0
I, Heba Al-Adawy, give permission for public access to my thesis and for any
copying to be done at the discretion of the archives librarian and/or the College
librarian.
1
“Religious” and “Secular” in Socialist
Bosnia-Herzegovina
1945-1980s
By Heba Al-Adawy
An Undergraduate Thesis Submitted In Partial Fulfillment
For the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with High Honors
Department of History
Mount Holyoke College‟ 2010
2
To Prof. Jeremy King for being the most wonderful professor and advisor;
and for being like family to me during my time at Mount Holyoke College
3
Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to study this region in some
depth, and with some understanding. While all mistakes in this work are
mine, I am deeply grateful to everyone who has helped make this project
possible. I thank the women of Bosfam in Tuzla (Bosnia-Herzegovina), for
giving me the inspiration to start this project, and Iain Guest for his work
with the survivors of Srebrenica. It was through his campaigns that I became
interested in the history of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Alison Sluiter for handing
me some of my first books on Bosnia. Elmina Kulasic and Amila Merdzanovic
for all the inspiring conversations.
I am also grateful to Audrey Helfant Budding for pointing me to relevant
secondary sources.
I am indebted to my friends, for supporting me through thick and thin. I am
immensely grateful to Mehwash for her support till the very last minute, and
for the long hours of conversation. To Kruts, Arts, Jiggie, May, Iryna and Nina
for being simply wonderful.
I would like to thank my readers, Professor McGinness, Professor Weber and
Professor Harold Goodyear. I am much obliged to them for their time and
dedication. A special thank you to Professor Goodyear for his support over
junior year and the summer of 2009.
For Professor Jeremy King, words cannot do enough justice. I am honored
and privileged to have known such a wonderful person. Working with him
has made my senior year truly memorable. I thank him for his unwavering
faith and investment. He has been a major source of motivation over the
years, and it is to him that I dedicate my work.
Finally, I owe everything to my parents, my sister Nadia, and my
grandmother, Nanima. Their prayers and unquestioning faith have kept me
afloat through all the ups and downs.
4
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction………………………………………6
SECTION I
A Prelude: Community and its Limits in Ordinary Bosnian
Life
……………………………………………22
Chapter 1: The Creation of a ―Secular‖ State Narrative…35
Conclusion: Narrowing of Parameters….57
SECTION II
A Prelude: The New Socialist Community……………63
Chapter 2: ―The voice of thy brother‘s blood crieth unto me‖……70
Conclusion: Turning the Tables…………………95
SECTION III
A Prelude: The ―Bascarsija:‖ An Ottoman City in the Socialist Era…106
Chapter 3: Who were the Bosnian Muslims….112
Conclusion: The aftermath……………………………………149
EPILOGUE….162
WORKS CITED. ……………………………………………………165
5
Map taken from Jozo Tomasevich, ―War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941 –
1945,‖ (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 480
6
Introduction
The Families of the victims ask the hardest… of questions:
How is it possible that the person I loved so much lit no spark of humanity in
you?1
―This is the only life that there is,‖ concluded an anguished survivor of political
conflict in J.M Coetzee‘s Disgrace.2 At the heart of her statement was a rejection
of particularistic morality, whether ―secular‖ or ―religious,‖ and an acceptance of
a single life shared by all humanity. And yet the problem of defining the
peripheries of co-existence and tolerance in heterogeneous societies retracts deep
into the annals of time. It questions how the ―self‖ constitutes itself in relation to
perceptions of alterity; how human interactions within a shared space can escalate
into instances of cruelest brutality, expelling any possibility of heterogeneity from
the idea of ―freedom.‖ This study looks towards the essence of the secular, i.e. the
idea of pertaining to the temporal world as opposed to any religious after-world,
as an ideal of co-existence, a negotiation of different sensibilities in a common
space. Often in the tragedies and travesties of human life, the ideal fades, leaving
only an empty shell to be invoked and reified in political processes.
This
narrative by no means provides an answer to the realization of this ideal. But I
hope that it does encourage some reflection on how to understand the scope and
limits of communal boundaries, whilst keeping the ideal alive.
This narrative picks up from a particular time and place in Southeastern Europe.
It begins amidst the ravages of the Second World War in the former Yugoslavia,
from the fascist and totalitarian mechanisms that had splintered various
1
Antije Krog, Country of my Skull: Guilt, Sorrow and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South
Africa (Random House Inc, 2000), 67
2
J.M Coetzee, Disgrace (Penguin, 2000).
7
communities, enveloping them in a web of perpetrators, victims, collaborators and
bystanders. It stops forty years later, towards the end of Titoist regime, when
multi-national Yugoslavia was on the brink of collapse. The intermediary phase
was that of Communist Yugoslavia. This relatively stable time was characterized
not simply by the coercion of the Communist state, but also by a strong, often
idealistic, commitment to cultural diversity, the ―brotherhood and unity‖ of the
various ―nationalities‖ in Yugoslavia.
The territories that once constituted Yugoslavia included Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Slovenia and Montenegro, the borders of which were
drawn in accordance with ―ethnic‖ and historical principles. This project focuses
on Bosnia-Herzegovina within the broader context of Socialist Yugoslavia. The
territories that once constituted Yugoslavia carried a deep confessional legacy.
They were a battleground for Catholicism and Orthodoxy in the medieval period,
the Anatolian jewel of the Ottoman Empire in the early modern period, and a
constitutional experiment of ―nationalities‖ by the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy
during the modern period. The term ―South Slavs,‖ here, refers particularly to the
inhabitants of Bosnia-Herzegovina, conjoined by a common regional identity and
a language, and divided into three confessional communities: Orthodox Christians,
Catholics and Muslims. To the east of Bosnia-Herzegovina was the Republic of
Serbia, dominated by ―Serbian‖ Orthodox Christians, identifying with the patron
St. Sava. To the North and West was the republic of Croatia, inhabited by
Catholic Christians who looked towards the Apostles Cyril and Methodius, who
had preached Christianity in the Balkans in the 9th century. Despite being
8
linguistically identical, Serbian and Croatian are now considered separate national
languages based on the varying ekavian (eastern/Cyrillic) and ijekavian
(western/Latin) dialects. Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina speak Serbo-Croatian,
but have created a different dialect, Bosanski, incorporating Turkish words. Once
inhabited collectively by members of the different confessional communities,
Bosnia-Herzegovina now stands shattered in the wake of ethnic cleansing, and
with little possibility of change. Why and how did social interactions take such a
dramatic turn, dissolving into an abyss of violence? What were the contradictions
in the efforts to forge an integrated ―civic‖ Yugoslav unity? How could the
celebration of cultural diversity unleash such antagonisms at the collapse of
Yugoslavia?
A famous Yugoslav novelist and Nobel Peace Winner, Ivo Andric,
characterized the spirit of Bosnia in fictionalized chronicles published after the
Second World War. Amidst political upheavals and even natural disasters, he
found that the only sense of permanence in Bosnia was the constancy of human
interactions within a common territory. In Bosnian towns, different confessional
communities were deeply intermingled; each confession recognized the other, but
lived in its own compartmentalized world, and held a separate historical
consciousness. Andric‘s writings, which later served as a sort of Bible in
Communist Yugoslavia, were marked with contempt for the public expression of
religious difference. In the aftermath of the Second World War, many Communist
intellectuals and idealists shared Andric‘s contempt for ultra-nationalist as well as
confessional divisions. Andric‘s writings, nonetheless, evoke what can often be a
9
reality in heterogeneous societies; individuals may live side by side and affirm
their separate customs, but with little real empathy. Even now, instances of brutal
‗ethnic‘ cleansing and social exclusion call to mind the danger of exclusionary
social perspectives. This essay explores the Communist period in Yugoslavia, and
seeks to complicate the dilemma of identity and difference. It raises the following
questions: how can differences be accommodated? Which ones? And more
importantly, to what end?
In contrast to Andric‘s picture, the Communist period can, perhaps, be
characterized as intimate integration and socialist homogeneity, but without
empathy. Communist Yugoslavia sought to restructure society through secular
and socialist reforms, and to simultaneously instill values of ―civic‖ patriotism in
people. Religious institutions were significantly marginalized, and religious
expression forbidden in public and political life. The new regime attempted to
achieve considerable social integration through state institutions such as public
schools, factories, and village councils. New property laws restricted private
ownership, often leading to urbanization and to residential integration, such that a
Muslim lived in close proximity with a Christian, a tradesman with a professional.
Almost in a manner of Kafkaesque absurdity, individuals under the Communist
regime were intimately connected. The public expression of religion, a primary
mark of differentiation, was prohibited. ―Ethnic‖ differences, instead, were
institutionalized in a top-down fashion. But what did ―ethnic‖ differences entail in
Socialist Bosnia? The extent of homogeneity among the inhabitants of Bosnia can
10
be glimpsed in a narrative by Dusan Kecmanovic, Prove You‘re a Serb.3 In postsocialist Yugoslavia, Kecmanovic recalls an encounter with a woman of ―a strong
Zagreb dialect‖ who wishes to seek psychiatric help. The patient pauses in
Kecmanovic‘s office, eager to determine her doctor‘s surname and nationality.
When Kecmanovic reveals that he is a Serb, the patient, with skepticism, demands
evidence. Kecmanovic reveals that ―objective‖ characteristics such as language,
accents and even looks were ―unreliable guides in determining ethnic affiliation.‖4
Whilst portraying the intense ―ethnicization‖ of social life in post-socialist
Yugoslavia, the narrative also indicates that the determination of ―ethnic identity‖
was a difficult enterprise. One can imagine, then, the dilemma of determining
―who was who‖ amidst the homogenization of public life during the Communist
regime.5 An answer was often sought in the private household, through the tracing
of genealogies.
In a famous satire, Names (1966), Erih Kos, a Serbian intellectual who was
later imprisoned by the Communist regime, raises the Shakespearean ontological
dilemma of identity: ―What is in a name?‖6 In his depiction of a closely structured
society, a disgruntled editor, Mihailo Milic, seeks economic advancement and is
routinely jealous of his superiors. Frustrated in all efforts, Milic becomes
obsessed with the meaning of names. In Names, we can see the Communist
3
Dusan Kecmanovic, Ethnic Times: Exploring Ethno-nationalism in the Former Yugoslavia:
Prove You‘re a Serb,(Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002), 157-158
4
Ibid
5
I am grateful to Professor Jeremy King for sharing his recent draft:‖Group Rights in Liberal
Austria and the Dilemmas of Equality‖, Article 2009, and ―Who is Who? Group Rights in Liberal
Austria and the Dilemma of Classificatory Procedure,‖ Article, Draft June 2007. His other
writings have also informed my work:
―Nationalization in East Central Europe: Ethnicism, Ethnicity and Beyond‖, in Staging the Past.
e.d by Nancy Wingfield and Maria Bucur, (Purdue, 2001)
6
Erih Kos, Names. (New York, Harcourt, Brace & World,1966.)
11
Yugoslav society at play. After a painful journey, Milic finally realizes the futility
of understanding names, divorced as they are from the lives that carry them.
I have attempted to answer my questions and to contextualize the violence in
post-socialist Yugoslavia, especially in Bosnia-Herzegovina, from a particular
angle. This is, however, only one piece of a complex tale explaining why and how
the collapse of Yugoslavia unleashed antagonisms, often ahistorically termed
―ancient hatreds.‖ This research primarily focuses on the dilemma of ―the
separation of Church and State‖ in Socialist Yugoslavia alongside the
accommodation of ―nationalities‖ in the socialist political framework. I pay close
attention to the repression of religious differentiation in the social realm as well as
to latent confessional dynamics in Yugoslavia. I explore how the discursive
categories of the ―religious‖ and the ―secular‖ were formulated by the Communist
regime in response to socio-political dynamics7, and how these socially inscribed
understandings could inform political processes, as well as vice versa. In Socialist
Bosnia, ―confessional‖ communities were, by no means, internally homogenous.
In the presence of religious institutions, however, they were often organized
around daily religious practices, invocations, social habits and customs. The
Communist regime, opposing the public presence of religion and accepting
―ethnic‖ characteristics, lent a seismic quality to the question of identity and
difference in this region. What were the implications of the ―separation of Church
and State‖ in multi-confessional Bosnia? How did the ―ethnic‖ and the
Here I would like to acknowledge Talal Asad‘s writings: Formations of the Secular: Christianity,
Islam and Modernity, (Stanford: Stanford Un. Press, 2003). In this book, Asad delves into the
anthropology of the ―secular‖ concept, as well as the practices and political formations of
―secularism.‖
7
12
―confessional‖ categories relate to each other, and to the concept of territoriality?
And more importantly, how did the process of secularization complicate the
ascriptive categories of Orthodox Christians, Catholics, and Muslims, as well as
the concomitant process of ―nation‖ building in Socialist Bosnia-Herzegovina?
Benedict Anderson defines ―nations‖ as ―imagined communities‖ in which the
notion of a ―horizontal comradeship‖ with fellow members is constructed, reified
and perpetuated in the consciousness of individuals.8 He argues that nationalism
aligns itself, ―not with self consciously held political ideologies, but with the
cultural systems that preceded it, out of which—as well as against which---it
came into being.‖
9
Rogers Brubaker complicates Anderson‘s thesis by
highlighting the social practices of reification ―through which the political fiction
of the nation becomes momentarily yet powerfully realized in practice.‖ 10 He
focuses on ―nationhood‖ and ―nationness‖ as a ―practical category, an
institutionalized form and a contingent event.‖11 In Bosnia, religion was a primary
but not exclusive, mark of differentiation, contributing to the existence of parallel
subcultures. In the words of Mark Baskin, religion as a form of differentiation
defined ―the character of historical experience,‖ by determining the ―group‘s
cosmologies, patterns of daily life, and affective orientations.‖ 12 Secularization
policies in the Communist regime, however, contested the very presence of the
latent subcultures within society. But to what extent could the Communist regime
8
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin & Spread of Nationalism.
(Verso, 1991)
9
Ibid
10
Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New
Europe. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 15
11
Ibid
12
Mark Baskin. "The Secular State as Ethnic Entrepreneur: Macedonians and Bosnian Moslems in
Socialist Yugoslavia."
13
construct ―nations‖ which were ―secular‖ in content, though ―confessional‖ in
form? Or rather, how could the Communist regime accommodate ―national‖
categories for confessional communities, given that the very nature of the
―national‖ was an abstraction?
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the Communist Party took the
position of an outside arbiter of nationalist tensions, seeking to build ―nationalities‖
in accordance with a ―secular‖ and more egalitarian principle. ―Ethnic‖
boundaries, being divorced from subjective differences of faith, were believed to
be more fluid. Under the Communist regime in Yugoslavia, the notion of socialist
internationalism gave way to socialist patriotism, with a strong territorial
allegiance to the South Slavic lands. Unable to part with the cultural and
confessional legacy encapsulated within the territory, the Communist regime soon
became a prison of its own making. This research shows how the Communist
regime derived the notion of secular ―ethnicity‖ from the modernist understanding
of a ―community of language and culture‖ within a territory and imbued it with a
forward-looking socialist character. Conceptions of the ―ethnic‖ vis-a-vis the
confessional, then, were often mapped onto the ―modern‖ versus the ―traditional.‖
With religion serving as a primary mark of difference in Bosnia-Herzegovina,
however, the legitimacy of an ―ethnic‖ nation came to hinge on secularized
religious differences as well as the question of which religion was territorially and
ethnically Slavic.
Edward Said describes ―Orientalism‖ as an ―idea that has a history and a
tradition of thought, imagery and vocabulary that has given [the Orient] a reality
14
and presence in and for the West.‖ Said writes from the vantage point of Western
colonization of the East, and the subsequent production of knowledge and
discourses characterizing the ―East‖ as an ―enterprise.‖ Furthermore, he locates
the roots of Orientalist thinking in the encounter of Christian Europe with nonChristian ―others.‖ Islam served as a real provocation: ―it lay uneasily close to
Christianity, geographically and culturally. It drew on the Judeo-Hellenic
traditions, it borrowed creatively from Christianity.‖13 ―Orientalist‖ discourses in
the Balkans, with Eastern colonization of the West, had a different character.
They emerged as an expression of anti-imperialism and a sense of post-colonial
disorientation. The efforts to manage ―nationalities‖ in Socialist Yugoslavia were
compounded by an attempt to construct a civic ―Yugoslav‖ nation, at once novel
in its socialist character and continuous with the historical unity of the South
Slavs. With the Communist Party deriving its legitimacy from an anti-imperialist
and patriotic stance, it soon endorsed the notion of a secularized Christian norm or
culture in an attempt to promote ‗brotherhood and unity‘ and to resurrect an ageold concept of South Slavic unity. The Ottomans, characterized by the
Communist regime as a Turkish, ―Asiatic‖ empire disrupting the unity of the
South Slavic lands, were at the forefront of condemnation. Through a complex set
of negotiations between the notions of the ―secular‖ ethnic and the ―religious,‖ the
―Slavic‖ and the foreign ―Other,‖ this narrative called ever more attention to the
Bosnian Muslim Community, and to what ultimately became a tragic liminality.
This study, however, conveys a symptomatic tale and resists arguments of
inevitability. Despite a pervasive understanding of religion as a temporary
13
Edward Said, Orientalism.( New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), 74
15
phenomenon, the Communist Party as well as ―secular‖ Serb and Croat nationals
were continually engaged with the presence of religion. While Serbian and
Croatian national discourses often enveloped religion, they were simultaneously
shaped and radicalized by the enduring presence of an ―anational‖ Muslim
category. When in 1968, the Communist Party introduced the category of a
Muslim ―nationality,‖ and secular Muslim elites asserted their own historical
development, the character of Serbian nationalism in response to Muslims also
changed.
Muslims were no longer ―ethnic brethren‖ to be assimilated, but
virulent ―race-traitors.‖ In a Serbian novel, Knife (1982), the author Vuk
Draskovic uses the metaphor of a knife to describe the South Slavic identity.
Serbian ethnic kinship in relation to Muslims is like two blades of a knife,
intimately connected, and yet a source of great violence. Amidst the Orientalist
conception of Islam in the Communist regime, the introduction of a ―Muslim‖
status in the political framework was a contradiction in form. With regard to
Bosnian Muslims, therefore, the very categories of the ―ethnic‖ and the
―confessional‖ as the basis of nationhood were contested. In Socialist Yugoslavia,
―nationalities‖ not only served as substitutes for semi-autonomous and quasi-civil
confessional communities, but also for other forms of political representation. In
many ways, the treatment of Bosnian Muslims by the Communist regime
represented the dilemmas of ―nation-building‖ amidst secularization. With the
concept of territoriality extricated from confessional communities and allocated to
―ethnic‖ communities, Bosnian Muslims were left in a particularly precarious
position on the eve of Yugoslavia‘s disintegration. On one hand, therefore, this
16
research is a particularistic narrative of the dilemmas of secularization in Socialist
Yugoslavia and its implications for Bosnian Muslims. At the same time, it also
raises a broader question of the place of religion within society and politics, as
well as of confessional categories amidst ―national‖ politics.
The three sections are organized thematically and chronologically. Section
One begins with a Prelude, ―Community and its Limits in Ordinary Bosnian Life,‖
and provides a snapshot of social interactions and relations across and within
Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox Christian communities in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The prelude seeks to portray social interactions outside state institutions, formed
on the basis of a shared living space. How are social interactions shaped by
confessional boundaries? And what limits do these boundaries impose in the
forging of a cohesive heterogeneous community in ordinary life? Following the
prelude is Chapter One, ―The Creation of a Secular Narrative.‖ It provides a
context for secularization policies and the marginalization of religious institutions
in the immediate post-war period through the trial of Archbishop Stepinac of
Croatia. As the highest functionary of the Catholic Church in Croatia, Stepinac
was held responsible for the complicity of Catholic priests in atrocities against
Orthodox Christians during the Second World War. This section questions the
place of religious institutions within society, through the perceptions of new
Communist elites and of religious authorities. This section complicates what is
often a neat overlap between confessional and national communities. Instead, it
shows how religious institutions in the early decades of the Communist regime
became instruments of national myth making not merely through engagement
17
with the ―national,‖ but also, ironically, through disengagement with it. The
absence of Muslims in this section is significant, and primarily a consequence of
limited sources (both primary and secondary). The Young Muslims‘ Trial in 1949
has received only cursory treatment in the secondary literature. On another level,
however, the absence of Bosnian Muslims from the earlier narratives of the
Communist regime is crucial in highlighting the lack of significance of Bosnian
Muslim for the Communist regime. The early years were a theatre for managing
and tempering Serbian and Croatian nationalisms.
The prelude of Section Two picks up the thread from the first prelude and
depicts ―the New Socialist Community,‖ the altered interactions of individuals
within Socialist Yugoslavia through the re-structuring of social life, secularization,
educational and cultural reforms. In the new Socialist Yugoslavia, educational
institutions emerged in parallel to older religious institutions. In Chapter Two,
―The Voice of Thy Brother‘s Blood Crieth unto me from the Ground,‖ I focus on
the effort to promote ―brotherhood and equality‖ through school curricula and
cultural works endorsed by the Communist regime. I explore the texts of two
literary icons, Ivo Andric and Petar Njegos, whose works were made mandatory
in school systems, and the Communist rendition of the conflict between
Christianity and Islam as expressed in these texts. This section covers the time
period in Socialist Yugoslavia after its break from the Soviet Comintern in 1948
to the mid 1960s.
Section Three turns to the Bosnian Muslim community and explores the
dilemmas of secularization reforms, and the contradictions of separating the
18
―secular,‖ ethnic and cultural, from the religious. This section shows how some of
the social understandings of the ―religious‖ and the ―secular‖ (as portrayed in the
previous section) were implemented on a political level, particularly in regard to
Bosnian Muslims. The opening prelude, ―The ‗Ottoman‘ City in Socialist Bosnia,‖
describes the architectural re-fashioning of an Ottoman Bascarsija (marketplace)
in Sarajevo. The architectural re-formulations serve as a metaphor for Bosnian
Muslims in Socialist Yugoslavia, and prepare the ground for the narrative that
follows. Chapter Three, ―Who were the Bosnian Muslims?‖ finally focuses on
the constitutional accommodation of ―ethnicity‖ in Socialist Yugoslavia, the
interaction of the ―ethnic‖ and the ―confessional‖ categories in the political
framework, the liminality of Bosnian Muslims and their fragmented self
understandings. It ends with an intensification of politics as the ―anational‖ and
confessional category of Muslims was granted ―national‖ status by the
Communist regime. This section begins from the early fifties, and ends with the
political trial of a Bosnian Muslim activist, Alija Izetbegovic, in 1983.
During the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s, national libraries, cultural archives,
and artifacts were systematically targeted by the ethnic cleansers. The Sarajevo
National Library was destroyed. The violent collapse of Yugoslavia brought much
scholarly attention to this region, as academics sought to understand the reasons
for the failure of a multi-national state. Prior to this, Communist Yugoslavia had
received little scholarly attention. The constraints of an undergraduate work could
not allow for a thorough regional focus on Bosnia- Herzegovina. My work,
therefore, situates the region within the larger context of post-war Yugoslavia,
19
moving between a narration of the broader trends, and an analysis of the more
particular implications for Bosnia-Herzegovina. Communist periodicals such as
Borba, Politika, and Novosti, remain untranslated. I was fortunate to have spent
some time researching in the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in
University College of London in the summer of 2009, and browsing through an
entire section of the library devoted to Yugoslavia and its successor states. The
language barrier, however, was a major obstacle, and continued to remain so after
I continued my project at Mount Holyoke College.
In my work, I particularly focus on the Bosnian Muslim community and their
liminality in the Yugoslav context. Despite their precarious position within
Socialist Yugoslavia and their ultimately tragic fate, very little attention has been
given to them in scholarly literature. The writings of many Bosnian Muslim
intellectuals are also in Serbo-Croatian. The two texts of Alija Izetbegovic used in
this research, Islamic Declaration and Islam Between East and West, with the
former being republished in the 1990s, largely feature in politicized narratives of
the Yugoslav Wars. Working on the Bosnian Muslim question has been tricky. I
have tried, instead, to focus on them through their categorizations in Serbian,
Croatian and Yugoslav literature, before giving them a voice in my third section.
Tracing cultural and intellectual history through historical fiction, poetry and
philosophical writings has been my primary methodology. For my broader
question of the place of religion within society, my work would have benefited
from an access to religious periodicals, such as Glas Koncila and Glasnik. These
periodicals, however, also remain untranslated. In order to show the interplay
20
between the ‗ethnic‘ and the ‗religious‘ within a larger theoretical question of
secularization and its dilemmas, I have tried to portray varying perceptions. The
Communist perspective is threaded through the work, and can be found
particularly in the politicized narrative of the Stepinac trial and the works of Ivo
Andric. Interspersed within the Communist narrative are also ―Serbian‖ and
―Croatian‖ nationalist perspectives. A counter-narrative in the Stepinac trial,
however, seeks to represent the voice of religious authorities under the
Communist regime. The texts of Bosnian Muslim philosopher and activist Alija
Izetbegovic explore the relationship between politics and religion from the
perspective of Islamic thought.
In the prison of ideas that was Communist Yugoslavia, marginalized
individuals were left dismembered, their voices and narratives lost in translation.
While the rhetoric of ―Brotherhood and Unity‖ ultimately served at the hands of
power-seeking Communist elites, it was also an ideal that drew many idealistic
individuals and philosophers to the forefront of politics. But what became of the
―Yugoslavs‖, those individuals who truly transcended ―ethnic‖ and ―religious‖
differences amidst the ―ethnicization‖ of political life? In 1968, a movement of
students and intellectuals was a rare embodiment of the true Yugoslav spirit.
United in the face of social divisions, they called for economic and social justice
in an increasingly bureaucratic regime. The movement was soon crushed. In the
writings of Mesa Selimovic, a Communist writer from a Muslim milieu, we can
see glimpses of disillusionment experienced by previous adherents of the regime.
Individuals like Mesa Selimovic were left in a limbo, belonging neither to the
21
Communist regime nor to a Slavic ethnicity, or even to a Muslim faith. Some
were silenced, and some turned to ―national‖ autonomy as a path to freedom.
22
Section I
A Prelude:
Community and its Limits in Ordinary Bosnian Life14
1920s to1940s
A bird‘s eye view of Sarajevo in the early twentieth century exposed tall,
gleaming minarets of Turkish mosques next to the magnificent domes of a Greek
Orthodox Church, a Roman Catholic Church, and a Synagogue. The mosque was
the focal point of the Muslim community, as the Churches were for the Orthodox
and the Catholic communities. Here in the Bosnian capital, the bazaar or the
marketplace (carsija), was evocative of the integrated influence of the Byzantine
and Ottoman empires. It was more reminiscent of the Ottoman period than any
place in Turkey itself since the secularizing reforms of Ataturk. A cascade of
small quarters, each standing independently in an interwoven pattern, threaded
through the city. In the city, they were called the living quarters, and in the
villages, the mahalas or hamlets. For a Bosnian villager, the city, with its often
14
In order to write this piece and construct a picture of ordinary life in Bosnia in the pre-socialist
years and early socialist period, I have consulted anthropological sources, memoirs and accounts
of Bosnian History. These include: Robert S. John: The Silent People Speak, (Doubleday Press,
1948), Munevera Hadzisehovic, A Muslim Woman in Tito’s Yugoslavia, translated by Thomas J
Bulter and Saba Risaluddin, (Texas A&M University Press, 2003), William Lockwood, European
Moslems: Economy and Ethnicity in Western Bosnia,(Academic Press 1975), Tone Bringa, Being
Muslim the Bosnian Way: Identity and Community in a Central Bosnian Village, (Princeton: N.J
Princeton University Press, 1995) and Noel Malcom, (Bosnia: A Short History, Macmillan
London Limited, 1994).
Robert S. John, an American journalist, provides a journalistic account of his interactions with
people in Bosnia-Herzegovina after the Second World War, their perceptions of ordinary life in
the current period and pre-socialist Yugoslavia. Munevera Hadzisehovic provides a unique and
intricately descriptive account of her family history and social life in Yugoslavia from the First
World War to the early 1970s. The anthropological sources by Bringa and Lockwood are useful in
their details and are largely representative of the socialist period. They suffer, however, from some
drawback in their lack of specific historical context and seemingly timeless nature. The quotes and
specific incidents that I draw from these sources have been corroborated with historical accounts
and I have verified the quintessential continuity of the customs and attitudes from these sources in
the earlier periods.
23
dispersed and intermingled confessional residences, represented a more universal
space, which could sometimes even merit a certain disregard for dress codes
being in accord with one‘s confessional community. In the villages, matters stood
differently.
In many of the mixed villages in Bosnia, different confessional groups, either
Muslims and Orthodox Christians or Muslims and Catholics, settled in clearly
demarcated mahalas, with houses usually built in clusters and occupied by
extended families. Individual communities were largely based on kinship and
residence, which in turn preserved their different subcultures. The household, or
the zadruga, was a crucial unit in the domain of relationships, characterized often
by a high regard for ―descent‖ and an emphasis on tracing familial genealogies,
particularly among Christian peasants. 15 Where confessional residences existed
side by side, architectural differences in rural Bosnia demarcated one house from
another, the Muslim homes being square, like the village mosque, and Catholic
ones, rectangular. In her memoirs, Munevera Hadzisehovic describes life in
Yugoslavia before the Second World War; ―societies lived together for centuries,
side by side. There were mutual influences, passing from one side to another,‖
alongside a consciousness of territorial delimitations.16 Although hospitality and
coffee visits among friends were an intrinsic aspect of rural life, dietary
―Zadruga,‖ a term used to connote ‗household‘ in early ethnographic literature was later coopted by the Communist government and used to denote the village community, or the council
elected by the Communist government.
William G. Lockwood, "Converts and Consanguinity: The Social Organization of Moslem Slavs
in Western Bosnia". Ethnology. 11 (1): (1972) 55-79 and William G. Lockwood, European
Moslems: economy and ethnicity in western Bosnia. (New York: Academic Press., 1975)and Tone
Bringa. Being Muslim the Bosnian way: identity and community in a central Bosnian village.
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001).
16
Had i ehovi , A Muslim woman in Tito's Yugoslavia., 55
15
24
restrictions often interfered in social visits. Since it was considered rude to refuse
any food offered by the host in Bosnian social customs, sometimes Muslims were
uncomfortable visiting their Catholic neighbors. Nonetheless, Muslim, Orthodox,
and Catholic children played with one another, and young girls and boys spent
time together. Men rarely met outside the carsija or the market district. Members
of each religious group interacted with standard, public greetings of dobar dan
[good day] and dovidenja [goodbye], whilst reserving specific religious greetings
for their religious compatriots. 17 Formal visits between Muslim, Catholic and
Orthodox Christian neighbors occurred on occasions of significant import, such as
marriages, birth, death or illness. Hadzisehovic writes of the importance of
religious figures, or Hodzas, who wrote ―special notes in ink: for healing, for
success in business, and to counteract evil spells. These notes were worn around
the neck in a special locket, or sewn into the inside pocket of a shirt or braided
into the hair. Even Christians came to the hodzas for help, just as Muslims visited
monasteries for assistance.‖
18
Sometimes during Ramadan, Hadzisehovic
describes that Orthodox Christians would not eat in the public carsija out of
respect for Muslims. Nonetheless, religious celebrations and rituals during events
also served as moments of demarcation between different groups, through their
inclusion of some members of the village and exclusion of others.
