Institute for Research on Suffering of the Serbs in XX c.

Preface to the monograph by Jovan Mirkovic: "Crimes against the Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia", published by the "Svet knjige"

 

It is a well-known fact in science that everywhere in the world a massive annihilation of the national name of a given people is an introduction to physical attacks against them, their public stigmatisation and pointing the finger at those who are considered a hindrance and who should by all means be eliminated from the milieu in which they are undesirable. The annihilation of the Serbian name in Croatia was invariably accompanied with incessant public claims that Serbs were traitors, the disturbance factor of Croatian society and politics, the “public nuisance”, that “Croats are not Serbian brothers because dogs are brothers to Serbs”, that Serbs are haiduks and brigand people with Byzantine craftiness and knavery, and that “Serbdom is dangerous by its thoughts and racial composition” as “its blood induces the mood for conspiracies, revolutions and coups”.

In some Croatian circles, particularly in the press of the Party of Rights and Francofurtims (Franco-clerical movement), Serbs were never called by their national name, but by various pejorative names, such as: Vlachs, Gypsies, Greco-Easterners, Schipetars (i.e. Shqiptars), Byzantines, intruders, litter, Valachian litter, litter of the Orthodox faith, the socalled Serbs, those who christen themselves as Serbs, those who seed themselves where they should not etc. Ante Starčević called them: “the muddy spawn”, “abominable slavish creatures”, “servile breed”, “litter ripe for an axe”, “stooges”, “Austrian dogs”, “unleashed dogs”, “trash” and the like. During anti­Serbian demonstrations, which took place several times in Zagreb (1895, 1899 and 1902), the crowd shouted genocidal slogans such as: “Strike, strike in der Stadt, hang Serbs with ropes around their necks”, “Serbs on willows”, “Axes on Serbs’ necks”.

It very soon turned out that the annihilation of the Serbian name produced the desired results. The Serbian name came to be treated as “political transgression” and measures were taken to fully suppress and root it out so as to create an ethnically pure, religiously homogeneous, Catholic – Great Croatia. The extent of hatred towards Serbs by Croats, who followed the politics of the Croatian state and historical right, is best shown in the book “Politička povijest hrvatskoga naroda“ (Political History of the Croatian People) by dr Pero Gavranić, published in 1895 in Zagreb. Gavranić states the following: “There is certainly nowhere in Europe today greater hatred among peoples of different languages than it is the case here, among Serbs and Croats who share the same language. This hatred is indeed inconvenient, but rather understandable. The Croatian and Serbian aspirations do not fight with arms in hand, as our current rulers would not allow it. However, a fight certainly goes on, an insidious, secret, nasty fight of one existence against another, of one individual against another, without rest and without an end. In order for us, Croats, to obtain a little independent state as Serbs have, and to live without fear, a war would surely break out between us and Serbs, and such war would certainly be the most popular.”
 

The historical events that took place between 1941 and 1945, and from 1991 to 1993 fully confirmed Gavranić’s judgment given in 1895. Both times when Croats obtained “their little independent states”, a bloody feast ensued, as Gavranić predicted, in which Serbs were the victims. The hatred against them was demonstrated most brutally, with a clear objective: to create an ethnically pure and as big as possible Croatian state.

Among a larger group of Serbian writers, painters and sculptors, who visited Zagreb in 1905, the famous Croatian sculptor of Yugoslav orientation Rudolf Valdec criticised the Croats’ extreme anti-Serbian politics and said: if Croats “secured even the smallest degree of state independence, they would wipe out from the face of the earth everything carrying a Serbian trait”.[1]  The time and events confirmed Valdec’s gloomy estimates, and surprised and confounded poorly informed Serbs.

The well-intentioned and humane Miss Adeline Paulina Irby who, being a foreigner, i.e. an Englishwoman, had no reasons to make a difference between the Orthodox and the Catholics, expressed her judgment about the hatred, incomprehensible for common sense, which dominated a significant segment of Croatian society in the second half of the 19th century. Responding to the mass incarceration of Serbs in Pakrac, Karlovac, Osijek, Daruvar and other places of Croatia and Slavonia, which took place during the uprising in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1875–1878) and the rule of ban Ivan Mažuranić over Croatia, Miss Irby wrote the following: “The only motive for such persecution is the Croats’ inhuman hatred of Serbs. Just like the Catholics in Bosnia side with Turks against Serbs, the Croats in Slavonia pander to Hungarians again against Serbs.” [2]

The main hatred-mongers, those who incorporated hatred into the state, national and political programmes, and infused it with features of a struggle among different races – Eugen Kvaternik and Ante Starčević, were hailed in Croatian society as the greatest patriots. The policy that they endorsed was responsible for the mounting antagonism between Croats and Serbs, the antagonism that grew deeply embedded in their mindset. Some people were prepared to glorify and praise these two leaders, while others had a justified aversion to them as they felt the fatal consequences of their pernicious actions.

