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The occupation of
Bosnia (1878) as depicted in literature
by Ante Kadic
Excerpt from the Abstract
The occupation of Bosnia and Hercegovina in
1878, as it was reflected in the works of men of letters, is discussed.
It seems clear that the Austrian government had to rely on the Croatian
population.
This essay is intended to discuss the
occupation of Bosnia and Hercegovina in 1878, as it was reflected in the
works of men of letters. Since it is not a systematic survey, but rather
an analytical review, the focus is on the work of four writers who have
described this fateful event: Eugen Kumicic, Edhem Mulabdic, Grgo
Martic, and Ivo Andric.
The first was born in Istria and the last
three in Bosnia.(1) Kumicic and Martic participated in
the occupation, the former as a soldier, and the latter as an
influential religious and national personality, a kind of unofficial
diplomat. In probably his best work, Under Arms (Pod puskom,
1886). Kumicic described what he saw in the northwestern part of Bosnia;
while "reminiscences" from his youth with romantic plots. Martic in his
Memoirs (Zapamcenja, 1906) describes the occupation of Sarajevo and
some individuals who played important roles during that event. Andric,
on the other hand, some sixty years later, yet knowing well the history
of Bosnia, mentions in his stories, for example in "The Pasha's
Concubine" ("Maria Milosnica"), what occurred in Sarajevo and how the
various strata of society reacted to the arrival of the Austrian army.
He dealt in much greater detail with the occupation itself in his novel
The Bridge on the Drina (Na Drini cuprija, 1945) where he
depicts the mood of the people of Visegrad, in the eastern part of
Bosnia, near the Serbian border.
[...]
Eugen Kumicic (1850-1904) was
twenty-eight years old when he was called into the army in July 1878.
After completing his studies at the
University of Vienna, he had spent over a year in Paris (1875-77) In
1878 he was teaching geography and history in a Zagreb secondary school.
Although he had not yet produced a single work, he would do so very
soon, and with astonishing speed, because from 1879 he produced at least
one book a year.Already at that time, but especially in 1886, when he
gave his wartime memoirs to be published, Kumicic had a definite
political outlook. He was an enthusiastic follower of Ante Starcevic and
his nationalistic party, an opponent of the governmental pro-Magyar
policies and of the Serbs from Croatia who supported that stand in order
to gain greater advantages for themselves. Like his teacher Starcevic,
Kumicic admired the Bosnian and Hercegovinian Moslems, whom he
considered good people and patriots.(2)
Although Kumicic writes on the basis of his
personal experiences, and offers stirring stories of war atrocities and
the suffering of the innocent, especially Moslems, we should never
forget who writes them, because he is looking at everything from his own
angle and therefore he even unconsciously selects material which would
not conflict with his own views of the world and Bosnian society.
Kumicic is most convincing when he
describes his friend Ernest, who left behind his young pregnant wife in
Rijeka, and who was killed in the Bosnian hills while fighting for the
Austrians, who mistreated him because he was a Croat.
The writer, travelling home by train, met
Ernest and his wife, and later became acquainted with his parents. He
saw the deep pain on their faces when their son departed for unknown
Bosnia to fight for Austro-Hungarian interests. A couple of days later,
when Kumicic arrived in Bosanka Gradiska (29 July), there he found
Ernest. Gradually they became so close that they shared good and bad
times, hunger and the scarce food;(3) both admired the
inaccessible Bosnian mountains. They marched through rain and mud to
Banja Luka; often were posted as guards during bad weather and on
deserted hills. One day they were forced to shoot two Moslems, father
and son, whom the "Vlachs"(4) falsely accused of having
taken part in the attack on Banja Luka (16 August), when many soldiers
and some officers were killed. They set out together towards Kljuc (on
the Sana River), where Ernest perished in a horrible battle (September
7-9) while Eugen miraculously survived.
Kumicic spent several more months in Bosnia
as a court interpreter: he read and translated by the hundreds
accusations concerning thefts, murders, and other crimes. He was present
when the treacherous Vlach, who had falsely accused the two Moslems, was
caught while stealing and later shot. It was hard even for him to get
used to such chaos, let alone for the foreigners who did not understand
the language, and even less the tribal mentality. Therefore it is no
wonder that he considered himself a fortunate person when he again
crossed the Sava, around Christmas, and was on his way to Zagreb.
