This art icle was downloaded by: [ Pål Kolst ø] On: 22 June 2012, At : 05: 41 Publisher: Rout ledge I nform a Lt d Regist ered in England and Wales Regist ered Num ber: 1072954 Regist ered office: Mort im er House, 37- 41 Mort im er St reet , London W1T 3JH, UK Europe-Asia Studies Publicat ion det ails, including inst ruct ions f or aut hors and subscript ion inf ormat ion: ht t p: / / www. t andf online. com/ loi/ ceas20 Bleiburg: The Creation of a National Martyrology Pål Kolst ø a a Universit y of Oslo Available online: 09 Aug 2010 To cite this article: Pål Kolst ø (2010): Bleiburg: The Creat ion of a Nat ional Mart yrology, Europe-Asia St udies, 62: 7, 1153-1174 To link to this article: ht t p: / / dx. doi. org/ 10. 1080/ 09668136. 2010. 497024 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTI CLE Full t erm s and condit ions of use: ht t p: / / www.t andfonline.com / page/ t erm s- andcondit ions This art icle m ay be used for research, t eaching, and privat e st udy purposes. 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The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, act ions, claim s, proceedings, dem and, or cost s or dam ages what soever or howsoever caused arising direct ly or indirect ly in connect ion wit h or arising out of t he use of t his m at erial. EUROPE-ASIA STUDIES Vol. 62, No. 7, September 2010, 1153–1174 Bleiburg: The Creation of a National Martyrology Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 PÅL KOLSTØ IN A STUDY OF HISTORICAL MYTHS IN SOUTH Eastern Europe in 2005 I identified four different types of mythologies, one of which was the myth of martyrdom (Kolstø 2005). I pointed out that while nations most of the time celebrate their victories and moments of glory, occasionally their great tragedies and defeats are also embellished into mythical stories and made into objects of collective commemoration. As a prime example of mythologised defeats in the history of the Balkan peoples I—like many other authors—singled out the battle of Kosovo in 1389, an event which in contemporary Serbian consciousness has come to be regarded as the moment when the Serb nation chose righteousness and truth over earthly power (Vuchinich & Emmert 1991; Anzulovic 1999, pp. 11–22; Judah 2000). As an even more striking example of a mythologisation of a national tragedy I could well have focused on the Bleiburg commemorations in post-Yugoslav Croatia. This myth of martyrdom is perhaps even more remarkable than the Kosovo myth for at least two reasons. Firstly, it commemorates a much more recent event, dating back to 1945, and one would think that it is more difficult to mythologise tragedies that are still within living memory than to spin a heroic story around events that took place in the distant past. Furthermore, Bleiburg is the place where tens of thousands of Croatian fascists—the Ustasˇa—and other soldiers of the collaborationist Croatian regime met their fate. To gain acceptance for a historical version that portrays people who fought on the side of Nazi Germany during World War II as innocent victims, and indeed as martyrs, would presumably be an uphill battle, but that is precisely what the contemporary Croatian nationalist mythmaking is about.1 The author would like to thank Vjeran Pavlaković, Sabrina Ramet, and Europe-Asia Studies’ two anonymous readers for most helpful comments to draft versions of this essay. Vjeran Pavlaković also most generously put his valuable collection of clippings from the Croatian press at my disposal. 1 To avoid any misunderstanding I should emphasise that to say that an event has undergone mythologisation is not the same as to deny it historical substance. Historical myths are constructed around historical kernels but they later become so embellished that the historical record is almost unrecognisable. ISSN 0966-8136 print; ISSN 1465-3427 online/10/071153-22 ª 2010 University of Glasgow DOI: 10.1080/09668136.2010.497024 Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 1154 PÅL KOLSTØ Croatian historian Ivo Goldstein (2001, p. 135) has emphasised that the Ustasˇa state took its model squarely from Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany. A leading Western expert on Yugoslav politics during World War II, Jozo Tomasevich (2001, pp. 335–45, 351), had emphasised the same point earlier, underscoring that the Ustasˇa regime was indeed a fully fledged fascist regime, with a fascist ideology, party structure, and a terroristic policy towards part of the population, in particular towards the Serbs and the Jews. At the same time, Tomasevich also strongly emphasised Ustasˇa isolation from the Croatian public at large. Before the war this movement had fewer than 1,000 members in Croatia, and while its popularity rose for a while after its seizure of power, it dropped again precipitously as soon as its terroristic nature became clear. One of the most fundamental reasons for its meagre support, Tomasevich argued, was its genocidal policy towards the Serbs. Similarly, Singleton (1989, p. 177) maintained that ‘[Ustasˇa leader Ante] Pavelić was able to wreak havoc on the Serbian population and to dishonour the name of Croatia by the appalling atrocities for which his regime became notorious’. To explain why Bleiburg has been chosen as a rallying point for Croatian nationbuilding, three important historical circumstances must be remembered. Firstly, the Titoist regime suppressed information about the Bleiburg massacre and denied the Croats the possibility to come to terms with this trauma. Mythologies thrive in a culture of silence and suppression (Derić 2009). In this situation, it was Bleiburg survivors and other Ustasˇa sympathisers abroad who kept alive the memory of Bleiburg and they were able to present their version of the event unchecked. When it finally became possible to talk about the Bleiburg killings openly in Croatia after 1990, the basic premises for the commemoration were already in place. Finally, the Tito regime had not only tried to stifle the memory of Bleiburg, but also used its control of Yugoslav historiography to create its own myths about the wartime Croatian state. While the Ustasˇa clearly committed systematic and hideous atrocities, Titoist historians and ideologists exaggerated the numbers killed in World War II. In particular, it was claimed that the Jasenovac concentration camp, where the Ustasˇa killed between 70,000 and 100,000 inmates, had been the final resting place of up to 700,000 victims (Jurcević 2007). Moreover, the evils of the Ustasˇa are presented by some Serbian publicists as proof of an alleged genocidal character of the Croatian people (Krestić 1998). These outrageous allegations gained in strength during the Wars of Yugoslav Succession in 1990–1995, which was precisely the time when the Bleiburg myth was imported into Croatia. In this essay I will underscore in particular the active and perhaps decisive role which the Croatian Catholic Church has played in making the Bleiburg commemorations acceptable to large parts of the Croatian public. In the process, it has left its clearly recognisable imprint on the Bleiburg myth, which today has strong religious overtones. According to right-wing Croats those who died as a result of Bleiburg were not only innocent victims, but martyrs—mu cenici.2 Their death was expiatory: they died for the Croatian cause, so that the Croatian nation could live. Bleiburg is the Croatian Calvary 2 See for instance, the speaker of the Sabor Nedjeljko Mihanović, as quoted in ‘Ostvarili smo snove’, Slobodna Dalmacija, 15 May 1995, p. 2. In fact, this trope is so common that it is being used, often several times, at every Bleiburg commemoration. BLEIBURG: THE CREATION OF A NATIONAL MARTYROLOGY 1155 Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 but, as all Catholics know, after Good Friday comes Easter Sunday. After half a century in the Yugoslav grave Croatia has now finally reached Resurrection: the resurrection of the Croatian state. The trails which the Bleiburg prisoners were herded along before they were shot are called ‘stations of the cross’—krizˇni putovi. According to George Schöpflin, it is a