Tito's birthday celebrated in Stari Kraj

[Bill77]

Here's another question which is slightly off track to the current conversation.

Was Tito we know the real Josip Broz? Sugestions i've heard is Josip Broz died during the war but it would have been demoralizing for Yugoslavia if word got out, so they needed a replacement a phony. Aparently his blind mother noticed this after embracing him.



Conspiracy Theory

Josip Broz Tito was a Soviet spy

According to some stories, the late president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had been killed and the Soviets put in his place a look-alike who was their spy. And this theory has several theories. One says that Tito had been killed in Russia in the 1920s and another that he was killed in the battle of Sutjeska, but in both theories, he was replaced by a Soviet secret agent.

According to some stories, the look-alike was a poor Polish aristocrat. The theory was backed by the story that after the war, the locals of his birth village of Kumrovec could not recognise him. Allegedly, the “real” Tito was missing three fingers on his right hand and his double even played the piano.

[Prolet]

I was told that Tito's mother was blind and when he visited her, she said thats not my son and his mother was under house arrest.

Im not sure if its true, they also said that he had 20 wives and alot of kids.

[Venom]

Tito, the dead president of a long-ago dissolved state is someone with whom modern-day Macedonia has nothing to do with whatsoever. Really, Yugoslavia was more of a 50 year distraction from the real goal than anything else. Let this man, who promted socialism yet lived like a king, remain as he is: dead.

[sf.]

It may be so but I have also read it in quite a few books that explain it the same way as OziMak did. It may be that it suited the Yugo propaganda machine to promote this mythology as it gives the impression of great Partizan leader always busy giving orders at the battle front. I am pretty sure it was more commonly accepted in the past and without much contention from others.

I think it was one of those public anecdotes. I'm not sure how seriously, if at all, it was used for propaganda purposes. But, in the official narrative on Tito's life, I don't recall this explanation.

[Risto the Great]

further to the conspiracy theories

http://waz.euobserver.com/887/29817

Tito's life remains an enigma as anniversary draws near

VLADIMIR JOKANOVIC

06.04.2010 @ 10:30 CET

In a month's time, the Balkans and the world at large will mark the 30th anniversary of the death of Josip Broz Tito, the president of the former Yugoslavia and the most successful locksmith who ever walked the earth.

Beyond the official version of his biography, his life remains shrouded in mystery and conspiracy theories. The only undisputed fact seems to be that he is dead. But the rest - the exact dates of his birth and death, the place where he is buried, his origin and identity - remain controversial.

Who was the creator of socialist Yugoslavia, its Marshal, the lifetime president of the state and the Communist Party chief, the founder of the Non-Aligned Movement and one of the most prominent leaders of the 20th century?

"History as a science has yet to reconstruct his early biography," says historian Dragan Vlahovic, a well-known Belgrade journalist who has written several books about Tito. "Tito himself started the confusion about his birth, so that in the books by various biographers 12 different dates are given."

Tito's birthday was celebrated on 25 May in Yugoslavia. But according to Mr Vlahovic, the correct date remained a secret even to his only official biographer and war-time friend, Vladimir Dedijer. Officially, Tito rose to the top from a modest background: a locksmith by trade, he was supposed to be the son of a peasant couple from the Croatian village of Kumrovac, his father, Franjo, a Croat, his mother, Maria, a Slovene.

Mr Vlahovic, referring to data from the Vienna war archive, believes the real Josip Broz was indeed born in 1892 in Kumrovac but died in April 1915 as a soldier in the 25th Regiment of the 42nd Home Guard Division of the Habsburg army, in the Battle of the Carpathians.

Raif Dizdarevic, a long-time Tito companion and one of the last heads of state under the ex Yugoslavia's system of rotating presidents, claimed a copy of the death certificate of Josip Broz from 1915 was kept by Tito and found in a black suitcase after his death.

"In his working room in the White Villa, Tito kept some documents in a small locker. Among the documents was a copy of Broz' death certificate. It was issued by the Austro-Hungarian Ministry of War in 1915 and accompanied by a list of soldiers killed and missing, including Broz," Mr Dizdarevic wrote.

In one of the rare statements on his own life, Tito said that he had taken part in the fighting in the Carpathians in 1915, adding that he had been wounded in that battle. Mr Vlahovic recalls Tito's account of events: "He said he remembered lying in a muddy ditch when an enemy soldier with a thick moustache and eyebrows appeared in front of him and thrust a spear into his right shoulder."

Dusan Ferluga, a pathologist from Ljubljana who carried out the autopsy on Tito's body, said "there was no scar on the right shoulder or anywhere else," however, Mr Vlahovic says.

A source of constant speculation about his origins was Tito's comparatively poor mastery of his supposed Croatian mother tongue. Instead, he spoke and wrote well in Russian and German and got along in English, Czech and Polish.

