Ermin Kuka: Živa lomača – Pionirska ulica u Višegradu (14. juni 1992.), Udruženje “Žena – žrtva rata“
Review of: Ermin Kuka: Živa lomača – Pionirska ulica u Višegradu (14. juni 1992.) Udruženje “Žena – žrtva rata“, Sarajevo, 2022. (152 str.)
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Review of: Ermin Kuka: Živa lomača – Pionirska ulica u Višegradu (14. juni 1992.) Udruženje “Žena – žrtva rata“, Sarajevo, 2022. (152 str.)
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Benjamin Samokovlija (Sarajevo, 31.III.1918 - Skopje, 28.II.1996), comes from a Jewish family. On April 5, 1941 he was mobilized in the ranks of the army of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In the second half of August 1941, Benjamin joined the ranks of the National Liberation Army and the People's Liberation Army. He took part in numerous battles in the anti-fascist war for the liberation of Yugoslavia. After the Fourth Enemy Offensive of the Supreme Headquarters of the People's Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia which took place in the first half of 1943, Samokovlija together with part of his partisan unit were captured by the Germans and imprisoned in Zenica. After a month in the Zenica prison, a group of 600 prisoners, including Samokovlija, were transferred to the Thessaloniki concentration camp. In October 1943, through an EAM connection, Benjamin Samokovlija managed to escape and join ELAS. He remained in the ranks of the Greek partisans until the contact with the Macedonian partisans from the First Macedonian-Kosovo Brigade on the territory of the Aegean part of Macedonia in the period between the second half of December 1943 and January 1944. He was admitted to the III Battalion and was in charge of the agitprop of the battalion, from where he was later transferred to the ranks of the II, V and X brigades, acting as a battalion commissioner and participating in the battles for the liberation of Macedonia. At the very beginning of World War II in 1941, Benjamin Samokovlija lost many of his immediate family members, including his parents and wife. As direct witnesses to the measures taken for the physical and economic destruction of the Jews in Bosnia and Herzegovina by the German occupying authorities, their collaborators and the authorities of the Independent State of Croatia, his three sisters joined the People's Liberation War. His eldest sister Laura was killed in 1945. Benjamin Samokovlija is the holder of several military and state decorations. During his tenure, he ran a number of state-owned enterprises. It is particularly important to emphasize that for less than two decades he served as President of the Jewish community in the Republic of Macedonia, building strong friendly relations with other religious communities in the country.
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After the April War and the collapse of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the position of Bosnia and Herzegovina was extremely complex. Although only a few days before the start of the attack on Yugoslavia, in a document called „Preliminary guidelines for the division of Yugoslavia“, Hitler handed over the entire area of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Italy - which determined Mussolini to take maximum part in the „Directive 25“ operation - the situation turned out to be complicated. immediately after the successful completion of the military operation. Namely, at the Vienna Conference on April 21 and 22, 1941, Germany took the side of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) and supported the inclusion of Bosnia and Herzegovina in its composition. There were several reasons for this German turn, and the key one certainly lay in the fact that Hiter was counting on German dominance in the Adriatic, so in this respect he was very bothered by Mussolini's emphasized irredentism (Italia irredenta - the fight for an ununited Italy from the Atlantic to Central Asia ). This development of the situation affected the complication of relations within the victorious camp. The ambivalence between Italy and the NDH was especially pronounced, regarding supremacy over the territory of Herzegovina. In that period, the situation on the ground was very complex. The uprising of the Serbian population, due to reprisals by the current Croatian government, which was supported by Italy, at the beginning of June 1941 destabilized the NDH in this area and called into question the strategic German military-political ambitions in Eastern Europe. Namely, Germany soon saw that the current NDH government was unable to maintain order and peace, so it had to yield to Italy and support the signing of the Zagreb Agreement on August 26, 1941. According to this agreement, the territory of Herzegovina was placed under Italian supremacy. However, even after that, the situation in this area did not calm down. Until the capitulation in 1943, Italy continued to support the Serbian insurgents, among whom in the spring of 1942 a differentiation into partisans and Chetniks took place. The Partisan insurgents accepted the ideology of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, which stood on the positions of fighting against the occupiers, while the Chetniks accepted the Great Serbian ideology and cooperation with the Italian forces in Herzegovina. In order to strengthen its presence in this area, Italy did everything to weaken the strength of its ally in the Triple Pact - NDH, and in this sense it helped (politically protected and financed) the Great Serbian insurgents in every way. In the end, Italy, under the pretext of the need to mobilize all forces against the communist partisans, legalized the Greater Serbian insurgents, giving them the name Volunteer Anti-Communist Militia (MVAC - Milizia volontaria anti comunista). Historical knowledge about the June uprising in Herzegovina is not enough, because very few authors have dealt with this issue. Italy's role in encouraging and affirming the Serbian insurgents is even less illuminated. In this paper, the author, on the basis of published and unpublished archival materials, and on the basis of relevant literature, considered the causes, character and reflections of the Serbian uprising in Herzegovina in June 1941, with special attention to the role of Italy in encouraging and affirming the insurgents.
