An Unfinished Story
A review of The Krajina Chronicle: A History of Serbs in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia • by Srdja Trifkovic • Chicago: The Lord Byron Foundation • 250 pp., $20.00
Srdja Trifkovic is no stranger to Chronicles readers, many of whom have found his articles commenting on foreign affairs, with particular attention to the Balkans, to be insightful, penetrating, and written with authority. His latest book, The Krajina Chronicle, provides further confirmation of his extraordinary talent.
The book is a history of the Serbian warrior-farmers who formed the first line of defense against Islamic invasions into the Habsburg Empire. It is a story of heroism and tragedy that reaches far beyond the old military frontier of the western Balkans. It is also a story that touches on some of the most eventful periods of European history. It ends tragically with the mass expulsion of the Krajina Serbs from their ancestral lands by Croatian military forces in August 1995, during Operation Storm. These forces, trained and equipped by the United States, drove out almost all of the Serbs from Croatia in a matter of days. The operation was made easier because the Krajina Serbs were ordered not to resist by their supposed ally, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.
The Krajina Chronicle begins by tracing the early Slav settlements in the western Balkans in the sixth century and describes how, over time, the antipathies that developed between Croats and Serbs were intensified by religious and cultural differences, the Croats becoming Roman Catholic and the Serbs adopting the Orthodox Faith of the Byzantine Empire. By the Middle Ages, Trifkovic documents, Serbian settlements were well established in a number of regions in territory that was later to become Croatia—a fact that is denied by some Croat revisionists. These settlements were strengthened over the years by influxes of Serbian refugees fleeing the march of the Ottoman Turks. These hardy settlers eventually were transformed by their Austrian hosts into the warrior-farmers of the Krajina. And warriors indeed they were! Quite apart from resisting Islam’s encroachment into Central Europe, these Serbs fought in almost all of the wars entered into by the Habsburg monarchy from the 17th to the 20th century.
Used primarily as light cavalry and infantry, they played an important role in all of the many battles in which they were engaged. In the Seven Years’ War, for example, the Serbs contributed 88,000 troops to the Habsburg armies, and during the Napoleonic Wars they sent 11 regiments against Napoleon’s forces. (In World War I, when Austria invaded Serbia in 1914, the Krajina Serbs fought against their fellow Serbs.) In return for military service, the Serbs were given land and special privileges exempting them from local taxes and laws. They owed their loyalty to Vienna, not to the Croatian or Hungarian nobility. The special status afforded the Serbs was deeply resented by their Croatian neighbors.
As Croatian nationalism became increasingly prominent in the 19th century, the existence of a Serbian population with special privileges, a different religion, and different loyalties complicated and impeded the ability of Croatian leaders to deal with their Hungarian and Austrian rulers. As Trifkovic explains, this led to extreme antagonism, bordering on a “morbid obsession,” toward the minority Serbian population. This hatred of the Serbs was exemplified by speeches and writings of the Croatian political activist Ante Starcevic (1823-96), who was ahead of his time in advocating genocide against the Serbs. Starcevic wrote that the Serbs are “the race of slaves, beasts worse than any other,” fit for extermination. Trifkovic points out that there is hardly a town in today’s Croatia that does not have a street, square, or institution named for Starcevic, who is often referred to as the Father of the Nation.
Notwithstanding Croatia’s almost pathological hatred of the Serbs, it was Serbia that saved Croatia from being carved up at the end of World War I. Having been on the losing side of that conflict, Croatia, under the terms of the Treaty of London, risked losing much of her territory to Italy and Serbia. She would have been reduced to four counties around Zagreb and lost much of her coastline. Serbia rejected the Treaty of London, however, opting instead to incorporate Croatia into the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, thus uniting all of the South Slavs in one state that was to become Yugoslavia. While uniting all of the South Slavs may have been seen as a logical step in the spirit of Slavic self-determination, the new state soon ran into the same old difficulties. No sooner had it been proclaimed than Croatian politicians began agitating to break it apart.
In fact, Trifkovic argues, the bitter legacy of Serb-Croat relations seems to have been accentuated by the union:
From the moment of its creation at the end of the Great War until its disintegration just over seven decades later, Yugoslavia was constantly beset by national problems. . . . [P]roblems which proved impossible to solve, in the first royalist Yugoslavia [1918-41] were no less difficult in the second, communist one [1945-91].
The Krajina Chronicle provides a stirring narrative of the events that followed the formation of the first Yugoslavia until its abrupt and violent breakup after the Nazi invasion in April 1941. Hitler quickly gave control of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina to Ante Pavelic, the leader of the Croatian fascist Ustasha movement. The Ustashe immediately embarked on a murderous campaign against the Serbs in Croatia. The policy was explicitly proclaimed: Kill one third, convert one third to Catholicism, and expel the remaining third from Croatia.
