Crown of Zvonimir

In Zagreb there was proclaimed the restoration of the Crown of Zvonimir, which rested on the heads of Croatian Kings and now returns to represent the sovereignty of the Independent State of Croatia.

So said an Italian communique last week. Three days later a delegation of Croats led by Poglavnik (Leader) Ante Pavelitch arrived in Rome to offer the Crown (a wreath of golden clover leaves surmounted by a cross and an apple) to anybody Italy's wry little King Vittorio Emanuele should designate. The King had a couple of cousins who were in need of work. One was the Duke of Aosta, who had just finished losing the Crown of Ethiopia for his Cousin Vittorio (see p. 37). The other was Aosta's lean, towering younger brother, Aimone, Duke of Spoleto, who has done most of his campaigning in boudoirs and is now married to Irene, Princess of Greece. Spoleto got the clover & apple.

The Crown of Zvonimir was named for one Demetrius Zvonimir, who was crowned by a papal legate in Split in 1076. In 1089 the Croats killed him because they thought he had sold out to Rome. The 13 years of Zvonimir's rule were those of Croatia's broadest boundaries. The kingdom had an Adriatic coastline running from Fiume to Split and thrust inland almost to Belgrade. Croatian provincials have never forgotten that. Said the nationalistic Croatiapress in 1937: "Dalmatia, Herzegovina, Bosnia, Slavonia and Croatia ... are pure Croatian provinces and the Croatian people have the sole right to them."

In last week's deal the cream of the Dalmatian coast went, not to puppet Croatia, but to the Kingdom of Italy. Benito Mussolini also knows that Napoleonic kingdoms are not always permanent. For the present, however, Il Duce and his King Aimone will have the loyalty of Poglavnik Pavelitch, who plotted the assassination of King Alexander for Il Duce, then hid out in Italy for seven years until he could help in the assassination of Yugoslavia. Serbian komitajis had a better idea: in their list of men marked for assassination, Pavelitch's name led all the rest.

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