These stocks came off Romanian AKM's in the Croatian or Bosnian Wars.
On the first stock, the soldier "Cikota" was a member of the "HOS," a Croatian militia in the Croatian War. HOS was the military arm of the fascist Croatian Party of Rights (HSP), and they held to the ideology of the WWII Ustaše. They considered Bosnian Muslims as brothers, and Serbs the enemy. Naturally, the HOS wanted all of Bosnia integrated into a new, larger Croat state. The HOS only recruited those with military experience, and they fought solely for political principles, without pay. Unlike the HOS, the regular Croat army and Hercegovina Croats turned against the Bosnian Muslims, after having an alliance against the Serbs.*
The other stock shows a picture from an episode of Young Indiana Jones, and a frog on the other side. An American show ending up on a Yugoslavian rifle is an interesting study in American cultural exports. It also amazes me that soldiers had random stickers available to put on stocks.
Somebody from Serbia has this to say about graffiti:
'Stock Art'. I met a number of big, tough Serbs who neither spoke Serbian nor read Cyrillic. Part of the Yugo government's (in retrospect, rather brilliant plan) to keep people from killing each other after the civil war that was encompassed by 'WWII', was to not allow obvious signs of one culture over another in respective areas. The result was ethnic Serbs who didn't speak the variant of Serbian and couldn't read Cyrillic, in BiH, and Croatians in Serbia who spoke Serbian. When the Serbs changed street signs, public signage, etc. in BiH to Cyrillic, a significant part of the SERB population couldn't read the signage!
I became a minor celebrity for my ability to read and write Cyrillic, and 'speak' actual Serbian, when the indigenous population couldn't read Cyrillic and spoke 'Croatian' (-ija-). Albeit with a heavy Russian accent, which, oddly, made my 'cache' even greater.
My point is that a lot of the Cyrillic markings on Militia gunstocks that I've seen strike me as mis-spelled. I'm not kidding: these places are, essentially, the equivalent of 'bad tattoos seen at WalMart'. No shit. The population is similar to any rural mining town. For a view of what it looked like, YouTube Covek Nije Tica, a Kustorica film about a mining town in Bosnia. It looks like 'Winter's Bone'. I have seen several gunstocks that are clearly a mix of Cyrillic letters mixed with Latin sounds. Something to think about. Also, the stickers on a few guns, of Barbies and Beverly Hills 90210?
Who thinks these guns were in the hands of men?
*. I quote The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, 1804-1999 by Misha Glenny, Viking Penguin, 2000.
On the first stock, the soldier "Cikota" was a member of the "HOS," a Croatian militia in the Croatian War. HOS was the military arm of the fascist Croatian Party of Rights (HSP), and they held to the ideology of the WWII Ustaše. They considered Bosnian Muslims as brothers, and Serbs the enemy. Naturally, the HOS wanted all of Bosnia integrated into a new, larger Croat state. The HOS only recruited those with military experience, and they fought solely for political principles, without pay. Unlike the HOS, the regular Croat army and Hercegovina Croats turned against the Bosnian Muslims, after having an alliance against the Serbs.*
The other stock shows a picture from an episode of Young Indiana Jones, and a frog on the other side. An American show ending up on a Yugoslavian rifle is an interesting study in American cultural exports. It also amazes me that soldiers had random stickers available to put on stocks.
Somebody from Serbia has this to say about graffiti:
'Stock Art'. I met a number of big, tough Serbs who neither spoke Serbian nor read Cyrillic. Part of the Yugo government's (in retrospect, rather brilliant plan) to keep people from killing each other after the civil war that was encompassed by 'WWII', was to not allow obvious signs of one culture over another in respective areas. The result was ethnic Serbs who didn't speak the variant of Serbian and couldn't read Cyrillic, in BiH, and Croatians in Serbia who spoke Serbian. When the Serbs changed street signs, public signage, etc. in BiH to Cyrillic, a significant part of the SERB population couldn't read the signage!
I became a minor celebrity for my ability to read and write Cyrillic, and 'speak' actual Serbian, when the indigenous population couldn't read Cyrillic and spoke 'Croatian' (-ija-). Albeit with a heavy Russian accent, which, oddly, made my 'cache' even greater.
My point is that a lot of the Cyrillic markings on Militia gunstocks that I've seen strike me as mis-spelled. I'm not kidding: these places are, essentially, the equivalent of 'bad tattoos seen at WalMart'. No shit. The population is similar to any rural mining town. For a view of what it looked like, YouTube Covek Nije Tica, a Kustorica film about a mining town in Bosnia. It looks like 'Winter's Bone'. I have seen several gunstocks that are clearly a mix of Cyrillic letters mixed with Latin sounds. Something to think about. Also, the stickers on a few guns, of Barbies and Beverly Hills 90210?
Who thinks these guns were in the hands of men?
*. I quote The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, 1804-1999 by Misha Glenny, Viking Penguin, 2000.