STUDIA CROATICA
Year II, Buenos
Aires, 1961, No. 5
CASTRO AND TITO
- SOWERS OF NEUTRALIST DISEASE 2
MEMORIES OF MEN
AND POLITICAL EVENTS 7
THE YUGOSLAVIC
FEDERAL SYSTEM 21
IVO ANDRIC,
CROATIAN WRITER, NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE 27
NATIONAL INCOME
IN POST-WAR CROATIA 34
VALUES IN THE
ART OF IVAN MESTROVIC 41
DOCUMENTS 44
POLITICS OF
NATIONAL OPPRESSION IN COMMUNIST YUGOSLAVIA 44
CHRONICLES AND
COMMENTARIES 52
TITO'S VIOLENT
REACTION TO A COMMEMORATIVE EVENT FOR THE VICTIMS OF HIS REGIME 52
BOOK REVIEW 59
While Castro, a declared protégé of Moscow and
Beijing, acts in this way for obvious reasons, Tito's motives are more complex
and less evident. His unconditional loyalty to Moscow in the field of
international politics, evidenced at the Belgrade Conference, and above all his
acceptance of Soviet and even Stalinist interpretations of the colonial and
national question, can only be truly appreciated if we consider the fact that
imperialist policies of the communist type were practiced not only in the
Soviet Union but also in Yugoslavia, perhaps even more harshly.
Indeed, Serbia in Yugoslavia, like Russia in the
Soviet Union, practices a policy of economic exploitation and national
oppression detrimental to entire populations, who constitute the vast majority
of its inhabitants. In this sense, the policy of tiny Serbia, that is, of the
Yugoslav communist leaders, is a miniature reproduction of the Soviet model.
The Yugoslav communists, like the Bolsheviks before they came to power,
criticized the Russian Empire and the Yugoslav Kingdom, respectively, aptly
calling them "the prison of nations."
However, through the magical power of communist
dialectics, things change color and character as soon as the communists seize
power. Thus, the Yugoslav communists, bitter critics of the pan-Serbian
expansionism of Alexander, the king-dictator, continued with the same policy of
national oppression. Despite the propaganda about the supposed liberation and
self-determination of the peoples of Yugoslavia, behind the façade of communist
federalism, omnipotent centralism reigns in favor of Serbia, under the control
of the communist party, governed autocratically, with clear Serbian supremacy,
even though the multinational character of Yugoslavia is officially recognized.
Therefore, the Yugoslav communist dictator, the main
sponsor of the Belgrade conference, took great care to ensure that the problem of
colonialism and imperialism was not discussed in its entirety, as some
countries had proposed at the Belgrade conference. The organizers of the
Belgrade conference simply did not extend an invitation to any democratic
government that could raise the issue of Soviet imperialism. If, in principle,
it was believed, apparently even in Washington, that the conference of neutral
countries could yield something positive, at least in comparing Western and
Soviet policies regarding the national aspirations of oppressed countries,
those hopes were dashed. Those familiar with the Yugoslav reality could not
harbor such illusions. Speaking of Soviet imperialism in Belgrade is like
talking about rope in the hangman's house.
The Belgrade Conference, therefore, was conceived from
the outset as a deliberation by those newly emancipated Afro-Asian countries
which, due to their defined pro-communist stance or because they were
preoccupied with their local problems, would not bring the problem of the
Central European and Asian peoples, oppressed by the Soviets, to the agenda.
Thus, the conference of the "non-committed" countries took on the
character of a meeting of representatives from some twenty Afro-Asian
countries, held in a European capital that, in fact, gravitated towards the
Soviet and even Eurasian zone.
It so happened that, with the
exception of Cuba, only those countries that traditionally do not belong to the
Western world participated in the Belgrade Conference. For this reason, the
political terms of the West used there did not always have their true and
original meaning. Western political ideas and forms, such as democracy and the
nation-state, if established in Eastern Europe, would provoke the automatic
disintegration of both the Russian Empire and its Serbian successor.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Tito and
Castro both confined their anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist pronouncements
exclusively to countries outside the Soviet sphere of influence. Setting aside
the causes of the conflict between Moscow and Belgrade, deep affinities and a
close community of interests existed between the Soviet and Yugoslav communist
leaders, a situation that could not be altered by the billions of dollars given
to Tito by the United States. This explains why Castro's representative, a
protégé of Moscow and Beijing, and Tito, repudiated by the Soviet and Chinese
communists as a revisionist, found themselves on the same page.
In the plans of Moscow and Beijing, Castroism and Titoism play the
same role in propagating pro-Soviet neutrality. While Khrushchev and Mao Zedong
forbade their satellites from contacting Yugoslav dissidents, they approved
Cuba's participation in the Belgrade Conference, sponsored and financed by
Tito. Consequently, Khrushchev's attitude toward this conference was neither
vague nor contradictory, as some Western commentators, disoriented in the
tactical and dialectical communist labyrinth, have described it.
Khrushchev did everything possible to prevent genuine
neutral viewpoints from crystallizing in Belgrade, resorting to both brutal and
subtle means, as was his custom—namely, resuming atomic bomb tests on the eve
of the conference and officially welcoming it. Khrushchev, like Mao Zedong,
does not believe in genuine neutrality, considering it a disguised form of
pro-Western policy. They tolerate and promote only neutrality that—as
noted—implies an anti-Western position.
The Belgrade Conference, despite the fact that it
escaped the control of the Yugoslav dictator, demonstrated that Tito's intense
prior diplomatic activity, in his frequent trips to the newly formed Afro-Asian
countries, actually aligned with the intentions of Moscow and Beijing.
Furthermore, the exorbitant expenses that Tito's government invested in
organizing the conference are not reasonably proportional to the supposed
advantages of increased trade.
Cuba's participation and its unreserved support for
its claims regarding the Guantanamo base demonstrate the purposes that concern
the peoples of the Americas. Everything indicates that Tito, an experienced
proponent of neutralism, is acting as Castro's mentor, instructing him on the
most appropriate methods for promoting pro-Soviet neutrality in Latin America.
The activities of Tito and Castro must complement each
other. It has been speculated that Tito's frankly pro-Soviet stance surprised
and irritated the American ambassador in Belgrade, George Kennan. It is
difficult to imagine that Tito managed to deceive one of the most astute
observers of communism. What is certain is that, after the conference,
Washington announced a review of its economic, military, and moral support
provided to the Yugoslav communist dictatorship. First, the delivery of 500,000
tons of surplus American wheat was postponed.
Alarmed by this reversal, Tito rushed to Cairo to meet
with Nehru, who was returning from Washington. It is known that Nehru adopted a
cautious and reserved demeanor. He made it quite clear that he had not
anticipated this meeting with Tito. Once in Belgrade, he hampered Tito's
maneuvers and hastened to demonstrate this with his official visit to
Washington. India's neutral stance should not be confused with neutrality,
bargaining, or political extortion. The impromptu conference in Cairo even
annoyed Nasser, whose downfall in Syria he largely owes to the advice of his
friend Tito, the inspiration behind certain socialist economic measures and an
intemperate centralism.
The review of Western policy toward the Yugoslav
proponent of neutralism, pro-Soviet by definition, does not mean that the current
of thought that, from the outset, was morally opposed to the unconditional
support given to the Yugoslav communist dictatorship will suddenly prevail in
Washington. Nevertheless, this policy must be modified, primarily due to the
Cuban situation. While the roles of Yugoslavia and Cuba differ considerably
within the framework of Western global strategy, it is unacceptable to practice
and promote diplomatic and economic isolation of Castro's Cuba while invoking
democratic principles and Western values, and simultaneously providing material
and, regrettably, moral support to the ruthless Yugoslav communist
dictatorship.
According to the assessments of an expert, Dr. Drago Zalar, recently published
by a Senate committee in Washington, the United States, after 1950, gave
Yugoslavia the enormous sum of 2.5 billion dollars (Le Monde, Paris, November
15, 1961), that is, enough funds to solve many of the problems of South
American nations. A portion of those funds, more than 200 million dollars, had
been given by Tito to the neutralist countries of Africa. As long as this
continues, the fight against Castroism is stripped of
its ethical meaning and provides ammunition to those who suggest that it is
merely an undignified game of interests.
Leaving aside the moral aspect of the problem, the aid
given to the Yugoslav communist dictator because he had clashed with Stalin,
cautiously defined as "political, a calculated risk," did not yield
the expected result because it was unconditional aid. Washington set no conditions,
readily accepting the emphatic pronouncements that the Yugoslav communist
leaders, jealous of their national sovereignty and communist principles, would
refuse such aid if it were tied to political concessions. The nature of the
Stalin-Tito conflict was not properly considered, nor was the boundless lust
for power of the Balkan and Eastern politicians taken into account.
Tito and his cronies managed to remain in power thanks
to the absence of a Soviet military occupation. The Soviet army entered Serbia
in 1944 and handed them power, but was later forced to withdraw under pressure
from the Western Allies—that is, under the threat of an eventual Anglo-American
landing on the Croatian coast.
Even so, Stalin's chances of exerting pressure on the
Yugoslav communist government were still considerable, and it is very likely
that Tito would have ended up like Rajk in Hungary, Pauker in Romania, and Petkov in
Bulgaria, had Stalin not feared the collapse of the communist regime, hated by
the oppressed peoples of Yugoslavia. But the regime was consolidated thanks to
the substantial aid provided by the West.
When the policy of unconditional support for one
communist dictator against another was inaugurated, it was believed that a
breach would be opened in the monolithic system of world communism and that the
contagious example of the unpunished dissent of the supposed Yugoslav national
communism would spread to other satellite states.
The Hungarian rebellion and Tito's simultaneous
support for Soviet repression, which culminated in the cowardly surrender of Imre Nagy and provoked the furious indignation of
progressives, did not entirely discourage those who advocated unconditional aid
to the despicable communist dictatorship. It was erroneously argued that there
was only one alternative: unconditional support for "Titoism"
or the triumph of the Yugoslav communist faction loyal to Moscow.
Western foreign ministries imagined Tito as a man of
principle, instead of seeing him as a fortunate leader and adventurer, an autocrat
of the Eastern type, eager above all to cling to power. The "eternal
tyrannies of the East," to use Ortega y Gasset's
expression, imply countless privileges for those who hold them (Tito, lord of
the lives and property of his subjects, lives and travels surrounded by the
luxury of the Arabian Nights), but also great risks. When power is lost,
freedom and life are endangered.
Ignoring these socio-political factors, Western
governments squandered a golden opportunity to link their support for the Yugoslav
ruling group to political concessions and, even worse, became complicit in a
shameful tyranny. Support for an oppressive regime would only be justifiable if
it were the lesser evil, with no other alternative. By proceeding in this way,
democratic governments discouraged resistance to oppressive communism,
especially in Central and Eastern Europe.
It makes no sense to fight the Soviet Union on the one
hand, because it is a system that denies political, individual, and national
freedoms, and on the other hand, to support Yugoslavia, which is essentially
the Soviet Union in miniature. The mistaken distinction between Soviet and
Yugoslav communism has gone so far that anti-communist exiles from Yugoslavia
are excluded from anti-communist organizations sponsored by Western governments
and, in some cases, denied the right to political asylum.
Thus, for example, organizations of peoples subjugated
in communist Yugoslavia are not part of the prestigious "Assembly of
European Captive Nations," as if they were not victims of communist
tyranny just like Hungary, Poland, Romania, and others. In reality, the
situation of Croats, Slovenes, and Macedonians is, in some ways, even more
difficult. They are not even recognized in theory as having the right to
establish their own nation-states. Instead, under the pretext of the
"union and brotherhood of the South Slavs," they are subject to
Serbia, just as the Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Armenian, and so many other peoples,
forcibly incorporated into the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union, are
dependent on Russia. It is pointless to criticize the Soviet Union for
suppressing the national freedoms of so many peoples if the same plight of the
oppressed peoples in Yugoslavia continues to be ignored.
It goes without saying that the peoples held captive in communist Yugoslavia await with some apprehension
the announced revision of US policy toward the Tito regime. Supporters of
unconditional aid to "Titoism" will argue
that Tito is already strong enough (let us not forget, thanks to substantial
American aid) to rule out political concessions aimed at the democratization of
the country, and that conditioning this aid in the current circumstances would
push the Yugoslavs towards the normalization of relations between Moscow and Belgrade
with the respective impossibility of fostering dissent within the communist
bloc.
That assumption is entirely wrong. The normalization
of Soviet-Yugoslav relations would mean the Kremlin taking control of the
Yugoslav communist party and government, giving Khrushchev the power to
eliminate Tito and his group from the Soviet sphere. Consequently, the Yugoslav
communist leaders have no possibility of an agreement with the Kremlin, with or
without American help. And if Moscow were to endanger the Yugoslav regime, the
"Titoists" would have no alternative but to
accept the West's conditions.
This could happen sooner than expected. Yugoslavia,
despite appearances, is a relatively small, impoverished, and politically
complex country. It was able to play the role of one of the "great"
neutralists thanks to American aid, part of which was invested in anti-Western
propaganda campaigns. Despite rapid industrialization and persistent publicity
about socialist methods, unknown even in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia failed to
solve even the basic problem of feeding its population, although between the
two world wars, under an incompetent and corrupt administration, it exported
considerable quantities of food.
Currently, official sources acknowledge that the
country is experiencing a serious economic crisis. The attempt to implement
certain reforms, sponsored by the International Monetary Fund, failed. Two
years ago, Tito boasted blasphemously that from then on, the country's grain
supply would no longer depend on "the grace of heaven," that is,
rain, but this year he was forced to twice request urgent wheat aid from
Washington. Nor is the political situation in Yugoslavia, both externally and
internally, favorable. The exchange of visits between Tito and the monarchs of
Nepal, Abyssinia, and Morocco is of little use, while he has no friends in
Europe or in the countries of his immediate neighborhood.
The communist governments accuse him of selling out to
the enemies of the working class, while West Germany—the main source of foreign
currency for the Yugoslav economy—broke off diplomatic relations with Belgrade
for recognizing the communist government in Pankow.
Relations with neighboring countries, mostly communist—Hungary, Romania,
Bulgaria, and Albania—are far from satisfactory. These countries, at Moscow's
possible initiative, can use ideological arguments against "Titoism," weakening the cohesion of the ruling
communist party. They can also exploit the opposition of the peoples and
minorities suffering under Serbian rule.
The communist states bordering Serbia can foment
opposition from the large Hungarian minority in Vojvodina,
the Macedonians who gravitate toward Bulgaria, or the Albanians of Kosmet, who constitute a third of the Albanian population.
In Yugoslavia's internal politics, aside from the serious national question,
many other rifts are emerging. From the outset of the current regime, there has
been strong opposition from Catholics to atheistic communism and persistent and
successful resistance from peasants to attempts at collectivizing
smallholdings. Recently, conflicts have arisen within the communist ranks
themselves, reflecting national and cultural contrasts.
Communist leaders in Croatia and Slovenia, pressured
by their environment, openly oppose centralism and, in particular, the
investment policy favoring Serbia, which they consider a form of colonial
exploitation. Furthermore, there are signs of a simmering struggle over who
will succeed Tito. This underlying tension takes on special significance, as
the Slovenian Kardelj is primarily favored by
Slovenian and Croatian communists, while the Serbian Rankovic
is supported by his compatriots. These national differences, despite the fact
that communist leaders consider them non-decisive, coincide with differing
interpretations of Marxist principles.
Croatia and Slovenia are countries with a Western
tradition, and therefore, even within their communist ranks, a certain
pro-Western tendency is reflected, while in Serbia, communism is amalgamated in
a unique synthesis with Serbian patriotism and Pan-Slavic traditions. For the
first time, the Western powers have an opportunity to intervene in these
internal struggles among Yugoslav communists, favoring pro-Western tendencies
and opposing "neo-communist" tendencies. Furthermore, the struggle
for Tito's succession and the political orientation, combined with factors of
the political and economic crisis, could pose serious difficulties for the
regime. The Western powers must be better prepared for such an eventuality than
they were for the Hungarian and Polish crises.
Everything indicates,
therefore, that the right measures must be applied to counter "Fidelism" and "Titoism,"
taking into account, of course, the different conditions and geographical
locations of Cuba and Yugoslavia. The impossibility of fostering anti-Soviet
resistance in the governments imposed and controlled by the Russian occupation,
the experience gained from "Titoist"
support for the repression of the Hungarian Revolution and pro-Soviet neutrality,
demonstrates that the right path is not to back one communist dictator against
another, but to support those who fight for democratic and national freedoms.
These speculations
with Tito, aimed at dividing the communists, proved completely fruitless. Only
the successes achieved by freedom fighters in any country under the communist
yoke would contribute to the prestige of the democratic powers and raise the
morale of the oppressed peoples, including the Russian people. Far more
important than all the theoretical subtleties surrounding "Titoism" and the supposed "national
communism," which serve only to foster illusions among communist-leaning
progressives about the possibility of a communism acceptable to the conscience
of the free world and to demoralize the oppressed peoples of Yugoslavia.
The prevailing
situation in Europe, the Caribbean, and throughout Latin America no longer
permits these fundamentally immoral tactics of Titoism,
tactics unworthy of great democracies. Furthermore, it is dangerous to forget
that the repression of "Fidelism" cannot be
justified while simultaneously providing unconditional support for "Titoism." Castro's declaration of his Marxist-Leninist
faith, intended to secure Soviet support with a formal declaration placing him
within the Soviet bloc, thus preventing Khrushchev from sacrificing him for
advantages elsewhere in the world, changes nothing.
Conversely,
Khrushchev is free from the obligation to protect the Yugoslav
"revisionists," so the West must not miss the opportunity to demand
essential political concessions from Tito in exchange for its aid. Otherwise,
it will be condemned to perpetual blackmail by supporting such a odious communist tyranny until
the day the Soviets decide to exert effective pressure in order to impose the
orthodox communist group in Yugoslavia. And with the current communist
government, they will undoubtedly succeed.
"I know the king asked for his resignation and
that Davidovic submitted it. Then, after a few
minutes, the king asked him to withdraw it, granting him broader powers."
"Ljuba might tell the
tale, but it can't be."
"Let Cika Ljuba try with Radic. Perhaps
he's the most pious, given his approachable nature, capable of speaking and
negotiating with Radic."
"No, Mr. Joco, blood
must be spilled!"
"Whose blood,
Mr. Gavrilovic?" I asked him.
"Radic must be killed.
The State is more important than Radic."
"Of course the State is more important than
anyone, but do you know that the entire Croatian people stand behind Radic, or do you intend to shoot my father and brother through
Radic?"
"The State matters more than all the Croats!
Blood, blood must flow so that it's clear who is
stronger, the Croats or the State." “According to such logic, the State
would matter more than the Serbs as well. So, what and who is the State? Only the Belgrade clique?” I looked at the chair, my hands
trembling, I wanted to jump up and grab it, when Dr. Milan Curcin
entered, having tiptoed to the door. He overheard the conversation and
intervened, harshly criticizing Gavrilovic and his
conduct. This scene greatly displeased Jovanovic.
ASSASSINATION OF ESTEBAN RADIC
I was in Split when, on June 20, 1928, in the National
Assembly building in Belgrade, an attempt was made on Radic’s
life.
When the news of the attack arrived, people were
horrified. It was said that the Croatian deputies had been killed, Radic himself seriously wounded, and another person as
well. It was suspected that Radic had also been
murdered and that he was only being reported as seriously wounded to lessen the
immediate impact and allow for a more measured response later. The term
"seriously wounded," however, aroused the most sinister premonitions.
The next day I met Admiral Stankovic's
wife. She approached me and said in French:
"Those Serbs are not only primitive, but born
bandits and treacherous scoundrels."
Then she told me what the garrison commander, General Trnokopic, had replied to her husband when Admiral Stankovic told him it was a disgrace to fire on the
national deputies, and moreover, within the parliament building, as this could
have serious consequences both internally and externally. Instead of replying,
the general asked the admiral:
"Is Stipica dead?"
-No, Esteban Radic no está
muerto - replicó Stankovic - sino, de acuerdo a las
noticias - solo gravemente herido. Los muertos son su sobrino Pablo Radic y Jorge Basaricek.
“Oh, damn it, how badly he shot!” Trnokopic
replied, adding, “The result will be that he’ll have to be shot again, if he
survives.”
That same day I ran into Admiral Stankovic
and asked him if his wife had accurately relayed her conversation with Trnokopic. “Yes,” the admiral replied, “what she told you is entirely accurate, but not everything Trnokopic
told me. Besides what you already know, he expressed that it was necessary to
kill Trnokopic, all prominent Croats, including you.”
Stankovic and I looked at each other as if we were at a loss
for words. Stankovic, pale, said through gritted
teeth, “With such beasts in human skin we sat in the Jadranska
straza magazine, and your foolish Spalatinians
named a stretch of the waterfront ‘Major Stojan’s
Bank.’” I find it hateful and I am ashamed to be considered Serbian for
professing the Orthodox faith.
"Don't go to the other extreme, Admiral..."
"Why not? Last night, in Sibenik, the
Serbian Orthodox bishop Irineo Djordjevic
expressed the same thing to me. All of us who are part of the Serbian minority
in Croatia are naive, and especially the Croats."
"Is that possible?"
"Believe me, as you can see me here now, he said
it to me because he considered me Serbian, and he put it exactly like this:
'Good heavens, Stipica (Radic)
isn't dead! That means we'll have to cover ourselves in shame once again.' And
isn't that the same thing Trnokopic is saying?"
Then Stankovic added with a
sigh:
"Can anything be expected from such a country? In
it, if you'll excuse the expression, people collectively think of
massacres." Although I disliked certain aspects of Radic,
especially his notorious ambiguity in his statements, I now fully realized that
the attack against Radic was, in fact, aimed at the
entire Croatian people. And I concluded that Radic's
supposed inconstancy was nothing more than an evasion of the deadly projectile
that had been prepared for him since he assumed his well-known position in the
National Council, until the moment it struck him in the Belgrade parliament. I
was extremely disturbed and immediately left Split for Zagreb.
There, too, I couldn't find peace, so a few days later
I went to Opatija, where my wife and children were.
AT THE LEGATION OF THE KINGDOM OF SERBIANS, CROATS,
AND SLOVENS IN ROME
In Opatija, after a few
days, my bladder stones began to bother me, as they often did before, and I had
to go to Fiuggia, near Rome, to get treatment, as on
other occasions.
The day after my arrival in Rome, I went to the
Yugoslav legation to visit Ambassador Milan Rakic
and introduce myself. Upon entering the legation offices, I found
two employees sitting at their desks, pretending to write something. I didn't
think it necessary to introduce myself again, since the messenger had announced
me, but simply said, "Good morning," and asked for Ambassador Rakic. Neither moved, and one, without looking up from his
desk, replied:
"He's not here."
"Do you know when he'll be here?"
"I don't know."
"Can you tell me if he's in Rome or away?"
"I don't know." “Well, gentlemen,” I said,
and went out into the courtyard of the Farnese Palace. Halfway across the
courtyard, a rather tall young man caught up with me, called me by my surname,
and asked me to stop. I stopped and looked him in the face.
“Do you know me? Well, how could I…”
“Oh, Rastko! Is that you?”
He smiled.
“Yes, it’s me,” and he began to apologize.
“I am utterly ashamed of the way you are being treated
in our legation, which you must leave in this manner. I was in my office, the
door to which you had your back turned when you entered and asked for Rakic. And them acting like this… how shameful! I am a
junior official and couldn’t intervene.”
“It doesn’t matter, Rastko.
They don’t know me, and the ambassador I asked for isn’t here; the matter is
settled, then.”
“That’s not right, please, and it’s not true that they
don’t know you, nor is the other thing accurate, that… Therein lies the
impertinence. How many days will you be staying in Rome?” “Rastko
asked.
“I’m leaving for Fiuggia
tomorrow morning and will be there for two weeks.”
“On my return, will you be staying in Rome, and would
it be possible for us to meet and talk?” As we said goodbye, I told him I would
be staying in Rome for a couple of days before returning and that I would be
very pleased to see him.
This was Rastko Petrovic, son of Mita Petrovic, originally from Vojvodina,
whose house I used to visit. I was friends with his daughter Nadezda, a talented painter. The whole family was
well-versed in the fine arts. Rastko, Mita’s youngest son, might have been eight or nine years
old when I used to go to their house; I hadn’t seen him since. Now, grown, I
recognized him as the spitting image of his father.
When I returned from Fiuggia,
I called Rastko, who visited me at my hotel, and we
had dinner together. He told me, or rather explained, why I had been treated
that way at the legation.
When I was announced, Rakic
was in his office. He stood up and exclaimed, "What does
this man want here?"
He then told me that Rakic
and everyone at the legation considered the separation of Croatia
a fait accompli and even wanted to place the Serbian coat of arms on the
legation's facade and raise the Serbian flag. That's why my visit to the
legation surprised Rakic. Nevertheless, they had sent
a woman, J. Hristic, after me to Fiuggia,
staying at the same hotel, to observe who I met with. She was the daughter of a
certain Hristic, a former minister under Obrenovic, who lived in Italy as a singer and was also a
spy for the legation.
DICTATORSHIP OF KING ALEXANDER
(On January 6, 1929, King Alexander abolished the
pseudo-democratic constitution, banned political parties, and established his
personal dictatorship. Mestrovic publicly disapproved of this anti-democratic
political course inaugurated by the King.)
Upon arriving in Belgrade, I first went to see the
Minister of the Court to inquire whether the material for the bust, dispatched
from Zagreb, had arrived and to find out what time the King would receive me. Dragomir Jankovic, the Minister
of the Court, was a kind but depressed man. We had known each other well for a
long time, and I asked him what was wrong. He told me that he had served at the
Court since the enthronement of King Peter, that he was loyal to the dynasty,
and that he had done everything within his power for the good of the dynasty.
"And now this is how they repay me," he
added, "simply for daring, with the best of intentions, to express my
opinion."
"But what happened?"
"The Gospodar dismissed
me. He told me that after the first [of the month] I wouldn't hold this post
anymore. I don't care a fig. Perhaps it's better for me, but the way... as if I
were a servant. Like a servant, like a dog." Dragomir
gritted his teeth to keep from bursting into tears.
"And why?"
"Well, I'll tell you, because I advised him not
to violate the constitution, to follow in his father's footsteps in that, and,
my friend, to come to terms with the Croats. 'How can I come to terms with the
Croats?' he replied, 'when they want to constitute themselves as if they were a
state within a state. Well, Macek won't give me
orders!'" he shrieked.
"If we won't give in on our Serbian cause, why
force them to give in on their Croatian cause? Why shouldn't they have their
autonomy, their parliament (Sabor), their ban
(viceroy), and their flag, if they want it, if that's their tradition?" "I
answered the King."
"No, I will never allow it," the King told
me. "Are we to see the Croatian flag flying in Zemun
from Kalemegdan, as Macek
demands?"