The limits of community and interaction between Catholics, Orthodox
Christians and Bosnian Muslims were ultimately maintained through a tradition of
endogamy. In the words of a woman in the village of Dolina: ―we respect their
17
18
Tone Bringa. 56
Had i ehovi , A Muslim woman in Tito's Yugoslavia, 25
25
Catholic holidays, their churches, their prayers and see it as a sin to blaspheme
against their sacred symbols, but we do not marry them.‘‖ Another one stated,
―we get along well and we have a good time together, but this is one thing. It is
another to have somebody from a different religion together with you in the
kitchen. When two people who prepare different foods and keep different holy
days share the same house many problems arise.‖19 When, on one occasion in the
town of Dolina, a Catholic man brought home a Muslim bride, he was threatened
with excommunication. The bride had to leave. Earlier, he had brought home an
Orthodox Christian woman, who was also rejected because ―they cross
themselves with three fingers and we with five.‖20 Intermarriages were considered
a threat to the integrity of a household unit, a space reserved for an exclusive and
un-negotiated expression of one‘s religious and social customs. According to
Islamic tradition, Muslim men were permitted to marry ―People of the Book‖
(Christians and Jews), whilst Muslim women were prohibited from doing so.
Although trespassing religious frontiers caused offence to Orthodox and Catholic
compatriots (and in the case of Muslims, particularly with regard to women),
discreet proselytism frequently operated beneath the surface, often with the
assistance of religious figures. Incidents of conversion through marriage attracted
public attention, gossip and controversy. 21 Despite such lines of separation
primarily derived from religious and social customs, confessionally mixed
19
Tone Bringa, 80
Ibid. 149-151
21
Malcolm, Bosnia A Short History, 145
In 1892, an incident of proselytism and intermarriage resulted in a brief public controversy. A
Catholic Archbishop Stadler was accused of assisting and hiding a Muslim woman who had
crossed religious barriers and intended to marry. After public petitions by the Muslim community,
she was located by the government and returned to her home where she became a Muslim again.
20
26
communities alternated in their expression of unity and difference, and in their
identification and separation with the ―others.‖
I)
Historical Background- 1920s to 1940s
On April 10th 1941, Ustasha authorities, supported by the Axis powers,
proclaimed the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in territories covering modern
day Croatia, portions of Serbia, and all of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The political
beginnings of the Ustasha Party can be traced to the disillusionment of ''Croatian''
party members with electoral processes during the interwar Kingdom of Serbs,
Slovenes and Croats.22 Croatian nationalists believed in the historical right of the
Croatian state, and resented Serbian dominance of electoral politics during the
1920s. This was further aggravated in 1928 when Stepan Radic, the leader of the
Croatian People's Peasant Party, was assasinated by a member of the Serbian
Radical Party. Instead of diffusing the crisis, King Alexander responded by
suspending the constitution and imposing a more unitary political system.
Yugoslavia was partitioned into new units, or banovinas, each under governors
appointed by the goverment. Both Croatian and Muslim leaders were dissatisfied
with the division, which relegated them to a minority status in every banovina.23
At this juncture, some younger members of the Croatian Peasant Party,
particularly the ones exposed to Frankist and Catholic Clericalist ideology,
became dedicated and militant fighters for an independent state of Croatia. In
1930, Ante Pavelic, a former member of the Yugoslav Parliament and the
22
Malcolm, Bosnia A Short History; Jozo Tomasevich,. War and revolution in Yugoslavia, 19411945: occupation and collaboration. (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2001), 15-27
23
Ibid
27
Croatian Party of Right, established the Croatian Liberation Movement (Ustashe).
A small number of Croatian nationalists reached out to the Italian government for
assistance in subverting ''Serbian'' dominance in electoral politics. Italy had vested
interests in the Balkans, and had earlier issued a proposal to the Croatian Peasant
Party which would render Yugoslavia an Italian Protectorate.
24
After the
assasination of King Alexander in 1934, the centralist system under Prince Regent
Paul was relaxed. Negotiations began between the Croat Peasant Party Leader,
Macek, and the Serbian Minister, Cvetkovic, regarding a federal solution to the
question of ''Croatian'' representation in electoral politics. In the meantime, Hitler
was advancing on Czechoslovakia, and the new Yugoslav government felt
increasingly pressured to follow a policy of conciliation. In June 1940, Italy began
preparations for military action against Yugoslavia, and scheduled the assault for
September after its entry into the war with France. Acting on behalf of Mussolini,
Hitler began pressing Yugoslavia to join the Tripartite Act, and on March 25,
1941, he managed to convince Prince Regent Paul to submit.25 A few days later,
a Yugoslav coup de etat was carried out by the army and the old Serbian parties
installed a new government of national unity. The new political prospect
temporarily shattered the aspirations of the Ustashe authorities to gain any control
in the region. Their hopes, however, were rejuvenated with the invasion of
Yugoslavia by the Axis Powers ten days later.26
24
Ibid
Malcolm, Bosnia: A Short History.173
26
Ibid, 173
25
28
With the backing of the Axis Powers, but little internal support, Pavelic
installed a regime which borrowed ideologically from Frankist Croatian
Nationalism, Nazism, and Fascism, Catholic Clericalist Authoritarianism, and the
Croatian Peasant Party. The Ustashe regime co-opted youth groups, parts of the
''Croatian Catholic'' Movement and other sub-groups supported by the Catholic
Church. 27 During the Kingdom of Serbs, Slovenes and Croats, the Catholic
Church had harbored grievances against the growing influence of the Orthodox
Church, which was traditionally considered the Church of the Serbian people for
its territorial organization and historical legacy. The Kingdom of Serbs, Slovenes
and Croats was not a religious monarchy per se, but a subtle battle for power
raged between
religious institutions due to the preferential treatment of the
Orthodox religious community. Soon after its establishment, the Ustashe regime
acceded to demands of Catholic religious authorities in order to win their support.
It abolished abortion and Freemasonry, prohibited pornographic publications, and
issued decrees against cursing. Furthermore, the Ustashe government promoted
religious education in schools, and charitable activities of the Church, and also
increased financial aid to seminaries, religious institutions and the clergy.28 It was
only a matter of time, however, until the religious concessions granted by the
Ustashe regime turned against Orthodox Christians. The Independent State of
Croatia attempted to undermine what they considered ''Serbian'' national influence
by prohibiting the Cyrillic script, and closing down primary and secondary
27
Tomasevich, War and revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945: Chapter 8: The Independent State
of Croatia: Internal Problems and Policies, 336-356
28
Tomasevich, War and revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945: Chapter 12: The Churches during
the Occupation and Revolution. 511-568
29
schools run by the Orthodox community. Furthermore the Julian calendar was
abolished and the term 'Serbian Orthodox' was forbidden and replaced by 'GreekEastern Church.' Policies towards the Orthodox Christian community escalated
and in June 1941, the Ustashe authorities signed an agreement with the German
authorities for the deportation of ''Serbs'' from Croatia. This was followed by a
policy of forced conversions of lower-class Orthodox Christians, and
extermination of the intelligentsia.29
Bosnia-Herzegovina was of particular import to the Ustasha regime. It was a
politically delicate terrain due to its intermingled population of Catholics,
Orthodox Christians and Muslims. At the time of the Ustashe regime, 44% of the
inhabitants of Bosnia were Orthodox, 30.9% Muslim and 23.6% Roman
Catholic. 30 Historically, Bosnia-Herzegovina had served as a military frontier
provice under the Ottoman rule, and it had also witnessed a mass conversion of its
population to Islam. In the heyday of nationalism under Austro-Hungarian rule,
the Orthodox Christians of Bosnia-Herzegovina were claimed by Serbs in
Belgrade, who looked towards an Independent Serbia, and the Bosnian Catholics
by Croats in Zagreb, who espoused a greater union with Croatia-Slavonia. The
Bosnian Muslim community lay on the fringes of Serbian and Croatian
nationalists, claimed by both sides as they attempted to assert a majoritarian claim
in Bosnia Herzegovina. 31 In the 1940s, the ultra-nationalist Ustashe regime
revitalized with full force the claim that Bosnian Muslims were Islamized Croats.
29
Ibid; Stella Alexander, The triple myth: a life of Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac. (East European
monographs, no. 226. Boulder: East European Monographs 1987)
30
Pejanovic, Stanovnistvo Bosne I Hercegovine, pg. 54, census cited in Tomasevich, 481
31
Tomasevich, ―The Independent State of Croatia: The Bosnian Muslims,‖ in War and Revolution
in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945. 466-488
30
This assertion that the forefathers of Bosnian Muslims were ''Croatian'' and
Catholic, however, was disputed by Serbian nationalists, who emphasized that
Bosnian Muslims were ''blood brothers''.
In an attempt to incorporate Bosnia-Herzegovina under the Ustasha dominion,
the Independent State of Croatia declared itself to be a state of Catholicism and
Islam. On 25 April 1941, Pavelic sent a representative to the Bosnian Muslim
representative, Fehim Spaho, assuring him of the ''equal rights'' granted to
Muslims.32 In carefully carved out posts, Bosnian Muslim leaders were promoted
on an administrative level. The Imam of the Muslim community in Zagreb, Ismet
Muftic, who had taken part in the proclamation of the Croatian state, was given a
position in the Croatian State Leadership. It was soon evident, however, that the
Ustasha regime operated entirely outside the rule of law. For the most part,
Muslims were not accommodated in the government, but recruited into Ustashe
militias against the Orthodox community. This tactic later caused many Muslims
to abandon the Ustashe, particularly because of their precarious role as pawns in
the struggle between ''Serb'' and ''Croat'' nationalists. The superficial nature of
'equality' extended to Yugoslav Muslims was soon to become evident. The
confidence of Muslims in the NDH faded as they realized that no authentic
Muslim concern was accommodated by the government. Despite their overt
inclusion into the Ustashe government, they were treated as second-class citizens.
Orthodox Christians and Jews who converted to Islam in order to save their lives
were discriminated against by the Ustashe regime. When the Muslim Reis-ul32
Malcolm, Noel. Bosnia: a short history. pg. 184; Tomasevich, War and revolution in
Yugoslavia: Chapter 11: The Independent State of Croatia: The Bosnian Muslims, 466-488
31
Ulema complained about discrimination against converted Muslims, the Ustashe
government responded with the claim that conversion was only allowed to a
legally represented Christian religion 33. Soon members of the Bosnian Muslim
community began to resist the imposition of a Croatian national identity, and
organized their own militias for self-defence. By May 1941, widespread acts of
terror began against Orthodox Christians and Jews, resulting in organized
resistance movements by Serbs nationalists. 34 Many rabid Serb nationalists
(Cetniks) also retaliated against their Muslim compatriots on the basis of 'Muslim'
collaboration with the Croatian authorities.
Historian Jozo Tomasevich argues that collaboration of the civilian population
with the Ustashe authorities was primarily a consequence of how the ''national''
and ''religious'' populations had been governed during the interwar period. The
internal instability created during the interwar period further disintegrated during
the occupation of the Ustashe regime. The reasons for civilian participation in
violence against Orthodox Christians were widespread and varied. While
numerous Croatian nationalists, including some Catholic priests, were directly
complicit in atrocities against the Orthodox population in an effort to 'solve' the
Serbian problem, economic incentives and the socio-political dynamics of
occupation also played a role. Protection of land was a primary factor motivating
peasants to side with different belligerent forces. 35 The Ustasha‘s terroristic
33
Tomasevich, War and Revolution, 379
Ibid, 402-3; Enver Redzic, Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Second World War. (London: Frank
Cass, 2005)
35
For more information: Melissa Katherine Bokovoy,. Peasants and communists: politics and
ideology in the Yugoslav countryside, 1941-1953. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh press,
1998.).
34
32
policies soon alienated some segments of the Catholic hierarchy, but many, facing
the odds of Partisan retribution or Serbian Cetnik domination, continued to
maintain their alliance. The participation of Muslim Slavs in crimes against
Orthodox Christians stemmed in part from their precarious and liminal position
during the interwar period. After World War I, Bosnian Muslims had held their
own set of grievances against the government primarily due to the agrarian
reforms, which expropriated land from
Muslim landlords. In her memoirs,
Munevera Hazisehovic, a Muslim woman, recalls that Muslims during the
collapse of the second Yugoslavia were
not particularly saddened by the news, just as one would not be
grieved by the news that a person who had not done any good in his
lifetime had died. While not celebrating, one was not likely to feel
sorry for him. In his passing, there would be seen, above all, a sign
that everythings has its end, that everything ends up the way it's
supposed to be.36
In the words of Hadzisehovic, it was a ''simultaneous feeling of belonging and
alienation,'' of ''non-freedom [.....] in the land where we were born'' that
characterized the situation of Muslim Slavs in the Balkans since the decline of the
Ottoman empire. Many Muslim politicians, intellectuals, religious and business
leaders in 1941 openly identified with the Ustashe regime, while others remained
neutral or indifferent in the initial years of the Ustashe regime. By the end of 1941,
however, some members of the Muslim community shifted from their alliance
with the Ustashe regime, and wrote a memorandum to Muslim ministers in the
government, expressing their outrage at the atrocities against Orthodox Christians
36
Had i ehovi , A Muslim woman, 53
33
and apprehensions of eventual retribution.37 While some sought refuge with the
Partisans or the Italian authorities, a group of Muslims reached out to the pro-Nazi
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The memorandum in fall 1942 highlighted their
grievances against the Ustashe regime, and pressed for an autonomous region
under the direct supervision of the Wehrmacht.
38
Consequently, a Bosnian
Muslim SS Division was established by Himmler, with its ideological
development entrusted to imams who would receive instructions from the Grand
Mufti andd the SS Office. After Croatian efforts to subvert a ''Muslim division,''
the Handschar division was created and trained with 23,200 Muslims and 2,800
Croats.39 By 1944, the Handschar began to disintegrate40; Muslims, for the most
part, had realized that their fortunes under the Ustashe regime remained largely
unchanged. In the meantime, the Chetniks had also formed a Muslim Chetnik
division, led by the former member of the Yugoslav National Party, Mustafa
Mulalic. But even as the fabric of Balkan society under Ustashe occupation
disintegrated, pitting different individuals against each other, co-operation in the
face of adversity did not cease. Memoirs describing life under occupation are a
testament to how social identifications often diminished in the face of a common
crisis. One memoir describes a moment between a Cetnik soldier and a Muslim
Slavic woman:
Tomasevich, War and revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945: Chapter 11: The Independent State
of Croatia: The Bosnian Muslims. (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press). 466-488; Enver
Red i , Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Second World War.
38
German armed forces from 1935 to 1945.
39
Tomasevich, 497
40
In order to recruit Bosnian Muslims into armed militia, a Turkish word, Handschar (derived
from the Arabic word Khanjar خنجر, for dagger) was adopted. It was also taken to represent Bosnia
and Islam
37
34
She finished her prayer as quickly as she could and turned toward the
voice of a suffering, moaning man. It was a wounded Chetnik. Nanna
hesitated to move to help him, but his words, 'Sister-in-God, please
help me' drew her toward him.41
Amidst the chaotic events of the war, the Partisan Party, led by Josif Tito, stood
out in its call for national unity against foreign aggression despite having no clear
agenda on the national question. 42 Meanwhile, the ''South Slavs'' had suffered
immensely during the Second World War. The Ustasha regime had discredited the
Croatian Peasant Party, as well as the Catholic community at large. Orthodox
Christians by far suffered the most under the Ustashe regime, and their wounds
remained fresh in memory for many years to come. Yugoslav Muslims, on the
other hand, had come to realize under the Ustashe occupation that protection was
not forthcoming from either ''Serbian'' or ''Croatian'' politicians. Their liminality
within this conflict was recognized and taken for granted by the Partisan Party. By
April 1945, Yugoslavia was liberated by the Partisans. Now an ''ethnic''
cartography became the prerogative of the Partisans, and was meant to cleanse the
landscape of the ''nationalisms'' of the previous era. The Communist regime
therefore, became an arena for managing and reining in ''Serbian'' and ''Croatian''
nationalisms.
41
42
Had i ehovi , A Muslim woman in Tito's Yugoslavia. 77
Paul Shoup, Communism and the Yugoslav National Question. (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1968) and Aleksa Djilas
35
Chapter One
The Creation of a Secular State Narrative
1945-1953
It is the lot of Levantines to be poussiere humaine, human dust, drifting
drearily between East and West, belonging to neither and pulverized by both.
They are men who know many languages but have no language of their own.
They are victims of the fatal division of mankind into Christian and nonChristian, eternal interpreters and go-betweens, who nevertheless carry within
themselves so much that is unclear and inarticulate. They are a little
subsection of humanity, staggering under a double load of original sin: they
need saving and redeeming a second time, but no one can see how or through
whom it can be done.43 – Ivo Andric- 1959
43
Ivo Andric, Yugoslav Nobel Peace Prize Winner
Ivo Andri , and Joseph Hitrec. Bosnian chronicle. (New York: Arcade Publ. 1993), 286
36
After the Second World War, the transition to a Communist political system
in Yugoslavia was infused with discourses espousing a religious versus secular
dichotomy, often conflated with distinctions between pre-modern traditionalism
and modern socialism. Discursive understandings of the ―religious‖ and the
―secular‖ categories stemmed not only from Marxist thought, but also from the
Partisan Party‘s ‗epic‘ victory in the Balkans. Through the experiences and
political turmoil of the Second World War, the Partisan party developed a rigidly
anti-imperialist and patriotic character. The ―National War of Liberation,‖ as it
was termed, brought to the forefront of politics a group of highly idealistic writers,
revolutionary philosophers, and intellectuals, disillusioned with particularistic
understandings of freedom. There were even some who exhibited no strong
commitment to revolutionary Marxism. Instead, some were merely attracted by
the anti-Fascist and anti-imperialist stance of the Partisan Party or by the prospect
of attaining power. The surge of philosophers and writers into Yugoslav politics,
nonetheless, cast the new political system as a philosophical seismograph, one in
mutual conversation with ideas of human alienation, social justice and the
relationship between the self and the community.
The Communist Party derived its legitimacy from its break with a religious past;
it attempted to symbolize ‗Progress‘ amidst stasis, and in doing so, eternalized the
preceding period. As John Fabian writes: ―if it is true that Time belongs to the
political economy of relations between individuals, classes and nations, then the
construction of an anthropology‘s object through temporal concepts and devices is
37
a political act; there is a ―Politics of Time.‖ 44 The historical legacy of the
Byzantium millennium, followed by Ottoman rule, had left deep cultural,
religious and institutional imprints on the Balkans. More recently, the memory of
Catholic Habsburg rule and Ustasha occupation figured as foreign incursions in
the South Slavic consciousness. Perhaps most riveting of all, though, was the
invasion by the Ottoman East, which had left a living imprint in the form of a
population of native Slavs who had converted to the Islamic faith. The conceptual
―secular‖ space yielded by the separation from pre-Communist Yugoslavia
presented, in the words of Kathleen Davis, a retroactive ―homogenization of
cultural forms.‖ In the context of Socialist Yugoslavia, the concept of the
―religious‖ was mapped along geo-political configurations of the ―Ottoman East‖
and the ―Bourgeois‖ West45. From an anti-imperialist perspective, the Communist
regime portrayed religion, particularly in its ―Oriental‖ Islamic dimension, as a
product of the East on the one hand, and a means of exploitation by the West on
the other hand. As an alternative, the new Yugoslavia, in a liminal space betwixt
and between, sought to redefine the place of religion in a manner commensurable
with socialist patriotism. The major affinity of Socialist thought with religion lay
in the idea of faith, extricated from the notion of ―Divinity‖ and located within the
processes of dialectical materialism. Religion was perceived to be a temporary
phenomenon, prevailing as long as men believed ―that various ills arise out of
44
Kathleen Davis. Periodization and sovereignty: how ideas of feudalism and secularization
govern the politics of time. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press., 2008), 2
Kathleen Davis explores the narrative of secularization, hinged on a periodic divide between a
‗modern‘ historical consciousness and the ‗religious‘ Middle Ages. According to her, it is the
association of sovereignty with this periodic divide that governs major world debates today, and
often emerges as a legitimizing discourse.
45
Ibid
38
something supernatural.‖
46
As Milovan Djilas, a Communist official and
philosopher, stated: ―we [Communists] were taught something far greater: to
expect paradise in this world, not too far in the future.‖ Man was ―the link
between the eternal and the momentary, a moment of eternity. Man was and will
be a fighter, according to the immutable law of his existence.‖ 47 The concept of
the ―secular‖ was not merely predicated on liberating education and rationality
from the normative claims of religious doctrines. At the heart of secularization
policies was the idea of untying the knots that divided the South Slavic
community. As Tito proclaimed in a speech in 1945:
Our most important principle is the equality and brotherhood of
peoples. Recognizing the full autonomy and freedom of all peoples,
we shall at the same time fight against any attempts at separatism and
nurture the feeling of affection for the new Yugoslavia.48
Rogers Brubaker defines ―groupism‖ as ―the tendency to take discrete,
sharply differentiated, internally homogenous and externally bounded groups as
basic constituents of social life, chief protagonists of social conflicts, and
fundamental units of social analysis.‖ According to him, organizations such as
schools and churches can ―empower or authorize certain forms of groupification,
but even when this is the case, organizations cannot be equated with the ethnic
groups.‖ Before the Second World War, religious institutions in the Balkans
fulfilled a dual role as sites of worship and of religious groupifications. 49 Often
social action was organized around the different religious institutions, with
46
Tito. Selected speeches and articles, 1941-1961.( Zagreb: Naprijed, 1963), 409
The future of mankind lies in peaceful active co-existence and in co-operation within the
framework of the united nations: communism is not a religion—but religion, too, is limited in time.
july 1954
47
Sulzberger, C. L. 1989. Paradise regained: memoir of a rebel. (New York: Praeger, 1989), 35
48
Tito. Selected speeches and articles, 1941-1961. (Zagreb: Naprijed, 1963), 12
49
Rogers Brubaker, Ethnicity without groups. (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2004)
39
separate rituals and forms of religious practice inculcating a sense of solidarity
among members.
After the establishment of Socialist Yugoslavia, the state
apparatus was geared significantly towards the diminution of the social function
of religion and the homogenization of interests and values in the public sphere. If
inter-confessional boundaries exemplified the saying: ―Good fences make good
neighbors,‖ Communist secularization sought exactly the opposite. The separation
of Church and State, or the separation of religion from territorial authority,
translated into the diminution of religious institutions as corporate entities in order
to reduce the political power of religion in the public sphere. In the immediate
post-war period, religious institutions struggled with the Communist regime in an
attempt to retain their confessional and often ultra-montane loyalties over and
above the civic Yugoslav state.
Instead of confessional differentiation, socialist relations were to guide
interactions between individuals in the public sphere. In addition to uniform
material relations, subjective ―non-etatist‖ nationalities were to function, as in the
words of Ernest Renan, ―like water and oil. They mix but they do not dissolve.‖50
Whilst delegitimizing the concept of religious differentiation, Socialist
Yugoslavia legitimized an ―ethnicity‖ predicated on cultural and historical
differences. The notion of secularization promoted a movement from primordial,
―religious‖ categories to fluid ―ethnic‖ ones, with the latter being politically
endorsed in the form of ―ethnic consociationalism.‖ The early pioneers of ―ethnic
consociationalism‖ predicated their model on the separation of church and state.
50
Fritz W Hondius, Yugoslav community of nations. (Mounton De Gruyter, 1968), 23
40
Just as religion was separated from territorial authority, different ―ethnic‖
categories were to be administered as fluid cultural beings through their
extrication from immediate territoriality.51 An irony of the model, however, was
that the process of secularization itself reified the concept of territoriality, or a
―civic‖ nationhood. In Socialist Yugoslavia, ―ethnic chauvinism‖ was to be
tempered through secularization and an allegiance to socialist patriotism.
Simultaneously, national solidarity, the legitimizing rhetoric of the Partisan Party,
allowed for the preservation of the diverse ―ethnic‖ character of Yugoslavia.
What, then, became of the so-called ―non-national‖ or confessional
categories? In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the most multi-confessional republic of
Yugoslavia, the implications of secularization were manifold. The concept of
secular ethnicity merged with the notion of dialectical materialism, whereby
historical, cultural and linguistic groups evolved with time, disentangling
themselves from their religious roots in pursuit of material factors. Bosnian
Muslims, as Slavs who had converted to Islam in the Ottoman period, were only
accorded a confessional status, with no political legitimacy. A foreign Ottoman
incursion was held to have thwarted their development as a historical people.
Against a backdrop of strong confessional legacies embedded in the Balkans,
religious discourses continued to operate beneath the surface as neutralized
sensibilities in cultural and literary life, subject to re-interpretation in accordance
with changing political dynamics. The Communist regime, for its part, vacillated
51
See Chapter 2, ‗‗State and Nation‖ by Karl Renner in National Cultural Autonomy and its
Contemporary Critics, e.d by Ephraim Nimni ( London; New York: Routledge, 2005).
41
between paradigms of discrete, externally bounded religious groups and fluid
ethnic categories in its treatment of Orthodox Christians, Catholics and Bosnian
Muslims. Did such schizophrenic treatment by the Communist regime signal a
conflation of confessional and ethnic differences or a dilemma of secularization
and ―nation‖ building itself?
~The Trial of Archbishop Stepinac~
In September 1946, the Communist Party in Yugoslavia held a political show
trial of Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac and set the stage for a ―secularization‖
narrative for the newly established Socialist Yugoslavia. Cardinal Stepinac was
the leading Archbishop of Croatia during the existence of the Independent State of
Croatia from 1941 to 1945. The Partisan (Communist) Party had emerged
victorious after a long battle for territory and power, but opposition was still
widespread. The narrative of the Stepinac trial sought to portray the excesses of
politicized religion through the convergence of the ''confessional'' and the ''ethnic''
or ''national''. Religious influence was emphasized as one of the primary factors
enabling a sustained collaboration of Catholic Christians with the nationalist
Ustashe regime. Although Cardinal Stepinac was the Archbishop of Croatia, the
narrative of his trial held Stepinac to be a representative of the Catholic Church,
conferring responsibility on him not only for his dioesce, but also for BosniaHerzegovina and Dalmatia. At least overtly, the narrative of this trial enabled the
Communist regime to navigate its way through the interwoven presence of
''ethnic'' groups and religious beliefs in the South Slavic Lands. In the ensuing
secularization reforms led by Josif Tito, religious practice was pushed to a
42
''private'' sphere routinely invaded by the Communist regime. Simultaneously,
Tito promoted the idea of a ''Slavic'' territorial affiliation, over and above other
loyalties.
The responsibility of Stepinac for the Ustasha atrocities has been a subject of
heated debate, and is complicated further by Stepinac's determined reticence
during the course of the trial. Refusing to appoint himself a lawyer for a trial
which he perceived as politically biased, Stepinac stated: ―You can shoot me, you
can bring me to the foot of the gallows, but I will not answer you.‖52 The Public
Prosecutor in the trial, Jakov Blazevic, read out an early excerpt from the
religious press which praised Pavelic, and put forth the following question: how
could Stepinac have prayed for such a criminal? To this, Stepinac replied with
much reserve: ―it was his sacred duty to pray for all men without distinction.‖53 In
the ensuing years of Communist censorship and agit-prop regarding religious
freedom, the defense of Stepinac in the trial stands out as one of the few public
instances of religious opposition towards the Communist state. Stepinac's official
and public acceptance of the Ustasha state was accompanied by more private
objections to Ustashe policies of extermination and forced conversion of the
Serbian Orthodox population. His role during the Independent State of Croatia ,
therefore, lies in the ambigous zone of collaboration or acceptance, through an
absence of public resistance. While his attitude during the Ustashe regime was
one of passivity in the face of brutality towards a non-Catholic population, his
52
B 572 quoting VD, as cited in Stella Alexander, The triple myth: a life of Archbishop Alojzije
Stepinac. (East European monographs, no. 226. Boulder: East European Monographs 1987), 144
53
Sudjenje p 225, as cited in Alexander, The Triple Myth, 150
43
later stance towards the Communist regime demonstrated that Stepinac was
capable of embracing a more active role in public affairs.
A closer analysis of Stepinac's personal exchanges during the Ustashe
regime demonstrates a naive faith in being able to reform his Catholic spiritual
community. At the heart of Stepinac's actions from the Second World War to the
Communist regime was his allegiance to a religious community over and above
other conceptions of community. In that, perhaps, lay the biggest dilemma of the
Communist regime. The Party held Stepinac and the religious institutions
responsible on the basis of their ''ethnic'' affiliation, so to speak. What they
mistook as Stepinac's defiance of the Yugoslav state was, perhaps, a protest
against the conflation of the Croatian ''ethnic'' or ''national'' with the Catholic
''confessional''. Despite this blunder, the Communist Party remained committed to
separating
''Church from State'' whilst endorsing ''national'' categories in its
constitutional framework. In other words, it was committed to emptying
''religion'' from the ''national'' or the ''ethnic'', so that the latter could serve as a
more egalitarian basis for managing cultural diversity and ''brotherhood and
unity.'' Religious institutions, on the other hand, were co-opted by the Communist
state, and religious practice was pushed into a ''private'' sphere which was
systematically invaded by the Communist regime.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the Partisan Party faced the
task of re-constituting state structures and political institutions that would cater to
the Communist ideal. The call for ''national'' solidarity and civic patriotism in
opposition to imperialism did much to attract support from disenchanted war
44
survivors, but the Party had yet to address the internal adversaries of its political
legitimacy. Religious institutions, despite their decimation during the course of
the war, continued to exist as organizations with still considerable social cohesion
and political voice. Although religious institutions were locally embedded, often
forming the basis of a quasi-civil society, they served as a threat due to their
opposition to the Communist regime. Furthermore, their ''transnational'' ties
beyond the Yugoslav territories served as a point of departure from Yugoslav
patriotism in the post-war period. The Catholic Church
in the Balkans, for
instance, held close ties with the Vatican, and the Orthodox Church with its larger
Orthodox Christian community. The affiliation of Yugoslav Muslims with the
Muslim ummah beyond Europe was perhaps even more daunting. The immediate
post-war period witnessed large scale persecution of Catholic, Orthodox Christian
and Muslim religious authorities, administered largely under the guise of
punishing Ustashe criminals and fascist elements in society.54 Religious figures
and clergymen, particularly those belonging to the Catholic Church, were rounded
up and tried in military courts without due process of law. Others were simply
murdered or brutally harassed. Churches were destroyed, and monasteries,
convents and seminaries were closed down. Courts of Islamic law were
suppressed, and brought under the jurisdiction of Communist authorites, with
many mosques turned into museums or warehouses. Islam, with its endorsement
of social practices in the public sphere, was viewed with great caution.