Trifkovic’s story of this mass murder spares no ghastly detail of the insane slaughter that took place in that early spring and summer of 1941. Most of the killing was done by cutting victims’ throats or by smashing their heads with a mallet or an ax. Later, when camps were set up to deal with the large numbers of the dispossessed—mainly Serbs, but also Jews and gypsies—the killing methods remained the same. How many lost their lives is not known, but estimates by holocaust historians range from 500,000 to 530,000. (Almost all of the author’s sources are senior German and Italian military or diplomatic personnel. When senior SS officers complain to Berlin about the killings, the reader is left with no doubt about the horrors inflicted upon the Serbs of the Krajina.)
The book also deals with the intricacies of wartime Yugoslavia and with the factional disputes and battles between Tito’s Partisans and Draza Mihailovic’s royalist Chetniks. Although both were engaged in a ferocious resistance against German and Italian occupiers, their real struggle was against each other in a bloody civil war.
Here again, Trifkovic presents a perceptive analysis of the forces at play in wartime Yugoslavia and of the eventual decision by Churchill to back Tito and to stop further military support to the Mihailovic forces. The Soviet army’s entry into Yugoslavia in the fall of 1944 decided the fate of the anticommunist forces, including thousands of Krajina Serbs. Although many found their way into Austria, hoping to be welcomed by the Western allies, they were betrayed by the British and Americans at the Yalta conference in February 1945, when Churchill and Roosevelt acceded to Stalin’s demand that all Soviet citizens be returned to the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, anticommunist Serbs were included in this category.
In May 1945 the British army returned to Yugoslavia several thousand anticommunist Serbs who, upon arrival, were summarily shot. Fortunately, 14,000 Serbs, most of them from the Krajina, managed to find their way to Italy, where U.S. authorities refused to hand them over to Tito. Many of them ended up in the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia.
In Tito’s communist Yugoslavia, the Krajina Serbs were not granted any favors by the new regime. Their dreadful suffering at the hands of the Ustashe was not formally acknowledged, and the survivors were, in effect, denied the right to mourn and had to accept the new regime’s slogan of “Brotherhood and Unity.” Thousands of homeless and refugee Krajina Serbs were denied permission to return to Croatia and were resettled instead in the northern region of Vojvodina, on the Hungarian border. Throughout the Tito years the Serbian areas of Croatia remained economically underdeveloped and without a clearly defined political identity.
In the concluding chapters of the Krajina Chronicle, Trifkovic recounts the futile attempt by the Krajina Serbs to remain a part of what was left of the disintegrating Yugoslav Federation. When Franjo Tudjman’s right-wing nationalist party came to power in 1990 with the undisguised aim of separating Croatia from Yugoslavia, the Serbs, determined to remain with Yugoslavia, formed an autonomous region and took up arms.
Croatia’s declaration of independence in May 1991 led to bitter fighting between the secessionist Croats and the Serbian minority. The conflict continued until a cease-fire was arranged in January 1992, which lasted with some exceptions until the devastating assault in August 1995 of Operation Storm, described by Carl Bildt, the U.N. special envoy to the former Yugoslavia, as “the most efficient ethnic cleansing we’ve seen in the Balkans.” Abandoned and betrayed by Milosevic and left to the mercy of a cowardly European Union and a vengeful Croatia supported by U.S. and NATO forces, the Krajina Serbs had come to the end of the line.
It is a credit to Srdja Trifkovic that his book will stand as a fitting, if perhaps the sole, testimony to a brave and extraordinary people—a compelling story, recounted in a stimulating and incisive narrative that covers a broad canvas without losing the attention to detail that brings life to historic events. The book also reveals the disturbing truth that the weak, however righteous their cause, remain at the mercy of the powerful.
This article first appeared in the September 2010 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.
For more information, or to purchase Dr. Trifkovic's The Krajina Chronicle, click here.
Entries(RSS)
Dr. Trifkovic is a true patriot.
Those of us "old American stock" chauvanists (me) would do well to remember that our cousins in the south and east didn't have the convenience of the mass of Christendom and a body of water between our ancestors and the Moslem, Turk and Mongol hordes. Dr. Trifkovic's people bore the brunt.
"Abandoned and betrayed by Milosevic and left to the mercy of a cowardly European Union and a vengeful Croatia supported by U.S. and NATO forces, the Krajina Serbs had come to the end of the line."
They are no more?
Impressive story. I am confused by the title though. By reading Bissett's summary of Trifkovic's book one gets the idea that the story is indeed finished for the Krajina Serbs. Am I missing something? Have those who were spared moved to Serbia? What is the situation now? Can someone clarify please?
The last time I looked into this, surviving Krajina Serbs were not getting back their property from the Croatians who have stolen it, though Croats and Muslims in Bosnia have by and large either got back their property or received compensation. Thanks to the might and majesty of the US, Croatia has got away with a massive act of violent ethnic cleansing. I well remember when the Krajina Serbs were fleeing, seeing photographs and films of the Croatian airplanes strafing the civilians. I was on a fishing trip in Wisconsin and even some of of the professional liars at NPR expressed astonishment at the brutality,so reminiscent of footage of the Luftwaffe in WWII. This is, I need not add, a very fine book.
