Ante Cuvalo
American Croatian Review, Year IV, No. 3 and 4, October 1997, pp. 5-8.
In Slavic mythology Svevid is a god with three faces. He sees everything: past, present, and future. But we mortals tend to forget the past, have difficulty perceiving the present, and have proven to be less than accurate prognosticators of the future. We have so many objective and subjective limitations that even the brightest among us seem half-blind. Yet, for all that, we must make an effort to see “the big picture” in order to have some sense of direction in our lives and in history.
Looking back, we can say that this century has proven to be one of the most tragic and also most exhilarating periods of history. We have passed through two ghastly world wars, the rise and fall of two totalitarian ideologies, the transformation of a world dominated by a few imperial powers to a world of close to 200 independent countries, globalization of economy, information revolution, a shift from a multi-polar to a bi-polar world, and, finally, to Pax Americana. These are just a few of the common experiences of our times. At the same time, we are not only living at the end of the century but also on the eve of a new millennium, which prompts us to scan the present world situation in order to, in the light of the past, detect signs and portents of the new era that began with the collapse of the Soviet bloc and communist ideology.
Countries and societies that emerged from under the rubble of communist totalitarianism are in a unique predicament because they have the extraordinary challenge of transforming themselves if they wish to become part of the (hopefully better) world of tomorrow. For them, the end of the 20th century has been not only dramatic, exhilarating, and challenging, but for some (Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, for example) it has also been a bitter-sweet, nerve-wracking, and bloody. All of these changing societies find themselves at the crucial juncture from which they will have to climb a slippery slope in order to become an integral part of a democratic and free world.
Freedom is both the most important legacy and the most challenging aspect of western civilization. Other mass civilizations have passed through periods of great achievements and have contributed to the development of human progress but none has embraced the ideals of freedom as our civilization has. The core principle of our freedom is supremacy of the law over everyone, especially over those in power. To embrace and implement this essential ideal of freedom will be the most arduous to the peoples and societies that have emerged from under the colonial type of communism practiced in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.
Our focus here will be on Croatia, hoping that our observations from a distance will contribute to a better understanding of this old European nation that is now a newly independent country.
It Takes More Than Independence
Croatia has passed through a very challenging history largely for being located where old empires, three leading civilizations (Latin, Byzantine, and Islamic), and big powers have competed and still compete. By some remarkable resilience, however, Croatia and the Croatians have not only survived all the invasions, empires, oppressors, and ideologies, but have finally gained their freedom from the latest oppressor and have become active participants on the world stage. Their fate is now in their hands and they themselves are the most important factor in shaping their own future. Securing national independence, however, is only the beginning. There are many momentous difficulties they have to face and hopefully overcome if they wish to catch up with the present day Western norms of democracy and freedom. Here are a few of the predicaments they must resolve.
Temptations are too strong to slip into the practices of the recent past when the communist party was above the law. Most of the former nomenklatura is back in power. For a short period after the collapse of the old system, there was some hesitation and doubt on the part of many from the former state and party structures to embrace the new course. Some of them did sense the wind direction and have surfed the big wave; some were apprehensive about their own future; and others, especially from the media, even joined anti-Croatian propaganda sponsored by those who wanted to preserve Yugoslavia in whatever form possible. But, by now, practically the entire former elite is back in full force; and not only back on the new ship, but they are in control of the most important leverages of power in the state. Although they claim to be new-born democrats, it is very doubtful that they are eager to embrace the ideals of democracy.
During the entire Yugoslav period (1918-1990), the Croatian political elite (bourgeoisie and socialist-communist) always found itself outmaneuvered by their Serbian counterparts, commonly known as Belgrade Carsija. Now that the Croatian elite (former socialist or nationalist) finds itself fully in charge of national affairs and no longer in the unwilling or willing service of others, a strong temptation exists to grab too much “freedom” for itself and even assume a messianic role at the expense of the rest of the population. Getting hold of state control after a long period of suppression may easily lead to abuse of power. Therefore those who have assumed responsibility for the fate of the nation must exercise care to use power as an instrument for the common good and not for self-serving ends.
Unfortunately, many enter politics or the ever-expanding state bureaucracy not to serve the nation but to find the shortest and easiest road to material gains and self-aggrandizement. Yesterday’s paupers who entered through the right political door have become instant local barons. In all societies the rich tend to have close ties with the political power centers, but in Croatia and other post-communist democracies the tendency is to translate political power into quick economic gains and high social status. To serve the nation is not as important as willingness to play the game. One is reminded here of the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes’ (448?-380? B.C.) depiction of people who tend to enter politics. The following is the scene where the general, Demosthenes, is tempting a sausage seller to depose the democratic leader, Cleon:
Sausage seller: Tell me this, how can I, a sausage seller, be a big man like that?
Demosthenes: The easiest thing in the world. You’ve got all the qualifications: low birth, marketplace training, insolence.
Sausage seller: I don’t think I deserve it!
Demosthenes: Not deserve it? It looks to me as if you’ve got too good a conscience. Was your father a gentleman?
Sausage seller: By the gods, no! My folks were scoundrels.
Demosthenes: Lucky man! What a good start you’ve got for public life.
Sausage seller: But I can hardly read!
Demosthenes: The only trouble is that you know anything. To be a leader of the people isn’t for learned men, or honest men, but for the ignorant and vile. Don’t miss this golden opportunity.
If this is a stereotype of a politician not only in the ancient Athens but in all societies, then it is even more so for those who suddenly find themselves in transition from captivity and totalitarianism to democracy.
During the Habsburg period, in Croatia and other parts of the empire the system operated within a well developed sense of legality, although certain powerful officials often bent and abused the law. Nonetheless, there was a sense of order and justice (though unequal), and Croatians were part of that political framework and tradition for a long time. Difficulties compounded rapidly when Croatians found themselves in a newly formed South Slavic state (1918) in which the dominant Serbs implemented the Ottoman-cum-Russian tradition of governing. Corruption became the core of the state system and not an anomaly. Belonging to the right nationality, the right party, the right political circle, and having good family connections were all symbolized in the single word veza (connection) that permeated the entire state structure. There was, for example, even a “professional class” of people waiting daily in the corridors of government offices in Belgrade to sell their veza services.
During the socialist era, after an early revolutionary enthusiasm, such corrupt practices became an integral part of a consumer-driven socialist elite whose only goal was enrichment and protection of its power status that guaranteed all possible privileges. These experiences have left a strong mark on Croatian society as a whole, especially on the aspiring elite. Furthermore, living in a country they did not consider their own, ruled by a people more backward than themselves, and oppressed by an ideology that was alien to their tradition, the Croatians developed a strong cynicism toward government, state institutions, and even the state itself. The sense of civic duty faded away. Instead, the main challenge became how to beat the system and those who sustained it at their own game.
Most people find ways to adjust to the situations they live in, no matter how appalling that might be. They learn how to play the game no matter what the political order or ideological climate. But the effect of seventy more years under a corrupt system is that people begin to accept political deviations as normal, as part of life, and they tend to join the game either in order to survive or to move up on the social ladder. Besides, there is a primordial urge in our human nature to surrender freedom in return for the false sense of security provided by the famous three fundamental temptations: bread, authority, and spectacles. Fear of freedom and of its dreadful demands is often stronger than the desire to be free. It is often easier to live under an astrological-like fate than with the burdensome daily responsibilities and uncertainties of freedom and democracy.
People in Croatia are still exhilarated by their recent achievement of freedom, but it is also evident that there is a lack of understanding of what to do with that newly found liberty, what pitfalls to avoid in order not to give it up, and, ultimately, there is a lack of readiness to accept the responsibilities of genuine freedom. Those in power take full credit for Croatia’s independence and expect the people to reward them with unquestionable trust and complete authority. But legitimate and positive authority must have its roots deep in genuine freedom and not in the lack of it. Once freedom becomes dependent on authority, society is on the road to servitude. This is why everyone, especially those in evolving democracies must remove themselves from any state of idleness and cynicism if they are not to become passive crowds, faceless masses without purpose, worshipers of false gods and believers in half-truths, straw heads who cannot think but must be manipulated. People have to be skeptical of those in power, whatever that power might be. Truly free humans never surrender blindly to any party, any ideology, or any force that tries to control or manipulate them, including the news media, which quite often is just another modern abuser of power and a peddler of social tranquilizers. Critical thinking and sound and consistent scepticism are cornerstones upon which our individual and common freedoms stand. That is why the ideals of freedom and the responsibilities that come with it have to be cultivated, nurtured, and constantly guarded in every society, but especially among those who have just emerged from a totalitarian regime.
Croatia has a long tradition of parliamentary politics. Since the middle ages, the Sabor (parliament) among the Croatians has been a bastion of national rights and freedoms. However, not only the power but even the symbolism of the Sabor has diminished since 1918, and the ruling elite today is not eager to restore the role of the Sabor to its rightful place. In Croatia, as in other post-communist countries, there is a multi-party parliamentary system: party-hopping and shopping, and party-multiplying is a common practice. Political competition is more a clash of personalities and petty interests than of solid political programs. Those who feel important or are frustrated for not getting what they “deserve” want to have political followings in order to become “somebodies.” Such characters want to make sure that their presence in the country is felt in one way or another. Furthermore, leaders of all political parties and factions take themselves too seriously, their egos are instantly inflated, and they become strangers even to their own former friends. Such superegos hinder the formation of stable coalitions and partnerships in building a better future.
After living under a communist regime for five decades, it seems as if people have forgotten how to organize themselves into various types of civic groups that would sprout and grow from the bottom up. There is not only a subconscious fear of undertaking such activities but an obvious lack of experience on the part of those who are most needed to do so. On the other hand, the ruling party and state institutions have a tendency to co-opt anyone and every independent group in any way they can. Furthermore, the ruling bureaucracy rarely makes a distinction between potential enemies of the nation and the opponents to their own power, instead, in the good old socialist tradition, they try to have everyone and everything somehow connected to them, and, therefore, under their sway. In the same pre-independence tradition, an enemy is needed, whether real or imaginary, so that those in power can prove to the masses that they are worthy guardians of the nation. In their eyes all of this is a fair game, both legal and good for the country, because it serves their purpose.
Croatians as a people have a strong tradition of hard work, frugality, and self-improvement. Today there are significant hurdles to be removed or jumped over in this regard. Business ethics, employers’ relations with employees, and socialist work ethics combined with capitalist consumerism have been carried over from the communist era. The sons and daughters of the former or present elite have secured or are securing their economic, social, and political future without working or hardly working. Also, thousands of Croatians have been working in western Europe for decades. They have saved and improved their own lives and that of their children. In many cases, however, their children who remained at home and grew up (usually) with grandparents learned how to live an easy life. Thus, the money earned in the West ultimately became a destructive social factor.
There is also a tradition in that part of the world according to which anyone who received even a secondary education deserves something better than a manual job. Although such people might come from villages, it is below their social expectations to work on the family farm or in some other “dirty” employment. The practice of moving to the urban areas and the swelling of state bureaucracy by unnecessary and unprofessional workers continues. The above mentioned and other similar elements have high social and economic expectations, they are excellent consumers but lousy producers, and they easily become fertile ground for social, economic, and political anomalies.
The gap between rich and poor is growing and growing fast. Many of those who are getting richer are becoming so not because of their hard work but because of their political positions and/or good connections. The very important process of privatization of post-World War II nationalized property is taking place. The beneficiaries of nationalization, however, are mainly those who control political power. One should not be surprised that former communists quickly learned the harsh theory of trickle-down capitalism because they had long practiced trickle-down socialism. On the other hand, former nationalists are justifying their accumulation of national wealth by the logic, better “we” than “they.” In economic terms, the beneficiaries of privatization justify their “successes” by arguing that it is good for the entire nation if a few big capitalists emerge in the country because they will become the backbone of future economic growth and provide spin-off opportunities for others. But this type of thinking and action will lead to the disappearance of the present and potential middle class, and the number of the have-nots in the country will steadily grow.
Finally, besides the foregoing as well as other social and historical problems, one should not forget human nature. Both those who blame the past, society, and institutions for all our ills and utopians who think that we can eradicate evil and come to full realization of good are not helping us much in confronting reality. The bifurcation of good and evil, with all its consequences, is at the very core of our humanness. Selfishness, greed, quest for power, drive to kill and to be killed, to love and to be loved, to live and to let live is in all of us regardless of race, nationality, gender, ideology, profession or anything else. These basic human tendencies and issues are to be faced in every society especially where they had been suppressed for long periods of time and, in the Croatian case, where above all else the recent war devastations and traumas are still very fresh. It is precisely here, on the personal level, where the foundations for new and, hopefully, better beginning must by laid.
Need for A Second Revolution
In this century, we have witnessed the collapse of empires and the birth of many independent countries. In very few of them, however, has democracy taken hold. There are many reasons, internal and external, for such a situation, but the most important one is that those societies have failed to transform themselves by undergoing a second revolution. Once independence is secured, a self-imposed peaceful and painful change must take place at all levels of society. Democracy and all it implies cannot be imported, simply imitated, or bought. It has to be learned, nourished, watched over, practiced, and its implementation should not be postponed for “better times.” This type of social, mental, and even spiritual revolution is often harder than the struggle for independence.
Croatia and the Croatians are at the beginning of a new and important era. The country and the people have been tossed about and therefore out of natural “balance” for a long time, and now are in the process of finding their own political, social, economic, and cultural equilibrium. An important question is, however, who and what forces will spearhead this very arduous and long process? At the moment there isn’t a strong visible group(s) that can be identified as the engine(s) of positive change.
The old institutions, from the Academy of Arts and universities to the Catholic Church, need to adjust to the new situation and to rejuvenate themselves if they are to be effective in the future. The quicker these and other institutions face reality and reform themselves the sooner they can become a force for change on the national level. But it seems they are still in the stage of waiting and reassessing their own internal situations.
The ruling party has slipped into some of the old pre-independence political practices. Both its former socialist and nationalist factions are too much preoccupied with self-preservation and maintenance of their hold on power. The former have neither legitimacy nor moral strength to lead a genuine national and social rebirth. The latter have greatly compromised themselves because they have caved in too easily to the temptations of power. Many of them have cashed in their ideals of freedom and patriotism. The opposition, on the other hand, is weak and it is led by people who can not find their way out of the pits of their own making. This spring’s national elections, in which the opposition clearly lost and the ruling party did not really win, should be a lesson for both those in power and those in the opposition. If in a newly independent country, faced with reconstruction and even with securing of its national boundaries, more than 40 percent of eligible voters stay home on election day, it is a clear sign of apathy and protest. Furthermore, there is much mutual incrimination going on among various ideological camps and factions. They are mostly concerned with clarifying the past and not facing the future. Today’s political formations, therefore, are not in a position to lead the much needed silent revolution.
In the Croatian diaspora, after an initial euphoria and a common effort to help during the war, there is an obvious stagnation and a growing indifference toward events in the homeland. Furthermore, there are no genuine patrons among the Croats who are willing to jump-start new and positive activities that would accelerate processes leading to a higher level of freedom, democracy, and cultural achievement. International sponsors of such projects, even if they had good intentions (which is doubtful), had backed either destructive personalities or those who lack legitimacy among the people. The outside forces clearly do not have a real understanding of how to help (presuming that they really want to) an average Croatian to accept the responsibility for his or her freedom and contribute to further democratization and progress.
An old and well-known paradigm of education maintains that the main goal of teaching is to provide students with “roots” and “wings”: the roots so that their lives may be firmly grounded to get nourishment from the soil of our human and group past and thus they may become solid human beings and citizens; the wings is to equip them with intellectual and moral strength to take off on their own, to be free and explore new horizons, to expand their human potential to the fullest. One could say that every nation, social group, and humanity as a whole, just as individuals, need both roots and wings. We need those who will preserve our past, our common memories and traditions; those who can build without destroying the old foundations; those who can see the dangers and caution us not to fly too fast and too far from the firm ground we stand upon, and teach us to guard and appreciate what has been already achieved and passed on to us. At the same time, however, we need individuals and groups who have courage and determination, aspirations, and vision to explore the new domains, take chances, and help us to move forward to new experiences and new frontiers.
Croatia today is rediscovering its true roots that were half-buried for a long time and attempting to find the wings that will take her forward. The old cultural and educational institutions, the tradition of a strong family life, the ancient towns, villages, old churches, medieval castles, and past heroes provide the people with a sense of belonging, stability, and direction. Positive and forward looking Croatocentric forces, therefore, should be seen as necessary and constructive and not as a dead weight from the past to be discarded as soon as possible. These elements have preserved the Croatian heritage, the ideals of freedom, sacrificed the most for the preservation of the nation, and kept alive the hope of independence and statehood. Their work and role did not end with the achievement of national independence. These institutions and genuine patriots should now focus on national renewal and the revolution of the spirit so that a higher level of democracy can be nurtured and flourish.
In Croatian national heritage, on the other hand, there is a long stream of those who were ready to venture out and fly off. Some of them dreamed and worked for genuine Christian unity, Panslavism, Illyrism, Yugoslavism, and other idealistic goals. Unfortunately, most of those excursions proved to be unrealistic, too adventurous, and some even tragic. Today, there are also forces for which Croatia is too small, too confining. They want to fly further and faster. (A few would even fly back to the muck from which they just escaped.) Those who emphasize tradition and roots often see these forces as dangerous. But genuine dreamers are needed in every society. They are the ones who challenge the rest to move forward, to take a wider view, to dream big, to reach higher, and to work harder. The people as a whole will be the judge if the dreamers are flying too far, getting reckless, or becoming a danger not only to themselves or to the society as such. But it is the dynamics of the two, the constructive “right” and the imaginative “left” that can move the nation into higher orbits of freedom and prosperity. But first both sides have to realize the importance of each other and of such dynamics itself.
The new forces for change among the Croatians, it seems, might come from social elements that still have idealism, hope, self-discipline, willingness to work hard for a better future of their children and of the country, and most of all, readiness to be genuinely free individuals in a free nation. A new axis for a “second revolution” hopefully will emerge from the bottom up; from those individuals and groups who have remained faithful to their roots but still have the wings to fly higher; who are willing to embark on the road of personal freedom and higher standards of democracy; those who are able to make what existentialists call “the creative act;” those who are tired of manipulations and nonsense coming from the inside or outside the country; those who are willing to look straight in the eyes of the evil in themselves and around them and work on transcending it; those who are not running after power but have the willingness to stand up to its abuse, not preaching and lecturing but working daily to lower the floor and raise the ceiling of the crawl space the powerholders try to squeeze them into. There are such people and groups. I have met many of them while visiting Croatia. They are a silent majority to be admired for their patience and endurance. But they should start coming out to make their “lighted candles” visible and their voices heard. Once they do so, we may be surprised of how much brightness, inner strength, and willingness there is among the Croatians to make the second millennium better than the one they lived through.
Development Of Orthodoxy In Croatia And The Croatian Orthodox Church
Milos Obrknezevic
This is a translation of an article published in Hrvatska Revija (Croatian Review), Munchen-Barcelona, June 1979, pp. 229-262.
On the 4th of April 1942, almost a year after the Independent State of Croatia was founded, newspapers published a government statute No. XC-800- Z-1942 announcing the establishment of the Croatian Orthodox Church. On the 5th of June, on the basis of this statute, the constitution of the Croatian Orthodox Church was approved, and on the 7th of June the Most Rev. Germogen was enthroned as the first Orthodox Metropolitan of Zagreb. The Croatian Orthodox Church was active in Croatia until the end of the war when it was suppressed by the new Yugoslav authorities and the Metropolitan Germogen was executed. I actively participated in the founding of the Croatian Orthodox Church, writing the church’s constitution, negotiating with the Croatian authorities and was secretary to Metropolitan Germogen.
The time has come to tell the truth, calmly and objectively, about the founding of the Church and the function which the Croatian Orthodox Church performed during the Second World War in the Independent State of Croatia. For a better understanding of how this autocephalous Church came into being a short historical survey of the development of Orthodoxy in Croatian territories is required (the present day Yugoslav Republics of Croatia and of Bosnia and Herzegovina).
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ORTHODOXY AMONG THE CROATS
BEFORE THE TURKISH CONQUEST Before the final schism with Rome in 1054 the old Patriarchate of Constantinople did not extend to the lands settled by the Croats with the exception of some parts of Dioclea: the territories west of the river Drina and west of the town of Budva were outside of the Eastern Patriarchate. Even at the time of Photius’s schism (863-923), when the Metropolitan of Split looked eastward, he nevertheless remained outside the jurisdiction of Constantinople but was subordinate to the Aquileian Patriarchate. The situation did not change when the Bulgarians created a patriarchate in Ohrid (927- 1018), nor was it affected by the split of Christianity in 1054 into the Western or Roman Catholic Church and Eastern or Orthodox Church.
The first penetration of Orthodoxy into Croat territories occurred at the beginning of the 13th century following the conquest of Red Croatia (Dioclea or Zeta, Travunja and Zahumlje) 1 by Stevan Nemanja, the Grand Count of Rascia (Serbia), and by his son Stevan, already crowned king of Serbia. In 1219 Sava Nemanjic founded the Serbian Orthodox Church and established two episcopal sees (Ston and Prevlaka/Kotor) on Croatian Catholic territory. The one in Ston was short lived due to the lack of an Orthodox population in that area, while the other survived until 1485, when it was transferred to Cetinje in present day Montenegro. In the meantime, the Serbian Orthodox Church in the territories of present day East Herzegovina and Montenegro, with support from the Serbian State, and with sporadic pressure, including forcible conversions, succeeded in limiting Catholicism to a narrow stretch of land along the coast. During the Turkish domination in this region the process of conversion to the Orthodox faith resulted in the disappearance of Roman Catholicism from Montenegro about the year 1650, and in reducing the Croatian Catholic population in the coastal region to small pockets around the city of Kotor. Catholicism survived along the Dubrovnik coast, protected by the boundaries of the Dubrovnik Republic. There was no Orthodoxy, prior to the Turkish invasion, among the Croats in Bosnia (west of the rivers Drina and Neretva) and in Srijem (north of the river Sava).
THE PERIOD OF TURKISH RULE With the Turkish advancements, the first Vlachs (nomadic herdsmen originating in a region called Old Vlach east of the river Drina), appeared in the territory of East Bosnia. Descendants of the old Roman population from the Balkan Peninsula, they were Orthodox (unlike the Croatian Catholic Vlachs in the Dinaric-Velebit region) and were known in various regions and at different times as Arumanians, Czinczars, Riscani, Rkaci and Eastern-Greeks. With the rapid fall of the Kingdom of Bosnia in 1463 and the Turkish advancement into Croatia, irregular military supporting units of Vlachs, called Martholosen, were brought by the Turks to the newly conquered territories. They also came to settle and work the land in central Croatia which had been depopulated as a result of the constant fighting. These Orthodox settlers were predominantly Vlach herdsmen, partly slavonicized, and came from the central Balkan regions: Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania, Montenegro and East Herzegovina. The strong migratory movements of the Vlachs affected a number of other nationalities: Montenegrins, Serbs (Rascians), Macedonians, Albanians, Bulgarians, Greeks and also Croats (Uskoks, Prebjezi, Bunjevci, Predavci). The language of the Vlachs, apart from Vlacho-Romanian, was predominantly a Ijekavian-Neostokavian 2 dialect, due either to their gradual westward movement through the Ijekavian regions or else as a result of their long stay in the ijekavian territories of East Herzegovina, Montenegro and Sanjak.
The Orthodox Church followed the migratory population. First monasteries appeared, some of them built on the ruins of abandoned Franciscan friaries. During the 16th and 17th centuries, on the Turkish held territories, 3 Serbian Orthodox monasteries were founded in Herzegovina, 8 in Bosnia, 9 in East Croatia (2 in Slavonia, 7 in Srijem), 3 in South Croatia (Dalmatia) and 4 in Bosanska Krajina.3 In Banska, or Christian Croatia 4, 2 monasteries were founded. In 1502 the first metropolitan see was founded in the Krusedol monastery in Srijem, in Croatian territory. In Srijem the Orthodox settlers were predominantly Ekavian speaking Serbs, while in the remaining Croatian lands, particularly in the regions bordering on the Turkish held territories, Ijekavian speaking Vlachs predominated among the settlers. Following the restoration of the Serbian Patriarchate in Pec in 1557, it succeeded in bringing under its jurisdiction the majority of the Orthodox clergy, including the Greco-Vlach (Phanariot) clergy who were dispersed over those regions of Croatia and Southern Hungary conquered by the Turks. Makarije, the first patriarch of the restored Pec Patriarchate, founded the episcopal see in Orahovica for Turkish Slavonia and the Dabro-Bosnian see for the rest of Croatia- Bosnia under Turkish rule. A period of close cooperation with the Turks followed (1557-1690) and during that time the Patriarchate of Pec evolved into a strong theocratic and feudal force, a kind of autonomous government inside the Ottoman empire. The Patriarchs of Pec exploited the situation, undertaking intensive campaigns to convert Catholic Croats to Orthodoxy and at the same time were using pressure on the Catholic clergy to pay tributes to the Serbian Orthodox hierarchy. Conversion to Orthodoxy was at that time encouraged due to the wars being waged between the Ottoman empire and the European Catholic powers, resulting in the persecutions of Catholics, considered to be the most unreliable element under the Ottoman rule. Many remaining pockets of Catholicism were converted to Orthodoxy at that time in the territory of Turkish Croatia (Bosanska Krajina and North Dalmatia) and in the Dubrovnik hinterland, unless they had already embraced Islam. Many Catholics changed to Orthodoxy voluntarily for lack of Catholic clergy, as the Franciscans, the only Catholic priests or monks even partly tolerated by the Ottoman rulers, could not provide for the religious needs of the Catholic Croats.
After the Christian/Islam battle line was consolidated in front of the city of Senj and in the zones between the rivers Kupa-Una and Cazma-Ilova in Croatia in the middle of the 16th century, the boundary line remained unchanged for almost 150 years, until the end of 1699. During that time (particularly between 1597 and 1605) numerous Uskoks and Prebjezi, among them a number of the Orthodox population, crossed into the territory of Christian Croatia. In 1595, by a previous agreement with the Archduke Ferdinand, the bishop of the Vlachs, Vasilije, moved from the Croatian territory held by the Turks (Orahovica) and established the first Orthodox episcopal see in the Croatia-Slavonia region. His successor, Simun Vratanja, entered into a union with the Catholic Church of the Croatian Christian territory in 1611, recognizing the bishop of Zagreb. This Uniat episcopate known as Svidnicko- Marcanski had about 60,000 adherents using the Greco-Slavonic rite. (Its bishops being: Predojevic, Stanislavic, Kordic, Mijakirc Zorcic, etc.). At the same time, two more Orthodox episcopal sees were founded on Turkish held Croatian territory (Medak and Savina) and two episcopal sees transferred their seat to the territory of Bosnia (Zvornik and Sarajevo, in 1709).
THE ROLE OF THE METROPOLITAN SEE OF KARLOVCI Following the wars at the end of the 17th century the Turks were expelled from parts of Croatian territory (Slavonia, Lika, Banija and a large part of the Dalmatian hinterland) and also from Hungary and Northern Serbia. These wars caused two other important migratory movements of the Orthodox population; led by the Pec Patriarchs Arsenije Crnojevic in 1690, with 37,000 Serbian families; and Arsenije Joanovic Sakabenta in 1737. These two migrations followed the wars between Austria and Turkey and were the result of the insurrection and retreat of the Orthodox population from the rebellious regions and were directed towards South Hungary (Backa and Banat) and Eastern Croatia (Srijem). In contrast to the earlier, predominantly Vlach migrations, which moved westward and spoke either Vlach or the Ijekavian Neostokavian dialect, these new northern migrations consisted mainly of Serbs who spoke the Ekavian dialect.
As a result of these migrations and because of the border, which at that time separated them from their fellow Serbs under the Turkish domination, the ties between the Metropolitan of Srijem and the Pec Patriarchate were weakened. The Patriarchate was gradually losing its Serbian character and was later dissolved, (in 1766), its territory returned to the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. From that time almost all the nominated bishops were Phanariots.
In 1690 the Austrian Emperor Leopold recognised the supremacy in religious matters of Arsenije Crnojevic, not only over the recently arrived Orthodox population which he had led, but also over those Christians of the Greco-Slavonic rite who had crossed into the Christian part of Croatia more than a century before and had formed the Eastern Catholic Svidnicko-Marcanska diocese. This began the rivalry in the first half of the 18th century between the Croat-Vlach supporters of church unity (Uniats) and the Serbian Orthodox Metropolitan of Srijem for jurisdiction over the people of the Greco-Slavonic rite in the territory of Croatia. In the struggle the opponents of unity succeeded not only in stifling the attempts of the Greek Catholic bishops to achieve union in parts liberated from the Turks (Slavonia and Srijem) but also in gaining control of the population of the Eastern rite in East Lika, Kordun and Banija, which previously had adhered to union. At the same time the Serbian metropolitan see in Srijem began its organization of the Orthodox Church, not only for the Serbian population in Srijem and in Southern Hungary (Vojvodina), but also among the Orthodox Vlachs and Croats in the rest of Croatia. An episcopal see was founded in Karlovac but was soon divided into: Karlovacko- Senjska and Kostajnicko-Zrinopoljsko-Licka (1713-69); Pakranska (1705); and Lepinsko-Severinska (1734-50). The episcopal see of Srijem was from 1751 administered by a metropolitan, at first from Krusedol, and later from Srijemski Karlovci.
As a result of these developments the metropolitan see of Karlovci became an Orthodox Ecclesiastical Province which up to 1920 embraced all the Orthodox Serbs, Vlachs, Croats and Romanians in Southern Hungary (Vojvodina) and in Croatia. Orthodox Vlachs and Orthodox Croats living in parts of Dalmatia under Venetian rule, and in Bosnia, were outside of its jurisdiction, as were Romanians from the 1860s, when the Romanian Orthodox Church was founded in Hungary. The Metropolitans of Karlovci titled themselves the Supreme Metropolitans (Serbian Archbishops) and acknowledged the supremacy of the Patriarch of Pec. Only, after the Patriarchate of Pec was abolished in 1766 did Metropolitan Josif Rajacic receive the title of Patriarch in 1848.
After the formation of the metropolitan see in Karlovci, the Orthodox Church in Croatia, officially known among the Croatian Vlachs and Croats as Eastern Catholic, came more and more under pressure from the Serbian Orthodox Church whose aim was to take control of the non-Serbian Orthodox clergy and population, in particular the numerous Vlachs, most of whom were slavonicized or croaticized. With the weakening and subsequent abolition of the Pec Patriarchate in 1766, this aim lost its impetus in the territories under Turkish rule, but gained momentum in Banska Croatia and in Vojna Krajina5 through the workings of the metropolitan see of Karlovci. In the second half of the last century the serbianization of the non- Serbian Orthodox population culminated in the creation of a Serbian church-nation consciousness among the majority of the Orthodox population in Croatia. Since that time Serbian has become for many synonymous with Orthodoxy. In this way modern Serbian nationalism moved not only northwards through migrations but also westwards through conversions to Serbian Orthodoxy. This caused Serbian ethnic dispersal and formed a substantial Serbian minority in the Croatian territory. At the same time the ancient centre of the Serbian Church in Pec remained outside the influence of the metropolitan see of Karlovci and was gradually settled by the Albanians. During the dictatorship of Khuen-Hedervary in Croatia (1883-1903) the first Serbian Orthodox schools were founded, and in Pakrac a Serbian Orthodox Faculty of Theology was opened. The flag of the Kingdom of Serbia was later taken as the Orthodox flag in Croatia. Similar developments took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the Austro-Hungarian occupation when, in 1905, autonomous Serbian Orthodox Church schools were officially confirmed. This characteristic method of awakening national consciousness through the religious affiliation brought the classification of the majority of Orthodox as Serbs, and the analogous classification of Latin and Greek rite Catholics as Croats, thus greatly impeding the awakening of national consciousness among the Muslim population. The most negative result of this was that what used to be a religious mosaic was transformed, Croats and Serbs intermixing without respect for their historical, cultural or political boundaries, which in turn caused complications between these two and the other nations on the Balkan Peninsula. The result of this process was the very slow formation of Serbia and Croatia into modern religiously heterogeneous nations (especially Serbia) and the formation of substantial minorities in the Croatian and Serbian territories: 28.8 % in the present day Republic of Serbia, 20.6% in the present day Republic of Croatia (with Serbs making 14.2 %) and a very complicated situation in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (39.6 % Muslims, 37.2 % Serbs and 20.6 % Croats) .6 This led to intolerance, friction and conflict between the minorities and the indigenous population. This was greatly exploited by the foreigners: the regime of Khuen-Hedervary in Banska Croatia, the Autonomists in Dalmatia, the regime of Kallay in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italians, Germans and Hungarians during the Second World War, etc. In addition to this the extermination of Muslims took place in Serbia during the last century, and in Sanjak and in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the first half of this century, again by the Serbs. This led to the mutual extermination of both Serb and Croat minorities during the Second World War.
THE ORTHODOX CHURCH IN YUGOSLAVIA 1918-1941 When the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was founded in 1918 there were three autocephalous Orthodox Church regions in the territory of the new state at the metropolitan level: Karlovci, Belgrade and Montenegro-Littoral. Also the Dalmatian part of the Bukovinsko-Dalmatian metropolitan see and the National Autonomous Serbian Orthodox Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina under the supreme rule of the Patriarch of Constantinople. All these Churches were united in Belgrade on the 26th of May 1919 into one Serbian Orthodox Church for the newly formed kingdom. The Serbian Patriarchate was established on the 30th of August 1920 in Srijemski Karlovci, and on 12th November in the same year the electoral council met and elected Dimitrije Pavlovic, Archbishop of Belgrade and Metropolitan of Serbia, as the Patriarch (1920-30). Patriarch Dimitrije was succeeded by Varnava Rosic (1930-37), up to that time Metropolitan of Skopje. During his time the Serbian Orthodox Church violently resisted the concordat between the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Holy See which the government of Milan Stojadinovic wanted to ratify in 1937. During this conflict Patriarch Varnava died, and blood was shed in the demonstrations which followed, on the 19th of July 1937 in Belgrade. The new Patriarch Gavrilo Dozic (1938-50) was arrested in April 1941 in the Ostrog monastery by the Germans and, since he refused to collaborate, was interned until the end of the war.
The process of organization of the Orthodox Church in Yugoslavia was started by enacting temporary legislation about the Serbian Patriarchate (23th October 1920) and centralizing the administrative and judicial power of the Serbian Patriarchate (13th December 1920), the law of the Serbian Orthodox Church (8th November 1929) and finally the constitution of the Serbian Orthodox Church (16th November 1931).
