The Birth Of Yugoslavia Volume I Part 9

To this end committees, in Moscow and in Petrograd, deliberated; newspapers and pamphlets spread their views; agile agents propagated them throughout the Balkans, calling on the Bulgars and the Bosniaks to rise, promising aggrandizements to Serbia and Montenegro, spurring on the fiery Cretans to make their revolt of 1866. All promised well.

There was to be a Balkan federation formed at the expense of Austria and the Porte: Serbia would receive the Voivodina and Bosnia, Montenegro would acquire Herzegovina, the Croats would at least annex Dalmatia, and the Slovenes and the Bulgars would come naturally into this united Yugoslavia, under Michael's sceptre. He was at the time not only in most cordial relations with the Bulgars, but in 1867 he began _pourparlers_ to ally himself with Greece, and he made overtures to the new sovereign of Roumania, Charles of Hohenzollern. And after this plan also had been nullified by Michael's death, the Russians still continued with their task, but now they had to deal with a convalescent Austria. It came to pa.s.s that the Bulgars found themselves in Russia's sphere, the Serbs in that of Austria. The little countries were thus violently pulled apart, and naturally each of them began to stretch their hands out to the neighbouring Slavs who were in servitude, but yet they managed to keep hand in hand with one another. The young men, such as Karaveloff and Tzankoff, whom Prince Michael sent to Western Europe to be educated, the young Bulgarian priests who had studied in that branch of the Belgrade seminary which Prince Michael opened for them, and all the Serbs and Bulgars who considered their two countries knew that, for political and economic reasons, they must not be kept apart. But there was always a Great Power to frustrate these designs. Yet even after they had been flung at each other in the fratricidal days of 1885, even after their attempt in 1905 to found a Customs union had been vetoed, even after some of their so-called _intelligentsia_ had done what injury they could by harping on the limitations from which they naturally, like the older peoples, are not exempt--nevertheless, as it was seen in 1912, when the demonstrations of delight in Belgrade and in Sofia were touching, they are only too glad to fulfil their destiny. Since 1912 that misguided _intelligentsia_ has been given a large store of fresh ammunition. They will go on firing and firing, while the people, including the real _intelligentsia_, will be better engaged.

THE MACEDONIAN SLAVS UNDER THEIR GREEK CLERGY

The name of Tzankoff brings to mind a strange ecclesiastical movement.

The reader may remember how the little Macedonian town of Kuku carried from its church the books in Greek and how it welcomed the Bulgarian monk who sang the Ma.s.s in Slav. The bishops and the clergy of the Greek Church had not made themselves beloved in Macedonia, where the population was indisputably much more Slav. Greek villages were very scarce to the north of Lake Castoria; but after the suppression of the two Slav Patriarchates in the eighteenth century the only Christians who lead a dignified existence were the Greek clergy. Among the Slav upper cla.s.s there was a good deal of h.e.l.lenization; to be a Greek was of much social value. But the people generally stayed intact, because the schools so thoughtfully provided by the Greeks were solely for the boys. The language spoken in the home would therefore still be Slav. And it is not likely that the people would have cherished their Greek clergy, even if they had been archangels, when once the national awakening had begun. But what we hear about this clergy is too seldom of a pleasing character. The children of the Macedonian peasants might go into ecstasies on seeing one of these episcopal processions, with the bishop's glorious white horse and harness such as they had never dreamed of, with his footmen round about him and with all those other priests, the old ones and the young ones and the monks, and then the bishop's doctor and some other men in spectacles, and then the bishop's cook and a few more monks.

