STUDIA CROATICA
Year II, Buenos Aires, January-March 1961, No. 2
SOVIET AND YUGOSLAV COLONIALISM 2
TITOISM AND CASTROISM IN NORTH AMERICAN POLITICAL
SCIENCE 5
JULIO CLOVIO CROATA, PROTECTOR OF THE YOUNG GRECO 12
ORIGIN, DEVELOPMENT, AND SIGNIFICANCE OF WORKERS'
SELF-MANAGEMENT IN YUGOSLAVIA 16
THE RELEVANCE OF BOSCOVICH TODAY 28
THE MIHANOVICH BROTHERS, FOUNDERS OF THE ARGENTINE
MERCHANT FLEET 31
CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS IN CROATIA 35
THE BLACK LEGEND ABOUT CROATIA IN "PREUVES"
41
DOCUMENTS - MEMORANDUM FROM THE CATHOLIC EPISCOPATE TO
TITO 51
CHRONICLES AND COMMENTARIES 57
NEGOTIATIONS ON "MODUS VIVENDI" BETWEEN
YUGOSLAVIA AND THE HOLY SEE 57
THE ARCHBISHOP OF SARAJEVO DIED IN EXILE 60
DIFFICULT SITUATION OF MUSLIMS IN BOSNIA AND
HERZEGOVINA 62
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CROATIAN-LATIN AMERICAN INSTITUTE
OF CULTURE 65
While Soviet colonialism faces moral pressure and
unanimous criticism from the free world, many fail to realize that another form
of colonialism, albeit smaller, is no less cruel and oppressive, currently
exists in Europe. This is Yugoslavia, a heterogeneous conglomeration of
nations, where tiny Balkan Serbia, representing barely a quarter of the total
population, maintains a policy of colonial exploitation of the wealthiest and
most advanced peoples, primarily Croatia and Slovenia. These are not mere
rhetoric, but a tragic reality. From the very establishment of the Yugoslav
state, all economic policy was geared towards maximizing the exploitation of
non-Serbian regions. The currency of the Austrian Empire was replaced by the
dinar and exchanged at a rate of 1:4, to the detriment of the Croatian and
Slovenian populations. For many years, these regions paid taxes two to ten times
higher than those paid by Serbia. The Croatian economy was systematically
destroyed. Administrative and military positions were reserved almost
exclusively for Serbs. An unavoidable consequence was the decline in the
standard of living and culture in Croatia and Slovenia, countries endowed with
all the necessary resources for progressive development.
Communist Yugoslavia continues the same policy of
economic exploitation, on an even larger scale, since free enterprise does not
exist and the entire economy is under the strict control of the State. Franc Jeza, a Slovenian economist
and former collaborator with the communists, recently published an interesting
book in Trieste, filled with data and statistics taken from communist
publications, demonstrating the total exploitation of Slovenia and Croatia in favour of Serbia and Montenegro.
Therefore, while Khrushchev's fallacious propaganda
was successfully stopped in the General Assembly, it is regrettable that the
Yugoslav dictator was able, without adequate rebuttal, to attack the Western
powers as colonialists and imperialists, while his government has enslaved and
exploited Croatia and Slovenia. It so happens, in our age of paradoxes, that
nations that relinquish their colonial territories, obeying the inescapable law
of historical evolution, by providing significant economic and military aid,
ensure the survival and consolidation of the colonial system in Yugoslavia.
Tito, in return for the aid received, offers loans to Afro-Asian countries—or
rather, to the extremists in those countries who aspire to eliminate all
Western influence and provoke chaos that, ultimately, can only benefit the
Soviets.
In this age of prevailing contradictions and confusion, there are
genuinely democratic people who believe that the Yugoslav communists are
defending national independence against Russian-Soviet imperialism. The truth
is that the Yugoslav communists care about national independence insofar as it
means the State and Power; that is, they are defending their personal prerogatives
and their lives. Regarding the form of government, loyalty to communist
doctrine, and the maintenance of Serbian dominance over the other peoples of
Yugoslavia, the communists in Belgrade do not differ from their counterparts in
the Kremlin. In international politics, Belgrade almost always supports the
positions held by the Muscovites.
Regarding the policy of national oppression and
economic exploitation, the case of Yugoslavia is more blatant than that of the
Soviet Union. The Russian Empire is the product of centuries, the result of a
long socio-political evolution. It forms a world apart as the repository of the
tradition of Eastern European civilization, the legitimate heir to the
political and cultural forms of the Byzantine Empire. The Russian people formed
a vast empire not only through their numerical, military, and economic
superiority, but also by being the bearers of progress in the vast Asian
regions. The Russian Empire—with the exception of the Baltic states,
former Polish territories, and to some extent Ukraine—presents a relative
homogeneity from a cultural, political, and religious point of view.
Furthermore, the Soviet government renounced the drastic methods of direct Russification, although it maintained the autocratic system
to which its subjects were accustomed, and who never experienced democratic
freedoms.
Yugoslavia, compared to the Soviet Union, is a young
state, born from the disintegration of the Danubian
monarchy. It is not the product of an evolutionary process, but rather an
improvised state, lacking geographical, economic, and cultural unity. Serbia's
role within Yugoslavia cannot be compared to Russia's role within the USSR.
There is no numerical, economic, or cultural superiority of Serbia over the
other peoples that make up Yugoslavia. While the Russian Empire is, to a
certain extent, homogeneous in terms of culture and religion, Yugoslavia
constitutes a heterogeneous territory from a cultural and religious point of
view. It simply implies the domination of a Balkan country over the countries
that for a millennium developed within Western European society. While Croatia
and Slovenia, as well as all the former Austro-Hungarian territories annexed to
Serbia in 1918, are predominantly Catholic countries—with a large Muslim
minority in Bosnia and Herzegovina—Servia is an
Orthodox country, where the national church exerts a decisive influence on
national political life.
While the Bolshevik system represents, to a certain
extent, the continuation of Tsarist autocratic traditions, the dictatorial
governments of Yugoslavia, first monarchical, then communist, paralyzed the
natural progress in Croatia and Slovenia, caused stagnation, if not
backwardness, in those European areas, and hindered the evolution toward
democratic forms, as practiced in the West, throughout the Balkan region,
including Serbia itself. The fact that Serbia, representing a quarter of the
Yugoslav population, was able to impose its domination on the other peoples and
the numerous national minorities favored and facilitated the maintenance and
consolidation of dictatorial and colonial regimes. Yugoslavia, therefore, can
only exist as a dictatorial state; the introduction of democratic freedoms
would imply its immediate disintegration.
Dwarf imperialisms are, in certain circumstances, more dangerous than
giant imperialisms, whose expansion rests on a real foundation. Small nations
with imperialist ambitions can only realize their excessive pretensions through
a policy of intrigue, subversion, and adventure, which poses a great danger to
other nations and can even threaten world peace. The imperialist expansionism
of tiny Serbia proves this assertion. Serbian nationalist agitation against
Austria-Hungary provoked the First World War.
The voracious ambitions of Serbian imperialists remain
a constant source of unrest and potential conflict. They pose a latent danger
in the Adriatic, Alpine, Danubian, and Balkan regions
proper. They are harmful to the Serbs themselves, as they dilute their national
identity and provoke backlash and violent reactions. The Serbs include within
their national territory even areas densely populated by ethnic groups from
other countries who, moreover, live in territorial contiguity with their fellow
Serbs and compatriots. Thus, for example, "Old Serbia" encompasses
the regions adjacent to the Albanian border where large Albanian populations
reside.
Serbian nationalists refer to the Yugoslav part of
Macedonia as "Southern Serbia," even though it is a region with
hardly any Serbs, the vast majority of the population being Macedonians, who
are closer to Bulgarians than to Serbs due to their national sentiments and
traditions. In the northern regions of the present-day "People's Republic
of Serbia," which they call "Serbian Voivodeship"
or "Serbian Banat," Serbs are, even today, after the expulsion and
extermination of 500,000 former German settlers, a minority, while in the areas
bordering Hungary and Romania, Hungarians and Romanians live in dense
communities. This agricultural and livestock-raising region, the most fertile
in all of Europe, was ruined by Serbian colonization. German, Hungarian, and
Romanian farmers, who, working the land with rational methods, produced most of
Yugoslavia's agricultural products, and even had exportable surpluses, were
expelled, if not murdered, from the land of their ancestors. Their place was
taken by the primitive and backward pastoralists of the Balkan interior, and
the logical consequence was a rapid decline in agricultural production that led
to a true famine after the war, only alleviated by substantial American aid.
From the above, it follows that the chronic scarcity suffered by
Yugoslavia is not solely due to the destruction and devastation of war, and
that the permanent tension in Yugoslavia is not a consequence of the conflict
between Moscow and Belgrade, but rather a result of the relentless pressure of
Serbian expansionism on the non-Serbian majority of the Yugoslav population.
Tito was able to withstand the Kremlin's pressure to replace him with
more subservient communist leaders because Yugoslavia, thanks to the tenacious
intervention of the Western Allies, was not occupied by the Red Army.
Washington, at that time, inaugurated a policy of "calculated risk"
with Tito, providing him with substantial aid. It was expected that the United
States would, at the most opportune moment, condition its aid and demand that
Tito implement a democratic transformation of the country, or that Tito's
example would be followed by another satellite government. However, neither of
these things happened. Instead, Yugoslavia increasingly behaved as an agent of
international communism, and, under the guise of a neutralist country, a
so-called third-position nation, penetrated the Afro-Asian sphere more easily
than the Kremlin's declared agents.
In their policy of "calculated risk," it
seems that the responsible circles in Washington have not included the
disillusionment of subjugated peoples and the moral effects on the nations that
the US considers the leader of the free world and guardian of international
freedom and morality. If the US, even risking certain strategic positions, is
pressuring its allies to grant independence to colonial territories, which
sometimes for the "liberated" colonies means a return from civilized
life to the chaos and primitivism of the jungle, the motives that lead it to
come to the aid of Yugoslavia, where the dwarfed colonialism of Serbia reigns,
are unclear. It is incomprehensible why, on the one hand, millions and millions
of dollars are invested to liquidate the remnants of colonialism and, on the
other, hundreds of millions of dollars are given to Tito to save and
consolidate the dwarfed Serbian colonialist imperialism.
The liberation of captive peoples is an international
moral obligation and is demanded by the inalienable right of those nations,
since freedom and ethics are indivisible. It would be catastrophic to expect
the Soviets, in view of Western passivity, to decide to denounce Serbian
imperialism in order to gain the sympathies of the exploited peoples in
Yugoslavia.
With the creation of Yugoslavia, the continuity of
Croatian national sovereignty was interrupted by violent means. If African
peoples, who sometimes lack history, name, and national borders, have the right
to national independence and individual freedoms, all the more so does that
same right belong to the old European nations, with their rich historical and
cultural heritage.
US political science believes it must be objectivist
and positivist. It still underestimates political fluctuations as they arise in
history and tends to consider all problems through an economic and materialist
lens. According to the American scholar's views, economics is the safest way to
approach and focus on any situation. This path, as outlined by Charles Beard,
has much in common with the conceptions of Marxist theorists, even if he
doesn't acknowledge it. This path, without a doubt, is the easiest and most
superficial, since by accumulating facts, arranging them horizontally and
superficially, in a mathematical fashion, one arrives at convincing results.
The path of imagination and intuition, the path of historical imponderables
that have always been key to knowing and understanding historical phenomena,
especially in the fluctuating periods of revolutions, is unknown to the
American scholar. He, as if fearing all those elements that have shaped
European political figures through the force of political events, prefers to
remain on a restricted plane of studying mere facts, without investigating
their remote and immediate causes. His main purpose is to be objective in times
when objectivity does not exist, since the revolution is in full gestation and
the globe is enveloped in flames and chaotic fog, from which a new, as yet
undefined, world will be born.
The result of such an approach to the contemporary revolution is neither
certain nor reassuring. This is why American politics is as indecisive as it is
indeterminate, since it too seeks, first and foremost, objectivity. In
contrast, communist-style Marxism, while objectivist and realistic, is endowed
with imagination and intuition, introduces passion and faith into political
life, and ultimately bases its entire philosophy and action on the principle of
the "inevitability" of the collapse of capitalism and Western-style
democracy, using the masses led by restricted, cruel, cold, and Machiavellian
elites. Thus, at Harvard and Yale universities, the development of communism is
studied down to the smallest detail, and while it is believed that the key to
solving or understanding the crisis in which we live has been found, communism
surprises us with its leaps and turns that defy the frameworks established by
American political science, which is prone to systematization and classification.
Let's take the case of George Kennan, undoubtedly the
most insightful American analyst of Russian-communist political strategy, whose
analyses are considered the most authoritative contribution to American
political science. This author, with his excessive rationalization of
phenomena, not only creates confusion in the concepts but also undermines the
will to undertake political action, which is especially necessary for the
United States. The objectification of a revolution in progress paralyzes the
counter-action of those who should counteract it in order to maintain their
place in history, even to preserve their position on the world stage.
Because complacency, complacency in the face of the
enemy, and the firm belief that the enemy is not as terrible or as dark as it
is portrayed are fundamental characteristics of this nation, Kennan, through
his framing and development of the American-Soviet problem, disarms,
discourages, and disorients public opinion and the American man of action. A
fundamentally non-expansionist nation, which still believes in understanding
with the Soviet Union and the communist world, and which therefore let slip
some decisive moments when, possessing far superior nuclear weapons, it could
have contained the Soviet Union and communist imperialism within its borders,
found itself morally disarmed by the effect of scientific rationalization,
whose main spokespeople are George Kennan and Walter Lippmann. Although of
opposing views, they and their ilk did everything to morally disarm public
opinion, starting from the premise that communism is not as dangerous as
Nazism. While demanding radical measures against National Socialism, they
adopted the attitude of an observer seeking compromise when it came to
Communism. Those who emerged in North America as radical
opponents of Communism, identifying it with Nazism, lost ground as politicians
and scientists. The cases of McCarthy, Senator Knowland,
General MacArthur, and a good number of publicists and university
professors—many of the latter being liberals—are highly significant, as they
were swept away by the wave of anti-Communist liberalism.
American liberal intellectuals assigned Communism a place in historical
evolution opposite to that which they attributed to Fascism and National
Socialism. They considered Communism an inevitable phenomenon in the evolution
of those countries where the conditions for democratic, economic, and national
progress did not exist. Their opposition to Communism was reduced to defining
its geographical boundaries. Kennan's policy of containment, aimed at halting
communism and preventing its spread throughout the free world, is one of the
most evident pieces of evidence of how the current crisis is being approached.
This perspective influences American politicians and the intellectual
elite to view Russia coldly, objectively, and rationally, which in turn
paralyzes the momentum of an anti-communist stance that could otherwise gain
greater and more vigorous traction. If communism is a new religion, as is often
claimed, then democracy, too, would have to return to its irrational roots and,
instead of behaving as a passive observer, incite the masses with new beliefs
and new proselytizing. The same situation that prevailed in France between the
two world wars, when Julien Benda demanded the
irrational awakening of democracy in the face of National Socialism and Fascism, currently prevails in the United States in relation
to irrational communism. The objectification of the irrational creates a
predisposition for passivity, and thus the U.S., instead of being the leading
force of the democratic revolution in the world, limits itself to hindering the
democratic movement in certain countries, which arose for national and economic
reasons.
The economic difficulties in underdeveloped countries
undergoing national awakening, where the masses are mobilized, are not resolved
by North America, but rather allowed to be exploited by Soviet communism.
Meanwhile, American scholars observe, investigate, and
analyze the data provided by science, yet they refuse to take sides, even
though the communists blame them for the world's backwardness.
The United States of America is not like the European colonial powers of
the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, as its main strength stems from its own
territory. Therefore, Soviet communism is in a favorable position, able to
operate effectively in various parts of the globe. All of this, however, does
not mean that the U.S. is incapable of resisting and repelling aggression. But
the weakest point is that the U.S., in the face of Soviet-communist
imperialism, only considers the enemy's aggression. A radical confrontation
with communism, even an ideological one, is seen in the U.S. as the inevitable
path to war.
This is the argument made by Kennan and Lipfimann,
followed by a long cohort of publicists and political analysts, who, instead of
seeing that communist aggression is not always synonymous with war, argue that
communism employs a political strategy with which it can, while avoiding war,
mortally wound the enemy. The fundamental difference between communist and
National Socialist strategy lies in the fact that communism conquers without
war. The American strategy, on the other hand, consists of accumulating
weapons, the use of which will be decided politically. This political decision
is paralyzed by the actions of political analysts who respond to the skillful
manipulation of communist strategy with concessions and rationalization.
Rationalizing the irrational inevitably leads to war or capitulation, which
amounts to the same thing, since there can be no capitulation without war.
II.
Titoism was and remains one of the utopian ideals of American
political science, which believes it can counteract the Soviet-communist
strategy. The idea that Tito would first divide the communist bloc and then
weaken it became almost a central element of American political science and
strategy: Month after month, new books and studies on this topic appear in
American political literature, while this grand illusion has already cost U.S.
citizens more than $2 billion. I have before me the books published recently by
qualified political authors who resided in Belgrade for study or held official
positions. There is no reason to suspect them of being communist sympathizers.
They were guided to dedicate themselves to the study of the Yugoslav communist
problem by scientific motives and also by the desire to glimpse, through the
study of the state structure and Tito's political system, in its phases of
development after the split with Moscow and up to the present day, a possible
"democratic evolution" of communism, as a political doctrine and
practice.
The first to propose this thesis was H.F. Armstrong, editor of Foreign
Affairs, the most authoritative organ of American foreign policy, a
conservative by nature, who believed that Tito would organize a state that
would serve as a model for dismantling Stalinism, thereby weakening the
communist bloc. This thesis was supported by Cyrus Sulzberger in his articles
for the New York Times, who believed in the great thaw after the death of the
dictator Stalin. If we add the name of John Gunther, we have the main forays of
these journalists into the supposedly disintegrating communist world. Their
observations and proposals turned out to be superficial and somewhat naive.
They dissected the living body of the Yugoslav people as if it were material
with no relation whatsoever to a living organism. The national problem that
Tito failed to solve left them indifferent.
Yugoslavia was necessary to them as the antithesis to Stalinist
ideology. This determined the American policy of considerable material aid to
Tito's regime, a policy still in effect today. In this way, American capitalism
became—history will tell us—the main economic backer for the "building of
socialism" in Yugoslavia. Not even Karl Marx could have foreseen such
contradictions in communism and capitalism, but these contradictions do not
affect American statesmen and publicists, while Tito continues to exploit them
as much as he can. In reality, while the American apparatus waged a tenacious
struggle against Stalin, Tito consolidated his own position and demanded
expressions of gratitude from the Yugoslav people for having freed them from
the direct pressure of the Kremlin. Tito was playing that old Balkan game
between Moscow and Washington, the same game his predecessors had played on the
same ground in ancient times, between Byzantium and papal Rome. Opposition to
Tito, both within the country and among the exiles, if it relied solely on
Western policy, would inevitably grind to a halt and ultimately disappear.
As if no one saw this aspect of Tito's political game.
One of the most serious American economists, John Kenneth Galbraith, professor
of economics at Harvard University, in his travelogue of Poland and Yugoslavia,
*Journey to Poland and Yugoslavia*, offers us a tragic, if not ludicrous,
picture of the "building of socialism" in Yugoslavia. Objective,
dispassionate, and possessing a typically Anglo-Saxon sense of humor, this
professor converses with Polish and Yugoslav economists, convinced that their
sole purpose is to build a society in which the people live better than between
the two world wars. Although an economist, he doesn't question how it's
possible that after 15 years, and with $2 billion in American aid, Tito's
subjects are far from achieving the standard of living, not of a West German
citizen, but, say, of an Italian, to whose country the U.S. gave far less
capital for its economic recovery. No one questions how the US can continue
sending food to a country that, between the two world wars, exported grain and
other foodstuffs, products of its own land. In his lectures to the regime's
economists, this Harvard University professor insists on explaining how the
affluent American society also tends toward socialization. History doesn't
repeat itself. The communists in Belgrade and Warsaw rub their hands together,
while the long-suffering and sacrificed population is left bewildered and
beside itself.
To make the matter even more ridiculous, the book by
political analyst Fred Warner Neal, titled *Titoism
in Action*, appears, full of strange considerations. First of all, the author,
who has access to all the documentation on Tito, Kardelj,
Kidric, Djordjevic, Gerskovic, etc., wants to shock us with his findings. He
believes that Titoist communism is returning not only
to Bernstein, but also to British Fabianism. Neal
refers to the forced concessions made by the communists to the peasants as
"Fabianist."
According to him, the workers' councils are the clear
example of "social ownership" and a sure path to the democratization
of capital and property. While the Titoists
frequently make mistakes and don't know what they want, they have a clear idea:
Yugoslavia is surely headed toward socialism. The author is careful not to
leave his ivory tower and confront reality; he doesn't deem it appropriate to
talk, for example, with peasants in the private and collective sectors, to
interview workers, with members of workers' councils, and to inform us when and
where the workers divided the company profits among themselves, thus
experiencing firsthand that the factories are their exclusive property.
The author doesn't tell us what the relationships are between factory
managers and the workers. Nor does he mention the revolutionary strikes that
broke out in Trbovlje (a coal mine in Slovenia) and
in Dalmatia (a Croatian province). When he refers to "economic
regionalism," he fails to explain that it stems from discontent based on
national exploitation of Croatia and Slovenia. He even believes
in "democratic centralism."
Mr. Neal's excursions were funded by American
institutions and foundations. He considers his findings so important and his
efforts so successful that the "Twenty Century" Foundation sent him
to study the differences between Soviet and Tito's communism. These
epoch-making "discoveries" are enormously expensive; it would be
better to use that money to build a model American-style village, which would
better serve the people and increase the prestige of the United States, than to
squander it on an artificial and fictitious objectification of Yugoslav
political and economic reality.
Charles P. McVicker develops a similar thesis,
using a different approach, in his book *Titoism:
Pattern for International Communism*, where he emphasizes how Titoist communism, detached from Soviet dogmatism, moves
toward "liberalization" or even "social democracy." McVicker, who lived in Zagreb and worked at his country's
consulate, was able, in addition to theory, to study reality as he saw it
daily. Limited exclusively to theoretical study, he developed his thesis on the
premise that, from 1949 and especially 1950 onward, Tito's conception of a
monolithic state was gradually transforming into the "broadest
representation of the people."
According to him, the communists, in exercising power, had
"recognized individual rights," and since for Western liberalism
"individual rights" constitute the fundamental law, then Titoist communism inevitably leads
to democracy. Titoism, therefore, is nothing but a
"halfway house to freedom" between Stalinist tyranny and
"democratic socialism." The new Yugoslav
"constitutionality," as it emerged from the last two congresses of
the Communist Party, that is, the League of
Communists, foresees "decentralization," which, through the communes,
would eventually lead to "full freedom of the functioning of power."
The distribution of economic resources and the application of workers'
self-management also constitute, for this author, not only signs of the
undeniable separation of Yugoslav communism from Soviet communism, but also the
beginning of a general "democratization," which will grant the people
"the broadest freedoms." By reforming the judicial system and limiting
the activities of the secret police, the "Titoists"
discover that in Yugoslavia "the socialist individual was the most
important factor in the community." To further highlight this picture, it
is worth quoting the following: "The Titoists
seek to establish a synthesis of fundamental Western liberal thought with the
erroneous Marxist axiom according to which all human relations emanate
exclusively from the "material causes".
In raising the national question within the
multinational Yugoslav state—a question avoided by American analysts—McVicker discovered, for example, that "mutual hatred
between Serbs and Croats" is felt much more strongly among exiles than
within the country. He noted, with great surprise, that in his conversations
with Croatian Catholic dignitaries, held between 1950 and 1952, he perceived
that they advocated for Croatia's separation and integration as a sovereign
state into the European Union, something that would be feasible with US
economic aid. Neither he, nor Neal, nor Galbraith address
the national question, which the Soviet Union, in contrast, still considers the
most powerful instrument in its strategy against Titoism.
McVicker, like Kennan, ignores national issues while
analyzing the internal situation of the USSR, remaining unaware not only of the
national struggle of the Ukrainians but also of all the other nationalities
incorporated into the Soviet Union. Both official propaganda and American
diplomacy adhere to the same political principles with respect to Russia and
Yugoslavia. This more effective means of dislodging communism is unknown to
American science and politics.
The only exception is the historian Kohn, who, in his work PanSlavism and in the prologue to the book The
Soviet-Yugoslav Controversy 1948-58: A Documentary Record, published by Robert
Bass and Elisabeth Marbury at The East Europe Institute, delved into the
problem and emphasized that the old national struggle persisted in relations
between Yugoslavia and Russia, a struggle that had previously also been waged in
the Balkans. He argued that the existing conflict, albeit in a communist
version, between Serbia on one side and Albania and Bulgaria on the other, was
nothing more than the struggle between rival nationalities, manifested
identically in other circumstances, without the communist leadership, whether
Greater Russian or Greater Serbian, managing to resolve this irreconcilable
antagonism. According to these premises and arguments presented in the works of
American political theorists and economists, the fate of the peoples of
Yugoslavia remains uncertain. Not only does US political science fail to
contribute to the liberation of these peoples from the communist yoke, but it
also fosters prejudices and false convictions among the American public,
suggesting that the struggle for liberation would be futile and fruitless.
According to this view, the fate of these peoples is left to the
historical process. It fails to recognize that revolution generates
counter-revolution, since if the dialectical process is one of incessant
change, then communism, too, has its limits in time (it can be superseded by a
new, stronger phenomenon). With such approaches, political science lulls
Americans into complacency, depriving them of the will to constantly threaten
communism and force it to defend itself by taking advantage of the same
dialectical process; it deprives them of initiative, the only force capable of
preventing war and simultaneously exposing communism to the danger of weakening
itself.
III
Lately, I had the opportunity to travel through
Africa, the Near East, the Soviet Union, and Cuba. My trips were primarily
scientific and informative, with a minimal focus on tourism. My mission was to
investigate the influence the U.S. exerts in the world today, and in that sense,
my trip fit perfectly with a typical American research project.
Paradox is the best term to use when speaking with
representatives of the ruling class in the parts of the world straddling the
U.S. and the USSR. In the streets of Khartoum, photos of Tito hang on the
walls, and people speak of him with truly incomprehensible enthusiasm. No one
asks: How are things in Yugoslavia? Why do the national problems remain
unresolved and threaten to destroy the edifice Tito built, as if it were a
house of cards?
So where does this great interest in Tito come from?
Because he showed the
politicians of these underdeveloped countries the best way to operate between
the two great powers. In
both Sudan and Egypt, everyone is aware of the conflict between Washington and
Moscow and fears they could be crushed in it. People believe Tito was right to
steer his country's policy in a neutral direction, hoping to side with the
victorious party.
The fact that Tito remains a staunch communist and
hasn't altered his internal regime in the slightest doesn't concern anyone.
They are drawn to Tito's success in maintaining power and even strengthening it
in the conflict between the two global blocs. Every attempt I made to place
Tito in his proper context was rejected by my interlocutors with the arguments
presented about Tito in the aforementioned American political literature. I
dare say that American political science has contributed more to elevating Tito
in the imaginations of these intellectuals than all communist literature. Even
official Washington policy, which provided substantial financial support for
Tito's experiment, increased his prestige in these parts of the world. When
Tito grants loans to Sudan and Abyssinia, when he builds ports on the shores of
Syria and Abyssinia, or sends his missions to Asia and Africa, no one asks
where he gets the financial means, no one points out that Tito does all this
with American money.
Those in Washington who believed that by giving
billions of dollars to Tito they would destroy Stalin's empire were wrong. With
the gifted money, Tito destroys American positions on all sides: He penetrates
that colonial and backward world as a mentor and advisor. Abyssinian and
Sudanese pilots, instead of training in the U.S., are trained in communist
Yugoslavia with American money and American planes. While every American
working in those countries sees all this, neither London
nor Washington does.
Tito taught the ruling class of those countries how to exploit the West
using the very means that the West gave them. For us Westerners, this is a very
painful realization. It would be even more bitter if
we didn't know that in Tito's "house" everything is not going well
and that there are symptoms that reveal dangerous cracks in the communist
edifice.
However, it is comforting to know that everywhere
there are true friends of the West who reject the assumptions and foundations
of American political science. When they criticize the U.S., they are not
opposing its recent socio-economic achievements. They criticize North America
for not properly taking advantage of its unlimited potential to carry out a
profound socio-economic revolution in those countries where its economic and
political influence is felt.
