How the Serbs felt within the Croatian community which did not recognise them, which oppressed them and endeavoured to suppress all their national singularities, may be illustrated by the words of young Nikola Sumonja, the future director of the Serbian Teachers Training College at Pakrac, who wrote from Zagreb on February 10, 1883, to Misa Dimitrijevic: "You will not believe how I long for a Serbian word, for Serbian books and journals, in which I might find that which I feel I am, which might give me strength for work in my future life, which would teach me how to conduct myself and what to do in life for the people to whom I want to devote all my forces. I am to be trained to become a Serbian teacher in a community which is extremely hostile to the Serbs! Everything here is hostile; whatever is being thought, it is being thought against us; whatever is being written, it is written against us; whatever is being said, it is said against us, the Serbs. I would gladly get away from it all but it is not possible, because it is only here that I can earn my livelihood. I am Serb who wants to devote himself body and soul to his people as a teacher, and I have to listen to Croatian reproaches! If it had not been for an occasional Serbian book which comes to my hands, from which I see that the Serbs are still there, that they can still hope for a better future, if it had not been for that, I would succumb before the assaults against our name and nationality." The Serbs very early realised the true sense of the Croatian policy insofar as croatization and the creation of a big Croatian state were concerned. This is convincingly witnessed by the letter from a Great Zupan of the Zupanija of Srem, Svetozar Kusevic, addressed on February 11, 1863, to the Great Zupan of the Zupanija of Zagreb, Ivan Kukuljevic Sakcinski. With reference to the dispute about where Srem belongs and the refusal of the zupanija of Zagreb to support the decisions by the National Serbian Congress of 1861, under which Srem was to be a part of Vojvodina, Kusevic wrote to Kukuljevic: "Your explanations have generated a great mistrust of Zagreb and extreme bitterness against the Croats; the opinion is now rife that our Croat brothers are the worst enemies of the Serbs, that they hate them because of their nationality and their religion, that they wish them the same as the Hungarians, to strangle their national consciousness and on this basis to spread their own glory and might". Having warned Kukuljevic that the Serbs, "as a people equal with the Croats, cannot sit and look while the Croats deny them their political existence", told him: "Accept these words as a token of friendship and hope that our mutual love may grow stronger instead of being destroyed. I beseech you to endeavour to prevent hatred from taking over, for this is where our downfall will come. See what concessions you can make over there for you are in a better position, nor would any concession do you much harm. Try to put out the fire which is being inflamed from Zagreb, to allay the fears over here that the Croats will destroy the Serbs and spread Catholicism, otherwise believe me, there will be great bitterness with unforeseeable consequences, and history will curse him who was able to but did not prevent the evil." (Underlined by V.K.) This and many other friendly warnings from the Serbs remained the cries in the desert, because he who was able to, impelled by selfish national and narrow religious interests, not only failed to forestall the evil, but from year to year inflamed and spread it.

Because of the heavy and unbearable pressure against the Serbs, because of the open bias against them, because of national denial and threats to their existence, many prominent people in the mid-1870s were ready to leave Croatia. Thus, for example, the well-known pedagogue, Dr. Vojislav Bakic, early in 1875 decided to go to Belgrade. He requested Milan Dj. Milicevic to help him find a job in Serbia. Milan Dj. Milicevic noted in his diary for January 8, 1875: "I am very happy about it because our national education will acquire a hard-working, competent, educated and highly spirited worker - this at least can be hoped for by what he had shown in his youth. I am again unhappy that our Croat brothers are being so biased in their policies, that they do not tolerate him there just because he is a Serb. Bad luck goes to the unlucky. Discord goes to the Serbs and Croats."

For the same reasons that made Bakic decide to leave Croatia, Dr. Danilo Medakovic, well-known historian and journalist, thought of following suit. In his letter to a friend, written on February 28, 1878, Medakovic wrote: "Madness which has completely taken over here, is affecting me so much that I am myself thinking of going away from here."

While individuals thought of leaving Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, and some of them actually did, the majority of the nationally conscious Serbs decided to oppose the Croatian assaults, to offer resistance to the brutal croatization and stand up in defence of the Serbian name and Serbian national distinctness. We find convincing proof of such a decision in a letter by a group of Serbs from Knin, addressed on August 2, 1879, to Dr. Lovro Monti, a sincere fighter for the accord and unity among the Serbs and Croats, whose honourable intentions were never in doubt. The group from Knin wrote: "Immediately after the beginning of the popular struggle, the Dalmatian Serbs, including us, joined the popular flag in the hope that under it we would win what the enemy has taken from us by force, making no distinction between Serbs and Croats; that which is dearest to every nation and which belongs to them according to God's and human laws, i.e. acknowledgement of the Serbian language, nationality and name, alongside the Croat language, nationality and name. For the victory of this idea we Dalmatian Serbs are prepared to make all possible sacrifices in the hope that we will enjoy their fruits. Unfortunately, we have to say, and hope that we were wrong, because those same brothers of ours, among whom you are one, with whom we together vanquished our enemies or at least liberated ourselves, foolishly thinking that they would not need us any more, started denying us in Dalmatia and over the Velebit Mountain the Serbian nationality, the Serbian name and the Serbian language, and to call us in the so-called popular newspapers 'Orthodox brothers' instead of Serbian brothers, thereby giving offence to our Serbian nationality, language and name, making us wonder, if it is so today, how will it be tomorrow, when the union between Dalmatia and Croatia has been put into effect.