Criticised and demonised in the past, Serbs experienced an even worse destiny during the rule of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) of Franjo Tuđman and his successors. When the HDZ came to power, a special glossary was prepared for journalists, with instructions on how to speak and write about Serbs. At the time of Pavelić’s Independent State of Croatia (NDH), the term “Judeo-communists” was used and in the HDZ Croatia journalists were required to use the term “Serbo-communists”.[3]  Thus, Serbs should always be dubbed “Četniks” on the radio, television, in newspapers, magazines, books, speeches, lectures and all public appearances. In February 1990, Tuđman requested that Serbs in Croatia, as Croatian citizens, be designated as “Orthodox Croats”. He advocated the abolishment of the syntagm “Orthodox Serbs”. Moreover, fully in line with regulations from the time of Pavelić’s NDH, Tuđman announced that the Serbian Orthodox Church would be forbidden in Croatia. To those Serbs who remained in Croatia and did not emigrate to Serbia, he promised that their church would become the Croatian church, just like at the time of the NDH.[4]

Acting upon the instructions published in the glossary and concrete guidelines of Franjo Tuđman, in the TV show “Kuda srpska horda prođe” (The Path that the Serbian Horde Goes Through), broadcast on 20 August 1996, the Croatian TV reporter Jerko Tomić said that Serbs “are non-humans to whom not even the St Sava’s cult could help”, that they are “swine dealers”, the Četnik vermin, worse than cattle, of filthy paws, Satan’s drummers, the mongers of the civilisation of the spit and their disgusting plum brandy, toothless monsters, squalid fur hats, squalor and misery, bastards, Serbian- Četnik vampires, human evil, creatures, disease, leprosy, liars, wild unbridled Četnik beasts, a Nazi carpet, came to Croatia one hundred years ago, banded with Turks, exterminated Jews even before the arrival of Hitler’s forces to Belgrade.” [5]

In early August 2001, the deputy mayor of Petrinja declared: “As long as there is a single follower of the Party of Rights living in this country (Croatia – V. K.) and as long as there is a single Croat breathing this air and walking in this land, no Serb will be allowed to live here like all the rest”. For the madam deputy mayor, a Serb “is neither a man nor an animal, as animals do not deserve such comparison”. She saw all Serbs as Četniks for whom there was no life in Croatia: “…We can get along with everyone, apart from non Christians, because faith and the devil do not go together. We shall clean Croatia of this rubbish…”.[6]

Brutal verbal attacks against Serbs, in fact a real battle cry, were also heard in the Croatian Assembly on 4 October 1990, at the time of formation of the new Croatia, several months before the outbreak of the armed conflict. At this session, MP Damir Majovšek, among other things, said: “Do not trust Serbs even when they bring presents […]”. ViceSpeaker of the Assembly Stjepan Sulimanac advocated the adoption of a racial law: “A law should be passed to ensure protection against persons [i.e. Serbs] who settled in Croatia after 1918 and earned property”. MP Ivan Milas sent the following message to Serbs: “We shall respond to your right with a sharp sword. The day of settling the accounts is nearing […]!” He then added: “I have never liked Serbs and my parents are to be blamed for my lack of hatred towards them”. MP Anđelko Klarić called for the isolation of Serbs in Croatia, just like it was done with Kurds in Iraq, and for the creation of ghettos for them. Branko Požnjak suggested that the Assembly should “consider the possibility of abolishing immunity to Serbian MPs”, while Viktor Grabovac requested that “all financial aid be suspended” in Serbian municipalities in Croatia. Furthermore, Serbs were awarded various epithets, such as: “highway brigands”, “a drunk and drugged, uncivilised mob”, “terrorists”, “wild usurpers” and “Četniks”, which is why, as suggested by MP Ante Čevizović, Croats could not live together with Serbs. Even before this Assembly session, one of the HDZ leaders, Slobodan Praljak, wrote in the magazine “Start” of 28 April 1990 that “guys were already singing” in the streets: “we shall slaughter Serbs”. Bosiljko Mišetić, Minister of Administration and Justice in the second government of the Republic of Croatia declared: “From the very birth, before learning to read and write, a child should be taught who his enemies are, and his enemies in this territory are Serbs. This means that from the very beginning of life, just like being taught to read, a child should be taught that all the evil inflicted upon the Croatian people has been inflicted by Serbs.”[7]  If people in a given milieu, in this case Croatian, are systematically, intentionally and over a longer period imbued with such and similar messages, it is then natural that they, heavily indoctrinated, came to the conclusion that Serbs should be obliterated at all cost. This can be corroborated by ample scientific evidence.

Among numerous issues that have burdened and will continue to burden and sour the relations between Croats and Serbs is Croatia’s geopolitical position. Under the general estimate of all Croatian politicians and geopoliticians, both of the past and today, Croatia’s geopolitical position is such that it resembles, as the well-known Croatian historian Vjekoslav Klaić wrote, “a widely split sausage”. According to the common belief of all politically competent Croats, such Croatia had no conditions for survival and progress. Antun Radić explained that “Dalmatia united with Croatia would look like a bread crust, and Bosnia and Herzegovina would be the middle taken out of the Croatian bread… To eat the bread, we also need the middle – we need Herzeg-Bosnia”.[8]  For Antun’s brother Stjepan, Bosnia is “like the stomach for the rest of Croatia. If you take out a man’s stomach, how can you tell him to live”.[9] According to Frano Supilo: “Croatia without Bosnia would always be a toy in the hands of those ruling the today’s occupied provinces”, i.e. Bosnia and Herzegovina.[10]  To obtain durable economic and financial independence, Croatian politicians concluded that they must reach out to new territories. “Hrvatski dnevnik” (Croatian Diary) of 1940 wrote the following: “Croatia cannot ensure its durable existence in its current shape; it needs some other areas for the sake of its own economic development”.[11]