But the Macedonian villagers who had to entertain all this rapacious brood and pay terrific fees for everything--250 piastres for a liturgy, 500 for a whole service, 500 for marriages among relatives up to the seventh degree, large contributions under the name of charity, and so forth--these had only rancour for the Church. Perhaps the saintliest among the Greeks declined to go to Macedonia. One hears of them so little and of people like Meletios so much. This savage person was appointed in 1859 to be Bishop of Ochrida, although the reputation he had left there--having previously been the coadjutor--was atrocious. Protests and entreaties were sent to Constantinople, but from 1860 until 1869 he stayed at Ochrida and carried on an implacable duel with his flock. He was frequently received with hisses, sometimes he was struck by stones, sometimes he was flung out of a church. But he was not the man to be intimidated--a large man, with broad shoulders, an arrogant expression and a bristling beard; they say he had the appearance of a janissary in clerical garb. He took into his service an Albanian bandit, through whom he terrorized the diocese. At one time he had the young wife of a man who was away in Roumania brought into his harem. The husband returned, asked for his wife and succeeded in obtaining her, but after two months he was a.s.sa.s.sinated, and the widow thought she might as well allow the bishop to console her. The outcry was enormous; no one doubted that it was Meletios who had given orders for the crime. A deputation of thirty went to lay this case and numerous other transgressions before the Patriarch at Constantinople. He would only receive five delegates, who read their doc.u.ment in a plenary sitting of the Holy Synod. After they had recited the afore-mentioned episode, one of the bishops who was present lost patience and, "Is it really worth our while to listen to such tales?" he asked. "If Christ spoke to the Samaritan woman, why should not a simple bishop hold converse with a woman also?" "At last the moment has come!" said the delegates. They departed, and at the door they shook the dust from their feet. The Patriarch himself ran after them. "Come back, my children!" he cried. But they were deaf to his voice.

About forty years after the reign of Meletios there was still a Greek bishop at Ochrida, but--this was in 1912, after the first Balkan War--the town had also a Bulgarian and also a Serbian bishop. The Greek ecclesiastic did not profess to administer a very large flock--it consisted of about twelve families--but he explained that his presence was made necessary by the ancient Greek culture. He was there to watch over it. The local church of St. Clement and the monasteries of SS. Zaim and Naoum are dedicated to disciples of Cyril and Methodus, the two brothers who introduced Christianity to these parts. They may well have recruited their disciples among the Slavs, whose language they had learned before they set out. But whether the old stones which the Greek bishop was guarding in 1912 are Greek or Slav, he was better employed than most of his predecessors.

THE AFFAIR OF KUKU

One of the first Macedonian villages to take an independent att.i.tude had been Kuku. When it heard that some French priests were operating at Salonica, and that if it were converted to Catholicism it would be given a national clergy and the protection of France, the temptation was so great that it succ.u.mbed. One of the Bulgarian democrats at Constantinople, Dragan Tzankoff, identified himself with this idea, not through religious motives but in order that the Porte should no longer fear that the independence of the Catholic Bulgarian nation would be a gain for Russia. This may sound rather far-fetched; he may have also used Catholicism merely as a threat by which to induce the Russians to a.s.sist in procuring the Exarchate. Tzankoff and various other people went to Rome, where Pius IX. blessed their enterprise and consecrated one of them, the archimandrite Sokolski, as Bishop of the Bulgarian Uniate Church. Sokolski was a worthy, patriotic man, but not endowed with mental attributes such as this post demanded; they had, however, been unable to find anybody better qualified. He soon decamped to Russia, for he was down-hearted when the Church did not attract a greater number of disciples. His defection was a grave blow to the cause, chiefly on account of the laughter it excited. Bulgarian Catholicism had, however, a fair number of adherents at Constantinople and at Kuku.... There was at the same time another movement, more discreetly undertaken, by American missionaries to convert the Bulgars to the Protestant religion. These Americans, drawn by the magic name of Greece, had come to Europe to a.s.sist that people in their fight for freedom. They had built them schools, had printed educational books in Greek, and had contributed in every way towards the people's moral progress; and no sooner was the country liberated than they were expelled. The Bulgars did not treat them in so cavalier a fashion, but neither did they adopt Protestantism as the State religion. Sir Henry Bulwer, the British Amba.s.sador, recommended them rather to persevere with Catholicism; it seemed to him that this religion, with its authoritative organization, would be more adapted to removing the Bulgars from the influence of Russia. The Russian Amba.s.sador, the disdainful Prince Lobanoff-Rostovski, was very much bored by all this trouble that the Bulgars were giving; the Greeks were furious. One day a Catholic Bulgar died in the French hospital at Pera, and a body of Greeks, accompanied by clergy, wished to have the corpse handed over to them for burial according to the Orthodox Greek rite. When they were refused admission they attempted to enter by force, raising loud cries and threatening to sack the whole place. In the end they were dispersed by a detachment of French sailors....

