“Professor, how is it possible that, as an elementary school pupil, I learned that the Partisans were good and the Četniks were bad; as a secondary school student, I learned that Partisans were good, but so were the Četniks; and today, in University, I am learning that Partisans were bad and Četniks were good?”
“Dear colleague, it is called ‘transition’!”
The significance of Antifascism to Montenegro hardly needs to be discussed, since the state itself has been created as a result of the Antifascist struggle. Consequently, every attempt to question Antifascism is an attempt to question Montenegrin statehood. The Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia, and the State Anti-fascist Council for the National Liberation of Montenegro and Boka have corrected the historic injustice that had been inflicted upon Montenegro in 1918, and the renewal of the national identity in 1945 also meant an acknowledgement of the Montenegrin statehood tradition along the Duklja – Zeta – Montenegro vertical. Considering the fact that the majority of Antifascist fighters in Yugoslavia were members of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, it is not hard to conclude that Yugoslav Communists were among the most deserving for the solution of the Montenegrin national issues within the framework of the Yugoslav federal state.
This observation was confirmed by Eric Hobsbawm in his book The Age of Extremes. The creation of the post-Versailles state of Southern Slavs was, in his view, a territorial expansion of Serbia “…into a big new state by fusion with Croatia and Slovenia, as well as a previously independent small mountainous kingdom of cattle-herders and warriors – Montenegro, a bleak mass of mountainous terrain whose inhabitants had reacted to their loss of independence by converting en masse to Communism, an ideology they felt had respected their heroic virtues. Also, Communism was linked to Orthodox Russia, whose faith was defended against the Turks throughout the ages by Montenegrins”.
Hobsbawm sees the “reddening” of Montenegro as an attempt to resurrect the Montenegrin national identity, since Communists had offered Montenegrin citizens protection and respect for their distinct identity within the new unified state. Small surprise, then, that Montenegrins were highly represented in Antifascist bodies when compared to the Yugoslav average – out of a total 23 members of the High Command of the National Liberation Army, eight were Montenegrin; eight out of eighteen Partisan corps were commanded by Montenegrins; 36 per cent of generals in the Partisan army were Montenegrin. When considering the fact that the total proportion of Montenegrins in the Yugoslav populace was just over two per cent, the significance of Antifascism to Montenegro becomes even more salient. In terms of the Montenegrin contribution to the Antifascist struggle, 37,000 people died in the four years of the war, amounting to a total of 10 per cent of the national population. Out of the total number of dead, some 14,500 died fighting in the Partisan army (according to Šerbo Rastoder).
“A new and true history of WWII”
The official scientific historiography – the one linked to all academia, historic institutes and museums in Montenegro – is well aware of all of these facts. However, a part of the public considering itself to be scientific, has initiated a revision of the events of the WWII period after the fall of the Communist paradigm in historiography. Mainly, this pertains to authors who are trying to diminish the importance of the Antifascist movement and extoll the Četnik movement or other collaborator groups. Today, a part of the Montenegrin public desires a rehabilitation of the Četnik movement and a complete reinterpretation of historic facts, leading to Četniks being acknowledged as the main heroes and victims of WWII and Partisans reframed as godless criminals. These attempts are the result of social, political, but also historical circumstances directly influencing Montenegro.
The Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro has been very helpful to these authors in their attempts to deface the Antifascist war. In several of the Church’s religious buildings, frescoes represent Communists as the greatest evil ever to walk the Earth. Marx, Engels and Tito – figureheads of the National Liberation Movement – are represented as a dragon devouring Serbian and Orthodox saints. Many members of the Serbian Orthodox clergy are overt supporters of the Četnik movement. The Orthodox bishop of Podgorica visited a Četnik meeting in Herzegovina in 2014, while intellectual circles close to the Serbian Orthodox Church have often funded the publication of monographs that claim to represent the “new and true history of the events of WWII”. The latest public opinion polls ion Montenegro has shown that the Serbian Orthodox Church is the institution the citizens trust the most, leading these processes to become even more worrying.