In its organization the Serbian Orthodox Church was, in the period between the two wars, one, indivisible and episcopalian, with main administrative divisions into eparchies in hierarchic and administrative matters. In this way the name Eastern Catholic Church was officially abolished in Croatia and all the Orthodox in the territory of Yugoslavia, including the non-Serbian population (Macedonians, Montenegrins, Vlachs, Croats, Bulgarians, Ukrainians, Romanians, Albanians, Greeks, Czinczars, etc.) were subordinated to the Patriarch in Belgrade and considered to be of the Serbian Orthodox faith. There is no doubt that the neglect and persecutions of non-Serbian nations in pre-war Yugoslavia, primarily Croats, Macedonians and Albanians, caused ill feeling towards the Serbian Orthodox Church also, as the one most favoured and privileged. The colonization of purely Croatian and Catholic regions by Serbian volunteers, persecution of Muslims after the First World War, building of Serbian Orthodox churches and attempts to penetrate into purely Catholic territories like the Adriatic coast (the island of Vis for example) caused, in addition to ethnic animosity, even more ill will towards the Serbian Orthodox Church.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE VARIOUS NATIONAL ORTHODOX CHURCHES In contrast to other world religions which have no close ties with individual nations, and unlike the Catholic Church, which is under papal authority, the Orthodox Church has no common Organisation. “The Patriarch of Constantinople has no authority over the Orthodox Churches of other countries. Territories in the East, lost by Byzantium during its decline, gradually lost contact with the central authority, while the regions bordering on the Frankish empire and Byzantium oscillated for some time between the Pope and the ecumenical Patriarch (Moravia, Bulgaria, Dalmatian Theme 7). On gaining strength the new mediaeval states under the Byzantine cultural influence aimed for political and ecclesiastic independence. The Bulgarian ruler Simeon, after proclaiming himself Emperor of the Bulgarians and Greeks in 925, established in Bulgaria a patriarchate which became independent from Byzantium (927-1018); Bulgarians again enjoyed an autonomous Church in the time of Ivan Asjen II (1218-41). At the same time, while Byzantium was in disarray during the fourth Crusade, Sava Nemanjic founded the independent Serbian archiepiscopacy in 1219 which became an independent patriarchate in the time of Tsar Dusan in 1346. Its archbishop, Joakinije, was proclaimed “The Patriarch of the Serbs and Bulgarians”. The Turkish invasion meant the end of the independent Serbian Church. The Romanian Church was autonomous between 1425 and 1440. The Byzantine Emperor and the Patriarch of Constantinople, seeking help from the West against the Turks, tried once more (1439) to resolve the question of schism (Florentine Union). Their move was used by the Russian Church as a pretext to deny allegiance to the Patriarch of Constantinople and then to declare their independence in 1448. The Metropolitan of Moscow took the title of Patriarch in 1589. Peter the Great abolished the Moscow Patriarchate (1721) and in its place in- stalled the Holy Synod. The Patriarchate was restored only in 1917.8 Following the rehabilitation of the Orthodox Church in the Balkan Peninsula after the long period of close collaboration with the Turks, it started actively to participate in the resistance against the Ottoman rule, and in addition to religious needs played a part in preserving literacy, culture, and in nurturing national tradition. The Patriarchate of Pec played the same role (1557-1766). After the national states were formed on the Balkan Peninsula the autonomous Churches were established in their territories. Beside the Patriarchate of Constantinople the following Churches became independent: the Greek Orthodox Church (synod 1828, autocephalous 1833, recognised 1850); the Romanian Orthodox Church (autocephalous 1865, patriarchate 1925); the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (independence 1870, exarchate 1945);. the Hungarian Orthodox Church (independence 1930); the Serbian Orthodox Church (autonomy 1830, autocephalous 1879, patriarchate 1920); the Albanian Orthodox Church (autocephalous 1939); the Macedonian Orthodox Church (autonomy 1959, autocephalous 1967) and the Croatian Orthodox Church (autocephalous only 1942-45). In addition to the four Patriarchates (Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem) there were also numerous national and autocephalous Churches in existence: Russian (2), Georgian, Sinaian, Cypriot, Polish, Czechoslovak, Finnish, Dodecanese, Ukrainian (2), American (3), Syrian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, etc.
THE CROATIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH
THE LEGAL AND OFFICIAL POSITION OF THE ORTHODOX PEOPLE IN THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA DURING 1941 Following the collapse of Yugoslavia after the attack by the Axis powers, the Independent State of Croatia was founded on the 10th of April 1941. The newly formed state was comprised of the Triune Kingdom (Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia) and of Bosnia and Herzegovina (but excluding Medjimurje, part of Gorski Kotar, the coastal part of Northern Dalmatia between the river Zrmanja and the town of Split, Boka Kotorska and all the islands except Pag, Brac and Hvar). According to the census taken in 1931, the territory of the Croatian State had a total population of 6.042,306; 30.5 % of which (1,845,340) were Orthodox. This does not take into account the above mentioned territorial losses in which the Croatian Catholic population was predominant. The regime of the newly formed state was totalitarian and authoritarian. The head of state, Dr. Ante Pavelic 9 and the Ustasha movement held all the legislative and executive power. Legislation No XXXV-232-Z-1942 of 24th January 1942 re-establishing the Croatian Diet and the convening of the Diet, on the 23rd of February 1942 did not basically change the system of government. Religious matters in the new state came under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice and Religion. The internal organization of this ministry was prescribed by the legislation of the 9th of August 1941. The ministries were divided into departments each with its own special responsibilities. One section only was established at first, but later a Department for Religion headed by Fr. A. R. Glavas. Within the competence of this department was “to regulate the status and legal relations of all religions and their clergy; also religious matters of general/legal importance” .10 From March 1942 a Committee for Justice and Religion was active in the Diet; a member of this committee was a retired university professor and former vice-ban, the respected writer Dr. Vinko Kriskovic.
The ministerial decree of 18th of July 1941 ruled that the title “The Serbian Orthodox Faith”, which was considered to be at discord with the new state organisation, be replaced with “The Greek- Eastern Faith” as it was called before 1918. By the decree of the 4th of December 1941 “on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia the Julian calendar is abolished from the 5th of December 1941 for the Greek-Eastern and the Greek- Catholic Church and the Gregorian calendar is introduced” .11
The official view regarding religious freedom and the status of Orthodox during 1941 could be seen from the speech presented to the Diet by the Minister for Justice and Religion, Dr. Mirko Puk. “On the question of religion, the Croatian government follows the principle which the founder of the Party of Right, Dr. Ante Starcevic (l2), enshrined in the heart and soul of the Croatian people. In his guide for the followers of the party he says in clause 136: the Party of Right must teach the people that religion is a spiritual matter, that no nation can be divided on a religious basis, that religion must be free, that no one can impose his own religion by force, that a nation must be one in happiness, well-being and freedom, and that the present disunity in Croatia is used by the enemies of the people” .13 After this liberal quotation however, Dr. Puk continues: “The Croatian government recognizes 3 religions in Croatia i. e. the Catholic, Western or Eastern rite, Muslim, and Evangelical of the Augsburg Helvetian confession”. At the end of his speech Dr. Puk referred to ” … the Serbian Orthodox and Greek-Eastern Church. The Independent State of Croatia is not persecuting the Greek-Eastern religion, but it can not recognize the Serbian Orthodox Church! It is a known fact that the Eastern Churches belong to the so-called Caesarean Churches i. e. to Churches where religious matters are influenced by the establishment, as in the nomination of Church hierarchies, so that in reality these Churches have no freedom in their structure or Organisation, neither do they function freely but remain organs of the establishment. The head of state is also the head of the Church and it is a known fact that the laity plays a predominant role. Therefore, to allow the formation and existence of the Serbian Orthodox Church on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia would mean allowing the government of the Serbian State partly to govern in the territory of the Independent State of Croatia, using the Serbian Orthodox Church. This no country in the world would or could allow, and the Independent State of Croatia will not allow it either. Those who for any reason do not wish to recognize this historic condition are free to leave the territory of this state” .14
Dr. Ante Pavelic in his address to the final session of the Croatian Diet on the 28 th of February 1942, referred also to the question of Orthodoxy in the Independent State of Croatia with the following words: “Gentlemen! One thing which has so often had its repercussions, both good and bad, for the Croatian nation and for our Croatian homeland is the question of the Orthodox Church. Not the Orthodox religion but the Church, because there is only one Christian religion. We used to have a Greek- Eastern Church. It was called Greek-Eastern because the Orthodox in our country were under the Greek Patriarch whose chief care for them consisted in receiving high rewards for the anointing of bishops. The same situation also existed in Hungary. Hungarians, however, passed a law by which all Orthodox were made subjects to the Serbian Patriarch. Soon after the Croats copied the Hungarians and the same law was passed in Croatia. In this way the Orthodox came under the rule of the Serbian Patriarch, and the name ‘Serbian Orthodox Church’ was coined. There is no one in Croatia who has anything against the Orthodox faith. Everyone is praying to God according to his own conscience, according to what he has learned in his youth, by his birth, by his schooling and upbringing, and as he thinks best for the salvation of his soul. It is not for us to enter into that most intimate side of human life, into the question of the salvation of the soul. It is not true that the Croatian State aims to convert the Orthodox to the Catholic faith. That is not political. That is left to the individual conscience. I personally wrote a circular which was distributed to the authorities responsible in the provinces and asked them to keep a record of the conversions, not only to Catholicism but also to Islam and to Evangelicalism, and to give permission only when satisfied that the convert is honest and doing it out of conviction. I stressed in the circular that all means must be employed to prevent any kind of force being used by anybody. Despite this, violence was used in some cases but this was not done by the State, or with the approval of the State, but by individuals who acted illegally or, if by officials, then they have overstepped their authority.15 Gentlemen! No one is touching Orthodox but there is no room for a Serbian Orthodox Church in the State of Croatia. I repeat: there can be no Serbian, can be no Greek Orthodox Church. Why? Because everywhere in the world Orthodox Churches are national Churches. The Serbian Orthodox Church is part and parcel of the Serbian State. The hierarchy of the Serbian Orthodox Church is led by the Serbian State. Its state representatives appoint the Patriarch, or at least participate in his appointment, and all the hierarchy depends on him, from bishop to chaplain. All this is dependent on the Serbian establishment. This is so in Serbia, and has been so in the past in unfortunate Yugoslavia, but it may not and will not be in the Croatian State. World Churches which do not depend on a state could exist in Croatia, and there are such Churches. But if a Church is not a world Church, then it can only be a Croatian national Church, it can only be a Church which has full freedom in the spiritual domain and in freedom of conscience, but in all other matters it must be under the control of the Croatian State. We will never permit any Church to become a political tool, particularly not one aimed against the existence of the Croatian nation and the Croatian State. Therefore, sensible men who care for spiritual things will get together to analyse this question and to find a satisfactory solution for the Orthodox faith, for the welfare of the people, and for the good of the Croatian State” .16
From the address quoted above by the Minister Dr. Puk, and from the address by the Head of the State to the Diet, it will be concluded that the official position which the government of the new state adopted was characterized by the following:
1. To affirm the Croatian nation as a modern and religiously heterogeneous nation, in contrast to the outdated and harmful identification of a nation with a particular religion. 2. In contrast to the liberal views on the question of religion as proclaimed by Starcevic, to adopt totalitarian and authoritarian official recognition of only four religions: Catholic (Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic), Muslim, Protestant Lutheran and Protestant Calvinist. 3. Not to recognize or to tolerate, in the territory of the Independent State of Croatia, the Serbian Orthodox Church as an autocephalous national Church of the Serbian State. 4. To explain that the conversion of a number of Orthodox to Catholicism and the atrocities committed against the Orthodox population under the Ustasha name, had no support from the government nor was it encouraged. 5. To solve the problem of Orthodoxy in a Croatian framework by recognizing an autocephalous Croatian Orthodox Church.
THE COMPLEXITY OF THE SITUATION IN 1941 PRIOR TO THE FOUNDATION OF THE CROATIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH An unbiased, objective and detailed historical analysis of events in the Independent State of Croatia during 1941 has not yet been written. Neither is it our intention to write one, as this would require a complete book. But, as there is a need to give a concise account of events which influenced the situation of Orthodoxy in the Independent State of Croatia and led to the foundation of the Croatian Orthodox Church, it is necessary to explain and clarify some basic notions. The lack of a clear understanding of these notions prevents a proper analysis of these very complex events, events which were the result of equally complex causes and were made capital of by malicious generalization. It is necessary to explain, first of all, the relationship between modern Serbian and Croatian nationalism, the Catholic/Orthodox relations, and finally the relations between the Chetniks and the Ustashas.
CONFLICT BETWEEN MODERN SERBIAN AND CROATIAN NATIONALISM Modern Serbian nationalism began to develop at the beginning of the last century in the Belgrade pashalic of the then Turkish territory, mainly under the influence and with the support of the metropolitan see of Karlovci in the Hungaro-Croatian region of Vojvodina and East Srijem. Without a contemporary platform for statehood it took for its basis the ancient Serbian tradition of Dusan’s empire and the death of Tsar Lazar on the Field of Kosovo. On the other hand the lack of a formal, national, cultural and religious centre was substituted for by the metropolitan see of Karlovci, supported periodically by the Russian Church (the Patriarchate of Pec had been denationalized long before and subsequently abolished). The insurrection in the territory of the Belgrade pashalic, of the already decadent Turkish empire, resulted in the creation and subsequent recognition (in 1833) of the Serbian principality with help from tsarist Russia. Islam was eliminated from the territory and the principality became a nationally and religiously homogenous centre for future assembling of lands in which the Serbs lived; also a centre for the Great Serbian imperialism, with expansionist policies into territories with no Serbian population or where the Serbian population was in a minority. These territorial aspirations were based on the desire to renew Dusan’s empire (by conquest of Sanjak, Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro) and the extent of the activities the Pec Patriarchate had had during Turkish rule (Vojvodina, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia excluding a narrow stretch between the river Drava and the Adriatic).
The formation of modern Croatian nationalism had a completely different origin. It was based on the continuity of ancient Croatian statehood, beginning with a principality, later a kingdom (the first king, Tomislav, crowned in 923), preserving its individuality during the time of Hungaro-Croatian Personal Union 17; on the historic, legalistic and ethnic conception of a Unitary lllyricum (in Dalmatiam, Croatiam, Bosnam et Slavoniam distinguitur), during and after the Renaissance and the autonomous Triune Kingdom (Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia), within the Hapsburg Monarchy. Although with an apparently solid base for statehood and with traditions in constitutional and legalistic institutions (like ban /viceroy/ and Sabor /Diet/), 19th century Croatia had great weaknesses also. The ruling class, in part denationalised aristocracy, took no part in the contemporary Croatian national movement but strongly resisted it. In addition to this, three centuries of territorial separation (Ban’s Croatia, Military Frontier, Venetian Dalmatia, the Dubrovnik Republic and the territories under Turkish rule), the military zone in the geographical centre of Croatian territory, and migrations, weakened the consciousness of its ancient statehood in some areas. “The Croatian National Awakening Movement” introduced modern national ideas on the unity of the Croatian language and culture (from 1830). But at the same time it ushered in the nebulous ideas of Illyrianism, Slavism, and Yugoslavism. For this reason modern Croatian nationalism was left behind the development of modern nationalism in Serbia, and it was Starcevic and “Pravastvo” (the Party of Croatian Rights) who could be considered the founders of modern Croatian political nationalism which had worked, not only in uniting the Military Frontier and Dalmatia with the Triune Kingdom, but also on unification with Bosnia, Herzegovina and Istria.
The conflict between Croatian and Serbian modern nationalism started when nationalist ideas spread, from the region of Zagreb on the Croatian side and from the Novi Sad/Belgrade region on the Serbian side, towards Bosnia and Herzegovina, at that time still in Turkish hands, its population nonawakened nationally; and when the metropolitan see of Karlovci aimed for a definite inclusion of all the Orthodox from the territory of the Triune Kingdom (Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia) and from Bosnia and Herzegovina into the Serbs. “Pravastvo” (the Party of Croatian Rights) resisted this with the modern idea of a multi-religious Croatian nation, but the anti-Croatian regimes of Khuen, Hedervary in Ban’s Croatia, Autonomists in Dalmatia, and Kallay in Bosnia, saw to it that the Serbian equation, Orthodox = Serb, prevailed. This later brought the analogous equation: Catholic = Croat. The Muslims were left mostly unaligned in the middle. A number of Orthodox and Muslims, however, accepted the modern formula propagated by “Pravasi” about the religiously heterogeneous Croatian nation, and that is why there are a number of Orthodox and Muslim Croats; cases of Catholic or Muslim Serbs were exceptionally rare.
CATHOLICISM AND ORTHODOXY Catholicism as a major branch of Western Christianity is the faith of the majority of the Croats and also gave a Catholic character to the Austro- Hungarian Monarchy. It was the religion of the dynasty and of the majority of nations making up the monarchy: Austrians, Hungarians, Croats, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes and Ukrainians. As a universal Church, Catholicism at that time still aimed to proselytise, but this was founded on a purely voluntary basis. A proof of this was the fact that the privileged position Catholicism enjoyed in Austro-Hungary was not exploited during the last few centuries. There was no proselytization either through persuasion or force. Religious freedom was complete.
The Orthodox Church, as already mentioned, has no unitary organisation like the Catholic Church. In addition to being divided into old and traditional national Churches, Orthodoxy was also adapting itself to the newly formed nations and to the new national states and it often became their main propellent force. On the other hand these newly formed nations and national states encouraged the formation of their own Orthodox Churches to free their citizens from the control of other national Orthodox Churches which were under the influence of foreign states and governments. From these developments it followed that the territory settled by the Croats was a meeting place for three major faiths: Catholic, Orthodox and Islam. While Catholicism and Islam are universal religions, Orthodoxy is divided into a number of national Churches. As the Croats had not founded an autocephalous Croatian Orthodox Church by the time of National Awakening (although in 1861 Kvaternik 18 appealed to ban Sokcevic to found a Church), the Serbian Orthodox Church took its place for the greater part of the Orthodox population among the Croats and at the same time succeeded in winning over to the Serbian cause the majority of the Orthodox population, mainly the already slavonicized and croaticized descendants of the Vlachs. In other words the proselytism of Serbian Orthodoxy among the Croats did not only have a religious character (as in the official Catholic Church) but also had a nationalistic Serbian dimensions, which sometimes led to national intolerance.
THE CHETNIKS AND THE USTASHAS The Chetniks, a Serbian military Organisation with expansionist aims, was formed in Belgrade in 1903 with the intention of fighting the Turks. Later it was engaged in a war against Bulgarian comitadjis and against the Austro-Hungarian occupying forces during the First World War. Between the two wars (1918-1941) the Chetnik Organisation became an extremist (Great) Serbian monarchist group with the aim of turning Yugoslavia into a Great Serbia by using terror and extermination when necessary to “clear” mixed regions from non-Serbian elements, as for example the purging of Muslims from Sanjak after the First World War. Thus Chetniks became an important element in the persecution of Croats in pre-war Yugoslavia.
The formation and development of the Ustasha movement is described by the historian, Jere Jareb, as follows: “After 1918 the Croatian people found themselves for the first time in a Balkan state where brute force, murders and secretive revolutionary organizations were normal political phenomena. The philosophy behind the formation of the Ustasha movement was the conviction that force must be answered by force. The Ustasha movement was an answer to the (Great) Serbian oppression and to lawlessness in Croatia. For the first time in Croatian politics the Ustasha movement introduced and applied Balkan political methods. It was necessary to show the Serbs that the Croats also knew how to use guns and to defend themselves and attack. Radic’s 19 and Macek’s 20 politics of pacifism and humanitarianism only provoked contempt from (Great) Serbs. It is possible that this kind of politics created an illusion and a confidence among the (Great) Serbs, making them believe that it would be easy to finish off the Croats”. E. “Dido” Kvaternik, one of the leading Ustasha functionaries, said this: “Anti Serbian feeling was the essence of the Ustasha doctrine, its raison d’etre and ceterum censeo. This was the result of 20 years of rule by Belgrade in Croatia and of the knowledge that the Serbian ruling establishment wanted to exterminate the Croatian nation. Aleksandar Karadjordjevic21 created Ante Pavelic, Chetniks created Ustashas”.
So when Croatian and Serbian nationalisms came into conflict, the extreme Chetnik and Ustasha organizations came to grips in their own specific way.
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE USTASHAS AND THE CHETNIKS IN THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA DURING 1941 AND ITS CONSEQUENCE FOR ORTHODOXY Soon after the Independent State of Croatia was founded, the new government consolidated relatively quickly in those areas which constituted “Banovina Hrvatska” (Ban’s Croatia from 1939 to 1941), and where the majority of the population was Croatian. In those parts of the former Vrbaska Banovina and Drinska Banovina with the compact Serbian districts it took some time for the new administration to consolidate, which gave time to the Chetnik element to amass their arms and prepare the population for an uprising. Already, at the very beginning, excesses took place, committed by Ustashas in those parts of the country where Serbs were in a minority and by Chetniks in those parts with Croat Muslim or Catholic population in a minority. Political gatherings which took place during the months of May and June in 1941 and at which the high Ustasha functionaries harangued against the (Great) Serbs, aggravated the situation. At the same time mass uprisings against the new state were started by the Serbian population in parts of Bosanska Krajina and in East Bosnia and Herzegovina, organized or encouraged by the Chetniks. The minorities under attack either perished or escaped. Croat Muslims and Catholics into the towns and Serbs into the forests. Following the first wave of terrorist excesses, massacres, plunderings, house burnings and the destruction of places of worship (Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim) came retaliations, which caused suffering mainly to the innocent population who had not escaped. Intervention by the authorities was too slow and ineffective because the new administration was only beginning to form and the police stations which had only recently been set up were unable to prevent the mass terrorism. In this situation the Serbian minority in some towns and villages in the Pannonian region lived in fear of reprisals, which caused some to escape to Serbia; while others decided to change their religion from Serbian Orthodoxy to another denomination. In the non- mixed, purely Croatian regions there were no such problems and only after the outbreak of war between Germany and the Soviet Union the first communist guerilla units formed. In the meantime the Partisans skillfully exploited the Chetnik/Ustasha conflict for their own aims.
From the above circumstances and from a very brief analysis of events during 1941, which caused the persecutions and the civil war in the mixed regions of the Independent State of Croatia, the following conclusions can be drawn: 1.The presence of three religions (Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim) in the territory of the Independent State of Croatia was not a cause of the persecutions and the civil war. History has shown that peaceful co-existence and tolerance among the three religions in this territory was possible. 2. The conflict between Croatian and Serbian nationalism was not the main cause of the persecutions and the civil war because these conflicts were solved in the past by peaceful means and not by the use of force. 3. It is incorrect to present the events of 1941 as if they were typical for the whole duration of the war, from 1941 to 1945. 4. Conditions were not the same for the whole territory of the Independent State of Croatia. It depended on who were: a) Chetnik or Ustasha leaders, commandants or functionaries. b) In whose hands lay the power (Chetniks, officials of the former Yugoslav government or of the former government of Ban’s Croatia, HSS /Croatian Peasants Party/, Ustashas emigrants, native Ustashas under the oath or self-styled Ustashas, the so called “Nastashas” 22 ). c) Whether the region in question was ethnically mixed or purely Croatian or Serbian. d) Whether the area was in the zone occupied by Italians who supported and aided the Chetniks. e) The degree of a rebellious tradition among the population which depended on the geographical location of that area (whether Pannonian, Dinaric or Littoral). Polemical arguments about “who started first?” are pointless because, depending on circumstances, it was started either in the name of Chetniks or in the name of Ustashas, but always by an irresponsible element.
What then was the main cause for starting the persecutions and civil war in 1941, which in some areas and under specific conditions degenerated from military or semi-military actions to mass reprisals against the civilian population and which the adherents of communism later used for their own aims, stressing the absurdity of this conflict? It was mainly the conflict between the Chetniks and Ustashas. In that conflict all three religions: Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim, suffered and endured persecutions, including massacres, murdering of priests and burning down of churches and mosques. However, neither the Serbian nor the Croatian nation could be collectively blamed for the violence and crimes committed and for the misuse of power, nor could the members of any individual religion, nor could amorphous groups like the Croatian or Serbian nationalists or the members of mass organised movements such as Ustashas and Chetniks, although these were extremist organisations. Only those irresponsible individuals who committed the crimes could be held responsible, but the majority of these unfortunately remained anonymous; even more, some of them later succeeded in joining the Partisan movement.
CASES OF CONVERSION FROM ORTHODOXY TO CATHOLICISM As can be seen from the situation in 1941 the Serbian Orthodox Church, as a Church with a Serbian national character was proscribed, while the Greek- Eastern Church, as the Orthodox Church was renamed and as it used to be called in the time of the Austro-Hungarian empire, was not officially organised or recognised and remained without a leader. In that way the Orthodox were in fact left without a church organization unless they belonged to another autocephalous Church such as the Russian, Bulgarian, Romanian, etc., and in which clergy were available. The formation of the Independent State of Croatia and the Ustasha campaigns against the (Great) Serbs made many of the Orthodox population accept the situation, depending on circumstances (for example, renewal of old loyalty to Croatia among the Orthodox “Krajisnici”) or created a climate of uncertainty (with regard to possible reaction from the persecution of Croats in pre-war Yugoslavia). When it became known that power had been misused and atrocities committed, the Orthodox population in mixed areas and in the towns with Orthodox minorities became fearful, and while some escaped to Serbia, even when not being persecuted, others, on their own initiative, converted to Catholicism, or occasionally Protestantism, to avoid current or possible persecutions. Therefore the phenomenon of groups of Orthodox converting to Catholicism represents a separate chapter in the events which took place in the Independent State of Croatia during 1941. There are three assertions about this phenomenon.
a) Great Serbian and the present official Yugoslav: the conversion took place because the Orthodox population were forced by Ustashas, by the government of the Independent State of Croatia, and even by the Catholic Church.
b) Thesis about conversions as a result of fear: the conversions were not forced, neither were they intended by the authorities of the Independent State of Croatia. The Orthodox population came to the idea and went ahead with it voluntarily and on their own initiative, but it was done out of fear to save themselves from eventual violence.
c) The assertion by Dr. A. Pavelic and Dr. S. Hefer: the conversions followed from the voluntary desire of some of the groups of the Orthodox population to be identified in faith with their Catholic brethren in one Croatian homeland. This would include cases of conversion by some Orthodox to Catholicism out of a conviction that they were returning to the faith of their forefathers. To prove this thesis Dr. Pavelic and Dr. Hefer quoted deputations of Orthodox peasants from the surrounding of Sunja received by Dr. Pavelic, and delegations from the region of the Great County of Baranja (the broader surroundings of Osijek) who were coming to Dr. Hefer.
There is no doubt that the first thesis (a) is incorrect, and that it is propagandist and tendentious for two reasons: 1. The Catholic Church authorities decisively resisted the conversions when it was not clear that the request resulted from the free wish of the applicant. 2. Generally speaking the majority of the Ustasha movement members and their leaders were not particularly pro-Catholic, nor were they especially anti Orthodox. They were against the (Greater) Serbs and only because of that were they against the Serbian Orthodoxy. This is proved by the excellent relations between the Ustasha movement and the Orthodox Macedonians, Bulgarians, Romanians Ukrainians and Russians before and during the war.
Regarding the theses (b) and (c), it is probable that both of these were followed depending upon whether there were reasons for fear or not. Nevertheless we believe that the cases as described in (b) were more numerous. Only in certain acute cases of persecutions the local Catholic Church authorities allowed the conversions as a quick means of protecting the Orthodox population (and their property) with a view to a later return to Orthodoxy .23 Dr. Stjepan Hefer, formally a member of the Croatian Peasant Party and during the war a high official in Osijek and later a minister in the Independent State of Croatia, would often recount that in 1941 whole villages from the Osijek area came in procession under Croatian banners, headed by the cavalry and led by their elders, to be converted to Catholicism. He complained that this was later ruined by the self-styled, or “Wild Ustashas”, who started blackmailing and robbing prominent peasant converts.
ORTHODOX CROATS With the problem concerning the Serbian Orthodox Church in the Independent State of Croatia it seems that in 1941 the spiritual needs of the Orthodox Croats were neglected. It is possible that some will try to conclude that the number of Croats of Orthodox faith was very small when taking into account that the great majority of the Orthodox population on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia at that time considered themselves to be Serbs. There were only a few who took into account that, regardless of their number, the Orthodox Croats, following the intensive serbianization of Orthodoxy in Croatia, found themselves torn between their Croatian national consciousness and their religious affiliation which officially came under the domain of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The contribution of these Croats to their homeland, especially before the metropolitan see of Karlovci started openly forcing their equation: Orthodox = = Serb, was very important. These are only some of the most prominent personalities: Anastas Popovic (1786-1872), founder of the first Croatian savings-bank, the biggest financial institution in Croatia at that time, and a president of the Orthodox community in Zagreb; Mosije Baltic (1804-78), an eminent promoter of agronomy; Dr. Dimitrije Demeter (1811-72), a poet and the first modern Croatian dramatist; Petar Preradovic (1818- 72), the greatest poet of the Croatian National Awakening; Josip Runjanin (1821-78), composer of the Croatian national anthem; Makso Prica (1823-73), a lawyer and politician, secretary to ban (viceroy) Jelacic; Nikola Krestic (1824-87), a politician and president of the Croatian Diet (1873-84); Vladimir Nikolic (1829-66), a poet and a writer; Spiro Dimitrovic Kotoranin (1813-68), a Croatian writer; Bude Budisavljevic (1843-1919), a Croatian writer; Danilo Medic (1844-79), a poet; the Honourable Dr. Ivo Malin Ksaverski (1853-1907), a university professor and a secretary and adviser to the Croatian government; Dr. Gavro Manojlovic (1856-1926), an historian and president of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts; Mojo Medic (1855- 1939), a zoologist; Nikola Kokotovic (1859-1917), a writer and politician (Croatian Party of Rights); the Honourable Dr Stjepan Miletic (1868-1908), a writer and a reformer of the Croatian theatre; Dr. Milan Ogrizovic (1877-1923), a poet and writer and a politician (Croatian Party of Rights); Petar Petrovic Pecija (1877-1955), a Croatian writer; the Honourable Svetozar Borojevic of Bojna (1856-1922), a renowned general from the First World War, and numerous other generals and high officers of the Croatian Home Guard; Dusan Plavsic, a writer and a secretary of “The Croatian Club” in Sarajevo; renowned followers of the Croatian Party of Rights, Dusan Kotur and Dane Stranisavljevic; Stjepan Mitrov Ljubisa, a Member of Parliament; Mihajlo Markovic (1869-1923), an actor; Novak Simic (1906), a Croatian writer; then the Croatian generals and officers of the Second World War, Gen. Fedor Dragojlov and Gen. Djuro Grujic, chiefs of staff in the Croatian army; Gen. Lavoslav Milic, chief of military supplies; Cav. Col. Jovo Stajic; Major Vladimir Graovac, commander of the Croatian air force bomber unit 24 on the Eastern Front; Dr. Savo Besarovic, a Member of Parliament and a minister in the government of the Independent State of Croatia; Uros Doder, a Member of Parliament in the Independent State of Croatia; prominent priests of the Croatian Orthodox Church: Vaso Surlan, Spiridon Mifka, Miron Federer, Sevastijan Peric, Dositej Teodorovic, Amvrosije Veselinovic, Rafail Stanivukovic, etc.
It will be of some interest to mention that the mother of Dr. Ante Starcevic, the founder of modern Croatian nationalism and of the Party of Rights, was Orthodox by birth. Also that the rebels in the Croatian national uprising for the independence of Croatia in Rakovica (in 1872), led by Eugen Kvaternik, were blessed in the local Orthodox church by the priest, Father Popovic, and that the majority of the rebels were Orthodox, including their commander Rade Cuic. It will also be of interest to mention that Patriarch Josif Rajacic, the Metropolitan of Karlovci, enthroned ban (viceroy) Jelacic in 1848. At a reception held by ban Sokcevic in 1861, Eugen Kvaternik had drawn ban’s attention to the existence of the Orthodox Croats and stressed “the need for a Croatian Orthodox Patriarch”. It is possible that the ban’s resignation was the only reason why this idea never materialized. The standpoint of Ante Radic regarding the Orthodox Croats should also be mentioned. He said: “We do not consider that everyone of the Serbian Orthodox faith is a Serb; the mind tells us this, but we can also see it among the people. We have found many peasants of the Serbian Orthodox faith who told us that they are Croats”. In addition to those of the Orthodox faith who declared themselves to be Croats, it should be noted that there were numerous Orthodox who, due to the influence of the Serbian Orthodox Church, did not declare themselves Croats and considered themselves to be Serbs, at the same time feeling that Croatia was their homeland and that they belonged in the Croatian cultural sphere. Among these are: Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), a renowned scientist who said: “I am a Serb but my homeland is Croatia”; Dr. Pavao Vuk- Pavlovic (1894-?), a university professor, philosopher, and also a number of Croatian writers: Stevan Galogala (1893-1944), Vladan Desnica (1905-57), Milan Nolinic (1921), Vojin Jelic (1921), Cedo Prica (1931), Jovan S. Prica; then the well known artists of the Croatian National Theatre: Miso Dimitrijevic (1854- 1909), Mila Jovanovic- Dimitrijevic (1876), Josip Papic (1881-1927), Gavro Savic (1854-after 1910), Zarko Savic (1861-after 1914), Strahinja Petrovic (1892-?) and Dr. Miroslav Pantic, a former Member of Parliament from Bijeljina, and others.
We have listed these concrete examples to show that Orthodox Croats existed and that they still exist and also that there are some Serbs who consider Croatia to be their homeland. The exact number of Orthodox Croats will never be known while the Serbian Orthodox Church has exclusive rights over the Orthodox population in Croatia.
NEGOTIATIONS ABOUT THE FOUNDATION OF THE CROATIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AT THE BEGINNING OF 1942
The development of events during 1941 in the Independent State of Croatia immediately provoked reaction and condemnation by the Croatian public. The Croatian Catholic primate, Archbishop of Zagreb and later cardinal of the Catholic Church, Dr. Alojzije Stepinac, on a few occasions publicly condemned the ferocity of the Ustasha/Chetnik conflicts and its consequences and the disrespect for human life and dignity. Professor Filip Lukas, a president of “Matica Hrvatska” and a Croatian national ideologist (1929-1941) also publicly condemned the lawlessness in his speech at the annual meeting of “Matica Hrvatska” at the beginning of 1942. In the autumn of 1941 Croatian Muslims dissociated themselves publicly from the atrocities with resolutions signed by eminent Muslim citizens in Sarajevo, Mostar and Banja Luka. Responsible men inside the Ustasha movement, especially those with Catholic and liberal orientation (in contrast to those with fascist ideas), after seeing that it was leading nowhere, informed Dr. Pavelic about the whole situation and in some cases returned their membership cards as a sign of protest against the self-styled or “Wild Ustashas”.
Before the end of June 1941 Croatian regular military forces did not exist; the formation of these began only in July 1941 after the Croatian government succeeded in convincing Rome and Berlin of the need to establish a Croatian military force. Only toward the end of the year was a plan drawn up about the formation of “Hrvatsko Domobranstvo?’ .25 Croatian Serbs were not called to national service. The Chetniks exploited this and recruited them into Chetnik units. During the first months of 1942 it became clear to the majority of government officials that a dead end had been reached in the guerilla war. Dr. Pavelic then established a headquarters and at the first meeting there the problem of their attitude towards the Serbian minority was raised. According to E. “Dido” Kvaternik all the present members of the government and the representatives of the military forces agreed that the time was right to smooth out the conflict with the Serbs. Dr. Pavelic stressed that the Croatian Orthodox Church would be established as a first step toward this pacification. Shortly after that came the already quoted speech by Dr. Pavelic in Sabor (Diet) on the 28th of February 1942 suggesting this possibility as a solution. The question of establishing the Croatian Orthodox Church was discussed in March 1942 in the Department of Justice and Religion when Dr. Vinko Kriskovic courageously stood for liberal change in the legal status of Serbs in Croatia on the basis of human rights, freedom of confession, ethics and morality.
At that time I was in Srijem. I am a Serb by nationality (not an Orthodox Croat as some believe), born in Belgrade in 1910. My forefathers came from Neuzin in Banat. After qualifying as a lawyer I spent many years in the employment of the Serbian Orthodox Church, first as an apprentice to the judiciary and later as a legal adviser in Srijemski Karlovci. During the war, in April 1941, I was serving in the Yugoslav army as a lawyer with the rank of captain, first class. I succeeded in escaping captivity, but when Srijem was incorporated into the Independent State of Croatia in October 1941 I was imprisoned, and later released after the intervention of my Croatian friends. Before being included into the Independent State of Croatia, Srijem was, like Serbia, under German occupation. In April 1941 the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Gavrilo Dozic, was arrested by the Germans in the Ostrog monastery in Montenegro. For refusing to collaborate with the Germans he was kept in internment for the duration of the war. In this new situation the synod elected the Metropolitan of Skopje, Josif Cvijovic, to deputize for Patriarch Gavrilo in the territory of Serbia. During that time the Germans took from Srijem part of the Church archives and valuables. Through Metropolitan Josif, who kept in touch with Patriarch Gavrilo, and was his close co-operator, the Patriarch sent a message that, due to the new situation, everything should be done to normalize Orthodox matters in the new Croatian State. Based on that directive, the before-mentioned speech by Dr. Pavelic, and the courageous stand by Dr. Kriskovic in the Croatian Sabor, first contacts were made with the authorities of the Independent State of Croatia, through Fr. A. R. Glavas26, Secretary of the Department for Religion in the Ministry of Justice and Religion. Since the authorities of the Independent State of Croatia did not want to have direct talks with the Serbian Orthodox Church or with its legal representative, Josif, I was asked, as a layman, to undertake negotiations. Next I was received by Dr. Pavelic three times. In the first meeting, which lasted three and a half hours, we discussed the constitution of the Croatian Orthodox Church which I drafted on the basis of the Serbian Orthodox Church constitution of the 16th of November 1931, mainly by altering the references from the former state, government and nationality to the new state, government and nationality. Two further meetings were held, mainly for additional revisions and to talk about the candidate who would receive the highest hierarchic position. During the negotiations and discussions I insisted and persevered on the legal and canonical aspects, and these were granted to me The interest of Dr. Pavelic was concentrated mainly on linguistic and symbolic things, since my knowledge of Croatian literary language and orthography and of Croatian history was inadequate.
