The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel 10. THE CHETNIKS ARE SERBS RADIO COMMENTATORS, newspaper and magazine editors, and writers have made many weird and ill-informed statements about the Chetniks. They are often referred to as "Yugoslav Chetniks." This is absurd and a contradiction in terms. The Chetniks are Serbs. Nothing else. They are the Serbian Chetniks; just that. And although now many Slovenes and some Albanians, Bulgarians, and even a few Croats have been received into their ranks, they remain what they always have been, the Serbian Chetniks. To explain this now internationally famous and to the United Nations increasingly important organization of guerrilla fighters, I cannot do better than quote Mr. L. M. Peyovich, a well-known Serb writer and historian, with whom I fully agree. This is what Mr. Peyovich says: "The Chetniks are just as much Serbian as is, for instance, the Serbian Church, the Serbian language, or the Serbian epics. The Chetniks have nothing in common with the Yugoslav idea-they are the Serbian idea. "The Serbian Chetniks existed many centuries before the Yugoslav idea was ever born. The word 'Yugoslavia' conveys only a geographical idea, a political ideology, and a political setup. On the other hand, the word 'Serbia' denotes definitely a race of people, a nation with a language, a religion, and a culture entirely its own. "The Serbian Chetniks are the product of a purely Serbian tradition, a Serbian way of life and ideal, just as much as the American frontiersmen were the product of purely American conditions and American pioneering ideals. The American and the Serbian ideals are the same: the great ideal of liberty. "To understand the meaning of the word 'Chetnik' we must go back almost six hundred years to the Turks. In I389 the Serbs lost their national independence in the great Battle of Kossovo Field. According to tradition, the Serbian leader, Prince Lazar was at that time confronted with two alternatives: either to accept the Kingdom of God, which meant to die in battle for liberty, or to accept an earthly kingdom, which meant to rule Serbia under the Turks as a vassal state. "Prince Lazar for himself and his people chose the former. So his army was slaughtered, his brave knights slain, and he himself was killed in battle. But his noble example started a tradition among the Serbian people: the passionate belief that it is better to die the death of a hero than to live the life of a slave. "This tradition has been observed throughout the centuries to the present day. It created a high sense of duty toward the country, and established standards of 'heirs to heroism.' It made heroes out of simple peasants. "After Serbia was subdued by the Turks, many people fled the country, across the rivers Sava and Danube into the then deserted Hungarian borderlands where they continued their fight against the Crescent. But those fighters who remained in Serbia went to the mountains and were called 'haiduks.' Later they formed companies- 'Chete,' from which comes the word 'Chetnik.' A Chetnik therefore means one of the company, or brotherhood of fighters. "From that time onward the very same mountains and forests where Draja Mihailovich fights the enemy today became the home of the Serbian Chetniks. 'Planino moja starino [Mountain, my old mountain],' says the Chetnik song. These brave and determined men kept the torch of liberty burning in Serbia for five long centuries. One generation after another withstood the most terrible punishment, but kept on fighting, unrelenting, 'for holy cross and golden liberty [za Krst casni i slobodu zlatnu].' "At last, after centuries, their ceaseless struggles were successful, and the free kingdom of Serbia began to be established in 1804 The Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 and the present guerrilla warfare in the mountains of Serbia are nothing else but a continuation of the old, old struggle of the Serbian Chetniks for the free way of life as the Serbs love it. "Draja Mihailovich has not started anything new. He, as a true, brave, and worthy son of his people, has just followed the tradition of Kossovo. Much less has he borrowed any Chetnik idea from any other national group in Yugoslavia. On the contrary, the Chetnik idea is just as strange and as foreign to those other groups who are now attempting to follow his lead as they are misunderstood by many American commentators. "Mihailovich has combined the Serbian idea and the instinctive national heroism with his genius for leadership, which has astounded the whole world. But there were many Chetnik leaders in the Serbian mountains before him. Uncounted legions of Chetniks died for the very same cause for which the Chetniks are dying today. Such names as Yovan Babunski of World War I, Djordje Skopljanats, Vuk Popovich, Bogdan Zimonjich, and many others stud the brilliant pages of Serbian history and will live forever in the memory of Serbs. "So when you hear the great and gripping marching song, 'Spremte se spremte Chetnitsi,' remember that you are hearing the hymn of the Serbian Chetniks and not a Yugoslav song. It is a war song, perhaps the greatest on earth, which has inspired uncountable thousands to their death for the cause of liberty. "This song is now echoing through the hidden mountain passes of Serbia, America's stanch ally, as a herald of happier days to come for the Serbian people. It is the anthem of the only free spot in the Balkans, the 'Island of Freedom,' where Draja Mihailovich and his brave men are making new history." 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