Notes of a Hostage

By Svetozar Ćorović

Notes of a Hostage is an autobiographical book describing the life and times of Svetozar Ćorović, a prominent Serb poet and writer from Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina during the opening stages of WWI. Before the outbreak of the Great War, Ćorović was elected as an MP of the of the only parliament under Austro-Hungarian rule over Bosnia and Herze

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books of Jeremiah
• Release date: May 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9789198816020

Svetozar Ćorović

Svetozar Ćorović was a Serb novelist from the city of Mostar in Herzegovina, born in 1875 before the Congress of Berlin and the Austro-Hungarian occupation of the region. Well-respected for his literary work, he was elected to the parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1910. At the start of the Great War Ćorović spent time as a hostage in conditions best described in his own words, later being sent to Kaiserliches und Königliches Kriegsgefangenenlager Boldogasszony, catching tuberculosis, being released and then being drafted by the military in 1917 before being discharged for poor health and returning to die in his native Mostar in 1919, the same year this work was first published.

Book preview

Notes of a Hostage

Notes of a Hostage

Notes of a Hostage

Svetozar Ćorović

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Books of Jeremiah

Contents

1 Notes of a Hostage

2 Endnotes

3 About the Author

1

Notes of a Hostage

Sunday, 26th July 1914. I am sitting before the house on an uneven, bumpy meadow, where rotten and sultry smells are rising from the scorched grass, and I watch the peasant men and women pass on the nearby road. They moved, as usual, in groups: in twos, threes, sometimes more. The dust, which they kicked up with their opanci¹ hung above the road, bent and fell sluggishly on the surrounding trees or sunk into the dug-out, dark ditches. I was just thinking of escaping into the room again to get away from the heat when my neighbour Đorđo Žerajić came out from around the house somewhere and started approaching me. A good-looking, likeable old man. Always cheerful and with a smile. His eternally ruddy face seemed even ruddier, eyes with a strange glow. He didn’t even wish me God’s blessings nor ask me about my health, as is customary. Gently stroking his relaxed, white moustache, he asked me softly:

By God, what does it look like to you: will there be a war?

Even though there was a complication between Austria-Hungary and Serbia after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia, still few believed that this could lead to war. Besides this, I had not even received all of the newspapers because in the village of Miljevac, close to the kasaba² of Nevesinje, where I had gone up to spend the summer with my family, no one had received any and, in those which incidentally managed to get into my hands, it was especially emphasised how the whole complication will be resolved peacefully. Therefore, I replied with full confidence to the old man:

There won’t be a war… Absolutely not.

He arched his eyebrows thoughtfully and said, loudly:

I would bet that there will be one. Did you not see that flag-bearer star³ which shot through the sky for several nights?… Hm… A star like the one that showed up before the Russo-Japanese war… And now there will be a great bloodshed… Trust me…

And there they also started calling the army up. Said he is stretching it out. Mobilisation, as they call it. They are gathering men and horses. They even put up some sort of posters.

Well, there was a mobilisation during the Annexation Crisis and the Balkan War, I replied calmly. Even then they gathered men and horses. And what happened then?…. He only smiled.

Many think, thusly, and so would I, says he, if I had not seen the star with my own eyes… And the star will not cheat. The third mobilisation will not go like the first two. You’ll see…

And lazily, he put on a red scarf above his eyes and went again behind the house. I immediately got up and went to the Kasaba. I wanted to make sure: was the news of a mobilisation true? And if I came across any newspapers to get them. The town was full of people. The dense crowd sluggishly bends and ripples, quietly humming. The majority looked happy and carefree, as if they were about to start a kolo.⁴ They must think the same as I: that this mobilisation will be for nothing just like the first two. Only two-three older peasants seemed worried to me. They stood on the side,