Belgrader Nachrichten

The Belgrader Nachrichten (Serbian: Beogradske Novine, lit. 'Belgrade News'), was the official occupation periodical of the Austro-Hungarian Military Governorate in Serbia during the First World War. As the main propaganda organ, the focus of the newspaper was to portray the occupation and its government as benevolent and working in the interest of the Serb population. It was published daily, in German, Serbo-Croatian and Hungarian from 1915 to 1918, during the occupation of Serbia.[1]

Belgrader Nachrichten
Beogradske Novine of 9 December 1916
TypeDaily newspaper 1916-1918
Three times a week 1915
PublisherMGG/S[lower-alpha 1]
Editor-in-chiefMilan Ogrizović
Founded15 December 1915 (1915-12-15)
LanguageGerman
Serbo-Croatian
Hungarian[lower-alpha 2]
Ceased publicationJune 29, 1918 (1918-06-29)
CityBelgrade
CountryTerritory of the Military Governorate in Serbia

History

In 1916, the new Austro-Hungarian military governor of Serbia instituted a system of military law that allowed only one newspaper, the Army's Belgrader Nachrichten, to be printed.[2] During the occupation the use of Serbian Cyrillic script was forbidden in public life, Serbian language was re-casted as “Serbo-Croatian”. Printed materials for the population of Serbia were exclusively in Latin script, Ijekavian dialect with Croatian lexis.[3]

The Belgrader Nachrichten was distributed in Austro-Hungarian occupied territories in German, Hungarian and Serbo-Croatian. The German version was distributed throughout Europe with the aim of demonstrating how Austria and Germany had come to Serbia as 'a bearer of prosperity, to enlighten it' while the Serbian version was for the local population to believe that the Militärverwaltung in Serbien (Military administration in Serbia) was working in their interest, unlike the previous Serbian Karađorđević dynasty which had deceptively led them into war.[4]

Edition of 24 December 1916

Notable contributors

German Commissioner Wilhelm Ucher was responsible for the editorial board, followed by Croatian Jurica Oršić Slavetićki; for the last two years, Croatian writer Milan Ogrizović was the editor in chief.[5]

The only Serbian associate writer was Borisav Stanković who took the position after his release from an internment camp at the invitation of Ogrizović and wrote literary feuilletons from December 1916 to March 1918.[3] Austrian writer Otto Alscher wrote a literary column and co-edited the occupation newspaper anonymously.[6][lower-alpha 3]

Note
  1. Military General-Governorate in Serbia
  2. from June 1916
  3. His contributions, printed anonymously at the time, were identified in the 1970s.[6]

References
  1. Wouters, N.; van Ypersele, L. (2018). Nations, Identities and the First World War: Shifting Loyalties to the Fatherland. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 289. ISBN 978-1-350-03644-4.
  2. Herwig, H.H. (2014). The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914-1918. Modern Wars. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4725-1081-5.
  3. Marković, Gordana Ilić (2018-03-27). "Literature: Serbia (South East Europe)". International Encyclopedia of the First World War (WW1).
  4. Goebel, S.; Keene, D. (2017). Cities into Battlefields: Metropolitan Scenarios, Experiences and Commemorations of Total War. Historical Urban Studies Series. Taylor & Francis. p. 170. ISBN 978-1-351-95149-4.
  5. "Bora pod okupacijom". РТС (in Serbian). 2014-06-25.
  6. Wallace, I. (2003). Fractured Biographies. German monitor. Rodopi. p. 187. ISBN 978-90-420-0956-1.
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