Modernism: The Creation of Nation-States

Svetozar Marković: Serbia in the East

SVETOZAR MARKOVIĆ: SERBIA IN THE EAST Title: Srbija na istoku (Serbia in the East) Originally published: Novi Sad, Srpska narodna zadružna štamparija, 1872 Language: Serbian The excerpts used are from Svetozar Marković, Srbija na istoku (Niš: Gradina, 1972), pp. 172–173. About the author Svetozar Marković [1846, Jagodina (present-day central Serbia) – 1875, Trieste]: the founder of the socialist movement in Serbia. As an exceptional student of the Velika škola, the first high school and later university in Serbia, he won a state scholarship to continue his studies in natural sciences first in Russia, then in Switzerland. During his stays abroad, he was influenced by the Russian narodnik socialist ideas, which in the 1860s spread throughout Europe. Due to his vitriolic articles in the newspaper Zastava (The flag), in which he criticized the government and the constitution of 1869, he was deprived of his state scholarship and was forced to return to Serbia in 1870. There he first tried to ‘radicalize’ the ideas and activities of the ‘United Serbian Youth’ (see Draga Dejanović, To Serbian mothers). He harshly criticized the movement for lacking determination, relying too much on phraseology and too little on action. In the 1870s, he gathered around him the first socialist grouping in Serbia. The radicalization of his socialist vision caused a political and personal clash with Vladimir Jovanović and the ‘Liberals,’ a development which indirectly resulted to the dissolution of the ‘United Serbian Youth’ in 1871. The same year Marković launched the newspaper Radenik (Worker). Under the threat of being arrested , he fled to Újvidék (Srb. Novi Sad), then in Austria-Hungary, only later to return to Serbia in 1873 and settle in Kragujevac, where the National Parliament was seated. During the same year, with the financial and political support of Pera Todorovi ć, Marković issued the newspaper Javnost (The public). Soon, Marković was detained and sentenced to nine months in jail. After Javnost was banned, he first launched the Glas javnosti (Voice of the public), and then the Oslobodjenje (Liberation ), using them as a means to spread his views on changing the constitution, attacking the growth of state bureaucracy and supporting the ongoing uprising in Bosnia. His ideas and political attitudes were accepted and publicly promoted in the Parliament by members of the opposition, which then comprised many of Marković’s friends and colleagues from the university (including Nikola Pašić and Pera Velimirovi ć). With his newspaper articles, Marković served as an inspiration and rich 400 SOCIALISM AND THE NATIONALITY QUESTION source of political ideas for the parliamentary opposition. He died prematurely in 1875. Nevertheless his writings remained influential and were widely cited by many groups as examples of early socialist thought in Serbia. The post-war communist authorities, for instance, claimed their socialist roots by including excerpts from Marković’s writings in many popular readers published after the Second World War. Still, it is significant that we cannot talk about a real political inheritor of Marković’s Today almost no one refers to his legacy in the political field, while some important educational institutions, including the Belgrade University library, are named after him. Main works: Srbija na istoku [Serbia in the East] (1872); Opština i Sud i pravda [Community, court and justice] (1874) Celokupna dela [Collected works] 2 vols. (1911–1912). Context Svetozar Marković published Srbija na istoku in 1872, when he was in exile in Novi Sad. The text envisions a radically different social and political organization of Serbia in accordance with the principles of narodnik (populist ) socialism. Marković’s radicalism was of extreme importance to the development and dynamics of political life in late nineteenth-century Serbia. He is considered to be the founder of socialist ideology in Serbia, and his idea of a “people’s state” remained a direct source of inspiration for the political projects and party programs that appeared after his premature death in 1875. This, in particular, pertains to the People’s Radical Party, the first officially -established party in Serbia. Party leaders—Pera Todorović and Nikola Pašić, amongst others—who had closely collaborated with him during the 1860s, claimed a direct connection with Marković’s ideas and work. At the core of Marković’s socialist ideology was the idea that it was possible to combine socialism as a modern political project with traditional patriarchal Serbian institutions, such as zadruga (the extended family) and communal self-governance. His conception of social development suggested that for the Serbian society it would be better not to follow...