Pod plastom pravde. Kaznenopravni sustav Dubrovacke Republike u XVIII. Stoljecu. Dubrovnik: Zavod za povijesne znanosti HAZU u Dubrovniku, 1997. (368 p.)

     The administration of criminal justice in the eighteenth-century Republic of Dubrovnik was determined by a variety of interactive elements. In order to give a general view of the system, research into some of the most significant features of legal practice was essential, such as legal background, organization of the judiciary, social structure and crime rates, the penal system, procedure, penal policy, and the ideology of punishment. Records of over 3,000 cases presided over by the central Criminal Court served as a major source of the study.

I

     Principal medieval legal collections (Statute of 1272, Liber omniun, reformationum, Liber viridis, Liber croceus), were formally effective until the fall of the Republic at the beginning of the nineteenth century. However, legal practice continuously modeled itself in accordance with new conditions. Criminal law offered a number of examples in which legal practice gave way considerably to certain solutions which bore no trace in the regulations (e.g. prison in the penal system or torture in the procedure). A close analysis of court records has proved that legal practice was far more productive and often contradictory to the legal provisions. And reversely, a thorough study of court records has provided a more credible and realistic reconstruction of the system of legal sources.

     It has been shown that over the centuries the Statute of 1272 and other legal collections gained political rather than legal value. The continuity of legal order was the stronghold of legitimacy. The sources put forward as positive law by the Republic of Dubrovnik had an illusionary effect. As a matter of fact, they were the symbols of the Republic’s identity, crucial to its self confidence and political image.

      II

     The judiciary did not operate as a separate public function performed by professionals, but represented a mere political device in the hands of the nobility. The analysis of judicial selection shows that cursus honorum was strict. Petty offences were decided by local counts, patricians who would begin service in their early twenties, with little life, let alone legal, experience. Working their way up the political ladder over the following fifteen years, they would practice the “art of governing”, which led them to judicial and other high offices in their mid-forties. Judges, as well as local officials, were elected for a limited one-year term without the possibility of being re-elected for a period of two years. Since most of them resumed their judicial office just a few times and after long intervals, they were scarcely trained in criminal law. Approximately one quarter of the patricians were re-appointed to judicial office several times, thus managing to maintain their acquired legal knowledge and skill. For the rest of them, however, the judicial function represented only a minor episode in their public lives.

     Only exceptional judges had proper legal education acquired at foreign universities. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the Republic of Dubrovnik organized a legal course so that the patricians (and commoners in public services) could obtain some basic knowledge necessary for practicing. Generally speaking, though, the legal education of the judges was meager.

     Under such conditions chancellors were those who contributed to criminal justice on a somewhat higher professional level. Although their role seemed to be subordinate and of minor importance, they assisted the judges acting as guarantees of legal standards. First of all, a long apprenticeship offered the chancellors thorough training in all aspects of criminal law. Furthermore, chancellors specialized in criminal matters, unlike patricians, who recurrently changed their duties. Finally, the chancellors holding long-term offices maintained the necessary continuity in criminal justice. Metaphorically speaking, the chancellery was the driving-wheel of the judiciary. The role of experienced chancellors was even more valuable in local units, where they assisted the unskilled local counts.

     The important position of chancellors in the Dubrovnik state reflected on their social condition. The chancellor’s families constituted a closed social group within commoners, the sons frequently inheriting the office from their fathers.

     It is evident that in criminal procedure the judge and the chancellor had distinct roles. The criminal judges were in charge of the main issue of the case, while the chancellor’s predominant contribution was in the legal field. Chancellors certainly made use of Criminalium, the repertory of criminal law provisions. More complex legal problems demanded the aid of specialized reference books, kept in chambers. Unlike civil procedure, Dubrovnik criminal procedure was never fully described in the form of a written manual, but survived as part of the chancellors’ oral tradition. Their work was based on “judicial style” (stylus curiae), i.e. inveterate practice. It had no character of strict precedents, but contained rules, principles, instructions, and formulations deriving from long and selective experience. The chancellors were tutored by their seniors and they in turn passed their knowledge on to younger colleagues.

     The judges could rely upon the assistance and professional liability of chancellors and concentrate on decisive points, such as the evaluation of evidence, the choice of the penalty, etc. Judicial decision was not the result of mere improvisation. It showed a tendency towards consistency and stability, both characteristic of the conservative image of the Republic of Dubrovnik. However, political and legal issues intertwined continually, either in the choice of punishment or the transfer of jurisdiction. The judges were guided by the state interest, that is, their judicial and political roles overlapped.

     Jurisdiction was initially given to the Criminal Court and the local counts, but in accordance with the principle of “sliding jurisdiction”, it could be upgraded in the hierarchy. The scale of state institutions started with local counts and continued through the Criminal Court up to the Minor Council and the Senate, which was authorized to intervene in criminal justice at its own discretion. The Senate proved to be a perfect laboratory for blending legal and political issues in the most delicate cases. Although the Senate did not exercise its judicial authority too often, its political power hovered above the jurisdiction of all the other institutions.

     The judiciary embodied several supervisory mechanisms. Provisores, three experienced patricians well versed in law, supervised the legality of judicial decisions. Whether or not an already-passed sentence would be re-examined depended upon their judgment, but not entirely the final decision was reserved for the Senate. The local officials’ misuse of authority was monitored at regular intervals by the supervising committee (Syndici). Possible errors or inconsistencies could be rectified by means of pardon, thus providing the penal system with the necessary flexibility.

      III

     The difficulties facing most of Dubrovnik’s institutions in the eighteenth century reflected upon the work of the criminal judiciary. The decrease in the number of patricians caused problems in holding
the institutional model according to the principles of rotation and family representation. Furthermore, conflicts among the nobility almost completely paralyzed the institutional system, so that the elections could not take place regularly.

