In WWI Serbia, typhus did not arrive like a rumor, it arrived on uniforms, refugees, and prisoners.
A winter epidemic hit so hard it killed over a third of the country’s doctors. 🦠🪳
Thread 👇 Before 1912, typhus and relapsing fever were “unknown” in Serbia.
Then Serbian troops crossed Albania in deep winter, sheltering in huts and caves, surrounded by lice. That is where they first met these diseases. 🔽

Serbian schools in Kosovo Vilayet were being shut down in 1889-1890, not by a clear imperial decree, but via local obstruction, bribery, and bureaucratic choke points.

A consul’s confidential letters show how it worked on the ground. 🔽 Luka Marinković, Serbian consul in Priština, reports a school near Lipljan closed overnight.

He blames pressure routed through the vilayet education office in Skopje, the mearifat, not a formal ban from Constantinople. 🔽

A civic group in 1894 Herceg Novi wrote rules for a “Serbian Reading Room”, and it reads like a blueprint for community, media, and accountability 📚🗳️

What they prioritized, and what it says about the era, in a thread. 🔽 Name and HQ were formal: “Serbian Reading Room”, based in Herceg Novi.

Not just a casual club, it was a registered society with written statutes and official certification. 🔽

A 1913 paper trail from Bitola shows how poverty, politics, and propaganda collided. 📜❄️

Refugees. Firewood. A British consul. Serbian officials. Accusations flying.

The details are messy, and very human.
Read on. 🔽 Belgrade, Nov 23, 1913: Serbia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs briefs the PM and Foreign Minister.

Reason: reports of “a lot of poor people” in Bitola and nearby villages.

They forward what the Bitola district chief claims to know. 🔽

A 1405 document still preserved on Athos tells a whole story in one page. 📜⛪️
Despot Stefan Lazarević’s Hilandar Charter is part prayer, part autobiography, part financial policy, and part warning.
Let’s unpack it. 🔽 The charter is on parchment, 55.5 x 42.5 cm, written in script, opening with the sign of the cross. The signature is in red ink.
It survives at Hilandar Monastery as item no. 77. 🔽

Bitola was once one of Macedonia’s richest towns, tied to Salonica by rail, full of trade and mixed communities. Then WWI turned it into a symbol of how civilians get crushed when borders, propaganda, and revenge collide.🕯️🔽 After the Balkan Wars, Bitola was awarded to Serbia. Bulgaria never accepted it, and waited for a moment to reclaim it. That moment came in 1915, as Serbia was attacked from multiple sides and allies arrived too late. 🔽

Ever heard of a tribe's ancient code enforcing peace, faith, and revenge? The Vasojevići tribe's 12-point law is raw, unfiltered tradition. Dive into this fierce set of rules. 🏔️⚖️ 🔽 Point First: Brotherhoods of Vasojevići and Srbljaci must make peace, no excuses. Force the unwilling. A man's head: 300 groš. Woman's: 301. Blood prices set in stone. 💀 🔽

A 19-year-old’s 1942 debriefing describes Slana, an extermination camp on Pag island, Croatia. It is a firsthand look at how an extreme ideology turns into routine violence. ⚠️🕯️🔽 He says he was recruited in school through “Križari”, framed as faith, trained in Ustaša politics. Lectures targeted Serbs, Jews, Communists. Motto: “In the name of Christ, kill the Antichrist.” 🔽

In 1942, Četnik battalion "Karađorđe and Petar Mrkonjić" sent a remarkable letter to Croatian Domobran soldiers amid WWII horrors. A plea for brotherhood over fratricide. Here's the story. 📜🔽 Četniks found a Croatian soldier in combat, let him go home, and sent this message via him to Croatian officers, NCOs, and troops. 📨🔽

An 1899 “confidential report” says Bosnia is being stirred by petitions, envoys, and one rich merchant. It reads like a manual for managing dissent. 🕵️📜
Read on for the details. 🔽 Novi Sad, Jan 14, 1899: the writer claims “reliable sources” say agitators entered Bosnia’s politics, and signed complaints were sent to the Russian envoy in Vienna. 🔽

Doboj concentration camp: 45,791 internees, 8,000-12,000 Serb victims during WWI. A forgotten horror of Austro-Hungarian camps. A thread. 💀📜 Camp on Bosna River's right bank, near Doboj station. Built from 9 filthy horse stables of a glanders hospital, never cleaned. Opened Dec 27, 1915, for civilians. Closed officially July 5, 1917. 🏚️ 🔽