54
See Malcolm, A Short History; Alexander, The Triple Myth,193-197, Francine Friedman, The
Bosnian Muslims : Denial of a Nation. Boulder, (Westview Press, 1996)
45
Under the Communist
regime,
religious
institutions
were equally
marginalized from society, but nonetheless faced an unequal allocation of postwar guilt. The conflation of ethnicity and religion by the Communist regime was
one factor accounting for the disparity. The Communist regime in the Balkans had
emerged from a chaotic transition in which Croatian nationalists had co-opted
religious discourses for national purposes. From the same premise, the
Communist regime proceeded towards its treatment of individuals within the
religious milieu. Religious institutions, therefore, soon became a means of
balancing the antagonisms between ''Serbs'' and ''Croats''. In the early years the
Catholic Church was treated with particular severity due to the collaboration of its
clergy with the Croatian state. Meanwhile, the Communist regime chose to
overlook the involvement of members of the Serbian Orthodox Church with Serb
Cetnik forces. The unequal 'assault' on religious institutions also stemmed from
the varying strengths and organizational capacities of the different institutions, of
which perhaps the Catholic Church was the strongest. With religious institutions
serving as quasi-representatives of civil society, the position of each confessional
community during the war also affected the stances taken by the institutions
during the Communist regime. The Islamic Religious Council, for instance,
offered initial opposition to the Communist regime before settling down for a
more conciliatory stance in order to obtain financial support and to continue
religious and spiritual activities.55
Zachary T Irwin, ―The Islamic Revival and the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina,‖ East
European Quarterly 17, no 4 Jan 1984, 440
55
46
Nonetheless, the widespread persecution of religious authorities in the
immediate post-war period antagonized members from the religious milieu and
also ignited national sentiments, particularly among exiled emigres. A Serbian
emigre publication, the Voice of the Serbian Community in London, led by Dr.
Milos Sekulich, bemoaned the fate of the Serbian Cetnik leader, Draza
Mihailovich, who had been convicted by the Communist authorities, and regularly
defended the Serbian Orthodox Church. 56 Mladi Muslimani, an organization
founded in 1939 with the aim of disseminating Islamic education among young
Muslims, was banned. Many of its members during the war undertook charitable
and social work, while others joined with Ustasha and fascist elements. In the
post-war period, it continued to operate underground and to carry out its activities
discretely. But perhaps the strongest reaction to religious persecution was voiced
by Catholic hierarchies abroad, particularly the Vatican. Amidst preparations of
the Allied Forces for negotiations with Italy on the territory of Trieste, the Vatican
began to mobilize support, particularly in the U.S, against the persecution of
Catholics. At the end of September 1945, the Pope sent a direct memorandum to
the American government, complaining of the situation in Yugoslavia as well as
the impossibility of any communication between the Catholics of Croatia and the
Holy See.57 Within Yugoslavia, pastoral letters were issued, complaining about
restrictions on the practice of religion through harassment of nuns, the removal of
Dr. Milos Sekulich, ―Conspiracy Against the Serbian Orthodox Church by Tito‘s and Patriarch
Guerman‘s Hierarchies‖, MS, [n.d]Voice of the Serbian Community, Emigre Publications, no 54,
1964, SEK Archives, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College of
London
57
Peter C. Kent, The lonely Cold War of Pope Pius XII: the Roman Catholic Church and the
division of Europe, 1943-1950. (Montr al: McGill-Queen's University Press ,2002), 161
56
47
crucifixes from schools and offices, the treatment accorded to cemeteries, as well
as the banning of religious marriages.
Amidst this anti-Catholic campaign, Tito opened negotiations with the
Catholic religious authorities, particularly Archbishop Stepinac. In January 1945,
the new Constitution of the Socialist People‘s Republic of Yugoslavia had
enunciated the principle of the separation of Church and State. Freedom of
religion, conscience, and thought were guaranteed, with the qualification that the
law did not permit democratic freedoms to be abused by ―fascist‖ elements.58
With elections drawing close, Tito remained conciliatory towards the Catholic
authorities. At this juncture, political tensions between ''Serb'' and ''Croat''
nationalist were still high, and the wounds inflicted on the Orthodox Christian
population by the Ustashe state had not healed. In ''Serbian'' consciousness, Tito's
Catholic and Croatian upbringing was not lost. In fact in the early months of the
Communist establishment, the myth of an 'impostor' Tito was prevalent in many
Serbian villages; Tito was deemed an ''Croat imposter'' who had been installed by
the Russians after the real Tito had died during an airborne attack in 1944. 59
Although born to a Croatian family with a fairly religious upringing, Josef Tito
himself clearly did not adhere to the Catholic faith. It is unclear whether Tito's
stance in taming Catholic hierarchies stemmed also from a desire to court ''Serbs''
or to deny his own ''Croatian'' roots. Nonetheless,
the connection between
Catholicism and Croatian nationality surfaced in a lapse by Tito during his
Yugoslavia‘s New Constitution, United Committee of South Slavic Americans, 465 Lexington
Avenue, New York 17, N.Y, 1946
59
Had i ehovi , A Muslim woman, 109
58
48
conversation with the Catholic clergy. In his memoirs, Milovan Djilas, a former
Communist official, describes Tito's first meeting with a delegation of Catholic
priests from Zagreb in 1945. While criticizing the conduct of the clergy, he let slip
the phrase, ''I, as a Catholic...'' According to Djilas, his choice of words triggered
a frenzied response within the Communist bureacracy, which tracked down all
transcripts of the meeting so as to delete the phrase.60
When members of the Catholic Higher Clergy met with Josif Tito in June
1945, they expressed the hope that the mission of the Church would be protected
in the new state; this entailed the freedom of the Church to propagate its mission
freely, the provision of religious education in schools, the maintenance of
religious high schools, Catholic Action and other religious associations in the
publication of newspapers and journals without interference.61 They admitted the
participation of some clergymen in Ustashe atrocities whilst protesting against
collective retaliation. To this, Tito responded, ―That is right, [….] some or few
priests have made mistakes, but they are considered as a moral whole.‖62 In a
pastoral letter of September 20, 1945, Catholic bishops expressed that they did not
wish to provoke a clash with the government, but could not dispense with the
position that the Holy See had jurisdiction in ecclesiastical matters and in
60
Milovan Djilas, Rise and fall. (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.,1985), 38
Richard Pattee, The Case of Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac. (Milwaukee: Bruce Pub. Co., 1953),
419
Pattee‘s foreword and analysis precede the primary source documents that he provides in his book,
which is partial to Archbishop Stepinac. I have corroborated the evidence in the translated
documents with a secondary source, The Triple Myth written by Stella Alexander and by another
primary source document: Yugoslavia. Poslanstvo (United States). The Case of Archbishop
Stepinac. Washington:1947
62
Ibid, 423
61
49
relations of the Church with the State. Even earlier in June, the Clergy‘s reply to
Marshal Tito had stated:
for us priests and Catholic faithful, we are bound to the Holy See in
matters of religious dogma and disciplines, while in our national and
social activities we are completely free. […] As for the Slav idea, in
that the Holy See places no obstacle. That is seen from the fact that,
in a special way, he has proclaimed Sts. Cyril and Methodius, the
Slav apostles, as our patrons, that in their honor he has given us a
ritual for a special Mass and feast day; that he has published Missals
in the language.63
The clergy also insisted that the Vatican had not accepted the Independent State
of Croatia de jure, and had refused to allow any changes in the jurisdiction of the
Croatian bishops in regions annexed by Italy. In his negotiations with Tito,
therefore, Stepinac responded that the best way to establish a co-operative
relationship between the Church and the State would be through a concordat with
the Holy See, or a modus Vivendi along the lines of the Czechoslovak model.64
Meanwhile, the Vatican continued its campaign, protesting the persecution
of Catholics in the Balkans. Reports were sent to American cardinals, particularly
apostolic delegate Amlero Cicognani, with the request that the issue be publicized
to the general public. Consequently, a speech was made in the U.S House of
Representatives by John McCormack, in which he expressed that ‗the present
religious terrorism in Yugoslavia called for dynamic defense by dynamic
leadership throughout the decent world, both church and state.‘ 65 Back in
Yugoslavia, Tito‘s position had been secured in the elections, and the new
establishment moved to further consolidate its position by eliminating all
63
Ibid, 420
Ibid, 424
65
Excerpt from Congressional Record for the 79th Congress, speech of Hon, John W Cormack in
the House of Representatives, 27 July 1946, as cited Kent, The lonely Cold War of Pope Pius XII,
160-161
64
50
opposition. When the government turned a deaf ear to complaints from religious
authorities, Cardinal Stepinac launched a campaign, denouncing the separation of
the church and state and calling the clergymen to defy the government authorities
by continuing their religious mission. 66 But what did it mean to separate the
―Church‖ from the state? The Communist Party and the religious authorities had
come to a deadlock on the precise meaning of this separation. Or perhaps, they
were simply talking past each other. Milos Sekulich, a prominent ‗Serb‘ writer,
articulated this dilemma in his emigre publication in 1964: ―In the statements by
the State and Church representatives it is frequently stressed that the relations
between the Serbian Church and the State are ―good‖…Are they as good for the
Church as they are for the State?‖ 67 For Stepinac, the ―separation of Church and
State‖ implied submission to the state and its policies of persecution of religious
authorities in the immediate post-war period. The Communist Party, for its part,
maintained its commitment to salvage ―brotherhood and unity‖ by de-politicizing
religion. On 18 September 1946, Archbishop Stepinac was arrested on charges of
treason and complicity with forced conversions and atrocities against the Serb
population.
From its inception, the Communist government conflated religious
organizations with the religious category as a whole. Although some religious
organizations had been mobilized during the occupation, the irony of the trial was
In his interrogation during the trial, Stepinac declared that he recognized the people‘s courts,
and the people‘s government---he did not seek extra-territoriality, and recognized the Constitution
as long as it respected the moral principles of the Church.
67
Dr. Milos Sekulich, ―Conspiracy Against the Serbian Orthodox Church by Tito‘s and Patriarch
Guerman‘s Hierarchies‖, MS, [n.d]Voice of the Serbian Community, Emigre Publications, no 54,
1964, SEK Archives, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College of
London
66
51
that it charged an Archbishop, much respected and venerated, who had no explicit
complicity in the Ustasha terror. In the post-war period, such turning of tables and
projection of collective guilt on the Catholic clergy was consequential in
cemented the identification of Croatianness with Catholicism. The trial seemed to
hold Catholicism on trial for its connection with Croatian ethnicity. The
conviction of Stepinac was a blow not only to Catholic religious authorities, but
also had a profound impact on Croatian national consciousness.
But to what
extent did Archbishop Stepinac‘s loyalties lie with his Croatianness and
Catholicism? Where did the boundaries between Catholic confession and Croatian
nationalism diverge?
While the Communist regime was able to map out the convergence of
Catholicism with Croatian nationality during the Second World War, it remained
blind to its point of divergence. At the establishment of the Croatian state, the
Archbishop had undoubtedly expressed joy, despite his political reservations with
the Italians and their claims on Trieste. Symbolically, the establishment of the
Croatian state on the 1300th anniversary of Croatia's first connections with the
Holy See had been of particular significance to Stepinac. In a sermon in 1941, he
had conferred his blessings of peace on the new state:
The Catholic Church which has been the spiritual leader of the
Croatian people for 1300 years in all its difficult, painful and joyful
days now accompanied the Croatian people in these days of the
establishment and renewal of its independent state, to strengthen it so
that is can bring in justice, general well being and progress...the
church is certain that there are objective and subjective conditions to
fulfill God's words.68
68
KL 16(92) 21.4.41, pg 195, as cited in Alexander, The triple myth, 60
52
It was implicit in Stepinac's initial sermons that religious institutions, particularly
the Catholic Church, would enjoy full freedom under the Croatian state 69. On the
question of what ''freedom'' actually entailed, the Ustashe state and the Catholic
Church were soon to be at odds. Stepinac‘s earlier correspondences with Pavelic
had been marked with caution. He refrained from outright criticism of Ustasha
atrocities, emphasizing instead humane treatment of Orthodox Christians: ―I am
convinced that these things have been happening without your knowledge and
that others may not dare to tell you about that, so I am all the more obliged to do
so myself.‖70 It was not until May 22, 1941 that Stepinac began to reproach the
government:
to take away all possibility of existence from members of other
nations or races and to mark them with the stamp of infamy is a
question of humanity, and morals. Neither notorious adulterers or
even prostitutes are marked with visible signs. 71
Unable to alter the decision of deportation, Stepinac subsequently recommended
arrangements for the families prior to the deportation, provision of food and
healthcare, necessary comforts for the deportees and suitable means of
communication with their families.72
Major discord emerged between the Croatian State and the Church on the
issue of forced conversions. According to canon law, the process of conversion to
Catholicism was voluntary, and required the approval of superior church
authorities as well as adequate religious instruction. The acquisition of property
69
An argument made by historian Stella Alexander, through her analysis of his earlier
correspondences and speeches.
70
B 406 f quoting from archdiocesan archives , as cited in Alexander, The Triple Myth, 71
71
Pattee, The Case of Cardinal Stepinac, 301
72
Ibid
53
owned by another religious denomination was also prohibited, unless a great
majority of members from another denomination had entered the Catholic
Church.73 In the absence of a stance by the Vatican on procedural changes for
religious conversions, Ustasha authorities took matters into their own hands,
sending out priests and missionaries through a number of agencies. Stepinac
condemned the forcible seizure of Orthodox Church property and conversions,
insisting that canonical rules had to be observed until in good time ―all the
Orthodox will return to their original Church.‖ 74 In other words, Stepinac
emphasized that religious proselytism was guided by a set of principles and
predicated on an individual‘s subjective decision. Under the Ustashe regime,
however, the concept of religious conversion was usurped for political and
nationalist ends. While Stepinac maintained a private opposition to ―forced
conversions,‖ his stance took a dramatic turn when people began to enter the
churches as refugees, pleading to be admitted in order to save their lives. In
March 1942, Stepinac asserted that in the case of ―secondary motives‖ for
conversion, if they were honorable, the ―door was open‖ to receive them.
According to the Defense Counsel, the jurisdiction of Stepinac‘s diocese was
subordinate to the political maneuverings of the Ustashe regime. The Defense
Counsel argued that Stepinac had held only a nominal position as the military
vicar, and during the course of the occupation, Ustashe priests had acted on the
orders of the regime. It also defended Stepinac‘s actions as legal according to the
Hague convention of rules for inhabitants under a state of occupation.
73
Pattee, The Case of Cardinal Stepinac, 233
Ibid
74
54
Furthermore, the Counsel cited Solicitudo Ecclesiarum, proclaimed by Pope
Gregory XVI in 1831, whereby representatives of the Church had to establish
relations with persons with de facto authority. 75
Stepinac was pronounced guilty on all counts. The narrative was in line with
the anti-imperialist rhetoric of the regime and emphasized that religious ideology
laid the foundation for internal collaboration with the imperial powers and the
Ustashe authorities. Not only were the socio-political dynamics under the state of
occupation ignored in the narrative of the Prosecution Council, but several times,
the Defense Council was prevented from presenting evidence in the court. The
Public Prosecutor, Jakov Blasevic, stated that the ―collaboration developed and
assumed different forms during the war [….] according to the instructions of the
Vatican.‖76 He blamed Stepinac for endorsing the State of Croatia and abusing the
''character of religious holidays, converting them into political rallies.''77 He added
that Stepinac had celebrated a ''solemn Mass every April 10 in the honor of the
NDH,'' and held a Te Deum in which he invited people to offer ''their prayers to
God for the Independent Croat State, the Poglavnik [Pavelic] and for the return of
peace to the world, to the end that Croatia may be more prosperous for the
temporal and eternal profit of her children.''
78
Another major charge against
Stepinac by the Prosecution Counsel was that he had neglected to direct the forces
under his jurisdiction in a manner conducive to peace, especially as an appointed
military vicar of the Ustasha regime. The Counsel emphasized Stepinac's position
75
Pattee, The Case of Cardinal Stepinac, 196
Ibid
77
Pattee, The Case of Cardinal Stepinac, 158
78
Ibid, 165-66
76
55
as military vicar to link Stepinac to the Ustashe, stating that
the ''military
chaplains were well selected Ustasha priests whose job was to run fanatical,
backward, misled and primitive men into the perpetrators of the Ustasha
crimes.'' 79 The Prosecution Counsel extended Stepinac's religous influence
beyond his dioscese, by labelling him the
highest Catholic functionary in
Yugoslavia. It accorded Stepinac responsibility for fascist religious periodicals
published in Sarajevo, and also those belonging to other religious denominations
such as the Jesuits, the Conventuals, and Franciscans.
The dilemmas of holding a representative institution accountable for atrocities
during the Ustashe period translated in the dispersion of guilt merely by
association to the religious category. Stepinac's moral ambiguity was not
representative of the clergy or the Catholic institution as a whole. Numerous
priests and religious figures had indeed mobilized during the Second World War
and were complicit in atrocities towards Orthodox Christians. Archbishop
Stepinac, for his part, was a partisan supporter of his Catholic community who
felt more obliged to protest the Communist crackdown on the Catholic Church
than the atrocities committed against the Orthodox Christian community. His
refusal to recognize the Communist government amidst a policy of religious
persecution indicated that his interests were, above all, self serving, devoted only
to the protection of his dioceses and the spiritual interests of the Catholic
community.
79
Pattee, The Case of Cardinal Stepinac, 171-83
56
How did the conflation of Catholicism and Croatianness through the
Stepinac trial affect confessional and ethnic politics? Through the narrative of the
trial, religious institutions suffered the full brunt of Communist retaliation in the
aftermath of Ustasha occupation. Meanwhile ―Croatian‖ and ―Serbian‖ national
myths were revitalized as religious institutions gave them a rallying point for
protesting national victimization. Communist publications presented the Roman
Catholic Church as defying the norms of Church and State relations, which had
been accepted by the Serbian Orthodox and the Muslim community.80 Outside
Yugoslavia, the Serbian Diaspora and the Orthodox religious community alike
picked up pieces of the narrative, using them to assail the Roman Catholic Church.
Prominent members of the Serbian diaspora illuminated the consequences of
religion in the public domain and commented on the ‗religious dictatorship‘ and
the political power of the Vatican, whilst tacitly endorsing the mission of the
Serbian Orthodox Church to protect the ―Serbian‖ national community. Dr. Milos
Sekulich, a partisan supporter of the Yugoslav government in exile and of Draza
Mihailovic, was one of them. In a Yugoslav panel held in London, Dr. Milos
Sekulich played the ―religious‖ card and articulated:
one of the fundamental tenets of the Catholic Church [wa]s that all
Catholics must obey the Pope in religious matters. A Catholic is not
compelled to obey him in political matters. Yet, in practice, when the
Pope follows a certain policy, Catholics, as members of the Catholic
Church, must comply with the Vatican policy, thus indirectly obeying the
Pope as their political leader. 81
Rastko Vidi , The position of the church in Yugoslavia. (Beograd: Jugoslavija. 1962)
Dr. Sekulich, Avro Manhattan and General Mirkovic, The Ustashi Massacres: An Appeal to all
Yugoslavs to witness the truth, 1951, Baker Street, 20th May 1951, Classic Restaurant, SEK
Archives/5/3, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College of London.
80
81
57
Emigré publications led by Dr. Milos Sekulich shaped public opinion abroad,
deeming the Church to be ―continuing the legacy of the Spanish Inquisition‖ and
condemning the Church as ―totalitarian, undemocratic and tyrannical.‖ 82 Both
Serbian and Croatian nationalists assaulted the religious institutions of their
adversary, whilst exalting their own.
Croatian nationalists in exile strongly
identified with the Catholic Church in order to further the process of self
victimization. In New York, a campaign was carried out to build a school named
after Archbishop Stepinac. He was hailed as ―one of thousands of martyrs of
every faith whom corrupt, ruthless dictators daily betray and befoul.‖
83
In
Socialist Yugoslavia, this wound was brought back into public memory only later,
by Croatian Communist liberals seeking to obtain further national autonomy.
Stepinac‘s sentence drew much attention. For the time being, however, national
politics ignited by the assault on religious institutions were pushed into exile.
Internal and external opposition, nonetheless, continued to exist as a potential
threat to the legitimacy of Socialist Yugoslavia.
Conclusion:
Narrowing of Parameters
Through the narrative of the Stepinac trial, the Communist regime portrayed
a fusion of religion and nationhood, whereby the former perpetuated social
exclusion through a particularistic conception of the cosmos. The Party also
indicated that the intermingling of the ―religious‖ and the ―national‖ was a threat
82
Ibid
Press Release, 29 September 1946, NCWC, box 9, Communism: Jugoslavia: Stepinac: 1946-48,
cited in Kent, The lonely Cold War of Pope Pius XII, 170
83
58
to the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. The ―confessional‖ and the ―national‖
categories, however, did not map on to each other as neatly as the regime
imagined. Priests and other religious figures were members of a disintegrated,
war-torn society as much as they were of their respective institutions. Nonetheless,
the narrative of the trial served as a useful counterpoint for tackling the opposition
from religious organizations that was yet to come. In the post-war period, one
could either be a Partisan (and by extension, an anti-fascist) or a fascist
collaborator with the Axis powers. Between 1949 and 1950, for instance, several
hundred members of Mladi Muslimani (Young Muslims) were arrested, including
Alija Izetbegovic, who later became a spokesman for Bosnian Muslims. The
Young Muslims organization had been formed during the interwar period to
promote the education of Islam among Muslim youth. Under the disintegrative
mechanisms of the Ustashe occupation, individual members of Mladi Muslimani
had been recruited into a German SS Division to fight Orthodox Christians. In the
post-war period, the Communist crackdown on religious institutions spurred many
members of Mladi Muslimani to protest the Communist regime. The Party
retaliated with widespread arrests and deemed Mladi Muslimani a hostile,
religious organization that had collaborated with the Fascist occupiers.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the diminution of political
authority and administrative capacities of the different religious institutions in
Yugoslavia was uniform. Emigre publications by exiled leaders voiced concerns
for their respective communities, portraying the often concealed situation on the
ground. In an article published in London, a Serbian nationalist, Miodrag
59
Urosevic, expounded on the betrayal of the Serbian Orthodox Church in
Yugoslavia, decrying the ―newly-made‖ Patriarch Guerman, ―put into the holy
office by the Communists.‖ 84 The article refuted the image of a ―liberal‖ and
egalitarian Yugoslav Communism, promoted by the regime through a recent visit
of Tito‘s Ambassador, accompanied by Patriarch Guerman, to London. The
article revealed that Patriarch Guerman lacked the statutory qualifications for his
position, and had been appointed against canonical laws by the Commission for
Religious Affairs. Furthermore, Guerman was accused of staging an ecclesiastical
trial to condemn the previous Patriarch, Dr. Vurdelja, in 1964, and of endorsing
Bishop Nikola Trajkovski, ―a layman and Communist […..] [who] lacked the
constitutional requirements that bishops can only be those who have a theological
degree.‖ 85 Urosevic also highlighted the Communist effort to induce rivalry
between the Macedonian and Serbian Orthodox Churches.86
The disenchantment reflected in the writings of exiled Serbian leaders served
as a commentary on wider policies towards religious authorities in the early years
of Communist Yugoslavia. In 1953, Tito put an end to the physical persecution
and harassment of religious figures that had prevailed in the immediate post-war
period. The Communist regime continued to regulate religious institutions
intensely, often at the cost of violating the internal autonomy promised to them.
The ―Law Concerning Religious Communities,‖ adopted by the Federal Assembly
Miodrag Urosevic, ―The Betrayed Serbian Church‖, MS, [n.d], 29 th May 1968, Press Release:
The Foreign Affairs Circle, issued by Public Relations Officer, ―Church House‖, Petersham,
Surrey, Richmond 2885, ALEX Archives, School of Slavonic and East European Studies,
University College of London
85
Ibid
86
Ibid
84
60
in 1953, delineated the rights and duties of the Yugoslav authorities vis-a-vis
religious communities. It was implicit in the laws that religious institutions would
either be financially bankrupt and dependent on the Communist administration, or
simply exist as hollow structures, overtly ―religious‖ but ―Communist‖ from
within.
As Urosevic pointed out in The Betrayed Serbian Church, the
Commission for Religious Affairs served as ―a means of supervision, pressure and
espionage in the church for the benefit of the regime 87.‖ The new decree also
stated that material assistance to ―religious‖ communities rested on the discretion
of the state, since they had been ―receiving this assistance for a number of
years.‖88 Religious institutions were required to submit an application outlining
the specific purpose for assistance. Priests were excluded from social insurance
and other benefits extended to other Yugoslav citizens. Their access to social
welfare could only be obtained through a series of complex negotiations between
the administrative organ of the religious community and the respective state
authority. On the whole, religious institutions became entirely dependent on
voluntary donations, and priests were allowed to accept monetary reward from
individuals in return for their services in church or home.89
While agrarian reforms targeted the physical space occupied by religious
institutions, educational reforms drastically narrowed the parameters of a
―spiritual‖ community. Education was separated from the tutelage of the Church,
Miodrag Urosevic, ―The Betrayed Serbian Church‖, MS, [n.d], 29 th May 1968, Press Release:
The Foreign Affairs Circle, issued by Public Relations Officer, ―Church House‖, Petersham,
Surrey, Richmond 2885, ALEX Archives, School of Slavonic and East European Studies,
University College of London
88
Vidi , Rastko. The position of the church in Yugoslavia. (Beograd: Jugoslavija, 1962)
89
Ibid
87
61
thereby depriving the religious communities of perhaps their most significant role
and function in society. In the pre-war era, schools had served as primary sites for
the assertion of religious influence. Local Muslim councils had opened Mektebs,
where children of pre-school age, under the guidance of imams, would learn to
pray, read the Arabic alphabet and recite the Quran.90 Madrassahs would provide
religious instruction with a restricted curriculum, lasting ten or more years.
91
Similarly, the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church
exercised strict influence over youth through state schools, and other organized
nursery schools. According to the new ―Law on Religious Communities‖
promulgated in 1953, a pupil was free to attend religious instruction in churches
or other premises with the approval of his parents, and religious communities
were free to manage their own schools.92 This was qualified by a clause stating
that no one could be compelled to become a member of a religious community.
Furthermore, religious instruction, which primarily served as a vocational training
center for priestly activities, was forbidden during school hours, and was only
open to those pupils who had completed eight years of elementary school.
Religious beliefs were a private matter for the citizens, and could not impinge in
the public sphere. Although mosques and churches remained open, they were
rarely attended by professionals, government officials and even tradesmen. A
Communist who visited a mosque or a church could be expelled from the Party,
and a government official from his job. 93
Had i ehovi , A Muslim woman., 64
Vidi , The position of the church in Yugoslavia.
92
Ibid
93
Ibid
90
91
62
As a consequence of Communist secularization, religious practices receded to
the household unit. Under the Communist state, however, even the ―private‖
sphere or the household unit, was closely regulated and soon to be re-determined.
Apart from a regulation of religious and nationalist elements within Yugoslavia,
the initial years of the Communist regime also witnessed massive purges of
individuals, writers and intellectuals after the break with the Comintern in 1948.
In the film, When father was away on a Business Trip, the film-maker Abdullah
Sidran provides a snapshot of the early Communist period and how it affected the
household unit.94 The story of Mesa, the father, who is sent to an anti-Stalinist
prison camp after being framed by a jealous mistress and her future husband, is
evocative of the various intrigues and espionage that permeated social life in
Communist Yugoslavia. The parameters of community life were in flux. The
slogan of ―Brotherhood and Unity‖ now signified a system of selective inclusion
of some members and exclusion of others.
Sidran, Abdulah, Emir Kusturica, Moreno D'E Bartolli, Miki Monojlovic, Mirjana Karanovi ,
Mirza Paisi , Mira Furlan, and Pavle Vujisi . 2005. When father was away on business / Forum
[and] Sarajevo Film. NY: Koch Lorber
94
63
Section II
A Prelude
The New Socialist Community
1945 to early 1950s
―The story of a family can also portray the soul of a land. The life of the family
reflects the life of the broader community of kin, and through it of the entire
land,‘‘95 wrote Milovan Djilas in his memoirs, Land Without Justice, published in
1958. Such was the perception in many Yugoslav families, as they traced long
genealogies of kinship and recited ―ten generations without knowing anything in
particular about them.‖ 96 Family names carried a history. Often stories of
ancestors and their instances of struggle and endurance under the Ottoman regime
were handed down through generations in Orthodox and Catholic families. When
faith and practice faded, bonds of kinship could still claim individuals into
confessional communities on the basis of ―shared‖ experiences lived by earlier
generations. Within Muslim families, stories from older generations often
reminisced of the days of aristocracy and ―landed estates.‖ 97 In the new
Yugoslavia, even as the social ethos and the structures changed, the stories often
endured.
With land reforms limiting ownership of property to twenty hectares in
Socialist Yugoslavia, it had become a norm for men to break away from their
extended families in search of jobs. The privacy of a single family unit was
95
Milovan Djilas, Land without justice. (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1958), 3
Ibid, 6
97
Adil Zulfikarpasic, Milovan Dilas, and Nadezda Gace. The Bosniak. (London: Hurst.,1998)
96
64
replaced with close-knit communal apartments, where the question ‗who is who‘
was no longer valid.98 Where once ―the various faiths and origins placed their
stamps on the town,‖ there was now a sense of social homogeneity.99 In a more
symbolic way, the notion of zadruga, a Slavic term for communal living with kin,
had expanded. It now denoted a village council which operated in accordance
with the Yugoslav ―self-management system‖ and allowed for greater social
interaction. 100 The officials in the council were appointed by the Communist
government and in turn elected by the village community. The council was
responsible for overseeing the residents of the community, and supervising
socialist institutions in order to encourage greater interaction within the villages
and its various sectors. Peasants were forced to enter into collective farms and
work alongside their neighbors. In the small village of Dolina in Bosnia, only two
Muslim households owned a horse, and two Catholic households owned a tractor.
In agricultural work, Muslims and Catholics would co-operate with each other to
do their job.101 A president of a local workers‘ council in Bosnia enthusiastically
expressed in 1948:
―Look at us. Turks and Christians. We work together. We eat together.
We fought together. It doesn‘t make any difference about the color of our
skins or our religions or our nationality or anything else. There is no
hatred in Yugoslavia today. That alone is worth all the suffering we have
had.‖102
Hadzisehovi , A Muslim woman. Chapter 7: The People and the regime, 109-118
Djilas, Land without justice, pg 3
100
A principle of self government which relegated decision-making to a localized level of an
individual producer, or citizen
101
Bringa, 70-74
102
St. John, The silent people speak., 88
98
99
65
The new socio-economic structure also changed a frequent patriarchal
dominance in the household; now women could discard their traditional, guarded
positions within the household and work alongside men in professional fields.
Veiled women were rarely sighted in public, particularly after a law was passed in
1950 forbidding the veiling of women. The regime introduced child and health
care for all; an egalitarianism of a kind coupled with social homogeneity
characterized socialist life. With the initiation of small scale enterprises, many
employment opportunities also opened up for ordinary peasants. Before the
Second World War, three-fourths of the population had lived in villages.103 Now,
towns expanded, and villages began to empty.
The household unit was divided, not merely physically, but also often
ideologically. Members of the older generation were often wary of the widespread
disregard for old traditions. On the other hand, ―youth‖ was the symbol of the
New Yugoslavia and more accepting of change. The Communist school in the
1950s and 60s emerged as a primary site for the creation of Yugoslav citizenship
and socialist personality. Large scale educational reforms implemented in 194445 made schools a property of the state, followed by a massive campaign for the
eradication of illiteracy and the promotion of cultural life. 104 The rustic culture of
the countryside was now teeming with movie theatres, libraries, and reading
Ildiko Erdei, ―The Happy Child: As an Icon of Socialist Transformation: Yugoslavia‘s Pioneer
Organization,‖ Ideologies and national identities the case of twentieth-century Southeastern
Europe, edited by Lampe, John R., and Mark Mazower. (Budapest: Central European University
Press, 2004)
104
The First Reforms made the schools a property of the state. The Second Reforms in 1958
allowed for more autonomy and greater decentralization.
