This chapter is a resume of the most important Croatian intellectuals who investigated Croatian geopolitical, political, cultural, religious and psychological criteria with the object of securing the survival of the Croatian people and a re-establishment of a sovereign Croatian state patterned on the former 10^th century Independent Croatian Kingdom of King Tomislav (910-928).

 

Reverend Juraj Rattkay

 

The Reverend Juraj Rattkay (Veliki Tabor, 1612 or 1613 – Sveti Ivan, 1666) is a good starting point for this review.  Rattkay’s aim was to liberate Croatia from Turkish invasion. Great parts of Croatia had been occupied and a part of the Croatian population in Slavonia and Bosnia had left the Christian religion to become Islamic (later in Slavonia part of the population escaped from Christians to Bosnia).  The majority of the Bosnian population remains rooted in Islam to this day.  Rattkay’s book “The Remembrance on Kings and Bans / Viceroys in Kingdom of Dalmatia, Croatia and Slavonia” was published by The Croatian Institute for Historic Research, Zagreb, in 2001. According to its director, Mirko Valentić, Ph.D (born in 1931), this book belongs to the very beginnings of Croatian scientific historiography that, at the end of 16^th century, left aside the area of legends and stories to look for authentic historic documents.

In this way Reverend Juraj Rattkay in 1652 and Ivan Lucius in 1666 are the forefathers of Croatian scientific historiography. Rattkay, through his work, wanted to represent his nation to the Austrian court and political circles in the best possible way. He used a Baroque term “Illyrians”, to define the Croatian nation but the context explains that the term is not related to pan Slavism, old Illyrians nor to any collaboration with the enslaved Serbs. “The Remembrance on Kings and Bans / Viceroys ……” was supported and ordered by Ban Drašković who fought a political battle against the centralistic tendencies of the Habsburgs, who had hindered a victorious end to fighting with the Turks, because Croatia  - in their opinion - should not be too strong.  The Habsburgs supported colonization of Croatia by escaped tribes of orthodox Valahs who later, through the propaganda of the Serbian Orthodox Church, become the ethnic Serbs. “For that reason (Ban\Viceroy Drašković) ordered Rattkay to fulfill a task: he should give scientific proof of the existence of the Independent State on the related ‘Illyrian’ areas” (p. 16), which were usurped and later occupied by the future Serbs. According to Dr. Bene (a historian from Hungary, p. 15) “The essential motive and conception of the work was centered on the need to accent the national existence and state tradition of the Croatian people in the context of a “Christian fort” defending itself against the Turks…” The book reveals Reverend Rattkay as the first among Croatian scientists and politicians to re-assert and orientate Croatian political thinking in the direction of a definitive Croatian statehood.  Dr.Ante Starčević a 19^th century ideologist, who promoted the ideology of the Croatian State Right, appears to be his more perfect philosophic copy, having at his disposal more historic documents than Reverend Rattkay whose documentary sources were limited to old antique records (for example, Konstantin Porfirogenet) and Roman Catholic Church archives in Rome (for example, the decision about the old borders of Croatia (“Illyric”), was founded on the document by Sancta Rota, Rome 24^th April 1656) [1]

 

Ban Josip Jelačić

           

            The best friend of Ban/Viceroy Josip Jelačić (1801 – 1859) in the last period of his life decided to leave a written monument dedicated to his commander and idol. He was vicemarshal Joseph Neustädter (1796 – 1866), President of a commission for Jelačić's monument, erected on the main square in Zagreb on 16, December 1866, a day after vicemarshal died. Some 80 years later his two books of memoirs were translated and published in the French language, but for political reasons, it only reached Croatian readers as late as 1994 and in 1998 (the second book).  The importance of Neustädter’s memoirs lie in the fact that he discovered a very important unspoken truth.  He quotes, for the first time ever, sources and persons who reveal that the main enemies of the Habsburg Monarchy were not in fact revolutionary Hungarians or Italians, but the Freemasonic British who had organized the revolutions against the Catholic (and later orthodox) monarchies. Joseph Neustädter quoted the English minister Canning who said, in 1828, in the British Parliament: “I will throw the revolutionary torches on the continent, and raise all nations to cry ‘Long live freedom’, and break all old monarchies”. [2] Actually, Jelačić was the first person who suppressed the British Liberal Freemasonic subversion, which spread across Europe and later all over the world (as a Communist subversion). [3] For Croats the book is a very important source, because it is one of the first proofs that Freemasonic Britain supported the Hungarian revolution and worked against Croatia. The subsequent history of Croatia showed that such a circumstance was not an isolated case: from that time on Britain always supported the Croatian enemies. [4]

 

 

Pater patriae - Ante Starčević

 

            Ante Starčević, Ph.D. Croatian ideologist, was born on 23^rd of May 1823, Žitnik, Croatia and died on 28^th of February 1896 in Zagreb. Dubravko Jelčić, Croatian Academy of Science, published a book on the Croatian ideologists «Politika i sudbine»/ “Politics and Destinies” (Školska knjiga, Zagreb 1995).  Out of 247 pages, Starčević receives special attention on 63 pages. No wonder: he was the most important of those mentioned. Together with this book, which explains living circumstances of the Father of Croatia in the then province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is a very significant book of the most important speeches called by his name “Ante Starčević” which is published by the Croatian University Foundation, Zagreb 1995. The speeches of fundamental importance are those held in the Croatian parliament in 1861, 1866 and 1881, and at the end of the book his Croatian Party of Right added Starčević's speeches from 1 June 1879 on the freedom of speech and press and a speech addressed to the Croatian Academic Youth in 1867. In his speech on 26^th of June 1861, Starčević stressed that Croats should not accept any order from Austria, which dares to regulate how Croatia should deal with Hungary, because in 1527 Croatian aristocracy choose the house of Habsburg as an independent state body without any consultation with Hungary.  For that reason Croatia must handle its political problems as an equal partner, said Starčević.  On 15^th of September 1887 he presented a democratic example from the Aragon court and explained how Croats should deal with the Habsburg Monarchy and Hungarian state: “Gentleman, all of us know the oath laid by the Aragon court to their rulers: ‘We, each one of whom is worth as much as you, and whom all together are worth more than you, swear loyalty if you will respect our freedoms and privileges and if you will not - we will not.”

