These days, 97 years have passed since the event that took place at dawn around 6 o’clock on February 11, 1918. The low gloomy sky of the heavy south and the mountains above Kotor was a sick mise-en-scene. On the Skaljarska slope, which descends towards Kotor, four young men were brought before a machine gun. “Do you, soldiers, for whose better life we fought, want to shoot us?” – shouted František Raš, Czech. Something unexpected happened – one soldier from the firing machine lost consciousness. It was as if an inversion of the shooting occurred, the shooter fell, a potential killer and the death he was supposed to send was reflected as in a mirror. Was it the unforgivable hysterical collapse of a soldier in response to looking death in the eye? The soldier faced the death of his comrades and saved himself from Cain’s identity as a fellow killer who is eternal. The shooting took place only when the new soldier approached the shooting machine. That reverse dawn shot at about 6:50 opens a symbolic horizon that continues to this day. And how did it start?

“A Question of the Gut”

At that time, news spread about sailors’ revolts in Pula and Šibenik, and there was also talk of a revolution that broke out a few months ago in Russia, in which sailors played a decisive role. The food was abysmal. More than once there was a loud outcry about the tasteless and poor meals. That “gut question”, as Krleža called it, ran through almost every subsequent analysis of the causes and reasons for the rebellion. The privileges of the officer cadre were enormous and took place before the eyes of the sailors. Officers had the right to have their families stay on board or on land, and visit guesthouses with “single ladies” – the “gut question” was joined by Freud’s root of frustration. It was the fourth year of the Great War, holidays were almost forbidden. Some of the sailors from Dalmatia sailed past their birthplace several times in four years, and could not go home. Opportunities in the birthplaces and families were bad, hunger, poverty, absent sons, who do not send help. Some of the demands of the sailors in the first letter to the Command were better food and complete demobilization, and in the latter “leave paid as before”.

Boka Kotorska, along with Pula, was the most important war port of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy on the Adriatic. Since 1915, the Boka war zone, which also included the German submarine base. The forces stationed at Boca were engaged in attack operations against ships of the Atlanteans participating in the blockade of Otranto. From Verigo to Ross was stationed the main force with 6,000 sailors and officers; cruisers, destroyers, submarines, barracks ships, workshops, and many auxiliary military vessels with picturesque names of members of the royal family, Austrian and Hungarian national heroes, toponyms of the multinational Monarchy. 4,000 soldiers of the land army were deployed in fortresses and artillery emplacements on the crown of the mountains and along the coast. A total of about 10,000 soldiers were n the entire area of the war port.

Red and white flags. Rebellion

Whoever sails the Boka today can hardly imagine an arena studded with all kinds of warships, personnel, and military infrastructure of that time. Exactly at noon on February 1, 1918, a shot while the officers were having lunch from the largest Sankt Georg marked the beginning of the rebellion. Red and white flags were raised one after the other on the masts. Red is a symbol of revolution, and white appeals to peace and ending the war. In this dichotomy of colors and aspirations, the contradiction, the aspiration for reconciliation, peace, and revolution is manifested. The call from St. George where the Marseillaise is intoned. The officers were disarmed and imprisoned, and one of them was killed and another wounded. A committee of sailors was established to command the mutiny. This is followed by correspondence with the war command, tactics, regrouping of forces, calls from both sides for help, one for suppressing the uprising, and the rebel sailors for support. The chronology is full of interesting twists and turns, details interwoven with the sailor’s unwritten personal drama. In a letter to his mother and children, František Raš writes: “Dear mommy and my dear children.” I’m saying goodbye to you, I don’t know what awaits me in the next moment…”. The letter was sent to Prerv, a small, peaceful Czech town in Moravia, where a bust of František Raš stands today. The rebellion was massive, the largest in the history of modern warfare in these areas, 6,000 sailors rose up. One of the ships that did not raise the red flag was the Cruiser Novara. One of Novara’s commanders was Miklos Horty, the man who led Hungary into World War II on Hitler’s side in 1941. Because of his behavior in the sailors’ mutiny in Boka, he was promoted to fleet commander.

In his diary, he writes that later, in May of the same year, taught by the experience of the badly suppressed uprising in Boka, he ordered the shooting of a Czech and a Dalmatian on deck because of a tip-off about a possible rebellion.

