Right at the outset of this chapter it should be pointed out, in regard to the 1873 revision of the Croato-Hungarian Nagodba (compromise), that it had a completely opposite effect on Serb-Croat relations from the Croato-Hungarian Nagodba of 1868, a fact which has not been duly noted in historiography. The original Nagodba had a positive effect on those relations, since both the Nagodba and the dualist system, introduced under the Austro-Hungarian compromise (Ausgleich) of 1867, were equally threatening to both Serbs and Croats, who in the face of a common danger tended to come closer together and cast aside almost all their earlier differences and conflicts. The revision to a very large extent broke up this unity. Whereas the Nagodba had been an integrating factor for Serbs and Croats, its revision was a disintegrating factor. Since it was an event of crucial significance in the history of the Serbs and Croats, which had enduring and unfavourable consequences for their subsequent development, the revision of the Nagodba will be discussed here in detail, with special reference to the attitude of the Serbs not only from Croatia but also from Hungary and the Principality of Serbia towards this state treaty.

The process of integration of the Serbian and Croatian political movements, begun after the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, was not stopped by the forcible introduction of the Croato-Hungarian Nagodba of 1868. On the contrary, it was continued, until the Nagodba's revision in 1873. In terms of the scope and results of these relations and cooperation, it would be no exaggeration to say that the years between 1866 and 1873, and of course the revolutionary events of 1848/49, were among the brightest moments of Serbian and Croatian history in the 19th century.

The question of rapprochement and cooperation between Serbs from Hungary and Croats and the unification of their political movements would be presented too simplicistically if it were to be linked solely to the Croato-Hungarian Nagodba and its unfavourable provisions for Croatia's autonomy. The hostility of the Croats to the Nagodba and Rauch, gave the Serbs, mindful of the interests of the Serbs in Croatia, every reason to link up with the Croats. Both were against dualism, and the Serbs from Hungary offered the Croats a hand of friendship because they wanted their support against the Hungarian government over the so-called Law on the Equality of Nationalities, which was voted in the Hungarian Diet soon after the coming into force of the Croato-Hungarian Nagodba. In other words, as the Nagodba forced the Croats to look for support among the Serbs, so the Serbs from Hungary, to protect themselves against the unfavourable provisions of the said law, wanted an alliance with the Croats.

Just a few months after the passing of the Croato-Hungarian Nagodba, Serbs in Hungary adopted early in 1869, the Becskerek Programme and devoted considerable attention to Croatia and its constitutional position within Hungary. Drafting his programme, Svetozar Miletic wrote: "As regards the Triune Kingdom, the Serbs in the Hungarian Parliament should espouse those principles which lead to a true federation of these countries with Hungary, and then seek a change in the legislation which made the Triune Kingdom a province of Hungary." The Becskerek Programme further on states that the Serbs, "in the field of interstate policy wholly support the aspirations of the Croato-Serbian people for full autonomy within the Triune Kingdom." The principal task of the newly founded Serbian National Freethinkers Party, according to the Programme, was "in the interest of the Serbo-Croatian people within the Triune Kingdom," to oppose "the illegally implemented compromise" and "to promote the autonomous and material rights of our people across the Danube, on the basis of state equality and federal independence."

A political leader of the liberal section of Serbian burghers in Hungary, Svetozar Miletic, in the spring of 1867, in debates on Croatia in the Hungarian Diet, defended its territorial integrity, demanding the attachment of Rijeka and broad autonomy such as was demanded by the Croatian royal deputation in 1866. Although sharply attacked on this score in the Diet, Miletic stood up again in defence of Croatia in November 1867. He denounced Rauch's unconstitutional rule and declared without shilly-shallying that a favourable settlement of Croato-Hungarian differences "not only from a general political but also from a particular national standpoint must be uppermost in our minds... because there is no doubt that success in finding a compromise with Croatia and Slavonia would influence and be a guarantee for success in the solution of the nationality question." The leader of the Serbs from Hungary also denounced gerrymandering in view of the forthcoming elections in Croatia, and proclaimed as illegal the Croatian Sabor constituted according to this scheme, as well as all its resolutions, pointing out that they would commit neither present nor future generations.²