     Thus the elections for Criminal Court judges were often prolonged, and some of the possible candidates were appointed to assignments else where. The problem was even worse with the function of local count, the most unpopular form of service among young patricians. Incapable of adjusting and coping with unpredictable situations, the judiciary suffered a serious crisis. The eighteenth century shed light upon all the defects that discredited the Dubrovnik judiciary, such as dilatory and desultory procedures or negligent and tardy executions.

      IV

     Court records are the most illustrative of valuable data pertaining to eighteenth-century Dubrovnik society. They are also of extreme significance to historiography, as they provide insight into the life of rural communities, which is seldom reported on in other sources.

     Paradoxically, social conflict is not only an act of collision but also of closeness, defining crime as a form of “negative communication”. Crime is markedly endemic in more compact communities, particularly in rural areas. Two-thirds of the violent offences occurred between fellow villagers. Almost nine-tenths of the perpetrators of violent crimes committed them within the limits of neighboring villages, against people linked to them by marriage bonds and everyday contacts.

     Urban crime displayed no such compactness. It was dictated by a different life-style, people communicated and circulated in broader social circles. However, the Jewish community was the only relatively compact and isolated urban social group with endemic criminality.

     On the other hand, more than four-fifths of all the tried thieves committed crimes outside their home villages, often organized into gangs. Thefts were mostly premeditated and directed towards alien communities in order to avoid collective liability and to improve the chance of being undetected.

     Research into crime within the family is not an easy task, since minor offences were often successfully covered up. According to the sources, serious violent crimes within the family most frequently occurred between adult brothers, offering grounds to believe that the rigid form of joint family was the major source of conflict. The same conclusion about the transformation of family structure and disintegration of joint families can be confirmed by documents of reconciliation and settlement.

     In the Ancient Regime societies organized on a collective basis, the authorities were scarcely concerned with the individual, for the focus was on the group, introducing some devices of collective liability. In that way both the self control of the community was reinforced, and the group itself was enabled to individualize collective sanctions. For such an approach to be effective, density of social relations and transparency of events was essential. These connections prevailed only in rural communities and the Jewish ghetto within the city itself.

     The autonomous judiciary of the village represented a complementary body of the state judiciary. Although oral tradition barely left any trace, some transitional mechanisms half-way between custom and law were reported, bearing ancient patterns along with the prevailing features of dominant culture. Furthermore, the rural community felt empowered to decide upon major issues of life and death: on certain occasions, despite numerous warnings, it sheltered escaped criminals, but also expelled its members or, at worst, attempted to lynch them. The background of these actions signifies disharmony between the value system accepted by the state judiciary and the one deeply implanted into the traditional understanding of justice.

     The pattern of social events coincided with the cycles in nature in the literal sense of the word: the rhythm of crime followed the rhythm of nature. Criminal offences were out of season at the time of exhaustive crop work and vice versa, social relations (from sexual relations down to crime) intensified in the period of little field work. This phenomenon emphasized the gap between rural and urban communities, as the latter showed no seasonal oscillations of criminal behavior.

     Research into criminality trends has been carried out by isolating crimes with the least methodological obstacles. The early decades of the eighteenth century registered a rapid decrease in the number of homicides due to general stabilizing conditions, particularly along the border of the Republic. Prior to that time, fear of banditry resulted in a situation of continual tension and constant carrying of weapons, both leading to many tragic events. In the second half of the eighteenth century the percentage of homicides fall to 10% or even considerably less. Considering a span of time longer than a century, this drop in the number of murders coincides with a general European trend of decrease in violent crimes. Besides, the Dubrovnik court records display a progressive shift from physical aggression toward verbal or symbolic. The explanation of this transitional process can be found in the theory developed by N. Elias on the “economy of instincts” and the growth of self-control as elements of a very complex, evolutionary and highly stratified “civilizing process” spanning from the Middle Ages to contemporary society.

     The study of murder and theft rates in different regions of Dubrovnik’s territory reveals diverse social backgrounds, life-styles and moral codes. Apart from the common differences between rural and urban societies and the peculiarities of life in detached island communities, the Peljesac peninsula had a much lower crime rate than the border areas of Primorje and Konavle. The remote and border-line communities, far from the reach of the authorities, were perfect grounds for a variety of criminal behavior. Since the protection of subjects, as well as their punishment, was ineffective, it gave way to behavior patterns founded on violence, self-help and self-will. This accounts for the higher rate of violent crimes committed in Primorje (a territory stretching along the longer border) in comparison with Konavle, although the two provinces were similar in position and comparable in number of inhabitants.

V

     The ideology of punishment was never expressly formulated in the Republic of Dubrovnik, but the forms of the inflicted penalties reflected some of the aims of the penal policy. Each penalty was not solely the response of the society to the committed crime, but a complex message as well.

     Some penalties, conceived on the idea of retribution, contained certain attributes of the crime itself: the punishment for murder was death, moral offences were matched by putting the offender to shame, whereas verbal offences required apology. Some forms of punishment were intended to remove the criminal from his community or social group, e.g. through banishment, or expulsion from the nobility, or confinement in the fortress, at home, or in prison. Through fines and penal servitudes the authorities aimed at gaining profit for public finances. Each particular punishment, as well as the system as a whole, resulted from the combination of such elements. On the basis of intrinsic criteria it was possible to reconstruct the original penalty scale in which disgracing penalties had a very high position.

     The types of penalties in Dubrovnik legal practice were no different from those in other Euro
pean countries of the Ancient Regime, especially those of the Mediterranean. However, if we regard the penal system on the whole, considerable discrepancies arise. Three-quarters of all the sentences of the Criminal Court were the punishment of imprisonment, while the other penalties hardly reached two-figure percentages. Furthermore, imprisonment began occupying a prominent place in the Dubrovnik penal system as early as the fifteenth century, whereas in most European countries it appeared (in combination with forced labor) as late as the sixteenth century. Dubrovnik society was not founded on feudal bases, but mercantile values: circulation, time, and money. Therefore, deprivation of liberty by imprisonment and waste of valuable time were hard enough sentences for the offender. The fact that there were no restrictions regarding communication among prisoners and their visitors made the prisoner’s everyday life more endurable than in the newly established prison institutions throughout Western Europe.

