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106-610: On 6 January 1929, the king dissolved the Parliament and abolished the constitution, and banning all political parties. This became known as the 6 January Dictatorship . In 1931, a new constitution was put into place, which provided for limited democracy. However, most of the political power remained in the hands of the King and the government, appointed by him. In May 1932, the Yugoslav Radical Peasants' Democracy

212-582: A Bosnian Serb member of the Young Bosnia movement assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria , heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary, in Sarajevo . The organisation, supported by the Black Hand, consisted of Yugoslavist nationalists advocating a political union of Serbs, Croats, Slavic Muslims, and Slovenes through revolutionary actions. The July Crisis and the outbreak of

318-640: A Serbianisation campaign and a colonisation programme . The Macedonian Bulgarians fought back through the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO), itself having been re-established by Todor Alexandrov . He initially favored the annexation of Macedonia to Bulgaria , but later switched to the idea of an Independent Macedonia as a second Bulgarian state on the Balkans. In Kosovo, there were instances of retribution for killings by Albanians during

424-925: A South-Slavic polity with a rank equal to the Kingdom of Hungary . Croatia and Slavonia were consolidated with the Military Frontier into Croatia-Slavonia in 1881. Nonetheless, divisions remained as it was among the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen – the Hungarian part of the monarchy – while Dalmatia and Istria were included in Austrian Cisleithania . There was also a significant Croatian population in Bosnia and Herzegovina , annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908. Unification of those lands became

530-533: A Yugoslav state independent of Austria and the Ottomans. The plan, inspired by Risorgimento (Italian unification), called for unification of the lands from Carinthia , Carniola and Southern Styria in the north to Albania , Bulgaria , and Thrace in the south. The scheme was mostly used to promote the unification of South Slavic lands in Austria-Hungary around Croatia and South Slavic regions of

636-412: A centralised state. The unification took place on 1 December 1918, when the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was proclaimed. In the first years of the new kingdom, politics became increasingly ethnic as individual political parties became identified with particular nations within the country. Similarly, integral Yugoslavism became associated with the regime, and the political struggle against

742-648: A century. First developed in Habsburg Croatia by a group of Croat intellectuals led by Ljudevit Gaj in the 1830s, the concept developed through diverse forms of the proposed unity from varying levels of cultural and political cooperation or integration. Members of the Illyrian movement held that the South Slavs could unite around a shared origin, variants of a shared language, and the natural right to live in their own polity. They argued Croatian history

848-732: A common state. The existence of the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary in the Balkans was a barrier to political unification of the South Slavs. This changed in late 1912 with the outbreak of the First Balkan War. In the conflict, the Ottomans lost most of the Balkan possessions as Serbia, Greece , and Bulgaria took control of Vardar , Aegean and Pirin Macedonia respectively. The region's borders were to be adjusted under mediation of Nicholas II of Russia . However,

954-546: A debate on levels of decentralisation . Centralist forces were defeated by the mid-1960s. Significant decentralisation occurred during, and in the aftermath of, the Croatian Spring . In 1987, Slovenian intellectuals cited Yugoslavism as the main threat to Slovenian identity. The issues raised by them contributed to the motivation for a 1990 proposal to restructure Yugoslavia as a confederation and for subsequent Slovenian and Croatian declarations of independence marking

1060-581: A group of intellectuals saw the unity of South Slavs within the Austrian Empire or outside of it, as a protection against Germanisation and Magyarisation . Cooperative talks began with Serbian politicians and working to standardise Serbo-Croatian as a common language with orthographer Vuk Karadžić , with limited success. Following the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 , the concept was rivalled by Trialism . Control of

1166-399: A new political union through a federation or another system affording various South Slavic nations political and cultural autonomy. Some sources also identify a group associated with the concept of Yugoslavism as the pseudo-Yugoslavs tactically choosing to pursue an apparently Yugoslavist agenda to implement specific national interests. The concept of National Oneness was first developed by

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1272-985: A proponent of Greater Serbia and cautioned the committee about Pašić's likely intentions. On the other hand, the committee learned of the Treaty of London awarding the Kingdom of Italy parts of the Slovene Lands, Istria, and Dalmatia by the Triple Entente in return for an Italian alliance. In May 1917, members of the Yugoslav Deputies' Club of the Imperial Council in Vienna drafted the May Declaration on unification of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs within Austria-Hungary and

1378-482: A provisional government of the new state. Pašić declined, however, to avoid undermining diplomatic advantage enjoyed by Serbia in the unification process as a recognised state. Supilo died two months later. On 5–6 October 1918, representatives of Slovene, Croat, and Serb political parties in Austria-Hungary established the National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs to work towards independence from

1484-513: A reference to the Kingdoms of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia, and sometimes a part of or the entirety of Bosnia and Herzegovina . A wider aim was to gather all South Slavs or Jugo-Slaveni for short in a commonwealth within or outside of the Empire. The movement's two directions became known as Croatianism and Yugoslavism respectively, meant to counter Germanisation and Magyarisation . In