- Trying to calm him down, warning him that what was
being plotted could prove fatal for him and for the State, he told me: "Go
away." You see why he threw me out. And your Croats still say that Punisa left my office to shoot at Radic
and his deputies in Parliament.
"Isn't that true, Mr. Jankovic?"
"Formally it's true, but not in the way you're
implying. Punisa could come to the Court whenever he
pleased, and he could enter through here or through the main entrance. On that
fateful day he didn't come through here, but he left through here without
saying goodbye to me. That's the plain truth."
ATTEMPTS AGAINST SUFFLAY AND BUDAK
When Professor Dr. Milan Sufflay
was assassinated in the center of Zagreb on February 18, 1931, great excitement
swept through the city, not only because of his personality, but also because
of the methods used by the regime to get rid of dissidents. It was eventually
learned that he was killed by police officers, and soon after, their identities
were revealed. There were other indications that Sufflay's
murder was carried out on the orders of state authorities. King himself, for
example, told Dr. Rittig, when the latter visited him
to complain about such methods:
"He had to be killed, because he was an Italian
agent."
"When the same officers assaulted Mile Budak on June 7, 1932, fracturing his skull, my friend Trumbic came to my house early that morning. He informed me
that he had been told that very morning by these so-called 'patriots' that they
had drawn lots to see who would kill him, Trumbic,
and who would kill Macek. His informant even provided
him with the names of the executioners." I didn't ask him who the
informant was, but I believe it was Vasiljevic, the
deputy chief of police in Zagreb, who was Croatian, of Serbian origin, and had
been freed from captivity by the Yugoslav Committee during the First World War.
Trumbic, of course, was uneasy but composed, despite
being under the impression that the assassination was about to take place.
"I don't know how to protect myself," he
said, "because at night they could break into my home and kill me in my
bed." I accompanied him to his residence and then went to the Governor's
Office to see Governor Perovic. He was ill and
bedridden. I found his secretary, Vojnovic, who had
held the same position during Silovic's
administration. Through him and other channels, I knew that Vojnovic
was a spy for the regime within the Governor's Office. Therefore, I didn't want
to tell Vojnovic the reason for my visit and insisted
on speaking with the governor personally. Mrs. Perovic
barely let me in, as her husband was indeed running a high fever.
I told her about Trumbic's
case, requesting that she immediately communicate what she had heard from me to
the government in code. She promised to do so at once. But, unsure that this
would work, I arranged to meet with the French consul at my house. I told him
the story, begging him to also inform his English counterpart. I then went to
see Jovo Banjanin, briefed
him, and asked him to travel to Belgrade immediately and request an urgent
audience with the King to convey the news and its source. Banjanin
did so. Alexander later thanked me "for having averted yet another
misfortune."
Trumbic was in poor health, and this threat further
distressed him. To rouse him from his apathetic state, and partly from his
insecurity, I secretly wrote to Beneš, suggesting
that Masaryk might invite Trumbic as a guest, and
advising Trumbic himself to go to the thermal baths
at Karloviš Vary (in Bohemia). I thought that Trumbic, once recovered, would feel more secure upon his
return. I didn't mention Trumbic's financial
situation (he received only 3,500 dinars a month as a pension), but Beneš knew this through other channels. Beneš
replied that the President of the Republic couldn't invite him at the moment,
but that the Czechoslovak government would allow him to stay at Karloviš Vary for as long as he wished. Trumbic,
of course, refused, and I was offended by Beneš's
response. Masaryk's stance may have been motivated by certain disagreements
between him and Trumbic, or, more likely, by
consideration for the Belgrade regime.
INTERVIEWS WITH EDOUARD HERRIOT AND ALEXIS LEGER
(Mussolini, taking advantage of the Croatian
discontent with King Alexander's dictatorship, at a time when France,
overwhelmed by pressure from the Third Reich, was trying to foster the
normalization of relations between Rome and Belgrade, made territorial cessions
in the Croatian Adriatic province of Dalmatia a precondition. On the advice of
Croatian politicians, Mestrovic, on the occasion of his exhibition organized in
Paris in 1933, visited influential figures in Paris and London.)
Shortly after my arrival in Paris in March 1933, I
visited Edouard Herriot. The leader of the Radical
Socialists, who in 1932 was Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs,
played a leading role in French political life, even outside of government. He
received me in his office at the National Assembly. Cordial and outgoing, as
soon as I sat down, he said over his pipe:
"I know why you've come. The Italian pigs are
claiming your Dalmatia." I immediately inquired whether he was aware of
the mission of a French colonel (who had recently visited Sofia, Belgrade, and
Zagreb) and whether it was being carried out with the consent of the French
government and General Staff. He confirmed it and told me he was aware of his
conversation with me. Then he declared that the situation in Yugoslavia was far
from promising, both internally and externally. He censured the King and the
dictatorship in no uncertain terms.
"Those in Belgrade have gone mad with
megalomania, and we have other, more urgent matters to attend to than defending
you from the Italians. Twice we have prevented them from attacking you, and I
don't know how long we will want to or be able to do so, because Hitler and
Nazism are gaining so much strength that they worry us ten times more than the
Yugoslav-Italian conflict." Convey this to your "Alexander the
Great" and tell him we have more pressing matters than protecting you from
the Italians. Let him resolve the Serbian-Croatian problem, and the Italians
will think twice before attacking you individually. Without that, Mussolini
believes attacking you would be a walk in the park.
After the conference, Herriot sent me to Léger,
director of the Quai d'Orsay, who would inform me of everything the French had
arranged in Belgrade regarding the solution to the Serbian-Croatian conflict.
The next day I visited Léger at the Quai d'Orsay. He
received me kindly, telling me that Herriot had informed him of my visit. He
spoke of his increasingly serious concerns about the growing power of Germany,
which is expanding with incredible speed, and its capacity for organization. He
then declared that they, too, do not underestimate the power of the Italians,
"as your responsible agents apparently do." Perhaps Mussolini hasn't
succeeded in making Italians brave soldiers, but they are well-armed, while you
are sorely lacking and, moreover, disunited. We have repeatedly made efforts to
address this and offered friendly advice. Your King possesses incredible
self-sufficiency. On the other hand, however, we know that he is the only Serb
who supports Yugoslavia.
Generally speaking, all Serbs are megalomaniacs and
want their own Greater Serbia. Meanwhile, we are not interested in either
Serbia or Croatia; we are interested in Yugoslavia, and that is why we
contributed to its creation.” He then gave me to read the instructions sent to Naggiar, his ambassador in Belgrade, and Naggiar’s reply. He was instructed to tell the King, “in a
courteous but serious manner,” that the French government is very concerned
about the Yugoslav-Italian conflict and the internal relations between Croats
and Serbs, advising amicably but seriously a prompt solution to the Croat-Serb
conflict. In his report, Naggiar stated that he had
visited the King, who received the suggestion favorably but asked him to inform
his government that he should allow the necessary time to address the problem,
which was one of his primary concerns. The King then reportedly promised to
give the Croats four ministerial portfolios and autonomy to Croatia. Léger asked me what
I thought of autonomy and whether the Croats
would be satisfied with it.
I replied that, being French, and given the internal
organization of his country, it might seem like a lot to him, but that I
believed mere autonomy wouldn't satisfy the Croats. Furthermore, we would have
to see what kind and scope that autonomy would have, and to what extent their fueros (charters of rights and privileges) would be
respected.
Léger shrugged and replied:
"You're right. This is the Balkans." He then
told me that he, in general, manages all affairs, because "the Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Joseph Paul Boncour, is busy in
Geneva, where he is at the moment, but as soon as he returns, I'm sure he will
gladly receive me and talk with me." He spoke highly of Naggiar's abilities, saying:
"If he weren't in Belgrade, he would be sitting
here next to me. He is from the East, so he will be able to understand and
negotiate better in Belgrade. We sent him to Belgrade entrusting him with the
mission of contributing to the solution of your internal problem."
He then emphasized that they would continue to advise
Belgrade so that the internal problem could be resolved.
"Visit Naggiar in
Belgrade from time to time; I will send you instructions to communicate
everything related to the problem, especially our messages and the King's
replies."
Returning to the tense relations between us and the
Italians, he complained about the English stance. "Every time we proposed
to intervene with one side or the other..." In order to ease tensions,
they agreed to make joint efforts in Belgrade, but they never agreed to take
joint steps in Rome.” At the end of the interview, he declared: “At this
moment, the situation is also very murky, and we don’t know what Mussolini will
be capable of doing to you.”
MEETING WITH SVETOZAR PRIBICEVIC IN PARIS
Precisely during those days, in 1933, Pribicevic published his book “The Dictatorship of King Alexandre” in Paris, in French. He called me, asking if we
could meet, where and when. I suggested we meet at my exhibition. He asked if I
didn’t mind appearing in public with him. I replied that I didn’t, and we
arranged to meet at eleven. Shortly afterward, he called me again and asked me
to change the place and time of the interview, as he was being followed closely
by Spalajkovic’s spies, and, moreover, he wanted to
talk with me at length alone and without being disturbed. We agreed that he
would arrive at my hotel around six in the evening.
He arrived on time; he looked thin, nervous, and
unhappy. We met in the hotel lounge, and after exchanging only a few words, he
suggested we go up to my room. We did so, and as soon as we were seated, Svetozar told me he wanted to talk to me at length about
his experience with the Serbs, especially the King, about his character, his
personal and Great Serbian conceptions, and about the Croats' inability to
understand the Serbs of Serbia and defend themselves adequately. Radic was the only one, he told me, who had understood his
methods. That is why he was assassinated, and this crime was not committed
without Alexander's knowledge, for he was in a hurry to see Radic
disappear after Baja, so that he could be, in addition to king, the leader of
the people.
When I replied that I didn't know who had participated
in planning the assassination and moved Punisa's
hand, but that I found it hard to believe it could have been done with the
King's knowledge, since it wasn't in his best interest to further widen the
chasm between Croats and Serbs, Pribicevic told me:
"He doesn't see things that way. His aim is for
everyone to become enemies, to turn against each other, so that he can then
establish himself as the sole arbiter to whom everyone would turn for favors.
That's how he justifies his dictatorship, which he had been plotting with Pera for some time. Punisa was
merely a tool, and the bullet was fired by all the Great Serbs, not only
against Radic, but symbolically, against all Croats.
I'm surprised you don't understand that, even though you're not a
politician." “But what kind of politics is this that thinks problems are
solved with bullets, especially among those who must live under the same roof?”
“That’s how they think. That’s their tradition and
their Balkan temperament.” Svetozar looked at me the
whole time as if he thought I understood him or didn’t trust him. When I noticed,
I said:
“Mr. Svetozar, your brother
Milan is my friend, and we always talk like brothers, frankly and with complete
mutual trust, even though we sometimes disagree. However, between the two of
us, between you and me, there’s a wall; there’s something that needs to be
cleared up before we can talk like friends and brothers.”
“I experienced the same thing for years and years,
even after that tragedy in Parliament when we talked in Zagreb. However, my
chest was exposed along with Radic’s in the parliamentary
chamber, and for the same reason.”
“That’s true, Mr. Svetozar,
and it does you credit, but there’s a previous matter that…” It bothers me. You
know that for quite some time I hadn't wanted to return your greeting; that is,
I didn't do it until recently, when you came to my table at the Grudski Podrum restaurant in
Zagreb.
I then told him what Protic
had told me about his repeated proposal in the Council of Ministers to send a
punitive expedition to Croatia, since the Croats refused to acknowledge having
been liberated by the Serbs and would not acknowledge it until they were
subdued by force. I asked him if this was true. He replied that it was. Then I
asked him: "Is it true (what Bishop Ritting had
told me) that you had already wanted to assassinate Radic
in 1918, or organize his assassination, after he had opposed your proposal in
the National Council to consummate that form of union with Serbia? Bishop Ritting had found out about this, so he took Radic out of the Parliament in Zagreb through the back door
and hid him for several days in his parish quarters."
"All that is true, but I was delirious and
agitated at the time, like everyone else, and not only Serbs but Croats as
well." We feared the union would fall apart and that, if not consummated
quickly, others might intervene. We were all crazy, not just me, without any
inkling of where we were going or who we would have to deal with. I admit that
for years I was mistaken. I believed I was a minister and wielded power until I
discovered that all that time I had been merely a figurehead for the King.
He then recounted several phases and events that
opened his eyes, to the point that he became more radical than Radic himself, seeing no other solution than the union of
the Serbs residing in Croatia with the Croats and the overthrow of Serbian
hegemony, even the dethronement of the king and the establishment of a
confederated republic. If the Serbs of Serbia did not agree, so be it; let them
live as they wish in their ancestral homeland, and we here, united in Croatia
and other territories that would form an integral part of the Austro-Hungarian
monarchy. "And your Serbian proselytizing, Mr. Svetozar?
Do you recall how stubbornly you insisted in 1905, in Rijeka, during the
discussions on the Rijeka Resolution, that Serbian individuality in Croatia be
emphasized?"
"Yes, I remember. Now I see it more calmly. We
Serbs, in the Triunicate, can in no case, under any
circumstances, in no arrangement, separate ourselves from Croatia, whereas a
diminished Croatia is against our interests, for it would weaken us. Therefore,
our fate is linked to that of the Croats. Besides, we weren't neglected in
Croatia before either; the viceroy's lieutenant was always a Serb, and even the
president of the Croatian Parliament was a Serb—do you remember Medakovic?—and the Croats, I must admit, never made an
issue of it. And now, you see, how the Croats are treated in Belgrade!" We
Serbs living in Croatia can only be pleased and benefit from the incorporation
of Bosnia and Vojvodina, since it will increase our
numbers and influence and equality will rest on even firmer foundations.
After this presentation, Svetozar
returned to the prevailing situation in the country, referring in particular to
the King, his deficient education, his irascible and treacherous nature, and
especially to his dictatorship, emphasizing that as long as the King lived, he
would do everything possible against the constitution and parliament. He would
evade the Croatian problem and never provide a just solution. If he saw that
things were not going well, he would try to grant the territorially reduced
Croatia a kind of autonomy with fewer powers than it had in the union with
Hungary.
After this initial clarification, our conversation
proceeded smoothly and in an atmosphere of complete mutual trust. We stayed
until midnight, and, chatting, we had forgotten about dinner. We said our
goodbyes very cordially, and when I shook his hand, I felt a certain pain
inside, perhaps because of his lamentable physical and mental state. He was
very weak, and his gaze was restless and fearful. It seemed to me that he even
feared for his life.
A few days after the Cvetkovic-Macek
agreement, Dr. Curcin and I met in Belgrade. We had
dinner at the Srpski Kralj
(Serbian King) restaurant. After dinner, Dr. Bogdan Popovic invited us to another corner of the room, where the
academics had their weekly gathering.
Present were: Professor Slobodan Jovanovic,
Bogdan Popovic, Guta Protic, Misa
Trifunovic, and Dr. Nikola Stojanovic,
who was attending in his capacity as secretary of the newly founded "The
Serbian Club," presided over by Slobodan Jovanovic.
I knew Slobodan Jovanovic
well, and we were on good terms. He seemed to favor the normalization of
Serbian-Croatian relations. He spent every summer on the island of Hvar, and we would meet in Split. When we sat down,
Slobodan Jovanovic addressed me in his eunuch-like
voice and said rather brusquely:
"How long will you Croats continue killing Serbs
in Zagreb?"
I looked at him in astonishment and, smiling, replied:
"Until now, we knew that only Croats were being
killed, Slobodan, but I believe that neither should be killed. And why are you
so worked up over two men? Of course, we should all be concerned about every
human life. This involves, from what I've heard, a policeman, notorious for his
brutality, whom someone killed at night for reasons of personal revenge.
Another dead man, they say, was taken by a police officer. We should all be
sorry, but what can be done? This change is a small revolution, in which two
men perished, one guilty, the other righteous, as often happens in
revolutions." Dr. Macek complained in my
presence about this accident and condemned it. The culprits are being sought.
“The second one, indeed, was killed unintentionally
and by mistake. He was mistaken in the dark for a policeman who was torturing
detainees. He is a distant relative of my wife, and we have been informed that
he was killed by mistake,” commented Dr. Nikola Stojanovic.
“But we will not allow Serbs to be killed in this
country. If necessary, we will incite the Serbs to revolt, and blood will flow
freely!” roared Cika Slobodan.
“Neither Serbs nor Croats should be killed, Cika Slobodan, nor anyone else. You weren’t bothered, or at
least you didn’t make yourself heard, when Croats were being killed. In Senj, the gendarmes killed people like rabbits, as if it
were nothing. None of you said a word, didn’t raise your voice in protest, even
though you imagined that blood cries out for blood.”
“That was something else entirely.” "In defense
of the State, anything is done," replied Mr. Slobodan Jovanovic.
"Who says that's how you defend the State and
that this is the right path?" I answered.
At that moment, Misa Trifunovic took my hand, saying quietly,
"Leave it alone, we have to throw water on the
fire, because otherwise the Serbs will indeed revolt, as Mr. Slobodan said.
Then, every man for himself! You don't know the Serbs."
"I know them, Mr. Trifunovic,
but you can't demand that others remain silent while you beat them. Negotiating
and threatening with stabbings and bloodshed, that's unacceptable. We all have
the devil under our skin."
"You, in fact, are getting worked up over an
insignificant, albeit regrettable, incident, and you, along with us, wanted an
agreement to be reached," Dr. Curcin said to
Slobodan. “Yes, of course, but I didn’t want this agreement. What agreement… a
Gypsy signed it… We’ll see about that… Such an agreement doesn’t bind the
Serbs,” Slobodan retorted.
“I always said that creating a common state with the
Croats was the greatest folly. We should take and annex the provinces with
Serbian minorities in Croatia and leave the Croats in their own land to do as
they pleased and sort things out as they saw fit. I still hold this opinion;
and, in the end, that’s how it will be,” Mr. Protic
interjected in a highly authoritative tone.
There was a silence that seemed to be in approval.
“We are divided, divided,” Slobodan continued;
“divided by religion and by mentality. That must be attributed to the past of
those from abroad (Croats) and to both Churches, especially the Catholic
Church, whose head resides abroad.” "That's the source of all the quarrels
and intolerance," Slobodan railed.
"Only in part, Mr. Slobodan. Since you insist,
I'll tell you where the intellectual blame lies, and where the breeding ground
of chauvinism is: in your Academy of 'pure science.' Your academics write, and
you publish, that if there are Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, they were
'imported by Austria.' And you still want our children to accept this and
believe it as historical truth, despite the graves of their ancestors dating
back to before the arrival of the Orthodox population. Consequently, you
intellectuals and your Academy of Sciences are the main breeding ground of
chauvinism; others, ignorant, follow you because they consider you their
guiding light.
"We left soon after. Upon saying goodbye, Bogdan Popovic expressed his
desire to have dinner the following day alone with me and Dr. Curcin. So we did. Bogdan was
downcast, but composed and kind. He immediately began:
"I wanted us to meet and talk. The problem is
serious and, if you will, sad. However, you and Slobodan adopted a tone that
precluded any high-level academic discussion. Slobodan is an intelligent man,
but he was agitated by what happened in Zagreb and began in a curt tone, and
you responded in kind and said things that hurt not only him but everyone. We
were especially hurt by what you said about Bosnia, which we have carried in
our hearts for a century.
"I believe you, Professor, but we carry it in our
hearts too. My family is originally from Bosnia, and half of Dalmatia comes
from there. That's why we shouldn't look at it like an apple we want to put in
our saddlebag. Above all, neither you nor we should..." to consider it in
such a way that it becomes the apple of discord.
"What you're saying is true, but our people have
been accustomed, ever since Karageorge, to
considering Bosnia as their province and don't take into account whether others
who are not or do not want to be Serbs also live there."
"And who is to blame if you don't tell your
people the truth?" "You, however, told Slobodan yesterday that the
Serbs are upstarts in Bosnia."
"I didn't use that term: I said that your
colleagues, the academics, write—and you, that is, the Serbian Academy of
Sciences, publish—that the Croats in Bosnia were 'imported' by Austria. And
that is a blatant lie. You, as an educated man, know that this isn't the case,
which, moreover, you can verify even in Serbian documents, if you wish, since
not all Serbian historians are like Stanojevic."
"I am not a historian. Perhaps some historians
exaggerate, but it is true that in Bosnia there are two There are sometimes
more Serbs than Croats.
-That will be so, if by Croats you only mean Catholics.
However, it is also true that Serbs in Bosnia do not constitute even half of
the total population. So, what do we do?
-You also take into account the "Turks," or,
as the Bosniaks call them, Muje.
-You can call them Muje or Alije, it doesn't matter, they are there, they are native,
they live on ancestral lands, and they are our blood.
-In their hearts, they consider themselves Turks. In
their minds, they look not towards Zagreb or Belgrade but towards Istanbul.
Their numbers don't count for either you or us. I know that they hate Serbs,
and some even pretend to be Croats, even though they are not.
-That's their business. They know better than anyone
what they are and whose side they are on. However, they have the divine and
human right to be on equal footing with their other compatriots.
-In any case, They are of secondary importance; the
serious thing is that the Croats hate us and want nothing to do with us.
"They don't hate you, Professor, or at least not
the overwhelming majority; it's just that we're in litigation, and you know
why. Don't listen to the stories; go to Zagreb and spend some time there, meet
the people, talk to them, and you'll see what's really going on."
“I don’t want to, my friend, nor can I. Even before
unification, I never stayed in Zagreb for more than a day, and even less so
since we’ve been together. I didn’t say that you or men like you hate us. But
one swallow doesn’t make a summer. Most people hate us, and that’s where we
stand. Not even the people of Hvar would tolerate us
when I used to spend my summers there with Slobodan.”
“They don’t want to be subject to Belgrade, Professor,
which doesn’t mean they wouldn’t want to be on equal footing with Belgrade.
You’ve gotten it into your head that only the Croats are discontent. I, on the
other hand, like many Croats, would agree that in Bosnia, only the Serbs should
be consulted on whether they want to be governed as they are now, subject to
Belgrade, or whether they would prefer to govern themselves. If they choose to
remain subject to Belgrade, then annex Bosnia.”
“I know, and we all know, that they wouldn’t vote for
it.” “Everyone hates us: Croats, Bosniaks, and
Montenegrins, even you Lales,” he said, addressing
Dr. Curcin.
“They don’t hate us, they just don’t want to be
oppressed and exploited,” replied Dr. Curcin. “Nobody
wants to be with us; go away, then, everyone, go with whomever you want.”
“What would that mean now?” exclaimed Dr. Curcin.
“It would mean: the Serbia of before Kumanovo. Exactly. Back then we were more peaceful and
happier, we lived better than we do now.”
IMPRESSIONS OF A MUSSOLINI ENVOY IN DALMATIA
(When the Kingdom of Yugoslavia collapsed, Mestrovic
was in Split and, after its occupation and annexation by Italy, he moved to
Zagreb, where he spent several months imprisoned, accused by the authorities of
the Independent State of Croatia of plotting his escape to London. At the
urging of Pope Pius XII, he regained his freedom, and in 1942 he took refuge at
the Croatian Institute of St. Jerome in Rome, and from there he left in 1943
for Switzerland, where he remained until the end of the war.)
In Rome, my old Italian acquaintances didn't invite me
to their homes, nor did I, moreover, have much desire to go out. Once, I had to
accept an invitation from a young lady to dinner at her house. The daughter of
some friends of mine, whom I had held on my lap as a child, she called me
"uncle" for a long time. Her father was Italian and her mother
Russian. She married a A professor, at the time a
high-ranking official in the Ministry of Education and, as such, of course, a
member of the Fascist Party.
The three of us were alone. After dinner, my
"niece" insisted that her husband inform me about his mission in
Split and Šibenik. Volpicelli—that
was her husband's surname—felt uncomfortable, but yielded to his wife's
insistence. He explained that a month earlier Mussolini had asked him to travel
to Dalmatia, without telling Governor Bastianini in Zadar, or anyone else, the reason for his trip or who had
sent him. He was tasked with thoroughly investigating how many genuinely
Italian families there were in Split and Šibenik. Volpicelli spent more than fifteen days in Šibenik and Split, delving into all the records, going back
two hundred years and more, and found that only eight genuinely Italian
families lived in Šibenik and only three in Split,
two of which no longer had a drop of Italian blood. One had arrived from
Sarajevo about one hundred and thirty years ago, the The
root of their surname was Turkish, and half the members of that family felt
Croatian and the other half Italian. Upon learning this, Mussolini looked on in
astonishment, as if it were impossible, and when Volpicelli
explained how he had gathered the aforementioned information, he began to shout
at him:
“Even if there isn’t a single Italian left, I will
expel the last Croat and colonize the Italians there.”
He told me how surprised he was, as were the Italian
officers and teachers he met, by the high level of national consciousness of
the Croats, whose cultural level is superior to that of the Italians.
“In Split, there are two secondary schools better than
those in Rome, and the young women of Split are more educated than the wives of
our officers.”
From the occupying authorities, he had heard that
popular opposition was growing daily and that their measures were too harsh;
several people had been shot, including a few schoolchildren who were
demonstrating against the Italianization of the schools. The Fascists were
blamed for the drastic measures, since in Italy there were also two paths: the
army and the Fascists, the latter being more influential. Volpicelli
warned me that an Italian, sent as director of the classical high school in
Split, had told him that my eldest son had caused "a serious
incident" with a portrait of the King or Mussolini, which could have cost
him his life, but he didn't want to investigate further—he was a father
himself.
He did, however, advise my wife to withdraw the boy
from school and pay for private lessons. She did so, but nevertheless, the
danger remained that the incident would be discovered and the boy would suffer.
Therefore, Volpicelli advised me to call my whole
family under the pretext of spending Christmas with me. I did so, and my wife,
with her three children, obtained permission to join me.
STEPINAC ON DRAZA MIHAILOVIC'S RELATIONS WITH FASCIST
ITALY
-Shortly before I managed to move to Switzerland,
Archbishop Stepinac came to Rome briefly. He arrived
by plane and confided in me the reason for his visit: to deliver to the Pope all
the documents relating to the crimes and atrocities committed by the Nazis and
Fascists in our territory, including the annexed part of Dalmatia. He had
secretly instructed all the parish priests to send him the relevant documents,
also secretly. Eighty-five percent responded, and Stepinac,
with all those reports in his briefcase, flew to Rome to deliver them to the
Pope.
"Why didn't you send them with your
secretary?"
"I didn't, because I believe I should only risk
my own life, not someone else's, and I'm sure I would have lost mine had the
Germans surprised me."
This time Stepinac was very
nervous and told me that the Nazis had shot his brother eight days earlier for
alleged collaboration with the partisans. He emphasized that the Nazis and
fascists were becoming more cruel every day and the situation in Croatia more
desperate, largely due to the fighting between the Chetniks
and the Ustaše, which was stirring up unprecedented
hatred between Serbs and Croats. He noted that hatred was becoming widespread on
both sides. As proof that not all Serbs hated Croats, he recounted what had
happened to him not long ago with a Serbian officer. The officer in question
visited him at the Curia and said the following:
"General Draža Mihailović sent me to deliver this letter to the
Italian general. Mihailović's men escorted me to
Belgrade and handed me over to Nedić's men, who
then handed me over to the Germans, who escorted me to Sarajevo, and from there
to Zagreb, to the Italians." In Zagreb, the Italians put me up at the
Hotel Esplanade, telling me to wait until they could take me back to the
general. I waited and waited, and today is the fourth day. I was bored; it was
raining outside, and I carefully opened the letter.
