Mladen Stojanović

Mladen Stojanović
Native name	Младен Стојановић
Nickname	Doktor Mladen
Born	(1896-04-07)7 April 1896 Prijedor, Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Died	1 April 1942(1942-04-01) (aged 45) Jošavka, near Banja Luka, Independent State of Croatia
Buried at	Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina (exhumed from place of death and re-interred in 1961)
Allegiance	Yugoslav Partisans (1941–1942)
Years of service	1941–42
Rank	Detachment Commander
Commands held	2nd Krajina National Liberation Partisan Detachment
Battles/wars	Yugoslav Front of World War II
Awards	Order of the People's Hero (posthumously)
Spouse(s)	Mira Stojanović
Relations	Sreten Stojanović (brother)
Other work	Physician Poet

Mladen Stojanović (Serbian Cyrillic: Младен Стојановић; 7 April 1896 – 1 April 1942) was a Bosnian Serb physician who led the Yugoslav Partisans in the area of Kozara in north-western Bosnia on the Yugoslav Front of World War II. His father was a Serbian Orthodox priest in the town of Prijedor. At the age of fifteen, Stojanović became an activist in a group of student organizations called Young Bosnia, which strongly opposed Austria-Hungary's rule over Bosnia-Herzegovina. In 1912, Stojanović was inducted into Narodna Odbrana, an association founded in the Kingdom of Serbia aiming to organize a guerrilla resistance to the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary. Stojanović was arrested by the Austrian police in July 1914 and sentenced the following year to sixteen years' imprisonment, but he was pardoned in 1917. After World War I, he graduated from the medical faculty in Zagreb as a Doctor of Medicine, and in 1929 he opened his private practice in Prijedor. Stojanović established the tennis club of Prijedor in 1932 and became a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in September 1940.

After the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers and their creation of the Independent State of Croatia, Stojanović was imprisoned in June 1941 by the Ustaše—Croatian fascists who committed brutal crimes against the Serb population. He escaped from the prison and went to Mount Kozara, where he joined Communists who had earlier escaped from Prijedor. The Communist Party chose Stojanović to lead the uprising in the district of Prijedor—part of the area of Kozara. The uprising began on 30 July 1941 without much control by Stojanović or any other Communists. The Serb villagers of the district who rose to arms took control of a number of villages and threatened Prijedor, which was defended by German forces, Ustaše, and Croatian Home Guards. In August 1941, Stojanović was recognised as the principal leader of the insurgents in Kozara, who were then organised into Partisan military units. The Kozara Partisans began attacking the enemy at the end of September 1941, and by the end of that year they had conducted about forty military actions. Stojanović participated in the planning and execution of all the major operations. At the beginning of November 1941, all Partisan units in Kozara were merged into the 2nd Krajina National Liberation Partisan Detachment, and Stojanović was appointed its commander. By the end of 1941, most of Kozara—covering about 2,500 square kilometres—was controlled by Stojanović's detachment.

On 30 December 1941, Stojanović arrived in the area of Grmeč, which was in the zone of responsibility of the 1st Krajina National Liberation Partisan Detachment. The Italian troops operating in that area presented themselves as protectors of the Serbian people. Stojanović's tasks were to counter the Italian propaganda and to mobilise the Partisans of the 1st Krajina to fight against the Italians. He stayed in the area until mid-February 1942, and the Partisan leadership of Bosnia-Herzegovina estimated that he accomplished his tasks there. At the end of February 1942, Stojanović was appointed chief of staff of the Operational Headquarters for Bosanska Krajina—a unified command of all Partisan forces in the regions of Bosanska Krajina and central Bosnia. The Operational Headquarters' main task was to counter the rising influence of Chetniks in those regions. On 5 March 1942, Stojanović was severely wounded in an ambush by the Chetniks. He was taken to a field hospital in the village of Jošavka. Members of the Jošavka Partisan Company joined the Chetnik side on the night of 31 March, when they took Stojanović prisoner. The next night, a group of Chetniks carried Stojanović out of the house where he was recovering from his wound and killed him. On 7 August 1942, Stojanović was proclaimed a People's Hero of Yugoslavia.

Biography

Early life

Stojanović's home town of Prijedor around 1910

Mladen Stojanović was the third child and the first son of Serbian Orthodox priest Simo Stojanović and his wife Jovanka. He was born in Prijedor on 7 April 1896. Bosnia-Herzegovina was then occupied by Austria-Hungary; Prijedor was located in Bosanska Krajina, the north-western region of the province.^[1] Stojanović's father was the third generation of his family to serve as a Serbian Orthodox priest. He graduated from a theology faculty, becoming the first in the family to attain a higher level of education. Simo was active in the political struggle for ecclesiastical and educational autonomy of the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Mladen Stojanović's maternal grandfather was a Serbian Orthodox priest from Dubica.^[2]

Stojanović completed his elementary education at the Serbian Elementary School in Prijedor in 1906. In 1907, he finished the first grade of his secondary education at the gymnasium in Sarajevo, before he entered the gymnasium in Tuzla, where he would finish the remaining seven grades. His brother Sreten Stojanović—who would become a prominent sculptor—joined him at the Tuzla gymnasium in 1908.^[1]

