Stevan Moljević

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Dr Stevan Moljević (1888, Rudo - 1959) was a Serbian and Yugoslav politician, lawyer and publicist, president of the Yugoslav-French Club, president of the Yugoslav-British Club, president of Rotary International Club of Yugoslavia and member of the Central National Committee of Yugoslavia in World War II.

Biography

He completed elementary school in his hometown and High school in Zagreb, and then law school, and a doctorate. Even as a high school student, he joined the Serbian youth movement that fought against the Austria-Hungary and against the annexation of Bosnia 1908. In Banja Luka was organized by the Society "Falcon" and the association of "Fraternity". As the Serbian intellectual in Bosnia, Austro-Hungarian government it the trial on 1916th for treason in Banja Luka was condemned to prison which he served until the collapse of the Empire.

In 1918 he was the initiator of the unification of Bosnia in the composition of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Dr. Moljević in 1922 founded the Yugoslav-French Club and was club president 17 years. In Banja Luka 1929th he founded the Cultural Association "Zmijanje". Advocated for the build up the monument of Petar Kočić. The French government awarded him three medals, including the Order of the Legion of Honor, which received the 1937th to mark the 20th anniversary of the Club in Banja Luka. The club was founded and in Prijedor. He founded the Yugoslav-British Club and was president five years. Dr. Moljević was the founder of Rotary International Club of Yugoslavia which was also chairman. In the book Dr. Dragoje Todorović "United Serbian cause" states that Moljević was a Freemason and President of the Rotary Club. Upon the creation of the Serbian Cultural Club in Belgrade, became the president of the this club in Banja Luka and remained in that position until the beginning of a new war.

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

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

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

Connection to the Yugoslav Wars

The significance of the Moljević plan is elucidated in the ICTY trial of the Prosecutor v. Tadic. Case No. IT-94-1-T. In this trial, the various iterations of plans for a Greater Serbia were discussed and tendered into evidence. From the hearing in closed session that was released by Trial Chamber II on 13 October 1996 - "In Moljevic's work Homogenous Serbia of 1941, Stevan Moljevic proposed the areas which would be included in greater Serbia outside the borders of Serbia in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia before World War II." The western borders defined by Moljević were of paramount importance for the prosecutor in this particular case, because they coincided with the borders defined by the JNA during the Yugoslav Wars, that is, the border on which it established its front line would be Karlobag, Karlovac, Virovitica.

Moljević did not explain how the non-Serb population would be moved out. In his work "Homogenous Serbia", he simply said that the matter had to be solved. It was Milan Nedic who developed Moljević's program further and titled his work "ethno-graphic problem of Serbia", in which he emphasised that the Muslims constituted a special problem and had detailed quotas by municipality for them. The prosecution tendered this as the basis of an ideological plan that underpinned the treatment of the Bosnian Muslims that was witnessed in the Bosnian War.

The union of all Serbs in one state that underlies the Moljevic plan was a prominent theme in Serbian political life of the 1990s. It is noted in the Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and was a common point of discussion by prominent nationalists such as Vojislav Šešelj and Vuk Drašković.

Quotes

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

References

Tomasevich, Jozo (1975). War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945: The Chetniks. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-0857-9.
The Partisan-Chetnik conflict in World War II by Dr Milan Terzić
Anti-Fascism Denied: Moljevic in “Memorandum” by Dragoljub Todorovic at the Wayback Machine, published by the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia

External links

Persondata
Name	Moljevic, Stevan
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1888
Place of birth
Date of death	1959
Place of death

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