ANTE CILIGA

ANTE CILIGA

ANTE CILIGA

It is with an extreme discretion that the French press (Le Monde, October 28, 1992), announced, in some poor lines, the death of Ante Ciliga, in Zagreb (Croatia), without giving the date of disappearance (October 21): he was presented as a former leading personality of the Yugoslav Communist Party, having tasted the Stalinist lagers and those of the Croatian Ustashe. But it is with a certain glare that was celebrated in February 1998 in Croatia the 100th birthday of Ciliga, presented as a "patriot" and a "worthy child of the country", who was personally honorated in 1990 by the General-President Tudjman (Croatia Weekly, Zagreb, March 26, 1998).

Ante Ciliga - to pronounce Tsiliga - became the emblematic figure of the opposition to Stalinism and to the Bolshevik system of State capitalism, set up by Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, by his major book: In the country of the great lie. (1) This book published in French, in 1938, in Dutch in 1939, always republished, translated into several languages seems to have bodied Ciliga; at the point to let forget the tormented path, finally ambiguous, of a whole political life which did not stop after the Thirties.

For generations of militants coming from the opposition to Stalinism, and also for the historians of the labour movement, the name of Ciliga evokes the irreducible fight of a Left Marxist Opposition to Stalinism, as of the Thirties, at the time where the few voices which rose in the workers and intellectual circles faithful to the principles of the humanistic socialism of Marx were covered by the Stalinist and democratic campaigns praising the extraordinary results of "socialism in one country". Stalinist "Fellow travellers" as Aragon sought to show the virtues of socialist "Russia" and sang the GPU and Stalin in "poems".

Well before at the time of the Cold war, a lot of people "discovered " the reality of the USSR, by the testimony of Khravchenko and others, and that then, with the historical wear of Stalinism, "the fellow travellers" change into virulent adversaries of "Communism ", a voice had resonated which, to the left of Stalinism and Trotskyism, denounced the system of State capitalism set up by Lenin and Trotsky, and completed by Stalin and his regime. To point out this historical context should not however exempt to give a true biography of Ciliga. The path of Ciliga is far from being summarised with his book. It is crossed by hesitations and ambiguities, rich in lessons for whose study the relationship between "internationalist" engagement and old "nationalitarian" reflexes among known figures of Communism. As "left" communist between 1931 and 1935, classified as Left Trotskyist and close to anarchism, Ciliga symbolises all the hesitations of militants of Central and Eastern Europe who became revolutionaries shortly after the First World War, while seeking - consciously or unconsciously - a national "identity". For this reason, the road of Ciliga raises many interrogations on communist "engagement" in Balkans.



I. - From Croatian nationalism to World Revolution.



In addition to the autobiographical elements provided by Ciliga himself, but in Croat (2), we have a French Autobiography (1983) (3). This one - of course - must be corrected according to the facts and archives we have. Ciliga was born on February 20, 1898 in Segotici (Shegotichi) in an Istrian village, in a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where mixed Italian, Croatian and Austrian populations. The risks of the history had left to that Ciliga, Croatian of language and of culture, became successively Austrian citizen until 1919, then Italian citizen until 1945. Descending from a family of Croatian peasants, his grandfather let share in with the young boy interest to the Croatian culture and the fights of national emancipation directed against the Italian Bourgeois and Austrian administration.

After having been a family shepherd until the 7 years age, Ciliga was dealt with by his veterinary uncle in Mostar (Bosnia-Herzegovina) to start primary studies there, then as schoolboy until 1914. In 1912, at the time of the Balkan wars, defining himself as "a Yugoslav Croat of tendency", he started to take part in street demonstrations against the Austrian-Hungarian regime, which dominated Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was interested in the French literature, but also in the "Great French Revolution", finding his heroes in "Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot, Robespierre and Marat". Feeling himself "Slavic and French at the same time ", Ciliga discovered several fatherlands then: "Croatia, Yugoslavia, Russia and the Slavic world in general being my first fatherland, France became my second one" (4).

Until the war, the young Ciliga left anti-Austrian agitation inside the college. He was expelled from it, measure that was deferred only thanks to the intervention of a Bosnian deputy. But after the assassination attempt of Sarajevo, he was expelled from all the schools of Bosnia, and had to return in Istria. A new, he was excluded from the college to have read and let read to other pupils the Life of Jesus of Renan... What was extremely dangerous in a so much Catholic country. 1914 made of him an eternal wandering man. The war with Italy involved his evacuation in Moravia, where he finished his studies at the college of Brno, in Czech language! But in this Austrian Manchester, where arose with acuity the working class question, he came from there "to regard as logic and probable the end of capitalism and the advent of socialism ". He was about a radical socialist, not nationalist: "... my rallying to socialism was directed from the beginning towards a Internationalist socialism in declared opposition to the national selfishness which prevailed in the European socialist parties engaged in the war." In particular, he understood that Czech ultra-nationalism, like everywhere else, was only a reactionary screen of the Czech middle-class, which was hardly obstructed to oppress its own nationals, peasants and workers.



II. - RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND COMMUNIST MILITANCY

(1917-1926)



When the Revolution of February 1917 bursts, Ciliga was doing his military service in the Austrian-Hungarian army. From this historic moment the young man, 19 years old, was fascinated by those who want to plow in-depth the Russian lands: the Bolsheviks: "The position of the Bolsheviks - against the imperialist war and for universal peace - without annexations nor repairs - had acquired my sympathy ". But, according to him, "the take-over by force of November 7 " left it filled of doubts. The peace of Brest-Litovsk, in January 1918, disturbed him in his "national" conscience, of "Slavic Austrian ": "...I say to me: Didn’t Lenin pass from the opposition to the imperialist war to peace with the German and Austrian imperialisms, while leaving us, us, Austrian Slavs, under the yoke of the Germans and the Hungarians?" (5).

While undertaking higher education, Ciliga adhered to the Croatian Socialist Party at the time even where Yugoslavia was formed. It hardly caused his enthusiasm: Yugoslavia was placed under the sign of the Bourgeois State, and dominated by the Serb people that Ciliga, as a good Croatian patriot, regarded as "taking in a certain manner the place of the old Austrian and Hungarian oppressors ". But, in spite of this strong "Croatian streak", Ciliga very quickly will become a radical internationalist, racing from a country in to another, to the pursue of the World workers’ Revolution. "When at the beginning of 1919 (January 26-27) took place in Zagreb the conference - and not the congress like he writes it - of the Croatian Socialist Party, Ciliga is the most radical speaker, and immediately forms an autonomous fraction of left, fraction which became Croatian section of the Yugoslav Party in 1920. But from the 20 to April 23, 1919, in Belgrade the Left minority of the Croatian party, the social-democrat parties of Bosnia and Serbia had unified in a Yugoslav workers socialist Party (communist), which had postulated its adhesion to the Comintern (6).

As of this time, Ciliga - but is it the effect of stand back, more than 60 years afterwards? - was convinced that the Yugoslav State was going to collapse: "As of February-March 1919, I had concluded from there that the first Yugoslav State was going to break down for lack of comprehension between the Serbs and the Croats, although this common State had been objectively built in the interest of the ones like others. "

He thought whereas the resolution of these national contrasts would pass by the international Communist Party. Being located in the fraction of radical left, Ciliga was quickly object of the attention of the police; and he had to leave quickly Croatia. Thinking of continuing higher education in France, the taste of the adventure and action carried out it in Hungary in full revolution (spring 1919). He engaged at once in a detachment of Yugoslav volunteers. But he was quickly disappointed by the lack of radicality of Bela Kun’s Hungary in the land question, by his "respect until the autumn of the great land property". Thus, "a revolution which does not touch great property during the first six months is not a true revolution; it is condemned to perish."

This indecision where he saw the moderating influence of Hungarian social democracy decided him to begin militancy in the communist camp. He passed by again in May 1919 in Yugoslavia, little time before the crushing of the councils Revolution by the Entente’s armies. He was then in charge of a clandestine work of organisation in Slovenia, disguised as a hawker of the workers press. He is a chief of the organisation of Ljubljana, under the pseudonym of Rogic. (7) Since 1919, the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary had made of Ciliga, born in Istria, an Italian citizen. He benefited from this status to take part in the organisation of the Maximalist Italian Socialist Party in Istria at the summer 1920, in full revolutionary agitation in Italy. But, as he self writes it, he made the same experiment of Maximalist indecision, which he had observed in Hungary among the Socialists and the Communists. During the factories occupation, he noted that Maximalism and demagogy were combined wonderfully to opportunism and cowardice. He was under arrest in autumn and spent the winter in prison in Trieste and Capodistria. He thought that in Italy the Anarchists would be as radical as the Bolsheviks in Russia, and than Malatesta could be a kind of "Italian Lenin". He understood how much he had been mistaken.

Coming out of prison in February 1921, he plunged in full Fascist reaction. The trade union centre of Pola is set fire to and the workers organisations destroyed. With the peasants of his native district, he organised an armed resistance against the Fascist bands (squadristi). In April, at the head of 30-armed people, a confrontation to Fascists left a death and 5 wounded in the rows of the Black Shirts (Camise nere). This revolt known as "Revolt of Prostina" will remain famous (8).

But of course the army ran to support these lasts, which in addition profited from the support of the Dalmatian authorities, in perfect symbiosis with the Italian State. At that time, already, he interpreted the fall of the Councils in Hungary as the end of the revolutionary wave of 1917-1919. The rise of Fascism consolidated him in this idea. Also, thought it of being centred especially on the preparation of the next wave, theoretically and practically.

From 1919 to 1924, he continued higher education while undertaking his revolutionary activity in Hungary, Italy, Slovenia - in Prague, then in Vienna, and finally in Zagreb (1919-1924). In Yugoslav immigration co-ed, in Prague initially, then in Vienna, Ciliga created communist circles. In Prague, he organised a Marxist Club, then an "International Federation of Marxist Students ". The Czech Slansky, this one of the lawsuits of Prague, was to succeed to him. Speaking Czech perfectly, he entered the press section of the CPT, contributing to the weekly magazine Socialni Democrat (later Kommunist), and to Rudé Pravo. In Vienna, he continued to collaborate to the Czech communist daily newspaper. He had especially the occasion - as delegate of communist students outside - to firmly express his rejection of the alleged tactics of terrorism which had been used by part of the young Yugoslav Communists in 1921. This "tactics" was officially abandoned, to pass to the form of illegal conspirative organisation.

From September 1922 until 1925, he accepted increasing responsibilities in the Yugoslavian communist movement. In 1922, in Zagreb, he takes up the duties of secretary of the party for Croatia and of director of the Borba (9), weekly magazine, the legal and semi-official organ of the CPY, the communist press being prohibited in Serbia, and enjoying a great popularity in workers’ strata. In 1923, he was appointed as member of the central committee. Lastly, during the winter 1924-1925, as representative of the Croatian party, he became member of the central committee of the CP of Yugoslavia (10). In 1920, the CPY would have had 60.000 members and directly influenced 200.000 workers in the trade unions. The Yugoslav Communist Party was indeed in full expansion, in a country where however the percentage of the farming population was 76 %. Having formally excluded the right-wing tendencies, the CPY had adhered to the Communist International (Comintern) during the congress of Vukovar in June 1920. Being parliamentarist, the new Party had conquered many municipalities, of which that of Belgrade. The local elections had given it 59 seats. In a tended social situation, marked by the repression of the railwaymen strike of April 1920, the government passed to the offensive: it dissolves the communist municipality of Belgrade (August 1920), drove out the communist advisers of Agram (Zagreb). Finally, the Yugoslav CP which had played all on the elections lost all: December 29 a special decree (Obznana, i.e. proclamation) pronounced the dissolution of all the communist and trade-union organisations, closed the offices of the CP, and gracefully gave to the social-democrats the communist clubs. A law of July 30, 1921 worsened the situation: it put the CP out the law and drove out it Parliament and municipalities, which it controlled; the death penalty could be applied for propagation of communism (11).

Since 1921, a Left fraction, Leftist Group of the Yugoslav CP had been constituted in fraction, and had taken to contact with the German left-wing KAPD "to denounce the opportunist course of the parties of the Third International" (12). High bodies of the Comintern also underlined that the CPY had been the victim and of its sluggishness and its opportunism. It had not even published the 21 conditions of membership as well as the Theses on revolutionary parliamentarism. For the speakers of the IVth congress of the Comintern, the chiefs of the Yugoslav party turned all their attention on the electoral victories and took care not to frighten the Petty-Bourgeois elements in showing what was a Communist Party and which were its struggle methods (13).

In addition, another unforgivable crime, the CPY did not have built clandestine organisations. Thus, the party was dismembered, and almost ceased existing. Even its legal cover, the Independent Workers Party (Nezavisna radnika partija Jugoslavije or NRPJ), does not succeed in attracting the sympathy of the workers: in 1923, this last did not have any elected official in the general elections. Piteous result, which is not explained only by the faking of the elections and the vigilance of the monarchist police. According to official figures, the number of members passed from 60.000 members to 3.000 in 1928, to go up to 12.000 in 1941 (14), but on Great-Serbian Stalinist positions. It is remarkable that in his Autobiography and his interviews Ciliga did not speak by no means about these internal problems, of the parliamentary question, or of the Left Opposition in the party. Ciliga acquired a political notoriety in the party while being confronted with the thorny problem of nationalities in the Yugoslav State at that time, the Bulgarian Party had shown the leadership of the Comintern and the Yugoslav Communist Party neglected the national question. In fact, the Comintern had been very far in the concessions that it had made, under the pressure of the leading Russian party, vis-à-vis the nationalitarian tendencies in Balkans. The communist Federation of Balkans - created in 1920 and supposed to fraternally bring together Communist Greek, Bulgarian, Rumanian, Yugoslav and Turkish people - became since 1922 a battlefield between Bulgarians and Yugoslavs on the question of the national membership of Macedonia. However during the Vth congress of the Comintern (1924), which had put on the agenda the national question in particular connection with Yugoslavian question, Zinoviev had defined this State as a multinational State dominated by the Bourgeois Serbs and composed of several oppressed people. Consequently, he recommended "the separation of Croatia, Slovenia and Montenegro of the framework of Yugoslavia and their constitution in independent republics " (15).

This congress was also that of the bolshevisation of the sections of the Comintern, on which Ciliga does not blow word. In fact, as notes it the Italian secret police, Ciliga was a partisan of the bolshevisation. In a letter addressed to the communist leader of Trieste Felice Platone, in 1925, he decided for the cells system, which was going to remove any freedom of political debate in the Communist Parties, in the name of the "iron discipline of the party". At that time, therefore, he was far from being adverse, and followed the official line. Ciliga - against "the right-wing tendency"of the party, which envisaged "the constitution of a limited provincial autonomy", (16) and the left which "preferred to leave with the future socialist revolution" - had the care to settle the national question (17) - in total agreement with the Comintern’s orientation. Already, recognised leader, at the top of the Party, he proposed in Borba ( "the Fight ") a radical "counter-project ": the transformation of the monarchical and centralist Yugoslav State in a federative Republic of five national republics (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia) and two nationally mixed republics (Bosnia-Herzegovina and Vojvodina). He defended this project against the communist chief Sima Markovic, "who seemed to defend Great-Serbian options, while being based on the positions of the Austro-Marxism and of Stalin in 1912" (18). (This project of Yugoslav federation was taken again and put into practice by Tito after 1945.) In any case, Ciliga became extremely popular apart from Serbia, and was co-opted at the Central Committee of the Yugoslav Communist party. He was fully sustained by Moscow for his radicalism. (19).

But, the proposal of the Vth congress to form three independent republics left Ciliga sceptic, since the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Vojvodina had overlooked. For Ciliga these plans destroyed Yugoslavia straightforwardly. This Comintern’s policy was applied until 1926. Everywhere, even in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Vojvodina were proclaimed the need "for the self-determination of the people ". Ciliga was the instigator of this policy, as a secretary of the party for Croatia and director of Borba. In an article, he denounced the slavery of 9 million not-Serbs subjected to the dominant, strong Serb nation despite of its 3 million inhabitants (20). As the policy of the Comintern was at that time hostile to the Great-Serbian tendencies - for, undoubtedly, better sticking to the policy of the Bulgarian CP -, Ciliga during the winter 1924-1925 became also member of the Yugoslav Politburo.

With the autumn 1924, at the instigation of Zinoviev, the Comintern inserted in Krestintern (Peasants’ International, subdivision of the Comintern) the Croatian Peasants party (HSS) of Stjepan Radic. On this policy which appeared even for Gramsci as vermin, Ciliga seems not to have emitted the slightest doubt. Well more he called for a united Front with a party that the Comintern at its beginnings would have described as a Bourgeois party (21).

All these leading functions drew to him the attention of the police. Ciliga was expelled in April 1925 from Yugoslavia under pretext that he, born in Istria, was in fact an Italian citizen... Given to the Fascist police and put in prison because of the 1921-armed action, he was released, as well as the 120 peasants who with him had resisted the squadristi, thanks to a providential amnesty. What does not prevent the Fascist police from spying him step by step, under his various pseudonyms: Cegala (Giuseppe), Antonetich.

Emigrated in Vienna, September 8, 1925, he represented the Yugoslav Communist party as liaison officer between the Comintern, the Federation of Vojvodina, and the Balkan communist Federation. He wrote for the Balkan Federation review under the nickname of Antonetich, but also in the Austrian Communist newspaper Siegel und Hammer ("Hammer and Sickle"). Finally in October 1926, he was sent to Moscow, there to teach at the school of the Yugoslav party and to take part in the work of the Yugoslav section of the Comintern. At that time, he would not have never imagined to cast doubt on the orientations of the Comintern, which seemed to him right, and was completely unaware of all the left currents which fought the Comintern’s official line. The names of Bordiga, Korsch are never quoted, although Ciliga - by the organ in Slovenian language Delo (Work) of the Communist Party of Italy - could take note of it.



III. - IN RUSSIA: IN THE COUNTRY OF THE GREAT LIE (1926-1930)



At the time when Ciliga left Vienna for Moscow, important changes had occurred at the top of the apparatus of the Comintern, and consequently in the high bodies of this last one. Bukharin, combined with Stalin, had replaced Zinoviev, who had allied himself to Trotsky. That resulted in an abandonment of the theory of the liberation of the people oppressed into Yugoslavia. Consequently, the right-wing fraction conveying the Serb nationalist tendency, triumphed over it in the party: by a series of manoeuvres Serb Sima Markovic (1888-1939) was replaced at the head of the CPY. But when the national conflicts burst again in 1927, Markovic was relieved of all his responsibilities and replaced by Djuro Cvijic (1896-1938), representative of a moderate fraction of left allied besides with the trade unionists. This Left had made of Zagreb its fortified town. But Bukharin made revoke the direction of "left" and, with the assistance of Bosnian Josef Cijinsky "(1904-1937) (known under the name of Milan Gorkic), bolshevised the party by forming a political centre composed of Yugoslavians living in Moscow. Returned from Russia, where he was since 1915 as prisoner, then fighter of the Red Army, arrived at the end of 1925 Josip Broz, who was going to begin one fulgurating rise in the Party, like man of Bukharin, until 1928, then after his arrest this same year, of Stalin. Two destinies crossed: that of Ciliga going to Moscow, to know the Russian prisons and insulators, that of Tito returning to Yugoslavia to know a slow but sure rise towards the power (22).

Was Ciliga conscious of the risk which he took while going to Moscow, in full purges of the high bodies of the CPY? It is at least what he affirmed in 1937: "... while going to Moscow, I was likely to lose my freedom of movement. But the desire to studying on the spot the experiments of the Great Russian Revolution carried it. The repeated failures that the communist movement in Europe underwent showed the need for improving some, to look further into the tactics of it." (23). All the adventures, disappointments, hopes, imprisonments, the political activity of Ciliga are well known by his book - writing in France between January 1936 and July 1937 - and published by the Editions Gallimard in 1938 under the title: In the country of the great lie. His Siberian exile and the report of his exit of the USSR is described in the second volume (written between 1938 and 1941), and published in 1950 under the title Siberia, land of exile and industrialisation (24). For the comprehension of the Ciliga’s political path, it is necessary to give the broad outline of his testimony, especially at the moment when the media assertion of the fall of Communism overlooks the groups and elements who denounced "the great lie"of the Russian State capitalism, presented by Stalin, and his adversary Trotsky - for once in full agreement - as of " socialism " and a remarkable "model" of development of the "productive forces ". When Ciliga arrived at the beginning of October 1926 in Moscow, he was immediately struck by the misery and the backwardness of the "fatherland of socialism", while noting " the rise of whole social groups ". He arrived at the moment when the NEP sank in the rout, with an increasingly paralysed economy and 2,2 million misemployed people (25).

He realised quickly that the foreigners like him, members of the Comintern, were considered by the Russian working people plunged in misery, like privileged people living like Barins. Since 1924 doctor of philosophy and history of the university of Zagreb, Ciliga was the right person to teach for the Yugoslav section of the Communist University of the Western national minorities (KUNMZ) of Moscow. Each year 25 new pupils went into this School of the CPY - created in 1925 - for a 4 years teaching, especially in Serb-Croat (26).

But Ciliga was not regarded himself a "red academician". Civil servant of the Comintern, he became automatically on his arrival member of the Communist Party of the USSR, whose life seemed "more interesting to him than that of the Comintern". As of his arrival, the organisation seemed to him not like the staff of the world revolution but a simple branch, "without much importance", attached to the propaganda service of the Russian party. While taking part himself in Vth Plenum of the Comintern (December 1926), he realised that this former "Convention of the World Revolution", as defined by Trotsky in 1919, was already in the Stalin’s hands. Listening the speeches of Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, he was especially impressed by the speech of this last who stressed that the "right" danger in the Russian party was due above all to "the Petty-Bourgeois character (of Russia) and to the weakening of the revolutionary tendencies in the western proletariat" (27).

With the listening of all the debates of the Russian party and especially of the reflections of the Russian workers, noting the repression of the anarcho-syndicalist workers, suspected of publishing an illegal paper which required only the improvement of the working conditions in their factory, Ciliga became very pessimistic on the future of the "socialist fatherland". Whereas before Ciliga - of its own consent - did not nourish any doubt about the accuracy of the policy of the USSR, he came from there to conclude that "the evolution towards socialism was definitively stopped, revolution died, and that consequently all was poured..." (28). In Russia at least. But since 1927 he started contacts with the Russian Trotskyist Opposition (29), whose influence within the frameworks of the party grew day after day. But his own opposition apparently was extremely discrete, since he could take part in works of the Comintern’s VIth congress (August 1928), just before Trotsky was expelled from URSS (30). In fact, the Yugoslav problems will bring Ciliga in the rows of the Trotskyist Left Opposition. There were in Moscow 120 militants of the Yugoslav Communist Party, the majority workers, who, by their jobs, were more engaged in the Russian problems than in the life of the Yugoslav party. Ciliga, under the pseudonym of Zadvornij, played a great part, being member of the political office of the Yugoslav CP. While Ciliga was in Moscow, great changes were producing in the Yugoslav party, on which he seemed to have little information in the insulation of his Moscovite School. The triumvirate Bukharin-Gorkin-Manuilski had solicited - he affirms - a whole underworld which had never had anything to do with the Yugoslav movement and which was sent for "bolshevising" completely the party. In the VIIIth conference of the organisation of Zagreb, the Djakovic-Tito fraction seized the power in the name of the fight against the splitting represented by the "left ". But in August 1928, Tito was arrested and imprisoned during 5 years in Yugoslavia. Djuro Djakovic (1886-1929), Croat like Ciliga, had followed the courses of the Lenin School in 1927-1928. Obliged to return clandestinely to Croatia, for a true suicidal mission, he was assassinated at once in April 1929. The situation of Yugoslav Communism worsened quickly: less because of monarchist repression that following his concessions to the anti-Serb Croatian nationalist movement and especially of the so-called politics "class against class", purely adventurist, issued by Stalin after the VIth congress of the Comintern (31).

In June 1928, the assassination inside the Parliament of the Peasant deputy Radic, leader of the Croatian Peasant party, with the blessing of the Serb nationalist parties (32), put fire at the powders. The national factor definitively took the step on the social factor, nourishing all the adventures of type the nationalist or terrorist. The assassination of Radic, - whose party had been in 1924 member of Krestintern before Radic chosen in 1925 to take part in the royal government - and the disorders which followed in Croatia made it possible for the king of Yugoslavia to build his personal dictatorship in January 1929. He dissolved the Parliament and put out the law the political parties, initially the Yugoslav CP. That occurred in full "third period" of the Comintern, period of calculated adventurism, where the armed insurrection was prepared at each street corner (33).

In a party directed by Russian agents, of whom some were agitators at the service of the police (34), the direction of the CPY was engulfed in the adventurism. It proclaimed that the only solution to the crisis for the working class and the farmers (was) the armed fight, the civil war against the domination of the hegemonic Serb Bourgeoisie. That resulted - in addition to the reinforcement of the anti-Serb nationalist feelings - in duels with the revolver between Communists and police officers. According to Ciliga, and the CPY, repression made among Communists hundreds of deaths; perhaps 30 (35).

It was already enormous; and the party was tiny room for a few hundreds of members. But all this radicalism badly hid CPY’s nationalist gangrene: it supported the nationalist organisations of any edge, which at least since 1928 was concretised by a close co-operation with the nationalist Macedonians (VRMO) (36) and the Ustashe terrorists (37). In 1929, at the time of these tragic events, Ciliga was already formally in the Left opposition. He and his Yugoslav comrades of Moscow made push back with one crushing majority (90 votes against 5) the resolution of support to the Comintern’s policy in Yugoslavia. Interesting fact, the left of the CPY was devoted to a self-criticism of its national policy: "Started from the national question, we were in the presence of the following dilemma: Socialist revolution or Bourgeois revolution in Yugoslavia. The left-wing fraction had formerly recommended exploiting the problem of nationalities in the interests of the revolution. But this exploitation had ended up taking a form such as the Communist Party and the labour movement was reduced by it to serve Bourgeois nationalism of the oppressed people of Yugoslavia. Well before one had seen in France the reconciliation between Red and Tricolour flags, the International and the Marseillaise, one had come from there in Dalmatia to alliance of the Croatian Tricolour and red flags, International and the national anthem Our beautiful fatherland (Nasa lepija domovina). The revolutionary workers’ movement was likely to dislocate themselves in as many simply radical movements than there are nationalities in Yugoslavia." (38).