Activist of Young Bosnia

Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina on 6 October 1908, which caused the Annexation Crisis in Europe. The Kingdom of Serbia protested and mobilised its army, but on 31 March 1909, the Serbian government formally accepted the annexation.^[3] In 1911, Mladen Stojanović became a member of the secret association of students of the Tuzla gymnasium called Narodno Jedinstvo (National Unity); its members described it as a youth society of nationalists.^[4][5] It was one of a group of diverse student organisations later called Young Bosnia, which strongly opposed Austria-Hungary's rule over Bosnia-Herzegovina.^[6] The activists of Young Bosnia were Bosnian Serbs, Muslims, and Croats, though most were Serbs.^[7] The first organisation regarded as part of this group was established in 1904 by Serb students of the gymnasium in Mostar.^[8]

The gymnasium in Tuzla, which Stojanović attended from 1907 to 1914

Young Bosnia's activists regarded literature as indispensable to revolution, and most of them wrote poems, short stories, or critiques.^[9] Stojanović wrote poems,^[10] and read the works of Petar Kočić, Aleksa Šantić, Vladislav Petković Dis, Sima Pandurović, Milan Rakić, and later the works of Russian authors.^[11] In his final years at the gymnasium, he read Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Bakunin, Nietzsche, Jaurès, Le Bon, Ibsen, and Marinetti.^[12] National Unity, Stojanović's secret association, held meetings at which its members presented lectures and discussed current issues concerning the Serbian people in Bosnia-Herzegovina.^[11] All members of the association were Serbs.^[4] Generally, Stojanović's lectures were about educating people on practical issues of health and economy. During the summer break of 1911, Stojanović travelled across Bosanska Krajina lecturing in villages.^[13] One of the aims of Young Bosnia was to eliminate the backwardness of their country.^[8]

In early-to-mid 1912, Stojanović and his schoolmate Todor Ilić were inducted into Narodna Odbrana (National Defence),^[4] an association founded in Serbia in December 1908 on the initiative of Branislav Nušić. The association aimed to organise a guerrilla resistance to the Austrian annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and to spread nationalist propaganda. National Defence soon established a network of local committees throughout Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Its members from the latter territory gathered intelligence on the Austrian army and passed it to the Serbian secret service.^[14]

Stojanović and Ilić travelled illegally to Serbia during the summer break of 1912 to receive military training that National Defence organised for its members. They stayed for several days in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, where they met Gavrilo Princip, another activist of Young Bosnia who was also a member of National Defence. Stojanović and Ilić then spent a month at army barracks in Vranje in southern Serbia, participating in the military drills under the command of Vojin Popović, a famous Chetnik guerrilla fighter. Back in school, the two friends resumed their activities in National Unity. Its members decided that Muslims should also be drawn into the association. After Trifko Grabež was expelled from the Tuzla gymnasium for slapping a teacher during a quarrel, the association organised a school strike. Most of the students who participated were Serbs; the strike gained little support among students of other ethnicities. The school took disciplinary measures against Ilić and Stojanović, who were regarded as the main organisers of the strike. Ilić lost his scholarship.^[4]

In the autumn of 1913, Stojanović entered the eighth and final year of his secondary education. National Unity was visited that year by a group of activists of Young Bosnia who were university students in Prague, Vienna, and Switzerland. These activists held a series of lectures to the members of the association, explaining to them the current political situation in the world, and promoting the unity of South Slavic peoples in their struggle to liberate themselves from Austria-Hungary. These lectures influenced Stojanović to firmly adopt a Yugoslavist stance. At the beginning of 1914, Ilić and Stojanović became, respectively, the president and the vice-president of National Unity. It then numbered 34 members, including four Muslims and four Croats.^[15] At that time, National Unity was one of the most active groups of Young Bosnia.^[16]

According to Vid Gaković, who was a member of National Unity in 1914, Stojanović was an ambitious and talented young man. He was determined that his voice was heard and he liked being the centre of attention. He was severe to younger members of the association, whom he sometimes sharply criticised. Still, his bearing was not repulsive, and younger students liked being around him. Gaković described him as a tall and handsome man who greatly cared about his appearance; he wore a bow tie and a broad-brimmed hat.^[17]

On the morning of 28 June 1914, in Sarajevo, Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria—heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary—and his wife.^[18] Princip was of a group of conspirators, which included Trifko Grabež; the whole group was arrested by the Austrian police after the assassination.^[19] Blaming Serbia for the attack, Austria-Hungary would declare war on that state a month later, marking the beginning of World War I.^[20] Shortly after the assassination, Stojanović wrote in his notebook a quote from Giuseppe Mazzini: "There is no more sacred thing in the world than the duty of a conspirator, who becomes an avenger of humanity and the apostle of permanent natural laws."^[8] On 29 June, Stojanović took his final exams at the Tuzla gymnasium. Soon afterwards, he and Ilić wrote a draft of their manifesto to the South Slavic youth,^[15] referring to Young Bosnia in a sentence:^[5]

Зар не осјећате, синови једне Југославије, да у крви лежи наш живот и да је атентат бог богова Нације, јер он доказује да живи Млада Босна, да живи елеменат којег притишће несносни баласт империјалистички, елеменат који је готов да гине.