U.S Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Office of Education, ―The Educational System
of Yugoslavia,‖ Institute of International Studies, by Nellie Apajasewicz, 1970
103
66
rooms. In order to bridge the rural-urban divide, the League of Communists
arranged regular incentives, competitions and prizes to encourage the peasant
population and workers to participate in artistic and cultural work.105 Furthermore,
the government announced the Five Year Plan in 1949 which undertook to build
six times as many grammar schools as in the years of inter-war Yugoslavia.106
Prior to the implementation of school reforms, education had served as the
primary means through which religious authorities asserted their influence. It was
―as though we were being trained for priesthood,‖ Djilas comments in his
memoirs.107 In the post war period, changes in curriculum were designed to ―bring
education closer to socialist life,‖ and a considerable emphasis was placed on the
study of social sciences from elementary school in order to promote a uniform
social consciousness. 108 Bosnia-Herzegovina was particularly highlighted for
work on the elimination of illiteracy, as one news article described: ―before the
war, this republic was known as one of the most culturally backward parts of
Yugoslavia.‖ 109 The emphasis on modernity and its link with socialism was
pervasive, with courses such as ―The Life of Modern Man,‖ ―Modern Culture,‖
and ―Modern Yugoslavia—Free Land of Socialism‖ were offered regularly in
schools. Religious education was removed from the school curriculum and
replaced with a strict indoctrination of atheism and Marxist-Leninist thought,
much to the chagrin of the religious communities in Yugoslavia. Apart from the
―Short Cultural News,‖ Yugoslav Fortnightly, June 15, 1949, vol 1, no 6, pg 6
―Five Year Plan of 1951,‖ Telegraphic Agency New Yugoslavia, Sept 2, 1949, no 30
107
Djilas, Land without justice, 209
105
106
108
John Georgeoff,."Social Studies in Yugoslav Elementary Schools". The Elementary School
Journal. 66 (8): (1966) 432-437.
109
―Short Cultural News,‖ Yugoslav Fortnightly, June 15, 1949, vol 1, no 6, 6
67
teachings of Marx and Engels being routinely taught at all levels, history was also
interpreted through a Marxist lens. The National War of Liberation during World
War II was featured extensively in history textbooks, and the chronology of the
world was divided into four epochs: slavery, serfdom, capitalism and socialcommunism. The school curriculum was also filled with patriotic emblems, songs,
folklore and lyrical ballads venerating members of the Partisan Party as legendary
heroes. 110 The study of philosophy was also included in the last few years of
school and in universities. Occasionally, Sunday newspapers, as well as radio and
television stations, also published philosophical writings. In philosophical
symposiums and seminars, frequent topics of reflection included: ―Man Today,‖
―The Meaning and Perspective of Socialism,‖ ―What is History,‖ and ―Culture
and Progress.‖111 In consistency with the modernization theories of its age, both at
home and abroad, the entire school curriculum, therefore, reinforced the idea of a
―modern‖ Yugoslav intellectual and citizen.112
Schools alone were not enough for the socialist transformation of the child.
They were complemented by Pioneer organizations and youth groups designed to
inculcate patriotism and adulation for Tito, the head of the Communist Party.
These organizations were closely integrated with the schooling system and often
entailed special procedures for admission and preferential treatment of children.
Above all, they ensured a constant immersion of children in socialist ideals, at the
expense of other activities, even beyond school hours. At the university level, the
111
Svetozar Stojanovich, "Contemporary Yugoslavian Philosophy". Ethics. 76 (4): 297-301(1966),
300-01.
68
organizations allowed for preferential employment opportunities, as well as free
health care, housing and scholarships. They not only provided direct work
experience with Communist officials in City Committees, but they also served as
espionage agencies regulating the conduct of their members and non-members in
various aspects of life. Munevera Hadzisehovic, herself a victim of an espionage
University Committee, relates an incident describing the culture of denunciation
that had come to exist alongside increased social interaction. One of the frequent
topics at the University Communist Committee was the congregation of Muslim
youth in the courtyard of a mosque during Ramadan evenings, as well as the
religious influence exercised over youth at the Gazi Husrev Beg Medressah in
Sarajevo. Members were designated to infiltrate the medressah gatherings and
organize a Communist youth chapter.113 Hadzisehovic describes her subsequent
expulsion from the University Committee, which deprived her of economic self
sufficiency in her later years. A member of the University Committee, Ibrahim,
leveled accusations against her, quoting sentences from her conversations with
foreigners. She narrates:
My accusers gave different meaning to every sentence. It was clear I had
not only been speaking to my colleagues: there were spies among the
women students in our dorm rooms. They were not good students and
had probably agreed to spy on us in the hope that after graduation they
would find jobs in Belgrade.114
Despite the homogenization and intimacy of socialist integration, different
religious and social customs continued to be preserved by families in the
household unit. Much to the surprise of Communist elites, the post-war regime
Hadzisehovi , A Muslim woman, 152
Hadzisehovi ,. A Muslim woman, 153
113
114
69
witnessed little change in religious beliefs and traditions. A census poll in 1968
indicated that 51% of all Yugoslavia admitted to a belief in God, while others
simply adhered to religious and cultural traditions more than religious faith.115
The incidence of religious belief and customs in rural areas was greater than in
urban areas, because the Bosnian rural setting was still primarily endogamous.
Cultural and religious traditions, adjusted to new changes, continued to be
preserved in the family unit. Rusinow paints a picture of a typical Serbian feast
during a visit in Socialist Yugoslavia in 1966,
For the slava, the new house had had its annual spring cleaning and the
walls were bright with fresh whitewash. In former times a slava lasted
for three days. Now, although the feast itself is confined to one day and
perhaps part of the next, preparations are necessary, begun a week in
advance.116
The private sphere in the household and the public sphere, however, were not
mutually exclusive. Often individuals were in tune with socialist ideas of the age
whilst maintaining their traditions amidst a tide of modernization. As one father
of a Serbian family said about the future of his child:
I do not want him to spend his life as may father and I have done, slaving
all day for enough to eat and a little for the market. The future will be
different and will belong to those who prepare for it. That is what we
must do for our children.117
115
David Dyker A. "The Ethnic Muslims of Bosnia: Some Basic Socio-Economic Data". The
Slavonic and East European Review. 50 (119), (1972) 55-79
116
Dennison I. Rusninow, and Gale Stokes. Yugoslavia: oblique insights and observations.
(Pittsburgh, Pa: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008 ), 8
117
Ibid, pg10
70
Chapter 2
~ What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth
unto me from the ground~118
Here lyeth
Gorchin solider
In his own lande
In a straungers‘
Demesne119
I dissolved
And streamed
Now here I am
Now here I am
Without myself
Bitter
How can I go back
To Whence I Sprang?120
Mak Dizdar
118
Genesis, 4:10
Dizdar 1999:139, as cited in Amila Buturovic, ―Reasserting Authenticity: Bosnian Identity,
Religion and Landscape in the Poetry of Mak Dizdar‖, in Mapping the sacred: Religion,
Geography and Post-colonial Literatures, e.d J.S Scott and P Simpson- Housely, (Amsterdam
[u.a.]: Rodopi, 2001), 390
120
Dizdar 1999:57, as cited in Butrovic, ―Reasserting Authenticity,‖ 392
119
71
Written from the vantage point of Communist Yugoslavia, the poetic verses
of a famous Bosnian poet, Mehmedija Mak Dizdar, express an introspective quest
for authentic Bosnian identity under the taint of colonial domination. At the heart
of Dizdar‘s poetry was a post-colonial sense of dispossession from historical
anchorage, and a subsequent disorientation of the self. Dizdar turned to medieval
landscape, stone cemeteries and ancient burial sites to locate an identity that
surpassed external influences of the pre-modern and the modern period. In his
philosophical reflections, Dizdar once wrote:
For hours on end I stand in front of the stecaks [tombstones] of this land,
located on the brink of primeval forests. At night I am haunted by the
notes scribbled on the margins of ancient manuscripts whose phrases
weep with questions of apocalypse. In him [ancestor], I recognize myself,
yet I am not certain that I can ever remove the veil from his mystery.121
Dizdar‘s retrospective turn to the past in order to ascertain the ―original‖
territorial identity of the Bosnians was evocative of larger efforts of the
Communist government to resurrect the idea of a South Slavic community.
Whereas epic tales of the National War of Liberation served as a starting point for
the narrative of South Slavic unity, the Communist government soon felt the need
to culturally entrench the concept of a supranational entity. After Yugoslavia‘s
break with the Comintern in 1948, socialist internationalism gave way to socialist
patriotism and Yugoslav Communists sought to realize their goal within the South
Slav territories. In the post-war reconstitution of historical ―truth,‖ therefore, the
emphasis on cultural and literary works was significant.
According to the
Yugoslav Communists, literature was ―a companion of mankind‘s evolution, as
121
Durakov,1979, 108, as cited in Butrovic, ―Reasserting Authenticity,‖ 389
72
well as a portrait, a documentation of social development.‖122 Literary works were
designed to inculcate a ―scientific outlook of the world, life and society, and
prepare […] for the fulfillment of all objectives in the building of socialism.‖123
With the birth pains of early statehood and the dilemmas of defining cultural
policy, the Communist Party felt it necessary to develop a national literary canon,
which would underline common cultural affinities and historical traditions. In
order to ensure the ideological commensurability of earlier South Slavic literature
with socialist thought, the Communist regime undertook a campaign of regulation
and censorship. Simultaneously, other works that incorporated socialist ideas
were highlighted and made readily accessible to the public. The predominant
theme in literary works gradually shifted from a glorification of Partisan heroism
to the supranational identity of a Socialist Yugoslavia, situated between ―East‖
and ―West.‖124
The Communist attempt to ―build‖ a Yugoslav nation divorced from the latent
religious subcultures could only succeed to an extent. The notion of South Slavic
unity, as promoted by the Communist government, was primarily constructed in
opposition to the ―foreign‖ other. But as Amila Butrovic describes, the colonial
experience in Europe was ―informed by a long history of internal othering,
122
Osnava nastava u FNRJ (Belgrade, 1948), 110 (Pavlovic, 121), Cited in Andrew Wachtel,
Making a nation, breaking a nation: literature and cultural politics in Yugoslavia. (Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press. 1998),. 138
123
Ibid.
124
Wachtel, ―Supranational Yugoslav Culture: Brotherhood and Unity,‖ in Making a Nation,
Breaking a Nation, 146-172
73
domination and mythologization.‖125 Historically, Bosnia-Herzegovina occupied a
unique space in Europe, as a land usurped by the ―Orient‖ during the Ottoman
period and retrieved by the ―Occident‖ during Habsburg colonization. Often, the
divide of the Orient versus the Occident manifested itself as a conflict between
Christian civilization and Islamic empire. By tapping into historical and cultural
archives of the South Slavs, in order to resuscitate the idea of Brotherhood, the
Communist regime inevitably stumbled upon internal perceptions of alterity,
generated through the years of colonial domination. In an address at Zagreb on
October 31, 1946, Tito stated:
‗the Slavic peoples of the Balkans have a glorious tradition as fierce and
stubborn fighters for their cultural and religious heritage as well as for
national independence. [….] Germany and Austria were particularly
eager to exploit and capitalize on religious differences between the Serbs
and Croats. We want to create a community of South Slavs in which
there would be Orthodox and Catholic, who must be closely linked with
other Slavs.‘126
His speech displayed a characteristic lapse on the part of the Communist Party,
in terms of their equation of Serb and Croat ethnic categories with their former
religious groupings. Any historical legitimacy of a union of Serbs and Croats
rested on an antagonism between Christian Slavdom and the Islamic Empire. The
idea of an authentic resurrection of Yugoslavian identity from the past, therefore,
could not evade ―old‖ divisions. Consequently, the articulation of a ―secular‖ and
―united‖ Yugoslav identity entailed a complex set of cultural processes that aimed
to separate the ―religious‖ from the ―cultural,‖ reifying the modernist transition
Amila Buturovic, ―Reasserting Authenticity: Bosnian Identity, Religion and Landscape in the
Poetry of Mak Dizdar‖, in Mapping the sacred: Religion, Geography and Post-colonial
Literatures, e.d J,.S Scott and P Simpson- Housely, 381- 401, (Amsterdam [u.a.]: Rodopi, 2001)
126
Vjesnik 3.6.45; SVNZ 5.10. 45 , as cited in Stellar, Triple Myth of the Archbishop, 118
125
74
from faith to culture. Although the Communist regime had significantly
marginalized religious institutions and faith based discourses from public life, it
soon endorsed a territorially-inscribed Christian culture. In the domain of literary
and cultural life, an anachronistic appropriation of cultural icons from a period of
pre-modern ―religiosity‖ only caused a fleeting disturbance. As a solution to this
glitch, in the imagination of a South Slavic community, the Communist Party
engaged in a rigorous re-interpretation of historical texts by depleting them of
their essence, and selectively supplying them with new socialist referents. The
Ottomans, as a representation of the ―pre-modern,‖ became a favorite theme. Not
only did the Ottomans offer a common point of contention for Serbian and
Croatian nationalism, but they also contributed, conveniently, to the antiimperialist legitimacy of the Communist regime.
A classic example of this new semiotic culture can be seen in the
incorporation of the Montenegrin Poet and Bishop, Prince Petar Petrovic-Njegos,
into the Communist literary ouevre. Often remembered as the Shakespeare of the
Serbian nation, Petar Njegos was a Serbian Orthodox priest who became the ruler
and the prince of Montenegro in the early nineteenth century. His writings were
famous for depicting the conflict of Montenegrin Serbs with the ―Turks,‖ settled
in the neighboring areas.127 Despite his position as a bishop, Njegos‘s views on
religion were incongruous with his time in that they did not presuppose a
distinction between the religious sphere and the ―secular‖ domain of political
administration. Communist interpretations of Njegos, therefore, were quick to
characterize him as a figure who aimed to transform the Serbian theocracy into a
127
Milovan Djilas, Njegos : Poet, Prince, Bishop. (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966)
75
―secular‖ state. 128 On June 7, 1947, an oversized portrait of Njegos as well as
excerpts of his play, The Mountain Wreath, appeared on the front page of the
Communist newspaper, Borba, published in Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia and
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
129
It was the one-hundredth anniversary of Njegos‘s
publication, The Mountain Wreath, which also coincided with the first cultural
exhibition held by the Communist Party. Historian Andrew Wachtel writes:
―Considering Tito‘s fondness for oversize pictures of himself, such a layout was
indeed a rarity.‖130 The creation of a Communist Petar Njegos, however, did not
come without its share of problems. In an already sensitive political environment,
with tension between Serbs and Croats, Njegos‘s explicit orientation towards
Serbdom was problematic. As was his revered position in the Serbian national
canon and his antagonist stance towards Islamized Serbs. What, then, drove the
Communist regime to make Njegos such an important literary icon? Perhaps, the
influence of Milovan Djilas, a high ranking Montenegrin Communist, in the early
years of the Communist regime, may have been one of the reasons. As Djilas also
writes in his memoirs, he carried The Mountain Wreath as his Bible and his
ancestors were also close acquaintances of Njegos.
131
Nevertheless, the
Communist Party seized on Njegos‘s Montenegrin national identity as a solution
to the Serb-Croat division. But above all, the fact that Njegos had been long dead
was very advantageous to the Communist government. Now, his entire literary
oeuvre was in the clutches of Communist propaganda. His writings were not only
128
Wachtel, Making a Nation, 142-143
Wachtel, Making a nation, breaking a nation, 143
130
Ibid.
131
Djilas was also an outspoken advocate of the Montenegrin republic.
129
76
made available to common peasants and workers, they were also made mandatory
in school systems.132
In a powerful series of dialogues and interior monologues, Njegos‘s
historical play, The Mountain Wreath, glorifies the struggle of Montenegrin Serbs
against Turkish warriors. Based on the Inquisition of the Turkicized, 133 a
somewhat contested historical event in the seventeenth century, the play depicts in
its denouement the extermination of Islamized Serbs by the Montenegrin Serbs. In
a monologue at the very outset of the play, Bishop Danilo captures sentiments of
Montenegrin Serbs, lamenting the spread of Turkish power and the futility of
Serbian resistance.
See the Devil with seven red robes,
Great-grandchild of the Turk with Koran
On the throne you sit unjustly
and boast of your blood-stained scepter
Insult God from the holy altar
and build mosques on desecrated churches!134
Although resentful of Turkish domination, Bishop Danilo is pessimistic of any
escape from the current predicament. In horror, he contemplates the military
might of the Islamized Turks and the inevitability of a conflict where ―brothers
will massacre brothers/All murderous and equally violent.‖ 135 The note of
pessimism expressed at the outset of the play, however, is soon tempered by
132
Wachtel, Making a nation, 141-150
Inquisition of the Turkicized is a contested historical event in which Muslim Slavs (and perhaps,
even foreign ‗Turks‘) were exterminated in Montenegro during the 17 th century. Njegos‘s play is
supposedly based on this historical event.
134
I have consulted two different editions: Petar Petrovic Njegos, Mountain Laurel, Translated
from Serbian by D. Mrkich, (Commoner‘s Publishing, 1985), pg 8, and Njegos, The Mountain
Wreath, Translated by J.W. Wiles, (London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, Museum Street).
135
Njegos, The Mountain Laurel, 8
133
77
collective reflections on the Serbian predicament. The eventual conclusion is that
their subordination is a punishment from God for internal disunity; ―Dear God
was angry with the Serbs/A Seven headed monster came forth/and destroyed the
entire Serbdom/Both betrayers and the betrayed.‖136 The Battle of Kosovo in 1389,
when Serbian Prince Milos Oblicic was defeated by the Turks, is highlighted as a
turning point in the fortunes of the local Montenegrins. The environment of
aggressive militarism and anticipated warfare in The Mountain Wreath is
nonetheless interspersed with episodes that evoke the serenity of the Montenegrin
landscape. The Mountain Wreath extols the Montenegrin culture of ―freedom and
justice,‖ that is lost due to the Ottoman invasion.
Towards the end of the play, a series of earthquakes and ―omens‖ foretell the
extermination of the ―Mohammedan‖ population. The Montenegrin characters are
visited by recurring dreams that portend the coming victory of the Christian
civilization over the Turks. ―Let me tell you what I saw in a dream,‖ exclaims a
character called Obrad, ―a great crowd of people had risen / and they took the
ladder, and up the church / climbed to the very top of the apse / and thereon fixed
a golden cross/and all the people stood up and/bowed to the honorable cross.‖137
The play ends on a jubilant note with the victory of the Montenegrin Serbs and
the massacre of Islamized Turks:
And now for thee throughout our parts
Is not a trace of e‘en one single Turk—
At least thou‘It find not any Turkish ear--Bodies headless, ruins, ashes views man here!138
136
Ibid, 13
Ibid, 36
138
There are two slightly varying translations of this text. The edition by D. Mrkich has the
following lines: ‗Now there is no more in our country/ Even a trace of the Turkish ear/ Except for
137
78
In an ironic reversal to the Communist understanding of ―brotherhood,‖ The
Mountain Wreath, too, is permeated with the concept of ―brethren.‖ Here,
however, the denunciation of a particular religious faith tears this concept at its
seams. At one point in the narrative, Njegos writes:
A bitter curse fell on a renegade
From distress a mother cursed her son
He turned his back on Christ‘s faith
And the heroic Crnojevic clan
He took the faith of the bloody foe
And thirsted for his kindred blood139
For the Montenegrin Serbs in the play, the military strength of the Turks is
threatening, but perhaps even more so is the diminution of Serbian national
customs through the prevalence of Islamic faith. A religious narrative is not only
woven into the text of the play, but also strongly linked with cultural and racial
identifications. The chief antagonists are the Turks, who betray the linearity of
Serbian race in terms of their identification with Christianity. Religious
Conversion, therefore, marks the juncture where considerations of faith depart,
and enter the racial realm. In the Mountain Wreath, therefore, tension between the
Turks and the Montenegrins heightens when a Serbian woman leaves with a
Turkish man, evoking the rage of the local people and a call to destroy ―the seed
within the womb.‖ 140 Islamized Turks are depicted as traitors of their race by
assimilating into a foreign creed, and disrupting the Serbian blood tie. Although
language, as an objective marker, remains the same, ―foreign‖ rituals and
corpses and ruins‘, pg 72 The quotations above are taken by the James W Wiles edition, London,
George Allen and Unwin ltd, The Mountain Wreath, 216
139
Ibid, 7
140
Ibid, 8
79
traditions are emphasized and portrayed as archetypal representations of a
religious group. Amidst the violence and virulent hatred towards the ―race-traitors‖
flaunting their faith and Turkish identity, Njegos, nonetheless, opened a brief
window for reconciliation. The terms of reconciliation, however, can be best
captured in the penultimate section of the play when an old woman is brought in
front of the Montenegrin tribe in order to be stoned to death. She is accused of
sowing discord within the Serbs by joining with the Turks. Following her
confession, she is loathed, but, nonetheless, spared.
So me he [Turk] sent to sow discord between you,
[….]
And threaten‘d me as I did leave him:
―Woman, if thous stirr‘st not up
―These Montenegrin Serbs, I do surely swear
―On solemn oath of faithful Moslem,
―Thy little children ten at home,
―And thy three sons who married be,
―I‘ll lock them up within my dwelling,
―And burn them all---true, burn them living!‖141
The communist rendition of The Mountain Wreath, however, depleted the
play of its pseudo-religious undertones and imbued it with socialist signifiers.
Revised literary analyses of Njegos were published and new interpretations were
inserted in the preface of the play. In many of the published anthologies for
students, selective excerpts of Njegos were quoted, whilst omitting the more
violent aspects of the play. Communist commentators magnified minor incidents
of interaction between Njegos and Croatian leaders in order to portray the former
as a more universal icon. At other instances, the violence of the play was masked
141
Njegos, The Mountain Wreath, (J.W Wiles edition), 188
80
behind literary, metaphorical analyses.142 In a biography of Njegos published in
1966, Milovan Djilas began with a passionate defense of The Mountain Wreath,
providing an in-depth literary analysis commensurable with the ―absolute laws of
nature.‖143 Echoing the official stance of the Communist Party, Djilas stated that
all previous interpretations of The Mountain Wreath emerged from ―national
myths‖ and were not able to ―distinguish between the essence […] and the
common place, between myth and actuality.‖144
The conflict in The Mountain Wreath was not a religious struggle; instead,
it was a purely economic struggle whereby ―the destruction of Turkish rule was
tantamount to pushing back Islam, ending serfdom, and restoring the ancient, now
national and civil, state.‖145 Denying the historical authenticity of the massacre,
the central action of the play, Djilas dwelled instead on its symbolic value.
Praising the ―poetic and even a humanistic motif‖ such as the massacre, he
expressed that ―even though it did not take place, it meant much more to the
Montenegrin spirit—the breaking of a bond.‖ 146 The metaphor of a divided
brethren in Njegos was ironically embraced by the Communist regime and
portrayed to be a consequence of defying the eternal laws of socialism. It could
not be a consequence of religious conversion because as Djilas stated, the ―blood
142
Wachtel, Making a nation, breaking a nation, 102
Milovan Djilas, and Michael Boro Petrovich. Njegos: poet, prince, bishop. (New York:
Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966)
In the introduction by Petrovich, he states that Djilas‘s commentary on Njegos ―synthesizes better
than any other work both the traditional and the most recent research on Njegos by specialists in
history, literature and philosophy.‖
144
Djilas, Milovan, Njegos: poet, prince bishop, 371
145
Ibid, 313
146
Ibid, 319
143
81
tie was still stronger than any other.‖ 147 Djilas also imbued the dominant
metaphor of blood with a figurative meaning, i.e. a symbol of ―man‘s survival and
the bond with his brotherhood and people.‖148 Similarly, another expression with
strong racial connotations, ―destroy the seed in the bride,‖ was portrayed to
signify an ―extermination of friendly brotherhood.‖ 149 Communist concerns for
the maintenance of territorial integrity, therefore, morphed racial categories with
socialist thought in a manner that was evidently incommensurable with the core of
Marxist thought.
In almost a tripartite structure, solidarity within a ―class‖
category was the strongest bond, followed by that of blood. Religious solidarity
featured at the bottom of the pyramid.
In what can now only be regarded as uncanny, Communist reinterpretations of The Mountain Wreath bore a resemblance to the structure of the
play itself, which unfolded as a steady build-up to the ultimate, conclusive
extermination of Islamized Turks. Indeed, Communist literary analysts did not
neglect to link the past, as imagined by Njegos, to the present Communist reality.
A great amount of space in the analysis was devoted to the ubiquity of the
struggle between ―good‖ and ―evil,‖ and the continuity of this struggle from the
time of Njegos to the present reality. At one instance, Djilas writes, ―the massacre
was long in the making, with all the forces and circumstances that led to the
liberation and creation of our own state. It was a social and spiritual event---even
147
Ibid, 312
Ibid, 370
He says, ―In Njegos‘s diction, it does not simply denote a sticky red liquid and life and misfortune,
but the very essence of man‘s survival and the bond with his brotherhood and people. […]This is
the kind of blood on which Turks and evil men feed, the blood that has a fatal power and force, the
blood that will come out of their ears—the blood that one cannot translate without entering into
Njegos‘s thought and imagery.‖
149
Ibid, 370
148
82
if it never happened.‖150 By linking the massacre, in its symbolic essence, to the
Communist struggle in the Balkans, Djilas shifted attention to the contemporary
Communist struggle because the importance, in his words, ―lies not in itself—but
precisely in that preparation, in the heightening of the crisis.‖151 Imbued with a
universal significance, Njegos was hailed as an ―antecedent‖ to Communist
thought throughout Socialist Yugoslavia. The religious strand of racial concerns
was simultaneously included and excluded in Communist thought. Since racial
discourses were couched in ―religious‖ terms, they were immediately dismissed
as an offshoot of class struggle. As Salko Nazecic concluded in his edition of The
Mountain Wreath in 1947:
―Many people have, incorrectly, purposely, and in various (always dark
and reactionary) ways tried to twist Njegos‘s thought, applying it to
today‘s situation---as if in The Mountain Wreath Njegos was defending
religious unity in today‘s situation.‖152
If Njegos served as a literary icon from the past, the Communist party also
needed contemporary literary figures, who by virtue of their literary imagination
would confirm the validity of Communist Yugoslavism. Among the more
prominent intellectuals representing socialist themes was Ivo Andric, a recipient
of the 1961 Nobel Prize for literature, who was also hailed as the Yugoslav
―national‖ poet. A Croat and a Roman Catholic who defined his identity purely
150
Ibid, 319
Djilas also writes: ―Njegos‘s massacre was the first, or at least among the very rare, to be a poetic
and even a humanistic motif, one in which the very deed is magnified. What is new is the light he
casts on this deed, the demonstration of its inevitability and justice, and above all, its poetic
expression. Njegos was the first to experience passionately and to give expression to a massacre as
an aspect of human destiny, as a higher ordinance. Herein lies its originality and greatness.‖
151
Ibid, 319
152
S. Nazecic, introduction to Petar Petrovic Njegos, Gorski vijenac, (Sarajevo, 1947), cited in
Wachtel, Making a Nation, 15
83
through his connection with Bosnian landscape and culture, Andric‘s own life
echoed his commitment to a more representative social identity, detached from
the insularities of race and religion. In his youth, Andric was part of the Mlada
Bosna Movement, and greatly influenced by the ideas of popular liberal socialism.
After the Second World War, Andric served as an active member of the League of
Communists and participated in numerous literary and cultural councils, which
aimed to foster a strong sense of Yugoslav unity. His texts were made compulsory
in the high school curriculum alongside the works of Njegos.153 In the immediate
post-war period, Andric became an influential member of the Yugoslav
Committee of Intellectuals for Defence of Peace, and his literary reviews and
interviews were featured in the cultural section of the Yugoslav Fortnightly. In
one interview, Andric emphasized the increased contemporary significance of
literary works in the post-war years, expressing that the ―deep post war changes
have made literature and the arts in general accessible to the broad masses of the
people.‖154
Andric‘s texts focused primarily on the culturally intermingled social fabric
of Bosnia-Herzegovina, its hybrid culture through the influence of the East
(Ottoman) and the West (Byzantine), and the conflict between Christianity and
Islam. Andric was both a historian and a novelist, blending history with fiction,
Bosnian myths, folklore, and constant allusions to the present Partisan regime.
The personal, in Andric‘s work, was quintessentially political and the object of his
inquiry; his texts, therefore, demonstrated how ordinary social interactions
153
154
Wachtel, Making a Nation, 156-61
Yugoslav Fortnightly, Belgrade, March 1949, pg 1, Vol 1, no 3
84
between Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Muslim, together with the intricacies
of their personal lives, had become representative of the collective aspirations and
tragedies of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Of all his works, Andric‘s novels, Bosnian Chronicle (1959) and The
Bridge on the Drina (1959) acquired the greatest acclaim, the latter being the basis
for his Nobel Peace Prize. Both novels have been described as exquisite historical
and ―archaeological‖ novels, not only in their historical development of
Yugoslavia, but also in the imagination of a future Yugoslav community. The
Bridge on the Drina comprises a series of chronicles detailing the lives of
conflicted and alienated characters over the period of four hundred years, through
foreign Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian domination, and the rise of European
nationalisms.
The stone bridge over the river Drina, in the small town of
Visegrad, on the western edge of Bosnia-Herzegovina, is the metaphor around
which all action is organized. It is a symbolic link between East and West. Even
as the world in Visegrad changes with time, the bridge remains a permanent
entrenchment, weathering the various floods that mark the history of the town,
and uniting the people. As the river Drina rises, the bridge brings ―all these men
together and bridge[s], at least for this evening, the gulf that divided one faith
from the other, especially the rayah (explain) from the Turks.‖155 At the end of the
novel, the famous bridge over the River Drina, treasured by the Bosnians as the
sole representation of progress, is destroyed by nationalist tensions in World War
I.
Ivo Andri ,, and Lovett F. Edwards. The bridge on the Drina. 1959, 77
‗Rayah‘ were the Christian Peasants. The word ‗Turks‘ denoted Muslim Slavs of BosniaHerzegovina during the Ottoman period. It was taken as a mark of religious affiliation.
155
85
The characters are left handicapped, deprived of their sole anchorage in the
permanence and symbolic stability provided by the bridge. In his second major
novel, The Bosnian Chronicle, Andric delves into the liminal space occupied by
the South Slavic lands, precariously positioned between Oriental East and West.
The city of Travnik in Bosnia is a battleground for power and influence for
Napoleonic France and Imperial Austria, and the novel is narrated predominantly
from the perspective of two Western consuls, the French man Daville and the
Austrian Josef von Mitterer. In the eyes of the foreigners, who compete in order to
gain the favor of the Turkish viziers governing Bosnia, the land is steeped in
―backwardness‖ and ―ignorance.‖ Soon, even the foreigners are infected by the
―Eastern poison.‖ As the narrator describes, they succumb to restlessness,
irritation and degenerate character. The trajectory of the novel changes, however,
when a young French assistant to Daville, Desfosses, arrives from France and
resists accepting the stereotypical image of the Bosnians. By immersing himself
in interactions with ordinary Bosnians and more importantly, archaeological sites,
he seeks to understand their current predicament and unravel their original
character, tainted and disguised by years of colonial experience. Nevertheless,
Bosnia, as portrayed by the narrators, is static and immune to change. The
prologue of Bosnian Chronicle depicts an indolent scene at one end of the Travnik
Bazaar, where a group of ―Begs,‖ or Bosnian Muslims, are conversing about the
anticipated entry of foreign consuls. Wary of the idea, they soon dismiss the
rumor and assert the unchanging nature of their town, which they embrace with
much satisfaction. At the end of the novel, with the Austrian and French consuls
86
ready to depart from Bosnia, the story comes full circle with the musings of Begs
under a tree. The final pronouncement of Hamdi-Beg is as follows: ―And
everything will again be as, by God‘s will, it has always been.‖156 As the novel
heads towards its denouement, however, the wheels of history are turning. The
departure of the French consuls from Bosnia serves as a premonition for the
decline of the Napoleonic Empire, the Crimean War and the expulsion of the
Ottomans by Austria-Hungary.
