..

Yugoslavia as History
Twice there was a country
JI Second edition
/

Yugoslavia as History is the first book to examine the bloody demise of

the former Yugoslavia in the full light of its history. It provides a
balanced understanding of the common hopes and fears which held its
ethnic mosaic together, and the ethnic conflicts which broke it apart.
A Yugoslav idea had already emerged before the First World War,
competing with ethnically exclusive ideas for a series of separate states.
This book examines the origins of these ideas, and how they fared as
the two Yugoslav states, created and destroyed by wars, searched for a
multi-ethnic political culture and economic viability. This new edition
of John Lampe's accessible and authoritative history devotes a full new
chapter to the tragic ethnic wars that have followed the dissolution of
Yugoslavia, first in Croatia and Bosnia, and most recently in Kosovo.
The author concentrates on the connection, real and imagined, between
these conflicts and the experience of the successor states, the two
Yugoslavias, and their predecessors.

JOHN LAMPE is Professor of History at the University of Maryland,

College.Park.
 Yugoslavia as History
Twice there was a country
l)
/ Second edition

John R. Lampe
University of Maryland

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UCAMBRIDGE
V UNIVERSITY PRESS
PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 'l

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK www.cup.cam.ac,.mK )
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA www.cup.o;-g
10 Stamford Road, Oak1eigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia I'
Ruiz de Alarc6n 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain

1st edition Cambridge University Press 1996

2nd edition Cambridge University Press 2000

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions

of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may
take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
In memory of Michael Boro Petrovich
First published 1996
Second edition 2000

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

Typeface 10/12pt Plantin [Ge]

A catalogue record for this book is avaz1ablefrom the British Library

ISBN O 521 77357 1 hardback

ISBN O 521 77401 2 paperback

'
 Contents
/I
/

List of plates page x

List of maps xi
List of tables xii
Acknowledgments xiii
Preface w the second edition xvii
Note on pronunciation xx

Introduction. The search for viability I

I Empires and fragmented borderlands, 800-1800 9

, Mountains first, water last
Brief native states, long remembered
10
14
Varieties of Ottoman rule 20
Varieties of Habsburg rule 27
Exceptions to imperial fragmentation 33

2 Unifying aspirations and rural resistance, 1804-1 903 39

From Illyrian provinces to Yugoslav idea, 1806-1860 41
Serbia as a nineteenth-century nation-state 46
Montenegro as mini-state 57
Croatian and South Slav ideas in the Habsburg lands, 1860-1900 58
Bosnia's transition from Ottoman to Austro-Hungarian rule 65
Dalmatia and Slovenia as Yugoslav outposts 69

3 New divisions, Yugoslav ties, and Balkan Wars,

1903-1914 71
Fragmented growth and party politics in the Habsburg lands 75
Serbia's rising reputation and the Bosnian crisis of 1908 83
Balkan Wars and the new Yugoslav prospects, 1912-1914 91

4 The First World War and the first Yugoslavia, 1914-1921 JOI
9 Serbia and the Yugoslav Committee, 1914-1917 102
Wartime regimes from Slovenia to Serbia 106
National Council in Zagreb and unification in Belgrade 110
West em policy and border disputes T13

vii
viii Contents Contents ix
Economic obstacles to political unification 117
12 Ethnic wars and successor states, 1991-1999 365
Divisive elections for a unitary constitution 121
Wars for succession, 1991-1995 369
5 Parliamentary kingdom, 1921-1928 )29 \
Wartime politics in Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro
Postwar politics in Slovenia and Macedonia
381
391
Prewar politicians, new parties, and the Vidovdan Successor economies and Yugoslavia's legacy 397
framework, 1921-1926 / 130
Kosovo/Kosova: war after all 406
Cultural connections and economic disjunctures 14~
Hostile qeighbors and distant allies Giv
Fatal intersections, 1927-1928 158 Notes 416
Selected further reading (in English and German) 458
6 Authoritarian kingdom, 1929-1941 163 Index 468
Royal dictatorship, 1929-1934 164
StojadinoviC and the royal regency, 1935-1938 176
Balance sheet for the first Yugoslavia, 1921-1939 186
From Serb-Croat Sporazum to Tripartite Pact,
1939-1941 194

7 World war and civil war, 1941-1945 201

The destruction of the first Yugoslavia 201
The Independent State of Croatia (NDH), /
occupation regimes, and active opposition, 1941....c
1942 210
Communist advantages, 1943-1944 218
Consolidating Communist power, 1945 226

8 Founding the second Yugoslavia, 1946-1953 233

Consolidating power under the 1946 constitution 234
Setbacks and the Tito-Stalin split, 1947-1949 241
First steps down the Yugoslav road 255

9 Tito's Yugoslavia ascending, 1954-1967 265

Balancing between East and West 267
Western markets and self-managed enterprises,
1954-1962 276
Market reform and the fall of RankoviC 284

10 Tito's Yugoslavia descending, 1968-1988 299

Opposition comes into the open, 1968-1969 300
From the Croatian crisis to the l 97 4 constitution 305
From half-market to contractual economy 315
Foreign policy and the debt crisis, 1979-1985 321
The failure of federal leadership and economic
retreat, 1986-1988 327

11 Ethnic politics and the end of Yugoslavia 332

Social strains and regional relations
New leaders and new politics
333
345
352
I
Fatal intersections, 1989-1991
 Plates Maps
/

1.1 Former Yugoslavia's physical geography and land use page 12

1.1 The medieval center of Dubrovnik (photograph
page 36 1.2 Medieval states of Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia 18
courtesy of Joco Znidarsic) ,/
1.3 Habsburg Military Border in 1780 28
5.1 Belgrade in the 1930s (photograph courtesy of the
Museum of the City of Belgrade) 146 2.1 Illyrian provinces, 1809-1813 42
2.2 Serbia and the Habsburg South Slav lands, 1830-1878 47
6.1 King Aleksandar in 1934 (photograph courtesy of
166 3.1 Serbia and Montenegro, 1911 and 1913 96
Corbis-Bettman)
4.1 Territorial claims and final borders, 1918-1921 115
7.1 Tito and inner circle, 1944 (photograph courtesy of
Corbis-Bettman) 216 6.1 Territorial division of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia,
1929-1939 167
8.1 Communist demonstration, Belgrade 1947
(photograph courtesy of the Museum of the 7.1 Division of the former Yugoslavia, 1941-1944 204
248 8.1 Yugoslavia's internal borders, 1945-1991 235
City of Belgrade)
9.1 Grain land and rural overpopulation, 1970 297
9.1 Sarajevo Winter Olympics, 1984 (photograph courtesy
of Joco Znidarsic, Delo) 296 11.1 Ethnic majorities in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia,
and Kosovo, I 991 338
11.1 Mostar, July 1992 (photograph courtesy of
Kevin Weaver and Balkan War Report) 358 12.1 Territory of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina under Serb,
Croat, or Bosniak control in January, 1995 379
12.1 Zajedno demonstration in Belgrade, Dec. 1996
(photograph by Petar Kujundzic, courtesy of Reuters/
Popperfoto) 388
12.2 Kosovar refugees in Albania, April 1999 (photograph by
Dylan Martinez, courtesy of Reuters/Popperfoto) 407

xi
X
 Tables Acknowledgments
jl
/

3.1 Land distribution (pre-1914 census) page 74 Following his retirement from the University of Wisconsin in 1987,
3.2 Population, 1870 and 1910 74 ,...., Michael Petrovich intended to undertake a history of Yugoslavia as a
4.1 Regional party shares and seats in the 1920 elections 123 state and an idea. My co-mentor's death the following year prevented
5.1 Population by ethnicity and geographic area, 1921 131 him from even starting what has since become an inquest about a
5.2 Parliamentary elections, 1920-1927 135 vanished state and a vanquished idea. Nor did Fred Singleton live to
5.3 Occupational structure, 1921 and 1931 153 include Yugoslavia's collapse in an updated edition of A Slwrt Hiswry of
5.4 Ethnic voting by party, 1923 and 1927 159 the Yugoslav Peoples, published by Cambridge University Press in 1985
6.1 Electoral support for regime list, 1931, 1935, and 1938 180 as a successor to its 1968 volume, A Short Hiswry of Yugoslavia, edited
6.2 Yugoslavia's foreign trade, 1929-1939 182 by Stephen Clissold.
6.3 Foreign investment in Yugoslavia, 1928 and 1936 184 I began to prepare the present volume in 1993 in part from a sense of
6.4 Distribution of income in 1938 190 obligation to the work that Michael Petrovich's foreshortened retire-
8.1 Foreign trade, 1947-1953 254 ment had left undone. But there are other obligations. The works by
9.1 US aid to Yugoslavia, 1949-1967 276 Fred Singleton and Petrovich came out of the well-established Anglo-
9.2 Balance and distribution of foreign trade, 1954-1980 278 American tradition of studying these lands and peoples and deserves
9.3 Macroeconomic growth, 1952-1970 280 my wider acknowledgment. The British tradition is, of course, the longer,
9.4 Socio-economic indicators, I 950-1970 295 dating back to the arrival of anthropologist Arthur Evans in Bosnia in
10.1 Bank credit and rates of inflation, 1965-1985 317 1875 and extending through the work of Phyllis Auty, Stevan Pavlowitch
10.2 Decline of the social sector, 1960-1985 323 and others to the Research Unit in Yugoslav Studies at the University
10.3 Foreign trade and debt, I 965-1985 325 of Bradford founded by Fred Singleton. The pioneer generation of
11.1 Growth of population, 1921-1981 335 American specialists came forward after the Second World War. Among
11.2 Population and income by republic, 1953-1988 336 my own debts to them, beyond Michael Petrovich and the ground-
11.3 Ethnic populations in Bosnia-Hercegmrina, ing in Balkan history I owe to Theofanis Stavrou of the University of
Croatia, and Kosovo, 1961-1991 337 Minnesota and in economic history to Rondo Cameron, my primary
11.4 Socio-economic indicators by republic, 1953 and 1988 340-41 mentor at the University of Wisconsin, are long associations with Charles
12.1 Population of the successor states, 1991 and 1997 368 and Barbara Jelavich, Peter Sugar, Wayne Vucinich, and George Hoffinan.
12.2 Main economic indicators for the successor states, Younger American scholars from whose work I have benefitted are too
1991-1998 398 numerous to list here, well beyond the substantial number referenced
12.3 Foreign trade of successor states, 1998 401 in the notes.
Mention should also be made of the younger generation of German
historians who have emerged within the past rwenty years. They have
restored their country's scholarship on Southeastern Europe to the promin-
ence it enjoyed earlier in the century. The work of Holm Sundhaussen
xiii
xii
 Acknowledgments xv
xiv Acknowledgments

and Wolfgang Hop ken of the Universities of Berlin and Leipzig, respec- original. The suggestions for further reading, primarily in English but
tively, have proved especially useful to me, as well as the publications also in German, point to a body of work that in its entirety is larger
and activity of the Siidosteuropa-Gesellschaft in Munich under ,J:he than for any country in the former Soviet bloc. The notes acknowledge
direction of Roland Schonfeld. / the sizeable scholarship left behind from all parts of the former Yugo-
My own connection to the former Yugoslavia dates from ,}965. I slavia and the record left by instructive reports from the British and
served at the American Embassy in Belgrade as a young Foreign Ser- American embassies in Belgrade and from Radio Free Europe/Radio
vice Officer until 1966 and returned in 1969-70 for ~octoral research as Liberty in Munich. The notes also seek to identify the conflicting judg-
a graduate student. Since then, further research as a Professor of His- ments that leave a number of important historical issues, particularly
tory at the University of Maryland and also, since I 987, as Director of where reliable primary sources are lacking, as with the two world wars,
East European Studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center still embroiled in legitimate controversy. The narrative finds its own
for Scholars in Washington has brought me back numerous times to way through these controversies, reaching conclusions or omitting de-
Sarajevo, Ljubljana, and Zagreb, as well as Belgrade. Within the former tails that some serious scholars as well as many of those with native
Yugoslavia's own pioneer generation of postwar historians, let me cite experience from the former Yugoslavia will doubtless find controversial
wider benefits drawn from the works of Janko Pleterski in Ljubljana, in themselves. I have tried to combine my own experience as an out-
Mirjana Gross and Ljubo Boban in Zagreb, Danica Milii: and Branko sider there with the broadest scholarly perspective and set of sources I
PetranoviC in Belgrade. At the same time, neither they nor any of the could muster. And I have tried to be fair.
Western scholars mentioned should be held accountable for the volume Finally, I wish to express some specific gratitude. The successive
that follows. chairs of my Department of History at the University of Maryland,
Because of my long association with the former Yugoslavia, a further Richard Price, Clifford Foust, and James Harris, have offered consist-
obligation hovers over these chapters: how to connect the unfinished ent encouragement, as has Samuel F. Wells, Jr., Deputy Director of the
tragedy of its violent end with its history, more specifically, with its Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. I thank Kristof
origins in related but separate peoples and places before the First World Nyiri as issue editor for the chance to air my initial approach to the
War and the search for viability that both state and idea pursued twice, broader subject in "The Failure of the Yugoslav National Idea," Studies
from I 918 to 1941 and again from I 945 to 1991? I took the pursuit of in East European Thought 46 (1994): 69-89, and co-authors Russell 0.
these connections, rather than a more comprehensive history of the two Prickett and LjubiSa AdamoviC for insights in our joint monograph,
Yugoslavias, as my primary task. Urging me on was the pernicious role Yugoslav-American Economic Relations since World War II (Durham, NC:
played in the former Yugoslavia and the successor states by what the Duke University Press, 1990). Roundtable discussions of the proposed
Belgrade historian, Andrej !viitroviC, has aptly called "parahistory," the table of contents with historians and social scientists in Zagreb and
distortion of selected sources to indict one side or another for all of Ljubljana in 1993, and informal meetings with Belgrade and Budapest
Yugoslavia's misfortunes. In the Western world, this mixture of contra- historians that same year should also be acknowledged.
dictory indictments has encouraged the notion of "age-old antagonisms." Secondary or primary sources came from a long list of locations, all
Although historically false, the notion has still served to deny to the with unfailingly helpful staff: the National Archives of the United States
constituent peoples credentials as Europeans and to portray their cur- in Washington, the Public Record Office in London, the archives of
rent conflicts as primordial problems. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich, and the several libraries
This brief book is intended to bring together enough threads from of the Institute of Contemporary History in Belgrade, the Siidosteuropa-
the mass of available evidence, scholarship, and diplomatic reporting Gesellschaft in Munich, and the universities of Illinois, Maryland, Min-
to connect the two Yugoslavias with their origins, their strengths with nesota, and Wisconsin. Support for a month of research in Munich
their weaknesses, and their bloody demise with that full historical con- from Radio Free Europe in 1993 and a month of writing in Vienna
text. The text hopefully provides fresh analysis or interpretation that from the Institute for Human Sciences in 1994 was much appreciated.
scholars will find instructive. It should also speak to the interested In the later stages of the enterprise, I received valuable assistance
public and responsible public officials as well as university students. from a variety of critical readers: Gale Stokes, Dennison Rusinow,
The times call for a book that is accessible as well as authoritative and Sabrina Petra Ramet, Drago RoksandiC, Nicholas .Miller, Kristin Hunter,
 r
xvi Acknowledgments

Anita Baker Lampe, and the several anonymous readers solicited by

Cambridge University Press. They share none of my responsibility for
the final text. The published volume also benefits from copy-editingc):,y Preface to the second edition
Kristin Hunter and the Cambridge University Press, statistical t~les
prepared by Jonathan Kimball and Philip Birkelbach, and ll}l'PS by
Larry A. Bowring of Bowring Cartographic of Arlington, Virginia. Lys
Ann Shore of South Bend, Indiana, ably prepared the index. And I
myself could not have completed the volume without the constant
support of Anita Baker Lampe, particularly during a year and a half of
weekend and evening writing.
I began to write the first edition of this volume in 1993 with a l!lld sense
of obligation. The violent end of the former Yugoslavia forfeited what
had seemed to most Western observers a better chance to transcend
the limits of a postwar Communist regime than any member of the
neighboring Soviet bloc possessed. When the chance came for all of
Eastern Europe after 1989, that Yugoslavia had become a place, in the
11
introductory words to a famous American film, that we read about
only in the history books ... gone ... with the wind." I tried to separ- ~-
ate my history book from the nostalgia of Gone with the Wind, with its
exaggerations and omissions of what was lost. But I also sought to
stand back from an understandable disposition in the successor states,
shared by too many Western observers, to see their ethnic majorities
and their territories as having little past connection - certainly nothing
constructive - with each other or with two common states.
The ethnic wars and troubled transitions that have marked the efforts
of the successor states to disentangle themselves from those really exis~-:
in_g_~Qnne<,:ti01J._$_
have now spanned an entire decade. Their-struggles
provide the primary justification for this second edition. Its lengthy new
chapter on the period 1991-99 records some progress and achievement
among the successor states but leaves me with another sad task, with
less to celebrate than to lament. In proceeding into these most recent
years, I was obliged to rely on sifting through secondary sources and
my own observations from a dozen visits to the region during the
decade. The primary sources on which historians prefer to rely remain
to be fully studied for the first Yugoslavia and fully opened for the
second. Despite their near total absence for the 1990s, the toll of dead,
displaced, or disconnected even before the recent tragedy in Kosovo
is simply too great, the stakes too high for all of Europe and also the
United States in preventing more ethnic warfare and in reconnecting all
of Southeastern Europe, to avoid facing the challenge of what I have
elsewhere called instant history.
----
xvii
xviii Preface to the second edition Preface to the second edition xix

Considerable reason exists for the considerable effort that I have Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Skopje were also valu-
expended in revising the introduction and eleven chapters of the first able, as were individual meetings there and in Zagreb, Dubrovnik, and
edition. The recent warfare in the one successor state to continue _w;ing Sarajevo. I profitably consulted the newspaper collection at the new
the name Federal Republic of Yugoslavia demanded greater at1;atttion Open Society Archives at the Central European University in Budapest.
to the ethnic history of Kosovo, Macedonia, and Monten<;P"o, My And my special thanks go to Steven Burg, Lenard Cohen, and Charles
conscious neglect of separate cultural histories has been repaired where Ingrao for their comments on an initial draft of the new chapter.
space permits and some relevance to a common heritage or inter-ethnic The heavy responsibility for what is said there and elsewhere in this
relations exists. I have paid special attention to clarifying the simplifications volume remains my own. I have tried to be clearer, if not briefer, about
or correcting the simple errors of fact that were most frequent in the this complex subject which citizens and students seek to understand
initial, century-spanning chapters, useful as they were to critical readers and about which policy makers have had and still have decisions to
from one special perspective or another who wished to dismiss the make. I have also tried, as the discipline of history demands, to stand -
subsequent bulk of the book on that basis. back from the conflicting certainties of recent experience remembered,
I found further reason for revision, and also for the added chapter and then used as a path to explain the past. After a decade of dissolu-
12, in the continuing absence of any new survey of the former Yugosla- tion and war, such memories work to deepen ethno-centric divisions
via since my first edition and, at the same time, in much impressive across the successor states. And they continue to tempt Western ob-
new research and scholarship, along with a flood of journalistic treatment, servers with their simplifications. I stand back as well from speaking for-
on particular parts and periods. The footnotes to the new chapter list the two lost Yugoslavias, let alone encouraging the prospect of a third.
twenty publications treating the 1990s alone, and the expanded biblio- I ask only that we seek out the several-sided histories that brought
graphy adds forty books in English or German. Important new works both of them together and broke both of them apart. Neither of them
in what are now separate languages for each successor state dot the deserves to be left to the single source of recent memory.
revised chapter notes. I also took particular pleasure in drawing on
John R. Lampe, College Park, Maryland September 1999
the books or doctoral dissertations of nine younger American scholars:
Melissa Bokovoy, Audrey Helfant Budding, Jill Irvine, Carol Lilly,
Katherine McCarthy, Nicholas Miller, Marko Prelec, Veljko Vujacic,
and Andrew Wachtel. Their work first became familiar to me when
they attended the annual Junior Scholars Training Seminar of the East
European Studies program that I directed for the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars from 1987 to 1997.
Mention should also be made of the advantage that I have tried to
take from the numerous reviews of the first edition, a series of round-
table and individual discussions on that volume with scholars in the
successor states, my consultation of an important new archive, and
finally several readers of the new chapter. This is not the place to
appreciate the majority of quite favorable reviews or continue the de-
bate between myself and Ivo Banac - in the Slavic Review, 58, 1 (1999):
281 - about whether my initial chapters point to the rise of an inevit-
able Yugoslavia. Here it is more appropriate to note the two reviews
which were most useful to me for their detailed appraisal and construc-
tive criticism: James Krokar on the Internet's HABSBURG Reviews,
1997/20, and Slobodan G. Markovic in Knizevne novine from Belgrade,
October 15, 1997. Round-table discussions at the Law Faculty in
Ljubljana, the Institute for Contemporary History in Belgrade, the
 Note on pronunciation xxi

s ss in glass
s sh in she
Note on pronunciation T tin tap
JI u u in role
v in veil
/ V
z z in zebra
z s in pleasure

The joint language known as Serbo-Croatian in the former Yugoslavia

(and since 1991 divided into the historically separable Serbian and
Croatian languages) is spelled phonetically, that is, each letter of the
alphabet always represents the same sound. The following guide to
pronunciation is based on the Latin alphabet, used in the Croatian
variant of Serbo-Croatian. Diacritic marks are used with certain con-
sonants to indicate sounds which have a separate sign in the Cyrillic
alphabet, used in Serbia, Macedonia, and Montenegro.

A as in English a in father
B b in bed
C ts in cats
c ch in reach
t a sound between ch in reach and t in tune
D as in English din dog
Di j in John
Dj a sound between d in duke and dg in bridge
E as in English e in let
F fin full
G gin good
H as in Scottish ch in loch
I as in English i in machine
J yin yet
K k in kite
L l in look
Lj ll in million
M min man
N n in net
Nj nm new
0 o in not
p pin pet
R r in nm (slightly rolled)

xx
l
 Introduction. The search for viability

The avowedly Yugoslav director, Emir Kusturica, originally intended to

call his controversial film commemorating the collapse of the Socialist
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia "Once There Was a Country," or Bila
jednom jedna zemya. His producers, perhaps with an eye to the Cannes
Film Festival where it won a Golden Palm in 1995, later abandoned
the title of the novel on which the film is based and chose the more
marketable and more literal, "Underground." Indeed, the bitterly
powerful plot takes us through the half century from 1941 to 1991 in
the company of Communist Partisans whose corrupt leader keeps them
underground for decades after the Second World War. They stay in a
cave underneath the old Belgrade fortress, believing that the Fascists have
not been defeated and the war rages on above them. \Vhen the leader's
scheme finally collapses in the 1960s, he blows up the cave but fails to
kill them all. Only with the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the warfare
of the early 1990s can the last survivors take their revenge on him.
The title of DuSan KovaCevic's novel avoids the allegorical inference
that Tito kept Yugoslavia's population "underground," or uninformed
about the outside world until his death in 1980. In addition, the plain-
tive, almost Arthurian original may alternatively be translated as "Once
There Was One Country," reminding us immediately that separate if
similar parts were put together. The origins and trials of Yugoslav
political unification preoccupy this volume. The First World War gave
birth to one Yugoslavia that the Second World War destroyed. That
same war then created quite a different sort of Yugoslavia.
The subtitle for this book, "Twice there was a country," sounds less
plaintive and also reminds us that a first Yugoslavia, 1918-41, pre-
ceded the second, 1945-91. Neither deserves idealization as some latter-
day Camelot, beyond even the "Yugo-nostalgia" of some former citizens.
But damnation as a dictatorship, first royal and then Communist, is
also undeserved. The following chapters suggest that these two multi-
ethnic states had strengths as well as weaknesses. Both struggled to
achieve a viability that eluded them in the end.
 2 Yugoslavia as History Introduction. The search for viability 3

The bloody end of the second Yugoslavia tempts Western observers a dramatic past, and an innovative present attracted more Western
to trace the struggles of these South Slav, that is, Yugoslav, peoples 3.nd scholars and study than any Communist country save the Soviet
states backward from _the present impasse. But going forward inff the Union. In 1961, Ivo Andric won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and
past makes for bad history. The recent wars of Yugoslav succ(ssion Miroslav Krle.Za was also a candidate. Western readers rightly saw
. ' Andric's work as Yugoslav rather than ideologically socialist or ethnic-
surgically separating Slovenia but bloodying first Croatia an.t Bosnia-
Herzegovina and then Kosovo and Serbia, have surely made it more ally nationalist while Krle.Za's credentials made him a forerunner of the
2
difficult for the participants themselves to detach their own history East, really Central European dissidents of the l 980s.
from the past decade. Beginning in the late 1980s, politically manip- Contrary to the expectations of emigre opponents, no tremors por-
ulate~ media encouraged Serbs and Croats, the two largest ethnic groups, tending disintegration followed Tito's death in 1980. The successful
to th1~~ of ~he other's present intentions as biologically driven by staging of the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo and the ongoing
exclus1V1st, nmeteenth-century nationalism and a disposition to repeat achievements of Yugoslavia's athletes, authors, and film directors told
the crimes of the two world wars. Too many Serbs saw Bosnian the outside world that all was still well. Had not the population con-
Muslims, the former republic's largest ethnic group, as Turks or Slavic tinued to rise, to 23 million, and the proportion calling themselves
turncoats ready to resume the Ottoman Empire's exploitation of the Yugoslavs climbed past 5 percent in the 1981 census? In any case, especi-
Serb peasantry with conversion to Islam the only escape. Thus did the ally for Americans, a federation seemed the appropriate framework for
respective leaders and media make the others' present populations a multi-ethnic state to address its problems.
into "imagined adversaries. " 1 They also encouraged foreign observers The two penultimate chapters of this book detail the deadly prob-
to assume the revival of old alliances - Serbs with Russians, Bosnian lems that did accumulate by the end of the 1980s. Unemployment rose
Muslims with Turks, and Croats with Germans - whose historical past 15 percent and inflation accelerated toward 3,000 percent in 1989.
dimensions all sides have since wildly inflated. The shock of the recent Open ethnic disputes exploded in Kosovo and at least surfaced in Bosnia, r.>
wars and the disruption of everyday life still make the present hard for just as the sort of dissent already challenging Soviet bloc regimes spread
the survivors to comprehend without falling back on selective historical from Slov,Ili;,. Meanwhile, Slobodan Milosevic tried to step into the
memory and false analogies. The most heroic character in Kusturica's vacuum left in the country's Communist leadership by Tito's death,
film is a prisoner of memory and analogy. All the more reason for this but succeeded outside of his Serbian base only in alienating the non-
volume to track with as much detachment as possible the converging, Serb public and their political elites. \Xlhen Slovenia's own Communist
separate, and ambiguous currents that challenged both Yugoslavias. leadership joined local dissidents in rejecting a crudely recentralized
Unlike the Nazi destruction of the first Yugoslavia in 1941, the col- Yugoslavia just as Communist power collapsed across the Soviet bloc,
lapse of the second fifry years later came as a shock to the Western dissolution followed. Then came the essentially ethnic wars which domin-
world. Most observers had given Yugoslavia's viability the benefit of ate a final chapter on the successor states.
the doubt since Tito's regime had survived the split with Stalin and the In the words of one Belgrade historian, "Yugoslavia began and ended
Soviet bloc in 1948. Its widely advertised devolution of economic power with Slovenia." The leading Slovenian politician of the first Yugoslavia,
to self-managed enterprises and their workers' councils won further Monsignor Anton KoroSec, argued that "even a bad Yugoslavia is bet-
respect. Tito's diplomacy balanced artfully between East and West ter than no Yugoslavia." Tito's Slovenian ideologue, Edvard Kardelj,
and made Yugoslavia a founder and the only European member of the had crafted the second Yugoslavia's federal structure in part to pre-
Non-Aligned Movement. By the 1970s, Tito was an aging Communist clude the large Croatian and Serbian territories that the realignment of
leader who, like counterparts in the Soviet bloc, kept too much of the internal borders in 1939 had promised. Without Slovenia to create a
central government's reputation bound up in his own personal author- broader balance beyond that between Serbs and Croats, the second
ity. Still, open bo_rders and perceptibly higher standards of consump- Yugoslavia's framework of six federal republics and two autonomous
tion set YugoslaV1a apart from the best of the Soviet bloc. European provinces could not easily survive. Serbs constituted significant minorit-
and American tourists flocked to the Adriatic coast, and over I million ies in Croatia as well as in Bosnia-Hercegovina and Kosovo province.
:ug_oslavs, from guest workers to professionals, were employed or study- The ethnic politics that Milosevic had launched in Serbia to save Com-
mg m the West. Academic exchanges opened many doors. Easy access, munist power now came back to threaten, or seem to threaten, those
 rq
4 Yugoslavia as History Introduction. The search for viability 5

minorities. Imprisoned by history, although no more than was Croatia's explain how longer-term forces, and not just the fortunes of war, brought
new anti-Communist leadership, Serb elements were persuaded to force them to power. Instead of reading the origins of industrial capitalism
their way out of the hastily recognized new states of Croatia and 13/>snia- in their lands back to the earliest possible moment, however, they gave
Herzegovina in 1991-92. (The latter's Bosnian Muslim le!!'dership pride of place to the inevitable convergence of the South Slavic ethnic
reverted to the German spelling of Hercegovina so as to ,.emphasize groups that Yugoslavia brought together. Each of the six federal repub-
the break with a Serbo-Croatian identity.) Macedonia also declared its lics - Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Macedonia, and
independence. Montenegro stayed with a Serbia that now included the Montenegro - had its own history, separate from the others, but to seek
previously autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina in a rump any political or economic preeminence from the distinctions was to
federation. The second Yugoslavia ceased to exist. succumb to "bourgeois nationalism." This tendency was the fatal flaw,
rather than "capitalist exploitation," that supposedly undid the first
Yugoslavia. Its authoritarian evolution and Great Serb impositions on
The idea of an inevitable Yugoslavia
other ethnic groups were blamed primarily on the Belgrade bourgeoisie,
Inside and outside what is now the "former Yugoslavia," its costly with their counterparts in Zagreb sometimes named as accomplices.
demise has not surprisingly given new life to the notion that its creation In return official Serbian historians could divide the responsibility for
was a mistake from the start. Many insiders now call the country that the war crimes of the Second World War between the Germans (rarely
survived for seventy years in two incarnations an artificial creature whose referred to as Nazis) and the fascist regime of the Independent State of
deformities made collapse inevitable. A Serbian version sees the first Croatia (NDH). For all Yugoslav historiography, the Serb Chetnik
Yugoslavia as a butden imposed by the powers at the Paris Peace formations could then be held accountable only for their opposition to
Conference of 1919 on their wartime ally Serbia and the second as one the Communist Partisans and their collaboration with the Nazi invaders
imposed by the Croatian Communist Tito and an anti-Serbian Soviet exaggerated. As in the Soviet Union, younger, more able historians
Union. A Croatian version cites the disintegration of Yugoslavia as avoided the interwar and postwar periods.
final proof that the Paris peace treaties erred in helping create the first A project to write the history of Yugoslavia in a single volume soon
Yugoslavia after the First World War. (ff the principle of ethnic self- put this consensus under pressure. A four-volume effort of the 1950s
determination introduced by US President Woodrow Wilson justified had already failed to get beyond the first two for the less conttoversial
the dissolution of the multi-ethnic Habsburg monarchy, how could it period before 1800. The new work was begun in 1966 at the heigbt of
accommodate another one in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, liberal reform. But Vladimir Dedijer, et al., A Short History of Yugosla-
as the first Yugoslavia was christened?_}Among the outsiders, some via (New York: McGraw Hill, 1974) was not completed in Serbo-
Habsburg historians are attracted to this view. Many Western journal- Croatian until 1972. By then Tito had brougbt the liberal era and its
ists and politicians unfamiliar with Balkan history have jumped at a emphasis on political tolerance to an end. The volume's Serb and
more questionable notion, the region's "age-old antagonisms." If prim- Montenegrin authorship might have created less controversy if the
ordial hatreds had set Serbs, Croats, and Muslims at each other's two authors of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century chapters had not
throats from the Ottoman conquest forward, they offered both a simple suggested that forces other than foreign domination and bourgeois
explanation for the recent Yugoslav tragedy and a ready rationale for exploitation stood in the way of unification. The respected Sarajevo
avoiding any significant involvement. historian, Milorad Ekmecic argued that religion, specifically the policies
How different these views sound than the general consensus about of the Croatian Catholic church, had constituted a serious obstacle to
Yugoslavia that had prevailed since the 1950s. Most scholars who en- the unification and secular modernization that should othenvise have
listed in the Western army of Yugoslav specialists, the present author followed more successfully from a common Serbo-Croatian language.
included, simply assumed that the country would and should continue Dedijer was a restless journalist turned historian, after earning renown
to exist. Officially approved historians of Tito's Yugoslavia went a step as Tito's wartime colleague and biographer. His chapters highlighted
further. They called the very creation of their kind of Yugoslavia inevit- Croatian crimes against Serbs in both world wars. His case against the
able. Drawn like many Marxist scholars to the idea of inevitable his- Serbian and Croatian bourgeoisies as the bane of intenvar Yugoslavia
torical processes at work, they sought like their Soviet counterparts to was too sketchy to be convincing. By 1979 Serbian historian Momcilo
6 Yugoslavia as History Introduction. The search for viability 7

ZeCeviC was able to open a country-wide conference on the initial and on warfare or other dealings with near neighbors more than with
unification after the First World War by criticizing the ideological con- distant powers. The former were generally more important than the
sensus around the Yugoslav idea. 3 1/ latter, supporting the thesis of a leading western scholar of nationalism
The postwar evolution of Yugoslav scholarship about Ydgoslavia that the three forces crucial to coalescing ethnic identity into enduring
should not detain us further. Stevan Pavlowitch and Ivo l!anac have national consciousness have been state-building experience, religious
provided prudent guides, from somewhat different points of view, organization and military mobilization.' All three forces played their
through the 1970s and 1980s.' The collapsing consensus on an inevit- parts, perhaps more than socio-economic structures, in bringing both
able Yugoslavia did permit more forthcoming and accurate accounts of Yugoslavias together and in breaking them both apart.
the world wars and interwar period, first from Croatian and then from By ideas, we mean first the romantic rationales for a new South Slav
Serbian and other Yugoslav historians. Without these historians, as state that emerged during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
footnotes will attest, this volume could not have been written. They confronted a slowly declining Ottoman Empire and a slowly mod-
None of them would have the political impact of three works written ernizing Habsburg monarchy before 1914. Prior to the nineteenth cen-
primarily for polemical purposes during the 1980s. Numerous Western tury, these two empires had divided almost the entire sparsely populated
accounts of the country's collapse cite the publication, if not the exact territory between them for nearly 300 years. By the end of the nine-
content, of the 1986 Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sci- teenth century native populations were growing as the imperial hold
ences. It protest~abuses that postwar Serbia had supposedly suf- on them weakened or shifted its ground. The shared imperial legacy of
fered in Yugoslavia in general and Serbs in Kosovo province in particular, corporate privileges for ethnic groups rather than individual rights, com-
thus providing ammunition for MiloSevic's nationalist campaign. Less mon as well among early modem European states, would none the less
publicized in the West were the forbidden but still circulated writings of leave permanent marks on native aspirations for independence. 7 Then
Franjo Tudjman, the future president of Croatia, cataloguing the injust- the First World War swept both empires away. The army of already in-
icestnath<:saw-inflicted on Croatia since the First World War, while dependent Serbia was essential to the formation of the first Yugoslavia,
from Belgrade, Vojislav Kostunica and Kosta Cavoski wrote a volume as were Tito's Partisans to the creation of the second. Still, ideas mat-
decrying the way that-aCommunisrpo1iticalmonopoly was imposed on tered both times. Andrew Wachtel's persuasive study of the Yugoslav
postwar Serbia. 5 In different ways, all three questioned the legitimacy of idea finds the interwar state seeking to create a single synthetic South
Tito's Yugoslavia and played a part in its disintegration. But they also Slav culture, much as the postwar Communist regime relied on a unify-
posed the question of whether any single Yugoslavia was a legitimate ing ideology.' Both states also drank of the romantic notion that Serbs,
state and by implication raised the prospect of inevitable dissolution. Croats, and Slovenes were the organic stuff of one nation.
Forming the second Yugoslavia seemed initially to pose fewer com-
plications than the first. The Partisan cause brought together people
The search for a viable Yugoslavia
from all the constituent ethnic groups, although precious few Albanians
The chapters that follow suspect all inevitabilities. They acknowledge and Hungarians, to fight on the winning side. Its Communist leader-
the separate cultural legacies and literatures of these largely related ship could thereby proclaim a supra-national, Soviet-style federation
peoples, but neglect their distinctive substance. These brief pages con- under the party's central control. But when the republics received or
centrate instead on how these peoples mixed and migrated across proxim- wrested significant authority from the center, the balance of power
ate lands, and where they intersected with one another - politically, across the federation became a crucial issue. Back came the claims and
economicaJly, and also culturally - before and during their unification counterclaims that had competed across the interwar period in the first
twice in this century. More specifically, who were they historically and Yugoslavia.
who were their leaders? Tito's individual identity counted; others' did Two practical motives and the promise of external security also favored
too. What structures and ideas drew them together or divided them? By a single Yugoslavia. They were the same set that succeeded for W estem
structures, we mean first the stuff of state-building, that is, political cul- Europe after the Second World War in building the institutional struc-
ture and legal framework more than ethnic distinctions. We also focus tures needed to realize them. One was the desire for representative
on socio-economic or religious institutions more than class relations government. Surely one could draw some acceptable balance, federal or
 pn.:;:
..
'
8 Yugoslavia as Hiswry

otherwise, between the provincial parts and the capital city. Between
1921 and 1974, no less than six constitutions and one confederal agree-
ment (in 1939) sought to draw that balance between Belgrade,)'nd the 1 Empires and fragmented borderlands,
rest of Yugoslavia. The second was the attraction of econol'!'iic integ-
ration. It promised a larger internal market and greater .,.comparative
800-1800
advantage in the international trade that revived briefly in the 1920s,
but boomed from I 950 to 1980. In addition, as NATO did for Western
Europe vis-ii-vis the Soviet bloc, a single state also afforded Yugosla-
via's parts more secure relations with the seven potentially hostile
neighbors that ringed its borders after the two world wars.
All three of these state-building motives - political, economic, and What did the 1,000 years prior to the modem era have to do with the
military - played their part in promoting the viability of both "really development of the two Yugoslav states created during the twentieth
existing" Yugoslavias. Struggling with them for predominance through- century? Or with nineteenth-century ideas and momentum for a state
out were three romantic nineteenth-century ideas for the creation of a of South Slav, that is, Yugoslav, peoples? By 1800 the territories that
unitary nation-state - Great Serbia, Great Croatia, and a Yugoslavia later became Yugoslavia had suffered even more warfare and forced
founded on the assumption that at least Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes migration, foreign intervention, and internal division than had their
were one ethnic group. Any nation-state, it was assumed before 1914, Mediterranean or Central European neighbors. These lands had no
had the potential to assimilate smaller ethnic groups, not by force but chance of sharing in the economic upswing that spread through most of
by the attraction of the successful European-style modernization that Northwestern Europe during the eighteenth century. Political disarray
was supposed to follow from political unification. The nation-state's had deepened economic backwardness during the millennium between
new high culture, secular and open to an increasingly educated popula- the dawn of the medieval centuries and the end of the early modern
tion, would assimilate all in its path. Such was in fact the case, Eugen period.
Weber has argued, for nineteenth-century France. 9 Pre-1914 Serbia To understand that disarray, we look first at a small population
appeared to start down the same track. Yet it would scarcely be easy for scattered across a difficult landscape, poorly suited for premodern com-
a single state to accommodate three national ideas. The first Yugoslavia merce but accessible to foreign armies. Native ethnic groups, although
sought such a synthesis, the second to rise above it. A larger, multiethnic culturally close, found themselves generally isolated from one another.
Yugoslav state would need and never sufficiently find the sense of Yet where they were intermingled, they coexisted constructively. There
common citizenship and individual responsibility overriding even the is scant evidence of the long-standing ethnic hostility that some journal-
majority's ethnic origin that Rogers Brubaker has called the real distinc- ists and politicians, but few scholars, have used to explain the recent
tion of pre-1914 France_lO warfare on the ruins of the second Yugoslav state. Serbs, Croats, and
The everyday interaction of peoples nonetheless cut into their ethnic finally Bosnians established briefly viable, native states during the medi-
segregation for much of the history of the two Yugoslavias. To the eval period. Although their territories overlapped, they did not fight
extent that it did, the experience of a common state held the upper each other and disappeared instead due to internal weakness and exter-
hand over any of the three romantic conceptions of a nation-state. nal adversaries.
Where it did not, the viability of Yugoslavia was threatened. Two exter- The powerful forces of the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires, advan-
nal shocks were still needed to make that threat lethal - the Second cing from the east and north, respectively, made sure that none of these
World War and the contagious failure in 1989 of the postwar Com- native states would survive into the early modem period. The Ottoman
munist regimes. defeat of Serbian forces at Kosovo in 1389 proved to be the one decis-
ive and long-remembered battle. Otherwise, the two empires left their
marks primarily through the institutional frameworks they imposed.
Both possessed their own set of coherent institutions, but both failed to
apply them uniformly across their Balkan borderlands. They came to

9
 ,)...

f'
10 Yugoslavia as History Empires and fragmented borderlands, 800-1800 II

rely on local corporate privilege more than central control of these and uplands, running northwest to southeast and in some places com-
multi-ethnic populations. Political fragmentation only increased under ing within a few miles of the Adriatic Sea, have separated rather than
the long, imperial regimes. After imposing impressive institu13/nal uni- connected. This "vertical north," as Fernand Braudel dubbed the Dinaric
formity at the start, the Ottoman Empire allowed different sets of rules range, confined Mediterranean political influence to the coast and left
and ruling groups to prevail in Serbia, Macedonia, Mol)tenegro, and the dispersed inland settlements isolated from each other and from an
Bosnia-Hercegovina. For the Habsburg lands, the territories we know adequate food supply. 2 Like the rest of the Mediterranean, the Adriatic
as the present states of Croatia and Slovenia were each divided among coast lacked the fish and arable land needed to make up this deficit.
four or more distinct jurisdictions. The institutions under civil or military Unlike the rest, it was not short of timber. Ship-building flourished
rule differed fatefully. until the modem era and helped link the Dalmatian ports with the
There were exceptions to the panern of imperial fragmentation, as wider European world from the medieval period forward.
we shall see at this chapter's end. Limited commercial connections There were no ties, however, between the coast and the largest, most
between the regions developed under the aegis of the multi-ethnic em- fertile stretch of lowlands, the region of the former Yugoslavia most
pires and even passed between the two of them. An independent capable of producing the grain surplus needed to feed the uplands. A
Dubrovnik, Ottoman Sarajevo, and the Habsburg lands that became fertile northern plain extends from western Croatia to eastern Serbia.
the Vojvodina were focal points. Cultural connections that had barely This plain had the preindustrial potential to connect east and west and
existed within or between the lost native polities of the medieval period to feed the south. But the rivers and the valleys through the mountains to
now laid groundwork both for their national revival and for a South the south were too small and too few to permit the bulk trade crucial to
Slav (or Yugoslav) idea and economy, if not yet a state. The two population growth in Western Europe.
twentieth-century Yugoslavias would still have to contend with a multi- The Dinaric dividing line, as it turned south, also reinforced the
plicity of historical legacies and with the geographic fragmentation nur- border between Eastern and Western Christianity that proceeded from
tured by the wooded mountains that are, in fact, the English translation Bosnia to the coast just south of Dubrovnik. \Vb.at trade, livestock
of the Turkish word, Balkan. herding, and other traffic there was between the coast and the hinter-
land tended to move north and south through mountain valleys, thereby
making the economic connections between east and west minimal. Yet
Mountains first, water last
the predominant uplands were hardly impassable to foreign armies and
The diversity of geographic features is spectacular, as the late Fred domestic populations. Their movements blurred ethnic as well as reli-
Singleton noted, in a territory whose size, one-quarter million square gious borders, pulling or pushing the forerunners of Orthodox Serbs
kilometers, is barely larger than the United Kingdom. The prevalence and Catholic Croats into or out of the same territory. Even when they
of uplands poorly suited to cultivation and the absence of an extensive settled in the same area, the rugged uplands helped keep them isolated
river network for bulk trade kept the density of population strikingly in separate villages.
low. An attendant lack of urban centers and intensive agriculture per-
sisted into the nineteenth century. By 1800, despite an eighteenth-
Mountains
l'i century increase, the population of the future Yugoslavia numbered not
much more than 5 million, a density of roughly 20 per square kilometer. Some 45 percent of the territory of the former Yugoslavia rises at least
E. L. Jones has tellingly contrasted this low population count and lack 500 meters above sea-level. While the Julian Alps reach into Slovenia
1
of cities to the higher densities of early modem Western Europe. Both and the Balkan range into Macedonia, it is the Dinaric chain and its
deficiencies reinforced the geographic barriers that were too low to periphery that predominates. Its southeasterly course from Croatia
prevent outside penetration but too high to permit widespread integra- to Hercegovina and Montenegro has long been renowned for the
tion of any one ethnic group with another. high karst (anhydrite) surface that covers fully IO percent of the area in
Stark, striking vistas of the Dinaric mountains lie deceptively close to Map I.!,. Its limestone rock pulls precipitation into underground channels,
the soft contours of the Dalmatian coast and long-civilized towns like leaving 'the arid soil above barren for cultivation of any kind. Access in
Dubrovnik. From the earliest centuries, these rugged bands of mountains summer to the water underground does at least support upland grazing
 Yugoslavia as History Empires and fragme_nted borderlands, 800-1800 13
12
annual rainfall versus nearly 30 inches to the west. Such a climate
i'40.2-J~.1 20' .'
posed problems for the first Slav settlers comparable in the American
_At.tSTR1A 11-j experience to the homesteaders in Nebraska. In Macedonia the former
/ / lake basins surrounding the Vardar river are too isolated and choked by
soil from the erosion of the long-deforested hills to provide a similar
-- ~ /
center for grain cultivation in the south. The northern Macedonian
ROMANIA
lands that became a Yugoslav republic lie far enough south, however,
to grow cotton and tobacco.
The limited areas higher than 1,500 meters are divided by what
geographer George Hoffman called "corridor valleys reaching into the
heart of the region," opening it up to ' 1people and ideas from nearby
power centers," while the rugged and diverse relief preserved upland
isolation and protectionism. 3 The region's accessibility has doubtless
contributed to the myriad of east-west lines that geographers have drawn
to mark the cultural division between Mediterranean and Central Euro-
ITALY . pean influences. The lines run from the Adriatic coast and Greek Mac-
ELEVATION:
edonia, the furthest soih, to the Sava and Danube rivers, the furthest
LAND USE:
0 Forem/Grazing ._ 500+meters
north. Over most of iliis territory, however, these two influences were
-/ Wheat. corn, potatoes.
,_-!100-500 mixed rather than separate or hostile by the late nineteenth century.
0- 100
1ugarbeets, animal
husbandry

Rivers
0 ,oo 200 ;oo
' KILOMETERS The Danube provided the Balkans with its major premodem connec-
tion to Central Europe. Navigable from Ulm in German Baden south-
Map 1.1 Former Yugoslavia's physical geography and land use ward through Vienna and Budapest, the great waterway enters the
former Yugoslavia in the east as the border between Slavonia and the
for livestock. The northeastern Dinaric terrain of Bosnia and western Vojvodina. The Danube draws on the Drava and Sava rivers, if not
Serbia, however, consists of crystalline rock that retains surface water. their tributaries, to constitute the one commercially useful network for
The forest cover that once lay over this more favorable soil also offered the region. No navigable river flows north from either the Adriatic or
better chances for later cultivation and settlement, particularly in the the Aegean Sea. The longest entirely Yugoslav river, the Sava, is not
highland plateaus and valleys near the Sava and Morava rivers, in navigable from its Slovenian source until halfway to Belgrade, nor are
Slavonia and Serbia, respectively. any useful stretches of its four southern tributaries, from the Una in
Croatia to the Drina that divides Bosnia from Serbia. The Morava
river, connecting the Serbian interior to the Danube, was also unable to
Lowlands carry the bulk trade essential to modem economic integration and to
If defined as land less than 200 meters above sea level, lowlands com- the growth of large cities. A Central European regime came down the
prise only 29 percent of the territory of the former Yugoslavia. They are Danube, with the Habsburg advance almost to Belgrade by 1700, but
concentrated in the north from the Ljubljana basin in the west, across its political and cultural influence south into Serbia and Macedonia
Slavonia to the Vojvodina in the east. This eastern plain contains the would not be significant before the nineteenth century.
richest, loess-covered soil and accounts for 20 percent of the former In sum, the geographic contrast between the lands of the former
Yugoslavia's arable land on less than 9 percent of its territory. But here Yugoslavia and Northwestern Europe could not be more striking. The
periodic floods alternate with droughts caused by barely 20 inches of latter's fertile lowlands, abundant rainfall, and easy access to the sea or
 14 Yugoslavia as Hiswry Empires and fragmented borderlands~ 800-1800 15

a river network are all missing. Economic development or integration authority they sought to reestablish for themselves, recognized the re-
without them would be difficult. gime of the first recorded Croatian ruler, Tomislav, at Biograd in 910.
They even swallowed his confirmation as king by the Pope in Rome')
)' already informally independent of the Christian church's eastern center
Brief native states, long remembered in Constantinople.
/
The medieval model for political integration in Southeastern Europe Further pressure from an expanding Venetian coastal empire pushed
was a loosely structured, ethnically indistinct kingdom or empire, rather subsequent Croat kings into close cooperation with the growing Hun-
than a centralized state based on national identity. Such nation-states garian kingdom to the north. Indeed, Venetian rule over most of the
were not conceivable before early modem England and France finished Istrian peninsula and the Dalmatian coast continued intermittently from
what Henry V and Joan of Arc set out to do in the fifteenth century. this early date through the eighteenth century. Expanding inland, the
The Holy Roman and Byzsntine Empires were instead the regimes that Croatian state found its ruling feudal nobility unable to produce an heir
first Croatia, then Serbia, and finally Bosnia sought to emulate and to the throne at the end of the eleventh century. In 1102, the Hungarian
even rival. king assumed the throne under a joint agreement, the Pacta conventa.
Their populations were primarily South Slavs, descended from Slavs Thus began the separate but unequal existence of Croatia within the
who had moved southwest into the region from the sixth century on- Hungarian kingdom that finally ended in 1918. For most of that
ward. Serbs and Croats, as well as the disputed Bosnian and Montenegrin period, the Croatian nobility kept their titles, their assembly (or Sabor),
I:I admixtures, spoke roughly the same language, distinct from the more and rural authority in Croatia proper. But in recently acquired Slavonia,
loosely related languages of the Slovenes in the northwest and the that authority was lost to the Hungarians, and in Bosnia, to a series of
Macedonians to the southeast. Neither of these latter two peoples would other regimes beginning with the Byzantine Empire in 1167.
create medieval states for reasons that are clear for the Slovenes (their The restoration of a Great Croatian state within its broadest eleventh-
Frankish German domination) and controversial for the Macedonians century borders, including Dalmatia, !stria, Slavonia, and even Bosnia-
(the question being how separate they were from the Bulgarians and Hercegovina, as well as Croatia proper, has attracted advocates from
their Second Empire). But the populations of such medieval polities the nineteenth century forward. Croatia proper continued to exist as a
surely attached more importance, at the time, to their religious identity separate political entity, even after the 1102 agreement with Hungary,
in newly accepted Christian churches than to brief native states. These but neither it nor the other four territories were successful in state-
regimes, four if the Bulgarian empire is added, overlapped fatefully in building on their own terms. Hungarian, Venetian, Ottoman, and finally
Macedonia and Bosnia-Hercegovina. Their common Bosnian territory Habsburg sovereignty stood in the way.
would help bring the modem claims for Greater Serbia and Greater Religious division also stood in the way of a more unified Croatia.
Croatia (the native usage is "Great") into conflict. The inland peasantry converted to Christianity under a liturgy and Slavic
alphabet (glagolica) ministered by native priests who married, wore their
hair long like the Byzantine clergy, and knew no Latin. Early in its
Croatia struggle with Constantinople for control of the Dalmatian coast, Rome
The tribes whose southwestern track toward the Adriatic and conver- felt obliged to accept such priests as a political concession. By the tenth
sion by Latin priests marked their initial distinctions as Croats reached century, papal authorities tried to confine the liturgy to Croatia and
the Dalmatian coastal towns by 600. They came as South Slavs, pos- suppress the recruitment of any more glagoljaS priests. Their principal
sibly stirred by an Iranian admixture shared with rather than separating Croatian allies were the nobility, particularly from the coastal cities that
them from the Serbs. And they came as pagans, attacking the small were already well within the Latin orbit.
Christian population of Romanized Illyrians whom they soon absorbed. The struggle over use of the Latin versus Slavic-based glagolitic
The Croats' own conversion to what became Roman Catholicism alphabets continued among Croatian churchmen beyond Rome's formal
occurred over the next 300 years, inland under the loose Frankish regime break with Constantinople in 1054 and even Croatia's inclusion in loyal
and on the coast from a neglected interplay between Latin and Byzan- Hungary in 1102. This marked the low point, according to A. P. Vlasto's
tine influences. Byzantine authorities, anxious to deny Venice the political authoritative study, for the Slavic language and church in Croatia. 4
 J!!!!!""'"
f .

Yugoslavia as History Empires and fragmented borderlands, 800-1800 17

16
Both revived, however, to persist in a number of coastal dioceses for that this Serbian state survived after the two brothers had apparently
several centuries. Glagoliric served as a secular alphabet for Croatian merged church and state, the church leaders spent their energies on
literature from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Bu~1for the winning the king's support for isolated monasteries like Nemanja's ori-
1
nobility and higher clergy, Croatia became a Latin Catholi<: domain ginal Studenica, patterned after the still more isolated Mount Athos, the
under the discipline of the papal hierarchy from the twl)lfth century famed peninsular monastery of northern Greece. Church leaders did
forward. Only the always locally grounded Franciscan order would sur- not oblige the Serbian state to break contact with the Catholic world or
vive, as we shall see, to challenge that hierarchy in the modem era. force the conversion of Latin Christians. They even allowed Latin priests
to proselytize until the mid-fourteenth century. 5
The subsequent rulers of the Serbian state sought to emulate and
Serbia challenge the Byzantine Empire, but they let their clan chieftains, who
The medieval state of Serbia maintained its full independence longer became feudal lords, retain too much authority. Despite their scattered
and faced far less religious division than did the Croatian kingdom. Its holdings and initially weak control over a largely free peasantry, these
greater experience in state-building, supported by its own autocephalous, nobles were able to deny their rulers the central military authority
or independent, Orthodox church, did not produce as centralized a characteristic of a Byzantine emperor. The nobles nonetheless pressed
regime as its rulers desired nor as ethnically Serb a population as the for further advance into Byzantine territory beyond Macedonia. Their
nineteenth-century model for a Great Serbia would presume. In fact, imperial ambitions brought the most famous Serbian ruler, DuSan, to
I
:1 with no thought to ethnic consolidation or cleansing, Serbia's medieval the throne in 1331 to replace a hesitant predecessor.
rulers pursued a policy of imperial expansion that first won and then DuSan doubled the size of Serbian territory, reaching far into southern
lost a territory too extended to permit central control. Greece (see map 1.2). He did so by taking sides in local warfare and
After their arrival in the seventh century, the main South Slav (even- accepting large numbers of non-Serbs - in what proportion, even to what
tually Serb) settlements between the Drina and !bar rivers at first seemed extent Macedonian, Bulgarian, or Greek remains uncertain and contro-
too far from the Adriatic or the Aegean to generate imperial ambitions versial - in the conquered lands. DuSan was crowned tsar, or emperor,
or to gain access to Christianity. The patriarchal Serb clans were even- of the Serbs and Romans (read Greeks) at Skopje in 1346. Tsar Dusan
tually drawn toward the Adriatic with its winter pastures for livestock forsook further expansion into the already Serb-populated areas of Bosnia
and the promise of trade. A combination of Byzantine and Bulgarian and sold several coastal holdings to Dubrovnik in order to concentrate
! .
influences emanating from Ohrid in Macedonia had deflected their on expanding his empire toward Constantinople. He died in 1355 dur-
conversion from Adriatic and Latin religious influences to Orthodoxy ing another campaign against the Byzantine imperium.
by the tenth century. Thereafter, several local Serb clan chiefs, or ZUpani, The admired code oflaws that Tsar Dusan left behind drew heavily on
used the coastal connections via their base in Zeta (roughly modem Byzantine precedents. The civil provisions stressed local rather than central
Montenegro) to challenge weakening Byzantine authority there. A iupan authority, The code was more concerned with exclusive religious rights
named Nemanja from the adjoining area called Raska (Kosovo today) for the Serbian Orthodox church, the subject of its first 38 provisions.
later succeeded, despite a series of Byzantine humiliations, in founding DuSan's weak successors lost much of their territory in the south and
an independent state in 1180. He quickly incorporated Zeta and secured were struggling against rebellions by the nobles in the north when
a coastal foothold beyond the Bay of Koror and Dubrovoik. One son, Ottoman Turkish forces confronted a coalition of Serbian forces in
Stefan, became the "first crowned" Serbian king, in 1217, under papal Kosovo in 1389. Enshrined in Serbian oral epics as a defeat to be
authority accepted to emphasize independence from Constantinople. avenged, the battle was closer to a draw. Yet the Serbian stateJs capa-
Another son, later canonized as St. Sava, took further advantage of city to resist the Ottoman advance never really recovered. Its forces did
Byzantine weakness in 1219 to establish an independent Serbian church, briefly seize Srebrenica and its valuable silver mines in 1425 during a
observing the Orthodox ritual through the Cyrillic alphabet and a Slavic foray into Bosnia. Otherwise, the state and its capital continued to
liturgy that would endure. This separate church, recognized by Con- retreat northward to Belgrade until 1429 and then to Smederevo just
!
stantinople, adopted the Byzantine principle that church and state should down the Danube until the final blows ended the medieval Serbian
work together to shape public policy. Yet in the nearly two centuries state in 1459. 6
 Empires and fragmented borderlands, 800-1800 19
18 Yugoslavia as History
pursued by either polity. In the course of the twelfth century, Bosnia
won political independence and added Hercegovina later. Loosely con-
stituted under a single Ban, or governor, named Kulin, the Bosnian
,/-" state rejected both Byzantine and Hungarian overlordships. A set of court
,/ ) \ officials and a state treasury emerged and a stanak, or assembly, of nobles
regularly convened. Their social origins fit the pattern of local clan leaders
among the Balkan Slavs, Serbs and Croats alike. Traian Stoianovich
describes them as Zupani who controlled the lowland commons or the
choice upland pastures for an otherwise free peasant population. 7 Their
murky ethnic origins may well have been more Croat than Serb, but
this new ruling elite regarded itself as a separate Bosnian entity.
The independent state of Bosnia that survived intermittently until the
mid-fifteenth century added much of Hercegovina in 1326 and con-
tinued to struggle against Hungarian advances until the Ottoman con-
quest. Its powers reached their high point under Ban Tvrtko. He
reestablished independence from Hungary in 1369, crowned himself
king of Serbia and Bosnia in 13 77, and began construction of a port for
Adriatic shipping in the Bay of Kotor in 1382. This economic link to
the Adriatic supported the rise of the Bosnian state. Local merchants
and towns soon joined Dubrovnik and other Dalmatian ports to trade
with the Bosnian mines for silver, gold, copper, and iron, a concentra-
' tion of precious metals found nowhere else in southern Europe. Bosnian
wax, wool, and slaves were also exchanged for salt and Mediterranean
0 IOO 200 JOO
manufactures. Customs revenues from this trade and dues paid by
KILOMETERS
Dubrovnik partially bankrolled the Bosnian court.
The Bosnian rulers still headed a disjointed, isolated regime and
Map 1.2 Medieval states of Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia as such did not oppose the Manichean heresy that here was called
Bogomilism. Spreading from Bulgaria to Bosnia, Hercegovina, and
Dalmatia by the thirteenth century, the movement was a dualist belief
I
in the devil as well as the deity. Papal authorities soon tried to expunge
it, perhaps using the excuse of heresy to establish local control over the
Bosnia nominally Latin Bosnian church. Dominicans were dispatched in 1240
First set between and then briefly outlasting these medieval Croatian and the Franciscans in 1340. Finally in the mid-fifteenth century, a
and Serbian empires was a Bosnian state much less celebrated in the determined Hungarian campaign to eradicate the heresy and to bring
historical memories that underpin ethnic self-assertion. Its religious iden- the Bosnian church under Rome's hierarchical control forced the weak-
tity remains too ill-defined to bolster the claim that most of the popula- ening Bosnian state to capitulate. Bosnian church leaders had to recant
tion was consciously either Croat or Serb. To muddy the waters for or emigrate to Hercegovina. The powerful Hungarian kingdom reas-
ethnic identification still further, a significant fraction of its unquestion- serted its suzerainty and canceled the payment of tribute to the Otto-
ably South Slav population converted to Islam after the Ottoman con- man Empire. In 1463 an Ottoman army quickly conquered Bosnia and,
quest that destroyed the Bosnian state. . by 1483, Hercegovina.
This Bosnian state did exist long enough to help break the ties that More important than heresy in this denouement, according to recent
bound the area to the Croatian or Serbian states, ties not vigorously research, was the fragmented isolation of the Bosnian church and state.
!
 20 Yugoslavia as Hiswry Empires and fragmented borderlands, 800~ 1800 21

John V. A. Fine, Jr., has identified the Bogomil clergy as only a small on these holdings and collect a tithe, initially one-eighth of the harvest
group of celibate "Perfects," probably fewer than 100, who isolated plus a livestock tax, from local peasants to help provision Constantino-
themselves from all worldly corruption in a small number of rl}~:master- ple, other towns, or the rest of the sultan's army. These timar holdings
I
ies. Less isolated monasteries training village priests and using a/4;lagolitic and ranks were not heritable. The devjinne system of forced recruit-
liturgy formed the backbone of the separate Bosnian chu,c:h. If these ment and conversion to Islam of young boys (not the babies of later
priests were not often Bogomils, neither were they tied to the hierarchy legends) brought South Slavs into the officer corps. The millet structure
or authority of papacy, once the last Latinizing Bishop sent in 1250 had for the several non-Islamic religious communities (Catholics were
been forced to withdraw. 8 The Bosnian church reportedly allowed priests excluded as papal adversaries) empowered the native Orthodox (and
to marry, and its services incorporated a number of Orthodox practices. Jewish) clergy to administer their populations' local religious and inter-
This was understandable. Orthodox nobles and clergy predominated in nal legal affairs, and even justice if no Muslims were involved. Ethno-
eastern Bosnia and Hercegovina, while the Franciscans began to win religious identity could thus grow at the local level as long as overriding
Latin converts to the west. But the limited, monastic base of the three Ottoman authority was not challenged. More specifically the Serbian
churches helps to explain why the Bosnian state tolerated them all and Orthodox church received rights to local authority that their native
gave none the prerogatives of a state church, as in Tsar Dufan's Serbia. empire had never granted. The church's political power would have no
The low density of population (probably fewer than ten persons per native state with which to contend until the nineteenth century.
square kilometer) contributed to limiting the Ban's authority and, hence, In the years after its high point under Suleiman the Magnificent
the Bosnian state's capacity to survive. Bosnia's small and scattered (1520-66), central authority weakened and the Ottoman regime lost
population was a weakness shared with the medieval Croatian and some of its uniformities. Landholdings eventually became hereditary
Serbian states, as well as an invitation to later disputes about historic and taxation more exploitative, while local elites vied with renegade
claims to ethnic borders. But the inability of the ruler to designate his officers and the sultan's loyal representatives for control.
successor or dispossess those nobles who defied him became a particu- Weakening Ottoman authority contributed to a set of significant dis-
lar, and surely fatal, weakness of the Bosnian state in the face of a tinctions among the four future Yugoslav lands that remained under
coordinated Ottoman advance. Ottoman control until the nineteenth century - Macedonia, Bosnia-
Hercegovina, Serbia, and Montenegro. Their disparate places in the
Ottoman framework, commercial as well as administrative, worked
Varieties of Ottoman rule against the creation of common Yugoslav political traditions.
The Ottoman occupation of Bosnia began just ten years after the
conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Larger than any European city Macedonia
at the time and heir to the long Byzantine tradition of a centralized
bureaucracy, it was now the Ottoman capital. The Turkish sultan's By the late medieval period, within the borders of the post-1945 Yugo-
staff, or Porte, located there became the center for connecting front line slav republic or beyond into Pirin or Aegean Macedonia, there was no
forces with an increasingly bureaucratic system of military occupation Macedonian state to delay the Ottoman conquest. Neither increasingly
for newly conquered territories in the Middle East as well as Southeast- Greek Byzantium, nor the Bulgarian and Serbian states, in whose territ-
ern Europe. 9 ories all of Macedonia alternately found itselfl were able to prevent its
The Ottomans successfully imposed a centrally controlled regime of early absorption as an Ottoman province after the Battle of Maritsa in
land tenure, tax collection, and native religious rights that in practice 1371. Its medieval ethnic composition is the most controversial among
approached the responsible local government that the medieval South any of the future Yugoslavia's territories. No reliable sources exist to
Slav states had failed to establish. The sultan's cavalry officers, or sipahi, determine whether the probable South Slav majority on the future
were assigned varying amounts of agricultural land, called timar after republic's territory was ethnically Macedonian, Bulgarian, or Serb, or
the most common size, to administer for the sultan. Timar holdings what the size and influence of a Greek minority was in the inland heart
were carved from newly conquered land that was considered the sul- of the ancient Greek province of Macedonia. Two features seem more
! ' tan's personal property. Officers were to maintain themselves modestly certain. This territory, together with the areas of northern Greece and
 /
'
22 Yugoslavia as History Empires and fragmented borderlands, 800-1800 23
western Bulgaria that comprised Byzantine and Ottoman Macedonia, (discussed below), the Bosnian Serbs, and the upland Vlachs who sooner
was sparsely populated and it attracted the one significant immigration or later assimilated with them initially benefitted from the Ottoman
of Turkish peasants into the future Yugoslav lands after the 9uoman concessions granted to make the border more secure. So too did some
co:-:..quest. .# Croats, especially those who were granted timar concessions along the
The Ottoman regime had already established its timar sy~em of state western or northern border. In addition the Franciscan order was
land administered by the sultan's cavalry officers. They were firmly in allowed to continue its ministry to Bosnia's Croat population, thus
place in Macedonia's lowland villages by the sixteenth century. But receiving the equivalent of millet status, a privilege denied to the Roman
many peasants deserted those lowland villages during the campaigns church elsewhere in the empire.
further north and west that kept Ottoman forces moving back and forth The bulwark of the Ottoman order became the large number of
I
across Macedonia. Its lowland soil was nitrogen-poor because of ero- Bosnian Slavs who converted to Islam. The controversy over those
sion from surrounding hills. To repopulate such villages, Ottoman auth- conversions and those converted has contributed enough to the twentieth-
orities encouraged the migration of originally Anatolian peasants and century bloodshed in Bosnia to merit further attention. The old pre-
also more of the Vlach herders and traders of livestock. The Tsintsar sumption that only the adherents of the Bogomil heresy converted to
Vlachs, speaking a language related to Romanian, founded the trade Islam must be questioned. They were far too few, as we have seen. The
center of Moskopol in northern Greece that endured until the late loose ties of the separate, larger Bosnian church covered perhaps one-
eighteenth cennrry. Muslim and some Christian immigrants transformed fifth of the roughly half million people in the former Bosnian state of
Skopje into a trade center for the first time. the fifteenth century. Following the Ottoman conquest, a largely unforced
Further commercial connections to the Aegean port of Salonika process of conversion had made two-fifths of the total population Mus-
(Thessaloniki in modem Greece) hardly modernized the Macedonian lim by the middle of the sixteenth century. Some previous members
countryside. Private holdings of heritable lowland villages, called chifdik, of the Bosnian church, if only a few Orthodox, were surely included.
were concentrated under more exploitative arrangements (up to one- More significantly, to the considerable degree that religious identity
half of all crops demanded) than elsewhere in the Ottoman Balkans. determined ethnic identity in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the
I Rather than local merchants from Salonika responding to capitalist widespread conversion calls into question the consciously Croat or Serb
demand, the chiftlik owners appear from recent research to have been identity of much of the Bosnian population. Those distinct identities
Turkish or Albanian officers of the Ottoman cavalry or infantry who were not, however, long in emerging after the Ottoman conquest.
took advantage of the weakening political authority of the Porte to seize What attracted South Slav converts to Islam and what sort of Islam
former timar lands and treat them as their own property. 10 These gen- was it? We must not confuse the Sunni mainstream of the Ottoman
erally small seizures of less than 50 acres yielded small amounts of grain Empire with the militant and fundamentalist Shiites far to the East.
or cotton for smuggled export from villages. Their peasants often de- Nor was religious observance and rigor stressed in the Ottoman Sunni
serted to nearby hills or more distant towns. The struggle of these local framework until the seventeenth century. Although the direct evidence
warlords with each other and with the central Ottoman authority formed of the Ottoman registers remains to be studied, recruitment through
the early political history of Vardar Macedonia, the region eventually the dev~irme system or the conversion of slaves (who could thereby
incorporated into Yugoslavia, making it the most chaotic and at the obtain freedom) appears to have been most important in the longer
same time the least accessible to native participation or non-Ottoman run. In the short run, the legal rights that Muslims received in an urban
influence of any South Slav land. milieu growing in size and sophistication during the sixteenth century
made conversion advantageous. 11 For the overwhelmingly rural popula-
Bosnia-Hercegovina
tion, such rights and tax privileges attracted few of the small surviving
nobility, but more of the Serb and Vlach leaders of upland villages that
The Ottoman empire made Bosnia-Hercegovina its furthest western had adopted the "Vlach mode" of livestock pasturing and seasonal
outpost in the South Slav lands, fortifying the province from the start soldiering, whether before or after the Ottoman conquest. The Porte
against its principal European adversary, the Habsburg Empire. Unlike had a special role for these converted villages. All of them were desig-
the Orthodox, largely Serb populations of Serbia and Montenegro nated as "Vlach," thus providing the basis for some later Croatian
 r
24 Yugoslavia as History Empires and fragmented borderlands, 800-1800 25
scholars to claim that "Serbs" outside of Serbia were all descendants of Ottoman conquest that stretched from the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 to
Vlachs. Because only limited imperial forces were available to man their the fall of Smederevo on the Danube in 1459 prompted Serb emigra-
i frontiers against the organized military borders of Venice apd the tion to Slavonia and Montenegro, as well as to Bosnia and Hercegovina.
Habsburg monarchy, the Ottoman administration adopted thed adver- They left behind scattered lowland clearings in Kosovo that eventually
saries' system of fortresses garrisoned with local forces. They_..evencalled a~tracted Albanian migration. Yet the forested interior of Serbia proper
them by the same name - kapitanates. The system quickly spread across discouraged the settlement of many Turks or even an extensive network
Bosnia, attracting converts who became eligible to be a captain, espe- of timar holdings outside of Belgrade, the fortified towns, and their
cially if they converted their village into the force. environs. Serbian presence in those towns was by the same token mini-
Such captains were most often the Ottoman designees to administer mal, but in the countryside their local leaders, drawn from the village's
agricultural land and tax collection. By the seventeenth century, they extended family communities, or zadruge, maintained their authority
began to impose the higher chiftlik obligations for their own use primar- from the start.
ily on the Serb newcomers whose numbers had greatly increased after This small Serbian population, no bigger than the one-half million
the Ottoman conquest of Serbia. These impositions on the crops of the totals for late medieval Bosnia and Macedonia, nonetheless carried with
Ir
unconverted Serb peasantry, called kmet or serf, only increased as the them the strongest immediate memory of lost statehood among any of
permanent Habsburg advances of the late seventeenth century forced the Ottoman's subject peoples. The last Serbian regimes exploited their
Irr the Bosnian and other Muslim elites, who had followed the imperial peasant population too much for the reality of their rule to explain this
I
banner into Hungary under Suleiman the Magnificent, back into Bosnia. folk memory. The Ottoman regime itself provided the social frame-
The borders of Ottoman Bosnia would not change again from 1699 to work. Village autonomy and zadruga rights grew with the restoration of
the Habsburg occupation of 1878 and beyond. But within the upland the independent authority of the Serbian Orthodox church. The millet
and generally inhospitable countryside, the seeds of the antagonism system gave it legal as well as religious powers. And to celebrate the
between rural Serbs (or Croats) and Muslims had been planted. At the church's saints, from St. Sava on, was to celebrate medieval Serbia
. '
same time, a process of three-sided accommodation - four, counting thus making the Orthodox millet a major source for the early modem
a growing number of Sephardic Jews - was under way in Sarajevo and elaboration of Serbian ethnic identity.
i .!
other towns. The enduring exclusion of Slavs from urban hfe that A Bosnian Serb, Mehmed Sokoli, rising from devsirtne selection
{:! i
became a major burden of the Ottoman regime elsewhere in the through the officer corps to become the sultan's grand vizier, had in
i' .. Balkans did not persist in Bosnia. Bosnian Muslims had accounted for
almost all of Sarajevo's population during its spectacular sixteenth-
f~ct restored the Patriarchate at PeC in Kosovo in 1557 and appointed
his brother as the first Patriarch. Yet the concession also fitted with the
century expansion. Thereafter, the city accommodated Serb merchants general Ottoman tendency to accept special arrangements to secure its
I
ii
' and a smaller number of Croats and Sephardic Jews. The business of borderlands. PeC's forty-one dioceses remained under Serbian control
state and commerce was conducted in the local South Slavic language, until 1766, when the Patriarchate's flirtation with Russia prompted the
the swkavski dialect that was the forerunner of Serbo-Croatian. The Porte to hand them over to trusted Greek clergy. In the meantime,
:1:1 1
,,, I
practices of the native bektashi order of Islamic mystics, whose nine however, the dioceses for Serbs in eastern Bosnia had promoted the
cardinal points thoroughly mixed Christian and Islamic tenets, may spread of a distinctly Serbian Orthodox, ethno-religious identity that
11
have also contributed to the overlapping and even borrowing of religious had not been prominent in pre-Ottoman Bosnia. 13
1!
I
traditions. 12 While twentieth-century anthropologists were overconfid- Filling in this Ottoman framework for a separate Serbian identity
ently celebrating them, Serb or Croat nationalists could use such over- were two particular sources of historical memory. The Serbian folk
lapping to argue that Bosnian Muslims were originally Serbs or Croats. tradition of epic poetry passed from village to village and from genera-
tion to generation by oral verses as famous to literary historians as their
~innish counterparts. They were sung after the Ottoman conquest pre-
ii' Kosovo as Serbia
cISe!y to lament the lost Battle of Kosovo (1389) and to praise past
Ottoman rule did not subject a still Kosovo-centered Serbia to the nanve rulers. The seven origina] cycles of verse center on the battle as
complex Bosnian mixture of integration and oppression. The prolonged tragic and the historical figures as mythic. 14
. I
 Empires and fragmented borderlands, 800-1800 27
26 Yugoslavia as History

Serbian historical memory would also fasten on the Great Migration 1389 Battle of Kosovo. Ottoman authorities never attempted to apply
of 1690, from Kosovo to the Habsburg's newly won Vojvodina north of the timar system of landholding to Montenegro. They relied instead on
the Sava and Danube rivers. Led by the Patriarch himself, this mass local clan leaders to collect a poll tax, the only revenue demanded.
migration of at least 40,000 villagers followed from the fear of (Jrtoman The bishops of the Orthodox church, now cut off from the Serbian
reprisals afrer the Serbian population had supported a Habs9>1rg_incur- hierarchy, emerged as the rulers of Montenegro from 1516. Their tem-
sion. When that advance and another from 1718 to 1739 failed to poral powers exceeded those of their Serbian counterparts in theory,
secure Serbia proper, much of its native population simply retreated but how much in practice they controlled the extended, well-armed
across the river to the Habsburg border regime in the Vojvodina. The families is doubtful.
new borderland and its Serb settlements provided a sanctuary for Bishops from the NjegoS clan established a line of continuous succes-
others wishing to leave Ottoman territory and another base for the sion as religious rulers from Danilo in 1696 forward. Perhaps following
the line of least resistance, they pursued foreign alliances rather than
! Serbian Orthodox hierarchy, the only one left after Pee was taken from
internal consolidation. A religious connection to the Russian Orthodox
them in 1766. Perhaps more importantly, the hardships and heroism of
.,, i church dated from the sixteenth century. Bishop Danila's visit to Mos-
the migration itself added Kosovo to Serbian historical memory as a
' cow in 1716 extracted a Russian subsidy that continued until the comic-
region to which they should return.
Meanwhile, in Kosovo itself, the larger eastern area remained over- opera confusion of 176 7, when a local imposter claimed to be Stefan
whelmingly Orthodox or Serb, with an Albanian Catholic, eventually the Small, the tsar of Russia, and was soon exposed. The bishops then
Muslim, presence growing from the west by the sixteenth century. The turned to the Habsburg monarchy for external support, but relied on
first Ottoman encouragement of Albanian migration did follow the Serb their own forces to repel a last Ottoman assault on Montenegro. It
exodus of 1690. Kosovo now became less attractive as a small urban began in 1785, led significantly (for future ethnic relations) by an
economy declined with the once-treasured silver mines. Yet upland Albanian pasha and his force of neighboring Albanians. By the time
Albanian stockbreeders continued the larger migration that would make this assault was finally defeated in 1796, Montenegro had turned back
them the majority of Kosovo's population by the end of the eighteenth to Russia for external support.
The disproportionately large role that Montenegro played in European
l '
1!( century. Subsequent controversy has swirled around doubtful Albanian
claims of a larger initial presence and doubtful Serbian claims of virtu- diplomacy of the nineteenth century had its roots in this freedom to
11',,
Ii I ally no Albanian presence until Ottoman pressure pushed them in for establish even limited foreign relations. The Ottoman Empire had ceded
15 no such rights to its other territories. Montenegro's long-standing inter-
! religious as well as political reasons.
national identity would count for far less in the formation of the first
Yugoslavia than the rulers of the independent principality expected,
Montenegro while its upland outlaw tradition helped give Montenegro's Communist
Until the nineteenth century, Montenegro was the one future Yugoslav Partisans a major role in the formation of the second Yugoslavia.
territory whose history was not greatly affected by migration. Its moun-
tainous isolation barred permanent or easy access to its narrow coast- Varieties of Habsburg rule
line, while its land was too barren even to support much livestock.
Local resources typically provided a food supply for two-thirds of the Central Europe for these Balkan borderlands consisted primarily of the
year at best, making banditry almost necessary for survival. Resistance Habsburg empire. Heir to the Holy Roman Empire and its German
from the small but fiercely combative population kept the belated Otto- lands until the nineteenth century, it is properly called an empire until
I
l man conquest of 1499 from ever being completed. Much like the Scots then. The Habsburg court and administration in Vienna would start

l '1,1
highlanders, these upland clans resisted external authority and enforced
their own rules. Numbering well under 100,000, they were certainly
Orthodox and probably of Serb origin. Part of the original Nemanja
down the road leading to the enlightened absolutism (read authorit-
arian bureaucracy) of the eighteenth century less to impose a uniform
regime across its southern border than to secure its northern border
', from Prussian advance. The initial Ottoman advance and defeat at the
1!! province of Zeta, this province became known as Montenegro when it
,:! gates of Vienna in 1529 linked the Austrian center of the empire to the
was cut off from a Serbian state forced to shift northward after the

i'
''I
 28 Yugoslavia as History
r Empires and fragmented borderlands, 800-1800

The various Habsburg authorities did not impose a Roman Catholic

29

I monopoly on the practice of Christianity. This may seem surprising,

__--- HABS'BUR<ij
I , i.,> J given Vienna's commitment to the Counter-Reformation against Prot-
,-.-,
_
_/HuN;G;AR Y estant denominations and the prominence given to the crusading Jesuit
Vara:i:dino- E M Pil R E order. 16 Yet to the south, where the threat of Ottoman attack persisted,
the emperor had granted concessions across the Military Border and all
of the Vojvodina to Serbs, other Orthodox Christians, and even non-
native Protestants. The only native Protestant movement on the south-
ern Habsburg border, in Slovenia, had been rigorously suppressed.

\ Slovenes under H absburgs

The Slovenes' ancestors first came to their compact Alpine redoubt in
the late sixth century. Already speaking a separate South Slav language
that distinguished them from Serbs or Croats, their location close to
0 T T O Mi A N ,, o'?"' the Frankish German realms of Central Europe created another dis-
v_~
: \__.
'
"r tinction. Less than 100 years after their conversion to Christianity in
EMPIRE .,
jj
, , o-~topje the eighth century, Slovenes lost their political independence to Frank-
\ ish feudal lords. An immediate influx of German settlers to the plains
~',;~ Habsburg military border /,,._,.
v',
Tirt ne 0
---c"Q~
and valleys pushed Slovenes into the abundant uplands. Before any
International boundaries, 1792
0
native political structure could reemerge, the Habsburg rulers succeeded
<00 200 300
f,' the Franks as Holy Roman emperors. They incorporated the several
KILOMETERS
.<;;,,
"'\' ~,
parts of modem Slovenia more closely into their administrative frame-
work than any other future Yugoslav land.
Map 1.3 Habsburg Military Border in 1780 The absence of any serious Ottoman threat to the Slovenes' secure
Habsburg provinces, an advantage in itself, gave the regime in Vienna a
retreating Hungarian nobility and their determination to retake their freer hand to deal with the sizeable Protestant movement that sprang
lost kingdom. Only the repulse of the second Ottoman advance on up in the early sixteenth century. Luther's tenets attracted Slovene and
Vienna after 1683 allowed the recapture of these lost lands, which German adherents, first in the towns and then in the countryside. They
included Slavonia and the Vojvodina. Long before then, the empire had openly opposed the authority of the established Catholic hierarchy.
established a broad Military Border (Vojna Krajina) on the Croatian Jesuit zeal and military force soon suppressed them. A number of the
side of Ottoman Bosnia-Hercegovina. During the eighteenth century, it German townspeople and nobles simply left during the 1590s. Not
extended that border area to northwest and southern Slavonia as well until the eighteenth century, however, did one Slovene scholar, Tomas
as to the southern Vojvodina. All three border regimes were bound to Linhart, reject the lingering view that the Slovenes were ethnically Ger-
Vienna, but each was distinct from the other and from the Habsburg man themselves and had no separate Slovene identity. 17
administration of Civil Croatia (now cut off from Slavonia) and a sim- Several Italian influences helped confirm the separate Slovenian
ilarly subdivided Slovenia (see map 1.3). Thus the press for progress identity that Linhart postulated. Increasing Habsburg control had
through bureaucratic uniformity - the essence of enlightened absolut- culminated in 174 7 with a provincial government administered dir-
ism - did not tie the Habsburg borderlands together any more than the ectly by civil servants in Vienna. Yet within Camiola, the most heavily
Ottoman regimes linked together their Balkan provinces. Only the nine- Slovenian province, the Counter-Reformation closed the German schools
teenth century would bring such centralizing pressures to bear on both precisely because they were Protestant and replaced them with ones
sides of the border. sponsored by Italian universities. The school at Laibach (Ljubljana in
 rr
!

Yugoslavia as History Empires and fragmented borderlands, 800-1800 31

30
Slovenian) that later evolved into a Slovenian university was founded Balkans where this combination prevailed, these families developed a
in 1693 on the model of a Roman academy. German waned as the patriarchal complex of property and working relations called a zadruga. 19
language of instruction sufficiently to open the door to some j;>:fficial A formal Habsburg statute in 1630 made each zadruga a legal entity,
acceptance of Slovenian by the later eighteenth century, if Of11yas a responsible for drafting all males over age sixteen for military service, to
device for technical manuals and school primers to teach ~rrnan. fight against Ottoman forces or any other adversaries of the emperor.
Commercial access to the Adriatic Sea created another Italian coun- The surviving Croatian nobility resented the Grenzer because they were
terweight to German influence. With German Protestants gone, non- exempt from feudal dues. The Grenzer contained a significant propor-
Venetian Italian traders were needed to generate taxable income in the tion of Croats, although probably not the 40 percent recorded in the
coastal towns. They soon set up a network to collect cloth woven by initial ethnic census of 1819. The percentage of Serbs - over one-half
upland peasant households. By 1719 the Habsburg military advantage in 1819 - presumably reached its peak after the further migration from
over Venice was strong enough to proclaim Trieste and Rijeka, on the Serbia northward that occurred in 1690. 20
opposite sides of the Istrian Peninsula, as free ports. Trieste developed This large Serb presence in historic Croatia might have evolved more
more rapidly, but Vienna's state-sponsored Oriental Company and its fortunately had the initial military purpose drawing them there fostered
plans for long-distance trade did not survive the 1730s. When it went economic prosperity. It did not. From Lika to the Slavonian border,
under, some Slovenian traders joined a larger number of Italians in crop yields were barely half those in Civil Croatia. While the karst-
taking over a share of the export trade. 18 Favorably located at an eco- covered foothills blanketing this region may largely explain these low
nomic crossroads between Central Europe and the Mediterranean, the yields, the Habsburg border regime was also an economic burden. Its
politically subdivided Slovenian population increased to some 700,000 restrictions limited the maximum holding to 26 acres, barred their sale
by the mid-eighteenth century, roughly half as much again as Ottoman or transfer, and took the male labor force away on maneuvers for a
Serbia or Macedonia. minimum of several weeks every growing season. The Habsburg Sanitiits
Kordon, consolidated along the length of the Ottoman border in 1770
to protect against the bubonic plague and livestock diseases, hindered
The Habsburg Military Border trade as did Hungarian customs tariffs collected at the Krajina's border
What is now Croatia was divided throughout the early modem period with Civil Croatia.
into five parts, only three of which lay within the Habsburg mon- Despite Habsburg legislation to make the Military Border imperial
archy. !stria and Dalmatia remained under Venetian control until the property in 1754 and the brief promise of agrarian reform under Joseph
beginning and end of the eighteenth century respectively. The special II in the 1780s, the region remained impoverished and isolated. Of its
regime of the Military Border served among other things to divide the population of 900,000 in 1799, less than 3,000 lived in the largest town
other two Habsburg territories, Civil Croatia and Slavonia. of Karlovac. One survey found a quarter of the Grenzer dwellings to be
At its fullest extent by the late eighteenth century, the Military Border totally isolated and another third clustered in hamlets of twelve or fewer
extended from the Lika area north of Dalmatia, around the Bosnian families. Besides emigration, only the forcible seizure of a neighbor's
border eastward along the Sava and Danube rivers bordering Serbia, land offered relief from such deep poverty. Yet few such seizures were
and across the Transylvanian border with the Romanian principalities. recorded as late as the eighteenth century, and not just because of the
Its origins were in the western salient, where predominantly Serb refu- Habsburg military framework. Serbs and Croats lived peaceably with-
gees from the Ottoman advance into Bosnia were already forming their out religious antagonism in neighboring hamlets, if not the same ones,
own frontier bands. From 1553 these bands came under the integrated and served together without incident in the same regiments. 21 Even
command of Habsburg officers in units that multiplied with the Otto- along the Military Border, therefore, the brutalities of the past 100
man kapitanates appearing on the other side. The terms of Habsburg years cannot be explained as "age-old antagonisms."
military service attracted still more border guards, or Grenzer: a small
grant of free land, no manorial obligations, and freedom for the Serbs Civil Croatia and Slavonia
to build Orthodox churches and to practice their religion. The grants
typically went to the extended families who had migrated together and The number of Serbs was far smaller, except for the easternmost Srem
now received land more suited to raising livestock. As elsewhere in the in Civil Croatia and Slavonia, than in the Military Border. Yet the
 32 Yugoslavia as Hiswry Empires and fragmented borderlands, 800-1800 33

principal distinctions between these two territories by the eighteenth A second division of the territory further constrained Croatian state-
century were not ethnic but economic. 22 Although working better land, building within what had been its medieval borders. The Dalmatian
almost 90 percent of the Croats north of the Military Bord',' were coast and much of Istria remained under Venetian control throughout
estimated to be serfs in a 1784 census. Peasant families owed,,e.n oner- the early modem period. One-quarter million Italians would eventu-
ous number of days of labor to the noble estates (or more precisely, to ally inhabit these valuable lands until their expulsion after the Second
their private [allodial] property), in return for the modest plots that the World War. As early as the seventeenth century, however, a Croatian
peasants were allowed to farm on the estates' wider urbarial holdings. claim to reunite what was now called the Triune Kingdom of Croatia,
Usually ethnic Croats, noble landowners numbered 9,500 in 1785, Slavonia, and Dalmatia found its first voice in the often-cited writings
nearly four times the population of Agram (Zagreb in Croatian). The of the Dalmatian nobleman, Pavao Ritter Vitezovii:. Although he intro-
town's medieval promise of independence from rural or official rule, duced the notion that Bosnian Serbs on the territory that medieval
like that of other royal free cities south of Vienna and Budapest, had Croatia had once held were in fact Orthodox Croats, VitezoviC concen-
long since withered. Civil Croatia's total population was barely 650,000 trated on persuading legalistic Habsburg authorities to lay a historical
people in the wake of Ottoman-Habsburg warfare from the fifteenth claim to the Venetian-held coast. Ivo Banac calls VitezoviC and other
through the seventeenth centuries and the urban proportion perhaps Croatian spokesmen of the early modem period advocates of historic
5 percent. state's rights, based on past regimes and their borders rather than on
Slavonia's still smaller population and the presence of only 314 nobles ethnic rights grounded in language and culture. 23
I
in the 1785 census helps explain the smaller number of required labor
II : days that could be extracted from its peasantry - less than half of
Exceptions to imperial fragmentation
!I 11 Croatia's requirements. Even then, sensing the leverage that scarce labor
could exercise, and knowing of neighboring Grenzer rights, the mainly True, imperial expansion and then division disrupted any South Slav
I' Croat peasantry revolted as early as 1573, under the then cruelly ex- state-building and economic integration of the sort appearing in early
ecuted Matija Gubec. They rose up against their largely Hungarian modem Western Europe. Native as well as Ottoman and Habsburg
lords twice in the first half of the eighteenth century. In the second half, Empires fragmented territory and isolated populations more than they
Hungarian law and control replaced the civil-military administration of brought them together. And the disadvantages of Balkan geography -
Habsburg Vienna. Feudal obligations cut heavily into peasant incen- lack of access to the sea or navigable rivers and the small amount of
tives, and noble landowners had little reason to introduce intensive well-watered lowlands - contributed to divisions between territories
methods, given the restrictions on trade with the grain-poor Military taken to buffer imperial centers with a distant land border.
Border. Only trade with Hungary, which hardly needed grain imports At least by the early modem period, several focal points of integration
from the south, became easier late in the early modem period. also appeared and provided a more fruitful legacy for the furure Yugo-
I
The political framework of Civil Croatia, if not Slavonia, resembled slavia. Although scarcely political centers, an independent Dubrovnik,
Hungary's in significant respects. First warfare and then the mid- Ottoman Sarajevo, and the Habsburg Vojvodina lands created networks
seventeenth-century suppression of the Croatian Fronde, the revolt of the for regional trade. They also mixed ethnic groups and opened them-
Zrinski-Frankopan nobles in 1663-71, weakened the power of the nobles' selves to intellectual traditions too broad for any one ethnic identity.
Sabor (assembly) in comparison to the Ban appointed from Vienna.
The local powers of the Croatian nobility were still intact, patterned
Trade centers and networks
exactly after the Hungarian county system. They survived the new
Royal Council that Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa proclaimed in The Dalmatian city-state of Dubrovnik was the one territory to escape
1767 at the expense of taking still more authority from the Sabor. imperial domination for most of the period before 1800. Known as
The reforms proposed by Joseph II during his brief reign threatened Ragusa in the Latin that was its official language and recognized as a
to eliminate these local powers. Croatian nobles thereupon decided to republic throughout this time, the port's Italian commercial connec-
cede central authority to the Hungarian Diet rather than risk Joseph's tions helped establish it as the principal point of entry for Mediterranean
regulations surviving him. trade with the Ottoman Empire by the sixteenth cenrury. An unsuccessful
;-----~-- =-----------------------

34 Yugoslavia as Hisrory

Venetian effort to monopolize the Adriatic coastal trade at the same

r''
Empires and fragmented borderlands, 800-1800

in Serbian) in 1699. It promoted the growth of considerable trade.