— Do you not feel, sons of the one Yugoslavia, that our life lies in blood and that attentat is the god of gods of the Nation, because it proves that there lives Young Bosnia, that there lives an element which is pressed upon by the unbearable imperialistic ballast, an element which is ready to die.^[5]

Vojislav Vasiljević, a close friend of Princip's, was a member of National Unity. The Austrian police searched his notebooks and found a list of all members of the association. Vasiljević kept evidence of the payment of membership fees.^[5] All on the list, including Stojanović, were arrested on 3 July 1914.^[15] Soon after, Stojanović's younger brother Sreten was arrested for his anti-Austrian revolutionary correspondence with Ilić.^[17] Beside the conspirators who assassinated Franz Ferdinand, six groups of activists of Young Bosnia were arrested.^[5] The group containing the members of National Unity was called the Tuzla group. The criminal investigation against them began on 9 July, and lasted for more than a year.^[15] They were consecutively kept in prisons in Tuzla, Banja Luka, and Bihać. In the Banja Luka prison, the whole group was kept in the same room, which enabled them to organise political and literary discussions. They issued a comic and satirical magazine, called "Mala paprika" (Little Paprika), the copies of which they made using carbon paper. A number of copies found their way out of the prison.^[17]

In the Bihać prison, the Tuzla group created a literary magazine named "Almanah" (Almanac). For its first and only issue, Stojanović wrote several poems and an essay. Its editor-in-chief was Ilić, while Sreten Stojanović and Kosta Hakman contributed illustrations. The Stojanović brothers and Ilić learned French during their incarceration.^[17] The trial of the Tuzla group was held between 13 and 30 September 1915 in Bihać. Ilić was sentenced to death, Stojanović to sixteen years' imprisonment, and the other members of the group received sentences between ten months and fifteen years.^[5] Especially aggravating for Ilić and Stojanović was their participation in the military drills in Serbia. This became known to the Austrians at the beginning of World War I, when their army temporarily took Loznica in western Serbia, where they found documents of National Defence containing records of all Bosnian attendees of the drills.^[15]

Stojanović and other members of the group were sent to the prison in Zenica. Three months after the sentence, they were joined by Ilić, whose death penalty was commuted to 20 years' imprisonment. In the Zenica prison, each convict had to spend the first three months in solitary confinement. This was very hard for Stojanović, who became mentally unwell and became so emaciated that Ilić hardly recognised him. Stojanović later recovered and took a course in shoe-making, which was given in the prison. Afterwards, he fell seriously ill and had to undergo surgery in the prison hospital.^[21] In late 1917, the Austrian authorities pardoned all convicts of the Tuzla group, except Ilić. Stojanović went to his family in Prijedor. After a medical examination, he was declared unfit for army service due to his surgery and was not drafted into the Austrian army. He entered the School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, shortly before the disintegration of Austria-Hungary in November 1918. He participated in the disarming of Austrian troops in Sremska Mitrovica.^[21]

Interwar period

The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes—renamed Yugoslavia in 1929—was created on 1 December 1918, and incorporated Bosnia-Herzegovina.^[22] Stojanović continued studying medicine in Zagreb. As a former activist of Young Bosnia, he was offered a King's scholarship but he refused it. In Zagreb, he reunited with his former schoolmate Nikola Nikolić, who had also been a member of National Unity. After his release from the Zenica prison, Nikolić was drafted into the Austrian army and sent to the Russian front were he surrendered to the Russians and participated in the October Revolution. Nikolić's account of the revolution influenced Stojanović to adopt a more leftist stance. In this period, Stojanović's favourite authors were Maksim Gorky and Miroslav Krleža. His professor of anatomy, Drago Perović, arranged for him to visit an anatomical institute in Vienna. Stojanović went there several times in 1921 and 1922 and befriended members of a leftist association of Yugoslav students of the Vienna University.^[23] When this association held a protest against the king and government of Yugoslavia, Stojanović took part in it and delivered a speech. Behind the protest stood the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.^[24]

Stojanović graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in 1926, and he worked for two years as a trainee physician in Zagreb and Sarajevo. He then opened his private practice in Pučišća on the Adriatic island of Brač. In 1929, he returned to Prijedor, where he opened his practice on the first floor of the Stojanović family house, where his mother had lived alone since his father's death in 1926.^[25][26] Stojanović soon became a popular figure in Prijedor; his patients said that simply talking with him was curative. He treated poor people for free; he once sent a homeless man to a hospital in Zagreb and paid for his surgery.^[25] Stojanović earned well and lived at a rather high standard.^[27] People from other areas of Bosanska Krajina also went to him for medical treatment. In villages around Prijedor, where brawls were common, rowdies sang about him:^[25]

In 1931, Stojanović was contracted with the Prijedor branch of the state railway company to provide healthcare for its employees.^[28] In 1936, he was contracted with an iron ore mining company in Ljubija, a town near Prijedor, where he would visit the mining company's clinic twice a week.^[29] He also taught hygiene at the gymnasium in Prijedor.^[30] Together with other intellectuals from this town, he gave lectures to the miners at the their club in Ljubija. His lectures were usually about medical issues, but he also described the economic and social position of workers in more advanced countries. He socialised with the miners and treated their family members for free.^[29] He was very active socially, and participated in sports. In 1932, he founded the tennis club of Prijedor, which today bears his name.^[25][31] Stojanović once bought new kit for all players of the football club Rudar Ljubija.^[32] His contracts with the railway company and the mining company were both terminated in 1939. The railway employees protested in Prijedor and Stojanović's contract with that company was renewed.^[28]

