Perpetrator or victim – Gavrilo Princip and the First World War
On the centenary of the Sarajevo assassination, participants at the international conference “The long shots of Sarajevo 1914 – 2014” are attempting to reinterpret the events. The results are surprising.
South African author Tim Butcher stands in front of a rock in Obljaj in north-western Bosnia-Herzegovina. The assassin Gavrilo Princip carved his initials into this stone in 1909. A friend had asked him why he was doing this. The then 14-year-old replied: “One day people will remember my name,” Butcher writes in his book “The Trigger”, currently the most detailed biography of Gavrilo Princip.
Five years later, the young Gavrilo actually made world history. On June 28, 1914, the 19-year-old high school student shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife Sophie during their visit to Sarajevo. The event went down in history as the trigger for the First World War.
The conference “The Long Shots of Sarajevo”: New perspectives on old narratives
How a young man from a small town could trigger such a chain reaction that led to the largest war of all time is still being discussed by scientists around the world. New insights have now been provided by the conference “The long shots of Sarajevo 1914 – 2014: events – narratives – memories”. Prof. Dr. Clemens Ruthner from Trinity College in Dublin and Prof. Dr. Vahidin Preljević from the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo invited international historians, professors and authors to the Bosnian capital from 24 to 28 June 2014. “The state of Yugoslavia began in Sarajevo with the assassination of 1914 and in 1990 the multi-ethnic state also came to an end there as a result of the Balkan War. Hence the name Long shots of Sarajevo. We want to contribute reconstructions of the events and see which narratives emerged from them in the media, literature and politics and how these narratives were used in cultural and political memory,” explain the hosts. Professor Ruthner’s main focus is on Austria-Hungary and Bosnia-Herzegovina at the turn of the century, while Prof. Preljevic is concerned with the intellectual, cultural and perceptual history of the 18th to 20th centuries.
Gavrilo Princip – the boy from Obljaj who shook the world
The assassination is so firmly rooted in history as the trigger for the First World War that details of Principe’s intentions are still overlooked today. “He had no idea that his act could lead to a world war. He also had no concept of what would happen after the assassination,” explained biographer Tim Butcher in his lecture. The journalist presented his book about the assassin at the conference. In 2012, he traveled to Bosnia, among other places, to research the assassin and the origins of the First World War. He also looked at old documents, including the personal notes of the military doctor Martin Pappenheim, who as a prison psychiatrist looked after Princip during his imprisonment. “Princip’s idea was to unite the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. But not under Austria, but in a different form of state – a republic or something similar,” Pappenheim records in his documents.
The young idealist: What Gavrilo Princip really wanted
Even at a young age, Princip fought for justice and defended those who could not defend themselves, writes Butcher. The son of an orthodox family, he was born in 1894. He was weak and frail and grew up in poor circumstances. Six of his eight siblings died in childhood. He took refuge in books, reading Alexandre Dumas, Oscar Wilde and Walter Scott. He would have starved rather than sell one of his books, Pappenheim writes in his journals. As he was an excellent pupil, the family decided to send him to Sarajevo for further education. There he was able to attend commercial school. There were no opportunities for the intellectual offspring in the small village.
Princip’s journey from Obljaj to Sarajevo made the boy’s anger rise. His father and he walked over the mountains and then took the train to Sarajevo. That was in 1907, when he was just 13 years old. Poverty prevailed not only in his home village, but among farmers throughout the country, regardless of their origin or religion. The people of Bosnia had high hopes following the Austrian takeover from the Ottomans in 1878. Austria described the occupation of the country as a “philanthropic act”, which soon turned out to be a sham. Several hundred kilometers of roads were built, primarily for their own, mostly military purposes. The newly built railroad network was used for the commercial exploitation of the country, which was rich in natural resources and forests. “The Balkans were the main supplier for industry in Austria-Hungary,” explains Džemal Sokolović from the University of Bergen.
The Austrian occupation: progress or exploitation?