Salt, saints, and statecraft, in 1382. 🧂📜
King Tvrtko I founded a new coastal town, then Dubrovnik asked him to stop selling salt there.
The result is a charter that reads like diplomacy in real time. 🧵 Tvrtko opens with a devotional preface to Saint Stefan, the protomartyr.
He credits Stefan’s intercession for his “crown, honor, and scepter”, and frames his rule as continuity with earlier Serbian kings and tsars. 🔽

A raw situation report from 13 April 1941, Banovina Croatia: Yugoslav rear command says the “rebellion” shattered units from inside. Captured generals, mass desertions, weapons left on roads. Worth reading if you study collapse under pressure. 🧵 The report claims top commanders were taken by Croat rebels, including Army Gen. Milorad Petrović, Chief of Staff Rupnik, and VII Army commander Trifunović. Leadership decapitation, fast, and at the worst moment. 🔽

A 1910 snapshot of a tragedy in motion, Bosnian Muslim families leaving Bosnia after the Austro-Hungarian annexation. Not mainly for money, but for identity, fear, and pride. The details are brutal. 🧳📜 Cvijić describes Belgrade station packed before the night train to Thessaloniki. Men rushing, women and kids on the floor, all squeezed into 3rd class. Asked why, the answer is simple, “everyone will move out.” 🚆

In 1752, Maria Theresa issued a patent that basically said, do not leave the Austrian Empire without permission. Not to settle abroad, not to take foreign jobs, not to join foreign armies. The target, “recruiters” and “seducers.” 🔽 The state framed it as protecting the “general welfare” and subjects under “maternal care.” But the tool was force, with local officials, militias, magistrates, even innkeepers were told to watch roads, side paths, and lodging houses. 🔽

If you read one WWI account this week, make it this one. Bitola, 1917, a rich Macedonian town turned into a target. The occupation, the famine, then the shelling. This thread is a reminder of what “war on civilians” looks like. 🧵 Before WWI, Bitola was a trade hub, whitewashed houses in green orchards, tied to Salonica by rail. A place people fought over on maps, long before they fought over it with guns. 🔽

1/4 Third week of the trial of Draža Mihailović and the members of the refugee and Nedić's "governments" 10. June to 15. June 1946 in Belgrade: The testimony of Dragi Jovanović, "head of the Serbian state security" and 🔽 2/4extraordinary commissioner for Belgrade the counties of Vračar and Grocka. Courtesy of the Museum of Yugoslavia, inventory number 500.Side note: Jovanović was the head of Belgrade police before WWII, during WWII under German direction and was sentenced to death at this trial🔽

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The film found in the heritage of Osijek producer and owner of the cinema, Ignjat Rajntaler, which is kept in the Film Archive of Austria, is actually composed of several different materials about 👇vimeo.com/232188432 the Serbian Army filmed during the First and the Second Balkan Wars. One can see in the film the siege of Jedren in 1912, the Serbian Army on siege positions, and Colonel Vladimir Kondic with headquarters of the Timok Division, placement of grenades 👇

On the occasion of the Battle of Cer anniversary, the first victory of the Allied army in World War I, on Vidovdan the 28th June 1928, the King Alexander unveiled the commemorative plaque for fallen the soldiers

Courtesy Jugoslovenska Kinoteka.
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kinoteka.org.rs/di/efg/Http/EF… The monument was raised by the Association of Reserve Officers and people from the nearby areas with assistance of the Czechoslovakian government and bones of the warriors, gathered from the scattered graves throughout Cer Mountain, were built in its foundation.
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Inv. No. 7745

Jews from Senta, Serbia (1941-1944 under special administration by local German population), photographed on their way to perform forced labour. Roughly May 1941.

Courtesy of Museum of Yugoslavia.🔽 Inv. No. 7746

A group of Jews listening to their work orders, Senta, Serbia (1941-1944 under special administration by local German population). Roughly May 1941.

Courtesy of Museum of Yugoslavia.

Film 🧵


Due to one French soldier lack of attention, on the 18th August 1917 there was a great fire in Thessaloniki, which lasted several days, destroyed a large part of the town and brought out many human victims and enormous material damage. 🔽vimeo.com/231803848 Almost a year before this incident, the Film department of the Serbian army was founded and in this fire the newly acquired laboratory for film development from Italy was destroyed. In return, the cinematographer of the department, 🔽