A contribution to the biography of edo marković (1885–1939)

Abstract

Using archival data, press articles, and historiographical and memoir literature, this paper reconstructs biographical details from the life of Edo Marković, agronomist, civil servant, member of the National Council of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, Rotary Club activist, and general manager of the state monopoly company for the purchase and export of agricultural produce. The life philosophy of Edo Marković, which could be described in brief as opposition to inertia and authority, led him from his early childhood into temptations, which he overcame by following his intuition. They included identity dilemmas, education, political experimentation, and a principled determination to ‘serve the homeland, not the government’. Thanks to the organisational skills he displayed during World War I, his later banking career, the international reputation he enjoyed in the highest Freemason and Rotary circles, the crown of which was his position in the League of Nations, he acted more like an expert than a politician. Even though he was a member of several political or-ganisations, he continued to adhere to the ideology of his old company, grown from the Croatian-Serbian Coalition. His Rotary enthusiasm outweighed the dashed hopes about the future of the Yugoslav state, and contributed to a sort of internal escapism and turn towards international activism. The affinity of Marković’s children for left-wing ideas, despite their material status, was certainly fostered by the opinions of their father, who afforded them a comprehensive education, thus allowing them to independently form their views on how the Russian Revolution went astray, the consequences of the Nazi rise to power, and the characteristics of Anglo-Saxon civilisation. The close links of Edo Marković with Czechoslovakia were the consequence of inter-Rotary cooperation, his loyalty to the concept of the Little Entente, and his promotion of the controversial Yugoslav-Czechoslovak ‘grain arrangements’, for which he was often criticised. The high social standing of Edo Markocić was not immanent to the agrarian topics that he was preoccupied with from his student days until his death. However, his radical idea about the emancipation of national agriculture from foreign markets through the industrialisation of passive areas and the exploitation of their natural resources exposed him to accusations of ‘agrarian defeatism’ and treason. Apart from complaints about his staff policy, extravagance, and compulsive hoarding of war reserves, the sources used do not point towards any financial malfeasance on his part, which his predecessors at the head of the Privileged Export Society (PRIZAD) were notorious for. Indeed, due to his Jewish ancestry, Marković was subjected to additional attacks in the press, which, generalising his affiliation to the stratum of ‘Austro-Hun-garian banking masters’, futilely attempted to discredit him regarding the purchase and export of grain and opium. Unlike his conflict with national interest groups, which was the consequence of his compliance with American demands for a more restrictive opium policy, Marković’s ‘lack of tact’, based on his political and ethical beliefs, made him an unreliable partner of the Yugoslav military command on the eve of the new war and a hinderance in the German ‘supplementary economic area’. If the official version of his murder is to be believed, Edo Marković died because he had raised his daughters in the spirit of liberalism, which eventually led to their active support of the Communists, and provoked the police raid in which he was killed. On the other hand, Marković, as a Freemason, Rotarian, ‘Christianised Jew’, anglophile, and opponent of economic cooperation with the Third Reich, was a perfect target for Nazi Germany, whose intelligence service had successfully infiltrated Yugoslavia. In both cases, Edo Marković became a victim of that which had preoccupied him from his earliest days, but which he had simultaneously avoided – politics.