This article was downloaded by:[Swets Content Distribution]On: 16 March 2008Access Details: [subscription number 768307933]Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Totalitarian Movements and PoliticalReligionsPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713636813

'Union or Death!': Gavrilo Princip, Young Bosnia and theRole of 'Sacred Time' in the Dynamics of NationalistTerrorismPaul Jackson aa Oxford Brookes University,

Online Publication Date: 01 March 2006To cite this Article: Jackson, Paul (2006) ''Union or Death!': Gavrilo Princip, YoungBosnia and the Role of 'Sacred Time' in the Dynamics of Nationalist Terrorism',Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 7:1, 45 - 65To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/14690760500477935

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14690760500477935

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

This article maybe used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction,re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expresslyforbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will becomplete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should beindependently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with orarising out of the use of this material.

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions,Vol. 7, No. 1, 45–65, March 2006

ISSN 1469-0764 Print/ISSN 1743-9647 Online/06/010045-21 © 2006 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/14690760500477935

‘Union or Death!’: Gavrilo Princip, Young Bosnia and the Role of ‘Sacred Time’ in the Dynamics of Nationalist Terrorism

PAUL JACKSON

Oxford Brookes UniversityTaylor and Francis LtdFTMP_A_147776.sgm10.1080/14690760500477935Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions1469-0764 (print)/1743-9647 (online)Original Article2006Taylor & Francis Group Ltd71000000Summer 2006PaulJacksonOxford Brookes UniversityOxfordEnglandpnjackson@brookes.ac.uk

ABSTRACT This article seeks to investigate the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdi-nand from the ideological perspective of his assassins: the Young Bosnia movement. Morespecifically, it views Young Bosnia’s ideology as a form of political religion. It begins byconstructing an ideal-typically defined syndrome of how radicalised, counter-hegemonicideologies draw on senses of the numinous as part of their praxis. The article argues thatthrough this lens we can enrich our understanding of the movement’s ideologicaldynamic. By taking as a point of departure the Young Bosnia’s conception of culturaltime, which they believed to be unstable, the article argues that the movement promoted amental state that demanded the need to act out what were perceived as personally heroicand socially redemptive fantasies. To the members of Young Bosnia, these fantasies,dramatising individual and societal redemption, were understood as narratives ofrenewal, or ‘palingenesis’. Following a theoretical discussion exploring this syndromeideal-typically, the model is then used to generate a reading of the ideology thatunderpinned the Young Bosnia movement. After this, the article turns its attention toFerdinand’s killer, Gavrilo Princip, and the cohort helping to carry out the assassination.This grouping’s willingness to commit suicide after completing their ‘mission’ was, thearticle argues, the product of a host of mythopoeic resources drawn upon by the YoungBosnia movement in order to elaborate a palingenetic ideology. Further, it claims thattheir actions provide an excellent case study in which one can see how a broad synthesis ofsocialist, Marxist and nationalist ideologies, alongside poetic resources, each induced thepalingenetic condition in the assassins. Finally, it provides an explanatory framework thatallows us to interpret how this ideology could justify political violence both against othersand against their own persons.

Introduction

Although the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand has been the object ofmuch historiographical attention, little theoretical interest has been given to theimportance of the cult of self-sacrifice and martyrdom conditioning his killers,therefore precipitating the momentous events that followed. In fact, the willing-ness of the assassins to sacrifice their own lives for the higher cause of the nation

Correspondence Address: Oxford Brookes University, Oxford OX3 0BP. Email: pnjackson@brookes.ac.uk

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

46 P. Jackson

was an integral aspect of their ideologically motivated violence. This article seeksto redress this neglect by moving beyond commonplace views of the actions ofGavrilo Princip and his accomplices as secular nationalist terrorists, and insteadexplores the role that sacralised elements played in the nationalist ideology ofPrincip and his cohort. It argues that they can be viewed as manifesting elementsof the modern ‘palingenetic condition’ – a cultural climate that fosters projects forimagined futures that are designed to bring about fundamental political andcultural rebirth to resolve a sense of degeneration perceived to characterise in thepresent. Further, the extreme nationalism of Princip constituted a form of ‘politi-cal religion’ because it was a fusion of politics with a type of faith associated withmetaphysical religion that generated an ideological dynamic in which the selfcould be ‘transcended’ and sacrificed in order to serve the perceived needs of thecommunity.1 The following also draws on a theory of the way the sense of asupra-personal mission radically alters an individual’s perception of personaltime and mortality, which has led to the postulation of the need for a new sub-discipline, ‘chrono-ethology’, that studies human behaviour through theperspective of time.2 In this article, I shall briefly outline the categories of thisideal-typically constructed heuristic tool before using it to generate a ‘chrono-ethological’ reading of the motives behind Franz Ferdinand’s assassination.

Sacrificial Violence in Relation to ‘Chrono-Ethology’: A Summary

The desire that someone should pay the debt of sacrificial death andredeem the world to new innocence: this eternal dream of mankind mayrise to murder, this eternal dream may rise to clairvoyance. All knowl-edge waivers between the dreamt wish and the foreshadowing dream, allknowledge of the redeeming sacrifice and the kingdom of salvation.3

Hermann Broch, The Sleepwalkers

There does not exist within academia a single conceptual paradigm to understandterrorist and fanatical behaviour, merely a range of more or less heuristically usefulones. The anthropological thrust of a ‘chrono-ethological’ perspective argues thatreligious and ideological fanaticisms are linked to the subjective understanding ofan individual’s relationship with (a) phenomenological, ‘personal’ time, whichbegins at birth and ends at death, and (b) a shared sense of cultural, ‘communal’time, which begins with the creation of a society and ends with its demise. Both ofthese can be infused with meaning not only through ‘rational’ thought, but alsothrough what are, essentially, mythopoeic thought patterns. The model’s underly-ing thesis argues that we can present a simplified representation of humanconsciousness as a system that has the inbuilt ability to experience ‘personal’ and‘communal’ conceptions of time in two qualitatively different ways. First, they canbe viewed in a state of rectilinear chronos – the sense of a stable flow from past tofuture, present in periods of political stability – and secondly in terms of a periodof kairos, which people can become sensitive to during periods of perceived oractual political crisis, and during which the ‘normal’ sense of continuity betweenthe past and future needed to generate a sense of political and social stabilityappear temporarily suspended. In this second temporal state, scenarios emphasis-ing contingency and crisis are bought to the fore in debates; the sense of living

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

‘Sacred Time’ in the Dynamics of Nationalist Terrorism 47

during a moment of historical opportunity is given privileged status over accept-ing the status quo when formulating ideological praxis; action is motivated by aguiding ideology that draws on inspiring events from the past to reconceptualisethe future; and through what is perceived to be altruistic behaviour, the individualcan feel renewed connections to senses of the sacred.

This bifurcation is admittedly a gross simplification, yet it is within an exponen-tial psychological elaboration of connections to the notion of a moment of oppor-tunity, or kairos, in the individual and communal awareness of time that we canlocate the rationale of the self-immolating fanatic. Within academia, theorists haverepeatedly constructed models that acknowledge this phenomenological distinc-tion between a profane time and a ‘higher’ sacred time, even though empiricalevidence for this assertion may be elusive. These have included Walter Benjamin’snotion of reconnecting with myths of past revolutions in order to motivate thedynamics of Marxist revolutionary thought. As outlined in his Thesis on the Philos-ophy of History, Benjamin’s idea was that revolutionaries would become sensitiveto ‘chips of Messianic time’ that would give access to a sense of historical missionand secularised sense of sacred action. This sensitivity would enable one to gener-ate a profound and selective reading of the past that would highlight myriadhistoric events that each dramatise fundamental changes, and in combinationthese would form a constellation of messages that would inspire revolutionaryaction in the present. He contrasted this sense of living at a moment infused withrevolutionary possibility with ‘homogenous, empty time’ of everyday life. Thelatter was to be eschewed by the good Marxist, who should formulate a praxis thattapped into these chips of ‘Messianic time’, and their associated ‘higher’ calling.4