Ciliga with others had formed a Trotskyist group, in the illegality, with a score of oppositional elements. A centre of 6 members had been named and composed of 4 Yugoslavians: Stanko Dragic, the true person in charge of the group, old member of the central committee of the CPY; Mustafa Dedic, former secretary of the trade-union committee of Herzegovina; Stepan Heberling, coming from Vojvodina; finally Ante Ciliga. There were also two Russians: Victor Zankov and Oreste Glibovskij (39). This group incorporated the woman of Tito, Pelagija Denisova-Belusova, until his arrest and his disappearance in 1934-1935, without Tito protesting (40). This clandestine group was in contact with the Trotskyist organisation of Moscow, which provided it letters and documents of Trotsky and Racovski. In addition, Ciliga and his comrades were in close connection with the Russian factory workers. Of course, the activities of the group were discovered by the GPU. A commission of the Comintern (Soltz commission, name of this one who chaired it), with the servile support of Yugoslav Politburo, decided to exclude Ciliga and two militants of his group for one year (with deferment!). 20 others had to leave Moscow. According to a usual practice of Stalinism, at its beginnings, the apparatus tried "to buy" Ciliga by proposing to him a job well remunerated as archivist and teacher in Leningrad. After having personally seen Kirov, "the boss" before his assassination, he was named part-time lecturer at the Communist University of this City. But he does not pass with weapons and luggage on the side of the new red "bourgeoisie", "camouflaged under the tinsels of bureaucrat". It was in full period of forced collectivisation of the campaigns, where the speech was simple: "That those who want to enter to the kolkhoz put on the left, and those who want to go to Siberia to right!..." (41). The whole followed by appalling famines and massive shootings of the recalcitrant peasants. As for the workers, promised to the "gay and merry life" of the Stalinist quinquennial plans: their wages dropped by 50 % compared to 1913. "We live currently more badly than at the time of the capitalists!". Their demoralisation - which explains partly the triumph of the counter-revolution - was total: "... what can we do now? Can it were possible that we, who wanted the power Soviet, would fight it? " (42).

In fact, although the Dragic’s and Ciliga’s group - according to his terms - was a particular case of an underground life, where were born the new ideas, the Croatian Communist had to note a terrible insulation. The students of Ciliga - coming from the working class - ‘were parvenus of the system, and thus the worst enemies of any authentic labour movement, for such a movement should necessarily seek the destruction of all the bureaucratic system." After discussions with the Trotskyist intellectuals, Ciliga started to have serious doubts about this current and its chief Trotsky. Being interested finally little in the fate of the working class, for them "Stalin (carried out) the essence of the program of the opposition, but with more brutality". He concluded since 1930 - conclusion a posteriori of 1937? (43) - that the State capitalism triumphed in the USSR, sustained constantly as well by Stalin as by Trotsky and the intellectuals of the opposition: "Stalinists and Trotskyists (identify) the State capitalism to socialism and bureaucracy to the proletariat. Trotsky, as well as Stalin, made pass the State for the proletariat’s one, the dictatorship of the bureaucracy on the proletariat for dictatorship of the proletariat, the victory of the State capitalism over private capitalism for socialism, for a victory of this last one." (44).

In this state of mind, where - so he write it - he underestimated his divergences with the Trotskyists, he was arrested on May 21, 1930 in Leningrad, after having visited his comrades of Moscow, more interested by an immediate activity in the factories (leaflets, strike watchwords) that by an activity of theoretical reflection in the long time.



IV - PRISONS, INSULATORS AND SIBERIAN EXILE (1930-1935)



Arrested with his comrades, whereas Dragic escaped the GPU temporarily, Ciliga knew the prison of Leningrad. Each day, prisoners were shot. However, at that time, "the prison is the only place in Soviet Russia where people express themselves in a more or less sincere and open way." And beside that, social demoralisation was so deep that all condemned to dead were keep silent, "without a cry of revolt against the government which put them at death" (45). As Ciliga deduced from it: as the forces of the revolution as the forces of the left were "exhausted".

In November, Ciliga was transported to the insulator of Verkhne-Uralsk, political prison along the Ural Mountain, in the north of Magnitogorsk (46). This insulator was the last place where it could be easy to speak freely, where the press and meetings freedom was exerted. The 250 prisoners (approximately 180 Communists and 70 Anarchists) made political meetings according to the rulebook, with meeting’s president and secretary. The majority was exerted to write articles for hand-written newspapers, which circulated by "the interior post office" (by de means of baskets between the cells). There was even a library with political books. A strong majority of the prisoners was Trotskyist (120 to 140) and received Trotsky’s booklets, pamphlets and circulars. With the presence of Mensheviks, Left Socialist-revolutionaries, 16 Decists ( "Democratic Centralism group"), and of 3 partisans of Miasnikov, there was "a true illegal Parliament of Russia".

According to Ciliga, the social composition of the insulator was primarily "intellectual". There were hardly 15 % of workers. The communist sector of the opposition was composed of 43 % of Jews, of 27 % of Caucasians (Georgians and Armenians), Russians with some representatives of other nationalities reaching 30 %. Interesting fact: the Russian and working class element was especially represented in the Ultra-Left: Democratic Centralism, group, and prevailed in the Miasnikov’s Workers’ Group. This Russian national "phenomenon ", also appeared according to Ciliga - among Anarchists. Among the Trotskyist militants, Ciliga noticed a vast majority of young intellectuals and Jewish technicians coming from the Ukrainian and Bielorussian Petty-Bourgeoisie. According to him, there was among them "a strong group of former soldiers and Chekists ", directly resulting from the Apparatus (48).

Ciliga found in Verkhne-Uralsk his Yugoslav and Russian comrades: Dragic, Dedic, Zankov, Glibovskij. They decided to militate in the "collective of the Bolshevik-Leninists" of the insulator. But those were divided into three tendencies:

A tendency directed by professors Solnstsev, Iakovin and Stopalov. This group, author of the Theses of the three, agglomerated Dingelstedt. It was the largest fraction. It recommended "a reform by in the tops", and finally industrialisation, the quinquennial plans, etc. It wanted "... the same thing as Stalin ", but only in a "more human appearance" (49).

A small group, known as "centre-wing" or "centrist" group, directed by the son-in-law of Trotsky Man-Nivelson and Aaron Papermeister, which was hardly different from "the right-wing" group. It published with this lasts one a common newspaper (hand-written) entitled Pravda v tjurme (" the Truth in prison ").

The Left fraction to which the Ciliga’s friends adhered wanted "a reform by in bottom", being based on the working class. Its theoretical weakness held in what not only it defined the quinquennial plans as "bluff " but it denied the world economic crisis. It published the newspaper Voinstvujuchtchij Bolshevik (" the militant Bolshevik")

Apart from these fractions, only the Trotskyist Densov considered, while citing Lenin, that the Soviet economy was a form of State capitalism.

"The militant Bolshevik" in whom Ciliga under the pseudonym of Richard wrote, was published once per month or every two months, including 10-20 articles, in separated books, with a run of only three copies (1 for each wing of the prison) (50).

Ciliga very quickly belonged to the Left Bolsheviks’ tendency evolving apart from the Trotskyist mould, where "a quotation of Trotsky had the value of a proof " (51). He noted that the Stalinist bureaucracy became "little by little the nucleus of a new leading class "; consequently, it was necessary to carry out wage claiming, as in any capitalist country; and for this reason even to be combined with socialist and anarchist factory workers. For a new fight of the revolutionary working class, there was a need of a new revolutionary party. This position, with 5 years of delay, was finally that of Korsch in 1926, of whose writings Ciliga seems to have been unaware.

The increasingly radical Ciliga’s evolution was initially given - according to him - by the attitude of the Trotskyist majority of the insulator, which required a monolithic position: the "militant Bolsheviks" had to dissolve and suspend the publication of their newspaper, or else they would be excluded. The Left Trotskyist group of the 30 (whose Ciliga) proposed a new editorial board, composed of a representative of each tendency, and publishing only one organ for all the Communists. "The militant Bolsheviks " were not indeed represented in this editorial board.

The Trotskyist known as "right-wing Trotskyists" and the "centrists" excluded them, with hateful methods which proved "that between Trotskyism and Stalinism there were many common items" (52). The other reason was that the GPU, which had agents until the interior of the prison, pushed towards the scission.

The result was that there were (around 1931) two Trotskyist organisations:

* the "Collective of the Bolshevik-Leninists" (majority) with 75-78 members;

* the "Collective of left-wing Bolshevik-Leninists", 51 or 52 members; it published the newspaper Bolshevik Leninist with the pens of V. Densov, N.P. Gorlov, M. Kamenetski, O. Pouchas and Ciliga (53).



The political radicalisation of Ciliga and the "leftist" Bolshevik-Leninists can be explained as much by the horrors of collectivisation and the quinquennial plans as by the rejection of the Trotsky’s positions.

Ciliga noted already - when he taught in Leningrad - all the privileges of the rising class, whereas the worker stagnated in misery. Among the prisoners arriving in the insulator, one of them assure him the massive massacre of Ukrainian peasants (3 million of victims), the deportation from 5 to 10 million Muzhiks, the slow anguish of exiled of Siberia from which the lifespan did not exceed two years. A third of the working class lived in a true slavery, for Stalin’s pharaonic works (Baltic-White seas channel, etc.).

The Trotskyist ultra-left, represented by Ciliga and his friends, was extremely dissatisfied by the Trotsky’s dithyrambic standpoint in 1932 on the "really incredible current successes" of the Stalinist economic policy (54).

Quite naturally opened, in 1932, in the Trotskyist milieu of the prison a rough discussion on the nature of the USSR. One voted for even a resolution for or against the "working class" character of the USSR: this one obtained 15 vote for. Another resolution, defended by what there remained of the "militant Bolsheviks " collected 15 vote, while speaking as Trotsky about a necessary "political revolution on the economic basis of October "; the regime was " above the classes ", but "dictatorship of the proletariat " had disappeared.

But especially, there were "extremist negators", of whose Ciliga. Their resolution, minority, supported by 15 vote, proclaimed that the bureaucracy was a true class hostile to the proletariat; and thus that only the social revolution could lead to socialism.

In 1932 the document, after reading last documents of Trotsky, the rupture of Ciliga and ten militants with the Trotskyist collective was consumed. Like use, a declaration was written where it was clearly announced that the Trostky’s Program reinforced "the illusions of the Western proletariat " in Stalinism, by wearing it of the absurd label of "Proletarian State ". The conclusion was a rejection of the Trotskyism as a left current of Stalinism: "Trotsky and his partisans are too closely related to the bureaucratic regime in the USSR to be able to carry out the fight against this regime until its extreme consequences ". Trotsky was "at the bottom the theorist of a regime whose Stalin is the practitian" (55).

A Ciliga’s article entitled "Bureaucratic or Proletarian Opposition" marked its passage in the extreme left. In fact, in the insulator, the influence of the non-Trotskyist extreme Left was decisive and became more and more extensive, according to Ciliga.

There were first of all the Decists, certainly most divided into fractions. Leninists at the beginning, but against the bureaucratic centralism, they had been against the Workers opposition in 1920. A lot of them had capitulated after the first quinquennial Plan, which seemed to them a victory against the NEP. In the insulator, on the other hand, and undoubtedly elsewhere, they had been radicalised much, but in confusion and division. There were 3 or 4 Decist fractions. But with important nuances, they had approached much the Miasnikov’s Workers’ Group (56), whose leader in Verkhne-Uralsk was Sergej Tijunov. Miasnikovians defined Trotskyism as "an opposition of high-ranking civil servants " of the bureaucracy. They criticised at the root Leninism and "party dictatorship". For them, it was decisive that the workers can have freedom to choose among the concurrent workers parties within the working class. Since 1923, they had gradually arrived at the position that in USSR reigned the bureaucratic State capitalism. (57)

As for the Decists - whose leader S.P. Medvedev (1885-1937) was going to join the insulator in 1935, whereas Ciliga was in Siberia - they had approximately adopted the Miasnikov’s Theses. For the Decist Jak Kosman, Lenin had given industry to the hands of the bureaucracy. For Shapiro, another Decist, the Workers Opposition in 1921 had not represented the interests of the proletariat, but those of the trade-unions’ bureaucracy ". But, on the other hand, in accordance to the positions of the German and Dutch Councils Communists, another Decist Volodia Smirnov affirmed: " There never existed in Russia a proletarian revolution nor a dictatorship of the proletariat. There was simply a popular revolution by bottom and a bureaucratic dictatorship by the top. " As for Lenin, the holy image of the Russian revolution, it was to be broken: "Lenin was never an ideologist of the proletariat. From the beginnings to the end he was an ideologist of the intelligentsia. ".

In fact, for Volodia Smirnov - as for besides Otto Rühle (58) - the Bolshevism expressed, just like Mussolini, Hitler, Ataturk, Roosevelt, a universal tendency towards the State capitalism. Such theses caused scandal until in the ultra-left, and Smirnov was excluded from the group. However an extremely important discussion had opened on this question where clashed Ciliga who considered this capitalist tendency in Russia as relatively "progressist" and Tijunov who saw in it a "purely parasitic phenomenon " (59).

Ciliga evolved in the same direction as these Left Communist tendencies. After having demolished the image of Trotsky, in whom he did not believe any more - following a report that made him a sailor of Kronstadt on the Trotsky’s responsibility of the 10.000 shot sailors and workers by the Cheka after March 1921 -, he started to break his veneration for Lenin. Although having "a place of honour in the heart of the workers and the Pantheon of the history ", he had become the spokesman of the Soviet bureaucracy ", by liquidating socialism in the economic field. Finally, "Lenin had opened the way to Stalin ".

At the time when Ciliga - with Dragic - were to leave Verkhné-Uralsk to be off-set in Siberia, was based in 1933 in the insulator "a Federation of the Left Communists", strong from 20 to 25 members, including the Workers Group of Tijunov, the old Decists and some Trotskyists.

The year 1933 had opened heavy threats, with the Hitler’s arrival to the power. The question of a new International arose with the bankruptcy of Stalinism in Germany. The left-wing Trotskyists, being unaware of the Trotsky’s new positions, judged that the call to the formation of the Fourth international was "a premature and demagogic watchword". Smirnov decided for the fusion of the social democrats and the Communists. Tijunov, next to the German and Italian Left Communists, decided vigorously against any "republication of the Third International ". Ciliga, supported to him in writing that "the union of two corpses (social democracy and Stalinism) would not produce an alive body ".

There would be to still say much on the political groups with which Ciliga discussed before its departure the insulator: Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, divided - according to him - between the Trotskyism and the left-wing Communism (group of Kamkov); the anarchists who "represented a form of chivalrous ideal ", the Armenians and the left-wing Zionists purely occupied by their respective national problems...

May 18, 1933, therefore, Ciliga left the insulator, his detention having been gracefully prolonged for two years by the OGPU, with the acceptance of Politburo of the Yugoslav CP. Nothing made there: suicide attempt and hunger strike; Ciliga was off-set during almost 3 years in Siberia (Irkutsk, Ienisseisk, Krasnoïarsk), occupying a place of economist for the Dan bank, then for the forest trust Sevpolarles. All his observation of the living conditions, Ciliga largely told in his book (second part, published in French in 1949).

He contacted the Italian embassy in Moscow, by telegrams, and made play his Italian citizenship. He obtained, after grind efforts, an Italian passport. With the assistance of his family in Italy, and in spite of a prolongation of 3 years exile of stay in Siberia in 1935, Ciliga succeeded in being expelled from the USSR, while making play his quality from alien. Without knowing until the last moment if he were going to be sent on the Arctic circle, to be shot, locked up in a camp, Ciliga on December 3, 1935 with the exit from the train at the Russian border left Russia for Poland.

It was the end of the odyssey in the country of the great lie, certainly richest and most instructive by Ciliga’s analysis of the political life of extreme left in the prisons, lagers of the Soviet Gulag Archipelago. On the other hand, his comrade Stanko Dragic, eminently combative and courageous man, after an attempt at escape in 1934 towards Poland, disappeared body and heart in the terrible Solovki Isles.



V. - THE SECOND "ODYSSEY" OF CILIGA (1936-1945)



Of course, all the Ciliga’s manuscripts, letters and notes were removed to him by the men of the GPU, and thus are sleeping in the archives of this organisation.

Without recognising it in his memories and interviews, while passing by Czechoslovakia, Ciliga contacted two Trotskyist militants: Vladislav Burian and Jan Frankel (60), and by this skew Trotsky. Without wasting time, a few days hardly after his exit of the USSR, Ciliga had written to Trotsky, who answered him (61), and with the Bulletin of the Russian opposition. His testimony is published immediately in Russian and French by the Trotskyist press. He launches the idea of a material and political aid in order to come to assistance of the deportees and imprisoned, "under the pressure of the European workers and the democratic movement ". This idea was taken up by Trotsky as of December 1935: he proposed to launch a "Ciliga committee" for the defence of the political Communist prisoners, following the important revelations made by the Croatian Communist (62).

But the divergences with the Trotskyist movement were spread out quickly and openly. Ciliga suggested a committee which would defend the "Bolshevik-Leninists as well as the imprisoned Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks". He noted besides that, compared to Germany de Hitler, the Trotskyist hastened to call with the common fight of the social democrats with the Stalinists against Fascism. Trotsky refuses. A block with the Mensheviks and "s.r." abroad would be harmful, especially because it would lend the side to the attacks of Stalinism.

Installed in Paris at the end of January 1936, Ciliga published articles in Bjulleten’ oppozitsii (Trotskyist organ in Russian, published in Paris, until 1940). That lasted until May, date on which ceased any written collaboration. Ciliga had committed the "unforgivable crime" to also send articles to the Dan’s Menshevik review in Paris Sotsialisticeskij Vestnik ("the Socialist Messenger ") (63), articles which were especially informative.

Nevertheless, Ciliga, who had been with the extreme Left of the Trotskyism, to join finally in 1933 with certain positions of the Russian Communist Left (Workers Group, Decists) moved away from there to approach gradually social-democrat positions. These were not the positions on the State capitalism which made of Ciliga " a Menshevik" - as it is affirmed by certain Trotskyist which assimilates Communist Left to Menshevism (64) - but its spirit impresses democratic idealism. Trotsky could write, not without reason, June 22, 1936, that Ciliga was not Marxist, but an "semi-liberal element in his thought, humanitarian, idealist, certainly very honest in its kind ". But he also added - what was obviously false with the reading of the book that Ciliga started to write all the year 1936 - that "even in the insulator, he (was) remained what he had always been: an idealistic and exalted Democrat, who, of Stalinist that he was, (was) become anti-Stalinist, but not Marxist for as much " (65).

In fact, all the work of Ciliga was to make known by all average the its experiment in the Russian insulators and prisons, which was made by the translation of Russian of his book published by Gallimard in spring 1938. The Gestapo in 1941 (66) seized besides this book, published in English in London in 1940.

Before the war, the path of Ciliga was going to be contradictory. He lived of his pen; but he wrote also articles for the Messager socialiste in 1937 (67), the liberal newspaper of Zagreb Nova Evropa (68), the Novosti newspaper of governmental tendency, and even the French Syndicalist Révolution prolétarienne (69), oscillating between liberalism, anarchism, and nostalgia of the Croatian country. All this activity in the Croatian press allowed the organ of the CPY, Proleter, to denounce him as "fascist spy". (70).

In summer 1937, he returned to his native village of Istria, where the Fascist police supervised him. On his arrival in Yugoslavia, he was - he claims - decree and put six months in prison (in fact three months); according to him at the instigation of the Stalinist Yugoslavians who had infiltrated the political police, whose chief was a Communist. He could nevertheless regain Paris, as the Titists allowed it, in a purely Stalinist style, in 1952, to show him to having been since Russia an agent of the Mussolini’s OVRA. (71).

It should however be stressed that in 1936 and 1937 Ciliga constantly obtained the renewal of his Italian passport. That made it possible to the Croatian journalist Jan Balkas in the review Cultura (September 1, 1937) to show Ciliga to be with the service and the pay of the fascist government and police. In fact, according to police reports’, Ciliga questioned on August 17, 1937 with the quaestorship of Pola was satisfied to give its history, while ensuring that socialising remainder, he was no more registered with any party. In September 1937, the embassy of Italy noted that Ciliga was of "antifascist feelings without however carrying out any propaganda " (72). December 21, he left Italy for France, where the Fascist OVRA noted all his changes of residence and profession (he taught German at the commercial school Pigier in Saint-Maur and frequented as student the Russian courses at the School of Eastern Languages).

In 1938, Ciliga was already in liaison - whereas he wrote the second part of his book - with "the revolutionary Syndicalists" of the Révolution prolétarienne. At the same time as Victor Serge, Ciliga conducted campaign against Trotsky in connection with his role in the repression of the insurgent sailors of Kronstadt. Those were presented by Trotsky as "completely demoralised elements, men who carried elegant baggy breeches and were capped the made-to-order of upholders ". While being defended to have taken part directly in repression, and by it minimising, Trotsky approved it completely (73). For Ciliga, who remained still faithful to certain positions of the left-wing Communism, "the repression of Kronstadt, the suppression of the Workers’ and Soviet democracy by the 10th congress of the Russian Communist Party, the elimination of the proletariat of the management of industry, the introduction of the NEP meant already the death of the revolution ". There remained nothing any more but the alliance of the State capitalism with private capitalism (74). Ciliga held first hand information of an insurgent communist sailor whom he met in the Leningrad’s prison in 1930, as he brings it back in his book "In the country of the great lie ".

In 1939, some time before the world war, Ciliga was integrated in the discussion circle leaded by the Germans Arkadij Maslov and Ruth Fischer, the Russians Gabriel Miasnikov - old leader of the Workers Group, who lived in France since 1929 -, and the "left-wing Menshevik " Vera Alexandrova, literature critic of Sotsialisticeskij vestnik ("Socialist Messenger ", Menshevik review in Paris). A circle where reigned large disorientation: Arkadij Maslov was pessimistic on the German proletariat, reached "provincialism ". Miasnikov, "a volcanic energy " and "a brilliant autodidact " poured gradually in "Soviet patriotism " starting from the Russian war against Finland (75).

At the time of the rout of 1940, Ruth Fischer and Maslov succeeded in leaving France for the American continent. Ciliga raised the question to embark France for the USA or to remain in this country, "to go on a circular journey through Europe in war, to see by (his) proper eyes the aspects of the crisis and decline of the European continent ". (76).

At that time, Ciliga had already given up any reference to the Marxist and proletarian movement. Influenced, according to its statements, by Keynes and Spengler, he estimated that the revolution belonged to a completed past, that declining Europe would leave clear room "to the ambition of the Kremlin to colonise Europe ". (77).

Having finished his book on Siberia, land of exile and industrialisation, in August 1941, Ciliga - as Ulysses - returned in his "Croatian fatherland", animated by a patriotism which had hardly left him since his youth.

Ciliga made the Paris-Zagreb trip, via Turin, Trieste, Pola in Istria - where he remained two months in the family house -, then passed by Ragusa (Dubrovnik) to go to Bosnia-Herzegovina, then from there to Croatia, where he arrived in December 1941 (78).

For the comprehension of the odyssey of Ciliga, and to answer the libellous charges point by point that he underwent at the Tito’s time, it is necessary to point out some historical facts.

After the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 by the Hitler’s armies, the German emissary in Zagreb had wanted to install Vladimir Macek, president of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), and former vice-president of the government reversed by the coup-d’état pro-Allied of March 27 - and who had decided alliance with Hitler and Mussolini. But he had refused to become Head of the Croatian State which Third Reich wanted to create after the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. Therefore the choice of Germany had been directed towards the Ustasha movement, whose chief in Zagreb colonel Kvaternik proclaimed with the radio the creation of the Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska, or N.D.H.) and its catch of being able in the name of the poglavnik (chief) Ante Pavelic. It is interesting to note that Macek and his Peasant Party gave support to and invited to collaborate with the new government.

Refugee in Italy, the Ustasha chief - with the help of Mussolini, after "giving" Dalmatia to the Duce - could return to Zagreb on April 15 with his henchmen. Following completely the Axis policy, he declared at once the war to Great Britain, then later to the USSR and the USA. For price of this good behaviour, Germany agreed to give to Croatia Bosnia-Herzegovina, while it installed a puppet government in Serbia, that Italy divided Slovenia with Reich; that finally Bulgaria received major part of Macedonia, and Hungary Vojvodina with its Hungarian "minority ".

The Ustasha State - a few days hardly after its formation - decided to undertake an "ethnic purification", directed against the 2 million Serb living in the Croatian State (against 3,3 million Bosnian Croats and 700.000 "Moslems"). Serbs, Jews and Gypsies were proclaimed "lower races". The result was a ferocious and pitiless terror: 600.000 Serbs were massacred directly or by sending these ones in death lagers; 30.000 Jews were exterminated. In all the country, emergency courts multiplied, whose sentences of death were executory in the next 3 hours. These massacres will last until summer 42, with the blessing of the Catholic Church and Croatian Franciscans, who saw as "blessed bread" the forced conversion of all Serbs who had not been killed. (79).

Dalmatia lately Italian became a land of asylum for persecuted Serbs and Croatians; but also for Serb tchetnici (Chetniks), sometimes combined to the Italians for their zeal in the fight against the Tito’s partisans, and who in their turn will massacre Croats of Dalmatia. In front of the success of Stalinist propaganda and movement in favour of the Serb and Croatian workers and peasants in Croatia, Italy and Germany reflect a brake, by pure interest, with the massacres of orthodox Serbs. (80).

In these conditions Ciliga arrived to Zagreb, via Bosnia-Herzegovina, - not as Pavelic’s companion, as Titoist propaganda (81) supported it. Ciliga was put in prison on a Titoist warrant arrest emanating from former Yugoslavia. According to him behind this arrest there was the Tito’s hand, whose agents would have infiltrated all the police machinery of the Ustasha movement; the Stalinists suggested to the police that Ciliga "was the political representative of Moscow in Yugoslavia and that Tito was only some military specialist in guerrilla " (82).

According to the Mussolini’s police in Croatia, Ciliga was stopped on June 19, 1942 in Sisak by the men of Pavelic on suspicion "of spying in favour of Italy ", as indicated in his file of Zagreb. (83).

At the end of his detention, where he had had a short conversation with Pavelic, who visited the prison, and to whom he explained why he was not any more communist (84) he was sent at the end of June 1942 in the terrible death camp of Jasenovac (85), carrying an indefinite death sentence.