According to the best-known and most eminent Croatian geopolitician dr Ivo Pilar, under the pen names of Südland, dr Juričić and Florian Lichtträger: “From the geopolitical viewpoint, the Triune Monarchy without Bosnia and Herzegovina is untenable in national­political and economic-political terms.”[12]  In his opinion, “Croatia and Slavonia, separated from Bosnia and Dalmatia as their natural integral parts, are but a trunk incapable of living”. Dr Pilar, also the author of the book “Južnoslovensko pitanje” (South-Slavic Question), reprinted four times within several decades – twice in Croatian and twice in German, in the brochure “Svjetski rat i Hrvati. Pokus orijentacije hrvatskoga naroda još prije svršetka rata” (The World War and Croats. Attempted Orientation of the Croatian People Even Before the End of the War), published in 1915 and 1917, clearly and unambiguously made public what is and what should be the strategic objective of Croats. In this brochure, dr Pilar wrote the following: “The Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia with a long narrow territory of very small depth, stretching into two directions (in some places Dalmatia is only several kilometres wide), are not capable on their own to be the centre of any state or political formation, and therefore, being a national-political body, they have absolutely no future. This knowledge, in our opinion, was the reason behind the desperate seeking of a wider framework for our national development before 1878 and was the ultimate cause of shaping of Illyrism and Yugoslavism. The Triune Kingdom secured its elementary living conditions only after the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the territory of the Triune Kingdom, there is little hope for the Croatian people to persist and Bosnia and Herzegovina is an important precondition for the national survival and political development of the Croatian people. Limited to the Triune Kingdom only, the Croatian people may only languish; they may truly live only with Bosnia and Herzegovina.”[13]

According to dr Pilar’s estimate, Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia make up a shell, and Bosnia and Herzegovina the core of Croatia.[14]  As Serbs stood in the Croats’ path towards the achievement of Croatian geopolitical aspirations and as they represented a hindrance to the creation of a great Croatia, which would encompass Bosnia and Herzegovina, they had to be eliminated through genocide, as believed by a significant number of the most reputable Croatian politicians.

When the revolution of 1848 broke out, Serbs in Dubrovnik were in a lethal danger. Croats openly told them that they would burn them all in the church.[15]  On 22 March 1848, Đorđe Nikolajević, Serbian parish priest in Dubrovnik, wrote to Bishop Jerotej Mutibarić the following: “On this occasion, I dare only briefly inform you that, since the adoption of the Constitution, here in Dubrovnik, instead of joy, we have felt great fear because they have threatened to us, publically and in the face, that they would cut us to pieces”. Fortunately, when these threats came to be known in the Bay of Kotor, the Serbs in Dubrovnik were saved. Nikolajević wrote about this the following: “These tidings reached Kotor where Orthodox Serbs are the majority. The Serbs of Kotor warned the inhabitants of Dubrovnik not to touch their brothers; if they touch a single one of their brothers, they will not spare a single Catholic. However, not even this threat could tame the enraged inhabitants of Dubrovnik. They calmed down only when they heard another piece of news which, in case it materialised, would not be an easy matter – namely, it was heard that tens of thousands of Montenegrins boarded a ship in Budva and that they were coming to pay a visit to Dubrovnik Catholics and to ask them what they plan to do with Serbs.”[16]

In 1848, Serbs faced a great danger in Zagreb as well. According to the testimony of Anastas Popović, a wellknown and reputable trader from Zagreb and president of the city Orthodox church municipality, a critical moment occurred for Serbs once it was found out in Zagreb that Serbs elected their voivode (“vojvoda”) at the May assembly in Sremski Karlovci. Widespread dissatisfaction then engulfed Zagreb, reaching the point when “they almost wanted to slaughter all Serbs”.

Serbian deputies who happened to be in Zagreb after the May assembly were also threatened with murder. On this occasion, dr Konstantin Peičić wrote the following: “I am responsible for calming down the Croatian gendarmes (policemen) who were preparing the Bartholomew’s Night for the Serbian deputies as they feared that our schismatic patriarch would install ban Jelačić and convert him to a Vlach (Serb).”[17]

As the Croatian Party of Rights did not recognise the national uniqueness of Serbs in Croatia, forcing them to be Orthodox Croats, which they refused, Eugen Kvaternik, the most prominent leader of the Party of Rights besides Ante Starčević, advocated the extermination of Serbs, whom he called the “Orthodox breed”. In his letter of 22 June 1869, addressed to don Mihovil Pavlinović, a Croatian political leader from Dalmatia, Kvaternik designated Serbs as the “sharpest knife” in the hands of Croatian enemies and stated the following: “[...] We openly tell those concerned that the Croatian people will know how to revenge such treachery, how to destroy such breed of their religion, which turned them into the traitors of blood and of everything sacred to any nation [...]”. If Croats keep behaving in such a way towards Serbs, claimed Kvaternik, “[...] the flag of a pure, integral Croatia will soon fly not only from the Drava river to the sea, but from the Salzburg-Tyrolean Alps to Kosovo and Albania [...]”.[18]

