Those who wished that Yugoslavia would be an idle dream have had their
hopes more centred in Croatia. They told the world that horrible affairs
took place, that there has been a revolution, several revolutions, that
castles have been sacked and that the statesman, Radi['c], was
imprisoned. If you met this little pear-shaped man, who is a
middle-aged, extremely short-sighted person, with a small, straggling
beard, an engaging smile and a large forehead, you would say that surely
he had spent a good many hours of his life in some university garden
where the birds, knowing that he could not easily see them, were in the
habit of alighting for their dinner on his outstretched hands. He is a
very learned little man, who started his career by obtaining the first
place at the famous Ecole des Sciences Politiques in Paris. But Stephen
Radi['c] happens also to be very much interested in politics and
extremely impulsive, so that his wife and daughter have often had to
look after the bookshop, since the Government--that of Austria-Hungary
and afterwards that of Yugoslavia--had consigned him to prison. He
probably expected nothing else, for his eloquence--and he is an orator
in several languages--has frequently carried him along and swept him
round and round, like a leaf, not only in a direction opposite to that
which he previously travelled but flying sometimes in the face of the
most puissant and august authorities. So, for example, he began to
agitate in 1904 against the vast territorial possessions of the Church
in Croatia. This resulted in the then Archbishop issuing an interdict
against him and his meetings--a measure which, I believe, is still in
force. He was described as Antichrist, with the consequence that his
audiences, out of curiosity to see what such a personage might look
like, became larger than ever. For many years he was the only Croat
politician who gave himself the trouble to go amongst the peasants. "In
politics," said Radi['c] to me--he said a great many other things in the
course of our first conversation, which lasted for four hours, though it
seemed a good deal shorter--"In politics," said he, "one should not, as
in art, try to be original. One should interpret not only the living
generation but the ancestors." The peasant, who feels what Radi['c]
expresses, has repaid him well, for there is now no party in Yugoslavia
which is more devoted to its leader. He has taken the place once
occupied by the clergy--he is by no means hostile to the Roman Catholic
Church, but he is the foe of clericalism. "Praised be Jesus Christ! Long
live the Republic!" is the usual beginning of one of his orations, so
that his enemies accuse him in the first place of being a hypocrite, and
in the second of holding views which cannot possibly amalgamate with
those of monarchical Serbia. But the reference to Christ appears
perfectly natural to the Croat peasant--at an open-air meeting of 10,000
of them I saw their heads uncovered, and all bowed in prayer for a few
minutes on the stroke of noon. As for the Republic, this first came into
the picture on July 25, 1918, when the cry was raised at a meeting of
the Peasants' party. A large number of peasants had imbibed this idea in
America--those who emigrated have been in the habit of returning, and
even if their home is in the desolate parts of Zagorija or among the
rocks of Primorija, the coastal region. And thousands of Croats had
spent part of the War as prisoners in Russia--having deserted from the
Austro-Hungarian army--so that they had seen how the Great White Tsar,
previously regarded as an almost divine being, could be dethroned. Four
months after this famous meeting a Convention was held, in the American
fashion, with 2874 delegates, who represented some 100,000 people. They
pronounced themselves to be Republicans and Yugoslavs. It is quite true
that many of the farmers in Croatia have a pretty vague idea of the
Republic. "Long live Mr. Republic!" has been heard before now at one of
their meetings, while a landowner of my acquaintance was asked by two of
his aged tenants whether in the event of this Republic being established
they should choose as President King Peter or the Prince-Regent or King
Charles. But we should remember that in 1907 a printing press was
founded by the Peasants' party at Zagreb, and those who gave their money
for this cause were, to a great extent, illiterate. The people are
groping towards the light, and they are willing to be told by those they
trust that they have much to learn as to the nature of the light.
Republicanism was fanned into flame by Radi['c]'s imprisonment and other
causes, so that he says he is uncertain whether he can now persuade them
to modify their demands. But if he tells them that in his opinion a
constitutional monarchy will meet the case, they will probably still
consent to accept his view--and this has of late come to be his own
opinion. It may very well be that he adopted the republican idea with no
other purpose than to obtain for the peasants the social and economic
legislation which they would otherwise not have secured. And, after all,
there was something of a republican nature in Croatia's autonomy under
the Magyars. As for his imprisonment, it was strange that the Belgrade
Cabinet, who should have known their man, treated him as if he were a De
Valera; and perhaps the conduct of a subsequent Cabinet, that of Mr.