THE EXARCHATE IS ESTABLISHED

These religious disputes between Greek and Bulgar were agreeable to the Porte, which encouraged the Bulgars to persevere with the Catholic plan. Russia continued to be very embarra.s.sed, not wishing to make a permanent enemy either of the Greek Church or of the Bulgarian people. Finally the Bulgarian efforts to secure a national Church met with reward. The Turkish authorities--Fuad Pasha, the Grand Vizier, being an enlightened man--did not persist in the impracticable plan that this Church should be in communion with Rome. One of the consequences of the establishment of their autocephalous Church was that many of the Bulgarian Catholics at Constantinople and Kuku abandoned that religion. The Vatican complained--and not unreasonably--that it had been fooled. The Russians are generally given much credit for this Bulgarian success, but although they partic.i.p.ated in the negotiations--and their Amba.s.sador, the resourceful Count Ignatieff,[50] would make it seem that they were gratified with the result--their situation was so delicate that they preferred to play for safety. When the news was brought to Serbia it gave rise to great rejoicings, for the Exarchate was the charter of liberty for the Macedonian Slavs. No one dreamed at this time that, on account of Macedonia, Serbs and Bulgars would be some day flying at each other's throat.

1867: AUSTRIA DELIVERS THE SLAVS TO THE MAGYARS

The Southern Slavs had recently been shown that if they waited in the hope that others would a.s.sist them to improve their fortunes they would have to have a monumental patience. When Austria, after her defeat at the hand of the Prussians, was flung out of the German federation, she availed herself of the services of a German, Count Frederick Beust, to put her house in order. His negotiations with Hungary produced the compromise, the _Ausgleich_, of 1867. This Const.i.tution, which made them independent of each other as regards internal matters, bade their Slavs prepare themselves to lose all shreds of independence. The Serbs of the Banat and Backa, as well as the Roumanians of Transylvania and the Slovaks, were delivered to the Magyars without any guarantee that their language or their nationality would be respected. "Look!" said the Magyars in after years, when travellers came to see what they had done, "we have a language law, evolved by Deak, which lays down that everybody in the law courts has the right to use his mother-tongue." The traveller had been wondering what unusual people lived in Hungary, for he had seen a peasant choose precisely that time when a train was due to come and quarrel about something with the booking clerk. How was the traveller to learn that the non-Magyar peasant wished to buy a ticket for his native village, whose name had just been Magyarized, and that the clerk refused to sell a ticket except the peasant used a name he did not know? And when the peasant had walked home he might see in the village register that he who had been Saba was now Shebek and that his friend Ziva, who could speak no word of Magyar, was now Vitaljos; and that the children of poor Vitaljos, in order that they should not suffer from their father's handicap, were not confining their education to ordinary subjects, but were learning the Magyar language for seventeen hours every week. Well, how was your traveller to know that if a person used his own tongue in the law courts, which was very probably the tongue of everyone who lived there save a handful of officials, one of these officials who was accidentally in court would say he was acquainted with that person's language? The judge would take his word for it and he would start interpreting. When the Hungarians came to deal with the Croats they were careful to give them, for the world's eye, a great deal of autonomy. Strossmayer, a.s.sisted by the historian Racki, had in April 1866 led a deputation to Buda-Pest when it was clear that extreme divergencies existed between the Croats and the Magyars. Among other Croatian demands was one that Rieka should no longer be the scene of Magyar intrigues. As yet the town's importance was not great: in 1869 she had only 17,884 inhabitants and the total of her exports and imports did not exceed 150,000 tons. But everybody knew that by the building of a direct line to Croatia and to the valleys of the Save, the Drave and the Danube there would come an era of prosperity. The Magyars had allied themselves with the Autonomist party, showing them what great advantages the town would reap if it were joined to Hungary. Would not Hungary, for instance, be able to manipulate the railway freights?

There had been constant bickerings between the Croats and the Autonomist party, so that Strossmayer's deputation asked that the Magyars should refrain from giving to the latter their financial and moral support. But the Magyars had no such intention. "One should try to convince everyone," said Racki, "that in national politics the Magyars and ourselves stand at the Antipodes. We see in the Slav and Yugoslav solidarity the most powerful guarantee for our national future, whereas the Magyars see in it the tomb of their nationality.

