dr. sc. DRAGUTIN PAVLICEVIC
research advisor at the
Institute for Croatian History
at the Faculty of Arts in Zagreb
and lecturer-Croatian studies in Zagreb
Mareticeva 4/10
10 000 Zagreb CROATIA

1.TWO CENTURIES OF GREATER SERBIAN EXPANSION TOWARDS THE WEST.
The first Serbian state originated in the Turkish whirlpool in 1459. The new second Serbia began to take shape from the First and Second Rebellions against Turkey in 1804 and 1815. However, the Serbian Orthodox Church preserved the idea of the revival of the Serbian State (a re-establishment of a Greater Serbia from the 14th century during Emperor Dusan’s era with its expansion towards the West as far as the Serbian Orthodox Patriarchal jurisdiction stretched with its centre in Pec in Kosovo). Hence, it is not surprising that the thesis stating, that all nations who speak similar languages as the Serbian language are Serbian, was proposed primarily by leaders of the Serbian church. For example, The Monk writer Dositej Obradovic in 1783 and Monah and historian Jovan Rajic in 1794, counted Bosnia, Dalmatia, Slavonia, thus parts of Croatia, as Serbian land.¹

In 1806, the first map, published by Sava Tekelija (Popovic), of expanded Serbia consisted of Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Croatian lands of Dalmatia and Dubrovnik. In 1806, Montenegrins with the aid of the Russians, who sailed into the Adriatic Sea in a battle against France, violently attacked and looted Konavle, a part of the Croatian-Dubrovnik Republic. This was repeated in 1991 by their great grandchildren from Montenegro with the help of the Serbian Army which at the time was called the Yugoslavian Army. Along with the looting and the tyranny, they violently bombed the museum city of Dubrovnik which they have long wanted to Serbianize or destroy for well over a century and a half.²

One of the characteristics of the Eastern or Orthodox Church is religious exclusivism. These distinctions relate to the Serbian Orthodox Church. From the 12th century, since the founder St. Sava, its first and last ideologist, persecutes and endeavors to destroy other faiths, principally the Catholic faith and Islam from the 19th century. The fundamental characteristics of the teachings of St. Sava, include: equalization and a narrow tie between the Serbian State and Church, national and religious exclusivism, destruction of all members of other nations and faiths, the stealing of pocessions and conquering of territories all resulting in religious, national, and political exclusivism and intolerance. The Serbian Orthodox Church utilized such politics by transferring Catholic Montenegro into Orthodoxism and by settling Bosnia, Herzegovina and part of Croatia with Orthodox Vlachs (cattle-ranchers with non Slavic roots or Roman or Illyrian origin and later transforming them into Serbians as a nation in the 19th and 20th centuries).

The Vlachs, as servants to the Turkish Ottomans, aided in conquering Bosnia, Herzegovina, parts of Croatia, and southern Hungary. When the Turks grew weaker at the end of the 15th century, they crossed over to serve Austria demanding special rights, religious freedom, land, and the right to loot and persecute surrounding nations. Thus, it is mentioned already in 1630 that the Orthodox Vlachs took advantage of the privileges of the Austrian authority in Croatia and began to banish native Catholics, claiming that the King gave land only to the Vlachs.³ This was the first example of what today we call ethnic cleansing. The second, even a more vivid example, is the first Serbian rebellion in 1807, when Serbians took-over and "cleansed Belgrade". According to their own admission, in this opportunity, they "slaughtered the Turks" one after the other, sparing "neither wounded, nor women, nor children." Then they banished the Jews, Tzintzars and others. Younger girls were taken "for bed, "raped. The Serbian victors announced it as an act of revenge and as an explanation as safety because the Turks wanted to destroy them."⁴ of Zagreb were They began immediately with the destruction of Turkish Mosques and all other Islamic monuments throughout the entire 19th century. With this ethnicide and culturacide, they entirely erased every Turkish and Islamic trace in Serbia. In this manner, Serbians ethnically and religiously cleansed territory which they captured in 1878, then in the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, and similarly again, somewhat calmer and calculating after 1918 and 1945. At the same time, they occupied territories in Kosovo, Macedonia, Sandzak, Bosnia and bordering territories in Croatia through the colonization of Serbians.