The Ljubija miners were on strike between 2 August and 8 September 1940.^[29] Some of the leaders of the strike were members of a secret Communist cell in Ljubija, which was formed in January 1940. The Communist Party had been outlawed in Yugoslavia since 1921. The Communist organisation of Banja Luka sent its experienced member Branko Babič to help the strike leaders.^[33] According to Babič, a Communist from Prijedor introduced him to Stojanović at the beginning of September 1940. Babič stayed for several days at the doctor's house, conducting the strike. Seeing Stojanović as a Communist sympathiser, Babič proposed to him to join the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Stojanović at first declined, saying that he still had bourgeois habits, though he had read much of the Marxist literature. After further conversations with Babič, Stojanović agreed to become a member of the party.^[27]

At the end of September 1940, Babič and all five members of the Ljubija cell held a meeting at which they unanimously decided to admit Stojanović into the Communist Party.^[33] Babič held him in high esteem and regarded him as ardently devoted to the Communist cause.^[27] Some Communists, however, continued to refer to Stojanović as a Communist sympathiser,^[34] and some regarded him as a "salon Communist".^[27]

Onset of World War II

Partition of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers

On 6 April 1941, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was invaded from all sides by the Axis powers, primarily by Nazi German forces.^[35] Stojanović was assigned as a physician to an infantry battalion based in Banja Luka. During the invasion, this battalion moved for several days toward Dalmatia, before it completely disintegrated without firing a bullet at the enemy. That was the end of the April War for Stojanović, and he returned to Prijedor.^[36] The Royal Yugoslav Army capitulated on 17 April, and the Axis powers proceeded to dismember Yugoslavia. Almost all of modern-day Croatia, all of modern-day Bosnia-Herzegovina, and parts of modern-day Serbia were combined into the Independent State of Croatia (often called the NDH, from the Croatian: Nezavisna Država Hrvatska).^[35] It was a puppet state described as an "Italian-German quasi-protectorate",^[37] which was under the brutal regime of the Ustaše, Croatian fascists. The organiser of the Ustaše, Ante Pavelić, headed the NDH government. Its objective was to eliminate the ethnic Serb population through mass killings and forced assimilation, and many Serbs fled to the German-occupied part of Serbia.^[35]

The NDH's repressive measures also included taking prominent Serbs hostage against Serb attacks. To avoid being taken hostage, Stojanović paid 100,000 dinars to the Ustaše in Prijedor.^[36] Resistance movements began emerging in occupied Yugoslavia; royalists and Serbian nationalists under the leadership of then-Colonel Draža Mihailović founded the Ravna Gora Movement, whose members were called Chetniks. Their sporadic forays on the German occupiers began in May 1941.^[38][39] The Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY), led by Josip Broz Tito, prepared to rise to arms at a favourable moment.^[40] In the view of the Communists, the fight against the Axis and its domestic collaborators would be a common fight of all Yugoslav peoples.^[41][42]

Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, began on 22 June 1941.^[43] On the same day, the Ustaše began arresting Communists and their known sympathisers in the towns of Bosanska Krajina, including Prijedor. The Communists had predicted this, and most of them avoided capture by escaping to the villages or hiding in the towns. Stojanović was one of the few Communists arrested in Prijedor.^[44] He was imprisoned with the Serb hostages on the second floor of a school in the town. They were subjected to forced labour, being led each morning through the town to repair the road to Kozarac. The column of hostages was usually headed by Stojanović carrying a shovel on his shoulder.^[36] The Croatian Home Guards guarding the prison treated the doctor well. While detained, Stojanović lectured Marxism to a group of hostages.^[45]

Flag of the Yugoslav Partisans

On the day of the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, the Executive Committee of the Communist International—headquartered in Moscow—telegraphed the Central Committee of the CPY to take all measures to support and alleviate the struggle of the Soviet people, and to organise partisan detachments to fight the Axis in Yugoslavia.^[43] The Executive Committee also stressed that the fight, at the current stage, should not be about socialist revolution, but about the liberation from the Axis occupiers. In response to this appeal, the leaders of the CPY decided on 4 July in Belgrade to launch a nationwide armed uprising,^[40] which began three days later in western Serbia.^[46] The members of the CPY-led forces were called Partisans, and their supreme commander was Tito.^[40] On 13 July, in Sarajevo, the CPY Provincial Committee for Bosnia-Herzegovina, headed by Svetozar Vukmanović, organised the province into military regions: Bosanska Krajina, Herzegovina, Tuzla, and Sarajevo.^[47][48]

The Prijedor Communists were keen to rescue Stojanović from his imprisonment, but their attempts to bribe Ustaše into releasing him failed. They also considered storming the school in which he was kept.^[45] On 17 July, just after midnight, Stojanović asked a guard to let him go to the toilet on the first floor of the school. The guard let him go and followed closely behind him. When they were half way down the stairs, Stojanović shouted "Fire!" as smoke came from a room on the second floor. During the commotion of the guards and hostages extinguishing the fire, Stojanović entered the toilet and escaped through the window.^[49] He went to the village of Orlovci, several kilometres from Prijedor, where he was accompanied by Rade Bašić—a young Communist who had earlier escaped from the town. Bašić escorted Stojanović toward Mount Kozara (978 m (3,209 ft)),^[45] north of the Prijedor Plain .^[50]

