An Observer in the Near East

by William Le Queux

Under Austria, the Servian Orthodox Church is treated in a manner utterly inconceivable in this enlightened century. Neither trouble nor intrigue has been spared to separate the people from the Church. The metropolitans nominated by the Emperor have been alienated from the people, with the result that at Mostar the head of the Church is the object of unanimous derision. No one will attend his church if he is present, and on passing him in the streets they turn their heads or hiss. Again, in Sarayevo the metropolitan is regarded with equal disfavour. The old people refuse to receive the communion at his hands, and each day upon the walls of his house are posted insulting placards. To those who know the veneration with which the Serbs regard their metropolitans, such signs as these show the general demoralisation brought about by intrigue and the circulation of base calumnies. Not only are the people encouraged to treat the heads of the Church with contempt, but they are taught to hate the priests and to scoff at religion. And this by an Empire which has the miserable effrontery to call itself Christian!

Again, Saint Sava is, as is well known, the patron saint of the Servian Church. He is considered the protector of churches and schools, and all new churches in Bosnia and Herzegovina adopt for their slava, or festival, the day consecrated to Saint Sava, January 14 (O.S.). This day the Orthodox Serbs everywhere regard as a feast. In the morning there is a solemn service, and in the evening the young people assemble to sing national songs and dance national dances. But even this has been disapproved of by Austria, who regards the feast as preserving the national conscience. The Government commenced by prohibiting the second portion of the fête, and then gradually suppressing the first. Pressed by the authorities, the priests each 14th of January are suddenly taken so ill that they cannot perform the service, or else they are unavoidably absent from home on that day, so that no slava can take place. In this oppressed country every programme of a fête, no matter what, must first pass the censor, who prohibits the singing of the old Servian songs, and places a penalty upon anyone singing the “Hymn of Saint Sava,” which is purely a religious one. Again, in many cases the reply of the censor will arrive eight or ten days after the date of the festival. Indeed, in many places, the slava of private families—the domestic name-day feast which, to the Servian, surpasses in interest either Christmas or Easter—has actually been prohibited by the very enlightened local authorities! This happened in the arrondissement of Rielinski quite recently.

Of the history of the struggle of the Orthodox Church in Bosnia, or of the strenuous Catholic propaganda, it is unnecessary to speak. Let us deal with the present deplorable state of affairs, and with the future. Woe-betide any heard singing the patriotic song of the Prince of Montenegro, “Onamo ... Onamo,” for he will be punished severely. Spies are on every hand, and no man knows at any moment when he may be thrown into prison upon some fictitious charge. Austria, indeed, is endeavouring to civilise and subject Bosnia by continued oppression, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the Press. Like in Russia, every word is subjected to the censor before printed. One buys the Musavat—the organ of the Serb Mohammedans in Herzegovina, printed at Mostar—and finds every paragraph bearing a number. There are many numbers with the spaces blank—suppressed altogether. Again, in the Servian Word, the organ of the Servian Orthodox in Bosnia, one finds the same thing—numbers and blanks.

This is not, perhaps, surprising when practically every organ of the Press is prohibited save the Government publications, of which the Bosniak—an amusing journal fabricated by amateur journalistic functionaries of the State—is a good example.

Among the hundred and four journals prohibited are most of the Servian newspapers, even commercial, religious, and literary reviews; a number of Hungarian journals, including the Dubrovnik of Ragusa; every Russian journal of whatever kind or description; and last, but surely not least, the Comments upon the Evangelists by the Metropolitan Firmilien!

Every book or newspaper entering Bosnia or Herzegovina goes through the censor’s office, while the postal employés note, and hand to the police, the names and addresses of the receivers of prohibited publications. So it is not only in Russia and Turkey where one cannot read a foreign journal, but here, under the enlightened rule of His Majesty the Emperor Francis Josef.

Bosnia is, truth to tell, an unknown land as far as the rest of Europe is concerned, and probably these facts may come as a complete surprise to English readers, who are apt to regard Austria as a Christian and progressive Power, instead of what she is, the Ogre of the Balkans.

To the injustices inflicted upon the peasantry, to their many grievances and their violated rights, I have not space here to refer. Under such rule as pertains, the wretched condition of the Serbs in the rural districts may well be imagined. As André Barre has truly said, “Austria entered Bosnia and Herzegovina, not for the purposes of reform, nor to civilise, but to satisfy a political desire, a military ambition to triumph over a people by slowly and methodically exterminating them.”

“J’ai mis le pied sur la tête du serpent,” said Count Andrassy, speaking to Lord Salisbury after the signature of the Treaty of Berlin. And those words give to-day the key to the Austrian policy. She seeks to crush the Serbs, not only in Bosnia, but in the kingdom of Servia itself, and to Germanise the whole land by steel and by hunger. And such is the present pitiable situation—a situation unrealised in England—a situation which has actually called forth the hostile criticism of the Vienna journals themselves—including the semi-official Neue Freie Presse—against the present barbarism of the occupation.

Any industry or commerce exploited by Serbs is at once crushed and ruined, while in the police we have vivid examples of corrupt maladministration only equalled in Russia. The police persecutions are scandalous. Many were related to me by persons who had themselves been victims. The Bosnian citizen beneath the claws of the police is utterly without defence. If the paternal Government of Austria attempt to deny this, let the recent cases of M. Gligorie Jeftanovitch of Sarayevo, M. Chola of Mostar, M. Stiepo Srchkitch, M. Ilia Duckovitch, M. Risto Maximovitch, M. Radoulovitch, M. Nikolas Pichkakutch of Banja-Louka, and the sad affair of Pierre Dorliatcha of Bosnia-Novi, amid a thousand others, be cited, to show what travesties of justice are performed in this remote corner of the Balkans. A whole volume, indeed, could be written upon the corrupt Austrian police methods which vie with those of Holy Russia. But it must suffice here to cite cases upon which no denial can be offered by the authorities.