I should add that Ambassador Bissett (Canadian) represented his country in the Balkans for many years and has received nothing but contumely for his adherence to the truth. I sometimes tell him that just as, when filmmakers want to make a movie about the good old America they often shoot it in Canada, James Bissett is a living embodiment of all the best qualities in the North American character.
Dr Fleming, first I want to admit mostly ignorance on the situation in the Balkans; but I want to know, were the Croats then completely in the wrong? I admit I was slightly pro-Croat because of my Croatian co-worker, but obviously he has his own biases.
No man who loves his land and his people is ever "completely in the wrong." The problem with many Croats (I'd like to believe not most, and certainly not *all* Croats) is that what they cherish is derived from, and remains predicated upon, what they loath: the Serbs -- their faith, their traditions, their epics, their freedoms, their Imperial privileges, their statehood (medieval and modern), their amazing WWI victories... and, most annoyingly, their unwillingness and inability to be good haters, to be drawn into the Balkan heart of darkness that is Croatism (*hrvatstvo*) a la Starcevic-Pavelic-Tudjman. A small example: I was in Guča last week for the Trumpet Festival, where dozens of cars with Croatian license plates were parked, safely, along those from Belgrade, Podgorica, or Sofia. In Croatia a car with Serbian license plates, left unattended in a visible spot, is more likely to have its tires slashed and windows broken than to be left undisturbed. The Serbs, all past horrors notwithstanding, generally have a puzzled bemusement -- rather than some long-overdue loathing -- for who and what their "western" neighbors are...
Thanks Dr Trifkovic. I had finally met an Ohio Serb several months ago through an Orthodox friend of mine. He now refuses to be in my presence because of my Croat 'connection'. He actually resorted to calling me a 'Croat Papist', despite having no Croat blood, and only a tenuous knowledge of Balkan politics - all because of my Croat friend. I have always been open to the Serb side, but this left a bad taste in my mouth. A handful of other Catholic friends of mine have had similar experiences with Serbian-Americans. So perhaps there is a bit of irrational hatred on both sides.
Mr Maxwell: I have had a similar experience, though from the other side, and more second hand.
I used to work with a man who had had a Bosnian muslim friend when he was in college. He told me an incredible story from his muslim friend that I will not repeat here, which supposedly illustrated the extreme fanaticism of the Serbs. The fact that he got his info from someone who was from there made him think he was an 'authority' on the subject. The idea that his friend might be telling only one side of the story and that there be another side to it never seemed to enter his one-sided mind. For him, the formula was: Serb = evil mass murderer, muslim = poor helpless innocent little victim.
There's no point in arguing with someone like that.
Mr Wilson, I know, which is why I didnt press judgement upon all Serbs. What hurt them in my eyes was there were other Catholic friends of mine who had similar experiences, though with the Chicago Serbs. I wish it were not so, since I have sympathy for them after becoming a bit more informed. The wounds cut deep for the Serbs, so Ive tried my best not to let things like that get to me.
I am starting to laugh at the idea of the gentleman above being some clever prank, perhaps a deliberate online caricature of an angry Eurofederalist.
@11. Absolutely. Dr Trifkovic is oozing with hatred. What a black heart he must have! And Mr Bisset is horribly old. Much too old to have an opinion.
You're a moronic heckler with nothing to add. Go away.
Let me add that I also believe Dr. Trifkovic's book was very good. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that he uses so many Croat, German, and Italian sources in the formation of the historical narrative - which dampens any charges or suspicions of falsification and bias that we would expect from opposing viewpoints or those questioning a Serb's ability to be objective on this topic.
Ambassador Bissett is also to be credited for the important role he has played in revealing the truth about the Balkans over the years. Few in such important offices have been as courageous as he in explaining the Balkans in an objective manner to North Americans. He stands in marked contrast to his American counterpart from the era who has most resembled a paid lobbyist for certain Balkan interests.
For me the tale of the Krajina Serbs is very personal in that my wife's grandparents and other family members were amongst the refugees expelled from the Krajina. The personal and official tales of what happened are appalling because (a) it is clear that this was an ethnic cleansing operation which specifically targeted civilians and (b) because the US played a prominent role in the military crime itself as well as the subsequent cover-up.
The story is not entirely over because news has recently emerged that a class-action lawsuit on behalf of Krajina Serbs has been undertaken against an American military firm associated with the US role in the events of 1995. A law professor from Northwestern University is leading a team of Serbian-American and non-Serbian lawyers in the effort.
Mr. Maxwell's experience is in my estimate an outlying occurence. Most of us Serbs are continuously bewildered by our experience with the fanatical elements of Croat society. Many Serbs - of various regional origins, of various political orientations - were inclined toward Yugoslavism. Meaning that Serbs wanted and were willing to accept a solution for political and societal co-existence. This has also meant that Serbs were willing to admit their own wrong-doings, but rarely is the reverse observed.
