Talk:Stevan Moljević

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)

This is the source, which I added to text too [1]. It is very relevant since it gives information about the congres in Ba, and discusses reasons for the congress, which had to do with altering support of Britain to the partisans. Mostssa 21:23, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

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)

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)

JNA and Karlovac-Virovitica-Karlobag line

The disputed section states that:

The significance of the Moljević plan is elucidated in the ICTY trial of the Prosecutor v. Tadic. Case No. IT-94-1-T. In this trial, the various iterations of plans for a Greater Serbia were discussed and tendered into evidence. From the hearing in closed session that was released by Trial Chamber II on 13 October 1996 - "In Moljevic's work Homogenous Serbia of 1941, Stevan Moljevic proposed the areas which would be included in greater Serbia outside the borders of Serbia in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia before World War II." The western borders defined by Moljević were of paramount importance for the prosecutor in this particular case, because they coincided with the borders defined by the JNA during the Yugoslav Wars, that is, the border on which it established its front line would be Karlovac, Virovitica, Karlobag.

Someone (in a closed session - do we know who?) claims that Moljevic proposed Karlovac-Karlobag-Virovitica line. But this still doesn't mean that the line coincides with the borders defined by the JNA - first of all I'm not aware of JNA having defined any borders ever. Nikola 14:56, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Nicola, you've misunderstood this section of the article - it does not say that Moljevic proposed the Karlovac-Karlobag-Virovitica line. What it says is that the territories that Moljevic envisaged as part of Greater Serbia (Bosnia & Herzegovina, Western Slavonia around Pakrac, Dalmatia and autonomy for Dubrovnik) coincides with the territories that the JNA either occupied or attempted to occupy (as in the case of Dubrovnik where they wanted to reinstate the Dubrovnik republic as part of SAO Eastern Herzegovina) i.e. the Karlovac-Karlobag-Virovitica line that was formed by SAO Krajina, roughly reflected the territorial extent of Moljevic's Greater Serbia. Note that this does not preclude the JNA having a multitude of other plans.

Please also note that when we talk about JNA defining borders, we are talking about defacto borders defined by the front lines formed by JNA operations, and perpetuated by the UN mission until 1995.

For this reason I am removing the disputed tag, because it is unclear what is being disputed, and there is lack of alternative evidence that repudiates the evidence of the ICTY trial. For clarity, I have pasted the relevant section of the ICTY testimony.

115.129.2.208 (talk)

Page 1618

1 THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL CASE NO. IT-94-1-T

2 FOR THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

3 IN THE TRIAL CHAMBER

4 Friday, 31st May 1996

5 (10.15 a.m.)

6 (Hearing in closed session-released by Trial Chamber II on 13 October 1996).

7 WITNESS P, recalled

8 Examined by MR. TIEGER, continued.

15 (To the witness): (redacted), just before yesterday's adjournment you were

16 discussing methods of achieving greater Serbia through ethnic

17 cleansing which were advanced by Serbian nationalists and successfully

18 implemented in 1992. I had asked you just before the adjournment

19 about Stevan Moljvic. You indicated that he, among other things, had

20 identified the borders of a proposed greater Serbia. I believe you

21 were about to look at Exhibit 2, a map, to indicate the borders

22 identified by Stevan Moljvic. Can we have that exhibit placed in

23 front of the witness, please? May we have that placed on the elmo?

24 (redacted), can you indicate the borders identified by Stevan Moljvic as his

25 propoSAO for greater Serbia?

Page 1619

1 A. In his work "Homogenous Serbia" of 1941, Stevan Moljvic proposed the

2 areas which

3 would be included in greater Serbia outside the borders of Serbia in

4 the Kingdom of Yugoslavia before World War II. These areas are both

5 on the east and west side, that is, on the north and south part of

6 Serbia, but the south western borders are more important as they were

7 borders that the war of '91, that is, 92 was all about.

8 Stevan Moljvic says that those areas which Serbia conquered in

9 Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913 should be joined to Serbia, and these are

10 in Macedonia or, rather, part of Macedonia which was in the former

11 Yugoslavia, so this is it. So, Macedonia, then part of Sandzak which

12 was conquered during Balkan wars, it is here roughly, Sandzak, which

13 is a region which in the post World War II Yugoslavia was divided

14 between three republics, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro. So

15 this part was to become part of Serbia, then Montenegro as a whole and

16 then -- so in the south and south east, northern parts of

17 Albania here, parts of Bulgaria in the Danube Valley, that is,

18 Wallachian lowlands and part of Romania called Banat which is up here.

19 As for the western borders, the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina in its

20 present frontiers should have been annexed to Serbia, the whole of

21 Dalmatia, Dalmatia here from, that is,

22 the border with Montenegro to roughly up here to Zadar, so this whole

23 area; parts of Lika which is here, parts of Banija and Kordun which

24 are here, west Slovenia. These are areas north of the Sava River and

25 in Vance Owen plans, they were called sector north, that is, west

Page 1620

1 Slovenia. Parts of this area, Pakrac and Nova Gradiska, parts round

2 Bjelovar, whole Srijem which goes as far as, stretches as far as,

3 Vinkovci and then Baranja and the areas towards the Sava.

4 These western borders are of paramount importance in this particular

5 case, because JNA define them as -- it defined as its border, that

6 is, the border on which it would establish its front line would be

7 Karlovac, Virovitica, Karlobag. They are here. Karlobag is on the

8 coast. Karlovac come here in this narrow spot between

9 Bosnia-Herzegovina and Slovenia and Croatia, and Virovitica is up

10 there, up above the "Croatia", where it says "Croatia".

11 Q. So, in addition to the other territories, you indicated the whole of

12 Bosnia and Herzegovina was to be included in a homogenous and expanded

13 Serbia, according to Stevan Moljvic?

14 A. Yes, yes, the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina, except that in his

15 programme Moljvic

16 suggested to grant autonomy or special status to some areas. Special

17 status was to be granted to the city of Dubrovnik and the surrounding

18 area as Dubrovnik was known in its history as the Republic of

19 Dubrovnik. So it is this area here, and Dalmatia north to north,

20 north west of Dubrovnik should also be granted special status. It is

21 this part here, and part of west Herzegovina which is inhabited mostly

22 by Croats or, rather, Roman Catholics and they were also to be granted

23 autonomy, according to Moljvic.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.129.2.208 (talk) 16:05, 10 January 2009 (UTC)