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Review of: Općinska udruga Nositelja ratnih odličja HVO Žepče – Udruga Nositelja ratnih odličja HVO-a Zeničko-dobojske županije, Glasnik HVO-a 111. xp brigade Žepče – Pretisak 1992.-1995., Općinska udruga Nositelja ratnih odličja HVO Žepče – Udruga Nositelja ratnih odličja HVO-a Zeničko-dobojske županije, Žepče, 2022., 595 str.
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Based on archival sources and relevant literature, this paper portrays political circumstances and security situation in Western Slavonia from 1989, that is, from collapse of the communist systems in Europe and destabilisation of Yugoslavia by the political leadership of the Socialist Republic of Serbia, up until August 1991 when the overt Greater-Serbian Aggression started in Western Slavonia. Democratic processes in Europe also seized western Yugoslav republics, Slovenia and Croatia. These republics advocated either the restructure of Yugoslavia as a confederal state, or their independence in case that the political agreement with other republics about common state system was not feasible. Conversely, Serbian political leadership’s goal, supported by pro-Serbian oriented leadership of the federal Yugoslav People’s Army, was to impose Yugoslavia as a centralized state under the domination of Serbs, as the most numerous Yugoslav nation. After this policy failed, Serbian leadership attempted to create Greater Serbia which would comprise all territories which Serbian leadership considered as historically and ethnically a Serbian territory. Among others, that also included Western Slavonia where a certain part of population were ethnic Serbs. Part of these Serbs, as well as ethnic Serbs in certain other parts of Croatia, supported by Belgrade, gradually commenced rebellion against the Croatian authorities. Insurgency was led by representatives of Serbian Democratic Party whose centre was in town Knin. In the first phase of destabilisation the emphasis was on the thesis that the Serbs were endangered in Western Slavonia, in order to radicalize as many as possible, which was successfully implemented, and finally led to terrorist actions culminating with the open aggression in Western Slavonia.
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The authors analyze events that have occurred in the municipality of Konjic throughout the March and April of 1993. Special emphasis was placed on crimes committed against the Croatian population of that municipality. In the early morning of April 16, 1993, Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) committed a war crime in the northern Herzegovinian village of Trusina, where 22 Croatian civilians and captured Croatian Defence Council (HVO) soldiers were killed. This crime was the result of a previously planned attack by the Army of BiH on the Croatian population and the HVO in the Konjic municipality, which began on April 14, 1993. The main attacking forces of the Army of BiH on the village Trusina on April 16, 1993, were members of the Zulfikar Special Purposes Detachment . They were under the direct command of the Supreme Command Staff (SVC) (i.e., General Staff of the Army of BiH) from their formation to just a few days before the crime in Trusina was committed. They have then become an integral part of the 1st Corps of the Army of BiH based in Sarajevo. As an integral part of the 1st Corps, members of the Zulfikar Special Purposes Detachment became the main perpetrators of a previously planned attack and war crime against the Croatian population of Trusina.
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In this paper the focus has been placed on the events in villages with a Serb majority in the former municipality of Vukovar, in particular of the north-western part (the villages of Bršadin, Bobota, Trpinja and Borovo). The time period covered starts with the first indications of the villagers inclined to the political platform of Slobodan Milošević in 1989/1990 until summer 1991 when these villages became part of the Serb region and war broke out in the wider region of Eastern Slavonia. On the basis of accessible sources an overview of the main political events in the villages, of the organization of the rebellion and the mobilization of the Serbian nationalist policy is provided. Special attention has been paid to the involvement of political actors from Serbia in the organization and leadership of the rebellion. The villages of the Vukovar municipality with Serb populations were significant places for the ethnic mobilization during the first phases of the Serbian rebellion and were important bases for later attacks on the town of Vukovar. While some of the Serbs in towns such as Vukovar during the political changes in 1990 still leaned towards the Yugoslav option promoted by the SKH-SDP (League of Communists of Croatia-Social Democratic Party), the villages were mobilized for the nationalistic policy. Thus, in the villages of the Vukovar area with Serb populations the ideas of the Serbian nationalist scene and Milošević’s political platform had already in the early stages been unreservedly accepted. During the escalation phase, the villages became the central settings of incidents and additional ethnic mobilization. When the war eventually started, the villages became the main logistic bases and strongholds in combat operations. Although there is no doubt that the majority of the local people accepted the nationalist policy and the mobilization, this paper shows that the rebellion, regardless of this “authenticity”, was significantly “inauthentic”. The villages of the municipality of Vukovar with Serb populations did not have the social, political, economic and intellectual capacities of their own to be able to establish an insurgent policy or to mobilize the population. The key initiatives in all phases of the rebellion originated in nearby Serbia and were in support of the Serbian political leadership. In the initial phase the support was mainly cultural, political and came through the media. In the second phase support was provided by intelligence work and the political organisation of rebels and their limited actions such as setting up barricades. Eventually, in the third phase the rebels gained predominantly military support. The above villages were just a means to an end and a base for such a policy but were certainly not coherent political actors. The Serbian rebellion in the villages of the municipality of Vukovar must be seen in this context.
