– Ivan Matović –
To my grandsons Stefan and Luka
In the spring of 1950, as a student at the Podgorica secondary school, I wrote an essay on a personal role model from the National Liberation War. I chose a fellow native from my hometown, the renowned General Arso Jovanović. I gave three reasons for my choice: first — the only son of a blinded veteran from the Battle of Mojkovac, born into rural poverty, who rose to become “Tito’s famous general.” That alone stirred dreams and awakened hope in a young peasant boy setting out on life’s adventure. Second — I personally owed him my life. Third — I saw a tear in the eye of this warlord, crowned with glory and immortalized in verse, for fallen comrades from Piper. Others, as expected, mostly wrote about Tito, with a few choosing Sava Kovačević, Budo Tomović or Lola, “the leader of the communist youth.” I, however, “broke from the system” with “my General.” I presented my choice in a way that evidently made an impression on the noble man and unforgettable teacher, Blažo Popović. What I share here is just a brief and somewhat prosaic summary.
The idea of a peasant boy, through hard work and courage, overcoming obstacles and becoming a hero of song and legend — needs no explanation.
In August 1941, during a horrific bombing of the barren Radovče plateau, the seat of the Montenegrin Main Staff, a tall man caught up with me mid-run, dodging bombs from a “Savoya” plane. He grabbed me by the neck and threw me against a large isolated stone, then shielded me with his body. After the explosion, he brushed off the dirt and pebbles, then silently rushed toward the Staff again. My uncle told me the name of the lanky and overly serious man in an unmarked officer’s uniform. It pleased my youthful pride to learn that he was “Captain Arso Radivojev, commander of all Montenegrin forces.” I never forgot those words.
In mid-March 1945, visibly shaken by the horrific sight of a completely destroyed Podgorica — the city of his student youth — and after visiting the homes of two fallen generals from Piper, Ivan Milutinović and Vlado Ćetković, he stopped by our school at his own request. It was the same school where he had once “conquered the city with an ABC book.” He found us “around the cauldron,” and although persistently urged by the teacher and local councillor, he shared our meagre meal — a portion of stew and a piece of coarse cornbread — “too much to die on, too little to live on.” He looked at us, a flock of rain-soaked crows, mostly in black, mourning parents, brothers — often both — and seeing in us the war-torn fate of the Piperi people, the emotion overcame him. Even in his new general’s uniform and arriving in Blažo Jovanović’s car, a tear slipped from his eye — and he didn’t hide it.
Moved by this, I titled my essay “A Tear in the General’s Eye,” mentioning his name in a burst of local patriotic pride, forgetting — in my political ignorance and youthful naivety — the caution necessary at the time. It had been officially declared to the people of Piper, gathered at Brojalovica on the Feast of the Transfiguration (August 19) in 1948, that our most celebrated clansman, General Arso, had “fallen at the border with Romania while attempting to flee the country — as nothing more than a horse thief.” From that moment, mourning him was forbidden, and the all-powerful State Security Administration (UDB) enforced that over the coming days, months and decades. Yet, as a faithful son of my tribe, I knew not a single soul who believed the story of his attempted escape. I was deeply offended — even as a boy — by the association of “my General” with a horse thief. It was then — and for that reason — that I made a promise to myself, which I still hold to today: to someday discover the truth and publicly tell the full story of that hero of my childhood. That essay was the first, certainly clumsy and naive, attempt to do so — a reflection of the confusion felt by a young peasant student, caught between the demands of truth and the expectations of a patriarchal moral code.
Praised by liberal-minded professors, my essay was read aloud in class, then in the faculty lounge, and eventually at a meeting of the school’s top literary circle. How the all-knowing UDBA found out — thanks to its “moles” — I still don’t know. In any case, everyone played their part: above all, I was protected from harsher punishment by my neighbour Luka Marković, head of the local UDBA office, who defended me on the grounds of youth and ignorance — although one of his associates did give me two hard slaps “for the lesson.” The school principal gave both me and my homeroom teacher a stern talking-to, though our fellow clansman Pavić Đukić was completely blameless. The Communist Party cell postponed my membership, and Professor Popović, sharply reprimanded for his (political) lack of vigilance, advised me to “go through life with my eyes open.” That advice still rings in my ears today — as both recognition and warning, as counsel and as a vow worthy of a descendant of the great Marko Miljanov.
