, Vidovdan, was “a grave error” because it was clear that Croats would not be pleased about it.100 The Catholic political opposition saw the Vidovdan Constitution in a very bad light. The day of the adoption of the constitution was, as the

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Ljubljana Catholic Domoljub reported, the day when Serbs, Slovenes, and Croats finally became equal: “On Vidovdan 1389, the Serbs lost their freedom in Kosovo. On Vidovdan 1921, the Slovenes and Croats lost their freedom in Belgrade.”101 On Vidovdan 1939, the Croatian Peasant Party’s newspaper Hrvatski Dnevnik published an article on the meaning of this holiday. The author of the article interpreted the meaning of Vidovdan and its moral significance as the selfless defense of one’s own rights, and not the violation of the rights of others. But Nikola Pašić was a Serbian statesman who had an exclusively Serbian idea of the organization of the new state, which he did not even consider a new state, but rather an expanded Serbia. According to the author of the article, this conception of the state “brought the idea and ethics of Vidovdan into disharmony, since its value lay in defending one’s own rights and not in violating the rights of others.” If Yugoslavia was the common state of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, it “must serve the needs of all three nations equally.” The Vidovdan Constitution reflected hegemonic politics and thus did not serve the three nations equally. And to hide hegemonic politics behind “the Vidovdan idea is to deny those moral forces which had saved the Serbian nation from ruin and enabled it to free itself from the domination of others.” In the proclamation of the Vidovdan Constitution by the majority of deputies, which came about through “almost commercial transactions,” the author of the article sees only a “negation of morality.” With this negation, Pašić had sinned against the very meaning of Vidovdan, and by adopting the constitution against the will of the Croats and Slovenes, he had dug a deep rift between them and the Serbs.102 The Kosovo myth as the ideological basis for the unification of the nation with three names put Yugoslav Muslims in a tricky position. After unification, it was not clear what they were: Serbs or Croats, or perhaps Yugoslavs or Slavs in general? Nor it was clear, how to treat them. After living for centuries with the certainty that “Poturica is worse than a Turk,” are they now to be tolerated as “the blood of our blood”? These questions were asked in the National Assembly, in the press, at political meetings, and among the people until the disintegration of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.103 The monument to the fallen fighters at Kosovo Polje, erected after unification, bears the words “For the Honorable Cross and Golden Freedom!” However, as Suljaga Salihagić argues, if it were true that Miloš Obilić and the Jugović brothers and the rest fought for the Cross of Honor, these heroes should not be celebrated in schools attended by Muslim children, who were often asked to perform Kosovo songs on the occasion of exams and during celebrations. A further reason why these heroes should not be celebrated by such schools was that the heroes of Bosnian Muslims,

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such as Đerzelez Alija, Hrnjica Mujo, Tanković Osman, and others, were not mentioned in the textbooks, although their heroism was in no way inferior to that of Kraljević Marko and Miloš Obilić. “But they fought against the cross,” explains Salihagić, “and not a word about them is in our public school textbooks.”104 In the same author’s assessment, the textbooks clearly showed how religion and nation were fused, when great care should have been taken to present only that which unites peoples and religions and promotes mutual love among children; instead, these books contained content that often offended Islam and Muslims.105

Symbolic Integration After the unification of the nation with three names, Branko Lazarević asked himself the question, “What now?” For him, the only way to build a common edifice was through a joint effort: mutual discussion, consultation with the masses, and strong support from all sides. Construction could succeed only as a joint effort. But in working together, the builders had to make sure they understood each other, or they would end up building the “Tower of Babel.” To achieve such understanding, the builders first had to shed their “parochial skins.”106 Shared memories of the past are an important unifying element, and national holidays may have served as an instrument in the process of symbolic integration by which ruling elites sought to shape the symbolic vocabulary of their nation.107 However, the very selection of historical events or personalities that were so important in shaping the common past that all members of an “imagined community” were supposed to know was closely linked to forgetting. For it is forgetting that promotes or brings about a dramatically new communal perception of the past, in which past works, words, and deeds are radically altered.108 The aim of the Vidovdan celebrations, then, lay in the symbolic integration of the members of the nation with three names. They were inspired primarily by the rich treasures of Serbian historical mythology. In practice, this meant glorifying the Serbian perception of the past in public commemorations while denying Slovene and Croatian perceptions of the past, which elevated the Serbs above their “equal brothers,” the Slovenes and Croats. Although the Vidovdan celebrations were “wholehearted,” more cautious observers noted that some provinces were “negligent and in covert opposition to Yugoslav statehood, they opposed that inner longing for freedom and the state which is the essence of the Vidovdan holiday.”109 The ritualization of Vidovdan implied a more or less united nation and thus generated assumptions among the population that presupposed the

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Figure 6.2. Commemoration of the fifth slet (literary “flocking of birds,” used for mass gymnastic festivals) of the župa (union) of Svetozar Miletić. Sombor, June 5, 1927. Unknown publisher. Source: private collection of the author.

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existence of far greater consensus than there actually was.110 However, the formation of a nation-state is rarely a harmonious process in which a nation emerges from a traditional ethnic community. Conflict and violence usually play a major role in this process and arise when entrenched ways of thinking about oneself, the community, and the world are replaced by other concepts.111 Of course, the nation with three names was not immune to this—it was part of the process of the formation of every nation. What made it unique was the exaggeration of differences in order to gain political advantages. The main purpose of celebrating national holidays is not for people to learn something, but to encourage them to become members of the community. People become nationally conscious and patriotic through affection, passion, and education, according to Jean-Jacques Rousseau.112 Therefore, he proposed introducing the custom of celebrating the memory of those who had the honor of suffering for the nation. The commemorations should preferably take place every ten years and be celebrated in a simple, serene, and republican way.113 The ideologues of the newly founded nation-state, which was to unite its peoples amid the ruins of tribal and historical differences, soon recognized the great obligation that history imposed upon them: to set in motion the physical and spiritual power of the people and to change their consciousness. So-called national education also played an important role in the nation with three names. It was seen as the most important instrument of modernization, on the one hand, and national cohesion on the other. The school system was thus the primary means of achieving these goals. One of the leading ideologists of Yugoslavism, the writer and politician Milan Marjanović, while reflecting on the foundations of national rebirth, exclaimed, “School! School! School!”114 The curriculum familiarized students with the heroes of the national revival and the symbols of national and state unity, and one of the goals of the pedagogical process was to instill a sense of national belonging and pride.115 In his report to the district teachers’ conference in the summer of 1923, the district school inspector Makso Hočevar noted that unity had been achieved only “outwardly, but that this unity is not yet real and lasting—we still lack a spiritual unity that would permeate the souls of all our citizens from Triglav to the Vardar.” Noting that this transformation was more difficult to achieve among older generations who have long lived “in slavery and subjugation,” Hočevar pleaded for “the transformation of our youth.” The task of teachers should therefore be to familiarize the youth with the “glorious history of our Serbian and Croatian brothers who protected us for centuries against the invasion of the bloodthirsty Turks.” As he put it, the youth should “get to know the Serbian heroes as an example of true, selfless love for the fatherland.”116

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On the territory of the provincial government for Slovenia, Vidovdan was celebrated publicly in schools for the first time on Saturday, June 28, 1919. As stated in the decree of the Supreme Board for Education in Ljubljana, classes were to be canceled on that day and schools were to hold “appropriate” celebrations. In 1924, the Ministry of Education issued a decree stating that the school year should end in all schools on Vidovdan. School celebrations were prepared for this day, during which, according to Slovenski Narod, the youth “commemorated those who gave their lives and blood for the final liberation of all Yugoslavs,”117 and, according to Slovenec, “honored the spirits of the heroes who fell for their fatherland.”118 Neither Slovenski Narod nor Slovenec explained on which side those who sacrificed their lives had fought in the war or for which fatherland they fell. The Vidovdan celebrations at the end of the school year mostly went unnoticed by the public. But every year journalists reported on certain celebrations, where students, in school halls decorated with tricolors and the portrait of King Aleksandar the Brave, sang melancholic songs about the Kosovo Maiden, while the state anthem with its strong chords filled hearts with pride. Reports on these “cultural-national manifestations” invariably mentioned the shining eyes of the youth and how the older participants were moved to tears. The emotionally charged language associated with Vidovdan was intended to give the new generation the power to tear down all relics of the past and break down the barriers of the present, opening wide the doors to a great future in a great homeland.119 In the early years, the teachers did not have sufficient help, so the school and Sokol associations ran into trouble every Vidovdan and December 1. In 1934, they were helped by Manica Koman, who wrote two suitable scenes, one for Vidovdan and the other for Unification Day. These plays could be performed in any classroom or in a Sokol hall. In the middle of the wall was a photograph of King Aleksandar, and the drama took place in the present. Children from all “three tribes” of the Yugoslav nation ( Janez, Dušan, Juro, Micika, Mileva, and Njeguška) participated in the Vidovdan festival, accompanied by the spirit of Tsar Lazar. The child performers were dressed (“preferably”) in Yugoslav traditional costumes or Sokol shirts.120 When the curtain rose, the children were already on stage. They stood in pairs and sang: Behind the hills black night has fallen The chains of slavery are broken! The Yugoslav now wanders as a free man He enters the Golden Vidovdan!121

Before Manica Koman wrote the two short texts, teachers had been on their own when it came to explaining the revolution in terms of symbols.

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Immediately after the revolution, the chairman of the teachers’ council in Poljane, in his first appearance before his students, admitted his hypocritical behavior during the war, saying that he had been forced to lie to them and “glorify those personalities who were anything but morally and divinely perfect, and who in truth were our greatest oppressors and wrong-doers and imposed the most injustices on us.”122 Others behaved differently, that is, they offered no explanations but simply shifted from respect for the emperor to respect for the king. When Jakob Dimnik, the director of the first municipal boys’ school in Ljubljana, retired at the end of the 1924 school year, “after 45 years of extremely successful pedagogical and national work,” a special solemn Vidovdan celebration was held in the school’s gymnasium. The room was decorated with greenery and flowers. Principal Dimnik said goodbye to the students in a short speech and “once again laid on their souls the love for parents, respect for teachers, love for the fatherland, and loyalty to the heroic ruler of the nation.”123 According to a report on this ceremony published in Jutro, acts like this will soon bring about “the end of all those who deceive the people and work against the state, because today’s youth is our salvation and the new generation will be a Yugoslav generation living under one roof, where Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes embrace each other and extend the hand of peace.”124

“The Brother Is Dear Whatever His Faith Is” However, even though the blood was thick enough to allow successful resistance until South Slavs were united into “one mass,” it was not thick enough to contribute to their understanding of each other. Indeed, about ten years before the unification of the nation with three names, Niko Zupanič was indignant because the Yugoslavs knew “absolutely no unity.”125 Normally, one would expect this troubling situation to change for the better after unification. However, this was not the case. About ten years after unification, Bogumil Vošnjak repeated the same question, “What does a Serb know about a Croat or a Slovene, or vice versa?”126 In fact, after unification there was not a single book on the history of the Yugoslavs. There was only the history of the Slovenes, the history of the Croats, and the history of the Serbs.127 Neither Nikola Pašić, nor Ante Trumbić, nor Ljubomir Davidović, nor Svetozar Pribićević, nor Anton Korošec, neither individually nor collectively, pondered about the question of how to turn peasants into Yugoslavs and what be the content of national unity should be. Only the fictional character of Shakespeare’s prince-philosopher Prospero is said to have asked himself this question,

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after he had retreated to Mount Avala on December 1, 1918, while the people of half-destroyed Belgrade celebrated, swore, and rejoiced. Resting his head on his hands, he contemplated Belgrade, Zemun, and the invisible land beyond the Sava, which had now become one, and he wondered how all these united peoples and territories would get used to each other: These cruel Balkanites from Šumadija, who fought with the Turks for centuries and who carry in their consciousness that all that Serbia won, it won with the sword and the četovanje; these Croats who litigated with the Hungarians with gravamen, ablegates, protests; these Montenegrins with the aristocratic sensibility of the nobles and highborn toward the minions; these fickle Latin hotheads from the Adriatic; these Carniolans from the Alps with their calculations and deželas: Dear God, how will they come together in peace?128

Neither the opanak at the feet of the soldiers nor the music played by a guslar was enough to change the situation after liberation and unification. What was needed was a clear and widely accepted ideology of Yugoslav nationalism. Therefore, Bogumil Vošnjak argued that the state and society should launch “not only a crusade against illiteracy, but also an educational campaign with lectures, films, public libraries, and reading rooms”129 on a clearly constructed ideological basis, rooted in Yugoslavism. In his view, the new political nation of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes had been founded with unprecedented effort, but its creators, blinded by politics, did not see “that this political nation must be a Yugoslav nation, and that the political nation must at the same time be a cultural nation.”130 In the period leading up to January 6, 1929, however, the fathers of the nation with three names had their hands full, allowing day-to-day political disagreements to metastasize into—if not fuel—interethnic conflicts. This was all the easier because the inhabitants of the individual parts of the country knew little about each other and remained unfamiliar to each other. The members of the nation with three names greeted liberation and unification with feelings of joy and love for each other, for they did not know each other. Later, they learned not to love or even hate each other because they knew nothing about each other. For the majority of people in the nation with three names, their compatriots from other areas of the nation-state remained little-known strangers, and the main source of information about them was political propaganda and anti-propaganda from before and during World War I. In the western part of the territory, the image of Serbia was built on aggressive propaganda that portrayed the inhabitants of the two Serbian kingdoms as “barbarians,” who, together with Byzantine civilization had adopted its worst elements; the Serbs, on the other hand, perceived the Prečani primarily as Švabi.

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On the eve of World War I, the Kingdom of Serbia participated in two Balkan Wars and emerged victorious from both. It almost doubled its territory (from 48,000 km² to 87,000 km²) and comprised slightly more than one-third of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes that was later established. Even greater than the territorial expansion, however, was the “satisfaction of the whole nation that after 500 years Kosovo had been avenged and the last Serb freed from the Turkish yoke.”131 Considering the fact that Serbia had emerged victorious from three successive wars and that the liberation and unification of the nation with three names was largely the result of Serbian heroism and sacrifice, it was to be expected that Serbs would put their stamp on the national holiday and the associated Kosovo mythology as one of the ideological cornerstones of the new nation-state. As Vladimir Ćorović notes, Serbia’s role in the national unification effort had always been the most active and difficult. It was in the Serbian state that the foundations for the creation of a national ideology were laid, and from “its blood grew, after the Kosovo catastrophe, the mythical flower of the Guslar song, which nourished generations of people in its tragic-heroic ethic, with great effect to this day.”132 In his lecture on the cause of the disturbance of the fraternal peace between Serbian Muslims and Orthodox Christians, held in Mostar on May 12, 1930, Hasan Rebac, a supporter of the Serbian National Radical Party and an opponent of the Bosnian Muslims’ ethnic political party Yugoslav Muslim Organization, said, among other things, that Orthodox Christians could be justly proud of the South Slavic national liberation and unification achieved by the “Orthodox Church of the Nemanjić dynasty.” Rebac mentioned that the Orthodox Christian contribution was recognized by both Catholics and Muslims with a sense of reverence for all the known and unknown victims of their centuries-long “tragic and glorious national history.” However, he argues, this pride should not be presented “in a form that dismisses other, non-Orthodox communities as allies, for this was not the wish of our perished and glorious knights sent by the blessedly resting King Petar the Liberator to entrust their bones to the great temple of our fatherland, because it ultimately hinders our general happiness and progress.”133 The elevation of the Kosovo myth proved to be a hasty decision, as it allowed the pre-war Serbian elite to continue to enjoy previously acquired privileges, while others had no such justification for their advancement in the new state. Indeed, certain things should occasionally be put on hold in peacetime, even if they have proven their worth in war. War heroes are generally poor builders in peace. The unification of the nation with three names united people who had previously stood on opposite sides of the battle lines during World War I into one community. In such a situation,

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the perpetuation of the mythologized past of one of the warring parties is almost identical to the continuation of the war by other means. Stojan Protić, the first prime minister of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, stated, after unification, that the Croats and Slovenes, as losers in the war, should feed the victor, because the reverse scenario would be unprecedented in the history of war: That the victor should feed the loser is no ordinary political error, but a cardinal and fatal one. The victor cannot and should not feed the defeated, but the defeated should feed the victor. Without regard to each other’s condition and without regard to who is socially stronger or weaker. The motto that the defeated must feed, endure, and obey the victor, that is an axiom.134

This view was not only wrong, but directly undermined the foundations of the new nation-state. The basis for a nation-state is a nationalized past accepted by the majority of its citizens. After World War I, the leading political parties, war veterans, and many journalists and academics interpreted the heroism and self-sacrifice of (Serbian) warriors during the war using images and symbols of Kosovo mythology. Such an interpretation of the nation’s history effectively meant its Serbianization, which at the same time excluded its Yugoslavization. And the Serbianization of the common past could be compared to the man from the introductory story choosing to take the cabbage with him across the river and leaving the wolf and the goat alone together. The glorification of Serbian mythology as the state mythology of the nation with three names, which was supposed to be the cornerstone of the bright future of the united nation, together with the provisions and spirit of the Vidovdan Constitution, became an evergreater stumbling block. The former president of the Yugoslav Council and the first Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, Ante Trumbić, in his speech at the Sabor in Zagreb on June 10, 1923, spoke of two Vidovdans and two Kosovos in Serbian history. For him, the first Kosovo was more honorable than the second (the adoption of the Vidovdan Constitution), “which was born with a moral defect that leaves it without moral value.”135 Revenge on Kosovo and the restoration of Tsar Dušan’s empire were essentially a Serbian national program, while the preservation of the memory of the old Serbian Empire was “primarily the work of the Serbian Orthodox Church.”136 The Church developed the Kosovo ideology on the basis of Christian symbolism, which could serve as a mobilization tool in a homogeneous and religiously intolerant Christian society. The use of Vidovdan as a basic ideology even after liberation and unification conjured up a religiously intolerant Serbian Middle Ages as a vision of a better fu-

186 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

ture for the nation with three names. However, Serbia was not the same as the nation-state of the Yugoslavs, a country with a substantial Muslim minority. Revenge for Kosovo had a very different meaning in Serbia than in Yugoslavia, “a country of mixed religions in which each group jealously guarded its religious feelings.”137 In such a state, citizens of different faiths could only “make one heart out of all hearts and one soul out of all souls” if they emphasized common values.138 Vidovdan ideology was clearly unsuited to this task. In Yugoslavia, it rather contributed to translating the famous proverb about the brother who is loved regardless of his faith into the euphony of a beautiful decasyllabic phrase without any real content.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

Elgenius, 2007, 79. Marjanović, 1919a, 262. Nikolajević, 1939, 26. Slovenec, June 27, 1922b. See, for example, Purivatra, 1974, 95. Edinost, October 17, 1923. Čerina, 1912. 5. Županić, 1917, 11. Popović, 1977, 88. Savić, 1919, 12; Ekmečić, 1991. Čerina, 1912, 22–23. Tomić, 1908, 6–7. Stanojević, 1919, 1; Ekmečić, 1991, 337; Popović, 2007, 157–58; Zirojević, 2002, 251. Milovanović, 1895, 14. Nušić, 1923, 3. Popović, 2007, 129–30; Zirojević, 2002, 251. Tresić Pavičić, 1928, 66. Popović, 2007, 159–60. Savić, 1919, 144. Makuljević, 2006, 81. Pavlowitch, 2002, 72. Milan Jovanović, 1939, 8. Županić, 1917, 9. Ibid. Hanak, 1962, 76. Vošnjak, 1916, 7. Hanak, 1962, 77. Županić, 1917, 9. Hanak, 1962, 77–78. Bartulica, 1919, 1. Vojnović, 1925, 2.

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32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80.

Bokovoy, 2001, 251. Pravda, August 28, 1924; Vreme, August 28, 1924. Dobrivojević, 2006, 332. Jutro, June 25, 1932. Dimitrijević, 1933, 4. Ćorović, 1924, 58–60. Čolović, 2016, 175. Jezernik, 2004, 105. Čolović, 2016, 179. Nikola, 1876, 2. See, for example, Jelenić, 1923, 25–26; Kranjec, 1927, 5. Vošnjak, 1916, 7. Čerina, 1912, 42. Cvijić, 1914, 5–6. Ušeničnik, 1914b, 296. Korošec, Pavelić, Pribićević, 1918, 1. Vošnjak, 1929, 126. Wachtel, 1998, 257. Jugoslav Committee in London, 1916, 3. Stojanović, 1935, 18. Lampe, 2006, 97. Lockhart, 1938, 99. Kosić, 1937, 56. Miljković, 1960, 441. Ibid., 442. Cf. Jakovljević, 1923, 46. Vilder, 1957, 121. Anderson, 1983. Vilder, 1957, 92. Ibid., 92–93. Rešetar, 1918. Rešetar, 1920, 294. Mitković, 1921, 357. Abbreviation for Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Ibid., 358. See, for example, Skerlić, 1913, 19–21; Ivanov, 1918, 39; Hribar, 1929, 70; In der Maur, 1936, I, 117; Lampe, 1996, 40. See, for example, Protić, 2006, 11. Zrnić, 1927, 4–5. Rešetar, 1920, 292. Stojadinović, 1963, 159. Grivec, 1919, 2. Kostić, 1934, 2. M. M. R., 1920, 1. Jurišić, 1924, 22. Jutro, June 28, 1921. Stanković, 1985, I, 261. Straža, June 11, 1923. Protić, 2006, 115. Samouprava, May 6, 1921c.

188 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129.

Trumbić, 1923, 6–7; cf. Kazimirović, 1990, 434–43; Suppan, 2003, 116. Zrnić, 1927, 4. Jutro, February 16, 1923h. Dulibić, 1921, 3; Trumbić, 1923, 6–7. Gooß, 1919, 118; Tartaglia, 1928, 36; Dedijer, 1967, 374. Ćorović, 1936, 554. See, for example, Vošnjak, 1929, 105–9; Bakić, 2004, 307. Kiproff, 1916, 20. Christowe, 1935, 45. Ibid.; see also Baerlein, 1922, 223; Lloyd George, 1939, II, 901–2; Stojadinović, 1963, 446; Jovanović, 2014, 40. Cf. Devine, 1921, 28. Luke, 2002, 13. J. M. Jovanović, 1939, 323. Lampe, 2006, 109–10. Bokovoy, 2001, 248. See, for example, Jezernik, 2004, 118–20. Popović-Obradović, 2008, 217. See Zirojević, 2002, 246–47. Bogosavljević, 1897, 99. Dragnich, 1974, 161. p., 1921, 295. Hrvatski Dnevnik, June 27, 1939. Salihagić, 1940, 34–35. Ibid., 40–41. Ibid., 45–46. Lazarević, 1919, 177. Dabrowski, 2004, 215. Vivian, 2010, 59. Slovenski Narod, July 1, 1923; Jutro, July 4, 1924; Rastoder, 2015, 316. Bell, 1992, 210. Billig, 1995, 27. Rousseau, 1782, 30. Ibid., 19–20. Marjanović, 1918, 23; 1919b, 41. See, for example, Učiteljski Tovariš, July 3, 1930. Hočevar, 1923, 4. Slovenski Narod, June 30, 1932. Slovenec, July 6, 1932. See, for example, Jutro, June 28, 1925f. Komanova, 1934, 4. Ibid., 5. Domovina, August 8, 1924. u–, 1924a, 4. Ibid. Županić, 1907b, 554. Vošnjak, 1929, 55. Lovšin, 1921, 2; see also Radošević, 1935, 268; Djordjevic, 1980, 1. Grisogono, 1938, 81. Vošnjak, 1929, 55.

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130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138.

Ibid., 57. Kranjec, 1927, 248. Ćorović, 1924, 92. Rebac, 1930, 30. Protić, 2006, 130. Trumbić, 1923, 26. Grisogono, 1938, 21. Salihagić, 1940, 42. Dimitrijević, 1933, 6.

