Institute for Croatian Culture

Zlatko Tomičić - Croatian Poet and Dissident

2012-01-08T16:32:00.000-05:00

ZLATKO TOMIČIĆ, CROATIAN POET AND DISSIDENT

(Some Bio-bibliographical Data)

ANTUN NIZETEO

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Journal of Croatian Studies, XXI, 1980, – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.
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Zlatko Tomičić was born on May 26, 1930, in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, where his father, a tailor from Lika, and his mother, a civil servant from Slavonia, were then living. He completed his secondary education in Vinkovci, Slavonia, and graduated from the Philosophical Faculty of the Hrvatska Sveučilište (Croatian University) in Zagreb. Under other circumstances he would probably have become a professor of comparative literature and of the Czech and Slovak languages.

But, as Tomičić himself pointed out in a 1967 interview in Kerub, "the artist in a small nation like Croatia is not only an artist but also a self-sacrificing cultural worker. At any time that Croatian literature has threatened to become artificial, it has been revived through healthy struggle in the cultural field". Consequently, Tomičić was compelled from 1948 to 1954 to work as a journalist in Yugoslavia, but his dissident views made it ever more difficult for him to work for the government-controlled press. From 1954 to 1968 he made a living as a free-lance writer and through the publication of his literary works.

In 1968, two years after Tito's dismissal of Alexander Ranković --the Yugoslav Beria, long-time secret police chief notorious for his cruelty, especially toward the Croats— in an atmosphere of deceptive liberalization Tomičić and his associates of the literary circle TIN started to publish a monthly called Hrvatski kniževni list (The Croatian Literary Journal). Because it was the first independently published periodical in Yugoslavia since the establishment of the Communist regime in 1945, and also because of its dissident and Croatian nationalist views, Hrvatski književni list rapidly became a mass-circulation publication, pulling ahead of all government sponsored newspapers and magazines published in the Socialist Republic of Croatia. No doubt this was the reason that in 1969 the Communist authorities suppressed Tomičić's journal, although neither he nor his associates were charged with criminal violations at that time. However, following Tito's purges of 1971-72 Tomičić was arrested. Incidentally, the same destiny that befell Tomičić's Hrvatski književni list awaited Hrvatski tjednik (The Croatian Weekly), a biweekly issued by Matica hrvatska, the most prestigious Croatian national cultural institution and publisher, whose chief editor was Vlado Gotovac, another distinguished Croatian poet, philosopher, and dissident.[1]

After his arrest in 1972 Tomičić was held in prison for several months before he was brought to trial on various charges dating back to 1962. Among other things, Tomičić was charged with "seeking forcibly to overthrow the Yugoslav system and government", with having written the "Fourth Epistle to the Croats," in which he had "openly called for the separation of the Socialist Republic of Croatia from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia"; and furthermore, with having written and circulated an unpublished poem "Obećana zemlja" (The Promised Land); and finally, that he was in touch with and had received correspondence from various "enemy exiles from Croatia now living in the USA". As the result, on November 5, 1972, Tomičić was sentenced to three years in prison, but on March 15, 1973, the Supreme Court of Croatia found Tomičić guilty of additional charges and increased his sentence to five years at hard labor. The Supreme Court found "evidence" that the defendant Tomičić had "falsely alleged that a majority of the Croatian people wish to separate Croatia from Yugoslavia and establish their own independent Croatian Stare". The decision of the Supreme Court moreover asserted that through his contacts with the Croatian emigration Tomičić had encouraged the emigré press to attack the Yugoslav government.

Complete article in: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/21/2101.htm

Call for Papers, Documents and Audiovisual Material

2012-01-07T20:04:00.001-05:00

Call for Papers, Documents and Audiovisual Material

An Invitation to Prospective Contributors

In line with the intention of maintaining a high-level informative, and objective review, the editors of Studia Croatica – Institute for Croatian Culture – (since 1960) invite the following types of material in any language from prospective contributors: (1) critical articles—pertinent to Croatian history and culture—in the fields of literature, fine arts and music, sociology, history, economics, government and law, natural sciences, philology, philosophy and religion; (2) creative translations of standard Croatian short stories and poems; (3) reviews of recent books having a basic connection with Croatian matters; (4) unpublished documents of Croatian historical and cultural significance e.g. letters, diaries, and records — including documents for the Croatian Diaspora; (5) registers of documentation (published or unpublished) on particular questions of Croatian historical and cultural significance; (6) audiovisual material: photos, sound tracks, videos.

Please write to studiacroatica@gmail.com

Journal of Croatian Studies - Volume XX 1979

2012-01-07T11:39:00.000-05:00

Obituaries: Stjepan Gaži, Joseph Kraja, Bonifacije Perović

2012-01-05T14:52:00.001-05:00

Obituaries: Stjepan Gaži, Joseph Kraja, Bonifacije Perović

STJEPAN GAŽI

Stjepan Gaži, Professor of European History at Black Hills State College, Spearfish, South Dakota and a member of the Croatian Academy of America died on September 15, 1978.

Gaži was born on August 9, 1914 in Peteranec, Croatia. He obtained his law degree from the University of Zagreb in 1939. From 1942—1944 he studied at Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva, Switzerland and received a Ph.D in history from Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. in 1962., His Ph.D. thesis was entitled Stjepan Radić and Croatian Question.

Gaži was a contributor to the Journal of Croatian Studies and to several Croatian-language periodicals and newspapers, especially to Hrvatski glas, published in Winnipeg, Canada. He edited Spomenica (Winnipeg, 1952) and was the author of Croatian Immigration to Allegheny County 1882-1914 (Pittsburgh, 1956) which was published by the Croatian Fraternal Union. His book A History of Croatia (New York, Philosophical Library 1973) is, as he indicated in the preface, a survey based on the texts of leading Croatian historians. "I wrote A History of Croatia with the intention to tell my children and their children's children the history of the land and people of their ancestors. It could only be done with the most scrupulous respect to the historically documented facts", Gaži said in the introduction.

Together with his wife Elizabeth, Gaži translated from Croatian into English the book In the Struggle for Freedom, by Vladko Maček, President of the Croatian Peasant Party (New York, Robert Speller & Sons, 1957).

He is survived by his wife Elizabeth and four children.

JOSEPH KRAJA

Joseph Kraja, a long-time member of the -Croatian Academy of America died in Youngstown, Ohio on November 16, 1979.

Kraja war born on March 7, 1891 in Dubrovnik, Croatia. He was trained at the Naval Academy for the service at sea. In 1907 he came to the United States to his father Nicholas, who was ill. When the father died, Kraja's family in Croatia urged him to remain in America.

As a very young man he began work at the printing plant in New York and immediately became active in Croatian affairs and in one way or another he will continue to be involved throughout his long lifetime. After New York he worked in printing plants in Chicago and Cleveland and became an expert in his trade. Being an erudite his interests widened beyond his specialty. In 1914 he settled down in Youngstown joining the leaders of several ethnic groups who formed the United Printing Co. Kraja's proficiency in several languages and his expertise made him extremely valuable for new enterprise. He worked there as a printer one year only to be promoted and placed in charge of the printing department. Several foreign-language weeklies were printed in the United Printing Co. Among them was a Croatian language paper, Hrvatska Štampa, published and edited by Kraja.

Complete article at: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/2011.htm

The Croatian Academy of America - 25th Anniversary

2012-01-04T11:50:00.000-05:00

THE CROATIAN ACADEMY OF AMERICA

TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY

The Croatian Academy of America celebrated its Twenty-Fifth Anniversary on November 4, 1978 at the Hotel Roosevelt in New York City.

President Ivo Vučičević in his opening addresses greeted all present and expressed his thanks for congratulatory telegrams and letters received for this occasion. He asked the audience to stand up for a moment of silence honoring the memory of all those who contributed to the existence and the success of the Academy, founders, former presidents and members who have passed away.

Vučičević said that the first president, Professor Clement Mihanovich, unfortunately could not come, but wished to let him know that all those assembled here deeply appreciate his pioneering work and all that he did to get us started twenty five years ago. Vučičević then greeted among those present the following founding members, whose names are listed in the Academy's Constitution: Dr. Jere Jareb, Nick Milosevich and Bruno Kolega M.D. He also greeted Antun Nizeteo, writer and poet, whose name is not printed among the signers of the Academy's Constitution, but who played a dominant role in founding our institution. Using his rich and convincing vocabulary he found the proper approach to sell the idea of the Academy to the late Professor Walter Reeve, who embraced it with limitless enthusiasm. The President added that he thinks no one else from those early days is present here except the editor of the Journal, Karlo Mirth. In conclusion Vučičević gave an outline of the program and introduced the speakers.

Retrospect and Prospect

Mrs. Maria Krocker-Tuškan, the Executive Secretary of the Academy in her presentation: "Croatian Academy of America—XXV Anniversary, Retrospect and Prospect," said that a quarter of a century in "the life of an individual or the institution is a respectable milestone: the growing pains of the early development are over, and the individual or the institution becomes a mature, energetic being or entity whose enthusiasm is tempered by experience, who has already a past but whose visions are very much directed toward the future".

She pointed out that the Academy is a unique organization in this hemisphere and to appreciate this uniqueness one has to understand men, times and circumstances which led to its founding. The Croatian immigrants who arrived to the United States after World War II had the decisive role in it: "In contrast to the earlier waves of Croatian immigrants, the post World War II immigrants were almost entirely an educated group. The first group arrived in the early fifties from different European refugee or DP camps and/or from some intermediate stations around the world, in which they had acquired another language and witnessed another culture from which they were excluded by virtue of their temporary residence. Another group came gradually over the years directly from the homeland. Despite these chronological differences in arrival, these immigrants shared a tremendous upheaval of their own lives and all wore fresh scars of the war and post-war tragedy of the Croatian nation. The arrival to the United States meant not only personal opportunity, it also provided them with a chance to actively master their earlier sense of loss and tragedy, by offering possibilities to make this country aware of Croatia, her history, her strengths and her difficult position.

See complete article at: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/2010.htm

Book Reviews, by Ivo Banac

2011-12-29T19:59:00.000-05:00

BOOK REVIEWS

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Journal of Croatian Studies, XX, 1979, – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.
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ETUDES LITTERAIRES SLAVO-ROMANES. By Riccardo Picchio. Studia Historica et Philologica, VI. Sectio Slavoromanica, number 3. (Florence: Lisosa Editrice, 1978. Pp. 207.) L. 9,000.

Better than any other contemporary Slavicist, Professor Riccardo Picchio represents a splendid and increasingly necessary return to an earlier universalist approach in Slavic studies. Fully equipped to research every Slavic national culture—no mean achievement in itself he has devoted more than three decades of fertile academic work to literary and cultural histories of the Slavic peoples, and he has trained some of the most original younger specialists in this field, first in Italy and more recently in the United States. His scholarly activities are an indispensable antidote to the smattering conceits, ahistorical presentism, narrowness, and general neglect of non-Russian Slavic literary traditions that characterize a considerable portion of North American Slavistic research. Moreover, he has never overlooked the European-wide dimension of Slavic cultural and literary activity: some of his most important work was done in the area of cultural relations and contacts between the Slavic peoples and their Western neighbors, especially the Romance vicinity, with emphasis on the Italians.

This collection of articles consists of Picchio's most recent studies in Slavic-Romance literary ties. Written almost exclusively in the 1970's, the essays are marvelously lucid, concise, and erudite. Several are of particular value to specialists in the field of Croatian literary and cultural history and will be noted herein.

Students of Croatian historiography will welcome Picchio's exposition of the works of Giovan Mario Filelfo (1426—1480), the first Renaissance author to write on Dubrovnik's past. The son of Francesco Filelfo, a famous Italian humanist, and Theodora, a daughter of the Byzantine scholar John Chrysoloras, Giovan Mario probably became interested in Dubrovnik because his younger brother Senofonte spent the last ten years of his life there (1460—1470) working as a chancellor of this patrician and mercantile republic.

Evidently, to judge from the contents of Giovan Mario's poem Ragusaeis and his Historia de origine atque rebus egregie gestis urbis Ragusae, both extant in Latin and Italian in the manuscript collection of the Biblioteca Palatina in Parma, Senofonte passed little of his knowledge of Dubrovnik's history to his elder brother. Giovan Mario's works were typical Renaissance products, concerned more with flourishing rhetorical incantations in support of glorious and ancient origins of contemporary dynasts and states than with critical or even truthful historical narratives. Thus the founder of Dubrovnik is Rago, a prince of Scythian royal blood. Filelfo invented this figure for strictly onomatopoeic reasons. Humanist conventions and the Latin and Italian names of Dubrovnik (Rhagusium, Ragusa) determined the "founder"'s name.

Professor Picchio convincingly shows that Giovan Mario benefitted from Senofonte's earlier information on Dubrovnik's legal customs. But the correctness of some of Filelfo's passages was not sufficient to compensate for the frivolity of the entire work—this despite fairly charming explanations of certain characteristic Ragusan institutions. For example, Rago chose not to marry and passed his political prerogatives to Dubrovnik's ruling Senate, which in the absence of Rago's first-born legitimately assumed the right of primogeniture on behalf of a republican order, but without violating the monarchical principle. Similarly, Filelfo provided mythological explanations of Dubrovnik's state independence and sympathetically commented on its defense against the Venetians and the Turks. The Senate, however, was not satisfied with these gestures. Fifty ducats rewarded to Filelfo in February 1475 were quickly withdrawn after the senators acquainted themselves with the contents. Level-headed patricians concluded that Filelfo's text was unrelated to Ragusan realities.

See complete article at: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/2009.htm

The Constitution of the Croatian Republican League of the US (1921)

2011-12-29T17:45:00.002-05:00

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CROATIAN REPUBLICAN LEAGUE OF THE UNITED STATES

Edited by KARLO MIRTH
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Journal of Croatian Studies, XX, 1979, – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.
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In April 1921, the Americans of Croatian origin established the Croatian Republican League of the United States of America at the Second National Croatian Convention after World Word I held at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[1] Reverend Martin Davorin Krmpotić[2], a Croatian Catholic priest in Kansas City, Kansas, was elected as its president. The Constitution and By-laws of the organization were published in English and Croatian during the same year.[3] Both versions of the Constitution and By-laws are reprinted hereafter as a contribution to the history of Americans of Croatian origin. The Croatian Republican League of the United States of America has not been a topic of historical research and very little is known about it.

THE CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS OF THE CROATIAN REPUBLICAN LEAGUE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PRESIDENT WILSON

To Congress, April 2, 1917, on declaration of War:

"But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free."

At New York, September 27, 1918:

"Shall the military power of any nation or group of nations be suffered to determine the fortunes of peoples over whom they have no right to rule except the right of force?

Shall strong nations be free to wrong weak nations and make them subject to their purpose and interest?

Shall peoples be ruled and dominated, even in their own internal affairs, by arbitrary and irresponsible force or by their own will and choice?

Shall there be a common standard of right and privilege for all peoples and nations or shall the strong do as they will and the weak suffer without redress?

Shall the assertion of right be haphazard and by casual alliance, or shall there be a common concert to oblige the observance of common rights?

No man, no group of men, chose these to be the issues of the struggle. They are the issues of it; and they must be settled—by no arrangement or compromise or adjustment of interests, but definitely and once for all and with a full and unequivocal acceptance of the principle that the interest of the weakest is as sacred at the interest of the strongest."

On the 29th of October 1918 the Croatian people broke away from former Austro-Hungarian rule, proclaimed Liberty, Freedom and Independence. The Croatian people by right is a free nation. For eight hundred years the Croatian people has never ceased to defend its right as a nation, has upheld its State. Never conquered by anybody by force of arms. The history has entitled it with honorable epithet "bulwark of Christianity" against the fierce enemy of human race—Turks. The Croats feel just pride on their history, and thousands years old literature and art.

On the 28th of November 1920 more than two-thirds of the vote at the general election in Croatia voted for the Croatian neutral Republic, and by this overwhelming vote repudiated any connection with disloyal, oppressive, Asiatic Serbian rule, forcing to Serbianize everybody on the Balkans, denying the primary, common right of men. The foreign Government in Croatia is an invasion of Croatian National Right. The Croatian representatives at Constitutional Assembly in Belgrade left the Council Chamber as to protest most solemnly against injustice, and mercenary dealings of the Serbian government. They signed a manifesto to their constituents, that the Constitution enacted per force, founded on injustice, voted upon by representatives bought up ;publicly, like oxen on the market, by presiding minister, cannot and should not bind the Croatian Nation.[4] Here we are! Is this exemplary government, morally clean? In the political history of all nations you cannot find an example to it. With such immoral government an honest nation cannot be in any relations.

The Croatian people is resolved to secure and maintain its Complete Independence in order to promote the common weal, to reestablish justice, to provide for future defense, to insure a peace at home and good will with all nations and to constitute a National Policy based upon the People's will, with equal right and equal opportunity for every citizen.

The Croats most solemnly declare the foreign government in Croatia is against the will of the nation, and they cannot tolerate it, but request the Serbian Army to leave the Croatian State, because it is sovereign. Let Serbia respect the sovereignty of Croatia as the United States Government respects it of every State in Union. The Croats claim for their National Independence the recognition and support of every free nation of the World.

See complete article at: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/2008.htm

Drago Šporer - Politics and Nationalism within the JNA

2011-11-28T19:53:00.000-05:00

POLITICS AND NATIONALISM WITHIN THE YUGOSLAV PEOPLE'S ARMY

DRAGO (CHARLES) ŠPORER

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Journal of Croatian Studies, XX, 1979, – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.
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The role of the military is of crucial importance for maintaining power of the dictatorial and totalitarian regimes of both right and left. Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Communist regimes of the Soviet Union and other "socialist" countries, Yugoslavia included, offer excellent examples for the case. It should be noted, that the approach and methods differ considerably. The German and Italian governments under Hitler and Mussolini gave more importance to military competence and less to politics in their armies; the Soviets and other Communist armies gave priority to "political awareness" of their military cadres. Consequently, in all Communist armies both the soldiers and officers are continuously subjected to "political education". This consists of indoctrination in Marxism-Leninism in a prescribed, selective manner, supplemented by the "teachings" of the Communist leaders ruling a particular country. In Yugoslavia, of course, these are Titoist teachings which have gone through several metamorphoses.

Soviet System of Commissars Served as a Model

By introducing political commissars in their units the Yugoslav partisans followed the example of the Soviet Army. This had been done when the Soviet Army was seriously tested in the World War II battles.

At the outbreak of the German-Soviet war in 1941, only seven percent of the Soviet officers had higher military training, while thirty-seven percent lacked basic training altogether.[2]

It is generally believed that the reason for such a low percentage of qualified officers was al direct result of the Great Purge of 1937-38. This deficiency in the professional ranks of the Red Army greatly helped both the influx and influence of political commissars. Commissars — many of them poorly educated, but loyal to the Communist Party — were assigned to military units. Their duty was to supervise the activities of the military commander.[3] Marshal Semyon K. Timoshenko was the only exception to this rule, as he held both posts of commissar and commander simultaneously. The Soviet commissars were nominally in charge of educational activities, but they also had close ties with the intelligence officers and their word had special weight in all matters they choose to intervene. They became the most hated men in the Army. Stalin realized that if he continued to send the "beloved" commissars to the front-line, he might lose them all, so he ordered their withdrawal in 1942.

Yugoslav Communists set up a commissars' system at the very beginning of the partisan struggle. There was very little difference between Yugoslav and Russian commissars, except that the former treated the partisan fighters in a more humane manner, having taken into account that they were all volunteers. However, with the war turning in their favor, the Yugoslav commissar became just as obnoxious and rude as his Russian counterpart.

The constant interference of the commissar with the commander's decisions led to continuous friction and anarchy. To solve the problem the system had been modified to the effect that the commissar's rank was always below that of the commanding officer's. This, however, did not diminish the commissar's ambitions and affected little of their actual power. Finally, their military rank was taken away from them, but their function was never abolished. Today their role is entrusted to a special officer under the title "Officer for Political and Legal Affairs," generally referred to as the PPP (from "officer for političko-pravne poslove"). In the Armijska oblast, which is comparable to the Army Area in the United States, this duty is assigned to a major-general.

The Yugoslav "People's Army" continues to emphasize political and ideological education of the military and for that purpose. The High Political School was opened in Belgrade in 1972. The school is in the same level as the Command and General Staff schools. It accepts officers in the rank of captain and major who must be graduates from accredited military academies. The class of 1974 was the first class of graduates of the new school. Each graduate is exempt from taking the exam for the next higher rank.[4] It is obvious that these officers will be less skillful in military matters.

In general, students of Yugoslav military academies spend considerable time on "political education." An article in the Narodna armija of September 14, 1972 pointed out that someone was reprimanded because he referred to the "old times" when a student could dedicate much more time to military subjects and less in philosophizing theories which could never be applied in practice.

The members of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) constitute the principal nerve system of political control and education in the army. The LCY has a secretary in each army unit from the largest to the smallest. The secretary in an Army Area is usually a major-general or colonel with the title "Secretary of the Committee of the League of Communists Conference". His superior is the Assistant to the Federal Secretary for National Defense. Currently he is Colonel General Džemal Šarac, a Moslem. His deputy is Major-General Milan Krdžić, a Serb. In order to exert political control more efficiently, for a number of years, up to 1958, the membership in the Communist Party was kept secret. Only the members of the same cell in an army unit and their closest friends knew each other.

Complete article at: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/2007.htm

Christopher Spalatin - In Memory of Ljudevit Jonke

2011-11-27T11:59:00.001-05:00

IN MEMORY OF LJUDEVIT JONKE

CHRISTOPHER SPALATIN

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Journal of Croatian Studies, XX, 1979, – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.
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Professor Ljudevit Jonke, who taught the Croatian language at the University of Zagreb during the whole postwar era until lately, passed away on March 15, 1979. The chair of the Croatian language at the University of Zagreb enjoys a special prestige. During the last ninety years or so (1886-1973) Professor Jonke was the third Croatian linguist to occupy it: Maretić-Ivšić-Jonke. Tomo Maretić (1854-1938) taught Slavic philology from 1886 till 1914 and Stjepan Ivšić (1884-1962) from 1918 till 1962; Ljudevit Jonke 1907-1979) came to the University of Zagreb in 1950 as a Privat-docent and in 1960 became a full professor of the Croatian literary language. From that position he was removed and pensioned off in September 1973.

Ljudevit Jonke was born in Karlovac on July 29, 1907. Having finished the Classical Gymnasium in his native city, he studied Croatian language and South Slavic literatures at the University of Zagreb. After graduation he pursued Slavic studies at the University of Prague from 1930 to 1932. From 1933 to 1940 he taught at the Gymnasium in Sušak and after 1940 at one of Zagreb Gymnasiums.

His scholarly activity covers three areas: Croatian language, Croatian and Czech literatures.[1] Even the long titles of Jonke's articles bring out the main characteristic of his writing, his clarity. All his papers excel in good composition and clear presentation. This is why the general public enjoyed reading his column in the daily press. Most of his articles also give evidence of a pedagogical approach to the subject matter. That may be the reason why some of his peers considered his research not striking but rather ordinary. However, his contribution to Croatian linguistic scholarship is very significant. His treatises on the development of the Croatian literary language in the nineteenth century throw a new light on a period that before him was not sufficiently explored, especially because of a biased trend in Yugoslav scholarship. His special merit consists in examining linguistic data in connection with political and literary changes. Among his other achievements, Jonke, after Petar Skok, helped restore Bogoslav Šulek's reputation as one of the most creative linguists of the last century. Henceforth, any research on the nineteenth century Croatian standard will have to take into account Jonke's accomplishments. As a matter of fact, his student, Zlatko Vince, continued Jonke's work in this field and has just published a volume of more than 600 pages, devoting its main part to the Croatian literary language in the nineteenth century.[2]

Jonke wrote essays about the contemporary Czech authors and translated some twenty Czech novels and short stories by Capek, Drda, Fučik, Hašek, Majerová, Nemcová, Neruda, Olbracht, Šalda, Vančura and Wolker.

See comlete article at: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/2006.htm

Ante Kadic - Vjekoslav Kaleb

2011-11-26T19:41:00.000-05:00

VJEKOSLAV KALEB

ANTE KADIĆ
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Journal of Croatian Studies, XX, 1979, – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.
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Vjekoslav Kaleb is one of those good, conscientious, and serious authors whom other writers and literary critics read and appreciate much more than the general public, which enjoys light and amusing stories.

Born in 1905 at Tijesno, on the island of Murter, near Šibenik, Kaleb was an elementary school teacher in the backward Dalmatian hinterland (Zagora, between the mountain Kozjak and the river Krka) for sixteen years, from 1924 until 1940, when he became a civil servant in Zagreb. He joined the partisans in 1943. After the war, he served as editor of various literary periodicals; he was secretary of Matica Hrvatska and president of the Union of Croatian Writers. Now Kaleb lives in "retirement," which he spends (when not fishing or sailing during the summer) in reading and writing.

In 1940, when he was thirty-five years old, Kaleb published his first collection of stories, Na kamenju (On the Rocks). He was immediately hailed as one of the most talented Croatian writers. The majority of critics were pleased with his interesting material and particular style. Sima Matavulj and Dinko Šimunović had already depicted the primitive, barren, poverty-stricken Dalmatian plateau (both had taught in this area), but Kaleb looked at this same desolate region and its inhabitants from substantially different angle.[1] Kaleb's stories do not glorify the peasants as the representatives of honesty and the happy patriarchal life. On the contrary, in a calm, unemotional, concise manner he depicts the desert-like countryside and analyzes the minute movements and deeds of individuals who sometimes behave like animals. All day long they think of how to fill their empty bellies, how to conserve the bit of energy which still remains in them.

Parents have too many children (they have never heard about birth-control), but they celebrate their departure to "the better world" with a feast; they sometimes actively engage in infanticide. In his story Na kamenju, Kaleb sketches the apathy of parents who continue to live from day to day. They gradually cut down trees and sell everything which can be sold in order to buy food, or preferably drink; they even steal hard-earned money from their own youngsters whom they then leave in rags and starvation.[2] When the step-mother beats to death a small girl who "ate a bit of flour" (!), the girl's deaf-mute brother cuts the half-witted and rapacious woman's throat with a razor. Their father, who is equally hungry and at the end of his strength, nevertheless takes his dying daughter into his arms while tears run abundantly down his cheeks.

See complete article at: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/2005.htm

Vlado Gotovac - Poetry in Croatian and English

2011-11-25T16:40:00.000-05:00

VLADO GOTOVAC

Born 1930, died 2000

Born in Imotski, Dalmatia, lived in Zagreb. In 1971 he was jailed for his political convictions. His books of poetry are:

PJESME OD UVIJEK [Poems from of Old] 1956, JEKA [The Echo] 1961, OPASNI PROSTOR [The Dangerous Space] 1961, I BITI OPRAVDAN [And to Be Justified] 1963, OSJEČANJE MJESTA [The Sense of Place] 1964, CUJEM OBLAKE [I Hear the Clouds] 1965, I ZASTIRE SE ZEMLJA [The Earth Is Veiled] 1967, PRIBLIŽAVANJE [Approaching] 1968, PREPJEVI PO SJECANJU [Recasting Poems by Memory] 1968, CAROBNA ŠPILJA [The Magic Cave] 1970, SPORNE SANDALE [Debatable Sandals] 1970.

See poetry at: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/20049b.htm

Josip Pupačić - Poetry in Croatian and English

2011-11-25T16:33:00.000-05:00

JOSIP PUPAČIĆ

1928—1971

Born in Slime near Omiš, Dalmatia, and lived in Zagreb. Died with his wife and daughter in an airplane accident. His books of poetry are:

KIŠE PJEVAJU NA JABLANIMA [The Rains Sing in the Poplars] 1955, MLADIČI [The Young Men] 1955, CVIJET IZVAN SEBE [The Flower Out of Itself] 1958, OPORUKA [The Testament] 1965, USTOLICENJE [Enthronement] 1965, MOJ KRIŽ SVEJEDNO GORI [Yet My Cross Still Burns] 1971, SABRANE PJESME [Collected Poems] 1978.

See poetry at: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/20049a.htm

Slavko Mihalić - Poetry in Croatian and English

2011-11-23T11:46:00.000-05:00

SLAVKO MIHALIĆ

Born 1928, died 2007

Born in Karlovac, lived in Zagreb. His books of poetry are:

KOMORNA MUZIKA [Chamber Music] 1954, PUT U NE¬POSTOJANJE [Journey into Nonexistence] 1956, POČETAK ZABORAVA [The Beginning of Oblivion] 1957, DAREŽLJIVO PROGONSTVO [The Generous Exile] 1959, GODIŠNJA DOBA [Seasons] 1961, LJUBAV ZA STVARNU ZEMLJU [The Love for the Real Country] 1964, PROGNANA BALADA [The Banished Ballad] 1965, JEZERO [A Lake] 1966, IZABRANE PJESME [Selected Verses] 1966, POSLJEDNJA VECERA [The Last Supper] 1969, VRT CRNIH JABUKA [The Orchard of Black Apple Trees] 1972, KLOPKA ZA USPOMENE [A Reminiscences Trap] 1977.

The poetry is in: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/20049.htm

Boro Pavlovic - Poetry in Croatian and English

2011-11-21T20:33:00.001-05:00

BORO PAVLOVIĆ

Born 1922, died 2001

Born in Slavonska Požega, lived in Zagreb. He published about thirty books of poetry, among others:

POEZIJA [Poetry] 1942, TIŠINA [The Quiet], 1951, MRAV [The Ant] 1952, VREVA [The Crush] 1953, KONJ I KOLA [The Horse and Carriage] 1954, STARA LIKA [The Old Lika] 1955, PORTRETI [The Portraits] 1959, MLIJEČNA STAZA [The Milky Way] 1960, KARLOVAC (1962), NIN (1962), VELIKA LJUBAV [Great Love] 1977, LIPA [The Linden] 1977, SUSRETI [Meetings] 1977, KORZO (1978).

Poetry in: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/20048.htm

Vesna Parun - Poetry in Croatian and English

2011-11-18T18:09:00.000-05:00

VESNA PARUN

Born 1922, died 2010

Born in Zlarin, Dalmatia. Lived in Zagreb. Her books of poetry are:

ZORE I VIHORI [Daybreaks and Gales] 1947, PJESME [Poems] 1948, CRNA MASLINA [The Black Olive Tree] 1955, VIDRAMA VJERNA [Faithful to the Otters] 1957, ROPSTVO [Slavery] 1957, PUSTI DA OTPOČINEM [Let Me Rest] 1958, KORAL VRACEN MORU [The Coral Given Back to the Sea] 1959, TI I NIKAD [You and Never] 1959, BILA SAM DJECAK [I Was a Boy] 1962, JAO JUTRO [Alas! Morning] 1963, KONJANIK [The Horseman] 1964, VJETAR TRAKIJE [The Wind of Thrace] 1964, GONG 1966, OTVORENA VRATA [The Open Door] 1968, UKLETI DAŽD [Accursed Rain] 1969, I PROLAZIM ŽIVOTOM [And I Pass Along Through Life] 1972, STID ME JE UMRIJETI [I Am Ashamed to Die] 1974, LJUBAV BIJELA KOST [The Love, a White Bone] 1977.