During the negotiations in Zagreb I saw that I was being followed and spied upon by certain persons, therefore two bodyguards were assigned to me. It was later found that the Hungarians, the Germans and the English took an interest in the whole affair, hoping to find a political aspect to it, but when they saw that it was only of a religious nature, they lost interest. To the assumption by Fikreta Jelic- Butic 27 that the idea about the Croatian Orthodox Church “probably originated in the first place from the Germans” on account of a report by A. Hefer and a statement by S. Kasche (the German ambassador in the Independent State of Croatia), I have to say that all my activities were carried out exclusively with the Croatian authorities and that there were no indications that the Germans were involved, or that they gave the initiative.
On the 31 of March 1942, on the eve of the Catholic Easter a short “Provision of the law about the Croatian Orthodox Church” was published in the gazette “Narodne Novine” under the number XC-817-Z-1942 signed by the Minister of Justice and Religions, Dr. Mirko Puk, and by the head of state, according to which the Orthodox Church in Croatia was established. Soon after this legal notice the work of organizing the Croatian Orthodox Church started, and the final organization and activities were determined by the constitution of the Croatian Orthodox Church which came into force on the 5th of June 1942, under the number CLXIV- 1386-Z- 1942. The organization of the Croatian Orthodox Church was, in accordance with its constitution, autocephalous and episcopalian. Its ecclesiastical-hierarchical and autonomous organs were the Patriarch of the Croatian Orthodox Church and the Metropolitan of Zagreb, the Holy Archidiaconal Synod, the High Church Court, the episcopate, the parish church courts, the archidiaconal dignitaries, the priests and the church administrative councils. Administratively the Church was divided into eparchies, archidiaconal regions and parishes. For dogma and canon law the Croatian Orthodox Church was based on the Holy Scriptures and on holy tradition in accordance with the teachings of Holy Orthodoxy and on the canons of the general church synods, and administratively on the constitution of the Croatian Orthodox Church and on the decisions and orders of the church regions authorized by the constitution.
In addition to formulating and promulgating the constitution of the Croatian Orthodox Church, the selection of a suitable person of appropriate rank and qualification for the Metropolitan was important, and for this consultation and agreement with several high persons in the Orthodox hierarchy was necessary. While the constitution of the Croatian Orthodox Church was discussed I made contact with dignitaries who were willing to accept this duty and status and who had all the prerequisite spiritual qualifications. The person who already had the title of Metropolitan, and who responded to the invitation, was the Most Reverend Germogen, the former Metropolitan of Novomoskovsk from Kuban. Metropolitan Germogen, on leaving the seminary, attended the Academy of Theology, became a minister and a parish priest. Later he became professor, and then rector of the Faculty of Theology in Saratov. Married and the father of a large family, he entered a monastery after the death of his wife. Later he became archimandrite and was elected as a deputy bishop in the eparchy of Don. During the First World War he was elected Archibishop of Yekaterinoslav and Novomoskovsk. He left Russia during the Revolution and spent some time in Greece, on the island of Lemnos, and on Mt. Athos. In 1922 he came to the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and stayed in the monasteries of Ravanica, Rakovac and, before the Second World War, in the Hopovo monastery in Srijem. According to the constitution of the Croatian Orthodox Church, and in agreement with the ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, a patriarch would head the Croatian Orthodox Church in Zagreb. This function however was taken by the Most Rev. Germogen at the rank of Metropolitan, due to the war circumstances. Further arrangements were left for the future. Romanian, Bulgarian and Greek Orthodox Churches, as well as the ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople, were notified about the establishment of the Croatian Orthodox Church and of the election of the Metropolitan Germogen. The Serbian Orthodox Patriarch, Gavrilo Dozic, who was in internment at that time, and his deputy, the Metropolitan Josif Cvijovic, were also informed, unofficially, about the negotiations, and about the eventual outcome. Patriarch Dozic agreed with the election of the Metropolitan Germogen, but was against his being nominated as a patriarch. In this respect he was satisfied. Some were critical about the election of the Metropolitan Germogen on the ground of his advanced age and because of his Russian origin, and wrote about him “being dragged from the Hopovo monastery”. Firstly, the Metropolitan Germogen lived a monastic life and was far from being ambitious; his high spiritual and moral qualifications were beyond question. His acceptance of the highest hierarchic office of the Croatian Orthodox Church was therefore a sacrifice for him. He accepted it only for religious and humanitarian reason. He knew that, because of his age, he would probably never become a patriarch and that it would only be logical to give that office to a native son. His Russian origin was a compromise. The Orthodox priests of Croatian origin were few and the choice among them was therefore limited. On the other hand members of the high Serbian hierarchy still required time to overcome the trauma of the new state and the new situation, while the younger ones, who quickly adapted to the new conditions, could not be taken into consideration for the obvious reason of their youth and lack of experience.
THE ACTIVITY OF THE CROATIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH FROM JULY 1942 TO MAY 1945
On the 7th of June 1942 the solemn enthronement of the Most Rev. Germogen as the Metropolitan of the Croatian Orthodox Church took place in the Orthodox church of the Holy Transfiguration in Preradovic Square in Zagreb, also he took canonical possession of the metropolitan see. On that day the guard of honour and musicians were lined up in front of the church, while within numerous faithful were assembled, with the clergy in solemn vestments. The government was represented by the president of the Croatian State Diet, Marko Dogen, the secretary of the Ministry of Justice and Religion and the Minister of Agriculture, Jozo Dumandzic, the mayor of Zagreb, Ivan Werner, the State protonotary, Dr. Ivan Majcen, the master of ceremonies, Col. Machiedo, the representative of the Zagreb Orthodox community, Mr. Petar Lazic, etc. The Most Rev. Germogen arrived accompanied by his secretary, myself. The act of enthronement was carried out according to the prescribed rite and with the participation of the Orthodox priests, priors Platon, Vaso Surlan, Serafim Kubcevski, Venjamin Pavlovski, Joca Cvijanovic, Miron Federer and archdeacon Aleksej Borisov. Minister Dumandzic delivered a speech and read the decree by the head of state appointing the Most Rev. Germogen as the Metropolitan of the Croatian Orthodox Church with his seat in Zagreb (decree No. 6034-B-1942). In his speech Dr. Dumandzic said that in founding the Croatian Orthodox Church the principle expressed in the Croatian national proverb “The brother is dear whatever his faith” was followed. He also stressed that the Croatian nation had always shown religious tolerance and that for centuries Catholics and Muslim Croats had lived in harmony and love with the Orthodox. “It is certain that they will all equally love in the future their Croatian homeland with which they are closely bound by home and family, by the graves of their forefathers and the cradles of their children, and will remain her faithful sons”. He continued and stressed that the constitution guarantees to the Croatian Orthodox Church wide autonomy and unhindered spiritual activity in accordance with the principles of the Orthodox faith. On the next day, the 8th of June 1942, the Metropolitan Germogen took his oath. The ceremony was followed by a reception at which the head of state was present, together with the Cabinet headed by Dr. Dzaferbeg Kulenovic and the Metropolitan with his retinue, including myself, as well as the representatives of the Zagreb eparchy and of the Church community, Revv. Joco Cvijanovic Petar Lazic, Djuro Jukic, Teodor Vukadinovic and the Abbot Miron Federer.
The founding of the Croatian Orthodox Church had immediate and very positive results. About 3000 Orthodox detainees were released from various detention camps and prisons (Sisak, Slavonski Brod, etc.) and a number of the priests who had not emigrated to Serbia returned from the detention camp in Caprag to their flock. Orthodox churches which had been closed were immediately reopened. Metropolitan Germogen was personally present at the reopening of churches in Mitrovica, Ruma, Irig and Srijemski Karlovci. Baptisms and weddings took place in large numbers and on occasions up to 200 children were baptised in a single day. In accordance with the constitution, the eparchies of Brod, Sarajevo and Bosanski Petrovac were established, in addition to the metropolitan see of Zagreb. The organization of one in Bosanski Petrovac was not possible due to the guerilla war in that area. Various interventions on behalf of the Orthodox followed, such as one concerning approximately 600 Orthodox reserve officers who were to have been sent into the first firing lines, but were spared, some of them being allowed to return home following an appeal to the Minister, Artukovic, at 1. a. m. Amicable relations with the Catholic and Muslim hierarchies were established. During a two hour meeting with the Archbishop of Zagreb, Croatian Metropolitan the Most Rev. Alojzije Stepinac, close collaboration of the Churches and the ecumenical themes were discussed.
The young priests and clerics in Srijem who were nearing the end of their studies had these courses curtailed and were sent to vacant parishes. These appointments were left exclusively to the hierarchy of the Croatian Orthodox Church and the civilian authorities did not interfere. Where the churches were destroyed or damaged, chapels and small cemetery churches were brought into use as parish churches. On the l0th of April 1943, to celebrate the foundation of the Independent State of Croatia, services were held in Catholic and Muslim places of worship, as well as in the Orthodox churches. Valuable art treasures such as iconostases, screens and icons from damaged or demolished Orthodox churches were transferred to the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb and preserved thanks to the museum staff. The Orthodox calendar was published and prayer-books were printed, free of all political additions; the only difference from those published before the war was that the alphabet was not Cyrillic but Latin. Essential items from that part of the archive which had not been taken by the Germans were brought to Zagreb, where the metropolitan see was now situated. A number of Orthodox priests distinguished themselves in organizing the Croatian Orthodox Church and the newspapers published the following announcement before Christmas 1942: “On the occasion of Christmas His Grace the Metropolitan of Zagreb and of all the Croatian Orthodox Church, the Most Rev. Germogen has decorated the following clergymen for their conscientious service to the Church and to the people: Baton: Archpriest Evgenij Jarlemski and Archpriest Aleksandar Volkovski; Archpriest: priests Vasilije Surlan, Serafim Kubcevski and Anatolije Paradijev; Abbot: priests Sevastijan Peric and Dositej Teodorovic and priors Amvrosije Veselinovic and Rafail Stanivukovic; Pectoral Cross: Abbot Miron Federer, archpriests Cvietin Sovic and Risto Babunovic; Red Sash: Archpriest Aleksej Borisov, priests Joca Cvijanovicc Vasilije Jurcenko, Pavie Kozarski, priors Vlasmin Pavlovski, Venjamin Radosavljevic, Mihaiev Milogradski, Dimitrije, Ivan Mrackovski, Evgenij Pogorecki, Petar Popov, Bogdan Popovic, Cvjetan Popovic, Nikolaj Semcenko, Petar Stefanovic, Sergije Selivanovski, Ljubomir Svrtilic and Emilijan Simatovic”. Spiridon Mifka, the former parish priest in Visoko, was appointed head of the eparchy of Sarajevo in August 1944. This shows that the assertion that the Croatian Orthodox Church was only an “Ustasha’s invention” which “consisted of only five or six Russian priests”has no foundation. It is clear that among the above listed prominent clergymen of the Croatian Orthodox Church there were Croats, Serbs, Russians, Ukrainians, Macedonians and Bulgarians, though mostly Orthodox Serbs and Croats, not to mention young priests and those of the lower hierarchic rank. Similarly, the conclusion by Dj. Kasic, in his work Srbi ipravostavlje (The Serbs and the Orthodoxy), that the activity of the “few” Orthodoxy priests in the formation of the Croatian Orthodox Church “was unsuccessful because the Serbs sensed the tendency and, to avoid persecutions, if they were changing their Church, they were more willing to change to the Roman Catholic faith than to join this artificial creation” is completely senseless, since it is well known that after the Croatian Orthodox Church was founded, there was not one conversion to Catholicism, and that a number of those who had changed their confession out of fear returned to the Orthodox faith inside the Croatian Orthodox Church which had been established and was functioning normally.
Conscientious historians will reach the conclusion that the founding of the Croatian Orthodox Church created conditions and an atmosphere in which first steps could be taken towards the reconciliation and reduction of Serb-Croat conflict, and excesses caused by the irresponsible elements. Although the Croatian Orthodox Church was not directly involved in it, the agreement of peace and co-operation was signed between some Chetnik units and the military and civilian authorities of the Independent State of Croatia. After 1942 the civil war was waged mainly between the Partisan communist forces with a predominantly Yugoslav orientation on the one side, and the nationalist Croats, Serbs, etc., on the other. It should also be mentioned that in 1943 the Dora Pukovnije (Domobran labour regiments) were formed, one on the territory of each military district, into which primarily Orthodox Serbs were recruited and those Orthodox Croats from Srijem and Slavonija, who had not previously being called to military service The idea was gradually to create mutual trust between the Orthodox and non-Orthodox citizens, Croats and Serbs, in the military field.
I remained in the service of the Metropolitan Germogen as his secretary until the middle of 1944, when a misunderstanding arose between myself and a few of the Orthodox in Zagreb. To prevent conflict I decided to resign, and left for Backa, which was at that time ruled by Hungary. The end of the war found me in Novi Sad, where I was at first arrested, and later released, when I explained the religious and humanitarian motives which led me to partake in the founding of the Croatian Orthodox Church. Later I emigrated. Some prominent communists from Vojvodina, later to become high functionaries, and a minister who was imprisoned in 1941/42, all of whom owed their lives to the formation of the Croatian Orthodox Church, intervened on my behalf when I was arrested in 1945.
Metropolitan Germogen, already 85, did not retreat to the West at the end of the war when the Independent State of Croatia was abolished, and was arrested by the new Partisan authorities in May 1945, together with the Archpriest Aleksej Borisov. Both were executed. I believe that this was done by the Great Serbian fanatic, chauvinist and non-communist elements, as it can not be explained why true communists would be interested in religious hierarchical problems and in revenges of a religious nature. In my opinion a great mistake was made by the new authorities for allowing this crime to happen. Prominent priests of the Croatians Orthodox Church who did not succeed in escaping were subjected to heavy persecutions and almost all of them lost their lives.
From the history of the Croatian Orthodox Church, presented above, it is clear that the numerous articles which have dealt with this subject are wrong and untrue. For example, in the entry Ustashas in the Yugoslav Encyclopaedia, historian Ljubo Boban states; “The idea was to reduce the number of the Orthodox population by converting a part of that population to Catholicism. But the forcible conversions of Serbs to Catholicism brought no results, as the manipulation of the Croatian Orthodox Church, a creation of the Ustashas of April 1942, brought no results”. This uncritical and confused assertion by Boban, who is mixing religious and national notions, is unworthy of the historian he later became. He talks of reducing and converting to Catholicism the Orthodox population, although it is known that the aim of the Ustashas attack, in 1941, was not directed against the Orthodox faith (Ustashas were indifferent to it) but against the Serbs, primarily against the Great Serbs and only through them against Serbian Orthodoxy. Boban says that “the forcible catholicizing of Serbs” (now he talks about the Serbs and not about the Orthodox) and “the manipulation of the Croatian Orthodox Church gave no results”. If “catholicizing” (which in a majority of cases was not forced but requested and accepted by some Serbs out of fear, in seeking for protection, or in a desire to equalise with the majority) did not succeed (which is true), then we can be grateful to the “manipulation” of the Croatian Orthodox Church and to its success, not failure, because when the Croatian Orthodox Church was founded the conversions to Catholicism instantly stopped, and a large majority of those who had changed their religion returned to the Orthodox faith within the Croatian Orthodox Church.
The commentary by the high ranking Ustasha functionary E. “Dido” Kvaternik about the Croatian Orthodox Church is tendentious and untrue when he says: “The Orthodox Church was established as the Croatian Orthodox Church with a pure anti-Catholic tendency. A Russian, not a Serb, was appointed its head. It was the Russo-Croatian Orthodox Church which did not appeal to the Serbs”. If Orthodoxy ever had a problem in Croatia it was during 1941, because of the conflict between the Ustashas and Chetniks. One of the leading exponents of the conflict was “Dido” Kvaternik on the Ustasha side. The formation of the Croatian Orthodox Church and its relationship with the Catholic Church in Croatia shows that the Croatian Orthodox Church was not established with “anti-Catholic tendencies”, neither was its intention to “attract” the Serbs. It was a solution to the problem of professing the Orthodox faith on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia for all the Orthodox Serbs, Croats, Ukrainians, Russians, Montenegrins, Macedonians, etc., since the activity of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Church of the neighbouring state of Serbia, was not allowed. The Croatian Orthodox Church was multi-national in the composition of its followers and hierarchy. A relatively moderate book by Pavle Ostovic also contains the following untruth: “Horrible cruelties were unleashed upon the innocent population, only for being Orthodox”. The best answer to P. Ostovic is given by his party leader, Dr. Vlatko Macek, in his book28: “The best proof that the Ustashas did not persecute the Serbs for religious reasons is that they themselves founded the Croatian Orthodox Church in 1942, headed by a Russian emigrant bishop”.
RETROSPECTIVE CONCLUSIONS
From a survey of the history of Orthodoxy among the Croats, as described above, it could be concluded that, following the split of Christianity, the Croats remained in the Western and the Serbs in the Eastern Church, and the present day Montenegrins (Dioclea, Zeta), partly in the Western and partly in the Eastern Church. With the expansion of the Serbian State during the rule of Nemanjics, the Catholics from the present day East Herzegovina and from Montenegro (ancient Red Croatia) were driven to a narrow stretch along the coast up to the Republic of Dubrovnik and to the Kotor- Montenegro Littoral.
The Turkish thrust into Croatia in the 15th century and the two hundred years of a war zone in the middle of Croatia, (Turkish Croatia)29, resulted in a number of Croats converting to Islam, and in the settlement of the ravaged and abandoned lands of central Croatia by the Orthodox population from the Balkan hinterland, mainly by the migratory Vlachs, herdsmen and peasants, people of Roman origin. This was the reason why the Croatian lands, religiously and ethnically homogeneous prior to the Turkish invasion, became intermingled both religiously (Catholics, Orthodox, Muslim) and ethnically (Croats, Vlachs and various other Balkan nationalities).
With Serbians migrating north at the beginning of the 18th century (Srijem, Vojvodina and Southern Hungary) a large compact group of Serbs of Ekavian speech came to the Croatian territory, together with the retreating Serbian Orthodox Church (the metropolitan see of Karlovci) which in the course of the two following centuries succeeded in gaining hierarchical control over the Orthodox Vlachs and the Croats, and in the 19th century in the serbianization of the major part of them, simply by using the equation: Orthodox = Serb. In this way the religious mosaic in the central Croatian regions also became an ethnic mixture of Croats and Serbs. To this the modern Croatian nationalism of Starcevic responded by advocating the idea of Croats as a multi-religious nation of Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims. The identification with Orthodoxy prevented the Serbs from forming a multi-religious nation, while among the Croats there are Catholic Croats, Muslim Croats and Orthodox Croats, the latter being subordinated in religious matters to Serbian Orthodoxy.
The conflict between the modern Croatian and the modern Serbian nationalism originated in the mixed areas claimed by the (Great) Serbians, and by the Croats, on the basis of historical rights. In pre-war Yugoslavia the tension increased, resulting in Serbian domination of that state. With the foundation of the Independent State of Croatia in 1941 the conflict between the extreme nationalistic organisations, the Ustashas and the Chetniks, began in the mixed areas. In this conflict the irresponsible elements under the Chetnik or Ustasha banners started persecuting the minority groups and in the process all three denominations suffered – Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Islam. Since the government of the Independent State of Croatia did not recognize the Serbian Orthodox Church as it was a national Church of Serbs and of the neighbouring state of Serbia, Orthodoxy in Croatia was left without leadership in 1941. The problem was solved in 1942 by founding the Croatian Orthodox Church.
On the basis of the above analysis and from our personal participation in the events we conclude, taking into account all the difficulties, that the existence of the Croatian Orthodox Church, from 1942- 45, was positive for all the Orthodox Serbs, Croats and other nationalities on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia, from a religious and from a humanitarian standpoint. Also in reconciling and reducing the Croato-Serbian conflict caused by past mistakes and by the Ustasha/Chetnik conflict. In this way, after 1941, the conflict between them was reduced, and in some areas agreement was reached. For the Orthodox Serbs, the Croatian Orthodox Church offered a security and a temporary religious solution under an authoritarian regime which did not tolerate the Serbian Orthodox Church, a national Church of the Orthodox Croats the Church was a long desired but hitherto prevented solution for their dilemma: their Croatian national feelings and loyalty for their Croatian homeland on the one side, and the only Orthodox Church in Croatia, which was exclusively Serbian national, on the other.
It is to be regretted that, due to the short-sighted attitude of some Great Serbian chauvinists in Croatia, the abolition of the Croatian Orthodox Church was not prevented and the Church left to continue with a revised constitution (of course for those Orthodox who wanted to remain), in the first place for Croats of Orthodox faith, regardless of their number. This does not mean that a reestablished Serbian Orthodox Church could not have coexisted with the Croatian Orthodox Church for the Orthodox of Serbian nationality, as full religious freedom means toleration and coexistence, not exclusiveness and monopoly of Churches.
It appears absurd, yet it should be mentioned, that a communist system was biased to such an extent regarding the existence of the Croatian Orthodox Church that it took a standpoint of militant intervention for the exclusiveness of the Serbian Orthodox Church, as the only Orthodox Church, on the territory inhabited by Croats and Serbs in Croatia and against the toleration and coexistence of various Orthodox Churches. This was later corrected with regard to the Macedonian Orthodox Church, but the idea of centralized Orthodoxy unfortunately still prevails in the rest of Yugoslavia. Anyone of the Orthodox faith who is neither a Serb nor a Macedonian, and that means a member of any other nationality in Yugoslavia (Slovene, Croat, Montenegrin, Albanian, Ukrainian, etc.) may profess his Orthodox faith only as a member of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Past experience and present day events are teaching us that the delicate problems of religion and nationality should be solved while there is still time, not when they have erupted with full violence. The intolerant Great Serbian exclusivity by which all the Orthodox in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina are only Serbs, and the quixotic assertions, by some Croatian emigrant circles, that all the Orthodox in Croatia are only Croats, is not realistic. On the territory of these republics there are Orthodox Serbs as well as Orthodox Croats. The exact number will be known only when there is an atmosphere of full religious and national freedom.
CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT THE FUTURE
The history and development of Orthodoxy in Croatia, the recent troublesome and tragic experiences, the fate of the Croatian Orthodox Church and the still unresolved problem of freedom to confess the Orthodox faith in Croatia, frustrated by the exclusive territorial rights of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Croatia, should be a reason for concern to all those who have responsibility, so that at critical moments in the future the same mistakes are not repeated. It is difficult to understand why the Serbian Orthodox Church holds firmly to its acquired rights in Croatia and prevents a normal development of free confession of the Orthodox faith and the existence of other Orthodox Churches. If an Orthodox Church for the Croats, for the non-Serbian Orthodox and for those Serbs who have freely joined it, would be small in number beside a big Serbian Church, then we can not see why there is a need for the Serbian Orthodox Church to be afraid, particularly if the Orthodox Church in Croatia does not claim exclusive territorial rights. There is a great need to establish an Orthodox Church in Croatia with a general non-Serbian character. That Church does not have to be a new edition of the Croatian Orthodox Church, founded in difficult war circumstances under an authoritarian regime, which was, to a certain extent, reflected in the set up of the Church. It could be founded either on the model of the Macedonian Orthodox Church i. e. through the territorial separation from the Serbian Orthodox Church; or as a new ecclesiastical unit next to the Serbian Orthodox Church in Croatia, formed simply on the basis and on the example of the separation between the church and state and the state constitution which guarantees freedom of confession. The first steps to be taken are a) the education of a new generation of priests in the Macedonian, or any other Orthodox Church, since the pre-world war generation of Croatian Orthodox priests of the Greek-Eastern right are already dead, and the three years of activity of the Croatian Orthodox Church was unable to raise a large number of priests; b) setting up of a committee to found the new Church; c) finding a cathedral for establishing the Zagreb archdiocese; d) organization of an ecclesiastic national council to elect the archbishop and to draft the constitution, which would decide, among other things, the name of the new Church. Such a Church, like any other Orthodox Church, would not be monopolistic and would represent no danger to anyone, since the government would always have the last word with regard to those activities which were not of a religious nature, or were in conflict with the constitution.
NOTES
1 Red Croatia: approximately the area of the Herzegovina and parts of Montenegro along the coast.
2 Ijekavian-Stokavian: the Croatian language comprises three dialect groups distinguished by their respective words for “what?”: sto, ca and kaj. Hence the names of these dialects: Stokavian, Cakavian and Kajkavian. Another classification of Croatian dialects is made on the basis of the triple development of the Common Slavic sound “jat”: e, i, (i)je. Hence the names Ekavian, lkavian and (I)jekavian. Whereas the Serbian literary language is stokavian and Ekavian, the Croatian literary language is Stokavian and (I)jekavian.
3 Bosanska Krajina: the region between the rivers Una and Vrbas.
4 Banska Hrvatska: the area that remained of Croatia following the Turkish invasion and the Venetian annexation of Dalmatia; under the jurisdiction of the ban (viceroy) and Sabor (the Croatian Diet).
5 Vojna Krajina (Military Frontier): that region of Croatia forming a military defence zone established to contain Turkish raids; outside of ban’s jurisdiction.
6 According to the census of 1971.
7 Dalmatian or Byzantine Theme (province): the cities of Zadar, Trogir, Split, Dubrovnik and Kotor and the island of Krk, Osor (Cres and Losinj) and Rab, ruled by the Byzantium in the early Middle Ages.
8 Praveslavlje (The Orthodoxy), Encyclopaedia of the Lexicographical Institute, Vol. 5, LZ, Zagreb, 1969.
9 Dr. Ante Pavelic (1889-1959), founder of the nationalist Ustasha organization in 1931; leader of the Independent State of Croatia from April 1941 to May 1945.
10 Spomen-knjiga prve obijetnice Nezavisne Drzave Hrvatske 10. 4. 1941. – 10. 4. 1942. (Book of Remembrance to commemorate the first anniversary of the Independent State of Croatia, 10 April 1941 to 10 April 1942), State Office for Information and Publicity, Zagreb, 1942.
11 Ibid.
12 Dr. Ante Starcevic (1823-1896), Croatian politician, founder of the Party of Rights.
13 As footnote 10.
14 As footnote 10.
15 The existence of this circular is attested by the Archbishop Stepinac in his letter to Dr. Pavelic, dated 20th of November 1941, in which the circular of 30th of August 1941 is mentioned and in which the Archbishop says: “You have yourself publicly denounced the atrocities committed by the individuals who called themselves Ustashas and whom you have ordered to be shot for their crimes. Your resolute stand to bring order and justice to the land deserves to be fully acknowledged”.
16 As footnote 10.
17 Croato-Hungarian personal union, also known as “Pacta Conventa”: an agreement from 1102 by which Croatia became an associated or autonomous kingdom under the suzerainty of the Hungarian crown.
18 Eugen Kvaternik (1825-1871), Croatian politician; with Ante Starcevic co-founder of the Party of Rights; in 1871 attempted and unsuccessful uprising in Rakovica, Croatia.
19 Stjepan Radic (1871-1928), Croatian politician; with his brother Ante co-founder of the Croatian Peasant Party in 1904; shot and mortally wounded in the Belgrade Parliament.
20 Dr. Vlatko Macek (1879-1964), Croatian politician; Radic’s successor as leader of the Croatian Peasant Party; died in exile in the USA.
21 Aleksandar Karadjordjevic, king of Yugoslavia; assassinated in Marseilles in 1934.
22 As the Ustasha movement was not numerous before the foundation of the Independent State of Croatia, in many regions there were no organized Ustashas from pre-war times. If the Croatian Peasant Party was weak, or even non-existent, in certain areas of the new state, this allowed irresponsible elements to wear the Ustasha uniform and to declare themselves Ustashas. These undisciplined self-styled and self-appointed Ustashas were of a dubious character and Ustasha authorities named them “Wild Ustashas” or “Nastashas” and did all in their power to eliminate them, including executions for crimes.
23 Dr. V. Macek in his book In the Struggle for Freedom says that the communists did not investigate the reasons why Catholic priests accepted converts, but persecuted them for that. “Notably in the case of a priest from Sarajevo who said to the Orthodox converts: ‘Children, your mother, the Orthodox Church, is in distress and is unable to take care of you. You came to the Catholic Church, your aunt, and when your mother has recovered you will return to her.’ As a reward the priest was sentenced to death after the war”.
24 While at the explicit request of Dr. Macek, the vice-president of the Yugoslav government, Col. Ivan Prpic was promoted to the rank of a general, as the only Croat with that rank in the Yugoslav army before the war, the Orthodox officers held the highest positions in the Croatian Army during the war, including the three mentioned generals. Even among the Ustashas there were officers of the Orthodox faith, as for example Lieutenant Markovic.
25 Hrvatsko Domobranstvo (Croatian Homedefence Force): the Croatian regular military force.
26 I remember Fr. Glavas with great affection. It was clear from the outset that he was a very cultured and refined man (in addition to being a priest he was also a teacher and a literary critic). He sincerely wished to solve the problem of Orthodoxy in a correct way and to everyone’s satisfaction. He said that as the Catholic Church did not like state interference into ecclesiastical matters, so in the same way the state should not interfere with other confessions. It is to his credit, that the authorities were not involved, to a great extent, in the nominations for the Croatian Orthodox Church. Feeling no guilt he did not retreat in May 1945 but his name is on the first list of those executed by the Partisans in Zagreb.
27 Jelic-Butic, F.: Ustase i NDH, 1941-1945 (Ustashas and the Independent State of Croatia, 1941-1945), Liber and Skolska knjiga, Publishers, Zagreb, 1977.
28 Macek, V.: In the Struggle for Freedom, Robert Speller and Sons, Publishers, New York, 1957.
29 Turkish Croatia: north-western Bosnia between the Una and Vrbas rivers.
Constitution of the Neutral Peasant Republic of Croatia
as discussed by the 4th sitting of the republican majority of Croatia under the rule of the Ban (head of the government) on the 5th and 6th day of March, 1921, accepted by the 5th sitting of the said republican majority of representatives on the 9th day of April 1921, and promulgated in the sitting of the 26th day of June 1921, in the capital city of Zagreb.
Published by L. Kezman, LL. D., Croatian deputy, Secretary General of the Croatian Republican Peasant Party.
Pittsburgh, Pa., 1923.
NOTE
The present edition of the Constitution of the Neutral Peasant Republic of Croatia has, in the first place, been intended for the members of the Croatian Republican Peasant Organizations in America.
From this edition of the Constitution have been omitted the territorial provisions of Section A, number 2 of its original text, which omission is due to the actual changes effected by the popular vote cast at general elections of March 18, 1923. Pending constitutional amendment by the Assembly, the declaration, contained in the resolutions, passed by the Croatian Representative Assembly on March 25, 1923, stating that Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia shall be regarded as indisputable and incontestable territory of the Croatian Nation, may provisionally serve as a formal regulation of the point in question. (See appendix).
It may be taken for granted that amendments relative to territory will abide by the universally acknowledged right of national self-determination as the principle, and the plebiscite to be held within certain bordering areas as the method, by application of which the state territory may be extended or reduced.
Besides territorial regulations there has been omitted from this edition also the political preamble from Section B, number I, entitled “World and home factors which have been at work in making small nations subject of international law.”
Both passages, territorial and introductory, have also been barred from the recent edition of this Constitution published at Zagreb, which fact will remove from my proceeding any possible censure of arbitrariness.
These and such other amendments to this Constitution as may deem necessary to the Nation will be made the subject of deliberations by the respective Assembly, if not earlier, then when the times comes for the Constitution of Croatia to take effect.
That this time is no longer far distance, such is the unanimous conviction of the Croatian people.
Pittsburgh, Penna., August 1st, 1923. Dr. L. K.
A. THE REPUBLIC OF CROATIA.
1. NAME OF STATE.
The State shall bear the name: The Neutral Peasant Republic of Croatia.
2. THE STATE TERRITORY OF THE NEUTRAL PEASANT REPUBLIC OF CROATIA.
(See note on page 1st and appendix).
3. CITIZENSHIP.
The citizenship shall be Croatian.
The manner of acquiring the right of a citizen and all other particulars shall be enacted by a special Citizenship Act.
4. THE STATE AND NATIONAL HERALDIC BEARINGS.
The State and National Heraldic Bearings shall consist of a checky shield emblazoned with 12 argent (white) and 13 gules (red) squares with an azure edging and the device of a plough.
5. NATIONAL FLAG.
The State Flag shall be the Croatian national red-white-blue tricolor.
The same flag with the national heraldic shield shall be used as commercial flag.
B. GENERAL.
Origin and Purpose, Characteristics and Principles of the Neutral Peasant Republic of Croatia.
I. World and Home Factors which have been at Work in making small nations subjects of international law.
(See note on page 1st..)
II. Characteristics of the Neutral Peasant Republic of Croatia.
1. ABSOLUTENESS AND CONTINUOUSNESS OF THE NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY. THE REPUBLIC.
The Sovereignty of the Nation is absolute and continuous. It is exercised by the nation through a plebiscite on territorial and constitutional questions, and through its right of initiative and referendum on legislative questions. From this absoluteness and continuousness of the national sovereignty results the perfect and unlimited right of national self-determination in all matters of internal state organization.
Croatia, consequently, is a Plebiscitary Republic.
2. GOVERNMENT BY PEASANT MAJORITY.
According to the established principle of the constitutional democracy, the decision of all state affairs lies in the hands of the majority of representatives returned at a general election.
The peasantry of Croatia, forming the overwhelming majority of the nation, is incontestably entitled to this right of decision the moment it has won that majority at a general election.
Croatia, consequently, is a peasant republic.
3. PEACEFUL DISPOSITION AND NEUTRALITY.
Perfect neutrality in every international conflict, besides the acknowledgment of its right to self- determination, has, ever since the end of the world war, been the very question of every small nation’s existence. A standing army is generally, and among peasants particularly, apt to undermine the foundations of morals, wealth-production, civilization and liberty. For these reasons our plebiscitary republic is pacific and neutral. There shall be no standing army, but all citizens shall have to make themselves fit for the defence of their home and country according to the provisions laid down by a special National Defense Act.
The most elementary military instruction shall always be combined with general instruction as well as with a special teaching of the general principles of wealth- production and with a universal national working obligation.
For the maintenance of internal safety and order a special civil force shall be organized.
4. HUMAN RIGHTS IRRESPECTIVE OF CITIZENSHIP SAFEGUARDED.
For humanity’s sake the following rights shall be safeguarded to every person temporarily or permanently residing on the territory of the Neutral Peasant Republic of Croatia.
a) Personal Safety and Inviolability.
With regard to his or her body every person shall be inviolable. Nobody can be arrested or deprived of his or her personal liberty without a court warrant adducing legal grounds for this proceeding. This warrant shall be read to or served on the person to be arrested before the very act of arrest.
The civil force responsible for the maintenance of public order shall be authorized to arrest without such a warrant persons caught in the very act of a murder, robbery, arson, burglary or theft, and shall immediately hand them over to a court.
The arrested person shall be released, if 24 hours have elapsed after his or her arrest, and the court has failed, in either case, to begin with the investigation of his or her case.
The arrested person shall in no case be kept confined for a longer period than a month after the commencement of the trial.
