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The Contested Adriatic Sea: The Adriatic Guard and Identity Politics in Interwar Yugoslavia1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 May 2011

Igor Tchoukarine
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Extract

Throughout history, Mediterranean cultures have tried to appropriate, with words or weapons, the sea that surrounds them. Sometimes called the “Inner Sea,” “Superior Sea,” or “Great Sea,” the Mediterranean was designated by the Greeks—as the Odyssey testifies—as theirs, “Our Sea.” In the 1920s, Mussolini revived the Latin mare nostrum to justify the “Italian-ness” of the Mediterranean (and, by extension, of the Adriatic Sea and its immediate eastern coastline, Dalmatia), an act that marked a new step in a long-term process that placed the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas at the core of national identity politics. Yugoslav ascriptions of the adjective “Yugoslav,” or even “Slavic,” to the Adriatic Sea during the interwar period proceeded from the same desire: to appropriate a space in order to articulate a national discourse.

Type
Forum: A Contested Adriatic
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 42 , April 2011 , pp. 33 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 2011

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Footnotes

1

A draft of this article was presented at the 2009 AAASS convention in Boston. This article represents the beginning of a broader project on the Adriatic Sea as a space of coexistence and conflict in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. My thanks to Pieter M. Judson, the Austrian History Yearbook, and an anonymous reviewer for constructive comments. Special thanks go as well to Larry Wolff and Pamela Ballinger, who generously agreed to participate in the panel and made helpful suggestions.

References

2 Matvejevitch, Predrag, Bréviaire méditerranéen [published in English as Mediterranean: A Cultural Landscape], trans. from the Croatian by Calvé-Ivicevic, Évaine Le, (Paris, 1992), 172–73Google Scholar.

3 As Emilio Cocco has mentioned, the Adriatic Sea's heterogeneity encouraged a multiplicity of experiences, whether cultural, commercial, or political, among the inhabitants of its territory. As a consequence, studies that frame their analyses of identity around the Adriatic are rare. Cocco, Emilio, “Introduction: The Adriatic Space of Identity,” Folks Art—Croatian Journal of Ethnology and Folklore Research 1 (2006): 8Google Scholar.

4 This time period begins in 1929 at the start of King Alexander's dictatorship and the nomination of Ivo Tartaglia (president of the Adriatic Guard from 1929 to 1941) as ban (governor) of the coastal district [Primorska Banovina] and ends with the voluntary resignation of Tartaglia from his position in June 1932, and the rise of a period of new tensions with Mussolini's Italy.

5 For further details, see: Mladinić, Norka Machiedo, Jadranska Straža [The Adriatic Guard] (Zagreb, 2005)Google Scholar. Although short references to the Adriatic Guard are found in articles and books focused on Croatian and Yugoslav history, Mladinić's monograph is the first scholarly work on the association. In this respect, it fulfills an important role and offers important information. The monograph is, however, too descriptive and includes little analysis of the association's history. Mladinić also frames the association and its history mostly as a part of Croatian history and not enough in terms of Yugoslav, Slovenian, Bosnian, or Serbian history.

6 “Several struggles that go way back into the distant past could be interpreted in retrospect as conflicts for recognition of identity.” Renault, Emmanuel, “European Conceptions of Identity,” in Keywords, Identity, for a Different Kind of Globalization, ed. Hack, Robert D. (New York, 2004), 102Google Scholar.

7 See for further explanations: Brubaker, Rogers and Cooper, Frederick, “Beyond ‘Identity,’” Theory and Society 29 (2000): 1–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, hereafter referred to as Yugoslavia.

9 According to Brubaker and Copper, the process of identification (or, in the Adriatic Guard's case, self-identification), either through relational and categorical modes, is more precise than the too-often blurred term identity. See Brubaker and Cooper, “Beyond ‘Identity,’” 14–19.

10 This recalls the composition of the National Party in Dalmatia in the nineteenth century. Monzali, Luciano, The Italians of Dalmatia: From Italian Unification to World War I, trans. from the Italian by Evans, Shanti (Toronto, 2009), 66–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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12 Gabriele D'Annunzio's interlude in Fiume/Rijeka started in September 1919 and ended dramatically in December 1920.

13 See Chapter 1 in Burgwyn, H. James, Empire on the Adriatic: Mussolini's Conquest of Yugoslavia, 1941–1943 (New York, 2005)Google Scholar; Chapter 2 in Sluga, Glenda, The Problem of Trieste and the Italo-Yugoslav Border: Difference, Identity, and Sovereignty in Twentieth-Century Europe (Albany, 2001)Google Scholar.

