Petrit Latifi
In 1909, the paper “Tiroler Land-Zeitung” published an article writing that the Croatian authorities prosecuted traitors in the “High Treason Trial” in Zagreb. The Croatian government stated that a number of individuals, such as Adam Pribisevic and Budisavaljavic, intended to incorporate Croatia within a Greater Serbia.
“The Serbian High Treason Trial. In Zagreb
The trial for high treason is currently taking place against Adam Pribisevic and 52 comrades, including MP Budisavljavic, the others mostly merchants, teachers, landowners, but also clergy, notaries, municipal officials, etc. The trial will last weeks, as 273 witnesses have been summoned The indictment states:
“The defendants are accused of having been in association since 1906 with the Belgrade-based political organization “The Slavic South,” which claimed to strive for the political, social, and cultural unification of all South Slavs in the kingdoms of Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, but in fact promoted the unification of these lands into a Greater Serbian Empire under King Beter I of Serbia through revolution and military force on the part of Serbia and Montenegro.
To this end, the defendants created organizations in Croatia and Slavonia, seduced the people into Greek-Oriental religions through word and writing, and spread and popularized the coat of arms and flag of Serbia, the image of Peter I, and chants glorifying Serbs, Serbia, and its king, so that the people occasionally chanted “High Serbia!” Long live King Beter!” and indeed, in many cases, considered Peter I a fine king.
They also economically and socially boycotted and terrorized Croatian citizens of other religions, sought to remove from municipalities and elementary schools all officials and teachers of non-Greek-Oriental religion and other persuasions, and strove to introduce the Serbian (Cyrillic) script in offices and schools and public inscriptions.
The following details are further reported: After Serbian propaganda had already prepared the ground in Croatia and Slavonia, when Beter I ascended the throne of Serbia, the “Serbian Settlement” was created with the express purpose of regaining all lands inhabited by Serbs for the Kingdom of Serbia.
The above-mentioned lands were inhabited by Greek-Oriental, Catholic, and Muslim Serbs, and the Croats were Serbian renegades and squires of Serbia. In the schoolbooks introduced by the Serbian government, these lands are described as under under foreign yoke; in a letter from one of the main defendants, they are explicitly referred to as still unliberated Serbian lands under foreign administration.
Immediately after the founding of the “Slavic South,” Serbian officers incognito flooded these “to-be-liberated” lands, held secret meetings, and agitated, pointing out that the time was not far off when everything up to the Croatian Zagora would be Serbian. Then numerous Serbian clubs, Sokol, and other associations were founded by the Serbian Independence Party, which disseminated the Serbian coat of arms, flag, script, royal images, royal hymns, etc., and declared that Austria-Hungary must be torn apart and the monarchs of the Monarchy must be destroyed”.
Reference
Balkan Academia 