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152-626: Bijeljina ( Serbian Cyrillic : Бијељина ) is a city and municipality in Republika Srpska , Bosnia and Herzegovina . It is the provincial center of Semberija , a geographic region in the country's northeast. As of 2013, it has a population of 107,715 inhabitants. Bijeljina is located in Bosnia and Herzegovina 's northeast, bound by the Sava and Drina rivers, extending over the Majevica mountains and covering

304-507: A modus vivendi and operating as "legalised" auxiliary forces under Axis control. Over a period of time, and in different parts of the country, the movement was progressively drawn into collaboration agreements: first with the puppet Government of National Salvation in the German-occupied territory of Serbia , then with the Italians in occupied Dalmatia and Montenegro , with some of

456-611: A Linea di condotta ("Policy Directive") on relations with Chetniks, Ustaše and Partisans. In line with these efforts, General Vittorio Ambrosio outlined the Italian policy in Yugoslavia: All negotiations with the (quisling) Ustaše were to be avoided, but contacts with the Chetniks were "advisable". As for the Partisans, it was to be "struggle to the bitter end". This meant that General Roatta

608-522: A "problem" to be solved in the final stages of the war and immediately afterwards. The CNK approved the Greater Serbia project after it formed in August. It can be assumed that Mihailović, who was a hard-core Serb nationalist himself, endorsed all or most of both proposals. This is because their contents were reflected in a 1941 Chetnik leaflet entitled Our Way , and he made specific references to them in

760-646: A 12-point program to Mihailović as the basis of cooperation. Six days later, Tito and Mihailović met at Mihailović's headquarters where Mihailović rejected principal points of Tito's proposal including the establishment of common headquarters, joint military actions against the Germans and quisling formations, establishment of a combined staff for the supply of troops, and the formation of national liberation committees. These disagreements lead to uprisings being quashed in Montenegro and Novi Pazar due to poor coordination between

912-766: A 2014 survey, 47% of the Serbian population write in the Latin alphabet whereas 36% write in Cyrillic. The following table provides the upper and lower case forms of the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, along with the equivalent forms in the Serbian Latin alphabet and the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) value for each letter. The letters do not have names, and consonants are normally pronounced as such when spelling

1064-708: A Serb "nationalist- chauvinist " movement outside Serbia proper escalated ethnic tensions, especially the conflict between Serbs and Croats. Under Pećanac's leadership, membership of the Chetnik organisation was opened to new young members who had not served in war and were interested in joining for political and economic reasons, and in the course of the 1930s he took the organisation from a nationalist veterans' association focused on protecting veterans' rights, to an aggressively partisan Serb political organisation which reached 500,000 members throughout Yugoslavia in more than 1,000 groups. Trifunović-Birčanin and others were unhappy with

1216-586: A basic music school has been operating in the city. Primary schools in Bijeljina include the following: OŠ Sveti Sava, OŠ Knez Ivo od Semberije, OŠ Vuk Karadžić, OŠ Jovan Dučić. There are several high schools operating in the city, such as Filip Višnjić Gymnasium, Stevan Stojanovic Mokranjac Music School, an agricultural high school, a medicine highschool, an economic and a technical school. The University of Bijeljina has several faculties: Law, Economics, Business Economics and Education. The main private universities in

1368-528: A challenge in Unicode modeling, as the glyphs differ only in italic versions, and historically non-italic letters have been used in the same code positions. Serbian professional typography uses fonts specially crafted for the language to overcome the problem, but texts printed from common computers contain East Slavic rather than Serbian italic glyphs. Cyrillic fonts from Adobe, Microsoft (Windows Vista and later) and

1520-523: A command post and designated themselves the "Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army". While this name was clearly derivative of the earlier Chetniks and evoked the traditions of the long and distinguished record of the Chetniks of earlier conflicts, Mihailović's organisation was in no way connected to the interwar Chetnik associations or the Chetnik Command established in 1940. As early as August,

1672-520: A courier network, and collecting arms and ammunition. From the very beginning their strategy was to organise and build up their strength, but postpone armed operations against the occupation forces until they were withdrawing in the face of a hoped-for landing by the Western Allies in Yugoslavia. The pre-war Chetnik leader Pećanac soon came to an arrangement with Nedić's collaborationist regime in

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1824-505: A demand he refused. Partisan-Chetnik truces were repeatedly violated by the Chetniks, first with the killing of a local Partisan commander in October and then later, under orders of Mihailović's staff, massacring 30 Partisan supporters, mostly girls and wounded individuals, in November. Despite this, Chetniks and Partisans in eastern Bosnia continued to cooperate for some time. In December 1941

1976-457: A few other font houses include the Serbian variations (both regular and italic). If the underlying font and Web technology provides support, the proper glyphs can be obtained by marking the text with appropriate language codes. Thus, in non-italic mode: whereas: Since Unicode unifies different glyphs in same characters, font support must be present to display the correct variant. The standard Serbian keyboard layout for personal computers

2128-519: A former member of the Yugoslav Republican Party; Stevan Moljević , a Bosnian Serb lawyer; and Mladen Žujović , Vasić's law firm partner who had also been a member of the Yugoslav Republican Party. Vasić was the most important of the three, and was designated by Mihailović as the ranking member of a three-man committee, along with Potpukovnik (Lieutenant Colonel) Dragoslav Pavlović and Major Jezdimir Dangić , who were to take over

2280-645: A land mass of 734 km. It is a part of the entity of Republika Srpska and is the center of the Semberija region. Semberija is a flat region with a fertile land ideal for agriculture. Due to this, Bijeljina is a major place for food production and trade, particularly wheat and vegetables. The earliest established evidence of human life in the area of today's Bijeljina date from the New Stone Age (5000–3000BC). Characteristics of pottery, tools and weapons confirm cultural connections of indigenous inhabitants of Semberija with

2432-605: A major role in raising the cultural level in Semberija and has over 120,000 books. The Tavna Monastery is located in the southern part of the Bijeljina municipality. The date of foundation is hidden somewhere in the shadows of the far past. The chronicles of monasteries Tronoša and Peć say it was built by Stefan Dragutin 's sons Vladislav and Uroš II Milutin. Stefan Dragutin was the King of Serbia from 1276 to 1282 and king of Srem from 1282 to 1316. The present church of monastery Tavna

2584-485: A popular referendum to determine the future of his rule. The month after the Second Session of AVNOJ, the major Allied powers met at Tehran and decided to provide their exclusive support to the Partisans and withdraw support from the Chetniks. The congress was held in circumstances where large parts of the Chetnik movement had been progressively drawn into collaboration with the occupying forces and their helpers over

2736-642: A post-war Chetnik dictatorship that would hold all power within the country with the approval of the King, with a gendarmerie recruited from Chetnik ranks, and intense promotion of Chetnik ideology throughout the country. The final Chetnik ideological document that appeared prior to the Ba Congress in January 1944 was a manual prepared by the Chetnik leadership around the same time as the Conference of Young Chetnik Intellectuals of Montenegro in late 1942. It explained that

2888-691: A proclamation to the Serbian people in December and in a set of detailed instructions dated 20 December 1941 to Pavle Đurišić and Đorđije Lašić , newly appointed Chetnik commanders in the Italian governorate of Montenegro . The Belgrade Chetnik Committee proposal was also smuggled out of occupied Serbia in September and delivered to the Yugoslav government-in-exile in London by the Chetnik agent Miloš Sekulić . In March 1942,