14 President of the Adriatic Guard from 1922 to 1928.

15 Vice president of the Adriatic Guard under Biankini's leadership.

16 Alongside Ivo Tartaglia's brother and Niko Bartulović, future ideologue of the Adriatic Guard. Mladinić, Norka Machiedo, “Oskar Tartaglia: od jugoslavenskog nacionalista do žrtve komunističke represije, [Oskar Tartaglia: from a Yugoslav Nationalist to a Victim of Communist Repression]” Časopis za suvremenu povijest [Journal for Contemporary History], no. 3 (2003): 903–20Google Scholar.

17 Previous attempts occurred in Zagreb and Belgrade in the wake of the Treaty of Rapallo. Lahman, Otokar, “Prvi Dani Organizacije Jadranske Straže, [The First Days of the Organization of the Adriatic Guard]” Jadranska Straža, Glasnik udruženja Jadranska Straža [The Adriatic Guard, Courier of the Adriatic Guard Association] 10, no. 2 (February 1932): 41Google Scholar.

18 , N. B., “Naše More, [Our Sea]” Jadranska Straža, Glasnik udruženja Jadranska Straža 8, no. 8 (August 1930): 200Google Scholar.

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20 Lahman, “Prvi Dani Organizacije Jadranske Straže, [The First Days of the Organization of the Adriatic Guard]” 41. The revue's section “News from Italy” [Glasovi iz Italije] presents Italian propaganda and underscores Italy's productivity in this realm vis-à-vis Yugoslavia.

21 Mladinić, Jadranska Straža, 74–75. The Adriatic Guard also developed branches in Argentina, Australia, Chile, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, France, and the United States of America. The figure of 180,000 members seems exaggerated and should include approximately 80,000 children. For 1935, the number of adult members was estimated at 68,000. See Izvještaj glavnog odbora Jadranske Straže za V glavnu skupštinu, Zagreb, 11–13 II 1939 [Report of the Adriatic Guard's Main Board to the 5th General Assembly, Zagreb, 11–13 February 1939] (Split, 1939), 70Google Scholar.

22 Mladinić, Jadranska Straža, 62.

23 Arhiv Jugoslavije, Belgrade, F. 65/1014/1916, letters from 4 and 15 March 1927.

24 Tartaglia, Ivo, “Za novi period rada i napretka, [For a New Period of Work and Progress]” Jadranska Straža, Glasnik udruženja Jadranska Straža 7, no. 8 (August 1929): 212Google Scholar. The racial-ethnic categorical attribute did not seem to matter when applying for membership in the Adriatic Guard. Several sections of the association were active in Kosovo, but a study of the Slavic versus Albanian origins of their members has yet to be undertaken. Interwar nationalist associations such as the Czechoslovak-Yugoslav League [Československo-jihoslovanská liga] refused membership to Czechoslovaks of German ethnicity.

25 Rubić, Ivo, “Jadranska Straža i njena svrha, [The Adriatic Guard and its Goal]” Jadranska Straža, Glasnik udruženja Jadranska Straža 10, no. 2 (February 1932): 47Google Scholar.

26 Mladinić, Jadranska Straža, 204. At the same time, however, the author agreed that the association's position was clearly pro-regime.

27 Bojan, Ljubo, Maček i politika Hrvatske seljačke strane 1928–1941[Maček and the Politics of the Croatian Peasant Party 1928–1941] (Zagreb, 1974), vol. 1, 44Google Scholar; Djokić, Dejan, Elusive Compromise: A History of Interwar Yugoslavia (New York, 2007), 70–71Google Scholar.

28 Alfirević, Silvija, “6. Januara 1929,” Jadranska Straža, Glasnik udruženja Jadranska Straža 7, no. 3 (March 1929): 75Google Scholar.

29 Tartaglia, Ivo, “Kralj i naš Jadran, [The King and Our Adriatic]” Jadranska Straža, Glasnik udruženja Jadranska Straža 10, no. 2 (February 1932): 39–40Google Scholar.

30 See on this issue Banac, Ivo, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics (Ithaca and London, 1992), 188Google Scholar; and Biondich, Mark, Stjepan Radić, the Croat Peasant Party, and the Politics of Mass Mobilization, 1904–1928 (Toronto, 2000), 154CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Mladinić, Jadranska Straža, 35.

32 Pavličević, Dragutin, Povijest Hrvatske [The History of Croatia] (Zagreb, 1994), 330Google Scholar; Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia, 187.

33 Bošković, Ivan J., “Splitski orjunaški list Pobeda i Stjepan Radić, [Pobeda, the Orjuna Split Newspaper, and Stjepan Radić]” Časopis za suvremenu povijest [Journal for Contemporary History] 39, no. 1 (2007): 117–32Google Scholar; Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia, 187–88.

