Persecution of Serbs in Croatia at the beginning of the 20th century

At the beginning of the 20th century, before Yugoslavia and the World Wars, Serbs in the area of ​​present-day Croatia were exposed to unprecedented pressures. The data presented in this text show that the suffering of Serbs in that area is not only connected to individual historical events, as is most often portrayed. Wars and crises are only periods when social and civilizational patterns are suspended, preventing this continuous confrontation with everything Serbian from escalating.

Serbs made up 30% of the population of Croatia and Slavonia at the beginning of the 20th century.

Ban on the name Serbian language

Armin Pavić, head of the Department of Theology and Teaching, removed Daničić’s naming of the language: Serbian or Croatian from high school certificates. Since then, in 1901, only Croatian has been written.

Tomislav Maretić wrote a Grammar of the Croatian or Serbian Language and submitted a request for his grammar to be accepted as a book for high schools. The head, Mr. Pavić, replied that his book would only be accepted for high schools if he omitted the words “or Serbian language” from the title. Since Maretić agreed to this, the magazine Srbobran condemned him for it.

Anti-Serbian demonstrations in Zagreb in 1902

At the beginning of the 20th century, there were many harsh texts, especially in the Croatian magazine “Obzor” and the Serbian magazine “Srbobran”. Let us also mention the book by Ante Starčević entitled “Pasmina Slavoserbska po Hrvatskoj” printed in Zagreb in 1876. This time, the reason for the demonstrations was Nikola Stojanović’s text, “Serbs and Croats”.

In the demonstrations from August 31 to September 3, 1902, led by Josip Frank, Serbian shops in Zagreb were destroyed.

Law student Ive Eligović threw a stone at the Serbian Bank, after which a conflict broke out between him and a policeman who happened to be there. The crowd came to the students’ defense and started throwing stones at the Serbian Bank, then the Serbian Printing House and the editorial office of the magazine  Srbobran.

The police responded, but around five in the afternoon the crowd burned down the editorial office of the magazine Srbobran and began to destroy Serbian houses and shops. The army arrived from the maneuvers on September 1, and by September 3, the violent demonstrations had stopped.

A summary trial was established on September 3, 1902, which had a significant impact on calming the crowd.

It is believed that there were about 20,000 demonstrators, of whom 103 were convicted. The total damage, according to the Austro-Hungarian authorities, amounted to 50,286 crowns.

That this was not an isolated case is also evidenced by the fact that in 1902 the then-valid trade agreement between Serbia and Austria-Hungary expired. Austria-Hungary sought to impose conditions through new negotiations that deeply threatened Serbian economic and political independence, which was the prelude to the open Customs War a few years later.

In the context of the total pressure on Serbia, those who suffered the most were those who were within arm’s reach – the Serbs in Austria-Hungary. This is also shown by the mass emigration of Serbs from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Serbia, Montenegro and Russia, and the numerous complaints of Serbs from Bosnia and Herzegovina sent to the Austro-Hungarian authorities. This is also shown by the events in Croatia in the first decade of the twentieth century.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Austria-Hungary implemented its famous principle of “Divide et impera”, when it incited hatred between Serbs and Croats in Dalmatia, which degenerated into a bitter struggle.

Based on the continuity, coordination and behavior of the Austro-Hungarian authorities in those years, we can assume that as part of these events, the Croats received the green light or even a directive to deal with the Serbian population in the territory of Banska Hrvatska.

Ban on the Cyrillic alphabet, Saint Sava and the prefix “Serbian”

Guverner Pavao Rauch, in cooperation with the Franks, did a lot to deprive the Serbs of their previous rights. Thus, the Franks’ newspaper “Hrvat” from Gospić reported with great satisfaction in 1909 that a letter from Rauch’s government had arrived at the Gospić gymnasium, according to which the Cyrillic alphabet was to be abolished in the gymnasium, and the inscription on the assignments would from then on read Croatian assignments, and not as it had been written until then, Croatian or Serbian assignments.

In the same year, 1909, Bishop Mihailo Grujić spoke at the assembly of the Gornja Karlovac bishopric about the government’s orders on the use of the Cyrillic alphabet and the ban on the celebration of Saint Sava in schools, until the municipal councils decided on this and upon confirmation by the district authorities. The bishop concluded: Both of these orders offend our Serbian Orthodox Church, religious feeling.

