The Book of Srbo

Tuzla Convoy Massacre

On May 15, 1992, Muslim paramilitaries in Tuzla, Bosnia, ambushed and massacred close to 200 soldiers of the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA), who were withdrawing from the city in accord with the pre-arranged agreement between the JNA commanders and the Tuzla authorities. 

The convoy, leaving the ”Husinska Buna” barracks as agreed, was moving out of the city and towards Serbia, when the Muslim paramilitaries of the Patriotic League and Green Berets, as well as the regular police units, attacked it from set position around the Brčanska Malta junction. Initially firing from rooftops with sniper rifles, automatic weaponry and rocket-propelled grenades, Muslim paramilitaries demolished the convoy, burning trucks with men in them, shooting soldiers as they were trying to escape fire and, as the onslaught went on, executing them at close range, even the wounded. 

The evidence that the attack was premeditated despite the agreement was not only the nature of the attack - the set ambush - but also the fact that the main TV station in Tuzla had a live, studio-anchored coverage of the massacre.

The exact number of the killed has never been determined. Families of the victims still experience physical and verbal abuse at the hands of Tuzla residents when they attempt to lay wreaths the place of the massacre, 20 years later. Tuzla celebrates May 15 as its liberation day, although the JNA was not an occupier of the city, but the national armed force prior to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s independence being recognized by the Western powers five weeks earlier. In accord with this recognition, the JNA was slated to withdraw from the republic.

Ilija Jurišić, a local Croat, was the only person convicted of taking part in this war crime and sentenced to 12 years in prison, but the Appellate Court in Belgrade revoked the sentence to appease the Western interests friendly to the government in Sarajevo.

This massacre was the second major attack on the withdrawing JNA troops in two weeks, following a similar attack in the Dobrovoljačka Street in Sarajevo. It triggered the inter-ethnic conflict in the last remaining peaceful area of Bosnia.

Photosource: sr.wikipedia.org

The May Assembly and the Proclamation of Serb Voivodeship

Beginning May 13, 1848, (May 1, per Julian calendar, then in effect), leaders of the Serbs of southern Hungary met in Sremski Karlovci, at the historical May Assembly, to form Srbska Vojvodina (“the Serb Voivodeship”) and declare its autonomy from the Hungarian parliament.

The Metropolitan of Karlovci, Josif Rajačić, was raised to the level of Serbian Patriarch. Đorđe Stratimirović was elected vožd (the political leader) and colonel Stevan Šupljikac vojvoda (the military leader). The Serb Voivodeship comprised of Srem with the Frontier region, Baranja, Bačka and Banat. 

Remaining loyal to the Austrian emperor, the Serb Assembly compiled a list of political freedoms they demanded, such as local autonomy, use of language, Serbian schools, religious rights etc. Hungarians outright condemned the May Assembly decision, while Romanians sided with them. Croats sided with the Serbs and Patriarch Rajačić installed the newly elected Josip Jelačić as Croatian Ban. Most importantly, Emperor Franz Joseph rejected the Serb autonomy.

Instead, in 1849, the Emperor, to repay for the Serbian service in his war against the Hungarians, established Voivodeship of Serbia and Banat of Timisoara as a region autonomous from the Hungarian Parliament, and directly subjected to Vienna. This new entity was not comprised of the lands of the original Serb Voivodeship and the Serbs were a minority in it. It was abolished in 1860.

The Serb Vojvodina formed in the May Assembly, whose ultimate goal was the unification with Serbia, served as a pretense for the Communist creation of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina within the Socialist Republic of Serbia in 1974. While the original Vojvodina intended to win autonomy from the Hungarian authorities for its Serbs and eventually annex their lands to Serbia, the Communist Vojvodina was created to dismember and weaken Serbia.

Photosource: sr.wikipedia.org

Great Serbs: Laza Lazarević

Laza Lazarević, one of the most significant author of short stories in the 19th century Serbia, was born on May 13, in Šabac. Lazarević was a physician and, in his relatively short life - he died at 40 - he published only nine short stories. He was a literary realist and was considered the founder of Serbian psychological short story.

His stories are abundant in motives of Serbian patriarchal and family life. Eight of his short stories were left unfinished. He did some translation work and his medical career culminated when he became the personal physician of king Milan in 1889.

Lazarević died on January 10, 1891.