In a less polemical exploration of this archetype, Frank Kermode’s lectureseries, The Sense of an Ending, again draws out this distinction between rectilinearchronos and a time of opportunity, or kairos. His thesis sketches out a temporalmodel in which the second category has great heuristic value in interpreting therepeated occurrences of senses of the apocalyptic found in the literature, culturalmilieus and political ideologies of societies marked by modernity. Those person-ally experiencing a moment of kairos perceive a selected view of the past as a sortof guiding light shining into the future, one that projects into the future a coun-terfactual scenario that, at bottom, is utopian insofar as it offers a profound imageof hope emerging from a state of despair. In such times, the present is viewed as,somehow, ‘out of joint’,5 a liminal time in between historical epochs. In contrastto senses of personal and communal time characterised by an impression of chro-nos – which places the founding myths of society safely in the past, and the apoc-alyptic narratives of its demise in the distant future, thereby placing thecommunity ‘within’ a discrete historical epoch – kairos suggests the imminent, oreven immanent, ‘sense of an ending’ of an old order that engenders the opportu-nity for a fundamental paradigm shift in the political and cultural hegemony, anda termination of the status quo.6 It is therefore an unstable period that offers thepotential for new founding myths for a society to develop and old ones to bedestroyed. Other theorists and philosophers who have identified similar sensesof the sacred and profane in temporal experiences, and who have seen these asmanifestations of hope-filled myths projecting forms of utopianism into thefuture and that emerge from despair, include Ernst Cassirer,7 Mercia Eliade,8

Joseph Campbell,9 Ernst Bloch10 and Jacques Derrida,11 each in possession of hisown particular philosophical point of departure, terminological details andanalytical peculiarities.

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

48 P. Jackson

To this distinction between chronos and kairos in ‘personal’ and ‘cultural’constructions of time, we can add to our model the notion of ‘projectivenarratives’, that is, the means of rationalising ‘personal time’. In short, these arethe existential narratives (the stories individuals tell about their lives in order tonarrate meaningful links between their past experiences and their future aspira-tions) that form the psychological connections of identity between the self andcommunities. As with crises in ‘communal time’, crises in ‘personal time’ lead tothe cultivation of ideas that draw out a sense of kairos rather than chronos. In orderfor the types of ideologies that emerge during a period of perceived kairos andpresent hope for their followers to function, their thinking must be directedtowards fundamental change in the near future, and specifically they must createutopian counterfactual scenarios for their adherents’ future selves, alongsidesociety to which they identify, potentially to inhabit. At bottom, the self andcommunal narratives are inherently intertwined, and they allow the fanatic tonarrate their future conduct in a matrix that will have agency over the politicalfuture of the society to which they identify. In many ways, this is common featureof human psychology, and as true of the political fanatic as any other politicallyconscious actor. Consequently, from this perspective Griffin argues against theview that fanatics are committing pathological acts:

most acts of political fanaticism, far from being pathological (‘awry’) inthemselves, are extreme examples of quintessential human capacity tostructure ‘real’ life on the basis of narrative fictions. Indeed human lifemay well be literally unliveable without a shifting kaleidoscope of plansgoals, ideals, myths, fantasies, obsessions and utopias that togetherconstitute maps of reality that have more in common with the phantas-magorical elucubrations of medieval cartographers than satellite-basedtopographies available to modern geographers. In this context the‘fanatic’ is only an extreme example of perfectly normal human beings.12

The distinction between the ‘normal’ psychology and that of the fanatic can befound in the fact that the existential narratives that are generated by the fanaticare highly influenced by mythopoeic tropes that shape their perception of theworld in particular stark fashions. These tropes create in the fanatic the sense ofone’s life being locked into a predetermined narrative structure, thereby inculcat-ing a sense of mission and destiny in the individual’s motivation for action, andportraying the fanatic as an active agent who takes a personal and communal‘story’ to its logical conclusion. One can argue that, in order to deduce the motivesof the political fanatic, we must attempt to extract from extant data what theirperceptions of these ‘stories’ were. ‘Chrono-ethology’ argues that the threemythopoeic tropes of greatest significance to the narration of fanatical politicalactivity are (a) the self as an archetypal hero, (b) the sacrifice of something ofprofound value, including the fanatic’s own life, and (c) the myth of societalrebirth. To summarise briefly the dynamics of these recurring mythic structuresin relation to an attempt to suspend a sense of personal and cultural chronos, andactivate sensitivity to kairos, at least for an esoteric vanguard, let us start with themyth of the hero.

The important element of the hero myth in relation to ‘chrono-ethology’ lies inits extraordinary mythopoeic resonance in linking the self to a wider sense ofregeneration. Their employment in the stories narrating the creation of new

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

‘Sacred Time’ in the Dynamics of Nationalist Terrorism 49

worlds (cosmogonic myths) is a reoccurring theme among the creation myths ofmany belief structures. For example, Prometheus’s theft of fire from the Gods, orMoses’ leadership of the Israelites from Egypt and subsequent reception of theTen Commandments, can both be seen as figures possessing this quality. Otherprophetic figures can be seen similarly, at least for those ‘outside’ these mytholog-ical and theological paradigms, as reoccurrences of the same underlying arche-type: the offering of spiritual regeneration to a cultural milieu throughinspirational and heroic activity of a ‘chosen’ individual. In his exhaustive studyof this archetype, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell proposes a‘monomyth’ as shorthand for this recurring pattern:

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a religion ofsupernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a deci-sive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventurewith the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.13

In the process of purifying and sacralising their political and cultural milieus – notto mention their desire to destroy the hegemonic political authorities – politicalfanatics may be seen to narrate their own activity as endless permutations of thissacralising ‘monomyth’, or archetype. Through this process, fanatics can perceivethemselves as key players in the metamorphosis, or rather palingenesis, of thecommunity to which they identify. Their ‘boon’ to their fellow man is to changetheir society from one governed by an alienating hegemony, whose effects areperceived as degenerative and contaminating for the community, to one perceivedas regenerated. Further, the various events perpetrated by an individual oresoteric group of fanatics may also hold the potential to key into the more generaldesires of their community, though this is contingent on a wider willingness toempathise with the fanatic’s ideology. Therefore, the use of familiar points ofcultural reference is also key to creating a politics with a sense of common identitythat, by drawing from a sense of a communal past, guides action in the present inorder to reshape fundamentally the community’s future.

This hero myth can also merge with the notion of ritualised self-sacrifice as anintegral part of ascetic, selfless behaviour underpinning the hero’s quest: tobecome truly fearless, one must go beyond death by accepting oneself as alreadydead. This selflessness therefore creates the ‘hero’ prepared to sacrifice his or herown life for a perceived ‘higher’ cause. This elision is a reoccurring phenomenonof fanatical violence, and can be seen in manifold permutations of the spiritualand the violent throughout history. Examples of this include the Japanese Samu-rai and the Native American Brave; warriors who find the idea of self-sacrifice in‘holy war’ traditions found in the crusades or in jihad; and the nationalisedpermutations of sacred heroic action, such as the deeds of the Japanese Kamikazepilots during the Second World War, or the Romanian Iron Guard ‘nests’.Although the metaphysical nuances of each group are highly diverse, thecommon factor lies in their members’ perception of themselves as a part of a‘heroic’ elite within their society. As a part of this elite, they are prepared to die inbattle as a vanguard fighting for a cause that extends beyond the material realm,in its full magnitude, and offers the ability for a special type of immortality forthose whose lives are sacrificed to their ‘higher’ cause. This sense of living out therole of a communal hero is appealing to the fanatic as it offers the ability toperceive of their praxis as manifesting all the key qualities of a legendary ‘hero’

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

50 P. Jackson

who is operating in the present – rather than merely fantasising about such activi-ties – and will offer them a powerful sense of giving birth to a new age. It therebycombines a highly selfish drive for personal immortality through the culturalmemory of legends and so forth, and also, potentially, an eternal metaphysical‘home’ of some description, alongside a deeply altruistic aspect redeeming notmerely the self but an entire society, and for the fanatic bringing a sense of chronosback to society. This sense of dying to oneself to be reborn as a sacred cultural‘hero’ within a particular society, therefore, forms one permutation of the myth ofcreation and rebirth. This provides the vital link between self-sacrifice and thewider societal purpose of the fanatic’s mythopoeic calculus.