Rauch as an exponent of the dualist system in Croatia was sharply attacked by Miletic when he ordered Cyrillic to be banned in Srem as an official alphabet. Rauch issued this decree supposedly following a request filed by the "Catholic inhabitants of the county of Srem," which was submitted to the Croatian Sabor on October 11, 1869. Miletic immediately understood that by abolishing the Cyrillic alphabet, Rauch and his collaborators were intent on bringing dissension between the Serbs and Croats and, in order to prevent it, wrote an article in Zastava in which he delivered a stinging attack against the Croatian Ban, his followers and the Sabor, which he described as a political doss house.³ Because of this article, which called for concord and unity between Serbs and Croats, Miletic was condemned to one year of imprisonment, a 500 forints fine, and payment of court costs and his own upkeep while in prison.

Like Miletic and his Zastava, the newspaper Pancevac also opposed the abolition of the Cyrillic alphabet, not because it was particularly enthusiastic about it, but because it was clear that with their act, Rauch and Andrássy wanted to "stab Serb-Croat concord in the heart."⁴ For the same motives, to protect the established Croat-Serb accord, Regent Jovan Ristic instructed Djordje Stratimirovic to write against the decision on the abolition of Cyrillic script, making it clear that the Hungarians were behind this decision.⁵ While he was alive, Prince Mihailo also joined the struggle against Rauch and his violent methods. Making use of his good relations with the Hungarians, he sought support from his trusted men in Budapest in a bid to have Rauch dismissed from his post of acting Ban, to be replaced by Count Julije Jankovic, a member of the Unionist minority. Contemporaries who were advised of Prince Mihailo's secret diplomatic threats, believed that he would have succeeded in his action were he not overtaken by death, because they were in no doubt whatever that Count Andrássy cared less for Levin Rauch than for Serbia's friendship.⁶ Owing to such good and close relations between the Serbs and Croats, which were then cultivated on both sides, and owing to their common aims - to bring down Rauch, to fight the inequitable Nagodba with Hungary, and to establish the broadest possible autonomy for Croatia - editor of Zatocenik Ivan Voncina visited Belgrade in October 1869, before starting a series of articles against Rauch, and asked the Serbian government for financial assistance for his newspaper.⁷

After the Nagodba of 1868, Serbs from Hungary, Croatia, and Serbia did everything in their power to foster political unity with the Croats, so that with united forces they could fight not only Rauch but also the system which he represented. Several times Miletic called for this unity in the columns of Zastava, describing it as a component part of the programme of the Serbian National Freethinkers Party.⁸

Taking up the idea of the political unity of the Serbs and Croats, the editor of Pancevac and member of the left wing of the Serbian National Freethinkers Party, Jovan Pavlovic, went one step further than Miletic. Aware that the Serbs and Croats in Austria-Hungary did not have the strength to fight an armed struggle for their rights, not having behind them either Serbia, or Montenegro, or any other "area for operation against the enemy," he put forward the proposal that the Serbs and Croats should make the Triune Kingdom their only remaining "reliable buttress," their Piedmont in the Habsburg Monarchy. The most important step in the realization of this objective was, in Pavlovic's view, to bring down Levin Rauch and establish a popular government. "If this comes to pass," Pavlovic wrote, "then we in Austria-Hungary have acquired a Piedmont; then it will be much easier to make further gains wherever we see that our national cause is under pressure; then the Triune Kingdom will help our people in Hungary to attain a better position; then it will become, on the one hand, a rampart against foreign onslaught, bent on swallowing up our brothers in the East, and on the other, a living source from which these same brothers of ours could draw strength in their further struggle for liberation." Wishing to make Croatia a Piedmont of the Serbs and Croats in Austria-Hungary, Pavlovic particularly addressed the Serbs of Srem. He warned them against the Rauch administration's electoral machinations, proclaimed the victory of the national cause as sacred, and urged voters to cast their ballots only for tried and true patriots and not to allow themselves to be deceived or intimidated by political enemies.⁹