Austria’s message was that only a Christian nation could make amends for the incompetent rule of the cruel and corrupt Ottomans. However, the feudal system introduced by the Ottomans was hardly changed. The Begs (i.e. princes) were still able to demand astronomical taxes. Even the splendidly built schools and universities in larger cities such as Sarajevo could not hide the fact that in 1910, 88% of the population could still neither read nor write, says Butcher, describing the conditions at the time.
This led to the formation of revolutionary underground organizations. In 1910, the 24-year-old law student Bogdan Žerajić killed the Austro-Hungarian governor of Bosnia, Marijan Varešanin. The last shot was aimed at him. He was a member of the organization “Mlada Bosna” (Young Bosnia), a communist and anarchist group that included Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Muslims. Princip learned about Zerajic from the essayist Vladimir Gacinovic, Zerajic’s best friend and founder of the revolutionary group “Mlada Bosna”. “At night, I went to the grave of my role model and swore that I would do the same,” Princip told his prison psychiatrist. So he joined this organization in Sarajevo. That must have been in 1910. “The name was based on Marzinni’s “Young Italy”. This organization was no different from other revolutionary movements in Europe, whose aim was to overthrow leaders through individual terror,” explains Ivan Čolović, an ethnologist from Belgrade.
The victim had to be of political importance and so the choice in Bosnia fell on Archduke Franz Ferdinand. “You could make a Hollywood movie out of it,” explains Clemens Ruthner. “A conflict between two men on a macho level. The unsympathetic occupier Franz Ferdinand against the determined young man Gavrilo Princip. In historiography, the Czech chauffeur is accused of driving the wrong way. If he had taken the planned route, the car with the imperial couple would not have passed the assassin. But he stuck to the old route because he had not been informed that it had been changed.”
The assassination in Sarajevo: coincidence, fate or political staging?
Boris Hrabač from the Faculty of Medicine in Sarajevo reports that the Slav lover Franz Ferdinand planned reforms for the Balkan region by the end of 1914, which were also intended to secure the borders on the Drina against the Greater Serbian Empire. The merger of Croatia, Bosnia and Dalmatia to form South Slavia, which was to form the so-called Trialism with Austria-Hungary, was repugnant to some Austrians, as it gave the Slavs too much power. “Serbia was also not interested in a strong Austria-Hungary with southern Slavia. But it did not want to provoke a war with the Austrians. The young republic was very weakened and unstable from the two Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913. They also had large debts to Germany and Austria,” explains Boris Kršev from the Institute of Law at the University of Novi Sad.
Instrumentalized history: How the assassination became propaganda
“Even ten years before the event in Sarajevo, the longing for war among young men in Austria and Germany was great,” explains theologian Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Grosshans from the University of Münster. The assassination was perfect for the Austrians to instrumentalize for their own purposes. “It seemed to be the opportunity to finally say what many countries had been thinking for a long time,” says Vedad Smailagić from the University of Sarajevo. The French and Russians were also willing to go to war in order to achieve foreign policy goals. Hamburg historian Philipp Blom blames industrialization for the war: “ Industrialization replaced humans with machines. This led to depression. Men felt disturbed in their masculinity and the desire to prove themselves as men with sabres sparked the enthusiasm for war.” The historian describes this development as a “nightmare of reason”. “This new fast world was perceived as wrong. A new, better world could only be created by destroying the old – through war,” adds Grosshans. Shortly after the war began, disillusionment quickly set in. “It was a war that pitted human bodies against artillery for the first time. There was little hand-to-hand combat and 50 percent of those killed lost their lives anonymously in the trenches,” explains Blom. Around 17 million people died in the First World War.
