Nationalism and Yugoslavia: Education, Yugoslavism and the Balkans Before World War II 9780755621538, 9781780767536

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is a thorough revision of the doctoral dissertation I defended at Ghent University in September 2012. The dissertation came about with the financial support of the Research Foundation – Flanders (Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek – Vlaanderen). It has benefited greatly from the help and support of many people. First of all, I wish to thank my supervisor Raymond Detrez for sharing his profound knowledge of Balkan history and society with numerous cohorts of students at Ghent and instilling critical affinity with the region into each and every one of us. He helped me launch this doctoral study and encouraged and slowed me down through every step of the process, up until the finalisation of this book. I am also grateful for the support and friendship I received from the staff at the Department of Slavic and East-European Studies at Ghent University. I am particularly indebted to Ben Dhooge and Stijn Vervaet for their critical reviewing of my work and friendly support, and to Spomenka Brasˇic´ and Pavel Ocepek for reading chapters of my dissertation and correcting translations from Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian. Unless otherwise noted, all translations in this book are mine. I owe a tremendous debt to Ljubodrag Dimic´, who has been so kind to guide me as a fresh graduate student in Belgrade and put me on the way with my research in the Archives of Yugoslavia and the library of the University of Belgrade. Also in later stages of my research his door was always wide open for advice and suggestions. Additional thanks to Ivana Dobrivojevic´, Maria Falina, Adnan Jahic´, Vladan Jovanovic´, Aleksandar

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Miletic´, Srđan Milosˇevic´ and Tomazˇ Pavlin for generously sharing their findings with me and for assisting me during my research stays in Belgrade and Ljubljana. I am also thankful to the staff of the library of Matica srpska in Novi Sad, the National Library of Serbia, the University Library, and the Archives of Serbia and Montenegro in Belgrade, and the Pedagogical Museum in Ljubljana, who have kindly assisted me with my search for sources. The members of my doctoral jury, Dejan Djokic´, Bernard Lory, Wolfgang Ho¨pken, Maarten Van Ginderachter, and Stijn Vervaet, have made valuable and thoughtful comments that helped me turn my dissertation into a book. Carole Richards, finally, did a wonderful job proofreading and copy-editing my manuscript. Her careful, thoughtful, and concise suggestions on not only language issues but also the content of my work have stimulated me to think from the perspective of the not so well-informed reader (ignorant, she would call it, though that would not do justice to herself and the reader). Her reviews have made the revision process an instructive and pleasant job. If the language in these acknowledgements does not run as smoothly as it does in the rest of the book, it is because Carole did not revise this part.

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

The idea that the South Slavs – speakers of South Slav languages, today categorised as Slovenes, Croats, Bosniaks, Serbs, Montenegrins, Macedonians, and Bulgarians – are part of a single overarching Yugoslav nation is one of the most intriguing features in the modern cultural and political history of the Balkans. The cultural and linguistic closeness of Bosniaks, Croats, Montenegrins, and Serbs in particular and the relevance of this commonality in the constellation of nineteenth- and twentiethcentury politics make the Yugoslav idea logical from a nationalist point of view and explain the support it received throughout the modern period, yet the same period has also witnessed vehement national dissociations among South Slavs precisely over cultural and political divides. The ideal of Yugoslav national unification legitimised the establishment of the interwar Yugoslav kingdom and its socialist successor state, yet both states ended in nationally framed intercommunal conflicts. With the benefit of hindsight, the Yugoslav idea is all too easily discarded as insincere or naı¨ve and doomed to fail. This book stems from the conviction that the inconsistencies between South Slav convergence and divergence can only be understood by turning away from the idea of the predetermined failure of the Yugoslav idea and looking closely at the institutionalisation of Yugoslav nationhood during the existence of the Yugoslav state. *** The Yugoslav idea had a long history predating the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes in 1918. During the nineteenth

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century, Yugoslavism complemented not only Croatian but also to a lesser extent Serbian and Slovenian national ideologies. Elements of Croat–Serb and South Slav unity occupied a central position in prominent intellectual, cultural, and political trends in the South Slav parts of the Habsburg Empire. The Illyrian Movement centred on a group of intellectuals in Zagreb during the 1830s and 1840s was the first significant cultural –political movement that took the idea of Croatian and South Slav cultural unity, essentially revolving around Croat– Serb linguistic unity, as the starting point for political and cultural demands. The political and cultural work of Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer continued the Yugoslav tradition in Croatia-Slavonia during the 1860s and 1870s.1 A notion of South Slav unity also underpinned the Serbian national ideology of Vuk Karadzˇic´, the founding father of modern Serbian language and literature in the first half of the nineteenth century, and Ilija Garasˇanin, the influential Minister of Foreign Affairs of autonomous Serbia around the mid-nineteenth century, as well as the ideology of the Croatian state rights promoted by Ante Starcˇevic´, the leading politician of exclusive Croatian nationalism in the second half of the nineteenth century.2 Both expansionist ideologies made national claims to Croats, Serbs, and other South Slavs, although under different (Serbian and Croatian, respectively) national labels. In the sense that they considered Serbs and Croats part of one nation, they too subscribed to a form of South Slav unity. In the first decades of the twentieth century, the Yugoslav idea rose to prominence in the intellectual, cultural, and political life of the future Yugoslav lands. The most influential manifestations of the Yugoslav idea in this period were the growing regional popularity of independent Serbia as a result of its increasing international assertiveness during the Balkan Wars and World War I, the Yugoslav art of sculptor Ivan Mesˇtrovic´, and the Croat–Serb political coalition in Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia.3 Within the general spirit of euphoria that accompanied the end of the Balkan Wars and World War I and the disintegration of the AustroHungarian and Ottoman Empires, the majority of the political and cultural elites in the Yugoslav lands justified and welcomed the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes as a crucial step in the economic, political, and cultural modernisation of the Yugoslav lands and people. They closely connected this optimism with Yugoslav national liberation and unity, asserting that successful modernisation

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would go hand in hand with the strengthening of Yugoslav national consciousness and the national merging of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. They were children of their time. Intellectual thinking after World War I had a strong faith in the nation-state as the best guarantee for emancipation, freedom, equality, and progress, at least in the European part of the globe. The new states of central and eastern Europe, successors to the multinational Russian, Ottoman, and AustroHungarian empires, were invariably conceived as nation-states.4 The observation that even the internationalist Soviet Union promoted the national emancipation and consciousness of its constituent nations in soft-line policies to legitimise its authority and its communist project confirms the incredible force of national thinking in the period.5 Cultural and political elites justified the new nation-states as the perfect framework for the free and prosperous development of the delineated and uniform nations inhabiting the region. However, it would require a lot of work, intervention, patience, and frustration to make the broad masses conscious of their alleged intrinsic national identity and to realise claims about national homogeneity and clear national boundaries, as the nationalising states of western and central Europe had already experienced in the second half of the nineteenth century.6 Assertions of homogeneous national units simply did not match the enormous heterogeneity of the population of central and eastern Europe in terms of potential markers of national identity, such as race, ethnicity, language, historical identities, religion, or cultural practices. The painstaking process of living up to the claim of national unity and homogeneity that legitimated the popular authority of modern national states required nation building: the construction and propagation of a common national identity among a large majority of the population that would then ‘own’ the polity and popularly decide on its organisation. Harris Mylonas distinguishes between nation-building policies of ‘assimilation’, ‘accommodation’, and ‘exclusion’. Assimilation refers to policies aimed at the horizontal spread of the core group culture and way of life among targeted non-core groups (that is, parts of the nation that are considered deviant from the core group with regard to factors that constitute the nation’s identity, for example language, religion, or ethnicity). It also implies the acquisition of the national culture among the whole population (that is, the vertical dissemination of a uniform, high national culture among all the projected members of

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the core nation, for example, the teaching of a standardised national language among all layers of the targeted nation). Accommodation keeps the difference between a non-core group and the core nation in place but produces ‘minorities’ that are clearly dissimilated from the national core and often discriminated against. Exclusion, finally, aims at the physical removal of a non-core group from the nation-state.7 The new national successor states in the Balkans faced a complex landscape of layered and overlapping ethnic, linguistic, socio-economic, and religious networks that served as concurring bases for collective identification. The interventions required by nation-states to make this landscape national were tremendous. All new states faced considerable non-core groups within the state. The states’ policies toward these outsider groups ranged from the harsh and aggressive exclusionary and assimilationist measures during the Balkan Wars and World War I to the cautious and ad hoc manoeuvring with leeway for accommodation in the unstable and uncertain international environment of the 1920s. Reflecting a broader trend to subordinate individual rights to the interests of the nation-state in Europe, the authoritarian regimes of the 1930s turned to political repression, social control, and national homogenisation. This national homogenisation was expressed in a more repressive and decisive policy against symbolic markers of non-core ethnic identity, such as language, names of places and people, customs, and commemorative practices.8 The vertical and horizontal integration of the targeted nation required considerable re-imagination of national identity that led to critical disputes within the nation. The Turkification of Anatolia, for example, comprised the construction and dissemination of a secular Turkish culture among the broad masses that distanced conservative religious thinkers from the nation.9 The cultural offensive of Greater Romania to integrate its various composite parts – the Old Kingdom of Wallachia and Moldavia had acquired the new territories of southern Dobrudja, Transylvania, Bukovina, and Bessarabia, doubling its territory and population – exacerbated divisions within the nationstate, not only in the form of opposition from the discriminated ethnic minorities but also in regionalist particularism against the political and cultural hegemony of the Old Kingdom.10 The new states of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia stand out from the other nationalising states in Central and Eastern Europe because of the

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composite character of the Czechoslovak and Yugoslav nations. Both states propagated the synthesis of established ‘tribes’ within an overarching nation, but the integration of the sub-groups in the nation remained complicated. The Czechoslovakist state ideology of the First Czechoslovak Republic revolved around the idea that Czechs and Slovaks together comprised a Czechoslovak nation with two ‘tribes’. The implementation of Czechoslovak national unity in politics and culture led to nationally framed internal disputes concerning the actual viability of Czechoslovak national unity. In the domain of politics, Slovak autonomists opposed the Czechdominated centralist state organisation that had been installed as the political expression of Czechoslovak national unity. With regard to the cultural commonality that determined Czechoslovak national identity, Slovak–Czechoslovak discussions arose over the Czechoslovakist interpretation of history and the subordinate position of the codified Slovak language in the concrete implementation of the ‘Czechoslovak’ state language in public institutions and schools.11 The establishment of Yugoslav political unity marked a similar turning point in the history of the Yugoslav idea. Instead of a far ideal in the comfortably distant future, Yugoslav national unification became an urgent challenge of the present leading to complex political and cultural discussions on the place of the three ‘tribes’ within the nation. Unlike the euphoric hopes of nationalist thinkers about an end time of national harmony and progress, the institutionalisation of Yugoslav nationhood brought about frictions that made the Yugoslav idea a more complicated matter than it had appeared at the time of the formation of the kingdom. *** The historiography of Yugoslavia has paid considerable attention to the Yugoslav national ideology of the Yugoslav Kingdom. In his influential study of the Yugoslav national question during the founding years of the interwar kingdom, Ivo Banac concludes that: Yugoslavia’s national question was the expression of the conflicting national ideologies that have evolved in each of its numerous national and confessional communities, reflecting the community’s historical experiences. These ideologies had assumed

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their all but definitive contours well before the unification and could not be significantly altered by any combination of cajolery or coercion.12 The Yugoslav national aspirations of the state were unviable because they were ‘plainly opposed to the reality of Serb, Croat, and Slovene national individuality and moreover in contradiction to the empirically observable fact that these peoples were fully formed national entities of long standing’.13 Banac’s conclusion perfectly represents the dominant strand in the historical thinking about the Yugoslav national idea in interwar Yugoslav politics. First, this line of reasoning takes for granted the competition between the Yugoslav national ideology and Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Montenegrin, Macedonian, and Muslim national identities. Yugoslavism was predestined to lose this battle because it simply came too late and did not rely on pre-modern ethnic identities, which had already crystallised into stable, longstanding, and empirically observable national identities. Second, Yugoslavism did not represent a sincere national movement – save for a few daydreamers – but was an instrument in the allencompassing national conflict between especially Serbs and Croats.14 Finally, on top of the slim chances of the Yugoslav nation-building project, the misuse of Yugoslavism during the interwar period brought the idea to ruins and strengthened national polarisation in the country. In the most sophisticated study of the Yugoslav idea in the politics of the interwar state, Jovo Bakic´ sees Yugoslavism as a form of pannationalism that constantly clashed with the specific political nationalist demands of Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian ethnicities. Referring to Anthony Smith’s ethno-symbolist approach, Bakic´ argues that the political nationalist demands of the South Slav ethnicities only arose in the modern epoch but relied on ethnic identities from the premodern period. The South Slav pan-nationalist ideology could not fall back on a Yugoslav pre-modern ethnicity to provide the cultural resources that could back Yugoslav nationalist demands.15 Bakic´ in principle allows for an ‘historically functional’ understanding of Yugoslavism that could overcome ethnic conflict between South Slav ethnicities. In practice, however, the ‘historically dysfunctional’ Yugoslavism, which expressed hegemonic claims of one South Slav ethnicity over the others and masked the constant ethnic struggle

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between the South Slav ethnicities, dominated the political programmes of the first half of the twentieth century.16 Ethnic identities and conflicts thus formed ‘structural’ hindrances for Yugoslav national unity and predetermined the fate of Yugoslavism during the interwar period. Studies of the cultural life in interwar Yugoslavia suggest, however, that Yugoslavism had a tremendous impact on the state’s cultural politics, education system, and intellectual life, transcending that of a cover for Serbian political hegemony and a mere instrument in ethnic nationalist politics.17 Despite the short life and ultimate failure of the first Yugoslav state, these studies show that political and cultural elites articulated some constructive strategies for creating a Yugoslav national culture. Patterns from the political life of the First Yugoslavia cannot be directly transferred to the cultural aspects of nation building. Whereas Serbian domination in politics was undisputable, in the cultural domain ‘attempts at cultural Serbianization of Slovene and Croat cultures were far less frequent than the political situation might have led one to expect’.18 Moreover, Dejan Djokic´ recently refuted the dominant assessment of interwar Yugoslav politics as a clear-cut dichotomy between Croatian and Serbian national identities, describing recurring attempts by Serbian and Croatian political representatives to reach a political compromise during the interwar period. In this line of reasoning, he has made a strong claim against the ‘ethnicist’ understanding of the Yugoslav national question, debating whether ‘Serbian and Croatian nationalisms had been formed by 1918, and whether they remained immune to evolution following the creation of Yugoslavia’.19 Drawing on these findings on the dynamic interaction between the state’s Yugoslav ideology and established Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian (and other particularist) identities, this book reconnects the cultural and political sides of the institutionalisation of the Yugoslav idea in order to reach a balanced assessment of the significance of interwar Yugoslav nation building. *** In the theoretical and methodological field, this book questions the stable and predetermined incompatibility of Yugoslavism and fully fledged national identities in the region that other scholars of Yugoslavia’s national question have taken for granted. It is inspired by theoretical writings on nationhood as a fluid, dynamic, and multifaceted category of

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practice. Rogers Brubaker has offered a convincing critique of the ‘realist’ understanding of nations that takes over the nationalist understanding of nations as ‘internally homogeneous, externally bounded groups, even unitary collective actors with common purposes’.20 Brubaker instead proposes a focus on nationhood as a conceptual variable, institutional form, practical category, contingent event, cultural idiom. Nations are no ‘substantial, enduring collectivities’ but ‘widely, if unevenly, available and resonant. . . categor[ies] of social vision and division’ that are ‘pervasively institutionalized in the practice of states and the workings of the state system’ and which ‘may suddenly, and powerfully “happen”’.21 Instead of asking ‘what is a nation?’, Brubaker suggests that we analyse the institutionalisation of national categories; their embedment in myths, memories, narratives; their implementation in practices and mentalities of governing; and their appropriation by the categorised.22 Nationhood is not only a dynamic but also a contested process. Regardless of appeals to national unity and homogeneity, nations continue to face internal social, cultural, regional, and political divisions. These provide alternative sources of social mobilisation and identification and generate disputes over the meaning of nationhood. Group-making processes are successful if they manage to (re)construct a notion of nationhood that ‘overcomes symbolically real social and political conflicts’ and ‘gives the illusion of a community to people who in fact have very different interests’.23 Nations, in other words, hold together, in spite of the amalgam of different, at times competing, views on national identity. This book is further indebted to studies of the overlap of and interconnectedness between various potential nations. Like other collective social identities, national identities ‘are not to be understood as part of a superstructure of “culture”’.24 There is no one-to-one relation between national units and cultural building blocks. Instead, people who identify with a nation share a sense of commonality that is a cultural construct, leading to ‘the appearance of agreement and convergence generated by shared communal symbols, and participation in a common symbolic discourse of community membership’.25 The wealth, dynamism, and fluidity of human culture leaves leeway for concurring ‘candidates of nationhood’.26 Ernest Gellner famously argued that very few potential nations make it to effective nationhood.27 My point is not that there is endless relativism in the cultural construction of nations, but that successful nation building requires the neutralisation of alternative

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candidates of nationhood that are concurrently available for making sense of social, cultural, regional, ideological, and political divisions. In the history of European nationalising states, region and religion stand out as cultural building blocks for potentially competing candidates of nationhood. It is difficult to make an absolute distinction between nation and region. Both are geographical categories of collective identification, both are social constructs that relate cultural commonality to a delineated territory. The distinction is political; national identities are by definition characterised by claims of political sovereignty. In the composite states of Europe, many regions are related to historical components of the state and carry political claims with them. In order to speak of a region, such claims ought not challenge national sovereignty, but the boundary is thin. Indeed, there is no premise that distinguishes a nation from a region; many regions are potential nations. The cultural commonality that defines regional identities is of the same general order as the cultural commonality that defines nations.28 The relationship between nation and religion is equally dubious. On the one hand, religious loyalty was often the most important competing source of authority beside the nationalising state, along with political loyalty to historical components of the states. On the other hand, religion remains an important source of cultural commonality for defining the nation, and many nationalist movements and nationalising states have appropriated religious loyalties. Nationalising states facing religious divisions have witnessed national tensions, the prominent examples being Northern Ireland and the former Yugoslavia, but this is not a universal law, as the religiously divided German and Albanian nations show. Recent scholarship has refuted the typical nationalist assumption of the predominance and even absolute monopoly of effective national identities over ‘inactivated’ or ‘failed’ candidates of nationhood. Historians of regions have pointed out that regional identities have not been superseded by national identities in the age of modernisation, but are categories of perception that continue to inform national identities. From this point of view, national culture ‘becomes a multifaceted thing, more a complex amalgam of criss-crossing movements toward integration and differentiation than a set of finite and quantitatively manifest characteristics or a collection of hegemonic and centralizing strategies’.29 Secular national ideologies typically relegate religion to a marginal and vanishing part of national identity, but they rarely completely discard and

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remove religion. Quite to the contrary, religion often serves to sacralise the nation, ranging from the opportunistic use of religious figures or rituals in national ideologies to confessional definitions of the nation in which a dominant religious identity became nearly coextensive with the nation itself.30 The continued relevance of regional and religious identities in the age of nationalism indicates their continued availability as building blocks for alternative candidates of nationhood. Studies of multiple nationalism have even stressed the long-lasting concurrence of national loyalties. Historians of ethnic borderlands in the Habsburg, Ottoman, and Russian Empires have showed that national allegiances were fluid and changeable. Despite attempts by authorities and national activists to establish clear-cut boundaries, people continued to switch sides between different national identities as they switched between languages.31 Historians have made similar points about the coexistence of Italian and (South) Slav national allegiances in Dalmatia and Hungarian, Slav, and (Czecho)Slovak national allegiances in Slovakia among political and cultural elites during the nineteenth century.32 The Yugoslav state is a case where the contingent overlap of various candidates of nationhood is particularly salient. The first Yugoslav state was conceived as the state of the Yugoslav nation, comprising three ‘tribes’: Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The term ‘tribe’ designated a specific status somewhere between the (Yugoslav) nation and the region. Adding to the complexity, the ‘tribes’ intertwined but did not completely concur with religious communities. During and after World War II, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia institutionalised five and later six constituent nations within Yugoslavia (Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Macedonians, and from the late 1960s Muslims). Nevertheless, the party recognised a specific socialist, ‘democratic’, and ‘pluralistic’ form of Yugoslav national unity, situated between the national and the multinational.33 At the same time, from the interwar period onwards, the accommodation of certain historical, regional, or religious groups within the Serbian and Croatian ‘tribes’ or nations was increasingly contested. This development was seized upon by the Yugoslav Communists when they institutionalised national diversity in the decentralist organisation of Socialist Yugoslavia.34 Thus, in the course of the twentieth century, regional or ethno-religious identities that were merely ‘potential’ national identities became available as ‘effective’ categories of national identity.

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The category of Bosnian Muslims developed from a contested and hybrid religious sub-group of the Serbian or Croatian ‘tribe’/nation to a distinct Bosniak nation,35 that of the Montenegrins from a composite political unit within the Serbian ‘tribe’/nation into a distinct Montenegrin nation, although there remains considerable confusion about the relationship between Montenegrin and Serbian national identity,36 and that of the Macedonians from a contested regional identity that overlapped Bulgarian, Serbian, and Greek national territories to a Macedonian nation.37 The present map of Yugoslav nations was not the outcome of national conflict in which certain cultural –political units were predetermined to develop into nations while others were not. It should be approached as an amalgam of contingent, dynamic, and overlapping categories of national identity instead of a hierarchy of clearly delineated, stable, and determined regional, national, and supranational identities. Yugoslav and Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian (and any other sub-Yugoslav) national identities were not inherently antagonistic and mutually exclusive forces. I hold that national identities concurred and overlapped and that the institutionalisation of nationhood in the interwar state shaped their mutual relationship and connection to internal divisions within the nation-state. *** The interest that forms the crux of this study, then, is the triad between the institutionalisation of Yugoslav nationhood, divisions within the alleged nation, and the availability of other candidates of nationhood. First, I seek to assess the role of the Yugoslav state authorities in this interrelation. To what extent were state authorities genuinely interested in accommodating various social and political interests behind a shared understanding of Yugoslav nationhood? How did the state authorities envisage the relation between particularist identities and the Yugoslav nation? Did the nationalities policy of Yugoslav state authorities change significantly during the period under scrutiny? Second, I reverse the approach and look at how spokesmen of social and political interest groups in the country outside the central bodies of government related to the institutionalisation of Yugoslav nationhood. These spokesmen range from representatives of alternative centres of authority (religious institutions, political parties, cultural and educational associations), to mediatory agents involved in the vertical

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nationalisation policy (teachers, cultural activists), and local representatives of state authority. Did these spokesmen participate in disputes over the meaning of Yugoslav nationhood? Did they resort to alternative candidates of nationhood and how did they relate these to Yugoslav nationhood? To what extent was their understanding of nationhood compatible with that canonised by the central state authorities? Were the state authorities successful in aligning targeted spokesmen behind a shared understanding of Yugoslav nationhood? How did nongovernmental engagements with nationhood affect the nationalities policy of the state authorities? *** I approach these questions through a study of interwar Yugoslavia’s nation-building policy in education. Education is an essential part of the modern state’s infrastructure to disseminate a shared national culture among the broad population.38 Teaching instructions and materials reveal how state authorities attempt to instil national identity into young generations and how they define the ‘cultural stuff’ that determines national identity. Rather than being a medium for a one-directional nationalising process from above, however, the school is an arena where various social and political interests come into conflict over the meaning of nationhood.39 It is also the place where ordinary people (teachers, students, parents) engage with the nationalities policy.40 In that regard, education allows the historian to not only assess nationalisation aspirations from above and elite discussions about the meaning of nationhood, but also address the suggestion made by scholars of everyday nationhood, that we should shift our attention to ordinary people as active participants in the production and reproduction of the nation and study the variable contents of everyday nationhood and changing contexts within which the nation matters to ordinary people.41 The book is subdivided in three parts. The first part gives an overview of the place of the Yugoslav idea within the broader developments in politics and cultural politics of interwar Yugoslavia and provides the reader with a schematic outline of the organisation and the state of Yugoslavia’s educational system. The second part of the book looks at prescriptive definitions of Yugoslav nationhood in the state’s educational programme. It is

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organised thematically, with chapters on language and literature, history, geography, and religion, respectively. This part is based on extensive research of canonical writings and legislative prescriptions concerning the commonality that defines Yugoslav nationhood as well as the concretisation of these prescriptions in curricula, textbooks, and commemorations. For each chapter, the book relates the definition of Yugoslav nationhood used at school to broader discussions among the political and cultural elites, revealing the rich variety in the definitions of Yugoslav nationhood. The third part of the book looks at the limitations of Yugoslav nation building by relating one-directional central aspirations about the Yugoslav nationalisation of society to engagements with the nationalities policy by alternative centres of authority and mediatory agents involved in education. Chapter 8 studies disputes surrounding historical and religious commemorations in schools. Chapter 9 aims at a study of the meaning and relevance of Yugoslav nationhood in social and political divisions at the local level on the basis of a study of teacher evaluations. This third part is based on published and archival sources that represent prolific mediatory agents outside the central decision-making institutions, especially textbook authors, publicists, local authorities, and representatives of Yugoslav teachers, cultural and educational associations, and religious institutions. Certainly, these voices do not represent the entire public sphere or the entire mass of ordinary people. It is not only much too simplistic to look for the uniform reaction of ‘the masses’; mediatory agents were also predisposed and more sensitive to engage with nation-building aspirations and to take over categorisations that were precisely installed from above than people who were less directly involved with the state apparatus. However, a critical and sensible look at the observations and suggestions of these agents, in combination with a thorough examination of the state policy and the expectations from above, can expand our understanding of the meaning and relevance of Yugoslav nationhood in the public sphere and in local settings. *** One of the central themes in this book is the interrelation between overlapping categories of national belonging, from the level of the Yugoslav state that served as the territorial basis for the Yugoslav nation-

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building project, over that of the three ‘tribes’ within the Yugoslav nation that were recognised as components of the Yugoslav nation and were available as alternative categories of national identification, to the level of the ethnic, religious, regional, or historical categories within the ‘tribes’ (Macedonian, Montenegrin, Bosnian Muslim); potential nations that became increasingly effective during the period under scrutiny. I take as a starting point the possible coexistence and overlap of these national categories. People can be ascribed or can ascribe themselves to multiple national categories. This has some consequences with regard to terminology. Nationality in my understanding does not concur with state citizenship but refers to an ethno-cultural category to which political claims are attached. I will use the term ‘nation’ to refer to groups some people would not categorise as nations. Speaking of the possible appeal of Yugoslav nationhood as I do is often refuted for connoting the naı¨ve dismissal of Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, or any other sub-Yugoslav national identities. However, speaking of a multi-national Yugoslavia or of the Yugoslav idea as a supranational idea undervalues the impact of the Yugoslav national idea on the modern history of the region. It simply cannot account for the enormous appeal and impact of the Yugoslav national idea on modern politics and culture in the region and stubbornly refuses to take over the terminology of Yugoslav nationhood that was used consistently by the interwar state authorities, cultural and political elites in the public sphere, and ordinary people in their interaction with state authority. I use the term nation and its derivates to denote all categories used for self- and other-ascription in relation to a certain territory defined by cultural commonality and political claims. Specifically, I will speak about the Yugoslav, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Bosniak, Montenegrin, and Macedonian nations. To avoid wordy lists of alternative candidates of nationhood from the perspective of the interwar state’s Yugoslav ideology, I will refer to candidates below the overarching Yugoslav level with the term ‘particularist’. This does not imply making any claims about the success, viability, or legitimacy of this or that categorisation or about the hierarchy in the resonance of various national categories. My intention is precisely to investigate what people do with national categories, to look at the institutionalisation of national categories in the state’s educational policy, to problematise the resonance of these policies among the categorised, and to scrutinise how all this affected the relationship between various candidates of nationhood.

CHAPTER 2 YUGOSLAVISM AND THE POLITICS OF INTERWAR YUGOSLAVIA

The Yugoslav national idea occupied a prominent place in the rationale behind the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes in December 1918. Serving as the blueprint for the formation of the Yugoslav kingdom, the 1917 Corfu Declaration between the Serbian government in exile and the Yugoslav Committee, an interest group of political representatives of South Slavs in Austria-Hungary, began with this statement: Our three-named nation is one by blood, by spoken and written language, by the sentiment of its unity, by the continuity and unity of the territory on which it lives compactly, and by the common living interests of its national survival and the complete development of its moral and material life.1 The Yugoslav idea continued to occupy a central role in the politics of the interwar Yugoslav state. However, it was understood differently by various political actors, and its political meaning changed substantially.

The parliamentary period (1918–29) On 28 June 1921, or St Vitus’ Day (Vidovdan), a crucial date in Serbian national memory (cf. Chapter 5), the constituent assembly ratified the

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Vidovdan constitution, which made Yugoslavia a centralised monarchy. Voting for the constitution were 223 deputies, primarily Radicals and Democrats, but also representatives of the Yugoslav Muslim Organisation, Dzˇemijet (the political representative of the Albanian and Turkish minorities in Kosovo and Macedonia), and the Slovenian Peasant Party. There were 35 deputies who voted against the constitution, and 158 deputies – Communists, Slovenian Clericals, and representatives of the Croatian Republican Peasant Party – who abstained.2 The close voting reveals the strong division over the centralist organisation of the state. This question, in fact, remained of paramount importance throughout the entire interwar period. References to the Yugoslav nation were never far away in these political discussions, leading to a great confusion between ‘the two key concepts of centralism and unitarism’, the former referring to a centralised state organisation, the latter to Yugoslav national unity.3 Yugoslav unitarists, however, did not necessarily favour a centralist state organisation, and centralists were not necessarily (genuine) unitarists. Additionally, the divide between centralists and decentralists was quickly framed as a divide between Serbs and non-Serbs, the latter primarily Croats. Although most Yugoslav political parties clearly had a Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Bosnian Muslim, or Montenegrin target group, the lines of division concerning state organisation were not stable and did not neatly concur with national/ regional boundaries. At the same time, the delineated target groups of political parties did not necessarily imply that they opposed some form of Yugoslav national unity.

The ‘state building’ parties: Radicals and Democrats The most prominent and radical supporter of Yugoslav national unity in the immediate post-war period was the Yugoslav Democratic Party (JDS, Jugoslovenska demokratska stranka). The principles of Yugoslav national unitarism and centralism formed the basic elements in the party programme: The Democratic Party excludes all historical, tribal, religious, and regional differences as reasons or foundations for the political and administrative organisation and regional division [of the country]. The Democratic Party will nurse and develop the consciousness of

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the unity of our people and state throughout the widest layers [of the population], it will strive for the expression of that unity in all political, social, cultural, and economic questions, and suppress all acts of separatism and demagogy and the poverty of the general social morals.4 Throughout the 1920s, the Democratic Party obtained around 20 per cent of the Yugoslav votes.5 The Democrats were the only party, apart from the Yugoslav Communists at the elections of 1920, to gain a fair amount of votes in all Yugoslav regions. This is not surprising if one takes into consideration that the party was formed through the merging of political groups from Austria-Hungary (Slovenian Liberals, the Croat– Serb Coalition) and the Serbian Kingdom (Independent Radicals, Progressivists).6 In the pre-war period, these parties had united politicians inclined to South Slav political and cultural cooperation.7 The growing polarisation between centralists and decentralists during the early 1920s quickly led to a process of differentiation within the Yugoslav Democratic Party. One faction was formed around Svetozar Pribic´evic´, a Serb from central Croatia and the political leader of Serbs from Croatia-Slavonia. This group set itself up as the authoritarian protector of the unity of the Yugoslav nation and state, whereby these two concepts were seen as indivisible. In that spirit, they interpreted every demand for decentralism, especially from the part of the Croatian parties, as an anti-Yugoslav act of ‘separatism’.8 A second group around Ljubomir Davidovic´, the leader of the major opposition party in the pre-war Serbian Kingdom, called for a middle way between the decentralist opposition and hard line centralism. In 1924, Pribic´evic´’s faction left the Democratic Party, and the Democrats joined the decentralist Opposition Bloc of the Croatian Republican Peasant Party, Slovenian Clericals, and the Yugoslav Muslim Organisation. From July to November 1924, the Democrats briefly led a government of ‘national agreement’ with Slovenian Clericals and the Yugoslav Muslim Organisation while also attempting to convince the Croatian Republican Peasant Party to enter the government. From this period, the Democratic Party propagated the decentralisation of the state. However, this shift did not imply a rejection of the Democrats’ Yugoslav unitarist orientation. The Democrats argued for a combination of cultural unification and decentralised administration.9

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After leaving the Democratic Party, Pribic´evic´ and his adherents, primarily consisting of political representatives of Serbs in CroatiaSlavonia, formed the Independent Democratic Party (SDS, Samostalna demokratska stranka). The Independent Democrats hung on staunchly to the principles of centralism and unitarism. Their political influence remained largely restricted to regions in Croatia-Slavonia with large Serbian population groups. The party did include Croatian and Slovenian proponents of the Yugoslav national idea and centralism, but the political influence of these politicians remained marginal, which meant that the Independent Democrats increasingly acted as the political representatives of Croatian Serbs.10 *** The Popular Radical Party (NRS, Narodna radikalna stranka) had dominated Serbian political life in the decade before World War I. After the war, Serbian Radicals from Vojvodina and Bosnia joined the NRS. The NRS became the dominant political party among the Serbian population of the Yugoslav kingdom, except for the Serb-populated regions along the central Croatian border with Bosnia, which were strongholds of Pribic´evic´’s (Independent) Democrats. Illustrative of its political power, the Radical Party was part of 21 of the 24 governments in office during the 1920s and, in all but one of these governments, they provided the Prime Minister. During the first half of the 1920s, the Radicals almost continuously formed the government in coalition with Yugoslav Democrats, and from 1924 formed coalitions with Pribic´evic´’s Independent Democrats, mostly under the prime ministership of Nikola Pasˇic´, the party’s aged but undisputed leader and the dominant figure in Serbian politics since the last decade of the nineteenth century. These governments categorically rejected any revision of the centralist state organisation. In July 1925, the Radical Party changed partners and formed a government with the Croatian Peasant Party after the latter had denounced republicanism and accepted the monarchy and the constitution. After the death of Pasˇic´ in December 1926, the Radicals began to disintegrate. Nevertheless, the party still participated in all governments that followed until January 1929.11 The national ideology of the Radicals fluctuated between Serbian and Yugoslav national categories. Before the unification of Yugoslavia, one of

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the Radical Party’s main goals had been the liberation and unification of all Serbs.12 Under the changing circumstances of the Balkan Wars, World War I, and the formation of the Yugoslav Kingdom, they gradually redefined their national ideology toward a compromised Yugoslavism. The party recognised the existence of a Yugoslav nation but argued that certain ‘tribal’ differences did not harm national unity and that the Serbian ‘tribe’ deserved to take the leading role within the Yugoslav nation because they had put the most effort into the unification and liberation of the Yugoslav nation. Such an approach allowed the Radicals to stand up for Serbian national identity and traditions within a Yugoslav framework, giving the party’s Yugoslavism a strong Serbcentred touch. For example, the Radicals rejected any federalist state organisation which would divide the Serbian people. They also denounced the name ‘Yugoslavia’ for the new state because this would imply the negation of the Serbian name and the merits of the Serbian state and people.13

Croatian federalists The most important opposition against what was with good reason interpreted as pre-war Serbian political hegemony came from the Croatian Peasant Party. The Croatian Republican Peasant Party (HRSS, Hrvatska republikanska seljacˇka stranka) of Stjepan Radic´, which had been a minor political force before the war, profited from the introduction of universal male suffrage and the changing political constellation and became the only significant Croatian party in the 1920s. The party obtained a relative majority of 37 per cent of the votes in Croatia-Slavonia in the elections to the Constituent Assembly of 1920. In the following elections, the party grew considerably, reaching 22.3 per cent of the votes statewide in 1925 and expanding its organisation to Dalmatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The success of HRSS completely outshone the traditional parties in Croatia. The Croatian Union (HZ, Hrvatska zajednica), which united established politicians from the pre-war political scene in Croatia and propagated Yugoslav national and decentralised state unity, gradually dissolved after the elections of 1923.14 The clericalist and pro-Yugoslav Croatian Popular Party (HPS, Hrvatska pucˇka stranka) and the radical Croatian nationalist Croatian Party of Rights (HSP, Hrvatska stranka prava) fell into marginal roles.15

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HRSS initially denied the validity of the unification of the kingdom and the Vidovdan constitution and rejected any participation in parliament, although Radic´ did negotiate with Davidovic´’s Democrats and later with the Radicals. Instead, HRSS deputies adopted their own Constitution or State Organisation of the Neutral Peasant Republic of Croatia, forwarded memorandums about violations of the Croatian right of self-determination to the Great Powers and the League of Nations, and even briefly joined the Peasant International. Not surprisingly, the Radicals and Pribic´evic´’s Democrats continuously attacked the Croatian Republican Peasant Party as a Croatian separatist and anti-state party. In early 1924, Radic´ decided to abandon the policy of abstention and joined the Opposition Bloc with the Yugoslav Muslim Organisation, the Slovenian People’s Party, and the Democrats. After the elections of February 1925, the Peasant Party officially denounced its republicanism – the party omitted the reference to republicanism in its name, thus becoming the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS, Hrvatska seljacˇka stranka) – and recognised the Karađorđevic´ dynasty and the constitution. The Peasant Party quickly reached an agreement with the Radicals and formed a government. Radic´ justified this radical turnaround as the basis for a national agreement between Serbs and Croats, which would ultimately lead to political autonomy for Croatia. However, the agreement remained unstable and characterised by mutual distrust, and in January 1927, HSS ended its cooperation with the Radicals. This marked the start of yet another volte-face in HSS’s political development. Radic´ formed the Peasant–Democratic Coalition (SDK, Seljacˇko-demokratska koalicija) with Pribic´evic´’s Independent Democrats. Although Radic´ and Pribic´evic´ had been inveterate foes during the first half of the 1920s and the ideological differences between the unitarist Independent Democrats and the ‘separatist’ Peasant Party seemed huge, the coalition in fact made sense as one of the former Austro-Hungarian parties against Serbian – referring to the pre-war Serbian Kingdom, not the ethno-cultural category – hegemony and for genuine democracy, parliamentarism, and regional autonomy. The political scene became increasingly polarised between the governing Radical and Democratic Parties and SDK. Parliamentary sessions degenerated into bitter and violent rows, which on 20 June 1928 resulted in a shooting in which five members of the Peasant Party were shot by a Montenegrin Serbian

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member of the Radical Party. Two of them died on site, two survived, and Radic´ died six weeks later. The shooting marked the end of the parliamentary period. The Peasant Party returned to its demands for farreaching Croatian autonomy within a (con)federalist Yugoslav state based on the Croatian national and political individuality.16 On the basis of the turbulent development of the Croatian Peasant Party into a Croatian national mass movement and its opposition to the Yugoslav establishment, one would be inclined to reject any Yugoslav national orientation from the party. However, the party’s national ideology was more complicated. Before World War I, Radic´ had been a supporter of the principle of Croat– Serb national unity, as had many of his peers. Radic´, however, consistently stuck to the principle of Croatian state rights. His ideology was a synthesis of political Croatism and cultural Yugoslavism. While Radic´ recognised the cultural, ethnic, and linguistic unity of Serbs and Croats, he also argued that they had distinct political and state traditions. Within the circumstances of the First Yugoslavia, Radic´’s notion of Croat–Serb unity was challenged by what he considered to be the Serbian abuse of this idea. As a reaction, he avoided references to cultural national unity and instead highlighted the political national differences between Croats and Serbs, even though he never completely rejected Croat –Serb national unity.17 It was in this respect that the Peasant – Democratic Coalition made sense; the Coalition rallied Croats and Croatian Serbs behind Croatian political nationalism. Radic´ agreed with Pribic´evic´’s unitarism and argued that the coalition was based on the idea ‘that Serbs and Croats are one nation, especially we Serbs and Croats who live together’.18 Pribic´evic´ and his supporters no longer coupled unitarism with centralism and gradually even propagated broad autonomy based on the different state traditions among South Slavs.19

The Slovenian People’s Party The Slovenian People’s Party (SLS, Slovenska ljudska stranka) had dominated Slovenian politics in the decade before World War I. The SLS’s programme was centred on Slovenian nationalism, Catholicism, and Christian Socialism. The party’s South Slav inclination was restricted to the call for political cooperation of the Dual Monarchy’s South Slavs.20 At the 1920 elections, SLS received 36.1 per cent of the votes in Slovenia, and in each of the following elections, it received

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between 55 and 60 per cent of the Slovenian votes. The Slovenian People’s Party joined forces with decentralist opposition parties. However, it dissociated itself from Croatian federalist opposition by arguing that autonomous provinces should be based on economic and cultural factors rather than ‘tribal’ ones, an objection that did not apply to Slovenia, where economic, cultural, and ‘tribal’ boundaries overlapped. After the fall of the Radicals– Radic´ government, the Slovenian People’s Party joined a number of Radical governments. Party leader Anton Korosˇec became the last Prime Minister of the Kingdom before the dictatorship and was the first non-Serbian Prime Minister.21 The national ideology of the Slovenian People’s Party did not develop markedly within the new circumstances of the Yugoslav Kingdom. Although SLS ostensibly embraced the doctrine of state unity and also used the discourse of the three-named nation in statewide statements, SLS’s Yugoslavism remained restricted to the idea of state unity. Slovenian Clericals based their demands for autonomy on the cultural, economic, and political distinctness of the Slovenian people. The SLS also represented itself as the protector of Slovenian national culture and consistently dissociated itself from the unitarism of the (Independent) Democratic Party’s Slovenian representatives, whom they criticised for denying the Slovenian language and national individuality.22

The Yugoslav Muslim Organisation The Yugoslav Muslim Organisation (JMO, Jugoslavenska muslimanska organizacija) was the political representative of Bosnian Muslims.23 Throughout the 1920s, the party safeguarded its position as the only significant political party of Bosnian Muslims. The JMO voted for the Vidovdan constitution, thus providing the necessary majority, in exchange for a number of socio-economic and administrative guarantees. Dissatisfied with the belated realisation of its demands, the party’s leader Mehmed Spaho quickly broke with the government and joined decentralist forces with the Croatian Republican Peasant Party, the Slovenian People’s Party, and Davidovic´’s Democrats. In the second half of the 1920s, the JMO cooperated closely with the Democratic Party and participated in the Radical governments of Velimir Vukic´evic´.24 The Yugoslav Muslim Organisation placed great weight on Yugoslav national unity and the Yugoslav national consciousness of South Slav

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Muslims beyond ‘tribal’ categories. In its programme of February 1919, the party argued: We start from the full equality of the three tribal names and ascertain that Bosnian-Herzegovinian Muslims have never been estranged from their homeland, nation, or language. They retained all the characteristics of pure nationalism but are not conscious of their tribal name. Therefore, we consider the question of our nationalisation a field for the cultural work of society and not for daily politics.25 In essence, Yugoslavism provided JMO with a tool to demand full cultural, religious, and political equality for South Slav Muslims as a constituent part of the Yugoslav nation.26 It also allowed JMO to circumvent the thorny and divisive question of the ‘tribal’ affiliation of Bosnian Muslims.27

The Royal Dictatorship (1929– 35) After the death of Radic´, the political polarisation between the Peasant– Democratic Coalition and the governing parties became highly inflammable. With the fall of the Korosˇec government by the end of December the crisis was complete.28 King Alexander, who had already displayed an authoritarian style of ruling in the formation and dissolution of governments throughout the 1920s, took full control of the country’s politics and proclaimed a royal dictatorship on 6 January 1929, hence also known as the Sixth-of-January Dictatorship (Sˇestojanuarska diktatura). Alexander dissolved parliament, abolished the constitution, and banned all political parties. He explained that the parliamentary system and ‘unhealthy political passions’ had only caused harm to the nation and the state and finally began to threaten its prosperity and development. Most importantly, ‘instead of developing and strengthening the spirit of national and state unity, parliamentarism – such as it is – is beginning to lead to spiritual disintegration and to national disunity’.29 King Alexander immediately decreed a number of new laws that made him the carrier of all power in the country and the chief of the state administration. He was assisted by the Council of

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Ministers, which had a mere advisory function. The King decreed laws, and he had the right to appoint and dismiss his ministers at any time. Alexander’s Royal Dictatorship fits in with a broader turn to an authoritarian style of government that appeared all over Europe in a reaction against the socio-economic, international, and political instability of the times that was deemed an outcome of derailed liberal democracy. With the military dictatorships in Poland, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, and Greece, the fascist regimes in Italy and Germany, and the royal dictatorships in Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania, the Yugoslav dictatorship shared the integral nationalist longing for the regeneration and revitalisation of the nation through collective patriotic action. The dictatorship took responsibility for the preservation of the ethnic and cultural distinctness and the vitality of the nation and protected it against foreign and internal enemies. As the individual was completely subjected to the nation, the dictatorial leadership claimed the right and the responsibility to guide collective patriotic action. This came down to an authoritarian attempt to impose mass support and mobilisation by means of a strong leadership cult, a pseudo-parliamentary system, political homogenisation, and civil participation through mass events and associations affiliated to the regime (often with a strong military and physical character) or denunciations of ‘hostile elements’ within the nation.30 With other royal dictatorships in the Balkans, the Yugoslav case was markedly softer and more traditionalist than many of its western and central European counterparts. The Yugoslav dictatorship did not propagate a revolutionary reorganisation of politics and society but held on to traditionalist concepts of guided democracy and monarchical power. The national mass movement it founded took the form of a traditional political party; there was room for at least some form of political pluralism; it did not rely on the militarisation of society; and xenophobic and aggressive victimisation of external and internal ‘Others’ was marginal. The dictatorial regimes in the Balkans were also less pervasive than their European counterparts. Their ideals of state building and efficiency, mass mobilisation, and international strength shattered against the weakness of the state apparatus. The essence of the dictatorial regimes in the Balkans remained the stabilisation and consolidation of the nation-state.31 In the following paragraphs, I look

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in more detail at the concepts of unitarism and centralism that were key to that policy in Yugoslavia.

Integral Yugoslavism The Yugoslavism of the Royal Dictatorship has been classified under integral Yugoslavism, implying that ‘tribal’ and religious differences could no longer determine the political and cultural life of the Yugoslav nation-state.32 The Law on the Protection of Public Security and Order in the State banned all political parties or organisations that were based on religious or ‘tribal’ elements. The new Law on Press forbade publications that could provoke ‘tribal’ and religious hatred and disunity.33 The single most important act symbolising the shift from compromised Yugoslavism to integral Yugoslavism was the Law on the Name and the Division of the Kingdom into Administrative Regions, which was legalised on 3 October 1929. The name of the country was changed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which according to Prime Minister Petar Zˇivkovic´ ‘not only indicated the complete unity of state and nation, but also symbolically expressed the idea of full unity, equality and brotherhood of us, Slavs of the South, Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes’.34 Additionally, the law replaced the country’s 33 administrative districts with an administrative unit comprising Belgrade, Pancˇevo, and Zenum and nine banovinas (sing.: banovina), all named after rivers and in Table 2.1 The new administrative division in banovinas Banovina (Capital)

Location

Drava (Ljubljana) Sava (Zagreb) Littoral (Split)

Present-day Slovenian lands in Yugoslavia. Croatia-Slavonia; the Lika region. Northern and central Dalmatia; western Herzegovina. North-western and northern Bosnia. South-eastern Bosnia; western Serbia; western Srem. Southern Dalmatia; Montenegro; south-eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina; western Kosovo. Eastern Srem; Vojvodina; north-central Serbia. Southern Serbia; Macedonia; south-eastern Kosovo. Central and eastern Serbia; north-eastern Kosovo.