Quickly, Serbian politicians, journalists, and scholars joined the battle to Serbianize other neighboring Slavic nations. In respect to this, even in 1818, one hundred years before the foundation of the Kingdom of Serbians, Croats and Slovenes, Serbians announced in a Serbian newspaper from Vienna that even the people of Zagreb were Serbians.⁵ While Croatians during the Croatian national rennaissance, struggled to win over all Southern Slav people over a neutral Ilyrian name, Serbian scholar V.S. Karadzic, wrote how all Catholics (meaning Croatians) and Muslims were Serbians in spite of their faith.⁶ The Croatian Assembly in 1861, and throughout the 19th century, endeavored by the supernational Yugoslavian name to assemble all Southern Slavs, had a Serbian-Orthodox patriarch, Josif Rajacic, stress how Croatians and Serbians were two different nations with their own separate history, church, script and culture. Serbians, he says will not renounce their Serbian name "neither for love of Illyrianism, Yugoslavianism or Croatism".⁷

SYSTEMATIC GREATER-SERBIAN POLITICS TOWARDS THE END OF THE 19th CENTURY AND AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE 20TH CENTURY.
In the second half of the 19th century, there existed the calculated and organized politics of the Serbian government and Orthodox Church to transform the non-Slav, Orthodox Vlachs into aggressive, national, conscious Serbs. The Vlachs were peaceful peasant cattle-farmers who had considered Croatia their homeland and called themselves Orthodox Croatians. In Pakrac, in Slavonia, an area settled by a great number of Vlachs, called "Little Vlaska", in 1876 there existed a Serbian conspiracy to liquidate all Croatian Catholics.⁸

When Serbia and Montenegro gained independence at the Berlin Congress in 1878, they were forced to disclaim Bosnia and Herzegovina which was occupied by Austria-Hungary. The territory of the former Croatian Military Border, part of Croatia until Austria occupied it with Vlachs, was returned to Croatia in 1881. Given that quite a number of Vlachs resided in these lands and began to consider themselves Serbians, Serbia began a specific task of Serbianizing the surrounding non-Serbian lands and then by joining the lands with the expanded Serbian state. The orientation of Serbia towards the West and the South began in 1885 when Serbia was defeated in a provoked war against Bulgaria.⁹

Towards the end of the 19th century, the Greater Serbian political ideologies and cultural-educational preparations began in Serbia and in neighbouring lands. Books were written in which the Serbian past is mythologized, the cult of St. Sava is exaggerated, the Kosovo battle of 1389 is celebrated, the needs in creating a Great Dusan Empire is stresssed, and is requested access to the sea. It is systematically written about the expansion of Serbia and its transformation to a Greater Serbia which would be hegemonic on the Balkans and with the help of Slavic Russia, would liberate South or Old Serbia, Kosovo and Macedonia from the Turks and so prevent the Austro-Hungarian empire of taking Turkish positions in that terriitory.¹⁰

In Zagreb in 1884, with the help of Serbia, a newsletter called Srbobran, spread Greater Serbian propagand ¹¹ Zastava also did this in Novi Sad and other pro-Serbian newsletters in Sarajevo, Zadar, and elsewhere. The first anti-Croatian demonstration took place in Belgrade in 1892. The following year in Knin, once a city of Croatian kings, in which, at that time, the Serbians did not make up the majority, Croatian scholars who had opened a Croatian Archeological Museum, were beaten up.¹² Serbian state flags were systematically raised in Croatia even though they were distinctly forbidden in 1895 when the Habsburg Emperor Franjo Josip I, then the King of Croatia, visited Zagreb.¹³ Intentional provocation was achieved by the Greater Serbian newsletter in Zagreb, Srbobran, which conveyed Nikola Stojanovic’s article. It stated Croatians are directly informed of the battle of destruction in which the Croatian nation, language, history and culture are denied and proclaimed Serbian¹⁴. The response were massive anti-Serbian demonstrations in Zagreb in 1902.