These errors of the U.S. are felt throughout the world. I would say that
they consist of a lack of understanding of the great social and economic
changes taking place in the world, changes that were previously so successfully
addressed in North America. The squandering of vast material subsidies to
various parts of the world without the accompaniment of a broad and
well-defined policy with specific socio-economic objectives, which would have a
positive impact on the discontented classes, especially intellectuals, causes
serious harm to the U.S.
I would say that this is precisely where the fault of American
intellectuals lies, due to their passive attitude regarding their country's
foreign policy. What I just said is largely reflected in Cuba. For me, my
encounter with Cuba was more than a surprise. Less than three hours from New
York, I was confronted with a situation that more closely resembled Tito's
Yugoslavia in 1945 than what I had expected. While there were doubts about
whether Fidel Castro was a communist, I clearly saw that his entire experiment
was directed by Marxists, following in the footsteps of the Soviets and Tito. I
believe it was imperative to improve the situation of the rural population.
However, it seems to me that the path of collectivization is misguided
and unnecessary. The United States invested large sums of money in Cuba, and
the standard of living is not as low as the official propagandists describe it,
who make anti-Americanism a matter of life or death
for their revolution. Every country in northern or southeastern Europe would be
very happy to have a nation like the U.S. in its neighborhood. What wouldn't
Poland or Finland, for example, give in such a situation?
Castro, on the other hand, is creating a psychosis of hatred against the
U.S., reorganizing the defense, and keeping the country and its peaceful people
in a state of tension, as if the U.S. were about to launch an armed attack at
any moment. If, for example, the president of Finland were to provoke the
Soviet government in this way every day, he certainly wouldn't last two days in
power. Castro, however, continues with threats, provocations, slander, and
challenges, organizing the army and militia as if some armed conflict were
about to erupt, and, what is even more tragic, he requests the help of the
Soviets, who thus entrenched themselves twenty miles from the shores of the
United States.
In Cuba, Russian, Chinese, and Yugoslav communists are
operating, each offering their own communist recipe. Today, many paradoxes
exist, but this one surely surpasses them all. Cuban intellectuals are completely
unaware of the US economic and social experiment. Moreover, they reject it
without even understanding it. Previously, intellectuals in smaller countries
looked to Paris, London, Berlin, and Washington, seeking not only political
experience but also the paths to social, economic, and cultural progress.
Today, they look to what Tito, Khrushchev, and Mao Zedong are doing. And to
complete the tragedy, these attitudes are based on what is said and written in
London and Washington about Tito, Khrushchev, and Mao Zedong.
Speaking in Cuba with Castro supporters, I had to
listen to unbelievable stories about Tito, disseminated not by Tito's
emissaries, but by American scientific publications. When I tried to correct
these misguided and false opinions, I was then confronted with the
pronouncements of some renowned American political author, read in prestigious
journals such as Foreign Affairs and even Problems of Communism—publications
that cannot be considered leftist, since they reflect the most authoritative
opinions and viewpoints in the United States. This is how the U.S. undermines
and destroys the foundations of its own policies. In fact, one can be less
critical of the American businessman for seeking profit in the classic
capitalist style, something now impossible in his country, than of American
intellectuals when they write and discuss problems they do not understand.
It is necessary to reflect on and write about this
illogicality, which not only harms the U.S., the people of Yugoslavia, and the
people of Cuba, directly affected by Titoism and Castroism. There is danger for other countries as well,
including Latin America. In Cuba, it became clear that Tito's emissaries advise
Castro's propagandists to support similar revolutionary movements, which the
Yugoslav press follows closely, encourages, and openly sympathizes with.
I have previously pointed out the fatal errors of
American political science in its assessment of Russian and Yugoslav communism,
but I have never before realized how terrible these errors are as on this
journey from West Africa, through the Near East, and to Cuba, which is on the
doorstep of the United States.
American society, from Roosevelt's New Deal to the present day, under
both Democratic and Republican administrations, has carried out a profound
economic and social revolution, guaranteeing the working masses a standard of
living that no other system could offer them. However, these gains for the
working class are unknown in Cuba, and even less so in Ghana or Sudan. What is known
about this revolution is superficial and distorted, since American
intellectuals are more interested in how Tito's "workers' councils"
operate than in workers' gains in the US.
Finally, the biggest mistake made by official US propaganda is
presenting capitalism as an alternative to communism, instead of freedom and
social justice, as if the classic capitalist system were not already dead, even
in the United States. Regarding Cuba, we can also say: if the social revolution
it intends to carry out under the Marxist banner has repercussions throughout
Latin America, it would be tragic if this were done solely to oppose the United
States, since it is obvious that communists from across South America,
concentrated in Cuba, will not be able to offer the masses the political and
economic liberation they need.
Furthermore, if such a revolution is carried out under the tutelage of
the Soviet Union and with the support of global communism, the Cuban people
will be exploited and sacrificed to the calculations of the grand game of
international politics, their interests subordinated to the struggle between
the great powers. Russia does not give its money in vain. It penetrates
wherever the revolutionary climate is favorable; it is not guided by idealistic
or altruistic motives, and these countries serve as instruments for its global
policy, aimed at excluding the United States and the Western bloc. In this way,
the aspirations of underdeveloped countries for better economic conditions and
social equilibrium are sacrificed to the interests of world politics. Those who
view these relationships with fanaticism, like Castro, undermine the
foundations of what could have been a beneficial social and economic reform.
IV
Before concluding, I would like to highlight the
article by Lewis S. Feuer, professor of philosophy at
the University of California, published in the magazine New Leader, in which he
critically addresses some basic views of American analysts on Soviet politics.
"During the past generation, sociologists endeavored to paint a picture of
the Soviet Union for us. Whatever their differences, their analysis of the
Soviet Union proceeded from a fundamental premise. They assumed that the
evolution of Soviet society was essentially determined by internal needs...
What was the impact of such a picture of Soviet reality on American foreign
policy? A false picture, presupposing reality, prevents us from addressing a
problem in accordance with our own interests. Sociologists created a picture of
the Soviet Union as if it were a kind of All-Powerful Totality, a political
cosmos, like the Hegelian Absolute, immobile and immanent... A certain
essential sense is derived from the writings of our specialists on Soviet
affairs. They do not dwell on the fact that the immanent character of the
Soviet revolution precludes the possibility of a creative foreign policy. They
deny that American foreign policy can contribute to guiding Soviet society
toward a more liberal alternative. In the opinion of our analysts of Soviet
affairs, there are no alternatives." "Real historical facts."
It seems to me that no one in the U.S. has posed this
problem better than Feuer, getting to its heart of
the matter. American sociologists, political writers, and economists, lost in
the winding meanders of communist dialectics, without realizing the difference
between communist theory and reality in countries under the rule of the hammer
and sickle, renounce the possibility of proposing an alternative to communism.
Anyone somewhat initiated into the process of historical events knows that
without adequate alternatives, no changes occur in the world, and without them,
it is impossible to safeguard one's own national interests.
This applies not only to times of peace but especially
to revolutionary periods. The strength of communism does not stem from its
intrinsic value but from the absence of new ideas and action from the West,
from the impotence of the intellectual and political elite to devise new
alternatives. Therefore, it cedes the initiative—both the initiative and the
alternative—exclusively to the communist leaders. Corroded by historicism and
prone to objectifying every irrational phenomenon in history, American
political science is mired in crisis. Until this crisis is overcome, it will be
difficult to believe that we will regain the initiative and the alternative.
The present picture, negative and bleak, changes abruptly upon arriving
in Russia. Had I not visited the Soviet Union after the aforementioned trip, I
would have remained convinced that the end of the 20th century could be called
the communist era and that the forces of freedom had reached their end. During
my month-long stay in Russia, speaking with ordinary people and intellectuals
in their own language, I realized that communism in the Soviet Union is
practically dead. In my conversations with Russians, I saw that communism, both
as a philosophy and as a reality, awakens no illusions
or enthusiasm and satisfies the aspirations of the inhabitants of the Soviet
Union. My research confirmed my previous convictions that communism is an
aberration that can excite intellectuals who have not tried it in practice, and
not the people with whom communism is experimented on.
Furthermore, in the Soviet Union I realized that the
American experience is sought after, studied, and imitated there more than the
communist experience. When we in the West hear not only communists but also
neutrals telling us that the American system is outdated and no longer suited
to the economic and social aspirations of contemporary man, we must go to
Russia to experience the opposite. The Russian and Soviet man demands only one
thing: to achieve the standard of living of the American man. We knew that the
European peoples occupied after the war by the Soviets—those currently under
communist rule—constitute the most dangerous potential adversary for Soviet
imperialism.
However, knowing that the peoples of Russia reject
communism has encouraging effects. The subjugated peoples, victims of Soviet
imperialism, cannot understand why the US, with its unlimited forces, is unable
to expose the lies of communism. The essential point is that the Russian man
does not understand this either. When the barriers are torn down and the iron
curtain separating two worlds is removed, I am certain that daylight will
dispel the shadows and the ghosts will vanish. Then someone will remember and
cleanse the libraries of all the theses and antitheses, all the doctoral
dissertations on the problems of a world that is paying with its blood for the
errors of Western intellectuals, their arbitrary, senseless, and unrealistic
constructions.
Andrea Medulic (Andrea Meldolla Schiavone) – born in Zadar, Croatia, around 1503 and died in Venice in 1563 –
occupies a place of honor in Venetian painting of the Cinquecento. For his
significant innovations in the interpretation of light, atmosphere, and
pictorial matter, Medulic is considered a precursor,
in certain solutions, of Tintoretto, Basano, and El
Greco. Both Medulic and Culinovic
appear in the history of painting under the name Schiavone.
At that time in Italy, people from Croatia were referred to interchangeably as schiavone, Croat, Dalmatian, or Illyrian.
In addition to the four aforementioned creators of the
Renaissance, it is worth noting the magnificent work of the architect Luciano Pranjanin (Laurana), author of
the palaces of the King of Naples and the Duke of Urbino,
and the sculptures of Giorgio da Sebenico (Giorgio da
Sebenico), among which the municipal loggia and the
beautiful portals of the churches of Sant'Agostino
and San Francesco in Ancona stand out.
In this gallery of illustrious Croatian masters during
the Renaissance, the miniaturist Giulio Clovio Klovic (1498-1578), a
painter of unparalleled talent and a patron of El Greco, occupies a special
place.
Giulio Clovio Klovic was
born in 1498 in Grizane, on the Croatian coast. He
was baptized Giorgio, which he later changed to Giulio
in Italy. It is almost certain that Klovic acquired
his early humanistic and drawing skills in a Croatian monastery. At a young
age, he moved to Venice, where his exceptional talent earned him the admiration
and patronage of Cardinal and great patron Mariano Grimani.
In Venice, he became intimately acquainted with the paintings of Titian.
During the three years he spent in Venice, Klovic
decorated numerous seals, shields, and medals, devoting himself entirely to the
art of miniature painting. Then, in 1524, after spending several years in Rome,
he was summoned by the Hungarian-Croatian King Lodovico
II of the Polish Jagiellonian dynasty, who was
married to Maria, sister of Emperor Charles V. At his court, he executed
several exquisite miniature works. He took part in the catastrophic Battle of Mohács (1526), in which the Turks defeated the Christian
troops, and King Władysław himself fell on
the battlefield.
All of Central Europe was devastated and gripped by terrible panic due
to the unstoppable advance of the Ottoman conquerors. Klovic
decided to return to Italy, the only refuge for artists and writers. Upon
arriving in Rome, he witnessed its sack by the German, Spanish, and Italian
troops of Charles V. Even Klovic was mistreated,
robbed, and stripped of everything. He went to Mantua, where he decided to enter
religious orders. In 1531, he renounced his vows and, with papal authorization,
returned to the life of a secular priest. In Mantua, he decorated the Gospel
Book, the Liber commentariorum in epistulam
S. Pauli ad Romanos, and the rhymes of the poet Petrarch
with miniatures for his patron, Cardinal Grimani.
In 1538, he returned to Rome, summoned by Pope Paul III. He formed
friendly relationships with Vittoria Colonna and
other prominent humanists. His miniatures in the Codex priscae
romanae psalmodiae date
from this period. He studied under the renowned Portuguese painter Francisco de
Holanda, who compiled an index of his works. From
1546 onwards, he was in the service of the powerful and influential Cardinal
Alessandro Farnese. He lived in his magnificent palace, built by Michelangelo,
and mingled with all the illustrious Renaissance and humanist figures of the
time residing in Rome.
In the same year, he illustrated a Latin missal for
his patron with numerous and fantastical miniatures and, after nine years of
assiduous work, finished the devotional book Horae Beatae Mariae virginis,
his masterpiece, "which remains one of the most precious monuments of the
arts admired in Europe." At the end of this book of offices is the
dedication to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese: "Julius Clovius
Macedo dedicated this monument to Alessandro Farnese Cardinali, his Lord. 1546."
Klovic usually signed his paintings as Clovio,
Glovis, Clovius, Croata, Croatus, Croatinus, de Croatia, and sometimes Illyricus
and Macedo. For greater clarity, it is worth noting
that his patron and sponsor, Cardinal Farnese, was a great classicist and
passionate admirer of Alexander the Great of Macedon, and referred to Klovic as a "Macedonian," mistakenly identifying
the words "Croatian" and "Illyrian" with
"Macedonian." Cardinal Farnese sponsored the Collegium Illyricum, a
Croatian hospice in Rome, from 1565 to 1568. The devotional book Horae Beatae Mariae
virginis, a jewel of European illumination, is
preserved in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.
During his stay at the Farnese Palace, Klovic illuminated and decorated several books and
manuscripts, including Dante's Divine Comedy, the life of Francesco Maria da Montefeltro della Rovere IV, and the life of Federico da Montefeltro
written by the Croatian Jerónimo Mucijo.
At the same time, with the help of his students, he decorated Paolo Orsini's Roman history. In 1551, we find him in Florence,
at the court of Cosimo de' Medici, who did everything
he could to have such a famous illuminator as Giulio Klovic in his service.
His life was quite itinerant, subject to
political vicissitudes. In 1554, he was living in Parma and carrying out works
for Emperor Charles V and Philip II. Three years later, he returned to
Florence, and in 1560, he was once again in Rome, in the service of Cardinal
Farnese. Many of Klovic's works of a religious,
mythological, and secular nature date from this period, including the painting
of Judith, painted for Margaret, Duchess of Austria, and the biography of
Charles V, decorated with miniatures commissioned by Philip II.
By then, he was very famous and highly sought after throughout Europe,
receiving numerous commissions and carrying out works for John III, King of
Portugal. Working tirelessly, with impaired eyesight and exhausted, after
having traveled from city to city, teaching, painting, and doing charitable
works, he died in Rome in 1578, at the age of 80, Julio Clovio
de Croatia, pictor nulli secundus, in quo diligentia in minimis maxima, according to the inscription on his black
marble tomb and white statue in the Roman church of San Pietro
in Vincoli.
The work of the miniaturist Julius Klovic
is extensive and rich in thematic variety. In his time, he was considered the
best illuminator. His contemporary, the renowned historian G. Vasari, in his
work on the lives of the most excellent painters, sculptors, and architects of
the Renaissance, defines him as "the little and new Michelangelo." Klovic's miniatures signify the apogee of painting in
minuscule forms and, at the same time, its decline. With the invention of
printing, the decoration of manuscripts, missals, codices, devotional books,
etc., lost its importance, and miniature painting gradually disappeared during
the 17th century. Contemporary historians, while denying the authorship of a
number of works previously attributed to Klovic,
recognize that he was a perfect technician, with a fertile imagination and
inexhaustible invention, and that he achieved marvelous decorative effects.
Klovic, whose drawings were reproduced by the most renowned
engravers in Europe, often drew inspiration for his paintings from the canvases
of Michelangelo and Raphael, transposing their monumental compositions into the
minuscule format of his miniatures. The florid decoration and exuberant ornamentation
mark the beginning of the Baroque style and imply the decline of the genuine
art of miniature painting.
When, around 1560, Domenico Theotocopuli, later known as El Greco, arrived in Venice,
the septuagenarian Titian was enjoying his triumph, and Venetian painting was
dominated by Veronese, Tintoretto, the Dalmatian Andrea Medulic
(Schiavone), known for his pathetic and tormented
forms, Jacopo da Ponte, and Bassano. El Greco shared with A. Medulic a passion for music, and, along with other painters,
they formed a close-knit circle of friends. According to J. F. Willumsen, Medulic's influence on
El Greco is particularly noticeable in the following paintings: Death of John
the Baptist, Adoration of the Magi, and Miracle of Pentecost, due to their elegance,
spontaneity, and freedom of expression. We have little precise information
regarding the young Candiot's life in Venice and the
route Domenico took to reach Rome. Nor is it known
when or where he met Klovic, his future patron. The
truth is that on November 16, 1579, Klovic wrote from
Rome to his patron, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who was then residing in Viterbo:
"A student of Titian, a young Candio, has
just arrived in Rome. In my opinion, he is among the very few who excel in
painting; and among other things, he has painted a self-portrait that has
filled all the painters present in Rome with admiration. I would earnestly like
to place him under Your Most Illustrious and Reverend Protection, it being only
necessary to help him live, lodging him until he manages to overcome his
poverty. I also beg and implore you to be so kind as to write to your steward,
Co Ludovico, so that he may arrange for him to have
one of the upstairs rooms in that Palace. Your Excellency will thus be doing a
good deed, worthy of it, and I will be most grateful. Kissing your hands with
reverence, I remain Your Most Illustrious and Reverend." Your Eminence, the
most humble servant, Don Julio Clovio."
The work of the miniaturist Julius Klovic
is extensive and rich in thematic variety. In his time, he was considered the
best illuminator. His contemporary, the renowned historian G. Vasari, in his
work on the lives of the most excellent painters, sculptors, and architects of
the Renaissance, defines him as "the little and new Michelangelo." Klovic's miniatures signify the apogee of painting in
minuscule forms and, at the same time, its decline. With the invention of
printing, the decoration of manuscripts, missals, codices, devotional books,
etc., lost its importance, and miniature painting gradually disappeared during
the 17th century. Contemporary historians, while denying the authorship of a
number of works previously attributed to Klovic,
recognize that he was a perfect technician, with a fertile imagination and
inexhaustible invention, and that he achieved marvelous decorative effects.
Klovic, whose drawings were reproduced by the most renowned
engravers in Europe, often drew inspiration for his paintings from the canvases
of Michelangelo and Raphael, transposing their monumental compositions into the
minuscule format of his miniatures. The florid decoration and exuberant
ornamentation mark the beginning of the Baroque style and imply the decline of
the genuine art of miniature painting.
When, around 1560, Domenico Theotocopuli, later known as El Greco, arrived in Venice,
the septuagenarian Titian was enjoying his triumph, and Venetian painting was
dominated by Veronese, Tintoretto, the Dalmatian Andrea Medulic
(Schiavone), known for his pathetic and tormented
forms, Jacopo da Ponte, and Bassano. El Greco shared with A. Medulic a passion for music, and, along with other
painters, they formed a close-knit circle of friends. According to J. F. Willumsen, Medulic's influence on
El Greco is particularly noticeable in the following paintings: Death of John
the Baptist, Adoration of the Magi, and Miracle of Pentecost, due to their
elegance, spontaneity, and freedom of expression. We have little precise
information regarding the young Candiot's life in
Venice and the route Domenico took to reach Rome. Nor
is it known when or where he met Klovic, his future
patron. The truth is that on November 16, 1579, Klovic
wrote from Rome to his patron, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who was then
residing in Viterbo:
"A student of Titian, a young Candio, has
just arrived in Rome. In my opinion, he is among the very few who excel in
painting; and among other things, he has painted a self-portrait that has
filled all the painters present in Rome with admiration. I would earnestly like
to place him under Your Most Illustrious and Reverend Protection, it being only
necessary to help him live, lodging him until he manages to overcome his
poverty. I also beg and implore you to be so kind as to write to your steward,
Co Ludovico, so that he may arrange for him to have
one of the upstairs rooms in that Palace. Your Excellency will thus be doing a
good deed, worthy of it, and I will be most grateful. Kissing your hands with
reverence, I remain Your Most Illustrious and Reverend." Your Eminence, the most humble servant, Don Julio Clovio."
On the other hand, it was necessary to get rid of the
Soviet model for purely practical reasons. A strict application of Soviet
economic models, as well as the inherent contradictions and errors of a
collectivist and centralist economy, led the Yugoslav economy to collapse. The
national budget could no longer cover the waste and spectacular losses of
industry, while collectivization produced a catastrophic decline in agricultural
production. By 1950, famine was looming, averted at the last minute by American
aid.
According to Marxist-Leninist doctrine, practice is
the best judge of theory, which in Yugoslavia proved disastrous. Consequently,
the theory had to be modified in light of negative practice, without affecting
the foundations of totalitarian power. The problem posed was inherently
contradictory. How to reconcile the decentralization of the economy and power
with the totalitarian prerogatives of the Party and the dominant role of the
State—"the apparatus of oppression"? How, moreover, could a
collectivist-totalitarian regime be democratized without simultaneously
undermining the absolutism of a single party?
This problem dominated the Sixth Party Congress held
in Zagreb in 1952. Later, a new split within the Party arose around this same
issue. While Milovan Djilas and others conceived of
the newly created Workers' Councils as the beginning of a general process of
liberalization and the abandonment of party absolutism, Tito, Rankovic, and the others considered these Councils a
"conveyor belt" for the Party and the State, adjusted to the new
circumstances. The censure and subsequent condemnation of Djilas were meant to
be conclusive proof that the Party wanted to govern in a totalitarian manner as
before, albeit in a modified atmosphere of "decentralization,"
"social self-management," and "withering away of the
State." According to this conception, "workers' self-management"
should have remained, and did remain, under the rigid control of the Party,
which sets its limits and dictates its content. Even so, at the beginning there
were hesitations in defining the limits of "coexistence" between the
Party and workers' self-management.
Tito himself, at the Sixth Congress, stated in this
regard that "the Party's duty is to provide ideological education and
ensure that social self-management develops naturally." However, since
1955, the Party has been increasingly infiltrating workers' councils through
the growing participation of communists in the organs of workers'
self-management. During this period, the number of communists in enterprises
reached 13%, while their participation in the organs of self-management reached
40%.
This trend prevailed in the new Program of the League
of Yugoslav Communists, approved at the Seventh Congress, held in Ljubljana in
1958. In that program, the appropriate place for the trade union organization
in each company was determined, where it should "act with greater
intensity than before," and above all, "coordinate the interests
within the working class itself." The trade union organization, as will be
seen later, becomes the representative of the Party within each company.
Through it, the Party closely monitors the development of the workers' councils
to ensure that they do not stray from the established channels and limits set
by the Party itself. In this sense, the 1958 Program clearly defines the limits
and powers of workers' self-management.
Another instrument the Party uses to control workers'
self-management is the so-called commune, simultaneously an organ of state
power and the basic economic and social cell of the Yugoslav communist system.
Just as the trade union is the Party's political and governing body for
workers' self-management in the enterprise, so the commune is its superior
legal and administrative organ.
Since 1950, several dozen laws, decrees, and
resolutions have been promulgated, by virtue of which the communes and the
central government are responsible for directing "workers' self-management."
The most important laws and decrees are: the Fundamental Law on Management in
State Economic Enterprises, of June 26, 1950 (Official Gazette, 43/50); the Law
on the Management of the Planned Economy (ibid.,
58/51); and the Law on the Election of Workers' Councils (ibid., 1/52), amended
twice (ibid., 5/52 and 8/56). Constitutional Law on Social and Economic
Organization (ibid., 3/53);
Decree on the Establishment of Companies (ibid.,
5.1/53), renewed several times (ibid., 3/54, 43/54, 47/54, 13/55 and 19/56);
Decree-Law on the Liquidation of Companies, promulgated in 1953 and amended in
1956; Decree-Law on the Administration of Basic Capital (ibid., 8/54), renewed
repeatedly (ibid., 25/54, 32/54, 7/55, etc.); Law on Economic Courts (ibid.
31/54); Decree on the Distribution of Total Company Income (ibid., 10/56),
amended (ibid., 55/57); Decree on workers' wages (ibid., 11/56 and 18/57),
later amended (ibid., 55/57); Decree on the administration of working capital
(ibid., 24/57);
Law relating to fixed capital (ibid., 52/57); Law on
the contribution to the community of the income of companies (ibid., 52/57);
Law on the resources of the company (ibid., 52/57); Law on the contribution of
workers' personal income to the budgets (ibid., 54/57), later renewed (ibid.,
14/58 and 25/58); Law on the workers' contribution for housing (ibid., 57/55),
later renewed (ibid., 54/57); Decree relating to the distribution of the net
income of the company (ibid., 14/58); Law on Labor Relations (ibid., 7/58);
Resolution on the Minimum Wages of Workers (ibid. 52/58); Decree on the Wage
Scale and the Workers' Ranking System (ibid., 6/59). Likewise, many more
decrees are in force, concerning banks, social programs, foreign trade, prices,
etc., which directly affect workers' "self-government."
The mere enumeration of the decrees, laws, and
resolutions demonstrates the extent to which the State is controlling
"workers' self-management" and how illusory the term
"decentralization" is, since all the aforementioned laws and decrees
were promulgated by the central power of the State. Therefore, there is no
possibility of the "decline of the State." On the contrary, laws and
decrees from the central power are multiplying more and more. Not long ago, a
new bill on income distribution was presented to the "parliament" of
Belgrade (see the Communist Party organ "Borba"
of 2/16/60), that is, the most sensitive problem of every economic system and
especially under the conditions of "self-management".
However, according to the constitutional law of 1953, there is the
possibility of direct decision by the working class, as a whole, in all legal
instruments referring to the economic sector, both at the local levels and at
the supreme level. This law established Producers' Councils at all levels, from
the commune to the Federal National Assembly. These councils were intended to
fulfill the function of the "upper house" in all bicameral
parliamentary systems.
They are elected by the workers of each enterprise through direct vote,
and thus, from a constitutional and administrative standpoint, the working
class decides directly on "self-management," even at the level of the
central legislative power. However, this parliamentary chamber, like the other
within a totalitarian government system, functions as a voting machine. They
vote for candidates proposed by the federal executive branch, and its president
is simultaneously the general secretary of the Party and supreme commander of
the armed forces. A quick glance at the official press and other publications
confirms this.
Thus, for example, the October 8, 1960 issue of the journal "Ekonomska Politika" reveals
that "the deputies of the Producers' Council had raised the issue of
discussing the law concerning the new five-year plan while it was still in its
preparatory phase, in order to potentially influence its final structure"
(emphasis added). Regarding these relationships at the lowest levels, i.e.,
commune-enterprise, we find many identical cases in the official press. In the
October 8, 1960 issue of the newspaper "Borba"
(the organ of the Communist Party), one can read that "the members of the
Workers' Councils of many enterprises declare that they have nothing to discuss
at meetings, since all their resolutions concerning investments and wages must
conform to the criteria of the communal bodies." These cases are not
exceptions; they are widespread practice.
All the political, legal, and administrative
circumstances surrounding the development of "workers'
self-management" demonstrate that the evolution of the Workers' Councils
does not tend toward democratization and the "withering away of the
State." These circumstances contradict the principles of self-government
and democracy. Totalitarianism and "direct democracy" are incompatible;
dictatorship and autonomy are irreconcilable, since "self-management"
cannot exist without the real and effective power of autonomous bodies. The
Communist Party, however, has never shared power with anyone, not even in the
so-called "workers' self-management" in Yugoslavia.
The first signs of workers' self-management appeared
in 1945. These were workers' commissions, created by government decree
(Official Gazette, 54/46). Their powers were limited to advising company
management with a view to increasing production. The Fundamental Law on State
Economic Enterprises of 1946 (ibid., 62/46) also
refers to workers' commissions and their right to strive for better living and
working conditions.
According to the aforementioned law, the State
appoints the director of the enterprise. This director manages the enterprise
in accordance with the State's centralist plan, the laws of the executive
branch, and the instructions of the relevant ministry. The director is
responsible for fulfilling the predetermined and detailed plan in all its
aspects of production and marketing: the production volume, price, quality,
variety of products, labor, wages, etc., were all fixed in advance,
even the suppliers of raw materials and the buyers of finished products were
designated.
The plan had to be executed in its entirety, both in
volume and value, which led to absurd situations during the manufacturing
process (for example, a cement factory, in order to execute the predetermined
plan in its "value," brought sand from the most distant locations).