Vrbas (Banja Luka) Drina (Sarajevo) Zeta (Cetinje) Danube (Novi Sad) Vardar (Skopje) Morava (Nisˇ)

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one case the Adriatic Sea. With the exception of Drava banovina (comprised of the Slovenian lands in the Kingdom), the banovinas cut across the boundaries of Yugoslavia’s historical regions and ‘broke with the visible traces of the past, those artificial boundaries of administrative regions, which became historical during the tragic division and partition of [Yugoslavia’s] tribes’.35 Each banovina was headed by a governor (Ban), who was directly appointed by the King. The governors were close confidants of the King who had occupied high positions in politics, the army, or the judiciary prior to 1929. Their appointments illustrated that no drastic changes in government ought to have been expected. The governor and his administration merely implemented governmental policy, thus mediating between the central and local levels of government. The provincial administration also played an important role in the dictatorship’s surveillance system.36

The institutionalisation of Yugoslav national unity in politics King Alexander represented his dictatorship as a radical break with the political practices of the past. According to him, the Vidovdan constitution left intact the traces of the past that divided the Yugoslavs into ‘tribes’ and could not lead to the synthetic development ‘of our national characteristics in indispensable internal unity and harmony’.37 Alexander’s choice of ministers, however, clashed with his statement of a radical break. Evidence of continuity with the parliamentary period was firstly indicated by the political prominence of high military authorities, who had already played a decisive role in government changes throughout the 1920s. The new Prime Minister and Minister of Internal Affairs Zˇivkovic´ was General and Commander of the Royal Guards. He was a loyal confidant of the King and a very controversial figure throughout the country for his authoritarian, military style and nonpolitical background. Secondly, key ministerial positions were held by prominent Serbian politicians who had belonged to the royalist factions within the Radical Party and the Democratic Party. The Croats were represented in the government by economic experts and unpopular politicians who supported the centralist state structure. The Slovenian representative in the government was Korosˇec, the leader of the

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Slovenian Clericals, who continued his strategic cooperation with the pre-war Serbian hegemonic centre.38 During 1929, the Council of Ministers was extremely active. The government decreed over 200 legal acts in the year 1929 alone, whereas during the parliamentary period, the Yugoslav parliament had only approved approximately 180 laws.39 Some of these acts, such as the education laws and the unification of the tax structure and the six legal codes from the pre-1914 period, had been pending and were urgently needed.40 In the second half of 1930, the government prepared the formation of a new political mass organisation in support of the new order. A direct consequence was the resignation of Korosˇec, who had hoped for the reactivation of former political parties.41 The regime attracted some dissidents from the Croatian Peasant Party to join its ranks. Karla Kovacˇevic´, a former vice-president of the HSS, launched a Yugoslav Peasant Movement in Croatia-Slavonia. Kovacˇevic´ held frequent peasant rallies and attempted to represent himself and the regime as the legitimate successors to Radic´ and his peasant movement. However, Kovacˇevic´’s movement never matched the popularity of the Croatian Peasant Party, and it quickly disappeared.42 Almost simultaneously, Salih Baljic´, one of the former leaders of the JMO, started a similar movement among Bosnian Muslims, but it befell an even more unsuccessful fate than Kovacˇevic´’s.43 On 3 September 1931, the King gave his people a new constitution. Allegedly, the dictatorship had resolved the most urgent issues and had laid a solid foundation for a successful return to normal political life in Yugoslavia.44 In fact, the constitution installed a pseudoparliamentarian system, which ‘in virtually all its aspects... represented an affirmation rather than a moderation of the course of the state since January 1929’.45 The constitution repeated the ban on political parties, organisations, and meetings based on ‘tribal’, religious, or regional factors. The king remained the highest political authority in the country with unrestricted power. New election laws prescribed voting by open oral ballot, obliged political lists to present a candidate for each district, and determined that the winning list would obtain a bonus of two-thirds of all seats in parliament.46 Prime Minister Zˇivkovic´’s governmental list, which was a conglomerate of dissident politicians affiliated to the former parliamentary parties, was the only list participating in the elections

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of 8 November 1931. Thus, the elections became a referendum on the new political order. The final statewide turnout was 66 per cent.47 Quickly thereafter, the elected deputies formed the Yugoslav Radical – Peasant Democracy (JRSD, Jugoslovenska radikalno-seljacˇka demokratija), which clearly indicated the party’s constituent political groups. In July 1933, the party changed its name into the slightly more elegant Yugoslav National Party (JNS, Jugoslovenska nacionalna stranka).48 The foundation of the programme was integral Yugoslavism: Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes form one unified Yugoslav nation because they have lived on one cohesive territory, because of their equal geographic and ethnographic structure, by their origin, by their language, by their century-long aspirations, by the sameness of their historical destiny and experiences, by their never extinguishing consciousness and community. Therefore, Yugoslav national unity is an irrefutable and natural fact.49 In a further attempt to give the regime a more ‘normal’ face, Zˇivkovic´ was replaced by Vojislav Marinkovic´, who counted as the leader of the moderate wing of the government, in April 1932. After only three months in office, however, Marinkovic´ was forced to resign when he insinuated that the centralist state organisation could be modified. He was replaced by Milan Srsˇkic´, a stauncher centralist, who remained in office until January 1934, when he was succeeded by Nikola Uzunovic´.50 The JRSD/JNS organised a large number of meetings throughout the country to popularise the party, conveying a message of absolute loyalty to the King, national unity, political harmony, and collective patriotism. In this ‘good news show’, there was absolutely no place for references to political or economic instability. The economic crisis of the period was barely mentioned at all; without any further specifications, the JNS simply guaranteed the population that the government was taking the necessary steps. Any political opposition was denounced as a marginal attempt by political revisionists and external enemies to destabilise the country. This strategy failed to generate mass popular support for the regime, as symbolised by the large meeting in Nisˇ on 23 April 1933, which was allegedly attended by 200,000 participants from all over Yugoslavia. The meeting ended up in complete chaos as a result of the

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heavy rainfall and the indifference of many people who had gone to Nisˇ not to support the regime but to enjoy a day off and free train travel. Moreover, the radio installation did not function, so the speakers were not audible for the largest part of the public.51

Dealing with opponents The attempts made by the regime to co-opt political traditions of pre1929 parties only attracted isolated and dissident politicians. The actual leadership of the important political parties turned to opposition, with the exception of Korosˇec’s participation in the government in 1929 and 1930. After the ‘return to parliamentarism’ on 3 September 1931, the leaders of the old parties called on their supporters not to vote for the governmental list and denounced the new constitution as pseudoparliamentarian.52 In the spring of 1932, students at the universities of Belgrade, Zagreb, and Ljubljana demonstrated against the regime, and anti-regime protests led to incidents in Croatia-Slavonia, central Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Slovenia.53 The opposition became more outspoken and organised when the SDK leadership adopted a resolution that became known as the Zagreb Points (Zagrebacˇke punktacije) on 7 November 1932. The coalition criticised Serbian hegemony over Croatia and the lands ‘on this side of Danube, Sava, and Drina’, adding that this hegemony had become stronger after 6 January 1929 and that, additionally, civil and political freedom had been restrained. The SDK demanded the return to the situation of 1918 as a starting point for a new decentralised state union and association of interests. Vladimir Macˇek, who had taken over the leadership over the Croatian Peasant Party after the death of Radic´, was promptly arrested and sentenced to three years of imprisonment.54 Macˇek at this time denied Yugoslav cultural national unity to substantiate his demands for a (con)federalist state structure. He recognised that South Slav languages were closely intertwined and could be seen as dialects of one language, but he stated that historical, cultural, and especially political individuality were much more decisive for national consciousness. Therefore, there was no such thing as a Yugoslav nation, but only a Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, and Bulgarian nation, whereas the Montenegrins had a specific state tradition and statebuilding consciousness. These political nations all had the right to political autonomy. Macˇek believed that the mixed Croat – Serb

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population of Vojvodina and Bosnia-Herzegovina should be given the chance to vote in a referendum for political autonomy or for their inclusion into a Serbian or Croatian entity.55 The Zagreb Points initiated a chain of similar resolutions by other opposition parties. The Slovenian People’s Party demanded the political unification of all Slovenes and an autonomous status for Slovenia within Yugoslavia. After the publication of the resolution, Korosˇec and a number of other SLS leaders were interned.56 The JMO argued for full democracy and autonomy for Bosnia-Herzegovina based on its political and historical individuality. The Democrat Davidovic´ demanded a return to full democracy and parliamentarism and suggested a division of the country into a number of autonomous districts, which would be grouped in larger units based on the cultural and historical specificities of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. A fourth unit comprising BosniaHerzegovina and southern Dalmatia would serve as a transition zone to prevent ‘tribal exclusiveness’ from the part of Serbs or Croats. The Radical Party took a distinct position. The party’s leadership propagated a return to parliamentarism but continued to reject federalism and suggested the decentralisation of the state on the basis of local or regional autonomy.57 The regime’s new order not only affected high politics but also had an impact on daily life. Official state servants – correspondents of the Central Press Office, soldiers, gendarmes, and local authorities – and ordinary citizens zealously kept track of the mood of the population and denunciated suspicious individuals. In theory, the authorities not only took measures against explicit and high-profile acts of opposition but also demanded the active participation of ordinary citizens in the new political and cultural order. In practice, local authorities occupied themselves with small-scale and banal examples of le`se majesty, sympathy with political opposition against the regime, or alleged acts of opposition against Yugoslav national unity, for example the display of ‘tribal’, that is Slovenian and especially Croatian, flags. Very often a great degree of personal opportunism was involved.58 The state’s surveillance policy played a prominent role in the concretisation of the regime’s ideology at the local level and installed a strict boundary between those who were loyal to state and nation and those who were not. The close link between the ideology of integral Yugoslavism and the regime’s

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authoritarian surveillance policy was a central factor in the transmission of Yugoslav nationhood to ordinary citizens.

The return to ‘tribal’ politics under Stojadinovic´ On 9 October 1934, King Alexander was assassinated in Marseille. The assassination was organised by the Ustasˇas, a group of extreme Croatian nationalists led by Ante Pavelic´, and the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (VMRO, Vnatresˇna makedonska revolucionerna organizacija), a terrorist organisation that operated from Bulgaria and contested the partitioning of Macedonia. Prince Regent Paul’s subsequent announcement of new parliamentary elections signalled a relaxation of the dictatorship. Unlike in 1931, the governmental list of Prime Minister Bogoljub Jevtic´ was challenged by an opposition list consisting of the most important opposition parties and led by Macˇek. The opposition list did not formulate a common political platform, and in fact, its constituent parties stressed their own political demands: the Democrats, primarily full democracy and parliamentarism, and the Croatian Peasant Party, the solution to the Croatian question. The governmental list received 60.64 per cent of the votes, and the opposition list of Macˇek had 37.36 per cent, resulting in 303 seats for the governmental list and only 67 seats for the opposition. The opposition absented themselves from parliament, criticising the unfair electoral law and the country’s pseudo-democratic and pseudoparliamentarian system in general as well as irregularities that had occurred during the elections.59 An internal crisis in Jevtic´’s government led to his dismissal in June 1935. He was succeeded by Milan Stojadinovic´, a dissident member of the Radical Party who had joined the government in December 1934, marking the beginning of a new phase in the political development of interwar Yugoslavia.

The Yugoslav Radical Union Stojadinovic´ formed a new government with representatives of the Radical Party, the SLS, the JMO, and a number of regime supporters, most importantly Zˇivkovic´. The governmental coalition also formed a new party: the Yugoslav Radical Union (JRZ, Jugoslovenska radikalna zajednica). Although the party stressed that it accepted the

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constitution of 1931 and the unity of state and nation, its programme included significant novelties in comparison to the political programme of the dictatorship. Firstly, the JRZ pushed for a relaxation of the authoritarian government by demanding secret voting and the freedom of speech, press, and meetings. Secondly, the party proposed local autonomy as a compromise between centralism and federalism. Finally, the JRZ abandoned the dictatorship’s integral Yugoslavism in favour of what Jovo Bakic´ has termed ‘real Yugoslavism’. The party recognised three sub-national entities within the Yugoslav nation and argued that their distinct traditions should be respected. It spoke of national unity and stated that over time the differences between the three ‘tribes’ should decrease, but it did not make claims about a homogeneous Yugoslav nation. More important than the uniformisation of the Yugoslav nation was mutual respect and trust between its constituent parts. The JRZ programme also criticised the integral Yugoslavism of the first half the 1930s as outdated, artificial, violent, and counterproductive.60 Senator Dragoslav Ðordevic´ perfectly summarised the JRZ’s national ideology when he argued that ‘racially and nationally we are one nation’, but ‘in our history three national individualities have been formed, of which Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes do not want and do not need to distance themselves.’61 He concluded that ‘the danger for this state does not lie in... Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian nationalism’ but in ‘a new, bookish, doctrinarian, anaemic, and abstract Yugoslav nationalism, which denies Serbianism, Croatianism, and Slovenianism’.62 Reflecting this change in nationalities policy, the JRZ itself was conceived as a coalition of representatives of Yugoslavia’s sub-national groups, instead of a homogeneous Yugoslav national movement. Serbia and the state’s international standing were the political terrains of Stojadinovic´’s Radicals. The JMO served as the political representative of Bosnian Muslims. In Slovenia, Korosˇec’s Slovenian Clericals actualised their autonomist programme through their participation in the central government and their dominant position in the assembly of Drava banovina. The Slovenian Clericals strongly rejected integral Yugoslav national unity: We built Yugoslavia as neither some foreign national minority, because we are indeed related to Serbs and Croats, nor the smallest

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part of some Yugoslav nation, which only exists in bare imagination, but as the Slovenian nation which is, even though it is so small, as a distinct entity completely equal to the other brotherly nations; and nobody has the right to demand that we assimilate with numerically stronger nations to our own detriment or sacrifice our language, our cultural character and view, and our natural and moral characteristics.63 Finally, the government recognised the urgency of the Croatian question and Stojadinovic´ frequently explained that the coalition of national agreement would only be complete if the Croatian Peasant Party participated in his government.64

The opposition and the elections of 1938 After the elections of May 1935, the Democratic Party, the Agricultural Union (SZ, Savez zemljoradnika),65 and an opposition faction of the Radical Party cooperated under the banner of the United Opposition (UO, Udruzˇena opozicija). The Serbian opposition demanded the return to full democracy as the absolute prerequisite for the reform of the state and the solution of the Croatian question. The Serbian parties continued to think in terms of Yugoslav national unity. For them, the Yugoslav state was based on a broad national unity rather than a mere rational union of interests and would in time lead to cultural national unification. However, the Serbian opposition by this time decisively rejected integral Yugoslavism and recognised different particularist individualities within the Yugoslav nation.66 For Macˇek’s SDK, the primary problem within Yugoslavia was the Croatian question, whereas the democratisation of the country was only of secondary importance. The party considered that the Croatian national question could only be solved through the establishment of a separate Croatian unit within a (con)federalist Yugoslav state. In support of these demands, the Croatian Peasant Party highlighted Croatian national individuality and rejected each form of Yugoslav national unity as a cover for Serbian hegemony.67 Finally in October 1937, the Serbian opposition parties and the SDK reached an agreement in which they urged the Regency to appoint a new government consisting of the true political representatives

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of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and organise free elections for a constituent assembly.68 New parliamentary elections were held on 11 December 1938. They turned out to be a battle between the governmental list of the JRZ and a coalition list formed by the United Opposition, the SDK, and, surprisingly, the Yugoslav National Party. The JRZ highlighted its economic and political accomplishments and represented itself as the only guarantee for Yugoslav internal unity and external stability. It criticised the opposition for opposing Yugoslav national unity and argued that federalism implied the weakening of the state. The opposition parties argued that only reorganisation and democratisation could lead to the country’s stability and prosperity. Serbian opposition parties stressed the democratisation element from the 1937 agreement, whereas the Croatian Peasant Party focussed on the Croatian national question.69 The elections brought the government a relatively narrow victory of 54.09 per cent against 44.9 per cent for the opposition. The government received a clear majority of the Slovenian and Bosnian Muslim votes. In the Croatian banovinas, the opposition won by an overwhelming majority. The election results for the Serbian part of the opposition, however, were disappointing: in the heartland of pre-1914 Serbia, the government received more than 70 per cent of the votes.70

The establishment of the Croatian banovina and the end of Yugoslavism? In February 1939, Stojadinovic´’s government fell as a result of the disappointing election results. The new Prime Minister Dragisˇa Cvetkovic´ clarified that his primary goal was the solution of the Croatian question. He added that parts of the Yugoslav homeland had developed separate national individualities, which indicates a further departure from Yugoslav national thinking. Cvetkovic´ and Macˇek started negotiations and reached an agreement on 26 August 1939. This resulted in the establishment of the Croatian banovina consisting of Sava and Littoral banovina with the addition of a number of districts in southern Dalmatia, the Srem, and north-western Bosnia. In the Croatian banovina, 20 per cent of the population was Serbian Orthodox and 4 per cent Bosnian Muslim. The banovina enjoyed autonomy under the

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legislative authority of the democratically elected Diet and the king. The king appointed a governor for the Croatian banovina. Only foreign policy and trade, national defence, public security, customs, and finance remained under the jurisdiction of the central government. With the formation of the Croatian banovina, the Croatian Peasant Party’s national ideology was institutionalised. Although the Croatian authorities were careful not to incite Croat – Serb conflict, they intensified their Croat-centric discourse, representing the banovina as a quasi-Croatian nation-state. Yugoslav unity was reduced to a wider concept of state unity. Cultural life in the banovina became Croatian instead of Yugoslav, and supporters of the dictatorship’s Yugoslavism faced increasing hostility.71 The solution to the Croatian question had an immediate impact on other potential national questions in the country. Already in September 1939, the Slovenian branch of the JRZ demanded the establishment of a Slovenian banovina, modelled on the Croatian example. In the same month, a governmental commission was appointed to investigate the transfer of the model of the Croatian banovina to other banovinas, especially Drava banovina.72 The Slovenian Liberals, who had joined the Yugoslav National Party during the dictatorship, abandoned integral Yugoslavism and supported the establishment of a Slovenian banovina with broad autonomy. As a vestige of their Yugoslav inclination, they continued to think in terms of Yugoslav supranational unity and stressed that the Slovenian banovina should maintain close economic, cultural, and political ties with the rest of Yugoslavia.73 The establishment of the Croatian banovina also brought the Serbian question to the fore. For most Serbian politicians and intellectuals, Yugoslav and Serbian national identity had been closely intertwined concepts throughout the interwar period, and the status of the Serbian people within the Yugoslav nation had never been a major topic of concern. Only during the second half of the 1930s, and especially after the 1939 agreement, did the reorganisation of the country and the institutionalisation of a separate Croatian and de facto Slovenian identity force Serbian intellectuals to reconsider the position of the Serbs within the Yugoslav whole.74 In late 1939, the Serbian ministers in the Cvetkovic´ – Macˇek government drafted a proposal for the establishment of a banovina of the Serbian lands, which would consist of the largest part of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Vojvodina, pre-war Serbia, Macedonia, and

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Montenegro, with its capital in Skopje. The former banovinas would obtain a semi-autonomous status within this new Serbian banovina.75 At the same time, a movement for the secession of Serbian districts from the Croatian banovina originated within the Croatian banovina, especially in those areas where the Independent Democrats, who were still in a coalition with the Croatian Peasant Party, were less influential.76 The most prominent turn toward the Serbian question was made within the Serbian Cultural Club (SKK, Srpski kulturni klub), a cultural and political organisation of prominent Serbian intellectuals fostering Serbian culture within the framework of Yugoslavism. The SKK considered itself part of a future union of Yugoslav cultural movements with the goal to strengthen the Yugoslav idea by turning the abstract Yugoslavism of the dictatorship into a synthesis of its constituent parts and by recognising both the distinct sub-national entities and common Yugoslav bonds.77 After the 1939 agreement, the Serbian Cultural Club became increasingly engaged in politics. The movement turned away from the Yugoslav national framework and demanded that the Serbian nation rally together around the Serbian national case and that political differences be set aside until the Serbian question could be resolved. In essence, the SKK demanded the establishment within a federalist Yugoslavia of a Serbian autonomous entity comprising all Serbs, including those in Vojvodina, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia-Slavonia, Montenegro, southern Dalmatia, and Macedonia.78 In the words of the renowned jurist, historian, and politician Slobodan Jovanovic´, one of the leading figures in the SKK: First, we have to protect Serbdom. When the Croatian ethnic entity is marked, it cannot be avoided to mark the Serbian ethnic entity too. It would be absurd to claim that in this state only Croats have national consciousness and that only they have history, whereas Serbs do not have national consciousness or history but are simply an amorphous mass which can be mixed arbitrarily. As soon as the Croatian question was opened, the Serbian question was opened, and Serbs have to protect what is theirs with joint forces.79 At the same time, Serbs also had the task of protecting the Yugoslav state unity because it was a prerequisite for the national progress of not only Serbs but also Croats and Slovenes.80 Whereas the Serbian

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opposition parties under Stojadinovic´ continued to think of Yugoslav national unity as more than simply a union of political interests, after 1939 the Serbian political elite and intellectuals highlighted Serbian nationhood and reduced Yugoslav unity to a ‘rational’, civic concept. The reorganisation of the state and the subsequent opening of the Serbian question simultaneously initiated discussions within particularist groups that had not been recognised as ‘tribes’. In November 1939, Dzˇafer Kulenovic´, who had become the leader of JMO after Spaho’s death, demanded the establishment of a Bosnian banovina, leading to the formation of the Movement for the Autonomy of BosniaHerzegovina (Pokret za autonomiju Bosne i Hercegovine). The movement based its demands for the autonomy of Bosnia-Herzegovina on the historical individuality of the region and the central position of Bosnian Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina while at the same time retaining an overarching notion of Yugoslav national unity.81 Although the decentralist opposition in Montenegro and Macedonia was by far not as well organised politically as in the case of the Serbian, Croatian, or Slovenian opposition parties, it still gained influence during the interwar period. The decentralist opposition in Montenegro was spearheaded by the Montenegrin Party (CS, Crnogorska stranka), which was formed in the build-up to the 1923 elections. The party received approximately 25 per cent of the Montenegrin votes in the 1923 and 1925 elections. In February 1927, the Montenegrin Party joined a parliamentary faction with the Croatian Peasant Party; the party’s leader Sekula Drljevic´ later joined the Peasant– Democratic Coalition.82 The central concern in the Montenegrin Party’s political programme was the demand for the autonomy of Montenegro within a federalist state structure. Montenegrin federalists did not reject the Serbian national character of Montenegro and the Montenegrins but argued that Montenegro occupied a distinct place within the Serbian nation as a result of its particular historical development and its state tradition.83 In the second half of the 1930s, public opposition against the central regime in Montenegro grew. In the elections of 1938, the United Opposition received 47.5 per cent of the Montenegrin votes. Importantly, the opposition increasingly made use of a notion of Montenegrin individuality to air its dissatisfaction and substantiate its demands. Radical Montenegrin federalists, such as Drljevic´ and Savic´ Markovic´ Sˇtedimlija, formulated a racial Montenegrin national idea that

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abandoned earlier acknowledgements of the national unity of Serbs and Montenegrins. On the other side of the spectrum, advocates of the Serbian national belonging of Montenegro vehemently opposed Montenegrin ‘separatists’ and stressed the Serbian-Yugoslav national identity of Montenegrins.84 Ever since the allotment of Vardar Macedonia to Serbia after the Balkan Wars, the state authorities’ hold on the region remained insecure and fragile. Throughout the 1920s, guerrilla raids from armed bands of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation and kac
aks (Albanian insurgents opposing the Serbian/Yugoslav annexation of Kosovo and Albanian-populated areas in western Macedonia) and counter operations by the Yugoslav army, state-loyal paramilitary groups, and armed locals terrorised the population of Macedonia.85 Within this context, the cultural, economic, and political integration of the region in the new state remained superficial.86 In the 1930s, the situation in Macedonia stabilised, certainly after the new Bulgarian government had liquidated the VMRO in 1934. However, the region remained a marginal and peripheral area within the Yugoslav state in all possible strands of society.87 From the second half of the 1930s, young Macedonian intellectuals increasingly opposed the Yugoslav policy in Macedonia in an organised non-violent manner and argued for a separate Macedonian unit within a federalist Yugoslavia on the basis of a distinct Macedonian national identity. In the summer of 1936, Macedonian students, intellectuals, and politicians formed the Macedonian national movement (MANAPO, Makedonski narodni pokret), calling for national autonomy of Macedonia within a federal Yugoslavia. Reports by local authorities from the late 1930s indicate that nationally framed opposition against Yugoslav rule was widespread in the region by this time.88 The developments in the Yugoslav Communist Party’s standpoint on Yugoslavia’s national question, finally, are indicative for the decreasing appeal of the Yugoslav national idea in Yugoslav politics. At the 1920 elections for the constituent assembly, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ, Komunisticˇka partija Jugoslavije) became the fourth largest party in Yugoslavia, obtaining 59 seats in parliament. Its showing was especially impressive in Montenegro, Macedonia, and Kosovo; the party’s success in these areas not only rested on a revolutionary class orientation but also expressed legal protest against

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the authoritarian, Belgrade-centred policy of the new state authorities.89 At this time, Yugoslavia’s national question was only of marginal importance for the Communists, but they accepted the centralist state organisation and the Yugoslav national idea behind it.90 The growing polarisation between Croats and Serbs in Yugoslav politics and the changing position of the Comintern forced the Communists to reconsider Yugoslavia’s national question. After the KPJ was legally banned in the summer of 1921, it completely abandoned Yugoslavism and merged the fight against the capitalist system with the struggle for the solution of the national question in Yugoslavia through the creation of separate states for Yugoslavia’s constituent nations, including Macedonians and Montenegrins.91 From the second half of the 1930s, the influence of the KPJ grew substantially. Although the Royal Dictatorship and the Comintern’s purges had disintegrated and almost destroyed the Yugoslav Communists, they also led to a rebirth of the party. A new generation of Communists reorganised and firmly united the party cadre and overcame the isolation into which it had been pushed. Within the framework of the Comintern’s policy of the Popular Front, the Communists increasingly saw themselves as the vanguard of the popular democratic demands of the masses and strove for cooperation with all progressive and democratic forces against fascism. The party withdrew its earlier demand for the dissolution of Yugoslavia and instead called for the federalisation and democratisation of Yugoslavia on the basis of solidarity between the fraternal nations of Yugoslavia, thus recognising an overarching level of Yugoslav supranational unity.92 *** The 1939 agreement clearly indicated a broader political rejection of Yugoslavism as a national idea. In the general atmosphere of hope and optimism associated with the formation of the new Yugoslav state, political elites considered some form of Yugoslav national unity a logical outcome of state building and modernisation. This Yugoslav unity was understood as a complement to the various political interests. Even the Croatian Peasant Party’s staunch opposition against the centralised Yugoslav state and Croatian political nationalism did not imply the

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negation of Croat– Serb cultural national unity. By the end of the interwar period, Yugoslav nationhood for many politicians and intellectuals became incompatible with and even detrimental to their political interests. Instead, they resorted to other candidates of nationhood. The development in the usage of national discourse by interwar Yugoslav political representatives shows a growing dissociation between the overarching geographic level of Yugoslav national identity and the particularist identities. In 1939, Jovanovic´ concluded that the close identification with the centralist administration and an unpopular dictatorial regime had considerably discredited the Yugoslav idea.93 The core of Jovanovic´’s reasoning remains accurate even today. Indeed, as we have seen, ruling political elites throughout the interwar period continuously linked the centralist state organisation to a notion of Yugoslav national unity and rejected every form of opposition as an act of resistance against the state and the nation. As a result, the open and abstract Yugoslav national idea that had appealed to many political elites in the immediate post-war period became linked to conservatism, centralism, and authoritarianism. Non-Serbian elites equated it with Serbian hegemony. Taking this line of reasoning a step further, this book examines the institutionalisation of nationhood in the domain of education to get deeper insight into the changing contextual understanding of Yugoslav nationhood and its relation with internal divisions within the nation-state and other categories of national identity available.

CHAPTER 3 MODERNITY WILL BE YUGOSLAV: THE ORGANISATION OF THE YUGOSLAV EDUCATION SYSTEM

The new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes faced huge regional differences in the organisation and state of the educational system. In the former Austro-Hungarian lands, education had been thoroughly reorganised and modernised in the course of the nineteenth century, leading to growing student populations and an increasingly accessible and dense school network. Escalating debates over the national nature of education accompanied the modernisation process and questioned the dominant influence of the Empire’s elite cultures on education. By the turn of the nineteenth century, South Slav languages entered primary education and elite national cultures retreated to secondary and higher education.1 No similar modernisation of the educational system had occurred in the former Ottoman lands. The modern ideas of compulsory, secular, and national education were absent in Macedonia, Kosovo, and the Sandzˇak, which had remained under Ottoman rule until the annexation by independent Serbia and Montenegro after the First Balkan War of 1912–13. The essential function of education in these areas remained religious, schools were dispersed over large areas, and the number of school-going children was minimal. In Serbia, Montenegro, and AustroHungarian-ruled Bosnia-Herzegovina, notions of modern, national

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education were only beginning to slip through to educational policies.2 As an indicator of the uneven impact of education in Yugoslavia, the illiteracy rates in the immediate post-World War I period varied greatly: 8.85 per cent in Slovenia, 23.31 per cent in Vojvodina, 32.15 per cent in Croatia-Slavonia, 49.48 per cent in Dalmatia, 65.43 per cent in pre-war Serbia (without Kosovo and Macedonia), 67.02 per cent in Montenegro, 80.55 per cent in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and 83.86 per cent in Macedonia and Kosovo.3 *** Yugoslav policy makers, teachers, pedagogues, and intellectuals faced the challenges of unification and modernisation with great optimism and connected them to the consolidation of Yugoslav national unity. Teachers were among the most passionate proponents of Yugoslav nation building. In July 1920, teachers associations from all Yugoslav regions organised the first national congress of what was called the Yugoslav Teachers Association (UJU, Udruzˇenje jugoslovenskog ucˇiteljstva). On this occasion, Jovan P. Jovanovic´, a prominent pedagogue, administrator at the Ministry of Education, and author of textbooks, programmatically called elementary education one of the essential factors in the development of the state and nation. Accordingly, every teacher could notice that ‘tribal’ feelings, regional patriotism, and separatism were still strong in practice. The formation of Yugoslavia had only brought territorial unification. Now it was the task of schools to realise Yugoslav national unification: Military heroism and diplomatic wisdom have created our state, or simply territorial unity, but the formation of our national unity does not lie in its power. National unification can neither be realised by army, diplomacy, or police, nor be consolidated by state constitutions or proclamations. It can only be carried out through the good upbringing and education of the younger generations of our people in popular schools, because only [in that way] can we make regional patriotism, tribal sentiments, and separatist aspirations in certain regions disappear, so that instead of tribal feelings, national consciousness and national sentiments will become dominant, and instead of regional

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patriotism general love toward the whole unified homeland, so that all will feel like sons of one nation and not simply state subjects.4 The ruling political parties of the period accepted the Yugoslav national function of education. Article 16 of the Vidovdan constitution prescribed: ‘All schools must give moral education and develop civil consciousness in the spirit of national unity and religious tolerance.’5 Just like teachers, policy makers considered the unification of the educational system a first prerequisite for the fulfilment of this task but no significant results were reached during the parliamentary period. As a rule, every minister appointed a commission with the task to set the policy outlines in order to come to a unified educational legislation, but the Yugoslav parliament did not ratify one single law proposal. The formulation of statewide curricula proved an equally difficult task, as demonstrated by the saga surrounding the curriculum for elementary schools. The ministry of Svetozar Pribic´evic´ issued the first curriculum on 27 June 1925. A little over one year later, Minister Milosˇ Trifunovic´ introduced some minor revisions to the curriculum and added a detailed programme. Fierce criticism from Yugoslav teachers – that the curriculum was unclear and superficial, that it was written without consulting pedagogues or teachers, and that it was absurd to issue a curriculum while there was still no law on elementary education – forced the Ministry to withdraw the curriculum.6 Finally, a new temporary programme was published in October 1927. Although all drafts, curricula, decrees, and decisions adopted in the domain of education during the 1920s hinted at a strongly uniform and centralist educational system with an outspoken Yugoslav national function, the reorganisation remained fragmentary and chaotic. Despite the complexity of the situation, the poor state of the educational system, and the huge discrepancies between the country’s historical regions, many observers have rightfully argued that it was a lack of political maturity and stability that thwarted the unification of the educational system.7 Although the extreme instability of Yugoslav governments during the 1920s – no fewer than ten ministers of education were in office – surely hampered the introduction of decisive measures, one should take into consideration that, apart from Anton Korosˇec and Stjepan Radic´, all ministers of education came from the ruling Radical and (Independent)

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Democratic Parties, firm supporters of a centralised educational system and, in the case of the Democrats, also of the Yugoslav national function of education. During the first half of the 1920s, Pribic´evic´, who was the personification of centralism and Yugoslav nationalism, served almost four years as Minister of Education, of which three years were consecutive. He provided many incentives for the unification of the educational system and the promotion of its national function, and the Royal Dictatorship would later adopt many of these drafts. Nevertheless, Pribic´evic´ did not succeed in pushing through his programme of a centralist and Yugoslav educational system, which indicates the secondary importance of this issue in the political agenda of the governing parties. *** The Royal Dictatorship enforced the reorganisation and unification of the Yugoslav educational system with a previously unseen decisiveness. The Law on Popular Schools determined the organisation of elementary and higher popular schools. It prescribed eight years of compulsory and free education for every child from the age of 6 to 14. Four years of full-time schooling in elementary schools were obligatory for all Yugoslav children. The consecutive four years of higher popular schools were intended for those pupils, primarily in the countryside, who did not go to secondary or civil school after finishing elementary school. The Law on Popular Education also attempted to tackle the country’s high illiteracy rates by prescribing that all illiterates under the age of 25 had to follow special literacy courses, either as civilians or during military service.8 After completing four years of elementary education, pupils could either continue the higher years of popular education or attend civil or secondary school. Secondary schools were divided into four years of lower and four years of higher secondary education. There were three types of secondary schools: real gymnasia, classical gymnasia, and the realkas. In classical gymnasia, most attention was paid to (classical) languages, whereas realkas devoted more attention to the natural sciences. Real gymnasia occupied a middle position.9 Civil schools had the rank of lower secondary schools, lasted four years, and provided students with vocational training. In the third year, students chose a specialisation in agriculture, handicrafts, or industry and trade.10 Teacher-training schools trained teachers for popular schools. They lasted five years and were open to students who had finished

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lower secondary school or civil school and had passed a complementary entrance exam.11 Higher education, finally, was organised in the large urban centres of the country. The Yugoslav university network expanded significantly with the establishment of a new university in Ljubljana, three new faculties at the University of Zagreb, a faculty of Law in Subotica, and a faculty of Philosophy in Skopje; the latter two faculties were under the authority of the University of Belgrade.12 The central idea behind the dictatorship’s educational policy was to place all educational institutions firmly under central authority and to establish a uniform educational system. The laws and rulebooks that were formulated for each branch of the educational system clarify that the primary motive behind this policy was not so much the general modernisation of Yugoslav society but the building of a modern Yugoslav nation. The entire legal framework was imbued with the ideals of Yugoslav nation building and the firm belief that a uniform and centrally controlled educational system would lay the solid foundations for a new generation of Yugoslavs. In the words of Minister of Education Bozˇidar Maksimovic´: ‘The goal of primary education is not just to spread literacy, but even more to educate nationally.’13 Yugoslav nationalisation also dominated extracurricular education. New curricula for literary courses, for example, determined that these courses comprise not only reading, writing, and arithmetic, but also an overview of the state organisation and Yugoslav national history and geography.14 Popular universities should ‘exclusively be led by [their] cultural–educational tasks and the interests of the state government, national unity, and religious tolerance’.15 They should provide the authorities with abstracts for all lectures they organised and guarantee that the teachers were ‘nationally correct’.16 Radios were obliged to play predominantly national and Slavonic music and to cover Yugoslav national literature.17 Every day between 7 p.m. and 8.30 p.m., the three radio stations in the country (Belgrade, Zagreb, and Ljubljana) transmitted a lecture on an important national theme, typically treating an important historical event or figure, a Yugoslav region or landmark, or the dynasty, followed by a short news report.18 The statistical figures on the development of the Yugoslav educational network show a strong increase in student numbers. The number of pupils in popular schools more than doubled from 658,876 in 1918–19 to 1,431,523 in 1937– 8.19 The secondary school student population increased dramatically from 42,675 in 1918– 19 to 73,092

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in 1929–30 and 119,236 in 1937– 8.20 The number of civil school students grew from 25,765 in 1925– 6 to 45,853 in 1939– 40.21 The number of students at Yugoslav universities, finally, rose from 12,534 in 1928–9 to 16,132 in 1933 –4.22 A closer look at the situation in popular schools, however, reveals the general problems the Yugoslav education system continued to face in terms of infrastructure, regional inequality, and limited reach. Investments in school buildings and teachers could not keep up with the growing number of elementary school pupils.23 The increase from 5,610 popular schools and 11,064 teachers in 1918 –19 to 8,357 schools and 30,686 teachers in 1937–8 still meant that there were 47 pupils for every teacher.24 In order to reduce regional inequality in elementary education, authorities strongly focussed on less developed regions. Between 1930 and 1938, for example, more than a quarter of the state budget for the building of new schools went to Vardar banovina, and around 10 per cent to other underdeveloped banovinas. Drava, Sava, and Littoral banovina received between 4 and 5 per cent of the expenditures.25 As a result, in Macedonia and Kosovo there was a 56 per cent increase in the number of school buildings between 1922 and 1938, and in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the increase was 90 per cent, whereas for Slovenia it was only 5 per cent.26 These measures were still insufficient to bring about a regional balance. In Drava banovina, more than half of the pupils walked less than one kilometre to school, the maximum walking distance was five kilometres; however, in Vrbas banovina the average walking distance was eight kilometres.27 Compulsory education of eight years remained a distant ideal for many Yugoslav regions until the end of the interwar period. In 1920, almost half of all school aged children did not go to school, whereas in 1933–4, 80 per cent of all Yugoslav children between the age of six and ten attended school. However, in Vardar banovina, 34 per cent of the children between six and ten did not go to school, in Zeta, 35 per cent, in Drina, 43 per cent, and in Vrbas, 56 per cent.28 The network of higher popular schools, although in theory a compulsory alternative for secondary and civil schools in the countryside, was completely undeveloped. In the 1932–3 school year, more than half of the popular schools consisted of only the lower four years, and only 15 per cent consisted of seven or eight years. In 1937–8, the situation was even worse, with almost 75 per cent of all popular schools comprising only the lower four years and only 7.5 per cent

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of all popular school pupils attending higher popular school. Again, there was a striking regional discrepancy in this regard. In 1933 – 4 in Slovenia, 31 per cent of all popular school pupils attended higher popular education. In Vojvodina, the rate was 25 per cent, in Dalmatia, 19 per cent, and in Croatia, 6 per cent. For the other regions, this number did not surpass 1 per cent, and in Vardar banovina there was not one popular school that provided more than four years of education.29 The radical modernisation of Yugoslav education was, of course, complicated by the general economic crisis that hit Yugoslavia badly in the early 1930s. The total state budget dropped from 14.6 billion dinars in 1929–30 to 10.2 billion in 1934–5 and only gradually increased again after 1935. Simultaneously, the total budget for education slightly increased between 1929 and 1932 and only minimally decreased in 1932–5. Thus, the budget for education occupied a continuously growing percentage of the total state budget, from 5.59 per cent in 1929–30 to 7.8 per cent in 1934–5. Under the government of Milan Stojadinovic´, the budget for the Ministry of Education increased to a level of approximately 8 per cent of the total state budget. It cannot be said that the state saved funds on the budget for education, but a budget of between 54 and 63 dinars annually per citizen was not enough to change drastically the picture of Yugoslav education.30 The impact of the reorganisation of the educational system was clearly not as all-encompassing and penetrating as the education laws had envisaged. The slow and regionally uneven development of the educational network forms an important qualification with regard to the Yugoslav nation-building aspirations of the interwar Yugoslav state. Additional evidence of slow and regionally diverging progress made in the domains of communication, civil society, state building, and socioeconomic development and integration further qualifies the impact of nation-building efforts in the interwar period.31 However, it would be too simplistic to rule out completely the relevance of the state’s attempts at Yugoslav nation building simply on the basis of these limitations to reach or mobilise the entire population. Similar limitations certainly did not structurally delegitimise nation-building efforts elsewhere in the Balkans.32 The aim of this study is, then, not to test the rate or success of Yugoslav nationalising policies. Such an endeavour would require a longer time horizon in any case and is complicated by the disruptive effect of World War II and the considerably different nationalities policy

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of the Socialist Yugoslav state authorities. In the following chapters, I examine the interrelation between the construction of Yugoslav cultural commonality, social and political divisions in the country, and particularist identities in the domain of education. It is in that interrelation that the long-term impact and broader relevance of the interwar Yugoslav nation-building efforts come into play.

PART 2 THE POSSIBILITIES: THE INCLUSIVE APPROACH TO YUGOSLAV NATIONAL IDENTITY

The political discourse on Yugoslav national identity remained vague about the cultural commonality underlying Yugoslav national unity and its relation to social and political divisions in the country and particularist identities. Yugoslav national unity was also discussed outside the political domain in the new state’s cultural life, often with more elaborate results. Andrew Wachtel distinguishes three models of Yugoslav national culture that coexisted during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The ‘model of cultural unification’ aimed to create a uniform Yugoslav national culture and can be divided in three subcategories: the ‘romantic’, the ‘multicultural’, and the ‘supranational’. In the ‘romantic model’, one existing culture (mostly Serbian) became the standard for Yugoslav culture. The ‘multicultural model’ envisaged the creation of a new culture from the combination of the three existing ‘tribal’ cultures. The ‘supranational model’ did not base the new Yugoslav culture on any of the existing ‘tribal’ cultures. In addition to the threefold model of cultural unification, the ‘model of cultural cooperation’ propagated the interaction between different Yugoslav cultures without the elimination of national differences, whereas the ‘model of mutual toleration’ did not anticipate any cultural interaction.1 ***

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On the interface between politics and culture, education provides important insights into how national policy makers conduct ‘cultural wars’ and form a ‘selective tradition’ concerning the meaning of nationhood.2 The selection and interpretation of symbolic resources reveals how the state’s understanding of Yugoslav nationhood related to social and political divisions in the country and particularist identities.3 In this part of the book, I determine the symbolic resources that were selected as constituent parts of Yugoslav national culture and how they were interpreted as such in the curricula for the designated national subjects: language, history of literature, history, and geography. I also treat the close intertwinement of nationhood and religion in the Yugoslav educational programme in the seventh chapter.4 The curricula remained quite vague and restricted to an enumeration of brief and superficial subjects, leaving considerable room for various interpretations. In order to fill this gap, I situate each of the national subjects under scrutiny within the wider context of canonical definitions of Yugoslav national identity in academic works and popularising publications and in public commemorative acts. A look at the more developed and definitive texts in textbooks shows how curricula were concretely used in schools.5 Textbooks are specifically interesting in the case of interwar Yugoslavia because they present various editions of the central curricula in the country’s three textbook publication centres: Belgrade, Zagreb and Ljubljana. There were only minor traces of the Yugoslav national idea in the textbooks that had been used in the region before World War I. Serbian and Croatian textbooks paid barely any attention to the Slovenes. In contrast, Slovenian textbooks portrayed Serbs and Croats as one nation albeit clearly distinguished from the Slovenian nation. As far as Croat–Serb relations were concerned, references to Serbo-Croatian linguistic unity and Serbian history conveyed a sense of Croat–Serb national unity in Croatian textbooks. Serbian textbooks spoke about Serbo-Croatian linguistic unity and added information on Croatian history and culture only after the Balkan Wars of 1912–13. In both cases, however, these references merely extended Croatian and Serbian national identity and contained many overlapping and adversarial claims, which could hardly serve as a basis for Yugoslav national identification in the context of the interwar Yugoslav state.6 State authorities and educational experts considered uniform textbooks for the entire school-going youth to be the best guarantee

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for Yugoslav national education, but the implementation of this ideal was pending throughout the 1920s. The Main Educational Board, an advisory council to the Ministry of Education, initiated the first competition for primers and reading books for elementary education in the spring of 1923.7 Although the competition led to a selection of reading books for state publication,8 it never actually resulted in a uniform state publication and the Ministry repeatedly prolonged the ‘temporary’ regulation that all textbooks approved by the Main Educational Board could be used in schools.9 With the establishment of the Royal Dictatorship, the textbook policy was finally legally determined.10 The state took full control over the publication of textbooks by means of competitions for state-published textbooks. The ideal was that for each subject one state-published textbook would be used in the entire country. However, the first competition for elementary and secondary school textbooks was declared open only in the first months of 1935.11 By this time, opposition against the Ministry of Education’s policy could be ventilated more openly and criticism against the monopolisation of textbooks grew stronger. The Yugoslav Teachers Association claimed that the strengthening of national consciousness did not require completely uniform textbooks: Under no circumstances can only one textbook for the entire state be foreseen and approved, but, to the contrary, their variety and richness should be favoured and stressed. From our national and pedagogical point of view, the proposed unification presents pedagogical impoverishment and regression instead of progress.12 The competition for state-published textbooks remained ineffective and by the winter of 1938– 9, the earlier practice that all textbooks that had been approved by the Main Educational Board could be used in schools, was reinstalled.13 Thus, by the end of the interwar period, none of the legal regulations for uniform state textbooks had been put in practice. Instead, textbooks were submitted to the Main Educational Board for approval and, if approved, they could be used in schools for four years. As a result, throughout the interwar period textbooks published in Ljubljana, Zagreb, and Belgrade were simultaneously available, with obvious

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‘tribal’ target groups. The fact that textbooks were written with an obvious ‘tribal’ target group, however, does not necessarily rule out incentives for identification with the Yugoslav nation. Instead, textbooks in particular can be a fruitful source to study the possibilities and limitations of mediations between the various geographic levels of nationhood.14

CHAPTER 4 THE SERBO-CROATOSLOVENIAN NATIONAL LANGUAGE

Yugoslav linguistic unity in the curricula The numbers of hours devoted to language education fluctuated between slightly less than one-third of the curriculum in elementary schools to approximately 15 per cent of the teaching hours in various types of secondary schools. The curricula explicated that the goal of language education was not only to teach the children to read and write but also to strengthen their national consciousness. It has been a common feature in national thinking to stress linguistic unity as the foundation for national unity, and in that respect, the Yugoslav situation is no exception. Recent scholarship has also argued sufficiently that ‘ [y]ou need the nation first, or at least the idea of a nation, a perception of its national identity, in order to be able to create a national standard language that may function as a component of this national identity’ and that ‘you need the means of power only a state has the disposal of in order to impose the national standard language to its users, the citizens of the state’.1 However, the exact interpretation of what constituted the Serbo-Croato-Slovenian language, as the 1921 and 1931 constitutions labelled the state language,2 and especially the position of various codifications of that language remained controversial throughout the interwar period and complicated the language policy of the nationalising Yugoslav state.