As Serbs refused to be Croats of Orthodox faith, Starčević, just like Kvaternik, but only a year later, hinted at the path to be followed by Croats in resolving the Serbian question and in creating a great and ethnically pure Croatian state. In 1870, he wrote the following: “The Croatian people will not bear that servile breed desecrating the holy land of Croats.” [19]

Frano Supilo, an eminent Croatian politician, shared the view of Kvaternik and Starčević that, if there was no other way, the question of Serbs in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia could and must be solved with their physical extermination. He wrote that if Croats wanted to emancipate Croatia from Serbs, “they must first resort to all possible means (even the worst ones: all sorts of things are allowed in politics), including the deadliest ones, in order to absorb or destroy their domestic enemy who speaks the same language. There is only one step in between this necessity and the proclamation ‘no more Serbs’!, with all the accompanying consequences”.[20]

Adhering to the principle that everything is allowed in politics, as Supilo wrote, dr Jerko Pavelić, the Frankists’ deputy in the Croatian Assembly, brashly and openly said in 1907 that he would resolve the Serbian question in Croatia and Slavonia with his political likeminded followers. He claimed that the Serbian thought in Croatia and Slavonia was imported from Serbia, but still did not assume such proportions that it could not be overwhelmed by the Croatian idea. If the Frankists were on power, said Pavelić, “the socalled” Serbs would become “Orthodox Croats” within 48 hours”.[21]

Dr Dušan Popović, an MP, responded to Pavelić’s frightening words: “I state that we, Serbs, are deeply offended by Pavelić’s words. It is surprising that something like that could be said by dr Pavelić who, versed in history, should know that an entire generation must be slaughtered for one nation to be assimilated into another [...]”.[22]  Pavelić knew this very well, of course, but he was ready to resolve the Serbian question in such way because, from the time of Kvaternik and Starčević, the extermination of Serbs from Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia was part of the programme of a significant number of Croatian political parties.

The fact that Serbs in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia were undesirable and that they had to be assimilated and eradicated from the Croatian territory at all cost, by all means, willingly or by force, is also evidenced in the writings of Gajo Radunić from 1911. In Radunić’s view, being a Serb in Croatia is deplorable and “even today being called a Serb is not only ludicrous, but very lethal”. Radunić was convinced that this name would disappear from Croatia and that it would be a sorrowful phenomenon, remembered only in history, because the Serbian name would be lost as all Serbs would become Croats. In his estimate, the Serbian question “hangs like a sword over the Croats’ heads” and therefore, “every Croatian heart will be beating with joy once we see that these unhealthy plants have disappeared from our folks’ field, and once all of us, like one, embark on the serious task of creating and liberating our beloved Croatian state”.[23]  In other words, Croats would be happy when Serbs from Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia disappeared and only after Croatia became ethnically pure and religiously (Catholically) united, without Serbs who, according to a well-known politician Josip Miškatović, were for Croats and Croatia “weeds” that Croats “must root out from their garden”.[24] 

Convincing evidence that a part of Croatian society, even at the time of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, came at the conclusion that the issue of Serbs in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia could be solved by genocide, has been left by Stjepan Radić, leader of the Croatian Peasant Party. Radić explained that Vienna was behind the attacks of Croatian ban Pavao Rauch at the Croatian-Serbian Coalition. In this regard he noted: “Whenever the gentlemen in Vienna were in a problem, they aimed to provoke a turmoil in which people would be, blindly and foolishly, getting at anyone, whilst in the meantime the gentlemen would be attending to their affairs. [...] Serbs were the most convenient for Vienna to spark turmoil. They are newcomers, of other faith and unwelcome for the local population for many reasons, which is why it is enough just to wink and the slaughter begins!”[25]

Reacting to the Frankists’ inimical intentions towards Serbs, particularly at the time of the annexation crisis of 1908/09, and the high treason proceedings in Zagreb, Radić noted the following: “At its last meeting, the Frank-Starčević Party of Rights accepted a strange conclusion that the press writes extensively about. [...] Namely, ‘the Croatian People’s Legion’ has been set up, i.e. an armed troop ‘for the defence of the Croatian homeland’. [...] But the most fri­ghtening is the fact that the legion not only spreads hatred, but also aims to slaughter Serbs. Those who support the legion say that Bosnia, with around 700,000 Serbs, will unite with Croatia so that we will have either to slaughter those Serbs ‘thirsty for Croatian blood’ or they will truly suck up our blood [...].”[26]

The legion mentioned by Radić consisted of volunteers, follo­wers of Josip Frank’s Party of Rights. It was established in 1908 with the task to oppose the volunteer units from Serbia, but also to take up arms against Serbs and Croats of Yugoslav orientation (the so-called “posrbice” – those who became Serbs by nationality) from the Coalition and other political parties. Rauch had free hands in dealing with Serbs. Emperor Franz Joseph openly expressed his anger before Rauch with the Croatian-Serbian Coalition, particularly with Serbs who, in his opinion, played the decisive role in the Coalition.