Chapter 7

Celebrating the Unity of the Nation with Three Names

R

Every nation has days in the year that are collectively regarded as milestones in national history—days that “shed light on the past and the future.”1 These days are portrayed as shining monuments to times past, memorials to national feats, and milestones on the road to the future. According to the editorial in the holiday edition of Triglav, there were two days that best illuminated the history of the “Yugoslav nation”: Vidovdan and Unification Day. While the first represented the triumph of spirit over matter, of idea over force, the second signified the completion of historical development in the “realization of the sacred Vidovdan idea.”2 After World War I and the disintegration of the old empire, there was great uncertainty among Yugoslav populations in Austro-Hungarian lands about their future. On October 5, 1918, the National Council (Narodno vijeće) was founded in Zagreb. It proclaimed the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs and sought unification with the Kingdom of Serbia and the Kingdom of Montenegro. This was to be achieved by negotiating acceptable terms that would guarantee the autonomy of the former Habsburg lands. However, from the beginning, the members of the National Council did not agree on the terms of the union. One of the most influential members of the National Council, Svetozar Pribićević, firmly advocated the idea of a state based on the principles of unitarianism and centralism, with the Kingdom of Serbia and the Karađorđević dynasty at its head.3 He was only vociferously contradicted by Stjepan Radić, who advocated that “our nation-state” must ensure that “all three of our ancient national names,

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Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs” enjoy exactly the same rights and the same respect and esteem; and that this should also apply to all three religions (Orthodox Christianity, Catholicism, and Islam).4 At the beginning of November 1918, a conference took place in Geneva and was attended by the representatives of the Kingdom of Serbia and the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs; the representatives of the Kingdom of Montenegro did not attend. It was decided that until a common state constitution was proclaimed, two independent states would exist. However, a number of Serbian politicians close to the court did not accept the Geneva Agreement, which led the Serbian government to simply suspend it. As historian Darko Gavrilović argues, the Serbian government’s decision was, on the one hand, a consequence of the victorious march of the Serbian army across the Austro-Hungarian border, and, on the other hand, a consequence of the difficult situation in which the National Council of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs found itself after the collapse of the Dual Monarchy. In all this, Serbian politicians also played a role, striving for a different form of unification than that proposed by the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs.5 In those days, the Serbian army crossed the Sava and Danube rivers and occupied the Habsburg territory so that the Kingdom of Serbia would not have to recognize the government of the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs. In the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, the arrival of the Serbian army was not welcomed by everyone. On October 30, 1918, the president of Yugoslav Committee, Ante Trumbić, sent a telegram to Sir Arthur Evans and Wickham Steed, the editor of The Times, expressing opposition to the occupation by both the Italian and Serbian armies. Hinko Hinković, a Croat member of the Yugoslav Committee, interpreted this letter as an indication that, in Trumbić’s view, the Serbian army came as “conquerors, that is, in the service of Greater Serbia.”6 The Kingdom of Italy did not recognize the new state either, and occupied the Yugoslav ethnic territories in Istria and Dalmatia.7 In this chaotic situation, the majority of the National Council accepted Pribićević’s idea of an unconditional and necessary union with Serbia. Only Stjepan Radić opposed the idea of plunging blindly into the union. He proposed the rule of three regents (the Serbian regent, the Ban of Croatia, and the president of the Slovene National Council) and a common government with three ministers and the Supreme Council, composed of delegates from the various autonomous provinces.8 The Croatian Pure Party of Rights was the only major actor to reject the creation of Yugoslavia as a whole, stubbornly insisting on its position that the Croats had fought the war specifically for their own statehood rights; these were briefly granted to them on October 29, 1918, but were revoked as early as December 1, 1918.9

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The Central Committee of the National Council in Zagreb rejected Radić’s proposal, electing instead, on November 24, a committee of twentyeight members and instructing it to establish the common state without delay through negotiations both with the government of the Kingdom of Serbia and with the representatives of all Serb and Montenegrin parties. For their trip to Belgrade, the delegates received Naputak (Guidelines) stating that the organization of the state (be it a monarchy or a republic) would be decided by the Constituent Assembly, which would adopt the constitution by a two-thirds majority. The delegation was received in Belgrade with great honors. The Serbian, Slovene, and Croat flags fluttered at the provisional residence of the prince regent. During the consultations with the representatives of the Serbian government, a small group of members of the National Council delegation, consisting of three members (Svetozar Pribićević, Ante Pavelić, and Josip Smodlaka), deviated from the main points of the guidelines and agreed that the common state should be a hereditary monarchy and that the requirement of a two-thirds majority for the adoption of the constitution should be waived.10 Ilija Bošnjak asked whether the members of the delegation could have decided better, more fairly, and more wisely? No, was his answer, because the Croats and Slovenes could not ask Serbia to reject its ruling house after unification and take the crown off its king’s head. Reason would not allow such a thing, because the nation needed a crowned head and, on top of that, the Karađorđević dynasty deserved to be rewarded for their services to Serbia and the whole nation.11 In any case, the vast majority of the citizens of the newly established nation-state saw liberation and unification as the end point of their journey from the dark days of slavery to the bright days of freedom in the land of dreams.12 The air was full of expectations and nothing seemed impossible. Optimism that dreams would come true prevailed, and ignoring reality became the general rule. United in a great national kolo dance with a common ideal in the general Babylonian atmosphere of the first days of peace and freedom, people forgot that the house is not built from top to bottom, but from the foundations up; that one does not put stoves and mirrors on an empty building site, but first brings bricks to build the walls.13 On December 1, 1918, the representatives of National Council, as delegates of the Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs on the territory of the former Dual Monarchy, declared that they “wish to unite with Serbia and Montenegro into one nation-state.” The Crown Prince and the Regent of Serbia Aleksandar Karađorđević responded to this address by proclaiming “the unification of Serbia with the lands of the independent state of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs.”14 The December 1 Act, historian Ferdo Čulinović reminds us, only looked like a bilateral agreement between the representatives of the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs and the Kingdom of Serbia. According

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to him, the Act in fact represented the victory not only of centralism, but also of autocracy, and especially the concept of prisajedinjenje (annexation).15 On this occasion, the Crown Prince and Regent Aleksandar was appointed the regent of Yugoslavia. Numerous commentators, both at the time and later, agreed that a “centuries-old dream” had come true with the proclamation of unification and the “epic journey of Yugoslav patriots through history” had come to an end.16 In the atmosphere of general euphoria, the independent Kingdom of Montenegro disappeared from the map without further ado.17 December 1 was designated as the “decisive milestone”18 that “divided the life of our nation into two periods—the period of millennial slavery and the future of unified independent life.”19 It represented “a synthesis of the centuries-long efforts and the heroic efforts of the millions of martyrs,”20 “the greatest day of the South Slavs since their arrival in the Balkans.”21 According to the Korošec newspaper, the organ of the National Council in Velikovec (German: Völkermarkt), this was the day when “dreams that our nation had dreamed for centuries while groaning under the foreign yoke” came true.22 The newspaper found it difficult to find the right word to describe the feelings evoked, so it turned to mythology: The fetters that pulled the whole world to the ground have fallen, and the hope of a better, simple, free future has been kindled. Kralj Matjaž stood up, unsheathed his sword, brandished it and cut the chains that bound the nations. The Slovene genus awoke from its nightmare in a heavenly and warm spring sun. It rubbed its dreamy eyes and recognized its homeland as beautiful and wonderful as it had not seen it for a thousand years. It rose and stood under the free sun.23

From the earliest days, orators and journalists elevated the celebration of Unification Day to the rank of civic religion. Even the language used by politicians and journalists to mobilize the population largely resembled the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, which proclaimed that God was one, but three coessential persons. When the Yugoslav bishops commented on the significance of Unification Day at their meeting, they interpreted the historic day as the work of divine providence, which determined on December 1, 1918, that the “Yugoslav nation of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs” would rise “into the light of the sun of God” after centuries of suffering.24

“Slovenes, Serbs, Croats, Forever Brothers to Each Other!” On December 3, 1918, the National Council in Zagreb decided to declare December 1, considered the most important day in the history of the na-

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tion, a national holiday “to commemorate and celebrate the unification of the entire Yugoslav nation.” In 1918, “due to traffic problems,” it was decided to hold the celebrations on Saturday and Sunday, December 14 and 15. On Saturday, the celebrations took place in the schools, where teachers had prepared lectures on the “magnificence and happiness of the unification of the nation into the State of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes,” while in the evening, the military garrisons organized solemn processions accompanied by music. On Sunday, the historic event was celebrated in the churches, with prayers, tributes, and public readings of the address of the National Council and the response of Regent Aleksandar. Representatives of all authorities, as well as the school youth, participated in the church ceremonies. The military authorities held solemn parades, the bells rang, and 101 shots were fired from the seat of government. They also ordered that the Slovene, Croatian, and Serbian flags be hoisted on all public buildings and, if possible, on private buildings on the day of the celebrations. Finally, the presidency of the National Council instructed the provincial authorities to send out telegraphic circulars containing a brief biography of the Karađorđević dynasty and an account of its contribution to the unification of the nation, and the efforts of the first Yugoslav patriots to unify “our nation.”25 A year later, the Minister of Interior Affairs, in a decision announced on November 15, 1919, determined that December 1 should be celebrated as Unification Day.26 There would be no classes in schools on this date, so students and teachers could participate in a special joint service of thanksgiving to God. Following the service, the reasons for the celebration were recited in classrooms and reference was made to the historic event of the unification of the nation with three names in the SCS state. The relevant authorities recommended that a short biography of the Karađorđević dynasty be presented to the youth, describing its achievements in unifying the nation.27 The suffering endured during the thousand years of slavery and the joyous union of the nation with three names following liberation were the favorite themes of orators and of articles published on December 1. The main message of the solemn commemoration of Unification Day was that the kingdom of the nation with three names was among the most modern states because it proclaimed the sovereignty of the nation. There was no such thing in the Austro-Hungarian Empire because only the imperial will and the will of the imperial dignitaries were carried out, while the people were kept silent.28 Exaggerated depictions of the injustice and backwardness of the Dual Monarchy served as a mirror that allowed contemporaries of the post-revolutionary era to see themselves as happy citizens of a new, modern, and just state.

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Especially in the first years of the new nation-state, the Slovenian press took pains to paint “small, peasant Serbia” in rosy colors to its readers in the holiday editorials, describing it as more just and humane than the old Austria in every respect. Thus, Domovina readers could read in the 1918 holiday edition that in the former state on the Danube it was mainly nobles of all kinds who were in charge, while in Serbia the peasant ruled through his village representatives and educated people whose fathers carried the opanci and ploughed the land. If the Dual Monarchy had bred clerks and foremen, who were said to dishonor, shame, and mistreat the peasant in their offices, in Serbia the peasant entered the highest offices “as his own house,” where he was greeted with respect by officials from the highest to the lowest. In Austro-Hungarian schools, the pupils heard only of German and Hungarian heroes, while in Serbia Serbian history was taught, with the result that every Serbian boy was proud of his history and his Serbian name. Moreover, in Austria, not all people had been equal before the law and the court, because the law had been tailored differently for peasants, workers, and the poor, on the one hand, and the rich and noble on the other. Moreover, the laws had been tailored according to nationality; they were favorable to Germans and Hungarians, and unfavorable to Slavs. Again, it was purportedly different in Serbia, where the law did not discriminate on the basis of class, tribe, or title. It applied equally to all. Since Serbian laws protected the peasant, he fought like a lion for his fatherland. The stark contrast between the gloomy picture of the failed Austria-Hungary and the bright picture of “little Serbia” allowed only one conclusion: “Yugoslavia will treat everyone fairly, our laws will be enforced justly in it.”29 When the London-based Yugoslav Committee began its work in 1915, its members appeared like “madmen asking for the moon.”30 And yet, in just a few years, World War I shattered the ancient empires that had dominated Central and Eastern Europe and ushered in an age of national self-determination. The reshaping of the post-war architecture of the Old Continent resulted in immense changes to the geopolitical map. In the Paris Peace Treaty of 1919, which formally ended the war, the nation-state was given the supreme mandate under international law as the only natural form of political community. Contemporaries believed that the emergence of nation-states, including the common state of the Yugoslavs, was the only good thing to have come out of the atrocities of the war.31 The nation-state of the Yugoslavs, however, was not only a child of inflamed nationalism, but also an adopted child of the triumphant Entente members, who calculatingly gave it the Herculean task of containing German imperialism in its drive to the East and Bolshevism in its drive to the West.32 In order to endow the young kingdom with sufficient power to undertake such colossal tasks, it was declared a “wonder of history.” The rationale

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was that it was a tremendous historical achievement for a nation that had settled and found a new home in the Balkans in the seventh century and then been divided by geography, politics, religion, language, economics, and social order for twelve centuries to somehow regain unity and eventually rise to make the illustrious claim of political union.33 The new nation-state of the nation with three names also received the blessing of the Roman Catholic Church. The Pope remained silent, but the Bishop of Krk, Antun Mahnić, sent a letter of ardent support from Rome nine years after the birth of the nation-state. It stated, among other things: God, in his wise providence, has miraculously brought us together into one body. The great day has come upon us, and a sign has appeared in heaven with the inscription S[ERBS] C[ROATS] S[LOVENES]. My nation, under this sign you will triumph! Croats, Serbs, Slovenes! It is God’s will that you remain inseparably united for centuries.34

Any upheaval in the existing social and political order gives rise to the need to reinterpret the past in order to adapt it to suit current social change. At such times, societies seek new cultural forms to replace old traditions and legitimize the new social and political order. Political elites invoke myths because they can be used to instill chaotic historical experiences with meaning and provide answers to moral dilemmas that arise under the circumstances. In particular, they resort to myths because they can help them to affirm their own interpretations of the nation’s past and present, as well as their own visions of the future.35 Their success depends in large part on their ability to provide the public with a sufficiently acceptable image of the past. Accordingly, those images of the past that can be bestowed with an aura of traditionalism prove most effective.36 The massive shifts on the geopolitical map of Europe meant that the newly emerged nations needed to create new origin myths that explained why each particular nation-state had come into being and why its citizens should identify with it. This need was particularly acute among the Yugoslavs, who had never previously established a common state. Many journalists and scholars pointed to the blood relationship between Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes as the ideological foundation of Yugoslav state unity. Journalist and politician Đurđe Jelenić, for instance, argued that “the ancient ancestors of all Yugoslavs” came to their new homeland from “the other side of the Carpathians” as early as the Migration Period, the volatile epoch between the fourth and seventh centuries ad that, among other things, shaped the ethnic individuality of all European nations.37 Ethnologist Jovan Erdeljanović also stated that in “ancient times” all Slavs lived together “as one nation” in the land north of the Carpathian Mountains,

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between the great rivers Dnieper in the east and Odra in the west.38 This theory was supported by foreign scholars, for example, the historian Robert Joseph Kerner, who wrote that when the Yugo-Slavs first occupied the western half of the Balkan Peninsula, they were “one in speech, in social customs and ancestry, and were divided only into tribes.”39 Politicians readily adopted this myth, and King Aleksandar shaped it into the fundamental truth of the Yugoslav nation-state: Divided for centuries yet not detached, torn apart by the brute force and deceit of the global empires of Rome and Byzantium, Vienna and Istanbul, but never broken in spirit, we have loyally preserved the sacred legacies of our ancestors. On this basis of common origin, we have spent centuries in hardship and under various influences . . . always remembering well and knowing that we are brothers, that we are ONE.40

The myth of the blood relationship of the Yugoslav people was connected to the concept of the nation as a family. According to this view, the members of a nation have a blood relationship that binds them together into a special community and excludes all others. Jelenić even went so far as to claim that “nothing in the whole world is more natural or just” than the aspirations of the Yugoslavs.41 As Tabor, the daily newspaper of the Yugoslav Democratic Party, put it on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the unification: “Our father, mother, and children are united in one family. We all have the same language and the same blood. We live together through happy and sad times. The strong bond of unification binds us into a strong whole. The family union is very similar to the union of our three tribes of the SCS. This union we call the Yugoslav Union or the Kingdom of the SCS.”42 As a reason why the Yugoslavs, after settling in their new homeland, did not succeed in founding a state of their own, in spite of their blood relationship, the politicians, journalists, and historians cited the jealousy of foreigners who sought to break up the Yugoslav national corps and claim its territory for themselves. They argued that among the Yugoslavs, despite unfavorable geographical and political circumstances, the aspiration to live in a common state was supposedly the “unquenchable desire of the nation,” persistently passed on from generation to generation, “as the attempts of King Samo and his union of the Slavic tribes, of Ljudevit of Pannonia, of King Tvrtko, of Karađorđe clearly prove.” In this sense, we see that the Yugoslav unification was not a “spontaneous event, but the fruit of a centuries-long struggle,” as the Učiteljski Tovariš put it. Indeed, it took many sacrifices and long centuries for the nation’s historic dreams to finally come true, under the leadership of Regent Aleksandar, who proclaimed the

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unification of all Yugoslavs on December 1, 1918. Thus, the ancient dreams arose “from the soil soaked with the blood of heroes and martyrs,” and their bright future will be secured only through “the earnest commitment of each and every one of us.”43 This gave rise to the unconditional duty of “every true Yugoslav”: on the one hand, to strengthen unity through words and deeds, and, on the other hand, to block anything that might disturb this unity or harm it in any way. It was the duty of the school, the Church, and the home to sow and nurture in the hearts of the young a love for the king and the common state. Anyone who said anything against unity and incited Slovenes and Croats against their brothers, the Serbs, would be committing a “fratricidal and infernal act of destruction.” To all those who wished to prevent the achievement of a strong internal unity, the newspaper Tabor quoted the last stanza of Anton Aškerc’s ballad as a warning: Their hearts have rejected the will The will of King Svatopluk And penance for this great sin will fall Even upon grandchildren to come—the foreign yoke!44

The celebration of national days represents an attempt to impress the extraordinary significance of the birth of a particular nation upon the minds of its members. These days symbolize and commemorate the struggles of the members’ forefathers—be they armed, political, or religious— and encourage reflection on the significance of the past to the present.45 As the Bishop of Split, Juraj Carić, said in his sermon on December 1, something important began to appear before the eyes of contemporaries on this “great baptismal day”: “A nation torn asunder puts its members together and makes itself a worthy member of the family of nations.”46 The celebration of Unification Day served to bring the past, real or imagined, back to life and make it a part of the present. Mass public gatherings, the waving of national flags, and performances by military orchestras and military parades served to strengthen patriotic feelings, national loyalty, and solidarity, while an aestheticized self-presentation of the nation and its great past gave the masses a sense of political participation.47 Politics is the art of unification; out of many it makes one, as Michael Walzer theorized. “The state is invisible; it must be personified before it can be seen, symbolized before it can be loved, imagined before it can be conceived.”48 Ljubljana first celebrated Unification Day in mid-December 1918 with a ceremonial parade and torchlight procession through the city. Representatives of the provincial government addressed the assembled masses at City Hall and Military Command, and the bishop was greeted with an ovation in front of the Bishop’s Palace. On the balcony of the

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Magistrate Building, Mayor Ivan Tavčar spoke on behalf of the municipality, standing next to a decorated portrait of King Petar in place of the two-headed black eagle.49 Later, at the meeting of the municipal council of the Slovene capital, the mayor explained that they were gathered there to honor the memory of December 1, the day when the “foundation of the powerful, strong, and united Yugoslavia” was laid. The Yugoslavs were imbued with the spirit of unification, Tavčar said, just as the spirit of unification had permeated the Apennine Peninsula when General Garibaldi crushed southern Italian separatism. At that time, only the Savoy dynasty could save Italy and its unity. “That is the truth,” he concluded, “and that is why we will never forget that the Karađorđević dynasty became the savior of Yugoslavia, especially of the Slovene and Croatian territories, at a time when the Italian Armada was threatening to rob us and there was a danger of losing the confidence and support of the Entente.”50 He then proposed to the Municipal Council that a telegram should be sent to the king and the regent expressing their deep loyalty and gratitude, and that Emperor Joseph Square should be renamed King Peter Square and Slovene Square should be renamed December 1 Square.51 In addition, the festive celebrations emphasized the unity and strength of the national will, which, after twelve centuries, made it possible, for the first time in history, for “the hitherto divided and denied nation” to step into the light of day with a common mission. Reporters described a mood of jubilation such as history had not yet known, “when three brothers found themselves in a brotherly embrace, who for centuries before had been in the service of foreign masters and had suffered under a foreign yoke,” while their enemies (Germans, Hungarians, and Ottomans) lay “defeated on the ground,” along with their “treacherous brother,” the Bulgarian, the “Slavic Judas.”52 With the liberation and unification, a period of general happiness began: We rejoice, honestly and proudly: every Yugoslav can be proud of himself today: we know that the Serbs have proved to be the greatest heroes, and it is an honor for us to be one with them: one nation, one king, one state. Let us not be half-hearted, let us resolutely and enthusiastically raise our tricolor, equal to the Serbian one! What the Serbs are in the south, we Slovenes will be in the north: never again will an enemy defeat us. Croats in the middle, Slovenes on the left and Serbs on the right—this is our Yugoslav army, which will stand firm as rock and bone and faithfully guard its homeland, liberated in such hard battles. We rejoice. Slovene Christmas is approaching.53

However, as Albin Prepeluh warned, the citizens did not attach any particular importance to the celebrations. Rather, he stated, people were over-

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whelmed by radical political and social slogans, and many were waiting for great events, especially social upheaval, that did not materialize. In this atmosphere, the unification that had taken place in faraway Belgrade did not receive the attention it deserved throughout the country.54

Rousseauian Pillars of Nationalism According to Gustav Omahen, the birth of a new nation on December 1, 1918, separated the past from the present. The liberated nation now held the future in its hands—and with it the duty to pass on this precious gift as a legacy to future generations.55 The foreigner mentality that had enslaved the souls of the older generations, Omahen continued, must give way to the “free Yugoslav” mentality, because only in this way can “the idea of unity” take shape.56 Essential to the identity of individuals and groups is the experience of sameness across time and space, and this is maintained through memories. What we forget and what we remember, who is the perpetrator and who is the beneficiary, always depends on the social context. For this reason, according to John Gillis, memory has its own politics, as does identity.57 In the new nation-state, national education was seen as the most important tool for modernization, on the one hand, and for strengthening national cohesion on the other. Nationalism embraced Rousseau’s idea of the importance of indoctrinating the youth with the Yugoslav idea to prepare them for their future political struggles.58 The Yugoslav nationalists at that time saw in a healthy and educated generation “the best guarantee for the proper development of our nation in the future.”59 They expected teachers, in a rather Rousseauesque manner, to educate schoolchildren in a true national spirit. For their contribution to national education, teachers were eventually given the accolade of being called the Pillar of Yugoslav Nationalism.60 In the kingdom with the new name, teachers were to play the most important role in the formation of the Yugoslav mentality. Their role in peace was compared to that of officers and flag bearers in war.61 Calendars in themselves do not have a political dimension, but the choice of which day in the calendar to mark with red is always political. The political character of such days is reflected both in the choice of date and in how they are named, which make them prone to political controversy and politicization. Generally, any day can be named as a holiday that celebrates the nation. The choice is left to the ruling elites, and traditions invented in this way are not always popular with the people.62 David McCrone and Gayle McPherson point out that national holidays are important markers of national narratives in the service of current political elites. As such, these dates are subject to contestation and conflict, interpretation

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and reinterpretation, remembering and forgetting. That one event is illuminated while others are relegated to the background is the result of the engagement of political bodies. As for the seemingly arcane debate about what date to set for a holiday, what form and content to give to ceremonies, this is essentially an attempt to bring a particular story into focus and thereby legitimize the interests of particular groups.63 Unification Day was intended, along with the other state holidays, to help shape and reinforce the narrative image of a community that defines itself as We and feels as One. In the general confusion following the end of World War I, however, it was not clear exactly when the old Austria was laid to rest or when the exact birthday of the nation with three names occurred. Several dates were considered as possibilities. For some, November 11, the day the armistice was concluded in 1918, was the most appropriate date on which to celebrate the war child with three names; former participants in the war and advocates of fraternization among nations chose this date as a “holiday of common life, tolerance, and peace for all mankind.”64 Others suggested October 28 because it was on that date that Austria officially accepted the proposal of President Woodrow Wilson concerning the Czechs and Yugoslavs.65 The third option for the biggest Slovene national holiday, which had more supporters with each passing year, was October 29.66 The day after Count Gyula Andrássy, the foreign minister of the Dual Monarchy, confirmed the acceptance of Wilson’s proposals, the masses in the streets of Ljubljana cheered loudly “the great day of salvation.”