     To the most serious crimes the authorities responded most brutally and publicly, bringing the punishment to the level of a ritual. The punishment was to be exemplary, horrible, and meaningful, a sight to remember. The public infliction of punishment used comprehensive symbols: reverse ritual was to reaffirm the values violated by the offender (disgracing procession), while exposure at the Column of Orlando and branding with the state seal demonstrated political authority and the triumph of legal order. The effectiveness of the message was further stressed by “theatrical” elements of scenery, musical effects, and the use of dummies. Sometimes the social effect of the punishment was prolonged by the permanent mark on the offender’s body, as well as by the exposure of the quartered corpse. But the authorities were aware that such punishments were to remain exceptional in order to strike spectators.

     In the middle of the eighteenth century the long-term evolution of the penal system came to a turning-point. Public and ritual executions were becoming less frequent along with other penalties meant to cause physical pain and suffering. An identical process in other European countries of the Ancient Regime provoked a vivid discussion in historical science. Dubrovnik sources confirm that the extent and pace of these changes could not have solely been induced by the ideas of the Enlightenment. They should be placed within the context of fundamental and gradual transformations of human society and its values. The works of P. Spierenburg, inspired by the theory developed by N. Elias, support the idea that changes in the penal system result from profound transformations in the domain of sensibility and mentality, reflecting upon a variety of basic issues of human life. Taking into consideration the contributions of M. Foucault, we can sense vague outlines of modern society built on the individual. Punishment began to focus on the offender and no longer represented a social happening. It did not demonstrate ritual triumph of the punitive authority any longer, but was supposed to express the idea that the punishment was inevitable.

      VI

     Criminal procedure in the Republic of Dubrovnik was never entirely regulated; the provisions remained scarce and few. After detailed analysis of a great number of cases, it is possible to establish the elements and principles of the procedure.

     The court had great authority to initiate the procedure so as to avoid the negative consequences of the passivity of the aggrieved party. Since in pre-police societies crime reporting was uncertain, Dubrovnik criminal justice tended to eliminate or surmount the problem in the following ways: first, the right to submit a claim was extensive and free of formalities. Second, subjects were encouraged to report crimes by the method of reward and sanction. And lastly, persons presumed to be informed about crimes (physicians, parish priests, and village authorities) were obliged to report them. The collecting of information on a network basis produced rather satisfactory results for a state with a yet unestablished police force.

     In spite of the settled principles denoting the species and value of evidence, the law of proof was only apparently rigid. On the one hand, the Court often examined far more evidence than was required by the law of proof. On the other hand, in few cases were the sentences founded on nothing but indicia. The evidence was examined and evaluated according to its inner credibility and in relation to other previously established facts. Thus, the value of the law of proof remained on the level of formal recommendations as a possible mode, while in practice it relied upon judicial initiative and evaluation.

     Although each regulated criminal procedure implies limitation of judicial arbitrariness and hence the protection of the parties, concrete guarantees of human rights are scarce. Nevertheless, the eighteenth century brought into Dubrovnik judicial practice some elements concerning the right of defense.

     Dubrovnik criminal procedure in the eighteenth century consisted of a variety of elements and principles and cannot therefore be classified in any of the specific procedure types. It allowed the predominantly inquisitorial or accusatory character of the procedure to develop. Generally, the initiation and issue of the procedure rested upon the disposition of the aggrieved party and the decision of the court. The leading role of the court was most distinctively exhibited in procedural questions.

      VII

     Criminal justice underwent considerable changes in the course of the eighteenth century. The number of cases increased rapidly in the middle of the century, which could not be only attributed to population growth. At the same time, the number of unfinished cases also rose, particularly those interrupted at an early stage of the procedure. These evidently were the result of the accuser’s disposition, and not judiciary negligence or inefficiency. These proceedings mostly dealt with minor offences settled by agreement. Such cases which had formerly been treated entirely out of court were, in the second half of the eighteenth century, brought to justice in order to persuade the defendant into settlement.

     The change in crime rates affected the functioning of the judiciary. It caused a relative decrease in inquisitorial proceedings, a change in ratio between finished and unfinished procedures, as well as the structure of the penalties.

     Some changes resulted from the internal problems of the judiciary. Because of the aforementioned general problems, judicial institutions were hardly able to ensure the continuity of practice. The system was in constant pursuit of a way out of the crisis, trying to keep pace and be more efficient with unfinished cases piling up. Typical of crisis-prone institutions, the court did not sit regularly, would speed up towards the end of its mandate, or was too eager to pass sentences with diluted effect.

     The policy of executions and pardon largely depended on the conduct of the condemned person. This was not the case with imprisonment, since the defendant was often held in custody. On the other hand, serious criminals were usually out of the reach of justice, and verdicts remained fruitless for many years. The mitigation of these sentences by pardon was due to compromise with the escaped criminal. The fact that executions of the most severe punishments were rare was compensated by the intimidating ritual.

     The elements discussed here, along with a number of others, formed a complete system of interacti
ve factors occurring simultaneously and reaching a turning-point around the middle of the eighteenth century.

      VIII

     Dubrovnik also nested the followers of the new approach to constitutional and legal order in accordance with the ideas of the Enlightenment, but these circles had no impact upon state policy. The panic-stricken authorities attempted to constrain the reformative demands and the ideas of the opposition and their penetration into public institutions. The Enlightenment influenced culture, while the penal system and the judiciary remained almost intact. Nevertheless, the eighteenth century was a time of gradual social change in which Dubrovnik followed the transitional patterns of other European societies of the Ancient Regime.