Punishment for my continued engagement with this topic came three decades later, after it was discovered — the very next day — that I had spoken again about General Arso with the exiled Aleksandar Ranković. A formal order was issued to reassign me — then the editor of Narodna Armija and a lieutenant on the verge of promotion to major — to the garrison in Berovo, to serve as “commissar” of a border unit on the Bulgarian frontier. I admit, I’d never even heard of that town and barely found it on a detailed map, only then realizing the gravity of my “crime and punishment.” I was spared that “disciplinary measure” thanks to General Mirko Jovanović, a highly influential veteran of the First Proletarian Brigade, who had known the Chief of the Supreme Headquarters from Rudo, across Bosnia and Srem, to the Karavanks. He held a personal view of him that differed greatly from the official one. A former student in Kragujevac, he had managed to preserve “a bit of soul” and the instinct to protect the weak — particularly in clashes with military counterintelligence (KOS). With the help of another powerful General, Ivica Kukoč, he arranged for me to stay in Belgrade. Caught off guard by the decision of two general-colonels, those who fancied themselves the masters of the fates of both the living and the dead did what they could — they confiscated all the material I had collected on Arso and cut short my journalistic ascent. My refuge — thanks to the steadfast intellectual Colonel Slobodan Brajović — became the military publishing sector. It was there I learned that Marshal Tito had, in the mid-sixties, ordered General Milinko Đurović that Arso Jovanović’s name — along with those of Milovan Đilas and Petko Miletić — must not be mentioned in any publications of the Military Publishing Institute, whose political integrity he personally guaranteed with his signature.
Nevertheless, after a year or two of lying low, I cautiously resumed discussions about Arso — but only with people I trusted. Even that could not remain unnoticed. My new superior at the institution, the astute General Nikola “Nikica” Pejinović, told me privately that “they know everything” (about what I was doing), and advised me to continue — “but smartly.” I did continue, only under what appeared to be slightly more favourable circumstances. Even the late 1980s — when the phrase “after Tito, Tito” was still in force — were not conducive to this or similar topics, which had been anathematized for decades. Two examples speak to that: a formal request, which went all the way to “the very top — the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia,” seeking access to Arso’s file, was denied. The “top of Serbia,” when approached with a similar request through the mediation of a respected academic, responded that “the time is not right for stirring the waters.”
Feeling rather discouraged, it wasn’t until the early 1990s (just before and after retirement) that I undertook a more intensive effort to “dig” through the memories of Arso’s comrades — whose numbers were rapidly shrinking — and especially through Allied and enemy archives. I was encouraged and guided by respected historians, among whom I remember with the greatest respect the names of Vlado Strugar, Branko Petranović, Zdravko Antonić and Petar Kačavenda. Within my modest means, I travelled to various sources, but I more often relied on the generosity and resourcefulness of others — especially colleagues — who frequently, sometimes at my request and sometimes on their own initiative, secured key documents. I often paid dearly for what I considered crucial.
