Yugoslavs

“ But the Yugoslavs, in the course of the late War, lost in the unredeemed provinces so many hundreds of thousands who were hanged in Bosnia, who were dragged away—centenarians and infants—to the prison camps, were spat upon and stoned and treated in the most barbaric fashion, that they look upon those Yugoslavs who, like Battisti, fled from Austria and afterwards were slain by Austrians, as rather to be envied, since at any rate they struck a blow. ”

“ But the Yugoslavs, both on the mainland and on the islands, were anxious that we should go; they doubted whether Western Europe had any knowledge of the Italian methods of administration. [166] And if the immediate result of our journey would be to call down upon themselves—as indeed it did—a savage wind, they were optimistic enough to feel that it would eventually produce a whirlwind for their oppressors.] ... ”

“ Careless of the applause and the antagonism which he excited, the serene orator pointed out that the conflict between Serbs and Croats was based on their different psychology. Croatia had had her independent life and must be considered as a factor in Yugoslavia; but having come in, like Montenegro, of her own accord, she had not wished to be a separate factor. Traditions should not be so lightly set aside; and while there was perhaps no people more homogeneous than the Yugoslavs it should be remembered that none was more ready to resist the application of force. ”

“ We Yugoslavs have nothing to hope for, said the Serbs, except from ourselves, and, being divided, we are ruining our common interests.... From yet another quarter was a storm-wind blowing on the Serbs. ”

“ The reading public and some of the statesmen of the world begin to recognize that, whatever may be the case on other portions of the new map, there is nothing unreal or impossible or artificial about Yugoslavia. This State is the result of a national movement, having its origins within and not without the peoples whose destiny it affects. The various Yugoslavs, after being kept apart for all these centuries, have now—roughly speaking—come to that stage which the Germans reached in 1866. They cannot rest until they [230] reach the unity which came to the Germans after 1870. ”

“ If there should come about a war between Italy and Yugoslavia, then it is to be supposed that the Yugoslavs will afterwards take as their western frontier the old frontier of Austria (except for the Friuli district, south of Cormons, which they do not covet, since they look upon this ancient race as Italian.) ”

“ We may look forward to seeing the majority of this frontier population resolved that the links between themselves and the Yugoslavs shall not be broken. Very little will they care for the edicts of European Ambassadors. It would not have been surprising to hear that on the withdrawal of the Yugoslavs to the prescribed frontier their resourceful friends beyond it had procured from Serbia a few volunteers to take the place of the official Serbs. And failing this, that rough-and-ready people might simply declare themselves to be in Yugoslavia. ”

“ They shine as workers in the field and mine and forest much more than as military men. They have never been hereditary soldiers, like so many of the Croats, and it is perhaps this want of confidence in their own military [393] prowess which has caused them to take measures that are sometimes too severe against the Austrians who are under them. The Bosnian Moslems assert that, as all their links with Turkey are now broken, they are the best Yugoslavs. But the Slovenes are also the best Yugoslavs, because they recognize that in Yugoslavia is their sole salvation. ”

“ The unregenerate part of the people will not be able to resist an occasional foray into Yugoslavia. And although the reputation which the Serbs have left behind them may induce the tribes to be, for the most part, good neighbours, yet they have not been long enough under the civilizing process, and the more advanced among them would agree with the Yugoslavs that it would have been better for that régime to have continued over them. You may object that the finest patriots of the Albanians would have preferred to remain outside Yugoslavia. ”

“ I went to see some of the Yugoslav detachments which had arrived from Russia at their camp, and I learned that the great majority of them were Orthodox Bosnians and Herzegovinians. The Catholic Croatians, Dalmatians and Slovenes were but a trifling minority. In fact, most of the Yugoslavs of Croatia, Dalmatia and the Slovene lands, who had been captured in Russia refused to enrol themselves to fight against Austria, with very few exceptions, for the inhabitants of those territories remained faithful henchmen of the Dual Monarchy until the Armistice. ”

“ Fodor, has the bright idea that "the race is the multitude of individuals who inhabit one uniform region." ... Passing to Yugoslavia's [9] domestic obstacles, it was impossible to think that all the Serbs and Croats and Slovenes would forthwith subscribe to the Declaration of Corfu and become excellent Yugoslavs. Some would be honestly unable to throw off what centuries had done to them, and realize that if they had been made so different from their brothers, they were brothers still. ”

“ Perhaps, owing to the number of not over-friendly States with which they are encompassed, the Yugoslavs will manage to waive some of their internal differences, and to show that they are capable, despite the confident assertions of some of their neighbours and the croakings of some of themselves, of establishing a State that will weather for many a year the storms which even the League of Nations may not be competent to banish from South-Eastern Europe. ”

“ He said, "The Yugoslavs are comparatively open and smuggling across the Adriatic from Italy, commonplace. We'd bring the things you want in that way. Yugoslavia and Poland are on good terms, currently, with lots of trade. ”

“ Gradually they have come to reckon themselves as Croats, owing to their priests who come from Croatia. They are all big men with luxuriant moustaches.
There is a district in southern Russia, near the Black Sea, which is called New Serbia. It is the fertile country that was chosen by 150,000 Southern Slavs when they preferred, in 1768, to go into exile rather than change their religion, like the Bunjevci, the Šokci and the Krašovani. They preserve some traces of their origin, but can no longer be considered Yugoslavs. ”