1590-647: A reformed framework of the Habsburg empire. Support for Serbo-Croat cooperation grew as a reaction to ongoing Germanisation, but most Slovene intellectuals rejected the Illyrian ideas. Since the Middle Ages , Croats spoke three supradialects – named after forms of the word what – Chakavian , Kajkavian , and western Shtokavian . The Serbs spoke two – eastern Shtokavian and the Prizren–Timok dialect . From

1696-510: A response to the Serbian hegemonism and the constitution designed to serve only a particular interpretation of Serbian national interests. Interior minister Milorad Drašković cancelled the KPJ victory in the 1920 Belgrade city election, prompting the communist terrorist group Crvena Pravda to assassinate him. In turn, this led to the outlawing of the KPJ and the enactment of legislation allowing

1802-448: A single state. For many Croats and Slovenes, Yugoslavism protected them against Austrian and Hungarian challenges to preservation of their Croat and Slovene identities and political autonomy. The proponents of the political union pursued different forms of Yugoslavism. Unitarist or integral Yugoslavism and federalist Yugoslavism were the two major categories. The former denied the existence of separate nations or sought to supersede them by

1908-590: A taxation system which placed a disproportionately higher tax burden on areas not included in the pre-1918 Kingdom of Serbia. Rearrangement of forces in the centralism–federalism struggle was completed by the establishment of the ruling DS–NRS–JMO coalition joined by the SLS, which abandoned demands for Slovenian autonomy. In 1928, relations between the ruling coalition and the SDK deteriorated over accusations of unfair taxation and government corruption. Calls for violence against

2014-549: A treatise anticipating the collapse of the Ottoman Empire , calling for the establishment of Greater Serbia to pre-empt Russian or Austrian expansion into the Balkans and unifying all Serbs into a single state. While the Illyrians achieved the goal of raising Croatian national awareness by 1850, they failed elsewhere. In the 1850s, the NS, Strossmayer and Rački championed the Illyrian idea. Fearing Drang nach Osten ('drive to

2120-568: A trialist restructuring of the empire. Starčević's faction of the SP and the Croatian People's Peasant Party (HSS) led by Stjepan Radić , supported the declaration in the Diet of Hungary where Croatia-Slavonia was represented. Frank's faction of the SP rejected the idea. The declaration was debated in the press for a year before the imperial authorities outlawed the proposal. In June–July 1917,

2226-590: A year in response. Even though the HSS was less influential than the NS and the SP in Croatia before the war, the imprisonment of Radić and other HSS members made them the champions of the Croatian national cause in public opinion, and a de facto Croatian national movement. While largely welcoming unification, Slovenes generally rejected integral Yugoslavism and worked to preserve their language and culture. Initially,

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2332-473: Is a part of a wider history of the South Slavs and that Croats, Serbs, as well as potentially Slovenes and Bulgarians were parts of a single 'Illyrian' nation (using that word as a neutral term). The movement began as a cultural one, promoting Croatian national identity and integration of all Croatian provinces within the Austrian Empire. The reference to "Croatian provinces" was normally interpreted as

2438-640: The Balkans by the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary prevented practical implementation of Yugoslavist ideas until the Ottomans were pushed out of the Balkans in the 1912 First Balkan War and Austria-Hungary disintegrated in the final days of the First World War . During the war, preparations for unification began in the form of the Niš Declaration of Serbian war aims, establishment of

2544-466: The Bulgarian Veličko Kerin (also known by his revolutionary pseudonym Vlado Chernozemski ), an activist of IMRO, in a conspiracy with Yugoslav exiles and radical members of banned political parties in cooperation with the Croatian extreme nationalist Ustaše organisation. Yugoslavism Yugoslavism , Yugoslavdom , or Yugoslav nationalism is an ideology supporting the notion that

2650-467: The Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) ruled the country. The KPJ adopted a formal commitment to federalism in a highly centralised state, promoting social Yugoslavism and a diversely interpreted notion of " brotherhood and unity ". The 1948 Tito–Stalin split pushed the KPJ to gradual decentralisation until the mid-1950s, when a Yugoslavist campaign was launched to reverse the course, leading to

2756-707: The Concordat with the Holy See over Serbian Orthodox Church protests. Before the First World War, a synthetic Yugoslavist culture was largely confined to Croat artists and writers. Ivan Meštrović became the most prominent among them at a 1911 exhibition in Rome . Disillusioned after the unification, most artists and writers distanced themselves from the synthetic culture. After the Second World War ,

2862-501: The Croat-Serb Coalition (HSK) as an expression of a strategic alliance of South Slavs in Austria-Hungary in the early 20th century. It did not imply unitarist Yugoslavism. While the concept was meant as an expression of the notion that the South Slavs belong to a single "race", were of "one blood", and had one shared language, it was considered neutral regarding the possibility of centralised or decentralised government in