            Starčević fought for Croatian freedom and used historical documents and sources to prove that Croats joined the Austrian Empire as an Independent State, and that Croatia should be treated as an equal partner and not just a subordinate province, because such a relationship was a result of juristic and political manipulation.  In short: Starčević fought for Croatian independence, dignity and freedom. He believed in justice and right.  For that reason he defined the ideology (in the period 1850 - 1861) and founded the Croatian Party of Right which influenced the foundation of the Independent State of Croatia in 1941 and of the Republic of Croatia in 1990 (Internationally recognized in 1992).

 

Father Mihovil Pavlinović

 

            A reprint of the book “Croatian conversations” belongs to the products of renewal of Croatian national consciousness for the period after 1990. It is a book of great importance. In a foreword written by the late Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, Ph.D., dated 12^th March 1994, he stressed that in “Croatian conversations” the Croatian ideologist Pavlinović cleaned out all dilemmas on relations between Slavism, Yugoslavism and Serbo-Croatism. Pavlinović is from Croatian Dalmatia.  Pavlinović was the most important fighter for unification of Croatian Dalmatia and Slavonia with other Croatian provinces in a united independent state of Croatia. A Croatia united with Bosnia was his dream too, but as a minimum he demanded an area, which is Croatia as it is today. In this book we get an overview of Pavlinović's work.  He repulsed Dalmatian autonomists, who were in fact the elements of a pro- Italian minority who wished to surrender Dalmatia to Italy. “Pavlinović was the first among the leaders of the party who understood the depth and scope of changes in the autonomist and Serbian politics and who came back to the original Croatian idea …” [5] He saw the real dimension of great Serbian politics and warned disbelieving Croats about the consequences of such. Pavlinović, in his book, stressed: “we should remember that whilst language is allegedly a characteristic, it is not the real substance of a nation's spirit.  The real substance is the consciousness that the people of that nation have, a consciousness that they all belong to a significant group of people (…). Such consciousness realizes a unity of educational, or religious aspiration…”

            In his way of thinking Pavlinović was very close to the spirit of the Party of Right by A. Starčević and Eugen Kvaternik (with whom Pavlinović exchanged political letters), that is evident in the first sentence of Pavlinović's formulation of Program: «We want an independent Croatia which stays as an independent communion to any other state communion, which ever you want.»

 

Franjo Kuhač – an ideologist of Croatian music

 

            Ethnomusicologist Franjo Ksaver Kuhač (1834 – 1911) is a founder of Croatian musicology and ethnomusicology.  Kuhač did not define Croatian enemies but he was helping to define the Croatian cultural identity, which is the strongest defence of a suppressed people. His most important work is a collection of Croatian and Slavic songs published in the period 1878 - 1881 with the title “South-Slavic folk songs” and his “Correspondence” from period 1834 - 1911 published for the first time in 1989 and 1992 (the second part). Kuhač was of German origin (his original family name is Koch) but his ardent desire, for some unknown reason, was to be Croat and he always tried to prove that his parents and grandparents were Germanized Croats, which was not true. His love for Croatian and Slavic culture (where South Yugoslav ideology wanted to situate the Croats and he was under such an influence) inspired him to collect Croatian and other musical melodies and thus his ethno-musicological work defined the Croatian musical individuality.

His correspondence left us with an impression of the cultural influences and attitudes of the artists and intellectuals in a very important period of the Croatian cultural development.  Connecting music and ideology, Kuhač becomes a representative of an ideology in music. If we can refer to the Croats as Slavs at all then Kuhač in his collection of songs, actually collected melodies from a bright area of the western (Croats) and southern Slavs (Macedonians, Serbs).

 

Josip Bach –

A famous director of the Croatian National Theatre

 

            An actor and director of the drama of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, Josip Bach (1874 - 1935) was an outstanding person of the Croatian theatre life, but the communist faction of quasi intellectuals in the period after 1945 eradicated his name from Croatian cultural history. Actually, Bach was eradicated because he was a Croatian cultural and therefore national hero. Different encyclopedic editions after 1945 portray absurd definitions of the person and work of Josip Bach and prior to this we find nothing.  A large amount of articles from Bach’s time gives us evidence that he was a much appreciated person and that members of the theatre prepared and celebrated Bach’s jubilees. In the journal for concert and theatre life “Teater” on 15^th of November 1928, on the first page, there is a title “The thirtieth jubilee by Josip Bach”. The chef executive manager of the National Theatre Vladimir Treščec Branjski addressed a solemn speech to pay homage to the important director of the Theater – Mr. Josip Bach. Branjski said that Bach “began his work at the moment when the Croatian theatre under the conduct of an enlightened name of man who had regenerated it, Stjepan Miletić, started to build itself up to the level of highest pantheon of art and education. … “Thirty years of your work means thirty years of the history of theatre, that in almost eighty years of its own annals cannot remember any other person who would dedicate itself with such complete self-suppression and self-sacrifice. …” Similarly, in the journal “The Word” No. 244, on 21^st October 1928 we read that the main reason for his political eradication from Croatian cultural history was the fact that Bach, through theatre, worked on Croatian cultural and national self consciousness knowing that Croatian people could survive the Serbian Balkanic oppression only as a cultural nation, and, because the communist writer Miroslav Krleža could not accept that his works were not massively performed. It was Bach who first gave him a chance and performed some of Krleža's works, but the poltroons among the leftist theatre theorists took their chance to prove their loyalty to communism and interpreted with their leftist understandings of Krleža's literary works.