Figure 7.1. “The Founding of Yugoslavia.” A manifestation that took place in Ljubljana, October 29, 1918. Photo by Fr. Grabietz. Source: private collection of the author.

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The newspaper Slovenec reported enthusiastically that the army of Kralj Matjaž was sleeping under the mountain. On top of the mountain was a huge rock, which, according to Slovenec, was too heavy even for the Cyclopes and Titans of the national spirit and will to lift. The soldiers slept and waited for the great day. And at last it came—with the help of the American president, the national faith in freedom “came with all its might to the light of day.”67 Thousands of people gathered in Congress Square to bid farewell to “old Austria” with loud cheers and welcome the “young Yugoslavia.”68 According to Jakob Dimnik, the date of October 29, 1918, and later December 1, represented the culmination of national happiness. Once they had been slaves, but no longer, for an intangible and undeserved grace had given them something they knew only from fairy tales: freedom.69 Four years after the “liberation of the Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs from Austria-Hungary,” Slovenec noted with regret that neither the central government in Belgrade nor the provincial authorities in Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo, and Split felt it necessary to commemorate the anniversary of October 29. Slovenec claimed this was not wise statesmanship and that “nations are not so blind as to not see the goal.” In light of the government’s silence, it called on the people to at least “use this day to silently and humbly commemorate this important historical event.”70 December 1 was thus chosen to affirm a particular event, a particular interpretation of the past, a particular ideology. The political dimension of the silent and humble commemoration of the historical event that took place in Belgrade on that day was revealed by the political newspaper of the Slovene Autonomist Association. An anonymous student sharply criticized the panegyrics published by the Slovene press, claiming that with such writings the “official intelligentsia” was celebrating “the day when its nation sought a new master, having found that the burden of freedom imposed on it on October 29, 1918, was too heavy.” The establishment of the common state of the “three Slavic nations” would be welcomed by all Slovenes and Slavs, he wrote angrily, “if it were not so obvious how December 1 happened and why it happened: the inner immaturity of the three nations, primarily the Slovene.”71

March Separately, Strike Unitedly The Slovene press ever more vociferously pointed out that the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was in fact made up of three nations, not three tribes, and urged its readers every year on October 29 to raise their glasses to Liberation Day. It argued that October 29, 1918, “should remain written forever as the greatest day in the history of the Slovene nation, no matter

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how much the sons, ashamed that they were born of a Slovene mother and brought up by a Slovene father, try to erase all memories of the great day of their Slovene nation.”72 In the crisis period preceding the abolition of the constitution by King Aleksandar, however, Slovene nationalists offered a new interpretation of October 29, 1918. The historian Josip Mal, for instance, claimed that on that day the Slovenes “chose their freedom and independence and then, by forming a government (October 31), created a politically and administratively united Slovenia with Ljubljana as its capital.”73 The National Council of Slovenia in Washington commemorated this date before the fortieth anniversary of national liberation. President Miha Krek and Vice President Bogumil Vošnjak wrote that the liberation lasted only twenty-two years before it was “destroyed” by World War II. “But as we all know,” they reminded their readers, “regimes come and go, and the people who create them arise and disappear, while the nation simply buries everything and lives on.”74 The Gorizia newspaper Katoliški glas used the seventieth anniversary of the Ljubljana manifestation of October 29 as an opportunity to confront the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who claimed that the Slovenes had gone to bed at the end of October 1918 as subjects of Karl von Habsburg and woken up as subjects of Petar Karađorđević. It claimed that this was untrue “because the Slovenes had already gained independence from Austria on October 29, 1918, and had united with Serbia a month later, in December of the same year.”75 As for October 29, Slovene and Croat politicians and the press were on the same wavelength. The Zagreb daily Obzor complained that the common state had neglected the significance of October 29 after the war. This led the author to draw conclusions about a “Belgrade hegemony.” The daily Hrvat devoted an entire front page to the tenth anniversary of October 29, comparing Croatia’s situation in 1918 (it had its own territory, government, etc.) with the situation ten years later (alleged chaos, disorder; the Croatian government, army, diplomatic cadres, and police “in the hands of the Serbs”).76 The Croatian nationalists, members of the Pure Party of Rights, were even more radical and chose their own holidays: October 29, December 1 and 5 (when soldiers protested in Ban Jelačić Square), and All Saints’ Day. On these days, a small number of their sympathizers gathered to commemorate the “betrayal and violence” that the Croats had suffered in the last days of World War I. From their point of view, on December 1, 1918, the Croats had been deprived of their historical rights.77 As historian Ferdo Čulinović notes, between the two wars, the ruling circles in Serbia advocated a drastic policy of liberation with only their own interests in mind. They had no interest in the Yugoslav national question, but were only interested in “the territorial expansion of their own state.”78 This policy was supported by Nikola Pašić, then prime minister

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Figure 7.2. Vera Bojničić, October 29, 1918. Published by Rudolf Polaček, Zagreb. Source: private collection of the author.

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of the government of the Kingdom of Serbia, and his National Radical Party. In contrast to the Yugoslav Committee in London, which advocated unification, the radicals expected the Kingdom of Serbia to annex the liberated Yugoslav territories, just as Serbia had expanded in 1878 and after the Balkan Wars in 1912–13.79 The positions of the Serbian government and the Yugoslav Committee converged when the idea of uniting the Yugoslav states into a common state was adopted in the form of a constitutional act, the Corfu Declaration. Shortly after the signing of the declaration, however, the Pašić government reverted to its old “Greater Serbia” stance, defending its position as a “reality” since the Entente had not yet decided the fate of Austria-Hungary. Under these circumstances, the Serbian government considered a plan B: the possibility of incorporating Bosnia-Herzegovina into its territory. Whether plan B was a result of adaptation to the situation or a reflection of the policy of the time is difficult to say. However, there is no doubt that this policy adjustment was “anti-Yugoslav” and that it was detrimental to the unification of the nation with three names.80 After the war, the idea of annexation disappeared from the official narrative, but it still permeated the politics of the time. Differences in views on reunification grew. The fifth anniversary of reunification was celebrated with solemn ceremonies in the eastern parts of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, whereas in Zagreb no flags were hoisted to mark the holiday of unity and freedom. Likewise, in the Bosnian towns “where Spaho ruled” and in the “rural and clerical” part of Slovenia, one could not find any sincere conviction or enthusiasm for the celebration.81 In Croatia, school inspections often came to disastrous conclusions. The inspection of eleven elementary schools in Našice County showed that in nine educational institutions, schoolchildren did not know who the king was or what dynasty he belonged to. Only three schools, out of a total of forty in Našice County, celebrated December 1, the most significant national day, but the children in those schools had “no idea” what its significance was. Some schools did not have the king’s picture, and most pictures of him were “frameless, damaged, dirty, cheap, and ugly, so they did nothing but shame us.” It was also concluded that the children did not have the faintest idea about national history and that they regard Croats as “a nation on its own.”82 The Ljubljana newspaper Avtonomist explained the muted enthusiasm by stating that “our people” (the Slovenes) had realized that “our brothers” (the Serbs) understood by unification, liberation, and the like to mean “only the ruthless exploitation of our captured Slovenes, Croats, and other Prečani.” The Slovenes, Avtonomist claimed, were more honest than other members of the nation. They really believed in the great Yugoslav idea and

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were ready to do “whatever was necessary and in our power” for that idea. But as soon as the Belgrade gentlemen returned from various French resorts and summer retreats and felt secure in their high offices, they began to reveal “their treacherous, insidious, and materialistic nature.” They no longer saw in Prečani their “liberated and united brothers” but rivals with a “Western, honest, and truly democratic mentality” who could “throw them off the role of drone they had played for so long in Little Serbia.” Later, all their activities and efforts were aimed at “bringing the wealthy and rich Prečani region to its knees, subjugating it politically and economically, and filling their insatiable pockets at the expense of the blistered hands of the Prečani provinces.” Then the Serbs allegedly began a policy of “ruthless exploitation and theft unparalleled in Europe.” Allegedly, the Slovenes had had enough of all the “false phrases about unification, liberation, Yugoslavism,” for they increasingly felt that “underneath these hypocritical slogans were only the plundering instincts of the Belgrade oligarchy,” which led to the starvation of civil servants and the destruction of peasants, artisans, and the industry, after the Prečani had lost piece by piece what they had fought back in Austria. And so, as Avtonomist concluded, the Prečani had “Balkanized” themselves in every way possible.83 In the Slovene part of the triple-named kingdom, the first visible cracks in the new national entity appeared in the public discussion about whether the term ujedinjenje (unification), used in the official Serbo-CroatianSlovene language to refer to the historical event of December 1, 1918, and its political consequences, was a Slovene word at all. In the political vocabulary of the Slovenes since the March Revolution of 1848, the word zedinjenje (unification) had occupied a special place, best exemplified in the program Zedinjena Slovenija (United Slovenia). In Wolf ’s Dictionary, however, there are four similar terms: zedinjenje, zjedinjenje, ujedinjenje, and uedinjenje. Maks Pleteršnik translated the Slovene word zediniti as zu einem Einzigen machen (to make one); concentrieren (to concentrate); vse vojake v eno vojsko zediniti; sjediniti vereinen, vereinigen (to unite);84 uediniti, and ujediniti with vereinigen, unificieren (to unite, to unify).85 The word ujedinjenje supposedly sounded foreign to Slovene ears, while the word zedinjenje did not seem to be an accurate description of the historical event and its significance for the future of the nation with three names. Some used the term uedinjenje to describe the issue. For example, the newspaper Slovenski Narod used it as early as 1906 in its report on the founding in Vienna of the Slovenski Jug (Slavic South) club, which had the task of “bringing about the cultural uedinjenje of all Yugoslav tribes.” The Slovenski Jug was founded on the initiative of Serbs and Croats, who were later joined by Slovenes and Bulgarians. The membership of the club grew so quickly that it soon considered transforming itself into an associ-

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ation with the goal of pursuing the “cultural zedinjenje of all Yugoslavs.”86 The Slovenski Narod reporter used the term uedinjenje as a synonym for zedinjenje, apparently intending to adapt linguistically to the Yugoslav ujedinjenje. Over time, however, it was concluded that there are no equivalent words and that differences in form indicate differences in meaning. For example, in Plamen, Josip Wilfan claimed that “zedinjenje refers to what is separate and uedinjenje to what is different,” meaning that zedinjenje leads to unity by joining and binding, while uedinjenje leads to unity by equating and combining. The former relates to unity based on form, that is, external unity, and the latter relates to unity based on content, that is, internal unity or oneness. He supported his argument by quoting Helmuth von Moltke’s statement that it is good to march separately and strike together (“Getrennt marschieren, vereint schlagen”). According to Wilfan’s interpretation, the transition from being separate to being undivided is zedinjenje, not uedinjenje. Therefore, one could say that the zedinjenje of the nation with three names was achieved to the extent that Serbia, Montenegro, and parts of the late Dual Monarchy managed to join and unite. In terms of statehood, uedinjenje was achieved to the extent that it was possible to equalize and integrate the main affairs of the state—legislative, administrative, and judicial—and, in general, the more or less important aspects of state organization and activity.87 A year after Wilfan, the difference between zedinjenje and ujedinjenje was explained by Jugoslavija. It claimed that the word sjedinjenje, while linguistically more appropriate, referred to something more mechanical and external, while the term ujedinjenje referred to internal coalescence into something more homogeneous. The anonymous author added that there was more to the matter than just one word, he advised the choice of word ujedinjenje.88

Straw That Quickly Burns After the whirlwind of war that had shaken the world for four years, it was hoped in Central Europe that the new order—the final enthronement of the idea of nationality—would bring the Golden Age of liberty, progress, and general tolerance.89 Especially in the new nation-state of the Yugoslavs, the expectation was widespread that within a few months the land would be transformed, as if with a magic wand, into a land flowing with milk and honey. The prospect of a great good was too tempting to contemplate how much time must pass to go, as an old Persian song says, from a silkworm cocoon to a silk shirt.90 But, sooner or later, the time would come to take off the Sunday suit and put on the everyday working clothes to build on the

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rubble left by the Great War the most beautiful state building imaginable. Things were no longer as easy in labor as they had been in the wonderful days of the unification. There were never enough workers, let alone educated and dedicated ones. As time went by, more and more people noticed that the first wonderful days of Yugoslavia had become “repulsive.”91 After unification in 1918, the ship of the kingdom of the nation with three names sailed into the open sea of the world. However, after numerous invited and uninvited leaders appeared, many lost sight of the founding principles on which the ship had been built. People fell into despair, wondering who was to blame for their centuries-old dreams increasingly resembling castles in the air. Instead of offering solutions, their national leaders resorted—with greater or lesser success and skill—to pointing fingers at their rivals. As the advent of unification receded into the past, centrifugal forces began to emerge, threatening to compromise the very act of unification.92 Among the Slovenes, the idea of national unity prevailed in the last years of World War I; this was summed up in the notion that the Slovenes were “one with the Croats and Serbs not only because of tribal affinity and the unity of the national language, but also because of the inescapable dictates of history, the indestructible unity of our destinies, and the elemental solidarity of national feeling that emanates from all these indisputable facts.” In the triumphant moments following the dissolution of the AustroHungarian Empire and the end of the war, the people believed wholeheartedly that a state built on the foundation of nationalism would be invincible and eternal.93 When, on March 6, 1919, the Viennese Reichspost published an editorial entitled “The Future of Yugoslavia,” signed by a “German from Bosnia,” the author left open the possibility that the Slovene and Croat parts of the united Yugoslav Kingdom, after awakening from the “chauvinist-nationalist dream” and returning to reality, would seek to rejoin Western and German culture.94 The Ljubljana Slovenec reported extensively on this “blasphemous” article, mocking the author’s “German-tinted glasses” and concluding, “Schwab, you can’t get more wrong than that!”95 On the fifth anniversary of national unity, however, Jutro published an opinion piece on the superficiality and shallowness of the Yugoslav movement of 1917 and 1918, which, according to the author, resembled straw that quickly ignites and quickly burns. He claimed that the Slovenes and the coastal Croats were actually committed to the Yugoslav idea, while the Serbs, driven from their homeland, fought only for Greater Serbia.96 In 1923, doubts arose among the public, especially in Croatia, regarding the legitimacy of the December 1 Act. The National Council in Zagreb, it was argued, was a body of commissioners from various political parties; among them were several former deputies whose terms had already expired, as well as many appointees of various political parties who were not legally

Celebrating the Unity of the Nation with Three Names • 209

elected representatives of the nation. From this, it could be concluded that the unification by no means arose from the free will of the people, but was, rather, an act of persons who had no democratic legitimacy in making so far-reaching a decision. Unification, therefore, had been determined only by the vague and ambiguous wishes of the national intelligentsia and did not correspond to a natural course of development. This was cited as the main reason why, five years after unification, the state structure itself was increasingly shaken.97 By the tenth anniversary of unification, the differences between the different groups had only increased. In Zagreb, the tenth anniversary was used to express dissatisfaction with Croatia’s position in the common state and to oppose Belgrade. Ante Pavelić used the occasion to call December 1, 1918, “the darkest day in Croatian history.”98 The official celebration in Zagreb Cathedral was disrupted by unknown persons who unfurled three large black flags on the façade. On the flag in the middle, there was a large Croatian coat of arms in white paint; on the flag on the left, the date “December 1, 1918” was written in large letters; and on the flag on the right, the date “June 20, 1928” was written.99 In Zagreb, it is reported, black flags hung “from every window” and there were “sullen looks on every face.”100 Four demonstrators were fatally injured in clashes between demonstrators and the police, for which the Slovene press blamed Croatian republicans and communists. The government in Belgrade was shocked by this attack on the honor and prestige of the state and demanded the use of “all necessary means to prevent such incidents in the future.”101 The Croatian newspapers Riječ and Narodni Val blamed the army for the incidents that took place on Unification Day. In their opinion, the soldiers should not have “provoked” people with torches in the streets of Zagreb, since it was customary to hold torchlight celebrations the day before the holiday and not on the holiday itself.102 The Peasant–Democratic Coalition also showed solidarity with the Zagreb demonstrators, contributing to the victory of the extremists in Zagreb. The consequence of this victory was that the Belgrade extremists grew stronger and responded to Zagreb’s intransigence with the same weapon of chauvinistic nationalism. To the statements of the Peasant–Democratic Coalition, that they would not recognize anything even remotely related to Belgrade, the Belgrade extremists replied that the coalition should be forced to do so.103 Ten years after the establishment of the kingdom of the nation with three names, the cracks in national unity were clearly visible all over its structure. King Aleksandar, disturbed by this unfavorable course of events, dissolved the parliament and assumed personal rule in order to realize the “centuries-old dreams of the noble Yugoslav people, the national unity of all Yugoslav peoples.”104 But his attempt was, it seems, too late.105

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Twenty years after unification, the then leader of the Croatian Peasant Party Vlatko Maček did not allow the state flag to be hoisted in Zagreb on December 1, and regarded Serbs and Croats as belonging to two nations.106

A Nation-State without Nationalism In their bold conviction that it was the exceptional social order of the prewar Kingdom of Serbia that had led to the victory of the Serbian army and the establishment of the common state, leading Serbian politicians, with Nikola Pašić at their head, were unwilling to compromise, especially since they managed to find a majority for the adoption of the Vidovdan Constitution. Proponents of the Vidovdan Constitution argued that its provisions would ensure the strength of the state, while Croatian and Slovene politicians countered that it would only pave the way for Serbian political dominance and create a state without internal cohesion. The outvoted (Croatian and Slovene) parties later used the election slogan, “Against the Serbs and Serbian hegemony!”107 They developed a program that claimed that the Slovenes were a separate nation, the Croats a separate nation, and the Serbs a third separate nation. This theory was, of course, the negation of the Yugoslavs as a single nation.108 A few years after unification, there was even talk in British diplomatic circles of a “Balkanization” of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.109 The purpose of Unification Day was intended to promote national unity and the group will to belong to a solid and lasting community, so that the deaths of the heroes of the past who had sacrificed their lives for Vidovdan ideals were given meaning. The focus on the many linguistic, historical, cultural, legal, ethnic, and other practical issues did not serve the overall goal, on the contrary, it caused ever greater cracks in the construction. The constant and frustrating debates and negotiations110 between the leaders of the nation with three names made many people feel that the state conceived in the Rousseauian spirit of the social contract lacked the inner strength that only the idea of unity could give. National unity is a sine qua non for a nation-state. However, for various reasons, the ruling elites could not and did not know how to nationalize the collective memory of the past and build a common nationalist ideology. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes went down in history as the only nation-state without nationalism, which proved to be the most powerful mobilizing force of modern times, more powerful than geography and mutually opposing religions, and more inclusive than political and economic interests. At the end of World War I, the citizens of the newly formed kingdom acclaimed Yugoslavia, but the new nation-state did not

Celebrating the Unity of the Nation with Three Names • 211

create Yugoslavs, even though it was clear that without Yugoslavs there could be no unified state.111 Instead of creating a national and cultural community out of the nation-state of the nation with three names, the political leaders, especially the die-hard centralists, turned it into a “theater of party and tribal struggles.”112 The emphasis on cultural differences between, on the one hand, the Serbs, who supposedly belonged to the East, and, on the other hand, the Slovenes and Croats, who supposedly belonged to the Western European cultural sphere,113 became a self-fulfilling prophecy, even though the cultural differences between the Serb, Croat, and Slovene peasant masses were fictitious rather than substantial. And, as the results of the 1921 census show, 75.9 percent of the population of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes were peasants, which means that of the 12,017,323 inhabitants, almost ten million gained their livelihoods from agriculture.114 On the other hand, even though it would have been readily apparent that a Serb from Subotica, for instance, and a Serb from Bitola had “little in common,” no one doubted their Serbianness.115 If there were differences, they were mainly to be found among the intellectual elites, though this was not because of the universities where they had acquired their knowledge and developed their worldviews, for they were all more or less nationalists. As the historian Robert Wiebe suggests, the Yugoslav idea was the product of a few intellectuals who did not have much support even in their own circles; it served as “little more than a fig leaf for Serbian and Croat ambitions to swallow the rest of South Slavs”;116 to which the Slovenes replied, “We will neither Serbianize nor Croatize.”117 The spirit of national unity that was supposed to be expressed and preserved in the red-letter days, in the adoption of the Vidovdan Constitution, and in the elections that followed was, in reality, becoming more and more fragile. The story of the miraculous power of nationalism looked less and less each day like a story with a happy ending, in which even God became a Yugoslav, and increasingly resembled a story of three quarreling brothers who could agree only to overlook their similarities and view their differences as essential.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Triglav, November 30, 1933. Ibid. Gavrilović, 2007, 131. Ibid., 130. Ibid., 155.

212 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

Hinković, 1922, 35. Laffan, 1929, 14. Marjanović, 1937, 130. Newman, 2015, 170. Prelog, 1921, 188; Trumbić, 1923, 24–26; Jerič, 1928, 157–59; Kranjec, 1928, 139; Laffan, 1929, 14–15; see also Janković, 1959, 71. Bošnjak, 1918, 8; cf. Banac, 1984, 145. See Brajević, 1918, 5. Đorđević, 1918, 32. Ilešić, 1936, 2. Čulinović, 1962, 25–26; see also Ramet, 2006, 23. Šišić, 1937, 272. Devine, 1921, 40; 1924, 25; Laffan, 1929, 15; Woodhouse, 1920, 110–11; cf. Pleterski, 1986, 125–26. Nova Doba, June 22, 1920; Jutro, October 29, 1921. Dimnik, 1924, 101. Jutro, December 1, 1928. Gavrančić, 1937, 9. Korošec, November 28, 1919. Naša Moč, December 20, 1918. Jugoslovanski škofi, 1919, 1. Predsedništvo Narodnog vijeća, 1918, 1. Domoljub, December 4, 1919. Slovenski Učitelj, 1918, 12, 241; Dimnik, 1924, 124–25. Domovina, February 25, 1921. Domovina, December 13, 1918. Laffan, 1929, 12. See, for example, Hauptmann, 1938, 532. See, for example, Vošnjak, 1916, 36; Vosnjak, 1917, Holdich, 1918, 55; Kerner, 1918, 95; Hauptmann, 1922, 113; Jakovljević, 1923, 111; Stojanović, 1935, 7; Grisogono, 1938, 9, 75–77; Kolarz, 1946, 199. Kerner, 1918, 81–82. Mahnić, 1919, 2; cf. Srebrnič, 1920, 282. Brunnbauer, 2007, 83. Zerubavel, 1994, 104–5. Jelenić, 1923, 1. Erdeljanović, 1928, I, 9. Kerner, 1918, 82. Stepanović, 1936, 13. Jelenić, 1923, 461. Tabor, November 29, 1923. –ž, 1933, 1. Tabor, November 29, 1923. McCrone and McPherson, 2009, 215. Carić, 1920, 5. See Mosse, 1993, 3. Walzer, 1967, 194. Jugoslavija, December 15, 1918. Slovenec, December 15, 1918. Ibid.

Celebrating the Unity of the Nation with Three Names • 213

52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79.

80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99.

Domovina, December 13, 1918. Ibid. Prepeluh, 1938, 184–85. Omahen, 1919/20, 2. Ibid., 3. Gillis, 1994, 3. See, for example, Kerner, 1918, 87. –ž, 1933, 1. Ibid. Dobrivojević, 2006, 121. Nyyssönen, 2009, 138. McCrone and McPherson, 2009, 215. Smolej-Borovec, 1935, 2. Avtonomist, November 4, 1922. Štebi, 1939, 29. Slovenec, October 29, 1918. See, for example, Šarabon, 1919, 83, 87. Dimnik, 1924, 92. Slovenec, October 29, 1922. Visokošolec, 1923, 3. Slovenec, October 31, 1926b. Mal, 1928, 1121. Narodni odbor za Slovenijo, 1957, 2. J. K., 1988, 1. Newman, 2015, 178. Ibid., 170. Čulinović, 1962, 25. Trumbić, 1923, 6–7; Obradović, 1928, 186; Grisogono, 1938, 71; Meštrović, 1955a, 422; 1961, 100; Čulinović, 1962, 25; see also Janković, 1959, 66–68; Banac, 1984, 117–19; Czerwiński, 2015, 141, 153. Trumbić, 1923, 10–11; Čulinović, 1962, 24–25. Slovenski Narod, July 1, 1923; Rastoder, 2015, 316. Dobrivojević, 2006, 122. Avtonomist, December 8, 1923. Pleteršnik, 1895, 911. Ibid., 711, 716. Slovenski Narod, November 28, 1906. Wilfan, 1921, 5. Jugoslavija, May 7, 1922. Birkhill, 1923, ix. Lazarević, 1919, 168. Šarabon, 191, 91. Tomić, 1921, 3; Borovnjak, 1936, 39–40; Gavrančić, 1937, 10. Jutro, October 26, 1928; see also Tresić Pavičić, 1928, 121. Deutsche aus Bosnien, 1919, 2. Slovenec, March 9, 1919. Edinost, October 17, 1923. Avtonomist, December 8, 1923. Newman, 2015, 178. Jutro, December 1, 1928; Politika, December 2, 1928.