Further, what is created by this profound rationale for self-destruction is abelief in a powerful new dialectic between present and future. Such a dialecticsimplistically views the present as decadent and degenerate, and contrasts thiswith a utopian and regenerated future. This dialectic frames the behaviour ofthe fanatic and powerfully suggests the need to form myriad strategies in orderfor them to achieve the switch from the former to the latter. Further, it is in thislatter category – the utopian future – that the fanatic has generated a newpsychological homeland, rendering the present as a state characterised by asense of liminality. This dialectic between the degenerate present and a utopianfuture is central to a fanatic’s subjective perception of the world, and allows forthe creation of an increasingly Manichaean perspective on political events thatrationalises ideological praxis by eschewing ‘grey’ areas for simplified binaryopposites. The politically dominant force in the present is seen as the cause ofthe senses of decadence, degeneration and anomie that are perceived by thefanatic. This political hegemony, obviously, becomes the target for the fanatic’sire and attack. It is the destruction of the ruling interloper – who is perceived tobe intruding into the longer historical or communal narrative of the society towhich the fanatic identifies – that forms the basis of the fanatic’s goals. There-fore, the ideology of the fanatic intuits not only the ‘sense of an ending’ of theexisting political hegemony, but also contains countervailing narratives of hopeto establish a new hegemony, one that has, as its basis, the redemption of thepeople and society to which the fanatic identifies, and to provide for them anauthentic psychological homeland.

In sum, the ‘chrono-ethological’ perspective suggests a reading of politicallyfanatical activity – notably suicide or martyr acts of terrorism – that highlightsthe role played by certain key mythopoeic aspects relating to the subjectiveexperiences of ‘personal’ and ‘cultural’ time, as perceived by their perpetrators.In particular, this approach highlights, first, that the fanatic attempts to live outa hero myth that, secondly, justifies self-sacrificial acts including, in extremecases, suicide in order, thirdly, to create a milieu of self-sacrificial martyrdomwhich has the wider aim of achieving the overthrow of a hegemonic force, andwhich will lead to societal rebirth. The employment of poetic discourse andritual behaviour to enact out the numinous experiences of a higher, ‘sacredtime’ – kairos – that is infused with possibility for change is central to theprofound connection, established in the fanatic’s mindset, between a mytholo-gised past and a vision of a utopian future. By studying the actions of extrem-ists as being conditioned by such a psychology, it becomes possible foroutsiders to their movement to develop an empathetic understanding of thedelusion whereby acts of terrorist violence and self-immolating activity appearlegitimate and even sacred to their perpetrators.

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

‘Sacred Time’ in the Dynamics of Nationalist Terrorism 51

Bosnia in the Twentieth Century and Resources for Ideological Constructions of Crisis14

Before examining the Young Bosnia movement, it is worth briefly summarisingthe historical context surrounding the Archduke’s assassination, in order tosketch the historical background against which the ideology of the movementevolved. The region of Bosnia and Herzegovina, composed of Serbs, Croats andMuslims, was until 1878 ruled by the Ottoman Empire. After the kmets (serfs)rising of 1875 that sought to overthrow Ottoman rule, the region was transferredto a Habsburg occupation at the Congress of Berlin in 1878. With the legal shift ofresponsibility to Austro-Hungary came a small phase of modernisation to theregion. However, in the main the region remained predominantly underdevel-oped, highly illiterate and agrarian. The new Habsburg occupier suppressedpolitical opposition, though underground networks of counter-hegemonicpolitical activity did exist. These were connected with forms of piecemeal culturalawakening and not political violence.

To the east of Bosnia lay Serbia, itself growing in stature as an independentSouth Slav nation, with Belgrade presented as the ‘Piedmont’ of the Balkans.Within Bosnia, desires for achieving autonomy from the great powers were oftenfocused upon Belgrade; within Serbia various plans were also formed for creatingunified South Slav political structures. At the turn of the century, the future of theregion was increasingly unstable. It became the geographical site for a number ofdiffering international political projects: a possible return to Ottoman rule,consolidation as an Austro-Hungarian frontier land or, potentially, the keySerbian acquisition in the construction of either a federal Yugoslavia or a newGreater Serbia.

This uncertainty was compounded on 6 October 1908, when the region wasfully annexed by the Austro-Hungarian authorities. They were fearful of, amongother factors, either an attempt to recapture the region by the Ottoman Empire –itself radicalised by the Young Turks movement – or a Serbian invasion. Afterthe annexation of 1908, a fundamental change in cultural and political attitudestowards Austro-Hungary can be observed throughout the Balkan region. InSerbia, the organisation Narodna Odbrana (National Defence) was created tocombat Austro-Hungarian domination through counter-hegemonic literature. Itsprimary purpose was to radicalise Serbian, as well as South Slav, youth organi-sations in Macedonia, Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia. Within a few months,National Defence boasted over 5,000 members across the South Slav region.National Defence was augmented by another organisation in Serbia, which hadthe specific agenda of creating a Greater Serbia, rather than a unified Yugosla-via. This group was an offshoot of the Serb Army and was called Union orDeath, more commonly known as the Black Hand. Union or Death was createdin 1911 and was dominated by the charismatic and bellicose Serbian general,General Apis.

In Bosnia, the cultural reaction to the annexation was one of renewed hostil-ity towards the Habsburg rule. Among politically conscious students, there wasa marked shift away from the piecemeal cultural awakening associated withdominant ideologues such as Thomas Masaryk. This was replaced with farmore ascetic, bellicose and revolutionary ideas that were similar to those ofNational Defence. These radicalised Bosnian youths began to gain a publicprofile through the organisation of secret societies, street demonstrations and

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

52 P. Jackson

other subversive activity, and came to be known as the Young Bosnia move-ment. Broadly, this was a shift away from the earlier emphasis on forms ofpiecemeal cultural metamorphosis – which now appeared no longer credible asan agent of change – and towards a radicalised political and cultural worldview, often through violent acts and embracing an openly revolutionary rheto-ric. This new ‘palingenetic’, mood that sensed the need for violent ideologicalpraxis was expressed many times, for example here by Borivoje Jevti[cacute] , one timeroommate of Gavrilo Princip:

Masaryk realism, good for the northern country and its inhabitants at amuch higher level of civilization, was not applicable to Bosnia, which hadno corresponding culture and which for its awakening needed the smellof blood more than the ‘three Rs’.15

To get a clearer idea of their general ideological rubric, we can read the objectivesof one society attended by Gavrilo Princip:

1. To oppose everything national and antinational in the material and spirituallife of our peoples by means of: a. Radical anticlericalism.b. Radical elimination of destructive alien influences and promotion of

Slavization of our culture against Germanization, Magyarization andItalianization.

c. Fighting against attitudes of servility, sneaking and contemptibility andraising of national honour and pride.

d. Expropriation of estates, liquidation all prerogatives of aristocracy andall social privileges and the democratisation of political consciousnessand the political awakening of people.

2. A national defence against alien spiritual and material forces; national offen-sive to reawaken the subjugated and half-lost parts of our people by spiritualand material means.16

What becomes clear from this and other sources is the fusion of a sense of nationalidentity, defined as a spiritual, collective entity, thereby promoting a sacralisedpolitics; the desire for the removal of foreign influences, expressed in a languageconcerned with senses of both spiritual and national alienation; a socialist-inspired politics with a progressive programme of wealth redistribution; thedesire for a new politics seen as just, or legitimate; the appeal to abstract humanqualities such as honour and pride, implying an acute sensitivity to a lack ofdignity in the then present political dynamic; and the use of rhetorical tropes ofrebirth – ‘political reawakening of people’ and ‘reawaken the subjugated’, forexample. This can all be seen as expressions of an ideology both sensitive to crisisand seeking to find hope through a deeply held sense of renewal.