34 Bellamy, Alex J., The Formation of Croatian National Identity: A Centuries-old Dream? (Manchester, New York, 2003), 48–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Mladinić, Jadranska Straža, 51. I will undertake further research on the reasons for Tartaglia's resignation in the Split archives, which hold, for example, the papers from Tartaglia's law office.

36 Tartaglia, Ivo, “U Novoj Godini, [In the New Year]” Jadranska Straža, Glasnik udruženja Jadranska Straža 11, no. 1 (January 1933): 1Google Scholar.

37 Tartaglia was the founder and the editor of the Jadranski Dnevnik, published from 1934 to 1936. Mladinić, Jadranska Straža, 60.

38 Mladinić, Jadranska Straža, 48.

39 Brozović, Dalibor, ed., Hrvatska Enciklopedija [Croatian Encyclopedia], vol. 1, A-Bd (Zagreb, 1999), 643Google Scholar; and Ravlić, Slaven, ed., Hrvatska Enciklopedija, vol. 9, Pri-Sk (Zagreb, 2003), 222–23Google Scholar.

40 Grumel-Jacquignon, François, La Yougoslavie dans la stratégie française de l'Entre-deux-Guerres (1918–1935), Aux origines du mythe serbe en France [Yugoslavia in the French Interwar Strategy (1918–1935), The Origins of the Serbian Myth in France] (Bern, 1999), 526–28Google Scholar.

41 Tartaglia, “U Novoj Godini,” 1.

42 Izvještaj glavnog odbora Jadranske Straže za V glavnu skupštinu, Zagreb, 11–13 II 1939 [Report of the Adriatic Guard's Main Board to the 5 thMain Assembly, Zagreb, 11–13 February 1939], 67–69.

43 For an example of Belgrade's policies and Dalmatia's support of Yugoslavism during the interwar period, see Jakir, Aleksandar, Dalmatien zwischen den Weltkriegen. Agrarische und urbane Lebenswelt und das Scheitern der jugoslawischen Integration (Munich, 1999)Google Scholar. See Ondřej Vojtěchovský's review of this book in Slovanský přehled 88, no. 1 (2002): 116–21.

44 In the 1920 parliamentary elections, the Sušak district gave its support to the Democratic Party, and this inclination was, as Banac has asserted, “certainly affected by the festering dispute with Italy over adjoining Rijeka.” In other Croatian areas, however, the Democratic Party's electoral gains were negligible. Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia, 175–76. Biondich explains that the “support for the new state” was stronger in Dalmatia and Slovenia (than in Croatia proper). Biondich, Stjepan Radić, the Croat Peasant Party, 151.

45 Some scholars refer to this kind of strategy as a “relational comparison,” common in identity expression. See Seweryn, Olga and Smagacz, Marta, “Frontiers and Identity: Approaches and Inspirations in Sociology,” in Frontiers and Identities: Exploring the Research Area, ed. Klusáková, Lud'a and Ellis, Steven G. (Pisa, 2006), 17–25Google Scholar; Abdelal, Rawi et al. , eds., Measuring Identities: A Guide for Social Scientists (Cambridge and New York, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 See, for example, Novak, Grgo, Naše More [Our Sea] (Split, 1927)Google Scholar; and Skok, Petar, Dolazak Slovena na Mediteran [The Arrival of Slavs to the Mediterranean] (Split, 1934)Google Scholar.

47 D'Annunzio also professed to undertake a civilizing mission in Dalmatia; he wanted to “revive the glory of Italy's Roman days.” Ledeen, Michael A., The First Duce, D'annunzio at Fiume (Baltimore and London, 1977), 3Google Scholar.

48 Wolff, Larry, Venice and the Slavs: The Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightenment (Stanford, 2001), 8Google Scholar.

49 Bartulović, Niko, The Slavonic and East European Review 6, no. 18 (March 1928): 714Google Scholar.

50 Bartulović, Niko, Jadran a Slované [The Adriatic and the Slavs] (Prague, 1930), 5Google Scholar.

51 Bartulović, Niko, “Pobeda Rase, [The Victory of the Race]” Jadranska Straža, Glasnik udruženja Jadranska Straža 7, no. 11 (November 1929): 293Google Scholar.

52 Bartulović, “Pobeda Rase,” 294.

53 Jadranska Straža, Glasnik udruženja Jadranska Straža 8, no. 8 (August 1930): 234Google Scholar.

54 “Glasovi iz Italije, [News from Italy]” Jadranska Straža, Glasnik udruženja Jadranska Straža 7, no. 9 (September 1929): 258Google Scholar.