If the court officers fail to fulfill these two provisions of the Constitution, the prisoner shall be at liberty to leave the prison and nobody shall have the right to prevent him from doing so.
Whosoever violates these provisions, and particularly the police and court officers, shall be personally responsible to the law, and their pleading of having acted upon higher orders shall not be accepted.
The acquitted prisoner shall be entitled to a compensation fixed by law. Every grown-up person shall have the right to sue for redress whenever anything against anybody’s personal safety or inviolability has been done.
b) Punishments.
Capital punishment shall be abolished.
The imprisonment shall be combined with work. During the trial such work shall be imposed upon the prisoner as corresponds with his calling, but after judgement has been pronounced, this must not necessarily be so. Duration, kind and enforcement of such work shall be enacted by a special Act.
There shall be no corporal punishments. Any physical ill-treatment of a person on trial or prisoner shall be punished, unless it be a crime of a legally graver kind, by at least an instantaneous dismissal from service.
c) Freedom of Motion.
Within the boundaries of the State territory of Croatia every grown-up person shall be allowed to go where he or she likes, and live where he or she pleases, and nobody shall be interned or confined or expelled either from a community or from the State. Aliens shall not be extradited to be tried for acts considered in their respective countries as political crimes.
d) Inviolability of Home (Dwelling-Place).
A person’s home (dwelling-place) shall be inviolable. A search-warrant, if justified by law, may be granted only by a court, and a person’s premises shall be searched only by a magistrate himself. A member of the civil force may enter a house only when called for assistance by the inmates.
For the observation of these rules both the police and the court officers shall be personally liable to the law. Under a person’s premises his house, the court-yard, and all farm-buildings are to be understood.
e) Letter Secret and Postal Delivery Safeguarded.
The delivery of postal consignments, particularly of letters and newspapers, shall be guaranteed by a special Act, which shall also provide for the inviolability of the letter secret and for the keeping secret of all telegraphic and telephonic messages.
5. THE FREE PEASANT HOME.
The Peasant State is an organic community of free and organized households.
For the general improvement of every single peasant home (family) there shall be enacted a special Farmer’s Inheritance Act providing also for liberal facilities of peasant husbandry on the lines of the ancient common unwritten social communities law brought into harmony with modern thought and requirements of peasant classes. Another Act shall provide for the exemption of a peasant’s home and property from execution and again another for the internal family organization and authority. The latter act shall also provide for the free establishment of new social communities.
6. FAMILY ORGANIZATION.
The Family is the primary factor of moral education and acquisition of principles on which general culture of mind and production of wealth are based.
A special act shall lay down the duties of the family as to education, culture of mind and teaching of principles of wealth production.
7. PERFECT EQUALITY OF BOTH SEXES.
Both sexes shall have equal rights.
III. Principles of Organization of the Neutral Peasant Republic of Croatia.
1. THE REPUBLIC IS A MORAL COMMUNITY OF SENSIBLE BEINGS.
a) Freedom of Meeting.
The freedom of meeting, being one of the most natural necessities of man, shall be universal.
The authorities shall in no case and for no reason whatever have the power to forbid the holding of a meeting or gathering.
For gatherings and meetings on private premises or on private ground permission shall have to be asked for of the respective owner.
Of a meeting to be held on a public place generally used or otherwise convenient for that purpose the competent authorities for the maintenance of public order shall have to be notified before the commencement of the meeting at the latest by anyone of its organizers either orally or by a written notice which may be simply posted up on the said authorities’ office door.
Meetings in public buildings which are either generally used or otherwise convenient for that purpose, such as public schools, town halls, etc. shall be held by political associations or parties in the same order as they have been notified, and in the same way as in open public places. By the Meeting Act freedom of speech at all meetings shall be safeguarded according to the principle that any interference with a speech held at a meeting, or with the order during the same, forms an infringement of one of the most natural human rights without which there can be no progress. Any infringement of such nature shall be punished by a special punishment.
b) Liberty of Press.
The Press as the chief means of diffusing human thought and knowledge shall be entirely unhampered. No censorship shall be established and no newspaper shall in any case be suppressed.
Only political associations or parties shall be allowed to issue political newspapers. Every article on politics, every notice, and every article referring to a person’s name shall have to bear the full signature of the writer. All leaflets, irrespective of their contents, shall also have to be signed by the author’s full name.
No special licence from the authorities shall be necessary for the starting and issuing of a newspaper. The responsibility for any article shall always rest with the writer except in case of his absence abroad, when the chief of the political association or party (if the article in question has appeared in its paper) shall be held responsible for it. For personal affronts offered through a newspaper the shortest possible procedure shall be enacted by a special act.
c) Liberty of Associating.
No association of any kind whose activities are public and whose members exercise control over its management and property shall need a permission of the authorities for its starting and working.
Political parties which have been publicly formed and have adopted a party program of their own shall be considered as public associations and normal organs of political life.
Membership of secret societies shall be made punishable by law.
d) Responsibility of Public Officers.
Every public officer shall be entitled to obedience to his orders as long as he keeps within the limit of law. Any disobedience to legal orders as well as the issuing of illegal orders shall have immediately to be accounted for in ordinary court and the offender shall be tried according to criminal law.
For injuries done to individuals by either the state or by the officers of the autonomous bodies, the state or the respective autonomous body (parish, county) shall be made answerable for the injured individuals at an ordinary court.
2. THE REPUBLIC IS A WEALTH-PRODUCING ORGANIZATION.
a) Universal Working Duty. Everybody’s Right to Life worthy of man.
Wealth cannot be produced without work. A nation cannot produce wealth, unless every member of the community does his share of work. The most obvious postulate of justice is that everybody should enjoy the fruits of his or her own work.
There shall be no requisitions at all, and in cases of expropriation for common good the manner shall be provided for under an Act. The State as a wealth-producing community shall pass a special Universal Working Duty Act, a General Farming Experience Act, and an act on everybody’s right to life worthy of man.
The peasant majority of the nation shall be engaged in agricultural pursuits in their free homes.
The life interests of this majority are inseparable from those of other wealth-producing classes.
The peasant state shall ensure the regularity of working of all wealth-producing industries, but it shall especially secure the industrial production of the country by the passing of a Working Men’s Rights Act by which to the whole working classes movement adequate consideration shall be given. Nobody shall be obliged to do any work without a consideration. In future there shall be neither commandeering of vehicles nor of labourers for any purpose whatever. A special act shall be passed on the right to strike.
b) The Foundations of the Production of Wealth. Agrarian Reform. Liberty of following a trade or profession.
Farming forms the foundations of the wealth-production.
A special Act shall be passed to the effect that large estate forests, at present in State, Church and private possession be handed over into the nation’s possession so that pasture and timber thereof shall be adequate to meet the wants of every peasant household, and the fuel wood, as far as possible, the requirements of every other citizen. The existing joint Ownership Parishes Act and the Landed Property Communities Act shall be altered in the same spirit.
All state, church and private large estate ownerships shall be abolished. No estate shall be allowed to surpass in extent the largest existing peasant estate in the same county. On the exceptions to that rule, taking into consideration model farming, co- operative progressive farming, and the farming industry, special act shall be passed. By a special Home Colonization Act farmsteads shall be established for the home colonization of farmers on the whole area got by the breaking up of large estates. The same act shall provide for farming areas left uncultivated and for peasant households where there are no children. Moreover, by a special act provision shall be made for the acquisition of farmsteads of their own by peasants who are agricultural labourers and for persons who, though not being peasants, have satisfied the requirements of the General Farming Experience Act. There shall, first and foremost, take place a restitution to the peasantry (Landed Property Communities, social communities and sole owners) of all that landed property which had been taken away from them by an unjust or inaccurate partition of such property (on the occasion of the so called segregation, when the feudal serfdom was abolished). The vested interests of all present owners in such property shall be taken into account inasmuch as they do not collide with the principles set forth above.
In adjudicating compensations for landed property the principal question before the decision of the issue shall be, how a particular large estate has been acquired. The adjudication of compensations for landed property shall be provided for by a special Compensation Act.
Everybody shall be allowed to follow any occupation, and particularly any trade he has learnt and to the extent of his skill. Under a special act special qualification shall be required for the exercise of, and the control shall be established over, professions having any relation to human life or health, or being of primary importance to the people.
Every kind of trade shall be perfectly free, but special tariff advantages shall be granted only to co-operative societies of producers and consumers.
On principle, there shall be no custom duties. Subject to custom duties shall be made by law only articles of luxury, but other kinds of goods only in cases of a foreign state trade policy making the adoption of this course imperative.
c) Banking and Credit.
All the banking business done should go to increase and improve the production, but particularly so of agricultural production.
The Republic will issue paper and metal money as a legal tender for the exchange of goods, and will guarantee for its value.
A special Act shall provide for the encouragement of granting individual credits to farmers and for the promotion of the accumulating co-operative farmers’ savings to enable the farmers to supply their wants, and to exercise control over the transactions of every single banking institution.
A normal development of the whole national economic life is conditioned by an orderly working and organization of parish, county and state finances. The fundamental principles of these finances shall be laid down by the Constitution.
d) General Insurance.
General Insurance shall be enacted by law to provide for the relief of persons suddenly becoming disabled to earn their living and especially for old age, lest anybody should, without his or her own fault, go without the means of living.
In the same manner, lest anybody should suffer loss of property without his or her own fault, general insurance of all property shall be enacted against damage done by elementary disasters such as fire, flood, hail-storm, earthquake, as well as epidemics.
3. THE REPUBLIC AS A CULTURAL ORGANIZATION.
a) Religion.
Religion is the foundation of morals. Religion in general and the Christian doctrine in particular is the foundation of sound education.
Christian Churches and all public religious communities shall enjoy perfect freedom of teaching and professing their religion, of observing their religious rites, and of intercourse with their coreligionists and church authorities without the boundaries the Republic.
b) Judiciary.
Under a special Judges’ Independence Act the separateness of the judiciary from legislature and government as well as the independence of judges shall be safeguarded.
There shall be neither military nor other special courts nor special police and administrative courts.
The court proceedings shall as a rule take place in the centre of the economics parish or, if necessary, on the spot.
Proceedings, at least those in the lowest courts, shall be public and oral. Expeditiousness of legal proceedings shall be enacted under special acts.
The people’s share in the legal proceedings through its jurors and assessors shall be regulated by special laws.
Every person charged with felony or misdemeanor shall be put on his or her trial before the jury.
The jury lists shall be made out in the manner that the majority of the jurors shall consist of peasant household heads of the district of the competent court.
The court shall be competent to examine the laws of the country as to their being in harmony with the Constitution as well as the legality of various decrees. They shall be competent to decide in disputes on competence between the national government and the autonomous authorities as well as in disputes of individual citizens with either the government or the autonomous authorities.
c) Education.
National education in school and without it being a matter of concern of the whole nation, the whole Republic shall take not only the principal care of the national education but shall also, if need be, bear the necessary expenses.
The elementary school shall bear distinctively peasant characteristics having for its primary object a thorough and lasting literacy of the people.
1) School for Literacy.
The economic parish shall in every village (hamlet, place) establish a public school where children and grown-up people shall be taught reading and writing gratuitously. Children shall be supplied with books and stationery gratuitously, and all expenses arising therefrom shall be borne jointly by the parish, the county and the whole Republic as enacted by a special Literacy Act.
2) Common National School.
With regard to the cultural and wealth-producing principles taught in the Common National (elementary) School in villages as well as in towns the said school shall be an eminently peasant institution.
3) General Training of the Youth of the Country to Work. Learning of Russian and German Languages.
All male and female pupils shall, after leaving the Common National (elementary), School. for a period of at least two years, be trained to various practical wealth-producing trades according to the existing facilities or expediency, but always combined with general mind cultivating instruction and practical teaching of the Russian and German languages.
4) National School for General Instruction.
All the existing, so called secondary schools (grammar-schools, secondary schools where ancient languages have been substituted by modern languages, and lyceums) shall be abolished. They shall be substituted by National Schools for General Instruction with a curriculum extending over a period of no more than 4 years. Grown-up people shall also be allowed to attend these schools. Hand in hand with this instruction shall be conducted the training to practical work, either during the scholastic year or during the prolonged vacations.
In these schools there shall be neither marks nor certificates given as in present use, and English shall be taught in them.
Only those pupils who have regularly for two years attended above mentioned practical training courses shall be allowed to attend this National School for General Instruction.
5) Technical and Trade Schools.
Besides National School for General Instruction there shall be established a large number of special technical and trade-school(agricultural, handicraft and commercial schools) where instruction shall be given simultaneously with that in the National Schools for General Instruction.
Besides continuation courses for the Russian and German languages there shall be special courses held in these schools for general instruction.
On leaving the National School for General Instruction students shall have choice to enter schools for learned professions to study for various professions such as schools for agriculture, law, architecture, engineering, surveying, pharmacy, veterinary science, and schools for teachers of elementary schools. The curriculum of these schools shall not extend over more than three years.
The existing University in its present form, pretending to be the highest school, shall be abolished and transformed into a number of scientific institutions. The Faculty of Medicine and the High Technical School (School of Engineering) shall be retained and there shall be established a Professorial Faculty for professors going to be teachers of National Schools for General Instruction and of Schools for various learned professions.
Lectures given at the Professorial Faculty shall be free, but to lectures given at various University scientific institutions shall be admitted only persons (students) able to show at an entrance examination a sufficient knowledge to attend the lectures with profit.
6) Other Educational Institutions not connected with schools.
Private Schools.
The organization of other educational institutions not connected with schools shall be regulated by a special Act.
Anybody may establish various schools and hold courses provided they shall harmonize with the spirit of this Constitution and shall keep within the limit of the School Act.
d) Public Health.
The citizens of the State form the main source of its vitality and intrinsic value. Under a special Public Health Act sanitary administration shall equally be provided both for villages and towns so that even the most indigent part of population shall have the benefit of medical attendance and medicine.
C. SPECIAL SECTION: Organization of the Neutral Peasant Republic of Croatia.
I. Exercise of National Sovereignty.
By virtue of its absolute and continuous sovereignty the nation will organize the whole of its cultural and wealth-producing activities, determine every citizen’s rights and duties and see to their being carried out either directly itself or through the agency of its elected representatives or appointed national officers respectively.
1. DIRECT EXERCISE OF NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY.
The boundaries of the country or state established by the nation’s history can be rectified only by the nation’s plebiscite demanded by a majority of grown- up citizens (electors) of a boundary county.
100,000 citizens can by a petition signed by their own hands demand a plebiscite to be held on the following points:
1.) the convening and the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly;
2.) the closing of a session of the Legislative Assembly before the expiration of its legal period;
3.) the resignation of the president and vice-presidents of the Republic.
30,000 grown-up citizens can by a petition signed by their own hands suggest the passing through the Assembly of a new bill or the making of an amendment or the abolition of an existing law (legislative initiative).
By the same kind of petition the nation may demand a plebiscite for the sanction of any law within a period of 2 months from its having been passed through the Assembly (referendum).
Laws relating to vital national questions – such as alliance with foreign states, raising loans without the boundaries of Croatia, making of laws of the reorganization of land-ownership and inheritance relations (the agrarian reform) – shall have no legal power without this referendum.
The registering of signatures as well as all the business of conducting the plebiscite and the referendum shall be done by the courts as laid down by a special Act.
2. EXERCISE OF NATION’S SOVEREIGNTY THROUGH RETURNED REPRESENTATIVES.
a) National Constituent Assembly. National Legislative Assembly.
Members for the National Constituent Assembly shall be elected in the same way as those for the Legislative Assembly with the difference that for every single member of the former only half the number of votes necessary for the election of the latter shall be required.
It shall assemble a fortnight after the general election has taken place. It shall have sovereign powers and shall dissolve itself of its own will.
If three months have elapsed after its convening, the nation may address a petition to the president of the Republic demanding a plebiscite on the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly. This petition must bear original signatures of at least 100,000 citizens.
All laws are made by the National Legislative Assembly whose members are elected for a period of 4 years. The suffrage is universal, exercised equally by men and women voters, the only restriction being the age which must not be less than 18 years.
Statutory elections shall take place on the first Sunday in September, but if the Assembly has been dissolved, they shall be held on 9th Sunday after its dissolution.
The number of representatives is not fixed, but depends on the number of given votes.
A representative is elected, if 6000 electors have voted for him.
Every party shall put forward a list for its candidates for all constituencies of Croatia. By the same act of voting for a candidate the voters vote also for the candidate’s party. A candidate for whom 6000 voters have voted shall be considered as elected. Any number of votes failing to reach this total or exceeding it shall be accounted in favor of the candidate’s party.
Besides those candidates who have been elected representatives by receiving the full 6000 votes, every party shall be allotted the number of representatives resulting from the division of the remaining total of given votes by 6000, the mode of the allotment being as follows. The candidate who has received the largest majority of votes next 6000, shall be elected first and so on until the remainder of the sum total of votes to be divided in this manner has been reached. If this latter remainder exceeds 3000 votes, one more representative shall be allotted to the party which has got them.
Every citizen possessing the right of voting shall be eligible for a representative.
Elections shall take place in parishes. They shall be conducted by courts. Under a special Act delegates of every party interested in the contest shall be admitted. The Board of Seven (the highest court of justice) shall examine and determine the validity of the return of every single elected representative.
The ordinary session of the Assembly shall begin on the 15th October and end on the 15th March. The assembly shall sit without interruption on weekdays only.
Extraordinary sessions may be summoned:
1) if demanded by one fifth of representatives;
2) if the Assembly convenes after having previously been dissolved;
3) if a petition with legal initiative has been presented by the nation;
4) if a question of immunity of a member arises; and lastly
5) if a substitute of the president has to be elected.
Every debate must be attended by at least one third of all the representatives, and when a vote is going to be proposed, by at least one half.
National representatives i.e. members of the Constituent Assembly and the Legislative Assembly shall enjoy not only general personal inviolability which is guaranteed to them as to human beings, but they shall also enjoy an absolute immunity for anything they have said or written in the Assembly or without it during the period of their being representatives, irrespective of the Assembly sitting or not, as well as during the time of the dissolution of the Assembly until the elections have taken place.
For none of his doing, either in speech or in writing, during that period shall a representative ever be called to account.
If a representative should be caught in the very act of committing a crime involving the loss of his claim to immunity from the arrest safeguarded to any person by this Constitution, notice shall at once be given to the president of the Assembly. The president shall, if the Assembly is in session, on the same day, and if in recess, within three days, assemble the Sessional Committee of Immunity which shall by a vote of two thirds of all its members present decide whether judicial proceedings should be instituted against that member or not. This resolution shall have to be adopted by the whole body of representatives of the Assembly within 3 days, if the same is sitting, and within 8 days, if not.
But, if all the measures as here set down have not been taken, such a representative shall be considered free and shall be at liberty to leave the prison, and no person, under personal responsibility, shall have any right to prevent him from doing so.
For any other action done by a member only the Assembly shall have the power to declare that member deprived of his privilege of immunity on the motion of two thirds of the members of the Immunity Committee.
The Privilege of Immunity shall become operative the moment, when the District or the Chief Election Committee has declared a candidate elected by a sufficient number of votes, and it shall become void the moment, when the Chief Election Committee has ascertained the number of the newly elected representatives.
The right of voters to be elected representatives themselves being practically another aspect of the right of voting of all the electors and consequently an act of national sovereignty, any check to personal liberty of an elected representative, on whatever valid judgement it might have been based, shall be stopped the moment, when the privilege of Immunity has taken effect.
b) County Meeting.
The County Meeting shall consist of an equal number of delegates from all the associated economic parishes forming a county. These delegates shall be elected by the Parish Meeting for a period of 4 years from among all grown-up parishioners. They shall be elected at the same election as the parish councillors.
Every two years half the number of the members of the County Meeting shall be re-elected.
The County Meeting shall be empowered to make by-laws within the limits of its autonomy.
The management of the county affairs shall be conducted according to the established principles of progressive community co- operation by the County Administration Committee presided over by a president called zupan.
This committee and its president shall be elected by the County Meeting.
c) Parish Meeting, Parish Council.
Parish Meeting shall consist of all grown-up parishioners of unblemished character. It shall assemble, discuss and conduct business on the principles of progressive community co-operation. The Parish Meeting shall elect the parish councillors whose president shall be called mayor (nacelnik).
It shall have the power fo making by-laws within the limits of its autonomy.
II. INTERNAL ORGANIZATION OF THE REPUBLIC
1. EXERCISE OF THE NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.
The whole existing political administration shall be abolished, and the division of the country into political administrative parishes, political administrative districts and political administrative counties shall disappear.
The existing, purely political, administration, largely supported by the police force, shall be substituted by the administration on economical and sanitary principles.
a.) The Peasant’s Household or Home.
The fundamental unit of this administration shall be the peasant’s household or home i. e. every farm (homestead) as the primary wealth-producing and educational unit bearing the general national characteristics.
These national characteristics shall mainly depend on the number of the members of a farmer’s family and each representative (male or female) of such a farmer’s family or farmer’s household a respectively shall be given, under a the Economic Parishes Act, as many votes in the parish as there are persons in his family.
The legal titles and position of town-residing families and particularly of the working class families as well as of all families having no home (homestead) of their own shall be formulated by a special Act.
b) Economic Parish.
The primary territorial unit of the whole of this administration shall be the economic parish which shall, as a rule, consist of every village by itself, but where people want it or circumstances require it, it shall consist of several small villages or hamlets, principally of such only as are within the limit of a landed property community or a parish forming at present one tax-collecting unit. A special Economic Parishes Autonomy Act shall be passed on the principles of the general and special peasant progressive community co-operation.
The extent of the sphere of the parish autonomy shall be the same as that of the county, and shall be limited only by actual ability of exercising it. The economic parish as a member of a county shall perform only those duties the performance of which it has voluntarily engaged, and it is only through this function that it shall be considered as an organ of the county.
To meet the expenses incurred by its own sphere of activity the parish shall possess quite independent means obtained by levying of parish rates (sources of taxation and amount of rates to be fixed by the parish council) e. g. tobacco-growing, distilling alcoholic drinks and other similar taxes not imposed by the state itself.
c) County
Counties are formed by the voluntary association of economic parishes. They form organizations of a wider area and simultaneously of a higher degree of wealth-production, education and national health. Their sphere of action shall be laid down by a special County Organization Act.
Under this act the manner of Association of economic parishes into permanent county areas shall be enacted. All economic parishes within the boundaries of the existing political districts shall without delay join to form temporary counties, and the management of their affairs shall remain in the hands of the existing county and district qualified civil service staffs.
Under a special County Self- Government Act the county shall retain its independence in all matters except those belonging to the state sphere of action, such being: country finance, national defense, judiciary (with a special organization of its own), schools, from the National School for General Instruction upwards, as well as all matters bearing upon the production of wealth, means of communication and public health inasmuch as the last mentioned three relate to the whole country or fall within the sphere of international agreements and obligations respectively.
The government of the country cannot make the county its organ in any sphere of its activities, but it may attach to the county civil service staff special government expert officers whose duty shall be to perform functions having reference to matters concerning the whole state.
To meet the expenses incurred by the management of affairs within its own sphere of activity the county shall possess independent financial means of its own.
Both the economic parish and the county shall be autonomous (self-governing) in the fullest sense of these words. These words mean that both the parish and the county shall have the power, with in the limits of the law, to make their own by-laws with binding legal power, and that they shall not be interfered with either by the President of the Republic or the government of the country.
A special Poor Parishes and Counties Grants Act shall lay down the manner of granting poor parishes and counties of the whole republic financial aid for all those needs which are of common national interest.
The parish by-laws shall be made by the Parish Meeting and those of the county by the County Meeting. These by-laws shall be submitted to the national Government with the only purpose of having them examined as to their keeping within the limits of the Parish and County Autonomy Act.
If the national Government be of opinion that these limits have been exceeded, the by-laws shall at once be presented to the Board of Seven who shall have to decide the matter at issue within a month at the latest. If the said Board does not decide it within that period, the Government shall return the by-laws to the parish or county respectively provided with the only remark that they have been examined. In no case shall the by-laws remain with the Government longer than a month.
d) Municipal Self-Government.
The title of Royal Free Town shall be abolished.
The economic parishes shall in future not be allowed to unite with urban districts, whereas the former rural administrative parishes and the individual urban districts belonging to the same tax-collecting areas and having a predominant peasant population shall be allowed under Economic Parishes Act to separate from urban districts and join the economic counties.
Under a special Urban Districts Self-Government Act towns shall be given autonomy on the same scale as economic counties so that the working classes, the tradespeople and the remaining wealth- producing town population shall actually have in their hands the decision in all matters of town government through the town-council elected on the principle of the universal secret equal suffrage.
2. EXERCISE OF NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY THROUGH THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.
National affairs shall be administered by the President of the Republic together with the National Government.
a) National Affairs.
The principal national affairs are:
1) Administration of justice.
2) Production of Wealth of the Nation.
3) National Education and Instruction.
4) National Health.
5) National Defense.
6) Permanent Relations with other Nations and States.
7) State Finance.
A minister shall be entrusted with the management of each of these departments. He must possess adequate qualification necessary for the efficient working of his department. He may be, but need not be a member of the National Assembly. He shall conduct business with the help of other specialty qualified officers (deputy ministers) each of whom shall be the head of a special ministry sub-department.
The specially qualified officers at the head of various ministry sub-departments shall be called deputy ministers. They shall perform their work according to the instructions received from the minister and under the control of specially delegated Assembly Commissioners chosen from among the representatives.
A special Government, Organization Act shall lay down the controlling duties of the Controlling Assembly Commissioners and the duties of the deputy ministers.
b) The President of the Republic (Ban.)
At the head of the administration of National Affairs shall be the president of the Republic, called also Ban. He shall be elected for a period of 4 years by a plebiscite to be held on the first Sunday of May and shall enter upon his office on the 1-st of July of the same year.
Any person entitled to be elected a representative shall also be eligible for the president, if nominated by 60,000 electors or by that party of the Assembly which has received that number of votes at last election. The two vice- presidents shall also be chosen at the same election.
In case of the president’s death, resignation, absence or inability (indisposition or otherwise) the first vice-president shall act as his substitute during his absence or till the end of the period for which he has been elected. The second vice-president shall act as the substitute of the first vice- president in the same way in all above mentioned cases.
As president elect and vice- presidents elect respectively shall be considered those candidates for whom the largest number of electors has voted. The president cannot be simultaneously a representative nor can the vice- presidents act as representatives so long as they are performing the duties of a vice president.
The official residence of the president shall be the city of Zagreb.
The president is the representative of the Republic and the head of the National Government, the members of which he alone shall be authorized to appoint and remove. He shall choose the various members of the Government from among the representatives of the National Assembly and other citizens.
The National Government shall administer all national affairs under the political responsibility of the president, and the president shall be responsible for his policy only to the nation.
The Nation as well as the Assembly can, the former by a petition with 100,000 original signatures registered within a month, the latter by means of a resolution carried by two thirds of all its members, demand the president’s resignation.
On the 4th Sunday after the Board of Seven have found that the petition submitted has been properly signed or 4 weeks after the resolution demanding the president’s resignation has been passed by the Assembly, a plebiscite using the formula: “the president so and so has to resign” or “has not to resign” shall be held.
If the plebiscite decides for the president’s resignation, not only the president but also both the vice-presidents shall resign. The Assembly shall, if sitting, without delay, with a simple majority and within 24 hours after the plebiscite at the latest, and, if not sitting, within 8 days, elect the deputy president.
On the 4th Sunday after the deputy president’s election a general election shall take place with the purpose of electing the new president. If between the deputy president’s election and the first Sunday of May there should happen to be an interval of only 6 months or less, the said extraordinary president’s election shall not take place, but the president who had been newly elected at an ordinary election shall enter upon his office as soon as the Board of Seven have declared him elected. The president who has been elected at an extraordinary election shall also immediately enter upon his office.
A special Presidential Election Act shall be passed upon presidential election, on the president’s entering upon office, and on every change in the presidency of the Republic.
c) Relations to other Nations and States.
The Republic of Croatia will never use secret diplomacy in international affairs and will not recognize any secret international treaties.
The Neutral Peasant Republic of Croatia is a living member of the great human community which is slowly but surely undergoing the transformation into a great world federative republic.
The Ministry for Foreign Affairs shall have no so-called diplomatists. Abroad, the Republic, of Croatia as an organization of both peculiarly Croatian and general human wealth-producing and cultural elements shall have only her consuls whose duty shall be to watch her commercial and cultural interests. Their main care shall be to look after life, health and well-being of her citizens abroad.
d) Defence and Safety of Home and Country.
There shall be no Universal Military standing army training Duty in the Republic. It shall be substituted by an universal national working duty system including the general obligation of home and country defence. Every person living within the territory of the republic shall be required for a period of 6 months to do work for the republic as specified by the Universal Working Duty Act.
For the most part of this period, but at least for 4 months, every person shall have to do work of public utility such as building roads, hydraulic and drainage work, etc., tending to the raising of the productivity of soil and other kinds of similar public work with the purpose of cutting down national expenditure as much as possible by enabling the Government to dispense with paid work.
Less time, but no more than two months, of this period shall be employed on all kinds of physical exercise and on the special t training for the defence of Home and Country (militia). If any special training should require more time, the fittest men shall, if necessary, be chosen, who shall then devote even full 6 months to that training.
The Universal National Working Duty can be imposed on women only by a plebiscite which shall be held as soon as demanded by a petition of 30,000 grown-up inhabitants of the Republic, but women shall be employed only near their homes, and in such a manner that neither their honour nor health shall suffer in any way.
Everybody’s duty to defend his home and country shall last to his death.
With the national defence shall be combined also the organization of a special civil force for the maintenance of public order. The training required for the commanders of this civil force as well as the headquarters of the respective militia districts shall be fixed by a special Act. The area of this militia districts shall correspond to that of jurisdictional and tax-collecting districts.
e) State Finance.
Progressive income-tax as the principal state tax shall be imposed by a special Act. Every year, during the budget debate, the National Assembly shall fix the amount of the income-tax based on the assessment of the tax-payers, proportionally to their income, according to the progressive principle i. e. the larger the income the larger the percentage of the income-tax.
The amount of the income absolutely necessary for a person’s subsistence shall be fixed by law and shall not be taxed with more than 1 per cent.
On the income-tax no rates shall be levied.
Revenue-taxes can be imposed only by the National Assembly, but county and parish rates respectively only by the county and parish meeting respectively.
No one can be exempted from taxation.
Neither taxes nor any kinds of rates shall be imposed on the most necessary means of supporting life such as bread and flour, salt, milk, kerosine.
No state, county or parish moneys shall be expended unless their expenditure has been provided for by the budget, the county, or parish estimates respectively.
The annual budget shall be debated and voted upon by the National Assembly, and shall remain in force only a calendar year.
The National Government shall present to the National Assembly the budget for the coming year together with the statement of income and outgoings for the previous year. The National Assembly shall have no power to raise the various items of expenditures as forecasted in the estimates, but it shall have the power to cut them down or even to strike them off. If there should happen to be any savings, the Assembly alone shall be authorized to decide what use should be made of them.
The state, county and parish estimates respectively shall always be debated and voted upon for the coming financial year. If the state, county or parish estimates respectively for the coming year have not been voted for, nobody shall be obliged to pay those state taxes, and county or parish rates respectively which have not yet been voted for by the National Assembly, the County and the Parish Councils, so long as the said estimates lack the sanction of these bodies. Any demand for payment of such taxes and rates by the authorities or even unauthorized enforcement of such payments shall be punished as an abuse of official authority.
The exclusive right (monopoly) to sell certain articles of general consumption shall be reserved to, and shall be exercised only by, the Republic.
Under the Auditors’ Act a special Government Audit Department shall be established with the purpose of auditing all State accounts.
Under the Auditors’ Independence, Qualification and Responsibility Act the independence competence and responsibility before the Board of Seven of the whole audit official staff shall be safeguarded.
The duties of the Audit Department shall be to examine and correct the state, county and parish estimates in the manner specified by a special act and authorize the appropriation of state, county and parish moneys granted. It shall further watch the keeping of expenditure within the limits of the budget. It shall moreover point out those items of county and parish expenditure which have exceeded the amount by the county and parish estimates, and it shall finally close the State accounts.
The Audit Department shall present the annual budget financial statement with a report and a freely expressed comment thereon, through the president of the Republic to the National Assembly for the final examination and sanction within reasonable time to enable the National Government to present to the Assembly the Financial Statement for the past year simultaneously with the budget for the coming year.
For each district forming a tax-collecting area the Republic shall establish a tax-collecting office. The area of these districts shall coincide with that of jurisdictional and militia district. They shall be smaller than the existing administrative districts, but larger than the existing administrative parishes, the aim of the Republic being to facilitate the collection of taxes by tax-collecting offices in all the parishes of their area.
3. ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.
Sentences shall be pronounced in the name of justice and law.
Courts of justice can be established and abolished only by law.
Judges shall be independent. They can be neither removed to another place, nor pensioned off before the completion of their 65th year, nor dismissed against their own will unless a competent judgement has been pronounced against them for bad behavior.
After the completion of his 65th year every judge must retire with a pension.
Vacancies on the staff of judges of Low Courts shall be filled on the competitive system, the High Court giving preference in appointments to those competitors who have been longest in the possession of a qualifying examination certificate. Judges for the Court of Appeal and the Board of Seven shall be chosen by the members of these courts themselves among the whole body of judges and barristers of the country.
The first judges of all courts to be appointed shall be nominated by the president of the republic himself. Judges shall not be classed according to their salaries which shall be increased gradually and automatically after a certain number of years to be fixed by law, according to the length of service.
One hundred of grown-up citizens (male or female) of unblemished character earning their own livelihood, and at least 30 years old can by a petition signed by their own hands demand from the Board of Seven that an official enquiry should be instituted against a judge. Such an enquiry shall commence at once and shall be terminated within a month at the latest by a judgement pronounced jointly by the court and the jury.
The area to be served by the lowest courts shall be determined by a special law. These areas shall be called jurisdictional districts and coincide with the tax collecting and militia districts respectively.
III. Final Organization Work of the Neutral Peasant Republic of Croatia.
Acts by which the provisions of the Constitution are carried out and supplemented.
All Acts mention of which is made in this Constitution shall form an integral whole together with the Constitution. They are to be made by the Assembly during its first ordinary session or during the summer extraordinary session of the same year, as the case may be.
APPENDIX
Resolutions of the Croatian Representative Body, Returned at General Election on March 18, 1923, Passed in its First Plenary Sitting, Held at Zagreb, The Capital City of Croatia, on March 25, 1923.
The Representative Body of the Croatian Nation returned at the general election hold on the territory of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes on the March 18, 1923., i. e., the overwhelming majority of the total number of representatives elected within the indisputable territory of the Croatian Nation (Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia), to wit, 61 out of 83, and a minority of representatives from Bosnia and Herzegovina – 9 out of 48 – this minority being supported for the first time in the Bosnian history by both Mussulman and Catholic Croats united in the great movement for a new type of government based on social justice, which movement is as early as now backed by the majority of Bosnian population – passed in its first plenary sitting of the March 25, 1923, held at Zagreb, the capital city of Croatia, the resolutions as follows:
I
The Croatian Representative Body accepts, agrees to, and approves of, all declarations, resolutions, policies and, in the main, all proceedings of the late Representative Body returned at the elections of Nov. 28, 1920. Accordingly, this Representative Body regards itself as the sole legal and legitimate successor of the Croatian Parliament (Sabor) of Zagreb, which de jure never has discontinued to exist, since it could be neither dissolved nor abolished by any act not emanating from the Constituent Assembly of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, but only by passage of a resolution or act voted upon by the said Constituent Assembly and adopted by a qualified majority of the said Assembly under exclusion of any outvoting, these conditions being required by the resolution of the Croatian Parliament passed on October 29, 1918, but which resolution has been infringed upon by the Belgrade men in power.
This Representative Body regards itself, as well as the Representative Body elected in 1920 regarded itself, as Parliament (Sabor) of the Croatian Nation. In omitting, however, a formal installation as parliament it does so only to ward off the danger of civil or internal war, which, from the pacifist and humanitarian standpoint of this Representative Body, would be a crime and an evil even more atrocious than an international war.