Yugoslav Partisan

Area of Kozara

July–August 1941

Mount Kozara, near the site of the first Partisan camp in the area

On the morning of 19 July 1941, Stojanović and Bašić arrived at the camp of the Communists and their sympathisers who escaped from Prijedor, situated at Rajlića Kosa above the village of Malo Palančište.^[49] The news of Stojanović's escape soon spread throughout Prijedor. The group, mostly in the early twenties, enjoyed an increase in their credibility and esteem since a well-known and respected doctor joined their camp.^[44] People from surrounding Serb villages brought food and other supplies to Stojanović and his young comrades. Stojanović gave speeches to the villagers, telling them to be prepared for an impending uprising and urging them to bring him rifles they were hiding at their homes.^[49] The camp at Rajlića Kosa was the first Partisan camp in the Kozara area.^[51]

Kozara, located in northern Bosanska Krajina and centred around Mount Kozara, covers about 2,500 square kilometres (970 square miles). In 1941 the area had a population of nearly 200,000 people. The villagers were mostly Serbs, and the towns in the area—the biggest of which was Prijedor—had a mixed Bosnian Muslim, Serb, and Croat population. Several villages were inhabited by ethnic Germans or Volksdeutsche. The economy of Kozara was dominated by agriculture, but there were about 6,000 workers employed in a coal mine and several plants. The first Communist cells in the area were established shortly before the Axis invasion, mostly in the towns. Kozara had seen four uprisings against the Ottomans during the 19th century.^[50]

On the night of 25 July 1941, at Orlovci, Stojanović and seven other leading Communists of Kozara had a meeting with Đuro Pucar, the head of the CPY Regional Committee for Bosanska Krajina. Pucar told the assembled Communists that military actions against the enemy should start as soon as possible. The actions should be of a guerrilla type, for which purpose partisan detachments should be formed. Stojanović and Osman Karabegović were appointed to lead the uprising in the Prijedor district.^[52] On 27 July, in western Bosanska Krajina, Partisans took the town of Drvar, marking the beginning of the uprising in Bosnia-Herzegovina.^[53] The insurgents in Kozara were still not organised into military units.^[52] In the district of Prijedor, Stojanović and Karabegović had little control over the men from the district's villages who rose to arms.^[49] Pucar referred to the district's insurgents as the "Prijedor Company", the bulk of which were villagers, numbering several hundred men.^[54] Many of them had no firearms.^[49]

According to Pucar, the Prijedor Company was planned to attack Ljubija.^[54] On 30 July, contrary to Stojanović's direct order, the insurgents attacked Palančište and rescued fifteen hostages held by Ustaše.^[52] The insurgents then advanced toward Prijedor and developed a front line facing the town, which was defended by Croatian Home Guards, Ustaše, and German forces. The front line stabilised after three days of fighting, leaving the "Prijedor Company" in control of seven villages.^[54] Railway traffic between Ljubija and Zagreb was disrupted, stopping the export of iron ore from Ljubija to Germany. The uprising in Kozara also involved the districts of Dubica and Novi. By mid-August, five detachments of Partisans had been formed within the territory held by the Kozara insurgents. These detachments, including the Prijedor Detachment commanded by Stojanović, together kept a front-line facing Kozarac, Prijedor, Lješljani, Dobrljin, Kostajnica, and Dubica.^[55]

The leaders of the uprising in Kozara assembled on 15 August 1941 in the village of Knežica to confer on the current situation in the area. At the conference, Stojanović was recognised as the principal leader in Kozara; this recognition mostly resulted from his pre-war social status and high repute among the people. It was concluded that making the front line was a mistake because the Partisans should be oriented toward guerrilla warfare.^[56] At some point during the conference, Stojanović stressed the importance of binding as many enemy troops as possible to the area, so that they could not be sent to the Russian front to fight the Red Army.^[57] As the five detachments in the area were bound to their specific territories, it was decided that another detachment—which could operate anywhere in Kozara—should be formed. Stojanović and Karabegović were chosen to be, respectively, the commander and the political commissar of that detachment, called the Kozara Detachment. This unit was promptly formed with about forty men. With a red banner at its head, the Kozara Detachment paraded for a couple of days through villages in the Partisan-held territory. The villagers would gather and Stojanović would deliver speeches to them.^[56]

Croatian Home Guards, Ustaše, and a German battalion from Banja Luka—about 10,000 soldiers—attacked on 18 August 1941 the Partisan-held territory in Kozara. The enemy troops broke the Partisans' front line and penetrated the territory. They burnt houses and looted cattle and grain in the villages.^[55] Some of the villagers became demoralised, and they blamed Partisans for their losses; some placed white flags on their houses. The Partisan units retreated deeper into forested areas in the mountains. Stojanović led the Kozara Detachment toward Lisina, the highest peak of Kozara. In the evening, he assembled his men in line and told them that they were in the army of the Communist Party and all peoples of Yugoslavia, so they could not allow themselves to be attached to any specific village or area. He advised those who could not detach themselves from their homes to lay down their weapons and leave. Several men thus left the detachment, which then proceeded toward Lisina where they organised a camp and spent some time in military training and political indoctrination.^[57] The attack of 18 August was the first counter-insurgency operation in Kozara, and the Partisans emerged from it without significant losses.^[55]

