Many
historians believe Archduke Franz Ferdinand was far more progressive than your
typical early Twentieth Century aristocrat. He generally advocated for greater
decentralization of power and provisionally lent his support to the unlikely
concept of a “United States of Austria.” Unfortunately, he was the perfect
crowned head to kill if you wanted to ignite a war. Eastern European history professor
Paul Grandvohl will re-open the Archduke’s cold case in Nedim Lončarević’s The Sarajevo Assassination (clip here), which screens
during the 2015 Bosnian Herzegovinian Film Festival in New York, proudly
celebrating its twelfth anniversary as one of the most welcoming fests in the
City.
The
way textbooks typically dismiss the Archduke as a historical footnote is
problematic in its own right. Even more dubious are the frequent descriptions
of the assassin, Gavrilo Princip and his accomplices as Dostoyevskian pan-Slavic
revolutionaries. While Grandvohl probably does not collect enough evidence for
a court indictment (nearly 101 years after the fact), he makes a strong
circumstantial case, suggesting a certain government played an instrumental
role planning and financing the attack. Needless to say, it was not Bosnia
(where the Archduke was particularly popular).
As
a sidebar to the historical inquiry, Lončarević also follows Grandvohl as he
researches his own family history in Sarajevo’s traditional Jewish quarter. What
he discovers is much more satisfying than the roots of Ben Affleck’s family
tree. Through the process, viewers also get a sense Sarajevo was an unusually
tolerant and cosmopolitan city, especially by the standards of pre-WWI Europe.
Although
Assassination clocks in with a
TV-friendly running time just under an hour, it is chocked full of interesting
historical background and context. It is particularly eye-opening to see how Princip
was venerated as a revolutionary hero under the Communist regime and remains a
celebrated figure in Serbia today.