Dr Ivan Ribar, a notable Croatian politician, member of the progressive pro-Yugoslav youth, supporter of the Croatian-Serbian Coalition and an active participant in the developments in Croatia on the eve of World War I, wrote down that with the approval of the highest military circles in Vienna, ban Rauch and Josip Frank concluded an agreement in case of a war with Serbia over the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to which “all Serbs from Croatia should be slaughtered and expelled”.[27]

The well-known Croatian politician, professor at Croatian Uni­versity and Minister of Religious Affairs and Education, Isidor Kršnjavi participated in all important political developments in Croatia in the late 19th and early 20th century. In his “Zapisi” (Notes), he wrote that if there had not been around 700,000 Serbs in Croatia and Slavonia, Rauch would have most gladly killed them all. However, as this number was significant, he said that it was not possible to do that.[28]

He also marked the following: “There was a time when it was written that all Serbs should be murdered with axes. This thought speaks for itself – it says something very important; namely, it openly and consistently articulates the only way in which the ‘Croatian thought’ can be put in practice. Second, it is questionable whether Serbs would allow to be killed in such an easy way, like those good natured sea calves in the Northern Sea. One may predict with strong certainty that they would think of the folk proverb ac­cording to which every stick has two ends.”[29]

The very thought of the physical extermination of Serbs and the discussion between Rauch and his like-minded followers best testifies to the anti-Serbian atmosphere prevailing in the circles around the then Croatian ban, about the ideas they fostered and the way in which they intended to resolve the issue of local Serbs.

The decades-long preparations for a brutal confrontation with Serbs were fully shaped in the Croatian political ideology within Austria-Hungary before 1914. When in that year Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, the Croatian political circles inclined to genocide believed it was an opportune moment to annihilate Serbs. On the day of assassination, it was openly said in the middle of Zagreb that “Among us and on our body there is a plethora of rags and apparitions embodied in Serbs and Slavic-Serbs who sell our soil and sea, and who even killed the king! We must square the accounts with them and exterminate them once for all. Let this be our objective as of today!”[30]

In his speech of 1917, Radić indirectly admitted that Serbs in Croatia were seriously threatened only because they declared them­selves as Serbs. Expressing in the Croatian Assembly his view about the new Croatia which would emerge from the war, Radić among other things said that “not a single hair will be lost on the head of a Serb in Croatia any more, even if he says hundreds of times a day that he is a Serb […].”[31]

His “any more” clearly suggests that Serbs in Croatia could perish very easily up to that time, only because they were Serbs and refused to become Orthodox Croats. And they were forced to become Orthodox Croats because they lived in the Croatian homeland. There, in the Croatian homeland, as believed by Radić and all Croatian politicians who based their programmes on the Croatian state law, “only the Croatian state idea had to be the ruling idea”. According to Radić, such an idea was “pure nationalism fully aligned with state law”. In his still unpublished notes, Ivan Ribar also said that the Frankists’ programme of 1914 envisaged the dismantling of the Croatian-Serbian Coalition and the most radical clash with Serbs – through their slaughter.[32]

The comparison of the above evidence about the intentions of prominent Croatian politicians – followers of the Party of Rights and Frankists from the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century, to solve the issue of Serbs in Croatia, with the approach of Pavelić’s Ustaša and the solution provided by dr Franjo Tuđman, shows a continuity and an inseparable, logical and organic link. It is also clear that the Croatian political thought has remained deeply permeated with the idea of genocide. Due to limited space, we shall mention only several pieces of evidence. In “Katolički list” (Catholic Journal) of 29 June 1941, Mile Budak, Pavelić’s minister for religious affairs and education, underlined the following Ustaša slogan about Serbs: “Either get out or yield”. Such an approach to the Serbian question is also summarised in his statement: “One third of Serbs we shall slaughter, one third expel and one third convert to Catholicism”:

In 1943, dr Ivo Gubernia, a priest and Ustaša, wrote the following: “Certain elements in Croatia, whose task during Yugoslavia was to dissolve the Croatian state and its national organism, to make it unviable and particularly to incapacitate it to play the role assigned to it by Providence, have remained in the Croatian organism even after the collapse of Yugoslavia, and have not changed a tad in their anti-Croatian aspirations. It is a natural right of the Croatian state and its people to eliminate this poison from their organism. The Ustaša movement has set about this task; they resort to all means that a doctor would use in healing an organism. Where necessary, they perform surgery.

The Ustaša movement would like it most that these hetero­geneous and currently hostile elements be silently and freely assimilated, or that this poison be eliminated from the organism (expelled to the country of origin). However, if such elements refuse to assimi­late but prefer to remain within the organism as some kind of a ‘fifth column’ that aims to dissolve the organism, or even worse, if they enter an armed conflict, as is the case with Četnik-communist gangs, then according to all principles of Catholic morality, they are considered aggressors and the state of Croatia is entitled to use its sword and destroy them [...]”.  (Italics – V. K.)[33]

When the Ustaša expelled from Slavonia 65,000 Serbs, whose houses and estates were usurped by Croats, on 25 February 1942 Pavelić’s Minister of Justice Mirko Puk made the following comment: “The Croatian state government has performed its Croatian and Ustaša duty in this regard”.[34]  Similarly, Minister Milovan Žanić, who served as chairman of the NDH Government Legislative Committee, on 2 May 1941 declared: “I will speak openly – this state, our homeland, must be Croatian and no one else’s. [...] This country must be the country of Croats and there is no method that we, Ustaša, will not use to make this country Croatian and to cleanse it from Serbs [...]”.[35]

