‘Justice’ or an Orchestrated Trial? The Lifeworld of Ferhad Bey Draga, the Lawsuit against Him, and the Local Communities in Mitrovica in the late 1920s

Year 2021, Issue: 6, 19 - 50, 30.06.2021

Jovo Miladinović

Abstract

The article examines the trial against one of the most prominent notables from Mitrovica, a town located then in the southern parts of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (= SCS), Ferhad Bey Draga for his allegedly committed crimes against the Kingdom of Serbia during the Habsburg occupation. It argues that the SCS ruling parties, having been aware of the fact that these past deeds could be fittingly wielded as a weapon, did not hesitate to arrange a political trial in order to eradicate local opponents from the political arena. By paying heed to Ferhad Bey’s performance in the courtroom, the article underlines that even in such a situation, actors were able to negotiate with the state with the goal of drawing the best possible conditions for themselves. This was possible given to their imagined or real influence on the locals. The essay also looks at whether this trial triggered war memories within the communities consisted of the bilingual speaking locals of the Muslim and Orthodox faith

Keywords

Political Trials, Loyalty, Mitrovica, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Ottoman Empire, Habsburg Monarchy, Ferhad Bey Draga

Thanks

I would like to thank the participants of the workshop “Contested Memories in Southeast Europe, 1912-2019: Is after the War before the War? Examining Cycles of Conflict and Violence in Pre- and Post-War Eras” hosted at the University of Bern (July 2019) for their comments and questions on the first draft of the paper. Above all, I am in debt to Denis Ljuljanović who was kind enough to summarize and translate Albanian-written sources used here. I am thankful also to Nathalie Clayer and Hannes Grandits for their critic and input on the earlier version of the article

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