When I read its contents, I felt ashamed and decided
not to hand it over, no matter what happened to me. Your Excellency, I am from
Serbia. I swore allegiance to the Yugoslav state, but this letter is a betrayal
of that state, and I no longer want to carry it with me. Instead, I want to
give it to you so you can keep it for posterity. What happens to me matters
little; I am already weary of life after so many calamities and infamies.
"The man left, and I was left with the
letter," Stepinac finished.
"Do you remember its contents, Your
Excellency?" I inquired.
"How could I forget? I remember every word, for I
read it repeatedly." It begins with the title "Your Excellency"
and "Colleague." Then Mihailovic gets to
the point, emphasizing that relations between Italy and Serbia were always not
only good but friendly until the Croats were incorporated into the Serbian
State. From that moment on, they became debased and worsened day by day.
Currently, however, both Serbs and Italians know the Croats, so the time has
come for close collaboration, since "the objectives pursued are identical:
yours, the extermination of the Croats of Dalmatia; ours, their extermination
in Bosnia and Herzegovina."
We didn't dwell on this letter any further. Stepinac, as if the letter contained nothing new for him,
and I preferred to talk about the documents he delivered to the Pope.
"Will the Pope, Your Excellency, read the
documents you delivered?"
"I think so, or he will entrust their reading to
one of the cardinals." “You know that half the cardinals are pro-fascists,
so…”
“I know, but the Holy Father isn’t, and he’ll want to
hear the truth, he’ll want to be informed.”
“The Pope is Italian, and he won’t like news
unfavorable to Italians.”
“Good heavens, he’s Italian, and if I were the Pope,
I’d be Croatian first and foremost, but the current Pope professes such high
principles and is aware of his high mission…”
“I’m convinced of that, but I think it would be
advisable to give a copy to Mr. Miron Taylor,
Roosevelt’s delegate to the Vatican.” Stepinac
agreed, and Mr. Taylor later confirmed to me in New York that he had received
the documents. Stepinac was to leave for the airfield
in half an hour when the orderly of Monsignor Magjerec,
rector of the St. Jerome Institute, arrived, inviting him to dinner.
“I don’t have time, and I don’t mind having dinner.
You can bring me a piece of bread and an egg, or something like that, which
I’ll put in my pocket and eat on the plane.”
Two minutes later, the orderly returned and told the
archbishop that a priest wished to speak with him.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have time, as I have to leave
in five minutes,” Stepinac replied, shaking my hand.
“Please stay for those few minutes.”
Meanwhile, the waiter returned immediately and handed
him a card. Stepinac stood up, saying:
“It’s a Jesuit sent by your General. I must see you;
please stay, I’ll be back in two minutes.”
He left and, indeed, returned soon, somewhat nervous,
and said to me:
“The General warns me to be careful, that the Nazis
are trying to eliminate me, but what do I care?” And he said goodbye:
“Goodbye, it’s very likely we won’t see each other
again.” The Nazis or the Communists will kill me later.
INTERVIEW WITH ALLAN DULLES
One day I was visited by Dragutinovic,
an official at the Yugoslav Legation in Bern, who, with the exception of a
clerk, was the only Croat at the Legation. He told me that his life at the
Legation was becoming unbearable, as every day the Croats were insulted with
the worst outrages, as if they were all Ustaše, and
he was also labeled an Ustaše, even though his rank
placed him after the ambassador, and he certainly never was one.
The reason for his visit was not to complain about
this, but to inform me that Mr. Allan Dulles wished me to visit them, as he had
an official message from Washington for me. Dulles was President Roosevelt's
personal envoy to Europe. Suffering from phlebitis, I was unable to attend the
appointment, so I told him I would come as soon as I felt better and could
walk. My illness lingered, and I was unable to move for a while.
Dulles informed me again, through Dragutinovic,
that if I didn't dare visit him in Bern because of the potential persecution of
my family in the country, he would come to Lausanne, and we could meet at a
restaurant in the evening. I had no choice but to go, though my steps were
hesitant. I arrived in Bern that night and had dinner at Dulles's house. After
dinner, Dulles addressed the matter that had prompted our meeting and read me
the instructions from Washington, along with the questions he was to ask me.
The first part was a sort of explanation of why they were contacting me. It was
pointed out that in the United States, there was a growing number of Croatian
and Serbian immigrants who were quarreling and hurling virulent accusations at
each other. The Serbs accused the Croats of betraying Yugoslavia and joining
its enemies, while the Croats accused the Serbs of mistreating and persecuting
them.
Even the official Yugoslav representation in
Washington denounced the Croats. The Americans didn't know what to make of it,
who was right. They argued that Croatian immigrants were more numerous and
already their citizens, but they wanted to be fair to both sides. They believed
I would tell them objectively the main causes that precipitated the collapse of
Yugoslavia and motivated such violent conflicts. To the best of my knowledge
and understanding, I explained the causes to them. Then they asked me how the
people in Croatia had welcomed the Independent State of Croatia and its
collaboration with the Germans and Italians. I told him my impression: that
ninety percent of the Croatian people would welcome an independent state, but
that the same percentage opposed the Ustaše state
simply because it was not free and they did not believe it could ever be free
under the protection of Germany and Italy.
The next question was whether an understanding between
the Croats and Serbs and the maintenance of the common state was viable. I told
him that after having longed for union for so many years, it was difficult for
me, and I deeply regretted having to give a negative answer, but that I did not
believe that after everything that had happened since the beginning of their
shared life and what was happening now, any understanding to preserve the state
community was possible. It was difficult to believe that the Croats and Serbs
were capable of resolving their conflict on their own and finding a judicious
solution. Impartial and disinterested arbitrators would be necessary.
"Who would they be, and how should they
act?"
"Well, the Allies. You and the British should
land in Dalmatia. The entire population would welcome you with jubilation, and
the Croatian army, the Domobrani, would immediately
switch sides to the Allies, as would most of the Ustaše,
who were discontented because of the Italian annexation of Dalmatia. The whole
population would be on your side, and the Italians would flee at the first
sight of an Allied soldier, since they entered through fraud without firing a
single shot. The presence of many soldiers of Croatian origin, of whom there
are so many in the United States and Canada, would be very effective in this
invasion.
They would connect with the people, instilling
confidence and enthusiasm. You shouldn't use Serbian officers because that would
arouse suspicion among the people." Once the country was occupied by the
Allied army, a Croatian government, headed by Dr. Machek,
who held a majority, should be installed in Zagreb, and a Serbian government,
even if under the presidency of Nedic, in Belgrade.
The Allied occupation should last until tempers cooled and people were capable
of sober thought, and then the people, in both Serbia and Croatia, should vote
separately on whether they wanted a state community and, if so, what kind of
regime.
In short, this was my response to Dulles regarding the
official questions from Washington.
Dulles told me that, among the Yugoslavs, he knew
Ambassador Fotic, an intelligent man, and that he
seemed to favor a larger Serbia, from which the Croats would be excluded. I
replied that I knew Fotic little, but that I
understood him to be part of the Greater Serbian clique, primarily responsible
for the disintegration of Yugoslavia. I then asked him if he had met any
Croats.
He told me that he had once conferred with Subasic, who hadn't given him the impression of any
significant hunger, claiming, by way of correction, that perhaps this was due
to Subasic's poor command of English, which prevented
him from expressing himself adequately. He wanted to know what Subasic represented. I explained that he was the Ban of
Croatia and that Dr. Macek had sent him abroad to
represent the Croats, along with Krnjevic, and that
it would be most convenient to bring Krnjevic along
in the event of an Allied landing in Dalmatia, which is a Croatian province.
Dulles relayed the conversation to Washington, and I
don't know how the Yugoslav government in London found out and discussed the
matter in the Council of Ministers, which, as I later learned, had resolved to
issue a statement declaring me a "traitor" for having proposed
foreign occupation. Only two ministers, Jovo Banjanin and Srdjan Budisavljevic, had opposed it.
COMMUNIST CRIMES IN CROATIA
(At the end of the war, Mestrovic ignored the
flattering calls from communist officials to return to the country; he settled
in the United States, renounced his Yugoslav citizenship, and opted for
American citizenship. He is a professor of Fine Arts at the University of Notre
Dame.)
A few days after Tito's partisans entered Zagreb, a
messenger arrived from there. He was an acquaintance of mine who worked in the
underground organization and had worked for the partisans throughout the war.
He was a supporter of communism. He was morally devastated. He told me that
during the first few days after the partisans arrived, there were very few
casualties, a fact that pleasantly surprised him and many others, who were
happy that the bloodshed had stopped.
Later, hundreds and hundreds of people were
interrogated and released. On the fifth or sixth day, not only they, but a
multitude of citizens—more than 16,000—were summoned again and taken to the
concentration camp, surrounded by barbed wire on the outskirts of Zagreb. From
there, they disappeared during the night in the direction of Sljeme. There, they were led to the edge of the quarry
pits, finished off with hammer blows to the back of the neck, thrown in, and
buried. Just like the Polish officers in Katyn. This
is a small fragment of the overall picture of the "third liberation"
of unfortunate Croatia, while the full picture includes Srijem,
in eastern Slavonia, where the Chetnik partisans
exterminated the Croatian population.
The final act was Bleiburg,
where the "liberators" murdered all who fell into their hands:
soldiers and civilians, men and women—in short, all those whom "the
glorious Poglavnik" had incited to seek refuge
with the British troops. The British, in their supposed "humanity,"
handed them all over to the communist partisans as if they were sheep, and the
partisans treated them like wolves with terrified sheep in the flock. The same
fate befell the government of Pavelić, the
elderly President Mandić, innocent of all guilt,
and others. A freight car, crammed with these unfortunate souls, supposedly
destined for Italy where the Allies would try the guilty, was hitched by a
British officer to a train bound for Ljubljana, and thus they were delivered to
the communist partisans. The aforementioned British officer had been bribed by
the partisans, who gave him a brand-new American car. This detail was told to
me years later by a senior communist officer who arranged that exchange.
University
of Notre Dame, Indiana, EE.UU.
The first post-war constitution of 1946 was a consequence not only of
this historical backdrop and the tragic experiment of monarchical Yugoslavia,
but also of the communist military organization during the war. A form of
federalism took shape within the ranks of the partisan guerrillas when, for
strategic and tactical reasons, regional "anti-fascist councils" were
established, with their own "legislative" and "executive"
bodies. The electoral law, promulgated by the Provisional Assembly in 1945,
confirmed the existing federal principle by providing for a two-chamber
parliament: the Federal Council and the Council of Nationalities.
The Federal Council represents the people as a whole, and the Council of
Nationalities represents the individual federal republics and autonomous
provinces. With these preparations, the foundation of the federal system was
established in advance, so that the constitution adopted in 1946 merely
ratified the existing situation. Article One of the constitution declares that
"The Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia is a people's federal state
in republican form," a community of equal peoples who, by virtue of the right
of self-determination, including the right of secession, expressed their desire
to live together in the federal state.
However, despite the constitution's federal facade, even communist
leaders today acknowledge that the state during that period was governed by a
rigorously centralist program. The federal ideal was undermined from the outset
by two negative factors: first, the fact that all power was held by the
communist party, whose administrative staff was largely composed of Serbs,
leaving the impression that the new state was once again dominated by a single
people.
The other negative factor was the Five-Year Plan for economic recovery.
While all the republics formally adhered to the country's recovery, it was not
implemented at the republican level but rather at the state level, with the aim
of strengthening national unity, and was directed This was entirely controlled
by the central government. This practical distortion of federalism caused
serious consequences from the outset, both politically and economically.
Following the conflict with Moscow in 1948, Tito personally condemned this
attempt at forced unification, stating at the Fifth Congress of the Communist
Party of Yugoslavia that "under the guise of an economic plan, such
bureaucratic centralism had been created that all initiatives of certain
republics were thwarted."
The split with the Soviet Union in 1948 provided an
opportunity to blame all the shortcomings and failures on Soviet pressure and
to begin reviewing certain political and economic procedures that threatened
the existence of the communist regime. Several measures aimed at
decentralization led to the first constitutional reform, carried out on January
13, 1953.
Under Article 115 of the new Constitutional Law,
Chapters VI through XII and XV of the previous Constitution were repealed, as
were all provisions of that constitution "that contradict the provisions
of this law." These chapters concerned the structure of the state and the
organs of power. The 1953 Constitutional Law thus retained the federal form of
government. The sovereignty of the republics, including the right of secession,
was not directly revoked.
However, the content of Yugoslav federalism was
distorted by the new constitution. Article 2 of the new constitution stipulates
that "all power belongs to the working people." The 1946 constitution
did not include the attribute "worker" when discussing power. Article
6 of that constitution stated that "all power emanates from the people and
belongs to the people." In the new Constitutional Law, however, the
attribute "worker" is repeated every time power, freedom, and
political activity are discussed. With this formulation, the Constitutional Law
itself has sanctioned a class-based direction for the country.
That the new Constitutional Law was drafted in this
sense is confirmed by all subsequent political and administrative reforms. Its
purpose is no longer the federation of national communities (people's
republics), although these were not abolished, but rather the autonomy of
smaller, local units, such as communes and workers' councils. The State is
conceived as an indivisible community that no longer has to deal with national
problems. The constitutional reform in its entirety was interpreted by official
bodies as a transition from centralism to decentralization or, according to
communist terminology, as a transition from the dictatorship of the proletariat
to the period of the withering away of the state. In this sense, a certain
territorial reform of the communes and of the legislative and executive bodies
was carried out, the fundamental features of which we will now outline.
The 1953 Constitutional Law introduced two chambers
into all representative bodies, from the communes to the republics and the
federation: the People's Council and the Producers' Council. Under this reform,
the people's committees of villages and cities, as well as the parliaments of
the republics, became bicameral, which they were not under the 1946
constitution. In the federal parliament, the Producers' Council replaced the
former upper house, the Council of Nationalities, which had been elected by the
republics and autonomous territories and represented their interests before the
federation.
However, the Council of Nationalities was not entirely
abolished but was transformed into a rather unstable committee within the
current lower house, the Federal People's Council, only able to convene when
the laws and decrees of the people's republics differed from those of the
federal government. Even so, the identity of local (republican) laws and
interests with federal ones is believed to be so firm that Eduardo Kardelj, vice-president of the Federal Executive Council,
anticipated in his comment on the new Constitutional Law that the Council of
Nationalities would never meet.
The Federal People's Assembly (the federal
parliament), composed according to the new Constitutional Law of the Federal
Council and the Council of Producers, holds "national sovereignty and is
the supreme organ of power of the federation" (Art. 3). Art. 15 lists in
11 points the powers of the Federal People's Assembly, which include: amending
the constitution; electing and removing the President of the Republic and the
Federal Executive Council; and appointing and removing the justices of the
Federal Supreme Court.
The federal parliament's jurisdiction also extends to
the federal legislature, which, in practice, covers all aspects of citizens'
private and public lives, their rights and freedoms, education, property,
labor, and insurance. The Federal People's Assembly sets the amount of social
contributions (taxes) for the communes and workers' collectives, decides on
economic plans and the federal budget, guides education and culture, and
decides on other matters "when these pertain to the general interest of
all the people's republics."
It exercises control over foreign policy, declares a
state of war, ratifies international agreements, and approves modifications to
the borders between republics that mutually agree to such modifications. With
regard to the six people's republics, the Federal People's Assembly is the sole
body that judges whether the republican constitutions and laws are in
accordance with the federal constitution and laws. In all these matters, both
chambers participate on an equal footing in joint or separate sessions.
The work of the Federal People's Assembly is carried
out through standing committees formed ad hoc. Each chamber may propose
amendments to a bill or other legal act submitted or already voted on in the
other chamber. If a conflict arises between the two chambers regarding proposed
amendments, a special joint committee is appointed to reach an agreement. If
the special committee fails to reach an agreement, it dissolves the Federal
People's Assembly and calls for elections.
The Yugoslav constitution, which upholds the viewpoint
of direct democracy, does not recognize the separation of powers. The Federal
People's Assembly, therefore, exercises both legislative and executive power.
Executive power is entrusted to the President of the Republic and the Federal
Executive Council. Article 70 of the Constitutional Law states, "The
Federal People's Assembly delegates to the President of the Republic and the
Federal Executive Council the representation of the Federal People's Republic
of Yugoslavia as a state, the enforcement of laws, the control of the federal
administration, and other executive duties incumbent upon the federation."
Each newly elected Federal People's Assembly, in turn,
elects the President of the Republic at its first plenary session. The
President is elected from among the members of the Assembly and serves a
four-year term, although the Assembly may recall the President before the
expiration of this term. The President also exercises power after the Assembly
is dissolved until the election of a new President. The rights and duties of
the President are set forth in Articles 71 to 78 of the new Constitutional Law.
The President represents the state both domestically and internationally.
The President enacts laws, issues revocable notes on
the ratification of international conventions, appoints ambassadors, accepts
and revokes the credentials of foreign diplomatic representatives, and confers
decorations by decree. As concurrent President of the Federal Executive
Council, the President may suspend the execution of any act of government, with
the obligation to promptly submit the matter in dispute to the Federal People's
Assembly.
Furthermore, the President of the Republic is the
Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and, as such, presides over the National
Defense Council, appoints and dismisses officers, and, in collaboration with
the Military Council, oversees the organization and mobilization of the
resources and forces necessary for national defense. The President of the
Republic acts in accordance with and within the framework of the Constitution
and current laws and is accountable to the Assembly for their actions,
reporting to it on the activities of the Federal Executive Council. The
President does not personally participate in Assembly voting, and in the event
of absence or illness, one of the Vice-Presidents of the Federal Executive
Council replaces the President.
The Federal Executive Council is also elected from
among the members of the Assembly at its first plenary session. It comprises 30
to 40 members, with two or more vice-presidents. The Federal Executive
Council's mission is to oversee and implement resolutions and laws applicable
throughout the country. According to the Constitution, it drafts the federal
social plan and the federal budget, sets guidelines for the work of federal
social bodies, drafts and submits bills, proclaims mobilization, ratifies
international agreements, establishes new enterprises, manages state funds,
appoints and dismisses secretaries, undersecretaries of state, and the governor
of the National Bank, rules on the dissolution of the Assembly, grants pardons,
oversees the judiciary, and exercises other functions determined by federal
laws (Articles 79 et seq. of the Constitutional Law).
The Federal Executive Council is elected for a
four-year term, the same as the Federal People's Assembly, although the latter
may recall the entire Council or any of its members before the expiration of
that term. Like the President of the Republic, the Federal Executive Council
continues to function, even after the dissolution of the Assembly, until the
new election. The Council is accountable to the Assembly for its actions, and
the Assembly can annul any act that, in its opinion, does not conform to the
law. In turn, the Federal Executive Council can suspend the execution of
decrees and other acts of the Executive Councils of the six "people's
republics" if it considers them inconsistent with the constitution and
federal laws. Thus, the governments of the six "people's republics"
are subordinate not only to their respective assemblies, but also directly to
the Federal Executive Council.
The Federal Executive Council establishes State
Secretariats, administrative entities, and other specific bodies that directly
exercise executive functions of federal jurisdiction. The State Secretariats
replace the former ministries, and their competence also includes the direct
execution of federal laws when the general interest so requires. The number of
secretariats is not fixed; they are created and dissolved by law. The most
important current secretariats are: Foreign Affairs, Interior, National
Defense, Economy, and Public Administration. They report on their performance
to the Federal Executive Council and are sworn in before the President of the
Republic.
The text of the oath is determined by the Federal
Executive Council. Each Secretary of State is empowered, within their
jurisdiction, to invalidate the decrees and other acts of the secretaries of
the executive councils of each of the six "people's republics." Other
executive institutions at the federal level, such as the Federal Police and the
UDBA (State Security Office), have the same right. The number of such
administrative institutions is not fixed. They are formed according to the
criteria of the Federal Executive Council, to which they are subordinate, and
the Council, in turn, is accountable to the Assembly for them.
Regarding the
political and administrative structure of the "people's republics,"
nothing substantial needs to be added to what has already been said. The
republican People's Assemblies—in Croatia, the former name Sabor
remains—consist of the Council of the Republic and the Council of Producers,
both participating on an equal footing. The republican Executive Council,
elected in a joint bicameral session, is responsible for implementing
resolutions. The President heads the Executive Council.
Each republican
assembly has its own President, but the republics do not have Presidents, as
that title is reserved for the President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Following the model of federal administration, at the republican level there
are also secretariats and other institutions to handle matters within the
sphere of each republic. They are responsible for their performance to the
Executive Council, and the Executive Council is responsible to the republican
assembly (Articles 100 to 112 of the Constitutional Law).
Article 16 of the
Constitutional Law deals with the relationship between the republics and the
federation in the legislative sphere. It is emphasized that "the people's
republics may enact laws only if they are authorized to do so by federal
law." This established their almost absolute dependence on the federation,
which is further confirmed by subsequent measures. Each of the six republics
may enact laws supplementing any federal law and promulgate its own legislation
in areas where no federal legislation exists, provided that such legislation is
consistent with federal laws. Upon the enactment of a federal law, the
provisions of republican laws relating to the same subject matter are
automatically repealed.
The question of the
conformity of republican laws to federal laws falls exclusively to the Federal
Assembly, while the motion to examine such conformity may originate from the
Federal Executive Council, the Republican Executive Council, the Federal
Supreme Court, the representative bodies of the autonomous provinces, and even
the relevant local organization or institution.
There is no doubt,
nor is it a secret, that the republican organs of power are merely
administrative instruments of the central government. Strictly speaking, there
is no area of social life in which the sovereignty of the republics is
unequivocally defined. This seems to be quite unwelcome, not only for political
reasons—because of the pride and aspiration to independence that the peoples
incorporated into Yugoslavia have not relinquished—but also because of the
dependence and economic exploitation that threaten the very existence of the
Communist Party in certain republics and national territories. A new
constitutional reform was recently announced. It is interesting to note that in
the debate taking place in the federal parliament, it has been proposed, among
other reforms, that "the new constitution should regulate the relations
between the federation and the republics more precisely."
According to the Yugoslav Constitution, all citizens
aged 18 and over enjoy the right to vote and to stand for election. However,
the current structure employs two electoral systems: one for the election of
deputies to the People's Council and another for the Producers' Council. As an
example, we can consider the Federal People's Assembly, whose model is followed
by the assemblies of the six republics. For the lower house, the Federal
Council, all citizens aged 18 and over 18 elect their representatives by direct
and secret ballot.
As a rule, one deputy is elected for every 60,000
inhabitants. In addition, each republic allocates 10 deputies, plus 6 deputies
from the autonomous province of Vojvodina and 4
deputies from the autonomous territory of Kosovo-Metohija.
The total number of national deputies in the current Federal Council is 371.
For the upper house—the Producers' Council—only producers, that is, members of
workers' collectives, are eligible to be elected. Consequently, the Producers'
Council is not elected by universal suffrage, nor by republics, nor indirectly,
but rather through delegates from the workers' councils. Only the workers'
councils of the communes' people's committees are elected directly by local
producers.
The current Federal Producers' Council is composed of
216 deputies, representing two groups of producers: industrial and
agricultural. Regarding this division, it is important to emphasize that the
industrial group has 168 deputies on the Producers' Council, while the
agricultural group has only 48. The reason for this disproportion, which in
itself relegates the agricultural sector to a secondary position, lies not in
the numerical disparity between industrial and agricultural producers, but in
the electoral system that deliberately favors the industrial group. The
electoral system and the title of producer are not based on the number and qualifications
of the workers, but rather on the volume of the so-called "social
product" of the respective group.
This means that the greater the "social
product," the more seats a given group would have. Since industrial
products are more expensive than agricultural products, their overall
"social product," expressed in monetary terms, automatically exceeds
that of the agricultural group. Thus, the industrial group obtained two-thirds
of the seats and the agricultural group one-third. Such an electoral system is
not only undemocratic but also antisocialist, as it considers not the worker
and their labor, but only the product of labor.
This injustice was sanctioned by a special law in
1954, according to which the "social product" of the respective
groups is measured by the average obtained over the previous three years. Kardelj justified this procedure, primarily targeting
peasants and agricultural workers, when he stated that "workers' councils
are instruments of the class struggle" and that they "compensate for
the numerical inferiority of the working class and ensure it the social role
that belongs to it as the driving force of development toward socialism."
With those words, the trend of the constitution and the entire political
structure was clearly defined.
The third and most basic instance of power in the
Yugoslav federal system is the commune. The name evokes the Paris Commune, very
fresh in the memory of communists and which is cited with unusual frequency in
the press and speeches in Yugoslavia. According to the new Constitutional Law,
the commune is an autonomous socialist community, headed by the People's
Committee, in which the workers decide directly and democratically on matters
related to communal life and management.
The People's Committees are not a recent institution.
They date back to the war years, when each partisan detachment organized itself
in the invaded territory, establishing local authority and preserving it after
the war. When, with the schism from Moscow in 1948, the policy of decentralization
was promoted, the communist regime brandished the commune as an argument that
its power derives from the people. From that date onward, special attention was
paid to the commune.
Two reasons led the central federal government to
reform the commune. The first was to limit the autocracy of local partisan
leaders, whose incapacity and administrative ineptitude were of no benefit to
the state. Their authority was restricted by their greater accountability to
the local population, which was given the opportunity for broader criticism
through elections and local meetings. The second reason was that in this way,
the central government could shield itself with local autonomy and hold local
authorities responsible for failures. It should be noted that the regime not
only tolerates such criticism but encourages it, especially in cases of
corruption within local bodies or non-compliance with economic plans.
However, communal autonomy is restricted by the
fundamental principle of the prevailing system, which requires total adherence
to the established socialist order, and also by the complex web of dependency
and administrative responsibility, as well as by the laws that prescribe the
actions of the communes and establish the "social contribution"
(taxes) they must pay to the state and to each republic. Although these
"social contributions" are quite burdensome, it is worth noting that
through overtime and "voluntary" work, dispensing with low wages in
this instance, remarkable results are sometimes achieved, particularly in the
construction of buildings and public works, such as: power plants, aqueducts,
roads, schools, etc.
The reorganization of the communal system was preceded
by an attempt at workers' self-management in production, and, strangely enough,
the commune was established as the basic instance of power precisely to control
workers' self-management. When the system of workers' self-government was
introduced in certain enterprises, many of them quickly took advantage of the
relative freedom and, competing with others, obtained profits that were
distributed among the workers.
