Principle, Gavrilo

Origin

Until the XVIII century, the family of Principles under the name Jovichevichi lived in the village of Grahovo in Montenegro . Then they moved to the village of near Knin , and changed their surname to Chako, because they served as mercenaries with the Turks . From Polachi, the family moved to Oblyay, which is located on the other side of the Dinara mountain range ^[12] .

There are two versions about the origin of the last name of the Principles. According to the first of them, the clan of Principles received a surname from his ancestor named Todor with a move to the village of Oblyay at the beginning of the XIX century. Todor was a prominent man; he came to Knin on a white horse, so he was called the “Bosnian prince ” (Uros, 1994). According to another version, the real family name is Cheko, and the Principles called an offshoot of this numerous genus. The ancestor of Gavrila was the most famous livestock trader. And when he, richly dressed, passed through Italian cities, he was called "il principe Bosniaco" (ђevЈeviћ, 1934) ^[12] .

Gavril’s grandfather, whose name was Yovo, took part in the anti-Turkish uprising of 1875-1878. Gabriel's father participated in the uprising in Zrni Potok (1875–1878 ^[13] ). Women and children fled from the uprising on Austrian territory near Knin. There they were met by the famous English archaeologist and journalist Arthur Evans ^[12] .

Childhood

Bosnia and Herzegovina was occupied by Austria-Hungary since 1878, and was officially annexed in 1908 ^[14] . Gavrila Princip was born in the village of Oblyaye, as recorded in the metric, July 13, 1894. Archpriest Elijah Bilbia gave him the name Gavrilo . Gavrila had two brothers - Yovo and Niko. In childhood, the boy sang fellow villagers heroic folk songs. Once Gavrilo visited with his father in the Dalmatian for the celebration of St. Vitus’s Day .

After graduating from school in Grahovo, at the age of 13, Gavrilo went to study in Sarajevo , where his older brother Jovo worked. In 1912, the Principle was expelled from school for participating in actions against the authorities of Austria-Hungary.

The principle was blue-eyed, had medium height ^[15] .

In 1912 he moved to Belgrade ^[16] . In Belgrade, he joined the revolutionary organization Mlada Bosna , which fought against the occupation regime. In Serbia, the Principle is being trained at the Chetnik training center: learning to shoot, use bombs and knives.

In June 1910, a Serb from Herzegovina Bogdan Zheraić , made an unsuccessful attempt on the head of Bosnia and Herzegovina and shot himself. Gavrilo revered Geraich and visited his grave.

The last time Gavrilo was with his parents was around the day of Saint Sava (January 27), 1914 ^[17] .

On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia arrived in Sarajevo at the invitation of General Oscar Potiorek to observe the maneuvers . Franz Ferdinand was a moderate Austrian politician, a supporter of autonomy for the Bosnians, and this greatly annoyed extremists from Young Bosnia .

Mlada Bosna decided to kill Ferdinand. The killing was entrusted to a group of six conspirators, at least three of them, including Princip, were sick with tuberculosis - at that time a fatal and incurable disease. Interestingly, Franz Ferdinand was also ill with tuberculosis.

Shortly before ten in the morning on Sunday, the couple arrived in Sarajevo by train.

At 10:10 a motorcade of six cars (Franz Ferdinand and his wife were driving in the second, together with Potiorek), greeted by crowds of people, passed the central police station. There the conspirators were waiting for them.

Nedelko Chabrinovich ( Serb. Nedeko Chabrinoviћ ) threw a grenade , but missed. The driver of the third car was killed with shrapnel and its passengers were injured, as well as a policeman and passers-by from the crowd. Chabrinovich swallowed the poison he had received in advance ( potassium cyanide ), but he only vomited. Perhaps instead of potassium cyanide they gave him some weaker poison. He jumped into the river, but was already captured in the river, severely beaten, and transferred into the hands of the Austrians. Other conspirators could not do anything because of a crowd of people obscuring the car. The attempt seems to have failed.

Franz Ferdinand went to the city ​​hall . Cars drove past Principle. But either because they were rushing fast now, or because, having heard the rumble of the explosion, he considered the matter finished, the Principle acted in the same way as Mehmedbashich and Kubrilovich: he did not use either the bomb or the revolver.