Through the chronicles of everyday interactions, Andric suggested that
religious beliefs divided an otherwise unified Bosnia in a manner that was
insurmountable. It was no wonder that the Communist government, amidst the
process of secularization, seized on the writings of Andric as emblematic of
Yugoslavia. Communist secularization policies sought to equalize the people of
Yugoslavia by inculcating in them a uniform set of values. A strong adherence to
territoriality was one of them. That different communities adhered to separate
notions of the ―Heavens,‖ each professing their own laws and dogmas, was
incompatible with Communist thought and the notion of co-existence. With his
writings, Andric struck at the core of Communist thought. Andric‘s literary
oeuvre displayed an appreciation of diversity, punctured with a regulated
contempt for inter-faith divisions. In so doing, Andric seemed to distinguish
social differentiation based on subjective beliefs from that based on culture. As
long as uniform allegiance to a ―civic citizenship‖ prevailed over religious
loyalties, differences of habits and constitutions added to the richness and
diversity of a shared social experience. Situated in pre-Communist Yugoslavia,
156
Andric, Bosnian Chronicle, 462
87
Andric‘s stories, therefore, carried a sense of foreboding, and an inevitability of
conflict in a society divided by religious differences.
Andric begins with the very ordinary, even the trivial, in the discourses of his
characters. At the beginning of The Bridge On the Drina, Andric depicts the
polarization of religious beliefs among children through contesting claims made
by Serbian and Muslim children on Bosnian myths:
For the Serbian children, these were the prints of the hooves of Sarac, the
horse of Kraljevic Marco, which had remained there from the time when
Marko himself was in prison up there in the Old Fortress [….]. But the
Turkish children knew that it had not been Kraljevic Marco, nor could it
have been (for when could a bastard Christian dog have had such a
strength or such a horse!) any but Djerzelez Alija on his winged charger
which, as everyone knew, despised ferries and ferrymen and leapt over
rivers as if they were watercourses.157
These claims made on mythic heroes in an attempt to glorify one‘s history are
also accompanied by rejections of others who do not fit in the equation. The
easiest way of doing so, Andric seems to point out, is to question the authenticity
of ―conversions.‖ In Andric‘s narrative, a school master, Hussienega rejects the
conversion of Tahirpasha Stambolija, a Vezir in Travnik, whom he describes as
―Christian in his soul‖ because of his decision to impose an army on the town
without popular consent. 158 Andric, therefore, insinuates the ―weakness‖ of
identity claims that are premised on religious conversion. For him, subjective
claims of faith are constructed differences, as opposed to the more natural ones
based on a lived culture. Time and again, Andric portrays the limits of community
between the Christians and Muslims of Visegrad in The Bridge On the Drina.
Even during times of co-existence, he describes how ―Moslems and Christians
157
Andric, The Bridge on the Drina, 179
Ibid, pg. 131
158
88
alike, had taken their place in it with many definite reservations, but these
reservations were secret and concealed.‖159 From these very ordinary beginnings,
it is only a matter of time before tensions are unleashed, moving past localized,
individual experiences to a more collective and colossal damage. Similarly, in his
short story, A Letter from 1920, Andric takes a stance on religion through his
portrayal of a Bosnian traveler escaping his country. Beneath the religious and
cultural mix of Bosnia-Herzegovina, he asserts that there lies a latent hatred, with
―the rifts between the different faiths [..] so deep that hatred alone can sometimes
succeed in crossing them.‖160 He describes:
the clock on the Catholic cathedral strikes the hour with weighty
confidence: 2 a.m. More than a minute passes by, but a piercing sound
does the Orthodox Church announce the hour, and chime its own 2 a.m.
A moment after it the lower clock on the Bey‘s mosque strikes an hour in
a hoarse, faraway voice, and that strikes 11, the ghostly Turkish hour, by
the strange calculations of distant and alien parts of the world.161
According to the disenchanted traveler, differences in religious beliefs and
practices only accentuate divisions between people who share a commonality of
rituals and habits, i.e. they ―awake, rejoice and mourn, feast and fast,‖ but in ―four
different ecclesiastical languages‖ and according to ―four different antagonistic
calendars.‖162
Andric also depicted the peripheral space occupied by Bosnia, on the borders
of Eastern and Western culture, as akin to the contemporary position of
Communist Yugoslavia. His writings often voiced Western European ―Orientalist‖
159
Ibid, 175
Andri , Ivo, and Celia Hawkesworth. The damned yard and other stories. (London: Forest
Books.1992), 118
161
Ibid.
162
Andric also includes the small number of Jewish population in Yugoslavia which was targeted
by the Nazis during the Second World War.
160
89
discourses which characterized the Balkans as a cultural backwater due to its
Ottoman and Byzantine legacy. At the time of his writing, the ideological divide
cast by Communism in the post-war era had further perpetuated the East-West
dichotomy within Europe. Instead of rejecting this dichotomy, however, Andric
sought to render this liminality more acceptable. In so doing, Andric‘s writing
engaged in a form of introspection regarding the collective predicament of
Bosnians. Not unlike Communist discourses on ―brotherhood and unity,‖
Andric‘s writings also routinely evoked Ottoman rule as inhibiting the path to
progress. His derision of the Ottoman setting also raised the question of how the
Ottoman legacy, and by extension Bosnian Muslims, could be best incorporated
within the socialist context.
Andric‘s writings, for the large part, depict the dichotomy of a Christian
versus Islamic civilization. Unlike Njegos, however, Andric writes from a
perspective that is detached from any considerations, or rather personal
affiliations with faith. In a poignant section in The Bridge on the Drina, Andric
blends historical fact with Bosnian folklore in his depiction of the Bosnian Vezir
from the Ottoman Period, Mehmed Pasha Sokolovic, and the Slavic epic figure,
Rade the Mason.163 In Andric‘s narrative, the Bosnian Muslim Vezir, Mehmed
Pasha, is described as a Christian boy from a peasant family who was abducted by
the janissaries on the command of Rade the Mason, as a form of ―blood tribute.‖
Rade the Mason is known from the South Slavic epic song, ‗The Building of Scutari‖. The
search for the children Stoja and Stojan, the mother, her milk that flows from the walls, are
derived from the epic song in which the young wife of Gojko Mrnjavcevic was walled into the
foundation with an opening left for her by Rade the Mason to nurse her baby son Jovo.
Tatyana Popovic. Folk Tradition in the Storytelling of Ivo Andric. 1995
Wayne S Vucinich. Ivo Andric revisited: the bridge still stands. (Berkeley: International and Area
Studies, 1995)
163
90
Separated from his mother, Mehmed Pasha is taken to Istanbul, the headquarters
of the Ottoman Empire, converted into a Muslim and trained to rule over the
Christian Slavs and Turks in the South Slavic lands. In a yearning for his
Christian past, the fictitious Mehmed Pasha constructs a bridge to connect the
East and the West. His effort, as the story later proves, is futile; with the advent of
time, the people of Visegrad realize that the ―road across the bridge [was] no
longer what it once had been: the link between the East and the West.‖164The
Muslim and Christian communities continue to treasure separate myths and
folktales of common archaeological sites. But as the novel indicates, the Christian
myths contain greater verity than others. Andric, therefore, implicitly denotes a
Christian norm disrupted by a foreign influence. Christianity, however, is taken
not as a set of beliefs and dogmas, but as neutralized culture and traditions. Indeed,
in his doctoral dissertation dated 1924,165 Andric explicitly wrote:
The fact of decisive importance for Bosnia was that it was, at the most
critical stage of its spiritual development, when the fermentation of its
spiritual forces had reached a culmination, invaded by an Asian warrior
people whose social institutions and customs meant the negation of
Christian culture and whose faith---created under different climatic and
social conditions and unfit for any kind of adjustment—interrupted the
spiritual life of a country, degenerated it and created something quite
strange out of it.166
Although Austro-Hungarian colonization is also criticized in The Bridge on
the Drina, the Ottoman Empire, as the only non-Christian civilization in the
Balkans, stands out in its corruption of the land. Immersed in a different culture,
164
Andric, The Bridge On the Drina, 214
It was not published in Serbo-Croation until 1975 and he chose to keep the manuscript in the
University of Graz Library
166
Ivo Andric, and Zelimir B. Jurici . 1990. The development of spiritual life in Bosnia under the
influence of Turkish rule. Durham u.a: Duke Univ. Press, 51
165
91
all foreigners in Travnik are unable to maintain their identity, facing loss of
character and an incorporation of ―lower‖ Oriental traits. It is
An environment that first wrecks the Westerner, then makes him
pathologically irritable, and […] during the course of many years,
completely changes him, bends and finally kills him with silent
indifference long before he actually dies. 167
The worst victims of the ―Eastern Poison‖ are Bosnians, and even the Turkish
viziers from Constantinople cannot help but comment on the ―uncivilized‖ nature
of their subjects. A major section of The Bridge on the Drina
deals with
representing Ottoman or ―Islamic‖ colonization of ―Christian‖ South Slavic lands,
highlighting particularly the various instances of domination and brutality
experienced by the Christian ―rayahs‖ or peasants by the ―Turk‖ landlords. Andric
implies that it is precisely because of the recent conversions that the ―older
persons who followed the law of Islam were openly indignant and turned their
backs on this chaotic mass of workers.‖
168
Radisav, the peasant, on the other
hand, belongs to one of the only families in a small village which did not convert
to Islam and subsequently forfeited the material benefits of doing so. As a sole
voice of opposition to this economic exploitation, Radisav is captured and brutally
tortured by the Turk authorities, and consequently entrenched in Serbian myth as
a ―Christian martyr.‖169
Differing attitudes towards Ottoman [Eastern] colonization and AustroHungarian [Western] colonization of the Balkans are particularly evident in the
musings of Desfosses, a young French assistant to the consul, and of Giovanni
167
Andric, Bosnian Chronicle, 97
Andric, The Bridge on the Drina, 31
169
Andric, The Bridge on the Drina, 18
168
92
Mario Cologna, a young doctor and philosopher in Travnik – two characters who
often represent Andric‘s own voice in the novel. During a conversation with
Desfosses, Cologna delivers a passionate monologue on the Bosnian predicament,
emphasizing the commonality of a Christian historical culture with the West and
appealing for deliverance from Ottoman rule:
These are frontier folk, spiritually and physically, from those black and
bloody lines of division which through some terrible, absurd
misunderstanding have been drawn between man and man, God‘s
creatures, between whom there should not and must not be any such
division. They are the shingle between the sea and the land, doomed to
eternal rolling and disquiet. They are the ‗third world‘ on which has
descended the whole of the curse which followed the division of the
earth into two worlds. We are heroes without fame and martyrs without a
crown. But you at least, our fellow believers and kinsmen, you people of
the West who are Christians under the same salvation as ourselves, you
at least ought to understand us and cherish us and lighten our lot.170
In Andric‘s reconstruction of history, therefore, local Christians, both Catholic
and Orthodox, looked towards the Austro-Hungarian empire and Russia
respectively as a consequence of the Ottoman influence. The ―transborder‖
loyalties of Orthodox and Catholic Slavs, therefore, were not inherent. Instead,
they were forged out of political exigency, as opposed to subjective beliefs that
seemed to govern the converted Muslim Slavs.
Characterized by the West as the cultural ―Other,‖ the Balkans
nonetheless exhibited their own internal ―Orientalist‖ discourses, in which the
Bosnian Muslims of the past featured as static caricatures rather than multidimensional figures. In his association of ―Islamic civilization‖ with Ottoman
colonization, Andric described the nature of ―Balkan Islam‖ as a static and
170
Andric, The Bridge on the Drina, 286
93
―backward force‖ in a period of flux and change, used by the Turks to maintain
the status quo and their former glory. In the Bridge on the Drina, this particular
conceptualization of Balkan Islam surfaces in a dialogue between students at a
time of awakening national consciousness in Europe. Andric depicts the
conceptualizations of ―Muslim Slavs‖ by other confessional groups, as well as
their own self-understandings. A socialist-minded student expresses to
Bahtijarevic, a Muslim student: ―Your love for everything oriental is only a
contemporary expression of your ‗will to power‘; for you the eastern way of life
and thought is very closely bound up with a social and legal order which was the
basis of your centuries of lordship.‖171 In response, Andric depicts Bahtijeravic as
a representative of Muslim youth, ―who carry their philosophy in their blood and
live and die according to it,‖ and conveys his thoughts: ―the foundations of the
world and the bases of life and human relationships in it have been fixed for
centuries. […] the very idea of the change of these centers is unhealthy and
unacceptable.‖172
The fusion of blood and philosophy in a mixed metaphor was not
uncharacteristic of the Communist regime, where emphasis on the ideological
transformation of the child extended into and beyond the family. Similarly, in the
Bosnian Chronicle, the Bosnian Muslims are depicted as being the worst infected
by the ―Eastern‖ poison. From the very beginning of the novel, they are portrayed
as the ―greatest zealots of their faith,‖ and the image remains constant throughout
the novel. Their hostility extends not only to their compatriots, but to the Turkish
171
172
Ibid, 242
Ibid
94
sultans, particularly the ones who make any attempt to mingle with Westerners. It
is at this point, ironically, that the writings of the Communist Andric and the
Serbian national poet, Njegos, converge, despite the ideological chasm.
Commenting on the The Mountain Wreath by Njegos, Andric once wrote:
Nowhere in the poetry of the whole world nor in the destiny of
nations have I found a more terrible battle cry. Yet without that
suicidal absurdity, without that stubborn negation of reality and the
obvious, no action would be possible, or any thought of any action
against evil.173
The emerging Communist literary oeuvre shared the condemnation of Islamized
Turks as exhibited in earlier nationalist writings such as that of Njegos. The
problem for Communist literary analysts, however, was not their change of faith,
but the collaboration of Bosnian Muslims with foreign invaders. And even as the
generations changed, Andric writes that they transmitted to another
not only a peculiar personal heritage of body and mind, but a country
and a religion; not only a hereditary sense of what is right and fitting
[….], but also an inborn aptitude for knowledge of the world and of
men in general.174
In nationalist literature such as The Mountain Wreath, different cultural and social
customs of Islamized Turks were derided and characterized as a product of ―racial‖
assimilation with the Turks. In Andric, however, these objective markers of
differences did not signify ―racial‖ assimilation, but an absence of socialist
transformation. Through these writings, Yugoslav Communists insinuated that the
only way to break out of the ―habits‖ of foreign invaders was to accept the
socialist ideal. It also called for an introspective search for an original territorial
173
174
Djilas, Njegos: Poet, Prince, Bishop, 339
Andric, Bosnian Chronicle, 18
95
identity, disguised in the ruins and wreckages of the past, perhaps only fleetingly
visible in archaeological ruins. As Cologna in the Bosnian Chronicle pointed out,
while looking at the wall of the New Mosque:
And if you look a little closer at the stones in the old wall,
you will see that they come from Roman Ruins and
gravestones. Who knows what else may be hidden deep
down under these foundations? Who knows whose work
may be buried there or what vestiges may have been wiped
out forever?175
Conclusion:
Turning the Tables
In writing on his concept of History and Progress, Walter Benjamin uses an
analogy of an angel whose face is turned backwards. The angel sees
one single catastrophe, which unceasingly piles rubble on top of rubble
and hurls it before his feet. He would like to [….] piece together what
has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise, it has caught
itself up in his wings and is so strong that the Angel can no longer close
them. The storm drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back
is turned. That which we call progress, is this storm.176
Gazing back on the history of the South Slav lands and peoples, the
Communist Party portrayed a series of catastrophes culminating in the Second
World War. Yugoslav Communists insinuated that any notion of progress and
advancement in the pre-Communist period was short-lived and self-defeating,
much like the treasured bridge in Andric‘s novel, which is destroyed by
nationalist tensions. As the disenchanted traveler from Andric‘s short story
175
Andric, Bosnian Chronicle, 288
Walter Benjamin, Thesis on History,
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/benjamin/1940/history.htm
176
96
conveyed before his death, the hatred in Bosnia would continue to thrive ―until
the material and spiritual life in Bosnia are altogether changed.‖177 It was this last
vision which struck a deep chord with the Partisan government in the Socialist
People‘s Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and represented the underlying
philosophy of the new regime.
Indeed, the post-war regime witnessed a significant development in areas
of education, culture, literacy. The Communist school was not only a site for
socialist transformation of the child, but allowed a thorough intermixing of
children previously claimed by religious institutions. Despite the agitation and
propaganda carried out by the regime, however, the Communist Party could not
transform individuals into outright Marxists. Even as endogamous structures
declined, many individuals, including Communist members, continued to place
great emphasis on descent and lineage. Often individuals selectively incorporated
socialist ideals by finding common ground with their own values.
Communist Yugoslavism also did not exist in a historical void. It was
dynamic and responsive to its historical and political circumstances, and had
emerged, in the wake of its creation, as avowedly ―secular‖ and patriotic. In the
initial years, therefore, the Communist regime related to the mosaic of different
communities by reifying the integrity of South Slavic territory. In an effort to
differentiate modern socialists from others, however, it banked heavily on the
―homogenization of cultural forms.‖ Here was the irony of ―brotherhood and
unity,‖ as it existed uneasily alongside an explicit differentiation of cultures and
177
Andric, Ivo Andric, The Damned Yard and other Stories: A Letter from 1920, 118/119
97
traditions. In everyday public life, an expression of religious differentiation was
prohibited; at the very least, it was not without costs. At the same time, there
emerged a parallel discourse of differentiation in the very institutions that served
as sites for socialist change. The Communist regime did not consciously endorse
racism, but the appropriation of ―racial‖ images from historical fiction and their
presentation in a new socialist light was ominous – akin to granting them
legitimacy. Of particular relevance were the Bosnian Muslims, closely associated
with the Ottoman legacy whilst being upheld as a symbolic representation of
Yugoslavism in the initial years of the Communist regime. The recovery of an
―original‖ Yugoslavia legitimated the notion of a secularized ―Christian Slavdom,‖
casting the articulation of a Bosnian Muslim identity in a unique dilemma.
Attempts to forge ―brotherhood and unity‖ in the literary field often converged on
the Ottoman identity. With the Communist endorsement of Njegos, a Serbian
national writer, and of Andric, a Croatian Communist writer, ―Yugoslav‖
literature, in many ways, became a melting pot of Serbian and Croatian
sensibilities. But what became of Bosnian Muslims? Until the 1960s, Bosnian
Muslims continued to protest the treatment and depiction of Muslims in Andric‘s
writings and popular folklore. These protests were to no avail. 178 Under the
Communist regime, Bosnian Muslims were given a ―non-national,‖ or a purely
confessional status. Since the Communist regime sought to eliminate religious
differentiation and believed in that inevitability, the metaphorical extermination of
Islamized Turks in The Mountain Wreath was also a non-issue. On the other hand,
Mushin Rizvic,Bosnanski muslimani u Andricevu svijetu,‘ Sveske zaduzbine Ive Andrica 13,
1997, 159-78, cited in Wachtel, Making a Nation, 272
178
98
the incorporation of Muslim writers into the canon of Yugoslav literature was
judged in accordance with their distance from the Ottoman past.
The power of language, as it reified and constructed power discourses whilst
delegitimizing others, cannot be underestimated in Communist Yugoslavia. With
radio stations, educational institutions, artistic centers and even music ensembles
enveloped under Communist agitation-propaganda, there was a monopolized
source of language in post-war Yugoslavia: the Communist Party. And yet as
John Milton elucidates in his famous Paradise Lost, a fall of man causes a fall in
the language of God. At the beginning was the Word and the word was ―God.‖179
Now at the hands of men, it lost its original signifiers and became corrupted. In
Socialist Yugoslavia, the Communist Party emerged as a ―sovereign‖ authority in
accordance with the ―laws of nature.‖ Although the Party constructed the
dichotomies of the ―traditional‖ versus the ―modern,‖ and the ―religious‖ versus
the ―secular,‖ it could not retain sole authority over the deployment and
manipulation of these categories. Such a trend could be seen in the ―prison
literature‖ of the Communist regime, i.e. the works of exiled and imprisoned
writers, and in the political arena, particularly after disenchantment with the
regime began to surface.
While the Communist state undermined the social function of religion in the
post-war period, it simultaneously deployed rituals and symbols as secularized
―re-invented traditions‖ to reify the concept of a ―civic‖ nationhood. The ―secular‖
in post-war Yugoslavia did not represent a break from the authoritarian,
179
Milton, Paradise Lost.
99
legitimizing discourses of organized religion, but its substitution in a different
form. Both were adherents and victims of the Communist Party. Two literary
figures, Mesa Selimovic and Borislav Pekic, became inspired by the inversion of
the ―religious‖ and the ―secular‖ categories, and depicted the internal
inconsistencies of the regime through their literary imagination. A Serbian writer,
Borislav Pekic was sentenced to fifteen years of prison after being accused of
belonging to a secret organization in 1949. It was during his time in prison that
Pekic formulated most of his ideas, particularly for his novel, The Time of
Miracle, published in 1965.180 After his imprisonment, Borislav Pekic led a life in
exile and published more works devoted to Serbian national identity. Mesa
Selimovic, on the other hand, was a Communist from a Muslim milieu, whose
brother was executed by the Communist Party on charges of alleged theft. His
brother‘s execution became the subject of his first novel, Death and the Dervish,
published in 1966. In many ways, Selimovic‘s novel was a manifestation of his
inner conflict with the Communist regime. Nonetheless, Selimovic‘s overt
condemnation of Ottoman Bosnia earned him great fame and respect among his
Communist counterparts.181
In the Time of Miracles, Borislav Pekic used biblical stories in a satirical
mode. But the object of satire was not merely Christianity. Instead, Pekic
distorted myths with clear allusions to the present regime in order to reveal its
arbitrariness and internal contradictions. Pekic begins with a sarcastic foreword:
180
181
Borislav Pekic, The time of miracles: a legend.( New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976)
Mesa Selimovic, Bogdan Rakic, and Stephen M. Dickey. Death and the Dervish. Evanston, Ill.:
(Northwestern University Press, 1999) and Borislav Pekic, The time of miracles: a legend.( New
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976)
100
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And God
created man in his image: male and female and there was morning and
there was evening. And there was crime. Who knows on which day. He
[Jesus] came during the reign of Octavian Augustus. And it was evening
and it was morning. and it was Joshua ben Josef, Jesus the Nazarene,
Savior of the world.182
From the very beginning, Pekic casts doubt on the historical authenticity of the
figure of ―Jesus‖ as well as the ideal of man in the image of God. In the seven
stories that follow, ―Jesus‖ is portrayed as an ordinary man who acquires his
elevated and prophetic status through the misfortunes of people. His disciples, on
the other hand, are dogmatic, opportunists, competing amongst themselves to gain
the favor of their leader. In the story, Miracle at Jabneel, ―Jesus of Nazareth,‖
accompanied by his disciples, approaches Elga, a woman expelled from Old
Jabneel after becoming infected with leprosy. Separated from her husband in a
segregated colony, New Jabneel, Elga finds her affections engaged by another
man, Uriah. But yearning for her husband one day, she leaves the town, only to be
approached by ―Jesus of Nazareth‖ and his disciples. Here Pekic paints a comical
caricature of a man who follows ―the written word‖ in order to fulfill a preordained destiny of his ―prophethood‖ and ―salvation,‖ not unlike the overt
adherence amongst Communist elites to Marxist ideals in post-war Yugoslavia.
He persists in finding out how he can help Elga, while the latter, in her misery,
stubbornly refuses to engage in any conversation. At one point, Elga shrewdly
asks, ―who do you want to help, me or yourself.‖ Momentarily distracted, ―Jesus‖
turns to his companion, Judas, for assistance. His companion replies: ―it is written
182
Ibid
101
that you‘ll heal a wretched person upon leaving Copernaum.‖183 Irritated, Elga
hurls retorts at Judas. The exchange that follows is this:
„Jesus‟: ‗Forgive me for annoying you, Elga. And don‘t find fault with
my men. They are born men.‘
Elga: And you?
‗Jesus‟, sighing: That‘s a complex matter. But I will try to explain why
your role is essential and irreplaceable. […] I never know what I am or
when [God or man], until, having wrought some miracle, I again usurp
my divine nature.‘184
In the end, ―Jesus‖ ends up healing Elga. Jubilant to meet her husband, Elga
greets her town members. But they reject her after performing their own set of
rituals to test her ―cleanliness.‖ Devastated, Elga returns to Uria and faces
dejection once again from the leper colony, for she is no longer a part of them.
The miracle of ―Jesus‖ backfires. Now Elga is afflicted with even greater
misfortune. The last scene of the story depicts an elderly Elga sleeping by the
stone at the border of the two colonies, while Jesus and his disciples deliberate on
how they can best help her.
Latent in this distortion and re-construction of biblical myths was the notion
of a secular sovereign, almost in a Schmittian sense,185 who establishes himself
through ―decisionism‖ analogous to the miracle of a sovereign God. Undoubtedly,
the arbitrariness and dogmatism of the new regime were the primary targets of
Pekic‘s dark humor. One cannot miss the allusion to Tito in his portrayal of a man
who, under a misguided notion, hopes to attain ―salvation‖ for his promised land,
whilst increasing his own power. Indeed Josif Tito, the President of the
183
Pekic,The Time of Miracles, 33
Pekic,Time for Miracles, 36
185
The sovereign is the person who ―decides‖ an exception from the norm. Carl Schmitt, ―Political
Theology‖
184
102
Communist Party, was known for his sensational speeches, recollecting the
suffering of the pre-Communist period. In 1942, for instance, Tito proclaimed:
We possess, so to speak, nothing. Our country is devastated; our people
are enduring terrible sufferings and misery, hungry, naked and
barefooted, exposed to the bestial terror of the Ustasha , and the invader.
But we have one thing,--the unswerving firmness and faith of our
afflicted people that victory will be theirs!186
By depicting competition among disciples in an effort to secure the attention of
their leader, Pekic also made references to Tito‘s cult of personality and his
excessive adulation in the post-war regime. By virtue of this analogous
representation of Tito and the Communist elites, the ―miracle‖ of brotherhood and
unity was short-lived, and perhaps a harbinger of greater misfortune. Here the
premise of ―Brotherhood and Unity,‖ arising primarily from the horrors of the war,
began to crumble. But while Pekic ridiculed the dogmatism of Communist
ideology, he didn‘t spare religious ideological opponents. This can be seen in his
story ―Miracle at Bethany,‖ in which Jesus resurrects the figure of Lazarus, only
to see him killed again by religious members of the town.
Selimovic‘s Death and the Dervish, on the other hand, delved into the
problem of political authority and complicated the Communist exaltation of
―sovereignty‖ vested in men who follow historical processes. Instead, it served as
a Nietzschean rejection of the binary between good and evil, projected by
Ottoman Bosnia and later the Communist regime. Written in a Kafkaesque style,
Death and the Dervish portrays the turbulent psychological journey of the
186
Tito, Selected Speeches, 36
103
protagonist, Ahmed Nuruddin, the sheikh of a tekke187 and a dervish of the highest
order. In many ways, the hostile landscape of a ‗religious‘ Ottoman Bosnia in
Death and the Dervish serves as a foil to the Communist regime, iterating the
Communist break from an era of dogmatic religiosity. Much of the action takes
place in darkness; even during the daytime, guarded and muted conversations
occur in dimly lit rooms. A constant sense of foreboding permeates the setting; at
night a ―terrible drone‖ of insects floods over them, while ―white and gray vapors
drift […] like at the very beginning of the world.‖ When the morning turns
roseate, ―without the tortures of the nights spent half awake,‖ Ottoman Bosnia,
―falls into a deep sleep, like a well.‖188 Much like Andric‘s depiction of Ottoman
Bosnia, there is an aura of changelessness that governs the period. But Selimovic
does not share Andric‘s optimism for the socialist period, and instead uses his
depiction of Ottoman Bosnia as a subtle commentary on the present regime. In the
novel, the fears and doubts of Ahmed Nuruddin crystallize into bitter
disillusionment. His disenchantment, however, is not merely with the political
order, but with the very beliefs and doctrines that maintain the structures. It stems
primarily from his sense of guilt from an inability to save his brother, executed by
the Ottoman regime. It is later revealed that Nuruddin‘s brother accidently
stumbled upon evidence of the silencing of dissidents through fabricated charges
of heresy. In his prologue, Nuruddin reveals his apostasy:
My name is Ahmed Nuruddin. […] Light of Faith. How
am I a light? And how have I been enlightened? By
higher teachings? By the true faith? By freedom from
187
188
The Dervish Order or Gatherings of Sufi Brotherhood
Selimovic, Death and the Dervish, 244
104
doubt? Everything has fallen from me, like a robe or a
suit of armor, and all that remains is what was at the
beginning, naked skin and a naked man,‘189
Even before finding out the truth about his brother‘s execution, Nuruddin finds
himself drawn to a rebel, Is-haq and is tempted to free him despite his position as
a dervish. But Is-haq is not an ordinary rebel. Fleetingly depicted by Selimovic,
Is-haq becomes a recurring motif that symbolizes Nuruddin‘s own doubts. Tied
at the execution stand, he possesses a stoic acceptance of his fate. For he neither
condemns death nor wishes to escape it. Instead he finds his anchorage in being
able to see past a system that enshrouds everyone else.
Perhaps what unsettles Nuruddin the most is the betrayal of his comrades, who
despite the knowledge of Harun‘s innocence, neglected to save him. In the
second half of the novel, Nuruddin conspires to incite a rebellion against the
corrupt regime by framing Haji Sinaa-uddin, a much respected religious figure
who fails to save his brother. Soon Nuruddin becomes part of the corrupt
political order himself. His conspiracy backfires, incriminating his loyal friend,
Hasan. Nuruddin is given a brief window to save his friend. He must choose
between death and betrayal, and he chooses the latter. In the end, Nurruddin is
consumed with angst, and changed forever. At the heart of the novel is the idea
of human alienation and the insignificant space occupied by an individual within
an authoritarian regime, whether religious or secular. For Ahmed Nuruddin, this
helplessness finds an anchorage in religious faith, but soon, even this ground
slips from beneath his feet. In many ways, the text reads like an autobiographical
account by Selimovic depicting his inner conflict with both religious faith and
189
Selimovic, Death and the Dervish, 4
105
the Communist regime.
The injustice of his brother‘s execution by the
Communist regime is reflected in the angst experienced by Nuruddin. While
Nuruddin, as a dervish, is a protector of religious faith, his brother Harun is
portrayed as a character often flippant on the matter of religion. At a brief
juncture in the novel, Selimovic‘s portrayal of Nuruddin‘s inner turmoil extends
as a wider commentary on the Bosnian Muslims, caught between their religious
and secular identity, as the ―most complicated people on the face of the earth.‖
He says:
Not on anyone else has history played the kind of joke it‘s played on us.