How were the Austrians able to legitimize the war against Serbia? “Bosnia-Herzegovina was not a nationalist state, but a multicultural modern state, that of Serbs, Croats and Slavs,” explains Hrabač. According to the court documents, Princip described himself as a Yugoslav nationalist who wanted to unite all southern Slavic nations. He was not religious. However, the “Mlada Bosna” organization was supported by the paramilitary group “Black Hand” from Serbia. Renegade military officers who were still fighting for an original Serbian empire, with which Serbia apparently wanted nothing to do. Before the assassination, Princip and other members received weapons and grenades from them. And they had themselves trained as assassins in Belgrade. That was enough for some analysts to claim that they had acted in Serbia’s interests, Butcher writes. “Austria was not telling the truth. Princip was not a Serbian fascist, but a Bosnian nationalist and a staunch southern Slav. Not a single person at Mlada Bosna was a Serb, but Bosnians of various religions. Just because Princip got weapons from the Serbs doesn’t make him one. Bin Laden, who received weapons from the CIA, didn’t become an American either,” says Butcher. “There are newspapers that published a special edition about the assassination on June 28. The way the front pages are presented alone is an assessment of the incident,” says Vedad Smailagić from the University of Sarajevo. “Because they are Orthodox, they are Serbs. Because they were in Serbia and the weapons came from Serbia, Serbia is to blame.”
The assassination in Sarajevo: coincidence, fate or political staging?
According to the Austrian press, the attack was deliberately planned for June 28, as this is the most important holiday for the Serbs. The so-called “Kosovo myth” is celebrated on St. Vitus Day. In 1389, Miloš killed the Ottoman Sultan Murat, but the Serbs still lost the battle. This victory at the hands of the Turks still causes bitterness among Serbian nationalists today. Newspapers reported that the date chosen was seen as provocative by the Serbs. “The emperor is described in all newspapers as the emperor of peace, Serbia as the villain. This accomplished the propagandistic intention of establishing the position of the young Bosnians and their assassination, which became part of the cultural memory,” adds Smailagić.
The hosts wanted to question precisely this cultural memory and create space for discussion. A difficult undertaking, as they said. Sometimes the questions were very easy to answer. One participant from the audience replied that Franz Ferdinand wanted to prevent a war. So he was actually the wrong victim. The Belgrade professor Čolović replied: “The assassins didn’t know that at the time and now it’s too late.”
Ideals, myths and power games: The dispute over interpretative sovereignty
Even today, reappraising the myth is proving difficult. “It’s like taking the old silver cutlery out of the cupboard after a long time to dust it off and trying to keep an open mind,” explains Ruthner. Choosing Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the scene of the crime, as the location for the conference makes sense, because nowhere else are there multiple versions of the assassination and its consequences. “Princip was initially celebrated as a Yugoslav hero and in his later phase more and more as a Serb. During the Balkan war in the 1990s, the war criminal Radovan Karadžić had a plan to rename Sarajevo Principovo (Principgrad) after the conquest,” Preljevic explains. The idea of a Greater Serbian empire is still firmly anchored in the minds of Serbian nationalists and a few members of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Even today, Princip is being appropriated for this ideology by erecting a monument to him in the Serbian republic and celebrating him as a Serbian hero. “There was an official ban from the president’s office: no one was allowed to take part in any commemorative events for the First World War in Sarajevo. Out of fear, no one from the Serbian republic took part in the conference,” the hosts report.
The legacy of an assassin: freedom hero or tragic victim?
Today, Princip is either idealized or demonized. “A young man from the Bosnian hinterland brought freedom to his people. Gavrilo ignited a war that ended foreign rule. Yugoslavia was the new nation that gave the Slavs their own identity and state. When interest in Yugoslavia died in the 90s, so did interest in Princip,” says Butcher. The Balkan war in the 90s was a continuation of the First World War in Bosnia. “Gavrilo Princip is a figure of cultural memory that is very strongly ideologized. But he is also a victim. He was left to rot in prison,” say the hosts Preljević and Ruthner. Gavrilo Princip died of tuberculosis in 1918.
Today, only a stone slab commemorates Gavrilo Princip. It is placed at the crossroads in Sarajevo where he fired the fatal shots. His grave in the Koševo cemetery is hardly known. He left the following verses to posterity, which he carved on the wall of his prison cell:
“Our ghosts will walk through Vienna and roam the palace to scare the masters.”
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