As the Serbs in Croatia and Hungary were doing their utmost to foster political unity with the Croats, having created a single movement to destroy Rauch and his Nagodba, in the winter of 1870, there began a new gradual rapprochement between the political leadership of the Croatian National Party and the official representatives of the Principality of Serbia. The initiative for this rapprochement was given by Regent Jovan Ristic through his envoy, Josip Toncic. When Ristic offered via Toncic cooperation with the National Party and asked them for certain political services, Mrazovic on behalf of this party accepted the offer but demanded that Serbia back not Hungarian but rather Croatian and Serbian interests in Croatia and southern Hungary. He suggested that the Croatian and Serbian presses should help one another, that the Croats should contribute to Serbian and Serbs to Croatian newspapers, and that the Serbian papers (Vidovdan and Jedinstvo) should show more sympathy in reporting on the Croatian movement. Furthermore, Mrazovic said that the Croats saw a better future only in solidarity with the other Southern Slavs and asked from Serbia at least moral support, if no other was available.

After certain minor differences were ironed out, cooperation was established between the National Party and the Serbian government, in accordance with Matija Mrazovic's demands. Ristic's representative Toncic rejected Mrazovic's claims that the Serbian government served the Hungarians against the Croats and Serbs from Hungary, but did admit that the government did not attack the Hungarians, for political as well as for economic and military reasons. Almost at the same time as collaboration was established between the government of Serbia and the National Party in the field of the press, as the two sides readily admitted that no success was possible without solidarity, Bishop Strossmayer and Ristic were about to agree on the destiny of Bosnia and Hercegovina. When the Hungarians offered Bosnia and Hercegovina to Serbia, Ristic expressed his readiness to come to an understanding on these regions with the National Party. Learning about this, the Bishop welcomed Ristic's stance on Bosnia and wrote to him that the National Party would "help him in every possible way" and stressed strongly that they would rather "a thousand times renounce their own existence and die than quarrel with you over any portion of the country." Strossmayer added: "We are endeavouring to bring concord and unity among our people, and there is no one or anything in the world that would make us differ over it." Relations between the Croatian National Party and the official representatives of Serbia were not upset even after Strossmayer's imprudent statement to the London Catholic weekly Tablet, in which the Bishop let it be known that he was certain that "the Catholic part of my people, after achieving an all-round education and spiritual culture, is predestined to spread these bases and to bring the sundered part back to Catholic unity." The Serbian newspapers which received subsidies from the Hungarian state, Srbski narod of Novi Sad and Vidovdan of Belgrade, tried very hard to exploit Strossmayer's statement hoping to discredit him completely in the eyes of the Serbian public, precisely at the moment when the National Party together with the Serbs started a determined struggle against Levin Rauch. By morally discrediting the party leader, a blow would be struck at the very foundations of the party, crippling it in its struggle against the Unionists. The Serbs from the ranks of the United Serbian Youth, the Serbian National Freethinkers Party and the official circles of the Principality, aware of the significance and gravity of the political moment and prepared to enter into sincere collaboration with the Croatian National Party, not only did not join in the attacks against Strossmayer for his incautious remarks, but defended him at the moment when he and Croatia needed protection. Others who rallied to the Bishop's side were Ljubomir Kaljevic in Srbija, spokesman for the United Youth, and Mihailo Polit-Desancic in Jovan Subotic's Narod. They gave the Croats enormous moral support, thereby furthering the struggle against Rauch and the Unionist system and helping to bring about their downfall.

