We have alluded to the relations between Serbs and Croats. This is a
subject of such importance that it will be well to consider it more
fully. When Yugoslavia sprang into existence at the end of the War--70
per cent. of this State having previously been under the rule of the
House of Habsburg--it was met in various quarters with a grudging
welcome. Soon, we were told, it would dissolve again, and every symptom
of internal discontent was treated as a proof of this. On the other hand
there were those who told us that the Southern Slavs, having come
together after all these hundreds of years, were tightly clasped in each
others' arms and that all reports to the contrary came from very
interested parties.
Little was said of the Slovenes; their language, as we have mentioned,
is not the same as that spoken by Serbs and Croats, and--what is of
still greater importance--they have Slovenia to themselves. If Croatia
were equally immune from Serbs, then by this time the Southern Slavs
would be a more united nation. Those people were wrong who fancied that
the presence of the Serbs in Croatia--they form between one-fourth and
one-third of the population--would be of service in welding together the
new State. They forgot that for many years the Austro-Hungarian
Government had in Croatia played off the Roman Catholic Croats against
the Orthodox Serbs. The two Slav brothers were incited to mutual hatred,
and though such a propaganda would naturally have more effect among the
uneducated classes, yet all too often the _intelligentsia_ responded to
these machinations. More favour, of course, was shown to the Croats,
whose obedience could largely be secured by means of the Church, whereas
no similar pressure could be brought to bear upon the Orthodox Serbs.
Even if the Government approached the Orthodox clergy, these latter had
only a very moderate control over their flock. A Serb is always ready to
subscribe towards the erection of a new church, which he regards as most
other nations regard their flag; but when it is built he rarely enters
it. This being so, the Austro-Hungarian Government tyrannized over the
Serbs in Croatia by measures taken against their schools, the Cyrillic
alphabet and so forth. It was natural that the suffering Serbs were apt
to compare these restrictions with those that were imposed upon the
Croats. However, among the _intelligentsia_ an effort--a fairly
successful effort--was made to nullify this dividing policy; the
Serbo-Croat Coalition was formed, one of the protagonists being Svetozar
Pribi[vc]evi['c], that very energetic Serb of Croatia, and in 1906 this
party obtained no less than sixty-eight seats, while the power of the
older Croat parties was correspondingly diminished and Radi['c] had his
very small following in the Zagreb Lantag. [Those who represented
Croatia in the central Parliament at Buda-Pest were chosen by the Ban,
Khuen-Hedervary. Those forty members had practically no acquaintance
with the Magyar language, so that some of them drew their 8000 annual
crowns and only went to Pest if an important division was expected,
others who spent more time in the capital wasted their lives amid
surroundings just as riotous as and more expensive than the Parliament,
while only those did useful work who managed to confer, behind the
scenes, with the authorities. To some extent this was done by
Pribi[vc]evi['c] and to a greater extent by another Serb, Dr. Du[vs]an
Popovi['c], who surpassed him in capacity and geniality. It was he, by
the way, who demonstrated in the Buda-Pest Parliament that if the
average Croat deputy was ignorant of the Magyar language, there was a
greater ignorance of Serbo-Croatian on the part of the Magyars. One day
when he had started on a speech in his native tongue he was howled down
after he had explained that he was talking Serbian. He promised to
continue in Croatian, and did so without being interrupted.]
At Zagreb the fusion of the Croat and Serb _intelligentsia_ was still
very incomplete at the outbreak of the War--the Croat Star[vc]evist
party and others going their own way. During the War the
Austro-Hungarian Government ruled by means of the Coalition party; but
the latter had no choice, and throughout Croatia they were never charged
with infidelity to the Slav cause. They did whatever their delicate
situation permitted; and in October 1918, when the Slavs of Croatia and
Slovenia threw off the yoke of centuries and joined with the Serbs of
Serbia and Montenegro, one hoped that the simultaneous arrival in
Belgrade of the Coalition and the Star[vc]evist leaders heralded in
Croatia a cessation of the ancient hostility. Pribi[vc]evi['c] became
Minister of the Interior in the new State, and very soon it was obvious
that he meant to govern in a centralizing fashion, despite his earlier
assurance that no such steps would be taken without the sanction of the
Constituent Assembly. No doubt his motives were unimpeachable; he feared
lest the negative, anti-Serb mentality, which for so long had flourished
among the Croats, would not, except by drastic methods, be removed. He
was met with opposition. Now you see, he cried, there are still in
Croatia a number of disloyal Slavs, great landowners, Catholic clergy
and others whom the Habsburgs used to favour. And he continued, with
hundreds of edicts, to try to weld the State together. Consumed with
patriotism, his great black eyes on flame amid the pallor of his
face--his luminous and martyred face, to use the expression of his
friends--he never for a moment relaxed his efforts; if those who opposed
him were numerous it was all the more reason why he must be resolute.
