Politika
- The Štip–Kočani Railway
- Terrible Cyclone on the Adriatic
- Sremski Karlovci Before the Harvest
In Politika of 30 September 1926, D. Ban argued in a signed column that the Štip–Kočani line, together with its branch to Veles, was above all an economic railway. He added that the Kočani basin, famous for its rice fields, was, in a view not yet widely held but backed by experts, the most fertile part of "South Serbia", sheltered by a ring of high, wooded mountains. A dispatch from Rome reported that a two-day storm on Italy's southern Adriatic coast had caused damage estimated at tens of millions of lire, and that the peninsula between the Gulf of Taranto and the Strait of Otranto was badly damaged. A sketch about Sremski Karlovci before the harvest showed a little girl asking where Stražilovo was and then seeing a brick-and-tile factory with that name on its roof.
This is a partial reading of the page. The railway excerpt begins mid-sentence and breaks off at a dash. The Rome storm dispatch stops mid-sentence. The Sremski Karlovci passage was read with low confidence, and its [?] markers show uncertain boundaries. Small print and text split across tile edges were not reconstructed. The Adriatic storm report has no background section, because no reliable source on the Italian response was available.
Translation
The Štip–Kočani Railway
…to underline and emphasize that the Štip–Kočani line, together with the Štip–Veles branch, is first and foremost an economic railway. The Kočani valley, or rather the Kočani basin as its center, is known most often and most widely for its rice fields. And yet that is not its most important feature. Its chief characteristic, within the broad economic framework not only of South Serbia but of the whole national community, lies in the view — not widely enough held, but established by experts — that it is the most fertile part of South Serbia; a region of which it can rightly be said that it is "a land of the most lavish fertility." Girded on nearly all sides by high, wooded mountains, the Kočani basin receives from these enormous natural ramparts what is most essential for fruitfulness —
Terrible Cyclone on the Adriatic
Rome, September 29. For the past two days a tremendous hurricane raged along the southern part of Italy's Adriatic coast and caused damage estimated at tens of millions of lire. The small peninsula lying between the Gulf of Taranto and the Strait of Otranto was badly damaged. There, last night, for a full three hours, there fell a heavy…
Sremski Karlovci Before the Harvest
[?] And she asks the lady sitting by the window:
"Mama, where is Stražilovo?"
Mama looks out of the window. But instead of an answer, a tall factory chimney rushes toward them, growing ever larger between the rounded hills. They arrive. And on the roof of the factory building it says in enormous letters: STRAŽILOVO JOINT-STOCK CO. for the manufacture of bricks and roof tiles.
The little girl is on the verge of tears:
"Look, mama! Now Stražilovo has turned into a brickworks!" [?]
Context
What made the Kočani basin the "land of the most lavish fertility"?
D. Ban's column makes two claims: that the Štip–Kočani line was primarily an economic railway, and that the Kočani basin's value went beyond its well-known rice fields to a general fertility owed to the mountains around it. The geography he points to is real. Kočani lies on the northern side of the Kočani valley. To the north stands Osogovo (2,252 m), and about 8 km to the south the valley is closed off by Plačkovica (1,754 m). Its climate is humid subtropical, shaped by a modified Mediterranean influence that reaches the valley along the Bregalnica river. That matches the column's picture of a basin shielded by "natural ramparts". The rice identity he treats as the region's popular image has lasted: the town's motto today is "City of rice and geothermal water". The column's judgment that the basin was the most fertile part of the region is the author's own argument, based on unnamed experts, and not a measured fact.
What was at stake in calling Kočani part of "South Serbia"?
The column places Kočani within "South Serbia" and within "the whole national community", presenting the railway as tying a productive valley into the kingdom's economy. That framing sits on top of a very different recent past. Kočani fell under Ottoman rule early in the 15th century. An Austrian consular report of 1903 counted 39,406 inhabitants in the Kočani kaza, of whom 41.93% were Bulgarian Exarchists. Ottoman Muslims made up 29.44% and Albanians 19.79%, alongside smaller numbers of Aromanians, Patriarchists and Roma. So when Politika described the valley as South Serbia and its railway as a national economic asset, it was writing about a region where, only a generation earlier, the largest group of inhabitants had been counted as adherents of the Bulgarian Exarchate, and where Muslims and Albanians together had made up nearly half the population. Today the town lies in eastern North Macedonia, about 100 km east of Skopje.
Why would a child be heartbroken to find "Stražilovo" on a brickworks?
The Karlovci sketch depends on the reader knowing what Stražilovo meant. It is a wooded valley on the Fruška Gora, about 5 km from Sremski Karlovci, and the site of the monument to the poet Branko Radičević. Radičević finished school in Karlovci, which became the setting of his best poems. His first collection, published in 1847, is credited with launching a new era in Serbian poetry. He died of tuberculosis in Vienna in 1853, and in 1883 his remains were reburied at Stražilovo. For readers in 1926 the name therefore stood for Romantic poetry and a celebrated poet's grave. The joke of the girl's line, "Now Stražilovo has turned into a brickworks!", is that a joint-stock tile company had taken over that name. The piece plays this up as a comic contrast; it does not say whether the factory stood in the valley itself.
What kind of town was Sremski Karlovci in 1926?
The harvest feature takes its characters to a town with a long history. Sremski Karlovci had been the seat of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the Habsburg Monarchy, and a Patriarchate of Karlovci operated there from 1848 until 1920. In 1918 the town became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and by the time of this issue it had taken on a new role: in 1922 it became the headquarters of the Russian White émigrés under General Pyotr Wrangel. The Stražilovo the girl is looking for thus lay beside a former Habsburg Serbian church capital that had belonged to the new kingdom for less than a decade. The factory chimney among the hills is the feature's own image of how the place was changing.
Original
Пруга Штип—Кочане
га, подвући и нагласити да је пруга Штип-Кочане заједно са краком Штип-Велес првенствено економска железница. Кочанска долина, односно кочанска котлина као њено средиште, позната је најчешће и највише по својим пиринчаним пољима. А то ипак није њена најважнија одлика. Главна особина њена, у широком привредном оквиру не само Јужне Србије него целе народне заједнице, састоји се у недовољно раширеном али стручно утврђеном мишљењу да је то најплоднији део Јужне Србије; - предео за који се с правом може рећи да је " земља најраскошније плодности ". Опасана скоро са свих страна високим и шумовитим планинама, кочанска котлина од тих огромних природних грудобрана, добија оно што је најбитније за плод -
Страшан циклон на Јадрану
Страшан циклон на Јадрану Рим, 29 септембра Јужним делом италијанске обале Јадрана беснео је последња два дана страховит оркан и нанео штету која се цени на десетине милиона лира. Мало полуострво које лежи између Тарантског Залива и Отрантског Канала јако је оштећено. Тамо је прошле ноћи падао пуна три сата велики
Сремски Карловци пред бербом
[?] И пита госпођу која седи поред прозора: - Је ли, мама, где је Стражилово? Мама гледа кроз прозор. Али место одговора жури један високи фабрички димњак и све је већи између облих брегова. Стиже. И на крову фабричке зграде пише огромним словима: СТРАЖИЛОВО А. Д. за израду цигаља и црепа. Мала само што не заплаче: - Гледај, мама! Сад је од Стражилова постала циглана! [?]