Apis's Amanuensis

An unknown aide to Dragutin Dimitrijevic the leader of the Black Hand, and the brilliant, murderous tactician behind the rise of the Black Hand. Apis trusted him completely, depended on him for all his written communications, and consulted him for strategic advice. There is so scarce evidence of his appearances that some sources argue that the Amanuensis did not exist, being nothing more than a rumor.

Some historians have suggested that he engineered on his own the assassinations of of Prince Rudolf and his lover (Mayerling, 1889), which history has recorded as a murder-suicide; and Elisabeth of Hungary (Geneva, 1898); and that he played an important role in Apis’s successful plot to assassinate the king and queen of Serbia (1903) and Archduke Franz Ferdinand (Sarajevo, 1914).

Some believe that this mysterious person was also the author of the V. M. Straka. Those are called derisively "Amanuensisists" by other scholars. The primary justification is the novel The Black Nineteen which is interpreted as an confession/autobiographical guide to the innermost workings of The Black Hand. They argue that the other Straka deeplypolitical and radical novels, were purely literary efforts, a diversion from the Balkan politics.