interview by Nenad BASARIC
Slobodan Turlakov wrote and published the book "The Guide for Beginner Serbs (1804-1941)". He does not want to talk about himself. "Some have published books and placed their portrait both on the back and front cover, and the resume of the author seems to be the most valuable part of the publication. Therefore, let's skip that topic. I am neither a musician, nor a journalist nor something else. I never wrote a single word about myself. I am only a pensioner (for six years already) - Slobodan Turlakov." Then, he orders a cup of tea, because he neither smokes nor drinks coffee. I dare not ask him about some love affairs that he has been connected with in the past. Besides, what is daring? Is that courage to talk about anything but that what is happening to us right now? Because of that I direct the conversation to the topic of the book, whose second edition I have on the table in front of me. While reading it, I realized - it is daring to say to oneself - I am a Serb and I carry so much nihilism in my genes that even Nietsche would have been jealous. And it is suicidal courage to head into the sacred battle of understanding, against our own self-destructive being.
TURLAKOV: My father is a Bulgarian. He escaped from Bulgaria in 1923, after the fall of "Stambolists", when they literally turned Stambolijski into minced meat. And he never went back. He died with a shrapnel in the neck, which he earned when they shot at them during their crossing to Serbia. That was a group of about 20 to 30 thousands of intellectuals, all of whom were members of the Peasant Party, who brought that party with them [to Serbia]. They wanted closest possible cooperation with Serbia, and as such many of them were imprisoned during WWI.
By the way, Bulgarians are a very crafty and capable nation, which was always on the "wrong" side, but they never suffered, unlike Serbs who always supported the right side but were repeatedly decimated. Do not think that I say this based on my "Bulgarian blood", but it seems to me that it was a better combination, if we Serbs wanted to unite with someone, to unite with Bulgarians (as both of us were under the Ottomans and had identical customs and religion, instead of with Croats and Slovenes as in that manner we introduced Catholic elements into our statehood. Furthermore, in case of a union with Bulgaria, the Macedonian question would become a moot point, as Macedonians would fit well into all that. Besides, I have always been bothered by the problem of unification and always wondered why we need any unions? Can we survive on our own? Do we not have enough within...?
Let me tell you something. In Macedonia, there were the so-called Bulgarian villages, those that were under jurisdiction of the Bulgarian church, and others that were under the jurisdiction of the Constantinople Patriarch and were pro-Serb. Albanians avoided Bulgarian villages, but slaughtered in ours because they knew that Bulgarians would retaliate hundred times worse, while we only complained and lamented. There is something stale in our blood. Serbs who came from Bosnia should be some sort of a transfusion. Our blood is stale and, as Vasilije Alempijevic says, "We are a gutsy nation, but we are not courageous!" We never dared attack someone; we are only courageous when attacked. And our blood was the cheapest through the centuries. Anyone who needed it took some. Today Serbs live in ninety one different countries, all over the globe, which means that we gave our blood tax to the whole world. And that world has long ago aborted us. Now they are all competing over who is going to kill more of us. Mate Mestrovic, the son of Ivan Mestrovic whose sculptures can be found all over Belgrade, at one point said the famous sentence: "The more we kill them [Serbs], the more they want to live with us [Croats]!" I do not know why that is the case. We always seek good sides of our enemies, and an enemy is an enemy. I never said "a German fascist". I would always say - a German. The same applies to Bulgarians and Hungarians. They were our enemies even when they were not fascists. They killed us all the same.
Are Serbs masochists?
Masochism is too small a word for that. Just like genocide. Most individuals do not know what genocide is, but when you tell them - extermination - they all know! Some words simply enter vocabulary and their meaning gets diluted.
A lot was said in the book in shorthand, although with devastating clarity. I wanted, with the pure truth, based on documents, to create an angry work that will force Serbs to prevent our continued sinking into unavoidable downfall. During their fifty-years-long rule. Communists did everything to destroy our national being and self-awareness, so that numerous generations were denied basic knowledge about our history, and were actually placed in the position of "Serb beginners". Let us be frank. Our recent history books are also not something we can boast with. They were written by people with political links - liberals, progressives, and radicals - and thus they retailored history based on their political needs; and later even Serbs with pro-Yugoslav sympathies who in the most brutal manner faked all that was purely Serb, to try to please Slovenes and Croats by creating for them a history they did not have.