35

time that it confronted the Ottoman advance militarily gave the Small Here, in what became the Vojvodina, the Habsburg authorities set
aside their commitment to mercantilist protectionism. Despite the
I republic, extending from the Bay of ~Kotor to the i~land of KorC~, ~e
barriers of the Military Border and the Sanitiits Kordon, the value of
chance to step in as neutral entrepot. \Vhen Vemce blocked ~gusa s
access to the Italian grain needed to cover the coastal food s9()rtage, its livestock, cotton, wool, and tobacco imports swamped Habsburg ex-
merchants opened a network of trade centers across Ottoman Bosnia, ports five-to-one. Serbia and Macedonia furnished a large share of the
Serbia, Macedonia, and even Bulgaria. Ottoman regulations made dir- goods and also some of the traders, although Greeks and Vlach Tsintsars
ect imports of grain difficult, but the profitable manufacture of raw were probably more prominent. They all moved back and forth across
wool imported across this overland network soon opened the way. The the border, sometimes settling themselves or encouraging others to
Ragusan legacy of European commercial practice and credit instru- settle in Habsburg Neusatz (Novi Sad) on the Danube or in Belgrade
ments survived the seventeenth-century demise of the network itself on the Ottoman side, at the confluence of the Danube and the Sava. 26
when Ottoman-Habsburg warfare cut its lines of communication.
Ottoman Sarajevo was able to draw on this legacy and even assume
24
., I.
Such traffic reduced the economic and intellecrual isolation that had
confined Serbs since the fall of their medieval empire, although little
some of the Ragusan role as a trade center by the eighteenth century. political change was experienced until the nineteenth century.
Just as the city was recovering from a Habsburg sacking and subse-
quent fire in 1697, Venetian weakness opened its way to the Dalmatian Mixing populations and ideas
port of Split. (Bosnia-Hercegovina would have no port of its own to the
present day.) At 50,000 or more, Sarajevo was, with Belgrade and This Habsburg borderland was the largest arena for mnong ethnic
Skopje, one of the few large towns in the early modem territory of the populations and exposing their educated elites to the mainstream of
future Yugoslavia. (Ragusa's population in the seventeenth century, for European ideas. Yet it was hardly the first in the future Yugoslav lands.
instance, was about 7,000.) At least some of Sarajevo's trade moved Three hundred years earlier during the fifteenth century, the Dalmatian
east and west, not just north and south to and from the port of Split. coastal towns had begun sending Latin-speaking scholars (not all of
The same could not be said for several Habsburg trade centers that them Catholic priests) to the universities of Padua and Buda. They
also became important by the eighteenth century.
25
These were the returned committed to the tenets of pre-Reformation humanism that
ports of Trieste, Fiume (now Rijeka), on either side of the Istrian the Western rediscovery of classical antiquity and the Italian Renais-
Peninsula, and Novi Sad on the Danube and the overland route across sance had called forth. By the sixteenth cenrury, according to Michael
the Vojvodina. From the Adriatic ports, commercial traffic moved north Petrovich, some 200 Croat humanist scholars had emerged from these
to Vienna and Budapest, making literally no connection among the Dalmatian towns. 27 By the eighteenth century, Dubrovnik alone had
future Yugoslav lands and scarcely any within them. Trieste was by far produced some 24 writers of humanist, Renaissance, or baroque prose
the more important port, offering the shortest route from Vienna to the and poetry, a majority in the Croat vernacular. The plays of Marin
Adriatic and accounting for one-third of all Habsburg exports by 1783. Drzic and the poems oflvan Gundulic would pass into the short list of
Textiles from Austrian and Czech manufacturers thus found their way "Yugoslav literature" as European classics.
Italian residents and visitors lived comfortably in these towns, home
to Mediterranean but not Balkan markets.
A free port from 1719, Trieste's population was largely Italian. The as well to an uncertain minority of Catholic and Orthodox Serbs. Among
Slovenian hinterland nonetheless benefitted from the chance to supply the Catholic Serbs was the physical scientist whose name later honored
the port with labor, cloth collected from cottage industry, and even the first scientific institute in interwar Yugoslavia, Rudjer BoSkoviC.
some merchants after the Habsburgs' mercantilist effort to control trade More ethnic and religious coexistence emerged in early modem
!i Sarajevo. Although entirely Muslim in the early sixteenth cenrury, native
through a state company had collapsed in the 1730s. Rijeka on the
other hand had no connection to the Croatian economy until the nine- converts vastly outnumbered the Turks and came from a range of
ethnic backgrounds. By the end of the sixteenth cenrury, the town's
teenth century.
The Ottoman-Habsburg border to the east was stabilized at the increased population included more Serbs_, Croats_, or Sephardic Jews
Danube and Sava rivers by the Treaty of Karlowitz (Sremski Karlovci than Turks. Neither the Turks nor the ruling Bosnian Muslim majority

.i
 Empires and fragmented borderlands, 800-1800 37

had access to higher education in their own language. Muslim founda-

tions offered Islamic education in Arabic to primary school students, a
few of whom went on to Islamic high schools, medresa, that opened in
Sarajevo in 1537. There is some evidence of primary schooling for Serb
children, although not to the extent that the Franciscan fathers offered
to Catholic Croat children throughout Bosnia, using Croatian language
textbooks. In sum, Sarajevo's population came from four ethno-religious
groups, all South Slav save for the Jews, and did not include a large
Turkish garrison. These features made it unique among the major towns
of the Ottoman Balkans.
A still larger number of ethnic groups had undoubtedly collected
across the Habsburg territories that Serbs identified as the Vojvodina
by the end of the eighteenth century. Initially consisting (after 1699) of
the Srem between the Sava and Danube rivers, and the Backa between
the Danube and Tisza, the Habsburg addition of the larger Banat region
to the east in 1718 marked the start of a considerable effort to populate
these rich but largely deserted lands. Vienna's policy of what might be
called "populationism" sought to place settlers north of the newly ex-
tended Military Border as a further line of defense against the Ottoman
'! Empire. When Ottoman forces counterattacked in 1739 and ended the
brief Habsburg occupation of Serbia begun in 1718, "populationism"
became an imperative. As they had after 1699, these territories again
attracted Serb immigrants fleeing a resentful Ottoman regime to the
south. An imperial Habsburg charter had from the start served to attract
Serb immigration with corporate Orthodox rights to an elected Church
Council and a seat in Sremski Karlovci. The charter promised an Or-
thodox military commander, or vojvod, never appointed but bequeathing
the name for all three territories in Serbian: the Vojvodina.
Germans and others from the north needed more encouragement to
settle. Doubling the previous three-year tax exemption on free land and
housing soon enticed over 40,000 Germans, who were joined by Slovaks,
.1 Hungarians, Croats, and Romanians. Joseph II recruited another 40,000
i
German Protestants, promising therri.the same religious freedom as the
Orthodox Serbs and Romanians. Those with farming skills were favored,
and the Germans in particular introduced iron plows and cultivation
techniques that spread widely if not completely throughout the Banat.
By 1787 the population of the Banat had swelled to nearly 300,000,
with the Backa and Srem each adding another 20,000. 28
Not many within this diverse population were even acquainted with
the tolerant secular ideals of the European Enlightenment by the end of
the eighteenth century. The peasant majority of all these ethnic groups
lived peaceably as neighbors, but mostly in separate villages and almost
 38 Yugoslavia as History

never in marriages that required one partner to change religion. Separ-

ate church schools offered limited primary education. In the towns,
!' the Catholic clergy was most interested in using the growing olitical 2 Unifying aspirations and rural resistance,
influence of Hungarian authorities to press for conversion of tlalOrtho- 1804-1903
dox Serbs. The Serbs' Patriarchate at Sremski Karlovci me'?'while con-
centrated its intellectual energies on defending the corporate authority
granted it by Austrian authorities.
And yet there were exceptions, enough on the Serbian side to give
Novi Sad the reputation, in retrospect, as the "Athens of Serbia." The
Orthodox monk, Dositej ObradoviC, an almost-Protestant traveller,
teacher, and encyclopedist, was the most influential figure to join the Although we can find no real prospect for a Yugoslav state or practice
government of Serbia proper during the First Uprising (1804-13). His of common politics before the twentieth century, a South Slav, or
rationalist view of the world made him anti-clerical, along the lines of Yugoslav, idea still emerged during the nineteenth cenrury. According
Emperor Joseph II, if hardly an opponent of a separate Serbian identiry. to this idea, the peoples of the furure Yugoslavia, and possibly Bulgaria,
His less renowned compatriots included not only the sons of merchants shared a common ethnic fraterniry that should lead them to political
and Grenzer officers but also some of the Orthodox high clergy. Their unification and independence. Yet there were other unifying ideas,
access to the Enlightenment, interestingly enough, came from French Croatian and Serbian, and an existing Serbian state with which any
rather than German tracts, despite a Habsburg ban on the import of Yugoslav idea had to contend. Even in independent Serbia, much of
such publications. 29 the overwhelmingly rural population resisted the instirutional frame-
This small band of Serbs attracted to the eighteenth-century Enlight- work of the modem state.
enment should remind us of Croatia's fifteenth-century Humanists. Driving all of these unifying aspirations, deSpite rural resistance to
Although their immediate impact was obviously small, both introduced them, was the desire to establish central control under a uniform ad-
European traditions of universal values and individual rights upon which ministration. The geographic fragmentation imposed by the Habsburg
future generations of Serbs and Croats might draw to escape the con- and Ottoman Empires only reinforced the isolation of the rural peas-
fines of corporate claims and ethnic exclusivism. Ahead lay the nine- antry, particularly in the upland villages. During the nineteenth cen-
teenth century's lure of a single state for each ethnic nation to discourage rury, increasingly modern political administrations in both empires and
such an escape. Yet the imperial legacies just reviewed had introduced in autonomous or independent Serbia tried to reduce this isolation,
virtually no political ideas or institutions by which to integrate their trading taxation and military service for education and public order.
territories. They had, however, so fragmented these lands and mixed Peasant revolts in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, and Serbia later in the
their populations that such humanist values and some sort of multi- century suggest that many peasants did not welcome this bargain.
ethnic institutional framework stood the best chance of weaving them At the same time, the administrative capitals for this limited unifica-
together constructively. tion - Sarajevo, Zagreb, and Belgrade - were also becoming centers for
culture and commerce, if not for industry, modelled on contemporary
Europe. They constituted a new, native source of division. These small
cities contrasted more and more with the rural sea of backward agricul-
rure and illiterate peasantry surrounding them. Robert Tucker has called
the result "differential modemization." 1 The peasant majority might
embarrass the increasingly educated urban elite, as in Budapest or
Warsaw, but they also inspired them, as in Belgrade or Zagreb. Once
educated and armed, the peasants could confront the other principal
source of elite embarrassment, the real or presumed hegemony of the
European powers. For the future Yugoslav lands, Ottoman and Habsburg

39
 40 Yugoslavia as History Unifying aspirations and rural resistance, 1804-1903 41
hegemony was real, and even at the end of the nineteenth century, still
nearly complete. But, by then, the majority of peasants had their own From Illyrian provinces to Yugoslav idea, 1806-1860
smallholdings and most had small arms. They represented pptential The idea of a single South Slav nationality first surfaced in what be-
opposition to, as well as support for, any new state structure./ came known as the Illyrian movement. Early in the nineteenth century,
By the start of the twentieth century, political elites in Bp!grade and Napoleonic France tried to introduce the idea as a corollary to its
Zagreb, if not Sarajevo, were spoiling to push back imperial hegemony, centralized administration of the Adriatic coast and inland parts. It
but they hardly agreed on how to do so. Potential plans for Yugoslav resurfaced in Zagreb during the 1830s as a Croatian cultural strategy
coordination had to contend with Serbian and Croatian state ideas detached from practical politics. When the leaders of this Illyrian move-
that had grown up during the nineteenth century. When stated in that ment turned toward politics during the next two decades, they dis-
:1:
century's rhetoric of romantic nationalism, these two ideas for a unit- covered that opposition from the Hungarian and Austrian cores of the
ary nation-state were incompatible with each other and with any wider Habsburg monarchy frustrated them from within, while the existence of
Yugoslav idea. The Serbian and Croatian ideas sought to build on an independent Serbia did so from without.
existing communities, not the "imagined communities" of European
colonial construction described by Benedict Anderson. These ideas were
still romantic. They staked out huge territories on the basis of medieval French centralism and the 11/yrianprovinces, 1806-1813
claims to ethnic homelands or historic borders. To support their claims, Napoleon's France revived the ancient term, Illyria, to designate Croatian
I advocates elaborated on actual traditions, such as commemorating and Slovenian lands that it wished to mold into a single administrative
11
the Serbs' Kosovo battle of 1389. The celebration of these events still and cultura] unit. The advance of French arms, first at Venetian and
I fits modem nationalism's use of the past for verification, what Eric then at Habsburg expense, led to the creation of the Illyrian provinces
Hobsbawm has called "invented tradition. " 2 Serbian nationalists did so of 1809-13 (see map 2.1). Already by 1806, a French-controlled re-
!
to demonstrate unique suffering during the Ottoman conquest and gime had been imposed on largely Venetian !stria and northern Dalma-
Croats to show cultural superiority, both wishing to connect their group tia. In 1809 French forces extended this regime down the Dalmatian
alone to European civilization. In the process, each claimant began to coast to Dubrovnik and the Montenegrin littoral, and north into the
see or, to paraphrase Benedict Anderson, "imagine" the other as a Military Border and Civil Croatia just short of Zagreb. The new admin-
historical adversary. istrative structure also absorbed Carinthia and much of Slovenian
One must not jump to the conclusion, urged on by the disastrous Carniola as well as !stria, all with ethnically mixed populations.
end of the two Yugoslavias, that the rhetorical barriers erected by the The French administrators had in mind the actual lllyrian province
most narrowly focused nationalists reflect an incompatibility cast in that had been a part of imperial Rome, rather than the fifreenth century
stone. Such a view presumes adverse ethnic relations before ethnic revival of the idea by Croatian humanists who sought a reunion with
distinctions were much perceived and ignores evidence of socio-economic European culture. Napoleon's motive was primarily military, but polit-
similarity between Serbs and Croats. It also neglects the later potential ical integration proved to be a formidable challenge. Habsburg Slovenia
of related ethnic groups, particularly the Slovenes, to moderate between had been divided among several provinces, while Civil Croatia and the
them. True, the growth of separate political cultures and trade patterns Military Border lived under radically different regimes.
across the fragmented face of the future Yugoslavia during the nine- The long Venetian rule had also divided the Istrian peninsula and
teenth century did not build on this compatibility. Yet the very political Da]matian coasts. Coastal towns such as Split and Zadar were small,
fragmentation of the Yugoslav lands helped promote the search for but developed separate communal traditions of self-government pat-
some unifying framework. How else could their similar and mixed terned after Italian city-states and used the Italian language, if not
populations be accommodated? inhabited by many Italians. The largely Croat elite in these two towns,
Ethnic accommodation within a larger South Slav framework found plus some Orthodox and even Catholic Serbs, held the hinterland's
its earliest expression in the proto-Yugoslav concept called Illyrianism nearly landless peasantry in thrall under a colonate system of contrac-
by its Croatian creators. But were these South Slavs one people or tual sharecropping that dated back to Roman times. But in the territory
several related ones? The romantic inclination to view them as one further inland, wrested from Ottoman control by the early eighteenth
would plague the Yugoslav idea from the start. century, the Venetians introduced a system of free peasant soldiers on
 42 Yugoslavia as History r Unifying aspirations and rural resistance, 1804-1903

the Yugoslav lands to the centralizing framework of nineteenth-century

European state-building.
43

The French regime left a stronger legacy to the Yugoslav idea that
took shape later in the century. Again under Marmont, the fledgling
school system made a belated effort to teach one version of the Swkavski
dialect that became Serbo-Croatian and to encourage its use in fledgling
local newspapers. 4 Marmont wanted to build more schools than his
I Italian predecessor had and convert them from teaching in Italian to
teaching in Stokavski. But local communities would have to cover the
cost, and many could not pay. Their schools closed before the French
left. The brief experiment introduced the notion that Serbs and Croats
did or should speak the same language.
-, The French administrators simply assumed that Croat and Serb peas-
,J>
Q OTTOMAN
\.,Nil
.--- ants were, or should be, one people. France had rejected the regionalism
~fia in its own pre-revolutionary past, and its administrators presumed
--i\ any distinctions dividing South Slavs on the basis of their imperial or
~ ILLYRIAN PROVINCES -EM_PIRE 1) medieval past were equally irrelevant. Thus did the "new nationalism,"
I. Carinthia
2. Carniola
S. Croatia
6. Military Croatia (
\ '\_ that Benedict Anderson has identified in the American and French
3. lstria 7. Dalmatia \
s::
Revolutions as starting from a blank historical slate, bring the idea of a
4.Civil
0 100 200 ;oo
~
- single Yugoslav people forward for the first time. 5 European national-
ism of the nineteenth century would not welcome the notion of a blank
.\,J
'ii>'- slate .

ii,, Map 2.1 Jllyrian provinces, 1809-1813 Cultural Il/yrianism, 1835-1841

A small group of Croatian publicists and nobles fleshed out an early
state land, similar to the Habsburg Military Border and for the same native definition of the Yugoslav idea in the 1830s. Centered in Zagreb
military purpose. 3 (The most noteworthy example of these once-Venetian and other royal free towns of Civil Croatia, most prominently Karlovac on
districts is Knin, the capital of the Serb Krajina that broke with newly the Military Border, they sought to unite South Slav "sub-groups" from
independent Croatia from 1991 until 1995.) the Slovenes to the Bulgarians. Their leader, Ljudevit Gaj, called this
Not until 1810 did French Marshal Auguste Marmont arrive to initi- union "Greater Illyria," recalling both the French provinces and the
ate a full-scale but short-lived effort to tum these disparate territories assumption by early modem Croatian humanists that the South Slavs
and populations into a Dipartement of Napoleon's central government. were somehow descendants of the ancient Illyrians. The son of a Slovak
He introduced the Napoleonic Code with its provisions for equality pharmacist and a German mother who had settled in the northern
under the law and independent courts. Marmont tried to abolish the Croatian Zagorje, Gaj grew up in a German-speaking family. He fast-
colonate system and introduce free trade. But he also levied high taxes ened on the importance of language after a search for his own ethnic
on landowners and imposed roadbuilding and military obligations identity that began at the Franciscan monastery library in his native
on coastal peasants. Both landowners and peasants resisted these new Krapina. During his university studies in Vienna, Graz, and Budapest,
obligations, despite the considerable number of Croatian, Italian, and from 1826 to 1831, he discovered the growing Central European main-
French administrators dispatched to implement them. The failure of stream of ethnic anthropology, following the lead of the Baltic German
Napoleon's Russian campaign in 1812 soon ended the French regime, philosopher, Johann Gottfried Herder. It emphasized linguistic origins
but this set of regulations and administrators nonetheless introduced over historical precedent. Gaj launched the literary journal, Danica ilirska,
44 Yugoslavia as History Unifying aspirations and rural resistance, 1804-1903 45
in Zagreb in 1835 to mobilize support for creating the single literary I 840. Vienna's growing concern with Magyar nationalism elicited suffi-
language on which a single state could eventually be built. cient Habsburg support to overcome Hungarian objections.
Starting from the cultural Pan-Slavism of its Czech and Slovak ~~ders, This widening support did little to attract followers from Slovenia
Gaj soon adopted Protestant Slovak Jan Kollar's designati0'fi of the or Bosnia to the movement. Even with the adoption of Gaj's ortho-
South Slavic dialects as one of the four major units in the ,JJPectrum of graphy, the Slovenian language was, as their leading Slavicist, Jemej
Slavic languages. Gaj pushed ahead to consolidate these dialects into a Kopitar, emphasized, too different from the Stokavski core. In Ottoman
single language, based on the most common, Stokavski_,like the F~e_nch Bosnia, only a few Franciscan (usually Croat) priests were attracted
school project. This common language would ovemde the religious despite an insignia that combined star and crescent in order to appeai
differences between Catholic and Orthodox that he believed were as to Muslims as well.
secondary as other historical distinctions imposed by external a~thori~. Nor did the Serbs in the Vojvodina or in Civil Croatia show much
The movement's clearest manifesto was its short dictionary. Pnnted m in:e.rest, while the large number from the movement's stronghold in the
1835, it amalgamated words from different dialects, even from the ~bht~ry Bord~r seemed determined to hang on to a separate Serb
substantially different Slovenian language, into a single framework. Its identity. Despite some contact between Gaj and KaradZiC, Serbians,
"Illyrian" admixture was an initial version of Serbo-Croatian, ~r m~re or those from Serbia proper, bridled at the term "Illyrian " instead of
accurately, Croato-Serbian, as opposed to the single west Serbian d1~- "Serbian" or ''Yugoslav." Gaj himself counseled that "a Se~b will never
lect from Hercegovina that the Serbian linguist Vuk Karadzii: was codi- be a Croat or a Slovene," but never defined the difference. In addition,
fying into modem Serbian at the same time. . he constructed his first notion of these ethnic "sub-groups" uniting
It was, however, the immediate political challenge of Hunganan hege- under a common language before a Serbian state existed. That such a
mony rather than the longer-term attraction of a single South Slav state was now emerging helps us understand the disposition of Croat
language that drew supporters from the noble elite of Civil Croatia into nobles, s~ch as C?unt DraSkoviC, to confine their aims to the presum-
Gaj's growing Illyrian movement. They were reacting to two .threats, ably medieval Tnune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia.
according to Elinor Murray Despalatovii:. 6 First, the Hunganan lan- !hey wished to avoid any connection with the small Serbian principal-
guage law of 1827 promised to conduct affairs of government, includ- ity or the larger threat of Russian influence. 7
ing the parliament to which Croatia sent representatives, m Hunganan
rather than Latin. Second, the Hungarian Diet of 1832-36 passed a
Political Il/yrianism and 1848
liberal program of rural reform that reduced the rights of all nobles,
Croats included, to control their peasantry. The Croatian nobles re- Before any real connection to Serbia could appear, Gaj and his aJlies
acted by introducing a bill before that body to make "Illyrian" rather had transformed the Illyrian movement into a political party. The forma-
than Latin (or Hungarian) the language of government in Slavonia and tton m Civil Croatia of a Magyarone Party that rejected the "Illyrian
Dalmatia as well as Civil Croatia, the three components of the Triune language" and any attendant national identity forced their hand. The
Kingdom (meaning the medieval Croatian state) that they so~ght _t_o urban and noble elite of the Illyrian Party won seats in the local elec-
reunite. In his Dissertation, the Croatian leader, Count Janko Draskovtc, t10ns of_ 1841-42. _Their victory in Zagreb particularly antagonized the
also laid claim to Slovenian territory. He demanded the return of the Hunganan authonnes. By 1843 Gaj had to give up the leadership of
Military Border under terms that would revoke the Grenzers' exemp- what was now the National Party, lacking the noble pedigree needed to
tion from feudal obligations. stt m .the Sabor. Its noble leaders concentrated on a more specifically
Tue nobles' alliance with Gaj's young circle of scholars and profes- Croattan agenda, persuading the Sabor to petition for Croatian control
sionals did not succeed in these broader aims or even in establishing a of the Catholic church and to make Illyrian the language of government
Croatian cultural society, similar to those of the Czechs and Serbs. as well as instruction in the Triune territories.
They did set up a nework of local reading clubs similar to those in Gaj returned to the political stage briefly in 1848 when the Hungarian
Ottoman Bulgaria and won royal permission to make Illyrian the lan- revolt against Habsburg rule led to the suppression of both Croat and
guage of instruction in the elementary schools of all three territories by Serb activities, from Civil Croatia to the Vojvodina. The Hungarian
 46 Yugoslavia as History Unifying aspirations and rural resistance, 1804-1903 47
parliament voted to separate Civil Croatia completely from Slavonia,
reaffirmed Latin as the official language, and refused to recognize the
hasty Habsburg appointment of Josip Jelacic, a Croat military 1folonel
from the Military Border, as Ban of Civil Croatia and Slavooia. The
first Croatian Sabor to include non-nobles countered by elj)ninating all
feudal obligations for the peasantry. Hungarian troops put down an
initially successful revolt by Vojvodina Serbs, led by their Orthodox
Metropolitan and supported by volunteers from Serbia and regulars
from Jelacic's forces. The Vojvodina Serbs demanded their own linguis-
tic and religious autonomy, including an annual assembly that would
have given lay representatives a political forum. Yet they sought no
special connection with ~-=rbia. JelaciC too wanted an informal alliance,
not a South Slav state including Serbia. Gaj had already made a clumsy \ .,.
e
effort to discuss such a state with Serbia's recently deposed ruler, Milo ITALY I\ Q

ObrenoviC. Gaj's entanglement in Obrenovic's visit to Zagreb and a

8
~ Habsburg lands
subsequent financial scandal ended his own political career.
1//Z Habsburg military border
The wider debacle of 1848 also ended the first efforts to form a Serb- ---- Provincial boundaries
Croat alliance that had any prospect of throwing off Austro-Hungarian ~ - - Hungarian/Ottoman
principality boundaries
control. Military assistance to the monarchy against the Hungarians
- -- International boundaries
won the Habsburg Serbs and Croats no political rights in the authorit- 10, 200 300
arian Austrian regime that prevailed from 1849 to 1860. The Croatian
'----.:'.:":::OM~E;:T::"::.'
___ _JL~-,,~
Sabor was not allowed to meet again during this period. Vienna ruled <,.._
both the Vojvodina, now consolidated in response to Serb demands in
Map 2.2 Serbia and the Habsburg Lands, 1830-1878
1848, and Dalmatia even more directly. 'Ibis sorry end to the Illyrian
movement has in part been attributed to Gaj's lack of political experi-
9
I
ence, but two broader limitations must be emphasized. First, the move- a_rmy and a civilian bureaucracy. If its increasingly democratic constitu-
II! ment lacked any base in the overwhelmingly illiterate peasantry that t1o~s. were observed mainly in their breach, the state also acquired a
made up 90 percent of the Croat population. Their emancipation was poht1cal culture based on more independent experience than any of
'1

I
i the noble-led National Party's last thought, not its first. Second, the the other South Slav peoples. At the same time, the Serbian idea of a
,1
movement left the question of any new nation-state's identity unre- ~odem state was imported from the Vojvodina with the same confla-
solved. Gaj, nobles like Draskovic, and Ban Jelacic were quick to dis- t~on o~ corporate and national rights that predominated over individual
agree about what form a new South Slav entity should take and what nghts
. m. the. Habsburg or Ottoman lands . Wh1'le doubl' mg 1n size
an d
'! its relation should be to an already autonomous Serbia (see map 2.2). mcreasmg Its population from one-half million to 2.3 million between
Arguments over these same issues would plague Croatian politics from 1830 and 1900, Serbia also became more Serb. Afrer a limited number
this time forward. of Turks, Albanians, and Bosnian Muslims had been forced out and
Greek traders had voluntarily departed, its ethnic composition was nearly
90 percent Serb by the end of the century.
Serbia as a nineteenth-century nation-state
Serbia and the future Yugoslav capital of Belgrade spent much of the
The First Serbian Uprising
nineteenth century building the framework for a modem nation-state.
This achievement was unique among the future Yugoslav territories. The still-honored First Uprising against Ottoman rule (I 804-13) was
Although it took almost the entire century, Serbia created a modem too bnef and msecure to acquaint its village leaders with European
 48 Yugoslavia as Hiswry Unifying aspirations and rural resistance, 1804-1903 49
political institutions or military organization. The First Uprising began attack. The assemblies of village elders, the heads of extended zadruga
as a frontier revolt against the latest in a century of rapid reversals of families or groups of families, lost their right to elect military as well as
Serbian fortune at the hands of Ottoman forces. In 1690, }739, and civilian leaders in 1811, but they had launched the uprising and thus
1791, military alliances with the advancing Habsburg army ha.Yprompted preserved the legitimacy of local government in popular memory as
successful Ottoman counterattacks. After the third co~terattack, a srpska demokratija. In addition, educated Serbs from the Vojvodina,
weakened Porte formally conceded one right that Serbian village leaders preCani (literaJly, those from across the river), came in sufficient num-
had sporadically been given throughout the eighteenth century, the bers to establish their credentials for participating in future Serbian
collection of local taxes. Moreover, the Ottomans now allowed some of central governments, where their Enlightenment ideas of representative
this revenue to finance a popular militia. Displaced Ottoman Janissaries, consent would eventually bear fruit.
moving into Serbia after their exclusion from the reorganized Ottoman Foreign intervention was, on the other hand, discredited. Habsburg
army, tried to revoke these rights. In 1804 they killed as many as 150 economic exploitation and pressure for Uniate or Catholic conversion
village leaders, now called knezovi (or princes, according to Habsburg .,, during the occupations of 1718-39 and 1788-91 had already called
usage), and set off the revolt. Its initial purpose was to restore local Vienna's motives into question. The Napoleonic advance into Central
Serbian rights within the Ottoman framework. The brutal Ottoman Europe precluded any significant military assistance from that source
effort to suppress the rebellion_, led by the irregular units of Bosnian after 1805, and none was offered in any case. The Russian assistance
Muslims that were the closest at hand, helped change what was, by promised in 1806 never materialized, despite the dispatch of a small
accepted Ottoman practice, a "ritually correct rebellion" against the mission. When Napoleon's attack on Russia ended the Russo-Turkish
Sultan's enemies into a Serbian attempt to break free from imperial War of 1806-12, Ottoman forces were free to crush Karadjordje's forces
rule. Also at work, beyond the rallying cries of the knezovi, was the the following year.
receptivity of Serbian peasantry at the turn of the century to the millennial Total defeat after a long struggle and the ruthless reprisals that fol-
.; expectation that St. Sava would return to lead them and drive the lowed linked the First Uprising in Serbian historical memory to the
' Turks "across the blue sea. " 10 medieval empire's defeat at Kosovo in 1389, a defeat memorialized by
A peasant border trader named Karadjordje, or Black George, led an oral tradition of epic poetry. The bloody legend of heroic defiance
the uprising. He used his experience with a regiment of Serb volun- and cruel defeat now received a transfusion, as did the idea that restor-
I
1, teers, organized and trained by Habsburg officers in the 1788-91 cam- ing a Serbian state would be the best defense against future suffering.
paign, to win initial victories and then to survive a series of Ottoman But no one mentioned restoring the extended borders of the medieval
I assaults. After accepting a governing council of twelve locally chosen empire or reviving the title of emperor.
leaders in 1805, Karadjordje resisted their authoriry. He replaced them
with a larger body of his appointees in 1811, confirming himself as
Monarchic versus constitutional centralism, 1815-1874
hereditary ruler for life at the same time. His attitude toward repres-
entative government may be gauged from his answer to the arguments A Second Uprising began further south of the Habsburg border in
for constitutional accountabiliry posed by an educated Serb from the 1814, and it succeeded in forcing an Ottoman concession of limited
Vojvodina: "Well now, it's easy for this sovereign law of yours to rule in autonomy by 1815. Its leader, Milos Obrenovic, left his descendants to
a warm room, behind this table, but let us see tomorrow, when the vie with Karadjordje's heirs for the Serbian throne. Chances for recon-
Turks strike who will meet them and beat them." If Karadjordje failed ciliation suffered grievously when Milos had Karadjordje assassinated
' .
to introduce representative government, neither did he conduct a reli- as the latter tried to return from the Vojvodina in 1817. To his credit,
gious war against an enemy seen primarily as Muslim. Serbian Ortho- Milos bargained masterfully with Ottoman leaders in Serbia and in
dox priests joined in the struggle, but Michael Petrovich discounts Constantinople during the 1820s to slice Turkish and Bosnian Muslim
the idea that they led a crusade for the "Venerable Cross against the rights and reduce their presence, particularly in the countryside. He
Islamic Crescent."' 1 offered incentives to Serbs from neighboring Bosnia-Hercegovina in
This First Uprising left other legacies to Serbian political culture particular to immigrate, helping swell the largely rural population from
beyond the primacy of the military commander in the face of outside 450,000 in 1815 to 700,000 by 1830. When another Russo-Ottoman
 50 Yugoslavia as History Unif),;ng aspirations and rural resistance, 1804-1903 51

War broke out in 1828, Milos was well positioned to parlay for formal The new prince, Aleksandar KaradjordjeviC, was too weak to set his
autonomy. The sultan's decrees of 1830 first reduced Serbian obligations own stamp on a long reign tbat lasted from 1842 to 1858. That period
to permitting a few border garrisons and paying an annual tri()l,lte. The is remembered less for him than for his ministers, the most powerful of
decrees of 1833 tben agreed to the departure of all Turkis,,' civilians whom was Ilija GaraS~i:i,in. Born near Kragujevac in 1812, he had been
plus the restoration of six southern and western border diJtricts lost in educa_ted_i_n..<Jrfeltiii4German schools "across the river." Three of the
1813. sii-Oth~-~-C~nstitutionalist leaders were pre~ani, born in the Vojvodina.
MiloS's extraction of such concessions from Ottoman authorities came With GaraSanin in the central position as interior minister, they sought
from an autocratic regime in which he and his associates monopolized to modernize the small principality by bureaucratic autbority. They
the hard won rights of tax collection in Serbia and trade across the expanded police powers accordingly, and wrested state control of the
Danube. In 1826 his military forces put down anotber rebellion by small number of primary schools from tbe Orthodox church. Their
local knezovi of tbe sort tbat Karadjordje had suppressed in 1811. This most positive achievement, in the judgment of scholars from Slobodan
marked tbe demise of oligarchic regionalism. In tbe phrase of Michael Jovanovic on, was the liberation of village commerce so that peasants
Petrovich, only "constitutional centralism" was left to challenge the from tbe interior could share in the further expansion of Habsburg
native ruler's monarchic powers until the emergence of modem polit- trade. 14 The Constitutionalists' unwillingness to share power and their
ical parties later in the century. 12 resistance to a genuinely independent judiciary eventually allowed a
By 1839, however, Milos had lost his exclusive autbority and new, mix of local and commercial opponents to force them and the
more broadly based opponents forced him to abdicate his position as Karadjordjevic dynasty from power in 1858.
prince, the first peaceful transfer of power in modem Serbia's history. The monarchy soon reasserted its central position. The aged MiloS's
Milos had apparently placed tbe Serbian Orthodox church under his brief return in 1859 had little impact, but his son Michael's succession
control when he extracted its autonomy from the Greek Patriarch in the following year saw power returned to the modest palace and its
Constantinople in 1831. He forced out tbe several Greek bishops and first Serbian prince witb a formal education. Michael worked witb Ilija
I
named his own secretary as tbe new Metropolitan. But by 1835 tbe GaraSanin to eli1!1Jn~~c;:.QP.J2~~Jfi.0J1
__
from_ an increasingly dissatisfied Bel-
i
educated precani prelate extracted a statute tbat allowed tbe church gr~~~J_ite, esl}eCially those r:eturning from. uniVeTSityst:Udies in France~
internal autonomy. Commercial and political opponents, based in Bel- A censorship law in 1861 attacked tbe right to publish views opposing
grade, forged tbe first independent opposition. Belgrade was still a the regime's in the city's nascent newspapers. The prince dismissed a
small, Ottoman-style town of some 20,000 people in 1830. But tbe number of tenured civil servants and virtually dissolved the highest
mushrooming livestock export to the Habsburg lands, whose value court in 1864. Calling tbemselves Liberals in the contemporary Euro-
tripled again in tbe 1820s and again in tbe 1830s, had created a new pean tradition, opponents led by Vladimir Jovanovic refused to aban-
trading class jealous of MiloS's tax and trade monopolies.
13
PreCani don their demands for a new constitution and an elected legislature. 15
members of his regime were also uncomfortable with their subordinate Their chance did not come until other opponents of .M..ichaelassassin-
position. In 1838 a combination of domestic opponents and European ated him in 1868. The minister of war promptly used his troops to
consuls, the British representative in particular, finally pushed lviiloS make the Regency accept Michael's fourteen-year-old nephew Milan as
into agreeing to a kind of constitution. heir to the ..tlil'one. The ascendant Liberals were then able to oust
The document bears comparison with the Organic Statutes instituted conservative ministers and push through a new constitution by 1869. It
under Russian sponsorship for the Romanian principalities a few years eliminated the governing council and revived the Narodna SkupStina, or
earlier. It did not provide for a legislative assembly, but did create National Assembly, whose sessions every three years under Michael
separate courts and a governing council to which European-style min- had been largely ignored. Now all tax-paying males would elect repres-
istries would be responsible. A coalition of council members, dubbing entatives to meet annually as two-thirds of an Assembly that would also
themselves the Defenders of the Constitution, were soon able to force include the Prince's appointees. Although freedom of the press was not
MiloS across the Danube into exile. The coalition recognized a son of yet guaranteed, debates in the new Assembly became public occasions.
his rival Karadjordje as his legitimate successor in 1842, after clashes Its major factions, although not yet political parties, felt sufficiently
with council members ended the brief reign of one of MiloS's sons. independent by 1874 to force a sitting government to resign.
 !''

52 Yugoslavia as History Unifying aspirations and rural resistance, 1804-1903 53

The right of the Skupstina to initiate legislation and to control the religious freedom. GaraSanin specifically proposed a network of Serbian
state's budget, as well as its election by secret ballot, came only with the agents and e_~ucators, but called on them to pay spedal attention to
1888 constitution. Those rights would not become real until th5,.accession c9--=qpciatl~ll--with ..Catholic -priests, the Franciscan order in particular.
of a genuinely constitutional monarch, Petar Karadjordjevi(;,'in 1903. This was well and good; but the implicit designation of an undefined
subsidiary role for _the__~r()?t_~jn _s_omeunion _Yiith an en~ar:ged--Serbfa
/
inc1iiain-g-BOSiliani3de "'GaraSanin's double vision a fat8't"fl;~;henever'
National aspirations versus party politics, 1844-1903
twentieili--Eellilli-y pOiiticians, Serb or Croat, applied it to either of the
As in modern Greece, Serbia's leaders aspired to expand its borders to two Yugoslavias.
include fellow Serbs before mass political parties had taken shape. The Garasanin himself had ~o chanceI.t.o apply his ideas ..The first came
most complete statement of such Serbian aims was also the first. In in 184_8, when the Serbs of th;:Vojvodina revolted against the Hungar-
1844 then Interior Minister Ilija Garasanin revised a ten-page draft ian forC"esthey had first joined in a common uprising against Habsburg
memorandum prepared for him by a Polish-sponsored Czech advisor. rule. The Serbian interior minister avoided any formal support for the
t: This Natertanije, or outline, described in Pan-Slavic terms the unifica- insurgents, fearing Great Power objections, but sent agents to Dalmatia
tion of all South Slavs in a single, new state. GaraSanin substituted and aforementioned volunteers to the Vojvodina. He also worked be-
Serbs for South Slavs and made the existing Serbian state the center hind the scenes to forge an al_!i3:nce':Vith General JelaCiC, the Croatian
around which surrounding Ottoman territory with Serb populations Ban and commander of the forces from the Military Border that were
should be drawn. He added some vague references to the restoration crucial to the Habsburg suppression of Hungarian independence by
of Tsar DuSan's medieval Serbian empire. This much is well known, 1849. In return Vienna allowed the Vojvodina Serbs only to reaffirm
as celebrated by later Serbian nationalists as it is damned by their Cro- their religious 31.ltono_Il_lY,_ tightening its own political control, as already
atian counterparts. Yet this famed NaCertanije remained an internal, noted, until ha-Ilding it over to Hungarian authorities in 1860.
uncirculated memorandum read only by a handful of politicians until a Thus disilh.iSloned with the rewards of maneuvering within the
Belgrade journal published it in 1906. Habsburg lands, Garasanin turned in the 1860s to the Ottoman Em-
More important for the origins of the first Yugoslavia and the end ana
pire's European territoiief 11'Now foreign ffiiili~ter,-he PruiCe'fVfiChae1
of the second was its ambiguous call. fqr_)Jptl.! J!..GRa! Serliia and a c6ticlude,:raI!ianc;;;t;;;;J; Greece and Montenegro in case the revolt his
still larger South Slav sfii.te-:-Thecio,:;;:~ent invoked both the romantic Bosnian Serb-ri'efwOTfsaiitldpated became a ge0:eral uprising to expel
nationalism of Serbs standing alone and the Realpolitik needed to navigate the Ottomans from the Balkans. The prince had already authorized a
amol)._g ...th.e..,GreaLPowers. Ilija GaraSanin, the future foreign nifriiSter, large national militia with a potential force of90,000 men. But the
embodied both sensibilities. Even if his designation by David MacKenzie piiiiCe'S~3lie~Pted "militarization of Serbia" did ,~ot persuade him or
as the Balkan Bismarck goes too far, GaraSanin saw the inheren~_,9,ang~r visiting Russian officers that the effort to train or equip to European
of overdependence on Habsburg trade to much smaller Serbia's sur-16 standards what was still a set of local militias had succeeded. He re-
- .,,,- ....... __
., ..-. ,.. ,_.,_,,.
vival, l)articlllarly if Vienna managed to use that leverage politically. jected his foreign minister's advice simply to send the new army across
Anticipating the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, he sought to deny the Drina river into Bosnia at the first sign of revolt, against Austrian
the Balkans to both Russian and Austrian domination. wishes and with little prospect of victory. 18
The NaCertanije itself uses the language of romantic nationalism to Michael's judgment was vindicated, but only after his assassination
propose a Serbian state that would include Bosnia-Hercegovina, the next year. Almost a decade later in 1876, still loosely organized
Montenegro, Macedonia, Kosovo, and northern Albania, with borders Serbian troops, supported by even more loosely organized Russian vol-
assuring access to the Adriatic. GaraSanin did not suggest retaking the unteers, rushed into Bosnia-Hercegovina to aid Serb peasants who had
far borders of Tsar DuSan's Serbia, much less moving the capital to revolted against their Bosnian Muslim landlords. Ottoman forces quickly
Macedonia. Belgrade and an enlarged Serbia would instead be the center repulsed two small thrusts. Their defeat forced Serbia to accept in-
of a still larger entity that would include Bulgarian and Croatian lands dependence in 1878 on Habsburg terms, set by the Great Powers in
but not the large Greek territory that Dusan conquered. Separate eth- Berlin to restrict aspirations for national expansion. Domestic issues
nic identities were to be respected, and the Croats were promised full were left to bring modem parties and mass politics to Serbia.
..,,.------------------
54 Yugoslavia as History Unifying aspirations and rural resistance, 1804-1903 55

The Liberal leaders who had ruled Serbia through the 1870s paid of the 1876-78 war in Ottoman Bosnia. Both the Progressive govern-
little respect to the increasingly active young monarch, Milan ObrenoviC. ment and Milan, newly crowned as king rather than prince, refused to
U
Now they were answerable to him and othe_r opponents for a :" eff?rt
1
back down despite Radical support for the rebels and their opposition
on the Bosnian border and in eastern Serbia that attracted Il9,T\.usstan to the idea of a national army. The Radical Party leader was alreadv the
support and yielded only the modest addition of _the south_s;rn Nis tri- 36-year-old Nikola Pasic, a native of the Timok region and educat~d as
angle in the final peace settlement reached at Berlin m 187g. Whe~ the an engineer in Switzerland. The king's peasant regiments held together
Liberals introduced new income taxes to pay for some of the war s ex- and put down the revolt, forcing PaSiC into five years of exile in Bul-
penses and signed the one-sided trade agreement proposed by Austria- garia. 20 Such local resistance to the power of a modernizing central
Hungary, Milan seized the occasion to dismiss them. The so-called government was popular enough to help Pasic lead his party to a sweep-
young conservatives, successors to GaraSanin's generation, now formed ing victory in the elections of 1888. They won every seat in the Skupstina
the cabinets of 1880-87. They established themselves as a formal party and quickly ratified a more democratic constitution. It gave majority
called the Progressives and created a club for their Skupstina members. rule from the Assembly the right to dominate the political process and
They must be credited with a series of press, judicial, and educational to defy the monarchy. The Radicals were able to force Milan Obrenovic
reforms that drew on their leaders' legal studies in Paris. from the throne in 1889. Yet his weak successor, Aleksandar, was
The new Radical Party had in the meantime overtaken the Progressives strong enough by his majoriry in 1894 to discard the 1888 constitution
i with modem initiatives to attract a mass membership and organize a completely.
network across Serbia. Its village organizers and its widely distributed In the meantime, party politics had turned away from issues of do-
I I
newspaper, Samouprava (yes, Self-Management, here meaning local mestic development "aria back to the emJ.lllasis on expanded borders
;I self-government rather than the economic concept of 1:i.to's Y~gosla-
via) Jed the way. This party would dominate Serbian pohncs dunng the
be~by Ili~,Q~r.asa1:ip. In the warfare of l.876--78 with the Ottoman
Empire, which as we shall see had begun badly for Serbia in Bosnia,
decade before 1914. Moving away from its roots in the utopian rural its army drew on Serb volunteers from Kosovo to advance through the
socialism of Svetozar Markovic, which he barely articulated before his Nis triangle almost to Pristina by January, 1878. Before and after the
early death in 1872, the party's platform for the 1881 dections sought army's withdrawal, the new Ottoman Sultan, Abdud Hamid II, unleashed
only political change on the pattern of the French Radical program of Kosovar Albanian auxiliaries on the remaining Serbs. Depredations on
that same year. 19 The first comprehensive program for democratt~ re- both sides forced perhaps 30,000 Serbs from the four Kosovo villayets
form put before Serbian voters emphasized the primacy of the Natmnal and an equal number of Albanians from the Ni triangle. 2 t Enter "ethnic
Assembly and local government over the monarch and its ministries. cleansing", along with the migration that had explained Kosovo's demo-
Although their increased vote did not win them a majority, they were graphic history before and after the Serb migrations of 1690 and 1737.
able to push through a law for free, compulsory village schooling by The Radicals' 1881 program had endorsed the liberation and unifica-
1883. The Orthodox hierarchy that might otherwise have blocked secu- tion of all parts of Serbdom. By 1889 Pasic joined Progressive Party
lar schools was still embroiled in Milan's dismissal of their Metropol- For~ign lvliniste_r Cedomil MijatoviCl~-Sponsoring an elaborate com-
itan for refusing to pay taxes. The Radicals' other demands for democmtic memoration of the 500-year anniversary of the battle of Kosovo, com-
constitutional amendments and specific rights for local government might plete with the public promises to reclaim the territory.
not have prevailed had it not been for a local peasant rebellion that MijatoviC, who was also President of the Serbian Academy of Sciences
same year. . . and Arts, followed the earlier lead of Vojvodina Serbs for ceremonies
The Radical victory of 1888 and the fine, Belgian-sryle const1tut1on there to coordinate a series of events across Serbia. Most prominent was
that followed from it, drew heavily on wider reaction to the Timok the coronation of young Aleksandar ObrenoviC as King in an Ortho-
rebellion in 1883. Peasants from this eastern border region rose up dox monastery with the Russian Consul looking on. Kosovo was one
':.i1 against government agents rather than accept a law confiscating peasant issue on which they agreed - a revived if not "invented" tradition -
,, rifles and distributing a smaller number of new Mausers to local army and one which omitted issues of internal modernization entirely. Like
commanders. The law was part of a rational effort to organize a thor- Greece's megali idea to reclaim the territory of the Byzantine Empire,
oughly integrated European-style army, so as not to repeat the failures Serbia's quest for Kosovo would reinforce what Gale Stokes has called
 56 Yugoslavia as History Unifying aspirations and rural resistance, 1804-1903 57
"politics without development," a gro~J;ig stat~ ..appa.ratu,LP.~;:dy con- by 1896-1900. No one noticed that, by the later date, the population
nected to a bacbvard, rural economy. 22 had increased enough to lower the exports' total real per capita value.
But Serbian politicians did perceive the consistent direction of 85-90
.;easant agriculture and the Austro-Hungarian connectio.! percent of their total exports to Austria-Hungary as a political problem.
,I Such overdependence had already given the Dual Monarchy enough
/
Serbia's population and economy had grown significantly since the first commercial leverage to extract a secret agreement to monitor Serbia's
years of autonomy. But the structural changes needed to tum growth foreign policy in 1881. Then the Hungarian half of the monarchy and
into sustained development through rising productivity and modem its agricultural interests launched the decennial campaign of 1896 for
technology had hardly begun. No Serbian government had addressed Austrian concessions in order to renew its own customs union for
the issue beyond providing limited support for technical education and another ten years. Habsburg representatives fastened for the first time
a series of European loans to construct Serbia's section of the Orient on barring rival Serbian livestock exports as a painless concession to
Express rail line to Constantinople. After the first of these loans col- Budapest. Serbian traders now began to search for other markets. They
lapsed in 1881 with the death of French financier Eugene Bontoux, paid scant attention to the other lands of the future Yugoslavia because
other borrowing built the line and whetted the government's appetite they had the same primary products to export. In fact, Serbian sales to
for more. Debt service already consumed one-third of a ballooning these territories never accounted for more than 2 percent of its own
state budget by 1887. More loans helped double that budget again by pre-1914 export value. 24
I,I 1898, but not one more mile of track was built nor any other economic
project undertaken with the largely French loans.
1; Montenegro as mini-state
,::' ,' Considerable economic growth was nonetheless underway, making
state support seem less important. The population of Serbia doubled to By the modest economic standards just applied and by European polit-
reach 1 million from 1834 to 1859 and tlieri jumped to 2.5 million by ical standards as well, the nineteenth-century Principality of Montenegro
1899, including the 330,000 people added by the Nis triangle after the was significantly smaller, less developed, and more isolated from the
Treaty of Berlin. Primarily responsible were the high rural birth rate future Yugoslav lands. Yet the Black Mountain (Crna Gora) was import-
(over 40 per 1,000) and the continuing immigration of Serbs from ant for other reasons, as it would be again, during and after the Second
Ottoman Bosnia-Hercegovina and Macedonia. Extensive grain cultiva- World War. On these several occasions, the local inhabitants' military
tion on newly cleared land doubled the wheat acreage per capita be- valor on mountainous terrain defied foreign occupation. Here was one
;Ii tween 1862-66 and 1896-1900. Output per capita also rose until the reason. Montenegro also emerged as a state separate from Serbia, de-
"
Ii absence of modem methods or technology ori iliese peasant smallhold- spite an arguably Serb population, and it conducted foreign relations
ings forced it to decline after 1900. 23 with the European powers like any of the far larger independent states
The major export and major stimulus to urban growth beyond the of the pre-1914 Balkans.
state b_uieallc'racy gTOwing up in Belgt'ade was not gr.:1:in.by.t livestock. The initially landlocked principality was remarkably small and poor.
Hogs and cattle were herded on foot to Belgrade or other towns on the Its population even by the mid nineteenth century was barely 60,000
Danube or Sava rivers for transport across to the Habsburg Vojvodina and concentrated almost entirely in mountain villages unconnected by
and on to the Austro-Hungarian market. None of this made any contri- any roads. Low crop yields and limited cultivation produced enough
bution to the tiny industrial sector and little to urban growth. People in grain to feed only a fraction of its people. Livestock trade provided the
towns over 2,000 remained only 14 percent of Serbia's population by only export. Either work abroad or banditry at home was more profit-
the end of the century, less than in any other independent Balkan state able, and both were better respected. 25
and higher only than Dalmatia among the future Yugoslav lands. A series of Orthodox bishops based in Cetinje and supported by
The livestock trade's greater significance lay in the export boom and Russian subsidies had struggled with the leaders of a dozen local clans
the excessive dependence on the Austro-Hungarian market that it main- to establish some sort of central authority since the eighteenth century.
tained from the 1830s through the 1890s. Led by livestock, Serbian They came together only to hold Ottoman suzerainty at bay. Even the
export value tripled from 1835-38 to 1856- 60 and then nearly quadrupled last and most famous of these bishops, Petar Petrovic NjegoS, better
 58 Yugoslavia as Hisrory Unifying aspirations and rural resistance, 1804-1903 59
remembered for his powerful, almost epic poetry, could not collect
Strossmayer's Yugoslav Confederation
taxes or administer a legal system. He tried to do so, inspired by a sense
of collective Serbian identity, based on the Kosovo defeat and a religious The first mention of a federal Yugoslavia, and even the first use of
crusade to kill or expel local Turks, rather than by the Enli#tenment those words, came from the 1860s program of Josip Juraj Strossmayer.
ideas of individual virtue with which he was also famili.3/'. His most The Bishop of Djakovo (in eastern Slavonia) since 1849, the idealistic
moving poem, "The Mountain Wreath" (Gorski vzjenac), makes such Croat cleric with the deceptively German name spent the next decade
priorities clear. His secular successor in 1851, Danilo, managed to searching for a way to build a new movement for the cultural, really
promulgate a legal code and organize a unified army. He increased the religious integration of the South Slavs on the Illyrian pattern. He
new principality's size slightly in 1859, but was assassinated the next year. found it in what Mirjana Gross has called the "ideological system" of
Danila's successor, Prince Nikola, presided over Montenegro as it Franjo Racki, another Catholic priest. 26 Racki believed that Herder's
doubled in size and won access to the Adriatic. On Russia's urging, the political promise of "freedom through culture" could be fulfilled for
European powers recognized Montenegro as an independent state after the educated Croatian elite if only a single South Slav identity could
its forces stayed in the field longer than Serbia's in the Russo-Ottoman be created to include Serbs as well as Slovenes. Strossmayer and Racki
War of 1877-78. The subsequent Treaty of Berlin gave the principality together founded the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb
less territory than the initial Treaty of San Stefano and put its new in 1866 to pursue that goal through common scholarship and linguistic
coastline under Habsburg oversight. Russian subsidies to its state budget unification. Indeed, its secretary's priority was to publish a single dic-
continued. Limited separation of the prince's arbitrary powers after tionary for the Croatian and Serbian languages.
1879 betw'een executive, legislative, and judicial bodies did nothing to How could the Orthodox Serbs be brought into their Yugoslav state?
advance the backward economy. Strossmayer and RaCki suggested two unpromising solutions. They
At the same time, Montenegro's population of 117,000 within its crafted Uniate propaganda that asked Serbs to accept loyalty to Rome
new borders grew to 185,000 by 1900. The urban share passed in return, combining their liturgy with a revived glagolica, the medieval
8 percent. Pressure to work abroad and the chance to study there grew Slavonic language of the Croatian church. They also espoused the vain
accordingly. The state allocated a larger share of its budget for educa- hope that an increasingly restrictive Papacy, on the road to the doctrine
I tion than any Balkan state budget, funding enough primary schools to of infallibility by 1870, would relax its late medieval suppression of the
,I'
'I,,; decrease the urban illiteracy rate of males to less than 50 percent by glagolitic liturgy.
I 1900. Students going on to Zagreb and especially to Belgrade for higher Strossmayer used his position as a leader of the National Party to
education established intellectual connections with the future Yugoslav pursue political rather than religious goals during the 1860s. He sought
lands. But the separate Montenegrin military and political structure Croatian autonomy from Vienna rather than independence as a South
'!
continued on its own way, supported by Prince Nikola's ability to Slav state. The February Patent of 1861 allowed the Croatian Sabor
navigate his small state betw'een the European powers until the First to meet again and offered Civil Croatia the chance to send its own
World War. delegates to the new imperial Reichsrat in Vienna. Strossmayer led the
majority of his party in opposing participation. He counted instead on
Croatian and South Slav ideas in the Habsburg lands, the Hungarians granting Civil Croatia and Slavonia the autonomy for
1860-1900 them to become the center of a federation including the Military Border,
Dalmatia, and Slovenia. The presumption that Croatia would continue
Among the South Slavs of the Habsburg monarchy, the politics of to lead this autonomous part of the Habsburg monarchy emerged only
national aspiration were concentrated in Civil and Military Croatia, in such details as the Slovenian obligation to give up their language in
at least until 1900. Yet they also made an appearance in Bosnia- favor of the stokavski dialect.
Hercegovina, Dalmatia, and Slovenia. Of the three Croatian ideas for Strossmayer did not propose a specific connection with Serbia until
national integration, the Yugoslav idea had the shorter life span than 1866. The humiliating Habsburg defeat that year at the hands of Bis-
either nationalism or liberalism. marck's Prussia allowed the Hungarian leadership to win its case for
'i';

60 Yugoslavia as History Unifying aspirations and rural resistance, 1804-1903 61

autonomy. Budapest made clear its restrictive intentions toward C~oatia. suffocated the entire monarchy during the 1850s. Kvaternik died young
Ferenc De:ik, leader of the dominant Liberals, called the Croatians a dunng an abortive 1871 uprising in the Military Border against that
"non-political people" with a separate but lower culn~r~. His 1;~itude authority, while StarCeviC lived on as a reclusive sage until 1896.
accurately foreshadowed the limited autonomy for ClVll CrJ;l<lt1aand StarCeviC used his erudition and single-mindedness to put an indel-
27
Slavonia alone that Hungary granted in the Nagodba of 18j8- ible anti-Serb stamp on the Croatian national idea for the first time.
! Strossmayer's interest coincided with GaraSanin's efforts, alre~dy Born on the Military Border of a Croat father and Serb mother, he was
noted, to forge a system of alliances that would support a Serbian an ardent disciple of the Illyrian idea as a student during the 1840s.
military confrontation with the Onoman Empire. As we ~ave seen, Even then, the centralized political regime that French rule had brought
Serbia's foreign minister had already concluded agreements with Gr~ece to the Illyrian provinces attracted him. By the 1860s, he made Napo-
and Montenegro. Now he explored one with Croatian representauves leon III his political hero because the French emperor supported north-
as well. An assistant drafted a proposal for a Bosnian uprising that ern Italian independence from Habsburg rule, His Party of Right would
promised "local administrative autonomy" and equal central authority rely even more on Budapest as Vienna's adversary than had Strossmayer.
for the "two poles" of Belgrade and Zagreb in a future confederal state. Starcevic's subsequent disappointment with the Nagodba did not lead
But, as he had with the original draft of the NaCertanije, GaraSanin him to withdraw from politics like Strossmayer, but to extend his opposi-
revised the text. He eliminated the references to local autonomy and tion to Austrian rule of the Dual Monarchy. This disappointment also
the two poles, stipulating instead that Belgrade was the "natural encouraged his assertion of a purely Croatian ethnic character over the
r' f widest possible territory, Serb senlements included.
center , .. for unification of all Yugoslav peoples into a single federated
state." \Vhat Strossmayer had in mind, on the other hand, was a dual- Still, the mainsprings of his anti-Serb sentiments are as open to
istic arrangement like Austria-Hungary between his Croatian-led fed- question as their powerful impact on later generations of Croatian and
eration and Serbia. Strossmayer's explicit readiness, then and later, to Serbian nationalists is not, Did they derive from disillusion with his first
cede all of Bosnia-Hercegovina to Serbia in return for retaining all of ideological allegiance, the failed Illyrian movement? Or from his judg-
the Military Border, Slavonia, and the Vojvodina with Civil Croatia and ment (and Kvaternik's) that France was a more powerful and modern-
some Slovene entity, was not enough to win over GaraSanin. Nothing izing ally for Croatia against the Habsburg monarchy than Serbia's
came of the bishop's last project as an active politician, but this first presumed ally Russia? Should a personal search for a single identity to
conflict between Croatian and Serbian terms for some joint state make overcome his own mixed, Serb-Croat parentage be included? Positive
it significant. 28 answers to any of these questions suggest that StarCeviC was not simply
reacting to the 1849 publication of an essay written by the leading
Serbian linguist, Vuk Karadzii:, in 1836. Vuk's "Serbs All and Every-
Croatian national and liberal ideas where" (Srbi svi i svuda) claimed that all Stokavian speakers, and thus
The Nagodba of 1868, its modest amendment in 1873, and the incor- the majority of Croats, were Serbs regardless of religion.
poration of the Military Border into Hungary in 1881 fixed the frame- 'Whatever the origins of StarCeviC's ideas, he expressed them elo-
work within which Croatian political culture developed for the rest of quently and at length. He downplayed religious differences, but argued
the century. By the 1870s, two independent currents had already estab- that the Serbs of Bosnia and the Military Border were really Orthodox
lished themselves in Croatian politics. They were the nationalism and Croats who, like the Bosnian Muslims, would voluntarily acknowledge
liberalism that have survived to the present day in Croatia, as the their tie to the historical Croatian nation once it was shown to them.
peasant and socialist currents of the early twentieth century have not. Forced conversion to Croat or Catholic identity was admittedlv as far
Both nationalism and liberalism had appeared in Croatia before 1868, from his mind as were any of the other arbitrary features of C~roatia's
but unlike nineteenth-century Yugoslavism, they survived the shock of fascist government during the Second World War. Yet it was he who
the Austro-Hungarian Nagodba and Serbia's terms for a joint state. coined the pejorative term, "Slavoserb," revived by Croatian fascists
The leading proponents of a separate Croatia were Ante StarCeviC and and again later by some of the Zagreb media during the 1991-92 war
Eugen Kvaternik. They founded the Party of Right (read State's Rights) to describe an inferior people who were not a nation but "a race of
in 1861 to fight the centralized Austrian regime in Vienna that had slaves, the most loathsome beasts." Even his colleague Kvaternik objected,
'I':
I,
u 62 Yugoslavia as History Unifying aspirations and rural resistance, 1804-1903 63

!I
!I
as he did to StarCevic's assertion that Slovenes were "mountain Croats."
In sum the same person whose writings on the organic unity of the
29 with the Hungarian l(jngdom and spread the use of a single Magyar
language. His mandate may well be viewed from the Hungarian per-
Croatian people were the most persuasive to be penned dll9pgthe spective as taking central control of modernization. At the time, Croats
nineteenth century also brought the dangerous idea of Serbiaq/4iferior- also blamed the long tenure of Count Karoly Khuen-Hederv:iry (to
iry, spiritual if not yet genetic, into Croatian politics. / 1903) for diverting their politics from the liberal path of the period
Both Starcevic and his Party of Right played a small role, let it be 1860-80. The new Ban ended judicial independence and jury trials,
emphasized, in these two initial decades of Croatian party politics. The revived the power of local government to defy the Sabor, and allowed
two branches of the National Party had split apart in 1863, one favoring religious schools for Orthodox Serbs as well as Catholic Croats to re-
cooperation with Hungarian and the other with the Austrian authorities open. If we add these measures to evidence that the urban elite were
as the better way to gain greater autonomy. Both won more seats in confronted with the prospect of creeping cultural Magyarization, this
Sabor elections than the Party of Right, as did the Unionist (formerly seems a fair charge. The Croat elite now interpreted the Count's
the Magyarone) Party that welcomed full integration with modernizing appointment of Serbs to high official positions, unlike Ma:iuraniC's, as
Hungary. Support for the modernizing initiatives that swept the new a policy of divide and rule.
Dual Monarchy after the Ausgleich won the reunited National Party a The MaZuraniCregime nonetheless shared responsibility with its suc-
majority in the Sabor by 1871. Its leader was Ivan Mazuranic (Starcevic's cessor for neglecting peasant interests, beyond regulations to permit the
former schoolteacher who had helped convert him to Illyrianism). He division of zadrugas, or extended family holdings. Peasants predomin-
became a leading literary figure after the publication of his masterfully ated in the 98 percent of the population who could not vote and were
tragic tale of a doomed Ottoman official in Hercegovina, Smrt Smail- still over 80 percent illiterate in 1880. The absorption of the Military
aga Cengica (The death of Smail Aga) in 1846. A lawyer by training, Border into Croatia-Slavonia in 1881 and the monarchy's occupation
'I Mazuranic favored cooperation with Habsburg Vienna from the I 860s of neighboring Bosnia-Hercegovina two years before helped set the
forward. In 1873 that earlier loyalty and a current disposition to con- stage for a peasant revolt in 1883 that spread more widely than Serbia's
centrate on domestic reform rather than confrontation with newly pre- Timok rebellion of the same year. Its origins and course had little to do
dominant Budapest led to his appointment as Ban. with the Croatian nationalism of StarCevic's small party, contrary to the
MaZuranic's slogan for modernization, "from the inside and outside" suspicions of Habsburg officials, and nothing to do with anti-Croatian
bore visible fruit in a number of towns, particularly Zagreb. The capital initiatives from the Military Border's sizeable Serb population.
now began to look like a city, growing from 19,000 to 28,000 people
during the decade and acquiring a Habsburg-style center of town. The The 1883 peasant revolt and the Military Border
new Ban made Zagreb the site of the first European-style university in
the South Slav lands. Educational reform made primary and secondary The unrest that spread from northern Croatia into the former Military
schooling more accessible, although without the support for secular Border in the autumn of 1883 began in Zagreb as a Croatian national-
education that Franjo Racki and Bishop Strossmayer had given to the ist protest. The Hungarian financial director had decided to hang the
new university. This Ban PuCanin, or People's Bah, also used the brief Hungarian state seal with inscriptions in both languages on his build-
period of Hungarian disinterest (1873-75) to push 36 internal reforms ings. This was not a trivial gesture. The director's pressure on his staff
through the Sabor, establishing an independent judiciary, some free- to use the Hungarian language over the past three years had already
dom of the press and assembly, and Jewish emancipation. In addition, aroused Croatian apprehension. A National Party newspaper sounded
:i Habsburg Serbs occupied the top three positions in his regime with no the alarm, and the streets of Zagreb and several other towns quickly
significant complaint from the Croatian mainstream. Indeed, the major filled with angry demonstrators. But the Party of Right failed miserably
American study of the MaZuraniC era finds "virtually no evidence of in its efforts to tum this urban furor into a rural insurrection against
significant tension between Croats and Serbs within Croatia during the Habsburg rule, even when they invited Serb participation.
1870s." 30 Instead, the insurrection became a peasant revolt against all tax-
In 1883 Budapest appointed a young, vigorous Hungarian Ban with collecting authority. It quickly spread from the Zagorje region north of
instructions to advance the administrative integration of Croatia-Slavonia Zagreb to the Banija district of the former Military Border. As Manuela
 Unifying aspirations and rural resistance, 1804-1903 65
64 Yugoslavia as Hiswry

Dobos has demonstrated, peasants rebelled for economic reasons unre- the threat of higher Hungarian taxes came from the other, western end
31
lated to the ethnic anxieties of the urban elites. Serious rural problems of the former Military Border. They evoked no echo in the Srem, even
had emerged across all of Croatia, although not as m~ch in tJJ..eless though pressures on the townspeople there for cultural Magyarization
populated, more prosperous Slavonia. Both the Hunganan abQl{t1on of had since mounted. In the meantime, the Serbian government's secret
serfdom in Civil Croatia after 1848 and the 1850 Austrian 1~ to make agreement of 1881 had granted Vienna a veto on its foreign initiatives,
Grenzer holdings on the Military Border inheritable property had underscoring Belgrade's inability to challenge the Austro-Hungarian
prompted parcellization of peasant land into uneconomically small home- occupation of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
steads by the 1870s. Legal obstacles prevented the dissolution and
subsequent sale or mortgage of the larger zadruga communal holdings Bosnia's transition from Ottoman to
and also discouraged efficient cultivation. Then, during the decade Austro-Hungarian rule
preceding the peasants' revolt, grain prices fell by half following the
world market slump, and land taxes doubled. Peasant resentment of The three-cornered warlare that bloodied Bosnian Serbs, Croats, and
Croatian as well as Hungarian officials, still the largest occupational Muslims after the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991 struck its earliest
roots during the period surrounding the end of Ottoman domination.
group in Zagreb, rose accordingly.
The Grenzer counted additional grievances against the rapidly swell- Serb-Muslim antagonism had spread in the several decades prior to
ing state apparatus. The gradual dissolurion of the Border's special 1877 and sharpened thereafter. The hybrid features of Austro-Hungary's
status had begun in 1873. The process combined infantry regiments post-1878 Bosnian regime also made Serbs and Croats potential adver-
with other Habsburg units, and closed the special stores that furnished saries for the first time anywhere on the territory of the future Yugosla-
necessities like tobacco, salt, and (shades of Serbia's Timok rebellion in via. Habsburg rule shared one feature with the late Ottoman regime
1883) rifles at cost. New indirect taxes followed, and the final absorp- that provoked antagonism. Both empires sought to modernize tax col-
tion of the Border in 1881 gave the Hungarian Financial Directorate lection, military service, and education by bringing them under central
the power to impose more. This thteat prompted the Serb and Croat control. The same motive was at work in the policies that led to the
Grenzer to join together to expel all officials and even their own priests peasant uprisings of 1883 in both Serbia and Croatia, but had no
from a number of Banija villages. Their common adversaries were the consequence there for ethnic conflict.
kaputaSi, or frock-coat-wearing urban officials, who only asked for taxes Ottoman reforms earlier in the nineteenth century had tried to put a
and offered no assistance for agricultural modernisation. modem army in place of the autonomous Janissary corps locally en-
trenched around the empire. Military reform directly challenged the
ii
.I
Serb officers in the Croatian Krajina and townspeople in the Slavonian
Krajina already saw the Habsburg administration of Croatia-Slavonia
as working to their ethnic disadvantage. When the Grenzer delegates
power of the Bosnian Muslim elite. Their local lords (begs and agas)
commanded the Janissary Corps and held land which was sharecropped
I' admitted to the Croatian Sabor for the first time in 1861 were expelled by largely Serb peasants. The proportion of Serbs in Bosnia had risen
''
'' ...1
for rejecting participation in the new Austrian parliament, a number of with migration from 10 to 40 percent of the population during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. From 1815 Bosnian Muslim forces
Serb junior officers defected to Serbia. Some of them helped organize
I support along the Military Border for GaraSanin's Serbian schemes to also held the six western and southern districts of Serbia that Prince
32
foment an uprising in Bosnia-Hercegovina against the Ottoman regime. Milos was finally able to bargain back from the Porte in 1833. By then
the Bosnian Muslim elite had already organized a military expedition
'ij Such initiatives from Serbia only deepened Hungarian determination
against the regular Ottoman army. Their force briefly won victories as
to dissolve the Military Border, to which the emperor finally agreed in
1871. Two years later, the liberal Mazuranic introduced a single system far away from Bosnia as Kosovo and demanded autonomy, before be-
of secular schools that threatened the survival of the Serbs' Orthodox ing defeated. Bosnian Muslims also resisted the efforts of further Otto-
church schools in the previously protected Border. Serb townspeople in man reforms after 1839 to end the system oflocal commanders entirely.
the Srem, the eastern area between the Danube and Sava rivers border- Fina1ly, the arbitrary efforts of a new Ottoman governor to raise taxes
ing Serbia, protested, but there was little response from the country- and to make the state rather than local landlords the tax collectors
side. The Serb peasants who joined Croat peasants in 1883 to oppose triggered a last, failed Bosnian Muslim revolt in 1851. 33
 66 Yugoslavia as History Unifying aspirations and rural resistance, 1804-1903 67

Serb peasants comprised over one-third of the 1.3 million people in way. The resulting pressure to collect taxes encouraged the Finance
Bosnia-Hercegovina by the 1860s. They had already staged local re- Ministry to abandon the Croatian governor and his harsh treatment of
volts in 1834 and 1842 against their landlords' impositions, mlpemore the Muslim elite in favor of accommodating them and the existing land
severe by the economic decline after the increased transit tr:~e of the regime. A hasty cadastral survey also increased the area on which the
Napoleonic era had ended. New 1848 regulations deman<j,<d one-third sharecropping kmet majority of the population owed a recently reduced
of the grain harvest or forced labor in its place and spawned four more crop tax. In the meantime, Habsburg authorities encouraged Serb refu-
uprisings by 1862. For these rural Serb sharecroppers, all 400,000 gees to return to Hercegovina after the 1875-78 uprising by allowing
Bosnian Muslims seemed to be inextricably implicated in their griev- them to form their own paramilitary units. When the returnees realized
ances, not just the 10,000 members of the typically landowning elite. what taxes they faced and learned in late 1881 of the further Habsburg
Some of the 250,000 Croats, largely from Hercegovina, also drank requirement for compulsory service in the regular army, they rose up in
from this poisoned well, although they did not have the small commer- revolt. Several regular army regiments, now more Croat than Serb, put
cial elite that was starting to speak up for the Serbs and look to Serbia down the rebellion of 1882 but not the banditry that continued for
for relief. But both Croat and Serb peasants, illiterate as they were, had another decade.
local priests to add a confessional justification to their grievances. Greatly facilitating the restoration of order was the appointtnent of
The widespread violence which would surround the transition to an able Hungarian, who had become a South Slav scholar during his
i
L Austro-Hungarian rule began with the 1875 uprising in Hercegovina. previous posting to Belgrade, as joint finance minister to head the
Both Serb and Croat peasants were ready to take up arms when their Bosnian Bureau in 1882. Benj.imin Ka.Hay's tenure continued until
,:! demands to reduce a monetary tax burden, tripled since 1850, were 1903, and his second-in-command's even longer. Together they over-
rejected after a bad harvest. The killing of a Franciscan priest who had saw significant additions to urban infrastructure and the rural transport
traveled to Dalmatia for the visit of the Habsburg emperor, Franz Josef, network; they also founded a number of state industrial enterprises.
ironically set off the Serbs with the support of Montenegro. Ottoman These modernizing initiatives demanded higher tax revenues, even
and Bosnian Muslim forces soon put down the revolt and repulsed though they were introduced for the primary purpose of generating
a brief invasion from Serbia. In the bloody process, some 150,000 enough revenue to show an annual budget surplus. 35 The resulting tax
people, mainly Serbs, had been killed or forced to flee. This prolonged burden continued to fall most heavily on the Serb and Croat peasants
turmoil persuaded the European powers to add Austro-Hungarian still tied to sharecropping for Muslim landlords.
occupation of Bosnia-Hercegovina to the terms of the Treaty of Berlin, K3llay's insistence on confessional equality, combined with his in-
concluded in 1878 to rescind Russian gains from its recent war with the ability to advance interconfessional education, contributed to growing
Ottoman Empire. Austrian generals had coveted the province since tensions between Serbs and Croats. An influx of Croats, including
1854 as a land route to safeguard the Dalmatian coast. They also many Habsburg officials, and a newly aggressive Catholic hierarchy
feared Serbia's interest as a potential Russian client. It took nearly three made Serb apprehension inevitable. The Franciscan order lost its long-
months of sometimes heavy fighting for Habsburg units to subdue the standing monopoly on speaking for the Catholic church in Bosnia-
paramilitary forces assembled from the Bosnian Muslim population. Hercegovina to the Austrian hierarchy. It encouraged other orders,
The ensuing departure of more than 200,000 Muslims and Turks for Jesuits included, to send priests and brought an archbishop to Sarajevo.
Constantinople and the Ottoman core gave the Serbs a plurality in From the 1890s, Archbishop Josip Stadler used those priests to expand
Bosnia-Hercegovina that would endure until after the Second World the nerwork of Catholic primary and secondary schools. Kallay op-
War. To add to the legacy of 1878, the victorious Habsburg units were posed the identification of religion with ethnicity as "oriental backward-
primarily Serbs and Croats drawn from the dissolving Militaty Border ness" unsuited to state-building, but his choice of words revealed a
into regular regiments and still led by Grenzer commanders. 34 readiness to restrict the Serb Orthodox schools in particular. He abol-
A Grenzer general, a Croat, became the province's first governor. ished the special tax donation to the Serbs' Orthodox schools in 1884
Still, the terms of the Austro-Hungarian compromise now placed its and a number of them subsequently closed. Certificates of political
administration under a new Bosnian Bureau set up in the joint Finance reliability were required from 1892 for Serbs to teach in state schools
Ministry. From the start, the province was charged with paying its own which had in the meantime been staffed largely with Croat immigrants.
1l
;/
68 Yugoslavia as History Unifying aspirations and rural resistance, 1804-1903 69

In addition K3.llay opened a few state interconfessional schools in Serb Dalmatia and Slovenia as Yugoslav outposts
areas and vetoed a plan for 150 new schools throughout the province in
'I. I

1894, As a result, while rhe share of primary pupils in sta1,e schools Toe incorporation of rhe Military Border into Civil Croatia-Slavonia
climbed from 31 percent to 74 percent between 1882 anci/1900, rhe and Bosnia-Hercegovina into rhe Dual Monarchy concentrated large
Serbian share of all pupils dropped from 55 to 42 percpnt. The total numbers of Serbs under administrations that accorded them none of
number of primary schools rose from 40 to 200, but the number per rhe privileges given rhem on rhe Border and relieved none of rhe bur-
capita was still only half of Serbia's low level. Less rhan one-sixrh of all dens rhey bore in Bosnia-Hercegovina. The territorial changes also shifted
primary-age children attended school, and adult illiteracy, overwhelm- rhe focus of Serbs in Belgrade and Croats in Zagreb toward rhe lands
ingly rural, remained high at 90 percent. 36 between them. Austro-Hungarian efforts to point Serbia southward to
Kitllay must be credited with trying to articulate a common Bosnian Kosovo and Macedonia had no lasting success. Croatia was diverted as
consciousness for all three ethnic groups, an effort whose general failure well and more quickly from multi-ethnic connections wirh Dalmatia
then should not be used to deny such consciousness in Sarajevo and
orher large towns after rhe Second World War. His project to prepare a
.
.,;
and Slovenia. The Croatian diversions would prove most costly to the
Yugoslav idea.
new series of school texts struggled to spell out Bosnia's multi-ethnic A kind of Yugoslav nationalism appeared in Dalmatia during rhe
identity. The wider Ottoman past and Muslim classics were neglected. 1860s. Some urban Serbs and more Croats united to form the Nation-
His censors' resistance to any specific references to Serbia or Croatia alist Party and challenge rhe Italianizing Autonomists, who had used a
i delayed rhe volume on medieval history until 1901. None of rhe rhree tiny franchise to win rhe first election to a Dalmatian Diet in 1861.
They were soon joined by Franciscan priests representing the illiterate
groups' contributors to the texts nor the urban elites from which they
ii peasantry of the hinterland. The Nationalists avoided the name "Croat"
!! i came could be won over to his idea of BoSnjaStvo, a Bosnian identity,
more because it admitted no additional identity and demanded alle- in their demands, even though one of their goals was to reunite the
giance to the Habsburg administration than because of deep religious Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia. This rhey did to
animosities. 37 avoid a name offensive to Italian sympathizers because Grenzer regi-
Kallay's refusal to tolerate any form of political organization or ex- ments had participated in the recent Habsburg campaign in northern
pression pushed all three groups toward the separate political parties Italy. The name "Yugoslav" also reassured rhe Serb minority of 15-18
rhat emerged during rhe decade after his dearh. By rhat time, rhe Serbs' percent rhat rhey would be treated equally wirh Croats in any Triune state.
connection with Serbia and the Croats' connection with the Catholic It promised rhe coastal towns rhat rheir long tradition of municipal
hierarchy had hardened (see chapter 3). Nor had Kallay's initial con- autonomy would be restored if not rescued from Austrian centralism.
cessions to the Muslim community convinced them that a political The Nationalists persevered until they won a majority in the Diet in
~ party was unnecessary. Neither the office of Reis-ul-ulema that he cre- 1876 and even in rhe Italian Autonomist stronghold of Split in 1882.
ated for rheir religious leader in 1882 nor rhe regulation of 1891 rhat By then the entirely separate Serb and Croat tendencies from across
required family consent for conversion (usually from Muslim to Cath- the border in Hercegovina led to the creation of a separate Serbian
olic) in mixed marriages persuaded the Muslim leadership in Sarajevo National Party. The remainder in Hercegovina renamed themselves
and rhe orher towns rhat rhey could trust rhe Austro-Hungarian bur- the Croatian National Party a few years later. 38
eaucracy to represent their best interests. The Slovenes' connection with Croatia and the Yugoslav idea was
The idea rhat rhese interests and rhose of rhe Bosnian Serbs and even more brief but portentous. Their population was scattered among
} six Austrian provinces or territories, most with German or Italian
I;, Croats might best be served in a single South Slav state crossed relat-
ively few minds by the end of the nineteenth century in this most ethnic majorities - hence the appeal of some South Slav support, once

f erhnically mixed part of rhe future Yugoslavia. Chapter 3 will explore rhe Illyrian insistence on abandoning rhe Slovenian language had been
how accelerating urban modernization and new political possibilities set aside. Bishop Strossmayer's more accommodating "Yugoslavism"
after 1900 brought rhat idea to Bosnia, where distinct Serbian and and rhe Bishop himself encouraged a small group of Slovenes to draft
i,!11. Croatian ideas already had a foorhold. rhe Maribor Program for a single Slovene entity wirhin rhe Habsburg
I':
''
 70 Yugoslavia as History

monarchy. The proposal had no practical prospects, but the idea of a

larger, South Slav province began to attract large crowds to a series of
I
tabor, or town meetings. As a result, some 100 representatiVelJ,,,.of
Serbs 3 New divisions, Yugoslav ties, and Balkan
and Croats as well as Slovenes were invited to a meeting i~jubljana Wars, 1903-1914
in 1870 to decide what to do next. The Slovenian orgapizers had to
expend considerable effort to persuade the Croatian National Pany
delegates to include a smaller number of Serbs. 39 Nothing came of the
meeting, understandably, given the delegates' weak political position.
The next year, this leading Croatian pany accepted the Nagodba with
Hungary and after 1878 transferred its attention to winning political
rights for the Croat population of Hercegovina. Only the course of the First World War, as we shall see in chapter 4,
Slovenian politics turned inward after the 1873 elections and did not made it possible to form the first Yugoslav state in December of 1918.
tum eastward again until after the tum of the century. By that time the Yet calls for some sort of Yugoslavia were increasingly heard after the
uneven pace of accelerating economic modernization made the lack of tum of the century. Change was in the air during this last prewar
Slovenian political leverage within the Austrian half of the Dual Mon- decade. New political parties appeared, impatient over the promise of
archy more painful. Only then did their interest revive in a wider unit mass politics. The status quo looked less promising and less likely to
from which to bargain. Yet with little economic incentive in 1870, the last than it had previously.
Ljubljana meeting set a modest precedent for Slovenian mediation as a The year 1903 appeared to usher in a new era even at the time. In
way to bring Serbs and Croats together. Serbia, what began as a royal assassination and a military coup to install
the rival dynasty soon promised to make the independent state truly
a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy. Here was
a Serbia to envy or even to join. In 1903, the Illinden Uprising also
challenged Ottoman rule in Macedonia, and the twenty-year regimes of
autocratic if able Habsburg administrators for Croatia-Slavonia and
Bosnia-Hercegovina both came to an end. Across the South Slav lands
of Austria-Hungary, ethnically based political parties questioned the
existing political or territorial order. Their leaders began to debate
alternatives that proposed the unification of all or some of the future
Yugoslavia. The very word "Yugoslav" now passed into common usage.
The European economic and political milieu was now pregnant with
new possibilities. Accelerating economic growth and political unrest
were the rule across the continent. The popular press and other means
of rapid communication spread anxiety over international relations to a
mass audience. The advance of universal male suffrage made mass
iii politics a reality and gave nationalism a constituency that the new
anxiety could mobilize. Partly in response, states large and small were
rapidly expanding the civilian and military apparatus of government.
Politicians and people were, in Winston Churchill's words, "everywhere
eager to dare." By 1914 too many were ready to risk full-scale war.
Officials, students, and townspeople from Slovenia to Macedonia
shared an impatience for ethnic rights, class interests aside, and for self-
determination at any cost. The growing sense that precipitous change

71
 70 Yugoslavia as History

monarchy. The proposal had no practical prospects, but the idea of a

larger, South Slav province began to attract large crowds to a series of
tabor, or town meetings. As a result, s_o:e I 00 representative~~f Serbs 3 New divisions, Yugoslav ties, and Balkan
and Croats as well as Slovenes were mvtted to a meeting in..{.jubljana Wars, 1903-1914
in 1870 to d_ecide what to do next. The Slovenian orgal)izers had to
expend corn1derable effort to persuade the Croatian National Party
delegates to mclude a smaller number of Serbs. 39 Nothing came of the
meeting, understandably, given the delegates' weak political position.
The next year, this leading Croatian party accepted the Nagodba with
Hungary and after 1878 transferred its attention to winning political
nghts for the Croat population of Hercegovina. Only the course of the First World War, as we shall see in chapter 4,
Slovenian politics turned inward after the 1873 elections and did not made it possible to form the first Yugoslav state in December of 1918.
tum eastward again until after the tum of the century. By that time the Yet calls for some sort of Yugoslavia were increasingly heard after the
I
!' uneven pace of accelerating economic modernization made the lack of tum of the century. Change was in the air during this last prewar
Slovenian political leverage within the Austrian half of the Dual Mon- decade. New political parties appeared, impatient over the promise of
archy more painful. Only then did their interest revive in a wider unit mass politics. The status quo looked less promising and less likely to
from which to bargain. Yet with little economic incentive in 1870 the last than it had previously.
I
. I Ljubljana meeting set a modest precedent for Slovenian mediation' as a The year 1903 appeared to usher in a new era even at the time. In
way to bring Serbs and Croats together. Serbia, what began as a royal assassination and a military coup to install
I:' the rival dynasry soon promised to make the independent state truly
I
a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy. Here was
a Serbia to envy or even to join. In 1903, the Illinden Uprising also
1: challenged Ottoman rule in Macedonia, and the twenry-year regimes of
l_i autocratic if able Habsburg administrators for Croatia-Slavonia and
I
Bosnia-Hercegovina both came to an end. Across the South Slav lands
of Austria-Hungary, ethnically based political parties questioned the
existing political or territorial order. Their leaders began to debate
alternatives that proposed the unification of all or some of the future
Yugoslavia. The very word "Yugoslav" now passed into common usage.
The European economic and political milieu was now pregnant with
new possibilities. Accelerating economic growth and political unrest
were the rule across the continent. The popular press and other means
of rapid communication spread anxiety over international relations to a
mass audience. The advance of universal male suffrage made mass
politics a reality and gave nationalism a constituency that the new
anxiety could mobilize. Partly in response, states large and small were
rapidly expanding the civilian and military apparatus of government.
Politicians and people were, in Winston Churchill's words, "everywhere
eager to dare." By 1914 too many were ready to risk full-scale war.
Officials, students, and townspeople from Slovenia to Macedonia
shared an impatience for ethnic rights, class interests aside, and for self-
determination at any cost. The growing sense that precipitous change
71
 72 Yugoslavia as History New divisions, Yugoslav ties., and Balkan Wars, 1903-1914 73

was under way everywhere made the prospect of a larger, South Slav communal zadruga) split inheritances into ever smaller holdings. Al-
state more realistic, and gave it far wider appeal than before. though often on better land in Civil Croatia or Slavonia, the subdivi-
Then Serbia won the rwo Balkan Wars of 1912-13, absorbu,JJ north- sion of the Croat peasants' holdings had gone farther ( or started with
ern Macedonia and Kosovo in the process. Its victories inspjt'ed some smaller holdings) than for their Croatian Serb counterparts. The Croat
Croats and Slovenes as well as most Serbs in the Habsb)'rg lands to proportion of peasants on holdings under 3 hectares approached
think about a large_,new state as an immediate alternative. These events 80 percent by 1910, versus 16 percent for Serbs who made up 25 per-
also reinforced the conviction of the Austrian General Staff that the cent of total population (Croats were 63 percent). For larger holdings
Dual Monarchy needed a preventive war against Serbia in order to of 5 to 50 hectares, the Serb share was 37 percent.
retain its hold on these southern lands, most prominently Bosnia- Seen in historical perspective, these long-underpopulated lands were
Hercegovina. now filling up to levels that extensive small-scale agriculture could no
Across the spectrum of South Slav peoples there was continuing longer sustain. Serbian and Croatian population densities that had barely
disagreement or ambiguity about just what shape any new state should exceeded twenty people per square kilometer in the early nineteenth
take. Political divisions split the increasingly educated, urban elites of century approached sixty or more in 1910. Little wonder that the same
the various ethnic groups. In major towns_, new political parties fed on decrease in hectares cultivated for grain per capita seen in Serbia after
a mass press and mass education. Sharp commercial and industrial 1900 occurred in Croatia-Slavonia as well. 2
upswings after 1900 swelled the numbers of these divided elites at the The apparently rapid growth in both export value and industrial
same time that the advantages of a larger Yugoslav market first became production in Serbia and the various Habsburg borderlands after 1900,
obvious. Modernization, in other words, now mattered as it had not by as much as 10 percent a year, did little to relieve the pressure in
during the nineteenth century, at least outside the expanding structures rural areas. Serbia's exports declined in real per capita terms during this
for state administration and tax collection. decade before the First World War. The Austro-Hungarian periphety
Rural peasants still made up four-fifths of the population of the probably did not do much better, but this is unclear and controversial
future Yugoslav lands. They were less divided along political or ethnic from available data. More certain is the combined failure of the several
lines than the new party leaders, but were more divided economically. industrial mini-spurts to provide employment in modem manufactur-
Some peasants gained from the economic upswings of the last prewar ing for even 2 percent of the labor force across all of the future Yugo-
decade; the majority did not. The natural rate of rural population growth slav lands by 1912. 3
was simply too high, more than I percent per year, with no means to In addition, neither the commercial upswings nor the peasant migra-
buy more land or employ better agricultural methods to increase pro- tions fostered connections among the future Yugoslav lands beyond the
duction. As population growth outpaced what industrial stirrings from few exceptions to be described below. Trade between them remained
Slovene lands to Serbia could absorb, a significant number of the dis- minuscule; emigrants went elsewhere, to the Hungarian harvests or to
advantaged peasants consequently emigrated. Permanent or prolonged Czech or American factories. (The young Josip Broz, later Tito, ended
emigration removed fully 5 percent of the Slovene and Bosnian up in a Prague factory after deciding not to emigrate to the United
populations for 1901-10, and 7 percent in Croatia proper. Seasonal States from Trieste.) But this still amounted to more economic change
migration prevailed in Serbia and Macedonia, but over IO percent of than any of these lands had experienced in the last decades of the
Macedonia's population also made prolonged stays from 1890 to 1910. 1 nineteenth century, enough to call into question their connections to
Croatia-Slavonia's urban population increased its proportion slightly, the Austro-Hungarian or Ottoman Empires. None of it, moreover, cre-
rising from 16 to 21 percent berween 1880 and 1910. Much of that ated economic conflict between native ethnic groups; it even encour-
increase came from German and Hungarian immigrants, whose share aged their cooperation.
of total population rose from 7 to 9 percent. Over 90 percent of the Tables 3.1 and 3.2 offer some bench marks by which to compare
[l rural landowners worked smallholdings of less than 5 hectares ( one demographic change and distribution of land in these territories. Be-
'
hectare equals 2.47 acres), as they did in the other territories of the hind them lie the common features just recited: backward agricultural
future Yugoslavia. The equal division of property among all sons (done sectors overcrowded with peasant smallholdings and substantial urban
secretly in Croatia to avoid the tax burden of breaking up the old and industrial growth that fell far short of the promise held out by
74 Yugoslavia as History New divisions, Yugoslav ties, and Balkan Wars, 1903-1914 75

Table 3.1. Land distribution (pre-1914 census) Fragmented growth and party politics in the
Habsburg lands
Land distribution Croatia- Bosnia and The prewar economic advance within the largest and most modem
(size in hectares) Serbia Slavonia Hercegovina Dalmatia/ Slovenia
market, Austria-Hungary, became sufficiently disjointed to encourage
Up to 2 18.5 44.3 40.7 61.5 31.6 the search for a new political framework that would bring the south
2 to 5 34.3 27.2 26.4 25.8 19.4 Slavs closer together. Austrian or Hungarian restrictions kept franchises
5 to 20 43.1 27.6 18.7a 11.4 39.1 for regional assemblies small and made public meetings difficult. Still,
20 to 50 3.8 0.7 14.2b 0.9 8.5
Above 50 0.3 0.2 0.4 1.4
the monarchy granted enough press and organizational freedom to al-
low the practice of modem, if not mass, politics by competing parties.
The Austrian extension of universal suffrage in 1907 opened up Slovenian
a5 to 10 hectares
bAbove 10 hectares and Dalmatian politics even further. Independent Serbia offered a near
Sources: Ranko M. Brashich, Land Reform and Ownership in Yugoslavia: 1919-1953 (New universal male franchise from the start and developed new political if
York: Mid-European Studies Center, 1954), 10-15; and Jozo F. Tomasevich, Peasants, not economic connections with its western neighbors in the future
Politics, and Economic Change in Yugoslavia (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, Yugoslavia. The connections with Bosnia-Hercegovina and its new eth-
1955), 389.
nic politics deserve particular attention.