The sailors’ committees were heterogeneous in terms of nationality, political commitment, the vision of the goals of the rebellion, and specific issues. The Italians proposed setting sail on the open seas towards Italy and adhering to the Entente navies, the Slovenian sailors opposed it, and the Germans and Hungarians as well, all for their own reasons. There was a commotion, and quarrels, the expected support from the mainland was missing, it was proposed to accept the offered proposals, and the rebellion was extinguished.

First court

On February 3, ships, reinforcements from Pula, arrived in front of Boka. The cruiser Novara with Horti and the German submarines grouped in battle formation from Verigo. By noon, the red flags were taken down from the mast. Mass arrests of sailors were carried out, and most of them were imprisoned in the fortress of Campo Mamula on the island of Lastavica.

This was followed by a quick and fast court process in Kotor, which had to be completed within 72 hours, otherwise, the jurisdiction would be transferred to regular military courts. The following were sentenced to death by firing squad: Franz Raš, a naval sergeant from the Czech Republic, Anton Grabar, a sailor from Poreč, Jerko Šižgorić, an artilleryman from Ćirje near Šibenik, and Mate Brničević, an artilleryman from Kril Jesenice near Split. 386 sailors and non-commissioned officers were accused before the regular military court. Of these, 48% were of South Slavic origin, mostly Croats from Dalmatia and Istria, 20% Italian, 13% Czechs and Slovaks, 10% Germans, and about 8% Hungarians and others. They received multi-year sentences, ten of them died in prison before being released at the end of the same year. For them and those who were shot, the war ended too late, they did not wait for peace, freedom, and the establishment of their national states.

Don Niko Luković from Prčanj was given the task of confessing the condemned. His memories of the last words of the condemned are poignant, they could serve as a poem and a manifesto. Don Nico began to console the condemned sailors by admitting that they go to the other world innocent, as victims who fell for a just cause. To that, Šižgorić replied: “You talk to us about another world in vain when we young people want to live in this world and work for the people.” Mate Brničević was calm: “I don’t regret participating in the rebellion.” I don’t regret being sentenced to death, because I believe that our death will bring a better life to our people”. Those shots refused to be blindfolded. They looked into the eyes of death, the look of which the fallen sailor from the firing squad could not stand.

Later political interpretations alternated, as happens with great historical events, there was appropriation, silence, and negative connotations. Thus, in 1928, after a conflict between two admirals over the interpretation of the rebellion, King Alexander decided that it was inappropriate to continue celebrating the anniversary of the rebellion due to its revolutionary character. The question is, where was the rebellion of 1918 in the consciousness of Spasić and Masera when they were sinking with their ship and country? In SFRY, the anniversary is regularly celebrated in the presence of participants, and military and political officials.

Inspiration of the artist

The cultural legacy of the sailors’ revolt in Boka in 1918 continued to inspire artists as well.

In 1930, the German writer, physician, and leftist Friedrich Wolf wrote the play Die Matrosen von Cattaro, which was successfully performed in Germany, even in New York in 1934-35. Wolff was a provocative writer, which is why he emigrated from Nazi Germany, he used the sailors’ revolt as a metaphor for social change In 1979, the film Kotor sailors directed by Fritz Borneman was filmed in the production of Zeta Film. Jane Hathaway, in her book about the most significant rebellions and uprisings in the world, includes the Bokele along with, among other things, the famous rebellion of black slaves on board the Amistad. The list is not complete. There is something about this rebellion that escapes easy verbalization. Everyone who has dealt with this topic has in common a fascination with the strength, mass, and nobility of the ideals for which the sailors fought. It is an eternal question of misconceptions that later denied the aspirations of the rebels to change the world for the better. It is a generally questionable place, is the sacrifice of the fallen for future freedom in vain? The victims are concrete and human, and the legacy is universal and symbolic. Why is the story of this rebellion disturbing? At least once, each of us wanted to be a part of big changes and rebel against social injustice, and we had to suppress that rebellion within ourselves. Most of us carry some suppressed rebellion within us. That’s why we can ask ourselves, what can we say today at the grave of the sailors who were shot?

Srdja Zlopasa