When officers of the Serbian Army and members of secret conspiracy organizations liquidated the last Serbian King in the Obrenovic Dynasty and brought Peter from the Karadjordjevic Dynasty to the throne in 1903, propaganda was organized and paid by the government using all means to create a Greater Serbia. To prevent foreign countries from accusing the Kingdom of Serbia as being a subversive state, with war preparations and revolutions among Southern Slavs, King Peter and his government organized several groups, associations, and organizations to spread GreaterSerbian propaganda on Austro-Hungarian and Turkish territories, in particular the Southern Slav territories of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Vojvodina, but without renouncing Bulgaria nor Slovenia. A secret officers’ organization was founded called the "Black Hand" in May 1903 (causing unrest, rebellions, and assassinations and consisting of secret agents and propagandists).¹⁵ Because the organization acted illegally, its political and public work proceeded through the club "Slovenian South" which was led by people close to King Peter.¹⁶

In Kosovo and particularly in Macedonia, in the second half of the 19th century, a volunteer Serbian terrorist organization called Chetniks was in operation. They fought and rebelled against supporters of Bulgaria and those who supported Greece and a liberated Macedonia. Also in 1903, in Belgrade, a main council for the Chetnik actions were chosen and in 1905 an association Serbian Defense was founded with the goal to strengthen the battle "for Serbian interests"¹⁷ From 1908, the National Defense was working on the same task that directly prepared political and sabotage actions in Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Croatia. All these organizations and associations were supporters and trainers of the terrorists who assassinated the heir to the Habsburg throne, Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914, provoking the First World War.

They planned (with Peter Karadjordjevic’s knowledge) the liquidation of his grandfather, the Prince and King of Montenegro Nikola Petrovic (the bomb and the Kolasin affairs of 1907/8).¹⁸ Members of these terrorist organizations stood behind a number of actions and liquidations in Croatia. Some Serbians from Croatia were volunteers in Chetnik units in Macedonia and their leaders often travelled as informers in Croatia and Bosnia.¹⁹

At the same time, while these revolutionary-terrorist organizations in Belgrade were being formed, at the end of 1903, a weekly newspaper Slovenski Jug which had the task of "popularizing the idea of South Slavs" and work for "its establishment" was being circulated. Periodically, until 1912, the newsletter had as its contributors Bulgarians, Croatians, Slovenians, and naturally Serbians. The newsletter Pijemont which was named after the small Italian state that unified Italy, had a similar task. The message stated as the Piedmontese unified Italy, Serbia and Belgrade will unify Southern Slavs. However, the difference was that Pedmont unified Italy and embodied itself and "drowned" itself in it; but Serbia under Karadjordjevic wished to create a Greater or at least an expanded Serbia transforming all Southern Slavs into Serbians.²⁰ In this question lies the reason for the Serbian—Bulgarian animosity as well as the conflict between Serbia and Montenegro, Serbia and Croatia, Serbians and Macedonians, and Serbians and Albanians. The former Montenegrin Minister Sekula Drljevic wrote about this: "All conflicts we speak about, in which there are conflicts between the lands of Southern Slavs, are provoked by Serbia (...) It is necessary to look at the moral, ethnical and political shape of Belgrade in order to comprehend why Yugoslavia became what it became, lived as it did and disappeared as it did.^21"

At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuryes in Serbia and with the Serbians in Croatia, the idea began to spread about the so called Serbian lands. All three Croatian province-lands were included (Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia) and so were Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, parts of Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and in some political maps, Slovenia as well.²² At the same time school textbooks extol Serbian history, language, and culture while Croatian and Montenegrian literary works were being passed as Serbian²³. The Serbs particularly usure Dubrovnik, its culture and literature, and all the language excluzively Serbian. All Serbian schools and even the religious Orthodox schools in Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Vojvodina and elsewhere had distinct nationalistic programs in the style of Karadzic’s message-motto: Serbians all and everywhere!²⁴ Mythologisized Serbian histories were announced in which they were the greatest and most significant nation in the world with roots from Alexander of Macedonia. Thus, it was a general mythology of Serbians and their past.²⁵

All these became the ideal preparations for the wars which Serbia was intensely planning with the help of Russia that also had its interests in the Balkans. Serbia also had close relations with France that mainly educated Serbian officers since King Peter’s time. The first goal for Serbia, with the aid of the above-mentioned superrowers, was to destroy Turkey and Austro-Hungary and to drive them from this territory and to prevent German-Austrian Advance to the east. It was only with the signing and the breakdown of the Turkish and Austrian empires that the Serbs could realise their greater Serbian pland and occupation or as they called it "liberation" of Serbian lands. The first of the Serbian raids towards the west, east and south were directed toward the Bulgariansand the Croatians, was had their own integrational national program. For example, Croatians wanted to unify all Croatian lands: Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, Istria, Rijeka, Medjimurje, Boka Kotorska, and parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina where Croatians resided (Western Bosnia called Turkish Croatia at the time.