Simultaneously, the number of unproductive workers grew, as peasants were
forced to seek employment in factories. At the same time, agriculture was
stifled by forced collectivization, which brought about the aforementioned
consequences and determined the inevitable change in the country's economic
life.
Following the instructions of the Economic Council and the Trade Union
Federation, the first Workers' Councils were founded at the end of 1949 in 215
large companies, comprising 8,000 workers. By mid-1950, these figures had risen
to 520 and 14,328, respectively. Around the same time, the fundamental law
(June 26, 1950) concerning workers' management in state-owned economic
enterprises was promulgated "in accordance with socialist principles,
according to which the producers themselves must manage the economy and in
accordance with the principles of democratic self-government" ("Borba," June 29, 1950). According to this law, the
director and the workers' collective (collectif ouvrier) manage the enterprise through their respective
bodies: the Workers' Council and the Executive Committee. The production
process is overseen by the director, advised by technical experts.
A. - WORKERS' COLLECTIVE
According to the aforementioned fundamental law,
"state economic enterprises, as well as all national wealth, are managed,
in the name of the social community, by workers' collectives within the state
economic plan and based on the rights and duties established by laws and other
legal instruments" (Art. 1). It further states that "the workers'
collective exercises this management through workers' councils and the
executive committees of the enterprises," and that the workers'
collectives elect and dissolve the workers' councils. In enterprises with up to
30 workers, the workers' collective also constitutes the workers' council.
These rights of the workers' collective take effect
from the founding of the enterprise and are legally inalienable, except in the
cases provided for, such as, for example, the bankruptcy of the enterprise,
etc. Apart from the right to elect and remove the workers' council, the
workers' collective also has the right to vote in referendums within the
company and the right to a consultative vote in the Producers' Assembly. All
the workers' rights are thus enumerated.
According to the letter of the law, therefore, the
"workers' collective" directs and manages "the state economic
enterprise" and "national wealth" in the name of the social
community. The question arises: who is the owner? The people,
the state, or the social community? What is the legal relationship of
the workers' collective to the owner? What is the legal relationship of the
workers' collective to the company?
The basic legislation of Yugoslavia does not define
all these legal concepts. It is unclear who is the owner, who
is the agent, who is the usufructuary, etc.
Apparently, this imprecision is intentional, since it was necessary to specify
in legal terms that the owner is the State, thereby implicitly and formally
acknowledging the state-capitalist character of the social order. Thus, the
legal position of the working class is not defined by law, which has its
reasons, since otherwise a clearly defined and specified legal position for the
working class would diminish the possibility, at least in its formal aspect, of
the arbitrary procedures to which state bodies resort.
The working class is, therefore, neither owner nor
agent, and, most importantly, it does not enjoy the status of a legal person.
Only the company possesses legal personality. If self-management were true
self-government, then the working class should enjoy much broader and more
precise rights, something similar to the rights of shareholders in corporations
and of members in cooperative societies. Furthermore, the Workers' Council, as
soon as it is elected, becomes independent of the workforce, and therefore, one
cannot speak of "direct democracy" in companies. Moreover, this is
incompatible with the complex management of the company, and insisting on
"direct democracy" becomes mere demagoguery.
Regarding the right to vote, the fundamental law states "that the
Workers' Council is elected by equal, direct, and secret ballot" (Art.
11), "based on a single list of candidates, proposed by the trade union or
by a specific number of workers" (Art. 12). The right to vote, both active
and passive, belongs to every worker who has reached the age of 18. Lately,
there has been a noticeable trend toward granting the same right to those under
18. The number of workers proposing the list of candidates must comprise at
least 1/10 of the workforce.
Although the law allows for two or more lists of candidates, in
practice, the trade union almost always proposes the list. In the 1953 Workers'
Council elections, 573 of the 4,758 companies had two lists of candidates; in
1954, this figure rose to 689 of the 5,324 companies; in 1956, to 862 of the
5,989 companies; in 1957, to 198 of the 6,314 companies; and in 1958, to 189 of
the 6,618 companies. There were no elections in 1959, nor
in 1955. The final data for 1960 has not yet been compiled. In all other cases,
the list of candidates was submitted by the trade union, reflecting its
increasingly important role in the Communist Party's control of the company.
Regarding the right to a referendum, the workers'
collective can only approve or disapprove the proposal. They lack the right to
initiate a referendum. The result of the referendum vote is binding on all the
company's governing bodies. Precisely for this reason, referendums are rarely
held and are gradually disappearing. According to Djuro
Salaj's statement, given in 1957 at the Congress of
Workers' Councils in Belgrade, only 160 referendums were registered in
Yugoslavia during 1956, and these "were always justified," Salaj added, meaning they approved everything the Party
demanded. Regarding referendums and their use, "Ekonomska
Politika" of May 30, 1960, wrote:
"The extensive survey organized by the Zagreb
Institute of Social Self-Management conclusively demonstrated that referendums
in the form they were initially conceived are very rare and that this form of
direct decision-making is declining year by year. Of the 432 companies where
the survey was conducted, referendums were held in only 104, namely: 116 in
1956, 155 in 1957, and 95 in 1958. Furthermore, few companies have regulations
governing the organization of referendums.
The trade union is, as a rule, the initiator of the
referendum: the most sensitive issues, such as wages and the distribution of
the company's net profits, are not usually included in
the respective referendum. However, such a case did occur once at the Sisak foundry in..." In 1958, the Board of Directors
decided to invest net profits in building homes for the company's executives.
This decision provoked discontent among the workers, who for more than four
years had not received a single dinar from the undistributed wage fund. The
Workers' Council resolved to put the matter to a referendum, and the workers
voted for the equal distribution of available funds. The resolution was
approved, and the process was carried out accordingly. Subsequently, the
Party's central organ, "Komunist," in its
February 23, 1958 edition, harshly criticized the foundry's Workers' Council
for having yielded to pressure from "bourgeois tendencies within a segment
of the workforce."
As can be inferred, the referendum is undesirable and
is therefore disappearing. In contrast, the Producers' Assembly is convened
more frequently, and its resolutions and conclusions are not binding on the
governing bodies. According to current regulations, it should be convened every
three months. However, this does not happen. and it
does not encompass all companies.
In three years (1956-1958), Producers' Assemblies were
held in only 674 companies, namely: 1,238 in 1956, 1,541 in 1957, and 1,196 in
the first half of 1958.
Commenting on these figures, "Ekonomska
Politika" (No. 374, p. 543) writes: "When
it comes to the Producers' Assembly, it is difficult to find a company where
all matters within its jurisdiction are regulated. The Assemblies are generally
convened by trade union organizations and sometimes by self-management
bodies." It is evident that the more frequent convening of these
Assemblies—which practically means expanding the workers' more direct participation
in the management of the company—would contribute to strengthening workers'
self-management, if the bodies of this self-management were obligated to
convene them and if it were stipulated, at least in the regulations of each
company, which issues should be debated and who should take the initiative. The
cited article is titled "Referendums Disappear, the Number of Producers'
Assemblies Grows."
However, it cannot be inferred from this article that
the powers of the Producers' Assemblies increase simultaneously. Therefore, it
is not to be expected that their number and powers will grow in tandem, as
these are contradictory.
The fourth and final right of the working class is the
power to revoke the Workers' Council. It is related to the right of election,
but even more arbitrary. Here, too, the trade union plays the main role. One of
the characteristic cases was the revocation of the Workers' Council at the Ghetaldus factory in Zagreb in 1957. The Workers' Council
of that company had dismissed several superfluous, incapable, and unpopular
workers—all Party members—with the consent of the trade union.
The Party, therefore, tolerated this practice in order
to rid itself of troublesome individuals, although perhaps meritorious as
guerrillas. However, when this practice escalated against Party members in the
companies, the trade union, on the express orders of the Party, hastily
convened the Producers' Assembly, where, of course, the resolution to dissolve
the Workers' Council was adopted. From all of the above, it follows that the
working class can only exercise its legal powers insofar as they align with the
party line, which is the responsibility of the union organization.
It is worth emphasizing the futility of the union
organization in a system of workers' self-management, however formal. The
members of the working class are also affiliated with the union. They elect the
workers' council and the union leaders. "Therefore, there are two bodies
of the same working class and within the same jurisdiction."
According to the law, the trade union does not
constitute a self-management body, but it practically and politically directs
the company, because, as Bozicevic continues,
"however, they can have, and this frequently happens, divergent opinions
on certain questions concerning the company." (Op. cit.)
If it is true that the workers' collective, through the Workers' Council,
directs the company, and if it is also true in practice that the Workers'
Council depends on it, then it is up to the workers' collective to decide
whenever a conflict arises between it and the Workers' Council, its body. The
mediation of the trade union is not necessary. The initiative could be taken by
a certain number of members of the workers' collective. This is, in fact, the
procedure in many workers' companies in capitalist countries, especially in
France.
These workers' communities (communité
de travail) are not affiliated with trade unions, as this is entirely
unnecessary, although, due to the "capitalist encirclement," they
feel solidarity with many political actions of the working class and the
unions. The community owns the means of production and, as such, makes all
sovereign decisions and administers them through its elected bodies. No other
trade union organization is needed to protect the interests of the community
members before the governing bodies, since these are dependent on the
community. When a conflict arises, the community members vote, and the will of
the majority is respected not only by the governing bodies but by all the community
members.
Why, then, in Yugoslavia—where workers formally govern
themselves—do the workers' collectives not ultimately decide on contentious
matters, while also respecting the will of the majority? The Party, however,
cannot allow this, since it only has 13% of the members of the workers'
collectives as supporters and would therefore always remain in the minority. It
is true that the Party can also be in the minority when, through the trade
union organization, it holds a referendum or convenes the Producers' Assembly.
But it must not be forgotten that the workers'
collective cannot convene these bodies and that behind the trade union
organization are the Party and the State—the apparatus of oppression. The trade
union organization is not a legal factor, just as the Party is not,
constitutionally, the organ of state power. However, the trade union
organization directs company policy as a "conveyor belt" for the
Party—that factor not declared in the constitution. The workers' collective
must choose, recall, and debate what the Party wants and how it wants it, just
as in parliamentary elections or other elections in Yugoslavia.
B. - WORKERS' COUNCIL
According to the fundamental law, the number of
members of the Workers' Council varies between 15 and 120, depending on the
structure and size of each company. In companies with fewer than 30 workers,
all personnel are members of the Workers' Council. The Council members elect
the president at the first meeting after the vote. Meetings are held at least
every six weeks.
The president is obligated to convene the Workers'
Council at the request of the trade union, the director, the executive
committee, or one-third of the Council members (Articles 10-12 of the
Fundamental Law). A quorum is 51%, and resolutions are adopted by a majority
vote. The manager and directors may participate in the meetings. According to
Article... 23: "The Workers' Council approves the basic plans and the
balance sheet, makes resolutions regarding the administration of the company
and the execution of the economic plan, elects, removes, and acquits the
company's board of directors..., approves the management of the board of
directors, and distributes the funds available to the company, that is, to the
Workers' Collective."
The 1957 Labor Relations Law includes labor relations
among the powers of the Workers' Council. In this regard, the Workers' Council
decides directly or through an ad hoc committee. Its powers were repeatedly
expanded with respect to participation in setting investment policy, decisions
regarding mergers with other companies, the purchase and sale of fixed capital,
the establishment of new companies, the right to determine workplaces, and the
approval of the company's salary scale and workers' ranking system.
The preceding paragraphs describe the election process
for Workers' Councils and highlight the disproportionate representation of
communists in these bodies, three times greater than their relative number in
the companies. However, in companies with fewer than 30 workers, this
disproportion does not exist for the simple reason that they often lack party
organization.
Eduardo Kardelj, Vice
President of the Yugoslav Federal Government, in a speech delivered in Zagreb,
criticized the absence of party organization in 1,228 companies in Croatia
proper. This means that the Party must control each Workers' Council, as
otherwise it would be deprived of its prerogatives within the company.
Moreover, in recent years, the trend has been growing that once elected,
communists become permanent members of the Workers' Councils, even though,
according to the law, their term is only for one year, and only one-third of
the previous Council members are eligible for reelection. The number of those
re-elected, mostly affiliated with the Party, varied between 30 and 40% in the
early years.
In recent years, the number of re-elected members has
been growing. For example, "40.2% of the members of the Workers' Councils
elected in 1957 had previously served on that body repeatedly; in 1958, 44.1%
of the members of the Workers' Councils were 'long-serving'; the still
incomplete data collected after the 1960 elections confirm that the trend has
gone even further: 48% had served on the same self-management body in previous
years." Furthermore, the participation of direct producers on the Workers'
Councils, which legally should comprise three-quarters, is gradually
decreasing. "In this body of workers' self-management, the number of
members directly employed in production is also noticeably decreasing each
year: 76.4% in 1957, 75.5% the following year, and in the last elections, it
did not reach three-quarters."
The powers of the Workers' Council are extensive, and
yet it does not manage the company. Practically speaking, this would be
impossible given the number of members and the frequency of meetings. The
Council should act as a kind of "legislative" and oversight body
within the company. It approves or rejects proposals from the management
bodies. Legally, it primarily influences the company's direction without
actually directing it. Therefore, according to the legal text, even at the
level of the Workers' Councils, there are no elements of direct democracy, only
the possibility of retroactive approval or disapproval.
The exercise of legal powers is subject to real,
administrative, and other limitations. For example, the company's basic plan,
i.e., the production plan, is meaningless if the company lacks the resources to
implement it. All financial resources are centralized in Belgrade, in the
National Bank, the Investment Bank, and the General Investment Fund. For any
loan, the company must first obtain approval and a guarantee from the people's
committee of the respective commune and then submit an application to the
lending institutions. However, the banks' resources are also limited, since the
state economic plan had already allocated them by sector and enterprise.
In 1958, the Investment Bank received 13,302 loan applications and
approved only 7,675, meaning that credit was granted to the sectors and
enterprises already designated in the economic plan. Furthermore, the onerous
financial burdens of the enterprises prevented them from achieving any
financial autonomy. In 1958, the total financial resources available to
industrial enterprises amounted to 42.3 million dinars, and there were 2,710
such enterprises (Index, 4/60), which translates to 15.5 million dinars per
enterprise. However, as will be seen later, this same fund had to cover other
expenses.
The situation for businesses is worsening with regard to the purchase of
raw materials and other supplies. According to a survey conducted by the
National Bank in April 1959, of the 508 companies surveyed, 344, or 70%, were
unable to repay the loans they had obtained for raw materials with the income remaining
available to the company. There are many similar cases, and all of them
demonstrate that there can be no worker self-management without financial
autonomy.
As for the company's balance sheet, its approval
depends on the Producers' Council, that is, the upper house of the Federal
National Assembly, whose workings we have already discussed. Furthermore, the
president presents the balance sheet and can, as will be seen later, suspend any resolution of the Workers' Council. A
similar situation exists in the distribution of company funds, investment
policy, decisions regarding mergers with other companies, and so on. With
respect to mergers with other economic organizations, a law on associations in
the economy was recently enacted. According to this law, permission to
associate depends on the chambers of the respective economic sectors. For
industry, for example, the competent body is the Federal Chamber of Industry,
headquartered in Belgrade.
Of course, the Workers' Council has certain real
powers, such as ensuring that the predetermined plan is executed perfectly and
completely. However, this entails obligation and duty rather than a managerial
function. The real power attributed to the Workers' Councils pertains to
labor-related matters. In most cases, such problems are handled by special
committees, influenced by the company director. This is reflected in the data
published by Vjesnik in May 1960, according to which,
in 1959/60, in 23 districts of Croatia, totaling 127,000 workers, 31,000 were
laid off, 10,000 of whom were dismissed at the director's request, although
these dismissals were not legally justified.
Furthermore, wage setting also falls under the purview
of the Workers' Council, although it is subject to two fundamental limitations.
The first is the resolution on minimum worker income, issued in 1958, which
established the average wage for all economic sectors, guaranteed by the State,
even if the respective company is operating at a loss. The general average
reaches 12,000 dinars per month (20 dollars, according to the official exchange
rate). The same resolution affects pay scales and salary levels, which must be
linked to the established minimum wages.
Another restriction is even more radical: the people's
committees of the communes approve or reject all salary scales of the
enterprises under their territorial jurisdiction. This problem became
particularly acute last year (1959), when the people's committees rejected all
the proposed salary scales. In some factories, the atmosphere became very
tense, and there were threats of work stoppages (the Prvomajska
factory in Zagreb). Lately, these salary scales are being gradually replaced by
performance bonuses, which are simply work performed according to predetermined
standards.
A new draft law concerning the distribution of income
between the enterprise and the community is currently being prepared. The
excessive number of these laws, decrees, resolutions, and regulations already
hinders the normal functioning of both the enterprise and the workers'
councils. These changes are constantly evolving, but not in a way that expands
autonomy and satisfies genuine workers' aspirations.
In this regard, the resolution adopted at the First
Congress of Workers' Councils, held in Belgrade in 1957, is characteristic. It
demands, among other things:
- That the Workers' Councils distribute company income
independently;
- That they be granted greater freedom in the
administration of basic capital and amortization;
- That the Producers' Councils (upper chambers) be
able to participate directly in decision-making regarding the distribution of
national income and state profits, the setting of economic policy objectives,
and all matters affecting workers.
The same resolution also calls for the codification of
labor legislation and, finally, the legal delimitation of the commune's rights
with respect to economic enterprises.
During the last three years, not a single one of these demands has been
met. Perhaps the proposed law on income distribution will bring innovations in
this regard. Based on past experiences, this law will be new in form, but its
content will remain the same, since a totalitarian structure necessarily leads
to centralism, which in turn is incompatible with the principles of autonomy.
C. - COMPANY BOARD OF DIRECTORS
In addition to the functions and powers already
indicated, the Workers' Council has the right to elect the Board of Directors,
another body of worker self-management.
In its first session, the Workers' Council elects, by
secret ballot, the Board of Directors, composed of 3-11 members including the
Director (manager). The Director is legally a member of the Board of Directors.
Two-thirds of the members must be direct producers. The term of office is valid
for one year, and only one-third are eligible for reelection. No one, except
the Director, may serve on the Board of Directors for more than two years. The
Director is thus guaranteed continuity in relation to the other members of the
Board of Directors, which is very important for the company's operation. The
Board of Directors elects the President from among its members, who cannot be a
Director. A simple majority constitutes a quorum, and decisions are valid with
a simple majority plus one vote.
According to the Fundamental Law, the Executive
Committee drafts, on the one hand, all proposals pertaining to the Workers'
Council and related to the basic lines of company policy.
Thus, the Executive Committee develops the drafts of
the basic plans, the internal organization of each company, proposes job
positions, decides on the claims of dismissed workers, proposes technical
staff, etc. On the other hand, the functions of the Executive Committee are
concentrated on production, productivity, and working conditions. It deals with
the rationalization of work, the reduction of costs, the suppression of waste,
and is responsible for technical and hygienic protection in the workplace, etc.
Furthermore, it bears the responsibility for "the execution of the plan
and the proper administration of the company" (Art. 27 of the Fundamental
Law).
It is a characteristic sign that fewer and fewer
direct producers are represented on this body. In the Executive Committees
elected in 1957, 67.5% were direct producers. The proportion of Communist Party
members on the Executive Committees is even higher than on the Workers'
Councils. Therefore, the Director's presence on the Executive Committee can and
does strongly influence its actions.
The Executive Committee functions as a kind of
secretariat in drafting proposals to present to the Workers' Council. This is
more or less the work carried out by specialists, and everything depends on the
degree of freedom the Workers' Council has to make decisions. Furthermore, all
proposals from the Executive Committee can be rejected by the Director, who
ultimately rules on the legality of all company actions. Therefore, if in the
Director's opinion the Executive Committee is functioning slowly and
irregularly, the Director can assume its powers.
The other functions of the Executive Committee are
limited to striving for greater and better production, and in this regard, it
must demand the maximum effort from the workers. However, it also plays a
significant role in deciding on the claims of dismissed and rejected workers.
Of course, here too the Director has the right to appeal to the Board of
Directors, and it is understood that their appeal will prevail over the
complaint of the dismissed worker.
The Board of Directors is also in charge of "the
proper functioning of the company" and "is responsible for the
execution of the plan." The first statement is very broad and imprecise;
it encompasses much and nothing. The second is incomplete, since whoever bears
the responsibility for the execution of the plan should hold all the powers
during the process of its implementation. Both statements do not refer to the
overall development of the company, but only to the internal production
process. All other technical, commercial, and financial matters fall under the
Director's purview.
Legally, therefore, the Board of Directors participates in the
management of the company, although this right is not expressly guaranteed by
law. The Director's powers are intertwined with the rights of the Board of
Directors. The law is very vague regarding the delineation of powers, which
allows the Director to arbitrarily "judge the legality of all acts"
of the Board of Directors, invalidate, if necessary, its decisions and,
therefore, he alone directs and manages the company.
D. THE COMPANY DIRECTOR
In fact, the Director does not constitute an organ of
workers' self-management, but rather a state organ within the company, which is
clearly deduced both from the method of their election and from their powers.
A joint commission, composed of an equal number of
delegates from the Workers' Council and the People's Committee of the commune,
calls for applications to fill the position of Director. This commission
proposes its candidate to the People's Committee of the commune, which approves
or rejects them. If the application process is unsuccessful, then the People's
Committee of the commune appoints the Director.
If the Director fails to manage the company according
to current regulations and laws, or if the company fails to meet its
obligations to the State or incurs significant losses due to the Director's
incompetence, then the Workers' Council may propose the Director's dismissal to
the Executive Committee. The Executive Committee, of which the Director is also
a member, may approve or reject the Workers' Council's proposal. If it accepts,
then the joint commission decides, just as in the election of the Director, and
the final and unappealable resolution is made by the
commune's People's Committee.
The astonishing thing about this procedure is that the
Executive Committee can reject the proposal of the Workers' Council, even
though legally it is an organ of that Council. This means that "the
executive branch" can reject the proposal of the "legislative
branch," which is not the norm in parliamentary practice, and even less so
in an autonomous entity.
In both cases, then, the commune's People's Committee
has the final say. The Workers' Council is not empowered to complain or appeal.
On the contrary, if the commune's People's Committee does not approve the joint
commission's proposal and believes that the conflict between the Director and
the Workers' Council could harm the company, then it is empowered to dissolve
the Workers' Council and call for new elections. In this way, the rights of the
Workers' Council are at the mercy of the arbitrary criteria of the commune,
which is a political-administrative body. The described procedure for the
election and removal of the Director contradicts the principles of autonomy and
democracy. Why are the State and the Party afraid to entrust the election of
the Director to the Workers' Council?
From a class perspective, all such fear should be
unfounded. The Workers' Council is the organ of the workers' collective, of the
working class. Therefore, there is no room for social and economic disparities
within the same class. The Workers' Council is elected based on the trade
union's list, and on average, 40% of its members are Party members. They
certainly constitute a numerical minority, but the remaining 60% do not share
the same aspirations, are not organized, and do not feel supported by the
State, the Party, and the police, as the communist minority does. There are,
undoubtedly, important reasons for not having proceeded otherwise.
Firstly, the broad legal basis for workers'
self-management could serve as legal cover for anti-communist tendencies within
the workers' collective. This trend would be all the more dangerous because it
would spread within the bounds of legality, and every repressive measure would
become highly unpopular and detrimental to the regime's internal and external
propaganda. Therefore, the Party had to restrict even the merely formal powers
of the Workers' Councils.
There is no hope of liberal innovation in this area,
since "while one should consider expanding the rights of workers'
collectives, the community's interference should also be kept in this
area," wrote "Ekonomska Politika"
in its December 5, 1959 issue. Norbert Veber, a
member of the Federal Council of Producers, had already written in 1952 in the
communist newspaper "Borba" that "the
Director cannot be elected by the workers' collective, but only by the Workers'
Council." In the seven years since then, not a single step forward has
been taken.
Secondly, the leaders of the Communist League are
aware that their party is no longer what it once was: a combative,
revolutionary, and selfless political organization. There is an ideological and
moral collapse. The struggle for positions has replaced the class struggle; the
bourgeois mentality has supplanted proletarian solidarity. In businesses, this
laxity manifests itself in the simmering and overt antagonisms and extreme
rivalries among communists for positions.
The economic factor prevails over "the party
line." Personal interests dominate those of the Party; local interests
prevail over general ones, and those of each
nationality over "federal" ones. At the Sixth Plenary Session of the
Central Committee of the Yugoslav Communist League, held in 1956, Mato Dugonjic complained that the
communists had mastered the technique of running a business with relative ease,
but had completely neglected the political aspect of self-management.
For all the reasons stated above, the Party could not
leave the election of the Director to the workers' collectives or the Workers'
Councils, since the "conveyor belts" of state power are more reliable
than those of the Party. In this mechanism, the Director is the most important
link and a decisive factor. This factor must remain securely and infallibly in
the hands of the Party and the State, which does not relinquish its
totalitarian power. At the beginning of workers' self-management in 1952, 92%
of all Directors were Party members; this percentage, incidentally, did not
decrease afterward.
Just as the method of electing the Director clearly demonstrates that he
is not the organ of workers' self-management, so too do his powers refute this
claim of official propaganda. According to the Fundamental Law, the Director
directs, in the production process, the execution of the predetermined plan and
manages all the business of the enterprise, adhering to decrees and laws, the
orders of higher authorities, and the instructions of the Enterprise's
Management Committee. He is responsible for "compliance with laws,
decrees, and other legal regulations and orders from state bodies" (Art.
36).
The Director negotiates and signs contracts and agreements, and
distributes circulating capital (raw materials, short-term funds, etc.). Each
contract is valid as soon as the Director approves it. "The Director
represents the company before state bodies, as well as in legal matters with
natural and legal persons" (Art. 37). The Director proposes the
appointment and dismissal of workers and employees to the Workers' Council. If
he disagrees with the decision of the Workers' Council, he may appeal to the
Board of Directors. In both cases, it is the Director who stipulates the
agreement with the workers. "The Director determines the position and type
of work for each worker and employee.
They are responsible to the Director for their performance in the
company" (Art. 39). "The Director may suspend any decision of the
Workers' Council or the Board of Directors if it contradicts the law and must
inform the competent state body accordingly" (Art. 40). "The Director may take all
measures conducive to the execution
of the plan and assume the powers of the
Board of Directors, if the latter
did not take
them in time" (art. 40).
According to the aforementioned section of Article 36,
"the Director is responsible for compliance with laws, decrees, other
legal regulations, and orders issued by state bodies,"
meaning that he is not responsible for compliance or non-compliance with
the instructions of the Board of Directors or the resolutions of the Workers'
Council. The exclusive right to enter into contracts and agreements and to
represent the company before third parties empowers the Director to manage all
the financial and commercial affairs of the establishment at his discretion,
without any obligation to report to the self-management bodies.
No contract is subject to "ratification" by
the self-governing bodies. Furthermore, the Director can assume the functions
of the Board of Directors and rule on the legality of all the company's acts
and decisions. Here, the Director's discretionary power is absolute. In case of
conflict, neither the Board of Directors nor the Workers' Council has any legal
recourse other than filing a claim with the People's Committee of the commune.
Only one important power is not in the hands of the Director, namely the power
to appoint and dismiss workers. However, as explained in the chapter on
Workers' Councils, in practice the Director also exercises this right.
All these powers assigned to the Director excessively interfere with the
duties and responsibilities of the legitimate bodies of workers'
self-management. Although there are numerous regulations concerning
self-management, the functions of each body have never been clearly defined.
This is not a casual omission, but an inevitable consequence of the Director's
powers as the principal agent of self-management. The Director is neither
dependent on nor equal to the other bodies.
The Director is above them, and for this reason, it has not been
possible to simultaneously establish the Director's position as a self-managing
body with equal rights while retaining its crucial administrative functions.
Hence the imprecision of all legal texts on labor matters. Confirmation of our
opinion can be found in official specialized publications. "Although the
company is an integral part of the community, and although the workers'
councils manage the company, taking into account the interests and goals of the
whole, attempts to act selfishly, to circumvent the law, and to disregard the
community's interests occasionally arise.
The Director must prevent such attempts, even though the self-management
bodies or the workers' collective as a whole bear collective responsibility.
The Director is responsible for the legality of all actions and, consequently,
is not only the most responsible executive body in the company but also the
public official."
DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME
Throughout this exposition, we have outlined the
actual legal limits of workers' self-management, its practical functioning, and
the political framework in which it operates. To complete this analysis, it
would be necessary to examine in detail all other circumstances surrounding the
activities of the Workers' Councils in the economy of communist Yugoslavia.