Yugoslavia as History Twice There Was a Country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1996. xx, 421 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Photographs. Tables. Maps.$59.95, hard bound. $ 19.95, paper.

     John R. Lampe, a noted economic historian of the Balkans, has written an account of Yugoslavia’s history. The book is divided into eleven chapters. The first three (approximately a quarter of the text) provide the account of South Slavic affairs before World War I. The next three (an additional quarter) deal with the rise and fall of the interwar Yugoslav royalist state. Chapter 7 (31 pages) comments on the occupation and the rise of the communist federal state, whose story is treated in the subsequent three chapters (a further quarter of the text). The survey ends with a chapter on Yugoslavia’s demise (31 pages). The book includes an interestingly constructed guide to further reading (in English and German),twelve fine maps that admittedly) contain some unfortunate errors, and twenty-three excellent tables.

     Lampe’s book has some strengths. The author is in his element when he writes on economic history. Many of his observations, though not necessarily new, are appropriate and well woven into the narrative. Nor can one quarrel with the architecture of his work, which is apposite to his argument. Unfortunately, the argument itself belongs to a curious evolutionary typology, rather than to historical argumentation, being overwhelmed by his view that all pre-1918 developments point to the rise of the Yugoslav state(s). The agencies of the country’s dissolution seem insignificant by contrast. Small wonder that the weakest chapters are the first three and the concluding two chapters.

     Lampe makes it clear that he did not set out to write a “comprehensive history of the two Yugostavias.” Instead, he wanted to “connect the unfinished tragedy of [Yugoslavia’s] violent end with its history, more specifically, with its origins in related but separate peoples and places before the First World War and the search for viability that both state and idea pursued twice, from 1918 to 1941 and again from 1945 to 1991” (xvi). The distinct marks of this definition can be found everywhere in the ahistorical “related but separate” trope. Modern situations are transferred into distant history. The medieval border between eastern and western Christianity “proceeded from Bosnia to the coast just south of Dubrovnik” (p.11). Stefan Dusan’s subjects, including “Macedonians and Bulgarians” (p.18), “Southern Vojvodina,” and “subdivided Slovenia,” (p.27) prance about in the eighteenth century. Dalmation scholars go to the University of Budapest in the fifteenth century. Rudjer Boskovic is a “Catholic Serb” and a “physical scientist” (p.36).

     Given the nature of the narrative, with so many anachronisms, misreads, and bloopers in the early chapters, this book is utterly depressing for a critical specialist. The sense of depression is not mitigated by Lampe’s relatively good command of contemporary-as opposed to older-literature. But this knowledge is capricious. For example, why must we hear the same old tales about the Illyrian Provinces if the works of Fran Zwitter (1964) and Drago Roksandic (1988) span a quarter of a century of research on the subject? The same can be asked of nearly every major area of controversy from the Illyrianist movement to Ilija Garasanin, from Josip Juraj Strossmayer to Prince Mihailo, not to mention all the topics that are entirely left out, especially in Bosnian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, and Slovenian history. A catalogue of these misreads, most of them connected with Lampe’s need to channel all likely events into a prehistory of political Yugoslavism, would overwhelm this brief review.

     The genre of synthetic literature is, of course, restrictive and affords few real excursions into genuine analysis. Lampe’s solution is to fill his historical mold with significant facts. In this he occasionally succeeds. It might be useful, therefore, for the benefit of future researchers, to note some of the major analytical problems that Lampe never really addresses: (p.1) What was the real state of society and political affinities in the South Slav provinces of Austria-Hungary and in occupied Serbia and Montenegro from 1915 to 1918? (p.2) What was King Aleksandar’s political program and under which ideological formula did he organize the 6.January dictatorships? (p.3) Why did the Croat national movement of the interwar period develop within an agrarian populist party? (p.4) What was the relationship between religion and nationality in the interwar period? Lampe never even mentions such overwhelmingly important developments as the theology of svetosavlje, and his knowledge of intellectual-political trends in Croat Catholicism is represented with the claim that Stepinac was a Jesuit.) (p.5) What was the impact of the occupationist regimes during World War II and of communist mobilization on the cohesion of national societies and traditional belief systems? Related problems, all of them relevant for the process of Yugoslavia’s dissolution, are not addressed in the sections on the communist state.

     The book is marred by a real absence of cultural history, which, when it appears, serves purely decorative purposes. Excursions outside the Serb-Croat matrix are few and inadequate. There is an excessive number of factual, orthographic, and spelling errors, as well as macaronic terms (D`emiyet!), that could have been corrected had the manuscript been subjected to critical prepublication readings. In short, we have a book that is too factual for a synthesis and a not analytical enough to inspire genuine discussion.

     The old Cambridge Singleton as certainly surpassed, but the problem of synthetic literature preceding laborious archival and textual research still remains the main obstacle to understanding in the field of Yugoslav history, which henceforth will need to focus on the period from 1918 to 1991.

     Ivo Banac/Yale University Slavic Review Vol. 57 No. 2, Summer 1998, pp. 438-439.)

In Defence of the Rightless. Banja Luka: Bishop’s Ordinary of Banja Luka and Croatian Heritage Foundation, 1997. (500 p.)

     The following text is the Preface to the book by Most Reverend Theodore E. McCarrick, Archbishop of Newark, Chairman of International Policy Committee U.S. Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

     In August 1995, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that the “barbarity” of ethnic cleansing will make Banja Luka, the second-largest city in Bosnia- Herzegovina, “go down in history as the heart of darkness.”

     The world got its first glimpse into this “heart of darkness ” in the summer of 1992 when photos of emaciated prisoners in concentration camps near Banja Luka led to international condemnations and urgent calls 0for action. But international attention soon was diverted to other parts of Bosnia, especially Sarajavo, where the brutality of “ethnic cleansing” and siege warfare was there for the whole world to see.