The ideas that fed into this project were highly diverse, and included anarchistssuch as Kropotkin and Bakunin, utopian socialists such as William Morris, Marx-ist revolutionaries such as Trotsky, philosophers such as Nietzsche, and romanticnational revolutionaries such as Mazzini, Garibaldi and various figures fromGerman nationalist movements. Though these thinkers are highly idiosyncratic,they all typified the ‘palingenetic condition’ of modernity insofar as they soughtto achieve counterfactual futures that moved away from a present perceived as

c

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

‘Sacred Time’ in the Dynamics of Nationalist Terrorism 53

being in a state of crisis and decadence, and presented a variety of alternatevisions of idealised futures. These diverse ideologues appear to have been usedsyncretically by the Young Bosnia movement collectively to forge the rationalisa-tion of desires for a reconnection with the idea of national independence, onesympathetic to ideas of redistributive socialism. Moreover, thanks to this broadideological synthesis, the young intellectuals of Young Bosnia, notably Principhimself, felt they were living in a distinctly modern milieu in which they formedpart of the cultural and political avant-garde. This is a situation that, asKermode’s model suggests, encourages the experience of contemporary history interms of a kairos, pregnant with possibilities, rather than a dead chronos. Also, thiswas an intellectual dynamic sensitive to a sense of spiritual ambivalence, due tothe wider impact of the partial secularisation of European society, often associ-ated with definitions of modernity. For example, one Young Bosnian article called‘The National Milieu and Modernism’, published in 1908, stated:

It is not important which attitude a man has regards to today’s problems.One could be a Socialist, an individualist, a spiritist, a theosophist, aBuddhist metaphysic – whatever he likes – but the most important thingis to feel our pain and our efforts, to understand today’s problems. Theone who feels this agitation of our time, who is trying to find the remedyfor today’s calamities, is modern, despite his opinion as to what thisremedy consists of. Modern man is the one who in this epoch of democ-racy and libertarianism, feels in our country the whole absurdity of ananachronistic system, who feels hunger and the lack of justice for ourpoor masses and who is fighting for bread and freedom for a naked andstarved people.17

Again the sensitivity to the present as a time of crisis and the attempt to articulatethis as a period of kairos is overwhelming.

In the post-annexation period, the growing cohesiveness of national identityand sense of social injustice developing among the Young Bosnians was furtherradicalised by the stories of violent conquest by South Slavs in the Balkan wars.Ivo Andri[cacute] , the author and one-time member of the Young Bosnia movements,described this impact on the new intelligentsia in his Nobel Prize-winning TheBridge over the River Drina:

These were a new sort of young men, educated in various cities and statesand under various influences … With every summer they brought backwith them free-thinking views on social and religious questions and anenthusiastically revived nationalism which recently, especially after theSerbian victories in the Balkan wars, had grown to a universal convictionand, in many of these youths, to a fanatical desire for action and personalsacrifice.18

Such a passage highlights the role played in modern palingenetic movements bythe myth of an ‘anthropological revolution’ pioneered by a new ‘breed’ of humanbeings – the ‘new man’ attuned to the needs of an imminent new era.19

In 1910 what had previously been a subject of speculation was transformed intoa historical act. A Young Bosnian named Bogdan [Zcaron] eraji[cacute] was determined to shootEmperor Franz Joseph on 3 June during his visit to Sarajevo. However, despite

c

Z c

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

54 P. Jackson

following Franz Joseph on parts of his official tour, [Zcaron] eraji[cacute] was unable to pluckup the courage to carry out the assassination. He regained his resolve on 15 June,and at 11.20 a.m. he made an attempt on the life of the new governor of theregion, General Marijin Vare[scaron] anin. As the governor returned from the BosnianSabor (parliament), [Zcaron] eraji[cacute] fired five bullets at his carriage. Vare[scaron] anin himself wasnot injured; all [Zcaron] eraji[cacute] ’s bullets missed him. Vare[scaron] anin then stopped the coach inorder to find the perpetrator, who had by this time had turned the gun onhimself, and the Governor found [Zcaron] eraji[cacute] ’s body lying on the bridge from wherehe had fired.

Myths soon developed around the new martyr. Princip’s roommate recalledthat the governor had kicked [Zcaron] eraji[cacute] ’s body repeatedly, saying ‘you scum, youscum’, though no proof for this exists. Others claimed his dying words were: ‘Ileave my revenge to Serbdom’. One youth later recalled the impact of the event:

I was then in the fourth class of the Sarajevo school. Up to that time wehad only read about the terrorist exploits of the revolutionaries, whichstirred our imagination, but we never dreamed that something like thatcould happen in our own town … It seemed as if the eyes of the youthwere suddenly opened. Young men passing by the Emperor’s Bridge,where Zeraji[cacute] killed himself after the unsuccessful attempt on the life ofthe Governor, started to pay him homage by taking off their caps.20

This sense of respect for [Zcaron] eraji[cacute] ’s sacrifice subsequently took a more clearlysacralised turn. The Young Bosnians discovered [Zcaron] eraji[cacute] ’s grave in the Sarajevocemetery; it then became a shrine for the movement. As early as 1912 Princip gavean oath on [Zcaron] eraji[cacute] ’s grave to redeem his death. Other Young Bosnians decoratedhis grave with flowers, only for the police to remove them the next morning. Themovement now had a martyr to add to its mythopoeic armoury.

One highly influential ideologue of the Young Bosnia movement promotingthis myth of individual martyrdom was Vladimir Ga[cacute] inovi[cacute] . His undergroundwritings often attempted to intensify the longing for the sacred in the ideologicalsensibilities of the Young Bosnians. For example, the following quotation demon-strates how the pervasive metaphors of awakening and renewal, as well asappeals to past traditions, were used to foster a revolutionary spirit:

These young people, not yet awakened, will be our apostles, the creatorsand cross-bearers of new religions and new hearts. They will awaken ourdead gods, revive our fairies who have withered away because of sadnessand love, they will bring a new empire of liberty and man, and save theSerbian soul from vice and decay.21

After [Zcaron] eraji[cacute] turned himself into a national martyr, Ga[cacute] inovi[cacute] wrote a highlyinfluential underground pamphlet called ‘Death of a Hero’, one that marked themood among many radicalised youths of the Young Bosnia groups. Here, we canagain find tropes of cultural degeneration that could only be transcended throughthe actions of a ‘new man’ embracing vitality and change. Ga[cacute] inovi[cacute] continuedthat in the face of the ‘resignation and apathy of the age … there comes upon thestage a man of action, of strength, of life and virtue, a type such as opens anepoch, proclaims ideas, and enlivens suffering and spellbound hearts’.22 He thencontinues to extol the virtues of sacrifice, presenting [Zcaron] eraji[cacute] ’s act as the actions of

Z c

sZ c s

Z c s

Z c

Z c

c

Z cZ c

Z c

c c

Z c c c

c c

Z c

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

‘Sacred Time’ in the Dynamics of Nationalist Terrorism 55

a heroic type of ‘new man’ that is ‘artistic’ and in solidarity with ‘the unfortunateand downtrodden’, before summing up the immediate future’s predicament:‘Young Serbs, you who are rising from the ruins and foulness of to-day, will youproduce such men? It seems as though this sums up the whole Serbian problem,political, moral, and cultural’.23 Note here the notion that sacrificial activity isseen as both a creative and a performative act, one that is seen to transcend themerely tactical aims of an assassination attempt and rational explanations for thesuicide – such as to protect the organisation’s secrets from the authorities – andworks on a rhetoric level to draw on the mythopoeic qualities of martyrdom. Thisis consciously designed to have a didactic, ideological impact. Further, from a‘chrono-ethological’ perspective, this performative act is steeped in mythologis-ing a sense of rebirth. The underlying notion of the death of the individual self tothe ‘higher’ national cause expressly holds, for Ga[cacute] inovi[cacute] , the potential to open anew epoch, where a new society is able to emerge, as if like a phoenix, from ‘theruins and foulness of to-day’. He then directs this social narrative of regenerationthrough sacrifice towards other individuals, questioning their ability to meet thecall to arms and building on the sense of crisis and opportunity.

