Jovan Rašković
Jovan Rašković | |
---|---|
Јован Рашковић | |
1st President of the Serb Democratic Party | |
In office 17 February 1990 – December 1990 | |
Preceded by | Position established |
Succeeded by | Milan Babić |
Personal details | |
Born | Knin, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes | 5 July 1929
Died | 28 July 1992 Belgrade, Serbia, FR Yugoslavia | (aged 63)
Political party | Serb Democratic Party[1] |
Children | Sanda Rašković Ivić |
Alma mater | University of Zagreb |
Profession | Psychiatrist |
Jovan Rašković (Serbian Cyrillic: Јован Рашковић, pronounced [jǒʋan rǎʃkoʋitɕ]; 5 July 1929 – 28 July 1992) was a Croatian Serb psychiatrist, academic and politician.[2]
Early life
Rašković was born in Knin in 1929. During World War II in Yugoslavia, after an Ustasha pogrom which resulted in the deaths of his relatives, he was exiled to Kistanje in Italian-occupied Dalmatia.
Witnessing, in 1941, the psychological effect of genocide on a bereaved man from Kistanje who had lost his family left a strong impact on his worldview.[3]
He passed his secondary school exams in Šibenik, and graduated in Zagreb. He then studied electrical engineering and medicine at the University of Zagreb, where he obtained his diploma and a PhD from the university's medical school.
Career
Before the wars
In the 1960s, he served as director of Šibenik city hospital and later director of the medical center. He was one of the founders of the Medical Research Institute of Neurophysiology in
Although he was not a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts at the time of its drafting, at least one source claimed that he was extensively consulted from his home in Croatia by Serbian nationalist intellectual Dobrica Ćosić when the controversial 1986 SANU Memorandum was being developed.[5] Moreover, later in 1990, Rašković was formally inducted into the organisation.[5]
Sometime in 1990, Rašković published a book entitled Luda zemlja (A Mad Country), in which he fused Freudian psychoanalysis with a Serbian supremacist worldview:
The Croats, feminized by the Catholic religion, suffer from a castration complex. That makes them totally incapable of exercising authority over others. They compensate their humiliation by their great culture. As to the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina and neighboring regions, they are the victims, as Freud might have said, of anal frustrations, which incite them to amass wealth and to seek refuge in fanatic attitudes. Finally, the Serbs, the Orthodox, an Oedipal people, tend to liberate themselves from the authority of the father. From this spirit of resistance, they draw the courage of the warriors, who are the only ones capable of exerting real authority over the other peoples of Yugoslavia. It is no wonder that the situation of complete hatred and paranoia develops in this country.[6]
In this book, he also argued that the lack of
In February 1990, Rašković went into politics and founded and led the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), which took part in the first Croatian democratic elections.[7] He noticed that there was no equivalent party in Bosnia and Herzegovina so he contacted Radovan Karadžić, a colleague, to suggest for him to establish one. The two, both psychiatrists by profession, gave lectures in Bosnia-Herzegovina from the period of 1990–1991, in which they tried to incite "hatred and militancy" among the local Serbs there,[5] working them into a "state of frenzy and paranoia."[3]
Onset of violence
In August 1990, the "first act of organized violence" to erupt among Croatian Serbs occurred under the leadership of Rašković, when local Serbs confiscated weapons from a Knin police station and murdered the Croatian police stationed there. After consultation with Yugoslav and Serbian president Slobodan Milošević, who promised to supply arms for the Croatian Serbs, the local Serbs militias set up blockades in the Krajina region, signalling the outset of the so-called Log Revolution.[5]