     Because the war was being fought elsewhere, Banja Luka quickly descended back into oblivion. A systematic campaign of “ethnic cleansing” continued for more than three more years, mostly out of view of outsiders, except for a few brave human rights monitors and relief workers from organizations like Human Rights Watch, UNHCR, and the International Committee of the Red Cross. For three more years, people were murdered or raped in their homes at night; tortured, beaten, and forced into labor camps or the Bosnian Serb military by day. Non-Serbs were dismissed from their jobs and denied medical care and other basic services. Most lost their businesses and were pressured to sign over title to their homes and pay huge sums for permission to flee. All the mosques in Banja Luka and most of the Catholic churches were systematically destroyed, and cemeteries were desecrated.

     These were just some of the tools of “ethnic cleansing” a deliberate and systematic effort by Bosnian Serb authorities to create an ethnically pure republic in which all traces of other cultures and religion would be eliminated. And it was an effective campaign. Of the estimated 550,000 non-Serbs (mostly Bosniac-Muslims and Croatian Catholics) in the Banja Luka region before the war fewer than 15,000 remain, and these remaining few are under intense pressure to leave. All of this has taken place in an area which has been free of fighting since the beginning of the war.

     In the remarkable book, Most Reverend Franjo Komarica, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Banja Luka, gives us the equivalent of a public diary of this humanitarian nightmare. His prodigious collection of letters, statements, and appeals to the Catholics in his diocese, Serb authorities, church representatives, and political leaders from around the world document in excruciating detail the horrors through which he and the rest of the non Serb population Lived for almost four years. As such, this collection provides valuable first-hand information about events that could not be monitored by international human rights groups. Even in the face of death threats and the murder of a half dozen of his priests and nuns, Bishop Komarica and a few priests and lay people meticulously catalogued virtually every killing and human rights violation and then shared it with anyone who would listen. What they produced is proof, if any is still needed, that no one can credibly say, “If only we know, we could hew done something!”

     But if this book were simply a compilation of the horrors of war and the appeals for help which never came, it might not be of special interest, even though few such tragedies have been so well documented as they were occurring. What makes this book truly noteworthy is that it is a diary of one religious leader’s struggle to witness to the truth when most of us would have remained silent out of sheer fear. It is like a photo album of Christian witness; snapshot after snapshot of one man’s efforts to live Gospel values of truth, nonviolence, peace, and reconciliation amidst the worst kinds of human depravity. In a situation where violence reigned and armed defense seemed the only option for non-Serbs, Bishop Komarica urged Catholics to forego the use of force, insisting that nonviolence and a commitment to collaboration between the diverse ethnic and religious groups were the only ways to counter extreme nationalists.

     In the face of those who preached a politics of hatred and division, he was a prophetic witness to the possibility of maintaining a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society. He has encouraged Catholics to stand up to “ethnic cleansing” by refusing to consent to the “voluntary” departures promoted by Serb authorities. His own home was packed with some twenty refugees at a time, while he countered the logic of ethnic hatred by providing humanitarian relief, through his Caritas agency, to needy Serbs, Croats, and Muslims alike. For the same reason, he has rejected the misuse of the concept of collective guilt, insisting that it is a relatively few extremists, not the whole Serb population, who are responsible for Croat and Muslim suffering.

     No one who reads this book, even in part, can continue to hold to the all-too common perception that religion has been part of the problem in Bosnia, not part of the solution. This is a moving testament to the Christian witness shown by Church leaders like Bishop Komarica during a war in which religion has been grossly manipulated, mostly by irreligious political authorities to serve their nationalist ends.

     In the end, this book is a diary of one man’s willingness to put his life on the line for his faith. He could easily have left Banja Luka, as most non-Serbs were forced to do, but he stayed. He stayed even after being placed under de facto house arrest for most of 1995. Not only did he stay but he continued to speak out on behalf of the few who remained, not a few of whom credit him with saving their lives.

     He has told me that he was too concerned about standing up for human rights and human dignity to be concerned about his own well-being. He has spoken movingly about how free he felt when he realized that the risk of being killed no longer mattered to him because of his faith and his conviction that he was doing God’s work.

     I have been privileged to become a friend of Bishop Komarica over the past several years and to visit him in Banja Luka more than once. I have seen first-hand what he has documented so well in this book. Moreover, I have come to know and admire him as one of the heroes of a war which can boast few heroes. He is a living contradiction to the extreme nationalists and religious fanatics who fuel ethnic and religious conflict and preach communal separation in Bosnia-Herzegovina and elsewhere.

     In that sense, this is a deeply spiritual book. It is a diary of a man whose faith not only survived but shone forth for all to see in the face of all manner of evil. It is a spiritual diary that should inspire any of us who seek to live our faith more fully. It is a spiritual story that deserves to be read, with awe and humility, on one’s knees.

Falsifikat o podrijetlu konavonskih rodova. (Forgery on the Origins of the Population of Konavle – Historical Pseudo-Science on Dubrovnik) Dubrovnik: Zavod za povijesne znanosti Hrvatske akademije znanosit i umjetnosti u Dubrovniku, 1997. (136 p.)

     Few historical disciplines influence political events as much as historical science. This fact is understandable, and there is nothing wrong with it. In fact, history deals in large part with the analysis of politics in the past and is consequently a basic starting point from which one begins the consideration of present-day politics and the prediction of political activity in the future.

     A problem occurs, however, when historical science becomes unnaturally yoked to politics, when it becomes an instrument of politics. Then, when history loses its universality, it also loses its fundamental scientific character. Instead of being a goal, it becomes a means by which a political interest can be more easily realized. Misused, historical science is thus fumed into the arm of politics that we would call historical pseudo-science.