The notion of a united South Slav region was not only debated by YoungBosnians and Serb groups: Slovene youths were also becoming more radical andwere developing an interest in the notion of revolutionary methods for achievingnational self-determination. As in Bosnia, the incursion of cultural ‘Germanisa-tion’ through Habsburg rule, especially in school lessons, led to a radicalisedyouth seeking to forge the emergence of Slovene culture. Many in Slovenia, espe-cially among older generations, were wary of the notion of a Greater Serbia, ofwhich Slovenia would be a subordinate region. However, youth groups like theSlovene secret society Preporod (Rebirth) were interested in forging a commonSouth Slav state through the revolutionary overthrow of the Habsburg monarchy.In its underground journal of the same name, the group published Article 35 ofthe French Declaration of the Rights of Man claiming the right to revolution. As withtheir neighbours, this radicalisation was peppered with localised metaphysicalresources. One article from 1913, drawing on the symbolism of the God Perun –the Serbian God of thunder, war, strength and creation – sent a message ofsolidarity to the Young Bosnians that read thus:

Among Us Is the Powerful God, Perun … We hear that the struggle hasbeen waged in your part as well, that the voice of the God Perun is echo-ing. Do not be afraid, our friends. Do not waiver, because we, from theBosnian mountains, are with you, with our soul, hearts, and the devastat-ing thunder of Perun’s gift to us. Forward bravely for our joint deed, inthe great struggle for Yugoslavia.24

Croatia was also experiencing a radicalisation of youth groups directed againstthe Habsburg monarchy. There were demonstrations at the University of Zagrebin the early months of 1912, including a protest against the dictatorial rule of CountSlavko Cuvaj. Here, for the first time, the protestors included Orthodox, Catholicand Muslim youths. This sparked sympathetic demonstrations in Bosnia, attendedby, among others, Gavrilo Princip. In July 1912, after acquiring weapons from theBlack Hand, Young Bosnian Luka Juki[cacute] unsuccessfully attempted to assassinateCuvaj in a Zagreb street. Yet his actions nevertheless managed to kill a policemanand the Chief of the Croatian Department of Information before being arrested.

c c

c

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

56 P. Jackson

The Habsburg reaction was to crack down sharply on student activities, whichitself served to enhance Young Bosnia’s sense of alienation from the ruling class.In response, Juki[cacute] ’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in a bid tocool the atmosphere. Within the palingenetic mindset of Bosnian ultra-nationalists,such persecution by the ‘enemy’ only fed the sense of the deepening crisis and theimminent need for national rebirth. Across the South Slav region, youth groupswere increasingly alienated from, and disillusioned with, Austro-Hungarian hege-mony. Consequently, they turned to ideological violence and direct action, anddesired a self-governance that they could perceive as legitimate.

Given this multi-ethnic sense of alienation and desire for national renewal, it isworth stressing that there existed a common unifying narrative to the collectivesense of South Slav identity, especially given the centrality of its role in providingmythopoeic resources to the Young Bosnians. The symbolism of the enforced ruleof the South Slavs stretched back to the defeat on 28 June 1389, on Kosovo Field,of Prince Lasar of Serbia by invading Turkish forces. This battle has since beenseen as the symbolic defeat of the South Slav region more generally and led to theinfliction of hundreds of years of Ottoman rule. Important here is the sense of acommon South Slav identity existing before the defeat, and that a discrete body ofpeople since the defeat had been oppressed for hundreds of years by alien forces,thereby providing a continuity between a distant, mythologised past and thepresent. This single historic event became highly mythologised over the followingcenturies and, through oral traditions and later through written romantic verse,became symbolic of a powerful formative myth for the construction of commonSouth Slav identities as an oppressed people. A series of national martyrs wascreated around the event, including Prince Lazar, and also figures such as Milo[cacute]

Obili[cacute] , who reputedly killed the Turkish commander the night before the battle ofKosovo Field. The Serbian Orthodox Church consecrated 28 June as St Vitus Day,the most sacred day in the Serbian calendar.

One key author who influenced the Young Bosnians was Petar Petrovi[cacute] Njego[scaron] ,whose romantic poem from 1847, Mountain Wreath, drew on the legend ofnational subjugation at the hands of a foreign power.25 Njego[scaron] was a poet likenedin stature to the Serbs as Shakespeare is to the English, and Princip among othersknew much of Njego[scaron] ’s verse by heart. Njego[scaron] ’s poem explores the themes ofnational struggle and freedom from oppressive external rule, heroic martyrdomand the right for Serbians and South Slavs to live peacefully and independentlyfrom the oppression symbolically commencing with the defeat of 1389. For YoungBosnians, the cultural production based upon the symbolic sense of defeat signi-fied by the Kosovo legend – which like Njego[scaron] ’s poem presented poetic andquasi-philosophical commentary on its injustice – contained the underlying‘esoteric’ mythopoeic elements central to their ideological project: heroic acts;idealised self-sacrifice for the national cause; a bifurcation between a suppressedand sacred community and a profane tyranny; and the idea of renewal andredemption through the defeat of the Turks. The Young Bosnians transposed thistraditional enmity from the earlier Ottoman rule to the Habsburg monarchy, andtherefore were able to use the Kosovo legend, and the myriad cultural productsthat surrounded it, to legitimise their own fanatical self-sacrifice. Through such‘exoteric’ dimensions, they could develop an ideology that also held currencywith the wider cultural and political ‘awakening’ in the South Slav region.

From this necessarily highly condensed account, it can be seen that the SouthSlav region was experiencing, at least among sections of its youth, sporadic and

c

cc

c s

s

s s

s

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

‘Sacred Time’ in the Dynamics of Nationalist Terrorism 57

unpredictable acts of revolutionary demonstrations and violence committed byextremists convinced that they were the vanguard of national renewal. Theyperceived the Habsburg monarchy to be tyrannical, and were attempting to bothbuild on old myths and forge new ones in attempts to ‘awaken’ their own culturalmilieus against the background of an even more generalised sense of the crisis ofthe modern world, and the need for a new beginning for society.

The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and its Aftermath

The decision for the Archduke to visit Sarajevo in the summer of 1914 was madefor several reasons. First, the Archduke’s visit was intended to demonstrate theHabsburg Empire’s power in the area and, more specifically, to demonstrate that,after the Balkan wars, the monarchy retained its interest in the region. Also,General Potiorek, the region’s governor, wanted the Archduke to inspect thetroops, thereby fulfilling his duty as Inspector General of the Armed Forces.Potiorek was also keen for a member of the royal household to visit, as no princehad visited since Emperor Franz Joseph’s tour in 1910. Among the Habsburgs, thevisit appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary, nor is there any reason to believethat they purposely chose a state visit on St Vitus Day.

We have seen how an ideology of revolutionary national liberation was form-ing among sections of the South Slav intellectuals, especially among a radicalisedyounger generation. Now let us focus on one subgroup within this dynamic, thatof Gavrilo Princip and his associates. This ‘cell’ was headed by schoolteacher,Serbian soldier and intellectual, Danilo Ili[cacute] . Like Ga[cacute] inovi[cacute] , Ili[cacute] was one of YoungBosnia’s leading intellectuals with connections to the Serbian revolutionary soci-eties, and was therefore a valuable contact for other Young Bosnians especiallythose based in Sarajevo. Ili[cacute] and Princip were old friends, and first met in 1907when Princip moved to Sarajevo to study at the city’s Merchant School and rentedthe spare room in the Ili[cacute] household. Already, Princip was a committed revolu-tionary. He was also very well read and held ambitions to become a poet, anelision between the political and the creative not only evocative of Njego[scaron] , butalso important to his later ideological development. In personality he was ascetic,abstaining from vices like alcohol and tobacco, and also refrained from romanticrelationships. In 1911 Princip began taking part in street demonstrations and wasexpelled from school in February 1912. Following this, he moved to Belgrade,initially to join the komite (the irregular Serbian units). However, Princip wasturned down for being ‘too small and too weak’. This was a humiliation Principwould not forget, and the dismissal must be seen as a key factor in his resolve tofind another way to fight for the Serbian and Yugoslav cause.