            In the history of the Croatian National Theater Bach was a progressive person who performed the most important European theatre works frequently on the some day as Vienna and Berlin. Theater director Bach kept Croatia in step with developments in Mitteleuropa\Central Europe. Because Croatia should be ‘Balkans’ and/or a Serbo-communist colonized country, Bach was eradicated from the memory of Croatia. His idea of European Croatia through theater and culture makes him an ideologist and a father of Croatia.

 

Medallions of Croatian Visionary:

Šufflay - Lukas - Cardinal Stepinac

Milan von Šufflay – A Messianic Messenger

 

            Following the death of Ante Starčević and his colleague Eugen Kvaternik who died in the Rakovica uprising in 1871, Right-party ideologists were Josip Frank (baptized and Croatized Jew from Vienna); his associate Izidor Kršnjavi (1845 – 1927) who founded the model of modern gymnasium\high school that had spread all over Europe, and in the last period before 1941, Milan von Šufflay (1879 - 1931) and Reverend Filip Lukas (1871 - 1958).

During the time when the aristocrat, von Šufflay was developing his scientific and political activity, Josip Frank (1844 – 1911) was trying to save Croatia from unification with the Balkans i.e. Serbia, and he tried everything possible to keep Croatia within the Austrian Empire, as a lesser evil.  But Freemasonic influence (working in favour of British interests) in the Croatian parliament was so strong that without any juristically right and justified referendum or approbation, Croatia entered into Serbian Yugoslavia. Šufflay, who was a party associate of Kršnjavi and Frank followed the Starčević’s slogan addressed to the Croatian parliament on 26^th June 1861 consequently: “In all of the troubles which the Croatian people have unjustly suffered, they have maintained one inestimable good: they believe in God and in their own right hand. Croatian people believe, without anybody telling them, that Providence predestined a positive future to a people who survived three hundred years of Austrian enslavement: Croatian people believe that their mission will not determine Austria, but God and Croats”! [6]

            Šufflay, Ph. D., was a historian, professor and journalist who published some 3000 journalistic and scientific articles in seven languages, and he spoke twelve languages. The Austrian Academy of Science in 1904 published Šufflay’s work “Croatian-Dalmatian middle ages paper” – The History of Croatian notary from 11^th to 15^th century, [7] which proves that Croatia had a firm juristic tradition in times when the majority of European states did not even exist: Croatia was Europe, and today the British Europe wants to have Croatia in the Balkans!  Šufflay was among the most important and famous historians and Albanologist of his time. He was interested in the oldest peoples of Europe and among them were Albanians and Croats. Šufflay followed the teaching that Croats are of Iranian origin and in the world science the latest scientific development in the genetic field approves of the thesis. [8] The origin of Croats is very important because pan Serbian political theorists spread the theory  (which still exists in faked knowledge by European intellectuals) that Croats and Serbs are two tribes by one folk: the history of Croatia proves that this is untrue. A teaching of Šufflay was that Croatians are different not just culturally but also by their origin. For Šufflay the history was a “vis a tergo” (which in Latin means: old élan of people, old historic instinct of survival and consciousness). If one wants to know the real motivating factor of a national consciousness it is necessary to know the peoples history. Šufflay was a typical Croatian anti-imperialist: against “the crown of St. Stephen of Hungary, against the Serbian crown diadem, and against Roman imperialism.  The idea of the Croatian King Tomislav State must not be dead.  Stjepan Radić [9] should combine this idea with that of a Republic, if he does not want Croatian people to be annihilated, together with his ‘most beautiful homeland on the planet’. On the edge of Balkan, on the border of West and East, of Catholicism and Orthodoxy, of European culture and barbarism, the Croatian name, Croatian blood does not just mean a Nation! Croatian blood means Civilization! Croathood is a synonym for everything true and good that has created the European West! ”. [10] Croatia stayed against foreign intrusions, and Šufflay saw that the Croatian state, national ideology, culture and its Catholicism were a synthetic ideal for the whole world!  In this way Šufflay – a Croatian nationalist - is a Christian idealist who declares the messianic mission of Croatia for the world! To defend and help the development of civilization: that is a mission of Croatia, explains Šufflay.

            Šufflay explained that Serbian Imperia of Czar Dushan (later Yugoslavia) is “something worst than dead” and in the state of Yugoslavia he saw a real “balkanization of Croatian people … where Croats would lose any sense for western civilization and any sense of – humanity …” [11]

            Von Šufflay recognized and predicted a great success of Anglo-American alliance and at the beginning of his analyses he believed that they should be saviors of the western civilization, but further analyses showed precisely that it was the British with the help of Americans who created Yugoslavia and this way Šufflay’s enthusiasm for the British and Americans disappeared. In the journal of his party “Croatian right”\ (“Hrvatsko pravo”) on 20^th of September 1928 Šufflay says that Yugoslavia was created by the British and on 29^th of June 1929 he published an article “Over the abyss of two worlds”\ (“Nad ponorom svjetova”) and stressed the fact that 150.000 (one hundred and fifty thousands) Croatian citizens subscribed a petition against attaching of Croatia to Serbia i.e. against creation of Yugoslavia; the Croatian people protested against the conclusions of an unauthorized National Concilium, and voted for the Croatian independent state that was proclaimed in 1918, after the break of Austro-Hungary, (and had lived for a month, EC) because the  people before the political mis-happening elected their own representatives who represented an imperative in favour of creation of the independent state. Šufflay said; “The Kingdom of Slovenians, Croats and Serbs is created from outside of the country. To create the state, a lot of experts collaborated. The most important and the most successful pleadings for the state came from two English experts: Wickham Steed and Seaton Watson. …” In the history of Croatia, Šufflay was the first who directed his finger towards English and American guilt. In the last period of two years he published a few important articles on British intentions in Croatia and the world. In 1931 an agent of the Zagreb police, who was also chief of great-Serbian association «Young Yugoslavia», Branko Zwerger, killed him. A detailed criminal-historic analysis in the literary journal «Marulić» 2002\01, Zagreb, performed by historian Željko Vegh, proves that Šufflay was murdered by British order. Šufflay was a teacher, an inspiration of the generation who died defending Croatia in period 1941 – 1950.  He is a road sign of the generation who intends to defend Croatia’s sovereignty now and in future times.