     Historical pseudo-science has brought much misfortune to Dubrovnik. It has unfortunately not restricted itself to the laboratories. The results of pseudo- science were used in justifications of the Serbian military attack on Dubrovnik (1991), and in all probability even led to the very decision to attack the city.

     The hypertrophy of the historical pseudo-science of Dubrovnik began in the nineteenth century, when nations were beginning to form on the Balkan peninsula. These nations did not simply crop up out of nothing. Many factors religious, ethnic, linguistic, civilizational, cultural, etc.¹ influenced their creation and crystallization. Each one found in variations of these factors its own individual course of creation and movement. Still, it is crucial that each nation necessarily had its own base, critical mass, core that began it, that carried it, and out of which it further developed. The basis on which the Serbian and Croatian nations were created was religion.² For Serbs the basis lay in the Eastern Orthodox Church, for Croats, in the Roman Catholic Church.³

     Created upon these foundations, each nation has had its own specific development, its own rises and falls, its own shine, but its own delusions as well. ⁴ The Serbian nation showed its greatest aggressiveness during the Romantic period. The primary expression of this aggressiveness was Vuk Karadzic’s theory that all shtokavian speakers are Serbs. Historically, Croats have been speakers of three dialects, named chakavian, kajkavian, and shtokavian for the variants of the interrogative pronoun cha, kaj, and shto ‘what’. Serbs, on the other hand, have historically been speakers of two dialects in addition to shtokavian: Eastern shtokavian and Torlak. Early Croatian literature was written in each of its three dialects; its modem literary and linguistic standard, however, is based upon shtokavian. The acceptance of Karadzic’s theory, which ignored all other essential and decisive factors in the genesis of nations, produced the powerful expansionism of the Serbs. Serbs, that is, were not satisfied by the development of the core from which they emerged, and they attacked the foundations upon which other nations were created, including that of the Croats. This was obviously a romantic illusion that had no chances of success, but it brought misfortune to Croats and other nations, not to mention Serbs themselves.

     According to this theory, even shtokavian Dubrovnik was supposed to be a Serbian town. Even the historical context of the time was in Serbs’ favor, pushing Dubrovnik into the lap of Serbia. We must not forget that the fall of the Dubrovnik Republic after Napoleon’s shakedown of Europe, and the end of centuries of autonomy, traumatically affected the citizens of Dubrovnik. It was a shock for them to come under Austria’s rule. Psychologically, they considered themselves to be under occupation by a foreign state. Meanwhile, on the other side stood Serbia, recently freed from Turkish rule, which as such could have been a stronghold of pan-Slavism in the South Slavic region.

     Dubrovnik was also attacked internally. The fall of the Dubrovnik Republic brought with it the end of the city’s religious exclusivism. People of Orthodox confession were allowed to immigrate freely. In 1857 one percent of the population was already Orthodox, while in the twentieth century this segment of the population grew to more than seven percent.⁵ Because these newcomers settled mainly in urban areas, their influence was greater in the city of Dubrovnik. The dissatisfaction of the people of Dubrovnik with their loss of independence, coupled with their view of Austria as a foreign body and the above-mentioned changes in the demographic structure, lead to the strengthening of Slavophile currents among the Croatian people, the most extreme phenomenon of which being the so called Serb Catholics .⁶

     The wheel of history was thus turning in the advantage of the Serbs, not the Croats. In spite of all this, Dubrovnik still did not become Serbian, and for one reason alone: it did not belong to the Serbian corpus in terms of religion, culture, or civilization. There was no way that the Catholic “Latin” from the coastal Konavle region could identify with the Orthodox “Vlah” from the immediate hinterland, who had been a constant threat to his life and property for centuries. Even the townspeople of Dubrovnik, who were initially friendly toward pan-Slavism. soon “cooled off” to the idea when they sensed that the Serbs did not understand it in the same way when they figured out that behind this idea lurked expansionism. Therefore, in Dubrovnik no critical mass emerged that could successfully impose “Serbianness.” This was endorsed by Orthodox Serb arrivals and part of Dubrovnik’s intellectual elite who, under the influence of Miklosic, accepted Karadzic’s theory and in contact with Belgrade found their own advantage. But neither the common people nor the rest of the Dubrovnik intellectual elite ever accepted this idea. One very indicative report is that of Vlaho Bogdan, Court Secretary of the Habsburg Ferdinand IV, Grand Duke of Tuscany, published in Narodni list, no. 78 (October 20, 1885), in which he reviews Serb Catholic emphasis on Dubrovnik belonging to the Serbs:

     “I know very well when, and by whom, the Serbian label was attached to Dubrovnik. That which our immortal Medo Pucic wrote for Talijanska antologija in 1867 was not authoritative for many reasons, one of which is that, although his was a life of honor and uncommon virtues, he lacked that blessed consistence and sang as a ‘Slav,’ a ‘Yugoslav,’ an ‘Illyro-Slav,’ and finally, as a ‘Serb.’ This, of course, was natural for him, but neither for him nor for anyone else was it natural to name all of Dubrovnik Serbian. Organize for God’s sake a plebiscite, and then you will hear the true voice of Dubrovnik laughing at your face. If it were not for his ardent patriotism and great poetic gift, his christening of Dubrovnik with the Serbian name would bring him little eternal fame… From 1850 until 1860 and before that time, except for Medo Pucic (perhaps) and those true Serbs who came here in search of a better living, in Dubrovnik there was not a Serb to be found”.⁷

     The “Serbianness” of Dubrovnik, as an idea, already met its demise in the same century as when it was conceived, and it was destroyed in the twentieth century, in the fir
st Yugoslavian state, especially after the Croatian representative and leader Stjepan Radic was killed on the floor of the Yugosalivian parliament in Belgrade.