We consider the liberation of the East as a condition of a happier future, while the Magyars regard it as the beginning of their absolute ruin or at least as the end of their aspirations for the sole dominion. The idea of a Yugoslav State, arising in Croatia or in Bosnia or Serbia, would always find in Hungary a most determined foe."

It was thus improbable that any satisfactory arrangement would be made, particularly as the Austrians, oblivious to all that Jellacic had done for them, were quite prepared to give their erstwhile enemies, the Magyars, a free hand. And what the Magyars did was to confer upon Croatia this autonomy for educational and legal and religious matters, while they reserved financial, railway, fiscal and commercial questions, military legislation and the laws relating to the roads and rivers in which both were interested--all these subjects they reserved for the Parliament at Buda-Pest, in which, of course, the Croats formed an impotent minority. Francis Joseph on May 1, 1867, sent a message to Zagreb in which he stated that "the pourparlers with the Kingdom of Hungary, which to him was always dear and faithful, had led to the desired results." He trusted that the Croats would be represented at his coronation at Buda-Pest. Strossmayer was ordered to bring this about; he went instead to the Paris Exhibition. He and the National party prepared themselves for a severe struggle. But now Baron Levin Rauch, of infamous memory, was nominated as Ban. He at once altered the electoral laws, so that the National party came back with only fourteen deputies. If any one in Western Europe thought about the Croats it was with the traditional aversion for the way in which they had behaved to the most n.o.ble Kossuth. This was years before the time when Dr. Seton-Watson, as it may interest him to hear, defeated the Magyarophil candidate at an election in the town of Ogulin. The bright idea occurred to somebody to whisper it abroad that Dr. Seton-Watson would arrive that day in order to make notes of the election for the British Press. With Rauch's obedient majority a compromise, the _NaG.o.dba_, was arranged with Hungary. The terms of this, subordinating Croatia economically and financially to Buda-Pest, are what one would expect; the chief novelty concerns Rieka, as to which port no agreement had been reached.

THE "KRPITSA"

On the Croat text of the _NaG.o.dba_, which had received the Emperor's sanction on November 8, a piece of paper, the famous "Krpitsa," was glued; and on this paper were the words Rieka knew of old--_Corpus separatum sacrae coronae Hungaricae_. They had been put forward by the Hungarian delegates and approved by the Emperor on November 17. This rather melodramatic affair would have been thought worthy of at any rate a few lines by most of us if we had written a whole book, nay two books, about Rieka. But our friend Mr. Edoardo Susmel glides, as gracefully as possible, over it. In his _Fiume Italiana_ he is as _peu communicatif_ as a carp. His other book,[51] written in French, simply and beautifully says of this law of 1868 that it is "a precious heritage transmitted from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in which period there was condensed"--or shall we say made palpable?--"the spirit which is jealous of the munic.i.p.al liberties."

"Down to this day," says he, "Rieka is in complete possession of her charter. Rieka has to-day still got her great charter. This const.i.tutional charter ..." and so on and so on. But these modern coryphees of Rieka and Dalmatia are so forgetful.

RIEKA'S HISTORY, AS TWO PEOPLE SEE IT

Mr. Susmel begins by saying that the origins of the Italianity of Rieka lose themselves in the story of Rome. He knows--none better--that the Romans came to these parts. They disappeared--but of course one can't put in every detail. Anyhow, they left an arch, a lot of coins, some vases, etc.; and a few of these are depicted in Mr.