Having grown up in a Yugoslavist family I was shocked when I first encountered the Croat fanaticism when I went off to college. I learned that antoganism was to be feared from Croats - never was it an issue with Slovenes or others originating from Yugoslavia. Even the Bosnian Muslims were for the most part highly secularized and generally friendly with Serbs until their own fanatics radicalized the community. In Slovenia the Serbian minority has lived on equal footing with Slovenes. For many years after the Yugoslav dissolution a Serb was mayor of Ljubljana. Such a thing is unimaginable in Croatia, where the media only recently began criticizing the sitting prime minister for occupying a flat which was previously owned by a prominent Serbian family who were violently run out of Zagreb in the early 1990s.
And never have I viewed the disconnect that exists as a "Catholic issue". Serbian-American communities are found primarily in the Midwestern United States alongside large Catholic communities with whom they have very warm relations. The Catholic dioceses of the Midwest - foremost those administered by Poles, but also the other ethnic groups other than Croats - were very generous in their sending of monetary aid and medical supplies to Serbian hospitals during the embargo in the 1990s and our parish priests made sure to let us know that we should remember and appreciate this.
Significant is also the fact that some Serbian bishops have been instrumental in the ongoing dialogue with the Vatican. It is the Belgrade round of high-level talks earlier this decade that are credited with rejuvenating Orthodox-Catholic relations. And it seems that the Serbian Orthodox Church is for the first time open to a papal visit to Serbia in order for the two halves of the traditional Church to together commemorate the works of St. Constantine (whose birthplace was in what is now the modern city of Nis in southern Serbia). If anything, relations have improved between the Serbs and various Catholic institutions.
This history with the Croats - who are, afterall, close cousins of Serbs whether many of them want to admit it or not - is worth telling. Dr. Trifkovic excels in explaining the history to non-Serbs but I also believe the history is worthwhile reading for Serbs, even though it may be a painful reminder of both recent and distant events. My greatest wish, however, is that Croats would read this book and reconsider the beliefs that many of them have lived by for so long and what that has meant for both them and the Serbs.
@Michael Kenny
You are a complete uneducated bigot, the exact one who doesn't know anything about the history of the Balkans. Shame on you!
I've read Trifkovic for ten years or so, emailed with him a number of times and it's news to me that Trifkovic is a hater.
Michael Kenny is a characters that's been around these boards for many years.
One thing I noticed about Croats (I'm a Polish Baptist, no horse in this race) a long time ago is that they're quite antagonistic when it comes to politics. The Serbs seem too reserved, perhaps to their detriment.
I beg to differ with Chris -- a kind and wise man that he obviously is. It is distinctly non-PC to admit the feeling of "hate" for anything or anyone, yet I readily admit to disliking intensely, passionately even, and feeling extreme aversion for, all kinds of people, ideas, events, and phenomena:
- the European Union, as it is today (as opposed to the EEC of yesteryear) - the mortal enemy of Europe... my birthplace that I love and cherish, the home of the best and greatest civilization the world has known;
- "Jihadists of all color and hue" (cf. the late unlamented Tom Lantos), who want to enslave us, convert us, or kill us;
- NATO as it is today, having morphed from the guardian of the gate (1949) into the rogue paid assassin of Clinton, Blair, Dubya & Co.;
- CAIR, ADL, SPLC, and a myriad of related monstrosities on both sides of the Pond;
- Affirmative multiculturalists, Sorosites, "Gay Marriage" fanatics, ICC & ICTY advocates, activist judges, NPR "analysts," "immigration reform" advocates, und so weiter, and the entire morbid mindset behind their sordid Weltanschauung;
... and above all, the enemies of our Savior (all of the above, of course, and many others included), who wish us real people ill, and who cannot be forgiven because they DO know what they are doing.
If that defines a hater, I am proud to declare that I am, indeed, a hater.
I do not hate Michael Kenny, however. Er kann nicht anders, and is therefore absolved. Pity the man...
@14. Beautiful comment Eagle. I do think there is a genuine desire for Catholics and Ortodox to come together. However in order to purge the sins comminted by the insane fringe elements from Croatia that have taken over the narrative of Croatian history, I believe it is high time that the Papacy comes clean as for the reasons why so many miserable sociopaths and butchers were sheltered and protected, for allowing all the machinations of father Draganovic to come to fruition, for the role of renegade Franciscans and other elements of Cratian clergy in stirring up and promoting hatred and genocide. There is now a good century of it to account for.
I don't always agree with Srdja Trifkovic on foreign-policy matters, but I have profited greatly from reading his articles and books over the years. I was also glad to see that, in a refreshingly unPC fashion, he's able and willing to name his enemies -- as he has all the right ones! (Though I'd add some more to the list.) It's understandable that a Serb would have grievances against Croats and other neighbours for past wrongs, but these melt away in the face of the threats we face as Europeans, European-Americans, and Westerners.
I have to disagree with Mr Spencer's last line. We are Americans, period. I refuse to use the left's hyphenated-American designation for us.
Excellent review of Trifkovic's new work. I'm going to read the book.