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The place of Slovenian in Yugoslav linguistic unity The modern Slovenian literary language was standardised in the first half of the nineteenth century. Intellectual contacts between Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian writers and linguists occurred, but concrete rapprochement in the domains of language and literature remained minimal. With the establishment of the Yugoslav nationstate, the question of the relation between Slovenian and SerboCroatian became urgent. An absolute majority of the Slovenian intellectuals, even those favouring Yugoslav national unity, argued that Slovenian was undisputedly a separate language. The discussion revolved around the choice between the complete autonomy and distinctness of the Slovenian language or its gradual rapprochement with Serbo-Croatian.3 The autonomist option was by far the most popular among Slovenian intellectuals. Immediately after the end of World War I, 30 of Slovenia’s leading intellectuals formulated a resolution that the new Yugoslav state should respect the fact that history has given the Slovenes distinct spiritual characteristics. . . . The Slovenian part of the Yugoslav nation has developed on its own linguistically, so that Slovenian, as the carrier of those spiritual characteristics, although it is the closest relative of Serbo-Croatian, is an organism in and of itself today and that successful cultural action in the Slovenian language area today is only possible in that language.4 Also the few advocates of the rapprochement of Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian rejected the immediate merging of Slovenian with SerboCroatian. However, unlike the autonomists, they did not oppose the merging of Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian in due course. One of the most prominent proponents of this option was Fran Ilesˇicˇ, professor of Slovenian language and literature at the University of Zagreb. According to Ilesˇicˇ, the nuances in the Yugoslav speech would naturally smooth out if the natural development of the Slovenian literary language would be respected and if the mutual contacts between Slovenes and Serbo-Croats would intensify. Moreover, because the Slovenian literary language was not exclusively based on one specific dialect and because Slovenian philologists had always focussed on the border with the German language

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zone in the north-west, certain Serbo-Croatian linguistic elements could be easily integrated in the Slovenian literary language.5 The most vocal proponents of the merging of Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian were Serbo-Croatian Yugoslavists. In June 1922, the progressive, Yugoslav-oriented journal from Zagreb, Nova Evropa (The New Europe), published an article in which the Slovenian linguist Matija Murko, at the time working in Prague, occupied a middle position in the debates but opposed strongly the tendency to reduce the Slovenian language to a dialect of Serbo-Croatian. Although the Slovenian vernacular undoubtedly stood very close to Croatian spoken language and could have been integrated into one South Slav literary language, historical circumstances had led to a different situation. Murko argued that it made no sense to ignore the linguistic specificity of Slovenian and proposed the intensification of linguistic contacts between Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian as a basis for Yugoslav national unity.6 This view could not count on the sympathy of the journal’s editorial board. Editor Milan C´urcˇin commented that linguistic unity was the only objective criterion for national unity. If the Yugoslavs formed one nation, they simply had to have one literary language. Even though C´urcˇin accepted that the Slovenian literary language would be used for the time being, Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian would have to merge into one South Slav literary language in the future. This common language could be the Serbo-Croatian literary language, or even the Slovenian literary language, or, and this was most probable in C´urcˇin’s view, the product of the gradual crystallisation of both literary languages into one.7 In what was probably the worst reproach to come from a nationalist, Laza Popovic´ called Slovenes a ‘foreign body’, a segment of the population merely preoccupied with the living conditions of their ‘small, abandoned, strange, and rudimentary ethnic community’ instead of with the nation as a whole.8 After the introduction of the dictatorship, the demands for the introduction of a uniform Yugoslav literary language became more frequent and unequivocal. The prominent philosopher and integral Yugoslav thinker Vladimir Dvornikovic´ urged the Yugoslavs to finally adopt one language, one orthography, and one alphabet as an absolute necessity for Yugoslav cultural progress.9 Petar Bulat, an ethnologist who had been dismissed from the University of Zagreb under the ministry of Stjepan Radic´ and was later appointed professor at the

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Philosophical Faculty in Skopje, added that there was no other option for the Slovenian literary ‘dialect’ other than its ‘quiet and gradual liquidation’.10 The newspaper Jugoslovenski dnevnik (Yugoslav Daily), whose editor Fedor Nikic´ was an assistant at the Ministry of Education and later a deputy in parliament, even reported that the government was completing a law on the unification of the alphabet and literary language for Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.11 Although such a law never came through, claims like these led to fierce reactions in Slovenia. The newspaper Slovenec (The Slovene) urged Bulat to end his ‘fascist projects’ and romantic reveries. Slovenian cultural individuality and Yugoslavism were completely harmonic and the Slovenian language was an inviolable ‘Yugoslav sanctity’.12 Also around this period, Josip Vidmar published his influential book The Cultural Problem of the Slovenian Nation, which provocatively denounced the linguistic and cultural rapprochement of Slovenian and SerboCroatian as a cover for Serbo-Croatian cultural hegemony and argued for Slovenian cultural autonomy and the protection of the Slovenian language against Serbo-Croatian predominance.13 The moderate, Yugoslav-oriented Slovenian intellectuals grew increasingly embittered with demands for the assimilation of the Slovenian language. Instead of complete linguistic homogeneity, they called for cultural cooperation between Slovenes and Serbo-Croats as the ultimate expression of Yugoslav unity. The pro-regime Slovenian newspaper Jugoslovan (The Yugoslav) assured that the Slovenian language was not under discussion: ‘The Slovenian language is... fundamentally necessary for the national consciousness of Slovenes and by extension for their Yugoslav consciousness.’14 The writer Ivan Lah repeated that linguistic variety and national unity were not necessarily incompatible: Since it is not possible to eliminate the Cyrillic alphabet immediately (the question is if this would be honourable for our Yugoslav nationalism!?), since we cannot force Ijekavians to write Ekavian (the question is if this is necessary in the first place!?), since we cannot eliminate the Slovenian language (because this would cause great dissatisfaction), and since we thus are incapable of reforming and all at once eliminating the differences that have originated on our Yugoslav territory in the

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course of cultural development (the question is if it is necessary to eliminate them!?), we first have to reform ourselves and overcome these differences within ourselves, which means that we first have to get rid of all ‘narrow-mindedness’, commotion, obsolete restrictedness, and provincialism and to bring our diversified Yugoslav world closer together, regardless of the fact that it is given in this or that alphabet, in this or that dialect.15 After the Slovenian Clericals entered Milan Stojadinovic´’s government in 1935, the discussion concerning the place of Slovenian culture within Yugoslav unity lost its urgency. By that time, Slovenian intellectuals unanimously accepted the preservation of Slovenian cultural autonomy and the Slovenian language.16 The treatment of the Slovenian literary tradition confirms the complex position of Slovenian culture within definitions of Yugoslav nationhood. Serbo-Croatian Yugoslav-oriented intellectuals stated that Yugoslav linguistic unity would automatically lead to the unity of Yugoslav literature in the near future. However, a common Yugoslav national identity would not only be expressed in future literary achievements but was also apparent in past ones. The writer and literary critic Jovan Krsˇic´ recognised that the linguistic and literary innovations introduced by Vuk Karadzˇic´ and Ljudevit Gaj, who almost simultaneously laid the foundations for the Serbo-Croatian literary language in the first half of the nineteenth century, had not been taken over by the Slovenes because of the specific historical and political circumstances. For example, France Presˇeren, the leading Slovenian poet of the period, did not strive for substantial linguistic or literary unity with Serbs and Croats. Only Stanko Vraz, a Slovenian poet who participated in the Illyrian Movement of Gaj and eventually wrote in the Serbo-Croatian of the Illyrists, had understood that the existence of two literary languages within the Yugoslav nation was temporary and that one day full linguistic and literary unity would be realised; for this reason, and although Krsˇic´ did not question Presˇeren’s poetical superiority over Vraz, he valued the latter’s national consciousness more.17 Not surprisingly, Slovenian intellectuals rejected such claims of absolute literary unity. An important argument by Vidmar in support of Slovenian cultural and national distinctness was precisely that it had been supported by all great representatives of Slovenian

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literature. Unlike Krsˇic´, who had called Vraz a visionary ideologist, Vidmar argued that solely on the basis of political and quantitative reasons Vraz had been blind to the distinctness of Slovenian culture and its long tradition. Presˇeren, however, had been faithful and loyal to the Slovenian cultural tradition.18 *** To what extent was the discourse on Serbo-Croato-Slovenian linguistic unity concretised in language education? Although ideas about the desired degree of linguistic unification of the South Slavs diverged, educational experts agreed that the familiarisation of all pupils with different variants of the state language would be a realistic first step toward Yugoslav unity. In its programme of 1922, the Yugoslav Teachers Association had suggested that pupils should understand ‘all dialects of the state language’.19 Slovenian pedagogues argued to the Ministry of Education that Slovenian elementary schools should teach in the Slovenian language. Slovenian pupils should learn Serbo-Croatian, but the teaching of Serbo-Croatian should not be exaggerated. It was enough if Slovenian pupils became familiarised with Serbo-Croatian and learned Cyrillic. Vice versa, Serbo-Croatian pupils should also learn Slovenian.20 The realisation of these programmes came down to the same practice, but the terminology (dialect vs language) shows that opinions differed on the final results. The curricula of the interwar period made an obvious distinction between Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian. The allowance for Slovenian language education in Slovenia was in fact the only exception to the rule that the curricula had to be completely uniform for the entire Yugoslav nation. Slovenian students learned Serbo-Croatian from the first year of elementary education, starting with one hour per week and then increasing to two hours per week from the third year. Thus, instead of the model of cultural unification – the uniform literary language some Yugoslav ideologists demanded – the language curricula adopted the model of cultural cooperation, as suggested by educational experts. Whereas Slovenian children were expected to become fluent in Serbo-Croatian to participate in Yugoslav society, the reverse was not demanded from Serbo-Croatian children. They did encounter some Slovenian texts in their reading books, but this was not supported by

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any systematic learning of the language. Concerning the teaching of Slovenian to Serbo-Croatian children, it is better to speak of a model of cultural toleration. The curricula for literary history applied the multicultural model, presenting an integrated overview of Slovenian, Croatian, and Serbian literature. By organising Yugoslav literary history according to period and not ‘tribe’, the curricula stressed the parallel development of South Slav literary traditions. The canonical attempt at an integrated Serb-CroatSlovene or Yugoslav literary history was Pavle Popovic´’s Yugoslav Literature. Popovic´, a professor of literature at the University of Belgrade, placed Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian literary traditions next to each other and found evidence of their Yugoslav national character in their common origin and parallel development. He traced Yugoslav literature back to the work of Saints Cyril and Methodius, two brothers who codified a Slavonic literary language to support Christian missionary work among the Slavs by order of Constantinople.21 Furthermore, Popovic´ presented an integrated overview of Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian literary traditions but distinguished between literature written in the Cyrillic and the Latin alphabet and Slovenian literature. From the Renaissance period onwards, frequent contacts between ‘Cyrillic’, ‘Latin’, and Slovenian writers evidenced their Yugoslav national consciousness. The parallel standardisation of the literary language by representatives of each of the three traditions in the first half of the nineteenth century marked the start of the parallel development of modern Yugoslav national literature. For romantic lyricism, for example, Popovic´ placed the poets Branko Radicˇevic´ and Petar Petrovic´ Njegosˇ, who were typically categorised as exponents of Serbian literature, the Croatian poet Ivan Mazˇuranic´ and Vraz, and Valentin Vodnik and Presˇeren next to each other, as representatives of literature in the Cyrillic alphabet, the Latin alphabet, and Slovenian literature, respectively.22 The similarities in style and contents represented more than a shared artistic world view; they evidenced their shared national identity. The curricula applied this principle of a parallel synthesis of different literary traditions, but presented two different versions of Yugoslav literary history. In Slovenian curricula, Slovenian literary figures occupied a relatively privileged position although the Serbo-Croatian writers still comprised more than half of the writers included. Serbo-Croatian curricula focussed on Serbo-Croatian writers, presenting only a marginal

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share of Slovenian writers. This confirms that in practice the curricula allowed for distinct Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian interpretations of Yugoslav literary unity but that the synthesis of both traditions was much more balanced in Slovenian curricula.

Serbo-Croatian linguistic unity: How uniform should a national language be? The linguistic unity of Serbo-Croatian was generally accepted in the immediate post-war period. Discussions revolved around the desired degree of uniformity for the Serbo-Croatian literary language and especially stumbled over the use of different variants and alphabets.23 Most intellectuals of the period considered the variety within the SerboCroatian literary language inconvenient and an impediment to full SerboCroatian national unity. To set an example, all Serbo-Croatian articles in the Yugoslav-oriented journal Knjizˇevni jug (The Literary South), which was published briefly in Zagreb in 1918–19, were written in the Ekavian variant and the Latin alphabet.24 In the early 1930s, the alphabet and variant discussions briefly returned to the agenda although by then it had become clear that there was little consensus among politicians and intellectuals to select one alphabet and one variant, bringing Bogumil Vosˇnjak to despair about his ‘people of illiterates’, which ‘showed off with two alphabets and two official languages’.25 The policy of the Yugoslav authorities was to maintain a status quo and to guarantee the equal use of both alphabets and both variants of Serbo-Croatian. In some cases, the predisposition with the equality of both alphabets led to absurd measures. The 1932 rulebook on the censoring of films, for example, prescribed that subtitles had to be given in both alphabets, either alternately – one scene in Cyrillic, the other in the Latin alphabet – or simultaneously. In the latter case, the order of appearance of both alphabets had to alternate.26 After this absurd policy was quickly annulled, film makers were obliged to provide copies of their movies with subtitles in the Latin and Cyrillic alphabet, leaving the choice to the cinema that screened the film.27 Responding to a resolution of secondary school teachers from Dalmatia,28 Minister of Education Svetozar Pribic´evic´ installed a commission for the unification of Serbo-Croatian orthography and terminology. The commission consisted of the country’s greatest authorities in the field of Serbo-Croatian linguistics: Tomo Maretic´,

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Stjepan Ivsˇic´, and Dragutin Boranic´ represented Zagreb, Ljubomir Stojanovic´ and Aleksandar Belic´, Belgrade.29 The orthographic guidelines were ratified on 21 August 1929 and introduced for use in schools. At its first meeting, the commission agreed that the use of one alphabet and one variant would be ideal but was not yet realistic because all variants had such a long tradition among the population.30 The guidelines determined that both variants and alphabets were equal in the Serbo-Croatian literary language.31 The language curricula followed the conclusions of the commission. Children learned a second alphabet from the second year of elementary education and encountered both variants in their reading books. The orthographic manual set a completely uniform and prescriptive phonological writing system, along the lines of Karadzˇic´’s methodology. Some of these strictly phonological spelling rules abandoned traditional Croatian orthographic norms, such as the writing of nec´u in one word (instead of ne c´u), the use of ko, svako, neko (instead of tko, svatko, netko), voicing assimilation of consonants ( pot-ceniti instead of pod-ceniti), the loss of consonants (the plural of dodatak: dodat-ci becomes dodaci), and the writing of the future tense in one word ( pisac´u instead of pisat ´cu). Concerning the latter issue, probably the most salient difference in Croatian and Serbian orthographical traditions, the commission recognised that the writing of the future tense in two words was deeply rooted among ‘a certain part of the nation’, that is the Croatian part, but explained that it had held on strictly to the phonological tradition of Karadzˇic´.32 Although it has been rightfully noted that Karadzˇic´’s language model and his phonological writing system were actually implemented more consistently in the language standardisation in Croatia before World War I,33 and that orthography is peripheral to the question of linguistic unity,34 these strictly phonological elements in the new orthography were rejected by Croatian linguists as evidence of Serbian linguistic unitarism and hegemony. After the establishment of the Croatian banovina, the orthography of 1929 was replaced by Boranic´’s traditional Croatian orthography of 1928.35 This development is evidence of the broader tendency away from Serbo-Croatian linguistic unity among Croatian intellectuals and the increasing politicisation of the Serbo-Croatian language question. Whereas in the 1920s, prominent Croatian writers like Miroslav Krlezˇa and Tin Ujevic´ had written in the Ekavian variant, in the 1930s, the use

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of Ekavian was increasingly perceived as an act of Serbian assimilation in Zagreb. Maretic´ and Ivsˇic´, who had both participated in the state commission for Serbo-Croatian orthographic unification, now established a new association and journal under the name Hrvatski jezik (The Croatian Language) to promote the Croatian language in all branches of cultural life. After the establishment of the Croatian banovina, the authorities took several measures to purify the Croatian language from ‘Serbian’ influences.36 Although statements of complete linguistic unity were present in the discourse of integral Yugoslav ideologists, the Yugoslav language policy remained restricted to the incorporation of both variants and alphabets as expressions of Yugoslav national identity and the introduction of a uniform phonological orthography. Thus, the purification of the Croatian language reflects the relevance of Croatian national dissociation from Yugoslavism within the broader context of interwar Yugoslavia rather than a strict reaction against the structural institutionalisation of Serbian linguistic unitarism.

Macedonian? Besides Slovenian and the Ijekavian-Latin and Ekavian-Cyrillic variants of Serbo-Croatian, the educational programme recognised no other language variants. The Serbianisation in language education in Macedonia, essentially a form of cultural unification within a Yugoslav language variant, remained controversial and ineffective. Yugoslavoriented intellectuals and politicians took over pre-war Serbian claims to Macedonia, portraying it as an integral part of the Serbian ‘tribe’ of the Yugoslav nation. They rejected Bulgarian statements that the language spoken in Macedonia was Bulgarian and argued that the Macedonian dialect belonged to the south-eastern dialects of the Serbian language on the basis of the clear and resonant articulation of vowels. Any elements Macedonian had in common with Bulgarian had been taken over from the autochthonous non-Slavonic population of the region.37 It is difficult to assess precisely how language education took place in schools in Macedonia. In any case, the curricula never made any mention of a Macedonian or ‘South Serbian’ dialect although they did allow the use of ‘local dialects’ during the first years of elementary education. In Macedonia, local authorities, often Serbians under directives from the state, were vigilant, looking for teachers who used the Macedonian ‘dialect’ instead of the state language or spoke about a Macedonian

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language. However, the extent to which this expressed a conscious opposition against the Yugoslav national idea was unclear because most native Macedonian teachers had been educated in schools of the Bulgarian Exarchate before World War I and simply did not have a thorough command of Serbian, let alone that they were aware that their vernacular was not considered to be in accordance with the Yugoslav national language.38 Regardless and as a consequence of all the restrictive measures, the use of Serbian in Macedonia remained restricted to the official sphere and was often negatively perceived by the local population. From the 1930s, publications, journals, and even the theatre of Skopje increasingly used Macedonian.39 In particular, educated Macedonian students, precisely the target group the state authorities had hoped would adopt Serbian, openly began to demand the recognition of the Macedonian language and the language question became the ‘crystallisation point of the autonomy movement’.40

The Yugoslav national language in textbooks The leeway for different language variants in the school curriculum was also apparent in regulations on teaching material. The children’s magazine Nasˇ list (Our Journal), which had been launched by Minister of Education Pribic´evic´ as a model for educational material,41 used the Cyrillic and Latin alphabet alternately and included about five texts in Slovenian in each issue. The 1923 competition for textbooks requested three identical editions of reading books for the first two years of elementary education: one in the Cyrillic alphabet, one in the Latin alphabet, and one in the Slovenian ‘dialect’. From the third year, there should be one version with texts in both the Cyrillic and the Latin alphabet and one in the Slovenian ‘dialect’.42 The law on textbooks of 1929 spoke of uniform textbooks for the entire country, with the exception of regions with ‘existing linguistic differences’.43 The textbook competitions of 1935, finally, stated that texts should be given in the authentic Ekavian or Ijekavian variant, and that both alphabets should be equally represented. Slovenian writers had to be presented in the original Slovenian ‘speech’. For Slovenia, reading books and grammars should be in Slovenian.44 Still, there were clearly diverging interpretations of the Yugoslav language question depending on the place of publication.

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Language and literature in Serbian textbooks Immediately after the war, a number of revised editions of pre-war Serbian textbooks were published. The revisions consisted of superficial discursive amendments to the new Yugoslav context and the addition of a small number of Croatian or Slovenian symbolic resources. The initial title of the Ljubomir Protic´ and Vladimir Stojanovic´ reading books, for example, was ‘Serbian reading books’, the subtitles were ‘Serbdom’, ‘Serbian Lands’, and ‘From Serbian History’. The 1926 edition neutralised the titles to ‘Reading books’, ‘Our Nation’, ‘Our Lands’, and ‘From the National Past’.45 A salient adaptation in reading books was the addition of the Croatian and the Slovenian hymn along with the Serbian hymn.46 These revised textbooks continued to include programmatic texts which propagated an exclusively Serbian national idea, indicating a very thin boundary between Serbian and Yugoslav national identification. Almost all reading books under scrutiny included Stojan Novakovic´’s well-known definition of national identity, which determined language, in addition to shared pride and habits, as the crucial distinguishing factor for nations. The examples given by Novakovic´ – slava feasts, the legendary personages from oral folk literature (Prince Marko (Marko Kraljevic´) and Milosˇ Obilic´), churches, and the Battle of Kosovo – clarify that he had the Serbian nation in mind.47 Only the reading book compiled by Milosˇ Ivkovic´ and Vojislav Jovanovic´ stimulated students to make connections to the parts of the nation ‘that [were] called differently’, that is Croats and Slovenes.48 With regard to the language variants of Serbo-Croatian, the textbooks allowed for variation within national language: they included texts in both variants and alphabets and incorporated few texts from Croatian writers. Still, there was a clear Serbian bias. An absolute majority of the texts were in the Cyrillic alphabet, while the share of texts in the Latin alphabet fluctuated between one-fifth and one-third. Additionally, reading books predominantly included texts in the Ekavian variant, providing only a small number of texts in Ijekavian. The most marked innovation was the inclusion of a small number of texts in Slovenian in all reading books. As a rule, compilers supplemented these texts with Serbo-Croatian translations of difficult words in footnotes. In a special text on Slovenia, Protic´ and Stojanovic´

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explained that ‘Slovenes speak the same language because we are one nation. They have some different words, but that doesn’t mean that they have a different speech; instead, we say that they have their own dialect.’49 Following the explanation, the compilers presented a poem by Anton Slomsˇek in Slovenian to show that Slovenian was ‘just a dialect of the beautiful Serbian language’.50 Of course, this was a simplistic introduction to Slovenian for elementary school pupils, but it perfectly illustrates how the Slovenian ‘dialect’ was appropriated as part of Serbian national culture. Milan Sˇevic´’s reading book for the fourth year of secondary education included an essay by Belic´, explaining that it was a scientific truth that Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian went back to one ‘proto-language’. Belic´ further claimed that many cultural movements in the Slovenian recent past had proposed the full adoption of the Serbo-Croatian literary language and that in the long term, such movements would lead to the unification or convergence of Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian.51 This account was much more balanced than the above-mentioned text by Protic´ and Stojanovic´, but it equally reduced Slovenian to a minor, unviable partner in the national language that was predestined to be absorbed in Serbo-Croatian. To conclude, these revised textbooks added symbolic resources that were associated with the Slovenian and Croatian ‘tribe’ but interpreted these resources as parts of an established definition of Serbian culture rather than an addition toward a new, synthetic Yugoslav national culture. Serbian culture was the core around which Yugoslav national culture should be built. As Protic´ explained: When in upbringing and education bright examples are given, when ideals, sacrifices, heroism, martyrdom are stressed, when we want to show what is most holy, there can be no equality, because there simply is none, even though some long for this. No doubt, here Serbia stands out because Serbia has gathered everything around her, because she has thrown off foreign chains and liberated all others.52 In essence, this strategy was not by definition unviable. It goes back to a characteristic line of reasoning found in early nationalist writings of Balkan intellectuals that alleged ‘marginal and less articulate groups’

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could be easily absorbed within the ‘dominant nation’,53 or the forging of the modern nation around a cultural core provided by dominant premodern ethnic communities (ethnie).54 Within the context of interwar Yugoslavia, however, where various codified national identities were available, such an approach was not likely to be inclusive. Contemporary commentators were well aware of this flaw. Upon reviewing the manuscripts for reading books in Cyrillic for the 1923 state competition, the commission complained that none of the reading books were fully satisfactory and suitable in the new Yugoslav context.55 The reading books by Protic´ and Stojanovic´ were selected for state publication, obviously for want of anything better. In case these textbooks were to be used in the entire state, some Croatian and Slovenian texts would need to be added.56 *** The new textbooks that came on the market from the second half of the 1920s were much better adapted to the Yugoslav context than the superficial and inadequate revisions of Serbian textbooks that were used in the early 1920s. They abounded with statements of Yugoslav national unity and patriotism instead of overt Serbian nationalist statements. From the first year of elementary education, pupils read texts about Yugoslav national unity, brotherly love and solidarity between Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and the virtue of patriotism. In Jugoslovencˇe (The Little Yugoslav), a children’s magazine published by the Yugoslav Teachers Association in the 1930s and recommended by the Ministry of Education to all schools,57 children were raised with the idea that they should contribute to the progress of the nation: ‘I am a little Yugoslav / I arm myself with knowledge / so that, when necessary / I can do my share for my people.’58 They were also reminded that they should be prepared to give their lives for the nation: ‘Love the flag, son / That symbol of our fatherland, / be prepared to perish for the salvation of the people / should freedom require this.’59 Although the discourse about the three Yugoslav ‘tribes’ was not completely abandoned, textbooks increasingly stressed the integral unity of the Yugoslavs. The standard phrase ‘Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes’ was consistently replaced by ‘Yugoslavs’ or ‘our nation’. Textbooks also used the synthetic Yugoslav hymn, comprising one strophe of the

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Serbian, the Croatian, and the Slovenian hymn. Bearing in mind that this remained an amalgam of the three ‘tribal’ hymns, it at least gave the impression of uniformity. Nevertheless, the discursive shift to Yugoslav national uniformity was not reflected in the treatment of language and literature in the textbooks. The new textbooks abandoned the notion of Yugoslav linguistic unification around the Serbian core and instead provided leeway for different language variants within Yugoslav national culture. The adapted textbooks recognised the distinct character of the Slovenian language and literature. Reading books no longer reduced Slovenian to a mere dialect of Serbo-Croatian. They instead stressed the similarities and the mutual comprehensibility of Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian as the cornerstone for Yugoslav national unity, hence their reluctance to grant Slovenian the status of a completely independent language. The shift in the treatment of the Slovenian language becomes clear in the 1930 revised edition of Protic´ and Stojanovic´’s reading books, which no longer referred to Slovenian as a Serbian dialect but explained that the Slovenes ‘had managed to preserve their beautiful national language and their nationality’ and that Slovenian was ‘almost completely the same as the language of Serbs and Croats’ and therefore ‘a dialect of our language’.60 In practice, the fact that Serbo-Croatian reading books included Slovenian poems and texts with Serbo-Croatian translations of unknown words confirms that textbook authors continued to think in terms of a shared national unity behind Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian, on the basis of which it was justifiable to include texts in Slovenian in Serbo-Croatian reading books. In 1928, the Association of Yugoslav Secondary School Teachers published From Slovenian Literature by Ljubica Jankovic´, teacher at the Second Girls’ Gymnasium in Belgrade. Jankovic´ adopted an obvious Yugoslav national approach in this historical overview not by completely reducing Slovenian literature to a branch of Serbo-Croatian literature – tellingly, Jankovic´ also always spoke of the Slovenian language – but by highlighting the parallel development of Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian literature, the close common bonds, and the Yugoslav consciousness behind Slovenian literature. ‘Besides the religious meaning and the fact that it attempted to introduce the vernacular for liturgical and religious use’, the Protestant reformation of Primozˇ Trubar, for example, ‘also had a national meaning because it aroused the consciousness of Slovenian and

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Yugoslav unity’.61 This claim was underpinned by arguing that Trubar had had many contacts in other Yugoslav lands and that he published his books in Latin, Cyrillic, and Glagolitic in order to spread Protestantism over the entire nation.62 When treating the linguistic and orthographic reforms of the mid-nineteenth century, Jankovic´ pointed to the influence of Karadzˇic´ and Gaj’s reforms in Slovenia, especially on the work of the publicist and writer Janez Bleiweis, who applied some of Gaj’s orthographic reforms to Slovenian.63 However, she left considerable room for the distinct character of Slovenian literature. She did not overvalue the work of Vraz simply because he accepted Serbo-Croatian literary language, and she praised Presˇeren as the classical Slovenian poet and the father of the Slovenian poetical language alongside Njegosˇ and Mazˇuranic´ for Serbs and Croats, respectively.64 The textbook authors did not question Serbo-Croatian linguistic unity but allowed for different language variants. The reading books for the first two years of elementary education were published in two versions, one for each alphabet. In the third year, the pupils were introduced to a second alphabet and from then on, both alphabets were used alternately. Literary extracts were presented in the original Ekavian or Ijekavian variant. The textbooks neatly followed the curriculum for literary history. Folk literature enjoyed the undisputed status as the central building block of Yugoslav national literature and culture. It was ‘the basis of our life, and our literature and history’ and should be studied as ‘road sign in life’.65 Almost one-third of the texts in Jasˇa Prodanovic´’s reading book for the first year of secondary school, for example, were taken from folk tradition.66 Although folk literature had been a component in definitions of national culture among all South Slavs, it occupied a specifically crucial position in the standardisation of the Serbian language and literature since Karadzˇic´’s collections of Serbian folk songs.67 During the interwar period, folk literature was incorporated in the Yugoslav national narrative. Dvornikovic´, for example, claimed that folk epics were the expression of ‘the Balkanic hero-ised Yugoslav, with traces of the old Slavic sensitivity as well as the manly position of militancy’.68 The philosopher Vladimir Vujic´ considered folk literature the only possible fundament for an authentic Yugoslav culture.69 The concrete interpretation of folk literature in intellectual definitions of Yugoslav national identity, however, varied between

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Serbian and synthetic Yugoslav lines of reasoning. On the one hand, for some authors folk literature merely expressed the predominance of Serbian culture within the Yugoslav nation rather than a synthesis of ‘tribal’ cultures. Milosˇ Ðuric´, philologist, Hellenist, philosopher, and professor at the University of Belgrade, argued that Serbian Folk Songs (with capital letters) expressed the South Slav and especially Serbian intuitive feeling for aesthetics and ecumenical Christian humanity. For Ðuric´, the Slavs were predestined to bring the East (feminine, harmony, peace, Logos) together with the West (manly, energy, technology, Bios) and lead humanity toward an ecumenical Christian all-humanity (svecˇovecˇanstvo). On the basis of the intuitive expression of all-humanity in the folk songs, Serbian and Yugoslav arts and sciences should be further developed to occupy a leading position within the messianic Slavonic race.70 The renowned geographer Jovan Cvijic´ considered folk literature to be a purely Serbian phenomenon and the Serbian contribution to Yugoslav civilisation. Croats had made more progress in the field of science and high culture, and the Slovenes, who were not burdened by tradition, would add their diligence and rationalism.71 On the other hand, ‘[t]he variety and traditional importance of oral culture to all three Yugoslav “tribes” made it relatively easy to canonise a “Yugoslav” interpretation of folk poetry in the interwar years’.72 This line of reasoning was followed by the historian of literature Antun Barac, professor at the University of Zagreb: ‘All parts of our national literature, if they are not directly related in other ways, are bound together in one unity by our folk poetry, which is common for Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes because the motives, songs, and internal life are the same.’73 In the Serbian textbooks, the Serbian and Yugoslav understanding of folk literature neatly complemented each other. The textbooks found further evidence of Yugoslav national consciousness in the parallel development of Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian modern literature. Gaj and Karadzˇic´ were typically presented as parallel fathers of the national language and literature among Croats and Serbs, who had almost simultaneously and consciously come to a common Serbo-Croatian national language. Textbooks also pointed to the influence of the Serbo-Croatian national revival on the Slovenes. A similar parallel was drawn between the ‘tribal’ exponents of romantic literature: Njegosˇ, Mazˇuranic´, and Presˇeren.74

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The Croatian view on linguistic unity In comparison to the abundance of textbooks published in Belgrade, only a very small number of textbooks were published in Zagreb. Immediately after World War I, Sigismund Cˇajkovac compiled a series of reading books for elementary education that remained in use until the late interwar period. Cˇajkovac was professor at the Pedagogical College in Zagreb and politically active as a parliamentary deputy of the Croatian Peasant Party.75 During Radic´’s short term as Minister of Education, he was made head of the ministerial department for elementary education.76 Later, Cˇajkovac became one of the leading educational authorities in the Croatian banovina. Cˇajkovac’s reading books were first published by the Croatian regional government in 1921. Revisions of the reading books won the 1923 competition for reading books in the Latin alphabet. The commission praised Cˇajkovac’s reading books as fully satisfactory from a stylistic, patriotic, and pedagogical point of view and suggested that they should be used in the entire country, provided that a Cyrillic version would be published for the first two years and that both literary variants would be used alternately.77 Cˇajkovac himself confirmed to the commission that the primary goal of his reading books was Yugoslav national education.78 Short poems about the brotherhood of Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes, as well as comparisons with family bonds, made the abstract concept of national unity palpable for the young pupils: Just as in our village people call each other brothers and help others in trouble, our nation does the same in our dear homeland. Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes care for and respect each other as true brothers. Every family has its head, which feeds it and protects it from evil. Our homeland too has its leader, who loves and cares for us all. . . That ruler of ours is King Alexander I Karadordevic´.79 Cˇajkovac also introduced the concept of a shared national language as the most important basis for national unity: All those regions far away. . . where our speech is heard and our people live and work, all that is one country where our elders have lived for a long time, that is our homeland or fatherland. That common homeland of ours is called Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and

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Slovenes. It is inhabited by one nation with three names: Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.80 Pre-World War I Croatian reading books included a significant number of texts in the Cyrillic alphabet, roughly between 15 and 30 per cent of the texts included.81 Cˇajkovac took this tradition a step further. For the first two years, his reading books were published in both a Latin and Cyrillic version, as had been suggested by the reviewers in the competition for state textbooks. On the first pages of the reading book for the third year, the two alphabets of the Serbo-Croatian written language were introduced.82 After this, the reading books alternated using both alphabets. The reading books for secondary education compiled by Vladimir Nazor and Barac similarly included texts in both alphabets, although the Latin alphabet was clearly privileged.83 The reading books for elementary education were written entirely in the Ijekavian variant, even texts which had originally been written in Ekavian. Only the reading book for the fourth year of elementary school included some texts in the original Ekavian variant. Reading books for secondary schools presented texts in both Ijekavian and Ekavian, although here too the Ijekavian variant was privileged. The inclusion of a number of texts in Slovenian from the fourth year of elementary education was a novelty in Croatian reading books. For each of these short extracts, Slovenian words that Serbo-Croatian pupils would not understand were translated in Serbo-Croatian.84 Thus, although Yugoslav linguistic unity was generally stressed as a crucial factor of Yugoslav national unity, in practice, reading books worked with a model of linguistic unity that allowed for language variants. In this regard, Croatian textbooks were very similar to the Serbian textbooks of the 1930s, illustrating the viability of this common denominator of language variants for definitions of Yugoslav language and its early acceptance in Croatian textbooks. In fact, the early Croatian reading books by Cˇajkovac were much more exemplary for the interwar Yugoslav educational programme than their Serbian counterparts. The reading books familiarised pupils with modern literature through an equal representation of Croatian and Serbian authors as well as introduced them to important Slovenian writers. The most important literary tradition in this respect was folk literature. Folk songs from the Kosovo cycle and songs about Prince Marko were particularly popular.

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These songs were included not only for their literary value but also as a unique Yugoslav national phenomenon, a source for high moral values and historical memory. Indeed, for nearly all historical events or figures, a folk song was added in Cˇajkovac’s reading books. In his history textbook for secondary education, Zˇivko Jakic´ referred to the tradition of folk songs about national heroes in the battles against the Turks as a shared Serbian and Croatian tradition. Jakic´ even went a step further, adding that Bosnian Muslims too had their folk songs, which glorified their heroes in the battles against the Christians.85 Such an interpretation, which completely dissociated folk literature from religious meaning, forms an interesting alternative to the narrowly Serbian Orthodox interpretation of folk literature presented by Ðuric´ and others. The inclusion of folk literature in Croatian textbooks illustrates the viability of folk literature as a building block for various mediations with Yugoslav nationhood and proves that the meaning and applicability of folk literature were not restricted to those of a narrow Serbian resource in the early interwar period. *** In 1937, Cˇajkovac, Nazor, Stjepan Bosanac, and Stjepan Ratkovic´ published a new series of reading books for elementary schools. The reading books had been compiled for the state competition of 1935 and were the first Croatian textbooks to be published within the context of the Royal Dictatorship. Thus, they can be seen as a Croatian response to the changes in Yugoslav education and society of the 1930s. Language education remained identical to that in earlier reading books. A striking development, however, both in comparison to Cˇajkovac’s reading books of 1926 and Serbian textbooks of the 1930s, was that the reading books lacked the typical programmatic declarations of Yugoslav nationalism and patriotism. In fact, direct references to Yugoslav unity were made only in texts pertaining to the Yugoslav state, its state symbols, dynasty, and administrative organisation.86 In the 1926 reading book, the Illyrian Movement of Gaj, for example, had been interpreted from a Croatian and Yugoslav point of view. The reading book explained to the pupils that Gaj, with his reform of the literary language and orthography, had above all intended to unite the Croats, but he ‘had also thought further! He wanted to expand all

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benefits of the unification in one literary language and orthography to our entire people of Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes’.87 The 1937 reading book deleted this paragraph on the direct Yugoslav meaning of the Illyrian Movement in its entirety. Instead, Gaj and Karadzˇic´ were simply placed next to each other.88 In other words, while the parallelism between Croatian and Serbian literature and culture was left intact, the direct link to Yugoslav nationhood was eliminated. This development evidences the growing relevance of a delineated Croatian national identity within an overarching level of Yugoslav unity.

The language question in Slovenian textbooks The use of Slovenian in textbooks published in Ljubljana clearly sets them apart from Croatian and Serbian counterparts and makes their strictly Slovenian character and target group much more tangible. This does not make them less Yugoslav. Like their Serbian and Croatian peers, Slovenian children were imbued with values of patriotism and national consciousness from an early age. Characteristic of Slovenian reading books was the coexistence of the Yugoslav and the Slovenian level of national identification in programmatic introductions to patriotism and national belonging. A typical Yugoslav patriotic and national poem was ‘The little Yugoslav’ by Andrej Rape: I am a little sweetheart, / But I will become a hero. / God has given me / A Serbian hero brother. // The heroic Serb, / The Croat is my brother./ Serb, Croat, and Slovene / are and will remain brothers! // Listen father, mother: / I am your only son / but I am also the son / of the free homeland.89 The immediate post-World War I reading books built strongly on the fresh memory of the war to convey a sense of Yugoslav togetherness.90 They also assumed a special bond between King Alexander and the Slovenes, claiming that Alexander ‘love[d] us Slovenes specifically’, as his frequent trips to his country house in the Bled region made clear.91 In the reading books published within the framework of the textbook competitions of 1935, the memory of World War I had lost its urgent relevance. A strong new symbol was the legacy of King Alexander as martyr for Yugoslav unity.92

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Although Yugoslav patriotism and unity occupied a prominent position in Slovenian reading books, this did not imply that the Slovenian level of national identity was abandoned. Illustratively, in Engelbert Gangl’s reading book for the second year of elementary education, the Yugoslav patriotic motto ‘Slovene, Serb, Croat / We all shake hands, / like brothers, / we love each other sincerely’ was placed next to the Slovenian slogan ‘Be healthy, homeland – my dear, Slovenian land’.93 The patriotic chapter in Pavle Flere’s 1938 reading book for the second year, which was intended to be used on the state holiday 1 December, included not only Yugoslav patriotic poems but also ‘The Prayer of Our Morning Star’, which referred to the Slovenian homeland and people.94 The dual coexistence of Slovenian and Yugoslav nationhood was also reflected in the treatment of language. Serbo-Croatian textbooks recognised Yugoslav language variants, but minimalised the relevance of the variants and focussed on the commonality of the Yugoslav/ Serbo-Croatian language. This explains the tendency to reduce Slovenian to a Yugoslav dialect and to treat it in Serbo-Croatian reading books. The Slovenian reading books used a more consistent model of cultural cooperation and clearly delineated Slovenian language and literature as categories of practice. Slovenian elementary schools made use of distinct reading books for Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian. The first reading book for Serbo-Croatian, which was used in elementary school, began with an introduction to the Cyrillic alphabet. The three reading books for Serbo-Croatian – the second and third book were used in higher popular schools – presented Slovenian students with texts from the most important Serbo-Croatian writers in both the Latin and the Cyrillic alphabet. All texts were given in the Ekavian variant.95 With the exception of the Serbian and Croatian hymns, the Slovenian reading books included no texts in Serbo-Croatian, and vice versa, no Slovenian texts were included in the Serbo-Croatian reading books. As far as the relationship between Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian was concerned, Slovenian textbooks recognised the close connection between the two as the foundation for an overarching Yugoslav national identity. V. Sadar explained that Slovenes were united by the Slovenian language and that Serbian and Croatian brothers spoke a language that was ‘similar and related to [the Slovenian] language’ and easily understandable.96 Geography textbooks explained that all Yugoslavs spoke the same language, of which the dialects flow over into each other

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without strict boundaries, and that distinct historical developments resulted in two literary languages: Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian.97 Thus, like Serbian and Croatian textbooks, Slovenian reading books recognised some form of overarching Yugoslav unity in the domain of language. This overarching unity, however, did not raise the issue of the distinct character of the Slovenian literary language as the root of a distinct Slovenian national identity. Gangl explained to the pupils that ‘because we are Slovenes, our mother tongue is Slovenian’.98 Textbooks typically mentioned Vraz’s choice to write in Serbo-Croatian but stressed that prominent historical figures like Trubar and Presˇeren had all convincingly propagated the autonomous development of the Slovenian literary language.99 More than anything else, the use of distinct reading books for Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian delineated the Slovenian language as a category of practice in the Slovenian part of Yugoslavia. Within the same framework, Slovenian reading books for elementary education almost exclusively contained extracts from and references to Slovenian literary figures. Folk literature was the exception. Slovenian reading books typically included some texts on Prince Marko, illustrating his popularity in Slovenia, and some examples from SerboCroatian folk literature in historical chapters on Serbian and Croatian medieval and early modern history. Slovenian folk stories in the readers were centred on the legendary King Matjazˇ, who was the hero of numerous folk poems and tales thematically situated against the Turkish invasions and who ‘blurred together’ with Prince Marko in the Slovenian cultural imagination.100 By participating in the establishment of folk literature as a shared Yugoslav literary heritage, Slovenian reading books confirmed the broad applicability of folk literature in Yugoslav cultural imagination.

CHAPTER 5 `

MERGING TRIBAL' HISTORIES

Although the number of hours devoted to history was relatively small, comprising only two or three hours per week from the third year of elementary education, its function in the Yugoslav nation-building project can hardly be overestimated. By studying the historical development of the nation, pupils were expected to realise that ‘as individuals they could not achieve anything in the world because their fortune lay in the community’.1 The Ministry of Education had to admit that it was difficult for pupils between the ages of 7 and 11 to fully understand history, but because a great number of pupils only finished four years of elementary education, there was no other choice but to begin the indispensable national education through history lessons from this early age.2 The faith in history as a persuasive means for the dissemination of Yugoslav national consciousness also explains its ubiquity in interwar Yugoslav society.

Highlighting convergence, ignoring divergence: The intellectual construction of Yugoslav national history in curricula Elements of South Slav closeness had been present in Serbian and Croatian historical narratives before World War I, but the clear Serbo- or Croato-centric stand of historical writing resulted in numerous competing claims.3 The incorporation of the established historical narratives within the Yugoslav master narrative required a new strategy. An oft-heard suggestion was that curricula should focus on those

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moments in history when Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes lived under the same circumstances or obviously cooperated toward the same goal. The teacher Josip Sˇkavic´ spoke about concentric points: historical events which directly united ‘tribal’ histories or historical figures who had worked for the unification of the South Slavs and thus personalised Yugoslav national unity. Sˇkavic´ did not deny that there had also been times of divergence, but for him the moments of convergence had a stronger impact on Yugoslav history. Sˇkavic´ was also aware that such a convergent vision of Yugoslav history would be an act of conscious construction. However, if it had been possible to form a united Croatian or Serbian history out of different regional histories simply because these regional histories were bound by one idea, then ‘that work could also be done for the history of [the] entire nation, regardless of differences in faith and name, if only there is will, love, and reasonableness for such a work’.4 Compilers of the curricula followed the same strategy and structured national history around historical events occurring among three or at least two of the Yugoslav ‘tribes’.5 They were perfectly aware that certain historical phenomena would have to be highlighted, whereas others would have to be forgotten or at least devaluated: ‘[I]t is especially necessary to highlight those elements that have united us and still unite us and oppress those elements that our difficult historical past and the malicious activities of our enemies have created as distinct elements for specific parts of our nation.’6 This did not mean that history education should ignore all valuable results of the cultural or political activities of individual Yugoslav ‘tribes’. It could not be denied that the Yugoslav ‘tribes’ had had their own separate states and had lived separate lives for many centuries and thus ‘created their own history’, but it was important to stress ‘that in the course of that long separate life, movements have occurred for the rapprochement and unification of the Yugoslavs in one state unity’.7 Vladimir C´orovic´, professor at the University of Belgrade, applied a similar approach in his monumental History of Yugoslavia. C´orovic´ explicated that his study examined how the perspective of the South Slavs had widened from the level of small local interests to narrow ‘tribal’ and finally broad ethnic communities: When the history of the South Slavs is approached from a broad perspective and when instead of state history one has in mind

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national history, it is clear that in our national life political boundaries did not form real barriers between our tribes and that there were contacts, close bonds, and common actions between them, proving that there was a certain common consciousness among the nation or that visionary minds have long taken this into consideration.8 Yugoslav history curricula typically distinguished between four periods. The history of the South Slavs until their settlement in the Balkans was treated very briefly as an idyllic period of primordial national unity and strong bonds with the rest of the Slavonic race. This was ‘the biological phase of their ethnic community. . . when Serbs and Croats were not divided by religion and when they were united by the same origin, language, and common interests against foreign enemies’.9 The subsequent history of the Yugoslavs in the Balkans was subdivided in three periods: the golden age of Yugoslav national history with the formation of independent medieval states (seventh to fifteenth century); foreign oppression under the Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs (twelfth to eighteenth century); and finally the national revival and unification in the nineteenth and twentieth century.

The golden age of Yugoslav history The formation of South Slav medieval states and their parallel expansion marked the first convergence in the history of the South Slavs. By suggesting that this parallel development indicated a shared, although perhaps unconscious, longing for Yugoslav statehood, the curricula incorporated all of the South Slav medieval states as predecessors of and contributors to the present Yugoslav Kingdom. The Yugoslav medieval states thus formed an interesting variation to the topos of the ‘golden age’ in nationalist histories.10 The Slovenes were the first ‘tribe’ to achieve some sort of autonomy. The curricula mentioned the ‘first Slavonic state’ of King Samo, referring to the autonomy of a number of Slavonic tribes under the rule of the Frankish merchant Samo in the first half of the seventh century in an area which covered the eastern Alps and Bohemia. They also included a section on the field of Gospa Sveta, the centre of the Principality of Carantania where the ritual enthronement of rulers took place. Carantania, which emerged as a vague autonomous entity after the disintegration of Samo’s

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tribal union, was considered the first Slovenian state and the Slovenian contribution to the Yugoslav tradition of statehood. History curricula for secondary schools also listed ‘the state of the Macedonian Slavs’ of Tsar Samuel as one of the South Slav autonomous states. In the late tenth century, Samuel took control of the western part of the disintegrated First Bulgarian Empire. The centre of his empire was western Macedonia. This historical resource was particularly meaningful in canonical Yugoslav historical writings to reject Bulgarian claims to Macedonia. In a book published in 1937 on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the liberation of ‘Southern Serbia’, Milosˇ Rakic´ claimed that upon their arrival in the Balkans, Serbian tribes had first settled in Macedonia, which was consequently the first Serbian homeland in the Balkans. The Bulgarians subsequently ruled the region, but they ‘were half Mongolian and half Slavonic, whereas Macedonian Slavs were pure Slavs, just like other Serbian tribes’.11 Because the Bulgarians thus ruled as oppressors, they had not been able to assimilate Macedonian Slavs and had left no enduring cultural traces. According to Rakic´, the Empire of Samuel was a new and autochthonous state creation of Macedonian Slavs; the Bulgarian title Samuel used carried only political and not ethnic meaning.12 The curricula focussed specifically on the development of Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian medieval states, referring to their peaks under King Tomislav, King Tvrtko, and Emperor Dusˇan, respectively. These states were considered parallel attempts to establish free South Slav states in the Balkans. The long lifespan of the Serbian medieval kingdom and its domination over the entire Balkan peninsula in the fourteenth century, along with a general preoccupation with symbolic resources derived from Serbian state history, resulted in the primacy of the Serbian medieval state. In the curricula, this was expressed in a long list of Serbian medieval rulers. The curriculum also made a distinction between the earliest attempts at South Slav state formation between the seventh and twelfth century and its apogee between the twelfth and fifteenth century. The former included the medieval Slovenian and Croatian states, as well as the earliest Serbian medieval states, whereas the latter covered the rise of the Serbian state under the Nemanjic´ dynasty and medieval Bosnia. Such an interpretative framework privileged the Serbian medieval state as the most successful tradition of Yugoslav statehood.