Only from Victory Day (May 9) in 1995 onward did I begin presenting findings on this subject at academic conferences organized by the Montenegrin and Serbian Academies of Sciences and Arts, the Military History Institute and the Institute for Contemporary History. These institutions published my contributions in collections of papers and in special reprints. In addition, at the beginning of 1999, I published a biographical sketch of General Arso R. Jovanović in the prestigious journal Military Historical Herald. These were the first more extensive texts about that military leader. The complete result of years of research is finally before the reader — with a list of archival sources and literature I relied upon. This is evidenced by over 1,000 footnotes. Beyond this, a true wealth of researched material remains — enough, I believe, for at least two more interesting books. One of them could certainly be about the “former officers” — active members of the Yugoslav Army — who, like General Staff Captain 1st Class Arso R. Jovanović, joined the armed uprising in 1941 and, within the ranks of the National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia, held high command and staff positions and rose to the rank of wartime generals. From Montenegro alone, there were fifteen such men. At the same time, I must regret two facts: first, that the release of this book to the public was unacceptably delayed, mostly due to influences I could not significantly affect; second, that I was unable — with the support of institutions and individuals — to fulfil the firm personal promise I made to myself: to reveal, by the 50th anniversary of his liquidation, the location of the grave holding the remains of that military leader and the names of his killers. In the meantime, life cured me of the illusion that a monument to him might one day rise in the heart of his hometown of Podgorica. Still, I take heart in the knowledge that the numerous facts I have presented in this book — primarily in a publicist’s manner — will be of use to a new generation: a younger, certainly more gifted and successful historian, who will, among the thirty or so possibilities presented, discover and professionally formulate the true version of the final chapter in the life of General Arso Jovanović — a man of firm character and dignity, an exceptional intellectual and a devotee of the most esteemed profession in our society. He believed that it was a matter of military honour and personal morality to speak the full truth, at the right place, about the things he knew best — without fear of the dangerous vanity of his superiors. It was, indeed, a military act, but in difficult and confused times, a politically naive one — and one that, following the logic of “a cursed time for a clean conscience,” inevitably ended in tragedy.
Knowing that the reader has every right to expect me, after such long research, to declare what I believe about Arso’s death — I will not disappoint: I firmly believe that his liquidation was ordered (by word, not written directive) by the leader of the Party and Supreme Commander Josip Broz Tito. Everything else was the product of a (clumsily executed, primitive and ominous) script that involved numerous errors — which, had it not been for the atmosphere of ideological conformity, the moral and spiritual collapse of the military and political leadership, the general hopelessness, and the overwhelming propaganda that dulled the legal profession — would not have passed unchallenged by the public, even then.
Arso Jovanović was an independent and strong personality, richly gifted, unprepared to renounce truth and honour before an autocrat, better educated than anyone else in his circle, a witness to much, a man of undisputed reputation and influence within the officer corps. Yet, at the same time, he was politically naive, unfamiliar with the full depth of the Tito-Stalin ideological conflict, and exposed to hostility from powerful wartime debtors in the first postwar years — above all Edvard Kardelj and “our Spaniards” (29 of whom were generals of the Yugoslav Army holding highly influential positions). He was also left without the firm backing of the “Montenegrin General Group,” which Tito had long feared like fire. He did not remain silent before his only superior when he disagreed on vital questions of state and military policy. He could not help but point out the unfavourable balance of power on the eve of the looming confrontation, nor the wisdom small nations must employ in their military and diplomatic relations with great powers — especially with wartime allies. He warned of the price to be paid for a confrontation with the stronger side, and spoke clearly and decisively about the kind of national defence policy needed as the Cold War intensified. In all of this, Arso spoke openly and directly. That does not mean he was right about everything. At times, he stubbornly clung to views and conclusions that would not withstand the test of time. But from that moment on, the possibility of aligning perspectives was gone. As an opponent of any form of totalitarianism — including Tito’s — General Arso had neither the need nor the desire to remain silent, to adapt, to retreat or to submit. He spoke with the voice of a soldier and patriot — without hatred or extremism. However, Marshal Tito had no tolerance for differing opinions. The situation was too serious — a form of wartime crisis — and ultimately a matter of national destiny. In resolving it, once Arso refused to fall in line and “march in step,” it was decided, apparently without Tito’s direct intervention — Arso had to go.