All of this was achieved despite high taxes imposed by
the State, which, apprehensive about "capitalist tendencies,"
implemented the system according to which not only the workers but the entire
local population must direct production through the People's Committees. The
Constitutional Law of 1953 sanctioned this innovation, which, in fact, became
the basis and main characteristic of Yugoslav federalism. To make the economic
independence of the communes more effective and control easier, a territorial
reform was carried out that reduced the number of communes from 4,052 to 1,193,
in 95 districts.
The representatives of the people's authority in the
communes and districts are the People's Committees. Currently, as mentioned,
they consist of the People's Councils and the Communal or District Producers'
Councils, respectively. Both Councils are elected for four years, with the
difference that the Producers' Council is elected directly only in the
communes, while in the districts these elections are carried out through the
delegates of the Workers' Councils.
The People's Council of the Commune is composed of 15
to 30 members. The relationship between the People's Councils and the Producers'
Councils is identical at the federal and republican levels, with the difference
that they lack their own executive bodies. The executive bodies enjoy the
status of civil servants, but operate primarily under the control and
directives of the People's Committees. The chairman of the People's Committee
is elected from among the municipal councilors and oversees the work of the
communal bodies, although he has no authority over them.
Workers' Councils
constitute the basic instance of workers' self-management. Their rights and
duties were established by law in 1950 and subsequently supplemented by
numerous decrees. All workers in a company elect the Workers' Council by
universal suffrage, and it can be composed of 15 to 160 members. If the company
has fewer than 30 workers, then all of them are members of the Workers'
Council. The Workers' Council elects its delegates to the Producers' Council,
sets the company's industrial plan, determines wages, and decides on the
distribution of profits. From among its members, it elects and oversees the
Executive Committee, a kind of executive body. The People's Committee of the
commune appoints the company director. The trade union proposes the list of
bodies to be elected, and another group representing one-tenth of the voting
workers may also propose a list.
Article 7 of the
Constitutional Law determines the main rights and duties regarding
self-management at the commune, city, and district levels. The primary function
of the commune is to align the interests of the citizens with the interests of
the community, ensure social, cultural, and economic progress within its
jurisdiction, administer public assets, set municipal taxes, manage revenues,
organize the commune's self-government, oversee the performance of its bodies
and institutions, safeguard public health, insurance, education, and public
order within its jurisdiction, elect and remove municipal and district judges,
implement federal and republican plans and other provisions, and submit motions
to that effect, etc. The People's Committee exercises all these powers in
accordance with and within the framework of the Constitution and current laws.
To the political and
administrative structure that we have just outlined in summary form, two
factors that directly affect citizens must be added: the assembly of electors
and the referendum. In principle, a certain number of electors can, at any
time, convene the electors and demand an accounting from each of their
representatives, from the communal to the federal level. In turn, each deputy
must convene an assembly of their constituents at least once a year, report on
their activities, and hear any complaints.
This interesting
aspect of the system is not properly utilized, and generally, when it is
invoked, the initiative comes from the Communist Party, which wishes to rid
itself of an undesirable deputy. The same principle applies to referendums.
Faced with both possibilities, the people remain rather reserved, knowing that
they cannot impose their will in any case. The regime, on the other hand,
resorted to these means when they were advantageous. The most interesting case
is that of Milovan Djilas, formerly the regime's
second most powerful figure, who, according to statistics, obtained a higher
percentage of votes in his electoral district than Tito himself. However,
simply expelling him from the Communist Party was enough to automatically cause
him to lose the confidence of all his constituents.
Considering that
Yugoslavia is a multinational state and that its constitution theoretically
recognizes the self-determination of its constituent peoples, and that, on the
other hand, the excessive centralism practiced between the two world wars was
the main impediment to the rapprochement of its peoples, the Yugoslav federal
system should be based on respect for the national identity of each people and,
at the very least, recognize a degree of sovereignty for the republics in
matters determined and defined by the constitution. However, there is no area
of action in which a republic can decide on its own, that is,
without the interference of the federal bodies in Belgrade. The system, viewed
from a theoretical perspective, may seem somewhat attractive with regard to the
commune and workers' self-management. In this respect,
Yugoslavia more
closely resembles a federation of communes than a federation of people's
republics. Furthermore, the people's republics are the only area where duties
and rights are not specified in the constitution, except in ambiguous terms
regarding the power to proclaim their constitution, which must conform to the
federal constitution. They can also enact their own legislation on specific
matters not included in federal legislation. Given that federal legislation
covers virtually all aspects of life and social structure, the republics are
left with no other function than administrative execution and control of the
communes.
Even this control of
the communes is quite restricted since they can deal directly with the federal
government, and federal national deputies are ex officio members of the
People's Committees. In addition to the imprecision regarding the legislative
power of the people's republics and their total subordination to the
federation, each republican body or institution is also subordinate to the
corresponding federal body or institution. Thus, for example, republican
secretaries are not only dependent on the republican Executive Council but
directly on the federal secretaries.
The Republican
Executive Council is responsible not only to the Republican Assembly, but
directly to the Federal Executive Council, which can annul any act,
disregarding the opinion of the Republican Assembly. Similarly, the Republican
Assemblies are, of course, dependent on the Federal Assembly. Regarding the
latter, we must reiterate that despite the constitutional attributes that grant
it sovereignty, there is no doubt that it is merely a subservient executor of
the orders issued by the Communist Party. Central power is neither shared with
nor controlled by anyone.
The judiciary, which
in a federal system should be the independent and impartial interpreter of the
constitution, is simply another executive branch of the central government.
Judges are appointed and dismissed by resolution of the Federal Assembly, the
Republican Assemblies, and the People's Committees, depending on whether they
are federal, republican, or municipal judges. Even so, the ruling of the lower
court is subordinate to the higher court. The same system of appointment and
dependence also applies to prosecutors. In this way, all authority and every
organ of power ultimately resides in the central government.
The most significant
factor that undermines not only a genuine federation but also democracy is the
one-party system for the entire state. Since the end of the last war, all power
has been held by the Communist Party, which neither denies this fact nor
conceals its decision not to share it with anyone. To the extent that the
regime, over the years, has managed to consolidate its position through constitutional
and legal means, terror and police oppression have subsided.
However, if the
regime wishes to judge and condemn anyone, nothing can prevent it. It maintains
its position through controlled organizations, the most important of which are:
the Communist Party, the Socialist League of Working People, and the trade
unions. The same principle of hierarchical subordination—commune - republic -
federation—also governs these organizations.
The still very low
number of members in all these organizations is growing, while the quality and,
very importantly, the revolutionary fervor are declining. Nevertheless, the
communists are not satisfied with the current political or economic situation,
as evidenced by public statements made by party leaders and the need to
implement a new constitutional reform. The Yugoslav press announces that the
new constitution will transcend classical conceptions and will be a genuinely
socialist constitution. Such comments lead us to conclude that the current one
is not.
Paris
If classifying Andric among Yugoslav writers meant
that he was a subject of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, born in a
province now part of Yugoslavia (Andric was born in Bosnia in 1892, then
occupied by Austria-Hungary, but which de jure recognized the sovereignty of
the Sublime Porta), and that he lived in Yugoslavia,
then there was no objection. However, by the same logic, one would have to say
that Boris Pasternak was a Soviet writer, not a Russian one.
In other words, simply stating that he is a writer from
Yugoslavia does not clarify to which national literature and culture Andric
belongs. It doesn't even clarify whether he is a writer of Eastern or Western
culture.
From the well-known fact that Yugoslavia is not a
nation-state but a multinational one, it follows that Yugoslav nationality, in
the ethnic sense, does not exist. Contradicting reality and historical truth,
the dictatorship of King Alexander proclaimed the theory of a Yugoslav
nationality, which even the current communist regime could not accept. Instead,
it reorganized Yugoslavia as a federal state, dividing it, with one exception,
into six "people's republics" based on national criteria. Therefore,
there is no single Yugoslav people, but rather the peoples of Yugoslavia.
According to the official classification, these
peoples are: Serbian, Croat, Slovene, Macedonian, and Montenegrin. Nor is there
a single Yugoslav language, as at least three languages are
officially recognized today: Slovene, Macedonian, and Croatian-Serbian. Regarding
Croatian-Serbian, differences are officially acknowledged, and commissions of
linguists are formed to standardize and harmonize the idiomatic expressions and
grammatical forms of the two languages. Leaving aside the specific question of
whether Serbs and Croats use two different languages or dialects
and variations of the same language, the fact remains that there are two
separate and distinct literatures, Croatian and Serbian, with different
historical developments and idiomatic forms, two literary traditions, two
reading publics, and two different alphabets.
Croatian national literature dates back to the
Renaissance, emerging from Glagolitic works of a sacred nature and drawing on
classical and medieval Western literature, while Serbs lacked a true national
literature until the mid-20th century. Serbia had a meager literature, focused
on ecclesiastical themes, written in Old Russian, which the people did not
understand. Serbian literature only developed in the second half of the 20th
century. Serbs use the Cyrillic alphabet, like Russians, and Croats use the
Latin alphabet.
Therefore, if there is no Yugoslav people, language,
and culture, then one cannot speak of a Yugoslav literature or Yugoslav
writers. Nobel laureate Ivo Andrić cannot be
considered Yugoslav, either by nationality or as a writer. He may be, according
to the current constitution, a subject of Yugoslavia, but based on national
affiliation, he could be Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Macedonian, or
Montenegrin. Since he writes in Croatian, was born into a Croatian Catholic
family and raised in Croatian national territory, and then, from a young age,
was active in Croatian literary circles, publishing his work with Croatian
publishing houses, he can only be considered a Croatian writer.
In this respect, it matters little whether Andric's
last books were published in Belgrade and whether he is officially called a
"Yugoslav writer." The fact that his Croatian nationality is
deliberately omitted and attempts are even made to present him as a Serbian
writer, subjecting him to intense pressure both then and now, clearly reveals
how fallacious the official propaganda about the "brotherhood and unity of
the Yugoslav peoples" truly is.
Yugoslavia was able to be restored in 1945 only
because the communists, in the critical phase of the war, managed to convince
the Allies that they were the antithesis of the Great Serbian chauvinism of
General Draza Mihailovic
and supposed champions of egalitarian politics and the reconciliation of the
peoples of Yugoslavia, above all the Croats and Serbs, "united" so
fortunately in 1918 that, when the first international crisis arose, the swift
collapse of Yugoslavia and the bloody war between the Serbs and Croats
occurred.
The case of Andric also indicates that the re-establishment
of the "new Yugoslavia" in 1945 was not the triumph of the
"brotherhood and unity" of divided peoples, according to the official
propaganda slogan, but rather the victory of Serbia's Balkan and
Byzantine-Russian tradition and thought in cultural and political terms over
Croatia, the repository of the values of our Western society on its eastern
border in the Balkans, twice sacrificed, in 1918 and 1945. Ivo Andric was born
on October 10, 1892, in Travnik, once the city of
viziers, in Bosnia, into an old Croatian Catholic family. In Travnik, where the Catholic and Muslim Croatian populations
have coexisted for centuries, Andrić was
educated at the renowned Jesuit high school, which for decades was the
epicenter of Croatian national spirit until 1945, when the communists seized it
and the State of Croatia collapsed. Bosnia, his homeland, with its deep-seated
Ottoman Empire of 400 years and a Muslim population comprising a third of its
population, would become a favorite subject in Andrić's
stories and novels. He studied philosophy at universities in Zagreb, Vienna,
Krakow, and Graz, where he earned his degree.
Thanks to his solid classical education at the Travnik high school, his higher studies in Croatia and
Austria, and his experience as a diplomat in major cultural centers, Andrić became a great European writer. His first
literary claim to fame was his inclusion in several Croatian journals and in
the symposium "Young Croatian Lyric Poetry" (Zagreb, 1914), where the
refined poet Ljubo Wiesner
(who died in Rome in 1950 as a political exile) brought together twelve poets
of a generation that would elevate the level of Croatian literary production.
These young writers presented themselves on the eve of
the First World War as combative Croats, some of them with revolutionary ideas
against the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which had incorporated Croatia for
centuries (1527–1918) as an associated kingdom. Invoking the principle of
national identity, they advocated the dismemberment of the Danubian
Monarchy because it was multinational and the inclusion of Croatia in a state
community of South Slavic peoples. Andric, sharing this ideology, was interned
following the Sarajevo bombing, a prelude to the First World War, although he
had no connection whatsoever with the Serbian terrorists' crime.
In 1918, Andric published his lyrical meditations in
Zagreb under the title "Ex Ponto," borrowed from Ovid. In this
"dialogue with the soul," Andric describes life as a prison:
"There is no other truth," he says, "than pain; no other reality
than suffering; pain and suffering in every drop of water, every blade of
grass, in every sound of a living voice, in sleep and waking, in life, before
life, and perhaps after death." Umberto Urbani,
an Italian Slavic scholar, says that Andric expressed the pain of the common
human destiny, and that it should be read "like the psalms of David, like
the book of Job."
"...The light, kindled by the soul of the poet
Ivo Andric, burns like a votive lamp over the immense sepulcher of the great
war to remember the Dead and show the living the new path of salvation and
perfection."
In 1919, Andric published his second book of prose
poems, "Inquietudes" (Anxieties), in Zagreb, and in 1920, a
collection of short stories and narratives, "El viaje
de Alija Djerzelez"
(The Journey of Alija Djerzelez),
which were very well received in Croatia, where this literary genre has many
practitioners. The Italian Slavic scholar Giovanni Maver
states that "Inquietudes," a "diary of the soul," along
with the book of narratives "El viaje de Alija Djerzelez," reveal
Andric's refined artistic sensibility, extraordinary spiritual maturity, and
profound reflection. From 1924 to 1936, three books of prose were published
under the title "Stories," in which Andric explored, in a more
nuanced way, the themes and human destinies that he would later develop in his
great novels. He also wrote literary studies and essays, including one on Simón Bolívar, and translated Walt Whitman, among others.
After the war, Ivo Andric was accepted into the
diplomatic corps of the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes,
which the Serbs considered an extension of the Kingdom of Serbia. He was one of
the few Croats in the diplomatic service, which was reserved for Serbs as
trusted advisors. He served in Graz, Rome, Bucharest, Madrid, Geneva, Trieste,
Belgrade, and finally became minister in Berlin (1939-41). Throughout this
period as a diplomat, his literary output was not prolific. During the last war
he wrote in Belgrade, occupied by German troops, his masterpiece "The
Bridge on the Drina River", (1945) and after the war "The Chronicle
of Travnik" and "The Miss".
Even his works written before the Second World War
earned Andrić a place of honor in contemporary
Croatian literature. The Croatian scholar Slavko Jezčić considers him "the most prominent
literary figure among the Croatian revolutionary youth" of the First World
War era. Of his book "Ex Ponto," he says that it consists of
intimate, sincere, and warm dialogues with the soul. His prose poems
"Inquietudes" (Anxiety) are of a similar inspiration and style. His
short stories about Bosnian life and traditions are of a different character,
distinguished by their density of form, delicate psychological insight, rich
color, and idiomatic beauty, especially "El Viaje
de Alija Djerzelez"
(The Journey of Alija Djerzelez)
and "Narraciones" (Narratives).
The Croatian critic Ante Petravić
wrote of Andrić's first book that it could serve
as a vade mecum for all who suffer in this earthly life. "Only those who
have endured life's suffering and pain can truly appreciate this book and
perceive all its beauty and grandeur." Petravic
believed that with this work, Andric had already acquired "an immortal
name in Croatian literature."
Andric was included in several Croatian anthologies.
Milan Begovic included two of Andric's short stories
in the symposium "Croatian Prose of the 20th Century," noting that
"he is one of the foremost Croatian storytellers in general."
"In his dense, meticulously crafted stories, full of lyrical flights of
fancy, he primarily describes Bosnia and the Bosniaks,
striving to imbue them with a universal character." He quotes Dr. Antun Barac, professor of
Croatian literature at the University of Zagreb: "Through his narratives,
one feels how vain human life is, how futile man's efforts are to escape pain
and passions, how permanent and inevitable his fall into nothingness and death
is," and concludes by asserting that all of Andric's stories are worthy of
anthology.
Renowned foreign Slavicists
include him among the best Croatian writers, among them the Italians Luigi Salvini, Umberto Urbani, and
Giovanni Maver, and, among the French, Jean Dayre, who included him in his excellent anthology of
Croatian short story writers.
Andric's longer major works, "The Bridge over the
Drina River" and "The Chronicle of Travnik,"
are closer to the novelistic genre, although they are actually stories and, as
the author says, "chronicles." In both novels, he gives us a picture
of his native province, Bosnia, revealing himself as a seasoned connoisseur and
deep diver into the psychology of the Muslim population, although one has to
regret the incorrect and arbitrary political attitude he assumes toward this
secular ruling class and the indigenous Muslim population.
The action in "The Bridge over the Drina
River" unfolds over several centuries, from the bridge's construction in
the mid-16th century until 1914, or more precisely, until the first weeks of
the war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. The bridge, a crossing point for
the routes of the Ottoman Empire, is taken by the author as the axis of his
historical narrative. The setting is Visegrad, a
small Bosnian town overlooking the swift waters of the Drina River, on the
border between Bosnia and Serbia.
The location of the bridge and the town on the
dividing line where opposing cultures and state organizations clash shapes the
events that drive the action and determine inevitable human destinies, the most
dramatic moments in the lives of individuals and communities. A sense of
resigned melancholy and Eastern fatalism permeates the pages of this work, all
under the influence of the three fatal forces on this ill-fated border of
worlds, a reflection of the rise and fall of great empires.
Life is tranquil and idyllic while peace reigns;
upheavals and storms erupt during conflicts between antagonistic forces, for on
this border three civilizations meet and collide: the Byzantine-Russian, the
Western, and the Islamic. In vain had Mehemet Sokobi (Sokolovic, in Croatian
form), Grand Vizier to three Ottoman emperors and a native of Bosnia, tried to
forever unite the Bosnian Bastion with the heart of the Ottoman Empire by means
of a monumental bridge over the Drina River, thus consolidating the cultural
and political forms of the Islamic world that the Ottoman Empire was
successfully expanding while it lived up to its historical mission.
As soon as the Empire lost its momentum, exhausted in
the futile struggle with Western Christendom, crises arose that gradually led
to the Turkish retreat to Asia Minor. Each phase of that secular regression
will have painful repercussions among the Muslims of Bosnia, whom Andric in his
novel called "Turks" and only in a footnote observes that it is an
erroneous nickname to define the aboriginal population of Bosnia who are not
Turkish in either "the racial or ethnic sense", and who, it should be
added, speak the same language and express themselves in the same dialect as
the Catholic Croats.
The protagonists of the Islamic faith in the novel
speak like other Croats, a nuance that disappears in translations. The fact
that strong Muslim communities exist in Bosnia must be attributed to the sharp
internal divisions and religious-political conflicts in the medieval Kingdom of
Bosnia—a vassal state of Croatia-Hungary—prior to the Turkish invasion in the
15th century. Perhaps due to limited access to influences from both Rome and
Byzantium, the religious sect of the Patarenes,
called Bogomili or "the Church of Bosnia,"
took root in Bosnia, similar to the Albigensians and Waldensians in southern France.
Against this sect, the Hungarian-Croatian kingdom, the
first line of defense for Western Christendom in Eastern Europe, organized
several crusades. The result was that the Bogomilis
welcomed the Ottoman conquerors as allies, eventually converted to Islam, and
safeguarded their political and economic privileges. Bosnia was the only
province of the Ottoman Empire that preserved the Western institution of the
hereditary landed nobility, as well as the use of the Croatian language in
administration.
Consequently, the Muslims whom Andric portrays as
disoriented and lost are not newcomers or conquerors, but rather native
inhabitants, and their main families are the old local nobility. In contrast,
the Orthodox Christians who settled in Bosnia during the Turkish wars are
newcomers, appearing only centuries later as instruments of Serbian
expansionism.
By narrating life in Visegrad,
located on the Serbian border and lacking a Catholic population, Andric failed
to provide a complete and accurate picture of the confessional, cultural, and
political relations in Bosnia, which are incomprehensible without the presence
of the Croatian Catholic element. Nor did he offer a realistic portrayal of the
Orthodox population, comprised mostly of immigrants from the Balkan interior,
making Visegrad, or more precisely its surroundings
adjacent to Serbian territory, an exception.
Thus, in Andric's narrative, the Drina River loses its
significance as a fatal border between East and West Europe, which Grand Vizier
Mehmed Pasha Sokolovic (Sokobi in the Turkish version) tried in vain to unite. It
is one of the oldest European borders. It appears in the time of the emperors
Diocletian and Theodosius; later as a border between the Byzantine and Frankish
Empires, between the Western and Eastern Churches; a border between the
medieval Croatian and Bosnian kingdoms, respectively, and Serbia.
Within the Ottoman Empire, the Drina is the dividing
line between the Bablatte of Bosnia and the Bablatte of Belgrade, and later, with the establishment of
the new Serbian nation-state at the beginning of the 19th century, it becomes
the border between the Turkish province of Bosnia and Serbia, finally becoming,
by virtue of the resolution of the Congress of Berlin, the border between
Serbia and Austria-Hungary (1878-1918). It reappeared in 1941-45 as a border
between the Independent State of Croatia and Serbia, militarily occupied by the
Germans, and, from 1945 until now, as a border between the "People's
Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina" and the "People's Republic of
Serbia", within the "Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia".
Andric doesn't write history but a "novel"
about the bridge over the Drina. He doesn't present the past in its historical
truth but rather his imagined reconstruction, which, unfortunately, doesn't
conform to historical reality. He is influenced by the Serbian nationalist myth
of the fall of the medieval Serbian kingdom and by the romanticized description
of the Balkan peoples' struggle for national emancipation. This is especially
true of the anachronistic accounts of torture scenes from when the Ottoman
Empire was at the height of its power and its Balkan subjects didn't even dream
of rebelling.
Andric profoundly captures the different reactions of
the Orthodox and Muslim populations to major events, namely: the withdrawal of
the Turks from Hungary and Croatia, then from Serbia and Bosnia, and finally
from Sandzak and Macedonia. In each of these changes,
the Serbs see the possibility of a role reversal; that is, they hope to
transform from subjects into the ruling class, while the Muslims face the
future with anxiety and fear. Islam in Bosnia, besides being a religious
affiliation, encompassed the cultural and political forms of Islamic
civilization. Bosnian Muslims, by integrating themselves into the Islamic world
through religion, had preserved the positions of the ruling social class, and
the loss of power meant economic catastrophe for their nobility, and
liberation—not only political but also economic—for their serfs, mostly
Orthodox.
The Ottoman Empire was the political heir of Byzantium
in the Balkans as well as the vehicle of Islamic, Arab, and Persian
civilization. Its withdrawal raised the issue of its political and cultural
legacy, which became acutely apparent in Bosnia, a region of encounters and
conflicts between three distinct cultural conceptions, whose respective
custodians were the Orthodox, the Muslims, and the Catholics. With the Turkish
withdrawal and the Austrian occupation, Bosniaks
faced the choice between the predominance of Western influence, supported by
the Croats, or Serbian-Byzantine influence, backed by expansionist Russia.
The choice of Catholics and Orthodox Christians was
spontaneous. The position of the Muslim population was far more serious. In an
environment where religion is often identified with cultural and political
forms, the orientation was not easy. Muslims could not choose Serbia, since by
origin and language they are Croats. Bosnia, from a geographical, economic, and
transportation standpoint, gravitates toward other Croatian regions. The
Croatian national idea, faithful to Western conceptions, distinguished between
religious and national affiliation. The Western world, in the current secular
phase of its civilization, has successfully integrated not only Catholics and
Protestants, but also adherents of other faiths and agnostics.
At a time when Turkey is reforming and adopting
Western cultural and political achievements, the Muslims of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Croats by origin, can choose a similar path. Adopting Western
cultural achievements, they simultaneously integrated into the Croatian
national community. In this sense, the Austrian occupation of Bosnia indirectly
favored Croatian penetration at the expense of the Serbs, who continued to
equate religion with nationality. According to these deeply ingrained beliefs,
only members of the Serbian national church could be full and equal citizens.
Furthermore, the nationalist propaganda of the
Romantic era accentuated the antagonisms between the Muslim and Orthodox
populations. It is clear from Andrić's works
that Muslims, despite their origin and language, were forced to leave Serbia
along with the Turks. Not all of them could go to Turkey, for the simple reason
that they were not Turks. The only refuge left to them was Bosnia, under Austrian
administration. They were no longer the ruling political class, but neither
were they oppressed. Until the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), while Bosnia bordered
the Ottoman Empire, they might have harbored certain illusions and sometimes
sympathized with the anti-Austrian agitation of Serbian nationalists. However,
seeing that the Serbs aspired to conquer Bosnia and knowing what fate befell
the Muslims in Serbia and Montenegro, they sided with the Austrians, especially
during the First World War, when Turkey was allied with the Central Powers.
Andric interrupts his chronicle in 1914, achieving a
favorable effect for Great Serbian propaganda regarding Serbia's supposed right
to annex Bosnia. In his novel, the Serbian element possesses a deeply rooted
national consciousness, while the Muslims yearn for the Ottoman Empire. The
Austrian administration is presented as entirely foreign and without any
popular support. Had he continued his narrative, Andric would have had to write
about the calamities that befell the Muslim population with the collapse of the
Danubian monarchy and the establishment of
Yugoslavia, dominated by Serbs.
He would have had to record the Serbian revanchist
sentiment, evident in his chronicle, which yielded horrific results precisely
at the time he was writing "The Bridge on the Drina." In the Visegrad district, and partly on that very bridge,
according to the official report of the Croatian authorities, Draza Mihailovic's Chetniks slaughtered 6,000 Muslims. The bloodied Drina
carried away in its swift flow the innocent victims of aggressive Serbian
chauvinism. Indeed, the bridge over the Drina River today unites and symbolizes
nothing.
Leaving aside the political and historical context,
this novel by Andric acquires the literary value of a masterpiece. His style is
"brilliant and flows like water, crystalline, finished in detail and
refined, so that it leaves the impression of the great novels, intelligible to
foreigners because it deals with human problems, just as, or similarly as, they
occur along all the rivers of the world."
Another major work by Andric is "The Chronicle of
Travnik," in which he narrates the events in the
city of Travnik seven years before the fall of
Napoleon. The plot revolves around the conflict between the French and Austrian
consuls, and through their intrigues and squabbles, we learn about the
divisions and disputes between Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and
Jews. His more recent works include the novel "The Young Lady," as
well as several short stories. Although almost all of his work concerns Bosnia,
its past, and its typical themes, Andric does not confine himself to a local
setting. Instead, through a penetrating psychological analysis of his
protagonists, he elevates human destinies to a universal level.
Andric's compatriots,
and especially his Bosniak Croats, including some
supporters of the current communist regime, reproach him for having gone too
far in his interpretation of Yugoslav integralism and
for the distorted and biased portrayal of Muslims he created, which benefited
Serbian dominance in Bosnia at the expense of the Catholics and Muslims who
constitute the majority. In recent decades, both Catholics and Muslims in
Bosnia have given conclusive proof of their Croatian national consciousness, and
therefore should be treated equally to Orthodox Christians and not as
second-class citizens, currently unable to freely declare their nationality.
