hrvatski

Srbi u banskoj Hrvatskoj 1914. godine – između vlasti i progona

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the outbreak of World War I brought ethnic Serbs in Croatia (The Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia) in an unusual and extremely difficult position. Serbian Independent Party (Srpska samostalna stranka) was the strongest and the best organized Serb party in Croatia and it was part of the ruling Croat-Serb Coalition with a majority in the Croatian Diet. The Coalition formed an alliance with Ivan Skerlecz, Croatian viceroy (ban) from 1913 to 1917. On the other hand, after Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Kingdom of Serbia, Croatian Serbs found themselves under the burden of charges of high treason. This was especially visible during the first phase of the war, when the enthusiasm for war against Serbia spread among the large part of the Croatian public and quick and glorious victory of Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in the war seemed assured. Already during the first weeks of the war all prominent leaders of the Serbian Independent Party (brothers Svetozar, Adam and Valerijan Pribićević, Dušan Popović, Srđan Budisavljević and others) were arrested, interned or placed under surveillance. Military and civilian authorities in Croatia also held under surveillance a large part of the Serb population, especially in the regions where they constituted the majority or a significant minority of the population (Srijem, Lika, Western Slavonia). Authorities carried out the mass internments of Serb population. Entire villages were evacuated and interned in the Croatian and Hungarian hinterland. Large number of persons was exposed to a judicial prosecution, mostly after they had been reported for making reckless statements which extolled Serbia and its army, or insulted King Franz Joseph and military and civil institutions of the Monarchy. Particularly severe forms of retaliation were applied to the Serb population in parts of Srijem which were temporarily occupied by the Serbian army in the initial period of the war. Anti-Serb sentiment in Croatia at the beginning of World War I expressed itself in other forms as well. Streets bearing the name of prominent Serbs were renamed, as well as localities whose names contained the adjective “Serbian”. Serbian tricolor and Cyrillic script were banned. Persons who had previously received decorations of Kingdom of Serbia renounced them publicly. The paper aims to present the position of the Serbian community in Croatia in the early months of the World War I, with special attention to the forms and extent of the persecution of real, potential and imagined enemies of the Monarchy among Croatian Serbs.

Prvi svjetski rat; Srbi u Hrvatskoj; Hrvatsko-srpska koalicija

nije evidentirano