Dr Janez Evangelist Krek, Yugoslav patriot and Christian socialist

Dr Janez Evangelist Krek of the Slovene Lands of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was an influential figure in the movement for Yugoslav autonomy within the Empire, best known for the May Declaration which demanded that Austria-Hungary recognise within its own borders a kingdom of the Southern Slavs in personal union with Austria and Hungary. Beyond this, however, he was perhaps one of the most consistent, articulate and imaginative advocates of the principles of Catholic social teaching in the Balkans (and indeed, in all of Eastern Europe). Having grown up in Ljubljana and having been exposed to the Catholic conservative thought of Croatian theologian Bp Anton Mahnic and to Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, Dr Krek began speaking emphatically on behalf of the Slovenian peasantry, whose physical and spiritual condition after the liberal revolutions of 1848 was not much better than outright serfdom. Subsistence farmers dumped without warning into a global money (rather than barter) economy without proper training, capital or acculturation, they faced prices for their goods which were consistently undercut by cheap American imports and conditions where their tenure was unsustainable without high-interest loans with their hard-won lands as collateral. It is not a stretch to say that the average Slovene peasant traded serfdom to a nearby landed lord (who at least spoke a Slavic tongue) for serfdom to a German- or French-speaking banker in a city far too far away - though local usurers were of course all too happy to get in on the action. (And who says history doesn’t repeat itself?)

Dr Krek’s enthusiasm for a socialism based on Catholic thinking very much predates his tenure in Vienna - at his First Mass at the age of twenty-three he gave a toast during which he gave a short speech on the subject; however, once in Vienna he quickly made the acquaintance of the circle of radical conservatives surrounding Karl Freiherr von Vogelsang, and was inspired to begin organising what amounted to a network of credit cooperatives throughout the Slovene countryside. Though these began as rural credit cooperatives, he also branched out into forming trade cooperatives and even cooperative schools. On the political side of matters, Dr Krek favoured greater autonomy and dignity for the Slovenes amongst whom he worked - linguistic and political rights as well as a greater degree of economic self-determination. As such, he was one of the prescient voices calling for a Southern Slavic political movement; though he himself never became an outright nationalist (he believed that the Southern Slavs would be better served by an equal place with Austrians and Hungarians within the Empire), there can be little doubt that he influenced the Yugoslav nationalist movement through his work.

One may justly look askance at some of Dr Krek’s associations with certain other of Karl von Vogelsang’s students (such as the populist, antisemitic politician Karl Lueger), or with Croatian arch-nationalist Anton Starcevic (who headed the political party which would later morph into the fascist Ustase government), but one must judge the great works he achieved within his own tragically short lifetime on their own merits. The trade union he created, the Yugoslav Labour Association, would long outlive him, and would indeed become one of the primary bases of Slovene (and thus, along with the Serbian Chetniks and the Croatian Partizans, Yugoslav) resistance to the Nazis during World War II. Dr Krek’s example might indeed prove to be a healthy inspiration for an anti-capitalist, pro-peace Yugoslav position which does not place too heavy a reliance on the (in some places problematic) legacy of Josip Broz.