Recently professor Krestic in his brilliant book "Distinguished Serbs speak about Croats" demonstrated full glory and misery of our illusions with something that could under no circumstances be our future. I took into consideration the period between 1804 and 1941, two dates that signify the beginning and end of the Serb state. Although the Serb state collapsed in 1918 we still had at least formally a king and some symbols of Serbdom. Finally, in 1941 Serbia ceased to exist; everything was destroyed. Of course, the intellectuals are to blame, but our intellectuals have always been scum that sided with the authorities. Even the church has the "fifth commandment" which states that we should pray to God for those who are in power. At one point I wrote - when a Russian leaves Russia, he brings with himself his faith and his art. And a Serb leaves with the idea that he may live easier and better somewhere else because he has nothing to take with him. The turbo-folk music, perhaps? Therefore, thanks to communists, who strove to uproot and destroy everything Serb, we have lost our faith, history, we have lost everything that distinguished us and made us Serb.
Serbs who cannot be brought to their senses with any tragedy and who cannot learn any lasting lessons from any calamitous episode in history?
Unfortunately, that is our bitter experience of history. We do not have the skill to remember beastly acts of others. If present generations forget the Grdelica Gorge massacre, as the previous forgot Macva from 1915 when everything turned white with gallows and when Austrians forced women, children and elderly into a church and then blew it up, if my students from Nis and Leskovac already do not know that the "allies" bombed their cities in 1944, it is obvious in what deplorable direction everything is moving.
There are indications that the complex of our alleged guilt for everything that has happened in the past ten years is slowly creeping in among us. Some claim that that is the fast track to Europe! When Arkan was killed one felt as if there was one criminal less among us! It seems it did not occur to anyone what professor Nedeljkovic said: "Outlaws attacked us, outlaws defended us!" If it weren't for Arkan and his "naked sons" Banja Luka would have fallen!
Who is injecting such ideas among Serbs?
We have been exposed to all sorts of propaganda. Recently I had an interview on TV Palma. I spoke for 44 minutes and they cut that down to only 19 minutes! Censors are everywhere, everyone works for someone else. While the independent media are very vague when they discuss Serb suffering, or treat that as something that could have been avoided with "smarter policies", the regime controlled media use the suffering to prop up the regime. And here power is synonymous with looting and theft of every kind. Even those who are the so-called opposition, even they only care about power. In 1911 the magazine "Pijemont" [Piedmont] had the motto "Neither with such authorities, nor with such opposition"! We are again in the same situation. And then, how can someone be independent when the fate of one's own nation is at stake? Sremac was right to say that "every independent Serb is on the side of the enemy!"
Today everyone is talking about some democracy and in this region no nation has suffered more from that very same democracy. Although there are claims that we had democracy between 1903 and 1914, we actually never lived in a democratic state. My book clearly demonstrates that that is a lie! What democracy and with whom? With those who ruled at the time of the murdered last king Obrenovic, to whom he, a poor wretch, referred as - the scum? The Radicals introduced a pure single party system, corruption was pervasive, every public purchase was a scandal. Therefore, everything was exactly the way it is today. The people live convinced that they are surrounded by thieves, that democracy is an empty word with no meaning. It is very difficult to talk to people, especially the young who have heard some stories about the abolishment of nations and borders in the twenty first century. Those are tall tales as nations will most definitely not be abolished until they do that on their own. A Frenchman will definitely remain a Frenchman and a German a German.
And we, the more we offer ourselves to the world, the less numerous we are. The whole Belgrade is covered with signs in the Roman alphabet, so that we are not bothered only by the Cyrillic alphabet, but also by our own language. Just look at the billboards! Those who advertise in foreign languages are most certainly not wasting their money. A few days ago a saw in Kosovska St. the sign "Drive in pekara" [drive in bakery]! And the owner even corrected my pronunciation! It's not "dreeve in" but "drive in" he said!!! It is horrible to think that we have more and more educated individuals, but at the same time also greater numbers of those who are essentially very primitive. Those individuals who have come from who knows where. It's impossible to walk on sidewalks from all those illegally parked cars. They came from the villages, from the farm, and are used to muddy paths. As far as they are concerned a sidewalk is a perfect stop for his highness "Audi"!