II
The foundations of the policy of this Representative Body shall remain:
1) Interpreting, respecting, and enforcing the will of the Croatian people;
2) Full and unlimited right of national self-determination;
3) Practical pacifism and real humanitarianism, which for our country can be secured only through its organization and recognition as a neutral peasant republic.
III
A just and durable agreement between the Croatian Nation and the Serbian Nation shall constitute, as well as it did heretofore, one of the chief tasks of the policies of the Croatian Representative Body.
This Representative Body considers the humanitarian and republican program of the Croatian people as the first and foremost aim to be realized. It is this very aim towards which all efforts shall be directed and on which depends the solution of the question, whether or not a delegation of Croatian representatives shall be sent to Belgrade.
IV
The Croatian Representative Body regards the actual common international frontiers of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes as a territorial adjustment most suitable to the present political conditions in Europe, this being so both from the Croatian national point of view and from the European point of view.
It is so from the Croatian point of view, because the Croatian people have been united within the common frontiers of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes as never before in their history, and more especially so, because those common frontiers embrace now, after centuries of separation, the whole incontrovertible territory of the Croatian Nation (Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia), whose more than millennial continuity as a sovereign and more or less independent state has never been interrupted from 852 AD to October 29, 1918, on which day the Croatian Parliament in Zagreb proclaimed Croatia (Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia) a fully independent state. This full independence of the Croatian state did immediately take effect in the practical exercise of this independence under recognition by the kingdom of Serbia, after which Croatia effected the mutual association with Bosnia, Herzegovina, Slovenia, Batchka, Banat, Barania into a federative republic with its center in Zagreb, which republic was officially styled “The state of the National Council of the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs” and was in a solemn way recognized by the kingdom of Serbia under a special treaty agreed upon, and signed, at Geneva, November 9, 1918, by the Serbian government (Nikola Pashich) and representatives of all Serbian parliamentary parties on the Serbian part, and by Dr. Koroshetz and Dr. Trumbich on the part of the National Council of Zagreb.
Furthermore, this actual community of international frontiers among the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is a question of European and universal interest, because every change of these common frontiers – and particularly a violent one – would be able to provoke such conflicts and, on the part of certain neighbors, such pretensions as would endanger European and even world peace.
V
The Croatian Representative Body regards as null and void and as non- binding upon the Croatian Nation, and consequently, lacking any legal and moral value, all laws, regulations, ordinances and other acts issued or imposed by the government of Belgrade as far as they affect the indisputable national territory of Croatia, because all these laws, rules, regulations and acts have been made without any previous consultation of, or approbation by, the Croatian Parliament; have been made contrary to the clearly expressed will, and in spite of reiterated protests, and without any concurrence, of the Croatian Representative Body elected in 1920; finally, because the enforcement of these laws, rules, regulations and decrees is tolerated, and the Belgrade men of power are obeyed, by the Croatian people only as far as the latter are forced to do so under the pressure of threats of armed force or under the real application of that force.
In particular, this Representative Body, resuming the resolutions of the late Representative Body returned in November, 1920, declares and proclaims as null and void, and without any binding force on Croatia (Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia) both all Belgrade acts passed on loans and all acts, rules, regulations and decisions through which the Belgrade men in power have aimed and still are aiming to deprive Croatia of her national and state property, and at settling the great economical and social problems on lines contrary both to the centennially established principles of peasant freehold and to the existing landed property conditions, over which the political authorities, and still much less the agents of the Ministry of Police, have no legal power, this especially being so of the important problem of agrarian reform.
VI
This Representative Body considers, as did the late Representative Body, the whole administration of the Belgrade government over Croatia as a mere usurpation, against which a continuous resistance is practiced both by the Croatian people as a whole and by the overwhelming majority of the Croats as individual citizens, so that this usurpation is incapable of establishing any tolerable, much less settled, political and economical conditions. If the innumerable acts of violence, lawlessness and ordinary crimes perpetrated by the agents of Belgrade authorities, particularly the barbarous every day bastinado of citizens, civilians and soldiers, the cruel torturing in all, and in particular in military prisons, have caused no revolution, civil war, and foreign intervention this fact is to be ascribed only and solely to the high standard of general consciousness of Croatian people and to the extraordinary strength of their political organization able both to keep the Belgrade oppression and violence within certain limits and to maintain the general conviction that such a political ability and organization accompanied by the triumphant electoral results of March 18, 1923, will finally awaken such an interest of the public opinion of European nations and more especially the attention of the League of Nations all to inspire the Belgrade men of power with the respect for the self-determination of the Croatian people, unless their love for justice and a correct understanding of interests common to both peoples, Croatian and Serbian, are not strong enough to incline them to that respect.
VII
The Croatian Representative Body in concordance with the new international public law regards itself fully equal to every parliament. In the event of failure of all attempts to come to a just agreement with the Serbian people, the condition of which agreement is that the Croatian political and national equality with the Serbian political and national individuality shall be recognized, this Representative Body will apply for support to all European and other parliaments, particularly to the congress of the United States of America, which in its courses of action is not bound by those regards which to an extent restrict European parliaments and which in its highly favorable position may, prior to any other, take into consideration the most important fact that the Croatian people in their claim to independence are not only perfectly unanimous, but also possess all cultural, social, economical and political prerequisites for actual exercise of their sovereignty, so that they are in no need of any military, financial or any other foreign help whatsoever, and want only a purely moral support.
An appeal from such an authority will probably persuade the Belgrade government that now, after the world war, and almost in the very center of Europe, it may not by most brutal and most violent methods of the darkest periods of the Middle Ages continue to carry out a regime of oppression and plunder over the whole Croatian Nation under the mendacious plea of the existence of one tri-named nation of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
Letters of Protests
American intellectuals organized by Roger N. Baldwin, Chairman of the International Committee for Political Prisoners, sent the following letter to the Yugoslav representative in Washington on November 24, 1933.
Dr. Leonide Pitamic,
Minister of Yugoslavia,
Washington, D.C.
Sir:
For some years past dispatches in the American and foreign press have indicated that political prisoners in Yugoslavia are suffering inhuman treatment. This committee has noted the reports and has on occasion intervened in behalf of some particular prisoner as have many associations and individuals throughout the world interested in checking persecution for political opinions and activities.
More recently, we have obtained documentary material form one of our associates, Louis Adamic, and American writer of Yugoslav birth, lately returned from a year’s stay in his native land as a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation. Mr. Adamic’s standing as a writer of integrity and accuracy is above question. We have substantiated to our satisfaction the genuineness of the material he has brought corroborating previous information.
In the light of these reports, and Mr. Adamic’s specific information, we desire to protest, through you, to your government against the whole system of political persecution which marks the regime in Yugoslavia today and particularly against the incredible tortures inflicted on political prisoners under that system. These reports involve authentically reported tortures at police headquarters in Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Sarajevo, Skoplye, Novi Sad and other cities, as well as in various state penitentiaries. They affect the various groups opposed to the policies of the present government: the Croat, Slovene, Moslem, and Macedonian nationalists; the Socialists, Agrarians, and Communists.
These reports make it evident beyond question that scores if not hundreds of these prisoners are beaten and tortured before being brought to trial. The records show about 120 known cases of persons either directly killed or so tortured that they died. Such cruel and revolting methods employed during the so-called examination of prisoners are described as sticking needles under prisoners’ fingernails, placing live coals between armpits and body, prolonged beating on the soles of the feet, driving sharp instruments into the heels and perpetrating outrages upon sexual organs. These methods are used in attempts to force confessions incriminating themselves and other men and women active in opposition movements.
But the tortures described are not confined to the period of preliminary examination. They continue after commitment to prison. Even those prisoners convicted of such trivial offenses as distributing opposition literature or belonging to opposition groups are systematically beaten and starved. Some are reliably reported as having been inoculated with disease germs, others have had iron bands clamped around their heads for months at a time. Conditions in the prisons are reported to be so inhuman that many prisoners must sleep on the bare floors of their unheated and wet cells. Against these unbearable conditions 248 men and women in the Sremska Mitrovica Prison are now said to be on a mass hunger strike.
Solitary confinement of political prisoners and for long periods of time is another method against which we direct our protest. A reliable report come to us that Dr. Yovanovitch, former professor at Belgrade University, a well know political economist and leader of the Yugoslav Peasant Movement, is, or until very recently, was for several months in solitary confinement. We are advised, too, that Dr. V. Machek, leader of Croat Peasant Party, in serious ill health, is incarcerated under unsanitary conditions which may lead to his death.
We learn, too, that scores of prisoners particularly among the intellectuals, are exiled to the malaria-infested regions of Macedonia where they are required to report to the local police every few hours day and night.
Your government must be aware that knowledge of brutalities such as these arouses the indignation of the civilized world. In the name of a section of the American public opposed to such severity against political opponents, we protest against the policies and methods of your government. So long as 2100 opponents remain in prison under conditions such as these they are a standing indictment of the claims of your government to recognition by the civilized world.
While we are aware that condition in prisons in our own country are not above reproach, that political persecutions sometimes take place here as elsewhere, we are just as quick to condemn them here. But of all the reports which have come to us in recent years these from Yugoslavia are among the most appalling and barbarous.
We are, Sir,
Very truly yours,
For the Committee: Roger N. Baldwin, Chairman.
Authorized Signatures William Allen White, Author, Editor-Publisher of Emporia (Kansas) Gazette
Theodore Dreiser, Novelist, Poet, Dramatist; New York
Arthur Garfield Hays, Author, Lawyer; New York
Oswald Garrison Villard, Editor, Author; New York
Mary Austin, Author; New Mexico
Sherwood Anderson, Novelist, Poet; New York
John Dos Passos, Novelist, Dramatist; New York
Norman Thomas, Author, Political and Civic Leader; New York
Harry Elmer Barnes, Historian, Publicist; New York
W. E. Woodward, Novelist, Biographer; New York
Burton Rascoe, Author, Critic; New York
Ernest Boyd, Author, Critic, Editor; New York
Kyle Crichton, Author, Editor; New York
Edmund Wilson, Author, Critic; New York
Upton Sinclair, Novelist, etc.; Los Angeles
Bruce Bliven, Author, Editor; New York
George Soule, Author, Editor; New York
Louis B. Boudin, Author, Historian, Lawyer; New York
Benjamin Stolberg, Author, Critic; New York
Mrs. Paxton Hibben, Author, widow of close personal friend of late King Peter of Yugoslavia
John Haynes Holmes, Minister, Publicist, Civic Leader; New York
Erskine Caldwell, Novelist; Maine
Horace Gregory, Poet, Critic; New York
Grace Lumpkin, Novelist; New York
Clifton Fadiman, Critic, Editor; New York
Richard L. Simon, Publisher; New York
Eliot White, Minister; New Jersey
Lenore G. Marshall, Editor; New York
Carleton Beals, Writer; New York
Newton Arvin, Critic, Professor; Northampton, Massachusetts
George Leighton, Author, Editor; New York
&n
bsp;Carey McWilliams, Author, Critic, Lawyer; Los Angeles
V.F.Calverton, Author, Editor, Critic; New York
Alfred M. Bingham, Editor; New York
James Weldon Johnson, Author, Poet; Connecticut
Margaret Reese, Social Worker; New York
Nels Anderson, Sociologist; Columbia University
Edward J. Allen, Economist; Columbia University
Florence L. Voorhis, Librarian; Seth Low Jr. College
John M. Brewster, Professor; Seth Low Jr. College
Paul C. Clifford, Professor; Seth Low Jr. College
Matthew N. Chappell, Professor; Seth Low Jr. College
Einstein Accuses Yugoslavian Rulers in Savant’s Murder
The following article concerning the assassination of Dr. Milan Suffly appeared in the New York Times on May 6, 1931.
Charges the Slaying of Sufflay, Noted Croatian Leader, Was Inspired by Government. Links King to Terrorism
Protests With Heinrich Mann Virtually Lays Parliament Killing Monarch
Increase in Cruelty Seen
League for Rights of Man Is Urged to Take Action Against “Horrible Brutality” of Belgrade Regime.
Berlin, May 5.-Accusing the Yugoslav Government of the murder of a Croatian, Professor Milan Sufflay, who was struck down in the streets of Agram (Zagreb) on Feb. 18, Professor Albert Einstein and the novelist Heinrich Mann, the brother of Thomas Mann, have sent a joint letter to the international headquarters in Paris urging a protest against the “horrible brutality which is being practiced upon the Croatian people.” The letter also was signed by the German headquarters of the league.
The Paris headquarters, upon receipt of the communication, immediately undertook steps toward an effective protest to Belgrade.
“As the professor was walking home on the fatal day he was attacked from behind with an iron rod, according to our information, and felled,” the letter of protest reads. “On the next day, he died and he was buried on the twenty-second beside other Croatians.”
Professor Sufflay was noted for a long list of scientific books, the letter continues.
“Yet Agram newspapers were not allowed to report his activities, and the news of his death was suppressed,” the protest goes on. “Condolence telegrams were not delivered. The time of the funeral was not allowed to be made public and the raising of the mourning flag on the university was forbidden. The authorities went so far as to expel those school children who took part in the funeral and to remove wreaths which were bound with the Croatian national colors from the grave.
“The name of the murder was known. It was Nikola Jukitsh. His organization (Young Yugoslavia) likewise is known. It was even known that arrangements for the murder had been worked out on the night of the eleventh in the home of the military commandment of the city, General Beli Markowitsch, at a session in which members of the Young Yugoslavia organization, Brkitsh, Godler, Martschetz and the murderer Jukitsh, took part. Yet the Agram police officially stated the next day that the name of the murderer was not known.
Turning to the events leading up to the murder, Professor Einstein and the other signers charged that when the King visited the Croatian capital in January numerous leading Croats received letters, signed “For the King and Country,” in which their lives and those of their families were threatened if they uttered any protest while the King was there. Professor Sufflay received one of those letters, it is charged.
“The name of these terrorist organization was Young Yugoslavia, the protest continued. “The King, in an address to the organization, told how the Croatian representatives to the Parliament had been put out of the way at his request. An example of this was the shooting of a Croatian leader on the floor of the House on June 20, 1928.”
Following the King’s visit the murder of political and intellectual leaders of the Croatians was openly demanded in the government press, says the letter.
“The official organ, Nascha Sloga, in Suschak, on Feb.18 wrote,’Skulls will be spilt.’ The same evening Professor Sufflay was struck down,” the letter says.
In January the delegates to the Croatian National Assembly sent a memorandum to Geneva calling attention to the situation in Croatia.
“The facts show that the cruelty and the brutality practiced upon the Croatians only increases,” Professor Einstein’s letter says. “In view of this frightful situation, we urge the International League for the Rights of Man to do everything possible to suppress this unrestrained rule of might which prevails in Croatia.
“Murder as a political weapon must not be tolerated and political murderers must not be made national heroes. The league should muster all possible aid to protect this small, peaceful and highly civilized people.”
Sufflay a History Professor
Professor Milan Sufflay, who was murdered in Agram (Zagreb) on Feb.18, had been a Professor of History at Zagreb University for ten years. He had written many works on the history of Albania. In 1920, because of his connection with Croat extremists, he was sentenced to two and a half years’ imprisonment for lese-majeste and high treason. On his release he resumed his political activities.
Protest against the Yugoslav dictatorship of King Alexander have been frequent since the murder of Professor Sufflay and the many “suicides” of Croats and Macedonians in the prisons of Belgrade and Zagreb.
Three Serbs were arrested in Vienna recently who were alleged to have been sent there on a murder mission with the knowledge of the Zagreb Chief of Police.
The bitter feeling in Yugoslavia has resulted in numerous bombings and assassinations.
When King Alexander proclaimed the dictatorship two years ago his chief problem was the deadlock caused by the refusal of Croatia to be dominated by a parliamentary government recruited largely from extreme Serbian sources.
Recollections of Stalin's Labor Camps
Stjepan Sego
Stjepan Sego (1913-1990), a Croat from Herzegovina, was captured by the Soviet troops in Hungary in 1948 and was taken to the Soviet Union where he spent eight years in labor camps. Thanks to Khrushchev’s destalinization policy, he was freed in 1956, came to the United States, and lived in Chicago till he died in 1990. We bring here the English translation of a text the late Stipe Sego wrote in Croatian about his experiences in the Soviet prison camps.
After long investigation, hearings, and torture in Hungarian prisons, I, and the others, was to be sent to Russia.
We arrived at the Hungarian border. It was wrenching to look out from the train and to see the Hungarians being torn from their homeland, and the same was with Austrians. We departed on the road to the unknown. The train moved below the Carpathian Mountains toward Lvov. We were removed from the train and transferred to a huge camp. I don’t know its capacity, but the number of its internees was nonetheless gross. The usual method of counting by barracks was not employed, but rather, the count was by “corps.” I know of six such corps, but, undoubtedly, there were more.
We were in Ukraine, which, during the war, was well organized with the aim of establishing a free and independent Ukraine. Their beloved leader was Stepan Bandera. Since the Germans, in their blindness, were opposed to an independent Ukraine, Bandera worked against them. Hitler ordered him captured and placed General Meljnik in his place, thus dividing the Ukrainian forces.
The “Banderites” were a powerful group and were prepared. They spread their organization deeply throughout eastern Ukraine which was under Soviet control. When the war ended, they continued their battle deep in the woods. Since the terrain was favorable to guerrilla warfare, they were able to maintain themselves for a long time. The Soviets had their hands full well into l948. Real battles took place. The Soviets wanted to exterminate them at all costs. Even the slightest hint that a village had any contact with the “Banderites” was cause for it to be destroyed without mercy.
Those residents not killed in such raids were summarily sent to Siberia. That rule applied to all including mothers with small children, as well as old men and women. We found such persons in the camp to be under the most extreme conditions.
So that their deportation might be covered by some element of “law,” it was always listed under some sort of “judgment” which carried a penalty, almost consistently, of some 25 years imprisonment. Those fortunate souls to whom no wrong other than that they were from such Ukrainian villages could be attributed, were sentenced up to 5 years and were retained in those camps. All others were sent on the icy road to Siberia.
Hunger, terrible hunger, reigned in the camp we were in. All that one possessed was given up for a bit of bread. The vast majority, unfortunately, had nothing to give. That horrid camp was my first encounter with the “Russian [socialist] heaven.”
We found ourselves in this camp for 14 days before our transport moved forward…. Cold and hungry, packed like sardines, our boxcars rolled on for a full two weeks. Ultimately, they allowed us to exit the cars. Half of us were unable to even stand upright. Those who were able to move were taken to another camp. The barracks were empty. There was but one stove in the very center of the barracks. The barracks were infested with bugs eager to get their share of the newly arrived victims.
Inta was the name of the place we arrived at. That is the name of the place and the province it is part of. Its geographic area is about that of France. Two additional provinces lie before us and the North Sea, namely, Yarkuta and Varkuta. These lie in the sub-polar region.
When the weather is clear, one can see the Urals. Tundra surrounds us all about. No inhabitants other than prisoner can be found in the regions mentioned. Only the camp’s personnel are free. They founded little villages for themselves and erected schools for their children.
All three provinces are situated in a coal-rich basin. The prisoners work the mines. The quality of the coal produced is poor. It is said to be too “young,” and, as declared by the experts, would need at least another million years to “ripen.” Nonetheless, it is mined and shipped across Russia.
The area is that of the Tundra and has no forests. Dwarfed shrubs only are to be found. The climate is bitter cold and is often as cold as minus 50 C.
Inasmuch as the region is near the Pole, the days are six months in length and the nights as well. Thunder is not heard, nor is there any rain, except occasionally. The Northern Lights are quite common.
The camp we are situated in is only temporary. The Province has 13 coal mines and each mine has its own camp, the exception being if two mines are in close proximity. One camp then serves both mines. The food at this camp was a bit better and we seemed to improve our health somewhat.
The residents of our camp were from all corners of the world — Americans, Japanese, Chinese, and others. They were punished for ostensibly spying. A “fertile” source of prisoners for the Russians was Vienna, and, in a similar fashion, Berlin.
A common destiny haunts all those in the far North, a destiny none of them even dreamed of. We all underwent a physical exam while interred in the camp. We were divided into three groups. The first was to work under ground. The second worked outside, while the third, including those who are sick, worked as servants to the camp.
After five weeks, I was sent to a mining camp of some five thousand internees. The very first days were quite difficult since I knew no one.
The camp was quite extensive and was well fortified. Escape from the camp is impossible, and, ultimately, it would have been futile. It was surrounded by barbed wire four meters wide by three meters high. Watch towers with klieg lights lay behind the fence for the guards. Between the rows of barbed wire trained dogs roamed.
The mine was about a kilometer distant from the camp. The road leading to the mine was secured in the same manner as the camp. It was, in fact, a corridor through barbed wire.
I was horrified each morning as I watched the night shift returning. They were as black as the coal they mined. They had no place to wash themselves, the excuse being that the lavatories were not yet completed. Dirty, they consumed their thin soup, and half dead from exhaustion, went to sleep.
By nationality, one fourth of the prisoners were Russian, one fourth prisoners from western Ukraine, a fourth from the Baltic peoples (Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania), and the final fourth was made of those of us who were from a mixture of peoples outside the borders of the Soviet Union.
It is said that some 30 to 40 million prisoners were to be found in Soviet camps. Regions under German occupation were especially hit supposedly because they were “collaborators” with the Germans.
I was told by present inmates of the camp that conditions were notably better than those directly after the war. At that time, prisoners were sent there to build a railroad to be used to transport the coal which was to be mined. Th
ey were simply transported to the site and under armed guard were made to erect the very barbed wire fence meant to keep them in. They lived with the sky as their roof, without barracks or any protection from the elements. It is no surprise that few were able to survive the ordeal. This is why the claim is made that beneath each railroad tie a human skeleton can be found.
To my good fortune, I discovered a Ukrainian in the camp who had lived in Croatia. He was my helper and my protection in my most difficult moments. May God reward him!
I was especially pleased that I could finally speak with someone, especially in my own Croatian tongue.
The prisoners were separated into work brigades. Each brigade had its “strukach” which in Russian meant its “denunciation,” or, as we might say in Croatian, its “cancer.” Even though such a person is never formally known, somehow one always intuited who it was.
Every prisoner was given a number worn on his back. The numbers were large enough to be easily seen at a distance.
Should a prisoner utter a word of criticism against the regime, or commit some sort of infraction, the “strukach” would remember his number and the prisoner would be called in the next day for his punishment. The most heavy punishment was the “kaiser.’ That was a room so tiny that a person could not even lie down. The prisoner is left with his own clothes, to the extent he has them, and is made to spend the time in the bitter cold. He is given 300 grams of bread and water each day, and a meal every third day.
Just as everything in the communist system is done by plan, so too there is a “plan” for everything in the camp. Each mine has its “rules,” that is, how much coal is to be extracted. If it fails to meet its quota, the prisoners are punished, and if the mine exceeds its quota, the managers receive a “premium.”
A quota of l00% was established. Food was distributed from 5 large cauldrons on the basis of that percentage. If the quota was met, namely, l00%, then we received hot water with a few remnants of beans. If we exceeded our quota, namely 110%, then the second cauldron was used giving us a bit more beans in the hot water. In both cases we ended up hungry. If we aimed for more production, the stomach was somewhat fuller, while at 150%, the prisoners were full. However, to achieve 150% meant to give one’s all, and to work like an ox. One could endure that for a while, but, ultimately, one would succumb.
The communists would, with sarcasm, quote the Bible and say: “He who does not work, need not eat either.” Further, they would point out that all power descends from God, and hence, so to does that of the communists, and so, the need to obey. They are masters of man’s exploitation.
Under such a regime of hunger and work, the prisoners had to vie with each other, and hence, our mine carried first prize over the others and was rewarded with a good library. The communists said we had need of good “breeding,” while we simply wished for a generous crust of bread.
The library was indeed a good one. Along with a good representation of Russian literature, there was a smattering of foreign classics as well. I was amassed at the number of German works: Goethe, Schuller, Heine, and others. I found a copy of our own Gundulic’s “Osman.” We were allowed to borrow the books for a ten day period.
Newspapers from Moscow, one copy each, were also available. The were placed between panes of glass so that each side could be read. Each barracks had a bulletin board loaded with satirical items, mostly caricatures of foreign leaders. Since Tito was on a wartime footing with Stalin at the time, he was the frequent butt of such satire. One such cartoon showed Tito all bloodied with a hatchet in his hand decapitating someone’s head. The inscription below the cartoon read: “Traitor — Fascist.”
Loud speakers were placed in our barracks and they ripped our ears apart and destroyed our nerves. It was unbearable to listen to them at the time of Stalin’s illness and death.
The Russians did not like Stalin, but they had great fear of him. He was the incarnation of cruelty. He was the infinite ruler over millions of his subjects, and he simply removed all who were not to his taste. He liquidated almost all of the October Revolution’s leadership.
A popular man in Russia at this time is General Zhukov, a wartime hero. Stalin pushed him into the background. He would like to have liquidated him as well, but it would have been inconvenient.
Camp life in that far northern outpost was horrid. The worst was the fact that the mines were always damp. A man had to work while soaked as though in the rain, and still wet had to return to the camp. Hunger, exhaustion, dampness, and the cold, worse yet, the hopelessness of the situation, a picture of the blackest future, dogged the men and brought them to despair.
Even though it was difficult to come by Vodka, and even though it was strictly forbidden, somehow and from somewhere, it appeared. It was of the worst sort, the kind that tears the nerves apart, nonetheless, it was consumed for sake of relief and with resignation. It also brought with it evil consequences which often led to fights which sometimes ended in tragedy.
To my joy, a fellow Croat from one of the other camps arrived. My joy was short-lived. One of the wagons disengaged while at work and he was killed. When I heard of the accident I went to pay my respects to my lost fellow sufferer. It was hard to recognize his mangled body. Thus my dear Murat Lojo, a son of Bosnia, from Kalinovnik, breathe his last in the far northern regions of Russia. He was a lieutenant in the famous “Black Legion” under the legendary Jure Francetic wherein he spent the entire war.
Through a Ukrainian friend who had good connections in the camp, I was able to improve my situation somewhat. He was helpful to me in many instances. Through his efforts, I was able to attend a course in “geology” conducted by one of the engineers. I was thus able to rid myself of heavy duty. I was given the task of testing the coal. As the coal passes through a grinder, sample particles are taken and are place in a laboratory kiln to determine its caloric value.
Because the camp had good production in l950, we realized a significant improvement in our meals. Even the communists came to realize that hungry men are not as productive as satiated men.
The camp acquired brass instruments. There were musicians among us and when the work brigade exceeded l50% production, the band would greet us at the camp entrance and escort us to the kitchen. The kitchen and its cauldrons are the goal of hungry men.
When it was to their advantage, the communists tried anything. The camp was quite active, in fact, at times we even had a movie.
There are those in Russia known as “blatni” (“dirty”). The connotation of this is somewhat akin to the American “gangster.” Such individuals appear strange to the normal person. They deserted during the war and yet achieved political status. They refuse to work, yet when they arrive at the mess hall, the cook must give them that which is best, otherwise they will pay the consequences. Politics really does not concern them, rather they simply live to do evil and to steal. Their bodies are tattooed. They always present a threat to peace-abiding men. Communism tolerates them,
I suppose, for their own reasons. The managers of the camp wish to win them over to their side and thus, give them the better jobs, for the other fear them.
The “blatni” have their own unwritten law, one that is quite strict. Once inducted into their group, one needs to be subject to their wishes. If you cross them, death is as certain as it would be in the American “syndicates.” It is said that they even take an oath of loyalty. Those who escape the clutches of the group end up working for the regime and are called “sukes.” An open battle between the “blatni” and the “sukes” is commonplace. People end up dead.
The “blatnis” are unforgiving and harsh. A package arrives from home, of course for either a Russian or a Ukrainian containing boots, and immediately one of the “blatni” say, “I lost my boots while playing cards, pull off your boots.” If a person does not wish to bow to the wishes of the “blatni”, he is in trouble, for all the other “blatnis” are behind their fellow “blatni.”
In the meanwhile, the Ukrainians who fought in the forests with the revolutionary Bandera, and the Russian prisoners were fiercely opposed to the “blatnis.” These Banderites, for whom the communists could not show direct links with Bandera, else they would have been killed, often fought real battles with the “blatnis”, and frequently prevailed.
I, myself, was witness to the guards removing four “blatnis” from one of the other camps from the showers. In a flash, five men appeared from one of the barracks and shortly, found themselves in a pool of blood. They killed all of them. The Banderites saw in them a group of “blatnis” of a higher caliber who were “owing” to them. The judgment was swift. There was no inquiry.
I was forced to live under such conditions and to await my fate. My documents, which followed me to the camp, recorded that fate — 25 years!
(From American Croatian Review, Year V, No. 1-2, 1998, pp. 48-50)
Speech of Stjepan Radic Addressed to the Members of the National Council During a Night Session on November 23-24, 1918
During a Night Session on November 23-24, 1918
Translated by Sam Condic. Published in American Croatian Review. Year V, No. 3 and 4, December 1998, pp. 36-40.
Listen to an audio version of this speech.
Also see this related article about Radic
Gentlemen!
As you can see, there is neither an audience in the gallery, nor is there a stenographer present, not even the official Secretary of Record. It is clear, therefore, that I will not speak to create an effect outside this chamber, as might be supposed. At the onset, I must say that I have no illusion that I will persuade you to desist in this proposition, and that I can convince you to adopt my proposition. I completely agree with Representative Hrvoje, who stated that he knows beforehand that his exposition is in vain. I speak so as to fulfill my duty, and so as to take advantage of my right, and, also, so as to prick your conscience, so that you have no excuse to say that no one showed you the abyss into which you wish to hurtle all our peoples, and especially the Croatian people.
Gentlemen! A rather large number of speakers have already spoken. And lo, with the exception of Representative Hrvoje, all have spoken as though this chamber is not that of the Croatian National Parliament, as though this is not that Croatian fortress–and, I dare say, shrine–from which, for centuries, were heard courageous and wise words in defense of justice and right, seeking a better future for the Croatian people, and all Slavic peoples. Not only did every single speaker fail to remember Croatia or the Croatian people, but all the speakers, in fact, competed with each other so as to obliterate and demolish us as Croatians. They want to first crunch us and then to trample us. However, the greatest mistake and the most unforgivable sin lies in the fact that all those speakers failed to learn anything from the war. It is as though they do not see the people. It is as though they have no knowledge of the people. For that reason exactly, they speak the very opposite of what our people want and need.
Gentlemen! Your mouths are all filled with words: National Unity–A single, united nation–one kingdom, under the Karadjordjevic dynasty. And you think that it is sufficient to state that we Croatians, Serbians, and Slovenes are one people, because we speak one language, and that, for that reason, we must have a united and centralistic nation, the same kingdom. You think that only linguistic and national unity under the dynasty of Karadjordjevic can save us and make us prosper.
How surface, how shallow, how unjustified is your thinking!
As relates to national linguistic unity, we are all Slavs by language, actually one people. Ask one-hundred thousand of our soldiers and our prisoners of war, who traversed Galicia, Ukraine, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, and Serbia. All will tell you that in all those lands a single Slavic people live, or better said, all Slavs, suffer. But you do not wish to hear about Slavism, nor, in fact, about full South-Slavism. You are presently enthralled by your strange rebus: SHS, one which speaks neither to our hearts, nor to our intellect. And you wonder, then, why the Italians refer to that rebus of yours (In its own fashion, a puzzle.), as a comedy. Is there an example in history wherein a national name is written as abbreviated initials? A given vocation title can be abbreviated, or that of a particular service, a given political party or organization, why even a given country, however, the name of a people is never abbreviated, just as one cannot abbreviate the family name of a particular person, hence, even less, that of an entire particular people, especially in such an insincere fashion as this. SHS first designated Slovenes, Croatians, and Serbs; now it designates Serbs, Croatians, and Slovenes. And, what will it designate tomorrow?
Gentlemen! All of your work here in the National Council is neither democratic, nor constitutional, nor is it just, and, it certainly is not intelligent.
You, in fact, are no democrats because you do not care at all about what this awful war has made of our people, especially of our peasants.
Not in the least do you reflect upon the fact that our entire people, and our Croatian peasants in particular, have, from the depths of their souls, come to hate militarism, to such an extent that it cannot be expressed or described.
You care so little for what the people think and believe. You say and write that the people refuse to serve in the military out of fear and cowardice.
You do not believe that our peasant was in a state of slumber prior to the war. It was the war that shook him mercilessly, awakened him, and made of him a man.
You fail to see how courageous that must be, and how wise, when a hundred and more thousands Croatian peasants, one after the other, abandon the front and refuse to return to it. Some of them leave for the “Green Cadres” [rebellious bands of deserters], while others make use of all means, their money, friendships, or deceit, so as not to deliver their heads in the public market at the command of a foreign master, and, supposedly, in defense of King and the homeland.
In fact, you gentlemen care not a whit that our peasant, in general, and the Croatian peasant in particular, does not wish to hear a thing about the King or the Emperor, nor about the nation which is being forced upon him. Our peasant has matured to such a degree, that he fully knows that a nation and a homeland are to be found in justice and freedom, in prosperity and in education. And, today, as you beat him in the arsenals, and drive him by force to follow along with you, to defend us, supposedly, from the Italians, he declares, or at least thinks it, that you are no different to him than the Magyar, or the German oppressors were. And, do you know why? Because every man of ours, even to the last, comprehends what was said to you this morning in such a direct and incontrovertible manner by Representative Hrvoje: Either Italy has the backing of the entire Entente–and then we cannot even help ourselves–or else, Italy is acting on her own, and then we will succeed on our own against her. In either case, neither a unitary nation, nor a government under the monarchy in Belgrade, nor anyone else, will be of help to us.
You, yourselves, know this well. You know that neither Italy nor the Entente will accede to the will of the Belgrade government. You know well that where the rights of an entire nation have no value, then the influence of one nation or of one person has even less value.
Even though you know this, you, intentionally, and knowingly, speak falsehoods, namely, that our people will be doomed, or that we will suffer irreparable harm unless we immediately, head over heels, fail to create a centralistic monarchy, and a united, centralistic kingdom.
You, therefore, frighten our people as though they were children, and you think that you will win the people over to your political point of view. Perhaps you will win over the Slovenes, I don’t know. Perhaps, for a short interval, you will win over the Serbs, as well. However, I know, with certainty, you will not win over the Croatians for that cause. You won’t succeed in wining them over because the entire Croatian peasantry, as a totality, is against your centralism, and against your militarism; as much for republicanism as for the national agreement with the Serbs. If you wish to impose your centralism by force, this is what will happen: We Croatians will openly, clearly, and directly say: If the Serbians truly wish to have such a centralistic nation and government, God’s blessings upon it. However, we Croatians want no other national structure other than an allied Federal Republic.
I have on many occasions, gentlemen, in detailed expositions during the meetings of this Central Committee, stated how it is entirely incorrect to think that I am supposedly “guilty” for having supposedly “misled” the peasantry. I have explicitly and sincerely related to you how, I, myself, was extremely surprised–I must say, pleasantly, when, on the occasion of the first meeting of the Chief Committee during this time of war, namely, July 27, l918, took note of the fact that all the peasants, resolutely and with enthusiasm, were for a Republic, and that, even before the meeting, as I was entering, they greeted me with the exclamation: “Long live our first Republican!” Obviously, they were referring to my recent address in the Parliament, in which I postulated and demonstrated that the Croatian constitutional system is entirely republican in nature, and that the Croatian Banovina is, in fact, the same as is a Republican Croatia. Further, that the Croatian Ban, in the truest sense, is like the president of a Republic.
Nonetheless, you did not give credence to it, or else, you did not care, just as you do not care or believe it now. This is so, because democracy is no more than a word for you, and because it never, not even in your dreams, occurs to you to regulate your actions in accord with the meaning of that word. The word’s meaning implies that the people are to be asked their thinking in every point of importance, that all national matters are to be conducted so as to reflect the will of the people and their needs, that is, in our case, the peasant majority, are to regulate our actions, and we are not to act on behalf of the willfulness of an insignificant, lordly, minority…
Gentlemen! Inasmuch as you are democrats in word, and outwardly only, it is completely understandable then, that you do not act in accord with the constitution, that is, you act without regard for any laws, regulations, or customs, and that you carry out your own self-will in the most forceful way. Today’s meeting is the most accurate proof that you care not a whit for constitutionality, that is, even for the sake of a so-so respectable and appropriate outward appearance, wherein the people are asked their thinking, at least a little.