September–December 1941

Lisina, the highest peak of Kozara

The leaders of the Kozara uprising assembled again on 10 September 1941, below Lisina. The five detachments of the Kozara Partisans were rearranged into three companies,^[58] possessing 217 rifles altogether. At the end of September, the Kozara Partisans began attacking the enemy, beginning with the weaker forces and then attacking the stronger ones. They gained military experience and captured weapons and ammunition from the enemy. More men joined the Partisans, and two more companies had been formed in Kozara by the end of October. The Partisans gained control over a number of villages.^[59] After a reorganization of the Yugoslav Partisan units, those in Kozara were merged into the 2nd Krajina National Liberation Partisan Detachment in early November 1941. Stojanović was appointed commander of this major detachment.^[60] By mid-November, Stojanović's detachment had 670 men organised in six companies and armed with 510 rifles, 5 light machine guns, and a heavy machine gun.^[59]

Between the end of September and the end of December 1941, the Kozara Partisans conducted around forty military actions against the enemy. Stojanović helped plan and execute major operations, such as the battles of Podgradci, Mrakovica, and Turjak. Stojanović argued that the village of Podgradci should be taken because it was situated deep within Kozara, because the enemy could easily disrupt the Partisans' advance toward other villages of the district of Gradiška, and because there was a sawmill in Podgradci, which worked for the Ustaše and Germans.^[61] On 23 October 1941, Partisans under Stojanović's command took Podgradci after five hours of fighting.^[59] The sawmill and its stored products—including a large quantity of railway ties, with which the Germans allegedly planned to repair railways destroyed by Soviet partisans in occupied Ukraine—were burnt down. Stojanović saw this action as a symbolic collaboration with the Red Army. A number of Ustaše and Croatian Home Guards were captured in Podgradci; the Ustaše were promptly executed and the Home Guards were given a speech by Stojanović, before the Partisans gave them food and escorted them to the Una River, and they were taken by boat to Croatia.^[61]

The third counterinsurgency operation in Kozara was undertaken at the end of November 1941 by about 19,000 Croatian Home Guards, Ustaše, and Germans.^[62] The Partisans emerged from the operation without significant losses, though the NDH's propaganda said that the rebels in Kozara were destroyed and that Stojanović had been killed.^[63] The Partisans never repeated the mistake of frontal resistance.^[59] When stronger enemy forces advanced toward them, the Partisan units manoeuvred to position themselves behind the attackers, thus avoiding battles they could not win. The Partisans therefore did not defend villages. During the third counterinsurgency, the Ustaše and Germans killed hundreds of Serb civilians in the villages, leading to a loss of support for the Partisans among the population. Stojanović thought that a significant victory over the enemy would be the best way to restore the lost support.^[63]

After the third counterinsurgency, a battalion of the Croatian Home Guard was stationed at Mrakovica, a peak in Kozara.^[62] Stojanović ordered an attack by five companies of the 2nd Krajina Detachment on the battalion, which began on 5 December 1941 at 5:30 am. The battle ended by 9:30 am with a decisive victory by the Partisans.^[64] They lost five men, while 78 Home Guards were killed and around 200 were captured. The Partisans seized 155 rifles, 12 light and 6 heavy machine guns, 4 mortars, 120 mortar rounds, and 19000 cartridges.^[62] The last action of the 2nd Krajina Detachment under Stojanović's command was the battle of Turjak.^[65] Four companies of the detachment attacked and took the village on 16 December 1941. The Partisans captured 134 Home Guards^[66] and letters to their families—which revealed their extremely low morale. The capture of Turjak opened up the district of Gradiška to the Kozara Partisans. The Home Guards retreated from Podgradci without much fighting. Soon, most of the district was under Partisan control and Stojanović's detachment controlled most of Mount Kozara and the surrounding Potkozarje region.^[65]

More men joined Stojanović's detachment, and at the end of 1941 it had over one thousand well-armed soldiers organised in three battalions of three companies each.^[65] The detachment established good relations with the Muslim population of the area; a number of Muslims from Kozarac joined the Partisans.^[67][68] On 21 December at Lisina, Pucar held a meeting with the Communists of Kozara. At the meeting, Stojanović presented a short history of the uprising in Kozara.^[65] Pucar stated that the 2nd Krajina was the best-organised detachment in Bosanska Krajina.^[69]

On 24 December, the Banja Luka headquarters of the Croatian Home Guard offered a reward for Stojanović. A document of the headquarters described him as the most intelligent and dangerous rebel leader, who planned and carried out attacks in a highly systematic manner. The headquarters was especially concerned about Stojanović's treatment of captured Croatian soldiers—giving them a Communist propaganda speech, offering them food and cigarettes, dressing their wounds, and then letting them go home. According to the headquarters, Stojanović and his men's influence on the morale of the soldiers made them useless in future fights with the Partisans.^[69] The courage and fighting spirit of the Kozara Partisans became famous in Bosanska Krajina, in other parts of Bosnia and in the areas of Croatia bordering on Bosnia.^[62] In the villages of Kozara, people sang about Stojanović:^[65]

Area of Grmeč

On 29 or 30 December 1941, Stojanović arrived in the area of Grmeč in western Bosanska Krajina, which was in the zone of responsibility of the 1st Krajina National Liberation Partisan Detachment.^[70] This zone also included Drvar, where the uprising in Bosnia-Herzegovina began. The military activities of the Partisans there diminished after the capture of Drvar by Italian troops on 25 September 1941. In the Italians' propaganda, they presented themselves as protectors of the Serbian people against the Ustaše.^[68] Groups of Serbs collaborated with the Italians. According to Karabegović, the Partisans of the 1st Krajina became more active after Pucar held a conference with their commanders on 15 December 1941, but this activity was still weak in northern parts of Grmeč. Stojanović went there to counter the Italian propaganda and to mobilise the Partisans against the Italians and their collaborators;^[68] he was accompanied by Karabegović.^[70]