Statelessness. There is neither a federal nor a Serb state, and Serbia pays for everything. It's been two years since the federal state has been denied the right to enter Montenegro, which does not recognize the federation in any of its aspects. True, Montenegro threatens to secede, but that is an empty threat because the current situation is actually the optimal solution for them. The so-called federal government is also making threats, but without any chance to make good on them, as every move towards Montenegro has been embargoed by the West. In practice that means that there are two state administrations in Serbia and those two administrations are totally unnecessarily paid by a devastated and impoverished Serbia! Everyone knows that but everyone keeps silent. Why? Just as everyone knows and keeps quiet that the federal constitutions has been flagrantly violated when FR Yugoslavia was transformed into a state ruled by a directly elected president.
Could an election clear up that nightmare?
I believe that Serbia does not need elections. Serbian voters ousted Communists from power in 1997 and gave their support to the two buddies [Draskovic and Seselj] who together had 128 representatives in the parliament, while the communists had 110. But they, because of mutual disagreements and hatred, agreed to collaborate with the communists. In that manner they shamefully trampled on the trust of their supporters. With what right?! Therefore, what would be the purpose of any new elections that would repeat the same swindle? Besides, the best buddies (after all, both of them seem to hate Communists more then each other) simply need to reconcile and they could as early as tomorrow oust the Communists and form a government based on the popular will from 1997. That government would be more natural than the one we have today, in which all political parties participate in one way or another, so that essentially we do not have an opposition anymore. Besides, internal conflicts that have recently received a lot of attention here do appear in other nations as well. However, the difference is that in those cases they are not as fateful or as vulgar as in Serbia. For example, there are two Patriarchs in Bulgaria, as well as in Ukraine. The Eastern Orthodox Church in Russia was never united. Therefore, when we discuss schisms it should be noted that they are not a Serb specialty. Our specialty is twofold, on the one hand thievery and on the other private interest.
We never managed to achieve something that would be based on common purpose. The Radical Party started as a principled party but maintained that for a very short time. It quickly found its place in the situation in which everyone pulled to its own side. The Communists were also principled initially, but today, when we have more than a hundred political parties in the field, not a single one of them is sticking to its proclaimed principles. Some of them have even forgotten their own programs! A party leader is its program! I initially joined the Radical Party and stayed with them for a few months. There were 19 of us and we met at Kasina. Soon, ten of those 19 founded their own parties and everyone became a party leader. I am a leader and the party is what I say it is! Power gives opportunities to achieve material gain and if you watch closely there are very small differences in programs and ideologies between different parties that do not justify such an enormous number of parties as in our case.
Serbs have from time immemorial been charmed with leaders, which has consistently harmed them?
That opinion has been created by history. All nations had emperors, kings... There is that "path of subjects", for King and Homeland, in the name of God... A king was a representative of God on earth, a chosen one and he spoke and behaved in that manner. On behalf of the nation and God! And then all of that became increasingly thin so that in the end we reached republics, elections, democracy. There was a tendency to bring power to the masses, but as the power was brought closer to the masses we got increasingly serious problems, so that today we have supremacy of the USA, which is so overwhelming that most likely in a few decades they will rule the planet. And the only problem is how to provoke ethnic disturbances in the USA, how to inspire rebellions in the existing ghettos. If a war breaks out in the USA, then Europe will be saved at the same time. But that will not happen. Just consider how they deal with their demonstrators in Los Angeles. Fourteen thousand special forces policemen simply turned the demonstrators into pulp.