By 1914 Princip was living in Belgrade and studying at the First Belgrade HighSchool. The news of the Archduke’s forthcoming visit in the summer, around theanniversary of the defeat of Kosovo Field, was publicised from mid-March. Uponhearing the news, Princip met with a fellow Young Bosnian, Nedeljko [Ccaron] abrinovi[cacute] ,who was also in Belgrade. Princip put the idea of an attempt on the heir apparentto him in a local park, and at the trial, [Ccaron] abrinovi[cacute] recalled: ‘After a short moment’shesitation, I accepted this offer. We gave each other our word of honour, shookhands and departed’.26 Princip, deciding they needed more recruits, then asked hisroommate Trifko Grabe[zcaron] to join the plot, and he enthusiastically accepted the offer.Offering an insight into Princip’s mental state during this formative period of theplot, friends observed he was often in deeply melancholic moods, though this was

c c c c

c

c

s

C c

C c

z

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

58 P. Jackson

contrasted with a more optimistic view on the potential of a change in the region’spolitical system. For example, he underlined the following lines in the poem ‘OurToday’:

Even if we have not created anything ourselves,We shall at least have put an end to the misery of our time.Our graves will be the new foundationOf the new life without the flaws of todayOf the better life which at least leads somewhere …

From a ‘chrono-ethological’ perspective, what stands out from these lines is theway individual death is seen as a prelude to communal rebirth. It highlights hissense of wanting to be a key player in an imminent social revolution, and hisunderlining suggests that a true turning point in his society is only achievablethrough self-sacrifice, a task for which, as we shall see, he felt ready.

The three nationalists decided to procure weapons for the plot from the komite.Princip and an old friend, Milan Ciganovi[cacute] , himself an ex-komite soldier, appearto have then contacted each other. As to the arrangements for the assassination, alack of reliable sources means that here the story becomes vague. We have to relymainly on a narrative of the events written by a bookshop owner and fellowconspirator, Du[scaron] an Slavi[cacute] , some 14 years after the event. It appears from the textthat Milan Ciganovi[cacute] and several other figures created a new secret society, basedin Belgrade, sympathetic to the cause. These included Djuro [Scaron] arac, a fellowYoung Bosnian, and Slavi[cacute] himself. This society was called Death or Life, andagain drew upon many mythical and symbolic practices, thereby imbuing theideology with a distinctly sacralised concept of the nation. For example, thecouncil of seven members who headed Death or Life explicitly drew on the 1389legend, naming themselves the Spirits of the Avengers of Kosovo. The level towhich the individual was subordinate to the will of the organisation was demon-strated by a membership ritual that required not only the swearing of an oathpromising secrecy in all activities, but also for a letter written to the Council ofSpirits pledging the member’s suicide, if ever requested by the council, after thecompletion of a mission. To symbolise their enmity towards the Habsburgmonarchy, the council held at least two meetings on the site of the 1868 assassina-tion of Serbian Prince Mihailo Obrenovi[cacute] , who was killed, reputedly, with the aidof the Austro-Hungarian authorities. It appears that at these meetings Princip andthe others were ‘officially’ proposed as the future assassins and were called to jointhe society.

After Princip, Grabe[zcaron] and [Ccaron] abrinovi[cacute] were sworn into the society they wereissued with weapons and trained in their use. Milan Ciganovi[cacute] acquired thebombs and guns for the assassination from General Tankosi[cacute] – the general whohad previously refused Princip a place in the Serbian komite. (Incidentally, Prin-cip, on hearing of the general’s involvement, refused the latter’s request for ameeting, not forgetting his humiliation.) Tankosi[cacute] then offered to help the threeconspirators travel from Belgrade to Sarajevo. This supply of weapons andpassage is the most significant link between the assassination attempt and theSerbian terrorist organisation the Black Hand – often incorrectly cited as theperpetrators of the assassination – as Tankosi[cacute] was a member of the society’scentral committee. Death or Life’s Council of Spirits also furnished the threeconspirators with cyanide poison, which they were then instructed to take after

c

s cc

Sc

c

z C cc

c

c

c

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

‘Sacred Time’ in the Dynamics of Nationalist Terrorism 59

the assassination of the Archduke. Princip reputedly claimed he would take hisdirectly after the assassination. The three men thereafter made their way backacross the border with the weapons and poison, crossing the checkpoint undetec-ted with the help of the Black Hand’s connections to the Serbian Army, and thenon to Sarajevo. This ‘underground’ activity can all be seen as adding to the poeticquality of the assassin’s senses of ‘mission’ and ‘destiny’.

Meanwhile in Sarajevo, Danilo Ili[cacute] had been in contact with Princip and hadrecruited more assassins for the operation. He initially contacted MehmedMehemedba[scaron] i[cacute] , the only Muslim among the conspirators. Ili[cacute] and Mehemedba[scaron] i[cacute]

had a history of such activities: they had been co-conspirators with the BlackHand’s General Apis in an attempted assassination on General Potiorek in 1913,though this had failed. Ili[cacute] met Mehemedba[scaron] i[cacute] in March 1914 and the two agreedto stall their plans to mount another attack on Potiorek in favour of the new plotto kill the Archduke. Ili[cacute] also recruited two students from a younger, moreradicalised generation of Young Bosnians, who were fully committed to therevolutionary overthrow of the Habsburgs and the creation of a culturally andpolitically unified South Slav state. First, Vaso [Ccaron] ubrilovi[cacute] contacted Ili[cacute] indepen-dently, having his own ideas for an assassination, and secondly, in late May 1914[Ccaron] ubrilovi[cacute] discussed the idea of an assassination with fellow student CvetoPopovi[cacute] , and he too joined the growing number of would-be assassins.

The seriousness of the attempt was not lost on these youths. Popovi[cacute] noted theprofound new outlook he acquired in the run-up to the attempt, especially in itsrelationship to the Kosovo Field mythology:

After I gave my word to join the plot I spent the whole night thinking anddreaming about the assassination. In the morning I was quite a differentman. Convinced that I only had until June 28th to live, Vidovdan – StVitus Day – I looked upon everything from a new angle … Only onethought tormented me: that we might not succeed and thus make fools ofourselves.27

[Ccaron] abrinovi[cacute] wrote to a couple he was friendly with a day before the assassination,and similarly asserted this reorientation of life in the face of – to his mind at thispoint – certain death. In an expression of hope for the future, this letter simplyread:

DEAR FRIENDS,

On the eve of my death, deadly ill, I wish you and your wife all possiblehappiness in our new and free fatherland.28

The only conspirator who appears to have demonstrated second thoughts overthe endeavour was Danilo Ili[cacute] . This was not only through his own moral ques-tioning of the merits of the assassination, but also on account of the reservationsof General Apis, who, sources suggest, did not support any such assassinationattempts as they may have engendered a war between Austria and Serbia at atime when Serbia was ill-prepared for such an eventuality. In mid-June the Chiefof Death or Life, Djuro [Scaron] arec, went to Bosnia in an attempt to pass on thismessage. Unable to enter Sarajevo, as the authorities there knew him to be asubversive figure, he met with Ili[cacute] in Bosanki Brod. Ili[cacute] ’s growing unease was

c

s c c s c

c s c

c

C c c

C cc

c

C c

c

S

c c

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

60 P. Jackson

further influenced by his own reasoning that the reaction of the authorities to theassassination would only lead to greater suffering for the Serb people. Also, Ili[cacute]

was having doubts about the strategy of an assassination without the presence ofa cohesive revolutionary party able to capitalise on the situation. However, itappears that Princip’s stronger will to action led to Ili[cacute] ’s continued willingness toparticipate. At the initial inquiry, Princip claimed: ‘I was not in agreement withthe postponement of the assassination because a certain morbid yearning for ithad been awakened in me’.29

Perhaps through Princip’s force of personality, Ili[cacute] accepted his role in theevents and prepared plans for the placements of Life or Death’s assassins, basedupon a newspaper report of the Archduke’s route through Sarajevo. Ili[cacute] issued theplans and weapons to the conspirators on the afternoon and evening of 27 June.Indicating the importance of earlier martyrs as figures to help inspire action, Ili[cacute]

then went and spent some time at [Zcaron] eraji[cacute] ’s shrine. [Ccaron] abrinovi[cacute] later did the same.Gavrilo Princip sat drinking with friends until around 11.00 p.m., and then alsovisited the grave, leaving flowers. On the morning of the assassination, the sevenassassins took up positions along the imperial party’s route, mingling freely withthe crowds gathering to see the Archduke. The first assassin to make an attemptwas not Princip but [Ccaron] abrinovi[cacute] . When he saw the approaching convoy, he askeda police agent which car the Archduke was travelling in, to which the police agententhusiastically indicated the third one. [Ccaron] abrinovi[cacute] then took his bomb, activatedit and threw it towards his target. He missed, and the bomb exploded on the streetbehind the car, injuring around a dozen people. [Ccaron] abrinovi[cacute] then took his cyanideand jumped into the river Miljacka. Seconds later, he was dragged from theshallows, and when questioned who he was, he exclaimed, ‘I am a Serbian hero’.It appears the cyanide was in some way defective and did not have the desiredeffect, and [Ccaron] abrinovi[cacute] was taken to the local authorities.

