Monument to Gavrilo Princip unveiled in Belgrade

B92 / Tanjug ^ | June 29, 2015 | Tanjug

[vladimir998]

“Its downright blasphemous to equate Jesus with some European Monarch.”

I didn’t equate them. I pointed out that both were monarchs (actually Franz Ferdinand was never a monarch; he never reached the throne).

“Yes, temporal Monarchs deserve no respect whatsoever.”

St. Paul thought differently. If the monarch is a ruling monarch, he deserves a basic respect as an authority.

[vladimir998]

“And Princip had an equally bad choice.”

Since he was a murderer, he was the worse of the two choices. Franz Ferdinand never murdered anyone. He never shot anyone in the neck or any woman in the abdomen. Princip did all that.

“You couldn’t vote the monarch out, and they did not have freedom to advocate regime change, excepting to grovel and beg for the monarchs mercy.”

It seems to me you lack a fundamental understanding of law at the time. This was the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914. It was not a place of despotism.

“So I see his choices as submit, or fight.”

No, you see his choice as murdering a man and a woman sitting in a car. They were not even rulers. They were symbols. Symbols who murdered for daring to come to Princip’s city - which was located in Franz Ferdinand’s country as much as Princip’s. Princip wanted to create a new nation - Yugoslavia (how did that work out by the way?) and said: “I am a Yugoslav nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs, and I do not care what form of state, but it must be freed from Austria.” So Princip murdered for nationalism and Ferdinand died because he was an Austrian archduke. Princip helped start a war. Ferdinand - if he had the chance to act on his plans - would have helped stop wars. You hate him merely because he was born into a royal family. You can’t even actually hate him for being a monarch because he never had the chance to be one. If both men ended up at the Gates of Heaven, Franz Ferdinand had a better claim to enter than Princip did.

[Ravnagora]

THE SARAJEVO ASSASSINATION JUNE 28, 1914 - "VIDOVDAN" - A Day of Death and Martyrs that would change the world forever / By Aleksandra Rebic

http://www.heroesofserbia.com/2013/06/the-sarajevo-assassination-june-28.html

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Bosnia's Gavrilo Princip and Ireland's Patrick Pearse - Heroes or Terrorists?

http://www.heroesofserbia.com/2013/03/bosnias-gavrilo-princip-and-irelands.html

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[fishtank]

Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out (Live on Letterman)

[Nowhere Man]

I think making a statue of Princip is a bit tacky at best although if it wasn't him that triggered WWI, perhaps someone else or something else would have. Still, the only "honor" I'd give him is Man of the 20th Century, look at what all he started. The Archduke, according to some, was a reformer and if given time, would have maybe worked things out to make things better for the Serbian people. I don't know, but if that is correct, Princip shot the man who could have calmed things down in that part of the world. I'm part Serb myself, my last name if it wasn't altered from the old country, points out that I'm descended from Serbians who lived in Kosovo.

I guess there are times where the old logic is where "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" but I have to disagree where Princip was a hero.