Gavrilo Princip - Early Life

Early Life

Gavrilo Princip was born in the remote village of Obljaj near Bosansko Grahovo, at the time de jure part of Bosnia Vilayet within Ottoman Empire, however the province had since 1878 been occupied by Austria-Hungary which governed it as its condominium, a de facto part of Austria-Hungary. His parents, Petar, a postman, and Marija (née Mićić) had nine children, six of whom died in infancy. His impoverished parents could not provide for him and sent him to live with an older brother in Zagreb, now the capital of Croatia.

On 6 October 1908, Bosnia-Herzegovina was declared a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire by Emperor Franz Joseph. This created a stir among Slavic people of southern Europe and the Russian Tsar, who opposed the annexation.

In February 1912, Princip took part in protest demonstrations against the Sarajevo authorities, for which he was expelled from school. Following his expulsion, he moved to Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. When he was in Belgrade in 1912 and 1913, preparing for his exams at the First Belgrade Gymnasium, Princip's sole friend was Momčilo Nastasijević, who grew up to become a poet and dramatist.

In 1912, many Serbs were being mobilized for the First Balkan War. Princip planned to join the komite, an irregular Serbian guerrilla forces committee of the secret society Unification or Death (Ujedinjenje ili Smrt), known as Black Hand. Princip, however, was rejected by the komite in Belgrade because of his small physical stature. He then went to Prokuplje in Southern Serbia where he sought a personal interview with Vojislav Tankosić. Tankosić, however, rejected Princip as being "too small and too weak". Vladimir Dedijer argued that this rejection was "one of the primary personal motives which pushed him to do something exceptionally brave in order to prove to others that he was their equal".