214 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117.

Lockhart, 1934, 332. Slovenec, December 5, 1928. Jutro, December 1, 1928. Slovenec, December 4, 1928; Slovenec, December 5, 1928. Pipenbaher, 1939/40, 327. Cf. Bakić, 2004, 406. Stojadinović, 1939, 77. Stanojević, 1920, 1; see also Birkhill, 1923, 113. Jutro, October 26, 1922. Evans, 2008, 217. Prvislav Grisogono (1938, 76) even used the term diskutomanija (discussion-mania). Malin, 1925, 69. Jakovljević, 1923, 120. Birkhill, 1923, 110; Laffan, 1929, 6; Buxton, 1929, 115–16. Erjavec, 1920, 52; Vrčinac, 1967, 6. Dragnich, 1954, 10. Wiebe, 2002, 103; cf. Bakić, 2004, 78. Slovenec, February 6, 1923.

Chapter 8

The Yugoslav Nation-State as a Mosaic, Not a Melting Pot of Peoples

R

In considering Yugoslav nationalism and its history, we have seen why it is so difficult to take an accurate perspective, especially when referring to a variety of sources, which, in many cases, not only diverge, but may even contradict each other. The Yugoslav question has attracted the attention of many observers, who have produced a large number of books and papers on the subject. However, despite the extraordinary amount of information gathered and the numerous interpretations developed using various methods and techniques, it seems that the true causes and effects of Yugoslav nationalism, its strengths and weaknesses, have become rather obscure. It is not surprising that many observers consider it a sphinx characterized by frightening puzzles; however, such observers have usually overlooked the fact that a correctly solved riddle renders it innocuous. So what is the correct answer to the Yugoslavian riddle? First of all, it is a common mistake to regard the Slavic South as an exception to the development that took place in Central and Southeastern Europe during the long nineteenth century. Following the example of Western nationalisms, Yugoslav nationalists felt hungry for a new, better future and for anything that could stir the hearts and minds of their people and fill them with the spirit of nationalism. As it developed in Central and Southeastern Europe, nationalism represented a social force that saw people emphasizing commonalities with “brothers” beyond their immediate traditional borders, while acknowledging previously ignored differences between them and their immediate “foreign” neighbors.1 Commonalities and differences alike

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were emphasized, as nationalists utilized both to expand what they saw as shared traditions geographically, politically, and socially.2 To replace previous loyalties, Yugoslav nationalists had to create new myths and realities that deeply touched the members of the imagined community.3 These had to have meaning for those who were to believe in them. To achieve this, the nationalists’ most important task was to give individuals a sense of identity and orientation amid the chaos of everyday life. Indeed, they had to respond to the search for identity, community, foundations, and meaning in individual existence.4 In the Slavic South, as elsewhere, nationalism served as the chief inspiration of men and women in their quest for freedom. Among the subject peoples of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Balkans, their leaders used the memory of national glory in the past or the vision of national greatness in the future to inspire a thirst for freedom.5 Without such a unifying foundation, it would not be possible to awaken the heroic spirit of the people and ignite their energy for the creation of an imagined Yugoslav community. In the words of Milan Marjanović, “The old spirit should have created a new future by fighting the present.”6 Of course, Yugoslav nationalists did not think of the past as it really was; they had a clear preference for its mythologized version. For their purposes, however, myth and history were equally useful, since they were not separated by an insurmountable boundary, for to the sophisticated people, myth was “a poetic form of history, an archetypal set of motifs thought to embody the real ‘essence’ of the people and the true character and individuality of the community.”7 Such poetic representations of the nation’s imagined past were the source of its strength and appeal. For this reason, they soon became an instrument of propaganda and political struggle.8 As Niko Zupanič explained, this was because “only history has enough power to awaken the deepest passions in man.”9 However, as historian Milorad Ekmečić rightly noted, the passionate interest in the poetic image of the past had its Achilles’ heel: its greatest weakness was that Yugoslavs were seen as “an appearing nation” rather than a realistic prospect of a living people.10 Nationalism is Janus-faced, always looking both backwards and forwards. As Anatole France aptly put it, “A nation is a communion of memories and hopes.”11 Vladimir Tismaneanu reminds us that in societies beset by discord, hostility, and problematic democratic traditions, myth remains a fundamental datum of the political world. It has the power not only to provide relatively simple explanations for perceived sacrifices and failures, but also to mobilize, motivate, and even incite large groups to action. Its main function is not to describe but to imagine a reality that is consistent with particular political interests.12

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The poet and politician Antun Tresić Pavičić, a Yugoslav nationalist, preserved for the future his view of the poetic form of history embedded in the Yugoslav nationalist image of the past. Unsurprisingly, in his version of the Yugoslav (hi)story, Kraljević Marko played the leading role. So that the grieving poor were not abandoned, the fairies created Kraljević Marko from fay dreams in the clouds, from the heroes who had fallen in Kosovo, from the sighs of their mothers, orphans, and widows, and the lamentations of poor rayah who, whipped by the cold winds of fate, fled in search of justice. The fairies nursed Marko with their milk so that he became mighty and invincible. And when Marko grew up, he set out to cleanse the homeland of all evils and wrongs: he cleansed all the waters of the Slavic South of hundred-headed dragons, he sought out Musa Kesedžija and his brother Đemo Brđanin, he plowed the imperial roads, and to perform many other heroic deeds about which guslars would lyrically sing.13 By evoking the invented glorious past, Yugoslav nationalists tried animating in their people an enthusiasm for freedom and progress in the future, which they could only imagine as a nationalized future. Thus, they consciously and actively worked to prepare the people to live together, work together, and sacrifice the individual for the nation. They were not content with preserving the nation and nationality, but wanted to raise them to the highest level of intense and expansive activity. However, although Yugoslav nationalists demanded that the will of the individual be subordinated to the discipline of the community, the nationalist movement in the Slavic South had never succeeded in becoming a unified movement.14 The development of the Yugoslav idea was marked by both unifying and divisive factors. The former derived primarily from the fear of confrontation with the obstacles to national emancipation. Whenever the members of the imagined Yugoslav community were threatened from the outside, they cooperated with each other and supported each other. The latter were evident in exclusive national ambitions, economic competition, and the frictions associated with defining what was “ours” and what was “theirs.”15

The Argonauts of Yugoslav Nationalism Banished from political language due to the international situation, and exposed to the growth of separate nationalisms that reflected the modernization of societies in the Slavic South, the Yugoslav idea was more or less confined to newspapers and books or individual efforts.16 Under these circumstances, the idea of unity could not capture the Yugoslav masses and became a material force. Perhaps the most important milestone in

218 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

the realization of the Yugoslav idea was the Corfu Declaration. On June 8, 1917, the editorial of the official gazette of the Serbian government in Corfu, Srpske Novine, announced the arrival in Corfu of some members of the Yugoslav Committee, “dear Argonauts of our nationalism,” to discuss national unification with the Serbian government.17 The talks, which were characterized by accusations, counteraccusations, allegations, insinuations, and denunciations, lasted more than a month. After thirty-five days of talks, Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pašić and Yugoslav Committee president Ante Trumbić signed an agreement setting out a plan for unifying a future common state of Yugoslavs living in Austria-Hungary, Serbia, and Montenegro after the war. In the declaration, the participants of the conference proclaimed that the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes were one people with three names, the same blood, and the same language, striving for national unity based on the right to self-determination. In the new nation-state, the flags of the three peoples would be equated with the national flag, the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets would be equally accepted, and religious freedom would be guaranteed. They also stipulated that the future state would be a constitutional monarchy ruled by the Karađorđević dynasty. They left most other outstanding issues to a future constituent assembly.18 In addition to the points on which they could agree, there were also significant differences in the views of the two parties. The most contentious issue on the table was the name of the future state. While the proponents of the unitary state—instead of giving the state a single name—argued for the triple name, the proponents of the federal state insisted on the single name. In this exchange of rather paradoxical arguments, two different conceptions of the future state crystallized. From the Yugoslav Committee’s point of view, the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes would have to sacrifice their traditional names in order to create a unified nation that would not merely be an extension of pre-war Serbia, Croatia, or Slovenia. Accordingly, the future common state should be a new creation, setting aside the differences of the past and uniting the people in brotherhood and harmony.19 The members of the Yugoslav Committee symbolically expressed their views on July 16, 1917, by presenting Crown Prince Aleksandar with a shield made by the sculptor Ivan Meštrović. On it, all Yugoslav countries were depicted as equal, with a fairy huntress in the center carrying the figure of Aleksandar.20 The radical Serbian government, led by Prime Minister Pašić, disagreed. They rejected the idea of the ujedinjenje (unification) advocated by the Yugoslav Committee and instead advocated the idea of the prisajedinjenje (annexation) of Yugoslav territories to the Kingdom of Serbia.21 As Ivan Meštrović recalls, there was no desire in Serbia for a broader Yugoslav

The Yugoslav Nation-State as a Mosaic, Not a Melting Pot of Peoples • 219

conception. Serbia’s plan was to liberate all Serbs and incorporate them within its borders. However, since none of the provinces to which Serbia laid claim had a clear Serb majority, they used “the mantle of Yugoslavia,” which, for Serbian politicians, military leaders, and church leaders, was merely a geographical concept.22 In short, on the eve of the war’s triumphant end, the Serbian leadership was interested in creating a Greater Serbian monarchy bound by the Orthodox faith and loyalty to the House of Karađorđević. Its main goal was the prisajedinjenje of “Serbian” BosniaHerzegovina, Vojvodina, Montenegro, Old Serbia (Kosovo), South Serbia (Macedonia), and access to the sea, not the creation of Yugoslavia.23 In its view, the Croats and Slovenes, as well as the Serbs of Austria-Hungary, could play only a passive role in the struggle for unification, while the leadership in this process would belong exclusively to the Kingdom of Serbia. It had allegedly earned this right through the “rivers of blood” shed by its soldiers on the battlefields, so unification in the Slavic South could only be achieved through “Piedmontization.”24 Until World War I, the Serbian state continued to spread from Belgrade, and the Serbian government expected Yugoslavia to emerge in the same way, that is, it expected that the Kingdom of Serbia would extend its power and authority to the South Slavic countries and liberate them. In early 1918, the Serbian government declared in a note to the Allied governments that Serbia was a bastion of freedom, and the right of the people to self-determination against violence and conquest.25 From the perspective of the Serbian government, liberation took precedence over unification, because Serbia would never voluntarily sacrifice its freedom and join the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy just for the sake of unity. Moreover, Serbia considered its own freedom one of the true preconditions for the freedom of its “brothers,” who were still under the foreign yoke.26 According to this view, the Serbs were the liberators and the Croats and Slovenes only the object of their liberation action; this perspective implied the moral right of the Serbs to strive for supremacy in the new state.27 At the end of the long nineteenth century, the Serbian government imagined that its country was still in its “romantic-heroic” phase, modeled on the time of Tsar Dušan in the Middle Ages.28 In particular, the veteran Serbian statesman Pašić could never imagine the Yugoslav state as anything other than a Greater Serbia.29 In his eyes, the impressive successes in the Balkan Wars and realistic expectations of achieving compensation in proportion to Serbian losses in World War I were solid evidence of the correctness of the Serbian strategy, which focused on achieving Serbian historical goals rather than the broader but more nebulous goal of a Yugoslavia. Moreover, the Serbian government counted on the loyalty of the Serbian population in Austria-Hungary (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia,

220 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

Figure 8.1. “On the World Stage.” Published by Umetniška propaganda, Ljubljana, 1918. Source: private collection of the author.

and Vojvodina) and considered itself to be in a much stronger position than an unofficial organization like the Yugoslav Committee, a group of émigrés whose legitimacy it openly questioned. The Serbian journalist Milan Đorđević even claimed that all the work of the Yugoslav Committee did more harm than good to the general cause of the nation and that it would be better if it did not exist at all.30 The Serbian government, of course, did not overtly advocate Serbian supremacy, but rather claimed that the name “Yugoslavia” was only an “artifi-

The Yugoslav Nation-State as a Mosaic, Not a Melting Pot of Peoples • 221

cial” name that did not correspond to the spirit of the language, since it had been created in the West in opposition to the Serbian name.31 The Serbian ambassador in Paris at the time, Milenko Vesnić, told Ivan Meštrović: “Neither I nor he [Nikola Pašić] will ever consent to this name for the state, if it ever materializes. It will be called Greater Serbia to signify her enlargement.”32 There were also strange accusations that the guiding principle of the Yugoslav Committee in the creation of the Yugoslav nation was their intimate wish—which they could never express publicly, but which they used all detours to realize—“to erase the name Serb from the face of the earth once and for all,” even if this meant sacrificing the Croat and Slovene names.33 In Corfu, the Yugoslav Committee’s arguments went unheard, and eventually the committee members gave in to avoid open conflict. In light of the great bloodshed on the battlefields, they considered it childish to provoke a war of words.34 Thus, the future state was christened with an anti-Yugoslav name: the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, abbreviated as SHS (SCS). Stjepan Radić was outraged by this solution: “SCS first meant Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, now it means Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. And what will it mean tomorrow?” This unwieldy name evoked much ridicule, contempt, and laughter. Croats read it rather ominously as Srbin hoće sve (a Serb wants everything), or Slovenci hoće svoje (the Slovenes want theirs), or Samo Hrvat spava (only the Croat sleeps),35 while the Serbs countered with the quip samo Hrvat smeta (only a Croat annoys).36 Instead of consolidating the common identity of the Yugoslav nation, the triple designation called its unity into question, as the different parts of the one nation were referred to by three different names.37 That is, the official introduction and use of three names in the “conceptual reification of groups” strongly influenced the process of self-identification. Since the naming of identity is closely linked to power politics, we can clearly see how this poorly chosen name caused the permanent crisis of the national identity of the nation-state of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.38 Throughout 1919, after the recognition of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, the terms “Serbia” and “Serbian” were used as shorthand for the cumbersome new nomenclature—exactly what the Serbian radicals had hoped to achieve through their rejection of the name “Yugoslavia.”39 The British diplomat Sir Alban Young gave an account of conversations he had had with Serbian radicals. He reported that they tended to drop “Croats and Slovenes” and used the word “Serbs” to refer to the entire country.40 Although Pašić did not pay much attention to terminology, it is significant that he managed to insert terms such as “Serbian triple-named nation” or “Serbian triple-named nation of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes” into important state documents, which further exacerbated disagreements

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between the government of the Kingdom of Serbia and the Yugoslav Committee.41 It remained unclear what the legal status of the Corfu Declaration was: whether it was a legal act or merely a political act. The Yugoslav Committee, on behalf of which President Ante Trumbić spoke, represented neither a state nor an international legal entity, and Serbian Prime Minister Pašić himself affirmed during the negotiations that his government only considered the Corfu Declaration a declaration of a political nature. In October 1918, Pašić openly admitted to H. W. Steed and Foreign Secretary Balfour that he had signed the declaration only to impress those who were preoccupied with the idea of creating some kind of “impossible SerbiaYugoslavia in the form of a confederation, which he wanted to prevent.”42 However, it was clear that the dispute over the name of the common state was actually a clash of two different ideas regarding the creation of the future state. Should it be a federal Yugoslavia or a centralized Yugoslavia under Serbian rule? Nation-building demanded not only administrative and territorial unification, but also the construction of national loyalties in order to make citizens feel a sense of belonging to a common national episteme.43 It is clear that the intrigues, disputes, and frictions between the “Yugoslavs” and the “Serbs” over the name, which continued even after the end of the war in 1918, divided Yugoslavs rather than uniting them.44 The new nation-state needed a common idea, some ideals around which its citizens would rally. However, this idea could not and should not simply be a continuation of Serbian, Croatian, and Slovene nationalisms; rather, “profound reform” of these was necessary.45 A common heritage of memories or a sense of the need to live together and work for common cultural and economic progress was essential to this reform.46 Merely living together in one country in itself, even under political or administrative pressure, was not enough to accustom non-Serbs to the Serbian spirit. The idea mobilizing the unity of the people could not be the idea of Serbian rule over other peoples, nor could it be the extension of Serbian institutions and organization, its dynasty, and its bureaucracy to other countries and peoples. Like Piedmont in Italy, Serbia should have ceased to exist as a state and should have been completely absorbed into the community of Yugoslavs when the process of unification was completed.47 However, this was not the case, and time has shown at what cost.

The Price of Unification On December 1, 1918, the Yugoslav countries and peoples united into “a natural whole.”48 Contrary to what one might think today, the new nation-

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state was built on the conviction that Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes formed one nation with the three names. Yugoslav unity was, it would seem, achieved in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, not in Yugoslavia, despite the fact that, on October 29, 1918, a mass meeting was held in Ljubljana, at which many speakers (including the former mayor of Ljubljana Ivan Hribar, the acting mayor Ivan Tavčar, and Bishop Anton Bonaventura Jeglič) publicly proclaimed the establishment of Yugoslavia, and the vice president of the Duchy of Carniola Karel Triller exclaimed, “Haec est Jugoslavija, Diis sacra!” (This is Yugoslavia, sacred to the gods!).49 After the end of the war, the enthusiastic citizens started building their national homeland. A large, beautiful home to house the whole nation should be so pleasant and sufficient to meet citizens’ needs that all would share it with pleasure “until the end of the world.”50 A single home needed a plan, but the builders resolutely insisted on two visions. When unification was announced on December 1, 1918, the Serbs saw it as an extension of the Kingdom of Serbia, while the Croats and Slovenes wanted to create a federated Yugoslavia in which everyone would have some autonomy.51 Insurmountable differences led to disappointment on both sides, and each side saw itself as making greater sacrifices for the community, while neither side saw the advantages and benefits that the common nation-state made possible. From the Serbian point of view, the blood shed in the Balkan Wars and World War I had been shed for Serbia and Serbdom, not for Yugoslav brotherhood. The Serbs had had their own state, which they renounced in favor of the common state, while the Croats sought only an independent state, which shows that they, the Serbs, made a greater sacrifice for the common cause. From the Croatian perspective, though, the Serbs did all this for the state in which they would play a decisive role and constitute the majority of the population, while the Croats and Slovenes gave up their independence for the state in which they knew they would be in the minority and thus their sacrifice was greater.52 Instead of the homogenization of peoples, unification led to ethnic disunity. Yugoslav thought, which had been so attractive before World War I, began to lose its appeal.53 In the second half of the nineteenth century, nationalism became one of the elementary political forces of modernity. When the United States actively entered World War I, it swayed public opinion in all Allied countries in support of war aims that promised the creation of a new European political order based on “just principles.” By 1919, the principle of national self-determination promoted by President Woodrow Wilson seemed to be generally accepted as the basis for post-war geopolitical organization in the Old World.54 The victorious Entente imposed the Versailles Peace Treaty by creating ethno-linguistic nation-states and the belief that na-

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tions must have the “right to self-determination.” Thus, from the ashes of the war that had wiped out the old empires emerged a restored Poland, an enlarged Romania, three new states in the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), one in Central Europe (Czechoslovakia), and one in Southeastern Europe (Yugoslavia). Nationalism is always a product of history, in Boyd Shafer’s words, a product of nurture, not nature. Nations are not born full-grown, nor is love of the nation innate in people.55 Yugoslavism was no exception to this rule. In order to make it solid and strong, a common Yugoslav identity had to be built, as this was the only cement that could hold people together.56 More often than not, nationalism is the result of long struggles and many compromises, but it is also an indispensable condition. “The state spirit without a general national feeling,” as Rajko Đermanović put it, “is a body without a soul.”57 After December 1, 1918, the economic merger of the territories in the Slavic South into a single state opened new opportunities to accelerate the process of developing a common national identity. For just as nations create states, so states can gradually create nations. The governments of nation-states deliberately make “good citizens” by forcing their inhabitants into the national mold. Through conscription and levées en masse, they create national armies. Through national school systems, they foster national patriotism. Laws, courts, and taxes become increasingly national rather than local or provincial. All of these factors condition citizens to care about their nation, their nation-state, and common national needs and aspirations.58 Citizen creation, then, is a process of institutionally organized impersonation in which each nation develops “a set of narratives for the political personality that imperfectly embodies the values and practices of its nationhood.”59 When Italy was unified in 1866, less than 2.5 percent of the population spoke Italian as their mother tongue; the vast majority spoke a wide range of dialects. At that time, the unification of the Italian peoples was a daunting task. “Italy” in 1871 consisted of a multitude of regional societies with different economies and lifestyles, diverse cultures, conflicting histories, and a variety of religious practices. Even “regional” is too broad a term: there were a lot of economic and cultural differences, for example, within Sicily, and the rivalry between Tuscan cities was proverbial. Most “regions” of the South were invented by the Statistical Office in 1864 to better group data: they lacked cohesion, and the southern part of the mainland arguably consisted of several distinct rural economies, all dominated by their capital, Naples. In addition, “nation-building” was hampered by economic backwardness, the hostility of the clergy, and the fact that most Italians could neither read nor write.60

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The founding of the two nation-states was similar in many respects; it would be untrue to state that no other nation followed the same path as the Yugoslavs. In Italy, there were great differences between the inhabitants of the Apennine Peninsula, who nevertheless united. Inhabitants of the Slavic South, however, did not. Writing history backwards, it seems “obvious” that the reason for this was that the South Slavs were too different to equalize their differences. But the differences between the peoples of the Apennine Peninsula were even greater than those between the peoples on the eastern shores of the Adriatic. Bogumil Vošnjak has enumerated some of these differences: What did a Piedmontese and a Lazzarone from Naples have in common? They were the extremes. Naples, with its Bourbon corruption, low morals, and miserable economic conditions, had nothing in common with the sober, solid, philistine Piedmontese. The culture-loving Tuscan hated Piedmont like the devil hates holy water! The Sicilian was a born enemy of the Neapolitan. How many conflicts there were, how much hatred and mutual distrust. The South and the North were two worlds, different conceptions of honesty and morality, a different general life, differences in traditions, temperaments, and everyday habits.61

Until the division of the kingdom into the nine banovinas in 1929, the Serbian establishment did not allow non-Serbs to interfere in its politics within what it considered “Serbian lands,”62 and Bosnia-Herzegovina, Vojvodina, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Macedonia were administered as Serbian provinces with a distinct national political objective.63 As Minister Stojan Protić told Ivan Meštrović during the Great War, the Serbian leadership planned to give the “Turks” forty-eight hours to return to the faith of their forefathers; those who refused would be killed, while those who escaped could go to Turkey. For Catholics, on the other hand, there would be no obstacles to being Croats if they so desired, “but the Turkish minarets must go.”64 Similarly, General Mićo Nedić once told Ivan Meštrović: “Force shapes and creates nations, Mr. Meštrović, so our state will make Macedonians good citizens and good Serbs, and the latter, of course, must happen before the former.”65 That these were not just empty words was confirmed by the French journalist Charles Rivet, who visited some parts of the new Yugoslav nationstate after the war. According to him, in liberated Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Serbian army openly showed its hostility against the “Turks” by removing from every Muslim house the weapons that could be found there and distributing them to the Orthodox population,66 and in Montenegro, Serbian soldiers imposed Serbian identity wherever they went.67 In short, Rivet referred to the Serbian authorities as conquerors, not liberators.68