Table 3.2. Population, 1870 and 1910 (in thousands) Slovene lands and Dalmatia
The political division of the Slovene population among six provincial
Bosnia and administrations in the Austrian half of the monarchy may be recalled
Serbia Croatia-Slavonia Hercegovina Dalmatia
from chapter 2. It was, however, the increasing economic integration of
P" poc poc the future Yugoslavia's largest urban population with Trieste and its
Population sq. km. Population sq. km. Population sq. km. Population "''
sq. km.
rail link to Vienna that first stimulated Slovenian politics after 1900.
1870 1,302 1,838 I,042 457 (1871) The port's booming economy became the centerpiece that transformed
1910 2,912 58.3 2,732 62.3 1,898 37.l 625 49.1 28 percent of the Slovenian provinces' population into townspeople
Slovenia M.acedonia Montenegro Vojvodina
and produced four times more industrial output per capita than Serbia
by 1912. With the end of Trieste's status as a separate free port in
poc poc pe, pe,
Population sq. km. Population sq. km. Population sq. km. Population sq. km.
1891, tariffs were no longer levied on goods entering by land from
elsewhere in Austria-Hungary. New port facilities and a second rail line
1870 1,134 67.5 to Vienna opened in 1901 to attract further bank investment, mainly
1910 1,064 65.7 1,665 36.4 238 24.6 1,353 68.7
from Vienna, as well as new firms. Trieste's large Italian majority, long
commercially preeminent, founded most of the new industrial enter-
Source: Werner Markert, Jugos[a'l)Jien(Cologne: Bohlau-Verlag, I 954), 40; Toussaint HoCevar, Struc-
ture of the Slovenian Economy, 1848-1963 (New York: Studia Slovenica, 1965), 81; and M.ichael R.
prises in and around the city. The city's population rose to 229,000 by
Palairet, "The Culture of Economic Stagnation in Montenegro," 1Haryla11d Hisror-ian,17 (1986): 1910. It included 57,000 Slovenes, nearly equal to the 64,000 in
19-21. Ljubljana, which was the biggest town by far in the one predominantly
Slovene province of Camiola. 4
The Slovene minority concentrated in Trieste made louder declara-
rapidly rising foreign trade and state expenditure. There were also sig- tions of Slovenian ethnic identity there than the majority in Carniola. At
nificant differences, sometimes exaggerated and sometimes reduced by the same time, the ties to Trieste worked against the emergence of any
the modern political parties that stepped forward everywhere except in political program for an economically separate Slovenia. How much more
Montenegro and Macedonia. attractive it was for Slovenian managers or enterprises to seek a fair
76 Yugoslavia as History New divisions, Yugoslav ties, and Balkan Wars, 1903-1914 77

share in the expanding nexus from Trieste north to Vienna. Such demand or dream that the Serbs would adopt what the Slovene clerical
motives led to the founding of the Ljubljanska Banka in 1901 and leaders called a "clearly superior" Western religion and culture. Instead,
the Jadranska Banka in 1905. Behind the founders stood th~,powerful the two secular apostles of Dalmatian Yugoslavism, Frano Supilo and
Czech Zivnostensk.i Banka of Prague and a group of Croatiaiilinvestors. Ante Trumbic, organized the first meetings for Serb-Croat unity in Rijeka
The latter, not surprisingly, financed several import-exp91"1 companies in 1905. The resulting Rijeka Resolution, although primarily a statement
and shipping lines. Both began profitable trade up and down a Dalma- of political strategy, spoke of one Serb-Croat people who should learn
tian coast cut off from the Austro-Hungarian railway network south of the same history lessons from new textbooks printed in both alphabets,
Rijeka. a task that could hardly be lefr to either of their two clergies. 7
For inland Dalmatia and Istria, a cooperative network soon furnished
a broader Slovenian connection. The co-founder of the Slovenian Chris-
Croatia-Slavonia
tian Social movement, Janez Krek, launched the network in 1895 with
a series of parish-based credit unions on the Raiffeisen model. They Two features of the economic upswing in the Croatian economy before
offered easy access to loans regardless of the size of the member's the war became potential handicaps for the first Yugoslavia, into which
account. A new cooperative law in 1903 allowed him to increase the Croatia was drawn after 1918. The upswing exaggerated the already
number of credit unions fourfold to 405 by 1912, a total of 115,000 sharp regional differences described between Civil Croatia-Slavonia and
members, and to double the agricultural cooperatives to 170. The rise the former Military Border that had been incorporated into both of
to preeminence in Carniola of the Catholic National Party - soon them after 1881. Nor did it repair the singular absence of economic
renamed the Slovenian People's Party (SLS) - also helped, but Krek contact with the other lands of the future Yugoslavia. At the time, both
steered the party away from political control of the network. No doubt of these disjunctures helped confine the new coalition of Croats and
this facilitated its spread beyond ethnic Slovenes to the Croats of lstria Serbs (described below) to seeking only the unification of Dalmatia
and Dalmatia, who accounted for one-quarter of the credit unions by with Croatia-Slavonia or, in other words, the restoration of the medi-
1912. 5 The network's main bank in Ljubljiana also invested in primary eval Triune Kingdom.
and agricultural education for an inland Dalmatian peasantry that was Industrial production rose past 10 percent of the crude estimates of
over 80 percent illiterate, in contrast to a rate of less than 20 percent Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on the strength of a growing Slavonian
among Slovenian peasants. advantage over Croatia proper. Timber production from large estates
Along the coast and inland, Croats and Slovenes also shared a com- spawned new sawmills and other wood-working enterprises in the one
mon political adversary, the Italian nationalists in the principal Adriatic large town of Osijek (population 28,000 by 1910) and a number of
towns. Italians were most prominent in !stria, with 38 percent of the smaller ones like Vukovar. Germans and Hungarians made up half of
province's population in 1910 versus less than 3 percent in Dalmatia. the new labor force, Croats and Serbs the other half. (Hungarian capital
Yet the leading parties of the Croatian and Slovenian political spectrums supported the large Beocin cement plant and a few others, but generally
failed, even along the coast, to create what Serbian nationalists like held back. Budapest's business interests opposed the rail line to Rijeka on
Nikola Pasic had feared in the 1890s: a united Catholic front led by a the Adriatic that would have opened alternative Mediterranean markets
Croatian-dominated clerical party. It was instead the clerical leaders of for Croatian manufactures.) Led by timber, Slavonian industry accounted
the largest Slovenian party, the People's Party, who pursued the policy for over half of the capital and labor in large-scale Croatian industry by
of "Christian nationalism." They proposed giving up the Slovenian 1910 and for most of its advantage in industrial production over inde-
language in favour of Croatian if the Dual Monarchy accepted a third, pendent Serbia. In Croatia proper, Zagreb remained primarily an admin-
South Slav, part of the monarchy in return. The urban-centered minor- istrative center. Officials and students made up the largest occupational
ity parties, the Liberals and the Social Democrats, refused to consider groups. Within the two groups, Croats held percentages proportional to
bargaining away the Slovenian language. 6 their five-eighths population share, with Serb numbers trailing their
New leaders of the Croatian National Party (founded in Dalmatia in one-quarter share in both. For officials, Germans and Hungarians filled
the 1880s - see chapter 2) began to seek out reconciliation with its the gap. The Croatian capital was an industrial center only for small firms
minority Serb counterpart after the tum of the century. They did not of fewer than twenty employees, again involving few Serbs. 8
 Yugoslavia as Hisrory New divisions, Yugoslav ties, and Balkan Wars, 1903-1914 79
78
Estate agriculture in both Croatia and Slavonia led the way in mod- and their support for the Hungarian regime's National Party had cast
ernizing the raising of livestock, such that their export north to the rest them. PribiCeviC decried the past reliance on corporate privileges rather
of the Dual Monarchy was triple Serbia'.s highest value before ~ war. than constitutional rights that would nonetheless continue to attract the
The rural population in Croatia-Slavonia mcreased almost thi;;e umes Vojvodina Serbs until the eve of the First World War.
faster than the real value of grain output for 1900-10, howeyer, reflect- In 1907 the new Hungarian government challenged the victorious
i ing the downward drag of the limited and low yield cultivation along coalition by introducing a law requiring use of a single language (Hun-
I
garian) on the state railway and by adopting an equally Magyarizing
,,I the former Military Border. The old Border's low literacy rates - barely
education bill that violated the Nagodba. The Austrian emperor, Franz
20 percent - exerted an even greater drag on the joint provin~e's ov~rall
'1
literacy rate, holding it to 54 percent in 1910. Industry remamed virtu- Josef, also refused to change the status of Dalmatia. The coalition
" ally non-existent along the Border, further prompting the emigration of turned toward a policy of confrontation with the Dual Monarchy. The
i some 300,000 Serbs and Croats to the United States during the last Independents soon became equal partners and increased their contacts
I prewar decade. 9 e/
with the Independent Radical Party of Serbia. Both parties spoke of the
The prominence of livestock and timber in the exports of Croaua- Yugoslav idea, but meant narodno jedinstvo, or national unity between
Slavonia discouraged trade with or migration to the other lands of the ethnic brothers, rather than any federal relationship.
future Yugoslavia. Urban Austro-Hungarian markets to the north im- Of the other four parties whose representatives were elected to the
ported such goods, but the largely rural lands to the east and west had Sabor in 1910, the only two that survived to participate in the first
no need of them. From the total export value of manufactures from Yugoslavia also opposed the state's existence, at least with any place for
Croatia-Slavonia in 1912, only 5 percent was sent to Bosnia-Hercegovina, Serbia. The Pure Right and Peasant Parties won just 14 and 9 of the
and less than 1 percent to Dalmatia or Serbia. 10 The Croatian-Serbian 88 seats, although from a franchise that had increased from 1.8 to
Coalition that dominated the Croatian Sabor of 1906 contained a 6.6 percent of the population. The larger number went to the Radical
number of successful businessmen, but few who were seeking to im- nationalist Party of Pure Right. Its Slavonian Jewish leader, Josip Frank,
prove their commercial connections with Serbia or to create some still merged it with the clerical faction, "Croatia," to form a Christian-
wider Yugoslav entity. Social Party of Right. Frank had for some time been turning toward
The Coalition's majoriry (46 out of 88 seats) in the first freely elected Vienna and the Catholic hierarchy. He opposed any separate status for
Sabor since the 1870s won out because of the narrower, essentially Serbs and advocated a Great Croatia within the monarchy that would
political agenda of two Dalmatians, journalist Frano Supilo and lawyer include Bosnia as well as Dalmatia. Frank stood the anti-clerical and
Ante Trumbii:. Most of the Croat deputies had signed Supilo's Rijeka anti-Austrian direction of his father-in-law, Ante StarCeviC, and his ori-
Resolution of 1905, while the Serbs had supported, with some of them ginal Party of Right on its head in order to serve a stronger, more racist
signing, a similar resolution the same year at Zadar. 1?e Serb si~atories son of anti-Serbian program.
came from the Serbian Independent Party, long passive but actively ex- Frank's readiness to tum violence loose against Serbs had first sur-
panding since 1903 under the militant, charismatic leadership of Sve:oza~ faced in 1902 when the aforementioned Independent newspaper repub-
Pribii:evii: the youthful editor of the party newspaper, Srbobran. Pnb1cevic lished the pugnacious article that a young Sarajevo Serb had written for
embodied the Independents' equally new disposition to present a unified Belgrade's most prominent scholarly journal, Srpski knjiZevni glasnik.
front with the Croats as part of the "same nation." For their part, the Entitled "Serbs and Croats," it spoke of a cultural "war to extermina-
Croats sought political support from Hungary, against Vienna, for the tion', between the two, with the advantage to the established Serbian
union of Austrian Dalmatia with Croatia-Slavonia. Croat signatories national identity. Frank and his followers led the demonstrations in
reportedly agreed to recognize Bosnia as a Serb "sphere of influence" if Zagreb that sacked many Serb businesses and houses, including the
Serbia supported the Dalmatian union. Both Croats and Serbs also Srpska Banka u Zagrebu, before the Ban declared martial law. Shock at
welcomed the Coalition's "new course" toward ethnic cooperation and these excesses had helped to create the Croatian-Serbian Coalition and
its promise of breaking the former Military Border's large Serb minority its electoral victories. 11
free from the role of Croatian adversary, in which their appointment to Had the franchise been universal in 1910, the larger vote-getter by
administrative positions by the previous Ban, Count Khuen-Hedev3.ry, far would have been the new Croatian People's Peasant Party (HPSS).
 80 Yugoslavia as History New divisions, Yugoslav ties, and Balkan Wars, 1903-1914 81

In 1904 the Radii: brothers, Stjepan and Ante, founded what became South Slav state that included Bosnia-Hercegovina. The state-sponsored
Croatia's largest inten.var party. Ante was an ethnographer who espoused industrial growth that he oversaw failed to pursue the foreign trade
a program of peasant populism. He propose~ ~ coope~ative n9;work opportunities or to attract the private capital needed to sustain its fast
and other agricultural reforms that would ehmmate m1ddlem.?n and start. Kallay accepted a land regime dominated by the traditional Bosnian
foreign landlords. But the bulk of the program concentratsxJ on folk Muslim landlords, opposed agricultural cooperatives, and neglected rural
culture, and saw it rather than religion or historical borders as the education. All this encouraged the ethnic antagonisms that opened the
element binding peasant Croats together. By this standard, Bosnian door to vengeful violence in the two world wars and in the 1990s.
Muslims and even Serb peasants were welcome to join. Ante RadiC The new administration of Istvan Burian (I 903-12) continued to
believed peasants should govern because they were by far the largest social collect impressive revenues. They were spent entirely in the province,
class, just as Aleksandar Stamboliiski of the newly organized Bulgarian unlike Croatia-Slavonia where 55 percent of revenues were transferred
Agrarian National Union was arguing in Sofia at the same time. to Budapest. Average Bosnian state expenditure after 1900 was three
Radic's mercurial brother Stjepan, who became the party's leader, times the Croatian figure per capita and nearly equal to that of inde-
neglected economic issues for political even more than Ante. He rev- pendent Serbia. The Habsburg regime for the province conducted the
elled in the newspaper polemics of the new mass politics. Stjepan pushed most active state policy to promote economic development in any of
the party to support a South Slav unit within the monarchy, but under the Yugoslav lands. Railway construction continued to lay down twice
Croatian leadership and with the same confederal autonomy as the as much track as in Serbia, although the lines were narrow gauge, had
Hungarian lands. Indeed, his own political career had begun in 1895 prohibitively high freight rates, and ran only to Budapest. Hungarian
when, fresh from Prague and his first taste of Tomas Masaryk's ideas for representatives in the joint administration also vetoed an Austrian plan
Slavic self-determination, the young RadiC and several other students to build a line linking Sarajevo with Split on the Dalmatian coast.
burned the Hungarian flag at the Zagreb railway station. Radii: insisted In addition, the striking pace of growth in the value of industrial
that they use alcohol rather than oil, a distinction he felt would temper production under Kallay, which had reached 15 percent per year in the
their disrespect for the Habsburg emperor, Franz Josef, who was then 1890s, dropped off to barely 3 percent for 1906-13. Large-scale enter-
visiting the Croatian capital. Subsequent years of exile and study in prises, primarily sawmills and iron ore mines, employed three times as
Paris, Prague, and Moscow strengthened his rejection of political con- many people per I ,000 as in Serbia. But they could not attract the
,,i trol from Budapest, as he would later reject control from Belgrade. Austrian or Hungarian capital required to keep up the growth launched
,[ At the same time, Stjepan RadiC recognized the Serbs as Slavs, eth- by start-up subventions and other concessions. 14 This state-subsidized
,I nically separate from Croats. He suspected that many in Bosnia had spurt and later slow-down left as one legacy the notion that private
Croat origins because of their common peasant culture. His disposition enterprise needed political support in order to succeed. Another legacy
to ethnic tolerance and strongly anti-clerical views barred any alliance may lie hidden in the ethnic composition of the 30,000 workers in
with the Party of Pure Right, the Catholic hierarchy in Croatia, or the large-scale enterprises in 1910 if, as scattered evidence suggests, the
12
Slovenian People's Party and its clerical leadership. more numerous Serbs occupied only a small fraction of these high-
wage jobs and the newly arrived Croats took a disproportionate share.
This was clearly the case with officials, whose local share rose to
Bosnia-Hercegovina 42 percent during the last prewar decade on the strength of new Bosnian
Austro-Hungarian economic policies sought to promote both the in- Muslim and especially Croat employees.
dustrial and agricultural development of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Policies More clearly, Austro-Hungarian policy aggravated rural ethnic
for both began with the term of Benjamin Kallay (1882-1903) as finance antagonisms despite several specific efforts to reduce them by promoting
... minister for the new province. As they have been described, respec- agricultural modernization. Conversion of the land worked by largely
tively, in the classic studies by Peter Sugar and Ferdinand Schmid, the Serb sharecroppers, or kmetovi, to their own smallholdings was made
13
first was an initial success and the second a failure throughout. In the legal, but required the peasant to indemnify the Muslim landlord. The
first decade of the rwentieth century, both Kallay's industrial success process went slowly, cutting the total of landless sharecroppers only
and his agricultural failure carried significant consequences for any future from 90,000 to 80,000 for 1895-1910, until the size of payment was
!'
"1
'i New divisions, Yugoslav ties, and Balkan Wars, 1903-1914 83
82 Yugoslavia as History

reduced in 1911. Serbs were 42 percent of the rural population, but until the Serbs finally broke ranks in 1911. Croats and Muslims quickly
made up 74 percent of the sharecropping landless, while Bosnian Mus- reached agreement on opposing compulsory agrarian reform and the
lims were 37 percem of the rurnl total and 91 percent of the l~9jllords. Serb side accepted the subsequent parliamentary vote agains/ their de-
Agricultural production, crop yields, and exports had mdeedAfoubled mand for reform. Donia ca1ls this capacity for peaceful coexistence and
during the first two decades of Austro-Hungarian occupatiqz,., but their some cooperation much more significant than the relatively small number
': rate of growth slackened after 1900 and stagnated after 1906.
15
of Bosnian Muslims who declared themselves to be Croats, or, more
Rural population continued to grow rapidly, however. Lack of credit frequently after 1900, Serbs. 17
and an Austro-Hungarian ban until 1908 on cooperative organizations
discouraged the purchase of new equipment and reduced the number Serbia's rising reputation and the Bosnian crisis of 1908
of livestock. The 1908 authorization of cooperatives imposed a new tax
in order to set up an official cooperative organization. The tax only Modem party politics and open debate in the press made the last
goaded the Serbs to set up their own network, as Habsburg officials ~rewar decade dramatic in independent Serbia. Its economy and polit-
had feared in the first place. Official restrictions on the use of state ical self-confidence were growing, but so were the expectations of an
forests and pasture lands hurt the Serb peasants who needed it most increasingly educated, if still small, urban population. Rapid social or
and did nothing to encourage peasants to switch to widespread cultiva- econ?mic change created new uncertainties for those leaving the peas-
16
tion of fodder crops that official programs promoted instead. ant villages that old leaders like precani lawyers or Serbian priests could
Already in 1907, the demands of urban Serbs pushed the Burian not address. Who would lead the DoSlfaci, or "newcomers," of Milutin
administration to grant them the right to set up the son of ethnic, Uskokovii:'s biting prewar novel about the struggles of such people to
political organization that Kallay had always forbidden. The Serbian find their way in a rapidly growing Belgrade? Journalists, bank or enter-
National Organization united three factions that had long pursued edu- prise directors, army officers, and other professionals were now candid-
cational autonomy as their primary practical goal. Now the number of ates, not just the handful of lawyers, clerics, and intellectuals who had
Serb Orthodox schools, separate from the secular or Catholic schools stepped forward in the nineteenth century.
favored by the Austro-Hungarian administration, nearly doubled by The aging founder of the Radical Party, Nikola Pasii:, already sixty
1914. Both the Bosnian Muslims and Croats received similar rights to years old m 1904, dominated the political scene during the pre-1914
organize, in 1906 and 1908 respectively, and placed a similar emphasis decade. His inarticulate and elusive public statements make him an
on separate school networks rather than economic reform. When the unexpecte?" leader in an increasingly vocal political culture and press.
confrontational Catholic archbishop, Josip Stadler of Sarajevo, failed to Had Serbia not faced a variety of foreign pressures and temptations
gain control of the Croat National Organization, he promptly set up his throughout the period, PaSiC might not have survived. Many younger
own society. He was, in his own words, "a full-blooded Croat with a party members had already defected in 1901 when he accepted a royal
German name," who saw Bosnia as a Croatian land. The Jesuit-trained revts10n of that sacred Radical text, the constitution of 1888. Instead
Stadler lost support by pressing for the conversion of Bosnian Muslims, his public ambiguity and preference to work secretly behind the scene;
thereby confounding both the Franciscan local clergy and the young (even burning messages in his desk ashtray) enhanced the diplomatic
Croat liberals who wanted them recognized as Muslim Croats. Only balancing act on which he concentrated his energies. These successes
the small Social Democratic Party stood for interconfessional organiza- plus an image of inscrutable wisdom, accentuated by his long white
tions and schools, but it failed to win any seats in the first parliament- be.~d, kept him aJmost continuously in power as foreign or prime
ary elections held in 1910. m1mster (or both) from 1904 to 1918. 18
The three ethnic parties swept all of the seats. They showed them-
selves capable of ''tactical cooperation," in the words of Robert Donia, Serbia and Bosnia-Hercegovina
during the negotiations with the Joint Finance Ministry that led up to
the Constitution of 1910 and even aftetward. Leaders of both the Croat For Serbia, the Austrian decision in 1908 to annex formally the province
and Serb parties were careful to avoid calling for the compulsory libera- of Bosnia-Hercegovina that it had occupied since 1878 became the
tion of all kmet sharecroppers from their Bosnian Muslim landlords defining external event in the decade before the First World War. How
 84 Yugoslavia as History
r
,,'

.
..~
',_,:"'

New divisions, Yugoslav ties, and Balkan Wars, 1903-1914 85

would the new, native political parties there and in the surrounding of the monarchy as an occasion to win further political or military auto-
territories of the future Yugoslavia react? The annexation proved to be
a litmus test for the new political spect1:1m, to align it~elf for or_~ainst
I nomy. Once again, Vienna decided to offer Hungarian agricultural
interests protection against competing imports of Serbian hogs and
the province's apparently final separation from Serbia. Som@f"Croats I cattle in return for renewal. The Dual Monarchy countered Belgrade's
objected because the annexation was not to Croatia-Slavonj.a. refusal to concede an increase in the nominal tariff quickly with a
The loudest and longest reaction came of course from Belgrade. veterinary ban against Serbian livestock. This time the impasse escal-
Serbs were the largest of the three constituent ethnic groups in the ated into the long tariff war of 1906-11. 19
' Habsburg province, 43 percent versus 32 percent for the Bosnian Mus- Hostile Serbian reaction to the tariff war encouraged the Austrian
:I lims in a total population of 1.9 million, virtually the reverse of the decision to annex Bosnia-Hercegovina in 1908. The resolution of the
proportions in the 1980s. Insult was added to injury when the Austro-

li Hungarian foreign minister, Alois von Aehrenthal, arranged the initial

Russian approval that made annexation possible. The illusory promise
of naval passage through the Straits to the Mediterranean stilled the
dispute in Serbia's favor by 1911 only emboldened the small state. Each
of the three great continental powers added fuel to the fire. The Paris
capital market made two large loans to the Serbian government, both
officially arranged. The first of them (90 million francs) covered further
one diplomatic voice, St. Petersburg's, that might have spoken up for reequipping of the Serbian army with artillery from Schneider-Creuzot
ii Serbia's interests. in France instead of the monarchy's Skoda works, and the second (150
11,
The consequences for Serbia and its role in the future Yugoslavia million francs) ensured financial survival to the end of the tariff war.
i'! were twofold. The Austro-Serbian antagonism that would lead straight For its part, Germany allowed its commercial market to accept the bulk
i)I to the First World War and the disintegration of Austria-Hungary deep- of Serbian grain and processed meat exports, frustrating its ally's trade
i'
,,I ened irretrievably for Austrian generals and for Serbian officers and sanctions. Perhaps most fatefully, the Russian government dispatched
1ii students. Second, the annexation crisis sidetracked the promising two- a zealous Pan-Slav minister to Belgrade in 1909. Nikolai Hartwig
I!,
i! or three-party system that had promoted the democratic politics of encouraged Serbian governments to forgive the absence of Russian
I domestic reform in Serbia since 1903 in favor of a two-tier system: support in the annexation crisis of 1908 and to assume that it was now
1; official consensus around a restrained foreign policy and unofficial sup- wholehearted, even if war with Austria-Hungary was threatened. 20
port for radical, nationalist agitation outside of Serbia.
ii' Confrontation with the Dual Monarchy had been coming since Petar
A German-backed, Austrian ultimatum in 1909 stoked the Serbian
disposition to defy the Dual Monarchy. The ultimatum obliged the
Karadjordjevic succeeded the assassinated Aleksandar ObrenoviC as Radical government of Nikola PaSiC to accept annexation of Bosnia-
Serbia's king in 1903. Karadjordje's grandson, Petar, had spent his Hercegovina and at the same time agree to confine the activities in
adult life in exile before the unanimous vote of the Skupstina brought Bosnia of the newly formed Narodna Odbrana, or National Defense
him back to take the throne at the age of fifty-nine. A translator of John organization of volunteers from Serbia proper, to support for Serb cul-
Stuart Mill, he deserves credit for his role as a constitutional monarch ture and education. Narodna Odbrana was the one organization at the
who allowed the parliamentary majority to govern and otherwise helped time operating outside the open system of political parties that had
restore Serbia's international reputation after the regicide. Both he and governed Serbia since 1903.
the Radical leader, Nikola PaSiC, shared attachments to Russia and to Another was soon to take formal shape. Its leaders were the army
Serbs outside of Serbia. But according to the Dalmatian Croat leader officers who had conspired in the assassination in 1903 of the last
Frano Supilo, the new king was also a liberal and well-disposed toward ObrenoviC king. They refused to accept the Austrian ban on paramilit-
Croats. ary activity in Bosnia. The new secret sociecy's name made their program
Neither King Petar nor PaSiC was disposed to honor the secret agree- plain, UJedinjenjeili smrt, Union or Death, and their popular designation
ment of 1881 with Austria-Hungary, binding Belgrade's diplomacy as the Black Hand confirmed its underground, potentially terrorist na-
to the foreign ministry on Vienna's Ballhausplatz. Austrian diplomacy ture. Most members ironically came from the 500 new officers that the
bridled at a proposed Serbian-Bulgarian customs union in 1905. The king's father, the long-deposed Milan, had brought in from the rural
next year, as in 1896, Austrian officials faced a Hungarian campaign to interior to an upgraded military academy under the army reforms of
use the decennial renewal of the customs union between the two halves 1897-1900. They included the society's head, an artisan's son named

''.'i
86 Yugoslavia as History New divisions, Yugoslav ties, and Balkan Wars, 1903-1914 87

Dragutin Dimitrijevic, nicknamed Apis for his bull-like physique. From secondary or vocational school students studied there, plus another
its founding by Apis in 1911 until its dissolution by Serbia's civilian 1,600 in the autonomous university formed from the V elika Skala in
government in 191 7, the society pursued a Gre~t Serbia? state ~:Jy~t~h- 1903. As in Zagreb, the student total was nearly equal to the number of
ing from western Bosnia to southern Macedoma. Austnan au$6nt1es, workers in industrial enterprises. Student demonstrations had played a
the army's general staff in particular, were quickly if falsely ;onvinced significant part in the successful demand for press freedom in 1903.
that the Serbian government controlled not only these two organizations They helped turn the next year's centenary observation of the First
21
but also the Croatian-Serbian Coalition in the Zagreb Sabor. Serbian Uprising into an occasion for welcoming Croat, Slovene, and
Inside Serbia the patriotic furor surrounding the 1908 annexation of even Bulgarian delegations to multi-ethnic celebrations of South Slav
Bosnia had the effect of helping exclude from power the one major solidarity. Politically, the city's voters gave more support in the 1906
party in regular contact with the Coalition and in sympathy with the elections to Independent Radicals in the National Assembly and to the
idea of a new Yugoslav entity, within or beyond the Dual Monarchy. new (since 1903) Social Democratic Party for municipal government
The members of this Independent Radical Party were younger and than to the Radicals. In other words, a small Central European capital
closer both to urban life and to the more prosperous northern border city had sprung up. Its political variety, cultural activities, and even
than Pasic's ruling Radicals. Established in 1901 to protest Pasic's urban amenities like street cars created an appealingly modem milieu.
acceptance of King Aleksandar Obrenovic's restrictive new constitu- Belgrade's profile made Serbia much more attractive to its South Slav
tion, they quickly pushed aside the aging Progressives to become the neighbors still under Habsburg or Ottoman rule. Within Serbia itself,
second largest party. The Independents shared or alternated power the heightened contrast between the capital and the countryside to the
with the Radicals in a series of short-lived governments until the onset south fed the impatience of the urban elite to overcome that contrast
in 1906 of the tariff war with Austria-Hungary. Afterwards, Pasic was somehow. In other words, the process identified at the beginning of
able to play on his greater experience and use Radical ties to Budapest chapter 2 as "differential modernization" now promoted politics impa-
as well as St. Petersburg to keep his party almost continuously in power tient for change, foreign or domestic. In Belgrade, moreover, the mo-
through the First World War. mentum for modernization could easily be confused with Serbianization.
Meanwhile, in Serbian towns, the history and geography taught in a What had become known by the tum of the century as the "Belgrade
rapidly expanding system of secular schools reinforced the Radical view style" of literary expression seemed to confront Habsburg cultural
of the ethnic landscape. The number of primary and secondary schools hegemony as well as help assimilate the small, non-Serb minorities of
had nearly tripled between 1890 and 1910. Urban literacy jumped past Serbia. Its emphasis on simple, direct expression, drawing on the pop-
70 percent, although failure to include much of the huge rural majority, ular idiom, took its inspiration from contemporary France, where the
still 87 percent of total population, kept overall literacy under 40 per- founders of the influential new Srpski knjizevni glasnik (Serbian literary
cent. Textbooks were sometimes written by party leaders and always journal) had been educated. Their criticism of the cumbersome formal
spoke of the lands of a future Yugoslavia as inhabited by Serbs to the language of Austro-German high culture extended to the Croatian liter-
virtual exclusion of Croats, Bosnian Muslims, or Macedonians. They ary language of Zagreb. They argued for the more modem Serbian of
may not have turned "peasants into Great Serbs," to paraphrase Eugen Belgrade as the language of any new Yugoslav state and won some
Weber, but they surely did not tum them into Yugoslavs." Neither did Croat converts. But could a language from one side overcome the
they tum many promising young townsmen into Orthodox priests. "narcissism of minor differences," in Freud's phrase, that seemed the
Although Orthodoxy remained the state religion and village priests major distinction between Serbs and Croats?
received state salaries, the Orthodox church and its isolated monasteries The two central figures for the newly educated youth of Belgrade and
now attracted few urban youths. They were drawn instead to secular Zagreb suggested that it could not. They were their respective literary
European ways and ideas, through a Serbian language and school sys- mentors, Jovan SkerliC and Antun Gustav MatoS. Similarities between
tem that prompted the ethnic assimilation of the small minority of Jews, the two went beyond their premature deaths in 1914. Both were at-
Vlach Tsintsars, and Czechs which had accumulated in Belgrade. tracted to French literature and to the cosmopolitan perspectives of
Serbia's capital was a bustling city of nearly 90,000 by 1910 with European literary criticism. Both introduced their student disciples to
no less than a dozen daily newspapers. Half of the country's 12,000 the modernist movement's iconoclastic disdain for tradition. But like
 .,,,,.
88 Yugoslavia as History New divisions, Yugoslav ties, and Balkan Wars, 1903-1914 89
many others in the Moderna mainstream of early twentieth-century Independent Party. Svetozar Pribicevic had used the principal Serb
Europe, both became also belligerently enthusiastic, ethnic nationalists. newspaper, Srbobran, of which he was still editor, to attack RadiC ever
True, Skerlic had promoted the 1904 South Slav congress to;.,bring since Radie refused to join the Croatian-Serbian Coalition. In 1913
Serbs and Croats together, and even advocated that Serbian pl writ- Pribieevie infuriated him when he would not publish his article con-
ten in Latin rather than Cyrillic. He had also cautioned ")lainst the demning assassination and terrorism despite its recent release from
romanticism of the Kosovo myth. His political hero was the eminently official censorship. 25 As effusive and intemperate as Nikola PaSiC was
tolerant French socialist, Jean Jaures. But after I 908, he turned to secretive and taciturn, PribiCeviC later became the most prominent Serb
criticizing the "hymns of indifference" to Serbia's national conscious- politician after Pasic during the first decade after the First World War.
ness written by other modernists like Isadora SekuliC. His celebrations His challenge to the more voluble Radie before the war did not bode
at least did not extend to the denigrations of Serbian proselytizing and well for Serb-Croat relations afterwards, as we shall see in chapter 5.
separatism that MatoS lumped together with Hungarian and clerical Austrian and Hungarian pressures meanwhile combined to keep the
controls as un-Croatian activity. SkerliC may have feared the "terrible Croatian-Serbian Coalition together and in control of the Sabor in
tempest" of war that he foresaw, but he urged the youth of Serbia to post-annexation politics. Sympathy for Serbia's indignation had gener-
confront every adversary, including Austria-Hungary, in the name of a ated a few initial demonstrations, but left no lasting marks on public
new socialist and democratic Serbia rather than any union of South opinion. Then two ill-conceived treason trials in 1909 charged Coali-
Slavs. 23 tion leaders with maintaining secret links with Serbia. Austrian courts
Even the socialists could reach no general agreement on what that were convened in Zagreb for the first and in Vienna for the second.
Yugoslav partnership should be, Most delegates to the 1909 congress of The first trial dragged on for months with the European press as wit-
South Slav socialists that convened in Ljubljana spoke of jugoslavenstvo, ness to unconvincing evidence and embarrassingly light sentences. A
or South Slavdom, as their goal, but to the Croats and Slovenes this Viennese historian named Friedjung tried to provide more damning
meant some federal reorganization of Austria-Hungary that Serbia and evidence in a second trial, but his documents turned out to be easily
Bulgaria would have to join if they wished to be included. To the demonstrable forgeries. Croats who had looked to Vienna for support
delegates from Serbia, by contrast, jugoslovenstvo meant a Balkan fed- against Budapest were disillusioned, and the Coalition, if not Josip
eration organized around Serbia. Their leader, Dimitrije TucoviC, of the Frank, got a new lease on life.
Social Democrat Party, proposed such a federation as the proper frame- Hungarian authorities tried vainly to outflank the Coalition. They
work for dismissing the national issue in favor of the class struggle. 24 abruptly adjourned the Sabor elected in 1908 and ruled by decree until
1910. The Budapest government of Croatia's former Ban, Khuen-
Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina Hederv3.ry, now Hungarian minister president, next appointed a con-
ciliatory Croatian Ban in 1910 and, as noted above, enlarged the
Serbia's reaction to the annexation of Bosnia incensed Croatian Peas- franchise. Yet the officially endorsed new Party of Progress still failed
ant Party leader Stjepan Radie. Serbian hecklers interrupted his speech to secure even half the seats won by the Croatian-Serbian Coalition.
in St. Petersburg when he emphasized the long Croatian presence in Again the Sabor was dismissed, and the fully constitutional regime of
Bosnia and a recent increase in Muslims declaring themselves Croats. 1906 was not restored until 1913, Meanwhile, Pribieevie and the other
He criticized Serbia's politicians for "megalomania" and its government leaders of the Coalition were forced to accept too many violations of
for trying to incite a war between Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman the original Nagodba of 1868 to persuade Radie or the student forces
Empire. His party program was promptly rewritten to identify the Serbs that their future lay with the monarchy. 26
of Croatia-Slavonia as "not Serb by origin," thus paralleling the formu- The growing and restless student populations of Zagreb and Sarajevo
lation of Frank's Party of Pure Right. From this time forward, Radie turned from frustration to terrorism. Inspired by the Russian revolu-
regarded Belgrade only as an obstacle to a third, autonomous unit tionary underground and the suicide of a Croat youth after he failed to
within the Habsburg monarchy, or better, a Danubian federation that assassinate the civil administrator of Bosnia, the Croato-Serbian Radical
would exclude Serbia. His relations with the Serbs of Croatia-Slavonia Progressive Youth Movement struck out on its own after 1910. They
were also strained by a series of confrontations with the leader of their staged student strikes at Zagreb University and tried unsuccessfully on
 '', y
r . ''ifi;..
90 Yugoslavia as History New divisions, Yugoslav ties, and Balkan Wars, 1903-1914 91

a half-dozen occasions to assassinate the Ban or other ranking Habsburg South Slav state" (probably socialist), berween youths like Princip and
officials in the city. Beyond a commitment to individual terrorism, their i either the wider Bosnian political organizations of the time or his com-
romantic, revolutionary notion of Yugoslavism set them apart. The rades who survived the war into the first Yugoslavia. Bosnian Serbs
notion was warmly received in Belgrade by unofficial eminence)? from and also Croats struggled with the temptation that Bosnian Muslims
literary critic Jovan SkerliC to the editor of Pi.Jemont, the mputhpiece were an "unfinished element" who could eventually become ethnic
for the Union or Death organization in the Serbian officer corps. fellows. D:faja calls the three young elites "wanderers between a con-
The organization itself did not endorse either individual terrorism or scructed past and a utopian future. " 27 All they could agree on was a
Yugoslavism until after the Balkan Wars. Until then, its main concern Bosnian Yugoslavism, vaguely defined as the only possible solution to
was to win Ottoman Macedonia for Serbia, against competition from the nationality problem in that province, a solution that both of the two
similar organizations from Greece, Bulgaria, or the local Internal Mace- Yugoslavias failed to find.
donian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO).
The strongest advocates of both revolutionary terrorism and roman- Balkan Wars and the new Yugoslav prospects, 1912-1914
tic, ill-defined Yugoslavism came instead from Bosnia-Hercegovina. The
group loosely and only later defined as Mlada Bosna, or Young Bosnia, A combustible mixture of Serbian students and army officers was spoil-
had its origins in the literary or patriotic organizations that the Narodna ing for war with Austria-Hungary after the 1908 crisis; Serbia's govern-
Odbrana from Belgrade and the Croatian Catholic church from Zagreb ment and ruling Radical Party were not. Neither were Nikola Pasic and
had encouraged as exclusivist Serb or Croat organizations. Starting his colleagues yet thinking in "Yugoslav" terms. It took the First Balkan
with Bosnian Serb students in 1909, again because of the annexation, War of 1912 to merge their long-standing ideal of a Great Serbia with
the tum to Yugoslavism proceeded apace. Serbs took the lead in form- the aim of a still larger Yugoslav state. The Serbian victory in both
ing the Serbo-Croat Progressive Organization in 1911, and its largely Balkan Wars then fanned Croatian and Slovenian enthusiasm anew for
student membership included some Muslims. Another member was some Yugoslav state. At the same time, Serbian policy in just-absorbed
Gavrilo Princip, the teenage Bosnian Serb who would soon assassinate Kosovo and Macedonia raised doubts about how a truly multi-ethnic
Habsburg heir Franz Ferdinand. Anti-Hungarian demonstrations early state could be the result. Bosnia-Hercegovina was left to choose be-
in 1912 led to arrests, trials, and the overtly terrorist network of Young rween enthusiasm and doubt.
Bosnia in Sarajevo and other towns organized by several young Serbs.
Now assassination plans and attempts followed in quick succession.
Macedonia and Kosovo
The last of them would succeed in 1914 and start the First World War.
Two questions still haunt the historiography of the Young Bosnian Ottoman vulnerabiliry and a flurry of diplomatic activiry opened
movement. What were its ties to Serbia's government in general and to Serbia's way to a Balkan alliance in 1912, outside of Austro-Hungarian
the Union or Death organization in particular? What legacy did its control. The alliance made Macedonia the prototype for a powder keg.
Yugoslavism, romantic and ill-defined as it was, leaVe behind? Wayne Why was Ottoman Macedonia particularly vulnerable? A proper answer
Vucinich has offered two persuasive answers, and SreCko DZaja an must return to 1870, when Ottoman authorities permitted the new
important corollary. Contrary to the enduring presumption of Habsburg Bulgarian Exarchate to open Orthodox churches and schools across all
historians, the Bosnian students sought out their own connections in of northern Macedonia. Soon afterwards, officially supported groups in
Belgrade and among the Union or Death agents dispatched to Bosnia Serbia and Greece set up their own schools and sought to persuade the
as Narodna Odbrana representatives, rather than the reverse. Vucinich Slav Macedonians that they were Serbs or Greeks rather than Bulgar-
also credits the Young Bosnians with converting some Union or Death ians. None of this cultural activiry would have shaken Ottoman rule
members from the idea of Great Serbia to Yugoslavism. That idea had not a small group, first organized in 1893 as the Internal Mace-
surely attracted the young lvo AndriC to Young Bosnia. He was then a donian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO), staged an abortive revolt
student of Bosnian Croat origin whose eventual identity as a Serbian on the Illinden holiday in August 1903. Fighting centered in the Monastir
writer came only with his interwar move to Belgrade. Yet one would vilayet. It straddled the later-drawn border with Greece, although there
search in vain to find some consensus about the shape of a "federal were uprisings in the other two Macedonian vilayets of Salonika and
 92 Yugoslavia as History New divisions, Yugoslav ties, and Balkan Wars, 1903-1914 93

Skopje, as well as a small one in Thrace. Teachers or former students of March 1912 proposed a three-way division of the northern Macedo-
of the Bulgarian school network led the revolt, but controversy Con- nian territory still under Ottoman rule, long a principal zone of conten-
tinues about whether they sought Macedonia's autonomy as ,n end tion between them. Both accepted Greek claims to southern Macedonia,
28
in itself or as a stepping stone to union with Bulgaria. In a/I case, to roughly the present border. To its north, Serbia would receive the
Ottoman forces drawn primarily from Albanian auxiliaries b'.)ltally sup- northwest triangle, and Bulgaria the southeast as far as Ohrid. Russian
pressed the uprising at the cost of several thousand lives and 50,000 mediators would decide the fate of the section in between, including
homeless refugees. Skopje.
The subsequent Murzsteg Agreement did the local population little Historians from Ernst Helmreich forward have explored the con-
good. Under terms that in patt anticipated the abortive 1992 Vance-- sequences of this agreement and the stunningly successful campaign of
Owen plan for Bosnian cantons, Austria-Hungary and Russia dispatched the Serbian army that undid it. 31 Some 350,000 men were mobilized
monitors to set up a new police force and restore order in return for into four field armies that swept the Ottoman forces out of northern
continuing to recognize Ottoman sovereignty. Order was not restored, Macedonia. Crushing victories from Kumanovo in October and south
and locals took European intervention to mean that the days of Otto- to Bitola in November reinvigorated the heroic legends of Serbian milit-
man presence were numbered. The defeat of the uprising had weakened ary valor that dated from the lost Kosovo battle of 1389. The 1912
both the VMRO and the rival Sofia-sponsored Supremists, encouraging campaign avenged the distant defeat by recapturing Kosovo. The
the Serbian side to move into the breach. Further encouragement came hubris of that achievement, plus some hasty Austrian diplomacy to deny
from the chaos of the Young Turk Revolution. In 1908, army officers Ottoman Albania to the advancing Serbian army, prompted the Pasic
including Kemal Attaturk, later the founder of the Turkish republic, government to refuse any retreat from its Macedonian gains. The Bul-
seized power in Constantinople, then renamed Istanbul. Although still garian tsar, Ferdinand of Coburg, tried to reverse them nonetheless.
pursuing a general rapprochement with Bulgaria as an ally against Bulgarian forces had suffered heavy losses while advancing almost to
Austria-Hungary, the PaSiC government sanctioned the dispatch of Istanbul, but Ferdinand and his generals threw them into the Second
more political and military agents to Macedonia, now devoid of Great Balkan War against Serbia in May 1913. With all their former allies
Power monitors. The Young Turk regime obliged them to leave, hasten- plus the Ottoman adversary arrayed against them, the Bulgarians were
ing the Austro-Hungarian decision to annex Bosnia-Hercegovina before quickly defeated.
29
any Ottoman claim to that province could be revived. Although won at the cost of at least 60,000 dead and wounded, the
The Young Turks soon found the most resistance to their new Balkan two wars were the two greatest military triumphs in Serbian history.
order in Monastir and the other vilayets covering Kosovo. The Gheg They may have convinced Serbian public opinion that it was destined
Albanians of Kosovo did not much respond to the cultural campaign of to lead some future Yugoslav state, but its leaders were not ready to
,1 the southern Tosks for replacing Turkish with Albanian but were quick risk military confrontation with Austria-Hungary to achieve it. They
,,' to resist the Young Turks' political centralization and rigorous tax col- did, however, tum toward closer economic cooperation with the
I',I lection. By 1910, an armed Albanian revolt was spreading from PriStina, Slovenes, establishing a joint bank in Trieste and exploring political
I\ ironically supported by aid from Serbia. The Porte brought in Kurdish collaboration with the Croatian-Serbian Coalition that would create the
11
I irregulars to put it down, burning villages and expelling some 150,000 basis for such a state. Although the Radical Party's program was not
I people; two-thirds of them were Serbs. 30 amended to include a possible future union, Nikola PaSiC and other
I
A brief Ottoman-Italian War and new, local unrest or external agitation leaders began to talk that way. They did so partly because the perman-
in Macedonia as well as Kosovo made Ottoman rule seem vulnerable ent break with Bulgaria over Macedonia had isolated Serbia against
by 1911. The overzealous Russian minister to Belgrade, the afore- Austria-Hungary. Active Russian support had not been needed during
mentioned Hanwig, encouraged an alliance of the independent Balkan the Balkan Wars. Why not solicit it now in the name of solidarity with
states once Italian forces had shown the Ottoman Empire to be too other Slavs in the Habsburg lands? (The Radical leadership assumed
weak to hold on to Libya. He and his equally ardent Pan-Slavic colleague that the newly absorbed Slav Macedonian population could be readily
in Sofia brought the two governments crucial to the alliance together assimilated as Serbs, thus supplying no reason for any multi-Slav for-
after five months of difficult negotiations. The Serbo-Bulgarian treaty mulation.) By July 1913, Finance Minister Lazar Pacu included Slovenes
 94 Yugoslavia as Hisrory New divisions, Yugoslav ties., and Balkan Wars, 1903-1914 95

and Croats in what he now called a Yugoslav state. In April of the Vienna. Serbian flags flew in Split, Sibenik, Zadar, and Dubrovnik, as
following year, Belgrade officially commemorated the 250th anniver- well as in many smaller towns. Volunteers from the Dalmatian Serb
sary of the last great Croatian revolt against Habsburg rule, the fjnski- population enlisted in the Serbian army, and a number of towns collected
Frankopan upnsmg of 1667. jl donations for war relief. The powerless Dalmatian diet even adopted a
The Austrian General Staff and its militantly anti-Serbian yliief, Gen- resolution praising the Balkan alliance against the Ottoman Empire and
eral Franz Conrad von Hotzendorf, took full account of this tum. They condemning Austro-Hungarian policies toward its own subjects.
became even more convinced than in 1909 that a preventive war should In Camiola, the clerical leaders of the largest party, the Slovenian
be launched against Serbia as soon as possible. The only obstacle to a People's Party (SLS), remained committed to cautious bargaining with
speedy Serbian defeat, according to Conrad, would be a Russian alli- Austrian authorities for educational autonomy at a minimum. They
ance that could deliver significant military assistance. He therefore also weighed the trialist formulation that would add a South Slav entity
argued that Serbia must be defeated before such aid could be mobilized. to the Dual Monarchy, but were worried by probable Croatian domina-
Conrad refused, moreover, to consider evidence from the Balkan Wars tion of such a unit. The younger generation outside of the clerical and
that the Serbian army could, by itself, put up considerable resistance. 32 peasant network that was the bulwark of the SLS did, however, ap-
proach the Dalmatian level of enthusiasm for a new South Slav state
linked to victorious Serbia. Some volunteered for service in the Serbian
Croatia~ Dalmatia, and Slovenia army at the start of the Balkan Wars. Slovenian university students in
Political reactions in Croatia and Slovenia to the news of Serbia's victor- Zagreb were particularly active. High school students in Ljubljana had
ies were mixed. In Dalmatia it was more uniformly enthusiastic. Both already formed their own radical organization, Preporod, and beat the
reactions strengthened Conrad's case for a military assault on Serbia. drums for war to break free of the monarchy. Ivan Cankar, the great
The Croatian-Serbian Coalition collected a crowd of 10,000 in Zagreb Slovenian novelist who was also a member of the growing Yugoslav
to celebrate Serbia's triumph and to call for the creation of a South Slav Social Democratic Party until his death in 1918, spoke of cementing
state. One Dalmatian Croat leader, Josip Smodlaka, said that "Serbia the bonds with ''our cousins in language and our brothers in blood."
has given proof not only of great military valour but also of surprising But, as Carole Rogel's analysis of pre-1914 Slovene Yugoslavism has
political maturity. The future of 17 million Yugoslavs is guaranteed." 33 argued, Cankar and the student radicals were inspired by opposition to
Such hopes had already led some Croats to try enlisting in the Serbian Austro-German urban hegemony rather than by any Illyrian disposition
army for the Balkan wars, a young Miroslav Krle.Za twice without suc- to give up the Slovenian language or culture. 34 Their Yugoslavia, in
cess. Nikola Pasic had to restrain Coalition leaders when they called for other words, would have to be some kind of federal state that provided
a "second round" to reverse the annexation of Bosnia-Hercegovina and a political basis for cultural autonomy.
add it to the new state. PaSic declined their demand to confront Austria-
Hungary with the threat of internal revolt and a Serbian attack. Access
Macedonia, Kosovo, and Montenegro
to the Adriatic Sea remained his main geopolitical goal, and he even
expressed interest in a Concordat with the Vatican to reassure the Dual The same conclusion follows for different reasons from the experiences
Monarchy. On the other hand, the small Frankist Party (without Frank, of these three southeastern territories in the wake of the Balkan Wars.
who had died) expanded its support for a third, Croatian-led part of The substantial change in their borders may be seen in map 3.1. The
the Habsburg monarchy into a program that envisaged the absorption first two were transported from the disorder and ethnic rivalry of the
of a defeated Serbia. Some of the Catholic clergy shared this new view. last Ottoman years into an arbitrary regime administered by the Ser-
Stjepan Radie, leader of the potentially much larger Croatian National bian army. Independent Montenegro took over new territory that strained
Peasant Party (HPSS) stopped short of such expansionary schemes. He its limited- capacities as a separate nation-state.
did, however, deepen his opposition to any connection with Serbia, The Serbian army paid a considerable price for northern Macedonia.
now that the Bulgarians, the other South Slavs he had always spoken of Its units suffered more dead and wounded in the Second Balkan War
including in any wider association, were out of the picture. than in the First (38,000 versus 23,000) in order to secure the territory
I: Demonstrations across Dalmatia flaunted Serbia's victories in the as far south as Bitola. Its officers remembered the atrocities perpetrated
face of the Austrian authorities still administering the province from against local Serbs by Ottoman and Bulgarian forces. They dismissed
1
,.

96 Yugoslavia as History New divisions, Yugoslav ties, and Balkan Wars, 1903-1914 97

and disrupted connections to the European-backed Ottoman railway

'/"':'-.,, _/

_'.r~ ) and Banque Ottomane blocked regional recovery even to the trade
levels of 1911. Serbia received little economic compensation for its
AUSTRIA estimates of military expenditure during the Balkan Wars, 575 million
francs, a figure four times the state revenues for 1911 or the most
HUNGARY
recent French loan of 1909. 36 These economic burdens plus the war-
- .'- / . - time losses and postwar disarray of the Serbian army regime in Mace-
Novr-\ .'
Sad 00 Petr<lvfriidin donia encouraged General Conrad and his Austrian staff to discount
the likelihood of effective Serbian resistance to their "preventive war."
The new Serbian regime made no attempt to demand that the ethnic
Albanians, who were a majority of uncertain number in Kosovo, de-
clare themselves Serbs. Nor did Pasic renew his early 1912 offer to
support autonomy for a Kosovo within Serbia. Then he was encourag-
ing an insurrection, led by Hasan PriStina, that had broken out in
ITALY
January, subsequently weakening Ottoman forces for the First Balkan
War that fall. Kosovar Albanians were instead placed under a regime
of military occupation that was resumed after bot~ world wars and
reappeared in the decade 1989-99. In 1912, Albanians were accused of
having forced some 150,000 Serbs out of Kosovo since the mid-1870s
and of conducting a campaign of local terror against the Serbs who
remained. 37 Some Albanians emigrated to the new Albanian state or to
elsewhere in the shrinking Ottoman Empire. Those who stayed in Kosovo
resisted recognition of Serbian authority whenever they could, starting
a tradition that has also persisted to the present.
Map 3.1 Serbia and Montenegro, 1911 and 1913 Like Serbia, the much smaller Montenegrin state had doubled its
territory as a result of the _Balkan Wars. Its army of 36,000 had fougbt
their own brutalities as understandable reactions, although the prompt, bravely but without effective central command. Over one-quarter of its
unbiased Carnegie inquiry found all parties guilty of war crimes against soldiers were killed, most dying during the unsuccessful attempt to
defenseless civilians. 35 The army's higb command helped stifle the efforts seize Shkoder. Montenegro expanded inland rather than toward the
11,
of the Pasic government to give the largely Slav Macedonian population Adriatic, ending at the division of the former Sandzak of Novi Pazar
at least the right to local government. (Pasic himself proposed denying with Serbia. This common border posed two enduring dilemmas. What
them representation in the Skupstina in Belgrade.) Opponents of the place would the large Muslim, often Turkish population of the Sandiak
i, Radical regime wondered why the impressive rigbts of Serbia's 1903 con- have in a Montenegrin state? The answer was not promising. Some
I,, stitution were not extended to these new lands that had increased the 13,000 people converted to Orthodoxy under duress and a comparable
:1 ' number were forced to emigrate across the border to Bosnia-Hercegovina.
population by more than half, from 2.9 million to 4.4 million. Mean-
while, military authorities sanctioned the dismissal of school teachers, In the process, Muslim villages were burned and scores settled for -..
I
priests, and local officials who were not willing to declare themselves past sins against Montenegrin villages, particularly from the warfare of
!11
Serbs. Officers more loyal to the Union or Death organization than to 1876-78. 38
I Serbia's legal government played a prominent role in these initiatives. Even after this forced emigration, Montenegro found itself with a
Only a couple of Belgrade banks ventured into this legal vacuum to population of 500,000, twice the previous figure. The newcomers in-
help rebuild the weak, war-tom infrastructure, and no foreign investors cluded many Serbs who felt a closer bond to Belgrade than Cetinje.
!,i appeared. South toward the major port of Salonika, massive emigration They joined the growing number of Belgrade-educated Montenegrins
,I
 98 Yugoslavia as Risto')' New divisions, Yugoslav ties, and Balkan \"X1ars, 1903-1914 99

who were dissatisfied with the autocratic, indeed, anachronistic rule of redemption, but a Muslim alliance with twelve Croat representatives
King Nikola. His promise to accept a constitutional monarchy, on the thwarted the Serb pluraliry. Other politically sensitive decisions, such as
pattern of post-1903 Serbia, had long been given the lie. After 9ro so- the location of new railway lines and the use of German rather than
called bomb plots failed to assassinate then-Prince Nikola in l,1Kl7and Serbo-Croatian as the language of railway operation, lay entirely out-
1910, he used them against the nascent People's Party. l)likola had side the limited powers of parliament. 40 All but twelve of the Serbian
already forced party leaders out of their parliamentary seats despite National Organization representatives to the parliament abandoned their
mandates from Montenegro's first elections in 1905. Now they and the efforts to work within the Austro-Hungarian framework. They stood by
i Serbian government were blamed for the subsequent bomb plots. Nikola as radical students convinced Serbian agents, most likely tied to Union
alienated Belgrade further when he proclaimed himself king in 1910. 39 or Death rather than the Belgrade government, that terrorism was now
We should not be surprised, therefore, that Serbia and Montenegro justified as tyrannicide.
were the last of the Balkan allies to negotiate an alliance before con- Incendiary Serb celebrations that erupted in Sarajevo and other
fronting the Ottoman Empire in 1912. major Bosnian towns in response to the Balkan Wars moved Bosnian
Nikola had maintained his regime in Montenegro with a combination Muslim leaders to support the Habsburg regime and to oppose Serbian
of tsarist Russian support (even subsidies) and bargaining with the rule over a significant Albanian population in Kosovo. Ottoman defeats 1
other Great Powers. The new borders moved Montenegro inland to- created general anxiety among the Muslim elite. Muslims, whether
ward Serbia, but not toward abdication of a separate identity. The loss Bosnian, Albanian, or Turkish, fled from territory newly divided be-
of identity implicit in uniting with Serbia versus the difficulty of main- tween Serbia and Montenegro into Bosnia-Hercegovina. They posed a
taining a small, isolated nation-state made the third alternative of a new problem. Some of the refugees came from families who had origin-
larger Yugoslav state attractive to some Montenegrins after both world ally left Bosnia-Hercegovina in the wake of the Austrian occupation of
wars. Yet all three options, brought to the fore by the Balkan Wars and 1878. The total number was probably less than 10,000, but rumors
the new common border with Serbia, would retain their supporters. quickly spread among the Serb community that many more Muslims
had or would come, and all of them would be settled in areas of Serb
majoriry. Further rumors of new lands opening up for Serb settlement
Bosnia-Hercegovina
in Kosovo or Macedonia offered no consolation.
The impact of Serbia's victory and expansion was more immediate in Some Bosnian Croats joined those Serbs calling for a new Yugoslav
Bosnia than in any other territory of the future Yugoslavia. Serb enthu- state to displace Habsburg rule. Student advocates of such an alliance had
\.. siasm, Bosnian Muslim anxiety, and divided Croat opinion quickly already succeeded in attracting Muslims as well to an anti-Hungarian
disrupted the peaceful if competitive relations between the three major demonstration in 1912. A number of Franciscan priests also lent their
I'
I Ij ethnic groups. Austro-Hungarian authorities did their part by suspend-
ing the 1910 constitution and making the military commander, General
support. Archbishop Stadler of Sarajevo and other advocates of the
Party of Pure Right program, like their counterparts in Croatia and
ji, Potiorek, head of government. Serb-Muslim relations suffered serious especially Slavonia, took the demonstrations of the Bosnian Serbs as
!"
wounds from these events. further proof of Serb disloyalty. The Pure Right sought a third, Croatian-
Their relations were already strained. The long-awaited law for vol- led territory with the same standing as the Austrian and Hungarian
untary redemption of properties from Muslim landlords resulted in few parts of the Habsburg monarchy. Stadler's Croatian Catholic Associ-
transfers of titles to the largely Serb sharecroppers. A scattered uprising ation won only four of sixteen Croatian seats in the 1910 elections. The
of Serb peasants against their landlords in 1910 had helped force through rival Croatian National Communiry elected the other twelve, and they
the Austro-Hungarian decree of the following year, but fewer than stood by the Muslim alliance that Stadler rejected.
6,000 redemptions were recorded in 1912 and an even smaller number Such was the balance, or better, the imbalance of forces in Bosnia-
in 1913. Nearly 90,000 holdings were left with landlords who declined Hercegovina when Princip and his student colleagues read in a Bel-
voluntary redemption. The thirty-one representatives of the Serbian grade newspaper of the Habsburg heir's forthcoming visit to Sarajevo
I
National Organization in the 1910 parliament (versus twenry-four on June 28. The date had been carelessly chosen and coincided with
I, Muslim and sixteen Croat representatives) had pressed for obligatory the anniversary of the Serbian defeat at Kosovo in 1389. General
'

I
 100 Yugoslavia as History

Potiorek's arrangements for the archduke>s security were equally care-

less_; that much is clear. Austrian scholars still seem convinced that
Black Hand officers, admittedly well placed in Serbian army1jntelli- 4 The First World War and the first
gence, acted under orders from the Belgrade government t#use the Yugoslavia, 1914-1921
young students for official purposes. The limited amount of;iirect evid-
ence suggests the reverse, that Princip and his small group took the
'I initiative and used Black Hand officers to help themselves carry out
I. the greatest act of individual terror, tyrannicide to them, that any of the
radical students had yet achieved. Their confused motives appear to
have been more pro-Yugoslav than pro-Serb, and as much anti-urban
and anti-modern as anti-Habsburg. Princip himself complained about The Serbian army's sacrifice and the population's sufferings during
women appearing in public in Sarajevo and spoke of "lighting a match" the First World War seemed for many survivors to justify Belgrade's
to the city itself. 41 upper hand in the Yugoslav state that was created between 1918 and
On June 28, 1914, he found himself the last assassin left in place and 1921. That sacrifice and suffering deserve respect, but it was the army's
fired two shots blindly when Franz Ferdinand's open car inadvertently survival of the war that made it physically possible to establish such a
stopped in front of him. The archduke's driver had misunderstood the large, new state. Without its army, Serbia's government could not have
new route for leaving Sarajevo, hastily planned after other conspirators convened Croat and Slovene representatives in Belgrade in December
had attacked the royal procession that morning. Princip had no idea 1918 and proclaimed the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.
where the assassination of the archduke and his wife (he had aimed at Without the disintegration of Austria-Hungary and Italy's ardent ter-
him and General Potiorek) would lead. But General Comad and the ritorial claims, Croat and Slovene leaders would not have come to
,, war party in Vienna knew perfectly well what a gift they had been given. Belgrade on essentially Serbian terms. At the same time, a majority of
Conrad pressed for an ultimatum that no Serbian government could popular opinion everywhere except Kosovo arguably favored the cre-
accept. When Emperor Franz Josef signed it in July 1914, the war ation of some sort of Yugoslavia by 1918. 1
parties in the other European capitals made their separate cases for For the next three years, politicians from all of the component parts
rapid mobilization. Only then were the two rival alliance systems and except Macedonia struggled with neighboring states to resolve a series
their military timetables free to drag them all into the First World War. of border disputes and with each other to agree on a constitutional
framework. The first struggle helped draw them together, and the sec-
ond divided them. The wartime burdens borne by all of the constituent
populations, not just the Serbs, barred a return to the pre-1912 order.
In any case, the two aging empires surrounding the two small, ethnic-
ally compact states of Serbia and Montenegro had broken apart by the
end of the First World War. But now what? Border claims had to be
settled not just with neighbors but within a framework of broader peace
treaties fixed by the Western allies. A single Yugoslav state would facilit-
ate a better settlement for its component pans with its neighbors and
peacemakers. Internally the long-term logic of a common market and
considerable cultural affinity also argued for a single state. Yet in the
short term, economic obstacles to political unification and divisive elec-
tions to the constituent assembly made it difficult for even a Serb-
dominated majority to reach agreement in 1921 on what sort of
Yugoslavia it wanted.
'fi!
i'
101
i'
 102 Yugoslavia as History The First World War and the first Yugoslavia, 1914-1921 103

''tribes of one people," each deserving equal standing in a future but

Serbia and the Yugoslav Committee, 1914-1917 undefined state of South Slavs. The phase "Great Serbia" did not
By the middle of 1915, both the Serbian government and// newly appear in the NiS Declaration. Neither did any recognition of a separate
formed Yugoslav Committee of Croatian and Slovenian exile,w'had pro- Macedonian "tribe"; they were still regarded as an "unformed ele-
claimed war aims that would overturn the pre-1914 ord,;r and create ment," like the Bosnian Muslims, that could be easily assimilated
some sort of South Slav state. These aims cannot fairly be said to as Serbs. Their territory was in any case to be denied Bulgaria and
predate the first desperate months of the war. They would not be was deemed strategically essential to the survival of a future Yugoslav
combined into a single document until a 1917 conference at Corfu, and state. 2
then without real agreement on what sort of state Serbia and the Yugoslav
Committee were proposing. The Yugoslav Committee
The PaSiC government simultaneously sent representatives to meet in
The NiS Declaration / Italy with exiled Dalmatian Croat advocates of a South Slav state. The
Serbia declared its war aims on December 7, 1914, from the temporary indefatigable Yugoslav spokesmen, Frano Supilo and Ante Trumbic,
capital of NiS. A second Austro-Hungarian offensive had driven the had agreed by 1913 that if war came they would organize abroad for
Serbian army there well south of Belgrade by that aurumn. Its August the destruction of Austro-Hungarian rule. Soon after war broke out,
success in repulsing the original invasion at the battle of Cer was a the more ardent Supilo sought French support. On November 22, in
distant memory. True, Serbia's army had launched its own counter- Florence, Supilo and Trumbic agreed to accept Serbian financial back-
offensive on December 3, and within two weeks it once again drove the ing for a Yugoslav Committee. The exile organization was to repres-
invaders out, at least until December of the following year. But the ent all Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes in their demand for some future
success of the Serbian attack on an Austro-Hungarian army of 250,000 Yugoslav state. In the meantime, from Paris, it would solicit Entente sup-
men that included perhaps 100,000 South Slavs could not be foretold; port for Serbia's survival. Supilo visited NiS early in 1915 to seek some
indeed it was barely and dearly won by desperate heroics from the last agreement on the place of non-Serbs in the future state, but came away
line of reserves. The much debated NiS Declaration is therefore best empty handed. Still, he decided to keep the Serbian connection rather
seen as a defensive document intended to attract wartime support from than risk the danger of two rival Yugoslavias.
Habsburg South Slavs, at a time when none of the other European The Yugoslav Committee moved to new headquarters in London
battlefronts promised peace, rather than a precise proposal for an im- shortly thereafter. Its separate official existence began here, but not
minent postwar settlement. because of any disagreement with Serbia's government. Supilo had
I.
The coalition government of Nikola PaSic':had no prospect of rein- simply discovered during a March 1915 visit to St. Petersburg that the
Iii,
;' i: forcements from the Russian or Western allies whose Entente had gone Entente powers were about to conclude a treaty with Italy, promising
to war on Serbia's behalf. Desperate pleas had extracted some ship- its government Istria and central Dalmatia in return for entering the
[i:;!!!
war, essentially against Austria-Hungary. The Treaty of London, the
I _1i
ments of French ammunition by late November. PaSiC was even trying
to revive good relations with Bulgaria despite the 1913 war over Mac- least secret of the secret treaties trading postv.rar promises for wartime
, 1 1

edonia. His newly appointed set of scholarly advisors foresaw potential support, was duly signed there on April 26. Trumbic and Supilo prob-
''-1 '.
'
' . support from Bosnia to Slovenia, and from Croats and Slovenes as well ably lacked leverage in Entente circles, and surely the disposition, to
as Serbs. They began their inquiry in August 1914 under the general concede even limited Italian claims to their Adriatic home ground and
i,I thus head off the treaty. Their May memorandum instead claimed for a
I :I
I !i European assumption that the war would not last long and postwar
demands needed to be quickly put in place. Pasic, too, had shared this future Yugoslav state all oflstria plus territory beyond Slovenia's present
1: border with Italy, the same territory that Austrian diplomats were then
illusion, speaking openly in September of postwar borders for a Serb-
1:: offering to Italy in last minute efforts to forestall the Treaty of London.
led, South Slav state reaching halfway across Istria. In December, with
a long war looming, the Belgrade professors and their leader, the geo- Supilo and Trumbic made their claim despite the fact that Slovenes
grapher, Jovan CvijiC, argued instead that the three ethnic groups were were hardly represented and were not regarded by Supilo as equals
,--

104 Yugoslavia as History The First \X1orld War and the first Yugoslavia, 1914-1921 105

within the committee. Gale Stokes has called the Yugoslav Committee's The Corfu Declaration
claim to a western border that included largely Italian districts the
equivalent of Serbia's insistence on absorbing Macedonia as iJJown Both sides came to Corfu burdened with significant weaknesses. They
province.' Both claims would bedevil the postwar formation A both seemed more concerned with compensating for them than working out
Yugoslavias. / an agreed blueprint for a future Yugoslav state. The PaSiC government
had just succeeded in bringing some 30,000 volunteers, defectors from
Serbia and the Salonika Front Habsburg forces or returnees from the United States or elsewhere,
directly into the Serbian army. The Yugoslav Committee, whose propa-
The full weight of a German-led offensive backed by Austro-Hungarian ganda had attracted many of these men, wanted to assemble them
and Bulgarian troops fell on Serbian forces in October 1915. Their epic instead into a separate Adriatic Legion. Of the further 30,000 volun-
retreat during a cold December across the uplands of Kosovo and teers recruited in Russia, over one-third refused to serve in any army
Albania to the Adriatic coast and Corfu reduced an army of 300,000 by but a Yugoslav one. PaSiC negotiated an agreement with the Yugoslav
nearly one-half. Undeniable privations bravely borne found a perma- Committee to allow the Serbian army to qualify as that army, thus
nent place in popular historical memory along with accounts of harass- denying the Committee the sort of Czech Legion that helped bring
ment by local Albanians. Toma Masaryk's exile government to power in postwar Czechoslovakia.
The PaSiC government could take no immediate advantage from the Serbian officers took charge, ready to weed out any volunteers seeking
army's heroic survival. First, they faced criticism in the rump parlia- to spread the Russian revolutionary contagion.
ment of prewar deputies that convened on Corfu in October 1916. The Committee itself had not yet won Western support for the post-
PaSiC soon recessed the Skuptina for the rest of the war, but a more war breakup of Austria-Hungary by 1917. Trumbii: was shaken by the
serious, prolonged challenge came from the reconstituted and reequipped May 30 declaration of South Slav representatives in the Austrian parlia-
army of 115,000 that was transferred to Salonika under French com- ment that affirmed their loyalty to the monarchy and the new young
mand. The pro-Yugoslav regent, Aleksandar, with an army entourage emperor, Karl I. They supported only a trialist South Slav entity on the
called the White Hand, represented royal authority. Its rival was the dualist pattern of Austria-Hungary. On the other hand, a number of the
same group of Union or Death (Black Hand) army officers around Croatian and Slovenian delegates accompanying TrumbiC to Corfu
Colonel Dragutin DimitrijeviC (Apis), whose assassination of the last advocated a unitary state under presumably Serbian leadership. Italian
Obrenovii: king in 1903 had brought them together. In 1914 they had insistence on carrying out the terms of the Treaty of London mean-
wanted war only for Great Serbia (see chapter 3). An alliance between while showed no signs of weakening.
the PaSiC government and the increasingly assertive regent finally suc- Despite more than a month of sessions on Corfu, the two sides could
ceeded in bringing down the dreaded Apis. He and two colleagues were sign only an ambiguous document on July 20. Like some agreements
executed in June 1917 after a prolonged court-martial in Salonika on late in Tito's Yugoslavia, the document allowed both sides to claim that
ill-supported charges of plotting mutiny and Aleksandar's assassina- it strengthened their own position. Its fourteen points proposed a single
tion.4 Only a few months before, PaSiC had lost his closest international state for the "three-named people" of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes
ally when the tsarist regime collapsed in Russia. Now, despite a spring under the Karadjordevii: dynasty and promised the democratic rights
buildup, no breakthrough seemed likely against the Bulgarian troops on already provided by the Serbian constitution. The equal listing of the
the Salonika Front. The Serbian government moved forthwith to meet three names in Article 5 implied autonomy for all three partners, but
on Corfu with the Yugoslav Committee and repair its connections. did not spell out territory or terms. At the same time, TrumbiC ac-
PaSiC had strained them badly with his readiness to receive Entente cepted a simple three-fifths majority, opening the door to a Serb major-
proposals for an Italian Adriatic in 1916 and his arrangements to incor- ity in the constituent assembly that would define the rights of the
porate Montenegro directly into Serbia in 1917. Frano Supilo urged a "autonomous units" promised in Article 14. He specifically declined to
i'I',, break with Serbia and then resigned from the committee before his support a federal framework because he believed that it would be too
r1:: death that same year. difficult to agree on internal borders.
I"
I. ''
 !1
r
,,...
:11
106 Yugoslama as History
I! The First World War and the first Yugoslavia, 1914-1921 107
ii'
I What legacy did the Corfu Declaration leave to the Kingdom of needs of their troops from the local population as would an occupying
11 Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes? Its longer-term importance should not be army. A considerable number of VMRO or Bulgarian Supremist sup-
exaggerated. Belgrade seemed far away that summer of 191 7, al)ll sign- porters, perhaps 100,000, joined the Bulgarian forces, but even their
ing an agreement to secure a larger Allied force on the Salonil& Front own families suffered from a growing food shortage made worse by
ti,.
" may have been PaSic's major motive. He reportedly did no~egard the German troops sending food parcels home. Then with the collapse of
1: precise terms as binding, terms that in any case left the central govern- the Salonika Front in September 1918, both Bulgarian and German
1: ment in Belgrade to decide what "local autonomy" would mean. 5 The forces withdrew, leaving behind few locals in authority to challenge the
name itself also represented a victory for the PaSiC government in that returning Serbian army. 6
it preserved Serbia's separate identity. The failure to list constituent Austria-Hungary's later wartime regimes in Croatia and Bosnia-
peoples other than Serbs, Croats, or Slovenes was not promising. Still, Hercegovina also imposed worsening economic hardships on their popu-
the agreement at least allowed the Yugoslav Committee to tie Serbia's lations, regardless of ethnic identity. Despite these hardships, the various
government to a published document whose terms the Western allies South Slav contingents accounted for a larger share of the monarchy's
might well wish to interpret the Committee's way. Lacking an army, military forces late in 191 7 than in 1914, 17 versus 11. 5 percent. The
the Committee's only alternative would have been to accept the Treaty Croat contingent, slightly larger than the Serb, lost the most men, close
of London and forfeit the central Adriatic coast to Italy. This was surely to 300,000 dead by 1918. Proportionally, Slovenes and Bosnian Muslims
I too much to ask of Ante Trumbic. took the highest casualties. Only the Bosnian Serbs served under spe-
!i'
!r cial restrictions, and only they defected in significant numbers on the
Serbian and Russian fronts of 1914-1 7. 7 At the beginning of the war,
Wartime regimes from Slovenia to Serbia
both the monarchy's Croatian and Bosnian regimes persecuted some
The negotiations that passed between the Yugoslav Committee and Serbs and made life difficult for many more of them in ways that would
Serbia's government from mid-1917 until the autumn of 1918 were less be remembered as mistreatment at Croat or Bosnian Muslim hands.
important to the legitimacy of the new state than two cumulative reac-
tions. Countering the continuing Italian claim to Gorizia, !stria, and
Croatia
the central Adriatic coast provided one justification for creating some
I: sort of Yugoslavia. The oppressive military regimes of Austria-Hungary The Austro-Hungarian army commanders set aside civil authority and
..
and Bulgaria that occupied all of the future Yugoslavia from 1916
1

1' began to arrest or harass Serbs suspected of any ties to Serbia during
forward constituted another. the autumn of 1914. Although they could not persuade Hungarian
Italy's claims had the clearest effect on Slovenian political leaders. Prime Minister Tisza to dissolve the Sabor, they did extract the em-
They led the largest party, the Slovene People's Party (SLS) under peror's permission to proclaim martial law. The new military regime
Monsignor Anton Korosec, to vote for the May 1917 declaration of curtailed already limited rights of assembly and free speech and arrested
support for a new South Slav entity in the Habsburg Monarchy and some of the Croatian-Serbian Coalition members in the Sabor. In the
then, in early 1918, to send representatives to the Yugoslav Committee. meantime, Croatian extremists in the small Frankist Party (see chap-
By August 1918, Korosec headed a multi-party National Council to ter 3) had burned a number of Serb schools. The Ban proposed closing
i prepare for the unification of all the South Slavs, including those out- them all after the war. Croatia's Catholic hierarchy split over the issue
side the monarchy, in a new state. Within weeks, 130 local councils of preserving Austria-Hungary without change. The bishop of Rijeka
were also in place from Trieste across Gorizia to Carinthia. and some young followers published demands that all South Slavs
'1, The Bulgarian military regime in northern Macedonia ironically had be represented in a new third entity in the monarchy. This was to be a
done more to damage the development of a Bulgarian identity than any
F of Serbia's heavy-handed efforts to destroy it between 1912 and 1915.
more multi-ethnic entity than the Croatian-dominated one proposed by
the Party of Rigbt or by Stjepan Radii: after he abandoned his suppott
Mines had been handed over to German authorities for production that for an Austro-Hungarian victory in 1917. 8
was sent straight to the German war effort. Bulgarian military officers By then, the Habsburg war effort was imposing a serious economic
from Sofia took control of local administration and requisitioned the burden. Peasants hoarded their produce rather than deliver it to the
 108 Yugoslavia as History The First World War and the first Yugoslavia, 1914-1921 109

Austro-Hungarian cenirale set up in provincial towns. The Zagreb more than three executions from being carried out, the number of
I Military Command kept promising improvement in the city's provi- Serbs forced from their homes and deported or confined in concentra-
1., sions, but less and less food was available. In the food-poor veas of tion camps approached 100,000 by mid-191 7. Muslim dissent was also
i !. discouraged, but the regime recruited Muslims as well as Croats into a
!stria and Dalmatia, widespread hunger was reported from )ill'l6 for-
ward. Then came the prisoners of war, primarily Croats, ret}HTI-ing from defense force, or Schutzkorps, that grew to 20,000 men. In their "anti-
Russia in the course of 1917. They formed the core of the "Green bandit operations" along the Drina border with Serbia, in FoCa for
Cadres" who began to seize estates and power in the countryside in instance, they massacred Serb villagers as weil as deported them. This
i October 1918. Croat and Serb soldiers from the disintegrating army of first incidence of active "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia-Hercegovina left
ii Austria-Hungary greatly reinforced their ranks. 9 grievances that played into the hands of Sarkotic's successors on all
q==-rs it possible to speak of sizeable support throughout the various sides. Its immediate effect in 1917-18 was to swell the ranks of the
;,,
Croatian lands for a Yugoslav state outside of Austria-Hungary before Serb guerrillas with deserters from the Austro-Hungarian army, not all
'!
the monarchy and its forces literally fell apart? No public opinion polls of them Serbs. By early 1918, Sarkotii: himself estimated their numbers
were taken, but the fiercely anti-Yugoslav Habsburg commander of at 50,000. Hungarian opposition prevented him from putting into
Bosnia-Hercegovina, Stefan SarkotiC, reckoned that while a majority effect his plan for the administrative unification of Bosnia-Hercegovina
of Croatia-Slavonia was still loyal to the monarchy in May 1918, by with Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia even after the new emperor, Karl,
August some 60 percent had been "infected with the Yugoslav idea." had approved it in May 1917. Had Sarkotii: succeeded, the resulting
The proportion in Dalmatia and Slovenia was much higher by all repression might have made popular support for a Yugoslav alternative
accounts. 10 to the Habsburg monarchy broader still.

