Viktor Novak

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Viktor Novak ( Serbian - Cyrillic Виктор Новак ; born February 4, 1889 in Donja Stubica , Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia , Austria-Hungary ; †  January 1, 1977 in Belgrade , Yugoslavia ) was a former Roman Catholic priest, later a Freemason and Yugoslav historian Croatian descent.

Among numerous writings, the book Magnum Crimen is his most noted.

Life

Novak was a university professor of Croatian history in Belgrade. In the period between the two world wars , he was an advocate of centralized Yugoslavism under the Serbian royal family and tried to justify this scientifically. Shortly after the introduction of the Yugoslav royal dictatorship , Novak tried to "melt tribal nationalisms into a new Yugoslav nationalism" in his official-looking font Jugoslovenska misao (The Yugoslav Mission) , produced by the state printing company, with unilaterally collected documents and wrote:

"The age of the Yugoslav thought is to be equated with the age of Slavicism in the Balkans ."

The work also includes a facsimile foreword by the dictatorial Yugoslav king Alexander I.

After the Balkan campaign (1941) and the destruction of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, he supported the so-called Serbian "government of national salvation" by Milan Nedić which the National Socialist German Reich collaborated . In 1941, as a university professor, Novak was one of the signatories of the “ Appeal to the Serbian Nation ”. Among other things, he called on the Serbs to support the German occupation authorities and the Quisling government under Nedić in order to preserve the Serbian people. Novak's signature was on the top of the list after he signed the appeal as the 90th of 546th public figures in Serbia, namely leading representatives of the clergy, education and business. Nevertheless, he was also briefly imprisoned as a hostage in the Banjica concentration camp in 1941, together with 32 other professors from the University of Belgrade .

As a proponent of Yugoslavism, Novak was allowed to continue teaching and publishing in a communist Yugoslavia after the Second World War, but had to adapt his theories to the official view of the Communist Party.

As one of the leading Freemasons in Yugoslavia and a short-term Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge "Greater Yugoslavia" - which strongly influenced his views - Novak also requested "in the name of Yugoslav Freemasonry" the "interest of Freemasons all over the world in the action of the Yugoslav Communists against Monsignor Stepinac " , which also included the political show trial of this Archbishop of Zagreb in 1946.

In 1967 Novak opposed the declaration on the name and status of the Croatian written language , which was the main cause of the Croatian Spring , with his book Vuk i Hrvati (Vuk and the Croats). In it Novak settled polemically and with little scientific value with the scientists who did not want to share the linguistic nationalistic point of view of the Serbian philologist Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (1787-1864). In it Novak unjustifiably defamed some Croatian philologists as forerunners or servants of the fascist independent state of Croatia , which existed from 1941 to 1945. A contemporary book review in Yugoslavia described the work as "Viktor Novak's latest provocation".

