Читать книгу The History of Yugoslavia - Henry Baerlein - Страница 55

The provinces of Dalmatia and Istria were placed under the government of Milan, in their towns were hoisted the Italian colours; but if to Napoleon these lands were chiefly stepping-stones to India, he did not long stay in ignorance regarding their inhabitants. His representative, Vincenzo Dandolo, was a Venetian who, on account of his democratic principles, had been expelled in 1799 and had sought refuge in France. We will therefore not repeat the epithets he uses when he writes about the late Venetian overseas régime. But Napoleon had no cause to be prejudiced in favour of the Yugoslavs. His origin was Italian. His daughter reigned in Italy. And if he had disapproved of Dandolo starting at Zadar in 1806 an official newspaper—the Regio dalmato: Kraljski dalmatin, written partly in Italian, partly in Serbo-Croat—he would very soon have stopped the paper and Dandolo's career. But, on the contrary, this paper (the first one to be written at all in Serbo-Croat) was followed by the planning of secondary schools at Zadar, Šibenik, Trogir, Split, Makarska and the island of Hvar, twenty-nine elementary schools for boys and fourteen for girls, two academies at Zadar and Split, four seminaries for the education of priests and eight industrial schools. And in these the Serbo-Croatian language was to be largely employed.

Kara George had no leisure in which to learn to read and write. Another Turkish army, formed in Bosnia, had to be encountered near Šabac in 1806. It was routed, and on this occasion the Serbian cavalry was led with great distinction by a priest, Luka Lazarević. Yet another Turkish army suffered the same fate.