Daniel Maxwell,
The Immigration Act of 1965 debased whatever meaning the unhyphenated 'American' might have had.
@H.A.
Dr. Trifkovic cleverly ends the book with "But it's not over. In the Balkans it never is."
@Michael Kenny:
Hater? I've followed Dr. Trif's work for quite a while now, he is one of the most factual and calm writers / speakers on the circuit today. It's obvious you are a charlatan. If you truly read his work, he has never once said the Serbs have never been wrong, but moreover on the *right / noble* side of history.
He's been a class-act educator in answering some of my [I'm sure seemingly ignorant] email questions.
@ Daniel Maxwell:
Odd you mention your encounter with an OH Serb. I had an experience several weeks ago (in OH) where a young Serbian girl (early twenties at most) rudely asked me (based on my German name and Catholic background) if I was a "Croat." Such blatant youthful ignorance deserved my only response, "I'm an American." Little did she know that I'm 50% Romanian.
Nevertheless, I think this is a *very* rare (i.e, "only me") occurrence . . . I got the last laugh.
If Mr. Kenny were witty or educated or original or even good-tempered, we might be tempted to put with his stupid and ill-tempered interruptions into the conversations of his superiors. Even though his tiny mind occupies very little of our band-width, that little is too much.
Is it so difficult to understand why a "fifth column" was not welcome within Croatia? In the 1990s, that fifth column provided support to Serbian forces which attempted to prevent Croatian independence in favor of Serbian dominance. The Serbs do not allow such groups to operate in Serbia. Why should the Croatians be held to a different standard?
Were Croatians that lived in Serbian territory (or more precisely territory taken over by the Serbians) treated in a similar manner? What happened to the Croatians living in the eastern portion of Slavonia (Syrmia)?
SB:
Romanian? Thats exotic. I have only met one Romanian, and that was merely through my Church and I had no outside contact. I didnt know her well, but I came to find out that more accurately she was Transylvanian, where the majority of the Catholic population comes from.
There are a few Romanians in this area (very few). I know two who are children of immigrants, though one has an American father. They fit in with American 'culture' and are indistinguishable, having been brought up in the same multiculturalist state edu-brainwashing institutions as every one else.
I miss reading Dr. Trifkovic's commentaries on foreign affairs. Nevertheless, I'm glad that he's (apparently) doing fine.
Dr. Trifkovic's essay "Iraq and the neo-cons' pseudo-reality" was the best anti-Iraq invasion article that I read. Even taken just as an example of clear writing in English, I always thought it was stellar.
@ Allen Wilson:
You are 100% correct . . . very few. Most America-bound Romanians left the Transylvania region in the early 20th century for work. I'm referring to my bloodline (50% Germ; 50% Rom). I'm American born.
@ Daniel Maxwell:
Actually, my Transylvanian grandparents were Orthodox, not Catholic.
Matej @24:
Fifth column? Do you have proof of a conspiracy to overthrow the Zagreb regime by these Serbs who'd lived in the Krajina? Like the proof that is now public on TAPE for the world to hear, where Croatian President Tudjman and his cabinet were explicitly planning to complete in the 1990s what the Ustasha had begun in the 1940s?
Apparently the media missed filming some great exodus of Croats from Serbian lands which apparently only Matej saw in the 1990s, while they caught on film only victims of Operation Storm. You know, that same media so biased in favor of Serbs.
And the Wermacht's offciers missed all those Chetnik atrocities back in 1941 when they sent memos of complaint about the Ustahsa to the German high command. You know, that same Germany so biased in favor of Serbs. (No doubt the Croats were just mopping up "fifth columnists" in the 1940s also. I don't know why those German army officers were making a fuss. Killing helpless women and the elderly was counter-intelligence then as it was in the 1990s.)
The truth is if the Serbian establishment in Belgrade had wished to prevent Croatia's secession by force of arms then it could have done so in the early 1990s before the US filled Croatia with arms and mercenaries. It's not that Serbia tried and couldn't; it didn't.
Just like 1918. The Serbian king could have acquiesced to the disestablishment of anything resembling today's Croatia. He and the Serbian elite didn't. Maybe foolishly so; seeking a Yugoslav co-existence instead.
Croat PM Kosor living in the flat of forcibly expelled Serbs in Zagreb; cars smashed up for no reason other than having Serbian plates; the Serbian youth soccer coach beat up outside of a tournament venue in Croatia for wearing his team Serbia pullover in public; Novak Djokovic's tennis matches interrupted by projectiles at Croatian tournaments; and Thompson "concerts" that double as Ustasha rallies right in cathedral square in downtown Zagreb.
Orthodox cathedrals demolished during the wars...and Albanian mosques erected. Whatever and whomever, just not the Serbs. Life in independent Croatia.
The entire history of Yugoslavia could be written as a narrative of how nothing could please the Croats whether a Serbian king or Croatian communist dictator tried his hand at appeasing them.