Read poetry at: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/20047.htm

Mak Dizdar - Poetry in Croatian and English

2011-10-28T18:32:00.000-04:00

MAK DIZDAR

1917—1971

Born in Stolac, Hercegovina, died in Sarajevo, Bosnia.

His books of poetry are:

VIDOPOLJSKA NOC [Night at Vidopolje] 1937, PLIVAČICA [The Swimmer] 1954, POVRATAK [Return] 1958, OKRUTNOSTI KRUGA [The Cruelties of the Circle] 1960, KOLJENA ZA MADONU [Knees for Madonna] 1963, MINI JATURE [Miniatures] 1965, KAMENI SPAVAČ [The Stone Sleeper] 1966, MODRA RIJEKA (The Blue River] 1972, PJESME [Poems] 1972, POEZIJA [Poetry] 1975, PRAVEDNIK [The Just Man] 1979.

El texto de la poesía se encuentra en: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/20046.htm

Olinko Delorko - Poetry in Croatian and English

2011-10-27T22:03:00.000-04:00

OLINKO DELORKO

Born 1910 – Died 2000

Born in Split, Dalmatia. Lived in Zagreb. His books of poetry are:

PJESME [Poems) 1934, RASTUŽENA EUTERPA [The Mournful Euterpe] 1937, RAZIGRANI VODOSKOCI [The Animated Fountains] 1940, ZGODE POREMECENE SREĆE [Occasions of a Disturbed Happiness] 1942, UZNOSITE LUTNJE [Exalted Presentiments] 1944, IZGARANJA [The Burnings Out] 1958, SVIJETLI I TAMNI SATI [The Light and the Dark Hours] 1961, LIRSKI EDEN [The Lyric Eden] 1965, DOLAZE OBLACI [The Clouds Are Coming] 1978.

Poetry is located in: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/20045.htm

Dragutin Tadijanovic - Poetry in Croatian and English

2011-10-26T08:34:00.001-04:00

DRAGUTIN TADIJANOVIĆ

Born 1905 – Died 2007

Born in Rastušje, a village near Slavonski Brod. Lives in Zagreb. His books of poetry are:

LIRIKA [Lyric poems] 1931, SUNCE NAD ORANICAMA [The Sun over the Flowing Fields] 1933, PEPEO SRCA [Ashes of the Heart] 1936, DANI DJETINJSTVA [The Days of Childhood] 1937, TUGA ZEMLJE [The Sorrow of the Earth] 1942, PJESME [Poems] 1951, INTIMNA IZLOŽBA CRTEŽA IZ RABA [Intimate Exposition of the Drawings from Rab] 1954, BLAGAN ŽETVE [The Harvest Holiday] 1956, SREBRNE SVIRALE [The Silver Flutes] 1960, PRSTEN [The Ring] 1963, 1965, POEZIJA [Poetry] 1975, SABRANE PJESME [Collected Poems] 1976, SAN [The Dream] 1976.

The poetry is in: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/20044.htm

Nikola Šop - Poetry in Croatian and English

2011-10-25T07:35:00.001-04:00

NIKOLA ŠOP

Born 1904 – Died 1982

Born in Jajce, Bosnia. Lives in Zagreb, immobilized by a grave illness. His books of poetry are:

PJESME SIROMAŠNOG SINA [Poems of a Poor Son) 1926, NOKTURNO [Nocturne] 1928, ISUS I MOJA SJENA [Jesus and My Shadow] 1934, OD RANIH DO KASNIH PIJETLOVA [From the Early to the Late Cocks] 1939, TAT I MJESEČINA [The Thief and the Moonlight] 1924, TAJANSTVENA PRELA [The Mysterious Spinnings] 1943, ZA KASNIM STOLOM [At the Late Table] 1943, ASTRALI JE [The Astral Poems] 1961, POEZIJA [Poetry] 1961, POHODI [Visits] 1972, DOK SVEMIRI VENU [While Universes Wither Away] 1975, IZABRANE PJESME, [Selected Poems] 1978.

Sop´s poetry is in: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/20043.htm

Dobrisa Cesaric - Poetry in Croatian and English

2011-10-20T09:19:00.001-04:00

DOBRIŠA CESARIC

Born 1902, died 1980

FROM CONTEMPORARY CROATIAN POETRY - TRANSLATIONS By ANTUN NIZETEO and G. MARVIN TATUM

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Journal of Croatian Studies, XX, 1979, – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.
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Born in Slavonska Požega, lives in Zagreb. His books of poetry are:

LIRIKA [Lyric Poems] 1931, SPASENA SVIJETLA [The Saved Lights] 1938, IZABRANI STIHOVI [Selected Verses) 1942, PJESME [Poems] 1951, KNJIGA PREPJEVA [A Book of Translations] 1951, OSVIJETLJENI PUT [The Lighted Road] 1953, GOLI ČASOVI [The Naked Hours] 1956, IZABRANE PJESME [Selected Poems) 1960, IZABRANA LIRIKA (Selected Lyric Poems) 1975, SVIJETLA ZA DALJINE [Distant Lights] 1975, PJESME, MEMORASKA PROZA [Poems. Prose Memoirs] 1976, IZABRANE PJESME I PREPJEVI [Selected Poems and Translations] 1975, VOĆKA POSLIJE KIŠE [The Fruit Tree after the Rain] 1977?

Cesaric´s poetry, in both Croatian and English, can be found at: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/20042.htm

From Contemporary Croatian Poetry

2011-10-18T07:27:00.002-04:00

Antun Nizeteo

FROM CONTEMPORARY CROATIAN POETRY

TRANSLATIONS
By ANTUN NIZETEO and G. MARVIN TATUM

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Journal of Croatian Studies, XX, 1979, – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.
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Concerning these translations, the translators would like to point out the following:

Firstly, the poets included here are limited to those born in the twentieth century and living in Croatia. This strict chronological limitation excluded even the distinguished names of Tin Ujević (1891-1955) and Antun Branko Šimić (1898-1925), who flourished in this century and who with Antun Gustav Matoš (1873-1914) are considered the most influential masters, teachers, and progenitors of modern Croatian poetry and of Croatia's contemporary poets. Usually, the names of Silvije Strahimir Kranjčević (1865-1908) and of Antun Gustav Matoš are thought of as the landmarks and starting points of modern Croatian poetry.

Secondly, the renderings here presented do not include the postwar emigré Croatian poetry, a sound and prolific branch rudely torn from the native tree. However, the Journal of Croatian Studies will publish a gathering of emigré Croatian poetry in one of its future issues.

If we accept the theory of Ortega y Gasset that a generation comes forward at intervals of fifteen years, then the Croatian poets translated here belong to at least three different generations or age groups. Yet despite this fact, their poetical work shows the continuous beneficial influence of Western literatures, especially French and American, and the firm tendency of Croatian poetry to remain on its own within the orbit of the national cultural and poetical tradition. As the poet Nikola Milićević (1922) points out, "The poets and not the soldiers have saved this nation in its struggle for existence". And another poet, Antun Šoljan (1932), to whom we are indebted for that well documented and stimulating work "Pretpostavke za komparativno proučavanje poslijeratne hrvatske poezije i njene kritike" [Considerations for a Comparative Study of Postwar Croatian Poetry and Its Critique], in Hrvatska književnost u evropskom kontekstu (Zagreb 1978, p. 713) put it this way:

Emphasizing that Croatian poetry is a poetry of a small language and of a small nation, we are by this emphasizing not only some accidental feature, but also one of its essential characteristics. In this, Croatian poetry does not differ at all from that of other small nations of the Western sphere. In the great literatures nowadays one writes and talks considerably less about the specific traits which result from the nationality of a certain body of poetry in part because the great nations have resolved this problem as far back as the period of Romanticism, and in part because during the last two hundred years the very notion of nationality has assumed an exclusively political meaning; it has constituted itself in states, so that nationality has equivalent to statehood. Those who belong to nation-states do not worry about the less happy and exceptional cases.

Thus Šoljan agrees with the perceptive inferences of his colleague Zlatko Mrkonjić (1938), who indicates the sources of poetry as "the experience of a space" [i.e. of individual destinies in everyday life], and who considers that these sources of poetry are indivisibly interwoven in the conscience of the poet of a small nation. Consequently another Croatian poet Vlado Gotovac (1930), a jailed victim of political persecution, asserts that "the destiny of our poetry is more similar to our own". The poet Nikola Martić (1938) with the title and content of his stimulating poem "Croatia the Land of Tragic Poets", perhaps expresses to the full extent that sentimiento tragico of Croatian poetry and of Croatia, a country of a nation that thirsts for liberty and is abandoned to its destiny.

The second installment of these translations will consist of poems by I. Slamnig, Z. Tomičić, V. Krmpotić, A. Šoljan, D. Dragojević, N. Martić, D. Horvatić, A. Stamać, I. Zidić and Z. Sabol. A third part will offer versions of other twentieth century Croatian poets. Throughout this series, the translators will continue to translate primarily poems which have not previously appeared in English translation.

In regard to the bio-bibliographical data supplied for the translated poets, it should be pointed out that although only the authors' poetical works are listed, many of these poets have also excelled as translators, novelists, dramatists, teachers, journalists, etc.

To be continued ...

Ante Kadić - Istria in Croatian Literature

2011-10-15T20:43:00.001-04:00

Juraj Dobrila (1812 - 1882)

ISTRIA IN CROATIAN LITERATURE
ANTE KADIĆ

Istria is separated from Italy by its location, customs, and speech—V. Pribojević

Yugoslavia has obtained, by the peace treaty with Italy in 1947, all of Istria. It may be noted that she has not enlarged her borders with foreign territory, but rather has incorporated a province which has played an important role in Croatian cultural and literary history.

In the first part of this article I shall mention those national and cultural reformers who, during the past hundred years, have contributed the most toward Istria's awakening to national consciousness. In the second section the more prominent Istrian literary figures shall be discussed, while in the third the literary work of two Croatians, one from Croatian Zagorje, the other from Dalmatia, will be analyzed: both have artistically described this most western region of their homeland.

I

In spite of the fact that the Italians comprised a small minority, they dominated the whole province from the western Istrian cities and refused to recognize as equals the Croatian and Slovenian majority, which lived for the most part in the rural sections and along the eastern coast. The Italians prevented, in particular, the opening of Croatian and Slovenian schools. There is a clear-cut ethnic frontier between the Croatians and Slovenes in Istria. The Slovenes live in northwestern corner of Istria which is part of today's Republic of Slovenia; the remaining Istria is a part of the Republic of Croatia.

Through the persevering work of a whole Pleiades of Istrians, many of them Catholic clergymen, Istria gradually threw off the tight Italian embrace.

Some of these protagonists were educated in Rijeka (Fiume), where Fran Kurelac began, in 1849, to teach the Croatian language.

Complete article : http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/2003.htm
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Journal of Croatian Studies, XX, 1979, – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.
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Michael B. Petrovich: The Croatian Humanists: Cosmopolities or Patriots?

2011-10-11T08:52:00.001-04:00

Faust Vrancic

THE CROATIAN HUMANISTS: COSMOPOLITES OR PATRIOTS?

MICHAEL B. PETROVICH

1.

The Croatian lands, particularly Dalmatia and the whole eastern Adriatic coast, produced many Humanists. Some two hundred are known by name, just in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.[1]

A cosmopolitan spirit was an outstanding characteristic of Humanism everywhere in Europe. To be sure, the medieval Catholic world was cosmopolitan too, joined by a common loyalty to the Church of Rome and to church Latin as a universal language. However, Humanism brought to educated Europeans a new, secular cosmopolitanism based on the revival of interest in the pagan culture of ancient Greece and Rome and particularly in the literature of classical antiquity. This renaissance of learning and the arts gave the scholars and artists of Western Christendom a sense of belonging to a pan-European republic of arts and sciences which knew no political boundaries and which shared to same language, neoclassical Latin.[2] Even in our own jet age one must be impressed by the frequency with which European scholars in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries visited one another's countries and even found permanent employment there.

On the other hand, this Humanist internationalism also coincided with the rise of national states and national literatures in Europe. Conditions in the Croatian lands prevented political nationalism. The Croatian people were partitioned by three foreign powers: Croatia Proper and Slavonia were ruled by Hungarian kings since 1102 in a personal union with Hungary, and, after 1527, by the Habsburg rulers of Austria; most of the eastern Adriatic coast fell under Venetian rule between 1407 and 1420; while the remaining Croatians came increasingly under Ottoman domination after the fifteenth century. However, it was precisely the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Age of Humanism and the flowering of a neoclassical Latin literature among the Croatians, that also saw the rise of a Croatian national literature in the popular tongue.

Thus it is useful to ask: To what degree were the Croatian Humanists cosmopolites or patriots?

The evidence on the side of cosmopolitanism is so plentiful that it might seem to the hasty observer to leave little room for any feeling of cultural nationalism.

Complete article: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/2002.htm
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Journal of Croatian Studies, XX, 1979, – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.
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Language and Politics in Today's Croatia (1979)

2011-10-10T10:12:00.002-04:00

Andrija Kačić Miošić (1704-1760.)

LANGUAGE AND POLITICS IN TODAY'S CROATIA (1979)

CRISTOPHER SPALATIN

In the fall of 1978 Zagreb University Press "Liber" published a volume of 750 pages containing thirty papers dealing with the history of Croatian literature under the title Croatian Literature Within the West European Context.[1] For about two months only a few papers were politically discussed and attacked on Radio, TV, a special symposium[2] and in the Zagreb and Belgrade press.[3]'

In late spring of 1979 a reference grammar of the Croatian literary language[4] compiled by a team of young linguists was recommended by Zagreb daily Vjesnik and then attacked by Dr. Stipe Šuvar, the Secretary for Education in the Socialist Republic of Croatia. In both cases the main issue was not literary criticism or linguistics but the fear of the regime that Croatians might stress too much their national peculiarity to the detriment of their "brotherhood" with Serbs.

I

We shall first describe very succinctly the volume published by "Liber", and then in more detail Professor Dalibor Brozović's treatise in it.

Following a too short preface, Brozović's article and Eduard Hercigonja's survey of the medieval Croatian literature head the remaining twenty-eight papers, whose length goes from eight to thirty pages. Brozović's article with its seventy-four pages is by far the longest and Hercigonja's with fifty-two pages the second longest. Except for Brozović who deals with language, all other writers deal with the history of various sections of Croatian literature in West European context, hence the title of the collection. After Hercigonja described the oldest Croatian literature "within the frame of Slavic medieval literatures," Vladimir Vratović presents the Croatian latinists within the European context. Following, chronologically the names of outstanding writers or the literary movements, the contributors treated their subjects under these headings: Marko Marulić, Renaissance, Marin Držić, Baroque, Ivan Gundulić, Age of Enlightenment, Illyrian Movement, Ivan Mažuranić, August Šenoa, Realism, Modern, Ivo Vojnović, A. G. Matoš, Vladimir Nazor, Expressionism, Socially Committed Literature, Tin Ujević, Kranjčević and Krleža, Miroslav Krleža, Partisan Literature during World War II, Theater from Moderna to 1941, Prose from 1945 to 1960, Prose from 1960 to 1970, Poetry in the Twentieth Century, and After-War Poetry. Nobody wrote about the literary activity in the Independent State of Croatia from 1941 to 1945. This omission cannot be unintentional.

As we already observed, these papers present the Croatian literature in its relationship with the West, so that the East, especially the Serbs, seem to be ignored. In its editorial Vjesnik deplores that attitude. "Throughout this book one can detect a politically detrimental and unacceptable basic attitude pervading the entire volume: its exclusive orientation towards greater and more developed European literatures, thus isolating the Croatian literature from other South Slavic and Yugoslav literatures. Few are the papers which at least partially deal with the Croatian literature in that context... That way an essential level of the study of our literature in the European context is missing. That very level could have shown how the values of the Croatian literature irradiated beyond the Croatian boundaries. For if at any time and in any place the Croatian literature had any influence (and that is not controversial, we hope), that was and has been first in the Yugoslav spiritual domain."[5] During the above mentioned symposium Slavko Goldstein, the director of the Zagreb University Press, informed the discussants that his Press is in the process of preparing the volume "Croatian Literature in the South Slavic Context". Characteristic is the statement of another discussant, Dr. Ivan Krtalić, a high official in the Department of Education: "Since 1971 the division into 'we' and 'they' has been manifest in Croatian literature. Who are 'we' and who 'they' has never been either written or said, but it seems that we all know them without saying."[6] In reality, national tensions are being constantly suppressed in public, in one way or another, and the main national rivalry (the Serbo-Croatian conflict), if and when discussed, is always dealt with extreme caution through veiled allusions. This is why the very language of the discussants involved is not readily understood by the uninitiated.

Complete article: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/20/2001.htm

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Journal of Croatian Studies, XX, 1979, – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.
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The Croatian Academy of America

2011-10-07T19:58:00.000-04:00

THE CROATIAN ACADEMY OF AMERICA

THE THIRTY-THIRD ANNUAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY

The Thirty-Third Annual General Assembly of the Academy was held in the New York Hilton Hotel in New York City on May 23, 1987. Following the verification of proxies, Dr. Edward S. Yambrušić was elected to chair the Assembly. In his introductory remarks, Yambrušić said that each year the Academy's responsibilities have been increasing and that the Academy is meeting them more than adequately, considering the small number of members dispersed in a large geographic area.

President Dr. Jere Jareb greeted those present and asked them to pay tribute with a moment of silence to deceased member Dr. Charles Zudenigo, who was born in Senj, Croatia in 1902 and died in Ashland, Oregon in January 1987. In his report Dr. Jareb gave a general overview of the Academy's activities during the past year. The Academy's most important accomplishment was publishing volume 25-26 of the Journal of Croatian Studies, dedicated to the Croatian language. He said that a detailed account of the Academy's activities will be given in reports of the Executive Secretary and other members of the Executive Council.

Recorder Dr. Carl Yirka reported that the Executive Council held six meetings. The Executive Secretary Maria K. Tuškan traveled from Cincinnati to New York City to take part in all meetings.

In her report, Executive Secretary Maria K. Tuškan M.D. said that there are no significant changes in the Academy's membership. The number of regular, corresponding and contributing members was slightly over 200. One member died and two new members were accepted. In addition there were what she called 15 "recalcitrating members", who either failed to answer recent communications or moved without leaving a forwarding address. Attempts were made to clarify their status. One issue of the Chronicle (No. 70) was published. It was followed by the Announcement of April 8, 1987 which contained brief notes about the Academy's activities which usually appear in the Chronicle. A few weeks ago a new 280-page double issue of the Journal of Croatian Studies, dedicated to the Croatian language, was published. The volume was well received. Some members and subscribers referred to it as the most outstanding volume of the Journal ever published. Dr. Tuškan also reported that the by-laws regulating the Academy's chapters, which were approved by the Thirty-Second Annual General Assembly on May 24, 1986 in Chicago, were published.

Treasurer Vinko Kužina reported that revenues were slightly over $10,000 and expenditures slightly under $10,000. The main source of income was membership dues, close to $7,500. He especially pointed out that Stanislava Rotkvič M.D., a regular member, also became a lifetime member by contributing $1,000. Four contributing members contributed $100 each. The donations to the Academy amounted to almost $1,000. Nicholas Milosevich contributed $50 in memory of Duško Duišin, and $50 in memory of Miro Gal; Vinko Kužina, in memory of J. and T. Kužina, $200. Most of the expenditures were for publishing the Journal and for mailings. The administrative costs would have been much greater, if were it not for services and materials contributed by some members without charge. Closing balance is $21,568.

Karlo Mirth, Managing Editor of the Journal, said that he is glad that he does not need to talk anymore about the volume dedicated to the Croatian language. Now, when the volume is finally published, it is up to the readers and critics to talk about it. He briefly described the contents of the next volume which will be dedicated to Croatian Renaissance, and introduced Dr. James Sadkovich as new Book Review Editor. Mirth also presented the report of Mrs. Xenia Duišin, Circulation Manager, and pointed out that she needs assistance in her work.

The President of the Committee of Control, Stanislava Rotkvić, M.D. reported that business records were found to be in good order, and that the work of the Executive Council was successful.

After a brief recess, the Nominating Committee proposed the list of all positions of the new Executive Council, except the Executive Secretary, whose term expires next year. The list was accepted and the following were elected:

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL: President Jere Jareb (Loretto, PA); Vice Presidents: Edward S. Yambrušić (Washington, D.C.) and Xenia Duišin (New York, NY); Treasurer Vinko Kužina (Fort Lee, NJ); Recorder Carl Yirka (New York, NY). Maria K. Tuškan (Cincinnati, Ohio) continues as the Executive Secretary until the next Assembly.

Members of the Executive Council: Mira Ashby (Toronto, Canada), Srećko Duhović (San Pedro, CA), Tomislav Gabrić (Arcadia, CA), Carolyn Owlett Hunter (Alexandria, VA), Ante Kadič (Bloomington, Ind.), Nicholas Milosevich (New York, NY), Karlo Mirth (New York, NY), Vlado Petranović (Willowdale, Ont., Canada), Mario Spalatin (Wauwatosa, WI), Warren Spehar (Somers, NY), Josip Vrbić (Concord, CA) and Ivo Vučičević (San Francisco, CA).

COMMITTEE OF CONTROL: President Stanislava Rotkvić (Edison, NJ); Members: Ante Nizeteo (Kensington, MD) and Šime Vatavuk (Glen Cove, NY).

President Jareb opened the discussion of new business. Mrs. Mira Ashby discussed plans of the Toronto chapter and broached several topics of interest for both Canadian and U.S. members. James Sadkovich discussed several projects which might be considered for current and future activities. Several other topics were discussed by Bogdan Radica, Jakov Bačić, Warren Spehar and some members of the Executive Council.

In the evening the traditional dinner for members and friends of the Academy was held at Hilton's Hurlingham Restaurant.

Complete article: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/28/2812.htm

Journal of Croatian Studies, XXVIII-XXIX, 1987-88 - Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.

Conference: Croatia and Croatians in the 20th Century

2011-10-07T19:47:00.000-04:00

CONFERENCES

CROATIA AND CROATIANS IN THE 20TH CENTURY
(AN INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM HELD IN SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, OCT. 2-7, 1988)

The Symposium was organized by the Croatian Studies Foundation of Australia and New Zealand and the Croatian Studies at Macquarie University (with a grant from the New South Wales Government), under the leadership of two professors, Luka Budak and Fr. Gracijan Biršić. They invited a number of Croatian scholars from Australia, North and South America, and Europe. From Australia: Šime Dušević, Dalibor and Damir Ivković, Dr. Stephen Klarić, Dr. Robert Meštrović, Ivan Nimac, Prof. Elizabeta Ninčević, Fr. Paul Stanhouse and Nenad Zakarija. From North America: Ante Beljo, Dr. Joseph Čondić, Dr. Ante Čuvalo, Dr. Asaf Duraković, Prof. Lovorka and Marija Fabek, Dr. Ante Kadić, Fr. Ljubo Krasić, Dr. Vladimir Markotić, Dr. Emil Primorac, and Dr. Krsto and Dr. Mario Spalatin. From South America: Dr. Zdravko Sančević. From Europe: Fr. Šimun Čorić and Dr. Henrik Heger; directly from Croatia, Pero Budak, poet and actor, Vlado Gotovac, writer and philosopher, Ante Starčević, sculptor, and Stjepan Šešelj, poet. Invited from Croatia were also: Dr. Branimir Banović, Prof. Dušan Bilandžić, Dr. Ivan Čizmić, Tomislav Ladan, writer, and Prof. Ivan Supek, as well as Dr. Vinko Grubišić from Canada, but they didn't come.

The topics treated and discussed were very different, from music and folklore to archeology, history, linguistics, literature, psychology, scientific methodology and language teaching for immigrants. Anyone that has attended conventions or symposia knows that the main advantage of it comes from meeting people, from discussing ideas generated from formal talks, and simply exchanging experiences. And so it was in Sydney's symposium. The papers and the talks were of different nature. We could divide them into two categories, scholarly papers based in research and broad outlines. Most were historical outlines, like Croatian immigrants in USA, Canada, South America, Australia, Europe, folk-dance, culture, Croatian poets in emigration, animated cartoons in Croatia, Fraternal Union in USA and Canada, Starčević's political thought in today's Croatia, Croatian welfare organizations in Australia, Saturday schools of Croatian language for immigrants, etc. In the first category one may mention: international labor mobility, methodology of research in the Croatian cultural area, kinship systems in Croatia, a study in contrastive linguistics, etc.

In Sydney's symposium some sharp exchanges took place during the question and answer period following the delivery of papers.

One such exchange occurred between Prof. Vlado Gotovac and Dr. Asaf Duraković. The latter commented upon the lack of basic freedoms in the present-day Republic of Croatia within the Yugoslav communist state. Speaking rather emphatically at one point he exclaimed: "Until Croatia becomes free, she does not exist for us!" And also: "Croatia will not be liberated by symposia, but by fighting!" This elicited a loud applause from a part of the audience. Vlado Gotovac, who spent six years in Yugoslav jails for the cause of Croatia's freedom, asked to be heard. He gave an eloquent reply beginning approximately with these words: "I cannot help but feel sad when I hear that I have just come to Australia from a nation that does not exist. I really feel even worse when I think I have been deprived of my personal freedom for a non-existing cause." Referring to Dr. Durakovič's mention of fighting Prof. Gotovac continued: "I am a Christian and use other means. In accordance with my principles I am against the use of any kind of violence". He also received a lively applause for his remarks. I agree with Mr. Zlatko Drapać (Nova Hrvatska, October 30, 1988) that this exchange of opinions between a Croatian émigré and a Croatian from today's Croatia reflects the two attitudes held by some Croatians abroad and at home.

Complete article: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/28/2811.htm

Journal of Croatian Studies, XXVIII-XXIX, 1987-88 - Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.

Book Reviews

2011-10-07T19:38:00.000-04:00

BOOK REVIEWS

RUĐER BOŠKOVIĆ. By Žarko Dadić. (Zagreb, Školska knjiga, 1987, pp. 208)

Much was written about Ruđer Bošković (1711-87) during his lifetime. For most of the nineteenth century he was less appreciated, but during the last eight decades interest in him has become universal and intense. This year we commemorate the two hundredth anniversary of his death. Meetings and symposia about his work have been held in various cities (e.g. Vienna, Boston Zagreb, Rome and Milan) at which the "modernity" of his penetrating thought has been examined. Some new research and interpretations have recently appeared, among them Žarko Dadić's monograph, which deserves special attention.

Dadić continues the work on Bošković by other Croatian scholars (F. Rački, V. Varićak, Br. Truhelka, St. Hondl, B. Borčić and especially Z. Marković). He has published several studies about Bošković's astronomy and given him extensive space in the first volume of his History of Natural Sciences in Croatia (Povijest egzaktnih znanosti u Hrvata, Zagreb 1982). In his monograph, Dadić describes Bošković's life and particularly the areas of study in which he distinguished himself. Dadić also gives both the original Croatian text and its English translation, and he has included pictures of the edifices and institutions in which he studied and worked, scholars who preceded him or were his contemporaries, his "dissertations" and books, documents about him as a French citizen and employee, and letters which he wrote, such as one to a Polish king begging him to protect his native city Dubrovnik from the menacing Russian navy. At the end Dadić includes a basic bibliography on Bošković (121 items). Perhaps it would have been better if the important dates of Bošković's life were also brought in with the bibliography of his works and the Index of the persons mentioned in the monograph. True, chronology is treated in the course of the narrative, but only incidentally, and it would seem desirable to see it collected at one spot.

Dadić presents Bošković somewhat differently than, for example, Ž. Marković in his generally excellent biography, R. Bošković (Zagreb 1968-69). Dadić is more interested in focusing upon Bošković as a scholar than in giving details of his turbulent life. He begins sketching three schools of natural philosophy, those of Aristotle, Descartes, and Newton, reviews science in Bošković's time. He also presents the situation in Dubrovnik because Bošković had remained in permanent contact with its prominent citizens, as well as a substantial discussion of Bošković's attitude toward the scientific ideas of his contemporaries. Dadić also reviews Theory of Natural Philosophy (Theoria philosophiae naturalis, Vienna 1758, Venice 1763, Chicago 1922, Zagreb 1974) in all its aspects, including its influence upon various scholars from the 18th century onwards. Separate chapters are devoted to Bošković's contribution to other fields of science.

Complete article: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/28/2810.htm

Journal of Croatian Studies, XXVIII-XXIX, 1987-88 - Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.

Ante Kadić -Tomo Skalica's Travelogue (1853) to Honolulu

2011-10-07T19:26:00.000-04:00

TOMO SKALICA'S TRAVELOGUE (1853) TO HONOLULU*

ANTE KADIĆ

For many centuries Croatian intellectuals have been citizens of a country dominated by foreign powers; often they have been employed by those governments and have travelled abroad in that capacity.

Some of them left written impressions of Central and Eastern Europe; these reports are valuable not only to geographers, but also to students of the Austro-Hungarian and ottoman empires, of the constant religious controversies between Catholic and Orthodox church, and of fascinating Slavic folklore.

Among these travelogues two excel, the first one written by Antun Vrančić (1504-73) and the second by Ruđer Bošković (1711-87). These two clergymen wrote their travelogues in foreign languages (in Latin and Italian), because Vrančić was reporting to the Austrian emperor who had entrusted him with a delicate mission to the Sultan (Iter Buda Hadrianopolim, 1553), while Bošković from his teen-age years moved in the circle of West-European scientists and communicated his observations to them (Giornale di un Viaggio da Constantinopoli in Polonia, 1784).

The situation changed radically during the Croatian national and cultural revival (1832-48), when travelling became somewhat easier even for the laymen, who wrote only in the vernacular, for they were addressing themselves to their countrymen. They were deeply influenced by new currents of political rebellion, national independence and to a degree by adventurous longings. When they embarked even on short distance trips (as e.g. Stanko Vraz who travelled from Zagreb to Novo Mesto in Slovenia), they gave detailed accounts of what they saw, whom they encountered and which maidens charmed their heart.

If they travelled to neighbouring dominions, they felt as if they were in another world, because of the different rulers and customs, and often a language barrier.