3040-521: A ratio of 100 hostages executed for every German soldier killed and 50 hostages executed for every soldier wounded. In October 1941, German soldiers and Serbian collaborators perpetrated two massacres against civilians in Kraljevo and Kragujevac , with a combined death toll reaching over 4,500 civilians, most of whom were Serbs . This convinced Mihailović that killing German troops would only result in further unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of Serbs. As

3192-487: A reaction to the massacres of Serbs carried out by the Ustaše, however the largest Chetnik massacres took place in eastern Bosnia where they preceded any significant Ustaše operations. Croats and Bosniaks living in areas intended to be part of Greater Serbia were to be cleansed of non-Serbs regardless, in accordance with Mihailović's directive of 20 December 1941. The terror against the communist Partisans and their supporters

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3344-630: A reputation for indiscriminate terrorisation of the Macedonian populace. Pećanac and his Chetniks were also active in fighting Albanians resisting the Serb and Montenegrin colonisation of Kosovo . Even under the homogenizing pressures of dictatorship, the Chetniks were not a monolithic movement. In 1929, Ilija Trifunović-Birčanin became president of the association, serving until 1932, when he became president of another Serbian nationalist organisation, Narodna Odbrana (National Defence), and established

3496-508: A result, he decided to scale back Chetnik guerrilla attacks and wait for an Allied landing in the Balkans. While Chetnik collaboration reached "extensive and systematic" proportions, the Chetniks themselves referred to their policy of collaboration as "using the enemy". The political scientist Sabrina Ramet has observed, "[b]oth the Chetniks' political program and the extent of their collaboration have been amply, even voluminously, documented; it

3648-562: A significant, 20,000-strong, force providing assistance to the German and Italian encirclement from the east (the far bank of the river Neretva ). However, Tito's Partisans managed to break through the encirclement, cross the river, and engage the Chetniks. The conflict resulted in a near-total Partisan victory, after which the Chetniks were almost entirely incapacitated in the area west of the Drina river. The Partisans continued on, and later again escaped

3800-497: A traditional policy of deceiving Croats with the help of Serbs and they believed that Italy, in case of victory of the Axis powers, would favor Serbs in Lika, northern Dalmatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and that Serbian autonomy would be created in this area under Italian protectorate. The Italians (especially General Dalmazzo) looked favorably on these approaches and hoped to first avoid fighting

3952-497: A unit which was in the area of Doboj on 15 April when it was advised of the decision of the Supreme Staff (the wartime General Staff) to surrender. A few dozen members of the unit, almost exclusively Serbs, joined Mihailović when he decided not to follow these orders, and the group took to the hills. They marched southeast then east, aiming to get to the mountainous interior of what became the German-occupied territory of Serbia in

4104-504: Is a copy of Trojeručica miraculous icon, the gift from Hilandar monastery. In Bijeljina are also located: the Holy Temple, the Church of St. Petka, and the old Catholic church. Filip Višnjić Library is the oldest cultural institution in Bijeljina - founded in 1932 thanks to prominent people including Dr Vojislav Kecmanović, Dr Joakim Perendija, and Professor Nikola Mačkić among others. It played

4256-594: Is a statue of King Peter I of Serbia , who ruled the Kingdom of Serbia between 1903 and 1918. During the Second World War , the Ustaša removed it. After World War II , the communist government refused to return the monument. The first non-communist local government returned the monument in the early 1990s. In September 1991, Bosnian Serbs proclaimed a Serbian Autonomous Oblast with Bijeljina as its capital. In March 1992,

4408-733: Is as follows: Chetniks Axis powers [REDACTED] Partisans (October 1941 – May 1945) Axis powers The Chetniks , formally the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army , and also the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland and informally colloquially the Ravna Gora Movement , was a Yugoslav royalist and Serbian nationalist movement and guerrilla force in Axis-occupied Yugoslavia . Although it

4560-465: Is built in the same place as the original one. The Tavna Monastery is older than the other monasteries in the region such as Ozrena, Liplja, Vozuce and Gostovica. Tavna was damaged in the first years of Turkish rule, but was restored by the people. This was not the only time the monastery was damaged. It was damaged many times during the Turkish period and also during World War Two. Between 1941 and 1945, Tavna

4712-418: Is experienced in the late 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century. After a population boom due to war events and population saturation and insufficient capacity of the city that was built in less need, today there is re-building of Bijeljina with new settlements, roads, schools, universities, and cultural institutions. The Serb Democratic Party (SDS) governed Bijeljina for 28 years since 1992. Following

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4864-573: Is located at the site of an older church, which was first mentioned in 1735. The current building dates back from the early 1870s and represents a mix of Russian and Byzantine style, with a dome and a tall tower. Semberija Museum is located in a historic building and has four exhibition halls. The exhibitions span a vast historical period, ranging from the Neolithic, through the Roman era and the Middle Ages, all

5016-540: Is more than a bit disappointing, thus, that people can still be found who believe that the Chetniks were doing anything besides attempting to realize a vision of an ethnically homogeneous Greater Serbian state , which they intended to advance, in the short run, by a policy of collaboration with the Axis forces". The Chetniks were partners in the pattern of terror and counter-terror that developed in Yugoslavia during World War II. They used terror tactics against Croats in areas where Serbs and Croats were intermixed, against

5168-615: Is necessary (or followed by a short schwa , e.g. /fə/).: Summary tables According to tradition, Glagolitic was invented by the Byzantine Christian missionaries and brothers Saints Cyril and Methodius in the 860s, amid the Christianization of the Slavs . Glagolitic alphabet appears to be older, predating the introduction of Christianity, only formalized by Cyril and expanded to cover non-Greek sounds. The Glagolitic alphabet

5320-482: Is one of the most famous spas in Republika Srpska. Dvorovi Spa was formed after the discovery of thermal water, while drilling for oil in 1956, near Dvorovi village in Semberija . The depth of the source is at 1350 meters, the water is oligomineral, and the water temperature is 75°C. Bijeljina has one major stadium known as Bijeljina City Stadium . The Stadium is home to FK Radnik Bijeljina , which competes in

5472-477: Is the only one in official use. The ligatures : were developed specially for the Serbian alphabet. Serbian Cyrillic does not use several letters encountered in other Slavic Cyrillic alphabets. It does not use hard sign ( ъ ) and soft sign ( ь ), particularly due to a lack of distinction between iotated consonants and non-iotated consonants, but the aforementioned soft-sign ligatures instead. It does not have Russian/Belarusian Э , Ukrainian/Belarusian І ,

5624-531: The 2018 Bosnian general election , in March 2020 mayor Mićo Mićić (governing the city since 2004) left the party to found the Party of Democratic Srpska of Semberija (SDSS) and signed a coalition agreement with Milorad Dodik 's SNSD . In June 2020, SDSS and SNSD put SDS in minority in the local council. At the 2020 Bosnian municipal elections , SDS's Ljubiša Petrović became the new mayor, succeeding Mićić. Atik Mosque

5776-634: The 5th Army area, and providing him with arms and funds for the purpose; the 5th Army was responsible for the Romanian and Bulgarian borders between the Iron Gates and the Greek border. On 6 April 1941, Yugoslavia was drawn into World War II when Germany, Italy and Hungary invaded and occupied the country, which was then partitioned. Some Yugoslav territory was annexed by its Axis neighbours: Hungary, Bulgaria and Italy. The Germans engineered and supported

5928-661: The Bosnian War . It was run by Serbs from 1 April 1992 until late January 1996. The prisoners were predominantly ethnic Bosniaks , who were tortured, sexually assaulted, and killed. A "State Commission for the Free transfer of the Civilian Population" or "Commission for the Exchange of Population" was created and headed by Vojkan Đurković, a Major in the SDG. Post-war development of Bijeljina

