The weekly report from the cattle market in Alexandria, with an emphasis on the needs of the Egyptian market for oxen, was published as every week on the pages of the "Trgovinski glasnik" for July 13, 1914 according to the Julian calendar. Since the outbreak of the customs war with Austria-Hungary in 1906, merchants from the Kingdom Of Serbia had to find new markets for the small kingdom's most lucrative export item - live cattle - so it is not rare that on the pages of a daily newspaper that dealt mostly with economic issues, one could find detailed reports from livestock markets all over the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. To mention the report was also the last because in the same issue one could read the response of the Serbian government to the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum and the decree on the mobilization of the Serbian army.
MOVING TIME TO NIŠ
At the beginning of the 1901th century, the press in the Kingdom of Serbia could boast more about quantity than quality and tradition. In addition to the official "Srpski novina", only some party newspapers, primarily "Samouprava" (radicals) and "Srpska zastava" (liberals), could boast of a decades-long tradition with short interruptions. "Independent" newspapers could not be maintained on the market for such a long period because the unstable political and economic conditions were not fertile ground for the development of newspapers that would live exclusively from sales and advertisers. Despite this, the need for (dis)information was great, and at the beginning of July 16, a total of XNUMX daily newspapers were published in the area from the Danube to Đevđelija, mostly in Belgrade. As the capital of the Kingdom of Serbia was also a border post, immediately after the outbreak of war, the Parliament and the Government moved to Niš, and as a result, a large number of newspapers changed their place of publication, while some newspapers, such as "Trgovinski glasnik" and "Štampa", stopped being published. . In Niš, "Samouprava", "Odjek" (organ of the independents), "Radničke novine" (represented the interests of Serbian social democrats) and "independent Glasnik" began to be published.
photo: National Library of Serbia...
"Politika", "Mali Journal" and "Piedmont" (newspaper of the organization "Crne ruka") remain in Belgrade. The quality of paper and press is declining due to wartime circumstances, and as a large number of editors and journalists are drafted into the army, the number of author's texts and editorial editorials, which were previously almost indispensable, is being thinned. The number of pages varies from two to four, only "Srpske novine" retains a larger volume.
The structure of the newspapers themselves is changing to some extent, obituaries and memorials are taking up more and more space, while business news is becoming a real rarity. Numerous rumours, sometimes completely unbelievable, are printed in the form of "letters" from readers, and this especially refers to the position of the Serbian and other South Slavic peoples in Austria-Hungary. There are still advertisements, mainly consumer goods are offered with an emphasis on tobacco, which became a real treasure after the destruction of the Tobacco Monopoly warehouse by enemy artillery.
Maps of European battlefields are becoming popular, so in August 1914 you could buy the "Map of New Europe according to the Russian newspaper Novoye Zvono" in Kosta V. Ilić's bookstore. Drug store Guslar informed the citizens that they had received a smaller amount of condoms, which was the first time that such a necessity of life was advertised in public media in the territory of the Kingdom of Serbia. Personal ads are gaining more and more space, missing relatives who lost contact with their family in the whirlwind of war are being sought, which will be of particular importance after the retreat of the Serbian army in the winter of 1915.
photo: National Library of Serbia...
At this point, we will convey a personal message that appeared on the pages of the Nis "Glasnik" on September 3, 1915. "Mico! My silence does not mean that I have forgotten you. Parting with you was hard on my heart and now I feel so much that I love you. I mourn our sweet memories with a prayer and I believe that God agrees with that for us to meet. Toshke"
Such a message of a personal nature was quite incredible in the years before the outbreak of the First World War, which speaks in favor of the fact that major armed conflicts, as a rule, lead to greater personal and above all intimate freedoms in conservative societies.
"LONG LIVE CENSORSHIP" AND INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM
photo: National Library of Serbia...
The War Press Office, which was in charge of distributing news from all the world's battlefields, follows the Supreme Command of the Serbian Army, so their newspaper "War Diary" begins to be published in Valjeva, and then moves to Kragujevac, only to start again after the collapse in the fall of 1915. to be published in Thessaloniki in May 1916. Already during the first year of the war, Vladislav Petković Dis was a war correspondent from the Smederevo battlefield of the "War Diary", and later texts were sent by Jovan Dučić, Milutin Bojić, Ivo Ćipiko and others.