There is a theory I find disgusting. According to it, we are only united in slavery, someone has to come to unite us. That is not true! During the occupation we were slaughtered and we did not find a common ground. Even in such situation there were many factions, Ljotic's supporters [pro-fascist Serb group], Nedic's supporters [Serb officer, collaborated with Germans and headed the Serbian government during German occupation], Chetniks led by Kosta Pecanac, Partisans, Chetniks... Partisans won because they were united, under one ideology and one command. Unlike them, Chetniks could not survive because every commander was independent. They practiced a form of self-management. Whenever they talked they always had guns at the ready so that they could shoot each other. We can only be brought together by anger because we are the way we are. And when will that anger pour out...? What awaits us is a big rationalization, a big reduction in all aspects. Just look around you. This is a workday and all the cafes are full. In Germany one cannot see anyone in the street this time of day, so that one has to wonder what their shop windows are for. Here every day is a holiday. The work ethics should be brought here with a whip. Whomever you ask they tell you that they are fine that they are somehow making ends meet. Therefore, they are not working but somehow making ends meet.
I understood for the first time the origin of the word "partisan" while reading your book. You stated that when in 1881 Progressive, populist Radical and Liberal party were founded "Serbia always had political divisions, or partisanship. We always had to have at least two of everything, in order to fulfill as many ambitions as possible". As you claim that Chetniks practiced a form of self-management, and partisans worked "in pairs", is that the fundamental difference between these two ideologies?
Partisans were an ideological army under the control of the Communist International, and Chetniks were under command of active officers who before the war did not have the right to be politically active. Therefore, they even did not have the right to vote. And what does that mean? That means that they were removed from politics and combinations. They had formulaic patriotism that was virtually professionally paid. We saw that in 1941. If it weren't for reserve officers, not a single bullet would have been fired in defense of the country. The same happened now in Bosnia. Karadzic has personally told me that the people did not want Tito's professional officers for its commanders, but they chose intellectuals and proven fighters whom they trusted. Under Tito our army was ideological, a Communist army. They spent more time studying Marxism than military skills, and our generals proved themselves as big theoreticians of Marxism, as can be seen even today by their political parties. And that was a political army; it is not surprising that Arkan's "naked sons" fought the enemy while the generals ran away. Just consider, in that small territory we had nineteen generals and we started the Balkan wars with six. To this day I am convinced that today in Belgrade there must be at least twenty to thirty times more retired generals than we had all together in the first Balkan war [in 1912].
All of that is sad. Exactly because of that we would have to introduce the principle that the number of engineers, physicians and others should be according to the needs. Everything must be brought down to a realistic framework, and taxes must be so small that we can compete with our products. Of course, such a reduction would bring about a new flood of unemployed. A lot of people in the street, which every political party fears, because they prefer this lie of social peace to danger to their own power. Until 1918 Serbia had eight ministers, one of whom was a prime minister. Today, only Serbia has 40 politicians in the rank of minister and another four in every ministry, some deputies, some assistants, so that the "National Unity Coalition" can be established at every level of power. If the service of the President of Serbia is added to that number, than the Supreme and Constitutional Court and all sorts of directorates, institutions and departments... And what about the federal administration, which is also a burden to Serbia? Then the army, police, customs police, embassies... That is a gigantic burden. Such an administration would be too expensive even for the USA. Besides, what about too expansive education system whose only purpose is to educate professionals for export to the West! Or what about hospitals in which only those with access to foreign currency can survive! Or the diaspora, which includes a third of our people, or the refugees who are denied Serbian citizenship and forced to emigrate! There is no healthy force on horizon that would have courage and knowledge to cope with all those troubles and problems, which are with every new day bringing new catastrophic situations, and all of that is necessarily and objectively leading to an increasingly bad future and the situation that is already burdening the daily life, let alone our future.
I get the impression that, besides intellectuals and politicians, you blame the Communists for the downfall of Serbia, although Communists are not a Serb specialty. There were Communists in other parts of Yugoslavia, but other nations survived?
It is normal that intellectuals are the worst part of every nation, and Serb intellectuals are proven scum. Throughout our history. True, there were a few crucial moments in our history, and all of them passed without their active participation. The current situation is no different. The intellectuals were never principled, never in service of the nation and its needs, always led by their own interests. Thus, can it be surprising that the Serb Academy of Sciences very soon formed its own Communist party cell, that most instructors at the University are former communist youth officials, that today those two giants of Serb thought are silent, read newspapers, tell jokes... or that there is no more fighting spirit in the Association of Serb Writers, as some writers are in power, while others wait for it in the opposition!