Indeed, "The
Bridge on the Drina," in which Andric presented Muslims as lacking
national consciousness, contributed to one of the most vile machinations of the
communist regime: declaring Muslims "nationally undefined." Thus, in
Bosnia, inhabited by one-third Catholics and one-third Muslims—the latter
declared "nationally undefined"—the political supremacy of the Serbs
was assured.
The "people's
republics" of Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, and Macedonia, within
Yugoslavia, were constituted according to national criteria, except for the
"people's republic" of Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the pretext that there
was no defined national majority there. For this reason, Muslims were not
granted Croatian nationality, and Serbian supremacy was imposed in Bosnia.
Within a federal system, it would be logical and just for Bosnia and
Herzegovina to be incorporated into the "people's republic" of
Croatia.
If the
"autonomous provinces" of Kosmet, with its
Albanian majority, and Voivodeship, where Hungarians,
Germans, Croats, and Romanians form the majority, were integrated into the
"People's Republic" of Serbia, there is nothing preventing Bosnia, as
an autonomous province, from being part of the "People's Republic" of
Croatia. The reason is clear. The communist regime continues, albeit somewhat
toned down, the policy of Serbian expansion. It is regrettable that a great writer
has supported, albeit indirectly, such an imperialist policy.
L Andric's stance towards Muslims provokes justified
censure from the communists themselves, and yet such critical .eferences cannot be published. This is undoubtedly an
interesting aspect that the Royal Swedish Academy ignored while deliberating on
Yugoslavia's official candidate.
Ivo Andric, who allows these maneuvers, is also a
victim of the inherent circumstances of a heterogeneous state like Yugoslavia.
He and some Croatian intellectuals, while acting as idealistic young
revolutionaries, envisioned Yugoslavia as a community of equal South Slavic
peoples, where Croatia would occupy a place befitting its Western tradition and
its advanced cultural and economic development. While most of his
coreligionists backed down in the face of the harsh Yugoslav reality, Andric,
serving in the foreign service and living abroad, followed the path of least
resistance. One of his colleagues in the diplomatic service, the Serbian
political asylee K. S. Pavlovic,
says that Andric adapted so well to the new environment "that very few
suspected he was Catholic and Croatian, and even fewer a former Jesuit pupil.
Very likeable, approachable, serious, hardworking, and
trustworthy, he would successively hold the positions of assistant to Stojadinovic, ambassador to Cincar-Markovic
in Berlin, and president of the Writers' Society during Tito's reign. He would
don the turban and invoke Allah, accept the cross and pray to God, neither
renounce the red star nor display it too prominently, and he would find that
his old friends—who were very numerous—would have to call him—much against his
will—"Brother John, Hadji-bey Andric."
In what appeared to be a naive reproach from a
disappointed friend, this former Serbian diplomat leveled serious accusations
against Andric, counting on the sensibilities of both nationalist and communist
Serbian circles. Calling him a Jesuit student, Friar Ivo, a bey,
and a hadji (pilgrim to Mecca) is, in the eyes of the
Serbs, the antithesis of their ambitions in Bosnia. The Serbs identify the
Jesuits with Austria, which they consider their "hereditary enemy."
The friars are the prototype of Catholics in Bosnia
and of Western influence, while beys and hadjis evoke the power of the Turks, "Servia's ancestral enemies." Mentioning that Andric
had risen to high positions in his diplomatic career during the governments of Stojadinovic and Cincar-Markovic
would amount to a dangerous denunciation, were it not for the communist
police's knowledge that Dr. Milan Stojadinovic—who
died last October in Buenos Aires—was prime minister of that Yugoslav
government which, during the monarchical dictatorship (1935-39), abandoned the
French "cordon sanitaire" system in Central and Eastern Europe and
cultivated close ties with the Axis powers. Stojadinovic
boasted of his friendly relations with Goehring and
Ciano and was prepared to introduce the one-party system.
Dr. Alejandro Cincar-Markovic,
Yugoslavia's Minister of Foreign Affairs (1939-41), negotiated and signed
Yugoslavia's accession to the Tripartite Pact in March 1941. Andric was then
head of the Yugoslav representation to the government of the Third Reich.
During the war, he lived peacefully in occupied Belgrade, a persona grata to
the Germans. For the communists and Serbian nationalists, this was more than
enough reason to deprive him of his freedom and take his life. Having come to
power in 1945, the communists hanged the great Croatian novelist Mile Budak, banned his works, removed them from all libraries,
and erased his name from all textbooks and histories of literature, simply for
being a Croatian patriot.
The great Croatian cosmic poet and insightful essayist
Agustín Ujevic, a confirmed
bohemian who abhorred political infighting—and who deserved the Nobel Prize
more than any other Croatian writer—was brought to trial for refusing to
renounce his national sentiments. There is no doubt that Andrić's
situation was precarious during the critical moments of the Soviet occupation
of Belgrade in late 1944 and in the early days of the communist regime. He was
saved, as we have seen, because his stance toward the Bosnian Muslims coincided
with Great Serbian interests, which were also decisive under the new system.
His novel "The Bridge on the Drina River" was published even during
the war, in March 1945, by Prosveta, "the
national publishing house of Serbia."
Whether Andrić's
attitude was sincere or feigned to save his life will be known when the
communist tyranny ends. What is certain is that the Serbs do not consider him
one of their own. The Croatian publicist Bogdan
Radica, son-in-law of Guillermo Ferrero, who spent the war in the United
States, returned to Belgrade in 1945. Seeing that the regime consolidating its
power was totalitarian, he chose freedom and fled. During his time in Belgrade,
he was able to speak with Andric and observe how the Serbs judged him. In his
literary reflections, published not long ago, Radica emphasizes that Andric,
"by his style and form, is a Western writer...
His Catholic education at the Jesuit Lyceum in Travnik, later perfected in Zagreb and at Austrian
universities, enabled him to grasp the essence of French prose and adapt it to
our linguistic possibilities." Radica also recounts that the Serbian
writer Branko Lazarevic had
told him that Andric was "Friar John," a man with the mentality of a
Bosnian Franciscan. Even if he wasn't, the intellectuals of Belgrade felt that
way. For them, Andric was "a Catholic friar" from Bosnia and nothing
more, which for the Serbs meant an Austrian cultural ambassador, infiltrated
among the Bosnian Serbs.
"In Ex Ponto and several essays," Radica
continues, "especially those about Latin countries, Ivo Andric expressed
himself with the language of a Catholic, educated by the Jesuits. One day,
while we were walking through the streets of Belgrade, he spoke to me
nostalgically of the Travnik high school and
Archbishop Saric, recalling the latter's words:
'Omnia bona ex Travnik' (All good things come from Travnik)."
Even so, on the
occasion of the Nobel Prize nomination, an attempt was made to present Andric
as if he were a Serbian writer. A Serbian correspondent for United Press
reported this highly significant news: "In Croatia, critics may say that
the Croat Miroslav Krleza
is more deserving of the prize than Andric, a Serb. For its part, the
Federation of Yugoslav Authors put forward the names of both Krleza and Andric as candidates for the Nobel Prize." Miroslav Krleza is undoubtedly a
great literary talent, more prolific and multifaceted than Andric. A
playwright, novelist, short story writer, essayist, critic, and poet, Miroslav Krleza is the most
prominent representative of Expressionism in Croatia and, indeed, the most
outstanding communist intellectual in Yugoslavia.
A militant communist
since the Russian Revolution, Krleza was destined to
be the official candidate of a communist regime he consistently supported. The
insistence on Andric's candidacy, with substantial sums invested in the
translations of his novels, must also be attributed to the fact that, among
other reasons, Krleza, who views the Croatian
national struggle within Marxist-Leninist frameworks, is, despite his
destructive critique of Croatian society, a writer who highlights his Croatian
national consciousness. His work does not align with Serbian expansionist
ambitions, nor can his Croatian nationality be misrepresented as in Andric's
case.
The fact that the
Yugoslav communist regime gave preference to an opportunist who is not a
communist over an explicitly communist author of equal or perhaps greater
literary stature, simply because he was more acceptable to Serbian nationalist
circles, speaks volumes about Serbian supremacy in communist Yugoslavia.
While Croatians are
genuinely pleased that a Croatian writer has won the highest international
literary award, demonstrating the high level of our national culture, it is
equally regrettable that the new Nobel laureate's nationality has been
intentionally concealed. His nationality has been silenced and even falsified
in order to exploit Croatian cultural treasures to bolster the prestige of a
nonexistent Yugoslav national culture and even to glorify a repressive regime.
It is deplorable that prestigious Western intellectuals and the Royal Swedish
Academy failed to acknowledge that Andrić is a
Croatian writer, formed within both Croatian and Western traditions.
This omission is suicidal,
as it once again harms a people who have sacrificed themselves, upholding and
defending the values of our Western world on its exposed eastern
border. Furthermore, it is impossible to understand Andric's art without
recognizing that the human destinies he depicts have been shaped by the
encounters and conflicts inherent in the frontiers of civilizations.
Buenos Aires
The following table reflects the annual fluctuation of
national income, population, and gross investment in the economic and
non-economic development of postwar Croatia (we are limiting ourselves to the
so-called "People's Republic of Croatia," forcibly incorporated into
communist Yugoslavia).
FLUCTUATION OF INCOME, POPULATION, AND GROSS
INVESTMENT IN CROATIA 1947-1960
Year
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960 National Income (in billions)
347
296
325
316
323
268
320
353
400
395
479
492
572
620 Population (in (thousands)
3750
3788
3820
3851
3882
3913
3946
3989
4036
4072
4108
4152
4194
4238 Gross Investments (in billions)
68.8
99.6
113.3
103.3
86.0
66.7
70.9
88.5
87.9
97.4
110.2
118.6
142.8
- (2)
From the figures provided, it can be deduced that
national income during the period under consideration increased at an average
rate of approximately 7.3%. Overall, this rate is quite favorable. However, if
we consider the very high share of gross investment in gross social product
(national income plus depreciation), which in the period under study reached
approximately 24%, a different picture emerges. In the pre-war period
(1919-1940), this share was 17%.
It should be noted that in the post-war period,
efforts were not made to replace certain plants and buildings with amortization
funds, which led to undercapitalization in many industrial sectors (textiles,
housing, etc.). For comparison, we also note that, according to Stevan Stajic's estimates,
national income, based on stable prices between 1935 and 1939, grew at a rate
of 7.84%. It can be assumed, therefore, that this growth in the territory of
what was then the Banat of Croatia was higher.
Based on the aforementioned work by Dr. Vinski and other sources, the following comparative table
of national income fluctuations in the pre-war and post-war periods could be
compiled.
COMPARATIVE TABLE OF NATIONAL INCOME BEFORE AND AFTER
THE WAR
Territory Average National Income (in billions) Index Index
Croatia 1919-1940 308 100 100
Croatia 1947-1960 (same territory) 328 106.5 95.2
Croatia 1947-1960 (territory of the P.R.) 386 125.3
104.2
The average national income in the pre-war period
reached 11,370 million dinars according to 1938 prices. If we value this amount
according to 1956 prices (for comparative purposes), we obtain the figure
indicated in the table. The valuation ratio is 22. Dr. Vinski
calculated a ratio of 18.7 (op. cit., p. 28) in his estimate of wealth based on
1953 prices relative to 1938. However, he does not take into account the prices
of consumer goods, since his calculations refer to the valuation of capital
goods and stable consumer goods. Taking this into account, as well as the price
increases between 1953 and 1956, the chosen ratio of 22 is not excessive,
although it cannot be considered strictly accurate.
To obtain the most accurate comparison possible, it
was necessary to deduct the share of Istria, Rijeka, Zadar,
and Lastovi from the postwar income figures, as these
areas are not included in Dr. Vinski's work on the
prewar period. According to our estimate, the average income of this area in
the postwar period would account for approximately 15% of Croatia's national
income, and its population would represent 7%. Taking these factors into
account, we have arrived at the figures shown in the table above.
When comparing the national income of two periods, it
is important to note the significant share of foreign funds in the postwar
period compared to the prewar period. According to the sources available to us,
the following table would result:
THE AVERAGE ANNUAL NET INCOME FROM ABROAD IN US$ (8)
Net Income Negative Trade Balance
Croatia 1919-1940 2,760,000 -
Croatia 1947-1959 (territ.
of the P.R.) 26,544,000 36,214,000
The difference between the negative trade balance and
income was covered mostly by long-term loans and private gifts from abroad, the
most important being remittances from emigrants. (According to incomplete
calculations, the average annual income from remittances and gifts from
emigrants would not be less than 6 million dollars).
We already noted at the beginning that total
consumption reflects the level of material well-being better than anything
else. It is true that when a community reaches a high level of economic
development, its consumption does not grow at the same rate as national income.
At the same time, savings increase, both individually and nationally. In our
case, consumption is far from satisfied, even for the most basic needs, such as
food, clothing, and housing. As for savings, it's not even worth discussing,
since it is not only hindered by the very low standard of living but also by
the nature of a totalitarian collectivist system, in which the central power
"thinks" for everyone. The relationship between national income on
the one hand and personal income and consumption on the other can be seen in
this table.
NATIONAL INCOME, PERSONAL INCOME, AND PER CAPITA
CONSUMPTION
Annual Average 1956 Stable Prices
National Income in Dinars Index Personal Income Index
Consumption Index
Croatia 1954-1958 104,090 100 44,134 42.4 60,497 58.1
in US$ 260.2 100 110.36 42.4 151.24 58.1
The preceding table was compiled using data on the share
of individual income and consumption in the national income of all of
Yugoslavia. It can be assumed that these shares for the "People's Republic
of Croatia" did not differ substantially from those for Yugoslavia.
Consumption is proportionally higher than income, due to the inclusion of
consumer credit, social security contributions, personal income from abroad,
and some minor items.
The conversion to dollars was made using an exchange
rate of US$1 = 400 dinars. This exceeds the official exchange rate at the time
by 33.3%, while simultaneously being 30% lower than the real exchange rate at
the time. It can be assumed that in those years the dollar-dinar ratio was
1:400 with respect to purchasing power. A group of economists from present-day
Yugoslavia had also proposed this ratio.
II. From the preceding discussion, several conclusions
can be drawn regarding the growth of national income, individual consumption,
personal income, etc. It is worth highlighting, first and foremost, the
relatively slow growth of national income, disregarding consumption, which is
so low considering the high share of investment. In the period 1947-1959, the
approximate share of net investment in national income reached nearly 16.0%,
while in the pre-war period that percentage was 5.7%. However, high investment
levels can be a double-edged sword: they almost always harm consumption, and
low consumption, in turn, stagnates labor productivity growth, etc., while,
strictly speaking, intensive investments should create more jobs, and therefore
more income, more goods, etc. Weighing the relationship between investment and
consumption is of paramount importance for any economic system. Furthermore, in
our case, we must not lose sight of the excessive spending of a totalitarian
state and the squandering of national resources, free from parliamentary
control.
In short, the primary cause of this state of affairs
lies in the social and political conceptions of communism, which reduce all
economic phenomena to two sacrosanct dogmas:
a) state-capitalist collectivization (communists, of
course, refuse to admit such a character of collectivization);
b) comprehensive central planning of the national
economy, with absolute priority given to the development of heavy industry. Of
the direct causes, we could highlight the three most important:
A) the flawed
agricultural policy and the resulting catastrophic
losses recorded in agriculture;
AVERAGE NATIONAL
INCOME (based on 1956 prices)
|
In billions of dinars |
Promedio anual |
|||
|
|
Croacia 1919-40 |
R.P. de Croacia 1947-60 |
Diferencia |
Pérdida Total |
|
Ingreso nacional de agricultura[1] |
123,1 |
106,0 |
17,1 |
239,4 |
Total losses in the postwar period would thus amount
to 239.4 billion dinars, if we consider as losses everything that falls below
pre-war levels. This sum represents approximately 56% of gross investment in heavy
industry. The actual losses were undoubtedly even greater, including the
abandonment of the best agricultural holdings and widespread decapitalization in the private agricultural sector.
Industry did not compensate for the losses incurred in agriculture, although
its share of national income increased considerably (reaching 44% in 1960).
Even so, this increase alone is meaningless, given the
entirely inadequate structure of industrial production, particularly with
regard to consumer goods. From 1946 to 1959, the production index for consumer
goods rose from 104 to 351, a meager increase considering the low level of
production in the initial year. The most reliable indicator is the data cited
by Jakov Blazevic in a
speech delivered in Zagreb in 1960 and reproduced by the newspaper Vjesnik on January 22, 1961, according to which, in the
current "People's Republic of Croatia," 48% of the territory and 34%
of the population are economically underdeveloped relative to the level of the
entire "PR of Croatia." The continued importance of agriculture in
Croatia's economic structure is evidenced by the fact that national income
decreases relatively, and in some years absolutely, whenever agricultural
production fails.
B. As is well known, the development of industry,
especially heavy industry, contributes to the rapid and vigorous expansion of
any country. However, such an industrialization policy must be based on both
natural resources and the general potential of the economy and the population,
taking into account all limiting factors, that is, the level of consumption,
the availability of skilled labor, markets, etc. Under these and other
assumptions, and with the condition of rational administration, the national
economy will grow in volume and pace, all the more so the greater the
percentage in heavy industry in relation to global investments.
Contemporary
economists from various countries have developed detailed methods and
comprehensive analyses of this economic growth, known as economic models. Many
are based on Marx's elementary model, which divides the entire economy into two
basic sectors: products for further production (Sector I) and products for
direct consumption (Sector II). Such a model is still in effect throughout the
planned economy of the People's Republic of Croatia and all of Yugoslavia. In
this paper, we will use the well-known model of the Indian economist, Professor
Mahalonobis.
According to the
attached model, Sector I includes investments in heavy industry and the
corresponding income, plus 25% of investments in transportation. The rest
(agriculture, forestry, handicrafts, trade, light industry, and construction)
has been placed in Sector II. We note that this classification is summary and
basic, but in practice, an ideal division is unrealistic. Furthermore, due to a
lack of precise data on net investments, we had to take into account gross
investments, that is, social product and not national income. (Social product
is equivalent to national income plus depreciation.)
The average depreciation
percentage of national income was calculated at a rate of 11%, based on figures
published in the 1960 Yugoslav Statistical Yearbook, in Finance, Belgrade,
1958, and the depreciation percentage in the "People's Republic" of
Croatia from 1952-1957, etc. According to this calculation, the following
values of the relevant ratios of the model result: a = 0.24; Lk = 0.4; Lc = 0.6; Bk = 0.326; Bc = 0.333; t = 13
(and not 14 because the investment maturation period was taken as one year).
Consequently, the calculations
for investments cover the period 1947-1959, and for national income, 1948-1960.
The portion of investments corresponding to Sector I thus reaches 40%,
representing a fairly high rate in relation to total investments made in both
the economic and non-economic spheres. From the above, the following table can
be deduced:
Producto social potencial y
realizado en 1960
|
Ingreso |
En miles de millones (precios 1956) |
Indice |
|
Potencial |
927 |
100 |
|
Realizado |
688 |
74 |
|
Diferencia |
-239 |
-26% |
As the table above shows, the difference between
actual output and potential output is very large. This can be explained in
several ways. First, the ratios applied are not realistic. However, they are
based on official data. Second, the application of the model is incorrect. In
this regard, we see no theoretical obstacle to its application to the raw
figures as well.
Third, the model itself is flawed. In this respect, we
should note that this model served as the basis for India's second five-year
plan (which is about to end) and yielded accurate results. Therefore, the
difference must be sought elsewhere, namely in the poor performance of the
post-war Croatian economy. Above all, Professor Mahalanabis's
model assumes the full utilization of available economic capacity. In the post-war
Croatian economy, the opposite occurred, with national resources being
squandered left and right.
This phenomenon is widespread, whether we are talking
about arable land, old or new industrial plants, the communications network,
etc. Furthermore, the results are inconsistent even due to the constant
fluctuations in agricultural production. It should be emphasized that this
production depends as much, if not more, on other factors and not only on the
resources invested.
Finally, we have taken a one-year period as the
activation period for all investments. While this period is certainly short,
the actual period (according to Vojnic and Horvat) ranges from three to four years, on average for the
entire economy. This is excessive and stems from the irrational, lengthy, and
costly construction of some important economic assets in the postwar period. To
all this is often added the unsuitable location of industrial plants, the lack
of a domestic market for large factories, the shortage of domestic raw materials
for various industries, the outdated nature of transportation, and so on. As an
example of poor location, the construction of the aluminum factory in Strnisce (Slovenia) is often cited.
Raw materials and semi-finished products had to be
transported from Sibenik (Dalmatia) – a considerable
distance – instead of building the plant in Dalmatia (a province of Croatia)
where bauxite and electricity were more than sufficient. Conversely, an
expensive iron foundry was built in Sisak, operating
with imported coke and ore brought from Vares and
Ljubljana, the transport of which significantly increases production costs.
There are many similar examples, not only regarding poor locations but also all
other aspects.
As a third factor in the unsatisfactory economic development
of postwar Croatia, we have pointed to the "transfer" of resources to
other areas of Yugoslavia. We will limit ourselves to noting the general facts
and some aspects of this problem, since its in-depth study requires more
information and data, including confidential information. When writing about
this problem, investments are usually broken down by region and per capita.
From a political-economic standpoint, the percentage
of investments in the total accumulated funds formed in the respective region
is of greater importance. Logically, what accumulates in a region (that is,
profits after deducting expenses and salaries) is generally allocated to: 1)
investments; 2) payment of state expenditures. Of course, these categories can
be further subdivided, and a portion is eventually reinvested in personal
consumption, etc. For our research, however, it is essential to determine what
proportion of a region's total accumulated capital was invested within that
same region and to compare the results with those of other regions. These
results provide a fairly accurate picture and reveal the tendency to
"transfer resources," indicating the extent to which a given region
contributes to the expenditures of the central government, the armed forces, the
diplomatic service, etc. The figures for the period 1952-1959 are shown in the
attached table.
Percentages of gross investments in Republican
accumulation funds 1952-1959 in billions of dinars - at current prices
|
República |
Acumulación + amortización |
Inversiones brutas |
Porcentajes inversiones% |
|
Servia |
2325 |
1248 |
53,7 |
From the preceding table, interesting observations and
conclusions can be drawn. For us, the most interesting conclusion concerns the
resources that primarily finance the development of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is
interesting to note that during the so-called key construction period
(1952-1957) in the territory of the "People's Republic of Croatia,"
only 8 facilities were built compared to the ninety built throughout
Yugoslavia. These facilities were erected in Zagreb (foundry), Vinodol (hydroelectric plant), Sisak
(iron foundry), Razine (aluminum), Zapresic (ceramics), Knin (screw
factory), Nin (saltworks), and Sisak
(spinning mill).
In 1960, the same trend continued, which is also
reflected in the published data referring to the new five-year plan. Gross
investments in Yugoslavia's RFP (in fixed capital, economic and non-economic
resources) in billions of dinars - at current prices
|
|
Servia |
Croacia |
Eslovenia |
Bosnia y Herze. |
Macedonia |
Montenegro |
|
Inversiones |
357 |
204 |
116 |
108 |
55 |
39 |
Acumulación más amortización (Enero-noviembre 1960)
According to data published in the daily press – Vjesnik,
January 21, 1961, and February 2, 1961 – 1.994 billion dinars would be invested
in Croatia and 3.585 billion dinars in Serbia during the period 1961-1965.
These figures comprise investments in working capital, so they cannot be
compared with the series indicated above. If the annual averages of these
investments are compared with the annual average of planned social product, it
turns out that 45.6% of Croatia's product would be invested and 59.2% in
Serbia. Calculated per capita, we find that 462,000 dinars per capita would be
invested in Serbia during that period, and slightly less, 460,000 dinars per
capita in Croatia. As explained, however, this percentage is not as relevant as
the percentage of investments in own accumulated funds.
In light of the data presented, a genuine decentralization of the
economy—so widely discussed and promoted lately—is unlikely. On the contrary,
the transfer of resources will continue.
Finally, we must point out that this work suffers from shortcomings in
its comparisons with the pre-war period, and that the analyses of the causes of
unsatisfactory economic development are far from complete, exhaustive, and
detailed. Such analyses cannot be exhaustive without due sociological and
political considerations, which are beyond the scope of this work. From an
economic perspective, these analyses should be broken down by economic sectors
and branches, whereas our exposition has been limited to macroeconomic
categories, as access to the necessary data is much easier for us.
Regarding the comparisons with the pre-war period, the main deficiencies
are:
a) the unequal nature of the periods compared; b) the need for
approximation of these estimates. If we were to extend the postwar period to
1968, using the method of extrapolation, we would, of course, obtain different
results. But such an investigation would necessarily be arbitrary, since no one
knows what will happen in the coming years. Even the very premises—such as
ceteris paribus—would not allow for such an extrapolation, since there are
positive indications that economic growth will decline considerably in the
coming period. The primary reason for this eventuality is the increasingly
reduced contribution of foreign loans. (By way of illustration, we note that
not long ago—April 1960—the National Bank suspended all loans not included in
the plan due to difficulties encountered in negotiations with England, France,
Switzerland, and the consortium of private banks in West Germany to obtain
loans.) This is due, then, to the precarious stabilization of the economy in
general, the imbalance in the industrial sector, and the even greater mismatch
between industrial production and market development, as well as to
transportation, commerce, etc. We must also add the urgent need for greater
investment in housing construction and other sectors neglected for years.
In short—assuming the current political regime remains in place—the
coming period will have to atone for all the fatal errors and mistakes, both
theoretical and practical, made in economic development during the past 14
years. If a regime change were to occur—whether through evolution or
revolution, it matters little—and the Croatian state were re-established with a
democratic system, these same inherited problems would overwhelm the new
government. However, within the framework of national and individual freedom,
the solution to these serious problems would be more feasible and more humane.
London.
It would be absurd, however, to force artists to
adhere to a political, social, or religious agenda. This practice has led to an
extreme degradation of art in totalitarian regimes. The fact is that most
contemporary artists have lost faith in humanity and God, so that their art
becomes a religion for them. From the perspective of such artists, Mestrovic's
attitude represents an anachronism. But if we consider that the value and vitality
of a civilization are not independent of the attitudes of the individuals who
participate in it, but rather depend on the energy with which each individual
reaffirms, at every moment, the ideals that inspire the civilization, then only
an attitude like Mestrovic's can be the path to resolving the current crisis of
culture.
The opposite attitude signifies pessimism and
fatalism, which facilitates the work of destructive forces. Even admitting that
we are in the period of formation of a new civilization, that changes nothing
because a new civilization is not created in a vacuum, but rather preserves the
most valuable elements of the preceding one.
Thus, paradoxically, the reason that distanced
Mestrovic from the prevailing naturalism around 1900 is the same reason that
makes him a relatively conservative sculptor today. That reason is the
insistence on symbols and values, as opposed to the exclusive interest in the
individual in the first case, and to the disappearance of the individual
(parallel to the disappearance of the ideals that should guide him) in the
second.