     But Serbian romanticism, of course, was not destroyed, but merely lost its foothold in Dubrovnik itself. Serbian politics and its product, historical pseudo- history, did not give up their claim to Dubrovnik. Since Serbia never controlled Dubrovnik legally or in the real sense not even during the period of Austrian rule, nor later in the Yugoslavian period, and since they had no positive legal basis for the acquisition of Dubrovnik, all they had left was the romantic imposition of historical criteria. Related to this was the creation of false dilemmas (Whose is Dubrovnik, Croatian or Serbian? Whose is the literature of Dubrovnik, Croatian or Serbian?) and the tactic of supporting these false dilemmas while waiting for an appropriate historical moment to change a wish into a reality.

     To be sure, it was a false dilemma, because Dubrovnik did not derive its affiliation from some romantic view of history, but from actual and legal fact. Dubrovnik is a city in the Republic of Croatia, Dubrovnik is legally a city in the Republic of Croatia Croatia did not take it from anyone else by force, Croatia did not fight a war in order to get Dubrovnik, Croatia did not occupy and conquer Dubrovnik. These are decisive facts. Dubrovnik’s place in the Croatian corpus can be confirmed by listing all of the arguments from historical proof to ethnic characteristics, just as the Serbs or any other nation have the right to search for their connections with Dubrovnik. But these arguments are not decisive; they are only explanations of particular historical events and processes, and not criteria according to which Dubrovnik could be considered Croatian, Serbian, or anyone else’s.⁸

     However, with the creation of false dilemmas, the history of Dubrovnik became politicized. Because of this, historians have not devoted their complete energy to researching the phenomenon of the Dubrovnik Republic, a small but significant state that survived in between great empires, a state that brought forth many prominent people, successful artists and scientists, a state that, thanks to its administration, has left us excellent archives, making it possible for us to follow microscopically all significant component parts of life over a long period of time beginning in the middle ages. Instead. their energies have been focused upon proving who Dubrovnik belongs to. Thus numerous Serbian historians began to search for clues proving Dubrovnik to be Serbian. Every Cyrillic letter found in the Dubrovnik Historical Archives became a proof of “Serbianness” in Dubrovnik. Individual segments of history in which the medieval Serbian state expanded toward Dubrovnik, capturing surrounding territories (but never the city itself), became decisive and even more important than the more long-term chain of events before and after this expansion. The short-lived Orthodox presence that occurred on the territory of Dubrovnik as a result of this expansion was new and further proof of Dubrovnik’s “Serbianness”, much stronger than the long-term religious affiliation of the region both before and after Evidence was seeked out in joint families, baptismal feasts. personal names, surnames, and individual statements. At the same time there was such animosity among Serbian historians toward the terms “Croatia”, “Croats”. “Croatian”, and ”Croatian language” that it would be difficult among numerous books and articles, to count on one hand the works in which at least some of these terms are mentioned even once. The basic goal was to prove that Dubrovnik is Serbian, and that, because it is Serbian, it is unjustly Croatian. Consequently, this injustice must be corrected.

     The few Croatian historians of Dubrovnik were unable to match the powerful Serbian historiographical school that developed beginning with Jorjo Tadic and the generation of skillful experts that he trained. In fact, taking into consideration Serbian historiography as a whole, this Dubrovnik group was probably one of the strongest and most noteworthy. Many important Serbian academicians built their scientific careers on the study of Dubrovnik. Croats were weaker, and only a few individuals (Vinko Foretic, Josip Lucic, Trpimir Macan, and Vladimir Koscak) succeeded in sustaining some kind of balance and preventing Dubrovnik historiography from becoming completely Serbianized .⁹

     To be sure, in such a power relationship, the Croatian historiography of Dubrovnik exposed its weakness. Because they did not have a large number of quality historians with the ability to use the power of argument and a large quantity of publications to expose the absurdity of the gross politicization in the works of some Serbian historians, the small number of Croatian historians found themselves in an unnatural defensive position. Sometimes, by joining the pointless discussion and attempting to prove the “Croatianness” of Dubrovnik, they would only strengthen the false dilemma that was imposed upon them.

     Modern Croatian historiographv should not be allowed to fall into this trap in calling upon history to prove that Dubrovnik belongs to Croatia. For Croatia and Dubrovnik this is a ridiculous and unnecessary discussion. The Serbs who imposed the discussion will have to come to terms with it by themselves until they do that until they discard their romantic view of history and politics from their historical science laboratories they will not be a serious partner to Croatian historiography. That is, however, their problem. Croatian historiography of Dubrovnik must dedicate its energy towards constructive ends: it is essential that we have more researchers of Dubrovnik’s past, that we are dedicated to the systematic and thorough study and publication of the abundant records held in Dubrovnik’s rich archives. And on the basis of this preliminary work, we must utilize the power of fact and reason in order to analyze everything that comprises the history of Dubrovnik. We must openly discuss all basic elements that follow this history. We must even explain the significance of the Serb Catholics, as well as that of the Orthodox presence in certain parts of the Dubrovnik region in the Middle Ages, etc. We should not be silent about these issues, and must not suppress them. On the contrary, it is necessary to speak out and put things in their right place, according to the strictest scientific criteria. In this way Croatian historiography of Dubrovnik will receive complete affirmation and respect, and only in this way will it be able to uncover and neutralize the one-sidedness of one segment of Serbian historiography.

     Modern Croatian historiography will exhibit its strength by just valorization of the results of Serbian historiography of Dubrovnik. It would be a great mistake to discard everything that that school has produced in the past decades. Among Serbian historians have been highly qualified scholars whose research was exclusively a product of their scientific curiosity, rather than political goals. Miodrag Popovic, to mention one, had the courage to state that the literature of Dubrovnik comprises a constituent part of Croatian literature, and that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the literatures of Dubrovnik and Serbia belonged to two completely different cultural and historical traditions.¹⁰ We must not make unnecessary generalizations and allow ourselves to hate those who we should respect. Croatian historiography must critically review the works of Serbian historians and argumentatively and impartially sift out what is good and acceptable from what is a forgery that must be rejected. *** This work is an analysis of exactly such a forgery, a book by Jovan Vukmanovic about the Konavle region. A typical example of ho
w a romantic approach to science can lead to pseudo-science, Vukmanovic’s book would not even deserve to be reviewed were it not for the fact that it bears the label of the highest scientific institution in Serbia. However, this book passed through the reviewing process of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and is printed as a publication of that institution. For this reason it is from the scientific point of view a first-class scandal.