GREATER-SERBIAN ACTIONS ON THE TERRITORY OF CROATIA AND SLAVONIA (1903-1918)
In the framework of Austria-Hungary, Croatian lands were divided in two parts according to the Austrian-Hungarian agreements of 1867 and 1868. It said Croatia and Slavonia were an autonomous part of the Kingdom of Hungary and that Dalmatia, Istria, and Boka Kotorska were a part of the Austrian Empire. The greatest Croatian port Rijeka was directly in Hungary as was Croatian Medjimurje and Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1987 was shared between Austrian-Hungary. Serbians as minorities lived in Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia. Most of them resided in the former Croatian Military Border and also in the hinterland of Dalmatia especially around Knin which was never a composing part of Croatian Military Border.²⁶

According to the population census of 1880, which was completed according to language and religious affiliation, and not according to nationality, one can nevertheless indirectly conclude that the civil or Ban’s Croatia had a population of 1,194,415 inhabitants and Croatian Military Border had 698,084. From this, 1,214,607 were Croatian, 497,764 Orthodox Serbians, 83,139 Germans, 41,417 Hungarians, and 13,488 Jews. In percentages, 71.11% Croatians and 26.30% Serbians.²⁷ Although Serbian politicians claimed that the territory of the former Croatian Military Border was "Serbian land", there was less than 47% Orthodox Serbians living there in 1881 during its unification with Croatia. That number was consistently falling in spite of the planned settlements of Serbians from Serbia and Bosnia after 1918. The number of Serbians in 1991 was only 12.2%.²⁸

At the Croatian Parliament in 1861, Serbians requested equality for their language, a separate script- Cyrillic, ²⁹ and separate religious schools through cultural autonomy. They were granted all of this 1887. However, at the end of the century, when the process of transforming the Orthodox Vlachs into nationally conscious Serbians, more and more demands for political autonomy and the separation of territory for the emigrated Serbians were emphasized. At the beginning of the 20th century, more work was done to destroy the existing states of Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Montenegro, and Croatia in order to create a Greater Serbia. The leader all these organized actions was the Kingdom of Serbia, particularly following 1903 when the Karadjordjevic dynasty came to the throne and intentionally provoked conflicts with neighboring states ³⁰.

The Serbian Independent Party, which received financial and other aid from the Serbian state and the Serbian Orthodox church, was working in Croatia. Serbians supported the pro-Hungarian regime of Ban Hedervary in Croatia. They opposed requests of greater autonomy for Croatia and Slavonia in Hungary, and similarily opposed the union of Dalmatia and Istria with Croatia. In civil Croatia, Serbians supported the pro-Hungarians and in Dalmatia or they collaborated with the Italians who were fighting for Dalmatia autonomy. Of twenty Serbian representatives in the Croatian Parliament, about 18 had support the government of Ban Hedervary which worked towards making any Croatian autonomy impossible. ³¹

In 1903, political circumstances were also changing in Croatia. Croatians led the second anti-Hungarian movement (the first was in 1883). They burned the Hungarian flag again and organized demonstrations and diversions in the manner that illustrated that the Croatian problem was not solved in Austria-Hungary ³². Ban Khuen Hedervary who protected and assisted the Serbians was forced to withdraw. In this movement, Croatians from civil Croatia was assisted by Croatians in Dalmatia and Istria. The leadership in national politics was taken over by Croats of Dalmatia, in particular Frano Supilo and Ante Trumbic. They turned the existing Croatian politics in a new direction, the so called "new course".³³ This meant co-operating with the Serbian and Hungarian oppositions. The result of the "new course" politics was the Croatian-Serbian coalition which won the elections of 1906 in Croatia and took over the leadership. The strongest person in the coalition was the Croatian Serbian Svetozar Pribicevic who was engaged in strengthening and organising the Serbs in Croatia and in persuading the Croats to consent to an alliance and union with Serbia.³⁴ Pribicevic and his three brothers were in a direct service to create a Greater Serbia as well as the mentioned Prefect Budisavljevic and a great majority of Serbian representatives in the Croatian Parliament. The Serbian Independent Party was working on this as well as the Serbian club in the Parliament, numerous Serbian clubs in Croatia, various societies, the separate Serbian Bank, etc.