But, as he self acknowledges it, Ciliga had his safety due only to his reputation of anglophilia. Indeed, the defeat of Stalingrad had shaken the Ustasha State. It was born a conspiracy of the Ministers for the interior and defence to make pass the Croatian State in the Allied camp, exactly as for Fascist Italy in 1943. They waited - and Pavelic too - as it seems - who had contacted the USSR and the British government in case of a combined landing in Dalmatia - to pass in the other camp.

Thanks to these interventions in high place, Ciliga was released on January first, 1943 of the camp. This was too thanks to the archbishop Alois Stepinac, but not, as the Titoist propaganda claimed it, for glorifying the Croatian State in various publications. (86)

The Italian police noted however with a certain dislike that Ciliga was abruptly promoted in the Ustasha State. He was placed at the house of the State employees in Zagreb. As journalist, he was named section head of Croatian journalism close to the ministry of the Foreign Affairs, a promotion that incontestably testified a high confidence on behalf of the Ustasha State, and of a not less great compromising with the Ustasha party. That he was defended some later, drove back in his cuttings off, by making a "distinction" between the Croatian State and the Ustashe, cannot dissimulate this collaboration.

Though his flatterers say some, it is certain that Ciliga at that time - whereas he was presented as such in his books on Russia - was any more neither Marxist nor Internationalist, but a Croatian nationalist, apparently pro-Allied, sailing in stinking water of Ustasha.

It is certain that Ciliga published much in Zagreb during all the year 1943 and until the summer 1944. He wrote for the Catholic review, intended for "the intellectuals": Spremnost ("Preparation "). His articles related to his experiment in Russia (88). In the absence of a direct access to the Croatian Archives, it is difficult to realise of the positions defended by Ciliga on other questions, if not indirectly. Thus, for example, September 19, 1943, in Spremnost, he published an article where, after the Italian collapse, he called to the integration of Istria in the Ustasha State, "for the restoration and the reinforcement of the political and cultural Ustashe positions in Istria " (89).

It is not astonishing that with such nationalist feelings, Ciliga - at the time of the Croatian edition in 1943 of his odyssey in Russia (90), was credited from an eulogistic foreword of a Ustasha politician, who flatteringly compared him with Doriot.

That he also wrote in the semi-official organ of the Ustasha State Hrvatski narod ("Croatian People"), as his Titoist adversaries sustained it (91), that is true. On top, as on certain articles of Spremnost, Ciliga kept a total silence in his memories and interviews.

He published, in 1944, in "Istrian dialect" his report on his odyssey in Istria and in the lager of Jasenovac. On this last point, the testimony of Ciliga seems not very reliable and to even reveal anti-Semite feelings. According to him, the Jews, in the camp of Jasenovac, enjoyed a privileged position, assisted even the Ustashe, by supervising the selection of the prisoners; taking part in the execution and baiting themselves - as the Ustashe - Serbs and Gypsies, introduced like "competitors" of the Jews in the control of the camp. This "vision " of the facts is not without to have consolidated the "revisionist " vision of the Croatian history (92).

About spring 1944, Ciliga decided to leave Zagreb, for Austria and Germany, to study "the complex balancesheet which existed between Hitler and the German people " (93). In fact, the situation became delicate for him. Some believed him in the service of some government or secret service, either English, or Russian. In addition, in summer 1944, with the unloading in Normandy, Pavelic realised the place of the unloading would not be any more in Dalmatian. Therefore he could not any more tolerate any pro-Allied tendency in his government. The anglophile opposition (the two ministers Lorkovic and Vokic) was pitilessly decapitated in September 1944 after the attempt against Hitler.

Paradoxically, according to Ciliga, because he was believed a pro-Allied agent, he could obtain a visa for Vienna. He had initially refused in May 1944 to form part of a Croatian delegation to take part in the European antibolshevik congress that Goebbels prepared in Vienna. In consideration of which, for the circumstance, Ciliga had been appointed professor of history and sociology at the University of Zagreb. (94).

At the same time, by twice, he was invited - so he writes it - to pass in the rows of the Tito’s partisans, who in fact controlled all the Croatian Dalmatia and campaigns. He refused by fear, as he write it, of a trap where he would be stopped by the Ustasha police, on denunciation of "the Titists", and carried out.

In fact, he could leave Zagreb for Vienna thanks to Konrad Klaser, the chief of local Gestapo, (95), a former Austrian Communist, who was interested particularly in him. He revealed that Klaser was an agent of Tito, who passed to the Titists in May 1945, and was liquidated in 1948 as Kominformist pro-URSS. This " mole " of Tito believed that Ciliga was "a Communist agent " like him. From July 1944 to February 1945, Ciliga travelled with the visa granted in Vienna and Berlin, noting the atmosphere reigning in the two countries. The end of the war found it in Switzerland, after a stay in Bavaria, where he met the American troops. Well took some to him: "the Titists " massacred in Bleiburg 50.000 Ustashe or alleged such, in May 1945. After 1948, it was the turn of the Kominformists to know the camps and death in arid islands (Goli Otok).



VI. - "JANUS WITH DOUBLE FACE " (1945-1992)



After the World War II, Ciliga will pass all the remainder of its life between Paris, where it lives a few years, and Rome. Its books on Yugoslavia will make known in France, Italy, and other countries as much by the republication of its book on "the great lie" and by its booklet on Lenin (96). One can quote: Yugoslavia under the interior and external threat, in 1951 (97); The State Crisis in Tito’s Yugoslavia in 1972, and finally only in Italian Il Labirinto jugoslavo in 1983 (98) This last book is the last one published alive by him on this subject.

This very strong interest for the problems of Yugoslavia built by Tito was translated in fact by a full engagement in the Croatian nationalist movement, in his "left wing". At the end of his life - in 1983 - Ciliga wrote that by antistalinism "he did not cease supporting the foreign policy of Tito by always criticising advantage its policy interior" in the problem of the nationalities. (99).

In fact, in the immediate future post-war period, Ciliga in Paris did not cease to have activity directed towards Istria, where he went (there was a allied garrison, in this zone which became Yugoslav only at the end of 1947) several times, and missed being removed several times by the police of Tito; but that failed for that, he says, he had friends "among the partisans and in the Tito’s political police" (100).

At the beginning of the Fifties, installed in Paris, Ciliga wrote in French a hostile book against Tito, and which caused a new attempt at removal to him. In fact, the literature published by him of "Serbo-Croatian " takes to a tonality definitely nationalist Croatian, anti-Serb. Will Ciliga raise the question "to when the Croatian people groan under the Serb yoke?" (101). Previously, he wondered, seriously, in the revolutionary syndicalist review Revolution prolétarienne whever Tito would solve the national problem by the real equality "between all the Slaves of the South ", and who would be "true political great man of our country " (102). In 1952, he seemed to have found it, with criticisms, in the chief of the Croatian Peasants party (HSS), Vladko Macek, exiled in the USA (103), to whom he proposed to contribute to "the liberation of the Croatian people" and to take the direction of a Balkan committee (104).

This insertion in Croatian immigration - very composite - was worth to him to be published as far as Argentina in a politico-cultural review moreover largely opened to the Ustashe currents, Hrvatska Revija. - Revista croata, published in Buenos Aires (105), where Pavelic had taken refuge, whom Tito claimed the extradition. It is very characteristic that Ciliga was always opposed to this extradition, taking care well not to publicly criticise Ustashe before the middle of the Fifties.

Installed to Rome about the middle of the Fifties, Ciliga will be affirmed in the Croatian emigration like a politician, of social democrat tendency, publishing his own publications. In the name of the Croatian national Council (Hrvatski narodni odbor), whose base was in Germany under the crook of Ivan Jelic, he published from 1958 to 1960 a bulletin: Bilten Hrvatskog Narodnog Odbora u Italiji (106). Thereafter, this last was replaced by a Bulletin of the democratic and social Action Croatian (Bilten Hrvatske Demokratske I Socjalne Akcije) from 1961 to 1973. In this last social democrat organisation (HDSA), Ciliga was not a simple contributor; he was officially the political secretary (107).

The development of a strong particularly Croatian Yugoslav emigration, then the same events of Yugoslavia, at the end of the Sixties and at the beginning of the Seventies, will give him a growing place and a political recognition in this medium strongly marked by nationalism.

Thus, in 1960 less than 10.000 Yugoslav workers were employed in BRD (West Germany); in 1972, they were 400.000, and 640.000 in 1976. Many others emigrated in Australia, Canada, the USA, and even in Sweden and Switzerland. A majority of them was Croatian. It followed a proliferation of nationalist groups from the Stalinist left to the extreme Ustasha right-wing tendency, splitting groups - for example 100 per 43.000 Yugoslavians in Sweden! - and of reviews (more than 80 Croatian monthly reviews through the world (108).

In addition in 1971 occurred - what in a typical way Ciliga names "Croatian spring" - demonstrations in Zagreb, with Croatian flags and slogans. The CP of Croatia which had besides contacts with the Croatian nationalist emigration supported those, Ustashe included. The major reason was that the Croatian Bourgeoisie was extremely dissatisfied with the federal State: this one obtained a third of the currencies gained by tourism in Croatia, which received only the tenth from it. A severe purge operation by Tito followed; and a certain number of writers and intellectuals were exiled to reinforce the Croatian opposition in exile. It was the true beginning of the decomposition of the Yugoslav Federal State (109).

Ciliga, in this context, continued his activities of "editor ", "person in charge" and "political adviser" of his reviews. From 1974, the review typed with the machine on stencils became a printed quarterly review. It took the name of "With the threshold of the future" (Na pragu sutrasnjice) and lasted until the beginning of the Eighties, seems it. This review of "the writer-editor Dr. Ante Ciliga ", with other many contributions, was marked on the right side. He wanted to be for "a dialogue on the problems democratic, national and social of the Croatian fight "and addressed to "the Croatian public ""line with the left ".

Enjoying a certain notoriety as Croatian social democrat politician, Ciliga tried to be elected in 1975 at the congress-assembly of the Croatian national Council (HNV - Hrvatsko Narodno Vijece); in vain since he obtained only half of the voices required to be nominee (110). This council, pro-Westerner, installed in the USA, had been founded in 1974 gathering however whole, pro-Muscovites with the Ustashe - to try to politically control the million and half of Croats living apart from the borders of Yugoslavia, in the name of the unit of "the emigrated Croatian people" (111).

Admittedly, Ciliga in his writings, since 1971, envisaged the possibility of the disappearance of Yugoslavia. (The right man for the job was, according to him, the opponent Milovan Djilas.) He underlined the risk of the reconstitution of a Serb block, after the disappearance of Tito "with annexation of the mixed areas with Serb minorities"; then "there would inevitably be dangerous tensions which would burst in civil war, war of nationalities, war of religion ". If Serbia remained the dominant power without division of the power with the other national Bourgeoisies, could we add, then "that will lead to the disintegration of current Yugoslavia, a partial confederation including Croatia and the other central and Western republics of Yugoslavia, which will want to adhere to it, Kosovo probably passing to Albania and Macedonia to Bulgaria. " (112).

This forecast, one knows it now, - except for details, since the extension of the conflict to Balkans does not make that to start - was fully checked in the slaughters perpetuated in the name of the Serb, Croatian nation, etc. The Ustashe of 1941 found successors on their level in the Stalinist or former Stalinist parties, reconverted into "the capitalism ", which they are of Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia.

A psychological and political characteristic of Ciliga, in his path of Communist until that of social democrat, will be to research at all costs "united front" of all the political parties, the common agreement in the name of pluralism. But in the last part of his life, that will be carried out under the sign of "the Croatian nation". That stills in 1979, at the moment when the HNV - to which Ciliga had presented his candidature - was in crisis. (113).

Later, in 1980, with the death of the old great chief Tito, Ciliga could announce the end of Yugoslavia, born in 1945. But it was for once more putting ahead a nationalist solution, the creation of a Croatian State, certainly inserted in "a Confederation of 6 sovereign national States " (114). "A true confederation or separation", such was the program of the Ciliga’s group, which in any event put ahead, even in such a confederation, the need for building a Croatian State. It is true that, for once, Ciliga did not annex any more (as in its bulletin of the Sixties) Bosnia-Herzegovina to Croatia... (115).

In the final analysis, all the hidden life of Ciliga, that of the underground of the Croatian emigration, was that of a Croatian patriot, marked by a whole policy "frontist", having broken in practice with its old communist convictions and internationalists.

One can speak with. matter of Ciliga of a figure of Janus with double face: nationalist in the Croatian emigration and " mondialist "in his public interventions, but also its memories and interviews, insofar as that did not relate to Croatia and Yugoslavia.

Thus, since 1945, Ciliga affirmed it that the discovery of atomic energy, and threatens it of a third world war put on the agenda "the world political unification, the planetary official organisation ". And it added: with the birth of "a political movement and social nine, conscious and able to undertake the new tasks which fall on mankind the world political unification and the construction of the planetary socialist company ", internationalism is on the agenda. But it is true that it was for better affirming the need for nations: "the former as the new national States must constitute basic units, autonomous and levelling cells of a new world and supranational synthesis and a new unit ". (116).

These last quotations, the Ciliga’s life even show all the ambiguity (Janus) of the character, in his youth at the time of the debates on the Croatian national question, and since 1938-1940 until its death, pensioned by the new Croatian government, when it returned to Zagreb after the proclamation of independence.

Many militants and not-militants, attaches to the ideal internationalist and recipient of the fight of a working class, that one says disappeared, will not forget its oral testimony - with Marcel Body (117) - at the time of the international conference on Kronstadt from March 1981 in Paris, where it was a question of international revolution, proletariat, fight against the oppression of all the States.

Especially the history of the labour movement, and even the history very short - precisely at the moment when it shows the bloody bankruptcy of the nationalitarian ideology and reality in Yugoslavia even - will undoubtedly retain only the author-witness and militant with "the country of the great lie ".

It is in this book that is condensed the best of the former son of Croatian poor small farmers, this son also of the international Revolution, who had ceased thinking one moment that he was Croatian, to be a man without fatherland nor nation, among other beings who had refused the nation for the hope of a planetary revolution giving rise to the mankind-world.

January 1993

(revised Edition, July 1998)

Philippe Bourrinet.



NOTES



1.Ten years in the country of the disconcerting lie, Editions Champ Libre, Paris, 1977. The title "In the Country of the great lie" was that of the Editions 10/18, published the same year. Le Monde, October 14, 1977 (p. 16) specifies that the republication in 10/18 was seized at the request of Ciliga. There was an English translation: The Russian Enigma, London, Routledge, 1940. In Italian : Dieci anni dietro il sipario di ferro. 1 - Al paese della menzogna dell’enigma. 2 - Sibiria, Casini, Roma, 1951. In castillan, Buenos Aires, 1951; German: Im Land der verwirrenden Lüge. Zehn Jahre hinter dem Eisernen Vorhang, Köln, 1953; and in Japanese, Tokyo, 1953.

2.A. CILIGA, Sam kroz Evropu u ratu ("Alone through Europe in war"), Paris, 1954, p. 157. Complete edition: Sam kroz Evropu u ratu (1939-1945), Editions "Na Pragu sutrasnjice", 586 pages, Rome, 1978.

3.This autobiography of 21 pages, on May 25, 1983, entitled simply "Ante Ciliga ", without mention of place and editor ", was provided to us by Arfé (Arthur) Marchadier. (public Edition in 1994 by the editions La Digitale, Quimperlé, in the compilation of texts: Ante CILIGA, After Russia 1936-1990.) It rests much - sometimes supplements it - on the interview made by Minima and Pier Paolo Poggio, for the Italian review Umana Avventura, in three parts, January and May. 1979, then in January 1980. We thank Arturo Peregalli for us for having communicated a photocopy of it. In November 1992, Vecernji list (Zagreb) published a series of articles on the life and the work of Ciliga.

4."Ante Ciliga ", referred to above, p. 2.

5.Idem, p. 3-6, for the period of 1917 and the Bolshevism. These points are not developed in the Italian interview of 1979.

6.For the history of the Yugoslav CP, cf. Ivan AVAKUMOVIC, History of the communist Party of Yugoslavia, 1964, The Aberdeen University Press; Paul SHOUP, Communism and the National Yugoslav Question, 1968, Columbia University Press, London/New York; Milovan BOSIC, Izvori za istoriju Komunistike partije Yugoslavije (1919-1941), "Izdavaki centar komunist ", Belgrade, 1984. This last book contains an invaluable bibliography, and mentions reprints of the congresses and publications of the CP in Yugoslavia, as well as the Memories of leaders of the party.

7.Autobiography, in French, op. cit., p. 8. Many specific points on the young Ciliga in some Story of the Croatian Communism published as from the Seventies in former Yugoslavia.

8.Cf. APIH (Elio) Italia, fascismo e antifascismo nella Venezia Giulia, 1918-1943, Bari, 1966, p. 156. The file of the police on Ciliga (Roma ACS CCP 1342, file 21538) specifies that he was denounced on April 14, 1921 for revolt with armed hand; under the menace of a warrant for arrest, he took refuge in Zagreb. A document of May 11, 1925 (Prefecture of Pola) note that Ciliga "enjoys a good reputation in the public opinion... is a good speaker and able to make conferences... made an intense propaganda of the Bolshevik ideas especially among the coloni and the working class. "

9.There is reprint of Borba (1922-1923); izdanje, Belgrade-Zagreb, 1972, 1980. Ciliga reproduced his articles of Borba on the national question; cf. infra.

10.It is notable that the book of BOSIC, as of others devoted in Yugoslavia to Croatian Communism does not mention name of Ciliga in the central bodies of the CPY. This conspiracy of silence is at the very least strange and recalls - in the former Tito’s Yugoslavia - methods at one time used to the country of the great lie.

11.Cf. J. SCHÄRF, "the October revolution and the labour movement in the Balkan countries ", p. 206-213, in the October Revolution and the European labour movement, EDI, Paris, 1967.

12.Grulovic directed this fraction. Cf. Protokoll des ausserordentlichen Parteitages der KAPD vom 11 (a) 14.9.1921 in Berlin, published and presented by C. Klockner; VWP, Darmstadt, 1986, p. 16-17.

13.Ivan AVAKUMOVIC, op. cit., p. 65. Quotation of "the Resolution about the Yugoslav question ", Proclamations, theses and resolutions of the first four world congresses of the Communist International, reprint Maspéro, 1969, p. 209-210.

14.Cf. General history of socialism, T. 3, PUF, Paris, 1977, under the direction of Jacques DROZ.

15.Cf. P. SHOUP, op. cit., p. 26.

16."Autobiography ", op. cit., p. 9.

17.It is at least what Ciliga affirms. Face the "right" line of Markovic, "the left ", represented by Djuro Dvijic (1896-1938) defended the idea of a federation of Workers and Peasants Governments in each area. The both tendencies were located on a nationalist basis, where it was not any more question of class struggle.

18.In 1923, Sima Markovic published a booklet entitled Nacionalno pitanje u svetlosti marksizma ("the national question in the light of the Marxism "). Ciliga, under the Mbt signature, retorted in Borba Nos. 29, 37, 38, 44, and 45, from August until December 1923. One will find reprint of extracts of the pamphlet of Markovic and articles of Ciliga, in his review Na pragu sutrasnjice, Rome, No. 2-3, August 1974, p. 253-306: "Sima Markovic-Ante Ciliga polemika o nacionalnom pitanju, 1923 g. ". It is interesting to stress that, while speaking about "a federation of Workers and Peasants governments" - watchword of the Comintern -, Ciliga judged that the Serb-Croatian quarrel was a quarrel between two separate nations and two capitalisms. But he denied that each one of these nations could be an imperialist one compared to the other.

19.Autobiography, op. cit., p. 10. This nomination intervened at the end of 1923. Sima Markovic (pseudonym: Semic) was attacked highly by Stalin, March 30, 1925, in "the Yugoslav Commission " of the Executive of the Comintern, since he was pressed on the Stalin’s booklet of 1912, to justify his position. Cf. Kongresi i zemaljske konferencije KPJ 1919-1937, T II "Istorijskog arhiva KPJ ", Belgrade, 1950, p. 421-424.

20.CILIGA, Autobiography, op. cit., p. 11.

21.Cf. G SOMAI, Gramsci a Vienna, Argalia Editore, Urbino, 1979. Gramsci, member of the Office of Vienna, noted in 1923 that Radic was a crafty, skilful politician, and expert in the compromises, but unable to be a strategist (p. 77, and 114.) On the other hand, in an article of Borba, No. 38, Oct. 18. 1923, Ciliga called for a "Workers and Peasants United Front" with the Radic’s HSS, whose party was accepted in 1924 in Krestintern.

22.For this period, cf. article of CILIGA, "Come Tito si impadroni del Partito comunista jugoslavo ", Corrispondenza Socialista No. 7, July 1961, p. 393-399. Reprint, with a provided introduction of Paolo CASCIOLA (p. 1-8), Quaderni Centro di Studi Pietro Tresso, series Studi e Ricerche, No. 12, February 1989. There is an important article of CILIGA on "the role and the destiny of the Croatian Communists in the KPJ " ("Uloga I sudbina hrvatskih komunista U KPJ "), in Bilten HDSA, p. 1-68, No. 67, 1972.

23.10 ans au pays du mensonge déconcertant, Ed. Champ Libre, Paris, 1977, p. 22-23.

24A. CILIGA, Siberia, land of exile and industrialisation, Editions des Iles d’Or, Paris, which published also texts of Rossi (Tasca), Victor Serge, etc.

25.Idem, p. 45.

26.There existed in the USSR several specialised "communist universities". In addition, one of the consequences of the "bolshevisation" had been to create "communist schools" in all the countries.

27.Idem, p. 26-27. For the speech of Trotsky, in the name of the Opposition, December 9, 1926, cf. International correspondence No. 6, January 14, 1927.

28.Idem, p. 31.

29.Idem, p. 42.

30.Ciliga considered the meetings of the Comintern tedious, and pure chattering, where all decided "in the slides". The book of Milovan Bosic, already quoted, mentions (p. 328), as members of the official delegation: Jakob Zorga (1888-1942), G. Vukovic, M. Brezovic and Albert Hlebec (Lidin). Under the name of Rogic, Zorga, secretary of the Yugoslav party, spoke to thank Bukharin for having liquidated the fractional fights in the CPY. Zorga decided for "a Leninist direction and an iron discipline", finally for a Balkan federation of "Workers and peasants independent republics". No opposition is perceptible. Cf. International correspondence, August 4, 1928 (sixth meeting of July 23, 1928).

31.The course towards " the armed insurrection " was especially put on the agenda at the time of the 10th plenary session of July 1929.

32.For a short outline of the period, cf. Natacha RAJAKOVIC, Ambiguities of the Yugoslavism, from Sarajevo to Sarajevo, p. 21-49, Editions Complexe, Brussels, October 1992.

33.Since spring 1928, the direction of the Comintern was concerned with " military question". In German under the name of Neuberg a handbook had come out on the armed insurrection. Cf. French translation, reprint Maspéro, Paris, 1970: A. NEUBERG, Armed Insurrection. In May 1929, the politburo of the central committee of the CPY put on the agenda "the armed insurrection"; in October 1929, the Central Committee proclaimed that it "was necessary to pass from the defensive to the offensive... and to prepare the masses and the party for the armed insurrection" cf. Pregled istorije Saveza Komunista Yugoslavije, Belgrade, 1963, p. 175-177.

34.Ivan AVAKUMOVIC, op. cit., p. 94-95.

35.A. CILIGA, State Crisis in Tito’s Yugoslavia, Denoël, Paris, 1974, p. 165. Ivan AVAKUMOVIC, op. cit., p. 96, gives 30 killed, much less than the number of Yugoslav Communists shot by Stalin a few years after (approximately 800, according to the historian Vladimir Dedijer).

36.The revolutionary Organisation interior Macedonian (unified) or ORIM (U) in French had been created starting from the ruins of the terrorist movement Macedonian ORIM in September 1925. The VMRO (Macedonian-Bulgarian initials), directed by Macedonian, Communists was a pure nationalist creation. The ORIM known as " historical militarily formed the Ustashe of Pavelic, after 1929.

37.AVAKUMOVIC, op. cit., p. 108-109.

38.CILIGA, Ten years in the country..., p. 67-68.

39.Idem, p. 69.

40.The woman of Tito, of Russian origin, Pelagija, was stopped under her eyes. She was exiled in 1938, remaria and "was rehabilitated" in 1957. She died in Moscow in 1968. This arrest of notorious adverse failed to cost the life to Tito in 1938, for suspicion of Trotskyism.

41.CILIGA, op. cit., p. 105.

42.Ibidem, p. 115.

43.Ibidem, p. 87.

44.Cf. passage on the relationship with Trotsky in 1935-1936.

45.CILIGA, idem, p. 110.

46.Ibidem, p. 179.

47.Ciliga quotes also the insulators of Cheliabinsk, Yaroslav, and Souzdal. In this last was the chief "Decist" V.M. Smirnov who was carried out in 1937. At the beginning of the Thirties, isolators did work: " Letter of the comrade Ciliga " (December 9, 1935), booklet A bas la répression contre-révolutionaire en USSR, Paris, at the beginning of 1936?, Editions Fourth International, p. 6-16.

48.The analysis of the balancesheet of the political forces in Verkhne Uralsk was confirmed by the letter of two "orthodox" Trotskyists of this prison (T.D. Ardachelia and G.I. Iakovin) with Trotsky, on November 11, 1930 (in Cahiers Léon Trotsky 7/8, 1981, p. 184-193.). The "theses of the 3", mentioned by Ciliga for this tendency were republished by the Cahiers Léon Trotsky 6, under the title "the crisis of the Revolution". Cf. also the Cahiers Léon Trotsky 53, April 1994, on " the opposition of left in the USSR ".

49.CILIGA, op. cit., p. 288. E.B. Solnstsev (1900-1936); G.I. Iakovin (1896-1938), F.n. Dingelstedt (1890-1938) all were shot in camps, in particular in Vorkhuta.

50.The two signatories of the letter affirm that Saakian and Kvatchadzé created Voinstvujuchtchij Bolshevik in January 1930. It "was taken in hand by young people (Pouchas, Perevertsev, Emelianov) and was directed towards the Decism" as of the second number. Paolo Casciola announces in its foreword to the book Trotskyist Serials Bibliography (1927-1991), K.G. Saur, München, London, New York, Paris, 1993, p. VII, the contradiction of testimony between Ciliga, on the one hand, and Ardachelia and Yakovin of the other.

51.CILIGA, op. cit., p. 222.

