RATNE PODELE KAO FORMULA ZA OBJAŠNJAVANJE POSLERATNOG JUGOSLOVENSTVA
War divisions as a formula for explanation of post-war Yugoslavianism

Summary/Abstract: The Vidovdan assassination in Sarajevo, in 1914, was used by the Asutro-Hungarian authorities as a trigger for the war against Serbia. Citizens of the Dual Monarchy, with the help of media propaganda, and police repression and censorship, made in less than a month a long way, filled with emotions, which culminated in acceptance and even conviction that the relations with Serbia should be „clarified“. In all Austro-Hungarian cities and towns, the image portrayed by contemporary press was image of spontaneous popular enthusiasm for the war. Of course, war propaganda used black-and-white technique to present the situation at the battlefields, desctribing “our heroes! Fighting courageously against “Serbian savages”. However, the reality was not as black-and-white as presented by propaganda. Thus, during the Battle of Cer, the soldiers of the 28th Prague Regiment refused to fight against their “Slav brothers”. At the command to attack the Serbian position, they left their weapons aside and marched towards the Serbian entrenchment singing “Hey, Slavs!” Even more, the battle lines of the opposing armies were not made exclusively from the members of one nation. So, it happened that one of the first Slovenian victims of the Great War in Serbia in mid-August, 1914, under the Cer, was a Slovenian Anton Jenko, who fought as a volunteer in the Serbian army. In reality, there were also other colours, not just black and white. But the mobilization for the Great War on the basis of black-and-white divisions between the Southern Slavs left a lasting mark and remained one of the causes of an extended period of conflicts between the citizens of the first common Yugoslav state. One of the important task of a nation state in the commemorations of the fallen soldiers, as Ashplant put it, is to maintain or secure the unity of an „imagined community“, and its associated narratives and rituals, in the face of sometimes acute social divisions. However, in the common Yugoslav state – and due to the divisions originating from the period of war, on one side, and the politicians aiming to capitalise there positions – they were unable to construct a common memory of the past to unite them as a one nation.

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