“ Italy has been given against the Yugoslavs a purely strategic frontier, which places under her dominion over 500,000 unwilling Slovenes, whose culture is admittedly on a higher level than that of their Italian neighbours. ”

“ Mr. Aubrey Herbert, M.P., wrote [85] "that in the North the Yugoslavs had destroyed more than 120 Albanian villages." It would have been interesting if he had given us their names, because the Yugoslavs appear to have set about it so thoroughly that one cannot find anything like that number on the Austrian maps, which are the best pre-war maps for those regions. The Anglo-Albanian Society tells the British public, in November, 1920, of the 30,000 destitute refugees in Albania, and in such a way that the cause of their exodus is ascribed, without more ado, to the terrible Yugoslav. ”

“ We therefore in this book do not speak of Fiume but of Rieka, not of Cattaro but of Kotor, and so forth. In other parts a greater laxity is permissible, since no false impression is conveyed by using the non-Slav version. Thus we have preferred the more habitual Belgrade to the more correct Beograd, and the Italian Scutari to the Albanian Shqodra. The Yugoslavs themselves are too deferential towards the foreign nomenclature of their towns. ”

“ Many of these Yugoslavs (over half of them Dalmatians and Bosnians) were included, in the army which entered Montenegro. The whole force at the time of the National Skupština consisted of about 200 men, ten of whom were Serbs from [102] the old kingdom—and if anyone maintains that 200 men could impose their will upon a population of 350,000 which has arms enough and is skilful in the use of arms, he makes it clear that he knows little of the Montenegrins. ”

“ But when you have said that you have nearly summed up their military virtues, for discipline is not their strong suit, and they have little sense of responsibility. On the other hand, we must remember their admirable patience, but the great mass of the people have not attained the level of Christianity; they are savage both in heart and mind, with no outlook wider than that of the family. It is the Italian proletariat which is judged by the Yugoslavs, whose otherwise acute discernment has been warped by the unhappy circumstances of the time. ”

“ 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!" ”

“ When the Slovenes of Istria, Carniola, Styria, and Carinthia, together with the Serbo-Croats, form a strong, prosperous and free, though small State, their culture will be developed to the full, crowning and unifying Southern Slav life.
This growing civilization of Greater Serbia, which may be called Yougoslavia, will gather up the scattered threads of the history of Serbian art in the past. ”

“ The Jugo-Slavs, like the Czecho-Slovaks, appeared in modern times as a nation which had lost its native nobility and had been reduced to a disarmed, untutored, and enserfed peasantry. In the absence of these leaders, the nation turned to its clergy who in order to retain their hold on the peasantry must needs ever remain national. But here again the misfortune which awaited the Jugo-Slavs was that historically three religions had taken deep root, the Catholic among the Slovenes and Croats, and the Mohammedan and Orthodox among the Serbs. ”

“ The undersigned deputies, assembled as the 'Jugo-slav Club,' taking their stand on the principle of nationalities and on the rights of the Croatian state, declare that they demand that all the countries in which Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs live shall be united in an independent and democratic state organism, free from the domination of any foreign nation and placed under the sceptre of the dynasty Habsburg-Lorraine. They declare that they will employ all their forces to realize this demand of their single nation. ”

“ The position of officers is extremely delicate, more particularly in the small centres. It is known that outside the towns the population in its great majority and often its totality consists of Yugo-Slavs or Slavs of the South, that is to say, Croats or Serbo-Croats. It is a people of another race, of that formidable Slav race which for centuries has been pressing against the West, athirst for liberty and eager for the sea; a people with a psychology, a mentality, a civilization, habits, traditions, a national consciousness and a quite special individuality. ”

“ When the Balkans are freed from Ottoman Islam and the Turks, when a strong and progressive Federation of Southern Slavs, including Bulgaria, Roumania, Greece and even Albania, is established, then we may see the triumphant rise of a mature and typically Southern Slav culture. When all nations shall receive their due, when they are allowed to develop freely, then and only then, the blood-drenched Peninsula will be at peace. A strong and prosperous Yougoslavia will interest the world both politically and economically ”

“ Neither Greater Croatia nor Greater Serbia were any longer truly possible as a final solution, only a Jugo-Slavia. The Greater Croatia received a mortal blow by the addition of Serbs up to more than one third of the number of Croats in Austria-Hungary, and Serbia faced the future either as a vassal or as a territory which must be annexed. From that time until the present the Habsburg monarchy, largely owing to the predominance of the Magyars in Croatia, adopted a policy of prevention—Jugo-Slav nationality was to be prevented. ”

“ Of the many internal troubles tending toward the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire the one that has grown most rapidly in the last year is the Jugoslav movement—the movement for an independent State to be known as Jugoslavia, and to include all the Southern Slavic provinces of Austria-Hungary, as well as Serbia and Montenegro in the Balkans. ”

“ The gorgeousness of the imagery in the stories, their rollicking humor, the adventures, were entirely new to child and adult readers. The stories in this third volume reflect the folk lore of many races, for the country now known as Jugoslavia has been one of the great highways and battlefields of the world where Orient and Occident, Greek and Roman, Turk and Slav have fought out their national aspirations. Basically, it has the Slavic exuberance of imagination and humor, but it has also absorbed much of the spirit and tales of the Near and Far East. ”

“ That Yugoslavia gives ground for criticism no one, least of all her well-wishers, deny. And those who pray that she will prosper do so for the reason that the scattered Southern Slavs have for the first time now been able—most of them at any rate—to link their arms together ”

“ 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. ”