r/AskBalkans • u/theDivic Serbia • 7d ago
History Besides the conflicts, who were the individuals that promoted friendship and cooperation between Balkan nations?
We often discuss the wars and conflicts in Balkan history, but I’m curious about the other side. Who are some notable individuals, leaders, intellectuals, or even everyday people who worked to build understanding, cooperation, or friendship between Balkan nations?
I don’t mean the mainstream political figures we always hear about, like Tito or the broader Yugoslav “Brotherhood and Unity” project. I’m more interested in lesser-known writers, thinkers, or activists - people like Esad Mekuli, the Kosovo Albanian poet who helped shape modern Albanian literature and also translated works from Serbo-Croatian, bridging cultural spheres.
On the Serbian side, an example might be Dobrica Ćosić in his early years, before his later nationalist reputation - back then he wrote sympathetically about Albanian issues and advocated for their recognition within Yugoslavia (though his views later shifted dramatically).
Who are other such figures - from any Balkan country - who genuinely tried to bridge divides rather than deepen them?
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u/Magistar_Idrisi Croatia 6d ago
A couple people from Croatia:
Marko Orešković - a Croat from Lika, he was crucial in organizing and spreading the uprising against the Ustaše regime in 1941. He was killed by Serb bandits in autumn of that year. He became somewhat of a folk hero among the Serbs of Lika. They composed many folk songs about him, the most famous of which started with "drug je Marko hrvatskoga roda, al je majka srpskog naroda".
Josip Reihl-Kir - police chief of Osijek in Eastern Croatia, who tried to organize many peacekeeping initiatives in the region in early 1991. He was well respected among the local Serb population, and often managed to calm tensions. Ultimately he was assassinated by a member of the Croatian armed forces, most likely under orders from a local Croatian warlord.
I would also mention Ivan Goran Kovačić, the author of Jama (a poem about the massacres of Serbs in 1941). He was murdered by Chetniks in 1943. Svetozar Pribičević was also an interesting figure - in 1918 he was a Yugoslav unitarist, but by the late 1920s he became a federalist and cooperated with the Croatian Peasant Party.
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u/theDivic Serbia 6d ago
Thanks a lot, this is the kind of answer I was looking for. We all heard about these people but never learned much about their lives.
I would say that examples like these are a clear sign that radical nationalists movements were never about protecting, saving or preserving anything, they were always only about their own interests. Why kill people who are supportive of your nation?
Btw I am very glad that in my neighborhood in Belgrade we still have the school “OŠ Marko Orešković” and it’s still in the Oton Župančić street, even after they started the trend of renaming street and institutions names.
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u/BelgradeNikola 6d ago
I would agree about everything exept the death of Orešković because to this day we dont know the full picture, a number of potential stories were made but no official one. Some say partizans killed him, some say chetniks did it, some say Ustashe and some say he was killed by Croatian thugs. Sadly we will probably never know the real reason.
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u/Magistar_Idrisi Croatia 6d ago
There's really no proof at all that he was killed by the Partisans, or even by Croats. Communist agitprop accused the Chetniks of murdering Orešković in 1941, and that was kind of taken for granted for decades. That probably wasn't true, either.
The people who killed him were literal bandits, who just happened to be ethnic Serbs. They killed Orešković for material gain - they took all of his belongings. It's possible that they realized he was a Communist, which definitely wouldn't have helped Orešković's chances, but there's no proof that any Chetnik command ordered his execution.
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u/BelgradeNikola 6d ago
We cant realy tell, for context here are some Serbian and Croatian texts.
https://www.vecernji.hr/vijesti/tvrdnja-partije-nediferencirani-ustanici-su-ubili-krntiju-592102
https://www.maxportal.hr/vijesti/partizani-su-ga-ubili-a-onda-pjevali-oj-ustase-jadna-li-vam-majka/
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u/Magistar_Idrisi Croatia 6d ago
Yeah, I know about that. Maxportal is a fringe Ustaša website, so obviously they want to blame the Communists. (They also made up the chant in their title lol, it went "oj četnici jadna li vam majka...")
The one about "non-differentiated rebels" is kinda true, at least from the title, but that's basically what I was saying. He was killed by bandits (who used to be rebels a few months earlier).
The stuff about rival Communists being behind Orešković's murder mostly comes from Gojko Polovina and his memoirs... but that's pure conjecture on his part. He thought Žigić and others could kill Orešković because he criticized them - and then Orešković died. QED? Not really, no.
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u/Ok-Health-3929 Bosnia & Herzegovina 6d ago
not sure if this fits the bill 100% but the Jewish organisation La Benevolencija in Sarajevo who distributed meds and food to civilists, organised some kind of school for kids and helped evacuate some roundabout 2500 civilists, 1000 of them jewish, 1500 from other ethnicities.
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u/JariLobel 7d ago
Ljudevit Gaj was a key figure in the 19th-century Illyrian movement, which aimed to unite South Slavic peoples culturally and linguistically. He promoted a common literary language and fostered national awareness among Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes. While Yugoslavia emerged decades later under different political circumstances, Gaj’s ideas laid early foundations for South Slavic unity and inspired later efforts toward a shared identity.
His work wasn’t directly political, but it helped shape the cultural imagination that made Yugoslavia thinkable.