During the time of Bach's absolutism, when politics were forbidden, when political pressures and fetters stifled all public life, the Serbs in Croatia shared the same fate as the Croats. Their close ties with the Serbs from Vojvodina and Serbia, which were at their peak during the revolution, were reduced at the time of Bach to the lowest possible measure, or were altogether broken off. Ties were severed not only in the political sphere but also in other areas of public life, particularly in culture. A Serbian book published in Serbia or in Novi Sad was extremely difficult to come by in Zagreb, or a Croatian book in Belgrade.²⁰ Until early 1863, the Austrian minister of police enforced an order prohibiting the importation of "Illyrian (i.e., Serbian), Jewish and Vlach" books into Austria. A special permit had to be obtained for each book taken across the Serbian-Austrian border. However, ecclesiastic books kept arriving in Croatia from various quarters, including Belgrade and Russia. They were brought by merchants who demanded a lot of money for their services, so that the books were expensive and not easily accessible to a wider circle of readers.²² This circle, as far as the Serbs in Croatia were concerned, never was very wide, because of the small number of literate people. When it is known that the majority of the literate population lived on the edge of an existential minimum (as one of the book lover wrote, "I haven't money even to buy clothes for myself."), it is clear that despite all wishes to obtain books, they were effectively out of reach. A prelate from Lika was hard put to find in his area three subscribers to the second edition of Vuk Karadzic's Serbian Dictionary.

There is no doubt that Bach's government deliberately stood in the way of any further spiritual and national integration of the South Slav peoples, including the Serbian people. The Serbs in Croatia at that time did not enjoy favourable conditions for national advancement; there were no Serbian high schools, teachers colleges, or any other seats of learning in Croatia. Until 1853, the Serbs had one religious college, which was abolished "because it was not approved by the higher authorities nor was it such as would have been organized by the higher authorities."²⁴ In 1856, in the entire area of Croatia and Slavonia, including the Military Frontier, there was a total of 32 Slavonic-Serb primary or elementary schools of a religious character.²⁵ However, two thirds of these schools were in such a neglected and derelict state that, according to one contemporary, "they did not even deserve the name of Christian schools."

There were few school buildings built for the purpose, and municipal jails or guardrooms were often used as classrooms. They were dark and dirty, without benches, so that the children had to sit on the floor and hold their books, if they had any, which generally they did not, in their laps. Even where schools did exist, and they were few and far between, they were not attended regularly, for only 30% of school-age children actually did go to school.²⁷

Tuition in these Serbian schools was at a very primitive level. Most of the teachers were untrained. With humiliatingly low salaries, which were paid out sporadically, having no paedagogic training or experience, the teachers were only concerned that the children should learn by rote the Prayer Book and Psalter.²⁸ Since such schools could hardly offer even the most elementary tuition, still less develop and strengthen national consciousness, the latter was cultivated as in earlier times: through the handing down of traditions, through recitation of oral epic poetry, and through the influence of the Orthodox clergy, the Church, and the Orthodox religion.²⁹ After the revolution it was members of the clergy who raised the issue of equal rights for the Serbs in Croatia, because they considered that equality did not exist, and to win it, they were prepared to "enkindle the national spirit."³⁰ Outstanding work in promoting national consciousness and national pride was done by Dr. Djordje Natosevic, who in 1857 was appointed superintendent of Serbian elementary schools. Natosevic did this by asking the priests to mention more often in church the names of Prince Lazar, Emperor Uros, St. Sava, and other Serbian historical personages. He wanted the teachers to interest the children in Serbian history, to read them epic poems and show them pictures and icons of national heroes and saints. Priests and teachers were enjoined to discourage the practice of giving children foreign Christian names in favour of "the glorious names of our forebears."

The Serbs set much store by their own Cyrillic script, convinced that by cultivating it, they would more easily preserve their religion and their nation. They devoted special attention to school textbooks, fearing that they might be so composed as to have an adverse effect on the development of Serbian national and Orthodox religious feelings. This is clear from the unfavourable rescension given by Archimandrite Nikanor Grujic of the book for mixed schools of both confessions written by Mijat Stojanovic. In addition to Latin and Cyrillic texts, the primer also contained reading matter in the Old Church Slavonic language. Grujic pointed out that the writer "is not sufficiently familiar with the spirit of the Serbian language, still less with the Church Slavonic language." He thought that there was no point in burdening Roman Catholic children with learning the Church Slavonic language and pointed out that "it is to be feared that the Latin script will be favoured at the expense of Cyrillic and our children will neglect the latter. This mixed primer was certainly not intended to teach the Roman Catholic children our church language. Its purpose is for our children to become proficient in Latin script so that they might be able to read all the books printed in the Latin alphabet. Whatever the case may be, this mixed primer cannot be approved because it does not fit into the syllabus of the Serbian elementary schools. Therefore, it would not be appropriate to approve this flawed textbook or any other similar one, because such primers in our schools will make a mockery of our Serbian Church and national life."³²

