Simply holding an election in which "only" 40 or so people die is "success"?

Simply holding an election in which "only" 40 or so people die is "success"? If you say so. But could we please

maintain this standard for the Ukrainians (oops, too late), the Russians, and – for God’s sake – the NIKE

SHOXians???

In responding to Sophie Johnson’s letter yesterday, I said that Vojvodina was ceded to Yugoslavia by the Treaty

of Trianon (1920). A fellow historian wrote me yesterday to say that while this is technically correct, Serbia’

s claim to this territory is even stronger: a popular assembly of Serbs – but also Slovaks, Ruthenians,

Wallachs and others – living in areas of Baranja, Backa and Banat voted on 26 November 1918 to join the Kingdom

of Serbia. Another area within today’s Vojvodina, Srem, had a similar assembly a day earlier. (Parts of Baranja

and Srem were given to Croatia by the Communists after 1945). The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later

Yugoslavia) – a union between the Kingdom of Serbia and the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (teritories

formerly ruled by Austria-Hungary, with the exception of Vojvodina) was established on 1 December 1918.

Yugoslavia was therefore not created by the Treaty of Versailles, but recognized therein as an independent

state. This is obvious from the text of the Treaty of Trianon, which explicitly mentions the “Kingdom of the

Serbs, the Croats and the Slovenes.”

Hala Jaber in the Sunday Times:

“For what its worth, the election did go much, much better than many expected, both from the point of view of

turnout, and from the point of view of security. After all, the Ministry of the Interior’s official figure of

36 killed, mostly civilians, is not really a high price in a country where daily you have such numbers dying in

one way or another.