Виђења сарајевског атентата у англоамеричкој и српској јавности
Perceptions of the Sarajevo Assassination in Anglo-American and Serbian Public Opinion

Summary/Abstract: The Paper deals with Western (Anglo-American) and Serbian/Yugoslav views on the Sarajevo attentat and Gavrilo Princip. Articles on the Sarajevo assassination in three leading quality dailies (The Times, The New York Times and Politika) have particularly been analysed as well as views of leading historians and journalists who covered the subject. The author holds that efforts in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1920s to establish Princip’s cult as a martyr and a hero failed, and in 1930s the official line was to minimise commemorations of Princip and the Sarajevo attentat. This was connected with triple symbolism of Vidovdan in the Kingdom as the day of the Kosovo Battle, commemoration of the Sarajevo attentat and the Constitution Day of 1921. By mid 1930s, due to a set of internal and international circumstances, the symbolism was reduced to only one component: the Day of the Kosovo Battle. In the West original general condemnation of the Sarajevo Attentat and its main culprits was challenged when Rebecca West published her famous travelogue on Yugoslavia in 1941. Another Brit, remarkable historian A.J.P. Taylor, had much more positive views on the Sarajevo conspirators and blamed Germany and Austria-Hungary for the outbreak of the Great War. A turning point in Anglo- -American perceptions was the publication of the monumental book by Vladimir Dedijer The Road to Sarajevo (1966), which humanised main conspirators, the process initiated by R. West. Dedijer’s book was translated from English into all major Western languages and had immediate impact on the understanding of the Sarajevo murder. The rise of national antagonisms in Bosnia gradually alienated Princip from Bosnian Muslims and Croats. The process began in 1980s and was finished during the Wars for Yugoslav Succession. Although all available sources clearly demonstrate that Princip, an ethnic Serb, gradually developed his identity into a wider Serbo-Croat and Yugoslav identities, he was ethnified and seen exclusively as a Serb by Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks and Western journalist in 1990s. Finally, even among Serbs two lines developed: one that views Princip in line with Dedijer, and another that regards Princip as a Serbian national hero. This division became clear in 2014, during the centenary celebrations, when „Principmania" shortly emerged in Belgrade and Serbia. In popular and official narratives Princip became a Serb, for most of writers and intellectuals he remained a Yugoslav. In the past century imagining Princip in Serbia and the West included the whole spectre of opinions. From having a short cult in 1920s he was minimised in 1930s in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Originally seen as a national worker for Yugoslav unity he became a proto-communist by 1970s, and then a Serbian national hero in 2014. In Anglo-American perceptions he was a fanatic and lunatic in inter-war period. He became humanised by Rebecca West (1941), A.J.P. Taylor demonstrated understanding for his act (1956), he was fully explained by Dedijer (1966), challenged and then exonerated by Cristopher Clark (2012-2013), and cordially embraced by Tim Butcher (2014).

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