The Birth of Yugoslavia. Henry Baerlein
1898.
[28] La Dalmazia. Florence, 1915.
[29] There is in the museum at Eger in Czecho-Slovakia a small painting of Branković dated 1711. It depicts him standing pensively outside a tent, clad in a red and yellow Turkish costume and with a beard that reaches to his knees. On the other hand, it seems to be established that he was an ordinary inmate of the prison, whose site is now occupied by the Café Astoria; and one's faith in the accuracy of the Eger Museum is rather dimmed by the exhibition of a number of pictures, each of them purporting to give the authentic details of the assassination at Eger of the great Wallenstein, and every picture is quite different from the others.
[30] Macedonia. London, 1906.
[31] This was far too sweeping a statement. Only thirty or forty Orthodox at Prizren—teachers, merchants and others—used to dress in European raiment (with a fez), but from of old the Serbs had a teachers' institute and a seminary—the young men educated there frequently went to Montenegro. And in view of what happened a few years later, Miss Edith Durham must regret that in her book High Albania (London, 1909) she did not confine herself to recording of the men of Prizren that "of one thing the population is determined: that is, that never again shall the land be Serb"; but she adds, on her own account, that in this picturesque town and its neighbourhood the Serbs are engaged in a forlorn hope and that their claims are no better than those of the English on Normandy. Yet if, in her opinion, the Serbs have been rewarded beyond their deserts, she must acknowledge that they are not wholly undeserving—in the days of her cherished Albanians it was necessary for a Catholic inhabitant to furnish himself with a loaded revolver before guiding her through the streets of Djakovica.
[32] Cf. Les Albanais en Vieille-Serbie et dans le Sandjak de Novi-Bazar. Paris, 1913.
[33] He worked for a long time at the monastery of Hopovo, among the Syrmian hills, and there his collection of books, in the two rooms just as he left them, was naturally treasured. Half of them were stolen in the course of this last war by the Austrians.
[34] Geschichte der Franzfelder Gemeinde. Pančevo, 1893.
[35] This was originally as much land as a yoke of oxen could plough in a day. Until the introduction of the French metrical system this measurement was used in Austria. It still survives there, a "joch" or yoke being equivalent to 5754·6 square metres, or about 1·4 English acres. The Hungarian joch is three-quarters the size of this.
III
BUILDING THE FOUNDATIONS: NAPOLEON AND STROSSMAYER
Slavs weep for the fall of Venice—They hear the voice of their brothers—Measures to keep them apart—By encouraging the Italianized party—And the Orthodox Church—And by fatherly legislation—In Serbia the people are fighting for freedom—The Montenegrin authorities are otherwise engaged—Napoleon favours the Southern Slavs—Russia and Britain oppose him on the Adriatic—Illyria, Napoleon's great work for the Southern Slavs—Napoleon's schemes are roughly interrupted—The Montenegrin Bishop incites against him—Disaster for Napoleon and the Southern Slavs—Austria's repressive policy—The work of Vuk Karažić—The methods of Serbia's Miloš—The Slav soul of Croatia—The Magyars and Croatia's port—The Sultan reigns in Bosnia—A sorry period for the Southern Slavs—Some who turn from politics grow prosperous—But the Croats strive for political liberties—The Austrians, the Magyars and the Croats—The Croats, struggling for freedom, incidentally help Austria—How Montenegro reformed herself—The Prince-Bishop gives a lead to the Southern Slavs—Austria pours out a German flood—The Croat peasants and their clergy—What the Czechs are doing to-day—Strossmayer—The Turk in Montenegro and Macedonia—The cheerless state of Serbia—the Slav voice in Macedonia—The Macedonian Slavs are undivided—Dawn of Italian unity—How Cavour would have treated the Slavs—Italian v. Slav: Tommaseo's advice—Austria leans on Germans and Italianists—The Southern Slav hopes are centred on Cetinje—For they know neither Nicholas of Montenegro nor Michael of Serbia—If Michael had lived!—The strange career of Rakovski—The Yugoslav name—Russia and Austria sow discord in the Balkans—The Macedonian Slavs under their Greek clergy—The affair of Kukuš—The Exarchate is established—1867: Austria delivers the Slavs to the Magyars—The "Krpitsa"—Rieka's history, as two people see it—And the Slovenes are coerced.
SLAVS WEEP FOR THE FALL OF VENICE
Early in 1797 the weak French garrisons which had been left in certain towns of Italy were massacred by the Venetians, who displayed no mercy either to the wounded soldiers or the women who were with the troops. Napoleon would come back no more, thought the Venetians. But he heard of what had happened as he was engaged upon the clauses of the Treaty of Leoben. No sooner had that courier brought him the dispatches than the Venetian envoys were ushered into his presence. They had been entrusted by the Senate with the task of following the armies and congratulating Napoleon or the Archduke, according to which of them had won the last battle. These envoys may have taken a despondent view of what would be the fate of the Serene Republic; but when, a short time afterwards, the perfumed and dishevelled citizens, stamping on the masks of last night's ball, were weeping pitiably in their palaces, the Slovenes and the Morlaks, who had fought for them so well, were weeping in the streets. Sadly and solemnly at Zadar—la tanto disputata—the flag of Venice was lowered; at other parts of the Dalmatian coast the nobles scarcely had to say a word before the peasants had snatched arms to fight the French and their égalité. The Venetians had, after all, been there a long time, even if they had not risen to the heights of Dubrovnik, which, as we learn from a traveller in 1805, kept no secret police and no gendarmes, and where a capital sentence pronounced at the time was the first in twenty-five years. (The city went into mourning on account of this, and an executioner had to be imported from Turkey.) Such a moral height had not been reached by the Venetians; but they had been in Dalmatia, as people loved to repeat, for a long time, and they had been easy-going in the collection of taxes, they had supported the bishops and the holy Church, they had made the peasants feel that each one of them was helping to support Venice, the grand and ancient, and so the faithful people mourned when she was falling.
THEY HEAR THE VOICE OF THEIR BROTHERS
Yet they were not wholly deaf to the call of their own race. When the Austrians sent a general, the "Hungarian party," working against the civil government of Count Raymond von Thurn, managed to have the post given to General Rukavina, a Croat from the Military Frontier. An eye-witness has left us an account of Rukavina's reception at Trogir. The general mounted a chair, and asked the people in the Slav language whether they would swear the oath of fidelity to His Majesty the Emperor and King, Francis II., and his descendants and legal successors. "Otchemo!" ["That is what we want!"] was the unanimous reply. After the swearing of the oath, the general suddenly began a vigorous speech: "Moi dragi Dalmatinci" ["My dear Dalmatians"], said he. … And afterwards, when two companies of Croat infantry were disembarked, the people collected round them were astonished to hear them speaking the same language as themselves and to learn that many of them had the same names as the Dalmatians.[36]
Incidents of this character were, for more reasons than