The Grand Lodge of Yugoslavia between France and Britain (1919-1940)

The paper deals with the orientation of the Yugoslav freemasonry during the existence of the Grand Lodge of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes "Jugoslavia" (GLJ), later the Grand Lodge of Yugoslavia (GLY). The state of freemasonry in Serbia on the eve of the Great War is briefly described and followed by an analysis of how the experience of the First World War influenced Serbian freemasons to establish strong ties with French freemasonry. During the 1920s the Grand Lodge "Jugoslavia" maintained very close relations with the Grand Orient of France and the Grand Lodge of France, and this was particularly obvious when GLJ got the opportunity to organise the Masonic congress for peace in Belgrade in 1926 through its links with French Freemasonry. Grand Master Georges Weifert (1919-34) also symbolised close links of French and Serbian freemasonry. However, his deputy and later Grand Master Douchan Militchevitch (1934-39) initiated in 1936 the policy of reorientation of Yugoslav freemasonry to the United Grand Lodge of England. Although there had already been such initiatives, they could not be materialised due to the fact that it was not until 1930 that the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE) recognised several continental grand lodges, including GLJ. In a special section efforts of GLJ to be recognised by UGLE are analysed. Efforts for reorientation of GLY were conducted through several persons, including Douchan Militchevitch (1869-1939), Stanoje Mihajlovic (1882-1946), Vladimir Corovic (1885-1941) and Dragan Militchevitch (1895-1942). Special attention is given to the plans of GLY's grand master to make the Duke of York (subsequently King George VI), who was a very dedicated freemason, an honorary past master of GLY. This plan failed, and the main idea behind it was to make GLY more resistant to internal clerical attacks and also to the external pressure of Italy. Mihajlovic's three official Masonic visits to Britain (1933-39) are analysed as well as a private visit of Corovic and Dragan Militchevitch in March 1940. In the context of the visits made in 1939-40 plans to establish an Anglo-Yugoslav lodge are also analysed. Finally, the context of the de facto ban on Yugoslav freemasonry in August 1940 is given and the subsequent fates of its pro-British actors are also described

Patterns of national identity development among the Balkan orthodox Christians during the nineteenth century

The paper analyses the development of national identities among Balkan Orthodox Christians from the 1780s to 1914. It points to pre-modern political subsystems in which many Balkan Orthodox peasants lived in the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Serbian and Greek uprisings/revolutions are analyzed in the context of the intellectual climate of the Enlightenment. Various modes of penetration of the ideas of the Age of Revolution are analyzed as well as the ways in which new concepts influenced proto-national identities of Serbs and Romans/Greeks. The author accepts Hobsbawm's concept of proto-national identities and identifies their ethno-religious identity as the main element of Balkan Christian Orthodox proto-nations. The role of the Orthodox Church in the formation of ethno-religious proto-national identity and in its development into national identity during the nineteenth century is analyzed in the cases of Serbs, Romans/ Greeks, Vlachs/Romanians and Bulgarians. Three of the four Balkan national movements fully developed their respective national identities through their own ethnic states, and the fourth (Bulgarian) developed partially through its ethnic state. All four analyzed identities reached the stage of mass nationalism by the time of the Balkan Wars. By the beginning of the twentieth century, only Macedonian Slavs kept their proto-national ethno-religious identity to a substantial degree. Various analyzed patterns indicate that nascent national identities coexisted with fluid and shifting protonational identities within the same religious background. Occasional supremacy of social over ethnic identities has also been identified. Ethnification of the Orthodox Church, in the period 1831-1872, is viewed as very important for the development of national movements of Balkan Orthodox Christians. A new three-stage model of national identity development among Balkan Orthodox Christians has been proposed. It is based on specific aspects in the development of these nations, including: the insufficient development of capitalist society, the emergence of ethnic states before nationalism developed in three out of four analyzed cases, and an inappropriate social structure with a bureaucratic class serving the same role as the middle class had in more developed European nationalisms. The three phases posed three different questions to Balkan Christian Orthodox national activists. Phase 1: Who are we?; Phase 2: What to do with our non-liberated compatriots; and Phase 3: Has the mission of national unification been fulfilled?