A man who until then had commanded respect — by personal authority and professional position — was suddenly transferred among those who, by literal order, were to be hated and despised. Deceitfully, hastily, and under heavy suspicion, General Arso Jovanović was executed — without trial or judgement. He was denied even the right to have his name spoken aloud, let alone to appear in encyclopedias or academic studies, in chronicles and lexicons of the National Liberation War, or in textbooks of history — where, respected by Wehrmacht generals and as an equal to Allied generals and marshals from both East and West, he rightly belonged in a prominent place. Between Tito and Arso, one of them had to leave the military leadership. It was known in advance it would be the one less skilled in politics, less informed about behind-the-scenes dealings, less aware of the true state of affairs — the one who had not been granted fame for wartime victories and whose truth-telling was unforgiven. From the meeting with the Party leader and Supreme Commander at the Brdo Castle near Kranj, sometime in early August 1948, Arso stepped onto a path of no return. But in doing so, he entered legend. He was condemned to glory and remembrance — forever bearing the halo of a martyred war commander, a legacy that in this land has always been remembered and honoured. Carrying such charisma, he will haunt — in dreams and in waking life — those who exiled (or eliminated) him, and who thereby became petty tyrants themselves. His name marked the beginning of a terrifying, too-long list of those liquidated and publicly shamed without proven guilt — victims who were “fuel for the pyre on which personal power and a single ideology were forged and reinforced.” Arso Jovanović was removed from the stage of life in his 42nd year — at the height of his intellectual and physical strength, on the very eve of events in which he was most needed by the people and their army. For his proven merits, he was decorated with the most prestigious national honours and, as the only Allied military commander, awarded the highest-class Orders of Kutuzov and Suvorov. Upon his final rest — by order of Generalissimo Stalin — he was honoured with a salute by five million soldiers of the Soviet Army, from Sakhalin to Berlin. This was a privilege granted only to the most celebrated heroes of the victory over the forces of darkness and oppression — true representatives of their people.
To erase General Arso Jovanović from the record of history, those in power ordered the revision of documents concerning his role in the National Liberation War, the marginalization of his wartime achievements and the banning of any mention of his name. Meanwhile, his shadow — whether from the edge of a remote field, a forest thicket, the bottom of a river, or a sealed-off tunnel, without a marked grave — haunted those who held power for decades, building themselves palaces and marble sarcophagi, and yet, because of it all, earned the contempt and oblivion of the people. Arso, even if he could, would not have traded his fate “neither in this world nor the next” for theirs.
That knowledge encouraged me to persevere in my research — despite great sacrifices — with generous support from respected historians, diplomats, journalists and writers, who brought me documents from archives and books from publishers across the world, for which I am deeply grateful. I also thank the many historians who — especially at scholarly gatherings on the Second World War, in which General Arso Jovanović was undeniably one of the most prominent military leaders of the anti-fascist cause — encouraged me to continue, despite open opposition from powerful adherents of dogma and delusion. The names of those military historians whose concrete help, particularly at the beginning of this work, was most valuable will be readily apparent to the reader from the citations in the book.
Of course, there were also those who opposed both the subject and its central figure — from the banning of Arso’s name and rank in the titles of conference presentations, to the refusal of key witnesses and close wartime comrades to cooperate, to permanent professional and personal estrangement from those who firmly believed that Arso R. Jovanović, because of “betraying the homeland,” deserved no mention at all, or that any text about him should be no longer than a standard newspaper article — or, at best, a short contribution in a scholarly journal.
Unlike such individuals — who were, unfortunately, more numerous than one might think — others embraced both the topic and me as a researcher warmly, as comrades, with dignity and a sense of moral duty. These included Aleksandar Ranković, Milovan Đilas, Velimir Terzić and even Koča Popović — though at a time when all of them had already been discarded by the very man who removed Arso: Josip Broz. In seeking to ease the weight of their own responsibilities, and perhaps sensing that the end of their lives was near, they paid human tribute to their fallen comrade. I believe the reader will easily perceive this — and for that reason, I bow with reverence to their memory. I am, of course, grateful to all those who — in any creative capacity — helped shape the manuscript, as well as to friends who showed understanding and patience for my long accounts of new things I had heard or read about the central figure of this book — General Arso Jovanović. There was always something new. I owe special thanks to the Organizing Committee for the publication of this book about Arso R. Jovanović, especially its capable chair, Mr. Novak Bjelić, whose support and assistance were invaluable.