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The cooperation of South Slav ‘tribes’ formed the quintessential proof of their Yugoslav national consciousness during the period of medieval state formation. Ljudevit Posavski was the ruler of Pannonian Croatia and the leader of a rebellion against the Franks in the beginning of the ninth century. His importance for Yugoslav national history lay in the fact that Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes cooperated in his rebellion, making him the first ruler of a ‘conscious ethnic community’ of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.13 Similarly, the fourteenth-century King Tvrtko of Bosnia was ‘the first king of Serbs and Croats’. Tvrtko himself, as a descendant of Croatian and Serbian noble families, ‘carried the great synthesis of Serb– Croat unity in his blood’.14 He was also the first to create a common state of Serbs and Croats and to realise the role Bosnia was predestined to play as the quintessential Serbo-Croatian centre. Many historians even agreed that Tvrtko’s role in Yugoslav national history was greater than that of his contemporary Emperor Dusˇan, the ruler of the Serbian Empire at the time of its greatest territorial expansion, precisely because Tvrtko had attempted to unite only ‘pure’ Yugoslav lands and was thus led solely by national motives. Dusˇan, however, had been led by imperialistic aspirations, conquered foreign people, and burdened the Serbian people with an unbearable legacy.15

Suffering, resistance, and heroism After treating the golden age of Yugoslav history, the curricula addressed the long period of oppression and suffering that followed. The 1389 Battle of Kosovo occupied a specific place in all curricula and in school in general. In essence, St Vitus’ Day (Vidovdan, 28 June), the day the battle took place, commemorated the defeat of Serbian Prince Lazar’s army by the advancing Ottomans at Kosovo. However, this historical event carried multiple meanings. In the folk– popular oral literature, the Battle of Kosovo formed the setting for heroic folk songs, especially around the figure of Milosˇ Obilic´, the alleged assassin of the Ottoman Sultan Murad. The date was an important symbol in the religious narrative of the Serbian Orthodox Church on the basis of the martyrdom of the canonised Prince Lazar. Lazar’s self-sacrificing choice for the heavenly kingdom instead of an earthly victory lay the basis for the spiritual victory of Orthodox Christianity.16 In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Serbian state authorities merged religious, folk – popular, and political– national motives into a national commemoration

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of Vidovdan.17 From the beginning of the twentieth century, finally, motives related to Vidovdan and the Battle of Kosovo were appropriated as paradigms of Serbian ‘tribal’ culture in synthetic articulations of Yugoslav national identity.18 Yugoslav historical writings and curricula from the interwar period represented the Battle of Kosovo as a common Yugoslav battle and detached it from its exclusively Serbian character. The battle was directly Yugoslav because the army of Lazar was joined by troops of King Tvrtko and a number of Croatian soldiers: ‘Serbs and Croats together fought against their common enemy for centuries to come in one of the most decisive moments in our history, as if they had some deeper presentiment on the meaning of this event.’19 Kosovo was also indirectly Yugoslav because other South Slav ‘tribes’ faced the same faith. The curricula mentioned the 1493 Battle at Krbava Field where an army under the leadership of Croatian noblemen suffered a crushing defeat against the Ottomans. Another potential Croatian parallel to the Kosovo battle in the curricula was the self-sacrificing death of the last native Croatian king, Petar Svacˇic´, in a battle against the Hungarians. The Battle of Kosovo marked the start of a period of common suffering of all South Slavs, be it under Hungarian, Habsburg, or Ottoman rule, and their persistent Yugoslav national resistance against that oppression. The shared battles against common enemies taught the South Slavs that the sectionalism of the Middle Ages would only lead to the nation’s complete destruction and urged them to cooperate against a bigger evil. Moreover, although the oppression physically almost destroyed the South Slavs, it cleansed and elevated the nation on a moral level: ‘In the Middle Ages, we had a state; during the oppression we began to feel like a nation.’20 Nikola Sˇubic´ Zrinski, a Croatian nobleman who was killed after a heroic resistance against the Ottomans in Szigetva´r in 1566 and personified Croatia as the bulwark of Christianity against the Ottomans, appeared prominently in all history curricula. Other symbolic resources of national resistances were the hajduks and uskoks (irregular armed bands that were active in the border regions between the Ottoman and the Habsburg Empire and Venice), the great Serbian migrations from Ottoman-ruled Kosovo and southern Serbia to Vojvodina in the late seventeenth century, and the participation of Serbian and Croatian soldiers in the Habsburg wars against the Ottomans.

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The Hungarians and the Habsburgs were generally seen as a lesser evil in comparison to the Ottomans because they stood on the European Christian side with the South Slavs. However, Yugoslav historiography portrayed the Hungarians and Habsburgs as insincere allies who looked down on South Slavs, rarely followed their advice in the battle against the Ottomans, and were not very concerned about the eventual loss of South Slav lands or lives. This attitude was best exemplified in the historical narrative about Nikola Sˇubic´ Zrinski, who allegedly was completely left to his own devices by the Habsburgs who had no interest in assisting him.21 In that line of reasoning, Slovenian and Croatian acts of resistance against Habsburg and Hungarian centralism demonstrated Yugoslav national consciousness. From Slovenian historical tradition, the curricula included the counts of Celje, an important aristocratic family in the fourteenth and fifteenth century, who were vassals of the Habsburgs but at times challenged their authority. The bonds between the Celje dynasty and Serbs and Croats, which materialised in the estates the house of Celje owned in Croatia and Slavonia and their dynastic bonds with different South Slav noble families, were seen as an attempt ‘to create a new Yugoslav dynasty’.22 The Croatian Parliament on Cetin, where the Croatian noblemen elected Ferdinand I of the House of Habsburg as their king, was cited as a proof of the political autonomy of CroatiaSlavonia and the continuation of Croatian longing for Yugoslav statehood. The peasant rebellion of Matija Gubec, which received a mass following in Croatia and Slovenia, and the conspiracy of the Croatian noblemen Petar Zrinski and Fran Krsto Frankopan against the Habsburg dynasty and their subsequent beheading presented major acts of Yugoslav opposition against Habsburg oppression.

National liberation and unification From the turn of the nineteenth century, the shared longing for national liberation and unification determined the development of South Slav lands and people. Curricula selected historical events that can be categorised as five clusters of common contributions to Yugoslav liberation and unification. The Serbian Uprisings of the early nineteenth century dominated the first cluster.23 The uprisings served as not only the basis for Serbian independence but also the starting point of the South Slav battles for unification and liberation. As the historian

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Ferdo Sˇisˇic´ concluded, Karad¯ord¯e ‘lay the groundwork for modern Serbia and therefore also for the present Yugoslavia’.24 The 1933 curriculum for history in the fourth year of elementary school concretised the consequent strong bond between independent Serbia and Yugoslavia by means of a special overview of ‘the formation of [the] state from 1804 to 1918’.25 The speech delivered by King Alexander at the opening ceremony of a commemorative school and museum in Orasˇac, the village where the First Serbian Uprising broke out, perfectly captures the layered character of historical narratives about the Serbian Uprisings. After addressing the regional pride of Sˇumadija as the heartland of the Serbian national battle, the King continued: Our battle. . . was waged for Serbian liberation and unification. It was transformed in 1914 from a narrow Serbian into a Yugoslav battle, inspiring the common efforts of all Yugoslav patriots during the World War, as a result of the width of that movement and the enthusiasm of that start. Those efforts in the end, praise the Lord, were crowned with success: the establishment and unification of our great and powerful Kingdom of Yugoslavia.26 The religious service held at the beginning of the festivities, moreover, merged the Yugoslav and Serbian levels of national identification with Serbian Orthodox religious identification.27 The Serbian Uprisings were integrated within Yugoslav national narrative not only as the starting point of modern Serbian and Yugoslav state formation but also in relation to parallel developments to Yugoslav political autonomy, specifically the growing independence of Montenegro under Peter I and the establishment of the Illyrian Provinces. The canonical representation of Yugoslav history included some scant references to the growing autonomy of the Montenegrin state but left no doubt about the peripheral position of Montenegro in the continuum between the medieval Serbian state tradition, nineteenth century Serbia, and Yugoslavia. These vague references to the Montenegrin state tradition did not suffice for at least part of the Montenegrin intelligentsia. In letters to the Ministry of Education, the Association for the Study of the History of Montenegro (Drusˇtvo za proucˇavanje istorije Crne Gore) complained about the superficial treatment of Montenegrin history in

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textbooks, clarifying: ‘how it hurts Montenegrins that their history was killed instead of being invoked and used as an example and stimulus in our great national and state community’.28 Novica Popovic´ and Mihailo Bosˇkovic´, two Montenegrin representatives in parliament, supported this case, explaining that ‘the history of Montenegro, with a continuity which was consolidated over centuries, was really an ornament to our national history. Such a history serves historiography and strengthens the national spirit and Yugoslav ideology.’29 These criticisms indicate that a focus on the distinct and continuous character of Montenegrin state history was not necessarily incompatible with Yugoslav nationhood. On the contrary, more attention to Montenegrin state history could have appealed to the Montenegrin intelligentsia in the overarching framework of Yugoslav nationhood. Thus, the strategy to focus on parallel historical developments, rather than complete homogeneity, provided incentives for negotiations between Montenegrin regional identity and Yugoslav nationhood. The problem was that the authorities failed to take advantage of this opportunity to give non-‘tribal’ historical traditions an explicit place within the Yugoslav historical narrative. The Illyrian Provinces united the South Slav parts of the Habsburg Empire with Venetian Dalmatia and Dubrovnik within one administrative and military department under direct French rule after Napoleon’s conquest of the region in 1809. The Provinces were glorified as a crucial step in the national emancipation of South Slavs under Habsburg rule because they were the first form of administrative unity of South Slavs in the Habsburg Empire and incited the national rebirth by means of modern reforms and the use of Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian in administration. The historical interpretation of the Illyrian Provinces, just like that of the Serbian Uprisings, conveyed multiple levels of national identification. On 13 October 1929, Jozˇe Plecˇnik’s Monument to Napoleon was unveiled in Ljubljana in commemoration of the 120th anniversary of the establishment of the Illyrian Provinces. On the one hand, speeches and newspaper articles clarified the importance of the Illyrian Provinces to the Slovenes. The Provinces formed the first political unity of all Slovenian historical regions and the modernising policy had initiated the Slovenian cultural rebirth. On the other hand, the Illyrian Provinces were glorified as the first unification of ‘Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes in one state organisation, clarifying that all three are one nation, with one name and one fate’.30 Thus, the Illyrian Provinces were a true

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predecessor of the Yugoslav state.31 The presence of high state officials and representatives of Yugoslav national associations further highlighted the Yugoslav character of the commemoration.32 *** The Yugoslav national renaissance was a matter of not only politics but also cultural cooperation and rapprochement. In this domain, the South Slavs in the Habsburg Empire could claim the leading role: While at the turn of the nineteenth century, Serbs in the Serbian Piedmont were rising to liberate their fatherland from a centurylong oppression, Croats and Serbs in the Habsburg lands were striving to awake and revive the sleeping spirit of their nation through education and culture.33 The curricula co-opted Vuk Karadzˇic´ and Ljudevit Gaj as parallel founding fathers of Croat–Serb cultural and literary unity, marking the second cluster of historical events leading to Yugoslav national unity. The few references to representatives of the Slovenian national rebirth, such as Valentin Vodnik or Janez Bleiweis, did not compensate for the dominant position of the Croat –Serb cultural renaissance. The commemoration of Karadzˇic´ mainly built on the typically Serbian interpretation of his work. The 150th anniversary of Karadzˇic´’s birth in November 1937 was celebrated with large-scale festivities and the unveiling of a statue by Ðord¯e Jovanovic´ in Belgrade. In a speech the literary historian Pavle Popovic´ delivered on the occasion, he cited Karadzˇic´’s three great merits: creating the Serbian literary language and orthography, collecting Serbian folk songs, and giving Serbian literature a national character.34 The prominent presence of Orthodox clericals enforced the religious–national character of the commemoration. The novelty of interwar interpretations was the Yugoslav teleological notion that they added to Karadzˇic´’s work. Milorad Pavlovic´, for example, argued that the brilliance of Karadzˇic´ lay in his farsightedness. Accordingly, he had been one of the few in his times to see that Serbian and Croatian were only dialects of one national language.35 Karadzˇic´’s work was also linked with parallel national movements to convey the Yugoslav meaning of his work. Pavle Popovic´ stressed that the

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Croats had ‘accepted Karadzˇic´’s language’ and that the Slovenes, in the person of Jernej Kopitar, had cooperated with him.36 The Illyrian Movement was a cultural and political movement centred around Gaj in Zagreb in the 1830s and 1840s. The national idea behind this movement combined the level of Croatian national integration (cultural, linguistic and political unification, and emancipation of the Croatian historical regions) and the level of Yugoslav (primarily Croat– Serb) cultural and political unification. Typical Yugoslav historical interpretations stressed the relevance of the movement for both the Croatian ‘tribe’ and the Yugoslav nation as a whole. As C´orovic´ pointed out, the Illyrian Movement formed the starting point of ‘the correct process of Croatian spiritual unification’.37 This implied that the movement not only secured Croatian cultural unity but also annulled potential boundaries between Croats and Serbs by selecting the sˇtokavian dialect as the foundation for the literary language.38 Although Yugoslav historians had no other choice than to recognise that the response to the Illyrian Movement among Serbs and Slovenes was minimal, they did not fail to mention some Slovenian and Serbian supporters of Illyrism, such as Stanko Vraz or Sava Popovic´ Tekelija.39 *** The critical events in the third cluster around the year 1848 were the government of Josip Jelacˇic´, the royal governor of Croatia-Slavonia, his military campaign against the Hungarians, and the May Assembly of Habsburg Serbs in Sremski Karlovci, which proclaimed the autonomy of Vojvodina from Hungary and elevated the Orthodox Metropolitanate of Sremski Karlovci to Patriarchate. These events were highlighted as the first political cooperation of Croats and Serbs in the Habsburg Empire against their common Hungarian and, by extension, Habsburg enemy.40 The events of 1848 marked the transformation of the Illyrian ideological movement into a popular political movement and showed that ‘when the idea of nationality was being questioned, under foreign threat, Serbs and Croats were wise and comprehensive enough to put together their national strengths and thus document their consciousness of national solidarity’.41 A strong image in this respect was the agreement and alleged personal friendship between Jelacˇic´ and Josip Rajacˇic´, the newly elected Serbian Orthodox Patriarch of Sremski Karlovci.42

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The curricula linked the military campaign of Jelacˇic´ to events occurring outside of the Habsburg Empire’s borders, marking the first peak in South Slav political cooperation beyond political boundaries. In independent Serbia, Prince Alexander Karad¯ord¯evic´ established contacts with Serbs and South Slavs outside Serbia and supported the Croat–Serb movement against the Hungarians.43 This was also the period of the ‘Draft’, a secret document of 1844 in which Ilija Garasˇanin, Serbia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, outlined the geopolitical role of Serbia within the context of the decline of the Ottoman Empire. In brief, Garasˇanin argued that Serbia should become the centre of the liberation of the Christian Balkans. The programme relied on the Serbian historical right to restore the medieval Serbian Empire of Dusˇan, although its territorial scope and the national concept behind it remained very vague and fluid.44 Unlike the Draft’s current repute as the outline of future Greater Serbian expansionism, Yugoslav national historiography interpreted it as a visionary plan for Yugoslav political unification and its author one of the spiritual fathers of the Yugoslav Kingdom.45 Finally, the curricula referred to the rule of Peter II Petrovic´ Njegosˇ over Montenegro. Njegosˇ was especially remembered as the outstanding Serbian writer of the period. In addition, his political correspondence with other Christian South Slav leaders espoused South Slav solidarity against their common occupiers and held a prominent place in Yugoslav historical identity because it cut across regional, political, and religious boundaries.46 Very remarkable and indicative of the peripheral position of Slovenian history in Yugoslav historical identity, there were no references to Slovenian political history around 1848. The curricula ignored potential symbolic resources of Slovenian and Yugoslav historical identity, such as the United Slovenia programme, which demanded the administrative unification of the Slovenian historical regions, or the support for Jelacˇic´’s campaign among Slovenian intellectuals. *** The fourth cluster included symbolic resources from the peak in the Yugoslav movement in the 1860s and 1870s. The Yugoslav political, cultural, and religious activism of Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer and his right hand, the historian, politician, and priest, Franjo Racˇki took the central position. As the benefactor behind the establishment of the

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Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Sciences and the University of Zagreb and as the leader of the Popular Party, Strossmayer propagated the religious rapprochement of South Slav Catholics and Orthodox Christians and stimulated the cultural and political cooperation of the South Slavs. Strossmayer and Racˇki stressed the cultural and linguistic unity of Serbs and Croats and their proximity to the Slovenes as the basis for political unity of South Slavs within the Habsburg Empire and solidarity and cooperation between South Slavs in general. The birth of Strossmayer was commemorated every year in schools and served as a crucial symbol for the coexistence of Croatian Catholicism and Yugoslavism (cf. Chapter 7). In Serbia, Prince Michael Obrenovic´ reactivated the ‘Draft’ of 1844 and established vague plans and contacts for a Balkan alliance against the Ottomans and the creation of a South Slav state under Serbian leadership, leading to the slightly far-fetched conclusion that Michael’s goal in life was the liberation of Serbs and South Slavs.47 Additionally, the curricula selected the uprisings in Herzegovina and Bosnia of 1875–6 with the military interventions of Serbia and Montenegro, and Svetozar Miletic´, under whose leadership Serbs in Vojvodina became politically organised. The curricula stressed that Miletic´ favoured South Slav political cooperation in the short term within Austria-Hungary and in the long term in an independent South Slav state. The curricula again made some flawed attempts to make the parallelism complete by including Slovenian historical events. The 1933 curriculum for elementary schools, for example, included a topic on ‘the development of Yugoslav thought’, citing Prince Michael, Strossmayer, and Bleiweis, the Slovenian publicist and politician remembered for introducing a slightly adapted version of Gaj’s Croatian orthography to the Slovenian literary language, supporting the United Slovenia programme of 1848, and propagating the second Slovenian publication of Karadzˇic´’s collection of Serbian folk songs.48 Despite the feeble incentives given in the official Yugoslav historical narrative, narrow Slovenian commemorations of the period of political emancipation added Yugoslav national meaning, showing that there was willingness in the public sphere to incorporate Slovenian history within a broader Yugoslav narrative. At the centenary commemoration of the birth of Fran Levstik, a prominent writer and leader of the Young Slovene political emancipation movement, Vladimir Levstik, stressed the great contributions Fran Levstik had made to the development

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of Slovenian language, culture, and politics. On a secondary level, the commemoration was ‘Yugoslavised’ through statements that Fran Levstik had taught the Slovenes that Slovenian culture could only be developed within Yugoslav unity. Also important in this respect was the presence and approval of high Yugoslav officials.49 *** A fifth and final cluster was grouped around the wars of liberation and unification of 1912– 18. The curricula remained very vague about how World War I lessons should be presented, typically mentioning only ‘World War’ and King Peter and King Alexander. A closer look at the war commemoration culture indicates that the legacy of World War I took different forms in different parts of the country. In the Serbian part, the war was primarily interpreted within a Serbian national framework with strong biblical overtones. It was the battle of David against Goliath, reaching a dramatic point of suffering when the Serbian army withdrew throughout Albania but ending with the glorious resurrection of the people.50 World War I was incorporated within a Yugoslav whole as the historical event that led to the formation of the Yugoslav Kingdom. The commemoration of the breakthrough on the Thessaloniki Front on 7 and 8 October 1928 in Skopje illustrates how easily Serbian national war sacrifices could be interpreted as a crucial contribution to the establishment of the Yugoslav Kingdom and mediate between Serbian and Yugoslav national identity. The commemoration started with liturgy in the local church held by Metropolitan (and later Patriarch) Varnava, who clarified how important the Serbian sacrifices had been for the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and added that the present problems and discussions in the state should be put aside in order to bring about the will of those who had given their lives for the creation of the state, in other words, the Serbs. The president of the war veterans’ association added that the Serbian nation had laid the foundation for the state with her blood and bones and warned that, if necessary, the Serbs would do this again to protect the state.51 Adding to the strong intertwining of Serbian and Yugoslav categories of national identification was the combination of World War I with the Balkan Wars of 1912–13 (which Serbian historians saw as a strictly Serbian affair of state expansion) under the joint banner of ‘Wars for Liberation and Unification’.

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Similar commemorations of the wars of liberation and unification met with little response outside the boundaries of pre-war Serbia proper. The Yugoslav authorities applied several strategies to counterbalance the narrow Serbian interpretation of World War I. A first strategy was to re-interpret World War I as part of a broader, more abstract Yugoslav battle, as the culmination of sacrifices made by all Yugoslav ‘tribes’ for the unification and liberation of the Yugoslav nation. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the breakthrough on the Thessaloniki Front, for example, the Ministry of Education instructed schools to commemorate not only the heroes of Thessaloniki but all national heroes who had died for the nation: ‘Yugoslav’ fighters at Kosovo and the field of Gospa Sveta, Petar Zrinski and Frankopan, and the ‘Yugoslav’ soldiers who fell at Dobro Polje and Kajmakcˇalan.52 World War I was also situated within a broader historical episode of growing tensions between South Slavs and AustriaHungary, tensions which found their expression in the coalition of Serbian and Croatian political parties in Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia against Austrian hegemony or in the opposition of Bosnian Serbs and Muslims and Serbs in the pre-war Serbian Kingdom against the Austrian occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina.53 For World War I specifically, the curricula referred to the diplomatic activism of the Yugoslav Committee. The figures of King Peter I and King Alexander, whose symbolic capital to a large extent relied on their leadership during World War I, provided a second strategy to counterbalance the narrow Serbian appropriation of World War I. Both kings aligned all sacrifices made during the war, no matter on which side, with the final unification and liberation of all South Slavs.54 In Ljubljana, for example, the unveiling of the monuments to the memory of King Peter and King Alexander were hugely important events that symbolised the loyalty of the Slovenes to the Yugoslav state and its war memory.55 King Alexander was the quintessential symbol for the Yugoslav state and nation, especially during the dictatorship. His symbolic capital was consolidated through allegedly ‘personal’ and easy-going, but often meticulously orchestrated, meetings with normal people. In these meetings, the King served as the link between particularist identities and the Yugoslav state and nation.56 When visited by a large group of Croatian peasants, for example, Alexander was praised as the only true successor of Stjepan Radic´; in front of a group of peasants from Macedonia, he was lauded as the liberator of ‘Southern Serbia’ and the successor of Emperor Dusˇan.57

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Although Yugoslav historical narratives thus provided different options to place World War I within an overarching Yugoslav framework, the official statewide commemorations of the war remained primarily associated with the Serbian point of view. The annual school commemoration of the liberation of the Austro-Hungarian regions by the Serbian army on 29 October highlighted this focus on the Serbian leading role in the wars for liberation and unification.58 This commemoration confirms that the Serbian sacrifices made during World War I for the liberation of all South Slavs elevated them to a position of ‘first among equals’.59

The core of Serbian statehood The ‘first among equals’ remark can in fact be applied to the entire narrative of Yugoslav historical identity. Although the curricula provided a quantitatively balanced synthesis of different ‘tribal’ histories, symbolic resources from Serbian state history formed the backbone around which Yugoslav history was structured. The 1933 curriculum for history in the third year of elementary school mentioned only ten crucial figures from Yugoslav history: Sts Cyril and Methodius, St Sava, Prince Lazar, Prince Marko, Nikola Sˇubic´ Zrinski, Karad¯ord¯e, Strossmayer, King Peter I, and King Alexander. Of these figures, three were unquestionably Serbian symbolic resources: St Sava, Prince Lazar, and Karađorđe. King Peter and King Alexander were obviously linked to Serbian state tradition, but as Yugoslav kings, they could be interpreted as common Yugoslav symbolic resources. Prince Marko had strong historical bonds with the Serbian medieval state tradition and had been canonised as a Serbian epic hero since the times of Karadzˇic´. However, as a legendary folk character who was celebrated in folk literature throughout the entire Balkans, he also served as a common South Slav symbolic resource.60 Sts Cyril and Methodius were celebrated by both Catholics and Orthodox Christians in Yugoslavia and appropriated as national saints throughout the South Slav lands (cf. Chapter 7). Only two of the historical figures mentioned were primarily Croatian: Nikola Sˇubic´ Zrinski and Strossmayer. Serbian political domination in the Yugoslav state was thus reflected in the selection of the core symbolic resources for Yugoslav national history from the tradition of Serbian statehood. This trend was also obvious in the predominant school commemorations of Serbian

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historical resources (Kosovo, World War I, St Sava (cf. Chapter 8), references to the Serbian state tradition). Curricula included symbolic resources from Croatian collective memory but in most cases only on the basis of parallelism with Serbian core elements. Indicatively, school and other statewide commemorations of symbolic resources from Croatian history were much less frequent than Serbian counterexamples. No Slovenian, Muslim, Macedonian, or Montenegrin historical figures were mentioned in the 1933 history curriculum for elementary schools. The Slovenian case is especially striking because Slovenes were recognised as one of the three Yugoslav ‘tribes’. This only confirms that educational authorities saw the Slovenes and their history as a peripheral and distinct part of Yugoslav national history and failed to take advantage of the willingness among Slovenian intellectuals to integrate their historical memory within an overarching Yugoslav narrative. Curricula included isolated resources related to Montenegrin, Macedonian, or Bosnian Muslim historical memories but no structural incentives to mobilise these toward Yugoslav nationhood. Apparently, educational authorities believed that these categories of historical memory would be integrated within Yugoslav national identity as virtually undifferentiated parts of one of the recognised Yugoslav ‘tribes’ without direct appeals to their distinct traditions.

Yugoslav history in textbooks The approach to Yugoslav historical identity was multicultural with elements of romanticism (in Wachtel’s terminology): it envisaged the merging of three ‘tribal’ histories around the core of Serbian statehood. This approach did not require an exclusive choice between the Yugoslav and the ‘tribal’ level of historical identification. Ideally, it conveyed identification with various categories of nationhood and allowed for the adaptation of Yugoslav national history depending on the specific subYugoslav setting. Yugoslav history could mean different things to different regions and population groups. Let us now look at what textbooks did with this open template of Yugoslav history.

Serbian textbooks The revisions of pre-war Serbian textbooks that were used in the immediate post-war period focussed almost exclusively on familiar

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Serbian historical themes and held on to a strictly Serbian national interpretation. The sole adaptation to the new Yugoslav context consisted of the addition of a superficial selection of Croatian and Slovenian historical events and figures. The history textbooks for secondary education by Stanoje Stanojevic´, professor at the University of Belgrade and an important writer of history textbooks in pre-war Serbia and interwar Yugoslavia, illustrate this approach very well. The textbooks gave a traditional overview of Serbian history but added two short appendices with standard overviews of Croatian and Slovenian history. The Serbian historical overview remained virtually unchanged in comparison to that in pre-war reading books. Some minor additions included a short chapter on the ‘first Serb-Croat-Slovene state’ of Ljudevit Posavski and a chapter on ‘The Battle for Unification of all Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes’, which added a Yugoslav teleology to the actions of the Kingdom of Serbia in the Balkan Wars and World War I.61 More important than the obvious quantitative dominance of Serbian historical resources was that the textbooks made no attempt to establish links between these three historical overviews or to incorporate them within an overarching Yugoslav narrative. The earliest new Serbian textbooks held on rigidly to Minister Svetozar Pribic´evic´’s early prescription that a short overview of the history of Croats and Slovenes and especially ‘the period of their independent life’ should be added to pre-war Serbian history curricula.62 Dragoljub Ilic´, for example, covered Slovenian ‘independent life’ with texts on King Samo and the specific inauguration ritual of Carantanian rulers at the Field of Gospa Sveta, and for the Croats he glorified Ljudevit Posavski as the first ruler of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and gave an overview of the medieval Croatian Kingdom and its kings.63 For subsequent historical periods, Ilic´ gave no further information; he reasoned that the Croats and the Slovenes had experienced no more independent life and thus had no more place in the Yugoslav historical narrative. Jovan P. Jovanovic´ levelled criticism at the history textbooks; they failed to provide equal information on the three Yugoslav ‘tribes’, did not treat ‘tribal’ histories as one whole, and should instead stress those historical events that illustrated the unity of the ‘tribes’. Although Jovanovic´’s criticism was well meant, it reveals the shortcoming of the focus on independent statehood as the yardstick for contributions to national history. Jovanovic´ apparently did not question the idea that Serbs

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were more nationally conscious than Croats and definitely Slovenes precisely because they had managed to maintain their independent state longer and had established their national church.64 This interpretative framework delineated and defined Serbian national history in precisely the same way that pre-war textbooks did and simply expanded it to define Yugoslav national identity. However, the focus on statehood and the national church as central exponents of national identity could not serve as a common denominator for other parts of the Yugoslav nation because it left little room for Croatian or Slovenian articulations of Yugoslav historical identity and led to the national superiority of the Serbian ‘tribe’. *** The new textbooks of the late 1920s and 1930s followed the multicultural approach to Yugoslav national history as outlined in the curricula. The privileged position of Serbian statehood continued to underpin the textbooks not only in the quantitative predominance of symbolic resources related to the Serbian state tradition, but also in the interpretative framework. According to Ðorđe Lazarevic´, for example, Stefan Nemanja was the first of the medieval rulers to establish an enduring state organisation and a truly national state because, unlike other South Slav medieval rulers, he ‘wiped away all harmful foreign influence, not only political but also religious’.65 Obviously, Lazarevic´ situated Nemanja’s state a step higher than the other Yugoslav medieval states. In the same spirit, Serbian textbooks presented the Serbian state as the central axis around which the final liberation and unification were realised. The conclusive schematic overview of the ‘establishment of our state from 1804 to 1918’ in Dusˇan Prica’s history textbook for the fourth year of elementary schools came down to a synopsis of the political history of independent Serbia with short references to the Illyrian Provinces, the Illyrian Movement, and the events of 1848.66 These new textbooks, however, differed considerably from their predecessors, in which a clear distinction between different ‘tribal’ histories had been maintained; they did not simply enumerate isolated resources from different historical memories but combined them as manifestations of a common Yugoslav national history. Firstly, historical events from different ‘tribal’ traditions were treated in chronological order and no longer per ‘tribe’. Secondly and more importantly, the

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textbooks provided both indirect and direct links between historical traditions. As in earlier textbooks, the parallel attempts by ‘consciously Yugoslav’ rulers to establish independent states during the Middle Ages marked the first period of Yugoslav convergence. The same principle was also applied to later periods. The Ottoman conquest of the Yugoslav lands was a shared Yugoslav suffering; the Battle of Kosovo found its equal in the Battle at Krbava Field and the Ottoman raids into CroatiaSlavonia and Slovenia. At the same time, the suppression of South Slavs under Habsburg rule was consistently compared to the harsh position of South Slavs under Ottoman rule.67 Within this framework, the conspiracy of Petar Zrinski and Frankopan against the Habsburg dynasty and the peasant revolts in Slovenia and Croatia-Slavonia could be interpreted as acts of resistance against foreign oppression, parallel with South Slav (primarily Serbian) resistance against Ottoman oppression. For nineteenth-century history, textbooks took over the clusters that had been put forward in the curricula and focussed on the Yugoslav national element. For the Illyrian ‘kingdom’, Prica, for example, highlighted that it united a great part of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and that it taught the people to protect their language and their rights. Prica paid great attention to the Yugoslav movement of the 1860s and 1870s. With the support of Bishop Strossmayer, Prince Michael had established a Christan Balkan coalition for the unification and liberation of the entire Yugoslav nation. At that time, ‘Serbian and Croatian writers only wrote about liberation and unification. The people constantly thought about it and waited for Michael to call them’. Strossmayer ‘loved his entire Yugoslav people regardless of tribe or religion’, and Bleiweis finalised the unification of the Slovenian national language and initialised the next, Yugoslav step in the national development of the Slovenes.68 Yugoslav nationhood also manifested as direct cooperation between South Slav ‘tribes’. Duke Ljudevit Posavski was the first ruler who attempted ‘to create a common state for all our three tribes’.69 The counts of Celje had established family ties with other South Slav families in order to unify the South Slav lands.70 The Battle of Kosovo was a joint Yugoslav battle, where ‘Serbs and Croats stood next to each other, shoulder by shoulder, in the battle against the enemy’.71 King Tvrtko ‘knew that Serbs and Croats are one nation, so he attempted to establish

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his power in the three largest regions inhabited by Serbs and Croats, in Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia [and] devoted his entire life to this’.72 To conclude, Serbian textbooks of the 1930s conveyed a narrow Serbian and a wider, more inclusive Yugoslav interpretative level for historical identity. A strong Serbian bias remained evident, not only in the quantitative predominance of symbolic resources from Serbian historical memory but also in the central position of the Serbian state tradition as the core around which Yugoslav national history was structured. At the same time, the textbooks applied the framework of parallel historical developments that had been outlined in the curricula and included non-Serbian historical resources in Yugoslav historical identity. This development brought with it a reduced relevance of the clear-cut boundaries of Serbian historical identity.

Croatian textbooks Sigismund Cˇajkovac left no doubt about the Yugoslav national function of the history chapter in his reading books. His strategy, similar to that in canonical Yugoslav historiography and curricula, was to highlight those moments ‘that have united us in any possible way and have had an influence on our final liberation and unification’.73 To what extent did the concretisation of this strategy in Croatian textbooks concur with that in Serbian textbooks and bring about a mediation between Croatian and Yugoslav historical identity? The Croatian textbooks gave a relatively balanced overview of the histories of Serbs and Croats, with a slight quantitative preference for the latter. As with Serbian textbooks of the 1930s, Croatian and Serbian historical symbolic resources were given in their chronological order and structured and interpreted in such a way that parallel historical developments and cooperation became evident. For the medieval period, Cˇajkovac, for example, explained that the Serbs lived divided within smaller regional states just as the Croats did and that Nemanja was the first who succeeded in uniting the Serbs in one state, like Tomislav had done for the Croats.74 King Tvrtko was for Bosnia what Tomislav was for Croatia and Dusˇan for Serbia.75 Additionally, Croatian textbooks highlighted direct bonds and cooperation between Yugoslavs. Beside the usual suspects, Tvrtko and Ljudevit Posavski, Zˇivko Jakic´’s history textbooks for secondary education specifically mentioned that ‘it never came to bloody clashes between Croats and

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Serbs because of changes of state borders’.76 The protection King Tomislav offered to certain Serbian tribes against the Bulgarians of Emperor Simeon was interpreted as the expression of his Yugoslav consciousness.77 For the long period of foreign oppression that followed the golden age of Yugoslav history, the common Yugoslav resistance took the central stage. The Battle of Kosovo was primarily linked to the Serbian ‘tribe’, but the textbooks also conveyed its direct Yugoslav character. Prince Lazar allegedly realised that the Turks posed a threat not only to his state but also to his ‘brothers’ in the north. Therefore, he called King Tvrtko and Ivan Horvat, a former Croatian governor, for help.78 Cˇajkovac also linked the battle to its Croatian counterpart, the Battle at Krbava Field.79 The great attention paid to the resistance of South Slavs along the Habsburg – Ottoman border region shows the Croatian point of view in these textbooks. Jakic´ summarised: ‘the common threat of the Turks united Slovenes, Croats, and those Serbs who had settled on the Croatian border, and together they protected their country and Christian Europe for two centuries’.80 The historical message was that although the Serbs had fought the Ottomans at Kosovo and would later expel them from the Balkans, it was the South Slavs under Habsburg rule who had stopped the Ottoman advance. The most important historical figure in this respect was Nikola Sˇubic´ Zrinski, whose brave defence of Szigetva´r marked the start of the waning of Ottoman power in the Balkans.81 The overview of nineteenth-century history neatly concurred with the clusters of increasing Yugoslav national cooperation and consciousness in history curricula. Whereas Serbian textbooks limited their treatment of the history of South Slavs in the Habsburg Empire to events influenced by the growing national consciousness in independent Serbia, Croatian history textbooks gave a much more detailed overview of the growing resistance of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes against Austrian and Hungarian oppression. Croatian textbooks represented the events in Serbia and the national rebirth of South Slavs in the Habsburg Empire as two independent strands of the Yugoslav national revival. It is no coincidence that the Serbian textbooks first treated the historical events in Serbia and then turned to parallel events in the Habsburg Empire, while Jakic´ ordered the same nineteenth-century events inversely and thus established the growing

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national consciousness among Habsburg South Slavs as the core around which Yugoslav history could be understood. The same desire to underscore Croatian contributions to Yugoslav unification also informed the clear distinction between World War I and the Balkan Wars. The latter was a distinct Serbian affair, the former a shared Yugoslav experience to which Croats had greatly contributed. The Croatian textbooks not only referred to Serbia’s military campaigns but also added texts on the Yugoslav activism of Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian emigrants from Austria-Hungary, the volunteer corps in which ‘Croats and Slovenes fought shoulder by shoulder with Serbs’, and the political decisions of South Slavs in Austria-Hungary at the end of the war.82 The historical overview presented in Croatian textbooks concurred with that of the better adapted Serbian textbooks of the late 1920s and 1930s. Both groups of textbooks defined Yugoslav national history not as a uniform entity but as a synthesis of Croatian, Serbian, and, to a lesser extent, Slovenian historical traditions. This approach maintained ‘tribal’ historical traditions but focussed on their embedment within a broader Yugoslav framework. Parallelism and direct links with other Yugoslav historical identities resulted in the evaporation of the internal boundaries of ‘tribal’ histories. The major difference between historical overviews in Croatian and Serbian textbooks lay not in the mechanism or common denominators that were applied to construct Yugoslav national history but in the point of reference for establishing parallels between symbolic resources. Whereas Serbian history textbooks had started from the core of Serbian statehood, Croatian textbooks established Croatian historical traditions as an autonomous strand of Yugoslav national history. Yet, they both conveyed an open and inclusive understanding of Yugoslav national history in which the internal differentiation between ‘tribal’ traditions was not very relevant. In the 1937 reading books, a shift occurred in the historical narrative presented to the pupils. The textbooks avoided direct references to Yugoslav national unity, even in interpretations of symbolic resources that had typically occupied the central stage in the integral Yugoslav historical narrative. Ljudevit Posavski’s short-lived state, for example, was interpreted as the rational cooperation of Slovenian, Croatian, and Serbian tribes against foreign enemies rather than an expression of their intuitive longing for national unity.83 When evaluating the importance of King

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Tomislav’s rule, the 1937 reading book deleted the 1926 reading book’s conclusion that all parts of the nation, regardless of differences in names, could take pride in Tomislav, thus annulling once more an explicit link between historical symbolic resources and the Yugoslav level of national identity.84 This development shows the demarcation of Croatian historical identity and the increasing focus on the Croatian level of national identification in the late interwar textbooks.

Slovenian textbooks Slovenian historical resources were strongly under-represented in the historical overviews in Croatian and Serbian textbooks, confirming the peripheral position of Slovenian culture in dominant Croat–Serb understandings of Yugoslav national identity. For their part, Slovenian textbooks for elementary education maintained clear boundaries between Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian history. In the third year of elementary education, textbooks presented texts on Slovenian history. From the fourth year, Slovenian pupils learned the history of Serbs and Croats in broad outlines, but the reading books did not explicitly integrate these historical resources within a Yugoslav national framework. Although the Slovenian textbooks held on much more tightly to a delineated Slovenian historical continuum, they were not averse to a shared Yugoslav historical identity. In the text ‘Suffering for freedom’ in Andrej Rape’s reading book for the fourth year of elementary education, Prince Lazar described how he had fought the Ottomans at Kosovo. The Kosovo Maiden, a central figure in oral folk literature, then glorified the heroes from Kosovo but continued: ‘Who was next to defend themselves against the wild Turks, after the blossom of the Serbian people had fallen? The poor raja! The poor brothers Croats and Slovenes!’85 Voices of Croats and Slovenes who had fought the advancing Ottomans, who had suffered from Ottoman raids, or who had been taken by the Ottomans as blood tax, followed. In the end, the narrator briefly jumped to the Balkan Wars and the final expulsion of the Ottomans from the Balkans.86 This text mediated between Slovenian and Yugoslav levels of historical identity, thereby simultaneously making Yugoslav historical identity more Slovenian and, vice versa, Slovenian history more Yugoslav. The clear distinction between the three ‘tribal’ histories in Slovenian textbooks differed significantly from Serbian and Croatian

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textbooks, as it allowed compilers to begin with a Slovenian national framework in the reading books for the third year and to expand to the Yugoslav level by adding introductions to Serbian and Croatian history without directly intertwining them with Slovenian history. The integrated overview of Yugoslav history was presented only at the later stage of secondary education, as an elaboration of the basic overview of delineated Slovenian, Croatian, and Serbian historical narratives. Slovenian textbooks for secondary education followed the curricula neatly, listing familiar historical resources and establishing clear parallels between the various South Slav historical traditions. The textbooks approached clusters of parallel historical events from a broader European and Habsburg point of view. Unlike in Serbian textbooks, where the Ottoman Other was considered a predominantly Serbian affair, Slovenian textbooks paid great attention to battles between Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs under Habsburg rule against the Ottomans. Additionally, it was the ‘offensive of Central and Eastern Europe against the Turkish state which awakened the hope for liberation [among the part of the nation under Ottoman rule] and simultaneously inspired them to participate vigorously in these battles.’87 The centre of South Slav national history in these interpretations was not the area which suffered under Ottoman rule, as was the case in Serbian textbooks, but the South Slav lands under Habsburg rule. From there, European movements like the Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and Enlightenment linked South Slavs with central and western Europe and initiated the strengthening of national consciousness among Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs. Also from there, the Ottomans were repulsed. The French Revolution and its direct influence on South Slav lands under Habsburg rule marked the starting point of the Slovenian and South Slav national awakening and the increasing national consciousness of South Slavs under Habsburg rule as a reaction against Austrian and Hungarian domination. The national struggle of independent Serbia and Montenegro was referred to on the basis of parallelism with core events in the Habsburg Empire and Austria-Hungary.