Bosnia was then a part of the Turkish empire. When Matija Mažuranić (1817-81) went to this province in 1839-40, he was so puzzled by differences which existed between the two geographically close regions that, upon his return to Zagreb, he wrote a fascinating account, which excels in its accurate portrayal of Bosnian customs (A View of Bosnia - Pogled u Bosnu, 1842).

Complete article: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/28/2809.htm

Journal of Croatian Studies, XXVIII-XXIX, 1987-88 - Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.

Selected Croatian Prose-Poems - Translated by Carolyn Owlett Hunter

2011-10-07T19:14:00.000-04:00

SELECTED CROATIAN PROSE-POEMS

TRANSLATED BY CAROLYN OWLETT HUNTER

FRAN MAŽURANIĆ

1859-1928

Born in Novi Vindolski, Croatia, March 26, 1859, died in Berlin, 1928. A man of restless and adventurous spirit, he changed professions and locations, which caused various rumors and legends in his native country. He first studied technology in Prague, but abandoned it to pursue a military career in which he achieved the rank of captain (1900). After the First World War he resided abroad until his death.

His book of prose poems is: LIŠĆE [Leaves].

ŠTO SAM MISLIO UMIRUĆI?

Čto ja budu dumat' togda, kogda mnje

pridetsja umirat' — jesli ja toljko budu

v sostojaniji togda dumat'?

— Turgenjev, Stihotvorenija v prozje

Bilo mi je osam godina, kad se je novljanska luka gradila.

U toj dobi znade većina primorske djece plivati, — ja još nisam znao.

Igrajuć se po luci, padnem u more. Potonem. — Voda me digne. Vidim na zidu, vrh sebe, djece. - - Pružam ruke, — Hoću da vičem, - - ne mogu! Gutam more, tonem - - Izgubljen sam!

Taj tren proletih sav svoj život. Svi grijesi mladanog vijeka došli mi na pamet: slador sam uzimao, brata tukao, lagao, na voću bio - - - Zadnja misao mi bijaše: "Idem u pakao!" — te se onesvijestih - -

Izvukoše me, — a čemu?

WHAT WAS I THINKING WHILE DYING?

Čto ja budu dunat' togda, kogda mnje
pridetsja umirat' — jesli ja toljko budu
v sostojaniji togda dumat'?

— Turgenjev, Stihotvorenija v prozje

I was eight years old when they built the port in Novi. At that age most children know how to swim — I didn't know how yet.

While playing about the harbor I fell into the sea. I sank. The water buoyed me up. I saw the children above me on the wall. — I extended my hands, — tried to shout, — I couldn't! I was swallowing sea water, — I was sinking, — I was lost! In that instant I flew through my entire life. All the sins of my young life appeared again before me: I was stealing sugar, I was beating my brother, I was lying, I was climbing the fruit tree — My last thought was: "I was descending into Hell!" — and I lost consciousness. They got me out — and for what?

MOJI SNI

Čudili se, što još hrvatski znadem, premda sam već toliko godina od kuće. — Pa kako to, da nisi zaboravio?

— A kako bili?! Ako i ne govorim hrvatski, to ipak hrvatski snivam, — a snivam vrlo testo ...

Bog zna, hoće li se ti moji hrvatski sni ikad obistiniti!?

MY DREAMS

They were surprised that I still know Croatian though now so many years absent from my native land. — How is it that you didn't forget?

— How could I? Though I don't converse in Croatian, yet I dream in Croatian, — and I dream very often ...

God knows whether these Croatian dreams will ever become reality.

Complete article: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/28/2808.htm

Journal of Croatian Studies, XXVIII-XXIX, 1987-88 – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.

Kazimir Katalinić - The Declaration of Croatian Independence in the Light of International Documents

2011-10-07T18:57:00.000-04:00

THE DECLARATION OF CROATIAN INDEPENDENCE IN THE LIGHT OF INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTS

KAZIMIR KATALINIĆ

In their struggle for independence and separation from the Yugoslav State established after the First World War, the Croats found themselves divided into two factions; on the one hand a law abiding majority, under the leadership of Dr. Vladko Maček, President of the Croatian Peasant Party, and on the other a revolutionary minority, styled "Ustaša" ("Insurgents"), whose visible head, Dr. Ante Pavelić, lived in exile in Italy.

Initially the Ustaša had received a limited amount of support from Hungary and Italy, but as Yugoslavia began to distance itself from its traditional allies (Great Britain and, more especially; France), and to move closer to Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy, the Ustaša found themselves without any supporters at all.

When Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact on March 25t, 1941, it seemed that the Croatian revolutionary movement had been dealt a mortal blow. Nevertheless, scarcely two days later, on March 27th, a group of Yugoslav army officers, all of them Serbs, incited by the British secret service, staged a coup, sparking off violent anti-German riots in Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia and Serbia.

Although the new Yugoslav Government tried to avoid a war with Germany and Italy, Hitler decided that the Balkan situation should be clarified and full control established over the whole region before embarking on the campaign he had planned against the Soviet Union. He also felt slighted by the Serbs and decided to punish them by launching an attack against Yugoslavia. This attack began on April 6th, 1941.

Although at that time most of the prominent members of the Croatian Revolutionary Movement were in Yugoslav prisons and their leader, Dr. Ante Pavelić, in exile, the Revolutionary Movement seized the opportunity to launch a struggle for the liberation of Croatia. One Ustaša group incited the troops to rebellion, capturing the town of Bjelovar and proclaiming the independence of Croatia on April 8th, 1941, a mere two days after the German attack, while the German troops were still far away. News of this event failed to travel far, however, for lack of an adequate mass communication media.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to destabilize Yugoslavia, the Germans had already sent two envoys to the Croatian capital, Zagreb where they contacted Maček. Unable to reach an agreement with him, they met with Pavelić's representative, the former Austro-Hungarian colonel Slavko Kvaternik, who subsequently, on April 10th 1941, was to proclaim, in the name of Ante Pavelić, the Independent State of Croatia.

While the April 8th proclamation had ...

Complete articale: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/28/2807.htm

Journal of Croatian Studies, XXVIII-XXIX, 1987-88, Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.

James J. Sadkovich - The Use of Political Trials to Repress Croatian Dissent, 1929-1934

2011-10-07T18:46:00.000-04:00

Dr Vladimir Macek

THE USE OF POLITICAL TRIALS TO REPRESS CROATIAN DISSENT
1929-1934

JAMES J. SADKOVICH

A show trial is a political trial in which the accused "freely" confess their guilt and ask forgiveness of the state through the prosecutor and judge, whose roles are complementary rather than distinct. According to Milovan Djilas, a show trial is the "legal cloak to the political judgment on the 'hostile activity' of the accused". It is thus not enough to convict, but also necessary to defame — and in this sense the confession of the accused is crucial, since at least the "public opinion of the party", and ideally the "general public opinion" must be persuaded and assured by the proceedings of both the guilt of the accused and the power and authority of the regime.[1] Indeed, it would seem that both the general public and members of the ruling elite are automatically persuaded at least to consider the guilt of the accused as given, even in a political prosecution. As one of Alexander Werth's interlocutors noted, to be in a Soviet labor camp in the 1930s was to be assumed guilty of being a "vrag naroda", or enemy of the people, and to confess became routine for some Russians.[2] It is thus not surprising that Jirí Pelikán found himself doubting an acquaintance's innocence and blaming himself for being too foolish to see through the "spy's" disguise.[3] In short, it would seem that political trials have the effect desired of suppressing and discrediting an actual or imaginary opposition while preserving the legal forms and reaffirming the regime's monopoly of power merely by taking place.

But political trials can backfire. In the Chicago conspiracy trial the accused succeeded in using the opportunity to radicalize public opinion. Yet their success was not total, nor did it mark their trial as that different from all others: while in the Soviet purge trials of the 1930s and the Czech trials of the early 1950s confessions were the norm, in the Yugoslav trials of the 1930s the defendants also tried to turn the courtroom into a forum — as radicals in Russia and elsewhere had attempted before them.[4] Certainly the intent had not differed with regard to the authorities: Mayor Richard Daley clearly sought to vindicate the Chicago police and take revenge on those who had spoiled "his" convention, just as Stalin sought to affirm the power of the Soviet state in the 1930s and the Czechs the primacy of the party in the 1950s.[5] While not as closely tied to the political power (in the form of the state prosecutor) as the judiciaries of the Nazi or Soviet systems, the American judiciary also slipped into "political" judgements in the 1960s. But American judges were able to avoid total subjugation to the political branch of government, since it was anathema to consider the judge and state prosecutor collaborating elements of a single system whose aim was to repress all political opposition — an identification of interests that rested on the identification of the NSDAP and communist parties with the government and was symptomatic of the absolute control of the machinery of government by a single individual or party.[6]

Nonetheless, the function of the Chicago trial was to show that the United States (like Chicago) was beleaguered by "outside agitators" and subversives, and to demonstrate that the government was pursuing a "tough" policy with regard to such disruptive elements. Although the "foreign" threat was implicit in the American trials, rather than explicit as in the Soviet and Czech purges, it was present. Indeed, it appears that those involved to a large extent came to believe their own accusations against those on trial, as evidently happened in the Soviet Union in the 1930s [7]. And the intent of the Chicago trial, like the Soviet and Czech, was clearly to intimidate the more outspoken critics of the system, justify the repression of radical groups, and create a more docile citizenry.[8]

Show trials thus serve a number of functions besides discrediting and suppressing the opposition (potential or actual), and are clearly a symptom of a system that is under a high degree of central control and suffering a certain paranoia, i.e., a system similar to those described in the classic works by Orwell and Arendt.[9] The manifestations of this paranoia can be grotesque — as was the trial of 80,000 peasant "kulaks" in Romania in 1954[10] — but usually they are limited to the use of less obvious repressive measures, of which show trials are one. Show trials are exquisitely political, since the judiciary clearly serves a political rather than a judical function, and since criminality is confused with political heterogeneity. Because of this, certain "criminal" trials can be viewed as "show" or "political" trials, depending on one's point of view — e.g., the arrest and conviction of civil rights demonstrators in the United States in the 1950s. However, the sort of show trial that this article will deal with is not the accidental response of the system to a challenge to a specific law or set of laws, but the systemic response of the government to a general challenge to its legitimacy. Thus not only the police, but the courts and other institutions are mobilized in order to save the system of government actually in power. To the extent that the opposition can be tried and shown to be "criminal," the government achieves not only its goal of repressing the opposition, but also an ancillary goal of demonstrating the illegitimacy of its opponents, and thereby reaffirming both its own power and its own authority.

Complete article: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/28/2806.htm

Journal of Croatian Studies, XXVIII-XXIX, 1987-88 Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.

Ante Kadić - Thomas G. Masaryk and the Croats

2011-10-07T18:22:00.000-04:00

THOMAS G: MASARYK AND THE CROATS*

ANTE KADIĆ

Veritas liberabit vos

Tomaš G. Masaryk (1850-1937) was a very influential theoretician of the history of his country. He was partly successful in turning the Czechs away from romantic nationalism and in giving them a new ideology with roots in their own past.

In books such as The Meaning of Czech History (Česka otazka 1895), Jan Hus (1896), and Karel Havliček (1896), he outlined his philosophy of Czech history: for him the Hussite era was the pinnacle of the Czech past, and the Bohemian Brethren were the finest embodiment of the ideal of humanity. He considered the Czech national revival at the beginning of the nineteenth century a direct continuation of the Czech Reformation, and the modern Czech democracy the fulfilment of the Hussite tradition.[1]

Masaryk, who began his career as professor of philosophy at Prague University by attacking the authenticity of the so-called Old Czech Manuscripts (forged chiefly by a poet Vaclav Hanka) and was effective (together with others) in demolishing this myth, in the process of time, when he became a politician and national leader, created many myths of his own!

To prove this point I will adduce the opinion of some respected Czech scholars.

Josef Kaizl (1854-1901), a former colleague of Masaryk in the Young Czech party, in his book Czech Thought (Česke myšlenky 1896), challenged Masaryk's views of Czech history. He argued that the Czech question was a national, not a religious problem. He emphasized that the "awakeners" of the early nineteenth century were liberals in the tradition of the French Enlightenment and not that of the Reformation. Even those who were Protestants (e.g. Jan Kollar, František Palacky and Pavel J. Šafarik) did not draw upon the Czech protestant tradition; they looked at the revival only in national and social terms.

From professional historians came even more serious objections to Masaryk's interpretations. One of the better known scholars, on account of his immense erudition, was Josef Pekař (1870-1937), who in his booklet Masaryk's Czech Philosophy (Masarykova česka filosofie, 1912; third edition, 1927) argued that the Czech national awakening was different from the Czech Reformation, that the ideal of humanity enunciated by Herder and accepted by František Palacky (1779-1876), the "father" of Czech historiography, had nothing to do with the Christian beliefs either of the Hussites or the Bohemian Brethren. Pekař regarded the Hussites as "enthusiasts", who, for the sake of their debatable opinions, went gladly to their death. He quoted Palacky who had written that during the Reformation the idea of faith and church was of the greatest significance, while for his contemporaries the most important concept was that of Czech nation.[2] Pekař pointed out that Masaryk's beloved Hussites had accepted the feudal order and did not demand the emancipation of the serfs. Further, he denied that the outcome of the battle of the White Mountain (1620) should be explained by the moral decay of the Czech nation. Pekař repudiated Masaryk's philosophy of history as an artificial fabrication without support in reality and even in collision with it. Pekař concluded his attack against Masaryk's philosophy of the Czech nation by saying that he felt obliged to oppose Masaryk's mystical ideology and national mythology.[3]

René Wellek (1903- ), one of the most competent critics of Masaryk's philosophy, who has remained a devoted admirer of the former Czech president, recognizes, however, that "Masaryk was not and did not pretend to be a professional historian doing research in archives ... Masaryk scarcely makes an effort to enter into the minds of bygone people, to reconstruct their outlook in its historical setting, for he does not care for the past in itself but mainly for the consciousness and conscience of his contemporaries and their descendants. The past for Masaryk must stay alive to shape the future".[4]

The persistent theme of Masaryk's exhortations to his countrymen was that they should not be apathetic, that they should work and prove assiduous even in petty daily duties. He encouraged them to make their way in the contemporary world using both their muscles and brain.

Complete article: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/28/2805.htm

Journal of Croatian Studies, XXVIII-XXIX, 1987-88 Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.

Edo Pivčević - The Principality of Poljica, From its Mediaeval Inception to its Fall in 1807

2011-10-07T17:52:00.000-04:00

THE PRINCIPALITY OF POLJICA*

From its Mediaeval Inception to its Fall in 1807

EDO PIVČEVIĆ

Among the many European mediaeval principalities, which after centuries of varying fortune went under, one after another in the aftermath of the French Revolution, the Croatian principality of Poljica (pronounced Pol'yeetsa), with its special brand of rural democracy, occupied a special, indeed unique position. Its most conspicuous feature was that throughout its long and eventful history, unlike any other of its sister states, it never developed an urban centres on its territory. Its economy almost exclusive) depended on animal farming and agriculture. Although its territory included a good stretch of Adriatic coastline, shipping never played a significant part in its economy. Nor was there a concentrated effort to develop fishing. The reason for this, no doubt, was part) due to the absence of good natural harbours, where ships and small craft could shelter from weather, but also partly to the fact that the steep mountain ranges made access to the coast difficult. All the same, there did not seem to be a great deal of interest in the sea.

However, what set Poljica even more apart from other European principalities was its political constitution, which was in category of its own. For although throughout the principality history, its social structure retained many distinctly feudal feature; the sheer complexity of its political organisation, the two species of nobility, the unusually large number of 'noble' families in proportion to the size of its population[1], with no single family ever gaining the position of dominance, and especially the intricate system of tribal and individual property ownership, made Poljica unlike any other community in feudal Europe.

In Poljica, it seems, there were no serfs in the more extreme sense of this term. Instead, there were bonded peasants, who were allowed to own property of their own, and could in principle leave their masters if they so wished, provided they surrendered their master's property. Moreover, it seems, it was accepted that the could leave their masters even without the latter's consent if the had been maltreated in any way.[2] There were also independent tenant farmers and free labourers and herdsmen; the last of these belonging mainly to the tiny minority of surviving Illyrian tribesmen, descended from the pre-Roman and pre-Slav population of Dalmatia, and occupying the bottom end of the social scale. Yet despite the social differences, a general consensus in important decisions was a statutory requirement. Thus a number of articles of the principality's statute begins with the significant phrase 'All the men of Poljica together have resolved ...' or words to this effect.[3] The prince had to be a nobleman, but his office was not hereditary and both the prince and the other main officials of the principality's government were elected to their respective offices for a one-year term only.

THE GEOGRAPHIC POSITION

The territory of the principality - or, as local people often also called it, 'commune' or 'county'[4] - occupied an area of approximately 100 sq. miles of mountainous land just to the south of the town of split, between the rivers Žrnovnica and Cetina, and except for a relatively short stretch of the ragged open terrain to the northwest where its border was not marked by any distinctive natural features, physically it was a fairly enclosed, easily identifiably entity; which is, no doubt, why its name survives to this day as a geographic concept, even though administratively it has long been parcelled out and divided among neighbouring districts. The dominant physical feature of the area is the Mosor massif, which stretches along the whole length of the principality and whose highest peak rises to nearly 4,500 ft.

Complete article: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/28/2804.htm

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Journal of Croatian Studies, XXVIII-XXIX, 1987-88 – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.
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Anthony M. Mlikotin - Roger Boscovich's Theoria Philosophiae Naturalis and the Rise of Modern Philosophy

2011-10-07T16:39:00.000-04:00

ROGER BOSCOVICH'S THEORIA PHILOSOPHIAE NATURALIS AND THE RISE OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY*

ANTHONY M. MLIKOTIN

In order to ascertain the spiritual affinities between an 18th century scientist and the beginnings of modern philosophy in the 19th century, the meaning of the title of Boscovich's magnum opus must first be deciphered. The title is unusual — theory of a philosophy. What does it mean? From today's point of view, such a theory could mean one of the two things: 1) something above the experiments; a theory that puts the findings reached by experiments into a system, or 2) it could simply be another name for philosophy. In other words "philosophy" of natural philosophy, the latter in Boscovich's time still being considered, following Aristotle, physics. By way of an explanatory intermission, let me relate that for centuries "pure" philosophy meant only some of the most idealistic aspects of Plato's thought. Aristotle, interpreting Plato, classified under "pure" philosophy metaphysics, ethics and politics. In the Middle Ages, the aforementioned disciplines were renamed and termed "moral philosophy." Natural philosophy, on the other hand, included, what we today consider, sciences. In contemporary usage, we would call Boscovich's book the "philosophy of science." However philosophy of science as conceived today, is the domain of the philosophers, not the scientists. And Boscovich was in the first place a scientist and then, of course, a theologian. In his case, and in connection with this work, he was a scientist who reflected, or philosophized, over his experiments; he was conceptualizing his scientific discoveries into a higher sphere, i.e., he was adding logic and his mind's visions to experimental data. Consequently, the proper way to understand Boscovich the scientist is through his philosophy of science. The former dean of Croatian philosophers, now deceased, Professor Vladimir Filipović refers to Boscovich's book as "philosophical reflection" upon the latter's experiments; Boscovich thus created a work which went beyond his "physical theory" (356). Marković in his two-volume biography and study of Boscovich cites a number of distinguished scientists and philosophers who have been intrigued with Boscovich's opus (471-477).

Why did Boscovich force us into this theoretical labyrinth? Why did he not simply call his book philosophie naturalis — natural philosophy? In his age there was a surfeit of hypothetical doctrines in and about natural philosophy, not necessitating another theoretical appendage, in this instance — theoria. Or perhaps Boscovich wanted us to understand the universe on the basis of both his philosophy and his experimental sciences. In a number of instances throughout the book Boscovich tells us that he has come to his conclusions by means of both his experiments and his thinking (per reflexionem) or by legitimate reasoning (legitima ratiocinatione). The very title of his work gives an indication that theory comes first and natural philosophy second. Consequently, his is a theory which explains and defines the sciences: it is a comprehensive reflection on the nature of sciences. By itself Boscovich's natural philosophy (basically physics) would be a torso.

To utilize today's definitions, we assume that sciences have done their work when they have reached the intended results. Why, for what reason, or of what value are these results is secondary to a scientist (not to everyone). Philosophy, specifically the so-called philosophy of science, does not stop at describing the procedures alone; it wants to give logical explanations to scientific processes. It wants to make clear to the general mind the nature of scientific work, to clarify the methods and concepts involved in the experiments, and, per reflection, to suggest further modes of investigation. In this respect Boscovich must have believed that the theoretical mind itself can open new avenues leading to the discovery of factual phenomena. As we know, in many instances, subsequent experiments only confirm the hypotheses reached by pure reasoning. Philosophy's task is, and this might have been Boscovich's intention, to put pure reason at the service of experimental sciences. Let us not then be surprised that a Catholic theologian wanted to see his discoveries confirmed by the perennial principles of philosophy.

Newton, the forerunner of Boscovich, and the latter's great idol, refuted the value of purely philosophical thinking in the study of nature. For Newton, philosophy is either philosophia experimentalis (experimental philosophy) or no philosophy at all. Boscovich thought differently.

Professor Zenko, in one of his articles, notes the differences in the thinking processes between Newton and Boscovich (2). Zenko does not think, however, that these differences were any impediment to Boscovich in his pursuit of Newton's ideas. Zenko definitely considers Boscovich a philosopher but thinks that Boscovich's was a unique experimentum philosophicum (philosophical experiment). It was an experiment because Boscovich tried to understand the very nature of the sciences and the newly emerging technology by the constructs of rational thought, or in plain words, by logical reasoning (ibid.). Boscovich must have thought, as later Schopenhauer did too, that thinking itself is part of the functioning of the universe and that by studying its own (mental) operations, our mind also studies some aspects of the universe. Along this line of reasoning, Boscovich argued that "new physics," in studying nature, also studies living bodies with, of course, their psychological components. This is more than self-evident in his Appendix to the Theoria, labeled De anima et deo or The Mind (soul) and God. Together with his contemporaries, however, Boscovich soon realized that soul cannot be just another sort of mat-ter, since soul cannot obey the laws of mechanics. Soul's moving forces are a sense of purpose and responsibility, the latter two can-not be reconciled with the laws of mechanical regularities. Together with Spinoza, Leibnitz, Berkeley, and Hume, Boscovich also reflected in his Theoria upon the relationship of the body to the mind (No. 537). His conclusion, as we shall see later, was that soul and God are not subject to the laws of nature. Indeed, they regulate them.

Complete article: http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/28/2803.htm

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Journal of Croatian Studies, XXVIII-XXIX, 1987-88 – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.
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Dalibor Brozović - Croatian Literary Language in the 18th Century

2011-10-07T16:04:00.000-04:00

CROATIAN LITERARY LANGUAGE IN THE 18TH CENTURY*

DALIBOR BROZOVIĆ

Standard languages of Europe were formed at different historical periods ranging from the Dantean times in Italy to the twentieth century when Macedonian, a number of Caucasian, Uralic, Altaic and other standard languages of the Soviet Union were formed. In Romance and Germanic worlds the most important period in the development of their standard languages was the 16th century, when the Renaissance and Reformation movements were at their peak. In the history of Slavic standard languages some major events took place in the 18th century, and for some of them it was the most important phase in their history. That is the reason why at the Seventh International Congress of Slavists in Warsaw one of the major topics was the sociolinguistic situation in the Slavic countries in the 18th century, and why the majority of papers from all the participating countries dealt with this question.

If we apply the somewhat vague term "Croatian Literary Language" to cover both the written languages from the past and the contemporary standard language of the Croats, the history of the Croatian Literary Language can be divided into six periods, some of which consist of more than one phase. In this historical perspective the 18th century emerges as the most important point, which divides the first three periods (i.e., the prestandard history) from the latter three periods, which are characterized by the gradual formation of the latter three periods, which are characterized by the gradual formation of the present-day Croatian standard language.

A. Prestandard history:

First period:

— Medieval Croatian writing

— Development from the acceptance of Glagolitic script in the 9-10th centuries until the end of the 15th century

— Dominance of the čakavian dialect in writing and strong influence of the Croatian Church Slavic (with increasing secular usage)

— Appearance of the Cyrillic and the Latin alphabets in the 12th and 14th centuries, respectively

Second period

— Development of regional literatures in the 16th century (which adopt the intellectual linguistic adstratum of the medieval writings but drop the accumulated linguistic substance)

— Balance between čakavian, štokavian and kajkavian dialects in writing and between čakavian and štokavian in belle lettres

— Formation of two Croatian territorial complexes: northwestern (northern čakavian-kajkavian), and southeastern (southern čakavian-štokavian)

— Gradual disappearance of Glagolitic script

— Formation of several regional written languages based on various subdialects of all three major dialects

Third Period

— Development and multiplication of regional literatures and regional written languages in the 17th and the first half of the 18th centuries.

— Livelier contacts among the latter

— Prevalence of the štokavian dialect in the southeastern territorial complex

— Slow decline of čakavian and the Western type of Cyrillic alphabet in the second phase (the first half of the 18th century)

— Unification of the kajkavian written language

— Neo-štokavian expansion in the southeastern territorial complex, i.e., its influence on the čakavian territory and the influence of neoštokavian on non-neoštokavian written languages, primarily on the language of Dubrovnik
...
http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/28/2802.htm

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Journal of Croatian Studies, XXVIII-XXIX, 1987-88 – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.
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Olga Nedeljković: The Secular Aspect of the Croatian Vernacular in the Period of Late Medieval Humanism

2011-10-07T12:38:00.001-04:00

THE SECULAR ASPECT OF THE CROATIAN VERNACULAR IN THE PERIOD OF LATE MEDIEVAL HUMANISM*

OLGA NEDELJKOVIĆ

The introduction of vernaculars into neo-Latin literatures was a product of late medieval humanism, the Renaissance, and the Reformation periods. An important instance occurred among the Slavic nations: the Croatians created their vernacular in the late Middle Ages, when Roman-Latin humanism found its distinct expression in the Italian peninsula and its neighboring Adriatic coastal belt. The cradle of Croatian vernacular literature and culture was on the Adriatic coast where the Slavic tribes settled down next to the preserved Roman population in the seventh century, creating a Roman-Slavic symbiosis in subsequent centuries. Thus, the Roman-Slavic inhabitants of the eastern Adriatic coast came to belong to the narrowest common area of Roman-Italian civilization, that is, Italian peninsula. Both the Italians and the Dalmatians, as well as the other inhabitants of the eastern Adriatic regions, had similar backgrounds in Roman Christianity, in the Latin language, scholasticism, and feudal and bourgeois societies; they shared the motivations of humanism, the Renaissance, eloquentia vulgaris, and vernacular literature. Both societies had the same goals and effects. They both wanted to establish a national language and a secular literature as a cultural medium of communication. Our concern here is to explain how secularism became the dominant feature of Dalmatian-Dubrovnik culture at the dawn of the Renaissance and how, by assimilating new secular aspects of culture as one of its essential characteristics, what we call the Croatian vernacular gradually assumed the role and function of a common national language in most regions of Croatia in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

The independent city-states, villages, and islands of the eastern Adriatic coast (Dalmatia, the Croatian Littoral, Istria, at the head of which was the Republic of Dubrovnik) displayed a social and economical structure similar to that of Italy, where after centuries of economic stagnation in early Middle Ages there was a boom in manufacture and trade. (One finds a similar process at work in later periods of the Middle Ages, in the urban centers of Italy and those of the eastern Adriatic coast). As their Italian contemporaries, the Dalmatians were engaged in the same task of reconciling the classical culture with the new Christian one. For both groups ancient Rome was an inescapable model. The political institutions of the Roman Republic, the privileged status of her leading citizens, their characteristic virtues, the atmosphere of a society in which liberty and eloquence dominated, the rational temper of the Roman spirit, the wealth and the prudent moneymaking: all these aspects had manifest attractions for the progressive merchants of Italy and Dalmatia, and those on the other parts of the eastern Adriatic coast. All of these inhabitants of numerous Italian and Dalmatian city-states could see their prototypes in Roman citizens and their political and social activities. Their prime goal became to adapt and apply to their own culture Roman politics, law, administration, learning, philosophy, and business, as well as the values of justice and freedom. These medieval successors of the Roman Empire were eager to imitate all the virtues of ancient Rome. They were aware that in the Roman tradition they could find solutions for their everyday life, as well as aspirations to reshape earthly conditions and to create a profoundly humanistic respect for human life.

The Roman Republic represented the most attractive corpus of ancient models and patterns to be imitated in both Italy and the eastern Adriatic coast; the best proof of this lies in the existence of an autonomous parliamentary system both in the medieval Dalmatian cities and in the Republic of Dubrovnik. In the eleventh century one finds already in all Dalmatian cities the "priors" (heads of the autonomous city administrations) and the "tribunes" (military leaders). The prior was elected from among the city noblemen or patricians. He was the head of a city council consisting of judges, tribunes, and notaries, acting as a steering committee or originating body for the enactment of laws and decrees, which in due course were submitted for approval to the Municipal Assembly by way of Conlaudation populi. The parliamentary system enabled the citizens (common people and nobility) to take an active part in politics and social life, because municipal assemblies were attended by the bishop, clergy, nobility, and other citizens. This body of people's representatives, which in most city-states consisted of about 300 members, gradually evolved into a Senate. The Republic of Dubrovnik best displays this development (Gelcich 1884; Foretić 1980:52-4).

In these Italian-Dalmatian city-communes the essential antinomy was between public and private commitment; the commune or the republic was cherished as providing an opportunity for the exploiting of human potential to the full. Similarly, individualism is not at all characteristic of the Italian and Dalmatian humanists who adopted the classical Roman ideal of freedom. For them the vital core of liberty is not found within the individual, but only within society; history is the history of communes, not of individuals and their connection with "publicity" (Baron 1966:414). As already noted, the population of the Dalmatian cities and Dubrovnik was a relatively important factor, because of the part played by popular assemblies in making policy decisions. Especially during the earliest period of city-communes, internal relations within the city tended to be democratic, and documents speak of the people, resolutions made by "all citizens”, or made "with the prior, the clergy, and the entire population”. However, it must be borne in mind that by the age of Thomas the Archdeacon (1201-68) the author of the Historia Salonitana (first half of the thirteenth century), the difference between the nobility and the plebeians was already established (Klaić 1976:154-77).