Behold! You did not want to call into session the entire National Council, but only this Committee. You know very well that even the Council itself does not represent the people, for the people did not elect it. However, at least nearly all the political parties and factions are represented in that body, and hence, the public at large should be represented here as well. But as soon as the public is present, there cannot be the sheer supremacy of an oligarchy, one of self-will and imposition.
I ask you, why haven’t you called the entire National Council into session for so fateful a step? You didn’t because you know that you are doing wrong, and that it would become immediately apparent as soon as a public debate within a larger circle of discussants would take place. When I stop to reflect upon it, I can grasp how profound is your unconstitutional behavior, since you by-pass our Croatian National Parliament! Representative Hrvoje already spoke of this, therefore I will not drag it out, but I will warn you that you bitterly deceive yourselves if you think that you can willfully sidestep one-thousand and more years of Croatian history and Croatian statehood.
You hold that history and that nationhood as nothing, supposedly because you feel that we Croatians were under foreign domination, and supposedly because our history is really foreign and not our own. You are doubly wrong in your view. You are wrong firstly, because you knowingly and intentionally remain silent about the fact that we Croatians–at least those of us to the left–always struggled against foreign domination, and that we knew how to be victorious throughout that struggle, at least to the extent that the foreign dominators were never the true or successful masters over the Croatians.
That was the first reason, while this is the second: You, as educated men, know that Croatian history, the 1,000 years of the Croatian past, has great moral significance, without regard to politics. We regard the man who if forgetful of all that has transpired, the man who labors as though he has no memory of his past experiences, to be a fool. The Croatian people do not wish to be such fools, and do not wish to forget their past history, if for no other reason but that they have no desire to do so. Behold, you so eagerly call attention to our progressive brothers, the Czechs. Just read the message of their leading politician Masaryk–who wrote much against historical rights–and you will see that even he, ceaselessly stresses Czech National rights, the Czech historical borders, the thousand years political and cultural heritage of the Czechs.
However, gentlemen, you are especially unconstitutional to the extreme as regards all that you said and wrote up to yesterday–you and your predecessors from all the various parties represented here today.
Let me mention you Slovenes first. You raised your voices to the heavens, entirely of your own initiative and voluntarily, saying that you are one in soul with us Croatians, and that you wish to be united with us on the basis of our Croatian historic state rights. All you Slovenes were as one on that point, those of you who are Clericals: Dr. Sustersic, Dr. Krek, Dr. Korosec; and Liberals: Dr. Tavcar, Triller, Hribar; and Radicals: Dr. Ravnikar and his followers; in fact, even Socialists. All your newspapers wrote as much, and in that vein, you placed your signatures on the May Declaration (May 30, 1918), and what is most important, you told your people their only salvation lay in that course of action. On the basis of that proposed union, on the basis of the union of the Croatian and Slovene populace at the national level, you garnered the trust of the people, and came to this meeting.
Undoubtedly, you will respond: “We not only stand by that basis, in fact, we expand it to include the union of the peoples and nations of the Slovenes, Croatians, and Serbs.” Good! Good! However, did you receive the authority and assent of your people for that course, and for such an expansion? You did not! In fact, you did not even ask your people’s permission, and you do not even intend to ask them, but rather, you simply maintain that the Slovene people desire that which you now propose, that is, the union of the populace within a national union with the Serbs, wherein the entire government and its legislature will be in Belgrade–that Zagreb and Ljubljana be, not equal to, and alongside Belgrade, but rather subject to Belgrade.
I tell you loud and clear, that is not the truth, and what is more important, you, yourselves, just four days ago, said that it was not the truth. Just four days ago, Dr. Remec announced at the meeting of this Committee, that he “fully agrees with Mr. Radic, and that he declares in the name of the entire Slovene people, that all Slovenes are Republicans.” Mr. Svetozar Pribicevic snarled his response to that statement and said: “Why, Dr. Kramer is here present, and he and his Party are not for a republic.” Dr. Remec, the representative for the pan-Slovene peoples Party, corrected him by saying that in the name of nine-tenths of the Slovene people, he can announce that they are all republicans.” Even though you Slovenes know that well, you knowingly and intentionally, and contrary to the will of your people, therefore entirely unconstitutionally, propose a centralized national union with the Kingdom of Serbia.
And, gentlemen, what am I to say about you Dalmatians?! The entire political history of Dalmatia through five centuries–from the 7th through the 12th century–was purely Croatian. Dalmatia, at that time was but a few towns and islands, as all of you know, while all of the present-day Dalmatia, and even up to the River Kupa, was, and is, the real and true Croatia.
However, you will respond: “Spare us that ancient history.” But behold: through the last fifty years, the Dalmatian Croatian hardly offered a gasp politically, except for union with Croatia’s Banovina into a united nation and homeland: Croatia. Now that you have the opportunity to make that national Croatian-Dalmatian program a reality, you, gentlemen, have, without the consent, and against the will of the people, severed yourselves from Croatia. Without the approval of the people, you wish to subject yourselves under Belgrade, in a centralistic national union within the Kingdom of Serbia. And, you act so unconstitutionally that you do not even intend to ask the people about this matter, but, rather, you simply intend to force your new program upon the populace of Dalmatia!
And you, Serbian gentlemen from Vojvodina, you also forgot, entirely, the program and plea of your immortal leader, Svetozar Miletic: “Our trust is in the Triune Kingdom [Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia].” You now make of this Triune a “two-une”, and wish to make of it a “non-une.”
The same applies to you, gentlemen, from Bosnia. One of your leaders, Dr. Alaupovic, in fact, utters the phrase: “You Croatians,” as though he intends to imply that he is no longer a Croatian. All of you trample all of your promises, all of your public oaths to the people, and on all that you have spoken or written. You now wish to create something which you have never spoken about to the people, and which you have never debated, much less, given the people an opportunity to vote upon.
I know how you will respond to me: “The great moment has arrived,” you will say, “opportunity knocks, and the moment we have dreamed of for centuries can now be made a reality, a reality of which we were unable to speak of or even dream of while under foreign domination.”
Good! And what, precisely, is that of which we were not permitted to dream of? For the Serbs, if what you say is true, and I hear that it is not, it was that Serbia be enlarged and glorified, that King Peter be crowned as emperor, so that he can renew Dusan’s Empire. In your opinion, the Serbians have no other thoughts on the matter. To be sure, I hear that the majority in Serbia are already republicans. While there are no brothers from Serbia present, you Serbs from Croatia, and from Hungary, and from Bosnia are, in truth, exclusively Dusanites. You are for a Greater Serbia, for a powerful and glorious empire, and for the idea of the “Vow of Kosovo,” for revenge on all sides, for the nine Jugovic’s, for Kraljevic Marko, etc. etc. We Croatians are not for that. Our Croatian peasant–and that means nine-tenths of our population–came of age during the war: he no longer intends to be a servant to anyone, to slave for anyone–neither a foreigner nor his brother–neither for a foreign nation, nor for his own. He wishes his nation to be built upon the base of freedom, republicanism, and social justice, in this hour of momentous decision. And you, gentlemen, who are but a tiny fistful, you are opposed! And by being opposed to such a free, republican, and socially just desire, the willful desire and need of all our people–especially the Croatian people, in whose name I now speak–you do not, even for a moment, reflect upon the fact that you commit an awful and tremendous, forgive me for saying it, stupidity.
It is an awful fault when the torrents of martyr blood–you refer to it as hero’s blood– the blood of Serbs, and Croatians, and Slovenes is as nothing to you, for you say that same blood was spilt for King Peter and for a new, greater kingdom. All the tears, prayers, and sighs of all our mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters, are as nothing to you. You say those tears are to be jewels in the crown of King Peter, and are to be the shining rays of some sort of kingly glory and greatness! You have no clue, or else wish to have none, that all our people, especially our Croatian people, wish, want, seek, and demand that all their spilt blood result in a just, and completely republican freedom, the sort that was tasted by many of our people in America. Our people desire that those countless innocent tears procure for them the justice they fought for, and the kind their peasant brothers in Russia will soon achieve.
When you are so unjust, to the extreme, then, naturally, you cannot be wise.
Lo, the telegram of those Serbian Ministers who are already in Belgrade, was read here. Those Ministers, quite wisely, state that they are willing to meet and to discuss with the delegates to the National Council about that which the full National Council agrees upon. They will then submit those proposals to the Serbian Parliament, and, to the extent it applies in particular, also, to the Croatian National Parliament.
Their proposition is insufficient for you. You are in a hurry to impose your power upon all the people as quickly as possible, especially upon Croatia. You do not sense, in the very least, that it is unwise, that it is imprudent, that it is, in fact, irrational to act without the consent of the people, never mind, against the will of the people. You learned nothing from the fall of [Istvan] Tisza [in Hungary] or of [emperor] Wilhelm [in Germany]. You became the N.V. (National Council) by means of the supposed revolution, and you evidently think the National Council to be the new “His Royal Highness.” I say to you again, and you heard me say it so often before: there is no firm or justified power without the consent of the people.
I know. I know. You hold that you are not only with the people, but, in fact, that you represent the people. I proved to you that you are not. The entire Croatian people are for republican freedom, and for social justice. You are for the old and bankrupt use of force, as well as for economic selfishness and robbery. You, therefore, are no longer with the people, and hardly, can you be said to speak for the people. For that reason, nothing will come of your scheme…You will go to Belgrade. You will declare, without the support of, and contrary to the wishes of the Croatian people, a united and centralistic nation. Without shame, and with no fear, you will rule on the basis of the old corrupt and unjust Austrian and Hungarian laws, and with the aid of the entrenched, submissive, and corrupt officials. Perhaps you will even rule without laws–by force and despotism. The people will see from this that you are not a part of them, and they will not be for you. Wherever you beckon them to go, they will not follow. Least of all, they will not respond to you by giving you their trust, nor will they, of their own freewill, recognize and approve your use of power and your deceit. In pursuit of this effort, should you gain the support of the Entente, and should the Entente be so unwise, and so weak, as to help you, you will not, in that case, have the trust of the people. As soon as it is time for the first elections, be they of whatever sort, either for a constitutive or a simple parliament, the people will no longer elect such gentlemen who have trampled upon all their promises, and all of their programs, and who have, without question, forced upon them all the same old power, injustice, and brigandry. The people will elect to the Parliament only peasants of the plow and hoe, and of the gentlemanly class, only those who have, under the present conditions, stood by the will of the people, that is, stood for republican freedom, and social justice. And I, whom you dismiss and exclude from you midst, and upon whose head, in fact, you have put a price, will, God willing, be the fish in the water not only among the Croatian Peasantry, but also among the Slovene and Serbian peasantry.
Gentlemen! I will conclude with that of which you speak most about, and of which you least reflect upon, that which is of the least concern to you: I will conclude with the unity of the people. There are enough of you present who know quite well that I have openly, publicly, fearlessly, and with determination defended the unity of our people–the unity of all the South Slavs, especially that of the Croatians and Serbs, as far back as twenty years and more ago, when a man’s head would be in a bag for it, or else would end up behind bars. There are enough of you who know in particular that I placed my life, that of my wife and children, on the line in September of l902, when I publicly, by word and deed, spoke out against the destruction of Serbian property in Zagreb, at the time when Zagreb was consumed with bitterness and rage because of the incomprehensible insult on the part of the Serbs, which was thoughtlessly published in Belgrade’s Literary Messenger , and, foolishly re- printed in Zagreb’s Srbobran , namely, that the Serbian battle must endure unto “extinction,” that is, until the destruction of one of us, the Croatians or the Serbs. From that time forward, I only broadened and deepened my thinking about national unity: I broadened it to include all Slavs, and I deepened it to such an extent, that after this awful war, I now say to you, before it is too late: Gentlemen! Don’t just speak hollow words about national unity. Do not say and write that our common language is sufficiently strong a tie for our people. Grasp, once and for all, that a people is something much deeper and broader than is their language. Grasp, once and for all, that nationality matters, especially after this war in which millions of peasants, workers, and townsfolk have participated, at the war front or the home front, that, from now on nationality matters only to the extent to which it defends and develops a sense of humanity, that is, only to the extent that with the aid of nationality men gain more advantage and get along better. Grasp, once and for all, that the old class, military, capitalistic, bureaucratic, and clerical days are forever gone.
Our people especially no longer wish to hear talk of militarism, capitalism, bureaucrats, and clericalism. All our people, especially our Croatian people, want, desire, seek, and demand that every peasant feel the new freedom and new justice for themselves, in their homes, in their villages, in their counties, and in their region. For that to be a true reality, you must first, remove all the old tyrants, all the old, unfair laws and arrangements; secondly, you must grant the right to the people themselves to have the chance to rule and regulate themselves. If you fail to grant these opportunities to them, and if you fail to recognize those rights, the people will take for themselves these rights and conditions, without your consent and against you.
Gentlemen! It is still not too late! Do not rush forward as geese in a fog! Do not conclude a unitary government with the Kingdom of Serbia if for no other reason but for the fact that no one in the name of the Kingdom of Serbia is present, in fact, nothing more is present than that single telegram, which, in fact, also proposes something entirely different than you do. Do not proceed in such a manner that, today or tomorrow will have to be said of you Slovenes, and you Serbs from Vojvodina and Bosnia, and you our own Croatian Dalmatians, and most especially you, our local Croatian Serbs, that you have gathered here so as to only carry out a conspiratorial act against the people, especially against Croatia and against the Croatians. At least see that this decision is extremely important and of great consequence, and that it is necessary to call into session the entire National Council and, of course, the Croatian Parliament. Based on your present proposition that twenty-eight members of the Central Committee immediately leave for Belgrade, and in that there are no more than twenty-eight members in the Committee, it is obvious that every one will say that the Committee authorized itself to proclaim a unitary government with the Kingdom of Serbia. Obviously, the Committee is not authorized to do so, and does not have that right.
Gentlemen! The entire world recognizes the right to national self-determination. We have to thank that right for our very own freedom. That right to self- determination belongs, in an international sense, to all three of our peoples, namely, the Slovenes, Croatians, and Serbians, in the determination of our national boundaries in relationship to other nations. That right belongs to all three of our nations, and especially to us Croatians in Croatia as regards the formation and the advancement of our common nation.
We are three brothers, Croatian, Slovene, Serbian, and not one brother. Each brother is to be asked. Serbs from Serbia are not even present here, while you well know how we Croatians from Croatia are here represented. No one and nothing is forcing you, except, perhaps, your guilty conscience, to rush this cause, which you know will not be approved by the Croatian people, and which you wish to carry out, and ratify as quickly as possible against their will.
Gentlemen! It is an awful thing, the greatest sin, and the most grave political error to present to your very own people an accomplished fact, that is, to carry on politics according to your own gentlemanly whims without consulting the people and contrary to the will of the people. If you do not believe me–God grant that all of you live long enough, and that won’t be too long off, to see as to how the Croatian people in their sense of republicanism and humanness will blow you away in the very moment you think they have quieted down, and at the time you feel you have saddled and ridden them well. Long live the Republic! Long live Croatia!
****
It has been eighty years since Stjepan Radic delivered the above speech. It was spoken in vain. The unitary state was created and the tragic results are well known to us today. However, the speech has an historic value. It expresses the social and political reality of the time, the desires of the people on one side and the manipulations of a small elite on the other. The decisions of that elite proved to be disastrous not only for all the peoples involved, especially the Croatian people, but also for Radic, and even for those who rushed to create a common South Slavic state in 1918.
Juraj Julije Klovic
Giorgio Giulio Clovio
Michelangelo of the Miniature
(Croatia 1498-Rome 1578)
Marjana Vucic
American Croatian Review, Year V, No. 1 and 2, June 1998, p. 51-52.
This year marks the 500th anniversary of Klovic’s birth. He is recognized as the most important illuminator of the 16th century. He was known as the Michelangelo of Miniature Art. Although much of his inspiration came from Raphael and Michelangelo, he developed
his own visual language, brilliantly translating their monumental forms of work on the smallest scale.
Klovic, educated in his native Croatia, came to Italy at the age of 18 to study art. He began his training in Venice and spent several years there in the service of Cardinal Domenico Grimani and the Cardinal’s nephew Marino Grimani. During this period, Klovic visited Rome, where he met Giulio Romano and studied with him. This stay in Rome, as well as his experience with the art collections of the Grimani, which included many works by northern artists, notably Durer, strongly influenced his artistic development. In 1523, Klovic left Venice to work at the court of Louis II, the king of Bohemia and Hungary-Croatia, and his wife Mary of Austria, the sister of Emperor Charles V. Works he executed there may include illustrations in a missal (1525; Zagreb Cathedral, Treasury) made for Simone Erdody, Bishop of Zagreb, depicting leaves with scenes of the Virgin and Christ, landscape medallions and richly decorated borders of putty with garlands. He is known to have painted a picture of the Death of Lucretia for the Queen Mary and a Judgement of Paris, both works untraced. His stay at the court ended with the Turkish invasion and the death of King Louis in 1526.
Klovic returned to Rome, where he was taken into the service of Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggi (1474-1539). He resumed contact with Giulio Romano, and according to Vasari, studied the works of Michelangelo. During the following year he was taken prisoner by the troops of Charles V, a traumatic experience that led to his decision to join a monastery. On his release from prison he moved to Mantua, where he entered the Benedictine Abbey of St. Ruffino, taking the name Giulio probably in honor of his teacher. With the help of Grimani, who had become a Cardinal in 1527, Clovio obtained papal dispensation to leave the monastery, although he remained a 
priest. References to Michelangelo include nude figures taken from those on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Klovic’s figures are lively and graceful with an appealing sensuality. His work the Book of Hours, known as the Farnese Hours and generally acknowledged as his masterpiece, was completed for Cardinal Campeggi in 1546. It contains 26 miniatures illustrating biblical scenes, including the Death of Uriah the Hittite, the Crossing of the Red Sea, the Circumcision, and Flight into Egypt.
Klovic accompanied Cardinal Alessandro Farnese to Florence in 1551 and remained there until 1553. For the Duke of Florence, Cosimo I de Medici, he executed small paintings on parchment, a Crucifixion with St. Mary Magdalene, in the Florence Uffizi. He returned to Rome in 1553, when he probably executed the Towneley Lectionary (London) also Commissioned by Cardinal Farnese. The miniatures for this manuscript, which include a Last Judgement and a dramatic Resurrection, again exhibit a mixture of Roman influences but have a greater spiritual intensity, reflecting the Counter Reformation. It has been suggested that they also show interest in Flemish art.
In 1561 Klovic returned to Rome again to the household of Cardinal Farnese in the Palazzo della Cancelleria. During his periods of residence in Rome, Klovic had access to many important writers and artists and he became an influential figure in artistic life there. His friends included Michelangelo, Giorgio Vasari, Annibal Caro, and Vittoria Colonna. He was an early supporter of El Greco and in 1570 persuaded Cardinal Farnese to give the young artist lodgings in the Palazzo. El Greco’s striking portrait of Clovio (1571; Naples, Capodimonte) shows him holding the Farnese Hours and indicating the miniature of the Creation of the Sun and Moon. Klovic’s likeness, with that of Michelangelo and Raphael, is also included in El Greco’s painting of Christ Driving the Money-changers form the Temple (Minneapolis, MN). Late works by him include three miniatures, the Holy Family with a 
Knight, the Holy Family with St. Elizabeth, and David and Goliath (Paris, Mus. Marmottan). Among his finest surviving drawings are the Entombment (Chicago Art Inst.) and the Conversion of St. Paul, Crucifixion and Lamentation (London B.M.) Variants of the Entombment (Paris, Louvre) include a cortege of Michelangelesque male nudes, and a number of drawings copied from Michelangelo also survive (Windsor Castle; Royal Lib.).
Klovic died in Rome on January 3, 1578 and was buried in St. Pietro in Vincoli, Rome. An inventory made after his death indicates that his collection included works by Bruegel and Titian. His drawings were left to Cardinal Farnese.
Klovic’s Letter on Behalf of El Greco
The memorable letter of 1570 from Julije Klovic to Cardinal Farnese, describes in a few words the situation of El Greco at that time. Cardinal Farnese was in Viterbo and that is where the letter is being addressed:
To Cardinal Farnese, in Viterbo
November 16 [1570]
A young man from the island of Candia has arrived in Rome, a disciple of Tiziano, who, in my judgment, is among those excellent in painting. Among other things, he has done a portrait of himself that has caused the astonishment of the Roman painters. I would like to put him under Your Excellency’s protection. He does not need anything else to live but a room in the Farnese palace for a short while until he finds better accommodations. Therefore, I beg you to write to Mr. 
Ludovico, your housekeeper, to provide him with a room in the upper quarters of said palace. Your Excellency will do a good deed and I would be much obliged. I kiss with reverence your hands, and remain Your Excellency’s humble servant.
Don Julio Clovio (Julije Klovic)
Julije Klovic in the Eyes of His Contemporaries
Vasari, the famous contemporary writer, calls him: “il maraviglioso,” “il piccolo Michelangnolo,” and “il principe dei miniatori.”
Lomazzo speaks of him as “il mirabile,” “l’unico.”
Lanzi, even: “il restauratore delle arti.”
Zani: “il Raffaello dei Miniatori.”
Rosnini: “insuperato miraculoso.”
Nagler referring to his productions says, ” Alles hat ein rafaelisches gepräge.”
In short, the universal testimony is that he was the most famous miniaturist of his time, and his time was that of the most famous artists of the modern world.
From John W. Bradley. The Life and Works of Giorgio Giulio Clovio. Amsterdam, G. W. Hissink, 1971. Reprint of the 1891 Edition.
Stjepan Radic
His Life – His party – His politics
Ante Cuvalo
Also see one of Radic’s speeches
(Seventieth Anniversary of His Assassination)
American Croatian Review, Year v, No. 3 and 4, December 1998, pp.29-36.
At the turn of the 20th century, when Stjepan Radic entered the political arena, questions of national unity and Slavic equality in the Habsburg monarchy were primary issues in Croatian politics. Various Croatian provinces and regions had different relations with the crown. Some were directly under Austria (Dalmatia and Istria) and others had autonomy within the Hungarian half of the empire. Bosnia and Herzegovina, also a Croatian homeland, was under the shared responsibility of both Vienna and Budapest. The fragmentation of the nation, therefore, prevented the formation of a common political front among Croats.
From the time of the Hungarian-Croatian Agreement of 1868, unification of the country under a common Sabor (Diet)
and Ban (viceroy) in Zagreb, and national autonomy were the two major objectives of the Croatian nationalist forces. In their eyes, autonomy would secure for the Croatians equality with the Germans and the Magyars in the Habsburg empire. Political activities and control of the existing parties at the time were in the hands of the upper and middle classes, while the majority of the people did not have the right to vote. Those who were involved in the political process were divided into three principal factions. One supported the existing regime; the other two advocated national autonomy but with different goals in mind: one looked toward a vague idea of South Slavic unity; the other envisioned a Croatian independent state as the ultimate goal.
Stjepan Radic was a member of a new generation of politicians. He was not pleased with the old political framework. His dream was to awake the “sleeping giant” (the peasants) and to make them a political force, as well as to add a social dimension to traditional politics. Radic was a charismatic leader, “the greatest of political acrobats,” 1 and an intellectual whose life-long dream was to achieve freedom, justice, and equality by peaceful means. But Radic and his dream ended as victims of hatred and violence in Belgrade’s parliament in 1928.
Youth and Education
Stjepan Radic was born to a large and poor peasant family in the small village of Trebarjevo Desno about thirty miles southeast of Zagreb on June 11, 1871. He was the ninth of eleven children. His lengthy daily journeys on foot to and from the primary school in the neighboring village did not prevent him from becoming an excellent student. Because of his nearsightedness his parent did not plan a higher education for him. However, his older brother Antun, already a student in Zagreb, managed to secure a small scholarship for Stjepan to enroll in the gymnasium (high school) in Zagreb. Stjepan was constantly plagued with financial problems because the scholarship soon ran out. He did receive some help from wealthy patrons and the Catholic Church because of his academic excellence, but most of the time he was on his own. He made ends meet by tutoring less talented students.
From his youth, Radic was adventurous and enthusiastic. When he was fifteen years old, he traveled alone through the northern parts of Croatia. He went from village to village listening and talking to the peasants. He was interested in not only how they lived, but also what they thought about people living in the cities and city politicians who were far removed from the peasants’ needs. At that early age he already believed that his life would be dedicated to politics, or, as his family would say, “he would teach and defend the people” 2
Radic had his first clash with state authorities when he was seventeen. The occasion was an ordinance issued by the Ban, Khuen Hedervary, to close the Croatian National Theater in Zagreb. An opera dealing with Croatian national history was the last performance before the closure. The moment was tense. At the most patriotic point of the opera, Radic stood up and began to shout national slogans and “Down with Hedervary,” 3 who was seen as the symbol of foreign (Magyar) oppression in Croatia. The affair ended without a trial, but Radic would not be so fortunate in the future.
During his high school years, Radic spent most of his summers traveling. He traveled throughout the Slovene lands because his interest was to see the lives of the common people and to meet as many national leaders as possible. He went to Germany to learn more about the German political system. In 1888 he went to Russia. Radic had always been an admirer of the Russians, but this trip to an “unfriendly country” made him yet more dangerous in the eyes of the Habsburg regime. After his return from Russia, he organized a literary club which subscribed to all major Slavic magazines, including those from Russia. He also began to teach some of his friends Russian. Because of such “anti-government activities” he was expelled from the gymnasium and put into the mental ward of the local hospital .4 He was forced to drop out of school for a year and then to finish his secondary education in the city of Karlovac. After his final examinations, he resumed his travels through Croatia: this time he went to the southern provinces. The trip, however, was cut short because of Serb accusations that Radic was spreading Croatian nationalism. He was detained by police and then escorted to Zagreb.
In 1891, Radic became a student of law at the University of Zagreb but his primary concern was national politics. He and others of the younger generation advocated cooperation among the existing Croatian political parties in order to create a united opposition to the Habsburg regime. This goal was achieved in 1892 to the satisfaction of Radic and all the nationalists. But because of his political activism, Radic very soon clashed with the law again.
In July 1893, he was sentenced to four months in jail for accusing Ban Hedervary of being a Magyar hussar and a tyrant at a public meeting. During the jail term he studied Czech which would be useful to him soon. He was expelled from the University of Zagreb and had to continue his studies outside Croatia. He went to Prague where he resumed not only his schooling but also his political activism.
While in Prague, Radic became a member of Slavia Club, traveled through the countryside regularly, met his future wife, and was an active participant in student political life. Because of his politics, he was expelled from the university of Prague and “the entire territory of the Kingdoms and Lands represented in the Reichsrath” .5 He had no choice but to go to Budapest, if he wanted to finish his studies. However, his stay in the Hungarian capital proved to be short- lived. He did not like the city for political reasons and decided to return to Zagreb for the purpose of organizing an anti-Magyar protest (among other things) on the occasion of the Emperor’s visit to the city.
In the fall of 1895, the Emperor and King Franz Joseph came to Zagreb. Besides the Croatian flags there were also Hungarian colors flying in the main square and government buildings. This was used as a pretext for demonstrations. About two hundred students dressed in the traditional uniforms of Jelacic regiments and under the national colors marched to the city’s main square, named after Ban Josip Jelacic — the symbol of anti-Magyar struggle from the time of the 1848 Revolution. There, at the foot of Jelacic’s monument, they burned the Magyar flag, shouting “Glory to Jelacic” and “Down with the Magyars.” Most of the students were arrested and Radic served a jail term of six months.
Soon after his release, young Stjepan went to Russia. He wanted to finish his university education in Moscow, but he had overestimated Russian friendship. The Minister of Education, Nikolai Pavlovich Bogolepov, informed him that a man with his personal history should be sent to Siberia instead of being admitted to the university .6 From Moscow he proceeded to Paris and there graduated in political science. In 1899, Radic and his wife returned to Prague, but shortly thereafter they were expelled from the country. In 1900, they returned to Croatia and from that point on, besides his interest in his family, politics became the main focus of his life.
Despite his poverty, his peasant background, and his visual impediment, Radic somehow managed to befriend a good number of leading political and cultural figures in Croatia and abroad. Without their recommendations and financial help he would not have had a chance to travel or to finish his formal education. It seems that many people recognized his special talents and ambitions and were willing to support him in his efforts. On the other hand, he was more interested in learning from the lives and experiences of important people than in getting their material help. He felt a need to prepare himself for his future political mission, for which, he believed, he was destined. For example, in a letter written in 1893 he stated: I would be completely happy, if I did not constantly think about our oppressed and humiliated homeland…[But] I am fully happy even now, because I am preparing myself as much as possible to be able sooner or later, by the help of the just and eternal God and sincere and faithful friends, to unite and to liberate Croatia, our God-given homeland” .7
Intellectual and Political Influences
Radic’s intellectual development was influenced by various people. First, he was affected by the leading Illyrian and post-Illyrian Croatian writers. Illyrism in Croatian was a mixture of nationalism and a vague idea of South Slavic solidarity. His friend and mentor, historian Franjo Racki, made a strong impression on young Radic, especially in the area of national struggle against the Habsburgs and Magyars, as well as in promoting the idea of Slavic unity. His Czech friends and professors also influenced his intellectual orientation: although Thomas Masaryk, a leading Czech intellectual, was once his next door neighbor, the ideas of Frantisek Palacky, a Czech of the mid-19th century, were more important to him.
Radic was also a Panslav, but his Panslavism never took a pragmatic shape. It was an ideal which he never tried to incorporate into his practical politics. Russian Populism was another movement whose ideas were reflected in his writings and his political program .8 During his stay in Paris, Radic absorbed the teachings of some of his professors, as well as of some French writers of the time. The democratic ideas of the French Revolution and the works of the French historian Jules Michelet had an important impact on his future political work .9 Although a man of faith, Radic was a strong opponent of clericalism.
Some historians claim that Stjepan’s older brother Antun was actually the original thinker and the true ideologist of the Peasant Party, and that he was the strongest intellectual influence on his younger brother .10 But others consider both brothers equally important in the development of the peasant ideology in Croatia. In fact, neither contributed more than the other: they contributed equally but in different ways .11
Croatian People’s Peasant Party
Not only was the rule of Khuen Hedervary as Ban of Croatia a long one (1883- 1903), but it was also detrimental to political life in the country. Hedervary secured an election law that guaranteed him an obedient Sabor (Diet). Magyarization through domestic terror and other policies were the main features of his political program. In addition, he followed the Habsburg example of a divide et impera policy. He inaugurated the era of Serbian-Croatian antagonism by using the Serb minority in Croatia for his political goals at the expense of the Croatians.
The year 1903 marked a turning point in Croatian politics. As a united opposition developed, Khuen began to lose power. The Emperor recalled him in order to subdue political opposition in Budapest, hoping that he would be able to handle the Hungarian opposition as he had done in Zagreb. After Khuen’s departure a number of new political parties emerged, one of which was the Croatian People’s Peasant Party/Hrvatska pucka seljacka stranka (HPSS), organized by the two Radic brothers.
Stjepan and his brother Antun tried at first to work within the framework of the old political formations. Soon they realized that the old parties were not suitable for new ideas, nor would the older political leaders change their frame of reference. The Radic brothers’ belief that the peasantry should become the main political force in the country did not appeal to the ruling middle class. Even their younger friends were reluctant to accept the peasantry as the future backbone of national politics. Thus, the idea that the peasants were the “strongest political party in Croatia” 12 was attacked by both the conservatives and the progressives. Despite such opinions, the party was established on December 5, 1904. Stjepan became its president and the chief propagator. The founding committee expressed the main goal of the party in the following words: Having assessed the Croatian past and present, it became imperative that we should pursue a policy that will not only lead to a united Croatia and her complete independence, but will also provide for all her people a better education and general social progress. For that worthy cause the Croatian People’s Peasant Party has been founded and we are confident that it will fulfill its calling as the party of the people .13
Ideology of the Party
At the end of the last century, the existing political parties in Croatia were becoming obsolete. Their programs were too narrow and legalistic and did not address contemporary social and economic problems. One of their main concerns was to retain and expand the historic rights, through which Croatia had preserved the core of its medieval statehood while under the Hungarian or Habsburg crown and which gave Croatia the right to seek unification of its lands and full self-rule, or even independence. The Radic brothers also adhered to those historic rights and goals, but they added new dimensions to national politics: to educate the peasants, to improve their economic and cultural life, and to bring the majority of the people into the political processes. In order to achieve such goals Croatian villages had to be mobilized and politicized. Moreover, the party ideologues called for democratization of the existing political system, universal male suffrage, and freedom of speech, assembly, and the press .14 The HPSS, therefore, incorporated four major principles into its program: statehood, Slavism, people (peasants) as the majority political force, and political liberalism .15 Freedom for the nation was a primary goal but it meant not only freedom from external oppression, it meant freedom for all the people, not only the gospoda (elite). The party’s Slavism was to be expressed primarily through Croatian and Serb cooperation in Croatia and then in the sharing of common interests with Slovene lands and other Slavic countries, especially with “the progressive Czechs and the strong Russians” .16 In concrete political terms, Radic’s Slavism basically meant cooperation of the Slavic peoples within the Habsburg empire.
Because the peasantry in Croatia and other agrarian lands constituted the majority of the population, Radic believed that it should be the ruling majority. According to him, the peasants should create a “peasant state” not by a revolution, but by peaceful means. In such a state there would be no privileged classes or extreme individuals. The higher classes would realize that they are one with the common people. Social differences would disappear, and all the classes would become one people and one nation. The peasant ideology rejected oppression and dictatorship and “peasant democracy” was essential to individual and national progress. The peasant ideal, according to Radic, was not to oppress other classes but to harmonize and to cooperate with all in order to have full freedom and justice .17 Therefore, the republic was the ideal type of state in which equality and democracy would rule.
The right to hold private property was also one of the basic principles of the peasants’ ideology. The ideology did not single out the rich, rather it advocated that government introduce laws which would decrease the gap between the rich and the poor. Minimum possessions should be guaranteed to every family, and should not be violated for any reason .18
Political Activity (1904-1918)
In his policies toward the Habsburg monarchy, Radic advocated a reorganization of the empire from the dualist (Austria-Hungary) system into a federation .19 In his article “Slavic Politics in the Habsburg Monarchy,” published in 1906, Radic outlined his party’s proposal for a structural change of the empire. The following are the main points of the proposal: Czech would be the official language of the Slavs in the monarchy; dualism would be abolished and five equal political units created (Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia; Galicia and Bukovina; Hungary, Slovakia, and Transylvania; Croatia and Slovenia; and German Austria); Vienna would remain the capital of the federation; civil liberties, economic and social policies would be the same throughout the empire; a Common Imperial Council would be in charge of all collective affairs; the country would be neutral in its foreign policy, and the title of Austria-Hungary would be changed into “Danubian Federation of States and Nationalities” .20 Radic also dreamed of future united countries in other parts of Europe. According to him, the Danubian Federation would be the nucleus for a Central European Federation. But his proposal was not welcomed even by other Slavic political leaders. Masaryk, for example, dismissed the idea as unrealistic. Radic was considered too Panslavist and Russophile by the leading Slav politicians in the monarchy.
In the 1905 Sabor elections, Radic became a political candidate for the first time. Although he was not elected at that time, from 1908 till his death in 1928, he won every election he entered. It is interesting to note that he and other candidates from his party took an oath for the 1908 elections which was also published in the party newspaper. The oath reflected the Peasant party program. They vowed, among other things, to never go to Pest (Hungary’s capital), to work for the breaking of all ties with Hungary, and to fight for universal male suffrage, equality, economic and legal reforms .21
In the 1910 elections the Peasant party won nine out of eighty-eight seats in the Croatian Sabor. It was an important victory for Radic. For the first time in the history of the Sabor there were five peasants as representatives. It was proof that the peasants were entering political life and that Radic’s program was being slowly accepted and implemented. However, at this time, the party was not able to gain the political power Radic desired because most peasants did not have the right to vote. The real power of the peasantry would be felt only after World War I because of the new state’s universal manhood suffrage.