The town hall still did not know anything about the attempt. The Muslim burgomaster began a flowery welcome speech. The Archduke cut him off abruptly: “Enough of stupid things! We came here as guests, and we are met with bombs! What meanness! ”True, he immediately stopped short and said to the burgomaster:“ Well, speak your speech ... ”A welcome speech was said, the Archduke uttered a response word. After reading the speeches, one of the courtiers of the Archduke's entourage, Baron Morsey, invited General Potiorek to disperse the crowds from the streets to protect the Archduke on the way to the hospital, where he was going to visit the wounded Earl Meritsia, and to the Sarajevo Museum. In response, Potiorek said, “Do you think Sarajevo is teeming with killers?” And Franz Ferdinand decided to go to the hospital to visit the wounded during the assassination attempt. Sophie insisted on going with him. They decided to go along the Appel side promenade. Potiorek forgot to inform the driver Franz Urban about the change of route. The driver turned onto the street. Franz Joseph. Only at the corner of the named street Potiorek suddenly noticed an error. He grabbed the driver by the shoulder and shouted: “Stop! Where are you going? On the waterfront!". The driver quickly braked, bumping into the ledge of the sidewalk, and began to slowly turn the car around. By a strange coincidence, Gavrilo Princip appeared there, leaving the shop of Moritz Schiller ^[18] .

He ran to the car, grabbed the Browning ^[19] , and shot Sofya in the stomach ^[20] on the move, and when Franz Ferdinand (sitting in front of his wife) turned around, took aim and shot him in the neck ^{[ specify ]} . Like Chabrinovich, he tried to poison himself, and he vomited. Then he tried to shoot himself , but the oncoming people took his gun away.

Ferdinand and his wife were transported to the governor's residence, where they died no more than an hour after the shots.

All six conspirators were arrested. They refused to answer the investigators' questions, only one of them (probably Danilo Ilic) nevertheless disclosed all the details, including stated that the weapons were provided by the Serbian government.

The principle could not be sentenced to death , since he was only 19 years old, and under Austro-Hungarian laws he was a minor . He was sentenced to a maximum term of twenty years in prison . He was held in prison (penal servitude?) ^{[ specify ]} in difficult conditions and died of tuberculosis on April 28, 1918 in Terezinshtadt (now Terezin , Czech Republic; later the prison was used as a concentration camp during the Second World War). The remaining conspirators, except Danilo Ilic, were also sentenced to long prison terms. Danilo Ilic and two more terrorists - Velko Kubrilovich and Mishko Jovanovic - were hanged on February 3, 1915 .

Austria-Hungary presented Serbia with a humiliating July ultimatum . Serbia agreed to all the conditions of the latter, except for the right of representatives of the Austrian government to participate in the investigation of the incident. Austria-Hungary accused Serbia of insincerity and declared war on it, which served as an impetus to the start of the First World War. One of the consequences of the First World War was the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire . This happened six months after the death of Gavrila Principle.

In prison, Gavrilo wrote poetry:

Streets in the capital of Serbia, Belgrade (Gavrila Principa Street), the Serbian city of Nis and even the city of Bar in Montenegro , are named after Gavrila Principa, although Montenegro lost its independence as a result of the First World War.

In June 2014, on the 100th anniversary of the Sarajevo assassination, a monument to Gavrila Princip was erected in Istochno-Sarajevo in the Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina . Present at the opening ceremony, President of the Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik stated that the Serbs are proud of their ancestors who fought to preserve their identity ^[22] . He gained great popularity with the authorities of Serbia - in 2015, President Tomislav Nikolic opened a monument to him in Belgrade, stating that “Gavrilo Princip was a hero, he was a symbol of the idea of ​​liberation” ^[23] .

In July 2018, a portrait of the Serbian nationalist Gavrila Principa appeared in St. Petersburg on Bankovskiy Lane ^[24] .

Gabriel's father died in 1939 ^[16] . During the Second World War, the Ustashi (or partisans ^[16] ) burned down the house of the Principles family ^[17] (it was restored in 1964). Mother in those years lived in exile in Knin ^[16] , and died at the age of 87 on the night of July 13, 1945 ^[17] (or in the autumn of 1945 ^[16] ). The brother of Gavril - Nicola was killed by the Ustashi ^[17] . His nephew Slobodan Principle-Selo died of typhus in Romania , and was posthumously recognized as a partisan hero. Gavrila’s cousin, the son of his uncle Elijah, Vukosav, who served as a machine gunner at the governor Momchilo Juich during the war, was killed in Gracac in 1944. The units of both the Chetniks and the partisans were named after Gavrila Principle ^[16] .

The only living male heirs of the Principles family (2014) are the grandchildren of Nikola, the brother of Gavrila: Branislav Princip (an anthropologist from Panchev ) and his sibling Sasha (lives in Canada) ^[25] .

• Drago Љubibrati ћ Gavrilo Principle, Nolit, Belgrade 1969.
• Vladimir Dedijer La route de Sarajevo, Gallimard, Paris 1969. (fr.)
• Michèle Savary La vie et mort de Gavrilo Princip, L'Age d'Homme 2004. (fr.)
• Dušan T. Bataković Histoire du peuple serbe, Lausanne, L'Age d'Homme 2005. (fr.)

• Mark Aldanov on the Gavrilo Principle (from the essay "The Sarajevo Murder")