Originally, I had chosen the title Commander from the Shadows: A Chronicle of Arso R. Jovanović — because, for six decades, he was deliberately, and unjustly, kept in the shadows. This was due to the nature of his role as chief of staff during the war, but more so due to intentional efforts to appropriate his merits — efforts that began in his lifetime and continued after his death. He was persistently denied any opportunity to step out of that shadow, even though primary sources clearly identify him among the most prominent commanders of the liberation wars of the 20th century in the Serbian lands. However, the reviewers and publisher persuaded me that the term “from the shadows” was not suitable as a descriptor for a military figure who had always stood on the brightly lit stage of war — on the highest military observation post.
I dedicated the book to my grandsons, first-grade students Stefan and Luka, adding that I did so “with the sincere hope that they never live through a time and circumstances similar to those in which the central figure of this book — written for remembrance and as a lesson — was sacrificed without trial and, in the ‘presence of power,’ driven out of life.” Some of those to whom I showed the dedication claimed it was unusual, and said its meaning was self-evident. I yielded to their advice — but I stand by the sentiment, firmly convinced that such a damned time, marked by ruthless purges and executions of dissenters, with Goli Otok as the paradigm of the greatest crime of the 20th century, has not existed in the recent history of this region.
I also accepted some comments and suggestions from the reviewers — Academician Vlado Strugar and Professor Dr. Ljubodrag Dimić, as well as the scientific editor, Colonel Professor Dr. Miloje Pršić, and from those readers of the manuscript whose opinions I especially valued. This was particularly the case when it came to trimming digressions, mitigating bias in portraying the central figure, and refining the interpretation of certain events. However, I did not agree to remove any fact or reference taken from key documents or testimonies. If the reader considers that a flaw of the book — let it rest solely on my conscience.
I am aware that the scope of the manuscript may overwhelm the reader, but the reader should also understand that any testimony about the Chief of the Supreme Staff/General Staff of an army which, by the end of the war, numbered several hundred thousand fighters, must also tell the story of the leadership of those institutions. These were the places where, over four years of war, the events of the turbulent Yugoslav battlefield and the broader global frontlines inevitably intersected — a space in which this military commander, Arso, played a notably active role.
The breadth of this narrative and the wealth of data drawn from archival sources, published works and eyewitness testimonies compelled me to make the effort to preserve and clearly mark the red thread running from the first to the last page — the one that shows the central figure walking upright the entire time, as a commander. In the name of that effort, or because of it, I want to believe the reader will notice several key points, at least as I see them: that Arso Jovanović, acting in a time of upheaval, was not always, and certainly not in all things, right — and that those around him, to varying degrees, erred, causing misunderstandings, oversights and, inevitably, human and material losses. That he himself — over a wartime path exceeding 30,000 km — contributed significantly to the unearned myth around Josip Broz and the creation of his “genius” aura as a military leader. That some of the individuals mentioned in the manuscript as interlocutors or witnesses may have had personal motives to speak uncritically of Arso Jovanović — possibly to deflect attention from their own mistakes and raise themselves in the eyes of others — though I did not grant myself the right to comment on this. That individuals and events depicted in memoirs — especially those written decades later, and often cited here — are shaped by personal, increasingly fallible memory, frequently lacking any basis in primary sources and influenced by hindsight. That experts in medicine, law, ballistics, criminology and other fields could easily — if those who claim a monopoly on the truth would reveal Arso Jovanović’s grave and permit the exhumation of his remains — establish the facts of how his life ended…
With respect and trust, I entrust this book — about a deep injustice from the time of Arso R. Jovanović — to the attention and judgement of readers, especially younger ones, with the sincere hope that the knowledge it contains will become an inseparable part of our history and collective memory, where it has long belonged. In doing so, even if belatedly, a great injustice committed against one of the deserving soldiers and anti-fascists of the Second World War might be corrected. I am fully aware that from this moment on, the book will stand — before the judgement of an impartial public — on its own, defending or challenging its central figure through its content and message alone. It must do so with the strength of truth as the ultimate standard of practice, alongside a degree of my own admitted partiality — which, quite simply, should be taken as a given.
Belgrade, February 6, 2001
The Author
(Ivan Matović, Vojskovođa s oreolom mučenika, Novinsko-Izdavački Centar “Vojska,” Beograd 2001, str. 5-13)