52.For this thesis, to see the book of Willy HUHN, Trotsky - Der gescheiterte Stalin, Karin Kramer Verlag, Berlin, 1973. Translation in French and postface of Daniel SAINT-JAMES, with a text of Paul MATTICK, "Stalinism and Bolshevism", Spartacus , Oct.-Nov. 1981, No. 113 - B.

53.CILIGA, op. cit., p. 209.

54.One can read in a text of Trotsky, published in October 1932, a defence of the USSR, which made certainly howl the imprisoned militants, and even more the workers in the lager-factories or the camps: "We take the workers State such as it is, and we say: it is our State. Despite everything what remains of delays, in spite of the food shortage, the bureaucratic tails, errors, and even despicable tricks, the workers of the whole world must defend with the teeth and the nails in a this workers State their future socialist fatherland." And the former Bolshevik chief added: "socialism like system showed its right to the historical victory not in the chapters of the Capital, but by the practice of the hydraulic stations and the blast furnaces." This theory of the accumulation of capital, like equation of socialism, already exposed by PREOBRAJENSKIJ, the New Economics, 1924, was defended many times by Trotsky. (for the article of 1932, cf. Writings 1928-1940, T I, Marcel Rivière and Co, Paris, 1955, p. 111).

55.CILIGA, op. cit., p. 258-259.

56.Cf. Roberto SINIGAGLIA, Mjasnikov e la rivoluzione russa, Jaca Book, Milano, 1973.

57.For the position of Miasnikov in 1923, cf. the " Proclamation of the workers group of the Russian CP (Bolshevik) ", published in German translation by the KAPD. French translation, in Invariance, series II, No. 6, May 1975.

58.Cf. Carl STEUERMANN (pseudonym of Otto RÜHLE), the World-wide crisis or towards the State capitalism, NRF, Paris, 1932.

59.CILIGA, op. cit., p. 285.

60.Works of TROTSKY, T. 8, EDI, Paris, 1980, p. 34. By error, P. BROUE, gives as year of birth of Ciliga 1896, instead of 1898.

61.Ibidem, p. 34-36, letter of January 2, 1936.

62.Ibidem, p. 54, January 7, 1936. It should be noted that Ciliga was not the only one with to have come out of the USSR in 1935. Arven Davtian, known as Tarov (1895-1943) had given his testimony; he spoke about the " life" in Verkhne-Uralsk, of " the 450 (?) Bolshevik-Leninists, hunger strikes" and mentioned the activity of 3 Czech, in fact Ciliga and his friends. (Bulletin d’information et de presse sur USSR No. 1, January 1936, "Of a letter of Tarov on his escape", p. 10-12; published by the International Secretariat of the L.C.I. (B-L).

63.Articles of Ciliga: Bjulleten oppositsii, No. 47, January 1936, "Stalinskie repressii v SSSR", p. 1-4; No. 48, February 1936, "v borbe za vyezd iz SSSR", p. 11-12; No. 49, April 1936, idem (continuation), p. 7-12. For the articles of Ciliga in Sotsialisticeskij vestnik, in 1936 and 1937, cf. Tables of the Russian review the Socialist Messenger 1921-1963, Paris, Institute of Slavic studies, 1992.

64.The Trotskyist historian Pierre Broué writes for example, without quoting the positions of the KAPD, of Korsch, or Miasnikov, that "the position according to which the USSR had become a State capitalism, which was that of Ciliga, was for a long time that of the Mensheviks." (Works, Trotsky, T 8, p. 65.)

65.Letter of Trotsky of June 22, 1936, in Works, volume 10, EDI, Paris, 1981, p. 123-125. Trotsky required that the Bulletin of the Russian opposition did not publish more any text of Ciliga, and that in spite of the moderate opinion of the Trotsky’s son.

66.That gave to Ciliga the reputation of anglophilia. In the Seventies, there was an English republication.

67.Sotsialisticeskij Vestnik No. 7/8, April 27, 1937; No. 11, June 12. In the No. 7/8, Ciliga made print the letters sent to the Bjulleten Bolchevikov-lenintzev (August 1936 and April 1937). He approved the action of the "ultraleftist Communists"; he was not a " Bolshevik-Leninist" but "unorganized". He wanted to work for the building of a "united front of the oppositional Communists, Socialists and Anarchists against Stalinist bureaucratic terror" (p. 24.) This position of calling to the "united front" showed, on the contrary, an increasingly clear distance of the positions of the Communist Left, of which one of the characteristics was the rejection of any "united front".

68.Nova Evropa was a Croatian newspaper appearing since the beginning of the Twenties, where intellectuals in favour of the Yugoslav national unity expressed themselves. In 1938, Ciliga sent an article where he affirmed that the war would not occur soon. Cf. CILIGA, Sam kroz Evropu u ratu, Paris, 1954, p. 6.

69.La Révolution prolétarienne, No. 278, September 10, 1938, "Insurrection of Cronstadt and destiny of the Russian Revolution".

70.In Proleter (1929-1942), organ of the central committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party, Ciliga is many times denounced as "Trotskyist and Fascist spy". Cf. No. 2-3, May-June 1936; Nos 2, 3, 7, 10, and 13 of 1937; and No. 1-2, January-February 1938.

71.A "Committee of the Yugoslav journalists in exile", affirmed in a French leaflet (Paris, April 22, 1952) that "while (Ciliga) was in Soviet Russia, he was excluded from the (Yugoslav) party under the double charge to have belonged to the Trotskyist group and to have served the Yugoslav secret police. Thrown in prison by the Soviets, he had drawn some aid from the Italian consul in Moscow in 1937. By which bargaining the Italian consul had succeeded in releasing Ciliga, it is secrecy still kept by the Kremlin. Once released, Ciliga entered to Yugoslavia where he lived under the protection of the police. Then, he settled in Italy and made the shuttle between Rome and Paris, as agent of the OVRA (political police of Mussolini)". The key of this leaflet (BDIC, Nanterre, Q part 7230) is in the conclusion: " (Ciliga calumnies) the Serbs and the orthodox religion".

72.The political folder on Ciliga in Rome established by the OVRA (Archivio Centrale di Stato, CCP 1342) defines him as "attentatore", "comunista pericoloso". A police report notes that he could make condemn June 1939 a French Stalinist newspaper showing him to be paid by Goebbels.

73."... I take the full and whole responsibility for repression of the revolt in Kronstadt". Text of Trotsky, in Fourth international, August 1938. Included in the book: Victor SERGE and Lev TROTSKY, The fight against Stalinism, texts presented by Michel DREYFUS, Maspéro, Paris, 1977, p. 213-216.

74.New publishing, Paris, 1983; quotation p. 16-17. In English, The Kronstadt Revolt, Freedom Press, London, 1942.

75.CILIGA, Sam kroz Evropu u ratu, 1954, p. 13-20, on Miasnikov. The review of Maslov, janv. 1939, No. 1 - Cahiers d’Europe - Europäische Monatshefte - published a text of Ciliga, " the Masters of the Country", p. 29-33.

76.Autobiography, p. 14.

77.Ibidem, p. 14.

78.Sam kroz Europu u ratu, Rome, 1978, Part II, " U balkanskom vrtlogu: tri godine u NDH".

79.For the framework of the events, to see: Ladislaus HORY and Martin BROSZAT, Der Kroatische Ustascha-Staat (1941-1945), Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Nummer 8, Stuttgart, 1964. K. MENEGHELLO-DINCIC, "the Ustasha State of Croatia (1941-1945)", Historical Review of World War II No. 74, Paris (in French), April. 1966. Fikreta JELIC-BUTIC, Ustase i Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska 1941-1945, Zagreb, 1977. For the role (little glorious) of the Vatican and the Croatian Catholic Church, cf. Hervé LAURIERE (pseudonym of Branko Miljus, former Serb minister in the royal government of Yugoslavia in 1939, taken refuge in Paris), Murders in the name of God, 1951, Paris, "La Vigie".

80.On the 1,7 million killed out of the war, two thirds were victims of other Yugoslavs. Concerning Dalmatia under Italian Military Occupation, to see O. TALPO, Dalmazia; una cronaca per la storia (1941), Rome, 1985. It arose from the German reports that the 40.000 railwaymen of Croatia were pro-Communists, that the peasants (80 % of the population) were hostile to the Ustashe authorities; that the "Moslems" of Bosnia - the " flower of the Croatian nation" according to Pavelic - were gained by the " partisianism" of Tito.

81.What is true it is that a homonym of Ciliga, veterinary surgeon, formed part of the team of Pavelic. Perhaps it was about the Ciliga’s uncle, who was a veterinary inspector to Mostar. Cf. also "memories" of a former high-ranking civil servant of the Ustasha State: V. VRANCIC, Branili smo Dravu ("We defended the State", sic), index, two volumes; Knjinica Hrvatske Revije, Barcelona - Munich, 1985. Another homonymy, that of Ante Pavelic: the member of the Serb-Croatian Coalition of 1919, which constitutes the provisional government of the Southern Slavic provinces, of the same name (1869-1938), should not be confused with the chief of the Ustasha movement (1889-1959).

82.Autobiography, p. 15.

83."Rapporto del ufficio dell’ispettore di P.S. in Croazia", October first, 1942 (CPC 1342, Ciliga, Archivio dello Stato, Roma).

84.This version is in the interview of Ciliga, carried out by Umana Avventura No. 9, January 1980, p. 38.

85.Cf. R. TRIVUNCIC, Jacenovac i jasenovacki logori ("Jacenovac and camps of Jacenovac"), Jacenovac, 1974.

86.The leaflet already quoted affirms that it is Gestapo which asked for the arrest of Ciliga, as OVRA’s agent, and the archbishop of Zagreb, Stepinac, made him leave prison (whereas Ciliga was in a death camp). Amid other things, Ciliga is denounced by the mysterious committee of Yugoslav journalists as " the leader-writer of the Ustashe newspapers Spremnost (imitation of the newspaper Das Reich de Goebbels) and Hrvatski Narod; that starting from February 1943 "he did not cease of glorifying the participation of the Independent Croatian State to the war efforts against the Allied and the Yugoslavian Partisans." What is sure, all the political ambiguity of Ciliga during the war gave form to such charges. As for the Stepinac archbishop - become cardinal in 1956, whereas Tito had imprisoned him in 1946 per 16 years - he adopted an attitude more than ambiguity during the Ustasha period, but brought his individual assistance to the persecuted Serbs, Jews and Croats, unlike the archbishop of Sarajevo, Ivan Saric, openly Ustasha.

87."Generale Rapporto dell’ufficio dell’ispettore di polizia in Croazia, dirigente della XI zona OVRA", Zagreb, February 19, 1943 (in CPC 1342, already quoted).

88.Ante CILIGA, Deset godina u Sovjetskoi Rusiji (" Ten years in Soviet Russia"), Zagreb, 1943; collection of articles reprinted of the Spremnost review. The first article was published on February 14, 1943 with the title "10 years among the Bolsheviks". The Fascist police - in its report of February 19, 1943 on Ciliga - defines the Spremnost review as an " official organ of the Ustasha movement".

89.Quotation extracted from the book of JELIC-BUTIC, op. cit., p. 273.

90.The foreword to the pamphlet of 1943, 10 godina u S.S.S.R., written by Aleksander Seitz, praised Ciliga as "a Croatian intellectual fighting against the Bolshevism".

91.Hrvatski Narod was a general public daily newspaper appearing twice per day. Like all the other newspapers, it was controlled by the new Ustasha power.

92.CILIGA: Storice iz prostine - on his travel in 1941-1942 through Dalmatia, Bosnia and Croatia - editions Matica Hrvatska, Zagreb, 1944 (Mentioned by Ciliga.). Testimony of Ciliga on Jasenovac, where he affirms that at a certain time the "Jews" directed the camp before "being eliminated by the gypsies" was used by General-President Franjo Tudjman in his book published in 1990 on the "Desolation of historical reality", with some anti-Semite perfume. Tudjman made thereafter (on February 10, 1994) public excuses at the international Jewish Community, in front of the international reactions, and engaged to withdraw the litigious passages of the English edition of his book. See Franjo TUDJMAN, Bespuca povijesne zbiljnosti. Rasprava o povijesti i filozofiji zlosilja, "Nakladni zavod Matice Hrvatske", Zagreb, 1990, p. 318-320. Tudjman claims that the Pavelic’s regime had a "philosemitic" (sic) policy and minimises considerably the number of the victims in Jasenovac.

93.CILIGA, Sam kroz Europu u ratu, 1978, Rome; 3rd part, " U Becu, Berlinu i Bavarskoj ".

94.CILIGA, State Crisis in Tito’s Yugoslavia, p.145. Ciliga refused, writes it, to leave for this congress. He tells that after September 1944, during the purification of the Ustasha State, he was required in Zagreb by the Gestapo. The 1952 leaflet ,mentioned above, affirms that "Ciliga was named attached cultural of Croatian independent State in Berlin where he remained until the defeat of Hitler".

95.CILIGA, State Crisis in Tito’s Yugoslavia, p.144-145. Cf. also his Autobiography, p. 16.

96.A. CILIGA, Lenin and Revolution, "Cahiers Spartacus", Paris, January 1948. Undoubtedly written in 1938.

97.Editions des Iles d’Or, 1952, and not 1950, as indicated in his "autobiography".

98.Edizioni Jaca Book, Milan, 1983.

99." Autobiography ", p. 17.

100.State Crisis in Tito’s Yugoslavia, p. 146.

101.A. CILIGA, "Dokle ce hrvatski narod stenjati pod srpskim jarmom?" In subtitle: " Diskusija o suvremenim problemina hrvatske politike", Paris, Christmas 1952.

102.A. CILIGA, " the Southern Slavic people between East and West", in La Révolution prolétarienne, November 1950. He also affirmed that "the crisis of the Serb hegemony is the nucleus of the current Yugoslav situation" (Underlined by Ciliga itself.)

103.Vladko MACEK (1879-1964) wrote Memories in English language: In the Struggle for freedom, New York, 1957.

104.CILIGA, Dokle ce hrvatski narod stenjati pod srpskim jarmom, already quoted, p. 81. To note in this booklet formulations more than doubtful on the Ustasha movement. While stressing that the policy of Pavelic had led to the catastrophe, by a "unreal anti-Serb chauvinism" - but was it about simple " chauvinism" in the case of the massacre of 600.000 Serbs?- and "to the enslavement to Italy and Germany", he wrote: " Despite that, Pavelic and the Ustashe achieved a basically positive role in the history of the Croatian people" (p. 40.) Undoubtedly the construction of a bloody "Croatian State"... Here, Ciliga could not further push compromising with the Ustashe.

105.A. CILIGA, "Nacionalizam I komunizam u hrvatskosrpskom sporu" ("Nationalism and Communism in the Serbo-Croatian disagreement"), in Hrvatska Revija, No. 4, p. 365-396, March 1951. This article was the same one as that which was appeared in the Roman newspaper Libertà, in March, in serial. The review was directed by Antun Bonifacic and Vinko Nikolic, close relations - if not in - movement Ustasha.

106.To find itself there a little in the nebula of the Croatian emigration which goes from the Ustasha extreme right to Croatian national-Communism pro-Moscow, see Stephen CLISSOLD, " Croat Separatism: Nationalism, Dissidence and Terrorism", No. 103, January 1979 of Conflict Studies, British review. For the description of the Croatian emigrated press on all the continents, cf. Hrvatska Revija Jubilarni Zbornik 1951-1975, Munich-Barcelona, 1976, p. 358-369. Ivan Jelic published a H.N.O. Bulletin in Munich. His brother, Branko Jelic - who published Hrvatska Drava was on the other hand pro-Soviet, calling to the independence of Croatia in exchange of naval bases for the USSR in the Adriatic.

107.Cf. Bilten HDSA No. 37-38, 1965, p. 10. (Letter to Branko Jelic.)

108.Stephen CLISSOLD, op. cit., p. 8.See too Hrvatska Revija, op. cit., p. 368. The various Ciliga’s reviews are also mentioned (p. 358.)

109.Cf. PhD of D.S. STEFANOVIC, Origins of the Croatian crisis of 1971, E.H.S.S., Paris, June 1979.

110.Na pragu sutrasnjice, No. 5, December 1975, p.129-144.

111.Stephen CLISSOLD, op. cit., p. 17. That went from the Ustasha HOP (Croatian Movement of Liberation) to young refugees of the so-called "Croatian spring" of 1971, while passing by the HSS (Peasant Party), the HRS (republican left), and the Socialist and Communist (Kominformist) parties. According to the author, the HNV condemned terrorist violence, by providing moral and financial assistance to the stopped Croatian terrorists.

112.CILIGA, Crisis of State in Tito’s Yugoslavia, Denoël, Paris, 1974, p. 344. (In Italian: La crisi di stato nella Jugoslavia di Tito, ED. Odep, Rome, 1972.)

113.This research of the "united front" of all the Croatian political parties of the right-hand side to the left, one finds it in the Ciliga’s activity in the HNV, where existed strong cleavages between Ustashe, republicans, and Socialists. In the No. 13 (Nov. 1979) of Na pragu sutrasnjice, p.157-158, Ciliga required vis-à-vis the "current crisis of the HNV" a political pluralism with the "old nationalists", the " young nationalists", the members of the Peasant party HSS, and the " Croatian Communists of democratic and national orientation".

114.CILIGA, Izjava Petnaestovice. - Konac Titove Yugoslavije i zadati Hrvastske politike (" Declaration of the 15 - end of Tito’s Yugoslavia and tasks of the Croatian policy"), Lund (Sweden), July 10, 1983 (booklet).

115.First Bilten HDSA, in 1963-64, shown a chart of Europe, on the cover of the Bulletin, where Croatia (indicated in black) included Croatia strictly speaking increased of Bosnia-Herzegovina,… as between 1941 and 1945.

116.Autobiography, p. 20-21. In the same way of calling to a world community, one can also read in his book on Tito’s Yugoslavia, op. cit., p. 208: " internationalism and universalism are the concretisation of human solidarity, essential bases to carry out the world unification and the future Socialist Community".

117.Marcel BODY (1894-1984) wrote a book of testimony on Bolshevik Russia, after returning to France and becoming Anarchist and Pacifist: My years in Russia.

http://www.left-dis.nl/uk/cileng.htm

Prof. fra Andrija Nikić: OSLOBOĐENJE IMOTSKE KRAJINE OD TURAKA

Profesor mostarskog sveučilišta, franjevac i publicist, dr. fra Andrija Nikić, sudjelovao je na "online" diskusiji IMOTAcaffe foruma u prosincu 2002. te pritom objavio svoj povijesno-znanstveni rad glede oslobođenja Imotske krajine od Turaka 1717. godine. Evo toga rada:


OSLOBAĐANJE IMOTSKE KRAJINE

Riječ s povodom

Putnik, dolazeći iz Hercegovine, kad prođe uzduž bekijskog polja i obavi poslovi na tvrdom graničnom prijelazu sa pet ulaza, izbije na okuku što je pravi cesta koja se uspinje prema Gradu na gori na koji ga vuče produženi zvonik Crkve Sv. Franje i odjednom ugleda Goru ispresijecanu ulicama, išaranu eletričnim stupovima, redovima drevnih stabala, topola i raznog drveća. U daljini, u lakoj izmaglici, možda će nazrijeti tok rijeke Vrljike. Pitomost toga predjela odmah očara namjernika navikla na krševitu pustoš koja dijeli Hercegovinu od Hrvatske, gdje je lakše zamisliti geološku nego ljudsku povijest.

Na sjeverozapadnom dijelu zelenog mora, u sjeni Prološca nazire se Prološko blato s ostacima franjevačkog samostana, a ako se penje uz brežuljak stigne se do stare tvrđave koju Imoćani naprosto zovu Grad, stere se Imotski, utonuo u zelenilo, tako da se jedva naslućuje da je to u davnini bilo poprište ljutih bojeva i velike patnje.

Imotska krajina smjestila se iza planine Biokovo, na tromeđi Bosne i Hercegovine sa Dalmacijom. Zauzima prostor od oko 600 km2 . Sa sjeveroistoka omeđena je bosansko - hercegovačkom granicom, na jugu je makarskim primorjem, a sa sjeverozapada sinjsko-omiškim prostorom. Nalazi se na nadmorskoj visini od 260 metara (Imotsko polje) do 440 metara (grad Imotski). Prostor Imotske krajine možemo podijeliti u tri prirodne cjeline: kraško područje uz obod polja, te prostrane kraške površine i uvale na širem prostoru - imotsko polje, kao veliko tektonsko ulegnuće, te planinski masiv Biokovo.

U tom golemom prostoru krša voda je izdubila i oblikovala obilje najraznovrsnijih oblika, među kojima predvladavaju fenomeni jezera. Njima Imotska krajina obiluje. Najbrojnija su suha jezera. Budući da se radi o izrazito vapnenačko - kraškom terenu, ovo je hidrografski siromašno područje. Vodene površine koncentrirane su na kraška jezera (Modro i Crveno, Dva Oka, Prološko jezero, Galipovac, Knezovića jezero, Krenica, Jezerina itd.) koja se podzemnim tijekovima hrane vodom, te Prološko Blato i rijeka Vrljika, a povremeno i tijek rijeke Suvaje.

Kraški predio Imotske krajine siromašan je vegetacijom, te predvladava nisko raslinje - makija, dok u brdskim predjelima ima šuma pretežno bjelogorice: hrast, grab i jasen. Ljudi se uglavnom bavili uzgojom stoke. Nažalost, u treće tisućljeće ušlo je vrlo malo blaga sitnog i krupnog zuba.

Druga reljefna cjelina je Imotsko polje sa Prološkim blatom, te izvorišni i gornji tok rijeke Vrljike. Prološko Blato kao povremena i prirodna akumulacija kod visokog vodostaja prekriva dva kraška jezera Provaliju i Krenicu. Iz ove vodene površine strši otočić na kojem se nalaze ostaci nekadašnjeg franjevačkog samostana. Ovaj kompleks zanimljiv je više kao hidrografski fenomen, povoljan za lov i ribolov nego kao fenomen kraškog reljefa.

Izvorišni dio Vrljike, osobit je po nizu kraških vrela i jezera (Dva Oka). Značaj ove rijeke je neprocijenjiv za Imotsko polje jer ga ona obilno natapa. Vrljika je inače poznata po rijetkoj endemskoj vrsti mekousne pastrve. Imotsko polje, gotovo je u cjelosti obrađeno, zasađeno pretežno vinovom lozom.

Tako, planinski masiv Biokovo i njegove istaknute i dostupne točke predstavljaju izvanredne vidikovce. Svojevrstna atrakcija su pećine vječnog leda, ispod vrha sv. Jure . Biokovo je i obitavalište divokoza i muflona. Veliki dio Imotske krajine u klimatskom pogledu je pod utjecajem mediteranske klimatske struje. To obilježje zahvaljuje reljefnim prilikama i otvorenosti prema dolini Neretve. Ovakva klima utječe na uspijevanje nekih izrazitih mediteranskih kultura (maslina, smokva, badem). Međutim, hladni prodori bure koji stižu preko Dinare, utječu bitno na klimatsku sliku posebno sjeveroistočnog dijela Krajine, te su tamo zime nešto oštrije.

Imotski je povijesni gradić u Imotskoj krajini. Smješten je između na Gori uz rub Imotsko-bekijskog polja, koje se prostire uz srednji tok rijeke Vrljike. Nalazi se na 330 metara nadmorske visine i udaljen je dvadesetak kilometara zračne linije od mora, koje uz planine na sjeveru najviše utječe na klimu.
Grad i okolica obiluju prirodnim ljepotama. Imotski se nalazi na raskrsnici važnih cestovnih pravaca, koji vode od sjevera - Zagreba, pa prema Međugorju, Čapljini i istoku prema Mostaru, Sarajevu, drugi pravac ide preko Posušja u Tomislavgrad. Takav zemljopisni položaj Imotskog davao mu je poseban vojni i politički značaj. Poznato je da su na ovom području još od rimskog doba pa sve do današnjih dana bile stacionirane razne vojne jedinice.
Grad predstavlja administrativno, političko, kulturno i gospodarsko središte Imotske krajine, a teritorijalno pripada Splitsko-dalmatinskoj Županiji. Danas je grad spojen sa selima Vinjani i Kamenmost, te zajedno čine jedinstvenu urbanu cjelinu s preko 10 tisuća stanovnika.
U samom gradu živi oko 4 tisuća stanovnika.
Gospodarstvo je nerazvijeno i ne odgovara potrebama stanovništva Imotskog i Krajine, radi toga, a u potrazi za poslom veliki ih je broj emigrirao u zemlje Zapadne Evrope.

Danas je na području Imotskog i bekijskog bazena u gospodarstvu zaposleno manje od 1.000 radnika, dok je taj broj prije domovinskog rata, 1990. godine, bio oko 10.000 radnika. Ovo naglašavam jer pored svih u prošlosti prisutnih gospodarskih problema na području Imotskog i Imotske krajine moglo se je živjeti, a što uveliko potvrđuje i činjenica da je prema svim dosad izvršenim popisima stanovništva, posebno prema popisu iz 1991. godine, na ovom području bilježen samo demografski rast stanovništva.

Burna povijest Imotskog i Imotske krajine ostavila je brojne tragove na ovim prostorima, a iz nje vuku korijene prepoznatljivi i autentični simboli grada, Tvrđava, jezera i Gospa anđeoska.

Prvi narod koji je obitavao na ovom prostoru jesu Iliri. Iz tog razdoblja datiraju brojne gomile i gradine rasute diljem Imotske krajine. Bogata nalazišta iz tog vremena nađena su u Postranju i Sebišni. Oba nalazišta dala su pravo bogatstvo nalaza.

Najpoznatije ilirsko naselje bilo je Setovia - Studenci, mjesto nedaleko Imotskog. Setovia je kao utvrda i vojno središte ilirskog plemena Delmata odigrala važnu ulogu u borbi Ilira i Rimljana. I sam car Oktavijan boravio je u ovim krajevima nadzirući te borbe, što potvrđuje od kakve je važnosti bila ova utvrda za daljnji tijek ratovanja.

Nakon pokoravanja Ilira ovo područje postaje dio rimske provincije Dalmacije. Da bi ovaj kraj što bolje politički i gospodarski vezali uz ostala područja izgradili su mnoge puteve i ceste od kojih je većina i do danas u upotrebi. Podizali su logore i naselja za svoje veterane i koloniste. Jedan takav logor bio je u Prološcu o čemu svjedoči nadgrobna ploča podignuta pripadniku IX rimske legije. Tu je nađen i kameni reljef s likom Diane, božice lova iz 2. stoljeća, zatim kameni zapis posvećen Cereri, te drugi posvećen Trivijama, kao i kipić Fortune - Izide.