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Journal of Croatian Studies, XXVIII-XXIX, 1987-88 – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.
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http://www.studiacroatica.org/jcs/28/2801.htm

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

2011-10-06T16:15:00.000-04:00

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Radovan Karadzic claims that the Serbian authorities in Kljuc investigated the mass murder of non-Serbs in the village of Velagici and punished the perpetrators. Former prisoner in the prison camps Manjaca and Batkovic Asim Egrlic replied to Karadzic that he heard that some men were arrested; they were in prison for only 18 days. ‘If they had killed so many hens, they would have gotten more than 18 days’, the witness said

Asim Egrlic, former prisoner in the Manjaca and Batkovic prison camps, is testifying at the trial of Radovan Karadzic about the Serb takeover of power in Kljuc. Egrlic also described the persecution, torture and murder of Muslims and Croats in Kljuc municipality in 1992. On the eve of the conflict, the witness served as the president of the Kljuc municipal assembly executive board. Kljuc is one of the eight BH municipalities where the persecution of non-Serbs reached the scale of genocide.

The summary of Egrlic’s previous testimony at the trial of Momcilo Krajisnik was admitted into evidence today. According to the summary, the Serb forces took over power in the municipality on 7 May 1992. Soon afterwards, the neighboring villages were attacked and the mass persecution of non-Serbs began. Non-Serbs were fired, their property was seized and mosques and other religious buildings were destroyed. The witness was arrested on 28 May 1992 and was first taken to the Stara Gradiska prison. From there, he was transferred to the Manjaca prison camp. The witness finally ended up in the Batkovic prison camp. In late January 1993, the witness was released in an exchange.

Prosecutor Alan Tieger brought up two incidents listed in the indictment against Karadzic: the execution of 77 civilians on 1 June 1992 in the village of Velagici and the execution of about 144 persons in July 1992 in the village of Biljani. The witness identified some victims from Velagici on the photos; their remains were recovered after the war in Babina Dolina, in Laniste near Kljuc. The victims were of all ages: the youngest victim was only five and the oldest was 93 years old. According to the witness, the bodies of the victims from Biljani were found in the cave called Bezdana, at a depth of about 25 meters.

In the first part of the cross-examination, Karadzic put it to the witness that the Serb authorities investigated the execution in Velagici and that some perpetrators were punished. ‘Yes, I heard about it, they were held in prison for 18 days and were then released’, Egrlic replied. ‘If they had killed as many hens, they would have gotten more than 18 days’, the witness added.

Karadzic tried to prove that the witness was not arrested without cause. As he claimed, the witness took part in the operation to distribute weapons to the ‘extremists’ in the Kljuc municipality. Karadzic corroborated his claims with the statements Serb investigators had taken from the prisoners in Manjaca. The witness dismissed Karadzic’s allegations, noting that the statements were taken under duress. The witness said that before the conflict the Serb Territorial Defense moved all the weapons to the Serb settlement of Ribnik and then distributed them to local Serbs.

Karadzic will continue cross-examining Asim Egrlic tomorrow.

http://www.sense-agency.com/icty/crime-and-punishment.29.html?news_id=13254&cat_id=1

A farce from beginning to end

2011-10-05T21:28:00.000-04:00

Dear friends and all to whom the TRUTH is still the principle of life and ideology that will prevail above injustice, lies and unfairness which still rules today in this world under different management and institutions like ICTY.

I appeal to all of You in all your capacities to spread this article and send to others; friends, Members of Parliaments and Institutions throughout the world. Spread the truth about Croatians, Bosniaks and other non-Serbian nations, who suffers Serbian aggression and now are suffering from injustice by ICTY. DO NOT IGNORE THIS LETTER.

Michael PACK

Marvellous article here. On the author: 'Mishka Góra is a Tasmanian-based writer who worked as a humanitarian aid worker under the auspices of the United Nations on both sides of the frontlines during the 1990s conflict. She has no ethnic affiliation to any of the peoples of the former Yugoslavia .'

The trial of Generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac: a farce from beginning to end.

By Mishka Góra

Posted Wednesday, 28 September 2011

As the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) wraps up almost two decades of war crimes trials, it seems political correctness and moral equivalence has triumphed over any passion for true justice. The April 15 conviction of two Croatian generals of crimes against humanity, for their part in an operation that saved tens of thousands of Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) from being massacred, has been followed by months of relative silence. This uncomfortable lull has belied the incredulous outrage of the Croatian people, because unlike previous convictions of men who were personally responsible for horrendous crimes such as mass murder, torture, and deportation to concentration camps, Generals Gotovina and Markac were convicted on the basis of a conspiracy theory that flew in the face of any rational appraisal of the evidence.

Currently on appeal, the trial of Generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac for their role in Operation Storm (Croatia's recovery of Serb-occupied territory in 1995) was a farce from beginning to end. Concerned for the "reputation and integrity of the ICTY and international criminal justice", the International Bar Association questioned the appointment of Elizabeth Gwaunza as an ad litem judge, but to no avail. Apparently, the ICTY felt that her links to Robert Mugabe and her receipt of the gift of a farm, seized by the Zimbabwe regime from its white owners, would have no influence on her capacity to adjudicate a case dealing with crimes such as looting and ethnic cleansing. To add insult to injury, the presiding judge, Alphons Orie, began his career at the ICTY as defence counsel for Duško Tadic, a Bosnian Serb convicted of personally murdering at least seven people, deporting civilians to various camps, and torturing Bosnian Muslims at the Omarska concentration camp. In a radio interview in 2008, he called Tadic a "small" criminal who nowadays wouldn't even be tried at the Hague , unlike Generals Gotovina and Markac it seems, who (even going by the ICTY judgement) haven't personally committed any of the war crimes for which they have been found guilty.

Indeed, according to the ICTY judgement, it was not necessary to prove that Gotovina or Markac had personally committed any of the crimes with which they were charged, such as murder and deportation, as they were liable as part of a "joint criminal enterprise", a euphemism for what most people would call a conspiracy. Obviously, conspiracies do occur from time to time, but they weren't charged with conspiracy. Furthermore, when the supposed ringleader is the dead President of Croatia who can't defend himself, and an overwhelming amount of the evidence against the accused is pure speculation about his motives, we have a moral duty to be sceptical. We should be all the more so when we trawl through more than one thousand pages of verbiage masquerading as a judgement to find that the only relevant conclusion that the judges drew about a key meeting at which the alleged conspiracy was supposed to have crystallised, is that General Gotovina took a risk that his troops might not behave themselves. To quote the judges, General Gotovina was "aware" that war crimes were "possible consequences". He reconciled himself to "the possibility that these crimes could be committed" and "took the risk that these crimes would be committed".

Moreover, if the Croatian generals had beencharged with conspiracy, that would be one thing, but they haven't. They were charged with crimes against humanity (such as murder) "pursuant to the mode of liability of JCE". In other words, they were charged with specific crimes which they were alleged to have planned and instigated. However, the judgement not only failed to demonstrate the existence of a joint criminal enterprise. It also failed to recognise that an end result (absence of Serbs) did not prove the method of achieving that result (deportation) and that, likewise, the desire for an end result did not prove instigation of the means to achieve that result. Defying logic, the judgement pronounced that ethnic cleansing took place, that the permanent removal of Serb civilians from the Krajina was effected by force, despite evidence from Serbs and Croats alike that Serb civilians began leaving the Krajina before the onset of Operation Storm and that the remainder were ordered to evacuate by the Serb leadership on the first day of the Croatian military operation.

The judges furthermore seemed to be omniscient, concluding that this conspiracy existed even though testimony by eight witnesses (who actually knew and worked closely with the president) contradicted the ICTY theory, indicating that none of the accused planned to expel Serbs from Croatia , whether alone or in concert. The judges brushed aside a public announcement made by President Tudjman promising that civil rights would be maintained during and after Operation Storm and that elections for self-government would be held in the presence of international observers, making the hubristic declaration that the announcement "was not a true reflection of [his] will and intention". Never mind that Tudjman's political party was in an alliance with the Serb People's Party at the time; never mind that Tudjman was dead and unable to explain his words and actions or defend himself.

Even the US Ambassador to Croatia , Peter Galbraith, testified that he "did not believe that Tudjman was going to expel the Serbs" but thought the Serbs would leave regardless and that it would be a "side effect" of the military offensive. To counter this, the ICTY cited evidence that Tudjman and Gotovina discussed "how to provide the Serb civilians in Knin and elsewhere a way out during the military attack". Rather than giving them credit for their prescience, the judges decided this was not reconcilable with protecting civil rights. Apart from the obvious fact that it is reconcilable – the guarantee of civil rights does not obviate the desire of civilians to get out of the way of a military operation and avoid being victims of collateral damage – the ICTY glossed over crucial evidence that much of the Serb population might not have wanted to stay. Apparently, a report by the UN Secretary-General acknowledging that it was "difficult to determine the extent to which the mass exodus of the Krajina Serb population was brought about by fear of Croatian forces, as opposed to the desire not to live under Croatian authority", was deemed immaterial.

Instead, the ICTY created a catch-22 that denied the legitimacy of Croatia 's defensive war and vilified a country that had taken in half a million enemy refugees and harboured them in its best tourist resorts out of pure human decency. If the Croatian leadership hadn't considered evacuation routes, they'd have been guilty of failing to protect civilians; yet when they did consider evacuation routes, they were found guilty of ethnic cleansing. It was an attitude characteristic of UN involvement in the former Yugoslavia . Rather than risk being accused of facilitating ethnic cleansing by transporting Bosnian civilians to safety, the UN left them to fend for themselves, to walk hundreds of miles, across frontlines and minefields and forbidding mountains, to the safety of Croatia 's refugee camps on the Adriatic coast.

The court also chose not to acknowledge that Operation Storm was encouraged by the international community, regardless of the possible repercussions with regard to the displacement of civilians. Galbraith testified that he recommended "that we not take any action that would discourage Croatia from continuing with that campaign" and that many in the Clinton administration "welcomed Croatia 's actions". He further noted "I think that Operation Storm and the subsequent campaign in Bosnia was critical to arriving at the Dayton peace agreements" and that the war in Bosnia would not have ended when it did "if it were not for the Croatian army's military action." As for the details of the operation, the court held that Gotovina's attack on Knin was "unlawful", despite Galbraith's evidence that, according to his embassy staff, one of whom was an artillery officer, the shelling of Knin was "relatively brief" and "not very destructive". He also observed that it "took place in the context of an operation aimed at capturing the town" and "you have to make a distinction between, for example, what the United States might do, given the technical [capability] it has, and whether it can avoid major, you know, casualties, as opposed to a country that would be much less capable technologically." Crucially, the UN Military Observers' ninety-five reports for this period were found to be missing from the EU archives when Gotovina's defence team requested them.

Ultimately, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the ICTY convicted Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac on the grounds of a conspiracy theory. According to the ICTY, the President of Croatia, along with much of his leadership team, conducted Operation Storm with the express purpose of expelling Serb civilians from the Krajina. Despite no concrete proof of a plan and no proof of expulsion, the ICTY advanced a theory that disparaged the entire Croatian nation. It also demonstrated a complete lack of perspective, ironic for a court obsessed with the proportionality of the military operation and supposedly focussed on the victims of war crimes. To quote Galbraith's testimony, "the whole UNPROFOR peacekeeping mission was in danger of collapse…. NATO wasn't going to save Bihac". If Gotovina had not led Operation Storm and liberated Bihac, "the lucky ones would have been expelled, but it's likely that tens of thousands would have been murdered by Mladic". It would have been "strategically disastrous" and "the chances of achieving [peace] would have been very small".

Gotovina and Markac not only liberated Croatia , but also saved the Bosnian Muslims of Bihac from the same fate as their compatriots in Srebrenica, paving the way for peace in the Balkans. That any judge could deem this a crime against humanity is contemptible.

Mishka Góra is a Tasmanian-based writer who worked as a humanitarian aid worker under the auspices of the United Nations on both sides of the frontlines during the 1990s conflict. She has no ethnic affiliation to any of the peoples of the former Yugoslavia .

© The National Forum and contributors 1999-2011. All rights reserved.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=12671

DEFENSE REPLIES TO PRESECUTOR’S REPLY

2011-10-05T20:39:00.000-04:00

DEFENSE REPLIES TO PRESECUTOR’S REPLY

The defense claims that in its response to Gotovina’s appellate brief the prosecution didn’t offer any arguments that might convince the Appeals chamber not to invalidate the judgment sentencing the Croatian general to 24 years in prison

General Ante Gotovina’s defense believes their Appeal should be adopted. They claim the prosecution didn’t offer any arguments in its reply which could contest the claims in Defense Appeals Brief. General Gotovina was sentenced to 24 years in prison in April this year, as a participant in the joint criminal enterprise (JCE) aimed at expelling Serbs from Krajina during and after Operation „Storm“ in 1995. Defense urges the Appeals Chamber to invalidate the findings in the judgment and „acquit“ former commander of Split Military District „of all charges“.

Defense contends that the prosecution’s argument on the existence of a joint criminal enterprise „rests on the bootstrapping of four individually unproven arguments, each used to prove the existence of the other“. These are the Brioni meeting, indiscriminate shelling, crimes of Croatian Army and Police and measures implemented by the Croatian government to prevent the Serb refugees from returning to Krajina after Operation „Storm“.

In its reply, Gotovina’s defense states that the prosecution „never cites“ the transcript of Brioni meeting from 31 July 1995 in support of its claims. According to the prosecution, participants of that meeting „explicitly refer[ed] to forcing the flight of the Serb civilian population out of the Krajina through the unlawful attack”. The defense contends that the prosecution „concedes“ there was no “formal decision” taken at Brioni to expel Serbs, and no “single statement” at the Brioni meeting would indicate that there was intent to target Serb civilians with artillery.

The defense also contests the prosecution’s argument that the judgment properly concluded that Gotovina’s aim was „to treat entire towns as targets“. According to judgment, this was done through the order issued on 2 August 1995 in which Gotovina demands that ‘Knin, Benkovac, Obrovac and Gracac be put under artillery fire’. Defense states that the Tribunal’s Conference and Languages Services Section (CLSS ) erred when they translated word „udari“ as „fire“, instead of translating it as “strikes”. That mistake in the translation drastically changed the situation, because the word „udari“ indicates that artillery attacks were aimed at military targets.According to the defense, it is clear from the later orders issued by Gotovina and Commander of the HV artillery during Operation Storm Marko Rajcic. The defense claims that those orders clearly mark military targets which should be attacked in the above-mentioned towns. Finally, the defense believes there is “no finding or evidence of direct targeting of civilians and no basis to infer an indiscriminate attack“. As a result „the entire Judgment collapses“, the defense claims.

The Chamber, the defense notes, specifically found that the common objective of JCE „did not amount to, or involve, the commission of the natural and foreseeable crimes“. The prosecution at the same time claims that crimes were planned. If these crimes were intended they would have formed part of the common JCE objective. The Chamber „found they did not“, defense claims.

The prosecution claims that Serb refugees were prevented from returning to Krajina. “Prosecution does not dispute that if the Krajina Serbs were not deported from the four towns, then the demographic policy post-Storm was not unlawful”, defense claims.

Gotovina „was not a member of, and did not significantly contribute to, a JCE“, the defense states. That is, according to them, clearly confirmed in the parts of their Appeals Brief, allegedly unchallenged by the prosecution. The Appeals brief states:numerous times Gotovina exclusively „ordered to target military objectives“; “the Chamber made no finding of any civilian deaths or injuries from shelling“; „every subsequent investigation by impartial observers and human rights organizations failed to uncover any evidence of unlawful shelling“. Finally, the defense also stated that general Gotovina took „all steps“ before and after Operation Storm „to prevent/punish crime“ against civilians and their property.

http://www.sense-agency.com/icty/defense-replies-to-presecutor%E2%80%99s-reply.29.html?news_id=13246&cat_id=1

Journal of Croatian Studies Volume 44 Issued

2011-06-15T22:01:00.000-04:00

The Croatian Academy of America issued volume 44 of the Journal of Croatian Studies, its annual interdisciplinary review.

The opening essay was written by University of Zagreb Professor Darko Žubrinić and deals with the life and contributions to mathematics of William Feller (1906-1970). One of the founders of Probability Theory as a scientific discipline, Feller was born in Zagreb and received his initial education in mathematics and physics at the University of Zagreb before going on to achieve international fame. Feller was particularly known for his two-volume monograph An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications which underwent several editions and was translated into Russian, Chinese, Spanish, Polish, and Hungarian.

A fascinating chapter in the cultural and religious history of the Croats relates to the Reformation period and is presented by University of Waterloo Professor Emeritus Vinko Grubišić. Despite major challenges and uncertainties as exiles, Croatian reformers in Germany printed over 20,000 books, including complete translations of the Bible into the Croatian language (“stumačena v hrvatskom jaziku” / “in die Crobatische Sprach verdolmetscht”). These books were printed in the Glagolitic, Cyrillic and Roman alphabets in an effort to spread reform ideas throughout lands inhabited by the Croats and other South Slavs.

Various aspects of the history of the Croatian diaspora are presented by three different contributions.

John Felix Clissa examines the migration history of the Italo-Croatians of the Molise region of Italy to Western Australia. The smallest ethnolinguistic minority in Italy, the Italo-Croatians of Molise are remnants of one of Croatia’s oldest diaspora communities whose spoken language has been designated as “severely endangered” by the UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages. As an immigrant from Molise, who spent his childhood in Belgium before emigrating to Australia, Clissa’s contribution is an outgrowth of his important 2001 book The Fountain and the Squeezebox (La Fontana e L’Organetto / Funda aš orginet). In this book, he transcribed and saved for posterity the idiolects (specific speaking styles) in Molisan-Croatian (together with English translations) of twenty-seven individuals from Molise and first generation Italo-Croatian Australians who were born between 1901 and 1934.

Based on the records of the U.S. Department of State relating to the internal affairs of Yugoslavia, Jure Krišto, Ph.D., of the Croatian Institute of History (Zagreb) examines the surveillance of American Croats by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during World War II. He concludes that the FBI began its spying on American citizen of Croatian descent at the behest of Yugoslav diplomats in Washington, DC. This operation continued despite conclusions by several operatives that further surveillance was not warranted. Instead, over time the surveillance mutated to focus on alleged Communist-related activities of American Croats. He concludes that the FBI was not always careful in the selection of its informants, which often resulted in grave consequences for American Croats.

Following a review of the policy origins of multiculturalism in Canada and the launch of Canadian Ethnic Studies and Polyphony, Stan Granic highlights the approach and achievements of these two periodicals. He then summarizes the main contributions in the two journals dealing with the Croatian ethnocultural community in Canada and the achievements of Canadians of Croatian origin.

Vladislav Beronja provides a translation of Miroslav Krleža’s exceptional poetic essay on the artist Krsto Hegedušić (1901-1975). Hegedušić’s most famous paintings depicted social themes and especially the harsh life of the Croatian peasantry in the style of naïve art. Krleža’s essay, considered a masterpiece in its genre in Croatian literature, accompanied Hegedušić’s 1933 book of drawings entitled Podravski motive (The Drava Valley Motifs). Hegedušić’s career was marked by his pursuit of an independent artistic course incorporating a national and social voice combining satirical, grotesque and surrealist elements.

Two reviews are also included in the issue. Brian Gallagher reviews Goli Otok: Hell in the Adriatic (2007), the personal reminiscences of Josip Zoretić about life in the most notorious prison camp of Tito’s Yugoslavia. The reviewer discusses how this work provides a corrective to the observations of those who gloss over the serious human rights violations that took place in ex-Yugoslavia. Vinko Grubišić reviews Kritike, a 2008 collection of forty literary critiques penned by Vinko Brešić. Brešić critiqued works written in verse and in prose of various genres by diverse Croatian authors, literary historians and critics over the last decade.

To order a copy of the Journal contact:

The Croatian Academy of America, Inc.
P.O. Box 1767, Grand Central Station
New York, NY 10163-1767
U.S.A.
Fax (516) 935-0019

E-mail croatacad@aol.com

Far Away Tales of Freedom

2011-05-19T11:54:00.001-04:00

When I was a pre-teen, my world consisted of my house, my grandma’s house, my school, and the people who belong to those places. I almost never considered the outside world. I was young, all too ignorantly innocent. When I really started reading books, interesting books, I discovered a new dimension of adventure in the world. However, I thought adventures were only for mighty heroes and brave warriors like the ones in the books. That all changed through, when my dad showed me the tickets he had bought for our family trip to Croatia. Croatia is a small eastern European country opposite to Italy across the Adriatic Sea. Many consider Croatia’s coastline one of the most beautiful and majestic in all of Europe. Tourism is the foundation of the economy. Yet, to my mother’s parents and my father’s parents, it was home.

Countless times I listened to my family describe the beauty of the land and their love for the country. Some of my relatives fought in the war that won Croatia’s freedom and democracy from the clutches of communist Yugoslavia. Even my father and mother did their part here in the United States by writing articles and doing interviews on the news exposing the communists. My grandfather has pictures from when he was behind enemy lines helping the resistance gather weapons and supplies. In their own small or great way, my whole family had fought for Croatia. They all cherished the country dearly.

Every summer, many of my relatives take a month off to go back home to Croatia. Surprisingly, my brother, sister, and I had never gone. My parents had always been so busy. But that year we would finally go! I was twelve that summer, about to become a teenager. When my dad first announced we were going, I got my camera and prepared to experience firsthand all the stories about the castles and the beautiful land. After the long flight over the Atlantic, we boarded a 30-passenger propeller plane to fly over the Alps. The engines were so noisy I could not hear my mom talk. That plane was hot and small. Nevertheless, one look outside the window at the ice tipped mountains of the Alps and that low altitude flight was well worth it.

We landed in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. The journey from Zagreb to the coast is a four-hour drive, but a beautiful one. On our way, we stopped at a national park called Plitvice. Plitvice is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Judging only from pictures I would still believe it, but being there was an experience I will never forget. The waterfalls splash and twist around the walkways, rocks, and bridges. Plitvice is a ravine, about 500 feet wide about 150 feet deep, with a river running at its bottom. When we arrived and walked to the edge of the ravine, I saw the river turn into waterfalls as it passes over rocks and flows around the boardwalks. To get to the boardwalks we had to climb down steep steps made of wood and some steps chiseled into rock. Once we reached the bottom, we walked among the most beautiful waterfalls and radiant pools I ever saw. They looked so uncorrupted, as if the earth was just born. A steady pace without stopping for pictures will get you through to where the river broadens in about 20 minutes. I took much longer than that.

After we left Plitvice, we made a beeline to the coast. Almost there, we stopped at the village where my grandparents lived and where my father was born. I even saw the rock he said he was stuck in as a kid. I saw the fields where my relatives used to grow grain and grapes. I saw the village cat peering at us from a distance like it knew we were strangers. However, once our relatives and friends invited us in to one of the little yellow cottages for drinks and snacks it almost felt like home even though I never saw the place before.

After a while, we finished our journey to the coast. Split was the city where we would be staying. The view from my grandfather’s condominium was incredible: beaches with cafes right alongside, docks with multi-million dollar yachts attached, and the sun shining on Croatians and tourists alike. I do not remember which I liked better, looking at the church steeple lit up against the night sky, or walking beside the Roman Emperor Diocletian’s Palace. The palace dates back to 300 A.D., but the yachts not more than a 5-minute walk away are modern and distinctively sophisticated. From the windy balcony, I felt like a mixture of both native and tourist inside me. It felt like a home, but there was so much to discover and learn. My camera was always clicking and keeping the memories stored safe.

After a few days, my parents told us we were getting on the road again. However, we were not starting the long journey home just yet. We were on our way to Dubrovnik, Croatia’s iconic walled city perched right on the rocks, with waves washing up against the walls that protected the Croatian people hundreds of years ago. A cross shaped Christian church at its center, the city streets look as if a chase scene from a James Bond movie is about to take place. The houses are made of stone, same as the walls. The walls that stood for hundreds of years now hold a city alive with cafes, shops, and tourists. The sun is shining, and the cool breeze makes the temperature feel about 75. As I walked the walls perched 40-feet high over the ocean, I thought about my relatives who fought for the country, and I thought about my ancestors who fought off the Ottoman Turks while the rest of Europe was having its Renaissance. I thought about the bravery, I thought about the determination. I was proud to be Croatian.

Yet, even more importantly, I realized how big of a world this really is. I found that the stories my family told me were extremely real. Stories and tales far more exciting than any book I ever read. Stories and tales that encourage me to overcome problems just like my country did. I peaked within and I saw, as so many other Croats do, an independent soul that lusts for freedom. As I stood on the beautiful and ancient towering walls of Dubrovnik, still very young, I realized my blood belonged to a place where freedom from oppression, freedom from limitations, and freedom of mind are not just good things to strive for, they are virtues to fight for.

Nik Susnjara
Naples, Florida
15 February 2011
submitted to www.croatia.org/crown

Croatia and the ICTY: Politics or Justice? – A British Perspective - Robin Harris, PhD

2011-05-07T11:43:00.000-04:00

CROATIA AND THE ICTY: POLITICS OR JUSTICE? – A BRITISH PERSPECTIVE

Robin Harris, PhD

It is an honour to be asked to address this distinguished gathering of Croatian intellectuals. The subject of your conference might appear, on the face of it, to be rather narrow. But any such initial impression is misleading. The question of what constitutes a »joint criminal enterprise«, in the sense in which that expression is used by the International Criminal Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia (the ICTY), requires much more than a technically correct judicial answer – if such a thing could, by chance, be found. It goes, in fact, to the heart of the relationship between politics and justice and to the role of national and international courts. It bears directly on the interests and, indeed, the sovereignty of Croatia. It has, by extension, profound implications for the future conduct of Western foreign policy. And last, but by no means least, it involves the fate of General Ante Gotovina and his co-accused in the Hague – something which concerns me, and doubtless concerns you too, very much indeed.

We do not, and should not, try to escape the cultural background from which we approach such matters. Inevitably, I bring with me a British perspective. But let me say, at once, that it is what could be termed a traditional British perspective, one rooted in well established national values, rather than one which coincides in any fashion at all with that adopted by recent British governments. And even in democracies, nations rarely deserve to be judged by their political class.

British political influence in the affairs of the former Yugoslavia over the last fifteen years has been wholly bad. British policy has been, successively – to try to keep an unviable Yugoslavia together; to deny the victims of aggression the means to defend themselves; to veto international action to help the helpless; to support by a range of means the perpetrators of genocide; to perpetuate the myth that all the parties involved in the conflict were equally guilty; to indulge in a pitiful campaign of self-justification, as the failure of past British policy became evident; and, most recently, to erect, from sheer spite, as a high a hurdle as possible against Croatia's re-joining Europe. I do not apologise for any of this, myself, because I and many others in Britain, most notably Lady Thatcher, opposed these policies at every turn. I merely note this litany of failure as a shameful fact.

The British perspective I adopt is, therefore, different and, I would argue, more authentic. Britain is historically home to a (properly defined) liberal tradition, one which places a high view on the rule of law, which respects dissent, which is inveterately hostile to the concentration and centralisation of power. This traditionally predisposes us to sympathy for the underdog and to dislike for arrogance and brutality. The tradition extends across the political spectrum. It was George Orwell a great British writer of the Left, who in his novel 1984 conjured up the memorable image of communism as »a boot stamping on a human face – for ever«. British governments should have seen who, in Greater Serbian Yugoslavia, was wearing the jackboots.

There is another side, however, perhaps a more conservative one, to British political values. The British are naturally sceptics – often unfortunately in religion, usually and healthily in politics. Unlike our American cousins, with whom we share much else, we traditionally distrust plans to create a perfect future at the expense of an acceptable present. We prefer the known to the unknown, let alone the unknowable. We are sometimes idealists. But, when we are true to ourselves, we are never utopians.

Utopianism, like totalitarianism, to which it is wrongly prescribed as an antidote but with which it in fact shares many features, is an eternal temptation. It is based upon hubris, of which there is no end. And like all such hubris, from the erection of the Tower of Babel described in the Book of Genesis to today's ideas of universal international jurisdiction embodied in the ICTY, it always ends in tears.

The ICTY, measured against these instincts and impulses, is a thoroughly unsatisfactory institution. It embodies the assumption that justice will be surer, more honest and more effective, if it is removed from nations and local communities and administered by an unaccountable class of quasi-legal professionals. That assumption is manifestly false. It defies any of the logic we use to create or to assess other kinds of institution. It amounts not so much to the rule of law but, at best, to the rule of lawyers – in this case lawyers who feel no compunction about making up law as they go along. Some results are immediately obvious. The ICTY is grossly over-manned. It has over 1100 staff, costing a quarter of a million dollars a year to run. Despite or because of these bloated resources, it is cumbersome, inefficient and slow. »Justice deferred is justice denied«, runs the ancient proverb. ICTY justice is always deferred, often distorted and frequently discarded as well.

Turn to its website and you will witness the Court's hubristic view of its own alleged significance. It claims to be a »pioneering institution«, one which has transformed the application of international law – for instance by broadening the (in fact, enormously dangerous) concept of »command responsibility«. Indeed, its public pronouncements read like those of political lobbyists, not officers of a court, and they are redolent of a vast, self-serving agenda.

The ICTY behaves in a more capricious and arrogant manner than any ordinary government would dare to do. It has, for example, taken to asserting its power and protecting its interests by outrageous interventions against Croatian journalists. If such abuses were perpetrated against press freedom in Britain or America, they would bring excoriation upon the authorities; they deserve to do so wherever and whenever they occur.

Yet here I must make a confession. When the ICTY was instituted by the UN Security Council in 1993 I was delighted. The reason was simple. The failure of will by the international community to uphold justice and order in this region was manifest and seemed immovable. The distant threat of global justice at least seemed better than no threat at all. Just to get the phrases »war crimes«, »crimes against humanity« and even »genocide« into public discussion made it more difficult for the cynical accomplices of violence in London, Paris, Washington or Moscow to pretend that Vukovar and Sarajevo just constituted »business as usual« in the Balkans. But I was wrong.

The ICTY has become a monster, and given the ideology and interests of its proponents and practitioners, it was bound to do so. It has probably not saved a single life. It has certainly not prevented a single atrocity. Ratko Mladic and his confederates were not deterred from murdering thousands of Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica by knowledge of its existence. And Milosevic was not deterred from ethnically cleansing Kosovo of its Albanians either.

In fact, the ICTY only began to be effective at all, in the sense of laying its hands on indictees, when the military tables were turned against Belgrade. The figures show that almost all the 161 indictments issued, and the 94 cases processed, occurred after Operation Storm. Before then the Court was virtually powerless. In other words, it is thanks to President Tudjman and Generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, with help from the Bosnians and the Americans – thanks, then, to those named in the indictments for participation in a »criminal enterprise« – that the ICTY can function properly at all. But somehow I doubt whether the ICTY prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, is likely to say 'thank you' – any more than she is likely to say 'sorry' for accusing the Vatican of helping shelter General Gotovina in a Croatian monastery, which proved totally false and a gross slander.