NDH Minister of Foreign Affairs Mladen Lorković explained why Croatia had to be cleansed from Serbs – in September 1942, he said before diplomatic representatives the following: “The Croatian state cannot exist with 1,800,000 Serbs living in it and with a strong Serbian state behind our back which would always make incursions into our territory and pose a permanent danger to us. It is therefore fortunate that the NDH has been established in these times because it is only now that we can solve this problem. We therefore strive to eliminate Serbs from our lands and a lot has already been done to this end. For instance, I have recently returned from Kozara, which is a region sixty kilometres long and almost as much wide, and which was inhabited exclusively with Serbs, whilst today it is empty and burnt to ashes [...]”.[36]  In his speech delivered in Donji Miholjac on 27 July 1941, Lorković explained in detail why Croatia should be cleansed from Serbs by killing and expelling them. He said: “The Ustaša movement insists on an energetic solution to the Serbian problem in Croatia. Those on the other side of the Sava and Drina rivers accuse us, at the top of their voice, of being hostile and inhumane towards Serbs. We respond to everyone that the Croatian government is obliged to act in such a way and that Croatia belongs only to Croats. It is our duty to silent once for all those elements that in 1918 contributed the most to the fall of Croatia under the Serbian rule. In short, we must exterminate Serbs in Croatia! It is our duty and we shall do it. We shall go to the end, regardless of what those across the Sava and Drina say on behalf of humanism. The Croatian government under the rule of our admirable Poglavnik has begun to competently solve this issue and it will solve it in a thorough way.

The Croatian government has also started to tackle the Jewish question. You know who Jews are. They have always been and have remained the friends of Croatian enemies. Being the most responsible for this war as they turned against Great Germany and its ally Italy, Jews cannot expect anything else but treatment according to their merits.

Croatia must be cleansed from all these elements who are our national misfortune and who are aliens and enemies of the Croatian people” [...] These elements that must be destroyed are our Serbs and our Jews”.  (Italics – V. K.)[37]

All these and many other similar statements made by Ustaša leaders were part of the earlier devised plan of Poglavnik Pavelić about the genocidal extermination of Serbs. Already in the autumn of 1940, a year before the outbreak of the Second World War, Vlatko Maček, the then Vice-President of the Yugoslav Government in Belgrade, found out about this plan. He was informed that Pavelić, during his captivity in Sienna in Italy, prepared a plan for the annihilation of Serbs in Croatia “based on a years-long study of the slaughter of Armenians in Turkey”. Though he learned of and was shown the plan, Maček failed to inform about it the Government or his political partners from the Peasant Democratic Coalition, who represented Serbs in Croatia. There are some indications that he informed Archbishop Stepinac of these “irreverent plans” and that he asked Stepinac to exert influence on Pavelić and his people to give up on the execution of these criminal intentions.[38]

It was not only the Ustaša who were engrossed in the idea of genocide against Serbs. The belief that Serbs were the main obstacle to the development of Croatia and that they should be physically destroyed also prevailed among those segments of Croatian society that did not align with the Ustaša. For instance, President of the Association of Croatian Writers Slavko Kolar was not an Ustaša, but in 1941, when Germans bombarded Belgrade, said that Serbs should be bombarded “as long as there was even one of these villains alive”.[39]  Mihovil Kombol, a well-known professor of literature, was not an Ustaša either, but in February 1945 he declared that a million Serbs should be killed so that the remaining ones would become Croats.[40]  These statements of persons who belonged to the highest ranks of the Croatian intelligentsia speak volumes about a deep and widespread hatred of Serbs in Croatian society and the presumption that the genocidal extermination of Serbs would be the best way to resolve a number of questions regarding Croatia and Croats, their survival and future.

It is little known that the Croatian communist authorities also aimed to get rid of Serbs. If unable to create an ethnically pure Croatia, they endeavoured to reduce the number of Serbs. Thus, when the war ended in 1945, they hindered rather than encouraged the return of Serbian refugees from Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, who had managed to flee from Croatia and thus saved themselves from the Ustaša knife. The then federal authorities of Croatia were satisfied that the number of Serbs in Croatia was considerably reduced. They unwillingly took coercive measures to expel Ustaša families from Serbian houses and estates. Therefore, in 1945 the Ministry of Colonisation of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia requested several times from the Presidency of Croatian people’s authorities and competent Croatian ministries to warn the “local authorities that they should behave in a correct and careful way towards the returnees”, of Serbian nationality, “who are returning from Serbia to Croatia – their homeland in the narrow sense […]”.[41]