Susmel's book. What a relief it must have been to innumerable people as they turned his pages and discovered that he had forgotten to include the ill.u.s.trations of our Roman Wall, of the Pont du Gard and of the glorious aqueduct that traverses Segovia! From the time of the "Krpitsa" onwards a regular colonization began. Italians were urged to come from their own country--but if Mr. Hilaire Belloc, who studied the question on the spot, is accurate in his diagnosis that Fiume is Italian "with that intensity of feeling bred by alien rule and the sudden victorious liberation therefrom" (_Land and Water_, May 29, 1919), it certainly does seem a little strange that the Italians should think in this way of the Magyars who invited them and were so good to them. They were told, no doubt, by the Magyars that the Croats would not hurt them, that the city council would always be Italian, that if the saucy Croats asked for schools--as indeed their numbers ent.i.tled them to do--well, they would receive no reply. ("Show me a single Croat school!" cried the Italian mayor triumphantly to me in 1919.) The Magyars spent vast sums on the harbour, making the other little harbours of Croatia obsolete, and they were not going to lose their grip of the town for want of proper legislation. They were surprised that more "regnicoli" (Italians from Italy) did not respond; but the renegades made up for them. "Pa.s.sionate and justified," said Mr. Hilaire Belloc in 1919,[52] is Italian feeling with respect to Fiume. But this writer, who says he travelled to the Adriatic with a view to ascertaining the real facts, did not altogether waste his time, since one of his two adjectives is quite correct. With regard to the renegades no questions were ever asked, if only one helped to keep Rieka from the Croats, if, for example, on a voting paper for the Croatian Diet one put the word "nessuno" (no one). Mr. Susmel, I see, says that the Diet's continued invitation to the town that it should send its deputies to Zagreb was a display of "incredible obstinacy."

AND THE SLOVENES ARE COERCED

The _Ausgleich_ was of ill-omen to the Slav subjects of Hungary. It was not much more auspicious for the Slovenes, Istrians and Dalmatians. The Slavs seem to have been the Habsburgs' nightmare. Why the million and a quarter of Slovenes--people who do not approach the Basques, for instance, in pugnacity--should be the b.u.t.t of everlasting coercion and repression may seem inexplicable. When the German-Austrians of Triest, even after the Italians in Italy had begun to claim the town, allied themselves with the Triest Italians "to fight," as they declared, "the common enemy," it can surely not have been these quiet Slovenes who had won for themselves by great industry a place in the town which is situated in their province. The "common enemy" to whom the German-Austrians referred must have been Russia.

And so the Southern Slavs of the Balkans and of the Adriatic owed part of the bad treatment they received not to their own vices but to the organizing virtues which their larger brother was supposed to have.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 36: _Memorie per la storia degli arvenimenti che seguirono in Dalmazia la caduta della Republica veneta_, by G. Cattalinich, 1841.]

[Footnote 37: This is perpetuated by the initial letters of the saying "Samo sloga Srbina spasava" ("Only in the union of Serbs is salvation"), which are placed round the cross in Serbia's coat of arms.]

[Footnote 38: Cf. _La Dalmatie de 1797-1815_, by the Abbe Paul Pisani. Paris, 1893.]

[Footnote 39: His fame as a teacher was such that several towns entreated him to settle in their midst. In 1845 the inhabitants of Stara Zagora sent him this curious letter: "When Philip, King of Macedonia, invited Aristotle to be the tutor of his son, he wrote to him: 'I am happy, in the first place, because G.o.d has given me a son, and, secondly, because this son was born in your time....' And we also, we thank G.o.d, firstly, because it has been granted to us to found a school, and, secondly, because we know that under your direction it will be a real school. That is why we supplicate and pray that you will come to us and be our teacher."]

[Footnote 40: Smail Aga, Vice-Governor of Herzegovina, had earned for himself the greatest detestation of the Montenegrins, whom he harried, and of his own unhappy subjects. In August 1840 he was attacked by a small band of heroes, men of Montenegro and of Herzegovina. He and a large number of his men were killed. A translation of this celebrated poem was made by Mr. J. W. Wiles at Salonika, and printed there, under difficult circ.u.mstances, entirely by Serbian refugees.]

[Footnote 41: Cf. _Fiume Italiana_. Rome, 1919.]

[Footnote 42: According to the census of 1857 the figures were: Serbs, 452,500; Roumanians, 414,900; Germans, 394,100; Magyars, 256,100; Jews, 12,500; Gipsies, 600.]

[Footnote 43: Their German origin had become so completely obliterated that they no longer spoke anything but Croat. It is curious in this connection to note that Kossuth, the champion of Magyarism, was of Slav blood; that Rieger, the Czech leader, was of German blood; and that Conscience, chief of the Flemish movement, had a French father.]