I know Croats who are thoroughly embarrassed by all this. Few speak up. Though we do see some mounting tension there between some media hands and the fascist element. We also see open conflict between the PM and the president, whom she never fails to squawk at when he attempts any conciliatory action with Serbs. Who knows what will come of it? The truth is most Serbs don't give a proverbial rat's ass.
Dr. Trifkovic,
I'm sorry for diverting attention away from Serbia, but I don't know when I shall have the opportunity to address you again, and this is a question that has been on my mind for many years.
When I was in Bucharest just after the fall of Ceausescu tracing my family tree I found a magazine from the year 1907. On its cover, which I had reproduced and framed and have on my wall today, was a sketch of a mob of peasants in full stride, brandishing hoes and pitchforks, clearly on their way to take out their rage on somebody or something. In a banner above the peasants, in thick charcoal slashes, was simply the year 1907. This has significance for me because it was in 1906 that my grandparents left their home in Lugos, (then in Hungary, now Romania; supposedly the birthplace of Bela Lugosi) with the six-year old who would become my father, and went to Trieste, where they boarded ship for America. I've found nothing on any uprising at this time. Do you have any information on this, or a source you can recommend I search? It is part my attempt to reconstruct the milieu they came from and to discover the motive for their move.
Thank you.
Mr. Jacobi,
I suspect you may already know this, but this is what the Hungarian Atlas and Gazetteer for 1914, published by Talma Kiado in Hungary in 2001, says about Lugos. The town, in the census of 1910, had a population of 19,818. The ethnic breakdown was 6875 Magyars, 6151 Germans, and 6227 Romanians. The religious breakdown was 9279 Roman Catholics, 5413 Eastern Orthodox, and 1878 Jews. (The atlas gives the three most numerous ethnic and religious groups in each settlement). I have find this publication very useful in my own genealogical research.
Mr. Piatak,
Thank you. As I mentioned in my comment on the ethnic cleansing of the German populations of Eastern Europe, following another PJB article of a month or two ago, my research skills are practically non-existent, and not only is your information new to me, it should recharge an effort that has been badly flagging.
I of course realize that James Bisset, not Pat Buchanan, wrote the above article.
Mr. Jacobi,
Lugos was the capital of Krasso-Szoreny County. The county as a whole in 1910 had 361 settlements, in addition to Lugos and one other city with municipal rights. Such cities are not included in the aggregate county data. Excluding these two cities, the county had a population in 1910 of 438330, of which 74.4% was Romanian, 10.8% German, and 5.8% Magyar. The religious breakdown was 74.8% Eastern Orthodox, 17.8% Roman Catholic, and 4.3% Eastern Catholic.
@30 Mr Jacobi: In March 1907 violent peasant revolts occurred in Rumania itself (Western moldavia first, spreading to Wallachia), rather than the region of Lugos or any other part of Transylvania (Austria-Hungary) -- cf.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1907_Romanian_Peasants'_Revolt
@ Eagle
Typical Serbian propaganda. Every time there is a discussion about the end of Yugoslavia, your side tries to bring up WWII to stifle the debate. Shameful.
The Croatians have wanted out of Serb-dominated Yugoslavia since the Soviet puppet state was established after WWII. During the hostilities in the 1990s, the Serbian minority in Croatia was helping the Serbian-controlled Yugoslav army trying to prevent Croatia from gaining independence. I don't think that most reasonable people dispute that. In a matter of a few years the Croatians were able build an army to defend their homeland from the Serbs. The Serbs attempted to prevent Croatia from seceding and were unsuccessful. Just like they were unsuccessful in Slovenia.
There is a very good BBC miniseries with all the major players from the conflict. I think it gives the most accurate account of the events leading to the demise of Yugoslavia. I would recommend it to anyone that wishes to understand the events that lead to the dissolution of Yugoslavia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Yugoslavia
Dr. Trifkovic,
Thank you for taking the time to respond; though I confess I was surprised that such information was as easy to find as punching in Wikipedia. Typical of my romanticized approach to learning, I was half expecting to be sent to the back of some obscure library's dusty stacks, possibly involving travel to a foreign country.... I exaggerate, but obviously, I still have a great deal to learn about research.
Mr. Piatak,
Thanks again for the added info. What leaps out at me from the county data is that my family, who were of Germanic and possibly some Magyar stock, though living in a German/Hungarian stronghold (Lugos), would have felt surrounded by the far more numerous Romanian population of the countryside. This may very well have figured into Andras Jacobi's decision to leave. How ironic that his grandson today is living in a sea of Africans! But it is more than a little comforting to think that grandpa might take a look outside my house today and immediately recognize his predicament in mine.
Crying shame on people who tell the truth is really one of hallmarks of propagandists. The Tudjman regime revived the symbols and memory of the Ustase, a movement that far outpaced Germany Nazis in genocidal violence--as Ante Pavelic boasted. Mile Budak, the author of that genocidal policy against the Serbs--convert a third, expel a third, kill a third--was even given a national holiday. If Germany raised the Swastika and had a holiday on Goebbels' birthday, we'd know what it meant, and we know what it meant when Tudjman's planes attacked fleeing civilians. Decent Croats--the majority of the population--are ashamed when they learn the truth, which is why the head of the Peasant Party got sent to a concentration camp (where he witnessed atrocities): because, although an ultra-nationalist, he would not serve under Pavelic. But people like this Matej are not only dupes and liars: they are accomplices. I think we've heard enough from the defenders of the Poglavnik.