First and foremost, the price system and the role of
the market within a planned economy would need to be analyzed, followed by
other formal restrictions regarding the acquisition and use of raw materials,
obtaining credit, foreign trade, etc. All these factors are of great importance
in workers' self-management. Furthermore, the role of various services should
be examined, such as labor inspection, market control, financial control,
auditing of accounting records, etc. In short, the entire vast machinery of a
centrally planned economy would need to be analyzed.
While a detailed analysis of all these factors would
contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the role of the Workers'
Councils, the scope of this study does not permit it. On the other hand, any
study of workers' self-management in Yugoslavia, however concise, would be far
from informative without an analysis of the elements and instruments of
national income at both the global and enterprise levels.
This topic requires a separate study which, as such,
exceeds the scope of this work. Therefore, we will address the fundamental
features of this problem in direct relation to workers' self-management.
The distribution of income constitutes the basic
problem of the political economy of any society. Its nature depends on
objective factors, such as the degree of economic development and its
structure. It also depends on subjective factors, that is, on will, the
principal factor of distribution. In our case, this factor is the State, while
in other cases it is the State and a social class together, or a single social
class, as was the case in the early decades of the capitalist system.
Since in our case the overall distribution depends
exclusively on the State, the first thing we will address is the general
distribution of national income in Yugoslavia. For the analysis of this
distribution, we will use the year 1958, as the data for subsequent years are
not yet systematized. The table is presented to us as follows, in round
figures:
Total National Income................1.834 trillion
dinars
Net Personal Income...........809.4 trillion dinars
State and Other Funds.............927.3 trillion
dinars
Private Sector Taxes.......97.3 trillion dinars
Consequently, almost 44% of total national income is
available to the population, while the remaining 56% is controlled by the
State. In the same year, the population was 18,000,000, meaning that per capita
disposable income amounted to 45,000 dinars. Converting this
sum to dollars, without following the official International Monetary Fund
exchange rate of 1 dollar = 300 dinars, but rather the rate of 1 dollar = 400
dinars, corresponding to real purchasing power according to the analyses of
Yugoslav economists, these resources amount to $112.50 per year. This
includes the subsistence of the peasantry. Therefore, the purchasing power per
capita did not reach $112.50 per year.
The overall distribution of national income accurately
reflects the role of the State in this area. Of the State's available
resources, approximately 800 trillion are reserved for the central government,
not counting the 165 trillion collected for debt repayment, which is available
to the central government. The remainder corresponds to local budgets and
funds, with 42.684 billion allocated to corporate funds.
The distribution of total income from the socialist
sector of the economy from 1957-60 (first half of the year) is shown in the
following table:
1957 1958 1959 1960 (first half of the year)
State 57% 64% 59% 57%
Salaries 27% 22% 23.6% 23%
Social Security 10.5% 8% 8.5% 8%
Company Funds 5.5% 6% 8.9% 12%
100% 100% 100.6% 100%
(Total income represents total revenue from goods sold and services,
less material expenses and less depreciation).
To have a complete idea about the distribution and
economic development of communist Yugoslavia, it is necessary to establish the
impact of wages on the overall price structure of the state sector economy as a
whole. This is the respective scheme:
Incidence of net wages in price structure
Incidence of gross wages (plus social security) in
price structure
Incidence of social security in gross wages
1953 6.1% 6.8% 11%
1954 6.7% 9.2% 27%
1955 5.9% 8.4% 30%
1956 6.0% 8.6% 31%
1957 6.1% 8.4% 28%
1958 6.2% 8.4% 27%
1959 6.9% 9.3% 26%
1960 (I-VIII) 6.1% 8.2% 26%
The structure of sales prices is a very important indicator of
distribution policy. Its analysis always attracted the attention of economists,
including Marx. In the case of Yugoslavia, this analysis reveals that the
incidence of wages is very low, five, six, and even seven times lower than the
same incidence in the economies of the most advanced capitalist countries. It
is true that the low incidence of wages is conditioned by economic development,
but in our case, the political factor is of paramount importance.
The distribution of total income, reflected at the
enterprise level, yields the table on the following page.
According to this distribution table, each enterprise
would receive 6,800,000 dinars, assuming that at the end of the respective year
there were 16,560 enterprises in the socialist sector (Indeks,
4/60). Considering that the total number of employees in the socialist sector
in 1959 reached 2,263,000 (Indeks, 8/60), and if we
divide the wage fund for the same year by this number, the average monthly
salary is approximately 17,400 dinars. This amount includes all income from the
"undistributed wage fund," that is, the portion of enterprise profits
distributed among the workers, as well as the sum earned for overtime.
From the data presented, it is clear that:
a) the overall distribution
is dictated from the center and does not favor the personal consumption of the
working masses;
b) the distribution at the
level of each enterprise is established in advance by the plan and other
economic and financial instruments;
c) social accumulation and the
credit system are distinctly centralized;
d) consequently, so-called
workers' self-management lacks the essential financial autonomy, one of the
fundamental requirements of any kind of autonomy.
That such a distribution does not incentivize workers
or stimulate greater productivity is proven by the fact that the relevant
regulations are constantly changing. Structure of Expenditures of Economic
Organizations in 1959 (in Millions of Dinars)
Expenses for the Acquisition of Materials 5,304,374
Amortization 158,968
Salaries and Wages 472,142
Social Security 158,270
Interest on Loans for Working Capital 63,211
Interest on Basic Capital 39,887
Interest on the Working Capital Fund 27,392
Land Income Tax 4,338
Tax on the Amount of Transactions 199,439
Contribution to Special Funds 16,642
Contribution to Housing Construction 39,552
Contribution to the General Expenses of the Nation
268,340
Income Tax 79,138
Other Expenditures 9,822
Contribution To the reserve fund 31,077
Contribution to company funds
113,910
________________________________________6,986,502
In Vienna, he also dedicated himself to solving some
technical problems posed by the imperial architects, and it was there that he
published his most important work: Philosophiae naturalis theoria redacta ad unicam
legem virium in natura existentium (1758), which
we will discuss later.
Two years later, he visited France and then spent some
months in England, where he was elected a member of the Royal Society. During
this time, he wrote a scientific work in verse: "De solis
ac lunae defectibus,"
which he dedicated to the Royal Society. He then traveled to Poland and Turkey
to make astronomical observations and published a journal of his travels.
In 1763, he became a professor of mathematics at the
University of Pavia; but he soon accepted an invitation from the Austrian
governor of Milan, where he dedicated himself to the construction of the Brera Observatory and taught courses in astronomy and
optics. In Milan, he conceived the idea of an optical experiment
that would determine the compatibility of the two theories attempting to
explain the nature of light: the corpuscular and the wave theories, which were
then, and remain to this day, in conflict.
He never carried out this experiment, as for personal
reasons he left Milan and in 1773 settled in France, acquiring French
citizenship. Until 1782, he served as director of optics for the French Navy,
but in that year, due to health reasons and disagreements with the Encyclopedists, especially D'Alembert,
he returned to Milan. There he dedicated himself to writing a work on optics
and astronomy. He died in 1787 without finishing it.
The few titles cited, from his much more extensive
body of work, indicate that all the current problems of the physical and mathematical
sciences of the 18th century are addressed in his writings. But Boscovich was not merely a "man of science" in
the sense imagined by our century. His personality was much richer. Thus, his
willingness to write Latin verses on any subject marks him as a humanist,
undoubtedly one of the last.
A. Huxley designates him as a court astronomer. It is
true that Boscovich frequented courtly and diplomatic
circles, but this circumstance cannot diminish his scientific prestige. Wasn't
this same disposition a trait of one of the greatest geniuses, G. W. Leibniz?
In any case, this anachronistic Latinist and man of the world was able to conceive ideas that exceeded the horizons of his
contemporaries. Indeed, the concepts expressed in his "Philosophiae
naturalis, etc." are still relevant, or rather,
became relevant almost two hundred years after its publication.
While Boscovich's other works may today only
interest the historian of science, the aforementioned work develops ideas that,
as Niels Bohr states, profoundly influenced new ideas
about the constitution of matter.}
Strictly speaking, this work does not present a
physical theory in the modern sense, because it lacks experimental support. The
elementary particles Boscovich discusses could not be
subjected to laboratory experiments until our century. In the 18th century,
even the existence of such particles could not be demonstrated. Nor were
19th-century physicists in a position to judge the extent to which Boscovich's ontological-mathematical speculations corresponded
to physical reality. Only in our atomic age could we appreciate the scientific
value of his achievement.
Boscovich is by no means a popularizer
of Newtonian physics, as some encyclopedias claim. His conclusions, whether
accurate or not, are outside the scope of Newtonian physics, since Boscovich states:
a) That Newton's law of gravitation is valid only for
terrestrial distances encountered in our daily lives and for astronomical
distances, but not for the minuscule spaces corresponding to the size of the
supposed particles. According to Boscovich, these
particles are subject to alternating repulsive and attractive forces depending
on their distances, provided these distances are at the atomic level. At
distances of the macroscopic order, the particles exert only an attractive
force, in accordance with Newton's law. This behavior is mathematically defined
by the "Boscovich curve."
b) That the supposed elementary particles do not
possess spatial extension, but are instead virtual geometric points from which
the force of repulsion or attraction acts.
c) That all motion is relative and that it is
impossible to differentiate between absolute and relative motion.
As already mentioned, these
propositions lacked experimental support in the last century and therefore
could not be considered scientific principles. Thus it happened that certain
ideas of Boscovich were accepted and praised long
before the atomic age, not by physicists, but by a philosopher who hated
matter: Friedrich Nietzsche. In his work "Beyond Good and Bad,"
Nietzsche assigns Boscovich the same transcendence as
Copernicus because, as he says, while Copernicus taught us not to believe in
our senses, tearing the earth from its apparent immobility, Boscovich,
by dematerializing the atom, freed us from the last
illusion of our senses: matter.
Among physicists, the first was Lord Kelvin who, at
the beginning of the century, pointed out the importance of Boscovich's
concepts for the physics of the atom in his "Baltimore Lectures,"
emphasizing: "We must return to Boscovich and
ask him to explain to us the qualitative diversity of different chemical
substances by means of different laws of force between different atoms."
This assertion, made at the dawn of atomic physics, was confirmed half a
century later by the fact that Boscovich's principal
works are currently being translated into English at the request of many
physicists. As L. L. White, a member of the Royal Society, states, Boscovich's methods possess characteristics more akin to
the 20th century than those of the 18th and 19th centuries, and therefore can
only be understood and appreciated today. For this reason, Boscovich
belongs to the class of great thinkers who, on the tortuous path of human
thought, managed to take some steps in the right direction.
La
Plata
Nicholas, the eldest of the Mihanovich
brothers, was born on January 21, 1848, in Doli, a
small and picturesque village near Dubrovnik, into a modest family of sailors
and winegrowers. Even as a child, he skillfully learned to handle the oars,
maneuver the helm, and furl the sails; he also learned to operate engines, as
well as careen and build boats. He weathered Adriatic and Ionian storms,
learned to distinguish favorable from adverse winds, and forged his strong
character in the harsh work of the sea.
Before turning thirteen, he embarked as a cabin boy,
sailing the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, and in 1867 arrived in Montevideo
as a crew member of the British frigate City of
Sydney. Upon disembarking, and finding no better employment, he left for
Paraguay, which was at war at the time, a circumstance favorable to river
traffic due to the intense movement of troops, equipment, and provisions. The
Argentine government did not decree the requisition of floating equipment;
instead, all travel and supply services were provided by contract.
The young Mihanovich
dedicated himself to buying and selling goods on the Upper Paraná River,
transporting provisions in a small boat. He saved a few pesos, with which he
arrived in Buenos Aires in 1868, staying at the Adriática
inn, owned by a fellow countryman from Dalmatia. His initial intention was to
return to his hometown and buy a larger vessel than the one his father owned, a
ship called Trabakula Fortunata.
His fellow countrymen, all seasoned sailors, dissuaded him, presenting him with
the unlimited possibilities that the Argentine Republic, a land of promise,
offered to men of perseverance and entrepreneurial spirit.
Argentina entered a period of significant progress, and although foreign
flags were permitted on the various river routes under equal conditions,
national coastal shipping with regular services and substantial capital
investment emerged. Buenos Aires, today one of the world's most important
ports, with its vast and deep docks, numerous landing stages, and ample
warehouses, was at that time a wooden pier dating back to the colonial period.
Ocean-going ships anchored in the harbor, far from the city, and the transfer
of passengers, luggage, and merchandise was carried out in two-wheeled carts,
called "carretillas," during periods of low
water, or in canoes, feluccas, whaleboats, and barges, when the river level
allowed.
Our future great shipowner
struck up a friendly relationship with the Genoese Juan Bautista Lavarello, who handled passenger transport from the outer
harbor using boats called whalers, and soon became his partner. He worked for
some years as a launchman and tugboat captain until
1875, when he began his career as a shipowner,
leasing three tugboats ("Buenos Aires," "Kate," and "Jeny") from the firm Antonio Matti
and Piera. After the tragic death of his partner,
Juan B. Lavarello, N. Mihanovich
married his widow, Catalina Balestra de Lavarello, the mother of six children.
They established a patriarchal and Christian home,
which, over the years, would be joined by six more children, making a total of
twelve: some named Mihanovich, others Lavarello. In addition to mutual affection and
understanding, the ships join together, thus increasing the potential of the
flotilla commanded and directed by Nicolás Mihanovich, assisted and supported by his brother Bartolo. The historian of the Argentine merchant fleet,
Vice Admiral T. Caillet-Bois, in his historical essay
Our Merchant Marine (Bulletin of the Naval Center, Nos. 477, 478 and 479,
Buenos Aires, 1929), describes the assiduous and tireless work of the man who
would soon become a great shipping entrepreneur and owner:
"A picturesque detail of the port activities of
that time gives us the key to Mihanovich's success.
Outside the docks, where only shallow-draft vessels could berth, Buenos Aires
was nothing more than a large roadstead, with no coastal port other than the Riachuelo; dredging of the Riachuelo
was beginning, but its bar still had little water and only allowed access to
ships during high water. It was, therefore, common to see many pataches and pailebots piled up
in front of the bar waiting for water. When the river rose, the wind was
southeast, that is, against the entrance, so the entrance had to..."
Towing across the sandbar and then towing under towline (for which the south
bank of the Riachuelo was kept clear for a long
time). The tugboats, for their part, were attentive to changes in the weather
to come to the service of the pataches.
"Well, Don Nicolás, who
was then the captain of one of those pataches and who
always lived on the shoal, facing the water, invariably woke up at two in the
morning to observe the weather. If his instinct told him the tide was rising,
he went to the shed that served as headquarters for the tugboat crews, silently
woke his boatman, moved no less silently aboard, built up pressure, and was the
first to appear before the school of pataches.
By the time his rivals arrived, he had already secured
two or three trips, and it goes without saying that this earned him recognition
among the sailing ship clientele, for whom it was of the utmost importance to
get in to unload as soon as possible." "Immigration became important
around that time, and there were periods with more than a thousand passengers
per day, who were taken to the dock in small steamers and tugboats. The service
was paid in gold pesos per person, until Mihanovich
made a deal with the government for 0.60."}
"The fact was that before two years had passed,
the leased steamers had become his property. Matti
and Piera had gone bankrupt, and the tugboats were
briefly seized and immobilized by the creditor bank. The losses were
widespread, and the situation was resolved to everyone's satisfaction, with the
aforementioned man, Don Nicolás, taking charge of the
ships. He had to become, almost by force, a financier, with other capital
joining in, including that of the Carabassa Bank,
which was his firm supporter."
He partnered with his compatriots Gerórimo
Zuanich and Octavio Cosulich,
and with the contributed capital, they purchased the steamers Sol Argentino, Montana, Satélite, and
Enriqueta. The company operated under the name Nicolás Mihanovich y Cía. until 1888, when Don Nicolás paid his partners their shares and became the sole
owner. With the Conquest of the Desert (1879), the vast Argentine territory was
expanded for agricultural and livestock exploitation,
and the railway was built to Bahía Blanca. N. Mihanovich,
a visionary and pioneer, organized regular merchant shipping along the southern
coast to Bahía Blanca and Patagones, allocating the
500-ton steamship Toro for the new bi-weekly service. He soon added the
1,500-ton Watergeus for transporting materials for
the construction of the temporary pier of the Southern Railway (today General
Roca).
In successive stages, Mihanovich
absorbed most of the various established fleets. Launches and tugboats came
under his control. He commissioned new steamships: the Dalmacia
(500 tons) and the Austria (1,000 tons). In 1887, with the small steamship Ráibido, he established his first passenger service to
Colonia and Carmelo, Uruguayan cities. During that time, a sharp rivalry arose
between shipping companies, which compromised the economic resilience of your
company. We turn once again to the documented account of Vice Admiral T. Cailelet-Bois:
"Around that time, a period of spectacular and
ruinous competition began, imitating the famous Hudson River races, between two
powerful companies that dominated river traffic: Mensajerías
Fluviales and La Platense.
For one or two pesos, one could travel from Buenos Aires to Montevideo in
luxurious conditions, with a lavish banquet, liquors, and generous wines at
will, treated like a nabob, etc."
"The first to collapse was La Platense
(1894), which, with a capital of 1,250,000 gold pesos, went into liquidation.
It was largely acquired by Nicolás Mihanovich for 92,000 pesos and began to compete not only
with Mensajerías Fluviales,
but also with other companies such as those of Giuliani and Balparado.
Its most formidable adversary was Saturnino Ribes, owner of Mensajerías Fluviales, who had acquired a new and luxurious steamship
especially for this war."
"Head to Head The two gladiators, Mihanovich,
who wouldn't sleep, and Saturnino Ribes,
who wouldn't close his eyes; the former had the brilliant idea, since trusts
and cartels were still unknown, of proposing an arrangement in which both would
benefit. And so it was done: Mihanovich relinquished
the Río Uruguay and Ribes abandoned the waters of the
Paraná.
"Shortly after, Ribes
died, and his heirs, dissatisfied with the agreement, reopened hostilities. But
by then, Mihanovich had consolidated his position,
reinforcing his fleet with Giuliani's, purchased for 40,000. The war proved
disastrous for his adversaries, and the fleets of the Mensajerías
and Balparado were in turn incorporated into the Mihanovich company. The former
cost 450,000."
With the general progress experienced in Argentina at
the end of the 19th century and the era of prosperity that marked the beginning
of the 20th, river and maritime cabotage became
extremely important. New ports were built, traffic became more intense, and Mihanovich's activities steadily increased. By 1909, he had
increased the fleet's capital to 1,800,000. The large shipping company
transformed into the Nicolás Mihanovich
Navigation Company, Ltd. It is an Anglo-Argentine company, with boards of
directors in London and Buenos Aires, both chaired by the founder. It now has
350 steam or motor vessels and operates various routes for cargo, passengers,
excursions, etc., on the Río de la Plata, Paraná, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Upper
Paraná rivers. It operates without any noteworthy competition and also has 68
tugboats and 200 launches of varying tonnage.
Don Nicolás's activities
were not limited solely to shipping; he also served on the boards of several
companies, including "Campos y Quebrachales de
Puerto Sastre," "Grandes
Molinos Porteños,"
"Introductora de Productos
Austro-Húngaros," "Banco
de Italia," "La Positiva," "La Orhídrica," "Frigorífico
La Blanca," and others. In October 1918, he retired from business and sold
his shares (1,400,000). At that time, the shipping company he had founded and
developed also owned several ocean-going vessels. The staff consisted of 5,000
crew members and employees, mostly from Dalmatia, a Croatian province on the
Adriatic. Mihanovich hired them for being skilled and
capable sailors, hardworking, enterprising, and honest.
The company's insignia, a well-known symbol in the Río
de la Plata region, was displayed on the funnel of every ship. He had finally
fulfilled the youthful dream of Nicolás Mihanovich, which, in his old age, he used to tell his
grandchildren. Once, he fell asleep on a passenger service and dreamed: the
gray waters of the estuary were streaked in all directions by large ships,
whose funnels bore the letter M, and they were his. With unwavering will and
tireless work, he managed, after many years, to transform his dream into
reality, laying the solid foundations of what is today the Argentine merchant
fleet.
Miguel Mihanovich, born on
October 6, 1862, in Doli, was summoned by his brother
Nicolás and, at just 12 years old, arrived in Buenos
Aires in 1874. He spent his first years working and studying at night. Later,
he embarked as a purser aboard a steamship owned by his brother, which traveled
from Buenos Aires to Bahía Blanca. In 1889, he founded the shipping company La Sud Atlántica, dedicated to
traffic between Buenos Aires, Bahía Blanca, and Patagones,
which constitutes the The oldest Argentine coastal
shipping line outside the Río de la Plata estuary. In 1907, this company built
a major pier in Carmen de Patagones and a few years
later had nine steamships, 18 launches, and two tugboats.
This company contributed greatly to the development of
Patagonia, establishing the first regular services between the Argentine
metropolis and the Patagonian regions. In 1909, La Sud
Atlántica became a public limited company,
establishing the first Argentine passenger and cargo services to Rio Grande and
Porto Alegre in southern Brazil. They also operated
the first Argentine ships to carry wheat and flour to Rio de Janeiro and return
with cargoes of yerba mate, timber, and bananas. In mid-1920, Miguel Mihanovich transferred all his shares to the Compañía Argentina de Navegación Nicolás Mihanovich and retired
from business.
He then completely disassociated himself from the
shipping business, in which, from modest beginnings, he had held a position of
power. From the beginning, through 81 years of arduous work and intense
dedication, he and his brother rose to a leading position in the Argentine
merchant marine, as one of its founders and architects, bringing progress to
many towns and creating considerable sources of employment and production in
the country. Having forged his own path through hard work, he generously
rewarded his staff and, upon selling the steamship company, distributed the sum
of 75,000 gold coins among his employees and crew as bonuses and extraordinary
compensation.
***
It is fitting, then, to highlight another
characteristic of the Mihanovic brothers: their
integrity, chivalry, and generosity. Nicholas, stern and upright, rather
taciturn and introspective, donated the necessary funds for the establishment
of the Austro-Hungarian Mutual Aid Society and the building of his country's
legation. When the Bishop of Temnos, Monsignor Miguel
de Andrea, organized his great charity collection, he financed the construction
of the houses in the working-class neighborhood that bears his name, using his
own money. He was a frequent and generous benefactor of many charitable
organizations in Buenos Aires.
His brother Miguel, although self-made, learned, in addition to Croatian and Spanish, Italian,
Portuguese, French, and English. He acquired a broad general knowledge and, due
to his modesty, discretion, and nobility, was highly esteemed in the social
circles of the Argentine capital. He served on the boards of the following
institutions: Patronato de la Infancia
(Children's Welfare Board), Liga Argentina contra la
Tuberculosis (Argentine League Against Tuberculosis), Sociedad de Educación Industrial
(Society for Industrial Education), Institución Mitre (Mitre Institution), Centro
Naval (Naval Center), etc.
Furthermore, Don Miguel made significant donations to
cultural, health, and charitable institutions in Croatia. He also contributed a
substantial sum of money to Hrvatski Radisa—a Croatian organization dedicated to the protection,
promotion, education, and vocational guidance of apprentice workers—of which he
was an honorary member. In 1923, he established a significant endowment for the
cultural, health, and economic improvement of his hometown, Doli,
and other villages in the Ragus region, to which his
brother Nicolás later contributed.
He died on March 6, 1938. Don Nicolás,
due to his work and personal qualities, received many distinctions. Emperor
Franz Joseph of Austria appointed him Honorary Consul and granted him the title
of Baron, transmissible to his heirs. The sovereigns of Russia and England also
decorated him. The King of Spain conferred upon him the Second Class Cross of
the Order of Naval Merit and the Commander's Cross of the Order of Alfonso
XIII. In 1929, at the age of 83, Nicolás Mihanovich died. There is a town in Paraguay that bears his
name.
Recently, the Argentine government commissioned a
river vessel that will be used for traffic between Buenos Aires and the
Uruguayan city of Colonia. It will be able to transport up to 700 passengers
and 50 automobiles. The new vessel will bear the name Nicolás
Mihanovich, in homage to the creator of the river
fleet, who, according to the official statement, "embodyes
the efforts of shipowners and crews to consolidate
Argentine interests in the maritime sector."
In short, the Mihanovich
brothers were tireless workers, entrepreneurs, true pioneers, as well as good
men, consummate gentlemen, and patrons of the arts. They were good Croatian patriots
and builders of Argentina. They honored both their homeland, Croatia, and their
adopted homeland, Argentina.
Buenos Aires.
Christmas and its
celebration in Croatia hold great religious, moral, and social significance. At
the Christmas Eve table, not only family members sit, but also servants,
laborers, and shepherds, as well as the occasional beggar or traveler, because
before the humility of the Lord who chose to be born in a stable, there is no
place for social differences, at least not on this holy night. In many places,
for example in Bosnia and Herzegovina, former enemies reconcile, spontaneously
shaking hands and kissing, forgetting past quarrels and injustices. The poor
receive gifts. If someone doesn't have meat to roast, they will always find a
neighbor or relative to bring it, because Christmas is a festival of love and
abundance.
The cycle of Christmas
customs generally begins with the feast of Saint Catherine (November 25), when
the noisy and opulent celebrations cease so that the faithful can properly
prepare for the arrival of the Lord. Fasting and abstinence are almost always
observed in their original purity and austerity. During Advent, there are some
minor feasts with a truly familial flavor and others that mark stages in
preparation for the main feast.
Of the former, the most
characteristic are the last three Sundays of Advent, which the Croatian people
of Bosnia and Dalmatia dedicate successively to children (Djetinci),
mothers (Materice), and fathers (Ocici).
The custom also exists in some other Croatian regions and predates the recently
introduced "Mother's Day." On this day, those being honored receive
congratulations from their relatives and must redeem themselves with small
gifts: children with fruit, mothers with fruit and cakes, and fathers with
schnapps and meat. On Saint Barbara's Day (December 4th), the home preparations
begin.
The pig or sheep to be
slaughtered for the holidays is set aside and from then on, it is better cared
for and fattened. On the same day, a little wheat is sown in some dishes so
that there will be some fresh greenery in the house on Christmas Eve. In some
places, the same is done on Saint Lucy's Day. With the feast of Saint Lucy
(December 13th), the "twelve days" leading up to Christmas begin.
Each of these days is designated for a particular task and a special practice.
The number twelve itself
already possesses a magical significance. The weather prediction for the
following year is deduced from the weather during these twelve days, each of
which... which corresponds to a month of the coming year. On the same day,
various divinations are performed to predict the future, especially regarding
the marriage of young women of marriageable age. On this day, women should not
sew because, according to beliefs in some regions, their fingers would hurt.
Saint Lucy's Day is also the occasion for cutting the firewood that will be
burned on the festive days.
Saint Thomas's Day (December 21st) is
dedicated to the slaughter of the previously selected cow and to sifting the
flour with which the cakes and ritual sweets will be made. Each family tries to
prepare as many meals as possible because some will be given to the poor and
needy.
Christmas Eve is filled with household chores, preparations,
ceremonies, and prayers. Everyone gets up before sunrise, then a long prayer is
said, and everyone wishes each other Happy Holidays, all accompanied by ritual
phrases and small libations of brandy. Then everyone gets to work, because in a
large family there are tasks for everyone, even the children. While the women
work in the kitchen, the men attend to the tasks proper to their sex.
First, they decorate houses, stables, fields, and
cemeteries with green sprigs of mistletoe, ivy, or laurel, or any other shrub
or tree that has green leaves at this time of year. The meaning of this fresh
green is symbolically explained as carrying the youthful strength that will be
passed on to men and animals. The custom was already known in remote Roman
times.
As you can see, the customs of this day bring together
components of ancient origin and very diverse origins. According to the most
recent research, the main and most numerous traditions are those related to
ancestor worship. This includes the candles solemnly lit in memory of the
deceased during Christmas Eve dinner. The head of the family, after dinner,
dips a piece of Christmas bread into the wine and lets a drop fall onto the
candle flame. The direction of the smoke is used to determine who will be the first
to die in the coming year or whether there will be a death in the family.
But light, like fire, which once possessed the
defensive power against evil spirits, can become a Christian symbol of hope and
joy for the Light of Redemption that Christ brought us. The elderly Simeon
received Jesus as "the light that will enlighten the Gentiles," and
the Holy Fathers Cyprian and Ambrose call Jesus Christ "the Sun." The
Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who during Ottoman rule were instructed by
the sons of Saint Francis and preserved Christian doctrine with extraordinary
purity, light three candles instead of one on Christmas Eve and call them
"Trinity" as a symbol of the Holy Trinity.