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Based on ethnographic studies carried out during commemorations in Vukovar and Srebrenica, this paper analyses gendered representations of said mnemonic events. Specific practices that incorporate both military and civilian components, as well as discourse on heroism and victimhood, lay at the focus of this research: the Column of Remembrance in Vukovar and the Nezuk to Potočari Peace March. Following the theoretical findings on the nexus between memory and gender, the main actors and their agency are studied from the gender perspective. The symbolic capital of the two sites of memory and transformations of memorial practices impact the representation of gender on both state and grassroots levels and give an insight into the questions this paper asks: Why are women present in such large numbers in both Vukovar and in Srebrenica? How is gender represented in the course of these commemorations? What are the political implications of such choices? What kind of strategies are used in official and grassroots initiatives? Finally, how is it connected to gender?
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Of the 92 persons convicted at the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), 60 have already served their sentences and were released. Even though perpetrators’ rehabilitation and their public behaviour in post-conflict environments are essential for countering denial, establishing an authoritative version of the truth, and sustainable reconciliation, we still know little about what happens after they return to their communities. This article attempts to examine ICTY convicts’ rehabilitation by assessing the quality and the result of existing rehabilitation programs (e.g., how much the public behaviour of those released matches the expectations of the victim’s community, what their relationship is with their guilt and crimes committed). Aside from secondary sources, it draws on 23 semi-structured interviews with victims of war, representatives from victims’ associations, and human rights advocates from the region. It finds that in the context of the absence of specialized rehabilitation programs and lack of oversight of the post-conviction stage at the ICTY, the convicted perpetrators return to communities that support and enable them. Hailed by specific enthusiastic audiences back home, ICTY convicts often fulfill their expectations, closing a vicious circle that dramatically curbs the individual or collective transformative potential of their punishment regarding reckoning with the past and moving towards reconciliation.
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By starting from the textual analysis of the American political scientist John Mearsheimer made during the aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina, the central topic of the paper is Mearsheimer’s perspective on the Bosnian issue. The political and administrative setup of Bosnia and Herzegovina is still a relevant topic which is taking the shape of a permanent political crisis. The paper represents the synthesis of Mearsheimer’s conceptions immanent to the theory of the offensive realism, as well as the breakdown of the post-Cold War political processes, which by the rule of causality can be perceived as the catalyst of the aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina. Understanding the current dynamics of political manoeuvres with the emphasis on Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the integral parts of this paper.
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Pitanje ustavnog kontinuiteta države Bosne i Hercegovine može izgledati kao akademsko i čisto ustavno-stručno. Ono, međutim, ima višestruke konsekvence i zato zahtjeva multidisciplinaran pristup. Moraju se imati u vidu njegovi ideološki, politički, socijalni i drugi aspekti. Ono je jedan od bitnih elemenata uzroka i posljedica agresije na Republiku Bosnu i Hercegovinu. Pitanje ima i vrlo značajan regionalni aspekt. Ovaj panel se fokusira na savremeni period ustavnog kontinuiteta od Drugog svjetskog rata, iako se, s razlogom, može govoriti o vjekovnom kontinuitetu bosanskohercegovačke državnosti. Imajući sve ovo u vidu, ovaj osvrt se sužava na ustavno-pravni aspekt i na kontinuitet između Republike Bosne i Hercegovine i Bosne i Hercegovine, kako je on regulisan Aneksom 4. odnosno Ustavom Bosne i Hercegovine kao dijelom kompleksnog Opšteg okvirnog sporazuma za mir u Bosni i Hercegovini.