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Within this framework, Yugoslav nationalism—which essentially meant political support for the Yugoslav nation-state—did not succeed in captivating the hearts and minds of the majority and erasing loyalties to the various “national” cradles.69 Because of their religion, their script, their culture, and their history, Serbs remained Serbs. The Serbian nationalists used lofty words to present nationality as something immutable; they cast it as “the most sacred and irreplaceable bond between people.” And whoever was able to change it was portrayed by the nationalists as “a shuffler, an unreliable fellow.”70 As historian Mark Biondich notes, the Serbian political character of the new nation-state was so pronounced that the national consciousness of many non-Serbs—for example, Croats, Bosnian Muslims, and Macedonians—became a mass phenomenon only after unification. As early as 1918, a Croatian national identity had emerged among the Catholic peasantry of Croatia-Slavonia. But it was not until the post-war period that a mass Croatian consciousness was firmly established among the Catholic peasantry of Dalmatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Vojvodina (i.e., among the Bunjevci and Šokci). The policies of the national authorities, which saw themselves as serving Serbian (Orthodox) state interests, only helped to strengthen this new consciousness. The same is true of Bosnian Muslims and Macedonians.71 Thus, the proponents of Greater Serbia successfully prevented the emergence of a Yugoslav nationality, despite the hopes of some intellectuals and political leaders before 1914. In 1918, everyone knew the Kingdom of Serbia, which had immense political capital in the Slavic South. Its government, armed forces, and dynasty enjoyed unprecedented popularity, as Serbia’s victories over the Ottomans in 1912, the Bulgarians in 1913, and the Austro-Hungarians in the early months of World War I resulted in its name being known around the world. After years of heroic suffering and much bloodshed, the Serbian armies liberated practically all the territories populated by the South Slavs. The victory, for which they paid dearly, instilled in the Serbs a confidence that if Yugoslavia did not materialize, a Greater Serbia would emerge, taking over the “Serb” territories in the Slavic South. It would be understandable if the Serbian leadership was apprehensible about losing something it had (Greater Serbia) for the sake of something tenuous (Yugoslavia).72 What is more, the Peace Conference considered the delegates of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes as delegates of Serbia.73 Serbia ended the war triumphantly and with great prestige, but it was unable to achieve the cultural and national-political unification of Old Serbia (Kosovo) and South Serbia (Macedonia) on the basis of a narrow Serbian national and state idea.74 Even though Jovan Cvijić defined Mace-

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donians as “an amorphous mass of people” who had no specific sense of nationality but tended to assimilate with Serbs or Bulgarians,75 the Serbian government’s efforts to turn the inhabitants of “Southern Serbia” (Macedonia) into Serbs did not pay off. In the western parts of the country, these methods bore even less fruit.76 Any thought of turning Croats or Slovenes into Serbs was pure wishful thinking: Croats and Slovenes were not Orthodox, they used the Latin script, and they had already developed a more or less strong sense of particular national identities. In addition to Orthodox and Catholic South Slavs, many Muslims lived in the country. For them, the Yugoslav identity was acceptable, but they could not and would not identify themselves as followers of the mythology of the “Revenge of Kosovo.” Nationalism creates its reality on the basis of the historical myths of peoples and their everyday reality. When it comes to creating a new nation-state, new loyalties must be created, which means creating new myths that include all members of the new imagined community.77 The insistence on the Kosovo mythology was a useful tool for fomenting hatred against the “Turks,” but a useless one for including Muslims as equal citizens of the new nation-state. Moreover, many citizens did not belong to the South Slavs at all, but were Albanians, Germans, Hungarians, Italians, Romanians, and so on. Even if the proclaimed national goal of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was the creation of a Yugoslav nation,78 under these circumstance it remained “a mosaic, not a melting pot.”79 Because the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and others were unequal in wealth and power, all felt insecure. They feared that the others were stronger and they were suspicious at all times; therefore, each perceived the others not as allies, but as threats. Political parties that were supposed to be willing to make sacrifices for the common good argued passionately about whether “Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes” denoted members of three nations or members of three tribes of a single nation. Instead of working together in a spirit of cooperation and tolerance to find solutions that were in the common interest, and being willing to sacrifice their particular interests for the sake of the common good, they became entangled in endless disputes over centralism or federalism, monarchy or republic, the Prečani and antiPrečani fronts: “There was everything,” said Alfons Horvat, “but there was no sincere, selfless and impartial Yugoslavism.”80 They all brought their own traditions, customs, views, religions, literatures, charters, and so on, and clung to them compulsively, even if doing so was irrational or destructive. Anxious to protect these elements of their identities, they continued to live next to one another, side by side, rather than in an all-inclusive community.81 They had not developed a Yugoslav identity, because no one wanted to sacrifice anything of their own, since everyone considered such a gesture as their loss and not as a contribution to a better-functioning

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community. Moreover, the idea was widespread that they themselves were in the right and superior and considered the other groups of people as alien and inferior.82 At the end of 1918, the situation of the newly established nation-state in the Slavic South was complicated in every respect. It had to integrate various regions and peoples who were basically strangers to each other into a single nation-state. Moreover, the authorities had neither the resources nor the experience to deal with the legion of problems they faced and were equipped only with the optimistic attitude of lako ćemo (we will easily do it).83 The new state experienced two years of uncertainty about its final borders, especially in the west (Italy) and the north (Austria), which had a demoralizing effect on internal conditions. The protracted negotiations at the Peace Conference ultimately resulted in almost half a million Yugoslavs being in foreign hands, mainly in Italy. This in itself was a “bitter pill.”84 To make matters worse, chaos reigned: the customs service was not organized and rail transport outside Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina barely functioned, while rail transport in Serbia came to a complete standstill because all the lines there had been destroyed during World War I. In the new nation-state, which united territories with six different legal systems (Serbia, Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia-Slovenia, Vojvodina, Montenegro, and Bosnia-Herzegovina),85 progress was “painfully slow,” despite the early creation of a special ministry to harmonize laws.86 Even if questions about the organization of the state and its improvement were repeatedly raised and debated in the National Assembly, they remained unanswered. Over time, party activities and political life came to revolve around these questions, but during the first six years, the laws of the various provinces were not unified, the only exception being electoral law.87 Therefore, in certain legal matters, a law was applied in one jurisdiction but did not apply in another, with the result that what was legal in one part of the country could be illegal in another. This was, of course, detrimental to the economic development of the country and it also reinforced regionalism.88 When the representatives of all the inhabitants came to the National Assembly, their speeches were so “loud, emphatic, and unrestrained” that no one could convince anyone else of anything.89 To one foreign observer, it seemed as if the deputies believed that they had been elected to stir passions, not to find common ground or to address the country’s affairs wisely.90 Notwithstanding the truth that it is better to be the master of every unsaid word than the slave of the spoken one, from the founding in 1918 until the dismemberment of the country in 1941, they engaged in bitter wars of words in the National Assembly over whether the citizens belonged to one nation with three names or to three nations. It escaped their notice that there would be no Yugoslavia, as Jovo Banjanin argued,

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if it had been created at the Paris Peace Conference on the basis of the thesis of three nationalities, three individualities, and three sovereignties.91 Arguments about the differences between nations and tribes, languages and dialects, history and mythology, which were advanced in the interests of party politics, bore no fruit. These exchanges could not solve the problems faced by the nation-state, but rather created an increasingly poisoned atmosphere and mutual distrust. Yugoslavs were more or less aware that there were dishonest intentions behind the debates, but they also knew that, since the creation of the new nation, they had not come as far economically as they had dreamed before unification, and that no government had drawn up a systematic economic and social plan since the country had come into existence. The Croats had been the first to develop a program for a new state, which, although it was not always purely or exclusively Croatian, but rather Yugoslav, consistently placed Zagreb at the center of the future nation-state, with different borders, names, and even content.92 Zagreb was the largest western city in the Slavic South, the seat of the oldest continuously operating university in Southeastern Europe, and, from 1867, the seat of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts, which was established as the beacon of Yugoslav thought for the entire Slavic South.93 However, after the Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913, the idea of Belgrade as the capital of the Yugoslav nation-state was embraced first by the intelligentsia and then by the masses.94 While this development took place among the Slavs in the Dual Monarchy, the overwhelming Serbian victories in the Balkan Wars, and, in particular, the euphoria over the reconquest of the territories taken from Serbia five centuries earlier, drove most Serbian politicians to more aggressively pursue Serbian national goals.95 The Serbian way, however, was neither the Yugoslav way nor the Western way. As Serbian writer and politician Milan Grol recalled, the judges who had to apply the first Civil Code of 1844 were generally illiterate. However many candidates there were, preference was given to those without a diploma. A passionate mood prevailed, pushing politics into the background. From the first day of liberation, school, science, literature, and art came into the domain of the Serbs from Vojvodina, but their number was small and their influence on the general course of Serbian development weak. There was a clash of two mentalities: “one polite-bourgeois, Central European and emancipated in many areas of daily life, and the other rural—peasant from the first to the last man, Balkan, roughly patriarchal, introverted and superstitious, traditional.”96 According to the writer and politician Ante Tresić Pavičić, when the Yugoslav nation-state was actually established in 1918, Belgrade was declared its capital “in recognition of the sacrifices of the Great War,” even

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though Zagreb “was far more meritorious in our cultural history” and its beauty surpassed that of Belgrade.97 Serbian leaders, however, would only consider Belgrade their capital. As journalist Krsta Cicvarić wrote, if Serbia had been annexed to Austria, this new state could have been called Južna Slovenska (South Slavia), the Croats would have had hegemony in the country, and Zagreb would have been its capital. But after World War I, this was turned upside down: Belgrade was its capital, and the Serbs played a leading role in it. As Cicvarić put it, “Of course, Zagreb cannot be the capital; the Croats must get that out of their minds.”98 On the eve of World War I, Belgrade had 95,000 inhabitants, but ten years after the war the population of the city had grown to 226,000.99 However, although Belgrade had grown rapidly, it did not become the capital of Yugoslavia, but was, rather, the capital of Greater Serbia.100 Croats found it difficult to imagine a Yugoslav nation-state whose capital was Belgrade, a city that had been badly damaged in the war, with streets paved with large stones or not paved at all, and with street and building signs written only in the Cyrillic script.101 Thus, the Yugoslav nation-state had two capitals: “So: Belgrade = Serbia, Zagreb = Croatia. And there is no Yugoslavism! And that should be the whole depth of the problem and the puzzle!”102 Every capital, in order to be the capital of the whole country, should unite in itself the qualities of all its citizens and take care of them all with equal devotion, without hindering the development of all the other cities and provinces, but promoting it as much as possible. It should not try to enrich itself at the expense of the other cities and provinces, because that would increase the centrifugal forces in the country, which would lead first to division and later to the ruin of all the divided parts.103 In order to create a united spirit among Yugoslavs, there was a need for an intellectual center where ideas could be developed and revised, and where the future elite of Yugoslavia would be trained. Science, journalism, art, and literature expected leadership from the capital. For the proponents of national unity, there could be “no nobler, more useful, and more necessary occupation than the intellectual construction of a center, than this attractive force for all scattered Yugoslav energies.”104 By accepting Western political ideas, South Slavic leaders seemed to assume that the adoption of progressive political institutions would automatically remedy most economic and social ills. Undoubtedly, the main problem in the Slavic South was economic, not political. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes had to struggle with enormous financial burdens from the very beginning.105 The situation was further complicated by the existence of two governments (the pre-war Serbian administration and the National Council formed in Zagreb in October 1918 by Slovenes,

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Croats, and Habsburg Serbs), three types of banking systems (the Serbian commercial banks based on short-term bills of exchange, the Croatian and Dalmatian savings banks based on long-term mortgages and bonds, and the Slovenian cooperative banks based on the Raiffeisen model of mass participation), four railroad networks (one Serbian network, one Austrian network in Slovenia, one Hungarian network in Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia, and Vojvodina, and a joint Austro-Hungarian network in BosniaHerzegovina), and five currencies (Austro-Hungarian krone, Serbian dinar, German mark, Bulgarian lev, and Montenegrin perper).106 Under no circumstances, writes historian John Lampe, could “a reasonable observer” have expected that the banknotes “of a recent enemy and now defunct state could become the currency of the first Yugoslavia.”107 Yet this is precisely what happened. The Serbian government failed to make the necessary preparations in Corfu to replace the krone banknotes that flooded occupied Serbia, while the krone was a regular means of payment in the territories that had united with the Kingdom of Serbia.108 The exchange of kronen and their withdrawal did not take place until between February 15 and March 15, 1920. But one, two, and ten kronen banknotes remained in circulation until a sufficient quantity of new dinar banknotes arrived. Thus, the final withdrawal of krone from circulation occurred on January 1, 1923.109 The flood of paper kronen inflicted serious wounds on economic life in the new state and caused, among other things, the “moral decay of the people.”110 In Serbia, Austrian kronen were exchanged for dinars at par in the fall of 1919. This measure did not affect the former Austro-Hungarian territories, where the krone continued to circulate. At the time of unification, 100 Serbian dinars were worth 25 Swiss francs, while 100 Austrian kronen were worth 12.50 Swiss francs. Thus, the ratio of Serbian dinars to Austrian kronen was therefore 2:1 and the currency exchange should have taken place at this rate, even though in practice the ratio was 1:1. In 1920, the exchange of krone took place at a ratio of 4 kronen for 1 dinar; thus, the Preko provinces were really harmed in favor of Serbia.111 This was, of course, a source of bitter grievances: “Every family felt: for a new country, for unification, they had to pay!”112 Even though the creation of the Yugoslav nation-state was seen by many as a “historical necessity,” its development brought many disappointments and shattered many illusions.113 While taxes were still levied in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Dalmatia, fiscal administration had almost ceased in Vojvodina, and in devastated Serbia there was no thought of levying taxes.114 Thus, an individual taxpayer paid 223 dinars annually in taxes in Slovenia, 200 dinars in Vojvodina, 166 dinars in Croatia, and 37–65 dinars in all other areas.115 These differences were not as unreasonable as they may seem at first glance,

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because, at least in the first decade of the country’s existence, there was a significant difference in the general level of income in the former AustroHungarian parts compared to that in war-torn Serbia. As historian Hugh Seton-Watson has argued, Serbia could raise the funds for reconstruction only by taxing the Prečani. More reasonable Prečani would have been willing to accept this if their political demands had been taken into account.116 But they were not taken into account. Inequality in taxation ended completely only after World War II. Of course, such discrimination could hardly foster a sense of loyalty to the new nation-state. Thus, instead of building bridges between themselves, the “three brothers” erected ever higher walls separating them from each other. It became a question of when, not if, the “cultural differences” in Yugoslavia would prove too great to be accommodated in a single state.

The “Yugoslav Bismarck” The basic principles of the composition and organization of the Yugoslav state were to be laid down in its first constitution, which was adopted on the Serbian national holiday, Vidovdan, on June 28, 1921, and has since been known as the Vidovdan Constitution. During the drafting of the constitution, the question of the name of the nation-state was among the most hotly debated issues. The government was of the view that the name of the state should remain that used in the Corfu Declaration and promulgated on December 1, 1918, although the baptism of the state performed in Corfu had no legal value: the government-in-exile could not consult the people under foreign rule. Moreover, the Constituent Assembly, which had amended so many of the provisions of the Corfu Declaration, could have changed the name of the state, which the majority of the inhabitants rejected. Proponents of the name “Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes” argued that the name “Yugoslavia” was a scholarly creation that would not be accepted by the masses, at least for now. The introduction of such a name would be perceived by the people as a violation of their national pride, and therefore all three tribal names would have to be retained in the state name. In favor of “Yugoslavia,” it was claimed that every nation-state must have a single name, regardless of the tribal differences between its peoples. To baptize it with the triple name would thus be tantamount to admitting that the tribes of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes had not yet united to the point of having a common name.117 In his draft constitution, former member of the Yugoslav Committee Josip Smodlaka contended that a unified state should also have a unified name. Without it, he said, the conscious-

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ness of state unity could not be strengthened in a people like the Yugoslavs that had been divided for centuries. According to Smodlaka, the name of the state should be a collective name common to all its citizens: the names of the individual parts could not denote the unity of the state.118 The issue also generated a great deal of public enthusiasm. Everyone seemed to feel obliged to contribute to the foundation of the Temple of Vid in order to make it solid and lasting. Numerous rallies were held throughout the country and countless telegrams were sent from these rallies to the Constituent Assembly in support of this or that name. Emotions ran so high that participants in the debate were even ready to resort to dirty means instead of listening to each other. In Vojvodina and BosniaHerzegovina, there was a fierce campaign to declare the provisional name adopted in Corfu as the final name of the country, while in the western part of the kingdom (Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slovenia), the preferred choice was “Yugoslavia” and, as Jugoslavenski Pijemont reported, it seemed that this name would prevail.119 If Samouprava ironized the supporters of “Yugoslavia,” stating that they seemed to believe that everything would immediately change for the better with this new name, that even the railroads and finances would be disrupted by the use of such a cumbersome and meaningless state name, the supporters of Greater Serbia alleged that everything went wrong in SCSia120 precisely because the state was not called Greater Serbia.121 During the debate over the Vidovdan Constitution, several clashes occurred between the radicals and the democrats, members of the two rival parties that had been fighting for supremacy and leadership in the country. The Democratic Party demanded that the state be called “Yugoslavia,” as it was called abroad. The National Radical Party, and its president in particular, as protectors of Serbian national interests, rejected those political parties and groups that, in their opinion, endangered those interests through their ideology and actions among the masses. Along these lines, Serbian historian Jovan Tomić argued, “We do not want Serbia to disappear, to go down in Yugoslavia, because then we would lose the moral guarantee that Serbia represents.”122 To put it in plain language, the “moral guarantee” of the radicals meant appropriating all the merits Serbia had acquired for themselves in the “wars of liberation and unification.”123 Under pressure, the democrats had to give in, and so the Vidovdan Constitution baptized the nation-state as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.124 No sooner had the centuries-old dream of the “best sons of the Yugoslav nation” come true—the unification of the South Slavs on the basis of nationality—than other “sons” of the same nation appeared who, in the name of the same principle, wanted to break this bond.125 The deputies on the lists of the Croatian Republican People’s Party and the Slovene

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People’s Party reckoned that none of the “three brothers” who had voluntarily united to form a state would be overvoted in the final organization of the state.126 Pašić dismissed their doubts by arguing that the deputies in the Constituent Assembly were representatives of a single nation, so there could be no overrides on a “tribal basis”; and in any parliament, the majority principle was perfectly natural.127 Deputies from the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, the Croatian Republican Peasant Party, the Slovene People’s Party, the Agrarian Party, and other smaller factions walked out of the assembly before the vote, hoping in this way to prevent the adoption of the constitution. However, of the 419 members of the Constituent Assembly, 223 deputies voted in favor of the final text of the constitution (that number included eighty-nine deputies from the Democratic Party, eight-seven deputies from the National Radical Party, twenty-three from the Yugoslav Muslim Organization, eleven from the Džemijet, ten from the Agricultural Party, and three deputies from the Agrarian Party); thirtyfive deputies voted against it.128 The dispute between the Serb parties, on the one hand, and the Croat and Slovene parties, on the other, was thus settled by Muslim politicians from the eastern part of the country who had been bribed by Pašić. They received payment for voting for the constitution in the form of financial compensation for unpaid rent to former feudal lords.129 Ante Trumbić, the president of the Yugoslav Committee, a signatory of the Corfu Declaration, and the first Minister of Foreign Affairs after unification, voted against the constitution.130 Before resigning, he said in the Constituent Assembly session that the constitution would leave the nation-state and its citizens without a name. Instead of national unity, Trumbić said, the triple name declared a political trinity: Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia.131 Without any enthusiasm for Yugoslavia and lacking the necessary skills, Nikola Pašić could not have done much more than get the constitution through the National Assembly. However, by completing the Vidovdan Constitution by the symbolic deadline, he demonstrated not only a high degree of opportunism, but also a tendency to view new situations exclusively through the old lens. Members and supporters of the National Radical Party flatteringly compared the “hero of our time” Nikola Pašić with the Count of Cavour and the Prince Bismarck.132 For example, at Pašić’s reception in Novi Sad on October 24, 1920, the then mayor of the city, Stevan Adamović, said, “Just as Italy had its Cavour and Germany its Bismarck, our country is lucky to have its Pašić.”133 Some Serbian historians still portray Pašić as “the creator (or one of the creators) of Yugoslavia.”134 Josip Ljubić’s remark regarding the role of Prince Bismarck in German unification is noteworthy. According to Ljubić, the German sepa-

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Figure 8.2. “Do you want good for your country? Vote for the Radicals!” Pašić and the National Radical Party defend the Vidovdan Constitution against Stjepan Radić, leader of the Croatian Peasant Party, the communists, and envious foreign powers. National Radical Party leaflet published before the elections in the 1920s. Source: private collection of the author.

ratists told Bismarck that they were also for national unification, but they queried why nature should be forced: “let the South develop itself and the North itself, so that if it is God’s will, unification will take place by itself according to the eternal laws of nature.” But Bismarck was not persuaded by such arguments. A practical man, he realized that unification would be much more difficult if the “tribes” were allowed to develop independently, establishing and reinforcing boundaries where they had not existed before. Understanding the “laws of nature,” he accelerated the action of these laws and did by force what others hesitated to do. “Today,” Ljubić concluded, “many in Germany would stone him for it, but future generations will erect statues to him.”135 It speaks volumes about collective memory the only monument to Nikola Pašić in the former Yugoslavia was in Belgrade, and it is similarly telling, in the field of historiography, that his political role in creating the first common state is appreciated only by some Serbian historians. However, Nikola Pašić’s leadership was characterized by his unswerving adherence to traditional political principles and his deep mistrust of the Yugoslav idea. In fact, he played the leading role in the creation of the first

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common state. However, the basis of his political beliefs was the “balancing” and “liberating” idea of Serbia’s expansion on account of its wartime merits,136 and it was primarily due to him that the nation-state founded in 1918 was not called “Yugoslavia” during his lifetime. Under his leadership, the authorities in the eastern part of the nation-state actively turned the peasants into Serbs rather than Yugoslavs, thus preventing the solution of the most important internal problem of the newly formed South Slav nation-state in the first years after unification: the transformation of the South Slav peoples into Yugoslavs.137 Therefore, Pašić did not play the role of Cavour or Bismarck, who united Italy and Germany respectively. While the latter united their countries, Pašić used to say, “Serbia wants to liberate and unite the Yugoslavs and does not want to drown in the sea of some kind of Yugoslavia. Serbia does not want to drown in Yugoslavia, but to have Yugoslavia drown in her.”138 Thus, Charles Jelavich is right when he says that Pašić cannot be called “the ‘father’ of Jugoslavia.”139 Instead of unifying the country, the Vidovdan Constitution highlighted that the “three tribes” of the nation-state could not even agree on a single name.140 Since a nation should have only one name, the triple name soon became a bone of contention. As a name for the Yugoslav community, especially when used tendentiously, the triple name meant separatism, with all its fatal consequences.141 Officially, the Vidovdan Constitution resolved Yugoslavia’s national issues by proclaiming Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (others were not named) as three distinct “tribes” of one “nation.” In keeping with the idea that a nation consists of people who are related by blood and speak the same language, the constitution declared Serbo-Croat-Slovene to be the official language of the new nation-state, and its citizens to be of Serbo-CroatSlovene nationality.142 Disappointment with these conditions gave rise to the question of why they had even joined together to form a nation-state when they belonged to three nations.143 Hinko Hinković, one of the founders of the Croat-Serb coalition in 1905 and a member of the Yugoslav Committee, sharply criticized the Vidovdan Constitution, saying that it not only failed to calm the waters, but on the contrary fanned the flames of tribal passions. Greater Serbia, he continued, was subjecting everything under its rule to Procrustean torment: By making equal what is not equal, it behaves like that mythological bandit who tied his victims to a bed by cutting off one limb that was too long and stretching one that was too short. Day by day, our personal freedom is decreasing, public safety and property are in danger, our Western civilization is being ruined, and the foundations of morality are being undermined.144

