By Jovan Dučić
First published in Amerikanski Srbobran, 1942
VI
The Croatian name was always foreign in Bosnia as much as the Portuguese or Finnish one. Bosnia was always called a Serbian land. Let us prove that to the ignoramuses that birthed the shameless Cvetković-Maček Agreement.
At the beginning of the historical life of Bosnia a Serbian dynasty under Vojislav, the Knez of Zeta took possession of Hum, Raška and Bosnia. There were never any battles over Bosnia between Serbs and Croats, but only between Serbs, Byzantines and Hungarians. Bosnia, which is for the first time mentioned after the death of Časlav in 960. in histories, stops being in the Serbian state only in 1101. after the death of Bodin, just like Raška (Stanojević, 1926, 31.). From that time it lived independently. But it never had anything in common with Croatia (which was smaller by 2/3)… There were always kin relations between Bosnia and Serbia, ever since Kulin’s sister was married to Nemanja’s brother, Miroslav the Knez of Hum, who left us the famous Orthodox Gospel. When Nemanja conquered Kotor from the Greeks, he also conquered Bosnia from the Hungarians who had taken it a bit earlier (1136), taking the title of the kings of Bosnia. Bosnia still acknowledged Nemanja’s rule. Dragutin received Bosnia in dowry from the Hungarians. Therefore Dušan also had Bosnia in his title.
After the brief rule of Kulin’s heir Stevan, Ban Ninoslav calls all of his subjects Serbs. A Pope, confirming some rights to the Church in Dubrovnik, calls Bosnia a Serbian land in his letter: “Serbian state, that is Bosnia”. Regnum Servillae quod Bosna (Farlati-Colleti: Ecl. Rag. Historia; Smičiklas, Dipl. Zbornik, 195; Đerić, 37). And it is known that the kings of Bosnia signed their titles as first kings of Serbs, only then Bosnians. The great Tvrtko had the title: “Kralj Srbljem, Bosni i Primorju” [King of Serbians, of Bosnia and Primorje] (Mon. Serb. 187). The same for King Tomaš (ibid, 438). – What would Croats say in this case?
All this was well-known in Đakovo, when the plan to start the propaganda in Bosnia, where Rome and Vienna could have common interests to work jointly with Zagreb. In truth, Zagreb was in Strossmayer’s time only a single-story little town. One of our writers quotes these words of a Croatian writer: “When Croatia had its smallest reach, the number of chimneys was only around three thousand and before that the parish of Križevci itself had twelve thousand chimneys.” (Predavec, Selo i seljaci, Zagreb, 1934). This counting of chimneys came earlier though. But when towards the end of XVIII century the whole of Croatia together with Slavonia, as the historian Dr Rudolf Horvat wrote, had a budget of only 49 210 Rhein forints, then one century later in Strossmayer’s time the similarly fertile and sized Croatia truly could not have had a much greater wealth.
But when Rački was once in Belgrade, he came back enthralled and spoke how Belgrade had left them behind in every way; while Kukuljević bragged how he learned to be a patriot from Serbs. But that did not prevent Bosnia from becoming the main subject of the policies of the Bishop of Đakovo. That is when the writings about Bosnia began. From that circle emanated the famous “Povjest Bosne” [History of Bosnia] by Vjekoslav Klajić, all apocryphal, all tendentious. Klajić wrote about Bosnia that there live 95% Croats, all the rest are Gypsies and Albanians. Later the ideas of Starčević will come, the extreme left of Strossmayer’s party (like until today the ideas of Franko was the extreme left of Maček’s party), to under the influence of a German, Paul Ritter, Croatised to Pavle Vitezović, to negate that Serbs exist. Serbs who had the strongest empire in the East, when Croats had only an isolated Catholic parish; and Serbs who in XIX century again had a liberated kingdom, when Croats were still a Hungarian province, where its masters had imposed Hungarian as the school language already in 1835. and in 1849-1859 the Austrians imposed German as the school language…!