Extraordinary dedication to the promotion of the Serbian language and Serbian national identity throughout the period of absolutism was shown by Patriarch Josif Rajacic. For instance, when in 1857 the Croato-Slavonian government cited an imperial decree of 1815, which stated the principle that "the bishops of the Greco-eastern confession shall not be allowed any oversight over schoolbooks except when they contain religious matter," Rajacic raised a strong voice against this imperial edict. He pointed out to the government that the imperial decision may have been tolerable in 1815, but in the new conditions it was untenable, especially since it was a product of the Hungarian constitution which was no longer in force. Rajacic further noted: "The purpose of textbooks is that the school-going youth should understand and learn the spirit (genius) of their language, because it is a shame that the simple folk should speak more confidently in their mother tongue than do those who have received some education." The Patriarch pointed out that textbook writers usually took German textbooks as their models and simply translated them or refashioned them according to their own lights. Such textbooks could not be good because, said Rajacic, translators usually took little heed of Serbian syntax, which they did not even know, thereby offending "the spirit of the Serbian language," which they mutilated and did nothing to ennoble. "That things are truly as I say," wrote the Patriarch, "is evidenced by the fact that whenever textbooks were sent to us for revision, we always had a lot of trouble to correct everything that was contrary to the spirit of the Serbian language. Hardly a wonder, since school textbooks are nowadays being written by all and sundry, when writing a school textbook seems to be a mania.

"Such problems will persist and will have a deleterious effect on school education in general, and the study of the language in particular, for as long as the Church is deprived of the influence which rightly behooves it.

"All these remarks show that it is beneficial for supervision over school instruction to be in future entrusted without restrictions to the Church and its spiritual members."³³

The Ban's Council, when inviting bids for the writing of a primer in the "Illyrian" language for elementary schools, emphasized that it should have chapters on the history of the "Slavs," Croats and Serbs, as well as of other "Illyrian peoples," that it must be so conceived as to respect all religions, "particularly western and eastern," and that it must offer some instruction in the Cyrillic script.³⁴

Taking great pains to promote the Cyrillic script and the spirit of the Serbian language, the Church hierarchy tried to get around the official state censorship, which during Bach's absolutism was known for its severity, and establish the right of supervision not only over textbooks but also over other editions. One such initiative came from Croatia, from Bishop Evgenije Jovanovic, who a few years previously had been against the publication of Vuk Karadzic's translation of the New Testament.³⁵ This time the Bishop raised his voice against the new edition of the complete works of Dositej Obradovic, which Danilo Medakovic intended to publish. Bishop Jovanovic took the stance that the Serbian people were in any case cool towards the Church, which they seldom visited, and cared little about church rites and religious customs; it was therefore not desirable for Dositej's works to be published in their entirety, for they included such statements as, "the prayers of the priests do nothing for people." In the Bishop's view, all the sections from Dositej Obradovic's works which were not in accordance with the teachings of the Serbian Orthodox Church, particularly those from Sovjeti zdravoga razuma (Common Sense Advice), Zivot i prikljucenija (My Life and Adventures), and Basne (Fables), were to be subjected to censorship and all the "dangerous passages," struck out, including Dositej's criticisms of monks, priests, prayers and fasting. Assuring the Patriarch that censorship of Dositej Obradovic's works was indispensable, the Bishop pointed out that "there is no reason why the Serbian Orthodox hierarchy should be more reasonable than Roman Catholics or Russians." They should be emulated because they produced good believers, wrote Bishop Jovanovic, adding that the clergy should not keep silent and thereby consent to something which is not good. Dositej's ideas might be dangerous to a people like the Serbs, who were so neglected and unruly. Unless something was done about stopping the new edition of Dositej Obradovic's works,³⁶ said Bishop Jovanovic, there would be an increase in bad habits and a complete decline in piety among the Serbs.³⁷