Since ancient times, dishes with funereal connotations
have been served on Christmas Eve: beans (which existed as such in ancient Rome
as well), honey, nuts, and fish. In some Croatian regions, a portion of the
dinner and drink is expressly left for the deceased.
The use of straw as an element of Christmas traditions is widespread throughout
the Slavic world, especially in those regions where badnjak
(a type of straw) is not used. The head of the household brings straw home and
scatters it on the floor, the table, the chairs, and other furniture. She
accompanies her movements with magical formulas related to the health of family
members, the fertility of livestock, and the fertility of the fields, but
nowadays the straw is given a Christian significance, and it is believed to be
the straw on which the Christ Child rested in the manger. Many eat and sleep on
this straw tonight or for several days and nights at a time, and children play
happily on it, because it is thought to bring health and good luck.
After the main holidays, the straw is placed under the livestock in the
stables or scattered in the fields for the same purpose. The origin of this
custom, which is well known to some other European peoples, is not yet
satisfactorily clear. Some see in it a remnant of the cult of the dead, who
rest that night with their living relatives on this straw, while others see it
as the residue of the grass that was once offered to divine spirits to eat
alongside their relatives, which seems unlikely.
One of the most characteristic customs of the Croats
and other South Slavs, as well as some European peoples, is that of bringing
and lighting the badnjak. There are two types of badnjak: one made from a tree branch placed against the
exterior wall of the house or under the eaves, and the other made from logs
about a meter or a meter and a half long, which are brought into the house and
lit in the hearth. The first type is common in the North, the second in the
South.
The tree from which the badnjak
is cut is generally oak. The head of the family places and lights it with a
solemn ceremony. The badnjak burns every day until
New Year's Day or Epiphany. Sometimes the badnjak is
treated as a living being, and bread and water are placed beside it. It is
sprinkled with wine and wheat, anointed with oil, and spoken to. For this
reason, some ethnologists considered it a kind of fetish. Others explained it
from the perspective of sun worship: the badnjak
(log) is meant to provide light and warmth during the time when the sun is
weakest.
Still others explain it as a phenomenon analogous to
the Maypole, known among the Germanic and Slavic peoples, who received it from
the Germans. Finally, there are those who see in this custom the veneration of
the dead. The souls of the deceased will come to the house tonight, gather, and
warm themselves around the fire. Hence the placement of food
and drink beside it.
In any case, the badnjak
custom was adopted by the southern Slavs after the arrival in the South of
other Mediterranean peoples who already knew it, such as much of Italy,
Portugal, and Spain. Interestingly, the first mention of this custom appears in
a document by the Spanish bishop Martin of Braga, from the second half of the
6th century, which prohibits the log in the hearth from being sprinkled with
wine and covered with fruit on Christmas Day.
This custom existed in southern France, England, and
Germany, as well as in the rest of the Balkans, while it is unknown among the
Eastern and Western Slavs. In the northern provinces of Croatia, the trend
toward the disappearance of the badnjak (traditional
Christmas tree) can be observed, replaced by the Christmas tree.
The use of the Christmas tree first appeared in
Germany at the beginning of the 17th century, and from there it spread
throughout all Protestant countries, then to Bavaria and Austria. It later
reached the Catholic Slavs, but not before the beginning of the 14th century.
From them it spread to Russia and Serbia. Previously, it was decorated with
wafer-shaped cakes, which symbolized the Eucharistic gifts, and with fruit, as
a symbol of life.
Today, industrially produced decorations prevail in
cities, but in the countryside, fruit and sweets still persist, and in some
regions, gifts are also used, which are later taken down. Generally, a Nativity
scene made of die-cut cardboard is placed under the tree. Artistic or homemade
nativity scenes are rare. Gifts for family and friends are placed next to the
nativity scene, if they aren't hanging from the tree. The Christmas tree is
also placed in churches above the nativity scene and sometimes on both sides of
the main altar, where it remains, just as in private homes, until Three Kings'
Day (January 6th).
Pious legend sees the Christmas tree as the tree that
sprouted from Adam's mouth and later became the cross of Redemption. In
reality, it is an old tradition symbolizing vital energy that is renewed each
year. Some ethnologists explain it as a remnant of ancient agrarian rites,
while others consider it a continuation of the custom of the ancient Romans,
who, at the end of the year, to celebrate the Kalends,
placed green trees in their homes, hanging lights and agricultural products
from them. However, this Roman custom of celebrating the Kalends
has been preserved among all Slavic peoples, and under the same name, in the
form of Kolede, among the Croats. In Croatian, this
word refers to the procession through the village and the ritual song sung on
that occasion.
The custom, in its essence, is a legacy of the late
pre-Slavic period, later developed separately in each Slavic village, taking on
a religious or popular character, depending on cultural influences. It consists
of rounds made by the young men of the village, going from house to house and
singing ritual songs as a form of congratulations and good wishes for the
prosperity of the house, livestock, and fields. For their performance, they
receive gifts, generally in kind, rarely in cash. The homeowner must entertain
them with food and drink and bless them.
The same custom has been observed in some provinces of
France and shares a common Roman origin. According to ethnologists, the idea
behind this custom is the desire for abundance, health, and prosperity for the
family and all that a family possesses, while for others, the rotation of young
people represents the changing of the generations and the renewal of solidarity
among the people in the same territory. In northern Croatia, these rounds are
called betlehemari – nativity scene makers – and are
performed by children, also called shepherds, because they carry a nativity
scene illuminated with a star and the figures of the Nativity, while they
themselves act as shepherds, carrying tall staffs and singing carols. They also
offer Christmas greetings and therefore receive gifts.
All these customs and traditions we have been
discussing can also be celebrated on Christmas Day, the following days, or New
Year's Day, and can even be repeated until the Epiphany. The reason for this
variability is that many Christmas customs predate the celebration of
Christmas, dating back to the New Year's celebration, and since these holidays
have changed dates throughout history, several elements associated with them
have become intertwined.
Returning to the description of Christmas Eve, we
arrive at the moment of dinner. This is preceded by long and exceptional
prayers for the living and the dead. The dead are sacrificed, both for
livestock and crops. Then they eat. The dishes are all prepared after fasting
or abstinence, and include typical Slavic dishes of beans, nuts, honey, and
fish.
The animals also have to eat well tonight. Their food is blessed, as are
the stables. Sometimes ritual loaves of bread are prepared for them in the
shape of animals. There is a widespread belief, also common in France, that animals speak on this night, but it is not wise
to listen to them. Some misfortune may occur. The owner will ensure that they
are treated and cared for well during these days.
After dinner, the lamb or pig is roasted for the following day while the
children play with the gifts and the women amuse themselves with various magic
practices. These involve divining the weather for the coming year, to see if
any young woman will leave the house married, if there
will be death or illness in the family, etc. In some regions, the girls melt
lead and try to discover what awaits them in the coming year from its shapes.
In other provinces, this is done on the eve of Epiphany or on New Year's Eve.
There are ring-shaped cakes, just as in Spain; whoever finds an object
with magical power kneaded into it will be happy all year and have a lot of
money. The length of the straw pulled out from under the tablecloth indicates
the height of the ears of wheat or hemp. On the back of the lamb or pig The
secret to everything awaiting a family in the coming year lies within the
sacrifice, and the head of the household explains it as best he can, using a
few magical formulas.
To see the fertility of domestic animals, sparks are made to fly from
the badnjak (a type of fire), and the more sparks
fly, the more they will multiply. The embers of the badnjak
have protective power against evil spirits, as do loud noises, such as the
crack of a whip, a shotgun blast, or a cannon shot.
The same applies to strong flavors. That's why so much garlic is eaten. All of
this, of course, is not taken seriously; it's more for fun, but it is practiced
because that's how the ancestors did it, and traditions are deeply rooted in
the Croatian people. However, soon the singing of Christmas carols begins, and
preparations are made for Midnight Mass.
It is almost a rule that the whole family must attend
Midnight Mass. Only the elderly and very young children with an older man
remain at home. It is a uniquely beautiful and indescribable sight to see how
people approach the parish church. The landscape is usually covered in snow,
and along the narrow paths, people approach in groups from all directions, each
carrying a torch or a lantern. Christmas carols and gunshots can be heard,
drowning out the whispers of the women praying the rosary.
Inside the church, they continue singing carols, holding
lit candles or lanterns. After Midnight Mass, in many regions with deep
Catholic traditions, most people stay to attend the next two Masses, and then
head home, wishing friends and relatives a Happy Easter along the way. People
kiss each other, congratulate each other, and ask
forgiveness for their sins of the past year. They wish each other that the
peace of God may reign among us.
Little by little, as one approaches home, the big day
dawns, filled with many sincere congratulations and well wishes, expressions of
gratitude, and gifts for everyone. On this day, no one goes without a present
or attention from others.
At home, after a long fast and so much exhausting work
and preparation, calm reigns. The head of the household shares the first bites
of the Christmas roast with his family. On the first day, visits are generally
not expected, nor are visits to other houses made. It is the day of greatest
family intimacy.
However, there is one person, the first visitor and bestower of congratulations, who must come to each house
and is received ritually with established ceremonies. He is a man—it would be a
bad omen if the first visitor were a woman—who is healthy, strong, and
designated by the father of the family, or who himself has offered for the
role. He comes to the house as a bearer of happiness and good fortune. As soon
as he enters and utters the first words of congratulations, he must sit in a
chair by the door; otherwise, the hens won't lay eggs. Then the master scatters
grains of wheat on him, presents him with gifts, and for all the days that
follow, he is the guest of honor.
The following days are spent in the countryside as
holidays. It is winter, and there is no heavy work to be done. Furthermore,
many countrymen are named Stephen and John, and therefore celebrate their name
day. These days are dedicated to visiting one another and to large, lavish
meals.
On Saint John's Day, straw is taken out of the house
and placed in the stables, fields, and orchards, and also on the branches of
the fruit trees, so that the harvest will be abundant.
Holy Innocents' Day is the feast of children. In some regions, this day
is celebrated instead of the second Sunday of Advent. Children are tapped on
the soles of their feet with a stick. This is usually done by an elderly
neighbor, who is rewarded for this service. While the child receives the ritual
blows, they say to him: "grow, grow" or "grow taller and
taller," which perfectly explains the meaning of this custom. "April
Fools' Day" pranks, in the Spanish style, are not practiced on that day,
but on April 1st. On New Year's Eve, most of the customs and magical practices
of Christmas Eve are repeated, as well as on New Year's Day, which is very
similar to Christmas. The Christmas roasts and cakes gradually disappear, the
joy spills out of the home and spreads throughout the town and public places.
The Christmas cycle ends with Epitanía,
or the Feast of the Epiphany. The night of the Epiphany does not have the same
significance in Croatia as it does in Spain or as Befana
in Italy. Children and adults received their gifts on previous occasions. They
were brought by Saint Nicholas or Saint Lucy, or by
the Christ Child himself on Christmas Eve.
Parishioners also attend the blessing of the water and
bring it home in jugs to sprinkle and bless the house, stables, domestic
animals, garden, and fields. A little holy water is given to the livestock to
drink, and in some regions, people also drink it. Thus ends the period of the
most intense festivities of the year in Croatia. The time is auspicious: houses
are full of food, products of their own economy, and winter prevents working in
the fields or forests. It is a time for rest, tranquility, and family life. In
our outline of Croatian Christmas customs, we have highlighted, according to
our purpose, only the most typical and widespread ones.
Naturally, there are many other customs worthy of
mention and description because, even if insignificant and with a naive pagan
flavor, they carry within them the memory of a now distant childhood and its
poetry, which, for us who are outsiders, will never return, and which there, in
its own land, survives even at the cost of many changes and innovations. Thus,
in Backa, among the Croatian Bunjevci,
the future son-in-law visits his fiancée's house for the first time on Mother's
Day, and the future mother-in-law gives him a towel. In Dalmatia, fresh
greenery cannot be that of the poplar, because, according to legend, Judas
hanged himself from this tree, nor from any thorny bush, because Jesus' crown
was made of thorns. Such customs and beliefs are endless and it is impossible
to list them all.
It is clear from our discussion that all these
customs, beliefs, spells, and practices of the Croatians during the Christmas
season come from very diverse sources, of varying antiquity, and that
originally sometimes had other meanings; that is to say, it is a syncretism
whose existence is generally agreed upon by specialists. Disagreements arise
when they attempt to explain these phenomena.
Some affirm Manism, that is,
the prevalence of the cult of the dead; others lean toward Magism,
especially the elements of so-called primal magic, which is so important at the
beginning of the year. A very few others look for lunar elements in this
complex, and still others point to solar elements, precisely on the days when
the sun is born young and unconquered. There will be a bit of everything, but
it is undeniable that above all superstitions is the Christian faith in the
newborn Child Jesus who came to redeem humanity from the darkness of sin.
Most Croatian Christmas customs already have a
Christian meaning, even if it is secondary, but religious instruction tends to
respect all popular traditions without needing to suppress them, because if
these customs, through symbols, express the desire to protect oneself from evil
and seek God's blessing, especially at Christmas time, they are acceptable
according to Christian doctrine.
Christmas celebrations in Croatia are marked by a
strong sense of cordiality. These are days of family and fraternal joy. This
joy embraces everyone, and no one should feel excluded, not even enemies. They
are days of spiritual comfort. Family love is emphasized, friendships
strengthened, and the entire village becomes one large Christian family, with
neighbors forgetting their differences.
This rhythm of noble Christmas love extends to
domestic animals, which are treated with special care bordering on tenderness.
Particular emphasis is placed on the well-being of humankind, the fertility of
animals, and the fertility of the land. A concern of great educational value is
this concern for the future, the antithesis of laziness and apathy, which
requires a thinking mind and working hands. The harmonious work of all members
of the community or extended family leads everyone to well-being. These high
qualities of Croatian Christmas traditions rejuvenate and comfort people in
their daily sufferings and struggles.
Just as in other Christian peoples of Southern and
Eastern Europe, Christmas themes have been an inexhaustible source of
inspiration for art among the Croatian people. Medieval Croatian literature is
full of short poems and mystery plays that were performed in cathedrals or in
the cloisters of monasteries and convents. Legends and visions, poems and
dramas with Christmas themes were sometimes the first literary works to pass
from Latin into the vernacular and mark the beginning of national literature.
Songs and carols are numerous and generally date back
to ancient times. In Croatia, they originate from Roman chorales and folk
melodies. The melodies originating from the influence of Roman chorales are
serious and solemn, with a clear artistic character, while the folk melodies
are freer, livelier, and more flexible. But all of these songs are distinguished
from other religious songs by a tenderness and naiveté characteristic of the
Croatian people's lyrical nature.
Alongside these songs is another group, those
originating from the musical influences of other Western European peoples, some
of which are truly majestic. Many poets and writers from all periods of
Croatian literature have magnificently described and sung about Christmas.
Painting, the plastic and decorative arts, from the monumental Romanesque
cathedral of Trogir in Dalmatia to the new cathedral
of Djakovo in Slavonia, testify to the Croatians'
predilection for Christmas motifs. This same artistic interest, which has
endured through the centuries, reaches its peak in the marvelous series of
reliefs with biblical themes of birth and motherhood carved in wood by the
brilliant Croatian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic.
These are the memories of Croatian Christmases. The
deadly Iron Curtain prevents us from having direct contact with the Croatian
people in the country and observing their private lives during these major
Christian holidays. Nevertheless, we know that most customs continue to be
practiced and that, faced with the forced industrialization and modernization
of life in Croatia, a country that has been predominantly agrarian until now,
popular beliefs and superstitions are tending to disappear. However, the
profound Christian faith in the one Almighty God, in His Justice, and in the
final victory of Good over Evil is growing ever stronger.
The people, who have preserved their traditions and
their faith throughout the centuries and during great historical calamities,
will also emerge victorious from these recent sufferings and will then be able
to freely exclaim aloud:
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace
to men of good will!"
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace
to men of good will!"
Madrid
LITERATURE
Meyer, A., Das Weihnachtsfest,
seine Entstehung und Entwicklung,
Tübingen, 1913.
Laufer O., Den Weihnachtsbaum in Glauben
und Brouch, Berlin, 1925.
Schnneeweis, E., Die Weihnachtsbräuche der Serbokroaten,
Vienna 1925.
Gavazzi, M., Godina dana hrvatskih
narodnih obicaja, II,
Zagreb, 1937
Gavazzi, M., Badnak; Bozicni obicaji, in Hrvatska Enciklopedija, ts. II-III,
Zagreb, 1941-42
Markovic, T., S.J., I costumi natalizi in Bosnia ed
in Herzegovina, in Croazia Sacra, Oficium
Libri Catholici, Rome,
1993.
We recall the author, an Austrian Marxist and
proponent of a school of modern psychology from the pre-World War II era, when
he visited Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. Our "armchair communists"
celebrated him and praised him in an unusual manner. It can be inferred from
his article that on that occasion his informants included, among others,
authorized representatives of the Yugoslav Communist Party.
We also know Manes Sperber
as the author of essays in which he approaches problems more as an ideologue
and moralist than as a political commentator. This characteristic implies the
danger of selecting and interpreting facts in support of a particular
ideological position. Therefore, in his note on Croatia, the author tends to
readily accept certain accusations fabricated by communists and Great Serbian
circles, whose aim is not to settle scores with a deceased politician and a
transient regime, but to discredit the Croatian people, their true adversary,
who are fighting for their freedom.
The Croatian people are politically disinherited,
deprived of their own government and diplomatic representatives. Their history
and current reality are sometimes described intentionally and inaccurately. But
no one, like M. Sperber, has yet formulated such a
negative judgment. The author ignores the fact that Croatians are currently
deprived of their fundamental rights and freedoms by a totalitarian regime.
While, when referring to Cardinal Stepinac, despite
his ideological stance, he hesitates to accept the communist and Serbian
calumnies as proven and true, he does not proceed with the same criteria when
referring to the oppressed Croatian people. Behind Cardinal Stepinac
was the great moral influence of the Catholic Church, while the Croatian people
are almost alone in their great tragedy.
By accepting without reservation the Black Legend
about Croatia—fabricated and fostered, like all black legends, by those who
persecuted the victims of those legends—the author supports one of the most
terrible forms of oppression: the Great Serbian and communist one; he is
backing the worst kind of dwarf imperialism, which the very editor of Preuves, François Bondy,
described in a lecture given in Buenos Aires (November 1960), as the main cause
of the tragic situation prevailing in Central and Eastern Europe, with all its
implications for the alarming European and world situation. F. Bondy rightly pointed out that these dwarf imperialisms had
inherited all the defects of their predecessors, the Austrian and Ottoman
Empires.
M. Sperber's predisposition
to believe the "black legend" stems from his mindset, which makes him
susceptible both to the outdated prejudices of the European left of the
mid-20th century and to the current propaganda of the Yugoslav communists (who,
incidentally, act as supporters of Serbian imperialism). At the same time, he
is perhaps under the influence of the prejudices of certain Viennese circles
regarding Croatia, prejudices that Austrian experts have frequently
misinterpreted.
The most regrettable aspect of all this is that M. Sperber is perhaps convinced he has shed all the prejudices
of the ruling class of imperial Vienna and considers it appropriate to quote
Engels, who criticized the Croats primarily for having helped save Austria in
the revolutionary year of 1848. In fact, Engels had repeated, somewhat
softened, the invectives of his fellow believer Karl Marx launched against
Russia and especially against the "Austrian Slavs," considering them
supporters of Pan-Slavism for anti-German purposes.
In quoting Engels, Manes Sperber
adds some of his own interpretations, labeling the Croats not only as
counter-revolutionaries and liberty-killers, but also attributing to Engels and
Marx, respectively, the epithet of "fratricides" for opposing—as is
evident from the subsequent course of his argument—the forced and undesirable
union with their "Slavic brothers," the Serbs. Marx, as a German
patriot, abhorred Russians and all Slavs, considering them, without exception,
as exponents of Russian imperialism, and, moreover, as a revolutionary, he
profoundly despised autocratic Holy Russia on an ideological level.
He attacked the Austrian Slavs both because he saw
them as potential Russian allies and because of the support they lent to
Austria in its opposition to the Pan-German national movement. Therefore, neither
Marx nor Engels could accuse the Croats of fratricide for their opposition to great Russian imperialism and Serbian dwarf imperialism,
since they thought the opposite and considered the Austrian Slavs as potential,
even active, clients of Tsarist Russia. In the pursuit of truth, it is worth
noting that Engels and Marx were not alone in judging the role played by the
Austrian Slavs in this way.
Even today, one can find the occasional prominent
German Slavist who, regarding the peoples that make
up the Slavic linguistic group, starts from the premises of linguistic racism.
From linguistic similarity, they deduce a shared origin and culture, and in our
time, based on the same assumptions, they develop the theory of a community of
political interests. Thus, even the Slavic peoples of Western
tradition—culturally and politically much more akin to their western neighbors:
Austrians, Hungarians, Italians, and Germans were viewed more favorably than
Russians and Serbs—as dangerous allies of Russian imperialism, which then
wielded religious (Orthodoxy) and national (Pan-Slavism) arguments as
skillfully as it currently employs the communist ideology. Because of these
deep-seated prejudices, the evolution of relations in Central Europe took a
wrong turn, to the detriment of all of Western Europe.
Marx and Engels, attacking the Austrian Slavs as
"counter-revolutionary" and "liberty-killers" for defending
Austria against Prussian militarism, could not foresee the course of events
once the Danubian community was dismembered. But in
our times, while European socialists are revising the very foundations of
Marxism, the question arises: whom does it serve if, in light of accumulated
experience and in the presence of the great imperialism of Russia and the
dwarfed imperialism of Serbia, Marx's accidental judgments about the Austrian
Slavs are still insisted upon?
How can the invectives of Marx and Engels be repeated
when it has been proven that the Croats neither are nor can be exponents of
Russian policy? It is even more absurd to call the Croats
"fratricidal" for opposing the "fraternal" embrace of
Russia or Serbia, contrary to Marxist predictions.
Isn't that upholding the premises of Russian and
Serbian expansionism, and following the erroneous deductions of certain authors
about the supposed common origin and culture of the Western and Eastern Slavs
in the very examples where enlightened minds are rectifying the inaccurate
assertions of historiography, affected by nationalist prejudices, and for which
purpose international commissions are formed?
Is it fair and reasonable to uphold the theories about
a peculiar Slavic brotherhood, which Russian and Yugoslav communists so abuse
to justify their policy of oppressing entire peoples? How can we ratify the
unjust and specious judgments made under the banner of these outdated theories
about a people currently stripped of all their rights and represented in
international forums by their oppressors?
The most revealing aspect of all this is that the
ideologue M. Sperber launched his invectives against
a humiliated and oppressed Croatia, seemingly driven by the desire to find
arguments to deny Cardinal Ottaviani the right to
protest against the current policy of coexistence in the world, which means
enslavement for so many peoples, so that one cannot speak of peace but only of
consent and coexistence with the unpunished murderer.
The pious death of Dr. Ante Pavelic
in Madrid and the sensationalist news reports about the almost nationalistic
funeral, with the alleged participation of several Spanish ministers, serve as
a pretext for him to portray the events that occurred in Croatia during the
last war in the most grim way possible, imputing to the Catholic Church its
involvement in those events, and to comment on Cardinal Ottaviani,
Secretary of the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office, while the latter
protests against coexistence with communist criminals: "That is
desperately true, but it is not serious, since the cardinal speaks in the
shadow of his Pavelics and his Francos."
We do not wish to enter into the controversy between
Catholics who uphold the principles of theocentric humanism and agnostics,
proponents of anthropocentric humanism, which demonstrates what the English
historian and philosopher Christopher Dawson calls "the internal division
of Europe, produced by an intense process of revolutionary criticism that grips
all aspects of Western culture," and which all the adversaries of the West
thoroughly exploit.
The Croatian exiles deeply regret if, in this
discussion, in pursuit of controversial effects, the entire Croatian people
were held responsible for events that constitute a relatively insignificant
episode in the overall picture of the last world conflagration, during which
appalling crimes were committed in the great European countries, which for
centuries have led general progress, but under the impact of the nihilistic
revolution went through incredible aberrations.
II.
How biased Manes Sperber is
in adopting the arguments and ploys of Croatia's and the free world's
adversaries is clear from his assertions that Croats systematically killed
"unarmed minorities" during the last war, even though it is known
that these were acts of revenge and reciprocal reprisals during the fierce
fighting between well-armed adversaries. To call Serbian Chetniks
or communist partisans (guerrillas) "unarmed minorities" is certainly
not serious.
The blame cannot be entirely attributed to the Croats,
given that these struggles and their lamentable excesses were a direct
consequence of Croatia's forced inclusion in a Balkan state in 1918. The same
author cites some facts regarding Serbian oppression between the two world
wars—that is, in times of peace—but his prejudices prevent him from
characterizing that Croatian resistance to the Great Serbian policy of physical
and mental genocide as a struggle for the freedom of peoples.
At that time, the Croats had organized, under the
leadership of Stefan Radić, a magnificent
democratic and humanitarian movement, unique in its kind in southeastern
Europe. The autocratic Serbian governments sought to crush this movement with
fire and sword. It is not surprising, then, that the Croats later reacted
vigorously and, therefore, cannot be labeled "liberty-killers" if
they truly fought for freedom.
Nor can they be labeled "fratricidal" for
opposing the oppression of "their Slavic brothers," the Serbs, given
that the Croatian democratic leader Esteban Radic,
fighting against the dictatorial governments of Belgrade, was simultaneously
fighting for the freedom of Serbian peasants and workers, and was also
assassinated by the Serbian rulers during a parliamentary session in Belgrade
for this very reason.
We will refrain from rebutting M. Sperber's
many inaccurate assertions regarding the war period, as we do not wish to
glorify certain individuals and factions. We mention them only because they
should serve the author as evidence that they were the genuine expression of
Croatian nationalism; indeed, "of the long-standing Croatian national
revival."
These arguments, drawn from the Serbian and communist
propaganda arsenal, lend themselves to biased interpretations of Croatian
history, suggesting that Croatian national consciousness and struggle are
recent developments, or rather the work of foreign propaganda directed against
Yugoslavia and, more specifically, against Slavic peoples—the work of fascism
and German socialism.
The only concession, albeit merely verbal, that the
author makes to the Croatians is when he speaks of a Croatian national
renaissance—delayed, certainly, but a renaissance nonetheless. A renaissance,
since there is clearly a history of a golden age, of the grandeur of a
thousand-year-old kingdom. Consequently, Croatian national consciousness is not
the work of foreign propaganda.
The author then cites entirely inaccurate and insulting commonplaces
about the Croatian past, disseminated by the oppressors of the
Croatians—primarily Serbs and communists—to support his thesis on his supposed
liberating role for the Croatians. Both Russians and Serbs conceive of Slavism
according to the messianic and anti-Western theses of Russian Slavophiles.
For them, the only authentic national Slavism is the expression of
Russo-Byzantine and Serbo-Byzantine cultural and
political traditions. When Slavs of Western tradition—Poles, Czechs, Slovaks,
Croats, Slovenes—assert their national cultures as a distinct, national
variant, a reflection of Western culture, in the opinion of Russians and Serbs
this signifies a deviation from and departure from authentic Slavism; even
more, a betrayal of their brethren and a service to the enemy, that is, to the
West.
According to these interpretations of Slavism as an irreconcilable
antagonism between Eastern and Western Europe, the past of the Croatian people
is reduced to the continuous service of enemies until the happy day when the
Croats, having eliminated the "hereditary enemy"—the Austro-Hungarian
Empire—were "liberated," first by the Serbian monarchy in 1918 and
then, in 1945, by the communists, supported by Russia. This is termed
"liberation," even though in both cases it involved a policy of
oppression and subjugation aimed not only at dominating the annexed regions but
also at denationalizing them, which can be described as a form of mental
genocide. Denationalization must be achieved by eliminating all Western
traditions and conceptions of the Croats and imposing a foreign cultural ideal
through coercive measures.
We do not wish to suggest that Russians and Serbs act
perfidiously in interpreting their relations with the Western Slavs in this
way. "The Russian believes he liberates when he conquers, and serves
higher ends when he subjugates," states one author, who, on the other
hand, displays great sympathy for the Russians.
However, a Western author like M. Sperber
should not share the Russian and Serb opinion regarding the oppression of other
peoples, notwithstanding his eventual ideological sympathies for the
"revolutionary role" of Russia and Serbia.