Until yesterday, we were what we want to forget today. But we haven‘t
become anything else. With a vague sense of shame because of our
origins, and guilt because of our apostasy, we don‘t want to look back
and have nowhere to look ahead of us.190
On a broader level, the novel raises the idea of human conscience and its uneasy
allegiance to the ―law‖ (in this case, religious) and the political ―order.‖ The only
way to break out of the cycle, Selimovic implies, is to stoically overcome the
fear of death, of which his protagonist is tragically incapable. The last lines of
the novel serve as a final pronouncement of Nuruddin‘s internal agony under the
Ottoman rule:
Fear is flooding over me, like water. Teach me, dead ones, how to die
without fear, or at least without horror. For death is senseless, as is life.
In an ironic twist, the final letter read out by Nuruddin in the Ottoman setting of
the novel is dated: 1962-66.191
190
191
Selimovic, Death and the Dervish, 408
Ibid
106
Section III
A Prelude
The „Bascarsija:” An Ottoman City in the Socialist Era
An Architectural Dialogue between Islam and Modernity
While the Communist party may have overtly succeeded in separating the
discursive category of the ―religious‖ from the ―secular‖, an extrication of the
―modern‖ and the ―cultural‖ from the ―Islamic‖ proved to be a more daunting task.
Not unlike pre-socialist South Slavic literature, the aesthetics of architecture, too,
became trapped in the cultural polemics of the age. Situated in the heart of
Sarajevo, Bascarsija was one of the first building projects undertaken by the
Ottoman regime in 1462. It was a mosaic of commercial and public buildings,
interspersed with mosques, expansive water fountains, burial chambers (turbes),
centers of Islamic learning (mektebs), and hostels for young dervishes (hanika).
Funded by the vakuf 192 , Bascarsija evoked religious intermingling at the very
heart of the city. Within its horizontally oriented civic center, one could see a
kaleidoscope of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian religious institutions. The great
mosque of Husrev Beg at the center symbolized the dominance of Islamic law.193
192
religious state fund
Dijana Alic, and Maryam Gusheh. "Reconciling National Narratives in Socialist Bosnia and
Herzegovina: The Bascarsija Project, 1948-1953." The Journal of the Society of Architectural
Historians 58, no. 1 (1999): 6-25; Francisco Passanti, The Vernacular, Modernism and Le
Corbusier, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol 56, No 4, (Dec 1997), Zeynip
Celik, Le Corbusier, Orientalism, Colonialism, Assemblage, No 17, (April 1992), Andre Raymond,
Islamic City, Arab City: Orientalist Myths and Recent Views, British Journal of Middle Eastern
Studies, Vol 21, No 1, (1994), Maxmilian Hartmuth, Negotiating Tradition and Ambition:
Comparative Perspective on the ―De-Ottomanization‖ of the Balkan Cityscapes, in Urban Life and
Culture in Southeastern Europe: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives, Ethnologia
Balkanica 10, Vol 10, (2006), Edin Hajdarpasic, ―Out of the Ruins of the Ottoman Empire:
193
107
In the post-war socialist regime, Bascarsija was a relic of the Ottoman millet
system and its religious legacy in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was one of the very few
districts, or ―Ottoman towns‖, that had escaped the process of ―Westernization‖
into ―European‖ cities during Habsburg rule. In the socialist context, this
architectural association of the Bascarsija with religious determinism of the
Ottoman period was formidable. But even more so was its precise location within
the public marketplace of Sarajevo, a space closely governed and regulated by the
Communist regime. As an embodiment of public life, the carsija or the
marketplace represented socialist values of production and exchange, an
equalization of labor obligations, as well as uniformity in material relations
amongst its participants. Here in the Bascarsija, individuals from various
confessional communities interacted as traders, craftsmen, buyers, and sellers,
transcending local affiliations in pursuit of common interests and economic
interdependency. The territorial imprints signifying the public presence of religion
not only intruded on the ―secular‖ and universalistic character of the socialist
Bascarsija, but also posed a threat to competing ―Serbian‖ and ―Croatian‖
nationalist claims. For the latter, nationalization had superseded religion, and an
enduring presence of the ―Islamic‖ faith only served to restrict a potential
expansion of their respective national categories. In its symbolic representation
and re-interpretation, the Bascarsija in many ways served as a metaphor for a
socialist Bosnian Muslim community.
Reflections on the Ottoman Legacy in South eastern Europe,‖ Middle Eastern Studies, Vol 44, No
5, (Sept 2008), 715-734
108
A territorial refashioning of Bascarsija between 1948 and 1953 played a
communicative role, expressing a neutralization of religious sensibilities in the
public sphere and a transformation of the Ottoman heritage into one that was
uniquely Bosnian. In the initial years of secularization, the Party responded to this
architectural dilemma by demolishing parts of the ancient marketplace, claiming
that it was a fire hazard and held no intrinsic value. The local community
protested at the destruction of small shops, but to no avail. The Tito-Stalin split in
1948 marked a turning point in the attitude of the Party. Driven by a newfound
urgency to secure legitimacy, the Party revised its policy. In so doing, it also
pacified possible ―Serbian‖ and ―Croatian‖ nationalist sentiments present in
Socialist Yugoslavia. The new project of Bascarsija, spearheaded by a CroatGerman architect, Juraj Neidhart, envisioned a reformulation of the ―Oriental
Islamic‖ identity of the marketplace in a manner commensurable with western
influences and the ‗progressive‘ socialist age. A former student of Le Corbusier,
the French urbanist renowned for the development of ―Islamic‖ Algerian cities,
Neidhart was inspired by Le Corbusier‘s exploration of Islamic ―Orientalist‖
architecture through the prism of ‗modernity‘. His early efforts to secularize the
Bascarsija, therefore, borrowed heavily from the modernist tradition of the late
nineteenth and the early twentieth century. According to this tradition, a strict
separation of commercial and residential districts in the ―Islamic‖ city reflected an
isolation of the private realm from the public sphere in a manner that imposed a
sense of stasis in the community. In contrast to the autonomous and integrated
urban structure of the ―Occident‖, this segregation of the public and the private
109
realms portrayed a lack of civic spirit. Furthermore, modernization was an
important correlative of urbanization, symbolizing a process of ―de-Ottomanizing‖
or disentangling from religious determinism. 194 In his initial proposal for the
project, therefore, Neidhart set out to refashion the Bascarsija in an attempt to
unite the ―irrational‖ and the ―sensual‖ of the ―Oriental‖ with the ―modern‖ and
the ―rational.‖ He endorsed a replacement of Ottoman symbolism with ―modernist‖
architectural design, with careful emphasis on the principles of ―hygiene‖ and
―pragmatic design.‖ Observing the architecture of the Bascarsija, Neidhart stated:
What is the Charm of the Orient that starts in Sarajevo and that
Westerners can‘t resist? Here there are no planned actions that would
come from rational thinking. It is all a matter of improvisation, the result
of ad hoc ideas and temporary needs. Here everything displays the need
to please a human. […]For the Oriental the most important are [gentle]
emotions. Because opposites attract, it is not a coincidence that Orientals
are so attracted to technology and Westerners to Eastern architecture.195
Nevertheless, the religious landscape of the Bascarsija continued to rear its head
to the Communist regime. Accordingly, Neidhart sought to isolate the religious
buildings in Carsija by demolishing the civic structures in their immediate
vicinity. Now expansive parks and wide pathways surrounded the Gazi Husref
Beg Mosque, the Synagogues, and the old Catholic and Orthodox Churches. They
were remnants of a bygone era, frozen in time. Around them, it was as if history
followed a natural course and the activity of the Carsija blurred with the pace of
the socialist age.
Mariia Nikolaeva Todorova. Imagining the Balkans. (New York: Oxford University Press.
1997)
195
Grabrijan and Neidhardt, "Sarajevo i njegovi tra- banti," 211, as cited in Alic, Reconciling
National Narratives, 10
194
110
Within the context of a secular ‗Yugoslav‘ narrative, Neidhart‘s vernacular
also changed, emphasizing the unique Bosnian-ness of the remaining architecture
of the Bascarsija. ―By all means,‖ he exclaimed, ―it [architecture] has developed
under the influence of the Orient, its elements are not simply brought here, but
grew out of our people and our soil.‖ 196 His new thesis did not entail a
replacement of Oriental architecture with modern architecture, but an emphasis on
the ―modern‖ aspects within the Oriental. Neidhart took great pains to highlight
the spacious aspects of the architecture as elements of Western influences. ―Is
Carsija not a source of modern architecture?‖ he now questioned. ―Why do we
look for inspiration elsewhere, continuously getting it from second hand sources,
when we are at its origins? Aren‘t musandere197 like modern built-in wardrobes?
Aren‘t secije 198 like modern built-in couches and modern low furniture?‖ 199
Through this discovery of the ―modern‖ within the ―Oriental,‖ Neidhart extricated
the Bascarsija from its Ottoman legacy, and established the ascendancy of its
unique territorial identity, shared by an inclusive Bosnian community. While the
emphasis on the Bosnian-ness of the marketplace pacified Serbian and Croatian
claims to the territory, the major implication for Bosnian Muslims of their
liminality within the Socialist framework was not lost. The split between modern
Bosnian and religious Ottoman within a single cultural heritage signified
boundaries of inclusion and exclusion for the Bosnian Muslim community. While
196
Karlic-Kapeta- novic, JurajNajdhart, 121-122, as cited in Alic, Reconciling National Narratives,
14
197
Musandere, according to a Bosnian friend, is a Turkish word for attic rooms with large
windows.
198
Turkish word for a ―couch‖
199
Ibid
111
secularization of the ―public space‖ aimed to negate the public presence of
religion, the concomitant negation of Ottoman culture implicated both religious
and non-religious Bosnian Muslims. Symbolically, it tied them to a purely ―civic‖
identity based on the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In other ways, the ―secular‖
and anational vernacular of Bosnian-ness played into the hands of Serbian and
Croatian nationalist discourses with the negation of an Islamic confessional
element. The ―anationalness” of the Bosnian vernacular was, at best, a delicate
transcendence.
112
Chapter 3
~Who were the Bosnian Muslims? ~
Like a tributary whose course has been diverted from its river by a flood,
and no longer has a mouth or a current;
it‘s too small to be a lake, too large to be absorbed by the earth. 200
–Mesa Selimovic [1966]
Mesa Selimovic‘s description of the Bosnian Muslim community in Death and the Dervish, pg
408.
200
113
Milovan Djilas perhaps best expressed the matter, when in 1946 he called the
question of Bosnian Muslim representation within Socialist Yugoslavia a
―theoretical problem.‖ 201 The Bosnian Muslim community had inherited its
liminal status from the interwar period, during which they were claimed by
Serbian and Croatian nationalists alike. Djilas now stated that Bosnian Muslims,
as a confessional community, ―had not yet reached the point of national
differentiation, and that under the new conditions, would most likely affiliate with
Serbs or Croats.‖202 By diminishing the authority of local religious representatives,
secularizing reforms of Socialist Yugoslavia further problematized and expanded
the question of representation. Who would now politically represent the
confessional category of Bosnian Muslims, or for that matter, the Catholic and the
Orthodox Christians of Bosnia-Herzegovina? In Socialist Yugoslavia, an
equalization of interests and values in the ―public‖ sphere was accompanied by a
steady ―ethnicization‖ of the political framework. 203 In 1952, the Communist
Party of Yugoslavia renamed itself the League of Communists, and shifted the
political framework towards greater decentralization. The 1953 constitution
expanded the jurisdiction of the Yugoslav republics, granting them autonomy in
cultural, economic, educational affairs. The catalyst for initial decentralization,
ironically, emanated from democratizing discourses of socialist self-management
which emphasized localized control and decision-making by individual citizens.
201
Adil Zulfikarpasic, In Dialogue with Milovan Djilas and Nadezda Gace: The Bosniak, (Zurich:
Bosniak Institute, 1996), 80
202
Ibid
203
imi , Esad, and Stipe Grgas. "Religion and Culture". Synthesis Philosophica. 4: (1989), pg 30
Cimic writes: ―The possibilities for both believers and atheists are made the same in modern
society. No matter if it be the question of success or failure, dignity or its loss, or especially, social
or premature death—large groups of people find themselves before the same trials, permeated by
anxiety in the futile search for meaning and intimate happiness.‖
114
With the constitutional endorsement of ―ethnicity,‖ however, these discourses
inadvertently paved the way for increasing democratization in collective,
―national‖ terms, whilst eliminating possibilities for alternative political
competitors. Annual census categories not only indicated the diversity of peoples
in Yugoslavia, but often underpinned an ―ethnic‖ quota system for professional
and administrative positions. The process of secularization under the Communist
period had undermined the role of religious institutions as representatives of a
quasi-civil society. Instead, individuals as members of ―national‖ communities
now took charge of resource allocation, representing the greater economic and
political interests of their communities.
Secularization reforms alongside an ―ethnicization‖ of political life had
particular implications for the Bosnian Muslim community. In 1945, the Islamic
Religious Council (IZV) was the only formal representative body for Bosnians of
Muslim faith. 204 Being considerably marginalized as a religious organization
under the Communist regime, it could only promote the community‘s spiritual
welfare, and was disempowered from politically representing. With the
emergence of discourses on ―socialist‖ self management in the 1950s, the new
Reis ul Ulema 205 , on behalf of the Bosnian Muslim community, affirmed his
patriotism towards the state. Hadzi Suleman Kemura drew on this new socialist
rhetoric to reorganize Islamic Councils in Sarajevo, Pristina, Titograd, and Skopje,
thereby expanding the spiritual activities of the Muslim community in compliance
Zachary T Irwin, ―The Islamic Revival and the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina,‖ East
European Quarterly 17, no 4 Jan 1984, 440
205
Leader of the Muslim Religious Community
204
115
with the law.206 Nonetheless, Bosnian Muslims as a collective could not exercise
control or decision-making power over the republic in the same manner enjoyed
by Orthodox ―Serbs‖ and Catholic ―Croats.‖207 The absence of Bosnian-Muslim
legitimacy was clear in the census categories of the early socialist period.
Alongside ―Serb‖ and ―Croat‖ ethnic categories, the Communist government
created an ―ethnically undetermined‖ category. In the 1948 census, many Bosnian
Muslims had declared themselves as ―ethnically undetermined‖ in order to escape
categorizations as ―Muslim-Serbs‖ or ―Muslim-Croats.‖ In 1948, 89% of Muslims
of Slavic origin in Bosnia declared their nationality as ―undecided‖, while 8%
declared themselves as Serbs and less than 3% declared as Croats. 208The ―Muslim‖
category denoted a confessional group and held no connection with the ―national‖
category. Even as late as 1955, academics continued to question the ―ethnic‖
origin of Yugoslav Muslims. Kulisic, a historian questioned in his study in 1953,
―Were the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina of Slavic origin? If so, were they of
Serbian or Croatian origin? Were they Bogomiles? Or were they possibly Turkish
colonists from Africa and Asia?‖209 In 1953, the introduction of a more neutral
―Yugoslav‖ category helped ease some of the quandaries. It attracted not only
Orthodox Christians and Catholics who envisioned a more universalistic outlook,
206
Freidman, Denial of a Nation, 153
Orthodox ―Serbs, ‖here, denote members of the Orthodox Community adhering to a ―Serb‖
ethnic status, and likewise for the Catholic ―Croats.‖
208
Savezni Zavod za Statistiku, Nacionalno sastav stanovnsta p opstinama, Statistical Bulletin No
727 (Belgrade 1972), pg 1, as cited in Steven L Burg, The Political Integration of Yugoslavia‘s
Muslims: Determinants of Success and Failure, Paper No. 203, 1983, The Carl Beck Papers in
Russian and East European Studies, Russian and East European Studies Program, University of
Pittsburgh, 21
209
Spiro Kulisic, "Razmatranja o porijeklu Muslimana u Bosni i Hercegovini," GZM, n.s., VIII
(1953), 145-58, cited in
Wayne S Vucinich, The Yugoslav Lands in the Ottoman Period: Post-War Marxist Interpretations
of Indigenous and Ottoman Institutions, The Journal of Modern History, Vol 27, No 3, Sept 1955,
296.
207
116
but also Bosnian Muslims, who sought to dissociate themselves with their cultural
heritage. Over 93% of those who declared themselves adherents of Islam also
recorded themselves as ―undetermined Yugoslavs.‖ 210 The 1953 census also
recorded the religious affiliation of the population. In the early 50s, the Yugoslav
government stepped up its efforts to promote a notion of ―socialist Yugoslavism‖
as a supranational identity surpassing the regional identities of the republics. To
reconcile this simultaneous juxtaposition of ―national‖ autonomy with ―socialist
patriotism,‖ Tito hailed the diverse nature of Bosnia-Herzegovina as a symbol of
a united Yugoslavia. The ―anationalness‖ or liminality of Bosnian Muslims
became linked to the ―supra-nationalism‖ of secular Yugoslavia. But what was the
precise nature of this ―anationalness‖? Or to put it differently, what was the nature
of the ―national‖ recognized by the Yugoslav Communist regime?
Yugoslav
―nationality‖
policy
borrowed
much
of
its
theoretical
underpinning from the Hegelian notion of dialectical history, and even more so
from Stalin‘s definition of nations, based on Austro-Marxism.211 Stalin defined a
nation as ―a historically evolved stable community of language, territory,
economic life and psychological makeup manifested in a community of
culture.‖ 212 Stalin‘s definition was largely derived from the Austro-Marxist
thinker Karl Renner, who described a national community of individuals to be one
210
Burg, Political Integration, 21
Pedro Ramet, Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia, 1963-1983,(Indiana University Press,
1984), 46
Ramet writes: ―Indeed the Yugoslavs spend more time with the texts of these exegetes than with
the few original Marxist discussions of the national question. Yugoslav nationalities policy can
only be understood as a reaction to, development of, and repudiation of the various ideas carried
forward by Renner, Bauer, Lenin and Stalin.‘ 46
William E. Conklin, Hegel‘s Laws: the legitimacy of the modern legal order, Stanford, 2008
212
Vladimir Lenin, Marxism and Nationalism, (Resistance Marxist Library, Resistance Books,
2002), 197
211
117
in which ―mutuality is based in the […] expression of thought and feeling‖
expressed through national language and literature. Renner‘s primary thesis was
that there was no essential connection between ―a territory and a consciousness of
a nationality.‖ 213 In Hegel‘s conception of history, every new thesis would
advance over an antithesis, with each contradiction being essentially progressive
until the endpoint was reached. Hegel‘s conception of ethno-genesis echoed an
evolutionary pattern through which ethnic forms in their embryonic stage would
develop into the highest forms of civilized society, i.e. ethnic nation. In other
words, ―ethnic‖ characteristics formed the basis of national communities as
political entities. In order for the state to survive, Hegel asserted that legal form
could not be derived from a plurality of nations. After the development of the
―historical peoples,‖ Hegel ultimately proposed a civic, secularized nation which
would ―lessen disharmony‖ with its ―universal rationality.‖214
Based on the Hegelian model and Austro-Marxism, the Communist regime
classified the Yugoslavs into ―ethnic nationalities,‖ based not on different
lifestyles, or practiced social customs, but on differences in literariness, or cultural
development, Kulturnost. In the dialectical vision of Yugoslav Communism,
religion as a mark of ―ethnicity‖ was primordial, and it had to be removed from
the ―ethnic‖ in order to render the latter in a pure form. The latter was believed to
be a more ―politically anodyne‖ and fluid category. 215 Although Austro-Marxism
envisioned a separation of ―nationality‖ from the territorial principle, much like
213
Nimni, Ephraim. National Cultural Autonomy and its Contemporary Critics. London; New
York: Routledge, 2005.
214
Ibid.
215
See also Larry Wolf, ―Revising Eastern Europe: Memory and the Nation in Recent
Historiography,‖ Boston College
118
the separation of Church and State, the translation of this theory into practice was
not so simple. The model required ―nations‖ to have institutions through which
they could express and preserve themselves. Decentralization reforms paved the
way for a greater expression of ‗ethnic‘ diversity within the school systems and
cultural institutions.216 Although the Party still maintained a central control over
the core school curricula, the ―literature of the Yugoslav peoples‖ was made
―national‖ in form, whilst remaining ―socialist‖ in content.217
Ironically, though, the very ethno-linguistic differentiation that formed the
basis of Serb and Croat ―national‖ status emanated from a historical schism in
Christianity. In the field of literature, Serbian and Croatian linguists stressed the
peculiarities of each language, and the ascendancy of one over the other. Two
Croatian linguists, Petar Guberina and Kruni Krstoc, published a Linguistic
Treatise on the Croatian Language in 1940, emphasizing the ―morphological,
syntactic and phonetic differences‖ between written and spoken Croatian and
Serbian languages. These differences were quantified---there were ―ten thousand
common [ordinary] words,‖ ―tens of thousands scientific terms,‖ ―eighty five
phonetical rules‖ and ―two hundred cases of word formation.‖218 They claimed
that the differences were caused by the two alphabets and the specific cultural and
religious histories after the schism between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox
John Georgeoff, ―Social Studies in Yugoslav Elementary Schools,‖The Elementary School
Journal, Vol 66, No 8, May 1966. Noah W Sobe, U.S Comparative Education Research on
Yugoslav Education in the 1950s and 1960s, European Education, Vol 38, no 4, Winter 2006-7,
John Georgeoff, ―Nationalism in the History Textbooks of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria,‖
Compatative Education Review, Vol 10, No 3, Oct 1966
217
Wachtel, 140
218
P Guberina and K Krstic, Razlike imedju hrvatskoga I srpskog knijsevnog jezika (Zagreb, 1940),
as cited in Vladimir Nazor, Antun Nizeto, ―Differences between the Croatian and the Serbian
Literary Languages,” Journal of Croatian Studies, 1984-85, 108
216
119
Christian Churches. The Serbian language and literature could be traced back to
the Old Church Slavonic language, developed under Byzantine influence, when
numerous ecclesiastical texts were transcribed into Cyrillic and invoked in
liturgical practices. The Roman Catholic Church, on the other hand, used the
Roman alphabet, and according to Croatian linguists, it continued to develop
under the influence of Catholicism. Bosnian Serb historians such as Milorad
Ekmecic also affirmed that the advent of Christianity in the Balkans was the
beginning of an ―acquired‖ writing and literary language. 219 From the ―secular‖
and nationalized perspectives of Serb and Croat linguists, however, the ―religious‖
origin of the respective dialects and alphabets only proved an alignment of
―religion‖ with national concerns. They interpreted the religious schism of the
medieval period in a teleological fashion, whereby the loss of language now
signaled a loss of age-old heritage and ―national‖ identity. As a famous Croatian
poet, Vladimir Nazor wrote in 1942:
In this common crash of destruction,
The Croat knows that his language is his fate-With it he must live, with it he must die220
From the perspective of Yugoslav Communists, the recognition of national
categories predicated on confessional boundaries implied the modernist notion of
a ―transition from faith to culture.‖ 221 Keeping with the spirit of Socialist
patriotism, however, the Communist Party attempted to emphasize the unity
219
Vladimir Dedijer, Ivan Bozic, Sima Cirkovic, Milorad Ekmecic, History of Yugoslavia,
McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1974
220
―Vladimir Nazor,‖ by Ante Kadic in the Journal of Croatian Studies, XVII, 1976, as cited in
Antun Nizeto, ―Differences between the Croatian and the Serbian Literary Languages,” Journal of
Croatian Studies, 1984-85
221
See Ernest Gellner‘s theories of modernization.
120
between the Serbian and Croatian languages. The Novi Sad agreement of 1954
endorsed ―Serbo-Croatian‖ as one language with two dialects (ijekavian and
ekavian) and two alphabets (Cyrillic and Latin), eliciting varied responses from
Serb and Croat linguists. The latter in particular considered the appellation as a
sign of Serbian assimilationist tendencies, and as an attempt to portray the
Croatian language as an inferior variant of Serbian. On the other hand, Serbs, as
the majoritarian ―ethnic‖ group were more open to a joint Serbo-Croatian
appellation, which would implicitly portray Serbian as the standard from which
the Croatian variant emerged. Milorad Ekmecic decried the religious basis to
national differences, emphasizing instead the ascendancy of a secular linguistic
community. According to him, religious intolerance could only be surpassed
through the implementation of a uniform language encompassing Catholics,
Muslims and Orthodox Christians. 222 But while ―Serb‖ and ―Croat‖ linguists
competed to place their language as the ‗standard‘ of the lesser variant, the
Bosnian Muslim community lay at the periphery of the ―national‖ in prevalent
discourses. They neither had their own ―national‖ institutions expressing a distinct
culture, nor a republic. Perhaps their position as a contested territory for Serbs and
Croats and their own dispersed self-understandings further exacerbated this
liminality. Their ‗benign‘ inclusion within Serbian or Croatian ethnic frameworks
was piecemeal. Assimilationist claims on Bosnian Muslims often stemmed more
from a contest for power between ―Serbians‖ and ―Croatians.‖ And even as
speakers of ―Serbian‖ or ―Croatian‖ languages, Bosnian Muslims were divorced
from the Christian cultural heritage that had formed the essence of Kulturnost.
222
Dedijer, History of Yugoslavia, (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1974)
121
Their connection to the Ottoman legacy cast them as ‗hybrids‘ within national
categories. In the perceptions of their compatriots, Communists and nationalists
alike, the intrusion of Ottoman culture had left them insufficiently ―nationalized.‖
~Bosnian Self-Understandings~
Amidst such liminal categorizations of Bosnian Muslims, there also existed
fragmented self-understandings among the Bosnian Muslim milieu. In 1966,
Mesa Selimovic, the author of Death and the Dervish, articulated the liminality of
Bosnian Muslims in the following words:
We belong to no one, we are always in a twilight zone, always used as
dowry for somebody else…We live in the frontiers of different worlds, at
the periphery of different cultures. We‘ve lost our face without being
able to fake someone else‘s. We are abandoned without being adopted.
The waves of history break against us, as waves break against a cliff. We
are revolted with those in power, so we‘ve created virtue out of our
misery and become noble out of defiance.223
Among Bosnian Muslims, a marginal number identified as ―Serbs‖ and ―Croats‖.
The Ottoman legacy, nonetheless, was an intrinsic yet often deeply contested and
troubled part of Bosnian Muslim consciousness. A sequence of artistic paintings
by Mersad Berber from the 1960s depicts a transition of the Ottoman to the
modern; the former, evoked through scenes of minarets against a gloomy and grey
landscape, fades into sketches of illuminated, modernist architecture. 224 Berber,
much like Mesa Selimovic, who relates an agonizing tale of a dervish caught
under an oppressive Ottoman state apparatus in Death and the Dervish,
represented one end of the spectrum in the Bosnian Muslim milieu, characterized
by a forward-oriented Communist identification. But even as ‗secular‘ Muslims
223
224
Selimovic, Death and the Dervish, 330
Muhamed Karamehmedovic´, Mersad Berber, (Jugoslovenska knjiga, Beograd, 1985)
122
sought to extricate themselves from the Ottoman past, many cultural practices of
Bosnian Muslims, which had developed during the Ottoman period, continued to
resonate in their literature.
A famous Bosniac singer, Hamdija Sahinpasic, relies on an Ottoman cultural
heritage in his portrayal of Bosnian culture and traditions. His repertoire of 300
songs, published in 1967, explores the yearnings of lonely lovers, their greetings
and partings, within the historic and social setting of the Ottoman period.
Preserving old Bosnian traditions, the songs often relayed major historical events,
with a mix of celebration and criticism of the Ottoman cultural heritage in Bosnia.
The song ―Stono cvili u Mramorju gradu‖ (Such Wailing in Mramorje Fort)
recalls a heroine who was compelled to adopt another faith against her will;
another song, ―Odmetnu se odmetnica‖ (Mara the Outlawed), depicts a young girl
who is captured by a group of brigands and decides to give up her life instead of
renouncing her faith. In another song ―Kad masina iz Mostara dode‖ [When the
Locomotive Comes from Mostar], Sahinpasic recalls the Bosniac 225 struggle
under Austro-Hungarian rule in the early 20th century to protect religious
educational and vakuf autonomy. The song extols Ali Fehmo Dzabic (1853-1918),
a mufti of Mostar who taught in the madrassahs of Mostar, and weaves a narrative
around his absence from the country. 226
Such delicately woven narratives
predicated on the Ottoman legacy, however, could be easily undone through
claims of religiosity by Serb and Croat intellectuals. In Yugoslav historiography
such as ―The Beloved Land‖ (1961) for instance, Vladimir Dedijer wrote that the
225
Bosnian Muslim Struggle
Munib Maglajlic, ―The legacy of singer Hamdija Sahinpasic in Bosniac Oral Literary
Tradition,‖ Traditiones, 231-41, 2005
226
123
―Turks were a nation of warriors‖ who left many Bosnians ―the philosophy of
kismet, the belief that none can escape from the predestined will of Allah. They
left many other things, including oriental indolence, laziness and a tolerance of
bribery.‖ 227 Muslim historians always remained on guard, repudiating their
categorization as foreign ―Turks,‖ and emphasizing instead their loyalty to the
Bosnian homeland. The Bosniac struggle under Austro-Hungarian rule remained
a
contested
historical
incident.
For
Serb
intellectuals,
it
represented
disillusionment and anger on the part of Bosnian Muslims as a response to their
loss of privileges with the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Conversely, Muslim
historians asserted that the struggle was quintessentially patriotic and antiimperialist in the face of Austro-Hungarian rule.228
Other members of the Bosnian Muslim milieu sought alternatives to define
their cultural uniqueness and to reconcile their religious identification with
Bosnian patriotism. Pulled by assimilationist forces of both Serbian and Croat
nationalism, prominent Bosnian Muslim intellectuals emphasized a non-Oriental
historical basis derived from Bogomilism as a mark of their Bosnian cultural
identity. The emphasis on Bogomils, a Christian heretical church, also represented
an attempt to place Bosnian Muslim identity within Europe. During the medieval
period, Bogomilism as a schismatic Manichean Christian faith in Bosnia had been
persecuted by the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches. In popular Communist
and nationalist literature, the en masse conversion of a significant portion of the
Bosnian community to Islam after the establishment of Ottoman rule was often
227
Dedijer, The Beloved Land, (Simon & Schuster, 1961), 32/33
Mark Baskin, "The Secular State as Ethnic Entrepreneur: Macedonians and Bosnian Moslems
in Socialist Yugoslavia."
228
124
attributed to the disintegration of the Bogomil Church.
229
Among such
intellectuals was Mehmedija Mak Dizdar, a poet born to a Muslim family in
Stolac (Herzegovina) in 1917.
His writings were more philosophical than
political, and were informed by a strong Marxist orientation. His poetry
frequently employed images of stone cemeteries from medieval Bosnia, as well as
lapidary motifs to emphasize the medieval landscape as the heart of the Bosnian
national identity. In his set of poems, Stone Sleeper, Dizdar articulates an
idealistic nationalist sentiment that is historically predicated on an experience of
shared living and intimacy among confessional, economic and social groups.230
Dizdar used Bogomil defiance and non-conformity in the face of Christian
schisms as a metaphor for a regional Bosnian identity. Unlike his contemporaries
within the Muslim milieu, Dizdar used the Bogomil motif to articulate an identity
that also encompassed Catholics and Christians within Bosnia. His texts
emphasized above all the Bosnian landscape, and conveyed a certain detachment
from particularistic assertions of identity. In his poem, A text about a text, he
describes the discovery of a medieval text, which is given contesting
interpretations by the discoverers.