The role fitted him very well, for he is the dourest politician in
Yugoslavia--a perfectly honest, upright, injudicious patriot. His
Democratic party had now taken the place of the Serbo-Croat Coalition
and it saw the other parties in Croatia gradually drifting back again
from it or rather from the dominating man; if his place had been
occupied by his afore-mentioned colleague, the burly and beloved
Du[vs]an Popovi['c], there would have been in Zagreb a very much suaver
atmosphere. But unfortunately Popovi['c] is a wealthy man, a highly
successful lawyer who cares little for the tumult of politics.... It was
a thorny problem, whether the State should be constituted on a federal
or a centralized basis.[63] The federation of the United States depends
on the centralization of political parties, whereas in Yugoslavia the
parties have only just begun to combine. Feudalism in the German Empire
rested on the predominance of Prussia, a position which the Serbs are,
under present conditions, loth to occupy in Yugoslavia. In Germany,
moreover, many of the States used to be independent, while in Yugoslavia
this was only the case with Serbia and Montenegro. Centralism would tend
to obliterate the tribal divisions, but on the other hand it brings in
its train bureaucracy, which is slow, cumbrous and often corrupt; it
demands unusually good central institutions and first-rate
communications, neither of which are as yet in a satisfactory state. The
constitution has arrived at a compromise between the federal and the
centralized systems. A writer in the _Contemporary Review_ (November
1921) said that the division of the whole of Yugoslavia into some
twenty administrative areas [he should have said thirty-three] to
replace the racial areas, was a very drastic proposal to put forward;
and he added that when the historic provincial divisions of France were
broken up into departments, the nation had been prepared by nearly 200
years of centralization under the monarchy. It is a flaw in his argument
to say that the previously existing areas were racial, whereas
populations of identical race were divided from one another by the
course of events. And in the proposed obliteration of these
divisions--to be effected in a less arbitrary fashion than in France,
where no account was taken of the former provinces--it can scarcely be
maintained that, of itself, this part of the centralizing programme in
Yugoslavia is so very drastic.
Whatever one may think about the Balkan peoples it is a fact that the
essential Serb, the Serb from [vS]umadia, is a pacific person, rather
lazy perhaps, but certainly more devoted to dancing than to battle. And
some of the wiser Serbs were dubious in 1919 and 1920 as to whether the
most sagacious methods were being employed in Croatia. Radi['c] was in
prison, but they were told that this impetuous demagogue was insisting
on a republic, and the Croat _intelligentsia_ were far from happy. It is
true that in the elections of November 1920 the National party, as the
Star[vc]evists now called themselves, had no great success; but the
Radi['c] party had more than half the seats. Surely this had not been
brought about merely by the chief's imprisonment? There seemed to be in
that province some wider, some growing dissatisfaction. And in the
spring of 1921 most of the Catholic Croats, those within and those
without the Radi['c] party, were nourishing a score of grievances. No
doubt a large proportion of these were unavoidable (in view of the state
of Central Europe) or were rather trivial (the mayor of an important
town told me that he, who was under the Minister of the Interior, had
received an order from the Belgrade Minister of War, with respect to the
detention of deserters--conditions, said he, were not so primitive in
the Austro-Hungarian monarchy) and sometimes the grievances were against
the Habsburgs (for not having made them more fit to assume these new
responsibilities), and sometimes they were against the Serbs for being
less civilized--though they might be more moral--than themselves, and
sometimes the grievances were personal: now and then after the Austrian
collapse a Serbian officer or his men, uncertain of the feelings of the
population, had acted with unwise, or rather with inexpedient,
vigour--instead of shooting those who in the general anarchy were laying
waste and plundering, they merely flogged them, and this was for a long
time remembered against them, although the Croat _intelligentsia_ who
had taken service in the police flogged in a far more wholesale fashion.
But down at the bottom of all the grievances there is the fundamental
fact that the Southern Slavs yearn to be comrades, to shake off the
differences which in the course of ages have grown up between them.
These fraternal sentiments may be crudely expressed--it has happened
that a Slav from Bosnia (whose ancestors adopted Islam some centuries
ago) finds himself in a Serbian village. He strikes up acquaintance with
some native. "What is your name?" asks the latter. "Muhammed." The Serb
has never heard of such a name; he is puzzled. "Well, never mind," says
he, and takes his new friend back to dinner. They sit down to the
sucking pig. Muhammed refuses to partake of it, and informs the Serb
that Allah would be angry. "Don't be afraid," says the Serb; "I'll tell
him that it's my fault," and after a time he overcomes the Bosniak's
scruples.... In more cultured circles the wonderful union of the
Southern Slavs is manifested after a different fashion, and those
neighbours who imagine that the afore-mentioned grievances are going to
dissolve the new State will one day see how much they are mistaken. The
Southern Slavs intend to quarrel with each other, to quarrel like
brothers.