37: Chetniks Redux - Interview with Stevan Bozanich

For those of you who haven't had enough of the Chetniks, the Dude abides! TENE welcomes historian Stevan Bozanich to dig even deeper into the 'movement' which, despite remaining at the forefront of ideological struggles in the Balkans today nonetheless remains riddled with questions. Boris, Fritz, and Rey ask Stevan about the early Chetniks and their relationship to the Black Hand and the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO/VMRO) and how a group infamous for regicide produced the ostensibly monarchist Chetnik movement. The crew then moves to the '20s and '30s, discussing the Chetnik's connection to Yugoslavism and their steady move towards anti-union violence and arguably proto-fascist politics. Stevan fills in the gaps of Draža Mihailović's story and the foundation of the Ravna Gora movement, as well as its connections to Chetniks outside of Serbia. Inevitably, the discussion turns to World War II, touching on the Chetnik relationship to Partizans, domestic fascist Dimitrije Ljotić, and deals with the Nazis and Ustaša. Stevan offers a fascinating and intimate glimpse into figures like Momčilo Đujić, Pavle Đurišić, and Dragiša Vasić as well as the formative Serbian Cultural Club. Finally, TENE and Stevan discuss the amnesty of Chetniks at the end of the war and their integration into the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as well as the impact this integration has on dominant historical and political narratives today. It's a long one but a necessary piece of an often frustrating historical puzzle.

Stevan Bozanich's upcoming doctoral dissertation is entitled Towards Collaboration and Genocide: Serbian Chetnik Ideology, 1903-1946. Follow him on twitter @stevanbozanich

This is The Empire Never Ended, the Antifascist Amerikanski-Balkan podcast about (neo) fascist terror, the (deep) state and the alienation, nihilism and desperation produced by the capitalist system. And how to get rid of all that.
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