CHAPTER 6 MAKING SENSE OF THE YUGOSLAV NATIONAL TERRITORY

The banovina system: An alternative road toward Yugoslav national territory? The geographic referent is a crucial element of national identity. Interwar Yugoslav education presented a continuum of geographic levels to make the abstract Yugoslav national territory tangible. In the third year, pupils learned about the geographical features of the elementary school’s direct surroundings, the political district it was located in, and then the larger geographical region. In the fourth year, they were introduced to all other Yugoslav geographical regions and thus obtained a synthesised overview of the Yugoslav lands. The main concern of Yugoslav geography education was not to present a detailed list of national landmarks or typical landscapes. In fact, the curricula remained vague, mentioning generic concepts (rivers, boundaries, relief, villages, towns, roads, and population) without specifying which symbolic resources should be treated precisely, and thus leaving leeway for regional variation. The desired regional division of the Yugoslav national territory, however, was the subject of continuing debates. In essence, the debates revolved around the use of the historical regions to define the Yugoslav national landscape. Many Yugoslav ideologues feared that the continuous use of historical regions in curricula would thwart the development of Yugoslav national

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consciousness. Josip Sˇkavic´, for example, suggested that the Yugoslav lands should be divided on the basis of geographically neutral categories like rivers and mountain ranges because the historical regions carried particularist identities with them that would hinder Yugoslav national consciousness.1 Contrary to this viewpoint, Jovan P. Jovanovic´ held that the curricula should continue to make use of the traditional historical regions because people would continue to use this framework anyway and because these regional identities could coexist with Yugoslav nationhood.2 The curricula of the 1920s proposed a regional division of the Yugoslav national territory that largely corresponded to the historical regions but identified them with geographically neutral names, indicating a reluctance to make use all too explicitly of particularist identities. In the 1927 curriculum for elementary schools, for example, Slovenia was designated the region of ‘the Yugoslav Alps’; Dalmatia became ‘the Dinaric coastline’; Bosnia-Herzegovina was known as ‘the Dinaric mountains’, and Vojvodina was ‘the Pannonian plain’.3 This compromised approach perfectly concurs with the ‘unspoken’ reliance on ‘tribal’ or historical traditions within definitions of Yugoslav national identity during the 1920s. After the installation of the banovinas in the fall of 1929, the geography curriculum was quickly amended to include and use them instead of the historical regions as the basis for the Yugoslav national territory.4 This decision corresponded to official interpretations of the banovinas as a radical departure from and a neutral alternative for the historical division of the country. In the words of the government, the banovinas would ‘forever put an end to historical boundaries, those obstacles to our national formation and development’.5 This line of interpretation should be qualified, however, because the division of the Yugoslav national territory into banovinas did not completely ignore historical regional entities. The clearest case in point was Drava banovina, which left intact the historical Slovenian territory and was understood as the continuation of Slovenian national unity in the Slovenian press.6 As had been the case with definitions of Yugoslav language, a status quo toward Slovenian territorial individuality within the larger unity of Yugoslavia was maintained. Other banovinas, too, were built around historical regions. Sava and Littoral banovina resembled the historical Croatian state lands, while Montenegro, Macedonia, and Vojvodina and Sˇumadija comprised the core of Zeta,

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Vardar, and Danube banovina, respectively. In fact, Bosnia-Herzegovina was the only historical region that was parcelled out. The redrawing of regional boundaries also did not imply a radical departure from the historical regions in the territorial construction of Yugoslav national identity. The new palaces for the provincial administration as well as the residences and country houses for the Royal Family that served as architectural representations of the banovinas, for example, relied on modelled architectural representations of regional traditions.7 Thus, rather than a complete break with the past, the banovinas presented a new, empty framework through which particularist traditions could be neutralised within Yugoslav national unity. Additionally, the banovina system did not circumvent the level of ‘tribal’ territorialities. This was especially obvious for Vardar banovina, which could serve as a framework for mediation between Macedonian regional and Yugoslav national identity but only via the Serbian ‘tribe’. An interesting phenomenon in this regard was the ‘Yugoslav Youth of Vardar Banovina’, which grouped Macedonian intellectuals in Belgrade with the goal to unite the intellectual forces of the region in the spirit of Yugoslav nationalism and patriotism. The movement represented an oft-tried strategy by the authorities to mobilise young intellectuals behind the Yugoslav national idea through associations loyal to and sponsored by the state. It also shows an awareness that specifically targeted incentives were needed to mobilise the Macedonian intelligentsia behind the Yugoslav nation. Intellectuals from Macedonia supported the establishment of such an association but criticised the dominant influence of Belgrade’s Serbian intellectuals and Serbian newcomers to Macedonia, who represented the obligatory Serbian medium between Macedonian and Yugoslav identification. Indicatively, the Macedonian intellectuals rejected the initial name of the association: ‘Association of South Serbs’ (Udruzˇenje juzˇnosrbijanaca). The movement never really gained momentum, and in 1936 it de facto ceased to exist. A group of intellectuals associated with the movement published a new journal Lucˇ (The Torch), which adopted a moderately critical position against the Yugoslav policy in Macedonia. Part of the writings clearly recognised a Macedonian particularist framework, making use of the ‘local dialect’, treating Macedonian cultural and historical topics, and expressing dissatisfaction with the political and economic position of the region in Yugoslavia. Many of the intellectuals behind the journal

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also favoured some form of Macedonian autonomy. However, Lucˇ stressed its loyalty to the Yugoslav state and in fact attempted to make sense of Yugoslav nationhood from a Macedonian point of view, from outside of the official interpretation of the region as an integral and inseparable part of the Serbian ‘tribe’. In a reaction against the increasing threat of German expansion to the East, the journal’s editor Borisav Antic´ praised Macedonians as the longstanding carriers of the integral Yugoslav idea, free of ‘any form of tribal particularism’. As ‘the most orthodox Yugoslavs’, Macedonians were to play a decisive role in the creation of integral Yugoslavia. Nevertheless, the authorities reacted hostilely to this journal, indicating their reluctance to allow any form of a Macedonian particularism outside the Serbian ‘tribal’ framework.8 As Nada Bosˇkovska concludes: ‘If the [state authorities] would have left the people in Macedonia the Yugoslav option instead of insisting that they convert to Serbdom, many who were positive about the state could have identified with it in this way.’9

Yugoslav national territory in textbooks Serbian textbooks The territorial reference point in the earliest Serbian textbooks was not the Yugoslav state but the traditional demarcation of Serbian national territories around the centre of the pre-war Serbian Kingdom. In order to make sense of Yugoslav national territory, the textbooks simply added overviews of the ‘new regions of the country’.10 Thereby, they held on to a strict and clear-cut delineation of Serbian territories, including all regions of the pre-war Serbian Kingdom and Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Vojvodina, and southern Dalmatia. Urosˇ Blagojevic´ and Mihailo Stanojevic´ even added Dalmatia, Croatia, and Istria as Serbian national territories.11 Such a strict delineation of Serbian territories in the new state invariably led to controversies, taking into consideration the numerous zones of overlap to which both Serbian and Croatian national thinking laid claim. The exclusive Serbian claims to BosniaHerzegovina and Dubrovnik were especially controversial. Blagojevic´ and Stanojevic´ portrayed Dubrovnik as a purely Serbian city: ‘[E]ven though a majority of the inhabitants of Dubrovnik is Catholic, they think and feel Serbian like Serbs of the Orthodox faith.’12 The continuous Serbian claims to Bosnian Muslims enforced the Serbian

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character of the Bosnian land (cf. Chapter 7). Historical claims that Serbs had settled in Bosnia, southern Dalmatia, Vojvodina, Herzegovina, and Slavonia and the interpretation of the histories of Bosnia-Herzegovina, southern Dalmatia, and Vojvodina as part of Serbian ‘tribal’ history underpinned the incorporation of these regions in Serbian territory.13 The application of the banovinas for defining Yugoslav national territory certainly led to a more balanced representation of different regions in the new Serbian textbooks. For all banovinas, the textbooks gave information about natural landmarks, cultural institutions, architectural monuments, and urban life and modernisation in the capitals of the banovinas in addition to specific historical events, monuments, or figures from the region. Local and regional symbolic resources that had hitherto only received marginal attention as peripheral elements in the imagination of one of the Yugoslav ‘tribes’ were thus subsumed into Yugoslav national identity. In the treatment of Vardar, Drina, and Vrbas banovina, for example, the textbooks paid attention to symbolic resources linked to the Ottoman Empire and South Slav Muslims (cf. Chapter 7). The peripheral Montenegrin state tradition occupied a central position in the imagination of Zeta banovina. For Littoral banovina, textbooks pointed to the important economic and cultural role the Adriatic Sea played for the population and referred to the history of Dalmatian Croatia, thus mediating between the Dalmatian regional level and Yugoslav national territory. Additionally, textbooks avoided the explicit delineation between Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian ‘tribes’ in the treatment of the banovinas and their population. The only exception was the link between Drava banovina and the Slovenian ‘tribe’ and the persistent statements in history textbooks on the Serbian origins of Bosnian Muslims. Serbian national boundaries and Serbian internal homogeneity clearly became less relevant in the imagination of Yugoslav national territory in the textbooks of the 1930s. This did not mean that the ‘tribal’ framework was entirely abandoned. There was a clear Serbian bias in the dominant position of the Serbian state tradition and its link with the Serbian Church in the imagination of a majority of the banovinas. For Drina, Danube, Morava, and Vardar banovinas, historical references were predominantly taken from Serbian state history. The commemoration of the Balkan Wars and World War I served as an additional strong link with Serbian

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national identity for Vardar banovina. Zeta banovina was firmly linked to the distinct Montenegrin state tradition, of which the Serbian national character was undisputed in textbooks. Historical sites linked to the Serbian medieval kingdom of Nemanja and the Serbian Orthodox Church enforced the Serbian character of Zeta banovina. Sava and Littoral banovina were defined through Croatian historical resources, although for eastern Herzegovina and its capital Mostar – part of Littoral banovina – references were made to the Serbian poet Aleksa Sˇantic´ and the self-declared Serbian Muslim writer Osman Ðikic´. Drava banovina, finally, occupied a specific place as the Slovenian banovina. Only Drina banovina was interpreted as a mixed banovina, with references to the medieval Bosnian state and Serbian and Croatian historical traditions (Petar Mrkonjic´, the alias under which the later King Peter fought during the uprisings in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1875–6 and the Croatian noble family of Zrinski, respectively). By referring back to ‘tribal’ histories, banovinas kept in place the traditional entities they – at least in discourse – were intended to replace. In that way, the banovina system conveyed three geographic levels of territorial identity: the regional, the ‘tribal’, and the Yugoslav national level. The relevance of the middle level, however, decreased to the benefit of the Yugoslav and the regional level.

Croatian textbooks Unlike early interwar Serbian textbooks, which made sense of Yugoslav national territory as an enlargement of the Serbian national territory, Sigismund Cˇajkovac started with a geographical overview of the Yugoslav nation-state on the basis of neutral geographic categories, namely: Sava, Danube, the ‘central regions of Serbia and Bosnia’, and the Adriatic Coast.14 By doing so, he explicitly ‘abandoned... the principle of interpreting the homeland on the basis of historical, tribal, or regional parts’.15 In the reading book for the fourth year, then, Cˇajkovac substantiated this overview with detailed descriptions of typical sites of natural and cultural beauty and sites of memory in the country’s historical regions. Croatian textbooks, thus, took a neutral position in discussions on the use of historical regions for geographical definitions of Yugoslav identity. They defined Yugoslav national territory on the basis of natural links in the Yugoslav landscape instead of internal boundaries. However, once such links were established, the reading books used

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historical regions to present the Yugoslav landscape in more detail and to connect the population with its national territory. As in the Serbian textbooks, this did not mean that Croatian territorial identification had become completely obsolete. The Croatian character of Dalmatia, for example, was not under discussion. Zˇivko Jakic´ explained that Dalmatia was ‘the most important part of the old Croatian Kingdom’ and that after the disintegration of the medieval Croatian state, ‘outside the cities everything was Croatian’.16 The strict delineation between Croatian and Serbian national territories, however, lost its urgency. Bosnia-Herzegovina was defined as mixed Croat –Serb. Cˇajkovac focused solely on the region’s natural beauty and avoided integrating it exclusively within the Serbian or Croatian part of the country. Jakic´ highlighted the significant Serbian and Croatian historical traditions in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Denying exclusive Serbian claims on Bosnia, he reminded that Bosnia had been part of the Croatian medieval kingdom and that King Tvrtko was a descendant of a Croatian noble family and was a Catholic his entire life.17 The territorialisation of national identity in the 1937 reading books at first sight strongly resembled that found in the 1926 series. The reading book for the third year structured the geographical overview around neutral geographical links, especially rivers. This led to a subdivision in four regions: ‘Alongside Sava and Drava’, with texts on the Sava basin, Zagreb, Belgrade, and the Drava basin; ‘Between the Important Rivers’, with texts on Croatia, Slavonia, and the Srem; ‘Karst and the Littoral’, with texts on the Croatian Littoral and Dalmatia; and finally a short chapter entitled ‘Central Regions’, which included texts on Sarajevo, Sˇumadija, and Kosovo. The first three chapters delineated the historical Croatian state regions Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia, as underpinned by the inclusion of the entire Croatian hymn at the end of these chapters. The Yugoslav territory was only present in connection with Belgrade as the country’s administrative and dynastic capital.18 This focus on Croatian historical territory becomes all the more meaningful as it ostensibly rejected the use of banovinas as the primary level of territorial delineation and identification. The reading book for the fourth year listed the banovinas in the table of contents but did not even mention them in the actual overview of typical sites of cultural and natural beauty per region.19 Thus, the 1937 reading books ignored the banovina model for defining

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Yugoslav territory. Instead, they started from a distinct Croatian historical territory within the Yugoslav state, which was precisely what the banovina system was intended to do away with.20 The passage on Zagreb in both series of reading books perfectly illustrates this change in the mediation between the Croatian and Yugoslav level of national identification. In the 1937 reading book, pupils read: Every Croatian soul rejoices when the name Zagreb is mentioned. That is the city where the history of the Croats was made during many hundreds of years, at its graveyard so many famous people rest, and it is the place where the most valuable creations of the Croats in the field of education are located. Since they have created their national state Yugoslavia, together with their brothers, the Serbs and the Slovenes, Zagreb is probably its most beautiful city, and not only Croats but also Serbs and Slovenes are proud of the city.21 Zagreb primarily served as a territorial bond with Croatian national identity. Only in the second instance was this Croatian national identity integrated within an overarching Yugoslav state unity, which the Croats shared with Serbs and Slovenes. In the same passage in the 1926 reading book the distinction between the Croatian and the Yugoslav level of national identification was almost irrelevant: ‘Every one of us loves Zagreb, the centre of the Croatian part of our nation, and every one of us is proud of that city.’22 In summary, whereas Cˇajkovac’s early textbooks negotiated between a Croatian and a Yugoslav level of nationhood, with a focus on the latter, his 1937 reading books brought the Croatian national territory to the foreground and clearly set its boundaries within the Yugoslav whole. This development again confirms the growing delineation of Croatian national identity by the second half of the 1930s.

Slovenian textbooks Slovenian reading books for elementary schools made a distinction between the narrow homeland of Slovenia and the broad homeland of Yugoslavia: ‘Around our birth region there are many other regions where people speak the same language, sing our songs, celebrate the works of our heroes, where our ancestors have lived and worked. Those regions

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belong to our narrow homeland, Slovenia.’23 Beyond the narrow homeland, Serbian and Croatian brothers lived with Slovenes in ‘the great and indivisible unity, our wider homeland Yugoslavia’.24 Reading books for the third year focussed on the narrow homeland Slovenia; the reading books for the fourth year presented the entire Yugoslav homeland in more detail.25 Thereby, the reading books held on to a clear distinction between Slovenian, Croatian, and Serbian regions. This template, which established the Slovenian territory as the primary category of territorial identification and composed the Yugoslav state as a synthesis of Slovenian, Croatian, and Serbian territories, remained unchanged throughout the interwar period. Reading books for elementary education did not mention banovinas at all, even though the banovina system left Drava banovina intact as a Slovenian territorial entity within Yugoslavia. Only in geography textbooks for secondary education from the late 1930s did geographical definitions of Yugoslav identity correspond to the curriculum for geography. These textbooks started with a general overview of Yugoslavia’s relief, climate, rivers, economy, and population and then presented a detailed overview of Yugoslavia’s banovinas.26

CHAPTER 7 RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY AND YUGOSLAV NATIONHOOD

Nationalist and religious thinkers alike have understood the relationship between nation and religion in seemingly antithetical ways. Explicitly secular national ideologies relegate religion to a marginal part of national identity although they rarely completely discard it. On the other side of the spectre of nationalism, religion often serves to sacralise the nation through the opportunistic use of religious figures and rituals or in sacred definitions of the nation that are centred on a dominant religious identity.1 Religious thinkers have repudiated nationhood as incompatible with the universalistic claims of religion even though the organisational and discursive aspects of religion have been nationalised.2 Such varying degrees of the intertwinement of nation and religion indicate how the two overlap as analogous categories of social, cultural, and political identification and organisation. However, overlap implies intertwinement but does not make religion and nation parts of the same phenomenon.3 The close intertwining of religion and nationhood is a prominent feature of modernity in eastern Europe. The fragmentation in autocephalous churches in Orthodox Christianity became a crucial repository of symbolic material for nation building and promoted a strong symbiosis of religious and national traditions. This strong symbiosis has come to expression in both the sacralisation of the nation, specifically the use of religious symbols in nationalist ideologies, and the

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nationalisation of religion, that is the adoption of nationalist discourse in adaptations of religious thinking reworked for modernity. This bidirectional symbiosis also applies to many non-Orthodox communities in central and eastern Europe, regardless of the more international organisation of the religious institutions in question.4 In the case of interwar Yugoslavia, the question of how the religious diversity of Muslim, Catholic, and Orthodox South Slavs could be reconciled with Yugoslav national unity further complicated the shaky balance between various categories of national identification. Schematically, there were three possible routes to answer this question. National unity could be safeguarded by the religious unification of the Yugoslavs. The publicist Milutin Jaksˇic´, for example, considered the Yugoslav nation a given and argued that the religious division was external and superficial and had to be brought in line with Yugoslav national unity. Whereas the Serbian Orthodox Church had managed to obtain national autonomy, the Yugoslav Catholics had to be stripped of the harmful influence of the Pope in Rome in order to bring about the unification of the Yugoslav Christian Church. Jaksˇic´ did not even mention the Muslim community, apparently presuming that they should return to Christianity without further ado.5 Another possible way to reconcile religious diversity with Yugoslav national unity was to detach nationhood from religious affiliation. Radically secular nationalist thinkers claimed that religious diversity was not a real problem because religion in general would become obsolete in the fundamentally modern and secular Yugoslav nation they had in mind.6 Other thinkers recognised religion as a constituent element of Yugoslav national identity but maintained that its institutional diversification was outdated. In the words of Vladimir Dvornikovic´: ‘The faith of the Yugoslavs too will become more and more a case and problem of the personal spiritual life, and less and less a Balkan-oriental external characteristic of tribal totemism.’7 According to Dvornikovic´, the Slavonic form of Christianity was based on love and feeling rather than force and power, which was why ‘a true Slav could never be made enthusiastic by the statist Christianity of Rome or Byzantium, and in his mind remained a “natural Christian”, a Bogomil’.8 A third possible approach installed religious tolerance as a crucial aspect of Yugoslav national identity. In fact, this approach was a compromise between the two lines of reasoning outlined above because

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it recognised religious identity and institutions as crucial components of the Yugoslav nation and society but at the same time avoided religious exclusiveness by highlighting the parallel national character of Yugoslav Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Islam and the corresponding institutions. This third approach was systematically promoted by the Yugoslav state authorities after the establishment of the dictatorship. In his declaration of intent, Minister of Religious Affairs Dragisˇa Cvetkovic´ argued that it [was] the patriotic duty of all religions in the Kingdom to unite all their spiritual strength and wisdom toward the quick consolidation of the State, to assist the unification process of soul and heart, to spread peace and love between citizens, and to make even and fill all the gaps that centuries have created between brethren of the same blood and language.9 In other words, instead of the typical east European model of one national church per nation, all Yugoslav religions were conceived of as parallel national churches, which were to be clearly subjected to state control. The government established a strict legal framework to guarantee that religious institutions would carry out their duties toward nation and state. In the course of 1929– 31, the Royal Dictatorship adopted laws and regulations for the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Islamic Religious Community, the Jewish Community, Reformed Churches, and Evangelical Churches. The last step in this process was the Concordat with the Roman Catholic Church; negotiations with the Vatican had started in 1925, but the Concordat was not signed until 1935 and submitted to parliament for ratification in 1937. However, the ratification provoked fierce protests from leaders and supporters of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and Milan Stojadinovic´’s government was forced to withdraw the issue from the parliamentary proceedings.10 The government also applied the model of parallel national churches in the Yugoslav educational policy. The constitutions of 1921 and 1931 stated that ‘schools should provide moral education and develop civil consciousness in the spirit of national unity and religious tolerance’.11 In other words, national unity and religious tolerance were closely intertwined and formed the basis of the state’s educational policy. The authorities attempted to reduce religious division not by drawing clear boundaries between religion and school but by pointing to the

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fundamental similarities of Yugoslav religiosity and the close connection of all three dominant religions and nationhood. The prescription that all pupils, regardless of their faith, speak out a neutral prayer every day for the mercy and help of God, ‘to the glory of the Creator, to the satisfaction of our parents, and to the benefit of the fatherland’, while performing their religious acts, clarifies how far the authorities were willing to go to push through religious tolerance at school.12

Teaching religious tolerance Symbolic resources from the domain of religion occupied a prominent place in the interwar Yugoslav school curriculum. The curricula for Catholic, Jewish, and Islamic religious education remained by and large indifferent to nationhood. They focussed on theological issues, and the histories of the religious institutions in question were not categorised per nation. Only the reference to the spread of Christianity in the Yugoslav fatherland and the work of Sts Cyril and Methodius in the historical overview of the Catholic Church provided a link to the nation. The historical overview of the Serbian Orthodox Church was the exception. It abounded with links to Serbian national history, such as Stefan Nemanja, St Sava, the Serbian Patriarchate and the Serbian Empire, the Battle of Kosovo, the Patriarchate of Pec´ under Ottoman rule, the great migrations of the Serbs to Hungary, and the Orthodox Church in nineteenth-century Serbia, Montenegro, Dalmatia, and Vojvodina. The overview ended with the unification of the Serbian Orthodox Church after World War I and ‘the merits of the Serbian Orthodox Church for the education and liberation of the nation’.13 In summary, the curriculum presented the history of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Serbian nation as inseparable parts of one sacred and national identity. The varying availability of links with nationhood in the curricula for religious education illustrates the Serbian Orthodox Church’s lead over the other religious institutions concerning the adaptation to nationalist modernity.14

Toward Yugoslav Christianity The relationship between religion and nation was prominently addressed in history curricula and in school holidays. Unlike religious curricula, which did not address the question of religious diversity,

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history curricula introduced new approaches to give the religious divisions a place in the national identity. This was especially true for the Orthodox – Catholic fault line, which was circumvented by pointing to the common Yugoslav national character of the Orthodox and the Catholic Church. All curricula under scrutiny underscored that the Christianisation of the South Slavs had taken place on a common Slavonic basis before the schism of 1054. The idea was that Yugoslav Catholicism and Orthodoxy went back to the same root and were fundamentally connected. As the shared initiators of the Christianisation of the Slavs and the Yugoslavs specifically, Sts Cyril and Methodius were key to this idea. They were mentioned in all curricula and their Orthodox holiday, celebrated on 24 May (11 May in the Julian calendar), was an official holiday for all Yugoslav schools.15 This incentive for commemoration relied on pan-Slav commemorative traditions in pre-war Serbia and Croatia. The overarching Slavonic dimension of the celebration of Sts Cyril and Methodius in prewar Serbia contrasted to the narrow Serbian commemoration of St Sava and the national interpretation of the brothers in Bulgaria.16 In CroatiaSlavonia, Franjo Racˇki and Josip Juraj Strossmayer had established a cult of Cyril and Methodius as the foundation for religious, political, and cultural unity of Orthodox and Catholic (South) Slavs.17 This explains the continued popularity of Cyril and Methodius in interwar Croatian Catholic circles. Cyril and Methodius were, for example, the patron saints of the Croatian Catholic cultural association Napredak (meaning ‘progress’), which stimulated education and cultural life among the less developed Croatian-Catholic population of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dalmatia, and Croatia-Slavonia. The association participated in the yearly commemorative services on the Catholic holiday of Sts Cyril and Methodius and integrated them firmly within Croatian national identity. Hinting at the complicated concurrence of Croatian-Catholic and Yugoslav national loyalties in the implementation of nationhood from above, the authorities were very suspicious of the Croatian-Catholic interpretation of Sts Cyril and Methodius, perceiving this as a threat to Yugoslav national loyalty (cf. Chapter 8).18 ***

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Definitions of Yugoslav national identity subsequently paid great attention to parallels and similarities between Yugoslav Catholicism and Orthodoxy to show that the Slavonic and national foundations of Christianity, which had been laid by Sts Cyril and Methodius, were more important and lasting than the superficial, institutional division between eastern Orthodoxy and western Catholicism. St Sava personified the national character of the Orthodox Church in Yugoslavia. By all possible standards, St Sava was the most important historical figure in the interwar Yugoslav educational programme. He occupied a prominent place in all history curricula, reading books and history textbooks, and was the patron saint of education; his holiday, 27 January, was ‘a day of general cultural –national school celebration’.19 St Sava was key to the history, the religious thinking, and the practices of the Orthodox Church in Serbia. He was born as Rastko, the third son of Serbian Prince Stefan Nemanja, and became monk on Mount Athos, where he established the first Serbian monastery and not only succeeded in securing autocephaly for the Orthodox Church in Serbia but also became its first Archbishop in 1219. St Sava was also a popular figure in folk tales, which depicted him as a primitive pagan god, who mastered the forces of nature and blessed and punished the people. In the course of the nineteenth century, political – national, folk – popular, and religious elements were interwoven in the increasingly prominent national – religious cult of St Sava. As part of this cult, St Sava became the patron saint of schools in autonomous Serbia and the Serbian Orthodox schools in Hungarian Vojvodina since the mid-nineteenth century.20 St Sava also occupied a crucial position in Serbian cultural and educational life. The Serbian cultural association Prosvjeta (meaning ‘education’; in 1920, the name was changed to Prosveta in the ekavian variant of Belgrade instead of the ijekavian variant of Bosnia, where the association had been established before World War I) held its annual celebrations on St Sava’s Day and throughout the year stimulated the education of Serbian Orthodox youth and cultural life through popular lectures, literacy courses, and public libraries in Serbian villages in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dalmatia, the Sandzˇak, Kosovo, and Macedonia.21 Typical interpretations of the interwar period celebrated St Sava as the founder of the Serbian national church, which had its own ‘national’ priests, used the national language, and maintained very strong bonds

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with the Serbian state.22 Thus, St Sava had laid the foundation for the Serbian Church’s national mission and finalised the work of Sts Cyril and Methodius.23 St Sava was additionally praised as the national enlightener, who had brought primitive Serbia into the circle of cultural Christian nations and had first educated his people.24 St Sava remained primarily linked to Serbian national identity. His relevance for the Yugoslav nation was derived from his contributions to the Serbian state and church: The Yugoslav aspirations of the present generation and the Yugoslav ideals of the present time are impossible without the great traditions from the past, and the tribal traditions are fruitless without the present Yugoslav reality. In that sense, it is incomprehensible that Sava’s tradition is neglected and not used sufficiently. Sava’s work has a popular–national character and his Serbian ideology of that time played the same role of spiritually unifying regional and tribal mentalities as the Yugoslav ideals of our society, so there is no reason not to establish Sava’s work and cult on the present Yugoslav basis.25 As a basis for a Yugoslav-wide commemoration, however, such an interpretation remained feeble. *** For outlining the national character of Catholicism in the South Slav lands, Yugoslav ideologists typically referred to what they called the Slavonic or national liturgy, implying the Glagolitic and Slavonic tradition in liturgy and religious writings in certain parts of Croatia and Dalmatia.26 Gregory of Nin, the tenth century Bishop of Nin who had unsuccessfully defended the use of Glagolitic and Slavonic in religious affairs, personified this form of authentic Yugoslav Catholicism as the first proponent and martyr of the ‘Croatian Church’.27 In commemoration of the millennial anniversary of Gregory’s death in 1929, a statue to his honour by Ivan Mesˇtrovic´ was unveiled in the centre of Split in the presence of high officials such as Dr Antun Bauer (the Catholic Archbishop of Zagreb) and Prince Paul. According to a flyer distributed before the festivities, the monument symbolised the 1000-years long battle of the Croats for their language, independence, and national territory.28 The references to the parallelism

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with the work of St Sava and the support of the Yugoslav state authorities added Yugoslav national meaning.29 Serbs honour Sava as a saint who gave the Serbian Church its national character and who gave the Serbian state idea a spiritual content. In all later efforts in that field, St Sava remained a model and flag. Gregory of Nin did not completely succeed in doing the same for the Croatian Church and state, but he was living in much more difficult circumstances; he had to fight much stronger opponents, and he lived almost three centuries earlier. Precisely for those reasons, his efforts deserve attention and honour, not only from Croats but from all Yugoslavs.30 A second crucial figure for the definition of Croatian Catholicism being fundamentally Yugoslav was Strossmayer. He occupied a prominent place in all of the curricula under scrutiny, not only for his position in the Croatian Catholic Church but also as an important proYugoslav politician and cultural activist. His birthday (4 February) was annually celebrated as a school holiday.31 As a Catholic bishop who had explicitly supported the idea of national unity of Serbs and Croats and the necessity of religious rapprochement and tolerance between them, Strossmayer was, of course, very useful in the Yugoslav national programme.32 Especially in the 1930s, when the Catholic Church took a more oppositional standpoint toward the dictatorship and Yugoslavism, Yugoslav ideologues typically quoted Strossmayer to show the ‘true’, patriotic branch of the Yugoslav Catholic Church.33 As with Gregory of Nin, Yugoslav ideologues highlighted parallelisms between Strossmayer and St Sava as enlighteners of the people. Both St Sava and Strossmayer had the goal to ‘awaken the people’s consciousness, which had almost disappeared under foreign yoke, to fight for its faith, its language, and its physical and spiritual freedom’.34

The place of South Slavs Muslims within the Christian Yugoslav nation Basing the neutralisation of the Orthodox – Catholic division on the common Christian nature of the Yugoslav nation raises the question of the South Slav Muslims’ position within the nation. In definitions

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of Serbian and Croatian national identity before World War I, the Islamic Ottoman Empire had occupied a prominent position as the ‘Other’ against whom Serbs and Croats had defended themselves and Christian Europe for centuries.35 Of course, such unbalanced negative positions toward everything Ottoman Muslim seriously complicated the integration of South Slav Muslims in the Croatian, Serbian, and Yugoslav nations, because the former were seen as somehow part of the Ottoman tradition. Curricula of the 1920s made no reference at all to South Slav Muslims, clarifying that the authorities either did not consider Muslim religious identity important enough to be taken into consideration or had not yet formulated clear strategies regarding the integration of South Slav Muslims in the Yugoslav nation. Yugoslav Muslim intellectuals complained that they were disregarded as ‘Turks’, as foreigners, although they considered themselves the purest representatives of the Yugoslav nation qua language, habits, and type.36 In the 1930s, the curricula took a more qualified position toward the Muslim faith and made humble attempts to integrate within Yugoslav national identity some symbolic resources linked to South Slav Muslims, such as the conversion to Islam among South Slavs or Mehmed Sokolovic´, the sixteenth-century Great Vizier of the Ottoman Empire who was of South Slav Bosnian origin. The inclusion of symbolic resources related to South Slav Muslims in the curricula of the 1930s paid lip service to intellectual attempts to provide room for a specific South Slav Muslim articulation of Yugoslav nationhood. Canonical Yugoslav historiography attempted to make national sense of the conversion of South Slav Muslims to Islam, for example, by subordinating the conversion to their Yugoslav nationhood. Vladimir C´orovic´ explained that most South Slav Muslims converted to Islam in search of protection against Christian missionaries who were active against the Bosnian Church or simply in search of a better life.37 But for C´orovic´, the conversion to Islam had been superficial and irrelevant for Yugoslav national consciousness.38 Yugoslav-oriented Muslim intellectuals made similar points. Hasan Rebac, for example, argued that South Slav Muslims had never been profoundly influenced by the Turkish national Islam of the Ottoman central authorities and that they had been able to develop their own ‘national’ form of Islam. As a consequence, Islam did not dissociate South Slav Muslims from their authentic national identity, and instead allowed them to express their national

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consciousness.39 Edhem Miralem claimed that South Slav Muslims had retained the purest Yugoslav national identity, regardless of all powerful means the Turks had used to assimilate them, and that their Islam had always been complementary with their Yugoslav national identity.40 However, such small concessions to South Slav Muslims remained peripheral and did not challenge the fundamentally Christian character of the Yugoslav nation. The continuing correlation between Christianity and Yugoslav nationhood, which was especially salient as a marker of dissociation from the Ottoman Empire, seemed to imply that Christianity was the authentic Yugoslav religion and that South Slav Muslims deviated from the norm. This implication is very obvious in ethnographical works that aimed to show the fundamental and lasting impact of the common national origins of South Slav Christians and Muslims by listing a number of Christian cultural remnants among Yugoslav Muslims.41 Such an approach reduced the division between Islam and Christianity by taking the Christian side as the norm and placed the South Slav Muslims at the margins of the Yugoslav nation. References to South Slav Muslims were always situated within the contours of an overarching division between Occident and Orient that continued to give meaning to Yugoslav national identity and to internal relations between Christians and Muslims in Yugoslavia.42 As elsewhere in the Balkans, this approach implied an ‘ambiguous interplay between sameness and difference’ in which ‘notions of Muslim difference were always in competition with assumptions about sameness and apprehensions about hybridity’.43 *** A related problem with regard to the position of Muslims within Yugoslav national identity was the question of to which ‘tribe’ the South Slav Muslims belonged. In the course of the nineteenth century, Croatian and Serbian intellectuals and politicians attempted to enforce their territorial claims to Bosnia-Herzegovina by including Bosnian Muslims in their respective nation.44 Such competing claims caused rivalry between not only Serbian and Croatian ideologues but also members of the Bosnian Muslim intelligentsia: part of them accepted Serbian nationhood, a larger part Croatian nationhood, whereas a third part opted for a form of Islamic religious identity.45 Bosnian Muslim intellectuals’ main concern revolved around the religious claims that were attached to Serbian and Croatian

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affiliation. Osman Nurij Beg Firdus argued that the constant pressure on South Slav Muslims to declare themselves as either Serbs or Croats had made them a-national. They realised that they were part of the SerboCroatian nation, but they refused to make a choice between Serbian and Croatian collective belonging because this would mean denying their Muslim religious identity. For Muslims, Islam was much more important than national identity.46 The Yugoslav idea offered possibilities to circumvent the thorny question of the South Slav Muslims’ ‘tribal’ affiliation because it allowed Muslim intellectuals to combine particularist Muslim togetherness with an overarching sense of national identification with the Yugoslav nation-state.47 In a representative article of 1921, Sakib Korbut, one of the leaders of the Yugoslav Muslim Organisation, refuted the theory that Yugoslavism could only be realised via Serbian or Croatian nationalism. In his opinion, Yugoslavism, unlike Serbdom and Croatdom, was not linked to religion and was therefore easily and directly acceptable for South Slav Muslims.48 The official nationalities policy of the interwar Yugoslav state, however, not only applied the close intertwinement of nationhood and religion that characterised definitions of Croatian and Serbian national identity to prescriptive definitions of Yugoslav national identity but also assumed the Serbian ‘tribal’ affiliation of South Slav Muslims. Even during the Royal Dictatorship, when the integral Yugoslav national policy of the regime stated that there was no more place for ‘tribal’ identities in the culture and politics of the new Yugoslav nation-state, ideologues spoke about South Slav Muslims’ Serbian character. In an article in the state-sponsored journal Jugosloven (The Yugoslav), the writer Hamza Humo argued against the ‘empty Yugoslavism’ of the former Yugoslav Muslim Organisation because ‘lived tribal national consciousness’ was a necessary basis for Yugoslavism.49 For Humo, the natural ‘tribal’ consciousness of South Slav Muslims was Serbian, as evidenced by the similarity of their mentalities and their folk songs.50 Similar references to South Slav Muslims as Serbs also characterised the dictatorship’s educational policy, as illustrated by the mention of ‘Serb Muslims’ in the curricula.51 The decision to change the name of the Muslim cultural –educational organisation Gajret (Arabic for ‘effort’) to ‘Serbian Muslim cultural –educational association Gajret’ (Srpskomuslimansko kulturno– prosvjetno drusˇtvo Gajret) hints at the official character of this understanding. From the early twentieth century, Gajret

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supported the schooling of Muslim children through individual scholarships, student homes, literacy courses, and libraries and cultural clubs in Muslim villages and towns. The association inclined toward Serbian political and national affiliation and was dominated by proSerbian progressive Bosnian Muslims. Rebac, one of the leading figures in the association, for example, clarified that the goal of Gajret was the national education of Muslims, first as Serbs and then as Yugoslavs.52 Serbian centres of political authority supported the association. The King’s appointment of Prince Peter as patron of Gajret was accompanied by a royal donation, and the government established a special Gajret department and home for Muslim university students in Belgrade, named after the self-declared Serbian Muslim writer Osman Ðikic´.53 The formation of the competing cultural– educational association Narodna uzdanica (The People’s Hope), as a reaction of the JMO against the political link between Gajret and the Belgrade authorities, brought the national polarisation among Muslim intellectuals to associational life.54 Although Gajret and Narodna uzdanica were careful about openly exposing Serbian or Croatian national belonging, the division between them was clearly understood along national lines. Narodna uzdanica, for example, requested that Prince Tomislav (the prince whose name symbolically represented the Croatian ‘tribe’) would become the patron of Narodna uzdanica, parallel to Prince Peter (whose name symbolically represented the Serbian ‘tribe’) as the patron of Gajret.55 In contrast to Gajret, Narodna uzdanica sent a majority of its students to the University of Zagreb, where prominent Croatian intellectuals led the association’s branch. During the 1930s, the regime strengthened its political ties with Gajret. The organisation’s leadership received high political and governmental posts. Local branches of Gajret propagated the Yugoslav National Party and the dictatorship, and many functionaries of Gajret were eligible on the governmental list of Petar Zˇivkovic´ during the elections of November 1931. Teachers who did not support Gajret or were members of Narodna uzdanica were transferred.56 Ideologically, the association completely followed the line set out by the authorities. Gajret’s journal was filled with articles that espoused the typical integral Yugoslav discourse of the period and reported about the full support of all South Slav Muslims for the dictatorship.57

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Whereas the dictatorship granted Gajret the status of a quasi-official cultural–educational association for South Slav Muslims, local authorities banned the activities of Narodna uzdanica, and the government and provincial authorities cut off its financial support. Furthermore, Narodna uzdanica members in civil service were often transferred or forced to retire. Officials were forbidden to attend its activities, and authorities used every occasion to discredit Narodna uzdanica through numerous police investigations or campaigns in the loyal press.58 Only after the JMO came to power in Stojadinovic´’s government did the situation of Narodna uzdanica became more favourable: the association received financial support from the official institutions and leading JMO politicians openly expressed their support.59 At the same time, Gajret lost its privileged position and increasingly dissociated itself from the political and national programme of the dictatorship.60 The outspoken Serbian affiliation of Gajret during the Royal Dictatorship was remarkably inconsistent within the ideological framework of the dictatorship, which as a rule abandoned ‘tribal’ categories. Not only its name but also Gajret’s publications referred to Serb Muslims or the Serbian national consciousness and language of Sokolovic´.61 Representatives of the state authorities saw no harm in speaking about Serb Muslims during public manifestations of Gajret. At the association’s annual congress in 1932, the governor of Drina banovina, Velimir Popovic´, declared that ‘for us, who belong to the Serbian tribe’, the Serbian name of Gajret was a logical step toward Yugoslav national consciousness.62 In that regard, Gajret’s name change reflects the far-reaching nationalisation (or ‘tribalisation’ in the Yugoslav national discourse of the period) of the political division among Bosnian Muslims. Put schematically, Yugoslav national identification for Bosnian Muslims was equated to political loyalty to the regime and Serbian ‘tribal’ affiliation. The nationalisation of Bosnian Muslim political loyalty to the regime also had a strong impact on face-to-face social interaction in Bosnian Muslim milieus. The Ministry of Education, for example, promptly transferred the teacher Mehmed Mulabdic´ to western Serbia on the accusation of propagating Narodna uzdanica by means of a tombola.63 District authorities from Rogatica in eastern Bosnia suggested the transfer of Gajret members in civil service because they had attended a party organised by Narodna uzdanica. The authorities criticised Narodna uzdanica for ‘stimulating the Croatian spirit’ among Muslims

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and creating Croatism instead of Yugoslavism. By punishing Gajret members who supported Narodna uzdanica, they wanted to make clear that Gajret’s local activities should convey the correct Serbian –Yugoslav national idea.64 It did not cross the authorities’ minds that the Gajret members had attended the party for reasons much more banal than the nationalistic acts the authorities perceived them to be.

Religious tolerance in textbooks Serbian textbooks Whereas pre-war Serbian textbooks paid very little attention to religious division, reflecting the irrelevance of this issue to the pre-war Serbian state, new textbooks of the interwar period attempted to ‘teach the illiterate and simple people that Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes are one nation, and that they are brothers and that we should love our brothers, regardless of religious differences’.65 Beyond this discursive change, however, a clear Serbian Orthodox preoccupation remained obvious. Although Yugoslav educational experts attempted to focus on St Sava’s religiosity and educational work from an abstract, that is not strictly Serbian Orthodox, point of view,66 the history textbooks under scrutiny maintained the typical Serbian national interpretation of St Sava and the Serbian Orthodox Church as the protectors of the Serbian national case.67 Such a persistently strong Serbian Orthodox bias in textbooks, which were in theory intended for all Yugoslav pupils, illustrates the feeble basis for the celebration of St Sava as a nationwide, secular symbolic resource for Yugoslav nationhood. The frequent descriptions of popular Orthodox celebrations of slava, St Sava, and Christmas Eve and Easter or churches and monasteries as primary manifestations of Yugoslav nationhood further confirmed the persistent Serbian Orthodox bias.68 In order to de-emphasise the dichotomy between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, textbooks neatly followed the curriculum and pointed to the common Slavonic pagan beliefs of the pre-Christian era and the national Christianisation of the South Slavs. Many authors explained that Germans, Franks, and Greeks had failed to Christianise the South Slavs earlier because the people did not understand Latin or Greek. South Slavs massively turned to the new religion only after Cyril and Methodius had established a Slavonic form of Christianity.69 The textbooks referred to Strossmayer and Gregory of Nin to show the persistent national character

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of the Catholic Church in the South Slav lands. Some textbooks expanded this parallelism to the Slovenian ‘tribe’ by referring to the work of Primozˇ Trubar for religious writings and services in the popular language: ‘Just as the Slavonic apostles Sts Cyril and Methodius fought for Slavonic liturgy, and as St Sava fought for the church in Serbia and Gregory of Nin in Croatia – Trubar did in Slovenia.’70 The evaluation of the national credentials of the Catholic Church, however, implicitly imposed a comparison between the two Christian Churches in favour of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Claims about the alleged superior Slavonic character of Orthodoxy and the problematic ‘Western’ and a-national influences of the Catholic Church were a recurring theme in conservative Serbian intellectuals circles.71 Dvornikovic´ argued that the Serbian Orthodox Church had most expressively fulfilled its national function. The Croatian Glagolitic movement was an instinctive battle for the emancipation from foreign domination; however, it had failed, and Gregory of Nin remained ‘an unsuccessful Croatian St Sava’.72 Serbian textbooks adopted this moderately disparaging approach toward Roman Catholicism in Croatia, claiming that the ban on the use of Old Slavonic in the medieval Croatian church was imposed by members of the Latin clergy and the Roman population in the Dalmatian cities, against the will of the entire Croatian people.73 Milan Rabrenovic´ even claimed that the Latin clergy had pushed through this measure because ‘they hated the Croats for holding their liturgy in their own national language’.74 Within the same line of thinking, Strossmayer’s work was seen as an attempt to bring the Catholic Church closer to the people again, just as the Orthodox Church was.75 The underlying message was clearly that the use of Latin alienated the Croatian church from its authentic Slavonic character and that the Roman Catholic hierarchy was an alien and even anti-Yugoslav institution. It had even attempted to ‘wipe away Croatian national identity’ and thus posed an equal threat to the nation as German, Venetian, or Turkish oppressors.76 *** The earliest Serbian textbooks of the interwar period paid barely any attention to Yugoslav Muslims, and when they did, they interpreted them as an internal Other. Textbooks referred to Islam as the ‘Turkish faith’ and explained that Allah was the ‘Turkish God’, which implied

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that all believers of Islam had some national bond with the Turkish nation.77 Moreover, during the Ottoman period, ‘Serbs of the Muslim faith lived nicely like lords under Turkish rule and the Christians were their subjects.’78 The textbooks of the 1930s showed a growing awareness that South Slav Muslims should be given some incentives to identify with the Yugoslav nation and that Christian students become familiarised with Muslims as part of the nation. Reading books included stories situated in a distinct Muslim setting and texts about important mosques, South Slav Muslim historical figures, or Muslim popular customs.79 The pictures of important sites of interest in Yugoslavia on the covers of the 1934– 5 volume of Jugoslovencˇe included the Emperor’s Mosque in Sarajevo and a mosque in Skopje. The picture of Sarajevo depicted two girls in traditional clothing against the background of a mosque. Geography textbooks and reading books paid significant attention to the Muslim populations of Drina, Vrbas, and Vardar banovina. Milosˇ Matovic´, for example, explicitly pointed to the Ottoman character of cities like Skopje, Sarajevo, and Banja Luka, including illustrations of mosques and minarets. He also presented a more positive image of the Ottoman rule in Bosnia by referring to the periods of prosperity under South Slavs Muslims, ‘Serbs by origin’, in Ottoman administration and government.80 Most textbook authors agreed that the conversion to Islam among South Slavs was not the result of coercion by the Ottoman authorities but of the privileges granted to Muslims and the weakness of the Catholic and the Orthodox Church in Bosnia at the time.81 However, opinions on the effect of the conversion on national consciousness diverged. A first group of authors stressed that the conversion to Islam had not changed the national consciousness of South Slav Muslims. Those citizens who changed their faith could not also change their nationality. Christians who had taken the Muslim faith did not become Turks, although they took over Turkish clothes and lifestyle. What is most important, they kept their mother tongue and many Serbian national customs.82 Other textbooks held on to the ‘Othering’ of South Slav Muslims, arguing that converts ‘continued to speak their mother tongue, but because of their faith, they soon forgot their nationality and protected

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Islam and chased away Christians’,83 or that Yugoslav Muslims ‘maintained their language and some customs but forgot their nationality, which they replaced with faith, and enthusiastically protected Islam and wiped away everything Christian’.84 Both currents, however, agreed that the conversion of South Slavs to Islam was a misfortunate deviation from the Christian norm.85 Additionally, Serbian textbooks continued to think in terms of the Serbian nature of South Slav Muslims. They reduced the contributions of South Slav Muslims to the Yugoslav national case to their contributions to the Serbian (Orthodox) national case. For example, textbooks put more stress on Sokolovic´’s Serbian consciousness as it was reflected in his approval of the re-establishment of the Serbian Patriarchate instead of his role within the Ottoman Empire. The textbooks’ choice of emphasis showed that although Sokolovic´ was Muslim, he ‘never forgot his Serbian origin’ and ‘helped the Serbian nation’.86 This interpretation further narrowed down the place of South Slav Muslims to a hybrid position within the Serbian Orthodox ‘tribe’ of the Yugoslav Christian nation.

Croatian textbooks As in Serbian textbooks, the principle of religious tolerance took a prominent place in the Croatian textbooks: ‘A true patriot is he, who has a hearth, compassion, love, and goodness for all citizens of his country. It is really ugly and low if you hate your brothers and compatriots because they are not of the same faith or social class as you. . .’.87 The Croatian textbooks adopted the model of the national church to substantiate this statement but challenged claims of Serbian Orthodox national superiority. They stressed, for example, that all South Slav Christians stood under the leadership of the Pope in Rome at the time of Christianisation and that the Pope continued to have a strong influence on the early Serbian medieval state.88 They further paid specific attention to the tradition of the Slavonic liturgy in medieval Croatia and the figure of Bishop Gregory of Nin. The Croatian textbooks explained that King Tomislav’s decision to ban Old Slavonic was not a national capitulation. Tomislav supported the national church ‘but could not openly oppose [the Latin clergy] for political reasons’.89 As evidence of the Croats’ continued national consciousness, the textbooks cited that the Croats had managed to maintain the tradition of Slavonic liturgy and the Glagolitic alphabet in some parts of Dalmatia and the Littoral against

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the wishes of the powerful Latin bishops.90 Sigismund Cˇajkovac also pointed to parallel religious traditions among Orthodox and Catholic South Slavs, such as saint’s days and celebrations of Christmas Eve, to indicate the shared national character of South Slav Christianity.91 The attempts made by Croatian textbook authors to give Catholicism an equal place in Yugoslav national identity indicate the viability of the paradigm of the national church as a common denominator between Orthodox and Catholic religious identities and Serbian, Croatian, and Yugoslav national identities. Even after the installation of the Croatian banovina, when integral Yugoslav elements were banned from the curriculum, symbolic resources related to the national character of Christianity among Croats and Serbs and the national role of the Orthodox Church in Serbia continued to take a prominent place in adapted curricula for elementary schools.92 Thus, the concern for Croatian intellectuals and cultural–educational mediators was neither the model of the national church nor its personification in St Sava for the Serbian people; the problem was attempts by the state authorities to expand to the Yugoslav national and state level symbolic resources related to Serbian Orthodoxy, as in the case of St Sava’s Day (cf. Chapter 8). *** Croatian textbook authors made few efforts to apply the principle of religious tolerance toward Yugoslav Muslims beyond discursive statements of religious tolerance. Cˇajkovac propagated solidarity with the Muslim population and stressed that Muslims were not Turks, as they were sometimes called by the people, but ‘brothers by blood and language’.93 However, he considered the conversion to Islam by a part of the Yugoslav nation to be a historical misfortune and a departure from the essential Christian nature of the nation, as if the ‘nation was not already torn apart enough’.94 Zˇivko Jakic´ stated: ‘Bosnian Croats and Serbs who had converted to Islam began considering themselves as one nation with the Turks and began to chase away and hate their Christian brothers.’95 When describing the Montenegrin liberation battles, Jakic´ argued that ‘Islamicised Montenegrins were even worse than Turks’, which was why the Montenegrins ‘slaughtered them’, referring to the historical theme of Petar Petrovic´ Njegosˇ’s magnum opus, The Mountain Wreath.96 By continuing to interpret South Slav Muslims as alien

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elements within their own nation and as agents of Ottoman oppression, Croatian textbooks, just like their Serbian counterparts, failed to provide incentives for viable negotiations between South Slav Muslim and Yugoslav national identity.