The decision to set up the Court was made, we should recall, in lieu of a lack of consensus by outside powers on intervention. But the ICTY itself solved nothing. Only when the United States belatedly overrode European objections and gave support to the Croatian Government's action to re-take the so-called Krajina was some kind of solution possible. It cannot be said too often or too loudly in every international arena: No Operation Storm; no Dayton. No Dayton; no Bosnia. No Bosnia; no stable peace in the region. It's really as simple as that.

Unfortunately, the decision to set up the ICTY injected a new factor into the equation. It threatened to steal defeat from the jaws of victory, not least for Croatia. In order to justify its existence, the Court had to show results that neither the processes of war, nor politics nor nationally administered justice could provide. This gave it a perverse incentive to focus on alleged crimes that nobody else would seriously consider crimes at all. The Court sought to enhance its credibility by treating the guilty and the innocent nations alike. It was predictable. The Court has been doing what all such institutions always do. It was preserving and advancing its own interests. That is the background to the indictments of General Gotovina and his colleagues.

But why has it been allowed to behave in a way so different from that originally envisaged and expected? Why has it not been called to order? The answer is that it suited the great powers for the ICTY to function in this way. The US wanted to make it easier for the Serbs to hand over Mladic and Karadzic, which was at least a worthwhile goal – though the US will certainly regret its decision when the details of its involvement in Operation Storm come out, as they must and will. For their part, the British, French and Russians, who had no time for Croatia anyway, were simply pleased to have the Croatian operation in 1995 put on an equal footing with the earlier Serb ethnic cleansing and aggression, which they had tacitly supported and publicly minimised. Examining the behaviour of the ICTY in these matters, one can see how the utopian goal of total justice for all has merely opened the way to gross injustice for some. The judicial process, adapting Clausewitz's famous formula, is now merely the extension of politics by other means.

But let us look more closely at Operation Storm itself. And if these facts are still better known to this Croatian audience than to me, I still rehearse them, because it worth a foreigner re-stating the truth – not least for the benefit of other foreigners.

In no sense can Storm be made the equivalent of, say, the cruel devastation inflicted by the Serbs in Eastern Slavonia. Knin never became a Vukovar, nor was ever likely to be. Storm was, after all, an operation to regain Croatian territory, internationally recognised as such. Moreover, it was a triumph – a rapid exercise based on overwhelming firepower, real time intelligence, efficient logistic support and the avoidance of civilian casualties, in short a text-book NATO-style operation. And not surprisingly, since so much American technical assistance, training and advice was involved.

Its consequences were overwhelmingly beneficial. The Bihac pocket, one of the very unsafe »safe areas« designated by the UN, was relieved. The occupied area of Western Croatia was re-taken. The siege of Sarajevo was lifted. The greatest regret is that Storm did not occur earlier, or Srebrenica too might have been saved.

Civilian casualties in Storm were amazingly light. But the only way in which such an outcome can ever be assured is to allow civilians freedom to flee the fighting. As it is, some 80,000 or so Serbs left, not just the immediate area but Croatian territory altogether. The ICTY indictment claims, of course, that this was the intention, the root of the »joint criminal enterprise«. But it has produced no evidence to substantiate this. In particular, unlike the case of earlier Serb attacks and ethnic cleansing, it can point to no public statements, and as far as I know no private plans, to achieve an ethnically purged territory. Indeed, I cannot see any reason why Zagreb would have wanted a mass exodus of Serbs at this point, since it was bound to create enormous political problems.

Anyway, although evidence of mens rea in the alleged crime is entirely lacking, this does not seem to bother the ICTY prosecutor in the slightest. She proceeds instead to an extraordinary tactic which can best be summed up with another Latin tag, namely post hoc, propter hoc – that is the assumption that intentions can be derived from subsequent events. In this case – the Serbs left – so they must have been expelled – so their expulsion must have been the original intention. Such reasoning would not hold up, and would not, I believe, even be advanced, in any British or other Western court; but it is typical of the maverick way in which the ICTY proceeds.

In any case, the Serb population was not expelled. As Peter Galbraith, US ambassador to Croatia at the time has pointed out: »The fact is, the Serbs population left before the Croatian army got there. You can't deport people who have already left«. He is right.

In fact, we can think of many probable reasons why the Serb population might decide of its own accord to leave Croatia. The scale of the persecution and pillaging suffered by the Croat population in the area during the previous four years was so great that many of these Serbs must have been involved. They may have feared either rough justice or real justice and they will have hoped to avoid it. The area they left was in a deplorable condition, partly because of economic blockade, but mainly because of the incompetence, disorder and criminality which flourished under the so-called SRK government. Why stay?

In fact, though, we do not need to speculate. We know precisely what prompted the Serbs to leave – they were instructed to do so by their leaders. The evidence is clear and irrefutable. It comes from testimony given in the Milosevic trial and so was available to the ICTY prosecutor. And if she was not paying attention that day she could surely have consulted the ICTY official press spokesman, Florence Hartmann. Previously a journalist on Le Monde, she has given her own account of these events in her book Milosevic – La Diagonale du Fou. Mme Hartmann heartily disliked President Tudjman and so is the last person to give him and his colleagues the benefit of the doubt. Therefore, what she says of these events must bear particular weight when she exculpates Zagreb and inculpates Belgrade. She writes (I quote):

»Each (Serb) refugee could bear witness that the population had fled at the summons of its own leaders. Each (Serb) soldier could testify to the deliberate withdrawal of the Serb army...In sum, the consciously planned abandonment of Krajina«.

Florence Hartmann places the blame for the exodus of Serbs on Milosevic, acting through his nominee General Mrksic, and so did many Serbs. She is probably right, and probably right too in thinking that these Serbs were seen by Belgrade as more useful to populate a Greater Serbian Bosnia than to fight a losing battle against Croatia. But the precise allocation of responsibility between Serb leaders is unimportant. The Belgrade journal Politika subsequently published a facsimile, which I have with me, of an order by Milan Martic, so-called President of the so-called SRK, dated 4 August 1995, which orders the (I quote) »planned evacuation of all the population not able to fight« from the area. The Serbs were told to leave by other Serbs not forced to leave by Croats.

The later real and inexcusable abuses against what remained of the Serb population committed by returning Croats do not change this judgement. The departure of the Serbs was not ethnic cleansing – it was (in Martic's expression) an »evacuation«. The indictments against Generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac are, therefore, fundamentally flawed. Without the convenient device of the »joint criminal enterprise« the specific charges against them cannot stand. But this existence of this »enterprise« is unproven and, indeed, unprovable – for the simple reason that it did not exist. The case against the Croatian generals and, by extension, against the Croatian Government of the day is, therefore, baseless.

But this does not mean that responsibility by other parties for other crimes should be ignored, at least if the ICTY is to continue its activity. Let us here recall that the founding statute of the Court does not exclude crimes committed by those coming from outside Yugoslavia. It is surely questionable whether Western leaders and commanders should not have been indicted for allowing atrocities to continue which they could have prevented. The fact that UN commanders tasked with protecting the safe havens like Srebrenica have escaped such indictments, despite the apparently limitlessly flexible concept of »command responsibility«, merely confirms that the Court's decisions are always politically circumscribed and sometimes politically determined – though not, unfortunately, in any sensible or defensible manner.

The West in general and America in particular should be very concerned about the precedent which is being set by the ICTY cases relating to Storm. The Americans are, of course, right to be confident that the ICTY will not suggest that they were part of a criminal enterprise, despite the fact that they were participants in the planning of Storm and had real time knowledge of everything significant that occurred in the course of it. But the suggestion that a »joint criminal enterprise« can be inferred if, as a result of a military intervention which is otherwise properly conducted, some civilians are killed, civilian property is damaged and large numbers of civilians leave, should give Washington and London nightmares.

At a rough guess, some 150 civilians were killed and 80,000 more fled from the so-called Krajina, when the Croatian army liberated its territory in 1995. By contrast, about a thousand civilians probably died and 190,000 more fled Kosovo when NATO took military action in what was Serbian territory in 1999. I support the Kosovo action. But then I supported Storm. I also support the subsequent decisions to attack first Afghanistan and then Iraq. But the US and the UK do not have to bother with people who think like me, people who know right from wrong and who know that force is sometimes needed to ensure that right prevails. They have to worry about people like Carla del Ponte and her more than eleven hundred colleagues, and even more about the new International Criminal Court established by the Rome statute. They have reason to fear that out of the Pandora's box they opened when they set up the ICTY, a completely new kind of political justice will emerge – one which will render national courts and national governments increasingly irrelevant, which will paralyse peace making and peace keeping interventions, and which will play into the hands of tyrants and aggressors.

That great Anglo-Irish patriot and thinker, Edmund Burke, famously observed: »All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing«. Good men, and not just good Croats either, have a duty to act to have the Storm indictments thrown out – and then to bring down the shutters on the ICTY.

Robin Harris: CROATIA AND THE ICTY: POLITICS OR JUSTICE? – A BRITISH PERSPECTIVE

CROATIAN GENERALS ARE NOT GUILTY

ICTY – How the Prosecutor Tampered with the Truth

2011-04-30T16:00:00.000-04:00

ICTY – HOW THE PROSECUTOR TAMPERED WITH THE TRUTH

Visnja Staresina

In his memoirs the former U.S. President Clinton wrote of about Storm: »In August (1995), there came a dramatic turnaround. The Croatian launched an offensive to take back Krajina, a part of Croatia that the local Serbs declared their territory. European and some U.S. military and intelligence officials were opposed to the operation, believing that Milosevic would intervene to save the Krajina Serbs, but I was rooting for the Croatians. Helmut Kohl did the same because he knew, just like I did, that diplomacy would not work until the Serbs have suffered serious losses in the field«. This Croatian operation to restore the constitutional order on 18% of its area that was four years under the occupation of the Serb insurgents and the UN protection, was congratulated on by numerous diplomats included in the post-Yugoslav peace process, powerless to stop the Serb war machine with their peace messages. With its professional execution, Storm commanded respect of military analysts and surprised laymen. In mere 36 hours, the Croatian Army liberated Knin, until then considered the unconquerable stronghold of the Serb insurgents from which they had spited all the international peace efforts for four years. »Until the very moment the Croatian Army heisted the Croatian flag over Knin after mere 36 hours on the offensive, the spokesman for the UN continued to rave on the alleged fantastic fighting qualities and skill of the Serb troops. Croatian victory showed that they talked rubbish. In addition to putting UNPROFOR and Western policy-makers to shame, Croatian victory created a fundamentally new situation, opening the door to serious peace negotiations«, commented the Wall Street Journal several days later (WSJ of 10.08.95). New York Times reported from Sarajevo: »Both the staff and the patients from the Sarajevo hospital thanked the offensive of the Croatian Army against the Serb insurgents in Croatia for the breath of normality they are now experiencing... Both the staff and the patients reckon that the Serb forces have been destabilised by the serious attacks on their collaborators in Croatia«. The official Washington was satisfied with the result. »It was the first defeat of the Serbs in four years, and it changed the power status on the ground and the psychology of all the parties«, wrote Clinton. He revealed that one day prior to the launch of Storm he had visited the famous ABC News correspondent Sam Donaldson at the hospital, and the latter said from his hospital bed that a Croatian offensive could be beneficiary to settling the conflict.

On the other hand, the official UK was initially reserved towards the operation and in agreement with other members of the peace contact group – the U.S.A., France, Germany and Russia – invited Croatia to call off the offensive. Already on the very first day of the Storm operation, the co-chairman of the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, called for an indictment of Croatian President Tudjman, and for no other thing than for – excessive shelling of Knin, the stronghold and the »capital« of the Serb insurgents. From his base in Knin, the UN spokesman reported that civilian buildings were also targeted, including the hospital, and that there was shattered glass lying all around. Several days after the dramatic reports, the correspondent of the Washington Post found a different picture at the Knin hospital: »The town hospital, allegedly severely damaged, seems to have only sustained a single shell hit. A UN clerk who was at the hospital at the time believed that Croatian gunners were aiming at a firing Serb tank that was positioned close to the hospital«.

In the meantime, Prosecutor Carla del Ponte explicitly made Storm into »joint criminal enterprise« and towards the end of February 2004 issued new indictments against the then administrator of Knin after the end of the military operation, General Ivan Cermak, and the Military Police Commander, Mladen Markac. The first row among the participants of the criminal enterprise was populated by the deceased: first Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, wartime Defence Minister Gojko Susak, the Commanders of the Generalstaff of the Croatian Army, Generals Janko Bobetko and Zvonimir Cervenko. Moreover, as aids of the »joint criminal enterprise« Carla del Ponte also mentioned »other members of the HDZ and local authorities«. At the initiative of UK diplomats, Security Council resolution listed General Gotovina among the most wanted fugitive war-crime indictees, alongside Greater-Serbian leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. Based on the claims of Carla del Ponte that Ante Gotovina was in Croatia and the Government would not arrest him, Croatia was barred from opening the EU accession negotiations and the process of its joining NATO was stopped. Gotovina was arrested in December 2005 on the Canary Islands.

Just as announced back in 1996 by UK policeman Simon Leach, the head of the ICTY investigation team in the Lasva Valley case, the first Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Defence Minister Gojko Susak were included in the »joint criminal enterprise« of ethnic cleansing of the Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The indictment itself would require a careful legal analysis because of its vagueness and its collectivisation of criminal responsibility. The way it stands written it practically criminalizes all the Croatians in Bosnia and Herzegovina. »Croatian joint criminal enterprise in Bosnia and Herzegovina« began, according to Carla del Ponte, »on 18 November 1991 or earlier«, and it lasted until »about April 1994 and afterwards«. Its goal was to »subject, in political and military terms, and to permanently eliminate and cleanse the Bosnian Muslims and other non-Croatians«, in order to create Greater Croatia within the borders of historical Banovina Hrvatska. The first rows of the members of the »joint criminal enterprise« were populated – in addition to Tudjman and Susak – by Joint Chief of Staff of the Croatian Army Janko Bobetko and President of the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia Mate Boban. They were followed by Jadranko Prlic, Prime Minister of Herzeg-Bosnia, Bruno Stojic, Defence Minister of Herzeg-Bosnia, Slobodan Praljak and Milivoj Petkovic, HVO Commanders, Valentin Coric, Minister of the Interior, and Berislav Pusic, in charge of the exchange of camp prisoners. Their trial began in The Hague in 2006. This indictment, too, includes the category of »others«.

Who are these »others« in the joint criminal enterprise? According to Prosecutor del Ponte they are: »various other officials and members of the Government and political structures of Herzeg-Bosnia/HVO, on all levels, including municipal authorities and local organisations, various leaders and members of the HDZ and HDZ BiH on all levels, various members of the armed forces of Herzeg-Bosnia: HVO, special units, military and civilian police, security and intelligence services, paramilitary formations, local defence forces and other persons acting under the control of or in cooperation with such armed forces, police and other elements; various members of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Croatia and other known and unknown persons«. Criminal liability of the accused, according to Carla del Ponte, did not even require that they all, »known and unknown«, be members of an all-Croatian criminal enterprise. »Additionally or alternatively«, they may be criminally liable for aiding and abetting a joint criminal enterprise. If the formula »additionally or alternatively« were applied to the letter, criminal liability for participation in Croatian joint criminal enterprise in Bosnia and Herzegovina could also extend to include the entire Muslim political and military leadership, including Alija Izetbegovic and all his military leaders because in many instances, even during the severest Muslim- Croatian conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, they signed agreements in which HVO and the BH Army were the legal armies of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

To the ICTY Prosecutor, the JNA »undertook a military operation« against Vukovar in Croatia, whereas the Croatian Army in liberating 18% of its own territory around Knin in the Storm operation conducted a »joint criminal enterprise with the goal of ethnic cleansing«. In her interview to the Croatian Television Prosecutor del Ponte noted that General Gotovina »seemingly, conducted the operation in accordance with the rules of warfare«, but she also added: »had there been no crimes, the Serbs would not have left«. Just one day prior to the Storm operation, at the negotiating table in Geneva, Serb leaders were given the ultimating Croatian offer – to accept autonomy in accordance with the Croatian Constitutional Law passed in early 1992 in accordance with the recommendations of the Badinter Commission and as a prerequisite to the international recognition of Croatia. On top of that, the Prosecutor also has the documents that show that the evacuation of the Serbs from Krajina was organised in advance by Milosevic i.e. Serb authorities. To paraphrase Carla del Ponte, had the Croatians not wanted to bring back their occupied territories and had they left it to Greater Serbians – there would have been no indictment for a »joint criminal enterprise«.

The Prosecutor's approach to the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina is similar. Any military operation of the HVO is part of a criminal enterprise. Even in the cases when Croatian villages were defended, the HVO is treated as an occupation force. Paradoxically, the very same Prosecutor treats foreign Islamist mujahedeen fighters as part of the forces of the BH Army, as fighters for integral, democratic and multiethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina. Not in a single indictment mentioning their atrocities are such atrocities qualified as persecution on religious, ethnic or national basis or crimes against civilian population, but merely as a violation of the rules of warfare.

ICTY – HOW THE PROSECUTOR TAMPERED WITH THE TRUTH

Visnja Staresina

CROATIAN GENERALS ARE NOT GUILTY

Historical and Political Aspects of the Activity of The Hague Tribunal

2011-04-30T15:37:00.000-04:00

HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS OF THE ACTIVITY OF THE HAGUE TRIBUNAL

Josip Jurcevic, PhD

In all armed conflicts in the territory of former Yugoslavia Serbia was involved in the role of aggressor while all others defended themselves on their territories. In addition Serbia was the only one systematically preparing itself for an armed solution of »the Yugoslav crisis«, and the only one controlling an armed force, so that all other inner Yugoslav actors where predetermined to play the role of victims.

The only factor, »complicating and obfuscating« an objective understanding and a determined, civilized proceeding with respect to a simple and clear situation in the region of former Yugoslavia, can be found in exterior circumstances and actors. These range from the circumstances of Communism breaking down in Europe, followed by activation of a new European interest dynamics, to the traditional strategic importance of Southeastern Europe from the standpoint of different international circles of interest and powerful governments.

All of the above can, among the rest, be appreciated as well in the establishment and subsequent proceedings of the Hague tribunal, which are far below the level of international legal standards adopted a long time ago, as well as below the worst experiences in international relations so far.

The Hague tribunal was formally granted an exceptionally limited jurisdiction. It was created as an ad hoc court for the region of former Yugoslavia with the right to try individuals exclusively, with neither power over organizations, nor a right to try for aggression itself. In this manner the Tribunal theoretically and practically does not distinguish, equivocating instead, between aggressor and victim, in opposition to basic humane values, as well as moral and legal principles thousands of years old. Furthermore, the Tribunal never announced a trial against any individual outside the region of former Yugoslavia, although there are numerous and various grounds for that, the responsibility for the horrible war crimes committed in the internationally »protected zone« of Srebrenica being the most prominent.

The Prosecution of the Hague tribunal (which is one of the parties in trial proceedings) presents itself as The Court by media techniques and, which is especially worrisome, appears in international affairs as a political institution. In this way the Hague prosecutors have de facto become a political arbiter whose opinion is critical at the UN for imposing sanctions on individual countries.

By political and media pressure on governments and media, the Hague tribunal pro- motes the principle that all suspects are proven criminals, who have to prove their innocence before the Tribunal, a presumption in complete contravention with the common legal standard that guilt has to be proven in court and no one can be considered guilty without a binding court verdict.

The Hague tribunal grossly exceeded its allocated jurisdiction by introducing in practice indictments and trial of individuals for the so-called joint criminal enterprise (JCE), so that in proceedings against individuals it in effect puts on trial »criminal organizations«, meaning states. In addition the term itself is so broadly defined it introduced complete legal insecurity, a situation in which any individual, neglecting customary standards of guilt determination, can be indicted and convicted as a member of a criminal organization. The defendants are put in a position in which they cannot even appreciate of what they are accused, rendering them incapable of exercising their equal right to rebut the points of the indictment. The responsibility, or guilt, of an individual is immersed into a vague collective guilt, which is also in opposition to common legal principles.

Following the proceedings before the Hague tribunal, one is especially struck by the problem of establishing points of fact, either simple or complex. This does not refer to establishing the legal relevance of a fact for the court proceedings, but to the unsound methodology by which the Hague tribunal acquires facts in the first place.

Concerning the Republic of Croatia, the systematic repeating of Hague theses by the Tribunal already achieved psychological and social effects involving first disbelief and apathy, and eventually desperation. If the Hague truths were incorporated into textbooks, a complete breakdown of identity and social disintegration of the Croatian society would result, followed by its thorough remodeling in the service of interests already deeply embedded as financiers and owners.

Opposition to the Hague theses was left to self-appointed individuals, until recently, when general S. Praljak, himself one of the 6 Croats indicted for a JCE in Bosnia, began to resist them systematically, backed by the enormous resource of an archive containing more than 60,000 documents.

It should be pointed out that this database, containing documents of all the parties in conflict, as well as the international community, objectively renders absurd the Hague indictment against six Croats from Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) in which they and Croatia are accused of a JCE against B&H. Namely, a large number of documents attests without any doubt that no Croat institution (President, Government, Parliament) did at any time pass an act or a hint thereof in line with destroying B&H and/or annexing any part of it. Furthermore, documents of both states, B&H and Croatia, demonstrate that the institutions of the Croatian state, during the period of conflict between Croatian and Muslim units in B&H, continuously participated in and contributed to the arming of the Army of B&H, as well as established and trained its units on the territory of Croatia. In Croatian hospitals several thousands of wounded soldiers of the B&H Army were treated, many of which wrote grateful letters to Croatian authorities after becoming well, and humanitarian aid also reached the Muslim population over Croatian territory without obstruction.

In the same period of time a large number of Muslim refugees were cared for without any discrimination, and Croatian authorities established and financed a system of schools for Bosnians, featuring a Bosnian teaching program, on Croatian territory. Likewise, numerous national sports representations of B&H where trained in Croatia and supported financially by the Croatian state, etc. Nevertheless, these aggregate facts and thousands of original documents supporting them never were made a centerpiece of public attention even in Croatia, while the Hague indictment for the alleged JCE against B&H remains a most severe threat to the Republic of Croatia.

A similar situation pertains with three generals of the Croatian army (HV) being accused, together with Croatian institutions, for an alleged JCE against Serbs in Croatia, during and after the liberation action »Storm.« Even though the media and several books published a number of original documents from the Croatian occupied territories, clearly demonstrating that the Serbian occupation forces planned and prepared the exodus of Serbian civilians from Croatia for several years, carrying it out before »Storm« – the supporters of the Hague theses both in The Hague and in Croatia insist on these points of the indictment.

Concerning the public perception and interpretation of »Storm« and other Croatian liberation operations, basic facts in their historical, political, and legal context are being ostentatiously neglected. First of all, beginning with the second half of 1991, Croatia acquired international legal status in a stepwise fashion, being eventually diplomatically recognized by key governments in January 1992, and becoming member of the UN in May of the same year. Based on its international status the Republic of Croatia had, according to all international laws and customs, full legality and legitimacy in establishing its jurisdiction over the occupied parts of its internationally recognized territory, the matter being its internal affair.

On all these grounds Croatia was fully within its rights to undertake liberation operations, »Storm« in particular, which, beside reintegrating a large portion of occupied Croatian territory, prevented a repetition of the Srebrenica humanitarian catastrophe in the Bihac region, and made it possible for the war in B&H to end, and the Dayton peace accords to be signed.

Josip Jurcevic: HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS OF THE ACTIVITY OF THE HAGUE TRIBUNAL

CROATIAN GENERALS ARE NOT GUILTY

Paradoxes and absurdities of the Hague indictment

2011-04-29T19:49:00.000-04:00

PARADOXES AND ABSURDITIES OF THE HAGUE INDICTMENT

Nedjeljko Mihanovic, PhD

General Ante Gotovina is being accused of the war crime, »that he knew, or had reason to know, that forces under his effective control were preparing to commit murder of Krajina Serbs« (150 of them). A war crime, as defined under the Hague convention of 1907, stipulates and includes: »killing, maltreatment, or deportation to forced labor of civilians; killing or maltreatment of prisoners of war; execution of hostages, destruction of towns and villages, or such devastation as cannot be justified by military necessity«.

None of that could have been committed in the military-police operation »Storm«:

a) because there was no way to kill a population which had already fled, because the Serbian population has evacuated itself to the Republic Srpska in B&H, and further towards Serbia proper, of its own volition, according to the plans of its leadership from the top of the Knin authorities;

b) because no one could organize any forced labor of civilians who have willfully fled, nor was this planned in any which way; and

c) because all prisoners of war have been unconditionally released by the Croatian authorities after the capitulation had been signed, and the »Storm« operation, which had lasted for four days, was over; finally

d) »destruction of towns and villages« was logically not part of the military-police operation, because all the towns and villages in question, which had been occupied by Serbian terrorists for four years, were Croatian state territory, so rather than stumbling into self-destruction, the purpose was to liberate the country.

Crimes against humanity include »organized murder, extermination, delivery into bondage, deportation of civilian population, their disappearance, torture, or inhuman procedures.« In point I, article 23, general Ante Gotovina is being summarily accused of all these crimes.

First of all, the quoted number of »150 murdered Krajina Serbs« is not broken down in the indictment. It is known that Serbian terrorist squads, as they carried out the orders of their superiors for the evacuation of the Serbian population, punished those Serbs who refused orders to evacuate by shooting them.

The indictment accuses General Ante Gotovina (along with Cermak and Markac) for »extermination of the civilian population«. It is a generally known fact that the Serbian population started to withdraw and evacuate according to its own strategic plans, respectively the orders of its paralegal government (Milan Martic and Milan Babic), several days before the military-police operation »Storm« was due to begin. Most of the Serbian population accepted this strategic inspiration of their leaders, and such a contrarian plan, to return in an organized fashion, after a new campaign of war, as victors. There was no »forcing to flee« (point I, article 23), nor could it have, physically, taken place.

In order to acquire a complete picture of the events surrounding the military-police operation »Storm« one should know that the Serbs from the so-called Krajina did not only flee. They also put up armed resistance, especially in ambushes, in which 200 Croatian civilians and more than 100 Croatian soldiers, defenders, lost their lives.

On August 6, 1995, I was in Knin and on the Knin citadel as President of the Croatian Parliament, in the company of President Dr Franjo Tudjman. I had unofficial exchanges with Croatian operational officers, who were involved in »Storm«. They recounted how they followed the evacuation of the Serbian population through binoculars, two days before »Storm« began. They thought the evacuation was in preparation for vigorous military activity by the Serbian paramilitary units. However, they were puzzled by the Serbian refugees burning their own homes and property, immediately after abandoning them on tractors and trucks in the direction of the Bosnian border. Similar Serbian burning of own houses was observed in the conflict of Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo, when individual Serbs were abandoning the region. It was motivated by an irrational contrarian attitude: let there be nothing left to the enemy!

Florence Hartmann, spokeswoman for the Hague tribunal, commented on this self-induced and strategically malign planned evacuation of the Serbian population in her book Milosevic – La Diagonale du Fou: »Every Serbian refugee could testify that the Serbian population was fleeing under instructions from their own leaders. Every (Serbian) soldier could testify to the intentional withdrawal of the Serbian army, a consciously planned abandonment of the Krajina«.

We ask, what is this »deportation« (point I, article 23) all about? Within the scope of such a qualification, one should be aware of the testimony of US Ambassador Mr. Peter W. Galbraith, who was peaceably driven on a refugee tractor during the withdrawal of Serbs from Croatia. One should also consider the reports of UNPROFOR observers, which testify to the willful, premeditated and planned evacuation of the Serbian population from the territory which they kept under terror and occupation for four years. Thus no organized and premeditated war crime against the rebel Serb population was committed on Croatian territory, because that population was withdrawing several days before the military-police operation »Storm«, according to its own contrarian strategic plan, aiming to return to Croatia in organized fashion following a new campaign of war.

In point 7, article 46, of the Indictment it is stated that the »Croatian army already applied itself to planning to return by force the RSK, i.e. Krajina region«. In objective reality, Croatian diplomacy had undertaken everything, up to and including the Geneva talks of August 3, 1995, in numerous exhausting and patient negotiations with the intransigent structures of the Knin authorities, to peacefully resolve and terminate a state of occupation, violence, persecution and liquidation of the Croatian population, and put an end to the nightmarish despotism of a terrorist para-state set up on Croatian historical state territory, such as it was continuously from the 6th century to this day. Logically the malicious and insulting formulation »to return by force« should read, by all standards of international law and moral/intellectual awareness, »to liberate« the territory usurped by the RSK. With the Serb occupation of Middle-Dalmatian Croatian territory, Croatia was geographically de facto cut in half, the southern maritime Croatia separated from the northern Pannonia one. One could only reach Zadar, Split and Dubrovnik through the Gorski Kotar and by Rijeka. Which nation, and which state, would have tolerated such an endangered and paralyzed national existence. In the Falklands war, England had protected its islands, 12,000 km away from Great Britain. Why should permission to protect the territorial integrity of the state only be granted to great imperial powers, and denied to little nations. O tempora, o mores!

In my several conversations with President Tudjman, which I led at the time as President of Parliament, he expressed a markedly humanistic approach. His main political goal was: a peaceful ending to the state of war, into which we had been thrown by the Greater Serbian conquering megalomania, territorial expansion and greedy economic voracity. His war options and victorious impulses were both humane and peacemaking. In carrying out his decisions he acted according to the highest standards of humanitarian law. Immediately after »Storm,« he amnestied and released all prisoners of war, members of Serbian paramilitary units, among which there were Seselj's and Arkan's volunteer Chetnik hordes, soaked in blood to their whiskers. He let them go as if they were innocent tourists, who had strayed into Croatia by accident. There was not a case of segregation or exclusion when turning over Serbian paramilitary prisoners. There is no occasion of such a generous and humane turning over of prisoners of war in the whole history of warfare. According to his own statement, for Tudjman »Storm« was: »The end of Croatia's historic cross«. (Vlak slobode (Freedom train), Zagreb 1996). Similar peaceable motives can be established from Tudjman's public speeches and missives to the nation and the world.

