Description
“Ljubo Anđelić’s book The Legend of Livno is undoubtedly one of the most harrowing testimonies of the war. This thoughtful man from Kolašin, a diligent chronicler of a sinister age and a warrior of noble heart, left behind a distinctive diary of the atrocities committed by the Ustaše across the regions of Livno, Duvno, Kupres and Glamoč.
“Thus were recorded bloody legends of evil, fanaticism, hatred and madness perpetrated by the Ustaša Black Legionaries and their crimes from the summer of 1942, which, in my view, speak powerfully and lay bare to the bone the Ustaša movement, its roots and ideology, its bloodthirstiness and derangement, while also supplementing and completing the picture of the crimes it had begun a year earlier.”
— Budo Simonović, author of The Fiery Mary of Livno
During the summer of 1942, Montenegrin partisans marched far from their homeland to Western Bosnia to fight the Ustaše, Home Guards and Black Legionaries, finding themselves in difficult and bloody battles for Kupres and Livno. Although a lesser known epic, The Legend of Livno tells its story.
Written by Ljubo Anđelić, a member of the 4th Montenegrin Proletarian Brigade, the reader gets an exclusive view into a wartime diary. The author wrote down both his engagements with fierce combat and individual heroism, among both Montenegrins and locals. He also recorded the destruction of villages, massacres and extreme violence towards Serbs in this region at the hands of the nazi-fascist “Independent State of Croatia.” He also touches on the involvement of local certain Catholic clergy in collaboration.
Originally published in 1963, this book certainly reflects the political climate of that time as well. It, therefore, cannot be called fully neutral or objective. But perhaps its subjective nature is its significance. In The Legend of Livno, the reader interacts with a world as it was seen by certain individuals during a specific time period, preserving a neglected chapter of the war and serving as a warning against present-day historical revisionism in the process.