Bosnia-Hercegovina Serbia

This same General Sarkotic estimated that fully half of the Bosnian Meanwhile, in occupied Serbia, a less personal Austrian military regime
population was similarly "infected" by May 1918. Ironically his own still subjected the local population to treatment that hardened opposi-
draconian regime was responsible for a sizeable share of that half. Be- tion to any restoration of the Habsburg monarchy. General Conrad,
cause it was also SarkotiC's regime that first mobilized Bosnian Croats long Serbia's arch enemy, had in fact proposed that all officials, profes-
and Muslims to persecute Serb civilians after centuries of Ottoman and sionals or clergy who were politically active, must be "destroyed or
Habsburg rule, he deserves special attention. 1 l banished firmly and for a long time, preventing their return." Belgrade
A Croat from Lika whose family had served for generations in a shrank from 90,000 to 15,000 between 1914 and early 1916. Over one-
Military Border regiment, he first saw action as a young officer fighting third of the population had already left Belgrade by October 1915,
Serb peasant rebels in the 1882 uprising in Hercegovina. By the out- when the Serbian army's retreat left some 30,000 Austro-Hungarian
break of war in 1914, he had risen to command the only Croat-Serb troops to occupy the country. A typhus epidemic spread from the Ser-
division (two-thirds Croat) in the Austrian army and led it in the war bian army to civilians that fall and took a staggering 150,000 lives.
against Serbia. He immediately issued an order for the summary execu- Another 40,000 people were deported to Austria-Hungary and 10,000
tion of civilians in Bosnia as well as Serbia who aided or supported the confined in concentration camps in Serbia. Still more died of hunger
Serb guerrilla bands that sprang up. By November 1914, Sarkotii: and disease during the rest of the occupation, bringing the civilian
had been promoted to military governor, or Landeschef, of Bosnia- death total for 1914-1918 to at least one-half million. Troop losses of
Hercegovina. He began to arrest and deport prominent Serbs, includ- nearly 300,000 matched the South Slav toll for Austria-Hungary, from
ing Orthodox clergy. Before he had finished, approximately 5,000 Serbs a pre-1912 population of 8 million versus 3 million for Serbia. One way
were interned in camps, joining the small number of Young Bosnia or another, half of Serbia's male population between the ages of 18 and
members, like Ivo Andrii:, who had been arrested immediately. Perhaps 55 had perished.
50,000 were forced from their homes in the Drina valley. Show trials The war also crippled Serbia's capacity to feed itself. Disease and the
held at Banja Luka in 1916-17 passed death sentences as well as nu- absence of peasant labor may have been the greater reasons for devast-
merous deportation orders. Although amnesties from Vienna prevented ating food shortages, but popular memory would blame the Austrian
 1
110 Yugoslavia as History The First \X'orld War and the first Yugoslavia, 1914-1921 111

centrale for requisitioning foodstuffs from the countryside and ration- the rising criticism of R. W. Seton-Watson and Henry Wickham Steed,
ing a shrinking amount back to the towns. Other requisitions took what long the leading British advocates of a Yugoslav state on the presum-
/! cloth and metal could be seized from the towns. Habsburg ciyjl auth- ably federal terms of the Yugoslav Committee. 13
orities had no plans either for developing Serbia's econoq# or for At the same time, Austria-Hungary's declining fortunes had prompted
connecting it to their western territories. Zagreb's Chami,r of Com- an ad hoc body of deputies to the Croatian Sabor in Zagreb to proclaim

I
11
j
i
merce was persuaded to make one trip to Belgrade to explore a rail link,
but the project went no further. The military command and the Ger-
man army exploited the mines and a few industrial enterprises for the
war effort. Other factories stood vacant or were destroyed, and Austrian
themselves a National Council (Narodno vijece). Quickly joined by ,
representatives from Dalmatia, Istria, and a similar Slovenian council
(Narodni svet) that had convened in August, they commanded an im-
mediate claim to legitimacy. The Yugoslav Committee, still based in
II
i or German troops flooded the mines as they withdrew in the face of the London, could only ask to be their foreign representative. Last to join
I I
I
Allied advance from Salonika in October 1918. Rail lines and bridges
were blown up, and Belgrade's electrical utility put out of commission.
but constituting a majority when they did were members of the prewar
Croatian-Serbian Coalition. By this time, they had come around to the
1 As a final gesture, one Austrian army unit broke every window and lock idea of a new state that included Serbia, as fervently championed by
(!:
Im: they could find in the city before leaving. Serbia had surely suffered their leader, Svetozar PribiCeviC. They were especially attracted to Ser-
greater losses, human and material, during the First World War than bia's army as a force that could restore order in the countryside and
,I 12
did the other component parts of the future Y ugos 1avia. secure their ambitious Western borders, in other words, suppress the
;!I "Green Cadres" and tum back the Italian army, Stjepan Radie and his
.,
National Council in Zagreb and unification in Belgrade Croatian Peasant Party opposed any such bargain, rejecting the Na-
, I
tional Council's vote for the Serbian monarchy and army as well as for
I The Serbian army and government returned in November 1918 to a a single state. His only ally was the Frankist Party of Pure Right. But on
i!
. '
war-ravaged population and economy, hardly a basis of political strength November 4, the Council barely halted an Italian advance on Ljubljana
!',I
j ii beyond the popular sense of shared sacrifice. Nor did the Pasic govern- with a force of former war prisoners. It immediately dispatched an
ment and the regent, Aleksandar, form a united front, ready to deal appeal through Allied representatives for Serbian troops, 14
!I
Ii with the resumption of party politics in Serbia. The Serbian side was At Geneva on November 9, Ante Trumbic staged a last stand for the
nonetheless in a stronger position to bargain with the Yugoslav Com- Yugoslav Committee. He pressed PaSiC as Serbia's foreign representative
;II
I
' minee about the shape of any new state than it had been on Corfu in to accept a confederation, comparable to the Dual Monarchy, as the
I
1917, In addition to a victorious army, Serbia now had French support framework for the new government. Both the Serbian opposition to PaSiC
and a potential ally in Zagreb against the Committee itself. and the Slovenian People's Party leader, Monsignor KoroSec, joined
'ii, A Yugoslav state would secure the breakup of Austria-Hungary with-
,,. forces with TrumbiC to secure the tentative Geneva Agreement. But the
out handing over the Adriatic coast to Italy. This became a French Belgrade government, headed by fellow Radical and the regent's favorite,
" interest as early as April 1918. British and American policy was much Stojan ProtiC, repudiated that agreement two days later simply by re-
slower to promote the breakup of the monarchy; indeed, despite the signing with a promise to include the opposition in a new cabinet. The
promise of self-determination in President Woodrow Wilson's famous advance of Italian troops and naval units toward Dalmatia continued.
Fourteen Points ofJanuary 1918, Anglo-American diplomacy accepted Serb delegates to the Zagreb National Council demanded that the mem-
rather than promoted the monarchy's disintegration. France had sent bers accept the regent's invitation to meet with him in Belgrade. TrumbiC
the most Allied troops to the Salonika Front, and a French general, stood by in shock as council representatives first repudiated the Geneva
Franchet d'Esperey, commanded the largely Serbian force that retook Agreement and then, on November 28, asked Aleksandar to proclaim \.
Macedonia and Kosovo and liberated Serbia. By October French repres- the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes as agreed on Corfu. This
entatives were telling the PaSiC government that they favored a unitary he did on December I before delegations from Bosnia-Hercegovina,
Yugoslav state on the pattern of Italy or Poland. Any federal arrange- Montenegro, the Vojvodina, and the National Council as well. 15
ment would be divisive and, worse, they argued, too weak to stand up Several groups outside the Council openly criticized the December
to its neighbors. Such support bolstered the PaSiC government against proclamation. Montenegrin supporters of King Nikola naturally objected,
 112 Yugoslavia as History The First World War and the first Yugoslavia, 1914-1921 113

favoring an Italian-backed effort to reclaim his throne. The newly rad- National Parliament (PNP) was in place to prepare for the elections
ical Social Democratic Party opposed any agreement with a monarchy to the Constituent Assembly. They were delayed until November 1920,
like Serbia's that was antagonistic to Bolshevik Russia. The fir~ and and ratification took another six months. During that long interim
loudest denunciations came from Croatia's small Party of Pur~ght. period, the struggle to negotiate secure external borders helped bind
Croats from Slavonia and Hercegovina, both close by Serb c;tncentra- the new political spectrum together while problems of domestic recovery
tions, were particularly attracted to such nationalist opposition, as was and public order pushed it apart.
the Catholic archbishop of Sarajevo, Josip Stadler. Already an active
advocate of a Croatian Bosnia-Hercegovina before the war (see chapter
Western policy and border disputes
3), Stadler failed to win over leading clerics from the Bosnian Franciscans
and several Croatian orders, especially in Dalmatia, who accepted the Allied support during the First World War, first for Serbia and then
unification. The Catholic hierarchy, in other words, was hardly united also for the Yugoslav Committee, did not translate into immediate
in opposing the formation ,,,f Yugoslavia. 16 recognition of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, let
The steadfastly anti-clerical Stjepan Radie and his Croatian Peasant alone international agreement on precisely what its borders should
Party did present a unified opposition. Wilfully excluded from any role be. None of the victorious powers had recognized the new state when
in the Zagreb National Council by PribiceviC, RadiC saw the proclama- the Paris peace conference convened January 1919. Recognition by the
tion as the fulfillment of his worst fears. In February 1919, he dis- United States followed in February. Britain and France delayed, defer-
patched a letter to President Wilson appealing for the recognition of a ring to Italian opposition because of its Adriatic claims under the Treaty
Croatian republic, adding the word "republican" to his party's name of London. By May both of the victorious powers felt obliged to accept
the next day. Lacking a better route, Radie sent the letter through the the kingdom's credentials because the newly arrived delegation of de-
Italian military mission in Ljubljana, a hasty misstep that his opponents feated Germany had done so. 18
in Belgrade turned to their political advantage. Before recognition, the triumvirate of PaSiC, TrumbiC, and KoroSec
By then, Trumbie and other moderate opponents of the proclama- that represented the new kingdom could occupy only the three seats at
tion had agreed to the single interim government that was to prepare a the conference initially granted to Serbia. This weakened their claim to
new constitution for ratification by a promised Constituent Assembly. negotiate the new western frontier. To the nonh, there were further
Behind any such government stood the need to rely on the Serbian border disputes to be settled with Austria and Hungary, and to the
army. The National Council tried to use its own meager forces to south, with Bulgaria and Albania. Only the Macedonian border with
confront a surviving Hungarian unit in Zagreb on December 5 while Greece and, after bargaining into the summer of 1919, the Banat bor-
Serbian army troops watched. The Council's failure marked the end of der with Romania were not contested. Divisions between Trumbic and
any military alternative to the Serbian army across the entire territory of PaSiC also limited the delegation's ability to present a single bargaining
the new state. Despite the lack of new arms from the wartime Allies, position. PaSiC was not yet ready to trade Rijeka to Italy in return for
its forces swelled to 400,000 by mid-1919 . 17 Its sheer presence estab- Shkoder from Albania, as he would be by 1920, but the difference
lished the authority of the united government as agreed in Belgrade on between his emphasis on eastern claims and Trumbic's preoccupation
December 20, 1918. With ProtiC rather than PaSiC as prime minister, with the western border was already there to exploit.
.... again at Aleksandar's behest, the cabinet consisted of ten members
from Serbia, nine from former Habsburg territory, and one from
Istn'a and Dalmatia
Montenegro. TrumbiC agreed to join PaSiC and Koroec as its repres-
entatives at the Paris peace conference. Two initial advantages promised to make up for these weaknesses in
Internally, Belgrade's representatives rejected a proposal from the the new kingdom ,s position. First, the moralistic American President
Croato-Serbian Coalition for joint or autonomous ministries on the Woodrow Wilson had compromised his commitment to ethnic rather
' Habsburg pattern. Instead, the Serbian constitution of 1903 became than strategic borders in January 1919 by accepting Italy's claim to the
the interim law of the land until January 30, 1919, when agreement was Tyrol (and the Brenner Pass). Supported by his geographic advisors, he
reached on a similar temporary constitution. By March 1919, the Interim now determined to refuse any more concessions to Italy, particularly if
114 Yugoslavia as History The First World War and the first Yugoslavia, 1914-1921 115

they honored the sort of secret wartime treaty he had never respected.
Those powerful British persuaders, Wickham Steed and Seton-Watson
sought to coordinate support for the Yugoslav claim berween Tru'},,bii:
and Italian liberals opposed to their nationalist foreign minister, ~ney
Sonnino. Second, Italian army units moved beyond the border.,.granted
them by the 1915 Treaty of London into Rijeka (Fiume) in particular,
and further weakened the legitimacy of Italy's case. Allied support grew
for the so-called Wilson line proposed by his experts to bisect the
Istrian peninsula from north to south and leave the eastern portion plus
all of Dalmatia (except for Zadar) to the Yugoslav state (see map 4.1).
Some 370,000 inland Slovenes and Croats would remain in Italy, but
this was half the number that the London line would have included. 1'
Orlando's insecure government and his intransigent foreign minister
refused to accept even the more favorable Wilson line, leaving the
border unsettled. Only in November 1920 did a new, still non-Fascist
Italian govenunent use the defeat of Wilson's Democratic ticket (Wilson
was not a candidate) in the US elections to extract the signature of the
interim Yugoslav government to the Treaty of Rapallo. Its terms drew a
border berween the London line and the eastern advance of Italian Yugoslav territorial demands
at Paris Peace Conference
troops that left over one-half million Slovenes and Croats in Italy.
- - Yugoslav frontiers, 1921
Rijeka was to become a free state once the private militia of the Italian
0 Selected cities
poet and irredentist, Gabriele d' Annunzio, that had occupied the port
-------~--- Rivers
since August 1919 was expelled. Although this was accomplished by
January 1921, Mussolini's Fascist regime would move to reclaim Rijeka
in September 1923. By that later date, the Italian administrators of Map 4.1 Territorial Claims and Final Borders, 1918-1921
!stria and Gorizia had already closed down Slovenian and Croatian
language schools, publications, and political organizations. They also largely Austrian German. city of K.lagenfurt, in May 1919. Italian arms
disbanded Krek's extensive network of cooperatives (described in chap- a; ..d-~ffic~;~--s~PPort;d- a--;eak AuStrian counterattack (the defeated,
ter 3). Their restrictions drove the Social Democrats and some other shrunken Austrian state had virtually no army) that regained some
Slovenes on Italian territory into the Communist camp. 20 Within the ground. British, French, and American representatives at Paris now
new Yugoslav state, these cross-border grievances and Mussolini's con- agreed that the dispute should be settled by rwo plebiscites, the first
tinuing hostility encouraged Slovenia's political leaders to seek out an one in Carinthia south of the Drava river (Zone A) and then, if it went
alliance with Serbian interests. As the Yugoslav capital and army head- against Austria, a second one to the north (Zone B). The south voted
quarters, Belgrade was the strongest source of diplomatic and military three-to-rwo for Austria in July 1920. Some 40,000 to 60,000 Slovenes
leverage against Italy. remained on the Austrian side of the final border and strengthened the
Serbian case for refusing to sign the St. Germain peace treaty with
Carinthia and the Vojvodina Austria, for other reasons related to Macedonia. 21 The Yugoslav king-
dom also retained small triangles on either side of the Mur river,
Serbian military leverage had also allowed Korosec and other Slovenian Prekomurje and Medjumurje (see map 4.1).
leaders to press their claim to the mixed area of Carinthia. -~erbian As with Austria, the new state's adversarial relationship with interwar
aill)y__4p.j~_signored TrumbiC's ongoing negotiations in Paris to reduce Hungary began over a dispute about their common border. \Vb.en the
that claim and occupied most of the Carinthian basin, including the Bolshevik regime of Bela Kun seized power in Hungary for four months
116 Yugoslavia as History The First World war and the first Yugoslavia, 1914-1921 117

in 1919, French representatives pressed for a Serbian army division to and Kosovo, "Old Serbia," becomes more understandable, at least in
move northward. No troops were moved, but the invitation strength- strategic terms. Military arguments were also the grounds for demand-
ened the kingdom's hand in bargaining successfully for most ~ its ing a strip of western Bulgaria from Vidin down to the Strumica river
claim to the BaCka area between the Danube and Tisza rivers, i~lud- and along the rim of northern Albania to the Orin river (see map 4.1)
ing the largely Hungarian towns of Sombor and Subotica and tlJ.e south- at the Paris peace conference. The Allies granted only three minor
ern triangle of the Baranja between the Drava and Danube (see adjustments eastward in the Bulgarian frontier.
map 4.1). Since General d'Esperey had authorized it in November 1918, A subsequent program (described in chapter 5) to bring Serb colon-
the Serbian army occupied that area and more, reaching into Hungary ists to Macedonia and especially to Kosovo and the Sandiak of Novir, '
as far as Pees and into Romania as far as Timi~oara. The Bunjevci or Pazar sought to secure these border areas in a fashion reminiscent ofr ;)r ,J:
Sokci of the Subotica area, originally Catholic Serb or Croat immi- Habsburg "populationism" in the eighteenth-century Vojvodina. Home- .:, ,
grants from Hercegovina, had thereupon joined with Serbs in Novi Sad steads for Serb families from Bosnia-Hercegovina, Montenegro, and
and elsewhere to demand separation from Hungary "in the sacred name the Lika region of the old Croatian Military Border were to be carved
of self-determination." A large and largely Serb set of 757 represent- from Albanian or Turkish lands, allegedly vacated by former Ottoman
atives hastily elected from communes in roughly the territory finally landlords or postwar outlaws. The interim land reform passed by the
ceded had already met in Novi Sad on November 25 to demand union PNP in Belgrade in February 1919 abolished the Ottoman feudal rights
with Serbia or the still unproclaimed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and by which Muslim landlords had claimed sharecropping levies from Bosnia
Slovenes. 22 France's support at the Paris peace conference secured the down to Macedonia. 23
claim although it was the strategic argument of the Serbian General Kosovar Albanians faced the return of a Serbian army whose cam-
Staff that persuaded the French representatives. paign there during the First Balkan War had cost them thousands of
Like the interwar Romanian border with Hungary in Transylvania, a dead, and destroyed more houses. Austrian occupation of the northern
relatively smaB adjusunent would have reduced fue Hungarian minority half from 1915 to 1918 (Bulgaria took over the southern half) had
of400,QOO in the first Yugoslavia by ..ahQutppe-hal[ The Vojvodina's allowed Albanian-language schools to open for the first time. But food
ethnl..German minqrity. of.50Q,O_QQ_remai11eclj!l_a_!!y_case.
The South soon became scarce under the familiar Habsburg system of requisition-
Slavs had sought minority rights with mixed success from Austria- ing. Serbia's Salonika army retook Kosovo in September 1918, but
Hungary before the war. The new Yugoslav kingdom now faced the reprisals against villages for resistance or presumed collaboration con-
dilemma of respecting such rights or encouraging the breakup of the tinued into 1919. 24 Then Belgrade's effort to requisition arms and even
state. issue a draft call in 1920 provoked further Albanian resistance.
This plus ongoing warfare between the Serbian army and assorted
Albanian bands around the northern circle of a disputed border with
Macedonia and Kosovo
Albania gave the Belgrade government new justification for launching
While minority rights would be at least addressed in the north, they its resettlement policy. So did VMRO raids across the Bulgarian border
were entirely ignored in the south. Serbia's representatives at the Paris into Macedonia that continued until 1923. The 1921 conference in
peace conference consistently refused to acknowledge the existence of Paris of signatories to the peace treaties assigned Albania to Italy's
a huge, non-Serb majority in Macedonia or the legitimacy of one in protection under League of Nations provisions, thus making Kosovo
Kosovo. It is easy to condemn this refusal to recognize the Macedonian seem the more vulnerable of the two territories in the eyes of subsequent
Slavs as a separate ethnic group in light of the genuine national con- Belgrade governments.
sciousness that has developed there in the meantime. But at that time,
its small educated elite was still divided between Macedonian, Bulgar-
Economic obstacles to political unification
ian, and even local identities, sometimes within the same person. When
we consider the irredentist claims of defeated Bulgaria to that territory Tlueatening border disputes, particularly with Italy, helped hold to-
along with those of an emerging Albania to Kosovo, Belgrade's reluct- gether the first Yugoslavia during the long interval before a constitution
ance to call northern Macedonia anything other than "South Serbia" could be ratified. Meanwhile, the separate postwar problems of the
 'I

118 Yugoslavia as History The First World War and the first Yugoslavia, 1914-1921 119

Serbian and Croatian economies impeded political accommodation. Croatian peasants had profited during the recent war, but in fact Austro-
From 1918 until the demise of the second Yugoslavia in 1991, Serbs Hungarian authorities had requisitioned animals and grain at centrale
and Croats were the one pair of ethnic groups capable of teari?? the in Croatia-Slavonia as well. The new inventories looked like more re-
state apart if they clashed. When each failed to understand the ,;,tlier's quisitions. Rural revolts now erupted south and east of Zagreb in Croatia
economic misfortunes during and after the First World War, jh-eir pol- proper and quickly elicited support from RadiC's Peasant Party, even
itical relations got off on the wrong foot. though Radii: was imprisoned by the Belgrade government. Serbian
The new kingdom faced formidable problems of economic integra- units soon put down the rebellions, but they contributed to an overall
,. tion even without the ravages of war being taken into account. Serbia, decline, estimated at 20 percent, in Croatian agricultural production
Croatia-Slavonia, and the other component territories had traded far for 1918-21 from an already reduced level. 26
more with other commercial networks than with each other (see chap- This reduction combined with the desperate demand for foodstuffs
ter 2). Austro-Hungarian rivalry within the Dual Monarchy had en- in postwar Vienna and Budapest to drive up food prices in Zagreb to
couraged these alternate connections with two separate rail networks. several times beyond the Belgrade level. The food-poor areas of Dalma-
Across all of the future state, there were four different rail networks, tia, Slovenia, and Hercegovina were left with virtually nothing from
five currencies., and six customs areas and legal systems, all dating from Croatia-Slavonia. But the rail links to the struggling new states of Aus-
before 1914. Perhaps the one economic feature that Serbia and Croatia- tria and Hungary were still intact. Croatian traders played the interim
Slavonia had in common was a comparative advantage in the export of government's civil and military authorities off against each other in
livestock. order to obtain exemptions from an Allied ban on exports to those
The war and its aftermath damaged the largely agricultural eco- countries. Selling to the highest bidder, they also found buyers in relat-
nomies in every comer of the new kingdom. Transport was disrupted and ively prosperous Czechoslovakia. In the process, Zagreb became the
little manpower reached the fields. Food-poor areas such as Hercegovina commercial center of the new kingdom, accounting for most of the
faced desperate shortages. The interim land reform of 1919 and its food exports that were in turn half of the kingdom's total for 1920.
abrogation of Muslim share-cropping regimes may have increased grain Serbia's own agricultural woes only encouraged the Belgrade politi-
production in Bosnia, Macedonia, and Kosovo. But the reform's effects cians to focus on Zagreb's rising role in foreign trade and to neglect any
on Croatian agriculture and exports caused political trouble, as did the problems of the Croatian peasantry. The Serbian burden from wartime
special burdens borne by Serbia's industry and transport. 25 The mutual requisitions by the Austro-Hungarian centrale had, of course, been
resentments that they engendered came to a head in the controversy higher. Livestock was reduced to one-third of the prewar total for peas-
over a single currency and a central bank. ant households. The grain-rich Vojvodina still sent the majority of its
produce north, even after the prewar customs barriers had been re-
moved in March 1919. But there were no ''Green Cadres" to disrupt
Agriculture and foreign trade
the cultivation of the fertile fields of northern Serbia, albeit mainly with
A series of peasant uprisings shook Croatia during the immediate post- wooden ploughs. Their overwhelmingly small properties were also ex-
war period and disrupted agricultural recovery in several regions. Bands empt from the land reform and, in fact, produced a better food supply
of returning peasant soldiers sacked the large, foreign-owned estates of for Belgrade than for Zagreb in the autumn of 1919.
Slavonia in particular. Such violence had already prompted the mainly
Croatian National Council in Zagreb to call for Serbian troops to re-
Industry and transport
store order by the end of 1918. An interim land reform of April 1919
promised to break up all estate or other holdings over 150 acres. Actual Serbia's industry suffered more than agriculture, particularly when
redistribution, however, was slow in coming. Rural order had barely compared to Croatia and Slovenia. Broken rail connections heightened
been restored in September 1920 when a still essentially Serbian army Serbia's postwar problems. Its rail track per capita was already less
started to inventory all draft animals and brand those fit for military use than even the Bosnian average (31 versus 74 kilometers) before the war.
in case of war. Its clumsy campaign sparked a rumor that the livestock Retreating Bulgarian troops had destroyed the Nis repair yards and
was about to be confiscated. Many Serbian politicians assumed that most of the rolling stock that the Austrian forces had not taken with
120 Yugoslavia as History The First World War and the first Yugoslavia, 1914-1921 121

them in the autumn of 1918. To the north, the retreating Austrians had would be converted to dinars, Serbia's long-standing denomination.
blown up the bridges across the Sava and Danube rivers. Because of Dinars had survived the war at virtual par with the French franc: diner
these limitations, the ~ostwar coal shortage that interrupted rail s;price notes had not circulated and Serbia's gold reserves were held in safe-
across all of the new kingdom except Slovenia and Bosnia hit Bpl'grade I keeping by France. By the summer of 1919, the Austro-Hungarian
all the harder .. , . . . / crown depreciated to one-fifth of its prewar par with the German mark,
Prewar Serbia s modest mdustnal capacity had been concentrated in I four to the dollar rather than the dinar's prewar five, on the Vienna and
Budapest exchange markets. The Serbian-dominated government's de-
Belgrade, where it now faced the lack of full rail service until 1922. The
occupiers' last-minute flooding of lignite mines delayed the resumption cision to "mark over" crowns or trade them for dinars at a five-to-one
of power, heat, and light for factories through 1919. Denied a place on ratio may appear to economic historians as a market-based measure,
the Allied commission to divide up the assets of Austria-Hungary, the but neither the Croatian nor the Serbian side would remember it that
kingdom's Serbian-dominated government could not bargain for Czech way. The initial Serbian offer of ten-to-one faced a Croatian demand
coal supplies that would have offered relief. Indeed, the reparations for a one-to-one exchange. Even the two-to-one rate offered by Romanian
from both Austria-Hungary and Germany that the government had authorities in Transylvania in order to allow the powerful Bucharest
counted on for Serbia's economic recovery were slow to arrive beyond banks to attract deposits had proved wildly inflationary. The five-to-one
a number of German locomotives. Meanwhile, Belgrade's association ratio of crowns for dinars persuaded the Zagreb banks to ignore the
of private industrialists, the lndustrijska Komara, consistently failed to new central bank that would manage a money supply of dinars. 27 Irrita-
win state support for priority over agricultural recovery or military tion over the initial conversion would not fade from the list of Croatian
requirements. Even demands for the nationalization of Austrian and grievances against "Serbian centralism" in the first Yugoslavia.
Hungarian firms in Croatia or Slovenia fell on deaf ears.
Two portentous consequences followed from the travails of Serbia's Divisive elections for a unitary constitution
industry. First, the hardships of unpaid wages or unemployment through-
out 1919 convinced a significant part of Belgrade's industrial labor force, The constitution of 1921 surely deserved its reputation as a framework
swollen by returning soldiers, to support the new Communist Party of for centralization. This was to be a state dominated by the monarch,
Yugoslavia in the 1920 elections for the Constituent Assembly. Second, the Belgrade ministries, and Serbian political leaders. Yet Serbs did not
the rapid recovery of Croatian industry now concentrated in Zagreb created constitute even a simple majority, let alone the ovenvhelming majority
a significant economic gap between the two cities. Although roughly that made such a prescription more workable, even without a king, in
equal before the war, the number of industrial enterprises in Zagreb France. But if the regent, Aleksandar, and the Serbian army still held
grew to four times the Belgrade figure by 1926 with twice the capital. the strong hand described above, why was the political process leading
to that constitution so long and difficult? Nearly two years passed be-
fore a Constituent Assembly was elected on November 28, 1920, and
Serbian currency and Croatian banks another seven months before that body ratified a constitution. The
Much of that capital came from Zagreb commercial banks that refused uncertainty over the peace treaties and Serbia's particular economic
to participate in the new kingdom's central bank in Belgrade. They left weakness were only two reasons. Divisions within the Serbian and other
Serbian shareholders to take up almost three-quarters of the joint stock Serbs' camps combined with the abstention of irreconcilable Croatian
issued for the Narodna Banka Kr. Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca in 1920 and Communist parties to fracture the final outcome.
and rarely called on the bank to rediscount their loans in subsequent That struggle began in the Interim National Parliament (PNP). It
years. Instead, they turned to investment banking within Croatia, own- convened on December 10, 1918, and continued to sit until the regent '
ing or issuing 57 percent of the joint-stock in the entire kingdom by disbanded it exactly one month before the 1920 election for the Con-
1921, one year before the central government passed a law authorizing stituent Assembly. The PNP remained an unelected body throughout
incorporation. its existence, with the undemocratic exception of twenty-four deput-
ies from Macedonia and Kosovo elected via open ballot by voters
'
Encouraging this separate and more profitable course was the 1919
dispute over the rate at which crowns from the defunct Dual Monarchy approved by Serbian authorities. The rest of the PNP's 296 delegates
 122 Yugoslavia as Hiswry The First World War and the first Yugoslavia, 1914-1921 123

were selected by the prewar parties in rough proportion to their seats

Table 4.1. Regional party shares and seats in the 1920 elections
in the last prewar assemblies. Hence, only two token seats were offered
to Radii:'s Croatian Peasant Party (and promptly refused) and none to
the new Communist Party. Prewar Serbia, Macedonia, and Jfosovo Percentage Seats Percentage Seats

\ together had 84 seats, Croatia 62, Slovenia 32, Bosnia-Herce7.ovina 42, Bosnia and Hercegovina Serbia
the Vojvodina 24, Dalmatia and Montenegro 12 each, ano !stria 4. Yugoslav Muslim Radicals 20 41
Although a majority of the National Council in Zagreb would have Organization (JMO) 23 24 Democrats 18 32
Radicals 13 11 Communists (KPJ) 9 14
preferred its own separate parliament and Slovenian representatives
Labor Union 12 12 Agrarian Union 8 14
had asked for 6 more seats, the body was not an unrepresentative one i Croatian Labor Pany 8 7 Kosovo and Sandiak
by the available census figures. Croatian People's Party 4 3 Democrats 36 13
Two principal features distinguished the PNP's legislative life. 28 First, Democrats 4 2 Radicals 15 6
Communists 4 4 Communists 8 3
although Nikola Pasii:'s Radical Party organized three of its four cabi-
Croatia Macedonia
nets, PaSiC headed none of them, and his party commanded only sixty-
nine mandates. It sought to counter this disadvantage by alliances with
" Croatian Republic Communists 20 15
Peasant Party (HRSS) 37 50 Democrats 16 11
the Slovenian People's Party (SLS) and Bosnia's Yugoslav Muslim Democrats 12 19 Radicals 14 6
Radicals 6 9 Montenegro
Organization (JMO), alliances that would reappear several times during Communists 5 7 Communists 25 4
the interwar period. The formation of political clubs for each major Croatian Union 2 3 Democrats 13 2
party or coalition on the prewar Serbian pattern facilitated the contacts Croatian People's Party 2 3 Republicans ll 2
that made such alliances possible. The new Democratic Party held the Croatian Party of Right 2 2 Radicals 9
Dalmatia Independent list 6
largest number of seats with 115 and was itself a coalition. Its mem- Croatian People's Party 16 3 Vojvodina
bers, led by Ljuba Davidovii:, came from Serbia's Independent Radical Labor Party 12 3 Radicals 30 21
Party, PaSic's prewar adversary, and the Serbian Independent Party Communists 9 Democrats 12 10
that Svetozar PribiceviC had taken into the Croato-Serbian Coalition. Radicals 7 Communists 10 5
Democrats 6 Social Democrats 5 3
Pribicevii: traded on his close relations with the regent to take central- Non-party list 4 Croatian People's Party 4 4
izing initiatives, but soon squandered support in confrontations within Croatian Union 3 Agrarian Union 2
'
I!' his own party as well as with the Radicals over his arbitrary ways.
Pribic':evic's divisive role helps to explain the PNP's second major Source: Branislav GligorijeviC, Parlament i politi.lke stronke Jugoslam]e, 1919-1929 (Belgrade:
distinction, its failure to pass thirty-five of the forty-seven legislative Narodna knjiga, 1979), 82-89.
measures that came before it, including a budget. The only important
items on which it could agree were the several peace treaties, a customs changed. While the Democrats won more votes, 319,000 to 285,000,
union, and the procedures for the Constituent Assembly election. The and could claim twice as many from Croatia, the Radicals held the
regent refused the Democrats' demand for elections to the PNP itself in same advantage in the Vojvodina and tripled the Democrats' numbers
September 1919. in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Only a similar three-to-one advantage in Mace-
donia and Kosovo allowed the Democrats to pull ahead in the popular
vote, if not the number of seats.
The 1920 elections
Table 4.1 records the distribution of votes and seats among the
The long-awaited balloting for the Constituent Assembly finally took various parties within the eight major regions. The balloting brought
place on November 28, 1920. The Radicals increased their representa- out a respecrable 65 percent of eligible voters, all males rwenty-one
tion largely at the expense of the Democrats. With 419 seats now open years or older, barring those with dual (foreign) citizenship. This device
instead of the PNP's 296, PaSic's Radicals increased their mandates conveniently excluded nearly 1 million Hungarians and Germans, re-
from 69 to 91, while their Serb Democratic rivals fell from 115 to 92. siding primarily in the Vojvodina. Serbia recorded the lowest voting
The total representation for the two parties, 194 versus 183, hardly percentage, only 56 percent according to one survey, probably reflecting
 124 Yugoslavia as History The First World War and the first Yugoslavia, 1914-1921 125

greater economic disaffection with the postwar regime than elsewhere. eclipse the Social Democrats, who fell short of 50,000. A number of the
The low turnout did not hurt the Radicals much. A Radical-influenced 100,000 prisoners of war reruming from Russia and Austria-Hungary
distribution of electoral districts compensated for the lower densj~ of were ready recruits, later including a certain Josip Broz, who would
population in both rural and southeastern regions and allowed a ~aller become the Communist leader, Tito. Difficult conditions for factory
number of voters to elect their candidates and some Commlnists as and transport employees in Belgrade and Zagreb, plus the example of
well. 29 Bela Kun's brief Bolshevik regime in Budapest, helped the KPJ attract
Leading the parties with lesser percentages were three apparently 34 and 39 percent, respectively, of the votes cast in the two cities'
religious but in reality ethnic parties, Slovenia's clerical-led SLS; the municipal elections of 1920. The Communists also made their best
Bosnian Muslims' JMO; and their Albanian counterpart in Kosovo, the showings in the Assembly elections in the cities and in less populous
Sandzak, and Macedonia, the Xemijet. The SLS and JMO each re- Macedonia and Montenegro, both favored as noted above with more
ceived one-third of the ballots cast in their regions, making them the districts for fewer people. In Montenegro and Macedonia alike, the
largest parties and winning them twenty-seven and twenty-four seats, KPJ won 38 percent of the total votes cast. Much of this vote, as with
respectively. These small but significant representations made them the 16 percent the Communists received in Dalmatia, was cast as a
ideal partners, despite their religious affiliation, for the Serbian Radical protest against rule from Belgrade, past or prospective. But the KPJ's
Party in its search for support against Croatian and other Serb parties. 15 percent from Serbia came from the disaffected, often unemployed
The Xemijet also won the largest party share in Kosovo, but received workers of Belgrade and interior towns. Almost immediately after the
no initial representation. They had put forward no specific candidates election, a coalition government of Radicals and Democrats passed the
after forming a pre-election alliance with the Radicals and especially the famous Obznana, or ban, on any sort of organized Communist activity.
.....Democrats. Such an alliance was the best that they could do, given Although several leading Radicals and Democrats argued against the
electoral districts gerrymandered to include enough Serbs to outnum- ban on Western legal principle, it stayed in place. In response the KPJ
ber the Albanian majority. This restrictive framework gave the Xemijet representatives walked out of the Constituent Assembly barely two weeks
eleven votes, all of them cast to ratify the constitution on June 28, before the vote of ratification. 30
1921.
By that time, the two parties that had won the largest number of
seats after the Serb front runners decided to absent themselves. The The 1921 constitution
Croatian Republican Peasant Party (HRSS) had abandoned its efforts The vote on ratification is remembered as much for who did not vote
of early 1919 to seek separate recognition for a Croatian Peasant Re- as for who did. The Communists and the Croatian Peasant Party
public and run a list of candidates that swept away the prewar Croatian accounted for 110 of the 158 abstentions, and the Slovenian People's
parties. The Frankist Party of Pure Right, for example, won just 2.5 per- Party (SLS) for another 27. Only 35 delegates were left to vote against
cent of Croatia's votes. The RadiC party took advantage of the newly the proposed constitution, 21 from the Serbian Agrarian Party and all 7
widened franchise to capture 52.5 percent, or 230,000 votes, exactly of the Social Democrats. One independent opponent of the document
twice the total of the two major Serb parties combined in Croatia. was noteworthy, Ante TrumbiC, the wartime champion of a Yugoslav
Released from prison in time for the campaign, RadiC himself con- state. That left the 176 votes of the two largest parties, the 89 Serb-led
tinued to oppose any framework other than a limited constitutional Democrats and the 87 Serbian Radicals, to dominate the total 223
monarchy with confederal autonomy for Croatia. He wanted a position ballots cast for the constitution. The Democrats' unanimous vote, let it
comparable to that of Hungary in the Dual Monarchy. There was little be noted, included their 11 ethnic Croatian and 3 Slovene delegates, as
chance from the beginning that any of his party's forty-nine votes would well as several Macedonians and Montenegrins. The Radicals promised
be cast for a French-sryle state with a Serbian king. Muslim landlords compensation for holdings taken by the interim land
\
The largest opposition party was not Radic's but rather the new reform, helping bring in the 23 votes of the Bosnian JMO and the 11 of
Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPD. It won fifty-nine seats with the Kosovar Albanian Xemijet. They accounted for 34 of the remaining
fewer votes than the HRSS, less than 200,000. Formed only in April 48 aye votes that enabled the constitution to pass by a simple majority,
1919 in Belgrade, it attracted voters from several constituencies to if not by the 60 percent agreed to in the Corfu Declaration.
126 Yugoslavia as History
,,
/.
.
.

The First World War and the first Yugoslavia, 1914-1921 127

The strong Serbian position could be seen from the start of the judged too few to avoid irreconcilable conflict, would be difficult for a
constitutional process. The assembly quickly elected Nikola PaSiC, now Yugoslav state.
pri~e minister for the first time since the ~ar's e~d~ ~s its te~poffry The main Croatian proposal advocated a framework likened by Beard
president on December 12, 1920. Following an mmal meetmg/the to the American Confederation of 1781-87. Six provinces, including
assembly's constitutional committee stood adjourned for mos;, of the the Vojvodina but leaving Macedonia and Kosovo to Serbia, would
next two months while PaSiC and PribiC:evicnegotiated behind the scenes. each have the right to veto any change in a constitution based on
Only on May 12, when the Radicals had already won the support of independent administrations and legislatures for the six. The monarch
the two Muslim parties, did they submit their proposal to an initial could appoint a principal governor who would replace the central
ballot. The provisional adoption by 227 to 93 with 96 abstaining fore- government's interior minister, then the much-resented PribiCeviC, as
cast the final result. But as brief as the open debate and as unitary as countersigner of legislation. Both a strong provincial judiciary and a
the constitution proved to be, the details of the process deserve greater second central legislative chamber based on territory and local organ-
attention than they usually receive. They mark the first, albeit unsuc- izations, rather than population like the first, would complement these
cessful, effort to work out the compromise between unitary and con- confederal rights.
federal frameworks that would have been needed to preserve a Yugoslav The principal Slovenian proposal for six provinces and a Dalmatian
state. scheme for twelve granted the central government more residual powers,
The debate revolved around four specific issues: (I) the name of the but also included second provincial chambers intended to strengthen
state; (2) the recognition of religious freedom; (3) the need for a second local rights. These Slovenian chambers would have selected representa-
legislative chamber; and ( 4) the nature of local administration. Serbia- tives from socio-economic organizations, including enterprise councils
and Bosnia-centered Radicals were able to rebuff the Democrats' pre- for certain industries, thus foreshadowing the second Yugoslavia and
ference for "Yugoslavia" and find allies in the other two ethnic groups the provisions for workers' self-management prominent in its last three
for the "Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes" with its specific constitutions.
mention of all three. Perhaps strengthening the Radicals' support on In the end, Pasic and Pribicevic had rhe party votes and the Muslim
this issue was their readiness to grant the Orthodox church no special allies to carry through a centralized constitution on the Serbian model
position, as it had been accorded in the Serbian constitution of 1903, of 1903. Their document in tum was based on French principles and 1

and to stipulate equality and toleration for all recognized religions. The the Belgian constitution of 1830. The interior ministry was to appoint
variety of proposals addressing the last two issues, however, revealed police prefects for each of the thirty-three oblasti, or districts. Regional
more fault lines than the one dividing Serbia and Croatia. combinations of districts were forbidden. As a concession to the abstain-
The eminent American historian, Charles A. Beard, reviewed these ing opposition, PaSiC shifted PribiCeviC from the ministry of interior
proposals and concluded that despite occasional references to the United to the ministry of education. No second chamber was authorized, and
States, Switzerland, and Germany, none displayed a "firtn grasp of the judges were to be centrally appointed. Freedom of the press and religion
practical nature and operation of these three governments [or] ... a were, however, generally affirmed, and the legislature could debate
thorough knowledge of any existing federal systems." According to measures without government initiative. 32 RadiC proposed a separate
Beard and the eminent Serbian legal scholar and historian, Slobodan constitution for a fully autonomous Croatian Republic on June 26 as
JovanoviC, the proposal of PaSic's rival_, Stojan ProtiC, came closest to a a last gesture of defiance before the final vote. Pasic set the vote sym-
federal compromise between unitary and confederal extremes. 31 Under bolically for June 28, 1921, the celebrated anniversary of the Serbian
his plan, nine historical provinces would receive substantial autonomy defeat at Kosovo Polje in 1389.
under a governor-general with only supervisory powers over adminis- On that day, rhe first Yugoslavia came into being as the constitu-
tration and legislation. A French-sryle state council and an English- tional, parliamentary, and hereditary Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and
style parliament, including an upper chamber, would have constituted Slovenes. The king's powers in foreign affairs, appointments to the pro-
the central government. JovanoviC emphasized the need for a strong posed high court, and final approval of legislation were considerable.
parliament to bind these provinces together, but he worried prophetic- Aleksandar was still regent at the time of the constitution's ratification,
ally that the creation of more than two or three federal units, which he but the aged King Petar died in August. Aleksandar was formally
 128 Yugoslavia as History

crowned in Belgrade on November 6, I 921. The political leaders who

had created or opposed the I 921 constitution and its electoral frame-
work would set much of the new kingdom's course over the res)'_pfthe 5 Parliamentary kingdom, 1921-1928
decade, until the king abrogated the constitution and dissolved;'sitting
parliament in I 929. /

!1 Like the other states that emerged from the prewar empires after the
i jl
i
,,I First World War to become Eastern Europe, the new Kingdom of
,I " Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes did not enjoy the luxury of long decades to
,;1 establish a central government and national identity. Barely twenty years
I
'
lay at its disposal before the Second World War shattered this "first
Yugoslavia." The precarious interwar period did not produce political
'i consensus or encourage economic cooperation anywhere in Europe,
' save possibly in the Scandinavian countries. The Yugoslav kingdom's
_ij
parliamentary framework at least promised representative government,
but survived for less than a decade. Its definition and demise frame
'
1: this chapter. New cultural connections, a disjointed economic recovery,
11

I' and a daunting set of international relations also deserve emphasis.

iii Three years of peacemaking and internal debate created a new state
whose administration would have sorely tried any set of elected offi-
I cials. Border disputes and issues of minority rights remained to be
Ii settled with all neighboring countries except Romania. Internally, the
long-debated constitution had passed by a bare majority (see chapter
11
4), if abstentions are counted with negative votes. The separate eco-
ii
'ii
nomies and legal systems of the former Habsburg lands had to be recon-
ciled with the new center in Serbia, not always to Serbia's advantage as
it turned out. In the former Ottoman territories, Serbian authorities
11:1! took full political advantage of the need to reestablish public order. The
unification of the Orthodox, Catholic, and Muslim religious commun-
1:il
/If ities from previously separate jurisdictions would also pose problems.
,.:1
There were, lest they be forgotten in the face of formidable problems,
some initial strengths. In Belgrade the young King Aleksandar and a
number of intellectuals drawn to the new capital from across the coun-
try celebrated the South Slavs' cultural affinities. These intellectuals, if
not always the king as well, recognized the danger if the constitution's
postulate - that Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes were ethnically thtee tribes
of one people - was seen as a formula for assimilation with Serbia.
Their goal was the creation of a single state, not a single tribe. Towns
129
130 Yugoslavia as History Parliamentary kingdom, 1921-1928 131

in the former Habsburg lands, particularly in Slovenia and Dalmatia,

Table 5.1. Population by ethnicity and geographic area, 1921
tended to support the idea of one Yugoslavia because it promised' a (in thousands)
large, integrated economy. The new state's territorial integrity _,9lso
rebuffed existing claims on its component parts from Italy, Bu~a,
Population Percent of total
and Albania. /
The surviving European powers of Britain and France were not ini- Serb and Montenegrin 4,705 39
tially concerned with Balkan security. The war had weakened them Serbia proper 2,657
both, and their only common interest in the region appeared to be Montenegro 199
Croatian 2,889 23.9
keeping Austria and Hungary too weak to reuI\ite. They showed little Croatia-Slavonia 3,360
inclination to support the Yugoslav kingdom as the obvious centerpiece Slovene 1,024 8.5
of a new Southeast European order. Also absent throughout the 1920s Slovenia 1,055
was the revival of European trade and foreign lending, particularly to Bosnian Muslim 760 6.3
Bosnia-Hercegovina 1,890
governments, to anything approaching prewar levels. As a result, the Macedonian 630 5.3
postwar recovery failed to reassure the various regions of a single Yugo- German 512 4.3
slav economy that they would be better off together than they had been Albanian 484 4
Hungarian 472 3.9
apart before the First World War.
Turkish, Romanian, and Italian 580 4.8
This "first transition," if we may compare it to the East European Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes 11,985g
transition of the 1990s, labored under a major internal handicap as well.
Rather than the multi-party system or the bourgeois-led parties typically ~ 1951 data, later revised to 12,545 per table 11.1
blamed by Communist historians of the "second Yugoslavia," the pre- Sources: Enciklopedia Jugoslavije, v, III (Zagreb: Jugoslavenski leksikografski
dominance of prewar politicians posed the greater problem as elsewhere zavod, 1983), 263; and Werner Marken, Jugoslawien (Cologne: Bohaul-Verlag,
in interwar Europe. Here, they returned to lead regional Serb or Croat 1954), 40.
parties in the absence of younger men who might have favored country-
wide, multi-ethnic parties had they survived the war. The leaders of the recourse to a second chamber or a constitutional court - this was the
largest Serbian, Croatian, and Croatian Serb parties were also poorly French prescription for parliamentary government that served the inter-
suited to work together. Before the war, they had only confronted or war Third Republic badly and the first Yugoslavia worse. Executive
dominated opponents, and their individual personalities were incredibly centralization, even from all-powerful Paris, had discouraged legislative
mismatched (see chapter 3). Nikola Pasie, Stjepan Radie, and Svetozar consensus. Belgrade was not Paris. France had no Zagreb. In the case
Pribieevie failed to build the kind of coalition governments that three of the new kingdom, moreover, the shape and substance of its executive
parliamentary elections with no majority party demanded. Of the coali- branch made the parliament a court of last resort for Serbs and Croats,
tions that were formed, several tried to unite at least two of this trio, but not for the other ethnic groups that made up one-third of the
but each of them soon collapsed. Even Pasii:'s death in 1926 did not population of 12 million (see table 5.1). That administrative framework
relieve the parliamentary stalemate, and the assassination of Stjepan is essential to understanding the parliamentary elections and coalitions
Radie in the Skupstina itself two years later only made it worse. The king that followed.
and his autocratic military advisors had already begun to step forward
before taking full power in 1929. By then, some of the younger intellec- Central government
tuals who had gathered there after the war were deserting Belgrade.
For some, Serbian dominance explains all the initial failings of the first
Yugoslavia. This view assumes that the king and the army leadership
Prewar politicians, new parties, and the Vidovdan
worked closely and effectively with Nikola Pasii: and a united Radical
fram.ework, 1921-1926
Party to impose central control from Belgrade across the country. The
A centralized administration with powerful ministries as the prizes fought royal and Radical forces, however, were often divided and sometimes
over by badly divided parties within one legislative body and without ineffective.
 ,..
132 Yugoslavia as History P'
I
Parliamentary kingdom, 1921-1928 133

King Aleksandar began his reign with good, if ill-formed intentions To make matters worse, the new army had tarnished its reputation
toward the creation of a state to which Croats and Slovenes could feel in November 1921. General ZeCeviC, the war minister, ordered 6,000
as loyal as Serbs and with an established antipathy toward Nikola 1,:)Jsic recruits into maneuvers with no protection from a winter storm; 300
(see chapter 4). On a 1916 v1s1t to London, Aleksandar had bei;il' the died, and the minister's refusal to accept responsibility cost him his
first Serbian leader to use the phrase "our Yugoslav people" iJ> public influence, although not his job. In subsequent years, moreover, the
and to identify them as the "three-named people" with the same tradi- I. army squandered the initial credit it had received from Muslims as well
; tions and language. This formulation presumed the assimilation as Serbs as local Serbs from Bosnia to Macedonia for suppressing posrw-ar ban-
or Yugoslavs of the Macedonian Slavs and Kosovar Albanians in what ditry. Its heavy-handed role in support of local administrations staffed
became South Serbia for the new kingdom. This was also the region of largely by Serbs and run entirely from the interior ministry in Belgrade,
greatest concern to the new king. I made their gendarmerie unpopular in these former Ottoman territories.
The interior ministry's power to appoint provincial prefects and county

~1
Whatever his own ideas and intentions, there were real limits on the
king's powers to influence the shape of the central government. He was sub-prefects generated even more resentment against "Belgrade central-
still young, only thirty-three-years old in 1921, and unschooled in civil- ism" throughout the new state, particularly in the non-Serb areas. The
ian government. His education had consisted of ten years of essentially four Pasic-led Radical governments that ruled from 1921 until the 1923
military training in prewar Russia, and his long regency from 1914 to elections used the French framework that they had written into the
1921 was primarily concerned with military matters. A good political constitution to take control of local government. His ministerial com-
marriage to a daughter of the English-born Queen Marie of Romania ! mission drew up the thirty-three district boundaries in haste, after end-
and the birth of a son and heir in 1923 strengthened his solid position less parliamentary debate exhausted the nine months allowed by the
in public opinion. But his constitutional powers were effectively con- constitution. These oblasii ranged in population from 100,000 to 800,000 ,,
fined to foreign relations. He could not dissolve parliament on his own and each was subdivided into 4 to 24 counties, or srezovi. (The largely
initiative and chose not to exercise the right to veto legislation, perhaps Serb Krajina had 24 counties despite its low population.) Pasic enjoyed
because too little of importance was ever passed into law. The High the king's support for promoting ethnic or economic links that com-
Court prescribed by the constitution would have allowed the king to bined provincial populations on both sides of major rivers or divided
nominate half of its members with parliamentary approval and pass towns between several counties, rather than observing the historical
judgment on the nomination of the other half. The Skupstina could not I borders. In Kosovo this laudable purpose served only to attach Serb-
agree on its creation. 1 populated areas to each of the four districts so that none had an Alba-
Leading officers from the former Serbian army also played a limited nian majority. Croatia's six, Slovenia's rw-o, and Bosnia-Hercegovina's
role in the early shaping of the new central government. To be sure, the four districts were drawn within the historical boundaries of their terri-
king's closest confidants were General Petar Zivkovic and other mem- tory, but, for the latter, not one Bosnian Muslim or Croat was named
bers of the so-called White Hand who had sided with the regent against by the ministry as prefect. All four were Serbs, as were all three in the
the Black Hand officers purged in the Salonika trial of 191 7. The Vojvodina, where the Hungarians and Germans combined outnumbered
constitutional provision that barred them from open political activity the Serbs. Only Slovenia escaped a disproportionate share of Serbian
was not the only constraint on their powers. They also faced the con- officials.
siderable task of reducing military forces from 400,000 in 1919 to The prefects were required to have fifteen years of previous govern-
200,000 by 1921, and then the obligation of absorbing some 2,500 ment service and sub-prefects ten years, a qualification that favored can-
officers from the former Austro-Hungarian army and 500 from the didates from Serbia's prewar bureaucracy. They soon commanded an
Montenegrin army into an officer corps of only 6,000. (One way to army-appointed police force of some 20,000, calculated to be 60 per-
maintain control of this enlarged corps was to increase the number of cent Serb. The prefects and other employees pushed the proportion of
generals, so that by 1927 the total number of flag-rank officers, over state employees working for the interior ministry past 50 percent by 1927.
80 percent of whom were Serbian, surpassed that of the French and Total state employment rose in turn to 172,000 by 1928, minus
Italian armies combined.) New equipment was badly needed, as French army enlistees. Charles Beard reckoned, as did British embassy reports,
supplies from wartime stocks were no longer available. 2 that this aggregate could have been efficiently reduced by one-third,
 1,,i
1-:

134 Yugoslavia as History Parliamentary kingdom, 1921-1928 135

to bring the per capita total closer to its pre-1914 level. 3 The state's Table 5.2. Parliamentary elections, 1920-1927 (number of seats won)
notorious delay in paying for private services helped spread the practice
of ~ckba~ks. and oth~r- co~pt arrangements t~ assure payment. Tgmp-
Political party 1920 1923 1925 1927
tat1ons w1thm the mm1stnes were also corruptmg. At the top, tl}V min-
isters needed only a single year of service to acquire a lifetim_p pension Democrats 92 51 37 61
and two years for a family pension. At the bottom lay the poorly paid Independent Democrats (SDS) 21 22
employees of the provinces and counties who, according to the con- Radicals 91 108 143 112
Communists (KPJ) 59
stitution, were to be accountable to elected local assemblies as well as Croatian Republican Peasant (HRSS) 61
50 70 67
to the interior ministry. But these assemblies were slow in coming. Only Agrarian Union 39 11 3 9
the still lower level for municipal government were elected from the Slovenian People's Party (SLS) 27 24 21 21
start. Unsurprisingly, the Congress of Public Employees, when con- Yugoslav Muslim Organization (JMO) 24 18 15 17
vened in Zagreb in 1922 by the PaSiC regime's main adversaries, made Social Democrats 10
Gennans 8 5 6
Belgrade's withdrawal from local government their principal demand.
Montenegrin Federalists 2 3
Other 28 21 4
Total mandates 419 313 315 315
PaSii and PribiCeviC
Nothing that could be called a comprehensive program of legislation Source: EnciklopediaJugoslavije, v, III (Zagreb: Jugoslavenski leksikografski zavod, 1983),
, came from the ten cabinets headed by Nikola Pasic between January 269.
1921 and April 1926. Prime minister for all but four months in 1924,
he appointed fellow Radical Party members to the key posts of the
interior, finance, and foreign affairs ministries. Yet the large number of first elections under the resulting Vidovdan constitution were held in
cabinets reminds us that the Radicals were a minority party unable to 1923, the Democrats repeatedly challenged their Radical partners in an
form lasting coalitions. uneasy coalition. Their leader, Ljuba Davidovii:, was the competent
Both the party and its leader bore some responsibility. The Radicals but uncharismatic head of the Independent Radicals, the largest of the
made no appeal to non-Serbs and little to Serbs from outside Serbia or three parties from prewar Serbia to become Democrats. While the In-
Bosnia. Their aged leadership and lack of a specific legislative program dependents had been strongest in urban Belgrade and more prosperous
cost them support in Belgrade and other Serbian towns. Pasic had always north of Serbia (see chapter 3), postwar Democrats won the majority
been an introverted personality and a close-mouthed politician since of the votes that the Radicals lost in Montenegro, Macedonia, and
helping to found the party in 1881 (see chapter 3). First the Bosnian the Vojvodina, as well as Serbia. The other votes lost there went to
crisis of 1908 and then the Balkan and world war had allowed him to the Communists, who were not allowed to take their seats, and to the
escape the experience of coalition politics. He could only see a series of Agrarian Union. With leaders best described as agrarian socialists in
opposition parties challenging his right to rule in what he considered a the tradition of Svetozar MarkoviC, the Union represented peasants dis-
time of national emergency. PaSiC was seventy-five years old in 1921, satisfied with Radicals' plans for land reform which had no provision
and for whatever reason, he reportedly took any opposition to a party for a new cooperative network.
he no longer tightly controlled as a personal attack. 4 Both the Agrarian Union and the Democrats failed to hold their
The Radicals indeed faced sizeable opposition from other parties, ground among Serbian voters in the initial election of 1923, despite
most consistently from their principal Serbian rival, the Democrats. Its their continued insistence on redistributing the property of Muslim
founders had created the Democratic Party in Sarajevo in February landlords quickly and without compensation. Both paid a high price for
1919 with high hopes of becoming a Yugoslav-wide party uniting their attempts to become parties representing the country as a whole.
Slovenian (if not Croatian) liberals with Serbs and Serbians opposed to The Democrats dropped to 51 seats (from 92), losing all but one from
the Pasii: regime. This new party won as many seats as the Radicals (92 Serbia in a parliament trimmed by a Radical initiative from 419 to 315
and 91) in the Constituent Assembly of 1920 (see chapter 4). Until the members, while the Agrarians fell from 39 to 11 (see table 5.2). Unlike
136 Yugoslavia as Hiswry
,.
r:r::
(
Parliamentary kingdom, 1921-1928 137

the Democrats, the Agrarians would never recover. They kept a size- Radical and nationalist newspapers in Belgrade berated tbe JMO as an
able constituency of Bosnian Serbs, but struggled vainly to reach an organization based on the Koran and medieval feudalism. 5
accommodation with RadiC's Croatian Peasant Party in Dalmatia l,Pd The Radicals searched for otber non-Serb allies in Slovenia too, but
were plagued by internal dissension in Serbia. Overall, tbeir disda,iaf of without success during the PaSh'.:era. The small Slovenian Liberal Party,
any nationalist orientation and preference for peasant candidates J'orked strong only in Ljubljana and a few otber towns, had already committed
against them. itself as a founding member of the Democrats. The prewar Slovenian
Crucial to the Democrats' decline was the split with Svetozar People's Party (SLS) remained the largest by far, now led by a younger
PribiCeviC, the main Serb leader in the Croatian-Serbian Coalition. After faction favoring tbe Christian Social ideals of Krek's great cooperative
the war, he led his constituency into the Democrats' camp, but only to network (see chapter 3). It was still a conservative clerical party, but
champion a centralized regime that would secure the position of the Monsignor Anton Korosec, tbe party head, had proposed a confederal,
Croatian and Bosnian Serbs. Witbout acknowledging tbe contradic-
tion, PribiCeviC also applied his militant energies to enforcing the con-
stitution's questionable postulate that Serbs, Croats, and even Slovenes
were one people that external forces had separated into tribes. Con-
.J socially progressive alternative to tbe Vidovdan constitution in tbe 1920
debate and persisted with these "autonomist" demands after it came
into force. 6 He and his fellow clerics were particularly alarmed by tbe
heavy-handed proposals of PaSic's education minister, none other than
frontational (see chapter 3) and less able to tolerate opposition than Svetozar PribiceviC, to establish a single system of secular schools in
any of the major political personalities, PribiCevic was ready to break place of existing religious networks, of which the Catholics had tbe
witb tbe Serbian Democrats as early as September 1922. He censured largest. The SLS slipped only slightly in tbe 1923 elections, dropping
Davidovic for daring to attend tbe Zagreb conference of tbe Congress just one seat witb 56 percent of tbe vote, down from tbe 61 percent
of Public Employees, even tbough Davidovie had pointedly refused won in tbe 1920 vote in Slovenia.
to join its discussion of a decentralizing revision of the Vidovdan The absence of political allies undermined tbe Radicals' victory in
constitution. tbe 1924 elections (see table 5.2). So did tbe intimidation employed by
Nikola PaSiC seized on the Democrats' divided opinion about con- the interior ministry's local organizations to skew the vote, not only in
stitutional revision to exclude them from his last pre-election cabinet. Kosovo and Macedonia where balloting was rarely secret but also in
In tbeir place, however, he could only find two Bosnian Muslims from the Vojvodina, Croatia, and Bosnia-Hercegovina. Vojvodina Hungarians
the conservative, clerical faction which by then had been decisively could now vote, unlike in 1920, but abstained in tbe face of concerted
defeated for tbe leadership of tbe new Yugoslav Muslim Organization harassment. In Croatia, PribiCeviC fanned fears of Croatian domination
(JMO). The Radicals' failure to sustain an initial agreement witb tbe among tbe rural Serb minority. The Belgrade-appointed police engaged
winning faction reflected the difficulties that PaSiC experienced in creat- in what a Serbian historian has called the worst violence in any of the
ing lasting coalitions. tbree elections in tbe l 920s. 7 Threats led to beatings; Croat houses
The JMO was plainly a successor to tbe prewar Muslim National were burned, blown up, or confiscated without punishment to the per-
Organization. Yet it quickly became the representative of urban, com- petrators. Word of a Croatian response in kind spread to Bosnia, prompt-
mercial interests over those of Islamic clerics or rural landlords. The ing tbe Serb plurality to mobilize against Muslim villages closer at hand
new leader of tbe JMO, Mehmed Spabo, was a Vienna-trained lawyer than Croat ones- an eerie precedent for the sequence of events in 1941-
who had previously headed Sarajevo's Chamber of Commerce. He and 42 and 1991-95 (see chapters 7 and 12). In March 1923, Radicals took
his younger, Yugoslav-oriented colleagues had tried to work witb tbe I 08 seats of 313, but found only isolated support beyond Serbia. Pasic
Radicals to implement two agreements in 1921. Both promised a series was forced to seek a governing majority by uneasy alliances with his other
of Muslim and Bosnian rights beyond tbe redemption payments to major political rivals - first Svetozar Pribieevie and tben Stjepan Radie.
landlords. The Radicals had quickly agreed to tbose payments in return
for votes in the constituent assembly. Spaho was appointed to two
Radie and Pasu
PaSiC cabinets, as minister of forestry and then minister of trade and
industry, but resigned in February 1922 because tbe key points of tbe The mercurial Radie set tbe stage for botb alliances. His Croatian
agreements were not being honored. In addition Samouprava and other Republican Peasant Party won seventy seats in tbe 1923 election witb
 -~..
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138 Yugoslavia as Hiswry Parliamentary kingdom, 1921-1928 139

37 percent of Croatia's vote. This largely rural vote was achieved de- behind a wall in a relative's apartment that doubled as his party's
spite the violence and the PaSiC government's use of the 191 O census, bookstore. 9
rather than that of 1921, thus allowing Serbia's greater number _o,,,war The PaSiC-PribiCeviC National Bloc proved incapable of using Radic's
dead to count for proportional distribution. Radie negotiated w,itti the arrest and a series of other advantages, fair and unfair, to win a con-
Slovenian SLS and the Bosnian Muslim JMO to form a Fecjpral Bloc vincing victory in the second parliamentary elections that they quickly
of 163 votes, if combined with the Davidovic Democrats, but failed called for in February 1925. Their common platform was "fighting
to produce a working agreement. Meanwhile, RadiC continued to chal- for the state/' with the Vidovdan constitution championed as the only
\ lenge the legitimacy of the state's framework in a series of powerful, alternative to disintegration. They tarred the DavidoviC Democrats with
provocative speeches. their association with the "Bolshevik secessionist," RadiC. The election
From July 1923 until August of the next year, Radie delivered his was less violent than in 1923, but reportedly was more corrupt. 10 Still,
pronouncements outside the country. When he gave a Bastille Day
speech comparing the kingdom to that infamous French prison, he had
I heavy voting by 77 percent of those eligible gave the National Bloc
just one-third of the ballots and a bare 160-seat majority of 315. The
to flee Zagreb for Hungary in the face of an arrest warrant. RadiC now
./1 Albanians' Xemijet Party was pushed aside in Kosovo, but only after
embarked on his well-publicized travels from Vienna to London and the leader's arrest and more police pressure had split the party. In
Moscow. His conversations in London with the increasingly disillu- Montenegro, however, the federalist "Greens" won more votes than the
sioned British champion of Yugoslavia, R. W. Seton-Watson, may have Radicals, signalling the reappearance of autonomous sentiment that the
been more important to him, but his attendance at the Comintem's pro-Serbian "Whites" had been able to suppress after the First World
Peasant International Congress in Moscow made the greater impact in War in favor of simply supporting the Radicals. Elsewhere the Radicals
Belgrade. 8 Radic's mere presence there gave PaSie the heaven-sent chance saw rival lists submitted by the dissident faction of Ljuba Jovanovic
to charge Radie with links to a Bolshevik regime that was anathema to competing with their own for rwenty-six seats. The British Embassy
London and Paris and, more importantly, to King Aleksandar. The first speculated that PaSiC, now eighty years old, was losing control of the
pamphlets now appeared, probably with official approval, but based on party. Worst of all for the National Bloc, Radic's Peasant Party still
a proposal from political rival Stojan Protie, to suggest the "amputa- won sixty-seven seats, only three less than in 1923. H
tion" of Croatia from the kingdom because Serbs "could not go on Pasii: tried again to arrange the rejection of the HRSS mandates and
with the Croats." to form another P-P cabinet, but was forced to make the least comfort-
These tensions brought Pasic and Pribicevic together for the first of able alliance of his long career. The Radie-Radical, or "R-R" govern-
their rwo "P-P" regimes. From March to July 1924, a minority com- ment of July 1925 seemed the only way out of the continuing impasse.
bination of some 120 Radical and Independent Democrat deputies, Royal feelers put out earlier in the year to RadiC, who was once again in
dubbed the National Bloc, managed to survive in the Skupstina, but prison, had revealed that the Croatian leader was ready, as he put it,
only because Pasic prevented recognition of the mandates of 60 HRSS "to turn his automobile around." The unrelated impeachment of the
deputies, who had come to Belgrade for the first time. interior minister, a PribiCeviC man who had imprisoned RadiC for his
Radie returned from abroad shortly before Aleksandar asked the "Bolshevik connections," created the occasion for his release. He now
Democrats' Ljuba Davidovie to put together a broad coalition govern- avowed his acceptance of the monarchy, the constitution, the army,
ment in August 1924. The new cabinet included four Slovenes (SLS) and even military service. He removed the word "Republican" from the
and three Bosnian Muslims (JMO), with four more places reserved for party's name as a gesture of good will. The now-HSS mandates were
the HRSS. But Radie offered the king little proof that he now favored approved, and four of its members received posts in the last PaSiC
a British-style monarchy for Yugoslavia rather than a Croatian peasant cabinet.
republic in a Balkan federation. (Radie had proclaimed both views in So Stjepan RadiC came to Belgrade as minister of education, the post
different speeches.) Several new, anti-monarchical speeches by Radie so long held by Pribicevic. Zagreb University professors dismissed
apparently prompted Aleksandar to dismiss the Davidovie government. under PribiCeviC were reinstated, but others were removed for teaching
A second P-P regime was quick to pursue the attack on Radie person- Yugoslav rather than Croatian history. Radie placed greater emphasis,
ally, arresting him in a comic-opera scene in January 1925 as he hid however, on the importance of primary and vocational education. He
 140 Yugoslavia as Hiswry Parliamentary kingdom_, 1921-1928 141

believed that the largely rural population would be better off if they as when a Zagreb court vacated political arrest warrants on its own
did not know too much of city ways. Whether idealist or ideologue,.he authority. Serbs continued to be overrepresented in law enforcement,
overflowed with often contradictory proposals whose practical i.~Jle- making up more than 60 percent of the officers, officials, and employees.
mentation he had not worked out. His scattered approach helpe~eep The regional counterweights were still considerable. Six sets of pre-
his educational reforms from making any sort of start. In ~ebruary war legal codes including Serbia's remained in force throughout the
1926, another of his undiplomatic speeches implied that Pasic himself r parliamentary period, despite a series of efforts to create a single crim-
and other close associates were involved in the financial scandal fast inal or civil code. The special ministry for the unification of laws ceased
gathering around the prime minister's son Rade. RadiC also took the to function after it completed its work on how to administer the consti-
occasion to raise anew the demand for revising the constitution. tution. The Radicals put forward Serbia's penal code as a model, but
By this time, however, PaSiC lacked the power to close off the corrup- the SkupStina refused to approve its wider application. Croatia, Slovenia,
tion inquiry as adroitly as he could have done in earlier years. Age Dalmatia, the Vojvodina, and Bosnia-Hercegovina continued to apply
and infirmity left too much authority in the hands of his ill-regarded their versions of Habsburg law, and Montenegro its own legal code
entourage. Aleksandar refused to reappoint him after he prolonged the from King Nikola's era. The number of Croat and Slovene judges was
Skupstina's Easter recess to play for time. There followed four short- proportional to their ethnic populations, and Serbs only slightly more,
lived Radical cabinets under the long-time minister of public works, supporting Lenard Cohen's conclusion that at least until 1929 "a de
Nikola Uzunovic. They kept Radie and his HSS colleagues in place until facto legal federalism remained intact." 12
year's end. But the UzunoviC coalition could agree on little, bringing While federal fearures already existed in the judicial system, they
PaSiC to the palace on December 9 to ask the king's authorization to would have to be created in the legislative branch of government. The
return to power. The royal refusal left the aged leader speechless with fury, SkupStina approved provincial assembly elections in Slovenia as early as
no doubt contributing to the stroke from which he died the next day. 1922 and, by extension, for the other former Habsburg lands as well.
The two post-Paic years began with a new opposition that united None took place until 1926 in Dalmatia, followed by Slovenia, Croatia,
RadiC and PribiCeviC and ended with Radic's assassination. Before pro- and the Vojvodina in 1927, and Bosnia-Hercegovina in 1928. Radical
ceeding to 1927-28, we need to stand back from the center rings of the candidates supported by local Serbs prevailed only in the Vojvodina.
Skupstina and Belgrade ministries to look at the other concentric circles The Croatian Peasant Party won control in Croatia and shared it with
within and around the new state during the 1920s. Regional law sur- Ante Trumbic's Federalists in Dalmatia. Mehmed Spaho's Yugoslav
vived, but local government struggled to emerge, and a single, inte- Muslim Organization (JMO) took all the major Bosnian towns, aided
grated economy was slow to develop. The only circles that encompassed by an alliance with the HSS. Monsignor Koroec's Slovenian People's
the whole country came from a small Communist Party, a surprising Party (SLS) won 82 of 115 seats in the two new Slovenian assemblies
set of cultural connections, and the threat of foreign intervention. None in the Ljubljana and Maribor provinces.
of the three separate sets of prewar religious jurisdictions that were now For the Ljubljana assembly, the lack of state funds made it difficult
combined - six each for the Orthodox and Catholic churches and three to take any initiatives in 1927. The assembly needed commercial loans
for the Muslims - covered the country, nor was their final form decided even to convene. But, by the following year, enough revenue had been
until the 1930s. This complex of religious unifications and how they collected, amid loud local complaint because of a levy on alcohol, to
worked to widen political division, is left to chapter 6. give the assembly a significant budget outside the control of the Belgrade-
appointed prefect. Ljubljana was in the process of taking over health
and other social services plus exploring other ways to become a '"state
Regional law and local government within a state," when the royal decree of January 1929 suspended the
The power of the king and the Belgrade ministries to control the local provincial assemblies, along with the constitution and the SkupStina. 13
' administration of justice was real but limited everywhere except in Municipal elections to the smaller communal assemblies (opfiine or,
Macedonia and Kosovo. The king's authority to appoint and retire all in Croatia, opC'ine) were also agencies for empowerment outside the
judges remained in force through Aleksandar's lifetime. By 1925 the control of the central government, sometimes even in Macedonia, if not
ministry of justice could dismiss judges or overrule specific decisions, Kosovo. The Democratic Party continued to win majorities in Bitola
 1"!1"'
1.

142 Yugoslavia as History Parliamentary kingdom, 1921-1928 143

and several other Macedonian towns under the Serbian municipal Extremists made terrorism a hallmark of the dispute over Macedonia
law in force there. A tradition of independent municipal elections 4ad and cost King Aleksandar his life in 1934. For its part, the Communist
developed in Serbia before the war. Some 2,200 such elections w~re Lefr felt frustrated afrer the Russian Revolution failed to spread else-
now held across Serbia and Montenegro in 1923 and 1926. The jilmg where. The same sort of frustration led a young Bosnian Muslim mem-
Radicals had been able to use their police powers and financial leverage ber of the KPJ to assassinate the Democrat interior minister, Milorad
to secure the 1923 elections to the Belgrade opstina for themsl!i'ves, but Draskovii:, in July 1921. Draskovii: had just invalidated the ten seats
the Democrats defeated them in 1926. 14 The interior minister could out of forty-five that the Communists had won in the Belgrade opstina
still suspend specific acts of a local assembly, a prerogative much re- that March, compounding his denial of the KPJ victory the year before.
sented by Zagreb and other Croatian municipalities whose Habsburg In his often-cited "you or us" pronouncement to party leaders, he
tradition as roval free towns did not permit such interference. There bluntly told them, "Communists cannot have the capital city's govern-
was, on the other hand, no way of stopping the Independent Workers' ment in their hands." His assassination ironically closed off the par-
Party, a surrogate for the illegal Communists, from running candidates liamentary debate on whether the December 1920 obznana, or ban, on
in these local elections. KPJ activity should be sustained and instead secured easy passage for
the more permanent and prohibitive Law for the Protection of the
State.
The Communist Party and the Macedonian question
The subsequent failure of Sima Markovii: and the Belgrade party
Historians in Tito's Yugoslavia tended to exaggerate the role of the organization to create an effective base for illegal operations cannot be
Yugoslav Communist Party (KPD during the 1920s, arguing that the denied. Yet what more could they have done, pending a European
KPJ missed opportunities for decisive influence only becaus~ of their Communist revolution, beyond carrying out more self-destructive acts
"mistakes" and government repression. A new set of exaggerattons now of terrorism? The bombing of the Sofia cathedral in 1925 by the Bul-
tempt post-Yugoslav historians. In Zagreb the KPJ leadership of the garian Communists' Left, on the heels of the party's disastrous 1923
Serbian Sima Markovic is equated with pursuing Great Serbian goals; uprising, and the ensuing flight of party leaders stood as an object
in Belgrade the Soviet Comintem's encouragement of the KPJ to pro- lesson. MarkoviC argued for creating a surrogate Independent Workers'
mote the breakup of the first Yugoslavia has been backdated and has Party of Yugoslavia (NRPD that did indeed operate legally from Janu-
become primarily a connection to Croatian leaders, from Stjepan RadiC ary 1923. He himself was sent to prison as a consequence of the
to Josip Broz Tito. assassination of DraSkoviC, and after his release later that year, he led
Three features seem more decisive in the failure of the only party his Right colleagues away from the Serbian notion of Serbs, Croats,
other than the Democrats to try to win support throughout the country. and Slovenes as one people. From the start, moreover, MarkoviC had
First, there was the obvious lack of appeal to a peacetime populace, mercilessly criticized the PaSiC regimes for their Great Serbian policies
almost half of whom were peasant landowners and another 30 percent toward Croatia and Macedonia. At the KPJ's May 1923 conference,
peasants aspiring to own their own land. For Serbs, the Agrarian Union the Left opposition to Markovii: and his Belgrade organization still car-
provided a better base for peasant Radicalism. Industrial_ labor and ried the day. They advocated an alliance with Croatian and Macedonian
artisans together made up barely 10 percent of the econom1~~1ly act~ve nationalists who rejected both electoral politics and any Yugoslav state.
population (see table 5.3). Second, the ban against open pohncal a~nv- By February 1924, this Lefr mixture of Croats and Serbs moved into
ity from 1920 on proved to be a serious liability. Third, Left and Right important positions in the front of the NRPJ as well as the KPJ. Mar-
factions within the party struggled destructively for control. An assasS1- koviC retained control of the secretary,s position in his Belgrade organ-
nation by the Left made the ban permanent, which in tun_1 attr~cted I, ization, and the trade union movement. The stalemate persisted until
some of the KPJleadership to Lefr advocates of a terronst alhance 1928 when Markovii: and his Right allies were ousted. 15
against the state. The trade union network remained in ~e hands of ~e Macedonia rather than Croatia became the focus of the Communist
Right. The Lefr quickly sank into the quicksand of Commtem meddlmg Lefr's ambiguous efforts to forge an alliance that would break away part
in the Macedonian question, while the Right failed to pull m many t of the new kingdom and perhaps destroy the royal regime. Radii: and
members or voters from the limited number of industrial workers. his Croatian Peasant Party colleagues were approached, but he did not
 r ' .

144 Yugoslavia as History Parliamentary kingdom, 1921-1928 145

I
respond, despite his 1924 Moscow trip, his membership in the Comintem's leather and metal workers' union, Josip Broz, made his presence first
Peasant International, and his series of pro-Soviet statements. RadiC was, felt as a leader of the Left faction. 17
after all, an avowed pacifist and a believer in peasant smallholdi9rs.
Macedonia seemed more promising ground to the KPJ. A qupter of
the country-wide Communist vote in the constituent assembl~elections Cultural connections and economic disjunctures
of 1920 came from Macedonia, attracting nearly one-half of the non- If the second Yugoslavia suffered cultural disjunctures against a prom-
Muslim ballots cast there. But only 55 percent of those eligible had ising background of economic integration, the experience of the first
voted, with many Slav Macedonians abstaining because of a boycott Yugoslavia was roughly the reverse. Integrating the economies of former
organized by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization Habsburg and Ottoman lands with those of war-tom Serbia and tiny
(VMRO). VMRO leaders could agree only on opposition to Serbian Montenegro posed more daunting problems than those faced by Tito's
rule, thev. were otherwise d:vided between Federalists, who advocated Communists afrer the Second World War. Separate land, law, and
Macedonian autonomy as a separate nationality in Yugoslavia or Bul- tax regimes had to be reconciled, and transport networks and banking
garia, and Supremists, who saw their mission as uniting Bulgaria's systems connected. Yet the 1920s were also a decade when cultural
Macedonian "tribe" with the single Bulgarian nation. The latter unsur- activities were relatively free of state supervision and could develop
prisingly drew support from Sofia once they had joined the coup d'etat their institutions within civil society. Those currents favored a Yugoslav
that assassinated the Agrarian prime minister, Aleksandar Stamboliiski, and a European identity as much as or more than separate ethnic
and their nationalist allies had seized power in 1923. By then Comin- identities. This was particularly true, and particularly important, for
tern representatives were assiduously courting the VMRO factions. Belgrade.
Contrary to later claims by Tito and other Communist leaders, the
KPJ's December 1923 conference failed to acknowledge the existence
of a separate Macedonian nationality and subsequently ignored the Belgrade and the search for a Yugoslav center
Comintern's 1924 Vienna Manifesto that did recognize a Macedonian The new capital was the largest city in the future Yugoslavia prior to
nationality. What followed in and out of Macedonia was a bloody feud the First World War, but only by a small margin over Zagreb (95,000
between Federalists and Supremists. Two Communist attempts to versus 74,000). From 1920 to 1929, its population doubled from 112,000
found a United VMRO, one by the KPJ and one by the Comintem to 226,000, and made up more than 9 percent of the country's urban
attracted few supporters. 16 total. Zagreb stayed close behind with 185,000. Belgrade's public offi-
Sima MarkoviC and his supporters on the Communist Right were cials and state-employed professionals accounted for over one-third of
doomed not only by the nationalist initiatives of Left opposition but also that total before the war and were still 30 percent in 1920. Their share
by the failure of industrial workers, especially in their Serbian strong- dropped to 24 percent by 1929, while the commercial class rose to
hold, to join the trade union nerwork or the NRPJ. The nerwork never 19 percent. A rich variety of immigrants from across the new state
attracted more than 30,000 members after a promising start in I 920, and Europe as well swelled the number of professionals, business class,
when some 4 million work days were lost to strikes across the country. and intellectuals. Newcomers from Dalmatia and the Vojvodina played
That figure dropped to less than 200,000 days by 1921 and fell even prominent parts in modernizing business practices and stimulating the
further after 1923, when legislation for workers' insurance against ill- visual arts. Some of the 30,000 Russian emigrants fleeing the revolution
ness and accident, if not unemployment or disability, went into effect. contributed significantly to raising university and cultural standards,
Communist unions did not organize a majority of the strikes in the especially in opera, dance, and theater, to a European level. Such new-
1920s. Most of their members came from small artisan shops, not the comers made professionals more independent of the state, and some of
large, mostly state enterprises hit by strikes. Also, the concentration them, like the stars of the blossoming National Theater, became public
of party membership in Croatia, over 40 percent by the mid-l 920s, personalities to rival political leaders. 18 So did the stars of silent films,
foreshadowed the shift of the party's center from Belgrade to Zagreb by such as Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino. Hollywood films domin-
the end of the decade. Just as Markovic was finally dislodged from his ated the many new movie theaters and provided what a Belgrade news-
position as party secretary in 1928, the young head of the Croatian paper already called by 1919 a kind of new religion.
 -~I ......
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146 Yugoslavia as History Parliamentary kingdom, 1921-1928 147
early postwar period, Politika went on to become one of the most
profitable private enterprises in Belgrade. Among some fifty regularly
published periodicals, several economic weeklies touted economic inte-
gration from the perspective of European business rather than Serbian
politics. The Srpski knjiievni g/asnik (Serbian Literary Journal, see chap-
ter 3) published more work by the preeminent Croatian writer of the
decade, the left-wing Miroslav Krleza, than appeared in Zagreb. Other
journals often published articles from Ljubljana in Slovenian without
translation. Geca Kon, a Jewish immigrant from Zemun across the
Sava river, was already printing cheap editions of translated European
works. They made his book store the most famous in the city by the
....
I
1930s, a notoriety that would cost him his life during the first days of
the Nazi invasion in 1941. 19
Central to the increasingly cosmopolitan cultural life were the cafl::s
where authors and artists gathered almost nightly. Of some 700 in the
city, the Moskva on the newly fashionable Terazija was probably the
most noted. Its closing for two weeks of renovation in 1923 was report-
edly a major ordeal for the literary elite. The most colorful and among
the most talented of the Moskva regulars was the Dalmatian Croat
poet Augustin (Tin) Ujevii:, who spent the early 1920s in Belgrade's
bohemian circle. He came as an ardent Yugoslav but became increas-
ingly disillusioned with any national or political identity. Sharing that
same disillusion was the Vojvodina Serb poet, later a major novelist and
controversial l::migre, Milo Cmjanski. The Serbianized Tsintsar play-
wright, Branislav NuSiC, had already emerged as a prominent public
personality. His most performed work, Gospodja Ministarka (Mrs. Min-
ister), satirized Belgrade's official class mercilessly. Nuic also organ-
ized the volunteer efforts that opened the remarkable Cvijeta ZuzoriC
Pavilion in 1927. Named for a sixteenth-century Dubrovnik patron of
the arts, it functioned as a free performance center for art exhibits,
concerts, and literary evenings unable to afford a hall.
Women were increasingly accepted into this cultural milieu. 20 Al-
though promised the right to vote in the 1920 constitution, they did not
receive it. Otherwise favoring their independence in postwar Belgrade
5.1 Belgrade in the 1930s. View up the Terazije with the Hotel was the new social acceptability of single or divorced women. Mar-
Moskva on the right riages, quipped NuSiC, were now shorter, "like skirts and haircuts." The
proportion of women at Belgrade University and other institutes of
Newspapers and publishing houses also flourished to an extent that higher education doubled for 1922-28 to approach one-quarter. Their
put public opinion outside the control of the ruling Radical Party. 1lle participation in the various arts grew as well, leaving aside literature
Radical daily, Vreme, trailed far behind the largely independent Polmka and the still isolated if impressive figure of the poet and essayist, Isadora
in circulation numbers. Although it received some state funding in the Sekulic (see chapter 3). Women became an integral part of the cafe
148 Yugoslavia as History Parliamentary kingdom, 1921-1928 149

culture. They were noticeably absent only from the soccer matches that Most prominent were two students of Vienna's Otto Wagner, Viktor
brought mass attendances at sporting events, sometimes over I 0,000, Kovacic and Joze Plecnik. Kovacic designed a number of buildings in
to Belgrade for the first time. // Zagreb and trained students at the university's new architectural fac-
Belgrade's connections with the other cultural and intellectual ~nters ulty. They promoted enough new construction to be called the Zagreb
of the first Yugoslavia, Zagreb and Ljubljana, were considerabjp. Zagreb School by the 1930s. Plecnik was responsible for the graceful baroque
had its established university and an unequaled library, expressionist bridges, embankments, and arcades that gave Ljubljana the most co-
and folk art, and a variety of scholarly publications; Ljubljana its new herent city center in the interwar kingdom.
university, architectural innovation in the city center, and a developing set Belgrade's university increased its faculties from three to five and its
of social sciences. A burgeoning cultural and intellectual rivalry between enrollment (primarily law students). German reparations and dona-
Belgrade and Zagreb did not bode well for the viability of the new tions from the American Carnegie Endowment funded construction of
state. Imagine nineteenth-century France with a major city to rival Paris. an impressive library and other facilities. Yet the university lacked the
For the first Yugoslavia, a more positive sign was the bonding, interper- legislation to guarantee its independence. Enrollment in the primary
sonal and interregional, to the new state that occurred in Belgrade. Its schools controlled by the ministry of education declined during the
mixture of immigrants and visitors from across the kingdom was unique. 1920s.
At the same time, similar debates on the desired nature of the new Textbooks left over from the prewar period posed a greater problem
state took place in all three cities. !YJ2WLEw-apq, __
th<:._j_ourI1_al
originally for the future of the new state. Svetozar PribiC:eviC's heavy-handed
fognde_d_g_l!rjpg__!he.wat b_y_Seton~Watson__to__promote a postwar Yugo-
__ efforts to introduce new textbooks glorifying the monarchy and the idea
slavia,_ kd.J)J._;,_fight .i!.LZl!J:J:ebJor__a__g~uine federation_ against the of a single nationality with three tribes quickly failed. The resulting
"vulgar unitarism" of Pribicevic and the confederalism (at best) ofRadic. furor frustrated any compromise during the parliamentary period, so
The same battle lines in Ljubljana found fewer supporters on the con- that schools continued to use prewar history and geography texts that
federal side. In Belgrade, perhaps the most respected intellectual leaders, slighted any common multi-ethnic heritage in Croatia, unless Habsburg-
theater critic Milan Grol and lawyer/historian Slobodan Jovanovic, the sponsored, and simply omitted it in Serbia. 22
son of that first Serbian liberal, Vladimir Jovanovic (see chapter 2), A further problem arose in the search for a common literary canon.
were ready by 1922 to sacrifice unitarism in order to preserve a state Here Belgrade's Ministry of Education did intervene with school text-
whose survival they saw threatened more by the Serbian side than the books that put regionally rather than ethnically identified selections
Croatian. More broadly, the most recent American study of the Yugoslav from Serb, Croat, and Slovene writers together in a standardized Ser-
idea looks at Belgrade in the 1920s and "is hard pressed to find major bian format. More troubling was the emphasis, renewed from the pre-
Serbian intellectuals or writers who showed a strong preference for a 1914 period, on the poetry of the mid-nineteenth-century Montenegrin
unitary culture, much less one based ... on Serbian terms. " 21 Bishop Petar PetroviC NjegoS. Selections from his epic Mountain Wreath
Set against this emerging civil society and Yugoslav dialogue was the were artfully chosen to show a Yugoslav orientation. Other passages
less positive role that the central government played in Belgrade's post- calling for Orthodox revenge against native, now Yugoslav Muslims
war development. Interference by the ministries and bureaucratic delay were omitted. His canonization as the premier Yugoslav writer cul-
frustrated the General Plan of 1923 for the badly needed renovation of minated in the 1925 reburial of his body on Mount Lovcen, in a cer-
the city center. Only the new SkupStina and a couple of government emony attended by King Aleksandar and in a tomb designed by the
buildings were ever completed. Constant changes contributed to a cost- renowned sculptor Ivan Mestrovic. A Croat by birth, he was perhaps
overrun that was projected to exceed the opStina government's entire the most resolute Yugoslav of the interwar cultural figures. 23
revenue for the decade. The lack of a cadastral survey and interfer-
ence by ministerial property owners (Pasic included) combined with its
Land refomz and colonization
enormous cost to sink the much debated plan.
Meanwhile the city centers of Zagreb and Ljubljana took on a more Centralized administration from the Belgrade ministries generally failed
contemporary European appearance, thanks to the readiness of their to provide Serbia with the economic advantages during the 1920s that
municipal governments to give a free hand to modernist architects. adversaries assumed it was afforded, agriculture included. 24 One major
 ~
I I

!
150 Yugoslama as Hiswry Parliamentary kingdom, 1921-1928 151

exception was land reform. It favored Serbia because it was largely :t~p- Pazar finally received cash payments in the 1930s. Most of the I 0,300
plic~ble there. Serbia had few large holdings and none of the foreign- colonist families, half Serb and half Montenegrin, also received an
0-~ned estates that its politicians had been promising to break HP in average of 7 to 8 hectares of fertile Macedonian land at that late
Macedonia since the Balkan wars. In 191 7 the Pasic governmertt had date. Despite receiving no further state assistance, the Macedonian
promised 5 hectares (12.5 acres) to all volunteers who joine9"the Ser- colonists were generally successful. Their Bosnian counterparts, nearly
bian army. The Narodno vijeCe in Zagreb had given similar assurances 7,000 immigrant families, had arrived earlier during the 1920s, but
in 1918 to the "Green Cadres," primarily Croats from the disbanding made much less headway. Their more upland, largely forested holdings
Habsburg army who were taking over Slavonian estates on their own. amounted to only 3.5 percent of the total redistribution in Bosnia-
The interim decree of February 1919 had ratified the end of share- Hercegovina. The bulk of the Bosnian total went to 113,000 former
cropping obligations (kmetsvo) and rents while promising to redistribute kmet famiJies, who were mainly Serbs. These transfers plus those given
'\ land from large holdings (see chapter 4; "large" was undefined in the under the land reform to a Serb plurality of 42 percent in the province's
former Habsburg and Ottoman lands). The state was to indeni11jfy interwar population lie behind the Bosnian Serbs' recent claim to have
\} ~!v J fl ff,i If
previous owners.,, But the actual indemnification and .digrib_u_tiQttJ._o,9_k owned 64 percent of private Bosnian land (the 1991 census recorded
longer and offered l_e_siclear title ~_an p~_asa}Jtrecipients_ .'il_J}_ti~tl~J!g:-9:, 41 percent, or 19 percent of all land).
,1.Jfl f)tJ f)f
Meanwhile, beginning late in 1920, a Special Commission of -~e inte- Still more portentous politically was the work of the Belgrade govern-
rior ministry made limited awards of choice land in Bosnia, Mace~cmla, ment's Special Commission during the 1920s. It brought Montenegrin ,
Kosovo, and the Vojvodina to Serb war veterans from impoverj~h~d and Serb families from Croatia and Hercegovina to Kosovo to settle on
I uplands like Hercegovina. These awards of land somehow forfeited by land supposedly abandoned by Turkish or Albanian owners. The Com-
their _former owners crea_ted-reSen-twent among the lowland pop_iilf!tions: mission paid a small amount of compensation to a few of the 40,000-
Thus, the land ref~rm and these coi~nist migrations both had unin- 80,000 who emigrated. In their place, boosted by a second wave in the
ii tended political consequences. 1930s, came some 12,000 families of Serb colonists, totalling 60,000
I By the time it had finally run its course in the 1930s, the reform of people. They often struggled to survive economically and quickly became
I 1919-21 had redistributed about 10 percent of the country's agricul- active in political campaigns against any revival of Albanian influence. 26
I
tural land, or 2.5 million hectares, and 20 percent of all arable land to On the northern grain-growing plains where the estates had been
one-quarter of the country's 2 million peasant families and paid at least large, consolida!_t;d f~_rmsoperating close to European standards before
some indemnity to the I0,000-12,000 owners. Of these 518,000 fam- the war, colonization by landless peasants from food-poor areas to the
ilies who received land, only 43,500 were Serb or Montenegrin colonists south should not have been expected to work well. And in the Vojvodina,
or wartime volunteers. Although they generally received a bit more than the one such territory where there was significant colonization, it did
the average dispensation of 5 hectares, they were not noticeably more not. Hungarian land was distributed to 12,000 families invited to colon-
prosperous and were often less so. ize and to another 5,000 uninvited. Poor yields and the lack of assist-
Jozo Tomasevich, whose critical appraisal of its impact remains the ance from Radical regimes that they initially supported drove many
most comprehensive, calls the reform a political and socio-economic of these colonists into political opposition by the 1930s. Meanwhile,
'
necessity in Bosnia, Macedonia, and Kosovo. 25 The semi-feudal, share- tens of thousands of landless peasants still struggled to survive in the
cropping regimes of the Bosnian Muslim, Turkish, and Albanian land- V ojvodina, three-quarters of them Hungarian.
lords over largely Serb tenants were neither efficient nor politically Th_e economic balance sheet for the reform, all the same, was surpris-
sustainable, given their wartime opposition to the new state. At least ingly good by the end of the l 920s. 27 The Skupstina had belatedly
the former Bosnian Muslim officials, or aga, who owned large proper- giVenthe peasants c1ear title to their new land, and hence the right to
ties, had promptly received half of the 255 million dinar indemnity mortgage it to buy badly needed equipment. Even before then, the
offered for their political support in ratifying the 1921 constitution. The smallholdings that replaced large estates in Croatia and Slavonia do not
rest of their payment and all of that paid to the more numerous share- seem inefficient if judged by the record of crop yields for the major
cropping landlords (beg) came from state bonds, which were not even grains. By 1931 holdings under 5 hectares (12.5 acres) in Croatia-
issued until 1929. Landlords in Macedonia and the Sandzak of Novi Slavonia covered precisely 75 percent of agricultural land versus
 . ,1111:m"
152 Yugoslavia as History I Parliamentary kingdom, 1921-1928 153

62 percent for Serbia. And precisely in Croatia-Slavonia, yields dipped Table 5.3. Occupational structure, 1921 and 1931
slightly below the 1909-13 average during 1921-23 and then signific-
antly increased by 1928-30. There, and even more in Slovenia, a nWork 1921 1931
of agricultural cooperatives helped make up for the lack of m<'ttgage GrO\vth
credit or the absence of the national Agricultural Bank that \jl!IS finally (in thousands) (%) (in thousands) (%) in%
established in 1929. Cooperative savings deposits and imports of Agriculture, livestock, and
modern agricultural machinery rose, supported by a labor supply less fishing 4,840 81.1 5,099 76.3 -4.8
depleted by wartime losses than Serbia's and by proximity to the Aus- Industry and crafts 509 8.5 717 10.7 2.2
trian and Czech markets. Serbia saved its prewar market for prune Trade, credit, and transport 190 3.2 272 4.1 0.9
export, but otherwise found the Vojvodina a difficult competitor even Public services, army, and
free professions 228 3.8 306 4.6 0.8
in its domestic market. Other 202 3.4 289 4.3 0.9
-' Total 5,969 100 6,683 100