Some public figures (including the president of the Municipality of Berane and several Montenegrin politicians) also take part in the traditions of the Četnik movement and often have their photos taken with Četnik insignia, and Radio-Television Srpska is explicit in its promotion of Četnik identity (the show “Sasvim drugačije” with Serbian vojvoda Mile Pavićević). The “Neo-Četnik” ideology has, unfortunately, become a trend and an identity. It is stipulated that “a real Serb cannot be a Communist”, i.e. that Serbs are automatically Četniks. The issues of the Četnik movement, pertaining to the anti-Hitler struggle, is re-contextualized as being a a Serbian national issue, making it possible to either frame collaboration with the Fascist occupiers as means to an end or to deny it completely and present the Četnik role in the war as “a unique example of the fight against two of the world’s greatest evils – Fascism and Communism”.
Translation of crime into euphemism “aberrations of the Left/left-leaning mistakes”
The main questioning of the National Liberation War stems, justifiably, from the crimes that the Communists had committed against their opponents and that have been unmentioned for forty-five years of Communist rule. The “translation” of these crimes into the euphemisms of “aberrations of the Left” or “left-leaning mistakes” is a problem of the uncritical system that was put into place after WWII. But it should not serve as the starting point for equating Communism with crime altogether. If some fighters of the National Liberation War had committed atrocities with the red five-point star on their caps, it does not automatically make the entire movement a criminal one. The same applies to Communism – Communism is not totalitarian out of necessity, it was the people calling themselves Communists who had made it totalitarian.
The arguments used to attack the results of the National Liberation War can essentially be traced back to nationalism and ideological conflicts. The class nature of the conflicts in Montenegro is never mentioned (the more affluent and those closer to the Church tended to join the Četniks, youth and the impoverished joined the Partisans on a large scale); the clan nature of the conflict is never mentioned (as late as mid-20th century, Montenegrin society was cultivating the awareness of clan belongings, which also enabled the decision whether to join the Četniks or Partisans to be made on the basis of clan belonging); instead of these, local conflicts and identities tend to blur the essence of Antifascism itself.
Within this cacophony of justification and condemnation, our society is unable to differentiate between two fundamental concepts: Fascism and Antifascism. Essentially, Fascism is everything that did not belong to Antifascism and has actively fought Antifascist forces. In this particular case, it was the Četniks who had sided with the occupying forces to fight the National Liberation Movement. Not trying to justify the crimes committed by parts of the Partisan movement, it needs to be said that Communists (except for the still excessively emphasized German-Partisan negotiations) cannot be claimed not to have built their entire identity around Antifascism, since their Communism and the occupying Fascism were antithetical to each other.
The myths of Communism as a “Jewish and Croatian conspiracy against Serbdom”, “a godless anti-Orthodox ideology” or of “atheist criminal groups” cannot diminish the importance that the Antifascist struggle had for Montenegro, other Yugoslav republics and, ultimately, for Yugoslavia itself. By denying Antifascism through the vulgarization of the Partisan movement, those who do not affirm the importance of the National Liberation War or accept it only occasionally or declaratively are effectively denying Montenegrins the right to their own identity. It is not uncommon for (charlatan) literature to claim that Montenegrins are not a nation, but an artificially-created Communist entity, leading to Montenegrins being dismissed as “Đilas’ bastards” or, as a clergyman of the Serbian Orthodox Church put it recently, that the Montenegrin nation was “created by the Devil”. The latter probably best describes how dependent Montenegro is on its Antifascist heritage. It is necessary to distinguish between those who fought the occupiers and those who assisted them. There is no lack of historical sources citing Četnik collaboration with Fascist forces, as well as mass vendettas against the unarmed populace.
One of the favorable aspects in promoting Antifascism is its treatment in history textbooks for elementary and secondary schools. If we analyse the textbooks in use by Montenegrin schools from 1992 (dissolution of Communism) to the present day, we can see satisfactory results. Still, this problem should be addressed from multiple vantage points. Primarily, it should be emphasized that up until 2003, Montenegro had not printed its own textbooks, but had used Serbian ones (Petar Glendža).
One of the resulting problems was that, studying from those textbooks, Montenegrin pupils had known the history of the National Liberation War in Serbia better than in their own country. The local dilemmas and controversies of Montenegro (whether the conflict had been a civil war, a war of fratricide, who the domestic collaborators were and other Montenegrin specificities) could not have been and were not elaborated in the textbooks. The interpretation of events was left to either a parallel historic consciousness or the conscience of history teachers. More than eleven generations (now aged 30 to 40) did not have a more detailed insight into the history of their country and its contribution to Antifascism.