Najvažnije rimsko naselje bilo je na području današnjih Runovića (8 km od Imotskog). Tu je bio poznati rimski municipij Rus Novae, a bio je povezan s glavnom antičkom saobraćajnicom Salona - Novae - Narona. Treće važno mjesto je Lovreć odnosno rimski Tronum ili po nekim historičarima Ludrum, za koji se pretpostavlja da je porušen istovremeno kad i Salona.

Kršćanstvo se u ove krajeve rano proširilo, tako da iz tog vremena imamo nekoliko arheoloških nalazišta s ostacima ranokršćanskih crkava. Najznačajnija je ona na lokalitetu Bublin (Zmijavci) a koja datira koncem 5. st. To je bazilika koja je u sklopu imala i zgradu krstionice sa krsnim zdencem u obliku križa. U samoj bazilici nađen je još jedan zdenac manjih dimenzija, što ovu crkvu svrstava među rijetke primjere bazilika sa dvije krstionice. Imala je veoma bogatu kamenu dekoraciju oltarnih pregrada s reljefnim prikazom biblijskog motiva sv. Danijela u borbi s lavovima.

Druga značajna crkva iz ovog vremena nalazi se u Cisti te još jedna u Prološcu.

Dolaskom Hrvata u ove krajeve, utemeljena je kao zasebna jedinica hrvatska župa Emotha - Imota. Iz tog vremena datira i tvrđava u Imotskom, na kojoj je pronađen veliki kameni ulomak s motivom pletera.

Najnovija arheološka istraživanja potvrdila su postojanje još jedne starohrvatske crkvice i to u Prološcu, sagrađene na temeljima starije, ranokršćanske crkve.

Dolaskom Turaka (1493. g.) nastupaju velike promjene u životu ovdašnjeg puka. Imotski postaje važno vojno uporište i upravno središte. U Imotskom i po drugim mjestima obnavljaju se utvrde. Nakon posljednjeg tursko-mletačkog rata 1717. godine ovaj prostor dolazi pod vlast Mlečana koji utvrđuju Imotski kao isturenu točku prema granici s Turskom. Iz tog vremena datira sadašnja granica prema Hercegovini.

Padom Mlečana Imotska krajina dolazi pod vlast Austrije pa Francuske. Iz vremena francuske uprave sačuvana je cesta preko Turije, koja se i danas zove Napoleonova cesta. Nakon pada Napoleona Austrija ponovo zauzima Dalmaciju.

U to vrijeme jača narodni pokret za ujedinjenje Dalmacije sa Hrvatskom. Među zaslužnim narodnjacima ističu se fra Rajmond Rudež, Ante Rossi i don Mihovil Pavlinović.

Tada je u Imotskom osnovana i jedna od najstarijih čitaonica u Dalmaciji 1868. godine. Ona je odigrala važnu ulogu u kulturnom i političkom životu cijele krajine.

Vihor Prvog i Drugog sv. rata nije mimoišao ni ove krajeve. Velika su stradanja doživjeli ovdašnji ljudi zbog svojih nacionalnih i rodoljubnih ideja, a u sklopu toga i masovna iseljavanja koja su najizrazitija bila 50-tih i 60-tih godina. Danas je stanovništvo prepolovljeno, a mnoga domaćinstva ostala su pusta.

Grad Imotski smješten je u dubokom zaleđu dalmatinske zagore. Od mora je udaljen 50 km, od Splita 100 km. Ima obilježja primorskog gradića i po pogledu kamene arhitekture i klime. Sam grad smjestio se na impozantnoj uzvisini zvanoj Podi, nadmorske visine 440 metara. Zahvaljujući tome dominira nad Imotskim poljem i zaseocima.

Prema službenim podacima ispostave Zavoda za zapošljavanje na samom kraju 2000. bilo su 3584 prijavljene osobe, što je za 17 posto više od istog razdoblja 1999. godine. Statistika bilježi da veći broj nezaposlenih od Imotskog imaju samo Kaštela i Sinj. Samo 50 osoba je krajem prošle godine uposleno u tvornici trikotaže Trimot d.d. u stečaju. Najviše prijavljenih u Imotskom ima NKV radnika, njih 1032, te 1500 KV-VKV radnika. Sa srednjom stručnom spremom posao čeka 846 radnika, a sa VŠS-om ih je prijavljeno 98 te sa VSS-om 108. 1)

Gradom dominira tvrđava zvana Topana koja se smjestila uz obronke Modrog jezera. Tvrđava je nastala u 10. stoljeću. Zbog svog dominantnog položaja nad većim dijelom Krajine, kroz povijest je imala važno strateško značenje.
Turci su njome vladali preko 200 godina, sve do 1717. Današnji izgled tvrđava je zadržala iz tih vremena. Danas je ovo omiljeno mjesto posjeta Imoćana zbog blizine gradu i izuzetnog vidikovca. U ljetnim mjesecima na ovom se mjestu održavaju i razna kulturna događanja.

Modro jezero nalazi se gotovo u samom gradu te je prikladno za šetnje, a u ljetnim mjesecima je i kupalište. Ništa manje ne zaostaje ni nešto udaljenije Crveno jezero. Ova jezera, kao i mnoga druga nastala su urušavanjem podvodnih špilja, a ima ih 19, smještenih u bližoj ili daljoj okolici grada.
Crveno jezero najdublje je u Europi. Dubina depresije kreće se od 396-485 metara, a dubina vode je veća od 250 metara.

Uz Modro i Crveno jezero vezane su mnoge priče i legende. Crveno jezero opjevano je u pjesmi (nepoznata autora), o bogatom i okrutnom Gavanu i njegovim velebnim dvorima, čijim je urušavanjem nastalo ovo jezero. Modro jezero vezuje se uz legendu koja je opjevana u narodnoj pjesmi o Hasanaginici. Njemački pjesnik Goete uočivši njenu vrijednost preveo je na Njemački jezik, a onda se prevodila i na mnoge druge svjetske jezike. Tema ove balade odigrala se u ovim krajevima, a grob glavne junakinje Hasanaginice nalazi se prema priči u blizini Modrog jezera, na predjelu zvanom "Gaj".

U Imotskom postoji bogata muzejska zbirka smještena u franjevačkom samostanu. Tamo su smješteni vrijedni izlošci iz svih razdoblja kroz koje je ovaj kraj i narod prolazio. Među posebno vrijednim su izlošci oltarne pregrade ranokršćanske bazilike iz Zmijavaca (5. st.) te veliki antipedij (goblen s euharistijskim motivom, 18. st.).

Franjevci u ovim krajevima imaju dugu tradiciju. Prvi njihov samostan nalazio se na Jauku (izvor rijeke Vrljike). Na tom mjestu još uvijek se vide ostaci temelja, neposredno uz ruševine crkve Velike Gospe koja potječe iz 14. st.
Cijeli ovaj predio dobili su benediktinci još u VI. stoljeću.

Današnji samostan u Imotskom datira se u 1738. godinu nakon odlaska Turaka iz ovih krajeva.

1. KRATKA PROŠLOST IMOTSKE KRAJINE

Prošlost Imotske krajine možemo podijeliti na tri važna razdoblja. Prvo seže u najstarija vremena sa stanovnicima Ilirima, Rimljanima i Hrvatima. Drugo razdoblje od dolaska Turaka 1493. do njihova izgona 1717. Treće je od konca srpnja 1717. do do danas.

U srednjem vijeku hrvatska župa Imota, koju oko 950. godine spominje Konstantin Porfirogenet, pripadala je Humu, odnosno Zahumlju, Humskoj zemlji. U povelji hercega Stjepan od 1. lipnja 1454. Imotski je u posjedu hercega Stjepana Kosače i pirpada Hercegovini.

U isto vrijeme (1463.) kad su Turci osvojili Bosnu i veći dio Hercegovine počeli su ugrožavati Imotsku krajinu pljačkajući njezino zemljište, naročito plodno polje i njegovu okolinu. Prema turskom popisu iz 1475., odnosno 1477. godine Imotski, Vrgorac, Makarska, Bast, Brela i brojna mjesta upisan je u sastav Hercegovačkog sandžaka. Iako je osmanlijska okupacija bila postupna i temeljito pripremana, ona je u svojoj završnoj fazi bila silovita i praćena teškim pustošenjim i razaranjima. Konačno su Turci zauzeli, cijelu Krajinu, nakon pada Imotskog 1493. godine. 2)

Nakon učvršćenja u Imotskoj krajini Turci su napadali i osvajali susjedne predjele. Tako su god. 1499. prodrli do Splita i odveli zarobljenike u Hercegovinu. God. 1501. prodiru do Trogira i osvajaju Marinu. Zbog učestalih turskih prodora prema moru i u cetinsko područje iste (1501.) godine prodire Ivaniš Korvin sa 700 konjanika i 500 pješaka u Cetinu s namjerom, da udari na turski Imotski. 3) Nakon neuspjelih napada i obrane Vladislav sklapa 1503. s Turcima primirje na sedam godina. Ovim primirjem turska vlast se još jače učvršćuje u Imotskoj krajini. To primirje, čini se, još više je ohrabrilo Turke te su iste godine mostarski i hercegovački sandžaci skupljali vojsku u Imotskom i očekivali pomoć od Skender-paše kako bi osvojili i preostalo hrvatsko područje što ga je svojatala Mletačka republika. Konačno svi planovi su propali. A nakon isteka primirja god. 1510. ponovno dolazi do sukoba s Turcima. Čak 12. ožujka 1537. i Klis je pao u turske ruke i ubrzo postaje sjedište sandžakata, kojemu pripadaju: srednja Dalmacija i okrajci Bosne. A nakon više uzastopnih ratova, pustošenja i paljenja god. 1541. sklopljen je mir s Turcima. Po tom sporazumu Turci su postali gospodari čitavog primorja južno od Cetine. Od 280 sela, kaliko ih je tada bilo, Mlečanima je ostalo samo njih 19 u zadarskoj okolici, a sve ostalo je pripalo Turcima. 4)

Četrdesetih godina sedamnaestoga stoljeća izbio je Kandijski rat (1645.). U tom ratu Mlečanima se pridružilo stanovništvo između Neretve i Cetine. za vrijeme višegodišnjeg ratovanja bilo je dosta gubitaka i na jednoj i na drugoj strani i na području Imotske krajine. To je period brojnih pljačkanja i otimanja sredstava za život i ljudi. Mnogi ljudi su uhvaćeni, odvedeni i prodavani kao robovi. Te akcije su bile posebno česte između god. 1682. i 1688.

Kroz to vrijeme hajduci i uskoci su iz Imotske krajine preveli silu plijena i učinili mnogo zla, ne samo turskim pristalicama, nego i siromašnom hrvatskom narodu. Na ove strahote tuži se i ondašnji župnik Vrhdola. Ti ustanici, ističe se u tužbi, (hajduci) primorci i izbjeglice iz Imotske krajine, u razmaku od 24 godine za vrijeme Kandijskog rata i kasnije, odveli su iz okolice Imotskoga, Glavine, Prološca, Vinjana, Runovića, Gorice, Sovića i t. d. 1364 zarobljenika. Među njima je bio i dobar dio kršćanske raje, koja je prodavana kao radna snaga za teški rad na galijama. Toj akciji su se suprostavili fratri. 5)

Vrijedno je citirati dio Izvještaja fra Pavla iz Rovinja koji je god. 1640. posjetio i samostan u Blatu. Evo njegova tekata: »... Ujutro trećeg dana Uskrsa, 10. travnja uzoru, otišli smo od kneza Marka zahvaljujući mu na gostoprimstvu. Stigosmo u Imotski (zapravo, u Blato na otočić) t. j. u njegov samostan, u predvečerje. U ovom samostanu stanovalo je 8 svećenika, 4 klerika, 3 laika i 4 mladića (đaka) na nauku. Oko otoka su tri ograde, jedna iznad druge. Unaokolo se vide brda puna stoke - i koza i ovaca. Čuje se pjesma janjaca, ta se čuje milju daleko - be, be, be - pjesma pastirica, koncert žaba, itd. Uistinu je uživanje, na jednom mjestu toliko raznih glasova. Oci imaju tri drvena čamca za prevoz. Ovi oci mi rekoše, da su radi velikog turskog uznemiravanja prebacili neku robu u Poljica, kao paramente i drugo, i da su tamo počeli graditi drugi samostan, ali da Turci to ometaju. Jednom ocu, koji je bio u Italiji, rekoh: 'Dragi oče, vi ste navikli na one lijepe predjele u Italiji, pa zašto ste se vratili u ovu bijedu, u ove pogibelji da vas nevjernici neprestano muče?' Odgovori: ‘Mnogopoštovani oče, Domovina!« 6)

Mirom od 6. rujna 1669. Mlečani su dobili Klis i još neka mjesta u Dalmaciji. Poljica i primorje južno od Cetine de facto postadoše mletački a de jure turski. Stoga se Turci nisu odrekli svojih prava na ove krajeve, nego su od njih tražili poreze. Tako je god. 1682. došlo 350 Turaka Imoćana, Vrgorčana i Gabeljana na Makarsku da kupe porez za bosanskog pašu. Prikupili su 600 groša i, kao redovito, opljačkali franjevački samostan. 7)
Slične akcije će se susresti i nakon oslobodenja Imotske krajine tijekom cijelog osamnaestog stoljeća. 8)

U početku Bečkog rata (1683.-1699.) popravljane su dalmatinske tvrdave. Kao utvrdeno mjesto često se spominje i Imotski. Ta tvrdava je jedinstvena i nije sastavljena iz više dijelova. Ona je dominirala cijelom okolicom do podnožja Biokova, ogranka Mosora i čitavim imotskim poljem.

Za vrijeme spomenutog rata jedan dio Imotske krajine pokušao se odcijepiti od Turaka i pripoji Mlečanima. To su bila sela: Proložac, Runovići, Vinjani, Zagvozd i Župa. Oni su zatražili zaštitu od Mlečana, ali ih ovi, Karlovačkim mirom (1699.) ponovno prepustiše Turcima. 9)

Iza Karlovačkog mira (1703.) vratili su se i imotski franjevci u svoj samostan na Blatu. Tada franjevci pastoriziraju cijelu Krajinu. Taj potez upozorava na činjenicu da su franjevci učvršćivali svoju jurisdikciju i, još presudnije, prisutnost na području na kojem se širila sudska i politička vlast Imotskoga. A to je bio veliki dio Imotskog polja u susjednoj Hercegovini i mali dio Bosne. 10)

Uza sve dugogodišnje tursko vladanje u Imotskoj krajini (224 godine), Turci nisu uhvatili dubljega korijena. Uzrok tome, izgleda, su: buđenje katoličke svijesti koju su podgrijavali franjevci i povezivali je uz hrvatsko nacionalno biče, zatim blizina primorskih gradova, oslonac u Mletačkoj Republici i česti upadi hrvatskih uskoka s mletačkog teritorija. Navedene činjenice, te upadi domaćih hajduka i hrvatska narodna pjesma, većinom u desetercu, podržavali su nadu i imotskih krajišnika u skoro oslobodenje od turske vlasti i poticali ih na otpor. 11)

2. SINJSKO-IMOTSKI RAT

Ni početkom XVIII. stoljeća Turcima se nije dalo mirovati. Tako već 8. prosinca 1714. Turska je navijestila Mlečanima rat u namjeri da bi joj otela Moreju (Peloponez, na jugu Grčke). Rat je započeo 1715. godine. Slijedeće godine (1716.) u rat se umiješala i Austrija. Jedan od povoda rata bio je i crnogorski ustanak; koji je buknuo na ruski poziv i zahvatio Crnu Goru i Hercegovinu. Ustanak je završio bez uspjeha. Iz bojazni od turske osvete jedan dio naroda iz tek spomenutih zemalja pobjegao je na mletački teritorij. Taj rat je, međutim, donio Mlečanima proširenje u Dalmaciji i to na području Imotske krajine. Mlečani su, ipak, izgubili Moreju.

Evo i nekoliko pojedinosti.
U početku rata Turci, pod vodstvom Mustaj-paše Čelića, Mostarca, udarili su na Sinj sa 60.000 vojnika, ali ondje su sramotno nastradali. Nakon postignuog uspjeha pod Sinjem Mlečani su se uputili prema Imotskom. Za vrijeme tog rata mostarski trgovac Šoić pobjegao je iz Mostara u Imotski. Tu se, pored drugih, stavio na raspolaganje Mlečanima. On im je zajamčio platiti topove ako ih izgube pri osvajanju Imotskoga. Pored Šoića, Mlečanima su se za ovaj pothvat obratili imotski franjevci s fra Stipanom Vrljićem (iz Gorice) i fra Lovrom Šitovićem (iz Ljubuškog). 12) Oni su predvodili sklanjanje oko 800 katolika (iz više od 200 obiteiji) na područje Omiša. Na njihova imanja u Imotskom polju doselile su katoličke obitelji iz Hercegovine; odnosno s turskog područja.

Tako 16. srpnja 1718: godine piše providur general Mocenigo: »Matiša Alilović dovede u imotsko polje 240 obitelji iz hercegovačkih sela i Mostarskog Mlata, Goranaca i Broćanca, nad kojima od bijaše glavar, kako ga je hercegovački paša bio postavio i dao mu dostojanstvo age i plaću. U toj njegov župi, stoji u istom dokumentu, ima 570 ljudi sposobnih za oružje. On mi se oviti dana predstavio nudeći svu čeljad Prejasnoj Republici. Ja sam ga vrlo rado prihvatio, ističe isti Mocenigo, obdario i naredio, da se ovi novi doseljenici - nasele po Imotskom polju. Dao sam im imanja, naglašava isti general; pa će tamošnja granica biti bolje čuvana.
Ovoj seobi pridonio je i knez Pavao Despotović Caralipeo iz Omiša, koji se sa spomenutim-Alilovićem dopisivao. 13)

U jasna nesigurnim okolnostima franjevci iz samostana s otočića na Blatu pobjegli su u Omiš. S fratima je, kao i redovito, pobjegao veći dio katolika iz sela: Opanci, Lovreć, Studenti, Lokvičići, Ričice i Poljica, njih oko 800.
Naselili su se oko Zadvarja.
Fratri su se, privremeno, sklonili u kuću Ivice Perinovića-Franceschi blizu Vrulje u Dobrču - današnji Pisak -, jer u Omišu nisu mogli naći prostraniji stan za sve svoje članove: Tu su provodili težak život boreći se i strepeći od lopova i zlih ljudi, koji su iskorištavali ratno stanje te krali i pljačkali. Tu ih je ostalo petnaest (15): od siječnja do 25. srpnja 1715. godine. I mletačka vlast je zapazila taj pokret: Tako je: 13. kolovoza 1716. glavni mletački providur zapisao u svom izvještaju: »U Omiš su došli fratri iz bosanskog samostana sv. Franje. Doveli su više od 200 obitelji; koje su tamo bile pod njihovom duhovnom upravom. Ja sam im na njihovu molbu i na mlobu omiškog vijeća dopustio da sagrade samostan na Skalicama (u Omišu). 14)

3. OSLOBOĐENJE IMOTSKE KRAJINE

Na molbu braće Šoića, podrijetlom iz Mostara, i fratara, odluči generalni providur Dalmacije Alojzije Mocenigo III. oteti Turcima imotsku tvrđavu, a s njom i čitavu krajinu. Stoga Mocenigo naredi izvanrednom providuru Baldu da skuplja vojsku. On prenese topove, municiju i hranu do Zadvarja. 15)

3.1. Rat za oslobođenje

Da bi spriječio Turke iz raznih susjednih krajeva i onemogućio im da pruže pomoć Imotskom, Mocenigo je poslao Semitecola prema Neretvi, Nonkovića prema Trebinju i Stonu, a Vrgorčani su imali obavezu spriječiti dolazak pomoći iz Livna i Glamoča. Kad je sve bilo dobro organizirano, Mocenigo zapovijedi generalu Emu i serzent-majoru Rizzu da otpočnu napadom na Imotski. 16)
Uza sve dugogodišnje tursko vladanje u Imotskoj krajini
(224 godine), Turci nisu uhvatili dubljega korijena. Uzrok tome, izgleda, su: budenje katoličke svijesti koju su podgrijavali franjevci i povezivali je uz hrvatsko nacionalno biče, zatim blizina primorskih gradova, oslonac u Mletačkpj Republici i česti upadi hrvatskih uskoka s mletačkog teritorija. Navedene činjenice, te upadi domaćih hajduka i hrvatska narodna pjesma, većinom u desetercu, podržavali su nadu i imotskih krajišnika u skoro oslobodenje od turske vlasti i poticali ih na otpor. 17) Ističe se s ponosom da su franjevci skupljali narod za taj pothvat, a spremali su se i Mlečani s ostalim svojim privrženicima u drugoj polovici mjeseca srpnja 1717. godine.
Sami događaj oslobađanja, tom prigodom, ovdje nas najviše zanima.

3.1. 2. Oslobađanja Imotskog od turskih zuluma

Najsigurniji opisi oslobađanja Imotskog, a potom i Imotske krajine ostavio nam je generalni providur Alvise Mocenigo u svojim spisima. Ti spisi su pisani talijanskim jezikom, a čuvaju se u Povijesnom arhivu u Zadru. Tamo sam ih pronašao, preveo, popratio bilješkama i pripremio za tisak. Kako me je Vaša radoznalost preduhitrila, s posebnom radošću, Vam, bez svih bilježaka, prilažem neke od suvremenih izvješća kako bi pobudili radoznalost ljubitelja Imotske krajine, te da pohitile za cjelovitom poviješću Imotske krajine. Izvješća donosim kronološkim redom:

1. kolovoza 1717. / 167 - 183 /

Opis oslobođenja Imotskog opisao je generalni providur za Dalmaciju i Albaniju Alvise Mocenigo u svom izvještaju od 1. kolovoza 1717. na slijedeći način. Pismo je uputio nadležnim vlastima u Veneciju a prijepis izvještaja zadržao u Zadru.

Presvijetli Vojvodo!
Božja blagonaklonost umnožava blagoslove na Vašom Presvjetlosti i mom odanom srcu pruža veliko zadovoljstvo što mogu državnoj (općoj) svojini predati novu zemlju (mjesto), nove podložnike i novu državu. Pošto je hrabrošću državne Armije utvrda Imotski u Hercegovini zbacila barbarsku otomansku vlast, sretnom sudbinom došla je pod Mletačku (Veneeijansku) zaštitu, pridružujući se državnim slavnim zauzećima. Pošto mi je naređeno da pokušam pothvat u korist zadnjeg sretnog pothvata u Mostarskom Blatu, kao što sam prije spomenuo, čvrsto sam se prihvatio zadatka i, nadvladavši sve poteškoće koje su se urotile, posvetio sam ovih zadnjih dana sve sile da to svladam. Pustivši na časoviti odmor Krajišnike (Krajine), odabravši od njih broj koji sam smatrao dostatnim za zadatak, iz Trilja sam se prebacio u Radotulju(?) pod Zadvarjem, gdje sam putem preko Omiša, slabim i teškim putovima s upotrebom mnogo volova i sa 160 gustardozi(?) (nosača?), najprije sam naprijed poslao top koji je povjeren Gov. Co. Paulo Caralipeo, koji je tu posvetio takvu pažnju, brigu i trud, s kim manevrirajući/postupajući) ozbiljno od početka mog dolaska u Provincije s novim podložnicima i s povjerenim propisima (odredbama) za pothvat, obavljao je s velikom svojom zaslugom do konca zauzeća.
Ujutro 23. prošloga srpnja pođoh odavle i marširajući u potpunom redu, kako dolikuje, nađoh se navečer na 25., nakon dosadna i naporna puta s artiljerijom i sa svim trupama u Imotskom polju.
Tu nađoh očekivane Konavljane i Krajišnike (Krajine) koje su pod vodstvom Gosp. Sarg-to Genere(?) Baron Spare, poslao sam naprijed Gosp. drugim putem ali povezano sa zadatkom koji sam ostavio, nakon što (je) Gov. Zuane Franceschi zauzme varošicu i pošto je počeo po koji sukob između naših i Turaka, koji su se zatvorili u tvrđavu. Kako mi je bila glavna nakana da štedim krv vojnika, koji toliko novca koštaju državnu blagajnu, tako postrojivši vojsku u bojni red, pokazah se s topom na očigled neprijatelja pozivajući ga na predaju. Neprijatelj to odbi obrazlažući da to ne može učiniti radi stranih Turaka, koji su se strkali na obranu, ali treba vjerovati da su ga ohrabrivale za otpor obilna snabdjevenost za koju se pobrinuo prethodnih dana, pomoć koju se nadao dobiti iz susjednih gradova, dok se je u susjednom polju u Duvnu skupljale grupe Turaka, a također ga je sokolila i prirodna gotovo neosvojiva utvrda. Takvom mi ju je također u crtežu pokazao inženjer Camozini(?); takvom su je također otkrili i gospoda Generali i drugi inženjeri. I u to sam se i sam uvjerio kada sam se osobno približio da pogledam mjesne okolnosti.

Opis imotske utvrde

Ona leži na vrhu jedne pećine koja se znatno uzdiže nad ravnicom, koja joj ostaje na jugu, i sa sve tri druge strane okružena je vrlo dubokom dolinom na dnu koje je voda jednog jezera. Na samom njezinom pročelju su zbijene njezine utvrde i zauzimajući joj četiri fasade čitavi vrhunac samoga kamena (pećine), po svojoj naravi nepristupačan sa svih strana nema mjesta kuda bi se moglo popeti da se zauzme mjesta osim na jugu, koji je također zatvoren jakom (uzbrdicom - falsa braga?), iako vrlo uskom na svojoj površini.

Kako bi bilo previše teško i opasno ne samo porazmjestiti vojsku, kao i upotrijebiti minera za zid koji je postavljen na tolikoj visini na kamenu (pećini), tako isto protiv ostalih triju strana baterije se mogu malo koristiti jer je obronak vrlo kamenit i uzdiže se visinom više od 100 koraka nad podnožjem.