We must be truthful and objective enough to admit that, immediately after the »Storm« operation moved towards the border of Bosnia and Herzegovina, there took place random destruction of property of the fleeing Serbian population, in the villages and hamlets of the recently occupied territory (burning of houses, barns, and stables). This was done by Croatian refugees who had started returning to their houses after four years of displacement, and found them completely destroyed, burned to the ground. These were displaced Croatian returnees, who carried by themselves the enormous burden of memories, displacement, and bitterness, who had encountered in their villages their own houses in a sorry state, with schools, churches, cultural buildings, and all their property destroyed. It should similarly not be forgotten, that Serbian terrorist squads also acted as a kind of punitive expedition for those Serbs which turned a deaf ear to the evacuation orders, and themselves burned the greater part of Serbian homes, especially all public property (factories, commercial buildings and industrial halls), with the mindless intention: let it not be left to the enemy! After four years of adversity, suffering and displacement, the Croatian population was greatly embittered. The anger people felt, on whom such a misfortune was inflicted, was difficult to overcome. Nevertheless, this was not a »systematic attack against the civilian population,« as claimed in the Indictment, but a desperate, random, unpremeditated outburst of irrational revenge.

It is known from World War II that military and civilian units of the French Resistance movement persecuted the German national minority in Alsace and Lorraine, including destruction of their private property. The American front-line general George Smith Patton was on the Franco-German border at the time and led military operations. He too did not know, nor could he have known, what was to happen behind the front lines. Neither General Ante Gotovina knew, nor could he have known, what was to happen, and had begun to happen, behind the front lines. No one from the current Prosecution would dare indict General Patton for a »joint criminal enterprise« with the French Resistance, involving a »planned« destruction of the German minority's property. Why is a double and duplicitous moral position applied in the judgment of equivalent acts, in the case of Gotovina?

On August 13, 1995, President Tudjman spoke on the phone with US Vice-President Al Gore about the basic, essential question of the strategic effects of the military-police operation »Storm«. Vice-president Gore expressed in most unequivocal fashion his praise and appreciation, what »Storm« meant for the international community and the unsuccessful, impotent UNPROFOR: »liberation from the efforts to protect Bihac and its 'pink zones', thus greatly contributing to the realization of the American peace initiative on the territory of former Yugoslavia«. President Tudjman received a similar admission from the aide to the US Secretary of State for European affairs Peter Holbrooke on August 16, 1995. The American ambassador Peter W. Galbraith, who had followed the Serbian evacuation from the occupied territories of Croatia physically in person, also expressed his agreement and appreciation. Between October 21 and 25, 1995, President Tudjman took part in the celebration of 50 years of the UN in the US, and met with a number of statesmen, among them the American President Bill Clinton, who praised him for the quick and successful operation »Storm,« and for establishing the peace in the region of western Bosnia. We cannot imagine that President Clinton was not well informed by his observers in the »Storm« operation. Now all of a sudden, ten years later, this liberating and peace-bringing undertaking is being called in the Indictment »criminal«, and in addition »joint«, »combined«, a collective, general national crime. Even the German people at Nuremberg were not stigmatized with such attributes. It is glaringly clear and conspicuous to any objective and impartial judgment, that such a construction to perceive the Croatian liberation war, with its fatal ignorance and neglect of actual facts, is itself monstrous, unscrupulous, absurd, scandalous, and more personal than professionally objective.

Nedjeljko Mihanovic: PARADOXES AND ABSURDITIES OF THE HAGUE INDICTMENT

CROATIAN GENERALS ARE NOT GUILTY

»Joint Criminal Enterprise« – What is that?

2011-04-29T19:19:00.000-04:00

»Joint Criminal Enterprise« – What is that?

»JOINT CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE« – What is that?

Milan Vukovic, PhD

If we define international criminal law as a set of norms with the objective of suppressing crimes that cross the borders of individual countries, that is, crimes that violate certain basic values of humanity and of the international legal order, it is obvious that neither The Hague Tribunal nor its Statute can be grouped in the traditional concept of international criminal tribunal with legal competence.

This specific characteristic of The Hague Tribunal is obvious from the decision of its founding, because it was established by the UN Security Council, under the authority of Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, while its competence was defined in Security Council Resolution 827 from May 27, 1993, paragraph 2, as well as the Statute, which is an integral part of the decision on the establishment of the tribunal. The judges themselves are authorized, under Article 15 of the Statute, to pass rules on the procedure and on evidence for prosecution prior to the start of trial and of the appeal procedure on the evidence procedure, on the protection of victims and witnesses, and on other related matters.

Although resolution 827, paragraph 2 emphasizes and defines the competence of the ad hoc established International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, the same provision is formulated in the same manner in Article 1 of the Statute. It is necessary to emphasize the power to prosecute »persons«, meaning natural persons.

I believe that it is necessary to emphasize that, in Article 2 of the Statute, stated in detail are acts considered grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, as well as those »ordering grave breaches to be committed«, because the Croatian state leadership had constantly insisted that their defense efforts be supervised by international forces on the front lines, and had insisted that the international forces undertake certain efforts so that this would not be the obligation of the Croatian Army.

The Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague introduces the criminal offence of GENOCIDE in Article 4, whereby it is first provided in a descriptive manner, stating that the International Tribunal shall have the power to prosecute persons committing genocide as defined in paragraph 2 of this article, or committing any of the acts enumerated in paragraph 3 of this article. The definition of genocide is provided in paragraph 2 of this article, defining it as: »Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

a) killing members of the group,

b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group,

c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,

d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group,

e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group«.

Paragraph 3 of Article 4 defines the acts that shall be punishable:

a) genocide,
b) conspiracy to commit genocide,
c) direct or public incitement to commit genocide,
d) attempt to commit genocide,
e) complicity to genocide.

In Article 5 of the Statute, all acts against humanity are specified: a) murder, b) extermination, c) enslavement, d) deportation, e) imprisonment, f) torture, g) rape, h) persecution on political, racial or religious grounds, i) other inhumane acts.

From all of the above, it follows that the elements of the incrimination, that is, the characteristics of the criminal act, must be indisputably defined by the norm that describes the act, because judges are not permitted to resort to analogy. If it is shown that there is a need, in addition to the Statute of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, to call on an additional source of international law, then the general principles of law in question must be recognized by the civilized world, as in Article 31 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which defines the grounds for excluding criminal responsibility in general.

With the belief that the provisions of the Statute on the competence of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia are insufficient, it is obvious that the prosecution and the judges themselves at times, interpret these voids at will in the manner that it is like there are no general rules on the International Criminal proceedings, as a consequence, they take on a quasi-legislative role when adopting and supplementing rules of procedure and evidence.

No one shall be held guilty of any criminal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a criminal offence under national or international law at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the criminal offence was committed

This article shall not prejudice the trial and punishment of any person for any act or omission which, at the time when it was committed, was criminal according the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations

The criminal offence must be committed after the adopted regulation, and the punishment must be prescribed prior to commitment itself (Article 31 of the Croatian Constitution, Article 7 of the European Convention).

It is indisputable that contemporary criminal law excludes collective responsibility of one side in an armed conflict, war, so the International Tribunal, also known as The Hague Tribunal, was founded on the principles of individual criminal responsibility, rejecting collective responsibility of individual nations or states for possible crimes committed in its name, because criminal law, in principle, excludes strict liability.

At the beginning of 2004, in the month of March, partially changing the Indictment against general Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, the prosecution in The Hague used the qualification of guilty under the all-encompassing expression »joint criminal enterprise«. With this qualification, the prosecution, and the Tribunal as well, because the Tribunal provides approval of the Indictment – which is, otherwise, nonsense – attempts to qualify the Homeland Defense War, which took place on Croatian territory to defend against Serbian-Montenegrin aggression, the uprising of a part of the Serbian population in Croatia and the full military attack by the former Yugoslav Army, as a crime because Croatians managed to defend and liberate their territory.

The »criminal enterprise« qualification is not only an insult to the legal facts in relation to the »right to peace«, but rather this qualification attempts to annul, in relation to Croatia's defense and victorious military operation, the very meaning of freedom and constitutional independence of Croatia, using the term 'crime' to depict its fight for freedom!

Inadequate knowledge of the facts that emerged with the breakup of the European division into blocs in those nations which, at that time, were structured as states, and the Croatian nation, which did not have its state independence, resulted in the mixing of the terms aggression and defense to the degree that the battle in defense of freedom and independence has been labeled a »criminal enterprise«!

When the Hague Tribunal's practice to accuse Croatia's victory and the persons who won these victories through battles appeared, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia responded with its REPORT no.: U-X-2271/2002, dated November 12, 2002 (Official Gazette, no. 133/02, November 15, 2002).

»The activities of the armed forces of the Republic of Croatia, conducted with the objective of liberating parts of the occupied territories of the Republic of Croatia, including removing direct threats to the lives of inhabitants and preventing the destruction of real estate caused by armed (military and paramilitary, para-police and/or terrorist) attacks by occupying forces undertaken from occupied territories, were in accordance with the constitutional obligation of the armed forces of the Republic of Croatia to protect the sovereignty and independence of the Republic of Croatia and the defense of its territorial integrity.

When liberating the occupied territories of the Republic of Croatia, the armed forces of the Republic of Croatia acted in the name of and according to the authority of a contemporary, sovereign, internationally recognized state.

By liberating areas of the Republic of Croatia in which an unconstitutional entity without democratic legitimacy and international recognition was formed, the armed forces of the Republic of Croatia suppressed the armed uprising and removed the results of external armed aggression. In these territories, the armed forces simultaneously introduced the national (constitutional-legal) and, in doing so, the international-legal order as its part, with all rights, obligations and responsibilities that arise from the Constitution and the legislation of the Republic of Croatia and from international legal acts that the Republic of Croatia has accepted and ratified.

The Constitutional Court regards such a constitutional position and role of the armed forces of the Republic of Croatia during the Homeland Defense War indisputable and irrefutable«.

CROATIAN GENERALS ARE NOT GUILTY
Milan Vukovic: »JOINT CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE« – What is that?

Croatian generals are not guilty - Introduction

2011-04-29T18:34:00.000-04:00

Croatian generals are not guilty - Introduction

In August, 1995, the Croatian Army liberated large sections of its territory, which had been occupied by the Serbs for many years. This operation is known as Operation Storm (Oluja). In Dalmatia, the most critical part of the operation was headed by Croatian general Ante Gotovina.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia accused general Gotovina of crimes against humanity and violations of laws and customs of war. Also accused are Croatian generals Mladen Markac and Ivan Cermak. They are suspected, together with the late Croatian President, Franjo Tudjman, of participating in a joint criminal enterprise, whose goal was to remove the Serbian population from that part of Croatia.

The trial was completed in 2010. The prosecution of the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague had not succeeded in proving a single count of the indictment. The verdict is awaited.

In the meantime many world-renown experts on international law wrote critically about the work and character of the tribunal in The Hague, deeming that it had distanced itself from the values on which international law is founded, and that it acted under the influence of politics.

They asked themselves and are still asking how is it possible to put on trial the commanders of an army that liberated its own territory in a brilliant military operation with a minimum number of killed and wounded. How was it possible to put Croatia and Croatians on trial, the victims, in 1991, of internal (terrorist uprising by a part of the Serbs) and outside aggression (Serbian and Montenegro) with thousands and thousands of dead and wounded, as well as devastated villages and cities (Vukovar). The objective of this genocide, including culturocide (devastation of Dubrovnik and Zadar), was the creation of a »Greater Serbia«, with many Croatian areas in its composition. Krajina, the Serbian terrorist para-state with Knin as its center, was formed on a part of the territory of the internationally recognized Republic of Croatia, from where the attacks on the Croatian cities on the Adriatic Sea were initiated. Aggression on the entire area of Croatia was planned in Belgrade under the leadership of Slobodan Milosevic.

The International Tribunal in The Hague neglects this entire context and highlights only the Croatian military operation in 1995, accusing Croatian generals of »persecuting Serbs from Croatia«. The facts indicate otherwise: the supreme defense council of the »Republic of Serbian Krajina« made a decision on the planned evacuation of civilians; it was to take place in front of representatives of the international community; and Serbs from this part of Croatia did not wish to remain despite the proclamation by the President of the Republic of Croatia, which called on them to stay.

The Tribunal in The Hague also neglects the fact that the army of the Republic of Croatia, after the fall of Knin (which was practically undamaged) continued with its operation on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in accordance with the agreement signed by Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic and Croatian President Dr. Franjo Tudjman. This operation too was led by general Ante Gotovina. Civilians in the city of Bihac, Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was surrounded by the Serbian army, were saved. Bihac was a safe haven, as was Srebrenica, the site of a terrible genocide of Muslims not long before. Thanks to the Croatian Army and general Gotovina, a massacre in Bihac was averted. What is more, the Serbs were retreating in panic towards northern Bosnia, and from that point on no longer represented a real military threat. They accepted the Dayton Agreement, which, actually, ended the war in Southeast Europe.

It was this kind of general Gotovina and others in the indictment who were put on trial in The Hague for a non-existent »joint criminal enterprise«, which is absurd, even more so because the prosecution raised indictments on the basis of information provided by the enemy in the conflict.

The lawyers of the Croatian generals were not the only ones participating in their defense. Given that the tribunal in The Hague did not allow the Republic of Croatia to appear as »amicus curiae«, legal experts gathered in an attempt to replace this role, as has the non-governmental organization of intellectuals under the name »Hrvatsko kulturno vijece – Croatian Cultural Council«. The book that you have in your hands is a summary of the eight collections of symposium papers (a total of 1200 pages) that originated on the basis of presentations by Croatian intellectuals at eight symposiums of the Croatian Cultural Council held from the middle of 2006 to 2010.

Hrvoje Hitrec President of the Croatian Cultural Council

An Exclusive Interview with Michael Palaich, Producer of the Documentary Bleiburg Tragedy

2011-03-21T21:26:00.001-04:00

An Exclusive Interview with Michael Palaich, Producer of the Documentary Bleiburg Tragedy: Great Britain Shares Responsibility for Post-World War II Mass Executions of Croatians by Tito’s Communist Forces. (Video)

SATURDAY, 19 MARCH 2011 01:58

The name of Michael (Mike) Palaich and his extensive activism on behalf of Croatian freedom has been well-known to the Croatians in America and beyond for a long time. In the 1980s, he was an eloquent spokesman for the Croatian cause in the Detroit area. At the same time, he had the vision and stamina of undertaking a major project, that of interviewing and recording eyewitnesses of the extradition of Croatian civilians and disarmed military forces by the British to Tito and his partisans in May of 1945. Most of the extradited were massacred by Tito’s communists and those who survived were taken via long and horrific routs to various labor camps located throughout the country, from Austria in the north to the borders of Greece in the south. During those marches tens of thousands more people lost their lives. In Croatian history this calamity is known as the “Bleiburg Tragedy and the Križni put/Way of the Cross”. (The extradition began near the town of Bleiburg in Austria.) The British authorities knew well what would happen to those who were forcibly handed over to the communists – certain death for most of them. Palaich’s documentaries have become an indispensable historical source for researchers of those tragic events in which hundreds of thousands of Croatians (and some others) were murdered and no one ever was charged for those horrific crimes.

In 1990, when Yugoslavia and its communist regime began to collapse, Mike wholeheartedly was involved in helping Croatians to gain freedom and to defend themselves from the Greater Serbian aggression. He was also providing help to the besieged Sarajevo and its people in various ways. During those hazardous times, his courage and resourcefulness was remarkable.

We are thankful to Mike for sharing with us the story of his work on behalf of the Croatian people. This time, we will focus on the interviews of eyewitnesses of the Bleiburg Tragedy and we hope to talk to Mike some time in the near future about his other contributions to the struggle for Croatian freedom and independence.

Michael Palaich - director and producer of the film

HRsvijet: Before we refer to the tragic events in the not so far past, would you please tell our readers who is Mike Palaich.

Palaich: My grandparents immigrated to the United States from Petrinja and Križ, Croatia, in the early 20th century. I was born 57 years ago in Detroit, Michigan. I graduated from the university with degrees in psychology and political science. Since retiring, my wife Sandra and I divide our time between the U.S. in the winter and Croatia in the summer. I have two grown children who both enjoy visiting us during the summer in Croatia.

The production of "The Bleiburg Tragedy" and the way to truth

HRsvijet: You are the author of a documentary dealing with the critical moments of the Bleiburg Tragedy. Being that you are a third generation American Croatian, what drew your attention to this subject?

Palaich: When I was young, my grandmother would talk about her four brothers who were hung by their necks from telephone poles by the partisans after WWII. I would like to think, however, that I would have taken on this video project even if Tito’s murder squads did not touch my family. The idea of interviewing people about the Bleiburg Tragedy came to me around 1985. Already in 1985, many of the survivors of Bleiburg and Križni Put were dying. When I first began the project, I felt compelled to simply record the memories of these aging survivors so that future generations could hear first hand the horrors experienced by the Croats who survived the massacres after they lost their own state.

Michael Palaich 1989 in Bleiburg

HRsvijet: You have interviewed some of the British officers who were directly involved in the ext raditions of the Croatians in May of 1945. Their accounts are of tremendous value for piecing together those tragic events and for singling out those that are responsible for the crimes committed. You have also done research on the subject in the British archives as well. What do the British participants have to say about the Bleiburg Tragedy?

Palaich: The next phase of project’s development was when I realized I needed to document the testimony of British Army co-conspirators involved in Bleiburg and the repatriations of Croats. I knew that the Croat testimonies would be more powerful if I could get their stories corroborated by the British co-conspirators to the war crimes. I heard many stories from Croat survivors who talked about their attempt to surrender to the British. Other survivors talked about British Spitfire planes flying overhead filming them with movie cameras on the field at Bleiburg.

HRsvijet: Before your departure to interview the British officers, I recall you saying that you had major doubts about the Croatian accounts, for it was hard for you to believe that the British knowingly surrendered so many unarmed combatants and civilians to their deaths. Did you finally change your mind about the role of the British in the extraditions? Also, how did you convince those aging officers to talk to you?

Palaich: I was skeptical when I went into this British phase of my interviews. I suppose I had a pro-British bias and simply could not believe that the British were guilty of the same war crimes that prosecutors in Nuremburg had charged others with committing. Nikolai Tolstoy lived in Great Britain, but was visiting Toronto, Canada, around this time and Ante Beljo introduced me to him. Beljo was still living and working in Canada at this time. It was Tolstoy who eventually put me into contact with several former British 8th Army officers involved in Bleiburg and forced repatriations. I have to say at this point that none of the officers involved wanted to speak to me at first. All of them claimed that they had very little involvement with the Croatian handovers and they mostly dealt with the Cossacks. I told them that I would like to speak with them anyway. They all finally agreed, but I always felt that my American accent (as apposed to a Croatian accent) is what made them feel less defensive and guarded about talking about the events from their past. I was on a plane to England to interview them before they could change their mind.

HRsvijet: Besides interviewing the British officers, you went to England once again to do research on this subject in the London archives. Give as a short overview of what you have discovered and the places you visited.

Palaich: The third stage of the Bleiburg documentary involved seeking the actual British documents written extemporaneously in May and June of 1945 that would support Croatian and British eyewitness accounts. To accomplish this it was necessary to go once more to England where I sifted through mountains of documents in the British Public Records Office, the British Imperial War Museum in London and the Ministry of Defense in London.

Bleiburg 1945

HRsvijet: You are telling us that there is an immense amount of public documents that are probably dealing with the Bleiburg Tragedy? Have these documents been already examined or are they still waiting for historians to do their job?

Palaich: There is still a huge number of documents related to Bleiburg and the forced repatriations that have yet to be touched by researchers. What Tolstoy, and later myself, found barely scratches the surface of what is yet to be discovered by some Croat researcher that will pick up the baton.

HRsvijet: Luckily the Berlin Wall collapsed, the Yugo regime was shaken, and you had the chance of coming to Croatia and finishing your documentary. Give us a few words on that phase of your project.

Palaich: Finally, in 1990, the winds of freedom were blowing across Europe and those enslaved by communism were breaking the shackles of communist oppression. I was convinced that Yugoslavia was on the verge of dissolution. I was also convinced that Croats who never heard of Bleiburg and Croatian politicians needed to see, in documentary form, what happens to Croats who surrender their sovereignty to their oppressors, or to other nations that have only their own national interest in mind. It was my hope that when Croats saw the video they would also recognize that surrender was not an option once the first shot of freedom is fired. It was for these reasons that I asked Croatian survivors to speak to future generations of Croats at the end of their interviews. I asked them to address Croatian youth who did not know anything or very little about these horrific crimes.

HRsvijet: And what did they say?

Palaich: Although they did not know each other, they all responded in the same way: by telling the Croatian youth how important it was to never surrender their sovereignty. In short – to learn the lessons offered by the past.

A trapped colone of croatians near Celje in 1945. Beside the colone on the white horse a member of the Yugoslav army

HRsvijet: When and how did your bring your documentary to Croatia?

Palaich: It was in May of that year [1990] that I smuggled four suitcases of my video into Croatia across the Austrian border as JNA soldiers patrolled the train between Klagenfurt and Jesenice. I knew what would happen if I was asked to open the suitcases, but the guards believed me when I told them there were only clothes inside.

HRsvijet: Where was the film shown for the first time in Croatia and what were the reactions to it at the time?

Palaich: The film was first shown at the Mimara Museum in Zagreb in May 1991. Yes, there were some in the back of the room at the Museum yelling: “Lies, Lies!”

HRsvijet: Where can British researchers find your documentary?

Palaich: Today many of the interviews can be found in the British Imperial War Museum’s video archive under the subject of forced repatriations. The museum also has transcripts of the interviews on file for researchers to view.

Marshall Alexander and war criminal Josip Broz Tito

The interviewed British officers and their role in the murder of Croatians – horrific accounts

HRsvijet: Who was the highest ranking British officer that you talked to during the making of the documentary?

Palaich: That would be Prof. Gerald Draper, who at the end of World War II held the rank of Major. He was a prosecutor for the Allied War Crimes Trials. We are probably most familiar with the trials at Nuremburg, where he was also a prosecutor. He was, prior to his death, the leading expert on “war crimes”, “crimes against humanity”, and “crimes against the peace”. He is the chief author of the British Code of Conduct for the British Army. Draper was also invited annually by the Israeli government as one of the main speakers for the annual commemoration of the Holocaust in Israel.

HRsvijet: You were able to visit him and he opened up?

Palaich: The interview lasted almost one hour. It was conducted in Sussex, England in his home in 1989. Draper said two important things during the interview which are included in my full length DVD called Bleiburška tragedija.

HRsvijet: Being an authority on war crimes, how did Draper assess the role of Tito and his executors in the Bleiburg Tragedy? Could he, his military officers and communist party officials be charged for war crimes because of chain of command responsibility?

Palaich: Tito and his henchmen could be charged with war crimes, or crimes against humanity for killing in cold blood – women, men and surrendered combatants. The individuals who did the killing could be charged with war crimes. The officers up the chain of command could be charged with war crimes. Tito himself, in accordance with the international laws of war, could have been charged with war crimes. According to Draper, if Tito had been charged with war crimes and subsequently claimed, as his defense, that he did not know what those under him were doing, that would not have been a valid defense. Tito was in a position to know what his subordinates were doing and if he did not, he should have known. According to Draper, “Ignorance is not a defense against charges of war crimes.” There is, however, enough material evidence to conclude that Tito was fully aware of the war crimes (including elements of a genocide) perpetrated against the Croats.

Soliders from Great Britan and Partisans in Maribor(Slovenia) watching together a friendly soccer game

HRsvijet: Draper was the chief author of the Code of Conduct for the British Army. What was his view of British responsibility in the Bleiburg Tragedy?

Palaich: According to Draper, any British soldier, or officer who knowingly sent women, children, or surrendered soldiers into the hands of Tito knowing that they were likely to be killed by Tito’s forces could be charged with war crimes. Draper also states in the film that British forces could be charged with war crimes, or crimes against humanity even if they “refused to accept [the Croats] into British control and protection in circumstances that were perfectly apparent that they would fall into the hands of Tito adherents who would likewise be known to decimate them.” In this case the British acknowledge that they knew Tito’s forces would butcher the Croats. In Nigel Nicholson’s case he admits telling Croats that if they got into cattle cars, the trains would take them to Italy. He admits that he knew they were being killed when they got into Yugoslavia. He further admits that he had to deceive them by telling them that they were going to Italy, because if they thought they were going to Yugoslavia, they would not go onto the trains of death voluntarily.

HRsvijet: You have talked to Captain Colin Gunner who was directly involved in extraditions of Croatians to their deaths and a key witness to the British involvement in the Bleiburg Tragedy. Tell us about your interview with him.

Palaich: I interviewed Colin Gunner at his home in Bradbury, England in 1989. Gunner was in the Royal Irish Fusiliers in the British 8th Army. Captain Colin Gunner continued forcing Croats across the bridge in Lavamund, Austria even after watching them being killed and thrown over the bridge. He admits watching these murders for three days and three nights, because the procession of Croats passing over the bridge lasted that long. The murders he saw included women and children. He states: “Tito slaughtered. Tito didn’t have time for people in his way. The bastard slaughtered.”

Captain Gunner (1945) said: "The croats were killed by beating them into the head and were thrown off the bridge, a hundred times. Children were killed. There were babies in arms of mothers. Three full days and nights they passed over the bridge, 300.000 of them. We are ashamed that we couldn't tell the commanders to go to hell"

HRsvijet: Where was Captain Gunner positioned in order to see how Tito’s partisans were executing the extradited at Lavamund bridge?

Palaich: Gunner states that he sat in a military vehicle just at the foot of the bridge at Lavamund, as the Croats were being forced across and murdered by the partisans on the other side of the bridge while he was watching.

HRsvijet: While watching your conversation with Colin Gunner about the killings, one can observe certain emotional expressions on his part. Could you tell us a little more about this man?

Palaich: Colin Gunner was a very unusual man. He joined the British Army as an enlisted man with little education. He became an officer as a result of a military commission, which I understand is quite rare. He told me that he had come to enjoy the war, the "barrage" as he referred to it. He turned out to be somewhat of a drinker in his old age. He tried to pretend that the memories of taking part in the handover of Croats and their subsequent deaths did not bother him, but it obviously weighed on his conscience for decades. I interviewed him in 1989, forty-four years after Bleiburg and the guilt still caused him remorse. One interesting point concerning the end when he cries: I sensed he was guarded while talking to me on tape. Before the interview he was emotional. When I tuned on the camera he became more serious and less open with me. I learned after many interviews that no two subjects react the same to the camera. Therefore, at the end of the interview, I pretended to shut the camera off. I began to put things away and act as if we were done. I believe this helped him relax and all the emotion he wanted to release during the interview just came out, because he thought he was off camera at that point. Just a little side story.

I felt no sympathy for any of these old Brits. They were talking freely about committing war crimes like you and I talk about a memorable basketball game. By 1989, I was very active in the Croatian liberation struggle and had to restrain myself in order to get the story from these old guys.

HRsvijet: You have already mentioned Captain Nigel Nicholson. What did he have to say about the Bleiburg Tragedy and the role of the British in it?

Palaich: I interviewed Nigel Nicholson at his home in Cranbrook, England in 1989. Nigel Nicholson was a Captain and intelligence officer for the British 8th Army. He later became a member of parliament in Great Britain. Many people are not aware that after Bleiburg there were still tens of thousands of Croat men, women and children forced back to Yugoslavia and Tito forces in what is called forced repatriations.

Nicholson was the man who originated a sinister deception against the Croats.

HRsvijet: What was this deception about?

Palaich: Nicholson admits knowing that the Croats would resist if they knew they would be sent back to Yugoslavia to a known fate of murder. Therefore, he designed a plan of deception to tell the Croats they were going to Italy. He told them they would be used in the future for the eventual war against communism. At one point in his diaries, which I secretly filmed and which I will release shortly, he wrote, “The victims do not know where they are going.” Notice he refers to the men, women and children being sent back as “victims.” Like in a scene reminiscent of people being shipped to Nazi concentration camps, 60-80 people were forced into the cattle cars; the doors were locked from the outside and would not be opened until they reached their destination in Yugoslavia. It was on that side of the border that those who were not slaughtered were forced into the "Križni Put".

Disarmed members of the croatian HOS and Civilians - 15th May 1945. Field in the valley of Meze near Bleiburg

HRsvijet: You have talked to Major-General Bredin. Did he have anything to say about the events in Austria in May of 1945.

Palaich: This interview was also conducted in 1989 at the home of General Bredin in Essex, England. A priest named Fr. Sean Quinlan gave his name and address to me. Fr. Quinlan was apparently a chaplain for the British 8th Army. Bredin was a Lieutenant Colonel in 1945. Being a senior officer, he did not get his hands dirty directly with the event at Bleiburg, or the forced repatriations of Croats. However, he did relate knowing of the forced repatriation of Croats using the method of deception ending in slaughter. He was more directly involved in the repatriations of Cossacks back to the Soviets, who ended up butchering the Cossacks.

British are legally accountable for the Bleiburg crimes

HRsvijet: After interviewing the British officers, what were your personal thoughts and impressions?

Palaich: Some British participants in the war crimes, like Nigel Nicolson, describe their role in a very cold and calculating way with very little emotion. We have to remember in listening to these old gentlemen that while they may not have enjoyed their job, they obeyed their orders to the letter. In Nicholson’s case he designed the system of deception. In the case of Captain Colin Gunner, the viewer would think he agonizes over his role in 1945. However, he began his interview with me by telling me the following: “Listen, if I’m ordered, I’d shoot you like a dog, if I get the order, and I wouldn’t think anything.”

It is clear that even forty-five years after his role in massacres in 1945, he would still obey an unlawful order to send men, women, and children to a known death by murder. For Colin Gunner there is no distinction between lawful military orders and unlawful orders. But, in reality, it makes little difference if a war criminal is twenty, or eighty, if he feels remorse, or not for the crimes he committed. Those questions should only be discussed at the time of sentencing. They should not be factors in deciding whether or not to prosecute.

HRsvijet: What should be done?

In 1995, I was invited to take part in the fifty-year anniversary commemorating Bleiburg. This included touring Croatia and Hercegovina and giving lectures on the subject with Nikolai Tolstoy and two other British men who were workers in the refugee camps in Carinthia in 1945. I gave a short speech in the Croatian Parliament building in Zagreb. In that 1995 speech I stated that British officers involved in the handover of Croats in Bleiburg and in the forced repatriation of Croats from Carinthia should be charged with war crimes using the very same criteria that were used following post-WWII trials at Nuremburg.

HRsvijet: Why?

Palaich: First, the British knew that the Croats were likely to be killed by Tito’s partisans. If they use the defense that they did not know it at the time, we have to ask why they referred to repatriated Croats as “victims”. Second, there are eyewitnesses like Captain Colin Gunner who admitted to me in 1989 that he witnessed women and children being “slaughtered” at Lavamund in 1945. It would be difficult to use the defense of ignorance if you admit to witnessing murder and still follow orders to hand over Croats. Third, according to WWII War Crimes Prosecutor Gerald Draper, a soldier is required to obey “lawful orders”, not orders that result in slaughter. Fourth, British officers, like Captain Nigel Nicholson, were intelligence officers operating around Klagenfurt, Viktring, Villach and Rosenbach. It was Nigel Nicholson (a former member of British Parliament) who admits designing the sadistic plan to deceive Croats by telling them to board trains to go to Italy and instead shipping them to their deaths at the hands of Tito and his killing squads in Yugoslavia.