Aesthetic experience and the emotional content of paintings

In this study we investigated the relationship between aesthetic experience and other emotional qualities judged in paintings. Aesthetic experience was defined as an exceptional state of mind in which a person is focused on a particular object, transcending its everyday uses and meanings and losing the awareness of surroundings and even of himself/herself. In this state a person has an exceptional emotional experience, that is a feeling of unity with the object. Our basic idea is that aesthetic experience is not reducible to pleasure or a positive hedonic tone, but a person can equally be fascinated with both pleasant and unpleasant objects. In preliminary studies we specified the stimulus set of figural and semi-figural paintings, and a set of descriptors of emotions, feelings and aesthetic experience. Participants judged the paintings on descriptors (seven-point scales). Factor analysis revealed two large factors: the bipolar factor Affective Tone (descriptors on the positive pole: lovely, charming, cheerful, etc; descriptors on the negative pole: scary, disgusting, hateful etc.) and Aesthetic Experience (descriptors: exceptional, profound, unique, etc.). Additional analyses have shown no significant correlation between the two factors. These findings confirmed our idea that aesthetic experience is independent of pleasure or affective attraction, and that it can be induced by both pleasant and unpleasant paintings

Perceptual, semantic and affective dimensions of experience of abstract and representational paintings

In this study the difference between representational and abstract paintings in judgments on perceptual, semantic and affective dimensions was investigated. Two groups of participants judged the sets of representational and abstract paintings on three groups of dimensions: perceptual (Form, Color, Space and Complexity), semantic (Illusion-Construction of Reality, Expression, Ideology and Decoration), and affective (Hedonic Tone, Arousal, Relaxation and Regularity). The results have shown that representational paintings have higher judgments on the perceptual dimensions of Form and Complexity, the semantic dimension of the Illusion of Reality (the opposite pole of the Construction of Reality), and the affective dimension of Regularity. On the other hand, abstract paintings have higher judgments on the perceptual dimension of Color, the semantic dimensions of Construction of Reality (the opposite pole of the Illusion of Reality) and Expression, and the affective dimension Arousal. A discriminant analysis indicated that all three sets of dimensions are relatively good predictors of the classification of representational and abstract paintings (61-100%). The results suggest that the subjective categorization of paintings is generally based on the recognizability of pictorial content (representational vs. abstract), but some formal or stylistic properties play a role in the categorization, as well: some expressionistic representational paintings were classified in an abstract category, and some geometrically abstract paintings were classified as representational

Objective constraints of figural goodness

The effects of uniformity, compactness and symmetry on pattern goodness estimates were evaluated in three experiments. Ss were asked to choose the pattern which looks the best in respect to other patterns from given set. Patterns within sets differed from each other in uniformity (Experiment 1), compactness (Experiment 2) and symmetry (Experiment 3). Regression analyses indicated that symmetry was a single good predictor of the frequency of good pattern choice. This result is connected with Koffka's concept of perceptual economy: uniformity and compactness have perceptual advantages in the restricted situations (low energy disposal), while symmetry prevails in unrestricted conditions (high energy disposal)