And when we saw this script we‘d never seen before
In front of our very eyes from far off times
A long silence fell between us
The stillness was broken by a voice that was calm but outspoken
229
See Ramet, Nationalism and Federalism; Malcolm, Bosnia: A Short History;
The Bogomil theory as the defining point of Bosnian Muslim ‗origin‘ had been utilized by both
Croatian and Serbian nationalists during the interwar period and continued to be entertained in the
intellectual discourses during the Communist regime.
230
Dizdar‘s writings remain largely untranslated. Excerpts are found in Secondary literature, for
instance, in pg 381
125
No scribe wrote this text for sure.231
While Dizdar primarily articulated a regional identity extending to all
inhabitants of Bosnia-Herzegovina, other members of the Bosnian Muslim
community picked up the myth of Bogomilism to emphasize an exclusive sense of
patriotism among Bosnian Muslims. Much was in response to Serbian and
Croatian nationalist claims, which projected the foreignness of Ottomans onto
Bosnian Muslims. An anchorage in ancient Bogomilism allowed such Muslim
intellectuals not only to assert their territorial connection with the integrated
republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but also to invert the anational discourses
projected onto the Bosnian Muslim community. In the emigre publications
Bosanski Pogledi published in the 1950s, Adil Zulfikarpasic, a Bosnian Muslim
intellectual, frequently wrote about the intrinsic national character of the Muslim
community, merging it with ancient Bogomilism. 232 Contrary to Serbian and
Croatian nationalism, Zulfikarpasic stated that the ‗civilized‘ national character of
Muslims embodied the Bosnian spirit, defined by tolerance through the years of
regional co-existence:
That the Bosniacs did not manifest their national identity as an
aggressive ethno-national conviction and did not demand of their
neighbors that they do the same, was not the product of weakness but of
a certain national maturity and their acceptance of their country‘s
plurality.233
Amila Buturovic, ―Medieval Cemeteries as Sites of Memory: the Poetry of Mak Dizdar, in
Islam and Bosnia: Conflict Resolution and Foreign Policy in a multi-ethnic state, e.d by
Shatzmiller, Maya, (Montréal; Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002), 41
232
Zulfikarpasic,The Bosniak; and Sacir Filandra & Enes Karic; The Bosniac Idea, Translated
from Croatian by Saba Risaluddin, (Nakladni zavod Globus, Zagreb, 2004)
233
Interview by Adil Zulfikarpasic in Poruka slobodne Hrvatske, 4/1983, also issued as a separate
book entitled Bosanski Muslimani—cimbenik mira izmedu Srba Hrvata (The Bosnian Muslims—
a factor for peace between Serbs and Croats), as cited in Filandra, The Bosniac Idea. 321
231
126
According to Zulfikarpasic, the people of the medieval Kingdom of Bosnia had
always possessed a regional ―Bosniac‖ identity including both Bogomils and
Christians.
It was not the Bosnian Muslims who were anational, but the
Orthodox and the Catholic inhabitants of Bosnia, who had lost their national
Bosnian character to the forces of secularization and nationalization sweeping
across Europe. His writings, published in the fifties, held ―Serb‖ and ―Croat‖
categorizations as a form of secularized affiliation with Catholicism and
Orthodoxy. By extension, these categories represented an unpatriotic and antinational character. In an interview with Djilas in 1996, Zulfikarpasic recalled:
―My Croat and Serb friends, when they look at history, conclude that before the
arrival of the Turks, Bosnia was either Croatian or Serbian, i.e. Catholic or
Orthodox.‖234 The Bosnian Muslims, however, as converted Bogomils, had ―an
incredibly profound attachment and sympathy for the pre-Islamic state of Bosnia,
towards the bans—the Bosnian kings---and towards the Bogomils.‖235 Drawing
similarities between values of tolerance in ancient Bogomilism and Islam,
Zulfikarpasic concludes that the Bogomils enjoyed a cultural renaissance during
the Ottoman period, but retained their connection with their homeland. Bosnianness was at once universal to the inhabitants of the republic and particular to the
Bosnian Muslim community. Muslims identifying as Bosniaks, therefore, upheld
their regional identity as a negation of more virulent forms of nationalism
predicated on particularistic ethnicities. They read nationally Bosnian
understandings in the official non-national status, and established ties of natality
234
235
Zulfikarpasic, The Bosniak , 50
Ibid
127
with the culturally integrated territory of Bosnia. What was clear, however, was
that any assertion of a distinct cultural identity relied on a previous religious
foundation. For Bosnian Muslims, this posed a particular problem. How could
they rely on the Ottoman legacy without inviting discourses that would in turn
invoke Christian-Islam dichotomy? Conversely, to what extent could ancient
Bogomilism, a Christian heretical faith, serve as a platform for expressing
Bosnian Muslim identity?
~Muslim Ethnicity Versus Religion~
Until the sixties, the self-identification and recognition of Bosnian Muslim
identity oscillated between religious Ottoman and territorial Bosniac terms. Then,
in an unprecedented development culminating in 1968, Tito granted Bosnian
Muslims a ‗national‘ status, for the first time recognizing a people solely on the
basis of religion. Between the ―Ottoman‖ and the ―Bosnian,‖ the Communist
regime introduced an intermediary ―ethnic‖ ―Muslim‖ designation. The elevation
of the Bosnian Muslims from a non-national to a national status was a
consequence of a number of internal changes within the socialist regime, coupled
with Tito‘s Non-aligned foreign policy. In many ways, the introduction of a
―Muslim‖ national status in Bosnia-Herzegovina epitomized the Communist
dilemma of only ―ethnic‖ accommodation in a multi-confessional community.
Not only did this category elicit considerable opposition from Serbian and
Croatian members of the Communist Party, but the implications of recognizing a
confessional group were soon to pose new challenges to the regime. Having
acknowledged the religious basis of the community, the Party could not create
secularized ―ethnicity‖ out of Bosnian Muslims in the same way it had created
128
―Serbs‖ out of Orthodox Christians or ―Croats‖ out of Catholic Christians.
Muslim ―ethnicity‖ in the Yugoslav context inevitably pointed back to Slavic
Serb or Croat origins, a defunct Bogomilism, or the much despised Ottomans.
―Ethnicity‖ was a legitimate political identity in the public realm, and a
means of political advancement for Orthodox and Catholic Christians in BosniaHerzegovina. Croatian and Serbian ―national‖ consciousnesses did not always
converge with their confessional precursors, but in an effort to push for greater
decentralization directed against the state, Orthodox and Catholic institutions
often found it feasible to align with their respective ethnic representatives in
Communist circles.236 Yugoslav Communism in the early decades had converged
with Serbian and Croatian nationalism in upholding the ―anational‖ (confessional)
character of Yugolav Muslims in Bosnia. The introduction of a Muslim
nationality on the same level as that of Serbs and Croats was a temporary
departure, but inevitably posited the uncomfortable question of the naked force of
religion in the political realm. Simultaneously, it mobilized members of the
Bosnian Muslim community, paving the way for new discourses on the meaning
of a Muslim identity as an ethnic or religious marker. For the first time since the
fall of the Habsburg Monarchy, Bosnian Muslims were raised to the same level as
their Serbian and Croatian counterparts. Their rapidly increasing demographics
also granted them a significant degree of political leverage in Bosnia. With the
Yugoslav ideal defined in opposition to a previous era of ―religiosity,‖ however,
the opportunistic creation of a ―Muslim‖ nationality amidst the secular, ethnic
236
For details on the Croatian Spring in 1971, see Ramet, Nationalism and Federalism in
Yugoslavia
129
sphere was ominous. Almost immediately, it begged the question of legitimacy.
How were Bosnian Muslims to be recognized as a distinct, political entity? And
how did the competing definitions of Muslim ethnicity and religion challenge the
imagined cohesion of a Muslim national community? The liminality of Bosnian
Muslims within Yugoslavia did not follow a predetermined path to ultimate
negation. But the ascent of Bosnian Muslims to political authority in a volatile
multinational state marked the beginning of their downfall.
Intellectual and philosophical discourses in the early sixties were
characterized by a sense of ebullience. A new era of Christian-Marxist
rapprochement emerged in Socialist Yugoslavia, encouraging open dialogue
between liberal theologians and reformist Marxist intellectuals in an effort to
promote a better future. A more covert part of this dialogue, however, was to
broaden the base for socialism by appealing to the majoritarian confessional base
of Yugoslavia. Liberal Marxist intellectuals highlighted Christian social and work
ethics to recruit ―believers‖ towards the goal of ―self management.‖ 237 At the
same time, philosophical discussions brimmed with Praxis Marxist 238 ideals,
which extolled human creativity as the basis of existence. According to Praxis
Marxists, a universal ―self-creative‖ activity defined what it meant to be human,
and served as the means through which man ―created‖ and ―changed‖ himself and
his world.239 This notion of ―praxis‖ was central not only to an understanding of
237
A principle of self government which relegated decision-making to a localized level of an
individual producer, or citizen
238
James Satterwhite, ―The Yugoslav Praxis Group in the East European Context,‖ in Varieties of
Marxist Humanism: philosophical revisions in post-war Eastern Europe, University of Pittsburg,
1992, 174-192
239
130
the human essence, but also to the concept of human alienation arising from the
inability of man to realize ―historically created human possibilities.‖240 Following
from this concept of humanity, Communist intellectuals were encouraged to
revise their understandings of religion as well as of the role of believers in a
Communist society. Religion was no longer considered a phenomenon that would
fade away; its omnipresence was recognized as well as the need to reformulate
religious philosophy in order to meet the demands of the contemporary age. A
major impetus for philosophical revisions also came from the declaration of Pope
John XXII and the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, to support a new
dialogue with atheists and believers of other religions.
241
Edvard Kardelj, a
leading Communist intellectual, stated: ―it would be politically harmful and even
incorrect if Communists took up the position that religious beliefs of an individual
are in themselves an impediment for him to co-operate and create in a system of
socialist governance.‖ 242 While Marxist intellectuals reasoned that ―crusading
atheism‖ 243 was detrimental to the socialist cause, and encouraged theological
reflections on ―self-managing socialism,‖ they kept the ―social‖ and the ―political‖
distinct. Religious discourses on politics were still forbidden. Although the
240
Ibid, 181
This culminated in an agreement, i.e. the signing of a formal ―Protocol‖ between the Vatican
and Yugoslavia on April 25th, 1966. This agreement was the first ever signed between the Vatican
and a socialist government.
Paul Mojzes, “Christian-Marxist Encounter in the context of a socialist society,‖ Journal of
Ecumenical Studies, 9, 1972, 10
242
Ibid, 12
See also, Paul Mojzes, Christian-Marxist Dialogue in Eastern Europe, Augsburg Publishing
House, 1981, and, Nicholas Piediscalzi & Robert G Thobaben, Three Worlds of Christian-Marxist
Encounters, Fortress Press (Philadelphia), 1985
243
Edvard Kardelj, Problemi socijalisticke izgadnje, Vol. III, quoted in Roter, ―Politika I religija I
drustvo, p. 135, as cited in Mojzes, ―Christian-Marxist Encounter,‖ Ibid. 12
Mika Tripalo said: ―Crusading atheism does not make sense. On the other hand, I do not think
that the League of Communists should change its general policy on the question of the religious
attitude of its own members.‖
241
131
enthusiasm of the Christian-Marxist dialogue eventually subsided by the early 70s,
the encounter was successful in establishing commonality between Marxism and
Christianity. Both shared the same problem, ―a world which is in danger of
manifold self destruction unless the two co-operate for the good of mankind.‖244
The telos of the Christian-Marxist encounter was not a realization of ―national‖
rights, but that of socialism. The wheels on the political front, however, were
turning. As disillusionment with the socialist project began to settle in, the notion
of ―national‖ autonomy began to emerge as a means to ―freedom‖ and an
alternative solution to human alienation. In 1966, the fall of Alexandar Rankovic,
the Vice President of the Communist Party and the Head of Security, loosened the
centralized state apparatus of the Communist regime and brought ―national‖
discourses to the forefront of politics. But even during the period of a strong
central government, political discourses had continued to be characterized by a
disguised ―ethnic‖ politics. Due to a Serbian over-representation in the Partisan
struggle and later the Communist Party, a centralized ―unitarist‖ Yugoslavism
was often labeled Serbian nationalism by Croatian liberals. Trying to balance such
competing claims whilst constitutionally endorsing ―ethnic‖ categories, Tito fell
into his own trap and expelled Alexander Rankovic on charges of Serb
―unitarism.‖ It is unclear whether Rankovic was truly a partisan Serb or simply a
Conservative Communist who preferred a stronger centralized government. His
dismissal as ―Serbian unitarist‖ by the Communist Party, nonetheless, was
monumental. In the words of historian Audrey Budding, the subsequent
244
In the words of Dr Zdenko Roter in the University of Ljubliana. cited in Paul Mojzes,
―Christian-Marxist Encounter in the context of a socialist society,‖ 16
132
decentralization of Yugoslavia was hailed ironically as the victory of ―democratic
socialism‖ over Serbian nationalism. The regime, consequently, moved towards
further decentralization. With the constitutional amendments of 1967-1968 and
later 1971, Socialist Yugoslavia legitimized a convergence between ―national‖
and territorial rights of the republics.245
Simultaneously, there was a significant degree of religious liberalization in
the 60s, particularly since the various republics, as ―national homelands,‖ now
defined their own religious policies. As the status of the Communist regime as a
―police state‖ receded, marginalized religious institutions acquired breathing
space from espionage networks that had previously regulated their activities. The
dismissal of Rankovic, a strong proponent of Yugoslav Muslim anationalness,
also provided an opportunity for Bosnian Muslim leaders to list their grievances.
Simultaneously, Croatian nationalism came to a head, with the publication of the
first two volumes of the Serbo-Croatian dictionary in 1967. 246 In the official
Serbo-Croatian dictionary, Croat linguists claimed that common Croatian
vocabulary had been portrayed as a lesser dialect, or a variant from the standard
Serbian dialect. In the immediate aftermath of the publication, Croatian linguists
and writers convened and signed the ―Declaration concerning the Characterization
and Status of the Croatian Literary Language‖ in March 1967. The Declaration
demanded the revocation of the Novi Sad agreement, the recognition of Croatian
and Serbian as two distinct languages and the usage of Croatian in schools, in the
245
246
Yugoslav republics were taken as homelands for nationalities
see Ramet; A Budding
133
press, and in professional and public life.247 On another front, the fall of Rankovic
also triggered national self-expression among Serbian liberals, propelling them to
identify with a particularistic ―Serb‖ category as opposed to a universal
―Yugoslav‖ one. A leading figure in the revival of Serbian national expression
was Dobrica Cosic, a prolific Communist writer and a member of the Yugoslav
and Serb political establishments.248As early as 1961, Cosic had begun voicing his
disillusionment with urbanization and the ―technical‖ modernization that was
sweeping Socialist Yugoslavia. The transformation of a predominantly agrarian
society into an urban one had caused considerable social dislocation and
unemployment, which was aggravated further by economic stagnation in the early
sixties. In 1967, Cosic delivered his famous speech: ―Kako da stvaroma sebe”
(How should we create ourselves?)249 In his speech, Cosic contended that the
―backwardness‖ of Serbian modernization was not only a consequence of
Ottoman occupation, but also stemmed from the absence of cultural reformation.
Serbia had experienced only a material modernization; widespread differences
continued to exist between the inhabitants of cities and villages, due to an absence
of cultural homogeneity. In Cosic, one can see that the Yugoslav ideal premised
on the socialist project and material relations was gradually giving way to an
affirmation of a communal bond premised on ethnicity. Cosic concluded his
speech with the Praxis Marxist emphasis on the individual as the basic building
247
Ibid
Dukic, Covek, 161 and 163, as cited in Audrey Helfant Budding, "Serb Intellectuals and the
National Question, 1961-1991." Ph.D. diss., (Harvard University ; UMI Dissertation Services,
1998).
Audrey Budding describes Cosic‘s response to the fall of Rankovic: ―such a liquidation of
Rankovic would lead to the division not only of the Party, but also of Yugoslavia,‖ in Serb
Intellectuals and the National Question, 42
249
Audrey Budding, Serb Intellectuals and the National Question, 166
248
134
block for the realization of cultural unity: ―without complete freedom of the
individual there is no free community, without a free citizen there is no free
people.‖250
Meanwhile, Tito‘s role as the head of the Non-Aligned Movement shifted the
attention of the Communist regime towards its Muslim population. The deep
camaraderie between Tito and Gamal Abdul Nasser, President of Egypt, during
this period has been described as a rare moment in international politics. As the
leader of Pan-Arabism, Abdul Nasser spearheaded a movement which glorified
the Arab language and civilization over religion. The Cairo-Belgrade Entente of
the sixties was mutually beneficial. For Nasser, the multinational integration of
Yugoslavia served as a model for Arab integration. Tito, on the other hand, used
Nasser‘s friendship to gain favor among Arab and African countries.251 In order to
further his foreign policy goals, Tito granted Yugoslav Muslims an ―ethnic‖ status
in 1961, in an attempt to portray Yugoslavia as home to the second largest
Muslim population in Europe and to highlight the equality with which Muslims
were treated. The Communist regime, however, continued to have qualms over
this official recognition of what they considered a purely confessional community.
The impetus for a ‗national‘ recognition of Muslims came in 1968, amidst
burgeoning Serbian and Croatian nationalism. Croatian nationalists from the
neighboring republic had begun to assert claims on the ‗Croats‘ of BosniaHerzegovina, thereby threatening the political stability of the republic. The Party,
for its part, was committed to preserving the ―multi-ethnic‖ character of Bosnia.
Cosic, ―Kakos a stvaramo sebe?‖, as cited in Budding, Serb Intellectuals, 169
Alvin Z Rubinstein, Yugoslavia and the Nonaligned World, (Princeton University Press,
Princeton, 1970)
250
251251
135
Since ―Yugoslavism‖ had transitioned from being a symbol of socialist patriotism
to one of multi-nationalism after the decentralization reforms, the status of
Bosnia-Herzegovina also moved in the same fashion. Instead of being a
polyreligious republic, Bosnia-Herzegovina was home to three burgeoning
―nations,‖ each imagined as a fluid but internally homogenous category. It was no
longer an ―anational‖ status but a ―national‖ status for Bosnian Muslims that
catered to the preservation of Bosnia as a multi-ethnic republic. Finally on 17
May 1968, the League of Communists of Bosnia-Herzegovina proclaimed:
The practice has shown the harmfulness, in the past period, of the
different forms of pressure and injunction, aiming to make Muslims
declare themselves nationally as Serbs or Croats, since it has appeared in
the past, and it is confirmed by the present socialist practice, that
Muslims form a distinct nation.‘252
In his emigre publications, Adil Zulfikarpasic objected to the ―Muslim‖
designation in the national census. For him, the use of the ‗Bosniac‘ category was
commensurable with the secular ideal through its emphasis on a regional Bosniac
nationality over religion. The alternative, however, was detrimental to Yugoslav
multi-nationalism. A ―Bosniac‖ ascriptive category for Muslims would have
denoted an unequivocal regional connection at the expense of those identifying as
―Serbs‖ and ―Croats‖ in Bosnia. The Communist regime therefore actively
endorsed a ―Muslim‖ designation, despite its determination to privatize religion.
In the initial years, an equal national status for Muslim elicited widespread
support among Bosnian Muslims and the enthusiasm of the religious hierarchies.
Xavier Bougarel, ―Bosnian Muslims and the Yugoslav Idea,‖ in Yugoslavism: histories of a
failed idea 1918-1992, e.d by Djokic, (London: Hurst, 2003), 107
252
136
With on-going negotiations on the representation of nationalities and the
allocation of resources within Bosnia-Herzegovina, Communist Muslims rose to
the forefront of elite politics and forged a co-operative relationship with the
religious hierarchy. Amidst contesting definitions of Muslim identity as a secular
―ethnic‖ or ―religious‖ marker and the Communist Party‘s own latent anxieties
over this recognition of Muslims, the unity within the Muslim milieu was fragile.
But for the time being, multiple discourses on the nature of Muslim identity
continued to flourish with little hindrance.
~Between Religion and Culture~
Is man ever able to overcome this contradiction, this either or
between Heaven and Earth, or is he condemned forever to […]
stretching between the two? Is there a way by which science can serve
religion, hygiene, piety, progress and humanism? Could the utopia of
“Civitas Solis”253 be inhabited with human beings instead of
autonomous and faceless individuals, and have features of “God’s
Kingdom” on Earth? Izetbegovic254
A change in the Communist vocabulary, mapping the ―national‖ onto what
they had previously designated as the ―confessional,‖ opened up discourses on the
relationship between culture and religion within the Muslim milieu. Among
theologians, religious and secular philosophers alike, there was a consensus on an
intricate convergence of religion and culture. Discourses surrounding the
dichotomy of the ―religious‖ and the ―secular,‖ nonetheless, attempted to claim
the constitutive ideal. Was it civilization or religion that originated first? Was it
the process of civilization that first constructed and then deconstructed religion,
with man building his quintessentially spiritual patterns in the way he understood
253
254
Civitas Solis (The City of the Sun) by Tomaaso Campanella
Izetbegovic, Islam Between East and West, iv
137
society?255 In other words, did modernity necessarily imply the transition of ―faith‖
to ―culture,‖ as suggested by prominent Communist philosophers such as Esad
Cimic? Or was religion the constitutive precursor of culture and civilization, an
omnipresent ideal that informed all other values even when it ceased to exist in its
manifest form?
Amidst ideas of cultural modernization and progress in the late 1960s and
early 70s, Communist Yugoslavia witnessed the emergence of a parallel discourse
on the relationship between Islam and modernity from within the Bosnian Muslim
community. An exploration of Islam through a modernist lens that had been
previously employed by Habsburg elites echoed later in the architectural
refashioning of the Ottoman Bascarsija by Juraj Neidhart. A leading Muslim
figure articulating the commensurability of religion and modernity was Alija
Izetbegovic, a former member of the Mladi Muslimani (Young Muslims), a
Bosniak activist and philosopher. In his memoirs, Izetbegovic recalls the
resurgence of faith during his youth: ‗In the Communist propaganda God was on
the side of injustice, since the Communists saw religion as the opium of the
people. It seemed to me, if not always quite clearly, that the chief message of
religion is responsibility. ….to kings and emperors….Even if they have no fear of
the police on this earth, religion tells them that [….] there is no escaping
255
As a prominent Marxist sociologist from the Muslim milieu and a professor of the University of
Sarajevo, Esad Cimic wrote: ‗Religious ideas never have a value in themselves as philosophical
ideas do—therefore, they cannot be analyzed in themselves but only their functions of ideal
communities as founders and regenerators.‘ According to him, the inherent idealism in religious
discourses could be utilized for secular, socialist purposes, even as religious discourses were
prohibited from public life. 30
138
accountability.‘ 256 He also recalls that the ideology of the Young Muslims
developed in opposition to fascism and Communism as personified by Hitler and
Stalin. Nevertheless, his ideological views did not deter him from identifying
himself as a ―Serb‖ in the 1946 census in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This selfcategorization was soon to change, when the Communist Party introduced the
category of ―ethnic‖ Muslims in 1961, followed by that of a ―Muslim nation‖ in
1968.
In his memoirs, published in 2003, Alija Izetbegovic recalls the intellectual
movement of 1968 which formed the immediate context for both his works, Islam
Between East and West (1980) and the Islamic Declaration (1970). He began,
however, to conceptually frame both texts as early as the 1940s. His writings
employed Islamic thought and scriptural interpretations in order to show ―some
general ideas and some values […] common to all humanity.‖ 257 According to
Izetbegovic, the aim of Islam between East and West, as well as of the Islamic
Declaration, was to examine ―the place of Islam in the present day world of ideas
and facts,‖ which lay on the peripheries of ―Eastern and Western thinking‖, much
like ―the geographical position of the Muslim world.‖ 258 Izetbegovic sought to
situate Islamic principles as the ―third way out‖ from the geographical dichotomy
of East and West, as well as that of communism and fascism, tradition and
modernity. Although his writings addressed a more global audience, highlighting
256
Inescapable Questions: Autobiographical Notes, Alija Izetbegovic, 2002, (Leicester: Islamic
Foundation, 2002), 13
257
Ibid, 26
258
Ibid
139
the problems and principles of the Muslim أمةummah259 at large, much of their
implicit context derived from the predicament of the Bosnian Muslims in Socialist
Yugoslavia.
In his introductory remarks to Islam Between East and West, for instance,
Izetbegovic embedded his writing within contemporary politics, echoing the
stance of ―Non-Alignment‖ promoted by Tito.
Today we are faced with two worlds divided to the core, politically,
ideologically, and emotionally. Still, a part of the world is not
affected by this polarization, and the majority of it is in the Muslim
countries. This phenomenon is not accidental. Islam is ideologically
independent, ‗non-aligned.‘260
Amidst pervasive Orientalist understandings of Islam and Tito‘s courtship of
Arab countries through the Non-Aligned Movement, the Islamic Declaration and
Islam Between East and West represented a voice from within the Bosnian
Muslim community, articulating the meaning of a religious identity. Although he
emphasized the affiliation of Muslims with the spiritual umma, Izetbegovic was
also careful to highlight continuities between Islamic principles, Christian ethics,
and socialist ideas of ―progress‖ and ―brotherhood and unity.‖ Perhaps as a
response to the operation of Christian confessional politics beneath an ―ethnic‖
cover, Izetbegovic sought to carve out a place for the religion of Islam, not merely
Muslim ethnicity, within Yugoslavia. His texts did not call for the substitution of
the Orient with the modern, or even a ―Western‖ modernization of the Orient into
a hybrid Bosnian category. Instead, they embraced the liminality of Bosnian
Muslims and Socialist Yugoslavia, and proposed the integration of the ‗East‘ with
259
Muslim spiritual community
Alija Izetbegovic, Islam between East and West. (Indianapolis, Ind., USA: American Trust
Publications, 1984).
260
140
the West. The Islamic Declaration in particular decisively affirmed an
autonomous Muslim identity in Yugoslavia, and proclaimed that modernization of
Yugoslav Muslims would, indeed, occur. The path to modernity, however, would
be sought through an interpretation of religious principles.
For Izetbegovic, religion was the origin of culture and civilization. ―Culture
began with the ―prologue in heaven,‖ he wrote in Islam Between East and West.
He elaborated further: ―Culture is the influence of religion on man, or man‘s
influence on himself, while civilization is the effect of intelligence on nature, on
the external world. Culture means the ―art of being man,‖ and civilization the art
of functioning, ruling and making things perfect.‖261 Evoking the Praxis Marxist
ideal of ―man‖ as a creator of his destiny, the Islamic Declaration called for a
spiritual and moral ―revival‖ which would not only cultivate the ―self‖ but also
serve as the basis for a political order. Whereas Cosic had emphasized ―cultural‖
emancipation as a form of redemption from still ―backward‖ and incomplete
modernity, Izetbegovic highlighted ―religious revival‖ as a means for the Muslim
communities to break out of poverty and retrogression. Izetbegovic asserted that
the primary purpose of culture was to cultivate a sense of morality, as opposed to
preserving customs and traditions for the glorification of the self or the nation.
Nevertheless, Izetbegovic emphasized that morality did not always emanate from
religion, despite the ideals being derived from the latter: ―Morality is religion
transformed into rules of behavior, that is, into man‘s attitude toward other men in
accordance with the fact of God‘s existence.‖262 He described the movement for
261
262
Izetbegovic, Islam Between East and West, 39
Ibid, 98
141
an Islamic order as one that would ―stimulate people morally and represent a
moral function which elevates people and makes them better human beings.‖
Furthermore, he stated:
Through the assertion of Islamic thought in everyday life, each Moslem
experiences the process of self-identification and […] spiritual liberation
as a precondition for […] social and political liberation.263
The Declaration described the necessity of beginning with the ―internal‖, with
one‘s own life, for ―everything that is wished done must first be accomplished in
the souls of men.‖ The spiritual revival preceded the political, and the latter could
only be enforced once the former permeated the community in the form of a
democratic consensus. 264 In Izetbegovic‘s words, ―there exist unchangeable
Islamic principles determining relations between man and man and between man
and community, but there exists no unchangeable economic, social or political
system.‖ 265 Izetbegovic then moved on to articulate the principle of ―brotherhood
and equality‖ in a religious light.
the equality and brotherhood of people is possible only if man
is created by God. The equality of men is a spiritual and not a
natural physical or intellectual fact. It exists as a moral quality
of man, as the human dignity or as the equal value of the
human personality. If man‘s spiritual value is not recognized—
this fact of religious character---the only real base of human
equality is lost.266
263
Alija Izetbegovic, The Islamic Declaration of Alija Izetbegovic. S.l.: s.n., 1991. 3
Ibid, 18
He states that Islamic revival ‗is always the result of a creative contact, sympathy or internal
accord between the conscious, leading elements of a society and the broad strata of the people. […]
the leading group is the will and thought, and the people are the heart and the blood of any
profound movement.‘
265
Ibid, 24
266
Izetbegovic, Islamic Declaration, 26/27
264
142
In an era of rigorous secularization carried out by the Communist government,
Izetbegovic‘s call for a resurgence of religion in the political sphere was an
anomaly. But how did he define the peripheries of the ―religious‖ and the ―secular‖
concepts in his writings? In many ways, the Islamic Declaration combined
elements of religiosity with socialist ideas of progress and modernity. The concept
of modernization, however, did not signify the displacement of religion, but a
revival and reevaluation of religious thought in accordance with the needs of the
age. Izetbegovic wrote, ―he who believes in prayer and faith coupled with word
and science, temple and factory side by side, belongs to the world of Islam.‖267 In
his conception, the ―secular‖ and the ―sacred‖ were meant to function side by side;
the utopia of ―Civitas Solis,‖ as he put it, was ―to have features of God‘s
Kingdom on Earth.‖ 268 At one juncture, Izetbegovic questioned explicitly: ―we
cannot but ask ourselves who has mistaken the concepts. Are conscience and
consciousness part of the real world? Is not belief in man instead of God only a
lower form of religion?‖ 269 The concept of the ―secular‖ was manifested in
Izetbegovic‘s writings as an intrinsically religious ideal that not only embodied
the unity of science and religion, but also sought common ground with Christian
values. He refered to Campanella‘s The City of the Sun as an example of an
earthly utopia that is set against St. Augustine‘s Civitas Dei (The City of God).
Izetbegovic emphasized a continuity of religious principles, particularly the
Christian ideal of ―Love Thy Neighbor‖, in The City of the Sun despite
267
Ibid, 23
Izetbegovic, Islam Between East and West, 136
269
Ibid, 111
268
143
Campanella‘s overt opposition to religion.270 Izetbegovic, therefore, wove a lattice
of ‗secularism‘ which not only concurred with Christian and Islamic virtues but
also the Communist slogan of ‗brotherhood and unity.‘ With the Communist
regime laying exclusive claim to the virtues of religious and ethnic tolerance in
the public sphere, perhaps what was most riveting to the Communist readership of
Izetbegovic‘s texts was the subsumption of these virtues within Islamic principles.
The Islamic Declaration and Islam Between East and West served as an
alternative expression of Islamic thought derived from scriptural interpretations,
as well as an implicit commentary on the confessional and ethnic overlap in
Communist Yugoslavia. The treatment of Christianity in Izetbegovic‘s texts was
telling of the dynamics of a Christian-socialist alliance in Socialist Yugoslavia. In
the introduction to Islam
Between
East and West,
Izetbegovic described
Christianity and Socialism as diametrically opposed, despite both being geared
towards the progress of humanity. ―Socialism is inverse Christianity,‖ he writes.