Although the SDS won relatively few seats in the 1990 elections, it quickly began to increase its power, and Rašković was soon perceived as a leader of Serbs by Franjo Tuđman and his new government. That led to direct negotiations between the two about the future of Serbs in Croatia. During one meeting, Rašković remarked, "Serbs were crazy people" who would not listen to him.[8][9] Tuđman's chief political advisor, Slaven Letica, had the words secretly taped and leaked the transcript to Croatian media to discredit Rašković among his people and then replace him with someone more acceptable to the Croatian government. That backfired, as, instead of rejecting Rašković, many Serbs lost any trust in Croatian government and embraced extremism and then armed conflict.[9]
Later in 1990, Rašković, who was seen as a "moderate" that recognised Croatian
To make matters worse, Rašković was also receiving pressure from
Rašković retired from politics in 1991, after the Plitvice Lakes incident.[15]
Rašković later expressed fear about the collective state of mind of Serbs, saying that "Serb myths have entered the Serb spirit, but with a dose of poison, spite, vengeance, [and] regression," which he believed needed to be "controlled in order to make less poisonous."[3] In early 1992, Rašković gave an apologetic statement on Belgrade television:
I feel responsible because I made the preparations for this war, even if not the military preparations. If I hadn't created this emotional strain in the Serbian people, nothing would have happened. My party and I lit the fuse of Serbian nationalism not only in Croatia, but everywhere else in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It's impossible to imagine an SDP (Serbian Democratic Party) in Bosnia-Herzegovina, or a Mr. Karadžić in power, without our influence. We have driven this people, and we have given it an identity. I have repeated again and again to this people that it comes from heaven, not earth.[16]
Death and legacy
Rašković died in
He is interred in the Alley of Distinguished Citizens in the Belgrade New Cemetery. In addition, there are streets in Trebinje, Prijedor, Banja Luka and Novi Banovci named in his honor as well.
References
- ^ The New York Times (1990-08-07). "Serb Minority Seek Role in a Separate Croatia". Retrieved 2021-01-08.
- ^ Večernje novosti (2007-09-05). "Ćaća od Krajine" (in Serbian). Retrieved 2019-09-21.
- ^ ISSN 0018-2648.
- ^ Tanasić, Dragan (2 February 2016). "ZABORAVLJENI TESTAMENT JOVANA RAŠKOVIĆA: Kako su Milošević i Tuđman uništili srpskog Gandija" (in Serbian). Kurir. Retrieved 8 August 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f Cohen, Philip J. (1996), Cushman, Thomas; Meštrović, Stjepan G. (eds.), "The Complicity of Serbian Intellectuals in Genocide in the 1990s", This Time We Knew, Western Responses to Genocide in Bosnia, NYU Press, pp. 39–64, retrieved 2023-09-23
- ^ Cohen, Philip J. (1996), Cushman, Thomas; Meštrović, Stjepan G. (eds.), "The Complicity of Serbian Intellectuals in Genocide in the 1990s", This Time We Knew, Western Responses to Genocide in Bosnia, NYU Press, pp. 39–64, retrieved 2023-09-23
- ^ Večernje novosti (2002-04-14). "Golgota Jovana Raškovića" (in Serbian). Retrieved 2019-09-21.
- ^ Nebojša Vukanović (2018-07-29). "Sjećanje na Jovana Raškovića" (in Serbian). Retrieved 2022-05-25.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7190-6466-1, retrieved 2023-09-23
- ^ ISSN 0966-8136.
- ^ ISSN 0022-3816.
- ISSN 0229-5113.
- ^ ISSN 0162-2889.
- ^ Nation, R. Craig (2003). The State of War: Slovenia and Croatia, 1991-92 (Report). Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College. pp. 91–148.
- ^ Večernji list (2016-12-01). "Neuropsihijatar, osnivač Srpske demokratske stranke: Jovan Rašković" (in Croatian). Retrieved 2023-08-08.
- ^ Cohen, Philip J. (1996), Cushman, Thomas; Meštrović, Stjepan G. (eds.), "The Complicity of Serbian Intellectuals in Genocide in the 1990s", This Time We Knew, Western Responses to Genocide in Bosnia, NYU Press, pp. 39–64, retrieved 2023-09-23
- ^ Večernje novosti (2007-09-06). "Presvisnuo od tuge" (in Serbian). Retrieved 2023-08-08.
External links
- Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts biography (in Serbian)