@ Mr. Fleming
Again the Serb propagandist cannot argue the facts of the 1990s, but must constantly raise the specter of WWII and the evil Ustase in an attempt to browbeat their opponents. Barely a peep concerning the Chetnik atrocities and how the Nazi's declared Belgrade the first "Jew-free" city in Europe. The slaughter of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo shows that the Serbs were no saints and were equally ruthless.
If Croatians are so evil, why would the Serbs want them as part of their country? Has Croatia ever tried to invade and control Serbia? Why should Croatians not be allowed a country of their own? Any attempt to force Croatians to live under communist Serb domination was bound to fail. It may have taken the death of a dictator and a decade of instability, but it was bound to happen.
I suggest you watch the BBC documentary. I really does offer an unbiased view of events.
@41. "Nazi’s declared Belgrade the first “Jew-free” city in Europe." I suppose this is meant to imply that somehow Nedic was complicit in exterminating the Jews while the same were being sheltered in Zagreb!
Yet another construction of a truly nefarious and mentally deranged mindset typical of Herzegovinian tribesmen that have a grip on power in today's Croatia. About 20 Tudjmanite families have control over the whole economy in this pathetic artificial entity that has all the vestiges of statehood. It is truly sad that Croatian intellectuals and Catholics have to put up with such banal mentality in order to survive under this opressive regime. The old marshal famously spoke in Split many years ago how without Yugoslavia all these Balkan statelets will amount to nothing. Despite all his prior crimes, wise words from a fast learner and a self-didact.
It is truly an insult for anyone to suggest to the panel here the necessity to educate themselves by perusing or viewing a fraudulent BBC documentary about the breakup of Yugoslavia. This precocious poster must not follow the Chronicles and is therefore unaware of the scholarship and integrity of the regular columnists and readers of this site.
Actually, I'm a long-time subscriber to Chronicles.
I just feel that the documentary was very well done and is not heavily biased one way or the other. All of the major players gave in depth interviews almost immediately after the war. I can't think of another documentary filmmaker that had such access. Maybe because it was on the BBC many here have not seen or heard of it. To call it fraudulent without explanation shows that you are uninterested in the truth. I read much of what Srdja Trifkovic has to say and although I feel he is heavily biased in favor of his people, he makes many thoughtful arguments. It's a shame that Chronicles doesn't have someone similar on the "other side of the table".
To constantly call attention to events in the past to justify crimes in the present is a diversionary tactic and smacks of anti-intellectualism. Let it be known that Mr. Fleming was the first to raise the issue of the Nazi's, plus he went low-brow and smeared me as a dupe and liar without any proof of either. He knows that he is on shaky ground and so an attempt shout down the opposition was made. Maybe he should join the ADL!
I would think that after losing one war after another, Serbians would give up their claims to non-Serbian lands, but it appears that even "genocide" won't stop them from moving into Croatia.
Matej,
I addressed what you brought up and made parallels to WWII that are impossible to ignore in this context. What didn't I address? Why don't you answer my "propogandistic" comments with facts or logic of your own?
1. You claimed Serbs ethnically cleansed lands of large Croatian populations. I asked where and why didn't a western media apparatus that is so conspicuously anti-Serbian capture any of this?
2. You called the Krajina Serbs "fifth columnists". What is the proof? Intercepted voice communication? Captured memoranda? Large military movements on the ground? It doesn't exist. Many Serbs wish that the Milsoevic regime had had the brains and guts to help the Krajina Serbs and their rag-tag militia for real instead of just being accused of it and in actuality abandoning them.
On the flipside, as mentioned, Tudjman is on tape.
http://www.ce-review.org/01/2/croatianews2.html
You introduced some new points ...
3. Why would the Serbs want to live with the Croats? Most had no particular desire to do so. In fact, as Trifkovic explains, most were agianst the original formation of a Yugoslavia. Yet many came to recognize a Yugoslav polity as a legitmately workable compromise because of a geography with overlapped populations. They failed to understand powerful currents in Croat society which made it impossible. The Serbs still ask: Why do so many Croats so fanatically hate Serbs such that Yugoslavia was unthinkable in any and every form: kingdom, communist republic, post-communist democracy?
4. I didn't bring up WWII but you just did by claiming "Chetnik atrocities". Again, I pose my earlier question. Why would Wermacht and SS officers complain to HQ repeatedly about Ustasha atrocities and yet not post concerns about Serbian atrocities? Does it make sense that they would rat out their allies the Croats and ignore crimes by their enemies the Serbs? As Ambassador Bisset writes, it's not like the SS were a bunch of softies either... You can play the trick of invoking the round up of Jews in WWII Belgrade but readers here understand that Serbia was German-occuppied territory at the same time that the NDH was adminsitered by the Ustasha. You think that makes a difference?