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jugoslavenska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti (ed.): Ljetopis Jugoslavenske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti . Zagreb 1979, p. 58 u. 673 f .
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Kessler: Yugoslavia - the first attempt: Prehistory and foundation of the “First Yugoslavia” . In: Jürgen Elvert (Ed.): The Balkans: A European Crisis Region in Past and Present (=  Volume 16 of the Historical Messages ). Franz Steiner Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3-515-07016-8 , footnote 12, p. 93 ( online [accessed March 25, 2013]).
  3. ↑ a b Hans Lemberg: The attempt to create synthetic nations in Eastern Europe in the light of the nation-building theorem . In: Forms of national consciousness in the light of contemporary theories of nationalism: Lectures at the conference of the Collegium Carolinum in Bad Wiessee from October 31 to November 3, 1991 (=  Volume 20 of the Bad Wiesse conference of the Collegium Carolinum ). Oldenbourg Verlag, 1994, ISBN 3-486-56022-0 , footnote 37, p. 155 ( online [accessed March 25, 2013]).
  4. ↑ Viktor Novak: Antologija jugoslovenske misli i narodnog jedinstva 1390–1930 [anthology of Yugoslav thought and national unity 1390–1930] . Self-published (State Printing House), Belgrade 1930, p. LXV . Also quoted in Aleksandar Jakir: Dalmatia between the world wars: Agrarian and urban living environment and the failure of Yugoslav integration (=  Volume 104 of the Southeast European Works ). Oldenbourg Verlag, 1999, ISBN 3-486-56447-1 , p. 390 ( online [accessed March 25, 2013]).
  5. ↑ Viktor Novak: Antologija jugoslovenske misli i narodnog jedinstva 1390–1930 [anthology of Yugoslav thought and national unity 1390–1930] . Self-published (State Printing House), Belgrade 1930.
  6. ↑ Apel srpskom narodu . In: Novo vreme . No. 86 . Belgrade August 13, 1941, p. 1 u. 3 ( Online in Serbian Wikisource with the names of the signatories, including Novak [accessed March 17, 2013]).
  7. ↑ Philip J. Cohen: Serbia's Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History (=  Volume 2 of Eastern European Studies ). Texas A&M University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-89096-760-1 , pp. 140 ( online [accessed on March 17, 2013] “Appeal to the Serbian People” with Novak as signatory No. 90). List of signatories printed in this source also cited in the standard work by Holm Sundhaussen : History of Serbia: 19. – 21. Century . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-205-77660-4 , footnote 606, p. 313 ( online [accessed March 23, 2013]).
  8. ↑ Zoran D. Nenezić: Masoni u Jugoslaviji (1764-1980): pregled istorije slobodnog zidarstva u Jugoslaviji: prilozi i građa . Narodna knj., Zagreb 1984, p. 478 .
  9. ↑ Valeria Heuberger: Nations, Nationalities, Minorities: Problems of Nationalism in Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Poland, Ukraine, Italy and Austria 1945–1990 (=  Volume 22 of the series of publications by the Austrian Institute for East and Southeast Europe ). Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1994, p. 86 .
  10. ↑ Holm Sundhaussen : History of Serbia: 19. – 21. Century . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-205-77660-4 , p. 312 .
  11. ↑ Wolfgang Höpken: Between national creation of meaning, Yugoslavism and “memory chaos” . In: Österreichisches Ost- und Südosteuropa-Institut, Arbeitsgemeinschaft Ost (Ed.): Österreichische Osthefte . tape 47 . LIT Verlag, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-9539-4 , p. 369 ( online [accessed March 25, 2013]).
  12. ↑ Zoran D. Nenezić: Masoni u Jugoslaviji (1764-1980): pregled istorije slobodnog zidarstva u Jugoslaviji: prilozi i građa . Narodna knj., Zagreb 1987, p. 495 . This work also source for Gerhard Grimm: Freemasons (SE Europe without Hungary) . In: Edgar Hösch, Karl Nehring u. Holm Sundhaussen for the Southeast Institute Munich (Hrsg.): Lexicon for the history of Southeast Europe . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-205-77193-1 , p. 239 .
  13. ^ Jozo Tomasevich: War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945: Occupation and Collaboration . Stanford University Press, Stanford 2001, ISBN 0-8047-7924-4 , footnote 44, pp. 25 ( online [accessed March 25, 2013]).
  14. ↑ Zoran D. Nenezić: Masoni u Jugoslaviji (1764-1980): pregled istorije slobodnog zidarstva u Jugoslaviji: prilozi i građa . 2nd Edition. Narodna knj., Zagreb 1987, p. 504 .
  15. ↑ Wolf Dietrich Behschnitt: Nationalism among Serbs and Croats 1830–1914 (=  Volume 74 of the Southern European Works ). Oldenbourg Verlag, 1980, ISBN 3-486-49831-2 , p. 278 ( online [accessed March 25, 2013]).
personal data
SURNAME Novak, Viktor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Новак, Виктор (SrS)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Yugoslav historian
DATE OF BIRTH February 4, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Donja Stubica , Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH January 1, 1977
Place of death Belgrade , Yugoslavia