 

Reverend Filip Lukas

 

            Reverend Filip Lukas (1871 – 1958) a great ideologist of Starčević's calibre was never a member of any party, but followed and scientifically developed the Croatian ideal that was incarnated in the philosophy, history and ideology of Starčević's Party of Croatian State Right. He died under the sign of pater patriae, very close to Starčević day (Lukas died on 26th, and Starčević on 28th of February). In 1997 Lukas admirers published a book of his collected papers entitled “Croatian National Self-Essence”. [12] Lukas was ordained a priest in 1895, but freed from saying mass to make it possible for him to be a teacher of economic geography at High Technical School and later professor at High Commercial School in Zagreb (a branch of the future University). From 1928 till 1945 Lukas was elected rector and president of the cultural and literary association “Matica Hrvatska”/ “Matrix Croatia” in Zagreb. Before his election to the presidency of the institution, by helping to a famous Croatian historian Vjekoslav Klaić he excluded and defeated Freemasonic and Yugoslav representatives Fran Tučan  (1920) and as an elected president Lukas defeated and removed from the position Albert Bazala (1927) who worked in favour of Yugoslav idea.

Filip Lukas successfully negated the Yugoslav ideology and he proved that Croats and Serbs have a very different cultural background. Lukas explained that the developing line of progressive western cultural provenance moves in the direction feudalism-humanism-renaissance and it finishes with nationalism, individualizing the national communities: but a nationalism by Lukas is not a nationalism of an imperial robbery which is typical for big nations but Christian nationalism that likes its own and respects foreign values. A question of nationalism for Lukas is a question of national wholeness. “If one generically researches the question of Croatian cultural and political wholeness, it is evident that the just idea of wholeness originally and spontaneously sprang and was created in Dalmatia, when the Country was the center of the Croatian state: one could see it in the title of King Petar Kreshimir (1058-1074): “King of Croatia and Dalmatia”. Later Dalmatian Croat aristocracy Shubich, Drashkovich, Berislavich, transferred that and other ideas to continental Croatia, and together with this are transferred the ideas about Croatian Statehood. That idea always lived in Dalmatia and also during the period when Croatia was torn apart. (…) And after that Vice-kingdom \ Banovina Croatia did not impose that idea on Dalmatian Croats in the name of some imperialism, but on the contrary Dalmatian Croats, then as now are looking for the unification in the name of national principle and in the name of the Croatian state right. Dalmatia as a cradle of Croathood (…) will never accept tendencies of departing under the aspect of Mediterranean culture (…).” [13] The idea also meant that violent Serbs will never successfully cross the powerful identity of the Croatian cultural community and a common history of national traits that are not forgotten. A hundred years of Croatian historiography and literacy was infected with pan-Slavism, Yugoslavism, Slavic solidarity and with Illyric South-Slavism of politician Ljudevit Gaj (1809-1872, caught in flagrant lawbreaking by Viceroy Jelačić when he blackmailed and took money from Serbian prince Obrenović). Now Lukas opposes the political illusions with scientific facts and truth. The Serbs, who are of a Byzantine cultural origin, Lukas scientifically resists in the way of thinking that is typical for Croatian western tradition and civilization. 

To all followers of Ante Starčević the Croatian town-state Republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) was the ideal of a future Croatian state. After Croatia had chosen the Habsburg house for its protector in 1527, becoming a part of the Austrian state with own parliament, due to the Ottomans pressing in the south of Croatia Dubrovnik\ Ragusa were left isolated and developed a magnificent state, navy and a world net of powerful diplomacy (the Republic of Ragusa was the first state to recognize the USA). Speaking of the power and greatness of Dubrovnik Lukas said that “a thousand and two hundreds years of life of a little political organism, whose greatest dimensions in that period did not have more that 2.500 quadrate kilometers and 60.000 of inhabitants” stresses a question about the inner and outer forces which formed the power of its inhabitants and in a duration “which did not lag behind the Roman State (…) Among the most important arts of Ragusians was the diplomatic art, which did not lag behind even those of the Venetians, because both of them had their origins in a Byzantine school”. [14] Lukas points to the philosophic grounds that formed the Croatian Statehood.  “On that soil, before classical Greece was conquered by the Romans, at our seaside, Roman realism was connected with Greek idealism and with the term of nice and of cool energy (kalokagatia, in Greek, EC) – reflected in the nature of the inhabitants (…).  If we put the question: what were the ethnic characteristics (…) of old Ragusians - were they Croats or Serbs? (…), we can give the right answer from researching the moments which were decisively formative of ethnic nationality. Every nation has its subjective and objective characteristics, which make any one nation a separate social creature from any other (…). The religious, cultural and ethnic differences between Serbia and Dubrovnik are so evident that Czar Stefan Dushan (in 1349), Serbian ruler a few decades before Serbian state collapsed (was defeated and occupied in 1389 by the Turks: EC) called Ragusians ‘Latin’ and Dubrovnik\ Ragusa was called a Latin town. And the original spiritual forces of cultural-ethnic characteristics were evident in a town that divided Serbs from Ragusians.  This cultural force is also evident in the fact that Ragusians did not permit Serbs to stay and sleep inside the city walls. At twilight a bell at the door of  Pila rang - it is still there- to warn orthodox people to move out of the town.  Even Czar Dushan the Mighty, who approved privileges to Ragusians in his state, was not allowed to stay overnight in Ragusa. …” [15] It is a paradox, but Jews and Muslims could stay in the town.  Serbs only were not allowed to stay! In addition, in recent history Serbs who aspired to Ragusa called it a “Serbian Athens”, but in 1991 they did not hesitate to bombard and destroy the town almost completely!