In agreement with Regent Ristic, Metropolitan Mihailo, who was in correspondence with Strossmayer, showed much tact and understanding when, in his letter of March 14, 1871, he overlooked his statement because he believed that at that particular moment the most important thing was for the Croats and Serbs, both Orthodox and Catolics, to help the Serbian government in its political aims. Ristic and Strossmayer had no difficulty in agreeing that religious differences should not stand in the way of their joint national and political efforts. Assured by Ristic that "there is no interest" which would "sunder Serbia and Serbs from the Yugoslav community," the Bishop said: "I am always, body and soul, at your service, together with my friends." In March 1871, the Bishop wrote on behalf of the National Party that it was just and reasonable that he and his followers should leave it to Serbia to estimate "when the time is ripe for the undertaking, and which methods are to be used for the purpose." Strossmayer told the Serbian Regent; "When in your opinion the decisive hour has struck, you shall have in me a sincere friend and a true brother, who will wholeheartedly support you and your plans."

The National Party, led by Strossmayer, left it up to Serbia to direct political action in the Eastern Question, aware that Croatia at that moment, under Hungarian rule, would be unable to make any moves to resolve it the way they had planned a few years earlier, within the framework of a federalist monarchy. This is why Strossmayer, early in April 1871, fully equated the political interests of the Serbs and Croats, saying: "Not only shall we not place any encumbrances on the Serbian government in the execution of its task, not only shall we not hinder it from annexing Bosnia and Hercegovina, but we shall beg Serbia to take us in as well, if at all possible." Thus, without a formal treaty, an agreement was struck between Serbia and the National Party which did not resolve all questions in detail, but clearly the two sides had come so close together that they had become fully aware of their many mutual obligations and the national and political objectives they held in common. This alone can explain the fact that Strossmayer envisaged Croatia's secession from Austria-Hungary and its adherence to a state of South Slavs to be built around Serbia and under its leadership.

As the rapprochement between the Serbian government and the Croatian National Party coincided with the Franco-Prussian War, it is reasonable to suppose that it was influenced by this war. This international complication was not taken advantage of by the Serbs and Croats, but it did significantly help improve the erstwhile upset relations between the Serbian government and the National Party.

Having vigilantly watched all Serbia's moves, particularly its relations with the other Southern Slavs, the Austro-Hungarian consul in Belgrade, Béni Kállay, did make good note of this new friendliness between the Croatian National Party and the official representatives of the Principality. Aware that any friendship between the Serbs and Croats might work to the detriment of the interests of Vienna and Budapest, Kállay set about searching for ways and means of sowing dissension and fomenting hatred between the two South Slav nations. Another reason for doing so was the imminent parliamentary elections for the Croatian Sabor, for he wanted to break up the unity of the Croato-Serbian opposition and help the Unionists win as many constituencies as possible. Kállay was familiar with relations among the Southern Slavs and therefore knew that the Serbs from Srem were then under the very strong influence of Serbia. He wrote to Andrássy: "It would not be amiss to tear this Serbian Orthodox populace from that influence and bring them closer to the Croats. This would make the existing hatred between the Serbian and Croatian elements only worse."20

It is hardly accidental that only a month after Kállay's letter, a dispute broke out in the Croatian and Serbian press as to whether Srem and certain parts of the Military Frontier were Serbian or Croatian lands. But even if Kállay did manage to trouble relations between the Serbian and Croatian press over Srem, the Austro-Hungarian consul's activities could not be related to what happened at the First General Croatian Teachers' Assembly, held from August 23 to 25, 1871. Although most of Croatian teachers at that time were politically affiliated with the National Party,22 their Assembly took no notice of the Serbs and their national sentiments and aspirations. In accordance with the earlier policies of the National Party, which were based on the Croatian state and historical rights and ideas about the so-called political people, the Teachers' Assembly also took the view that on Croatian state territory there was only one single, Croatian, "political" people. Thereby the Serbs from Croatia were again expunged as a national entity, which was at a time when they had created a single front with the Croatian National Party, when they together, with the help of the Serbs from Hungary, had brought down Rauch, and when in the May elections of 1871, with the moral support of Serbia, they scored a resounding victory over the Unionists.23 The Statistical Review of the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, which was published as a memento of the First Croatian Teachers' Assembly, like the catalogue of the First Dalmatian-Croatian-Slavonian Exhibition of 1864 made no mention whatever of the Serbs. The Review said that there were 2.5 million Croats in the Triune Kingdom, of whom 500,000 were Orthodox Croats. In the spirit of this policy of non-recognition and assimilation of Serbs in Croatia, the Assembly did not observe the Croatian Sabor's decision of 1867 naming the official language in Croatia "Croatian or Serbian." Instead, the Assembly decided; "All tuition in elementary schools must only be in the language of the Croatian people, and no other language but Croatian may be taught in the schools. In schools for alien inhabitants in Croatia, the Croatian language shall be taught in addition to the vernacular concerned."24