The relevance of South Slav Muslim identity in opposition against the Christian approach to Yugoslav religious diversity The ambiguous treatment of South Slav Muslims as deviations from the Christian Yugoslav norm seriously discredited the state’s educational policy among South Slav Muslims. Two Muslim teachers were, for example, fined because they had crossed out texts with Christian religious references in textbooks and told the pupils that they should not read these texts.97 The religious council in Zvornik in north-eastern Bosnia lodged a complaint against a teacher in the local elementary school for offending the religious sentiments of Muslim pupils when treating poems that made use of Christian symbolism. The provincial authorities refuted this complaint, denying that references to Christian religious acts or symbols were offensive to religious sentiments of Muslim pupils. Pupils should learn about the customs of other religions to raise them in the spirit of religious tolerance and brotherly love. In other words, the religious meaning of the poems was subordinate to the message of national tolerance.98 The authorities did not grasp that it was precisely the link between Christian symbolism and Yugoslav nationhood and patriotism that was problematic for South Slav Muslims. Grand Mufti Mehmed Dzˇemaludin Cˇausˇevic´, the moderate leader of the Muslim community in Bosnia-Herzegovina, protested against the use of Serbian reading books in schools with Muslim pupils because they ‘inconveniently and wrongly treat national and religious belonging, as they at times identify the notion of nationality with that of religion’.99 At a congress of reformist and progressive Muslim intellectuals organised by Gajret in 1928, Cˇausˇevic´ repeated his complaint that Muslim pupils had to use textbooks ‘composed in the spirit of the Orthodox faith and containing incorrect historical pieces that offend the religious sentiments of Muslims’.100 In the early 1930s, the Central Committee of Gajret repeatedly presented long lists of textbooks that should be withdrawn from schools with Muslim students.101 Gajret explained that many textbook passages offended the national and religious

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sensibility of Muslim pupils. With regard to religious sensibility, the textbooks contained a large number of Christian elements and incorrect statements about Islam. From a national point of view, ‘the identification of Serbdom with Orthodoxy in... textbooks is a great hindrance for the correct interpretation and feeling of national consciousness among Muslims’.102 The dispute revolved around the intertwinement of religion, ‘tribal’ affiliation, and nationhood, not Yugoslav national belonging as such. In order to make the Yugoslav national programme appealing for South Slav Muslims, representatives of the South Slav Muslims suggested that definitions of Yugoslav nationhood refrain completely from making use of religious symbolic resources and hold on to a strict distinction between religion and nationhood. Cˇausˇevic´, for example, preferred Cˇajkovac’s reading books over the Serbian reading books of the early 1920s because the former contained less religious material, but he added that they could be used by Muslims only if all religious references were deleted.103 The resolution adopted by the 1928 congress of Bosnian Muslim intellectuals stated: Not only out of reasons of religious sensitivity, but also out of reasons of national and cultural unity and culture in general, we most energetically demand that all elements which could offend the religious sentiments of Muslims be deleted from school textbooks.104 This implied the publication of uniform textbooks for the entire kingdom without references to religion.105 Muslim intellectuals refuted Croatian and Serbian claims to South Slav Muslims for much the same reason. The merging of religion and nationhood in understandings of Serbian and Croatian ‘tribal’ identity thwarted the religious identity of South Slav Muslims, should they subscribe to Croatian or Serbian ‘tribal’ identity: There are in our state Croats and Serbs who are closely following the Islamic faith, and this should be taken into account. I am firmly convinced that the most accurate solution is that neither the Catholics nor the Orthodox link their Croat or Serb identity with their religious feelings because it causes a great confusion

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among those Croats who are not Catholic and those Serbs who are not Orthodox.106 This confusion also caused opposition against Gajret’s name change. Numerous reports and declarations from local Gajret clubs opposed the name change and demanded that the association would refrain from imposing any ‘tribal’ affiliation on its members.107 The teacher Arif Nozˇic´ resigned from his position in Gajret out of protest against the new name, which dissatisfied the local Muslim population because they were ‘religiously national’. Promptly, Nozˇic´ was transferred by the Ministry of Education.108 After the agreement on Croatian autonomy of 1939, the Gajret leadership distanced itself from any Serbian affiliation and resorted to Yugoslav nationhood independent of the ‘tribes’. It supported the movement for autonomy of Bosnia-Herzegovina with the ‘historical and ethnographical’ proof that ‘precisely the Muslim element. . . has preserved its racial and Yugoslav national character’ and the argument that they ‘are in fact not exclusively Serb or Croat, but both to the same extent’.109

CONCLUSION

The aspiration to form a single Yugoslav nation out of the state’s South Slav population was one of the most decisive and outstanding features of the interwar Yugoslav educational programme. Curricula explicitly stressed the basic national function of education in the humanities; the abundant statements about Yugoslav patriotism and unity in textbooks, popular publications, and popular commemorative activities transmitted this aspiration to the population. How did the prescriptive definitions of Yugoslav cultural commonality relate to social and political divisions in the country and particularist identities? Ethnic principles obviously dominated definitions of Yugoslav nationhood. Yugoslav nationhood was conceived as the logical outcome of the emancipation of the Yugoslav ethnic group defined by inherited cultural and linguistic patterns. Although civic principles related to the ‘rational’ legitimacy of the Yugoslav and pre-war Serbian state were evoked, these remained clearly subordinate to ethnic principles. Non-Slav population groups in the country were absent from the construction of Yugoslav nationhood in education. They were dissociated from the Yugoslav nation and degraded to minorities in the Yugoslav nation-state. The legitimacy of concurring ‘tribal’ identities within the Yugoslav nation qualified and complicated the unitary understanding of Yugoslav nationhood. Definitions of Yugoslav cultural commonality reveal a more open approach than the policy makers’ forceful and uncompromising statements about integral Yugoslav national unity might lead us to assume. The schematic outline of Yugoslav national identity in curricula

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presented a synthesis of the three established ‘tribal’ traditions and the three dominant religious identities based on the common denominators of parallelism, cooperation, and zones of overlap. Yugoslav national loyalty did not require abandoning ‘tribal’ or religious loyalties or homogenising them into one nationwide master narrative. Instead, Yugoslav national loyalty brought together ‘tribal’ and religious loyalties – portraying them as the historical expressions of Yugoslav national consciousness – in an open and inclusive understanding of Yugoslav nationhood. This template provided leeway for certain ‘tribal’ or religious biases in concrete articulations of Yugoslav nationhood. Textbooks, popular publications, and commemorative activities took the opportunity and mediated between various levels of national identification rather than provided uniform and fixed definitions of what it meant to be Yugoslav. The Yugoslav state ideology had a clear impact on definitions of national identity in Serbian textbooks. The Serbian textbooks were characterised by imaginative interaction between the Yugoslav ideological context and the definition of Serbian national identity that had been codified in pre-war Serbian textbooks. On the one hand, this codified definition of Serbian national identity clearly shaped the imagination of Yugoslav national identity. The textbooks attempted to make sense of the Yugoslav nation through mechanisms that had been applied in the pre-war imagination of Serbian identity – most enduringly the historical narrative of independent statehood and a nationally conscious church. On the other hand, adaptations to the Yugoslav ideological context through the inclusion of an increasing number of non-Serbian symbolic resources and especially the application of an underlying structure of links and zones of overlap between constituent parts of the Yugoslav nation led to the reshaping of Serbian national identity. Serbian identity was part of an overarching Yugoslav whole, which allowed for linguistic, historical, religious, and regional diversity and fluidity, all of which reduced the relevance of clear-cut boundaries and the internal homogeneity of Serbian national identity. Unlike their Serbian counterparts, Croatian textbooks found a workable balance between Yugoslavism and Croatianism from the start of the interwar period. Croatian textbooks prior to World War I had already provided a basis for Yugoslav understanding and referred to Serbian symbolic resources, which meant that adaptations to the

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Yugoslav context after World War I were less profound than those in Serbian textbooks. However, the coexistence of the Croatian and Yugoslav level of national identity in these early textbooks indicates the contextual relevance and viability of mediations between Croatian and Yugoslav national identity in Croatian intellectual circles, even those close to the Croatian Peasant Party. The common denominators used to integrate Croatian symbolic resources within Yugoslav national identity were identical to those provided in curricula and applied in the Serbian textbooks of the 1930s and thus seem to have been inspirational for the educational programme of the Yugoslav authorities. Whereas Serbian textbooks of the 1930s were characterised by the increasing relevance of the Yugoslav level of national identity and the opening up of Serbian national identity, the 1937 Croatian reading books brought the category of Croatian national identity to the fore. Sigismund Cˇajkovac and his colleagues highlighted the distinctness of Croatian national identity within the Yugoslav whole and reduced the degree of fluidity between both levels of national identity. Croatian symbolic resources were no longer directly related to the Yugoslav national level but through parallelism and harmony with Serbian and Slovenian ‘brothers’. In other words, the reading books delineated Croatian national identity as an intermediary building block of Yugoslav unity, reflecting the dissociation from integral Yugoslavism and the increasing relevance of the boundaries of Croatian national identity in Croatian intellectual and political circles during the 1930s. Serbian and Croatian textbooks agreed that other particularist identities within the Yugoslav nation could be ignored. The Slovenian tradition occupied only a very marginal and peripheral position in their imagination of Yugoslav national identity. Vice versa, the imagination of Yugoslav nationhood in Slovenian textbooks strongly differed from that in Serbian and Croatian textbooks. Slovenian textbooks held on to the distinct place of the Slovenian nation within the Yugoslav whole and defined Yugoslav unity as an overarching concept comprised of clearly distinct building blocks. They made use of a Slovenian national framework in defining language, literature, history, and geography and subsequently added distinct overviews for the Croatian and Serbian ‘tribes’ to come to Yugoslav unity. The prescription that Slovenian pupils would continue to study the Slovenian language variant and the establishment of Drava banovina, which completely concurred with

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Slovenian national territory, show that the dictatorship made exceptions for the integration of the Slovenian nation within the Yugoslav whole. Nevertheless, Slovenian textbooks did not profoundly implement the educational policy of the 1930s. The symbolic resources given in the reading books of the late 1930s differed completely from those given in the curricula, and banovinas were not even mentioned. The observation that Slovenian reading books for elementary schools were not obliged to follow the curricula and could retain an explicit Slovenian national framework for the study of language, history, and geography further confirms the specific position of Slovenian national identity within the dictatorship’s nationalities policy. At the same time, there is no sign of a changing position on the relationship between Slovenian and Yugoslav national identity in the textbooks of the second half of the 1930s. Regardless of the dissatisfaction and disillusionment with the Royal Dictatorship among politicians and intellectuals, textbooks continued to present the Slovenian and Yugoslav categories as compatible levels of national belonging. The distinction between hybrid and multiple identities is particularly useful for comparing the three approaches to nationhood in the textbooks.1 The relationship between Serbian and Yugoslav identity in Serbian textbooks is hybrid; the lines of demarcation are diffuse and the hierarchy is unclear. It is neither clear nor relevant where the Serbian collective stops and the Yugoslav begins. The relationship between Slovenian and Yugoslav identity in Slovenian textbooks is multiple: it is manifold, as that between layers around a core; the lines of demarcation and the hierarchy between layers of identification is clear. It is obvious where the Slovenian collective stops and the Yugoslav begins. The approach to identity in Croatian textbooks in fact developed from a hybrid to a multiple relationship. The lines of demarcation delineating Croatian national identity from the Yugoslav collective became increasingly rigid and meaningful. The varying approaches toward nationhood in textbooks reflect the possibilities and limitations inherent in the institutionalisation of Yugoslav nationhood in interwar Yugoslavia. More than political statements and programmes, textbooks illustrate the fluid and dynamic character of nationhood in interwar Yugoslavia. Regardless of the integral Yugoslav discourse of ruling political elites throughout a great part of the interwar period, concrete definitions of Yugoslav national

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identity made sense through Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian lenses. Textbooks negotiated between both levels of national identification, illustrating not only that Yugoslav nationhood was not inherently incompatible with a sense of Serbian, Croatian, or Slovenian national belonging but also that Yugoslav national identification would only work in so far as it succeed in mobilising Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian national identities. One common element in textbooks published in Belgrade, Zagreb, and Ljubljana was that they did not provide room for negotiations between Yugoslav national identity and particularist identities other than those of the Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian ‘tribes’. The obligatory medium of Serbian ‘tribal’ identity and its narrow and closed definition around the core of Serbian statehood and language reduced the attractiveness of Yugoslav nationhood as a framework for Montenegrin and Macedonian particularist identification (the former was based on the Montenegrin historical statehood, the latter on the distance between the Serbo-Croatian literary language and the Macedonian vernacular). This approach was especially problematic for South Slav Muslims as a result of the close link between religion and national identity in typical understandings of Yugoslav nationhood and ‘tribal’ identities. Concretisations of the model of the national church in Serbian and Croatian textbooks and in the commemorative activities in schools defined the Yugoslav nation as a fundamentally Christian nation and hampered the identification of South Slav Muslims with the Yugoslav nation. The Yugoslav authorities remained aloof to the initiatives taken by representatives of Montenegrin, Macedonian, and South Slav Muslims intellectuals in their efforts to mediate between their particularist loyalties and the concept of Yugoslav nationhood while circumventing the narrow ‘tribal’ medium. The result was the growing salience of what set these groups apart from the dominant ‘tribes’ (religion for South Slav Muslims, historical statehood for Montenegrins, and language for Macedonians) and the reduced attractiveness of Yugoslav nationhood.

CHAPTER 8 THE DIVISIVE USE OF YUGOSLAVISM IN HISTORICAL AND RELIGIOUS COMMEMORATIONS

The strength of the synthetic approach to Yugoslav national identity was that it did not require an exclusive choice between Yugoslav and particularist identities. Ideally, it activated Yugoslav national belonging as a complement to other national, regional, and religious categories of identification and allowed for the adaptation of the concrete definition and use of Yugoslav national identity depending on specific subYugoslav settings. Internal cultural, historical, religious, or regional boundaries seemed to become less divisive in such an inclusive understanding of Yugoslav nationhood. At the same time, insights from Yugoslavia’s political constellation and disputes surrounding the Yugoslav educational programme suggest that particularist boundaries within the Yugoslav collective remained available for giving meaning to certain social and political divisions in the country. This chapter elaborates on this imbalance by looking at commemorative activity, which is ‘by definition social and political, for it involves the coordination of individual and group memories, whose results may appear consensual when they are in fact the product of processes of intense contest, struggle, and in some instances, annihilation’.1 The many controversies around commemorative activity in interwar Yugoslavia reveal the complexities to make internal political and

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ideological divisions and their potential connection with particularist divides inconsequential for Yugoslav national unity.

The school commemoration of St Sava: Religion, nationhood, and Serbian Orthodox hegemony2 Besides the two official state holidays of Unification Day (1 December) and the anniversary of King Alexander (17 December),3 school holidays were primarily derived from Serbian national history and Serbian Orthodoxy. The state authorities simply continued the commemorative practice from pre-war Serbia: the Orthodox holiday of Sts Cyril and Methodius (24 May) was a day off. On St Sava’s Day (27 January), schools organised activities and festivities to celebrate the state and education. The festive ending of the school year took place on Vidovdan (28 June).4 This policy did not necessarily express a conscious act of Greater Serbian Orthodox assimilation through schools but shows the unproblematic coexistence of Serbian, Orthodox, and Yugoslav collective identification in the national thinking of pre-war Serbian centres of authority (dynasty, politicians, army, and church). However, the expansion of Serbian national– religious commemorations to the statewide Yugoslav level proved very controversial among political and cultural representatives of recognised particularist stakeholders in the composite Yugoslav nation, that is representatives of the Slovenian and especially Croatian ‘tribes’ and the three religious communities. The controversies surrounding the school commemoration of Vidovdan (St Vitus’ Day), the day the Battle of Kosovo took place, give a good illustration of these complications. The Yugoslav authorities continued the pre-war Serbian tradition of festively ending the school year on Vidovdan with popular lectures, concerts, festivities, and gymnastics performances.5 Although intended for the entire country and historically framed in a Yugoslav teleological narrative, Vidovdan as a symbolic resource remained primarily linked to Serbian –Orthodox particularist identity. In 1928, for example, the Ministry of Education commissioned all elementary schools to hold lectures on the importance of the Orthodox church in Samodrezˇa in northern Kosovo, where Prince Lazar was blessed just before the Battle of Kosovo. The teachers were expected to popularise the association founded to restore the church.6 Such a religiously inspired commemoration was not likely to

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mobilise non-Orthodox population groups and shows the feeble basis for the statewide celebration of Vidovdan. An element which certainly added to the controversy was the fact that 28 June was the date when the first centralised constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes had been legalised in 1921, and came to symbolise growing Croat–Serb political polarisation and Serbian political hegemony. Reports of local authorities illustrate the contested nature of Vidovdan in non-Serbian schools. On Vidovdan 1932, elementary school pupils in Komin in south Dalmatia demonstrated with Croatian flags,7 shouting ‘Long live Croatia’, ‘Long live Macˇek’, ‘Glory to Stjepan Radic´’, and other ‘anti-state’ slogans. The police reported that the principal of the elementary school had not interfered even after a colleague had urged him to do so. Further investigations and reports clarified that the principal was ‘nationally suspicious’ because he stemmed from a family of prominent separatists, kept close contact with the most prominent anational people in the area, had refused to become a member of the local Sokol gymnastics club, and had established a branch of Napredak. ‘Many national persons’ complained that as a result of his activism ‘the school going children. . . were completely corrupted’.8 Some of his pupils had even declared that their ancestors were Croats and that they did not like Yugoslavia. Taking into consideration that the village of Komin was completely ‘infected with separatist ideas’, the police successfully demanded the transfer of the principal.9 In this case, the school commemoration of Vidovdan did not convey national unity but reproduced the ‘tribal’ – political divisions in the country. *** The most controversial of the school commemorations was St Sava’s Day. On 20 December 1928, barely three months after the publication of the initial regulations on school holidays, the Ministry of Education added Strossmayer’s Day (4 February) as a second ‘day of general cultural– national celebration’, obviously as a gesture toward the Croatian Catholic part of the nation.10 The Ministry also wrote out more detailed prescriptions to guarantee ‘that the celebration of St Sava fully preserves its character of a general civil –educational holiday’.11 The school and the local church were responsible for co-organising St Sava’s Day festivities only in schools with a homogenous Orthodox pupil

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community. In case the Orthodox pupils formed a majority in the school, the religious service should be separated from the school festivities, so that non-Orthodox pupils would not have to attend the religious part of the holiday. Where Orthodox pupils formed a minority, the religious celebration could not take place in the school. In any case, it should be made certain that pupils and parents understand and experience the celebration of St Sava as national enlightener as a common national holiday. In that sense, especially in mixed schools, attention should be paid to the programme of the festivities (speeches, declamations, songs, et cetera) so that everything takes place in the wide spirit of religious tolerance and national unity.12 Educational authorities thus distinguished between the religious celebration of St Sava’s Day, which was exclusively intended for Orthodox children, and the secular– national part of the commemoration, which was intended for the entire nation and was obligatory for all students.13 However, the fact that this distinction was not made for schools with a homogeneous Orthodox population hints at the fuzzy and problematic nature of this division. Regardless of these measures to embed the commemoration of St Sava within a broader Yugoslav framework and to detach the school holiday of St Sava from the Serbian Orthodox commemoration, at least for nonOrthodox children, the school celebration of St Sava’s Day led to frequent disputes between the state authorities and representatives of the religious institutions in Yugoslavia. These controversies revolved around the appropriation of religious symbolic resources in definitions of Yugoslav national identity in education rather than the Yugoslav national idea underpinning the state’s educational policy. During the 1920s, Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim religious thinkers had adopted a rather ambiguous position toward the Yugoslav state and national idea. Although the religious diversity in addition to the cultural, institutional, and political novelties associated with the new state generated defensive fears and anxieties, many religious thinkers deployed the discourse of Yugoslav nationhood to support their religious agendas. The Croatian Catholic Movement strove for Catholic activism and rallied clergy and laypersons behind the re-Christianisation

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of society. A relatively strong wing in this movement, centred on the Seniorat (an association of Croatian Catholic lay intellectuals serving as the executive branch of the Croatian Catholic Movement) and the Croatian Popular Party (the political party that spearheaded the movement), made use of the Yugoslav national idea to pursue an agenda of Catholic activism.14 Reform-oriented Bosnian Muslim elites, who occupied leading positions in influential Bosnian Muslim religious and cultural institutions, related their agendas for the cultural, economic, and political progress of South Slav Muslims to equal rights for Bosnian or more broadly South Slav Muslims in the Yugoslav nationstate on the basis of their Yugoslav national belonging. At this stage, discussions between moderate and conservative South Slav Muslim religious thinkers were not framed in national language; conservative thinkers did not oppose their Islamic traditions to Yugoslav modernity. In fact, Yugoslav national identity allowed all currents to circumvent the thorny and internally divisive question of the Serbian or Croatian affiliation of South Slav Muslims.15 Serbian Orthodox thinkers, finally, enthusiastically embraced the Yugoslav national discourse but at the same time retained a Serbian Orthodox ontology. They considered the Yugoslav nation-state as the framework within which the church’s internal organisation could be consolidated and as an expansion of their working terrain.16 During the Royal Dictatorship, Yugoslav religious thinkers and institutions increasingly turned away from Yugoslavism. The Yugoslav strand in the Croatian Catholic Movement was completely outshined by the Croatian political nationalism of the Croatian Peasant Party. After the ban on political parties, the Catholic Church became a Croatian national ersatz medium, and Catholic opposition against the state authorities increasingly concurred with Croatian political opposition.17 Serbian Orthodoxy was firmly linked to Serbian nationhood through the ideas of Svetosavlje, named after St Sava. Although the ideas grouped under the term Svetosavlje formed a rather diverse cluster – including anti-Western, anti-secular, conservative, and modernist elements – the interpretation of St Sava as the foundation and embodiment of the Serbian national Church and sacred nation signals a turn away from the coexistence of the Yugoslav and Serbian levels of national identity in the understanding of Serbian Orthodoxy.18 In the second half of the 1930s, Mehmed Handzˇic´, the leading figure of

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Islamic revivalism, which called for a strict implementation of Shari’a rules, formulated a nascent contemporary Bosniak nationalism that concurred with similar forms of the nationalisation of religion among representatives of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches in Yugoslavia. Handzˇic´ argued that Islam was compatible with nationalism, an idea that meshed with the ideological framework of the interwar Yugoslav state. However, instead of inscribing this nationalised Islam within a Yugoslav national framework, Handzˇic´ adopted a notion of Bosnian Muslim religious and national identity (bosˇnjasˇtvo) and thus separated Bosnian Muslims from Croatian Catholics and Serbian Orthodox Christians not only religiously but also nationally.19 These evolutions should not be understood as evidence of the inherent and long-term incompatibility of religious diversity and nationhood or as a nationalised rivalry between different religious institutions. In what follows, I relate the reshuffling of alliances between religious and national categories of identification to controversies surrounding the institutionalisation of nationhood and religion in the Yugoslav nationstate as evidenced in the school celebrations of St Sava’s Day.

The Islamic Religious Community and St Sava In early 1930, Grand Mufti Mehmed Dzˇemaludin Cˇausˇevic´ organised a boycott against the school celebration of St Sava’s Day. Besides purely theological reasons, Cˇausˇevic´ maintained that the intertwining of religious and national elements in the school celebration of St Sava contradicted the state’s prescriptions that the national and the religious should be strictly separated.20 Cˇausˇevic´’s daughter, for example, had been forced to sing the Hymn to St Sava at school, which glorified St Sava as the head of the Serbian Church, schools, and people and thus strongly intertwined religious and national categories.21 He also gave the examples of teachers who had forced Muslim students to attend the religious celebration of St Sava to convince them that there was only one true Orthodox faith and of local authorities who had forced Muslim teachers to celebrate St Sava.22 The boycott concurred with the subordination of the Islamic Religious Community (IVZ, Islamska verska zajednica) to the control of state and nation. The highest Islamic authorities in Yugoslavia were placed under the direct control of the Ministry of Justice and had their seat transferred from Sarajevo to Belgrade. Furthermore, the government

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appointed all muftis (high Islamic scholars and interpreters of Islamic law) in the country, the members of the two ulema medzˇlis (religious councils) in Sarajevo and Skopje, and committees for vakuf (funds for Islamic religious, cultural –educational, and humanitarian work). The result was a reshuffle of personnel in these institutions, which became dominated by representatives close to the central authorities and generally supportive of the Serbian national affiliation of South Slav Muslims.23 In April 1930, Cˇausˇevic´ himself retired as Grand Mufti in opposition to the increased state control over the Islamic community. Cˇausˇevic´ was replaced by Ibrahim Maglajlic´, a supporter of the Radical government of the early 1920s.24 The enthronement ceremony of Maglajlic´ took place in the Bajrakli Mosque in Belgrade in the presence of King Alexander, a row of ministers, and representatives from the Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church, and the Jewish community, thus symbolising the subordination of the Islamic religious community to state and nation and the parallel national tolerance of different religious communities in the country.25 In this context, the regime took swift actions against the Islamic boycott of St Sava’s Day. Two teachers in Srebrenica in western Bosnia were fined with 150 dinars or three days of imprisonment for organising a local boycott of St Sava’s Day.26 Also in Srebrenica, eight Muslim parents were sentenced to fines of 200–300 dinars or three days in prison for not sending their children to school on St Sava’s Day.27 One of the sentenced took his case to the provincial authorities and clarified that upon inspecting the school in his role as head of the local school committee, he had noticed that the teacher had decorated the school and prepared the celebration in a strictly religious way as he had been accustomed to doing in homogeneously Orthodox Uzˇice, where he had worked before. However, in Srebrenica the Orthodox pupils were not in the majority; therefore, the religious celebration could not take place in school.28 The Islamic Religious Council supported this case with references to articles in the new Law on the Islamic Religious Community citing that Muslims could not be forced to participate in public activities or celebrations of other religions, but with no success.29 These controversies reveal the crux of the discussion between the Islamic religious authorities and the state. In the reasoning of the state authorities, the Islamic complaints were simply ungrounded because the school celebrations of St Sava were not religious but national:

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The commemoration of St Sava is not an act or a manifestation of one religion, it is a celebration of the school, which is a temple devoted to science, education, and culture and belongs to all faiths and classes. The celebration of 27 January is not a religious ritual but the recognition by the school of a great historical figure, who has done the most for our national education and culture, and that celebration belongs to all faiths, not only the faith of our first national enlightener. Because the celebration takes place in school and not in the religious building of one specific faith, I will strictly punish every pupil who will not attend this commemoration, regardless of his faith.30 The constant reminders by the authorities that Muslim pupils could not be forced to attend the religious part of the celebrations on St Sava’s Day, however, indicate the vagueness of the boundary between religion and nationhood in the commemorations.31 Muslim religious thinkers for their part maintained that St Sava’s Day remained a religious holiday. Their opposition to the celebration of St Sava in school did not revolve around the Yugoslav national programme in the state’s educational policy but around the intertwining of religion and Yugoslav nationhood. Indeed, Cˇausˇevic´ himself consistently deployed the Yugoslav national idea in the framework of his reformist religious activism.32 The reformist voices that dominated Islamic religious institutions did not demand the addition of Muslim religious holidays as statewide school holidays to balance the Christian bias but instead suggested a strict division between religion and national education. At the congress of Muslim intellectuals held on the occasion of Gajret’s 25th anniversary, Cˇausˇevic´ complained that Muslim pupils were alienated from elementary schools because they were forced to participate in Orthodox celebrations of St Sava, Sts Cyril and Methodius, and Vidovdan. He demanded that such religious holidays should be removed from schools because ‘it is no longer necessary to spread nationalism in a religious spirit in the twentieth century’.33 The congress suggested the removal of all religious ceremonies from schools because they deprived Muslims of their right to national education.34 For South Slav Muslims to participate in Yugoslav national education, all religious resources had to be removed. This suggestion was remarkably secular in the sense that it clearly differentiates between national and

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religious realms of human activity. The failure of the state authorities to take these suggestions into consideration and to bring the appeal of Yugoslavism among reformist Muslim intellectuals in agreement with their own Yugoslav nationalism explains the growing salience of the nationalisation of religion among Bosnian Muslims in the form of a ‘one faith – one nation’ oppositional strategy. By the end of 1932, the Ministry had apparently changed its mind and decided that Muslim students could not be obliged to attend the ‘state-school’ part of the St Sava commemoration.35 The government of Bogoljub Jevtic´ again annulled this amendment,36 leading to fierce criticism from Islamic religious leaders that ‘the commemoration of St Sava as a religious saint of the Orthodox church cannot be divided in a religious and a secular part’.37 Finally, the changes to the law on the Islamic Religious Community of February 1936, which had been one of the JMO’s requirements for joining the governmental coalition of Milan Stojadinovic´, assured broad autonomy for the IVZ over religious matters and returned its seat to Sarajevo; it also stressed that Muslim citizens could not be forced to participate in religious festivities or ceremonies of other religions. Crucially, the Islamic Religious Community had the right to decide precisely which ceremonies this included.38

The Catholic Church and St Sava Also in Catholic schools, the celebration of St Sava turned out to be problematic. Many schools simply did not celebrate St Sava’s Day.39 The district chief of Sˇibenik, on the central Dalmatian coast, started an investigation against a local religious teacher-cum-priest because he had forbidden his pupils to buy stamps with the picture of St Sava and had threatened to give those who did low grades. The school principal confirmed that the stamp with the picture of St Sava had been much less popular than those with pictures of Karađorđe or Prince Peter. In his own defence, the religious teacher argued that he had mistakenly thought that the pupils were talking about an icon and not about stamps. He had only advised the pupils not to buy religious objects devoted to St Sava and had not intended to make any claims about St Sava as the patron of education. To the contrary, he stated: ‘I greatly value St Sava for his cultural meaning. In the fourth year of civil school, I annually give a special lecture in which I stress that a scholar considers him to be a Catholic because he died in a monastery that recognised the

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unity of the church.’40 Although formulated rather clumsily, this interpretation strictly separated the religious from the national St Sava and corresponded to the reasoning of the educational authorities. The district chief added that the priest was known as a good citizen and that this case ‘should not be considered as an anti-tribal or anti-state act, but as an ill-considered act inspired by his religious fanaticism’.41 Pupils of the elementary school in Koprivnica in northern Croatia reacted very hostilely to a voluntary collection for the Church of St Sava, in line with prescriptions by the ministry (see further).42 Interrogations of the pupils by the school principal confirmed that ‘religious–tribal’ intolerance was the reason for the scant success of the collection. One of the pupils had even mumbled that he would give money for the Catholic Church but ‘not for the Vlachs’.43 Some pupils claimed that the teacher had threatened to beat everyone who would not pay for the church, but more thorough investigations revealed that students of the local gymnasium had instigated the pupils to tell such lies. One of the pupils had taught his friends an ‘anti-state’ song: ‘Rain is falling, Serbia is going down – The wind is blowing, Croatia expands’, which he had learned from older students. This brought the principal to despair: How can you justify that you, as an elementary school pupil, wanted to teach the others a song which spreads hatred toward our Serbian brothers, while as a pupil of the fourth year you should be well aware of the importance of the Serbian people for our Unification and Liberation?44 The principal, however, warned that harsh punishments for these pupils would only have the opposite effect in the atmosphere of ‘tribal separatism’ in Koprivnica.45 The celebration of St Sava’s Day also led to discussions with the leadership of the Catholic Church in Yugoslavia. The Archbishop of Zagreb, Dr Antun Bauer, first intervened against a prescription of the Ministry of Education that in all schools special lectures had to be given about the building of the Church of St Sava in Belgrade and that pupils could make voluntary donations for the building of the church.46 This decree was formulated at the suggestion of the Serbian Patriarch Varnava, who had convinced the Ministry of Education of the importance of a big ‘national’ monument for St Sava and suggested that

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every student could make a donation of one dinar to ‘repay their first enlightener and teacher’.47 Bauer’s complaint that it was unacceptable for Catholic pupils to contribute to the building of an Orthodox church made sense, even within the reasoning of the educational authorities: the decree did not make a clear distinction between the commemoration of St Sava as a religious and as a national figure. The Archbishop, however, took his criticism a step further and questioned the very possibility to distinguish between the religious and national St Sava: I remark that St Sava is not a common Yugoslav saint, but just a tribal Serbian saint, and thus such an action leads to the destruction of religious peace and tolerance and provokes religious and tribal passions in the context of the present critical and tense relations among the school population, which is not in the least in the interest of the peaceful upbringing of the youth. I add that in these times of crisis the collection of donations among school going children is very inconvenient, especially those which also insult religious sentiments.48 The Archbishop of Sarajevo, Ivan Sˇaric´, called it a serious anomaly to introduce religious elements to a national school celebration: ‘If you want to give that celebration an all-national and educational meaning, it should be disposed of all religious elements, if not, it should be restricted to children of the Serbian Orthodox faith.’49 The Catholic Episcopate supported these complaints with examples of schools where Catholic pupils were forced to participate in religious acts on St Sava’s Day, mostly the singing of the Hymn to St Sava.50 The quotes above clearly reveal conformation to the Yugoslav national language of the period and indicate that, like the Islamic Religious Community, the Catholic Church did not oppose Yugoslav national education per se but its intertwining with symbolic resources related to Serbian Orthodoxy. This support for Yugoslav national education is not surprising for Bauer, who had been a proponent of South Slav national unity and had belonged to the Yugoslav-oriented wing in the Croatian Catholic Movement.51 Sˇaric´, however, represented the more exclusively Croatian branch of the Catholic religious thinkers in the region. His interactions with the Yugoslav state authorities were tense, and he would become a firm supporter of the Independent State of Croatia

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during World War II.52 Nevertheless, even he accommodated himself to the Yugoslav national discourse, opposing the usage of Serbian Orthodox symbolic resources in national education but not the principle of Yugoslav national education. Time and again, the Ministry of Education refuted these arguments and stated that St Sava was not only a saint of the Serbian Orthodox Church but also a historical figure of significant cultural– national and educational importance for the Yugoslavs and that a strict distinction between the two could be made.53 The failure of the educational authorities to align the accommodation to Yugoslav national language among Catholic religious thinkers with their own Yugoslav nationalist agenda explains the growing salience of the nationalisation of Catholicism in the form of a ‘one faith – one nation’ model. The Concordat between the Holy See and the Yugoslav government determined that Catholic students could not be forced to participate in non-Catholic ceremonies, but it is not entirely clear whether this applied to St Sava’s Day because the state authorities saw the school commemoration of St Sava as a national and not a religious celebration. Only after the establishment of the Croatian banovina did the authorities prescribe unambiguously that Orthodox pupils in the banovina could celebrate the feast day according to their traditions, whereas Catholics simply had a day off.54

The Serbian Orthodox Church and St Sava The Orthodox Patriarch Varnava made the circle full when he stated to the Ministry of Education that in case Catholic pupils would no longer be obliged to participate in the commemoration of St Sava, the Orthodox pupils, for their part, should not have to take part in the celebration of Strossmayer’s Day.55 Serbian Orthodox thinkers generally had few concerns over the intertwinement of Orthodoxy and Yugoslav nationhood, as the abovementioned suggestion by Patriarch Varnava to organise a statewide collection for the ‘national’ Church of St Sava evidences. Nikolaj Velimirovic´, one of the most important Serbian Orthodox theologians and activists who was at that time Bishop of Zˇicˇa, polemically refuted Archbishop Bauer’s demand that non-Orthodox pupils should not participate in the celebration of St Sava. According to Velimirovic´, Sava had laid the basis for the Serbian medieval and modern state and thus also for Yugoslavia.56

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From the Serbian Orthodox point of view, the installation of St Sava as a Yugoslav patron saint confirmed the close link between the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Yugoslav state, which had manifested in the state support for the unification process of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the early 1920s and perpetuated the alliance between state and church in pre-World War I Serbia.57 The statewide celebration of St Sava’s Day also reflected the unproblematic coexistence of the Yugoslav and Serbian level of national identity in the thinking about Serbian Orthodoxy. Leading figures in the Serbian Orthodox Church enthusiastically greeted the establishment of the Yugoslav state from a Yugoslav national point of view but at the same time interpreted the unification of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the suffering of the Serbian nation and church during the Balkan Wars and the World War I within a strictly Serbian national framework.58 Velimirovic´, for example, infused his religious thinking with Serbian and Yugoslav national discourse during the World War I and the immediate post-war period.59 The compatibility of Serbian and Yugoslav national categories and Orthodoxy was also evident in the obligatory presence of high Orthodox clericals at official state commemorations of important dates from the Balkan Wars and the World War I. Vice versa, on 28 August 1924, King Alexander and an entire row of ministers and high military representatives attended the enthronement of Patriarch Dimitrije. The royal charter read out on the occasion acknowledged the national credentials of the Serbian Orthodox Church from the Middle Ages until World War I.60 After leading Dimitrije to the patriarchal throne, King Alexander handed him an icon of St Sava and kissed the cross of Tsar Dusˇan. Patriarch Dimitrije compared the present act to the enthronement of Patriarch Janic´ije by Tsar Dusˇan and referred to the national tradition of St Sava, Karađorđe, and Prince Milosˇ. However, the one thing missing in this typical Serbian national setting was a direct reference to the Serbian nation. Instead, Dimitrije claimed that ‘the long desired brotherly embrace of all tribes of our nation has shined today from this sanctuary’.61 For Serbian Orthodox religious thinkers, the Serbian Orthodox Church also deserved national commemoration, unlike the international Catholic Church. A review of Vladimir Dvornikovic´’s Characterology criticised Dvornikovic´’s glorification of the Yugoslavism of Josip Juraj Strossmayer and instead unmasked it as a manoeuvre of the Roman Catholic Church to enslave the South Slavs in the Catholic ‘cage’ of the

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Austro-Hungarian Double Monarchy.62 The review stated, ‘the figure of Bishop Strossmayer illustrates the failed attempt to merge nationalism with international Catholicism. He is the perfect proof in our Yugoslav history that it is impossible to be a good nationalist and a good Catholic at the same time’.63 The increasing polarisation between the Serbian Orthodox Church, the secular Yugoslav state authorities, and the Catholic Church finally culminated in the mass demonstrations by leaders and supporters of the Serbian Orthodox Church against the ratification of the Concordat. The Concordat allegedly privileged the Catholic Church in Yugoslavia, posed a danger to the sovereignty of the Yugoslav state, which the Orthodox Church apparently protected, and was the outcome of a Catholic and internationalist attack on the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Serbian sacred nation.64 At first sight, thus, there were few reasons for the Serbian Orthodox leadership to oppose the statewide school celebrations of St Sava. Discussions arose, however, concerning the strict division between religious and secular celebrations in school. Patriarch Varnava called for a revision of the legal prescription requiring that the church celebration of St Sava be separated from the school celebration in religiously mixed schools; he argued that St Sava celebrations should express the merging of church, nation, state, and school that St Sava himself had advocated.65 In 1935, the Serbian Patriarchate organised the 700th anniversary of the death of St Sava with St Sava’s Year (svetosavska godina). The Serbian Orthodox Church framed this religious commemoration in Yugoslav national discourse. The commemoration was intended to have an ‘all-national’ character, and the Church would make great efforts to instil the figure of St Sava ‘in the heart and mind of [the] nation’ and continue the merging of nation, state, and religion initiated by St Sava. For the complete success of St Sava’s Year, the Patriarchate requested the cooperation of the Ministry of Education. St Sava’s Day should be celebrated more festively than ever before. Students should make excursions to places that were bound with the figure of St Sava, and travelling teachers of the Orthodox Church should be allowed to hold lectures in schools. Orthodox pupils and parents should also make donations for the Church of St Sava.66 The assassination of King Alexander in October 1934 seriously complicated the celebration. The Ministry informed the Patriarchate that it had commissioned all schools to celebrate St Sava’s Day humbly

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in the light of the general mourning over Alexander’s death and suggested to postpone the special celebrations to the next year.67 More fundamentally, the Ministry rejected the merging of religious and national elements in the proposal of the Orthodox Church. Special lectures by representatives of the Patriarchate, collections, and excursions only applied for Orthodox pupils. Because the lectures on 27 January were intended for all pupils, they could only ‘speak about the life, work, meaning, and personality of St Sava as a national enlightener and as one of the most important figures in the history of [the] people’.68 In other words, whereas the Serbian Orthodox Church envisaged the nationalisation of the essentially religious commemoration of St Sava, the state authorities held on to the clear division between the religious and national celebration of St Sava. The growing dissociation between the use of religious symbols in the Yugoslav state’s nation-building policy and the Serbian Orthodox Church’s national thinking eventually complicated the merging of Serbian and Yugoslav national categories in the religious ontology of the Church leadership. In its earliest phase during the first half of the 1930s, the ideas of Svetosavlje were not exclusively linked to the Serbian nation but reached out to the Yugoslavs, Slavs, and all humanity. In that regard, Svetosavlje was the religious counterpart to the secular Yugoslav interpretation of St Sava propagated by the state authorities.69 In the second half of the 1930s, Serbian Orthodox thinkers, the most prominent of whom was Velimirovic´, explicitly rejected the Yugoslav interpretation of St Sava and appropriated Sava as the basis of a fundamentally Orthodox and anti-Western definition of Serbian national culture.70 The rejection of the Yugoslav element in these alternative interpretations of St Sava ought to be understood as a reaction against the secular Yugoslav nationalising policy of the Yugoslav state. *** The nation-building policy of the interwar Yugoslav state gave a place to religious diversity within Yugoslav nationhood by pointing out the common national character of different religious traditions. It made a distinction between the more superficial, religious character and the fundamental, national character of symbolic resources like St Sava. Religious authorities objected to the secularisation of what they conceived

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as fundamentally religious resources, time and again arguing that it was impossible to make a distinction between the religious and the national St Sava. The leaders of the Catholic Church and the Islamic Religious Community continuously warned that merging religious symbols such as St Sava with the Yugoslav nation only discredited the Yugoslav national idea among Catholics and Muslims precisely because St Sava remained a Serbian Orthodox saint. These warnings were, in fact, confirmed not only by the Serbian Orthodox Church’s rejection of any national interpretation of St Sava in which his Orthodox religious meaning was downplayed or put aside, but also by the fact that the educational authorities did not deem it necessary to make a distinction between church and school celebrations of St Sava’s Day for Orthodox pupils. Thus, these disputes reveal in essences the fundamentally different ontologies of religion and nationhood: the essential point of reference for interpreting St Sava in nationalist thinking is the nation, in religious thinking religion. The leaders of the Islamic Religious Community and the Catholic Church suggested harmonising religious and Yugoslav national loyalties by delineating and separating the domains of religion and the Yugoslav nation. This suggestion indicates a considerable concession to secular modernity because it acknowledged the restriction of the churches’ influence. The nationalisation of religion, which was a prominent feature of Catholic and Muslim religious thinking in Yugoslavia by the end of the interwar period, was a more offensive appropriation of the nation in support of a religious worldview. It was also an accommodation to the close intertwinement of nationhood and religion in the nationalities policy of the Yugoslav state. However, in opposition against what they conceived as the intertwining of Orthodox symbolic resources and Yugoslav nationhood in the state’s nationalising policy, Catholic and Muslim religious thinkers and authorities appropriated Croatian and Bosnian Muslim particularist identities and turned away from Yugoslavism. The Orthodox leadership rejected the differentiation of the religious and the national in the state policy on St Sava’s Day from a similar ontological starting point. With a more confident agenda, Orthodox thinkers demanded the merging of Orthodoxy and Yugoslav nationhood. Their oppositional strategy against the secular nationalising policy of the state, however, was analogous to that of Muslim and Catholic religious thinkers: the Serbian nationalisation of Orthodoxy and rejection of Yugoslavism.

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These shifting alliances relate to the failure of the nationalising state to bring together various ontologies and interests under a shared model for the intertwining of religion and nationhood. In the pre-war Serbian Kingdom and Serbian community in South Hungary, the intertwining of religion and nationhood, of which the celebration of St Sava’s Day in school was the ultimate expression, had accommodated the ontologies of the nationalising Serbian state, secular nationalists, and the Church. However, in the context of the dynamic relationship between national and religious identities available in interwar Yugoslavia, such a policy alienated the agendas of the religious institutions in the country from that of the nationalising state. For the Catholic and Muslim stakeholders in the Yugoslav nation, there was too much (Orthodox) religion in the state’s nationalising policy; for the Orthodox, too little. In response to the state authorities’ institutionalisation of religion and nationhood, religious thinkers deployed alternative nationalist languages in pursuit of their essentially religious claims. Orthodox, Catholic, and Muslim religious thinkers increasingly rejected Yugoslavism and turned toward delineated, one-to-one religious–national narratives. By doing so, they formed a heterogeneous alliance with the political particularist opposition to the regime.