In short: Filip Lukas built the ideology of the Croatian State Right on the grounds of firm scientific insight. In this way Lukas was a real disciple of Ante Starčević, who confirms the ideology of Croatian State Right as an ideology that is not grounded on some imperial interest but on historic facts related to natural developments and principles of justice. For British and imperial nations a State Right frequently has its origin on demands of a royalist legacy or on demands of political aims and military forces: “they must get something”. The Croatian ideology of State Right in the period from Ante Starčević to Filip Lukas, holds that State Right has its origin in historic processes and the natural legacy of a national tradition confirmed by the lives of the people and has got their juristic form of State Right.

 

 

Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac – a Croatian martyr of Catholicism

 

            The Belief of Cardinal Stepinac was an ethical principle, which in collision with crime becomes a political starting point for realization of just political relations. Stepinac knew Filip Lukas personally and his ideology of Croatian national resistance: Stepinac supported it. In his last letter to “Hrvatska revija”\ “Croatian Review”, (from Rome, 17^th February, 1958), Lukas described the last meeting with Stepinac saying: “He expressed to me his best wishes saying that I will be back to Homeland in two or three months, but it is the thirteenth year that I live in exile…” Stepinac was a man who fought against Freemasonry, German National Socialism and Communism, and he predicted the future historic development to be destructive:

"The world is bound for its destruction, indeed, unless God saves it with his mighty hand by miraculous means. If Germany happens to win the war, there will be terrible terror and ruin for small nations. If England wins the war, the Freemasons, the Jews, that is to say immorality and corruption will stay in power in our countries. If the USSR wins the war, then Satan and hell will have gained power over the world. Therefore, where shall we raise our eyes but to Thee, oh Lord?" That is written in his Diary on 5th November 1940 (The weekly "Danas": Zagreb, on 7th August, 1990). And it was as Stepinac said.

 

Political mentality of Serbs

and Croatian understanding of justice

 

            In 1990, a reprint edition of the book “South-Slavic Issue” by Ivo Pilar (1874-1933), alias L. von Südland, was published.  This was a political-historical analysis on the region nowadays known as ex-Yugoslavia. Appearing in 1918, at the end of WW I, this book immediately provoked such concern amongst the Serbs that the complete edition was bought up and destroyed, but some books survived. The second edition in German was published in a shortened version, and the third edition was published in the Independent State of Croatia in 1943. In the period after 1945, possession of the book was a good enough reason for communists to kill people. The author analyses the mentality of Serbs from all angles, taking geographical, political and other circumstances into consideration, and brings out important conclusions. Because the Serbs in their region did not encounter the rest of Roman cultural elements during the period from 7^th to 10^th century, Serbian mentality was built up without any state organization although the Catholic Duklya (later Montenegro), where the Serbs escaped in front of Bulgarian Czar Simeon, did however inculcate the Roman state organization.  From the period 900 to 1204 a ‘wild crowd and authoritative leader’ mentality evolved: “the state” existed as long as strong individuals put the fear of God into the crowd.  After their death everything disintegrated. The protracted period of such relations formed a mentality that subjugates to force and not to law.  There is no law. “The law” is force, as the book proves! In contrast, ethics determined by the Roman State Right formed Croats to respect legitimate agreement enforceable by law.  However, in the Serbian mind, ethics and brute force are an unrestricted unity. So began Serbian history and the Serbian State, as per the book - an essential contribution towards an ideological understanding of the Serbs.

In the early Middle Ages Serbian saint Holy Sava (around 1174-1235), organized the Serbian Orthodox church as a body subordinated to Serbian state. Wherever the Orthodox Church existed there was a parallel interdependence and subordination to the Serbian state. Therefore, the Serbian Orthodox Church by means of Serbian monasteries and priests spread the idea of the Serbian Orthodox State wherever it acted.  This laid a foundation stone of trouble for all the nations that lived around the Serbs. Where the Serbs came with the Church there was a new Serbia.  The Croats experienced the reality of this in a most unpleasant way.

 

 

Mile Budak – a literary prophet of bad luck

 

            Dr. Mile Budak (1889 - 1945) was a famous Croatian writer in the period 1930 - 1945 and a Croatian political emigrant and collaborator of the political leader Dr. Ante Pavelić. In a certain period Budak was vice-president of the Independent State of Croatia, and murdered by the communists in 1945 for his political activities.  In 1999, on the 110^th year of Budak’s birth a “Collection of selected works/critic” was published on the work of Mile Budak.  All reviews on his work give a clear vision that Budak was a kind of national ideologist who believed in national love towards one’s own country, an unbreakable national spirit, as was manifested in the Croatian province of Lika, a frequent subject of his stories. In the center of Budak’s work is his roman “Ognjište” \ “The Hearth” written in Italian exile in 1937. In year 1938 a critic, Dušan Žanko, describes the year as a year of concentrated interest around the name of Budak, as much as was the case with the communist writer Miroslav Krleža ten years before the literary penetration of Budak. All of the critics had valued Budak’s work as very significant, but “The Hearth” is considered the most important Croatian literary work in the 20^th of century (so till 1945).

