When Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife the Duchess Sophie came to Sarajevo on 25 June 1914, they were ushered into a suite at a spa resort in the nearby municipality of Ilidža.   The room, decorated in a Turkish style in vogue at the time, was provided by a local Jewish merchant from the …

  • June 28, 2021
  • History
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At the same time of the turn of the nineteenth century that Franz Ferdinand and Sophie Chotek of Austria-Hungary were attempting to convince Emperor Franz Josef that their marriage would not lead to the end of the Empire, another culturally inappropriate marriage was taking place between Alexander I of Serbia and Draga Lunjevica Mašin.  Draga, …

  • June 14, 2021
  • History
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Anka Obrenović, who was also called Ana, was self-confident and fearless.  She loved her last name and luxury.  Because of her love of Viennese fashion, she was nicknamed “Anka Pomodarka”.  She was killed in 1868 in the Topčider forest during the assassination of Mihailo Obrenović, and it is little known that she tried to protect …

  • June 11, 2021
  • History
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The murder of the queen had been represented to me as a deed lawful and meritorious.  — Anthony Babington, executed for his part in the Babington Plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England It’s a strange turn of events that when assassinations are discussed, the discussion rarely includes the Hungarian Queen Elizabeth of Bosnia; …

  • June 4, 2021
  • History
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Stop sending people to kill me.  We’ve already captured five of them, one with a bomb and another with a rifle… If you don’t stop sending killers, I’ll send one to Moscow; and I won’t have to send a second. — message from Tito to Stalin found on Stalin’s desk after his death. In the …

  • June 2, 2021
  • History
  • Comments Off on The Assassinations That Weren’t

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They entered the Embassy of Yugoslavia in Stockholm at 09:45 on 7 April 1971.  By 10:35 it was all over. The 1971 attack on the Yugoslav Embassy was the second such incident on a foreign delegation in 1971’s Sweden.  The first incident also targeted the Yugoslavs, and took place on 10 February in Gothenburg at …

  • May 28, 2021
  • History
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I was arrested in 1974 because the state security service found my university diaries and their contents were judged to contain agitation and propaganda against the regime.  But those diaries had never been published and no one other than myself had even read them.  Nevertheless, I purposefully hid them because I knew that I might …

  • May 26, 2021
  • History
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In general he did a lot of useful things for Russia, one of which was the creation of Russian intelligence.  –Vasili Sokolov – Echo of Moscow Radio The fabled and feared Russian intelligence apparatus was not native, but was imported in the person of a Balkan man who referred to himself as an Illyrian Count …

  • May 24, 2021
  • History
  • Comments Off on The Great Game Begins… In Herzegovina

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To realize the national ideal, the unification of all Serbs.  This organization prefers terrorist action to cultural activities; it will therefore remain secret. — stated purpose of Ujedinjenje Ili Smrt When Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife the Duchess Sophie were assassinated in Sarajevo, the news abounded with references to a secret organization with far-reaching …

  • May 10, 2021
  • History
  • Comments Off on A Secret Society That Wasn’t Very Secret

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