HRsvijet: How did the British participants in the anniversary commemoration react to your calls for charges?

Palaich: After my speech, one of the British attendees who was also invited to the commemoration chastised me. He stated that Nigel Nicholson should not be prosecuted as a war criminal, because he had shown courage when he wrote in one of his intelligence reports in June 1945, that the average British soldier finds the forced repatriation process “unsavory”. My answer to him was that that defense can and should be used at the time of sentencing, as should his age. However, to my knowledge, there is not a statute of limitations on murder, or war crimes that resulted in murder.

HRsvijet: You are, therefore, an advocate of legal processing of all those who participated in the Bleiburg Tragedy and post-WW II communist crimes?

Palaich: In my opinion, if we used WWII criteria for determining whether people should be charged with war crimes, then Nigel Nicholson was a prime candidate, and so were many other British participants. The fact that a person is old, sick, remorseful, or a good citizen, has never been accepted as a reason not to prosecute for war crimes. I vividly recall the images of Dr. Andrija Artuković being carried on a stretcher into the criminal courts of Yugoslavia to face trial for war crimes after being extradited from the U.S. in 1986.

Bleiburg 1945 - Croats

HRsvijet: What’s the number of victims in the Bleiburg Tragedy and Križni put? What do the witnesses say?

Palaich: All of the Croat survivors tell their story from their own individual perspective. When they are asked, for example, how many people were marched with you from Bleiburg, their answer is that they do not know. Why? There were so many thousands that if you were in the middle of the mass of people you could not see the end of the line. If you were in the back, or the front, you could not see the beginning, or the end. It is here that we need to talk about something very important – numbers. There is no way to estimate, using Croat survivor testimony, the number of Croats forced to return from Bleiburg, or later through forced repatriations at the hands of the British. We must, therefore, rely on official estimates of the British 8th Army from May and June 1945.

There were 200,000 disarmed Croatian soldiers and 500,000 civilians on the fields of Bleiburg

HRsvijet: What do the British documents say?

Palaich: British documents support claims that British Spitfires were used to fly over the masses of Croats in Bleiburg. Documents in the British Imperial War Museum also prove that the pilots of these airplanes were filming the Croats at Bleiburg. Official British 8th Army documents state that there were 200,000 Croat soldiers and 500,000 civilians at Bleiburg. Colin Gunner, British Army witness to the murders at Lavamund stated that the surrendered men, women and children were walking four abreast while crossing the bridge at Lavamund. He also stated that it took the Croat victims three days and three nights to cross the bridge. It would be easy enough for researchers to calculate the number of people crossing the bridge with those figures. We must remember, however, that only half the people went through Lavamund. According to Petar Miloš, another survivor and later President of Počasni Bleiburški Vod, the other half left the Bleiburg field and went the more direct route to Dravogard. We have no way of estimating that number. There are two roads that lead from Bleiburg to Dravogard and for some unexplained reason the Croats were split into two columns. In addition to these numbers, we have to add the number of Croat victims that the British 8th Army sent directly to their deaths using cattle cars, the same way the Nazis shipped their victims to concentration camps. Documents of the British army, that I have copied and which will be published in the near future, state that 60-80 people were forced into the cattle cars. People were told that they were going to Italy. However, after the cars were filled and locked from outside so that no one can escape, they were sent directly to Jesenice.

The victims only realized they were in the hands of Tito and going back to Yugoslavia when they arrived at the train station at Rosenbach and saw Tito’s partisan soldiers and the red star on their caps. Former British Intelligence Officer, Nigel Nicholson, stated that it was at Rosenbach that many Croats began committing suicide while still locked in the railroad cars. They could see through the wood slats of the cattle cars the partisans’ red stars. It was then that they realized the British had deceived them all. The British kept very good records concerning the number of victims who they forced onto the trains and to their subsequent deaths. One Croat witness was just a girl then, and she witnessed the trains being shipped to Yugoslavia full of Croat victims. “Where are you going?” she yelled at them from the railroad tracks. “We are going to Italy.” they answered.

Bleiburg 1945 - Croatian colone

HRsvijet: What do the surviving victims say about this tragic story?

Palaich: Each Croat soldier had a horrendous story of their own. Some witnessed crazy murders by partisan women that only a lunatic could fabricate - if they were not true. Others escaped at night and hid for days in the same spot fearing any movement would mean their capture and murder. Many who were unknown to each other and interviewed in different countries related a period in the march when the brutality increased even more as special partisan killing squads were sent to take over the death columns. Some even recall partisans murdering innocent Croat peasant women who came out of their houses to offer raw potato peelings to some of the starving Croats being marched through their village. What they all experienced was mass murder, torture and slaughter being committed in the most degrading and humiliating way.

Yugoslav Partisans in Austria - 1945

HRsvijet: How would you compare the Bleiburg crimes with those committed during the recent War of Independence in Croatia, as well as in Bosnia-Herzegovina?

Palaich: Interviewing Croatian survivors and British co-conspirators meant listening to hundreds of hours of peoples’ most horrendous memories. Unfortunately during Croatia’s war of liberation I was forced to listen to the same stories repeated by a new generation of victims. A convicted war criminal I interviewed in Sarajevo in 1993 recalled his involvement in a new series of recent war crimes. This time the Serbs, and later the rest of the world, would refer to the slaughter of innocents as ethnic cleansing. In Karlovac, I recorded survivors of the infamous death camp Omarska. They related to me the incredible acts of depravity committed by Serbian soldiers that shocked even the hardened listener like myself. So what is the point? Are we destined to experience the same thing every other generation? Why record interviews? Why gather supporting documentation? If we do not learn the lessons of history, are we really doomed to repeat the same mistakes? Are only some people held to the legal standards for war crimes? Is it true that the winners not only write history, but are also immune from war crimes prosecution?

Croatian president Ivo Josipovic celebrating the partisans

HRsvijet: What’s your reaction to the glorification of the communist symbols in today’s Croatia?

Palaich: Croats have been lamenting the slaughter of hundreds-of-thousands of their people since 1945. Several books have been published on the subject. Movies and documentaries have been produced. Yet, still today not one former partisan from Tito’s murder machine has been prosecuted. In fact, today in Croatia there are people who are pictured proudly in photographs wearing a hat with a red star, while the mass graves of their WWII victims are being excavated. It may not be the same person who slaughtered Croats and it may not be the same hat on the same head of the same person who slaughtered Croats. But, the red star that they so proudly display even today, is the exact same symbol that was worn by those who murdered and slaughtered family members of people who share the streets of Croatia with them today. On a recent trip to Rovinj, I was appalled to find a cigarette tobacco called “Tito” being sold in a store. On the front of the package was a picture of Tito complete with a bright red star. When confronting the sales clerk, her only response was, “It comes from Belgium.” “Yes, but you sell it.” I replied.

In the past, the red star was the symbol of death that was displayed proudly by those representing the communist party and its ideology as the criminals slaughtered their way through their Croat victims in 1945. Today, ironically, it is again proudly displayed in public. A much bigger travesty is that the perpetrators of the war crimes of 1945 still walk the streets with the rest of us, without ever having seen the inside of a courtroom, let alone a jail cell.

Former croatian predsident Stjepan Mesic said:

A person who accepts the idea of personal freedom must condemn fascism and communism

HRsvijet: What is your view on the entire issue of investigating crimes committed by the communists?

Palaich: We would hope that if there is so much attention to war crimes in Croatia today, then it is good to document the crimes perpetrated against Croats in 1945 with eyewitness accounts, government documents and forensic evidence. This makes little sense, however, if the evidence is not used to bring the guilty to trial and give a sense of fulfilled justice to the Croatian people. Furthermore, the international community cannot systematically sift through war criminals and decide which ones to charge with crimes based on their nationality, and which ones to ignore. We cannot accept that some in the past have been charged with forcing men, women, and children onto cattle cars to a known fate of murder, while British officers who admit committing the same crime went on to become British members of parliament, never having been charged with a war crime. We cannot accept that the United States extradited eighty-year-old Dr. Andrija Artuković to Yugoslavia in 1986, but a Croat and former Tito partisan walked free in Mississauga, Canada most of his adult life despite the fact that he slaughtered countless Croats at Jazovka in 1945. We should not accept that streets and squares in Croatia are named after the same Josip Broz Tito that orchestrated the slaughter of a generation of Croats, while his disciples claim he was a hero for fighting fascism. Any person who embraces the concept of individual liberty and freedom must condemn both fascism and communism. Fascism and communism are the antithesis to individual liberty and freedom. Being opposed to fascism does not make you good if you are a communist who slaughtered in 1945. Conversely, being against communism does not make you good if you slaughtered on the other side in 1941.

HRsvijet: How can this painful and unresolved issue be solved ?

Palaich: The solution is simple. Let us not be selective when it comes to the prosecution of individuals for war crimes. We should not just ship Croats to The Hague for prosecution, while those who are guilty of war crimes in 1945 still walk the streets of Croatia – even if they walk the streets with a cane. We should not try to emulate the selective treatment of war criminals in countries like Great Britain, when the British have known for decades that some of their soldiers committed war crimes against Croats as defined by their own WWII prosecutors. The prosecution of war criminals is not a matter of vengeance. It is a matter of justice. Croatia will never be able to heal until this festering wound called Bleiburg is healed, and the only cure is justice for the victims.

Questions by Goran Majic

Translated into english: Ante Chuvalo

The Bleiburg Tragedy on Youtube with the eyewitnesses...

Publication of book Otto Piene by Ante Glibota

2011-03-21T19:59:00.000-04:00

PUBLICATION OF BOOK OTTO PIENE BY ANTE GLIBOTA

Delight Edition announces the world premier presentation of a major, comprehensive monograph dedicated to one of the most important contemporary artists, Otto Piene, by the art and architecture historian and curator Ante Glibota at the Rathaus der Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf City Hall), Marktplatz 2, 40213 Düsseldorf (Tel. 0211 89-9), in the presence of the Lord Mayor of the City of Düsseldorf, Mr. Dirk Elbers, on March 29, 2011 at 15:00 h. The artist and the author will both be present.

THE BOOK

The publication of the monograph follows twenty-three years of intensive research on the work and creative adventures of Otto Piene, one of the worldʼs leading avant-garde multimedia artists, who together with Heinz Mack founded Group ZERO in Düsseldorf in 1957.

For twenty-five years he directed the prestigious Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA, USA.

Writing, editing and producing this volume has been an enormous challenge because of the complexity of Otto Pieneʼs work and career, and because of the global importance and radiance of his unique artistic approach, ideas and vision that have shaped the international art world over the past fifty years. He has, as few others of his contemporaries have, played a vital and critical role in the development and dissemination of an architecture of the essential themes engendered by new forms of visual arts, multi-media arts and experimental art. His enlightening ideas were promulgated on both sides of the Atlantic, making Otto Piene an indispensable member of the creative and artistic avant-garde of our time.

The work that preceded the bookʼs publication has left a powerful imprint on the two main protagonists and their shared sense of ʻadventureʼ, even as they remained vigilant as to the facts and to the importance of the motives that guided them. In addition to the texts of Ante Glibota and Otto Piene, the volume contains thirty-seven essays specifically written for this publication by internationally renowned art historians, art theorists and artists, which makes this volume a unique entity in the realm of art books.

1 The book is bound in a hard cover with a pellicular dust jacket.

2 It contains 756 pages, approximately 3000 illustrations. The text is bilingual in English and German.

3 It is printed on the finest Fedrigoni Kunstdruck matt paper of 150 gr weight.

4 The size of the book is 30x30cm; it has a thickness of 6 cm and weighs 5.7 kg.5 It is published by Delight Edition Ltd., Paris, and was printed by Grafiche Tintoretto in Treviso, Italy.

6 The price of the book is € 200 plus shipping.

THE ARTIST OTTO PIENE

A multi-faceted artist with numerous creative interests, Otto Piene is not only an essential creator of our times, and one of its most inventive, but he is, without a doubt, one of the most sensitive and attentive observers of the changes occurring between mankind and nature. He carries within himself a structured thought process that in its broad dimension and its philosophical, as well as aesthetical depth enables us to penetrate deep inside the mysteries of art, poetry and life itself.

Otto Piene was born in Bad Laasphe, Westphalia, on April 18th, 1928 and grew up in Lübbecke. He comes from a family of several generations of Protestant ministers. His grandfather had a wide range of interests, including philosophy and ancient mathematics, and authored numerous books.

After returning from military and POW service, Otto Piene in 1948 enrolled in the private Munich art school Blocherer Schule and later in the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste in Munich in 1949. In 1950 he continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf (Staatliche Kunstakademie) and Cologne University (Albertus Magnus Universität), where he completed his state examination in philosophy with distinction in 1957. In 1955 he established his first studio at Gladbacherstrasse 69 and founded, together with Heinz Mack, the Group ZERO. In 1964 he moved to the United States and in 1968 became the first international Fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA, at the invitation of György Kepes. He succeeded Kepes as Professor and Director of CAVS in 1974 and became MIT Professor Emeritus and CAVS Director Emeritus in 1994.

He has presented more then 130 solo exhibitions and participated in hundreds of group exhibitions. He has staged well over 100 Light Ballet performances and some 100 Sky Events. His work is included in more than 140 of the worldʼs finest museums, including the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and the Metropolitan Museum in New York City.

Otto Piene and his wife Elizabeth Goldring Piene, live and work at their farm in Groton, Massachusetts. They also have studios in Boston, at MIT, Berlin and Düsseldorf.

THE AUTHOR ANTE GLIBOTA

The art and architectural historian, author and curator, was born in Slivno, Croatia.

He studied at the University of Zagreb and Sorbonne University in Paris and has lived in Paris since 1973, where he has maintained close bonds with artistic and intellectual circles all over the world. In1978 he started to work for the Paris Art Center, active in the fields of experimental film, theatre, modern dance and the fine arts. In 1979 he was appointed artistic director and later, in 1982, director general of the Paris Art Center, a position he held until 1994. He was the commissioner and editor for the event “Olympiad of Arts” that took place in Seoul (South Korea) on the occasion of the 1988 Olympic Games and led to the creation of the largest open air sculpture park in the world. More recently, he was appointed curator and editor of “Art and Sport”, an exhibition organized by Adidas and the IOC for the Olympic Games 2008 in Beijing. As author and publisher of over 200 books and catalogues, and curator of more than 400 exhibitions devoted to contemporary art, architecture and literature, Ante Glibota is a Titular Member of the European Academy of Sciences, Arts and Humanities and an Honorary Member of the American Institute of Architects. In 2004, the China International Culture Exchange Center (CICEC) in Beijing appointed him to a five-year term
as Foreign Counselor for International Cultural Exchanges. Since 2010 he serves as VicePresident and Curator-in-Chief of the Museum of Art and Urbanity in Shanghai. Ante Glibota lives in Paris, France and Shanghai, China

Camp Fermo - The largest Croatian Refugee Camp in Italy - by Cristian Šprljan

2011-02-08T06:09:00.001-05:00

Camp Fermo

From the journal "Studia Croatica" - Journal of political and cultural studies - History of the Croatian immigration to Cordoba "Author: Cristian Šprljan - Number 146, Year 2004 (pp. 89 to 96). Translated into English by Joza Vrljicak

The war was over. The summer of '45 was witnessing the first attempts to rebuild Europe. The winners of the war, after Yalta, had divided the world into two and those who until recently were allies, now looked at each other with suspicion. Throughout Europe, thousands of refugees and displaced persons traveled on foot, by carts, in cars or trucks.

Some were leaving, some were returning, others just wandered. In these rivers of men and women seeking their destiny, they were Croatians. Those who managed to cross the border before and had survived Bleiburg were to be found throughout Europe. The vast majority in Italy and Austria, but also had in Germany, France, Switzerland and Belgium.

In the new Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, state terror began to wreak havoc. The Partisans had total power over life and death. Anyone could be taken to the "people's courts", where the sentence was known in advance: prison, torture and death for any suspect.

But the chases and abductions were carried out not only within the boundaries of Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav government decided to export the state terror throughout Europe, where there were cells of Yugoslav spies searching for and kidnapping or killing the Croatians or making them return to Yugoslavia and eliminate them.

After Bleiburg, some Western allies had taken pity on the Croatians and, as appropriate, did not turn them to Tito’s army because they were sure of their tragic end.

When the commander in chief in the Mediterranean, Field Marshal Alexander, saw with his own eyes what happened in Austria, he began to change his policy towards the Croatian refugees.

Firstly he was more accessible to the arguments of the refugees who were interned in camps for displaced persons. On June 4, a new instruction to the British military in Austria dealing with Croatian refugees was issued.

These new rules aimed at not making compulsory repatriations following the following points:

1) No Yugoslavian will be returned to Yugoslavia or handed over to Yugoslav forces against his will.

2) All Yugoslavian who fought against Tito's will be treated as an individual who surrendered and sent to Camp Vitkring on disposal;

3) All such persons shall be considered as displaced persons and eventually moved to Italy.

With this new regulation, the situation of refugees who were under Anglo-American occupation troops improved. Those troops had to face the problem of feeding and housing hundreds of thousands of fugitives from Central and Southeast Europe. For the time being the deportations were suspended, but only temporarily.

In this way the British began to settle the issue sending Croatians to Italy. British authorities that were in Klagenfurt decided that the three thousand Croatians who were in the neighbouring city of Krumpendorf, were to be transported by train to Italy and housed almost entirely in the refugee camp that later became the most important for the Croatians: Camp Fermo.

Camp Fermo is located in the Italian province of Marche, on the east coast, with the cities of Ancona, Macerata and Ascoli Piceno being the largest in the region. The camp was on the outskirts of the city of Fermo which gave it its name.

This city was an ancient episcopal see. The construction of the houses were old and were surrounded by a wall. Most Croatians arrived on August 15, Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin. Over time more Croatians arrived from Italy and Austria.

"We were trucked from Austria to Italy. From there we were taken in freight trains across most of Italy. We looked like cattle. We were hungry, thirsty, and the children were sick. The elderly were dying. Great sadness seized us all.

When the train stopped at a train station, the soldiers did not allow people to approach us, we looked like a train full of lepers. The dirt and overcrowding meant that we all be filled with lice. Hunger was rampant among children. Survived only the most healthy and strong".

The refugee camp that had been assigned to Croatians was once a textile factory consisting of two buildings for housing and some ten warehouses for machinery and storage. In the halls to inhabit lived the British and had their offices there.

The barrack would be used for refugees. Each barrack had a capacity of between three and four hundred people. In many of the barracks were missing pieces of roof. The beds were very poor and were equipped with blankets and straw to serve as a mattress.

For each barrack a Croatian representative had to be choosen, who was called "Starješina". He was responsible for the barrack before the British and even earned a salary.

"After going through several cities and regions, we finally arrived at Camp Fermo, a real concentration camp. Were a dozen huge barracks, surrounded with very high walls that ended in electrified barbed wire. From the train station Fermo, they loaded us on trucks heavily guarded by British soldiers as if we were war criminals and taken to that prison that was Camp Fermo.

British soldiers were everywhere: at the entrance, in the booths, on the walls. Women and children were placed in a sector and men in another, separated by electrified wires. It was noon when we arrived. Each family was unloading their few belongings and gathered somewhere in these huge barracks. As it was summer time we had no trouble sleeping on the floor or on any bag or gender".

Despite the unfavorable first impression, the natural surroundings in which were and the organization within the camp was turned life in it more pleasant.

"The place where Camp Fermo was located was beautiful, surrounded by hills and far away you could see the snowy peaks of the Apennines. Nearby was a stream of clear water. The first day all the boys had their hair cut off and we are disinfected with a powder that I think was DDT. That first night was very sad.

In the darkness of the barracks, women sobbed thinking of his homeland and loved ones who were far away and may never see again. Children cried from hunger. In the other sector, men, many of them veterans, chewed their anger and powerlessness. Many cursed for having surrended to the allies rather than stay and fight in the mountains and forests of Croatia. They would prefer a thousand times to die with dignity in the fields of battle, to live in this cave of rats".

"Gradually people got organized in the camp. Those who were medical doctors began looking for a place to focus first on preventive medicine and then examine cases of varying severity, such as dysentery, anemia, or respiratory problems. Those who were teachers began to teach classes that consisted of songs, poems, all by hearth because we did not have books or notebooks. The first days as the weather was warm, we gathered in a section of the patio and there sitting on the floor, we learned to sing and recite verses in the Croatian language. "

As mentioned, the Croatian immigration after Second World War consisted of a broad social spectrum. This migration, which included professionals and illiterate, soldiers and housewives, old and young, rich and poor, etc. became one of the most characteristic facts of Fermo. The remarkable thing about this Croatian "small society" was, first, that the tragedy wiped out all social barriers.

In Camp Fermo did not matter whether one was a nobleman or a caretaker of goats; the pain for the suffered and struggle for survival was the same. Also, perhaps because that very human instinct, so wonderfully human, of building on what has been destroyed and managing to rescue a flower from the mud, the Croatians began to organize themselves according to their abilities. The doctors put together small offices, the builders constructed, women were sewing and making clothing, etc.

But they not only dedicated to rebuild bodies, houses and clothes, they also rebuilt souls. A printing shop was installed which published a magazine and even some books and the teachers organized makeshift schools for children from primary to secondary levels. With respect to culture, plays were performed as well as concerts by small Croatian folklore orchestras.

The pearl that grew out of Fermo was a choir composed of nearly two hundred voices that performed concerts throughout the region, even sang in the Vatican and from which came the chorus "Jadran" which for more than fifty years performs in Buenos Aires and carried Croatian music throughout Argentina. Even sports were performed as they practiced athletics, swimming and some even formed a football team "Nogometni Klub Croatia" who played and scored important victories against teams from Ancona.

Another group of refugees from Dalmatia and Herzegovina, devoted to more worldly pleasures. They installed a cigarette factory with the name "Macedonia", although this name had no reference to the Macedonian people. These cigarettes were sold all over central Italy, including Rome. The tobacco leaf was bought in Italy itself, then a group cut a very finite, another group put in an equipment to arm them, you cut the ends and was packaged. This action led to a major money income among the Croatians.

"What at first seemed as being hell and a cold jail, over time, it was becoming a beautiful habitat of solidarity and mutual aid. Each of the inhabitants of this area, working for the welfare of all. The social barriers collapsed as often happens in extreme situations. All were equal, there was neither rich nor poor. We were all equal. There was no distinction between professionals and illiterate, all contribute according to their capacity".

"Already at the first Christmas, in 1945, we gathered together around a large Christmas tree to pray for the repose of our dead who died for the fatherland and to give thanks to God for us being alive after five years of war. The Christmas songs were the best prayer on that cold Christmas. Snowflakes falling gently. Twas the Night of Peace".

In 1946, fate changed again. British and Yugoslavs sign an agreement to arrest and repatriate those refugees who were included in the list of "collaborators", made by the Yugoslav communist authorities. Thus, arbitrarily and without the British communicating the reason for the arrest, hundreds of Croatians were detained for being in the "blacklist." All returnees were convicted and executed.

In Camp Fermo similar situations arose. There were cases of British arriving with trucks and tanks during the night, going to the men's sector. There they tied their hands and feet, like bags of potatoes and piled them onto a truck. Only one was saved because he show a document which said that he had been exempted from military service. Also the British brought under any pretext, a large group of men, women and elderly, to other parts of Italy and then delay them in another detention centre and there took away those that were in their lists.

With all this the Croatians more than ever clung to the faith. Faith not only manifested toward religion, but also to believe in their own truth, values, traditions, in the future in the country, but mainly in returning someday. In the camp chapel that was installed in the centre of the Camp, Ante Turzan, who later emigrated to Cordoba (Argentina), painted a portrait of the Mother of God and under it the Croatian coat-of-arms, with the inscription "Advocata Croatiae Fidelissima". (Most faithful attorney for the Croats). Also were made pilgrimages to Our Lady of Loreto.

This faith was the main driving force to give life to the camp. From litter was passed to the iron and wood beds. Shoes that came from the Polish command in Ancona were refurbished for the poorest, while curtains were made with canvas to make divisions between beds and between families. In addition, the kitchen is organized for around two thousand to two thousand five hundred guests. Also they began to arrange the halls, garages and automobile service.

In the hope for a better future, the children were most privileged. School instruction was joined by religious teaching and even the formation of Boy Scouts groups.

"In the summer of '47, the teachers organized groups of Boy Scouts. The British army lend us tents. We were taught the rules of the Scouts, how to make different knots, how to pitch a tent, how to make a fire. During that summer the daughters of English Major in charge of the camp promised to bring us the sea. All the guys were crazy with joy. Each group began to organize. There were three groups of Boy Scouts: Bunnies, Cubs and Indians. My group was the Bunnies. We had an almost military discipline.

I was named standard-bearer. Our mothers along with other women, worked in the manufacture of uniforms and caps. The uniforms made them with a cloth that they dyed khaki. The handkerchiefs were made of other fabric, blue, and the triangle formed handkerchief embroidered on the back a fleur-de-lis, yellow, symbol of the Boy Scouts. The apparel caps ware made according to some cardboard molds. Our enthusiasm was so great that we would spend hours helping to cut the caps. Then our mothers sew them one by one. "

"Finally the great day came. British soldiers transport us in trucks to the shores of the Adriatic Sea, near Porto San Giorgio. They were wonderful sandy beaches. We unloaded the tents and other implements and started looking for the best place to camp. We were almost a hundred kids. By noon, all the tents were already set up.

In the afternoon we explored around the camp and then everybody to the water. At dusk we were forming in front of a flagpole where the Croatian flag was hoisted. The sun was setting on the horizon. The only sound was the sound of the waves. While two classmates slowly down our flag, Master Pedro, sang the Croatian anthem "Lijepa Naša Domovina" (Our Beautiful Homeland).

Almost in unison we all began to sing moved by an invisible energy, possibly what our elder call patriotism. One hundred children's voices rose from the beaches and were lost in the immensity of the Adriatic Sea. On the other side was Croatia. Our voices were pigeons carrying greetings to our loved ones: I was looking in my memories for dad, who stayed fighting in the forests and mountains of Croatia".

Fermo will not stop. Everyone tried to live as normally as possible while they were torn between the anxiety of other possible deportation and the hope of seeing a loved one or the arrival of money from a relative in America.

A surgeon performed more than a hundred operations, engineers improved the camp, built a swimming pool, directed the delivery of wood and other materials. Woodworking schools were outfitted as well as one school for driving cars and trucks. Meanwhile the teachers continued with schools, lawyers drafted a charter for the organization and regulation of the camp, which the British commander left entirely to them.

Were elected President and the executive committee, as well as tutors, cooks, drivers and cadets. The British commander received help from Croatian staff, secretaries and translators, both in offices and at the hospital.

In the chapel priests taught Catechism to children. There was a father, so big (he was almost two meters tall), as good, they called “Ošini po prašini”, (an old Croatian said he always repeated) was the one who performed the first baptisms of children being born at the camp, as well as first communions and even weddings.

"I received my first communion at Camp Fermo. Women who taught sewing made the white outfits, which manufactured from canvas cloth that we used to make partitions in the barracks. The parish priest went to Rome and got pictures of the Heart of Jesus and wrote the data back to the communicants.

My uncle Mičo, who lived in the barrack for men, made me my diploma reminder, embossing and molding artistically bits of can. It seemed to me a frame of pure gold. The church was full of people and we received with devotion the Blessed Sacrament".

By 1947, Camp Fermo was known throughout the area. Entertainment and religious celebrations were organized and personalities which came Fermo and Rome. Senior officials, the Archbishop of Fermo, Sicilian Cardinal Ruffini, the mayor, priests, teachers, lawyers and other persons in the area attended the celebrations, eventually becoming benefactors of the Croatians.

In just over two years, Camp Fermo became, as the Italians said, a "piccolo stato" (a small state). But the mood was still unstable. On clear days the mountains of Fermo could see the snowy peaks of the Velebit mountain in Croatia, which was revealing the nostalgia. Every so often new Croatians refugees arrived, relating more horrors about those who dared to stay in Croatia. This reopened the wounds and suffering.

Gradually the idea of emigrating became ever more present. The idea of returning to Croatia to fight was a crazy idea that many paid with their lives for trying it in small groups. Croatians realized that while they were in Europe would be safe and looked overseas countries. Many men saw their wives and children and crudely discussed the possibility of migrating to new lands with such different languages and idiosyncrasies. Finally they decided to ask for passports.

If any of them was hesitant to migrate, Tito agents roamed all over Italy and began to approach Camp Fermo. The Yugoslav spies, to win the consideration of their high command, send fanciful reports arguing that Camp Fermo was a military zone, where heavily armed Croatians conspired against Yugoslavia.

In late 1947 and early 1948, arrived to Fermo commissions mainly from Argentina, latter from the U.S., Canada and Australia, to offer the possibility to emigrate as refugees. Argentina was one of the most popular destinations, not only because her very name implied (for those who knew it) the idea of a thriving country with large reserves of food, and also many chose this location because it was neutral in the world wars: "My children will not live another war", men and women repeated in Camp Fermo.

So, little by little, Camp Fermo became gradually deserted. The Croatians started migrating around the world, leaving behind a destroyed Europe, which was hostile to them, to get on a boat and trust God for the good fortune to get a good destination.

Camp Fermo, still retains its mystique. It was a place of rather emotionally loaded situations. There it has been composed songs that spoke of the heroes of the homeland, the loss and nostalgia, that the Croatian immigration transmitted by word of mouth throughout the world.

Thousands of Croatians lived or passed through Fermo. This was a little break, if we can call truce being permanently threatened by Tito's spies, between war and the beginning of the most difficult: to start a new life in a new land ...

"Occasionally we hear about dad, who was in this or that place. All we wanted was to be with him. Some were telling us about his exploits ... others said he could be dead, but mom always hoped to see him again someday ...".

Kajana Packo

2011-02-03T07:34:00.000-05:00

Kajana Packo

Young cellist Kajana Packo was born in Split in 1985 and is currently student of Clemens Hagen at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg. She started playing cello at the age of 9 and entered the Zagreb Music Academy when she was only 14 in the class of the renowned Croatian cellist Valter Despalj. From 2004-2008 Kajana studied at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler“ in Berlin also attending classes at the Music school of Pitea, Sweden, from 2006-2008. Kajana took part in masterclasses given by David Geringas, Frans Helmerson, Gary Hoffman and Jens Peter Maintz.