2968-402: The First World War followed the assassination. Since the outbreak of hostilities, Serbia had considered the war an opportunity for territorial expansion beyond Serb-inhabited areas. A committee tasked with determining war aims produced a programme to establish a Yugoslav state by adding Croatia-Slavonia, Slovene Lands, Vojvodina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Dalmatia. In the Niš Declaration ,

3074-588: The Istria , organised as the Kingdom of Illyria . In the Ottoman Empire, the semi-independent Principality of Serbia developed in the early 19th century. The empire included the Bosnia Eyalet , as its westernmost part between Serbia and the Austrian realms. There was also the unrecognised Prince-Bishopric of Montenegro . The idea of South Slavic unity predates the creation of Yugoslavia by nearly

3180-663: The Italian Fascist Blackshirts , including the glorification of violence. The Serbian National Youth (SRNAO) and the Croatian National Youth (HANAO) were formed in response. They employed similar methods of operation. The HANAO, established as a Croatian defence against the ORJUNA, and initially backed by the HSS, became the main opponent of the ORJUNA. The NRS backed the SRNAO, who viewed

3286-517: The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was established. No ethnic or religious group had an absolute majority in the kingdom's population. After unification, the Prince Regent appointed Stojan Protić as prime minister . Korošec was appointed his deputy, Momčilo Ninčić the finance minister, Trumbić the foreign minister, Pribićević the interior minister and Ljubomir Davidović , the education minister. Protić and Davidović were drawn from

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3392-694: The Podgorica Assembly was convened as an ad hoc body to depose the Petrović-Njegoš dynasty in favour of Karađorđevićs. Pressed by the Italian threat, the National Council dispatched a delegation to Prince Alexander to arrange unification in a federation. The delegation ignored the instructions when it addressed the Prince Regent on 1 December. Prince Alexander accepted the unification offer on behalf of Peter I of Serbia and

3498-594: The Serbian Second Army to preserve order. In mid-November, Italian troops entered Istria, captured Rijeka on 17 November and were stopped before Ljubljana by city defenders, including a battalion of Serbian prisoners of war. The National Council appealed unsuccessfully for international help. On 25 and 26 November assemblies in Vojvodina and Montenegro voted to join Serbia. In the latter case,

3604-542: The South Slavs , namely the Bosniaks , Croats , Macedonians , Montenegrins , Serbs and Slovenes , but also Bulgarians , belong to a single Yugoslav nation separated by diverging historical circumstances, forms of speech, and religious divides. During the interwar period , Yugoslavism became predominant in, and then the official ideology of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia . There were two major forms of Yugoslavism in

3710-659: The Yugoslav Committee to represent South Slavs living in Austria-Hungary and adoption of the Corfu Declaration on principles of unification. The short-lived State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs was proclaimed in the South Slavic lands formerly ruled by the Habsburgs at the end of the First World War. Its leadership primarily wanted unification with Serbia on a federal basis, while Serbia preferred

3816-592: The Yugoslav Muslim Organization (JMO) and Slovene People's Party (SLS). The Yugoslav National Party went into opposition, where it remained until 1941. This article about a political party active in the former Yugoslavia is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . 6 January Dictatorship The 6 January Dictatorship ( Serbian : Шестојануарска диктатура , Šestojanuarska diktatura ; Croatian : Šestosiječanjska diktatura ; Slovene : Šestojanuarska diktatura )

3922-472: The breakup of Yugoslavia . The South Slavs are a subgroup of Slavic peoples comprising the Bulgarians , Croats , and Serbs whose national identity developed long before modern nationalism through collective memory of their medieval states. Furthermore, the South Slavs also include the Bosniaks (i.e. Muslim Slavs of Bosnia and Herzegovina ), Macedonians , Montenegrins , and Slovenes . In

4028-531: The officer corps . The Macedonian language was banned entirely. Even before standardisation of school curricula, the doctrine of a "three-named people" was introduced into the education system. Over time, the centralisation–decentralisation debate evolved from contest of forms of Yugoslavism and turned primarily, but not exclusively, into a conflict between the Serbs and the Croats. Historian Ivo Banac pointed to

4134-664: The "Eastern dialect" while Serbs would abandon the Cyrillic script. The plan had a mixed reception in Croatia and was abandoned at the outbreak of the war . Vojvodina Serbs favoured closer ties with or joining the de facto independent Serbia over the Illyrian ideas. Serbia discouraged their irredentism to preserve good relations with Austria. In the 1860s, within the framework of efforts by Prince Mihailo Obrenović to establish an anti-Ottoman coalition, Roman Catholic bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer and Serbian Foreign Minister Ilija Garašanin , agreed to work towards establishing

4240-411: The 12th century, the two Shtokavian dialects grew increasingly mutually similar and more distinct from the other dialects. Gaj supported the idea proposed by Serbian orthographer Vuk Karadžić that a common language was the foundation of a nation. Karadžić held that Serbs and Croats could be united by a common orthography . To support this aim, the Illyrian movement chose to promote Shtokavian as