Dilemmas and controversies
The textbooks (or rather, the single textbook with multiple editions) were written by three authors: Dr. Nikola Gaćeša, Dr. Dušan Živković and Ljubica Radović. Editions were printed in 1992, 1994, 1998 and 2001. One of the most important events in Montenegrin history, the uprising of July 13, 1941, did not even get a quarter of a page of text (32 lines, single column), with very general information, without even mentioning that it was the first mass-scale uprising against Fascism and a phenomenon of European significance (Jean Paul Sartre). Of course, there is not even the information about the events and processes that are significant within the scope of Montenegro – the St. Peter’s Day Assembly of July 12 and the participation of some future Četnik champions in the July 13 uprising on the Antifascist side. There is no mention of the Ostrog Assembly, the State Anti-fascist Council for the National Liberation of Montenegro and Boka, the bombardment of Podgorica. The fight for the liberation of Montenegro is mentioned in three lines of small print, two sentences total: “The fight to liberate Montenegro started in September 1944. Montenegro and Sandžak were finally liberated in early January 1945.”
WWII in Yugoslavia is elaborated in 57 pages, making up almost one-sixth of the entire textbook’s 320 pages. The intention to present some processes in Serbia and Yugoslavia during the National Liberation War in a n objective fashion is evident, but so is the attempt to single out the Četnik movement and separate it from other collaborationist movements. A direct explanation of the Četnik program of an ethnically clean Serbia is avoided. Still, the main problem with these textbooks might be their partisanship. The authors had not succeeded in rising above the issues of daily politics that were salient during the writing of the textbooks.
To quote Montenegrin historian Sait Šabotić who commented on history textbooks not printed in Montenegro: “For years, our children had learned about the violent secession of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia from Yugoslavia, textbooks explaining to them how Germany and Austria had attempted their push eastwards for the third time in the same century. The role of the Vatican was framed as the Catholic Church sending its fanatical devotees to wage war on Serbs and Orthodoxy”. This is most evident from a sentence in the mentioned textbooks, drawing a parallel between the World Wars and the civil war of Yugoslav dissolution, which appears in all four editions with minor modifications:
“When comparing the events from the 1941-1945 war with the events from 1991 (or from 1991 to 1995) in the same geographic area, they suggest undeniably that the actors, the criminals and the enablers were the same”.
By stating this, the authors had breached some of the most basic rules of textbook writing. Still, if the text was to be purged of the influences of daily politics and the standard platitudes about “a conspiracy against the Serbs”, we would get a usable textbook, in the sense that it does not contain the gross revisionism present, for example, in today’s Serbian textbooks, which tend to represent the Četnik movement as being “more patriotic” than the Partisan (for a criticism of tendentious revisionism in Serbian history textbooks, see Kriza istorije by Miroslav Jovanović and Radivoje Radić).
Montenegro has been printing its own history textbooks since 2003. To this day, two have been produced – one co-authored by Šerbo Rastoder, Radoje Pajović and Zvezdan Folić (several re-issues, still in use), and the other authored by Šerbo Rastoder, Dragutin Papović and Sait Šabotić, printed and withdrawn from use in 2009. Before going on to analysis, it is interesting to look at the withdrawn textbook. The Montenegrin authorities were frightened by the critical writing of Dragutin Papović, who dared to speak about the bombardment of Dubrovnik and spoke of the war crimes in Montenegro in 1941-1945 and 1991-1995.
The phenomena of WWII without the ideological tendencies
The General Education Committee and the Textbook Institute have decided not to accept the textbook in its entirety, but secondary school students used two different textbooks during the school year. This affair was ended with a new re-edition of the 2003 textbook. Above all, it was interesting to see how Montenegrin institutions and the public responded, but also how Papović – a modern critical historian striving for objectivity – had responded. Since the criticism pertained to the Antifascist period, it is useful to look at a fragment of an article about this affair in the Monitor weekly, where Papović elucidates his position scientifically:
“Responding to the objections to the history textbook, Dragutin Papović had answered in detail to all objections landed by historian Radoje Pajović, published episodically in Pobjeda. Among others, they read:’Pajović states that the information about 300 Četniks murdered by Partisans in Grahovo is a result of Četnik propaganda and is far from the truth’. However, the book Montenegro in the National Liberation War by Đuro Vujović, reviewed by Radoje Pajović, states in page 351 that ‘the attacks on Grahovo, carried out by the Tents Montenegrin Division and a battalion of the Sixth Brigade, could not be withstood by the Grahovo garrison, so Grahovo was liberated on October 21, 1944. The night before the liberation, about 100 Germans managed to escape the garrison and make it to Boka via Bijela Gora. A number of Četniks also made it out of Grahovo, but about 300 were captured and shot to the last in several group and in several locations in the surroundings of Grahovo’. If Pajović considers his review and Đuro Vujović’s book to be the results of Četnik propaganda and far from the truth, then I admit to have been misled by their Četnik propaganda and led to publishing untruths.”
