Belgrade, Serbia – One of the greatest French writers of all time, Victor Hugo, was a poet, novelist, and playwright. Hugo was also a very active participant in France’s political life and had a deep understanding of events in Europe during his time. He was, in fact, one of the first individuals to draw attention to the turbulent events in the Balkans and the tragic fate of the Serbian people under Turkish rule.
The great struggle of the Serbian people for final liberation from Turkish rule lasted for decades. Freedom was gained step by step. After uprisings and achieving autonomy, there remained “only” the task of liberating territories with Serbian populations and, of course, gaining internationally recognized independence – a long-dreamed and eagerly awaited goal.
It was with this aim that the Serbian-Turkish wars erupted in 1876. These were preceded by the Herzegovina Uprising in 1875, which triggered a series of armed rebellions in the Balkans against Ottoman rule.
However, the struggle of the Serbian people largely went unnoticed in Europe. It was then, amidst the Serbian-Turkish war, that the famous French writer and thinker Victor Hugo published a text in 1876 with a clear title – “For Serbia.”
“It becomes necessary to draw the attention of European governments to a matter that seems so trivial that governments do not consider it their duty to notice it! This matter is: a nation is being killed. Where? In Europe. Is there anyone to bear witness to this? There is one witness: the whole world. And do governments see this? They do not. Nations have something above them that is beneath them: these are governments. At certain moments, the absurdity is evident: civilization is in the peoples, barbarism is in the governments. Is this barbarism deliberate? No, it is professional. What humanity knows, governments do not know. This comes from governments seeing everything through a short-sightedness called raison d’état; humanity sees everything with another eye, conscience.
We will surely surprise European governments by teaching them something, and that is that crimes remain crimes; that neither governments nor ordinary individuals are allowed to be murderers, that everything done in Europe is done by Europe itself, and that every savage government, if it exists, must be treated like a wild beast; we will show that at this very moment, quite close to us, almost before our eyes, massacres are occurring, burning, plundering, extermination; that fathers and mothers are being slaughtered, girls and boys sold; that children too small to be sold are cut in half with swords; that families perish in the flames of their homes; that an entire town, Balak (Aleksinac), in a few hours, was reduced from nine thousand inhabitants to one thousand three hundred souls; that there are more corpses in cemeteries than can be buried, so that the dead return plague to the living who sent them slaughter, which is quite right; we will show European governments that they open the wombs of pregnant women to kill newly conceived children, that whole piles of female skeletons are found in public places, bearing traces of butchery, that dogs in the streets gnaw on the skulls of raped girls; that all this is so terrible, and that a single gesture from European governments is enough to prevent it, that the savages who commit these crimes are terrible, and that the civilized people who allow this to happen are horrifying.”
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In the continuation of his speech, the famous writer was even more open in defending his views and condemning European indifference.
“What is happening in Serbia proves the need for United European States. Let harmonious peoples replace discordant governments. Let there be an end to murderous empires! Let us curb fanaticisms and despotisms. Let us break the swords that serve errors, and the dogmas that possess them. Enough with wars and massacres, free thought, free exchange; brotherhood. Is peace so difficult? A European Republic, a continental federation, that is the only political reality. Reflection shows it; events too.
On the question of this reality, which is a necessity, all philosophers agree, and the executioners, with their proofs, support the proofs of the philosophers. In their own way, and precisely because it is terrible, barbarism testifies for civilization. Progress was signed by Ahmed Pasha. What the atrocities happening in Serbia put beyond doubt is that Europe needs a European nationality, a European government, a huge fraternal electoral court, democracy at peace with itself, that all nations be brothers with Paris as their cradle and capital, that freedom have light as its capital. In short, the United States of Europe. That is the goal, that is the haven. Until yesterday it was only a truth, today it is an obvious fact, thanks to the executioners of Serbia. Assassins join thinkers. Geniuses had given the proof: now monsters repeat it. The future is a God pulled by tigers.”
The full text by Victor Hugo can be read HERE, and the original in French HERE.
After Victor Hugo, other European thinkers and intellectuals raised their voices against the suffering of the Balkan peoples. Wars were fought with varying success until 1878 and the Congress of Berlin, where Serbia finally secured its independence.
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