Catholicism and Yugoslav nationhood: The Yugoslav Sokol and the Catholic Church The problematic coexistence of Yugoslav nationhood and religious identity was particularly salient in the political–ideological competition between the Catholic Church and the Yugoslav dictatorship. The fierce and outspoken competition with the Catholic Church compared to the regime’s more compromised relation with the Islamic and Orthodox religious institutions is not a unique Yugoslav phenomenon. All over Europe the Catholic Church challenged the secular nationalist policies that posed a major challenge to not only the Church’s moral authority over its flock but also the internationalist organisation of the Church and the political authority of the Vatican. The experience of the French and Prussian/German battles against Catholic clericalism and the dismantlement of the Papal States by the national unification of Italy made the Catholic Church seem particularly vulnerable to the national policies of modern nation-states.71 The longstanding Orthodox – Catholic

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competition, the historically grown suspicion of the pre-war Serbian centres of authority toward the international Catholic Church and its Habsburg ally, and the religiously framed dissociation between South Slav secular nationalists in Austria-Hungary and the Catholic imperial authority of Vienna and Budapest, explain the specific contextual relevance of the Catholic– secular conflict in interwar Yugoslavia. An important exponent of the culture war between the Catholic Church and the Yugoslav dictatorship was the Church’s opposition to the Yugoslav Sokol movement. The Sokol was a gymnastics movement established in Prague in the mid-nineteenth century and subsequently spread to the South Slav ‘tribes’.72 After the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, the Slovenian, Croatian, and Serbian Sokol organisations merged into the Yugoslav Sokol Union with the objective to revitalise the Yugoslav nation, not only spiritually but also physically. The politicisation of the movement, however, endangered its national claims. In the former Austro-Hungarian regions, the unified Sokol was closely associated with the political programme and the Yugoslav national ideology of the (Independent) Democratic Party. In opposition to the Yugoslav Sokol’s close association with the Independent Democrats, Sokol leaders who were inclined to Croatian federalist opposition reactivated the Union of Croatian Sokol Clubs in 1922.73 The dictatorship consolidated earlier decisions that were taken under the ministership of Svetozar Pribic´evic´ to turn the Yugoslav Sokol into a state-sponsored national gymnastics movement. The regime established the Sokol of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and banned all other gymnastics movements. It introduced Sokol methods into the school curriculum for gymnastics and stimulated civil servants to support the movement in exchange for considerable privileges. Furthermore, the government issued a law for the obligatory physical education of all school-aged boys in Sokol clubs. The Sokol movement, however, remained a heavily politicised, superficial marker of loyalty to the regime and failed to obtain genuine popular support despite growing membership numbers.74 Tensions between the Sokol movement and the Catholic Church go back to the last decade of the nineteenth century when the Church was becoming increasingly politicised and took a firm position against the Liberal political orientation of the Sokol movement. The Orel movement (orel meaning ‘eagle’) was founded as the Catholic counterpart

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to the Sokol in 1902.75 In Slovenia, it nearly equalled the Sokol movement in terms of membership and club numbers by the outbreak of World War I.76 During the interwar period, the Orel movement benefited from the stimulating framework of Catholic Action, which invited the laity to participate in the re-Christianisation of society, outside party politics and under subjection to the leadership of the bishops.77 The Orel’s public confession of faith restored religion to public life and allowed the clergy to reassume the leading role in society. The Orel also presented a drastic radicalisation of religious life, primarily manifested in the frequent taking of communion, which resulted in a more strict boundary between the faithful and their ‘atheist’ enemies.78 This ideological programme conflicted with the liberal ideal put forward by the Sokol movement to restrict religion to the personal sphere. Thus, Orel and Sokol stood on the barricades in the ideological and politicised conflict between secular liberalism and Catholic Action. Journals affiliated with the Catholic Church and Orel were opposed to what they interpreted as the Sokols’ atheist or anti-religious worldview, whereas the Sokols reproached the Orels for being religiously fanatic and intolerant.79 Decisions made by Democratic ministers of education to strengthen the bond between the Sokol movement and school provoked much dismay and criticism from the Catholic Church leadership.80 Under the Royal Dictatorship, the competition only gained intensity. Indeed, in the peak years of the dictatorship, the Catholic Church was one of the only institutions to criticise openly the state-sponsored Sokol movement. The culmination of the Catholic Church’s opposition against the Sokol came on 8 January 1933, when in almost all Catholic parishes in Yugoslavia priests read aloud a pastoral letter formulated by the bishops of the Yugoslav Catholic Church. The pastoral letter advised Catholic parents not to let their children join the Sokol. It reiterated the accusation that the Sokol movement was an antireligious movement, providing examples of Sokol leaders who had prevented their pupils from going to church and Sokol activities that had ended up in drinking and dancing until the break of dawn.81 Immediately, a storm of protest broke out against the pastoral letter; Sokol clubs held protest meetings and Sokol journals published numerous articles in which they rejected the accusations.82 The Sokol also accused the Roman Catholic bishops of pursuing a clerical and international political agenda directed against

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the integrity of the Yugoslav state.83 The Sokols co-opted Strossmayer as the symbol of the Yugoslav and religiously tolerant essence of the Yugoslav Catholic Church. In this spirit, a remarkably large number of Sokol clubs celebrated Strossmayer’s Day in 1933, using it as an occasion to once more decisively protest against the pastoral letter. Against the background of the political instability that had been caused by the ‘Zagreb Points’ and likeminded political manifestos from the winter of 1932–3 (cf. Chapter 2), the commotion around the pastoral letter surpassed the boundaries of the Sokol movement and caused an enormous political storm in Yugoslav society at large. For months, the issue was a hotly debated topic in Yugoslav journals and newspapers.84 Archbishop Bauer was forced to publicly address some of the criticism; he stated that the pastoral letter had no connection with the ‘Zagreb Points’ and no political meaning whatsoever, and that it had been formulated and spread without the knowledge of the Pope or fascist Italy.85 The conflict was not restricted to the higher echelons of the Yugoslav institutions but also affected local village life. The Ministry of Education received frequent complaints about Catholic priests hindering the work of Sokol clubs or Catholic teachers who did not support the Sokol sufficiently.86 In Sinj, in the central Dalmatian hinterland, the local priest and religion teacher was dismissed after he had called the Sokol movement an atheist organisation in his sermon.87 The local authorities of Sanski Most in north-western Bosnia and the educational department of Vrbas banovina demanded the transfer of Serafima Ivekovic´, a teacher in the local elementary school, because she never attended Sokol activities and was not active in the local village library. The district authorities argued that the reason for this might be that she was a Catholic who worked in a predominantly Serbian Orthodox environment. Additionally, the many male visitors to her apartment had led to questions among the local population about her moral behaviour.88 The authorities of Sava banovina demanded the transfer of the teacher Ante Zelic´ because he had refused to join the Sokol movement. Investigations clarified that Zelic´ had actually joined the Sokol because he rightfully thought this was his duty as a teacher but had soon come to regret his decision as it was not in line with his religious feelings.89 The application of the division between the Catholic Church and the Sokol movement for banal and mundane reasons at the local level confirms the wide relevance of the division. The teacher Sˇtefanija

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Radovic´ was transferred from Fuzˇine at the Croatian littoral to Plitvicˇki Ljeskovac in the poor Lika area in the spring of 1933. Radovic´ had been denunciated by the leaders of the local Sokol club as a Croatian nationalist and a clerical, who had only entered the Sokol to conceal her political orientation. Her brother challenged the transfer in a letter to the Ministry of Education, claiming that Radovic´ was falsely accused because of the fact that she was befriended by the local Catholic priest. Radovic´’s teaching work had always been evaluated positively, and she had been genuinely active in the local Sokol. Additionally, Radovic´ and the Catholic priest were both convinced Yugoslavs.90 A further investigation confirmed that Radovic´ was a nationally correct and progressive force in the region and an active member of the local Sokol. Apparently, the denunciation came from the leader of the local Sokol club, who had issues with the friendship of Radovic´ and the priest.91 The educational authorities of Sava banovina suggested that Radovic´ would be transferred to a more pleasant village by the Adriatic Sea.92 Many Sokol clubs also complained that the Catholic Church continued to compete with the Sokol movement through parallel youth associations within the parishes. Such Catholic youth associations formed part of an increasingly dense infrastructure of Catholic societal associations that constituted a very influential Catholic alternative milieu.93 Immediately after the ban on the Orel, some of its former leaders formed a new Catholic youth movement under the name of the Great Crusader Brotherhood and Sorority (Veliko krizˇarsko bratstvo / sestrinstvo), which was approved provided that its activities retain a strictly religious character.94 In Slovenia, the Catholic Church continued to educate ‘its’ children by means of religious education by the parish priest in the sacristy. The Slovenian Catholic educational groups were briefly banned in 1933 on the accusation of political activism but came to full swing after the Slovenian Clerical Party joined the Stojadinovic´ government.95 During the high dictatorship, the activities of the movement were restricted to lectures and gatherings within the sacristy. Topics discussed at these gatherings included liturgy and faith, and contemporary social questions. Catholic clubs also organised activities with a more entertaining character, such as theatre plays, music performances, and choral activities, and they participated in public religious celebrations. After the dictatorship loosened its

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grip in 1935, the Catholic clubs occupied a more visible position in public life by organising public activities, such as Sunday parades, collective communions, Eucharistic congresses, and annual celebrations of Christ the King.96 *** The rivalry between the Catholic Church and the Sokol movement first and foremost exposed the broader ideological and political competition between liberalism and Catholicism. Illustrating the predominance of the religious – secular over national sources of tensions, there were frequent acts of rivalry between Croatian Sokols and Orels during the 1920s. The Orel movement had an explicit Croatian nationalist orientation, but this did not prevent them from vigorously competing with the nationally ‘correct’ but ‘a-religious’ Croatian Sokol. Noticing the frequency of conflicts between Croatian Sokol and Orel clubs, the leadership of the Croatian Sokols called on their members to avoid all conflicts with Orels because these were harmful for national unity, indicating the dominance of the national over the religious in their worldview.97 Often, the actual reasons for the conflicts were more banal than the ideological battles they were depicted as by the leaderships of Sokols and Orels. On 3 February 1927, for example, riots erupted between Croatian Sokols and Orels in the village Cˇitluk in central Bosnia. The Croatian Sokols had been drinking and eating since noon. When they started marching the streets of the village shouting slogans in favour of the Croatian Sokol and Stjepan Radic´, local Orels attacked them with stones and guns. The reasons were political (the Orels were supporters of the Croatian Popular Party) and probably also personal, but they were most likely not extremely ideological.98 The work of Croatian Sokol clubs was also frequently thwarted by Catholic priests. On Zrinski–Frankopan Day 1925, for example, the Croatian Sokol club of Garesˇnica in central Croatia reported that the local priest, ‘although a Croat’, had refused to celebrate the mass for the Sokols for free. In response, the Sokols went to the neighbouring village of Tomasˇica, where the priest, ‘a good patriot’, complied with their request.99 To what extent, then, was the national dimension present in the rivalry between Sokols and the Catholic Church? Croatian nationalism occupied an increasingly important role in the programme of the

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Crusader movement. Crusaders learned about Croatian history, sang the Croatian hymn at every meeting, and imagined the Croatian homeland in its greater version, which included Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Bacˇka, whereas their programme hardly mentioned Yugoslavia and clearly differentiated it from the Croatian ‘homeland’; in this way, ‘the [Croatian] nation was gaining equal importance with God’.100 Slovenian nationhood occupied a similarly central position in the programme of Catholic educational clubs, which stressed that every member was expected to be nationally conscious, that Catholicism and Slovenian nationhood were intrinsically bound, and that the most important national plight of every Slovene was the protection of the Slovenian language.101 Such a Croatian/Slovenian national dimension was by no means a novelty for the 1930s. What was new was the dissociation between the Croat/ Slovene national programme of the Catholic Church and the Yugoslav national programme of the Sokol movement and the regime. Illustrative in this respect was the last sentence of the pastoral letter the Yugoslav bishops wrote against the Sokol movement of January 1933; it stressed that the Sokol was reprehensible not only because of its anti-religious character but also because it denied ‘our honourable Croat/Slovene name’.102 Vice versa, representatives of the Yugoslav regime continuously interpreted Catholic opposition to the Sokol movement as an antiYugoslav act to make sense of the political–ideological conflict with representatives of the Catholic Church. Two teachers from the elementary school of Metkovic´ in southern Dalmatia, for example, lodged a complaint against the religion teacher Radovan Jerkovic´ for reading aloud the pastoral letter of the Catholic bishops against the Sokol movement and for claiming that the authorities had started a campaign against Catholic bishops. Jerkovic´ had also stated that the local Sokol club had insulted him and the Pope on St Sava’s Day, which he called a ‘Serbian party’.103 The additional comments by the school principal reveal the deep suspicion toward Catholic religiosity. The principal stated that Jerkovic´ was ‘nationally incorrect’: ‘In his religious fanaticism toward Rome, he is intolerant toward every manifestation of religious tolerance toward our brothers of the Serbian Orthodox Church and consequently also toward Yugoslavism.’104 The principal recalled that Jerkovic´ had complained to him that the predominantly Catholic children of the school were singing the Hymn to St Sava on St Sava’s

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Day, ‘falsely’ arguing that this was a purely religious act that ‘stood out as the apotheosis of Serbdom’ instead of a Yugoslav national act.105 Finally, the principal pointed out that most of Jerkovic´’s friends were not nationally oriented and that Jerkovic´ was not active in any of the national associations in the area. Jerkovic´ was ‘a clerical of the Roman church in the true sense of the word and as such more orientated toward separatism than toward national unity’.106 Local authorities confirmed these accusations, adding that Jerkovic´ had been a sympathiser of the Croatian Popular Party, that he had attacked the dictatorial regime, and that he had opposed the establishment of a new Sokol club in the region.107 On the basis of these ideological, national, and political complaints, the Minister of Education demanded that Archbishop Bauer suggest a new religious teacher who could be guaranteed not to work against religious tolerance and state unity.108 The perceived incompatibility of Catholic religious loyalty and Yugoslav nationhood should be understood within the framework of the fierce ideological– political division between the dictatorship and the Catholic Church. Applying the national language of the nation-state, the authoritarian regime delegitimised Catholic opposition against the subordination of religion to state authority by dissociating Catholic loyalty from the Yugoslav nation. Catholic opposition, for its part, resorted to Slovenian and Croatian national opposition to pursue its political and ideological interests.

Croatian historical commemorations and Yugoslav nationhood: The (ir)relevance of the Croat – Yugoslav boundary?109 Chapter 5 has shown how historical commemorations of resources drawn from the tradition of Serbian statehood conveyed Serbian and Yugoslav historical identification. For the largest part of the interwar period, the coexistence of Serbian and Yugoslav national identification remained uncontested in the thinking of stakeholders representing the Serbian ‘tribe’. Apparently, it made little sense to distinguish Serbian national identity from Yugoslav nationhood much less to provide complementary articulations of nationhood outside the statesupported commemorative programme. In fact, Serbian intellectuals only began to question the place of the Serbian ‘tribe’ within the

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Yugoslav whole in response to the growing Croatian withdrawal from the Yugoslav national project. The commemoration of Croatian historical resources relied much more strongly on non-governmental political and civil initiatives, as a result of the limited participation of Croatian political representatives in Yugoslav governments. In the context of the increasingly authoritarian nationalisation policy of the Yugoslav regime and Croatian political opposition, the search for mediation with Yugoslav nationhood in Croatian commemorations was more complicated and fluid than in the Serbian commemorations.

The millennial anniversary of the Croatian Kingdom and Zrinski– Frankopan Day: Searching for a mediation between Croatian and Yugoslav national identification In 1925, a wide range of activities commemorated the millennial anniversary of the crowning of Tomislav as King of Croatia. The enormous variety in the concrete character of these commemorations reveals how symbolic resources derived from Croatian history could accommodate concurring understandings of Croatian and Yugoslav national identities. Already in 1924, a group of intellectuals under the leadership of the lawyer Milan Decˇak took the initiative to build a monument to Tomislav on what is now known as King Tomislav Square in Zagreb.110 Throughout 1925, the committee organised fundraising events and public commemorations. It used Croatian national discourse, glorifying Tomislav for unifying all Croatian lands: Littoral and Pannonian Croatia, Slavonia, and Bosnia, thus showing ‘the viability of Croatia’ and ‘the strength and power of the Croatian People’.111 The Tomislav monument itself was to be ‘an eternal commemoration for generations in centuries to come so that they would welcome the second millennium as true and convinced Croats’.112 Another important, more popular, commemorative event that year was a jamboree of the Croatian Sokol. The jamboree consisted of a parade, public performances of Sokol gymnastics, and an entertainment programme of banquets, music shows, theatre performances, and parties. It conveyed a more banal Croatian symbolic narrative through Croatian patriotic songs, Croatian flags, and the presence of representatives of Sokol clubs from different parts of the Croatian national territory in traditional costumes.113 On the last day of the jamboree, the Sokol

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inaugurated a monument in Zagreb’s Maksimir Park, depicting a grave mound that stored books, documents, sculptures, folk costumes, and other objects related to Croatian history and the Sokol movement. Representatives from all regional Croatian Sokol clubs spread soil from their home region and Croatian sites of memory over the mound so that the Sokol monument literally rested on Croatian soil. Ten lime trees around the mound symbolised ten centuries of Croatian history since the crowning of Tomislav.114 Similar albeit obviously much smaller scale activities were organised by various Croatian cultural–educational associations throughout the Croat-populated areas of the country. Through direct references to Tomislav as the symbol of the continuum of the Croatian people and territory through time and the latent Croatian character of the social activities organised within the framework of the commemorations, these activities served to elicit identification with the Croatian nation. Alongside this Croatian national framework, the support of the Yugoslav state incorporated the commemoration within a Yugoslav national narrative. The Ministry of Education contributed to the jubilee by giving financial support to the historian Ferdo Sˇisˇic´ to publish a monumental book on the history of the Croats from ancient times until the end of the Croatian Kingdom.115 The town of Duvno in western Herzegovina, close to the site where Tomislav was allegedly crowned, was renamed Tomislavgrad (literally meaning ‘the town of Tomislav’). Probably most significant was the strong state support for the jamboree organised by the Croatian Sokol, which came about against the favourable background of the government coalition of the Radical Party and the Croatian Peasant Party. Not only did the authorities put 500,000 dinars at the disposal of the Croatian Sokol for the organisation of the jamboree,116 but also King Alexander himself attended the event in the company of a large number of ministers from the Radical Party and the Croatian Peasant Party. Several speakers, including Stjepan Radic´ and Vjekoslav Heinzel, Mayor of Zagreb, explicitly linked King Tomislav with King Alexander and the Croatian medieval Kingdom with the Yugoslav Kingdom.117 The commemoration also received extensive coverage as a triumph of the national agreement between Serbs and Croats in Politika, the most important newspaper in Belgrade, thereby clarifying its statewide relevance.118 The millennial anniversary of the Croatian Kingdom thus indicates the potential concurrence of Yugoslav and Croatian nationhood in the

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commemoration of symbolic resources from Croatian history. Whereas Croatian identification was elicited on the civil initiative of Croatian cultural– educational associations and intellectuals, Yugoslav nationhood was closely connected with state authority. The state authorities coopted initiatives taken at the Croatian level as vehicles for Yugoslav identification, envisaging Yugoslav nationhood as a complement to Croatian national identity rather than something completely independent of it. With the backing of the Croatian Peasant Party in government, they succeeded in mobilising Croatian civil commemorations in the direction of a combined Croat– Yugoslav affair. *** The Croatian cultural – educational association Napredak took a leading role in the annual commemoration of Petar Zrinski and Fran Krsto Frankopan, seventeenth-century Croatian noblemen who were beheaded in Wiener Neustadt on the accusation of organising a conspiracy against the Habsburg King Leopold I. Zrinski and Frankopan were typically referred to as martyrs for the Croatian national cause who had given their lives for the preservation of the Croatian nation and its state rights against Habsburg centralisation.119 The celebration of Zrinski– Frankopan Day (30 April) in Samobor in north-western Croatia in 1932 can serve as a representative illustration of these grassroots commemorations. Members of all important cultural associations in the town – Napredak, the popular library, the Sokol club, the fire brigade, an association of war veterans, and a Croatian choral society – first attended a commemorative service in the local church. Thereafter, they paraded to the local library, where they held a festive commemorative programme, consisting of a lecture on the importance of these two Croatian martyrs, a recital of the Croatian Realist writer August Sˇenoa’s poem ‘Na Ozlju gradu’ (‘At Ozalj fortress’), and a performance of Ivan Zajc’s song ‘Zrinski– Frankopanka’ by the local choral society. The commemorative programme ended with all attendants singing the Croatian hymn.120 Again, the state authorities attempted to integrate the commemoration of Zrinski and Frankopan within a broader Yugoslav framework. Starting from the 1927– 8 school year all Yugoslav schools annually commemorated Zrinski – Frankopan Day with a lecture.121 The National Theatre in Belgrade organised a festive commemoration on

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30 April 1928 with a lecture by the historian Viktor Novak. Novak compared the conspiracy of Zrinski and Frankopan to the Battle of Kosovo in Serbian history as parallel acts of martyrdom against foreign oppression. According to Novak, it was only natural that the Serbian part of the nation would mourn for such a dramatic event from Croatian history because ‘our nation has always carried the biological law of its unity with it’.122 As with the commemoration of Tomislav, Yugoslav nationhood was promoted as a complement to Croatian national identity. However, without the support of Croatian political representatives, the state authorities did not succeed in mobilising Croat civil commemorations in the direction of a concurring sense of Yugoslav national identity. Nor did the commemoration of Zrinski and Frankopan carry symbolic meaning for the Croatian political opposition. The Croatian Peasant Party rejected the commemoration of Zrinski and Frankopan because they had been ‘gentlemen’ and thus suppressors of the Croatian peasant nation.123 This explains the low salience of the politicised Croat– Yugoslav division in the commemoration of Zrinski and Frankopan, exemplified by the presence of Yugoslav Sokols and war veterans, two groups that were closely connected to the regime, alongside representatives of typical Croatian national associations like Napredak and a Croatian choral society at the Samobor commemoration.

Germs of exclusivity: The symbolic capital of Croat –Yugoslav competition in the Sokol movement The nationalised political competition between the ‘Yugoslav’ central regime and the ‘Croatian’ decentralist opposition, however, affected many other commemorations of Croatian historical resources. Germs of exclusivity and competition between Yugoslav and Croatian nationhood appeared in an academic volume published by the Croatian cultural organisation Matica hrvatska on the occasion of the millennial anniversary of the Croatian Kingdom. The volume documented the achievements of the Croatian nation during the millennium since the establishment of the first Croatian Kingdom.124 The historian Filip Lukas, a proponent of the Croatian nationalist historiography who would later be affiliated with the Ustasˇa regime during World War II,125 explicitly rejected any form of unitarist Yugoslavism, which in his view came down to a tendency to reduce the

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Croatian and Slovenian nations to ‘tribes’, whereas the Serbian nation was recognised as a fully completed nation. According to Lukas, Yugoslavism was only viable as a supra-national political and cultural ideal that would not reject the ‘three fully completed and differentiated national types’ of Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes.126 This line of interpretation clearly defined Croatian national identity on the basis of dissociation from Yugoslav unitary nationalism and indicates the potentiality of an exclusive relationship between Croatian and Yugoslav national identity (although it did not entirely reject Yugoslav cultural and political unity). The potential exclusionary relationship between Croatian and Yugoslav nationhood also informed the nationalities policy of the authorities. In the summer of 1922, the Bihac´ district authorities started an investigation into the law student Hasan Saracˇevic´, who received a scholarship but apparently agitated for the Croatian Republican Peasant Party and was involved in ‘exclusive Croatian’ commemorations of Zrinski–Frankopan Day. The authorities explained that they ‘did not have and could absolutely not have anything against the fact that Saracˇevic´ felt himself a Croat but. . . that he as such could also work to the benefit of the unity of state and nation instead of opposing it in a spirit of extreme opposition and separatism’.127 Apparently, they considered the irrelevance of Yugoslav nationhood in the commemoration of Zrinski–Frankopan an indicator of opposition to the Yugoslav nation and state. The grassroots competition between the Croatian and the Yugoslav branch of the Sokol movement was a strong indicator of the social– political relevance of the boundary between Croatian and Yugoslav nationhood. The competition took many forms, from banal local disputes on the use of municipal buildings and financial support to violent riots on the occasion of pubic Sokol happenings in Zagreb.128 The rivalry essentially revolved around the politicisation of both movements. (Independent) Democratic governments and local authorities typically supported the Yugoslav Sokol. As soon as the (Independent) Democrats were ousted from government, the support for the Yugoslav Sokol decreased. In 1922, Minister of Education Pribic´evic´ declared that school-going children could only become members of the Yugoslav Sokol Union.129 The regional government of Croatia-Slavonia banned the Croatian Sokol club in Zagreb, which was the driving force behind the re-establishment of the Croatian Sokol, because anti-state

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slogans had been shouted at one of their parades.130 After the formation of the homogeneous Radical government in December 1922 and the subsequent removal of Yugoslav Democrats from government, Pribic´evic´’s earlier decision that Yugoslav pupils could only be members of the Yugoslav Sokol Union was immediately withdrawn, and the new regional government annulled the ban on the Croatian Sokol club in Zagreb.131 The formation of the Pasˇic´ – Pribic´evic´ government in March 1924 provoked yet another brief policy shift. After being reappointed Minister of Education, Pribic´evic´ again declared that no teachers or students could be members of gymnastics or sports associations that were based on what he called separatist, ‘tribal’, or religious ideas, which came down to all gymnastics associations apart from the Yugoslav Sokol. In August 1924, the new Minister of Education and leader of the Slovenian Clericals, Anton Korosˇec, annulled the decision of his predecessor, but after Pribic´evic´ had again been appointed Minster of Education, he reintroduced his measure on 15 November 1924.132 The politicised competition between Yugoslav and Croatian Sokols, however, carried national meaning with it. Activities organised by Croatian Sokol clubs were primarily embedded in a strong Croatian national framework. Obligatory components in their activities were Croatian flags, Croatian patriotic poems, the Croatian national hymn, and other Croatian patriotic songs. The names of the Croatian Sokol districts referred to Croatian national symbols: Zrinski, Frankopan, Strossmayer, Ljudevit Posavski, King Tvrtko, Ante Starcˇevic´, and Stjepan Radic´. The expansion of the Croatian Sokol movement to Dalmatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina marked the boundaries of Croatian national territory. When the Croatian Sokol club of Zagreb organised a trip through Dalmatia for propagating the movement in July 1926, the central element in the speeches, parades, and manifestations was not so much Sokol gymnastics but the ‘revitalisation’ of the Croatian national spirit in Dalmatia.133 The regional jamboree held by the Croatian Sokol in the summer of 1929 in Sarajevo gave Croatian Sokols the occasion to visit Sarajevo and seize it as part of their national territory.134 If the Croatian side of the equation was quite clear, the national division on which the conflict between Croatian and Yugoslav Sokols rested was much less obvious. Croat– Serb antagonism played a decisive role in the conflict. In the initial conflict between the Sokols in Zagreb, which eventually led to the split of the Croatian Sokol, the opposing

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camps consisted by and large of members of the city’s former Croatian and Serbian Sokol clubs. The Croatian Sokols in Zagreb complained about the dominance of Serbian national symbols (especially Ekavian and the Cyrillic alphabet) in the Sokol journal, the complete negligence of the Croatian Sokol ideology, and the rejection of the Croatian name, flag, and hymn during Sokol performances.135 In other mixed Croat–Serb regions too, Serbs generally formed a majority and took the lead in Yugoslav Sokol clubs, whereas Croatian Sokol clubs were a Croatian affair. The Croatian Sokol club in Glina in the Banija region, for example, reported that the Serbian population of the village behaved ‘calm and decent’ but obviously did not participate in its jamboree. When the Croatian Sokols started singing the Croatian hymn, the entire population sang along and took off their hats, except for Serbs, ‘Jugoslovinci’, soldiers, and policemen.136 Riots in Dalmatia and the Srem between Croatian and Yugoslav Sokols in the summer of 1926 were fuelled by Croat–Serb antagonism in these areas, or at least represented as such by Croatian Sokols.137 However, Croats continued to support the Yugoslav Sokol and divisions within the Sokol did not neatly concur with Croat –Serb boundaries. Thus, it would be too simplistic to reduce the entire conflict to clear-cut Croat– Serb antagonism. Croatian Sokol clubs in the mixed Srem, for example, reported that a number of Serbian villagers attended public performances in the summer of 1925.138 When a new Croatian Sokol club was established in Nova Kapela Batrina in southern Slavonia in the summer of 1925, seven Serbian villagers joined the club.139 Serbian villagers attended a Croatian Sokol jamboree held in the Zagreb district in the summer of 1926, and the Croatian Sokols carried Serbian flags in their parade.140 Recurring complaints from Croatian Sokol clubs about the lack of support for the re-establishment of the Croatian Sokol among the Croatian membership illustrate the real and imagined character of the Croat –Serb division. In Daruvar in the Srem, 20 members voted against the formation of a Croatian Sokol club. ‘Of course’, most of them were Serbs, but some Croatian civil servants, ‘poor people who had been hitched to a shabby Serbian cart’, had also voted against.141 In Vinkovci, the Yugoslav wing in the Sokol consisted of not only members of ORJUNA, an extreme Yugoslav nationalist organisation, Serbian students of the local forestry school, policemen, and soldiers, but also Croatian ‘hirelings’, whereas all ‘true’ Croats supported only the Croatian Sokol.142

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Which place did the Yugoslav idea occupy in the division between Croatian and Yugoslav Sokols? The Yugoslav idea formed one of the crucial aspects in the ideological programme of the Yugoslav Sokols. In a first reaction to the decision of the Croatian Sokol Club in Zagreb to withdraw from the Yugoslav Sokol Union, the leadership of the Yugoslav Sokol Union interpreted the withdrawal as the Croatian Sokols’ abandonment of the ideals of the unity of nation and state.143 The Yugoslav Sokol press explained that Croatian Sokol clubs were re-established in places where ‘tribal’ mentalities had only been replaced by Yugoslavism for the sake of appearance and instructed true Yugoslav Sokols to go to battle against these ‘non-Yugoslavs’.144 In the Yugoslav Sokol’s interpretation of the conflicts, the Croatian character of the Croatian Sokol was simply incompatible with the true Yugoslavism of the Yugoslav Sokols. In this line of reasoning, symbols of Croatian national identity became contrary to instead of a medium toward Yugoslav nationhood. In Grubisˇno Polje in central Croatia, the Croatian Sokol had hung the Croatian flag in the local school where they trained. This led to strong reactions from the Yugoslav Sokol club, which saw it as a provocation. One representative of the Radical Party in the district council even brought an action against the teacher who had hung the Croatian flag. At this stage, the district chief suggested it was better to ignore the complaint in order ‘not to let this delicate question stir up smouldering passions’.145 New tensions erupted after the Serbian flag had been hung out in Jasenovac at an elementary school that was owned by the Serbian Orthodox Church. In order to settle the issue, the district chief sent a circular to all schools in the district and clarified that only state flags could be hung in schools and only on state holidays.146 In April 1927, on the name day of one of its leaders, the Croatian Sokol club of Sˇibenik in central Dalmatia hung the Croatian flag over the entry of the building where its training room was located. However, on that same evening the local orchestra gave a concert in the theatre, which was located in the same building as the Croatian Sokol hall, and the director of the orchestra complained to the local authorities about the Croatian flag. The local authorities forced the concierge to take away the flag, which caused a small revolt among Croatian Sokols and resulted in the arrest of a number of them.147 The Croatian Sokols’ standpoint on the Yugoslav idea was, however, too complex for the division to be understood as a simple matter of

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feeling Yugoslav or not. To be sure, one wing within the Croatian Sokol rejected any form of Yugoslav national unity. In Donji Miholjac in Baranja, a group of Croatian Sokols spread a pamphlet in which they called on the ‘dejected and repressed Croatian nation’ to join the Croatian Sokol and to protect their nation and their homeland against the terror of the ‘fake Democratic– Yugoslav dream’ of the Yugoslav Democratic Party.148 In February 1925, the Croatian Sokol journal published an article that interpreted the medieval Croatian Kingdom within an exclusively Croatian national narrative. According to the anonymous writer, the rule of King Tomislav illustrated that ‘the Croatian nation was a historical nation with its own national name. . . and not some foundling-nation with some three-named tribe’.149 Nevertheless, the author of this article recognised some form of Yugoslav supra-national solidarity and cooperation, as manifested in the protection Tomislav had offered the Serbs when they were attacked by the Bulgarian Emperor Simeon and also later when Croats had helped the Serbs after they had been defeated by the Ottomans.150 In a radical Croatian nationalist speech on the protection of the Croatian nation and the Croatian homeland, delivered at a regional jamboree in Karlovac in the summer of 1927, the district leader spoke of Yugoslavism as a phantasmagoria.151 At a regional event in Susˇak in May 1928, one of the speakers, Lacko Krizˇ – who would later join the leadership of the Sokol of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia after apparently changing his national viewpoints – argued that Yugoslavism meant nothing as a national idea, that it only made sense as a state idea.152 However, such rejections of Yugoslavism as a national idea were not representative of the entire Croatian Sokol movement. Many districts and clubs of the Croatian Sokol Union favoured the removal of ‘Croatian’ from their names and the merging of Serbian and Croatian Sokol clubs in mixed Croat – Serb regions even before decisions in this direction had been taken after the formation of the Yugoslav Sokol Union. In the initial conflict between Croatian and Yugoslav Sokols in Zagreb, the Croatian Sokols stressed that they did not oppose the Yugoslav idea as such but the appropriation of the Yugoslav idea on the part of the Yugoslav Sokol Union’s leadership and the rejection of alternative roads toward Yugoslav unity in which ‘the national sentiments and Sokol characteristics of the Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian people’ would be completely equal.153 From the point of

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view of the Croatian Sokols, Yugoslav unity could be realised on the basis of ‘tribal’ associations, so that ‘every Sokol could in the first place be a conscious Serb, Slovene, or Croat and thereby also a conscious Yugoslav’.154 Although Croatian Sokols typically referred to Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes as three nations, this did not necessarily imply the rejection of a form of Yugoslav national unity. Lav Mazzura, one of the strongest proponents of the continued autonomy of the Croatian Sokol within a loose Yugoslav Union, sent a greeting telegram to the constituent assembly of the Yugoslav Sokol Union in which he called the Yugoslav Sokol the phalanx of ‘our three-named nation’, arguing that the Yugoslav Sokol should ‘leave behind all prejudices and bring an end to all bad traditions’ and should ‘only be led by the thought of a strong and joyful future for Yugoslavism’.155 Even a rejection of Yugoslavism by the Croatian Sokol club in Grubisˇno Polje in central Croatia acknowledged that ‘the so-called national unity of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes until now does not yet exist’.156 Vladimir Petz, the leader of the Croatian Sokols in Bjelovar in northern Croatia, pointed out that the goal of the Croatian Sokol was to develop Croatian nationhood ‘under the framework of the powerful, invincible Yugoslavism’ and to serve as the ‘correct interpreter of the Croatian conception of Yugoslavism’.157 In a speech at a regional Sokol event in Vinkovci in eastern Slavonia in the summer of 1926, Sokol leader Mile Misˇkulin called Yugoslav national unity a postulate for the future that could only be realised through respect for Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian traditions.158 The Croatian Sokols also refuted the claim of the Yugoslav Sokol and the Democratic Party to speak in the name of the Yugoslav nation. In typical speeches delivered in the summer of 1926 in Split and Pakrac, one of the leaders of the Croatian Sokol Union and a thriving force behind the Tomislav monument, Milan Decˇak, argued that the only correct interpretation of the Yugoslav idea, as the Croats had initially conceived it during the nineteenth century, recognised that Croats could only be good Yugoslavs if they first were good Croats. The same also applied for Serbs and Slovenes. However, and this was the problem, the Serbs had formulated a false Yugoslavism that implied that Croats would deny their Croatdom.159 Such an understanding of Yugoslav nationhood was insincere and un-Yugoslav:

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In our unfortunate state, Greater Serbianism is pushed through and imposed on us under the mask of Yugoslavism and national unity. . . In the present Sokol, everything is based on force and terror and not at all on democracy. Slovenes remained Slovenes, Serbs remained Serbs, but we Croats have to become assimilated into some sort of Yugoslavs and thus disappear or if possible become Greater Serbs.160 These disputes over the meaning of nationhood are not extraordinary or indicative of the weakness of Yugoslav nationhood. Instead, the fact that both associations claimed the right to speak for the Yugoslav nation indicates the appeal and the symbolic strength of the Yugoslav national framework. When the Croatian Sokol had been given the right to represent the nation in the 1925 millennial anniversary of the Croatian Kingdom in Zagreb, the Yugoslav Sokol, for example, organised an alternative commemoration. Speakers, such as the aforementioned Viktor Novak and Engelbert Gangl, the Slovenian leader of the Yugoslav Sokol and an important textbook author, glorified King Tomislav from a Yugoslav point of view by establishing an explicit link between the medieval Croatian Kingdom and the Yugoslav national case, and by drawing parallels between Tomislav, Tsar Dusˇan, and Samo, Tomislav’s medieval Serbian and Slovenian counterparts respectively.161 Expectedly, Yugoslav Sokols found it difficult to accept that their event was only attended by relatively minor representatives of Zagreb’s city council, district, and army, whereas the King himself had attended what they ‘unmasked’ as the ‘separatist, tribal, and purely political manifestation’ of the Croatian Sokol.162 Another historical figure appropriated by both Yugoslav and Croatian Sokol clubs was Strossmayer. On 7 November 1926, Ivan Mesˇtrovic´’s Strossmayer statue was officially unveiled in Zagreb. The organising committee had only invited the Croatian Sokol to participate in the ceremony in order to avoid incidents.163 In the subsequent disputes, both associations denounced the Yugoslavism of the other camp as false, claiming that they alone rightly understood Strossmayer’s Yugoslav idea. When justifying the fact that Yugoslav Sokols had not been invited, Croatian Sokols argued that ‘those who consider [Strossmayer] as the father of the present false Yugoslavism’ had bribed, violated, and defiled Strossmayer’s Yugoslavism.164 In their view,

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Strossmayer’s Yugoslavism did not reject Croatdom or Croatian cultural and political traditions; therefore, Strossmayer was one of the greatest Croats and Yugoslavs at the same time.165 The Yugoslav Sokol protested heavily and threatened to ‘mobilise all its forces’ to honour Strossmayer – in other words, to seize the commemoration by force. In the end, they decided to avoid riots on a day that was intended to celebrate mutual tolerance and unity and held an alternative commemoration by the grave of Strossmayer in Ðakovo.166 The Yugoslav Sokols refuted the Croatian Sokols’ commemoration of Strossmayer as exclusively Croatian and explained that they alone fully comprehended Strossmayer’s Yugoslavism. In an argument remarkably similar to that of the Croatian Sokol, they stressed that Strossmayer was not only a Croat but also a Yugoslav and a Slav.167 The two examples given above of Croatian Sokol participation in official Croat–Yugoslav historical commemorations took place during the brief coalition between the Radical Party and the Croatian Peasant Party. However, in the context of the long-lasting political division between the ‘Yugoslav’ centralist government and ‘anti-Yugoslav’ decentralist opposition, the central regime subscribed to the denouncement of the Croatian Sokol as a ‘separatist’ and anti-Yugoslav movement and reduced the competition between the Croatian and Yugoslav Sokol to a Croat– Yugoslav competition. As the leadership of the Sokol club in Zagreb ironically commented: ‘Those who lead the Sokol have the patent and the monopoly to realise the ideas. Therefore, they can command, and we have the right to listen because they are Yugoslavs and we are Croats.’168 Minister of Education Pribic´evic´’s ban on gymnastics associations with a ‘separatist, tribal, or religious tendency against the unity of state and nation’ of July 1924 clearly insinuated that ‘tribal’ associations like the Croatian Sokol worked against Yugoslav national unity and that Croatian ‘tribal’ identity was incompatible with Yugoslav nationhood.169 The culmination of this policy came under the dictatorship, when the Sokol of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia replaced all ‘tribal’ and religious gymnastics movements. This ‘new’ association was a continuation of the Yugoslav Sokol Union in all but name, in terms of leadership, political link with the regime, and the monopolistic appropriation of Yugoslav nationhood. This line of reasoning also affected the evaluation of Croatian bias in activities of Croatian Sokol clubs at the local level. In May 1929, the district chief of Karlovac demanded the transfer of the teacher Ivan

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Pejakovic´ for a lecture he had held at the Croatian Sokol’s celebration of Zrinski– Frankopan Day. Pejakovic´ had spoken about these national heroes only from a Croatian point of view and failed to mention their contributions to the Yugoslav national case.170 Maks Milosˇevic´, secondary school teacher in Bihac´, was transferred because he had incited all Muslims to join the Croatian ‘tribe’ by urging them to become members of Croatian associations like the Croatian Sokol.171 Another secondary school teacher, Mirko Susˇic´, was transferred from Senj in western Croatia to Cetinje in Montenegro because he had actively participated in the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the local Croatian Sokol club. Susˇic´ had given a ‘separatist’ speech, and the participants had sang Croatian nationalist songs.172 The state authorities apparently considered the absence of Yugoslav national discourse in these Croatian patriotic acts as a sign of opposition against Yugoslav nationhood. That the protagonists themselves did not necessarily understand Croatian national loyalty to be contradictory to Yugoslav loyalty becomes clear in the following example. In December 1926, the principal of the gymnasium in Vukovar commissioned both the Croatian and the Yugoslav Sokol to remove exclusive ‘tribal’ slogans from the walls of the training hall in the school. This prescription was directed against Croatian slogans that were used by the Croatian Sokol club. The slogans were quickly removed, but the Croatian Sokols explained that these slogans ‘could not disturb our Serbian brothers of the same blood’ and that nobody should interpret Croatdom as separatism.173 In this case, the principal’s understanding of Croatian slogans as anti-Yugoslav installed a clear-cut boundary between Croatian and Yugoslav national identity that was absent in the symbolic meaning these slogans carried for the Croatian Sokols. Thus, the controversies surrounding the Sokol movement indicate the exclusionary understanding of Yugoslav nationhood in relation to Croatian national and religious belonging in the state’s institutionalisation of nationhood instead of an inherent incompability between Yugoslav and Croatian national belonging.

Matija Gubec: The boundary between Croatian and Yugoslav nationhood In the course of the 1930s, the balancing act between Croatian and Yugoslav national identities in historical commemorations was becoming increasingly complicated in the context of the nationalised

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political competition between the ‘Yugoslav’ regime and the ‘Croatian’ opposition. This was especially evident in the commemoration of Matija Gubec, who not only was important for Yugoslav national historiography but also occupied a prominent position in the Croatian Peasant Party’s ideological programme as the originator for the Croatian national peasant movement.174 Already in the early 1920s, the Croatian Republican Peasant Party had organised festivities, lectures, and cultural activities on the day of Gubec’s death. In the second half of the 1930s, the commemoration of Gubec became widespread within the context of the renewed activism of the HSS. Seljacˇka sloga (Peasant Concord) was the cultural– educational branch of the Croatian Peasant Party. After developing into a parallel association network in the second half of the 1920s, its activities were almost suspended after the establishment of the dictatorship.175 With the relaxation of the dictatorship’s repressive cultural policy under Stojadinovic´, the association resumed its activities and rapidly expanded throughout Croatia-Slavonia, Srem, Dalmatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. By June 1939, Seljacˇka sloga had 865 local clubs with approximately 45,000 members.176 In line with the Peasant Party’s ideology, Seljacˇka sloga promoted and stimulated the cultural individuality of the Croatian peasantry as the essence of Croatian national culture. After the establishment of the Croatian banovina, the association became an official government-supported institution for popular education.177 Seljacˇka sloga annually organised a ‘week of Croatian consciousness and popular education’ in commemoration of the deaths of Antun Radic´ (10 February), the brother of Stjepan and one of the founders of the Croatian Peasant Party, and Gubec (15 February). During this week, peasants were required to read the works of Antun Radic´ and texts on Gubec’s peasant uprising, while local branches of Seljacˇka sloga organised public lectures and cultural and social events.178 Against the background of increasing political and national polarisation between the Yugoslav dictatorial government and the formally banned Croatian Peasant Party, the Yugoslav state authorities lost their grip on the grassroots commemorations of Gubec. Instead of the complementary relationship between Croatian and Yugoslav national identity, on which the state’s Yugoslav national programme rested, the commemorations came to symbolise the exclusive boundary between the Croatian and the Yugoslav level of national identity. In some cases, the competition between the state and the Croatian Peasant

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Party took quite concrete forms. Provincial authorities, for example, started an investigation against teachers in Krizˇ near Zagreb for attending a commemorative service in honour of Gubec, Antun and Stjepan Radic´, and Starcˇevic´. During the investigation, the teachers explained that they had joined the commemoration because the villagers had forced them to and to maintain peace and order in the village. The principal of the school confirmed that the school was located in front of the church and that it had been surrounded by 2,000 angry demonstrators. He demanded that the authorities take into consideration the difficult position of the teachers, who would have exposed themselves to serious physical and even life-threatening attacks if they had refused to follow the villagers. In the end, the disciplinary court at the Ministry of Education decided to file away the complaint.179 In this case, the teachers in question were forced to choose between Croatian and Yugoslav nationhood by joining the commemoration of Gubec or not; a compatible middle course was no longer available for the state authorities, the teachers, and the organisers of and participants in the commemoration. Instead of the indifference toward complementary elicitations of Yugoslav nationhood in commemorations of the millennial anniversary of the Croatian Kingdom and Zrinski–Frankopan Days, the commemoration of Gubec in the second half of the 1930s implied dissociation from Yugoslav national identity. The incompatibility of Yugoslav and Croatian national belonging also correlated with the accommodation of different political and social interests within an inclusive framework of Croatian nationhood. Indicatively, the more conservative and religiously-inclined Napredak joined a Croatian national alliance with the progressive and peasant-centric Croatian Peasant Party. Napredak participated in a mass literacy campaign that Seljacˇka sloga organised among the Croatian population; it appropriated Stjepan Radic´ as a shared Croatian national symbol, and gave strong political support for the Croatian Peasant Party.180 Different religious, social, and political interests had become irrelevant within the Croatian national mass movement and its opposition to the Yugoslav regime, whereas the Yugoslav nation became increasingly exclusive and narrow.

The centenary of the Illyrian Movement: The state withdraws The centenary of the first publication of Ljudevit Gaj’s newspaper Novine Horvatske (Croatian newspaper) fell in 1935. Many towns and villages in

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Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina commemorated the centenary of the Croatian (not Yugoslav or Illyrian, as the movement was typically called in Yugoslav national historiography) rebirth in the fall and winter of 1935– 6 with a commemorative service in the local church and a cultural and social event organised by Napredak. The commemoration in Sarajevo started with a commemorative service in the Catholic church by the Archbishop of Sarajevo Sˇaric´, who was praised as ‘the most Croatian bishop’ in the Napredak press.181 Sˇaric´ prayed for the Croatian fatherland, Stjepan Radic´, and Macˇek. After the service, the attendants formed a ‘spontaneous’ parade to the rooms of Napredak, carrying Croatian flags and singing the Croatian hymn. During the consecutive festivities, several choral societies performed Croatian patriotic songs, and young boys and girls dressed in folk costumes from all parts of Croatia gathered around the Croatian flag and coat of arms.182 Smaller scale commemorations equally abounded with Croatian national symbols and the prominent position of the Catholic Church and the Croatian Peasant Party. In Knin in northern Dalmatia, for example, the commemoration started with a commemorative service in the local church and continued in the rooms of Napredak, which were decorated with Croatian flags and pictures of Stjepan Radic´ and Macˇek. The programme consisted of lectures – in which the speakers frequently referred to Macˇek and the Croatian Peasant Party – and performances of patriotic songs by choral societies. The day ended with a dance, which lasted until the early morning.183 Although this commemoration could have been an excellent occasion to mediate between the Croatian and Yugoslav level of national identity – recall that the Illyrian Movement was a crucial Croatian symbolic resource in the Yugoslav historical narrative – the authorities failed to appropriate this commemoration within an overarching level of Yugoslav national identity. The Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts, with its seat in Zagreb, even requested financial support from the Ministry of Education for the publication of two academic works commemorating the Illyrian Movement, explicitly pointing to the Yugoslav national meaning of the commemoration, but to no avail.184 The commemoration passed by largely unnoticed in Belgrade newspapers and journals. The central authorities also abstained from local commemorations throughout the Croatian parts of the country. Members of the Croatian Peasant Party

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were the only political representatives at the unveiling of a commemorative obelisk to the memory of Antun Mihanovic´, the writer of the Croatian hymn that first appeared in Gaj’s journal. The unveiling ceremony was organised and financed by Brac´a hrvatskog zmaja (‘Brothers of the Croatian dragon’), a non-governmental organisation for heritage preservation.185 The failure to add a complementary level of Yugoslav national identity to the commemoration of the Illyrian Movement indicates a departure from the Croat– Yugoslav complementarity that characterised the state’s historical understanding. The state authorities abandoned efforts to co-opt commemorations of Croatian symbolic resources as vehicles for Yugoslav national identification, let alone to take initiatives for mediations between the Yugoslav and the Croatian levels of national identity. In this context, Croatian historical commemorations symbolised the political and national incompatibility of Croatian and Yugoslav identity. Ante Lovrovic´, teacher in Silba, near Preko on the island Ugljan in central Dalmatia, was fined because he had participated in a centenary commemoration organised by the Croatian Peasant Party celebrating the composition of Croatian hymn. Moreover, Lovrovic´ had joined the commemoration with all his pupils, who had carried Croatian flags with them.186 Lovrovic´ lodged an appeal against the decision, stating that he had not been present at the event and that his pupils had been there with their parents. He referred to his membership in Yugoslav-oriented patriotic associations to prove his national consciousness.187 However, the Ministry did not believe Lovrovic´ and confirmed the fine.188 Apparently, not only local authorities but also the teacher in question (Lovrovic´ deemed it better to deny any Croatian loyalty and to prove his Yugoslav national consciousness through membership of Yugoslav national associations) by this time understood Croatian and Yugoslav historical identification as mutually exclusive.

Conclusion The Yugoslav national programme of the interwar Yugoslav state assumed two mutually complementary levels of national identity, the ‘national’ Yugoslav level and the ‘tribal’ level of Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian identity. It left room for articulations of Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian identity but required the mobilisation of such elicitations

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of ‘tribal’ identity in the direction of Yugoslav national identity. The success of the commemoration of the millennial anniversary of the Croatian Kingdom, the indifference to Yugoslav nationhood in the Zrinski– Frankopan commemoration, and even the competition between Croatian and Yugoslav Sokols over the right to represent Yugoslav nationhood indicate the viability of this approach. In an attempt to push through the domination of the Yugoslav level of national identification, the cultural policy of the Royal Dictatorship of King Alexander banned all political and cultural associations that were based on ‘tribal’ grounds. Such a policy perpetuated measures taken by the (Independent) Democrats in the first half of the 1920s in the battle for political domination against the decentralist opposition. The Croatian Sokol was dissolved and replaced by the Sokol of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which was a continuation of the Yugoslav Sokol in all but name. Seljacˇka sloga was not formally banned, but almost all its activities were suspended as a result of the ban of the Croatian Peasant Party. Napredak continued its activities, but it was clearly dissociated from the national sphere. With regard to commemorations of Serbian symbolic resources very little changed; these remained in place as concurring Serb –Yugoslav national commemorations, indicating the irrelevance of the boundary between Serbian and Yugoslav nationhood in the nationalities policy of the hegemonic pre-war Serbian centres of authority. The wellestablished grassroots commemorations in Croatia, however, were excluded from Yugoslav nationhood and were replaced by Croat– Yugoslav commemorations initiated from above, such as the annual commemoration of Strossmayer’s Day in schools. This policy concurred with the increasing dissociation between Croatian and Yugoslav nationhood in the national language of the Croatian Peasant Party. However, Croatian loyalty and indifference to Yugoslav nationhood did not necessarily imply the negation of Yugoslav nationhood. In fact, dissociation from the Yugoslav nation carried very little meaning with it in Croatian historical commemorations during the 1920s. Sigismund Cˇajkovac, who was a prominent representative of the Croatian Peasant Party, authored the most successful Yugoslav nationalising textbooks of the 1920s. Although it was being denounced as anti-Yugoslav by the Yugoslav Sokol, the Croatian Sokol was not averse to a complementary sense of Yugoslav national unity, as demonstrated in the commemoration

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of the millennial anniversary of the Croatian Kingdom in 1925 and its participation in the Yugoslav commemoration of Strossmayer. By dismissing these potential grassroots vehicles for a concurring sense of Yugoslav nationhood, the state’s nationalities policy considerably narrowed the opportunities for Yugoslav national identification in the Croatian part of the country. Additionally, the state itself abandoned attempts to provide viable alternatives or incentives for complementary mediations between Croatian and Yugoslav national identity, as exemplified by the absence of the Yugoslav state and nation in the commemoration of the centenary of the Illyrian Movement in 1935. Thus, the state’s institutionalisation of nationhood was in fact instrumental in increasing the relevance of the exclusive relationship between the Croatian and Yugoslav candidates of nationhood.

