Stevan Moljević

Dr Stevan Moljević (1888-1959) was a Serbian lawyer from Banja Luka, who participated in the Chetnik uprising in Second World War. Serbian historians claim that Moljević had minuscule influence on Serbian political thought and Chetnik ideology: for example, catalogue of the National Library of Serbia doesn't list any work by him and has a single monography on him, which could be contrasted with an influential ideologue of the time, such as Nikolaj Velimirović (326 works by him, 94 on him) or even a marginally influential, such as Dimitrije Ljotić (53 works by him, 16 on him). However, some Bosnian and Croatian historians claim that he was a major ideologue of the movement, pointing out that his exposition at the Chetnik St Sava Congress held in January 1944 at the village of Ba, near Gornji Milanovac and Ravna Gora, was adopted as a congress resolution.

On 30 June 1941, Moljević published a booklet with the title "On Our State and Its Borders". He proposed a future federal Yugoslav state composed of three units: Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. The Serbian unit was to include Bosnia, Mostar (Herzegovina), parts of Croatia (Metkovic, Sibenik, Zadar, Ploce, Dubrovnik, Karlovac, Osijek, Vinkovci, Vukovar), as well as Pécs (Hungary), Timişoara (Romania), Vidin and Kyustendil (Bulgaria), the entire Macedonia and North Albania. The Moljević programme envisaged autonomy or special status for the city of Dubrovnik and surrounding areas and the Croat dominated area of Western Herzegovina, within the structure of the Greater Serbian state.

During trials held in communist Yugoslavia in 1946, Moljević was one of those convicted with war crimes along with Draža Mihailović. He was implicated as a member of Mihailović's General Staff of having committed treason and war crimes. Moljević was found to be guilty, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He died in jail in Sremska Mitrovica in 1959.

Connection to the Yugoslav Wars

The significance of the Moljević plan is elucidated in the ICTY trial of the Prosecutor v. Tadic. Case No. IT-94-1-T. In this trial, the various iterations of plans for a Greater Serbia were discussed and tendered into evidence. From the hearing in closed session that was released by Trial Chamber II on 13 October 1996 - "In Moljevic's work Homogenous Serbia of 1941, Stevan Moljevic proposed the areas which would be included in greater Serbia outside the borders of Serbia in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia before World War II." The western borders defined by Moljević were of paramount importance for the prosecutor in this particular case, because they coincided with the borders defined by the JNA during the Yugoslav Wars, that is, the border on which it established its front line would be Karlovac, Virovitica, Karlobag. Moljević did not explain how the non-Serb population would be moved out. In his work "Homogenous Serbia", he simply said that the matter had to be solved. It was Milan Nedic who developed Moljević's program further and titled his work "ethno-graphic problem of Serbia", in which he emphasised that the Muslims constituted a special problem and had detailed quotas by municipality for them. The prosecution tendered this as the basis of an ideological plan that underpinned the treatment of the Bosnian Muslims that was witnessed in the Bosnian War.

Quotes

*"One must take the opportunity of the war conditions and at a suitable moment take hold of the territory marked on the map, cleanse it before anybody notices and with strong battalions occupy the key places: Osijek, Vinkovci, Slavonski Brod, Knin, Šibenik, Mostar, Metković and the territory surrounding these cities, freed of non-Serb elements. The guilty must be promptly punished and the others deported - the Croats to Croatia, the Muslims to Turkey or perhaps Albania - while the vacated territory is settled with Serb refugees now located in Serbia."

ee also

*Virovitica-Karlovac-Karlobag line

References

* [http://www.ccmr-bg.org/analize/istrazivanja/research13.htm The Partisan-Chetnik conflict in World War II by Dr Milan Terzić]
* [http://www.helsinki.org.yu/charter_text.php?lang=en&idteksta=1495 Anti-Fascism Denied: Moljevic in “Memorandum” by Dragoljub Todorovic]

External links

* [http://www.un.org/icty/transe1/960531ed.htm Evidence from the ICTY trial Case No. IT-94-1-T that details Stevan Moljevic's Greater Serbia plan]
* [http://www.hic.hr/books/greatserbia/moljevic.htm GREATER SERBIA from Ideology to Aggression - Stevan Moljevic Homogeneous Serbia (1941)]