Uglavnom takav je njezin položaj, da ju je priroda utvrdila takvom utvrdom jakom i vrlo malo pruža pristupa umjetnim tvorevinama. Ipak pouzdavajući se samo u zaštitu Božju, gdje je stalno čitavo moje povjerenje, pokušao sam vojničkim pokusima sreću. Pošto sam po noći doveo nasuprot utvrdi artiljeriju koja je pomagana pohvalnom pažnjom zapovjednika bataljuna Rizzoa, na zgodno su mjesto postavljene baterije, tako da su ujutro na 27. (srpnja) počele uznemirivati paljbom. K tomu se je ujedinila paljba mušketira, koju su naši neprestano podržavali, smješteni u kućama i tornjevima varoši, koje okružuju utvrdu u sredini.

Branitelji su pokazali veliku hrabrost to pokazujući da ih ne brinu (štete?) koje su unutar tvrđave prouzrokovala taneta bomba, mužara i topova, te su neprestano odgovarali paljbom mušketira. Njihova se je postojanost i neustrašivost mnogo bolje vidjela kada su baterije dva puta u zrak digle skladišta streljiva i kada su Morlaci mogli s nepojmljivom hrabrošću, penjući se jedan na drugoga, preskočiti prvi bedem i zauzeti ga, provalivši vrata i odvodeći pet Konavljanskih plemića, zauzevši jednu zastavu i postavivši na zidove zastavu Vaše Presvjetlosti kao znak skorog sretnog zauzeća, jer neprijatelji, povukavši se u drugi bedem i zabarikadiravši njegova vrata kamenjem, nisu prestali da obasiplju paljbom Morlake, koji su izlazili van u nekom neredu odvodeći spomenute Konavljane i više košnica meda i drugu robu, da preko 300 vojnika kojima je zapovijedao Gen. Co. de Nostiz(?) da uđu i koji su velikim dijelom maltretirani i pritisnuti od mušketira i kamenja koje su na njih bacali Turci.

No, dok je ipak prvi bedem ostao u našim rukama i pošto se je vidjelo da je vrlo teško i gotovo nemoguće osvojiti druge, jer su smješteni na jednoj litici ili stijeni sa strukturom (građevinom) koliko starom toliko čvrstom, uputih neprijatelju drugi poziv na predaju upozoravajući, da se potakne njihova odluka, na prednost državne armije u zauzeću tvrđave.

Pomoć duvanjskih Turaka

Međutim, kako sam preko izvješća doznao da na Duvanjskom polju, samo osam sati udaljenom odavde, Turci formiraju jedinice pješadije s namjerom da jedan dio idući jednim putem iznenadi naš tabor, a drugi idući brdima da navale na baterije. Tako odmah naredih da se zauzmu sva isturena mjesta i rasporedivši bojni red, doživio sam izvanrednu utjehu kad sam vidio da sve trupe i Krajina ima živu želju da mu se pruži prilika da se okuša s neprijateljem i da ga pobijedi.

Lako je mogao nastati sukob, da se nisam prije nego se u to upustim pobrinuo da podignem na oružje čitavu granicu s namjerom da svugdje na protivničkoj strani unesem strah i zavist. Zadržavši galije u Opuzenu i narod iz Makarske, mogao je onaj Svij. Gosp. Izvanredni Providur Semittecolo po mojim uputama mnogozaslužan svojom aktivnošću i žarom pokrenuti one u Mostaru i Počitelju.

Zapovjednik Nonković prodirući sa svojim narodom prema Stocu i Trebinju popalio je žito zasijano po poljima i ujedinivši one iz Popova i Carina probio se je prema Ljubinju, odakle je izišlo deset zastava turskih s pješadijom i konjicom da ih prisili na uzmak nakon jedne bitke od dva sata i da ih natjera u bijeg uz osam mrtvih i jednim zarobljenim. Opljačkavši polovicu toga velikog mjesta, s ratnim plijenom krupne i sitne stoke, konja, odjeće, i zauzećem nekoliko kršćanskih obitelji koje su se u sukobu svojevoljno stavili pod našu zaštitu.

Sličan koristan efekt učinio je u Livnu zapovjednik Dragoni (Thems?) kojega sam odaslao s jednim odjelom konjice u (Brnaza) u sinjskom teritoriju, prebacio se je u Prolog i spuštajući se u to prostrano polje popalio je prvih dana preko tisuću kola sijena ponavljajući i po drugi put požare s još većom štetom po neprijatelja i držeći ga uvijek na oprezu razboritošću i bez pothvata pokazao je hrabrost koja ga resi i koja je ostala očita u pothvatu Mostarskog Blata i u svakoj drugoj prigodi priteknu u pomoć tvrđavi svaki put kada to potrebe budu zahtijevale, kojima se, naravno, treba nadati (očekivati).

Dok sam ja bio zaokupljen takvim nužnim poslovima, Turci su se nastavili skupljati u Duvanjskorn polju s namjerom da dođu tvrđavi u pomoć. Ta nada skupa s naravi položaja, gotovo neosvojivom, očeličio je otpor branitelja, i da se oduševe na ustrajnost ti branitelji, Turci su pokušali proturiti u tvrđavu pismo s izrazom simpatija i hrabrenjem, koje pismo, kad mi je dopalo u rake, poslao sam kopiju Vašoj Presvjetlosti.
Doista vojska, koju sam utaborio u toj širokoj ravnici, bila je nestrpljiva da vidi neprijatelja i da ga potuče, ako bi mu stvarno pomoć prispjela, ali on se nije nikada usudio da se pokaže na očigled našemu taboru. Samo se je 30 njihovih konjanika vidjelo na vrhu jednoga brda, koje gleda na tvrđavu, opalivši nekoliko pušaka nadali su se da će im dati znak da je pomoć blizu, a nisu znali za predaju, koja je bila četiri dana prije.

Kako sam saznao da prije spomenuto okupljanje o kojemu je svijet pričao sastojalo se od samo 8 ljudi, koji su svedeni na tri skupljeni s više strana, većinom narod s brda državne službe.

Pošto sam brižljivo takvim i tolikim predostrožnostima osigurao logor od bilo kakvog neočekivanog iznenađenja i usredsređujući stalno pažnju na glavni cilj, uvidjeh da nema načina da se tvrđava zauzme jurišem, moralo se je pobrinuti pod svaku cijenu da se osvoji pomoću mina. Naredih da se taj posao počne bez čekanja na inženjera. Trudili su se na tome bezuspješno kroz čitavu tu prvu noć, jer branitelji, bacajući odozgo neprestanu kišu kamenja, uvijek i neprestano su ometali. Dođoh tu osobno da pružim pomoć, ali iako sam sve rasporedio kako treba, drugi pokušaj svršio je isto kao i prvi te se je nekorisno izgubila i druga noć u neuspješnom poslu.

U svakom slučaju ne usporavajući nimalo studij svojih nastojanja, htjedoh nanovo nadodati i napore svoga prisustva i prelazeći u napad osokolih glasom i oduševih nagradama radnike da si podignu ogrtače kako bi s pomoću njih mogli mineri, bez previše očita rizika, pridonijeti hrabrom pothvatu za koji se mislilo da je jedini način da se promijene mišljenje divljih (okrutnih) branitelja i da se postavi na zidine utvrde državna zastava.

Kad je operacija počela, s obzirom na kvalitetu zida, posljednja poteškoća, koja se je toliko povećala u svom nastavku, kada se je otkrilo da iza prvoga zida ima i drugi zid između kojih je stavljeno nešto zemlje.

Predaja tvrđave

Pošto je prepreka uklonjena s pomoću Božjom i vještinom inženjera Carnozinia(?), koji je hrabrošću, trudom i znanjem odgovorio kako treba, bio je prikraju posao koji su kroz dva cijela dana i dvije cijele noći radili toliki radnici. Kada su neprijatelji vidjeli vrlo sigurnu opasnost da (će) morati pasti pod ruševinama tvrđave i iznenađeni smrću 27 njihovih, koji su ubijeni bombama, izvjesiše bijelu zastavu s namjerom da izađu na sastanak i da pregovaraju o predaji.

Pošto je data dozvola trojici prvaka da se spuste pod moj šator, izložiše mi da će predati tvrđavu ako se njezinim braniteljima dozvoli da iziđu s oružjem i opremom i ako im se dadne pratnja da mogu sigurno otići u Mostar ili u Ljubuški.
Pošto je sazvan savjet za te prijedloge, bili su čvrsta i jednodušna mišljenja Presvij. Gosp. Izvanredni Provider Balbi i gospoda generali Co. de Nostiz, generalni poručnik Primoldi?, generalni Sarg. gen. Baron Sparre i Kamerier da se ponuda treba prihvatiti.

Zaista, lako se je moglo pretpostaviti (razumjeti) da se je i doista postojanost i nevjerojatna hrabrost s kojom su neprijatelji branili tvrđavu, lako mogla pretvoriti u konačnu očajnost po kojoj bi više voljeli ostaviti pod ruševinama tvrđave živote nego izgubiti slobodu, kad je mišljenje bilo da se tvrđava mora držati za zaštitu široke ravnice koju je ona štitila i brojnog pučanstva novog podaništva, koje želi da nad njom uspostavi vlast i to tim više što ne bi bilo moguće bez utroška mnogo vremena i mnogo novca i uvijek u opasnosti od uznemirivanja koje bi neprijatelji mogli poduzimati koji joj stoje nasuprot da je iz temelja ne obnove.

Zaključeni su ugovori i ja sam izložio da se moraju predati zastave, oružno streljivo i živežne namirnice.
Sve je točno izvršeno pošto su 103 Turčina izišli iz tvrđave, predavši meni pet zastava, primivši pod mudrom upravom Nadintendatna Nakića pratnju koja im je dodijeljena do Ljubuškoga kao najbližeg mjesta, i to jutro pred njihovim očima izvjesivši na te zidine slavne znakove časnoga zaštitnika (sv. Marka).

Važnost imotske tvrđave

Tako tvrđava Imotski ima sreću da se s pomoću Božjom pripaja sretnom vlasništvu Vaše Presvjetlosti. Velika je njezina vrijednost radi položaja koji joj pruža jaku obranu, da kad se samo okom pogleda vidi se da je to istina.

Štiti Omiš, Zadvarje, Primorje, Makarsku i Vrgorac i otvara put prema Duvnu, Ljubuškom, Počitelju i Mostaru. U jednoj i drugoj državi izdižu se vijenci brda punih šuma i pašnjaka, a iznad svega teritorij se produžava u prostrana i plodna polja, koja su u svijetu poznata kao najprostranija i najbogatija od svih mnogobrojnih starih i novih zauzeća Vaše Eminencije i među susjednim otomanskim provincijama.

Čini je plodnom jedna rijeka imenom Vrljika, koja izvire u podnožju jednoga brda, kao u sredini njihovih polja i koja teče do Trebižata, miješajući s njime svoje vlastite vode i tekući s njim gubi se u vodama Neretve.

Bivša turska uprava u tvrđavi

Sedam aga ili sedam kapetanija sa sedam kompanija straže nad njegovom zaštitom i jednomu imenom i po dužnosti Dizdaru povjerena je njegova uprava. Uostalom to je u pređašnje vrijeme bilo jedno od vojvodstva Hercegovine i pošto (što?) sve obitelji, koje su u posljednje vrijeme pripojene državnom podaništvu i tolike još druge žele da se pripoje, može se nadati da se u toj ravnici ustali bogati izvor prihoda kao povećanje državnog vlasništva.

U tako sretnim okolnostirna, Bog je htio da mi dodijeli veliku čast da se predam za Domovinu i da sa svojim malim sposobnostima poslužim za jedan dobitak, koji je nakon dvaju prethodnih sretnih pothvata bio treća akcija, koju sam sretno završio u roku od samo tri mjeseca, otkad se nalazim u Provinciji pod teretom ove primarne uprave na slavu državnog imena, na čast armije i na povećanje države.

Da bi se uspjelo u specifičnosti ishoda pothvata, morao sam nadvladati sve one teške nezgodnosti, koje su se pojavljivale u prijevozu topova, oruđa i namirnica, putovima, koji su bili i dugi i očajni, u opsadi tvrđave koja se bez čuda ne bi mogla zauzeti kad bi bila snabdjevena topom i sa žarom (hrabrošću) neprijatelja pri sukobu i u činu ometanja operacija.

Bog je također pomogao i nakanu davši snagu i tijelu i duhu iscrpljenim od umora i nezgoda dao mi je sreću da pokrenem i podložnike i vojsku i da mognem s pomoću jednih i drugih učinim korisnim prve momente svog poniznog zadatka na korist obožavane Domovine.

Želio bih imati u ruci potrebna sredstva i odobrenja da idem naprijed i da pronesem silu naše armije i na druge utvrde Hercegovine da iskoristim početnu sreću, ali budući da su s mojom brigom povezane i nezgode Albanije, moram pospiješiti svoj povratak u Split i neću kasniti da to učinim čim, kako se nadam, kroz nekoliko dana se pobrinem za tolike potrebe tvrđave i za (... ?).

Potražnja novčanih sredstava

Međutim, neka mi dozvoli državna velikodušnost dozvolu da zamolim vrhovnu naklonost jedino iz razloga svoje službe.
Ako je u svako doba potrebno imati novca, to je posebno potrebno s obzirom na neposredne zadatke u kojima, osim mjesečnih plaća, koje su same po sebi povećane radi ostanka Regimente Grisona(?) i Bataljuna Parma, koje ja plaćam prije nego odem iz Splita i dolaskom druge vojske i drugih brodova u tu luku, ne samo da se povećavaju izvanredni izdaci, nego i same misije postaju sve sporije radi dužine putovanja i radi zakašnjenja Krajišnika (Kajika?).

Moja je dužnost počašćena da to sve podastrem mudromu sudu Presvijetlog Senata, razmatrajući pažljivo što je neophodno, da se ne izgubi prilika otvaranja, za koje ću nastojati biti hrabar da odvagnem koliko bi mogla biti korisna za svaki pothvat pomoć Gosp. Gen. Solenburga i još kojeg inženjera s Levanta.

Novi plan

Nakon toga znam da je moja dužnost da vam podnesem plan napravljen u momentima, popis pješaka Krajine, trupa topa(?) koji sa sobom vodim, kao i obavijest o mrtvima i ranjenima, pridržavajući si da dadem izvješće o izdacima prigodom jednog drugog sastanka, koji će kao svjedočanstvo moje pažnje prema ekonomiji, pače i u prilikama tolikih potreba, mislim biti dostojan državnog blagonaklonog odobrenja. Imam čast unaprijed poslati Vašoj Eminenciji sedam zastava, jedan timpan i jedan bubanj, koji su zauzeti i ove dvije zastave u pohodu na Mostarsko Blato, a drugih pet, koje su predali turski zapovjednici tvrđave, dobro znajući, da samoj Preuzvišenosti Vojvodi treba zahvaliti na časnim uspjesima pobjede, koja je sretno završena pod pokroviteljstvom Vašeg Uzvišenog Imena.

Zaslužnici i nagrade

Presvijetli Gospodin izvanredni Providur Balbi bio mi je sudrug u patnjama i naporima i sudjelujući svojom neumornom zauzetošću ne samo brigama za logor nego i za napad postigao je čame odlike svojoj poštovanoj zaslužnosti koja ga resi.

S hvalevrijednom ustrajnošću slijedili su me gospoda E. Pio Botta Calbo(?), E. Simon Cvntarini, moj nećak, E. Antonio Primaru i prelazeći preko svih opasnosti, natjecali su se u želji da se istaknu u plemenitoj strasti služenja Domovini. Također i gospodin E. Giacomo Baldu sopracomito, kojega sam morao povesti galijom i s jednom (karsalionom?) biskota, zaslužio je svaku pohvalu radi brižljive pažnje kojom mi je snabdijevao logor tako potrebnim rekvizitom. Neumorna je bila zauzetost gosp. Gen. Co. de Nistiza, korisno dugo iskustvo i dobro poznata vojnička vrlina gospodina Fen. Gen. Primicaldia(?), pohvale vrijedna srčanost gospode Gen-la Sparse i Comena(?). Sags. Magr. Rizzo, zapovjednika bitke, pokazao je dobro srce kojim služi, u vodstvu konjice bio je potpuno precizan Sarg. Mag. di Battag. Antonio Medin(?). Policije švicarska, njemačka, talijanska; konjica hrvatska i dragoni iz sve Krajine s njihovim zapovjednicima potpuno su zadovoljili, a za svoju sam stražu odabrao mještane Splita pod vodstvom gosp. Can.(?) Antonia Alberti, koji je na svoju zaslugu i moje zadovoljstvo udovoljio svim zadacima svoje službe. Konačno dostojna se je vrhovne državne pohvale pokazala ova hrabra i vrijedna nacija. Spremno i poslušno se je pokoravala svakoj mojoj zapovijedi u tolikim i tako čestim potrebama transporta namirnica, oruđa i streljiva, nadvladavši s odlučnošću koja je za svaku pohvalu prvo iskušenja i u sadašnjem je sukobu pokazala nanovo hrabrost, kako je znala pokazati uvijek svjedočanstvo nepokolebljive vjere.

Zahvalnica na svetkovinu Gospe od anđela

Kao što je dužnost kršćanske pobožnosti da u svakoj sreći prima i spozna ruku Svemogućega, tako će se sutra (2. kolovoza 1717.), u znak pokornosti vrhovnom naređenju koje mi je saopćeno časnim duždevim pismom, (na) koje(?) s obavještenjima o pomorskoj pobjedi, koju je izvojevala velika Armata Vaše Presvjetlosti, koje mi stiže sada, održati poniznim molitvama (kao?) zahvala Njegovu Milosrđu koje se je udostojalo rezervirati pobjedonosnom oružju Vaše Eminencije čast da pobijedi neprijatelja na moru i na kopnu i da postavi znakove Vjere na jednoj tvrđavi, gdje su se lažnim kultom tijekom tri stoljeća 18) častili (štovali) lažni idoli muhamedanstva.

Međutim, da ne bi Vašoj Eminenciji okasnila obavijest o mojim postupcima, tako i o sretnom uspjehu, šaljem ekspresnom felukom (šajka, mala lađa) Gen. Peiegrina Morosinia, koji je došao sa mnom u Dalmaciju u svojstvu Majora Provincije. Tu dužnost izvršuje u svemu točno i pošto mu je pridodata i ona majora logora, zaslužno ju je vršio, radeći bez obzira na sve nezgode i opasnosti, državnoj je službi bilo na korist vojno iskustvo koje posjeduje i talenti kojima je nadaren.

Moje poštovanje u tome dok se ide naprijed da se u Presvijetlom Senatu razmatra koliko bi mogao biti koristan susret same feluke da brižno čuvam velikodušnu naklonost.

Moj duh duboko predan poslušnosti ponovno Vas moli i zaklinje da bi na vrijeme bila poduzeta takva proviđanja bez kojih bi državna armija olabavila, a meni bi ostala žalost što ne mogu nastaviti nastavak državnih dobrobiti kada konjukture, oduševljenost vojske i okolnosti privatnih poslova potiču unutarnje nade moga srca da gaji vrlo korisne nade.

Zaključak izvještaja

Zaključit ću ovo s napomenom da imajući o polju Ruda grube podatke i poduzevši pomno promatranje na čitavo stanje Canalla(?), koja ima za čast da služi Vašoj Eminenciji u ovoj Provinciji, s potpunim sam zadovoljstvom u srcu našao da je narod i Canalli(?) u najboljem stanju i da ta vrsta vojske ima vrsne i iskusne časnike.

Kako je prošlih tjedana poginuo upravitelj jedne od Hrvatskih regimenta Antonije Mršić, tako su mnogi časnici, koji s pravom po zaslugama aspiriraju na promaknuće, toplo mi je preporučivano da za to upražnjeno mjesto postupim za promocije koje budu održane po Pravdi (Sudu). Međutim, imajući na umu da se je ovdje u Provinciji nalazio jedan eskadron te regimente i dva časnika vrhovnog štaba, činilo mi se da je prikladno da ih uslišam, pogotovu što su ratnih nevolja bili tu s mačem u ruci protiv neprijatelja.

Pošto je Gosp. Gen. Nostiz(?) razmotrio sve razloge konkurenata, on je prosudio da su zaslužni da budu promaknuti Doll. Ten. Co. Zorzi Radoš, a u čin Ten. Coll. gosp. Sarg-to Magr. di Brigota Pietro Lorenzo Pellegrini, a treći a čin Sarg-to Magr. kapetan Nikola Krajina. Pošto sam saznao za sami izbor pridodat dekretu optacije, potvrdio sam spomenute časnike svakoga u svom činu, a povjerio sam Kompaniju da Canalti(?) gosp. Col. Mršića kapetanu Co. Lorencu Zorzi Radoš.

Nadam se da će sama promaknuća, koja priopćavam na znanje poštovanim vlastima, zaslužiti vrhovnu potvrdu Vaše Eminencije da uliju uvijek novu srčanost onom koji korisno služi Općoj Stvari. 19)

Imotski, 1. kolovoza 1717.


3.1.3. Svečano slavlje

Blagdan Gospe od Anđela - 2. kolovoza - upisan je zlatnim slovima u današnju Imotsku krajinu.
Na taj dan 1717. godine uspjela je kršćanska vojska, pod zapovjedništvom mletačkih časnika, osloboditi Imotsku krajinu od stoljetne turske tiranije i pripojiti je svijetu kulturne civilizacije. Nije to bilo lako. Ipak se uspjelo. Sudjelovali su domaći sinovi iz svih krajeva Dalmacije u hrabrom pothvatu. Posebno su se isticali Imoćani i Sinjani.

Nečuvenom hrabrošću nasrtali su na donje bedeme Tvrđave. Prvi se popeo na gornje bedeme i izvjesio mletačku zastavu sv. Marka Ante Vrdoljak, vojnik sinjske čete. Za to je dobio doživotnu penziju od dva dukata na mjesec. Turci su se predali. Oko 300 njihovih časnika i vojnika, serdar Nakić je, prema dogovoru, odveo u Ljubuški i tu ih predao.

Blagdan Gospe od Anđela posebno se štuje u franjevačkom redu. Baš na taj dan - 2. kolovoza 1717. - gvardijan imotskog samostana sv. Frane, fra Stipan Vrljić zahvalio je Bogu i Majci Božjoj na pobjedi i s vojskom ispjevao "Tebe Boga hvalimo". Odmah je od naroda sakupio svotu novca i dao naslikati sliku Gospe od Anđela. Vojska je potom u donjem dijelu Tvrđave sazidala crkvu, posvećenu Majci Božjoj. U nju je gvardijan i prvi župnik, fra Stipan Vrljić, postavio Gospinu sliku.

Umjetnik ju je naslikao uljenim bojama na tri spojene daske. Do danas je svetinja Imotske krajine i zaštitnica Imoćana.

Do 1718. imotski kraj protezao se od Roškog polja do Vranića, od Klobuka do sinjskih predjela. Pripadao je Hercegovini. Čitav taj kraj 1717. oslobođen je od Turaka. Mlečani nisu trpjeli muslimane u krajevima u kojima su vladali. Kroz godinu dana (1717.-1718.) uspjeli su očistiti čitav taj kraj od begova. Raja koja je željela ostati na svojim ognjištima primala je kršćanstvo. Ustvari, to su bili Hrvati katolici, koji su iz vlastitog interesa prelazili na Islam.

Kad je 21. srpnja 1718. sklopljen u Požarevcu mir između Austrije, Turske, Mletaka i Dubrovnika, nastala su nova razgraničenja. Imotski je kraj prepolovljen. Današnja Imotska krajina pripojena je Dalmaciji. Pod turskom vlašću ostali su krajevi koji danas pripadaju općinama Tomislavgrada, Posušja i Gruda.

Prazne predjele, koje su napustili Turci, Mlečani su nastanili Hrvatima iz zapadne Hercegovine. Ujedinjeni s domaćim stanovništvom, stvorili su današnju Imotsku krajinu.

4. Gradski upravitelji

Prvi kolonel Imotskog postade Mate Šoić iz Mostara, a poslije njega Ivan Dešković. Pod mletačkom vlašću bijaše dosta naših ljudi, koji uskočiše s turskog na mletačko područje i proslaviše se u mletačkoj vojsci kao vrsne vojskovođe. Oni su na čelu svojih sunarodnjaka prenosili slavu našeg junaštva, a sve na korist Mletačke Republike. Za uzvrat dobivaju posjede koje je naš narod, otimajući ih od Turaka, natopio svojom krvlju.

Zauzimanjem Imotskog i njegove krajine Mlečani protegoše ime Dalmacije i na to područje. To su bili zadnji uspjesi i zadnje njihovo širenje na štetu hrvatskog teritorija. Oni ih nazvaše »Aquisti novissimi«. Tim osvojanjima pripade Mlečanima sva današnja Dalmacija do granice Imotski-Vrgorac-Metković i dalje, kako je to uglavnom ranije bilo određeno. Granice su priznate i potvrđene mirom u Požarevcu 21. srpnja 1718. godine. Međutim, granica je na terenu utvrđena i ispravljena južno od Metkovića na štetu Mlečana od strane mletačkog povjerenika Alvisa Moceniga i turskog Mehmed Efendi-Sialya u periodu izmedu 1721. i 1723. godine. 20)

Ispravljanjem hercegovačke granice na štetu Mlečana ostade pod Turcima jedan dio zemljišta oko Trebinja (Hutovo, Popovo, Obraće, Zupci i Carina). Jedan dio stanovništva ne htjede ostati pod Turcima, nego se preseli na mletačko područje. Mocenigo ih naseli oko Imotskog polja. Tom prilikom dođe i 180 pravoslavnih obitelji u Imotsku krajinu i nasele se na više mjesta oko polija, najviše istočno od Krivodola, gdje i danas živi više desetina pravoslavnih obitelji. Kako su se doselili s crnogorske granice, nazvaše svoj zaselak Crnogorci.