4346-513: The 1830s and 1840s, there were very few proponents of the Illyrian idea. Virtually all of them were Croats from the ranks of intellectuals – clergy, officials, artists, students, and soldiers. By 1910, they rallied around the People's Party (NS) but accounted for barely one per cent of the population. In mid-19th century Slovene Lands, early Slovenian nationalists felt closer to Czechs or Russians than other South Slavs, seeking solutions within

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4452-573: The British ambassador to better decentralize the country, modeled on Czechoslovakia . A Court for the Protection of the State was soon established to act as the new regime's tool for putting down any dissent. Opposition politicians Vladko Maček and Svetozar Pribićević were arrested under charges by the court. Pribićević later went into exile, whereas over the course of the 1930s Maček would become

4558-546: The Constitutional Assembly was convened, and while the system of government was yet to be determined formally, the provisional government took measures to strengthen centralisation of the country. Pribićević moved to dismantle any pre-1918 administrative and representative bodies. In Croatia, the process contributed to increased tensions and disorder. The early centralisation processes were accompanied by government efforts in linguistic unification – by declaring

4664-706: The DS, Pribićević rejected centralism but retained a belief in the National Oneness. Since Radić remained open to the idea of a common Yugoslav identity, this allowed SDS-HSS cooperation. Radić was ready to accept that Serbs and Croats were linguistically and ethnically one people mutually distinguished by their political cultures. In 1927, the SDS and the HSS established the Peasant-Democratic Coalition  [ hr ] (SDK) ostensibly to fight

4770-534: The First World War Serbian Great Retreat . Acts of Albanian retaliation culminated in the failed 1919 uprising by the Committee for the National Defence of Kosovo and the massacre of Albanians by the regime forces. 50,000 police and troops were deployed to the region, supported by Chetnik paramilitaries led by Jovan Babunski . In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnian Serbs attacked Muslim landowners and peasants – killing about 2,000 and evicting 4,000 from their homes by 1920. Montenegrins killed several hundred Muslims in

4876-402: The KPJ achieved considerable success in large cities, in Montenegro, and Macedonia through protest votes against the regime, from unemployed urban voters and voters in regions having no other attractive national or regional opposition. The Vidovdan Constitution was dysfunctional and ultimately failed because it was illegitimate and did not ensure the rule of law, individual rights, neutrality of

4982-429: The King with executive power. Elections were to be by universal male suffrage. The provision for a secret ballot was dropped, and pressure on public employees to vote for the governing party was to be a feature of all elections held under Alexander's constitution. Further, half the upper house was directly appointed by the King, and legislation could become law with the approval of one of the houses alone if also approved by

5088-411: The King. That same year, Croatian historian and anti-Yugoslavist intellectual Milan Šufflay was assassinated in Zagreb. As a response, Albert Einstein and Heinrich Mann sent an appeal to the International League of Human Rights in Paris condemning the murder, accusing the Yugoslav government. The letter states of a "horrible brutality which is being practiced upon the Croatian People". The appeal

5194-423: The Korošec-led SLS advocated the federalist system of government and Slovenian autonomy. Slovenian Centralists were the most influential political opponents of the SLS in 1920, but their influence waned, leaving the SLS as the main representatives of the Slovenes in the interwar period, regardless of their support or opposition to the regime or Slovenian autonomy. The Yugoslav Muslim Organization (JMO) represented

5300-442: The National Assembly of Serbia announced the struggle to liberate and unify "unliberated brothers". In 1915, the Yugoslav Committee was established as an ad hoc group with no official capacity. Its members thought that the Yugoslavist idea entered the final phase in 1903. That was the year the Khuen Hedervary Administration ended, the year Kallay died, and the year of the dynastic change in Serbia. The committee, partially funded by

5406-414: The ORJUNA as being insufficiently Serbian. The officially sanctioned Chetnik organisation splintered in 1924 along the same ideological lines which separated the ORJUNA from the SRNAO. Until that point, the Chetnik movement was under the influence of DS and the party was imposing Yugoslavist ideology. Following the NRS electoral victory over the DS in 1925, NRS's Puniša Račić became the dominant figure in

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5512-405: The Ottoman Empire around Serbia. The plan was abandoned after the assassination of Mihailo and the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 . As Serbia achieved independence through the 1878 Treaty of Berlin , the Yugoslav idea became irrelevant in the country. Before the 1912 First Balkan War , Serbia was mono-ethnic and Serbian nationalism sought to include (those considered to be) Serbs into

5618-404: The SDK and specifically against Radić further inflamed the situation, resulting in shouting matches and physical altercations in the Assembly. On 20 June, after being accused of corruption in the Assembly, Račić took the floor, drew a revolver, and shot five HSS delegates – killing two and wounding three including Radić. Račić turned himself in but was never tried. In the immediate aftermath of