“Pajović further states that the figure on 350 persons sentenced to death and shot by the Četnik court at the Kolašin prison to be untrue and excessive. If Pajović is right, then I have made an error thanks to Pajović himself, because I found this piece of data in his book The Counter-revolution in Montenegro, in page 287, where Pajović explicitly says that the court in Kolašin alone had sent 350 people to their deaths”.
Even with some advancements made, Montenegrin institutions were not willing to accept a modern and very critically written textbook that would introduce the phenomena of WWII to Montenegrin final-year secondary school students, without ideological tendencies.
Analysing the textbooks published in Montenegro, we can conclude that Antifascism is presented in the proper way overall. The Antifascist war is treated as a contribution to the European struggle against the Nazi-Fascist darkness. The 2003, 2010 and 2014 history textbooks elaborate WWII in Yugoslavia in 30 pages, with Montenegrin WWII history in 11 pages. The 2009 textbook differs somewhat, with 12 pages each allotted to both Yugoslavia and Montenegro. Montenegrin students were, for the first time, able to get better acquainted with the most important events and processes in their country during the Antifascist struggle. The discourse of the textbooks is age-appropriate: the Antifascist struggle is presented objectively and the atrocities and civil war elements are seriously documented.
The textbooks also engage the issue of the Greens, mostly made up of the sympathizers and supporters of CFS which advocated the restoration of Montenegrin independence. It is unquestionably stated that some supporters of the Greens movement had taken part in attacks on the National Liberation fighters alongside Četniks and occupying forces, but that the Greens movement overall is not burdened with significant atrocities. It remains interesting as one of many phenomena because its followers proclaimed themselves to be the restorers of the Montenegrin state and, consequently, did not have much of an ideology other than the national one. It is important to note that the movement had mostly formed in the territory of Old Montenegro. Near the end of the war, most Greens joined the ranks of the National Liberation Army.
Summarily, with minor corrections, these textbooks are a real step forward in the Montenegrin textbook practice since 2003. A favorable factor is that the official and scientific historiography has no issues with promoting Antifascism, considering the fact that the Montenegrin identity is largely based on it, as noted at the beginning of this text.
How much do current political and social processes in Europe and worldwide influence the Antifascist consciousness in this part of the world?
Except for the cohabitation of Montenegrin statehood and Antifascism and replace “Antifascism” with “the Left” (since the only Antifascism remaining after the July 13 uprising was quelled was the one existing on the Left), we can see that Antifascist i.e. Left-wing activism in Montenegro is in a serious crisis, since a left-wing political option in Montenegro exists only declaratively. The ruling parties declare their supposed Leftism in pre-electiojn campaigns, while their most significant members have lived in a state of alienation as a millionaire political class for twenty-five years.
The opposition Socialists demonstrate their loyalty to the Church and even publicly state that some of their actions will be aligned to the interests of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Very few social activists and public figures draw their ideas from anything approaching original Marxist teachings. Some organizations figuring as left-wing and each claiming themselves to be “the Montenegrin Syriza” are emulating the Left in paroles only. In effect, they are concealing Fascist attitudes because, in addition to worshipping Vladimir Putin and conducting fierce anti-Western propaganda, they convey homophobic messages, fight back against LGBT rights and protect Orthodox fundamentalism, ensuring that the “official” Left functions as a hard-core, ultra-Orthodox Right.
This situation can be blamed on the overall situation in the country. A devastated working class, sold-out state property, inert voters and the alienation of the “transitional” generations. We need to understand and as soon as possible that Antifascism and the Left can help us forge democracy (Džef Ili) and help us get our societies closer to the Utopian images of equality and justice. Montenegro is a country of July 13 and Ljubo Ćupić – a true Antifascist tradition. The question is, do all of its citizens truly understand the meaning of Antifascism?