Those who do not believe my words should open the eight volume Krleza's encyclopedia of Yugoslavia, in which Serb intellectuals wrote the worst lies about their own people for miserable fees. But, that was the way to earn reputation that would later result in professorships, stipends for study abroad, all sorts of rewards and tenures. On the other hand, professor Smilja Avramov published a document that indicates that Koca Popovic [famous Communist official and WWII partisan fighter, a Serb] when he set off to attack Serbia asked the Dead Man [Tito] how to behave there, to which the latter responded - "like an occupier". And really, that Serb behaved like an occupier. There is no town or village in which at least ten distinguished Serbs were not murdered [by partisans], while in the cities the number of victims was significantly higher. But, there is no Serb household in which one can see a framed photo of a father or grandfather shot by Communists and the reason for that is that their sons, brothers, sisters, soon became Communists themselves... As early as 1946 Serbia had the greatest number of Commuists; while in other Yugoslav states their communists were first Slovenians, Croats, Macedonians and only then communists. Serb communists were nothing but that, internationalists and proud of their ideological consistency and principles. That is why we are the last communist country in Europe, as here Serbs, in one way or another, grew close to the Communists and their power.
At the very beginning of the second war against the Turks in 1877, there was the so-called Toplica rebellion. Two battalions refused to give an oath and 24 rebels were sentenced to death. Seven of them were shot, including Jevrem, a brother of Svetozar Markovic [founder of the Socialist Party in Serbia]. You consider this murder the first "political murder with assistance of court," while colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic Apis, to whom you dedicated your book, met a similar fate. Were there other similar murders?
Three innocent colonels were murdered with assistance of courts. The first one was Jevrem Markovic, who was framed as the organizer of the Toplica rebellion. He was shot even though immediately before that he had received the Russian Saint George decoration, which means that he was a fearless commander. Prince Milan, fearing Markovic and his popularity, simply had him murdered. The other trial was that of Apis, in 1917 in Salonica. Apis was shot near Salonica on June 13 because of an alleged assassination attempt on regent Aleksandar, while the third one is that of Draza Mihajlovic in 1945. Draza was not a personality of a similar scale. Legends overestimate him. In court, during the communist trial, where he was probably drugged as only God knows what they did to him, at one moment he nevertheless said the essential sentence. That he was the commander of the Chetnik army only by the title, while in the field every commander made his own decisions. He demoted and prosecuted some people who collaborated with Germans. However, he had neither resources nor organization to implement a vertical chain of command, and he had very few individuals of stature in his immediate environment. Besides, he had the misfortune that, even though he had graduated from a French military academy, during his career he had been persecuted and punished. He had an affair with his wife, he had a divorce, and all of that was used to prevent him from becoming a general. Indeed, it is very surprising that besides other generals in Serbia he managed to impose himself as the leader of the resistance, as I have failed to find any evidence about his legendary character.
Draza had no ideology apart from the restoration of the Yugoslav kingdom. He had nothing to promise to a Serb farmer, or Serbia in new Yugoslavia, moreover because those who had ruled before WWII had destroyed Serbia as early as 1939 when a Croatian state within Yugoslavia was formed and when it became obvious that Yugoslavia was facing a definite break up. Instead of forming at that point a Serb state within Yugoslavia, Yugoslavs in Belgrade thought that they would find a way to make a deal with Croats and that some sort of Yugoslavia would survive, as Serbs supposedly lived everywhere in Yugoslavia. But there was no chance for a renewal of any Yugoslav state. Communists realized that, cheated the Serb people talking about brotherhood and unity and when the war ended Serbs were blamed for everything. It turned out that we had enslaved other nations. Our, Serb, communists accepted that idea, which started self-criticism that ensured stellar careers.
Although "The Guide" is dedicated to Apis, I nevertheless have the impression that the book is at the same time your personal indictment of Pasic and the Radical party. What is the origin of so much animosity? Or, is that some sort of warning that could apply to the contemporary Serbia?