6080-729: The Bosnian referendum on independence was passed with overwhelming support from Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats . Local Bosniak Patriotic League had been established in response to the Bosnian Serb proclamation and started the clashes. On 1–2 April, the SDG and the JNA overtook Bijeljina with little resistance; A massacre was carried out and involved the killing of between 48 and 78 civilians by Serb paramilitary groups. The majority of those killed were Bosniaks (or Bosnian Muslims). The dead included members of other ethnicities, such as Serbs deemed unloyal by

6232-771: The Bulgarians in the Second Balkan War . After the Balkan Wars , Chetniks bands were used in the pacification of the new areas of Serbia gained during the wars, which occasionally involved terrorising civilians . As they had proven valuable during the Balkan Wars, the Serbian army used Chetniks in World War I in the same way, and while useful they suffered heavy losses. At the end of the Serbian campaign of 1914–1915, they withdrew with

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6384-572: The Muslim population in Bosnia , Herzegovina and Sandžak , and against the Communist -led Yugoslav Partisans and their supporters in all areas. These tactics included the killing of civilians, burning of villages, assassinations and destruction of property, and exacerbating existing ethnic tensions between Croats and Serbs. The terror tactics against the non-Serb population in the NDH were, at least to an extent,

6536-552: The Nazi puppet Independent State of Croatia banned the use of Cyrillic, having regulated it on 25 April 1941, and in June 1941 began eliminating " Eastern " (Serbian) words from Croatian, and shut down Serbian schools. The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was used as a basis for the Macedonian alphabet with the work of Krste Misirkov and Venko Markovski . The Serbian Cyrillic script was one of

6688-566: The Premier League of Bosnia and Herzegovina . Radnik won the Bosnian Cup in 2016. Their president is Predrag Perković and their manager is Vlado Jagodić . OFK Zenit Bijeljina is a young club from Bijeljina but their youth teams had earned a lot of medals in Bosnia and Herzegovina , Serbia , Slovenia , Romania , Austria , Germany . Their stadium is ‘ Zenit Arena ’ in Novo Selo, 5 min from

6840-463: The Royal Serbian Army , and the Serbian government soon took over the direction of these activities. Similar forces had been sent to Macedonia by Greece and Bulgaria , who also wished to integrate the region into their own states, resulting in the Serbian Chetniks clashing with their rivals from Bulgaria as well as the Ottoman authorities. Except for the social democratic press, these Chetnik actions were supported in Serbia and interpreted as being in

6992-412: The Serbian word četnik was commonly used to describe a member of a Balkan guerrilla force called a cheta ( četa / чета ), meaning "band" or "troop". Today, the word Chetnik is used to refer to members of any group that follows "the hegemonic and expansionist politics driven by Greater Serbia ideology". Small-scale rebellious activity akin to guerrilla warfare has a long history in

7144-400: The South Slav -inhabited lands, particularly in those areas that were under Ottoman rule for a long period. In the First Serbian Uprising which began in 1804, bandit companies ( hajdučke čete ) played an important part until large-scale fighting gave the Ottomans the upper hand and the uprising was suppressed by 1813. A second rebellion broke out two years later, and guerrilla warfare

7296-426: The Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia . Colonel Draža Mihailović , who was "interested in resisting the occupying powers", set up his headquarters in Ravna Gora and named his group "The Ravna Gora Movement" in order to distinguish it from the Pećanac Chetniks. However, other Chetniks were engaged in collaboration with the Germans and the Chetnik name became again associated with Mihailović. The movement

7448-403: The Ustaše forces in northern Bosnia , and, after the Italian capitulation in September 1943, with the Germans directly. The Chetniks were active in the uprising in the German-occupied territory of Serbia from July to December 1941. Following the initial success of the uprising, the German occupiers enacted Adolf Hitler 's formula for suppressing anti-Nazi resistance in Eastern Europe,

7600-427: The djerv (Ꙉꙉ) for the Serbian reflexes of Pre-Slavic *tj and *dj (* t͡ɕ , * d͡ʑ , * d͡ʒ , and * tɕ ), later the letter evolved to dje (Ђђ) and tshe (Ћћ) letters . Vuk Stefanović Karadžić fled Serbia during the Serbian Revolution in 1813, to Vienna. There he met Jernej Kopitar , a linguist with interest in slavistics. Kopitar and Sava Mrkalj helped Vuk to reform Serbian and its orthography. He finalized

7752-428: The "Association of Serbian Chetniks for King and Fatherland" and the "Association of Serbian Chetniks ' Petar Mrkonjić '". In July 1925 these two organisations amalgamated as the "Association of Serbian Chetniks 'Petar Mrkonjić' for King and Fatherland" led by Puniša Račić , who was elected to the National Assembly as a Radical representative in 1927, and in 1928 murdered three Croatian Peasant Party representatives on

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7904-444: The 3 and 13 October 1914 banned the use of Serbian Cyrillic in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia , limiting it for use in religious instruction. A decree was passed on January 3, 1915, that banned Serbian Cyrillic completely from public use. An imperial order on October 25, 1915, banned the use of Serbian Cyrillic in the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina , except "within the scope of Serbian Orthodox Church authorities". In 1941,

8056-475: The Axis forces". The Chetniks were almost exclusively made up of Serbs except for a large number of Montenegrins who identified as Serbs, and consisted of "local defence units, marauding bands of Serb villagers, anti-partisan auxiliaries, forcibly mobilised peasants, and armed refugees, which small groups of uncaptured Yugoslav officers was attempting without success to mold into an organised fighting force". The aforementioned Chetnik manual of late 1942 discussed

8208-413: The Axis occupation and had contacts and negotiations with the Partisans. This changed when the talks broke down, and they proceeded to attack the latter (who were actively fighting the Germans), while continuing to engage the Axis only in minor skirmishes. Attacking the Germans provoked strong retaliation and the Chetniks increasingly started to negotiate with them to stop further bloodshed. Negotiations with

8360-401: The Bulgarian occupation troops, then infiltrated the Austro-Hungarian occupied zone . Just prior to the end of the war, the Chetnik detachments were dissolved, with some sent home and others absorbed by the rest of the army. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was created with the merger of Serbia, Montenegro and the South Slav-inhabited areas of Austria-Hungary on 1 December 1918, in

8512-481: The Chetnik Central National Committee ( Serbo-Croatian : Centralni Nacionalni Komitet, CNK , Централни Национални Комитет ) was formed to provide Mihailović with advice on domestic and international political affairs, and to liaise with the civilian populace throughout the occupied territory and in other parts of occupied Yugoslavia where the Chetnik movement had strong support. The members were men who had some standing in Serbian political and cultural circles before

8664-519: The Chetnik Dinara Division promulgated a statement which was accepted the following month by a meeting of Chetnik commanders from Bosnia , Herzegovina , northern Dalmatia and Lika at Strmica near Knin . This program contained details which were very similar to those included in Mihailović's instructions to Đurišić and Lašić in December 1941. It mentioned the mobilisation of Serbs in these regions to "cleanse" them of other ethnic groups, and adopted several additional strategies: collaboration with

8816-459: The Chetnik Association. After the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 the General Staff was aware that Yugoslavia was not ready for war against the Axis powers and was concerned about neighboring countries igniting a civil war in Yugoslavia. Despite its misgivings about using Chetniks for guerrilla warfare, in April 1940, the General Staff established the Chetnik Command, which eventually comprised six full battalions spread throughout