"Such a treatment by our brothers puts us in a position of having to start in earnest thinking what we are to do and what is being done around us, and stand up in defence of our holy rights with all the available means permitted by the existing state laws, and endeavour to have the danger removed without having to be involved in it ourselves.

"You, whom we fully trust as we shall confirm by our today's vote, we recommend that you should use your influence to have the National Party cleaned up removing from it everything that stands in the way of brotherly accord between the Serbs and the Croats, so we can get back to the original footing where a Serb was free to be a Serb, just as a Croat was free to be a Croat, where in public media the Serbian name and language should be mentioned alongside the Croat name and language, so that in the future neither of them have reason to suspect the other, but instead that they should help one another and extend the hand of brotherly accord, without which there would be no happiness in the future for neither of them.

Forced to defend themselves from Croatian attempts at assimilation, the Serbs from Dalmatia decided to start a separate newspaper, to leave the National and set up their own party. In the first issue of the newly launched Srpski glas (Serbian Voice), which appeared in Zadar on January 14, 1880, the following comment was made: "When political life started awakening after freedom was guaranteed by the constitution, all the Serbs unanimously jumped to the defence of popular rights; they would gladly consent to all sacrifices in order to put a stop to foreign arbitrariness and increase the people's self-respect. Having joined their Croatian brothers into a single effort, they established a Serb-Croatian community to the grief of our common enemies and joy of our Slav brothers. Then Serbian patriotism was praised to the skies and there was room for the Serbian nationality in Dalmatia.

"With their consistent struggle, our people have won respect and the time has come for them, if not fully at least partly, to enjoy the fruit of their endeavours. But it was then that Serbs began to be denied, with the claim that there are no Serbs in Dalmatia or that they can only be tolerated as guests.

"Quietly and cautiously, but following a plan forged long ago, the Serbian nationality began to be undermined.

"Realising that such acts spell doom, for them in the first place but also for our homeland, and valuing above all accord and mutual assistance, the Serbs tried to avoid provocations. To stop the discord from cancelling out all the successes and in order to consummate the people's enterprise, they limited themselves to refuting assaults by public protests, and by trying to convince popular leaders in private contacts to put an end to the discord. We endured it in the firm hope that the world would forestall the sinister plans, that accord between brothers would come back again, and expected the realisation of the rumours - false unfortunately - about a new liberal and independent organ designed to cultivate Serbo-Croat cooperation, which was the wish of many of our patriots, particularly of our proud youth. If our wishes have not come true, it is not our fault and we are comforted with the thought that we have done everything that our patriotic heart told us to do. We have not been successful in having the Serbian nationality recognised and in raising the banner of the Serbo-Croatian community; at least we have got to know each other better and our notions have become fairly clarified.

"Being in a highly uncomfortable position, the Serbs have been forced since not so long ago to start acting independently. It was on this occasion that we were told that there are Serbs in Dalmatia, but not from a state and national view, that there are Serbs racially or religiously speaking, but not in a political sense. These intolerable, one could say Turkish theories of the state - under which we alone can call ourselves as we please - should be presented to the world as a shame of the 19th century and the denial of the basic laws of our empire. When we realised how these theories are being proclaimed and supported, how they are served up to the uneducated folk through books and newspapers, we see that there are dangers for our people which it is for us to remove.

"In the face of the obvious attacks, there would be no justification for appeasement. We would be doing immeasurable harm to our nationality if we were to look on doing nothing when the Serbian name is being denied in the Croatian littoral. It is, therefore, our duty to stand up in defence of this proud name of our nationality, in which we can best succeed with our newspaper which is being launched now. The first and the principal task of our paper is to refute attacks and to defend Serbs in general, and especially in the littoral, to awaken and to cultivate Serbian national consciousness, and to win for our nationality in Dalmatia political respect - all that within legal boundaries. The basic laws of our empire give each nationality in the state equal rights, they grant each nationality an undeniable right to educate its own nationality. May we also be allowed to defend the rights of our nationality from the legal standpoint and to take care of its development."

All the political programmes of the Serbs in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, which were passed after 1880, included in their provisions the task of safeguarding the Serbian name and Serbian national and political individuality. In the programme of the Serbian Independent Party of 1882, it was pointed out that the deputies of that party would "endeavour by legal means to have the Serbian name acknowledged as being on an equal footing with the Croatian". The programme of the Serbian Independent Club of 1883, stated that the Serbs would see to it "that our people are legally acknowledged their Serbian name, that their national-church autonomy should be preserved untouched", and to recognise "equality between the Cyrillic and Latin script". In June 1887, the voters of the Serbian Independent Party decided to demand "recognition of Serbian nationality in the Triune Kingdom according to the principle of equality, that in every internal law or any other important official act, where the people of the Triune Kingdom or their language are being referred to, these people should be called Croatian or Serbian, and their language Croatian or Serbian". The political programme of the Serbian Radical Party, adopted at Okucani in September 1903, sought complete equality between the Serbian and Croatian people. This party decided to "seek to remove by legal means all the obstacles standing in the way of equality, and to recognise the right of the Serbian people to the autonomy of their Serbian Orthodox Church, school and funds". Furthermore, radicals demanded "that in each state law and in every other official act, use should be made of the names 'Croatian and Serbian people', 'Croatian and Serbian language'". They also demanded "the legalisation of a full equality between the Cyrillic and Latin scripts".