This article was published thanks to co-funding from the Europe for Citizens Programme.
The significance of Antifascism to Montenegro hardly needs to be discussed, since the state itself has been created as a result of the Antifascist struggle. Consequently, every attempt to question Antifascism is an attempt to question Montenegrin statehood. The Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia, and the State Anti-fascist Council for the National Liberation of Montenegro and Boka have corrected the historic injustice that had been inflicted upon Montenegro in 1918, and the renewal of the national identity in 1945 also meant an acknowledgement of the Montenegrin statehood tradition along the Duklja – Zeta – Montenegro vertical. Considering the fact that the majority of Antifascist fighters in Yugoslavia were members of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, it is not hard to conclude that Yugoslav Communists were among the most deserving for the solution of the Montenegrin national issues within the framework of the Yugoslav federal state.
This observation was confirmed by Eric Hobsbawm in his book The Age of Extremes. The creation of the post-Versailles state of Southern Slavs was, in his view, a territorial expansion of Serbia “…into a big new state by fusion with Croatia and Slovenia, as well as a previously independent small mountainous kingdom of cattle-herders and warriors – Montenegro, a bleak mass of mountainous terrain whose inhabitants had reacted to their loss of independence by converting en masse to Communism, an ideology they felt had respected their heroic virtues. Also, Communism was linked to Orthodox Russia, whose faith was defended against the Turks throughout the ages by Montenegrins”.
Hobsbawm sees the “reddening” of Montenegro as an attempt to resurrect the Montenegrin national identity, since Communists had offered Montenegrin citizens protection and respect for their distinct identity within the new unified state. Small surprise, then, that Montenegrins were highly represented in Antifascist bodies when compared to the Yugoslav average – out of a total 23 members of the High Command of the National Liberation Army, eight were Montenegrin; eight out of eighteen Partisan corps were commanded by Montenegrins; 36 per cent of generals in the Partisan army were Montenegrin. When considering the fact that the total proportion of Montenegrins in the Yugoslav populace was just over two per cent, the significance of Antifascism to Montenegro becomes even more salient. In terms of the Montenegrin contribution to the Antifascist struggle, 37,000 people died in the four years of the war, amounting to a total of 10 per cent of the national population. Out of the total number of dead, some 14,500 died fighting in the Partisan army (according to Šerbo Rastoder).
“A new and true history of WWII”
The official scientific historiography – the one linked to all academia, historic institutes and museums in Montenegro – is well aware of all of these facts. However, a part of the public considering itself to be scientific, has initiated a revision of the events of the WWII period after the fall of the Communist paradigm in historiography. Mainly, this pertains to authors who are trying to diminish the importance of the Antifascist movement and extoll the Četnik movement or other collaborator groups. Today, a part of the Montenegrin public desires a rehabilitation of the Četnik movement and a complete reinterpretation of historic facts, leading to Četniks being acknowledged as the main heroes and victims of WWII and Partisans reframed as godless criminals. These attempts are the result of social, political, but also historical circumstances directly influencing Montenegro.
The Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro has been very helpful to these authors in their attempts to deface the Antifascist war. In several of the Church’s religious buildings, frescoes represent Communists as the greatest evil ever to walk the Earth. Marx, Engels and Tito – figureheads of the National Liberation Movement – are represented as a dragon devouring Serbian and Orthodox saints. Many members of the Serbian Orthodox clergy are overt supporters of the Četnik movement. The Orthodox bishop of Podgorica visited a Četnik meeting in Herzegovina in 2014, while intellectual circles close to the Serbian Orthodox Church have often funded the publication of monographs that claim to represent the “new and true history of the events of WWII”. The latest public opinion polls ion Montenegro has shown that the Serbian Orthodox Church is the institution the citizens trust the most, leading these processes to become even more worrying.
Some public figures (including the president of the Municipality of Berane and several Montenegrin politicians) also take part in the traditions of the Četnik movement and often have their photos taken with Četnik insignia, and Radio-Television Srpska is explicit in its promotion of Četnik identity (the show “Sasvim drugačije” with Serbian vojvoda Mile Pavićević). The “Neo-Četnik” ideology has, unfortunately, become a trend and an identity. It is stipulated that “a real Serb cannot be a Communist”, i.e. that Serbs are automatically Četniks. The issues of the Četnik movement, pertaining to the anti-Hitler struggle, is re-contextualized as being a a Serbian national issue, making it possible to either frame collaboration with the Fascist occupiers as means to an end or to deny it completely and present the Četnik role in the war as “a unique example of the fight against two of the world’s greatest evils – Fascism and Communism”.