5724-488: The Sandžak region in the same period. The desire to seize Muslim-owned land and compel the Muslim population to leave the country motivated the violence. In Montenegro, pro-independence Greens launched the unsuccessful Christmas Uprising against pro-Serbian Whites in 1919. In early December 1918, there was an anti-monarchy protest in Zagreb suppressed by force. The same winter, violence swept through Croatian countryside – peasants looted large estates and shops, but there

5830-456: The Serbian government and the Yugoslav Committee held a series of meetings on Corfu . They discussed the future common state and produced the Corfu Declaration that the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes were one "tri-named" people, and that the Karađorđević dynasty would reign in the new unified state organised as a parliamentary, constitutional monarchy. The document did not say if the state would be federal or centralised. Trumbić proposed to establish

5936-569: The Serbian government, consisted of intellectuals and politicians from Austria-Hungary claiming to represent the interests of South Slavs. The president of the committee was Ante Trumbić , but its most prominent member was Frano Supilo , the co-founder of the ruling HSK in Croatia-Slavonia. Supilo urged the establishment of a Yugoslav state as a federation with Serbia (including Vojvodina), Croatia (including Slavonia and Dalmatia), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Montenegro as its federal units. Supilo distrusted Serbian prime minister, Nikola Pašić ,

6042-512: The Slavic Muslims were Islamised Serbs or Croats – denying the existence of the "rival" ethnic groups. Despite the agreement, the Illyrians did not adopt the standard proposed by Karadžić for another four decades. Croats did not universally accept Gaj's linguistic determination of a nation. The founder of the Party of Rights (SP), Ante Starčević , held that existence of states gives rise to existence of nations. Starčević cited France and England as examples of such nation building. He applied

6148-492: The Yugoslav Committee asked Pašić to renounce centralist government in the future state. Pressured by France, and no longer enjoying the support of Russia, Pašić complied and signed the Geneva Declaration . In response, Prince Regent Alexander of Serbia compelled him to resign. The new cabinet declined to honour the declaration, annulling Serbia's commitment to a federal state. The National Council faced threats of revolutionary unrest and Italian invasion. Therefore, it invited

6254-411: The agreement of the Serbian Assembly and the National Council, government minister Albert Kramer drew up the list instead. While Pribićević wanted maximum centralisation, Protić advocated autonomous regions, as he saw the advantages of maintaining the administrative authority of the historical provinces. The NRS thought it necessary to preserve the Serb nation as the group having the dominant role in

6360-427: The assembly over the rule that a simple majority would adopt the new constitution rather than by consensus as foreseen by the Corfu Declaration. A further dispute arose when the members of parliament were asked to swear an oath to the king. All parties except the DS and the NRS refused to do this. The Constitutional Assembly adopted the Vidovdan Constitution based on the Pribićević draft on 28 June 1921. The choice

6466-466: The central issue for Croatia-Slavonian politics in the trialist context. Béni Kállay , the administrator of the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina, introduced the concept of Bosnians , rejecting ethnic and religious divisions . Kállay's project entailed a campaign to standardise the Bosnian language . It was viewed as having key cultural, social, and political role in strengthening the Austro-Hungarian rule. Kállay's language policy coincided with

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6572-446: The concept of National Oneness developed as an expression of the strategic alliance of South Slavs in Austria-Hungary in the early 20th century. The concept was meant as a notion that the South Slavs belong to a single "race", were of "one blood", and had shared language. It was considered neutral regarding the choice of centralism or federalism. The Yugoslavist idea has roots in the 1830s Illyrian movement in Habsburg Croatia , where

6678-424: The consequent reorienting of Serbian political priorities prompted the shift. Macedonia became the priority and Ekavian was deemed better suited for expansion into the region. During the Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina , a religious community developed to preserve the cultural and religious autonomy of the Islamic population , renouncing a nationalist agenda. Secular Bosnian Muslim intelligentsia

6784-413: The de facto official language. Croatian and Slovenian were declared dialects of Serbian, relegating Croatian and Slovenian culture to a secondary status, and echoing Pašić's views of South Slavic unity. In the military, use of Latin script was often regarded as reflecting anti-state sentiment and contributed to the decision by many non-Serbs to resign commissions – increasing Serb numerical domination among

6890-430: The decline in support for Yugoslavist ideas in the period. In the first two decades of the 20th century, various Croat, Serb, and Slovene national programmes adopted Yugoslavism in different, conflicting, or mutually exclusive forms. Yugoslavism became a pivotal idea for establishing a South Slavic political union. Most Serbs equated the idea with a Greater Serbia under a different name or a vehicle to bring all Serbs into

6996-481: The early 19th century, the Balkans were divided between the Austrian and the Ottoman empires. The Austrian Empire comprised the Slovene Lands , the Kingdoms of Croatia , Slavonia , Dalmatia with significant Croat populations, and Vojvodina , containing a substantial Serb population. Hofkriegsrat -controlled Military Frontier separated the Kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia from each other and Ottoman territory. Substantial Croat and Slovene populations lived in

