In Memoriam Show

These days an unusual number of Belgrade citizens are passing through the Gallery of the Academy of Science and Art. People are coming to see the paintings of Branko Popovic, who, hitherto had only one one-man show, in the far away year of 1924 in Prague, with Petar Dobrovic. Today's art critics are labeling Branko Popovic as a consistent Cezanneist and classifying him as a key figure of Serbian modernism. Branko Popovic, also known as an art critic, professor and dean of the School of Engineering in Belgrade, was born in 1882 and lived until November 1944. Until today, the exact date of his death hasn't been ascertained as well as his burial place.

In the Belgrade City Library copies of Politika from those times are kept, bound in stiff covers, but it is interesting to note that for November 1944 numbers 11828 and 11829 of November 27 and 28 are missing. When the above mentioned copies are located in some other place, it can be seen that those days the English entered Faience, and the Red Army entered Mihajlovci and Gumeni in the then Czechoslovakia.

The "front pages" are still the most interesting ones. Over the whole front page in the November 27 issue we can see stressed, in accordance with the grammar rules of the times, "an announcement of the Court Martial of the First Corps of the National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia of legal proceedings against war criminals in Belgrade". The announcement claims that the above mentioned Court Martial "on its sessions of October 26 and 30, November 2, 6, 10 and 16" has sentenced to death a large group of "national enemies and war criminals, in accordance with articles 13, 14 and 16 of the Enactment of the Supreme Headquarters on Court Martials".

A list of 105 names follows which ends with the dry conclusion: "All of the death sentences have been executed". Under the ordinal number 58 we come upon the name of Branko Popovic, alongside which, as explanation, is stated: "University professor. Closest associate with Nedic's minister Jonic. He kept close contacts with the ill-famed Becarevic, officer of the Special Police of the Belgrade City Government. Toma Becarevic denounced a large number of freedom loving students and citizens".

After the legal explanations follow the ideological ones. A day after the lists of the executed were published, in Politika of November 28 a detailed text appears of the well-known surrealist Marko Ristic under the headline "Those who had engaged in criminal activities together had met with death together as well". The text finishes with the following words: "That, together with slaughterers and agents in that refuse of treason and war crimes, we come upon those whom Belgrade had regarded as their prestigious citizens and who had imposed themselves as the elite of the Serbian nation, is not something which this nation should be ashamed of... As for it's outcast elements, those who had in this fatal and crucial conflict found themselves on the side of foreign occupiers, who had joined them in the war against their own people, have started to be destroyed by the victorious nation".

Almost half a century later it can be seen that the "hand of national justice" was far from infallible - on December 7, 1993, it was officially ascertained that Branko Popovic was never indicted, nor was a trial against him ever held. On that day his son, Belgrade lawyer Prijezda Popovic, from the then deputy state prosecutor of Serbia, Danilo Jovanovic, received a letter which was signed and sealed, filed under the KTP number 440/91, in which, amongst other things, is stated: "By the so far conducted search with the authorities and files no documents have been found on court proceedings held against Branko Popovic, nor the verdict rendered by the Court Martial or any other court by which he was allegedly sentenced to death and was executed. We also have not found any evidence that such a trial was really held against the above mentioned".

Therefore, Branko Popovic was not sentenced, and so it cannot be said that he was executed - he was, simply, killed by somebody and buried somewhere. However, even though the situation has been ascertained, his exhibition had to wait a while longer, that is until September of this year. "Resistance existed at the Academy for a long time against organizing Branko Popovic's exhibition at this gallery", says academic Mica Popovic for VREME, a renown painter (is not related to Branko) and adds that he is glad that the exhibition was finally organized: "It is some satisfaction, if such a word can be used at all."

Prijezda Popovic remembers that two young men in partisan uniforms came to fetch his father on October 21, a day after the (official) cessation of all fighting. Branko Popovic did not wish to take his coat thinking that he would be back soon. He never came back.

"We made inquiries about him discreetly, we had to do it in such a manner, those were difficult times", says Prijezda Popovic. "The new government was watching every single house, every family. Under the German occupation, things were horrible, but the first days under the communists were even worse. We found out that father was imprisoned on Obilicev Venac and we used to pass by every day at the pre-arranged time, so that he could see us. After some ten days or so, we somehow found out that they had taken him away."

Academic Dr. Dimitrije Djordjevic, professor at the University of California in Santa Barbara, also remembers those times in his book Wounds and Warnings: "Immediately following their entrance into the city the liberators imposed a curfew from six in the afternoon until the next morning. Special police forces were cruising along the deserted streets and were taking people to police headquarters, under the charges that they were collaborating with the occupiers, and were traitors and 'reactionary'. Of course, there were such people as well, but also a single pointed finger was enough to make the accused person disappear. Where to? Nobody knew...

In such an atmosphere, the concerned Popovic family was visited by Djordje Andrejevic Kun, their good acquaintance and regular visitor, a young painter before the war whom Branko Popovic had helped in various ways. Prijezda Popovic testifies that he arrived in the uniform of a partisan officer wishing to rent Branko Popovic's studio: "Mother told him that there was no reason for renting the studio to him since Branko was alive. Kun became silent and left".