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The paper describes two shellings of Sarajevo’s Markale market in 1994 and 1995. In both cases a large number of civilians were killed, and the forces of the Army of Republika Srpska were accused. The second incident was followed by NATO airstrikes on Serbian positions around Sarajevo. Based on the available material, the article critically reviews all the testimonies about these events and searches for an answer to the question of what exactly happened. However, neither the available documentation nor the “good intentions of a researcher” could allow an unequivocal conclusion about who was responsible for both shellings.
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Based on an analysis of archival sources and literature, the author considers the formation of the Slovene independent and democratic country, especially from the point of view of the formation of the Slovene armed forces, which had to be reshaped by the emerging new country, while at the same time dealing with aggravated relations with the Yugoslav federal authorities, especially the Yugoslav Army, which was seizing power in the federal state. The opposition was also against the formation of the country’s own, Slovene army. Thus, the defence system and its leaders, especially Ministers Janša and Bavčar as well as Prime Minister Peterle, were faced with difficult decisions. In spite of the real war threat, scarce resources were available to the defence department, and these had to be devoted almost entirely to arms procurement. The awareness of the importance of armed forces for the defence of Slovenia’s sovereignty helped to form the armed forces, the Territorial Defence of the Republic of Slovenia, through a project named Manoeuvre Structure of National Protection. Together with militia, civil defence and support of the civilian population, the Slovenian War of Independency was won.
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Review of: Sandro Oblak, Z udarno pestjo, Goriška Mohorjeva družba, Gorica 2020, 286 pp.
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Review of: Davor Marijan, Rat Hrvata i Muslimana u Bosni i Hercegovini od 1992. do 1994., Hrvatski institut za povijest, Zagreb 2018, 476 pp.
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The article deals with the main German-Croatian guidelines for the transfer of the population during the Second World War. Some Slovenians were supposed to move to the Independent State of Croatia from the German-occupied Slovenian territory to the properties of the Serbs who were supposed to emigrate to Serbia. It was not possible to execute the volume and course of the plan, neither on the state level nor in the Banovina and Kordun areas.
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In 1992, the so-called Mujahedeen forces joined the military struggle of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina against the Croat and Serbian forces. In an attempt to put these unruly units under the Bosnian army control, on August 13, 1993 General Rasim Delić signed an order authorizing the formation of a detachment named “El Mujahedin”. Soldiers within this unit referred to themselves as “Holy Warriors” and were required to strictly adhere to Islamic beliefs. The “Mujahedin” who were principally from Islamic countries, were prepared to conduct a “Jihad” or “Holy War” in Bosnia and Herzegovina against the enemies of the Bosnian Muslims. Following its establishment, the detachment significantly grew in size and by 1995 it comprised approximately several hundred fighters. During the fight between 1993 and 1995, mainly Bosnian Serbs and Croat dwellings and buildings, as well as civilian personal propertied livestock, were destroyed or severely damaged. The biggest war crimes against Serbian civilians and soldiers the Mujahedeen forces were committed by in July and September 1995. Based on the peace agreement in Dayton, the “El Mujahedin” detachment was disbanded.
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The article presents revolutionary violence against the population of the Bloke plateau in 1942. Similarly to other parts of the Province of Ljubljana, this too was violence directed at the actual or alleged opponents of the communist revolution. There were seven victims of revolutionary violence; craftsmen and farmers’ sons in terms of social status. Some cases of murders, robberies and arsons carried out by the Šercer battalion and the Šercer brigade are described.
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The article presents memories written in 1988 by Srečko Šuligoj (1923–1997), a priest from Gorizia. He was arrested as a theologian by the Yugoslav OZNA (Department for the Protection of the People) in the first days of May 1945 along with the Gorizian archbishop of the time Carlo Margotti and some other Gorizian priests. They were imprisoned in the palace of the Coronini counts in Gorizia; however, they were released after a few days and the archbishop was exiled to Udine. The author described in detail the events during those days which were full of uncertainty. After Šuligoj’s death, the typescript remained forgotten among various materials in the parish archives in Levpa. Although slightly altered, it had already been published in its integral form under the title The Arrest of Archbishop Margotti in the calendar for the year 1990 by the publishing house Goriška Mohorjeva družba. This time, we publish it in the original typescript form.
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The article focuses on the victims of the Partisan movement in the northern part of the Primorska region during the Second World War. The areas in question are what is today known as the municipalities of Bovec, Cerkno, Idrija, Kobarid, and Tolmin. Based on archival sources, it was found that such violence claimed 338 lives in this area. The data is still inconclusive.
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