The Archduke then travelled swiftly to the town hall to be greeted by anunaware Lord Mayor, who began his speech: ‘Your Imperial and Royal Highness,your Highness! Our hearts are full of happiness on the occasion of the mostgracious visit …’. After realising the gravity of the situation, the Mayor discussedwith General Potiorek and the imperial party a new plan of action. An alternateroute, away from the crowded Apel Quay where [Ccaron] abrinovi[cacute] had launched hisbomb, was decided upon and the Archduke headed back to the motorcade. Backon the streets, his driver failed to take the new turning off Apel Quay for thealternate route. Realising his mistake, the driver braked to turn around and, atthis point, Princip stepped forwards. In his own words, speaking just 45 minuteslater to the local judge:

When the second car arrived, I recognised the Heir Apparent … At thatsame moment I was filled with a peculiar feeling and I aimed at the HeirApparent from the pavement … I believe that I fired twice, perhaps more,because I was so excited. Whether I hit the victim or not, I cannot tell,because instantly people started hitting me.30

Princip also tried to take his poison, but vomited. He then tried to raise his pistolto his head, but was prevented from pulling the trigger as he was dragged away.The Archduke and his wife were declared dead around an hour later.

The wider international consequences of the assassination are out of the scopeof this article, but are well known to all who know the history of the origins of the

c

c

c

c

cZ c C c

C c

C c

C c

C c

C c

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

‘Sacred Time’ in the Dynamics of Nationalist Terrorism 61

First World War.31 It is worth highlighting that the European public was highlyconscious of the unfolding events, as reported in the popular press, whichincreasingly whipped up the war fever so marking the summer of 1914.32 Locally,there was a crackdown on Serbian organisations as the authorities followed upleads gained by the arrest of [Ccaron] abrinovi[cacute] and Princip. Apart from Mehemedba[scaron] i[cacute] ,who avoided detection, the conspirators were tried in October 1914 with anumber of others connected with the assassination. At the trial only Ili[cacute] was oldenough at the time of the assassination to qualify for the death penalty. He washanged. [Ccaron] ubrilovi[cacute] received a 16-year jail sentence, and Popovi[cacute] 13 years.Princip, escaping the death penalty by one month, was sentenced to 20 years hardlabour, as was Grabe[zcaron] and [Ccaron] abrinovi[cacute] . Of those sentenced, only [Ccaron] ubrilovi[cacute] andPopovi[cacute] survived the war; the rest died of tuberculosis whilst in prison. Nomembers of the organisation Death or Life, despite a brief investigation into thepossibility of its existence, were prosecuted and the organisation escaped officialdetection.

We can glean further insight into Princip’s thoughts on the assassination from aseries of notes taken by one Dr Pappenheim, a psychiatrist who conducted aseries of prison interviews with Princip before he died of tuberculosis in 1918. Inthese interviews, Princip asserted his belief that his act would spark a wave ofnationalist fervour – one that would be the prelude to an irresistible movement ofnational liberation. The role of the Bosnian intellectuals was, therefore, crucial.Pappenheim noted that Princip

considers that if he prepared the atmosphere the idea of revolution andliberation would spread first among the men of intelligence and the laterin the masses … Thought that if Austria were thrown into difficultiesthen revolution would come. But for such a revolution one must preparethe ground, work up feeling. Nothing happened. By assassination thisspirit might be prepared. There had already been attempts at assassina-tions before. The perpetrators were like heroes to our young people …Thought that thereby attention of the intelligentsia would be directedupon it. As for instance Mazzini did in Italy.33

Pappenheim asked Princip to write down some of his own understandings of hismotives during these interviews. Princip’s thought was clearly marked by a deeplyheld sense of utopian revolutionary nationalism, a varient of a palingenetic mindset:

There must be created a realization where differences equalise, (adds) areequalised, between European peoples. But we as nationalists, althoughwe had read socialistic and anarchistic writings, did not occupy ourselvesmuch with this question, thinking that each of us had another duty – anational duty.34

As for the timing of Princip’s sense of destiny in murdering the Archduke, histestimony shows that once he learned of the Archduke’s visit, he put aside moregeneral ideological activities and he became focused solely on the assassinationattempt. He immersed himself in reading material that would prepare himpsychologically for the assassination and the suicide that would follow it.Pappenheim noted that he ‘Read much in Sarajevo. In Sarajevo used to dreamevery night he was a political murderer. Read much about the Russian revolution,

C c s c

c

C c c

z C c C cc

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

62 P. Jackson

about the fightings. This idea had taken hold of him. Admits the earlierconstraints had vanished’.35 Interestingly, Princip showed he was aware of thecontemporary instabilities in Europe that many intellectuals claimed portended aworld war:

it is all indifferent to him, on account of his illness and the misfortune ofhis people. Has sacrificed his life for the people. Could not believe thatsuch a World War could break out as a result of an act like this. They didindeed believe that a World War might break out, but not at thatmoment.36

Pappenheim’s notes go on to say that Princip was unable to feel contrition:‘cannot feel responsible for the catastrophe’; and that he felt that no good hadcome of the action: ‘fears he did it in vain’.

However, the Young Bosnians viewed Princip’s actions as those of a nationalhero. For example, fellow conspirator [Ccaron] ubrilovi[cacute] commented thus upon thedynamic between the Kosovo Field defeat and the regenerative heroism of Prin-cip’s double murder: ‘The Serbs carry on a hero cult, and today with the name ofMilos Obili[cacute] they bracket that of Gavrilo Princip; the former stands for SerbianHeroism in the tragedy of Kosovo Field, the latter for heroism in the final libera-tion’.37 Ivor Ili[cacute] , a schoolboy and Young Bosnian from Tuzla on the day of theassassination, noted the impact of the assassination:

it proves that Young Bosnia is alive, that there exists an element which isprepared to be martyred … The life of a nation exists in blood, blood isthe God of a nation, death superseded the insurrection, and the assassina-tion is the insurrection of the nation.38

In the literature that developed around the subject in Yugoslavia, Princip wasoften hailed as a national hero, especially in hagiographic biographies like BoraJetvi[cacute] ’s. In post-1918 Yugoslavia there were also attempts to appropriate theepisode as part of the creation a historic sense of national identity by attaching theconspirator’s names to cultural and political institutions. Further, Marxist histori-ans of the region have often attempted to portray Young Bosnia critically – as amovement lacking a coherent ideology – but Princip generously, as a key agent ofchange in the Marxist conception of history.39

Conclusions and Tentative Suggestions

Poets – unlike other men – are faithful only in the hour of calamity andleave those who are enjoying well-being. We poets are born for struggle;we are passionate hunters, but we do not eat the prey. A thin and almostinvisible fence divides us; it is not as keen as the edge of the swords butnevertheless it is just as lethal. Without damage to my soul I could notcross this line, because we can endure anything but authority.40

Ivo Andri[cacute] , ‘A Story From Japan’