7102-549: The east'), they believed Germanisation and Magyarisation could only be resisted through unity with other Slavs, especially the Serbs. They advocated the unification of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia as the Triune Kingdom expanded to include other South Slavs in Austria (or Austria-Hungary after the Compromise of 1867) before joining other South Slavic polities in a federation or confederation . The proposed consolidation of variously defined Croatian or South Slavic lands led to proposals for trialism in Austria-Hungary accommodating

7208-422: The economic and political instability of the country, and fierce opposition from Croat parties challenged the party's power. Elections were called in 1935; although they were not free, the JNS suffered a serious setback. A former member of the Yugoslav National Party Milan Stojadinović formed a successor party, called Yugoslav Radical Union (JRZ), based on a more conservative political alliance, which included

7314-437: The empire. The same month, Emperor Charles I of Austria offered to reorganise Austria-Hungary as a federation, but his proposal was rejected as belated. On 18 October, the National Council declared itself the central organ of the new State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs . The Croatian Sabor ('Parliament') was convened to sever ties with Austria-Hungary formally and establish the new state on 29 October. It elected

7420-429: The establishment of the kingdom, the KPJ reversed its position under instructions from the Communist International and advocated the breakup of the country. The period immediately after the unification saw significant violence and civil unrest in the country. There were revolutionary actions in Slavonia and Vojvodina inspired by the Hungarian Soviet Republic . Macedonia and Kosovo – known as Southern Serbia then – saw

7526-403: The ethnic nature of the country's politics, there were political parties crossing that boundary at certain times – Serb parties opposing the regime or non-Serb ones supporting it. The constitution was a product of the Serb minority, but it confirmed Serb primacy, marking the start of a long political crisis. The integral Yugoslavism was firmly associated with the royal regime. In the 1920 election,

7632-667: The formal introduction of the orthographic norms set out in the Vienna Literary Agreement by the administration of Ban Károly Khuen-Héderváry in Croatia-Slavonia in the 1890s. At the same time, linguistic differences grew with the departure of Belgrade -based Serbian standard from the Karadžić-proposed form by adoption of Ekavian speech. The start of Austrian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina – and

7738-593: The government to prosecute political opponents. The regime organised paramilitary forces outside the legal framework. The royal administrator for Croatia established the Organization of Yugoslav Nationalists (ORJUNA) in Split in 1921. Funded through the provincial government, it operated under the protection of a DS faction loyal to Pribićević. Its purpose was to carry out extralegal actions against communists, Croatian separatists, and other real or perceived enemies of

7844-417: The government was increasingly equated with the ethnic struggle between the Serbs (identified with the regime) and various ethnic groups – most often the Croats as the most vocal political opposition to the regime. Alliances shifted over time and were not always ethnic-based. They depended largely on the form of Yugoslavism adopted by those concerned. The outcome of the political debates of the first few years of

7950-527: The idea of a state as the foundation of a nation to the Croats by advocating the concept of the Croatian state right . Josip Frank , Starčević's successor at the helm of the SP, argued that nations had different racial traits, assuming an anti-Serbian stance . The Illyrians found little support among Serbs in Habsburg lands , as they viewed Serbia as a nucleus of South-Slavic unification ascribing to it

8056-779: The interests of the Muslim Slavic population of Bosnia and Herzegovina while the Džemijet represented the Islamic population elsewhere in the state. The JMO supported Yugoslavism as a protection against assimilation by the Serbs and the Croats. While denouncing Yugoslav nationalism of the DS, the JMO allied itself with the NRS for its support of the preservation of Bosnian Muslim identity. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) initially supported centralisation and unitarist positions. Soon after

8162-474: The introduction of a single Yugoslav nation . Some sources draw a distinction between the unitarists and the integralists. According to them, the unitarists believe South Slavs are a single ethnic unit, but refrain from active unification – unlike the integralists who actively work to amalgamate the Yugoslav nation. The federalists acknowledged the existence of separate nations and wanted to accommodate them in

8268-715: The largest Serbian parties – the People's Radical Party (NRS) and the Independent Radical Party , respectively. Soon afterwards, the Independent Radical Party went through a series of mergers to form the Democratic Party (DS). While the Prince Regent promised in the 1 December declaration that the Temporary National Representation would be appointed from a list of candidates approved with

8374-622: The leader of the Slovene People's Party (SLS), Anton Korošec , as the president of the state. The president of one of SP splinter parties, Ante Pavelić and Croatian Serb, HSK co-founder Svetozar Pribićević were elected vice presidents. Representatives of the National Council, the Serbian government and opposition, and the Yugoslav Committee met in Geneva on 6–9 November to discuss unification. The National Council and

8480-452: The leader of the entire opposition bloc. Immediately after the dictatorship was proclaimed, Croatian deputy Ante Pavelić left for exile from the country. The following years Pavelić worked to establish a revolutionary organization, the Ustaše , allied with the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) against the state. In 1931, Alexander decreed a new Constitution which vested