Proti['c], who came out for Croatian Home Rule, was also strange in
appearance, for while Radi['c] was still in prison he was invited to
decide as to whether the Ban, Croatia's Governor, should or should not
remain in office. But Mr. Proti['c] understood that at this period
Radi['c]'s republicanism was somewhat academic.
His party had, in years gone by, been small enough in the Landtag; but
the fact that his followers then numbered only two is anyhow of no
importance, as his very real power was derived from the peasants, who
were largely voteless. How often in his prison he must have yearned for
those old Landtag days--apart from his advocacy of the peasants, he
loves to speak. In two hours he would traverse the whole gamut of human
thought, expressing opinions to which John Hampden and Jack Cade and
Montaigne and Machiavelli would in turn assent. The words used to rush
from his lips in a torrent, while to many of his faithful peasant
followers he seemed, throughout his discourse, to be in direct contact
with the Almighty. Next to the Almighty the Croatian peasant had been
taught to revere Francis Joseph, so that when the heir to the throne
was murdered in 1914 it was not very difficult to make the Croat
peasants rise against this sacrilege by plundering the Serbian shops at
Zagreb--Austrian officers coming with their children to look on--just as
in other parts of Croatia and Bosnia. There is as yet within the Croat
peasant a certain hostility against the Serb and for various reasons:
one of them is that he was always taught by Austria to detest the
adherents of the Orthodox religion, another reason is that for centuries
they have had a different culture; and so, since Austria's collapse,
when it has been explained to them what is a republic and what is a
monarchy, they have often demanded the former for no better reason than
that the Serbs prefer the latter. They were taught by Austria to look
forward to a Greater Croatia, which would eliminate the Slovenes by
delivering them to the Germans, for that celebrated corridor to the
Adriatic. And it is from the Slovene Socialists that the peasants of
Croatia might very profitably learn.... The Slovene influence, coming
from a more highly organized province, would be beneficial both for
Serbs and Croats, for the industrial workers and for the peasants. The
nature of the Southern Slavs, say these Socialists, is democratic, and
the State mechanism might be made more so. Now that the various parts of
Yugoslavia have liberated or are liberating themselves from various
yokes, they have approached one another with a different mentality; they
will become much better known to one another. And it was hoped that when
Mr. Radi['c] regained his freedom and his book-shop he would find that
his devotees preferred to hear him not as a Croat Jack Cade but as a
Yugoslav Hampden. In his absence the party was leaderless.
As for the other Croats, only Frank's Clerical party, which numbered
five or six deputies, and did not hide its persistent sympathies with
the House of Habsburg, kept up Separatist tendencies. All the Coalition
(now the Democrat) party and two-thirds of the so-called Party of
Croatian Right were for a close union with Serbia and the regency of
Prince Alexander. That is not to say that there was perfect unanimity
with regard to the interior arrangements of this union; in fact Dr. Ante
Paveli['c], one of the Vice-Presidents of the Yugoslav National Council,
who was received in special audience by the Prince at Belgrade, is also
the leader of the old Star[vc]evi['c] party and as such an opponent of
complete centralization. The _Obzor_, Zagreb's oldest newspaper,
maintains this point of view, not paying much attention to the form of
the State, monarchic or republican, so long as it is organized in a
manner which would prevent the Croats being subordinated. Zagreb, it
thinks, is destined to play the New York to Belgrade's Washington--but
nowadays it looks very much as if Zagreb's role were to be that of
Yugoslavia's Boston.
Among the Slovenes this anxiety for decentralization--which is very
proper or exaggerated, according to the point of view--is less
accentuated. It appears as if the Christian-Socialist party of Monsignor
Koro[vs]ec[29] is rather centralist in its Belgrade words and
decentralist in its Ljubljana deeds. This party has shed some of its
extremist clerical members, who to the cry, "The Church is in danger!"
were very good servants of the Habsburgs. Such of them as were unable to
accept the new order of things--elderly priests, for the most
part--retired from the political stage.