domingo, 29 de junho de 2014

Sarajevo: the murder of a love story that launched a war

It was a beautiful day to Fernando Francisco and Sofia. The couple celebrated fourteen years a rare love match. An excellent reason, therefore, to the Archduke evade commitments in Vienna, where the Countess Sofya, without having Royal blood, was not well accepted by the remaining nobility. So also, the couple traveled without security.

"For the first time in fourteen years, they could travel together in the same car", reminds us of the historian Mirsad Avdic.

Fernando Francisco and Sofia traveled to Bosnia to attend, on the outskirts of Sarajevo, a few exercises in the armed forces of the austro-Hungarian Empire.

The date of June 28, 1914 also emerged as a challenge to the region. By the Gregorian calendar, was also a June 28, but in 1389, (15 June by the Julian calendar), which the Serbs have suffered a historic defeat in the face of the Turks: the famous battle of the field of Blackbirds or battle of Kosovo.

Since 1878 Bosnia was then occupied by the austro-Hungarian Empire. "Forty years after the occupation, some people decided to rebel and kill what they understood to be the symbol of this occupation and tyranny", tell us another historian, Slobodan Soja.

The young nationalists of the then yet to create Yugoslavia, the proclaimed Mlada Bosnia, a genus of Young Bosnia, was commissioned to prepare the attack against the heir to the austro-Hungarian throne, the symbol of the occupation. The passage of the motorcade, a first hand grenade strikes the Archduke's car and nine wounded.

The author of this attack is arrested and the attack failed. Francisco Fernando decides to visit the wounded in hospital. On the way, the driver commits a fatal error. "The driver was Czech, did not notice the signs in German and Austrian made a mistake at turn on the Museum. Fernando Francisco requires you to stop the car. Behind them, six cars cause a traffic jam. Gavrilo Princip was on the other side of the bridge. As he was a diabetic and the attack had failed, the nervousness causes her hypoglycemia, a low blood sugar. In front of a bakery, Princip decided to eat. When going out, see the Entourage of Archduke and decides to take advantage of the opportunity. At one point, see about three feet of Sophia and Fernando Francisco. Fires five shots and kills the Archduke and the Countess. It was chaos. Sofia and Francisco are taken to the hotel. Try reanimates them. Without success, "reports Mirsad Avdic.

The assassin, Gavrilo Princip, was 19 years. Escaped the death penalty, allowed only for people over 20. Is sentenced to 20 years in prison and jailed in the same cell that Ivan Kranjcevic, who had caught 10 years for membership in the bombing.

We visited the Orthodox cemetery of Kosevo, Sarajevo, where there is a church built in 1939 in honor of Gavrilo Princip and his cronies. The image of Heroes attributed to this group would, however, change in the Balkans after the Decade of 90, another period of profound political changes and the region border.

"The fall of communism changed things. Desanexaram countries themselves. share the same background and the same points of view on what happened 100 years and, suddenly, everything is questioned. From one moment to the next, something strange happens: Princip and his group come to be revered by the Serbs ", Slobodan Soja, historian points and former Ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina in France and in Egypt.

Gavrilo Princip was dreaming about the Union of the South Slavic peoples, the peoples of "Yugoslavia". The dream came true, oddly enough, in the year of death of Gavrilo Princip, a victim of tuberculosis in prison: 1918. First with the Foundation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which, 11 years later, would be renamed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

Seventy-three years later, also this Yugoslavia if he vanished. Again, for weapons. The term "Yugoslavia" remained, however, until 2003, closing the title of Federal Republic which included Serbia, each of which, these days, independent of one another, which also stresses the influence of episode 100 years ago in the face of Europe that we now have.

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