typical trait of national myths that they contribute to the unification of the nation. Ritualised myth ‘produces bonds of solidarity without demanding uniformity of belief . . . Myth as the content of ritual, then, is an essential aspect of community maintenance’ (Schöpflin 1997, p. 21). In the rhetoric of the Bleiburg commemorations ‘reconciliation and unity’ among Croats of diverse ideological stripes is indeed presented as a major objective. This goal, however, has not been reached. The Bleiburg myth still remains very controversial in the Croatian media which publishes reports and editorials on the subject every spring. Some high-profile politicians and historians continue to press for alternative versions of those fateful May days in 1945. What happened in 1945? Within the limited space of this essay I can only give a brief outline of the historical background of the Bleiburg myth.3 When Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, the Ustasˇa leader, poglavnik Ante Pavelić, instructed the forces under his command to continue fighting the partisans while moving northwards in the direction of Britishcontrolled Austrian territory. The bulk of what remained of the army of the Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Drzˇava Hrvatska, NDH) therefore ignored repeated partisan calls for surrender and gradually fought its way towards Austria. A week later the avant-garde came into contact with British units at the small village of Bleiburg just across the border into Austria. At that time the rear of the vast column still stretched some 60 or 70 kilometres into Yugoslav territory. Some units reached the Austrian border at other crossing points but ‘the Bleiburg tragedy’ has nevertheless become the common designation of this event, even though few died at that actual place. The Croatian generals explained that they wanted to surrender to the British, expecting civilised treatment, rather than to the partisans, from whom they feared the worst. The Ustasˇa leaders hoped that the wartime coalition between the Western powers and the Soviet Union would break up as soon as the Germans were beaten, and wanted to offer their services in the expected fight against the Soviet Union and its Yugoslav allies. The wartime coalition did indeed collapse, but too late to affect the fate of the Ustasˇa fugitives. They were told that in accordance with agreements made between the Allies and the Soviet Union, the British were unable to accept their surrender: all enemy forces should give themselves up to the power that they had been fighting against during the war. The Ustasˇa negotiators were then handed over to 3 For more details, see the judicious and balanced account of Tomasevich (2001, pp. 751–71). The longest but somewhat controversial specialised study on Bleiburg is Jurcević (2008). See also Dizdar (2005). Časopis za suvremenu povijest in Zagreb has published a number of articles dealing with this issue in detail: Geiger (2003), Šarić (2004) and Grahek Ravancić (2006). Bleiburg survivors and other Ustasˇa sympathisers have produced several accounts presenting their version: see for example, Nikolić (1995) and Prcela and Guldescu (1995). Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 1156 PÅL KOLSTØ Yugoslav officers at the British headquarters, who told them to surrender unconditionally within one hour (Tomasevich 2001, p. 758). In some of the literature on the subject it has been presented as if the British did accept the Ustasˇa surrender and then by treachery sent them back to the partisans unarmed (Tolstoy 1977; Tanner 1997, p. 169). According to this version, when the Croats were packed into train cars and shipped south, they expected to be sent to Italy (Prcela & Guldescu 1995, p. 80). Their leaders, at least, knew that this was not the case, and as news of the failed surrender spread, thousands of soldiers and officers tried to escape into the woods in the hope of avoiding deportation. Some did in fact manage to hide long enough to stay on in Austria; and a number of them eventually ended up in other Western countries, in particular in the United States, Canada and Argentina. The vast majority, however, were extradited to Yugoslavia, where a large number of them was killed. They met their fate either on death marches into the interior of Croatia or Serbia, or upon arrival in a concentration camp. Only in very few cases were they put on trial and convicted in court before they were shot. It would be a gross oversimplification to say that all those who were summarily killed by the partisans in May 1945 were ‘Ustasˇa soldiers’. The Croatian puppet state, the NDH, had various kinds of military units, consisting of Ustasˇa soldiers in the strict sense on the one hand, and Domobrani home guards on the other. (This was similar to the distinction between SS and Wehrmacht in Nazi Germany.) In 1944, however, the Ustasˇa and Domobrani were unified under a single command. Moreover, besides the Croatian forces, a number of other anti-partisan military units had trekked towards Austria, including Slovenian White Guards, Serbian Četniks, Montenegrins, Russian Cossacks and some German stragglers. The Croatian forces, moreover, included a not insignificant number of Muslim soldiers; in the Ustasˇa ideology, Muslims from Bosnia belonged within the Croat nation. The annual commemorations at Bleiburg field today, however, focus almost exclusively on the ethnic Croats, with a partial allowance for the Muslims.4 The uniformed men who tried to enter Austria had been joined by a large number of civilians fleeing the partisans. Their relative share in this mass of people is extremely difficult to assess; quite possibly the civilians outnumbered the soldiers (Dizdar 2005, p. 134).5 Most speeches, articles and sermons dealing with the Bleiburg issue in Croatia today strongly emphasise the civilian element among the victims, especially the presence of women and children. The number of Bleiburg victims has been hotly disputed. The military historian and later Croatian President, Franjo Tudman (1996, p. 76), gave a figure of between 35,000  and 40,000, while Croatian émigré historians in the Tito era claimed that as much as half a million perished (Omrcanin 1986, p. 3). Nationalist circles and the popular press in Croatia continue to disseminate wildly differing figures, but as historian Slavko Goldstein points out, among serious scholars a consensus on the numbers has now 4 A Muslim mufti has participated at some Bleiburg commemorations. Josip Jurcević, the author of the massive monograph Bleiburg, believes there were 200,000 soldiers and 500,000 civilians (author’s interview, 18 October 2008). Another Croatian historian, Slavko Goldstein, on the other hand claims that almost all the civilians, however many they were, were spared by the partisans and sent home to where they came from (Goldstein 2007). 5 BLEIBURG: THE CREATION OF A NATIONAL MARTYROLOGY 1157 been reached: of perhaps 200,000 soldiers who tried to enter Austria, roughly 70,000 were killed by the partisans.6 This, incidentally, is very close to the best estimates on the number of Ustasˇa victims in Jasenovac. The number of ethnic Croats among the Bleiburg victims may have been around 50,000 people (Tomasevich 2001, pp. 760–65). Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 How much was known about the Bleiburg killings prior to the fall of communism? In the first years after World War II Bleiburg survivors and Ustasˇa sympathisers in the West began to collect memoirs and other material about the end of the Croatian army at Bleiburg, in order to attract the attention of the Western public. One source lists eight titles on this topic published in various Western languages in the period between 1946 and 1968 (Prcela & Guldescu 1995, p. 108). In 1970, John Prcela and Stanko Guldescu published a 500-page collection of articles and documents under the title Operation Slaughterhouse, while Borivoje Karapandzich’s book The Bloodiest Yugoslav Spring (1980) was translated into English 10 years later. In addition, a number of books and articles were published in Croatian-language Western journals such as Hrvatska revija. Several of the articles in this journal rather clearly blamed not only the partisans, but also Ante Pavelić for the tragedy (Šarić 2004).7 Initiative groups in the United States made strenuous efforts to draw public attention to the Bleiburg event by writing letters to American congressmen and picketing Tito’s delegation during his state visit in 1963. These efforts, however, bore meagre fruits: according to the activists themselves they felt surrounded by a ‘conspiracy of silence’ (Prcela & Guldescu 1995, p. 113). The reasons for this lack of impact were several. First, during the Cold War Tito was feted in Western capitals as a liberal in the communist camp. He was the only East European leader who dared to defy Moscow, and therefore a person with whom it would be wise to cultivate good relations. Secondly, the fact that the Bleiburg lobby groups had close ties to the Ustasˇa in itself made them suspect in the eyes of the Western public. Thirdly, the lobbyists were often their own worst enemies. Thus, for instance, one of the most energetic activists, the lawyer and lay historian Ivo Omrcanin, set forth a number of extravagant claims in his book Holocaust of Croatians in 1986. Omrcanin explained that the British had handed over the Croats to Tito’s men as part of a secret deal, as a quid pro quo in order to persuade the Yugoslavs to evacuate the parts of Austrian territory which they had occupied. As an additional motive Omrcanin adduced the British ‘centuries old hate of papists’. Finally, he explained ‘the conspiracy of silence’ around Bleiburg as a result of Jewish control of the Western press (Omrcanin 1986, pp. 1, 82). Few sensible readers who encounter such ideas on the first page of a book will feel inclined to continue. A few of those who wrote about Bleiburg were not tainted by Ustasˇa connections, most notably Milovan Djilas whose wartime memories were published in 1977. Djilas recalled that among the Ustasˇa and home guards whom the British handed over to the 6 Author’s interview, Zagreb, 16 October 2008. In the book The Bleiburg Tragedy of the Croatian People the editor of Hrvatska revija, Vinko Nikolić, rather incongruously laid the blame for the tragedy squarely at the door of ‘the Serbs (partisans-Četniks)’, even though at Bleiburg Četniks clearly were among the victims and not among the perpetrators (Nikolić 1995, II A). 7 Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 1158 PÅL KOLSTØ partisans, ‘all were killed, except for women and young people under eighteen years of age’. He characterised the killings as ‘sheer frenzy’. He was told that two years later dead bodies were still coming to light from underground rivers and shallow mass graves in Slovenia (Djilas 1977, pp. 446–47). As a former close collaborator of Tito, Djilas was an important first-hand witness to many crucial events in post-war Yugoslav history, but his information about Bleiburg was second-hand. At the time when his memoirs were published, however, the relevant British military documents were declassified, and in 1978 The Journal of Croatian Studies began publishing relevant documents (Jareb & Omrcanin 1978). In 1983 a British historian of Russian descent, Nikolai Tolstoy published—not in an obscure Croatian émigré journal but in the renowned monthly Encounter—a devastating indictment of Great Britain’s role in the extradition of the Croatian soldiers at Bleiburg. Basing his information on what he had read in books by Karapandzich and Djilas and on the recently released documents from the War Office, Tolstoy reached the conclusion that ‘the vast majority’ of the 200,000 Croats who were handed over by the British at Bleiburg were killed within a few days (Tolstoy 1983, pp. 26, 28). During the Tito era most popular Western books on twentieth century Yugoslav history either ignored the Bleiburg events altogether (Wilson 1979) or gave them a most misleading treatment. Fred Singleton (1976, p. 106), for instance, only noted that half a million anti-communists ‘had fled abroad as the Germans retreated’, leaving the impression that they remained abroad. Yugoslav history books would normally limit themselves to statements that fighting between the partisans and Croatian NDH forces had continued after the German capitulation on 8 May. In 1963 the reminiscences of Milan Basta, the partisan party commissar who negotiated the surrender of the NDH forces at the Bleiburg castle, were published in Zagreb. Basta stated that in the conditions for capitulation which he presented to the Ustasˇa generals, he promised that civilians would be sent home while all soldiers who surrendered would be sent to prison camps and treated as prisoners of war ‘in accordance with international law’ (Basta 1963, p. 96). Nowhere in his book did he indicate that these promises were not kept. Basta’s version was followed in all subsequent Yugoslav history books. According to one of them, about 50,000 quislings were taken prisoner at Bleiburg, along with some 24,000 fugitives who had followed them. Nothing was said about the further fate of these prisoners (Petranović 1981, p. 368). When the Croatian press started to write about Bleiburg around 1990, the Croatian public seems to have had only the scantest knowledge about what had happened in those fateful May days in 1945.8 The commemorations The annual Bleiburg commemoration, which today is an official state event involving both the Croatian parliament and the Croatian Catholic Church, started in the early 1950s as a private initiative of Bleiburg survivors living in the Carinthia region. At that 8 Vjeran Pavlaković recalled that his parents who emigrated in 1978 had not heard about Bleiburg before they arrived in the United States, even though his own grandfather had been among the victims (Pavlaković 2008, p. 18). Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 BLEIBURG: THE CREATION OF A NATIONAL MARTYROLOGY 1159 time Austria was still under joint Allied and Soviet occupation; the Bleiburg field was located in the British occupation zone, and British authorities looked askance at attempts to keep the memory of Bleiburg alive. The first gathering at the Bleiburg field was arranged surreptitiously, on All Saints’ Day 1952 (Jurcević et al. 2005, pp. 70–76). The next year the decision was made to establish a permanent committee, called the Bleiburg Honorary Platoon, to organise the commemorations. As the occupation of Austria was lifted in 1955, the Bleiburg survivors, their families and sympathisers could visit Bleiburg openly since the Austrian authorities, despite some British and Yugoslav pressure, refused to ban the commemorations. All the original members of the Platoon had been members of Croatian military formations who had fought the partisans (Jurcević et al. 2005, p. 73). Despite persecution by the Yugoslav secret service UDB (Uprava drzˇavne bezbjednosti),9 the Honorary Platoon continued its activities and, in 1966, they bought a small piece of land at the Bleiburg field where the annual commemorations were held from then on. Ten years later a monument was erected on the nearby St Andrew’s churchyard in Unter-Loibach where some Ustasˇa soldiers were buried. In 1987, a monument was erected at the Bleiburg field itself, financed by Croats from Australia. Gatherings of the Platoon took place twice a year, on All Saints’ Day and on 15 May or the Sunday closest to that day. The commemoration services on All Saints’ Day still take place, but as a private commemoration with only a limited number of participants.10 It is the May gatherings that have been turned into major public events. The commemorations start at the Unter-Loibach cemetery. Originally, the Croatian graves here were adorned with Ustasˇa helmets, which, incidentally, are identical to German Nazi helmets (see Figure 1) (Jurcević et al. 2005, p. 154). These provocative symbols, however, were later removed, and the monument in place there today depicts a sorrowful Mother Croatia mourning her children, accompanied by the rather neutral text: ‘In honour and glory of the Croatian soldiers who fell in the struggle for their Croatian fatherland as they were extradited