His account of Croatian history implies the true
"black law," fabricated to justify the usurpations of Vienna and
Budapest, and later those of Serbia, over which he weaves a moving "golden
legend," as a contrast to Croatia's historical role. In truth, writes M. Sperber, that kingdom which existed from 924 to 1202 would
almost never have been independent, given that the Byzantines—Hungarians,
Venetians, Austrians, depending on the era—were its sovereigns or suzerains,
sometimes protectors, sometimes oppressors. The Croatian feudal lords acted, in
most cases, in the service of foreign powers. The Croatian population was no
different.
The words Croats and Pandurs
everywhere meant warriors who fought fiercely for kings and emperors and for
causes that were by no means their own. The Croats were also subordinate to
foreigners in the cultural sphere. The ruling class was not bilingual. In
addition to Croatian, they spoke and wrote in the language of the dominant
nation: Italian, Hungarian, or German. Sperber
concludes that it is understandable that, due to the long Hungarian domination,
a supposed hatred of Hungarians and Austrians arose in Croatian hearts, but he
does not understand the hatred of Serbs.
What, then, separates these peoples who share a common origin, a common
language, and, for centuries, the zadruga, a
fundamental communal institution of these peasant societies? By all accounts,
they seem destined to form a single nation, although the Croats—like the
Slovenes—are Catholic and not Orthodox like the Serbs, whose
Church has retained autocephaly since 1220. M. Sperber
finds the explanation for this "incomprehensible" attitude of the
Croats not only in the supposed liberty-suppressing role of the Croats in
accordance with Karl Marx's anti-Russian and anti-Austrian stance, but also in
the supposed fratricidal role of the Croats in the sense of Slavophile
and anti-Western conceptions.
III
Before addressing this chapter of M. Sperber's review, we believe it necessary to point out at
least the most significant inaccuracies contained in his brief exposition. Had
he consulted any documented work on the history of Croatia, even history
textbooks published in communist Yugoslavia, he would have found that the
Kingdom of Croatia did not last until 1102, but rather until 1918, since within
the dualist system of Austro-Hungarianism, Croatia
had preserved its sovereign rights, albeit limited. It was in a state of
complete, almost colonial, dependence that it only entered Yugoslavia as the
principal victim of Serbian imperialism. Nor were the Croats of the Islamic
faith so subordinate in the Ottoman Empire, since the Bablate
of Bosnia enjoyed special privileges.
The Croats arrived in the Roman province of Dalmatia
at the beginning of the 7th century as foederati of
the Roman Empire. Then, for a short period, they were vassals of Charlemagne's
empire, but very soon they organized their own independent kingdom with
national kings of the Trpimirovic dynasty, as
independent as the other kingdoms of the time.
At that time, no vassalage relationship could have
existed with Austria or Hungary, since the Hungarian kingdom was formed two
centuries later and Croatia only associated itself with Austria in the 16th
century. Nor was Croatia dependent on or under the dominion of Venice.
The Venetians periodically exercised supreme power
over one or two free cities on the Croatian coast, and later, during the
Ottoman Wars, the inhabitants of Dalmatia joined forces with Venice in the
fight against the Ottomans, recognizing Venetian authority to the same extent
as parts of Montenegro, Albania, and Greece. In its relations with the
Byzantine Empire, before Europe fragmented into political, cultural, and
religious areas, Croatia constituted, according to medieval standards, an
independent kingdom.
Later, Croatia, like Hungary, was not part of the Holy
Roman Empire, its connection to the empire being limited to the monarchy
itself: first Sigismund I of the Luxembourg dynasty (1487-1587), and then a
series of monarchs of the Habsburg dynasty (1527-1918). With the extinction of
the national dynasty, Croatia entered into a personal union with Hungary in
1102, based on a freely negotiated pact called the Pacta
Conventa.
This relationship, over time, evolved into a de facto
union, although the Croatians were never Hungarian subjects. Furthermore, this
bond was so balanced that, after the extinction of the Hungarian Árpád dynasty, the Croatians enthroned the kings of the Angevin dynasty of Naples (1901-1986), who were later
recognized by the Hungarians, Poles, and Lithuanians.
With the defeat in 1526 of the armies of the
Croatian-Hungarian kingdom, which for a century had held back the onslaught of
the Ottoman Empire seeking to reach the Tiber and Rhine, the Croats elected
Ferdinand I, brother of Charles V, as their king in 1527, seeking support in
Central Europe and Spain. In their election, they proceeded independently of
the Hungarians, who were pushing for their own candidate, John Zapolia, but the supporters of Ferdinand I, Archduke of
Austria, King of Bohemia and Croatia, prevailed. Thus, the Danubian
Monarchy was founded under the Habsburg crown.
This coalition of peoples of Western culture, with the
maritime support of Spain, Venice, and the papacy, managed to contain the
Ottoman advance, successfully fulfilling its historical mission. In the times
when the modern State was already being formed and national consciousness was
being forged, that community constituted the model of a constructive
supranational collaboration in service of the higher international good.
In the bloody struggles against the Ottomans, which
lasted 400 years, Croatia and Hungary were the countries most affected. The
Hungarian capital was the seat of the Turkish pasha for 150 years, and it is
absurd to claim that the Hungarians exercised dominion over Croatia.
Turkish horses never set foot in the Croatian capital,
yet Croatia was reduced to relics of the former illustrious kingdoms of
Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia. Croatia had lost most of its national
territory; hundreds of thousands of combatants fell; many were taken captive by
the Turks; and the wave of refugees reached as far as Dunkirk, France.
Even today, Croatian communities exist in southern
Italy, Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia. At the same time, certain regions of
Croatia were populated by nomadic Balkan Orthodox groups, from whom the current
Serbian minority in Croatia was formed. A number of Croats, adherents of the Patarena sect, embraced Islam upon falling under Turkish
rule, thus becoming part of the ruling class in the Ottoman Empire, occupying
the highest military and administrative positions.
After the reconquest,
Croatia was no longer the nationally and religiously cohesive country it once
was, a country from which, during the Renaissance, emerged a whole host of
distinguished humanists and artists of European renown.
Despite all the adversities, the Croats preserved
their constitutional freedoms. The monarchs, formerly Hungarian-Croat
(1102-1526) and later the Habsburgs, resided outside of Croatia. Direct power
was exercised by the ban (viceroy) and the Croatian Diet, composed of the
nobility, representatives of the Church, and representatives of the free
cities.
The Diet enacted laws, decided on matters of peace and
war, and levied taxes. The ban was head of government and supreme commander of
the army and was required to be a Croatian citizen. With the king away, it was
quite rightly said: the ban is king of the Croats.
In Croatia, as throughout the Christian West, Latin
was for centuries the language of the Catholic Church and of culture, and at
the same time the official language for Hungarians and Croats, and later for
the countries associated with the Habsburg monarchy.
Latin was used in the Croatian parliament until 1848,
the year in which Croatian was declared the official language. From the
Renaissance onward, Croats cultivated literature in their national language as
well, reaching its golden age in Dubrovnik. Furthermore, the Croats enjoyed the
unique privilege granted by the Holy See: for more than a millennium they have
used the ancient Slavic language in the Roman Rite liturgy in several dioceses
on the Adriatic coast. It is worth noting that even within the Ottoman Empire, Croats of the Islamic faith used the Croatian
language, so much so that in Constantinople itself, Croatian was sometimes the
diplomatic language.
The following is a true account of Croatia's relations
with its allied countries up to modern times, which gave rise to the
"Black Legend," also appropriated by Manes Sperber.
The Habsburgs began to infringe upon Croatia's constitutional rights at
a time when, throughout Europe, the central power of the territorial state was
strengthening at the expense of feudal lords. The Croatian and Hungarian
nobility, and sometimes the Austrian nobles as well, unitedly
opposed this centralizing trend.
The Croatian and Hungarian nobles simultaneously defended their
privileges and prerogatives as well as the constitutional rights of their
respective kingdoms, invoking, among other documents, the Golden Bull (1222) of
the Hungarian-Croatian king Andrew II, which was the true Magna Carta of Liberty for those two kingdoms. Even today, both
Croatians and Hungarians glorify as their national hero the Croatian ban, Count
Peter of Zrin, beheaded in 1671 for opposing dynastic
abuses.
The resistance to the centralist policies of Joseph II, the most
prominent representative of enlightened absolutism in Austria, was extremely
energetic and successful. He attempted to impose German as the official
language of all the countries under the Habsburg rule.
IV.
The Croatian national epic was, in fact, lived out in
modern times, during the wars with the Ottoman Empire, which sometimes took on
tragic characteristics because Croats often fought on both sides: Catholics
against Muslims. The most moving scene of this drama unfolded in 1566, when the
Croatian ban Nicholas Subic of Zrin, known as
Leonidas of Christendom, defended the strategic fortress of Szigeth,
opposing Suleiman the Magnificent's march on Vienna.
During the long siege, Suleiman died embittered.
The true commander of the Ottoman army was the Grand
Vizier, the famous Mohamed Pasha Sokolovic (Socobi), of Croatian origin.
In exceptional cases, Croats fought outside their
homeland, for example, during the religious wars in Germany, and later in Italy
during the Napoleonic campaign. Certain Croatian contingents from the territory
included in the Illyrian Kingdom created by Napoleon, enrolled in the Grande Armée, earned high praise from the Corsican, who called
them the best soldiers in the world, certainly not for their cruelty or lack of
military discipline.
In the last world war, a detachment of Croatian
soldiers joined the French patriots in the fight against the Hitlerite invaders, and not long ago, in honour of the fallen Croatians, a memorial plaque was
placed in the Dôme des Invalides,
which should not interest Manes Sperber, but rather
the writers and editors of Preuves.
Croats participated in wars outside their homeland rarely and always
against their will. The Croatian Diet, the true holder of national sovereignty,
consistently protested to the Austrian military authorities, emphasizing that
its obligation was solely to fight against the Turkish invaders and complete
the glorious feat of the Croatian Reconquista.
However, its periodic participation in these wars was unavoidable, as
the border region between Croatia and the Ottoman Empire constituted a unique
administrative-military unit, governed directly by the Austrian military
authorities. In this zone, all adults were soldiers by default. Since
conscription was not in effect at the time, Austria could readily mobilize
large numbers of seasoned soldiers in this militarized zone for border
engagements with Turkish detachments.
They were employed in more dangerous operations as contemporary
commandos. It is understood that in the already cruel religious wars, foreign
soldiers were not popular in Germany and that their excesses were tendentiously
exaggerated and generalized to tarnish Austria's reputation. Over time, this
denigrating campaign would have repercussions in Austria itself, especially
during the period of enlightened absolutism, when the Croats vigorously opposed
attempts at Germanization.
Furthermore, the Croats, being Catholic, could not remain indifferent to
these struggles, and the policy of the Croatian Diet at that time was geared
towards preserving religious and, consequently, political unity, so vital while
the enemy lurked on their borders. Later, in defending dynastic interests, the
Croats were loyal to their monarch; that is, they behaved as patriots according
to the notions of that era, even though today they are republicans.
As defenders and guardians of the eastern "limes" of our
Western civilization, they demonstrated loyalty not only to their homeland but
to all of Western Christendom. For its subjects, the Habsburg monarchy, who were simultaneously emperors of the Holy Roman
Empire, kings of Spain, governors of Italy, and owners of almost all of
America, was a protector of Western interests.
This characteristic was also intuited by A. T. Toynbee,
who expressly states: "...the Danubian monarchy
of the Habsburgs, which from the point of view of London or Paris was but one
among other provincial powers in a politically divided Western world, had all
the appearances and properties of a universal Western state in the eyes of its
own subjects and also in the eyes of those of its non-Western neighbors and
adversaries against whom it served as a 'shell' or shield for the entire body
of Western Christian Society, whose scattered members remained ungrateful
beneficiaries of the Monarchy's ecumenical mission."
Consequently, M. Sperber could draw the
insulting conclusion that they fought for morbid pleasure in the cruelties of
war, solely due to ignorance of the Croatian national epic with Crusader-like
characteristics, which, unfortunately, unfolds, in part, in modern times, and
due to a misinterpretation of the historical role of his homeland, Austria.
The fact that Croatia's grim history is contrasted, in stark contrast,
with the "golden legend" of the Serbs as constant fighters for
freedom, compels us to point out a little-known fact. Despite protests from the
Croatian Diet, the Austrian authorities colonized the militarized zone with
Balkan defectors of the Orthodox faith, whose ancestors now form the Serbian
minority in Croatia. These defectors sometimes comprised entire regiments that
fought in Germany under the Croatian name. The Croatians are held responsible
for their excesses, although it would be more accurate to judge the
responsibility of their Austrian commanders. The Croatian soldiers did not
fight as mercenaries, unlike the subjects of other European countries, and no
one, for example, blames an entire people for the excesses and abuses of the
Landsknechts.
V.
Manes Sperber's thesis on
foreign domination in Croatia reflects anachronistic nationalist
interpretations and centuries-old supranational collaborations among the Danubian countries. These conceptions also resonated in
Croatian political literature, although their current defenders are Russian and
Serbian ideologues, Pan-Slavists and Yugoslavs,
formerly monarchists, now communists, all anti-Western.
However, a fierce antagonism toward their neighbors
never arose among Croats, and if conflicts and struggles occurred in modern
times, these were merely expressions of national antagonisms of the respective
eras. Croatian-Serbian relations, and by analogy, Polish-Russian relations,
cannot be considered using this criterion. All these peoples belong to the same
linguistic family.
Therefore, according to theories of linguistic racism,
they should form a separate political and cultural unit with the other Slavic
peoples. According to this criterion, any potential conflicts would be reduced
to national differences, similar to those that exist, for example, between the
Neo-Latin peoples, or between the French and the Spanish. However, between
Croats and Serbs, there are not only national differences but also a deep
antagonism, a reflection of the cultural dualism of the European continent.
The Serbs are Eastern Orthodox and have their own
national Church, a fact of paramount importance in understanding their
antagonism toward the Catholic Croats. Hence, two different
mentalities, two opposing conceptions of the role of the people, the Church,
the State, and their reciprocal relationships.
The Serbs do not conceive of the nation-state as a
nation-state, as in the West, but as a Church-nation. The fact that the Croats
belong to the universal Western Church and, in part, to the also universal
Islamic religious community, means, for the Serbs, that Croats cannot be equal
members of the same state or of the Yugoslav nation.
Only those who profess the Orthodox faith can be full
members of the nation. The impossibility of a political transaction between Croats
and Serbs thus stems from their opposing cultural and political traditions. The same applies to
Russians and Poles.
It is quite clear that the problem is not limited to
religious differences, a reflection of the different cultural orientations that
originated in the religious schism between Byzantium and Rome, between Western
and Eastern Europe, respectively. Religious differences could not prevent the
national unity of Western peoples (Germany, the Netherlands, etc.).
However, these were Western nations that, after
painful experiences, learned to practice religious and ideological tolerance.
Moreover, Catholicism and Protestantism, despite their dogmatic differences,
are two forms of Western Christianity. National integration and even
supranational collaboration are only possible where common cultural traditions
precede them. In contrast, this is not feasible between ethnic groups that
developed within different civilizations.
Once again, we turn to A.J. Toynbee, who described the
formation of states in the style of Yugoslavia, under the Western principle of
the nationality of nations that have been nurtured, until now, by two diverse
civilizations, as a "bold experiment in political alchemy." Toynbee
wrote these lines between the two world wars, when the definitive results of
the situation created by the 1919 Treaties, which he ironically calls the
"new order," were not yet foreseen.
But now, after so many misguided experiments, it would
be more appropriate to call it the "new disorder." Croatia is one of
the nations most affected by this disorder, which arose from frivolous and
unfounded theories. According to these theories, linguistic similarity or
identity determined, ipso facto, the cultural and national community of
peoples, completely ignoring the insurmountable cultural differences, or
ascribing transcendental significance to the zadruga,
the supposed basic community institution in Croatia and Serbia, which was of no
real importance.
We understand Manes Sperber's
enthusiasm for "communal" institutions, but the theory that presents
the cohabitation of several families of the same kin as typical Slavic
institutions belongs to the inventory of European Romanticism. This institution
never assumed widespread proportions among either Croats or Serbs. It
disappeared when the monetary system was adopted in the villages in place of
the barter of natural goods and when the right of inheritance was introduced
according to the liberal notions of the Civil Code (1853).
"The entire zadruga
organization, far from representing the pristine, original type of the family
community of Slavic origin, more likely constitutes an organization of a purely
military character," which had already appeared on the borders of the
Roman Empire and later in the defensive function against the Turks.
VI.
What M. Sperber writes about the supposed
centuries-long and permanent struggles of the Serbs against the Turks fits with
the legendary narratives of the Romantic era. The author contrasts this
"golden legend" of the Serbian liberation struggle with the
"black legend" of Croatian servility. Subjected to the Turkish yoke
and separated from Christian Europe after the terrible defeat at Kosovo (1389),
these Orthodox Yugoslavs (South Slavs) had never ceased fighting for the freedom
they would reconquer, step by step, at a high price
in their blood.
It is worth noting, in contrast, that M. Sperber completely ignores the four centuries of Croatian
resistance to the Turks, a rather odd omission, given that this struggle
constitutes an essential chapter in the history of his homeland: Austria.
The liberation of the Balkan countries from long
Turkish rule was not so much the fruit of their own resistance as the
consequence of Western European military efforts and the errors of the sultans,
who overstepped their bounds in their conquests.
The Ottomans had organized their military power within
the Byzantine Empire, where they served as auxiliary troops. They then gained
such momentum that they assumed the political inheritance of the Byzantine Empire
and established the Pax Ottomanica
throughout the sphere of Byzantine civilization.
Political discord, ecclesiastical disputes, and total
moral decay contributed to the collapse of Byzantium, which, moreover,
preferred Turkish domination to reconciliation with Rome. "I would rather
see Murad's turban above the door of the Hagia Sophia than a cardinal's hat," were the words of
Archon Notaros a few years before the fall of
Constantinople.
The Turkish party prevailed not only in Byzantium, but
earlier in Serbia. Nicholas Jorga, the Romanian
historian, noted that the Serbs fought in the siege of Constantinople alongside
the Turks and that a Serbian soldier had beheaded Constantine XI Palaiologos and presented his head to Mehmed
II.
It is a well-known fact that the Genoese and Venetians
defended Constantinople more bravely than the Byzantine Greeks themselves. It
is less well known that in the Battle of Kosovo, the Croats and Hungarians
fought more than the Serbs, who made a pact with the Turks, even though the
battle ended inconclusively. The ones they did not want to make a pact with
were the Christian West.
The Serbian historian Stanoje
Stanoojevic writes: "The Serbian Church
recognized the authority of the Turks and made a pact with them." A solid
symbiosis was established between the Turkish conquerors and the Orthodox
Christians, and this resignation and assumed attitude lasted until the decline
of the Turkish Empire. The liberation of the Balkan countries from the Turkish
yoke was primarily the work of Western Christians and transactions between
great powers, and secondarily the consequence of the emancipatory struggle of
those countries. Therefore, the separation of Serbia from Western Europe is not
due to the Turkish occupation.
The legend of the heroic resistance of the Serbs was
created after the fact. Marko Kraljevic, a symbol of
this invented feat, died as a Turkish vassal fighting against the Western
Christians. It was not, therefore, the Serbs who never ceased fighting for the
liberation of Christian countries from Turkish rule, but the Croats, the
Hungarians, and other Western peoples.
VII
If an Austrian author poses the famous Eastern Question in this way, it
is not surprising that he adopts Serbian and Russian interpretations of the
Balkan situation before and during the First World War. Serbia, which with
Russian support had engaged in extensive conspiracy and terrorist activity
aimed at overthrowing the Danubian Monarchy, was
presented as an innocent victim of Austria.
The Croats, on the other hand, are guilty for having fought in the ranks
of the Austrian army against Serbia, and M. Sperber
does not question whether they could have acted otherwise, nor why so many
Serbs, subjects of Emperor Franz Joseph, fought against Serbia.
The "black legend" about the Croats would
not be complete if the author, limited to declaring that the Croats were
conquerors like their ancestors who had helped crush the Hungarian revolution
in 1844, had added that Croatian regiments serving Franz Joseph sometimes sowed
panic in the land of their brother people, murdering the inhabitants of the
villages and towns they had just occupied.
Accustomed to witnessing so many atrocities committed
by dictatorships of both the left and the right, the contemporary reader might believe
the claims of an Austrian against the behavior of his country's army in the
First World War. However, it is not difficult to distinguish between Austria
and a Balkan country.
Even Serbian authors speak with more respect than he
does about the Austrian army. It would be appropriate for Mr. Sperber to familiarize himself with the conduct of the
Serbian soldiers who invaded Croatia as "liberators" after the
collapse of Austria-Hungary and as "Slavic brothers," applying their
methods of punishment, brutally beating more than 100,000 Croats, introducing
the official cult of bandits and assailants, and erecting statues and public
monuments in their honor.
VIII
Although our rebuttal has been somewhat lengthy,
before concluding we refer to the "liberticidal and fratricidal role"
that, according to Engels' accusation, the author attributed to the Croats
during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 and the First World War, respectively.
Both problems are related to the role played by the Danubian
monarchy in modern times. If the Danubian community
was able to save Western Europe from the Turkish threat, could it or could it
not play a similar role at a time when the political balance of power in Europe
was about to collapse due to the rise of Prussia and Russia? Should it serve
European interests, for which it was more useful to aid Prussia against Austria
and then foster the ambitions of Russia and Serbia, which sought the
dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, or should it strive to preserve
that Danubian community and transform it into a true
commonwealth of free peoples?
The answer to these questions will determine how the attitude of the
Croats and other Slavic peoples, who in 1848 defended the Austrian Empire
against Pan-Germanism and fought in the last world
conflagration against Russian and Serbian ambitions, will depend on how they
are assessed. Given the experience of the dwarfed imperialisms of some
Austro-Hungarian heir states that emerged between the two world wars and paved
the way for Hitler and Stalin, it is easy to agree with numerous statesmen and
political theorists who believe that economic, defensive, and political
cooperation among the small peoples of Central Europe was essential after the
First World War.
This is confirmed in retrospect by the wisdom of the Austrian Slavs'
stance in 1898. In that year, while delegates from the German states were
deliberating in Frankfurt on the unification of Germany, representatives of the
Austrian Slavs met in Prague and declared themselves against Pan-Germanist tendencies and in favor of the Danubian Monarchy. Dr. Prantisek Palacki, a distinguished Czech patriot and historian of
Protestant faith, defined this position thus: "If the Austrian Empire did
not already exist, we should hasten to create it in the interest of Europe, in
the interest of humanity." The national movements of the Austrian Slavs
were guided by a humanitarian, liberal, and democratic spirit, and were constructive from a European perspective.
The revolutionary European left of that time saw the
anti-Austrian movement of German and Hungarian nationalists as a rebellion
against the principle of dynastic legitimacy. Therefore, they considered the
attitude of the Austrian Slavs reactionary, even though they were fighting for
national and democratic ideals. Above and beyond their motives, those who then
advocated for the destruction of Austria were, in fact, acting for the King of
Prussia, just as those who, 75 years later, instead of reforming its internal
structure, dictated the dismemberment of the Danubian
monarchy, paving the way for the invasions of Hitler and Stalin and the
establishment of satellite communist states.
In the opinion of the Hungarians of 1848, the
circumstantial alliance between the dynasty and the Austrian Slavs was dangerous,
and they took advantage of Prussia's victories to consolidate their dominance,
within the dualist system, in the Hungarian part of the monarchy, even though
they constituted barely half of its total population. Then, out of fear of the
Slavs, they fostered the Austro-German alliance, and in domestic politics,
backed by Berlin, they thwarted all efforts aimed at recognizing the national
rights of the Austrian Slavs and restructuring the monarchy on a federal basis.
The revolutionary Hungarian nationalists of 1848
presumed that all the territories of the Hungarian Crown formed the Hungarian
nation-state. The very rights they claimed from Vienna they denied to other
peoples. Kossuth, while sending an ultimatum to Vienna demanding the rights of
his homeland, replied to the delegates who were demanding the rights of
Croatia: "The sword will decide." In the tumultuous year of 1848, it
was not only Croats who fought against the Hungarians, but also Slovaks,
Czechs, Romanians, and Serbs. It is also true that Kossuth later, as a
political exile, advocated for the confederation of the Danubian
peoples, excluding Austria.
In 1848, the Croats also fought for their
constitutional and national rights, and that year the national and democratic
revolution triumphed in Croatia.
In that year, the thousand-year-old Croatian Diet was
transformed into a modern parliament. The Croats appointed their own government
in spite of Vienna and Budapest, emancipated the serfs, introduced the Croatian
language as the official language instead of Latin, broke all political ties
with Hungary, except for the person of the king, and
this state of affairs lasted until 1866.
Distinguished contemporaries such as Camillo Cavour emphasized at that time that the Croats were
fighting for freedom. Then, the English historian George Macaulay Trevellyan referred to the events of 1848 with the
following words: "Austria was able to defeat its rebellious subjects
partly with Russian help, partly because the Hungarian parliamentarians, led by
Kossuth, did not want to treat the other peoples of Hungary any better than the
subjugated peoples.
This treatment drove the Slavs and Romans to the
protection of the Austrian despots. English and American admirers considered
Kossuth a hero in his subsequent exile, which in part he was. But perhaps no
one, like him, after Robespierre, has done so much damage to the liberal cause.
He diverted the Hungarian national idea from liberalism to chauvinism.
The Hungarian oligarchy, defeated in 1848, made a pact
in 1866 with its Austrian enemies, becoming complicit in the dominance of two
peoples, which led the monarchy to its final abyss." After the glorious
Hungarian Revolution of 1956, unleashed against communist and Soviet tyranny,
to speak of the 1848 revolution without the necessary reservations, as Sperber did, is incorrect. At the same time, the author
overlooks the fact that it was precisely the Serbs who distinguished themselves
fighting against the 1848 revolution, thus allowing him to present them as
consistent champions of liberty in contrast to the "liberty-killers"
Croats.
In 1848, the Serbian Patriarch Rajačić
blessed the troops of the Croatian Ban Jelačić,
appointed by the Emperor as commander-in-chief of the Austrian troops, when
they marched against the Hungarians. The Serbs of Voivodeship,
led by Stratimirović, engaged in fierce fighting
with the Hungarian insurgents, and in recognition of this, the Emperor granted
a special status to "Serbian Voivodeship."
The war of the Serbian minority in southern Hungary, with strong support
from the Serbian kingdom, then a vassal of the Ottoman sultans, waged against
the Magyars, had taken on "the character of a cruel race war," and
the conflict with the Croats was only a regrettable incident within 800 years
of relatively harmonious and peaceful coexistence.
IX.
From what has been said above regarding the historical
significance of the Danubian community, it follows
that the Croats in the First World War did not fight "on behalf of
others."
Furthermore, the Croats neither desired nor provoked
that terrible war, since after absolutism (1849-1860) and dualism (1866-1918),
a segment of the Croatian intelligentsia had lost hope in a radical
transformation of the monarchy, which was increasingly acting as a brilliant
second fiddle to Prussianized Germany. Nevertheless,
the Croats distrusted the conspiratorial and terrorist activities of Serbia,
which aspired to annex Croatian regions.
The Serbs, encouraged by Tsarist Russia, sought the
dismemberment of the Austrian Empire in order to seize the Croatian provinces
of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which had been incorporated into Austria-Hungary by
resolution of the Congress of Berlin, as they constituted, along with the other
Croatian provinces, a historical, geographical, economic, and national unit.
Despite a significant Orthodox minority who, identifying religion with
nationality, consider themselves Serbian, these provinces also have a majority
of Catholic and Muslim Croats today.
Servia also claimed other Croatian regions and demanded
access to the Adriatic, which would have meant the annexation of distinctly
Croatian territories, as well as those of Montenegro and Albania. Austria
opposed these expansionist plans of tiny Serbia, which would have bordered on
the absurd were it not for the fact that Russia, with its ambitions as heir to
Byzantium, was behind them.
The Obrenović dynasty
was treacherously liquidated in 1908, a crime whose atrocity provoked universal
condemnation. The Karageorgevićs, avowed agents
of Russian imperialism, ascended the Serbian throne, and from then on,
subversive activity intensified in the Croatian regions, culminating in the
assassination of Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914, carried out
in collusion with the Serbian and Russian governments. The heir to the Habsburg
throne was believed to have plans to abolish the dualist system and create a
third unit (Croatia and Slovenia) with equal rights to Austria and Hungary.
