Talk:Stevan Moljević
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[edit] Historical context of Ba congress
It seems that Ba congress was concerd with other issues, as the following passages say (not even mentioning Moljevic memorandum, presented as a "chief resolution" in Bosnian magazine editorial):
Mihailović's attempts to operate independently from British influence and the efforts to protect the Serbian existential interest, gave no results. In time, they merely became Mihailović's cries for help like those of a shipwrecked sailor on high seas, for he ignored the fact that the Government was also on a raft in the ocean of global politics. Slobodan Jovanović – the premier of the Yugoslav Government – ventured into politics as an old man, in difficult times of war, and in the years of exile, and his overall results were disastrous. In as much as Jovanović's juridical-historical involvement in 19th century politics yielded major achievements, his practical political activities in 1941-1943 were without any result. Circumstances made him decide to link his final political efforts in his old age to the fate of General Mihailović. It seems that Slobodan Jovanović counted on certain backing by General Mihailović, and that – just like Mihailović – he thought that the other resistance (communist) movement in Yugoslavia would be ideologically unacceptable to the western Allies, primarily to the British.
After the Teheran Conference the guidelines of the Allied policy concerning Yugoslavia became clear: assisting the partisan military movement that voiced its plans of becoming the international political representative of Yugoslavia at the session of the Anti-Fascist Council of the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) held in Jajce in November 1943. Božidar Purić – Prime Minister of the Yugoslav Government – was not prepared to compromise with the British policy and sacrifice Mihailović, and this is exactly why his government fell in May 1944. Pressured by the Allies, Petar II - King of Yugoslavia gave the mandate to Ivan Šubašić who renounced to General Mihailović. Šubašić reached a compromise with Josip Broz Tito (the Agreement of Vis and the Belgrade Paper) concerning the creation of a joint government (royal and NKOJ). Later on, at the end of 1944 and in early 1945, other compromises ensued and the Yugoslav King – faced with British pressure – accepted the concession of transferring royal prerogatives to the Regency. Thus reduced, the legitimacy of the Yugoslav government blended into the government of the National Committee for the Liberation of Yugoslavia (NKOJ) which expanded its international capacity. Reacting to these moves by the partisan movement, in January 1944 General Mihailović held a congress in the village of Ba near Gornji Milanovac, moderating his previous radical stands. However, not having become part of the Šubašić government, he stayed on the other – dead track. The missions he sent from Yugoslavia during 1944, the McDowell mission in August 1944, the hopes he placed in the US and his address to the Allied commanders at the end of 1944, were nothing but desperate attempts due to tardive reflexes in political reasoning and realignment. Slobodan Jovanović – though Prime Minister of the Yugoslav royal government - never met with Winston Churchill, whilst Tito's trusted emissary Vladimir Velebit manage to do so twice (in May and July, and once again during the Tito-Churchill meeting in (August) 1944).
- All this is irrelevant since you don't mention the source. You could have written it yourself. --Zmaj 21:18, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
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- OK, it looks like a valid source. It doesn't mention Moljević, of course, since it mentions the congress itself in only one sentence. Our sources are not mutually exclusive, but complementary. --Zmaj 07:48, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] Bosnian "editorial"
Note that Bosnian editorial is not editorial as I thought, but a copy from Helsinška povelja, Belgrade, no. 85-86, July-August 2005 (see end of the text). So, I have replaced the reference with the original link, which is also online. Please note that the two text are NOT identical, original [2] and "copy" [3].
The differences (apparently due to translation) are sometimes striking:
ORIGINAL: "The main Chetnik ideologist, closest associate of Draza Mihailovic and the person whose address to the well-known St. Sava Congress in the village of Ba on January 27, 1944 was adopted as a congress resolution, lawyer and doctor from Banjaluka, Stevan Moljevic had published, back on June 30, 1941, in Niksic, a booklet titled “About Our State and Her Borders.” This was Moljevic’s project for a future Yugoslavia to be arranged as a federation consisting of three constituents – Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. According to the project, the Serbian constituent would encompass the entire Bosnia, Mostar, Metkovic, Sibenik, Zadar, Ploce, Dubrovnik, Karlovac, Osijek, Vinkovci, Vukovar, as well as Pecs (Hungary), Timisoara (Romania), Vidin and Chustendil (Bulgaria), the entire Macedonia and North Albania. In his booklet, Moljevic writes, “Today, the Serbs have to meet their first and major duty: to create and organize a homogenous Serbia that should include the entire ethnic territory inhabited by the Serbian population, and to secure her necessary strategic corridors and milestones, as well as economic areas, so as to safeguard her free economic, political and cultural life and eternal progress…"
BOSNIAN version:
"The main Chetnik ideologue and Mihailović’s most trusted confidant, whose exposition was adopted formally at the St Sava Congress held on 27 January 1944 at the village of Ba as the main congress resolution, was the lawyer Stevan Moljević from Banja Luka, who on 30 June 1941 had published a booklet with the title On Our State and Its Borders. This was Moljević’s notorious project for a future Yugoslav state arranged on a federal basis, and composed of three federal units: Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. The Serbian unit was to include the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a large part of Croatia (including Dubrovnik, Metković, Ploče, Šibenik, Zadar, Karlovac, Osijek, Vinkovci and Vukovar), all of Macedonia, northern Albania and parts of Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Moljević wrote in his booklet: ‘The Serbs are today faced with a primary and fundamental duty: to create and organise a homogeneous Serbia that is to embrace all Serb ethnic areas; and to secure for this the necessary strategic and communication lines and crossings, as well as economic areas, in order to guarantee it a free and inviolable economic, political and cultural life and development for all times. Serbs must fulfil their historic mission - which they can do, however, only by being brought together in a homogeneous Serbia within Yugoslavia, which they will imbue with their spirit and impress with their stamp. Serbs must have hegemony in the Balkans, but in order to gain hegemony in the Balkans they must first exercise hegemony in Yugoslavia.’"
There is no doubt that this difference is not due to nuances in translation, but also that translations were falsified to fit the POV of Bosnian source. The policy on wiki about sources says that biased source should be viewed with suspicion. The original text itself is biased, since it has a clear agenda: to criticize decision to grant pension and other rights to Chetnik veterans. The text appeared in 2005, in Serbia, during the debate about this decision, and is advocating - clearly a POV agenda, so it should be taken with a grain of salt.
The Bosnian spinning of the article, evidenced in the above difference for instance, is changing the already POV source and distorting even what it says. The "adopted as a congress resolution" becomes "adopted as THE MAIN congress resolution", so the main is a distortion of original text. There are other differences, which are obviously due to difference in EMPHASIS and cannot be explained as difference in translation. In any case, the document is not the most reliable source, but it is one of the few documents that mention Moljevic on internet at all. According to wiki policies, Moljevic would not even deserve an article with such poor notability. Mostssa 13:50, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
For comparison, here is a link to untranslated original: [4]
The beggining of the chapter quoted above reads:
Glavni četnički ideolog, čovek od najvećeg poverenja Draže Mihailovića i ličnost čiji je referat na poznatom Svetosavskom kongresu održanom u selu Ba 27. januara 1944. usvojen >>kao rezolucija kongresa<<, banjalučki advokat >>doktor<< Stevan Moljević još je 30. juna 1941.objavio >>u Nikšiću<< knjižicu "O našoj državi i njenimgranicama". Reč je o >>Moljevićevom projektu<< buduće države Jugoslavije koja bi bila uređena na federativnoj osnovi, sa tri federalne jedinice (Srbija, Hrvatska i Slovenija). Mostssa 14:31, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