8968-400: The Chetnik Command were captured during the invasion, and there is no record of them being used for their intended purpose or that elements of these units operated in any organised way after the surrender. In the early days of the invasion, army Pukovnik (Colonel) Draža Mihailović was the deputy chief of staff of the 2nd Army deployed in Bosnia . On 13 April, he was commanding

9120-431: The Chetnik Greater Serbia ideology from the long-standing traditional one was their plan to "cleanse" Greater Serbia of non-Serbs, which was clearly a response to the massacres of Serbs by the Ustaše in the NDH. The final documents detailing Chetnik ideology were produced by the Ba Congress called by Mihailović in January 1944, in response to the November 1943 Second Session of the communist-led Anti-Fascist Council for

9272-529: The Chetniks after their attacks on the Partisans in the German attack on Užice , but Britain continued to do so. Throughout the period of 1941 and 1942, both the Chetniks and Partisans provided refugee for Allied POWs, especially ANZAC troops who escaped from railway carriages en route via Yugoslavia to Axis POW camps. According to Lawrence, following the Allied defeat at the Battle of Crete , POWs were transported via Yugoslavia in railway carriages with some ANZAC troops escaping in occupied Serbia. Chetniks under

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9424-517: The Chetniks opted for a more subtle form of resistance. Instead of detonating TNT to destroy railway tracks and disrupt Axis railway lines, Chetniks contaminated railway fuel sources and tampered with mechanical components, ensuring trains would either derail or breakdown at random times. Martin suggests that these acts of sabotage significantly crippled supplies lines for the Afrika Korps fighting in North Africa. On 2 November, Mihailović's Chetniks attacked Partisan headquarters in Užice . The attack

9576-437: The Chetniks viewed the war in three phases: the invasion and capitulation by others; a period of organising and waiting until conditions warranted a general uprising against the occupying forces; and finally a general attack on the occupiers and all competitors for power, the Chetnik assumption of complete control over Yugoslavia, the expulsion of most national minorities, and arrest of all internal enemies. Crucially, it identified

9728-438: The Chetniks was social-democratic Yugoslavism, with a change to a federal Yugoslav structure with a dominant Serb unit, but in asserting the need to gather all Serbs into a single entity, The Serbian Goals of the Ravna Gora Movement was reminiscent of Homogeneous Serbia . The congress also did not recognise Macedonia and Montenegro as separate nations, and also implied that Croatia and Slovenia would effectively be appendages to

9880-416: The Chetniks' political program and the extent of their collaboration have been amply, even voluminously, documented; it is more than a bit disappointing, thus, that people can still be found who believe that the Chetniks were doing anything besides attempting to realize a vision of an ethnically homogeneous Greater Serbian state, which they intended to advance, in the short run, by a policy of collaboration with

10032-443: The Chetniks, and then use them against the Partisans, a strategy which they thought would give them an "enormous advantage". An agreement was concluded on 11 January 1942 between the representative of the Italian 2nd Army, Captain Angelo De Matteis and the Chetnik representative for southeastern Bosnia, Mutimir Petković, and was later signed by Draža Mihailović's chief delegate in Bosnia, Major Boško Todorović . Among other provisions of

10184-419: The Germans in the Battle of Sutjeska . In the meantime, the Allies stopped planning an invasion of the Balkans and finally rescinded their support for the Chetniks and instead supplied the Partisans. At the Teheran Conference of 1943 and the Yalta Conference of 1945, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill decided to split their influence in Yugoslavia in half. Throughout

10336-448: The Italian VI Army Corps (General Renzo Dalmazzo , Commander) as early as July and August 1941 for assistance, via a Serb politician from Lika , Stevo Rađenović . In particular, Chetnik vojvodas ("leaders") Trifunović-Birčanin and Jevđević were favorably disposed towards the Italians, believing Italian occupation over all of Bosnia-Herzegovina would be detrimental to the influence of the Ustaše state. Another reason for collaboration

10488-579: The Italian occupiers; determined armed opposition to NDH forces and the Partisans ; decent treatment of the Bosnian Muslims to keep them from joining the Partisans, although they could later be eliminated; and the creation of separate Croatian Chetnik units formed from pro-Yugoslav, anti-Partisan Croats. From 30 November to 2 December 1942, the Conference of Young Chetnik Intellectuals of Montenegro met at Šahovići in Italian-occupied Montenegro. Mihailović did not attend, but his chief of staff Zaharije Ostojić , Đurišić and Lašić attended, with Đurišić playing

10640-415: The Italian-annexed and later German-occupied Ljubljana Province in Slovenia. The collaboration in Dalmatia and parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina was the most widespread. The split between Partisans and Chetniks took place earlier in those areas. The Partisans considered all occupation forces to be "the fascist enemy", while the Chetniks hated the Ustaše but balked at fighting the Italians, and had approached

10792-401: The Latin alphabet, in use in western South Slavic areas, using the same principles. As a result of this joint effort, Serbian Cyrillic and Gaj's Latin alphabets have a complete one-to-one congruence, with the Latin digraphs Lj, Nj, and Dž counting as single letters. The updated Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was officially adopted in the Principality of Serbia in 1868, and was in exclusive use in

10944-616: The Latin script is almost always used in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina , whereas Cyrillic is in everyday use in Republika Srpska . The Serbian language in Croatia is officially recognized as a minority language; however, the use of Cyrillic in bilingual signs has sparked protests and vandalism . Serbian Cyrillic is an important symbol of Serbian identity. In Serbia, official documents are printed in Cyrillic only even though, according to

11096-471: The National Liberation of Yugoslavia ( Serbo-Croatian : Antifašističko vijeće narodnog oslobođenja Jugoslavije , AVNOJ) of the Partisans. The Second Session of AVNOJ had resolved that post-war Yugoslavia would be a federal republic based on six equal constituent republics, asserted that it was the sole legitimate government of Yugoslavia, and denied the right of the King to return from exile before

11248-748: The Partisans themselves and demanded Mihailović's surrender. Around this time the Germans launched an attack on Mihailović's forces in Ravna Gora and effectively routed the Chetniks from the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia. The bulk of the Chetnik forces retreated into eastern Bosnia and Sandžak and the centre of Chetnik activity moved to the Independent State of Croatia . The British liaison to Mihailović advised Allied command to stop supplying

11400-550: The Partisans, rather than Axis forces, were the primary enemies of the Chetniks. To avoid reprisals against Serb civilians, Mihailović's Chetniks fought as a guerrilla force, rather than a regular army. It has been estimated that three-quarters of the Orthodox clergy in occupied Yugoslavia supported the Chetniks, while some like Momčilo Đujić became prominent Chetnik commanders. While the Partisans opted for overt acts of sabotage that led to reprisals against civilians by Axis forces,

11552-776: The Partisans. The collaboration of the Chetniks with the Italians and later Germans may have also been a factor in the Jewish rejection of the Chetnik movement. The vast majority of Orthodox priests supported the Chetniks with some, notably Momčilo Đujić and Savo Božić , becoming commanders. Chetnik policies barred women from performing significant roles. No women took part in fighting units and women were restricted to nursing and occasional intelligence work. The low status of female peasants in areas of Yugoslavia where Chetniks were strongest could have been utilized and advantageous in military, political, and psychological terms. The treatment of women

11704-475: The Ravna Gora Movement reinforced the existing Chetnik idea that all Serbian provinces would be united in the Serbian unit within the federal arrangement, based on the solidarity between all Serb regions of Yugoslavia, under a unicameral parliament. The congress also resolved that Yugoslavia should be a constitutional monarchy headed by a Serb sovereign. According to some historians, the new program of