            “The Hearth” is a synthesis of Budak’s life among the people of Lika, an area where he was born and lived with the peasants on the village of Saint Rok. The central characters are are Blazhich, the father; his sons Micha and Joza (Joseph) and the main heroine Anera with her second (but unfortunate unmarried) husband Lukan. Through the characters, the writer shows not just the folk tradition of the Croats in the Lika region but also the fighting of good and evil in the human being, Budak portrayed the national soul of Croats that is growing ever more powerful and resistant just from the experiences of the evil that crosses the soul of men and nation.

            Therefore, in “The Hearth” Budak gives us an interpretation of a Croatian man, and in the person of a young woman, Anera, the writer has built a monument to the great love of the woman centered on her man, Micha and to a poor home hearth which was built up in spite of low punches given by Micha’s father Blazhich. Anera is a woman who represents the national hearth that is the wishful property of another evil force (allegorically given in the person of Blazhich).

            Blazhich is not just a figure of a father who falls in love with his son’s future bride, but also a symbol of a forceful man who fights with his passions but cannot resist the powerful beauty of the girl (bride). He is very similar to the kind of merchants who learned how to get everything by persistency, tricks and force, if necessary.  If Anera is a model of an ideal woman, a model of mother-Homeland, then this symbolic relationship is also an emanation of the problem of the subsequent domination of Croatia:  Anera keeps the home of Micha, she is identifying herself with her love and with the hearth, but the forces of someone else’s passion and of trouble draw her away from her love. This way, Anera becomes an inexpressible symbol of the national suffering of a suppressed country, which is a part of the story.  We shall never be in position to give a right answer on the question of whether the writer had a premonition about the possible future fate of his Independent State of Croatia, but in the story about the village of Lika, Budak said just this: a model of ideal women and mother, a symbol of the hearth and of great love that can be identified with Homeland was killed at the end of the story. Blazhich killed Anera, because he could not have her. And in the same way Anera’s life ended, so too did the fate of the Independent State of Croatia: it was killed desecrated and defamed.

            Budak sends a massage that national pride in favor of defence of the hearth must burst into flame: as much as Anera must be avenged so too Croatia must be liberated. The side that can suffer the greatest amount of evil and learned how to wrestle with such evil, is the side that will be victorious in the end. Just as Anera was desecrated (as a mighty symbol of Homeland) so also was she avenged by Lukan’s hand  (that killed the murderer - Blazhich).  Budak strong message is that every force has duration for its own time, but in the end justice will triumph.  Whenever mother country is wounded - enslaved Croatia, desecrated Croatia (Anera as a symbol) - the hand of just men (Lukan as symbol) will take up arms to avenge her.  And so it was.

 

New Fathers of Croatia

 

            Dominican, Father Vjekoslav Lasić, occupies an important place among the persons of the 20^th and 21^st c. who symbolize Croatia along with Catholic lay-representative Radovan Grgec, Director of St. Jeronim Society, Zagreb, who was also a martyr of the communist prisons in the period of his youth. In his book “Croatian Christmases and Easter in foreign countries” and “My dream of Free Croatia” he speaks openly and directly: Father Lasić fights for Croatian freedom and he stresses; “God does not want us to be slaves. He created us for freedom. And a man who lives in peace with his slavery is no more a man….” Croats must fight for their freedom, and in the period of Yugoslavia we were “taken captive because we lived in reconciliation with our slavery …” Lasić’s books are an invitation to Croats to fight for their liberty and not to permit a new enslavement by the “New World Order”.

                    Radovan Grgec, who graduated in French and some other languages at the University of Zagreb, is an outstanding Catholic person not just among Croats but also in the whole of Europe: Grgec was a member of “Committee for coordination of European Lay-Forum” and member of four Councils of bishop conferences. He is a long-time director, editor and vice-president of the “Croatian Literary Society of St. Jeronim”, and by virtue of his influence Grgec is a supposed Saint and a Cardinal without a “Cardinal hat”.

            Grgec wrote many books with a religious motive and among them is the book “Yearning to the Kingdom”, published in 1995.  The book is a collection of his spiritual sermons founded on the New Testament and connected with the historic moment of Croatian reality. In the aforementioned book, Ethics and Aesthetics have a common root in God and Grgec puts the complete Christian culture together with the truth and force of love that together with beauty and goodness have their centres in God. Grgec asked: “Is it possible that the Christian way of life, mentality and message enter a world in which, as the Pope said, has come to a break between evangelism and culture…” And it is Grgec’s central message: deep concern for the Christian message and culture in our world of today.

            In an interview given in 1998, [16] on the occasion of “St. Jeronim’s” 130 years celebration, Grgec spoke about the Society and about the historic circumstances that surround the Society. In the twenties and thirties the Society was a center of resistance against liberalism and Freemasonry, and in the thirties the battle culminated with the edition of “MOSK” \ “A little Social Library” a series of short booklets published on the problems of the contemporary world led in a shadowy manner by Freemasonry…

Question: … Through cultural activity, the Society developed Christian excellence together with Croatian nationalism and an ideologist of the Society was its founder archbishop of Zagreb Juraj Haulik, who was on the line of the later ideology defined by Ante Starčević.  How do you view Croatian cultural achievements in the past period and at the Contemporary Croatian nationalism that you represent and have legislated?

Grgec: I first want to say that the 130^th jubilee of our Society is a very important date because we are the oldest cultural institution close to “Martix Croatia” and because we kept continuity of our activity, in spite of all opposition forces, prosecutions and bad treatment. (……) Concerning our religious orientation, it is as equally important as our national orientation: the national orientation is connected to Ante Starčević and religious to blessed Alojzije Stepinac. They are our two ideals. But, I must add some explanation: I do not regard the word “nationalism” as a synonym for chauvinism, as a lot of other people do, (…) but it is simply a synonym for patriotism. (……) Nowadays hundreds and hundreds thousands of people are educated to consider nationalism to be chauvinism, but (to us Croats) it is not true.