The politics of the Croatian-Serbian Coalition especially in 1906 directly aided the spreading of the Greater-Serbian idea when it took over the leadership and Pribicevic increasingly pushed Supilo back. After the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria-Hungary in 1908, the Greater-Serbian politics was beginning to be led even more intensely. Serbians had expected to acquire Bosnia and Herzegovina and then eastern parts of Croatia, the territories of the former Croatian Military Border. The loss of Bosnia provoked the annexation crisis which threatened war. Russia was barely able to stop Serbia from beginning a war with Austria-Hungary.In Croatia and Dalmatia, the political heat was felt. A supreme-treason process in 1903 was led against 53 Serbians from Croatia due to direct Greater-Serbian politics. At the supreme court trial in Zagreb, statistics were gathered that proved the massive Greater-Serbian action.³⁵

These documents displayed that from 1906, when the Croatian-Serbian coalition came to power, Croatians were persecuted, mistreated, wounded and even killed in their own Croatian state by aggressive Serbians who were expelling them from their own homes similar to the attacks of 1991. Similarly, Croatian properties were destroyed along with their livestock. Catholic churches were desecrated and the Croatian flag was rejected. Serbians threatened Croatians in western Slavonia, in Banija, to Kordun and Lika, that they would be forced to cross the Kupa and Sava rivers to the West because the regions they were in now were part of Greater-Serbia.³⁶ This was happening in the same territory where Serbians perfomed genocide and culturocide upon Croatians and everything Croatian in 1991 and 1992. They always proclaimed that Bosnia, Herzegovina, and former Croatian Military Border would become Greater Serbia or it would all be transformed into a great grave³⁷ which in fact took place but not until 1991. The principle ideologist at the time was Svetozar Pribicevic who at his political gatherings, spoke to Serbian peasants in Croatia about the same topics that Slobodan Milosevic announced in Kosovo Polje - peacefully or forcefully, Greater Serbia would be formed.³⁸

From 1906 to 1909, Croatians were forced to endure fear in all villages which they resided together with Serbians. Their houses were burned and crops destroyed. There were numerous cases of beatings along with wounding both Croatians and Serbians who did not accept the aggressive Greater-Serbian politics. There were a number of Croatian political leaders who were murdered. The criminals were never found. According to a statement by a Serbian witness at the mentioned trial in Zagreb, several Croatian peasants were killed in Jasenovac.³⁹ Nearby the outlet of the river Una into Sava near Jasenovac, there was a concentration camp from 1941. Croatians were killed thirty years before then. For example, Croatian Stanko Dragic was killed only because he complained to Serbian Lazo Bacic about the hanging of a Serbian flag representing the Kingdom of Serbia which was officially forbidden in Croatia.⁴⁰

In Jasenovac and surrounding areas, five Croatian peasants were killed and their murderers were not found, although it was known that an organized Serbian gang who terrorized and killed Croatians were responsible. When any Serbian was accused of a crime, ten Serbians would be found to go to the District office and testify to the innocence of the accused. It is necessary to emphasize that usually the most influential agitators in the persecution of Croatians were Orthodox priests (Serbian). For example, Parish rector Joco Jovanovic publicly preached hatred towards Croatians even in Church. He claimed that all Croatians, Slavonians should be banished because the entire territory must be Serbian territory, that is, Greater Serbia.