Although prepared to grant concessions on a number of points, the Serbs were adamant and unyielding in the matter of the daily use of the Cyrillic alphabet, and very sensitive to its neglect and suppression.³⁸ Bearing this in mind and anxious for close cooperation and accord between the Serbs and Croats, a commission of the Ban's Council, headed by school superintendent Stjepan Ilijasevic, passed a decision in 1852 that some of the textbooks should have texts printed in Cyrillic as well as Latin.³⁹ To justify this act, which some less reasonable people might have found objectionable, the commission cited as precedents various decisions of the Austrian ministry of education, the Zagreb See, the military command for Croatia and Slavonia, and the Government of Trieste. As they had all permitted the use of Cyrillic in school syllabuses, the commission was justified in adopting a similar decision. The members of the commission explained that they had done so for national and paedagogic reasons, because they "had to admit the Cyrillic script into school books, for it would weigh heavily on our consciences if, by suppressing the Cyrillic script, we helped to break up our own people. It would be a sin to deprive the people, already neglected in the matter of education, of the sources of their learning and instruction, out of considerations engendered by prejudice, stupidity, obscurantism, malice, and the accursed tendency to sow the seeds of dissension and hatred among our peoples, to undermine and weaken their strength and their lives." (Italics - V.K.).⁴⁰

Although mindful of only German national interests, Bach's authorities tried to accommodate the Serbs in Croatia by permitting them the use of their national alphabet. Deeply unhappy about the absolutist and centralist system, the Serbs suffered it more easily because Bach had won them over by allowing them greater use of their alphabet, although the state, according to one contemporary, "could not buy them for millions."

The most consistent champions of Cyrillic writing were the Orthodox prelates, particularly the bishops of Karlovac and Pakrac, Evgenije Jovanovic and Stefan Kragujevic. Convinced that the quintessence of the Serbian Orthodox religion lay in its Cyrillic script, the clergy maintained and cultivated it, defending it from all attacks, particularly in the Military Frontier, where it was a frequent target of assault. All priests received special instructions obliging them to use Cyrillic, and those who failed to meet this obligation were punished. Even the priests' wives were expected to learn it and use it.⁴²

Realizing how devoted the Serbs were to Cyrillic and knowing that in Austria "nobody cares about the spiritual education of our Orthodox brothers," an enterprising Zagreb publisher Franjo Zupanj procured both the ecclesiastic and secular Cyrillic typesets. He was going to print all the liturgical books which were needed and Serbian almanacs as well, which were the favourite reading matter of the Serbian burghers.⁴³ On his part, Bishop Jovanovic referred Patriarch Rajacic to the example of a Transylvanian bishop who had bought a printing press, and urged that the Serbian Orthodox Church should also find a way of buying one, considering it a shame that the Rumanians should have one and not the Serbs.⁴⁴ 

The Orthodox clergy was particularly unhappy with the Bach regime. As the most numerous segment of the Serbian bourgeoisie, having the closest association with the common folk, they wielded a considerable influence among them. The clergy's dissatisfaction with the regime derived from their financial position and feeling of being neglected by the state. The bishops' demands for state subsidies fell on deaf ears,⁴⁵ and to make matters worse, Bach's authorities handed down regulations which reduced the clergy's jurisdiction over church property and funds and partly transferred it to the burghers.⁴⁶ They even demanded that the minutes of consistorial sessions, kept in the Old Church Slavic language, should be translated into German and Latin.⁴⁷ All this gave rise among both the higher and lower clergy to resentment against the regime and its innovations.

There was hardly any benefit from the transfer by Bach's government in 1851 of supervision over Serbian denominational schools to the Orthodox eparchies in Croatia, as a result of which prelates became school superintendents and priests school masters. During the 1850s, the schools stagnated because nothing was done to improve them. When the government did take some measures, they were as a rule ineffective because money was needed for everything, and there was not enough of it even for the Roman Catholics, still less for the Orthodox inhabitants of Croatia. School superintendent Djordje Natosevic regarded the political authorities as the main culprits for this situation in the school system.⁴⁸ However, in all fairness it must be stated that in some parts of Croatia Serbian negligence was also at fault. This was particularly true of some of the priests,⁴⁹ who by the nature of their position should have been, and generally were, the principal initiators of all actions to improve Serbian education. From the earliest days after the revolution, the Serbs endeavoured to obtain the right to have their own superintendents for their schools, as the Catholics had.⁵⁰

The fiery debates about the Serbian and Croatian languages conducted in the Croatian and Serbian press in the 1850s, with pronounced nationalistic and even chauvinist overtones, did not have any impact to speak of on the Serbian public in Croatia. These debates were followed with the least interest in the Croatian Military Frontier, where most of the Serbs lived. Having little contact with the part of Croatia and Slavonia under civil administration, inexperienced in politics, poorly educated and mostly illiterate, the Serbian population in the Military Frontier in Bach's time had very few subscriptions to newspapers from which they could read about the unpleasant language controversy with pronounced political overtones started by Ante Starcevic. For the same reasons, there was little popular response to the Vienna Agreement on a common language and literature. Both of these events occupied the attention of intellectual circles, whereas the people as a whole were on the sidelines, poorly informed and uninterested in the topics which were discussed in those circles. That was particularly the case in those parts of the Military Frontier, the so-called Upper Krajina, where the population, daunted by successive droughts and infertile soil, barely managed to stay alive from one year to the next.⁵²