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By opting for “tribal names” as the name of the nation-state, the Constituent Assembly proved incapable of solving the national problem in the spirit of modern nationalism. Through its chosen solution, the majority of the Constituent Assembly simply closed its eyes to the fact that Yugoslavism, as the embodiment of the aspirations and the imperative to avoid everything that separates, was the only force capable of eliminating the existing differences and contradictions, emphasizing instead that which unites. By retaining the three “tribal names” rather than erasing them, the emergence of Yugoslav nationalism was postponed indefinitely.145 Or, as Franjo Malin succinctly put it, “Without Yugoslavism there are no Yugoslavs, without Yugoslavs there is no unified state, and without that there is no common or peaceful life.”146 Thus, the Serbian radicals won a constitutional victory in 1921, but the constitutional proclamation of a single nation with three names united in a unitary state significantly damaged future state unity by alienating the majority of Croats and Slovenes. Namely, Pašić’s Greater Serbia program strengthened the Croatian movement led by Stjepan Radić and the Slovene People’s Party by Anton Korošec. Conversely, the democrats’ concession to Pašić’s demand regarding the state name damaged their political reputation, and the Democratic Party’s sincere commitment to Yugoslav ideology began to be called into question.147 The elections of March 18, 1923, were held as a plebiscite on the revision of the constitution. In general, Serbs voted to keep everything as it was, while Croats, Slovenes, and Bosnian-Herzegovinian Muslims favored changes. The outcome of the elections only widened the internal differences, as the leading Croat, Slovene, and Muslim parties, representing the Croat, Slovene, and Muslim populations, ran against the National Radical Party representing the Serbs after the elections. The Slovene People’s Party introduced a new fable to interpret the post-election negotiations: “Today,” Domoljub clarified, “there is a desperate struggle in all Belgrade political circles to preserve the centralist constitution, which is held up by some Serb politicians and Belgrade čifuts as a dairy cow that is milked in Belgrade but eats in Slovenia and Croatia.”148 Although this great cow was just a mythological creature created in the period of Austro-Hungarian political polemics,149 it served as a valuable metaphorical instrument in winning the votes of the Slovene peasants. For their part, the Croats accused the Serbs of exploiting Croatia as if it were a colony.150 Zagreb radi, Beograd se gradi (Zagreb labors, Belgrade is being built) became a popular slogan of Croat nationalism. As Trumbić recalled in his elaboration of the Croatian question, the economic and financial policy in the common state pursued two goals: on the one hand,

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to get the best out of Croatia, and, on the other, to increase prosperity in Serbia, especially in Belgrade. Here it is enforced, and there it is invested. Railroads, roads, buildings for public and even private use, and all kinds of institutes are built. We have no say, we are condemned to accept decisions from Belgrade. Belgrade, an ordinary larger city in the Balkans, is being developed into a metropolis with bridges over the Sava and Danube rivers, the likes of which are rarely seen in Europe. What a Belgrade Serbia has built in the hundred years of its independence, and what a Belgrade we have built in only fourteen years with the help of “national unity”! We pay all the war and other debts of Serbia, but the “reparations,” of which a huge sum was received, were considered “Serbian,” so it is not known what they were spent on or how much was even received on this account. In this situation are not only we who were “liberated,” but even Montenegro, which has fought a bloody war alongside Serbia since 1912!151

After the elections of March 18, 1923, the citizens of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes no longer formed a single nationality; the vast majority of them lined up behind their respective national flags (Serbian, Croatian, or Slovenian). Moreover, some of the “three brothers” were included in the concept of “us,” while others were excluded. Such a situation did not bode well for the stability of the country and its government. New elections followed in 1925 and 1927, during which the competing parties promised to work for the good of their “people” in the future. And the voters, looking for a way out of the political and/or economic crisis, always opted for “their” parties. Only in the 1931 elections, which ushered in the period of “electoral dictatorship,” did the government ask the people to “vote for Yugoslavia.” But now the call no longer had the same appeal as in 1918, and the door no longer led into the same house; and the attempt to open it had the unfortunate side effect of turning the elections into much more than political contests: “In effect every election became a plebiscite on Yugoslavia. And by crudely manipulating those elections, the state further devalued the concept of Yugoslavism.”152

King Aleksandar the Unifier On June 29, 1928, when a deputy of the National Assembly and member of the National Radical Party Chetnik Vojvoda Puniša Račić assassinated two deputies of the Croatian Peasant Party, Pavle Radić and Đuro Basariček, and fatally wounded their leader Stjepan Radić, he triumphantly shouted, “Long live Greater Serbia!”153 Seeing that Račić’s shots

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had terminally wounded the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes as a democracy, King Aleksandar (Crown Prince 1909–21, regent 1914–21, king 1921–34) left his royal pedestal and descended to the political stage. His supporters cheered his love for the Yugoslav nation-state and the Yugoslav idea, his guiding principle since he had begun to engage in public affairs. He was praised—as a national giant—for giving the Yugoslav idea wings and transferring it from the realm of utopia to reality.154 His critics, conversely, alleged that where Nikola Pašić insisted on keeping the name “Serbia,” King Aleksandar merely wanted to promote and safeguard the political-bureaucratic dominance of the Serbian bourgeoisie under the name “Yugoslavia.”155 To untangle the Gordian knot of constant crises of parliamentary democracy caused by “deluded partisan passions,”156 the king assumed personal rule on January 6, 1929. Some contemporary political leaders believed that King Aleksandar had neither a political reason nor the power to do this. According to Ljubomir Davidović, the king would thus litigate against the people, which was doomed to failure.157 Nevertheless, the king abolished the Vidovdan Constitution, suspended the National Assembly, appointed a cabinet answerable only to him, and imposed strict censorship of the press and public speech.158 His goal was to dilute previous loyalties and mark the “spiritual unity of the three brothers.”159 On October 3, 1929, King Aleksandar changed the name of his state to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and introduced new internal divisions of the country into nine banovinas named after the rivers that flowed through them, with the exception of Dalmatia, which was called Littoral.160 In order to promote the attachment of the population to “integral Yugoslavism,” that is, to create a unified Yugoslav nation not only in the political, but also in the ethnic sense, traditional loyalties had to be replaced. From that point on, the state no longer consisted of three nations, but only one. This meant that it was not only Bosnian Muslims, Macedonians and Montenegrins who were not a nation, but also Croats, Slovenes, and Serbs—all were members of the Yugoslav nation.161 It seems that public opinion was willing to give King Aleksandar a chance, but different political groups expected different things. When these groups could no longer conduct their political struggle openly through free speech, they began to release propaganda in an attempt to engage in underground agitation.162 Hence, the royal action was interpreted in various, even contradictory ways. For example, journalist Milan Banić described the descendant of the two most elite Yugoslav families—the Karadorđevićs and the Njegošs—as a synthesis of the two greatest virtues of a statesman: military courage and state wisdom.163 In his eyes, King Aleksandar, by naming his kingdom “Yugoslavia,” dealt a death blow to

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the idea of Greater Serbia, for any return to the Kingdom of (Greater) Serbia was now “impossible, absurd.”164 Svetozar Pribićević, on the other hand, did not agree with this view. He saw in the new Yugoslav state “only an enlarged Serbia, which first occupied and then annexed the territories conquered during the war by the right of victory and marked the borders with its bayonets.”165 Officially, the entire Yugoslav nation euphorically welcomed the rebirth of the state as Yugoslavia.166 A member of the Yugoslav Committee in London, Bogumil Vošnjak, hailed October 3, 1929, as “a break with the past.”167 According to him, there was a gap between the meanings of SCSia and Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia meant the unification of brothers who had been separated in the past by a terrible fate; it meant the construction of a new homeland from the material left behind by the past. “SCSia divided us,” wrote Vošnjak, “Yugoslavia unites us state-wise and spiritually. Not SCSia, but Yugoslavia has been our racial dream for centuries. Yugoslavia is our true state, our Slavic and human ideal.”168 Many saw King Aleksandar as “the only important figure” in Yugoslav political life who was truly pro-Yugoslav. Nikola Pašić had reservations, but was pro-Yugoslav because he knew Aleksandar was. Serbian military officers who were pro-Yugoslav largely held this view under the influence of the king.169 Contemporary American diplomat and editor Hamilton Fish Armstrong was not enthusiastic about the introduction of the socalled dictatorship of January 6, but he wondered what alternative King Aleksandar had at that point, when he saw the country’s unity crumbling. “He could try a new coalition,” Armstrong says, “with the same elements that had so often failed. He might try new elections which, under the existing electoral system, would return the same faces and the same voices to Parliament.”170 And the British diplomat and secret agent R. H. Bruce Lockhart believed that King Aleksandar, regardless of his flaws, would one day become “a national hero, not only to the Serbs, for he is that already, but also to the other Slav races of Yugoslavia.”171 The acting British consul in Zagreb reported that businessmen in Croatia and Slovenia were pleased with the crackdown on corruption and that stocks were rising in value. Moreover, people at the grassroots level saw the end of partition and its removal from all areas of national, provincial, urban, and rural life as “something to be grateful for.”172 Strict censorship ensured that critical voices in the country were silenced. Nevertheless, the first crack in the king’s construct appeared in the press only a week after he had gave his country a single name. In midOctober 1929, large Illyrian celebrations were held in Ljubljana to mark the 120th anniversary of the founding of the Illyrian Provinces. This was the first large public event in Yugoslavia since October 3. The press re-

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ported extensively on the great enthusiasm that the celebrations aroused among the citizens of Ljubljana. On behalf of the royal government, thousands of participants were greeted by the Minister of the Army and Navy, General Stevan Hadžić. He introduced Napoleon’s Illyria as “the forerunner of today’s Yugoslavia” and praised Napoleon’s monument as “a symbol of our inseparable unity, realized by our exalted ruler with the help of the devoted and loving people of all Yugoslavia.”173 The crowd responded with thunderous applause and loud shouts in honor of the king Aleksandar and Yugoslavia.174 Slovenec, the organ of the Slovene People’s Party, on the other hand, insisted in its report that the Yugoslav name was not a “national name” but a designation for the members of a multinational community who all spoke their own languages and about whom “our supreme wise ruler” solemnly proclaimed, “Croats will continue to be Croats, Serbs Serbs, Slovenes Slovenes. Everyone will be proud to be a Yugoslav.” General Hadžić referred to the Catholic priest Valentin Vodnik as “a peer of our greatest national awakener [i.e., Kara Đorđe],” while Slovenec’s correspondent referred to Vodnik as the organizer of education for Slovenes in the Illyrian Provinces in their native language, adding that this “did not harm the unity of Illyria.”175 In this case, the censors stood idly by. How often they did intervene remains unknown. Critical voices were heard only in texts published abroad or in illegal publications. One of the harshest critics of the king’s actions was Svetozar Pribićević, a Serb politician from Croatia and a staunch advocate of political centralism. For Yugoslavia to exist, Pribićević argued in his book, which was published in Paris, the Yugoslav idea should have been strengthened in Yugoslavia, but King Aleksandar’s dictatorship only exposed it to danger, if not directly killed it. In any case, Pribićević argues, King Aleksandar’s dictatorship alienated Croats from Serbs more than ever before in history. In Croatia and other parts of the country where Croats lived, blood was spilled over Croatian flags that were displayed in various ways by the population and removed by force by the authorities after 1929. It was forbidden not only to wave a Croatian flag, but also to sew it onto clothes or to use it as ribbons on a wreath, a coffin, or a grave. Thousands upon thousands of men and women were fined or imprisoned for this “offence,” and a large number of peasants on one side and gendarmes on the other died in clashes over the Croatian flag.176 While the Croatian flag was strictly forbidden in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Serbian flag was allowed to fly freely as the flag of the Serbian Orthodox Church.177 Yugoslavism after 1929 was closely associated with Serbian national myths, although the regime rejected “tribal names” and national symbols. Serbian sacrifices in World War I, in particular, became one of the most important founding myths of the Yugoslav state, even though the Serbs

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and the Habsburg Yugoslavs were officially on opposing sides during the war. The greatest danger of the “Kajmakčalan ideology” was that it implied, not necessarily subtly, that because the Serbs had suffered the most during the war to liberate all Yugoslavs, they were entitled to lead, if not dominate, the new state.178 As Dejan Djokić suggests, it was precisely this lack of a common Yugoslav national mythology that ultimately led to the failure of “integral Yugoslavism.”179 Indeed, many saw in the dictatorship introduced to realize the Yugoslav idea merely a mask hiding the old Greater Serbia. The problem was not only the national mythology, but also its instrumentalization and capitalization. For example, all important institutions remained in Serbian hands: the king, the government, and the leading generals were all Serbs. In the National Assembly, 68 percent of the seats were in Serbian hands; in the Senate, it was 54 percent; in the Ministry of Interior, 98 percent; in the Ministry of Education, 96 percent; in the Central Press Bureau, 78 percent; and in the Mortgage and National Bank, 98 percent. However, even if all Macedonians and Montenegrins were counted as Serbs, Serbs would only have accounted for barely 40 percent of the entire country. To complete this picture, Pribićević added that Serbs from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire were represented in “very small numbers.”180 King Aleksandar did not receive applause for his action even in the illegal printed media published by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. This great-grandson of Kara Đorđe was accused of being a big capitalist who had amassed so much wealth in a short period of fifteen years that he became “the richest man in Yugoslavia,”181 and his actions were interpreted as “the crown of the hegemonic-imperialist policy of the bloody regime of Greater Serbian fascism.”182 The communist press called the king “Aleksandar Poslednji” (Alexander the Last)183 and threatened him and his “clique” with just punishment for their “crimes against the working people.”184 In Zagreb, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia organized a demonstration of discontent on January 6, 1935, the sixth anniversary of King Aleksandar’s proclamation to his people. The demonstrators expressed their rejection of the dictatorship, waving red flags and shouting slogans against fascism and war preparations, and in favor of friendship with the USSR.185 The assassination of the king in Marseille on October 9, 1934, was planned and executed by Macedonian and Croatian nationalists who were closely linked to fascist Italy. It is obvious that King Aleksandar was, in their eyes, the main pillar of integral Yugoslavism, which they disliked and hoped would disappear with, or at least be weakened by, his death; otherwise, they would not have targeted him.186 The news from Marseille shook Yugoslavia; the astonished people wept at the loss and wondered, “What

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will become of Yugoslavia?”187 However, the early death of King Aleksandar did not undermine the foundation of his edifice. Referring to the folk tale of the construction of the citadel of Shkodra, the Sokol Association of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia declared after the Marseille assassination that the foundation of the solid edifice of the fatherland had only been enlarged and that Yugoslavia had only been made “bigger, more valuable, and stronger.”188 The death of the king, the symbol of the nation and state unity, was deeply disturbing for the majority of Yugoslavs, regardless of differences in their worldviews. His death profoundly affected the nation, not only through the empathy aroused for the victim of a brutal murder, but also due to the general feeling of insecurity in a situation in which the future of the state—and nation—was at stake, the assassinated king being its most obvious symbol and point of unity. The personalities who symbolize the state are replaced by new personalities over time which is why their symbolic identity is of great importance to kingdoms. But when a king’s personality becomes a symbol of state unity, as in the case of Aleksandar Karađorđević, the death of the king can be a major threat to that unity. A possible solution, then, is to keep the symbolism associated with the king alive after his demise.189 At a time when World War II was already devastating Europe, Josip Pipenbaher wrote that King Aleksandar would join the ranks of other great Yugoslavs who were creating history with their spirit, will, and strength, fighting fearlessly for their ideals. He prophesied that the king’s image would one day shine alongside those of Stefan Nemanja, the founder of the Nemanjić dynasty, and Tsar Dušan, because it was he who had accomplished “the greatest deed” in national history: the unification of the scattered Yugoslav nation into a single state. The same King Aleksandar, Pipenbaher continued, would stand next to Tsar Lazar and the immortal Vožd Karađorđe, the leader of the Serbian Revolution during the First Serbian Uprising of 1804, “as the great martyr.”190 Many actions carried out in respect to the deceased king give us an insight into the mixed feelings that prevailed in Yugoslavia in the mid1930s. For instance, on the evening of October 9, 1934, a black flag was fluttering on Mount Triglav, on the top of Mount Brana, on Slivnica above Lake Cerknica, and next to the stone cross near St Donat on Rogaška Gora—that is, on all four corners of Slovene territory, conveying from four sides: “Here is, and will be Yugoslavia!”191 Obviously, this black-flagged map of Yugoslavia on the four mountains was only big enough for Slovene nationalism; Yugoslav nationalism was beyond its scope. The death of the respected king caused many citizens of Yugoslavia to act out their feelings in a similar way, but it did not cause them to see the significance of their actions in the same light. They all spoke highly of their beloved king, the

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unifier, and of Yugoslavia as his greatest achievement, but in their Land of Dreams, there were only Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes—no Yugoslavs. Emphasizing individual ethnic identities was tantamount to causing the expansion of that which separated them. In the age of nationalism, Mijo Radošević warned, the emphasis on individual ethnic identities led to the need to create and form separate nation-states. Thus, the political and religious leaders who emphasized individual ethnic identities were laying down explosives that would shake the Yugoslav state to its foundations.192 Two days after the assassination in Marseille, the Senate and the National Assembly of Yugoslavia decided that the official title of King Aleksandar would thenceforth be “Chivalrous King Aleksandar the First the Unifier.” The Slovene press first “Slovenized” “Unifier” (Ujedinitelj) as Zedinitelj and then, after a brief period of linguistic agreement, began to use Uedinitelj. Usage then fluctuated between ujedinjenje, uedinjenje, and zedinjenje. All three forms could appear in a single issue of a daily newspaper. The daily Jutro wrote about December 1 in its editorial as an instance of ujedinjenje and the king was referred to as Ujedinitelj, then on the third page December 1 was referred to as zedinjenje and the king as Zedinitelj, while the fifth page read that the teachers of Drava Banate would honor the grave of King Uedinitelj by presenting 180,000 student signatures and a note to the Chivalrous King Zedinitelj. This confusion prompted Stanko Majcen to publish in Slovenec an article entitled “Ali smo se zedinili? Ujedinili? Uedinili?” (Did we unite?). The author argued that, in Slovene, only the term zediniti (to unite) was acceptable, since ujediniti was a Serbo-Croat word and uediniti supposedly meant “to disunite.”193 Majcen’s dissection of the linguistic element of the late king’s official title was, as we have seen, more politically than linguistically motivated. In fact, we can say that Majcen’s attempt to clarify a linguistic ambiguity was rather an attempt to problematize the interpretation of King Aleksandar’s alleged last words, “Čuvajte mi Jugoslaviju!” (Preserve Yugoslavia!),194 cloaked in Aesopian language.

The Instrumentalization of the National Question In 1941, the fascist regimes of Germany and Italy, in collaboration with their Hungarian and Bulgarian partners, opened Pandora’s box for the Yugoslav national question. On April 6, 1941, they invaded Yugoslavia and dismembered it as an artificial state entity to “correct” the alleged injustices of the Versailles system. As Yugoslavia was torn apart by the occupiers and local nationalists, its peoples also turned against each other. Throughout the country, there was only one resistance movement aimed at preserving

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the state and overcoming interethnic hostilities. The Yugoslav communists realized that the national liberation struggle offered them the best hope for carrying out a socialist revolution.195 When the first common state was established in the Slavic South, the communists saw Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes as “three tribes of one nation” or a “nation with three names.” They expected the creation of a single nation—the Yugoslav “modern nation,” as the communists used to say— which would be beneficial for a future social revolution.196 Their interest in the national question was awakened only after the elections of March 18, 1923, the results of which made it clear that the expectations that many had had before unification were only an “illusion.”197 The Yugoslav national question attracted the attention of the then illegal Communist Party of Yugoslavia, which was looking for a key to the hearts and minds of the people it wanted to mobilize for the socialist revolution. Sima Marković, one of the founders of the party and an important party theoretician, questioned the formula of the “three tribes of one nation” so eagerly used by the creators of the national unity of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. For him, the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes were undoubtedly three distinct nations, but he also did not doubt that they were so closely related that their unification “into one state created all the necessary conditions for them to become one nation in the course of historical development, in the process of natural assimilation.”198 For Marković, it was clear that the Serbian theory of the national unity of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was only “a mask of Serbian imperialism.”199 In addition, he argued that it was “an inadmissible error” to attribute to contemporary national movements a revolutionary character that, in his eyes, was absolutely non-existent.200 In short, Marković took the position that the national question was really only a constitutional question and that it was not in the interest of the working class to deal with it, since it only reduced the focus on class struggle.201 The left wing of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia did not subscribe to this interpretation, nor did the Comintern. Grigory Zinoviev, the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, believed that the Communist Party of Yugoslavia should have understood that the national question was “one of the most important levers” for overthrowing the ruling regime.202 In 1923, the party initiated a broad discussion on the national question, from which two different assessments emerged. While the right wing of the party, centered around Sima Marković, held on to the views of the past, the left put forward a new view: the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was a multinational state in which a system of national oppression prevailed. The leftists prevailed and the illegal Communist Party adopted a new definition for the solution of the national

246 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

question in Yugoslavia. According to this definition, the national question was an integral part of the proletarian revolution. In short, it became a question of seizing power.203 In 1925, the Comintern organized a conference to discuss the Yugoslav communists’ mistake in relation to the national question. At the conference, Marković, who insisted on his interpretation, was severely criticized for not ridding himself of social-democratic views;204 his harshest critic was Stalin himself.205 From the Comintern’s point of view, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was so poorly integrated that it could never be a separate, independent element in the coming European and world revolution. The Comintern could imagine a German, French, or Hungarian communist revolution as part of the world revolution, with a partially independent national leadership, but it could not imagine a Yugoslav revolution. From the Comintern’s point of view, the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was good only because the country was riddled with nationalist conflicts that led to revolutionary situations.206 After World War I, the victorious Entente powers established a cordon sanitaire of the new nation-states with the aim of halting the German advance eastwards, and the Bolshevik advance westwards. Therefore, it was considered an “artificial Versailles creation.”207 After the civil war in Russia in the wake of the October Revolution of 1917, many “whites” emigrated to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The hostility of the Comintern toward the state of the Yugoslavs was reinforced by its friendly relations with the “imperialist” states of France and Great Britain. These two countries, which dominated what Moscow considered the “unjust” Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919, also played a decisive role in the creation of the new South Slav kingdom as a kind of Serbian mini-empire. Thus, the Comintern’s strategy was to seek allies among non-Serb nations that felt oppressed and to support their independent states.208 In an attempt to mobilize the masses for the revolution, the Yugoslav communists began a hateful propaganda campaign against the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Proleter, the organ of the illegal Communist Party of Yugoslavia, accused the Yugoslav bourgeoisie of rallying around Aleksandar “the Last” and the secret military organization Bela Ruka (White Hand) to plunder workers and peasants, whether they were Serbs, Croats, Macedonians, or Slovenes. They also pointed the finger at the Yugoslav bourgeoisie, claiming that it was planning to lead the Yugoslav masses into a war against the Soviet Union.209 Likewise, Proleter aimed angry words of displeasure at thousands of members of the Wrangel “gangs,” blaming the Yugoslav bourgeoisie of having no money to help and protect the unemployed and starving locals, while at the same time squandering millions of funds “robbed from the working people” to support Russian

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emigrants who posed a danger to the Soviet Union.210 For the Yugoslav communists, the main cause of their distrust, as General Secretary Milan Gorkić explained in Le Correspondance internationale on October 20, 1934, was King Aleksandar, who allegedly dreamed of one day becoming the “tsar of all Slavs.”211 When the Third Reich and its allies occupied Yugoslavia and later attacked the Soviet Union, Yugoslav communists called on working peoples to “fight for a different Yugoslavia than the one they created at Versailles.”212 By linking the call for social revolution to the promise of the creation of a new federal state, the Yugoslav communists were able to distinguish themselves from other resistance forces fighting to restore the old regime, as well as from the various radical ultranationalist forces that perpetrated violent acts of terror against their neighbors.213 Communist propaganda portrayed the “new Yugoslavia” as a multinational community, free from exploitation and Greater Serbian hegemony. Under the slogan “brotherhood and unity,” Yugoslav nationalism was relegated to the dustbin of history as an idea that deserved no respect, let alone recognition. Secretary General Josip Broz Tito himself, in an article published in Proleter on December 16, 1942, called the “Yugoslavia of Versailles” the “most typical embodiment of national oppression in Europe.” As Tito put it, before World War II, Yugoslavia was ruled by “a handful of Greater Serbian hegemonists, insatiable in their greed for wealth,” led by King Aleksandar, who created a “regime of social and national slavery.”214 While King Aleksandar’s Yugoslavia was based on the liberal concept of the nation-state, and involved a Yugoslav nation that needed to be promoted and consolidated by the state, Tito’s Yugoslavia was based on the Marxist concept of nations and states. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia was “national in form” and promised the liberation of the smaller Yugoslav nations from the oppression of the Greater Serbian bourgeoisie. Its goal was a “new Yugoslavia,” a decentralized republic without a dominant ethnic group, radically different from the “old Yugoslavia.”215 Indeed, on December 30, 1952, in an interview with a group of foreign journalists (the interview was not published in Yugoslavia during his lifetime), Tito said he wished for the day when “our five nations” would become “one Yugoslav nation.” In Tito’s eyes, however, Yugoslavia was a state, not a nation, and he never thought of merging the Yugoslav nations into a single nation.216 Edvard Kardelj shared this view. As he stated in his speech to the National Assembly on September 20, 1962, the federation of Yugoslav republics was “not a framework for creating a new Yugoslav nation, or a framework for pursuing the kind of national integration that was, in its time, the dream of various protagonists of hegemony and denationalization by terror.”217