There was no end to anti-Croatian slogans by those emigrated Serbians to Croatia. It was stated that Croatians, that is, Slavonians, must be driven away over the Kupa or Sutla, that Bartholomew’s night should be prepared for them, that is, they should be slaughtered. It was discovered that a Greater-Serbian agitators were arriving from Serbia. For example in Okucani, when one of them was departing he would be escorted to the station, and asked by a domestic Serbian: " Sir, when are we going to slaughter these Slavonians?"⁴¹

In 1907 at the time of the elections, Orthodox Serbians threatened that they would destroy the Croatian town Spanovica by Pakrac. They did not do so then. However, this was accomplished by their grandchildren -partisans- during World War II. The town was completely destroyed and was not renewed until after the war and all Croatians were chased away. In the town, until 1995, stood a Serbian name, Novo Selo, which after the operation "Bljesak" secured its old name, Spanovica. This was not the only such case. The same occurred in numerous Croatian towns surrounded by Serbians including Boricevac in Lika, Zrno in Banovina, and Donja Moticina by Nasice.

Many anti-Croatian announcements were being made in Pakrac and surrounding areas in 1908. One Serbian peasant announced in a bar: " Hello brother Serbian, drink wine, it is free, Serbia and our King Peter Karadjordjevic is paying for it (this was true!) This is Serbian land - not Croatian...Hit the Croatian wherever you can!" Similar statements could be heard from western Slavonia to southern Lika, all the same words, slogans and patterns.⁴²

It is not surprising that Serbian Chetniks destroyed almost all Catholic Churches they came across in 1991 through 1995. They desecrated sacral objects and graves because their ancestors had done the same in the beginning of the century. This is supported by a testimony from a witness I. Mrnjavcic at a trial in Korenica in Lika from 1909. " In Korenica, the life of a Catholic is so endangered, that they cannot even live there. Everything that is Catholic is detested. On Catholic holiday’s, Orthodox people always work. On greater Catholic celebrations, when there are great masses, rocks are thrown, only to disrupt the Catholics. The teacher, Uzic (Serbian) washes her clothes and puts it out to dry provokingly when there is any type of Catholic holiday (...) The Catholic cemeterery is desecrated and vandalized in a shameful manner. Wooden crosses are broken, stolen, burned and metal crosses are also broken. On my deceased wife’s marble grave, there is a statue of the Mother of God, which they broke into small pieces (...); barbarically destroying everything. The Orthodox people allow their cows to graze on the Catholic cemetery. I even saw the Orthodox priest’s cow graze on our grave. They put a pot on the big cross which is in the centre of the Catholic cemeterey and throw rocks into it. In November 1905, they dirtied and filled the cemetery with Cath. church human and animal excrements..."⁴³

From these statements, it can be seen that Serbians had beaten, mistreated, and killed Croatians in the Dominion of Croatia under Austria-Hungary when Croatia had its own government, parliament, and Ban. This was enacted without any punishment because of the support given by the Hungarian side, by the protection local Serbians received from Serbian politicians from the Croatian-Serbian Coalition, by encouragements from the Orthodox Church, and finally moral and material aid from the Kingdom

MASSIVE AND SYSTEMATICAL LIQUIDATION OF CROATIANS IN MONARCHIST YUGOSLAVIA (1918-1939)
Miroslav Krleza, a Croatian writer of European format, wrote about Croatian history and politics from 1914 in a book called Ten Bloody Years.⁴⁴ We will call the era of the State of Serbians, Croatians and Slovenes up to 1929 and the Monarchy in Yugoslavia. As it was renamed in 1929 until 1939 the period of twenty truly bloody years in which the lives of non-Serbian people had no value; the spilled blood of Croatians, Albanians, Macedonians, Muslims, and the opposition Montenegrins could not even receive employment promotions.

The establishment of a new state in 1918 was made possible by Croatian politician, Ante Pavelic with his speach in Belgrade in 1941. He was overthrown by another younger Ante Pavelic, the President of the Independent State of Croatia. The state was being created in 1918 and 1919 through blood and violence and in the same way disappeared in 1941. Everything began with the massacres on December 5, 1918, four days after the proclamation of the unified Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (1.12.1918) on Jelacic Square in Zagreb - the December victims. The Croatian soldiers from the former Austro-Hungarian army came here and cheered the Croatian Republic. They were awaited by the military and the police who opened fire with machine guns from the windows surrounding the houses, immediately, killing 13 people, nine were soldiers and 17 additional innocent citizens and soldiers were wounded.⁴⁵ This was the official report but many old citizens of Zagreb claimed that about a hundred people were wounded and killed. In this way the new government, illustrated the means it would use to maintain its power. It had remained faithful to this for almost twenty years of its existence.

