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POPULAR CULTURE GOES TO WAR – SUDRUG (»COMRADE«), A TRENCH JOURNAL OF THE ZAGREB-SEATED 25TH HOME GUARD INFANTRY REGIMENT (1915–1918)
Filip Hameršak
orcid.org/0000-0003-1288-4272
; Leksikografski zavod »Miroslav Krleža«, Zagreb
Sažetak
In many ways, Croatian experience of the First World War has for decades been a neglected theme. Among other things, a total of five trench journals (Feldzeitungen, bojni listovi) are known to have had existed, but only that of the Zagreb-seated 25th Home Guard Infantry Regiment, the Sudrug (Comrade), is almost completely preserved, and available on the Croatian State Archives website.
Starting on September the 25th 1915 and ending on October the 24th 1918, a total of 84 issues of Sudrug have been published, varying from 4 to 16 pages, and probably with a circulation of less than 100 specimens. Projected rate of publication was once a week, which was mainly sustained, apart from the serious setbacks caused by the 1916 Brusilov and the 1917 Kerenski offensive, and also by the 1918 fighting on the Italian front.
As the journal was conceived under the auspices of the 25th Home Guard Infantry Regiment Headquarters, for most of the time edited by one Ivo Klučka, Oberleutnant in der Reserve and otherwise a highschool teacher of Croatian and Classic languages, all of the available 1915–1917 issues were printed somewhere on the Russian front (probably in the close vicinity of the Regimental Headquarters), while the preserved 1918 issues were printed by the Austro-Hungarian 11th Army press department in the occupied region of Italy.
Apart from Klučka, who had been a lesser known teacher without registered civilian bibliography, only several of the contributors were to a degree notable individuals, all of them at least for a brief period serving in the 25th Regiment: writer Branimir Knežević, physician and politician Milivoj Jambrišak, biologist and geographer Rikard Kraus, lawyer and war correspondent Kosta Premužić. Practicaly all other contributors of Sudrug were either simple NCOs and common soldiers whose names don’t tell us much, or they had even decided to stay hidden behind the pseudonyms.
As far as the ideological-political layer of Sudrug is concerned, generally it could be said that it followed the official Habsburg line, but with some alterations, presenting – or, more often, just hinting – a somewhat »nationalized«, Croatian view on the Monarchy, the armed forces in general, and the more specific Croatian national interests.
Much more elaborated was the educational layer of Sudrug, reporting not only on the current advances in military technology and tactics, but also on hygiene, legal questions, national history, geology etc.
Most of the epic poetry, short-stories and essays dealt with either real or fictionalised battlefield events, mainly influenced by the oral folk tradition, but some also had certain expressionist traits. As a general rule, enemy rulers were frequently mocked at, but enemy soldiers – apart from pretty much demonized Russian Cossacks – were seldom derogatory treated.
Similarly, liric poetry of Sudrug was more often on the rather simplified romanticist track, including two or three possible cases of avantgardism. Themes and tones vary from the expected (patriotism, perseverance, vengeance of fallen comrades, devotion to family, religious consolation…) to rather unexpected ones (meaningless suffering, pessimism, betrayal by beloved persons, unconditional pacifism…). Although not decisive, such a shift is clearly discernible as the war progressed.
Particularly revelatory is a large section dedicated to humour, as the jokes and funny verses (mainly in the Croatian kajkavian dialect) tended to convey both happy and unhappy moments of the soldier’s life, ranging from lice and monotonuos food to fatherly commanders and home leave. Interestingly, the absence of women was not so much coped with eroticism, as with mysoginistic utterances of a sort, culminating in a description of a would be physical punishment of an unfaithfull spouse.
Also, most issues of Sudrug contained a section dedicated to the more serene regimental news such as decorations or promotions, and also to the memorial activities, such as the regimental frontline cemeteries and the Zagreb-seated regimental museum.
Finally, there was also an enigmatics section, some of the correct answers bringing cigarettes, pocket watches and other officer-donated prizes.
In spite of the primitive printing technique (»hectography«), many of the issues were illustrated with Art Nouveau vignettes, heraldic variations, caricatural portraits and even some short comic cartoons.
Presumably, as the Sudrug had not been significantly distributed outside the battlefield and the 25th Regiment, its content was outside regular censorship as well as out of traditional high culture criteria. Although neither the contributing circle nor the reception of Sudrug had been as wide as the editors hoped for, it seems that the position of the journal – in spite of all the casualties, including the wounded Klučko – was unproblematic all the way untill the second half of 1917, when trends of war weariness and decaying complement numbers irreversibly gained the upper hand.
All in all, Sudrug is judged to be an early Croatian manifestation of popular culture (as defined by Dean Duda), thus also representing a possible window to the oral culture world of illiterate soldiers, a window that certainly should be compared to other sources.
Ključne riječi
Austro-Hungary; Croatia; World War I; home guard; military magazines; pop culture
Hrčak ID:
192185
URI
Datum izdavanja:
8.5.2017.
Posjeta: 1.770 *