8586-484: The manner of the unification as the source of the country's ethnic conflicts and instability. Radić was a particularly vocal opponent of the monarchy while he, and the HSS supported federal or confederal Yugoslavism affording Croatia the maximum autonomy. In February, the HSS started a petition addressed to the Paris Peace Conference demanding a "neutral Croat peasant republic". Radić was imprisoned for

8692-443: The movement and went on to reverse its ideological course. That meant that Serbian identity, instead of the Yugoslav nation, was to assimilate other ethnic identities. Chetnik units pursued this aim by terrorising Croat and Muslim villages in Croatia and Bosnia. The centralism–federalism conflict evolved in the 1920s. The HSS ended its parliamentary boycott in 1924 aiming to vote against the NRS government, but its deputies were denied

8798-487: The new Croatian Peasant Party leader Vladko Maček. Despite these measures, opposition to the dictatorship continued, with Croats calling for a solution to what was called the " Croatian question ". In late 1934, the King planned to release Maček from prison, introduce democratic reforms, and attempt find common ground between Serbs and Croats. However, on 9 October 1934, the king was assassinated in Marseille , France , by

8904-600: The new country resulted in the Vidovdan Constitution – deemed illegitimate by many – and in regime- and opposition-sponsored violence. The state abandoned integral Yugoslavism in 1939 when a settlement was reached with the Croat opposition leader Vladko Maček with the Cvetković–Maček Agreement . The regime attempted to unify the common language. Lack of standardisation of Serbo-Croatian brought about

9010-518: The period: the regime favoured integral Yugoslavism promoting unitarism , centralisation , and unification of the country's ethnic groups into a single Yugoslav nation, by coercion if necessary. The approach was also applied to languages spoken in the Kingdom . The main alternative was federalist Yugoslavism which advocated the autonomy of the historical lands in the form of a federation and gradual unification without outside pressure. Both agreed on

9116-630: The practice of publication of official documents in the Ekavian speech favoured in Serbia, often in Cyrillic script not normally used by the Croats or the Slovenes to write. The Serbian Orthodox Church was given preference by the regime. The regime tried reducing the power of the Catholic Church in the Kingdom, promoting conversions and rival churches, and refraining from ratification of

9222-463: The press. Initially, he claimed that this was only a temporary situation that would allow him to unify the country. with the aim of establishing the Yugoslav ideology and single Yugoslav nation . He changed the name of the country to "Kingdom of Yugoslavia", and changed the internal divisions from the 33 oblasts to nine new banovinas on 3 October. This decision was made following a proposal by

9328-635: The right to vote for 16 weeks on the pretext of the verification of their credentials. That year, Davidović-led DS split, and Pribićević formed the Independent Democratic Party (SDS). Pribićević realised the regime used the Croatian Serbs – his primary constituents – to antagonise Croats, stirring up ethnic tensions only to abandon Croatian Serbs, leaving them vulnerable to retribution whenever profit could be extracted from compromise with Croats. In late 1924, HSS campaigning

9434-518: The role played by Piedmont-Sardinia in Italian unification . Most Serb intellectuals dismissed the modified Shtokavian as a threat to the liturgical Church Slavonic , and the Gaj's Latin alphabet – recommending Croats use the Cyrillic script as a truly Slavic alphabet. In 1913, there was an attempt to create a Serbo-Croatian standard by Serbian literary critic Jovan Skerlić . He proposed Croats accept

9540-604: The so-called Serbo-Croato-Slovenian or Yugoslavian language, also referred to as the state or national language, the sole official language. The Cyrillic script was made formally equal in use to the Latin script – the latter employed previously as the sole Croatian and Slovenian script. In practice, the bulk of official publications were made in Ekavian Serbo-Croatian (also referred to as Yugoslav) language, largely printed only in Cyrillic script. Thus, Serbian became

9646-636: The standard literary language because nearly all Serbs spoke it. This represented a sacrifice made on purpose – most prominent Illyrians spoke Kajkavian normally used in Zagreb . This led to the Vienna Literary Agreement on standardisation of the Serbo-Croatian language as the common language. This also produced nationalist claims that Serbs were Eastern Orthodox Croats and that Croats were Roman Catholic Serbs, as well as that

9752-404: The state in the matters of religion and national culture. The national question was a product of the dysfunctional nature of the constitution. The fault lay primarily with the policies adopted by the king and Pašić as well as by Davidović and Pribićević in the first years of the kingdom. They viewed the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes essentially as an expansion of Serbia and the conflicts were

9858-472: The state, including federalists, on behalf of the regime. By 1925, ORJUNA Action Groups had 10,000 members, and supplied with weapons by the White Hand organisation – a Black Hand splinter group with military ties. ORJUNA was an openly terrorist group advocating unitarism and a dictatorship of Yugoslav nationalists, potentially under royal patronage, and abolishing parliamentarism. It had similarities with

