Goran Miloradović
The Croatian Rashomon: The Yugoslav Press on the Massacre in Kerestinec Castle on April 16th, 1936
Abstract: The article is a study of a lynching that occurred in the vicinity of Zagreb on April 16th, 1936. In the following days, the reports on the massacre in the opposition and pro-government press were very dissimilar. The Croatian Peasant Party succeeded in its endeavor to have the case treated in the court as a political, not a legal issue. This led to a suspension of the law and a derogation of the state institutions. Five years before war broke out, Yugoslavia showed signs of disintegration, while its central government was in a defensive to the forces that were breaking the country apart.
Key words: Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Croatian Peasant Party, Chetniks, Ustashas, Press, Lynching.
While the political crisis in Europe was escalating in the 1930s, in Yugoslavia tensions grew and the conflicts that led to the country's collapse multiplied. Ten people were killed in the Kerestinec Castle in the village of Rakitje near Zagreb: eight men, one woman and one girl. Some of those killed were members of the ruling Yugoslav Radical Union. They were killed by peasants from the region, on charges of being "Chetniks". Several thousand people took part in the lynching, incited by demagogy of prominent members of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS). The indictees were defended by the HSS leadership. The trial was set as a political rather than a legal issue and ended with an acquittal due to lack of evidence. The next day after the crime, the pro-government and opposition press wrote about the event in a completely different way. The Zagreb-based Jutarnji list and the Belgrade-based Politika intonated public opinion, and the other newspapers followed the writing of these two. Soon the expressions "slaughter" and "bloodshed" disappeared from the press and were replaced by a neutral term "event." This was influenced by political opportunism - not to intensify a psychosis during the political dialogue between the authorities and the opposition over the "Croatian issue." The weakness of the state led to the suspension of law and a decline in institutional authority. Five years before the war, Yugoslavia was showing signs of disintegration and its central government was in a defensive to the forces that were tearing the country apart.