back to the fatherland and disappeared, May 1945’ (see Figure 2). The plaque glosses over the fact that the soldiers were Ustasˇas and other Axis collaborators. From the cemetery the participants at the commemoration march to the nearby Bleiburg field where the main event takes place. The programme here has a dual character, a cross between a religious service and a secular, political demonstration. The gathering typically begins with the singing of the Croatian national anthem, ‘Lijepa naša domovina’, followed by a one-minute silence for the victims and the celebration of a Catholic requiem mass. Initially, and throughout most of the 1990s, the service was normally conducted by the vicar of the local Croatian congregation in Klagenfurt, but as the Catholic Church of Croatia has gradually taken the ceremony 9 A commemorative booklet published in 2008 under the auspices of the Croatian Catholic Church claims that in 1966 a failed attempt was made to bomb a tavern in Klagenfurt full of Bleiburg visitors. Nine years later, a member of the Honorary Platoon, Nikica Martinović, was shot down in his shop in Klagenfurt by what were presumably UDB agents (Esih 2008, p. 38); see also Nikolić (1995, p. 6). Such attacks, naturally, had the effect of strengthening the martyrology syndrome. 10 Author’s conversation with Ilija Abramović, a member of the Bleiburg Honorary Platoon at Bleiburg, 18 October 2008. Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 1160 PÅL KOLSTØ FIGURE 1. THE ORIGINAL ADORNMENT ON THE GRAVES OF THE NDH SOLDIERS BURIED ANDREW’S CHURCHYARD IN UNTER-LOIBACH AT THE ST FIGURE 2. THE CURRENT MONUMENT TO THE MEMORY OF THE NDH SOLDIERS BURIED ANDREW’S CHURCHYARD IN UNTER-LOIBACH AT THE ST under its wing, the ecclesiastical representation has been upgraded and ever higher Church dignitaries celebrate the mass. Similarly, the non-religious part of the programme has acquired an increasingly official character over time, involving state luminaries at ever higher levels. Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 BLEIBURG: THE CREATION OF A NATIONAL MARTYROLOGY 1161 In 1990, Croatians from Croatia were able to participate in the Bleiburg commemoration for the first time. To begin with the attitudes towards the victims were still somewhat reserved or ambivalent among journalists who reported from the event. For example, the semi-official broadsheet Vjesnik followed the old Yugoslav tradition in calling them ‘quislings’.11 However, by the next year, the same newspaper referred to Bleiburg as ‘the Calvary of the Croatian people’ (Latinović 1991). At the Bleiburg commemorations the Honorary Platoon always dress in neutral civilian clothes with no Ustasˇa insignia but already in 1993 some participants—mostly youngsters—appeared demonstratively donned in black t-shirts with a huge ‘U’ and the words ‘Black legion’ (‘Crna legija’) across the breast. In 2005 one journalist noted that ‘each year black uniforms throw a long shadow over the Bleiburg commemorations’ (Rašeta 2005). Pictures of poglavnik Ante Pavelić, maps of NDH, and other Ustasˇa images are on sale, but whether or not this is a fringe phenomenon that should best be ignored or one which reveals ‘the true nature’ of the Bleiburg commemorations is hotly disputed. It is a standard part of news reports from Bleiburg to discuss whether the number of black shirts has increased or decreased since the previous year.12 Brkljacić and Sundhaussen (2003, p. 941) have suggested that the use of the ‘U’ symbol today should not always be interpreted as an expression of Ustasˇa nostalgia but rather as a general act of protest and deliberate provocation. In 2003 the Austrian police announced that they would arrest and fine all participants who wore Ustasˇa signs (Despot 2003). The new ban, however, was not enforced, and instead a tacit compromise was agreed upon: the Ustasˇa enthusiasts could be present and sport their paraphernalia but would be banned from performing any public function such as the laying of wreaths at the monument (Radoš 2008). If the number of black shirts has increased, so has the number of participants in general. In 1990, only ‘some hundreds’ participated,13 but soon the number rose to several thousand. Today it seems to have stabilised at around 9,000–10,000.14 A peak was reached at the 50th anniversary in 1995 when around 15,000 participants were present.15 The Croatian state authorities have gradually become more involved in the commemorations. The Sabor has proclaimed 15 May an official memorial day (spomen 11 ‘Za pomirenje svih Hrvata’, Vjesnik, 14 May 1990, p. 5. This is the only time I have come across this epithet in descriptions of the Ustasˇa victims in Croatian press reports from the event. Even leftwing politicians and journalists today seem to avoid this label. The epithet ‘quisling’, however, is used by historians like Franjo Tudman (1996, p. 78) and Jozo Tomasevich (2001).  12 In 2008 Jutarnji list and Vijesti both claimed that the number had increased (Radoš 2008; ‘Ove godine u Bleiburgu još više ljudi u ustaškim odorama’, Vijesti, 17 May 2008). In a conversation with the author, Bishop Slobodan Štambuk of Hvar, who conducted the memorial mass in 2008, insisted that the numbers of such people were negligible, that the journalists went out of their way to find the few uniforms present, and probably also pay these people to take their pictures. Author’s interview, Hvar, 13 October 2008. 13 ‘Za pomirenje svih Hrvata’, Vjesnik, 14 May 1990, p. 5. 14 2002: 7,000–8,000, Novi list 13 May 2002; 2004: 9,000, Ve cernji list, 17 May 2004; Radoš (2008); Vijesti, 17 May 2008. 15 Slobodna Dalmacija, 15 May 1995, p. 2, According to one nationalist paper no less than 20,000 people participated in 2005 but this was clearly an exaggeration (Držić 2005, pp. 21–22). Other estimates gave the figure as ‘more than 10,000’ for that year (Rašeta 2005). 1162 PÅL KOLSTØ dan) but not an official holiday (blagdan) (Pavlaković 2008, p. 5). In 2004 a government donation of e125,000 enabled the Honorary Platoon to buy an additional piece of land at the Bleiburg field; three years later a new donation made it possible to enlarge the commemoration site even more. At the same time, members of the Croatian diaspora in North America have collected money for the building of an altar and a new open-air chapel at the field, which was consecrated in 2007 (Figure 3). Today, the private and self-co-opting Honorary Platoon, still consisting for the most part of Austria-based Bleiburg survivors and former NDH soldiers or their children, collaborates closely with the official Croatian governmental structures in the organisation of the annual Bleiburg event. Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 Bleiburg, a symbol of union or division? A large number of Croatian politicians have participated at the Bleiburg commemorations over the years. Since the turn of the millennium the Sabor has usually been represented with a strong delegation, headed by its speaker or deputy speaker. Also one or several ministers have normally been present on behalf of the government. This does not, however, mean that there is a complete consensus on the Bleiburg events among the Croatian public. On the contrary, the correct interpretation of the killings remains highly contested and some politicians demonstratively stay away. While the media always report on which politicians participate each year, they focus even more on those who are absent, and the reasons why they are not going. In the political speeches and sermons at the May gatherings on the Bleiburg field, calls for ‘reconciliation’ (pomirba) and Croatian unity (ujedinjenje) are recurrent themes. Thus, in 1991 the message was for ‘the need for a forgiveness that could do FIGURE 3. THE OPEN-AIR CHAPEL AT THE BLEIBURG FIELD Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 BLEIBURG: THE CREATION OF A NATIONAL MARTYROLOGY 1163 away with the divisions that have existed between Croats for half a century’ (Jajcinović 1991, p. 3). In 1998, the commemoration of the Bleiburg victims was said to be held in the spirit of ‘prayer, reconciliation, and hope’.16 In his Bleiburg