Monarchy, the Serbian Way
Serbia:Background
The Karadjordjevic dynasty is two centuries old. In 1804, Serbian pig merchant, Djordje Petrovic, later known as Karadjordje, led the uprising of the Serbs against the Ottoman empire. Karadjordje was proclaimed ruler in 1811. The rebels were defeated in 1813, the Turks returned to Belgrade and Karadjordje fled to Austria. He was murdered in 1813 in the attempt to return to Serbia and lead a new uprising. For the second time the Karadjordjevic family came to the Serbian throne in 1842. The monarch was prince Aleksandar I who was overthrown from the throne in 1858 when Obrenovic dynasty took over the reign.
Karadjordjevic dynasty came to power for the third time in 1903, after the army officers' coup carried out by the organisation called the "Black Hand". After Aleksandar Obrenovic had been murdered, Petar, Karadjordje's grandson, was brought to the throne. As of 1914, King Aleksandar I was the regent instead of his sick father, but he was killed in 1934 in Marseilles by a Macedonian terrorist who worked for Croatian extremists with Hungarian and Italian support.
The son of king Aleksandar I, heir to the throne Petar, was only 11 when his father was killed and he became king. In his name, the following regents ruled the country: prince Pavle Karadjordjevic, Dr. Radenko Stankovic and Dr. Ivan Perovic. Regent prince Pavle signed the document on nonaggression with Germany and Italy. However, on March 27, 1941, prince Pavle and the royal government were overthrown by a military coup, and young king Petar II was proclaimed of age. On that day, although he was not 18 yet, he took over power from the regents. He was born on September 6, 1923 in Belgrade, and when he was nine he was sent to London to school. A week after the coup, Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary and Italy attacked Yugoslavia and the army was forced to capitulate. King Petar II and Yugoslav government emigrated to London. During the war King Petar married Greek princess Aleksandra, and in 1945 his son Aleksandar was born.
After capitulation of Yugoslav army two rival resistance movements were formed: one was the Royal Army in the Fatherland (the Chetnik movement) headed by general Dragoljub (Draza) Mihajlovic, and the other was the revolutionary partisan movement headed by communist Josip Broz Tito.
Establishment of the Republic
Towards the end of the war, under pressure exerted by Winston Churchill, King Petar gave the mandate to former Croatian governor Subasic to form a joint government with Josip Broz (Tito-Subasic government). Through a coalition government and king's regents this government brought the communists to power in 1944. That was the end of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In November 1945, the monarchy was abolished, without a referendum, and Yugoslavia became a single-party state controlled by the communist party. King Petar II has never abdicated. By a decree of the presidency of the presidium of the people's assembly of the Federative People's Republic of Yugoslavia, the entire property of the royal family was confiscated as of March 8, 1947. By the same decision the Karadjordjevic family was "permanently forbidden to return" to the country.
King Petar II Karadjordjevic, the last king of Yugoslavia, died in Los Angeles on November 3, 1970. King Petar II had signed the following last message: "Whether Yugoslavia will be a monarchy again or a republic consisting of how many and what kind of units, will be decided by the sovereign will of our free people who is the beginning and the end of all power, in its free state and through its freely elected constitutional assembly. We pray to God and believe that on the preordained day our only son, heir to the throne Aleksandar, as the successor of celebrated Karadjordjevics, will show positive qualities of a future leader of free and democratic Yugoslavia, so as his father and king, I implore him to reign the country with wisdom, to be just, freedom-loving and free-thinking and unwaveringly to remain true to the tradition of our family Karadjordjevic, to guard the unity of Yugoslavia and independence of our fatherland". The monarch is nowadays living in London (England) and has a private business.
Return of the Monarch and Participation in Political Life
Prince Aleksandar, heir to the throne came to Yugoslavia for the first time on October 5, 1991. "A relic with no influence" as BBC called prince Aleksandar at the time, turned into a new, political protagonist during the two-day visit filled with emotions. The formula with which the banished heir to the throne conquered Belgrade was: "Peace through negotiations. Freedom through parliamentary democracy. National pride and economic progress". The return of the heir to the throne was received well among the people and the public. Many believed that he could be the political formula for the transition from quasi-multiparty, but essentially still communist political system into the system of parliamentary democracy. In time it turned out that this formula does not work in Yugoslavia, which especially became clear after St. Vitus' Day national gathering, a great several-month long protest against Milosevic's regime. It turned out that the "establishment of parliamentary monarchy and arrival of Aleksandar II Karadjordjevic - as the reconciliator, uniter and savior" was just an empty political formula that cannot pass in Serbian politics. During his first visit to the fatherland, Aleksandar declared that he would not return to the country for good if he were not "invited by all the parties in Serbia". He is still waiting for that invitation.
The Chamber of the Republics of Yugoslav parliament, on February 26, 2001, annulled the decree on depriving Karadjordjevic family of its citizenship and property. The government of FRY explained that the decree was illegal even from the standpoint of the legal system that existed in 1947 and the law on citizenship which was in force at the time.
Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) which is now in power in Serbia and FRY promised during last year's election campaign that after taking over power it would return the property and citizenship to family Karadjordjevic.
During 1991 and 1992, several initiatives were launched and there had been proposals made to state agencies to officially proclaim the decree legally null and void. An initiative was addressed to the Constitutional Court of former Yugoslavia, but it stated that it was not in its jurisdiction explaining that it was an individual and not a general legal document. In the end of 1991 deputies of the Serb Revival Movement (SPO) demanded from the People's Assembly of Serbia to pass a declaration on illegal deprivation of Karadjordjevic family of citizenship and property and on the basis of this declaration to give their citizenship and property back. However, the assembly rejected this initiative saying that the 1947 decree was not in its jurisdiction.
Monarchist Parties and Their Participation in Political Life of the Country and Official Government Institutions
The heir to the throne took a neutral position, extremely reconciliatory and that of a good host, like a necessary cohesive element. Serb Revival Movement (SPO) is the most significant among political parties that advocate the referendum on the question of monarchy or the republic. In its platform, SPO speaks in favour of "revival of monarchy in Serbia... in which the king would have primarily honour, but not power, and be a symbol of the unity of the state and an umbrella in a multiparty democracy". After a series of wrong moves in internal policy, in the latest elections for the Republican assembly, this party experienced a total debacle and did not even win the minimum votes necessary to be represented in the parliament.
Apart from SPO, New Serbia is also among the influential parties which are by self-determination monarchist. Its president Velimir Ilic, one of the leaders of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) has already started his presidential campaign although there is still a whole year until the presidential elections. All that has induced the federal minister of police and vice-president of the Democratic Party to publicly wonder how come "New Serbia, being a monarchist party, is nominating a candidate for the president of the republic".
Other political parties are more or less keeping their distance from the question of monarchy, but they respect the part of the electorate which is monarchist and they therefore publicly flirt with the monarch.
What is the approach of main political parties and state leadership towards the monarch? Judging by polls, only one quarter of the population of Serbia supports the idea of monarchy, while political parties mostly recognise in the prince a symbol of state continuity and proof of a different, non-communist Serbia and a possible reconciliator of the opposition. Before coming to power leaders of DOS declared that as concerning the stand towards monarchy this question "should be resolved at the Constitutional assembly which is the only competent for such sensitive and important issues". The Socialist Party of Serbia, Yugoslav United Left and Serb Radical Party, until recently the ruling parties, are openly anti-monarchist and in this sense continue the tradition of the communist regime.
In the past ten years there was no referendum on monarchy/republic, although the opposition had proposed its organisation. But the opposition did not have enough political strength to carry it out. That is why the opposition had also advocated the other option - constitutional assembly as a way to reach the decision on the question of state organisation. But this idea has not been realised either, although many parties which are now in power as part of DOS are still occasionally proposing it.
Prince Aleksandar openly admits that he would gladly follow the example of his distant relative Spanish King Huan Carlos: " I don't wish to impose the monarchy on the people". In the past decade the monarch was constantly present on the political scene. Before the latest elections he organised two meetings, one in Athens (in 2000), other in Budapest (in the end of 1999) at which he gathered leaders of the opposition who are now in power. About the gathering of opposition leaders in Athens on April 22, 2000, Dragor Hiber, vice-president of the Civic Alliance of Serbia (GSS) and one of the participants said that it was not a "gathering on monarchy but an attempt to eliminate, by mediation of prince Aleksandar Karadjordjevic, misunderstandings within the opposition, which are not too numerous at this moment".
Except for the direct contact with the parties the monarch acts through the Crown Committee and the Crown Council. One of the members of the Committee is Dusan T. Batakovic, currently Yugoslav ambassador in Greece, and members of the Crown Council are respectable scientific workers and members of the Academy of Sciences and Arts (Ivan Antic, architecture professor, Miroslav Gasic, chemistry professor, Matija Beckovic, poet, Dragoljub Kavran, professor of law, Predrag Palavestra, historian of literature, Pavle Nikolic, professor of law, Milorad Pavic, writer, Dusan Kovacevic, writer, Svetlana Velmar Jankovic, writer, ...).
There is little, almost no chance that the monarch will influence the future of the country in the role of a ruler, as an ordinary participant in the Republican political system he already has some, but comparatively little influence. To the question of his future role and the destiny of the monarchy Aleksandar Karadjordjevic himself says that once he came home he would "let things go their own way" and repeated that he did not want revenge but reconciliation and integration of the country into the international community. "I will go on playing my role in promoting democracy and re-establish my close friendship with the Serb people. I would like to see preservation of present Yugoslavia which consists of Serbia and Montenegro". Asked how he would react if the outcome of a future referendum on the establishment of monarchy was negative, Karadjordjevic said that that he was "sure nobody in Serbia would like to see me leave once again".
Dragoslav Grujic (AIM Beograd)