Another publicist, Pero Simic, claims that Tito was a Comintern agent who infiltrated the then Kingdom of Yugoslavia with the task of organising the Communist Party. His official biographer suggests he may have been born in Vienna and attended a military intelligence school in Pecs. Meanwhile, high-ranking intelligence officials of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia believed Tito to be the illegitimate son of a Polish colonel named Lebedev.

It is very difficult to establish reliable facts about Tito before 1928, when he was tried in Zagreb for alleged Communist activities. When he was elected a deputy to the national parliament in 1950, the Federal Statistics and Records Bureau asked him to fill in a questionnaire with personal data. The reply was short: "Don't give information. T."

Rumour had it that Tito silenced all those who were ready to testify that he was not Josip Broz from Kumrovac and all those who tried to investigate details of this background.

"The man called J.B. Tito was born into an aristocratic family and had the habits and lifestyle to match: He played billiards, chess, cards, practiced riding, fencing, gymnastics and tennis and spoke several foreign languages. A locksmith like this never existed in the world," said his personal physician Alexandar Matunovic in an interview after Tito's death.

According to a popular anecdote, the Queen of England and her guests at a Windsor Castle party were impressed when Tito sat at the piano and played Chopin.

Dr Matunovic repeated what Tito told him in one of their last conversations: "If you think you know me and know who is Tito, you are hugely wrong, doctor! I know that from the beginning you wanted to know everything about me. I am aware that you know more than others. But you do not know who is Tito, nor will you ever know. No one met Tito, nor will meet him."

He added: "I'm Faust ...so, now you know who I am. Not just Goethe's Faust - but the Faust of all Fausts!"

In his time, he was a larger-than-life personality. But what he left behind did not last: Tito's Yugoslavia fell apart in a series of bloody wars.

He was a playboy, a charmer, a spy, a merciless murderer and a bombastic dictator. When the fairy tale named Yugoslavia drew to an end, the remains of its creator were buried under two tons of marble in Belgrade in the "House of flowers" mausoleum. Many still do not believe it is the real Tito who lies underneath - it must be somebody else.

Tito's women

Tito died on 4 May 1980 in Ljubljana and was buried four days later in Belgrade. He lived with his first wife, Russian Pelagia Belousova, in Moscow from 1919 to 1928. They had four children, but only one, Zarko, survived childhood.

Tito's second wife, Hertha Haas, was of German origin. They lived together in Zagreb between 1937 and 1941. She died this February. Their son, Misa, is a Croatian diplomat in Indonesia.

Serbian Davorjanka Zdenka Paunovic, Tito's great love, was only 25 years old when she died in 1946. On Tito's behest, she was buried in the park of the Karadjordjevic dynasty palace complex where Tito lived after the war.

In 1952, Tito married Jovanka Budisavljevic, 32 years his junior and Yugoslavia's official first lady until his death. She still lives in Belgrade.

His death was followed by revelations about an impressive number of presidential mistresses. A recent exhibition of photographs shot by himself showed an infatuation with maids and cooks.

[Niko777]

Found this map and wasn't sure where to post it, so I'm posting it here

[Risto the Great]

Ahhh, good old Macedonia. The birthplace of instant acceptance.

Next time it will be Jean-Claude Juncker all over Macedonia if the FYROMIAN dream comes true.

[vicsinad]

Well, Macedonia has the most number of streets and squares named after Tito in the world.

At least we're number one at something.

[Carlin]

Tito's visit to Gevgelija, 1957 (youtube video): "Long live people of Macedonia, long live Yugoslavia!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrYHkBv2aEk

Tito and Khrushchev visit Skopje after earthquake 1963

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB4laJ6GK6U

Tito in Ohrid 1967

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRo_Ygwi6Yg

[Bill77]

Tito visits Kavadarci........ well according to Cacko anyway

https://youtu.be/fPgfsSdZh1Q

[Big Bad Sven]

Tito needs to come back from the grave as the slaves of FYROM have shown they cant run a country and need a strongman dictator.

Tito, if you can hear me, don’t be too discouraged that FYROM left Yugoslavia. The population still worships you even though you always made FYROM the last in line for everything and treated Yugoslav ‘undesirables’ like Albanians, turks, gypsies and Hungarians better than fyromanians.

We are waiting for you master

[Carlin]

Zlatno Slavejce 1981 - Pesna za Titovata republika - Fatos Mecha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFdBWvh3MNA

Песна за Титовата Република

-Текст: Рамадан Демири
-Музика: Рамадан Демири
-Аранжман: Кирил Македонски
-Исполнува: Фатос Меча


Zlatno Slavejce 1981 - Rasteme pod znameto na TITO - Julijana Mladenovska

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os68210P6SM

Растеме под знамето на Тито

-Текст Васил Пујовски
-Музика: Запро Запров
-Аранжман: Запро Запров
-Исполнува: Јулијана Младеновска