There is a photo of Tito, in a cave, in Drvar. That photo included the whole communist party political bureau. Later, as Tito removed its members, one by one, people were erased from that photograph. Pasic was no different. When he died in 1926 he had eliminated all of his comrades. He proposed that General Petar Zivkovic take over the leadership of the Radical party. That was the final demise of a veteran state official, who had to resort to finding support in the military even for the control of his own party, which had started as a civic democratic political force. As everything else in our history, Pasic's contribution is also exaggerated. Moreover, he is even credited with achievements that have nothing to do with him. But it is true that he was a pronounced individualist and relied only on his own judgment in everything. On the other hand, when things got tough, he was nowhere to be found. He always knew how to disappear and reappear at the right moment as a "solution" as he kept distance from both sides in any conflict. At the moment when the public was convinced of his final political death, in 1904, he suddenly reappeared as a temporary chance, as it was believed that the young politicians in the Radical party would lead the party to new victories. However, Pasic got rid of all of them, just like Tito.
Everything we are going through now is in one way or another a consequence of Pasic's actions on the one hand and King Aleksandar's on the other. The corrupt climate started in 1903, when Serbia very quickly ended up in a single party system. "Skirmishes" between independents (faction of young politicians who left the Radical Party) and the Radicals, led to the situation in whic, as one faction would come to power it would carry out a total purge of all state employees, down to the receptionists and postmen. Only much later, on the eve of WWI, a coalition government was formed but it fell apart after Apis' murder. Then, totally illegally, there was a Radical party that brought about unification. But all of that is so sad and disgusting.
Literally. WWI can be divided into the period before the murder of Apis, when the unprecedented heroism of our people on the one hand and its immeasurable suffering on the other gave us a saintly halo, and that murder, when that halo disappeared. It is typical that even then the West did not appreciate our suffering. Belgium experienced a fate similar to ours because it proclaimed neutrality, and Germany occupied her meeting strong resistance of the Belgian people led by king Albert. Then a heroic image of that king and the Belgian people was created, all sorts of stories about its heroism were told, although Serbian suffering was ten times greater than that of Belgians. Did it occur to anyone to create a similar image for King Petar? To the West every drop of its blood is much more valuable than all of our victims. Besides, didn't Miterand say that "one French soldier is more valuable than the whole Bosnia"?
I increasingly regret the murder of Aleksandar Obrenovic. He was a political genius. Just consider that at the age of seventeen he carried out a coup d'etat that was flawless, with only two-three officers and against a fox such as brilliant statesman and great thinker Jovan Ristic. If one takes into account that in all the possible ways he tried to avoid formation of party based governments, to create Serbian governments under his leadership, as a king, then it becomes obvious that he lacked both time and quality people to develop his value. He is far more valuable then is usually assessed and the credit for that is due to Slobodan Jovanovic who slandered him and Aleksandar and his father. However, if one takes into account that 25 years later Aleksandar did as a king everything that Aleksandar "junior" had done before one has to wonder why history does not look equally favorably on both of them. Instead, it criticized the former while proclaiming the latter for a martyr. By the way, queen Draga was also not that bad. If they were not murdered in the summer of 1903 she would have very likely resolved her status as there were numerous indications that she would withdraw as she could not give birth to an heir.
But, who am I to change the opinion that has been rooted in the people, especially as I cannot fight specters of great thinkers such as Slobodan Jovanovic, who was a far better writer than historian and consequently turned our history into great literature. But that history is very personal and biased. According to Jovanovic we collapsed in 1941 because of 1903. And starting with 1903 we very swiftly abandoned the Serb idea, all in the name of Yugoslavia and megalomania, so that Vasa Kazimirovic very appropriately referred to Yugoslavia as an empire! For me, however, the true enigma is that we managed to survive with so few statesmen. Just consider how many politicians we have in the field, and I cannot point out a single one of them as a statesman. During that terrible 1917 when the people suffered the most, Pasic bought a yacht and cruised the Ionian and Aegean seas! And his son Rade even forged the signature of king Aleksandar on some paper in order to get a three million loan from a Slovenian bank. That is unprecedented! Similar things happened later, in the more recent history of Serbia...