address in 2001, Ante Simonić, the chairman of the Sabor committee on education, science and culture, maintained that the Bleiburg field is one of the places where all Croats could and should call each other brothers and sisters (Franicević 2001). Some journalists have reported that at Bleiburg ‘there was no politisation of the atmosphere at this place which ought to stay above politics’ (Lušić 2001, p. 22). Even so, in the crowd one can often hear the chant ‘Ante, Ante’, referring not to the poglavnik, but a more recent controversial figure, the suspected war criminal at the Hague tribunal, Ante Gotovina (Rašeta 2005). The willingness of the Bleiburg participants to reach out to their opponents and enemies is sometimes doubtful. Bleiburg speakers claim that reconciliation can take place only on the basis of ‘patriotism’ and they regard the patriotic sincerity of the Croatian left as dubious (Bašić 1998). Comparisons are regularly made between the Bleiburg events and Serbian atrocities during the wars of the early 1990s. The message coming out of Bleiburg is ambiguous, to say the least. As one journalist wryly reported in 2006, as the vice speaker of the Sabor, Durda  Adlešić, was maintaining at Bleiburg yesterday that we are learning Croatian unity, only some dozen meters away in front of her the flags of the Black Legion and the NDH were fluttering in the wind. (Tomicić 2006) As Vjeran Pavlaković has commented, in spite of the rhetoric of reconciliation the commemorations at Bleiburg have remained a bastion of the Croatian right and political forces pushing for a rehabilitation of the Ustasˇa (Pavlaković 2008, pp. 22–23). The leader of the Association of Antifascist Veterans of Croatia (Savez antifasˇisti ckih boraca i antifasˇista Republike Hrvatske), Ivan Fumić, claims that rather than promoting conciliation and forgiveness the Bleiburg commemorations foment hatred against both Serbs and antifascists (Tomicić 2006).17 He also insists that those who were handed over to the partisans at Bleiburg were not innocent victims, but the most militant and criminal parts of Ustasˇa and the Četniks, among them more than 1,000 guards from concentration camps.18 Fumić also explicitly accuses the Croatian Church of actively pushing for Ustasˇa rehabilitation. For such statements Fumić has become a hate figure of the political and religious right. Speakers who have uttered opinions not to the liking of the audience have been heckled. In 2002 Sabor Representative Zdravko Tomac was kept from delivering his speech at the commemoration by loud catcalls. Words like ‘communist’ and ‘go away’ flew through the air (Klarić 2002). Similarly, when the speaker of the Sabor, Vladimir Šeks, invited to speak at the Bleiburg commemoration in 2005, noted that during 16 Ve cernji list, 18 May 1998, p. 4. In 2007 the Association of Antifascist Veterans of Croatia took the initiative to produce a scholarly volume on Bleiburg in which they presented their own version of what had happened in May 1945 (Hrženjak 2007). 18 ‘Fumić: U Bleiburgu je pokopano 20 ustaša koji su se sami ubili’, Ve cernji list, 16 May 2007. 17 Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 1164 PÅL KOLSTØ World War II half of Croatia was on the side of Nazism and fascism, he was met by shrill whistling and the chanting of ‘Ante, Ante’ (Pavelić 2005). In this atmosphere it is rather understandable that not only dedicated antifascists, but also some centrist Croatian politicians choose to stay away. Nevertheless, the politicians are faced with a dilemma whatever option they choose. On the one hand, since paying homage to the Bleiburg victims seems to be becoming a litmus test of Croatian patriotism, absence from the commemorations could be a perilous strategy for politicians who want to be re-elected; but on the other hand, since the framing of the event has been entirely in the hands of the Honorary Platoon in collaboration with the Croatian right and the Catholic Church, it is also possible that an appearance at the commemoration could be counterproductive. As a way out of this conundrum some politicians have decided to go to Bleiburg on a day of their own choosing, rather than risk being photographed next to a black shirt. This was the approach taken by Prime Minister Ivica Racan and Prime Minister Ivo Sanader. Prior to Racan’s visit in 2002 no Croatian Prime Minister had gone to Bleiburg. While avoiding the official commemoration Racan was nevertheless met by two members of the Honorary Platoon. Having placed a wreath at the memorial the leader of the Croatian Social Democrats expressed ‘sincere apology to and sympathy with’ the victims of the Bleiburg tragedy (Podgornik 2002). Two years later, Ivo Sanader from the HDZ (Hrvatska demokratska zajednica) party stopped by at Bleiburg on a February evening on his way home from an official visit to Austria. To the accompanying press he declared that ‘Croatia condemns every atrocity and rejects every kind of extremism and radicalism’ (Jelić 2004). In some cases the issue of whether a particular politician should go to Bleiburg or not has developed into a medium-sized media event. In particular, the absence or presence of the SDP (Socijaldemokratska partija Hrvatske), the Social-Democratic party, became a major issue. In the current Croatian political landscape the SDP is a normal European social-democratic party; however, as one of the successor parties to the Yugoslav League of Communists (Savez komunista Jugoslavije), parts of the Croatian public regard it as ‘the party whose representatives committed this atrocity’ (Tuden  1990, p. 21). This is a point of view which the leaders of the party, needless to say, do not share. In 2000 the party was represented at Bleiburg by a low-level and low-key delegation. In order to avoid attention, the SDP delegates laid their wreath at the monument during the requiem mass rather than afterwards, as the other delegations did (Lušić & Brnic 2000). In August 2008 it was announced that the new SDP leader, Zoran Milanović, would go to Bleiburg to place a wreath at the memorial there. The announcement created a minor sensation and reactions were mixed (Bajruši 2008). In the leftist press his decision was hailed not only as a symbolic gesture but also as a step that could ‘help directly improve the current dominant atmosphere in society’ (Butković 2008), and as a move ‘towards a reconciliation of Croats’ (Božić 2008). Representatives of the Church and the political right, on the other hand, interpreted it as a cynical and self-serving stratagem to promote his political career.19 19 Author’s conversation with Bishop Slobodan Štambuk, Hvar, 13 October 2008; author’s interview with Josip Jurcević, Zagreb, 18 October 2008. Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 BLEIBURG: THE CREATION OF A NATIONAL MARTYROLOGY 1165 Milanović was to be accompanied by, among others, two renowned historians and Jewish intellectuals, Slavko Goldstein and his son Ivo Goldstein, both of whom are known as staunch critics of all kinds of flirting with Ustasˇa nostalgia.20 For the two Goldsteins, however, the decision to go was not an easy one to make. Ivo Goldstein emphasised that ‘the fact that I am going to Bleiburg does not change my attitude towards Ustasˇa and Ustasˇa atrocities. An atrocity is and will always remain an atrocity’ (Božić 2008). Only a few days later the press announced that the Goldsteins had changed their mind. Their planned trip had created an uproar not least among the Jewish community in Croatia as well as abroad. As a result, Milanović went alone. The most remarkable aspect of this story, involving the travel of three persons, is how much controversy it created. The press coverage of this incident is an indication of its continuing divisive nature as an issue in Croatia. Even more controversial than Milanović’s decision to go to Bleiburg was President Stipe Mesić’s unwavering determination not to go. While Milanović was upbraided for his alleged impudence in daring to tread this holy ground with his unworthy feet, Mesić was denounced as being equally disrespectful by staying at home. His absence was seen as proof that he was ‘not the president of all citizens of Croatia’ (Despot 2008). It was implied that as head of state he ought to put in an appearance, in spite of the fact that his predecessor, Franjo Tudman, had never done so.  