Industry, finance, and economic policy

Sources: Enciklopedia Jugoslavije, v, III (Zagreb: Jugoslavenski leksikogravfski zavod, 1983),
Serbia, and Belgrade in particular, also lost ground in industrialization 349.
relative to Croatia. Zagreb got off to a fast start (see chapter 4) because
of the demand and capital flowing from Austria and Hungary in the
immediate postwar period. It now became the largest single industrial Bank in Belgrade, which was set up for commercial lending as well as
and import center in the new state. By 1923 the city accounted for being a central bank. The principal Belgrade banks abandoned their
6 percent of total industrial employment and 45 percent in Croatia. prewar entrepreneurial ways and concentrated on short-term bills of
Zagreb's advantage over Belgrade in industrial horsepower was particu- exchange supported by discounting from the National Bank. As a re-
larly striking, 22.5 versus 5.4 percent of the country's total. Such indus- sult, the large Zagreb banks now held larger assets than their Belgrade
trial growth, primarily in timber and metal processing, helped relieve counterparts, reversing their prewar position and by 1928 accounted
the loss of employment and income when Zagreb ceased to be the for fully one-half of bank assets in Yugoslavia. 29
center of provincial government. Sarajevo and Skopje suffered this same We should not make too much of Yugoslav industrial growth during
loss after the war, but did not get the industrial growth to compensate the 1920s. Table 5.3 reveals an occupational structure still missing the
for it. New competition from Croatian manufactures also trimmed the significant shift of labor from agriculture to industry necessary for growth
artisan sectors of both cities. 28 to become development. The Radical regime's economic policy con-
The capital and entrepreneurship for this Croatian advance was largely centrated on tariff protection for domestic manufactures and currency
'
,\ homegrown, but several thousand Czech and Austrian businessmen stabilization to attract foreign loans of the sort so generously accorded
1,1:

also arrived in place of the Hungarian officials who departed. They to the independent Balkan states before the war. Neither effort was very
provided valuable business experience, particularly in the complexities successful. The 1927 tariff set modest rates by interwar East Euro-
of postwar foreign trade. The Zagreb opcina did not wait for the parlia- pean standards. As elsewhere, they boosted textile production, but left
ment in Belgrade to pass a law for industrial encouragement (which did flour and other agricultural processing operating well short of capacity.
not happen until 1934) and granted its own set of exemptions from The German-trained and British-connected finance minister, Milan
import duties and taxes for industrial inputs. But the major source of StojadinoviC, imposed a rigorous one-third reduction in real per capita
support for Croatian industry was Zagreb's large commercial banks. note issue on the National Bank from 1924 to 1926 in order to stabilize
After the initial postwar boom, they continued to attract foreign capital the dinar, probably overvalued at 125 to the dollar. He claimed that
(some 40 percent of their assets were Austrian and 20 percent Hungar- this cut plus new land taxes would reduce the state's budget deficit and
ian). They channelled it and their own deposits into long-term credits the burden of prewar debt, thus opening the way to new loans that the
or investment in industrial enterprises. The Prva Hrvastka Stedionica, overvalued dinar would help to attract. Few new loans came, as we
for instance, made more long-term loans to industry than the National shall see, and the deflationary impact of the stabilization cut commercial
154 Yugoslavia as History Parliamentary kingdom, 1921-1928 155

credit and tax revenue, particularly from agriculture during the bad First World War: how to repay wartime loans from larger, Western
harvest and price slump of 1926. 30 allies whose postwar capital markets were ill-disposed or unable to
State budget expenditures nonetheless continued to climb for l 9l6-30 resume lending prewar amounts on prewar terms? The American Blair
to twice Serbia's real per capita level of 1911. Their distribution g{
little loan was a case in point. Until Serbia's wartime obligation could be
for the economy, however. The rail network, for instance, ba~y needed negotiated down to $62 million and officially settled in 1926, the New
new construction to link east with west and Bosnia with tlie Adriatic York capital market held back a second Blair installment of $45 million
coast. By 1930 fewer than 500 miles had been added to the 6,000 miles (the first amounted to only $15 million). Agreement on Britain's war-
of track that existed before the war; half of these new lines were in time lending was finally reached in 1927 and on France's sizeable
Serbia and the Vojvodina, and barely 10 percent in Bosnia-Hercegovina. prewar loans the following year. In the meantime, the new state had
been forced to stabilize its currency without benefit of a League of
Nations loan. A few small private loans added only 3 percent to the real
Hostile neighbors and distant allies
value of Serbia's prewar debt by the end of the decade. 32
Foreign trade grew enough during the 1920s to become the most posi-
......
i The regional diplomacy of Britain and France during the 1920s con-
tive feature in parliamentary Yugoslavia's relations with the seven centrated on preventing the reemergence of the Habsburg monarchy.
neighboring states. The new kingdom recorded the highest rise in real For this reason, French policy came to support the Little Entente
per capita exports of any Balkan economy during the decade. Their between Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. Still counting on a
value for 1921-25 climbed to 129 and to 161 for 1926-30, if Serbia's close connection with Poland, the Quai d'Orsay had initially opposed
1906-10 figure is taken as 100. Their variety of exported goods was this set of bilateral alliances created by Czech initiative in 1920. Some
also the greatest, as the value of cereal grains predominant elsewhere discussion of a Franco-Yugoslav military alliance with arms credits
fell to just 17 percent. More to the present point, Italy was the new from France surfaced in 1922, but came to nothing. By 1924 the Pasic
state's largest market, absorbing just over one-quarter of Yugoslav ex- government concluded that the Entente agreement had only tied Yugo-
ports for 1921-30. A large export surplus with Italy and a small one slavia to French or Czech priorities with no immediate prospect for the
with Southeastern Europe and Turkey trimmed down what would other- explicit treaty with France expected as a reward. When that treaty
wise have been a huge trade deficit because of unfavorable balances finally materialized late in 1927, it yielded only a vague military proto-
with the rest of Europe. Austria and Hungary along with Czechoslova- col, modest deliveries of obsolete arms, and condemnation from Lon-
kia and Poland accounted for 45 percent of import value, versus don as a "retrograde step." 33
25 percent for Germany and Northwestern Europe. 31 By the mid-l 920s, Belgrade's relations with Austria and Hungaty '
Parliamentary Yugoslavia did not enjoy correspondingly good polit- impl'oved despite_ disputes over_ i:eparations and minority rights. The
icaT relations_ wiih ...any ~(its I\sighbors by the late 1920s, despite initial Slovene-backed claim to two zones in Austrian Carinthia had foundered
improvement during the.periQ.d 1922-26. Italy posed the most persist- by 1921 (see chapter 4). lnviolation of the League's agreement on
ent and threatening problems. Border or minority disputes with other minority rights that Yugoslavia fuially signed in 1922, Austrian officiais
neighbors further aggravated relations with Italy, particularly after Mus- and teachers in Slovenia were dismissed, as were their Slovenian couri:..
solini's Fascist regime brought Albania into a close, dependent relation- terparts in C.arinthia. The SLS leader, Monsignor Korosec, attempted to
ship. Neither France nor Britain, although Serbia's allies in the recent pursue the issue with the Austrian prime minister, Ignaz Seipel, in 1927,
war, were willing to commit their full weight to the Yugoslav side for but PaSiC's foreign minister, MomCilo NinciC, had already turned away
fear of disrupting their own relations with Italy or losing leverage in from the Slovenian case. NinciC also moved to establish correct, formal
prolonged negotiations over Serbia's wartime and prewar debts. Germany relations with Admiral Horthy's Hungary, once Yugoslav army troops
played a benign but distant role. So did the United States, despite the were withdrawn from the Pees region by 1921. By 1926 it appeared that
promise of the 1923 Blair loan that was to have raised $100 million for the two states were ready to sign an agreement ending the long dispute
rail construction from Zagreb and other inland locations to the Adriatic. over Hungarian reparations with the promise of some coal deliveries.
Hanging over American, British, and French relations with the new The friendless Hungarian government accepted this improvement
state was the same problem that bedeviled the other winners in the despite the lack of political representation for more than 400,000
 156 Yugoslavia as History Parliamentary kingdom, 1921-1928 157

Hungarians in the Vojvodina. As already noted, Hungarians had been 1926 apparently resolved the dispute, but it quickly reemerged when the
h kJt},i ,;, , denied the right to participate in the postwar land reform and the right Greek government of General Pangalos that had negotiated it was over-
to vote in the 1920 elections for the constituent assembly. Tu7 1
Iocal thrown. On the Greek side, final resolution had to await Eleutherios
Serb plurality of more than one-half million plus the 70,000 C,li<latsor Venizelos' return to power in 1927; French diplomats thereupon pressed
one-time Catholic Serbs, called bunjevci, collaborated with th)"Belgrade King Aleksandar to sign an agreement with Greece in return for resolu-
\ ministries to control local government in the three provinces and their tion of Serbia's considerable prewar debt to France. 36
counties until the local elections of I 927 offered some Hungarian The troubled Yugoslav relationship with Albania moved in tandem
\. representation. That year's parliamentary elections also saw the first with Italian involvement in the small state. Albania was surrounded by
..Hungarian representatives actually seated. 34 the new kingdom and Greece, but lay less than 50 nautical miles from
/ Until 1927 the new state's relations_with B_ulgaria were not as bad as the Italian mainland. Secret agreements at the Paris Peace Conference
might have been expected nor relat10ns with Greece as good. The in 1919 had promised all three neighbors some Albanian territoty, and
cloud of Bulgaria's irredentist claim to Macedonia, frustrated by Serbia all three had troops on that territory. But once local Albanians expelled
in the First Balkan War of 1912 and again in the postwar settlement, Italian troops in June 1920, subsequent Italian governments abandoned
(,.,,. U':'.-i
/,, J hung low over Yugoslav-Bulgarian relations throughout the interwar their readiness to share influence there. The PaSiC government also con-
period. The 220,000 refugees from Macedonia and Thrace that streamed tinued its policy of intervention. In 1921 a group of Albanian Catholics
into Bulgaria in 1918 provided manpower for both the autonomist and in the northwestern Midrits area attempted to set up a border republic
supremist factions of the VMRO. As we have already seen, however, with Yugoslav backing, but Muslim Albanians with Italian support
internecine warfare would cut into each side's strength. The Agrarian quickly put it down.
prime minister, Aleksandar Stamboliiski, had agreed to reduce border Internationally recognized by the end of 1921, the Albanian govern-
raids and accept Yugoslav sovereignty over "South Serbia," culminat- ment found the PaSiC regime still unwilling to recognize its border
ing in the joint Treaty of Nis signed in 1923. The prominent VMRO roughly as the Great Powers had fixed it in 1913. Tirana also con-
role in assassinating him shortly thereafter, precisely because of that tributed to the ongoing dispute with the Yugoslav state by support-
signature, has typically been seen as ending these improved relations ing a Committee for the National Liberation of Kosovo that Albanian
on the spot. 35 In fact they persisted through 1926. The Pasi<': regimes refugees from the province founded in 1918. Several of its members
valued them as a way of preventing any Bulgarian alliance with Italy. became ministers in the Albanian governments of the next few years.
There was also a brief effort in December 1924 to win visiting Bulgar- Belgrade held them accountable for the continuing violence by kachak
ian Prime Minister Aleksandar Tsankov over to a new anti-Bolshevik bands raiding across the border into Kosovo. This set the stage for the
front. The Pasic-Pribicevic regime was already touting the Bolshevik decision of the PaSiC regime to back the Committee of Kosovo's staunch-
threat as a justification to Britain and France for keeping Radic's Peas- est foe, the warlord interior minister, Ahmed Zogu, from 1923 forward.
ant Party banned. Of greater importance to the persisting truce in \Vhen his opponent in the 1923 parliamentary elections, Fan Noli, took
relations with Bulgaria was the prolonged dispute with Greece over power early the next year with support from peasants demanding land
access to the port of Salonika. reform, Zogu fled across the border. By year's end, however, he re-
The new Yugoslav state renewed the Serbian demand of the First turned with Albanian conscripts from the Yugoslav army and White
World War for control of the old Oriental Railway line from its south- Russian mercenaries to overthrow the Noli government. His agents set
ern border to Salonika and for a free port there. By 1923 a Belgrade about liquidating the leaders of the Committee of Kosovo, and the
syndicate had purchased the requisite rights to that line from the re- kachak raids into Kosovo ended shortly thereafter. 37 In 1926 the last
mains of the original French company. Greek authorities refused to PaSiC government signed an agreement with Zogu, finally recognizing
man the railway with anyone but Greek employees and stalled over the 1913 border. All might have been well between the two states if the
granting the Yugoslav side a free port. They even resisted a request to Italian government had now kept its distance.
stop calling the Slav Macedonian population of Greek Macedonia "Bul- The year 1926 nonetheless marked the end of the truce in the Yugoslav-
garians." By 1924 the Belgrade government threatened to renounce Italian antagonism that surprisingly had begun with Mussolini's rise to
the 1913 treaty of a11iance with Greece. A compromise agreement in power. Not long after a 1922 speech in which he appeared to respond
 '
~ ,,;'
--,is'>'..;

158 Yugoslavia as History Parliamentary kingdom, 1921-1928 159

to pleas for Dalmazia italiana, he silenced the Fascists of Fiume (Rijeka) Table 5.4. Ethnic voting by party, 1923 and 1927
and accepted the conventions of the 1920 Treaty of Rapallo with Yugo-
slavia. In _1923 he initiated ciirect negotiations with tho:__Pasicre.pm~Jo
1923 election
tra4_~ ~~~l_ianannexation of Fiume for the incorporation of ~ rest of
the Free State's territory into Yugoslavia. These negotiation?"proceeded Serbs Croats Slovenes Others" Total
successfully through the summer's crisis with Greece over Italian bom-
Radicals 103 5 108
bardment and invasion of Corfu. Th~Rome treaty of Jarl\]ary J_92A..nm_ Croatian Republican Peasant
only settled the Fiume issue but included a five-year friendship agree- Party (HRSS) 68 69
ment. When Stjepan RadiC objected to any agreement without some Democrats 33 33
softening of the ltalianization under way against Croats in !stria, Mus- Yugoslavs (Slovenian People's
solini replied simply, "I stick to the Serbs," meaning the Belgrade Party (SLS) and Bunjevci) 21 2 24
Yugoslav Muslim
government. 38
By 1926, however, he had changed his mind about both the Serbs "' Organization (JMO)
Independent Democrats (SDS) 10
17
4
18
15
and his conciliatory policy toward Yugoslavia. That year, the last PaSiC Dyemijet (Albanians) ,_,
(2, 12 14
regime failed again to secure parliamentary ratification of the complex Germans 8 8
commercial agreement with Italy called the Nettuno Conventions. Gen- Undeclared 7 3 10
Total 155 93 22 29 299
erally favorable to Italian interests, they had been signed in July 1925,
just as RadiC and his Croatian representatives joined the government. 1927 election
Radie took the lead in organizing Croatian and Slovenian resistance
Serbs Croats Slovenes Othersb Total
into a campaign against Italy. Foreign Minister NinciC failed to over-
come their opposition after Mussolini rejected a tripartite alliance with Radicals 102 2 8 112
France and Yugoslavia in February 1926. In addition, the Italian dicta- Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) 2 59 61
tor proclaimed 1926 his anno napoleonico. Ahmed Zogu met the revived Democrats 56 2 3 61
Independent Democrats (SDS) 13 5 4 22
taste for Italian expansionism more than halfway. As early as 1925, he Slovenian People's Party (SLS) 20 21
confounded his Belgrade backers by sounding out chances for the supe- Agrarian Union 9 9
,. rior diplomatic and financial support that Italy could provide. Here Yugoslav Muslim
I
was an offer that Mussolini could no longer refuse. The comprehensive Organization (JMO) 11 6 18
I
Italian-Albanian Treaty of Tirana in November 1926 prompted Nincic Germans 6 6
Small groups 2 3
to resign in protest. The next year would be the most dangerous one of Total 183 82 25 23 313
\ the decade for Yugoslav-Italian relations.
"Includes undeclared Germans, Albanians, Turks, and Romanians.
b Includes undeclared Germans, Hungarians, Albanians, and Turks.
Fatal intersections, 1927-1928 Source: Branislav GligorijeviC, Parlamem i politilke stranke Jugoslavije, 1919-1929 (Bel-
grade: Narodna knjiga, 1979), 293-94.
The rapid deterioration of the first Yugoslavia's relations with Italy
and other neighbors in 1927 fed internal tensions and divisions. Together
they created the parliamentary confrontation and violence of 1928 that and the bad harvests of the previous year. Serbia's Radical Party
persuaded King Aleksandar to suspend the Skupstina and the Vidovdan and the Croatian Peasant Party both lost votes. While the Zagreb elite
constitution on January 6, 1929. Neither the much delayed alliance worried about economic competition from Italy, their Belgrade coun-
with France nor the economic upturn following the dinar's stabilization terparts were more concerned about the political threat of a hostile
came in time to head off these fatal intersections. The largely rural Italy gathering all of the new state's neighbors into an alliance against
electorate that went to the polls in the last parliamentary election in it. Ethnic groups voted for ethnic parties in 1927 parliamentary elections
September 1927 was still suffering from the austere domestic policies as much as they had in the first one in 1923 (see table 5.4). The
 160 Yugoslavia as History Parliamentary kingdom, 1921-1928 161

Democrats' early promise to become a Yugoslav Party that would repres- that he now considered Serbs and Croats, at least in Croatia, to be one
ent at least Croats and Slovenes as well as Serbs remained unfulfilled. people, Radii: was unable to persuade any of tbe Radical factions to
join. Both he and PribiCeviC then proposed a non-party government
,fl headed by an army general. King Aleksandar declined, reluctantly turn-
Radie and Pribicevic / ing back a cabinet tbat included Slovenian SLS leader Monsignor
Korosec as well as tbe JMO's Spaho.
It fell to the country's two most contentious politicians to try to navig-
ate through these rough constitutional waters. The increasingly divided
Death and dissolution
Radical Party gave way to an opposition tbat brought together the last
and most unlikely combination among tbe three preeminent politi- Radii: made his ill-fated return to tbe Skupstina in June 1928. What
cians of tbe decade, Stjepan Radii: and Svetozar Pribii:evii:. After followed is often portrayed as proof of how the Serb-Croat antagonism
tbe king's refusal to let Nikola Pasii: form new cabinets in April and made a parliamentary government under majority rule witb a loyal
December 1926, the Radicals' inconspicuous minister of public works, opposition impossible. Such a conclusion overlooks not only the per-
Nikola UzunoviC, headed a succession of six weak governments. Al- sonal inability of Stjepan Radii: or Svetozar Pribii:evii: to be any major-
ready excluded from tbe second of these cabinets, Radie left three of his ity's loyal opposition, but also the absence of a working majority even
colleagues in their positions until December. With their withdrawal, the for tbe Radical Party. It also overlooks tbe issue tbat triggered the
i:
Croatian Peasant Party ended its brief participation in tbe Belgrade violent and fatal debate in tbe Skupstina on June 19-20.
government. During his stay in the city, however, the voluble, cosmo- That issue was the persistent Radical and royal effort to secure rati-
politan Radii: developed tbe best personal relations witb Aleksandar of fication of tbe Nettuno Conventions with Italy. When the Vukii:evii:
any party leader, markedly better tban tbose of the taciturn Pasii:. government raised this issue again in May, the RadiC-Pribicevic oppo-
The September elections did not produce a mandate for any of these sition spoke out sharply, denouncing the whole regime as corrupt and
increasingly divided parties. Mainly because of a decline in Croatia, unsupportable. Demonstrations erupted in several Dalmatian towns and
overall voter participation fell to 69 percent of eligible voters, down then in Belgrade. Witbout its passage, there was little chance of a much
from 77 percent in 1925. The post-Pasii: Radicals split into three fac- desired British loan. But Radii: was adamant; he had already called for
tions, leading to separate lists of candidates in Serbia and part of Bosnia recognition of tbe USSR as a rebuff to tbe British in particular for
and cutting tbeir representation from 143 to 112 seats. The Democrats "letting Mussolini into the Balkans." Meanwhile in Belgrade, tbe greater
stepped into tbe breach, boosting their representation from 37 to 61, threat appeared to be Italian agreements with increasingly hostile re-
but were tbemselves now divided. Radii:'s HSS Party lost 6 of its previ- gimes in Bulgaria, whose border incursions had resumed, and Hungary,
ous 67 seats, as support fell off in Zagreb and other towns. Pribii:evii:'s where extreme Croatian nationalists were organizing. Italian diplomats
SDS barely held its ground with tbe same 22 seats. In Montenegro its were also promoting a new tripartite alliance with Greece and Turkey.
federalist allies lost 2 of tbe 3 seats they held, one to tbe strident Domestic deadlock and foreign danger, as perceived differently by
Serbian nationalist, PuniSa RaCiC. The results were too inconclusive the several sides, thus created the general tension that surrounded the
even to provide the basis for rearranging the interim cabinet that had return of Radie and his nephew Pavle to tbe Skupstina in June. The
adjourned to await the outcome of the elections. RadiC and PribiCeviC, exchange of epitbets even in formal sessions now passed all bounds. 39
until then the bitterest of personal adversaries, stepped into the breach By June 19, Radii: himself said tbat tbe rhetoric was creating "a psycho-
and agreed in October to form an opposition coalition of their two logical disposition to murder." Punisa Racii:, tbe new Radical deputy
parties, calling it a Democratic Bloc. from Montenegro, a Chetnik war veteran and militant Serbian national-
The new coalition succeeded only in forcing a weak minority govern- ist with no political experience, promised that ''heads will roll ... until
ment to resign in February 1928, with calls for a "concentration cabi- Stjepan Radii: is killed tbere will be no peace." The next day, this same
net," representing all major parties, to take its place. Aleksandar exerted Racii: called for a psychological examination of Radii: and tben stepped
his rising influence to defy tbe fading Radical establishment and to forward to fire a revolver at tbe assembled Croat leaders. He killed
ask RadiC himself to form this government. Despite his recent assertion Radic's nephew Pavle and one other instantly and wounded three more
 162 Yugoslavia as History
,.,
people, only Radie himself seriously. The Croatian leader was rushed I
back to a Zagreb hospital and appeared to be recovering from his
stomach wound. But he died unexpectedly on August 8. His las;/state- 6 Authoritarian kingdom, 1929-1941
ments forsook further Croatian participation in the Belgrade panament
or allegiance to the Vidovdan constitution. /
A new government of national consolidation was hastily formed by
the Slovenian KoroSec. It could not overcome the misplaced Croatian
assumption that the Radical Party and army officers close to the king
had arranged the attack in the Skupstina. Eighty-seven representatives,
all but four from the Croatian Peasant Party and the Independent
Democrats, walked out of the parliament. Sixty-one Democrats soon In 1929 King Aleksandar redesignated the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats,
threatened to follow. The rump parliament narrowly ratified the Nettuno and Slovenes as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The name's official debut
Conventions, but this gesture failed to secure the anticipated British did not augur well for democratic government: the king had just abol-
loan. Both the Croatian and Serbian sides charged the other with reviv- ished the 1921 constitution and disbanded an elected parliament. Ahead
ing Radical dissenter Stojan Protic's 1924 proposal simply to sever lay the full weight of the Great Depression and the rise of Nazi Ger-
Croatia and Slovenia from the Serbian core. Pribieevie demagogically many. As British Ambassador Neville Henderson commented in 1933,
claimed that he and the convalescing Radie had prevented such an "it is easier to say Yugoslavia than to make it." The country would
amputation that July. He called the Vidovdan constitution a dead letter remain a "crossword puzzle" to him until his posting to Berlin a few
and threatened that Croatia and Bosnia would withhold further pay- years later. The political puzzle is better understood if divided into
.,,
i!
ments on the state's international debts. British diplomats asked KoroSec three periods, 1929-34, 1935-38, and 1939-41.
i
whether it would help if Belgrade posted some Slovene and Croat The authoritarian framework by which Aleksandar intended to hold
,:1
officials to Southern Serbia, that is, Macedonia. It was too late for that, Yugoslavia together and make it into a nation-state has been dubbed a
;;
'
Ii
he replied. Even the king raised the prospect of amputacija briefly, if royal dictatorship. It surely started that way. Yet the king, and his army
'I only to elicit a public rejection from Radic's successor, Vladko MaCek. generals, could not retain the hallmarks of dictatorship - direct powers
Macek then could counter with vague demands for a new federal struc- to make all political decisions and to suppress all opposition - even for
ture that the Radicals refused to discuss. They also rejected PribiCevic's the five years left of his life. After Aleksandar's assassination in 1934,
proposal for elections to a new constituent assembly. the most skillful Serbian politician of the decade, Milan Stojadinovic,
The first Yugoslavia's parliamentary government survived only until needed a coalition government to retain power from 1935 to 1938. He
December 1928. The first day of the month was the tenth anniversary also failed to come to terms with his most powerful Croatian opponent,
of Aleksandar's proclamation of the new state. The king and KoroSec Vladko Macek.
agreed to downplay its celebration in Belgrade in favor of an October By early 1939, the dilemmas of assuring equal rights to a Croatian
commemoration of the breakthrough on the Salonika Front. General minority in Yugoslavia and, at the same time, to a Serb minority in
Franchet d'Esperey, who commanded the offensive, was invited to Croatia remained unresolved, while the issue was not even raised for
emphasize the French connection. But on December 1, student pro- Bosnian Muslims. A compromise agreement, the Sporazum of August
tests in Zagreb turned into riots and a dozen students were killed when 1939, addressed the first dilemma at the expense of the second. The
police broke them up. Minister Korosec replaced Zagreb's provincial others were simply ignored, as this confederal arrangement for Croatia
prefect with a Belgrade army general without the Skupstina's approval. still left the rest of the country under central administration from Bel-
Leading Democrats in his rump coalition threatened to resign. When grade. Hitler's war began barely a week later. The resulting uncertain-
Korosec resigned instead on December 30, the king decided to banish ties worked against the broader compromise needed from both sides.
the unfortunate parliament from what now became the Kingdom of Then in 1941, the Second World War spilled over into the Kingdom of
Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia and split it apart.

163
 '
r
.

164 Yugoslavia as Hi.story Authoritarian kingdom, 1929-1941 165

To see these three periods as a whole, we need to square Aleksandar's Croatian Serb leader, Svetozar PribiCeviC, told the king at the same
authoritarian framework with the political parties that formally or inform- I time that he could accept royal intervention, but not royal arbitration
ally supported or contested it during the dozen years between ,J929 between Serbia's parties and his coalition with the Croatian Peasant
and 1941. We must also go beyond the domestic politics emphaJed in Party.'
c~apter 5, ':here a real if fl_awed parliament grappled on cel}ter stage The initial decree assigned dictatorial powers to the monarch. In the
with executive power, Radical and royal. By the 1930s, Yugoslavia absence of a parliament, his directives received the force of law. All
found itself trapped in the wings of a wider international stage, first remotely political organizations were disbanded and their property and
economically and then diplomatically. Like several East European records confiscated. Only the Masons and a couple of veterans' organ-
neighbors, its government turned to Hitler's Germany to help find a izations escaped. The Masons also would not have been spared, so the
way out of economic dilemmas after I 935. Only after 1939 did that joke ran in Belgrade, had the city not hosted their World Congress in
diplomatic gamble become a dead end from which there could be no 1926. Nearly one-third of the country's newspapers and journals were
honorable escape save war. closed down on grounds of party affiliation, and the others were placed
Domestic economic policies now became more important. One set under censorship supported by a new press law. Most ominously, the
deepened the impact of the Depression, and the next contributed to a king appointed his closest military advisor and wartime White Hand
greater recovery than is generally recognized. Both sets of policies relied leader, General Petar ZivkoviC, as prime minister. The only non-Serb
on state power, extending the reach of the central government in Belgrade of regional standing in his cabinet was the Slovenian People's Party
to the detriment of Serbian relations with the other ethnic groups. (SLS) leader and head of the last brief parliamentary regime, Monsig-
Further regional or social imbalances also encouraged ethnic resenunents. nor Anton KoroSec.
Looking across the entire interwar period, however, we should take A flurry of constructive and centralizing reforms during the new
note of assets as well as liabilities, among them the intellectual survival regime's first year won it initial approval, at least outside of Croatia.
of the Yugoslav idea and some progress toward a common culture and Joseph Rothschild's generally critical survey of interwar Yugoslavia lauds
modem economy. A balance sheet for 1921-39 therefore precedes the the "show of political energy" and cites the "general relief'' that fol-
chapter's final section on the reconfigured Yugoslavia of 1939-41. lowed the overdue reforms. 2 The reforms merged four ministries with
larger ones, while reducing corrupt overpricing and delays in govern-
ment contracting. They combined six different legal codes from the
Royal dictatorship, 1929-1934 pre-1914 period, criminal and civil, and finally unified the tax struc-
Aleksandar announced his decision to dismiss the elected SkupStina ture. Political prisoners from the parliamentary period were granted
and ban all ethnically based political parties or organizations on January amnesty, Communists excepted, while some thirty-six generals and fifty
6, 1929, the eve of the Orthodox Christtnas. The date had symbolic diplomats from the top-heavy state bureaucracy were retired. All of this
weight for the Serbs and forced all political actors to wait until the plus a controversial effort to create a single system of public education
\
three-day holiday had passed to react. The king's proclamation spoke with common textbooks took effect on October 3, 1929, the same day
of state duties and the need to pursue "new paths toward Yugoslavism," that the country officially became the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
but it was his condemnation of the parliament and the parties that Alexsandar's "new path" is most remembered for another feature
persuaded a clear majority of public opinion. Western criticism was which aroused instant controversy. His proclamation on October 3
muted because, as a British Embassy report noted, a united Yugoslavia eliminated the thirty-three provinces of the Vidovdan regime, but put in
best served international interests. their place nine regional units (banovine). The reduced number re-
Even Vladko Macek, Radii:'s successor as head of the Croatian Peas- called Stojan Protii:'s plan for what might be called "unifying decen-
ant Party (HSS) welcomed the dissolution for throwing off that "badly tralization." Indeed, the promotion of Yugoslav unity was the overriding
buttoned vest," the Vidovdan constitution. He and the other leading goal of the new arrangement. River valleys furnished the focal points
Croatian politician, the now venerable Ante TrumbiC, had sounded out for the new regions, partly to promote economic integration, and the
the Czech and French capitals in late 1928 on the prospects for recog- rivers a number of their names. Although the designation of these new
nition of a separate Croatian state or status. They got no response. The divisions as banovine was a bow to Croatia's historical sensibilities, the
 ,_,,
"('"!,','
166 Authoritarian kingdom, 1929-1941 167
Yugoslavia as History
i

..,,

Selected cities
Rivers
IOO 200 KILOMETERS

Map 6.1 Territorial division of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia,

1929-1939

internal borders that they created were not historical in the main. Only
Drava and Zeta banovine largely corresponded to historical Slovenia
and Montenegro (see map 6.1), the latter also enlarged at the expense
of Hercegovina and the Sand:Zak of Novi Pazar. The Sava banovina,
centered on Croatia, gave up Dalmatia to the new Primorje, the Srem
to Dunav, and some of the Military Border area to Vrbas, where there
was a Serb majority in Lika and around the capital of Banja Luka.
Vrbas was one of four banovine dividing Bosnia-Hercegovina so that
none had a Muslim majority. Serbia was also split into four, but along
6.1 King Aleksandar of Yugoslavia on the eve of his assassination
favorable lines that assured Serb majorities for Macedonia (Vardar), the
in 1934 Vojvodina (Dunav), and eastern Bosnia (Drina), as well as one centered
on "narrow Serbia" (Morava). Beyond these nine, a separate prefecture
was provided for Belgrade as the capital city, now 289,000 people,
including its environs. The nine varied in population from about 900,000
 168 Yugoslavia as History Authoritarian kingdom, 1929-1941 169

in Primorje and Zeta to three times that number in Sava, which not as political organizations. Then General ZivkoviC demanded that Mon-
coincidentally encompassed Zagreb-centered Croatia. signor KoroSec make local speeches supporting the regime just as a
cabinet colleague proposed to close all church schools. Korosec promptly
Problems of authoritarian politics JI resigned in September 1930. Yet in 1931, the Serbian Orthodox Church
was allowed to promulgate ailllsOme new constitution for itselfjfi_l!!_-
King Aleksandar intended to provide the personal center fur the new fin3"ffY unified itS six regional bodies under a single set of regulations
regime. His ideas and intentions cry out for a scholarly biography. 3 In aiicl targetea a number of towns in Croatia for new churches or schOOls;:<;.f.
his own words, he chose "Yugoslavism over federalism," but what those The OrthOdox hierarchies of the six distinct jurisdictions - Serbia, ....-'
ambiguous terms meant to him is unclear. Was it to "make Serbia the Karlovac patriarchate for Croatia and the Vojvodina, Bosnia-
' Great, so that it will include all Serbs and Yugoslavs," as he said in Hercegovina, Montenegro_, Macedonia, and Dalmatia - had accepted a
1924, or to use the Yugoslav state to create a Yugoslav nation, as commitment to unify in I 920 as a revived patriarchate of PeC (see
Serbia's most renowned political analyst, Slobodan Jovanovic, has chapter 1), with royal approval and the Metropolitan of Belgrade,
argued? Or both, as seems likely, despite the contradiction? Dimitrije, as their new patriarch. But each jurisdiction continued to
Concerning the king's political intentions, it would be hard to de- operate according to its own set of customs and regulations through the
monstrate that he was democratically minded. The parliament of the 1920s. This only added to the insecurity that Orthodox churchmen felt
1920s appeared to him as a privilege whose terms he was entitled to in a new state where their nominal membership was only 48 percent
define rather than as a right to be maintained under any circumstances. (versus 37 percent for the Croatian and Slovenian Catholic churches)
And until he could trust the country's political leaders to share his and where lay participation had declined since the war. 5
commitment to a single Yugoslav state, regardless of how ill-defined The most serious opposition to the royal dictatorship came from
the idea, he was not likely to restore an unrestrained parliamentary Croatia, but not from its Catholic clergy. Both Pribicevii: and Macek
system. Certainly his Serbian prime minister_, General ZivkoviC_,did not had become fully disillusioned with the new regime before the end of
wish to do so. Even British Embassy reporting, which tended to give 1929. The outspoken Pribii:evii: was peremptorily jailed under the new
Aleksandar the benefit of the doubt, noted that the king's lonely up- Law for the Protection of the State. He sat in prison until permanently
bringing had inhibited his capacity to trust a wider circle of advisors exiled in 1931. A State Court created to enforce the expanded law
and encouraged him to rely excessively on a few poorly chosen inti- promptly dragged the leader of the disbanded Peasant Party, Macek,
mates. 4 His political impatience and personal insecurity - a revolver into the dock with twenty-four Croats accused of bomb attacks in
was always within reach when he went out of doors - were qualities Zagreb the previous December. MaCek's subsequent acquittal made
often associated with dictators, but his lack of self-confidence and of a a smaller impression across Croatia than the spectacle of his initial
clear ideology were not. Nor was Aleksandar's sense of royal obligation imprisonment or the revelations that other Croats had been tortured to
to a traditional European order that makes the old Communist epithet confess at the trial. The regime's appointment of four HSS members to
of "monarcho-fascist" for his regime a contradiction in terms. All this a reshuffled ZivkoviC cabinet failed to reassure Croatian public opinion.
furnishes some psychological background for a retreat from the royal Diplomatic pressure from Paris, supported by the promise of a badly
dictatorship that he began in 1931. needed French loan, helped persuade Aleksandar to concede a new
During the previous year, a series of long-standing religious problems constitution in 1931. So did the cautionary tale of Spain's republican
had fueled regional discontent. Bosnian Muslims protested the 1929 revolution. In any case, his regime seemed to have run out of creative
laws that abolished their religious community's hard-won Autonomous energy. After introducing 163 new laws during its first year, most of
Statute of 1909 in favor of a single Islamic community for the country. them major, only the expanded judicial powers for state security could
' They were now denied the right to elect their own administrative bod- be called a major initiative in 1930.
ies and found themselves lumped together with the Macedonian Turks Perhaps Aleksandar was also waiting for an "opportune moment for
and Kosovar Albanians, neither of whom had a historical or ethnic the diminution of his powers," as British Ambassador Henderson hope-
connection with these Bosnian Slavs. Many Slovenes were already smart- fully suggested. If so, the terms of the September 1931 constitution
ing from the December 1929 decision to abolish their Sokol sport clubs suggest no return to an independent parliament. Its famously restrictive
 170 Yugoslavia as History Authoritarian kingdom, 1929-1941 171
electoral provisions stipulated two legislative houses. A restored SkupStina administrations for tbe banates also remained unfulfilled. The HSS
of 306 (eventually 373) members was to be elected by open ballot from tberefore joined tbe Independent (Serb) Democrats, Trumbic's Feder-
\ country-wide lists. Candidates needed 60 signatures from more tban alists, and even several separatist leaders in drafting the twelve so-called
300 of tbe electoral districts plus 200 signatures from tbeir i>n dis- Zagreb points, or punktac,je, of November 1932. They demanded cul-
tricts to run. The list winning a plurality, presumably the go~rnm_ent's, tural autonomy and a renegotiated constitution. A similar Slovenian list
would then receive t\Vo-thirds of the seats. A senate of some mnety- from Korosec's SLS and otbers followed in December, partly as a
six members was to be equally divided between royal appointees and reaction against one local call to abandon the Slovenian language for
nominees from banovina councils under indirect control. The king could Serbo-Croatian. 7
in any case arbitrate between the two houses or exercise a preemptive The two punktacije elicited two responses from the royal regime.
veto. The new constitution promised to free judicial appointments from First, it conceded a looser electoral law, requiring only thirty signatures
royal intervention, but only after five years had passed. Elections for from half of the electoral districts across just six of the nine banates
municipal self-government were specifically denied to Belgrade, Zagreb, _,.I in order to stand for assembly election. The winning list would then
and Ljubljana. receive only three-fifths of the total seats. But no new elections were
Large numbers in non-Serb areas abstained from the November elec- held. Secondly, tbe regime invoked tbe Law for tbe Protection of tbe
tions to the regime's restricted National Assembly. The regime claimed State and ordered the arrest not only of MaCek but of TrumbiC, Koroec,
tbat 65 percent of all tbose eligible had voted, and 35 percent in Croatia, and tbe tbree Muslim leaders in early 1933.
where the HSS was denied the right to run numerous candidates be-
cause of the 300-district requirement. British Embassy estimates cut 10
percent off botb of tbe regime's figures. In any case, Serbs won 219 of Failures of liberal economic formulas
tbe 306 seats, compared to 55 for Croats, 25 for Slovenes, 3 for Bosnian The Great Depression placed a heavy burden on an agricultural, partly
' Muslims, 2 each for Macedonians and Montenegrins, and 1 each for integrated economy. This added to tbe grievances tbat Aleksandar sought
Germans and Hungarians. This represented a still larger ethnic share to suppress. The precipitous drop in international agricultural prices
for Serbs, 71 percent, tban tbe 49 and 58 percent shares (see table 5.4) and tbe drying up of Western capital markets hit all tbe small eco-
for tbe 1923 and 1927 elections. The assembly's majority passed no nomies of Eastern Europe hard. Yugoslavia's case differed significantly in
noteworthy legislation and made no appeal to an opposing minority two respects. First, the impact of collapsing prices was slower to strike
that included representatives from the seven major parties from the Yugoslavia's agricultural exports, which were more varied than the rest
previous decade, all still formally illegal. , of Soutbeastern Europe's. The primary blow on total export value and
In March 1932, Aleksandar decided to abandon tbe last Zivkovic prices landed in 1932, tbe year of tbe two punktacije and otber pro-
government. The king tried to persuade first Aca StanojeviC, the aging tests. The collapse followed a long winter, poor fodder crop harvests,
head of tbe lefr-wing Serbian Radicals, and tben Vladko Macek himself, and higher taxes on sugar and electricity for revenue to offset a yawning
to join a more broadly based cabinet. When tbey refused, he finally budget deficit. By 1934 tbe price of an export ton fetched 40 percent
chose Milan SrSk.iC. Aleksandar's poorest choice for prime minister less tban in 1922-30, and total export value was down by 58 percent.'
stayed in office until January 1934, distinguished only by tbe series of Secondly, tbe regime implemented liberal Western prescriptions to deal
grievances he aggravated. The Bosnian Muslims remembered SrSk.iCas financially witb tbe Depression tbrough Belgrade-based institutions.
an adversarial interior minister and an architect of their division among These prescriptions made the impact of Depression appear to hit some
four banates. "Bosnia-Hercegovina, both as a regional individuality and regions harder or more unfairly than others. Emanating from the Bel-
a geographic concept, must disappear forever," he openly declared. It grade ministries or the central bank, they fed the political opposition's
was just those historic borders that the Yugoslav Muslim Organization complaints about Serbian centralism.
had insisted on preserving and that even the Serbian Democrats advoc- The liberal antidotes were intended to attract the first French loan of
atd maintaining as a buffer zone between Serbia and Croatia. 6 Minor tbe interwar period. These funds would help tbe dinar make a stable
adjustments in banate borders accompanied the new constitution, but transition to the gold standard and, as a result, provide further access to
did not mollify the Croatian Peasant Party. The promise of autonomous international credit that should have come with convertibility. The timing
172 Yugoslavia as History Authoritarian kingdom, 1929-1941 173
could not have been less fortunate. The largely French loan of 1 million and lowest peasant debt per capita in Southeastern Europe by 1930. As
francs (about $45 million) materialized in June 1931, in the midst of their loanable funds now fell with the moratorium on the repayment of
the worst financial crisis in Central European history. In l\t}.,aythe peasant debt declared in 1933, the State Bank still had the resources to
Creditanstalt of Vienna, the largest single lender to Southeas!rn Eu- step into the gap for Serbia.
rope, failed. A number of German and Hungarian banks col\,lpsed later In addition the regime had established a grain purchasing agency,
that summer. The Creditanstalt's financial troubles prompted the Amen- Prizad, in April 1930, to pay peasants higher prices for exportable grain
can initiative, known as the Hoover Moratorium, to end the German by eliminating commercial middlemen as the cooperatives had already
obligation to pay war reparations. 9 This decision cost Yugoslavia an done. The agency extended its purchases to domestic grain sales the
expected annual payment of $16 million. Then in September, Britain following year and intended them to help all peasants equally, including
went off the gold standard, making the prize of convertibility that Yu- those in the grain-poor areas of Croatia and Bosnia who had paid
goslavia had coveted worth much less. exorbitant prices for shipments from the rest of the country. The scheme
Policies copied from the Western canons of fiscal orthodoxy sought rapidly ran up losses that no government budget could have sustained
to keep the dinar on the gold standard nonetheless. The regime cut in the Depression. Its discontinuation in 1932 seemed to Croat and
state budget expenses and currency issue more severely than any of its Bosnian peasants especially to be more evidence of Belgrade's centralism
neighbors. Yugoslavia avoided import quotas if not the clearing agree- consciously working against them. The rapid rise of the HSS's cooper-
ments that accounted for over half of both exports and imports across ative network, Gospodarska Sloga, from a few thousand members to
Southeastern Europe by 1932. The central bank, now the Narodna one-third of all peasant households in Croatia by 1940 was in part a
Banka Kr. Jugoslavije, raised its discount rate in an effort to maintain response to Prizad's failure.
the dinar at par value. None of this encouraged exports in a shrinking
European market. Nor did exports respond when speculation against
Extremists and assassination
the dinar in 1932 finally forced the central bank to offer a premium for
foreign exchange that essentially devalued the dinar by 22.5 percent. The economic crisis and political deadlock of 1932 not surprisingly
Export value plummeted to 60 percent of the previous year's total and spurred on several extremist movements. The royal dictatorship had
barely 40 percent of the 1922-30 average. 10 already hardened its resolve against any compromise. Neither the
Regional disparity now raised its head. The regime had no way to Yugoslav Communist Party (KPJ) nor the Internal Macedonian
compensate Croatian banks for their financial losses, but could offer Revolutionary Organization (VMRO) were able to take significant
some relief to Serbian peasants. Recall that 43 percent of commercial advantage of this domestic distress. Only Croatian separatist emigres
bank assets were concentrated in twenty-nine Zagreb banks by 1929. acted, seizing the chance to found the eventually infamous UstaJa as a
Because of the concentration there of Central European (primarily propaganda and terrorist organization. Despite their small numbers, all
Austrian) assets, they lost more than their share of the 41 percent three organizations deserve attention because of fateful international con-
decline in commercial bank deposits by 1933. The collapse of the nections and the assassination of King Aleksandar in 1934.
Creditanstalt alone cost the Zagreb banks nearly 10 percent of the one- Before proceeding, some care should be taken to exclude the Croatian
quarter reduction suffered by all the commercial banks between 1930 Peasant Party and its leader, Vladko Macek, from the list of subversive
and 1932. By far the largest number of such banks were small Serbian separatists. In the wake of the Zagreb punktacije, he spent virtually all
institutions that had survived the 1920s by lending to peasant farmers of 1933 and 1934 in prison. Neither this incarceration nor his previous
rather than investing in industry or other longer-term ventures as had sentences had the radicalizing effect it might have had on others. He
the Croatian banks. Two state initiatives favored both banks and peas- remained more ready than Radie had been to talk with the Serbian
ants in Serbia and the Vojvodina. Loans from the new State Agricul- political parties; indeed, he had futilely joined with the Democrats'
tural Bank, finally launched in 1928, favored these areas partly for leader, Ljuba DavidoviC, in trying to persuade the other Serbian parties
political reasons but also because they lacked the more developed coop- to accept the punktacije. His narrow views and self-contained style
erative networks of Croatia and especially Slovenia. These cooperative made him a less flexible bargaining partner than RadiC, and he was
networks had given Yugoslavia the highest amount of cooperative assets increasingly committed to the same goal of confederal autonomy for
 Authoritarian kingdom, 1929-1941 175
174 Yugoslavia as Hisrory

Croatia. Yet MaCek also paid far more attention to organizing the The other major secessionist organization also had its headquarters
Peasant Party to operate legally within Yugoslavia." in Italy and an equally modest membership. Yet its wider international
Perhaps the smallest and least successful of the parties questioniy; the connections, narrower goals, and less divided leadership had already
existence of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was the Commumst Pa~Jl- set the Ustafo-hrvatska revolucionarna organizacija (Uprising-Croatian
In 1929 it had immediately called for violent revolt against Al,ksandar's Revolutionary Organization) apart, long before Nazi Germany installed
dictatorial regime, but could only scatter some leaflets and provoke _a it as the ruler of wartime Croatia in 1941. And before it drafted a
couple of shoot-outs with local police. The call for violence came di- formal constitution in 1932, indeed from the day after the royal dictator-
rectly from the Comintem's 1928 congress, where the e~pectau~n of ship was proclaimed in January 1929, the movement dedicated itself to
imminent war by the West against the Soviet Union made 11 essential to the overthrow of Aleksandar's Yugoslavia.
disable all potential adversaries. The congress also issued an instruction, The UstaSa's self-proclaimed leader was Ante PaveliC, a lawyer born
much maligned by Serbian historians in the 1980s, to the various non- in 1889 in Hercegovina. After the First World War, he had tried to
Serbs to advocate the breakup of Yugoslavia as a creature of the West's revive the Frankist Party of Right, minus its now obsolete allegiance
"Versailles system." Party members spent more time, however, strug- to the Habsburg monarchy. PaveliC succeeded in attracting a student
gling against the small Social Democratic Party or disputing the resist- following and winning election to both the provincial and national
ance to literary conformity from maverick leftists such as the leadmg assemblies of 1927. That same year he defended a group of accused
Croatian writer, Miroslav KrleZa, than promoting secession. In any VMRO terrorists in Zagreb and met with Fascist officials in Rome to
case their membership amounted to less than 500 in 1932. sound them out on support for Croatia's seceding. Zagreb's outrage at
1/ did not increase much under the new party secretary appointed Radic's assassination in 1928 allowed him to attract some members to
that year to hold the KPJcloser to the Comintern line. Comintern his new paramilitary organization, Hrvatski domobran. At the same time,
youth leader Josip Czizinski, known as Milan Gorkii:, fled his nauve fellow UstaSa founder and Josip Frank's son-in-law, Slavko Kvaternik,
Bosnia in 1923 to avoid arrest as a party member, as had his Czech set up student clubs named after his grandfather, Eugen, who had been
father two years before. Even as parry secretary, he continued to spend martyred in an 1871 uprising (see chapter 2).
the majority of his time outside the country, leaving the small fr~nt Fleeing Zagreb for Vienna, Sofia, and then Milan in 1929, Pavelic
party of Independent Workers and its trade union network to survive quickly came to financial terms with Mussolini's Fascist regime. Gen-
on their own. Cziiinski promoted one of the younger leaders released eral SarkotiC, the notorious Croat commander of Bosnia in the First
from prison in 1934 to the Comintern network and sent him back into World War (see chapter 4), and his aging coterie were camped in
Yugoslavia to organize the clandestine party congress at L1ubl1ana the Vienna, still hoping to restore the Habsburg Monarchy. They opened
same year - a certain Josip Broz. 12 Delegates too k. imme ct
rnte secession doors to the like-minded Hungarian regime under former Admiral Miklos
off the KPJ agenda, but affirmed their intention to establish separate Horthy. Hungary provided a training camp for the Ustasa at Janka
Communist parties for Croatia, Slovenia, and Macedonia and to main- Puszta, near the S1avonian border, that soon attracted a few hundred
tain ties to the secessionist parties as well. recruits. As in two similar Italian camps, those attracted were Croat
One of these secessionist parties was the Macedonian VMRO. Beset emigrant workers, more often from Belgium than the Americas. The
with internal struggles, it was further weakened by new governments in uniforms, symbols, and pseudo-military organization and hierarchy, to
Sofia, previously its source of greatest support. First, a c~alition o~ which they were bound by a blood oath and over which Pavelic held
Agrarians and others won the 1931 Bulgarian elections, replacmg Andre, supreme authority as the heroic leader (poglavnik), all on the Italian
Liapchev's regime and its toleration of the VMRO enclave m the Pmn model, make it difficult to resist the conclusion that this was a fascist
region, bordering Yugoslav Macedoma, as a law unto itself. Then m movement from the start. 14 Its program was vaguely corporatist, but
1934, the Zveno, or Link group of military officers ovetthrew the gov- consisted mainly of Cun-Italian) racist rhetoric blaming all of Croatia's
ernment in an almost bloodless coup dedicated to restoring order through misfortunes, including the failure to include all of Bosnia-Hercegovina
a non-party regime. Virtually its first act was to arrest the VMRO within its borders, on Serbs or their partners.
leaders and intern a number of followers. " Only support fr om F asc1st . The initial Ustasa foray into the Lika area of the former Military
Italy for a few hundred emigre members allowed it to continue. Border, home to leading lieutenant Mile Budak, did not produce the
 '
176 Yugoslavia as History

peasant uprising that was expected. Predominantly Serb gendarmes put

down an attack on a village police station, but the expedition brought
r
I
.

Authoritariankingdom, 1929-1941

"s_~~!!_..s_?_l.u~i~p"
to the Croatian problem and made real economic
progress after the cris,s hit bottom in 1934. But his gamble on the
177

the local organizer from GospiC, Andrija ArtukoviC, later the w~ime !
greater German market paid off only in the short term. After a promis-
interior minister, back to Italy. / l ing start, he overestimated its political advantages and barely won in
Individual terrorism now seemed their only recourse :y'ld King I the elections of December 1938. He was forced to step down a few
I months later.
Aleksandar their main target. His first visit to Zagreb since the royal
dictatorship offered an obvious chance, but the lone assassin failed. Stojadinovic's ascent began in the weeks following Aleksandar's
The announcement of the king's visit to Marseilles on October 9, 1934, ~.4:i~!~on. According to the king's secret will, his unloved c~P~~-
to meet with French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou, invited a second was named as senior regent along with two others. He was to fulfill
attempt. Barthou's intended French-Italian rapprochement threatened royal obligations until Aleksandar's son Petar reached his eighteenth
to include Hungary and close the camp at Janka Puszta just as birthday in September 1941. Paul's English education and connections
Aleksandar's recent meetim; with King Boris of Bulgaria (on the Orient persuaded him to push StojadinoviC, who represented several British
Express during a stop in Yugoslavia) spelled the end of VMRO's Bul- companies in Belgrade, into the new cabinet that General ZivkoviC,
garian base. The VMRO leader's chauffeur was recruited to attack the Srskic, and others from the old regime had cobbled together in Decem-
two statesmen. Lax security at dockside allowed him to fire over a ber 1934. They hoped that the new prime minister, Bogoljub Jevtic, the
dozen shots into Aleksandar and Barthou before he was seized and former foreign minister and relatively young at forty-five, could win the
lynched. convincing election victory that had eluded them in 1931. They were
Whether or not Aleksandar lived long enough to utter the portentous soon disappointed.
last words "preserve Yugoslavia," his death gave the kingdom a second Disputed results marred the May 1935 election. Open balloting gave
wind and dealt his killers a serious setback. Although the French trial the Jevtic list a revised 60.6 percent and Macek's Opposition Bloc, 37.4
in Marseilles for his murder trod lightly on the Ustasa's Italian and percent. With support from Croatian Serbs and Bosnian Muslims, the
Hungarian connections, the latter two governments took immediate MaCek list won eight of every thirteen votes in Croatia-and the western
action to repair their international images. The Hungarian camp was districts of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Although winning 303 of 370 seats
promptly closed and the Italian membership interned on the island of in the new Skupstina, Jevtic still sought to discredit the opposition.
Lipari. PaveliC and the leaders were put under house arrest. When his minions accused MaCek of complicity in the king's assassina-
Over 200,000 mourners in Zagreb paid their respects to the king, tion, that was too clumsy even for General ZivkoviC. He and four other
who lay in state there for a day, prior to being brought back to flag- ministe:s, including Finance Minister StojadinoviC, resigned in June
draped Serbia for his funeral. Monsignor KoroSec, the Slovenian leader, 1935. ~koviC expected to be named prime mil!!~~~.r,but Prince Paul,
was released from prison to attend. "We ought to work and live for encouraged by_ Brit:i~!.U'.~!11!'.~s.s,i!_,!or
Henderson, picked Stojadinovii:
Yugoslavia now," he said, "everything else is forgotten." By December instead. 15 -

MaCek too was released.

From Yugoslav Radical Union aRZJ w Concordat
Stojadinovii: and the royal regency, 1935-1938
To some, the long-time Radical Stojadinovic embodied the prewar pol-
Much of course was not forgotten from the rest of the 1930s down to itical approach of Nikola PaSiC. He began his tenure with initiatives to
the commonly held Serbian sentiment of the 1980s: if Aleksandar had broaden domestic support but came to rely on playing politics (unlike
lived, he could have avoided both internal division and war. At least PaSiC throUglf economics) with the -Grejit.Pqweii He relaxed news-
until Hitler changed maps and rules in 1938, he might easily have done paper censorship and restrictiOns on p'ubli~ -~ss~~blYanc.lgi"anted am-
better than his successors. The new regents and a familiar cabinet nesty to :over one thousand political prisoners plus those arrested during
fumbled away the first months of public support for a "new path" to the recent elections. Although General ZivkoviC stayed in the cabinetl
honor the king's memory and then settled on the past and present StojadinoviC brought in the Bosnian Muslim and Slovenian leaders,
finance minister, Milan StojadinoviC. He tried to engineer a limited Mehmed Spaho and Anton Korosec, as well. Spaho was rewarded the
 178 Yugoslavia as Hiswry Authoritariankingdom, 1929-1941 179

next year with restoration of the 1909 autonomy statute for the Bosnian time, however, MaCek had transformed the HSS into the cohesive,
Muslims that had been revoked in 1931. To conciliate the Croats, and broadly based orgattization that Radii: had failed to establish, although
at the same time to bind their Catholic hierarchy to honor Holy at the cost of including right wing or clerical support that Radii: would
See's recognition of Yugoslavia aifi legitimate state, the regi signed have shunned. In spring 1937, Macek held the party's ~ firmly
a Concordat with the Vatican in 1935. It promised authopzation for enough to accept the offer of Serbia's United Opposition of Democrats,
church schools and freedom for the organization, Catholic Action, to Agrarians, and Republicans. Their coalition began to discuss a single
operate legally like its Orthodox counterpart, if only the Skupiitina would Bloc of National Agreement.
ratify it. This latest and largest bloc would probably not have become a reality
Most important, in August, StojadinoviC proclaimed the creation of in October 1937 without the political damage that Stojadinovic in-
a new government party, not just an election list as earlier in 1935 or o(a
flicted on himself in Serbia. Ratifi.cation Concordat with the Vatican
in 1931. This Jugoslovenska Radikalna Zajednica (JRZ), or Yugoslav to regularize the position of Catholic clergy and schools was still pend-
' Radical Union, had as its slogan ".2:1e_state, o~eople, one king." Its ing two years after its signature in July 1935 (and fifteen years after
slogans promised wide powers of sanlouprava, me-ant here as local self- negotiations had been initiaiedf Ai,i,roval now, he judged, would appease
administration. StojadinoviC brought real advertising skills with him, Mussolini and strike blows against both the Communists and the pre-
offering more slogans for his proposals and nicknames for his adversar- siiinably anti-clerical MaCek. The latter would hardly have welcomed a
ies than any previous prime minister. Spaho and KoroSec agreed to free hand for Catholic Action to launch a nationalist movement or even
be '(vice-presidents" of the JRZ in order to suggest that it was a unified a clerical party to rival the HSS. The Slovenian and Croatian Catholic
body rather than a coalition. KoroSec now made his venian People's_ hie_r_archieswere, however, still wary of ~~tifi~ation, despite the fact that
Party (SLS) legal again simp y y calling it th_:.J~ On the Serbian the new 1931 constitution of ihe Serbian Orthodox Church had au-
side, younger men wereattracteato replace some of the aging or intract- thorized comparable rights. The Orthodox effort in 1934 to make the
able Radical regulars. When General Zivkovii: and others objected to 700-year anniversary of St. Sava's birth into a country-wide celebration
these outsiders and to .t1re=t,1111;r1er~ the B.9snian Jy\uslims, had all the same angered the Catholic hierarchy. Stojadinovii: reckoned
- ,_.. ,...r,..- .--~~-~-- 16
SioJadmo\'lt-foiced-thein out between December and Ma.rch 1936. incorrectly that he could win Skupstina approval like "sending a letter
---sto}ad.TiiOVlct~aiS~""'.P~omi;~poiI'"tiCal reversal" ln Croatian rela- in the mail." Instead, a summer storm of opposition blew up in Serbia.
tions, but it did not materialize. Macek refused to join the JRZ unless Led by the Orthodox patriarch, Vamava, a suddenly united opposi-
the constitution was open to revision. He continued to boycott the tion objected to everything ftom state school subsidies (the Catholic
Skupstina along with the other deputies of the Opposition Bloc outside ChllrcR-Wouldreceive a 35 million dinar annual subsidy as compensa-
Serbia. Yet MaCek insisted, with some justification, that he was not one tion for property lost in the land reform versus 46 million for the
of the Croatian separatists. He dismissed their strength as only a few Orthodox church and 13 million for Islam) to a proposed Catholic
thousand. In November 1936, Prince Paul asked him point blank, "Do church in Nis. Then the relatively young Patriarch (57) died on the
Croats want this state?" Yes, MaCek replied, but under either a new very night that the Skupstina passed the Concordat by a single vote.
constitution or a non-party government. That September's local elec- Rumors that the regime had poisoned him spread throughout Serbia.
tion for some 4,000 rural and small town opStine had given the new By the time that Stojadinovic withdrew the ill-fated document, in Octo-
JRZ over two-thirds of the seats, with majorities everywhere (topped by ber 1937, Macek and a Serbian opposition led by the old Independent
91 percent of the Bosnian Muslim vote) but Croatia. Macek's agenda Radicals and erstwhile Democrats, Ljuba Jovanovic and Milan Grol,
~ have seemed out of reach, but he kept on negotiating. had already reached a formal agreement. 17
In January 1937, Stojadinovic promised him an eventual "big solu- The Bloc of National Agreement did not win tl_teelections of Decem-
tion," but only after an initial "small solution." The HSS was to accept ber 1938, but it came close enough to bring down the Stojadinovii:
five cabinet posts and field candidates for the new Skupiitina elections. regime. Its platform affirmed Croatian acceptance of the dynasty and
Both the prince and the prime minister misjudged Macek's party. To the kingdom's borders, but asked that Croatia be recognized as "an
them, it was still too shattered after the 1929 dissolution to enter any equal state factor that can make decisions affecting the state's future
election without agreeing to join a government coalition. In the mean- from its own free will." Prince Paul sought another meeting with MaCek
 180 Yugoslavia as History Authoritarian kingdom, 1929-1941 181

Table 6.1. Electoral support for regime list, 1931, 1935, and Economic upturn and the German gamble
1938 (in percent) Stojadinovic's political problems leave us to wonder how he stayed in
office without interruption, longer than any other intenvar prime minister
1931 19 5 1938 including Nikola PaSiC. Economic policy, geared to international trade
55 23 14 and aided by the general upturn from the depths of the Depression that
Savska (Croatia)
Primorska {Dalmatia) 34 26 16 characterized all of Eastern Europe after 1935, provides the answer.
Belgrade (Serbia) 58 40 44 The other political leaders of the first Yugoslavia in the 1930s - from
Dravska (Slovenia) 52 41 53 King Aleksandar and Prince Paul to MaC:ek, KoroSec, and the several
Vrbaska (Croatia, W. Bosnia and Hercegovina) 64 44 37 Serbs - had no general understanding or specific program with which
Dunavska (Vojvodina) 71 51 52
Drinska (Bosnia-Hercegovina and Serbia) 79 51 45 to confront the Depression; StojadinoviC had such a program.
Vardarska (Macedonia) 72 60 51 In a decade of declining agricultural prices and shrinking grain mar-
Moravska (Serbia) 80 63 58 kets, the prime minister made an increase in industrial and processed
Zetska (Montenegro) 79 64 49 agricultural exports his highest priority. In order to force their develop-
Yugoslavia 65 45 40 merit~ he abandoned the then liberal principles of financial austerity
and free markets that he had used to stabilize the dinar in the 1920s. 18
Source: Enciklopedia Jugoslavije, v, III (Zagreb: Jugoslavenski leksikografski Appointed finance minister again in December 1934, StojadinoviC
zavod, 1983), 274. pushed through a long delayed law for industrial encouragement, con-
sisting mainly of tariff exemptioils, bU.i""-addeds1:;-eC1fictax'COncessions
to
to resolve the impasse with the StojadinoviC government, but was re- industrial enterprises. Peasants themselves received some tax relief
-",,_ ' .. har-
fused. A crowd of nearly 100,000 people welcomed Macek when he vest insurance, silo construction, and state credit for their cooperatives.
came to Belgrade for a conference of Bloc leaders in August 1938. So SfOjadinovl'c' ,3.rtfullyannounced these measures just before the above-
i'
much for the notion that irreconcilable antagonisms had closed off all mentioned local elections of September 1936. The following month he
options for Serb-Croat reconciliation, at least at the popular level ended the moratorium on repayment of peasant debt, a move wel-
i
ii I

below the political leaderships. comed by the .pitvate banks. Oi:te,_quarter of large debts and one-half of
Having played the religious card and lost, Stojadinovic could only smaller debts were wiped out. But the state's Agricultural Bank was to
respond in the fall election campaign with green-uniformed youths shout- pay crtrthe-rem;iiii~g obligations over a twelve-year period with sup-
ing vodja, or leader, at his speeches. 'I}le_ election resI_ts refl~c-~~dthe port from the state budget and lottery.
failure of such proto-fascist trappings to attract support from the Serbian To support his initiatives in both agriculture and industry, StojadinoviC
electorate even approaching what they later received in post-Munich promoted Germany as Yugoslavia's principal trading partner. By the early
Hungary or in Romania. Nor did he win many votes for congratulating 1930s, he had already become disenchanted with France and the other
himself on abstaining from Czechoslovakia's losing encounter with Nazi members of the Little Entente as commercial partners. By 1935, Yugo-
Germany, thus "sparing Belgrade's citizens the chore of digging air raid slav exports to France had shrunk to less than 15 percent of their 1930
shelters like the Loiiooners."The JRZwon only 54 percent of the popular level. The shift to Germany began as an effort to observe the League of
vote and the Bloc- of Natwnal Agreement, 45 percent. In Croatia the Nations eII1bargo against Italy after its 1935 conquest of Ethiopia. If
Bloc received over two-thirds of the ballots cast. By 1938 the JRZ's Yug0Slavia observed the sanctions, it would hurt Mussolini's hostile
fraction of eligible voters had fallen to 14 percent in Croatian Savska government and win Western approval at the same time. \Xlhen the
and 40 percent in all of Yugoslavia (see table 6. 1). In January 1939, French government failed to reward Stojadinovic by relaxing its protec-
Croatian representatives agreed with MaCek to assemble in Zagreb in- tionist tariffs, he readily responded to the offer of favorable export prices
stead of coming to the new Skupstina in Belgrade. Acknowledging the tendered by Hitler's finance minister, Hjalmar Schacht, in June 1936.
impasse, Prince Paul asked StojadinoviC and his new government, now The shift inadvertently tilted regj9g~l.development away from Croatia.
minus Monsignor KoroSec, to resign. The drop in Italian trade in 1935 and then its collapse in 1936 (see
 .,,.,,,
'1'1:,Y
Authoritarian kingdom, 1929-1941 183

table 6.2) severely hurt the export of Dalmatian cement and Croatian
\O('l")OOi:<"INt-Nt-lliOOi:<"I and Bosnian timber. StojadinoviC promised to continue the construction
rri.,i<N.,i<~lf'i.,i<lf'i.,i<rri.,,;
of better rail links between the coast and the interior, but little came of
it. A rail line connecting Serbia to Romania was completed, however,
and so~e progress made in the development of three sectors to which
-r- lliNO'I\O('l")t-\0.,,.
Nd-.oollilf'ilf'i.,,;r-..:...,;.,i<.,,;
N
he had promised special attention: the V9jvodina.'S agriclllq.1r~.,_ IJ1~
__
,S_er-
bian chemical industry, and Bosnian iron and steel production _that,
would'fuffi thezentca:area intO a "Yugoslav Ruhr." 19

J The gamble on the German market seemed at the start to come with
no political strings attached. Stojadinovic's German education and his
admiration for the Nazi economic recovery, which he attributed to his
financial colleague, Hjalmar Schacht, opened the way. So did German
a
demand for Yugoslav copper and bauxite that had already boosted

l
O'l('I") lli\Or-_.,,..,,.\O
...,;collirri....;o.,e;~o-.'o exports int935. Industrial crops from the Vojvodina, such as the veg-
NNNNNN,-; -
etable oil that found few takers in Italy, fit nicely into the German
market even without the Nazis' developing plans for strategic autarky.

I J ('l")NO'IOOO'I\OO'l('I")
\Olf'i.,,;C)r-..'.\Ooci0tnlf'ilf'i
NNNN.,.....,.....,....N.,...._
('l")t-
Primarily because of German purchases, industrial crops rose from 5 to
11 percent of total Yugoslav export value between 1934 and 1935-38,
By 1937 trade with Germany had climbed to one-third of Yugoslav
export and import value. Now unsanctioned exports to Italy revived,
,:j:i
JI but to less than half of their one-fifth share in 1934. The German
.,,._N<:l'lliN tnO'lr-
ill rri\OrricJ..lf'i\Oor..::-rrio
__ N_....,...,.N.,.... .-<N
share, meanwhile, jumped past 40 percent with Hitler's acquisition of
Austria in 1938,
1'11

I'
. I
.,,. tn {') {') ('I") t- .,,. t-
J _Qg:ro~~ent..capjta_l
has been ~~:'i'i\g$fll.ted,.
and management came too, but its extent
primarily on the basis of the Krupp con-
cession to Oevelop the Zenica iron works into Yugoslavia's first modem
('l").,,;.,,;....; c,,;
<,0 C.Ot- NO: r--=
('l")('l")('l"){')NNN('l")'<J'{')'<J'
steel mill. Stojadinovic consciously chose Krupp in 1936 over bidders
from France and Czechoslovakia. But even when a number of Austrian
and Czech interests in Yugoslavia were added to its total in 1938-39,
<:l'tni:<"I\OOO'<J''<J'N O'I
.,i<O-.\Orri...,;....:NooinN .... the Geqnan share of Yugoslav foreign investment capital amounted to
NNN{')('l"){')('l")('l"){')<:l'('I")
oajy_JJ .P,t;rcent.20 A considerable rise in the ..Westem ..but ngq-G_erman
share of joint stock in Yugoslav eilterprises had already occ~~~~(C(;-;~---.,
e
0
tabTe6.3).by 1936, Dependence on German or Czech military supplies
j
t- 00
rri .,,. \0 co 0-. co ""'
.,.... .,....
lt"l.,....C"'iOOlli\O

N N.,.... -
' . -
became important only after 1939.
Until then the Stojadinovic strategy mainly ex12~nded the state sector
of the Yugoslav economy. The German-backed iron and steel com-
plex at Zenica became the state enterprise Jugocelik (Yugoslav Steel)
tn tn {') 00 ('I") N C"'i \0
o-.OOoN...,;rri \ON. when it opened in 1937. By 1938 all state enterprises and monopolies
------NNNN
accounted for 15 percent o(industri~l capital.a.~ci J,rovided nearly half
of budget revenues. Together they were by far th~1argest industrial
employer;with.some 162,000 workers,
In order to reflate the money supply and provide the initial invest-
ments for state enterprises, the dinar had to be protected from the
 184 Yugoslavia as History Authoritarian kingdom, 1929-1941 185

StojadinoviC: had taken office promising to improve the often trou-

Table 6.3. Foreign investment in Yugoslavia, 1928 and 1936
bled relations with those neighbors. He shared the disillusion with the
French connection that had spread after the long-awaited loan of 1931
Percent share of to&{
failed to provide new markets, military supplies, or diplomatic support.
joint stock investnfe"nt
Then came Al ndar's assassination and the French ovemment's
Sector 1928 1936 failure to deman _ e ea penalty or to pursue the obvious-j\-~--1~;
and-Hun"g3.riiil.Tnv0iv"ementatffie~:ptraf~r5-'tna1~---------
Banking 6.4 11.l
~1f tiie stage waS~~d-;trorYu'gOSi~v--movement toward the
Trade 3.3 30.2
Industry 20.2 52.8 German side, there remains the controversial question of how much
Transport and communications 1.9 13.1 Stojadinovic himself sympathized with the Nazi regime. 22 Certainly he
Insurance 0.1 51.7 ~eSSe(.ladffiiratton for Hitler as a pohttcal leader and pfopagandist,
Public finance 67.7 both qualities on which he prided J-i1mself.He also appreaatectffie~
Other 0.4 .,,;
Nazis' a~ti-Communism, especially after Czechoslovakia's 1935 treaty
I I
I '\vid1ilie Soviet Union. l'o StojadinoviC:, that pact discredited the Little
Source: John R. Lampe and Marvin R. Jackson, Balkan Economic History, 1550- Entente for good. The shrewd Italian foreign minister, Count Ciano,
1950 (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1982), 438 and 509-10.
did judge him to be a fascist "by virtue of his conception of authoncy;
rigors of international convertibility that Stojadinovic had worked to of the state, and of life-." Yet StoJadinoviC: lacked a Tascfst program or
achieve in the mid-1920s. Schacht's bilateral clearing agreements everi a faseisrctisposrtlon to act arbitrarily wlthollt consllft:itlon orsiip=-
i
offered an artificial exchange rate that paid prices 30 percent above p_?rt. Where is the eViderice-of'a corporatist plan to reshape Yugoslavia's
world levels. They were an ideal vehicle for such protection. From 1935 state and society, of an expansionist foreign policy, or even of a readi-
to 1938, the share of Yugoslav trade tied to clearing accounts climbed ness to silence domestic opponents or perceived ethnic adversaries by
,1j_1l11
from 60 to 80 percent. At the same time, note issue through the central force? As for his rhetoric, StojadinoviC: called the assassination attempt
,,,,
,, bank jumped by one-third. So did deposits in state banks, particularly against him in 1936 "fascist methods" and spoke of the need to "return
'_1-'-_'

the mortgage bank, to provide two-thirds of all loanable funds. The to democratic and civil freedoms."
'.
,!
I
resulting rise in real industrial output averaged 10.7 percent a year for What does emerge is the picture of a political opportunist who bet on
1936-39, but derived more from the newer metallurgical and chemical Nazi Germany for immediate economi(:"-iidVantage, in the belief that
production of Bosnia and Serbia than from the older Slovenian and Germany would have -no 'wider geopolitical purpose in threatening
Croatian enterprises that had prospered during the 1920s. 21 As war Yugoslavia. When Hitler himself received the prime minister during
drew nearer in the late 1930s, a half-dozen enterprises in Serbia and a January 1938 visit to Berlin, StojadinoviC: made much of the Fiihrer's
several in Bosnia received the largest share of rising state investment comment to him that "in the Balkans, we want nothing more than an
in military production for the army and air force. Such regional con- open door for our economy." StojadinoviC: replied that Austria was a
centration of investment, in a Depression decade where any- gam 00-"5' purely German matter. Even after the Munich pact that October, Hitler
a-s-sumedto oesoIIleoile else's loss, did not go unnoticed in Croatia. seemed to him to be a man of peace who needed only "a colony or
two" before readily turning to the architectural redesign of Berlin and
I
Munich that were presumed to be his real passions. In the meantime,
'
Nazi Germany as a diplomatic dead end with words reminiscent of British Prime Minister Neville Chamber-
Growing commercial dependence did not mean German control of lain's ill-starred celebration of the Munich pact, StojadinoviC claimed
the Yugoslav economy, contrary to the assumption of many Western that he had ensured Hpeace on our borders."
observers at the time. But the gamble on the greater German market Measures of gratitude and dissembling doubtless mixed in with the
was also a gamble on Hitler's Germany as better insurance for improv- Yugoslav prime minister's misjudgment of Hitler's intentions. Hitler had
ing relations with Italy and other neighbors than Britain or France, let personally gersuaded Mussolini to _rea~~ an understan_ding with-Yugo-
alone the Little Entente, could provide. slavia in 1936 and pushed the Horthy regime in Hungary to con~;lte
 186 Yugoslavia as History Authoritarian kingdom, 1929-1941 187

on their minority problems with Czecposlgyakia The large German enough of the other parties to work together for a coalition for long
minority in the Yugoslav Vojvodina was urged to remain quiet .. Mus- unless they were in opposition. Such a stalemate tempted King
solihi immediately made a speech calling for better relatf0I1S between Aleksandar to rule like Louis Napoleon on the basis of restoring order,
the two neighbors and a treaty spelling out the details was ft(ined in under an initial dictatorship and then with the aid of arranged elections.
March 1937, Those details mcluded Mussolini's explicit agreement to The Second World War made sure that Yugoslavia of the 1930s, unlike
continue the Croatian UstaSa memb~intemment and'the ban on.._ France of the 1860s, would have no chance to reestablish its political
Macedonia~ti~~ as well. Then in 1938, German diplomac? parties in the next decade. Ethnic disputes as well as international
discreetly helped to nudge ~ reIUctant Bulgarian government into the pressures crippled the coalition of shadow parties that tried to emerge
so-called Balkan Entente with Greece, Turkey, and Yugoslavia. after 1934. Their failure to come together created an opening for the
At the same time, Stojadinovic worked with Prince Paul to keep the new sort of non-party coalition that Aleksandar had wanted and the
British option open, so as not to tie the German knot too tightly. The Second World War allowed Tito to construct. This eminently Euro-
prince's trip to London in 1938 seeking_ subsidized trade to trim the pean political cuJture flawed the first Yugoslavia, together with regional
dependence on Germa~y may have fulled-; but was still significant for ,_..,. disputes -over eiliiiicrepresentation and the absence of a coherent pro- ,
having been tried. During the same October that StojadinoviC was gram for economic integration from any political quarter.
celebrating his success in keeping Yugoslavia away from the threat of The record of economic growth (still short of self-sustaining develop-
war at Munich, he a]so rejected a German economic emissary's offer to ment), land reform, public education, intellectual and religious free-
consign half of Yugoslav exports to Germany. In return Germany would dom, and even the rule of law was positive for Yugoslavia as a whole,
have processed non-ferrous ores from British or French concessions Yet the reality or perception of regional imbalance clouded every area
and provided a variety of German technical assistance- and training. of advance. Although the authoritarian regime of the 1930s relaxed its
Stojadinovic was taking a calculated risk that worked as long as Hit- initial centralization of the Islamic hierarchy and restored relative
ler kept the peace. But Hitler was eager for war by 1938 and was autonomy to the Bosnian Muslims, religious freedom otherwise failed
::I furious when the Munich pact denied him the chance. 23 After his chance
finally came in 1939, distant Yugoslavia did not remain outside the
to reassure the Catholic Croat and Serbian Orthodox clergy about one
another. The "legal federalism" cited in chapter 5 endured for Croats
!jji reach of Germany's geopolitical priorities nor beyond Hitler's readiness
to achieve them by force of arms.
and Slovenes as well as for Serbs. They were proportionally represented
among the country's regional and district judges in 1937. Bosnian
iil:
1
Muslims and Albanians were conspicuously absent.
Against such ethnic imbalance, the Wilsonian optimism that trusted
Balance sheet for the first Yugoslavia, 1921-1939
1

11

'" universal suffrage and constitutional safeguards to create a transcending

"''I
',j! By the start of the Second World War in September 1939, the first democratic consensus did not prove any more successful than in most
l'i,, Yugos]avia had existed as a sovereign state for less than two decades. of interwar Europe. As elsewhere, pre-1914 tolerance and faith in the
Although the idea of a Yugoslav state had by then gained greater accept- future survived through a free-standing, intellectual or cultural flowering,
ance, the idea itself could not, as Joseph Rothschild concludes, create but lost out in political life. The clearest casualty was the suspicion of
_ political consensus. He assigns the major responsibility for this failure state power shared by nineteenth-century liberals and twentieth-century
to Serbian politicians for "squandering the moral capital that Serbia's conservatives.
heroic performance in World War I had earned for Yugoslavia." But
- the Croatian policy of boycott, he adds, helped account for the often
Economic development and industry
cited Serb predominance in the officer corps, civil service, and cabinet
positions - 452 of the 656 ministers serving between 1921 and 1939 The new state's economy grew at a respectable rate across the interwar
versus 26 party-approved Croats and 111 unapproved. period, despite the lack of prewar trade and transport links made worse
Serbian and Croatian politicians produced a political culture not during the First World War by the damages done to infrastructure. If
unlike that of nineteenth-century France. No party was large enough to the 1909-12 average for Gross Domestic Product is 100, the detailed
win a parliamentary majority, and few of their leaders were tolerant calculations of Ivo Vinski show recovery from 93 to 104 for 1920-23, a
 188 Yugoslavia as Hisrory Authoritarian kingdom, 1929-1941 189

jump to 141 by 1929, and recovery from the 1932 Depression low of population density from 48.1 to 62.2 per square kilometer. Competi-
122 to 145 by 1936 and to 168 by 1939. These index numbers put tion for good land grew fiercer, particularly in Bosnia-Hercegovina,
Yugoslavia's economic growth per capita in the upper ranks for inter- which recorded the largest jump (36.9 to 52.9).
war Eastern Europe. 24 jl
A small but growing industrial sector accounted for abou;, two-thirds
Agri,culture and land reform
of this increase. It came from light manufacturing in Croatia and Slovenia
during the 1920s and from metallurgy and mining in Bosnia, Kosovo, Agricultural output made slower but still measurable progress during
and Macedonia during the 1930s. Manufacturing grew almost twice the interwar period. Per capita growth exceeded 1 percent for most
as fast - 4.8 versus 2.6 percent a year - for 1918-28 as for 1929-38 years, with the bad harvest of 1926-27 the most notable exception.
overall, but in the latter period metallurgy and mining led all of South- Cereals and industrial crops led an overall rise of nearly 20 percent for
eastern Europe with annual increases that averaged 10 percent. These all crop value from 1926-30 to 1936-38. Animal products held steady
sectors were primarily responsible for boosting industrial production after nearly recovering from the severe losses of the First World War.
by 31 percent between 1936 and I 939. British and French investment Regional disparities between the grain-surplus areas in the north and
i .:, provided most of the capital in joint-stock enterprises for processing the grain-deficit areas to the south (one axis that did not divide Serbia
non-ferrous minerals, and new German investment, as we have just from Croatia) kept the average area of crop cultivation per capita down
il
.. ;1
seen, for ferrous metallurgy. This European capital made up for the to one-half the Bulgarian or Romanian average of 1 hectare. Table 6.4
significant reduction in commercial bank funding, foreign and domes- reflects a share of national income for peasants with holdings under
' tic, available to manufacturing after the 1920s. It increased the share 5 hectares that was only one-half their 54 percent share of the eco-
'' of foreign investment in industrial joint-stock companies from 20 to nomically active population. As in Bulgaria, peasant families reacted
52 percent. The one sector of light manufacturing to move ahead during to limited incomes by reducing their size, dropping the overall birth
the 1930s also advanced the regional tilt away from Croatia. This was rate from 34.2 per 1,000 for 1926-30 to 27.4 by 1936-40.
textile production, buoyed by tariff protection to become Yugoslavia's The perception of regional dispariry grew not from these aggregate
most successful import substitute. Lower wages and taxes in Serbia and numbers, unnoticed at the time, but from the land reform of 1919-21.
especially Macedonia began encouraging firms from Croatia to move It took a long time to implement, as noted in chapter 5, and was widely
there, or new ones to open. The shift compounded the Croatian per- believed to have reduced efficiency in Dalmatia and Slavonia. The
ception of discrimination created by Stojadinovic's aforementioned state colonate system of sharecropping persisted in Dalmatia into the 1930s;
investments in Bosnia and Serbia. 25 the rate of compensation to previous owners was not even fixed until
While industry had grown to account for perhaps 30 percent of 1933 and then at too high a rate for the state budget to afford. The
national income by 1938, its workers still earned slightly less than large Slavonian estates had been sold off by the mid-I 920s to financial
30 percent of that income. Poor working conditions for men and especially interests who delayed the fixing of maximum holdings and compensa-
for women drove the number of strike days for 1936 up to twice their tion into the early 1930s. The smallholdings carved from such estates
total of the decade before, although it was barely one-fifth of the 1920 were finally given their titles during the depths of the Depression. They
figure. Industry still lagged far behind agriculture in creating employ- were understandably less efficient and profitable than the original prop-
ment. In an economically active population of nearly 7 million, manu- erties. In Bosnia and Macedonia, landlord rents due on arable crops
facturing enterprises provided just 300,000 jobs and the mining sector ended only after peasants received full title in the late 1920s. The
less than 50,000 - a total of 5 percent. Table 6.4 records the preeminence leading Western specialist on interwar agriculture in Eastern Europe,
of agricultural employment, still growing in absolute numbers. Two- Doreen Warriner, reckoned that farm incomes rose thereafter by 50
'i thirds of the peasants worked smallholdings of less than 5 hectares percent. The Croatian Peasant Party opposed the implementation of the
! (12.5 acres) according to the last interwar census in 1931. Thus, the reform from the start partly because a member of the Serb-dominated
! rural share of total population - 76 percent in 1921 and 75 percent Democratic Party was made minister for land reform. In this way,
,I in 1938 - hardly budged during the interwar period. That total had Warriner noted, the otherwise successful transfer of 2 million hectares
in the meantime risen from 12 milJion to 15.5 million, boosting the to 637,000 families also added to the Serb-Croat conflict. 26 And, as
11

I
,,
"

190 Yugoslavia as History Authoritarian kingdom, 1929-1941 191

students were 17 .2 percent of their age group, the highest proportion in

Table 6.4. Distribution of income in 1938
Southeastern Europe, although university enrollment still struggled to
reach 1 percent. Among university students, 40 percent were now en-
Wages, s~es, and rolled in scientific or technical departments rather than the law faculties
Economically active entrepreneurial
that had attracted a large majority of students during the 1920s. The
I: population incorql'
rates of school attendance and literacy in Bosnia, Macedonia, and Kosovo
1:
(in millions lagged far behind these modestly promising averages. In addition, there
II Occupation thousands) percent of dinarsh percent was little progress in the introduction of new school textbooks that had
III Agriculture
been promised since 1929 to replace the prewar volumes. For Kosovo
Peasants and agricultural workers 2,113 31 8,003 13 and Macedonia, the old Serbian texts whose bias was noted in chapter
Peasants holding 2-5 hectares 1,631 24 9,185 15 3 continued in use. Wrangling between Serb, Croat, and Slovene edu-
Peasants holding 5-20 hectares 1,560 23 13,346 21 cators kept any new textbooks from entering classrooms until 1937 .27
Peasants holding over 20 hectares 124 2 2,671 4 Shrinking opportunities for public employment, still the major job
Others 263 4 499
Non-agriculture opportunity for secondary or university graduates, posed a further prob-
t:
Non-agricultural wage-earners 453 7 lem for Serbia. Peasant families who managed to send their sons off
iiI, Salaried employees and public servants 357 5
3,488
6,858
6
11 to the local gi.mnazi_ja or, more rarely, to university in Belgrade, did
i! Artisans and minor entrepreneurs 296 4 5,726 9 so with an official's future in mind. After I 933, however, the steady
; Senior government officials (including
I increase in state employment that had begun with the royal dictatorship
high clergy and Royal Court) 19 0 1,120 2
i High managerial staff 12 0 760
in 1929 came to an end. Career officers in Southeastern Europe's
Professions 20 0 980 2 largest army (800,000 if fully mobilized) were cut by one-fourth to
Major entrepreneurs 79 1 9,645 15 28,000. The interwar pattern gave Serbs roughly two-thirds of all offi-
Total 6,927 100 62,281 100 cial positions, civil and military. Only Slovenes joined the Serbs in
exceeding their share of the population and then only in civilian positions.
a Excludes income originating from the ownership of dwellings.
b1938 value in dinars.
Source: Lenard J. Cohen, The Socialist Pyramid: Elites and Power n Yugosla~ia (Oakville, Intellectuals and the Yugoslav idea
Ont.: Mosaic Press, 1989), 102.
Against the combination of an intolerant political culture and regional
some Croatian critics of the Yugoslav state complained at the time, so imbalances, Wilsonian liberal assumptions of a democratic future in a
did the hard evidence of Croatian peasant poverty persuasively assem- multi-ethnic state had little chance of survival by the 1930s. Their
bled by Rudolf Bicanic in his detailed 1937 study of the "passive," or advocates nonetheless continued to play a leading intellectual role in
the food-deficit regions, Kako zivi narod (How the people live). Belgrade, Ljubljana, and Sarajevo. Only in Zagreb, despite or perhaps
because of its position as the longest-standing university center, did the
clerical right and the Communist left, plus the Peasant Party's middle
Public educatwn and empwyment position, leave virtually no room for what Miloslav JaniCijeviC has called
The classic liberal prescription for rural poverty was of course providing the liberal intelligentisa. 28
the higher education needed to move away from it. By Balkan stand- In Belgrade, according to his unique survey of Yugoslavia's interwar
ards, interwar Yugoslav averages of funds spent on education were
respectable despite their small share of the state budget - less than
intellectuals, some three-quarters of university faculty opposed the con-
servatives of the Serbian Radical Party, and their grounding of all
ll
r

6 percent in 1938. They upped the percentage of primary school authority in the state and the Orthodox Church. Nor was there broad
enrollments to 51.5 percent of five-to-fourteen-year-olds by 1938-39, support for the notion of an ethnically pure Serbia, most notoriously
overcoming a long-standing Bulgarian lead. Illiteracy fell accordingly advanced in the 1937 proposal of the Agrarian Union's Vasa Cubrilovic '
from over 48 percent in 1929 to 38 percent by 1937. Secondary school to expel all Albanians from Kosovo. (The Stojadinovic government
II
'

192 Yugoslavia as Histmy Authoritarian kingdom, 1929-1941 193

had, however, signed an agreement with Turkey in 1938, never imple- could appeal to Croats. Crnjanski was his favorite target among con-
mented for lack of funds, to accept up to 200,000 Albanian immigrants temporary Serbs. And within the small Communist party, KrleZa con-
and thereby reduce the number in Kosovo by as much as one-t1)jrd.)_ A tinued to joust against the confines of Soviet-style socialist realism,
majority of the faculty wished instead to be part of the Europe,#' mam- enough to earn condemnation from Tito himself as a "helper of
stream, which many ha~ dis~~vered during .prewar. travel_s/or du~ng Trotskyists" by 1939. University students not attracted by the Ustasa
time spent at French umvers1ttes under special wartime dispensations or clerical appeals were drawn instead toward his brand of intellectual
given to Serbian officers. By the 1930s, such people spoke of the need Marxism, rather than to Belgrade's Communist activism.
for a modem European society based on "the productive individual" After fading into the background during the 1920s, Slovenian liberals
rather than "state power." They were joined by the bulk of the city's stepped forward during the 1930s. They broke with literacy critic Josip
considerable literary and artistic elite, including-dramatist Branislav Vidmar over his idea that Slovenia possessed a language and culture
Nusii: and poet Isadora Sekulii:. But these intellectuals took virtually separate from "unnatural, uncultured, and unreal" Yugoslavism. The
I
r,,,
,,
1,

