Matthew Franklin Cooper writes:
Dr
Janez Evangelist Krek of the Slovene Lands of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
was an influential figure in the movement for Yugoslav autonomy within the
Empire, best known for the May Declaration which demanded that Austria-Hungary
recognise within its own borders a kingdom of the Southern Slavs in personal
union with Austria and Hungary. Beyond this, however, he was perhaps one of the
most consistent, articulate and imaginative advocates of the principles of
Catholic social teaching in the Balkans (and indeed, in all of Eastern Europe).
Having grown up in Ljubljana and having been exposed to the Catholic
conservative thought of Croatian theologian Bp Anton Mahnic and
to Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum
Novarum, Dr Krek began speaking emphatically on behalf of the Slovenian
peasantry, whose physical and spiritual condition after the liberal revolutions
of 1848 was not much better than outright serfdom. Subsistence farmers dumped
without warning into a global money (rather than barter) economy without proper
training, capital or acculturation, they faced prices for their goods which
were consistently undercut by cheap American imports and conditions where their
tenure was unsustainable without high-interest loans with their hard-won lands
as collateral. It is not a stretch to say that the average Slovene peasant
traded serfdom to a nearby landed lord (who at least spoke a Slavic tongue) for
serfdom to a German- or French-speaking banker in a city far too far away -
though local usurers were of course all too happy to get in on the action. (And
who says history doesn’t repeat itself?)
Dr Krek’s enthusiasm for a
socialism based on Catholic thinking very much predates his tenure in Vienna -
at his First Mass at the age of twenty-three he gave a toast during which he
gave a short speech on the subject; however, once in Vienna he quickly made the
acquaintance of the circle of radical conservatives surrounding Karl Freiherr
von Vogelsang, and was inspired to begin organising what amounted to a
network of credit cooperatives throughout the Slovene countryside. Though these
began as rural credit cooperatives, he also branched out into forming trade
cooperatives and even cooperative schools. On the political side of matters, Dr
Krek favoured greater autonomy and dignity for the Slovenes amongst whom he
worked - linguistic and political rights as well as a greater degree of
economic self-determination. As such, he was one of the prescient voices
calling for a Southern Slavic political movement; though he himself never
became an outright nationalist (he believed that the Southern Slavs would be
better served by an equal place with Austrians and Hungarians within the
Empire), there can be little doubt that he influenced the Yugoslav
nationalist movement through his work.
One may justly look askance at
some of Dr Krek’s associations with other of Karl von Vogelsang’s students
(such as the populist, antisemitic politician Karl Lueger), or with Croatian
arch-nationalist Anton Starcevic (who headed the political party which would
later morph into the fascist Ustase government), but one must judge the great
works he achieved within his own tragically short lifetime on their own merits.
The trade union he created, the Yugoslav Labour Association, would long outlive
him, and would indeed become one
of the primary bases of Slovene (and thus, along with the Serbian Chetniks
and the Croatian Partizans, Yugoslav) resistance to the Nazis during World War
II. Dr Krek’s example might indeed prove to be a healthy inspiration for an
anti-capitalist, pro-peace Yugoslav position which does not place too heavy a
reliance on the (in some places problematic) legacy of Josip Broz.
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