For Kumicic the six-month stay in Bosnia
was similar to Dante's descent into the Inferno, with the difference
that in Bosnia many innocent were suffering, and those who were
supposedly bringing them civilization behaved like wild beasts.
Just like other colonizers, the
Austro-Hungarian officers despised and insulted their soldiers,(5)
who had been forcibly torn from the arms of their families. They beat
them,(6) drove them to exhaustion(7)
and seemed not to understand that human endurance had its limits. They
could not accept difficulties, and therefore became angry when
everything did not proceed according to the predictions of the
bureaucrats in the Vienna ministries or the arrogant Count Andrassy, who
had asserted that the Austrians would conquer Bosnia with "only two
detachments accompanied by a military band." Most important for the
Austrians was to conquer fortresses, and they punished every resistance
of sign of disobedience with the death penalty. They were not so much
concerned with winning the hearts of the population--they wanted to show
that they possessed better arms, that they could shoot more accurately
and that their organization was much better than that of the rebels. All
this was clear from the very beginning, but these methods did not solve
"the Bosnian question".
In its march from Bosanska Gradiska to
Jajce and Kljuc, the Austrian army passed through either Moslem or Vlach
settlements. Although in this region they clashed only with Moslems,
Kumicic nevertheless speaks of the Moslems much more favorably than of
the Vlachs. He writes that the Vlachs were a sort of treacherous rabble,
chiefly in a primitive stage, without any education or national
consciousness. Hatred of other faiths and the desire to steal property
(e.g. houses, oxen, or goats) guided their actions.(8)
They did not know what language they spoke. Only those who lived in the
cities and who were under the influence of their Orthodox priests,
claimed they were Serbs.(9)
Kumicic described the advance of the
Austrian army from Bosanska Gradiska towards Sarajevo, but the most
important crossing of the occupying forces occurred at Bosanski Brod.
The Bosnian rebels awaited them at Doboj, Maglaj, and Zepce and offered
heroic resistance. They withdrew from Maglaj and Zepce after a two-day
battle (August 5-7), but abandoned Doboj only in the middle of the
month.
[...]
Notes:
- [missing note]
- "Never have I heard a
Bosnian Moslem utter abusive words, and much less curses. I did not hear
such kind and noble speech among our people" (Kumicic, Pod puskom, Pet
stoljeca hrvatske knjizevnosti, vol. 46, Zagreb, 1968, p.279).
- "We open our baskets.
There's the meat!--It smells, it's rotten, and worms are crawling all
over it. In the other baskets is the bread. It is tasty, even without
meat, though it's moldy. But it's easy to cut away the mold" (Pod
puskom, p. 223).
- The term "Vlach" is used
differently in various regions. Thus, for example, in Italy it is
applied the Slovenes, in Dalmatia to the people behind the mountains and
in Serbia. to the Romanians. When Kumicic uses it, he means the Orthodox
element for whom obviously he has no sympathy.
- "The regimental doctor
again shouted at me, showered me with insults, finally called me a son
of a bitch, and spat in my face" (Pod puskom, p. 223).
- "The men complained that
they were ill, that they couldn't move from where they were, but the
doctor didn't believe it, so he beat them on the head and then on the
face" (Pod puskom p. 257).
- "I looked over those
exhausted men, those gloomy, pal and sweaty faces. They marched
silently, their heads hung low, dragging their feet, exhausted and
broken. One fellow, tall and light bearded, fell along the road and
turned blue. The doctor ran up to him, saw once that there was no hope,
and said in German: 'That's the third already" (Pod puskom, p. 218).
- "The Vlachs were telling
us how the Mohammedans gather in small bands which will ambush
us....Some were creeping among us, meeting with the captain, and
secretly talking with him" (Pod puskom, pp. 223, 231).
- See Pod puskom, pp.
277-78.
Source:
- Ante Kadic, "The occupation of Bosnia (1878) as depicted in
literature", East European Quarterly. Boulder: Fall 1994.Vol.28,
Iss. 3; pg. 281 [excerpt from the Abstract].
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