Activities of Father Nikolai Velimirovich in Great Britain during the Great War

Nikolai Velimirovich was one of the most influential bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the twentieth century. His stay in Britain in 1908/9 influenced his theological views and made him a proponent of an Anglican-Orthodox church reunion. As a known proponent of close relations between different Christian churches, he was sent by the Serbian Prime Minister Pašić to the United States (1915) and Britain (1915-1919) to work on promoting Serbia and the cause of Yugoslav unity. His activities in both countries were very successful. In Britain he closely collaborated with the Serbian Relief Fund and “British friends of Serbia” (R. W. Seton-Watson, Henry Wickham Steed and Sir Arthur Evans). Other Serbian intellectuals in London, particularly the brothers Bogdan and Pavle Popović, were in occasional collision with the members of the Yugoslav Committee over the nature of the future Yugoslav state. In contrast, Velimirovich remained committed to the cause of Yugoslav unity throughout the war with only rare moments of doubt. Unlike most other Serbs and Yugoslavs in London Father Nikolai never grew unsympathetic to the Serbian Prime Minister Pašić, although he did not share all of his views. In London he befriended the churchmen of the Church of England who propagated ecclesiastical reunion and were active in the Anglican and Eastern Association. These contacts allowed him to preach at St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster and other prominent Anglican churches. He became such a well-known and respected preacher that, in July 1917, he had the honour of being the first Orthodox clergyman to preach at St. Paul’s Cathedral. He was given the same honour in December 1919. By the end of the war he had very close relations with the highest prelates of the Church of England, the Catholic cardinal of Westminster, and with prominent clergymen of the Church of Scotland and other Protestant churches in Britain. Based on Velimirovich’s correspondence preserved in Belgrade and London archives, and on very wide coverage of his activities in The Times, in local British newspapers, and particularly in the Anglican journal The Church Times, this paper describes and analyses his wide-ranging activities in Britain. The Church of England supported him wholeheartedly in most of his activities and made him a celebrity in Britain during the Great War. It was thanks to this Church that some dozen of his pamphlets and booklets were published in London during the Great War. What made his relations with the Church of England so close was his commitment to the question of reunion of Orthodox churches with the Anglican Church. He suggested the reunion for the first time in 1909 and remained committed to it throughout the Great War. Analysing the activities of Father Nikolai, the paper also offers a survey of the very wide-ranging forms of help that the Church of England provided both to the Serbian Orthodox Church and to Serbs in by the end of the Great War he became a symbol of Anglican-Orthodox rapprochement. general during the Great War. Most of these activities were channelled through him. Thus, by the end of the Great War he became a symbol of Anglican-Orthodox rapprochement

Anglo-american views of Gavrilo Princip

The paper deals with Western (Anglo-American) views on the Sarajevo assassination/attentat and Gavrilo Princip. Articles on the assassination and Princip in two leading quality dailies (The Times and The New York Times) have particularly been analysed as well as the views of leading historians and journalists who covered the subject including: R. G. D. Laffan, R. W. Seton-Watson, Winston Churchill, Sidney Fay, Bernadotte Schmitt, Rebecca West, A. J. P. Taylor, Vladimir Dedijer, Christopher Clark and Tim Butcher. In the West, the original general condemnation of the assassination and its main culprits was challenged when Rebecca West published her famous travelogue on Yugoslavia in 1941. An- other Brit, the remarkable historian A. J. P. Taylor, had a much more positive view on the Sarajevo conspirators and blamed Germany and Austria-Hungary for the outbreak of the Great War. A turning point in Anglo-American perceptions was the publication of Vladimir Dedijer’s monumental book The Road to Sarajevo (1966), which humanised the main conspirators, a process initiated by R. West. Dedijer’s book was translated from English into all major Western languages and had an immediate impact on the understanding of the Sarajevo assassination. The rise of national antagonisms in Bosnia gradually alienated Princip from Bosnian Muslims and Croats, a process that began in the 1980s and was completed during the wars of the Yugoslav succession. Although all available sources clearly show that Princip, an ethnic Serb, gradually developed a broader Serbo-Croat and Yugoslav identity, he was ethnified and seen exclusively as a Serb by Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks and Western journalists in the 1990s. In the past century imagining Princip in Serbia and the West involved a whole spectrum of views. In interwar Anglo-American perceptions he was a fanatic and lunatic. He became human- ised by Rebecca West (1941), A. J. P. Taylor showed understanding for his act (1956), he was fully explained by Dedijer (1966), challenged and then exonerated by Cristopher Clark (2012-13), and cordially embraced by Tim Butcher (2014)