5. As is typical in these exchanges the term "communist Serb dominated Yugoslavia" arises again. OK, except for a few annoying facts. Answer me these:
* Was Tito a powerful communist dictator? Was he a Croat or Serb?
* Did all provinces with significant minorities get autonomous status in Yugsolavia? Why was only Serbia carved up? Because the nefarious centralizing Serbian bugaboos wanted it this way?
* Who was and what was the ethnicity of the last prime minister of federated Yugoslavia circa 1990? (Let me help you: Ante Markovic, Croatian.) Was he not a liberal "democratic-capitalist"? Did he not try to save and reform federated Yugoslavia as a best course of political and economic future for all involved?
Serbs have plenty to atone for in the civil wars. And most of the Yugoslav politcians of the early 1990s - with notable exceptions, like Markovic - were hardly capable of restructuring the polity. But let's not mash up the facts and pretend all's same or the Serbian baddies were exclusively to blame for all in the rush to fracture Yugoslavia.
Matej, you are embarrassing yourself with a very astute readership here.
To the other readers and our editors I apologize for yet another long post. I have a soft spot for helping out those that have veered off the path of reality. I do have better things to do. My wife and I were just discussing the news of engagement from our cousin, a beautiful young lady of Serbian and Croatian parentage to a Montenegrin Serb. What can I say, some of us are still Yugoslavs.
yes Eagle, all good people are still Yugoslavs and they are in the majority. Therein lies the hope of getting rid of all the demented low-life bastards that caused it all.
Will I live long enough to finally learn by what exact means any Yugoslavia, particularly Tito's one, was Serb dominated?
If it was, how can anyone explain the ease of well armed, well organized misconduct by non-Serb entities within those Yugoslavias in 40' or 90'?
Any story should contain logic and facts in order to be more serious than plain fiction. Dr. Trifkovic is not a writer of fiction. His facts can be argued only by adequate but contradicting facts. There will be none because they do not exist. In reality, that is.
Some of these comments are excellent sample for those who are not too familiar with us, ex-Yugos. Pity it carried the ball too far from the field, as often happens.
Many thanks to Dr. Trifkovic and Amb. Bissett for relentless efforts in preservation of truth and justice in this terrible, terrible world.
Matej is a great example of what propaganda does to people. He rants hysterically against the Serbs and then when the shortcomings of the Croats are pointed out, that is unfair; when his own smear tactics are pointed out, he accuses people of smearing him. I have had Croats not only writing for me but I even hired one as assistant editor. What a mistake! He proved to be incompetent as writer, editor, and could not even type properly. Then he broke his agreement to go to work for a newspaper which he has infected with transparent lies that seriously undermine the paper's credibility. Would this stop me from hiring another Croat? Probably not. I actually have part-Croatian relatives, by the way, and really have no animus against these people in general. In Zagreb, I met wonderful decent people. But nationalist propaganda, as I have written many times, corrupts the mind and heart of a people, whether it is Lincoln's mush-mouthed gaudy rhetoric that justifies butchering civilians for freedom or the hilarious Croat race myths that "prove" they are really Gothic or Sarmatian or, in another version, the true Slavs. I once met a very intelligent international law expert, a Norwegian, who was married to a cultivated Croatian husband, whose race-myths she believed whole-heartedly, repeating over and over, "the poor Serbs, a race of illiterate sheepherders who never learned to read until old Vuk invented an alphabet for them." When, over breakfast, I finally told her where the Serbs hid the printing presses after the Ottoman conquests, and went over some of the historical evidence about Medieval Serbian culture, she began screaming for her husband to come and rescue her ignorance from the onslaught of fact. And, yes, Serbian nationalists can be just as crazy though rarely so genocidal. Let us then be kind to Matej, who has been victimized by this pernicious nonsense. The hell of it is, that it is almost impossible to grow out of these race-myths because they make us feel superior to every other poor slob on the planet, particularly the poor slob who lives across the tracks or on the other side of town.
PS I concluded my diatribe with a metaphor, because, alas, from the Anglo-American point of view the entire Balkans seems like a slum in which the local equivalents of blacks and Mexicans are insulting and killing each other. This is unfair, as anyone who knows anything about the bloodiness of our own history is aware.
You know, it's not the first time I have heard the comparison of Balkans being to Europe what black and Mexican ghettoes are to Americans. In fact, the last time I heard the comparison online was from a British person and a Dutch person.
It seems to be a common notion.
But nonetheless, Chronicles is one of the few places where superiority myths are so beautifully slammed. In the view of whatever superior alien beings there may be on another planet, we monkeys who go around killing each other have no right to say which monkey is better and which monkey is worse...
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Ahh . . . as my decorated, WWII grandfather [RIP] used to say (shaking his finger with a cold, dead stare) . . . "The youth are being used."
Yep . . .
Sorry didn't post right). . . the above was in response to Mr. Flemmings comment:
Matej is a great example of what propaganda does to people.