The Serbian army that entered into Croatia acted as if it were on enemy territo With every protest, resistance, and demonstration, they reacted with force. In 1920, a rebellion broke out against the Serbian tradition of branding of livestock.⁴⁶ Around Cazma, Bjelovar, Kriz, Dugo Selo, Zelina, and Kutina, ten Croatian peasants were killed and more than ten beaten and arrested. In Kriz alone, beside Ivanic-Grad in the so called Krz Republic⁴⁷ ten peasants were killed or wounded. Similar events occurred in Petrijevci (Slavonia) and elsewhere. Banishment and murders of Croatian communists and members of Radic’s Croatian Peasant Party were a usual occurrence. The imprisonment of highly respected politicians (Radic, Macek, Suflay, Predavec and others) were common. Persecution of Croatians was organized by ORJUNA (Organization of Yugoslavian nationalists) which was aided and protected by the Ministry of Internal Affairs led by Svetozar Pribicevic.⁴⁸ In the entire Yugoslavia, especially in Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia, Chetnik organizations were at work . Without any sanctions, the Chetniks killed people, beat them, threatened them, and burned their houses.⁴⁹

Terror, threats, and pressure in Lika were usual actions during the elections. In Stajnica in 1925, five Croatian peasants were killed; many murderers were never uncovered. Nevertheless, the greatest murder of a well-respected Croatian occurred at the Parliament of the Kingdom of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs in Belgrade in June, 1928. These were the so called June victims which illustrated that the Greater-Serbian regime flinched at nothing. Punisa Racic, a Serbian representative and Chetnik leader who practiced shooting at live targets in Southern Serbia, killed Stjepan’s nephew Pavao Radic and Djuro Basaracek and wounded Stjepan Radic, Ivan Pernar and Ivan Grandja, all representatives of the Croatian Peasant Party.⁵⁰ Shortly afterwards, the wounded Stjepan Radic died in Zagreb and his burial was transformed into a nation-wide demonstration against Greater Serbian politics in Croatia and Yugoslavia. This action, which was condemned by the entire democratic world, was a turning-point in the history of the first Yugoslavia. From that day, Croatians wished to exit the state and grew increasingly to organize themselves and to establish an opposition to the crude forces of Belgrade.⁵¹

The consequences of these crimes was the announcement of the King’s dictatorship in 1929, the prohibition of all political parties, especially non-Serbian, and the renaming of the state to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. More frequent persecutions of Croatians began especially among Croatian nationalists and communists. The secretary of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia Djuro Djakovic was killed, as well as the well-respected communist Nikola Hecimovic, and the so-called seven secretaries of SKOJ (Union of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia) which comprised a majority of Croatians. There were more murders in Croatia and Bosnia and among them were several Muslims. In 1931, a great trial was led against Croatian nationalists (Stipe Javor, Matija Soldin, Marko Hranilovic and others). The same year, a notable Croatian historian and trial an authoryty on Albania, Dr. Milan Sufflay was killed and numerous other Croatian youths were liquidated or succumbed to tortures in jails.⁵²

During 1932, Serbian Chetniks, gendarmes, and police killed forty people in Croatia from Zagorje to Dalmatia. For example, in Benkovac, Nin, Polaca, Lisani, and in Brusani in Lika, a so called Licki Rebellion broke out and was not successful. The punishment against the Croatians was drastic fifty Croatian houses on Velebit were burned). In 1933, Ivo Pilar, pseudonym Sudland, who wrote a book in German about the southslav question and revealed all Greater Serbian intentions until 1917, was killed under strange circumstances.⁵³ That same year, scores of Croatian peasants from Srijem to Lika were killed. Those individuals who liquidated them received no punishment or investigation. For example Milivoj Cumic killed two Croatians near Nin and in return received Eminence in the Order of St. Sava. A Serbian gendarme killed a postman in the centre of Zagreb simply because he was apparently singing Croatian songs.⁵⁴ Hundreds of Croatians were imprisoned, tortured, and beaten, using the excuse that they were Ustashas. For Greater-Serbians, every Croatian is an Ustasa, and every song which talks about Croatia including the Croatian National Anthem is an Ustasha song.