11856-618: The Serbian entity. The net effect of this, according to the historian Jozo Tomasevich , was that the country would not only return to the same Serb-dominated state it had been in during the interwar period, but would be worse than that, particularly for the Croats. He concludes that this outcome was to be expected given the overwhelmingly Serb makeup of the congress, which included only two or three Croats, one Slovene and one Bosnian Muslim among its more than 300 attendees. The historian Marko Attila Hoare agrees that despite its superficial Yugoslavism,

12008-577: The Yugoslav government-in-exile in London under King Peter II promoted Mihailović to Brigadier-General and named him commander of the Yugoslav Home Army. By this time Mihailović had established friendly relations with Nedić and his Government of National Salvation and the Germans who he requested weaponry from to fight the Partisans. This was rejected by General Franz Böhme who stated they could deal with

12160-531: The Yugoslav resistance movements increased in strategic importance, and there was a need to determine which of the two factions was fighting the Germans. A number of Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents were sent to Yugoslavia to determine the facts on the ground . According to new archival evidence, published in 1980 for the first time, some actions against Axis carried by Mihailović and his Chetniks, with British liaison officer Brigadier Armstrong , were mistakenly credited to Tito and his Communist forces. In

12312-512: The aggressive expansion of the organisation and its move away from traditional Chetnik ideals. After 1935, Chetnik activity was officially banned in both the predominantly Croat Sava Banovina and almost entirely Slovene Drava Banovina , but the Chetnik groups in those regions were able to continue operating at a lower level. During this period, Pećanac formed close ties with the far-right Yugoslav Radical Union government of Milan Stojadinović , which ruled Yugoslavia from 1935 to 1939. During

12464-502: The agreement, it was agreed that the Italians would support Chetnik formations with arms and provisions, and would facilitate the release of "recommended individuals" from Axis concentration camps ( Jasenovac , Rab , etc.). The chief interest of both the Chetniks and Italians would be to assist each other in combating Partisan-led resistance. According to Martin, the Chetnik-Italian truce received approval from British Intelligence as it

12616-558: The alphabet in 1818 with the Serbian Dictionary . Karadžić reformed standard Serbian and standardised the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet by following strict phonemic principles on the Johann Christoph Adelung ' model and Jan Hus ' Czech alphabet . Karadžić's reforms of standard Serbian modernised it and distanced it from Serbian and Russian Church Slavonic , instead bringing it closer to common folk speech, specifically, to

12768-648: The army in the Great Retreat to Corfu and later fought on the Macedonian front . Montenegrin Chetniks also fought against the Austro-Hungarian occupation of that country . In late 1916, new Chetnik companies were being organised to fight in Bulgarian-occupied southeastern Serbia . Concerned about reprisals against a large-scale uprising, the Serbian army sent the veteran Chetnik leader Kosta Pećanac to prevent

12920-598: The city are Slobomir P University and University Sinergija . The following table gives a preview of total number of registered people employed in legal entities per their core activity (as of 2018): The road network is dependent on the main routes: the M-14.1 Brcko-Zvornik and the M-18 Raca-Ugljevik. The complete road network in contact with the city and the urban traffic network is extremely radial orientation. She had eleven major transportation routes, which link directly to

13072-923: The city center. OFK Zenit competes in the leagues of Football Association of Republika Srpska ( FSRS ). They have the contract with Zvijezda 09 (team in Premier League BiH) to Zenit's youth teams play like Zvijezda 09's players. Bijeljina was designated European city of sport in 2020. Basketball clubs include: Volleyball clubs include: Handball clubs include: Bijeljina is twinned with: [REDACTED]   Una-Sana [REDACTED]   Central Bosnia [REDACTED]   Posavina [REDACTED]   Herzegovina-Neretva [REDACTED]   Tuzla [REDACTED]   West Herzegovina [REDACTED]   Zenica-Doboj [REDACTED]   Sarajevo [REDACTED]   Bosnian Podrinje [REDACTED]   Canton 10 Serbian Cyrillic alphabet Reformed Serbian based its alphabet on

13224-786: The city. Around the city is located bypass, but isn't completed. The main bus station in Bijeljina is located in the central zone of the city. The main bus station in Bijeljina is owned by Semberija Transport . From Bijeljina passengers can travel to other cities in the region as well as some cities in Europe such as Ljubljana , Vienna , Berlin , Munich , Zürich , Stockholm . There is only one railway line in Bijeljina. That railway line stretches from Bijeljina to Šid in Serbia . From Šid it joins another line going east towards Belgrade or going west to Croatia . Bijeljina holds an international folklore festival known as Semberija folk fest . The Dvorovi Spa

13376-555: The command of Mihailović provided refugee to these ANZAC troops and were either repatriated or recaptured by Axis forces. In April 1942 the Communists in Bosnia established two Shock Anti-Chetnik Battalions (Grmeč and Kozara) composed of 1,200 best soldiers of Serb ethnicity to struggle against Chetniks. Later during the war, the Allies were seriously considering an invasion of the Balkans, so

13528-533: The congress had clear Greater Serbia inclinations. The congress expressed an interest in reforming the economic, social, and cultural position of the country, particularly regarding democratic ideals. This was a significant departure from previous Chetnik goals expressed earlier in the war, especially in terms of promoting democratic principles with some socialist features. Tomasevich observes that these new goals were probably more related to achieving propaganda objectives than reflecting actual intentions, given that there

13680-536: The country up to the interwar period . Both alphabets were official in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and later in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . Due to the shared cultural area, Gaj's Latin alphabet saw a gradual adoption in the Socialist Republic of Serbia since, and both scripts are used to write modern standard Serbian. In Serbia , Cyrillic is seen as being more traditional, and has

13832-595: The country. However, it is clear from the series of Yugoslav war plans between 1938 and 1941 that the General Staff had no real commitment to guerrilla warfare prior to the April 1941 Axis invasion of Yugoslavia , and did not seriously consider employing the Chetnik Association in the role either. A short time before the invasion, Pećanac was approached by the General Staff, authorising him to organise guerrilla units in

13984-528: The course of the war, and may have been held with the tacit approval of the Germans. The document that was produced by the Ba Congress was called The Goals of the Ravna Gora Movement and came in two parts. The first part, The Yugoslav Goals of the Ravna Gora Movement stated that Yugoslavia would be a democratic federation with three units, one each for the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and national minorities would be expelled. The second part, The Serbian Goals of

14136-454: The creation of a Greater Serbia within a Greater Yugoslavia which would include not only the vast majority of pre-war Yugoslav territory, but also a significant amount of territory that belonged to all of Yugoslavia's neighbours. Within this, Greater Serbia would consist of 65–70 per cent of the total Yugoslav territory and population, and Croatia would be reduced to a small rump. His plan also included large-scale population transfers, evicting

14288-528: The creation of the fascist Ustaše puppet state , the Independent State of Croatia ( Croatian : Nezavisna Država Hrvatska , NDH), which roughly comprised most of the pre-war Banovina Croatia , along with rest of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina and some adjacent territory. Before the defeat, King Peter II and his government went into exile, reforming in June as the Western Allied -recognised Yugoslav government-in-exile in London. All elements of

14440-545: The dialect of Eastern Herzegovina which he spoke. Karadžić was, together with Đuro Daničić , the main Serbian signatory to the Vienna Literary Agreement of 1850 which, encouraged by Austrian authorities, laid the foundation for Serbian, various forms of which are used by Serbs in Serbia , Montenegro , Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia today. Karadžić also translated the New Testament into Serbian, which