9964-740: The state. It portrayed work of bishops Strossmayer and Franjo Rački as a scheme to establish Greater Croatia . There was pressure to expand Serbia by a group of Royal Serbian Army officers known as the Black Hand . They carried out the May 1903 coup installing the Karađorđević dynasty to power and then organised nationalist actions in "unredeemed Serbian provinces" specified as Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro , Old Serbia (meaning Kosovo ), Macedonia, Croatia , Slavonia , Syrmia , Vojvodina , and Dalmatia . This echoed Garašanin's 1844 Načertanije –

10070-421: The unification, but opposed federation. This led the NRS to insist on naming the country the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, rejecting the name of Yugoslavia. The advocates of decentralisation preferred Yugoslavia. The debate on the constitutional system produced three proposed constitutions. A centralised state put forward by Pribićević, a federation proposed by Radić and a compromise from Protić. Before

10176-578: The war produced a rivalry between Bulgaria on one side and Greece and Serbia on the other. After suffering the greatest losses in the war Bulgaria was dissatisfied with the size of its territorial gains. To protect against Bulgaria, Greek–Serbian Alliance of 1913 was concluded, and the allies specified territorial claims against Bulgaria. In 1913, Bulgaria attacked Serbia, starting the Second Balkan War , to expand its territory but ended in further losses. On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip –

10282-448: Was a royal dictatorship established in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Kingdom of Yugoslavia after 1929) by King Alexander I (r. 1921–34) with the ultimate goal to create a Yugoslav ideology and a single Yugoslav nation . It began on 6 January 1929, when the king prorogued parliament and assumed control of the state, and ended with the 1931 Yugoslav Constitution . In 1928, Croatian Peasant Party leader Stjepan Radić

10388-670: Was addressed to the Paris-based Ligue des droits de l'homme (Human Rights League). In their letter Einstein and Mann held the Yugoslav king Aleksandar explicitly responsible for these circumstances. Croat opposition to the new régime was strong and, in late 1932, the Croatian Peasant Party issued the Zagreb Manifesto , which sought an end to Serb hegemony and dictatorship. The government reacted by imprisoning many political opponents including

10494-439: Was also some inter-ethnic violence. After a lull, a peasant revolt broke out in Croatia in late March 1919 in response to a campaign of branding of draft animals for army use. Following the 1920 election , the DS and the NRS became the largest parliamentary parties but did not have the majority in the Constitutional Assembly. The KPJ and the HSS – the third and the fourth largest parliamentary parties – refused to participate in

10600-554: Was assassinated in the Parliament of Yugoslavia by a Montenegrin Serb leader and People's Radical Party politician Puniša Račić , during a tense argument. On 6 January 1929, using as a pretext the political crisis triggered by the shooting, King Alexander abolished the Vidovdan Constitution , prorogued the Parliament and assumed dictatorial powers. He appointed a cabinet solely responsible to him, and imposed tight censorship on

10706-515: Was banned, and Radić was imprisoned on charges of communist anti-state activity after the HSS joined the Krestintern . Despite this, the HSS received more votes in the 1925 election than in 1923 . The NRS and the HSS established a coalition government in 1925 as the HSS formally renounced republicanism and changed the party name to the Croatian Peasant Party, abandoning the demand for a federation, and limiting its aims to Croatian autonomy. Radić

10812-604: Was divided into pro-Croat and pro-Serb factions declaring themselves instead as Croats or Serbs of Islamic faith. In 1878–1903, strong antagonism developed between Serbs and Croats as the agendas for creation of the Greater Serbia and the Triune Kingdom clashed over the issue of Serbian or Croatian control of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This clash was used and exacerbated by Héderváry whose divide and rule policies increased mutual hostilities. They also resulted in

10918-582: Was established to support Alexander's government, under the leadership of Petar Živković . It was formed mostly by dissident members of the Democratic Party and the People's Radical Party (NRS), as well as the Slovenian section of the Independent Democratic Party (SDS) and the right wing of the Slovene Peasant Party (SKS). Individual members from other parties, and from nationalist organizations like ORJUNA also joined. In June 1933, it

11024-536: Was made at Prime Minister Pašić's urging as the version providing the least concessions to parties advocating decentralisation. Since the DS and the NRS did not have the votes to adopt the constitution, they obtained the support of the JMO and Džemijet in return for compensation to Muslim landowners for lost property. Even though ideological divisions existed throughout the kingdom, politics quickly became largely ethnic-based. The parties in power portrayed any criticism of government as tantamount to treason. Regardless of

11130-407: Was released from prison on the day the government was formed. The coalition ended during the 1927 local election campaign when the police interfered with HSS campaigning in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Vojvodina. NRS Interior Minister Božidar Maksimović confirmed the accusations, adding the NRS would prefer Croats in Vojvodina declared themselves as Bunjevci or Šokci . Following the split with

11236-487: Was renamed to Yugoslav National Party, and adopted a program stressing the unity of the Yugoslav Nation , centralized government and secularism . From 1932 to 1935, the party was the governing party of Yugoslavia. Petar Živković, Milan Srškić and Nikola Uzunović were the country's prime ministers while the party was in power. After King Alexander was assassinated in 1934, the party remained in power. However,

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