ABSTRACT
In January 1940, two important public gatherings took place in Yugoslavia. Speakers at the first event, held on 14 January – incidentally, New Year’s Day according to the Julian calendar, kept by the Serbian Orthodox Church – praised the Crown and the government and expressed their belief that the country was at last united and going in the right direction. Prince Regent Paul, Princess Olga and Prime Minister Cvetkovic´ were present and witnessed in person the support they enjoyed, at least in one part of the country. Tens of thousands supporters came to greet them, despite cold weather. Speakers at the second event, which took place 12 days later elsewhere in Yugoslavia, criticized the government for favouring certain groups at the expense of others and expressed their dissatisfaction with the way the Yugoslav state was evolving, fearing for its unity. One might imagine that the first meeting was organized by Serbs and
the second by Croats. Interwar Yugoslavia was a Serb-dominated state: constitutions were Serb-style centralist, the Serbian Karadjordjevic´ monarchy ruled the country, all but one prime minister had been Serb, the army was Serb-dominated. The list goes on. Under these circumstances, Croats boycotted state institutions in the early 1920s and demanded an equal treatment with Serbs throughout the interwar period. Serbs, on the other hand, seemed content with Yugoslavia – or so goes the conventional wisdom, according to which the interwar period could be best understood in terms of struggle between Serb governments and Croat opposition. However, would such a conclusion be a correct one? Was the pro-regime
rally organized by Serbs? Did Croats convene the anti-government gathering? The answer to both questions would be ‘no’. The first meeting took place in Zagreb under the auspices of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) – a de facto Croat national movement – on the occasion of the high delegation’s visit to the capital of the newly autonomous Croatia. The second meeting took place in Brcˇko, present-day Bosnia, and was convened and attended by local Serb leaders and clergymen. The commonly accepted interpretation of interwar Yugoslavia rests on
many ‘truths’, but does not explain developments such as these. This chapter offers an analysis of the ‘Serb question’,1 and, more broadly, challenges some
perceived notions about the Yugoslav kingdom. It is important to stress that in interwar Yugoslavia non-Serbs had been subjected to Serb domination; not just Croats and Slovenes, but also, and especially, Macedonians (officially regarded as ‘Southern Serbs’), ethnic Albanians and even Montenegrins, most of whom, regardless of their political affiliation, viewed themselves as members of a wider Serbian nation.2 This chapter does not attempt to argue otherwise. Instead, it suggests that divisions also existed within ethnic groups and that there were Serbs who opposed the government and non-Serbs who participated in it. Specifically, the chapter looks at the neglected issue of Serb dissatisfaction with Yugoslavia in the second half of the 1930s.