Translation of crime into euphemism “aberrations of the Left/left-leaning mistakes”
The main questioning of the National Liberation War stems, justifiably, from the crimes that the Communists had committed against their opponents and that have been unmentioned for forty-five years of Communist rule. The “translation” of these crimes into the euphemisms of “aberrations of the Left” or “left-leaning mistakes” is a problem of the uncritical system that was put into place after WWII. But it should not serve as the starting point for equating Communism with crime altogether. If some fighters of the National Liberation War had committed atrocities with the red five-point star on their caps, it does not automatically make the entire movement a criminal one. The same applies to Communism – Communism is not totalitarian out of necessity, it was the people calling themselves Communists who had made it totalitarian.
The arguments used to attack the results of the National Liberation War can essentially be traced back to nationalism and ideological conflicts. The class nature of the conflicts in Montenegro is never mentioned (the more affluent and those closer to the Church tended to join the Četniks, youth and the impoverished joined the Partisans on a large scale); the clan nature of the conflict is never mentioned (as late as mid-20th century, Montenegrin society was cultivating the awareness of clan belongings, which also enabled the decision whether to join the Četniks or Partisans to be made on the basis of clan belonging); instead of these, local conflicts and identities tend to blur the essence of Antifascism itself.
Within this cacophony of justification and condemnation, our society is unable to differentiate between two fundamental concepts: Fascism and Antifascism. Essentially, Fascism is everything that did not belong to Antifascism and has actively fought Antifascist forces. In this particular case, it was the Četniks who had sided with the occupying forces to fight the National Liberation Movement. Not trying to justify the crimes committed by parts of the Partisan movement, it needs to be said that Communists (except for the still excessively emphasized German-Partisan negotiations) cannot be claimed not to have built their entire identity around Antifascism, since their Communism and the occupying Fascism were antithetical to each other.
The myths of Communism as a “Jewish and Croatian conspiracy against Serbdom”, “a godless anti-Orthodox ideology” or of “atheist criminal groups” cannot diminish the importance that the Antifascist struggle had for Montenegro, other Yugoslav republics and, ultimately, for Yugoslavia itself. By denying Antifascism through the vulgarization of the Partisan movement, those who do not affirm the importance of the National Liberation War or accept it only occasionally or declaratively are effectively denying Montenegrins the right to their own identity. It is not uncommon for (charlatan) literature to claim that Montenegrins are not a nation, but an artificially-created Communist entity, leading to Montenegrins being dismissed as “Đilas’ bastards” or, as a clergyman of the Serbian Orthodox Church put it recently, that the Montenegrin nation was “created by the Devil”. The latter probably best describes how dependent Montenegro is on its Antifascist heritage. It is necessary to distinguish between those who fought the occupiers and those who assisted them. There is no lack of historical sources citing Četnik collaboration with Fascist forces, as well as mass vendettas against the unarmed populace.
One of the favorable aspects in promoting Antifascism is its treatment in history textbooks for elementary and secondary schools. If we analyse the textbooks in use by Montenegrin schools from 1992 (dissolution of Communism) to the present day, we can see satisfactory results. Still, this problem should be addressed from multiple vantage points. Primarily, it should be emphasized that up until 2003, Montenegro had not printed its own textbooks, but had used Serbian ones (Petar Glendža).
One of the resulting problems was that, studying from those textbooks, Montenegrin pupils had known the history of the National Liberation War in Serbia better than in their own country. The local dilemmas and controversies of Montenegro (whether the conflict had been a civil war, a war of fratricide, who the domestic collaborators were and other Montenegrin specificities) could not have been and were not elaborated in the textbooks. The interpretation of events was left to either a parallel historic consciousness or the conscience of history teachers. More than eleven generations (now aged 30 to 40) did not have a more detailed insight into the history of their country and its contribution to Antifascism.