Question: …. Although the Vatican tried to achieve the conversion and closer collaboration of the Catholic and Orthodox Church through Croats and Croatia, don’t you think that Freemasons used this idea against the Catholic Church to make it weaker through the synthesis of religious ideas? Hence, in the booklet “Freemasonry in Croatia” published in 1934 (MOSK, Bibliotheca by St. Jeronim) it is written that all institutions founded by bishop Strossmayer, allegedly, for the good of the Church, have fallen into the hands of Freemasonry (…) In the book “Seton-Watson and Yugoslavs”, Zagreb-London 1976, we find a testimony by Dr. Izidor Kršnjavi, who wrote to the British agent Seton-Watson, that Strossmayer had the closest relationship to the British politicians and he expected the creation of Yugoslavia in collaboration with the British.  Yugoslavia was twice created under the secret free Masonic-British patronage, after which the Catholic Church was prosecuted. Is the contemporary renewal of the Strossmayer-cult in opposition to Croatian Cardinal Haulik actually an old tendency in direction of renewal towards British\Freemasonic idea in favour of re-creation of another Yugoslavia? (…)

Grgec: Concerning ecumenism, certainly those who started to talk about it, not in our time but a long time ago, had had a good intention:  unity of Christian Churches, i.e. they wanted to fulfill a wish of Christ, “all should be one”. All the splits and schisms were not God’s intention; it was not the intention of Jesus Christ. However, the strongest breakup between a real Christianity and the “Christianity” of occasional denominations or sects has come when the denominations started to identify themselves with the nation. As much as we cannot say that the Croats are Catholics, because to our nation belong also the members of other beliefs, agnostics and atheists, also we cannot say that all Orthodox are Serbs. The worst thing the Serbs did was to identify their national identity with a religious identity. This way their Orthodoxy actually is not Orthodoxy in the right sense but the Saint-Sava-religion.  Today you have a large number of the Serbs, who do not believe in anything, and they are not even baptized, and in spite of this fact they count themselves to be Orthodox! (…) Concerning Freemasonry, I have already said that the artificial states of Versailles, like royal and communist Yugoslavia, were created under the patronage of world Freemasonry. A great deal of support for such a development was communist, too. (…) We can accept that Communism grew up out of Freemasonry, but the most important idea maybe was the messianic idea of Marx. The most important, Communist with a very bloody ideology was Joseph Stalin. (…) He killed all around him: equally Freemasons or Jews. He killed all Jews, all Jewish ideologists (Buharin, Kamenjev, Zinovljev), from his surrounding. Stalin was worse than those Russians who prosecuted Jews and has done worse things than Hitler. (…) “, said Grec.

 

            It is evident that Croatian ideologists had good political reasons for defining their own ideology and that of Croatian enemies.

 

 

The First Jubilee of the Association "Dr. Milan pl. Šufflay"

 

            The Association "Dr. Milan pl. Šufflay" was founded on 19th October 1999 in Zagreb, Croatia. The main aim of this Union is to fulfil the general historic need to restore to the Croatian memory Croatian national ideologist, martyr and scientist Prof. Milan Šufflay, Ph.D. (1879-1931). Prof. Milan Šufflay pointed out the roots of the political problems in which the Croatian nation lived, and thus gave the general orientation for the national struggle for survival. For that reason the Association "Dr. Milan pl. Šufflay" erect a memorial tablet on his birth-house in Lepoglava on 9th November 1999. That was done under the patronage of the President of Parliament Vlatko Pavletić, who was represented by Mr. Dubravko Jelčić (The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts), MP. After Mr. Jelčić spoke the President of the Association "Šufflay" Mr. Darko Sagrak, Prof. Aleksandar Stipčević and the Secretary of the Association Mr. Emil Čić (author of this text).  The Albanian Ambassador Ms. Mirjam Bisha gave special greetings on behalf of the Republic of Albania. (...)

 

History and ethically founded nationalism

 

            Generally speaking, the Association has Croatian history as the object of its interest, but the President of the Union Mr. Sagrak and members of the Association are not historians. However, this fact must not surprise you: every Croatian nationalist is a patriot simply because of the fact that he is sometimes even more familiar with the circumstances in Croatia than a dry historian who writes about the Croatian history without love for his own people. And we have had a lot of such cases (e.g. the Slavoserb Neven Budak: see an interview with Ivan Biondić, “Hrvatsko Slovo”, No. 287/20th Oct. 2000). Every Croat patriot with the historic orientation of pater patriae Ante Starčević (19th century, - his Party of the Right) must be a specialist of Croatian history for the period from the 1850's to the present day because, without the historic orientation and knowledge of our political circumstances nobody can survive today as a good Croatian patriot. Our enemies can very easily deceive citizens who do not know the facts about the Croatian political happenings/mishaps. Indeed, to our deep sorrow, Croatian enemies of all kinds have been deceiving the historically and politically disinterested and disoriented Croatian people very successfully to nation’s detriment.  There is a sad argument to back up this statement: in the middle of Zagreb, the capital of Croats, there is a very important street named after Tomaš Masaryk, a Slovak politician who hated Croats so deeply that he wished their ruin. Our great ideologist of the Party of the Right, the priest Filip Lukas, gave us a description of the political reason for such hatred. Croats of all kinds and profiles are so deeply uniformed about their own history: and that is possible even today as we fight for our survival once again!  Croats do not read books by the Croatian ideologist. And that is dangerous. By the way, in the period of the Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945) the above-mentioned street was named after Milan Šufflay.