The satirical papers "Brka" and "Spadalo" continued to be printed and quite cynically convey the dreary everyday life. In the cartoons, allied and enemy states were personified as human beings, with the exception of Tsarist Russia, which was sometimes represented as a mighty bear coming from the east and establishing order in Europe. Jokes were mostly about the daily struggles of the population with food and firewood, and there were also jokes dedicated to the "privileged" layers of society, above all war lifers and rear commands.
photo: National Library of Serbia...
Censorship monitors every state of war, but as a rule it redirects its "blade" from war news to the everyday political situation. The banned articles were not replaced by other texts, but gaps were deliberately left in the newspaper columns. The Belgrade-based "Zvono", which described itself as a "serious political and satirical newspaper", printed the catchphrase "Long live the Censors" vertically in place of the censored text. "Pravda" has in several cases accused the competition of deliberately coming up with gaps and is not censored anyway, but wants to turn the lack of content into "free-spirited capital". As the center of political power moved from Belgrade to Niš, newspapers published in the temporary wartime capital were often subject to censorship, with "Radničke Novine" and "Srpska Zastava" leading the way.
photo: National Library of Serbia...
After the Battle of Kolubara and the suppression of the spotted typhus epidemic, there is a lull on the Serbian front, and political life begins to flourish. The famous "Opančar Affair" was discovered, perhaps the most blatant example of abuse in military procurement in the recent history of the Serbian state. Namely, Vlada Ilić, a famous industrialist and later the mayor of Belgrade, was accused of having together with his brother procured huge quantities of ammunition for the army in Romania. The problem was that most of the shoes were not made of leather but of pressed cardboard and they fell apart after a week of wearing them. It was also noticed that a number of opanaks could only be worn by preschool children. A parliamentary survey committee was formed, but before the withdrawal of the parliamentary authorities from Niš in October 1915, all documentation was destroyed so that it would not "fall into the hands of the enemy". Fortunately, before the withdrawal, the report of the commission of inquiry was printed, but it was not "enough" for the trial after the war. Also, the newspaper "Nova reč" was censored several times for the same reason.
In the newly liberated regions (the territory of today's Kosovo, Sandžak and Macedonia), two newspapers were published - "Srpski jug" in Skopje, edited by the director of the national theater there, Branislav Nušić, and "Bitoljske Vesti". They went out on two sides and mainly conveyed news from the battlefield, with the inevitable advertisements.
With the beginning of the fall offensive of the Central Powers against Serbia in the fall of 1915, newspapers based in Belgrade and Niš stopped being published. Kragujevac's "Ratni dnevnik" has been printed for some time, and due to the shortage of newsprint, the editors resort to improvised solutions. Old paper is ground, sometimes the remains of various rags are added and it is painted in bright colors, primarily pink. The format is often irregular, the paint spilled on the abrasive mixture, but the newspaper managed to reach its readers until the withdrawal of the Supreme Command from Kragujevac.
"HAVE YOU LEARNED MONTENEGRIN?"
photo: National Library of Serbia...
In November, almost the entire operational army, together with the state apparatus and the refugees who accompanied it, arrived in the wider area of Kosovo and Metohija. Rumors were numerous and often completely absurd, and the need for some kind of "reliable" information arose. In Kosovska Mitrovica, Dušan Narandžić and Dušan Bogdanović start the newspaper "Kosovo": only seven issues were published and, unfortunately, not a single copy has been preserved. After retreating through the Montenegrin and Albanian mountains, the majority of the Serbian army arrived in Shkodra in December 1915. As the evacuation from the Albanian coast was constantly delayed, the need for some means of information arose again. Milan Savčić, together with associates Andro Milosavljević (later he became the president of the journalist association), Stojan Cerović and others, printed the newspaper "Vesnik" with the approval of the then commander of Shkodër, Montenegrin general Vešović. As there was only an Albanian-Italian printing house in Shkodër with a Latin syllabary specific to the Italian language, the newspaper was published on December 17 (30).