As early as in 1906, the ambassador of Austria-Hungary, Forgatsch, in his report confirmed that everyone in Serbia, from the prime minister to the last clerk is greedy for money. Money represses all patriotic feelings in them...
Every Serb has a price. Let me for a moment go back to the relations with great powers. In unfortunate 1913 a conference was held in London. The independence of an until then nonexistent state was proclaimed at that conference and we were suddenly turned from liberators into occupiers (something similar happened in 1991 in Bosnia-Hercegovina after the declaration of independence). Then in Paris in 1918, another artificial creation was created, Yugoslavia. I mention London and Paris because we were betrayed by the French in WWI and by the English in WWII. Thanks to the allies, many Serbs died unnecessarily.
In any case, your book clearly indicates that the USA did not enter WWI in order to contribute to the victory of the allies but to protect its big debtors (English and the French) from losses in the war, as she was concerned that they would not be able to repay their debts. With time, the debts increased and the American influence in Western Europe became stronger so that one gets the impression that even the NATO aggression was nothing but an American demonstration of force to "small and impotent" allies on how to resolve the situation in the field and at the same time unite them so that in the future they could together repay debts to the American National Bank?
Unfortunately, our experience and traditional relations with Germans are catastrophic and we shall most likely be excluded from that new German Europe. Even serious historians such as Krestic and Ceda Popov do not give us much of chance of survival as we are showing a lot of talent in striving for our own extinction. "The Guide" was written in order to give a push to the dormant thought about Serbia, similarly to the dormant memory of Apis, an honorable Serb who was more than a soldier, who was a man who looked after the fatherland. Today when there are not similar examples of dedication, we need glorious examples that can bring us together and enlighten, so that we can try even impossible. We need faith, the faith of all those who believed in Serbdom and created the myth of its invincibility.
At this moment, Montenegro is an especially hot issue. Both in the wars with Turks and in the two world wars, Montenegro had a rather murky role, excluding a couple of honorable examples as far as assistance to Serb allies was concerned. I found in your book the assertion that the number of Montenegrins who set off on the journey towards Salonica with the Serbian Army in 1915 was negligible, and that to our common shame, as many as 800 Albanians fighters joined the Serbian Army under leadership of Esad Pasha (who was convinced that Albanians should live in peace with Serbs and was because of that murdered in 1920 in Paris by his Albanian opponents). Why so much insistence on the inclusion of Montenegro within Yugoslavia?
Everything related to Montenegro is a myth. There is nothing real in that. Montenegrins have managed to turn every their hovel into a palace and every chapel into a cathedral. King Nikola was the first Tito on the Balkan peninsula. De facto, they were referred to as a state even when they were not that at all, starting with 1842 and the time of defenders of the constitution and prince Aleksandar. Even then a foreign chronicler noted that Serbia gave 3,000 dukats to Njegos. On every occasion they emphasized themselves as guardians of the Kosovo myth. Finally, their current leader, Djukanovic, was honest and stated - the continuation of our honor and heroism is our refusal to fight in Kosovo. And more than eighty percent of our people in Kosovo hail from Montenegro. They are a slippery nation that fights among themselves with joy but is always united when facing others.