A great and ethnically pure Croatian state also preoccupied Franjo Tuđman and his followers in the same way as it was the case in Croatia over a hundred years before. For instance, professor Slaven Letica, advisor to President Tuđman, published in the “Danas” paper, on 12 September 1989, the article titled “Asimilacija hrvatskih Srba” (Assimilation of Croatian Serbs), in which he tried to explain in a purportedly scientific way the inevitability of assimilation of Serbs in Croatia. He revived the idea of the “Croatian political people”, claiming that Serbs in Croatia may choose between two paths. As he wrote, they may be an “organic part” of the Serbian ethnic people or a “part of the Croatian political people”. Letica thus offered to Serbs the option that they were persistently and forcefully imposed upon during the entire second half of the 19th century until 1905, when the Croatian-Serbian Coalition was created, and from the period of Frankists and afterwards. He offered them the path towards renouncing their nationality so as to become a part of the “Croatian political”, i.e. “constitutional people”. He offered them something that Serbs in Croatia could never in the past accept nor did they want to accept, because they were aware that it would be the path towards their national and political annihilation. Up to 1918, Serbs vehemently opposed such an option and led an uncompromising fight, firmly convinced that it was their struggle for survival. The policy espoused by Tuđman’s advisor Letica was in accordance with the Austro-Hungarian policy which triggered the tribal discord between Croats and Serbs and was the cornerstone of all conflicts between the two nations. Letica offered political solutions arising from the Croatian state and historical right. In the 19th century, the ruling Hungarian circles endeavoured to impose the same solutions upon Croats and Serbs, which they strongly resisted in order to save them­selves from Hungarisation and thus fought a war with Hungarians in 1848–1849. The solutions offered by Letica, as one of the most eminent members of Tuđman’s Croatian Democratic Union, concern the well-known formula: one state, one people, one language. As this formula was relevant during the Austrian, Austro-Hungarian and Pavelić’s NDH rule, it is obvious that Tuđman and his followers found their role models in the times past.

 

The genocidal rhetoric about monstrous criminal intentions and crimes, including the genocide of 1941–1945, committed for the good of the “Croatian thought”, i.e. for the good of a great, pure and united Roman Catholic Croatia, were justified according to don Živko Kustić, a years-long editor and main associate at the Zagreb Catholic weekly “Glas koncila” (The Voice of the Council). Namely, as Kustić noted, “great people cannot relinquish their important people, nor even those responsible for historical crimes”.[42]  Dr Srećko Perić, a Franciscan friar and Ustaša from the Gorica monastery near Livno, a week before the slaughter of Serbs, called upon Croatian believers in his church to start slaughtering Serbs: “Brothers Croats, go and slaughter all Serbs one by one. First slaughter my sister, who is mar­ried to a Serb – and then slaughter all Serbs. Once you finish this job, come to this church where I will confess you and all your sins will be pardoned.”[43]  This is how the fathers of the Croatian Roman Catholic Church encouraged their believers to commit crimes, offering them indulgences for their sins, which remind of those from the dark period of the Inquisition.

Preparing himself for new “historical crimes”, while at the same time mitigating and justifying those that already took place in Croatia in 1941–1945, in his book “Bespuća povjesne zbiljnosti” (The Impasses of Historical Reality), published in Zagreb in 1989, dr Franjo Tuđman publically declared that, for him, genocide was part of human nature, occurring since Biblical times to this day, and that it should be accepted as a phenomenon commonplace for human so­ciety. Neither before the international public did Tuđman hide his readiness to commit genocide. This was also confirmed by David Fischer, president of the World Affairs Council in San Francisco. At the promotion of a book of former US Ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren Zimmermann, Fischer said: “[...] I remember a conference of the diplomatic corps in Germany in 1989, also attended by future presi­dent Franjo Tuđman who on that occasion emphasised that when, not if, he became president of Croatia, the soil in Krajina would be red with blood [...]”.[44]  Of course, not of Croatian, but of Serbian blood.

I am confident that the present foreword offers evidence about the fact that the genocidal idea regarding the solution to the Serbian question in Croatia has been nourished over decades, and that it was only the matter of time when and how it would be implemented. The data presented here have been selected from a larger pool of similar pieces of evidence. The Croatian side has no such evidence that could prove Serbs’ readiness to commit genocide against Croats. It is therefore, fruitlessly and unscrupulously, but tenaciously, trying to disprove “Načertanije” by Ilija Garašanin and the “Memorandum” of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. What is a fortune and honour for the Serbian side, and misfortune for the Croatian side, these documents contain no mention of slaughter – the word which, as an ugly refrain, echoes through numerous Croatian documents of highly eminent Croats.

Finally, as a conclusion of all the above, we may say that the ideas of genocidal extermination of Serbs, and of the creation of a large, ethnically pure and Roman Catholic Croatia, have outlived all state forms, political and social systems. As a common red thread, these ideas have been fostered by Ante Starčević, Eugen Kvaternik, Mihovil Pavlinović, Josip Frank, Frano Supilo, Stjepan Radić and Ante Pavelić, up to Franjo Tuđman. The photographs published in this book serve as irrefutable evidence of the monstrous crimes generated by Croatian politics which is infused with pathological hatred, nourished for over a hundred years. It is exactly such politics that has led to the extermination of Serbs with a view to achieving Croatian national, state and religious objectives.

 

Footnotes

[1]  Milorad Pavlović Krpa, Beograd u Zagrebu, Književni list, 1 IV 2005, No 32.

[2]  Vladimir Krasić, Ustanak u Bosni od 1875. do 1878. god. Građa za noviju srpsku istoriju rata za oslobođenje, Novi Sad, 1884, 96, 97.

[3]  Profesor dr Svetozar Livada za Novosti o etničkom čišćenju Srba u Hrvatskoj, Novosti, 4 and 5 I 2004.