In 1934, more Croatians are killed, several legal proceedings are led against Croatians, and hundreds of people are imprisoned. There was an increasing number of protests, explosions, displays of the Croatian flag, and attacks on gendarmes. In October 1934, as an act of revenge, the creator of dictatorship, Serbian King Alexandar, Karadjordjevic, was killed in Marseilles. The people considered this justice because Stjepan Radic and his notable party associates were killed with the King’s knowledge. Considering that Croatians were under brigandage in many places and in February of 1925, the so called Sibinja victims "fell" besides Slavonski Brod and immediately afterwards, the Ruscic victims at the same place, 13 peasant Croatians were killed.⁵⁵ Murders were occurring like an assembly line in all areas of Croatia. Peasants decided to extend opposition by gathering people in a so-called national defence.⁵⁶ Relative to this, after the murder of the well-known Croatian, Karlo Brkljacic in Lika (April 1936), exasperation became predominant. When one Chetnik gang left Zagreb for a mission in Kerestinec (April 16), they were awaited by peasants who killed six chetniks in a battle around the castle. And then three more in a house which had the inscription "Chetnik association Samobor".⁵⁷ This was one of the few responses to numerous violent acts and massive killings of Croatians. That same year in 1936, the Croatian martyr Stipe Javor died in prison in Mitrovica because of a hunger strike in protest of the Serbian torture’s in prison.⁵⁸ Death found Svetozar Pribicevc in Prag, one of the greatest criminals to the Croatian nation, who until he was rejected by the King in 1927, systematically destroyed everything that was Croatian for almost thirty years. Only in the past ten years changed his position and wrote a book "The Dictatorship of King Aleksandar", and a letter to the Serbs in which he condemns the monarchy, the King, and Serbians for violence against Croatians.⁵⁹

Finally, among the great crimes against the Croatians were the so-called Senj victims of May 9,1937. Singers from the Croatian singing society of "Trebevic" from Sarajevo and Croatian citizens from Gospic were guests in Senj. They were awaited by 25 gendarmes, who as if crazy, began to shoot at the Gospic truck only because a Croatian flag was waving from it. They were shooting with illegal bullets (dumdum) and killed six men and one girl (no one was older than 24). The funeral in Gospic became a Croatian-wide mourning but there was no investigation nor punishment.⁶⁰ The majority of Croatian Serbians approved these crimes. At the same time of the June Victims, numerous new-born children were named Punisa in Belgrade, Serbia, after Punisa Racic who was liquidated by Partisans.

The proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia, after the overthrow of the Greater Serbian, Yugoslavian army in April 1941, was awaited by the Serbians in Croatia and Bosnia literally "with knives." In Herzegovina, Dalmatian Zagora, Lika, and elsewhere real revolts and the Chetniks executed liquidations a great number of Croatians before the new Croatian state gained control. Greater Serbians with Chetniks as their leaders displayed that they were against any kind of Croatia no matter what internal order it had. After all, it was similar to 1990 and 1991 when they began to rebel and become very aggressive, well before the consolidation of the Croatian state.⁶²

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We have written this work with the intention of illustrating how persecution, terror and liquidation did not begin in 1941 and was not first started by the Croatians in the Second World War. Rather, it was the Serbians and forty years earlier. Croatians acted, in all of this, a defensive role which is shown by the fact that the Chetniks began an organized extermination of Croatians and other non-Serbian nations in 1903. They founded the Black Hand and Chetnikism while the Ustasha Organization did not begin until 1929 after the murder of Stjepan Radic and other Croatians at the Belgrade National Assembly.

Croatians were victims on their own land from 1903 to 1941. They were victims of grandomania and mythologized Serbian consciousness of creating a Greater-Serbia on Croatian, Bosnian-Herzegovian, Montenegrin, and Hungarian territory. Serbians were in fact the "Trojan horse" in these lands through the conquering politics that manipulated them. Because of this, as in the war from 1941 to 1945, in the homeland war of 1991 to 1995, they had to pay a high price.

Dr. sc. Ante Sekulic: SERBIANISM IN PODUNAVLJE (THE DANUBE REGION) 1918-1995