The present state does not exist on the federal level, and Montenegrins are prepared to threaten secession for the next hundred years, but they have destroyed everything they could in Serbia. Currently Serbia is under attack from three sides. One of the attackers is the current president of the republic, the second attacker is Djukanovic and the third one is the SPO, whose leadership to the last one hails from Montenegro. All of the officials in the Belgrade city government are from Montenegro, starting with Spasoje Krunic. If we were to compile a list of important officials in Serbia, the conclusion would be that all those offices are held by Montenegrins and that we are in a manner of speech under their occupation. They recently tried to take control of the Democratic Party as well. They control everything - mafia, illegal foreign currency dealers, banks, sport, the zoo, literature. Recently, Montenegrins picked up all the most prominent literature awards in one year. I explained that problem in my book. All of them boast with the Mojkovac battle in which they really defeated Austria, but several days later they capitulated to the same enemy they had defeated a few days earlier. They never managed to explain that. When the Serbian Army withdrew through Albania, the Montenegrin soldiers did not join them. Only 12 soldiers and 13 officers joined. It is very difficult to deal with them, and it would be better for both them and us to separate. They even manage to transform Njegos, to publish his work in some so-called Montenegrin language. You simply cannot prove to Serbs that they are not Serbs even if they declared themselves as Montenegrins in the last population census. I respect that a lot, because they are and should be a nation. They should have their own church, because one nation cannot have two religions. It is known that pensions are bigger in Montenegro, but it is hidden that their military pensioners receive pensions form the federal budget [i.e. Serbia]. I had a good laugh when one of their ministers explained that the federal government does not respect pension schemes. And that means that the federal government stopped paying military pensions. And why should the federal government keep paying those pensions and increase them? When they decided to introduce their own currency, the director of the federal finances stated that they could do whatever they want as Montenegro's economy was only five percent of the Yugoslav economy. When Avramovic was fired, a Montenegrin was appointed to lead the National bank of Yugoslavia. Lawyer Zika Lazic told me that at one moment out of 44 primary schools in Belgrade, 42 of them had Montenegrins for principals, and out of 32 departments at the Belgrade University, 29 were controlled by Montenegrins. The office of rector is almost by definition supposed to be filled by a Montenegrin. Montenegrins have metastzed in the Serb society.
I heard that Dobrica Cosic at some point said that children should be pulled out of Belgrade and the city then burned to the ground. If he really said that, I agree. Belgrade is our worst misfortune. Belgrade is not Serbia, but it has so diluted Serbia that we do not recognize it anymore. And the situation is such that Belgrade should be the engine of our salvation. However, keeping in mind the elections from a few years ago, it is obvious that Belgrade was even unable to save itself. People are killed and not a single one of those cases has been resolved. There are many stories, jokes, immaturity. You saw the rally. It neither promised anything nor could promise anything. And it should promise work and enormous sacrifices, but no one is ready for that, neither those in the audience, nor those on the stage. We like, as Germans would say, gallows humor. As a man born in Belgrade, I love every stone in this city, but Belgrade has grown so much that I can hardly recognize it. Just stop somewhere in the center of the city and observe people getting off the bus. They don't belong in any larger town, let alone Belgrade. Belgrade is threatened by the fate of Paris and New York.
Besdies Italy, I believe that Yugoslavia is the only country in the world in which kum [godfather] is a social institution, the most important ladder on the way to success or failure. Most communist companies, boards of directors, and even other institutions, are connected with the holy trinity of kumstvo, even though such relations have been most brutally destroyed starting with the murder of Karadjordje, the murder that marked the beginning of the rule and curse of the Obrenovic dynasty (God's punishment for a murder of a kum)?
[Branislav] Nusic [Serb writer, famous for his comedies criticizing corruption and hypocrisy in the 19th century Serbian society] said that "if I need you, we are allies, if I don't we are not". That can be applied to the modality of kumstvo. Our whole public, social and economic life can be observed using that formula. When he needs something, they are allies, when he does not, he kills the former ally. Everything is based on personal interests. When someone one day builds a villa in front of the monstrosity we call the Gate of Belgrade [a skyscraper], if that individual is powerful, it is quite possible that he will demolish the skyscraper in order to get a better view. And it was just like that in 1903, because when the Radicals came to power they started to refashion the state according to their needs, as if it were their property. The communists did the same.
Would you care to comment on the meeting between prince Aleksandar and the opposition?
I cannot think about the prince other than what he said about himself. He dedicated the first address to his country first to Slovenians and Croats and only then to his Serbs. And even then he failed to learn those few sentences in our language. He missed several occasions to be with his people. Perhaps the worst one was when Serbs were running away from Sarajevo, and the most recent one in Kosovo when he first visited British soldiers! Finally, the prince allowed himself to have the crown council that includes people with long careers as communists. Therefore, all he cares about is to win back his throne.
After this conversation, I cannot but wonder - who do you support and can you envisage the return of the former Yugoslavia?
I am on the Serb side, which has never before been thinner and weaker. It is almost gone. And I can envisage the return of the former Yugoslavia. Fortunately I will not live long enough to see that. I wrote "The Guide" for Serbs, to stay away from Yugoslavia as the worst poisonous snake.