Already on the first page, a joke with the following content was published: "Will you learn Montenegrin?" - asks one refugee. How else? Grandpa talks a little! And there is no, my God!", which was an allusion to the meetings of Serbian refugees with the inhabitants of poor Montenegrin villages on the Mateševo-Podgorica road, who did not help the exiles with food and firewood. This joke angered General Vešović and the paper no longer had permission to print.
WHERE THE LEMON YELLOW BLOOMS
Already in Shkodër, the Serbian government realized that it had to have a printing press, so it ordered printing machines with the Cyrillic alphabet in France. After arriving in Corfu, the administration of the Serbian State Press was formed again with the editorial office of "Srpskih Novina" and now only the printing press was waiting, which arrived at the end of March 1916. After great vicissitudes to find an adequate space, barracks were built with the help of the French military authorities and the first issue of "Serbian Newspaper" in exile was published on April 7 with an editorial bearing the symbolic title "Dawn".
The machines often broke down, and Čedomilj Todorović, the director of the printing house, described the solution found in this way. "Since there was no good mechanical and locksmith workshop in Corfu, all the repairs were done by the French on the ship 'Shamrock'. They rebuilt the base of the machine for us (...), gave us a new carburettor for the engine and all that for free. Let them also be told cordially: Thank you!"
photo: National Library of Serbia...
With the arrival of the reorganized army on the Thessaloniki front, there was a need for a Serbian press in Thessaloniki. "Srpski glasnik" began to be published even before the arrival of the army, and soon "Ratni dnevnik", "Pravda", "Velika Srbija" and "Narod" also appeared. The Serbian newspapers continued to the exits in Corfu where the Government and Assembly were located. In this period, personal ads were an urgent need of the army, which had no information about its loved ones since the retreat from Serbia. The system was as follows: ads were published in local newspapers, and then through Switzerland, those ads came via the Red Cross or Serbian refugees who lived mostly in Geneva to the editorial office of "Belgrade Newspapers", which was published by the occupying authorities in Serbia. Ads were reprinted there and responses were published if there were any.
In addition to these ads, commercial ads were also printed for inns opened by Serbian restaurateurs throughout Thessaloniki - food and drink offers were followed by the indispensable sentence "Purely Serbian dishes with pork fat." This addition should be understood as the market's need not to eat dishes prepared with olive oil, which was completely unknown to the average Serbian soldier.
photo: National Library of Serbia...
The first issue of "Belgrade Newspaper" was published on December 15, 1915, and it was the only newspaper published in the Austro-Hungarian occupation zone during the war. They were printed in Latin, and in the beginning they brought announcements and orders, with "news" from the world's battlefields. Over time, they found collaborators among the local population, so Bora Stanković and Isidora Sekulić published there. But the ads were what made these newspapers significant for life in occupied Serbia. Several pages of densely printed columns had this or similar content: "Mr. To Stevi Aćimović, Geneva, for Panta M. Sarić, professor. My dear father, inform us as soon as possible, my dear father, about Mr. Đorđe Mićović, merchant, because his are in terrible care. Dad, write us a letter or a card. Mommy kisses you a lot, and your loving daughter Ana P. Sarić, Valjevo, sends you a thousand.
As Serbian refugees, among other things, were settled in Corsica, it is worth mentioning the local newspaper "Le Colombo", which gave one quarter of its back page to the Serbian community to publish news from the homeland and personal ads. This beautiful custom was followed by various other press that came into contact with refugees all over the African coast of the Mediterranean under the French colonial administration.
Across the European and American continents, dozens more newspapers were published in South Slavic languages that closely followed the course of the war in the Balkans. Most of those newspapers were founded due to the need for emigration that left these areas before the war for purely economic reasons, so they are not mentioned in this contribution. There are also manuscript leaves that deserve special attention, first of all because of the effort to create and multiply in conditions that were often more difficult than those mentioned above.