The proceedings and resolutions of the First General Croatian Teachers' Assembly did not pass without comment among the Serbian public. A sharp first reaction came from the most progressive portion of the Serbian burgher society, whose spokesman was the newspaper Pancevac, which a few months earlier had stood up in defence of the Paris Commune and published the Manifesto of the Communist Party. Pancevac criticized the failure to mention the Serbs in the Statistical Review, and also its resolutions on the language and its name, and the fact that Serbian children were obliged to learn the Latin alphabet, while Croatian children were under no obligation to learn Cyrillic.25 The Assembly and its resolutions were defended by Obzor,26 but it was obvious that neither side at that moment wanted to deepen and widen the differences. It is, however, very characteristic that Pancevac, in connection with the debates on Srem, had foreseen what was going to happen at the Teachers' Assembly after Rauch's downfall and after the victory of the National Party. The newspaper had written: "We know that there are many Croats for whom we are 'Serbian brothers' only when they are in trouble; for example, when a Rauch has to be brought down or when a toppled kingdom has to be restored. Once the trouble is over, and once they have recovered power and strength, they will again ask: 'What Serbs? We don't see any Serbs in the Triune Kingdom!'" In this connection, Pancevac reminded its readers, as well as the National Party followers, about what happened in the Croatian Sabor in 1861, and wrote: "We still remember the ridiculous decision of the Zagreb Sabor to elect a committee which was to 'determine what is Serbian and whether such a thing exists in the Triune Kingdom'."27 It was a friendly warning given on time, but the Croatian teachers did not take heed. They stuck to the old tenets of the National Party policies. They wanted accord and unity with the Serbs outside Croatia, but in their own house they did not recognize the Serbs, regarding and treating them as Orthodox Croats.28

The Teachers' Assembly's attitude toward the Serbs could easily have upset the friendly relations between the Croatian National Party and the Serbs as a whole. However, as in the case of the earlier mentioned statement made by Strossmayer, this did not happen. Guided by higher aims, above all by the struggle for a wider autonomy of Croatia, which would be ruled by the National Party, the Serbs and Croats did not want to break their political unity, although it was clear that the old differences had not been overcome with the new cooperation. Although it could not be happy about the work and conclusions of the Teachers' Assembly, the Serbian government, as a token of friendship, made a gift of all the books exhibited at the Assembly's exhibition.29 As the official mouthpiece of the National Party, Obzor defended the Croatian teachers and their decisions against Pancevac's criticisms. In order to reassure the Serbs, it wrote that "no one in his right mind could use any individual acts, either taken by any gatherings or by the Sabor, to pass judgement on an entire nation, certainly not from this Assembly, which did not have a political significance but was purely academic, and if it showed that it has failings, so much the better that it has met, for it has revealed the shortcomings of the teaching profession."30 This sober political view of the new controversy did not absolve the main issue. On the contrary, on the first suitable occasion, it would again come to surface as one of the main stumbling blocks between the Croats and Serbs, but during the struggle against the Unionists and their Nagodba it was temporarily shelved and camouflaged with rational political motives.

Biblioteka | Consul Kallay's Plan to Break up Serb-Croat Unity

Copyright © 1997 by Vasilije Krestic
Copyright © 1997 by BIGZ , Beograd
Copyright © 1998 by Serbian Unity Congress