55 “Posveta i Predaja Hidroaviona Sarajevo, [The Consecration and Awarding of the Seaplane Sarajevo]” Jadranska Straža, Glasnik udruženja Jadranska Straža 8, no. 1 (January 1930): 2Google Scholar.

56 Niko Bartulović, Jadran a Slované, 5.

57 The first two articles were published in December 1929; the third, in February 1933.

58 N. B., “Naše More,” 199. The author delivered the content of this article in a Belgrade radio address in February 1930.

59 Josip Jablanović, “Jadranska Straža kao faktor unificiranja duhova, [The Adriatic Guard, A Factor in the Unification of the Spirits]” in Spomenica prilikom 10-godišnjice udruženja Jadranska Straža 1922–1932 [Commemorative Album for the 10 thanniversary of the Adriatic Guard Association 1922–1932], 102.

60 “Sokolstvo i Jadranska Straža, [The Sokol Movement and the Adriatic Guard]” Jadranska Straža, Glasnik udruženja Jadranska Straža 9, no. 8 (August 1931): 197Google Scholar. The usage of military vocabulary was a widespread phenomenon in the aftermath of World War I. “Everywhere the vocabulary of war still held sway. Engraven into men's and women's minds, it naturalized slaughter for much of the post-war era. The guns at the front had fallen silent but the world remained embattled.” Bosworth, R. J. B., Mussolini's Italy, Life under the Dictatorship, 1915–1945 (New York, 2006), 94Google Scholar.

61 Mirjana Gross, “The Union of Dalmatia with Northern Croatia: A Crucial Question of the Croatian National Integration in the Nineteenth Century,” in The National Question in Europe in Historical Context, ed. Teich, Mikuláš and Porter, Roy (Cambridge, 1993), 270–92Google Scholar.

62 Jareb, Mario, “Trogirski incident od 1. prosinca 1932. i mletački lav svetog Marka kao simbol ‘talijanstva’ istočne obale Jadrana, [The Trogir Incident of 1 December 1932 and the Venetian Lion of Saint Mark as a Symbol of ‘Italianness’ of the Adriatic Eastern Coast]” Časopis za suvremenu povijest [Journal for Contemporay History] 39, no. 2 (2007): 419–43Google Scholar.

63 Grumel-Jacquignon, La Yougoslavie dans la stratégie française, 413.

64 Ministero Esteri, Degli Affari, I Documenti diplomatici italiani (DDI) [The Italian Diplomatic Documents], vol. 12, (Rome, 1987), 621Google Scholar; mentioned in Jareb, “Trogirski incident od 1. prosinca 1932., [The Trogir Incident of 1 December 1932]” 424.

65 DDI, vol. 12, (Rome, 1981), Telegram from the Belgrade ambassador, Galli, to Mussolini, Belgrade, 7 December 1932, 626–27.

66 DDI, vol. 11, (Rome, 1981), Letter from the Belgrade ambassador, Galli, to the minister of foreign affairs, Grandi, Belgrade, 18 March 1932, 494.

67 Jareb, “Trogirski incident od 1. prosinca 1932.,” 425.

68 Ibid.

69 Tartaglia, “U Novoj Godini,” 1.

70 Grumel-Jacquignon, La Yougoslavie dans la stratégie française, 413. The author specified that the Yugoslav navy would not have been able to prevent spaced-out landing along the coast. See also, Burgwyn, Empire on the Adriatic: Mussolini's Conquest of Yugoslavia, 1941–1943, 12.

71 “Oblaci nad Jugoslovenskim primorjem, [Clouds on the Yugoslav Coast]” Jadranska Straža, Glasnik udruženja Jadranska Straža 11, no. 3 (March 1933): 1Google Scholar.

72 In 1918, for example, the Italian government regarded the self-elected Italian National Council in Fiume with suspicion. The Italian government saw the opportunity that the confusing situation in the city created in the fall of 1918 and understood the advantage it could give to Italy while it conducted peace negotiations with allies, but it was also afraid that excesses could hamper good relationships with them. Ledeen, The First Duce, D'annunzio at Fiume, 26–31.

73 DDI, vol. 11, From Raffaele Guariglia, General Director of the Dept. of the European and the Levant Affairs, Rome, 29 January 1932, 313. However, Il Littorio Dalmatico published articles denouncing the destructions of Trogir lions in December 1932.

74 DDI, vol. 11, Letter from Galli, the Belgrade ambassador, to Grandi, the minister of foreign affairs, Belgrade, 18 March 1932, 493.