14592-599: The dominant role. It advanced strategies that constituted an important and expanded version of the overall Chetnik program, and the report of the meeting bore an official Chetnik stamp. It reinforced the main Greater Serbia objective of the Chetnik movement, and in addition advocated the retention of the Karađorđević dynasty , espoused a unitary Yugoslavia with self-governing Serb, Croat and Slovene units but excluding entities for other Yugoslav peoples such as Macedonians and Montenegrins as well as other minorities. It envisaged

14744-456: The eneolithic and Bronze Age cultures – Vučedol, Kostolac and Baden culture . The oldest archeological site of this period is located on both sides of the Bistrik channel, between the villages of Batković and Ostojićevo and it consists of four smaller sites which date from the period of the 7th to the 12th century. At Jazbina and Oraščić, remains were found of a settlement with half-buried huts, but

14896-523: The first time in Struganik where Tito offered Mihailović the chief-of-staff post in return for the merger of their units. Mihailović refused to attack the Germans, fearing reprisals, but promised to not attack the Partisans. According to Mihailović the reason was humanitarian: the prevention of German reprisals against Serbs at the published rate of 100 civilians for every German soldier killed, 50 civilians for every soldier wounded. On 20 October, Tito proposed

15048-634: The floor of the National Assembly. He presided over a great deal of dissension until the organisation ceased to operate. After the imposition of royal dictatorship by King Alexander in 1929, at which time the state was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Račić's former organisation was dissolved, and the former dissidents rejoined the original "Chetnik Association for the Freedom and Honor of the Fatherland", which

15200-468: The hope of linking up with other elements of the defeated army that had chosen to keep resisting. In the first few days, Mihailović's group was attacked by German forces. The group was joined by other parties of soldiers but heard no news of others continuing to resist. On 28 April, the group was about 80 strong, and crossed the Drina River into the occupied territory of Serbia the next day, although over

15352-601: The idea of enlisting a significant number of Croats for the movement, but the movement only attracted small groups of Chetnik-aligned Croats in central Dalmatia and Primorje , and they were never of any political or military significance within the Chetniks. A small group of Slovenes under Major Karl Novak in the Italian-annexed Province of Ljubljana also supported Mihailović, but they also never played an important role. There had been long standing mutual animosity between Muslims and Serbs throughout Bosnia, and in

15504-537: The immediate aftermath of the war. Due to their military record since 1904, Chetnik veterans were among the leading Serbian patriotic groups in the new state. In 1921, the "Chetnik Association for the Freedom and Honor of the Fatherland" was organised in Belgrade by Chetnik veterans, with organisational aims of cultivating Chetnik history, spreading Chetnik patriotic ideas, and to care for the widows and orphans of Chetniks who had been killed, along with disabled Chetniks. It

15656-589: The interwar period, limited training on guerrilla warfare was given to junior officers of the army, and in 1929 the Handbook on Guerrilla Warfare was published by the government to provide guidance. In 1938, the General Staff revised the approach detailed in 1929, recognising that operations similar to those carried out by Chetniks between 1904 and 1918 would not be possible in a modern war, and clearly indicating that it would not entrust any important wartime functions to

15808-649: The latter. Due to the location of their headquarters, Mihailović's organisation became known as the "Ravna Gora Movement". While adherents of the Chetnik movement have claimed that Mihailović's Chetniks were the first resistance movement to be founded in Yugoslavia in World War II, this is not accurate if a resistance movement is defined as a political and military organisation of relatively large numbers of men conducting armed operations intended to be carried on with determination and more or less continuously. Soon after their arrival at Ravna Gora, Mihailović's Chetniks set up

15960-598: The leadership of the organisation if anything should happen to him. In effect, Vasić was Mihailović's deputy. From the beginning of Mihailović's movement in May 1941 until the Ba Congress in January 1944, the ideology and objectives of the movement were promulgated in a series of documents. In June 1941, two months before he became a key member of the CNK, Moljević wrote a memorandum entitled Homogeneous Serbia , in which he advocated for

16112-602: The local authorities. The killing was committed by a local paramilitary group known as Mirko's Chetniks and by the Serb Volunteer Guard (SDG, also known as Arkan's Tigers), a Serbia -based paramilitary group under the command of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). The village of Batković in the municipality of Bijeljina was the site of the Batković camp , believed to be the first concentration camp in operation during

16264-520: The main Serbian irredentist objective, Mihailović's Chetnik movement was an extreme Serb nationalist organisation, and while it paid lip service to Yugoslavism, it was actually opposed to it. It was also anti-Croat , anti-Muslim , supported the monarchy , and was anti-communist . Given the ethnic and religious divisions in Yugoslavia, the narrow ideology of the Chetnik movement seriously impinged on its military and political potential. The political scientist Sabrina Ramet has observed, "Both

16416-494: The meantime, the Germans, also aware of the growing importance of Yugoslavia, decided to wipe out the Partisans with determined offensives. The Chetniks, by this time, had agreed to provide support for the German operations, and were in turn granted supplies and munitions to increase their effectiveness. The first of these large anti-Partisan offensives was Fall Weiss , also known as the Battle of Neretva . The Chetniks participated with

16568-454: The mid-18th century. Matija Ban used the word Chetnik in 1848 in terms of the need to establish armed units outside the Principality of Serbia to act in opposition to Ottoman rule following the rise of nationalism in the Balkans . At end of the 19th century, the term was extended to members of military or paramilitary organizations with Serb ethnonationalist aims . Dating from 1904,

16720-461: The most significant discovery was a complex of metallurgical workshop at the site Čelopek where iron was melted in the 8th century and iron tools were manufactured. The oldest religious building, the Tavna Monastery was built in the Middle Ages. The region was incorporated into the Bosnian banate during the reign of Stephen Kotromanić . At this time the village Bistrik was called Bistrica and it

16872-692: The national interest. These Chetnik activities largely ceased following the 1908 Young Turk Revolution in the Ottoman Empire. The Chetniks were active in the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913; during the First Balkan War against the Ottomans they were used as vanguards to soften up the enemy ahead of advancing armies, for attacks on communications behind enemy lines, for spreading panic and confusion, as field gendarmerie and to establish basic administration in occupied areas. They were also put to good use against

17024-504: The next few days it lost a number of officers and enlisted men who were concerned about the pending hardship and uncertainty. After crossing the Drina, the group was also attacked by gendarmes belonging to the collaborationist puppet Commissioner Government . On 6 May Mihailović's remaining group was surrounded by German troops near Užice and almost completely destroyed. On 13 May, Mihailović arrived at some shepherd huts at Ravna Gora on

17176-1048: The non-Serb population from within the borders of Greater Serbia, although he did not suggest any numbers. At the same time that Moljević was developing Homogeneous Serbia , the Belgrade Chetnik Committee formulated a proposal which contained territorial provisions very similar to those detailed in Moljević's plan, but went further by providing details of the large-scale population shifts needed to make Greater Serbia ethnically homogenous. It advocated expelling of 2,675,000 people from Greater Serbia, including 1,000,000 Croats and 500,000 Germans. A total of 1,310,000 Serbs would be brought to Greater Serbia from outside its boundaries, of which 300,000 would be Serbs from Croatia. Greater Serbia would not be entirely Serb, however, as about 200,000 Croats would be allowed to stay within its borders. No figures were proposed for shifting Bosnian Muslims out of Greater Serbia, but they were identified as