This insistence of Mestrovic on religious, ethical,
and social values makes his art akin not to the art of the
classical periods, but to that of the archaic periods: to Assyrian, Egyptian, Cretan,
pre-Periclean Greek art, and the Romanesque and
Gothic art of the Middle Ages. Because in Mestrovic's works, as in the art of
that era, the universal predominates over the individual, the expression of
collective and transcendent ideals over the expression of individual subjective
states.
For the psychic attitude revealed in such works,
ideals are far more important and more interesting than introspection. This is
not to say that in Mestrovic's works we do not often find a very precise
individualization of the characters, nor that he despises the individual; quite
the contrary, the affirmation of the value of each individual is a fundamental
affirmation of the West, one that Mestrovic fully shares. But in his art, these
individuals do not float in the void of solipsism; rather, the ideals that
inspire them give meaning and direction to their actions and emotions. It is
faith that gives both Mestrovic and his characters the strength to endure in
solitude and despair, and the best symbol of this is the figure of Job, one of
his greatest achievements.
Another characteristic of Mestrovic, common to the
periods mentioned, is his concern for the conception of his works within a
specific architectural ensemble. This concern has led Mestrovic to create
several architectural-sculptural ensembles. The location of a sculpture within
an architectural ensemble corresponds to the individual's place in the world
through a system of ideas called a worldview or Weltanschauung, while
sculptures conceived without knowing where they will be placed symbolize the
individual who feels thrown into the world against their will and moved by
circumstances beyond their control.
The first of these architectural-sculptural ensembles
conceived by Mestrovic was the Kosovo Temple, inspired by the myths born from
the Slavic struggle against the Turks in the Balkans. Mestrovic soon abandoned
this theme, and the ensembles he created afterward were primarily churches and
votive chapels. This could be considered a transition from the patriotic to the
religious, but in reality, while it is an affirmation of the religious, it is
also a definition of his political and national stance.
Because the mythology that Mestrovic sought to
highlight in his Kosovo Temple is peripheral to Croatian national tradition.
The essentially Croatian tradition concerning the struggle against the Turks is
a tradition of resistance—hard and bloody, but successful—while the mythology
of Kosovo was born of defeat. Now, if a defeat persists for centuries, that,
like the defeat itself, is due to an insufficient will to resist. The fall of
Bosnia, for example, was mainly due to the presence of the Manichean sect of
the Patarenes or Bogomilis
who, enemies of both the Catholic West and the Orthodox East, offered no
resistance whatsoever to the Turks. The fall of Serbia was due to the fact that
the Caesaropapist Byzantine system had isolated that
country and did not inspire much enthusiasm among its inhabitants to fight for
it. The western and northern parts of Croatia, on the other hand, were strongly
linked, with both spiritual and military ties, to the West, and this gave them
the will and the power to resist.
The fact that Kosovo's mythology resonated with the
Croats is due to the fact that the area where these epics originated was far
removed from both Byzantium and Rome, so the national consciousness of neither
people had developed there, since the constitution of the Serbs and Croats as
two distinct nations was conditioned by their affiliation with two different
cultures and two different faiths.
Taking these myths as
a symbol of the unity of the two peoples then means attempting a return to
unity through barbarism or the annihilation of one of the two cultural
traditions.
Mestrovic soon
realized this dilemma and, with his characteristic honesty, abandoned this
dream destined to fail. But even before he had understood the tragic
contradiction of his ideal, it had manifested itself in the lack of harmony of
the temple itself, perhaps the only work of his that lacks unity and
spontaneity.
For all these
reasons, the insistence on Christian themes in Mestrovic's later work is
simultaneously an affirmation of the universal values of love and
freedom, and an affirmation of his nationality, which is a conjunction of these
ideals with a particular language. As for Mestrovic's figures, they have never
lost their vigor and energy. The change that occurred after his youthful dreams
faded consisted only in the purification of the ideals in whose service that
energy was channeled. The process of purification was extraordinarily rapid;
Even among his early works, alongside occasional displays of sympathy for an
elemental force, we find mature pieces that explore the problem of destiny and
teach the great principles of love and sacrifice. For Mestrovic, the struggle
against evil was subsequently waged increasingly in the realm of the spirit,
against the inherent weakness in every human being.
This synthesis of
supreme moral values with equally high artistic quality is what characterizes
the work of Ivan Mestrovic, who, in this dual aspect, remains the greatest
phenomenon among contemporary sculptors.
Buenos Aires.
It is solely due to a lack of understanding of the
true relations within present-day Yugoslavia—which practices the same type of
imperialism and colonialism as the Soviet Union, albeit on a smaller scale—that
Yugoslavia is listed among the non-committal countries. Non-committal
countries, according to the definition issued by the Preparatory Commission in
mid-June in Cairo, are not to enter into political or military obligations with
either of the two opposing blocs and, at the same time, must support national
liberation movements and demand the right to self-determination for all
subjugated peoples.
It is only because they continue to skillfully conceal
their role as protectors of Serbia's petty imperialism against the other
peoples of Yugoslavia that the Yugoslav communist leaders can present
themselves as supposed champions against national oppression and, during their
frequent visits to Afro-Asian countries, portray themselves as protectors of
the newly liberated nations. For all these reasons, the governments and
delegates of those countries, who sincerely strive for national rights and the
freedom of all oppressed peoples, have a profound interest in knowing the truth
about national relations within Yugoslavia and about that country's relations
with its neighbors.
YUGOSLAVIA - MODERN SERBIAN EMPIRE
Yugoslavia is not a nation-state but a multinational
one, created after the First World War in an exceptionally favorable
international climate for Serbian nationalism. This nationalism is valid in
principle as much as any other, with the caveat that it was formed in the
tradition of medieval Serbian imperialism. The Serbian ruler Stephen Dushan the Mighty, in 1346, arrogated to himself the title
of "Emperor and Autocrat of the Serbs, Greeks, and Bulgarians." Dushan aspired to take advantage of the decline of
Byzantium, conquer Constantinople, and replace Basileus.
His kingdom encompassed medieval Serbia, Macedonia, Duklia
(present-day Montenegro), Albania, Epirus, and Thessaly. This Serbian empire
was ephemeral, but its memory was deeply etched in the minds of the Serbs,
lasting for centuries. Only in modern times did it crystallize the peculiar
traits of contemporary Serbian nationalism, aggressive and coveting territories
not belonging to its own nation.
Serbia expanded only slightly during the Balkan Wars
(1912-1913) by annexing (the Serbs say "liberating") most of
Macedonia and a large portion of Albanian territory, the region of Kosovo and Metohija. Although Serbs represent only 2.5% of the
population in Macedonia (official statistics from 1948), Macedonia was declared
"Southern Serbia." In Kosovo and Metohija,
the majority of the population is Albanian, so that almost half of Serbia's
Albanians live in direct proximity to their nation-state. Despite all these
facts, Serbian nationalists continue to call this region "Old
Serbia," because in the Middle Ages, it seems, Serbs constituted the
majority of the population there.
However, Serbia's new, unexpected, and extensive
expansion took place in 1918 with the incorporation of Croatia, a former
kingdom associated with Austria-Hungary, Slovenia, and the Kingdom of
Montenegro, which had been independent until then. Vojvodina,
formerly part of southern Hungary, was also annexed to Serbia in 1918, although
the majority of its inhabitants were German, Hungarian, and Croat. As is well
known, Austria-Hungary was dismembered because it was a national community,
based on the national principle that each people should create its own state,
while minorities would be integrated into the respective national states.
Therefore, when Croatia, Slovenia, and other regions were incorporated into
Serbia, the argument was made that it represented the "liberation and
unification of an indivisible people who bear three names." Hence the name
of the new state: Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which in itself
reflects the multinational character of the new state.
That name was valid until 1929 and recognized by all
nations. By decree of King Alexander I of the Serbian Karageorgevic
dynasty, it was changed to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The king had
simultaneously abolished the constitution, banned political parties, and
prohibited national names and symbols, establishing a dictatorial regime
supported by the army, which was largely controlled by Serbs. To make matters
worse, the king had decreed that Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins, and
Macedonians were not separate historical and political entities, but rather
"tribes" of the supposed Yugoslav people. The Serbian name and
national symbols were retained by the Serbian national church, while Catholics
and Muslims were required to fly the official flag instead of their national
flags.
Those who dared to challenge these repressive
measures, asserting, for example, that the Croats are a distinct people with an
uninterrupted historical, state, and cultural tradition spanning over twelve
hundred years, and that, in accordance with the national principle and the
right to self-determination, they can demand the restoration of their state,
violently and illegitimately erased from the map in 1918, were persecuted for
high treason, imprisoned, or treacherously murdered by the political police.
The official narrative was that Yugoslavia had undergone a process analogous to
the unification of Italy or Germany in the previous century. Serbia was
assigned the role of Prussia or Piedmont, respectively.
Thus, through
fraudulent and violent methods, the modern Serbian empire was established. The
national principle was distorted under the pretext that all Yugoslav peoples
constituted a single national unit. However, Bulgaria was deliberately excluded
from this "liberating" mission of Serbia, even though Bulgarians
speak a Slavic language, are Serbia's immediate neighbors, and their religious
and cultural traditions are far more akin to those of Serbs than those of the
Catholic and Islamic Croats or the Catholic Slovenes. Bulgaria was omitted
because, in this restricted Yugoslavia (South Slavia),
Serbia would represent only a quarter of the total population. (According to
the official Yugoslav statistics of 1948, Serbia had 4,136,934 inhabitants, or
26.2% of the total population.) In a Yugoslav state that included Bulgaria,
Serbia would not have been able to exercise political hegemony under any
circumstances. On the other hand, Macedonians are so closely aligned with
Bulgarians that perhaps the majority identify with them nationally, while all,
without exception, yearn for the unification of Macedonia, uniting with
Bulgaria, which possesses Pirin Macedonia.
Yugoslavia, as it was
created in 1918 and reconstituted in 1946, includes several South Slavic
peoples. Today, five "people's republics"—Servia,
Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Montenegro—are officially recognized as
having a national character, while the "People's Republic of Bosnia and
Herzegovina" is considered a mixed territory in the national sense.
Furthermore,
Yugoslavia inherited many thorny problems from Serbia due to the forced
annexation of significant ethnically distinct territories. Open hostility has
simmered between Serbia and Bulgaria since 1913, stemming from Serbia's
annexation of Macedonia. This was the cause of the armed conflicts between
Sofia and Belgrade.
The Serbs prevented
the unification of the Albanian people by annexing the regions where almost
half of all Albanians live.
Serbia, moreover,
annexed Vojvodina, a region with a German, Hungarian,
and Croatian majority.
For the reasons
stated, the Croats could not stand in solidarity with the Serbs in defending
these borders, which constitute a latent threat to peace and a violation of the
rights of the Balkan and Central European peoples. The Croats wish to live in
peace and friendship with all these peoples.
Such an imperialist
and adventurist policy could only have been initiated and maintained through
deception and violence. Yugoslavia, although created invoking democratic
principles and with the backing of the victorious democratic powers of the
First World War, could not be governed democratically in the interwar period.
Nor can it be today, even without the "people's democracies." Such a
state cannot be the homeland of free peoples.
Stalin and Tito First Condemned Serbian Imperialism...
It could be said that the attitude of the Soviet
Union, and by extension the Yugoslav Communist Party, toward the policies of
the Pan-Serbian governments between the two world wars was negative. This
applied not only to the regime but also to the state itself. Like the Bolsheviks
in Tsarist Russia, the Yugoslav communists maintained that the Kingdom of
Yugoslavia was "a prison of the people" and, in Tito's words,
"the most typical country of national oppression in Europe" (See:
"The Struggle for the Liberation of Yugoslavia," p. 132).
The Yugoslav Communist Party, meeting at its Second
Congress in June 1920, resolved to "defend the national unity" of
Yugoslavia. At the Fifth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, held in Moscow in 1925, Stalin spoke invoking
the Leninist criterion, according to which the struggle for national liberation
is inextricably linked to the general problem of the proletarian revolution, as
a part of the problem of the triumph of the dictatorship of the proletariat. He
censured the Yugoslav communist leaders for having underestimated the important
popular movement for independence among the Croats and Slovenes. The communists
in Yugoslavia must uphold the right of nationalities to self-determination,
that is, the right of each nationality to separate and lead an independent
state existence (See: Bolsevik, No. 7, April 15,
1925).
When the Serb Sima Markovic, then General Secretary of the Yugoslav Communist
Party, later tried to narrow the scope of these disparate criteria, Stalin, in
an ad hoc article (Bolsevik, Nos. 11-12, April 30,
1925), flatly refuted his claims. Markovic was
subsequently dismissed as party secretary. “What,” Stalin asked, “is the
essence of the national question at the present time, when this question has
been transformed from an internal state problem of a local nature into a world
problem, into the problem of the struggle of colonies and countries.” Dependent
peoples against imperialism? The essence of the national question lies in the
present struggle of the popular masses of the colonies and dependent countries
against financial exploitation, political subjugation, and the cultural
depersonalization of these colonies and nationalities by the imperialist
bourgeoisie of the dominant nationality.” Stalin warns that the Yugoslav state
itself was formed as a result of the clash between the two fundamental
imperialist coalitions” and that the current borders of the Yugoslav state,
borders created as a result of wars and violence, cannot become the starting
point and legal basis for the solution of the national question.
Therefore, the problem of self-determination and
separation of the subjugated peoples in Yugoslavia cannot be treated as an
academic problem, but as a matter of practical necessity.
The Yugoslav Communist Party was subsequently
reorganized, according to Comintern instructions, on
the basis of national sections, and the Communist Party of Croatia was
immediately formed. Emphasizing the right of secession of the subjugated
peoples of Yugoslavia, the communists sought to win the sympathies of the
masses while simultaneously weakening the Yugoslav state, created by the
victorious powers to serve as the cornerstone of a system functioning as a
"cordon sanitaire" against Soviet expansion.
This radically anti-Yugoslav stance was later modified
when, with Hitler in power, the Soviet Union sought an alliance with France,
Yugoslavia's main protector, and attempted to structure, within the League of
Nations, a system of what was called "collective security." At the
same time, in Europe, it advocated coalitions with socialists and liberals,
known as Popular Fronts.
However, this Soviet shift regarding Yugoslavia was
carried out with extreme caution. Although the communists were disappointed at
having failed to win over the Croatian masses—since, as repeatedly noted in Comintern meetings, the Croats had organized their own
national liberation movement under the leadership of Stefan Radić—they
proceeded with caution. In the critical years, the Croatian Peasant Party was,
in fact, the only significant democratic movement in Yugoslavia openly opposed
to the pan-Serbian dictatorial governments. Even after the conflict between
Moscow and Belgrade, at the Fifth Congress of the Communist Party of
Yugoslavia, held in 1948, Josip Broz Tito harshly
criticized those communists who, after the First World War, advocated for the
"so-called unity of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes in the politically
disorganized Yugoslavia of Versailles." In his political report presented
to the Central Committee of the Party, Josip Broz
Tito (quotes taken from the official edition published in Belgrade in 1948)
emphasized that "as soon as the State of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was
established in 1918-20,
it became clear that within this State, fraught with
numerous antagonisms imposed under Pan-Serbian hegemony by the Karageorgevic dynasty and the bourgeois government, these
contrasts were intensified from the outset. One of the main factors in this
intensification was the unresolved national question, completely ignored by the
ruling clique, which clung tenaciously to the formula: 'one people with three
names,' meaning that Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes constituted an undivided
people, disregarding Macedonians and Montenegrins. The unification of Serbs,
Croats, and Slovenes was effected in 1918 through assistance." effective
of the victorious Serbian and French troops, who invaded Croatia, Slovenia and
Montenegro to secure a leading position for the Serbian bourgeoisie, even
though there was not a single Austrian or German soldier in Croatia or
Slovenia."
"In Montenegro and Croatia," Tito continued,
"there was strong opposition to this national union; this opposition was
brutally suppressed in both Montenegro and Croatia. This, then, was the mission
of the French and Serbian troops in the newly annexed regions." The
elections for the constituent assemblies were held "under terror," and
the new constitution, promulgated without the participation of the Croatian
deputies, "sanctioned the views of the Pan-Serbian hegemons."
The centralist system denied the existence of the
national problem in the newly created state, thus creating the conditions for
the sharp conflicts that would arise in the future around this very issue. The
Great Serbian circles and the Serbian monarchy disregarded all these factors,
attempting to resolve the national problem through violent measures. "In
view of all this," says Tito, "the conflict, instead of diminishing,
continually intensified, to such an extent that a Serbian deputy, a supporter
of the regime, Punisa Racic,
fired his revolver, killing the (Croatian) deputies Paul Radic
and George Basaricek, while Esteban Radic (the Croatian leader), who later died from his
wounds, and the deputies Pernar and Grandja were seriously injured."
That crime committed in parliament, orchestrated by
reactionaries close to the king and with the king's consent, provoked street
fighting in Zagreb (the capital of Croatia) and stirred deep unrest in other
parts of the country. Losing the possibility of continuing to disguise himself
with a democratic mantle, King Alexander trampled on the constitution,
abolished the Constitution of St. Vitus, dissolved parliament, and proclaimed
his monarcho-fascist dictatorship. Thus ended a
period of sham democracy and began a period of open dictatorial methods, the
most brutal national oppression, and social exploitation of the peoples of
Yugoslavia.
A country, created in the name of the national
principle and the right to self-determination, which turned out to be their
utter negation, had to disintegrate and will disintegrate every time an
external conflict arises. During the last war, Edward Hallet
Carr, a renowned British authority on national issues, aptly wrote in his work,
"Nationalism... and then what?":
"The settlement of the First World War cannot in
any way be considered final and definitive. National self-determination became
a permanent invitation to secession. The movement that dismembered
Austria-Hungary and created Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia had to be followed by
movements for the dismemberment of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Having
accepted the premises of nationalism, its evolution was natural and legitimate,
without it being possible to put an end to it."
The constitution of the Slovak Republic in 1939 and
the re-establishment of the Croatian state in 1941, as well as the
reintegration into Bulgaria, Albania, and Hungary of the territories previously
annexed by Serbia, implied a political evolution consistent with the national
principle and the right to self-determination. The annulment of these acts in
1945 through the restoration of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia would, strictly
speaking, imply a violation of these principles and rights. This is, therefore,
a regressive political process, fraught with problems and harmful both to the
interests of the peoples involved and to the interests of other countries,
especially those that enabled and continue to maintain such an abnormal
arrangement.
The collapse of monarchical Yugoslavia occurred while
the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of 1939 was still in force. Although by the end of
1940 there was already tension between Moscow and Berlin due to conflicting
interests in the Balkans, the communists still viewed the victories of the
Third Reich with a degree of sympathy. Consequently, there was no unanimous
reaction among Yugoslav communists to the coup d'état of March 1941. While
Serbian communists enthusiastically supported the defense of Yugoslavia,
non-Serbian communists continued to consider Yugoslavia a "prison of the
people," which, in effect, it was.
Therefore, Croatian and Macedonian communists viewed
the collapse of Yugoslavia with a degree of satisfaction. It is true that the
regime change did not favor them, as they continued to operate illegally, but
they had to acknowledge that the new situation signified the realization of the
right to self-determination and separation of subjugated peoples and
minorities. The Macedonian communists joined the Bulgarian Communist Party,
which accepted them as the most natural thing in the world. When Draza Mihailavic organized the
Serbian nationalist war with the aim of restoring Yugoslavia, many communists,
especially Macedonians and Croats, labeled this struggle harmful and
reactionary.
The communists launched a guerrilla war at the Soviet
invitation, but not all agreed with the official program of the Yugoslav
Communist Party, which stated that they should fight not only to relieve the
Soviet Union, under attack by Hitler, but also for the reestablishment of
Yugoslavia. They believed it would be difficult to convince Croats,
Macedonians, Albanians, and other formerly subjugated groups that the
restoration of Yugoslavia meant "national liberation." Such slogans
could only resonate with Serbs, who, with the dismemberment of Yugoslavia—in
effect, an enlarged Serbia—had lost their colonies and aspired to recover them.
For this reason, the communist leaders had to smooth over many differences
before achieving discipline within their ranks.
Even so, the partisan guerrillas, as they themselves
acknowledge, found their main support among Serbs, thus giving their struggle a
Serbian national character. Joseph Broz Tito admits in the aforementioned
political report that difficulties existed, but he attempts to downplay their
significance. Among other things, he emphasizes that in Macedonia, due to the
opposition of the communist leaders, it was not possible "in the early years
of the war to organize an armed uprising... because in his opinion Macedonia
was not occupied but liberated by the troops of King Boris, while the German
troops played "a positive role," since they contributed to the
"liberation" of Macedonia." Stalin himself had to mediate in the
conflict between the Bulgarian and Serbian communists, establishing a kind of
condominium for Macedonia that lasted until 1948.
In the same report, Josip
Broz Tito also accused Croatian communists, particularly Andrija
Hebrang, a member of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of Yugoslavia, of having taken an incorrect position toward the
Serbian minority in Croatia. This minority had sided with General Mihailović, a Serbian nationalist whose program was to
restore a monarchical Yugoslavia and eliminate the Croatian state. Regarding Hebrang and his supporters, Tito said that they "were
in favor of weakening Croatia's ties with Yugoslavia" (Serbia) and that
"their Croatian nationalist separatism was evident in every step of every
day." Hebrang was already imprisoned when Tito
made these accusations.
As a prominent member of the Communist Party's Central
Committee, he held important party and government positions until the
Belgrade-Moscow conflict. He was not removed earlier because Moscow did not
fully approve of Serbian chauvinism, although it initially consented to the
restoration of Yugoslavia. For this reason, Hebrang,
after the war, was able to censure Serbian chauvinism behind the scenes,
protest against the fixed borders to the detriment of Croatia, and against the
mass killing of Croatian soldiers outside of combat. Rankovic,
a Serb and head of the political police, justified these measures as reprisals
against fascist remnants. Hebrang retorted, even in
parliament, that it was primarily a matter of exterminating Croatian patriots.
During the war, Moscow accepted the program of
restoring Yugoslavia, considering that in that situation the Serbs were the
most discontented and that their militancy could only be exploited by promising
them the resurgence of Yugoslavia. At the same time, efforts were made to
appease the subjugated peoples and minorities in Yugoslavia by promising them a
federal structure after "liberation." How were the rights to
self-determination violated in Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia?
As mentioned, the Croatian and Macedonian communists
did not approve of the Serbian communists' program during the last war, which
aimed at the re-establishment of Yugoslavia on a federal basis. When Yugoslavia
collapsed in April 1941, Stalin expelled the Yugoslav ambassador and, in a
statement transmitted by TASS, implied that he recognized the situation.
But when Hitler attacked the Soviets, and given the
analogous hegemony that Serbia and Russia exercised over other nationalities,
it was not difficult for the Serbian communists to persuade Stalin of the
advantages of a restored Yugoslavia structured according to the Soviet model,
which would guarantee the Soviet Union access to the Adriatic Sea through
Croatian territory. Once Yugoslavia was restored after the war as a communist
state, in violation of the Yalta agreement between Stalin, Roosevelt, and
Churchill, its constitution, a faithful copy of the 1936 Soviet constitution,
was promulgated on January 31, 1946. Its first article reads: "The Federal
People's Republic of Yugoslavia is a federal people's state in republican form,
a community of equal peoples who, adhering to the right of self-determination,
including the right of secession, expressed their will to live together in the
Federal State."
Since federalism in a country governed exclusively and
centrally by the communist party is a mere formality, the only difference is
that in present-day Yugoslavia, its multinational character is not concealed as
it was in the monarchy. Therefore, as in the USSR and Czechoslovakia,
Yugoslavia also has a dominant people: Russians, Czechs, and Serbs,
respectively. Members of the remaining peoples and minorities continue to be
second-class citizens.
National discrimination in Yugoslavia is more drastic
than in the USSR and Czechoslovakia, countries with a homogeneous civilization
where the dominant ethnic groups constitute the majority or near majority of
the total population (Russians and Czechs, respectively), surpassing other ethnic
groups in cultural and economic development. In Yugoslavia, the situation is
reversed, as it is a heterogeneous state in cultural and religious terms. The
dominant ethnic group (Serbia) represents a quarter of the total population
and, due to centuries of Turkish domination, suffers from a clear cultural and
economic backwardness compared to Slovenia and Croatia, which are currently
victims of Serbian hegemony and colonial exploitation.
Regarding the assertion in the aforementioned article
of the Yugoslav constitution about the supposed application of the right to
self-determination in Yugoslavia and the renunciation of secession, it is worth
noting that Yugoslavia was restored by force of arms and terrorist measures. In
this climate, the communists called for elections for the constituent assembly,
allowing only one list of candidates and eliminating all opposition.
While a portion of the population fought in the ranks
of the partisan guerrillas, this does not imply that all of them wished to
establish a communist regime or restore Yugoslavia. Furthermore, Croats,
Macedonians, and members of other ethnic groups, as even the communists admit,
did not join the insurrection. The partisan troops were composed mostly of
Serbs.
On the other hand, the communists forced people into
their ranks by exploiting German reprisals against the population, reprisals
often intentionally provoked, and in the final phase of the war they decreed
mandatory mobilization in the territories they controlled. They also had abundant
support from the Western Allies.
Even so, the partisan guerrilla movement was on the
verge of disappearing in 1944. Tito escaped by fleeing on a British plane and
remained on the island of Vis until the end of that year when Red Army
contingents invaded Serbia, capturing Belgrade and installing a communist
government there.
In the aforementioned political report, that is, after
the Moscow-Belgrade dispute, Tito still praised the Red Army's contribution to
the "liberation" of Yugoslavia, although he now claims the complete
opposite. We quote his exact words:
"In the autumn of 1944, in its magnificent
advance, pursuing Hitler's defeated hordes, the heroic Red Army reached our
borders... The heroic Red Army helped us liberate Belgrade, Eastern Serbia, and
Vojvodina. That was a great help to us, as was the
assistance the Soviet Union provided us during the war in equipping our army
with military equipment, which at the end of the war numbered 52
divisions."
Thus, the communists came to power thanks to the direct
help of the Red Army. However, the conquest of the western regions, where the
Soviets could not operate according to the prior agreements between the Allies,
was extremely difficult. There were 200,000 Croatian soldiers, 20,000 National
Guardsmen in Slovenia, and an undetermined number of Draza
Mihailovic's Chetniks on
the Montenegrin border. Tito, in the aforementioned report, explicitly states
that the Croatian border was a tough nut to crack. Fierce fighting raged for
months along the Croatian-Serbian borders, in Srijem
and Slavonia. Tito says of these battles:
"In these final struggles, we suffered heavy
losses. For your information, I will say that on the Srijem
front alone, for a few months, and then also in Slavonia, we had 70,000
wounded. This proves the intensity of the fighting. Above all, the remnants of
the Croatian Ustaše fought desperately for every inch
of ground..." On one side were the Serbs fighting under communist
leadership, and on the other, the Croats fighting for their national independence.