[Footnote 44: Cf. Seton-Watson's _The Southern Slav Question_. London, 1911.]

[Footnote 45: Cf. _Letters of Count Cavour_, edited by Gl.

Chiala, vol. iv. pp. 139-140.]

[Footnote 46: This lady, the Princess Julia, subsequently married the Duke of Aremberg. She died in February 1919 in Vienna at the age of eighty-eight. In the early sixties she came on a mission to England to enlist sympathy for Serbia's final struggle for independence. Much to her annoyance she found that it was necessary to ask through the Turkish Emba.s.sy for an audience with Queen Victoria. However, the Amba.s.sador was a very affable person, who completely mollified the Princess. It was to her that Palmerston made one of his famous puns. Her dress caught in a door and he stepped forward with the words: "Princesse, la Porte est sur votre chemin pour vous empecher d'avancer."]

[Footnote 47: As a matter of fact he was walking with a girl called Catharine, also a relative, a lame girl more remarkable for wit and wisdom than for physical beauty. She and Michael are celebrated in one of Serbia's most famous songs. There has been a great deal of speculation as to his a.s.sa.s.sins, some maintaining that they were Austrian agents, others holding that it was the work of the rival Karageorgevic dynasty. A certain Radovanovic who settled down in Karlovci--he was there at any rate till 1895--was most probably an Austrian instrument in this affair; he in his turn making use of Austrian police for the actual deed. He was wont to say that he knew who were the murderers; but since he was looked upon as a mere tool, his fellow-Serbs of Karlovci did not molest him. Yet he never frequented a Serbian cafe. He was a travelled, pretty well-educated man; with the Austrian officials he was on very friendly terms, and the source of his money was never discovered.]

[Footnote 48: _The Turks, the Greeks and the Slavons: Travels in the Slavonic Provinces of Turkey-in-Europe._ London, 1867.

The second edition of this book appeared with a preface by Gladstone.]

[Footnote 49: Cf. his _Histoire diplomatique de l'Europe_.]

[Footnote 50: The promulgation was a surprise to him; it was also a defeat, as he had aimed at a direct understanding between Greeks and Bulgars and not at a solution which left the Porte as arbitrator between these two Christian races.

However, he would not acknowledge that he had been beaten.

"He thought it more intelligent to recognize the _fait accompli_ and not to let his dissatisfaction be visible,"

says Prince George Troubetzkoi, the distinguished diplomat who explored the archives of the Russian Emba.s.sy at Constantinople. In reply to his telegram announcing the promulgation of the firman, Gortchakoff, the Prime Minister, cabled that "an adjustment of this awkward question and one that would not break the links between the Bulgarian community and the c.u.menical Patriarchate would be a great alleviation, whereof the credit would be mostly yours." The Russians repudiated the Exarchate publicly and they are not now, as are the Serbs, in communion with the Bulgars. For example, when the Bulgarian bishops in Macedonia, after the troubles following the first Balkan War, went to Russia in order to state their case, they were taken to a monastery and not allowed to partic.i.p.ate in the religious offices.]

[Footnote 51: _Le droit italique de Fiume._ Bologna, 1919.]

[Footnote 52: In _Land and Water_, June 5, 1919.]

IV

THE SHIFTING SANDS OF MACEDONIA

WHAT ARE THE MACEDONIAN SLAVS?--THE RIFT CAUSED BY RELIGION--VERSATILITY OF THESE MACEDONIAN SLAVS--HOW FOREIGNERS HAVE STIRRED UP TROUBLE--AUSTRIAN, RUSSIAN AND TURKISH MANUVRES--THE DEPLORABLE MILAN--NIKITA THE COMEDIAN--THE GREAT STROSSMAYER--RELIGIOUS DISPUTES BETWEEN SERBS AND ROUMANIANS--THE BURDEN OF THE OBRENOVIC--A HAPPY ADVENT--AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN WRATH--THEIR MONTENEGRIN FRIEND--AUSTRIA GIVES HOSTAGES TO HISTORY--THE DREAMS OF AN OLD REALIST--VERY HIGH POLITICS--THE RIDDLE OF SARAJEVO--THE MISERABLE MACEDONIANS--FEROCITIES OF EDUCATION--THE STORM IS PAST.