[4]  Elena Guskova, Istorija jugoslovenske krize (1990–2000), Belgrade, 2003, 187.

[5]  M. Predragović, Povampireni ekran, Novosti, 22 VIII 1996.

[6]  Globus, 3 VIII 2001.

[7]  Slobodna Dalmacija, 16 XI 1992 and Vjesnik, 21 XI 1992. The types of Serb-hating and war-mongering texts published by the Croatian press on the eve of the disintegration of Yugoslavia and during the war are best illustrated in newspaper articles published by Jovan Bošković in books Srpske sluge Hrvatske – servi Croatiae and NDH drugi put – lux Croatiae, Naš dom – L’age d’homme, Belgrade 1999.

[8]  Dom, 4 IV 1901, No 7, 16.

[9]  S. Radić, J. Predavec, F. Novljanin, Gospodarstvo – prosvjeta – politika, Zagreb 1910, 146.

[10] Frano Supilo, Glasovi o slozi. Politički spisi, Zagreb 1970, 179.

[11] Hrvatski dnevnik of 30 I 1940, No 1.346.

[12]  Dr Ivo Pilar, Politički zemljopis hrvatskih zemalja, Geopolitička studija, Sarajevo 1918, 21.

[13] See p. 65 of the brochure.

[14]  Dr I. Pilar, Politički zemljopis, 26.

[15]  Šumadinka I, 1850, No 23, 8 June, 91.

[16] Historical Archives in Zadar, “Spisi pravoslavne dalmatinske eparhije”,  book 50, No 7.

[17]  Dr Mihovil Tomandl, Život i rad Konstantina Peičića, Novi Sad 1966, 54.

[18]  Palavršić Ante, Zelić Benedikta, Korespondencija Mihovila Pavlinovića, Split 1962, 121-122.

[19]  Ante Starčević, Nekolike uspomene, Djela, book III, Znanstvenopolitičke rasprave, Zagreb 1894, 373.

[20]     F. Supilo, Politika u Hrvatskoj, Zagreb 1953, 124, 125.

[21]  Mirjana Gross, Vladavina hrvatsko-srpske koalicije 1906–1907, Belgrade 1960, 146.

[22] Hrvatski sabor, Branik 1907, No 13.

[23]   Gajo Radunić, Oživotvorenje – pogled na naš politički položaj, Split 1911, 29-31.

[24]  Letter of J. Miškatović to M. Pavlinović, Zagreb, 14 VIII 1876, Palavršić-Zelić, 245.

[25]  Dom, 22 VIII 1908, No 47, 2.

[26]  Dom, 20 XI 1908, No 47, 2.

[27]  Dr Ivan Ribar, Iz moje političke suradnje (1901–1967), Zagreb 1965, 92

[28]  I. Kršnjavi, Zapisci, iza kulisa hrvatske politike, book 2, Zagreb 1986, 537.

[29]  Ibidem, book 1, 212.

[30]  V. Ćorović, Crna kwiga. Patwe Srba Bosne i Hercegovine za vreme Svetskog rata 1914–1918, Belgrade 1989, 30.

[31]  S. Radić, Temelji za budućnost Hrvatske i ciele Evrope, Zagreb 1917.

[32]  Ivan Ribar’s notes submitted to dr Kosta Milutinović on 11 January 1960.

[33]  Dr Ivo Guberina, Ustaštvo i katolicizam, special imprint from “Hrvatska smotra” No 7-10 for 1943, 7, 8.

[34] Jovan Pejin, Kolonizacija Hrvata na srpskoj zemlji u Sremu, Slavoniji i Baranji, Sremska Mitrovica 1997, 24.

[35] Gert Fricke, Kroatien 1941–1944, Der ‘Unabhängige Staat’ in der Sicht des Deutschen Bevollmächtigen Generals in Agram, Gleise v. Horstenau, Freiburg 1972, 37-38.

[36]  M. Bulajić, Jasenovac, ustaški logor smrti, ‘srpski mit’, Belgrade 1999, 157-158.

[37] Zločini fašističkih okupatora i njihovih pomagača protiv Jevreja u Jugoslaviji, Belgrade 1952, 161.

[38]  Ilija Jukić, Guranje hrvatskog naroda u novu strašnu katastrofu, opasniju od one, koju je doživeo u prošlom ratu i poslije njega, London 1975, 15; Mihailo Stanišić, Slom, genocid, odmazda, Belgrade 1999, 160.

[39] Čedomir Višnjić, Partizansko ljetovanje, Hrvatska i Srbi 1945–1950, Zagreb 2003, 182-183.

[40] Ibidem.

[41] Dr Bogdan Lekić, Agrarna reforma i kolonizacija u Jugoslaviji 1945–1948, Belgrade 1997, 160-161.

[42]  Novosti, samostalne srpske novine, No 122, of 19 April 2002.

[43]  Viktor Novak, Magnum crimen – pola vijeka klerikalizma u Hrvatskoj, Zagreb 1948, 651.

[44] Jasmina Bojić, Nacionalisti se kuvaju u sopstvenom sosu, Naša borba, 4-5 I 1997.
 

Academician of the SASA Vasilije Krestić: About the Genocidal Nature of Croatian Politics Preface to the monograph by Jovan Mirkovic: "Crimes against the Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia", published by the "Svet knjige"

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