Nekoliko godina nakon toga posebnom mletačkom dukalom uredila se posebna pravoslavna crkvena općina za pravoslavne iz Imotske krajine (10. lipnja 1722.). Doveo ih je kaluđer Vasilije s još dva svećenika i jednim đakom. Jedan dio doseljenih pravoslavaca sa svojim svećenicima naselilo se u Glavini. Kaluđer Vasilije i ostali sveštenici dobiše dukalom od 6. prosinca 1725. na uživanje devetnaestipol kanapa zemije. 21)

Katoličko stanovništvo u Hercegovini očekivalo je da će Mletačka vojska nakon osvajanja Imotskog osloboditi i Hercegovinu. Nažalost to se nije ostvarilo. Turci prozvaše najbliži dio Hercegovine Imotskom Bekija - što znači ostatak. I jedinstveno imotsko-bekijsko polje, jedna zemljopisna i privredna jedinica, bi podijeljena. To se pripisuje turskom zlatu kojim je bio podmićen mjernik Cavrović, a valjda i još koji Mlečanin. 22)

5. Stjecanje posjeda

Starosjedilačko stanovništvo na području oslobođene Imotske krajine kao i doseljenici s turskog područja, posebno iz Bekije, dobivali su od mletačke vlasti određene posjede. Mletačka vlast je. ovisno od konfiguracije pojedinih područja, zavisno od broja osoba pojedinih obitelji dodjelivala pojedinoj obitelji posjede: okoćnicu, obradivu zemlju i dio šume. Stručno osoblje je išlo na teren i upisivalo u katastarske knjige posjede koji su pripadali dotičnoj obitelji. Katastarske zapise su pohranjivali u administraivnom centru u Zadru i tako je nastala vrlo vrijedna serija katastarskih knjiga. Te knjige su višestruki izvor za proučavanje odgovarajućeg područja i plemena.
Čini mi se vrijednim navesti, primjera radi, jedan primjer iz katastarskog popisa. Naime, nakon naredbe drugog generalnog providura za Dalmaciju i Albaniju gosp. Nikole Eviso od 7. listopada 1725. na slijedeći način je podijeljena zemlja u Poljicima, selu Imotske krajine 12. svibnja 1726.

A. Obitelj Mate Gudelja sa šest članova dobila je slijedeće posjede:

Br. 149. U Cvitanovića Docu dobila je tri četvrtine i 56 tabli između (posjeda) Grge Vulića Božina i Gabre Gudelja Martinova.
Br. 172. U Podvornici dobila je polje od četiri četvrtine i sto dvije table između vrta nižepotpisanoga i spomenutog Gudelja.
Br. 173. Vrt i kuća od jedne četvrtine i 50 tabli koja graniči s istoka sa spomenutim Gudeljom.
Br. 180. Na brdu Garište dobiva sedam udolinica od tri četvrtine i 96 tabli. Ostale dvije četvrtine pripadaju Martinu Gudelju.
Br. 254. U imotskoj Pasiki dobila je posjed između Martina Gudelja i Jure Klienka.

B. Obitelj Filipa Kulundžića od sedamnaest članova dobila je slijedeće posjede:

Br. 85. U Dubravi je dobila polja dvije četvrtine i 50 tabli šume, između posjeda Grge Kulundžića Nikolina, harambaše.
Zatim je dobila osam udolinica okruženih šumom od tri četvrtine i 33 table.
U Rupovom Dolu je dobila jednu četvrtinu i 76 tabli polja.
U Pokrovnici je dobila polje s kućom u visini od 5 kampa i dvije četvrtine, te 151 tablu između (imanja) Šimuna Karauna i učitelja harambaše Kulundžića.
U Podvelikim Grmom je dobila jednu četvrtinu i 69 tabli polja između posjeda Josipa Matkovića i Ivana Čavline.
U Provu je dobila 192 table do vrta Filipa Kulundžića.
U Rupi je dobila tri četvrtine i 180 tabli polja između Grge Livajića Jurina i Stipana Ćorluke, te Luke Livajića.
Nadalje, dobila je i posjed u površini od jedne četvrtine i 90 tabli koja graniči s juga posjedom hrambaše Kulundžića i učitelja Grge Aliesak-a. Dobila je i pojatu koju okružuje šuma sa 160 tabli.
U Pod Kuku je dobila tri četvrtine i 54 table koje s juga dodiruje posjed Jerke Matijaševića.
U Donjem Polju je dobila polje od tri četvrtine i 54 table što graniči s juga s posjedom Jerke Matijaševića.
Nadalje, u Donjem Polju je dobila dvije četvertine i 198 tabli što graniči s posjedima Mihe Runušića (?) i učitelja Progon-a.
U imotskoj Pasiki je dobila dvije četvrtine polja što graniči s posjedima Mate Zuića i Stipana Čorluke.

C. Obitelj Bože Crnić-a od deset članova dobila je:

U Docima tri udolinice, dvije četvrtine i 132 table ograničene šumom.
U Karpešini pet djelića vinograda u površini od jedne četvrtine i 192 table okružene sa svih strana šumom.
Mešljavac okružen šumom i kamenit u površini od dvije četvrtine i 181 tablu.
U Pod Klancu polje od tri četvrtine i 147 tabli što s juga graniči s posjedima Luke Livajića, a sa zapada graniči s imanjem Martina Gudelja.
U Docima pet udolinica s površinom od tri četvrtine i 56 tabli okruženih sa svih strana šumom.
Karpešine Njive dobiva polja pet dijelova od 3 četvrtine i 92 table okružene šumom.
U Vukanjevoj Strugi - prema prološkom katastru - dobiva tri četvrtine i 84 table polja. Polovica pripada Anti Vujoviću, jugom graniči s posjedima naroda iz Zagvozda.
U Banjevcu - dobiva tri četvrtine prološkog polja što s juga graniči posjedom Stipana Lapentića a sa zapada Mihe Runušiča.

D. Obitelj Marka Šušnjar-a od devet članova dobala je:

U Donjem Polju polja od 2 table između južne strane posjeda Frane Miletića, a sa zapada Bože Vuletića.
U Bristu posjed od tri četvrtine i 107 tabli što jugom graniči s posjedom Mate Chielića (Kielić?), a zapadom spomenutim harambašom Kulundžića. Vinogradinu čija polovica pripada Ivanu Largetiću, a graniči jugom s posjedima Jure, Luke i Grgura Livaića, zapadom graniči s kamenjarom. Posjed je od jedne četvrtine i 51 table.
U Pod Greblju posjed od tri četvrtine i 112 tabli što graniči jugom s posjedom Marka Juke i zapadom Luke Livaića.
U Podvornici dvije četvrtine i 189 tabli. Posjed graniči s onim Andrije Zuića i Luke Livaića.
U Meašu posjed od jedne četvrtine i 184 table. Posjed graniči s onim Ivana Bunušića i Mihe Lozića.
U Vurolini posjed od jedne četvrtine i 50 tabli. Posjed graniči s onim Marka Juke i Benkovinom.
Piran i kuća je okružen kamenjarom jedne četvrtine i 22 table.
Tri dijela u Benkovini, od kojih su dva plodna. Graniče s posjedima Marka Juke, Ivana Margetića, spomenutog Šušnjara i Ivana Margetića. Posjed je od jedne četvrtine i 46 tabli.
U Vuarikovišću jednu četvrtinu i 179 tabli.
Siloviši su okruženi kamenjarom sa svih strana. Obitelji je pripalo 168 tabli.
U Krču posjed od jedne čtvrtine i 8 tabli.
U Cerovcu njezina je jedna četvrtina i 50 tabli. Graniči s posjedima Marka Juke i Jakova Vujevića.
Sibsin Dolac - dvije četvrtine i 75 tabli, okruženih šumom pripalo je navedenoj obitelji.
Sirčina - dvije četvrtine i dvije table.
Krivi Dolac, polovica je Marka Juke, a spomenuta obitelj dobila je 165 tabli.

E. Obitelj Ante Vujevića od devet članova dobila je:

U mjestu Buljevac dvije udolinice od jedne četvrtine i 161 table.
U Buljevcu što granici s Mihom Jurićem u dva polja dobila je dvije četvrtine i 105 tabli.
Demirovac, što graniči s Mihom Jurićem i Grgom Sterile, dobila je u površini od jedne četvrtine i 42 table.
Rugotina - dvije četvrtine i 174 table pripale su ovoj obitelji.
Dubrava - predjel od pet četvrtina i 71 table. Jugom i zapadom to graniči s imanjem spomenutog Vujevića.
Kuća i vrt graniče s Vujevićevim posjedima, a zapremaju površinu od dvije četvrtine i 9 tabli.
U Dragi je dobila 102 table.
Dubrave, što graniče s Vujevićima, površinu od jedne četvrtine i 89 tabli.
Vukanje Struge u površini od tri četvrtine i 84 table pripale su o obitelji. Zemljište je na području Prološca. Drugi dio pripada Jakovu Vujev:
Čanjavice u prološkom polju - jedna četvrtina pripada ovoj obitc Taj posjed graniči s imanjem Mihe Lozića i Andrije Zeca.

F. Obitelj Jakova Vujevića od osam članova dobila je:

U Cvitanovića njivama jedno polje od dvije četvrtine i 113 tabli izme posjeda Andrije Zuića i Guozur(?) Aliutka.
Na brdu Garišta je dobila četiri posjeda od tri četvrtine i 20 tabli. Nada kamenjara jednu četvrtinu 60 tabli.
Na Cerovcu je dobila jednu četvrtinu i 140 tabli. Na istom mjestu okruženom poljem dobila je jednu četvrtinu i 156 tabli.
Kuća s dvije sobe i Podvornica s vrtom graniči jugom s posjedom Stipana Lapendića u površini od jedne četvrtine i 108 tabli. Kuća je okružena šumom, a ima površinu jedne četvrtine i 103 table. Na istom mjestu posjeduje još dvije četvrtine i 168 tabli. Vrt ima 135 tabli.
Kuketina s jednom četvrtinom i 154 table. Isto sa 165 tabli.
Na brdu Garište sedam udolinica, čija je polovica vlasništvo Mihe Ćurića(?), dobili su dvije četvrtine i 98 tabli. 23)

Sličan popis bi se mogao navesti za većinu sela Imotske krajine. Ti popisi bi otkrili pretke pojedinih prezimena, te lokalitete koji su vezani uz pojedina prezimena i nadimke.

Međutim, posebnu pažnju privlači dioba zemljišta u imotskom pol nakon prokapanja kanala i odvodnjavanja šireg područja. Ta zemljišta dijeljena su skupinama obitelji po naredbi generalnog providura Jakova Boldu od 30. rujna 1746. To močvarno zemljište koje je prije poplavljivala rijeka Vrljika dodijeljuje se na slijedeći način:

A. za 87 obitelji barjaktara harambaše Mihe Busrtilo iz sela Zagvo za radove i nadnice učinjene u iskopavanju zapuštenih kanala, kao što je pod zakletvom zasvjedočeno pukovniku Krajine i od njega na slijedeće parcele zemljište je određeno kako slijedi:

Br. 15. Komad zemljišta u Pašiću zvan Krvavica. Istokom graniči s rijekom Vrljikom, sjeverom s posjedima barjaktara harambaše Hajduk, jugom barjaktarom harambaše Grančić i zapadom privatnim imanjem što je god. 1726. razdijeljeno Camozini-ma (?) .
Br. 3. Zemljište u Topoli. Sa sjeveroistoka graniči barjaktarom harambaše Hajduk, sa jugozapada barjaktarom Dučiće, sa zapada državnom livadom i sa jugoistoka Jarugom . . . . . . . . 6.
Br. 14. Drugi komad u Kljenovačkom polju. Graniči sa sjevera barjaktarom harambaše Đurić, s juga je Otok, s istoka Jaruga . . . 32.

Četiri obitelji Bačići posjeduju (imanje) u mjestu zvanom Zaotok. On graniči s juga imanjem harambaše Bušić, sa sjeveroistoka Jaruga Šipovača sajugozapada Otok.

Na slijedećoj stranici slijedi slična razdioba za 78 obitelji barjaktara harambaše Zvane Kulundžića.

Potom slijedi razdioba imanja za 25 obitelji barjaktara harambaše Ante Đurića iz sela Lokvičići.

Na četvrtom mjestu nalazi se dioba posjeda za 87 obitelji barjaktara harambaše Nikolića Serdarija(?) Mršića iz Prološca.

Na petom mjestu je raspodjela posjeda za 17 obitelji barjaktara Jure Hajduka iz sela Vrbaca(?).

Na šestom mjestu je ispisan posjed za 44 obitelji barjaktara harambaše Đukića u selu Podlug.

Na sedmom mjestu su upisane čestice za 39 obitelji barjaktara harambaše Tomasovića u Vinjanima.

Na osmom mjestu su čestice za 29 obitelji barjaktara Ante Bušića. Nakon toga slijede gruntove čestice koje se dodjeljuju za 26 obitelji barjaktara Martina Grančića iz »Tvrđave« (Imotskog).

Navest ću nekoliko pojedinosti.
Br. 11. Teren u Pasiću zvan Krvavice graniči sjeverom s posjedom barjaktara Burstilo, s juga s imanjem barjaktara Sindika, s istoka rijekom Vrljikom i s juga posjedom serdara Tadića.
Br. 10. Zemljište u Topoli graniči sa sjeveroistoka s posjedom barjaktara Kulundžića, s jugozapada imanjem barjaktara Tadića, s juga Jarugom i sa sjeverozapada državnim posjedom.
Br. 9. Zemljište u poljani selu kljenovačkog polja graniči: sa sjeverozapada s imanjem serdara Dučića, sa sjeveroistoka Jaruga, s juga posjedom barjaktara Društva bombardira i sa jugozapada rijekom Vrljikom.

Br. 2. Uz navedeno, Petru Vukosavljeviću dodaje se jedan komad zemlje u Pasiću. On graniči sa sjevera s imanjem gosp. pukovnika Cernizza, s juga posjedom barjaktara Mrkonjića, s istoka rijekom Vrljikom i sa zapada posjedom istog Cernizze.
Nadalje, Grgo Perić(?) u Krenicama ima svoj posjed. Od graniči sa sjevera cestom, sa zapada s posjedom Ivana Perze, a s istoka i juga pašnjakom. Ivan Perze u Krenicama ima posjed koji graniči sa zapada i juga pašnjakom, sa sjevera cestom, a s istoka s posjedom Grge Perića.

Na desetom mjestu su upisane parcele za 75 obitelji barjaktara Mihe Mrkonjića iz Zmijavaca.

Na jedanaestom mjestu upisane su parcele barjaktara harambaše Mijata Vodanovića (?) iz Župe.

Na dvanaestom mjestu slijedi zapis za 55 obitelji barjaktara harambaše Karla Gudelja iz Župe.

Na trinaestom mjestu nalaze se upisane katastarske čestice za 30 obitelji barjaktara harambaše Grge Knezovića.

Slijedeći broj odnosi se na Četu učenika topništva s tvrdave. Pročitajmo je skupa: Tu živi 28 obitelji.
One su dobile slijedeće čestice:

Br. 5. Zemljište u Pasiću zvano Krvavica. Graniči sa sjevera barjaktarom harambaše Kulundžića, s juga barjaktarom harambaše Nikolić, s istoka rijekom Vrlikom, sa zapada zemljištima koja su podijeljena godine 1725. Camazini-ma.
Zemljište u Topoli. Graniči sa sjeveroistoka barjaktarom harambašom Bušić, s jugozapada barjaktarom harambašom Hajduk, sa sjeverozapada državnim zemljištvom i s juga Jaruga.
Br. 10. Zemljište u Kljenovačkom polju graniči sa sjeverozapada barjaktarom harambaše Grančić, s jugozapada posjedom barjaktara Tomasovića i Jaruga.
Br. 20. Josip Vjenić(?) dobiva dio u šumi Lug u Zmijavcima, skupa s Križanom Skakom.

Na petnaestom mjestu su upisane čestice koje od sada pripadaju za uzdržavanje 22 obitelji barjaktara serdara Riste Danilovića.

Na šesnaestom mjestu slijede čestice za 21 obitelj barjaktara serdara Jove Sindika.

Na sedamnaestom mjestu su upisane čestice za 21 obitelj barjaktara serdara Riste Tadića.

Na osamnaestom mjestu su upisane zemljišne čestice za 18 obitelji barjaktara serdara Nikole Dučića(?).

Zapisnik završava s rednim brojem devetnaest, gdje se ponovo poziva na naredbu spomenutog providura Jakova Boldu od 30. rujna 1746. Po toj naredbi doznačena je zemlja Stjepana Cernizza iz ove Krajine, to jest za pomaganje pri kopanju kanala uz rijeku Vrljiku, koja je prouzrokovala poplave u poju. Stjepan je dobio parcelu u Pasiću i zemljište u Topoli.

Na koncu su doneseni i posjedi koji pripadaju raznim crkvenim institucijama i crkvama. 24)

Na temelju sličnih katastarskih zapisa može se saznati i za postojanje ondašnjih obitelji s brojem članova. Ovdje ću navesti popis obitelji iz Kamenmosta i Podbablja iz god. 1725.

REDNI BROJ/IME I PREZIME/ BROJ ČLANOVA

1. Marko Mišević 7

2. Marko Gazilović 5

3. Ilija Vuksan 4

4. Blaž Vuksan 10

5. Ivan Krasnić 15

6. Luka Dragutinović 20

7. Nikola Jovanov 2

8. Bože i Marko Talić 11

9. Mijo Stojanović 5

10. Toma Perkušić 8

11. Mate Lučić-Dodig 6

12. Marko Lučič-Dodig 6

13. Marko Vujanić 5

14. Križan Vulić (?) 10

15. Ivan Glavaš 10

16. Andrija Kristić 3

17. Blaž Vuksan 6

18. Nikola Znaor 4

19. Pavao Znaor 5

20. Komnen Krajinić (?) 7

21. Sava Krajinić 4

22. Marko Asljinović 7

23. Grgo Perić 7

24. Luka Perić 8

25. Dragutin Delić 7

26. Aleksa Rasović 3

27. Ivan Picokarić 4

28. Nikola Zaharijić 3

29. Vasko Dragutinović 5

30. Marko i Jure Milasović 15

31. Mitar Rasović 7

32. Petar Vuičić-Boban 6

33. Petar Picokarić 6

34. Miroslav Ninković 7

35. Ivan Pavlčić 4

36. Miloš Vulnović 6

37. Lazo Stoianović-Zlatar 5

38. Karlo Bakita 5

39. Šimun Bakita 4

40. Ivan Lončar 11

41. Mate Lončar 5

42. Mijo Tvrtković 8

43. Boško Milutinović 6

44. Mate Radić 4

45 Mirko Stojanović 15
25)

Tako je godine 1725., prema navedenom popisu, u 45 obitelji iz Kamenmosta i Podbablja živjela 371 osoba.


6. Neslobodni oslobođenici

Gotovo kroz cijelo osamnaesto stoljeće i dalje susreću se brojni dokumenti na turskom, talijanskom i drugim jezicima koji svjedoče o uvedenom običaju da na području Imotske krajine katoličko stanovništvo mora plaćati nekadašnjim vlasnicima pojedinih posjeda odgovarajuće godišnje takse za zemlju koju obraduju i s koje ubiru plodove. Narod se tome protivio, ali Mletačka Republika, čini se, podržavala je taj običaj, da se ne bi zamjerila turskoj vlasti koja je u susjedstvu. I u franjevačkom arhivu u Mostaru, da ne spominjem one u Zaostrogu, Makarskoj i Omišu, čuvaju se brojni dokumenti - uglavnom na turskom jeziku - s kojima se tijekom osamnaestog stoljeća ubiralo porez na posjede koji su jedno vrijeme - od osvajanja do gubitaka - pripadali pojedinim Turcima na području Imotske krajine. 26) I Mletačke vlasti su dobivale slične dokumente i oni se čuvaju u povijesnom arhivu u Zadru. Konačno je i to pitanje trebalo riješiti. Brojne dokumente i njihovo riješenje sačuvao je pukovnik-upravitelj Imotskog Franjo (Francesco) Danese i poslao 1. lipnja 1793. generalnom providuru Alvisu Marinu u Zadar. Sažetak tih dokumenata i korake što ih je činio spomenuti pukovnik Marin on sam je sažeo i citirao u svom poduljem izvještaju i poslao u Zadar. Ukratko rečeno sve to se odnosi na potražnje turskih gospodara od stanovništva Imotske krajine na kućarine, pašarine, zemljarine koje još uvijek, protjerani Turci, smatraju svojim vlasništvom. Tako u praksi, prema njihovim zahtjevima Imotska krajina još nije oslobođena od Turaka. 27)

Reklamacija koju je Visokoj Porti upravio kadija i prvaci grada Ljubuškog u ime podložnika toga grada i Bekije, te hercegovačkog sandžakata koji se protezao i na područje Imotskog kao i ponovljena upozorenja mletačkih vlasti dali su povoda da 20. listopada, a zatim i 1. prosinca nalože spomenutom Danesu da se riješi to teško pitanje sa svom brigom njegovog zalaganja, vjernosti i dužnosti kako bi se predusreli neredi koji prijete i uporna potraživanja. Stvar te žalbe je nejasna, jer se protivi činjenici i običaju i začudujuća je radi žalbe o sporazumu. »Radi nedostatka preventivnih tragova, morao sam - ističe spomenuti Franjo - utrošiti i vremena i proučavanja kako bi što delikatnije obavio naloženi mi zadatak«. Pošto je poduzeo korake u tom obratio se nadležnim organima, čak i uredu vanjskih poslova i zatraži od njih dokumenat »tko je tu bio, bez znanja i dozvole susjednih upravitelja, da se zabrani sječa drveća i da se zabrani obradivanje zemljišta koje nije doznačeno ni iznajmljeno, da bi se na taj način doznalo odakle dolazi udarac te nerazumne žalbe«. Kad je to učinio, imotski upravitelj se susreo sa serdarima Bilićem, Vučemilovićem i Budalićem i pobrinuo se da obavijesti sve seljake koji slučajno do tog dana nisu uplatili kućarinu, zemljarinu i pašarinu da svi osobno dođu i odmah podmire posjednike. Time je upravitelj, kako sam priznaje, »namjeravao da si prištedim formalne prisilne uplate i da izbjegnem čudenje susjeda (pograničara) i da bi u isto vrijeme olakšao teret plaćanja podložnika«. Potom isti upravitelj ističe da je nastojao uhvatit dva razbojnika »koji su još ostali, nakon uništenja brojne grupe uništenih zločinaca«.

Pošto je to postigao, nastojao je da sami graničari, posebno oni iz Ljubuškog i Ostatka (Bekije) izjave “da je to pradavni običaj, koji je po sebi opovrgavao spomenute da su oni dozvoljavali ispašu, obrađivanje zemljišta i sječu drva ne silom, nego s njihovom izričitom dozvolom nakon uplate redovitih taksa i onih dogovorenih unutar turskih carskih posjeda koje su oni davali mletačkim podložnicima«. Potom je spomenuti upravitelj, s pratnjom otišao u Vrgorac. Pozvao predstavnike turske uprave iz Ljubuškog i razgovarao s njima o »općekorisnom isušenju zajedničke Imotske doline«. To je bilo koncem studenog. Uspio je prijeći granicu Mule vice-kapitana te se susreo s 22 Turčina. Izložio im je svoju želju i osvrnuo se na žalbu stanovništva s područja Imotske krajine, kao i onih iz Vrgorca i pokazao nadležnima tri pisma bosanskog vezira. 28)

»Moj je stav bio, nastavlja isti upravitelj, pred tom figurom i pred četvoricom glavnih aga, koji su ga slijedili da ukažem takoder na druga ponašanja njihovih podložnika, na pljačke, nasilja i ugnjetavanja, koja su trpjeli naši pastiri putnici, spomenuvši mu i najnovije pokolje« koje je učinio njihov podanak dok nije pao pogubljen od mletačkih pandura skupa s nekim njegovim drugovima. Potom ističe da je kroz prošlo vrijeme vladao mir mettu susjedhim krajevima, ali ga uznemiruje naplačivanje kućarine i pašarine i nadodaje: »Pravio sam se da mi je neugodno, jer jedan civilizirani i razumni razgovor, koji što se mene tiče nije ni za čim drugim išao, nego da se vidi, da se upozna i medusobno se saobraća, da je s njihove strane zagorčen njihovim mrskim uspomenama na staru animoznost, dok je moja namjera bila i sada je da ih uvjerim o lijepoj discipliniranosti, koja je sada umjeravala vladanje mletačkih podložnika moga okruga s podanicima Porte, koji, ako su imali kakve žalbe i prava što se tiče paše i obrađivanja, samo ako ne bi premašivale vrijeme moga službovanja . . . pokazao bih se spremnim da im dadnem znak i daljnjeg dobra uredenja da ih udobrovoljim, ali na način suglasan s Ugovorom i pravednošću.«

Iz daljnjeg teksta slijed da spomenuti upravitelj nije bio dobronamjerno shvaćen ni prihvaćen. Turski predstavnici su željeli da on što prije ode i vrati se u Imotski. A to potvrđuju i naknadna pisma što su ih turske vlasti slale nadležnim mletačkim upraviteljima. Na povratku prema Imotskom spomenuti Danese je upozoravao glavare pojedinih sela »da seljaci postupe za njihovo rješenje u stvarima prema inostranstvu u granicama naznačenih vrsta posjeda« dok traje njegova uprava. 29)

Da bi izišao u susret turskim potražnjama Danese je s »upraviteljima grada Mostara i feudalcima Bekije uskladio zadovol,jštinu njihovih kredita, desetina, kućari:na, šumarina i pašarina na način, po mjeri i svrsishodnosti dotičnih sposobnosti dužnika iz vremena ne starijeg od moje uprave i prema csobama kreditora, a to potvrđuje i hrpa dokumenata koje podnosim . . .«. 30)

Nakon osvrta na priloženu dokumentaciju upravitelj Imotskog se zaustavIja na slučaju u Ričicama. »Zaslužuje, piše isti, dostojnu pažnju Vaše preuzvišenosti i četvrti literarni sastav analogan sporu između sela Ričice i bogatog posjednika Ferhat-bega, sina glasovitog Miralim-paše. On već dugo godina povećava znatne sume gotova novca za koje to brojno selo, oskudno javnim doznakama a isto tako sve ostalo od teritorija okupiranog od pomoraca, a posebno onih iz Omiša, uživa godišnje da obraduje i da se služi ispašom prostranim blagim mjestima Zavelima, Baronie tvrdokornog Turčina za svotu od 160 reala. Pošto su ovi podanici zanemarili dogovore i pošto su se plaćanja umanjila radi kuge, radi glada i najzad radi rata izmedu dvaju carstava koji je rasijanom držao obitelj bogatog Turčina, a i s druge strane selo se nadalo da će s imaginarnim uspjehom autsrijske vojske to selo biti zauzeto i tako riješen dug koji se toliko puta tražio, te su tako dapustili da se njihov dug popeo na sumu od 1520 reala.« Da se riješi i taj spor upravitelj se nada pomoći serdara Bilića. 31)

Nakon više krivičnih slučajeva upravitelj Imotskog Danese piše: »Nakon ovoga što sam imao čast obavijestiti, sada mi preostaje naznačiti Vašoj Preuzvišenosti, da je važno da se uspostavi disciplina na prolaz podanika na ljetnu ispašu i također da se oslobodi od nekih novina u nametima na njihovo rezervirano ponašanje protiv turskih nadležnosti i na način koji plaćaju porez, što pridonose za pašarinu, što od toga dobivaju, što traže za rezervaciju obradivanja turskih zemljišta koju nisu iznajmili posjednici u ovoj turskoj ravnici kada ostane posušena, ili bar na manje prisilno ponašanje i prikladnije da se osiguraju nakon ljetine, odnosno kućarine i desetine, koje većinom odnose kradomice od grabežljivosti Morlaka k naivnosti muslimana. I da sudska administracija, kako prema jednima tako i prema drugima bez razlike, potrebna je zatim norma jednostavnosti koja bi isključivala nasilja, nezakonitosti . . . i onu tešku dobit, koja sada vlada sa sumnjivim razočaranjem onoga koji hoće da ima upliva u vlasti . . .«

Konačno spomenuti upravitelj ističe: »U toj stvari, naredio sam, prema Vašim naređenjima, priključivši moje ovlaštenje, na 21. ožujka podložnima da ne dopuštaju da se poduzima obrađivanje preko granica koje dijele dvije države kojemu od Morlaka, koji ne bi imao odobrenje Uprave ili ugovor turskog vlasnika o predavanju zemljišta niti da dopuštaju ispašu i sječu bez prethodne dozvole Poglavara sve dotle dok se spozna da su Vašom izričitom vlasti proglašeni zaboravljenim metode i discipline i propisane opreznosti po kojima se hoće, da se to verificira da bi se izbjegle one prvašnje obaveze, koje bi se vremenom i oslobadanjem podložnika mogle jednako probuditi.« 32)

Prema turskim dopumentima, izgleda, da se uobičajena praksa o zadržavanju vlasništva na zemljište odseljenih Turaka u Imotskoj krajini zadržala i prvih desetljeća devetnaestoga stoljeća. 33) To, bez ikakve sumnje, pokazuje nebrigu Mletačke vlasti za što veće dobro katoličkog stanovništva u Imotskoj krajini. Vlast je na taj način dopustila Turcima da, preko poreza, nastave osiromašivati katoličko stanovništvo i van granica njihove vlasti.