Even though Radic was elected to the Sabor a number of times, he could not pursue any meaningful political action in that representative body because either the Sabor was dissolved or Radic was jailed or prevented in some other way from parliamentary participation. For that reason most of his activities were devoted to political activism outside the Sabor. He went to the countryside to deliver speeches and organize the peasantry. He published newspapers, pamphlets, booklets, and almanacs. At the same time, Radic corresponded with many Slavic political and cultural leaders that helped him to get international exposure. For example, while in Prague during the Second Panslavic Congress in 1908, he was invited to come to Russia to give lectures on the Balkans and the Slavs in the Habsburg monarchy .22
Throughout the pre-World War I era, Radic’s popularity grew among the common people and even among some progressives of the middle class. The regime did everything it could to prevent his party form gaining strength. He was accused of being an enemy of the Monarchy, as well as being an agent of Russia, Serbia, and even France. On the other hand, when he was lecturing in Russia he was denounced as an agent of Austria. Despite the persecutions, prison terms, and derision, Radic continued to dedicated his life and all his capabilities to the ideals of his party. The peasants were more and more attracted to him and to his political program. He was becoming their true spokesman.
Radic did not believe in violence. He advocated fundamental changes but always by peaceful means. He, therefore, condemned the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo as a cowardly act. When the war started he hoped it would cause a radical change in the monarchy without causing its destruction. He joined others in the public predictions of a final victory for the Central Powers. However, his private desires were different. He expressed his opinions on the war to his friend and successor Vladko Macek: The only chance for the Croats lies in a total defeat of Austro-Hungary, without, however, causing its dissolution. A victory of the Dual Monarchy, allied with Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany, would have catastrophic results for all nationalities within its frame, except Germans and Magyars. On the other hand, the crumbling of the Habsburg Empire would spell disaster for all of them, Germans and Magyars included .23
Radic kept in touch with the soldiers on the front by means of letters. The government accused him of anti-war propaganda because he published many letters from the soldiers and their relatives. Despite his poor vision, he almost ended up in the Habsburg army. Only after the second medical examination, he was declared unfit to serve. Although the Sabor was reopened in 1915, Radic was banned from the parliamentary sessions most of the time. His federalist demands and attacks on the government caused the ruling majority to exclude him from the Sabor.
Radic greeted the 1917 February/March Russian revolution with enthusiasm. He regarded it as neither bourgeois, nor intellectual, nor socialist, nor agrarian, but as a compound of “English aristocracy – Prince Lvov; French bourgeois – Miliukov; and peasant intelligentsia – Kerensky” .24 He also began to advocate the principle of self-determination in his arguments against centralism, stressing that the people alone should make their political choices. They would no longer be the objects but rather the subjects of political life. Thus, he demanded the immediate and full emancipation of Croatia within the empire. In September 1917, he declared: Croatian loyalty to the Monarchy cannot without impunity be mistaken for loyalty to Germano-Magyar dualism, and if they continue to refuse us a fair deal in the future, I shall be among the first who, unafraid of the gallows, will shout: ‘Down with the Habsburgs!'”25
For the above words Radic was expelled from the Sabor one more time, to which he returned in the second half of 1918, when the empire was already crumbling.
A Slow Road to Belgrade
Even before Vienna asked for an armistice in October 1918, Radic, like many others, realized that the end of the Monarchy was near. A number of Slavic politicians in the Monarchy, including Radic, went to Prague in April of the same year to discuss their political options. Radic declared that the policies of Vienna and Budapest had lost all support among the Croatians and that a union with Slovenia, Serbia, and Montenegro was feasible on the basis of complete equality. Upon his return to Zagreb he wrote: True and lasting peace can be achieved only if all peoples, those from within the borders of the former Russian Empire as well as those from the Danubian area and from the Balkans, are allowed wholly to exercise their rights to self- determination. In this way they will be able to enter later into a common federation of their own free will and on equal terms in their new quality as popular national states .26
In October 1918, the National Council of Slovenes, Croatians, and Serbs was established in Zagreb. It had two bodies: The Plenum and the Central Committee. The Plenum had never been called to a meeting. The Central Committee made all decisions. Radic was pushed aside from the decision making process in such crucial and historic moments because it was known that he opposed the hasty establishment of the new South Slavic country. The National Council, however, proceeded to work for the creation of the unified state of Slovenes, Croatians, and Serbs. Radic, on the other hand, claimed that the people supported independence from the Habsburgs, but were reluctant to jump into another union, especially another monarchy. He claimed that Croatia wanted a republic. He was not against the union in principle, but he opposed the hasty unification without making a sound foundation for it and a well-defined agreement with the other nations entering the union .27 If the unification of the South Slavs were to take place, Radic proposed the following terms: a federation based on national unity and equality; three equal regents (the Serbian Crown Prince, the Croatian Ban, and the Slovene National Council President); a federal government consisting of three ministries (foreign, defense, and national food supply and production); the Supreme Council of the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs should be the supreme body of the federal government, and each nation should have its autonomous government .28
Radic’s proposal, as well as four similar proposals were dismissed. A special committee was created by the National Council to make the final draft of the motion that proposed the immediate proclamation of the union of the state of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs under the Serbian Karadjordjevic dynasty. The Central Committee rushed to pass the motion of unconditional unification as soon as possible in order to prevent any potential disruption. The most important meeting in this regard was held during the night of November 23-24, 1918. During this meeting, Radic delivered not only one of his best but truly a prophetic speech. He opposed this rush action as treasonous. Radic declared if the Serbs wanted a centralist state, they can have it. The Croatians wanted a federalist republic and nothing less. He also stressed that the Committee had no right to make final decisions because its members were not elected by the people but were self- appointed. He concluded that the Committee was making the gravest political mistake by placing before the people the fait accompli ; deciding “without the people and against the people” .29
At this meeting Radic and the Central Committee split into two radically different directions. The Committee went to Belgrade to make a centralist state under a new monarchy. Radic, considering the act irresponsible and treacherous, proceeded to organize the strongest possible opposition to the regime in the newly organized state.
During the period of the first five years in the new state, Radic continued to work for the long-desired goal: political autonomy and civil liberties. All of his political undertakings should be seen in this light. That had been his principal desire in the old and now in the new monarchy; however, one of the main differences between the old and the new situation was the growing political awareness of the peasants and their right to vote. In his speech to the National Council during the night of November 23-24, he declared: Our Croatian peasant–and that means nine-tenths of our population–came of age during the war: he no longer intends to be a servant to anyone, to slave for anyone–neither a foreigner nor his brother–neither for a foreign nation, nor for his own. He wishes his nation to be built upon the base of freedom, republicanism, and social justice, in this hour of momentous decision .30
Radic knew the peasants as did no other politician at the time. By his hard work he had built a firm foundation for his party. He knew the needs and desires of his constituency, and they were willing to give him their vote of confidence.
The Croatian People’s Peasant Party had its first convention after the war in February 1919. Over six thousand delegates met in Zagreb. Among other things they resolved to change the name of the party. In order to point out their main political goal, the new name of the party became Croatian Republican Peasant Party (HRSS). The convention also demanded the creation of a “neutral Croatian Republic” based on the principles of self-determination and Croatia’s historic state rights. Accepting the Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points at face value, the party leaders sent a Memorandum to United States’ President Wilson and other leading members of the Paris Peace Conference. They asked for a special commission which would implement the principles of self-determination in Croatia. Under its supervision a “neutral republic of Croatia” would be created and then incorporated into a “neutral federated republic of Yugoslavia,” which would also include Bulgaria. Although the Memorandum was signed by 167,669 people 31, no one paid attention to their requests or wishes. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes became a member of the family of nations on June 28, 1919.
Political persecutions of Radic and his party, economic exploitation of Croatia, 32 and terror in general began immediately after the union was created. The leader of the Serbs in Croatia, Svetozar Pribicevic, became the Minister of Interior. He was more Serb and more unitarist than the leaders of the ruling Serbian Radical party. He was a “specialist” on Croatian affairs and was given a free hand to do whatever was needed to keep the opposition under control. Radic was jailed in March of 1919 and spent almost a full year in prison. Other leaders of the party were also imprisoned. As soon as Radic was released from jail he delivered an anti-regime speech and was arrested again. This time he was sentenced to a two and a half years prison term. The situation in the country was getting tense, but Radic opposed violence. Commenting on the situation he stated: There is not a single Croatian who would not sincerely desire a peaceful settlement with the Serbs…but there is neither a single Croatian who would want to betray his people by submitting to violence .33
The first elections in the new state took place in November 1920. On election day, November 28, Radic was pardoned and released from prison. The Croatian Republican Peasant Party received an absolute majority of all votes cast in Croatia. It became clear now that Radic was right when he stated to the “representatives” in the National Council that they did not speak in the name of the people. His party was the true voice of the nation, and he was its main political leader. The elected candidates of the HRSS gathered in Zagreb in December to plan their political strategy. They made the decision to abstain from the work of the Constitutional Assembly in Belgrade. The main reason for such a move was based on two fundamental disagreements with the major Serbian parties, Radicals and Democrats. First, Radic proposed that the new constitution be prepared by a special assembly in which each of the nations would be represented equally. Serbians, on the other hand, demanded the rule of the majority. Second, representatives of the Croatian Republican Peasant Party, as well as of some of the other groups, rejected the demand to take the oath of allegiance to the Serbian king before the constitution was promulgated. Radic wanted freedom of debate in the Assembly on all issues including the dynasty .34
The so called “Vidovdan Constitution” was passed on St. Vitus Day, June 28, 1921 by 223 out of the 419 votes in the Assembly. This date was very symbolic for the Serbs because it was the date of the Kosovo battle in 1389. The document was an extension of the pre-war Serbian constitution, which provided a centralized administrative system. All of the Croatian and Slovene parties opposed the decision, as well as the Communist party. While the Constitutional Assembly was working in Belgrade, most of the Croatian elected representatives gathered in Zagreb and drafted a “Constitution of the Neutral Peasant Croatian Republic.”
Thus, two radically different approaches were taken in building the foundations of the country. One was unitarist and the other federalist. Radic declared: If for eight hundred years the Croatians did not surrender to Hungary and Austria, why in the world should they now suddenly surrender to Serbia 35? Serbian centralists considered Serbia’s dominant role in the new country as a natural outcome of the war and a fulfillment of their traditional dream of a greater Serbia under another name. The new Constitution therefore gave the king remarkable political powers. The Government was responsible to the King and to the National Assembly, however, it was the king who appointed the Government and the members of the judiciary. He had the power to dismiss the Assembly, which in practice meant he had absolute powers. In contrast, the non-Serbs looked for a union of equal partners. For Radic and many others such a Constitution was not acceptable. It was antithetical to his republicanism and “peasant democracy.”
Leading Serbian politicians underestimated the Croatian opposition to the centralist state .36 They claimed that Radic and his party did not represent the Croatian people; that he spoke “only in the name of the illiterate and misled peasants” .37 But as soon as the Constitution was promulgated, Radic formed a Croatian Bloc, which included most of the elected Croatian representatives. This political coalition enabled Radic to be even more persistent in his political demands. He was now recognized as the national leader by other Croatian parties as well.
Genoa Conference
New hopes were raised during the preparations for the Genoa Conference in 1922. Radic thought that the conference might put pressure on Belgrade to solve the “Croatian question.” He wanted to send a special delegation to the Conference to make the participants aware of the national and constitutional problems in the newly formed Balkan state. However, the delegation was not permitted to leave the country. Instead a memorandum in the name of the Croatian bloc was smuggled to the conference. After enumerating the outstanding problems and Croatian political goals, the memorandum offered a solution to the most important problem, Serbian centralism, the establishment of “a sovereign Croatia within the boundaries of the commonwealth of Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia” .38 Radic’s hopes were not realized. Nothing positive resulted from the Memorandum and it precipitated a new crisis in the Government.
The leader of the Serbian Democratic Party, Ljuba Davidovic, and the former leader of the Radical Party, Stojan Protic, were willing to negotiate a settlement with Radic and other opposition leaders. But the Prime Minister and the leader of the Radical Party, Nikola Pasic, and the leading Serb from Croatia, Svetozar Pribicevic, who was a member of the Democratic Party, opposed any compromise with the Croats and the opposition in general. Pasic decided to call for new elections, hoping that he would gain an absolute majority in the Assembly. Despite various manipulations from the ruling Radicals, the elections turned out to be a new victory for Radic and his party. Although Pasic did gain new seats in the Skupstina (Assembly), the elections did not turn out as he had hoped. Radic’s party, now running for the first time in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Dalmatia, won 70 mandates, 20 seats more than in previous elections, and the popular vote for his party doubled .39 Some Serbian leaders were beginning to talk openly about the “amputation” of what they regarded to be Croatia (only a small region around Zagreb) and of creating a pre-defined and ethnically pure greater Serbia. But that proved to be only a momentary reaction to Radic’s election victory. Still, a Serbian dominated common state was preferred.
Unsuccessful Deal with Pasic
After the elections of 1923, an attempt was made by Croatian, Slovene, and Bosnian Muslim representatives to form a Federalist Bloc. The main goal of the Bloc was to revise the Vidovdan Constitution and to introduce federalism. The regime reacted vehemently against the united opposition, especially to Radic as the leader of the group. The leading Belgrade newspapers threatened with bloodshed. One wrote: Let Zagreb see its streets sprinkled by blood… The law of protection of the state and the criminal laws have to be implemented against today’s separatism in Zagreb and Ljubljana… Who tries to stir trouble must grease the rope [to be hung]. According to our belief, that is the best cure for separatism .40 There were also personal threats to Radic: Let it be known to Mr. Radic…if he starts an open action against the Kingdom of SHS that the machine-guns will be in action right away…..41
Faced with the demands of the Federalist Bloc, with opposition from the Serbian Democratic Party, and especially from the British, French, and Czech governments’ suggestions to improve the relations with the Croats, Pasic began to negotiate with Radic and other leaders of the Bloc. A Protocol was signed. The main points were as follows: Croatia would not be divided into regions (oblasti); a royal Governor would be appointed for Croatia; political persecutions in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina were to be stopped immediately; and in return, Radic and other representatives of his party would stay away from the Skupstina. In this way Pasic secured a majority in the Assembly and prolonged the rule of his Government. However, this arranged modus vivendi did not last long. Pasic continued his old policies. Radic, realizing that Pasic did not bargain in good faith, returned to his old attacks and demands. In one of his speeches, commemorating Bastille Day, Radic alluded to Karadjordjevic’s possible fate. His arrest became imminent. He and his wife left the country in July 1923 to avoid imprisonment and to work for his political goals from outside the country.
In the European Capitals
Radic used his exile to seek understanding and help for his cause in major European capitals. He visited Vienna, Paris, London, Berlin, and Moscow. While in London, he was in touch with some important members of the Labour Party. He delivered a few lectures on the “Croatian question.” But even there he was under the watchful eye of the Belgrade secret police. He did not find sympathy for his case in England. His British friends, including R. W. Seton-Watson, a leading and very influential expert on Central and Southeastern Europe, urged Radic to go to Belgrade and make a working deal with “honest Serbs.” Neither the British nor the French governments desired any important changes in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. On the contrary, they favored the Serbian strong hand and centralist state because someone had to be “policeman” of the region.
After his return to Vienna in February 1924, Radic proceeded to work on two fronts. One was to make a deal with the Serbian Democratic Party, which was in opposition at the time, and the other to continue to pressure the Belgrade regime by his activities outside the country. He was ready to send his party’s elected delegates to the Skupstina in order to strengthen the opposition. His dealings with the Serbian Democrats caused problems for the Radical government in Belgrade. Pribicevic split from the Democratic Party, and formed an Independent Democratic Party in order to join Pasic’s Radicals and retain the majority. Furthermore, in order to prevent Radic’s plans to bring down the Government, Pasic adjourned the Assembly from March to October.
In order to put external pressure on the government, Radic was working with the representatives of the Peasant International (known as Krestintern) centered in Moscow. Even though Radic was a great friend of the Czechs, he did not show any enthusiasm for the Green International, organized in 1921 and centered in Prague. He considered it to be an instrument of Czech politics, and above all the Green International showed no sympathy for the Croatian cause .42 On the other hand, the Krestintern was eager to enlist Radic and the Croatian Peasant Party because Moscow had important plans for Radic. The New Economic Policy was in progress and the cooperation with the Soviet peasants was still promoted and Radic was seen as a man who could become the main ally of Moscow among the peasants in Southeastern Europe. Furthermore, in 1924, even the Comintern recognized the right of the Balkan nations to self-determination, therefore it stood for the breakup of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.
Radic went to Moscow and had talks with George Chicherin, Christian Rakovsky, Mikhail Kalinin and other high officials. The Croatian Peasant Party formally became a member of the Peasant International but this had little practical significance. It is said that Radic stated: “Communists do no want allies, only servants” 43
After an effort to find understanding and support outside the country for the plight of the Croatian people and its national rights and goals, Radic realized that the leading world powers did not have much interest in South Slavic affairs and that the principles of self-determination, freedom, democracy, and equality were not to be applied to everyone. Thus, after all other efforts, he decided to take his fight to the Belgrade Skupstina.
Truce with Pasic
While Radic was outside the country, the leader of the Serbian Democrats, Davidovic, was asked by the King to form a new Government in June 1924. Radic’s collaborators in the Croatian Peasant Party tried to make a deal with Davidovic, but the alliance turned out to be unsuccessful. Shortly thereafter Davidovic resigned. Pasic and Pribicevic organized a coalition and formed a new Government in November 1924. As soon as Radic returned from the Soviet Union he attacked monarchism, militarism, and many other aspects and practices of the Belgrade regime. In return, Pasic extended Obznana (an extraordinary law against the Communists passed in 1921) to the Croatian Republican Peasant Party. The HRSS was outlawed and the entire party leadership, including Radic, was arrested.
Interestingly, the party was permitted to participate in the election of February 8, 1925. Radic and his party received more popular votes than ever. The elected delegates of the party, except those in jail, showed up in the Skupstina on the opening day of the Assembly. The result was that Pasic opened negotiations with Radic while the Croatian peasant leader was still in jail and the result was that Radic accepted the “Vidovdan Constitution” and Karadjordjevic dynasty. His party removed the term “Republican” from its name. It became simply Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) and it replaced Pribicevic’s Independent Democrats in the new coalition. Radic’ was released from jail and went directly to Belgrade to be Minister of Education.
Everyone was surprised and many shocked by Radic’s complete reversal of political strategy. As a result, some of his Croatian friends left the party and formed the Croatian Federalist Peasant Party. Croatian nationalists and even Communists condemned Radic’s compromise with Pasic and the Karadjordjevic regime .44 It was believed that he had betrayed the basic principles of the Croatian national strategy. Radic himself never gave a full explanation as to why he made such a drastic move. It is most likely that he concluded that, while rejecting all violent means, other methods did not work. He tried passive resistance and looked for help in the West and the East, but in vain. Terror and imprisonment had become daily occurrences. His own life was in danger. He believed that his last chance to achieve at least some of his desired goals and to alleviate some of the hardships in Croatia was to work within the existing system.
The Radical-Peasant coalition traveled a bumpy road during its short existence. Radic’s proposals for reforms were constantly rejected. Shortly after the coalition was organized, Pasic himself got into trouble because of corruption. The King and many Radicals wanted to get rid of him .45 In April 1926, Pasic submitted his resignation and in December of the same year he died. Even though the Croatian Peasant Party was still in the coalition, Radic found himself outside of the new Government, formed by Nikola Uzinovic on April 14, 1926. A few months later the HSS demanded the resignation of the Minister of the Interior, Boza Maksimovic, because of his terrorism in Croatia. The regime would not give in to HSS demands, and the short-lived coalition broke up. A new Government was formed by the Serbian Radicals, Slovene Clericals, and some Serbian Democrats. On the other hand, the former two main antagonists, Radic and Pribicevic, found themselves on the same side of the aisle. Moreover, they became political allies.
In the new elections, of September 1927, Radic’s party received more than a hundred and sixty thousand votes less than in the previous election. This was an indication that Croatians were not pleased with his political maneuvering and deals. He became increasingly attacked as a renegade and as a “traitor of everything that is Croatian” 46 Although Radic’s and Pribicevic’s move to create the Peasant- Democratic coalition was a logical one, it surprised most contemporary political observers. The two did bury old animosities and differences, and became new leaders of the opposition in Belgrade’s Skupstina.
Blood Spilled in the Assembly
After the short-lived Uzinovic government, a new one was formed by Velja Vukicevic. It was a coalition of the Radicals, Serbian Democrats, Slovene Clericals, and Muslims. Radic and Pribicevic began to criticize the new government on a number of issues. The economic exploitation of Croatian lands, tax inequalities, corruption, Serbian hegemony, mismanagement, militarism, police terror, and many other problems were brought to the floor in the Skupstina. The Democratic-Peasant opposition demanded the formation of a “non-political government” and free elections to determine the true will of the people.
The atmosphere for bloodshed was steadily growing. The more Radic and Pribicevic were disclosing the injustices of the regime, the more voices were heard demanding “effective measures” against Radic. A person close to the government declared only a few days before the shots were fired in the Skupstina: If the country as a juridical entity proves itself unable to bring Mr. Radic to his senses, then Mr. Radic shall see one day that the citizens of this country themselves will deal with him effectively the best way they know how .47
A similar message was published in Jedinstvo (June 14, 1928), the paper of Vulkicevic’s forces. The title of the article was “With the swines we can talk only swine language.” It claimed that Radic and Pribicevic had “placed themselves outside the law.” It also announced that “the heads of traitors and rogues will fall if necessary.” The author of the article also quoted his own letter from 1922 in which he had suggested that Radic should be assassinated, concluding that he upheld the same opinion at the moment of writing the article .48 Only a few days later, Radic and his closest political collaborators in the HSS were the targets of an assassination. A day before the shooting, a resolution was proposed by a Serb Deputy, Punisa Racic, and a few other Radicals to deprive Radic of his mandate in the Assembly on the grounds of mental incapacity. The text of the parliamentary motion ended: We make this emergency motion in order to avoid undesired events, which otherwise must take place due to the behavior of Stjepan Radic, regardless of what kind of consequences will follow .49 That same evening Radic was making reconciliatory moves toward the Government. But the rumors of Radic’s imminent assassination were widely spreading in Belgrade. Radic’s friends tried to convince him to stay away form the Skupstina for a while, but Radic told them:I, too, can sense that something is in the air, but…like a soldier in the trench I am fighting a battle for the rights of the Croatian peasant people and shall leave it either victorious or as a corpse carried out by the Croatian people .50
On the next day (June 20, 1928), Punisa Racic fired six shots from a revolver in the National Assembly. Two Croatian deputies were killed and three seriously wounded, including Stjepan Radic. Stjepan Radic was the real target, but other members of the Assembly were in the way. For a while it seemed that Radic would recover from his wounds, but his condition turned for the worse at the end of July, and he died on August 8, 1928.
Aftermath
The possibilities of a Serbian-Croatian reconciliation were shattered by the assassination of Radic and other Croats in the Assembly and also as a consequence of the regime’s unwillingness to change its centralist and unitaristic policies. Radic told his successor Vladko Macek:After what happened in the Assembly, we shall want to have little or nothing to do with them [Serbians] anymore. Maybe we will just settle for common foreign affairs and common defense; maybe not even that much. It will depend on the circumstances, and you are clever enough, I have no need to teach you. I merely beg you to abide by the peaceful methods of struggle which I have always used .51
Another important consequence of the Assembly shooting was the radicalization of the political struggle on both sides. On January 6, 1929, King Aleksandar abolished political parties, dissolved the Assembly, and introduced a personal dictatorship which lasted until his assassination by Croatian and Macedonian radicals in 1934. The Croatian Peasant Party continued to play an important role in the political life of the nation, but the new leadership lacked Radic’s charisma and popular appeal. Moreover, Croatians began demanding complete national independence and more radical means to achieve it, and for that purpose the revolutionary Ustasha movement was formed by the radical forces at the end of 1929.
Ever since his involvement in politics as a young man, Radic was a controversial figure. He was either loved or hated. He was called a dreamer, a manipulator, a traitor, a lunatic, as well as a genius, a patriot, a national leader, a pacifist, and a lover of liberty. But regardless of the varied opinions, Radic was a man of great political talent, energy, and charisma who dedicated his entire life to the cause of the Croatian people and the peasantry, and being well aware that his enemies were about to kill him, he faced his death courageously as the ultimate sacrifice for his life-long ideals.
NOTES
1 Charles Beard, “The Last Years of Stephan Raditch,” Current History, Vol. 29, October 1928 – March 1929, p. 82.
2 Zvonimir Kulundzic, ed., Stjepan Radic – Politicki spisi, (Zagreb: Znanje, 1971), p. 53.
3 Bogdan Krizman, ed. Korespodencija Stjepana Radica, Vol. 1. (Zagreb: Institut za hrvatsku povijest), 1972, p. 26.
4 Stjepan Gazi, “Stjepan Radic,” Journal of Croatian Studies, Vol. 14-15, 1973-74, p. 19.
5 Ibid., p. 22.
6 Ibid., p. 24.
7 Krizman, Korespodencija, p. 25.
8 Jozo Tomasevich, Peasants, Politics, and Economic Change in Yugoslavia, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1955), p. 254.
9 Ibid., 254.
10 Feliks Gross, ed. European Idologies, (New York: Philosophical Library, 1948), p. 427; L. S. Stavrianos, The Balkans Since 1453, (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961), p. 621.
11 Branka Boban, “Shvacanje Antuna i Stjepana Radica o mjestu i ulozi seljastva u gospodarskom, drustvenom i politickom zivotu.” Radovi, Institu za hrvatsku povijest, Vol. 12, 1979, p. 274.
12 In 1902 Stjepan Radic published a book entitled The Strongest Political Party in Croatia, meaning the peasantry.
13 Josip Horvat, Politicka povijest Hrvatske, (Zagreb: Binoza, 1936), p. 352.
14 Rudolf Bicanic, How the People Live, (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1981), p. 3
15 Branka Boban, “Shvacanje,” p. 271.
16 Bogdan Krizman, “Osnivnje Hrvatske Pucke Seljacke Stranke,” Radovi, Institute za hrvatsku povijest, Vol. 2, 1972, p. 140.
17 Branka Boban, “Osnovna obiljezja ‘Seljacke Drzave’ u ideologiji Antuna i Stjepana Radica, Radovi, Institut za hrvatsku povijest, Vol. 13, 1980, p. 76.
18 Ibid., pp. 79-83.
19 C.M. Macartney and A.W. Palmer, Independent Eastern Europe, A History, London: Macmillan, 1962), p. 22.
20 Gazi, “Stjepan Radic,” p. 31-32.
21 Krizman, Korespodencija, pp. 58-59.
22 Stephen Raditch, “The Story of My Political Life,” Current History, Vol. 29, 1928-1929, p. 96. Kulundzic, Politicki spisi, p. 74-75.
23 Vladko Macek, In the Struggle for Freedom, (University Park and London: Pennsylvania University Press, 1957), p. 62.
24 Gazi, “Stjepan Radic,” p. 44.
25 Miroslav Krleza, Deset krvavih gopdina, (Zagreb: Bibloteka nezavisnih pisaca, 1937), p. 166.
26 As quoted in Gazi, “Stjepan Radic,” p. 46.
27 Joseph Rothschild, East Central Europe Between the Two World Wars, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1974), p. 205.
28 Horvat, Politicka povijest, Vol. II, p. 148.
29 Kulundzic, Politicki spisi, p. 323-335.
30 Ibid., p. 325.
31 Franjo Tudjman, “Stjepan Radic i hrvatska drzavnost,” Kalendar Hrvatski Glas, 1977, p. 44.
32 On economic questions see Rudolf Bicanic, Ekonomska podloga hrvatskog pitanja, (Zagreb: V. Macek, 1938), pp. 207-224.
33 Horvat, Politicka povijest, Vol. II, p. 266.
34 Franjo Tudjman, “Hrvatska politika u prvim godinama borbe protiv Vidovddanskog centralisticko-hegemonistickog poretka,” Kritika, 14, 1970, p. 577.
35 Gazi, “Stjepan Radic,” p. 54.
36 Stevan K. Pavlowitch, Yugoslavia, (New York: Praeger, 1971), p. 63.
37 Tudjman, “Hrvatska politika,” p. 587.
38 Horvat, Politicka povijest, II, p. 279-283.
39 Zvonimir Kulundzic, Atentat na Stjepana Radica, (Zagreb: Stvarnost, 1967), p. 173.
40 Horvat, Poiticka povijest, II, p. 311.
41 Kulundzic, Atentat, p. 174.
42 George D. Jackson, Jr., Comintern and Peasant in Easter Europe 1919- 1930, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), p 104; John D. Bell, Peasants in Power, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press 1977), p. 193.
43 Macek, In the Struggle, p. 100.
44 Mladen Ivekovic, Hrvatska lijeva intelegencija 1918-1945, (Zagreb: Naprijed, 1970), p. 117-126.
45 Milan Stojadinovic, Ni rat ni pakt, (Buenos Aires: El Economista, 1963), p. 244-251.
46 Kulundzic, Atentat, p. 191.
47 Horvat, Politicka povijest, II, p. 420.
48 Kulundzic, Atentat, p. 300-302.
49 Horvat, Politicka povijest, II, p. 422.
50 As quoted in Gazi, “Stjepan Radic,” p. 66.
51 Macek, In the Struggle, p. 113.
Filip Vezdin's Contribution To Indic Studies In Europe At The Turn Of The 18th Century
Branko Franolic
Filip Vezdin was an Indologist of Croatian nationality. He was born in 1748 in Hof (Croatian name Cimov) in Lower Austria, son of Jurje and Helena Bregunic. 
In the register of births, marriages and deaths his surname is spelt ‘Vesdin’; Wesdin and Weszdin are also found; and he was sometimes incorrectly called Werdin or Weredin 1 He was educated in Sopronj in Burgenland, and Linz, where he took holy orders (a Discalced Carmelite) and the name Paulinus a Sancto Bartholomaeo. After that he studied in Prague, then subsequently he studied oriental languages in Rome. In 1774 he was sent to Malabar as a missionary and became vicar-general on the Malabar Coast (1776-1789). He returned to Rome in 1789 and was seven years Professor of Oriental Languages at the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide. In 1798, under pressure from the French military authorities, he was forced to move to Vienna. After a period in Vienna from 1798 to 1800, he returned to Italy and became prefect of studies at the Propaganda in Rome, where he remained until his death on January 7th, 1806.
On his return from India, Vezdin published several works relating to that country. His first work was published in Rome under the title: Sidharubam2 seu Grammatica Samscrdamica, cui accedit Dissertatio historicocritica in Linguam Samscrdamicam, Auctore Fr. Paulino a S. Bartholomaeo. Romae MDCCXC. (Sidharubam or Sanskrit Grammar Preceded by a Historical Critical Discussion of the Sanskrit Language, written by Fr. Paulinus a Sancto Bartholomaeo. Rome 1790.) pp. 188, in 4°. It is the first grammar of Sanskrit printed in Europe “in which the true condition, origin, excellence, antiquity, wide distribution and originality of that language are shown, certain books written in it are critically reviewed, and at the same time several very old tribal liturgical sermons are briefly described and explained” (from the title page). “The first Sanskrit grammars printed in Europe did not come from the English Indic scholars of Calcutta; rather they are the work of Sancto Bartholomaeo printed in Rome in 1790 and 1804.” (R. Schwab, The Oriental Renaissance, Columbia Univ. Press, New York 1984, p. 32). “The first systematic attempt to impart a more extended acquaintance with Sanskrit to European students, was the publication by Paulinus a Bartholomaeo, a German [sic!] missionary of the name of Wesdin, of a short and imperfect grammar of the language, to which he gave the title of ‘Siddharubam, seu Grammatica Samscrdamica,’ Rome 1790.” (H.H. Wilson, A Notice of European Grammars and Lexicons of the Sanskrit Language, Proceedings of the Philological Society, Vol. 1, No. 3, Jan. 27, 1843, p. 16).3
Prior to this there had been only handwritten grammars by missionaries, of which the most important was compiled by the German missionary, Hanxleden. Vezdin’s opponents claimed that he had merely printed Hanxleden’s grammar. Vezdin himself lists Hanxleden in the references, but in the paper De codicibus indicis manuseriptis R.P. Joannis Ernesti Hanxleden Epistola (On the Manuscript Indian Codices of Johann Ernest Hanxleden, Vienna 1799), where he sets out Hanxleden’s bibliography in greater detail, he denies drawing up his grammar according to Hanxleden’s: their affinity, Paulinus says, stems from the fact that both grammars were written on the basis of the same Indian philological works. Vezdin brought back Hanxleden’s manuscript Sanskrit grammar to Rome and made use of part of it: he pronounced him the best Sanskrit scholar of his time.
“The Jesuit Hanxleden, a resident at the Malabar mission from 1699 until his death in 1732, may have been the first European to write, in Latin, a Sanskrit grammar for his own use and to attempt a dictionary. (It is likely that Roth, who died at Agra in 1668, had compiled a Sanskrit grammar before Hanxleden: it has never been found, although it could perhaps be recovered in the Vatican archives). Hanxleden appended to his work some Christian poetry composed in Sanskrit by catechumens. The material remained in manuscript but was useful to Sancto Bartholomaeo.” (R. Schwab, The Oriental Renaissance, 1984, p. 32).
In the discussion of Sanskrit Paulinus supplies illustrative extracts from various Indian languages and dialects comprising passages of Indian verse and their Latin translation. One example is given here in English: “Knowledge is so infinite that it cannot be acquired in a small number of years, and so one must separate out and gather together what is essential and what is better, just as a swan, when swimming in the water, separates out and drinks the better and more excellent water. ” “Power, good counsel, the expansion of territory, an abundance of fortresses or towns and military strength, a real friend, and good mutual understanding with neighbouring kingdoms – these are the seven true supports of a kingdom.” In 1791 Vezdin had his second work published entitled Systema Brahmanicum Liturgicum, Mythologicum, Civile, ex Monumentis indicis Musei Borgiani Velitris Dissertationibus historico-criticis illustravit Fr. Paulinus a S. Bartholomaeo, Carmelita discalceatus. Romae 1791. (The Brahmanic Liturgical, Mythological and Civil System, According to the Indian Monuments of the Borgia Museum in Velletri, Explained in Historic Critical Discourses by Fr. Paulinus a Sancto Bartholomaeo, Discalced Carmelite, in Rome 1791.) XII, pp. 326, in -4°. Many consider the Systema Vezdin’s most important work. He reconstructs and interprets the religious and civil organization in Brahmanic India, adding a list of the manuscript works he used: primarily the dictionary of Sanskrit, “Amarasinha” (the first part of which, “De Caelo”, he published in 1798 in Rome)4, then the epic poems “Magha”5, “Bhagavadam”, “Ramayanam” and “Yudhisdira”, the book on the origin of the world and the universe, “Sambhavan” or “Puranam”, and some other works. Vezdin divided the Systema into three groups: the Liturgy (the rendering of sacrifices, the cult of Lingam, the phallus of the god Shiva, penitence and feasts, and the Creation myth); the Mythology (Indian gods and the worship of animals, the links between Indian and other religions); and the Civil System (castes, their relation to fields of activity, and Indian money).
This work was rendered into German by Johann Reinhold Forster and published in Gotha in 1797 under the title: Darstellung der brahmanischindischen Gotterlehre, Religionsgebrauche und burgerlichen Verfassung. Nach dem lateinischen Werke des Vater Paullinus a St. Bartholomaeo bearbeitet. Mit dreissig Kupfertafeln. Gotha 1797. (An Account of the Brahmanic-Indian Teachings on Gods, Religious Customs and the Civil System, Adapted from the Latin Work by Fr. Paullinus a St. Bartholomaeo. With thirty copper plates. Gotha 1797.) in – 4°. In the foreword Forster explains why he had to adapt the work: Paulinus’s Latin original was so obscurely written that it was difficult to understand. Forster illustrates this point, slightly ridiculing the author.