Mesić’s main reason for not going—or at least ‘not yet’—was that the commemorations were politicised. Echoing Fumić, the president maintained that the number of victims was manipulated and some people were ‘exploiting Bleiburg in order to spread hatred’ (Šimicević 2008). Mesić admitted that those who were handed over to the partisans in May 1945 should indeed be regarded as victims on the grounds that they had been killed without any due process of law, but the claim that they had been killed ‘simply because they were Croats’, he regarded as pure manipulation (Piškor 2008). At the same time, he pointed out, at Jasenovac people were indeed murdered simply for being Serbs, Jews or Roma. Furthermore, Mesić added, none of those who were killed in Jasenovac were responsible for what happened in Bleiburg, while those killed at Bleiburg may already have committed atrocities. Among those who had met their fate in Bleiburg were quite a few who had the blood of Jasenovac victims on their hands (Romac & Frlan 2007). Should he decide to go to Bleiburg in future, Mesić would hardly be greeted any more cordially than Zdravko Tomac and Vladimir Šeks had been. Two conflicting martyrologies: Bleiburg and Jasenovac Apparently, more than anything else, Mesić’s explicit comparison of Bleiburg and Jasenovac—to the detriment of the former—raised a very sensitive issue for many Croats. As Vjekoslav Perica (2002) and David Bruce MacDonald (2002, pp. 160–80) have pointed out, Bleiburg and Jasenovac relate to each other as myth and countermyth. The mythmakers on both sides feed on each other. In a sense, the outrageous exaggeration of the number of victims at Jasenovac in Titoist Yugoslavia 20 The idea that Milanović should visit the Austrian memorial field had originally been suggested to him by Slavko Goldstein. Author’s interview with Goldstein, Zagreb, 17 October 2008. Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 1166 PÅL KOLSTØ opened the flood gates for equally outlandish number juggling on the other side. Thus, for instance, a comment posted on the website of the centrist newspaper Ve cernji list after an article on Mesić’s refusal to go Bleiburg, ostensibly accepted the Titoist claim that 700,000 people died at Jasenovac. The post continued that ‘at Jasenovac the Ustasˇa have around 70,000 victims on their conscience, all races and nationalities included. The remaining 630,000 were killed by the partisans and communists’21 (i.e. that Bleiburg victims were taken to Jasenovac to be shot). It is difficult to assess whether this disingenuous claim was meant to be taken seriously or was simply spiteful hyperbole. Anonymous internet comments, even if posted on the pages of a serious daily such as Ve cernji list, are perhaps best ignored, but among the frequent comparisons drawn between Bleiburg and Jasenovac in the Croatian media some are indeed clearly meant to exonerate Ustasˇa crimes. Thus, in the monthly church publication Narod a certain Hrvoje Bošnjak in 2007 claimed that ‘it is impossible to compare Jasenovac and Bleiburg’, but then he proceeded to do precisely that (Bošnjak 2007, pp. 6–7); in Bošnjak’s interpretation, Bleiburg was a war crime while the Jasenovac camp was part of normal war fighting. The Serbs in Jasenovac were insurgents. In Jasenovac there were Serbs and communists who had either taken up arms or had connections to the Četniks or the partisans. Hence, they were people who had rebelled against the existing authorities at the time. It’s a great lie that Serbs were sent to Jasenovac simply because they were Serbs . . . The Jasenovac camp was in operation while the war lasted and should therefore be regarded as simply one of the harsh consequences of war, while the Bleiburg massacre took place when the war was over and was therefore pure revenge. Moreover, among the people who were killed at Bleiburg and the death marches many were youngsters with no idea about political ideologies such as fascism and communism: they were simply Croats who had fought for their Croatian homeland . . . They were killed simply in an attempt to eliminate Croats. Bleiburg is the most serious genocide in the history of the human race! (Bošnjak 2007, p. 6) The role of the Church The fact that Hrvoje Bošnjak’s article was published in a Church paper does not in itself prove that the Church as a body is in favour of rehabilitating the Ustasˇa. Within the Croatian Catholic Church various opinions can no doubt be found, including those that are highly critical of the Ustasˇa.22 We can nevertheless conclude that viewpoints such as those expressed in Narod not only do exist, but enjoy a certain protection within the Church and its milieu.23 The Croatian Church today takes an active, if not a leading role in the creation and dissemination of the Bleiburg myth. This is probably the main reason why this myth is cloaked in religious overtones and takes the form of a martyrology. 21 See http://groups.google.com/group/croatian-news/browse_thread/thread/6a10a0050b24ead9, accessed 8 September 2008. The claim is repeated by other commentators on the same site. 22 For a discussion of factions within the Croatian Catholic Church see Ramet (1985). 23 I picked up my own copies of this paper in the cathedral church of Hvar. Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 BLEIBURG: THE CREATION OF A NATIONAL MARTYROLOGY 1167 Since a requiem mass is an integral part of the Bleiburg event the Church has had an essential role in the commemorations from the very beginning. While the Church for a long time was represented by lower-level clergy only, in recent years it has significantly upgraded its patronage. In 2005, at the 60th anniversary of the Bleiburg massacre, the requiem mass was officiated for the first time by a Bishop and Cardinal, Vinko Cardinal Puljić of Upper Bosnia. Puljić also blessed the new memorial that had been constructed that year. Two years later the Archbishop of Zagreb and the head of the Croatian Church, Josip Cardinal Bozanić, celebrated the mass. Barring the presence of a papal nuncio or the Pope himself this was as high a representative as the Catholic Church could provide. The presence of Bozanić was also significant in the sense that he, unlike Puljić, is regarded as one of the moderates in the Church leadership (Držić 2005).24 This indicated that ‘the Bleiburg version’ of the Ustasˇa regime and the partisan crimes against it was accepted increasingly by the centre of the Church. It seems clear that in future the requiem mass at the Bleiburg commemoration will always be officiated by a Church dignitary at Episcopal level; in 2008 this was Bishop Slobodan Štambuk of Hvar and Brac. In that year it was also decided that henceforth the commemorations would take place on a Saturday rather than on a Sunday as had been the regular practice until then. The reason for this decision is telling: it would allow the presence of more clergy who would be busy with pastoral duties on Sundays (Ponoš 2008). In his speech at Bleiburg that year, Josip Frišcić, the vice speaker of the Sabor, characterised the role of the Church in keeping alive the memory of Bleiburg as ‘immeasurable’.25 In his sermon to the Bleiburg multitude in 2008, Bishop Štambuk justified his participation at the Bleiburg commemoration by reference to the intimate unity of fate that exists between the Church and the Croatian people: ‘I have been led here today by the Church which, using the language of the wedding celebration, is together with her people ‘‘in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health’’’.26 The solid presence of the Church at Bleiburg stood in sharp contrast to its virtual absence from the annual commemorations of the victims of fascism in Jasenovac, which each year takes place on 22 April or the closest Sunday. Only the local parish priest goes to Jasenovac, and he does not speak on behalf of the Church or perform any other official function there. Among parts of the Croatian public the absence of the Church hierarchy from the Jasenovac ceremony is regarded as conspicuous, if not to say scandalous, and strong pressure has been put on the prelates in general and on Cardinal Bozanić in particular to participate (Butković 2008).27 Bozanić, however, uses the very same argument for not going to Jasenovac as Mesić uses for not being present as Bleiburg: he cannot attend as long as the number of victims is being manipulated for political reasons. Rather than yielding to pressure to attend the ceremony at the concentration camp, Bozanić chose to broach the topic of Jasenovac 24 A noted authority on Croatian Church politics, Vjekoslav Perica, characterises Puljić as ‘an ethnonationalistic hawk’ (Perica 2002, p. 195). 