Dilemmas and controversies
The textbooks (or rather, the single textbook with multiple editions) were written by three authors: Dr. Nikola Gaćeša, Dr. Dušan Živković and Ljubica Radović. Editions were printed in 1992, 1994, 1998 and 2001. One of the most important events in Montenegrin history, the uprising of July 13, 1941, did not even get a quarter of a page of text (32 lines, single column), with very general information, without even mentioning that it was the first mass-scale uprising against Fascism and a phenomenon of European significance (Jean Paul Sartre). Of course, there is not even the information about the events and processes that are significant within the scope of Montenegro – the St. Peter’s Day Assembly of July 12 and the participation of some future Četnik champions in the July 13 uprising on the Antifascist side. There is no mention of the Ostrog Assembly, the State Anti-fascist Council for the National Liberation of Montenegro and Boka, the bombardment of Podgorica. The fight for the liberation of Montenegro is mentioned in three lines of small print, two sentences total: “The fight to liberate Montenegro started in September 1944. Montenegro and Sandžak were finally liberated in early January 1945.”
WWII in Yugoslavia is elaborated in 57 pages, making up almost one-sixth of the entire textbook’s 320 pages. The intention to present some processes in Serbia and Yugoslavia during the National Liberation War in a n objective fashion is evident, but so is the attempt to single out the Četnik movement and separate it from other collaborationist movements. A direct explanation of the Četnik program of an ethnically clean Serbia is avoided. Still, the main problem with these textbooks might be their partisanship. The authors had not succeeded in rising above the issues of daily politics that were salient during the writing of the textbooks.
To quote Montenegrin historian Sait Šabotić who commented on history textbooks not printed in Montenegro: “For years, our children had learned about the violent secession of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia from Yugoslavia, textbooks explaining to them how Germany and Austria had attempted their push eastwards for the third time in the same century. The role of the Vatican was framed as the Catholic Church sending its fanatical devotees to wage war on Serbs and Orthodoxy”. This is most evident from a sentence in the mentioned textbooks, drawing a parallel between the World Wars and the civil war of Yugoslav dissolution, which appears in all four editions with minor modifications:
“When comparing the events from the 1941-1945 war with the events from 1991 (or from 1991 to 1995) in the same geographic area, they suggest undeniably that the actors, the criminals and the enablers were the same”.
By stating this, the authors had breached some of the most basic rules of textbook writing. Still, if the text was to be purged of the influences of daily politics and the standard platitudes about “a conspiracy against the Serbs”, we would get a usable textbook, in the sense that it does not contain the gross revisionism present, for example, in today’s Serbian textbooks, which tend to represent the Četnik movement as being “more patriotic” than the Partisan (for a criticism of tendentious revisionism in Serbian history textbooks, see Kriza istorije by Miroslav Jovanović and Radivoje Radić).
Montenegro has been printing its own history textbooks since 2003. To this day, two have been produced – one co-authored by Šerbo Rastoder, Radoje Pajović and Zvezdan Folić (several re-issues, still in use), and the other authored by Šerbo Rastoder, Dragutin Papović and Sait Šabotić, printed and withdrawn from use in 2009. Before going on to analysis, it is interesting to look at the withdrawn textbook. The Montenegrin authorities were frightened by the critical writing of Dragutin Papović, who dared to speak about the bombardment of Dubrovnik and spoke of the war crimes in Montenegro in 1941-1945 and 1991-1995.
The phenomena of WWII without the ideological tendencies
The General Education Committee and the Textbook Institute have decided not to accept the textbook in its entirety, but secondary school students used two different textbooks during the school year. This affair was ended with a new re-edition of the 2003 textbook. Above all, it was interesting to see how Montenegrin institutions and the public responded, but also how Papović – a modern critical historian striving for objectivity – had responded. Since the criticism pertained to the Antifascist period, it is useful to look at a fragment of an article about this affair in the Monitor weekly, where Papović elucidates his position scientifically:
“Responding to the objections to the history textbook, Dragutin Papović had answered in detail to all objections landed by historian Radoje Pajović, published episodically in Pobjeda. Among others, they read:’Pajović states that the information about 300 Četniks murdered by Partisans in Grahovo is a result of Četnik propaganda and is far from the truth’. However, the book Montenegro in the National Liberation War by Đuro Vujović, reviewed by Radoje Pajović, states in page 351 that ‘the attacks on Grahovo, carried out by the Tents Montenegrin Division and a battalion of the Sixth Brigade, could not be withstood by the Grahovo garrison, so Grahovo was liberated on October 21, 1944. The night before the liberation, about 100 Germans managed to escape the garrison and make it to Boka via Bijela Gora. A number of Četniks also made it out of Grahovo, but about 300 were captured and shot to the last in several group and in several locations in the surroundings of Grahovo’. If Pajović considers his review and Đuro Vujović’s book to be the results of Četnik propaganda and far from the truth, then I admit to have been misled by their Četnik propaganda and led to publishing untruths.”