In addition to the polemics about the language and the Vienna Agreement, whose true import would become evident only in subsequent decades, some other problems cropped up in Bach's time which subsequently were to play an important role in relations between the Serbs and Croats. It has already been mentioned that there were complaints about the suppression of Cyrillic lettering. When some Orthodox prelates, including the Karlovac Bishop Jovanovic and Patriarch Rajacic, equated the Orthodox religion with the Serbian nation in their public speeches, they were sharply criticized in Vienna and in the Military Frontier.⁵³ This was a clear indication that already then the plan was to put a stop to the further integration of the Serbian nation on the basis of religion. In later decades, when the Rightists came on the political scene, attempts to separate the Serbian religion from the Serbian nation were to become a daily occurrence.

An important element in relations between the Serbs and Croats was the names used for the Croatian and Serbian people and their language. Bearing in mind all that happened in connection with those appellations in the decades following the collapse of absolutism, it is interesting that soon after the 1848/49 revolution, Ban Jelacic wanted both the Catholics and Orthodox to call themselves "Croats and Slavonians," or "Slavians."⁵⁴ Ognjeslav Utjesenovic Ostrozinski used the phrase "South Slav people of the Serbian and Croatian race," "Serbian and Croatian people" and "Croato-Slavonian people."⁵⁵

As for the language, in addition to the official designation "local vernacular" (landesübliche Sprache), also in use were the appellations "Croato-Illyrian" and "Croatian" for texts written in Latin letters, and "Serbo-Illyrian" or "Serbian" for Cyrillic texts.⁵⁶

As suitable and acceptable names were being sought for the people and their language, Starcevic's pronouncements in 1852 constituted an attempt not just to reassert everything Croatian but to deny everything Serbian. Even before Starcevic's utterances in Narodne novine, the frontier Col. Josip Maroicic, commandant of the 3rd Ogulin Regiment, subsequently general and member of the Privy Council, had insisted that in Croatia there was only one "Slavonic tribe," which was Croatian, and which had two religions, one language and the same customs and laws. He resolutely opposed the view that in the Krajina and Civil Croatia there were Serbs as well as Croats, because for him religion was not synonymous with nation. He admitted that there were "eastern" Serbs in the Serbian Vojvodina, but he claimed that for a long time there had also been Croats of different religions, who had fought under that name on many battlefields, irrespective of whether they were "Greeks" or Catholics.⁵⁷

Starcevic and Maroicic were not the first to refute the national separateness of the Serbs. This used to be done in Croatia from the highest instances. Thus, for example, Ban Franjo Vlasic criticized Bishop Lukijan Musicki for mentioning the Serbian name in Croatia.⁵⁸ This, however, happened a few years before the 1848/49 revolution, in the old feudal society. Maroicic's and Starcevic's utterances were made after the revolution, under the new social dispensation, which shows that the new ideas about national equality which had swept Europe during the revolution did not strike very deep roots in Croatia.

At the time of absolutism, soon after the 1848/49 revolution, when good relations between the Serbs and Croats, notwithstanding certain misunderstandings, were at their highest level, Starcevic and Maroicic were isolated in their refutation of Serbianism, but they heralded a policy which in the years to come became ideologically perfected and was to have long-lasting negative consequences for both the Croatian and Serbian economic, social, political, and cultural development. In other words, the denial of Serbian national identity in Croatia was to be the root cause of many misunderstandings and conflicts between the Serbs and Croats in their party political life during the second half of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

During the 1850s, Starcevic and Maroicic were still rather isolated in their bigotry, and relations between the Croats and Serbs were not yet impaired. On the contrary, they were quite good, as witnessed by the fact that the Serbian intelligentsia, in proportion to their numbers, were well represented in various institutions in Croatia, including the highest. For example, Mojsije Baltic, Mojsije Georgijevic, Ognjeslav Utjesenovic and Gligorije Roksandic were vice-zupans. Svetozar Kusevic was a councillor in the Zagreb county, and Dane Stanisavljevic a high official in the financial administration. Even after the Ban's Council was abolished, the Serbs again filled important positions in the civil service. In the Serb-inhabited areas, there were many Serbs among the lower-ranking officials. Early in the 1850s, physician Aleksandar Mraovic, land-owner Nikola Nikolic and merchant Janko Malin represented the Serbs in the city government of Zagreb.

Biblioteka | Disputes over Srem and over Serbian National and Political Identity

Copyright © 1997 by Vasilije Krestic
Copyright © 1997 by BIGZ , Beograd
Copyright © 1998 by Serbian Unity Congress