ALBERT EINSTEIN and CROATIA -A LETTER from SAN FRANCISCO, 1931

 

Jugo-Slavia Ruled by Terror

 

The charges of Prof. Albert Einstein, who, in an open letter, accused the Jugoslavian Government of having engineered the sensational murder of Prof. Milan Sufflay, once again have focused the attention of the world upon the heroic struggle of the Croatian people against the terroristic and oppressive rule of Serbian dictatorship.

 

The hideous murder of the famous historian of Zagreb University does not stand alone in Croatia's tragic history of recent years; it is but one link in that endless chain of sinister killings, brutal violence and open blackmail which marked the way of the dictatorship in Croatia ever since King Alexander suspended the constitution and assumed absolute power.

 

Hundreds Slain, Croatians also Jailed or Sent to Exile

 

Within the short span of two years hundreds of Croatian patriots had been slain, thousands thrown into jail or forced into exile because they dared to demand full political rights for their native land-once a part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, but since the end of the war a component of the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, commonly called Jugoslavia.

 

On the surface, the cause of the unrest seems to be the Croats' unrelenting demand for self-government and independence from the Serbian political machine. In reality, however, there are other and deeper reasons why the Croats are in open revolt against so-called personal dictatorship of King Alexander.

 

Back of the appalling number of political murders, bomb-throwings, imprisonments, threats, extortion and espionage is the age-old struggle between East and West, the mortal combat between a highly civilized nation, used to western methods of political administration and a group of Balkan politicians, reared in an atmosphere of intrigue and corruption, and accustomed to regard murder and violence as common weapons of actual politics.

 

Croatia became part of the Jugoslav Kingdom at the close of the World War. The old dream of a union of all southern Slavs had come true, but it was effected in a form entirely unsatisfactory to the Croats.

 

The people of Croatia imagined the new kingdom as a Federalist state with full autonomy for component parts. Instead of a greater freedom, however, they received a form of treatment from their new overlords which ran counter to their national aspirations.

 

Higher Culture

 

 

In religious matters, the Croat is a Roman Catholic and a believer; the Serb is orthodox and saturated with mild skepticism.

 

Croatia was highly industrialized and looked for capital to Vienna and Budapest, while Serbia is still today primarily an agricultural country.

 

In the field of cultural activities, too, the Croats were superior to their backward Serbian brethren. Art, literature, science and the theatre were on a western level in Croatia, while across the frontier line there was no such thing as Serbian literature or Serbian science.

 

They soon awoke to the realization that this was impossible under the new constitution and under the system of government introduced by the Serbian political leaders. In the new Jugoslav state the Croats were treated as a vanquished nation; the country was flooded with Serbian officials sent from Belgrade, and soon the policy of centralization was in full swing.

 

The Croats protested, first mildly, then more and more sharply and resolutely, but their protests were answered with threats and oppressive measures. The Croat leaders proclaimed passive resistance throughout the country, whereupon the Serbs introduced their well-tested methods of persecution and terrorism.

 

 

Patriots Continue Fight for Liberty

 

All this, however, could not break the resistance of the Croats. They carried on their fight for liberty, sent flaming appeals and protests to the League of Nations, which the Serbs answered with the murder of Stephen Radich, the Croatian leader, and the massacre of the Croatian parliamentarian in the Skupstina in Belgrade.

 

The situation soon became untenable not only for the Croats, but also for the whole country and the dynasty itself. Jugoslavia needed money desperately and the foreign money-lenders were unwilling to grant loans to a country virtually in a state of civil war.

 

The outside world had to be convinced that Jugoslavia was a united country and the union of the Southern Slavs not an empty dream, a mere scheme designed to further imperialistic plans of the Karageorgevitch dynasty and the Serbian Radical party.

 

This was the reason why King Alexander dissolved Parliament, suspended the constitution and declared his personal dictatorship. Under the cloak of deadly silence which fell upon the whole country the "system" could more easily be put into effect.

 

The King-who, by the way, changed not only his political course, but also his outward appearance by shaving off his short black moustache in order to look more like a dictator than a young dentist-appointed Petar Zhivkovitch as prime minister.

 

M. Zhivkovitch was well trained in the Serbian methods of politics. He began his career in 1903, when he joined the conspiracy against the Obrenovitch dynasty and took an important part in the murder of King Alexander and Queen Draga.

 

 

Zhivkovitch Halts Murder of King

 

Lieutenant Zhivkovitch rose swiftly; he became captain, than major, colonel and general. During the war the Black Hand attempted to organize a new royal murder and the victim was to be Regent Alexander, the present King. General Zhivkovitch, however, disagreed, exposed the whole sinister scheme, executed several officers and founded a new secret military organization, which he called the White Hand-Bela Ruka.

By Emery Derl. Noted war correspondent, author, editor and authority on central European treaties and politics. San Francisco Examiner, May 31, 1931.

 

Contributed by Adam S. Eterovich