“Pajović further states that the figure on 350 persons sentenced to death and shot by the Četnik court at the Kolašin prison to be untrue and excessive. If Pajović is right, then I have made an error thanks to Pajović himself, because I found this piece of data in his book The Counter-revolution in Montenegro, in page 287, where Pajović explicitly says that the court in Kolašin alone had sent 350 people to their deaths”.
Even with some advancements made, Montenegrin institutions were not willing to accept a modern and very critically written textbook that would introduce the phenomena of WWII to Montenegrin final-year secondary school students, without ideological tendencies.
Analysing the textbooks published in Montenegro, we can conclude that Antifascism is presented in the proper way overall. The Antifascist war is treated as a contribution to the European struggle against the Nazi-Fascist darkness. The 2003, 2010 and 2014 history textbooks elaborate WWII in Yugoslavia in 30 pages, with Montenegrin WWII history in 11 pages. The 2009 textbook differs somewhat, with 12 pages each allotted to both Yugoslavia and Montenegro. Montenegrin students were, for the first time, able to get better acquainted with the most important events and processes in their country during the Antifascist struggle. The discourse of the textbooks is age-appropriate: the Antifascist struggle is presented objectively and the atrocities and civil war elements are seriously documented.
The textbooks also engage the issue of the Greens, mostly made up of the sympathizers and supporters of CFS which advocated the restoration of Montenegrin independence. It is unquestionably stated that some supporters of the Greens movement had taken part in attacks on the National Liberation fighters alongside Četniks and occupying forces, but that the Greens movement overall is not burdened with significant atrocities. It remains interesting as one of many phenomena because its followers proclaimed themselves to be the restorers of the Montenegrin state and, consequently, did not have much of an ideology other than the national one. It is important to note that the movement had mostly formed in the territory of Old Montenegro. Near the end of the war, most Greens joined the ranks of the National Liberation Army.
Summarily, with minor corrections, these textbooks are a real step forward in the Montenegrin textbook practice since 2003. A favorable factor is that the official and scientific historiography has no issues with promoting Antifascism, considering the fact that the Montenegrin identity is largely based on it, as noted at the beginning of this text.
How much do current political and social processes in Europe and worldwide influence the Antifascist consciousness in this part of the world?
Except for the cohabitation of Montenegrin statehood and Antifascism and replace “Antifascism” with “the Left” (since the only Antifascism remaining after the July 13 uprising was quelled was the one existing on the Left), we can see that Antifascist i.e. Left-wing activism in Montenegro is in a serious crisis, since a left-wing political option in Montenegro exists only declaratively. The ruling parties declare their supposed Leftism in pre-electiojn campaigns, while their most significant members have lived in a state of alienation as a millionaire political class for twenty-five years.
The opposition Socialists demonstrate their loyalty to the Church and even publicly state that some of their actions will be aligned to the interests of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Very few social activists and public figures draw their ideas from anything approaching original Marxist teachings. Some organizations figuring as left-wing and each claiming themselves to be “the Montenegrin Syriza” are emulating the Left in paroles only. In effect, they are concealing Fascist attitudes because, in addition to worshipping Vladimir Putin and conducting fierce anti-Western propaganda, they convey homophobic messages, fight back against LGBT rights and protect Orthodox fundamentalism, ensuring that the “official” Left functions as a hard-core, ultra-Orthodox Right.
This situation can be blamed on the overall situation in the country. A devastated working class, sold-out state property, inert voters and the alienation of the “transitional” generations. We need to understand and as soon as possible that Antifascism and the Left can help us forge democracy (Džef Ili) and help us get our societies closer to the Utopian images of equality and justice. Montenegro is a country of July 13 and Ljubo Ćupić – a true Antifascist tradition. The question is, do all of its citizens truly understand the meaning of Antifascism?
This article was published thanks to co-funding from the Europe for Citizens Programme.