Wherever Tito's guerrillas, supported by British aircraft, arrived, they
exterminated the Croatian population, supporters of national independence.
These repressive measures culminated when, after the
war ended, they entered Croatia's capital—evacuated to save lives and
property—and murdered more than 100,000 Croatian soldiers, disarmed and
returned by the British military command to Austria, where they had sought
refuge after the end of hostilities. This mass killing also involved former
soldiers and Slovenian and Croatian civilians. Furthermore, the prisons and
concentration camps in Croatia and Slovenia were overflowing.
In such a climate, the "elections" for the
constituent assembly were held. As stipulated among the Allies, a mixed
government composed of communists and politicians from the exiled government,
formed ad hoc, was to call for free elections. To prevent this, the communists
resorted to terrorist measures, trampling on the obligations they had
undertaken to not impose their system and to respect the freely expressed will
of the people of Yugoslavia. Tito even went so far as to boast that they had
acted in bad faith. He said in his political report: "We had to accept
these obligations because the Western Allies would not have recognized the new
situation in Yugoslavia otherwise." (p. 78 of the official edition).
If the colonial powers had organized similar elections
and plebiscites in their Afro-Asian possessions to determine whether the
respective peoples wanted independence, it is quite certain that none would
have achieved national independence, and it would later be asserted that they
"had renounced being free and independent." If Hungary, Bulgaria,
Albania, and other countries behind the Iron Curtain constitute nation-states,
why deprive Croatia of that right? If Russia recognized Poland, once an
integral part of its empire, as a national, historical, and political entity,
why doesn't Serbia do the same for Croatia, which, due to its historical and
political development, culture, and religion, is at least as different from
Serbia as Poland is from Russia?
Furthermore, maintaining Serbian domination and the
colonial exploitation of Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, and the national
minorities living along the Albanian and Hungarian borders is not a
prerequisite for maintaining a communist regime. At least, this was not the
case until 1948, the year of the conflict between Moscow and Belgrade. Under
the slogan "brotherhood and unity," Serbian communists attempt to
conceal their policy of oppression and economic exploitation of other peoples
and national minorities. Why, for example, is the Albanian minority in Kosmet not allowed to reintegrate into their nation-state,
Albania? Why has the same not been done for the Hungarian minority?
The case of Macedonia is particularly serious.
Macedonians aspire to unite with Bulgaria for two reasons: a high percentage of
their compatriots live in Bulgaria, and they also feel an affinity with the
Bulgarian people, so some form of union between Macedonia and Bulgaria would be
a positive and just solution. If both Bulgaria and Serbia have communist
governments, by what right do the Serbs prevent the national liberation and
unification of the Macedonians? Moreover, the atheist government in Belgrade
imposes the jurisdiction of the Serbian national church on Macedonians, a
church that is favored not only over Catholics and Muslims, but also over
Orthodox Macedonians and Montenegrins.
Serbian chauvinism also benefited greatly from the
creation of the "People's Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina," which,
although it has a Croat majority among both Catholics and Muslims, was not
incorporated into the "People's Republic of Croatia." All power in
Bosnia and Herzegovina is in the hands of the Serbs, who imposed an artificial
distinction between Catholic and Muslim Croats. If this province were part of
the People's Republic of Croatia, Muslims would have a voice and a vote, and a
preponderant role in all matters concerning Bosnia.
Currently, as before in monarchical Yugoslavia, a
policy of economic exploitation in favor of Serbia is practiced. Serbian
nationalists maintained that Croats and Slovenes were part of the supposed
"unitary Yugoslav people" and that, in the name of national
solidarity, they had to bear the main burden of reparations for the damage
Serbia suffered in the First World War. The Serbian communists who rule
Yugoslavia cannot justify the exploitation of Croatia and Slovenia by invoking
national solidarity because they officially recognize the multinational
character of the Yugoslav state.
Therefore, they invented an absurd theory about the
mandatory economic equality of all the peoples of Yugoslavia. They argue that
they are applying this principle of economic equality so that the "most
economically advanced people's republics"—that is, Slovenia and
Croatia—must bear the costs and the burden of the accelerated industrialization
of Serbia, Macedonia, and Montenegro. It is not a matter of sacrificing
surpluses and reserves, but of working for a meager standard of living (the
average monthly salary is $20) in order to promote the industrial progress of
other peoples favored by the regime. The central government in Belgrade
allocates most of Croatia's and Slovenia's national income to finance projects
in other republics, often under the guise of experiments that yield little
benefit.
All of this proves
that Serbia is favored in communist Yugoslavia, which remains the same as it
was under monarchy, one of the most typical countries of national oppression
and economic exploitation for the benefit of the minority.
To the national
oppression and colonial exploitation practiced in Yugoslavia for the benefit of
Serbia are added its imperialist ambitions towards neighboring countries.
Serbian communists contributed to the establishment of a communist government
in Albania, a country they considered a dependency of their own. Albania was
only able to free itself from thousands upon thousands of Serbian
"technicians" who behaved as if in an occupied country when the conflict
between Moscow and Belgrade arose.
Currently, the
Albanian communist leaders seek support in distant Beijing, fearful that Moscow
and Belgrade might once again reach an agreement at their expense. Yugoslavia
had attempted to subjugate Bulgaria, incorporating it as the seventh people's
republic, while Sofia demanded that their relations should be those of two
associates with equal rights. The Soviet support given to Bulgaria on that
occasion was one of the main causes of the Belgrade-Moscow dispute. Subsequently,
the Kremlin, along with all the other Cominform
countries, accused the Yugoslav communist leaders of nationalism, or rather,
Serbian chauvinism.
Therefore, the
supposed "national communism" in Yugoslavia and Belgrade's alleged
struggle for "independence" against Soviet dominance within the
communist bloc, primarily signifies the defense of Serbian interests and
privileges to the detriment of other oppressed peoples and minorities in
Yugoslavia and neighboring countries, namely: Albania, Bulgaria, and Hungary.
It is undeniable that Yugoslavia does not meet the conditions to be considered
a non-committed country, according to the definition given by the Preparatory
Commission of the Conference of Non-Committed Countries. It is a state that
practices an inhumane policy of national oppression. The declarations of
Yugoslav representatives in favor of African liberation movements and their
national self-determination stand in stark contrast to the national oppression
and colonial exploitation within Yugoslavia.
It is now incumbent
upon the participants in the Conference of Non-Committed Countries to consider
whether Yugoslavia can be included in the group of neutral countries and
whether it is not their moral obligation to also address the suffering and
exploitation of the subjugated peoples and minorities in Yugoslavia when
discussing the issue of human dignity and freedom for all peoples, and
especially the right to self-determination.
Croatian-Latin
American Institute of Culture
"It is necessary to remember," Feighan emphasized, "that communists recognize only
their own laws. They recognize our laws only as long as they can use them to
destroy us. I am very well aware of the distorted facts surrounding the
so-called criminal activities attributed to the Croatian people. I am also aware
of the numerous crimes committed by the Yugoslav Communist Party. Of course,
for them, these crimes are acts of justice, since the end justifies any means.
I also know the character of the Yugoslav communist state. It is a state that
seeks to destroy our way of life.
They incessantly proclaim the destruction of our
system and encourage neutralism, which leads to communism throughout the world.
Their subversive activities in the Far East and Africa are well known... As for
me, I am highly honored to stand with the United Croats of the USA. They are
American citizens and free to express their opinions. They live as free men,
and it is only natural that Consul Mirosevic hates
them, since he and his government hate and They fear all free men, as long as
they try to expose communist crimes and promote the cause of freedom."
At the end of his speech, Deputy Feighan
invited those present to oppose the international conspiracy of communism:
"We must continue this struggle until nations, great and small, are free and
independent, with the right to determine their own destiny. With your help and
the help of every God-fearing person, both great and small nations will be
free, and the Croatian nation will regain its place in the family of nations
and hold its head high, as it always has and always will."
Another American speaker at the memorial event in
Cleveland was the former U.S. Commissioner for Refugees in Europe, Dr. Edward
M. O'Connor. In his opinion, the mass killing of the Croatians in 1945
constitutes "one of the greatest and most tragic massacres in the history
of humankind." Referring to communist interpretations of the Croats'
struggle for national independence in 1941, when they proclaimed secession from
the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and organized their own nation-state, he stated:
"No one can argue that this independence was imposed on the people by
Hitler or Mussolini or any other dictator. The Croatian people had claimed this
status for centuries. They (the Croats) were not content with their situation
within the Yugoslav community or empire. Like other peoples of Southeast and
Central Europe, they yearned for their national independence, and being a
cultured and astute people, the Croats realized that the war had created an
appropriate and opportune situation to declare their national
independence."
The information provided by the former American
official regarding the extradition and massacre of the Croatians in 1945,
during his time in a prominent position in Europe, carries significant
testimonial value.
"Eleven days after the agreement signed in
Reims," said E. M. O'Connor, "the British demanded that
the Croatian army, or most of it—perhaps seventy thousand soldiers—lay down
their weapons, guaranteeing them the protection prescribed by the Geneva
Convention, applicable not only to prisoners of war but also to the civilian
population." This forced repatriation later horrified the American
conscience when, during the Truman administration, it became clear that the
extradition meant the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
"What is certain," the speaker continued, "is that the Croatian
army, upon laying down its arms, was handed over to Tito's partisans... It is
certain that no fewer than five hundred thousand Croats were killed, and their
only crime was having fought for the independence of their country. They fought
for the right to be free; they fought for the freedoms for which we too are
prepared to give our lives."
"Tito and his accomplices know very well, by the
way, that not all Croatian patriots have died. Many of them continue the
struggle in their homeland. Many have sought asylum in the free world to
truthfully report on Tito and his gang and to continue fighting for the freedom
and independence of Croatia..."
Representative Feighan kept
his promise, and on June 7, 1961, he addressed the insolence of the Yugoslav
consul in Pittsburgh in Congress, simultaneously sending a note of protest to
the State Department. In Congress, he stated: "I consider this matter very
serious. The communist diplomat violated the constitutional guarantees
regarding freedom of assembly and free speech, assured to our citizens. I will
demand nothing less than the expulsion of the Yugoslav Consul from our
country..." Indeed, the Yugoslav consular agent had to leave American
soil.
All of this, which we have just summarized, provoked
the wrath of the Yugoslav communist dictator, who could no longer feign
ignorance of the Croatian exiles' activities. Therefore, when speaking in the
Serbian city of Užice on the twentieth anniversary of
the first communist guerrilla struggles in Serbia, he expressed himself in the
same way as the expelled consul in his aforementioned letter. Just as all
totalitarian dictators conflate their regime and its crimes with the country:
“We,” Tito said, “know that there are many people in
the world who don’t like our country. Many reactionaries in the West publicly
say they don’t like our country; moreover, many hate it. We understand them,
because in relation to our country they are guided by their personal and class
interests. But when it comes to a case as drastic as the organization and
celebration of an Ustaše event in North America and
its connection to Memorial Day, then it’s not just about the personal interests
that inspired it. The cited case is one of many examples of the incorrect
relations with our country. However, when various reactionary elements in
Western countries undertake or sustain similar actions, we can understand them
because we know they are our class enemies. We know they do it for their
ideological and class interests and because they hate communism and everything
that is progress, everything that is inevitable and accelerates the collapse of
their obsolete system.”
On that occasion, Tito concealed the fact that it was
a commemorative event for the victims of communism, exterminated en masse,
which constitutes one of the greatest crimes in history. At the time, Milovan Djilas tried to justify this crime, stating that it
was necessary for "the unarmed Croatian soldiers to die so that Slavia could live."
By expressing himself in this way, the main ideologue
of Yugoslav communism, then Tito's lieutenant, had pronounced the condemnation
of the regime that, invoking raison d'état, cynically practices the most brutal
Machiavellianism. At the same time, he had revealed the true nature of the
Yugoslav state, which can survive only through the criminal collective
slaughter—a true genocide—of the Croats, who constitute a third of the
population of that heterogeneous conglomerate imposed on the vast majority of
its unfortunate subjects through deception, violence, and crime.
Between the two world wars, the unofficial society Les
Amis de Yugoslavie (Friends of Yugoslavia) was
established in Paris. In accordance with official French policy, this society
accepted the thesis that Serbia, having played the role of Piedmont in 1918,
had "liberated and unified" the Croats, Slovenes, and Montenegrins.
The absence of the necessary cultural and political conditions for such a role
was disregarded, as Yugoslavia is a culturally, nationally, and religiously
heterogeneous country, lacking the conditions necessary to become a nation like
Italy and Germany. (At the same time, the Germans presented Serbia as the
"Prussia of the Balkans.")
When Yugoslavia was restored in 1945 under the
communist regime, Les Amis de Yugoslavie focused
primarily on assisting the numerous Yugoslavian refugees, first the Serbs and
then the Croats. It is worth highlighting here the great merits France earned
after the war by receiving all the anti-communist exiles and refusing
extradition requests from their respective governments, which, unfortunately,
was not the case with Italy and Austria.
The favorable treatment afforded to the Serbs stemmed
from a political tradition reinforced by the understandable sentimental French
attitude toward Serbia, their small ally in the First World War. While there
are no cultural affinities between France and Serbia, unlike between France and
Croatia, the French were deeply affected by the memory of the poilus d'Orient, who fell on the
Salonika front for the liberation of Serbia. Consequently, Yugoslavia was
treated as an expanded Serbia, not as a multinational state. Little by little,
and slowly, the true nature of Yugoslavia was revealed. Even now, many French
leaders do not realize that Serbia allied itself with France as an agent of
Russia and appeared as a protégé of France, barely after the collapse of
Tsarist Russia, closely linked to the Serbian dynasty of Karageorgevic.
Established in 1929, King Alexander's dictatorship was
ostensibly intended to safeguard national and state unity against the threat of
"Croatian separatism." Many prominent French figures recognized that
the dictatorial regime was, in reality, an attack on the national freedom of an
entire people. Official policy, at least in theory, accepted the official
narrative of the royal dictatorship. Croatia's struggle for national freedom
was further hampered by the 1934 Marseille bombing, which was tendentiously
attributed to fascists, National Socialists, and even communists.
However, the Yugoslav dictatorship's withdrawal from
the French alliance system on the eve of the last war, along with the events
during and after the conflict, led France to view Yugoslavia not as an enlarged
Serbia, but as a multinational state with persistent opposition to Serbian
hegemony. Furthermore, religious discrimination, practiced in both monarchical
and communist Yugoslavia, to the detriment of Croatian and Slovenian Catholics,
is condemned in French Catholic circles. Even so, a significant portion of
French public opinion still fails to clearly recognize that France and Serbia
share distinct cultural and political traditions and that a thorough overhaul
of outdated approaches to the situation in Central Europe and the Balkans is
essential. If France wishes to preserve its influence in this vital European
region, it must ground it in a firm foundation of cultural affinities.
The confusion reigning even among the members of Les
Amis de Yugoslavia regarding the true Serbian position is perfectly illustrated
by the incident caused by the condolences that the Society's board of directors
sent to His Holiness Pope John XXIII on the occasion of the death of Cardinal
Louis Stepinac. The board, chaired by the late former
minister Louis Marin, considered it an act of international courtesy and
Christian solidarity, given the significance of the heroic figure of the
Metropolitan Archbishop of Croatia. However, the attitude of the Serbian exiles
present at the assembly was quite different. Some left the room in protest, and
several maintained a conspicuous silence that implied disapproval. The Serbian
nationalist press in exile harshly criticized the board's initiative, alleging
that Cardinal Stepinac, being a Croatian patriot, was
an enemy of Serbia. They expressed solidarity, no more and no less, with the
thesis held by Stepinac's communist persecutors.
This outward display of religious hatred and
intolerance could only have a negative effect among the French friends of
Yugoslavia. In this climate, a Croatian politician was invited to give a
lecture, something that had occurred for the first time in the society's
history. The speaker was Dr. Juraj Krnjevic, general secretary of the Croatian Peasant Party,
a prominent figure in the struggle against Serbian hegemony and a veteran of
political battles. After the First World War, he was appointed general
secretary of the main Croatian party, which in every election obtained an
overwhelming majority of the Croatian vote. A politician with a decidedly
democratic orientation, he spent many years in exile during the dictatorship of
King Alexander and, from 1941 until now, he resides in London.
Dr. Krnjevic spoke on May
24th to the Friends of Yugoslavia about the Croatian struggle for national
freedom. Below are some excerpts from his lecture:
"The problem of Serbian-Croatian relations is, in
its essence, quite simple and easy to understand. It is the problem of Serbian
domination in Yugoslavia, of the resistance and struggle of the Croats against
this domination. One cannot properly understand the tragic events that have
shaken and continue to shake Yugoslavia without a full awareness of this
fundamental fact. Indeed, every important event has been presented to national and
international public opinion in such a way that its real causes have been
obscured and ignored. From the very beginning of Yugoslavia's existence, its
leaders have striven to convince international public opinion that Yugoslavia
is a unitary state, based on the will and fraternal sentiments of the peoples
of Yugoslavia.
This is precisely the opposite of the truth. As soon
as the Croatian people were able, after the formation of Yugoslavia, to express
their will in the 1920 general elections with universal suffrage, they
repudiated by an absolute majority the act of..." The union of Yugoslavia
and the regime established by the Serbs guaranteed them total domination over
the other peoples of that country, and particularly over the Croatian people, whose
resistance was approaching unanimity every day. This vigorous attitude of the
people was constantly affirmed in subsequent elections. The behavior of the
Croatian people did not signify preconceived hatred of the Serbian people, but
was the expression of the Croatian people's long-held awareness of their
political and national identity, as well as their firm will to establish a
sovereign Croatian state.
"In the Habsburg Empire, the Croats had clearly
manifested this national will centuries ago. Croatian national consciousness
was so vigorous that in the 19th century, when the Habsburgs' centralizing
tendencies were at their most virulent and when Bohemia was a mere Austrian
province, only the Croats, along with the Germans of Austria and the
Hungarians, had preserved the status of a state, the position of a clearly
defined political nation, which, moreover, they managed to maintain, despite
all the combined efforts of Vienna and Budapest, until the collapse of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire:
"Moreover, the political evolution of the
contemporary world provides additional impetus and justification to the ongoing
struggle of the Croatian people to restore their national sovereignty. Once
this sovereignty is recovered, the door will automatically open to all possibilities
of cooperation between the Croatian state and the Serbian state in the spirit
of equality and within the framework of a free and democratic Europe."
The fact that a
genuine Croatian politician was invited to speak at the Friends of Yugoslavia
society, defending and substantiating the thesis that the only solution to the
Serbian-Croatian problem lies in the creation of two separate states, and that
this solution is beneficial for a free Europe, came as a surprise to exiled
Serbian politicians. Serbian chauvinists residing in Paris then portrayed Dr. Juraj Krnjevic as an extremist
unilaterally promoting the program of an independent Croatian state without the
consent of his party and, above all, without the approval of its president, Dr.
Vlatko Macek, who lives in
Washington as a political exile. The board of directors of the Friends of
Yugoslavia, meeting on June 26, addressed a letter not to Krnjevic,
but to Macek, president of the Croatian Peasant
Party, stating their opinion that "the policy that calls into question the
existence of the Yugoslav state constitutes a danger to Croats, Serbs, and
Slovenes."
This machination by
Serbian chauvinists, however, did not achieve the desired result. Croatia Press
(Review and News Bulletin, New York, No. 219, August 1961) commented on the
matter:
"This attempt,
through the French, identical to so many previous attempts by the Chetniks, is based on the hope that Dr. Macek
would disapprove of Dr. Krnjevic due to alleged
political differences. We were informed by reliable sources that those who
engage in such speculation are completely mistaken. In Croatian circles in the
United States, both among those affiliated with the Peasant Party and among
independents, this act is considered an improper interference in Croatian
political affairs."
Subsequently, further
information was published regarding the position of "The Friends of
Yugoslavia," as well as Dr. Macek's response.
The board of directors of the French association, meeting on June 26, according
to a press release, expressed its satisfaction at "having established
close contact and held sincere talks with representatives of the Croatian
Peasant Party, but felt obliged to maintain a reserved stance regarding Dr. Krnjevic's views." To this end, its president, Paul Bastid, was tasked with conveying to Dr. Macek the society's opinion that "any policy that
calls into question the existence of the Yugoslav state constitutes a danger to
Croats and Slovenes as well as to Serbs."
Nevertheless, the
president of the "Friends of Yugoslavia," in his message to Dr. Macek, expressed himself unequivocally against the
Pan-Serbian policy, maintaining that "the Yugoslav union must respect, in
its constitutional forms, the national particularities of the peoples that make
up Yugoslavia." In other words, the plurinational
character of the Yugoslav state has been highlighted.
President Dr. Vlatko Macek did not delay his response. In a letter dated July
19, from Washington, he expressed his solidarity with Dr. Juraj
Krnjevic, the general secretary of the party he
leads. Below is the full Spanish translation of Dr. Macek's
response, as published in "La Revista Croata" No. 44, pp. 473-4, Buenos Aires 1961:
"Mr. President: I acknowledge receipt of your
kind letter of July 10. Allow me to make the following comment:
In my opinion, it was not Dr. Krnjevic
who called into question the unity of the Yugoslav state. This unity was
already called into question in 1918 by the manner in which the State of Serbs,
Croats, and Slovenes was created, becoming even more doubtful when, in 1929,
King Alexander, through a dictatorial edict, attempted to create a single,
unified Yugoslav 'people.'
In this way, we Croats were deprived, as early as 1918
and especially in 1929, of all the rights that we had managed to safeguard for
many centuries in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. The new state, whether
called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes or Yugoslavia, was, in
reality, Serbia." It is not surprising, then, that such a situation
provoked the most vehement opposition from all Croats, which manifested itself
throughout the existence of the Yugoslav state, and particularly in the
elections held in 1935 when, despite the public vote, the Croats gave the
Croatian Peasant Party more than 90% of their votes. Taking this fact into
account, and wishing to normalize state affairs,
Prince Regent Paul concluded with me the Agreement of
August 26, 1939. Three days later it was ratified by the Croatian national
deputies with 90 votes in favor and 1 against. However, this Agreement (and not
the Pact with Hitler) motivated a handful of irresponsible officers to stage a
coup against the government of Dragisa Cvetkovic and remove Prince Paul (on March 27, 1941).
Nevertheless, we did not break relations with this government. of conspirators,
and Dr. Krnjevic agreed to go into exile as Deputy
Prime Minister in order to continue the search for a compromise. His
experiences with representatives of Serbian parties convinced him on many
occasions, as they did me, that a union with Serbia without conditions and
guarantees was impossible. In other words, we realize that it would mean, once
again, submitting the Croats to Serbian hegemony. That is why it is only
natural that every responsible Croatian politician opposes such a solution. I
hope, Mr. President, that you will understand these sincere and brief words.
It is obvious that Dr. Macek,
with his letter, gave his full support to Dr. Krnjevic's
statements. A state union between Croatia and Serbia is impossible. The painful
experience of this union over the past forty years has unequivocally
demonstrated that it is only feasible within the Serbian dictatorial system.
Therefore, Dr. Krnjevic is correct when he maintains
that the only guarantee and condition for Croatia's freedom is a sovereign
Croatian state within the framework of a free and democratic Europe.
As for the core issue, that is, whether maintaining
Yugoslavia is in the best interests of the Croats, experience has unequivocally
proven that Croatia, throughout its 1300-year history, has never been in a
worse situation than in recent decades within the state community with Serbia.
Esteban Radic, imprisoned for his fight for a
Croatian republic, noted in his diary more than 30 years ago that the forced
union between Croatia and Serbia would cause both to fall victim to the
communists, due to the Serbian hegemons, while a Croatian republic could avoid
such a disastrous fate. Events proved Radic right. If
Croatia is today under the communist yoke, it is due to the Greater Serbian
policy.
Furthermore, Croats abhor Serbian imperialism, which
harmed all of Serbia's neighbors—Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania.
Croats do not want to become accomplices of Serbian chauvinism by defending the
borders of a Serbia unduly expanded with the national territories of the
peoples with whom Croats want to live in peace and friendship. The French,
friends of the peoples of Yugoslavia, must understand that Serbia, due to its
national traditions, is a potential ally of Russia, and that Croatia is the
long-standing defender of Western cultural values in that region.
Today, as the European community is being formed, Croatia's place is surely
alongside France and Europe, while Serbia's orientation is more than doubtful.
Croats, like other European peoples, participated in
the colonization of overseas countries, especially in the Americas. Immigration
flows intensified at the end of the last century and the beginning of this one,
to such an extent that a quarter of Croatians now live in various countries of
the New World, South Africa, Australia, and Oceania. To these economic migrants
must be added the post-war refugees, opponents of communism and Serbian
domination in Yugoslavia. The number of these refugees reaches 100,000 and
grows daily, because, apart from East Germany, Croatia is the European captive
country that supplies the most political asylum seekers.
The communist government in Belgrade pays special
attention to overseas Croats. On the one hand, it benefits from the numerous
remittances in foreign currency that these immigrants send to their families
and attempts to gain political advantage from their political and social ties;
on the other hand, it strives to paralyze the anti-communist activity of
numerous political exiles.
Below, we will briefly refer to recent events to
demonstrate how the Yugoslav communist rulers proceed to counteract the
political activity of Croatian exiles. The verbal protests and pickets by
political exiles in New York, demanding freedom for the Croatian people during
Tito's presence at the United Nations deliberations this year, so disturbed the
Yugoslav dictator, who tolerates no political opposition whatsoever, that he
lodged a strong protest with the American authorities and organized mass
demonstrations throughout Yugoslavia against American freedom. The extortion
practiced by Yugoslav diplomatic and consular representatives against exiles in
relation to their families living in Yugoslavia deserves special consideration.
If these exiles wish for their relatives to integrate
with them, visit them, or simply not be persecuted, they are required to
abstain from any political activity at odds with the communist regime, which,
in effect, limits the freedom of free countries. Such coercion, therefore,
concerns the governments of free countries, especially when it involves the
extorted individuals who opted for their citizenship. Among those who stood out
in this intimidating and coercive activity was Predrag
Grabovac, a former Yugoslav consular official in
Buenos Aires, where, as is well known and public knowledge, several attacks
were also committed against Croatian immigrants and a violent smear campaign
was unleashed.
On that occasion, Croatian newspapers provided
evidence that Grabovac, who accused Croatian exiles
of being war criminals for fighting against Yugoslavia, their national prison,
and against communist tyranny, was responsible for the murders of Croatian and
German prisoners during the war. This proven incrimination had an unexpected
echo not long ago in West Germany. The French news agency AFP reported from
Munich on December 6, 1961, that Grabovac, appointed
Yugoslav consul in that city, was accused by the Croatian newspaper Hrvatska drzava of identical
crimes and that, based on the charges brought, Christian Democratic MP Dr. Paul
Wullner requested that the Bavarian Minister of
Justice initiate proceedings against the new Yugoslav consul in Munich. His
request was granted, and the Bavarian courts have already begun the relevant
proceedings by questioning witnesses. In view of this, the Belgrade government
hastened to dismiss its consul.