Serbian epic hero Miloš Obilić, with whom Stojanović was compared by villagers in Grmeč

According to writer Branko Ćopić, who was a Partisan in Grmeč, Stojanović was greeted by a crowd of villagers and welcomed with the traditional bread and salt ceremony when he crossed the Sana River. Prominent villagers shook hands with him, and they compared him with Miloš Obilić—a famous Serbian epic hero from the medieval Battle of Kosovo. Several women approached Stojanović to kiss his hands; he declined this mark of respect, saying that he was not a priest but a Communist.^[71]

Stojanović visited the villages in the area and inspected individual companies and platoons of the 1st Krajina. His visits were accompanied by parades of the Partisan units and by mass gatherings. Partisan songs were sung, slogans were shouted, and banners were waved. Stojanović gave speeches to the villagers and soldiers. He said that the Italian troops in the area were not protectors of the Serbs, but occupiers and enemies. He branded those who collaborated with the Italians as traitors to the Serbian people.^[70][72] Stojanović's speeches were not well received by some people, who spread rumours that he was not Mladen Stojanović, but a "Turk" (Muslim) impersonator. According to them, Stojanović had been killed by Ustaše in August 1941 and the Communists were using his impersonator to deceive the people. Few people gave credence to these rumours.^[71]

On 22 January 1942, at the headquarters of the 1st Krajina in the village of Majkić Japra, Stojanović presided over a conference of the detachment's commanding staff and political activists of Grmeč. He criticised the detachment's headquarters because it had no division of functions and there was no personal accountability among its members. The headquarters had no communication with the companies of the detachment and did not act as a military-political leadership and there were no designated couriers at the headquarters' constant disposal. Stojanović was generally pleased with the Grmeč Partisans, describing them as courageous, enthusiastic, firm, and trustworthy but somewhat inexperienced. However, he said that the platoons of the detachment were dispersed in villages and had no contacts with each other. In this way, according to Stojanović, the Partisans were losing their soldierly characteristics and becoming more like peasants. Stojanović criticised the opinion among some of the Partisans that the political commissars should be abolished. He warned that the Partisans who wore emblems other than the red star would be punished for indiscipline.^[73]

Document dated 23 January 1942 in which Stojanović informs the companies of the 1st Krajina about the appointment of Milorad Mijatović as commander of the detachment

At the conference, Stojanović installed Milorad Mijatović—a Partisan from Kozara—as the new commander of the 1st Krajina and Petar Vojnović as deputy commander, while Velimir Stojnić and Salamon "Moni" Levi remained as commissar and deputy commissar, respectively.^[73] Levi was an acquaintance of Stojanović's from his visits to Vienna in 1921 and 1922.^[74] During his sojourn in Grmeč, Stojanović met young writer Branko Ćopić, whom he encouraged to write poetry about the fight of the Partisans. Stojanović thought poetry was more acceptable for the Partisans than prose. "Poetry and revolution always go hand in hand," said Stojanović.^[71] He stayed in the area until mid-February 1942.^[75] The Partisan leadership of Bosnia-Herzegovina estimated that Stojanović successfully countered the Italian propaganda and improved the condition of the 1st Krajina Detachment.^[68]

North-west central Bosnia

Stojanović left Grmeč and went to Skender Vakuf in north-west central Bosnia to participate in the first regional conference of Communists of Bosanska Krajina,^[71] which was held from 21 to 23 February 1942.^[76] In the Partisan terminology, the military-political region of Bosanska Krajina also included central Bosnia.^[47] At the Skender Vakuf conference, presided by Pucar, Stojanović, and Karabegović,^[77] the participants analysed the military and political situation in the region. The increase of Chetnik influence—which was strongest in south-eastern Bosanska Krajina and north-west central Bosnia in the zones of responsibility of the 3rd and 4th Krajina Detachments—was a big problem for the Communists. A number of Partisans of these detachments joined the Chetnik side.^[78][79] Only in Kozara was Chetnik influence thwarted in its inception.^[59][68] At the conference, Stojanović was appointed commander of a unified command of the Partisan forces in Bosanska Krajina,^[76] but on 24 February he was replaced with Kosta Nađ.^[80][81] The unified command was named as the Operational Headquarters for Bosanska Krajina, and Stojanović became its chief of staff and its deputy commander.^{[78][82][83][84]}

According to Nađ, the split between the Partisans and the Chetniks in Bosanska Krajina and central Bosnia began on 14 December 1941 in the village of Javorani. Lazar Tešanović, the schoolteacher in Javorani, influenced members of the local Partisan unit to join the Chetnik side.^[85] Tešanović then organised a Chetnik unit of about 70 to 80 men,^[79] and at the beginning of March 1942 he and his men were in the village of Lipovac. On 5 March, Stojanović, Nađ, and Danko Mitrov—the commander of the 4th Krajina—set out for Lipovac with the Kozara Proletarian Company^[81]— an assault unit formed in February 1942.^[86] According to some sources, the Partisans went to Lipovac for prearranged negotiations with Tešanović,^[78] while other sources state that they intended to disarm Tešanović and his Chetniks.^[81] When the column of the Partisans approached the school in Lipovac, they were showered with bullets by the Chetniks. Stojanović was severely wounded in the forehead.^[87] The Partisans remained pinned down by the enemy fire until evening; thirteen of them were killed and eight beside Stojanović were wounded. At nightfall, he and the other wounded were transported to the Partisan field hospital in Jošavka.^[81]