Vuk Karadžić used to say that Croats are lacking for nothing except people. Therefore in Đakovo they thought that this people truly needed to be created and that only Bosnia was left for this. But the first obstacle were Bosnian Franciscans, until that time independent and free-thinking. They did not know about Croats, nor had any ties to their clergy and were proud that their hierarchy reached across Slavonia, all the way up to Buda. After the occupation of Dalmatia by Austria, Vienna protected Catholicism there through its consuls and educated the local catholic priests. But suddenly in 1841, Austria ceased the educating. These new circumstances of the Bosnian Franciscans came in useful for Croats, that is for Strossmayer.
Bosnian Franciscans had their own head of hierarchy, which they chose themselves and who lived in one of the Bosnian monasteries. They all wrote in Cyrillic. They called themselves “Christians”unlike the Orthodox, who they called “Ristians”. Maybe it was of these people that Angelo Rocca thought of when he wrote: “And Bosnians, among other tribes which speak the SERBIAN language, usually use a more select way of speaking as well” (Bibl. Vaticana, 171, Đerić).
Thus in Dalmatia and Lika and Slavonia the Catholic priests generally and very often acted as Serbs, wrote Serbian patriotic poems and used only Cyrillic. It is well-known how Matija Reljković in his “Satir” wrote to his Slavonians that their ancestors “spoke SERBIAN and wrote SERBIAN”. And one of the Catholic historians of today, Dr Fra M. Gavranović, writes with regards to these verses by Reljković: “This Serbian letter and book, which Reljković mentions here is without doubt the religious literature of Bosnian Franciscans, written in Cyrillic script, because the Bosnian Franciscan’s jurisdiction spread across Slavonia all the way to Buda until 1757.” (Dr Fra Gavranović: Uspostava red. kat. hijer.).
This is why Strossmayer did not shrink back from starting an open battle against the Bosnian Franciscans. It is said that this battle of his lasted a full forty years! As he was determined to give the Franciscans a different education under his own control and his manner, he made a special Sjemenište [tran. note: seminary, school for priests] in Đakovo, writes fra Gavranović. And in Rome he managed for the Holy See itself to assign the head of the Bosnian Franciscans instead of previously, when they did it themselves (as if the Catholic Church needs to be made national, like St Sava’s). Strossmayer’s influence on Bosnian Franciscans became truly felt over time. Everyone knows for the stance of the poet fra Grga Martić during the occupation of Bosnia.
During the Serbo-Turkish war, 1875-1878, all the circumstances pointed that the Serbian states, which went to war for Bosnia and Herzegovina will get those lands as the victors. However, both Vienna and the Vatican worked hard to the contrary, to have the people of those lands not accept that situation. Croats helped them a lot in that, demanding from the Franciscans to work jointly for Austria and the Catholic Church. Fra Gavranović in his work states that there are documents that after the Nevesinje Rifle [tran. note: Herzegovina Uprising 1875-1877] there were instructions sent from Vienna to their minister at the Vatican, graf Par, to act in that direction. One should not doubt that in such a situation Strossmayer did everything that the Pope and the Austrian Emperor wanted with regards to Bosnia. One should even be assured that Storssmayer, the creator of “Yugoslavism”, was a big factor in the diplomatic action in Berlin with regards to the Austrian occupation of those two Serbian lands.
It is known how already in the XVI century, a predecessor of Strossmayer’s, the learned Croatian monk Križanić went to Russia with the idea to turn the entire Slavic Russia unto the Catholic Church. He had the theory that, for the for success among the Russians, one should not attack Orthodoxy, as was done before, but instead preach how both of the Christian creeds are equal in the basics, but that the Greeks defrauded the Russians. Educated in the Jesuit monastery for Greeks in Rome, to specially prepare him on such an attack on the Greek church, he developed an until then unknown Catholic propaganda in the widest circles. He wrote to Rome that he will, if he manages to get the position of the librarian in the Imperial Court, convert to Catholicism the Emperor’s family and then the whole people of Russia! Križanić was exiled from Russia,
But one should believe that “Yugoslavism”from Đakovo. We will list later just one example how much in the time of the Bosnian occupation the Catholic clergy was worried about their Church and flock in Bosnia if the situation was to have changed there to the detriment of Austria. Križanić’s method in Russia is, in any case, tied to all the good servants of the Church, including Strossmayer, the caretaker of the Catholic clergy in Bosnia.
Translated by Books of Jeremiah