25 ‘Ove godine u Bleiburgu još više ljudi u ustaškim odorama’, Vijesti, 17 May 2008, available at: http://www.index.hr/vijesti/clanak/ove-godine-u-bleiburgu-jos-vise-ljudi-u-ustaskim-odorama/ 387196.aspx, accessed 15 March 2010. 26 ‘Propovijed, Bleiburg, 17. svibnja 2008’, manuscript in author’s possession. 27 In the nationalist and ecclesiastical press this pressure is denounced as a ‘witch hunt’ (hajka) (Pandža 2007). 1168 PÅL KOLSTØ in his 2007 sermon at Bleiburg. Here he characterised Jasenovac as ‘a shameful blot’, ‘an atrocity’, and one of ‘Croatia’s greatest misfortunes’.28 In the press this statement was interpreted as ‘a responsible and intelligent political move’: Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 We can be sure that many of those who were present did not want to hear this. There can be no doubt that parts of the Croatian right not only want to minimalise the atrocities that were committed in the NDH and the atrocious nature of that state itself. They even think that the Jasenovac camp was no atrocity at all but a legitimate defensive means measure against the communists and the Četniks. (Butković 2007, p. 21)29 Indeed, as we have seen, this viewpoint has been openly expressed in articles in the Church paper Narod, in an issue that, ironically, also carried Bozanić’s sermon in extenso.30 In any case, Jasenovac was not the main issue in Bozanić’s sermon at Bleiburg. At much greater length he discussed how Croatians today should relate to the May 1945 massacre. On this point, the Cardinal’s message was ambiguous: on the one hand he called for reconciliation, on the other, for naming and condemning the perpetrators: How is it that 60 years after the horrible atrocity, in spite of the fact that there is still a reasonable number of witnesses and collected testimonies, and even though it is evident from a multitude of facts what actually happened, still nobody has been held responsible? That still the names of those who gave the orders for this and of those who executed them remain unknown? How is it that we still—if not at the level of specifics then at least on a principal level—cannot hear a clear condemnation of the fact that here divine and human rights were trampled under foot, and that this was done against the Croatian people? . . . It is terrible to contemplate that all these years murderers have been living with us and still do.31 Other Catholic voices in the debate over Bleiburg have put the questions of responsibility and guilt even more sharply. In 2008, an official statement published in the Church weekly Glas koncila by the umbrella organisations of religious orders in Croatia once again asked why these crimes had not been investigated and brought to court. Could it be, they asked, that this was a mysterium iniquitatis?32 This Latin expression from the Vulgate Bible is taken from the Second Epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians (2:7), where St Paul talks about ‘the man of lawlessness’ and his evil deeds. This man, whom the apostle also calls ‘the son of perdition’, will at the end of time take his seat in 28 ‘Povjesni govor kardinala Bozanića na Bleiburškom polju’, Narod, May 2007, p. 5. Bozanić was here quoting a letter by Alojzije Cardinal Stepinac to Ante Pavelić during World War II. 29 See also ‘Bozanić: Žurno istražiti zlocine u Jasenovcu i Bleiburgu’, Novi list, 14 May 2007. It should be noted that Bozanić was not the first priest to bring up the topic of Jasenovac at Bleiburg. This had been done already in 2001 by military chaplain Nikola Mate Rošcić. See Lovrić (2001, p. 2). 30 In an interview with the author, the editor of Narod, Ante Baković, emphatically stated that ‘[the Ustasˇa] were not Fascists. They were not Nazis. They were Croats who wanted their own state’. Interview with the author, Zagreb, 16 October 2008. 31 ‘Propovijed Kardinala Josipa Bozanića u Župnoj Crkvi u Jasenovcu: Žrtve Nas obvezuju na Traženje Istine’, Glas Koncila, 4 October 2009, available at: http://www.Glas-Koncila.Hr/ Rubrike_Izdvojeno.Html?News_Id¼17472, accessed 15 March 2010. 32 ‘Službeno priopćenje HUVRP-a i HKVRP-a’, Glas Koncila, 4 May 2008. Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 BLEIBURG: THE CREATION OF A NATIONAL MARTYROLOGY 1169 the temple of God and proclaim himself to be God. In the Christian tradition this eschatological figure has been identified with the Antichrist that St John writes about in his Revelation. By introducing the theme of mysterium iniquitatis, or ‘mystery of iniquity’, the Croatian religious orders lifted the Bleiburg massacre up from a criminal to an apocalyptical level. Finally, Bozanić did go to Jasenovac in 2009. However, rather than participating at the official commemorations in April, he conducted a pilgrimage to the concentration camp in September with no less than 300 priests and bishops. He went to pray and to honour the dead, but not, as he emphasised, to ask for forgiveness, since the Catholic Church had not been a part of or involved in the Ustasˇa regime. He would not, he asserted, engage in discussions and polemics; nevertheless, in his sermon Bozanić condemned not only the Ustasˇa, but also ‘the ideological blindness and horror of the partisans and the communist power holders under Tito, who, even to this day, under the mask of antifascism does not want to acknowledge or take responsibility for its inhumanity, which is on a par with Nazism’.33 As he had done at Bleiburg, he acknowledged that not only the partisans but also the Ustasˇa had committed horrible crimes, but Bozanić now insisted on equating the partisans with the Ustasˇa on the very spot where some of the worst Ustasˇa atrocities had been committed. The stations of the cross: a Croatian imitatio Christi As pointed out above, very few people were killed at Bleiburg, and it is inaccurate to use the name of ‘Bleiburg’ as a symbol of the killings of Ustasˇa soldiers and other NDH supporters after World War II. Very often, therefore, the killings are referred to by the somewhat longer name ‘Bleiburg and the death marches’. In Croatian, the commonly accepted expression is not ‘putovi smrti’, which literally means ‘death marches’, but ‘krizˇni putovi’, or ‘stations of the cross’. While the designation ‘death marches’ is strongly associated with the gruesome evacuation of Nazi concentration camps at the end of World War II, ‘krizˇni putovi’ is a term with strong religious overtones. In Catholic spirituality ‘the stations of the cross’ refers to a very specific phenomenon, namely the 14 stages of the journey that Jesus made to his death, which can be found in every Catholic Church. Each station signifies a certain stage on the road to Calvary. The faithful are invited to move around the church from one station to another and contemplate on the pains and sorrow that Jesus experienced at each stage. When the expression ‘stations of the cross’ is used to refer to any other event than the crucifixion in a Catholic setting, the original biblical narrative cannot fail to resonate. Applied to the death marches in May 1945 through Slovenia and Croatia, it draws a rather explicit parallel between the suffering of Christ and the sufferings of the Bleiburg victims. When I have discussed the expression ‘stations of the cross’ with Croatian Catholics, they have emphatically denied that it should be interpreted as any kind of identification between Jesus and the Croatian people. Even so, in Bishop Štambuk’s 33 ‘Propovijed Kardinala Josipa Bozanića U Župnoj Crkvi u Jasenovcu: Žrtve Nas Obvezuju Na Traženje Istine’, Glas Koncila, 4 October 2009, available at: http://www.glas-Koncila.Hr/Rubrike_ Izdvojeno.Html?News_Id=17472, accessed on 23 June 2010. Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 1170 FIGURE 4. THE CHASUBLE WORN PÅL KOLSTØ BY THE OFFICIATING PRIEST SERVICE AT THE BLEIBURG COMMEMORATION sermon at Bleiburg in May 2008 this expression is a basic structuring element. ‘What is Bleiburg?’ the bishop asked, and he answered: ‘It is the first station of the cross. At the first station Pilate condemned Jesus to death’. Similarly, at Bleiburg the sons of Croatia were condemned to death, he explained. Their mothers waited for them, prayed, and cried. The bishop then read from a famous Catholic hymn, Stabat Master Dolorosa, which dwells on the sufferings of the Virgin Mary at the crucifixion,34 and he drew a direct parallel between the mother of Christ and the mothers of the dead soldiers. Finally, in his sermon the bishop extended the concept of ‘Bleiburg’ to also cover the sufferings of the entire Croatian people after the war. To Bishop Štambuk, ‘Bleiburg’ is a symbol of all that followed during 45 years of communist rule, and he claimed, is continuing even today, in independent Croatia.35 On the new chasuble worn by the officiating priest at Bleiburg, Jesus is depicted with a banner embroidered in the Croatian colours and checkerboard pattern (see Figure 4). In this iconography the identification of Christ and the Croatian nation is virtually complete. Conclusion The religious rhetoric surrounding the Bleiburg commemorations is pervasive. The participants are referred to as ‘pilgrims’ and the field itself has been called ‘a holy 34 ‘Stala placuć tužna Mati/Gledala je kako pati/Sin joj na Križ uzdignut!’ ‘Propovijed, Bleiburg, 17. svibnja 2008’, manuscript in author’s possession. 35 Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 BLEIBURG: THE CREATION OF A NATIONAL MARTYROLOGY 1171 place’. In his sermon in 1993, Father Tomislav Duka talked about the ‘heavenly sacrifice of Croatian youth 48 years ago’ at ‘this altar of sacrifice’ (zˇrtvenik).36 Religious language, however, is not restricted to the men of the Church. It is used also by politicians and by contemporary spokespersons of the Ustasˇa movement. In 1990, at the first commemoration ceremony that was reported by Croatian journalists, one of the speakers, Srecko Pšenicnik, claimed that the spirit of the dead Ustasˇa soldiers would lead to ‘a new Croatian resurrection’ (Tuden  1990). Pšenicnik was the leader of ‘the Croatian Independence Movement’—a movement established by Ante Pavelić in Spain in 1956.37 In contrast to most others addressing the Bleiburg pilgrims, Pšenicnik did not shy away from calling the Bleiburg victims ‘Ustasˇa’. Sometimes, the expression ‘a Croatian holocaust’ is used to emphasise the monstrosity of Bleiburg (Omrcanin 1986; McDonald 2002, pp. 170–72; Držić 2005). More typically, however, the metaphors and epithets are taken from the Christian, Catholic vocabulary. Bleiburg is ‘the Calgary of the Croatian people’. In his speech in 1995—on the 50th anniversary of the Bleiburg massacre—speaker of the Sabor Nedjeljko Mihanović started by describing Bleiburg as ‘the Holocaust of Croatian Martyrs, who sacrificed their lives for the idea of Croatian statehood’. He went on to say that Bleiburg and the victims of the stations of the cross were one gigantic martyrdom of the Croatian people. The martyrdom and innocent suffering at Bleiburg laid the foundation for today’s national rebirth: If according to the old Christian saying the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church, then we can say that the blood of the sacrificed Croatian martyrs has become the seed of Croatian energy, Croatian state building, consciousness, patriotism, and heroism.38 There are probably several reasons why Bleiburg has become a cornerstone of a religiously coated Croatian nationalism. For one thing, the killing of the repatriated NDH soldiers was indeed a war crime of very large proportions. As Jozo Tomasevich reminds us, the annihilation of most quisling troops captured at the end of the war—which is a fact—was an act of mass terror and brutal political surgery, similar to that practiced by the Ustashas and the Chetniks earlier in the war. (Tomasevich 2001, p. 766) The question nevertheless remains: how has it been possible to gloss over the fact that a number of the men who were killed were themselves killers? An important part of the answer is clearly the fact that whatever crimes they had committed, in a technical sense they were innocent victims by dint of being killed without due process of law. Furthermore, while the atrocities committed by the Ustasˇa and the Četniks were covered in great detail in the Titoist press, often grossly exaggerated, information about the Bleiburg massacre was suppressed. This fact is used in Croatia today as a 36 ‘Neka Bleiburg ujedinjuje, a ne razdvaja’, Novi list, 10 May 1993, p. 3. The Bleiburg commemorations had been supported by ‘the Croatian Independence Movement’ ever since its foundation. See Pavlaković (2008, p. 21). 38 ‘Ostvarili smo snove’, Slobodna Dalmacija, 15 May 1995, p. 2. 37 Downloaded by [Pål Kolstø] at 05:41 22 June 2012 1172 PÅL KOLSTØ justification for giving priority to the Bleiburg commemoration over the victims of fascism. As Bishop Štambuk claims, ‘one cannot compare the victims who have been talked about and those who have not and about whom there has been only silence’.39 Now, in independent Croatia, the time has finally come for the victims of partisan terror to be remembered, which in effect also means that they are not only being exonerated and rehabilitated but turned into martyrs of the nation. The Bleiburg commemoration started as an old comrades’ gathering of former Ustasˇa and other NDH soldiers. When political pluralism was introduced in Croatia in the early 1990s and it became possible for Croatian citizens to participate, the Bleiburg cause was picked up by the political right. Ivo Goldstein has suggested that one of the reasons why Croatian nationalists have flocked to Bleiburg and turned it into an event of national proportions is that they have few other good causes or charismatic figures to rally around. Bleiburg was chosen for want of a better unifying symbol.40 While this may well be the case, this clearly is not the whole story. As a journalist of Novi list noted in 2001: ‘Bleiburg is close to becoming a place of national consensus’ (Lovrić 2001, p. 2). An indication of this is the fact that the Bleiburg ceremony in May each year is broadcast live on television. Thus, we also need to answer the question of how it has been possible to expand the support of the Bleiburg commemorations to include mainstream, centrist Croatian society, that is, people who would otherwise loath being associated with the Ustasˇa. An important part of the answer to this, I think, is the crucial role played by the Croatian Catholic Church. The Church has tried to turn the Bleiburg massacre into a national cause. Articles in Glas koncila describe Bleiburg as ‘the greatest tragedy of the Croatian people throughout its 1300 year history’ (Vuković 2007) and give 250,000 as the number of victims (Vuković 2009). The massacre is no longer interpreted in political terms but is regarded by most of the clergy and many of the lay members of the Croatian Church as an attack on the entire Croatian people. While important segments of the Church clearly embrace a rightist and ultranationalist ideology, the Church as an institution is nevertheless widely respected in contemporary Croatian society. What the Church leadership endorses is regarded as acceptable. University of Oslo References Anzulovic, B. (1999) Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide (London, Hurst & Co.). Bajruši, R. (2008) ‘SDP-u je mjesto na Bleiburgu’, Nacional, 28 August. Bašić, B. (1998) ‘Hoće li se suditi odgovornima za bleiburške zlocine?’, Vjesnik, 4 May. 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