This would have meant the consolidation of the
existing situation and the end of Russian and Serbian intrigues. During the
First World War, Nicolae Pašić,
president of the Serbian government-in-exile, declared to the Italian
ambassador, Count Carlo Sforza, regarding these plans of the Austrian heir to
the throne, Franz Ferdinand: "It was the only time in my life I was
afraid." Unfortunately, in recent decades, the monarchy's policies were
dependent on Berlin, provoking a negative reaction from both the Western powers
and the Austrian Slavs.
Therefore, it was not possible, at decisive moments,
to save the Danubian community, and, moreover, the
victorious powers did not fully grasp the danger looming over Europe in the
wake of the Bolshevik Revolution. The Croats, neighbors of Serbia, exposed to
Eurasian invasions, were able to sense the approaching danger better than the
statesmen of the Western metropolises. The same occurred in the First and
Second World Wars.
The Croats, due to their geographical location and
political circumstances, with no possibility of choosing between the two
Western blocs, found themselves on the side of the Central Powers in both World
Wars. In these fratricidal wars between European nations, which ended Europe's
leading role in world politics, they fought for their very existence and for
European interests against the Eastern invaders, while Serbia, due to a
confluence of special circumstances and as an agent of Russian expansionism,
found itself on the other side.
Many of Austria's adversaries clearly saw during the First World War
that Croatian soldiers were not fighting as "conquerors for hire,"
but in defense of their country, especially when Russia and Serbia approved the
Treaty of London, which stipulated the cession of the Croatian coast—a shameful
act of blackmail that met with the vigorous opposition of President Wilson.
X
All peoples exhibit both positive and negative traits;
the history of every nation contains both luminous and dark chapters.
Nevertheless, every people has the right to life in
freedom and dignity. Therefore, the Croatian people—neither better nor worse
than any other—have the right and the obligation to repudiate unfounded
offenses and demand that no moral support be given to their oppressors.
What is most regrettable is the continued insistence
on clichés and sloppy interpretations that contradict the ideals of the
Congress for Cultural Freedom. Slander is hurled against Croatians for having
defended their own ideals and for having sacrificed themselves for centuries
for the greater international good, due to their unique geographical position
on the frontier of the Western world. This contribution to higher interests is
precisely what enlightened minds are propagating today.
If one advocates for organized international
solidarity to save freedom, then it is essential to rid oneself of old
ideological prejudices and refrain from unjust and insulting criticisms of
other peoples. We can note with satisfaction that the new spirit of
international solidarity, eliminating national prejudices, is steadily gaining
ground in the Western world, thanks also to the laudable efforts of the
intellectuals gathered around the Congress for Cultural Freedom. Why proceed in
reverse when it comes to the occupied and oppressed Croatian people?
We wish to emphasize that Croats do not hate Serbs.
While we highlight our Western orientation and traditions in contrast to the
Byzantine-Russian orbit of the Serbs, we do not do so as if this
division were our own, nor will we pass judgment on other civilizations.
If we have resisted invasions from the East for centuries, with the support of
Western peoples, we have preserved our national and cultural identity. We do
not ask for any special reward for the sacrifices made, but it is only right to
demand that these sacrifices not be interpreted as "shameful actions for
foreign interests."
Finally, we hope that our relations with the Serbs
will improve over time, as has happened with the Islamic world. Although we
fought for four centuries against the invasions and occupation of non-Osmans, we harbored hatred and knew how to appreciate the
capabilities of the Ottoman Empire, which carried out one of the most vigorous
undertakings of all time.
Many Bosnian Croats who embraced Islam held high positions
in the Turkish Empire and preserved the Croatian language, as well as a typical
Western institution: the hereditary feudal nobility. The political acumen of
the Turks became evident in our time, when, with the Ottoman Empire dissolved,
they adopted the institution of the nation-state and other political and
cultural forms of the Western world, once their antagonist. Yesterday's most
dangerous adversary of Western Europe is today the staunchest member of the
Western community's defense against the threat of a new, even more powerful
Eurasian empire.
The Croats also feel no hatred toward the Russians, but rather
compassion for having never known freedom. Without the forced union of Croatia
with Serbia in 1918 and 1945, it is highly likely that these two countries
would have practiced a policy of good neighborliness for their mutual benefit.
The undesirable unification of such heterogeneous elements within the
Yugoslav conglomerate, with a predominance of Serbs, the cause of persistent
conflicts and national dissension, facilitated the communists' seizure of power
in 1945. Without this unnatural and forced union, carried out illegally and
without the application of the right to national self-determination, Croatia
would currently be among the free Western nations. Furthermore, the brutal
imposition of cultural and political forms corresponding to
Byzantine-Russian-Serbian traditions acts as a painful graft on the Croatian
national body.
We believe, however, that the Serbs are not guided by
malevolent intentions when they act in accordance with their traditions and
values. The possibility that Western conceptions will eventually prevail in
Serbia, as happened in Turkey and some other countries in Europe, Asia, and
Africa that for centuries belonged to other civilizations, should not be ruled
out.
For the Croats, this eventuality would bring great
relief, as they would escape the current zone of encounters and conflicts
between antagonistic civilizations. Until this slow historical process takes
place, the inalienable right of the Croats is to fight against their inclusion
in a Balkan state governed by foreign political conceptions and with an
opposing cultural ideal. Moreover, this state denies not only national rights
and freedoms, but also individual ones. As long as this situation persists, the
Croatian national struggle is not merely the struggle of a country disinherited
for its independence, but something far more important: it is the struggle for
freedom itself, and as such, it contributes to the efforts of all of Europe and
the entire free world.
We, therefore, as Croats, Europeans, and members of
the West, regret the appearance of the "black legend" about Croatia
in the pages of "Preuves," a publication to
which, as victims of totalitarian communism, we express our gratitude for its
consistent and courageous defense of the values of the free world
and for its open repudiation of all prejudices.
Buenos Aires
Two years ago, the bishops
noted in a report the sad events that occurred in Bacina,
near Ploce, in Dalmatia. There, the two priests who
had gone to the parish church to celebrate Mass were surreptitiously attacked,
mistreated, and expelled from the town, without even being allowed to enter the
church. This constitutes a clear violation of the fundamental principle of
religious freedom. We do not know if any measures were taken to prevent such
physical attacks against priests in the future.
II.
In accordance with the basic
principle of religious freedom, Article 16 of the law specifically emphasizes
that people "who are in hospitals, nursing homes, boarding schools, and
other similar institutions may, within the established order, practice their
faith and may be assisted by a priest at their request." A good and
reasonable provision! But, unfortunately, this legal provision, so clear and
categorical, is often not put into practice. In many schools, students are
practically unable to go to church.
They can only do so at great
risk. Frequently, bureaucratic measures obstruct and even prevent priests from
attending to the seriously ill in hospitals and nursing homes. Consequently,
people often die in hospitals without religious comfort, even though they ask
for it and long for it.
The situation of conscripts
in barracks and prisoners in penitentiaries is even more difficult, due to their
subjection to special discipline. There have been cases where prayer books or
other religious objects they kept were forcibly taken from them, and they were
even prevented from individual prayers.
At the very least, when the
danger of death looms, prisoners should be allowed to receive the sacrament of
the dying. The most basic humanitarian sentiment demands that every justified
wish of the person be fulfilled in the face of death. And for the dying
faithful, there is no more justified wish than to be at peace with their
conscience before dying. Therefore, at the request of a seriously ill prisoner,
a priest from outside should be summoned to administer the holy sacraments, or
at least the priest detained within the prison should be permitted to do so.
Soldiers in barracks should
be allowed to freely attend religious rites on holidays if they so wish.
Military discipline would certainly not be affected by this. On the contrary,
it would have a positive impact on the soldiers, their families, and the entire
population.
III
Article 13 of the law states
that religious rites, practiced collectively, may be freely celebrated in
churches and other public places, while the preceding article, Article 12,
refers to the practice of religious rites in private homes at the request of
the faithful.
Among the rites celebrated
in homes at the request of the faithful is the confession of the elderly, the
disabled, and the sick. From ancient times, when the town lacked a church, such
people would gather in a designated house, and the priest would hear their
confessions. Their confession does not constitute a collective rite, as each
person confesses in secret. They all gather in one house because each person
would have to send a family member to accompany the priest, which would mean a
significant loss of work time.
Although this custom of
confession dates back to ancient times, certain judges in the courts of minor
offenses, interpreting the existing regulations in a bureaucratic manner,
impose punishments on priests who participate in these confessions. They
arbitrarily consider individual confessions as collective rites. By proceeding
in this way, these judges create discontent among the faithful to the detriment
of the general interest.
IV
Mindful of the principles of religious freedom
and freedom of conscience, we request that employees, workers, and students be
allowed to optionally observe holidays that do not fall on a Sunday. This
applies, first and foremost, to Christmas Day. This is a very small number of
holidays—only ten a year for Catholics. In factories and the public
administration, this could be arranged so that workers and employees of
different faiths could replace each other, and if necessary, the loss of
working hours could be compensated with unpaid overtime.
V
Article 4 of the Law establishes the principle of
separation of church and school. We will not discuss now whether religious
instruction in schools, even if optional, as is the case in Poland, would
better suit the wishes of the overwhelming majority of parents. However, we
must point out that if the law does not permit religious instruction in
schools, then it would be just to prohibit the dissemination of anti-religious
propaganda within them. Schools are the property of the people, and the majority of our people believe in and educate their children
in religion. It is detrimental to the innocent souls of children when school
instruction contradicts family education. Therefore, especially primary school teachers, should adhere to their duties and teach students
to read and write, without addressing metaphysical problems, those concerning
the origin and reason for existence, for which they also lack the specific
training.
Although the law does not permit religious instruction
in schools, Article 4... Article 4 expressly states that religious instruction
may be given in churches, that is, in other premises. The law does not specify
that religious instruction is permitted only in parish churches. There are
villages several leagues from the parish church, and children cannot walk to
the parish to attend religious instruction. Therefore, it must be given to them
in their village church. However, some misdemeanor courts severely punish
priests by imposing fines or imprisoning them for having given religious instruction
in village chapels, even though they do so by order of higher ecclesiastical
authorities.
Likewise, in some localities, judges of misdemeanor
courts punish priests who lack the written consent of the father and mother to
give religious instruction to their child. However, the law, while requiring
parental consent, does not specify that this consent must be in writing. In
this way, the judges, by expanding upon the existing law, arrogate to
themselves legislative power. It even happens that parents deny having given
the written declaration, claiming that their child forged their signature,
resulting in the conviction of an innocent priest.
Furthermore, the administration of some schools does everything possible
to obstruct the freedom of religious instruction, contrary to the law. They
resort to threats in their agitation against religious education. They require
students to go straight from school to home and do not allow them to go
directly to the parish church next to the school, thus saving them time and
effort. Those who go from school to the parish church are reprimanded. It also
often happens that during religious instruction, the school administration
organizes various activities to keep students from attending the class. Such
conduct is in clear contradiction with the principle of religious freedom and
violates legal provisions.
VI.
Article 4 of the Law recognizes the right of religious
communities to found and direct seminaries. The State only controls the work of
these schools, in accordance with Article 18 of the Law. It is therefore
unjustifiable to require seminaries to adapt the education of seminarians to
the system and curriculum of state schools and boarding schools. The vocation
of those educated in seminaries is completely different from that of students
in state schools. Seminaries have their own specific character; that is, they
prepare candidates for religious service, and consequently, their education
must be imbued with the ascetic principles of the Church.
For the Church to be able to exercise the right that
the Law, moreover, recognizes, it must possess the necessary buildings, that
is, seminaries. Without seminaries, it is pointless to speak of the Church's
right to found schools for the formation of priests. Consequently, it is
essential that all seminaries be returned to the Church, along with the sports
fields, orchards, and farms that, while the Church possessed them, served for
the formation of new priests and nuns. The Church cannot and will not renounce
the seminaries, as this would mean their disappearance. Therefore, the return
of the seminaries constitutes one of the fundamental conditions for the
normalization of relations between Church and State.
At the same time, Article 22 of the law concerning the
legal status of religious communities should be amended. This article provides
for the closure of a seminary by court order following a punishable act, namely
the abuse of religious instruction.
To prevent such potential abuses, other highly
effective measures are available without resorting to such an exceptional
measure, which is susceptible to arbitrary interpretations. Furthermore, it is
unjust for the entire community to bear the consequences of the potential
transgression by one or another member of the educational institution. Nor are
state schools closed if one of the teachers or students commits a crime.
VII
For the same reasons, the convents and monasteries
that were confiscated and used as personal residences should be returned to the
religious orders and congregations, both male and female. Their existence is
inconceivable without these buildings. Since religious orders and communities
are permitted to exist according to the Constitution and the law, their
convents and their respective grounds should therefore be returned to them.
The same applies to those annexes of religious schools and hospitals,
expropriated or occupied, that served exclusively as living quarters for monks
and nuns. According to housing law, they have the right to the corresponding
dwelling in their own house. It is therefore unnecessary to verify what, in
such buildings, served the specific conventual
purposes and what served as living quarters for the religious, in order to
separate the former and make it available again to the religious communities as
their property.
VIII.
In general, all nationalized or expropriated
properties that previously served religious purposes while the Church had free
use of them, such as parish houses, bishops' and canons' curias,
priests' residences, and catechism rooms, should be returned to the Church as
its property. If they are being used for secular purposes, they should be
vacated and made available to the Church, at least to the extent necessary,
according to objective criteria, also considering their public and
representative nature.
The remaining housing could, by mutual agreement, be
made available to popular committees or housing offices, with the understanding
that their sacred character must also be taken into account in their use, and
that they must be made available to the Church should it need them. IX.
Following the same line of thought, the law on the nationalization of rental
buildings and building land of December 28, 1958, should be defined more
precisely and perhaps supplemented so that seminaries and religious schools
cannot under any circumstances be nationalized and, therefore, are not affected
by Article 28 of said law.
By analogy, Article 74 of the aforementioned law
should also be interpreted so that buildings that formerly served as episcopal
parish houses and other buildings, if essential to the Church, not only can but
must be returned to it. The same provision should also apply to seminary and
convent buildings, since, as stated above, the Church cannot exist or fulfill
its spiritual mission without these buildings and institutions. Therefore, the
Church will never relinquish these buildings and institutions that it owns, but
will continue to insistently claim them until it obtains them. In the interest
of peaceful relations between Church and State, the buildings mentioned in the
aforementioned law must be exempt from any nationalization, in clear terms.
X
Likewise, it is absolutely necessary that all
buildings intended for religious worship (churches and chapels) that previously
served that purpose and are currently, without the Church's consent, being used
for secular purposes be returned to the Church as its property. They must be
vacated immediately so that they can serve their original purpose.
XI
Furthermore, the Church must enjoy freedom for the repair, enlargement,
and construction of churches and rectories. Subordinate bodies should, in
granting such permits, proceed freely, especially when it comes to churches
destroyed or damaged during the war. It also does not honor the country if
foreign tourists, passing by these ruined churches 15 years after the war
ended, photograph them.
XII.
Regarding cemeteries, even now, when in most republics
they have been declared communal property by unilateral action and without
consulting the Church, the Church's fundamental and traditional rights over
ecclesiastical-owned cemeteries should be guaranteed. Even in new state
cemeteries, the traditional custom of allocating certain sections to recognized
religious denominations should be respected, and the right of priests to access
cemeteries to officiate at religious burials according to the respective
liturgy should be guaranteed by law. Likewise, priests should be permitted to
use cemetery chapels to celebrate rites on the established dates for remembering
the deceased.
Therefore, the prohibition on building such chapels in
cemeteries yet to be established, as stipulated in Article 3 of the Law on
Cemeteries of the People's Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina of March 20,
1960, should not apply.
XIII.
The Church cannot properly fulfill its mission without
the registers. The confiscated registers should therefore be returned to the
Church as soon as possible, since they constitute its property. The civil
registries had sufficient time to copy the ecclesiastical registers for their
use.
XIV.
The Law on the Legal Status of Religious Communities, in Article 20,
states that those preparing for the priesthood enjoy the same rights as other
students. In accordance with this article, the Episcopate would welcome the
authorities facilitating seminarians' transportation on state transport and
medical care in state hospitals under the same favorable conditions as other
students, since they are mostly sons of poor parents. The Episcopate would also
be pleased if, with regard to military service, seminarians were given the same
status as students in national schools. Furthermore, the Episcopate rightly
expects that seminarians will not be subjected to any pressure during military
service, nor will any attempt be made to divert them from the vocation they
have freely chosen.
XV.
Article 3 of the law recognizes the right of religious
communities to print and distribute religious publications. The recognition of
this right is of fundamental importance for authentic religious freedom. The
press has become a daily necessity for everyone, and the Church could not
successfully fulfill its spiritual mission without this modern medium.
The Episcopate notes with dismay that the state of the
Catholic press in Yugoslavia is beyond disastrous. Whereas in pre-war
Yugoslavia, which was smaller than the current Federal People's Republic of
Yugoslavia, more than 150 newspapers were published, currently only a few
monthly publications are produced. The little Catholic literature that is
published is done in a rudimentary way, using a mimeograph. Even the most
essential religious manuals can only be printed in limited quantities and with
great difficulty.
For the Church to enjoy the right recognized in
Article 3 of the law, it should at least have a printing press. Before the war,
the Church owned several printing presses, but all were nationalized. At least
one of these presses should be returned to the Church, or it should be allowed
to acquire one abroad, so that it can freely print liturgical books, religious
instruction texts, and ascetic books, especially devotional books and hymns for
the use of the faithful. For such a press to operate successfully, the Church
should be allowed to employ its own staff, that is, monks or nuns. Since a
single press cannot handle all orders, state printing presses should also
accept ecclesiastical commissions under the same conditions as any other
literary material. It should not be tolerated that certain workers' councils
refuse to print religious books when the Church, according to the law, has the
right to do so.
XVI.
The Episcopate notes
with satisfaction that currently no bishop is imprisoned and that the number of
detained priests is small, as well as that legal proceedings against priests are
not as frequent as before.
However, in certain regions, judges of the misdemeanor court often summon and
punish priests—at a much higher rate than members of other professions—and
almost always for acts of a purely religious nature: sermons, catechesis, and
the confession of the faithful.
There is a justified fear that the judges of the misdemeanor court are
misapplying the law and issuing unfounded sentences. Some of these judges act
as if they follow the unwritten rule that a priest is guilty whenever he is
accused, and thus, even if the priest provides much favorable testimony, it is
rejected a priori, and only the testimony of one or another prosecution
witness, often highly suspect, is given credence. Sometimes it can happen that
unwitting individuals deliberately induce priests to bless their marriage
without the prior civil marriage certificate, claiming to have "forgotten
the certificate at home and not be able to wait, as the wedding party is
gathered and the reception awaits them at home, so they cannot postpone the
ceremony."
Such cases could not occur if the law held the individuals responsible
first, and then the priest responsible for having performed the marriage before
the civil ceremony, or for having brought the child to baptism before registering
the birth in the Civil Registry. It is obvious that in certain cases, the judge
of the misdemeanor court who sentences priests to prison for atonement waits
until major religious holidays such as Christmas and Easter, and then issues
the summons for the fulfillment of the sentence, so that parishioners are left
without a priest during these important holidays. Such a procedure provokes
understandable discontent and indignation among the faithful, who feel that
they themselves are being harmed. condemned by being
deprived of the usual divine service on such holidays.
XVII.
In particular, all pressure from state or local
authorities regarding so-called "professional associations of
priests" should be eliminated. Priestly discipline falls under the exclusive
jurisdiction of the Church, and the matter of priests as citizens is a question
of their personal and free conviction.
XV.
According to the constitution of the Catholic Church,
its supreme head is the Holy Father as successor of the Prince of the Apostles,
Saint Peter. Religious freedom implies that Catholics can communicate freely
with their supreme head on spiritual and religious matters. This applies
particularly to bishops, who are personally responsible to the Pope for the
administration of their dioceses.
It is absolutely necessary to facilitate bishops'
freedom to communicate with the Holy Father, not only in writing, but also by
visiting him personally, especially every five years, since, according to the
norms of canon law, they are obliged to go to Rome in person and make what is
called a "visitatio ad limina."
To this end, passports should be issued to all bishops without exception each
time they are required by official duty to visit the Holy Father in Rome. We
have faithfully observed that in recent times almost all bishops have obtained
passports for their "ad limina" visit.
It would also be desirable for priests and the
faithful to be able to obtain passports without difficulty to attend major
pilgrimages to holy sites such as Jerusalem, Rome, Lourdes, etc., and to attend
major religious events such as international Eucharistic congresses. All these
measures would generally be welcomed.”
The bishops, after pointing out in 18 points “certain
inaccuracies” on the part of state bodies in the application of legal
provisions relating to religious freedom as the main impediment to the
normalization of relations between Church and State, conclude their memorial by
requesting that these inaccuracies “be eliminated as soon as possible.”
This document was issued in Zagreb on September 2,
1960, and endorsed by all the bishops.
That statement prompted one-sided and biased
interpretations that present the problem in such a way that the Church appears
to lack goodwill. For the past 15 years, characterized by the constant
persecution of the Catholic Church, the communist government maintained that
the Church did not want to normalize its relations with the State for
manifestly political reasons. Only now, realizing that its supposed political
intrigues have been fruitless, does it want to reach an understanding, which,
in effect, would mean capitulation to the communist regime and resignation to
the Yugoslav State, which favors Orthodox Serbia.
This propaganda maneuver fits within communist policy,
which never ceased to accuse the Catholic Church as a dark and reactionary
force in the service of anti-popular interests and enemy and imperialist
powers. Charges in this regard were leveled not only against several bishops,
but also against the Holy See. The same arguments were used to justify the
break in relations with the Vatican in 1953.
The purpose of the Yugoslav communist leaders was to
present themselves to Serbs and Orthodox Christians as unconditional defenders
of the national unity of Yugoslavia, a heterogeneous state from a religious,
cultural, and national perspective, in which cultural, national, and political
divisions coincided with religious ones. The Orthodox Serbs, a dominant
element, albeit a minority, were staunch supporters of the Yugoslav community,
since they saw Serbia expanded within the Yugoslav state.
The Croats, on the other hand, mostly Catholic,
simultaneously opposed the totalitarian communist regime and sought to liberate
themselves from Serbian domination and re-establish their own state, which had
existed for over a millennium until 1918, when Croatia was illegally incorporated
into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. This kingdom was later renamed
the Yugoslav Kingdom (South Slavs) in 1929 by decree of the dictatorial king,
and in 1945 by the communists, the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia.
In both monarchical and communist Yugoslavia, a
fundamental disagreement persisted between the respective governments—dominated
by the Serbian element—and Croatian public opinion. For the rulers, anything
that invigorated Croatian national consciousness was subversive, while for the
Croats, anything that favored the policies of the governments, which were
always anti-Croatian, anti-Catholic, and anti-democratic, was seen as negative.
Undoubtedly, the situation of the Catholic Church,
which in Yugoslavia finds its main support in the Croatian regions, is becoming
very delicate. On the one hand, the Church, faithful to its traditional
doctrine, does not interfere in political struggles, nor does it create or
destroy states. On the other hand, in states where religious and national
discrimination is practiced and civil liberties are repressed, solidarity
movements arise among the persecuted, which indirectly increases the Church's
potential for resistance.
Even so, the Catholic Church, dedicated to its
spiritual mission, strives even with the communist regime to find favorable
conditions for fulfilling its high calling. Therefore, those journalistic
commentaries emphasizing that it was only after the death of Cardinal Stepinac, the illustrious defender of freedom and of John
XXIII's policy of reconciliation, that it was possible to pave the way for
negotiations, are not true.
Only the Herald Tribune correspondent, Barret McGurn—as far as we
know—correctly addressed this issue in his dispatch from Rome, dated November
17, highlighting that Tito refused to release the head of the Catholic Church
in Yugoslavia and that the Vatican could not engage in negotiations while Stepinac remained imprisoned. It was not the Vatican nor
the Metropolitan Archbishop of Croatia who were creating obstacles, but rather
Tito's communist government, which, during the period between 1945 and 1948,
while feeling fully supported by Moscow, not only openly persecuted the
Catholic Church but was obstinate in separating it from Rome or destroying it completely.
Later, when Tito's survival depended on Western aid
and his henchmen were forced to appease public opinion, the communist
government, while it suited them, could not withdraw from its policy of
persecution against Catholics without seriously risking the animosity of the
Serbs, who shared the communists' policy of persecuting Croats and Catholics,
considered inflexible enemies not only of communism but also of the state that
perpetuated Serbian hegemony. Cardinal Stepinac
became the symbol of resistance to this communist and Serbian policy of
persecution.
Cardinal Stepinac, a courageous defender of
the Church's rights and loyal to his Croatian homeland, was a prudent prelate
and a faithful interpreter of the Holy See's intentions and doctrine. As a patriot,
he sympathized with his people's struggle for freedom and independence, but as
the responsible head of the Church in his country, he did not hesitate, in
accordance with Church practice, to recognize the established communist
government.
On June 4, 1945, he even met with the dictator Tito in an attempt to
find a modus vivendi with the communist authorities. Upon realizing that the
communist government conceived of such cooperation in a way unacceptable to the
Church (they proposed, among other things, establishing a national Catholic
Church without recognizing the Pope's supreme authority), Catholics prepared to
resist. In this silent struggle,
Croatia gave a great number of martyrs. Since Stepinac
was considered unconditionally loyal to the Holy See, a monstrous trial was
orchestrated 16 months after the war ended, accusing him of alleged war crimes.
The Holy See understood and supported the heroic stance of Stepinac
and his parishioners.
To worthily reward his eminent merits, as well as to demonstrate great
benevolence to his entire nation (these are the words of Pius XIII spoken in
the secret Consistory of January 12, 1953), the imprisoned Archbishop was
elevated to the dignity of cardinalate. As a result
of this exceptional gesture,
Tito broke off diplomatic relations with the Vatican, revealing that
there was a fundamental conflict between the communist government of Yugoslavia
and the universal Catholic Church, and not merely between a few prelates and
the regime. The Yugoslav communist leaders, that is,
their anti-Catholic and anti-Croatian policies, are solely responsible for this
state of affairs.
Cardinal Stepinac, even during the Trial, had
repeatedly declared: "Let no one think that I want war; let the current
authorities enter into conversation with the Holy See. The Church does not
favor dictatorship, but it is not opposed to an honest understanding with
whomever... If there is goodwill, an understanding can be reached, and the
initiative belongs to the current authorities..."
Although Tito declared on December 16, 1952, "The
Vatican pursues an imperialist policy. The policies of the Vatican and Italy
are mutually reinforcing. The Italian government contributes to Vatican
domination by spreading reaction throughout the world, while the Vatican
supports Italy's imperialist aspirations against Yugoslavia," and the
following day announced the break with the Vatican, six bishops visited the
Yugoslav dictator a few days later, on January 8, 1953.
According to the official statement, he received them
to "discuss with them the government's desire to settle relations between
the State and the Catholic Church in accordance with the Constitution and to
discuss various issues related to the severing of diplomatic relations between
Yugoslavia and the Vatican." There was also another meeting on April 23,
1953. All was in vain, as the communists did not desire an understanding, but
rather capitulation. The most contentious point was the bishops' demand that
negotiations take place between the Vatican and Belgrade, while the communists
pressured for direct talks with the episcopate and resorted to extorting
priests' unions to force them to dismiss their bishops.
The Yugoslav communist government pretended to be
unaware of the minimum conditions the Catholic hierarchy required for a modus
vivendi. However, these conditions were communicated to the Yugoslav government
in Vatican Secretariat of State note No. 9414/52, which the Yugoslav government
refused to receive on December 15, 1952. The note summarized the charges and
positions put forward by the Holy See. Chapter V of that important document
specifies "the rights that the Holy See cannot renounce and whose
ignorance would render any eventual talks with the Yugoslav government
fruitless."
The Yugoslav government was therefore aware of the Vatican's conditions,
but refused to negotiate with the Holy See, hoping to gain advantages by
dealing directly with the episcopate, which was subject to all kinds of
pressure, and there had been no shortage of it. Bishop Carevic
was secretly murdered, and his body was found in a well.
Bishop Simrak, a distinguished historian, died
in prison as a result of torture and lack of medical attention. Bishops Cule and Celik succumbed to
torture and physical assaults. Cardinal Stepinac also
died prematurely in prison. Several bishops were sentenced to prison. Others
were attacked and injured during their pastoral visits. Bishop Vovk was doused with gasoline and set on fire. He narrowly
escaped death.