One of the secret regulations abolished books written in Cyrillic in elementary schools, and the magazine Srbobran learned about it through an order. The administration of the Croatian-Slavic National Publishing House of School Books responded to that order:

“The elementary school books Bukvar and Serbian Calculation for the first grade have been put out of use, which is why they are not in this year’s list and order book.” The magazine Srbobran commented on it:

“With this provision, a new assassination attempt was committed on the Serbian people, and it clearly violates and tramples on the school law…”

Renaming the term “Orthodox” to “Greek-Eastern”

The government moved the teaching of the Cyrillic alphabet from the first to the third grade, and in the new third grade textbooks, the term “Orthodox” was replaced everywhere with “Greek-Eastern”, and the mention of the Serbian name, and even personal names in the texts, was avoided if they resembled Serbian tradition.

Rauh’s “Ustavnost” published an article on Serbian institutions in Croatia with the conclusion that all the aforementioned institutions should be removed, even though a third of the population at that time had Serbian national consciousness.

Denial of aid

The policy of providing state aid to villages affected by the 1909 storm was such that the Provincial Government approved 15,000 crowns for the purchase of seeds for the Croatian villages of Klis, Prekoprak and Španovići. The magazine Srbobran correspondent recalls that the Serbian villages of Dragović, Kusonje and Mala Dereza also suffered from the ice.

By order of Guverner Rauh, the district regions sent orders to the municipal authorities prohibiting the wearing of Serbian flags at weddings, because this custom could cause unrest among the population. It was ordered that if such a flag appeared, the police must take it away. The magazine Srbobran commented on this as an insult that should not be forgotten.

Serbs from the Bosnian village of Strigova came to the Kostajnica railway station to collect bells, ordered for their Orthodox church. They rode on oxen teams, wrapped in the Serbian tricolor. The lynching that followed by the mob and the police was personally witnessed by Tomislav Tomljenović, a lawyer and civil notary in Kostajnica, who sent a report about it to the Serbian magazine Sebobran.

High Treason Trial

On the day of the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1909, the High Treason Trial began in Zagreb against 53 members of the Serbian Independent Party, accused of collaborating with the Serbian authorities in a conspiracy to unite the South Slavs into a common state.

Although the evidence was weak (it was proven that the main witness for the prosecution was a police provocateur), the defendants were found guilty and sentenced to a total of 173 years in prison on October 6, 1909.

Josip Franko’s Pure Party of Rights (Frankovci), in agreement with the Viennese authorities, participated in the attacks on the accused Serbs.

The arrests began on August 18, the birthday of Emperor Franz Joseph. On the same day, the authorities in Vienna made a decision to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina. These two events are directly related:

Vienna knew that the declaration of annexation would cause a European crisis. It was necessary to show that there was an anti-state conspiracy with Serbia, which could justify annexation.

War was threatened; the defendants were in custody until March 1909 and it was expected that, if war broke out, they would all be hanged.

The Franks were active participants in this policy, and in 1908 they denounced to the authorities in Glina any Serb who would compete with them in business for high treason. Eight Serbs were therefore arrested from Glina, who were escorted from the station in Glina, on the way to Zagreb, by over five hundred people.

Pero Vujaklija, a merchant from Topusko, died in prison at the age of 36, after 3 months and 11 days in prison, without even being heard. The son of a teacher, he left behind three children, one stillborn, and a neglected family.

Sarajevo Assassination

After Gavrilo Princip’s assassination of the heir to the throne, Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo, the Serbs became a “high-treasonous people” in this monarchy, and even in the then Croatian territory.

Anti-Serb demonstrations, along with the destruction and desecration of cemeteries and churches, took place in Zagreb, Đakovo, Petrinja, Slavonski Brod, and to a lesser extent in the Dalmatian cities of Šibenik, Split, and Dubrovnik.

World War I

After the announced mobilization in August 1914, Serbs were forcibly taken hostage, imprisoned in camps, even shot, and many were expelled from their places of residence.

All of this was done with the consent of the Croatian Parliament, under accusations of “insulting the Emperor and Greater Serbian propaganda”.

There were even public trials in Zagreb, where Dr. Srđan Budisavljević, MP, and Dr. Laza Popović, Dr. Milan Teodorović, and Đorđe Gavrilović were put on the “black bench.” During 1916, there were also staged trials in Split, Zadar, and Dubrovnik.

By order of the Guverner , the Cyrillic alphabet was banned at the beginning of World War I, and then the famous Serbian newspapers: “Novi Srbobran”, “Srpski Glas,” and “Dubrovnik.”

In the end, only one question remains in the air, and it is addressed to the Serbian king and politicians from the early 20th century, who knew all this information very well. WHY were the Serbian people forced into a common state with them?

Prepared by: Dalibor Drekić

Source: Wikipedia 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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