This article has shown that the Young Bosnia movement attempted to become thenucleus of a popular movement of national reawakening by unifying the most

C c

c

c

c

c

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

‘Sacred Time’ in the Dynamics of Nationalist Terrorism 63

extreme elements of Serbian and other South Slav nationalisms, and that this waspart of a more general phenomenon which saw radicalised youth organisationsunifying around the common enemies of external rule. We have also seen thepresence of a distinctly sacralising semiotics at the heart of this movement’sideology, a feature that is crucial to understanding how the movement was ableto inspire acts of violence and self-sacrifice. Consequently, it seems appropriate toconsider the Young Bosnia ideology to be one partially assuming the form of apolitical religion among its less committed and fringe membership, in addition tobecoming a fully-fledged one for its core membership. This is because it drew notonly on elements of faith that are common to all forms of ideological commit-ment, but also because it contained an overtly metaphysical axis far removedfrom a simply materialistic conception of secular nationhood, or progressivepolitical movement, for its core followers, such as Princip. Further, the YoungBosnians can be seen to have been motivated by particular aspects of a mytholo-gised past and a utopian sense of the future that, to their minds at least, elevatedtheir behaviour above the everyday and turned them into an esoteric body ofactors (a self-conscious vanguard). These cells, via their individual struggle,terrorist activity and, ultimately, readiness for self-sacrifice, enacted at an individ-ual level the sense of apocalypse needed to inspire action that, on a Societal level,would destroy the old hegemony of the Ottomans and Habsburgs, and wouldredeem the masses of the population in a new future. We can therefore see that,for the committed members of Young Bosnia, their project clearly containedmythopoeic tropes of sacralised ideological praxis.

By interpreting their psychology in this way, we are offered a heuristicallyusefully approach to Young Bosnia’s motivations: believing they were livingduring a time that was ‘out of joint’, they devoted themselves to generating hopefor fundamental change, and they envisaged that ideologically motivated murderand self-sacrifice were perpetrated in order to find a wider sense of societal redemp-tion. The various political instabilities of the region in the period leading up to theassassination, combined with the growing desire for national self-determination inthe body politic of the region, fed into this development of esoteric palingeneticideologies. The period also produced events that seemed to bear out the conclusionsof the mythopoeic ideological constructions that were created by the region’s radi-calised youth. This inculcated, on a societal level, a faith in the rebirth of the nation,and on an individual level induced the archetypal hero figure prepared to sacrificehis life for the greater good. In this, the Young Bosnians believed themselves to bethe harbingers of a new era of unified independence for the South Slav region,exemplifying the trope of rebirth symptomatic of the palingenetic condition.

Notes

1. For a lengthy and useful discussion of the concept of ‘political religion’ and sacralised elements ofideology, see Emilio Gentile, ‘The Sacralisation of Politics: Definitions, Interpretations and Reflec-tions on the Question of Secular Religion and Totalitarianism’, Totalitarian Movements and PoliticalReligions 1/1 (Summer 2000), pp.18–55; and for a summary of the role of the mythopoeic elementspresent in all ideological constructs, and the powerful psychodynamic force they can hold overbehaviour, see Christopher Flood, Political Myth: A Theoretical Introduction (London: Routledge,1996).

2. For a full explanation of this approach, see Roger Griffin, ‘Shattering Crystals: The Role of “DreamTime” in Extreme Right-Wing Political Violence’, Terrorism and Political Violence 15/1 (Spring2003), pp.57–94.

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

64 P. Jackson

3. Herman Broch, The Sleepwalkers (New York: Vintage Books, 1996), p.296.4. Walter Benjamin, ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’, in idem, Illuminations (London: Pimlico,

1999), pp.245–55.5. The allusion is to Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 5, when Hamlet is told by the ghost of his dead father that he

was murdered by Claudius, and therefore learns of the unjust nature of Claudius’s reign as thenew king.

6. Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1967).

7. Ernst Cassirer, The Myth of the State (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1974).8. Mercia Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (San Diego, CA: Harvest Books,

1987).9. Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (London: Fontana Press, 1993).

10. Ernst Bloch The Principle of Hope, 3 vols. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995).11. Jacques Derrida, The Spectres of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New

International (London: Routledge, 1994).12. Griffin (note 2), pp.60–1.13. Campbell (note 9), p.30.14. In addition to texts already cited, the following were of general assistance in conceiving this

section: Misha Glenny, The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, 1804–1999 (London:Penguin Books, 1999); Davis MacKenzie, ‘Serbian Nationalist and Military Organisations and thePiedmont Idea, 1844–1914’, East European Quarterly 16/3 (1982), pp.323–44; Carole Rogel, The Slov-enes and Yugoslavism 1890–1914 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977); Starvo Skendi,Balkan Cultural Studies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980); and Wayne S. Vucinovich,‘Mlada Bosna and the First World War’, in Robert A. Kann, Béla K. Király and Paula S. Fichtner(eds.), The Habsburg Empire in World War I: Essays on the Intellectual, Military, Political and EconomicAspects of the Habsburg War Effort (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), pp.45–70.

15. Borivoje Jevti[cacute] , as quoted in Vladimir Dedijer, The Road to Sarajevo (London: MacGibbon and Kee,1967), p.238.

16. Dedijer (note 15), p.217.17. Mitrinovi[cacute] , quoted in ibid., p.232.18. Ivo Andri[cacute] , The Bridge over the River Drina (London: Harvill Press, 1959), pp.231–2.19. The concept ‘anthropological revolution’ is derived from Emilio Gentile’s observation of the

phenomenon of modern palingenetic ideologies and state structures generating idealised imagesof redemptive male figures, such as the Nazi Aryan man or the new Soviet Man. For more on thefunction of this concept within totalitarian ideologies, see Gentile (note 1); for more on the roles ofidealised images of the male figure in politics throughout the twentieth century, and the ‘newman’, see George L. Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (New York:Oxford University Press, 1996).

20. Dragoslav Ljubibrati[cacute] , quoted in Dedijer (note 15), p.249.21. Ga[cacute] inovi[cacute] , quoted in ibid., p.213.22. Ga[cacute] inovi[cacute] , as quoted in R.W. Seton Watson, Sarajevo (London: Hutchinson, 1925), pp.70–1.23. Ga[cacute] inovi[cacute] , quoted in Seton-Watson (note 22), pp.70–1.24. Dedijer (note 15), p.222. On the use of traditional gods as a part of the semiotics of nationalism and

violent ideological constructs, it is also of interest to note that another European god of thunder,war and states of trans-like holy madness, Wotan/Wodin, not only played a key role in the völkischthought that fed into Nazism, but also the same god was evoked by the Latvian proto-fascistmovement the Thunder Cross.

25. Petar Petrovitch Nyegosh, The Mountain Wreath (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1930).26. Dedijer (note 15), p.290.27. Ibid., p.305.28. [Ccaron] abrinovi[cacute] , quoted in ibid., p.281.29. Dedijer (note 15), p.309.30. Ibid., p.321.31. For an extended discussion of the July Crisis, see Hew Strachan, The First World War: Volume I: To

Arms (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp.64–102.32. For a longer discussion on the role of the media in the generation of war fever during 1914, see

Steven Kern, The Culture of Time and Space 1880–1918 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,2000), pp.260–1.

33. Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ‘Confessions of the Assassin Whose Deed Led to the World War’,Current History (August 1927), pp.699–707, 703–6.

c

cc

cc cc cc c

C c

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008

‘Sacred Time’ in the Dynamics of Nationalist Terrorism 65

34. Ibid., p.705.35. Ibid., p.706.36. Ibid., p.704.37. [Ccaron] ubrilovi[cacute] , quoted in Dedijer (note 15) p.260.38. Dedijer (note 15), p.324.39. See Vucinovich (note 14), esp. pp.59–62.40. Ivo Andri[cacute] , ‘A Story From Japan’, reprinted in Dedijer (note 15), pp.233–4.

C c

c

Dow

nloa

ded

By:

[Sw

ets

Con

tent

Dis

tribu

tion]

At:

19:3

6 16

Mar

ch 2

008