248 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

For the Yugoslav communists, there was no Yugoslavism beyond the “brotherhood and unity of Yugoslav nations.” Thus, they defined the solution to the Yugoslav national question in clear opposition to the policy of integral Yugoslavism or “Yugoslavism of the sixth of January,” as Milovan Djilas called it in his essay on national history as a school subject, “which with the help of official historiography (see, for example, Vladimir Ćorović) sought to explain all great events and great personalities of the past as a conscious precursor to 1918 or the emergence of centralized Yugoslavia under King Aleksandar.”218 By giving priority to the socialist dimension of national identity over its Yugoslav dimension, they completely rejected the so-called bourgeois Yugoslavism, which, in their opinion, was based “on the falsification of national history and historical facts” and was in fact only “a cover for Greater Serbian hegemony and chauvinism and its other side—the chauvinism of the bourgeoisie of the individual nationalities of Yugoslavia.”219 The Communist Party ideologue Edvard Kardelj wrote in July 1944 that the “nations of Yugoslavia” in the national liberation struggle had restored the moral and political conditions for living together in a common state. For him, there was no doubt that “one of the fundamental initiatives for mobilizing the Yugoslav masses in the struggle against the occupiers was the realization of long-standing national aspirations for which the oppressed peoples of Yugoslavia had struggled in vain for twenty years.”220 Indeed, during World War II, the leaders of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia always emphasized their support for the unity of equal nations and their right to self-determination.221 They never forgot to address “our nations” or the “Yugoslav nations” in the plural and not in the singular. Josip Broz himself repeatedly spoke of “our nations” or “the nations of Yugoslavia” or occasionally of Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Muslims, Montenegrins, and Macedonians, instead of Yugoslavs.222 As explained by Kardelj, the peoples of Yugoslavia—“led by communists and other revolutionary socialist forces”—during World War II and afterwards “opted for Yugoslavia, for the socialist community of Yugoslav nations and nationalities.” They made this decision of their own free will, on the basis of the right to self-determination, including the right to secession and unification, at a time when they were armed and enjoyed full freedom of choice.223 According to Kardelj, the Yugoslav nations were “formed and stabilized nations” and they had “the same feeling about their interests that other nations have.”224 They were “bound together by their common history, by a profound sense of destiny, by the ethnical relatedness of most of them and above all by the joint consciousness that provided the groundwork of the revolution and common struggle for a selfmanaging, democratic, socialist society.” However, all this “cement of unity”

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did “nothing to change the essence of the socio-historical phenomenon called the nation.”225

“Brotherhood and Unity” After the bloody resistance and socialist revolution during World War II, the “new Yugoslavia” was born. It was imagined as a total negation of the “old Yugoslavia” of the pre-war period. The building of a Yugoslav nation was no longer sought, nor was the creation of a Yugoslav nation-state. Moreover, the Yugoslav communists’ interpretation of the past attributed the failure of the Dual Monarchy and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia to the attempts of their elites to negate the existing nations and invent a new supra-nation.226 As early as 1944, the Anti-Fascist Councils of the Republics and Provinces were appointed as the highest legislative and executive bodies of the six federal entities (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Serbia). The provincial councils of Vojvodina and Kosovo decided that these two provinces should become part of federal Serbia as autonomous entities.227 In the elections on November 11, 1945, in which all citizens over the age of eighteen were eligible to vote regardless of gender or other distinctions, with the exception of collaborators with the occupying forces, Marshal Tito and his party won a landslide majority. The Constituent Assembly convened on November 29, 1945. Its first act was to proclaim the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, which meant the end of the monarchy.228 On January 31, 1946, the new constitution, “almost a verbatim copy of the Soviet basic law,” was promulgated.229 In Tito’s Yugoslavia, all “nations and nationalities” had cultural autonomy, their own school systems, newspapers, and books in their languages. Most importantly, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia was organized as a federation of six communist parties from six people’s republics.230 Eventually, centrifugal pressures grew as a result of the autarkic policies of Yugoslavia’s regionally based political elites.231 However, as an attempt to solve the problem of centralism, polycentric centralism only showed that this solution was no less dysfunctional. It could not solve the problems it aimed to solve, but rather broke the unity that had been created by the national liberation struggle. Nevertheless, the republican and provincial ruling elites wanted to secure a decisive influence in Yugoslavia.232 Even assuming that most political conflicts in Yugoslavia in the post-war period were ideological rather than ethnic,233 they were “portents of future difficulty.”234 In the wake of the victory in the national liberation war and the socialist revolution, streets were named after their heroes in all the cities of Tito’s Yugoslavia, and numerous monuments were erected in honor of

250 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

these heroes throughout the country. Many cities established museums of national liberation and the socialist revolution, and various commissions were formed with the task of jealously guarding the shining traditions of the war of liberation and socialist revolution. Although political rhetoric constantly emphasized the “working people” as the creators of history, the history of the national liberation struggle and the socialist revolution, which was honored in street names, public monuments, holiday celebrations, school textbooks, etc., was presented mainly as the biography of its “immortal” leaders, especially Tito. Patriotism was came to be associated not so much with loyalty to the nation-state, but rather with loyalty to the great leader of the only party, and the leading slogan was no longer “Preserve Yugoslavia,” but “After Tito—Tito!” The regime, which built its legitimacy on uncompromising modernization and a complete break with tradition, paradoxically did not lead the Yugoslavs to a “bright future,” but back to pre-modern times, when the nation-state did not exist and citizens owed their greatest loyalty to the head of state, the “father of the nation.” I assume that A. J. P. Taylor had this in mind when he called Tito “the last of the Habsburgs.”235 For the communist leadership, it was necessary to destroy the “hated old regime” and create a “new Yugoslavia,” which would no longer be what the “old Yugoslavia” was—a “prison of nations”—and would instead be a state built on self-determination and the equality of all nations.236 According to the description of the American writer Louis Adamic, who did not want to portray the “new Yugoslavia” as a utopia when he visited conflictridden Yugoslavia after 1948, the application of the federal principle did solve “the national problem.” At any rate, he could find no signs of the old Serbo-Croat conflict.237 However, even if Adamic did not detect them, ethnic nationalisms had not disappeared, but continued to engage in a bitter political struggle, using slanderous language and narratives about the victimhood, honesty, and heroism of the nation in question, while castigating other nations.238 In the last census conducted in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1931, citizens were not allowed to call themselves Serbs, Croats, or Slovenes and were all recorded under the national name “Yugoslavs.”239 In contrast, in the 1953 and 1961 Yugoslav censuses, all persons were recorded as Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Hungarians, Albanians, Germans, Italians, Czechs, Slovaks, Turks, or Gypsies; those who chose not to indicate their nationality were recorded as “Yugoslavs without declaration.” It was not until the 1971 census that citizens had the option of declaring themselves “Yugoslavs,” although this “was not considered a declaration of nationality or ethnicity.”240 In that census, of 20,532,972 citizens, 273,077 declared themselves to be Yugoslavs.241 Even more than

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the number of nationally or ethnically “undeclared Yugoslavs” itself, the fact that they were not considered a distinct ethnic group said something about their situation in society. Unlike “constituent nations” and even “nationalities” and “ethnic minorities,” they were not politically represented. As Dejan Jović notes, in none of the four elections for the Yugoslav presidency (1974, 1979, 1984, 1989) was even a single “Yugoslav” nominated by any of the republics or provinces.242 In nation-building, it is often the unintended consequences that matter most. The small number of Yugoslavs highlighted that multinational Yugoslavia faced a virtually insoluble national identity problem. The majority of Yugoslav citizens were Yugoslavs, but that did not provide a “passport to unity.” On the contrary, what compromised the foundations of the “old Yugoslavia”—the lack of unity—remained a problem in the “new Yugoslavia,” creating “a serious conflict potential for the future,” even though the national question was declared resolved during and after World War II.243 In the “new Yugoslavia,” the nature of the political system favored and reinforced national differences and fostered division among the population. As Andrew Borowiec notes, Tito, the son of a Croatian father and a Slovene mother, managed to resolve the thorny national question himself. He alone stood above the squabbles and feuds, “a true Yugoslav.”244 The entire Titoist doctrine, however, consisted of a series of contradictions. Many felt that without Tito’s dominant personality, these contradictions would almost certainly implode and bring down the edifice that “the Old Partisan has so painstakingly created.”245 Consideration for the ethnic sensitivities of the people, instigated primarily by the political leadership itself, led the League of Communists of Yugoslavia to negate Yugoslav nationality and even to ban its “production.”246 At a time of intensifying political struggle as well as increasing economic difficulties in the country, ethnic nationalism became bigger and more difficult to control—a symptom of disturbed relations between ethnic groups.247 In the end, as Andrew Baruch Wachtel posits, although political and social discord threatened the stability of “old Yugoslavia,” its real failure was its inability to create the twin concepts of the Yugoslav nation and its culture.248 Since Yugoslavs were the lifeblood of Yugoslavia’s existence as a nation-state, this was indeed a serious failure. In the “new” multinational Yugoslavia, the regime deliberately avoided creating these concepts, as the national question supposedly ceased to be a politically destructive factor during the national liberation struggle, and in the national revolution it even became “a political cohesive force that influenced the gathering of the masses in the struggle for complete liberation.”249 Accordingly, Yugoslav nationalism was considered unnecessary for the new political organization

252 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs

and was replaced by the concept of “brotherhood and unity” as a panacea for all the ills of the unsolved national question. However, the Titoist solution to the national question, according to which Yugoslav “nations and nationalities” were clearly separate communities, albeit parts of a single ethnic community,250 only raised new national questions and, over time, breathed new life into old traditions and prejudices. Without a viable concept of the Yugoslav nation as a melting pot, the Yugoslav idea proved to be merely a castle in the sand. Built on such a foundation, Yugoslavia was nothing more than a mosaic of various nation-states of different South Slavs, waiting to fall to pieces.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

Jezernik, 2013, 22. Markovits, 1982, 9. Shafer, 1963, 13. Tismaneanu, 1998, 23–24. Buxton and Conwil-Evans, 1922, 15. Marjanović, 1923, 127. Smith, 1999, 66. Eliade, 1970, 164. Županić, 1907b, 486–87. Ekmečić, 1980, 22–23. Wiebe, 2002, 6. Tismaneanu, 1998, 9. See Tresić Pavičić, 1928, 57. See, for example, Marjanović, 1923, 94–95. Djordjevic, 1980, 12. Ibid., 13. Srpske Novine, June 8, 1917. For the full text of the declaration, see Šišić, 1920, 96–99. Vošnjak, 1929, 111. Vošnjak, 1928, 232; see also Murko, 1929, 57. Paulová, 1924, 83; Gregorić, 1942, 12; Čulinović, 1962, 24–25; Lederer, 1969, 430. Meštrović, 1955b, 173. Radošević, 1935, 454; Seton-Watson, 1945, 217; Čulinović, 1962, 25; Purivatra, 1974, 37–38; Gligorijević, 1979, 271. Banac, 1984, 118. Janković and Krizman, 1964, 37–41; see also Kulundžić, 1968, 508; Stoke, 1980, 54. Đorđević, 1922, 137. Marković, 1919, 11–12; Radošević, 1935, 454. Jelavich, 1951, 152. Seton-Watson, 1945, 222. Đorđević, 1922, 8,

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31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80.

Vošnjak, 1928, 247–48; 1929: 116–17. Meštrović, 1955b, 176. Samouprava, May 17, 1921; Đorđević, 1922, 36. Vošnjak, 1928, 47. Buchan, 1923, 245. Horvat, 1942, 122–23. See, for example, Smodlaka, 1919, 4; Savić, 1919, 28; Murko, 1929, 57. Ignjatović, 2007, 37. Evans, 2008, 179. Ibid., 213. Mitrović, 2004, 410. Mandić, 1956, 62. Della Coletta, 2006, 45. Vošnjak, 1929, 111. Slepčevič, 1918, 7. Milovanović, 1895, 12 Čubrilović, 1958, 472. Mandić, 1956, 93. Slovenski Narod, October 30, 1918; Slovenec, October 30, 1918. Schreiner, 1919, 1. Kostelski, 1952, 476. Paulová, 1924, 84–85; Thompson, 1992, 201; Nielsen, 2014, 155. Pribitchévitch, 1933, 34. Buxton and Conwil-Evans, 1922, 27; see also Birkhill, 1923, ix. Shafer, 1963, 8. Hribar, 1929, 291. Đermanović, 1928, 330. Shafer, 1963, 10. Luke, 2002, 13. Clark, 1984, 32. Vošnjak, 1929, 104. Petranović, 2002, 21. Jovanović, 2002, 381. Meštrović, 1955b, 188 Idem, 1961, 201 Rivet, 1919, 170. Ibid., 208. Ibid., 250–51. Pribitchévitch, 1933, 32. Kostić, 1957, 58. Biondich, 2008, 64. Vucinich, 1980, 200–1. Marcovitch, 1920, 98. See, for example, Jovanović, 2014. Cvijić, 1906, 5. Pleterski, 1986, 90. Shafer, 1963, 13. Wachtel, 1998, 72. Lederer, 1969, 432. Hribar, 1929, 239.

254 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129.

Lazarević, 1920, 451. Salihagić, 1940, 25. See, for example, Marković, 1935, 19–20. Lederer, 1969, 434–35. Čulinović, 1959, 308. Dragnich, 1983, 15. Jurišić, 1924, 41; Harrison, 1941, 179. Čulinović, 1959, 311–12. Graham, 1938, 108. Ibid., 121. Ribar, 1951, 60. Banitch, 1933, 8–9; Grisogono, 1938, 102. Radošević, 1935, 262–63. Grisogono, 1938, 102. Cohen, 1993, 10. Grol, 1939, 6–7. Tresić Pavičić, 1928, 123. Cicvarić, 1923, 1. Pavlowitch, 2002, 136. Tresić Pavičić, 1928, 119. Dragnich, 1983, 59. L., 1920, 226. Tresić Pavičić, 1928, 100–1. Stojanović, 1935, 91. Jelavich, 1977, 322. Slokar, 1928, 553; Štibler, 1931, 27–31; Lampe, 1980, 139. Lampe, 1980, 148. Kulundžić, 1968, 590. Protić, 2006, 81. Semjan, 1919, 6–7. Horvat, 1942, 80–81; Janković, 1959, 36. Klopčič, 1986, 12. Topalović, 1924, 3. Slokar, 1928, 553. Gorkić, 1937, 1–2. Seton-Watson, 1945, 226–27. Jovanović, 1924, 55. Smodlaka, 1920, 9. Jugoslavenski Pijemont, April 29, 1921. Eshaesia is an abbreviation for the name of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes read as one word (Essceeessia). Samouprava, May 6, 1921. Tomić, 1921, 206. Stanković, 1985, 263. Gligorijević, 1970, 214. Kosternić, 1921, 302. Brejc, 1928, 166 Gligorijević, 1979, 93. Čulinović, 1959, 266; 1961, I, 351; Gligorijević, 1970, 217. Gligorijević, 1970, 212.

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130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158. 159. 160. 161. 162. 163. 164. 165. 166. 167. 168. 169. 170. 171. 172. 173. 174. 175. 176. 177. 178. 179.

Stojadinović, 1963, 172. Jutarnji List, June 28, 1921. Rašović, 1919, 3–4; Mitković, 1920, 166. Samouprava, October 27, 1920. See, for example, Krivokapić-Jović, 2011, 32. Bogdanov, 1895, 36–37. Bogdanov, 1953, 35. Hoptner, 1962, 1. Banac, 1984, 132. Jelavich, 1951, 152. Jovanović, 1924, 56. Malin, 1925, 62–63. See, for example, Smodlaka, 1920, 15; Kušej, 1938, 167; Čulinović, 1959, 271–72. Radonić, 1921, 437. Hinković, 1922, 52. Grubić, 1921, 361. Malin, 1925, 69. Gligorijević, 1970, 214. Jezernik, 2015, 202. See, for example, Slovenski Gospodar, November 3, 1910. Seton-Watson, 1945, 226–27. Boban, 1989, 20. Nielsen, 2014, 238. Kulundžić, 1968, 522 Radošević, 1935, 501. Ramet, 2006, 81. Ribar, 1949, 11. Ibid., 20. Boban, 1989, 21. Pipenbaher, 1939/40, 327. Kušej, 1938, 169. Vošnjak, 1929, 118; Smiljanić, 1955, 67; Djokić, 2003, 150. Gregorić, 1942, 41. Radošević, 1935, 500. Banitch, 1933, 123. Pribitchévitch, 1933, 56. Nielsen, 2014, 108. Vošnjak, 1929, 118. Ibid., 111–12. Dragnich, 1980, 47–48; Bakić, 2004, 364. Armstrong, 1929, 13. Lockhart, 1938, 104. Nielsen, 2014, 93. Hadžić, 1929a, 3; 1929b, 3. Jezernik, 2014, 385. Ibid., 388–89. See, for example, Pribitchévitch, 1933, 125; Boban, 1989, 20. Pribitchévitch, 1933, 125. Djokić, 2003, 151. Ibid.

256 • Yugoslavia without Yugoslavs 180. Pribitchévitch, 1933, 125. 181. Čolaković, 1968, 234; see also Smiljanić, 1955, 31; Čulinović, 1961, 239; Kulundžić, 1968, 37. 182. Proleter, December 1, 1930. 183. Gorkić, 1987, 359. 184. See, for example, Jutro, June 7, 1934. 185. Marković and Ristović, 1961, 296. 186. Petranović, 1988, I, 187. 187. Stojadinović, 1939, 6–7. 188. Smiljanić, 1937, 11–12. 189. Kertzer, 1988, 18. 190. Pipenbaher, 1939/40, 328. 191. Planinski Vestnik, 1934, 11, 323. 192. Radošević, 1935, 510. 193. Aristides, 1934, 4. 194. See Djokić, 2003, 137. 195. Bakić, 2011, 48–49. 196. Pešić, 1983, 26. 197. Cesarec, 1925, 24. 198. Marković 1923a: 111 199. Ibid., 117. 200. Idem, 1923b, 46–47. 201. Đurašković, 1982, 57–58. 202. Protokoll, 1967, 270–71. 203. Nikolić, 1994, 119. 204. Protokoll, 1967, I, 628; Gorkić, 1987, 172–73. 205. Avukamovic, 1964, 76–79. 206. Djilas, 1991, 57–58. 207. Bakić, 2011, 43; Klinger, 2014, 13. 208. Djilas, 1991, 56; see also Klopčič, 1984, 126–27. 209. Proleter, 1930, 3, 4. 210. M., 1932, 4. 211. Gorkić, 1987, 192. 212. Čolaković, 1959, 8; see also Čavoški, 1990, 215. 213. Cohen, 1993, 22–23. 214. Tito, 1942, 2–3. 215. Jović, 2003, 159. 216. Radelić, 2006, 340. 217. Kardelj, 1981, 137. 218. Djilas, 1949, 64. 219. Ibid. 220. Idem, 1945, 18–19. 221. Morača, 1968, 48. 222. Bakić, 2011, 49–50. 223. Kardelj, 1981, 269. 224. Ibid., 256. 225. Ibid., 257. 226. Jović, 2004, 283. 227. Morača, 1969, 296. 228. Ibid., 298.

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229. 230. 231. 232. 233. 234. 235. 236. 237. 238. 239. 240. 241. 242. 243. 244. 245. 246. 247. 248. 249. 250.

Dragnich, 1954, 36. Halperin, 1958, 32. Cohen, 1993, 33. Krivokapić, 1988, 81. Djokić, 2003, 161. Cohen, 1993, 33. Taylor, 1948, 260. Kardelj, 1948, 18. Adamic, 1949, 4. Gavrilović, 2010, 41. Pribitchévitch, 1933, 29. Savezni zavod za statistiku, 1974, xv–xvi. Savezni zavod za statistiku, 1974, 12; see also Ramet, 1982, 190; Radelić, 2006, 394. Jović, 2003, 179. Borowiec, 1977, 27–28. Ibid., 31. See also Nenadović, 1998, 154. Borowiec, 1977, 26. Litar Tavar, 2011, 93-4. Pešić, 1983, 59. Wachtel, 1998, 68. Čulinović, 1962, 6. Ibid., 13.

