Initiation and initiative : an exploration of the life and ideas of Dimitrije Mitrinović

THE YOUNG BOSNIAN 11

In January 1907 Mitrinovic travelled to Sarajevo to assist the high school students there to establish their own political society. In the autumn of that year he graduated from Mostar. After a short holiday at the home of his parents he set off with Bogdan Zeraji¢ to study at Zagreb. He travelled via Belgrade and during his stay there established contact with literary and nationalist groups in the city, including Slovenski jub (The Slav South) which had its own journal. It seems clear that it was during his stay in Belgrade that Mitrinovi¢ arranged to obtain funding from the Serbian government to support him in his studies and his political activities. An anonymous report to the police in Zagreb alleged that he received more than 100 crowns a month from Belgrade whilst an associate, Veljki Petrovic, remembered him as a man gifted with an amazing ability to acquire money seemingly without effort. Certainly he dressed and lived with some style. On one occasion he provided the improverished Vladimir Ga¢inovi¢ with a complete outfit of clothes, whilst on one of his many visits to Sarajevo he treated ten students to an expensive meal at one of the best restaurants in town. He did a tremendous amount of travelling around the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Sarajevo, Belgrade, Vienna and further afield. Writing to a friend in January 1910 Bogdan Zeraji¢ wrote that Mitrinovié was in Zagreb:

He lives very well. He sometimes goes looting to Sarajevo, then comes back loaded, lives for some time, then again... . . 3

Nominally enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy at Zagreb studying philosophy, psychology and logic, his academic studies were secondary to his political and cultural activities. It appears that he began to attend courses at other universities apart from Zagreb, including Belgrade and Vienna. It is recorded that in 1908 he was instrumental in the formation of a cultural society called Rad (Work) amongst the students at the University of Vienna. This group was particularly influenced by Thomas Masaryk and his advocacy of ‘realistic tactics’ as a method of political struggle. For Masaryk liberation would be achieved through the cultural reawakening of the South Slavs, and this would be brought about by the day-to-day work of individuals in cultural societies, temperance and literary groups. His gradualist tactics lost favour with certain of the Young Bosnians, however, when the AustroHungarians formally annexed Bosnia and Hercegovina in the October of 1908. On receiving this news in Vienna Mitrinovié and five other students immediately formed a secret society to fight the Hapsburg authorities. They declared total opposition to the Austro-Hungarians and vowed never to recognise the annexation of their homelands which, they asserted, “represented