,,
no part in politics, other than the small number who had joined the
Republican Party of the 1920s or supported the Agrarian Union. Their
interest in the Serbian peasantry was usually minimal.
aging liberals attracted small-town but not peasant support for their
counterattack. They argued for free enterprise and said it was best
secured in a single Yugoslav market and state, given the growing Ger-
" Their students actively sought a new political direction and moved man threat to peace. Their slogans, however appealing today, attracted
increasingly toward the Yugoslav Communist Party, once it had aban- less support than the liberal movement inside the clerical party (SLS).
doned separatism for non-Serbs. The Spanish Civil War, in particular, True, Monsignor KoroSec remained unchallenged as leader of this larg-
had fired their imaginations. Hence the concentrated communist at- est party and head of its cooperative network. But the young Eduard
tacks on now anti-modernist writer Milos Crnjanski. By the 1930s he Kocbek used his new literary journal, Dejanje, to push the party toward
had entered Yugoslavia's diplomatic service and dispatched allegedly more internal democracy and away from the conservative, anti-Semitic
pro-Fascist reports from his posting to General Franco's headquarters. KoroSec, charging that "Slovenian clericalism is closer to the Japanese
Cmjanski's sort of detachment from party politics was rare in Zagreb, Communist Party than to Slovenian liberalism." Among the large bloc
where the Croatian Peasant Party attracted intellectual interest and pol- of socialist supporters, the Communist Edvard Kardelj was able to
itical support. Macek had said, "We are the people, not a class." By 1935, push aside the Masaryk-trained group that drew on Czech principles of
urban intellectuals and officials made up 44 percent of the party's social democracy. The Masaryk group argued against central planning
representatives, an increase from just one-third in the 1920s. At this under the dictatorship of the proletariat and for decentralized workers'
later date, the party had strengthened its stranglehold on the Croatian self-management, as the better alternative to private enterprise. Kardelj,
political spectrum, but at the cost of accepting the clerical alliance that its post-1950 champion, resisted the notion at this time.
Radii: had always resisted. Clerics led by the young Jesuit-trained Alojzije For Bosnia-Hercegovina, the 1930s saw Sarajevo's cultural milieu
Stepinac, already archbishop by 1937, were less imbued with the Catholic continue to welcome all comers. 29 The poet Tin UjeviC arrived in 1930.
internationalism that some Serbian historians have subsequently em- An artists' colony had already attracted noted painters. The separate
phasized than with opposition to any political framework outside of educational societies for Serbs, Muslims, Croats, and Jews from the
Croatia, whether Yugoslav or Communist. prewar period cooperated more rather than less. The Muslims' Gajret
'' The clerics' most formidable opposition came, not from the tiny pursued cooperation with Serbs in particular. Their leaders and the
:' I,
number of Zagreb-based "Yugoslavs," but instead from a growing main political party, Mehmed Spaho's Yugoslav Muslim Organization,
Croatian left, led less by such Communist activists as August Cesarac favored turning away from the emphasis on Islam and traditional ways
than by the versatile and hugely talented writer Miroslav Krlefa. Born of the prewar landlords' elite. Both Muslim organizations and the few '
in Zagreb and an urban creature to his toes, KrleZa doubted that the Communists began to speak of a multi-ethnic Bosnia as a model for the
\ peasant question was the key to Yugoslav politics. He questioned Radic's rest of Yugoslavia. But too many Serbs or Croats who might have
assumption that peasant solidarity could solve the Serb-Croat problem joined them in this broader view had either died in the war or had gone
and called "unthinkable" the notion that a nineteenth-century Serbian to Belgrade or Zagreb, the start of a migration that would resume with
utopian like Svetozar MarkoviC and his ideas of communal democracy greater intensity by the 1970s. Most of those remaining flocked to the
 194 Yugoslavia as History Authoritarian kingdom, 1929-1941 195

right wings of the Serbian Radical or Independent Radical parties on or an independent Croatia. 30 More importantly for the fate of the first
one side and of the Croatian Peasant Party or the UstaSa on the other. Yugoslavia, MaCek soon decided against relying on either the Italian
They rnuld agree only ~n their fears of a Muslim predominance j}' the connection or the Serbian opposition.
governmg or educated ehte of SaraJevo and other towns, an oJninous Over the threatening summer of 1939, both sides hurried to reach
preview of coming attractions. some agreement. MaCek worried about the internal problems of rising
/
Ustasa support in Croatia and the weak showing by his Serbian allies in
the 1938 elections. Prince Paul worried about external pressures. The
From Serb-Croat Sporazum to Tripartite Pact, Nazi military might displayed for him during his June trip to Berlin
1939-1941
only convinced him that war was coming. Yugoslavia's gold reserves
Only once during the history of the first Yugoslavia did Serbian and were dispatched to New York the next month, not to return for nearly
Croatian representatives agree on the restructuring of the state. And a decade. On August 20, less than two weeks before Hitler's attack on
then external forces inadvertently combined to encourage a hasty set of Poland, Macek and Cvetkovic finally came to terms.
terms whose imposition only insured further dissatisfaction. Without Their Sporazum, or agreement, divided Yugoslavia on terms reminis-
Hitler's war plans, however, that dissatisfaction might not have de- cent of the 1867 Ausgleich between Austria and Hungary. It created a
stroyed the state. separate Croatian banovina that encompassed roughly 30 percent of
the kingdom's territory and population. Croatia now included not only
Dalmatia from the former Primorje but added Dubrovnik from Zeta,
Serb-Croat agreement
some of the former Military Border from Vrbas, two parts of the Srem
By January 1939, Prince Paul had lost confidence in Milan Stojadinovic's including Vukovar from Dunav, and three parts from Drina that cut a
ability to resolve the impasse with MaCek and his Croatian Peasant border across Bosnia from BrCko south to Travnik and Mostar (see
Party deputies. Macek rejected Paul's overtures to bring his HSS dep- map 6.1). The banovina's population of 4.4 million included 168,000
uties to Belgrade as long as StojadinoviC remained as prime minister. In Muslims mainly in Bosnia-Hercegovina and 866,000 Serbs. Leaders of
February the prince asked the less assertive DragiSa CvetkoviC, previ- the Serb minority had not been consulted, and many Serbs feared for
ously minister of social welfare and then head of the new state workers' their indeterminate position in the new banate. Bosnian Muslims dis-
union, JUGORAS, to form a government. In order to reassure a Nazi covered that their presence in the districts assigned to Croatia had
government that had come to value StojadinoviC as an agreeable foreign simply not been counted; only the ratio of Croats to Serbs was used.
minister, Paul put the current ambassador to Germany, Aleksandar The new leader of the Yugoslav Muslim Organization, replacing Mehmed
Cincar-MarkoviC, into that position. Mussolini was not reassured. He Spaho who had just died, put the best face on the agreement by calling
rushed to occupy Albania in April 1939 before the new government it the prelude to a separate confederal arrangement between Bosnia and
could renege on Stojadinovic's promise to allow him a free hand there Croatia.
in return for restraining the UstaSa. The government of this confederal Croatia was to consist of its own
In the meantime, the new government dutifully pursued the agree- elected Sabor and a Ban appointed by the monarchy. The Regent Paul
ment with Macek for which it had been installed. The Croatian leader, promptly named the trusted Ivan Subasic, a Croat who had served with
in Joseph Rothschild's apt phrase, "was simultaneously heating three the Serbian army at the Salonika Front in the First World War and who
mutually incompatible irons in his political fire." One was indeed re- would return to play a brief part after the Second World War. Budget-
conciliation with the prince's government, but the second was the "united ary and internal affairs were to be autonomous, but there were no
front from below" which he had agreed to form with Serbia's opposi- specific provisions for minority rights (as there would be none in the
tion leaders (the Opposition Bloc). The third revolved around explora- Croatian constitution of 1991). The Belgrade government retained
tory talks with Mussolini's foreign minister, Count Ciano, about Italian control of foreign affairs, foreign trade, defense, and going beyond
support for Croatian independence. Much ado has been made about the Ausgleich's terms for Austria-Hungary, transportation and com-
these talks over the years, with each party claiming that the other initi- munications. The central government's authority over the remaining
ated them and disputing whether Macek sought support for a confederal banates was unaffected. Debate raged, especially in Belgrade, about their
 196 Yugoslavia as History
1F'
I Authoritarian kingdom, 1929-1941 197

territorial and even administrative reorganization to include a com- survival of Yugoslavia, then or later, had the Serbs and Croats agreed
parable Serbian banovina, but nothing was done before the war. Nor to stay together.
did elections to the new Croatian Sabor or for a new SkupSJjna in The U staSa recruited membership on the explicit assumption that the
Belgrade ever take place. Macek and the four designated HS~ mem- two peoples could not coexist even in the Sporazum's confederation.
bers did, however, join the reconstructed Cvetkovic gove~nt. The choice of "Subaic, the Salonika Front man" as Ban showed its
Opposition to the agreement spread from Serbs and Bosnian Mus- ultranationalist members that Serbian influence was still pervasive. In
lims in the new Croatian banate to others, but its importance should addition they objected to the borders of the new banate, particularly
not be exaggerated. While delaying the new elections that the Sporazum their failure to include all of Bosnia-Hercegovina. The UstaSa claimed
had promised, domestic disagreement over the deal probably would not it not only as historic Croatian land but, more ominously, on the basis
have destroyed the first Yugoslavia in the absence of the Nazi invasion. that Bosnian Muslims and some Serbs were originally Croats. The
But a more confederal structure with Serbian and possibly Slovenian Sporazum allowed UstaSa members to return from Italy and to recruit
banates joining the Croatian one might have emerged as the only basis new supporters at Zagreb University and in other centers of support -
for a longterm agreement. The sources of opposition - in ascending Mostar, Travnik, Gospic, Vukovar, and Split. Still, actual membership
order of their importance to the state's survival - were the Communist of the Ustasa remained small, perhaps 2,000, with half in Zagreb plus
Party, the Croatian UstaS3, the Serbian Cultural Club, and Serbia's another 250, including the poglavnik, Ante Pavelii:, still in Italy. Mem-
Democratic Party. 31 bers were also divided between pro-German and pro-Italian factions.
Membership in the illegal KPJ had risen from the start of the Popular Estimates of their popular support in Croatia barely exceeded 5 percent.
Front period of Communist opposition to Nazi Germany and con- Opposition to the Sporazum in Serbia soon swelled to a larger if
solidation of its leadership in the hands ofJosip Broz Tito by 1937. The undetermined fraction of public opinion. Its smallest source was the
policy of preserving Yugoslavia within its existing borders won student openly fascist Zbor Party of Dimitrije Ljotii:. A lawyer who ended his
support in Belgrade. The appearance of a formally separate Communist brief tenure as minister of justice in 1931 when the king rejected his
Party of Croatia attracted attention in Zagreb. The few thousand mem- proposed constitution as too authoritarian, LjotiC founded the Zbor, or
bers in 1934 increased to more than 6,000 by late 1939 and then 8,000 Rally Party, in 1935. He won no seats and a bare 1 percent of votes
by early 1941, with several times that many sympathizers. The Serb- cast in the next two elections. By 1940 his violent opposition to the
Croat agreement and the Hitler-Stalin pact of August 1939 were both Sporazum attracted perhaps 5,000 members and a student organization
setbacks for the KPJ. Its members tried that autumn to sabotage army of Beli Orlovi (White Eagles, the same name adopted by Vojislav Seslj
mobilization in Macedonia, Kosovo, and Montenegro according to the for the paramilitary units he sent into Bosnia in 1992). In December
new Comintem line, but failed miserably. The Sporazum took away the the regent's regime came down hard on the movement, interning sev-
chance, however unrealistic, of a "united front from above" with MaCek's eral hundred members and forcing Ljotic into hiding. 32
HSS and the Serbian opposition. The Yugoslav Communist Party's for- The larger Serbian opposition by far came from two sources that had
tunes revived in 1940 with the Comintern's quiet approval ofa "united different but significant changes in mind for any confederal Yugoslavia.
front from below" to oppose the Axis powers despite the Soviet pact To some extent their memberships overlapped. These were the Serbian
with Nazi Germany. It also allowed the KPJ to condemn the Sporazum Cultural Club, founded by respected lawyer and historian Slobodan
particularly for its treatment of non-Serbs outside of Croatia. Jovanovic and others in 1937, and the Democratic Party. One club
Tito's impressively orchestrated fifth national party conference of the member called the Sporazum a "Serbian Munich" because of the Serb
KPJ in a Zagreb suburb in October 1940 included the first Mace- minority, particularly in Bosnia, included in the Croatian banate. Demo-
donian, albeit pro-Bulgarian, central committee member and delegates cratic leader Milan Grol withdrew his party's earlier support for a sepa-
! '
from a growing Slovenian contingent. Although a proposal to include rate Bosnia-Hercegovina and now demanded that the sections not in
Bosnian Muslims in the list of Yugoslav ethnic groups was voted down, the Croatian banate be included in a single Serbian banate. Grol's
other conference resolutions promised self-determination to Montenegro vision of Serbia also included the Vojvodina and "the backbone of the
and Macedonia, as well as to a united Bosnia-Hercegovina. But the national organism," Macedonia. Where Slovenia would fit in such a
disposition of none of these other territories could have threatened the division of the rest of the country was not discussed. The leading
 198 Yugoslavia as Hiswry Authoritarian kingdom, 1929-1941 199

Slovenian politician and Prince Paul's close confidant, Monsignor 1941 to send several divisions to northern Greece, not to the border
KoroSec, had died in December 1940. Even without war, some new but southwest of Salonika along the Aliakmon river.
but still confederal structure was likely_ once Aleksandar's so'1/)'etar Some Western scholars have argued that the British decision to enter
became king on his eighteenth birthday m September 1941. j' Greece was the final blow to what otherwise might have been a suc-
cessful effort to keep Yugoslavia out of the war. The most detailed
/
Yugoslav account counters that as early as July 1940, Hitler had turned
Tripartite Pact and war
against Yugoslavia, despite his refusal to give Mussolini a green light to
The Stojadinovic strategy had been to prevent war with Italy by rely- attack later that year. 34 This seems doubtful, but we may speculate that
ing on Germany's lack of military interest in the Balkans. By 1940 even wholehearted adherence to the Tripartite Pact would not have
the Cvetkovic'.:government saw no effective way to escape this strategy, saved Yugoslavia from an obligation to the German war effort like that
which included a rearmament program based on deliveries of Czech as of Bulgaria, which declared war on Britain and the United States as
well as German equipment. Now Czech deliveries had come under well as providing supplies and full transit rights.
Nazi control, as had Italian policy for the time being. Count Ciano The regent and the Cvetkovic government must be credited with
tried again to tempt MaCek into an agreement over an independent doing all that they could to stay out of the German-Japanese alliance
Croatia and an Italian Dalmatia_, but got nowhere. When Mussolini lost that became the Tripartite Pact when Italy joined in September 1940.
patience and proposed to attack both Yugoslavia and Greece in March Hungary's Horthy government signed up that month as well, but Yugo-
of 1940, Hitler abruptly told him to stay out of the Balkans. This was slavia's adherence would be more useful. It would rebuff any British or
to be the last dividend paid from Stojadinovic's portfolio. Russian presence in the Balkans as well as shortening supply lines to
Prince Paul and his prime minister spent the next twelve months North Africa. General Milan Nedii:, the Yugoslav army commander
trying to escape the sort of formal commitment to Nazi Germany that and a German sympathizer from the Stojadinovii: era, proposed that
would be required for any further dividends." The threatened Italian Yugoslavia join the Axis powers. To cement the bond, the Yugoslav
attack prompted the regent to explore closer links with Britain and army should then seize Salonika from Greece to prevent the entry of
II France. He was particularly concerned about the security of Salonika. British troops. The regent dismissed NediC on November 5, just as the
:!I General Weygand offered to dispatch a force of French troops to the Cvetovii: government began to arrange for the surreptitious supply of
,,
northern Greek port, but the Chamberlain government would not have munitions and horses to the Greek army. The British and now the
i' it. Then the Nazi blitzkrieg of May swept away the French army and American embassies offered belated encouragement. William Donovan
government. The shock in Belgrade prodded the anti-Communist re- visited Belgrade in January as President Roosevelt's representative to
:Ii deliver just such a message. These efforts helped sustain the govern-
'i! gime to seek out diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. Negoti-
ations at Ankara in late June ended the longest-standing refusal of any ment's resolve to resist the pact until March 1941.
successor state to establish relations with the USSR. Whether an earlier But as Prince Paul told the American ambassador, Arthur Bliss Lane,
tie could have offered the Kingdom of Yugoslavia any greater security "You big nations are hard. You talk of our honor, but you are far
is of course doubtful. away." 35 The Bulgarian government's adherence to the pact on March
Mussolini finally drew Hitler into the Balkans with his ill-considered 1 and the subsequent arrival there of 350,000 German troops made it
invasion of Greece on October 28, 1940. The Italian advance quickly impossible for the regent and his regime to hold out any longer. The
bogged down and turned into retreat. German troops had just been prince refused to sign on the spot during a secret visit to Berchtesgaden
dispatched to North Africa to reverse the mauling that large numbers on March 4. Afterwards, Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop
of poorly trained and equipped Italian troops were taking at the hands formally amended the German offer to exclude the passage of German
of a small British expeditionary force. Once in North Africa, German troops (but not supplies) through Yugoslavia or any request for military
commanders wanted supplies sent by the shortest route, which ran assistance. A secret provision promised Yugoslavia subsequent "free
through Yugoslavia and Greece. The Churchill government that came access" to Salonika, a German blandishment that seems not to have
to power during the fall of France needed to protect its one force persuaded Belgrade as much as anticipated. Even after agreeing, the
effectively fighting the Nazis. London made the decision in February CvetkoviC government instructed its ambassador in Berlin, Ivo AndriC,
200 Yugoslavia as History

to delay a promise of signing. Its intelligence sources, like a number of

others, had heard rumors of an impending German attack on the Soviet
Union. The invasion might have sidetracked further pressure'j,y but it 7 World war and civil war, 1941-1 945
did not come soon enough. On March 25, the Cvetkovic go]l<!'mment
formally signed the Tripartite Pact despite its repeated wary,ngs to the
German ambassador about the Serbian public's reaction to joining a
side that they still saw as their enemy from the First World War.
Two days later, Serbia's political spectrum and the Belgrade public
gave full support to the military coup that overthrew the Cvetkovic
government and proclaimed the still underage Petar king in place of
the regent. The March 27 coup and Hitler's immediate decision to The Second World War shaped the second Yugoslavia even more than
"destroy the Yugoslav state as it currently exists" signalled the end the First World War did the first. The Nazi-led dismemberment of the
of the first Yugoslavia even though German forces did not invade until first Yugoslavia destroyed virtually all existing institutions. Without the
April 6. opening it offered the Yugoslav Communists to champion resistance
and to replace those institutions, Tito's small party of 8,000 members
could not have dreamed of taking power in 1945 and defying the Soviet
Union a few years later. lbis chapter explores the connection between
the most rapid seizure of power by any Communist regime in Eastern
Europe and the most complex, controversial subject in the history of
Yugoslavia, the Second World War.
The war itself has elicited a mountain of secondary accounts, but left
less primary evidence for an agreed, definitive history than elsewhere in
Europe. This is particularly true of the domestic dynamics that were
crucial to the Communist seizure of power and, most prominently, to
Serb-Croat relations. The respective roles of Britain, the United States,
and the Soviet Union have become clearer, but it now appears that
none of them were decisive.
More can be learned by concentrating on the direction of domestic
events. First came the physical destruction of the Kingdom of Yugosla-
via from April to June 1941. The power and brutaliry of the successor
regimes that divided up the country peaked in 1942, setting the stage
for a growing Communist advantage on rural ground by 1943-44.
They gained their advantage, however, in a civil war with the non-
Communist Serb resistance. That war accompanied and sometimes
overshadowed the struggle against foreign occupiers, their collabor-
ators, or the native fascist regime turned loose in Zagreb.

The destruction of the first Yugoslavia

Although the German attack of April 6, 1941, dealt the Kingdom of
Yugoslavia a mortal blow, the details of its destruction stretched from
late March into June. Only then was the geographic crazy quilt of

201
 202 Yugoslavia as Hiswry
,,,
, .,,
World war and civil war, 1941-1945 203
'
division complete. On June 22, Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union "better grave than slave." Tito was in Zagreb and needed to approve a
brought the Yugoslav Communist Party (KPJ) actively into the open decision to participate that would openly flaunt the Hitler-Stalin pact
resistance that had already broken out in Hercegovina and was ady to of 1939. Perhaps Tito or other party leaders already knew of the full-
erupt in Montenegro and Serbia. /
77 scale German preparations for an attack on the Soviet Union, whose
If time had permitted, the leaders of the bloodless Belgr:)de coup of onset would obviously shatter the pact. More probably they had learned
March 27 intended to revise the non-Croatian conditions of the 1939 of the pending non-aggression treaty with the USSR that Prince Paul
agreement governing Yugoslavia even at the risk of violent revolt from had authorized. (It would be signed hours before the German attack
the Bosnian Muslims. A Serbian banovina would surely have included and dated the day before.) They had received Comintern instructions
all of Bosnia-Hercegovina not under Croatia. But there was no time for earlier, in 1940 (see chapter 6), to begin preparing a "united front from
anything. Hitler determined to destroy the new regime from the day it below" to oppose Nazi expansion, but this was to be the first act of
took power, despite its accommodating statements. The new prime open Opposition.
minister, General DuSan SimoviC, had commanded the large Yugoslav A Yugoslav military attache in Berlin had warned the new Simovic
air force and was one of a number of Serbian officers being courted by regime of the German-led attack a couple days after the coup. The
the British Embassy. But neither Sirnovic nor his deputy, Bora Mirkovic, regime did nothing, but what could it have done? The Balkans' largest
who orchestrated the participation of military units in the coup and air force of 459 planes included only 87 modern fighters to face the
support from key figures in the Serbian Cultural Club, received enough 1,500 aircraft that the Germans would dispatch. Nazi troop concentra-
support or instruction from contacts with British intelligence operatives tions already in Bulgaria and Hungary enabled a German force of 24
in the air attache's office to justify any claim that London had directed largely mechanized German divisions to join 23 Italian and 5 Hungar-
the coup. 1 Nor did it matter to Hitler that the Simovic regime was able ian divisions to strike from all sides. They swept through a Yugoslav
to persuade Croatian leader Vladko Macek to join their cabinet or that army stretched thin by the long frontier they attempted to hold. Some
it irmnediately made every diplomatic effort to assure the German For- 700,000 men had been mobilized, but their thirty divisions were under-
eign Ministry that the terms agreed to on March 25 would be strictly staffed and their armament and mobility grievously deficient. These
observed. handicaps would have proved fatal, it should be added, even if the
How could Yugoslavia have remained a neutral island through 1941, officer corps had been drawn proportionally from the major ethnic
i.l lying as it did on the southern flank of Hitler's Russian front and across groups across the territory to be defended, rather than being over
1;
the shortest route to Rommel's Afrika Korps and the eastern Mediter- 70 percent Serb. The ten-day blitzkrieg faced less opposition and found
li ranean? German preparations for Operation Maritsa, intended to oc- more collaborators in Croatia than elsewhere, but it was not noticeably
Ii,,
cupy all of Greece, were already in place; adding the Yugoslav campaign slowed by the greater opposition encountered from scattered units in
'
was a small, further step. British inducements to draw the Yugoslav Serbia and Slovenia. German units lost fewer than 200 men and the
army into an attack on Italian forces in Albania that spring only added Yugoslav forces at least 3,000. 3
to Hitler's readiness to settle accounts with the "Serbian renegades" he The partition of the first Yugoslavia that followed is too complex
blamed for starting the First World War.' The massive demonstration to comprehend without looking at a map. Various annexations (see
of support for the coup and for the Western allies that clogged the map 7.1) divided Slovenia between Germany and Italy and gave the
central streets of Belgrade on the morning of March 2 7 confirmed his Dalmatian coast from Zadar to Split and the Montenegrin coast to Italy,
judgment. So did Winston Churchill's famous reaction to the coup that areas north of the Drava and Danube rivers (the Slavonian Medjumurje
"now Yugoslavia has found its soul." and Prekomurje, plus the Vojvodina's Baranja and Backa, including
After the war, Communists would claim that their supporters took Novi Sad) to Hungary, and Kosovo and western Macedonia to Italian
the lead and dominated the Belgrade demonstrations. Propaganda photo- Albania. Bulgaria occupied the rest of Macedonia, Italy the rest of
graphs had clocks cut out of them to obscure the fact that the KPJ Montenegro, and Germany all of Serbia, with a separate German ad-
did not join these otherwise spontaneous crowds until late morning. ministration for the Vojvodina east of the Tisza river (the Banat). Note
Only then were their slogans demanding alliance with the Soviet Union also the east-west line dividing German from Italian military respon-
seen alongside the early banners calling for "better war than pact" and sibility in what was called the Independent State of Croatia (NDH).
204 Yugoslavia as History World war and civil war, 1941-1945 205

SimoviC cabinet minus MaCek and a few others reached Pale near
Sarajevo on April 11 and flew from Niksic in Montenegro to Athens on
April 14 and 15.
In the first days of the occupation, the Germans made sure that there
was no interruption in the terror administered to Belgrade and then to
all of Serbia. After authorized looting from April 12 to 14, Nazi troops
took direct control of all urban centers. A proclamation on April 16,
one day before the formal surrender was signed, required all Jews to
register with the police. Some, such as the prominent publisher Geca
Kon, were simply executed out of hand. A number of municipal au-
thorities were persuaded to collaborate, but the members of the new
special police unit hastily recruited in Belgrade were Volksdeursche from
the Vojvodina. They joined German army units to enforce curfew and
other regulations that amounted to martial law. Several concentration
camps around Belgrade were soon set up for offenders. All cultural life
quickly came under German control as well, and a single authorized
newspaper, Novo vreme, began publication in May.
To compound the shock throughout Serbia, the Nazi occupiers
German-Italian line of deported nearly 200,000 officers and men from the Yugoslav army to
demarcation
0 Selected cities prisoner of war camps in Germany. These soldiers, like the great major-
~- Rivers ity of the more than 300,000 initially captured during the German
0 IOO 200 attack, were Serbs from Serbia. The 10,000 or more officers held in
KILOMETERS Germany included many reservists who together had constituted a large
part of Serbia's political and professional elite.
Map 7.1 Division of the former Yugoslavia, 1941-1944 One of the officers who had not been captured was the career army
colonel, Dra:Za MihailoviC. His earlier experience had scarcely prepared
him to lead the non-Communist Serbian resistance to the occupation.
Most fateful for the future of any Yugoslav state in these first months of Passed over for promotion to general because of a drunken misadven-
the war were conditions in the NOH and in German-occupied Serbia. ture in the First World War, he had also received several reprimands in
the late 1930s, once for a nationalist proposal to divide the army into
separate Serb, Croat, and Slovene units. In the April war, he narrowly
Serbia and Kosovo
escaped an engagement with German tanks in Bosnia and made his
The German attack itself inflicted far more physical damage and psy- way back to the rugged west Serbian uplands with a company of men
chological shock on the capital of Belgrade than on any other part of that numbered only thirty-one by the time they arrived at Ravna Gora
the country. Waves of German bombers pounded the city from early on May 12. Thus began the odyssey of one of the most controversial
Sunday morning to the afternoon on April 6 and returned again the figures of the Second World War in Yugoslavia. Mihailovii: was a man
next day, killing some 2,300 people, close to the losses suffered by the in whom defeated Serbia and a defiant Churchill government soon
entire Yugoslav army. A comparable number of buildings were de- placed exaggerated hopes. His subsequent dealings with Italian and
stroyed or heavily damaged, including the national library and many German authorities raise still-debated questions of how significantly he
government facilities. All essential services were cut. The bombing collaborated with them and how much control he exercised over his
wounded many more than it killed and prompted still more people to scattered Cetnik forces. These forces would in any case lose the civil war
flee the city, including the leaders of government. King Petar and the started by the Croatian Ustasa and finished by Tito's Partisans.
206 Yugoslavia as History World war and civil war, 1941-1945 207

MihailoviC himself chose the name Cetnik for his forces, formally The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union at just this time, June 22,
known first as the Ravna Gora movement and later the Yugoslav Army brought the Communist Party of Yugoslavia instructions through the
in the Fatherland. Their exploits would bring "Chetnik" into the Eng- Comintern, to proceed "without wasting a moment, organize Partisan
lish language. Taken from the Serbian and Macedonian termyor up- detachments, and start a Partisan war behind enemy lines." The KPJ
land guerrilla bands opposing Ottoman rule, the name surf'j.Ced earlier began a campaign of coordinated sabotage on July 4, confirming other
during the First World War, especially among Bosnian Ser!'i guerrillas. evidence that its military preparations were already well under way.
It then became the designation for local militias that King Aleksandar Belgrade was the logical center. Its size, status, and university had
allowed to reemerge informally after his 1929 decree had disbanded the attracted the largest concentration of members to the KPJ. The party
Croatian Serbs' and Serbia's two formal organizations. Together the and its Communist Youth organization grew by one-half between April
two had huge, inactive membership lists of close to one-half million and July, reaching 12,000 and 30,000 members, respectively. Tito
men, later used to identify and persecute them. But we should not arrived in Belgrade from Zagreb on May 8 and set about organizing
confuse the largest of the successor militias, headed by the aged Kosta units and collecting arms for active resistance.
PeCanac, with Mihailovic's Chetniks. PeCanac chose to collaborate with Yugoslav patriotism did motivate some members of the party, espe-
the German occupation in August 1941. cially those in its youth organization, to prepare for fighting the Ger-
MihailoviC's Chetnik movement took shape during these initial months mans with the Hitler-Stalin pact still in force. Two qualifications must
of the war. 4 He attracted some I 0,000 men to his bands in western be quickly added. By this time, the widely circulating reports of an
Serbia, enough to spread wishful thinking across Serbia that active impending Nazi attack on the USSR had surely reached Tito. Sec-
resistance was under way. He was, in fact, husbanding his forces for ondly, according to Milovan Djilas, the top leadership saw as its enemy
Germany's eventual defeat, perhaps passing assurances to the German not only the Croatian Ustasa but also "the groups of (Serbian) officers
command that he would not challenge their current authority. But hiding in the mountains of western Serbia," who would be rivals for
belying Communist charges that collaboration was uppermost in his postwar power. 5 The KPJ leaders expected an early German defeat,
mind, MihailoviC pressed to establish contact with the royal govemment- reflecting the general Communist confidence in the Red Army to defeat
in-exile. The SimoviC government of eight Serbs, two Croats, and one any adversary. Even though they shared the Ustasa as a common foe
Slovene minister was initially welcomed in London and won recogni- with the Chetniks and though most of their members who mobilized
tion by June 21. The war minister and the small military staff re- for resistance were Serbs, the Communists must be still credited with
mained in Cairo. Two days prior to the recognition, a Chemik messenger considering themselves a Yugoslav rather than a Serbian movement.
reached Istanbul. He reported that Mihailovic's forces had asked for Tito summoned representatives from all the major ethnic groups to
recognition as an army readying itself to fight the German occupiers in attend a May meeting of the Central Committee in Belgrade. Leaders
Serbia and, more immediately, to render assistance to the Serb villages of the confederal Slovenian and Croatian parties attended, although not
in Bosnia and Croatia being massacred or cleansed by UstaSa units of the Macedonian leader, Sarlo. He like most of the Macedonian leader-
theNDH. ship had transferred his allegiance to the Bulgarian Communist Party
By this time, a leading Chetnik ideologue, Stevan Moljevic, had drafted after April 19. On that date, Bulgarian troops crossed the border and
a memorandum and an accompanying map that proposed a huge, authorities from Sofia took control of most of Macedonia. They faced
"homogeneous Serbia." MoljeviC, a lawyer from Banja Luka in northern no serious opposition and initially were welcomed by significant num-
Bosnia, did not rise to prominence in MihailoviC's Central National bers of Macedonians.
Committee, displacing Belgrade's Dragisa Vasic, until 1943. This sig- Kosovo saw limited Chetnik resistance and virtually none from the
nificant detail and the Committee's secondary status undercut the ar- few hundred, mostly Serb Communists to the wave of killings, house
gument that the MoljeviC map was the centerpiece of a single, coherent and Orthodox church burnings that suddenly empowered Albanians
set of Chetnik war aims. He admittedly reckoned that 1 million Croats brought down on Serb heads. Italian authorities in what was now their
would have to be expelled in order to create a Serbia covering two- enlarged Albanian protectorate stood by as roving Kosovar bands tar-
thirds of a reconstituted Yugoslavia. A rump Croatia and a Slovenia geted the interwar Serb or Montenegrin colonists. Some 20,000 man-
enlarged by !stria would make up the rest. aged to flee to Serbia, to be joined by 10,000 more by 1944. A majority
208 Yugoslavia as History

of the 10,000 Serbs killed in Kosovo during the war died in these initial
expulsions. 6
r World war and civil war, 1941-1945 209

Nazi regime itself. Its overriding purpose was to create an ethnically

pure Croatian state from which Serbs, Jews, and gypsies would be
permanently cleansed.
The immediacy with which the UstaSa program was announced
Croatia
/ belies its apologists' claim, that it was a response to Serb rebellion. A
The small Ustasa minority led by Ante Pavelic had not been the first decree on April 17, the day of Yugoslavia's formal surrender, estab-
choice of German authorities to rule the fully separate Croatia created lished a series of three-man people's courts empowered to impose the
by the Wehrmacht's destruction of the Yugoslav state. Both the leader death penalty with no appeal for any person who spoke against the
of the majority Croatian Peasant Party, Vladko Macek, and Hungary's i regime, supported the Communist Party, or advocated smaller borders.
Horthy regime were hastily solicited on the eve of the attack. Neither I Local Ustasa authorities abused even this wide latitude. Sometimes
accepted the German invitation, and the representative of Nazi Foreign

-1
using lists of interwar Serb organizations, they began executing sus-
Minister von Ribbentrop tu.tned to a Zagreb lieutenant of Ante PaveliC, pected opponents and encouraging their local militias to evict Serb
the UstaSa leader who had been sustained and sometimes confined in families for deportation to Serbia. Deportations began on June 4. On
Italy since 1929. Slavko Kvaternik, a former Habsburg officer who was April 25, another decree banned the use of the Cyrillic alphabet and
now Pavelic's military commander, agreed to terms on April 5. The designated the Serbian Orthodox Church as the "Greek Eastern faith."
UstaSa readily accepted Italy's above-mentioned annexation of central By May, Muslim representatives from Bosnia-Hercegovina asked Ital-
Dalmatia and a titular Italian king for Croatia in return for the chance ian commanders for protection in the unoccupied central zone. They
to take power. The Independent State of Croatia would incorporate all suffered discrimination and some persecution despite the fact that PaveliC
of PaveliC's native Bosnia-Hercegovina and the Srem region of eastern regarded Bosnian Muslims as the purest Croats, the "flower of the
Slavonia, from Vukovar on the Danube to Zemun across that river nation." From late April until June, the number of Serbs executed out-
from Belgrade. of-hand, primarily in Krajina towns like Glina and Knin, reached into
Ante Pavelic and his small retinue rushed to Zagreb by April 15, but the thousands. Jews were ordered to wear identifying patches on April
Kvaternik had already proclaimed the Independent State of Croatia 25 and had to be further identified as "non-Aryans" in an April 30
(Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska, NDH) on April 10, barely four days after decree. They were barred from public facilities by June 4, the same
the invasion. Other long-time followers also awaited Pavelic, led by date that Serbs began to be deported to Serbia. Locally, Jews were also
chief propagandist Mile Budak and the new interior minister, Andrija obliged to perform labor details such as the destruction of the Serbian
Artukovic. The 1939 Sporazum had allowed them to return and had Orthodox church in Banja Luka.
given them a freer hand to attract new members. Party membership, by During May and June, PaveliC's leading lieutenants used a series of
1941, still numbered no more than the 12,000 in Communist ranks. propaganda meetings in thirty-five towns across their expanded territ-
Total support was still less than 10 percent of politically active Croats, ory to proclaim that Serbs and Jews had "no place in Croatia" because
significantly less than their counterparts, the Hungarian Arrow Cross they "endangered Croatian existence." On June 22, in Gospic, in the
and the Romanian Iron Guard. 7 PaveliC nonetheless proclaimed himself center of the Krajina killing fields, Pavelic's education minister, Mile
poglavnik (leader), named a cabinet, and appointed a series of Zupani Budak, openly announced that one-third of the new state's 1.9 million
(district leaders) from his party faithful without wider consultation or Serbs would be deported to Serbia and another third converted to the
German-Italian approval. Catholic faith and thereby Croatianized (or reconverted, given the wild
The German and Italian troops that streamed into Croatia soon Ustasa claim that 200,000 Croats had been forced into Orthodoxy
established a permanent presence behind the east-west lines in map 7.1; under interwar Serb pressure). The other third, he added, would simply
a central zone running from north of Mostar to south of Karlovac on be killed. 8
the Italian side was to be left unoccupied. The powerful Axis presence What role did the Croatian Catholic church and its ardently nation-
may have put the PaveliC regime in power, but it did not control it or alist but politically naive archbishop, Alojzije Stepinac, play in these
set its agenda. From this regime sprang the most savage intolerance infamous events? With MihailoviC and Tito, he was another of the
seen anywhere in Europe during the Second World War, outside of the war's most controversial figures. Stepinac did not encourage, much less
 210 Yugoslavia as History

initiate, the criminal propaganda and acts spreading outside of Zagreb.

r,
', .,_ .. .'-/-
.

:-,':

World war and civil war, 1941-1945

government in London, that lviihailovic's Chetniks were a large, coor-

211

But he did, during these early months, welcome the new regime openly dinated, and active force.
and enthusiastically, congratulating Kvaternik on his proclama;jon of
the NDH two days afterwards and meeting formally with P,w(,lic on
NDH and Bosnia-Hercegovina
April 16. Stella Alexander argues that the coincidence ofthat,,.>roclama-
tion with the 1,300-year anniversary of Croatia's first link to Rome UstaS3 militias and a hastily appointed gendarmerie, each eventually
provided a religious justification that overcame Stepinac's doubts about totalling some 20,000 men, fanned out across Bosnia-Hercegovina as
UstaSa association with pagan Nazis and Fascist Italy's seizure of Dal- well as the Croatian Krajina in the summer of 1941. A law unto them-
matia.' His encyclical to the clergy of April 28 spoke of "pride and selves, they first tried to herd as many Serbs as possible into camps for
rejoicing" at letting "the blood with its mysterious links with the coun- expulsion to Serbia. Any resisters were killed. When expulsion became
try" speak instead of the tongue. It is easy, he concluded, "to see God's increasingly difficult, they killed many in their villages or dispatched
hand at work here." He also approved of a variety of new strictures, them to one of several death camps.
from prison sentences for swearing to the death penalty for abortion. The number of Serbs expelled is more certain than the number
But by May 22, he was protesting to Interior Minister ArtukoviC against killed. By July 1941, German authorities in Serbia had recorded nearly
the regulation that compelled Jews to wear identifying badges in public, 140,000 people pushed across the border, with perhaps another 40,000
although conceding that they should be obliged at least to buy them. unrecorded. The German military command in Belgrade responded by
The archbishop's notorious trial by the postwar Communist regime cutting the number of authorized border crossings to two, then to one,
relied heavily on this early evidence and ignored his growing if private and by the autumn to none. The UstaS3 regime's only alternatives were
disenchantment with the UstaSa regime. Still, his narrow dogmatic view conversion or killing. Buttressed by pseudo-historical propaganda that
of the world, more comparable in Croatian history to Macek's than the Serbs of Bosnia-Hercegovina and the old Military Border were
,,
,I
Radic's, continued throughout. largely Croats or Vlachs forced to convert to Orthodoxy in Ottoman
times or the interwar period, the regime and many local, often
Franciscan, priests launched a campaign of forced conversion. Roughly
The Independent State of Croatia (NDH), occupation one-quarter million Serbs accepted this unchristian offer during 1941-
regimes, and active opposition, 1941-1942 42. A much smaller number joined the "Croatian Orthodox Church."
From the summer of 1941 through 1942, the most senselessly brutal The regime hastily erected the denomination, headed by an available
and politically disjointed events of the Second World War scarred what Russian priest, in 1942 as if to admit that the conversion campaign
was the first "former Yugoslavia." Once the bulk of German troops left could go no further. Perhaps another 50,000 Serbs escaped to Serbia
as planned for the Russian campaign and half of the much larger Italian by year's end despite the German prohibition.
force of 200,000 was withdrawn, open revolt broke out against the Controversy still surrounds the number of Serbs killed outright on the
occupiers in Serbia, Montenegro, and Slovenia. But it was the Bosnian territory of the NOH by the end of 1942. That much disputed figure
bloodbath launched by the NOH regime in Hercegovina that drove surely surpasses 300,000 men, women, and children. 10 Local massacres
the Communist and Chetnik resistance to civil war with each other, accounted for most of the early killing. A series of small camps near
led Italian forces into open conflict with Ustasa militias and alliance Gospic and elsewhere accounted for roughly 50,000 deaths, and finally
with some Chetnik units. New infusions of German troops also re- the two explicit death camps of Jasenovac and Stara Gradiska were
turned to pursue Tito's Partisans. Their first setbacks prompted the responsible for perhaps twice that number, not including the thousands
Bosnian Serb and Montenegrin Partisans to impose their own Red sent to Auschwitz by 1943. Postwar Communist historians claimed that
Terror on territories under their control. Yet they killed fewer innocent over one-half million people, Jews and gypsies included, died at Jasenovac
civilians than did the Chetniks, Germans, or Italians, and far fewer than alone, a figure doubled by recent Serbian pseudo-history and then
the Ustasa. Meanwhile, the prospect of diverting German troops or rightly reduced to slightly less than 100,000 by Croatian scholars. It has
supplies away from North Africa to Yugoslavia attracted the attention since been further reduced and its consciously racist purpose denied by
of the British government, further persuaded by Yugoslavia's exile Croatian pseudo-history. Both pseudo-histories have diverted attention
 r World war and civil war, 1941-1945 213
212 Yugoslavia as History

from the guilty verdict that hangs over the Ustasa regime as its only almost all Jews. Muslim resolutions in Sarajevo, Tuzla, Banja Luka,
epitaph. The executions at villages like Knin, Glina, Pakrac, and Bijeljina, and Bjieljina protested the persecution of Serbs in particular. Bosnian
sowed more seeds of family revenge than did Jasenovac_ itself. /4 . , Muslims in those towns, moreover, were largely responsible for hiding
The Ustasa leadership tned to annihilate all of Croatia and Bnia s the 2,000 Jews (out of 14,000 before the war) who survived.
small Jewish population of 36,000. Pushed ahead by its O)I"' anti- The first active opposition to the Ustaa regime came, not surpris-
semitism rather than by German instructions or a popular Croatian ingly, from the rural Serbs of the Krajina, Dalmatia, and Bosnia-
mandate, the regime began the systematic arrest and execution of this Hercegovina. The initial uprising began spontaneously in eastern
defenseless urban population in June 1941. Barely 4,000 survived the Hercegovina in June 1941. Confronting the region's two-thirds Serb
war, while some 26,000 perished in the Croatian death camps or at majority were a murderous new government and their local agents.
Auschwitz. Among their "crimes;' according to UstaSa leader, Eugen Most of the latter were drawn from Muslims who made up the other
Kvaternik, Slavko's son, were the "several hundred thousand abor- third of the population and whose ancestors had been landlords to Serb
tions" performed in interwar Croatia "'by Jewish doctors so as to reduce sharecroppers until 1919. Uncoordinated groups of rebel Serbs spread
the Croatian population." Underlying these persecutions, however, from there. They had rnro features in common. First, their leaders were
was the racist assumption that Croats were Aryans of Goth or Iranian local men who belonged to the Agrarian Party or to one of the interwar
origin who would be contaminated by contact with non-Aryan Jews or Chetnik organizations or both. They were not officers in the royal army
Slavs. nor initially under the direction of MihailoviC's Chetniks. Secondly,
A number of the Catholic hierarchy and the leaders of the Croatian while these Hercegovinian Serbs attacked Ustaa authorities and facil-
Peasant Party, as well as some leaders of the Bosnian Muslims, soon ities, they also conducted murderous raids against vulnerable peasant
expressed opposition to the PaveliC regime. 1 L They made passive pro- villages, more likely to be Bosnian or Sandiak Muslim than Croat. The
tests calling on the regime to mend its ways rather than exhorting active largest massacre of over one thousand men, women, and children oc-
opposition, but they still deserve recognition. If Archbishop Stepinac curred in the east Bosnian town of FoCa.
did not dismiss criminal clergy or threaten to resign himself, he did The array of forces in Yugoslavia and their relation to one another
protest privately to the Ustaa leadership against forced conversions during the Second World War, especially in this early going, was a
and mistreatment of Jews on several occasions. His discreet initiatives more complicated business. In order to understand the most fateful of
saved thousands of individual lives. Nor did he plead the regime's case these relations, Chetniks versus Partisans, we must first distinguish
with the Vatican representative who was quickly dispatched from Rome between the roles played by German and Italian forces in the NDH.
to Zagreb. The NDH never received the diplomatic recognition by True, a coordinated Chetnik force collaborated with the two German
the Holy See that Pavelic ardently desired. One-third of the Croatian offensives of 1943 against a growing Partisan army, but their actions
Peasant Party (HSS) leaders selected by the regime for the Sabor, or grew out of more defensible precedents from 1941. In the earlier
National Assembly, of 1942, refused to serve. The party's village rank period, uncoordinated Chetnik units had formed alliances with the Ital-
and file typically withdrew into their families. HSS leader Vladko Macek ian divisions recalled to push aside the marauding Ustasa militias and
refused repeated pressures to express public support for the regime. For restore order. These early arrangements established Italian authority in
his defiance, he was transferred from house arrest to Jasenovac. towns if not in villages. German military presence north of the NDH
The Ustasa courtship of the Bosnian Muslims as the "pearl of the demarcation line had meanwhile been reduced to two divisions as the
Croatian nation" never persuaded more than a minority to abandon Russian campaign wore on. The disdain of the German military attache
their Bosnian identity. Muslim religious and town leaders were already in Zagreb, General Edmund Glaise von Horstenau, for the NDH fur-
organizing protest meetings by the autumn of 1941. The Ustasa had ther limited Nazi support. A former Habsburg officer, his animosity
elevated pro-Croat Muslims from the interwar period to several high toward the Ustasa regime as well as the Italian presence left only von
positions in the NDH hierarchy and the restored land seized in the Ribbentrop's ill-prepared diplomatic representative, the one-time Baltic
agrarian reform to a number of leading begs. This could not compen- Nazi, Siegfried Kasche, to speak for the regime.
sate for the regime's denial of non-Croat identity in Bosnia and the The regime's excesses fueled the readiness of the one large Axis
crimes committed against some of the Muslims, many Serbs, and force, the Italian army, to confront it. Their mutual antagonism opened
214 Yugoslavia as Hisrory
r..
'n:".

'
World war and civil war, 1941-1945 215
12
the way for the Chetnik movement in the NDH. The Partisans' ated operations, DjuriSiC concentrated on raids of revenge against the
failure in early 1942 to hold the allegiance of many initial followers Sand.Zak Muslims, many of them innocent villagers.
widened the opening. Partisan commanders' brutal treatment of 7ptire In Serbia, several attempts at coordinated resistance proved abortive,
villages suspected of Chetnik sympathies or of resisting local ~om- and Chetniks were fighting Partisans by the end of 194 L At the same
munist authority has been called the "left deviation" by Co;nmunist time, German army units decimated the Partisan forces in Serbia. Tito
historians and the Red Terror by others. The Partisans' lack of food had to move ltis headquarters to eastern Bosnia. Survival now de-
and arms, a condition less severe for the Chetniks because of their pended on attracting new recruits from the NDH and Montenegro.
Italian connections, also played a part in the Chetniks' ascendancy in MihailoviC meanwhile tried to preserve his Serbian base by winning
Hercegovina. So did the decision of the London government-in-exile, British support for the longer run and negotiating German tolerance for
now headed by Slobodan Jovanovic, to appoint Mihailovic minister of the time being. He succeeded in neither.
war in January 1942, Driving that decision, in addition to the Red The Partisan-Chetnik conflict further complicated the civil war that
Terror, were Chetnik-Partisan relations in Montenegro and Serbia. the Ustasa had started in the NDH. Only Slovenia, as we shall see in
the next section, could confront the occupying forces with something
Montenegro and Serbia like a united front, Several Chemik units had joined and even collabor-
ated with the Partisan forces that began their campaign of sabotage
The Partisan model for an armed uprising intolerant of the slightest and small-scale attacks against German forces on July 4, 1941. Disrup-
opposition came from Montenegro. Italian occupation authorities let a tion of German lines of communication south to Salonika, the very
small group of zelenaii, or autonomist Greens seeking to separate danger that the invasion was supposed to preclude, brought fast reac-
Montenegro from Serbia, persuade them that the titular independence tion. The German army commander for Serbia replaced the small Com-
of Montenegro under an Italian king would meet little opposition, Most mission of Administrators, a set of Serbian collaborators in Belgrade,
Italian troops could therefore proceed to withdraw. But on July 13, with a full-fledged puppet government led by General Milan Nedic.
1941, the day after an Orthodox holiday on which the Green group Prince Paul, it may be recalled, had dismissed Nedic early in 1941 for
proclaimed independence, armed villagers and a number of surviving advocating a German alliance. The interwar Chetnik leader, Kosta
Yugoslav army officers and men rose up in opposition. They quickly PeCanac, and the one genuinely fascist Serbian leader, Dimitrije LjotiC,
seized control of the upland majority of Montenegro, Milovan Djilas, added their respective contingents of 8,000 and 4,000 men to the Ser-
the highest ranking Montenegrin in the Communist leadership, and bian State Guard that Nedic assembled primarily from the old gen-
Arso Jovanovic, later the highest ranking army officer to side with Stalin darmerie. Together their numbers roughly matched the Ustasa militia's
against Tito, were dispatched from Serbia to fan the scattered flames total of 30,000, but they never operated independently nor did they
into a single bonfire. Only three weeks later, an Italian division returned initiate the serious war crimes that stained the soil of Serbia in the late
to put down the uprising and to tum loose their allies, the largely fall of 1941. Instead, according to recent scholarship, Wehrmacht
Turkish Sandiak Muslims, to loot and bum. Djilas himself has instructions and a largely Austrian contingent of local German com-
described how the retreating Partisans now summarily executed any manders bore that responsibility. 14
opponents, after merely punishing them in July, 13 German army units, recalled explicitly to stop the attacks and destroy
Word of these arbitrary executions encouraged Partisan desertions the rebel forces, launched the new round of war crimes. By September
and swelled the ranks of the Chetnik units that regrouped with Italian an infantry division and an armored unit had arrived, further armed
approval across Montenegro and also eastern Hercegovina by early with a new directive from the Wehrtnacht's High Command that 100
1942. Although the three major groups of Montenegrin Chetniks were civilians were to be executed for every German soldier killed in the
all commanded by officers from the former Yugoslav army, they did future and 50 for each one wounded. Partisan attacks and attendant
not constitute a unified force. Only the eastern commander, Pavle killings continued into October despite advertised reprisals. General
Djurisic, was openly pro-Mihailovic and was probably in contact with Franz Bohme, the former Habsburg officer who was the German army
Chetnik headquarters in Serbia. But rather than pursue any coordin- commander for Serbia, decided to set a still harsher example. At Kraljevo
 T World war and civil war, 1941-1945

and Kragujevac, German and Vojvodina Volksdeutsche units, supported

by Serbian State Guards, cordoned off the towns in order to execute all
the adult males. When too few adults could be found in Kragujevac on
October 21, schoolboys were taken as well to swell the total past 2,000.
217

They were marched to a field outside of town_, lined up in rows, and

shot down the next morning. "Go ahead and shoot," said an elderly
school teacher, "I am conducting my class."
The massacre was a watershed. It occurred just a few days before
the arrival of the first British officer to reach the Mihailovic headquarters
at Ravna Gora, Captain William Hudson of the Special Operations
Expedition (SOE), and one week before Mihailovic's second and last
meeting with Tito. The slaughter of so many Serbs reinforced
MihailoviC's resistance to the Communist strategy of consciously pro-
voking German reprisals in order to drive survivors into the hills and
into their ranks. Mihailovic's instructions from London and his own
instincts were to husband his resources and Serbian lives until Ger-
many had been defeated or at least until a new Salonika front was
established, as it had been in the First World War. Hudson's arrival
confirmed his expectation that British arms would help him prepare for
that distant day. Only Tito's promise to share the arms already being
produced at the Partisan headquarters in U.Zice in the southwest per-
suaded MihailoviC to sign a tentative agreement at least to avoid con-
flict with one another. But several clashes scuttled the agreement by the
end of October.
The German field commanders took no notice of this division and
pressed ahead with reinforcements sufficient to destroy all active resist-
ance. In the process, they executed some 25,000 civilians. MihailoviC
understandably concluded that his force of less than 20,000 men, ill-
armed and in scattered units, could not survive against a larger, far
better equipped German force. By November 11, 1941, he initiated
talks with German representatives to negotiate a modus vivendi. But
when the Germans demanded total surrender, he abandoned his head-
quarters and scattered his forces still further. This genuine weakness
and the passive strategy it encouraged escaped British notice. So did
the fact, then and later, that no British arms ever reached Chetnik
forces inside Serbia itself. Churchill's commanders were still ready to
believe what the Yugoslav government-in-exile told them about Mihailovic
and were eager to trumpet any evidence of resistance inside Hitler's
Europe. MihailoviC was thus able to maintain the image, in Walter
Robert's words, of "AHied Hero" through 1942. 15 He was presumed to
control the Chetnik forces in Hercegovina and Montenegro discussed
above, and they were assumed to be fighting the Axis occupiers.
218 Yugoslavia as History World war and civil war, 1941-1945 219

The German offensive had meanwhile forced Tito and his main force troops into the region and onto their trail. Simply by escaping them,
of barely 10,000 men and women to abandon Uiice for FoCa in eastern Tito won more local and Allied support than by pursuing the civil war
Bosnia at the end of 1941. There they barely survived the second of with the Chetniks into which the disconnected brutalities of 1942 were
what would be seven German assaults by 1944. By the end oj/4'942, drawing him. And at war's end, there would be no Western forces on
however, a reversal of fortune and reputation had begun. the ground to contend with or to prevent the settling of local scores.
/ The road to Communist power by 1945 could never have been traveled
even under these circumstances had the Partisan forces not grown in
Communist advantages, 1943-1944
size, unity, and, to a lesser extent, in popular support from 1943. At the
That reversal has generated much more controversy than any other same time, the Chetniks lost followers outside of Serbia, and the U staSa
aspect of the Second World War in Yugoslavia. The continuing debate regime forfeited effective control of most NDH territory outside of
derives not only from the greater availability of primary evidence, much Zagreb. In addition, Communist leadership of a Slovenian uprising
of it in English, but also from the temptation of anti-Communist Ser- against the Italianization measures of 1941 was able to sustain the one
bian and Croatian authors to assume that British and later American united opposition front anywhere in the former Yugoslavia, even after
policy must have been decisive in the rise of this small Communist disunited rivals appeared in 1943.
pany. After all, it received no assistance from the Soviet Union until a Ranking the several sources of Communist strength in Slovenia and
small military mission arrived in February 1944 and none of signifi- elsewhere, the Churchill government's decision to abandon MihailoviC
cance until the Red Anny entered Serbia from Bulgaria that September. in favor of Tito was not high on the list. Some British studies of the
Surely, the argument ran, the British government's decision in 1943 to Special Operations Executive (SOE) have blamed its Cairo headquarters
switch its support from MihailoviC to Tito and the increasing flow of for Communist sympathies that denied Mihailovic a fair hearing. Others
American supplies to the Partisans in 1944 was crucial. But the weigbt have argued that London Conservatives prevented earlier support to the
of Western scholarship suggests that it was not. more active Partisan units. Both biases existed, but neither one could
Neither was Allied policy irrelevant. Let us sketch its main features eliminate the other nor overcome the evidence from both electronic
and their consequences before turning to the internal developments intelligence and SOE missions on the ground - nearly twenty by the end
that proved to be decisive. Churchill's government was responsible for of 1943 - that the Partisans were doing more damage to the German war
Anglo-American planning in Southeastern Europe and he himself effort. Brigadier Fitzroy Maclean, a Conservative friend of Churchill's,
enthused on several occasions about the possibility of an Allied landing dispatched the testimony on November 6 that was decisive only because
on the Dalmatian coast. Each time, however, his general staff and the it confirmed what Ultra decoding of top secret German military messages
American command quickly persuaded him to stick to the strategy was revealing. 17
agreed on in 1943. That strategy, for Greece as well as Yugoslavia, was Nor could the quarrelsome and increasingly ineffective Yugoslav
to promote the deception that there would indeed be such an invasion government-in-exile command the respect necessary to override that
in order to divert German troops away from first Sicily and then Italy. evidence. The exiled government's decision to promote MihailoviC to
And it worked. Successive deceptions convinced not only Hitler but general and minister of war in January 1942 enabled the civilian cabinet
also Tito, MihailoviC, and the Greek resistance leaders that a landing in to dispense with a military candidate for prime minister, namely the
great force was pending. In fact, as Churchill told the Commonwealth difficult General Simovic, leader of the 1941 coup and sponsor of an
(then Dominion) leaders whose troops were heavily involved in Medi- effort to remove the members of the pre-coup General Staff in Cairo.
terranean operations, in May 1944, "there had never been any question But no significant military force could be assembled in Cairo or Lon-
of major action in the Balkans." 16 don. The new prime minister was the much respected but 72-year-old
Allied strategy as perceived at the time encouraged Mihailovic and and politically inexperienced Slobodan Jovanovic. He could not prevent
worried Tito. Would there be an Anglo-American military presence in the feckless young king, Petar II, from pushing him out just as he,
Yugoslavia during (and then presumably after) the war? In the event, Jovanovic, had persuaded his Serbian colleagues to accept a federal
the wartime deception that the Western allies were preparing to come reorganization of Yugoslavia after the war. By August 1943, the king
inadvertently worked to Communist advantage by drawing more German had installed his personal cabinet of civil servants, not because they
220 Yugoslavia as History

disapproved of reorganization, but because they would approve of his

pending marriage. Churchill also approved, but the king was too iso-
lated by 1944 to claim that he represented a political consensus ven
r
.
.

World war and civil war, 1941-1945

representatives that March. According to Walter Roberts and now Djilas

himself, the Communists were ready to accept a cease fire with the
Germans in return for a free hand against the Chemiks; according to a
221

11
among the exiles. To cite the sympathetic appraisal of Stevan Pavl<)Witch, German participant, they even considered an alliance in the event of a
"\Vhatever the Yugoslav government represented, it was not 911ity." 18 large British landing on the Adriatic coast. 19 Hitler would have none of
British disillusionment with Mihailovic first surfaced in February 1943. such bargaining, and it went no further.
He berated British officers for London's failure to supply him with the Then in September 1943, Italy left the war. This third turning point
arms he had requested or to understand his reasons for not attacking went beyond the Italian equipment that fell into Partisan hands. Italian
German targets more often. SOE mission chief S. W. Bailey, who had commanders had already decided that summer to abandon their own
only reached the Montenegrin headquarters two months before, radioed alliance with the Chetniks, going so far as to disarm a number of units.
out a verbatim transcript that made it all the way to Churchill's desk. This decision caused more Chetniks to defect to the Partisans and
The Mihailovic tirade triggered a reaction that followed accumulating guaranteed that there would be no Italian effort to tum over arms and
evidence of some Chetnik units collaborating with Italian or even Ger- equipment to the Chetniks when their divisions departed in September.
man forces and, more important, of almost no Chetnik units disrupting By the aurumn of 1943, Tito's forces had grown sufficiently to make
them. It is doubtful, however, that these reports, many of them from further bargaining with the Germans unlikely. As the Italian windfall
Partisan sources passed on to the admitted British Communist, James compensated for limited Anglo-American supplies, the Partisans' total
Klugman, and other sympathizers in SOE, would have reversed British strength now swelled past 100,000 to face a German force that had
policy by the end of 1943 if not for three decisive events on the ground, doubled to thirteen divisions.
all detailed for Anglo-American intelligence by Ultra intercepts. The Partisans' survival and ascendancy in 1943 combined with the
First, the main Partisan force of some 25,000 men survived Opera- Allied offensives of 1944 to settle the outcome of the Second World
tion Weiss, the largest of the seven German-led offensives against them War in Yugoslavia. By the end of 1943, Mihailovic had retreated to
during the war. They endured heavy losses in heroically crossing and Serbia, where his total force of 50,000 had to strike a variety of arrange-
recrossing the Neretva river to escape German units from Sarajevo and ments with the German occupiers to remain in place. Tito's force of
then scattered a Chetnik force of 12,000 that awaited them. From this twice that number stood behind his decision to convene a second meet-
point forward, the Partisan forces from Bosnia to Montenegro began to ing of the Anti-Fascist Liberation Movement for Yugoslavia (AVNOJ).
attract new members, some from the Chetnik side. (Had the Chetniks It had assembled on a much slimmer base in Bihac the year before.
succeeded against the Partisans in that battle, they would have faced Now on November 29, 1943, his 143 delegates set up a provisional
disarmament at German hands.) government at Jajce in central Bosnia. He proclaimed a National Com-
The next German offensive was Operation Schwarz. In May an amal- mittee for the Liberation of Yugoslavia. Bill Deakin looked on without
gam of German, Bulgarian, Italian, and UstaSa units whose numbers a Soviet observer present or prior approval from Moscow. The Jajce
exceeded 100,000 tried to pin Tito's main force, barely 20,000 men, program denounced the royal government and proposed a federal struc-
against the Zelengora mountain in southeastern Bosnia. Again they ture that would include separate units for Bosnia-Hercegovina and
escaped, although the massacre of their rear guard and their wounded Macedonia plus minority rights for Albanians and others. The objec-
at Sutjeska brought total losses for the engagement to 6,500. Zelengora tions of MoSa Pijade and other Serbs to a Bosnian republic were over-
became a second turning point because Ultra intercepts allowed a Brit- come, but not to the extent of recognizing the Bosnian Muslims as a
ish mission led by a friend of Churchill's, F. W. (Bill) Deakin, to arrive constituent group. In order to understand what sort of Yugoslavia they
precisely in time to witness it all, including some belated Chemik aid to would actually begin to govern and reshape simultaneously less than a
the offensive. Reports like Deakin's of German divisions being diverted year later, let us look briefly at the separate legacies left to Slovenia,
to pursue the Partisans began to accumulate. Still, this intelligence Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and Serbia by the final stages of the war.
might not have persuaded the British to switch their support to Tito if These legacies would return to haunt Tito's Yugoslavia after his death
they had known of his lieutenant Milovan Djilas' contact with German and help to destroy it.
 ,..,
222 Yugoslavia as History World war and civil war, 1941-1945 223
I
vived in Zagreb until May 1945 because the German army needed to
Slovenia
protect its line of retreat. To the last, Archbishop Stepinac and the
The most benign of the legacies was Slovenia's. Barely two wee~j after Catholic hierarchy made no public statement disavowing the UstaSa
half of Slovenia was annexed to Italy and the other half puta)ii(,ely to regime, despite the above-mentioned private protests and efforts to
Germany, the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union in June /freed the protect threatened individuals. The archbishop even celebrated the
Slovenian Communist Party to form a Liberation Front (OF) for resist- regime's fourth anniversary with Te Deums on April 10. No Kocbek
ance. Repressive Italianization in the southern zone and a Nazi plan to stepped forward to suggest an agreement with the Communists or any
deport over one-quarter million Slovenes from the north to make room need to try Franciscan zealots or others for war crimes. First Commu-
for German immigrants fanned popular resentment. Fewer than 20,000 nist politicians and then Serbian historians would use the unredeemed
Slovenes were eventually forced to leave for Serbia or Bosnia, but 35,000 record of the NDH to question any postwar initiative, however unre-
were sent to the Reich for "Germanization." In any case, the German lated, from Croatian politicians or clergy.
military presence was too formidable to challenge quickly in the north. While its early war crimes left scars that would be slow to heal, the
But, in the south, a Communist leadership experienced in underground NDH's later loss of control makes other issues equally impottant for
activity was able to attract followers from the larger Christian Social the creation of the second Yugoslavia. These were (1) the economic
Party and Sokol youth organization. Italian forces put down their upris- catastrophe that the NOH precipitated in Croatia; (2) the rise of the
ing during the summer of 1941, executing 9,000 Slovenes and impris- separate Croatian Communist liberation front; and (3) the choices that
oning 35,000 more in concentration camps. These abuses helped draw Bosnian Muslims made between the Partisans and the belated Nazi
in more members over the next two years. effort to win the allegiance forfeited by the NOH.
Italian and then German reprisals against resisting Slovenian villages The economic incompetence and corruption of the U staSa cadre
opened the way for Mihailovic's one effort to win non-Serbs to the soon derailed Nazi plans to include Croatia in the greater German
Chetnik banner. Both his Blue Guards and Italian-sponsored White economy (Grossraumwirtschaft). By 1943, according to the authoritative
Guards were able to assemble some units during 1943-44. Their num- study by Holm Sundhaussen, both sides received far less than they had
bers plus those of the Slovenian People's Party (SLS) units slightly bargained for. 21 The problems went beyond the Partisans' disruption of
outnumbered the Communist-led Liberation Front in 1943, even after transport, largely confined to Bosnia and Dalmatia before 1944. Ustasa
the acquisition of Italian arms boosted the Partisan ranks from 2,500 to officials could not deliver to Germany the promised quantities of baux-
6,000. But the Partisans' greater unity and clearer purpose gave them ite and other non-ferrous metals. They could not collect the grain
the advantage before the general tide of battle turned. The high point needed to feed the smaller towns, despite their effort to seize the re-
of the Front's unity came at the AVNOJ congress at Jajce in 1943. The cently expanded cooperative network of the Croatian Peasant Party
Christian socialist leader of SLS, dissident Eduard Kocbek, spoke elo- (HSS) and use it for that purpose. Their trade deficit with the Third
quently there of "Communists and Catholics working together." Their Reich added to a rate of inflation that by 1943 had reduced the kuna, a
uneasy alliance lasted through the war, encouraged in 1944 by the one medieval denomination resurrected to distinguish it from the Yugoslav
American mission to take a leading role on the Partisan side. A small dinar, to less than 10 percent of its 1941 value. By year's end, industrial
OSS unit worked successfully with the Slovene Partisans of Styria to production had dropped to 20 percent of its prewar level. Only the one-
destroy the only double-track rail line connecting central Germany quarter million Croatians who worked at one time or another in the
through Vienna with the Italian front via the Ljubljana Gap. 20 Reich itself made a significant contribution to the German war effort.
Croatian opposition to a regime that had done nothing good for
anyone, except its 50,000 UstaSa officials and officers, grew apace in
Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina
1943-44. The passive policies of Macek and other HSS leaders who
The Independent State of Croatia (NOH) left larger footprints across had not gone over to the Ustasa left the Partisans to benefit. Italian
the last years of the Second World War than its limited territorial annexation of Dalmatia allowed local Communists to attract Croats
authority or its subordinate role in fighting the Partisans might suggest. and Serbs to a Partisan force of a few thousand. From a largely Dalma-
Nor was this because of widespread popular support. The Ustasa sur- tian contingent that was perhaps 10 percent of the 20,000 Pattisans in
224 Yugoslavia as History

1942, the Croatian share had grown by early 1944 to some 30 percent
r
-, ,!',' ,._,
a', :-"-

World war and civil war, 1941-1945

plement, and the subordinate State Guards of General NediC main-

225

of a total exceeding 100,000. Party leader Andrija Hebrang and his tained order only by executing several hundred people every month
lieutenants attracted this wider support by emphasizing the seprrate under the OKW reprisal order of 1941. Occupation costs were six
structure of the Croatian Liberation Council (ZAVNOH). The 96uncil times the per capita amount of those levied on the NDH. Little meat
dated from the same Bihac conference of 1942 that had f01y1ded the reached Belgrade after the middle of 1943, while the inflation rate was
all-Yugoslav AVNOJ. Tito had authorized ZA VNOH to disguise its 50 percent more than Zagreb's high level. Forced labor extracted only
connection to a Communist resistance that was 90 percent Serb and half of prewar production of lead from Trepca and copper from Bor.
Montenegrin at the start. Hebrang pushed the distinction hard through Over 100,000 laborers were taken to the Reich, constituting Serbia's
the rest of the war. By May 1944, he had proclaimed ZA \/NOH to be main contribution to the German war effort. The mid-1943 mission
the reincarnated Croatian Sabor, promising more autonomy after the of Hitler's new Balkan emissary, the former I.G. Farben executive,
war than the 1939 Sporazum had offered from "the Serb clique from Hermann Neubacher, eased reprisals as part of a new anti-Communist
Belgrade." Although Hebrang made some effort to reassure the Serb campaign, but made no economic concessions or other improvements. 24
population, he spoke too much of forthcoming Croatian autonomy and The Neubacher mission did succeed by the end of 1943 in drawing
"his own telegraph agency," in Tito's words. By the summer of 1944, Mihailovic's commanders in Serbia into negotiating with the Germans.
Tito removed him as ZAVNOH leader. 22 They reached agreements for four zones where Chetnik forces could at
Bosnian Muslim losses occurred primarily at Chetnik hands but least survive as long as they stayed isolated in rural areas. As 1944
increasingly from UstaSa units. In 1942, several Muslim leaders sent a began, the beleaguered Chetnik movement and a bewildered Mihailovic
memorandum to Hitler protesting UstaSa depredations and touting their convened a large congress at Ba where he tried to stem the tum to
own Gothic origins. Their offer of a Bosnian Muslim Legion in return collaboration. Still loyal to the monarchy, Mihailovic now advocated a
for autonomy within the NDH (and protection from the Nedic federal and democratic Yugoslavia. He set aside the homogeneous Great
regime's announced claim on eastern Bosnia) remained a dead letter Serbia which Moljevic had posited in 1941, but offered no detailed
until SS chief Heinrich Himmler took it up, as another of his belated proposal for a federal alternative. Nor did Mihailovic oppose the Chetnik
efforts to raise new, non-German divisions. The PaveliC regime viol- truces with German forces that soon covered all of Serbia.
ently objected to such a division, despite the absence of any German By September 1944, Anglo-American planes had been bombing Bel-
promise of Muslim autonomy. The HandZar, or Scimitar Division, did grade for six months, and the Red Army entered Bulgaria unopposed.
assemble at least 12,000 men. But they were quickly dispatched for a As Tito's main force of 80,000 approached from Bosnia, Mihailovic
long training period in France and Germany, distinguished mainly by a could now muster barely half that number. Most were from Serbia,
mutiny. When they finally returned to Bosnia in February 1944, some in contrast to a Partisan force with disproportionate numbers of
units carried out enough indiscriminate murder and other atrocities Montenegrins, Bosnian Muslims, and Bosnian and Croatian Serbs in
against Serb villagers to surpass what the Schutzkorps had done in the their ranks. Chetnik defectors were already joining the Partisans before
First World War. Yet more Bosnian Muslims had joined the Partisans Mihailovic's last surreal gamble, to greet the Red Army in Belgrade and
directly or defected from the division by mid-1944 than had committed join forces, failed in early October. King Petar had acceded to British
war crimes on the German side, and a slightly greater percentage of demands the month before and broadcast a radio appeal for all Yugo-
Muslims died during the war than did Bosnian Serbs. 23 None of this slavs to support the Partisans. Also in September, President Roosevelt
would matter by the 1990s to the descendants of the dead villagers or accepted Churchill's request that the ambiguous OSS mission led by
to the Bosnian Serb politicians who played on their memories. Robert McDowell be withdrawn from Mihailovic's headquarters. It had
arrived in July to evacuate US airmen who had bailed out over Serbia
when their planes could not make it back from bombing the Ploe~ti oil
Serbia
refineries in Romania. This they did, but with enough sympathy for the
The Serbia to which Draza Mihailovic returned in mid-1943 had seen Chetniks to convince Tito that the Americans were providing MihailoviC
less actual warfare, but suffered more at Nazi hands than any other part with weapons. While the Americans inadvertently stiffened Chetnik
of the former Yugoslavia. Two German divisions, a large Gestapo com- resolve, they did not augment the capacity of MihailoviC's units to offer
226 Yugoslavia as Hisrory \Vorld war and civil war, 1941-1945 227

more than scattered resistance to the Partisan forces that entered Bel- By the end of 1945, a newly elected Constituent Assembly, in which
grade on October 20. 25 the Communists' National Front held all the seats, swept aside the
Tito had been busy in the meantime. Following a close escape f;-om provisional coalition that included Subasic. Despite a political monopoly,
a German attack on his Drvar headquarters in May 1944, a ~tish Tito and his inner circle devoted considerable attention to striking a
plane bore him to the island of Vis and then in August to Italy;,AJready workable ethnic balance. The new internal borders they fixed and com-
resplendent in a uniform worthy of the marshal's rank he had adopted, pensating movements of populations they proposed would trouble the
the former Josip Broz drew on the Habsburg manners to which he was second Yugoslavia but mainly after Tito's death.
attracted as a young worker in Prague and Vienna to impress his hosts
with his "rm-Balkan" respectability. Meetings with the British army
Settling civil war accounts
command and Churchill also established his political acumen. Tito left
political plans for postwar Yugoslavia and for the king artfully vague, The Tito regime made its first pnonty for 1945 the defeat of the
but denied any intention to install a Communist government. He de- domestic military forces still arrayed against it. The bulk of surviving
clared himself ready instead to work with the new head of the London Chetnik units from Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia were concentrated
government, Ivan SubaSiC. They would arrange a democratic postwar under Mihailovic's command in eastern Bosnia, but they split up in
transition on the basis of the Jajce program, just as the two of them had March. Montenegrin units under Pavle DjuriSiC headed for Slovenia to
agreed during their June meeting on Vis. join the last stand that the fascist Dimitrije Ljotic and his small Serbian
Stalin was less impressed with Tito's bearing and claims of domestic Volunteer Corps were organizing there with Slovenian Blue Guards
support than were the British leaders. He nonetheless acceded to Tito's and Croatian or Bosnian Serb Chetniks. Most never made it through
request that the main Partisan force liberate Belgrade along with the Red German or Ustasa lines. Mihailovic and some 12,000 men headed
Anny. He also promised to provide arms for twelve Partisan divisions by south. But in May 1945, before they could reach Serbia, Partisan army
the end of 1944, thus ending the dependence on Anglo-American aid. and now air forces trapped them against the same Zelengora mountain
The Partisan leader's secret trip from Vis to Moscow in September re- from which Tito's troops had barely escaped less than two years before.
minded Western policy makers that they were still dealing with a Com- Mihailovic and a few survivors eluded capture until March 1946, but
munist. By November 1944, that clever Communist and his colleagues his capacity for military resistance was finished. Meanwhile, the pursuit
were in Belgrade while the Red Army had moved north into Hungary, in of individual Chetnik supporters, strongest in eastern Bosnia and
hot pursuit of German forces who were not ready to make a serious stand Hercegovina and western Serbia, justified the rapid growth and un-
until Budapest. In contrast to the rest of Eastern Europe, neither the Red checked authority of the Partisans' wartime security service. Tito told
Army nor Soviet political supervision would be decisive in the consol- Aleksandar Rankovic, the head of the Organization for the Peoples'
idation of Communist power that founded the second Yugoslavia. Defense (OZNa), that its wider purpose was "to strike terror into the
hearts of those who did not like this sort of Yugoslavia." Mihailovic's
show trial from June into July of 1946 allowed the regime's prosecutor
Consolidating Communist power, 1945
to add previous members of the London government, even Slobodan
The Partisans' heroic survival, multi-ethnic composition, and promised JovanoviC, to the list of those accused. The "whirlwind of events and
federal program allowed the KPJ to consolidate postwar power even in strivings" that MihailoviC lamented in a last, dignified statement before
the absence of Soviet troops. Tito adopted a ruthlessly Stalinist and his execution swept perhaps 100,000 people to their deaths during
centralizing set of tactics to seize that chance. Even then, such tactics 1945-46. 26
might not have succeeded but for the justification that settling wartime An unrecorded number, surely tens of thousands, died in the one
accounts and repairing wartime devastation provided. The execution or other significant military campaign waged by the new People's Army
trial of wartime opponents, all painted in the villainous black that only after the Red Army and the retreating Germans had taken the Second
the Croatian UstaSa and LjotiC's smaller Serbian movement deserved, World War out of Yugoslavia. Italian-controlled Albania had incorpor-
set a precedent for the intimidation or arrest of all political opponents. ated Kosovo after the destruction of Yugoslavia in 1941. The Kosovar
228 Yugoslavia as History World war and civil war, 1941-1945 229

Albanians had already proved to be the most difficult minority for Bleiburg and Kocevski Rog, acts never acknowledged officially until the
Tito's Communists to coopt, Germans aside. In early 1944, a Kosovar last years of the second Yugoslavia.
contingent of the Albanian nationalist Balli Kombetar as well a~,.the Judicial proceedings also played a significant, officially trumpeted
Nazis' hastily formed Skenderbeg SS Division had conducted a re;i!n of role in the Communist consolidation of power in Croatia. By June
terror against any Serbs they found in Kosovo or Montenegroyforcing 1945, trials began with the well-deserved conviction of leading figures
another 10,000 to flee. Even Kosovar Communists, most of them by from the Jasenovac death camp and those Ustasa leaders who had not
now Albanians, had endorsed postwar union with a Communist Alba- escaped to Germany or Italy. The trials quickly grew to include a
nia at the end of 1943 in a controversial meeting in Bujan, just across significant number of Catholic priests, some of whom were guilty of
the prewar Albanian border. Tito disavowed such a union, but Serbian forced conversions and war crimes. Archbishop Stepinac and other
historians in the 1980s would hold the meeting itself against him. Later high churchmen insisted on their own innocence and pointed to their
in 1944 Tito sent Svetozar Vukmanovic-Tempo bearing vague prom- success in saving, among others, several thousand children of Serbs and
ises of some sort of Balkan federation to win support in Kosovo and Partisans. Stepinac had none the less made too many public gestures
Macedonia. But too many of the Kosovar Albanians who were not implying support for the NDH for his authority to survive unless he
Communists feared that Tito's Yugoslavia and his promised federation accepted the Communist regime with open enthusiasm. This was be-
would simply reimpose Serbian control. They launched an armed re- yond him, let alone taking Tito's hints that he make the Croatian
bellion against Partisan authority from Drenica to the Albanian border church independent of the Vatican or that he simply leave the country.
in December 1944. The revolt spread as far northeast as the Trepca As new measures for civil marriage, the inclusion of church property in
lead mines and escalated into fierce banles for a number of towns. the land reform, and limits on Catholic schools and press cascaded
Army and OZNa units brought in some 30,000 men but were not able down on the Croatian church, Stepinac responded openly with more
to extinguish resistance until the summer of 1945. 27 and harsher criticism than any he had directed at Ustasa leader Ante
For Kosovo there followed a repressive regime based on a small PaveliC. 28 His own trial and conviction became inevitable.
Communist core that remained in place under Serbian or Albanian If the evidence of his responsibility for the crimes of the lower clergy
leadership throughout the second Yugoslavia. Tito initially barred the is still in dispute, the results of his conviction are not. His November
return of interwar Serb colonists, some of them Chetniks, but also 1946 sentence to prison, later commuted to house arrest until his death
others who had simply fled for their lives. Partisans or their supporters in 1960, barred him and the Catholic hierarchy from any role in shap-
were to be given homesteads in the Vojvodina or their native region as ing the second Yugoslavia. Requirements for teaching licenses cut away
part of a new colonization program described in the next section. The the church's presence in Croatia's system of education. Perhaps most
Kosovo ban, however, soon turned into a program that allowed a min- important, many Serbs remained certain of his guilt and many Croats
ority of the interwar colonists to return. Nor did the Tito regime give presumed his innocence, transforming the issue of Catholic religious
local Albanian Communists much authority, nor did it open the border rights into an ethnic dispute open to later exploitation.
to massive migration from Albania. Perhaps 25,000 had come between
1941 and 1948.
Internal borders and an early election
Croatia and Slovenia suffered the largest death toll accompanying the
Communist consolidation of power. The UstaSa and Slovenian White Tito's Communist Party and Partisan army were well positioned to
Guard or Chetnik units who had surrendered directly to the Partisans consolidate political power during the course of 1945. They were simply
in April-May of 1945 or were handed back by the British army were not prepared to tolerate legal opposition or a critical press, whatever
executed out of hand. Many members of the much less accountable their anti-fascist credentials. Strong credentials were hard to come by in
Croatian Home Army (Domobran) and Slovenian Village Guard were Croatia, where the one large democratic party from the prewar period,
caught up in this supremely unjudicial process, although the majority the HSS, had fractured badly during the war. Many leaders and
survived in detention camps. Upwards of 30,000 people, guilty of col- supporters had gone over to the Ustasa or to the Partisans. Party
laboration but not war crimes, were shot in the Slovenian forests at chief Vladko Macek had done neither, but said little before choosing
11

230 Yugoslavia as History

r
',_ .:,
..:..:':
.. ,.,.'.'
'
World war and civil war, 1941-1945 231

emigration over likely arrest by zealous Croatian Communists. The re- by the end of September. He tried to continue publishing Demokrauja,
maining HSS democrats tried to rally around Marija Radii:, the widow pointing out the irony of Communists doing to opponents before these
of party icon Stjepan Radii:, but they faced opposition from Tito's elections what had been done to them after the 1920 balloting for a
coalition partner, their own colleague Ivan SubaSiC, as well/ from Constituent Assembly (see chapter 4). Belgrade Communists organized
the Croatian Communist Party and its powerful ZA VNOH )'pparatus. a student attack on the paper's offices and used a printers' boycott to
Subasic clung to the belief that he could preserve a separate HSS stop publication several weeks before the election.
identity within a Communist-led coalition. The only way to express opposition in the subsequent balloting was
In Serbia the leaders of the three surviving parties were ready to join to check the "box without a list" that posed no alternative candidates.
in creating a new Yugoslavia, even one without the monarchy. They Republican leader Jasa Prodanovii: had originally suggested it, but Tito's
never had a chance either, as the seminal post-Tito critique of Vojislav lieutenant Edvard Kardelj fastened upon the device once the United
Kostunica and Kosta Cavoski made clear to Serbian readers during the Opposition withdrew. In the elections for the new Federal Chamber,
1980s. 29 Slovenia recorded the highest share of "empty box votes," 16.8 per-
Serbia's Democratic, Republican, and Agrarian Parties faced a Com- cent, followed by the Vojvodina with 14.6, Serbia with 11.4, and Croatia
munist Party of Yugoslavia whose membership had risen by 1945 to a with 8.5. Only in Serbia were there a large number of outright absten-
formidable 140,000. The previous December, its leadership had adroitly tions, 20.8 percent, thus reducing the fraction of eligibles who voted for
transformed the wartime National Liberation Front into a new the National Front to 68.3 percent. Even that figure was enough for
I
National Front that would contest the elections to the constituent the Communists to trumpet the result as a mandate to shape a new
I I
assembly in place of the KPJ. By September 1945, Tito's AVNOJ Yugoslavia to their desires. The Communists received a somewhat less
delegates and a separate Croatian Republican Peasant Party, set up by convincing mandate in balloting for the Chamber of Nationalities, with
Partisan supporters to exclude poor SubaSiC and his few representa- 10-20 percent opting for the empty box except in Bosnia-Hercegovina,
tives, dominated the Provisional Assembly. It confirmed the election Macedonia, and Montenegro.
date for November 11, barely six months after Partisan forces had A new set of internal borders was needed to replace the controversial
secured the western regions. Their struggles had salvaged some honor and inconsistent set of 1941 - basically an enlarged, confederal Croatia
and hope from a disastrous war, and their Communist leadership bene- and an indeterminate Serbia still supported by a country-wide monarchy.
fited from much genuine support. Now the monarchy stood no chance of regaining its authority. Tito and
11 While the elections themselves were fairly conducted by secret ballot, the AVNOJ delegates had already determined that there would be
the campaign that preceded them was a travesty of democratic practice. six republics, with a separate Macedonia, Montenegro, and Bosnia-
!1
I,'I
In Croatia, Communist election officials simply struck huge numbers of Hercegovina joining Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. The fact if not the
eligible voters from the rolls on grounds of wartime Ustasa activity. In form of Kosovo and the Vojvodina's adjunct status to Serbia would
Slavonia the fraction approached 40 percent. Marija Radii: was able to presumably bar a return to interwar administration from Belgrade.
publish only one edition of an independent HSS newspaper before it Bosnia-Hercegovina had the one set of entirely internal borders. Well
was banned. In Serbia, where less than S percent of voters were ex- established before the First World War, they were reaffirmed with the
cluded, the fate of the largest opposition party and the one opposition addition ofNeum to provide an outlet to the Adriatic. The only borders
newspaper is instructive. The editor of Demokratija, Milan Grol, also of the new Macedonia republic, proclaimed in August 1944, to raise
headed the Democratic Party and the United Opposition, which to- controversy were those with Bulgaria and Greece. Tito had initially
gether with Agrarians and Radicals entered the 1945 campaign. His proposed to incorporate the Pirin region on the Bulgarian side, and many
prewar views on Bosnia and Macedonia as Serbian patrimonies left him Greeks worried that their Aegean region was also to be included. 30
open to justified criticism, as did his postwar failure to reach out to Slovenia saw its western border expanded to include ethnic fellows
non-Communists in Croatia. Yet the Communist press tarred Grol as a previously under Fascist Italy, if not the largely Italian port of Trieste that
figurehead for "fascist t!migre"s" and warned his supporters that "the Tito also coveted. Although the Pirin question would persist until 1948
people cannot stand idly by." More explicit physical threats followed. and the Italian border would be disputed until 1954 (see chapter 8),
Grol and his United Opposition withdrew from the campaign in protest the internal borders of two other republics posed longer-term problems.
 232 Yugoslavia as Hiswry

The borders fixed for Croatia and Montenegro drew the Communist
leadership into ethnic adjudication that would openly be held against
them by the 1980s. 31 Absorbing the larger part of the Istrian Peninsula 8 Founding the second Yugoslavia,
from Italy made Croatia a net gainer, but condemned the j5o,OOO 1946-1953
Italians living there to an effective if largely bloodless c~paign of
ethnic cleansing that began in 1945 and continued into the early 1950s.
That gain was seen as compensating Croatia for a loss further down
the Adriatic coast. A largely Montenegrin population up to the Bay of
Kotor on the southern end of the historically Dalmatian coast justified
the bay's award to Montenegro, which also received the largest part of
the Sandfak of Novi Pazar and its minority of Turkish Muslims. His- What sort of state emerged from the limited popular mandate of the
torically and ethnically, the Sandiak was closer to Bosnia-Hercegovina, Partisan war effort and the unlimited power left in Communist hands
but the disproportionate role of the Montenegrin Partisans in the Sec- at the end of the war? It was easy to make the second Yugoslavia a
ond World War made their republic the safer custodian of this volatile republic. Communist representatives of the Popular Front dominated
region for the Communist regime. the newly elected Constituent Assembly. It convened in Belgrade on
Finally there was the border between Croatia and the Vojvodina. Its November 29, 1945, a date chosen to mark the second anniversary of
large German minority had fled, but an equally large and presumably AVNOJ's proclamation of a provisional Partisan government in Jajce.
unreconciled Hungarian minority was still in place. In June 1945, Tito The delegates voted unanimously to abolish the monarchy, ending the
appointed Milovan Djilas to preside over a commission specially charged regency of the exiled King Petar II, in whose name Tito had ruled as
with drawing that border. Its northern and southern reaches were trouble- prime minister since March. The new Federal People's Republic of
some. To the north, the population of the Subotica area bordering Yugoslavia (SNRJ) now took its place.
Hungary was largely Hungarian or bunjevci Catholics, who by this time The second Yugoslavia had precisely rwice as much time as the first
considered themselves Croatian. Yet the area was deemed too sensitive to establish itself. Its birth was as bloody as the first. Like the First
for Serbia and too important to Communist plans for new colonization World War, it cost nearly 2 million dead and unborn, if all of the likely
to be cut off from Belgrade. In the south, the long-Habsburg but largely losses of 1945-46 are added to those of the Second World War. The
Serb Srem had been given to the Croatian banate under the 1939 international environment after 1945 proved to be more favorable, be-
Sporazum, much to the indignation of Serb nationalists. Now it was ginning with the addition of the Istrian peninsula from Italy. The new
fatefully divided. Counties from Vukovar and Borovo north went to federation nonetheless failed to survive the collapse of the Soviet bloc,
Croatia and several southern counties to Serbia. In the middle of from which it had spent virtually the entire postwar period differentiat-
Croatia's share was what Branko PetranoviC has called a Serbian oasis. ing itself. This chapter explores one major source of that post-1989
Yet neither it nor the several larger Serb areas in Croatia received any breakup. Yugoslavia as a socialist federation simply did not change as
separate standing. Tito had long since rejected MoSa Pijade's wartime much during the formative period from 1946 to 1953 as its theories of
suggestion that one or more autonomous Serb regions be created in the local democracy and workers' self-management promised. The initial
new Croatian republic. Ethnic reconciliation might be better served, intent was simply to follow the Soviet model, where a hierarchical party
Djilas argued in 1945, by moving the capital from Belgrade to Sarajevo. apparatus controlled a fictional federation and pursued rapid devel-
The other party leaders quickly rejected the suggestion on the grounds opment of heavy industry. The famous Tito-Stalin split of 1948 only
that the Bosnian city lacked infrastructure and an accessible location. strengthened a postwar siege mentality.
One may well wonder what difference the move would have made. At The various drawbacks of the Soviet model, plus the desire to repu-
! ',
the same time, of course, Communist power seemed too solid and diate it publicly, still pushed Tito's Politburo toward a new theory of
monolithic as the new Constituent Assembly convened in January 1946 decentralized socialism. Specifically intended to replace the Soviet-style
to make serious debate of such territorial issues necessary. constitution of 1946, the 1953 constitution embodied the new theory.
The new practice was not a cynical exercise, but its principal effect was

233
 Notes to pages 7-17 417

only translated work is Nationalism in Contemporary Europe (Boulder, Colo.:

East European Monographs, 1981); but far more revealing is the controver-
Notes sial early edition, since revised, of BespuCa povijesne zbilnosti: Rasprava o
JI povijesii i filosojiji zlosilje (Impasses of historical reality: A discussion of the
history and philosophy of malevolent power), 2nd ed. (Zagreb: Matica
/ Hrvatska, 1989).
6 See Anthony D. Smith, National Identity (London: Penguin Books, 1991),
26-28.
7 On the predominance of such state-granted privileges across all of early
modern Central Europe, and their capacity to create conflict between com-
peting or neighboring groups, see Sheilagh Ogilvie, State Corporatism and
Proro-Industry, The Wz1rtembergBlack Fores!, 1520-1797 (Cambridge: Cam-
INTRODUCTION. THE SEARCH FOR VIABILITY
bridge University Press, 1997), 447-75.
1 See Mark Thompson, Forging War: The Media in Serbia, CroatiaJ and Bosnia- 8 Andrew Baruch Wachtel, Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation, literature
Hercegovina (Avon: The Bath Press, Article 19, 1994); and for the historical and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press,
raw material, Djurdja Knezevic, "The Enemy Side of National Ideologies_, 1998).
Serbia and Croatia," in Pride and Prejudice: National Stereotypes in 19th and 9 Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modemization of Rural France,
20th Century Europe East to West, ed. Laszlo Knotler (Budapest: Central 1870-1914 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1975).
European University_, 1995), 105-17. 10 Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany (Cam-
2 A Bosnian of Croat birth, AndriC became a Belgrade-based diplomat for the bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992). On the moderating power
first Yugoslavia and its last ambassador to Germany. By the end of the of several "interlocking identities," see Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism
intenvar period, he considered himself a Serbian writer. In his most famous (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 153-63.
work, the episodic 1945 novel, The Bridge on the Dnna (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1977 ed.), he portrayed the capacity for multi-ethnic
EMPIRES AND FRAGMENTED BORDERLANDS, 800-1800
accommodation between individuals and, in the face of frequent natural
disasters, between groups that sometimes bridged the mistrust that foreign E. L. Jones, The European Miracle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
domination along a mountainous fault line between East and West had 1981). On the population density in the early modem period, particularly in
bred in his native Bosnia. And sometimes not, but because of his resigna- the Ottoman Balkans, see Bruce McGowan, Economic Life in Orwman Eu-
tion to ethnic divisions in a fractured landscape rather than any defense of rope: Taxation, Trade, and the Sirnggle for Land, 1600-1800 (Cambridge:
them. Krleza, born in Zagreb in 1893 the year after AndriC and Tito, Cambridge University Press, 1981), 2-14. On the role of the Danube in the
defended Croatia's distinctive literary heritage but was otherwis.e a life-long Balkans, the classic source remains David Mitrany, The Effect of the War in
Marxist scourge of "true-believers" in any narrow ethnic or ideological Southeastem Europe (New Haven, Conn.: Carnegie Endowment for Interna-
identity. See the instructive comparison of Krle:fa and AndriC in Ralph tional Peace and Yale University Press, 1936), 6-14.
Bogert, The Writer as Naysayer: Miroslav KrleZa and the Aesthetic of Imerwar 2 Femand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age
Cemral Europe (Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers, 1988), 82-87. of Philip II (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), I: 25-44, 137-47.
3 ZeCevic berated the notion of "an ancient and unilinear aspiration, created 3 George W. Hoffman, Regional Development Strategy in Southeastern Europe
before the formation of nations, that was coordinated in its motives and (New York: Praeger, 1972), 3-20.
interests and constantly on the rise," as cited in Ivo Banac, "Historiography 4 A. P. Vlasto, The Enrry of rhe Slavs into Christendom (Cambridge: Cam-
of the Countries of Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia," American Hiswncal Review bridge University Press, 1970), 187-203. On Croatian origins and their
97, 4 (1992): 1085. For ZeCevic's more recent views, see his "Slovenci i medieval state more generally, see John V. A. Fine, Jr., The Early Medieval
jugoslovenska dr:Z.ava, 1917-1989" (Slovenians and the Yugoslav state), Balkans (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1983), 49-59,
Istorija 20og veka 12, 2 (1994): 31-46. 248-91; and on the considerable Byzantine connection, see Ivo Goldstein,
4 Stevan K. Pavlowitch, The Improbable Survivor: Yugoslavia and its Problems, Bizant na Jadranu (Byzantium on the Adriatic) (Zagreb: Latina and Graeca,
1918-1988 (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1988), 129-42; 1992).
and Banac, "Historiography of the Countries," 1084-104. 5 Vlasto, Entry of the Slavs, 213-23.
5 Vojislav KoStunica and Kosta CavoSki, Parry Pluralism or Monism? Social 6 On medieval Serbia generally, see Fine, Early Medieval Balkans, 202-47;
Movements and the Political System in Yugoslavia, 1944-1949 (New York: and the second volume, Fine, The Late Medieval Balkans (Ann Arbor, 1\1.ich.:
Columbia University Press, East European Monographs, 1983). Tudjman's University of Michigan Press, 1987), 219-312, and Rade MihaljciC, Kraj

416
 418 Notes to pages 19-25 Notes to pages 25-32 419

srpskog carstva (The End of the Serbian Empire) (Belgrade: SANU, 1975). Calif.: ABC Clio Press, 1980), 383-90; and also Petrovich, A History of
A recent view of the Serbian role in Byzantine history is Donald M. Nicol, Modern Serbia (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), I: 7-18,
The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1452, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cam- provide the best brief accounts.
bridge University Press, 1993), 118-21, 129-30, 176-79, 229----:36. 14 On the battle's role in that tradition, see \'X'ayne S. Vucinich and Thomas
7 Traian Stoianovich, Balkan Worlds: The First and Last Europ( (Armonk, A. Emmert, eds., Kosovo: Legacy of a Medieval Banle (Minneapolis, Minn.:
NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1994), 151-68. In this survey of social es1'tes across the Minnesota Mediterranean and East European Monographs, 1991); on Ser-
medieval Balkans, he stresses both their relative complexity and the lack of bian epics, Serbian Poetry from the Begi.nning to the Present, ed. Milne Holton
rigid, European-style, barriers between them. and Vasa D. Mihailovich (Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publications, 1988).
8 John V. A. Fine, Jr., The Bosnian Church: A New Interpretation (New York: 15 See both Noel Malcolm, Kosovo, A Short History (New York: New York
Columbia University Press, 1975), and Ivan LovrenoviC, Bosnien und University Press, 1998), 113-14, 170-77, and DuSan BatakoviC, The Kosovo
Herzegowina, Eine Kulcurgeschichte (Vienna: Folio, 1998), 43-46; and more Chronicles (Belgrade: Plato, 1992), 35-52.
broadly, Noel Malcolm, Bosnia: A Short Hiswry (New York: New York 16 The recent critique of early Habsburg history by R. J. D. Evans describes
University Press, 1994), 13-42. An excellent summary of Yugoslav scholar- the Habsburg Counter-Reformation as incomplete everywhere, first retreat-
ship on medieval Bosnia is the offprint volume in English from the unfin- ~ ing in the face of local superstitions and then vulnerable to the rationalist
ished second edition of the Enciklopedia Jugoslavije, The Socialisi Republic of challenge of Emperor Joseph II in the 1780s. See the epilogue to his The
Bosnia and Hercegovina (Zagreb: Jugoslavenski leksikografski zavod, 1983), Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550-1570 (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
6Q-{i7. 1979), 346-50. For a more comprehensive survey of earlier Habsburg his-
9 The most extensive Western survey of the Balkans' Ottoman period, with tory, see Charles Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618-1815 (Cambridge:
careful attention to native scholarship, is Peter F. Sugar, Southeastern Europe Cambridge University Press, 1994).
under Ottoman Rule 1453-1803 (Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington 17 Francis Dvornik, The Slavs in European Civilization (New Brunswick, NJ:
Press, 1977). Concise, informed treatments of the Ottoman land regime Rutgers University Press, 1962), 132, 419-27; and for details, see Zgodovina
and millet system, respectively, may be found in Fikret Adanir, "Tradition Slovencev (A history of the Slovenes) (Ljubljana: Cankarjeva zalo.Zba, 1979).
and Rural Change in Southeastern Europe during Ottoman Rule," in The On Linhart, see Michael B. Petrovich, "The Rise of Modem Slovenian
Origins of Backwardness in Eastern Europe, ed. Daniel Chirot (Berkeley, Calif.: Historiography," Journal of Central European Affairs 22, 4 (January 1963):
University of California Press, 1989), 131-76; and Kemal Karpat, "Millets 440-67.
and Nationality: The Roots of the Incongruity of Nation and State in the 18 Toussaint HoCevar, The Structure of the Slovenian Economy, 1848-1963 (New
11. Post-Ottoman Era," in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire, ed. York: Scudia Slovenica, 1965), 6-14.
j:1 Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1982), 19 On the distribution of the patriarchal zadruga of fifteen or more members,

iii
J
I: 141-69.
1O On early modem Macedonia, see Fikret Adanir, Die makedonische Frage:
across the Yugoslav lands primarily around the Habsburg M.ilitary Border
and in Montenegro and central Serbia, see Maria N. Todorova, Balkan
I
/hre Entstehung und Entwicklung bis 1900 (The Macedonian question: its Family Strucwre and the European Pattern: Demographic Developments in Otto-
i~ man Bulgaria (Washington, DC: American University Press, 1993), 133-58.
origin and development to 1900) (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1979);
'
I and Nikos Svoronos, La commerce de la Salonique en XV/Ile siecle (Trade in 20 On the Croatian Military Border, the seminal works in English remain
Salonika in the eighteenth century) (Paris, 1956). Gunther E. Rothenberg, The Austrian Military Border in Croatia, 1522-1747
11 Fine, "The Medieval and Ottoman Roots of Bosnian Society," in The Mus- (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960); and Rothenberg, The Mili-
lims of Bosnia-Hercegovina, ed. Mark Pinson (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard tary Border in Croatia, 1740-1881 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
University Press, 1994), 1-21; Malcolm, Bosnia, 51-70; Sugar, Southeastern 1966). On the efforts of some upland Croat and Serb migrants to stay free
Europe, 55-59. On Ottoman Bosnia, see also the encyclopedia article by of either imperial border regime by marauding along the Adriatic coast, see
Ahmed AliciC "The Period of Turkish (Ottoman) Rule," Enciklopedia Catherine Wendy Bracewell, The Uskoks of Senj: Piracy, Banditry, and the
Jugoslavije, The Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Hercegovina, 67-77. Holy War in the 16th Century Adriatic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
12 Smail Halie, Die unbekannte Bosnien (The unknown Bosnia) (Cologne: Bohlau 1992).
Verlag, I 992), 101-7. On the Bosnian Muslims, see also SreCko Dfaja, 21 See Drago RoksandiC, Srbi u Hrvaiskoj (Serbs in Croatia) (Zagreb: Vjesnik,
Konfessionalitiit und Nationalitii.t Bosniens und der Hercegowina: vore- 1991), 55-70.
mancpatorische Phase, 1463-1804 (Religion and Nationality in Bosnia and 22 Jozo Tomasevich, Peasants, Politics, and Economic Change in Yugoslavia
ii (Stanford, Calif.: University Press, 1955), 70-72; Slavko GavriloviC,Agrarni
I,I Hercegovina: The preemancipatory phase) (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag,
1984). pokreti u Sremu i Slavoni.Ji na poCetkom XIX veka (Agrarian movements in
) 13 Michael B. Petrovich, "Religion and Ethnicity in Eastern Europe," in Eth- Srem and Slavonia at the start of the nineteenth century) (Belgrade: SANU,
! 'j nic Diversity and Conflict in Eastern Europe, ed. Peter F. Sugar (Santa Barbara, 1960), 9-14.
J:~'
I.1'..'.1.
: I
i '1i
420 Notes to pages 33-46 Notes to pages 46-55 421

23 Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics Drago RoksandiC, Srbi u Hrvatskoj (Serbs in Croatia) (Zagreb: Vjesnik,
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983\ 73-74. On early modem 1991), 86-87.
Croatian history, see Stanko Guldescu, The Croatian-Slavonian Kingdom 9 Philip Adler, "\Vhy Did Illyrianism Fail?" Balkanistica 1 (1974): 95-103;
1526-1792 (The Hague: Mouton, 1970). ' ' and DespalatoviC, Ljudevfr Gaj, 197-201.
24 John R. Lampe and Marvin R. Jackson, Balkan Economic Hisufry, 1550- IO Traian Stoianovich, Balkan Worlds': The First and Last Europe (Armonk,
1950 (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1982), 51--/55. On early NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1994).
modem Dubrovnik, see Francis W. Carter, Dubrovnik (Ragusa): A Classic 11 Michael B. Petrovich, "The Role of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the
City-State (London: Seminar Press, 1972). First Serbian Uprising," The First Serbian Uprising, 1804-1813, ed. Wayne
25 Lampe and Jackson, Balkan Economic History, 56-61. S. Vucinich (New York: Columbia University Press, East European Mono-
26 Ibid., 62-66; and Traian Stoianovich, "The Conquering Orthodox Balkan graphs, 1982), 259-302.
Merchant," Journal of Economic History 20 (1960): 243-313. 12 Michael B. Petrovich, A History of Modern Serbia, 1804-1918 (New York:
27 Michael B. Petrovich., "Croatian Humanists and the Writing of History in Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), I: 103-28.
the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries," Slavic Review 38, 4 (December 13 On the economy of MiloS Obrenovic's Serbia, see John R. Lampe and
1978): 624-39. Marvin R. Jackson, Balkan Economic History, 1550-1950: From Imperial
28 Lampe and Jackson, Balkan Economic History, 62-66. Borderlands to Developing Nations (Bloomington_, Ind.: Indiana University
29 Roger V. Paxton, "Identity and Consciousness: Culture and Politics among Press~ 1982), 109-19; on its social structure, see Stevan K. Pavlowitch,
the Habsburg Serbs in the Eighteenth Century," in Naticn and Ideology: "Society in Serbia, 1791-1830," Balkan Society in the Age of Greek Independ-
Essays in Honor of Wayne S. Vucinich, ed. Ivo Banac, John G. Ackerman, ence, ed. Richard Clogg (Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble, 1981), 137-56.
and Roman Szporluk (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), 101- 14 The classic work in any language remains Slobodan JovanoviC,
18. Usravobranitelji~ 1838-1858 (The defenders of the constitution) (Belgrade:
Geca Kon, 1912).
15 On the place of Jovanovic and his colleagues in the framework of con-
2 UNIFYING ASPIRATIONS AND RURAL RESISTANCE, temporary European liberalism, see Gale Stokes, Legitimacy through Liberal-
1804-1903 ism: Vladimir Jovanovii and the Transformation of Serbian Politics (Seattle,
Robert Tucker, The Marxian RevolucionaryIdea (New York: W.W. Norton, Wash.: University of Washington Press, 1975); on the wider Serbian frame-
1967). work, see Stevan K. Pavlowitch, "The Constitutional Development of Ser-
2 These seminal works are Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflec- bia in the Nineteenth Century," East European Quarterly 5 (January 1972):
tions on the Ori.ginsand Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso Books, 1983); 56-67.
Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and NatWnalism since 1780, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: 16 See David MacKenzie, llija Garafanin, Balkan Bismarck (New York: Co-
Cambridge University Press, 1990). See also Ernest Gellner, Nations and lumbia University Press, East European Monographs., 1985).
Narionalism (London: Basil Blackwell, 1983). 17 Wayne S. Vucinich, "The Serbs in Austria-Hungary," Austrian History Year-
3 Jozo Tomasevich, Peasants, Politics, and Economic Change in Yugoslavia book 3, pt. 2 (1967): 4-8; David MacKenzie, "Serbian Nationalist and
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1955), 115-17. Military Organizations and the Piedmont Idea, 1844-67," East European
4 See Jaroslav Sidak, Hrvatski narodni preporod llirski pokret (The Croatian Quarterly 16, 3 (1982): 323-33.
national renaissance, the Illyrian movement) (Zagreb: Skolska knjiga, 1990); 18 Stokes, Legitimacy through Liberalism, 115-20; Petrovich, History of Modern
for a discussion of the best Croatian scholarship on both the Illyrian prov- Serbia, I: 313-30.
inces and the later movement, see especially pages 26-35. 19 Gale Stokes, Politics as Development: The Emergence of Political Parties in
5 See John R. Lampe, "The Failure of the Yugoslav National Idea," Studies in Nineteenth Century Serbia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990),
East European Thought 46, 1-2 Gune 1994): 127-47. 179., 201-3. On the brief life and later role of Svetozar MarkoviC, see
6 Elinor Murray DespalatoviC, Ljudevit Gaj and the Illyri.an Movement (New Woodford McClellan, Sverozar Markovii and the On'gins of Balkan Socialism
York: Columbia University Press, East European Quarterly, 1975), 71-78. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964); on the influence of French
7 Elinor Murray DespalatoviC, "The Illyrian Solution to the Problem of a Radicalism and by 1890, British parliamentarism (rule by the majority party),
National Identity for the Croats/' Balkanistica I (1974): 82-84. On Hun- see Milan St. ProtiC, Radikali u Srbiji~ 1881-1903 (Belgrade: BalkanoloSki
garian reactions to Illyrian pressures, see J inos Varga, A Hungarian Quo Institut, 1990).
Vadis: Political Trends and Theories of the 1840s (Budapest: Akadi:miai Kiad6.i 20 Dimitrije DjordjeviC, "The 1883 Peasant Uprising in Serbia," Balkan Stud-
1993), 89-109. ies 20 (1979): 235-55. For further details and references, see Andrija
8 Bogdan Krizman, "The Croatians in the Habsburg Monarchy in the Nine- RadeniC, Iz istorije Srbije i Vojvodine, 1838-1914 (Novi Sad: Marica srpska,
teenth Century," Ausrnan History Yearbook 3, pt. 2 (1967): 116-58; and 1973), 439-556.
 422 Notes to pages 55-64 Notes to pages 64-73 423

21 Miranda Vickers, The Albanians, A Modern Hiswry (London: I. B. Tauris, 32 Gunther E. Rothenberg, "The Croatian Military Border and the Rise of
1997), 32-41; DuSan BatakoviC, The Kosovo Chronicles (Belgrade: Plato, Yugoslav Nationalism," The Slavonic and East European Review 43-44 (1964):
1992), 104-20. 34-45.
22 Stokes, Politics as Development, 291-306, provides a concluding sirnmary of 33 See Justin McCarthy, "Ottoman Bosnia, 1800-1878," The Muslims of Bosnia-
the author's argument. / Herzegovina, ed. Mark Pinson (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
23 Lampe and Jackson, Balkan Economic History, 208-12 and t;tbles 4.2, 6.7- 1994), 54-83; "The Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Hercegovina,"
6.8, and 6.13 on 122, 171-2, 188. The strongest evidence of the limitations Enciklopedia Jugoslavije, 5: 77-90. For an overview and largely favorable
facing nineteenth-century Serbian agriculture is presented by Michael R. assessment of Bosnia's agricultural economy in the late Ottoman period,
Palairet in his seminal study, The Balkan Economies c. 1800-1914, Evolution see Palairet, Balkan Economies, 129-42.
without development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 85- 34 On the Austrian occupation, see Robert J. Donia, Islam under the Double
128, 299-320. Eagle: The Muslims of Bosnia and Hercegovina) 1878-1914 (New York: Co-
24 Lampe and Jackson, Balkan Economic History, 159-86. lumbia University Press, East European Monographs, 1981), 4-29, 41-49,
25 Michael R Palairet, "The Culture of Economic Stagnation in Montenegro," 181-94. On Serbia's role in the Bosnian uprising and subsequent defeat,
The Maryland Hiswrian 17 (1986): 17-42. For further detail, see Zarko BulajiC, see David MacKenzie, The Serbs and Russian Pan-Slavism) 1875-1878 (Ithaca,
Agrarni odnosi Crne Gore, 1878-1912 (Agrarian relations of Montenegro) NY: Cornell University Press, 1967).
(Ticograd, 1959). 35 Peter F. Sugar, The Industrialization of Bosnia-Hercegovina, 1878-1914
26 Mirjana Gross, "Croatian National-Integrational Ideologies from the End (Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington Press, 1963), 13-45.
of Illyrianism to the Creation of Yugoslavia_," Austrian History Yearbook 15- 36 Robin Okey, "Education and Modernization in a Multi-Ethnic State: Bosnia,
16 (1979-80): 4-21. 1850-1914," in Schooling, Educalional Policy, and Ethnic Identity, ed. Janusz
27 Miriana Gross and Agneza Szabo, Prema hrvatskome gradjanskom druJtvu Tomiak (New York: New York University Press, European Science Foun-
(Toward Croatian bourgeois society) (Zagreb: Globus, 1992), 266-68. For dation, 1986), I: 319-41.
a summary of recent scholarship on the Ausgleich, see Alan Sked, The De- 37 Ibid., I: 328-39; Mustafa ImamoviC, Istorija Bofnjaka (Sarajevo: Preporod,
cline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 1815-1918 (London: Longman, 1989), 1998), 373-96.
187-97. Hungary had won much broader rights from Vienna the year 38 Mirjana Gross, "The Union of Dalmatia with Northern Croatia," The Na-
before under the famous Ausgleich, thereby converting the Habsburg mon- tional Question in Europe in Historical Context, ed. Mikulas Teich and Roy
archy into the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. Porter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 270-92.
28 James Butkowski, "Bishop Strossmayer's Political Career, 1860-1873" 39 Carole Rogel, The Slovenes and Yugoslavism, 1890-1914 (Boulder, Colo.:
(Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1972), 196-98; Gross and Szabo, East European Quarterly_, 1977), 15-26; Fran Zwitter, "The Slovenes and the
Prema hrvatskome gradjanskom druftvu, 257-61; MacKenzie, Ilija Garafanin, Habsburg Monarchy," Ausman History Yearbook 3, pt. 2 (1967): 159-88.
307-8.
29 The most detailed study of StarCeviC in English is Mario S. Spalatin,
3 NEW DIVISIONS, YUGOSLAV TIES, AND BALKAN WARS,
"The Croatian Nationalism of Ante StarCeviC," Journal of Croatian Studies
1903-1914
16 (1975): 19-146. Also see Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugosla-
via: Origins, History, Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), John R. Lampe and Marvin R. Jackson, Balkan Economic History, 1550-
85-91; on KaradZiC and his broader involvement in the Illyrian Movement, 1950, From Imperial Borderlands to Developing Naiions (Bloomington, Ind.:
culminating in his signature on the 1850 Vienna agreement with Croatian Indiana University Press, 1982), 281-97; Jozo Tomasevich, Peasants, Poli-
representatives on a common literary language, but for two alphabets and tics, and Economic Change in Yugoslavia (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univer-
two peoples, see Duncan Wilson, The Life and Times of Vuk StefanoviC sity Press, 1955), 151-59; and Arnold Suppan, "Die Kroaten," Die
Karadzic, 1787-1864 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 294-313. Habsburger-monarchie, 1848-1918, ed. Adam Wandruszka and Peter
30 Gross and Szabo, Prema hrvatskome gradjanskom druJtvu, 603- 7. The only Urbanitsh (Vienna: Verlag der OAW, 1980), Ill: 627-33, 694-701.
thorough treatment of the MaZuraniC era of Croatian liberalism, compara- 2 Lampe and Jackson, Balkan Economic History_, tables 9.1, 9.5.
ble to the contemporary Serbian era of Vladimir Jovanovic, is James Krokar_, 3 Ibid., tables 6.1-6.5, 9.2, 10.4. The total number of enterprises employing
"liberal Reform in Croatia, 1872-1875: The Beginnings of Modem Croatia mechanical horsepower and more than twenty workers was roughly one-
under Ban Ivan Maiuranic" (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1980). quarter of that one-half million, divided among 36,000 workers in Slovenia;
31 Manuela Dobos, "The Nagodba and the Peasantry in Croatia-Slavonia," 24,000 in Croatia-Slavonia; 30,000 in Bosnia-Hercegovina; 16,000 in Ser-
-il The Peasantry of Eastern Europe, ed. Ivan Volgyes, I (New York: Pergamon bia; perhaps 10,000 each in Dalmatia and Macedonia; and a negligible
l ,1
Press_, 1931), 79-107; and her "The Croatian Peasant Uprising of 1883" number in Montenegro. For a more positive view of economic and indus-
(Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1974). trial growth in the Habsburg borderlands, see David Good_, The Economic
 424 Notes to pages 75-80 Notes to pages 81-85 425

Rise of the Habsburg Empire, 1750-1914 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of Cali- und die Herzegovenien (Bosnia and Hercegovina) (Leipzig: [publisher un-
fornia Press, 1984). known), 1914). New evidence generally supporting the judgements of Sugar
4 Marina Cattaruzza, "Slovenes, Italians, and Trieste, 1850-1914," Ethnic and Schmid may be found in Michael Palairet, The Balkan Economies
ldemily in Urban Europe, ed. Max Engman (New York: Europdan Science c. 1800-1914, Evolution withow development (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
Foundation, New York University Press, Dartmouth, 1985), fs9-209. versity Press, 1997), 203-38.
5 This network made a greater contribution to Slovenian }l\an Dalmatian 14 For a contrary view that, had war not intervened 1 the 1908 annexation
agriculture. Nearly 40 percent of Slovenian agricultural land was in profit- would have led to the sort of boom in private entrepreneurship after state
able smallholdings of 20 to 40 hectares by 1910, and the debts accumulat- pump-priming that was under way during the last prewar decade in tsarist
ing for many smaller holdings were sufficiently relieved by the credit unions Russia, see Michael Palairet, "The Habsburg Industrial Achievement in
to prevent foreclosure. The Dalmatian inland peasantry, about four-fifths Bosnia-Hercegovina, 1878-1914: An Economic Spurt That Succeeded?"
Croat and one-fifth Serb, continued to confront the sharecropping obliga- Austrian History Yearbook 24 (1993): 133-52.
tions of the colonate system (noted in chapter 2) until the 1930s. Some 86 15 Schmid, Bosnien, 312, 550-52. Also see Tomasevich, Peasants, Politics, 107-
percent of their own holdings were under 5 hectares, and 59 percent under 11.
2 hectares. The phylloxera epidemic of the 1890s in addition had damaged 16 The only clearly successful, official policy, beyond the BrCko promotion of
the vineyards that provided their best cash crop. plum cultivation and drying for export in the 1880s, was the spread of
Walter Lukan, "The Second Phase of Slovene Cooperation (1894-1918)," poultry raising in the northwestern BihaC triangle after 1900. This pre-
Slovene Studies 11, 1 (1989): 83-96; Toussaint HoCevar, The Structure of cedent, on which Fikret AbdiC and his Agrokomerc enterprise would build
the Slovenian Economy, 1848-1963 (New York: Studia Slovenica, 1965), in the 1970s, emerged from the one pre-1914 case where primarily female
59-73. labor was employed. Priscilla T. Gonsalves, "Study of the Habsburg Agri-
6 Carole Rogel, The Slovenes and Yugoslavism, 1890-1914 (Boulder, Colo.: cultural Programmes in Bosanska Krajina, 1878-1914," Slavonic and East
East European Quarterly, 1977), 76-87. European Review 63 (1985): 349-71.
7 Bogdan Krizman, "The Croatians in the Habsburg Monarchy in the Nine- 17 Robert J. Donia, Islam under the Double Eagle: The Muslims of Bosnia and
teenth Century," Austrian History Yearbook 3, 2 (1967): 135-40; and Wayne Hercegovina, 1878-1914 (New York: Columbia University Press, East Euro-
S. Vucinich, "The Serbs in Austria-Hungary," ibid., 23-27. pean Monographs, 1981), 167-94, and SreCko Dfaja, Bosnien-Herzegowina
8 Lampe and Jackson, Balkan Economic History, 315-19; Suppan, "Die in der Osterreichische-ungarischenEpoche (1878-1918) (Munich: B. Oldenbourg
Kroaten," 679; and Igor Karaman, Industrializacija gradJanske Hrvatske Verlag, 1994), 196-207. See also Robin Okey, "Education and Moderniza-
(1800-1941) (The industrialization of bourgeois Croatia) (Zagreb: Naprijed, tion in a Multi-Ethnic Society: Bosnia, 1850-1918, 11 in Schooling, Educational
1991). Policy, and Ethnic Identity, ed. Janusz Tomiak (New York: European Sci-
9 Lampe and Jackson, Balkan Economic History, 287-97; on literacy and school- ence Foundation, New York University Press, Dartmouth, 1985), 319-41.
ing in Croatia-Slavonia, see Elinor Murray DespalatoviC, "The Danish Model 18 On PaSiC and Serbia's lively if not ideologically divided political spectrum
and Croatian Peasant Agriculture, 1850-1914," in Private Agriculture in after 1900, see Wayne S. Vucinich, Serbia between East and West: The Events
Eastern Europe, ed. John R. Lampe (\Vashington, DC: East European Stud- of 1903-08 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1954), 1 i-21; and
ies, The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1990), 24-25. Trotsky's neglected but acute observations in The War Correspondence of
10 Rudolf Sign.jar, Statisrilki atlas Kr. Hrvatske i Slavonije, 1875-1915 (Zagreb: Leon Trotsky, The Balkan Years, 1912-13, ed. George Weisman and Duncan
Zemalski statistiCki ured, 1915), 49. Williams (New York: Monad Press, 1980), 68-111. On PaSiC himself, the
11 Nicholas Miller, Between Nation and State, Serbian Politics in Croatia Before one detailed study is Vasa KazimiroviC, Nikola PaiiC i nJegova doba, 1845-
the First World War (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997) 1925 (Nikola PaSiC and his era), 2 vols. (Belgrade: Nova Evropa, 1990).
provides an informed analysis of the Coalition and the half century of 19 John R Lampe, "Austro-Serbian Antagonism and the Economic Back-
separate Serb and Croat politics that preceded it. The classic study of the ground to the Balkan Wars," in East Central European Society and the Balkan
Coalition at its peak remains Mirjana Gross, Vladavina Hrvatske-Srpske Wars, ed. Bela Kiraly and Dimitrije DjordjeviC (New York: Columbia Uni-
Koalicije, 1906-1907 (The regime of the Croatian-Serbian coalition) (Bel- versity Press, Social Science Monographs and Atlantic Research and Publi-
grade: Jugoslavenski Istorijski Institut, 1960). cations, 1987), 336-45. The definitive study is Dimitrije DjordjeviC, Carinski
12 Elinor Murray DespalatoviC, "The Peasant Nationalism of Ante RadiC," rat Austro-Ugarske i SrbiJe, 1906-1911 (The tariff war between Austria-
Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism 1 (1978): 86-97; Robert G. Hungary and Serbia) (Belgrade: Istorijski Institut, SANU, 1962). On the
Livingston, "Stjepan RadiC and the Croatian Peasant Party, 1904-1929" role of King Petar, see Dragoljub R. ZivojinoviC, Kralj Petar I KaradJordJevii,
(Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1959), 58-63. v. II (Belgrade: Beogradski izdavaCko-grafiCki zavod, 1990).
13 Peter F. Sugar, The Industrialization of Bosnia-Hercegovina, 1878-1914 (Seattle, 20 This was only the third brief episode of Russian support for Serbia, follow-
'!' Wash.: University of Washington Press, 1963); Ferdinand Schmid, Bosnien ing the First Uprising in 1806-12 and the Hercegovina revolt of 1876-78.

.I'

I
 426 Notes to pages 86-89 Notes to pages 91-97 427

None of the support brought with it the official weight or military force to the Dual Monarchy," in Nations and Ideology, Essays in Honor of Wayne
se~ Serbi_athrough .. There would not _bemore, unle~s one counts the equally Vucinich, ed. lvo Banac, John G. Ackerman, and Roman Szporluk (New
bnef penod of Stalm's support for Tito's Commurust government in 1944- York: Columbia University Press, East European Monographs, 1981), 177-
48, while that government destroyed the last vestiges of the Sersftrn demo- 200; and lvo Banac, "Croat-Magyar Relations, 1904-1914: A New JelaCiC
cratic heritage from its pre-1914 statehood - a multi-party system of or the 'New Course'?" Slovene Studies 9, 1-2 (I 987): 43-48.
parliamentary government under a constitutional monarch./On pre-1914 27 Wayne S. Vucinich, "Mlada Bosna and the First World War," in The Habsburg
relations between Serbia and Russia, see Barbara Jelavich, Russia's Balkan Empire in the First World War, ed. Robert A. Kann, Bela Kiraly, and Paula
Entanglements, 1804-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), S. Fichtner (New York: Columbia University Press, East European Quar-
9-23, 144-77, 235-65. terly, 1977), 45-69, and Dfaja, Bosnien-Herzegowina, 229-38.
21 Gale Stokes, "Milan ObrenoviC and the Serbian Army," East Central Euro- 28 Duncan M. Perry, The Polfricsof Terror, The Macedonian Revolutionary Move-
pean Society in World War I, ed. Bela Kiraly and Nandor F. Dreiszinger ments, 1893-1903 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1988), 196-212.
(New York: Columbia University Press, East European Monographs, 1985), More clearly, the followers of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Or-
555-68; David MacKenzie, "Serbian Nationalist and Military Organiza- ganization (VMRO) were a peasant minority reacting to exploitation under
tions and the Piedmont Idea, 1844-1914," East European Quarterly 16, 3 the persisting chiftlik regime of sharecropping in the lowlands and extortion
(1982): 333-43. by Albanian and other Muslim warlords in the uplands rather than acting
22 That is the persuasive conclusion to be drawn from the sections on Serbia on any sense of Macedonian or Bulgarian national identity. Perry reckons
in Charles Jclavich, South Slav Nationalisms, Textbooks, and Yugoslav Union their total number at less than 25,000, or about 1 percent of the three
before 1914 (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1990). Serbia's vilayet, with supporters adding another 2-4 percent.
program for primary education, with only 5.8 percent of the total population 29 Steven W. Sowards, Austria's Policy of Macedonian Refonn (New York: Co-
in school in 1910, lagged behind Bulgaria's 9.3 percent, primarily because lumbia University Press, East European Monographs, 1989), 25-95.
of a slow start before 1890. See Holm Sandhaussen, Historische Statistik 30 Djordje MikiC, "The Albanians and Serbia during the Balkan Wars," East
Serbiens, 1834-1914 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag 1989), 551-55. Central European Society and Balkan Wars, 16 5-91.
23 On SkerliC and Belgrade's cultural life, see Jelena Milojkovic-DjuriC, Tradi- 31 Ernst C. Helmreich, The Diplomacy of the Balkan Wars, 1912-13 (Cam-
tion and Avant-Garde Literature and Arr in Serbian Culture, 1900-1918 (New bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1938). The most recent works are
York: Columbia University Press, East European Monographs, 1981), 129- Katrin Boekh, Von den Balkankriegen zum Ersten Welt Krieg, .Kleinstaaten
68; on the "Belgrade style," see Traian Stoianovich, Balkan Worlds: The Polirik und erlmischeSelbst-bestimmung auf dem Balkan (Munich: R Oldenbourg
First and Last Europe (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1994), 283-301; and on Verlag, 1996); Andrew Rossos, Russia and the Balkans: Inter-Balkan Rival-
Belgrade in general, see John R. Lampe, "Modernization and Social Struc- ries and Russian Foreign Policy, 1908-1914 (f oronto: Toronto University Press,
ture: The Case of the Pre-1914 Balkan Capitals," Southeastern Europe 5, pt. 1981); and Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., Austria-Hungary and the Origins of
2 (1979): 11-32. On Mato$ and Zagreb's cultural life, see James Krokar, the First World War (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991).
"National Cultural Centers of the Habsburg Empire before 1914: Zagreb," 32 Williamson, Ausma-Hungary, 103-8; .Andrej MitroviC, Srbi.fau prvom svetskom
Austrian History Yearbook 19-20 (1983-84): 119-33. ram (Serbia in the First World War) (Belgrade: Srpska knjiievna zadruga,
24 Radmila MilentijeviC, "Serbian Social Democracy Confronts the National- 1984), 136-37.
ity Question," Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism 1 (1978): 66-85. 33 Vucinich, "Serbs in Austria-Hungary," 7; Jaroslav Sidak, Mirjana Gross,
A similar split emerged at the Czech-sponsored Neo-Slav meeting of 1909 Igor Karaman, and Dragovan SepiC, Povijest hrvatskog naroda, 1860-1914
in St. Petersburg and prevented any Serbs or Croats from Croatia-Slavonia (The history of the Croatian people, 186G-1914) (Zagreb: Skolska knjiga,
from attending the 1910 meeting in Sofia. Paul VySny, Neo-Slavism and 1968), 284-86; Hugh and Christopher Seton-Watson, The Making of a New
the Czechs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 119, 151-52, Europe (Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington Press, 1976), 88-93.
191-92. 34 Rogel, Slovenes and Yugoslavism, 82-103, 113-16.
25 Stephen Raditch, "Autobiography of Stephen Raditch," Current History 35 The Other Balkan Wars, A 1913 Carnegie Endowment Inquiry in Retrospect
(October, 1928): 5-10. This brief, posthumously translated autobiography, (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment Book, 1993), 158-86, 395-97.
with an introduction by Charles A. Beard, and the above-cited doctoral 36 Danica MiliC, "Economic Consequences of the Balkan Wars," East Central
dissertation of Gerald Livingston provide the only lengthy citations from European Society and the Balkan Wars, 386-94; Lampe and Jackson, Balkan
RadiC in English. Economic History, 232-36. For the flurry of German interest in offering
26 On the neglected role of Hungarian-Croatian antagonism in the growing some financial support to Serbia in the wake of the Balkan Wars, see Andrej
South Slav alienation from the Dual Monarchy during the last prewar decade, MitroviC, Prodor na Balkan i Srbija, 1908-1914 (Balkan penetration and
see Gabor P. Vennes, "South Slav Aspirations and Magyar Nationalism in Serbia) (Belgrade: Nolit, 1981), 131-76.

[;,:
428 Notes to pages 97-104 Notes to pages 104-110 429
37 For a Serbian view, see Alexander Dragnich and Slavko TodoroviC, The , 4 Andrej MitroviC, Srbija u prvom svetskom ratu (Serbia in the First World
Saga of Kosovo (New York: Columbia University Press, East European War) (Belgrade: Srpska knjiievna zadruga, 1984), 312-19. Also see David
Monographs, 1984), 95-109. MacKenzie, Apis~ the Congenial Conspirator: The Life of Colonel Dragutin T.
38 Vucinich, "Mlada Bosna," 59. For a sense of the Montenegrin Wifrorical DimimjeviC (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1989).
memory of 1876-78, see the novel by Milovan Djilas, Under ifie Colors 5 Bogdan Krizman, Raspad Austro-Ugarske i stvaranje jugoslovenske driave (The
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971). / fall of Austria-Hungary and the creation of the Yugoslav state) (Zagreb:
39 John D. Treadway, The Falcon and the Eagle: Montenegro and Austria- Skolska knjiga, 1977), 262. The most comprehensive work is Dragoslav
Hungary, 1908-1914 (\Vest Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1983), JankoviC, Jugoslovensko pitanje i Krfska deklaracija 1917 g. (The Yugoslav
203-12. question and the 1917 Corfu declaration) (Belgrade: Savremena
40 Milorad EkmeCiC, "Impact of the Balkan Wars on Society in Bosnia and administracija, 1967).
Hercegovina," East Central European Society and the Balkan Wars, 260-85; 6 Whether any challenge short of massive armed resistance would have been
Enciklopedia Jugoslavije: The Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Hercegovina successful is, however, doubtful. On the political-military and socio-
(Zagreb: Jugoslavenski leksikografski zavod, 1983), 95-97. For details, see economic experience of Bulgaria and its effects in Macedonia for 1915-18,
Mustafa ImamoviC, Pravni poloiaj i unwraini politiiki razvitak Bosne i see Richard Crampton, Bulgaria, 1878-1918 (New York: Columbia Univer-
Hercegovine, 1878-1914 (The legal position and internal political develop- sity Press, East European Monographs, 1983), 447-510.
ment of Bosnia and Hercegovina) (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1976), 236-58. 7 Richard B. Spence, "The Yugoslav Role in the Austro-Hungarian Anny,
41 Vucinich, "Mlada Bosna," 56. The most detailed and persuasive argument 1914-18," East Central European Society, 354-68.
for the independence from Serbian control of Princip and his colleagues is 8 Bogdan Krizman, "The Croatians in the Habsburg Monarchy in the 19th
Vladimir Dedijer, The Road to Sarajevo (New York: Simon and Schuster, Century," Austrian History Yearbook 3, 2 (1967): 146-57; and Krizman,
1966), 175-234. The continuing insistence of Austrian scholarship on "Plan Stjepana RadiC3 o preuredjenju Habsbul'Ske monarhije" (Plan of
Serbian control may be seen in Hellmut Andics, Der Untergang der Stjepan RadiC for the transformation of the Habsburg monarchy), lstonja
Donaumonarchie (Vienna: Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, 1981), 86-93. XX veka 12 (1972): 31-82.
9 Neda Engelsfeld, Prvi parliament Kraljevsiva Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca (First
4 THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND THE FIRST parliament of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes) (Zagreb: Globus,
YUGOSLAVIA, 1914-1921 1989), 60-68; Ivo Banac, "Nemiri u sevemoj Hrvatskoj u jesen 1918"
(Unrest in northern Croatia in the fall of 1918), Casopis za suvremenu
See the citations in Milorad EkmeciC, "Serbian War Aims," The Creation povijest 24, 3 (1992): 23-43.
of Yugoslavia, 1914-1918, ed. Dimitrije DjordjeviC (Santa Barbara, Calif.; 10 While no opinion polls are available to support this judgment, contempo-
ABC Clio Press, 1980), 25-26; and Bogdan Krizman, Hrvatska u prvom rary estimates of Austro-Hungarian officials as well as Yugoslav advocates
svetskom ratu (Croatia in the First World War) (Zagreb: Globus, 1989), reckon that by the autumn of 1918, popular support for creating such a
245-57. state had grown significantly to reach 50 percent in Bosnia-Hercegovina, 60
2 EkmeciC, "Serbian War Aims," 19-36. On the NiS Declaration, see Dragoslav percent in Croatia-Slavonia, and much higher proportions in Dalmatia and
JankoviC, "NiSka deklaracija" (The NiS Declaration), lstori.ja XX veka 10 Slovenia. See EkmeCiC, "Serbian War Aims," The Creation of Yugoslavia,
(1969): 7-111; on CvijiC and the Serbian scholars, see Ljubinka TrgovCeviC, 1914-1918, 25-26.
Nauinici SrbiJe i stvaranjeJugosl.ovenske driave, 1914-1920 (Serbian scholars 11 See Richard B. Spence, "General Stephan Freiherr SarkotiC von LovCen
and the creation of the Yugoslav state) (Belgrade: Narodna knjiga, 1986); and Croatian Nationalism," Canadian Remew of Studies in Nationalism 17,
and on the 1914 campaigns themselves, Dimitrije DjordjeviC, "Vojvoda 1-2 (1990): 147-55.
Putnik: The Serbian High Command and Strategy in 1914," in East Central 12 A comparative accounting of these losses is Jozo Tomasevich, Peasants,
European Society in World War I, eds. Bela K. Kiraly and N andor F. Politics~ and Economic Change in Yugoslavia (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford
Dreiszinger (New York: Columbia University Press, East European Mono- University Press, 1955), 220-29. For Serbia, see John R. Lampe,
graphs, 1985), 569-89. "Unifying the Yugoslav Economy, 1918-1921: Misery and Early Misun-
3 Gale Stokes, "The Role of the Yugoslav Committee in the Formation of derstandings," Creatwn of Yugoslavia, 141-42; and Dimitrije DjordjeviC,
Yugoslavia," Creation of Yugoslavia, 51-72. Also see Ivo Lederer, Yugoslavia "Austro-ugarski okupacioni reZim u Srbiji i njegov slom" (Austro-
at the Paris Peace Conference (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, Hungarian occupation regime in Serbia and its fall). Nauini skup u povodu
1963), 3-78; and Dragovan SepiC, Italija, saveznici i Jugoslavensko pitanje, 50-godisnice raspada Austro-ugarske monarhije (Scientific gathering on the
1914-18 (Italy, the Allies, and the Yugoslav question) (Zagreb: Skolska 50th Anniversary of the fall of Austria-Hungary) (Zagreb: JAZU, 1969),
knjiga, 1970). 206-23.
430 Notes to pages 111-117 Notes to pages 117-134 431
13 Krizman, Raspad Austro-Ugarske, 270-79; Djordje StankoviC, Nikola PaSii, Monographs, 1984), 118-21. The Albanian counterclaim is that around
saveznici i stvaranJe Jugoslavije (Nikola PaSiC, the Allies and the creation of 150,000 Kosovar Albanians were forced from the province between 1912
Yugoslavia) (Belgrade: Nolit, 1984), 241-50. and I 920.
14 Krizman, RaspadAustro-Ugarske, 263-69; Touissant HoCevar, The StnMure 24 Noel Malcolm, Kosovo, A Short History (New York: New York University
of the Slovenian Economy 1848-1963 (NY: Studia Slovenica, 1965), 155'-57. Press, 1998), 254-61, 274.
15 Wayne Vucinich, "The Formation of Yugoslavia," Crear.ion of Yuftoslavia, 25 The following section is drawn from Lampe, "Unifying the Yugoslav
183-206; Dragoslav Jankovic, "Zenevska konferencija 1918 g.," Istorija XX Economy," 139-56.
veka 5 (1963): 25-62. 26 Ivo Banac, The Naiional Question in Yugoslavia. On"gins, History, Politics
16 See Robert Gerald Livingston, "Stjepan RadiC and the Croatian Peasant (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983), 248-60; and Banac, '"Em-
Party, 1904-1929" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1959), 252; and Jure peror Karl has become a Comitadji': The Croatian Disturbances of Au-
KriSto, "KatoliCko proklanjanje ideologiji jugoslavenstva" (Catholic disposi- tumn 1918," Slavonic and Easr European Review 70, 2 (1992): 284-305.
tion toward the ideology of Yugoslavism), Casopis za suvremenu povijest 24, 27 The classic Croatian indictment of the currency conversion is Rudolf BifaniC,
2 (1992): 25-45. Ekonomska podloga hrvatskog pitanja (Economic basis of the Croatian ques-
17 On the army's growth, initial popularity in restoring order, and subsequent tion) (Zagreb: Vladko Macek, 1938), 41-46.
problems with assuming civil functions, see Mile Bjelajac, Vojska Krag"evine 28 Engelsfeld, Prvi parlament, 263-67.
Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca, 1918-1921 (Army of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, 29 Branislav GligorijeviC, Parlament i poliiiCke stranke u Jugoslaviji, 1919-1929
and Slovenes) (Belgrade: Narodna knjiga, 1988). (Parliament and political parties in Yugoslavia) (Belgrade: Institut za
18 Bogdan Krizman, "Medjunarodne priznanje Jugoslavije 1918 g." (Interna- savremenu istoriju, 1979), 73-84; and Banac, National Question in Yugosla-
tional recognition of Yugoslavia, 1918), Iswnja XX veka 3 (1962): 345-82; via, 379-87, offer well-informed but contrasting views of this discrepancy.
Vasa CubriloviC and Andrej .M.itroviC, eds., Stvaranje jugoslovenske driave 30 Ivan AvakumoviC, History of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, I (Aberdeen:
1918 (Belgrade: NauCna knjiga, 1989). For a recent overview of Italian Aberdeen University Press, 1964), 25-59; Ivo Banac, "The Communist
policy as seen by American scholarship and sources, see Arthur Walworth, Party of Yugoslavia During the Period of Legality, 1919-1921," The Class
Wilson and His Peacemakers, American Diplomacy at the Paris Peace Confer- War after the Great War: The Rise of Communist Parties in East Central Eu-
ence, 1919 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1986), 335-58. A Yugoslav study rope, 1918-1921, ed. Ivo Banac (Boulder, Colo.: East European Mono-
drawing on all sources is Dragoljub ZivojinoviC, America, Italy, and the graphs, 1982), 188-230.
Bitth of Yugoslavia, 1917-19 (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 31 Charles A. Beard and George Radin, The Balkan Pivot Yugoslavia (New
1972). On the background to Italian claims, see Dennison Rusinow, Italy's York: Macmillan, 1929), 30-56; Slobodan Jovanovic, Iz iswrije i knjiZVnosti
Austrian Hentage, 1919-1946 (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), (From history and literature) 11, I (Belgrade: BIGZ, 1991), 363-81.
15-50. 32 GligorijeviC, Parlament i politic"kestranke, 94-114; Ferdo CulinoviC, Jugoslavija
19 Lederer, Yugoslavia at the Paris Conference, 112-14, 138-68, 194, 252, 262- izmedju dva rata (Yugoslavia between the two wars) (Zagreb: JAZU, 1961),
72, 286, 306-8. I: 349-77.
20 Rusinow, Italy's Austrian Heritage, 119-60; Bogdan C. Novak, Trieste, 1941-
1954 (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 27-42.
21 Arnold Suppan, "According to the Principle of Reciprocity: The .Minorities 5 PARLIAMENTARY KINGDOM, 1921-1928
in Yugoslav-Austrian Relations, 1918-1938/' Ethnic Groups in International Charles A. Beard and George Radin, The Balkan Pivot: Yugoslavia (New
Relations, ed. Paul Smith (New York: European Science Foundation, New York: Macmillan, 1929), 57-64. In the absence of a scholarly biography
York University Press, Dartmouth, 1986), 251-54; Bogdan Krizman, needed on Aleksandar, see Stephen Graham, Alexander of Yugoslavia (New
"Jugoslavija i Austrija, 1918-1938," Casopis za suvremenu povijest 9 (1977). Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1939), 79-138. A collection of his
22 Branislav GligorijeviC, Kralj' Aleksandar KaradjodjeviC (I) (Belgrade: BIZG, public statements may be found in Zivan MiloradoviC-Major, Govori
1996), 423-27; C. A. Macartney, Hungary and Her Successors (London: (Speeches) (Belgrade: Lingua, 1991).
Oxford University Press, 1937), 390-404. 2 The difficulties of the army's transition are detailed in Mile Bjelajac, Vojska
23 The postwar departure of roughly 40,000 Albanians to Turkey or elsewhere Kraljevine Srba, Hrvata i S/.ovenaca, 1918-1921 (The army of the Kingdom
trimmed their total in Kosovo to 400,000, but still left them with a two-to- of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes) (Belgrade: Narodna knjiga, 1988).
one majority, even after the arrival of some 60,000 Serb colonists during the 3 Beard and Radin, Balkan Pivot, 180-86, 279-99. The annual reports of the
course of the interwar period. Serbian historians date that Albanian major- British Embassy in Belgrade (Public Record Office, FO 371, London),
ity only from the period 1878-1912, when roughly 150,000 Serbs w~~e although sometimes inclined to give the king the benefit of the doubt,
forced out or attracted to Serbia. Alex N. Dragnich and Slavko Todorovic, provide the most comprehensive and insightful accounts of Yugoslavia avail-
The Saga of Kosovo (New York: Columbia University Press, East European able from the diplomatic records of the 1920s.
432 Notes to pages 134-141 Notes to pages 141-149 433

4 See Djordje StankoviC, Nikola PaSiC, saveznici i stvaranje Jugoslavije (Nikola 13 ZeCeviC, Na istonj'skoj prekretnici 1 313-45.
PaSiC, the Allies, and the creation of Yugoslavia) (Belgrade: Nolit, 1984); 14 Branislav GligorijeviC:1 "PolitiCka istorija 1 1919-1929," in lstonja Beograda,
and also ~is psychological portrai~ of ~aSiCin lskuenjajugosWvenskeistorolJ:tafije ed. Vasa CubriloviC (Belgrade: Prosveta, 1974), III: 88-99, 144-49.
(Disappomtments of Yugoslav h1stonography) (Belgrade: Rad, l 988),)'73- 15 Ivan Avakumovic, History of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (Aberdeen:
85, for a more critical analysis than the one biography in English, Alex N. Aberdeen University Press, 1964) 1 I: 60-92. Citation covers the period
Dragnich., Serbia, Nikola PafiC, and Yugoslavia (New Brunswick, N(: Rutgers 1921-28.
University Press, 1974). 16 Stephen Palmer and Robert King, Yugoslav Communism and the Macedonian
S Arif Purivatra, Jugoslovensksa muslimanska organizacija u politiikom Zivotu Question (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1971), 31-46.
Kr. SHS (Yugoslav Muslim Organization in the political life of the King- 17 Branislav GligorijeviC, Kominterna-jugoslovensko i srpsko pitanje (The
dom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes) (Sarajevo: Svetlost, 1974), 11-47, Comintem: The Yugoslav and Serbian question) (Belgrade: Institut za
539-47. Also see Ivo Banac, "Bosnian Muslims," in The Muslims of Bosnia- savremenu istoriju, 1992), 1-236, provides a scholarly but newly critical
Herzegovina, ed. Mark Pinson (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Serbian view of the growing Croatian ascendance in the KPJ during the 1920s.
1994), 129-54. 18 Tomislav Bogovac, SranovniSrvo Beograda, 1918-1991 (Population of Bel-
6 Janko Prunkt, Slovenski narodni vzpon (The Slovenian national ascent) grade, 1918-1991) (Belgrade: Beogradski izdavacki zavod, 1991), 69-81.
(Ljubljana: Driavna Zalozba Slovenije, 1992), 201-55; Momcilo ZeCeviC, 19 Ljubomir DurkoviC-JakSiC, Jugoslovensko knjiZarstvo, 1918-1941 (Yugoslav
Na istorijskoj prkretnici: Slovenci u politici jugoslvenske drZave, 1918-1929 (At publishing, 1918-1941) (Belgrade: Narodna knjiga, 1979); J. Dubrovac,
an historical turning point: Slovenes in the politics of the Yugoslav state, "Stamparstvo u Beogradu., 1918-1941" (The press in Belgrade, 1918-
1918-1929) (Belgrade: Prosveta, 1985), 251-313. 1941) in lstorija Beograda, III: 419-23.
7 Branislav GligorijeviC, Parlament i poliiiCke stranke u Jugoslaviji, 1919-1929 20 Predrag J. MarkoviC, Beograd i Evropa, 1918-41 (Belgrade: Savremena
(Parliament and political parties in Yugoslavia, 1919-1929) (Belgrade: admi~~stracija, 1992) 1 51-64. On the milieu, see Jelena MilojkoviC-DjuriC,
Narodna knjiga, 1979), 138-49. Tradition and Avant-Garde: The Arts in Serbian Culture between the Two
8 The Comintem's Marxist insistence on giving industrial workers priority World Wars (New York: Columbia University Press, East European Mono-
over peasants in the proposed republics was not a prospect Radii: could graphsi 1984), 9-30; and the various short pieces by Krista DjordjeviC and
accept, but other attractions had drawn him to Moscow. For RadiC, Slavic Guido Tartalija in Beograd u seCanjima, 1919-1929 (Belgrade in memory,
romanticism about Russia joined with the chance to promote a Balkan 1919-1929), ed. Pavle SaviC:1 et al. (Belgrade: Srpska knjizevna zadruga,
federation that would include Bulgaria and to reject the Prague-based Green 1980), 57-83.
International that recognized the existing Yugoslav state. Ferdo CulinoviC, 21 Andrew Baruch Wachtel, Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation, Literature
Jugoslavija izmedju dva raru (Yugoslavia between the two wars) (Zagreb: and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press,
JAZU, 1961), I: 402-4. This earlier volume from Zagreb along with 1998), 82. See his pp. 76-87 on the cultural identity of Zagreb and Ljubljana
Gligorijevic's view from Belgrade, provides the most detailed political history as well as Belgrade., wherein he challenges the argument of Iva Banac, in
of the decade available from the former Yugoslavia's Marxist historiography. "The Origins and Development of the Concept of Yugoslavia (to 1945),"
9 Robert Gerald Livingston, "Stjepan RadiC and the Croatian Peasant Party, The Disintegration of Yugoslavia, Martin van den Heuvel and Jan G. Siccama,
1904-1929" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1959), 474-82. Perhaps the eds., Yearbook of European Studies V (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1992), 1-22,
best measure of RadiC as a political personality, complete with extensive that the idea "has never been kinetically alive." Also see .M.:iloslavJanicijeviC,
quotation from his political statements, may be found in Josip Horvat's StvaralaCka inteligencija medjuratne Jugoslavije (Creative intelligentsia of
interwar journalist's account, PolitiCka povijest Hrvatske 1918-1929 (Zagreb: interwar Yugoslavia) (Belgrade: Institut druStvenih nauka, 1984), 120-25,
August Cesarac, 1989 edn.). 131-39, 153-57, 169-73.
1O GlivorijeviC, Parlament, 188-95; CulinoviC, Jugoslavija, I: 446-54. 22 On urban development, see Draga VuksaniC-AniC, "UrbanistiCki razvitak
11 The most detailed and precise account in English of the 1920-27 elections Beograda u periodu izmedju dva rata" (Urban development of Belgrade in
remains Joseph Rothschild's chapter on Yugoslavia in his East Central Europe the period between the two wars), lstonja XX veka 20 (1968), 468-509.
between the Two Wars (Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington Press, 1974), On education, see Charles Jelavich, "Education, Textbooks, and South Slav
205-80. Opposition representatives and even voters were kept away from Nationalisms in the Interwar Era;' in Allgemeinbi"ldung als Modernizierungs-
polling places. Some Radical ballots were cast on behalf of Serbia's wartime faktor, ed. Norbert Reiter and Holm Sundhaussen (Berlin and Weisbaden:
dead; British Embassy reporting spoke of one Serbian town where Radical Harrassowitz Verlag, 1994), 127-42; and Ljubodrag DimiC, "Kultuma
officials had laid out tram tracks only to remove them after the election. politika modemizacija jugoslovenskog druStva," in Srbija u modernizacz}skim
12 Lenard J. Cohen, The Socialist Pyramid, Elites_, and Power in Yugoslavia procesima XX veka, ed. Latinka PeroviC (Belgrade: Institut za noviju istoriju
(Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic Press, 1989), 259-65. Also see Beard and Radin, Srbije, 1994), 193-208 1 and his Ku/turn.a polfrika Kraljevine Jugoslavije,
Balkan Pivot, 266-78. 3 vols. (Belgrade: Stubovi kulture, 1997).
434 Notes to pages 149-156 Notes to pages 156-168 435

23 This was the same sculptor whose striking model of a temple to celebrate 35 See R. J. Crampton, A Short History of Bulgana (Cambridge: Cambridge
the Battle of Kosovo had also impressed the 1911 Rome Exposition by its University Press, 1987), 92-93.
identification of Habsburg South Slavs with Serbia. Wachtel, Making a 36 See C. M. Woodhouse, Modern Greece:A Shon History, 5th ed. (London:
Nati-On,54-59, 94-106. !I Faber and Faber, 1991), 212-20; and George Mavrocordatos, Siillborn
24 The government allocated barely 1 percent of the 373 million goltf marks Republic: Social Conditions and Parry Strategies in Greece,1922-1936 (Berkeley,
that it had belatedly received from Germany in reparations by 1~4 to buy Calif.: University of California Press, 1983).
agricultural equipment. Although the sale of equipment delivered as pay- 37 Ramadan Marmullaku, Albania and the Albanians (Hampden, Conn.: Archon
ment in kind boosted the number of iron ploughs close to 15 per 100 Books, 1975), 33-36; Andrej MitroviC, "Yugoslavia, the Albanian Ques-
peasant households, the agricultural ministry priced harvester and other tion, and Italy, 1919-1939," in Serbs and Albanians in the 20th Century, ed.
mechanical equipment too high and most remained unsold. All this, plus Andrej MitroviC (Belgrade: Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1991),
new land and crop taxes, helped keep Serbia's cereal yields 16 percent 253-73; Marco Dogo, Kosova, Albanesi i Serbi (Lungro: Marco, 1992).
under the country's average for 1921-25. Momcilo IsiC, SeljaStvo u Srbiji~ 38 Dennison Rusinow, Italy's Ausman Hentage, 1919-1946 (London: Clarendon
1918-25 (Peasantry in Serbia) (Belgrade: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, Press, 1969), 185-210; Christopher Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism w
1995), 55-125. Fascism, 1870-1925 (London: Methuen, 1967), 666-82; Vuk Vinaver,
25 Jozo Tomasevich, Peasants, Politics, and Economic Change in Yugoslavia "Velika Britanija i Taliansko 'Okru:Zenje' Jugoslavije, 1926-1928" (Great
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1955), 353-82. Britain and Italian "encirclement" of Yugoslavia), Iswrija XX veka 8 (1966):
26 Cohen, Socialist Pyramid, 337-41. 73-164.
27 For an appraisal of Yugoslav agricultural performance during the 1920s in 39 CulinoviC, Iston}a Jugoslavije, I: 524-30. CulinoviC quotes instructively from
Balkan perspective, see John R Lampe and Marvin R Jackson, Balkan the crescendo of exchanges, starting with "gypsies" and "liars," and offers a
Economic History, 1550-1950. From Imperial Borderlands to Developing Na- vivid description of the killings. See Zvonimir Kolundi:iC, Attentat na Stjepana
tions (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1982), 351-75. RadiCa (Assassination of Stjepan RadiC) (Zagreb: Stvamost, 1967) for a
28 Mitjana Kolar-DimitrijeviC, Radni slojevi u Zagrebu od 1918 do 1931 (Work- detailed account.
ing strata in Zagreb from 1918 to 1931) (Zagreb: Institut za historije
radniCkog pokreta Hrvatske, 1973), 27-100. 6 AUTHORITARIAN KINGDOM, 1929-1941
29 Lampe and Jackson, Balkan Economic Hisrory, 394-98, especially table 11.6.
30 Ibid., 384-85; L. PejiC, "Ekonomske ideje Dr. Milan StojadinoviC:a i The interwar struggle between Serbs from Serbia and Croatia over issues of
balkanski privredni problemi" (Economic ideas of Dr. Milan StojadinoviC central versus local government was often more important than ethnic or
and Balkan economic problems) Balkanica 7 (Belgrade, 1976): 240-58. cultural animosity between Serbs and Croats. On the actions of Macek,
31 Lampe and Jackson, Balkan Economic History, tables 10.9, 10.13, and TrumbiC, and PribiC:eviCbefore and after the king's decree, see Ljubo Boban,
10.14. Maiek i politika hrvatske seljacke stranke, 1928-1941 (MaCek and the politics
32 Linda Killen, Testing the Peripheries: US-Yugoslav Economic Relations in the of the Croatian peasant party) (Zagreb: Liber, 1974), I: 24-50.
Interwar Years (New York: Columbia University Press, East European Mono- 2 Joseph Rothschild, East Central Europe between the Two World Wars (Seattle,
graphs, 1994), 45-96. Wash.: University of Washington Press, 1974), 205-80. The best survey of
33 Piotr S. Wandycz, The Twilight of French Eastern Alliances, 1926-36 domestic politics and foreign relations during the 1930s is Wayne S. Vucinich,
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 104: Vuk Vinaver, Jugoslavija "Interwar Yugoslavia," in Contemporary Yugoslavia, ed. Wayne S. Vucinich
i Francuska izmedju dva rata (Yugoslavia and France between the two wars) (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1969), 18-58.
(Belgrade: Institut za savremenu istoriju, 1985), 451-54. On the Little 3 Svetozar Pribitevic's relentless critique of Aleksandar as totalitarian tyrant
Entente, see Magda Adam, The Little Entente and Europe, 1920-1929 and proto-fascist was quickly echoed by Croatian and Communist writings.
(Budapest: Akademiai Kiad6, 1993), 90-109, 204-17. But the reverential approach of Stephen Graham's volume only a few years
34 Some 300,000 Vojvodina Germans had been denied any right to vote in the after the assassination is not much more helpful. Svetozar PribiC:eviC,
1920 elections for the constituent assembly, but were able to participate in Dikiawra kralja Aleksandra (Belgrade: Prosveta, 1952); Stephen Graham,
the three parliamentary elections of 1923, 1925, and 1927 under less in- Alexander of Yugoslavia (London: Cassel and Co., 1938). At least now
timidating cond~tions than those the Hungarians faced. Macartney, Hun- taking us to 1921 is the first of two volumes from Branislav GligorijeviC,
gary, 380-81, 39-99, 408-16. On Carinthia and Slovenia, see Arnold Kralj A/.eksandar Karadjordjevic (1) Ujedinjenje srpskih zemalja (Union of
Suppan, "According to the Principle of Reciprocity: The Minorities in Serbian Lands) (Belgrade: BIZG, 1996).
Yugoslav-Austrian Relations, 1918-1938," in Ethnic Groups in International 4 Public Record Office, Yugoslavia, Annual Report, 1930, FO 371: 20-24.
Relations, ed. Paul Smith (New York: New York University Press, 1985), As for the 1920s, the British diplomatic reports provide the best continuous
235-73. source of foreign observation, joined at the start of the 1930s by those from
 Notes to pages 169-175 Notes to pages 177-185 437
436

the Embassy of Czechoslovakia and at the end by those from the American 15 The most detailed study of Prince Paul's role from this time forward re-
,.--Embassy. mains the sympathetic treatment in J. B. Hoptner, Yugoslavia in Crisis,
(s ,For an introduction to pre-1914 and interwar Orthodox organization, see 1934-1941 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962).
,~ Mathew Spinka, "Modern Ecclesiastical Development," in Yugoslavi# ed. 16 See the thoroughly researched volume completed by his colleagues after his
Robert J. Kerner (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, (949), death, Todor Stojkov, Vlada Milana StojadinoviCa, 1935-1937 (Regime of
244-60. / Milan StojadinoviC) (Belgrade: Institut za savremenu istoriju, 1985), 131-
6 Arif Purivatra, Jugoslovenska muslimanska organizacija u politiCkom Zivoru Kr. 50. The general was the last to leave, after trying to prevent the JRZ from
Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca (The Yugoslav Muslim Organization in the politi- organizing locally and then facing suspicion of involvement in an abortive
cal life of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes) (Sarajevo: Prosveta assassination attempt against StojadinoviC in the SkupStina by an abstaining
1974), 410-20. ' deputy from the JevtiC faction. Prince Paul wanted the general arrested but
7 Janka Prunkt, "Nacionalni program u slovenskoj politiCkoj misli" (National settled for Stojadinovic's suggestion that he not be asked to join the restruc-
program in Slovenian political thought), Casopis za suvremenu povijest 18, 1 tured cabinet of March 7.
(1986): 2-5; Ljubo Bohan, "ZagrebaCke punktacije," Istorija XX veka, 4 17 Peter C. Kent, "The 'proferred gift,' The Vatican and the Abortive Yugo-
(1962): 309-66. slav Concordat of 1935-37," in Decisions and Diplomacy, Essays in Twentieth
8 Royal Institute for International Affairs, The Balkan States, vol. I, Economic Century International History, Dick Richardson and Glyn Stone, eds. (Lon-
(London: Oxford University Press, 1936) provides the best contemporary don: Routledge, 1995), 108-28. On the various negotiations from all sides
overview of the Depression's initial impact on Southeastern Europe. with MaCek and the Concordat crisis, see the addendum to Stojkov, Vlada,
9 Linda Killen, Testing the Peripheries: US-Yugoslav Economic Relations in the 181-222; and on the fall of StojadinoviC, see Dufan Biber, "O padu
Interwar Years (New York: Columbia University Press, East European Mono- StojadinoviCeva vlade" (On the fall of the StojadinoviC regime), Istorija XX
graphs, 1994), 125-69. veka 8 (1966), 5-75.
10 This and subsequent data for this section are drawn from John R. Lampe 18 As late as 1932, however, he was advocating an end to the state's tobacco
and Marvin R. Jackson, Balkan Economic History, 1550-1950: From Imperial monopoly as a stimulus to production in Macedonia; it had sagged with the
Borderlands w Developing Nations (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University monopoly's repeated reductions in the number of authorized growers.
Press, 1982), 429-72. L. PejiC, "Ekonomske ideje Dr. Milana StojadinoviCa ... ," Balkanistika, 7
11 Branko PetranoviC and Momcilo ZeCeviC,Agoni_jedve JugoslaviJe (The agony (Belgrade, 1976), 259-64.
of the two Yugoslavias) (Belgrade: Edicija svedoCanstva, 1991), 171. MaCek 19 PetranoviC and ZeCeviC, Agonije dveJugoslavije, 171-74.
characterizes these efforts as "the boom of the party" in his autobiography, 20 This foreign total in tum gave the primarily French and British investors a
In the Struggle for Freedom (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State Univer- predominant interest in barely 10 percent of Yugoslav joint-stock industrial
sity Press, 1957), 158-73. enterprises possessing one-quarter of their total capital. Only with the fall of
12 Mark 'Wheeler, "Pariahs to Partisans to Power: The Communist Party of France in 1940 did the German share rise to 20 percent. See Lampe and
Yugoslavia," in Resistance and Revolution in Mediterranean Europe, 1939- Jackson, Balkan Economic History, table 12.23; and Vladimir Rosenberg and
1948, ed. Tony Judt (New York: Routledge, 1989), 114-16; and for details, Jovan KostiC, Ko finansira jugoslovensku privredu (\Vho finances the Yugo-
Ivan OCak, Gorkic, iivot, rad i pogiba (GorkiC: life, work, and demise) (Zagreb: slav economy) (Belgrade, 1940), 94-231.
Globus, 1988). 21 Lampe and Jackson, Balkan Economic History, 482-500; and Stefan KukoleCa,
13 See Richard Crampton, A Short History of Modern Bulgaria (Cambridge: IndustrijaJugoslavije, 1918-1939 (Belgrade, 1941). On StojadinoviC and the
Cambridge University Press, 1987), 102-11. state's growing role, see Jeanne Marie CaliC, Sozialgeschichie Serbiens, 1815-
14 The recent temptation to call the Ustafa radical nationalists in reaction to 1941 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1994), 403-8; Smiljana DjuroviC,
the long-standing Communist condemnation of them as fascists does not Driavna intervencija u industrijiJugoslaviie, 1918-41 (State intervention in Yu-
explain the movement's internal organization or Pavelic's personal insist- goslavia's industry) (Belgrade: Institut za savremenu istoriju, 1986), 197-344.
ence on fascism as the only antidote to Bolshevism. The standard work on 22 A useful appraisal of the secondary sources on this subject is Frank C.
the UstaSa based on German and Italian sources remains Ladislav Hory Littlefield, Gennany and Yugoslavia, 1933-1941 (New York: Columbia Uni-
and Martin Borszat, Der kroarische Ustasha Staat, 1941-1945 (Stuttgart: versity Press, East European Monographs, 1988), 37-55. Stojadinovic's
Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1964), 14-24; and from Croatian sources on the own view is in his Ni rat ni pakt (Neither war nor pact) (Rijeka: Otokar
pre-1941 period, see Fikreta JeliC-ButiC, UstaSei Nezavisna Driava Hrvatske, KerSovani, 1970). On the extent to which his policies were a reaction
1941-1945 (UstaSa and the Independent State of Croatia) (Zagreb: Skolska against the failures of French financial and commercial policy, see Nicole
knjiga, 1977), 13-56. An informed view of the 1930s from the Croatian Jordan, The Popular Front and Central Europe: The Dilemma of French Impo-
emigration is Jere Jareb, Pola stoljeCehrvatske politike (Buenos Aires: KnjiZica tence, 1918-40 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 108-24,
hrvatske revije, 1960). 233-43.
438 Notes to pages 186-198 Notes to pages 199-206 439

23 See Gerhard L. Weinberg, "Germany and Munich," in Reappraising ihe 34 Velimir TeriiC, Jugoslavija u Arprilskom ratu 1941 (Yugoslavia in the April
Munich Pace,ed. Maya Latynsk:i (\Vashington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center war), 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Belgrade: Partizanska knjiga, 1981), whose evidence
Press; Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 9-20. on German policy and of Croatian complicity therein is not convincing.
24 Ivo Vinski, "Nacionalni dohodak i fiskni fondovi na prodruCju Jugoslajje, Martin Van Creveld, ditler's Strategy, 1940-41: The Balkan Clue (Cam-
1909-1959" (National income and invesunent funds on the territofy of bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 8-13, makes the most persua-
Yugoslavia), Ekonomski pregled (Zagreb, 1959), 11-12, 840-44; <\Jld Eric sive Western case against the British decision.
Lethbridge, "National Income and Product/' The Economic History of Eastern 35 Hoptner, Yugoslavia in Crisis, 236.
Europe, 1919-1975 (London: Clarendon Press, 1985), I: 532-41, 573-81.
25 Lampe and Jackson, Balkan Economic History, 482-90, 500-2.
26 Doreen Warriner, "Urban Thinkers and Peasant Policy in Yugoslavia, 1918- 7 WORLD WAR AND CIVIL WAR, 1941-1945
1939," Slavonic and East European Review 38 (December 1959): 62-66. On the decisive role that the Special Operations Executive sought but failed
27 A concise survey of interwar education and the political elite is Lenard J. to play, see David A. T. Stafford, "SOE and British Involvement in the
Cohen, The Socialist Pyramid: Elites and Power in Yugoslavia (Oakville, On- Belgrade Coup d'Etat of March 1941," Slavic Review 36, 3 (September
tario: Mosaic Press, 1989), 106-16. On public employment, see Lampe 1977): 399-419; and Mark C. Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia,
and Jackson, Balkan Economic Hiswry, table 12.22; and on the army see 1940-1943 (New York: Columbia University Press, East European Mono-
Mile Bjelajac, Vojska Kr. Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca/Jugoslavi.Je, 1922-1935 graphs, 1980), 34-61.
(Armed forces of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes/Yugoslavia) 2 The most detailed argument for Hitler's disposition to attack Yugoslavia
(Belgrade: INIS, 1994). before the coup of March 27 is Velimir TeriiC, Slam Kraljevine Jugoslavije
28 Miloslav JanicijeviC, SrvaralaCka inteligencija medjuratne Jugoslavi.Je(Creative (The fall of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), 2 vols. (Belgrade: Partizanska
intelligentsia of interwar Yugoslavia) (Belgrade: Institut druStvenih nauka, knjiga, 1981). Norman Rich, Hitler's War Aims, Ideology, the Nazi State and
1984) provides much of the basis for the following subsection. On the the Course of Expansion (New York: W.W. Norton, 1973), 197-203, sum-
several controversies of the 1930s involving Cmjanski, see Zli voliebnici, marizes a more persuasive case for Hitler's "cautious restraint in dealing
Polemike i pamfieti u srpskoj kniZemosti, 1917-1943 (The evils of magicians with Yugoslavia" up to that date .
. . . Serbian literature), Gojko TdiC, ed., vols. II and III (Belgrade: 3 These minimal losses and later access to Yugoslav transport routes has led
Beogradska knjiga, 1983). Martin Van Creveld to argue that the eleven German divisions scheduled
29 See Ivan LovrenoviC, Bosnien und Hercegowina, Eine Kulturgeschichte for the Russian campaign were ready for transfer to the Barbarossa com-
(Vienna: Folio, 1998), 1560-59. On the role of Krlefa in the Communist left mand within ten days of the Yugoslav surrender on April 17. Their physical
of the 1930s, see Ralph Bogert, The Wn.ter as Naysayer, Miras/av KrleZa and absence could therefore not explain the further six-week delay in launching
the Aesthetic of Interwar Central Europe (Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers, Barbarossa that has been celebrated in postwar Yugoslavia as dooming the
1990), 97-133, and on Cmjanski as a writer and largely anti-political thinker, offensive to the fatal Russian winter. But it is still not clear that Hitler and
David A. Norris, The Novels of Milos Crnjanski: An Approach Through Time his generals were psychologically ready, their serious equipment shortages
(Nottingham: Astra Press, 1990). aside, to begin their most fateful endeavor so soon after committing large
30 Ljubo Boban, relying mainly on Ciano's detailed diaries, has argued that forces to conquering two countries. Jozo Tomasevich cites the minutes of
MaCek wanted first one and then the other. Ljubo Boban, "Oko MaCekovih Hitler's meeting with his generals on March 27 as concluding that the
pregovora s Grofom Canom" (Concerning MaCek's negotiations with Count Yugoslav campaign required the attack on Russia "to be postponed up to
Ciano), Iswrija XX veka 6 (Belgrade, 1964), 302-55. four weeks" from May 12. Martin Van Creveld, Hitler's Strategy, 1940-
31 On the Yugoslav Communist Party (KPD, see "Wheeler, "From Pariahs to 41: The Balkan Clue (Cambridge University Press, 1973), 139-85; Jozo
Partisans," 117-23; on the UstaSa see Bogdan Krizman, UstaSe i Ante Pavelic Tomasevich, The Chetniks (Stanford, Calif,: Stanford University Press, 1975),
(UstaS3 and Ante PaveliC) (Zagreb: Globus, 1977), 527-30; and on Serbian 87.
politics, see Mira RadojeviC, "Demokratska stranka o drfavnom preuredjenju 4 On MihailoviC and the Chetniks, see Tomasevich, Chetniks, 113-31, the
Kr. Jugoslavije, 1935-1941" (Democratic party concerning the state reor- extensive treatment in Lucien Kachmar, Draia Mihailovic and the Rise oft.he
dering of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), Isrorija XX veka 9, 1-2 (Belgrade, Chetnik Movement, 1941-1942, 2 vols. (New York: Garland Publishing Co.,
1991): 36-63. 1987), and now Simon Trew, Bnrain, MihailoviC and the Allies, 1941-42
32 Milos MartiC, "Dimitrije LotiC and the Yugoslav National Movement Zbor, (London: Macmillan, 1998), 1-58. Joining these works, with their greater
1935-1945," East European Quarterry 14, 2 (1980): 219-39. reliance on Yugoslav sources, as standard works in English are two volumes
33 Littlefield, Germany and Yugoslavia, 62-130; Srdjan TrifkoviC, "Yugoslavia that rely more on Italian and German sources, respectively, Matteo J. Milazzo,
in Crisis: Europe and the Croat Question, 1939-1941," European History The Chetnik Movement and the Yugoslav Resistance (Baltimore, Md.: Johns
Quarterry 23, 4 (October 1993): 537-59. Hopkins University Press, 1975); and Walter R. Roberts, Tito, MihailoviC,
440 Notes to pages 207-215 Notes to pages 217-224 441

and the Allies, 1941-1945 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press East European Quarterly 14, 2 (1980): 219-39. Some of their number were
1973; reprint, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1987). '. accomplices in the systematic execution of 11,000 of Belgrade's 12,000
5 Stephen Clissold, Djilas, The Progress of a Revolutionary (Hounslow: Maurice Jews and others from the Vojvodina, mainly at the SajmiSte camp in Bel-
Temple Smith, Ltd., 1983), 49-53. On the KPJ attitude during 1946"'.41 grade, during the fall of 1941. Nedic's State Guards were also used to
toward other ethnic groups on the issue of Yugoslavia, Macedoni{n 8 in arrest, confine, or execute a larger number of Serbs over the next two years.
particular, see Paul Shoup, Communism and the Yugoslav National/Question On the contrast based on German sources, between direct Nazi controls in
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 50-59. Serbia and their indirect role in the NDH, see Norman Rich, Hitler's War
6 Noel Malcolm, Kosovo, A Short History (New York: New York University Aims: The Establishment of ihe New Order (London: Andre Deutsch, 1974),
Press, 1998), 294-99. 273-98.
7 The most comprehensive study of the UstaSa remains Ladislas Hory and 15 Roberts, Tito, Mihailovic, 26-80. Also see Trew, Bn.rain, MihailoviC and the
Martin Broszat, Die kroatische Ustasha Staat, 1941-1945 (Tbe Croatian UstaSa Allies, 187-201.
state) {Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-A.nstalt, 1964). On their Hungarian and 16 Not until October 1944 did a concrete British plan take shape, a pincer
Romanian counterparts, see Nicholas M. Nagy-Talevera, The Green Shins movement on Trieste with its eastern arm starting from Dubrovnik. By that
and the Others (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1970). time, Tito's forces were strong enough to resist the consolidation of the
8 Fikreta JeliC-ButiC, Usraie i Nezavisna DrZava Hrvarska, 1941-1945 (UstaSa small, lightly armed Floyd Force that arrived in Dubrovnik from Italy in
and the Independent State of Croatia) (Zagreb: Skolska knjiga, 1977), 158- November. The Commonwealth units left in December when the plan,
67. Also see Yeshayahu Jelinek, "Nationalities and Minorities in the Inde- called Operation Gelignite, was abandoned because of the German coun-
pendent State of Croatia," Nationalities Papers 8, 2 (1980): 195-210. terattacks against Allied forces in both Italy and France. Ian S. 0. Playfair,
9 Stella Alexander, The Tn"ple Myth: A Life of Archbishop Aloizije Stepinac et al., The War in the Mediterranean and the Middle East VI (London: HMSO,
(New York: Columbia University Press, East European Monographs, 1987), 1955), 1-112. On the overall British strategy of deception concerning any
57-106, examines the archbishop's writings and actions from early approval earlier Balkan invasion, see Michael Howard, The Mediterranean Strategy in
to later disenchantment with the UstaSa regime. the Second World War (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968), 383-90;
10 JeliC-ButiC, Ustaie, 170-75; and Tomasevich, Chetniks, 101-8, review avail- and British Policy Toward Wartime Yugoslavia and Greece, ed. Phylis Auty
able evidence from the camps themselves. The initial work relying on cen- and Richard Clogg (London: Macmillan, 1975), 102-14.
sus data from before and after the war which reduces the long-accepted, 17 On the decisive role of Ultra, see Ralph Bennett, Ultra and Mediterranean
official Yugoslav estimate of 1.7 million dead (originally an estimate includ- Strategy, 1941-45 (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1989), 322-53.
ing children subsequently unborn) to 1 million actual dead came from the 18 Stevan K. Pavlowitch, "Out of Context - The Yugoslav Government in
emigrJ Serbian scholar, Bogoljub KoCeviC, Zrtve drngog sverskog raia u London, 1941-1945," Journal of Contemporary History 16 (1981): 89-118;
Jugoslaviji (Victims of the Second World \X1ar in Yugoslavia) (London: also see Wheeler, War for Yugoslavia, 121-62.
Veritas, 1985). Subsequent work by Vladimir ZerjaviC and other Croatian 19 Roberts, Tito, MihailoviC, 106-12; Djilas, Wartime, 229-45.
scholars have largely confirmed his calculations that some 500,000 Serbs, 20 See Franklin Lindsay, Beacons in the Night: With the OSS and Tito's Parti-
200,000 Croats, 90,000 Bosnian Muslims, 60,000 Jews, 50,000 sans in Wartime Yugoslavia (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1993)
Montenegrins, and 30,000 Slovenes died, accounting for nearly 95 percent for an eyewitness account. On collaboration and resistance in wartime
of the total. Slovenia, see Helga H. Harriman, Slovenia under Nazi Occupation, 1941-
11 On the persecution of Jews and the reaction of Bosnian Muslims, HSS 1945 (New York: Studia Slovenica_, 1977); and on Kocbek's role, Stella
members and others, see JeliC-ButiC, Ustaie, 178-220. Alexander, Church and Stare in Yugoslavia since 1945 (Cambridge: Cam-
12 Milazzo, Chemik Movement, 48-80, 96-106. On the undeclared war be- bridge University Press, 1979), 44-48.
t\.Veen Italian and UstaSa units, and the Italian alliance with Chetnik units 21 Holm Sundhaussen, Wirtschaftsgeschichte Kroatiens im narionalsozialistischen
that followed by 1942, see Jonathan Steinberg, All or Nothing: The Axis and Grossraum, 1941-1945 (Economic history of Croatia in the Nazi empire)
the Holocaust, 1941-1943 (London: Routledge, 1990), 28-84. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1983).
13 Clissold, DJilas, 54-63; Milovan Djilas, Wartime (New York: Harcourt Brace 22 Jill A. Irvine, The Croat Question: Partisan Politics in the Formalion of the
Jovanovich, 1977), 149. Yugoslav Socialist Stale (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1993), 137-99.
14 Walter Manoschek_, "Serbien ist Judenfrei," Militi:irische Besarzungspolitik Hebrang's reemergence and martyrdom after the war (see below) would
und Judenvernichtung in Serbien 1941-42 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag_, however make his wartime precedent for Croatian political autonomy per-
1993) emphasizes the role of the Austrian commander Franz BOhme in haps the only point of present-day nationalist pride in Croatia's Communist
using the reprisal campaign against the Partisans as an excuse to execute all past. Witness the renaming of a major street in his honor. Also see Nada
Jewish internees. On the subordinate Serbian role, see Milos MartiC, KisiC KolanoviC, Hebrang, IluziJe i otreZnJenJa(Hebrang, Illusions and Reali-
"Dimitrije LjotiC and the Yugoslav National Movement Zbor, 1935-41," ties) (Zagreb: Institut za suvremenu povijest, 1996).
442 Notes to pages 224-235 Notes to pages 236-245 443

23 See note 10 above. On the Second World War in Bosnia-Hercegovina, see 2 Aleksa Djilas, The Contested Country: Yugoslav Unity and Communist Revolu-
Hory and Broszat, UstashaSraar, 148-62; and Yeshayahu A. Jelenik, "Bosnia- tion, 1919-53 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991), 150-
Hercegovina at War: Relations Between Muslims and Non-Muslims," Holc- 74. Also see lvo Banac, With Stalin against Tito: Cominfomr.ist Splits in
caust and Genocide Studies 5, 3 (1990), 275-92. I/ Yugoslav Communism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 98-
24 Karl Heinz Schlarp, Wirtschaft und Besatzung in Serbien 1941-1944 (Ecotffimy 111; Paul Shoup, Communism and the Yugoslav National Question (New
and occupation in Serbia, 1941-44) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 198~, 286, York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 101-42; Janko Pleterski, Nacija-
412-15; E. A. Radice, "Economic Developments in Eastern Europe under Jugoslavija-Revolucija (Belgrade: IC Komunist, 1985), 477-531.
German Hegemony," in Communist Power in Europe~ 1944-1949, ed. Martin 3 Carol S. Lilly, "Agitprop in Post-war Yugoslavia," Slavic Review 53, 2
McCauley (New York: Barnes :md Noble, 1977), 3-21. (1994): 395-413. On education and language, see Andrew Baruch Wachtel,
25 Roberts, Tito, MihailoviC, 254-72; Tomasevich, Chetniks, 359-421. Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation, literature and Cultural Politics in Yugo-
26 Union of Journalists' Associations, The Trial of Dragoljub-Draia MihailoviC slavia (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998), 134-46. On reli-
(Belgrade, 1946). gious restriction and the Catholic and Orthodox priests' associations, see
27 Miranda Vickers, The Albanians, A Modern History (London: I. B. Tauris, Stella Alexander, Church and State in Yugoslavia since 1945 (Cambridge:
1997), 140-62; Branko PetranoviC, Srbija u drugom svetskom ratu) 1939- Cambridge University Press, 1979), 178-231.
1945 (Serbia in the Second World War) (Belgrade: Vojna Stamparija, 1992), 4 Marko MilivojeviC, "The Role of the Yugoslav Intelligence and Security
552-61; Shoup, Yugoslav National Question, 104-11. Committee," in Yugoslavia in Transition, ed. John B. Allcock, John J. Horton,
28 Alexander, Church and State, 56-81. and Marko Milovojevic (New York: BERG, 1992), 204-7, 234.
29 Vojislav KoStunica and Kosta CavoSki, Parry Pluralism or Monism? Social 5 KoStunica and CavoSki, Party Pluralism, 133-46.
Movements and the Political System in Yugoslavia, 1944-1949 (New York: 6 The one comprehensive account of the obnova is Branko PetranoviC, Politic"'ka
Columbia University Press, 1985), 41-131. i ekonomska osnova narodne vlasii u Yugoslaviji za vreme obnova (Political and
30 The most recent Macedonian scholarship emphasizes that for the period economic basis of people's power in Yugoslavia during the renewal) (Bel-
1944-46, Tito and the republic Communist leadership explicitly excluded grade: Institut za medjunarodni radniCk.i pokret, 1969), 2j6-349.
any claim to Aegean Macedonia. Mihajlo Minoski, "Makedonskoto prashanje 7 John R. Lampe, Russell 0. Prickett, and LjubiS3 AdamoviC, Yugoslav-
vo megjunarodnite odnosi ... 1943-44" (Macedonian role in international American Economic Relations since World War II (Durham, NC: Duke Uni-
relations), Institut za Nacionalna Istorija, ASNOM, pedecet godini makedonska versity Press, 1990), 21-25.
drihava, 1944-94 (ASNOM, fifty years of the Macedonian state) (Skopje: 8 Ibid., 18-21. For the background to these bad relations, see Michael B.
Makedonska Akademija na Naukite i Umetnosti, 1995), 235-56. Empha- Petrovich, "The View from Yugoslavia," in J..Vitnesses to the Ongins of the
sizing instead the ambiguity of Tito's Greek policy is Angelos Kofos, "The Cold War, ed. Thomas T. Hammond (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University
Impact of the Macedonian Question on Civil Conflict in Greece (1943- Press, 1982), 35-58. On the Trieste dispute, see Bogdan C. Novak, Trieste,
49)," in his NatWnalism and Communism in Macedonia (New Rochelle, NY: 1941-54: The Ethnic, Political, and Ideo/.ogicalStruggle (Chicago, Ill.: Univer-
Aristide D. Caratzas, Publ., 1993), 253-90. sity of Chicago Press, 1970), 202-68.
31 Irvine, Croat Question, 219-22; PetranoviC, Srbija, 662, 691-99; Shoup, 9 Jozo Tomasevich, "Immediate Effects of the Cominform Resolution on the
Yugoslav National Question, 100-43. For review of post-1945 decisions on Yugoslav Economy," in At the Bn.nk of War and Peace: The Tito-Stalin Split
internal borders from current Serbian and Croatian perspectives, see re- in Historical Perspective, ed. Wayne S. Vucinich (New York: Columbia Uni-
spectively, Bogdan LekiC, "Administrativne granice u Jugoslaviji posle drugog versity Press, East European Monographs, 1982), 89-100. Branko Horvat,
svetskog rata" (Administrative borders in Yugoslavia after the Second World The Yugoslav Economic System (White Plains, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1976),
War) Iswrija XX veka IO, 1-2 (1992): 145-62; and Ljubo Boban, Hrvatske 42-44, 88-90, 172-81, 192-94; Jo:Ze PrinciC, Slovenska industnja v
granice, 1918-92 (Croatian borders) (Zagreb: Skolska knjiga, 1992), 51-61. jugoslovanskem pnmezu, 1945-56 (Slovenian industry in the Yugoslav vice)
(Nova Mesto: Dolenska zalo:Zba, 1992).
10 Ranko M. Brashich, Land Refonn and Ownership in Yugoslavia, 1919-53
8 FOUNDING THE SECOND YUGOSLAVIA, 1946-1953 (New York: Mid-European Studies Center, 1954), 44-71; Melissa Bokovoy,
The 139 articles of the January 1946 constitution are set down in Robert J. "A Separate Road to Collectivization: The Communist Party of Yugo-
Kerner, ed., Yugoslavia (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, slavia's Agrarian Policies, 1941-49'' (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University,
1949), 487-512. On the later suppression of the non-Communist partners 1991); Nikola GaCesa, Agrarna refonna i kolonizacija uJugoslaviji, 1945-48
in the ruling Popular Front, see Vojislav KoStunica and Kosta CavoSki, (Agrarian reform and colonization in Yugoslavia) (Novi Sad: Matica srpska,
Part.y Pluralism or Monism? Social Movements and the Political System in Yugo- 1974).
slavia] 1944-49 (New York: Columbia University Press, East European 11 Vladimir Dedijer, The Battle Stalin Lost: Memoirs of Yugoslavia, 1948-53
Monographs, 1985), 80-97. (New York: Gossett, 1972), 74-96; Edvard Kardelj, Reminiscences (London:
444 Notes to pages 246-257 Notes to pages 257-270 445

Blond & Briggs, 1982), 90-114; Milovan Djilas, Conversations wilh Stalin a new direction remains Dennison Rusinow, The Yugoslav Expenment, 1948-
(New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1962). 72 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1974), 51-69, now
12 Dedijer, The Battle Stalin lost, 97-132; Stephen Clissold, ed., Yugoslavia complemented by the economic emphasis from Susan L. Woodward, So-
and the Soviet Union, 1939-1973 (London: Institute for the Study of Cf- cial.istUnemployment: 1he Political Economy of Yugoslavia, 1945-90 (Princeton:
flict, 1975), 42-59, 169-214. Princeton University Press, 1995), 151-68.
13 Elizabeth Barker, Macedonia (1950; reprint, Westport, Conn.: GreeJ!wood 22 Lampe, Prickett, and AdamoviC, Yugoslav-Amencan Economic Relations, 23--
Press, 1980), 99-107; Branko PetranoviC, Balkanska FederaciJa, 1943--48 46.
(Belgrade: Zaslon, 1991), 118-35, 176-201. 23 Only Vladimir BakariC, the leading Croatian member of the inner circle since
14 Marijan MatiCka, Agrarna reforma i kolonizac1ja u Hrvatskoj, 1945-1948 Hebrang's exclusion, stood up for large private holdings. No one favored
(Agrarian reform and colonization in Croatia) (Zagreb: Skolska knjiga, 1990), investing more budgetary resources in private agriculture. Tomasevich,
112-45. "Collectivization of Agriculture in Yugoslavia," 166-92.
15 Brashich, Land Reform, 67-73; Jozo Tomasevich, "Collectivization of Agri- 24 On the military maneuvers of the Soviet bloc against Yugoslavia, see the
culture in Yugoslavia," in Collectivization of Agn"culrurein Eastern Europe, ed. various accounts in Vucinich, At the Bn.nk.
Irwin Sanders (Lexington, Ky.: University of Kentucky Press, 1958), 173, 25 Dijana PleStina, Regional Development in Communist Yugoslavia (Boulder,
16 Katherine McCarthy, "Agrarian Politics and Peasant Resistance: The Struggle Colo.: Westview Press, 1992), 20-25.
against Collectivization and Otkup in Central Croatia" (Ph.D. diss., Uni- 26 Lampe, Prickett, and AdamoviC, Yugoslav-American Economic Relations, 70-
versity of Pittsburgh, 1995), Vera KrziSilik-BukiC, Cazinska buna, 1950 (The 76.
Cazin revolt) (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1991). 27 Johnson, Transformation of Communist Ideology, 143-58; Djilas, Contested
17 IzetbegoviC was sentenced to three years in prison in the first trials of 1946. Country, 176-79.
The organization's origins, in the first years of the war, were entirely outside 28 Alexander, Church and Seate in Yugoslavia since 1945, 121-36, 178-206.
the Partisan struggle, which tarnished it irretrievably for the Communist 29 Noel Nakolm, Kosovo, A Short History (New York: New York University
regime, despite the absence of any ties, beyond a few individuals, to Ustafa Press, 1997), 322-23.
or German efforts to mobilize the Bosnian Muslims for their own purposes. 30 Clissold, DJilas, 290; see also his Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, 55-62,
See chapters 10 and 12 for his further activities and 1983 conviction, before 231-47.
he reemerged to become president of an independent Bosnia-Herzegovina in
1992. On the organization's evolution and Izetbegovic's role, see Sead Trulj,
9 TITO'S YUGOSLAVIA ASCENDING, 1954-1967
Mladi Muslimani (Young Muslims) (Zagreb: Globus, 1992), 9-36, 57-70,
18 Banac, With Stalin against Tito, 117-42, 243-54. Looking beyond total Tito agreed to go to Moscow for negotiation only after Soviet authorities
numbers, the larger part of Serbs purged came from the Croatian Krajina had finally dissolved the Comintem, and with it the main forum for Stalinist
and Bosnia, thus reducing their disproportionate share in those local party Yugoslavs, in April. Also encouraging was Khrushchev's secret speech that
hierarchies. had condemned Stalin to the party congress two months before. It included
19 Tomasevich, "Immediate Effects of the Cominform Resolution," 105-13; an admission that "we have paid dearly" for Stalin's "artificially" blowing
James Gow, Legitimacy and the Military: The Yugoslav Crisis (New York: St. up a conflict with "a state and people who had gone through a severe school
Martin's Press, 1992), 40-44. of fighting for liberty and independence." Edvard Kardelj, Reminiscences
20 Stephen Clissold, Djilas: The Progress of a Revolutionary (Hounslow: Maurice (London: Blond and Briggs, 1982), 130-38; Stephen Clissold, ed., Yugosla-
Temple Smith, 1983), 210-20; A. Ross Johnson, The Transformation of via and the Soviet Union, 1939-1973 (London: Royal Institute of Interna-
Communist Ideology: The Yugoslav Case, 1948-53 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT tional Affairs, Oxford University Press, 1975), 62-79.
Press, 1972), 143-220. For a stenographic record, see Branko PetranoviC, 2 Clissold, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, 62-72; Charles Gati, Hungary
Branko KonCar, and Radovan RadonjiC, eds., Sednice cemralnog komiteta and the Soviet Bloc (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1986), 127-55.
KPJ (1948-52) (Belgrade: Komunist, 1985). 3 James Gow, Legitimacy and the Military: The Yugoslav Crisis (New York: St.
21 From the late 1940s, American Embassy reports became the most detailed Martin's Press, 1992), 43-57.
and best informed diplomatic source of information on the second Yugosla- 4 See Vaclav Bend, Robert F. Byrnes and Nicholas Spulber, eds., The Second
via, as were the British Embassy reports for the interwar period. See the Soviet-Yugoslav Dispute (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Publications,
volumes on Central and Southeastern Europe in US Department of State, 1959), 27-28; and for a Yugoslav perspective, Veljko MiC:unoviC, Moscow
Forei'gn Relations of the United Scares, 1945-57 (Washington, DC: Govern- Diary (New York: Doubleday, 1980).
ment Printing Office, 1947-88) and the declassified holdings of the Na- 5 Phyllis Auty, "Yugoslavia's International Relations, 1945-1965," Contem-
tional Archives of the United States, File H860 in particular, Archives II, porary Yugoslavia, ed. Wayne S. Vucinich (Berkeley, Calif.: University of
College Park, Maryland. The best brief account of the political debate over California Press, 1969), 172-95.
 ...
Selected further reading 459

Guldescu_, Stanko. History of Medieval Croatia. The Hague: Mouton, 1964.