―Socialistic values are Christian values with negative signs; […] instead of
religion—science, instead of individual---society, instead of humanism---progress,
[…] instead of human rights—social rights, instead of Civitas Dei—Civitas
Solis.‖271 Izetbegovic described the spirit of Christianity to be directed inwards,
seeking only inner salvation, whereas socialism as a set of values operated in the
public sphere. In a similar vein in the Islamic Declaration, Izetbegovic
commented on the commensurability of Christianity with ‗secularization‘ in a
manner that is not conducive to Islam. Izetbegovic then departed from Christian
270
271
Ibid, 136
Ibid,3
144
values by describing the commensurability of Islam not merely with the private
sphere, but more importantly, with the public sphere. In so doing, Izetbegovic
implicitly called for an active engagement of Yugoslav Muslims in public and
political life whilst affirming the integrity of Muslim consciousness.
For Izetbegovic, the category of a ―Muslim‖ was primarily a religious
identification. The imposition of ―secular nationalism‖ in Muslim countries
served to erase the Muslim identity by denying the Islamic basis of authentic
Muslim traditions. He criticized pan-Arabism for glorifying the language of
Arabic (the language of the Koran) as the essence of the Arab civilization, as
opposed to that of the larger Islamic civilization. 272 Alternatively, Izetbegovic
proposed a reintroduction of the religious foundation to the idea of a Muslim
―nation‖ as its allegiance to ‗God‘ and the Muslim spiritual community. In
Izetbegovic‘s overt discussion of the dilemmas of Muslim countries, however,
one cannot miss his implicit call to Yugoslav Muslims to embrace their religion as
the foundation of their recognition.
The extent to which Izetbegovic also
proposed an ascendancy of religious identification over that of ethnicity for
―Serbs‖ and ―Croats‖ is unclear. In various instances, Izetbegovic established the
connection of ―secularization‖ with the history of the Western civilization,
describing it as an ―imported‖ concept in Muslim countries, where the ―Islamic‖
instinct remains the driving force of human action. ―Secularization‖ as a process,
however, was different from the ideal of the ―secular‖ in Izetbegovic‘s texts.
Izetbegovic, for his part, reserved his criticism of the process of secularization for
two categories of Muslims; modernists and conservatives, as two ends of a
272
Izetbegovic, Islamic Declaration, 49-53
145
spectrum, drove secularization reforms, leaving no room for any intermediaries.
In the Islamic Declaration, Izetbegovic criticized conservatives and modernists
alike. His description of the former evoked the changelessness and stasis of the
Ottoman past, as depicted by Yugoslav novelists Selimovic and Andric.
According to Izetbegovic, ―religious conservatives‖
the class of hodjas and sheikhs, who have despite the clear positions on
the non-existence of clergy in Islam, organized themselves as a caste
unto itself, which arrogated to itself a monopoly over the interpretation
of Islam and placed itself in the position of mediator between the Koran
and the people.273
On the other end of the spectrum, Izetbegovic described Muslim ―modernists‖ who
believed:
that hodjas and conservatives are Islam, and persuading others to believe
the same indiscriminately oppose all that Islam stands for. […]. Instead
of the standard of living, they bring with them a cult of that [Western]
standard; instead of developing the potentials of that world, they develop
desires, and thus pave the way for corruption, primitivism and moral
chaos. They cannot see that the power of the Western world lies not in its
way of life, but in its way of work.274
Izetbegovic then turned to the secularization reforms of Turkey as an example of
―absolutism‖ practiced by Muslim modernists. He described the futility of
measures, which change the ‗fez‘ into a ‗hat,‘ but ―cannot change what is in
people‘s minds or ways, and even less that which constitutes their real position.‖
Religious conservatives and the ‗secular‘ modernists were instead caught in a
cycle, whereby ―those of yesterday who wore the fez or those of today, wearing
hats, remain unchanged.‖275
273
Izetbegovic, Islamic Declaration, 5
Ibid, 7
275
Ibid. 8-9
274
146
As a philosophical exploration of the intimacy of faith and politics in Islamic
thought, the Islamic Declaration highlighted the religious basis of the Yugoslav
‗Muslim‘ category and simultaneously raised the overarching question of Islam
and its commensurability with modernity. The trajectory of modernization in
Socialist Yugoslavia had meandered from an emphasis on technological reforms
in the immediate post-war period to cultural emancipation with the onset of
decentralization. The dichotomous relationship between modernity and tradition,
however, was not a socialist invention. In many ways, strands of modernist
thought from the period of Habsburg rule in the Balkans were still recurrent in the
processes of socialist secularism in Yugoslavia. The writings of Izetbegovic
offered an alternative perspective on modernization by separating it from a
correlative understanding of secularization. The latter was spurred in response to
authoritarian religious structures and the coercive dominance of religion in the
public sphere. But as Izetbegovic seemed to claim, the liberation and subsequent
modernization of the individual was not contingent on his extrication from
religious understandings.
Amidst the widespread association of the Ottoman rule with ‗static‘ Islam in
South Slavic consciousness, Izetbegovic sought to preserve the essence of the
religious ideal, instead of offering an alternative Muslim ―ethnicity.‖
Izetbegovic‘s unreserved expression of the incommensurable relationship
between Islam and Communism was tempered by his accommodation of socialist
ideals and Christian ethics within Islamic thought. In a rigidly ―secular‖ age, his
texts contemplated a reintroduction of ‗confessional‘ categories and religious
147
discourses into the public realm. The notion of a state with recognized
confessional categories, as expressed in the Islamic Declaration, was in many
ways a complete inversion of a ―religiously neutral‖ state with privatized
religious beliefs and public ‗ethnic‘ categories.
At the very outset of the Islamic Declaration, Izetbegovic negated the idea of
Islam as a religion in a ritualistic sense, defining it instead as a way of life and a
form of thinking. In so doing, he extended the role of religion far beyond the
aspects of worship and upheld it as the legitimate basis of culture. This
articulation of Islam as a form of culture (not merely faith) posed a serious
dilemma to the Communist regime, in that it called for an accommodation of
religion in public life as opposed to its privatization. Perhaps even more
formidable was Izetbegovic‘s declaration of Islam as a third way out of
ideological dichotomies.
Although the vernacular of Islam as a mode of
governance and a way of life in the Islamic Declaration applied primarily to the
Muslim community, in some instances it also enveloped non-Muslim
communities. In his description of Islam as a religion, on the one hand, and as a
set of public values, on the other, Izetbegovic kept the boundaries of an Islamic
vernacular malleable. Despite the moral precepts and an inclusive Islamic
vernacular proposed by Izetbegovic, the sole identification of this language with a
particular religious group was a problematic notion for his Communist and
nationalist readership. The precise position of Izetbegovic as an author of the
Islamic Declaration further added to these anxieties. As his writings implied, the
attempt to exclude religion from public and political life through the
148
marginalization of religious institutions had not succeeded. With the strict
separation of religion and politics espoused by the Communist regime, how could
the regime counter Islamic culture whilst endorsing a Muslim nationality?
149
Conclusion
The Aftermath
Secularization
in
Socialist
Bosnia-Herzegovina,
despite
overtly
surmounting religion, continued to be informed by confessional foundations.
After the Second World War, the Communist regime instituted ―ethnic‖ nations as
a ―classificatory scheme,‖ in order to preserve diversity amidst social
homogeneity. As Socialist Yugoslavia moved toward decentralization, cultural
and literary institutions emerged as de facto representatives of ‗national‘
communities. ―Nationhood‖ or ―nationness,‖ however, was a ―cognitive frame,‖
reified by intellectuals through the institutions that preserved folklore and cultural
traditions of the different communities. 276 This social reification of ―nations,‖
however, was in a dynamic engagement with the latent subculture that had
developed in Socialist Yugoslavia. Under the Communist regime, the process of
secularization had entailed a set of cultural practices seeking to separate ―faith‖
and ―religion‖ from ―culture‖ and ―ethnicity,‖ and the ―modern‖ from the ―premodern‖ or ―traditional.‖ The efforts to forge ―brotherhood and unity,‖
nonetheless, endorsed the idea of a secularized Christian norm. The Ottoman
cultural legacy, linked to the Bosnian Muslims, under the Communist regime, had
become associated with ―static‖ religion and pre-modern traditionalism; its
―modernization" – or negation – was commensurable with Communist secularism,
whilst also catering to Serbian and Croatian nationalism. The emergence of
Yugoslav multi-nationalism in the seventies, therefore, posited the following issue:
276
Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed.
150
which confessional communities could legitimately claim ―nationhood‖? In part,
the process of elimination had been presaged by the Communist regime. The new
Muslim category, from its inception, faced a problem of legitimacy. How could
Bosnian Communist elites create a secular ―ethnicity‖ that was both Slavic and
Muslim? In Socialist Yugoslavia, ―ethnicity‖ was not merely predicated on the
distinctness of a culture. The notion rested largely on the linearity of a people as
they evolved through processes of secularization and dialectical materialism. The
search for Muslim ―ethnicity‖ almost inevitably converged with the question of
their ―race,‖ inviting assimilationist discourses from Serbian and Croatian
counterparts.
In the immediate post-war period, the treatment of Catholic and Orthodox
religious institutions by the Communist regime had revitalized nationalist myths
and pushed them into exile. In the seventies, Serbian and Croatian nationalisms
began to increasingly align with religious discourses in order to further the
momentum of decentralization. During the Croatian Spring in 1971, for instance,
nationalists found considerable support among members of the Catholic Clergy
who published a ―Croatian‖ prayer for the revitalization and rejuvenation of
Croatia. The Serbian Orthodox Church had limited influence on Serbian
intellectuals and played a minimal role in the development of Serbian national
expression. Similarly, with the eruption of the Kosovo crisis in Albania in the late
70s, members of the Serbian Orthodoxy found themselves rallying alongside
151
secular intellectuals and raising their voice in the political domain. 277 With the
introduction of a Muslim nationality, Bosnian Muslims were no longer an
―anational‖ people to be claimed by ―Serbs‖ or ―Croats,‖ but became their
potential competitors for authority. Such a change in status radicalized Serbian
and Croatian assimilationist claims and simultaneously triggered an aggressive
assault on the ―Muslim‖ character.
Serbian literature, for instance, began to racially depict Muslims, who by
virtue of their conversion to the Islamic faith were imbued with inborn hatred and
murderous qualities. In the late 70s, Vuk Draskovic, a self-classified Serbian
writer from Herzegovina and the leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO),
began to write his novel, Noz Knife, which he published in 1982.278 Noz became a
best-selling novel in Serbia, and has often been characterized by literary scholars
as one of the ―gospels of hatred.‖ Set in Herzegovina, this novel reverts to the
Serbian tragedy of the Second World War. It relates the story of an Orthodox
Christian family, the Yugoviches, who are massacred by their former Muslim
neighbors, the Osmanoviches, on Orthodox Christmas day. The novel, in many
ways, represents an amplification of the themes explored in Andric‘s The Bridge
on the Drina, particularly in its rendition of the conflict between Islam and
Christianity in an increasingly national fashion. Whereas The Bridge on the Drina
focuses on the Ottoman Vizier, Mehmed Pasha, as an abducted Christian boy who
is raised as a Muslim, but subconsciously yearns for a Christian past, Knife
277
The relationship of the Serbian Orthodox and Catholic Churches with the Communist regime,
on one hand, and with Serbian and Croatian nationalisms on the other hand, would be a relevant
topic for the issues raised by this essay. Given the limited scope of this essay, this aspect could not
be sufficiently explored.
278
Vuk Draskovic later became the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Serbia.
152
revolves around a baby boy, who is the only survivor of the massacred family.
Knife, considered in tandem with The Bridge on the Drina, depicts an escalation
of violence at the hands of Muslims from the time of the Ottoman period to the
Second World War. Serbs are not merely subjugated, but massacred. The baby
boy, Alija, who is spared by the murderers on the orders of a hodja, is inculcated
with hatred for Serbs by his new Muslim foster parents.
As a college student, however, Alija is overcome by a desire to search for his
true identity. He ultimately discovers the truth of his past through Sikter Efendij,
an isolated Muslim figure in the village who had refused to serve alongside the
Ustashe during the Second World War. Sikter not only reveals the identity of
Alija‘s true family, the Yugoviches, but also explains that the Osmanoviches
themselves were originally Christians. Their ancestors had been threatened to
convert to Islam by the Ottomans. Sikter also explains that the Yugoviches and
Osmanoviches were branches of the same family. At this juncture, Alija discovers,
much to his shock, that his entire Muslim village is full of former Ustashe
murderers. Sikter Efendij reveals to Alija:
when blood began to flow in ‘41, and when envoys from Rome,
Istanbul, Berlin and Zagreb started flying around throughout our rocky
land, agitating for extermination of Serbs, down to the last one, I prayed
to Allah, and I believed that no one, at least from the Osmanoviches,
would accept these provocations. But I can tell you that the hodza from
Osmanovic was the first to kiss the Ustasha knife, to elevate madness,
and to destroy brotherhood and common sense with bloodshed.279
Towards the end of the novel, a manuscript entitled Noz (Knife) is discovered, in
which the metaphor of a knife is evoked to describe South Slavic identity. The
279
Vuk Draskovic, Knife, (NY, The Serbian Classics Press), 330
153
kinship of he and Osmanoviches are as two sides of a knife: they are closely
connected, but this very intimacy is the source of the most horrifying violence.
The novel ends with a prospect of reconciliation for Alija, and enormous
trepidation for those who refuse to recognize their true identity. But by this time,
hatred has accumulated to such an extent that a simple reversion to original
Serbian identity cannot resolve the problem. The novel indicates the racialization
of religious converts. While it previously served as a premise for assimilationist
claims on Bosnian Muslims, it now becomes the basis for their extermination. In
the popular acclaim earned by Draskovic, one could see the emergence of a
radical national ideology predicated on Christoslavism, a belief that Slavs were
inherently Christian in nature.280
Communist Party elites, for their part, remained committed to protecting
Muslim nationality in the constitutional framework, and thereby maintaining the
integrity of Bosnia-Herzegovina as a multi-ethnic republic. For all its
multiculturalism and egalitarianism, however, the Party‘s commitment towards
the Muslim national category resulted in an intensification of communal
boundaries in Yugoslavia. When in 1972, a Bosnian Serb intellectual, Predrag
Palavestra, published an extensive review of Serbian literature, Posleratna srpska
knjizevnost 1945-1970 (Post-War Serbian Literature 1945-1970), which included
Bosnian writers of Serb and Muslim origin, the greatest outcry against it was
heard from the Party elites. On one hand, such a reaction, and perhaps rightfully
so, was triggered due to the pervasive ―nationalizing‖ claims of Serbia over the
280
For more on Christoslavism, see Paul Mojzes, Religion and War in Bosnia, (Scholars Press,
1998)
154
inhabitants of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Within Bosnia-Herzegovina, however, the
implications of Communist policies were quite different. What became of
―nationally‖ and even ―confessionally‖ indifferent individuals in Bosnia? During
the Palavestra controversy, Mesa Selimovic, the author of Death and the Dervish,
wrote to the Communist newspaper, Politika: ‗I am from a Muslim family, from
Bosnia, but by national affiliation I am a Serb. I belong to Serbian literature as
much as to Bosnian, because I respect my origin and my choice equally.‘ 281 The
regime refused to publish the letter and to admit any dispute on the issue: ―anyone
who seeks a discussion of this subject…is seeking an open battle with us.‖282
Perhaps as a result of this perseverance, the number of people in Bosnia
subscribing to the Muslim ―nation‖ continued to grow, even as internal schisms
and external antagonisms continued to contest the ―Muslim‖ national category.283
Adil Zulfikarpasic continued to advocate for a territorially affiliated ―Bosniak‖
category as opposed to a quintessentially religious one. The ―national‖ status of
Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina, nonetheless, served as an all-encompassing
umbrella for contested ―Muslim‖ identifications predicated on territory, religion
and socialist ―ethnicity.‖
Selimovic‘s letter to Politika, and the newspaper‘s reply, are cited in Radovan Popovic, Zivot
Mese Selimovica (Belgrade: BIGZ, 1988), 144-147, in A Budding, 240
282
Branko Mikulic (the hard-line Bosnian Croat who became Yugoslav premier in the 1980s),
cited in Barjaktarevic, ―Sta je Dr. Palavestra hteo?,‖ as cited in A. Budding, 240
283
The number of people who declared ―Muslim‖ nationality increased from 1,729,932 in 1971 to
1,99,980 in 1981. Simultaneously, there was a decline in the number of ―Yugoslavs‖ in Bosnia
from 275, 883 in 1961 to only 42, 796 in 1971. The number of Serbs or Croats in Bosnia declined
between 1971 and 1981.
Savezni Zavod za Statistiku, Nacionalni sastav stanovnistva po opstinama, Statistical Bulletin No
1295 (Belgrade, 1982), as cited in Burg, Political Integration of Yugoslavia‘s Muslims, 49-50
281
155
Astonishingly, the ―Islamic Declaration,‖ published in 1970 amidst
burgeoning Serbian and Croatian nationalism, escaped the censure of the
Communist Party. In the absence of legitimate ―national‖ institutions supporting
the Bosnian Muslim community, members of the religious hierarchy also began to
take a more active role as spokespersons for the Muslim community. Religious
institutions, therefore, emerged as surrogates for ‗national‘ institutions.284 But to
what extent could religious institutions serve as legitimate representatives of a
―national‖ category that was, in and of itself, an object of dispute? The
Communist Party remained anxious to promote a secularized Muslim ―nationality.‖
Despite the initial tolerance of religious hierarchies by the Communist regime,
this trajectory of Bosnian Muslim nationalism after 1971 did not follow a linear
path whereby nationalism merged with religion. It was not long before tensions
emerged between the state and the Islamic Religious Community (IZV), as the
latter continued to emphasize the religious foundation of Muslim nationality.
Concerted attempts by the Communist elite and the secular Bosnian Musims at
forming a Muslim ―ethnicity‖ were regularly thwarted by discursive incursions of
religious institutions, particularly towards the late seventies. While the ―Muslim‖
status invited antagonism from Serbian and Croatian nationalist circles, it also
heightened the split within the Bosnian Muslim milieu. Atif Purivatra, a
spokesperson for the Bosnian Muslim community, for instance, differentiated the
―national‖ from the ―religious‖:
284
Izetbegovic offered a specific interpretation of the role of Islam in politics. His texts may have
encouraged religious authorities to voice their claims in the political front. However, there is no
evidence of any systematic relationship (even ideologically) between Izetbegovic and the religious
hierarchy.
See Bougarel, ―Bosnian Muslims and the Yugoslav Idea, 108
156
History shows that many other factors contributed to the Moslems
constituting themselves as a nation, the religious elements losing their
former significance and giving way to other spiritual and material factors,
not unlike the process characteristic of other Yugoslav peoples. It is
therefore rightly claimed that in the national respect, Moslems differ
from Serbs and Croats, for example, to at least the same degree to which
Serbs and Croats differ between themselves.‘285
On another front, Hamidija Pozderac, the sole Muslim member of the LCY
(League of Communists of Yugoslavia) Presidium, openly condemned the notion
of Islamic revival as well as the ―misuse‖ of religion for political purposes.286 In
1979, he explained that pan-Islamism stood as an obstruction to the national
emancipation of Muslims. Pan-Islamism as a supranational and unpatriotic
phenomenon, he claimed, would erode the Muslim national identity, and cater to
the assimilationist claims of Serbian and Croatian nationalism. Internal divisions
within the Bosnian Muslim Community as well as external nationalist
antagonisms escalated as the new constitution of 1974 turned Socialist Yugoslavia
into a de facto confederation.
The public recognition of Islam, nonetheless, remained a point of contention
uniting the Communist regime with Serbian and Croatian nationalist elites. The
Party‘s reserve on the growth of pan-Islamism was short-lived. In the aftermath of
Tito‘s death in 1980, the arrests of Muslim intellectuals were part of a series of
purges and political persecution ensuing from the reversion to a centralized state
apparatus.287 On June 22, 1983, Alija Izetbegovic along with twelve intellectuals
Atif Purivatra, ―On the National Phenomenon of the Moslems in Bosnia-Herzegovina,‖ cited in
Koca Joncic, Nations and Nationalities of Yugoslavia, Belgrade, 1974, 313
286
Preporod, September 1, 1978, p. 2, as cited in JPRS, no 72907. Z. Irwin, Islamic Revival , 449
287
The twelve other arrests were ad hoc, and as Amnesty International also noted, there was no
relationship between the intellectuals who were tried. Amnesty International Report, 1984, 321
285
157
was tried on the charges of ―hostile activity inspired by Muslim nationalism‖ and
the intention to establish an ―ethnically‖ pure Islamic state in Yugoslavia.288 The
ground for a politicized narrative of the trial had been set much before the actual
proceedings. The state run press widely announced the arrests of thirteen
intellectuals who intended to transform Bosnia-Herzegovina into a Muslim state.
The Islamic Declaration was at the heart of the prosecution‘s narrative, selectively
incorporated in order to emphasize the allegations of ―Muslim fundamentalism‖
against Izetbegovic. The narrative of the trial, however, was not simply a tool at
the hands of Serbian and Croatian Communist elites to express their antagonism
against the public expression of Islam in Yugoslavia. Instead, the Prosecution
Council contained, among others, prominent members of the Party elite from the
Muslim milieu. Above all, the trial manifested a deep schism within the Bosnian
Muslim milieu, partly characterized by a forward-oriented Communist approach,
and partly by a turn to Muslim culture and religion.
The Prosecution Counsel highlighted Izetbegovic‘s call to a larger Muslim
ummah. The relationship between a ―Muslim‖ religious identity and territorial
allegiance, however, had been tenuously defined in Izetbegovic‘s texts.289 In the
Islamic Declaration, he wrote:
Islamic order should and can approach the overtaking of rule as soon as
it is morally and numerically strong enough not only to overthrow the
non-Islamic rule but develop a new Islamic rule. […] In the struggle for
Aimee Wielechowski, ―Galvanizing Fear of Islam: The 1983 Trial of Alija Izetbegovic in
Context,‖ pg 53-79 in State and Nation Building in East Central Europe: Contemporary
Perspectives, Edited by John S Micgiel, (Institute on East Central Europe Columbia University,
NY, 1996
289
Izetbegovic, Islamic Declaration, 4
288
158
an Islamic order, all means may be used except one---crime. The Islamic
community should reassert that justice is one of the founding stones.290
In what then seemed to be a reference to the liminality of Bosnian Muslims within
Socialist Yugoslavia, Izetbegovic indicated that the ―status of Moslem minorities
in non-Islamic communities shall actually always be dependent on the strength
and reputation of the Islamic world community.‖291 Izetbegovic devoted the latter
part of the Islamic Declaration to translating the idea of a ―spiritual‖ Muslim
ummah into a form of a supra-national political entity. Praising the victory of the
European peoples over nationalism through the creation of a ―European Economic
Community,‖ Izetbegovic addressed the backwardness of Muslim countries and
proposed a solution:
it is evident that the Moslem countries are unable to cope with the above
problem individually. We can address this situation and make up for the
lost decades characterized by our lagging behind and stagnation only by
promoting our new quality--unity. Every Moslem country can promote
its freedom and well being by promoting simultaneously the freedom and
well being of all Muslims.292
According to the Chief Prosecutor of the trial, Judge Rizah Hadzic, however,
Alija Izetbegovic had committed a crime against the principle of ―brotherhood
and unity‖ with the publication of the ―Islamic Declaration.‖ Perhaps in part, this
was true. Izetbegovic‘s texts, indeed, displaced the legitimizing rhetoric of the
Communist regime, ―brotherhood and unity,‖ and located the same ideal within
religious discourses. Implicit in this transference was the notion that ―brotherhood
and unity‖ was not exclusive to a specific paradigm of governance. In fact, the
290
Ibid, 54-55
Ibid, 40
292
Ibid, 54/55
291
159
concept of tolerance, as purported by Communist secularization, began to serve as
a dismantling rhetoric for the Communist regime itself.
The Islamic Declaration affirmed confessional categorizations over secular
ethnicities, carrying reverberations of the Ottoman era. In Socialist Yugoslavia,
―ethnicity‖ was a homegrown phenomenon in its linearity, and perhaps by this
very nature, it was regarded as more commensurable with patriotism.
Izetbegovic‘s implicit preference for confessional as opposed to ―ethnic‖
identification was uncomfortable for the Communist regime. Prevalent
―Orientalist‖ discourses in Communist Yugoslavia gave an additional impetus to
exclusionary discourses on a religious, Muslim identity. The Prosecution Council,
however, was careful to emphasize that the trial was not directed against Islam
per se, but its use in the political domain. Unlike Archbishop Stepinac who had
been accused of venturing outside his ―priestly‖ domain, Izetbegovic was charged
as a ―secular‖ politician who intended to use normative, religious ideals in politics,
instead of appealing to the rational, material interests of the people. In the
Communist ―separation of Church and State,‖ faith-based discourses were largely
confined to religious institutions, unless the Communist regime permitted
otherwise. Religious institutions were, in turn, marginalized from public and
political life. Izetbegovic, however, defined religion as faith as well as culture and
proposed its accommodation in public life. The Izetbegovic trial did not simply
represent a failure of the Communist regime to legally separate religion and
politics. For all its attempts, Communist secularization itself upheld empty ―ethnic‖
categories, which were routinely supplied with a confessional foundation. Above
160
all, the narrative of the trial indicated the dilemma of constructing homogenous
―national‖ categories in order to represent localized religious communities, which
themselves lacked the cohesion that the concept of ―nations‖ had ascribed to them.
In the aftermath of the Izetbegovic trial, Muslim Communist elites sought to
strengthen their positions by concurring with the politicized narrative of the trial.
As one editorial in the Yugoslavia News Agency narrated
Those occupying the accused bench…were enemies of the community of
Yugoslav nations and nationalities, and not believers in a religious faith.
No one in this country has ever been convicted for his religious
affiliation. But if someone uses religion for political goals, particularly
opposed to the interests of the state, he must feel the full force of the
law.293
Multi-nationalism in Socialist Yugoslavia had undermined the legitimacy of the
―Bosniac‖ category with its exclusive territorial connection to the republic of
Bosnia-Herzegovina. The political legitimacy of Bosnian Muslims as a group lay
in an extrication of their collective identity from the Ottoman past and in their
symbolic attachment with socialism. The active participation of Communist
Muslim elites in promoting a politicized narrative of the Izetbegovic trial, whilst
sidelining competing understandings of the nature of Muslim identity, catered to
this goal. In so doing, the fate of the Bosnian Muslim community was chained to
the socialist state. For a while, it seemed as if Socialist Yugoslavia had triumphed
in the creation of a secular Muslim ―nationality‖ on the same level as Serbs and
Croats. Population demographics exhibited in the census categories also favored
Yugoslav News Agency 0224 gmt, Aug 21, 1983, ―Comment on Verdict in Muslim Nationalist
Trial‘, by Mladen Gavrilovic, broadcast by British Broadcasting Corporation on BBC Summary of
World Broadcasts, Aug 23, 1983, Lexis-Nexis
293
161
Bosnian Muslims as never before in the Socialist era. This sense of security,
however, was short-lived. Communist Yugoslavia, in the wake of multinationalism, had become a prison of the very ideas that it sought to transcend.
National politics was soon to unleash, and to bring about the demise of
Yugoslavia.
162
Epilogue
Almost two centuries after The Mountain Wreath was imagined by Petar
Njegos, it was enacted on the killing fields of Srebrenica, Omarska, Banja Luka
and other Bosnian towns. As the historical play heads to its denouement, the
Montenegrin Serbs are visited by a series of premonitions and visions of Milos
Oblicic, a Serbian legendary figure killed by Sultan Murat in 1389.
Our dreams let‘s tell as we proceed!
I‘ve seen in dream what I ne‘er saw before,
And omen good it may be for my arms!
This night in vision I saw Oblitich
As he flew o‘er Cetinje‘s plain
On his white horse---a vila were not swifter!—
What vision splendid only God doth know!294
Oblicic rode on a white steed over the Muslim village of Cetinje, prophesying
the victory of Christian Serbs over the Turks. In the 1990s, Serb paramilitaries
marched into Muslim villages, quoting Njegos‘s Mountain Wreath. Militia-men
were given medals in the name of Milos Oblicic for their victory over Muslims.295
On 11 July, 1995, Serbian General Ratko Mladic entered the city of Srebrenica
and announced: ―We present this city as a gift. Finally, after the rebellion against
the dhaije [local janissary leaders], this time has come to take revenge on the
294
Petar Njegos, The Mountain Wreath, James W Wiles edition, 197
Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia, Chapter 3:
Performing the Passion, (University of California Press, 1996), 71-92
295
163
Turks in this region.‖296 Bosnian Serb paramilitaries stormed into Banja Luka,
destroying all remnants of Ottoman architecture, cemeteries, and mosquesincluding the famous Ferhadija mosque of the sixteenth century. 297 In a small
town in eastern Bosnia, Janja, mosques and private libraries containing Islamic
manuscripts were burned down. As one survivor put it, ―it was as if the proof of
my past had been wiped out.‖ 298 When former neighbors, colleagues, and
acquaintances became voluntary perpetrators of atrocities, they hid behind masks,
transporting themselves back to the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. 299 They were no
longer acquaintances, but Serb heroes fighting ―race-traitors.‖
What surfaced in the brutalities of the 1990s was not an ―ancient‖ hatred, but
an imagined past preserved and invoked by nationalist elites from the cultural
repositories of the Communist regime. Serbian and Croatian elites staged
commemorative rituals to reify their respective ―nations‖ and organize political
action around these categories. In the aftermath of Yugoslavia‘s collapse, Bosnian
Muslims were as bare lives connected to a territory, stripped of a ―national‖ status
in a world where nationhood and citizenship had become synonymous. In 1961,
Ivo Andric wrote in A Conversation with Goya :
It is necessary to heed legends, those traces of
collective human endeavor through the centuries, and
296
Mark Danner, Bosnia: The Great Betrayal, The New York Review of Books, March 26 1998,
http://www.markdanner.com/articles/print/55
297
Supple, Shannon, ―Memory Slain: Recovering Cultural Heritage in Post-War Bosnia,‖
InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies, 1(2), 2005, Permalink:
http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/28c783b6
298
Mehmedinoic, Sarajevo blues (A. Alcalay, Trans.). (San Francisco 1998), pg 66
Lights Books.
299
Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia, Chapter 3:
Performing the Passion, (University of California Press) 1996, pg 79
164
surmise from them, as much as our possible, the
meaning of our destiny.300
Amidst the brutalities of the Yugoslav wars, an answer to ―the meaning of our
destiny‖ lay not in the legends of an ancient past but in the actions of a recently
lived reality; and how those actions gave life to the very legends that we sought to
understand--or perhaps, relinquish.
300
Ivo Andric, Conversation with Goya, translated by Celia Hawkesworth, Andrew Harvey,
(Menard Press, University of London, 1992), 23
165
Sources
Newspaper Articles
Borba (Official Newspaper of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia),Bosnia
and Hercegovina: Religion is the private matter of citizens, Sunday, June 20, 1976.
ALEX Archives, School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, University
College of London
Tanjug (Telegraphic Agency of New Yugoslavia founded in 1943) ,―Religious
Affairs: Problems with a Section of the Clergy,‖ Excerpts, ALEX Archives,
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