Another significant incident occurred in Stuttgart, West Germany.
According to news agencies, Yugoslav representatives, on the occasion of the
"national holiday"—that is, the beginning of the communist
uprising—organized a celebration featuring a folk group from Zagreb. They
sought to take advantage of the presence of Croatian workers who, with the
permission of the Yugoslav authorities, were working in Germany. (These workers
stand in stark contrast to the propaganda about the total occupation and
improved standard of living in communist Yugoslavia.) When the Croatian
refugees in Stuttgart demonstrated against the communist regime in their
homeland and demanded national freedom for the Croatian people, they were
attacked by communist secret agents. One of the demonstrators, Vlado Balan, was stabbed in the
back, and the assailant, who was arrested, turned out to be Petar
Trkulj, a man with a lengthy criminal record, convicted
several times for assault and distribution of pornographic material.
The terrorism perpetrated by Yugoslav communists was a response to the
actions of Croatian immigrants in Brazil regarding Tito's announced and
subsequently postponed official visit. Yugoslav communist agents sought to
intimidate the Croatian immigrants residing in that large country, and on
October 30th, they attacked Mrs. Anka Ilek, owner of a pharmacy in São Paulo, where she kept the
archives of the Brazil-Croatia Society. Two communist secret agents entered the
pharmacy at 11:00 PM, lowered the iron security shutter, and rushed at the
owner with the intention of forcing her unconscious into a waiting car and
stealing the aforementioned archives. However, they hadn't counted on the employee
in the adjacent laboratory, who cried out for help. The assailants had to flee,
leaving Mrs. Ilek, secretary of the Croatian
immigrants' association, unconscious. Her husband had been kidnapped years
earlier in Rome by Yugoslav communist agents.
In an effort to intimidate Croatian refugees in anticipation of a
possible visit by Tito to Venezuela, the Yugoslav ambassador in Caracas, Lazar Udovicki, reported to Venezuelan authorities that on
December 1st, some young Croatian immigrants had attempted to kidnap him.
Following this sensational accusation, the Yugoslav embassy, in a
press conference, reiterated to the Caracas media the well-known accusations
made by the communists against the Croatians, labeling them war criminals.
Among other charges leveled was the allegation that these were Croatians who,
after Perón's fall, sought refuge in Venezuela and
were comrades of those who died fighting for the Nationalist Liberation
Alliance. Of course, they couldn't cite a single name, as it is a judicially proven
fact that no Croatian was among the Alliance members. Tito's ambassador was
unable to offer any concrete evidence, and certain newspapers reflected the
opinion of Croatian exiles that it was a farce intended to unleash a new smear
campaign against anti-communists. The Croatian Association of Venezuela,
rejecting the accusations of the communist oppressors, published the following
clarification, which we transcribe from the newspaper "El Nacional" of December 5, 1961:
The book comprises
four chapters: I. Slovenia under enemy occupation 1941-1946; II. Vetrinje. 1. Arrival in Vetrinje;
2. First contact with the British; 3. In the Vetrinje
concentration camp; 4. Extradition of the Slovenian National Army - Control of
the means of transport; 5. The rescue of civilian refugees; 6. Conclusion;
documents and observations. III. The fate of those handed over: 1. The
transports from Podroznica (Rosenbach);
2. The transports from Pliberk; 3. Amnesty and
commissions; 4. Repercussions of the Vetrinje
tragedy; 5. Fifteen years later; 6. The wounded. IV. Documents: The official
British response regarding the extradition of the Slovenian National Guardsmen
(domobrani); Memorandum from the Slovenian National
Committee - Call to mobilization. The book also contains an epilogue and
photographs.
This massacre
coincided with the massacre of Serbs, Montenegrins, the large German minority,
Italians in the Triestine area, and especially
Croats. This book, of course, focuses primarily on the Slovenian tragedy, with
few references to the mass killing of the Croats. Thus, a witness who was in
the St. Vid concentration camp near Ljubljana states: "When we were moved
into the barracks, there were about 4,000 Croats and Germans detained
there—civilians, women, and even children. In three days, 27 Croats died. When
we were digging pits to throw their bodies into, and while burying one, I
secretly uncovered him and saw that he had foam at the mouth and that, as a result
of the torture, not a single piece of skin remained intact on his back." (p. 75).
The political backdrop to the Slovenian tragedy
differed somewhat from what happened in Croatia. During the war, Croatia was a
sovereign state, while Slovenia was occupied by German and Italian troops. The
population, especially in the Third Reich's occupation zone, was subjected to
severe repression, leading to the emergence of a resistance movement. However,
the communist minority, numbering only a few thousand, refused to join the
leadership of this movement and organized the National Liberation Front, thus
igniting a civil or fratricidal war. The anti-communist Slovenian fighters
recognized the Yugoslav government established in London, and as soon as they
organized, they began to confront communist terror, maintaining ties with the
Serbian general Draža Mihailović,
then Minister of War in the exiled Yugoslav government.
Later, the Slovenian Domobrani
(National Guard) also cooperated with Dimitrije Ljotic's Serbian Chetniks, who
collaborated with the German occupation troops in Serbia against the
communists. When the Allies recognized Tito's government as the only legitimate
government in the final phase of the war, the Slovenian national fighters tried
in vain, after the war ended, to present themselves as Allied troops. The
British believed the communist accusations that they were collaborating with
the occupiers, which sealed their tragic fate. The British command in Austria
handed them over to the communists, who immediately proceeded to exterminate
them. It was not taken into account that these Slovenes, with their
nationalistic and Catholic orientation, could not possibly collaborate with the
communist partisans, as they knew that their sole purpose was to seize power
and establish a communist dictatorship.
B. M. Karapandzic, a Serb
and fellow Serb of Dimitrije Ljotic,
recounts in his pamphlet the Kocevlje massacre,
where, along with Slovenes and Croats, Serbian and Montenegrin
"volunteers" were also murdered. These men had fought against the
communists during the war, mostly in Serbian territory occupied by the Germans.
They were primarily supporters of Ljotic, Nedic (head of the Serbian government under German
occupation), and Draza Mihailovic,
who had been abandoned by his British allies in 1944. These supporters believed
that Tito's partisans were primarily seeking the expulsion of enemy troops, not
the seizure of power. Thus, the anti-communist partisans had no alternative but
to cooperate increasingly with the army of the Third Reich.
By the end of 1944, Serbia was occupied by Soviet
troops and communist forces, so the Serbian and Montenegrin anti-communist
"volunteers" retreated with German assistance to Croatia, then to
Slovenia, and finally to Austria. There, they were concentrated in Vetrinje along with the Slovenes and small Croatian groups.
The British handed them over to the communist partisans under the pretext of
transporting them to Italy. They numbered several thousand, and all were
murdered, mostly in Kočevlje, Slovenia. The
author states verbatim: "In Kocevlje, all those
whom the British command had handed over to Tito were exterminated, namely:
12,000 Slovenian 'domobrani,' 3,000 Serbian
'volunteers,' 1,000 Montenegrin 'chetniks,' and 2,500
Croatian 'soldiers.'"
The author indicates on page 62 a list of documents,
without citing them in the text, which detracts from its scientific rigor,
although this work by Karapandzic constitutes, in its
general outlines, a reliable testimony. Leopold Rohrbacher
recounted, with the serenity and meticulousness typical of German authors, the
extermination of the German minority in what is now the autonomous province of Vojvodina, within the People's Republic of Serbia, by
Serbian communists. In Yugoslavia, there were more than half a million Germans,
who had settled there over the last few centuries as a result of the decline of
the empire. Ottoman, in what was formerly Southern Hungary, an extremely
fertile and ethnically diverse agricultural region.
Some of these German settlers, fearing Serbian
communist retaliation, withdrew with the German troops in 1944. However,
according to the author, nearly 250,000 remained, who were later brutally
exterminated or expelled. This ruined the once rich and progressive German
colonies in Yugoslavia, which would have disastrous consequences for the
postwar Yugoslav economy. The cruel fate and mass expulsion of the German
minorities in Poland and Bohemia are well known, but less so the tragic fate of
hundreds of thousands of progressive German settlers in Yugoslavia. They were replaced
by the indigenous Serbian and Montenegrin highlanders in order to alter the
ethnic character of this fertile region, the richest in Central Europe.
The Soviets promoted these drastic and inhumane
measures, just as in Poland and Bohemia, with the purpose of creating permanent
causes of enmity between Germany on one side, and Poland, Bohemia, and Serbia
on the other, and forcing these countries to depend on Russia in the face of
Germany's just claims. Martyrs of the Faith, a book by the Croatian author Dr.
Ivo Omrcanin, published in Spanish, recounts the
massacre of Croatian Catholic priests during and after the war. The author
compiled data on 363 priests, murdered not only by the communists, but sadly
also many by the Chetniks, Serbian nationalists.
The Serbs, nationalists and communists alike,
practiced Yugoslavia, their national prison, which practiced religious
discrimination and sought revenge against the Catholic Croats for having
separated from Serbia and thus re-established their nation-state. Dr. Omrcanin publishes a list of these martyrs of the faith,
adding all the details, though not always complete, about the place, date, and
other circumstances of their violent deaths. It is understood that gathering
all the data is not easy while a communist regime is in power in Croatia. Even so, Dr. Omrcanin's work is a first-rate
document that, we are sure, will
attract the attention of Spanish-speaking Catholic circles.
In conclusion, it is
worth noting that in 1945 the communists persecuted and exterminated the Croats
with particular savagery and virulence for having courageously and
sacrificially defended their national, political, and religious freedoms. To
date, the complete documentation of this genocide has not been published.
Because it involved tens of thousands of heinous murders, both individual and
collective crimes, perpetrated in various locations, the collection and
systematization of the documentary material presents numerous difficulties.
This explains why, to date, no comprehensive and well-documented book on the
Croatian tragedy, which constitutes a classic genocide, has been published.
Charles Kamber,
Lynch, Nebraska, USA
Fr. Marko Japundzic, T.O.F.
- Matthew Karaman (1700-1771), Archbishop of Zadar, Rome 1961, pp. 108.
Matthew Karaman, the
illustrious Archbishop of Zadar, a proponent of the
conversion of the East Slavic dissidents and the commendable author of a
Glagolitic missal, did not figure in Croatian political and literary history
until the Croatian National Renaissance began in the mid-19th century.
Father Japundzic,
a doctor of Eastern ecclesiastical studies, sheds light on the life and work of
this ecclesiastical dignitary in the book under the heading, providing much
previously unpublished information that he compiled in the Vatican Library. His
work was published with the appropriate Imprimatur. Mateo Karaman
was born in June 1700. He was educated and ordained a priest in Split, the once
magnificent palace of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, situated in a charming
region that, from the 7th century onward, would become the cradle of the
Kingdom of Croatia. Ordained a priest by the Archbishop of Split (Archiepiscopus spalatensis, olim salonitanus, Dalmatiae, totiusque Croatiae primas), he went to Zadar to occupy the chair of philosophy, hoping that the
Archbishop of that city, Vincent Zmajevic, a
distinguished humanist and nephew of the Archbishop of Antivari,
Primate of Serbia, would understand the problems of the Glagolitic priests.
With the aim of propagating the faith and promoting the return of Eastern
Christians,
Zmajevic had founded an "Illyrian" seminary in Zadar, which would later be inaugurated during the
administration of his successor, Karaman. In that
Croatian institute, seminarians studied, among other subjects, Glagolitic
script and Old Church Slavonic. Popes Adrian II and John VIII, mindful of the
reasons for the spread of the faith, granted the Croatians the use of Old
Church Slavonic in the liturgy, written with a special alphabet called
Glagolitic. This exceptional privilege remains in effect to this day, so that
in the coastal region of Croatia, Holy Mass is celebrated in the archaic Church
Slavonic language, while the prayers, epistles, and Gospel are read in Literary
Croatian. In difficult times, when Glagolitic script was being combated in
order to impose Latin, the Croatian Glagolites
defended themselves with the authority of Saint Jerome, a native of Dalmatia,
the presumed author of Glagolitic script and the first translator of the Holy
Gospels into Croatian, the work of Saints Cyril and Methodius having been
forgotten.
In 1723, Archbishop Zmajevic
sent Karaman to Russia to perfect his knowledge of
Old Church Slavonic, which he would later teach at the seminary and use to
assist in drafting the new Glagolitic missal he planned to publish. The last
one, published in 1631 and edited by Levakovic,
suffered from linguistic and conceptual errors. Karaman
stayed in Russia at the home of Matteo Zmajevic, brother of the Archbishop of Zadar,
who, having fallen out with the Venetians, had fled Boka
Kotorska and taken refuge in Russia. A naval
engineer, he fought alongside the Russians against the Swedes in 1714.
Thanks in large part to his intelligence and bold
actions, the Russian emperor was saved and the Swedish fleet was defeated. In
1722, he was appointed admiral and tasked with rebuilding the Russian fleet.
During the reigns of Peter the Great and Peter II, he served as supreme
commander of the Russian navy. Through this Croatian, devout Catholic, and
Russian admiral, Karaman was able to connect with the
Russian ruling class and the imperial court, and to learn about the life and
customs of that vast country. Besides dedicating himself to the study of Old
Church Slavonic, his constant concern was how to bring the Russian people back
to the bosom of the Church of Rome. To this end, he sent reports and concrete
proposals to the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in Rome.
He recommended sending Croatian missionaries to Russia because of the
linguistic similarity. "The Holy Catholic Church has a hidden treasure in
Croatian priests," he stated in one of his reports.
Upon returning to his homeland, he was summoned to
Rome to oversee the drafting of the new Glagolitic missal, a revised version of
Levakovic's missal. He was appointed abbot of the
monastery of St. Cosmas and Damian, renowned in
Croatian history for having been founded by the Croatian king Peter Krezimir IV (1058-1074), who bequeathed to it extensive
possessions, free from the interference of secular power. Ecclesiastical
writings in Glagolitic script date from the 9th century. The best-known
editions of Glagolitic missals are: a missal from 1405, written in a Dalmatian
monastery and published by the regent of Bosnia, Hrvoje
Vukcic Hrvatinic; a missal
published in Senj in 1494; another dated 1483 but
without specifying the place of publication; then the Misale
Glagoliticum, printed in 1628; and the aforementioned
Levakovic missal of 1631.
Karaman, working with absolute dedication for two years, prepared
the new edition of the Glagolitic missal, which was printed in Rome in 1741.
As a reward for his assiduous work and exemplary life,
he was appointed Bishop of Osor, a diocese of very
ancient origin. Meanwhile, Esteban Rusic of Dubrovnik
subjected Karaman's missal to severe criticism, which
compelled him to write an extensive and well-documented rebuttal, spanning 592
pages and reflecting his profound historical, theological, and philological
knowledge. Perhaps the only justifiable objection would be that he had further Russified the language instead of bringing it closer to
literary Croatian.
Subsequently, Karaman held
the position of visitor of the Illyrian institutes (at that time,
"Illyrian" meant Croatian) in Fermo,
Loreto, and Assisi. These colleges provided training for clergymen destined to
spread Christian doctrine in the Balkans, and especially in the regions
occupied by the Turks. With the death of Archbishop Zmajevic
of Zadar in 1745, his position was filled by Karaman. Zadar, an ancient Dalmatian
city nestled on the Adriatic coast, was for centuries an important center of
political, cultural, and religious life. As early as 380, it was the seat of a
bishopric, and later many religious orders had their monasteries there.
Benedictine monasteries date back to the 11th century, the oldest being that of
St. Mary, founded in 1066 by Cika, niece of King
Peter Kresimiro. The
medieval Italian historian Farlatti
notes in his work Iliricum Sacrum that in 1177, Pope Alexander II visited
Zadar (Zara) and was greeted "imensis laudibus et canticis altissime resonantibus in eorum slavica lingua"
(with great ovations and resounding chants in their Slavic language).
In the territory of
the Archdiocese of Zadar lived small groups of
Eastern schismatics, who settled there fleeing the
Balkans during the Turkish onslaught in the 16th and 17th centuries. These
refugees did not reach the shores of the Adriatic, as that element was foreign
to their mountain temperament. Upon coming into contact with these dissidents,
Archbishop Karaman became quite disillusioned, as all
his missionary zeal and apostolic efforts were met with the complete
incomprehension of the Orthodox newcomers, not only in a religious but also a
cultural sense. This conflict still exists today, and in a more acute form, so
that Croatia, the guardian of the western border that centuries ago earned the
honorary title of Antemurale Christianisatis
(Bridge of Christianity), now stands as a bulwark against the assaults of
communism.
The author clarifies
many debatable points about the life and work of this remarkable ecclesiastical
dignitary, who died on May 7, 1771, in Zadar, and
sheds light on his missionary activity among the dissident Slavs.
Srecko Karaman, Buenos Aires.
Petar Ciklic: Man and His
Personality, Ed.: Club de Lectores, Buenos Aires,
1958, pp. 387.
This is the second
book that Dr. Ciklic has published in Argentina. The
first, titled Characterology, was published in
Córdoba in 1948. The author has also published a book in Latin in Rome on human
intelligence.
Dr. Ciklic studied theology in his native Croatia, later
earning his doctorate from the Gregorian University in Rome. He then continued
and expanded his studies for several years in Munich, Vienna, and Erlangen.
During his time in Argentina, he resided in the city of Córdoba, where he
taught at the Metropolitan Seminary, the Monserrat
School, and the Higher Normal School. He is currently in the USA, serving as
head of the psychology department at Loyola University Los Angeles. The book
*Man and His Personality* is intended for educators, physicians, sociologists,
jurists, military personnel, priests, politicians, and anyone interested in
understanding the personality, temperament, and character of those around them,
in delving into their emotional states, and in comprehending their biopsychic
being. It is an excellent introduction to the study of personality, providing
the reader with extensive information on the subject while also being engaging
and interesting. The author's main objective was to spark interest in
psychological problems and offer the reader guidance in this fascinating and
captivating world of psychic phenomena, so interesting and attractive, yet also
so complex without a system for navigating it.
One such system,
probably the best, is Kretschmer's typology, which
Dr. Ciklic explains at length in his book. It is
based on the relationship between different body types and different
temperaments and personalities. Psychology has studied this influence of
constitutional factors on human temperament and character since its inception.
It suffices to mention here the celebrated ancient physicians and physiologists
Hippocrates and Galen, the French typological school, and the famous text of
the "Aphorisms" from the Salerno medical school. But, as Dr. Ciklic observes, "no one before Kretschmer
has observed with such psychological insight the relationship between physical
constitution and human temperament."
The exposition of Kretschmer's typology in the book under discussion is
always done with the book's purpose in mind, which is to help understand the
behavior of the more or less normal people we encounter in daily life. For this
reason, the author devotes more attention to normal cases than to pathological
ones. Among the numerous and interesting examples taken from literature or real
life that the author cites to illustrate the cases discussed, there are a large
number of examples taken from Croatian literature and national life, which
demonstrates the author's effort to make known certain aspects of Croatian
cultural tradition.
Although Dr. Ciklic considers Kretschmer's
system appropriate for the book's purpose, he does not limit himself to it but
also refers to the psychoanalytic and experimental methods. There is also a
chapter on the relationship between personality and environment, and several
more on the expressive signs of personality: in behavior and dress, in gestures
and music, in speech and writing, and in physiognomy. In all these aspects of
the subject, the author demonstrates both his profound mastery of the material
and his ability to present the knowledge in a clear, coherent, and engaging
manner.
It can be said,
therefore, that the book fully achieves the objective set by its author.
Branimir Anzulovic, Buenos Aires.
Jere Jareb, Pola
stoljeca hrvatske politike (Half a Century of Croatian Politics), Ed. Biblioteca de la Revista Croata, pp. 180. Buenos Aires 1960.
Dr. Vladko
Macek, president of the Croatian Peasant Party,
currently residing in Washington as a political asylee,
published in 1957 in New York, in English, the autobiographical book: In the
Struggle for Freedom (see review in STUDIA CROATICA, Year II, Vols. 2-3, pp.
224-26), summarizing there his memories and assessments of Croatian politics, especially
concerning the period between the two wars, when he acted as the main
protagonist of political events in Croatia. Jere Jareb, a young Croatian publicist (who studied in Zagreb
and at Columbia University, USA), wrote an extensive study inspired by Dr. Macek's book. This study was first published in "La Revista Croata" in Buenos
Aires, and later expanded and published under the title of the epigraph, adding
a copious bibliography (pp. 143-173) and an index of names.
The half-century of Croatian
politics that Jareb covers spans from 1896 to 1945.
In the first chapter, unduly brief, the author analyzes the political crisis
caused by the dualist system of Austro-Hungarian rule, in which the Croatian
provinces were divided into three administrative territories. When the
multinational Habsburg monarchy, unable to transform itself into a community of
free nations, was in its death throes—due in large part to the abnormal
situation in Croatia—the outbreak of the First World War caught Vienna,
Budapest, and Zagreb unprepared. Austria-Hungary was torn apart in the name of
national principles, without Croatia gaining national independence or even
broader political rights than it had previously enjoyed as an associated
kingdom with sovereign attributes. Instead, it was annexed to the Kingdom of
Serbia as just another province. The Croatian resistance between the two wars,
the re-establishment of the Independent State of Croatia in 1941, and the
efforts to consolidate and defend it against the onslaught of Yugoslav
communism constitute the main theme of this book, which focuses on three
phases.
The protagonist of
the Croatian national struggle in its first phase (1919-1928) was Esteban Radić, founder and president of the Croatian Peasant
Party. Following his violent death, which ushered in the second phase
(1929-1941), leadership passed to his successor, Dr. Vladko
Macek. The author meticulously analyzes this period,
during which the Croatian resistance, under Macek's
leadership, had become a dynamic, coherent, disciplined, and combative national
front against the monarchical dictatorship, one of the worst in Europe at the
time.
Until the death of
the dictatorial King, assassinated in Marseille in 1934, the action on the home
front and that of the exiles continued. For the first time in Croatian history,
these exiles resorted to methods of political terror as a logical consequence
of the forced incorporation of Croatia, a country with deep-rooted Western
traditions, into a predominantly Balkan state. With the death of dictator
Alexander I Karageorgevich, the divisions among
Croatian opposition groups deepened. The nationalist faction advocated for the
unconditional severing of all state ties between Serbia and Croatia, while the
Croatian Peasant Party favored a compromise, albeit a provisional one. The
result of these conciliatory efforts was the Agreement (Sporazum,
in Croatian), stipulated in 1939 on the eve of the war, by the Croatian Peasant
Party and the Yugoslav government, backed by the Regency or, more accurately,
by Prince Paul of the Serbian Karageorgevich dynasty.
Croatia obtained a restricted, provisional autonomy over a fragmented
territory.
Jareb, sharing nationalist viewpoints, criticizes this
policy of compromise, analyzing in detail Macek's
internal management and his participation in the government between 1930 and
1941. However, he omits analyzing the decisive events that led Yugoslavia to
adhere to the Tripartite Pact in March 1941, an act that motivated the coup
d'état, organized by a group of high-ranking Serbian officers, supported and
instigated by the traditional Serbian parties whose primary objective was the
elimination of the restricted autonomy granted to Croatia. The Serbs tried to
portray the Croatian democratic representatives to the Allies as collaborators
with Fascist Italy and the Third Reich. Dr. Macek, in
his aforementioned work, attempted to rectify the false information
disseminated by Serbian politicians during the war. In 1941, the Croatian
nationalist opposition took advantage of the aforementioned coup and the swift
disintegration of Yugoslavia, proclaimed Croatia's independence, and seized
power.
The new government
was recognized by the Axis powers and remained in power until the end of the
war. Jareb, who operated within the nationalist
ranks, criticizes Dr. Macek for sharing the
propaganda narrative that, during the war, fostered the illusion of a unified
Yugoslavia and labeled Croatian nationalists as quislings and collaborators.
The author observed that the restoration of Croatian independence reflected the
will of the people and believes that, despite the unfavorable external
situation that dictated a degree of accommodation with the all-powerful Third
Reich, the opportunity presented had to be seized.
Jareb extensively addresses the problems related to the
proclamation and organization of the Independent State of Croatia, pointing out
the errors and omissions committed by the regime of Dr. Ante Pavelić. In his opinion, Pavelić's
fundamental error was his inaction and his failure to allow others to take the
necessary steps at the crucial moment to sever Croatia's ties with the Third
Reich and to find a way for the Croatian army to collaborate with the Allied
forces, at least after Italy's capitulation. Jareb
emphasizes that Croatian nationalists, especially the younger intellectual
generation, did not follow Pavelić as a
political ideologue but rather fought for and advocated the restoration and
consolidation of the Croatian nation-state.
He critically
examines the still incomplete data concerning the failed coup attempt in
Croatia in the summer of 1944, whose objective was to align with the Western
Allies. He meticulously details the relationship between Pavelić
and Fascist Italy, and his assessment of Pavelić's
attitude is negative. In the final chapter, he advocates for united action by
all Croatian exiles and condemns the discrimination against those who fought
for their nation-state during the war. In this regard, when referring to the
situation in postwar Croatia, he criticizes the Croatian communists for
accepting the Serbian program to restore Yugoslavia, which had disintegrated in
1941, instead of maintaining the Croatian nation-state, albeit under a
communist regime.
He defines
federalism, invoked by the Yugoslav communists, as a mere disguise for Serbian
domination. Nevertheless, he makes a concession to the communists, which in our
opinion is unjustified, as if they had safeguarded Croatian interests on the
Adriatic coast and given impetus to the country's industrialization.
Jareb's method is analytical-critical, consistent with that
prevalent in North American political and historical science. While his basic
position stems from nationalism, his exposition and evaluation of historical
events is far from being political propaganda. His copiously documented book
aspires to serve the truth and, therefore, his people. The documentation is not
complete, due to the unavailability of many documents and because the author
attributes greater value to certain data and information than they possess.
In short, his work is
a serious attempt to examine, with critical and scientific method, the events
that have occurred in contemporary Croatian politics. The author himself
emphasizes that these are not definitive conclusions. Jareb's
book may be useful for foreigners interested in political and national
relations in Yugoslavia, until a similar work appears in a global language, as
it refutes, with arguments and readily available documents, so many falsehoods
regarding the Croatian struggle for self-determination and national freedom,
disseminated by Yugoslav propaganda both before and during the war, as well as
now.
Ivo Bogdan,
Buenos Aires.
[1]
Estimación efectuada según los mismos cocientes que para el ingreso nacional.
De acuerdo a ciertos datos - Vinski, Stajic en la Reseña Trimestral de la economía de
Yugoeslavia, IV, 1964 - puede estimarse que la participación de la agricultura
en el ingreso nacional de preguerra para el determinado territorio de Croacia
alcanzaba a cerca del 40%.