Politika
- Control of Financial Institutions
- Before 29 May 1903
This reading of Politika for 22 October 1926 covers parts of two pieces. In a signed column on controlling financial institutions, Dr. M. Nedeljković links a push for stronger statutory and administrative oversight of banks to the general spirit of Fascist Italy. He describes the regime as trying to subordinate social life to government directives, and he gives the compulsory corporations of employers and workers as an example. The second piece, the third instalment of a series titled 'Before 29 May 1903', describes the bustle at court while King Alexander Obrenović struggled to find a government willing to carry out his marriage to the widow Draga Mašin, at a time when the public still knew nothing of it.
This edition covers two partial passages from the page. The column on financial institutions begins and ends mid-sentence, and its first word is only the tail of a broken phrase. One word in the serial instalment is illegible and is marked [?]. Other stories, including 'Шта се говори?' and the item on ex-Crown Prince Carol's right to the Romanian throne, are split across image tiles without complete lines and are not translated. One tile holds a photograph, and parts of another are faded.
Translation
Control of Financial Institutions
…on the agenda: the question of enforcing stronger statutory and administrative control over financial institutions. This is to some extent in keeping with the general spirit of the present regime in Italy: Fascism strives to direct all national forces and activities toward one conscious aim, the greatness and well-being of the Italian people, and to that end to subordinate the whole of social life, as far as possible, to the directives of the national government. It was in this sense, too, that the compulsory corporations of employers and workers were set up. Through them the state seeks to imbue all the social strata that take part in production with a feeling of national solidarity, and that from the workers …
Before 29 May 1903
III
A few new moments, a few stronger shocks, and a whole series of fateful events on the throne and throughout the country. At the court, great bustle; among the people, still no knowledge of what is being prepared at dizzying speed. Only in official circles, and to some extent in the Belgrade merchant quarter, does the news break through: King Alexander intends to [?] with the widow Draga Mašin, and with great difficulty is trying to put together a government that would agree to carry out this marriage. To that end, indeed, there are summoned to …
Context
Italy's first commercial banking law of 1926
The surviving lines of Nedeljković's column tie stronger legal and administrative control of financial institutions to the spirit of the Fascist regime, which he presents as an effort to subordinate all social life to the government's directives. Italy did enact its first commercial banking regulation in 1926. Historians Marco Molteni and Dario Pellegrino, working from previously classified Bank of Italy archives, found that the law went through a substantial watering-down between the first draft and the final version, and they attribute this to lobbying by the Italian Banking Association. The column, as far as it survives, frames bank control as one expression of a state bent on directing every national activity; the archival record shows that the banking lobby itself shaped and softened the law's content.
Who carried out Italian bank supervision
The 'administrative control' the column mentions took a specific institutional form in Italy. Under the final version of the 1926 law, the Bank of Italy was put in charge of both on-site ('contact') and off-site supervision. The Ministry of Finance kept the power to issue authorisations and fines, but the Bank of Italy supplied the technical advice. According to Molteni and Pellegrino, this made the Bank of Italy the first European central bank to actively perform inspections, an arrangement that was controversial because the bank still competed with other lenders in commercial business at the time.
Why King Alexander struggled to find a government for his marriage
The serial describes King Alexander Obrenović labouring to assemble a government willing to carry out his marriage to Draga Mašin, a widow older than the king and a former lady-in-waiting to his mother. Established accounts confirm how isolated he was. When Alexander announced the engagement, public opinion turned against him. He visited the metropolitan and threatened to abdicate if he could not obtain the church's blessing, and the entire Đorđević government resigned in protest. The couple nonetheless married on 5 August 1900. The 1926 instalment depicts that crisis from the inside of the court, stressing that most Serbians did not yet know what was being prepared.
What happened on 29 May 1903
The series title points to the night of the May Coup. King Alexander and Queen Draga were killed inside the Stari Dvor in Belgrade on the night of 10–11 June 1903, which was 28–29 May by the Old Style calendar then used in Serbia, so the headline gives the date as Serbians knew it. Prime Minister Dimitrije Cincar-Marković was also killed in the coup. After it, the throne passed to King Peter I of the Karađorđević dynasty, ending Obrenović rule. Politika's 1926 series thus looks back twenty-three years at the run-up to the event that changed Serbia's ruling house.
Original
Контрола новчаних завода
реду питање о спровођењу јаче закон ске и административне контроле над новчаним заводима. То је донекле у складу са општим духом данашњег режима у Италији: Фашизам тежи да све националне снаге и делатности упути једном свесном циљу, величини и благостању италијанског народа, и да у ту сврху потчини целокупни друштвени живот, што је могуће више, директивама националне владе. У том смислу изведене су и принудне корпорације послодаваца и радника. Помоћу њих држава тежи да све друштвене слојеве, који учествују у производњи, задахне осећајем националне солидарности, те да се од радника дра -
Пред 29 мај 1903
III Неколико нових тренутака, неколико јачих потреса и читав низ судбоносних догађаја на престолу и у целој земљи. У двору велика ужурбаност, а у народу још увек необавештеност о ономе што се вртоглавом брзином спрема. Једино, у званичним круговима и донекле и у београдској чаршији, пробија вест: Краљ Александар намерава да се [?] са удовицом Драгом Машин, и с тешком муком покушава да састави владу која би се примила да изведе ову женидбу. У тој цељи, у истини, позивају се у