 

The Aims of the Association

           

For the above-mentioned reasons, the central aim of the Association "Dr. Milan pl. Šufflay" is to build the national consciousness in the direction of the work of pater patriae Dr. Ante Starčević who founded the Croatian national ideology and his Party of the Right, based on the historic juristic documents of the Croatian state through centuries. The Croatian state law and historic documents relating to the continuity of the Croatian state were the great and fundamental inspiration of all ideologists of the Croatian state law and right who followed the example and the teaching of Dr. Ante Starčević. His teaching was also followed by Dr. Izidor Kršnjavi, Josip Frank, Dr. Ivo Pilar, Dr. Milan pl. Šufflay, Dr. Filip Lukas, Dr. Mile Budak and many others who lived after them. Dr. Milan pl. Šufflay and Dr. Filip Lukas were especially significant: to the Croatian people they gave a lasting "road sign" and political direction for their struggle for national sovereignty.  This struggle lasted till the Croatian Patriotic War (1990-1995), and, as it seems, is not yet finished because various "multicultural" managers continuously try to dig our Bleiburg-graves for us, thus creating the preconditions for the founding of the third Yugoslavia. "...By analysing Šufflay’s essays (...) it becomes evident that in the Austro-Hungarian or some other Danube-creation Šufflay saw the central point of Croatian international relations in the structure of the "Mittel-Europa". But the course of history after 1918 showed that the "tailors of the world" had cut out the destiny of Europe in the other direction (Versailles). “ With their scissors, they cut out of the maps the main point of Middle Europe..." said Mr. Sagrak (the President of the Union). No wonder that Britain introduced visas for Croats (not for Croats as "Yugoslavs")! In the above-mentioned sense, our task is to follow the notions and insights of the Croatian national ideologist Milan Šufflay; to search for and find solutions and ways out of the inhumane historic conditions through which we already lived.

            If we really want to govern our state in the right way, we must come very close to the ideal of the Platonic statesman-philosopher, and in order to became acquainted with our enemies, we are obliged to read Šufflay's works. Only a nation that is familiar with itself and its enemies is capable of surviving in the face of difficult circumstances. Therefore, the task of the Association is to impart to the nation the fundamental knowledge of its own past, based on the fundamental notions, teachings and ideas of Milan Šufflay:  and in so doing, make the survival and future life of the nation possible.  To accomplish this, the Association works on a translation of Šufflay's works in German, Hungarian and Latin into the Croatian language. Furthermore, the Association is currently preparing an edition of the complete works by Šufflay and we also continue with publication of his selected works. The Administrative bodies of the Association are already operative.  President of the Supervisory Committee is Prof. Zvonimir Šeparović, President of the Advisory Committee is Mr. Ivan Nogalo, Vice-presidents of the Association are Prof. Ljubomir Pavelić and Tomislav Javor, graduated jurist. The Committee of Science will be ready for work very soon. Responsible for the co-ordination of the organisation are Prof. Ivan Biondić and Mr. Josip Jurčević, M.A., members. The Scientific Council will have departments of history, science, literature, ethnogenesis and culture. Within the framework of the Department of History we shall perform a research of the Starčevićanian influence (the Croatian state law ideas) on the fundamental ideas of Milan Šufflay.

 

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[1] Čić, Emil: «The History of Croatian Enemies», Zagreb 2002, p. 15 – 19 and p. 72 of the original book on Rattkay

[2] Neustädter, J.: Ban Josip Jelačić, p. 45, Školska knjiga, Zagreb 1994

[3] Karl Marx was very impressed with the colonial Lord Palmerston as were the British Ministry with the writings of Marx. See: The Story of the Life of Lord Palmerston, in: 1853, Source: The Story of the Life of Lord Palmerston, Swan Sonnenschein, 1899; First Published: New York Tribune, and People's Paper in England. In Germany: "Neue Oder-Zeitung" Nr. 79, 16. February 1855.

Marx personally: "As a result of my analysis of the Blue Book which dealt with 'The Fall of Kars' (this appeared in the London Chartist paper in April 1856), the Foreign Affairs Committee in Sheffield sent me a letter of appreciation. In digging at the British Museum into diplomatic manuscripts, I came upon a series of English documents going back from the end of the eighteenth century to the time of Peter the Great, which revealed the secret and permanent collaboration of the Cabinets at London and St. Petersburg, and that this collaboration dated from the time of Peter the Great.”

[4] Čić, Emil: “The History…”, p. 20 / 22

[5] Pavlinović, Mihovil: Hrvatski razgovori, Globus, Zagreb 1994, p. 309

[6] Starčević, Ante: «Ante Starčević», his works I: Speeches in the Croatian Parliament, Zagreb – Hrvatska sveučilišna naklada 1995, reprint 1893.

[7] Šufflay, Milan: Dalmatinsko-Hrvatska srednjovjekovna listina, Povijest hrvatskog notarijata od 11. do 15. stoljeća, Naklada Sagrak, Zagreb 2000.

[8] Biondić, Ivo: «Biogenetics buried South Slav ideology»/ «Biogenetika je pokopala južnoslavenstvo», in: Weekly «Hrvatsko Slovo», 07th March 2003, No. 411, Zagreb

[9] Croatian Politician murdered by Serbs in Serbian Parliament, in 1928: remark by EC

[10] Žanko, Dušan; Svjedoci, Knjižnica hrvatske revije, Barcelona-München 1987

[11] ibidem, p. 108

[12] Filip Lukas: «Hrvatska narodna samobitnost», «Dom i svijet», Zagreb 1997.

[13] Lukas, Filip: «Za hrvatsku kulturnu cjelovitost», u: Hrvatska revija, Zagreb 1938/ 02

[14] Lukas, Filip; Zašto je Dubrovnik bio velik, u: Hrvatska Revija, 1938\12, p. 605-619

[15] ibidem, p. 613

[16] Čić, Emil: «Narod», Croatia, Zagreb, 15. 09. 1998/60