As an outstanding music student she has been awarded a "City of Zagreb scholarship", National's "Top student" scholarship, DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst), Rektor's price for the performance of the Rokoko variations by P.I. Tschaikowsky and many others. Kajana Packo won first prizes at several competitions in Croatia (1998 and 2000) as well as in Italy (Gorizia Marcosig Competition 2000, 2001 and 2003). She was chosen to represent Croatia in Moscow during the Vladimir Spivakov Foundation Concerts in 2002 and as well at the Eurovision Competition For Young Musicians in Luzern (2004).

She has performed with major orchestras and ensembles in Croatia such as Zagreb Soloists, Croatian Radiotelevision Symphony Orchestra, Split and Zadar Chamber Orchestras, Split Symphony Orchestra and Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra conducted by the leading Croatian conductors. Performances with orchestra include the cello concertos and works by Elgar, Schumann, Haydn, Tschaikowsky, Rossini and Boccherini. Except in solo performances Kajana is also very active in chamber music. She was a member of the cello ensemble "Cellomania" during her studying time in Croatia. In 2007 her performance of the Ravel's sonata for violin and cello, together with violinist Tristan Thery, got an outstanding rewiew in "The Independent" for the concert in London. In 2008, as a member of a piano trio, she played on a "Exzellenz-Konzert" in Berlin patronized by Daniel Barenboim. Apart from Croatia, Italy, Germany and Russia, she also performed in United Kingdom (London) and France.

http://www.riederprom.at/content_106-en.html

Croatian Language Introductory Course - Contents of the 30 lessons

2011-01-26T22:08:00.000-05:00

HRVATSKI JEZIK - CROATIAN LANGUAGE

Croatian Language Introductory Course - Contents of the 30 lessons

All lessons are accompanied by sound files in the Croatian language. This summary includes only the main themes of each lesson. They are accompanied by texts and information on history, geography and culture of Croatia.

Lesson 1 - Letters and Numbers. Their writing and pronunciation - Vocabulary.

Lesson 2 – Present of the verb biti. Preposition iz; use of the genitive. Question words: tko?, što?, odakle?.

Lesson 3 - Countries and capital cities. Nominative, genitive. Nouns (masculine, feminine and neuter). Singular and plural nouns. Verb biti, emphatic forms: interrogative, positive and negative.

Lesson 4 - Presentation. Different situations. Adjectives: masculine, feminine and neuter. Present of verbs živjeti and govoriti. Countries, nationalities and their languages.

Lesson 5 - Verbs. The four groups of verbs with their conjugations. The preposition "u", and its use with the locative case. Possessive pronouns.

Lesson 6 - The nominative case for nouns and adjectives.

Lesson 7 - The genitive case. The genitive case to answer the questions: Koga? - čega?. The locative case. Declination of the words with the prepositions na and u.

Lesson 8 - Plurals of genitive and locative cases. Possessive pronouns in the nominative singular.

Lesson 9 - Possessive pronouns in the nominative plural. Parts of the body. Verbs raditi, crtati, sanjati, hodati and spavati.

Lesson 10 – Verbs voljeti and imati. The accusative case.

Lesson 11 - Review of the locative case: The locative singular of masculine, feminine and neuter nouns.

Lesson 12 - Present the verb ići. Adverbs of time.

Lesson 13 - Time expressions: Koliko je sati?; ujutro; navečer; poslije podne / popodne; poslije ponoći / po ponoći. The days of the week.

Lesson 14 - Review of some verbs. More verbs. The locative case with prepositions: o and prema. Verbs jesti and piti.

Lesson 15 - Verbs jesti, piti and moliti, use of nouns in the accusative and genitive cases.

Lesson 16 - The imperative. The imperative positive. The negative imperative and its two forms.

Lesson 17 - The Imperative - Part Two. Conjugation of the verbs trebati, morati, doći, ići and pisati, in the present and the imperative. The imperative for the third person. The imperative of the verb biti.

Lesson 18 - Possessive pronouns in the nominative. The plural possessive pronouns. The family. Ordinal numbers. The months of the year.

Lesson 19 - Possessive pronouns. Declination of ordinal numbers in the accusative, genitive and locative cases.

Lesson 20 - Situations and vocabulary: The Post Office and the Bank. Verbs moći, željeti and morati. The dative case, singular and plural.

Lesson 21 - The instrumental case. Cases where the instrumental answers to s kim?. Cases where the instrumental answers to čime?. The instrumental case indicating location.

Lesson 22 - We present two Croatian songs Croats and two interviews, which can be read and heard in Croatian, and their translation into English.

Lesson 23 - The vocative case. The vocative in Croatian literature.

Lesson 24 - Past tense. Past participle of the verb biti. Negative form of the past tense. Particularities of the past tense.

Lesson 25 - The past tense of reflexive verbs.

Lesson 26 - Collective nouns. Their declination. The verb imati: its use in the accusative and genitive cases.

Lesson 27 - Declination of personal pronouns. Stressed and unstressed forms.

Lesson 28 - In this lesson we present two songs and two interviews, in both Croatian and English.

Lesson 29 - The future tense. The verb htjeti. Negative and interrogative forms in the future.

Lesson 30 - The future tense - Part II. Future of reflexive verbs - affirmative and negative forms.

studiacroatica@gmail.com

National Federation of Croatian Americans - Letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

2011-01-26T20:10:00.001-05:00

National Federation of Croatian Americans Cultural Foundation Issues Text of Letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Concerning Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina
(Washington, D.C.) The National Federation of Croatian Americans Cultural Foundation (NFCA CF) released today the text of a letter from its President, John P. Kraljic, addressed to US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. In the letter, Mr. Kraljic expressed the NFCA CF’s growing concern with the status of Croats and the Roman Catholic Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).

The NFCA CF had been motivated in part by a recent letter from Bishop Franjo Komarica of Banja Luka to officials of the Republika Srpska (RS) complaining about the apparent connivance of RS police forces with attacks on personal and real property of Croats in Bishop Komarica’s Diocese. In his letter to Secretary Clinton, Mr. Kraljic further expressed the NFCA CF’s belief that the subordination of the constitutional, political and economic rights of Croats in BiH has led both to the trampling of Croat rights in RS as well as elsewhere in the country. Mr. Kraljic specifically called on Secretary Clinton not to sanction any settlements concerning the future of BiH that may be reached between Serb and Bosniak leaders at the expense of the Croats and Catholics of the country.

The full text of Mr. Kraljic’s letter is attached.

The NFCA CF is the national umbrella organization of Croatian American groups that collectively represents approximately 130,000 members. For additional public affairs information, please contact Mr. Joe Foley, Public Affairs Director, at (301) 294-0937, or NFCA CF Headquarters at (301) 208-6650. The email address is NFCAhdq@verizon.net. For recent newsletters, important NFCA CF membership application and chapter information, and other Croatian American news please visit the Web Site at www.nfcaonline.com.

National Federation of Croatian Americans Cultural Foundation (NFCA CF)2401 Research Blvd, Suite 115
Rockville, MD 20850
PHONE: (301) 208-6650
FAX: (301) 208-6659
E-MAIL: nfcahdq@verizon.net
WEB SITE: www.nfcaonline.com

NFCA

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF CROATIAN AMERICANS

____ ____

The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
US Department of State
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20520

Dear Madame Secretary:

The National Federation of Croatian Americans Cultural Foundation wishes to express its continued concern with the status of Croats and the Roman Catholic Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).

Since the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords (DPA) in November 1995, the situation of the Croats and the Catholic Church in BiH has steadily deteriorated. On one hand, the hundreds of thousands of ethnically cleansed Croats in the Republika Srpska (RS), along with the predominately Muslim Bosniaks, remain subject to continued pressure forestalling their return to their homes. On the other hand, Croats in the Bosniak-Croat Federation have found that the Federation’s peculiar constitutional provisions have effectively left them without a voice in the three-man presidency of BiH.

The ongoing problems confronting Catholics and Croats in BiH have been recently highlighted again by Bishop Franjo Komarica of Banja Luka, whose diocese is based in the RS. A January 12, 2011, report by the Catholic Press Agency of Bosnia’s Bishops’ Conference notes that Bishop Komarica had sent a letter the previous day to the head of the Center for Public Security (CPS) in Banja Luka. The letter detailed numerous cases of the destruction of personal and real property of Croat returnees from the area, including in Šimići, Ivanjska, and Raljaš. In each of these cases, the complaints of the local Croats have been ignored by local RS police forces that are, apparently, working in concert with the perpetrators.

At first glance these incidents may appear to be nothing more than acts of petty crime. However, we believe that - given the history of the RS and the continued threats made by RS leaders to secede from BiH - they are part of an organized attempt to pressure the Croats of the RS to either leave the territory of the RS or to cow them into remaining silent in opposing the position taken by RS authorities concerning the future of BiH.

The fact that the Croats of Banja Luka feel compelled to turn to their Bishop for assistance with respect to these crimes further shows the legal and constitutional inadequacies of the DPA as it relates to the protection of the political rights for all Croats in BiH. This most recently became evident yet again after the re-election of Željko Komšić of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) to the seat reserved for Croats in the three-man Presidency
of BiH.

While we certainly do not deny the legitimacy of President Komšić’s election, we must note that his election to this position had been, as practically all observers recognize, achieved almost exclusively through the votes of Bosniak supporters of the SDP in the Federation. The SDP has taken the position that BiH must be January 24, 2011 restructured as a unitary state. This is contrary to the position taken by the large majority of Croat political
parties in BiH. The latter fear that such a restructuring of the country, where the government will be elected based on a rule of one man-one vote, would cause the interests of Croats (the smallest of BiH’s three constituent peoples) to be subordinated to the domination of the numerically superior Serbs and Bosniaks. Such a political regimen would eliminate the already weak institutional safeguards that protect the Croats of BiH.

These weak safeguards have had real economic consequences as the state-dominated economy steers its largesse toward Bosniak and Serb dominated areas at the expense of the Croats. This has in turn caused the declining and alarming demographic position of Croats in BiH to deteriorate further.

Madame Secretary, we ask that the U.S. State Department take the foregoing into account and make known its displeasure with the attacks being undertaken against Croats in the RS. We respectfully request that your Department forcefully make known that it will not sanction any political, economic, legal, or constitutional settlements that may be reached between Serb and Bosniak leaders at the expense of the Croats and Catholics of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

If the National Federation of Croatian Americans may provide additional information regarding our concerns as stated above, we would be pleased to do so. Your staff may contact the NFCA’s Public Affairs Director, Mr. Joe Foley, in Washington on telephone 301-294-0937.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

John P. Kraljic
President

JK:jf

CC:
US Senator John Kerry, Chair, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
US Senator Richard Lugar, Ranking Member, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
US Senator Mark Begich
US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chair, House Foreign Affairs Committee
US Representative Howard Berman, Ranking Member, House Foreign Affairs Committee
US Representatives Peter Visclosky and Elton Gallegly, Congressional Croatian Caucus
Msgr. David Malloy, General Secretary, US Conference of Catholic Bishops
Bishop Howard Hubbard, Chair, Committee on International Justice and Peace, USCCB

National Federation of Croatian Americans

2401 Research Boulevard, Suite 115, Rockville, MD 20850 USA
Phone: (301) 208-6650 Fax: (301) 208-6659 E-mail: nfcahdq@verizon.net
www.nfcaonline.com

Doctor Branko Franolic passed away

2011-01-12T05:33:00.001-05:00

I have some very sad news to impart. Dr Branko Franolic passed away last
night. 
His contribution to Croatia was huge, as many of you know.
 
I shall miss him greatly, as I know many will.
 
I will provide more information when I can.
 
This is a link to an interview I conducted with him in 2005: 
http://www.easycroatian.com/page25.html
 
 Brian Gallagher

Interview with Doctor Branko Franolic

Dr Franolic is a prominent Croat linguist who has been resident in London since 1974. He is a
member of the Societe Linguistique du Paris.

Dr Franolic received an award from oil company INA for the defence of Croatian language abroad.
He has donated many books - about 2,000 - to UK libraries in particular the British Library but also
to others including the School of Slavonic studies, Oxford, Cambridge. CIL spoke to him about his
recent and current projects.
You’ve been compiling bibliographies on what’s in the British Library on Croatia.
Tell us something about that and your most recent work.

When Croatia became independent it was terra incognita - unknown country. There was hardly any
books on Croatia in the British Library, so I had to fill this gap and this was very necessary for
anybody who wants to write on Croatia or south-eastern Europe, they need a good bibliography.
People are discouraged because there are no books. Bibliographies are very important. I would call them ante room to any scientific research. You cannot do any serious writing without having a bibliography - books on a country or whatever subject.

I remember when Marcus Tanner (author of Croatia - A Nation Forged in War) started to write a book on Croatia, he had hardly any books on Croatia in London, he had to struggle. That’s why the supply of books to libraries is very important. Very often, librarians did not know what was published in Croatia, especially during the war. I had to supply them.
That’s how you came to write the bibliographies?

I realised that bibliographies were very necessary because anyone who wants to write on any aspect of Croatian life or culture or history must have the books. That was why I compiled my latest bibliography, A Survey of Croatian Bibliographies 1960- 2003. In the international world bibliography, published in Munich, Croatia was practically suppressed - because all the information came from Belgrade. So one had to fill the gap since 1960 to 2003. It includes different places, regions in Croatia and subjects - from Astronomy to Zoology.

A bibliography is the first step for research in any writing. This was our Achilles Heel. I met some people who were simply discouraged because no books were available. They wanted to write about Croatia but gave up.
You are working on a new project - ‘An Outline of Literary Croatian’. Can you tell us what this is about?

The Croatian language is still not thoroughly investigated. There are a lot of pre-conceived ideas about the heritage from the 20th Century. There is a Hungarian saying that says a nation lives through its language. The nation is a language, the language is a nation. A very important aspect of this the Glagolitic written language since the early middle ages - the Baska tablet - which is the cornerstone of Croatian literary development.

After the battle of Krbava in 1493 when the Turks invaded Croatia, an interesting detail is that the Glagolitic priest from Grobnik recorded in his breviary immediately after the battle that the Turks sacked whole Croatian lands and crushed the Croatian language - at that time language meant people. So language is people, people are language. It is very important to stress this, that from the middle ages - Glagolitic is slightly neglected - that Croats were among the first people in Europe to write in their national language.

Croats were alone in the Catholic church in the west who were permitted to keep the vernacular liturgy which set them firmly apart from the latin Catholics and ensured the retention of a unique identity. Whereas Catholic priests in France, Italy and Germany read in in Latin, Croatian Dalmatian priests read it in the vernacular so the liturgy could have the same kind of nationalising effect that the vernacular bible had in protestant countries. It was supplemented by new protestant translation of the new testament in Croat, printed in Glagolitic in Germany in the 1560s. This is an important fact that should be stressed.
What you are writing is taking us up to the present day?

Yes, because nowadays there is an assault on Croatian language again as in former Yugoslavia when Croatian was practically suppressed. So it was a very, very long struggle. From the middle ages via the renaissance, Croat writers on the Dalmatian coast had participated most extensively through regular Italian contacts in the culture of Western Europe, and were far from having experienced the intense isolation and intellectual poverty of Serbia - as said by Professor Adrian Hastings (late British historian).

There are a lot of half - baked linguists, pseudo-slavicists who try to suppress these facts. Very few people looked up Glagolitic missals/books - very important for the whole of (Croatian) literature, used not only in liturgy but also in administration.

It’s important to stress the Glagolitic literature, the work of our protestant writers who continued our traditions, there were fighting Venetian imperialism and encroachment on the Dalmatian coast. They were protestants, but they were first and foremost national priests who were afraid of being suppressed by Venice or the Turks.
We’ll see this article soon?

Yes, I hope so.
If you are interested in purchasing his bibliographies, Dr Franolic can be contacted at 15 Midmoor Road, Wimbledon, London, SW19 4JD

Happy New Year with Gold Pixie Award for 3D animation from the American Pixel Academy

2011-01-05T19:45:00.000-05:00

Dear Friends,

Happy and prosperous New 2011.

I am delighted to report that I have won a Gold Pixie Award from the American Pixel Academy for 3D computer animation.

It's a wonderful way to start the New Year. Thanks to everyone who worked with us. I wish you great success in 2011. Looking forward to extending our relationship.

Please visit us at www.ifilms-fx.com

Warmest regards,

Dragi prijatelji,

Drago mi je obavijestiti vas da sam dobitnik Zlatne Pixie nagrade za kompjutorsku animaciju koju dodjeljuje Američka Pixel Akademija.

Lijepo priznanje na početku nove 2011 godine. Zahvaljujem svima koji su surađivali sa nama i toplo se preporučujemo za suradnju u budućnosti.

Sretna i uspješna 2011.

Molim posjetite nas na www.ifilms-fx.com

Lijepi Pozdrav

Nikola Knez
President, iFilms LLC

www.iFilms-fx.com
www.21stcenturysociety.org
e-mail:nikolaknez@iFilms-fx.com
T:+1 361-937-2217
M:+1 361-443-2056

Anton E. Basetić (1879-1921) The First Victim of Yugoslav Terror among Croatian Émigrés

2010-12-29T22:45:00.002-05:00

Anton E. Basetić (1879-1921)

The First Victim of Yugoslav Terror among Croatian Émigrés

Dr. Ante Čuvalo

The assassination of Croatian patriots in the ranks of émigrés was a trait of the infamous Yugoslav secret police, namely, the UDBA, during the time of Tito’s regime (1945-1990). Actually, the liquidation of Croatian patriots began long before Tito’s time—that is, from the very founding of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918 (Yugoslavia after 1929). Persecution of every sort was one of the historical links that bridged the time of the bloody founding of the Kingdom until the even bloodier end of the Yugoslav State. In fact, Greater-Serbian terror in Croatian lands began even before unification. It started on the 9^th of September, 1918, in the city of Vukovar, and we can still feel the ugly stench of death during and after the demise of Yugoslavia. The primary subject of Serbian terror was to be found not only among the Croatians, but also among all those who were doomed to perish for sake of the “Greater Serbia” project. That megalomania nightmare that swallowed so much blood and lives is, to our regret, alive and well even to this day and it is evidenced daily with equal insolence!

It is only recently that knowledge of those Croatians liquidated in the Diaspora (at the very least 69 of them) after the end of the Second World War is beginning to come to light in the Homeland. Although “official” Zagreb shows little interest for these and other victims, truth is slowly seeing the light of day—thanks to the Courts of foreign lands, most notably German Courts, that are attempting to solve at least some of the assassination that took place in those countries. In the meantime, little or nothing is known of the terror waged against the Croatian Diaspora prior to 1945. Here we are talking about a portion of Croatian history that is yet to be investigated and waiting for the Homeland to eventually remember it.

The very first victim of Yugo-terror in America—and, I believe, among the Croatian Diaspora in general, that followed the fateful union of Croatian Lands with Serbia and Montenegro, was Anton E. Basetić. He was the editor of the Croatian newspaper Glasnik Istine (The Herald of Truth) that was published in Chicago. Because of his explicit Croatian patriotism and anti-Yugoslav political stance, he was perfidiously liquidated “in full daylight” in Chicago on the 5^th of November, 1921. This was not only the murder of a journalist, but also an attempt to frighten into submission all those who were not willing to link hands and dance the new “Yugo-dance” as accompanied by a “Serbian flute.”

The Life and Work of Anton E. Basetić

Anton Basetić was born in Primošten on the 17^th of September, 1877. Church records show the date as being the 20^th of June in one instance, and the 20^th of September, 1877 in another. His father was Ivan, and his mother was Ana, nee Makelja. Anton’s family numbered ten children. Originally, his name was Ante Emilio Bolanča but upon arriving in America, he changed it to Anton E. Basetić/Basetich. It is unclear as to why he changed his surname (and, to some extent, his first name), or why he chose the name Basetić, but we found out that his brother Leon (born the 11th of April, 1883) also changed his surname to Basetić or Bolanča-Basetić some time after his arrival to America on October 24, 1907.

Ante Emilio Bolanča set sail into the world from Genoa on the steamship The Spartan Prince. He arrived in New York harbor on the 23^rd of July, 1898. He was received by his friend, Stjepan Baković, who lived at 177 Atlanta Avenue in New York. As of the present writing, it is unknown as to what schooling Ante had, or where that schooling took place; what is known is that he was considerably more literate than the vast majority of Croatian émigrés of that time. So, whether he had a formal education or he was self-schooled is still unknown.

From the information thus far gathered about Ante after his arrival in America, and after a period of time spent in New York City, we see he stayed in Butte, Montana in 1910 and was known as Anton Basetich. The American Census documents from 1910 confirm that Anton was married at the time to 19-year-old Elsie, nee Coffin, from South Dakota. From the same Census report, we learn that Anton was a journalist by profession.[1]

A year later, Anton and Elsie were living in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was the editor of the Croatian Newspaper Radnička Obrana, (The Workers’ Defense). The Salt Lake City Directory of 1911 records that Anton was the Editor and Manager of the aforementioned newspaper, and that Emil Basetich was the President of the Slavonian Publishing Company. It is obvious that in both instances we are dealing with one and the same person. Sadly, Anton’s wife Elsie died on the 16^th of December, 1912. According to the memory passed on in the family, Elsie died in childbirth of their firstborn, a girl. It is not known with any certainty what became of the little girl. It is thought that she was taken in by Elsie’s parents.

Following the death of his wife Elsie, most likely during 1913, Basetić moved from Salt Lake City to Duluth, Minnesota. The Duluth City Directory of 1913-1914 indicates that the Slavonian Publishing Company's manager was Anton Basetich, while Milan Knezevich was the editor of Radnička Obrana. The newpaper was published in that city every Thursday. That same directory of 1915-1916 indicates that Basetich continued to be the publisher of the newspaper, but was located at a new address. As gleaned from the newspaper itself, the title of the publishing company was no longer known as the Slavonian Publishing Company, but as the Croatian Publishing Company. Clearly, Anton Basetić assumed ownership and editorial management of the Radnička Obrana. The newpaper had branch offices in Salt Lake City, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Gary. Indiana.

Though many Croatian newspapers saw the light of day in America, few of them survived for any length of time. One of the rare numbers of Radnička Obrana to be found is the number dated March 11, 1916. That edition indicates that it was the twelfth year of publication for that newspaper. Clearly, this newspaper managed to survive longer than most Croatian publications in America at that time.

It would seem that around 1916, the Radnička Obrana ceased being published and that Anton moved from Minnesota to Chicago. That same year, Basetić purchased the newspaper known as Hrvatski Rodoljub, (Croatian Patriot). The paper was founded in 1915 and was published by B.F. Tolić in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Basetić transferred publication of the paper to Chicago. This would indicate that he already lived in the city.

Between Yugoslavia and Croatia

This period of time was froth with war and was an especially worrisome time for Croatians in America as well as those in the homeland. Aside from the wartime adversity, a deep political division and separation began to take shape among Croatians: there were those who were prepared to abrogate their national heritage and rights and eagerly accept unity with the Serbian Kingdom, and there were those who stood in defense of the right to Croatian Statehood. Those in the first group were more vociferous, and political conditions then present stood in their favor. The second group had to contend not only with the pro-Yugoslav element, but also with the burden of trying to prove to America and their fellow citizens (especially so after America’s entrance into the war in 1917) that they were not champions of Austria and the Central Powers, but simply desired freedom for their Croatian homeland. So as to bring a shred of light into the political fog that overshadowed the time, a well-known and respected priest, Rev. Ivan Stipanović, established and published a Croatian journal, Rodoljub (Patriot), in Chicago in January of 1915. Shortly thereafter (August of 1915), the journal's name was changed to Hrvatski Katolički Glasnik, (The Croatian Catholic Messenger). It assumed a newspaper format and became the voice of (almost all) Croatian Catholic priests in America. Before the end of that same year, the paper established editorial links with Narodna Obrana that was published in Duluth, Minnesota, as well as with Hrvatski Rodoljub in Chicago. With such combined forces, a group of Croatian patriots now began to publish Glasnik Istine (The Herald of Truth). The editorial board resided at 2979 S. Wentworth Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. Anton Basetić was chosen as its editor. It appears that in 1916, Basetić's Radnička Obrana changed it name to Narodna Obrana and subsequently melded into Glasnik Istine. Thus, he became its new editor.

While wartime blood flowed across the European front, a ferocious ideological war raged among the Croatians in America. One group aligned with the Jugoslavenski Odbor, (The Yugoslav Committee) and welcomed, extolled, and aided the members of that committee on their arrival in the U.S., sending monetary aid and war volunteers. Others were supporters of Croatian independence and warned about Greater-Serbian ideology and its future evil effects on the Croatian people. A third group followed socialist ideas and also caused national and religious discord among Croatian émigrés across the world. Under such conditions, Anton Basetić assumed editorship of the publication which by its orientation was Croatian and Catholic, and served as the representative and voice against the Yugoslav forces in Chicago and America.

Even prior to his assumption of the role as editor of the Glasnik Istine, Basetić wrote and spoke against the union with Serbia. A significant event in the Croatian Community of Chicago serves as a primary example of his role among Croatian-American émigrés: on the 10^th and 11^th of March, 1915, in the LaSalle Hotel located in downtown Chicago, a Yugoslav Congress was held. More than 550 delegates and guests to the congress were in attendance. At the congress they spoke of the “homogeneity of the Yugoslav people” (naturally, the well-known Serbian in America delegate to the Congress, Dr. Paul Radosavljević, a professor at the University of New York, considered all Yugoslavs to be Serbs) and of the soon-to-be created Kingdom of the Serbs, Croatians, and Slovenes. At the same time, a group of Croatians, mostly located around Wentworth Avenue in Chicago, held a massive counter-demonstration. Some 3,000 Croatians gathered for that massive anti-Yugoslav counter-demonstration to hear one of its main speakers, namely, Anton Basetić. Clearly, then, upon his move to Chicago and his undertaking of the role of editor of the Glas Istine, Basetić became a person of importance among Croatians not only in this metropolis but across all of America.

Before touching on his tragic death, it is appropriate that we say a bit more about his family. Following the death of his first wife, Elsie (at the end of 1912), Anton married Sandra (Allessandra, Sanda) F. Herska while residing in Chisholm, Minnesota. Sandra was from Severin na Kupi, located in the Gorski Kotar region of Croatia. Two children were born from their union: Vera, a daughter, was born in 1916, in Minnesota, while Ivan (John) was born in 1919 in Chicago.

The Assassination of Anton Basetić

On November 5, 1921, around 8:15 a.m., Anton Basetić left his home at 140 West 31^st Street and arrived at the real estate office of Cannizzo, Jurko, and Company that was located on 2927 Wentworth Avenue, not far from his home. Although the Glasnik Istine was printed by the Croatian Printery located a short distance away, Basetić, from all that can be garnered, chose, out of fear, to receive his mail at the aforementioned real estate office. He picked up his mail on a daily basis. That fateful morning, Marie Pullano, a 19-year-old clerk, was already at work in the office. Upon the entrance of Anton Basetić, she alerted him that two unknown men were loitering aimlessly across the street from the office. He thought she was frightened by them, and his response was: “Never mind, I’m here. Don’t be afraid.” Soon after, these two scoundrels entered the real estate office. Marie and Anton went toward the door. Marie opened one of the double-doors and asked what they wanted. They remained silent. One of the men stepped into the office, drew his pistol, and fired six rounds at Basetić as he stood alongside the young lady. Two of the bullets struck their target—one in his shoulder and another in his neck. A few short minutes later, Anton expired. Marie, the clerk, fainted, while the two thugs dissapeared without a trace. The entire tragic drama unfolded in a few short minutes.

All the newspapers in Chicago reported the incident and death of Anton Basetić. They stressed that his death was of a political nature. One of the newspapers cited the thinking of the police officials, namely, that his murder had the mark of international political intrigue. In the meantime, the news reports fostered the erroneous suggestion that Anton Basetić was a fervent pro-Austrian partisan rather than stressing that he was an ardent patriot for the Croatian cause. Even then, the well-known “logic” was in place: all who were not Yugophiles clearly had to be Austrophiles—later, after World War II, to be labeled as “fascists.” Naturally, the police and newspaper reports of the incident failed to engage the question of who was behind the loathsome crime. No serious police investigation of the murder ensued: the police did not concern themselves with who it was that wanted him dead. They simply decided that the murder was “an accounting among the émigrés,” hence, the loss of a young Croatian life was of no consequence and not investigated, despite the fact that it occurred in the metropolis of Chicago and in broad daylight.

To this very day, Anton’s descendants hold to the passed-down conviction that his murder was the work of the notorious “Black Hand;” it is known only too well what sort of a bloody role that terrorist organization played in Serbia and beyond. Although the organization was “officially” suppressed in 1917, it adherents continued their criminal work and Anton Basetić, at the very least, was a victim of their ideology.

Basetić was only 44 years of age when he was murdered. He left behind a young wife, Sandra, and two infant children, as well as his child from his first marriage. Out of fear, Sandra, along with her children, moved to Minnesota and spent the next six months there. She returned to Chicago and struggled to raise her children. Among other jobs, she worked as a cook in a student cafeteria at the University of Chicago. According to the stories passed on by members of her family, she simply would not speak of the murder of her husband or of any political matters: she had her fill of such talk. Her goal in life was to raise her children and set them on their way to success in life. By all accounts, she was successful in that goal as were many other Croatian widows of her time and later.

In Conclusion

The martyrdom of Ante Emilio Bolanča, namely, Anton Basetić, was supressed and silenced at the time of his murder. Silence about him and his assassination has endured for some 90 subsequent years. This silence would have continued had not his two granddaughters, Sarah and Ann, the daughters of his son, Ivan, wished to know the truth about Anton, their grandfather. Sarah succeeded in interesting me in this tragic incident as well. She shared a good deal of facts about her grandfather that I relate in this article. I am sincerely grateful to Sarah for having acquainted not only me, but Croatians in general, about her grandfather. All the evidence indicates that he was the very first political martyr among the Croatian émigrés following the portentous and fateful year of 1918.

The assassinations of Anton Basetić and of other Croatian patriots across the world, remain largely unknown to us. They await further investigation, so that we might give them honorable mention in the history of our Croatian Diaspora, as well as in the history of our homeland. [2]

(English translation of the article „Anton E. Basetić – prva žrtva jugoterora u hrvatskoj emigraciji,“ published in Hrvatsko slovo (Zagreb), Year XVI, No. 817, December 17, 2010, p.16-17.)

[1] The 1910 Census document erroneously records Anton as having arrived in the U.S. in 1903. Perhaps he came to Minnesota in that year.

[2] The photograph of Anton Basetić and the drawing of the assassination are taken from the Chicago Daily Tribune, from November 6, 1921.

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