ZAKLJUČAK

Nakon 224 godine turskog upravljanja 2. kolovoza 1717. Imotska krajina je oslobodena. Požarevačkim mirom (1718.) tursko gospodstvo je zamijenjeno s mletačkim. U borbama za oslobo8enje Imotskog borili su se naši ljudi na strani Mlečana. Sve do nedavno - do god. 1947. - na Širokom Brijegu čuvala se jedna zastava pod kojom su se Imoćani borili s Turcima. Zastava je bila velika 74 x 97 cm, bijela je s crvenim križem. U borbama je sva izrešetana mecima. Pod ovom zastovom Imoćani su osvojili Imotski. 34)

Da bi što više pridobili simpatije naroda Mlečani su razdijelili osvojenu zemlju pojedinim obiteljima. Tako su nastale vrlo vrijedne katastarske knjige, prepune brojnih podataka.

Kako je stanovništvo u Imotskoj krajini god. 1717. bilo prorijedeno zbog iseljavanja, a i povlačenja s Turcima u Bekiju, Mlečani dovode nove stanovnike, medu njima i pravoslavne, te ih naseljavaju u Krajinu.

Jedna od posebnosti koja je prešla u običaj bila je praksa da preko sto godina, pojedine turske obitelji, traže s bivših svojih posjeda u Imotskoj krajini takse na kućarinu, pašarinu, zemljarinu i slično. Očito je tu zakazala mletačka vlast, kojoj nije bilo stalo do bržeg ekonomskog napretka stanovništva Imotske krajine.

Svake godine Imoćani se sa zahvalnošću sjećaju velike pobjede izvojevane kršćanskim oružjem i posebnom pomoću Majke Božje. Općina je to činila vanjskim slavljem. U predvečerje su se na Topani palili "svitnjaci". Uz gruvanje "mačkula" i veliki vatromet gradska je glazba držala koncert. Komunistička vlast to je prekinula. Čak je zabranila procesiju gradskim ulicama. U slobodnoj državi Hrvatskoj sve se obnovilo. Blagdan Gospe od Anđela službeno je proglašen Danom grada Imotskoga. (...) 35)


________________________________
1) V. B. Š. Jutarnji list, 13. siječnja 2001.
2) Usp. ANDRIJA NIKIĆ, Oslobođenje Imotske krajine od Turaka, Čuvari baštine, Zbornik radova simpozija u prigodi 250. obljetnice (1738.-1988.) prijenosa Franjevačkoga samostana u grad Imotski, Imotski, 1989., str. 173.-189.
3) Usp. Arhiv za povjesnicu jugoslavensku, sv. 6. Zagreb, 1863., str. 206-207.
4) Usp. P. PISANI, Mletački posjedi Dalmacije od XVI. do XVIII. vijeka. Bullettino, 1981,, str. 100-101.
5) Usp. A. UJEVIĆ, Imotska..., str. 80.
6) Usp. Starine JAZU, 29/1890., str. 19.-23.
7) Usp. A. UJEVIĆ, Imotska…, str. 83.-84.
8) U arhivima franjevačkih samostana postoje dokumenti na turskom jeziku koji se odnose na navedenu temu. Usp. ANDRIJA NIKIĆ, Franjevački arhiv, Mostar, 1984. - kazalo imena: Imotski, kao i brojne dokumente u Povijesnom arhivu u Zadru.
9) Usp. ANTE LULIĆ, Memoria della Provincia. Spalato, 1867., str. 40.
10) Arhiv franjevačkog samostana u Imotskom Prijepis samostanske kronike iz franjevačkog samostana u Omišu. Tu su, odmah ispočetka popisane župe koje su alužili imotski franjevci na području i današnje Bekije.
11) Usp. A. UJEVIĆ, Imotska…, str. 73.
12) Usp. Andrija Nikić, Fra Lovro Šitović i njegova djela, Mostar, 2001.
13) A. KUZMANIĆ, Spomeni iz moga dnevnika, Narodni list (Zadar), 1878., br. 47.
14) Citirano prema: A. UJEVIC, Imotska…, str. 88.-89.
15) Da je to bilo teško učiniti, priznaje i spomenuti Mocenigo u dokumentu od 2. siječnja 1720. gdje ističe kako su ljudi teškim, dalekim i neprovoznim putovima prevozili i na sebi prenosili topove.
16) Usp. POVIJESNI ARHIV U ZADRU – dalje PAZ, Dispacci Alvise Mocenigo, knj. 2, (1717.), ff. 12.-23., 167.-187., 189.-215. i na više mjesta.
17) Usp. A. UJEVIĆ, Imotska…, str. 73.
18) Točnije 224 godine. To je vremensko razdoblje od 1493. do 1717. godine.
19) PAZ, Dispacci, Lib. II., ff. 167.-188.
20) Usp. S. ANTOLJAK, Dalmatinsko pitanje kroz vjekove, Zagreb, 1944., str. 52.
21) Usp. N. MILAŠ, Pravoslavna Dalmacija, Novi Sad, 1901. Kod Ujevića, str. 90.-91.
22) O zastavi je pisano u Glasniku sv. Ante, god. 32, br. 5 (153.-154) i br. 6 (193.-196). Usporedi i bilješku br. 18.
23) PAZ, Katastar Poljica. Fotokopije dokumenata dobio sam od gospodina Nikole Mandića. Nikoli izražavam zahvalnost na usluzi. Original dokumenta napisan je na talijanskom jeziku, ali, nažalost, Nikola nije prepisao i točnu signaturu fonda, pa to ovdje nisam mogao navesti.
24) Na podacima izražavam zahvalnost Nikoli Mandiću.
25) Na podacima izražavam zahvalnost Nikoli Mandiću.
26) FRANJEVAČKI ARHIV U MOSTARU, Acta Turcarum, br. 946. Kopija berata kojim se čuvaru mostarske tvrdave dodjeljuje timar od 1650 akči u nahiji Imotski (1723.). Usp. br. 960., 220. - kopija berata kojim se Ahmedu dodjeljuje timar od 1600 akči u župi (nahiji) Imotski.
27) PAZ, Dispacci Alvtse Mocenigo, knj. 2, ff. 181v-182v. Tu piše da muslimanske obitelji koje su napustile Imotsku krajinu ne trebaju uživati plodove za zemlje. Danesev spis se nalazi u fondu: Dragomanski spisi, filca 9., pozicija 6.
28) PAZ, Dragomanski spisi, filca 9., p. 6., 17.-33.
29) PAZ, Dragomanski spisi, filca 9., p. 6., 34.-55.
30) PAZ, Dragomanski spisi, filca 9., p. 6., 56.-75.
31) PAZ, Dragomanski spisi, filca 9., p. 6., 76.-92.
32) PAZ, Dragomanski spisi, sv. A.
33) FRANJEVAČKI ARHIV, Acta Turcarum, br., 420 i sl.
34) Usp A. UJEVIĆ, Imotska..., str. 91. Može biti da je autor znao za naknadno pljačkanje bogate Širokobriješke knjižnice, muzeja i arhiva koja je 1947. doživjela svoju kataklizmu. To je uništeno u ime širenja “kulture i prosvjete” kako je masnim slovima pisalo na zidovima samostana. Naime, grafitima je na popaljenom i opljačkoanom širokobriješkom samostanu bilo napisano: Naša je osveta kultura i prosvjeta! Sarkastično! I zid, a ne samo papir, može podnijeti da se na njemu svašta piše.
35) VJEKO VRČIĆ, Stare slave djedovine, Grad na gori, list imotskih župa, br. 2., (26.), Imotski, 1996.

Napisao:
Prof. fra Andrija Nikić

Tko je Frane Peričić, tajnoviti tzv. 20. čovjek Bugojanske skupine koja je 1972. ilegalno ušla u Jugoslaviju? - VL. 7.VI.05.

www.vecernji-list.hr

07.06.2005 18:22
OTKRIVAMO Tko je Frane Peričić, tajnoviti tzv. 20. čovjek Bugojanske skupine koja je 1972. ilegalno ušla u Jugoslaviju nadajući se da će podići ustanak, a čiji su članovi ubrzo ili poginuli ili osuđeni na smrt

Bili smo idealisti, a ne teroristi

Autor ZVONIMIR DESPOT



U Sukošanu kraj Zadra mirnim umirovljeničkim životom, tik uz more, živi Frane Peričić, danas 85-godišnjak, koji je za svoje godine i te kako živahan i lucidan. Živi s kćeri, zetom i unukama s kojima se 1991. vratio iz Australije. Bave se turizmom tu je kamp "Seka" te kuće za iznajmljivanje.

Nadzor
No Frane Peričić iza sebe ima uzbudljiv životopis koji je poznat tek njegovoj rodbini i prijateljima. Dakako da je za njega znala i bivša jugoslavenska tajna služba, kao i tajne službe nekih drugih zemalja. Štoviše, sigurno je bio pod njihovim stalnim nadzorom. Frane je, naime, bio član Bugojanske skupine koja je 20. lipnja 1972. ilegalno ušla u Jugoslaviju, o čemu smo nedavno pisali, a za Večernji list pristao je prvi put javno prozboriti o toj akciji kao jedan od njezinih neposrednih svjedoka.

Međutim, nije prešao austrijsko-jugoslavensku granicu, za razliku od 19 njegovih sudruga koji su u akcijama ubrzo ili poginuli, ili bili likvidirani, ili osuđeni na smrt. Frane se s njima pripremao u improviziranom logoru šest kilometara od jugoslavenske granice, u okolici Klagenfurta, bio je zadnji koji je vidio one koji su prešli granicu, a 14. lipnja 1972. u logoru mu je rečeno da ipak neće ići s njima, nego da će ostati sa ženama dvojice braće, Ambroza i Adolfa Andrića.

Ušao sam u HRB iste godine, 1963., kad je u Hrvatsku ušla tzv. grupa Tolić-Oblak. HRB je funkcionirao kao i druge hrvatske organizacije, ali tajno, i najviše je radio na tome da se Hrvati prebace u domovinu, ali u tome baš i nije puno uspio. Nastojali smo kod Hrvata stvoriti zajedničko tijelo koje bi se borilo za hrvatsku državu, ali nije išlo. U HRB nije mogao biti primljen bilo tko. Provjeravalo se da onaj tko se prima nije špijun, da nije Jugoslaven i da je pošten, a usto je trebao imati i dvije-tri preporuke članova HRB-a. Tako sam i ja ušao u organizaciju, u kojoj sam bio blagajnik za australsku državu Victoriju, a zatim sam bio i stožernik. I moram vam reći da Udba našu organizaciju nikad nije probila, barem ne u Australiji i danas tih dana prisjeća Peričić.

Akcija
Prema njegovim riječima, ideja o formiranju Bugojanske skupine i ulasku u Jugoslaviju potekla je od već spomenute braće Andrić te od Pavla Vegara. Akciju su počeli pripremati već nekoliko godina prije jer su prvi njezini sudionici iz Australije u Europu počeli dolaziti već 1969. godine.

U akciju su bila uključena 23 člana HRB-a, neki iz Australije kao ja, a neki iz Europe. Mi u Australiji već smo se pripremali za nju, ondje smo nabavili i neku opremu i naoružanje te ga prenijeli iz Australije, ali prava priprema počela je u Njemačkoj i Austriji. U Australiji se skupljao novac, ljudi su čak i svoje kuće založili, samo da pomognu u organizaciji akcije. Ja sam u Europu došao 1972., pri čemu moram spomenuti da su s nama išle i naše žene i djeca.

Došli smo s australskim putovnicama, a braća Andrić su jedini imali krivotvorene, jednu australsku i jednu francusku. Svi smo se na kraju našli u Salzburgu gdje je pala konačna odluka da idemo u Jugoslaviju. Skupina je trebala doći do tromeđe Dalmacije, Bosne i Hercegovine kako bi akcija bila svehrvatska sjeća se Peričić koji je oko mjesec dana ostao u Europi nakon odlaska iz logora, a onda se vratio u Australiju iz koje se konačno 1991. došao u svoje rodne mjesto. Mjesec dana nakon njihova odlaska u Jugoslaviju doznao je da je akcija propala.

Još dok sam bio u Europi, čuo sam što se s njima dogodilo. Čak su i za mene neki govorili da sam izdajica. To mi je bilo samo smiješno. Ljudi su vjerovali da će uspjeti. Bugojanska skupina tako je bila zadnja oružana akcija koju je HRB organizirao sjetno će na kraju Peričić.

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HRB najozloglašenija organizacija ustaške emigracije

Prisega organizaciji na bezuvjetnu pokornost

Hrvatsko revolucionarno bratstvo osnovali su 1961. u Australiji Geza Pasty, Josip Senić, Jure Marić i drugi. HRB se predstavljao kao "borbena organizacija svjesnih hrvatskih rodoljuba, koji su postavili zadaću osloboditi hrvatski narod od tuđinskog nasilja, te državu Hrvatsku ponovno uskrisiti u njezinim etničkim i povijesnim granicama". Jugoslavenske službe, prema elaboratu o HRB-u koji je 28. lipnja 1984. načinila jugoslavenska Uprava za istraživanje, analize i informiranje Saveznog sekretarijata za unutarnje poslove u HRB-u su vidjele "najozloglašeniju organizaciju ustaške emigracije". HRB je bio organiziran po uobičajenim pravilima revolucionarnih organizacija. U njoj je postojao šifrirani način djelovanja i svaki je član imao konspirativno ime. Za svakog novog člana morala su jamčiti dva djelatna člana, a primljeni član je morao položiti prisegu kojom se obvezao na bezuvjetno pokoravanje organizacijskim propisima i na ispunjavanje organizacijskih zadataka. Dana 25. studenoga 1996. tajnik Glavnoga revolucionarnog stana HRB-a Ivan Kršan priopćio je odluku HRB-a da prestaje s radom. No, neki njegovi članovi s time se nisu pomirili. Među njima je i Frane Peričić. On, naime, tvrdi, da HRB nikad nije prestao s radom! Tvrdim da HRB nikad nije prestao s radom. Bilo je vijesti da je ugašen, ali to nije točno. No, glavni cilj HRB-a je ispunjen, a to je samostalna hrvatska država, tako da više nema potrebe za nekim akcijama. Ima nas članova HRB-a dosta i ovdje u Hrvatskoj, koji smo se vratili, povremeno se sastajemo, ali to je više-manje prijateljsko druženje i razgovor, a ne planiranje nekih akcija napominje Peričić. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Najviše smo trenirali hodanje "Bugojanci" su nešto opreme i oružja nabavili u Australiji, a najviše u Njemačkoj. Oprema je kupljena legalno u jednoj njemačkoj trgovini. Nakon opremanja, uslijedile su zadnje pripreme u logoru kod Klagenfurta. Svakodnevno smo najviše trenirali hodanje te nošenje ratne opreme. Članovi skupine na sebi su imali ljetnu američku vodootpornu uniformu, šilt kapu s hrvatskom zastavom, kabanicu, cipele i čizme, ranac, četiri ili pet automatskih pušaka, 13 pištolja, osam pušaka s prigušivačem, dvije teške puške, nešto bombi, streljiva napretek te oko 60 kilograma eksploziva. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Od Sukoštana i natrag Rođen je prije 85 godina također u Sukošanu, na istoj zemlji gdje i danas živi s obitelji. Od 1942. do 1944. bio je u ustašama, pa je prešao u partizane, nakon rata radio u Osijeku, a 1953. emigrirao je u Australiju, u Melbourne, gdje je sve vrijeme radio kao fizički radnik. Ondje je 1963. došao u dodir s Hrvatskim revolucionarnim bratstvom i tako je, kaže, sve počelo. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ideal važniji od žrtve Zašto su išli u akciju? Frane Peričić kaže da su ih vodili samo ideali. Bili smo idealisti. Cilj nam je bio da Hrvatsku oslobodimo jugoslavenštine. Mislili smo da će se preko nas u Hrvatskoj dići ustanak te da ćemo zatim moći uspostaviti samostalnu i nezavisnu Hrvatsku. To nam je bio jedini cilj. I nije se uopće spominjalo niti razgovaralo o tome hoće li netko do nas poginuti ili neće napomenuo je Peričić.

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Doveli smo u Melbourne Vladimira Šeksa i Đuru Pericu HRB je u Australiju doveo i Vladimira Šeksa te Đuru Pericu. Bilo je to prije više od 15 godina. Šeks je u crkvi u Melbourneu govorio kako nama Hrvatima ne trebaju ni Pešta, ni Beč, ni Beograd. Za nas u Australiji bilo je to čudo, da tako govori netko tko dolazi iz Jugoslavije.

Narod je poludio, odmah smo otvorili knjigu darovatelja u koju se upisalo 60 osoba. Svaka osoba darovala je tisuću dolara. Skupljalo se i dalje, pa je osnovan i HDZ. No Šeks nije htio uzeti novac. Rekao je da će javiti ako bude trebalo otkrio nam je Frane Peričić.

Je li ljudevit Gaj bio prevarant i lažljivac?

Večernji list, 13. svibnja 2005.

POVIJESNE KONTROVERZE: Je li Ljudevit Gaj bio prevarant i lažljivac?

Piše: Stjepan Laljak



Što reći o čovjeku koji od cara Franje Josipa moli "neki orden koji odgovara njegovim zaslugama"? Potom moli čak 80.000 forinti dugoročnoga zajma jer je radeći za opću hrvatsku stvar zapao u velike dugove. Pa opet moli cara da ga za zasluge (za koje je, pogađate i sami, potrošio velik novac) nagradi svotom od 55.000 forinti i da mu povrh svega udijeli plemićki naslov kao znak carske milosti!

Taj "vođa ilirskoga preporoda, tiskar i urednik itd., itd." i sami pogađate bio je Ljudevit Gaj. A neobjavljeni spisi o Gaju čuvaju se u Nacionalnoj i sveučilišnoj knjižnici još od 1894. godine i do danas našoj javnosti nije dostupna istina o Gaju. Sve to tek je uvod u ono što se zbilo prije punih 150 godina!

Preporoditelj Ljudevit Gaj (1809.-1872.), kao što se zna, bio je ujedno i vlasnik tiskare u kojoj je 1835.-1848. tiskao i izdavao glasovitu "Danicu". No, nakon 1848. godine od hrvatskoga preporoditelja Gaj postaje režimski čovjek pod Bachovim apsolutizmom koji od države dobiva golema sredstva za izdavanje službenih "Narodnih novina" i tiskanje tiskanica. Iako se hvalio da mu tiskara godišnje donosi 12.000-15.000 forinti zarade i time se prikazivao kao uspješan i častan čovjek prava istina je sasvim drukčija.

Gaj je tražio da mu se tiskarska usluga plati unaprijed. Tako je 1852. godine od financijskog ravnateljstva tražio predujam od 3000 forinti, od Odjela za bogoštovlje i nastavu (danas je to Ministarstvo znanosti i obrazovanja) traži 1853. monopol (ali ga, na sreću, nije dobio!) za tiskanje svih školskih udžbenika...

Taj isti Gaj nije 1855. platio neku globu te moli oprost od financijskog ravnateljstva. Godine 1856. državna blagajna opominje ga zbog neplaćenih kamata, a zagrebačkom Poglavarstvu 1854. nije podmirio dug za prodane školske knjige... Shvativši prljavu igru, Vlada 1853. otkazuje ugovor za izdavanje službenoga lista... Gaj financijski tone sve dublje, ali se svim snagama (i vezama) bori da javnost to ne dozna. Ponovno piše u Beč i moli 30.000 forinti subvencije, od cara ponovno traži 30.000 za "podmirenje dugova", opet unaprijed moli dvogodišnju subvenciju za "Narodne novine"...

Kamo je odlazio novac koji je stizao sa svih strana kao predujam za tiskanje knjiga možda nikada nećemo doznati. Pouzdano znam i to da je Gajevu tiskaru obilno pomagala i Matica hrvatska plaćajući unaprijed tiskanje knjiga koje su izlazile s velikim zakašnjenjem.

Sve što se čuva u NSK (zbirka rukopisa) samo je uvod u ono što sam pronašao u Hrvatskom državnom arhivu. Urednik Ivan Perkovac (1826.-1871.), bivši tajnik Matice hrvatske i prvi hrvatski profesionalni novinar (nije slučajno ulica uz Hrvatski novinarski dom prozvana njegovim imenom!), u najstarijem hrvatskom oporbenom listu "Pozor" (konkurencija režimskim Gajevim "Narodnim novinama") razotkrio je još 1863. Gajevu prevarantsku igru.

I kad je Perkovac (za kojega će Šenoa reći da je bio utjelovljenje poštenja i nepotkupljivosti) otkrio istinu u "Pozoru" 31. prosinca 1863. te objavio članak "Gajev konkurs", potegao je Gaj sve svoje doušničke (bio je poznat kao bivši "tajni savjetnik") i političke veze i uspio Perkovca strpati u zatvor ! Spis o tom procesu, kojim je 1864. Perkovac osuđen na 8 mjeseci zatvora, čuva se u zbirci rukopisa HDA i do danas je ostao neobjavljen i nepoznat!

Sve je počelo s knjižarom i papirničarom J. A. Kienreichom iz Graza koji je Gaju prodao papir u vrijednosti 10.000 forinti, ali Gaj to godinama nije platio. U međuvremenu se doznalo da i mnogi drugi vjerovnici u Zagrebu, ali i širom Hrvatske, potražuju od Gaja goleme iznose. Ukupni Gajevi dugovi popeli su se na gotovo 250.000 forinti!

Kad je Perkovac objavio istinu o Gaju, Stol sedmorice u Zagrebu 7. svibnja 1864. potvrđuje presudu Banskoga stola od 24. veljače 1864. zbog "zločinstva nastojanja zavedenja na neposlušnost, na uzbunu i odpor proti sudbenim odredbam (...) te osuđuje Ivana Perkovca na osammiesečni zatvor i gubitak jamčevine od 300 forinti".

Što je to Perkovac napisao i čime je prekršio zakon da je morao biti osuđen na 8 mjeseci tamnice? Prvo, Perkovac je otkrio da Gaj duguje knjižaru Kienreichu 10.000 forinti, da je presuda protiv Gaja pravomoćna ili će mu Kienreich zaplijeniti tiskarske strojeve. Drugo, otkrio je da Gaj vjerovnicima (bilo ih je otprilike 70!) duguje oko 250.000 forinti, a da sva Gajeva imovina ne vrijedi više od 80.000 forinti. Stoga je Gaj proglasio stečaj da se što bezbolnije izvuče iz dugova.

A sad ono treće, najvažnije: kako bi iskoristio opću pomutnju, Gajevi su fiškali počeli obilaziti vjerovnike uvjeravajući ih da će, potpišu li priznanice, dobiti četvrtinu stvarnoga duga, ali samo ako to ne doznaju ostali vjerovnici... Dakle, sa 1000 forinti Gaj je kanio otkupiti 4000 forinti duga! No, ni tu priči nije kraj. Vjerovnici su osnovali tvrtku "Gaj i društvo" sa sedmeročlanim odborom na čelu. Od prihoda tiskare podmirivat će se kamate, porezi, troškovi i plaće zaposlenika. No, Gaj je i to izigrao: izabrao je svoje ljude u odbor, a sebe postavio na čelo tvrtke, tako da ni za sljedeće tri godine nijedan vjerovnik nije dobio ni forinte!

O tome Perkovac piše: "Tako se dogodi u historiji stečajevah nečuveno čudo (...) da je nov odbor upravu svega kolikoga imutka povjerio samomu g. Gaju, da njime upravlja na korist vjerovnikah ! On sada uživa kuću i imanje, štampa svoje novine u vjerovničkoj tiskarnici; al neplaća nikomu ništa (...) ni poreze, ni kamate, ni vjerovnike (...) akoprem osim toga vuče plaću od 2.500 for. kao urednik službenih novinah; a sve to na očigled oblastih od jednoga kr. savjetnika.

Pozivlje se štovano hrvatsko obćinstvo, neka kaže, je li to u redu? Neka kaže, valja li to, da dužnik obiluje a vjerovnici stradaju? Neka izjavi, je li tobožnja lojalnost dovoljan štit i od ovakova postupka? Neka kaže, ima li tomu zlu u Hrvatskoj lieka?"