Archbishop Saric and Bishop Garic died in exile. Currently, numerous prestigious
priests are imprisoned, subjected to the harshest prison regime, tortured, and
humiliated. Those who passed through communist prisons—and
there are several hundred of them—have either died or are now human wrecks.
Despite all this, the bishops did not waver. They
remained loyal to the Holy See. They rejected all suggestions of dealing
directly with the government, bypassing the Vatican. This is also confirmed by
Western correspondents in their recent dispatches. This can also be inferred
from the Episcopate's memorandum, which emphasizes in its first paragraph: 1)
that it was the government that suggested the negotiations, and 2) that the
only competent and worthy body to discuss and conclude an agreement is the Holy
See.
The positions and conditions, summarized in 18 points
of the memorandum, coincide almost entirely with the clarification of the
rights that the Holy See cannot relinquish and whose disregard would render any
eventual negotiations with the Yugoslav government fruitless, as stated in the
note of December 15, 1952.
The conditions of the memorandum are not a draft for a
potential agreement, but rather—as the bishops emphasize—preconditions for
creating a favorable climate that would then facilitate official negotiations
to reach an eventual understanding between the State and the Holy See.
The fact that the memorandum lists the main violations
of the Catholic Church's freedom and demonstrates that these violations
contradict the current Constitution and the Law on Religious Communities has
been intentionally misinterpreted. It is well known that such abuses are
consistent with the practices of communist governments that formally guarantee
freedoms but do not adhere to legal texts.
Therefore, it is a clear misrepresentation of the
meaning of the Episcopate's statements when the communist government, in its
official communiqué, suggests that invoking the Constitution and the laws
implies recognition of the validity of such legislative texts, since in the
same memorandum the bishops request the reform of certain laws. Following such
official reports, the New York Times correspondent, generally quite lenient
with the Yugoslav regime, in his November 17, 1960, note refutes these
assertions: However, it has been emphasized (in ecclesiastical circles –
Editor's note) that this step does not mean the
bishops are backing down. The Bishops' Council is demanding,
it was declared, that the government enforce its own laws, which guarantee
religious freedom. The bishops complained that local authorities had been
violating the Church's rights, guaranteed by the Constitution. The implication
was that Belgrade had done nothing to stop such violations. It is not,
therefore, a matter of recognizing the laws, but of pointing out that the
government itself, which forms an indivisible whole with the local authorities,
does not respect them.
***
What
are the chances of reaching a modus vivendi?
On the occasion of the Archbishop of Belgrade's trip
to Rome, where he was accompanied by four other bishops, the press reported in
mid-November that "despite the existing difficulties," some outcome
could be expected. However, the mere news of the possible appointment of an
Apostolic Delegate to Yugoslavia, who, as is well known, does not hold
diplomatic functions, was dismissed by the spokesman for the Yugoslav communist
government as "unfounded speculation."
While Tito wanted to create a favorable impression on
Western opinion when negotiating substantial loans, both in Washington and in
European capitals, it is obvious that "the existing difficulties" are
serious, which also aligns with our confidential and reliable information.
Apparently, the communist government's primary
objective was to achieve an initial success, that is, to spread the word that
there is a possibility of reaching the first agreement between a communist
government and the Vatican. To demonstrate that
Titoist communism was capable of negotiating with the
Vatican—something the Gomulka government could not—the Yugoslav communist
government communicated its position in writing to Monsignor Ujcic for transmission to the Holy See. This document, we
have learned, was drafted after lengthy discussions in the special ministerial
commission, chaired by Eduardo Kardelj, the regime's
leading ideologue.
We do not yet have access to the text, but based on
confidential information, its content casts doubt on the Yugoslav communist
government's genuine willingness to reach an agreement. It appears that, for
the time being, the government is offering minimal concessions:
1) It would not obstruct religious instruction in
churches, but would not allow it in schools; 2) It would not close the
seminaries that still exist, but neither would it allow the reopening of those
already closed (which are the majority). 3) It offers bishops, canons, and
professors of theology monthly salaries without the bishops having requested
them; 4) The Church would not be burdened with such onerous taxes as the
current ones, which in reality constitute plunder; 5) The government would
refrain from nationalizing ecclesiastical buildings, but refuses to return
those already confiscated, which are many; 6) The government denies having
exerted pressure on priests to participate in trade union-type associations
against the directives of the bishops, and offers social security and financial
assistance, even to priests not affiliated with said associations; 7) The
government would not return the confiscated Catholic printing presses and would
only allow the acquisition of a small printing press with ecclesiastical
resources, which, moreover, could not be installed in either the capital of
Croatia or Slovenia. In general terms, the regime promises to
rigorously observe the laws concerning religious freedom, which contradicts the
objections contained in the seven points cited.
In short, the communist government offers certain
personal advantages, but concedes absolutely nothing on fundamental issues for
the Church, such as the education of youth and the training of new priests.
These are merely promises without any guarantees. As for the economic
advantages offered to the clergy, the communists clearly want to weaken their
ties with the parishioners, who until now have provided for the economic needs
of their priests, and make the clergy economically dependent on the communist
state.
***
Aside from the fact that normal relations between the
Catholic Church and a totalitarian communist regime are impossible, there are
other discouraging precedents in Yugoslavia's past. This nationally and
religiously heterogeneous state is dominated by Orthodox Serbs who, knowing
themselves to be a minority, feel their hegemony threatened, first and
foremost, by Croatian Catholics.
In this respect, the failed attempt by the monarchical
government to conclude a concordat with the Holy See is more than revealing.
With the assassination in Marseille in 1934 of the dictatorial King Alexander I
of the Serbian Karageorgevic dynasty, the pan-Serbian
dictatorship was going through a difficult period due to the staunch opposition
of the Croats. The government, driven by domestic and foreign policy
considerations, deemed it opportune to reach an understanding with the Vatican.
The concordat, signed on July 25, 1935, was only approved by parliament in
1937.
Although parliament was a compliant instrument of the
government, 264 deputies voted in favour and a strong
minority of 128 voted against the concordat. But the final word rested with the
Serbian Church, which openly opposed the principle of religious equality for
Catholics, whose numbers totaled 38%, while Orthodox Christians comprised 42%,
including nearly two million Orthodox Macedonians and Montenegrins, who opposed
the supremacy of the Serbian Church.
The Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church, in a
letter dated October 13, 1935, addressed to the regents, expressed the
following position: "The Serbian Orthodox Church must retain its position
as the State Church, and any other churches must be tolerated by the State, as
in other neighboring Orthodox countries, Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania."
Of course, the representatives of the Serbian Church forgot that Yugoslavia is
not an Orthodox country like Bulgaria and Greece (the Romanian Constitution
guaranteed Catholics equality with the majority Orthodox), since the majority
of the population is comprised of adherents of other faiths.
The Orthodox ecclesiastical hierarchy, like its
Serbian parishioners, conceived then and now of Yugoslavia as an enlarged
Serbia and governed the non-Serbian regions as if they were colonies. When
parliament approved the concordat, the Holy Synod pronounced anathema against
the Serbian deputies who approved it. Consequently, the concordat was never
ratified.
At that time, the prestigious Czech liberal daily
"Narodny Politika"
(August 6, 1937) made the following comment: "This (Serbian) Church
forgets that the concordat with the Catholic Church was concluded in the
interest of the unity of Yugoslavia. The concordat with Rome was a necessity
for the State. If the high hierarchy of the Serbian Church is incapable of
understanding this, then it is evident that it desires neither the unity of
Yugoslavia nor reconciliation with Croatian Catholics."
That the Serbian Church is also favored in communist
Yugoslavia is conclusively confirmed by the report of Tito's lieutenant,
Interior Minister Rankovic, presented in July 1956 to
the Federal People's Assembly: "Relations between the State and the
Orthodox Church, especially the Holy Synod, are cordial. Many Orthodox bishops
maintain close ties with government authorities, and Orthodox priests actively
collaborate with local authorities...
The only religious community with which no agreement
or collaboration has been possible is the Catholic Church: there is no
understanding on the part of the hierarchy or its priests... Through its
propaganda, received without reservation not only by all Catholic newspapers
but also by certain foreign agencies, the Vatican only exacerbates this
situation..."
***
All these precedents more than prove the great
difficulties, disagreements, and opposing viewpoints to which the bishops refer
in their report. It is therefore very difficult to reach a truly positive and
lasting modus vivendi.
If negotiations continue despite all this, we must
attribute it, in part, to the principled stance of the Church, which seeks to
exhaust all means to improve the conditions under which its spiritual mission
is fulfilled, and, in part, to the difficulties of the communist government,
very weak internally and increasingly dependent on direct and indirect aid from
the West. For this reason, the Yugoslav communists are compelled to take into
account public opinion in the free world. The era in which Yugoslav leaders
underestimated the social influence of religion in Croatia and the Western
world is over.
ARCHBISHOP OF SARAJEVO DIES IN EXILE
On July 16, 1960, Archbishop
Juan Evangelista Saric of Sarajevo, Metropolitan of
Bosnia-Herzegovina, died in Madrid at the age of 89, after 14 years of exile.
The deceased prelate was a fervent and meritorious pastor, a prominent national
figure, a man of letters, and a poet.
He was born in Bosnia on
September 27, 1871, during the Ottoman period, seven years before the Congress
of Berlin, which authorized Austria-Hungary to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina,
then under Ottoman rule. He came from an old Bosnian family, from Dolac, near Travnik, the seat of
the viziers. He belonged to the first generation of Bosnian clergy, educated in
the teaching institutions founded and meticulously organized by the newly
established Archdiocese of Sarajevo (1881).
In reality, this represented
a revival of the ancient Diocese of Bosnia, dating back to the 11th century,
the era of the medieval Croatian kingdom and later the Kingdom of Bosnia,
overthrown by the Turks in 1463, who beheaded the last Bosnian king, Stephen Tomasevic. Queen Mother Catherine took refuge in Rome,
bequeathing her kingdom to the Holy See (1478).
During Turkish rule
(1463-1878), there was no ecclesiastical hierarchy in Bosnia. The Turks,
despite the contrary opinion disseminated in the West, practiced a degree of
religious tolerance, always giving preference to Islam. The Franciscans, who
had remained with their flock, obtained a document in 1482 from Muhammad II al-Ahadnama, limiting their privileges, which were granted
only to sovereign persons. Thus, the Franciscan province in Bosnia is still
called the "State of the Franciscan Order."
Even so, the situation of
Catholics in the Ottoman Empire was difficult, since the Pope operated outside
the Empire's borders, unlike the Patriarch of Constantinople, a Turkish subject
and head of the Orthodox Christians. Furthermore, the Popes were the main
promoters of the Crusades against the Turks, and the Croats, kin to their
Bosnian Catholic neighbors, were among the most tenacious fighters in the wars
between Islam and Christendom.
Thus, the Catholics of
Bosnia became a diaspora, and the Muslims, formerly Bosnian Patarians,
became the majority, until the Orthodox, a Balkan element favored by the Turks
to such a degree that they sometimes forced Catholics, deprived of their
clergy, to renounce Catholicism and become schismatics,
settled in Bosnia.
Only during the Austrian
administration (1878-1918) did the situation of the Catholic Church in Bosnia
improve substantially. The Catholic hierarchy was reorganized, composed of the
Archbishop of Sarajevo and the suffragan bishops in Banja Luka and Mostar. The first
Archbishop of Sarajevo, Monsignor Joseph Stadler, a
former professor of philosophy at the Faculty of Theology of the National
University of Zagreb, displayed great organizational activity. He established
new parishes, founded several educational institutions, a minor and a major
seminary run by the Jesuits, and also organized flourishing educational
establishments for women.
His great merit lies in
having educated the local clergy in a short period of time, since he had to
begin with the clergy who had come from other Croatian regions, from Austria,
and even from France (the great Trappist abbey near Banja Luka). His activity in the religious and cultural
spheres was considerable, as was his publishing work. Esteemed in Vienna and a
good Croatian patriot, he exerted considerable influence on public life, so
that Catholicism in Bosnia progressed, which in turn favored Croatian national
thought. Thanks to his tireless activity, as well as the assiduous work of the
Franciscans, the number of Catholics tripled. In 1940, there were more than
700,000 Catholics in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This rapid increase was mainly due
to natural population growth, one of the highest in Europe (20 per thousand
annually).
Monsignor Saric
belonged to the first generation of this Bosnian clergy; At just 25 years old,
he was appointed canon of the Metropolitan Chapter. His literary talents led to
his being entrusted with several publications, and at the age of 37, he was
consecrated as auxiliary bishop. In 1922—by then a Yugoslav subject—he was
appointed Archbishop of Sarajevo, succeeding Archbishop Stadler.
He fulfilled his new role as a good shepherd,
a faithful son of the Holy See, a selfless and very active prelate. He
increased the number of parishes, built new churches, strengthened Catholic
schools, engaged in extensive publishing activity, promoted Catholic Action
associations, and made Sarajevo an important center of Catholic life in
Croatia.
In other Croatian regions, he became popular thanks to
his literary and patriotic work. He published a series of poetry books and
translated many books into Croatian, including the Holy Scriptures.
His patriotic work can only be fully appreciated by
considering the turbulent situation in Bosnia, where the first shots of the
First World War were fired, following the assassination of the heir to the
Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in 1914. Present-day Bosnia
is a relatively new geographical entity, as for almost a millennium, most of
Bosnia constituted the central part of the Kingdom of Croatia.
The territory of Bosnia, properly speaking, was first
part of the Kingdom of Croatia, then the Hungarian-Croatian vassal kingdom
until the Ottoman conquest, which extended its borders to the Adriatic Sea. As
mentioned, Orthodox groups appeared in Bosnia during the Ottoman Empire, and
they currently constitute the largest minority, at 40%. Although these Orthodox
Christians constitute a minority and Bosnia is an integral part of Croatia from
a geographical, historical, ethnic, and economic perspective, Serbia had
stirred up considerable agitation in the wake of the Congress of Berlin,
seeking to convince European opinion that it had suffered a great injustice by
not having Bosnia annexed to it. This issue gave rise to violent antagonism
between Serbs and Croats, who until then had tolerated and helped each other.
The Orthodox ecclesiastical leaders, staunch opponents
of Austrian policy in Bosnia, identifying the Church with nationality, and
aided by Serbia and Russia, waged intense propaganda with the aim of converting
the entire Orthodox population to Christianity. In contrast, the Catholic
clergy sided with the Croatian patriots and maintained a loyal attitude toward
the authorities, although they disagreed with the absurd Austro-Hungarian
condominium policy in Bosnia, which was detrimental to Croatian national
interests.
With the formation of the heterogeneous Yugoslav
state, dominated by Serbia, difficult times arrived for both Catholics and
Muslims in Bosnia. The Serbian national church was favored and privileged as
the state church, while Croats—Muslims and Catholics alike—suffered
persecution, accused of being Austrian sympathizers. This accusation was later
leveled against them in 1945, with the reunification of Yugoslavia, by
communist Serbs, who added that they were collaborators because they defended
Croatian independence.
In such circumstances, it was always difficult to distinguish between
the national and religious struggles. The late Archbishop Šarić,
a consistent and courageous defender of the Church's rights, was respected by
all Croats as a great patriot and denounced by Serbs for his alleged subversive
activities. This marked the beginning of the harsh trials that awaited the
Church in Bosnia. During World War II, the Serbs unleashed a violent repression
against the Croats, especially in the mixed-race areas, and the communists did
the same against the Catholics and Muslims of Bosnia.
The program of the Serbian nationalist resistance was the restoration of
Yugoslavia to its role as Greater Serbia. To achieve this, it was necessary to
exterminate the Catholic and Muslim Croats in the mixed-race areas and thus
ensure a Serbian majority in Bosnia. The genocidal program was in its initial
phase of implementation, reaching such proportions that even the British
government had to lodge its strongest protest, despite its interest in the
guerrilla warfare. During the war itself, numerous Catholic priests were
murdered and several churches burned by Serbian Chetniks.
The tragedy reached its peak with the communist
seizure of power, supported by Serbian nationalism. The reprisals were carried
out, in truth, under anti-fascist slogans, but no less horrendous for it. The
situation became so critical that the good shepherd Saric
could no longer remain with his flock, as not only imprisonment but also
torture and terrible humiliations, which would ultimately lead to his death,
hung over his life. He was thus forced to seek refuge in the Austrian zone
occupied by the British and later in Spain, where he lived modestly, withdrawn
from all public life, and dedicated to writing religious books.
Bishop Garic, O.F.M., Bishop
of Banja Luka, also had to leave his diocese and go
into exile in Austria, where he died. The only bishop remaining in Bosnia and
Herzegovina was Bishop Cule, of the Diocese of Mostar. The communists arrested and tortured him
repeatedly. In a staged traffic incident, he broke both legs. Bishop Celik, the new bishop of Banja
Luka, although in excellent health, was persecuted and repeatedly tortured.
Catholic schools were closed and convents and religious institutes were
dissolved.
The press and Catholic societies were banned. In the
Archdiocese of Sarajevo in 1956, there were 50,000 fewer Catholics than before
the war, and that diocese, as we have noted, experienced extraordinary
population growth. Reverend Dragun, in his book *Le
Dossier du Cardinal Stepinac* (Paris, 1959, p. 71),
published data from which it can be inferred that the communists killed at
least 10,000 Catholics in that diocese. In the Diocese of Banja
Luka, the situation of Catholics is even more precarious. The number of
Catholics dropped from 140,000 to just 40,000.
The death of Archbishop Saric,
a prominent representative of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which occurred in
exile, far from his flock and his beloved homeland, symbolizes the sufferings
of the Church in Croatia and especially in Bosnia, where Croats, both Catholic
and Muslim, are persecuted not only for religious reasons, but also for
political ones, since the communist rulers tend to transform this strategic and
rich province into a region with a Serbian national character and a Balkan
cultural identity. The last words of the elderly Archbishop, spoken on his
deathbed, take on particular significance: "I offer all my sufferings to
the Lord for my beloved Croatia."
THE DIFFICULT SITUATION OF MUSLIMS IN BOSNIA AND
HERZEGOVINA
Following the penetration of the Ottoman Empire,
strong centers of Muslim population remained in the Balkan countries. In the
nation-states of Eastern Christians, formed during the last century, these
minorities were partly exterminated and partly expelled. Only in the
possessions that Turkey lost in our century (Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Metohija) were pockets of the Islamic faith preserved,
albeit in a precarious situation, with the exception of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
occupied by Austria-Hungary
in 1818 by resolution of the Congress of Berlin and
later annexed in 1908. In these provinces, Muslims constitute almost a third of
the total population. Among these Muslims, there are hardly any ancestors of
the former Turkish conquerors, since they belong to the Croat ethnic group and
speak the Croatian language. Having been the ruling political class during the
Turkish conquest and having enjoyed special privileges under the Ottoman
Empire, it was very difficult for them to adapt to the new situation, and mass
immigration to Turkey ensued, which continues to this day. Currently, the
largest group of emigrants are Muslims from Macedonia.
Their misgivings and opposition to the Austrian occupation gradually
diminished, thanks to the unquestionable administration of the commanding
country and the psychological impact produced by the Balkan Wars (1912-13), so
that the Muslims of Bosnia in the First World War were considered the chosen
troops of the army of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was then allied with
Turkey.
With the Danubian monarchy
disintegrated and Yugoslavia established under Serbian control, these
communities faced far greater difficulties. As is well known, the medieval
Serbian state was absorbed by the Ottoman Empire, and the Serbs were stripped
of all social and political rights. As Ottoman power declined, the emancipatory
struggle of the Balkan Christians, who constituted an overwhelming majority,
intensified.
In Serbia, this struggle was waged under the banner of
a vengeful myth against the Turkish conquerors. The new Serbian state equated
religion with nationality and, therefore, religious minorities were barely
tolerated. Muslims, considered "hereditary enemies," were
exterminated or expelled.
Servia integrated into Yugoslavia without shedding this mentality. There were
prominent Serbian politicians who seriously considered exterminating and
expelling all Muslims from Yugoslav territory. Tragic consequences of such
sinister plans were the massacres of Muslims perpetrated by the forces of the
Serbian nationalist general Draza Mihailovic
during the last world war.
Even so, in the period between 1918 and 1929, under a
pseudo-democratic regime and before the establishment of the real Pan-Serbian
dictatorship, Muslims had managed to organize themselves politically, standing
together in solidarity against the common danger. They won certain rights, but
were economically ruined by an unjust land reform, while their religious
institutions endured intense pressure and rigid control from the government,
dominated by the Serbian group.
During the last war, the Muslims of Bosnia and
Herzegovina fought alongside their Catholic brethren for the Croatian
nation-state. Given that they lived intermingled with Serbian Orthodox
Christians, their situation, after the war, worsened to such an extent that
there were attempts to exterminate them outright. In the final phase of the
war, the communists, for proselytizing reasons, offered some protection to the
Muslim population against the massacres perpetrated by Serbian nationalists.
Furthermore, Bosnia and Herzegovina were established
as "people's republics" within Yugoslavia. While the other
"people's republics" were formed according to national criteria,
Bosnia and Herzegovina were an exception, as there is no Bosniak
nationality. These provinces are home to an ethnic Croat majority with a
sizable Serbian minority, and it would have been logical to include them in the
"People's Republic of Croatia," granting them a status of autonomy
similar to that of Vojvodina, which was incorporated
into Serbia.
The communists argued that this division, detrimental
to Croatia's national interests, was a measure aimed at better protecting the
interests of Muslims within a "republic," where they comprise a third
of the population, than if they had been annexed to Croatia, where they would
constitute only 15% of the population. This was, in fact, a maneuver favoring
the Serbian minority in Bosnia, which holds all the important positions in
local political and economic institutions, with the unconditional support of
the central government in Belgrade. The artificial division of Bosniaks into Serbs, Croats, and "Muslims"—who
are and can only be one religious group—served solely to ensure the dominance
of the Serbian minority over the artificially separated Catholic and Muslim
Croats.
Given the reality, all the communist promises that the
situation of Muslims would improve in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
have proven illusory. With all power held by the Serbian minority, Muslims are
persecuted and subjected to all kinds of pressure due to the traditional hatred
of the Serbs. Their situation would be much more favorable if they were
incorporated, enjoying broad autonomy, into the Republic of Croatia, where
Catholics feel national solidarity with Muslims, so religious differences don't
matter. Furthermore, Croats share the pluralistic ideas of the West, and
therefore religious differences do not hinder national and political
integration.
While the influence of Croats in the "People's
Republic of Croatia" is very limited, since in a communist dictatorship
power is held by the central government and the communist party with a
centralist structure—in both instances Serbian predominance is evident—the situation
of the Muslim religious community is even more difficult, if possible, than
that of the Catholic Church.
The repressions were so violent that, fearing
reprisals, a large portion of the Muslim population declared themselves
"nationally undefined" in the 1948 census, since the communist
government equated their Croatian identity with "Nazi collaboration."
This declaration even implied a high degree of civic awareness, as the few
Muslims who declared themselves Serbs were favored and valued.
As soon as they came to power, the communists
eliminated prominent members of the Islamic religious community, especially
those known for their Croatian ideals and religious activity. At the same time,
the political organization of Muslims was suppressed, and its representatives
fled abroad, were murdered, or forced into complete inactivity.
Then, leaders compliant with the regime were imposed
on the Islamic religious community. This was possible because, even in
monarchical Yugoslavia, this community operated under state control and enjoyed
very limited autonomy, by virtue of laws enacted by the state. Muslim religious
officials do not hold the same position as Catholic clergy within their
communities. The leadership of these communities is usually shared by ordinary
members of the faithful, which, under exceptional circumstances, makes it
easier for the state to impose its candidates.
This is why the role of true and authentic Muslim
religious leaders becomes more difficult. In the early years, moral or material
support from the Islamic world could not be expected, something that is now
possible, given that Tito seeks to maintain good relations with many Islamic
countries and win them over to his policy of "active and positive
coexistence," so that he can present himself, both domestically and
internationally, as an important player in international politics.
Even so, the communists imprisoned the president of the Council of the
Islamic Religious Community for Montenegro, Husein ef. Redzepasic, a 75-year-old
man. He was arrested on September 27, 1960, and accused of having slandered
state and party authorities in a report addressed to the Pakistani ambassador.
He was also accused of having delivered "an incendiary speech against the
leaders and the authorities," despite having merely recommended that the
new imams be on guard against the materialist doctrine of communism, contrary
to the teachings of the Quran (Bosanski Pogledi, London, October 1960).
It is also worth recalling the reprisals the
communists took against the "Young Muslims" organization, founded
before the war as an expression of solidarity with the pan-Islamic movement. In
certain districts, it enjoyed the full support of the Muslims. According to the
Bosanski Pogledi—a
well-informed Muslim publication—the communists quickly dissolved the
organization; its founders were killed, forced into inactivity, or disappeared.
However, it was already known in 1946 that the organization was still operating
clandestinely.
In 1947, it restructured itself into cells of three,
and in 1948, its organization crossed the borders of Bosnia and published
underground materials. Although its activity was primarily religious in nature,
the communists portrayed it as instigating religious hatred and systematically
persecuted its members. In 1947, several trials were held, and by 1949, the
persecution intensified to such an extent that the main organizers were
arrested, sentenced to death, or imprisoned. One of the main charges was that
they were attempting to establish contact with Islamic religious communities
outside of Yugoslavia.
Religious education for young people faced insurmountable obstacles. Of
200,000 Muslim schoolchildren, only 1,900 attended religious instruction, in
mosques. The data presented by Ulema Medzilis to the Congress of the Islamic Religious Community
in 1960 is highly significant in this regard. The third chapter of his report
states that religious instruction was prohibited in 10 districts, and in 14
localities, it could only be given in mosques, for one hour every three months.
Textbooks were lacking, and the official commission had not yet approved
the proposed text. In some cities, religious instruction is temporarily
prohibited, under the pretext that mosques lack heating and school supplies,
but requests to provide religious instruction in other buildings belonging to
the religious community were rejected. Chapter IV of the aforementioned report
states: "In the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are still 239
closed mosques (and 102 schools), of which 112 are beyond the control of
religious institutions, as these mosques are being used as warehouses, cinemas,
or gymnasiums."
A tremendous blow was dealt to the Islamic religious
community with the law nationalizing all habitable buildings owned by the
Muslim religious foundation (Vakuf). The income from
these houses, donated for centuries by Muslim faithful for religious purposes,
maintained mosques and educational institutions. The Islamic religious
community was left without material resources, and the administration of the
foundations was dissolved.
The Ulema Medzilis, who inspected and controlled the religious and
cultural life of the community, were also suppressed. Great indignation was
provoked among both Muslims and Croat Catholics by the nationalization of the Gazi Husrevbeg Institute in
Sarajevo, which had already been requisitioned in 1945 for the establishment of
the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. This historic "medresa"
was the only Islamic secondary school in Yugoslavia. A group of 70
distinguished Muslims from Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, sent a letter to
the Yugoslav dictator Tito requesting the return of the building. They were
told to address their concerns to the supreme religious leader, Reis el Ulema. The action failed, and its initiators experienced
the repressive measures of the political police.
In connection with this initiative, Bosanski Pogledi (London, October
1960) published a very interesting document, smuggled out of the country by an
employee of the Religious Commission to the central government in Belgrade. It
was a confidential report on the intimidation of the initiators of the
aforementioned note, which had a wide-ranging impact, thus making public
reprisals inappropriate. The report on the situation of the Islamic religious
community, delivered to an Afghan delegation, was considered a particularly
negative development, as was the attempt to establish contact with Muslims in
Egypt.
A group of Muslim intellectuals exiled from Bosnia is about to deliver
some 20 documents, accompanied by explanatory memoranda, to the United Nations,
the governments of Islamic countries, and major Islamic organizations. Among
other allegations, they claim that the president of the Religious Commission
for Bosnia-Herzegovina is a former officer of the sinister and feared political
police, who must approve every appointment of a hodza
(Muslim priest).
He controls the pilgrims to Mecca, and last year, out of 174 candidates,
he only granted permission to 35. Given that the Yugoslav communists strive to
exert their influence in the Islamic countries of Asia and Africa by granting
them loans, sending technicians, and giving lavish gifts (with money provided
by Western governments), this action by exiled Muslims could alleviate the
situation of their coreligionists in Yugoslavia and, at the same time, shed
real light on the Yugoslav communist leaders, who pretend to be champions of
the freedom of Islamic peoples against Western powers.