17328-523: The occupation forces, and started cooperating with the Axis in a struggle to destroy the Partisans, receiving increasing amounts of logistical assistance. Mihailović admitted to a British colonel that the Chetniks' principal enemies were "the partisans, the Ustasha, the Muslims, the Croats and last the Germans and Italians" [in that order]. At the start of the conflict, Chetnik forces were active in uprising against

17480-505: The occupation. Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina rule lasted from 1878 until 1918. The name Bijeljina was only used after 1918 and World War I . During Austro-Hungarian rule, the town had the name Bjelina and, before that, Belina or Bilina. In 1838, the first confessional elementary school was opened. A modern school building was built in 1902. In this school Jovan Dučić , famous Herzegovinian Serb poet, writer and diplomat, worked between 1893 and 1895. In front of City Hall

17632-547: The occupiers were aided by the two sides' mutual goal of destroying the Partisans. This collaboration first appeared during the operations on the Partisan " Užice Republic ", where Chetniks played a part in the general Axis attack. Chetnik collaboration with the occupation forces of fascist Italy took place in three main areas: in Italian-occupied (and Italian-annexed) Dalmatia; in the Italian puppet state of Montenegro ; and in

17784-457: The official status (designated in the constitution as the " official script ", compared to Latin's status of "script in official use" designated by a lower-level act, for national minorities). It is also an official script in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro , along with Gaj's Latin alphabet . Serbian Cyrillic is in official use in Serbia , Montenegro , and Bosnia and Herzegovina . Although Bosnia "officially accept[s] both alphabets",

17936-567: The outbreak. However, the Bulgarians started conscripting Serbs, and hundreds of men joined the Chetnik detachments . This resulted in the 1917 Toplica Uprising under the leadership of Kosta Vojinović , which Pećanac eventually joined. Successful at first, the uprising was eventually put down by the Bulgarians and Austro-Hungarians , and bloody reprisals against the civilian population followed. Pećanac then used Chetniks for sabotage and raids against

18088-444: The period of late April and May 1941, the first Chetnik mass atrocities were carried out against non-Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in other ethnically heterogeneous areas. A few Sandžak and Bosnian Muslims supported Mihailović, and some Jews joined the Chetniks, especially those who were members of the right-wing Zionist Betar movement, but they were alienated by Serb xenophobia and eventually left, with some defecting to

18240-564: The population, kill pro-Bulgarian resistance leaders and impress the local population into forced labour for the army. Resistance by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization was met with further terror, which included the formation in 1922 of the Association against Bulgarian Bandits led by Pećanac and Ilija Trifunović-Lune, based out of Štip in eastern Macedonia. This organisation quickly garnered

18392-408: The previous 18th century Slavonic-Serbian script, following the principle of "write as you speak and read as it is written", removing obsolete letters and letters representing iotated vowels , introducing ⟨J⟩ from the Latin alphabet instead, and adding several consonant letters for sounds specific to Serbian phonology . During the same period, linguists led by Ljudevit Gaj adapted

18544-473: The principality became the Kingdom of Serbia . Between 1904 and 1912, small groups of fighters who had been privately recruited, equipped and funded in Serbia, travelled to the region of Macedonia within the Ottoman Empire with the aim of releasing the area from Ottoman rule and annexing it to Serbia, regardless of the wishes of the local population. These groups were, in the main, commanded and led by officers and non-commissioned officers on active duty in

18696-479: The resistance forces. Mihailović's fears for ongoing reprisals became a reality with two mass murder campaigns conducted against Serb civilians in Kraljevo and Kragujevac , reaching a combined death toll of over 4,500 civilians. Killings in the Independent State of Croatia were also in full swing with thousands of Serb civilians being killed by the Ustaše militia and death squads. In late October, Mihailović concluded

18848-429: The rival "Association of Old Chetniks", but the latter never challenged the main Chetnik organisation. He was replaced by Pećanac, who continued to lead the organisation until the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941. Starting in 1929, the main Chetnik organisations established chapters in at least 24 cities and towns outside Serbia proper , many of which had large Croatian populations. This expansion of what remained

19000-768: The semi-vowels Й or Ў , nor the iotated letters Я (Russian/Bulgarian ya ), Є (Ukrainian ye ), Ї ( yi ), Ё (Russian yo ) or Ю ( yu ), which are instead written as two separate letters: Ја, Је, Ји, Јо, Ју . Ј can also be used as a semi-vowel, in place of й . The letter Щ is not used. When necessary, it is transliterated as either ШЧ , ШЋ or ШТ . Serbian italic and cursive forms of lowercase letters б , г , д , п , and т (Russian Cyrillic alphabet) differ from those used in other Cyrillic alphabets: б , г , д , п , and т (Serbian Cyrillic alphabet). The regular (upright) shapes are generally standardized among languages and there are no officially recognized variations. That presents

19152-642: The start of Operation Barbarossa , the communist-led Partisans under Josip Broz Tito organised an uprising and in the period between June and November 1941, the Chetniks and Partisans largely cooperated in their anti-Axis activities. Chetnik uprisings, often in conjunction with the Partisans , against Axis occupation forces began in early July 1941 in Western Serbia . Uprisings in the areas of Loznica , Rogatica , Banja Koviljača and Olovo lead to early victories. On 19 September 1941, Tito and Mihailović met for

19304-462: The two most important tasks during the second phase as: Chetnik-led organisation for the third phase without any party political influences; and incapacitation of their internal enemies, with first priority being the Partisans. Revenge against the Partisans and Ustaše was incorporated into the manual as a "sacred duty". The manual paid some lip service to Yugoslavism , but the Chetniks did not really wish to become an all-Yugoslav movement because that

19456-533: The two official scripts used to write Serbo-Croatian in Yugoslavia since its establishment in 1918, the other being Gaj's Latin alphabet ( latinica ). Following the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Serbian Cyrillic is no longer used in Croatia on national level, while in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro it remained an official script. Under the Constitution of Serbia of 2006, Cyrillic script

19608-545: The use of the Bulgarian language , and imposing lengthy jail terms for those convicted of anti-state activities. Over 300 Macedonian advocates of Greater Bulgaria were murdered between 1918 and 1924, thousands were arrested in the same period, and around 50,000 troops were stationed in Macedonia. Thousands of Serb colonists were settled in Macedonia. Bands of Chetniks, including one led by Jovan Babunski , were organised to terrorise

19760-423: The war, and some CNK members also served on the Belgrade Chetnik Committee that supported the movement. Much of the early CNK was drawn from the minuscule Yugoslav Republican Party or the minor Agrarian Party . The three most important members of the CNK, who comprised the executive committee for much of the war, were: Dragiša Vasić , a lawyer, former vice-president of the nationalist Serbian Cultural Club and

19912-415: The war, the Chetnik movement remained mostly inactive against the occupation forces, and increasingly collaborated with the Axis, eventually losing its international recognition as the Yugoslav resistance force. After a brief initial period of cooperation, the Partisans and the Chetniks quickly started fighting against each other. Gradually, the Chetniks ended up primarily fighting the Partisans instead of

20064-415: The way to the 20th century. Basil of Ostrog Monastery in the center of Bijeljina is a newly built monastery (2001) dedicated to St Basil of Ostrog . The bell tower with a clock of over 30 meters dominates the surroundings and is a symbol of the monastery. The monastery includes a museum, dining room, library, hermitages for monks. Inside, the temple is painted with magnificent frescoes. Particularly valuable