Vezdin’s works enjoyed great popularity and were translated into many languages. Vezdin’s translators were usually his opponents, or else the irascible missionary made them his opponents with his caustic remarks. Both Systema and Sidharubam were published in German in the Abhandlungen uber die Geschichte, Wissenschaften und Literatur Asiens, Band 4, Riga, 1797, 485 pp. Johan Friedrich Kleuker supplied comments on some sections of Vezdin’s Sidharubam.
In 1791 the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide published Vezdin’s study of Indian alphabets: Alphabeta Indica, id est Grenthamicum seu Samscrdamico-Malabaricum, Indostanum sive Vanarense, Nagaricum vulgare et Talinganicum. Romae 1791. (Indian Alphabets, that is, the Grantha or Sanskrit-Malabar, Hindustani or Varanasi, Vulgar Nagari and Telegu Alphabets. Rome 1791.) in -8°, 24 pp.
On pages 8-11 of Alphabeta Indica (Praecipua Indiae Orientalis Alphabeta inter se collata), the main alphabets of Eastern India are mutually compared in a synoptic table. Grantha, which appeared in India about the 5th century AD, is a literary script of the south Dravidian, variety used by Tamil Brahmans. “Indostanum” and “Nagaricum” are variants of the script more usually known as Devanagari, which developed from a variety of Gupta script through Siddhamatrika, and is the most widespread script for Sanskrit. However, the Propaganda Fide used Dravidian Grantha (which appears in the Congregatio’s booklet published in 1772). “Talinganicum” is also Dravidian, having developed out of the early Grantha script, but adapted to writing on palm leaves. The more usual term for the language written in this script today is Telegu, spoken principally in the state of Andhra Pradesh. It is the most widely spoken of the four major Dravidian languages of Southern India. In the same year, 1791, another of Vezdin’s works appeared, Centum Adagia Malabarica cum textu originali et versione Latina: nunc primum in lucem edita a Paulino a Sancto Bartholomaeo. Romae 1791, 12 p., in -4°.
In the following year Vezdin’s Examen Historico-criticum Codicum Indicorum Bibliothecae Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide, Romae 1792, 80 p., in -4° was published in Rome.
In 1793 the Propaganda published Vezdin’s critical analysis of the Indian codices kept in the Borgia Museum in Velletri: Musei Borgiani Velitris codices Avenses, Peguani, Siamica Malabarici, Indostani animadversionibus historico-criticis castigati et illustrate Accedunt Monumenta inedita, et Cosmogonia Indico-Tibetana, Romae 1793, 266 p., in -4°. The work was dedicated to Cardinal Stefano Borgia, founder of the Borgia Museum in Velletri. In his pamphlet Lettera su’ Monumenti Indici del Museo Borgiano illustrati dal Padre Paulino di S. Bartolomeo, 1793, 25 p. in -4°, Count della Torre di Rezzonico criticised Vezdin for having neglected the influence of Scythian civilization on the Brahmanic system of mythology and claimed that Indian temples were of Scythian origin. Vezdin promptly responded in his Scitismo sviluppato in riposta alla Lettera del Signor Conte C. della Torre di Rezzonico su’ Monumenti Indici del Museo Borgiano di Velletri (Rome, 1793, 24 p. in -4°), rejecting the theory of the Scythian origin of Indian civilization.
Both pamphlets were addressed to Cardinal Stefano Borgia (1731-1804) who as a secretary of the Propaganda Fide had founded the museum in Velletri which had a vast collection of oriental, especially Coptic and Kufic manuscripts. It acquired an international reputation and attracted many scholars, among them the Danes Georg Zoega, Jakob Adler, Nils Show and Friedrich Munter. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe visited the museum in 1787. Shortly after S. Borgia’s death in Lyon, 23 November 1804, Vezdin wrote a biography of the Cardinal’s life: Vitae synopsis S. Borgiae S.R.E. Cardinalis, 2 plates, Romae, 1805, 75 p., in -4°. In 1794 Vezdin published: India Orientalis Christiana, continens Fundationes ecclesiarum, Seriem episcoporum, Missiones, Schismata, Perscutiones, Reges, Viros illustres. Auctore P. Paulino a S. Bartholomaeo, Romae 1794. (Christian Eastern India, Containing the Founding of the Churches, the Sequence of Bishops, Missions, Schisms, Persecutions, Kings, Illustrious People. Written by Fr. Paulinus a St. Bartholomaeo, Rome 1794.) XXIII, 280 pp., in -4°.
This work, on the first page of which there is an engraving representing Vezdin, is a survey of the history of Christianity in India, accompanied by a geographic map of the Malabar Coast. One of Paulinus’s predecessors, the sixth bishop in the Mogul empire, had been Innocentius a S. Leopoldo, a Discalced Carmelite himself, “ex illustri de Kollonitz familia”, i.e. from the aristocratic Kolonic family, whose origins were in Croatia and who died in Malabar in 1735 (cf. p. 54).
In 1795 Antonio Fulgoni published Vezdin’s polemical work De Veteribus Indis dissertatio, in qua cavillationes auctoris Alphabeti Tibetani (A.A. Giorgi) castigantur. Romae, 1795. (Dissertation on Old Indians in which are censured the sophistries of the author [A.A. Giorgi] of the Tibetan Alphabet) 54 p., in -4°. The following year Antonio Fulgoni published Vezdin’s most popular work Viaggio alle Indie Orientali, umiliato alla Santita di N.S. Papa Pio Sesto Pontefice Massimo, da Fra Paolino da S. Bartolomeo, Carmelito scalzo. Roma 1796. (A Voyage to Eastern India, Submitted to the Holiness of Our Holy Father Pope Pius the Sixth, the Supreme Pontiff, by Fr. Paulinus a St. Bartholomaeo, Discalced Carmelite. Rome 1796.) XX, 404 pp., in -4°, with 12 copper plates.
“As these various works of Fr Paulinus are sought after, on occasions people have paid quite a lot for them,” says J.-C. Brunet in his “Manuel de Libraire’ (Paris, 1863). Viaggio was Vezdin’s most popular work and it was translated into many languages, German being the first (1798 and 1815): Des Fra Paolino da S.B. Reise nach Ostindien, mit Anmerkungen von J.R. Forster. (Forster also adapted Systema). Vezdin says of this translation that it is “mutilated ( …) distorted.” It was translated, together with the notes, from German into English by William Johnston (A Voyage to the East Indies: containing an Account of the Manners, Customs … of the Natives, With a Geographical Description of the Country. Collected from Observations made … between 1776 and 1789 … With notes and illustrations by J.R. Forster … Translated from the German by W. Johnston, pp. XII 478. Vernor and Hood, London, 1800, in -8°).
Johann Reinhold Forster, the German translator who was a Professor of Natural History in the University of Halle, says in his Preface: “It is the more valuable, as the author understood the Tamulic or common Malabar language; and, what is of more importance, was so well acquainted with the Samscred, (a language exceedingly difficult,) as to be able to write a Grammar of it. It appears from some of his quotations, that he understood also the English and French. His knowledge of the Indian languages has enabled him to rectify our orthography, in regard to the names of countries, cities, mountains and rivers. The first European travelers who visited India were, for the most part, merchants, soldiers, or sailors; very few of them were men of learning, or had enjoyed the advantage of a liberal education. These people wrote down the names of places merely as they struck their ear, and for that reason different names have been given to the same place in books of travels, maps and military journals. To this may be added, that the authors were sometimes Dutch, sometimes French, and sometimes English; consequently each followed a different orthography, which has rendered the confusion still greater. The author of the present work thought it of importance to correct these errors; a task for which he seems to have been well qualified by his knowledge of the Indian dialects. Thus, for example, he changes the common, but improper, appellation Coromandel into Ciolamandala, Pondichery into Puduceri, etc; but the Reader ought to remember, that, as the author wrote in Italian, his c before e and i must be pronounced tch, etc. As the changed orthography of the names of countries, cities and rivers, rendered a Geographical Index in some measure necessary, one has been added at the end of the work. Readers acquainted with the tedious labour required to form such a nomenclature, and who may have occasion to use it, will, no doubt, thank the translator for his trouble.” The first page of Viaggio has a portrait of the author. The text begins: “L’aimable Nannette, a French ship under the command of M. Berteaud, sailed to anchorage off Puduceri on the 25th of July 1776. The arduous sea journey lasting six months and six days had unsettled our hearts and made fast our desires to the land. Our eyes were fixed on the coastal beach. No one talked of anything other than disembarking as soon as possible, when the dusk, which is exceptionally brief in India, rendered our desires futile and with a dark veil night covered land and sea.” Puduceri is Pondichery, a town under French administration. At that time the governor of the town was Law de Lauriston, who had been born there. Vezdin spoke well of him, as a reasonable and moderate man.6 On pages 327-328 of Viaggio Vezdin recorded Altro Canto in Lingua malabarica (Another song in the Malabar language). Viaggio is not merely a travelogue but also a compendium of geographic and historico-cultural information about the India that our missionary had got to know. The song in glory of Krishna, is accompanied by notes. “Oh, you young parrot, crown of people and its most precious joy. Tell, please tell of the noble deeds of the god Krishna. With your song bring delight and pleasure to our hearts. Lift the long suffering from our spirits. Oh, beautiful bird, so that you should tell of those noble deeds we shall treat you to as much sweet milk, sugar and bananas as you want. And having made a tasty meal from all this for yourself, you will sit down and start the story.”
In the note the author explains: “The parrot is the emblem of the goddess Sarasvati, the protectress of eloquence.”
The French translation from the Italian came out in 1808: Voyage aux Indes orientales, par le P. Paulin de S. Bartholemy, Missionaire. Traduit de l’italien par M***, avec les Observations de Mm. Anquetil-Duperron, J.R. Forster el Silvestre de Sacy, et une Dissertation de M. Anquetil sur la Propriete individuelle et fonciere dans l’Inde et en Egypte. A Paris, 1808. (A Voyage to the East Indies, Written by Fr. Paulinus a St Bartholomaeo, Missionary. Translated from the Italian by M***, with Observations by Messrs Anquetil-Duperron, J.R. Forster and Silvester de Sacy, and a Dissertation by M. Anquetil on Individual and Land Property in India and Egypt. Paris, 1808.)
The work was translated by an amateur and was first known in manuscript. The printed edition includes the notes supplied by Forster in his German translation. Anquetil says he is not very happy about undertaking this task as he is in “open war” with the missionaries in virtually all matters, but he will nevertheless prepare the work, as he considers that this will be “of use to my homeland”. Both Anquetil and Paulinus were dead before the editing of the French translation was complete. De Sacy finished it adding a few observations on Anquetil’s commentary and taking at times the side of Paulinus. Anquetil was one of the few people who knew how to write the missionary’s surname in the correct original form, i.e. Vesdin. In the editor’s foreword to Voyage it is stated that “The Voyage by Fr. Paulinus (… ) was translated into several languages and enjoyed great fame in the whole of Europe. However, so far we have not had a French translation, and this apparent neglect of an interesting and instructive travelogue should undoubtedly be ascribed to the political events of which France was the scene at the time of that work’s publication.”
On Page III of Voyage, Anquetil gives his opinion of Vezdin’s comparativist work. Anquetil queries the reliability and accuracy of the forms and meanings supplied by Paulinus, observing that not even his teachers had been reliable. (“This is a simple critical observation”). In the same note he reproaches Vezdin for his comparativist work, which is precisely what makes us view Vezdin today as especially important: “Instead of wasting time by providing 24, 30, 100 pages and so on, which prove little or nothing, instead of comparing 100, 200 words of various languages, the missionary would have done better to enrich the public with a good and complete translation of ‘Amarasinha’ or publish Hanxleden’s and Biscoping’s dictionaries.” After these sometimes very caustic critical observations Anquetil ends in a conciliatory and friendly tone: II it is amusing to see two almost decrepit old men ending up by wearing themselves out for the progress of Indian literature, while a thousand strong, fresh and well-fed young people, having lolled around in bed, go off to pester India just to pile up the rupees.”
In 1798 Vezdin published his comparative study De Antiquitate et Affinitate Linguae Zendicae, Samscrdamicae, et Germanicae Dissertatio. Auctore P. Paulino a S. Bartholomaeo, Patavii 1798-99, pp. 56, in -4°. (Dissertation on the Antiquity and Affinity of the Zend, Sanskrit and German Languages. By Fr. Paulinus a St. Bartholomaeo, Padua, 1799.) This work was dedicated to Stefano Borgia who was at that time Prefect of the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide.
This is the first methodical study of the affinity of Indo-European languages. In it Vezdin displays a sound knowledge of previous theories concerning the emergence and affinity of languages. The assertion that there was an affinity between Old Persian and Sanskrit had been made before by William Jones (1746-1794), but, as Paulinus says, “nulla suae assertionis produxisset documenta”, he did not set out any evidence to support his assertion. On page LIII of De Antiquitate (Vocabula.) we find an example of how Vezdin compares words from different languages, in this case, Sanskrit and German. For the moment Latin is merely for elucidation. For German words Paulinus also took pains to find the oldest forms he could and always referred to dictionaries. The words are predominantly German, but there are also Gothic ones.
Vezdin identifies the importance of comparing terms belonging to the “original link of mutual communication”, and in his analysis strives to find the oldest possible recorded forms. “Pliny, in Historia naturalis, book VI, chapter 17, says: ‘The Indians are virtually the only nation never to have moved out of their country.’ We must, then, determine the ancient period in which foreign (externa) words were added to the Sanskrit language, and if I am not mistaken, many words common to several languages should be attributed to that first period spent together by the nations in the Sennar plain and to the original link in mutual communication which existed before the nations scattered, because these same words do not denote skills or mutual trading affairs, or unusual foreign things, but rather what is basic to human need. There are not so many of these foreign words, nor are they so significant, for anyone to claim on the basis of them that these languages are somehow derived from the Sanskrit tongue; because of the few nouns, the roots of which cannot be shown, no intelligent person will say that one language is a dialect of another tongue or claim that they are akin, especially as there is no or hardly any affinity between the verbs and particles. The German, Slav, Greek and Latin languages are thus compared with Sanskrit; but the same does not hold true for Zend, which agrees with Sanskrit in nouns, verbs and particles. It remains for us to show the antiquity and affinity of the Zend and Sanskrit languages on the basis of old words brought down by the ancient Greek and Latin writers for our dissertation to be clearer and more certain.” (p. XXXVI). Vezdin was among those who first, in the 18th century, noted in detail the striking similarity of Sanskrit to Latin and Greek. Thus were set in motion the investigations that led to the discovery of the interrelationship of all the Indo- European languages, which in turn laid the foundation of modern comparative and historical linguistics.
In 1800 Antonio Fulgoni published Vezdin’s polemical tract Jornandis Vindiciae de Var Hunnorum. Auctore P. Paulino a S. Bartholomaeo, Romae 1800. (A Search for Justice for Jornandes in View of the Hunn word “var”. Rome, 1800.) pp. 12, in -4°. This work was again dedicated to Stefano Borgia. Vezdin was not only an Indologist; he was also intensely interested in linguistic questions nearer home. In this polemical tract, which though a complete failure in its ultimate objective is almost similar to more modern philological dissertations, he endeavors to establish the meaning of the Hunn term “var” which appears in the sixth-century Alani historian Jordanis (to whom Vezdin refers by the Gothic form of the name, Jomandes). Vezdin identifies this word with the Hungarian “var” and erroneously translates it as “river”, which does not fit in with the Hungarian.
On the first page of the tract Vezdin writes: “Even today the Slavs, Bulgars and Croats call the Magyars Ugrians,” the name which starts with the specifically Croat form “Ugri”. It is interesting to note that Vezdin was familiar with Sajnovics’s work on the genetic affinity of the Hungarian and Lapp languages, which was one of the first methodical comparative studies.7 Our missionary says that “even as a lad I worked through it with admiration” (he would have been at least 22 years old). This reading obviously spurred him on to further comparativist work. He also refers to S. Gyarmathi’s Affinitas Linguae Hungaricae8 to support his argument.
In 1802 Antonio Fulgoni published Vezdin’s dissertation De Latini Sermonis Origine el cum Orientalibus Linguis Connexione Dissertatio. F. Paulini a S. Bartholomaeo, Romae 1802. (Dissertation on the Origin of the Latin Language and its Connection with the Oriental Languages. By Fr. Paulinus a St. Bartholomaeo. Rome, 1802.) pp. 8 + 24, in -4°. While in the dissertation on the affinity of Zend and Sanskrit he expressed his ideas cautiously, he is much bolder when talking about the connection between Latin and Sanskrit and explains that the two oriental languages, and especially Sanskrit, in the majority of their words “so happily and precisely accord with the Latin terms and so similarly alter their verbs that two peas in a pod are barely more alike. ” He reiterates that they correspond precisely in basic expressions. All this leads him to believe that the ancient Hindus and Latins were one stratum of people in ancient times (unus stirpis homine fuisse), and he calls the original language “unus primordialis Samscrdamicus sermo” (p. 10); the proto-language was a cruder, primordial Sanskrit. Vezdin leads the field with his detailed and well-argued discussion of the connection between these languages and in the way he proves that connection. However, J.F. Kleuker, who published his philological studies in Riga and knew Vezdin’s Sanskrit work, had already been pondering the common root of German, Greek and Latin with Sanskrit (as our missionary asserts, cf. p. 10- 11), while setting out the affinity between the first three of these.9
On pages 15-22 of De Latini Sermonis Origine, Vezdin compares Sanskrit and Latin words. Despite his listing the pairs of words without any particular order, he nevertheless demonstrates their affinity quite convincingly. Talking about the difficulty of reconstructing the original form from the final one, he provides a particularly interesting example on page 18: “From Anna we have derived (apud nos factum est) Anicka, Ance, Ancza, Anka, Nanka, Nanna, Nannetta, Nanenka.” Obviously, these are all Slav or Slavicized diminutives. There is no doubt as to what he means by “we” (apud nos), as is seen from the work to which he directs us in connection with these different forms of the name “Ana”: “Beitrag zur praktischen Diplomatik fur Slaven (Contribution to a Practical Study of Slav Documents, Vienna, 1801, p. 118). The author, Fr. Caroli Alter, custodian of the Vienna University library and reviewer of many of Vezdin’s dissertations, talks in “Beitrag” about the notation of time in Slav documents and, in this connection, about religious holidays and proper names.
In 1804 the Propaganda Fide printed Vezdin’s Vyacarana seu Locupletissima Samscrdamicae Linguae Institutio, in usum Fidei Praeconum in India Orientali, et Virorum Litteratorum in Europa adornata a P. Paulino a S. Bartholomaeo, Carmelita Discalceato, Collegii Urbani S. Congr. de Prop. Fide Studiorum Praefecto, S. Congr. Indicis Consultore, Mission. Oo. Syndico, Academiarum Veliternae, R. Neapolitanae, Caesaro-Regiae Patavinae Socio, et Galliae Scientiarum Instituto Correspondente. Romae 1804. (Vyakarana or the Most Ample Arrangement of the Sanskrit Language for the Use of Messengers of the Faith in Eastern India and Literary Men in Europe, Embellished by Fr. Paulinus a St. Bartholomaeo, Discalced Carmelite, Learned Prefect of the Collegium Urbanum of the Holy Congregation for the Promotion of the Faith, Counsel for the Index of the Holy Congregation, Principal for Eastern Missions, Member of the Velletri, Royal Neapolitan and Imperial Royal Paduan Academies, and Corresponding Member of the French Academy of Sciences. Rome, 1804.) p. 333, in -4°. This Sanskrit grammar also was dedicated to Cardinal Stefano Borgia. On page VI Vezdin lists the books dedicated to Cardinal S. Borgia by various scholars. Paulinus dedicated the majority of his works to Cardinal Borgia, who gathered around himself a number of researchers.10
In writing his Vyacarana, Vezdin had to tackle many difficult problems; he was committed to presenting the grammatical characteristics of Sanskrit from the point of view of Latin. In this respect, he was following a tradition: Renaissance grammarians and scholars continued, in the manner of Donatus (mid-4th century AD) and Priscian (about 500 AD), to impute Latin grammatical traits to non-Latin idioms, and grammars of European vernaculars were cast almost entirely in the Roman mould. This approach which rests upon disclosing and studying similarities between the two languages, inevitably leads to the discovery of differences in the structures of the two languages and the outline of a contrastive analysis.
Vyacarana is divided into seven chapters. In the first chapter, the sounds and the script of Sanskrit are analysed (p. 1-19). In the second and third chapters the declension of nouns ending in a vowel (p. 20-38) or a consonant (p. 39-54) are presented. Vezdin gives a rather clear and complete description of the system of the inflection of Sanskrit nouns. In the third chapter Vezdin also deals with personal, demonstrative and relative pronouns (p. 54-59), with grammatical gender (p. 60-63), adverbs and prepositions (p. 64-65); and conversion of substantives into adjectives and vice versa (p. 69-70). In chapter four, the conjugation of different kinds of verbs is systematically presented (p. 72-122). Vezdin deals with the morphology of the verb extensively, trying to find a Sanskrit equivalent for every Latin conjugational pattern.
In chapter five, the syntactic function of different inflexional endings (noun cases) is exposed (p. 125-139). Chapter six deals with vowel mutation in compound nouns (p. 140-146), with adverbs (p. 146-151), supines, participles and gerundives. Vezdin tries to provide some analogical forms in Sanskrit which would correspond to Latin supines and gerundives. The last chapter (Nomenclator Latino-Samscrdamicus) gives Sanskrit equivalents of various Latin terms and vice versa (p. 154-221). Pages 222-298 (Sankirnavargga, classis miscellanea variorum vocabulorum ordine alphabetico) contain a Sanskrit-Latin dictionary. Pages 299-307 contain a list of Nanartha vargga (group of antonyms), i.e. Sanskrit nouns and verbs which have opposite meanings and Latin adjectives which have two or more semantic equivalents in Sanskrit. Sanskrit cardinal and ordinal numbers are summarily dealt with on page 326.
As one can appreciate from the foregoing, Vezdin is the author of many learned books on the East, which were highly valued in their day and have contributed much to the study and knowledge of Indian literature and Indian life. Although we are indebted to him for the first printed Sanskrit grammar, he seems somehow to have fallen into oblivion. “Between 1780 and 1800 the conscientious research of Anquetil and Sancto Bartholomaeo coincided with the scientific foundations being laid in Calcutta.” (R. Schwab, op. cit. p. 134-135). After his return from India, Vezdin had twenty books published in Europe, dealing with Sanskrit and Indian civilization. All were written in Latin, except Viaggio (1790) and Scitismo svilupato (1793). Little is known about his grammars Sidharubam (1790) and Vyacarana (1804) and they do not seem to have had any direct bearing on the origins of Indology. However, “Paulinus a Sancto Bartholomaeo collected some important materials as much linguistic as theological in nature.” (R, Schwab, op. cit., p. 32). Therefore, the entire opus of this forgotten pioneer of Indic studies deserves to be critically examined and in the light of this analysis, Vezdin’s contribution to Indic studies. rightly acknowledged.
NOTES
1 I. Slamnig, Filip Vezdin (1748-1806) pionir evropske indologije, Rad, JAZU, Vol. 350 (1968), p. 550-554.
2 According to Michael O’Keefe, Sidharubam is a garbled version of the Sanskrit siddha rupa ‘correct form’. It probably comes via the Malayalam language spoken in Kerala. I have traced a small Sanskrit grammar bearing the title: Siddha-rupa (Paradigms of Sanskrit grammar. Followed by the Ganashtaka, Vagisi-stava, and Mukundashtaka hymns), pp. 45, VII, Kottakal, 1920.
3 “This first grammar of the Sanskrit language, being a translation of an original work, is accurate, although not comprehensive. It is printed with Roman letters in all except the first section, in which the Sanskrit words are expressed in the characters of the Tamil alphabet, of very indifferent typographic execution. The Roman representation of the words in accordance with the original Tamil, is disfigured by corruptions derived from the peculiar pronunciation of the natives of that part of the Peninsula of which Tamil is the vernacular idiom, by whom soft labials are substituted for hard, and soft dentals or semivowels for hard dentals, in certain situations. Thus Someba is written for Somapa, and bhavadi for bhavati, and vrikshal for vrikshat. With respect also to the Roman orthography, a most barbarous-looking equivalent is not unfrequently given for the original, depending partly upon German and partly upon Italian pronunciation, and which it often requires some consideration to identify; kashtasrita is not at once recognisable in kaszdaschrida. The grammar is followed by two vocabularies, one Latin and Sanskrit, arranged according to the analogous senses of the words; the other, Sanskrit and Latin, arranged alphabetically. ” (H.H. Wilson, Ibid., p. 16.)
4 Amarasimha was the earliest and the best known Sanskrit lexicographer. He was the author of the famous lexicon Amarakosa and his name became an eponym for a Sanskrit dictionary, just as Calepin, the Latin Dictionary of the 16th century was named after Ambrosio Calepino. Amarasimha was a Buddhist and may have lived in the 5th century AD or even earlier. By tradition, he was a contemporary of Kalidasa, the greatest poet and dramatist in Sanskrit literature.
5 Vezdin possessed a fragment of the book of Magha, the 7th century poet who wrote a long poem on an incident in the life of Krishna.
6 It was his son, Jacques Law de Lauriston, who commanded the French troops who took Dubrovnik on the 26th of May 1806 during Napoleon’s campaigns in Croatia. Law de Lauriston was a descendant or relation of the Law who made himself known by his speculations under the regency of the Duke of Orleans.
7 Joannes Sajnovics, Demonstratio Idioma Ungarorum et Lapponum idem esse … Hafniae anno 1760. Hafniae (Copenhagen) [1770]. Tyrnaviae (Bratislava) 1772.
8 Samuel Gyarmathi, Affinitas Linguae Hungaricae cum Linguis Fennicae originis gramatice demonstrata; nec non vocabularia dialectorum Tataricum et Sclavicarum cum Hungarica comparata. Gottingae, 1799.
9 “It is easy to tell from the existing [Sanskrit] pronouns that German, Greek and Latin are contained in them, only for words of that kind, i,e. pronouns, for which a linguistic basis and origin need be proved, does it follow that the last named languages share a common distant source in Sanskrit.” Kurzer Auszug aus des Fr. Paullinus a S. Bartholomaeo Sidharubam oder Samskrdamischen Grammatik mit einigen Bemerkungen uber einzelne Punkte des Inhalts der genannten Schrift von J.F. Kleuker in the Abhandlungen uber die Geschichte … Wissenschaften und Literatur Asiens, Bd 4, Riga 1797 (p. 307-308).
10 The circle of S. Borgia’s admirers included the Makarska vicar-general, Ivan Josip Pavlovic Lucic (Paulovichius Lucichius, 1755-1818), who was quite a prolific writer in Latin, Croatian and Italian. On page VII of Vyacarana Vezdin also cites one of Pavlovic’s works, (De Theologo Episcopi Epistola, Rhagusii (Dubrovnik), 1801, in -8°), and in general mentions him in favourable terms in his prefaces. A book with a dedication to Borgia, which was known to Vezdin, also came from the apostolic vicar in Turkish Bosnia, Grgur Vareski (“Vrhu kraljevstva Marijina govorenja” -To the Head of the Kingdom of Mary’s Words, Dubrovnik, 1799. This is a translation of the work Regno di Maria by A. Borgia).
The above text was published in: Branko Franolic, Filip Vezdin’s Contribution to Indic Studies in Europe at the Turn of the 18th Century. Paris: Nouvelles Editions Latines, 1991. 22p.
'Zercalo Marijansko': Some Thoughts on Croatia Religious Hymnals of the 17th and 18th Centuries
Ennio Stipcevic
American Croatian Review, Year IV, No. 3 and 4, 1997, pp. 17-18.
Every contemporary attempt to fathom the culture of the Baroque in Croatia cannot avoid considering the difficult and catastrophic political situation in Croatia during the 17th and 18th centuries. Croatia was a land divided and ruled by the Venetians, the Habsburgs, and the Ottoman Turks. The population constantly fluctuated as wars, epidemics, and migration took their toll: instead of gentle Baroque music, one could hear the echoes of horses’ hooves. During this long period of constant insecurity, (Pavao Ritter Vitezovic called the period plorantibus Croatiae saeculu duo), there remained only a small class of scholars with a good grasp of the political situation in Croatia, who were engaged in saving authentic artifacts of cultural and spiritual value. In Croatian towns, music was present as a part of organized public life, primarily as a composite part of celebrations and festivities. The noble families of Croatia had become impoverished, and only a few were able to give temporary employment to a selected group of musicians or small ensembles. It was the Croatian clergy who were the main, and most reliable financial supporters of musicians at this time.
During the Baroque, the Catholic Church and its religious orders–especially the Jesuits, Franciscans, and the Paulines–ensured the musicians the necessary continuous financial support. The impossibility of finding permanent employment in secular circles influenced musical production, repertoire, and the very characteristics of contemporary musical expression, considerably.
Removed from the colossal European Baroque movement, musicians in Croatian lands were faced with problems that were different and necessary to solve. It was necessary to give the audience–primarily people gathered in church–music that would carry an understandable message and be, at the same time, modern and authentic. There was no concept or aesthetic ideal stronger than the need felt by Croatian cultural workers and their art, to destroy imposed boundaries and to achieve that goal through politics. Very slow and difficult acceptance of musical innovations in Northern Croatia, where the reliquiae reliquiarum of any hope for Croatian sovereignty were scattered, resulted in an inevitable and conscious withdrawal of elitism and regionalism.
The Franciscans, whose monasteries were spread beyond politically imposed borders, played the most important role in these endeavors at the beginning of the 18th century. However, the beginning of the Baroque in Croatia was initiated by the waves of the Catholic Restoration Movement which came to the coastal regions in the first decades of the 17th century.
The religious reformation based on Luther’s doctrinal views, had been accepted with some reserve in Croatia. The Protestant Reformation primarily influenced the northwestern part of Croatia, namely, Medjimurje and Istria. It did some good in that it promoted literacy with the help of the printing press. The high hopes and plans of the Croatian Protestants, (Stjepan Konzul Istranin, and Antun Dalmatin) of promoting literacy and the printing of religious books were later to come true. After the Council of Trent, the Jesuits took it upon themselves to finish what had been started. The Counter-Reformation in Croatia was, therefore, seen more as a move towards Catholic renewal: the Jesuit cultural activities were basically a reflection of the complex religious and political state of affairs in Croatia. Seen in this context, music played a specific role in Croatia.
The music of the Jesuits had two main functions: 1.) to preserve, codify, and perpetuate sacral airs and secular folk songs, and, 2.) to take charge of the theater and its performances. Just how industrious the meticulous and serious-minded the Jesuits were when they drew up their program, can be seen in the works of Bartul Kasic. Kasic’s linguistic point of view is explained in the introduction to the Ritual rimski istoma en slovinski (Rome, 1640), a work which is also important for the history of music in Croatia as well. The Croatian translation was directly inspired by the Rituale romanum Paul V. Pot. Max. (…) Et Urban VIII. auctoritate recognitum (…) (Paris, 1635). Many chorales have been faithfully translated from the original. Kasic’s Ritual was in use in Croatia until the beginning of the 19th century, and played an important musical role for liturgical rites and services.
An authentic and interesting description of the public festivity of the “Devicza Maria” (the Virgin Mary) in Zagreb and its surrounding region, was given by Juror Habdelic in his work Zercalo Marijansko, (Graz, 1667). Habdelic was the most significant writer of the Baroque in northern Croatia. He wrote in the regional Kajkavian dialect and his work gives us a vivid description of the Virgin Mary. It is important to realize that due to Jesuits and their educated pupils, church music became a new theme in Croatia for learned discourse during the Croatian Baroque period.
In his works Molitvene knjizice (Pozun, 1640), and Sveti Evangeliomi (Graz, 1651), Nickel Krajacevic-Sartorius shows an interesting attitude towards the folk songs of Croatia. Krajacevic, an ordained priest, a missionary, and, for a period of time, rector of the Jesuit College in Zagreb, was an important figure in the Catholic Renewal Movement in Croatia. Molitvene knjizice and Sveti evangeliomi contain not only prayers, litanies, and Gospels, but also a number of sacred songs, which the author included in the hope that they would be sung “…in the place of vulgar and shameful and unclean songs”. Krajacevic’s aim was, in fact, to collect and to present future generations a heritage of valuable folk songs in a purified version. His wish to sustain and pass on tradition by unifying and codifying it, coincided with the endeavors of the Jesuits. Nearly twenty years later, Juraj Habdelic attempted the same in his work Pervi otca nasega Adama greh (Graz, 1674) (The Original Sin of Adam, Our Father), in which he renders a small tract about folk songs. In the chapter entitled Pesme od ljubavi (Songs of Love) Habdelic refers to Krajacevic and expresses the same point of view, namely, that one considers it important not to bear prejudice against all folksongs in advance, but only against those which are “unclean and shameful.” This counterfactual approach, expressed by Krajacevic, Habdelic, and other Jesuit writers such as Juraj Mulih, served to make folk songs fit the norm. By polishing them, they tried to make them acceptable for church service.
During the Croatian Baroque, the Franciscans and the Paulines, like the Jesuits, also endeavored to cultivate folk songs and sacral music. The names of these valuable, if simple, cultural workers and musicians (organists, transcribers, and composers) are still too little known to scholars. Slow progress is being made in grasping the fact that those cultural workers were, until recently, considered to be local and uninteresting, and that they conceal a great deal which is of real value, or that they form, in fact, the foundations for important events in subsequent Croatian musical life. Linguistic, literary, and musicological research has thrown light on the cultural aspirations of the pre-Illyrian period in Northern Croatia. Therefore we see that the wish for standardization of the Croatian language (keep in mind the title of Kasic’s grammar of 1640: Institutionum linguae Illyricae) and of the musical repertory in the northern parts of Croatia, was definitely not in opposition to the developed Mediterranean heritage in the coastal areas.
After the year 1650, there was no break in Croatian musical cul
ture, as was thought not long ago, but to the contrary, early Baroque musical experiences were used with skill and intelligence. This continuity is seen for example, in the tradition of solo singing (whether for solo voice or for a choir in unison), with an instrumental accompaniment, most often the organ. From early Baroque monodic cliches (as seen in works by Ivan Lukacic, Tomaso Cecchini, and Gabriello Puliti, and others), to the mostly monodic Slavonic masses used by the Franciscans, as well as the folk songs, church music, and songs (written by, inter alia, Filip Vlahovic-Kapusvarac, Ivan Leopold Sebelic, Matija Jakobovic, and many other anonymous musicians), during a period of almost 200 years in Croatia (in the regions of Slavonia, Croatian Zagorje, Dalmatian Zagora, and in parts of western Bosnia) an authentic musical idiom developed, simple in its external manifestation, but harmonious in its form and expression.
The Pauline friars practiced in their monasteries a slightly modified Gregorian Chant, with organ accompaniment. In their Scriptoria, especially that of Lepoglava, they complied chant books. The Paulines had special affection for liturgical chants meant for simple congregational use, and thus, largely ignored popular folk song expressions. Their development of these chants is of great significance, and undoubtedly ranks amongst the greatest cultural achievements in Croatia during the Renaissance and Baroque. A famous Pauline manuscript chant book from 1644, (Pavlinski zbornik), was written both in Latin and in the Croatian Kajkavian dialect. It contains translations of medieval Latin hymns, German and Bohemian songs, as well as early Croatian folk songs. Pauline chant books, such as Philomela sacra, before the year 1743, and Varazdinska pjesmarica I, dated 1793, had great echo in Croatia. A printed version of Hymnal for the bishopric of Zagreb, Cithara octochorda (Vienna, 1701, 1723, and Zagreb, 1757) contained some twenty odd hymns taken from the Pavlinski zbornik of 1664.
The Pauline friars, like the Franciscans and Jesuits, understood the importance of church and folk music in the church service. Despite certain negative features, Croatian Religious Hymnals of the 17th and 18th centuries, nonetheless, had authentic value for the future development of musical life in Croatia.
Ante Čuvalo 