Count Čedomilj Mijatović, a leading Serbian anglophile

Čedomilj Mijatović (also spelled Chedomille Miyatovich/Mijatovich 1842-1932), the most prominent Serbian Anglophile in the nineteenth century influenced the mutual perception of the British and the Serbs through his six books published in English, numerous articles in leading British papers contributions to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and a dozen translations from English into Serbian. In the 1870s and 1880s, he had an influential political career, serving as minister in several Serbian governments and playing a role in establishing some important state institutions. The image of Serbia in Britain is analyzed with a special emphasis on four pro-Serbian campaigns conducted between 1862 and 1918, the third of which (1892/3) was undertaken by Mijatović and his wife Elodie Lawton Mijatovich (1825-1908). The campaign was intensified in 1906-16, when it was conducted by Č. Mijatović alone. A significant part of the paper is devoted to Mijatović' role in the crisis in Anglo-Serbian relations following the May Coup (1903), to his contributions to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and his efforts to present British culture to the Serbs

Anglophiles in Balkan Christian states (1862-1920)

The life stories of five Balkan Anglophiles emerging in the nineteenth century - two Serbs, Vladimir Jovanović (Yovanovich) and Čedomilj Mijatović (Chedomille Mijatovich); two Greeks, Ioannes (John) Gennadios and Eleutherios Venizelos; and one Bulgarian, Ivan Evstratiev Geshov - reflect, each in its own way, major episodes in relations between Britain and three Balkan Christian states (Serbia, the Hellenic Kingdom and Bulgaria) between the 1860s and 1920. Their education, cultural patterns, relations and models inspired by Britain are looked at, showing that they acted as intermediaries between British culture and their own and played a part in the best and worst moments in the history of mutual relations, such as the Serbian-Ottoman crisis of 1862, the Anglo-Hellenic crisis following the Dilessi murders, Bulgarian atrocities and the Eastern Crisis, unification of Bulgaria and the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885, the Balkan Wars 1912-13, the National Schism in Greece. Their biographies are therefore essential for understanding Anglo-Balkan relations in the period under study. The roles of two British Balkanophiles (a Bulgarophile, James David Bourchier, and a Hellenophile, Ronald Burrows) are looked at as well. In conclusion, a comparison of the Balkan Anglophiles is offered, and their Britain-inspired cultural and institutional legacy to their countries is shown in the form of a table

Dr. Đura Đurović: A lifelong opponent of Yugoslav communist totalitarianism

The paper deals with the life story of Dr. Đura Đurović (1900-1983), one of key targets of Yugoslav communist totalitarianism. He was a Belgrade lawyer who worked in the Administration of the City of Belgrade before WWII. In 1943 he joined the Yugoslav Home Army (YHA) of General Mihailović, and held high positions in the YHA press and propaganda departments. His duties included running the Radio-telegraphic agency Democratic Yugoslavia. He accompanied General Mihailović on his meetings with OSS Colonel McDowell, and with Captain Raković he established successful cooperation with Red Army units in October 1944. He was arrested by Tito's partisans in 1945, given a show-trial and sentenced to twenty years in prison. In his writings he described horrible conditions, sufferings and various types of torture used against political prisoners in Yugoslav communist prisons. He himself spent more than two years in solitary confinement, and on several occasions nearly died in prison. He was released in 1962, and was able to establish a circle of former political convicts from the ranks of the YHA and other anticommunists in Belgrade and Serbia. He maintained this network, advocated pro-American policies and hoped that at some point the United States might intervene against communism in Yugoslavia. Gradually he came to the conclusion that Tito was an American ally, and was satisfied to maintain his network of likeminded anticommunists and prepare reports on the situation in Yugoslavia. As a pre-war freemason, he sent one such report to Luther Smith, Grand Commander of AAFM of Southern Jurisdiction of American masons, describing the ghastly conditions in Yugoslav communist prisons. He was rearrested in 1973 on account of his relations with a Serbian émigré in Paris, Andra Lončarić, and spent another four years in prison. Thus, the almost twenty-one years he spent in communist prisons qualify him for the top of the list of political prisoners in Yugoslav communism. In 1962-1973 he was spied on by a network of in­formers and operatives of the Yugoslav secret service. The paper is based on Đurović's personal files preserved in the penitentiaries in Sremska Mitrovica and Zabela, and his personal file from the archive of the Yugoslav secret service (UDBA/SDB). This is the first paper based on personal files of 'political enemies' compiled by the Yugoslav communist secret service, disclosing the latter's activities and methods against anti­communist circles in Belgrade