"We managed to save some of my father's paintings as well as the paintings of other artists which he had owned, while others were filed by the committee and taken with them. Some of them ended up at Kardelj's place in Ljubljana. At that time, my mother visited Mosa Pijade (my father was a good friend of his brother David). He told her: 'Whether Branko is guilty or not, I don't know. But, if at the time Tito and we from Supreme Headquarters had been in Belgrade, such things wouldn't have happened", remembers Prijezda Popovic.

However, in The History of Belgrade it is stated that Tito came to the city on October 25 (on October 27 there was a review of the military units at Banjica), when, according to the statements of the witnesses, Branko Popovic was still alive. In any case, Djordje Andrejevic Kun moved into his former apartment and at the house warming party organized for that occasion with some twenty or so guests which were made up of Belgrade painters, he served his guests with plum brandy from the crystal decanter with the following comment: "You are drinking out of glasses which belonged to Branko Popovic." This story was told to Prijezda Popovic some ten years later by a witness, the painter Mihailo Petrov.

The years went by, Prijezda Popovic was arrested 13 times (from two days up to five months), under various excuses: as a "war criminal", "sympathizer of Draza Mihajlovic", even as a "comintern man" (?!), and he was booked after listening to classical music on the then hyper modern "hi-fi" system at the American Library. All that time, he was trying to find out what had happened to his father and at the end two versions emerged:

"Dr. Avakumovic stated that Branko Popovic was killed during interrogation held in his study at the university, and according to another testimony he was killed when the interrogator, major of the special police force, was slapped by Popovic when the former had used severe swear words mentioning his mother and traitor's descent".

Years went by, and acquaintances, and even good friends turned their heads when they passed the family of "national enemies" on the streets. However, there came a time when the government was forced to allow the establishment of political parties and a public demonstration of a different opinion.

"During the early 90's I paid a visit to the then deputy of the republic prosecutor Danilo Jovanovic, showed him the text from Politika from 1944, and demanded that the procedure be put into motion again. He said that he would try and asked for the sentence which I, of course, didn't have, but I requested him to check whether it existed at all. He searched for three years and at the end ascertained that there were no charges, nor trial, nor verdict. I announced that, and was then approached by people whose relatives had met with a similar destiny. I took seven such cases and ascertained that there was no verdict in any of those cases (however, I am still engaged on one case). I don't know whether anybody from this list bearing 105 names had a trial, but so far I have never heard that a verdict was discovered for any of them. I cannot claim so, yet I believe that they do not exist."

In similar lists of "war criminals, traitors and national enemies" (amongst which, naturally, there were many of those who had deserved such qualifications) which Politika had published at the beginning of 1945, an unusually large percentage of those who had belonged to the "higher ranks" can be found: writers, artists, scientists, journalists, industrialists, businessmen...

However, while a lot is known about the victims of the Germans and their allies, there are few facts on those who were caught by the "hand of justice, the vindictive hand of our nation" (Josip Broz Tito, meeting in Ljubljana on May 27, 1945). The Balkan people had always had problems with statistics, so that the classification of World War Two victims has never been made in Yugoslavia, according to nationality and religion, not to mention to social or educational structure. Even the official fact of one million and 700 thousand victims is seriously dubious. Which is why never ending bids with numbers exist here, depending on the ideological determination. Which is how, for example, in Kocevski Rog, the partisans had killed between 12 thousand (fact stated by Milovan Djilas) and 250 thousand people (assessment of the "reactionary" journalists). The Pogledi magazine from Kragujevac has at one point assessed that in Serbia, following the cessation of war activities, 120 thousand people were killed. It is evident that this number is over rated, but even from a far lesser number one's hair stands on end. It is not ascertained how many Belgrade citizens were killed after the liberation.

"When I was expelled at the beginning of 1946 from the university, the explanation which was given was: 'son of Branko Popovic'", says Prijezda Popovic. "My mother complained to Mosa Pijade, and he answered back: 'Impossible, we communists don't do such things'. When he had, however, ascertained that it was true, I was re-enrolled at the university in a matter of 24 hours."

As the historian Milan St. Protic says, the middle class community of Belgrade "had heroically endured the terror which had lasted intensely up to, around, 1950, with 'tails' trailing all the way into the 70's. Only a small number of those had joined up with the new masters".

With time, even the "new masters" had mellowed down in other people's apartments and armchairs. They bore children and grandchildren who were educated, had "seen the world", started talking in a loud voice and openly about everything that was bothering them, threatened to form a new middle class, to modernize and organize a government in accordance with the norms of the civilized countries. In order to stop such a process, the government, as is known, had incited a war and the collapse of the country. Thousands of young and educated Belgrade people left the country, while others were pushed into death. And the layer which pushes forward was destroyed yet again.

Prijezda Popovic is not giving up his intention to find out how his father was killed and where he is buried. The numerous descendants of people who had suffered a similar fate wish for the same thing. The demands for public rehabilitation, for the return of private property and, generally, for a reassessment of the official history are getting louder and louder.