Svetozar Vukmanović-Tempo
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Svetozar Vukmanović "Tempo" (Светозар Вукмановић-Темпо) (14 August 1912 - 6 December 2000) was a leading Montenegrin communist and member of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. During World War II he served on the Supreme Staff, went on missions to Bulgaria, Greece, and Albania, and became Josip Broz Tito's personal representative in Macedonia. He held high positions in the postwar government, and was proclaimed a People's Hero of Yugoslavia.
Born to Nikola Vukmanović and Marija Pejović in the village of Podgora near Cetinje, young Svetozar became involved very early with Communist Party in then Kingdom of Yugoslavia. As a student at University of Belgrade in 1933, he organized strikes and demonstrations.
He was nicknamed Tempo because of his urging people to hurry.
After publishing his memoirs in the 1980s, Tempo came back into the public spotlight by providing vocals for the rock band Bijelo Dugme on their 1986 album Pljuni i zapjevaj moja Jugoslavijo.
Tempo died in late 2000 in his seacoast villa in Rezevici. Before his death, he explicitly requested to buried next to his brother Luka in their home village Podgora.
[edit] Tempo's role in the execution of his brother Luka
Svetozar Vukmanović's own brother Luka Vukmanović was a Serbian Orthodox Church priest in Montenegro. He was executed by Partisans in May 1945, after being captured and tortured along with Metropolitan Joanikije (Lipovac).
The details of his capture, torture, and subsequent execution remain somewhat unclear, along with the role of his brother Tempo in the said events.
In mid-1945 priest Luka Vukmanović was escaping Montenegro along with clergy of SOC's Metropolitanate of Montenegro-Littoral in a mass exodus towards Slovenia and Austria. Also in the mass convoy were various members of the Podgorica Assembly who voted to unite Montenegro with Serbia in 1918 and who now feared reprisals in increasingly chaotic situation in Montenegro, as well as royal government ministers and many other royalists who bitterly opposed communism. They were all on the run since November 1944. Luka's 14-year-old son Cedomir was also with in the convoy.
The convoy was intercepted by troops commanded by communist general from Montenegro Peko Dapčević (incidentaly, also from a priest family as his father Jovan Dapčević was a deacon). According to some accounts, this happened near Zidani Most in Slovenia, and according to others it took place in Austria. Wherever it was, most of the people in the convoy were executed on the spot and buried in various unmarked graves.[1]
This is when Tempo was reportedly informed about Luka's capture and asked to decide on what should happen to his brother. His reported answer was: "The same as what happens to others".[2] Luka's young son Cedomir, who managed to survive the bloody ordeal was later effectively raised by his uncle Tempo who took care of his nephew's living arrangements and education in Belgrade.
Before the mass executions began, Metroplitan Joanikije, as the most prominent member of the clergy was separated from the group and transported to Arandjelovac vicinity in Serbia where he was imprisoned, tortured and eventually executed.
In 1971, Tempo wrote a book entitled Revolucija koja tece (An Ongoing Revolution) in which he wrote the following about his brother: "I didn't want to talk to my mother about Luka. She didn't dare mention him in front of me. She once tried to say that he wasn't with the occupiers, but I interrupted her sternly and told her not to mention him anymore in my presence if she wants to see me in her house ever again. She never mentioned him again." Although he never explicitly admitted to sealing his brother's fate, through paragraphs like this Tempo clearly indicated he felt no empathy or compassion about the way his brother's life ended.
Since then, towards the end of his life, and especially after the collapse of communism, Tempo softened his stance and even defended himself in some interviews by saying he was never informed about his brother's capture.[3]
Luka's son Cedomir Vukmanovic said he believes that his uncle Tempo found out about what happened to Luka few days after he was executed.[4] In June 2005, as he was getting ready to go to Slovenia to commemorate 60 years since the mass execution, Cedomir Vukmanovic gave an interview for Belgrade daily Blic and said the following: "It's untrue that my uncle gave an order for my father to be executed. I've had hundreds of conversations with my uncle on that very subject. Nobody informed him, nor consulted him. Nor did he know that my father was going to be killed. Before his death in 2000, Tempo was very motivated to find out who gave the order to have those 18,000 people executed. He came upon shocking findings - the order was given by some of his closest comrades".[5]
Earlier, in late 2004, Cedomir Vukmanovic said Tempo came upon undisputable proof shortly before his death in 2000, that the orders for mass execution without trial came from the very top of Communist Party of Yugoslavia: "Precisely at that time in May 1945, Edvard Kardelj and Aleksandar Rankovic were in Ljubljana. They called Tito and Milovan Djilas, and after short deliberation decision was made to kill everyone except for boys under 18."[6]
