Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States

Although contemporary historians focus on statistics seeking to determine
exact numbers of victims identified by ethnoreligious background, one of
the most remarkable characteristic of World War II in Yugoslavia is Ustasˇa
and Četnik brutality, torture, and sadism targeting men, women, children,
and elderly alike. For that matter, the two local ethnic nationalistic factions
differed both from German invaders and the communist Partisan resistance
because these executed most of their victims by shooting. Torture of civilians
and rape and murder of women and children were rare, particularly on the
part of the Partisans (Germans did execute thousands of women and children
in retaliation for Partisan actions, and during the last months of the
war Partisans retaliated against their enemies’ families, too, but there was
no systematic torture and rape). In his recent relation of Balkan history,
Misha Glenny has correctly pointed out that brutality was a remarkable
feature of all Balkan wars, and World War II in Yugoslavia saw presumably
the worst kind of inhuman atrocity. Although Glenny, like many before him,
partly described some of these atrocities, he noted that a more detailed account
would be “pornographic,” suggesting the pathological nature of the
hatred generated by the local history, religion, ethnicity, and myths. 23 The
nature and scope of Balkan ethnic nationalistic massacres needs to be further
analyzed in the context of the post–Cold War reconsideration of nationalism,
communism, fascism, and Nazism. In the context of the “what
was worse: communism or fascism?” debate, an analysis of the actions of
the Yugoslav Partisans compared to those of the Ustasˇas and Četniks is
missing, although it would be illuminating. Only by keeping in mind not
only the statistics about victims’ profile according to ethnicity and religion
but also the “pornographic” details about Ustasˇa and Četnik massacres of
civilians and prisoners of war can one properly understood the secret of the
communist success in Yugoslavia and the origins of the communist-era civil
religion of brotherhood and unity (see chapter 6).
While clergy either remained passive or supported various factions, including
the Partisans, leaders of religious organizations backed the nationalist
factions directly or indirectly. The Serb Orthodox hierarchy, lacking two
of its leading prelates (patriarch Gavrilo and Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović were
both sent into confinement by German military authorities in order to
weaken national homogeneity of the Serbs), backed the quisling general
Nedić. A large number of Orthodox priests in Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia,
and Bosnia-Herzegovina supported the Četniks, and some joined their military
formations. The Serb Orthodox priest Momčilo Djujić became
commander-in-chief (“duke”) of the Četnik “Dynaric division,” which carried
out ethnic cleansing of the Muslim and Catholic population in Croatia
and Bosnia. Some Orthodox clergy in Croatia and Bosnia joined the Partisans
or supported them because they defended ethnic Serbs from the Ustasˇas.
A number of Muslim clerics from Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were
associated with the Ustasˇa regime or served as recruiters and military chaplains
with the so-called Handzˇar legion, which was an SS unit staffed by
the first strife 23