Ltn.Colonel Stanislav Turudija

[Orok]

Very interesting!

Does anyone know the year Turudija was born? Could he be born into an officer's/official's family which was originally from outside of Bosnia but stationed there after the occupation? Or Turudija is a family name only to be found in Bosnia? Most interesting!

Best Regards!

[Allen Milcic]

Hi Polona:

I have run into many cases in former Yugoslav states, especially in very mixed areas, where discerning an individual's nationality was difficult just by looking at their surnames. Many surnames have individuals that would describe themselves as one nationality, and their neighbour down the street, with the identical surname, as another. The surnames Filipovic, Petrovic, Milic come to mind, for example. Often, a person's nationality seems to be determined by his religion, hence a Catholic person with the surname Filipovic would consider himself a 'Croat', while his Orthodox neighbour of the same surname would consider himself a 'Serb', etc. Turudija seems like it fits into this category as well...the gentleman I knew with the surname definitely considered himself as a 'Croat', but he was of the Roman Catholic faith. Perhaps if we could determine whether Stanislav (Stanko) Turudija was Catholic or Orthodox, or what town he was born in, we could more easily determine his nationality as well.

Best regards,
Allen/

[Orok]

Allen and Polona,

Besides Turudija's nationality, I am also interested in whether he is a genuine Bosnian, that is, whether his family was resident in Bonia before the Austro-Hungarian occupation of that province.

I am interested in this because as a fact Bosnians were seriously underrepresented in the Officer Corps both before and during the Great War. This is due to multiple reasons, amongst them the just recent annexation of the province, the late introduction of conscription, relatively lower standard of education, etc. Although I have not done any serious research on this topic, I don't really remember any real Bosnian who was promoted to the field officer rank and higher before the end of the war.

A study of Bosnians in the Officer Corps would be very interesting and rewarding to show how a recently incorporated land integrated into the aquiring country, in both social and cultural sense! I am really looking forward to seeing such a work, although I myself is automatically disqualified for this for want of knowledge of any South Slav languages!

Best Regards!

[Locke]

Allen, I am aware of that, I was just discussing a bit with my granpa and wanted to let you know about it.

I found some more info on Turudija:

Most famous Serb in Dalmatian regiments during World War I, was without any doubt Oberstleutnant Stanislav Turudija from II/22. (Dalmatian) IR. He was a Bosnian Serb from Prijedor, a fine officer, who was very much respected by the soldiers of his battalion because of his, kinda orthodox approaches to the men. Controrary to them, the staff officers in the regiment, brigade or division headquarters often feared of his temperament and direct approach, and (apparently he was one oft hose men who like to say what he had on mind) whenever he appared in the HQs, the officers always had prepared a backup plan in case if Turudija wouldn't agree with the original one or if he would be in a bad mood. He was captured with the remaints of his battalion near the village San Mauro near Monte Sabotino during the Sixth Offensive, when Gorizia had fallen into Italian hands. Being by then already a famous character on the Isonzo Front, the Italian 3rd Army Commander, Duke of Aosta, personally wanted to see the captured Turudija and as a sign of respect he was allowed to wear his sword in the POW camp. I think he was held in POW Camp Nocera Umbro for the duration of the war, but am not sure

This was written by Klemen (I guess Klemen L.) on http://pub80.ezboard.com/baustrohungarianlandforcesdiscussionforum, but I found it on this forum:http://pub80.ezboard.com/fsf1517frm39.showMessage?topicID=19.topic

I will try to find some more info from books.

Best regards,
Polona