     The purpose of this article is not to prove that the people of Konavle are Croats. They know that even without us and without Vukmanovic, who attempted to convince them that they are a “happy Yugoslavian combination”. What the people of Konavle are, and what each person from Konavle is individually, are questions to which the inhabitants of this southernmost region of Croatia can expect a two-way answer. Today: every Konavle resident is whatever he feels to be; every individual can answer that question by himself. Historically: each Konavle resident can take pride in his or her origins, whatever they may be. There is nothing better or worse about a Konavle resident who we can consider an autochton, than one whose family moved there long ago from more northern parts of Croatia, or whose ancestors left old Montenegro or Bosnia, coming to Konavle either to save their own necks or in some more peaceful or spontaneous migration. Every person who lives in the Konavle has a story, which they can be proud of. This is however a historical story and nothing more.

     The goal of this book is to separate truth from lies; to base the historical story of each Konavle resident upon truth, and not upon someone’s political whim; to ensure that behind such a story stands a reliable historical source, and not a forgery.
Authors
Translated by Alexander Hoyt

NOTES
¹ Compare Edgar Morin, “The Contents of National Feeling.” Lettre internationale 1/3-4 (1991): 16-18.

² Ivo Banac. “Vjersko ‘pravilo’ i dubrovacka iznimka: Geneza dubrovackog kruga ‘Srba katolika'” (The religious ‘rule’ and the Dubrovnik exception: The genesis of the Dubrovnik circle of ‘Serb Catholics’) Dubrovnik , New series 1/1-2, 1990: 179.

³ Ivo Banac makes an essential comment on this question: “Without going into a dissection of whether religion really divided the South Slavs into different nations or whether religious denomination simply reflected the heterogeneity of the South Slavic population that type of discussion would be difficult to carry out based upon today’s comprehension of ethnogenisis I am only warning of the fact that the religious ‘rule’ was not always so strict and that it was sometimes overlooked during clashes of ideology.” Ibid. 179.

⁴ See Wolf Dietrich Behschnitt. “O tipologiji nacionalizma u Srba i Hrvata.” (On the Typology of Nationalism Among the Serbs and Croats.) Translation: Christine Dumbovic-Reiser. Casopis za suvremenu povijest 24/3 (1992): 227-240.

⁵ Stjepan Krivosic. Stanovnistvo Dubrovnika i demografske promjene u proslosti . Dubrovnik: Institute for Historical Science in Dubrovnik, Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 1990: 70; Popis stanovnistva 1991., Narodnosni sastav stanovnistva po naseljima (The 1991 census in Croatian, Ethnic breakdown of the population by locality.) Zagreb: Republicki zavod za statistiku, Dokumentacija 881, 1992: 80.

⁶ Banac, Ibid.: 180; Trpimir Macan. “O pristupu srpskokatolickom fenomenu.” Dubrovnik 1-2 (1990): 236-237.

⁷ Niko Kisic. “Dubrovcanin Vlaho Bogdan, suradnik Narodnog lista.” Zadarska smotra 41/6 (1992): 13-15.

⁸ Nenad Vekaric. “Razmisljanje povodom ideje o otimanju Dubrovnika.”Dubrovnik (u ratu) 3/2-3 (1992): 454-457.

⁹ One very symptomatic example is Koscak’s conclusion about the “Croatian silence” in the polemic debate about the origins of the literature of Dubrovnik that was publicized in the Belgrade daily Borba during 1967: “And while on the Serbian side the president of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the dean of the faculty, the chairman of the department, and full professors all voiced their opinions, on the Croatian side they were careful not to offend anyone, and in so doing, left the arguing to younger and less prominent scholars, who luckily carried out the task honorably. Vladimir Koscak. “Polemika o pripadnosti dubrovacke knjizevnosti.” (The 1967 Debate Over the Origin of the Literature of Dubrovnik.) Dubrovnik (u ratu) 3/2-3 (1992): 474.

¹⁰ Koscak, Ibid.: 470-472.

Croatian and Serbian – Delusions and Distortions. In collaboration with Ljiljana Saric. Zagreb: Novi Most, 1997. Pp. 172.

     Translation of the original: Miro Kacic. Hrvatski i srpski – Zablude i krivotovrine. Uz suradnju Ljiljane Saric. Zagreb: Zavod za lingviskiku Filozofskog fakulteta Sveucilista u Zagrebu, 1995.

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     As anyone interested in the study of the Croatian language knows, most of the literature on the subject which is published by Slavists and linguists abroad deals with various aspects of the so called “Croato-Serbian/Serbo-Croatian language” without being, or most often wishing to be, aware that they are two different languages. Croatian and Serbian – Delusions and Distortions is therefore invaluable both for linguists and general public. Price and mailing: $ 27.00 USA, Canada, and Australia; $ 22.00 Europe.

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  Croatia: A History. Translated from the Croatian by Nikola Jovanovic. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999. xi 281 p. Paper US $22.95 Cloth US $60.00

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     Cuvalo’s latest book is a valuable primary source that will be useful to present and future historians of Croatian diaspora in the United States. It should be in every major library in the English speaking world. We urge our members, readers, and friends to order this worthy book and donate it to the library in your community, nearby college or university. Croatian organizations and lodges should consider sponsoring this and other worthwhile books so that the publisher and/or the author may send a copy of the book to various libraries on behalf of the sponsoring organization.

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