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https://doi.org/10.21857/90836cz0ky
The “Riots of Ustashas” on Christmas night in Split in 1984
Davor Marijan
orcid.org/0000-0002-3722-6981
; Hrvatski institut za povijest, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Sažetak
On Christmas Eve 1984, a large group of young people gathered in the Visoka area of Split to observe the usual, albeit illegal, night race of cars and motorbikes. The gathering took place in the area of the city with the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) barracks and residential buildings whose tenants were military personnel. During the gathering, a small group of mostly intoxicated minors, sang songs in which they glorified the Ustasha chief Ante Pavelić and insulted the Yugoslav communist leader Josip Broz Tito and the Serbs. The Secretariat of Internal Affairs and the Committee of the League of Communists from Split informed their superiors in Zagreb about the incident as an example of a violation of public order and peace, without going into details, with the observation that the celebration of Christmas was more peaceful than in previous years. The JNA interpreted that riot as an organized provocation and an attack on the barracks and military apartments, with a noticeably exaggerated number of people gathered in their report. The leaders of the Secretariat of Internal Affairs and the Centre of the State Security Service of Split did not agree with this view, apparently because they believed that they knew the situation in the city better than the representatives of the military security service did. The commander of the Military and Naval District of the JNA in Split got involved in the conflict that arose from that dispute, and then the Federal Secretary for National Defence from Belgrade, who also engaged the top of the Security Administration, joined him. At the session of the Committee for National Defence and Social Self-Protection of the Municipality of Split, they rejected the pressure and concluded that the riot is being given the attention it does not deserve. The JNA then informed all the relevant institutions in the Federation, and declared the riot the biggest attack on themselves after 1971 and 1981. The juvenile riot thus became a case that resonated throughout the country. The riot was discussed on several occasions by the top of the League of Communists of Croatia, which accepted the interpretation of the JNA and dismissed the leaders of the internal order services in Split. The riot was characterized as a case of clerico-nationalism and an attempt was made to link it to part of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, although there was no basis for such a claim. This paper is written based on original archival material of socio-political organizations and institutions mentioned in the text.
Ključne riječi
Split; Yugoslav People’s Army; Union of Communists of Croatia; clerico-nationalism; juvenile delinquency
Hrčak ID:
288036
URI
Datum izdavanja:
22.12.2022.
Posjeta: 1.072 *