20216-442: The western slopes of Suvobor Mountain near the town of Gornji Milanovac in the central part of the occupied territory, by which time his group consisted of only seven officers and 27 other ranks. At this point, now aware that no elements of the army were continuing to fight, they were faced with the decision of whether to surrender to the Germans themselves or form the core of a resistance movement, and Mihailović and his men chose

20368-636: The word Chetnik is obscure. Some believe it to have developed from the Turkish word çete , meaning "to plunder and burn down", while another view is it was inherited from the Proto-Slavic , meaning "member of a company ". The word may also derive from the Latin word coetus ("coming together" or "assembly"). The suffix -nik is a Slavic common personal suffix , meaning "person or thing associated with or involved in". The first use of Chetnik to describe members of army and police units appeared around

20520-468: Was a fundamental difference between the Chetniks and Partisans and Chetnik propaganda disparaged the female role in the Partisans. Ruth Mitchell (ca. 1889–1969) was a reporter who was the only American woman to serve with the Chetniks. Fluent in German, she worked for the Chetniks as a spy and a courier for about a year. Initially, Mihailović's organisation was focussed on recruiting and establishing groups in different areas, raising funds, establishing

20672-570: Was a necessity to protect Serbs from the Ustaše and Balli Kombëtar . When the Balli Kombëtar earmarked the Visoki Dečani monastery for destruction, Italian troops were sent in to protect the Orthodox monastery from destruction and highlighted to the Chetniks the necessity for collaboration. For this reason, they sought an alliance with the Italian occupation forces in Yugoslavia. The Chetniks noticed that Italy on occupied territories implemented

20824-445: Was again utilised to significant effect, assisting in the establishment of the partially-independent Principality of Serbia , which was expanded significantly in 1833 and became fully independent in 1878. Throughout this period and until the end of the 19th century interest in guerrilla warfare remained, with books on the subject being commissioned by the Serbian government and published in 1848 and 1868. Four years after independence,

20976-432: Was also a political pressure group, and from the beginning there were questions about its leadership and political ideology. Initially, the main political influence in the organisation was the liberal Democratic Party , but a challenge for influence by the dominant People's Radical Party led to a split in 1924. The pro-Radical Greater Serbia elements of the association broke away and formed two new organisations in 1924,

21128-554: Was based on the Slavic dialect of Thessaloniki . Part of the Serbian literary heritage of the Middle Ages are works such as Miroslav Gospel , Vukan Gospels , St. Sava's Nomocanon , Dušan's Code , Munich Serbian Psalter , and others. The first printed book in Serbian was the Cetinje Octoechos (1494). It's notable extensive use of diacritical signs by the Resava dialect and use of

21280-613: Was bombed by the Ustase . One of the gravestones says "Zdravko Jovanovic Killed 1943 by the Ustasa Blue Division protecting and defending the monastery". After WWII Tavna was rebuilt. The first primary school in Bijeljina was opened in 1938. After World War II , changes were made to the school system, and in 1951 the first elementary school was opened. In 1956, a second elementary school was opened. The third and fourth elementary schools opened in 1959 and 1966, respectively. Since 1953,

21432-663: Was built between 1520 and 1566, during the period of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent . It was used as a defensive bastion in the Austro-Turkish War and converted to a catholic church by Austrians during 1718-1739. After the Treaty of Belgrade , it reverted back to the mosque, and went through several renovations in the 19th and early 20th century. The mosque was completely destroyed on 13 March 1993 and rebuilt where it stood before. Serbian Orthodox Church ( Svetog Đorđa ) Saint George

21584-483: Was driven back and a counterattack followed the next day, the Chetniks lost 1,000 men in these two battles and a large amount of weaponry. On 18 November, Mihailović accepted a truce offer from Tito though attempts to establish a common front failed. That month, the British government, upon the request of the Yugoslav government-in-exile , insisted Tito make Mihailović the commander-in-chief of resistance forces in Yugoslavia,

21736-611: Was gradually superseded in later centuries by the Cyrillic script, developed around by Cyril's disciples, perhaps at the Preslav Literary School at the end of the 9th century. The earliest form of Cyrillic was the ustav , based on Greek uncial script, augmented by ligatures and letters from the Glagolitic alphabet for consonants not found in Greek. There was no distinction between capital and lowercase letters. The standard language

21888-455: Was ideologically driven. Several historians regard Chetnik actions during this period as constituting genocide . Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the Chetniks in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina range from 50,000 to 68,000, while more than 5,000 victims are registered in the region of Sandžak alone. About 300 villages and small towns were destroyed, along with a large number of mosques and Catholic churches. The etymology of

22040-458: Was inconsistent with their main objective of achieving a Greater Serbia within Greater Yugoslavia. Due to their Serb nationalist stance, they never developed a realistic view of the "national question" in Yugoslavia because they disregarded the legitimate interests of the other Yugoslav peoples. Their ideology was therefore never attractive to non-Serbs except for those Macedonians and Montenegrins who considered themselves Serbs. The only new aspect of

22192-424: Was later to be renamed the "Yugoslav Army in the Homeland", although the original name of the movement remained the most common in use throughout the war, even among the Chetniks themselves. It is these forces that are generally referred to as "the Chetniks" throughout World War II although the name was also used by other smaller groups including those of Pećanac, Nedić and Dimitrije Ljotić . In June 1941, following

22344-427: Was no real interest in considering the needs of the non-Serb peoples of Yugoslavia. The practical outcome of the congress was the establishment of a single political party for the movement, the Yugoslav Democratic National Union (Serbo-Croatian: Jugoslovenska demokratska narodna zajednica , JDNZ), and an expansion of the CNK, however the congress did nothing to improve the position of the Chetnik movement. Beyond

22496-439: Was not a homogeneous movement, it was led by Draža Mihailović . While it was anti- Axis in its long-term goals and engaged in marginal resistance activities for limited periods, it also engaged in tactical or selective collaboration with Axis forces for almost all of the war. The Chetnik movement adopted a policy of collaboration with regard to the Axis, and engaged in cooperation to one degree or another by both establishing

22648-520: Was officially sanctioned. Immediately following the end of World War I and the formation of the new state, there was widespread unrest. Pro-Bulgarian sentiment was rife in Macedonia, which was referred to as South Serbia by the Belgrade government. There was little support among the Macedonian populace for the regime. Extensive measures were undertaken to " serbianise " Macedonia, including closing Bulgarian Orthodox Church schools, revising history textbooks, dismissing "unreliable" teachers, banning

22800-523: Was published in 1868. He wrote several books; Mala prostonarodna slaveno-serbska pesnarica and Pismenica serbskoga jezika in 1814, and two more in 1815 and 1818, all with the alphabet still in progress. In his letters from 1815 to 1818 he used: Ю, Я, Ы and Ѳ. In his 1815 song book he dropped the Ѣ. The alphabet was officially adopted in 1868, four years after his death. From the Old Slavic script Vuk retained these 24 letters: He added one Latin letter: And 5 new ones: He removed: Orders issued on

22952-403: Was seen as a way of garnering intelligence. Birčanin was instructed to gather information on harbor facilities, troop movements, mining operations and Axis communications in preparation for an Allied invasion of the Dubrovnik coast scheduled for 1943, an invasion that never eventuated. In the following months of 1942, General Mario Roatta , commander of the Italian 2nd Army, worked on developing

23104-431: Was the center of the parish, which covered the entire territory of present-day city of Bijeljina. The first documented mention of the name Bijeljina occurred in 1446. The city fully fell to the Ottomans in 1530. Following the Great Turkish War , it was incorporated into Austrian possession before being retaken by the Ottomans in 1739. Many of the settlements were decimated as a result of unsuccessful Serb rebellions against

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