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Index Ada Kaleh, 38 Adam, 6, 7 Adamic, Louis, 250 Adamović, Stevan, 234 Adler, Viktor, 93 Adriatic Sea, 38, 75–76, 143, 145, 183, 225 Agrarian Party, 234 Albania, 41, 63, 81, 99, 108, 132–133 Albanians, 51, 56, 71, 131, 132–135, 170, 227 Aleksandrov, Todor, 111 Aljaž, Jakob, 120 Anatolia, 141 Andrássy, Count Gyula, 40, 42, 201 Apennine Peninsula, 225 Argonauts, 217, 218 Aristides, 244 Armstrong, Hamilton Fish, 240 Arnauts. See Albanians Ashplant, Timothy, 107 Asia, 14, 56 Aškerc, Anton, 198 Athens, 138 Austria-Hungary. See Habsburg Empire Avala, 36, 123, 183 Bagehot, Walter, x Balfour, Sir Arthur James, 222 Balkan Mountains. See Stara Planina Balkan Peninsula, 12–14, 22, 36, 39–42, 50, 51, 54, 57, 58, 62, 63, 68, 70, 73, 76, 83, 86, 99, 132, 134, 137, 139, 143, 167, 193, 196, 197, 216, 229, 238 Baltics, 224 Banat, 105 Banić, Milan, 239 Banja Luka, 27

Banjanin, Jovan, 98, 228 Bartulica, Milostislav, 165 Bartulović, Niko, 60 Bašagić, Safvet-beg, 46 Basariček, Đuro, 238 Begović, Ahmed, 24 Bela Krajina, 129, 130, 131, 141 Belgium, 90 Belgrade, 9, 19, 23, 26–27, 36–39, 48–50, 56, 59, 64–66, 71, 80, 82, 95, 97, 105–107, 117–118, 123, 130–131, 136–139, 144, 147–148, 152–153, 167, 172, 175–176, 183, 192, 200–203, 206, 209, 219, 229–230, 235, 237–238 Berchtold, Leopold, 62 Berlin, 7, 12–13, 83, 90 Berlin Congress, 40–42, 45, 80 Beust, Friedrich Ferdinand von, 82–83 Bihać, 25, 130 Biondich, Mark, 226 Bismarck, Otto von, 19, 40, 80, 142, 234–236 Bitola, 63, 70, 71, 75, 211 Black Arabs, 161 Black Sea, 39, 47, 65, 135 Bled, 113 Bluntschli, Johann Kaspar, x Bobić, Miloš, 107 Bocarić, Spiridon, 27 Bohemia, 22, 47, 134 Bojničić, Vera, 204 Bonač, France, 113, 116–121 Borojević von Bojna, Svetozar, 110, 118 Borowiec, Andrew, 251 Bosniakism, 46 Bosniaks, xi, 14, 45, 94, 137, 170

292 • Index Bosnia-Herzegovina, 11, 12, 15, 16, 18, 26, 27, 32, 38, 39, 40, 41, 44, 45, 46, 47, 60, 80, 82, 84, 86, 98, 104, 130, 131, 143, 173, 205, 208, 219, 225, 226, 228, 231, 233, 249 insurrection in 1875, 14, 16, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 36, 37, 40, 44 occupation and annexation by AustriaHungary, 17, 42, 43, 44, 46, 49, 50 Bošnjak, Ilija, 93 Bosporus, 69 Brana, 243 Bregalnica, 74 Breitenberger, Ignacij, 88 Brence, Ivan, 94 Brezje, 114–116, 124, 126 Bridge, F. Roy, 51 Britain. See United Kingdom Brod, 46 Broz, Josip, 247–251 Bruce Lockhart, Robert Hamilton, 240 Brussels, 123 Bucharest, 123 Budapest, 8, 13, 19, 62, 75, 90 Budisavljević, Buda, 66 Buenos Aires, 106 Bukovšek, 2, 171 Bulgaria, 39–41, 48, 58, 62, 70, 72, 73, 74, 81, 110, 134, 199 Greater Bulgaria, 40, 42, 48, 69, 74 Cankar, Ivan, 63, 64, 68 Carić, Juraj, 198 Carinthia, 2, 67, 137, 147, 152 Carniola, 20, 22, 39, 63, 87, 120, 130, 131, 137, 151, 152, 183, 223 Čarnojević, Patriarch, 99 Cavour, Count of, 2, 19, 234, 236 Cazin, 130 Celje, 50 Central Powers, 90, 144 Čerina, Vladimir, 168 Cetinje, 11, 19, 26, 166 Chernyaev, Mikhail, 28 Christian faith, 164 Cicvarić, Krsta, 230 Cisleithania, 80 Cleveland, 145, 146

Čolović, Ivan, 166 Communist Party of Yugoslavia, 234, 242, 245, 247–249 Constantinople. See Istanbul Corfu, 108, 218, 221, 231–233 Corfu Declaration, xii, 205, 218, 222–234 Ćorović, Vladimir, 28, 29, 184, 248 Crni Miro (Black Miro). See Miroslav Hubmajer Črnomelj, 131 Croatia, 11, 15–16, 20, 37–38, 44–48, 60, 66, 83, 84, 90, 93, 98, 123, 130, 133, 151, 161, 185, 203, 209, 219, 226, 230–231, 233–234, 237–238, 241, 249 Greater Croatia, 16, 42, 48, 74, 93 Croatian Peasant Party, 177, 210, 233, 235, 238 Croatian Pure Party of Rights, 48, 191, 203 Črtomir, 113 Čubrilović, Vaso, 28 Čulinović, Ferdo, 192, 203 Cvijić, Jovan, 136, 137, 141, 153, 168, 226 Czechoslovakia, 147, 224 Czechs, 8, 13, 22 Dalmatia, 11, 20, 44–45, 51, 59–60, 81, 191, 226, 228, 231, 233, 239 Danev, Stoyan, 72 Danube, 39, 5, 80, 81, 112, 191, 195, 238 Davidović, Ljubomir, 182, 239 d’Azeglio, Massimo, 169 Dečani, 165 Đemo Brđanin, 217 Democratic Party, 174, 197, 233–234, 237 Đerđelez Alija, 161, 178 Derganc, Franc, 134 Đermanović, Rajko, 224 Dimnik, Jakob, 182, 202 Disraeli, Benjamin, 40 Djilas, Milovan, 248 Djokić, Dejan, 242 Domžale, 124 Đorđević, Milan, 220 Dovje, 120, 121 Draga, Ferhat-beg, 107 Dragnich, Alex, 176 Drava Banate, 117, 119, 244

Index • 293

Drijen, 23–24 Drina, 49, 90, 97, 176 Dual Monarchy. See Austria-Hungary Dubrovnik, 16, 19, 22, 55, 60, 165 Đurić, Milan, 106 Dučić, Jovan, xii Durres, 82, 133 Dušan the Mighty, 16–17, 27, 69, 163, 165–166, 185, 219, 243 Duži, 22 Džemijet, 234 Ekmečić, Milorad, 216 Endlicher, Ivan, 120 England, 40 Erdeljanović, Jovan, 196 Estonia, 224 Eugene, Prince, 84 Europe, 1, 14, 17, 51, 59, 71, 75–76, 82, 86, 89–90, 103, 131–137, 154, 171, 195–196, 205–207, 211, 224, 229, 238, 243 European Turkey. See Ottoman Empire Evans, Sir Arthur, 191 Eve, 7 Fabjančič, Vladislav, 95 Filipović, Josip, 43, 49 Florence, 175 France, 63, 70, 90, 134, 169, 246 France, Anatole, 216 Frankenfeld, Alfred, 51 Franz Ferdinand, 82–84, 86, 90, 93, 97, 160 Franz Joseph I, 8, 20, 66, 82, 88, 95, 115, 146 Frederick II, 142 Freud, Sigmund, 143 Friuli, 64 Gaj, Ljudevit, 171 Galicia, 97 Garašanin, Ilija, 16 Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 199 Gavrilović, Darko, 191 Gazimestan, 161 Geneva, 147, 191 Germany, xiii, 8, 19, 22, 80, 90, 94, 99, 134–135, 169, 234–236, 244

Gersin, K. See Niko Zupanič Gillis, John, 200 Golgotha, 108 Gorchakov, Alexander, 40 Gorizia, 14, 64, 72, 118, 152, 203 Gosposvetsko polje, 67 Graz, 3, 83 Great War. See World War I Greece, 22, 58, 72, 73 Greater Greece, 69, 99 Greeks, 22, 58, 69, 71, 73 Grol, Milan, 106, 229 Günther, Hans, 142 gypsies, 24 Habsburg Empire, ix, xii, 2, 8–14, 17–18, 22, 24, 29, 38–45, 47–48, 50–51, 59, 62, 64–66, 72–76, 80–84, 86–94, 95–97, 104, 108, 110, 112, 114, 123, 131–134, 139, 143, 145–147, 150, 152, 160, 163–164, 169, 174, 176, 190–195, 201–202, 205, 207–208, 216, 218, 228–231, 237, 242, 249 Habsburg Monarchy. See Habsburg Empire Habsburgs, 82, 84–86, 88–89, 93, 99, 111, 250 Hadžić, Stevan, 241 Hajšman, Jan, 92 Hall, Richard, 58 Hanslik, Erwin, 140 Herceg Novi, 19 Hinković, Hinko, 191, 236 Hitler, Adolf, 143 Hočevar, Makso, 180 Horvat, Aleksandar, 83 Horvat, Alfons, 227 Horvat, Josip, 60 Hötzendorf, Conrad von, 62, 84 Hrasnica, Halid-beg, 111 Hribar, Ivan, 66, 91, 223 Hubmajer, Miroslav (Friedrich Hubmayer), 15, 21–25, 27–30 Hungary, 8, 38, 41, 49, 87, 98, 133, 135 Ilešič, Fran, 63–64 Ilić, Jele, 109 Illyria, 45, 137, 240–241

294 • Index Inglis, Elsie Maud, 164 Innsbruck, 90 Istanbul, 13, 42, 136, 137, 197 Istria, 152, 191 Italians, 22, 24, 175, 224, 227 Italy, xiii, 8, 19, 22, 47, 51, 80, 97, 99, 169, 191, 222, 224, 228, 234, 244 Jagić, Vatroslav, 137, 153 Jamnica, 25–29 Janjić, Vojislav, 107, 161 Janković, Velizar, 150 Jeglič, Anton Bonaventura, 89, 223 Jelačić, Count Josip, 3, 171 Jelavich, Charles, 236 Jelinić, Đurđe, 196 Jenko, Avgust, 48–49, 95–97 Jerusalem, 72 Jovanović, Jovan, 82 Jović, Dejan, 251 Judenburg, 120 Jugoslavija. See Yugoslavia Jugović, Brothers, 162, 163, 177 Jurčič, Josip, 8, 17, 18, 19, 24, 39 Jurišić Šturm, Pavle, 110–113 Kajmakčalan, 106 Kalemegdan, 105, 139 Kállay, Benjamin von, 45–46 Kapetanović, Mehmed-beg, 46 Kara Đorđe, 34, 111, 168, 197, 241–243 Kara Pierre. See Petar Karađorđević Karađorđević, Aleksandar, xii, 110, 116, 121, 143, 154, 160, 165, 170, 173, 175–176, 181, 192–194, 197, 203, 209, 218, 238–244, 246–248 Karađorđević, Đorđe, 49–50 Karađorđević, Marija, 165 Karađorđević, Pavle, 125, 153 Karađorđević, Petar I, 23, 25–27, 29, 34, 57, 104, 106, 151, 160, 184, 199 Karađorđević, Petar II, 125 Karađorđevićs, 26, 29, 81, 190 192, 194, 199, 218–219 Karadžić, Vuk Stefanović, 3, 41, 161, 171 Kardelj, Edvard, 247–248 Karl I, 110, 117, 203 Karlovac, 130, 131

Kerner, Joseph, 197 Kersnik, Janko, 9 Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, xi, 28, 103, 107, 110, 112, 115, 148, 160, 164–165, 169, 172, 184–185, 194, 196–197, 202, 205, 208–211, 221, 223, 226–227, 230, 232–233, 238, 240, 245–246 Klemenčič, Ivanka, 84 Klemenčič, Lovro, 67, 74 Klíč, Karel, 21 Klimt, Gustav, 143 Knežević, Radule, 30 Kočevje, 148 Kočić, Joca, 111 Koetschet, Josef, 22 Kollár, Jan, 140 Koman, Manica, 181 Komenda, 124 Korošec, Anton, 111, 126, 182, 237 Kosić, Mirko, 139, 170 Kosovo, 11, 36, 41, 44, 54, 56–58, 65–67, 69–71, 75, 99, 104–105, 133, 160– 161, 163–164, 166–170, 174, 176, 184–186, 217, 219, 225–226, 249 Kosovo Maiden, 104, 181 Kostajnica, 19, 25, 28 Kozina, Peter, 152 Kragujevac, 36 Krakow, 90 Kralj Matjaž, 8, 9, 39, 49, 66, 68, 95, 193, 202 Kramer, Albert, 116 Kranj, 126 Kranjčević, Ivan, 67 Krek, Janez Ev., 47, 65 Krek, Miha, 203 Kresna Uprising, 28 Krulej, Ernest, 111 Kumanovo, 65, 66, 71, 75, 133, 175 Kvaternik, Eugen, 171 Lampe, John, 231 Latvia, 224 Lazar, Tsar, 56, 130, 162–163, 165, 167, 181 Lazarević, Branko, 56 Leipzig, 7 Leontić, Ljubo, 72, 131

Index • 295

Levec, France, 9 Linz, 16 Lithuania, 224 Littoral, 54, 81, 118, 239 Ljubibratić, Drago, 159 Ljubibratić, Mićo, 16, 22, 23 Ljubić, Josip, 234–235 Ljubljana, 2–3, 11–12, 18–20, 22, 24, 39, 47–48, 59–60, 63, 66–67, 69, 83, 87–89, 91, 94, 111–112, 116–117, 119, 124, 136, 138, 144, 147–148, 151–154, 160, 164, 175, 177, 181–182, 198, 201–203, 205, 208, 240 London, 19–90, 123, 145–147, 164, 195, 240 Macedonia, 11, 28, 40–42, 69–71, 135, 169, 173, 176, 219, 225–226, 249 Maček, Vlatko, 210 Mahler, Gustav, 143 Mahnić, Antun, 196 Maister, Rudolf, 151 Majar, Matija, 3 Maksimović, Božidar, 153 Mal, Josip, 203 Malin, Franjo, 237 Mantua, 48 Maribor, 83, 150 Marjanović, Milan, 145, 160, 180, 216 Marko Kraljević, 7, 22, 47, 56, 64–65, 68–69, 99, 104, 130, 135, 162, 178, 217 Marković, Laza, 150 Marković, Sima, x, 245–246 Marseille, xii, 242, 244 Mažuranić, Boguslav, 66 McCrone, David, 200 McPherson, Gayle, 200 Mediterranean Sea, 40, 144 Melik, Vasilij, 10 Mencwel, Andrzej, xiii Meštrović, Ivan, xiii, 104, 105, 106, 107, 145, 218, 221, 225 Metelko, Franc Serafin, 6 Metković, 19, 83 Metternich, Prince, 2 Mijatović, Milan, 138 Milan, Knez, 48

Miletić, Svetozar, 11, 29, 38, 179 Milica, Tsarica, 165 Mill, John Stuart, 27 Milovanović, Milan, 163 Mišić, Živojin, 106, 151, 161 Mladenovac, 109 Montenegro, xii, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 22, 26, 36, 38, 41, 43, 44, 49, 50, 56, 58, 62, 76, 81, 84, 90, 166, 170, 173, 175, 176, 191, 207, 218, 219, 225, 228, 238, 249 Morava, 40, 176 Moriarty, Catherine, 115 Moscow, 162, 246 Moser, Hans, 107 Moskovljević, Miloš, 106 Mostar, 38, 45, 60, 184 Mother Jugović, 104 Mrkonjić, Petar. See Petar Karađorđević Mujo Hrnjica, 178 Munich, 81 Murad, 82, 167 Musa Kesedžija, 161, 217 Naples, 224, 225 Napoleon, 7, 69 Napoleon III, 10 National Radical Party, 148–151, 173–175, 184, 205, 233–235, 237 Natlačen, Marko, 88, 124 Nedić, Mićo, 225 Nemanjićs, 165, 168, 184, 243 Neretva, 15, 23 Nevesinje, 12, 22, 32, 44 New York, 106 Newman, John Paul, 110 Nikola, Petrović Njegoš, 16, 19–20, 23–24, 26, 38, 42–43, 50, 54, 166–167 Nikolajević, Dušan, 160 Nikolić, Andra, 106 Niš, 98, 144–145, 175 Njegoš. See Petar Petrović II, 2, 3 Novi Sad, 11, 36, 60, 234 Nušić, Branislav, 49, 139 Obilić, Miloš, 56, 82, 99, 104, 134, 162, 176–178 Oblak, Josip Ciril, 113

296 • Index Obrenović, Aleksandar, 41 Obrenović, Draga, 41 Obrenović, Mihailo, 49, 171 Obrenović, Milan, 24, 26, 27, 41 Obrenović, Miloš, 175 Ohrid, 65, 70 Old Serbia. See Kosovo Omahen, Gustav, 200 Osman Pasha, 46 Ottoman Empire, 12–14, 23–24, 28, 32, 39–42, 44, 58–59, 65, 68–69, 130, 170, 225 Ottomans, 16–17, 23–24, 29, 39, 51, 59, 70–73, 130, 162, 167, 180, 183, 199, 225 Paču, Laza, 106 Padua, 48 Pajevic, Arsa, 36 Pajk, Milan, 133 Palacký, František, 9 Paris, 5, 19, 123, 147, 164, 221 Peace Conference, xi, 76, 147, 160, 195, 223, 228, 229, 246 Pašić, Nikola, xii, 49, 63, 66, 72, 104–107, 141–143, 149–151, 173–175, 177, 182, 203, 210, 218, 221–222, 234–237, 240 Paulová, Milada, 143 Pavelić, Ante, 192, 209 Pavlović, Peko, 16 Peć, 41, 165 Pelagić, Vasa, 16, 17, 22 peslajnars, 39 Petrović Njegoš, Petar II, 2, 166, 176 Piedmont, 28, 44, 60, 65, 136, 149, 166–167, 169, 174–175, 219, 222, 225, 233 Pipenbacher, Josip, 243 Pirc, Louis, 145 Pirot, 40 Plemelj, Josip, 153 Pleteršnik, Maks, 206 Plzeň, 134 Podgorica, 38 Poland, 22, 135, 224 Poles, 13, 22 Popović, Andre, 58

Popović-Obradović, Olga, 176 Prague, 19, 90, 92, 123, 131 Prekmurje, 147, 152 Prepeluh, Albin, 48, 63, 199 Prešeren, France, 9, 113 Pribićević, Svetozar, 74, 169, 182, 190–192, 240 –242 Prijatelj, Ivan, 153 Prilep, 56, 65, 70, 71, 175 Princip, Gavrilo, 67, 76, 82–83, 160 Pristina, 170 Prizren, 56, 75 Procrust, 236 Promitzer, Christian, 131, 143 Protić, Stojan, 173–174, 185, 225 Prussians, 9 Pucelj, Ivan, 117 Putnik, Radomir, 72, 105–106, 126, 151 Račić, Puniša, 238 Radetzky, 84 Radić, Pavle, 238 Radić, Stjepan, 111, 190–192, 221, 235, 237–238 Radošević, Mijo, 244 Radović, Andrija, 170 Rajačić, Josif, 3 Ratej, Mirko, 125 Rebac, Hasan, 184 Renan, Ernest, 5, 140 Rešetar, Milan, 172 Retzius, Anders, 140 Rijeka, 107 Rivet, Charles, 225 Roda Roda, Alexander, 49, 83 Romania, 73, 90, 135, 224 Romanov, Alexander II, 39 Rome, 19, 104, 145, 175, 196–197 Rosafa (Shkodra) Castle, 29 Roshwald, Aviel, 92 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 180, 200, 210 Rožman, Gregorij, 125 Rusjan, Edvard, 139 Russia, 12–13, 22, 39–40, 49–50, 72, 75–76, 90, 94, 99, 143, 246 Šabac, 98 Šafárik, Pavol Jozef, 140

Index • 297

Salihagić, Suljaga, 177 Salopek, Marijan, 153 San Stefano, 39–41 Sankt Peterburg, 90 Šarac, horse, 22, 47 Sarajevo, 29, 45–46, 51, 60, 82–84, 86, 111, 160, 174, 202 Sava, 9, 38, 65, 81, 97, 139, 183, 191, 238 Savov, Mihail, 70, 72 Sazonov, Sergey, 144 Šćepan Mali (Stephen the Little), 2, 16 Seiller, Alois von, 12 Serbia, ix, 12–14, 16, 18, 22–23, 26, 36, 38, 40–46, 49–50, 54, 56–58, 60, 62–66, 68, 70–76, 80–91, 93–98, 100, 104–112, 119, 123, 130, 133–136, 138, 143–145, 151, 153, 163, 168, 173–176, 183–186, 190–192, 195, 205–207, 210, 218–220, 222–223, 225–231, 233–234, 236, 249 Greater Serbia, 12, 42, 47, 48, 51, 69, 74, 81, 84, 88, 99, 111, 132, 147–150, 191, 205, 208, 226, 230, 233, 236–238, 240, 242, 247 Seton-Watson, Hugh, 232 Seton-Watson, Robert William, 147, 164 Shafer, Boyd, 224 Shakespeare, William, 182 Shkodra, 38, 82 Shuvalov, Pyotr, 40 Šibenik, 16, 19 Sicily, 224 Simeon, Emperor, 69 Singleton, Fred, 82 Sinj, 16 Sisak, 10, 19 Sitnica, 176 Skopje, 56, 63, 65, 69–70, 75 Škrabec, Milan, 91 Slanc, Karl, 15, 19 Slavic South, ix, 5–6, 44, 65–66, 92, 147, 154, 176, 206, 215, 217, 219, 224, 226–230, 245 Slavonia, 11, 47, 60, 84, 165, 226, 228, 231 Slivnica, 243 Slivnitsa, 72 Slovaks, 8, 22 Slovene lands. See Slovenia

Slovene People’s Party, 48, 100, 113, 115, 148, 151, 234, 237 Slovenia, 18, 38, 42, 60, 63, 94–95, 124, 138, 146–148, 150, 152, 161, 181, 203, 205–206, 228, 231, 233, 249 Smodlaka, Josip, 192, 232–233 Sofia, 40, 48, 137 Solferino, 8 Sombor, 179 Sophie Chotek, 82, 83, 90 Southern Serbia. See Macedonia Soviet Union, 247 Spaho, Mehmed, 111, 205 Spaniards, 6 Split, 16, 19, 65–66, 95, 202 Srdja Zlopogledja, 104, 163 Srem, 105 Stara Gradiška, 19 Stara Planina, 39, 41 Starčević, Ante, 16, 171 State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, 190–192, 208 Stefan Nemanja, 243 Štip, 71 Stojadinović, Milan, 112, 173 Strossmayer, Josip Juraj, Bishop, 2, 3, 165, 171 Stürgkh, Karl von, 80, 81 Styria, 2, 137, 147, 152 Subotica, 211 Subotić, Jovan, 171 Šumadija, 149, 154, 165, 170, 175, 183 Šusteršič, Ivan, 48, 63, 88 Sutla/Sotla, 143 Sutorina, 23 Svatopluk, King, 16, 198 Svetec, Luka, 8 Swedes, 22 Tanković Osman, 178 Tartaglia, Oskar, 66, 92 Tavčar, Ivan, 89, 91, 119, 141, 148, 199, 223 Taylor, A. J. P., 203, 250 Thessaloniki, 80, 99 Thompson, Edward P., x Timok, 145, 165 Tismaneanu, Vladimir, 216 Tito. See Josip Broz

298 • Index Toman, Lovro, 5, 8 Tomažič, Dean, 121 Tomić, Jaša, 57, 162 Tomić, Jovan, 233 Toynbee, Arnold, 80 Trdina, Janez, 39 Trebinje, 46 Trebnje, 120, 121, 122, 123 Tresić Pavičić, Ante, 163, 217, 229 Trieste, 16, 19, 39, 48, 83, 95, 137, 152 Triglav, 22, 65, 138, 164–165, 180, 243 Triller, Karl, 223 Trubar, Primož, 113 Trumbić, Ante, xii, 145, 147, 182, 185, 191, 218, 222, 234, 237 Tucović, Dimitrije, 134 Tuma, Henrik, 39 Turin, 175 Turkey. See Ottoman Empire Turkish Empire. See Ottoman Empire Tuscany, 224 Tuzla, 45 Tyrol, 64 Ujević, Tin, 66 Ulcinj, 133 United Kingdom, 90, 146 United States, 146, 223 Uroš, Tsar, 161 Ušeničnik, Aleš, 85, 99–100, 169 Užice, 175 Valentinčič, Janez, 124 Valjevo, 98 Vardar, 180 Varna, 48 Vasić, Dragiša, 57 Veles, 70 Verona, 48 Versailles, 69, 160, 223, 244, 246–247 Vesnić, Milenko, 106, 221 Vicenza, 48 Vidmar, Stane, 116 Vienna, 3, 7, 8, 13, 18–19, 38, 62, 65, 75, 82–83, 90, 93, 123, 133, 136, 143, 197, 206 Vilder, Većeslav, 171 Vodnik, Valentin, 154, 241

Vojnović, Luj, 165 Vojvodina, 22, 38, 60, 99, 169–170, 173, 176, 219–220, 225–229, 231, 233 Von Moltke, Helmuth, 207 Vošnjak, Bogumil, 146–147, 164, 169, 182–183, 203, 225, 240 Vranje, 40 Vurnik, Stanko, 151 Wachtel, Andrew, 142, 251 Walzer, Michael, 198 Washington, 123, 203 Watson, Alexander, 82 Weber, Eugene, 169 Wickham Steed, Henry, 191, 222 Wiebe, Robert, 211 Wilfan, Josip, 207 Wilhelm I, 69 Wilson, Woodrow, xi, 146, 201, 223 Young, Alban, 221 Young, James, 5 Yugoslav Committee, 98, 145–147, 164, 191, 195, 205, 218, 220–222, 232, 234, 240 Yugoslav Muslim Organization, 234 Yugoslav Social Democratic Party, 48 Yugoslavia, ix–xiii, 2–4, 13–15, 17, 22, 28–29, 48, 75, 99, 105–106, 110–111, 124, 130–133, 144–147, 149–150, 154, 159, 169–173, 175, 177, 186, 195, 199–200, 207–208, 210, 219–223, 226–236, 238–244, 247–252 Zadar, 16, 20 Zagreb, 3, 16, 19–25, 38–39, 48, 59, 65, 93, 111, 132, 144, 164, 171–172, 185, 190–193, 202–205, 208–210, 229–230, 237, 240, 242 Zejtinlik, 108 Zemun, 9, 49 Zinoviev, Grigory, 245 Žitnik, Ignacij, 40 Zmaj, Jovan Jovanović, 40 Zois, Sigmund, 152 Zupanič, Niko, 95, 129–130, 133–154, 182, 216 Zvonimir, king, 16, 17