Stojanović lay in the field hospital for about 10 days before he was moved to a house around 800 metres (870 yards) away.^[87] At the end of March 1942, the Operational Headquarters for Bosanska Krajina and the headquarters of the 4th Krajina were both located in Jošavka. The two headquarters and the field hospital were attacked on the night of 31 March by members of the Jošavka Partisan Company. They joined the Chetnik side under the influence and leadership of Radoslav "Rade" Radić, the deputy commissar of the 4th Krajina. That night, the Chetniks killed 15 Partisans in Jošavka.^[79][88] According to Danica Perović, the physician who attended Stojanović, the Chetniks posted a watch outside the house in which he lay after they seized his firearms. Through a messenger, Radić told Stojanović to write a letter ordering Danko Mitrov to remove all Partisan units from the area around Jošavka. Stojanović, however, wrote a letter encouraging Mitrov to continue the Partisan fight. The next night, a group of Chetniks came to Stojanović, placed him on a blanket, and carried him out of the house. When they approached a nearby stream, one of them fired two shots at Stojanović and killed him.^[87]

On 2 April, villagers of Jošavka buried Stojanović on a steep, wooded hillside.^[86] By the end of April 1942, most of the companies of the 4th Krajina National Liberation Partisan Detachment had joined the Chetnik side or disintegrated.^[89] Rade Radić became the commander of the Chetnik detachments in Bosnia. After the war, Radić was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court of Yugoslavia; he was executed by firing squad in 1945.^[78] Stojanović's remains were transported to Prijedor in November 1961.^[90]

Legacy

Mladen Stojanović park in Banja Luka.

On 19 April 1942, the headquarters of the 2nd Krajina decided to rename the detachment as the 2nd Krajina National Liberation Partisan Detachment "Mladen Stojanović". The Kozara Partisans vowed to avenge Stojanović's death on all the "enemies of the people".^[91] The 2nd Krajina and four companies of the 1st Krajina liberated Prijedor on 16 May 1942.^[67][91] On 7 August 1942, the supreme headquarters of the Yugoslav Partisans proclaimed Stojanović a People's Hero of Yugoslavia.^[90]

After the war, a monument to Stojanović made by brother Sreten was erected in Prijedor. Streets, firms, schools, hospitals, pharmacies, and associations were named after Stojanović throughout the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Many songs were composed about Stojanović, celebrating him as a hero.^[90] A Partisan film about him, titled Doktor Mladen, was released in Yugoslavia in 1975. Stojanović was played by Ljuba Tadić, who was awarded for this role at the Pula Film Festival.^[92]

Each year in April, Stojanović is ceremonially commemorated in Prijedor and wreaths are laid at his monument. At the 2012 commemoration, the president of the Partisan War Veterans' Association of Republika Srpska declared:^[93]

Mladen je bio čovjek za primjer, revolucionar od najranije mladosti pa do kraja života, najpopularnija ličnost ustanka na Kozari, Krajini i mnogo šire i jedan od najhrabrijih boraca i rukovodilaca Narodnooslobodilačke borbe. Zato je njegov je lik ostao da živi u sjećanju zajedno sa slavom herojske Kozare.

—Mladen was a model person, a revolutionary from his early youth to the end of his life, the most popular figure of the uprising in Kozara, Krajina, and a much wider area, and one of the bravest fighters and leaders of the National Liberation War. That is why his image lives on in the memory together with the glory of the heroic Kozara.^[93]

Poetry

In his youth, Stojanović wrote poems, only one of which is published—in a 1918 issue of the literary magazine Književni jug,^[10][94] whose editor was Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andrić. A number of Stojanović's poems are preserved in a notebook that belonged to his closest schoolmate Todor Ilić. According to poet Dragan Kolundžija, Stojanović's poems are lyrical miniatures composed in free verse, focused on man and nature, and filled with melancholy. Kolundžija finds that what inspired Stojanović to write poetry is reflected in his verse Krvav je bol (Bloody is pain).^[10] According to poet Miroslav Feldman, who first met Stojanović in 1919 in Zagreb, his poems were sad and permeated with a yearning for a brighter, more joyous life.^[24]

Stojanović wrote an essay, which is published as the foreword to a 1920 book of poetry by Feldman, titled Iza Sunca (Behind the Sun). In 1925, Stojanović initiated the creation of an anthology of Yugoslav lyric poetry. On this project, he worked with Feldman and Gustav Krklec. The poets completed the anthology, but for an unknown reason it was never published.^[95] Stojanović's poetic inclinations are manifested in his letters to his wife Mira Stojanović, especially when he writes about his patients:^[96]

I, kad se podižu i osjećaju strujanje snage i proljeća u svojim žilama ja kao da dolazim sebi, ostavlja me neki zanos i ja tražim druge bolesne oči djece, žena, majki, staraca; nalazim ih i ponovo zaboravljam sve.

—And, as they are rising and feeling the stream of power and spring in their veins, I seem to come to [as if] some kind of ecstasy leaves me, and I look for other ailing eyes of children, women, mothers, old men; I find them and again I become oblivious to everything [else].^[96]

Notes

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mladen Stojanović.

• Gallery of photographs of Mladen Stojanović
• Ide Mladen vodi partizane. Song about Mladen Stojanović composed in Kozara in World War II