The Croatian-Slavonian Kingdom, 1526-1792. The Hague: Mouton, 1970.
Selected further reading LovrenoviC, Ivan. Bosnien und Herzegowina, Eine Kulr.urgeschichte. Vienna: Folio
) Verlag, 1998.
(in English and German) Malcolm, Noel. Bosnia: A Short Histmy. New York: New York University
/ Press, 1994.
Kosovo, A Short History. New York: New York University Press, 1998.
Rothenberg, Gunther E. The Aust11an Military Border in Croatia, 1522-1747.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960.
The Military Border in Croatia, 1740-1881. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1966.
GEOGRAPHY Stoianovich, Traian. Balkan Worlds: The First and Last Europe. Armonk, N.Y.:
M. E. Sharpe, 1994.
Carter, Francis W. "Urban Development in the Western Balkans, 1200-1800." Sugar, Peter F. Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule. Seattle, Wash.: Univer-
In A Historical Geography of the Balkans, ed. Francis W. Caner. New York: sity of Washington Press, 1977.
Academic Press, 1977, Vucinich, Wayne S., and Thomas A. Emmert_, eds. Kosovo: Legacy of a Medieval
Carter, Francis W., and H. T. Norris, eds. The Changing Shape of the Balkans. Battle. Minneapolis, Minn.: Minnesota Mediterranean and East European
Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996. Monographs, 1991.
Crampton, Richard, and Ben Crampton. Adas of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Winnifrith, Tom J. The Vlachs: The History of a Balkan People. London:
Century. London: Routledge, 1996. Duckworth, 1987.
Hamilton, F. E. Ian. Yugoslavia: Patterns of Economic Activity. New York:
Frederick A. Praeger, 1968.
Hoffman, George. "The Evolution of the Ethnographical Map of Yugoslavia." NINETEENTH AND EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURIES
In A Historical Geography of the Balkans, ed. Francis W. Carter. New York: Adanir, Fikret. Die Makedonische Frage, lhre Entstehung und Entwicklung.
Academic Press, 1977. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1979.
Magocsi, Paul Robert. Historical Adas of East-Central Europe. Seattle, Wash.: Austrian History Yearbook 3, pt. 2 (1967). Articles by Dimitrije DjordjeviC, Charles
University of Washington Press., 1993. Jelavich, Barbara Jelavich, Bogdan Krizman, Wayne Vucinich, and Fran Zwitter.
Banac, Ivo. The ]\Tatiana! Question in Yugoslavia: On"gins, Hiswry, Politics. Ithaca,
PRE-MODERN PERIOD N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984.
Behschnitt_, Wolf D. Nationalismus bei Serben und Kroaten, 1830-1914. Munich:
Adanir, Fikret. "Tradition and Rural Change in Southeastern Europe during R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1980.
Ottoman Rule." In The On"gins of Backwardness in Eastern Europe, ed. Budak_, Nevin, Peter Jordan, Walter Lukan, and Petra Maissi, eds. Kroatien:
Daniel Chirot. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1989. Landeskunde, Geschichre, Kultur, Politik, Wirtschaft, Recht. Vienna: B0hlau
BatakoviC_,DuSan. The Kosovo Chronicles. Belgrade: Plato, 1992. Verlag, Osterreichische Osthefte no. 37/2, 1995.
Bracewell, Catherine Wendy. The Uskoks of Senj: Piracy, Banditry, and the Holy Carnegie Endowment. The Other Balkan Wars: A 1913 Carnegie Endowment
War in the 16th Century Adriatic. Ithaca_,N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992. Inquiry in Retrospect. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment Book, 1993.
Carter_, Francis W. Dubovnik (Ragusa): A Classic City-State. London: Seminar Dedijer, Vladimir. The Road w Sarajevo. New York: Simon and Schuster_, 1966.
Press., 1972. DespalatoviC, Elinor Murray. Ljudevit Gaj and the Illyrian Movement. New York:
Diaja, SreCko. Konfessionalitiit und Nationaliuit Bosniens und der Herzegowina: Columbia University Press, East European Quarterly., 1975.
voremanzipatorische Phase, 1463-1804. Mnnich: R Oldenbourg Verlag, 1984. Donia, Robert J. Islam under the Double Eagle: The Muslims of Bosnia and
Emmert, Thomas. Serbian Golgotha: Kosovo, 1389. New York: Columbia Uni- Hercego'inna, 1878-1914. New York: Columbia University Press, East Euro-
versity Press., East European Monographs, 1990. pean Monographs, 1981.
Fine, John V. A., Jr. The Bosnian Church: A New Interpretation. New York: Diaja, SreCko M. Bosnien-Herzegowina in der Osterreichische-ungarische epoche
Columbia University Press, 1975. (1878-1918). Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1994.
The Early Medieval Balkans. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press., Haselsteiner, Horst. Bosnien-Hercegowina, onemkrise und SUdlavische Frage. Vi-
1983. enna: Bohlau Verlag, 1996.
The Late Medieval Balkans. Ann Arbor_, Mich.: University of Michigan Press_, Jelavich, Barbara. Russia's Balkan Entanglements, 1806-1914. Cambridge: Cam-
1987. bridge University Press, 1991.
458
 Selected further reading 461
460 Selected further reading

Jelavich, Charles. South Slav National.isms, Textbooks, and Yugoslav Union before Hoptner, Jacob B. Yugoslavia in Crisis, 1934-1941. New York: Columbia Uni-
1914. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1990. versity Press, 1962.
MacKenzie, David. JliJa Garasanin, Balkan Bismarck. New York: C'umbia Kerner, Robert J., ed. Yugoslavia. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California
University Press, East European Monographs, 1985. /! Press, 1949.
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1,: McClellan, Woodford. Svetozar Markovii and the Origins of Balkan Socialism. Lederer, Ivo. Yugoslavia at the Paris Peace Conference. New Haven, Conn.: Yale
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, I 964. / University Press, 1963.
Miller, Nicholas J. Between Nation and Seate, Serbian Poliiics in Croatia Before the Livingston_, Rob:,rt Gerald,- "Stjepan RadiC and the Croatian Peasant Party,
First World War. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997. 1904-19~9. Ph.D. d1ss. 1959. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University.
Perry, Duncan M. The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Revoluiionary Move- Mayer, Martm. Elementarbildung in Jugoslawien (1918-1945). Munich: R.
ments, 1893-1903. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1988. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1995.
Petrovich, Michael B. A History of Modern Serbia, 1804-1918, 2 vols. New PavkoviC, Aleksandar. Slobodan Jovanovic_,An Unsentimental Approach to Polilics.
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976. New York: Columbia University Press, East European Monographs, 1993.
Rothsc~ild, Joseph. East Cenlral Europe between the Two Wars. Seattle, Wash.:
I Pinson, Mark, ed. The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1994.
Umvers1ty of Washington Press, 1974.
Rogel, Carole. The Slovenes and Yugoslavism, 1890-1914. Boulder, Colo.: East Rusinow, Dennison. Italy's Austrian Hentage, 1919-1946. Oxford: Clarendon
I: European Quarterly, 1977.
Press, 1969.
Zivojinovii::, Dragoljub. Amen'ca, Italy, and the Birch of Yugoslavia, 1917-19.
11 Rossos, Andrew. Russia and the Balkans: Inter-Balkan Rivalries and Russian
!I Foreign Policy, 1908-1914. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1981. Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1972.
Seton-Watson, Hugh, and Christopher Seton-Watson. The Making of a New
Europe, R. W Seton-Watson and the last years of Austria-Hungary. Seattle,
ECONOMIC HISTORY (PRE-1945)
Wash.: University of Washington Press, 1981.
Stokes, Gale. Legitimacy through Liberalism: Vladimir Jovanovic and the Transfonna-
tion of Serbian Politics. Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington Press, 1975. Brashich, Ranko M. Land Reform and Ownership in Yugoslavia, 1919-53. New
Politics as Development: The Emergence of Political Parties in Nineteenth Century York: Mid-European Studies Center, 1954.
I Serbia. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1990. Calic, Marie-Janine. Sozialgeschichte Serbiens 1815-1941. Munich: R. Oldenberg
Verlag, 1994.
I Treadway, John D. The Falcon and the Eagle: Montenegro and Ausma-Hungary,
Chirot, .Daniel~ ed .. The On'gins of Backwardness in Eastern Europe. Berkeley,
1908-1914. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1983.
Vucinich, Wayne S. Serbia between East and West: The Events of 1903-08. Cahf.: Umvers1ty of California Press, 1989.
Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1954. Hofrvar, Toussaint. The Strncture of the Slovenian Economy, 1848-1963. New
Williamson, Samuel R., Jr. Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World York: Studia Slovenica, 1965.
War. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991. ImamoviC, Mustafa, Kemal Hrelja., and Arif Purivatra. The Economic Genocide
over Bosnian Muslims. Sarajevo: OKO Sarajevo, 1992.
Inalchik, Halil. An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire. Vol. 1,
THE FIRST YUGOSLAVIA . 1300----:1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
AvakumoviC, Ivan. History of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Vol. 1. Aber- Killen, Linda. Testing lhe Periphenes: US-Yugoslav Economic Relations in the
deen: Aberdeen University Press, 1964. lnterwar Yean. New York: Columbia University Press, East European Mono-
graphs, 1994.
Barker, Elizabeth. Macedonia. 1950. Reprint. Westwood, Conn.: Greenwood
Lampe, John R.~ and Marvin R. Jackson. Balkan Economic History, 1555-1950:
Press, 1980.
Beard, Charles A., and George Radin. The Balkan Pr:vot: Yugoslavia. New From Imperial Borderlands to Developing Nations. Bloomington, Ind.: Indi-
ana University Press, 1982.
York: Macmillan, 1929.
Djilas., Aleksa. The Contested Country: Yugoslav Unity and Communist Revolution_, McGowan, Bruce. Economic Life in Ottoman Europe: Taxation, Trade, and the
1919-53. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991. .Strugg~for Land, 1600-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
DjordjeviC, Dimitrije, ed. The Creation of Yugoslavia, 1914-1918. Santa Barbara, Palairet, Michael .. The Balkan economiesc. 1800-1914, Evolution without develop-
ment. Cambndge, Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Calif.: ABC Clio Press, 1980.
Dragnich, Alexander. The First Yugoslavia: The Search for a Viable Political Sugar, Peter F .. The .Industrialization of Bosnia-Hercegovina, 1878-1914. Seattle,
System. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1983. Wash.: Umvers1ty of Washington Press, 1963.
Friedenreich, Harriet Pass. The Jews of Yugoslavia: A Quest for Community. Tomase~ch, Jozo. Peasants, Politics~and Economic Change in Yugoslavia. Stanford,
Philadelphia, Pa.: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979. Cahf.: Stanford University Press, 1955.

1,
 462 Selected further reading Selected further reading 463

SOCIAL HISTORY AND ANTHROPOLOGY

PleStina, Dijana. Regional Development in Communist Yugoslavia. Boulder, Colo.:
Westview Press, 1992.
Among the People: Selected Writings of Milenko S. FilipoviC, ed. E. A. Hammel et Sachs, Stephen R. Self-Management and Efficiency: Large Corporations in Yugo-
al. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Nlichigan Slavic Publications, 1982. // slavia. London: George Allen and Umvin, 1983.
BiCaniC, Rudolph. How the People Live: Life in the Passive Regions, tranl.' and e~. Woodward, Susan L. Socialisi Unemployment: The Political Economy of Yugo-
Joel M. Halpern and Elinor Murray DespalatoviC. Amherst, }diass.: Uru- slavia, 1945-90. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.
versirv of Massachusetts, Department of Anthropology, 1981. Yugoslav Survey. Belgrade, 1960- .
Bringa, Tone. Being Muslim the Bosnian Way. Identity and Community in a
Central Bosnian Village. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Halpern, Joel M., and Barbara Kerewsky Halpern. A Serbian Village in Hiswr- THE SECOND WORLD WAR

ical Perspeaive. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1972. Alexander, Stella. The Tn"pleMyth: A Life of Archbishop AWjzije Stepinac. New
Lockwood, William G. European Moslems: Economy and Ethnicity in Western York: Columbia University Press, East European Monographs, 1987.
Bosnia. New York: Academic Press, 1975. Auty, Phyllis, and Richard Clogg, eds. British Policy toward Wartime Yugoslavia
SimiC, Andrei. The Peasant Crbanites: A Study of Rural-Urban Mobility in Serbia. and Greece. London: Macmillan, 1975.
New York: Seminar Press, 1973. Djilas, Milovan. Wartime. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977.
Trouton, Ruth. Peasant Renaissance in Yugoslavia, 1900-50: A Study of the Hory, Ladislav, and Martin Broszat. Der Kroatische Ustasha Staat, 1941-45.
Development of Yugoslav Peasant Society as Affected by Education. London: Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1964.
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 19~2. . Irvine, Jill. The Croat Question: Partisan Politics in ihe Fonnation of the Yugoslav
Winner, Irene. A Slovenian Village: Zerovnica. Providence, R.I.: Brown Umver- Socialist State. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1993.
sity Press, 1971. Karchmar, Lucien. DraZa MihailoviC and the Rise of the Chetnik Movement,
1941-42. 2 vols. New York: Garland Publishers, 1987.
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AFTER 1945 Milazzo, Matteo J. The Chetnik Movement and the Yugoslav Resistance. Balti-
more, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975.
Adizes, Ichak. Industrial Democracy Yugoslav Style: The Effects of Decentralization Roberts, Walter R. Tito, MihailoviC, and the Allies, 1941-1945. New Brunswick,
on Organizational Behavior. New York: Free Press, 1971. . N,J.: Rutgers University Press, 1973. Reprint. Durham, N.C.: Duke Uni-
BoSkoviC, Blagoje, and David DasiC, eds. Socialist Self-Management 1~ Yugosla- versity Press, 1987.
via, 1950-80: Documents. Belgrade: Socialist Thought and Practice, 1980.
ii'I Denitch, Bogdan. The Legitimation of a Revolution: The Yugoslav Case. New
Steinberg, Jonathan. All or Nmhing: The Axis and the Holocaust, 1941-1943.
London: Routledge, 1990.
!1 Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1976. Sundhaussen, Holm. Wirtschaftsgeschichte Kroatiens im nationalsozialistischen
i I Dubey, Vinod, u al. Yugoslavia: Development wit.h Decentralization. Baltimore, Grossraum, 1941-1945. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1983.
Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press for IBRD, 1975. Tomasevich, Jozo. The Chetniks. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1975.
; Ii Estrin, Saul. Self-Management: Economic Theory and Yugoslav Practice. Cam- Trew, Simon. En.win, MihailoviC and the Chetniks, 1941-42. New York: St.
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Martin's Press, 1998.
, 11
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Horvat, Branko. The Yugoslav Economic System. \Vhite Plains, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, Trgo, Fabijan. The National Liberation War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-
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1976. 45: Selected Documents. Belgrade: Military History Institute, 1982.
I Lampe, John R., Russell 0. Prickett, and LjubiSa AdamoviC. Yugoslav----A1:1enc~n Van Creveld, Martin. Hitler's Strategy, 1940-41: The Balkan Clue. Cambridge:
Economic Relations since World War II. Durham, N.C.: Duke Uruversrry Cambridge University Press, 1973.
Press, 1990. 'Wheeler, Mark C. Britain and the War for Yugoslavia, 1940-43. New York:
Lydall, Harold. Yugoslav Socialism: Theory and Practice. Oxford: Clarendon Columbia University Press, East European Monographs, 1980.
Press, 1984. .
Macesich, George. Yugoslavia: The Theory and Practice of Development Planning.
Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia Press, 1964. FOUNDING THE SECOND YUGOSLAVIA
Milenkovitch, Deborah. Plan and Market in Yugoslav Economic Thought. New Banac, Ivo. With Stalin against Tito: Cominfonnist Splits in Yugoslav Communism.
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1971. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988.
Moore, John H. Growth with Self-Management: Yugoslav Industrialization, 1952- Beckmann-Petey, Monika. Der jugoslawischeFi5deralismus.Munich: R. Oldenbourg
1975. Stanford, Calif: Hoover Institution Press, 1980. Verlag, 1990.
OECD Economic Surveys. Yugoslavia, 1962-90. Paris: Organization for Eco- Bokovoy, Melissa K. Peasants and Communists, Politicsand Ideology in the Yugoslav
nomic Cooperation and Development, 1963-90. Countryside, 1941-1953. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998.
464 Selected further reading Selected further reading 465
Clissold, Stephen. Djilas, The Progress of a Revolutionary. Hounslow: Maurice Rusinow, Dennison. The Yugoslav Experiment, 1948-1974. Berkeley, Calif.:
Temple Smith, Ltd., 1983. University of California Press, 1977.
Dedijer, Vladimir. Tito Speaks. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1953. Sher, Gerson S. Praxis: A1arxist Criticism and Dissent in Yugoslavia. Bloomington,
The Battle Stalin Lost: Memoirs of Yugoslavia, 1948-53. New York: Goss~ Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1977.
1972. Shoup, Paul. Communism and the Yugoslav National Question. New York:
Djilas, Milovan. Rise and Fall. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1'85. Columbia University Press, 1968.
Johnson, A. Ross. The Transformation of Communist Ideology: The Yugoslav Case, SUdost-Europa. Siidost Institut, Munich, 1951- .
1948-53. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1972. Vucinich, Wayne S., ed. Contemporary Yugoslavia. Berkeley, Calif.: University
Novak, Bogdan C. Tneste 1941-54: The Ethnic, Political, and ldeolngical Struggle. of California Press, 1969.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.
Rabel, Roberto G. Berween East and West: Trieste, r,he United States, and the Cold
POST-TITO YUGOSLAVIA AND THE SUCCESSOR STATES
War, 1941-54. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1988.
Vucinich, Wayne S., ed. At Ule Brink of War and Peace: The Tito-Stalin Split in Allcock, John B., John J. Horton, and Marko MilivojeviC, eds. Yugoslavia in
Historical Perspective. Ne\\e York: Columbia University Press, East Euro- Transition. New York: BERG, 1992.
pean Monographs, 1982. Conflict in the Former Yugoslavia, An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC
Clio Press, 1998.
Benderly, Jill, and Evan Kraft, eds. Independent Slovenia: On'gins, Movements
TITO'S YUGOSLAVIA
and Prospects. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994.
Alexander, Stella. Church and State in Yugoslavia since 1945. Cambridge: Cam- Burg, Steven L., and Paul S. Shoup. The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ethnic
bridge University Press, 1979. Conflict and International Intervention. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1999.
Auty, Phyllis. Tito: A Biography. London: Longman, 1970. Cohen, Lenard J. Broken Bonds: Yugoslavia's Disintegration and Balkan Politics
Benes, Vaclav, Robert F. Byrnes, and Nicholas Spulber, eds. The Second Soviet- in Transition. 2nd edn. Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1995.
Yugoslav Dispute. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Publications, 1959. Danforth, Loring M. The Macedonian Conflict, Ethnic Nationalism in a
Bokovoy, Melissa K., Jill A. Irvine, and Carol S. Lilly, eds. Stace-Society Rela- Transnational World, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995.
tions in Yugoslavia, 1945-1992. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997. Dawisha, Karen, and Bruce Parrott, eds. Politics, Power and the Struggle for
Burg, Steven L. Conflict and Cohesion in Socialist Yugoslavia. Princeton: Princeton Democracy in Southeastern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ''
;j
University Press, 1983. 1997. '
Carter, April. Democracic Reform in Yugoslavia: The Changing Role of the Parry. DimitrijeviC, Vojin, ed. Human Ri"ghts in Yugoslavia in 1998. Belgrade: Human
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982. Rights Center, 1999.
Clissold, Stephen, ed. Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. London: Institute for Duijzings, G., D. Janjic, and S. Ma]iqi, eds. Kosovo--Kosova: Confrontation or
the Study of Conflict, 1975. Coexisience. Nijmegen, Netherlands: Peace Research Center, University of
Cohen, Lenard J. The Socialist Pyramid: Elites and Power in Yugoslavia. Oakville, Nijmegen, 1996.
Ont.: Mosaic Press, 1989. Dyker, David A. Yugoslavia: Socialism, Development, and Debt. London:
Grothusen, Klaus-Detlev. Jugoslawien=Yugoslavia. Gottingen: Vandenhoech and Routledge, 1990.
Ruprecht, 1975. Dyker, David A., and I. Vejvoda, eds. Yugoslavia and After, A Study in Frag-
McFarlane, Bruce. Yugoslavia: Politics, Economics, and Society. London: Pinter mentation, Despair and Rebirch. New York: Longman, 1996.
Publishers, 1988. Glenny, Misha. The Fall of Yugoslavia. 2nd edn. rev. and enl. New York:
MilivojeviC, Marko, John B. Allcock, and Pierre Maurer, eds. Yugoslavia's Penguin Books, 1993.
Security Dilemmas: Armed Forces, National Defense, and Foreign Policy. New Goati, Vladimir, ed. The Challenges of Parliamentansm, The Case of Serbia in the
York: BERG, 1988. early 1990s. Belgrade: Institute of Social Sciences, 1995.
Pavlowitch, Stevan K. Yugoslavia: The Improbable Survivor. Columbus, Ohio: Gow, James. Legr."timacyand the Military: The Yugoslav Crisis. New York: St.
Ohio State University Press, 1988. Martin's Press, 1992.
Tiw, Yugoslavia~s Great Dictator: A Reassessment. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State The Triumph of the Lack of Will, International Diplomacy and the Yugoslav War.
University Press, 1992. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
Ramet, Sabrina Petra. Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia, 1962-91. Gow, James, and Cathie Carmichael. Slovenia and the Slovenes. Bloomington,
2nd edn. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1992. Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2000.
Rubenstein, Alvin Z. Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned World. Princeton: Princeton Helsinki Watch. War Cnmes in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Vols. 1 and 2. New York:
University Press, 1970. Human Rights Watch, 1992, 1993.
466 Selected further reading Selected further reading 467

Lydall, Harold. Yugoslavia in Cnsis. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. Eekman, Thomas. Thirty Years of Yugoslav Literature, 1945-75. Ann Arbor,
MagaS, Branka. The Destruction of Yugoslavia: Tracking the Break-up, 1980-92. Mich.: Michigan Slavic Press, 1985.
London: Verso, 1993. Goulding, Daniel J. Liberated Cinema: The Yugoslav Expenence. Bloomington,
Meier, Viktor. Yugoslavia, A History of its Demise. Trans. Sabrina P. Ra#,. Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1985.
London: Routledge, 1999. Hawkesworth, Celia. lvo Andric: Bridge Between East and West. London: Althone,
NebojSa, Popov, ed. The Road to War in Serbia. Budapest: CEU Pres( 1999 1984.
(translation of his Srpskastrana rata, Belgrade: Republika, 1996). Holton, Milne_, and Vasa D. Mihailovich, eds. Serbian Poeiry From the Beginning
Paulsen, Thomas. Die Jugoslawienpolitik der USA, 1989-1994. Baden-Baden: to the Present. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publications for Yale Russian and
Nomos Verlag, 1995. East European Publications, 1988.
Pettifer, James, ed. The New Macedonian Question. London: Macmillan, 1999. HOpken, Wolfgang, ed. Oil on Fire? Textbooks, Eihnic Stereotypes and Violence in
Ramet, Pedro, ed. Yugoslavia in the 1980s. Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1985. Southeastern Europe. Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1996.
Ramet, Sabrina Petra. Balkan Babel, The Disintegration of Yugoslavia from the KoljeviC, Svetozar. Yugoslav Short Stories. London: Oxford University Press, 1966.
Death of Tito to Ethnic War. 3rd ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999. Krleza, Miroslav. The Return of Philip Latinowicz. New York: Vanguard, 1959.
Ramet, Sabrina Petra, and LjubiSa AdamoviC, eds. Beyond Yugoslavia: Politics, Milojkovic-DjuriC, Jelena. Tradilion and Avant-Garde: The Arts in Serbian Cul-
Economics, and Culture in a Shattered Community. Boulder, Colo.: Westview ture between the Two World Wars. New York: Columbia University Press,
Press, 1995. East European Monographs, 1984.
Silber, Laura, and Allan Little. The Death of Yugoslavia. London: Penguin Norris, David A. The Novels of Milos Crnjanski: An Approach Through Time.
Books, 1995, revised and updated 1997. Nottingham: Astra Press, 1990.
Thomas, Robert. Serbia under MiloSevic, Politics in the 1990s. London: Hurst Ramet, Sabrina P. Balkan Babel: Politics, Culture, and Religion in Yugoslavia.
and Co., 1999. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1992.
UdoviCki, Jasmina, and James Ridgeway, eds. Yugoslavia's Ethnic Nightmare. Robinson, Gertrude Joch. Tito's Maverick Media. Urbana, Ill.: University of
New York: Lawrence Hill Books, 1995. Illinois Press, 1994.
Burn This House, The Making and Unmaking of Yugoslavia. Durham, N.C.: Thompson, Mark. Forging War: The Media in Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia-
Duke University Press, 1997. Hercegovina. Avon: The Bath Press, Article 19, 1994.
Veremis, Thomas, and Evangelos Kofos, eds. Kosovo: Avoiding Another Balkan Wachtel, Andrew Baruch. Making a Nation, Breaking a Naiion, Literature and
War. Athens: ELIAMER, 1998. Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press,
Woodward, Susan L. Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution after the Cold War. 1998.
Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1995. Wilson, Duncan. The Life and Times of Vuk Stefanovic KaradZiC, 1787-1864.
Zimmermann, Warren. Origins of a Catastrophe - Yugoslavia and its Destroyers. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970.
New York Times Books, Random House, 1996, revised edn. 1999.
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CULTURE AND MEDIA
Friedman, Francine, ed. Yugoslavia: A Comprehensive English Language Biblio-
AdamiC, Louis. The Native's Return. New York: Harper's, 1934. graphy. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1993.
AndriC, Ivo. The Bridge on the Drina. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Horton, John J., comp. Yugoslavia: Revised and Expanded Ediiion. Santa Barbara,
1977. Calif: ABC Clio Press, 1990.
Barac, Antun. A History of Yugoslav Literature. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Michigan JankoviC, Dragoslav. The Histon'ography of Yugoslavia, 1965-1975. Belgrade:
Slavic Publications, 1973. Association of Yugoslav Historical Studies, 1975.
Beker, Miroslav, ed. Comparative Studies in Croatian Literature. Zagreb: Liber, MatuliC, Rusko. Bibliography of Sources on the Region of ihe Fonner Yugoslavia.
1981. New York: Columbia University Press, East European Monographs, 1998.
Bogert, Ralph. The wnier as Naysayer: Miras/av KrleZa and the Aesthetic of Petrovich, Michael B. Yugoslavia: A Bibliographic Guide. Washington, D.C.:
lnterwar Central Europe. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers_, 1990. Library of Congress, 1974.
Budding, Audrey Helfant. "Serb Intellectuals and the National Question, 1961- Seewan, Gerhard, and Peter Dippold, eds. Bibliographisches Handbuch der
1991." Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1998. ethnischen Gruppen Siidosteuropas. Vol. 2. Munich: Sildost-lnstitut, R.
Cankar, Ivan. My Life and Omer Sketches. Ed. and comp. Josip Vidmar. Ljubljana: Oldenbourg Verlag, 1997.
DruStvo slovenskih pisateljev, 1988. Stankovic, Dobrila, and Zlatan MoltariC. Svetska bibliograjija o krizi u bivfoj
Cosic, Dobrica. This Land, This Time. 4 vols. New York: Harcourt Brace Jugoslaviji (World bibliography on the crisis in the former Yugoslavia).
Jovanovich, 1983. Belgrade: Sluibeni glasnik, 1996.
 I
i'
Index 469

bank failures, 172 economic issues, 405-7

It Bank for International Settlements, ethnic war in, 373-81
l! 326-27 as native state, 18-20
Index I. banking, 76, 120-21, 152-54, transition from Ottoman to
172-73, 287-88, 315-16, 403 Austro-Hungarian rule, 65-68
/ banovine, institution of, 165-68 Bosnia-Hercegovina (Bosnia-
Ban PuCanin (People's Ban), 62 Herzegovina), 365, 374, 378.
Basic Organizations of Associated See also Hercegovina
Labor (OOUR), 316-18 (Herzegovina)
battle of Kosovo (1389), 17, 40, 49, annexation by Austria, 83-88
55, 99-100, 353 and Balkan Wars, 98-100
Beard, Charles, 126-27, 133 bloodbath in, 211-14
AbdiC, Fikret, 330-31 All-Albanian Army, 396 Belgrade declaration of independence, 364
demographic shift in, 335-37
'! Afghanistan, Soviet invasion of, 324
Agitprop, 236-37, 262
Allen, George V., 258
Alliance of Reform Forces, 359
as capital of First Yugoslavia,
112-14, 145-49 elections of 1990, 362-64
Agrarian Council, 243 Anderson, Benedict, 40, 43 and Great Serbia, 52 ethnic violence in, 211-14
Agrarian Union, 135-36, 142, 235 Anderson, David, 326 industry in, 120 in First World War, 107-9
Agricultural Bank, 181 AndriC, Ivo, 3, 90, 108, 199-200 intellectuals in, 191-92 Habsburgs and, 63, 92
agriculture, 10-13 Annunzio, Gabriele d', 114 in 1980s, 346 under Ottomans, 22-24
in Bosnia-Hercegovina, 81-82 Anti-Fascist Liberation Movement pre-First-World-War, 86-87 pre-First-World-War, 80-83, 90
collectivization of, 250-51, 258 for Yugoslavia (AVNOJ), "rurbanization" of, 334 and Second World War, 222-24
estate, 78 221-22 in Second World War, 204-5, BoSniak-Croat Federation, 399
in First Yugoslavia, 118-19, Antonov, Stojan, 396 225 BoSniaks, 374-81
149-51, 188-90 architecture, Zagreb School, 148-49 and Yugoslav Confederation of Bosnian Serb Army (BSA), 375-81
in Great Depression, 171 army intelligence (KOS), 252 Strossmayer, 60 BoSnjaScvo, 68
industrial, 183 Army of Yugoslavia (VJ), 374-75 Belgrade coup, 202-3 bratstvo i jedinstvo, 236
and land reform, 81-82, 98, Anukovic, Andrija, 176, 208 Belgrade Declaration, 268 Braudel, Fernand, 11
117-19, 125, 135, 149-51, assassination, 90, 98, 130, 142-44, Belgrade Eight, 302 BrCko, 381
189-90, 244 161-62, 173-76 Beria, Levrenti, 267 Brezhnev, Leonid, 323
in medieval Macedonia, 22 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Berisha, Sali, 412 Bricklin, Malcolm, 321
under Ottomans, 20-21 99-100 Bevan, Aneurin, 263 Broz, Josip. See Tito, Josip Broz
in Second Yugoslavia, 239, Austria, 114-15, 155-56. See also Bevin, Ernest, 258 Brubaker, Rogers, 8
243-45, 258, 288, 295-97 Habsburgs BiCaniC, Rudolf, 190 Budak, Mile, 208-9
Serbian, 56-57 authoritarianism. See also Black Hand. See Union or Death Budisa, DraZen, 308
Agrokomerc scandal, 330-31 dictatorship, royal (Ujedinjenje iii smrt) Bukoshi, Bujar, 412
Albania, 117, 157, 270 in independent Croatia, 383-85 Bled agreement, 24 7 BulatoviC, Momir, 362
Albanian Party for Democratic of King Aleksandar, 168-71 Bloc of National Agreement, 179 Bulgaria, 91-92, 106-7, 116-17,
Prosperity (PDP), 396 automobile industry, 321 Bohan, Mace, 376-78 156,207, 247
Albanians Autonomists, 69 Bogomilism, 19-20, 23 Bulgarian Agrarian National Union,
Kosovar, 26, 97, 207-8, 228, 262, AvramoviC, Dragoslav, 387, 404 BOhme, General Franz, 215-1 7 80
302-4, 367, 409, 411-12 Borden, Anthony, 366 Bulgarian Communist Party (BKP),
in Macedonia, 395-96 Bailey, S. W., 220 borders 247
Albright, Madeline, 414 Bajt, Aleksandar, 292 in First Yugoslavia, 113-17 Burg, Steven, 305, 312, 366
Aleksandar, King, 110, 132 BakariC, Vladimir, 290, 309 in Second Yugoslavia, 231-32 Burian, Istvan, 81
assassination, 173- 7 6 Balkan Entente, 186 BoSkoviC, Rudjer, 35
coronation, 127-28 Balkan federation, issue of, 245, 247 Bosnia Cankar, Ivan, 95
and royal dictatorship, 163-73 Balkan Wars, 72, 91-100 and Croatia, pre-First-World-War, Carinthia, 114-16
Alexander, Stella, 210 Banac, Ivo, 6, 33, 252 88-91 Catholic Action, 178-79

468
 470 Index Index 471
Catholic church, 14-15, 19-20 Committee for the National Council for Mutual Economic Croatian National Party, 69-70,
and anti-Serb violence in Croatia, Liberation of Kosovo, 157 Assistance (CMEA), 270-71 76-77
209-10 committees, interrepublic, 312 Council of Europe, 394 Croatian National Peasant Party
and Bosnia-Hercegovina, 67
and Communists, 229
committees, local, 257
Communists. See League of
JI Council of Nationalities, 306 (HPSS), 79-80, 94. See also
Counter-Reformation, 29 Croatian Peasant Party ( HSS)
and First Yugoslavia, 112, 178-79 Yugoslav Comrnunists,SKJ); Creditanstalt of Vienna, 172 Croatian Orthodox church, 211
and Habsburgs, 29 Partisans; Tito, Josip Broz; Crnjansk.i, Milos, 147, 192 Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), 79,
and NDH, 212 Yugoslav Communist Party Croat National Organization, 82 119, 139
and Second Yugoslavia, 293, 343 (KPJ) Croatia and annexation of Bosnia, 88-89
and Slovenia, 392 Communists, Greek, Yugoslav and Balkan Wars, 94-95 avoidance of extremism, 173-74,
and UstaSa regime, 223 support for, 241, 245, 247 and Bosnia, pre-First-World-War, 178-79
CavoSki, Kosta, 6, 230 concentration camps 88-91 in First Yugoslavia, 141, 143-44,
Ce1ebici, 375 Communist, 238, 253, 263 and Communists, 228-29 159-60, 162
censorship, 177. See also media; Nazi, 205 crisis of 1967-72, 305-9 and formation of First Yugoslavia,
newspapers Concordat with Vatican (1935), declaration of independence, 371 111-12, 122, 125
centralism, Serb, 49-52 178-79 elections of 1990, 360-61 and intellectuals, 192
centralization, in First Yugoslavia, confederalism, 126-27 ethnic cleansing in, 367, 371 and land reform, 189
121-28, 130-31 Congress of Public Employees, 134 and First World War, 107-8 and NDH, 223, 229-30
Chamber of Nationalities, 306 Congress of Salvation, 354 and First Yugoslavia, 177-80 opposition to UstaS3 regime, 212
Chamber of Republics and Conrad von HOtzendorf, General and Habsburgs, 30-31 post-Second-World-War, 243
Autonomous Provinces, 313 Franz, 94, 109 as native state, 14-16 revival of, 384-85
Chamber of Republics and Constituent Assembly, in Second after partition of First Yugoslavia, and royal dictatorship, 164-65,
Provinces, 306 Yugoslavia, 233-34 208-10 170-71
Chetnik movement, 206, 213-22, constitutions, Serbia post-dissolution, 378, 381-91, and Sporazum, 194
225, 228 constitution of 1869, 51 401-2 Croatian Republican Peasant Party
legacy of, 367 constitution of 1888, 52, 54-55, privatization in, 402-3 (HRSS), 124, 137-38
chiftlik, 22 83 Serbs in, 31 Croatian-Serbian Coalition, 78-79,
Christian Democrats (SKD), 392-93 constitution of 1903, 112, 126-27 and Slovenia, 394 89, 93-94, 107, Ill, 136
Christianity, 11, 14-16. See also under Milos, 50 and Sporazum of 1939, 195-96 Croatia-Slavonia, 77-80, 150-52
Catholic church; Protestantism; constitutions, Yugoslavia, 8 war of dissolution in, 365 Croato-Serbian Coalition, 112, 122
religion; Serbian Orthodox constitution of 1921, 121-28, 163 and Yugoslav Confederation, Croato-Serbian Radical Progressive
church constitution of 1931, 169-70 59-60 Youth Movement, 89-90
Christian-Social Party of Right, 79 constitution of 1946, 233-36 Croatia, Independent State of Croats, as ethnic group, 2, 8, 14, 53.
Churchill, Sir Winston, 218 constitution of 1953, 233, 255, (NDH), 208-10. See also Ustasa See also peasants
Ciano, Count, 185, 194, 198 260-61 regime Crvena Zastava, 321
Cincar-MarkoviC, Aleksandar, 194 constitution of 1963, 284-86, 306, ethnic violence in, 211-14 Crvenkovski, Branko, 396
Civil Croatia, 28, 30-33, 41, 77. 308 and Second World War, 222-24 CubriloviC, Vasa, 243
See also Croatia; Military constitution of 1974, 311-14 Croatian Catholic Association, 99 cultural policy, Communist, 237-38
Border, Habsburg contractual economy, 316 Croatian Defence Force (HOS), 364 currency
Clissold, Stephen, 263 conversion Croatian Defense Council (HVO), collapse, 356
coast, Adriatic, 11 forced, 23, 209, 211 374-81 devaluation, 260, 277
Cohen, Lenard, 141 to Islam, 21, 23-24 Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), in First Yugoslavia, 120-21, 172
collaboration, with Nazis, 205-6, cooperative networks, 152, 172-73, 354, 376, 383-85 in successor states, 400-2, 404-5
215, 225, 228 181, 223, 243-44 Croatian Home Army (Domobran), Cuthiliero, Jose, 363
colonization Corfu Declaration, 105-6, 111 228 Cvetkovic, DragiSa, 194-95
Communists and, 228 corruption, government, in First Croatian Liberation Movement CvijiC, Jovan, 102
in First Yugoslavia, 151-52 Yugoslavia, 134 (ZAVNOH), 224, 242 Czechoslovakia, 243
Cominform, 245, 247, 249 CosiC, Dobrica, 301, 387 Croatian National Community, 99 Soviet invasion of, 300
 Index 473
472 Index
elite ethnic violence, in elections of 1924,
DabCeviC-KuCar, Savka, 308, 310, Donors' Conference of 1999, 405 137
Bosnian Muslim, 65
384 Donovan, William, 199 ethnic wars, use of term, 365-66
Croatian, 44, 46, 63
Dalmatia, 46, 69-70, 76-77, 94-95, DraSkoviC, Count Janko, 44
223 DraSkoviC, Milorad, 143
DraSkoviC, Vuk, 348, 386, 390
JI emigres, Croatian, 308, 3 7 6
employment
European Union, 372-73, 394, 405
Badinter Commission, 373, 392
Danilo, Bishop, 27, 58 in First Yugoslavia, 188 International Conference on the
Danube, 13 DmovSek, Janez, 352, 393 / Former Yugoslavia (ICFY),
in Second Yugoslavia, 278,
DavidoviC, Ljuba, 122, 135, 138, 173 DtziC, Marin, 35 377
288-89, 318
Dayton Agreement, 378, 380-81, DubrovaCka Bank, 403 extremist movements, in First
employment, state
385, 387, 411 Dubrovnik, 33-35, 371-72 Yugoslavia, 173-76
in First Yugoslavia, 133-34, 191
Dd.k, Ferenc, 60 Dulles, John Foster, 273-74
in Second Yugoslavia, 256
Deakin, F. W. (Bill), 220-21 Dufan, Tsar, 17 FADURK fund, creation of, 291
Enlightenment, 37-38
death camps, in NDH, 211 Di:aja, SreCko, 90-91 fascism, 175, 185. See also
enterprise management issues,
I
decentralization, in Second
Yugoslavia, 233-34, 255-57 Eagleburger, Lawrence, 326 .....
, 282-84
enterprises, Yugoslav. See also
Mussolini; Ustasa
February Patent of 1861, 59
Dedijer, Vladimir, 5, 246, 263, 348 Economic Council, 243 Federal Assembly, 261
privatization, in successor states
"de-i:tatization," in Second education Federal Chamber, 306, 313
case studies, 319-21
Yugoslavia, 286 in Bosnia-Hercegovina, 67-68, 82 Federal Executive Council (SIV),
state, 183-84
Defenders of the Constitution, in Croatia, 62 261-62, 311-12
Enverists, 410
50-51 in early modem Sarajevo, 35-37 Federal Planning Commission of
Estrin, Saul, 318
Demaci, Adem, 41 O, 413 in First Yugoslavia, 149 1946, 243
ethnic alliances, in Second
Democratic Alternative, 396 in Kosovo, 339-41 federalism, 126-27, 141-42, 168,
Yugoslavia, 252
Democratic League for Kosovo in Montenegro, 58 187, 236
ethnic cleansing, 366
(LDK), 409-12 in Second Yugoslavia, 292, Federalists, 141, 144
in Bosnia-Hercegovina (Bosnia-
Democratic Parry, 122, 125, 297-98 film industry, 238, 342-43
Herzegovina), 109, 364, 374
134-36, 141-42, 160, 196-98 in Serbia, 54, 86 Fine, John V. A, Jr., 20
campaigns of, 367
demographic decline, fear of, 307 in Slovenia, 29-30 First Serbian Uprising, 4 7-49
in postwar Croatia, 232
Department for Protection of the educational system, Yugoslav, First World War
by UstaSa regime, 211-14
People (OZNa), 238 190-91, 237 economic effects, 117-21
in warfare of 1876-78, 55
DEPOS, 386 Egypt, 272 postwar border disputes, 113-17
ethnic groups, 9, 35-38, 236.
DespalatoviC, Elinor Murray, 44 EkmeciC, Milorad, 5 wartime regimes, 106-10
See also names of ethnic groups
dev$irme system, 21, 23 elections, post-dissolution Five Year Plans
ethnic hatred
dictatorship, royal, 163-76 in Croatia, 384-85 Plan for 1961-65, 281, 283-84
Albanians vs. Serbs, 207-8
DimitrijeviC, Colonel Dragutin in Macedonia, 396-97 Plan of 1947, 241-45
"ancient," 9, 367-68
(Apis), 86, 104 in Serbia, 385-91 revival of, 280
Bosnian Muslims vs. Serbs, 224
Dimitrov, Georgi, 24 7 elections, shadow, in Kosovo, 410 foreign investment, 320-21, 402
Croats vs. Jews, 212
Dinaric mountains, 10- 12 elections, Yugoslav foreign trade, 119, 154, 253,
Croats vs. Muslims, 66
DinkiC, Mladjan, 390 elections of 1920, 122-25 270-71, 276-77, 400,402
Croats vs. Serbs, 209-12
Djilas, Aleksa, 236 elections of 1924, 137 Former Yugoslav Republic of
in First Yugoslavia, 164
Djilas, Milovan, 207, 214, 220-21, elections of 1925, 139 Macedonia (FYROM), 394
Frank and, 79
232, 234, 253, 255, 261-64, elections of 1927, 158-60 "four equalities, the," 236
Serbs vs. Muslims, 65-66
267 elections of 1931, 170 France, 41-43, 110, 116, 154-55
StarCeviC and, 61-62
Djindjic, Zoran, 386, 390 elections of 1935, 177 Franchet d'Esperey, General, 110
ethnic identity, 40, 59, 68, 300
DjordjeviC, Jovan, 312 elections of 1938, 179-80 Frank, Josip, 79
ethnic politics, and disintegration of
DjukanoviC, Milo, 390 elections of 1945, 230-31 Frankist Party of Pure Right, 94,
Yugoslavia, 332-33
DjuretiC, Veselin, 348 elections of 1969, 306-7 107, 111, 124, 175
ethnic purity, in Croatia, 209-10
DjuriSiC, Pavle, 214-15, 227 elections of 1990, 357-64 Franz Ferdinand, Archduke,
ethnic unity, problem of, in Second
Dobos, Manuela, 63-64 electoral process, in constitution of assassination of, 99-100
Yugoslavia, 284
Donia, Robert, 82-83 1974, 313-14
474 Index Index 475

Friends of Yugoslavia, 321, 325-27, Great Serbia, 8, 16, 52-53, 86, 91, UstaSa regime; war crimes Italy
329 365 (Hague Tribunal) and Civil Croatia, 33
Fulbright program, 292-93 Greater Illyria, 43 humanists, Croat, 35, 41 and Dalmatia, 69, 7 6
Greece, 156-57, 241,245, 247// Hungarian Revolution, 268-69 and First Yugoslavia, 111, 113-14,
Gaj., Ljudevit, 43-46 394-95 ,' Hungary, 15, 32, 44-46, 60-65, 154, 157-58
GaraSanin, Ilija, 51-52, 60 Green Beret units, 3 74- 7 6 / 115-16, 155-56, 175,243. See and Second World War, 221-22
General Agreement on Trade and Green Cadres, 108, 150 also Habsburgs; Magyarization and Slovenia, 29-30, 393-94
Tariffs (GATT), Yugoslav Greens, 139., 214 hyperinflation, in Serbia, 404 as trading partner, 183, 276-77
membership, 283 Grenzer, 30-31, 64 and UstaSa, 175-76, 213-14
General Agricultural Cooperatives, grey economies, 402-4 Illinden Uprising, 71 IzetbegoviC, Alija, 252, 344,
244, 251 Grol, Milan_, 179, 197, 230-31 illiteracy, 297-98, 340 362-63
General Invesunent Fund (GIF), Gross, Mirjana, 59 Illyrian provinces, 41-43
I
277, 279-80, 287 Gross Social Product, Yugoslav Illyrianism, 40-46, 59 JanicijeviC, Miloslav, 191
Geneva Agreement, 111-12
Genscher, Hans Dietrich, 372
concept of, 259
Group of 17, 389
....,1 Independent Democrats, 162, 171 Janissaries, 48
Independent Radical Party, 79, 86, JanSa, Janez, 351, 369, 392-93
geography, I 0-14 guest workers, 289, 294, 335 122, 135 Jashari, Azem, 413
Georgievski, LjupCo, 396-97 GunduliC, Ivan, 35 Independent Workers' Party of JelaciC, Josip., 46
Germanization, 222 Yugoslavia (NRPJ), 142-43 Jelincic, Zmago, 392
Germany, 154, 181-84, 373 Habsburgs, 9-10, 27-33 Industrijska Komora, 120 Jevtic'::,Bogoljub, 177
Germany, East, 269 acquisition of Bosnia-Hercegovina, industry Jews, 209-10, 212
Germany, Nazi 66-68 in Bosnia-Hercegovina, 80-81 JNA. See Yugoslav National Anny
and First Yugoslavia, 184-86, Hartwig, Nikolai, 85, 92 in Croatia-Slavonia, 77 (JNA)
198, 201-4 HDZ. See Croatian Democratic in First Yugoslavia, 119-20, joint venture law of 1967, 320
and NDH, 213-14, 223 Union (HDZ) 152-54, 187-89 joint ventures, Yugoslav-Soviet,
occupation of Serbia, 215-18 Hebrang, Andrija, 224, 242-44, in Second Yugoslavia, 239, 246
Operation Maritsa, 202 249 253-54, 265, 270-71, 275, 278, Jones, E. L., 10
Operation Weiss, 220 Helmreich 1 Ernst, 93 295 Jovanovic, Arso, 214
and Partisans, 220-21 Henderson, Neville, 163, 169 in successor states, 403 JovanoviC, Dragoljub, 235, 238
StojadinoviC and, 184-86 Herceg-Bosna_, 376-77 and U.S. aid, 259-60 JovanoviC, Ljuba, 139, 179
Germany, West, 269, 276 Hercegovina (Herzegovina), 19, inflation, 322, 331, 357 Jovanovic, Slobodan, 126-27, 168,
Glenny, Misha, 366 66, 373-81, 404-6. See also Inform Bureauists, 252 197,214,219
Gligorov, Kiro, 362, 391, 395 Bosnia-Hercegovina (Bosnia- instant history, 366-68 Jovanovic, Vladimir, 51
Goli otok, 253 Herzegovina) integration, examples of, 33-38 JoviC, Borisav, 370, 382
Gorkic, Milan (Josip Czizinski), 174 Herder, Johann Gottfried, 43 intellectuals, 191-94, 333 JugoCelik (Yugoslav Steel), 183
Gospodarska Sloga, 243 historians, and Yugoslav idea, 4-6 Interim National Parliament (PNP), JUGORAS, 194
Gotovac, Vladimir, 385 Hitler, Adolf, StojadinoviC and, 112-13, 121-22 jugoslovenstvo, 88, 261, 284, 286
government, local, 133, 140-42, 185-86 Internal Macedonian Revolutionary justice system, 140-41, 238
257 Hobsbawm, Eric, 40 Organization (VMRO), 90-92,
government, Yugoslav, 131-40. Hoffman, George, 13 107, 144, 156, 173-74, 176, Kadijevic, General Veljko, 370
See also constitutions, Yugoslav; Holbrooke, Richard, 366, 378, 396 K3llay, Benj:imin, 67-68, 80-81
names of governmem bodies 380-81, 413 International Monetary Fund, 259, kapitanates system, 24
Gow, James, 366, 373 Horthy, Admiral Mikls, 175 326-27 kaputaSi, 64
GraniC, Mate., 380 Hoxda, Enver, 270, 409 internationalism, Catholic, 192 Karadjordje (Black George), 48-49
Great Britain, 114, 154-55, 218-21, HSS. See Croatian Peasant Party Islam, 18, 21, 23-24, 344. See also KaradjordjeviC, Aleksandar, 51
240-41 (HSS) Muslims, Bosnian; religion KaradjordjeviC, Petar, 52, 84
Great Croatia_, 8, 14-16 Hudson, Captain William, 217 Israel, 272 KaradziC, Radovan, 362-63, 37 4,
Great Depression, 171-73, 181-84 human rights issues, 373. See also Istria and Dalmatia, 113-14 379-80
Great Migration of 1690 (Serb), 26 ethnic cleansing; ethnic hatred; Italianization, 158, 222 KaradziC, Vuk, 44, 61
476 Index Index 477
Kardelj, Edvard, 3, 193 declaration of independence, Law on the Management of State MaCek, Vladko. See also Croatian
and contractual economy, 316 409-10 Economic Associations by Work Peasant Party (HSS)
and Djilas, 263 demographic shift, 339 arrest of, 171
as drafter of constitutions, 234,
261, 285, 299, 305, 311-14
education in, 339-41
in First Yugoslavia, 116-17
JI Collectives, 256
League of Communists / Movement avoidance of extremism, 173-74
for Yugoslavia (SK/PJ), 382 decision to emigrate, 229-30
and "empty box" voting, 231 under Nazi occupation, 29'1-8 League of Communists of Yugoslavia and Opposition Bloc, 177-80
and fall of Rankovic, 289-90 in Second Yugoslavia, 302-4 (LCY), 286 opposition to royal dictatorship,
and League of Communists' and Serbia, 24-26, 55-56, 346-49 League of Yugoslav Communists 169
Seventh Congress, 269 war in, 406-15 (SKJ), 255, 262-63, 265, opposition to UstaS3 regime, 212
meeting with Stalin, 246 Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK), 269-70, 286, 344, 352-55. as Radic's successor, 162, 164
and workers' self-management, 408, 411-15 See also Yugoslav Communist refusal to collaborate, 208
255 KoStunica, Vojislav, 6, 230 Party (KPJ) and royal dictatorship, 170
Kasche, Siegfried, 213 KovaCeviC, DuSan, 1 "left deviation," 214 and SimoviC, 202
KavciC, Stane, 311 KovaciC, Viktor, 149 Liberal Democratic Party (LDK), and StojadinoviC, 163, 194-95
Khrushchev, Nikita, 26 7- 71 Kraigher, Sergei, 328 392 MacKenzie, David, 52
KidriC, Boris, 242, 244-45, 250, Kraigher Commission for Economic Liberal Party, 396 Maclean, Brigadier Fitzroy, 219
255 Stabilization, 327 liberalism, Croatian, 58, 60-63 MagaS, Branka, 351
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Krek, J anez, 7 6 liberals, in Second Yugoslavia, 284, Magyarization, 62-63, 65, 79
Slovenes, 110-13, 121-30. Krleza, Miroslav, 3, 94, 147, 289-91, 301, 305-6, 309-11 Magyarone Party, 45
See also Yugoslavia, First 192-93, 262, 305 Liberals (Croatian), 60 Malenkov, Georgi, 267
central government, 131-40 KrSko, 394 Liberals (Serb), 51, 54 Maliqi, Shkelzen, 409
crisis of parliamentary government, KuCan, Milan, 332, 350-52, 360, "lift and strike" policy, 378 Mamula, Branko, 345
158-62 391 LiliC, Zoran, 390 ManoliC, Josip, 383-84
cultural life, 145-49 kulaks, accusation of, 244-45, 251 Linhart, Tomas, 29 Manufacturers Hanover Trust of
economic issues, 117-21, 152-54 Kulin, Ban, 19 literacy. See education New York, 326
international relations, 113-17, Kusturica, Emir, 1 literature, Yugoslav, 25, 35, 87-88, Maribor Program, 69-70
154-58 Kvaternik, Eugen, 60-61, 212 147, 149 MarkoviC, Ante, 332, 352, 355-57,
land reform and colonization, Kvaternik, Slavko, 175, 208 Little Entente, 155 359, 399-400
149-52 livestock raising, 56-57 MarkoviC, Mihaila, 302
regional law and local government., land reform, 81-82, 98, 117-19, LjotiC, Dimitrije, 197,215,227. MarkoviC, Mitjana, 361, 382
140-42 125, 135, 149-51, 189-90, 244 See also Zbor Party MarkoviC, Predraig, 293
kmetovi, 81-82 Lane, Arthur Bliss, 199 Ljubljana, 75, 148-49, 393 MarkoviC, Sima, 143-44
kmetsvo, 150 language, role of, 43-45 Ljubljanska Banka, 330, 393, 403 Marrnont, Marshal Auguste, 42-43
knezovi, 48 languages loans, inteI'\Var, 171-72 Marica Hrvatska, 306-9
Knin, 42 German, 30 Lydall, Harold, 288, 322 Marica Srpska, 306
Kocbek, Eduard, 193, 222 glagolitic alphabet, 15-16 MatoS, Antun Gustav, 87-88
Kon, Geca, 147, 205 Hungarian, 79 Macedonia, 21-22 MaZuranic, Ivan, 62-64
Konavle, 372 Serbian, 87-88 and Balkan Wars, 91-97 McFarlane, Bruce, 319
Kopitar, Jemej, 45 Serbo-Croatian, 305-6 and Bulgaria, 156, 207 media, 2, 293, 308, 333, 342, 375,
Korean War, 271-72 Slovenian, 45 economic issues, 402-3 383-84, 386, 390
KoroSec, Monsignor Anton, 3, 106, Stokavski dialect, 24, 43-44, 61 elections of 1990, 361-62 Western, 366, 369-70, 372, 375
111, 137, 155, 162, 165, 171, law, regional, 140-41 and First World War, 106-7 Memorandum of the Serbian
176-78, 193. See also Slovenian Law for the Protection of the State, and First Yugoslavia, 116-17 Academy of Arts and Sciences
People's Party (SLS) 169, 171 postwar politics, 394-97 (1986), 6, 347-48
Kosovo Law on Associated Labor, 317 and Second Yugoslavia, 24 7 MeSiC, Stipe, 360, 384
and Balkan Wars, 91-94, 97 Law on Legal Status of Religious Macedonian question, Communists MestroviC, Ivan, 149
colonization in, 151 Communities, 262 and, 143-45 Michael, Prince, 51
and Communists, 227-28 Law on Planned Management, 256 Macedonians, as ethnic group, 14, 103 migration, Yugoslav, 334-39
478 Index Index 479

.M.ihailoviC, Drasa, 205-6, 215-17, Movement for Yugoslavia (SK/PJ), NATO, 370-71, 378, 380-81 PaniC, Milan, 387
219, 225, 227. See also Chetnik 359 intervention in Kosovo, 409, Pan-Slavism, 44, 52
movement MSNZ, 369 413-15 Papandreou, Andreas, 395
MijatoviC, Cedomil, 55 Mfuzsteg Agreement, 92 Operation Deliberate Force, 380 Paraga, Dobrislav, 371
MikuliC, Branko, 327, 349 "Muscovites," 245 Nazis. See Germany, Nazi; Second Paris Club, 326
military, Habsburg, 107 Muslim Party of Democratic/Action World War parliament, dissolution of (1929),
military, Serb, 85-86 (SDA), 362 I. NDH. See Croatia, Independent 164-65, 168
in Balkan Wars, 93-96 Muslims, Bosnian, 2, 35-37, 68, 82, State of (NDH) Partisans. See also Tito, Josip Broz;
in First World War, 102, 104 91, 168, 209, 252 N ediC, General .Milan, 199, 215 Yugoslav Communist Party
and formation of First Yugoslavia, and Balkan Wars, 99 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 272 (KPJ); Yugoslav National Army
111-12 and ethnic war, 374 Nemanja, 16 (JNA)
under Prince Michael, 53 and First Serbian Uprising, 48 Nettuno Conventions, 158, 161-62 vs. Chetniks, 213-21
as Yugoslav army, 105 and opposition to UstaSa regime, Neubacher, Hermann, 225 legacy of, 36 7
military, Yugoslav, 132-33. See also 212-13 "new path," of King Aleksandar, rise of, 218-21, 226
Yugoslav National Army (JNA) as rural landlords, 81-82, 98, 135, 165-68 Party of Democratic Renewal, 355
Military Border_, Habsburg, 28, 150-51 newspapers, 146-47, 165, 177, 293, Party of Progress, 89
30-31, 41, 63-65, 77. See also and Sporazum of 1939, 195-96 342. See also media Party of Pure Right, 60, 62-63, 79,
Civil Croatia; Croatia and U stasa regime, 224 NikeziC, Marko, 272, 290, 309-10 88, 99, 112
military service, under Habsburgs, Muslims, Croat, 88 Nikola, King, 58, 98 party reform, issue of, 291
30-31 Muslims, Montenegrin, 97 NinciC, Momcilo, 155 PaSiC, Nikola
millet system, 21, 25 Mussolini, Benito, 157-58, 186 Nis Declaration, 102-3 and constitution of 1921, 126-27
MiloSeviC_, Slobodan, 3, 381-91 NjegoS, Bishop Petar PetroviC, and Corfu Declaration, 106
and Dayton Agreement, 380-81 NaCertanije, 52-53 57-58, 149, 237 and First World War, 102, 104
rise of, 332, 346-49, 361 Nagodba, 60, 70 Non-Aligned Movement, 266-67, and Interim National Parliament,
and Slovenian war, 370-71 Nagy, Imre, 268-70 271-73, 323-24 122
and Suvar_, 353 .Narodna Banka Kr. Jugoslavije, 172 Novi Sad, 38 and King Aleksandar, 132
war crimes, 407-8 Narodna Odbrana, 85 nuclear testing, 272-73 pre-First-World-War, 83-84, 91,
and war in Kosovo, 407-15 N arodna SkupStina, 51 NuSic, Branislav, 147, 192 93-94
MilutinoviC, Milan, 390 Nasser, Garn al Abdel, 272-73 and PribiCeviC, 134-39
.M.iniC,MiloS, 238 National Assembly, in Second ObradoviC, Dositej, 38 and RadiC, 13 7-40
minority rights, in First Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia, 234 ObrenoviC, Aleksandar, 5 5 and Timok rebellion, 55
116, 155-56, 163 National Bank of Yugoslavia (NBJ), ObrenoviC, Milan, 54 Patterson, William, 240
Mirkovil\ Bora, 202 330, 356 ObrenoviC, Milos, 46, 49-50 Pauker, Ana, 245
MladiC, Radko, 371, 375, 377, National Bloc, 138-39 Obznana, 125, 143 Paul, Prince, 177-80, 194-95,
379-80 National Committee for the Opposition Bloc, 178, 194 198-99
modernization, 39, 62-63, 65, Liberation of Yugoslavia, 221 Organization for Security and PaveliC, Ante, 175-76, 208-10.
72-74, 81-82, 87 National Council, 110-12, 118, 122 Cooperation in Europe, 394-95 See also UstaS8
Moljev1C, Stevan, 206 National Guard Corps (ZNG, Organization for the Peoples' Pavlowitch, Stevan, 6, 220
Molotov, Vyacheslav, 269 Zengas), 370-73 Defense (OZNa), 227 peacekeeping. See United Nations
monarchy, abolition of, 233. See also National Party, 45, 59, 62 OriC, Naser, 379 peasant revolt of 1883, 63-65
names of rnlers nationalism Osimo Treaty of 1975, 394 peasants. See also agriculture;
Montenegro, 26-27, 57-58, 97-98, Christian, 7 6 Otac na sluZbenom pum (film), 253 Croatian Peasant Party (HSS);
214-15, 361-62, 391, 404-5. Croatian, 58, 60-63 Ottomans, 9-10, 20-27, 47-50, 53, land reform
See also Yugoslav Federation in Dalmatia, 69 55, 65-66, 91-92 and collectivization of agriculture,
(FRJ) ethnic, 294 Owen, Lord David, 366, 377-78 250-52
Morava River, 13 romantic, 52-53 and Communist regime, 243-45
Moscow Declaration of June 20, Serb, 346-49, 371 Pacta conventa, 15 Croat, 63-65, 72-73
I 956, 268 Nationalist Party, 69 PaCu, Lazar, 93 economic relief for, 181
 ,
480 Index
1 '
'

Index 481

emigration of, 72 population, Yugoslav, 10, 131 Rambouillet, negotiations at, 414 Schacht, Hjalmar, 181, 183
in Istria and Dalmatia, 41-42 migration of, 294-98 Ramet, Sabrina, 306 Schmid, Ferdinand, 80
and political Illyrianism, 46 population growth, rural, 72-73 RankoviC, Aleksandar, 227, 238, Second Serbian Uprising_, 49-50
and rural resistance, 39-40 populationism, 37, 117 // 249, 253, 265-66, 269, 284, Second World War, 198-200. See
in Second Yugoslavia, 319 Pozderac, Hamdija, 328, 330-11 348. See also State Security also Chetnik movement; Croatia,
Serb, 24, 54-57, 81-82, 98 Praxis, 301-2 / Administration (UDBa) Independent State of (NOH);
Peasant-Worker Cooperatives preCani, 49, 51 fall from power, 289-90 Germany, Nazi; Partisans;
(SRZ), 250-51 press. See newspapers RaZnjatoviC, Zeljko (Arkan), 361 Yugoslav Communist Party
PeCanac, Kosta, 206, 215 PribiCeviC, Svetozar, 78-79, 89, 111, Red Terror, 214 (KPJ)
People's Councils (NO), 256 122, 127, 134-39, 149, 160-62, regency, royal, 176-86 Allied policy, 218-21
People's Party, 76, 98 165, 169 regionalism, French rejection of, 43 and destruction of First
PeroviC, Latinka, 290, 309 Prickett, Russell, 284, 326, 329 religion, 21, 140, 168-69, 237, 262, Yugoslavia, 201-10
Petar II, King, 200, 219-20, 233 Princip, Gavrilo, 90, 99-100 293-94, 343-44. See also effects on Yugoslavia, 239
Peterle, LojZe, 360, 392 prison camps, in Bosnian war, 375 Catholic church; Christianity; Seipel, Ignaz, 155
PetranoviC, Branko, 232 PriStina, Hasan, 97 Islam; Serbian Orthodox church Sekelj, Laszlo, 314
Petrovich, Michael, 35, 48, 50 privatization, in successor states, Republican Party, 235 SekuliC, Isadora, 192
Pijade, MoSa, 249, 261, 263 402-4, 406 republics, in Second Yugoslavia, self-cleansing, in Bosnia-
Pirker, Pero, 310 Privredna Banka, 402 234, 261, 281-82, 286, 290-91, Herzegovina, 3 7 4
Planinc, Milka, 326-27 Prizad, 173 303, 305, 312-13 self-management, workers', 255-57,
Planning Commission, 256 ProdanoviC, JaSa, 231, 235 I Republika Srpska (RS), 398 273, 277, 281-82, 292
PleCnik, JoSe, 149 Progressives, 54 resistance movement. See Chetnik Selo, Borovo, 376
movement; Partisans Serb Autonomous Regions (SAOs),
PNP. See Interim National
Parliament (PNP)
Protestantism, Habsburgs and, 29
Protic, Stojan, 111, 126, 138
I RibiciC, Mitija, 304 363, 370, 374
"political factories," 281-82 pseudo-history, 211-12 I Rijeka, 114 Serbia. See also MiloSeviC, Slobodan;
political parties. See also names of purges, Communist, of liberal Rijeka Resolution of 1905, 78 Yugoslav Federation (FRJ)
parties coalition, 308-11 rivers, 13-14 and Balkan Wars, 72, 93-94
Communists and, 229-31 road networks, 239., 304-5, 394 and Bosnian crisis of 1908, 83-88
ethnically based, 71-72, 158-60 RaCan, Ivica, 354 Roberts, Walter, 221 Chetniks and Partisans, 215-18
in final days of Second Yugoslavia, RaCic, PuniSa, 161 Rogel, Carole, 95 confrontation with Slovenia,
352-55, 359-64 Racki, Franjo, 59 Rothschild, Joseph, 186, 194 351-55
in First Yugoslavia, 121-25, 164, RadiC, Ante, 80 Rubinstein, Alvin, 2 7 2 economic issues, 404-5
186-87 RadiC, Marija, 230 Rugova_, Ibrahim, 409-12 elections of 1990, 361
in successor states, 384-93, RadiC, Stjepan_, 80. See also Croatian Rusinow, Dennison_, 279., 285, 307, ethnic composition, 4 7
396-97, 410 National Peasant Party (HPSS); 359 and First World War_, 109-10
politicians, 130. See also names of Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) Russia, 27. See also Soviet Union and Kosovo, 24-26
individuals arrest, 119, 138-39 Russian Orthodox church, 27 as native state_, 16-17
Popular Front, 234-35, 262. See also assassination, 130, 161-62 under Nazi occupation, 204-8
Socialist Alliance of Working and Communists, 143-44 Sabor, 15., 59, 78-79., 89 as nineteenth-century nation-state,
People (SSRNJ) as minister of education, 139-40 Sachs, Stephen, 318 46-57
population and Mussolini, 158 "safe havens," 378 Operation Horseshoe, 413
of Belgrade, 109, 145, 334 opposition to Serbian connection, Sandfak, 124 rise of lvliloSeviC, 346-49
of Croatia-Slavonia, 7 2-7 3 88-89, 94, 111-12, 124, 127 Sanit3ts Kordon, Habsburg, 31 role in constitutional process, 126
of Habsburg Military Border, 31 and PaSic, 137-40 Sarajevo, 24, 34-37, 193-94, 337, and Second World War, 224-26
of Montenegro, 57-58 and PribiCeviC, 160-61 375 and war in Bosnia, 373-81
of Sarajevo, 34 Radical Party, 54, 91, 93, 122-25, SarkotiC, General Stefan, 108-9, 175 and Yugoslav Committee, 102-6
of Serbia, 47, 56, 109 134-37, 159-60, 162, 387 Sarlo, 207 and Yugoslav Confederation of
of Trieste, 75 railways, 56, 118-20, 154, 156, 183, Sava, Saint, 16, 48, 179 Strossmayer_, 59
of Zagreb_, 62., 145 239 Sava River, 13 Serbian Agrarian Party, 125
 "'
482 Index Index 483
Serbian Cultural Club, 196-98 SkupStina, 170 Sonnenfeldt Doctrine, 323 Stepinac, Archbishop Alojzije_, 192,
Serbian Democratic Parry (SDS), dismissal of (1929), 164 Sonnino, Sidney, 114 209-10, 212-13, 223, 229
362-63 Slavonia, 28, 30, 32-33 South Slavs, as ethnic group, 14 Stoianovich, Traian, 19
Serbian Independent Parry, 78, 122 "Slavoserb," 61-62 conversion to Islam, 23 StojadinoviC, Milan, 153, 163
Serbian National Organization, 82, Slovene People's Party (SLS), Soviet model, drawbacks of, 233 and royal regency, 176-86
98-99 124 Soviet Union. See also Non-Aligned Stokes, Gale, 55, 104
Serbian National Party (Dalmatia), Slovenes, as ethnic group, 8, 14, Movement; Tito-Stalin split of Stopanska, 403
69 29-30, 75-76, 168-69 1948 strikes., labor, 144, 188, 279,
Serbian Orthodox church, 16-17, 86 Slovenia, 3, 41, 69-70, 152 attempted coup of August 1991, 317-18, 334
and Bosnia-Hercegovina, 20, 67 and Balkan Wars, 94-95 382 Strossmayer, Josip Juraj, 59-60
constitution of 1931, 179 and Communists, 228-29 and Croatian crisis, 308-9 student movements, 89-90, 99-100,
and First Yugoslavia, 169 confrontation with Serbia, 351-55 invasion of Afghanistan, 324 301-2, 350-51, 388-89
and Montenegro, 27, 57-58 elections of 1990, 359-60 Nazi invasion of, 207, 222 SubaSiC, Ivan, 195, 226, 230
under Ottomans, 21, 25-26 ethnic politics, 349-52 1,.... relations with Second Yugoslavia, succession, wars of, 369-81
and Second Serbian Uprising, 50 and First World War, 106 243, 245-49, 253-54, 267-71, successor states, 373. See also names
I
and Second Yugoslavia, 293-94, independence, 370 'i 323 of states
343-44 intellectuals in, 193 support for Communists, 218, economic issues, 393-95, 397-406
Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO), and Second World War, 222 226 suffrage, 75, 123, 147
386 and Second Yugoslavia, 304-5 Spaho, Mehmed, 136, 177-78. Sugar, Peter, 80
Serbian Voluntary Guards, 361 as successor state, 391-94, See also Yugoslav Muslim Sundhaussen, Holm, 223
Serbo-Bulgarian treaty of March 399-400, 402-3 Organization (JMO) Supilo, Frano, 77-78, 84, 103-4
1912, 92-93 war for independence, 365, Spegelj, Martin, 383 Supremists, 92, 107, 144
Serbo-Croat Progressive 369-71 Split, 41 SuSak, Gojko, 376, 383
Organization, 90 Slovenian Communist Party, 222 Sporazum of 1939, 163, 194-98 Suvar, Stipe, 352-53
Serbs, as ethnic group, 2, 8, 14, Slovenian Democratic Alliance Srebrenica, 377-79
25-26, 45, 65-67, 367, 373. (DEMOS), 353 StskiC, Milan, 170 tariff war of 1906-11, 85
See also peasants, expulsion, Slovenian Liberal Party, 137 SRZs, 258 TAT, 402
conversion, and killing of, in Slovenian National Party (SNS), 393 Stability Pact, 415 technocrats, 307, 315
NDH, 211-12 Slovenian People's Party (SLS), 76, Stadler, Archbishop Josip, 67, 82, Territorial Defense Force (TO),
serfs, 24, 32. See also peasants 95, 111, 122, 125, 137, 141, 112 369-71
Service for State Security (SDB), 290 165, 178, 392 Stalin, Josef, 245-49 terrorism, 90, 99-100, 143-44, 176.
Seselj,Vojislav, 387, 390 Slovenian Social Democratic Party StamboliC, Ivan_, 346-49 See also assassination
Seton-Watson, R. W., 111, 114, 138 (SDSS), 392 StamboliC, Petar, 309 textbooks, uniform, 237
ship-building, 11 Slovenian Village Guard, 228 Stamboliiski, Aleksandar, 80, 144, Third World, 271-73, 324
Shoup, Paul, 366 Smodlaka, J osip, 94 156 Tigers, the., 361, 374
show trials, under Communists, 229, Social Democratic Party, 82, 112, standard of living, in Second timar system, 20-22, 27
237 125, 409 Yugoslavia, 265 Timok rebellion (1883), 54-55
SilajdiiC, Haris, 376, 380-81 Social Democratic Union (SDSM), Stanojevic., 1\ca, 170 Tito, Josip Broz, 73, 125, 145, 174.
Silber, Laura, 366 396 Stanovnik, Janez, 351 See also Partisans; Yugoslav
Silverman, Lawrence, 323 socialism, in Second Yugoslavia, Star of Vergina, 395 Communist Party (KPJ)
SimoviC, General DuSan, 202, 219 236, 250, 255 StarCeviC, Ante, 60, 62 as army commander-in-chief, 239
Sino-Soviet split of early 1960s, 268, Socialist Alliance of Working People State Agricultural Bank, 172-73 and consolidation of Communist
270 (SSRNJ), 262-63 State Security Administration power, 226-32
SIV. See Federal Executive Council Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), 361, (UDBa), 238, 247, 252. See also and constitution of 197 4, 311-14
(SIV) 386-91 Service for State Security (SDB) and Croatian crisis of 1967-72,
SkerliC, Jovan, 87-88 Social-Liberal Party (HSLS), statehood, lost, Serbs and, 25 308
SK]. See League of Yugoslav 384-85 states, native, 14-20 death, 324-25
Communists (SKJ) Sokoli, Mehmed, 25 Stefan, King, 16 diplomacy, 2-3
 ----""''''
484 Index Index 485

on economic reform, 283-84 UCK. See Kosovo Liberation Army Vienna Manifesto (Comintem, Yellow and White Books, 285
and fall of Rankovic, 289-90 (UCK) 1924), 144 young Bosnia, 90-91
as KPJ leader, 196 UDBa. See State Security Vinski, Ivo, 187, 292 Young Muslims, 252
meeting with Brezhnev, 323 Administration (UDBa) ,.,Y VitezoviC; Pavao Ritter, 33 Young Turk Revolution, 92
and Non-Aligned Movement, UjeviC, Augustin (Tin), 147, {g3 VJ. See Army of Yugoslavia (VJ) youth, rural, support for
271-73, 324 unemployment, 278, 333-34, 339, Vlachs, 23-24 Communists., 236
and ouster of Serbian liberals, 404 Vlasto, A. P., 15 youth brigades, and postwar
309-11 unification. See Yugoslavia, First Vllasi, Azem, 410 economic recovery, 239
power and prestige, 265-66 Union or Death (Ujedinjenje ili VMRO. See Internal Macedonian youth culture, in Slovenia, 350-51
as president, 263 smrt; Black Hand), 85-86, Revolutionary Organization Yugo America, Inc., 321
as prime minister, 233 90-91, 96, 100, 104 (VMRO) Yugonostalgia, 1, 342
and Seventh SKJ Congress, 269 Unionist (Magyarone) Party, 62 Vojvodina, 28-29, 35, 37-38, "Yugoslav," use of term, 71
at Sixth Party Congress, 262 United Nations, 271-73, 404 46-47, 53, 114-16, 151, 186, Yugoslav Anny in the Fatherland.
Tito-Stalin split of 1948, 233,241, sanctions against Serbia, 385-87 349 See Chetnik movement
245-49 UNPREDEP, 395 Von Horstenau, General Edmund Yugoslav Association of Economists,
Tomasevich, Jozo, 150 UNPROFOR, 376-78, 380-81 Glaise, 213 285
Tomislav (Croatian ruler), 15 UNRRA (Relief and Rehabilitation Vrhovec, Josip, 329 Yugoslav Committee, 103-6, 111
trade, 19, 33-34, 51, 56-57, 118. Agency), 239-40 Vucinich, Wayne, 90 Yugoslav Communist Party (KPJ).
See also foreign trade United Opposition of Democrats, VukmanoviC-Tempo, Svetozar, 228, See also League of Yugoslav
export, 73, 78, 171, 181, 183, Agrarians, and Republicans, 179 279 Communists (SKJ)
278-79 United States, 154-55, 240-41, 323 Vukovar, 371-72 and Belgrade coup., 202-3
trade agreements, bilateral, 241 aid to Second Yugoslavia, 240, and Chemiks, 227
trade unions, 142-44, 279 255, 257-60, 267, 273-76 Wachtel, Andrew, 7 consolidation of power, 226-32
tradition, uses of, 40 and Chetniks, 225 war crimes (Hague Tribunal), 380, formation, 120, 122
Transition, 366 Clinton Administration, 377-78, 407 intellectuals and, 192
Treaty of Berlin, 56, 58, 66 380-81 War Report, 366 and Kosovo_, 227-28
Treaty of Karlowitz, 34-35 and Kosovo, 413-15 Warriner, Doreen, 189 and Macedonian question, 143-45
Treaty of London, 103 support for Partisans, 218-21 wartime loans, repayment of, 155 membership, 236, 250, 252, 263
Treaty of Rapallo, 114, 158 United VMRO, 144 Westendorp., Carlos, 405 in 1920s, 140, 142-43, 173-74
Treaty of Tirana, 158 universities, 292, 301-2, 340-41 Western intervention, 376-78, as opposition party, 124-25
Trebinje, 372 U.S. Agency for International 380-81 opposition to Sporazum, 196-98
Trieste, 34, 75, 240-41, 258, 277 Development (AID), 275, 404 in Kosovo, 413-15 postwar mobilization of support,
Tripalo, Mika, 308, 310 U.S. Export-Import Bank, 275 White Eagles, 197 236-38
Tripartite Agreement (U.S.-British- UstaSa, 173, 175-76, 196-98, 207, White Guard, 228 promotion of economic recovery,
French, 1952), 259-60 228, 308 White Hand, 104, 132 238-40
Tripartite Pact, 198-200 legacy of, 367, 376 Whites, 139 and resistance movement, 207-8
Triune Kingdom, 33, 44, 69, 77 UstaSa regime, 208-10, 212-13, Wickham Steed, Henry, 111, 114 suppression of opposition, 238
TrumbiC, Ante, 77-78, 103, 105, 219, 222-24. See also Croatia, Wilson, Woodrow, 110, 113-14 use of expulsion, 252-53
Ill, 125, 164, 171 Independent State of (NDH) Wilson line, 114 Yugoslav Confederation, of
Tsankov, Aleksandar, 156 ethnic cleansing by, 211-14 women, status of, 147-48, 292 Strossmayer, 59-60
Tucker, Robert, 39 UzunoviC, Nikola, 140, 160 Woodward, Susan, 329, 366, 373 Yugoslav Federation (FRJ), 381-91
TucoviC, Dimitrije, 88 workers' councils, 255-57, 264, Yugoslav idea, 4-8, 43, 58, 69-70,
Tudjman, Franjo, 6, 354, 360, 365, Vance, Cyrus, 377-78 279 79, 108, 191-94, 261. See al.so
371, 376, 381-91 Vatican World Bank, 257,259,267,273, Illyrianism
Tudjman, Miroslav, 383 Concordat of 1935, 178-79 275, 326-27, 404 emergence of, 39-40
Tuperkovski, Vasil, 396 and joint protocol, 293 I failure of, 367
Turkey, 262 Venice, 14-15, 41-42. See also Italy Xemijet Party, 124-25, 139 Yugoslav Investment and Foreign
Tvrtko, Ban, 19 Veselica, Marko, 308 Xhaferi, Arben, 396-97 Trade Banks, 287
 r.

486 Index Index 487

Yugoslav Investment Bank, 279 successor states; Tito, Josip ZA VNOH. See Croatian Liberation Zimmermann, Warren, 363
Yugoslav Left Party (JUL), 382 Broz; Yugoslav Communist Movement (ZAVNOH) ZivkoviC, General Petar, 132, 165,
Yugoslav Muslim Organization Party (KPJ) Zbor Party, 197 168-69, 177-78
(JMO), 122, 124-25, 136-37,
141, 193, 195,252
borders in, 231-32
debt crisis, 325-27
JI ZeCeviC, General, 133
ZeCeviC, MomCilo, 5-6
Zogu,Ahmed, 157-58
Zubak, Kresimir, 378
Yugoslav National Army (JNA), demographics, 334-39 / Zengas. See National Guard Corps 2ujoviC, Sreten, 249
239, 332, 344-45. See also dissolution, 3-4, 357-65, 397-99 (ZNG, Zengas) Zulfikarpasic, Adil, 362
Army of Yugoslavia (VJ) economic decline, 299 Zhukov, General Georgy, 269 Zveno (Link), 174
legacy, 366 economic growth (195361),
purges, 382-83 277-81
and Slovenia, 350-51, 369-71 economic issues, 242-45, 281-84
and threat of Soviet invasion, 254, economic recovery, 238-40
269 economic reform, 266, 283-89,
U.S. aid, 258-59 301-2, 306-7, 355-57
war in Bosnia, 374 education, 339-41
war with Croatia, 371-73 ethnic controversy, 300-5
Yugoslav National Bank, 241, 283 ethnic politics, 345-52
Yugoslav Radical Union (JRZ), failure of market reform, 327-31
177-80 failure of restructuring, 332-33
Yugoslav Social Democratic Party., foreign policy and debt crisis,
95 321-27
Yugoslavia, Federal People's growth of opposition, 301-11
Republic of (SNRJ), 233. intellectual freedom, 266
See also Yugoslavia, Second opening to West, 266, 273~76
Yugoslavia, First, 101, 126, 163. popular culture, 293, 333, 341-42
See also Kingdom of Serbs, positive signs, 291-98
Croats, and Slovenes regional imbalance, 281-82, 291,
balance sheet, 186-94 295, 307, 334-41
destruction, 201-10 relations with Soviet Union, 243,
economic issues, 164, 171-73, 245-49, 253-54, 267-71, 323
181-84, 187-89 role of dissent, 262-64
entry into Second World War, social strains, 333-45
198-200 and U.S. aid, 240, 255, 257-60,
ethnic imbalance, 18 7 267, 273-76
extremist movements, 173-76 wars for succession, 369-81
government-in-exile, 205-6, and Western Allies, 240-41
219-20, 225-27 Yugoslavism, 69-70, 90-91, 95,
industry, 187-89 168, 236
partition, 203-10 Yugospeak, 346
problems of authoritarian politics,
168-71 Zadar, 41
regional imbalance, 187-88 zadruga system, 25, 31, 64
royal dictatorship, 164-76 Zagreb, 62, 77, 110-12, 119-20,
royal regency, 176-86 148-49, 152-53, 191-93
Yugoslavia, Kingdom of, 163-64. Zagreb points of November 1932,
See also Yugoslavia, First 171
Yugoslavia, Second, 2-3, 233-36. Zajedno (Together), 387-91
See also names of successorstates; Zanko, Milos, 308