CHAPTER 9 THE POPULAR RESONANCE OF NATIONHOOD: YUGOSLAV TEACHERS AS NATIONAL EDUCATORS

I now turn to the popular understanding of the institutionalisation of Yugoslav nationhood in observations and evaluations of the work of teachers. Teachers played a crucial role in the realisation of the educational policy and its national component. They were one of the most direct representatives of the Yugoslav state and personified the nation in schools and villages. However, they were only people, regular human beings with their own subjective understanding of the nationalising efforts of the state and thus provide valuable insights in the popular (ir)relevance and meaning of Yugoslav nationhood. Indeed, people are not merely objects into whom the nationalities policy is instilled and who take over definitions of national identity as they are prescribed from above; they are subjects who give meaning to national categories to make sense of the world around them.1 I rely on written and preserved observations by representatives of the Yugoslav state. Reflecting the state’s increasingly authoritarian character, local authorities closely followed and monitored teachers and were especially vigilant about the latter’s national reliability. These evaluations are not neutral. They apply categorisations that were precisely installed from above and tend to overstate the relevance of nationhood, given the authorities’ obsession with the national

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credentials of teachers. Additionally, local authorities were preoccupied with deviations from the norm and inconspicuous teachers did not make it to their reports. A critical and sensible approach, however, informed by the thorough examination of the state policy and the expectations from above in what preceded, can lead to valuable insights in the popular reception of the interwar Yugoslav nation-building project. Moreover, although local authorities implemented the nationalities policy from above, they made use of nationhood in their own subjective ways and can be regarded as an integral part of the ‘from below’ area of society.2

Back and forth between national ideology and political colours: Yugoslav teachers in the parliamentary period Throughout the interwar period, state authorities closely followed the activities of teachers. Any teacher who damaged the profession’s standing or failed to carry out his or her duties could be fined, transferred, or even dismissed.3 From the early 1920s, the authorities’ motivation for interfering with teachers was not only pedagogical but also political. In Slovenia, teachers were divided between supporters of the Liberal camp and the Slovenian People’s Party. The former were grouped in the Union of Slovenian Teachers Associations, which joined the Yugoslav Teachers Association after World War I, the latter in the Slomsˇek Union, named after Anton Slomsˇek, Bishop of Maribor, poet, and religious education activist from the mid-nineteenth century. The participation of Slovenian Liberals or Clericals in central and regional governments invariably led to personnel changes favouring teachers who were members of the ‘right’ teachers association. The Yugoslav national question did not occupy a prominent role in the continuing political and ideological antagonism between Liberal and Catholic teachers associations.4 In the many villages throughout the Serb-populated areas of the country that stood under the political influence of the Radical Party, local authorities used their political power against teachers who supported other political parties. The Ministry of Education, for example, transferred two teachers from the district of Upper Moracˇa in Montenegro on the instigation of the Minister of Interior’s cabinet chief who accused them of neglecting their teaching duties for political activism. In fact, the teachers had supported a local candidate for the

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Republican Party and had successfully lobbied for the establishment of a coalition list of Republicans and Democrats. The cabinet chief acknowledged his own political bias by complaining that the broad support for the Democratic Party among teachers serious hindered the dominance of the Radical Party.5 Other cases were more banal, such as the complaint against Todor Mitic´, a teacher in Kavadar in central Serbia, who in a drunken state had started a tirade against Nikola Pasˇic´,6 and the investigation against Filip Hajdukovic´, teacher at the elementary school of Goransko in north-western Montenegro, for refusing to treat the First Serbian Uprising in history class and starting a round dance in class to celebrate the death of Pasˇic´.7 National claims were generally absent from such politically motivated acts against teachers in Serbia. This was different in Macedonia, where any deviation from the Serbian –Yugoslav national norm was considered harmful to the interests of state and nation. Authorities were particularly suspicious of local teachers who had been trained in schools of the Bulgarian Exarchate before the Balkan Wars. According to a military report of 1926, 111 of the 470 elementary school teachers in the district of Bitola had been trained in Bulgarian schools. The authorities felt that these teachers ought to have been immediately removed because it was ‘better not to have a school in the village than to have a teacher who teaches the children that they are Macedonian’.8 In Croatia-Slavonia, some of the teachers objected to the establishment of statewide teachers associations and maintained separate Croatian teachers associations.9 Typical of the immediate post-war period in the region, the split in the teachers associations was rooted in the broader political battle between centralist and federalist political options. The all-Yugoslav teachers associations were closely associated with the Yugoslav Democratic Party; the separate Croatian teachers association were linked to the Croatian federalist parties, especially the Croatian Peasant Party. As a rule, ‘when one of these parties came to power, they would start to chase away and transfer teachers of the other camp. One would get the impression that these parties fought their battles through the teachers.’10 The scramble was particularly obvious at the University of Zagreb. Whereas Svetozar Pribic´evic´ had made sure to appoint professors who were loyal to his Yugoslav viewpoints, Stjepan Radic´ used his brief spell as minister of education

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to transfer or retire a large number of these Yugoslav professors, among whom the historian of literature Branko Vodnik, the historians Milan Prelog and Grga Novak, the philosopher Vladimir Dvornikovic´, and the ethnographer Petar Bulat.11 Political interference with Croatian teachers was framed along the line of a Yugoslav–Croat national division. State authorities close to the (Independent) Democrats were especially fervent in their refutations of expressions of Croatian loyalty, which they believed to be incompatible with Yugoslav national belonging. On 17 March 1925, Minister of Education Pribic´evic´ even banned the Union of Croatian Teachers Associations because it was based on purely ‘tribal’ grounds and because ‘it stirs tribal battles between teachers and passes on that battle to the people’.12 Local authorities followed this line of reasoning in their evaluations of Croatian political or national loyalty among teachers. Marko Horvatic´, a teacher in Sˇestine, a suburb of Zagreb, was pensioned off because he had attended a meeting of the Peasant Party, where Horvatic´’s son had delivered a speech and because Horvatic´ himself had led a tamburica performance by his pupils to celebrate Ante Starcˇevic´.13 Josip Butarac was transferred from Petrinja, close to Sisak in central Croatia, to Krmpote, nearby Senj in the Croatian Littoral because he had established a Croatian Sokol and a Croatian reading room and had not joined the Yugoslav Teachers Association.14 Eugen Rein, secondary school teacher in Gospic´ in the Lika area, was forced to retire because he was member of the Croatian Peasant Party and had given ‘tribal’ speeches on the occasion of Zrinski–Frankopan Day and during an excursion. Moreover, when one student had suggested singing the Serbian hymn during that excursion, Rein had refused to do so.15 Drago C´epulic´, secondary school teacher in Zagreb, was transferred to Zemun after he had been denounced by a student for ‘ridiculing’ Ekavians by claiming that the Ijekavian variant was softer than the Ekavian variant.16 The Muslim principal Hakija Hadzˇic´ was dismissed as principal of the new gymnasium in Trebinje because he had turned the Croatian reading room into a centre of political propaganda for the Croatian Bloc (a coalition of Croatian opposition parties under the leadership of the Croatian Republic Peasant Party favouring the decentralisation of Yugoslavia). Hadzˇic´ and another teacher, Nikola Sambrajlo, incited local Muslims into joining the Croatian reading room and had thus, according to the district chief, worked against the unity of state and

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nation and increased the antagonism between the different religious communities in the village.17 In a comment accompanying the report by the district chief, the regional government for Bosnia-Herzegovina confirmed that Hadzˇic´ was a self-declared Croat, that he was rather ‘liberal’ from a religious point of view (he wore a hat and allowed his wife to walk around unveiled), and that he was a dedicated agitator for the JMO. However, Hadzˇic´’s work at school could not be criticised: he treated all of his students equally, regardless of their ‘faith and nationality’. The regional government carefully suggested that a transfer of Hadzˇic´ might not be prudent because it could be interpreted as an act against the Muslim population in the village, but it was to no avail.18 In the summer of 1928, a complaint was lodged against Slavica Klaric´, teacher in an elementary school in Osijek, because she had reprimanded one of her pupils who had claimed to speak Serbian, explaining that Serbian was only spoken in Serbia and that in Osijek only Croatian was spoken.19 The Union of Croatian Teachers Associations turned to Croatian national defence against the ‘persecution of Croatdom’ by ‘anti-Croatian Serbs’ of the Democratic Party and the ‘Croatian hypocrites and careerists’ in the Croatian centralist camp.20 Commenting on the transfers of Croatian teachers, the leadership of the Croatian Bloc for its part spoke about ‘the destruction of the Croatian being itself’, of ‘Croatian culture and education’, and of ‘the notion of the Croatian homeland’.21 The salience of Croatian national loyalty in the federalist camp, however, did not indicate a rejection of Yugoslav national loyalty. In an early resolution of 1921, the Union of Croatian Teachers Association argued for close cooperation between different regional teachers associations in Yugoslavia ‘for the purpose of the realisation of the national unity of the Yugoslav brotherly peoples, Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes’.22 The Croatian teachers supported Yugoslav national unification but opposed forceful assimilation and Serbian domination and instead propagated a more open definition of Yugoslav national unity with leeway for internal variation. Furthermore, in none of the above given cases is a clear Croat –Yugoslav division evident. In the case of C´epulic´, for example, the fact that he had called the Ijekavian variant softer than the Ekavian variant does not at all imply that he was not Yugoslav-oriented. The connection to Yugoslav nationhood added meaning to politically or purely personally motivated acts against teachers, illustrating the enormous symbolic capital of Yugoslav

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nationhood for making sense of societal and political divisions in Croatia-Slavonia during the 1920s. *** Not surprisingly, by the end of the 1920s dissatisfaction and disappointment had grown significantly within the ranks of Yugoslav teachers: Teachers are not the pillars of the school and educational policy but simply a weapon in the hands of several agitators and partisans. We have never opposed the fact that everybody should be held responsible for their own mistakes, but we strongly oppose the fact that teachers are transferred according to the wishes of somebody or other, that teachers constantly have to fear an eventual transfer, and that this hinders the work they have devoted themselves to as well as the children they must educate. For once and for all this oldfashioned way of working with public teachers has to stop. The authorities must guarantee that teachers can work peacefully and fruitfully, elementary schools and teachers ought to be respected at least by those who take care of them.23 Many teachers began to doubt the Yugoslav idealism of politicians themselves, especially in contrast to the high hopes they themselves had placed in education for Yugoslav nation building: Let us admit openly that we don’t await the tenth anniversary of the realisation of our age-old dream with the same enthusiasm as expected. The spiritual building, which has also been built by teachers through the valuable particles of their souls and their great love toward their nation, has been attacked. What was considered indivisible as long as it remained in the hands of scientists, writers, artists, and teachers, became divisible as soon as it came into other hands.24 Under the dictatorship, educational authorities did show more decisiveness in their educational policy. However, this brought with it even greater ideological pressure on and interference with teachers.

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Teachers under the Royal Dictatorship With the establishment of the Royal Dictatorship, teachers were given a crucial role in the state’s nation-building project. For Minister of Education Bozˇidar Maksimovic´, every teacher was primarily ‘a state organ and carrier of the state idea’.25 Teacher-training schools should produce qualified teachers, whose work would ‘not clash with fundamental ideas about the state organisation, proper behaviour, the structure of society, and the unity of state and nation, as has frequently been the case during the last years’.26 King Alexander called the teacher ‘the centre of education, pillar of Yugoslav nationalism, and stimulus for all beautiful aspirations in the future of Yugoslavia’.27 At the same time, the authorities made it clear that they would not tolerate any departures from this norm and that they would ‘immediately get rid of’ teachers whose work did not correspond to the state interests.28 Teachers were obliged to be nothing less than ‘a model of civil, religious, political, and cultural tolerance’.29 They should always be at school and punctual on working days, and on the weekends, they should stay in their village because this was the time when they could make contact with the villagers. They should not insult or ridicule popular customs but should make bad habits disappear. At school, teachers should form theatre groups and choral societies for the singing of folk songs. Outside school, they should organise literacy courses and popular lectures, and establish Sokol clubs, choral societies, popular libraries, and credit unions.30 Teachers could never fall out of their roles: ‘The people should not see teachers play cards, get drunk, spend time with singers or other similar women, gamble, lodge complaints, or take cases to the communal court, as has been the case in some places.’31 Indicating the incredibly high demands placed on teachers, the following criteria were taken into consideration in their evaluations: Success at school; successful work in village schools with large and undivided classes and in difficult surroundings; work in the field of popular education; spreading of literacy; organisation of cultural associations and assistance of agricultural cooperatives; protection of public health; stamping out of alcoholism; contributions to school literature; contributions to associations

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for the strengthening of national consciousness and religious tolerance; family needs; length of service.32 School inspectors were required to check if the teachers provided education in the spirit of the education laws and if their teaching contributed to the main objectives of education, namely: national unity, religious tolerance, morality, and civil dutifulness. Inspectors should also consider the teachers’ devotion to work, general behaviour both at and outside of school, and their work on popular education in the village, specifically the organisation of literacy courses, schools and courses for domestic science and agriculture, and contributions to village libraries and local Sokol clubs.33 Given the great importance of national education, the Ministry of Education ordered all inspectors to pay specific attention to the work of teachers for national education, both in and outside the school. Teachers who were evaluated negatively for national teaching could not be evaluated positively in general, even if other aspects of their work were excellent.34 These evaluations gave the educational authorities the possibility to reward faithful teachers and to punish teachers whose work was not in accordance with the norms of the dictatorship, thus imposing a strict boundary between the loyal and the disloyal. Milorad Popovic´, a teacher in Komoran in eastern Kosovo, was transferred because the district chief accused him of secret political agitation.35 The criticism levelled at Popovic´’s transfer by a representative of the education department of Vardar banovina perfectly captures the helplessness of teachers against the almost absolute power of local authorities during the high dictatorship: It is dramatic that a teacher is transferred only because he had an argument over a purely school related issue with the district chief or somebody below him. . . It seems to me that characters that are already quite rare today are broken that way and that we put the blame on these young people, who live in incredibly difficult circumstances in the countryside and whom we ask to work almost for free in all fields of national education.36 Moreover, a simple village teacher like Popovic´, who was ‘petty, weak, had neither political past nor any material means to undertake any action’, could hardly pose a threat to the village, let alone to an entire

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state.37 In this concrete case, at least, the Ministry of Education annulled its prior decision and allowed Popovic´ to stay in Komoran.38 A careful look at cases of interference with teachers reveals the complex social and political divisions from the community level to the top-level of national politics that informed these cases and can help assess the relevance of nationhood in social interactions at the below area of society.

Monitoring the political loyalty of teachers Instead of maintaining the political neutrality mentioned in the Law on Popular Schools, teachers were required to support the dictatorship actively. The slightest indication of failing to the Yugoslav National Party led to sanctions and warnings. The district chief of Karlovac in central Croatia, for example, lodged a complaint against the local school inspector Milan Lulic´ because he had refused to participate in the attempts of the local authorities to strengthen the local branch of the JNS and had advised local teachers against joining the party. Lulic´ allegedly left the village on purpose when the local authorities organised a political meeting. He was not active in national associations outside school, and he reprimanded teachers who were active in the local Sokol or in the Yugoslav National Party.39 Iva Medvesˇcˇak, teacher in Busˇevec in central Croatia, was transferred because she had openly criticised a former member of the Croatian Peasant Party who had supported the JNS during the elections of 1931.40 Similarly, local authorities reported that Jovan Zˇivkovic´, a teacher in Bela Palanka in south-eastern Serbia, had ridiculed members of the former Radical and Democratic Party who had joined the JNS and had advised villagers not to attend political meetings organised by the JNS.41 The teacher Vojislav Gligoric´ from Banja Koviljacˇa in western Serbia reported to the Yugoslav Teachers Association that the local JNS candidate and former member of the Radical Party had threatened to have him transferred to the Albanian frontier because he had voted for a former member of the Democratic Party at the elections of May 1935.42 Local authorities closely followed teachers who had been politically active before 1929 or maintained contact with prominent members of former political parties.43 For example, the Ministry of Education transferred Petar Barjaktarovic´ from Pancˇevo just North of Belgrade to Vlasotince in Vardar banovina because he maintained close contact with Dusˇan Bosˇkovic´, a prominent leader of the former SDS. Moreover,

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Barjaktarovic´’s passive behaviour obstructed the work of the local national associations. On the occasion of a recent reshuffling of the government, he had openly criticised some of the new ministers, calling the Minister of Education a ‘cop’. Finally, he was known as extremely hostile toward Serbia, calling one of the civil servants from pre-war Serbia who was working in Pancˇevo a ‘peasant’.44 In August 1934, the Ministry of Education transferred Milovan Glisˇic´, teacher in Vukosavci in the district Orasˇac in central Serbia, to Topolovnik in eastern Serbia, because he had organised a meeting with Dragoljub Jovanovic´, one of the leaders of the former Agricultural Union and one of the more active opposition politicians in the earliest phase of the dictatorship. True, Glisˇic´ had been eligible to be on the JNS list during the elections, but in secret he allegedly had supported the work of the opposition list that had won the local elections.45 Local authorities went pretty far in their vigilance. In the summer of 1933, Milorad Jovanovic´, teacher in Zˇitni Potok in southern Serbia, was transferred on the basis of a report by the district chief, who had overheard a conversation between Jovanovic´ and Dragutin Mirovic´, former deputy, in the local tavern. Both were very drunk and criticised the present political situation and the restriction of personal freedom. Jovanovic´ several times stressed that he was a supporter of Ljubodrag Davidovic´ and the Democratic Party. Thereupon Mirovic´ had called Jovanovic´ a coward because he had voted for the government candidate in the last elections.46 Marko Milosˇevic´ was transferred from Donja Dubnica in northern Kosovo to Strmosten, near Despotovac in eastern Serbia, because he had demanded to end his JNS membership and had advised sympathisers of the former Democratic Party to do the same in the local bar. He also told a former member of the Radical Party who wanted to join them in the bar to get lost. Milosˇevic´’s intolerant behaviour apparently also provoked tensions between the local Orthodox and Muslim population, certainly after the local mosque had been vandalised, a case that had not yet been solved.47 *** The authorities took especially firm action against teachers whom they suspected of supporting the Croatian Peasant Party or other more extremist Croatian nationalist movements. Teachers were in fact held solely responsible for the political and national loyalty of ‘their’ village.

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In the fall of 1932, the Ustasˇas organised a failed terrorist attack in the poor and underdeveloped region of Lika in the hope of inciting a popular revolution.48 In a period of one year after this somewhat exaggeratedly labelled Lika Uprising, three accusations were filed against Ivan Pavlakovic´, teacher in the elementary school in Banjevci, which finally led to his transfer. Although no concrete violations on the part of Pavlakovic´ had been found, he was deemed suspicious because some people from ‘his’ village had been involved in the ‘uprising’. For the authorities, this proved that Pavlakovic´ had either not done enough to disseminate the ideals of national unity in his village or that he had known about the terrorist attack and had failed to prevent it. Either way, he had not done his job as national teacher.49 Local authorities started a case against Juraj Frankov, the director of the elementary school in Sesvete (now a suburb of Zagreb), because he had been a supporter of the Croatian Peasant Party. He had been appointed director of the school in Sesvete under the ministership of Radic´ and had been an active member and supporter of the Union of Croatian Teachers Associations. According to the local authorities, Frankov had joined the Yugoslav Teachers Association and the Yugoslav Sokol after the establishment of the Royal Dictatorship only for the sake of appearances. In reality, it was explained, he continued to keep close contact with members of the former HSS and thwarted the work of the local Sokol by advising all his pupils not to join the Sokol and by not allowing the group to use the school building for its activities. Furthermore, Frankov was an alcoholic and had obliged the pupils do jobs for him during the school hours.50 The Ministry of Education also started an investigation against Slavko Modrijan, principal of an elementary school in Zagreb, on the basis of an anonymous complaint denouncing Modrijan’s political orientation that was sent to Prime Minister Petar Zˇivkovic´. Accordingly, Modrijan was generally known as a sympathiser of the Frankist Party of Rights and a strong opponent of the regime. He had invited Josip Predavec, one of the leaders of the Croatian Peasant Party, to speak at a public lecture organised by Seljacˇka sloga. He had organised secret meetings with peasants and had held frequent lectures until late at night, after which attendants went home singing political and anti-state songs. Finally, Modrijan had been a prominent member of the Union of Croatian Teachers Associations.51

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As in the 1920s, claims of Croatian ‘tribal’ disloyalty intertwined with the political conflict. The local authorities of Varvarin in central Serbia, for example, lodged a complaint against Marica Jareb, whose work as a teacher had been evaluated positively during the past years but who had already been transferred away from her home town Slunj in the Kordun region in central Croatia. According to the report, Jareb had attended two political events in support of the HSS while on vacation in Slunj. She had pinned a small badge with the Croatian flag on her chest – a symbolic expression of political support to the Croatian Peasant Party – and had ‘provoked the masses’ by shouting anti-Yugoslav slogans like ‘Long live free Croatia’ and singing ‘separatist’ songs.52 The disciplinary court at the Ministry of Education decided that Jareb could not be punished – a transfer made no sense because Jareb already worked in the ‘nationally safe’ area of western Serbia – but that she should be warned not to take part in such manifestations in the future.53 Antun Kasˇtelan, principal of an elementary school in Sˇibenik, was fined two months’ worth of wages because he had participated in a demonstration with a ‘tribal’ and anti-Yugoslav character that was held in commemoration of Radic´. During the demonstration, Kasˇtelan had shouted ‘Long live Croatia’. When a passer-by shouted ‘Long live Yugoslavia’, Kasˇtelan had accordingly protested loudly, although he himself denied this.54 The teacher Franjo Valdman was fined 500 dinars because he had instigated a ‘tribal’ demonstration of a group of students in the village Malo Polje, near Perusˇic´ in the Lika region. According to the authorities, Valdman had initially gathered these students in his house. Thereafter, the pupils walked the streets, shouting slogans in favour of Croatian independence and Vladko Macˇek. Moreover, one of the students dressed in the colours of the Croatian flag, and they were all singing the Croatian hymn ‘and other provocative and tribal songs’.55 *** In Slovenia, teachers were divided along the lines of the continuing political and cultural battles between Clericals and Liberals camps. In January 1936, the deputies Rudolf Plesˇkovicˇ and Karel Dobersˇek, members of the liberal opposition to the governing Slovenian Clericals, questioned the Minister of Education concerning what they saw as ‘terror’ against liberally orientated teachers in Drava banovina. Since the

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beginning of the school year 1935–6, 274 teachers had been transferred in Slovenia. Plesˇkovicˇ and Dobersˇek further claimed that the authorities had banned numerous publications by Yugoslav-oriented teachers and that they allowed local politicians, clericals, and journals to spread hatred against these teachers. At a JRZ meeting in Maribor, for example, a city councillor had openly said that the authorities would transfer and dismiss all those teachers, those ‘-ic´i, -cˇic´i, gypsies, and looters’ who had forced Slovenian children to enter the Sokol.56 The educational authorities of Drava banovina did not deny that many teachers had been transferred after the Clericals had come to power but stressed that far more teachers had been transferred under the JNS government: in the school year 1934–5, 414 teachers were transferred in Drava banovina, in the first semester of 1935– 6 ‘only’ 274. Moreover, the ‘reorganisation’ of the teaching personnel in Drava banovina was absolutely necessary to end the ‘anarchy and demoralisation’ of teachers in the region and was approved by a majority of the population.57 The authorities gave numerous examples of teachers or principals who had denounced other teachers, clericals, and ordinary people whom they considered not loyal to the regime during the JNS government, leading to teacher transfers to pre-war Serbia.58 In the eyes of the new authorities, the only ones removed were the ‘fanatical JNS teachers, who are intolerant, unpredictable, and immoral political provocateurs and who have denunciated so many of their colleagues’.59

Imposing national boundaries: Monitoring the national correctness of teachers The examples given above clarify that even the slightest politically motivated act on the part of teachers, in so far as it did not concur with the dictatorship’s political line, made a teacher suspicious in the eyes of the authorities. Whereas such political interference with teachers was a statewide phenomenon, the nationalisation of these political divisions was especially salient in cases of Croatian political opposition. Accusers typically made claims of national incorrectness against teachers whom they suspected of supporting or favouring the Croatian Peasant Party. The same applied to affiliations with other Croatian associations. All members of the Croatian teachers association, which was formally banned in 1929, were expected to join the Yugoslav Teachers Association. Teachers who played a prominent role in the Croatian

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teachers association and opposed the work of the Yugoslav Teachers Association were automatically seen as suspicious from a national point of view. Very revealing is the case against Stjepan Gorupic´ and Franjo Matasovic´, both principals of elementary schools in Zagreb and former leaders of the Union of Croatian Teachers Associations. They were dismissed on the basis of a report alleging that they boycotted the work of the Yugoslav Teachers Association and that their work was ‘extremely Croatian’ and ‘Croatian separatist’.60 The authorities recognised that their pedagogical work was excellent but ‘from the viewpoint of their national orientation, that toward which we all go and must go, is missing in that [pedagogical] success, namely true national consciousness and love of the unity of nation and state’.61 The prominent and vocal leaders of opposition networks were not the only ones checked by the authorities. The Ministry of Internal Affairs demanded the transfer of a certain Jelakovic´, a teacher at the elementary school in Gora, close to Petrinja in central Croatia. Although he did a good job at school, he had disparaged himself because he had not celebrated some school and state holidays. Furthermore, for the celebration of the centenary of the foundation of the school in Gora, Jelakovic´ had failed ‘to perform his patriotic duties and the duties of national educators’ by including a speech by a representative of the Union of Croatian Teachers Associations, in which great attention was paid to the ‘tribal moment’, whereas no attention at all was devoted to the King and national unity.62 The education department of Sava banovina also demanded the dismissal of Bartol Tomec´ak, principal of an elementary school in Zagreb. Tomec´ak was a peaceful man whose ‘tribal’ orientation was not very visible from the outside. However, according to the authorities, ‘in his heart’ he opposed everything that was not Croatian. This conclusion was based on the fact that he supported the Union of Croatian Teachers Associations and had not joined the Yugoslav Teachers Association and that ‘he nurtured his soul with tribal romanticism’ by participating in the ‘tribal association’ of The Brotherhood of the Croatian Dragon (Brac´a Hrvatskoga Zmaja), an organisation that preserved the Croatian historical heritage especially by erecting monuments and commemorative plates.63 One of the teachers who was suggested as a candidate for Tomec´ak’s position was Franjo Markovic´, one of the most important members of the Union of Croatian Teachers Associations, who had joined the Yugoslav Teachers Association

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after the formation of the dictatorship and thus apparently proved his national correctness. Another candidate was Janja Sˇimatovic´, a ‘convinced Yugoslav’; nevertheless, it was problematic that Sˇimatovic´ maintained very close and friendly bonds with a Catholic priest.64 A similar case was lodged against Mica Klicˇar after the local police had intercepted a letter in which she openly wrote that she would never participate in the Yugoslav Teachers Association and expressed regret for the ban of the Croatian teachers association.65 On the basis of this report, the ministry demanded a further investigation of Klicˇar’s work and behaviour at school and in private, ‘especially from a national point of view’.66 The governor of Sava banovina himself briefly responded that Klicˇar’s behaviour was completely improper, especially for that region, which required ‘not only nationally and politically correct but also active teachers’.67 *** Authorities were also on the alert for the slightest expression of Croatian bias. In some cases, it was sufficient to describe a teacher as unsympathetic toward national unity or Croat biased without giving any concrete evidence. The Ministry of Education, for example, transferred Micika Braum from Pisarovina, nearby Zagreb, to Cˇacˇak in western Serbia on the basis of a report prepared by the cabinet of Prime Minister Petar Zˇivkovic´ accusing Braum of propagating ‘tribal’ and separatist ideas without further specifying the precise nature of this violation.68 Similarly, the Ministry of Education complied with a demand from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to transfer Cvetko Romic´ and his wife to Macedonia because he was ‘an exclusive Croat’.69 The authorities of Sava banovina and the Ministry of Internal Affairs demanded the transfer of the teacher Vilko Kolar, who worked in Draganic´, close to the Slovenian border in central Croatia, because he had watched a game of handball with a group of Croatian ‘separatists’. After the game, some of the players got drunk and started shouting Croatian anti-state slogans. It was uncertain whether or not Kolar himself had shouted such slogans, but he was, in any case, guilty for not interfering. Furthermore, Kolar had not been active in the dissemination of national culture in his village.70 The school inspector of Osijek reported that he had found the following ‘incorrect’ phrase in the pupils’ notes in one of the schools he had inspected: ‘Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes speak similar languages’. The teacher Ivana

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Kovacˇ had used this sentence to show the pupils that the first letter of proper names was written with a capital letter. The problem was, of course, that Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes did not speak similar languages but one Yugoslav language. The inspector later interfered when the pupils were reading a patriotic text in their reader and asked them questions to find out if they were aware of the fact that Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes formed one Yugoslav nation. None of the pupils, however, seemed to know this. All they could say was that Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes were brothers or that Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes were all Croats. This demonstrated, according to the inspector, that the pupils had not learned about ‘Yugoslavism’. Kovacˇ defended herself by arguing that the children had forgotten her lesson about Yugoslavism and that it was too early for pupils of the second year to remember this, but the inspector asserted that children had to know this from the first year of elementary school.71 In addition to the preceding complaints, the district chief reported that Kovacˇ did not participate in the activities of Yugoslav national associations and had not joined the Yugoslav Teachers Association, lamenting: There are still such people among us who cannot or do not want to get accustomed to our present circumstances. Educated under foreign rule, in their minds they are still in the period of our national division, and they consider their tribal and regional interests and aspirations more important than our national and spiritual unity. If such persons can still exist at all, such actions can certainly not be taken by teachers of Yugoslav popular schools, as educators of future Yugoslav citizens.72 For all these reasons, the school inspector and the district chief demanded the early retirement of Kovacˇ and Julijana Petrovic´, the director of the school who was also held responsible.73 A later inspection report clarified that no violations against the school legislation were found in the work of Kovacˇ and Petrovic´ in school but that both still had not joined any Yugoslav cultural organisation or the Yugoslav Teachers Association. As argued by the school inspector, both were too old anyway and could not give ‘the young Yugoslav nation anything’.74 On 30 December 1935, finally, the Ministry forced the two teachers to retire.75 In all these cases, the slightest sign of Croatian bias was understood as contradictory to the interests of the Yugoslav nation-state even though a

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rejection of Yugoslav national identification was notoriously absent from the acts. This is not to say that national differentiation was completely irrelevant in Yugoslav schools. Anthropological and micro-level historical studies have showed that in the mixed communities of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, similarities and differences between the ethnoreligious communities were dynamic features of social interaction.76 Some reports confirm that ethno-religious differentiation could give meaning to social relations in the classroom. In the summer of 1932, a school inspector reported that the teachers in the elementary schools in the region of Fojnica and Visoko in central Bosnia strongly opposed to national and state unity, especially in their teaching of national history. They treated Croatian historical figures, such as Ljudevit Posavski, King Tomislav, and Nikola Sˇubic´ Zrinjski in great detail, whereas Serbian figures like Stevan Prvovencˇani, Tsar Dusˇan, Prince Lazar, and Karađorđe received little or no attention at all. In the fourth year of the elementary school in Varesˇ, the ‘hatred’ against the Serbs was so strong that the pupil Stjepan Rajber had perforated the faces of Stevan Prvovencˇani, Dusˇan, Lazar, and Karađorđe in his history textbook. The inspector suggested that the teacher, Katarina Crvenkovic´, should be transferred to Serbia.77 Crvenkovic´ herself claimed that she did not know anything about the case. According to her, the pupils only used the history book when they did their lessons at home. She insinuated that a group of her adversaries in the village were the instigators behind the negative inspection report. The mother of the pupil in question, Marija Rajber, who was also a teacher in Varesˇ, defended herself and her son by pointing to the general spirit of ‘tribal’ separatism and religious intolerance in Varesˇ. Local parents had, for example, boycotted the Yugoslav Sokol in the village and taught their children anti-state songs. One Serbian pupil had even refused to answer when his teacher interrogated him about Croatian rulers. According to Rajber, the parents and not the school teachers were guilty for this general atmosphere. Rajber considered herself nationally correct and was not guilty (as a parent) for the behaviour of her son. She had already requested a transfer away from Varesˇ to remove her children from this un-national environment and had even joined a Yugoslav Sokol club in the neighbouring village of Majdan instead of joining the Catholic gymnastics club or the Croatian Sokol club in Varesˇ. She had later been the driving force behind the establishment of a local branch of the Sokol of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in Varesˇ. Finally, Rajber stressed

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that she had been positively evaluated as a teacher. Rajber, Crvenkovic´, and the school principal were nevertheless all transferred to ‘less convenient places’.78 As a result of a complaint against Katica Lekic´, elementary school teacher in Brcˇko in north-eastern Bosnia, by a mother who found that her daughter had not been evaluated objectively by Lekic´ and therefore could not advance to higher popular school,79 the education department of Drina banovina investigated Lekic´’s work. Local authorities quickly came up with a long list of violations in the domain of religious and ‘tribal’ intolerance. First, Lekic´, herself a Catholic, had refused to accompany her Orthodox pupils to church. While attending an Orthodox service with her pupils, she had audaciously remained seated, even when the name of King Alexander was mentioned. When the priest had urged her to stand up, she had left the church, claiming that she could not stand the smell. She always wrote certificates and diplomas in the Latin alphabet although it was customary to write certificates for Orthodox children in Cyrillic. After the school principal had pointed this out to her, Lekic´ started writing certificates in Cyrillic but continued signing them in Latin. Furthermore, she advised her pupils against buying Cyrillic textbooks. She had even compelled a Muslim pupil who had bought a Cyrillic textbook to return it to the shop and replace it with a book in the Latin alphabet. Finally, Lekic´ had given low grades to three Serbian Orthodox members of the local Sokol, which according to the authorities was no coincidence but a conscious act of ‘tribal’ intolerance.80 As argued by the chief of the district: The work of Ms Lekic´ is harmful to the interests of religious tolerance and the position of the elementary school; therefore, we suggest that she is transferred to a remote village within the boundaries of pre-war Serbia, where Ms Lekic´ will not have the possibilities to differentiate pupils and to show them her intolerance and where Ms Lekic´ will probably change her viewpoints under the influence of the surroundings. If she would be transferred to her home region she would not be given the opportunity to change her ideas.81 The education department of Drina banovina summarised that Lekic´ had been led by ‘tribal’ and religious intolerance.82 Lekic´ was transferred to Srebrenica, a mixed Serbian –Muslim village in eastern Bosnia.83

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Sˇtefica Macinauer, teacher in the elementary school in Slavonska ˇ Pozega in southern Slavonia, was transferred because she had told Orthodox pupils, who comprised 4/5 of the school’s pupils, that there were no Serbs in Croatia, only Vlachs or Orthodox. According to her, there were only Serbs in Serbia. She had also forced her pupils to make the sign of the cross in the Catholic way.84 In the summer of 1931, the police ended a public performance by the Croatian choral society Zvijezda (Star) in the village of Breza in central Bosnia because the group sang only Croatian patriotic songs and shouted Croatian patriotic slogans. In a response to a complaint lodged by the leadership of the choral society that the police intervention had been ungrounded and illegal, the local authorities explained that although ‘tribal’ songs officially had not been banned, they were very harmful, especially in areas where Serbs and Croats ‘of the three religions’ lived together. Allegedly, all patriotic citizens of the area had avoided ‘publicly expressing their tribal orientations’, except for a small group of Croats who continued to provoke ‘tribal’ discord.85 These elaborations on ‘national intolerance’ in teacher evaluations show that educational authorities were especially alarmed when a Croatian bias was deemed detrimental to the Serbian interests in mixed regions. This observation not only holds true for mixed Croat –Serb communities but also for the more abstract Croat –Serb relations within the Yugoslav nation. As we have seen, any claim that Bosnian Muslims were part of the Croatian ‘tribe’ of the Yugoslav nation or simply part of the Yugoslav nation without ‘tribal’ affiliation was not only seen as harmful for the interests of the Serbian ‘tribe’ but also as anti-Yugoslav even though such claims propagated Yugoslav nationhood among Bosnian Muslims. The same rule applied for the Yugoslav national integration of Sˇokci and Bunjevci, two small but distinct South Slav ethnic groups living in Slavonia, the Srem, Baranja, and Bacˇka. Bunjevci presumably originate from Herzegovina, are Roman Catholic, and speak the Ikavian variant. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century, the national status of Bunjevci has been disputed from a Serbian, Croatian, Yugoslav, and Bunjevci point of view. At present, most Bunjevci declare themselves as Croats or Bunjevci.86 Sˇokci are Roman Catholic and speak a mixed Ikavian and Ekavian variant of SerboCroatian. Today, most Sˇokci declare themselves as Croats. In interwar Yugoslavia, the official point of view refrained from making clear

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statements about the Serbian or Croatian status of Bunjevci or Sˇokci. They formed the smallest ‘tribe’ of the Yugoslav nation or represented the ‘middle point between the Serbian and Croatian tribe’.87 However, it was time and again stressed that Bunjevci and Sˇokci were certainly not strictly Croats. Jugoslovenski dnevnik, a pro-regime daily published in Subotica and later Novi Sad, polemically reacted against a book by Petar Pekic´, which was published by Matica hrvatska in 1930 and argued for the Croatian ‘tribal’ status of Bunjevci. The daily called the book a ‘national crime’ and explained that if Bunjevci were to choose between the Serbian and Croatian name, they would certainly not choose the Croatian name.88 This line of reasoning was also apparent in the educational policy. The school inspector of the Subotica district reported that the new reading books for elementary schools by Vladimir Nazor and Stjepan Bosanac were harmful for the mixed Croat– Serb– Bunjevci region around Subotica because of the Croatian bias in historical texts and because an article on Subotica spoke of Croatian Bunjevci as part of ‘the artificial creation of Croatian Bunjevci’.89 In other words, a certain Croatian bias in the textbooks was not considered contradictory to Yugoslav nation building for the strictly Croatian part of the nation, but as soon as it clashed with Serbian interests, Croatian national identification was deemed incompatible with Yugoslav nationhood. *** Local authorities lodged strikingly few complaints over national incorrectness or ‘tribal’ intolerance’ of Serbian teachers. In a rare case against Serbian ‘tribal’ intolerance, the Ministry of Education transferred the elementary school teacher Dusˇan Popovic´ because he had removed names of pupils written in Latin and forced them to write in Cyrillic, although it was argued in Popovic´’s defence that he came from southern Serbia and could not read the Latin alphabet.90 Another example is the complaint lodged against Radomir Rajkovic´, a teacher in Hrtkovci in the Srem. Allegedly, Rajkovic´ constantly insulted the Croats. He had praised the murderer of Radic´ and offended Croatian pupils in his class by calling them ‘peasant pigs’.91 A detailed investigation added that Rajkovic´ had threatened to use violence against the Croatian ‘infidels’ and had attempted to smash a portrait of Radic´ that was hanging in a

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local tavern. He had even claimed to like Hungarians better than Croats. Rajkovic´ himself confirmed all this but added that the Croats simply wanted him, the only Serbian teacher of the village, out of the way so that they could hold secret political meetings against the Yugoslav state, the Serbian name, and even the King. In fact, Rajkovic´ himself had lodged a complaint for anti-state activities against the district chief, who had then denounced Rajkovic´. As argued by the school inspector of Danube banovina, Rajkovic´ should be transferred because he was a person ‘who could never get accustomed to the ideological calling of the teachers, because he considered it as his duty to be involved in politics and to impose his will on the weak’.92 The disciplinary court for teachers decided that the position of Rajkovic´ in Hrtkovci had become insufferable. However, the court found him not guilty because he had simply ‘defended his Serbian name’ and because the complaint against Rajkovic´ resulted from a personal conflict with the district chief. Rajkovic´ was finally transferred to nearby Cˇantavir in Bacˇka.93 Unlike cases of Croatian bias or intolerance, which were quickly interpreted as clashing with and in opposition to Yugoslav nationhood, complaints about Serbian ‘separatism’ or Serbian bias occurred seldomly and were put in perspective. On the basis of what I have found in Serbian textbooks, it would be naive to conclude that teachers in Serbian regions were free from a Serbian bias in their teaching. Instead, this Serbian bias was simply not considered problematic or incompatible with Yugoslav nationhood. What is more, as explicated in the case of Rajkovic´, a Serbian bias was evaluated as a justified defence of the Serbian and Yugoslav case, whereas a Croatian bias was quickly seen as incompatible with Yugoslav nationhood and, no matter how banal the motives, a dangerous threat against the security of nation and state. In this light, it is also revealing that the authorities transferred nationally incorrect teachers from former Habsburg regions to Serbia, ‘where the Yugoslav idea had taken deeper and firmer roots’ and where the teachers would automatically change their ‘incorrect’, Croat-biased viewpoints while under the good influence of the surroundings.94 *** Macedonia was another region where the distance between the Yugoslav norm and the actual work of the teachers was especially great. The division between loyal Serbian –Yugoslav and ‘Bulgarist’ teachers

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(bugarasˇi) was particularly salient. Cvetanka Rosic´, for example, was fired because she refused to take part in national holidays. On 17 December 1932, the birthday of King Alexander, she had audaciously left the local church and later that day she had insulted participants in the popular celebration of the holiday. Investigations by local authorities clarified that Rosic´ called herself a Bulgarian and that she supported Macedonian autonomy.95 In many cases, however, the boundary was not so clear-cut. Many Macedonian teachers were transferred to Serbia or Bosnia because they had spoken the Macedonian vernacular at work or at home or did not fully master the Serbo-Croatian literary language.96 Suspicion against Macedonian teachers also arose if they did not celebrate their family’s slava,97 if they had taken a dubious standpoint toward the Bulgarian occupation during the World War I, if they had served in schools of the Bulgarian Exarchate before the Balkan Wars, or if they did not work enough in the domain of popular education.98 The authorities closely followed five teachers from the Bitola district, for example, for not knowing the Serbian literary language, sympathising with Bulgaria, and hiding away pictures of St Sava in drawers instead of hanging them in the classroom.99 In order to Yugoslavise education in ‘southern Serbia’, the Ministry of Education encouraged young teachers from ‘nationally conscious areas’ to go and work in the region. In the early 1920s, the Ministry decided that eight months, later reduced to just six months, of work in ‘southern Serbia’ counted for one entire year of service.100 As a result, in 1931–2 only little more than one-quarter of all teachers in Vardar banovina were born in the region.101 At the same time, however, a great number of teachers, especially Serbs from Danube banovina, were transferred to Vardar banovina for punishment rather than because of their Yugoslav national credentials.102 Many teachers in Macedonia considered this a banishment, even if this was not the case, and used every possible occasion to request a transfer.103 Illustrative of the unpopularity of the region, in 1932, there were 302 vacant teaching positions in Macedonia, and 57 popular schools there did not have any teaching personnel.104 By 1939, there were around 400 vacant teaching positions in Vardar banovina, which meant that every other village school did not have a teacher.105 This imbalance also characterised the work of the Philosophical Faculty in Skopje, which was intended to become a centre of Yugoslav

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national culture in Macedonia. This expectation, however, clashed with the practice that nationally incorrect professors were transferred to Skopje to improve their national behaviour. The Croatian anthropologist C´iro Truhelka for example was evaluated negatively, because he had written disrespectfully about Karađorđe and had argued that the celebration of slava was not a popular custom in ‘Southern Serbia’.106 However, since his assignment in Macedonia was already a punishment, Truhelka could not easily be reproached.107 In any case, the national motivation of teachers did not concur with the high national ideals the authorities expected from them in a sensitive national area like Macedonia. The salience of the dichotomy between Serb – Yugoslav and ‘Bulgarist’ teachers illustrates the exclusionary and divisive character of nationhood to make sense of social and political divisions in the region. *** The dictatorship closely intertwined the teachers’ loyalty to the regime with Yugoslav national consciousness. In that line of reasoning, the exclusionary boundary between the loyal and the disloyal became a national boundary between correct Yugoslavs and non-Yugoslavs. This potential national boundary was especially activated in the case of Croatian and Macedonian teachers considered disloyal to the regime. Reports against teachers involved in or linked to Croatian associations that challenged the dictatorship, most importantly the Union of Croatian Teachers Associations and the Croatian Peasant Party, substantiated accusations with national arguments along the lines of Croatian anti-Yugoslavism. Local authorities also reported elements of Croatian bias in the work or activities of teachers and interpreted these as acts of ‘tribal’ intolerance and evidence of opposition against Yugoslav nationhood. A similar national division was also used to distinguish loyal Serbian– Yugoslav teachers in Macedonia from ‘Bulgarists’. Such national boundaries were not added to complaints against teachers who did not fully meet the high criteria of the dictatorship in Slovenia or Serbian regions. This does not mean that all teachers in these areas supported the dictatorship, were conscious Yugoslavs, or showed no sign of Slovenian or Serbian bias, but indicates the irrelevance of national boundaries between the Slovenian/Serbian and the Yugoslav level of national identity to make sense of social and political divisions.

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I maintain that this development does not reflect conscious grassroots opposition against the Yugoslav national idea or an inherent incompatibility of Croatian and Macedonian national loyalty with Yugoslav national identification. Many of the cases described above illustrate that communal conflicts surrounding teachers had little to do with a conscious sense of national belonging or conscious dissociation from the Yugoslav nation. In the case of Bartol Tomec´ak, for example, the authorities interpreted the fact that he had supported the Union of Croatian Teachers Associations and not joined the Yugoslav Teachers Association and that he was an active member of the ‘Brotherhood of the Croatian Dragon’ as demonstrative of his ‘tribal romanticism’ and his rejection of Yugoslav nationhood although it was explicitly recognised that Tomec´ak was a peaceful man and that his Croatian antiYugoslavism was not visible from the outside. Local authorities did not consider the possibility that Tomec´ak’s Croatian bias was compatible with Yugoslav national identification even though the potential viability of the Yugoslav nation-building programme relied on its ability to mobilise particularist identities in the direction of Yugoslav nationhood. Similarly, the fact that teachers in Macedonia did not fully master the Serbo-Croatian language does not indicate conscious rejection of Yugoslav national identification. By disregarding teachers’ motives, finding national (dis)loyalty in everything, and rejecting layered national identities, the authorities imposed national boundaries on teachers who might as well have been indifferent to nationhood or for whom Croatian/Macedonian and Yugoslav national identity were not incompatible or mutually exclusive but simply relevant in different contexts.108 Instead of the inclusive approach to Yugoslav national identity that had been defined in curricula and textbooks, Yugoslav nationhood was reduced to a rigid category of identification that naturally excluded any sense of Croatian or Macedonian national belonging.

The popular abuse of Yugoslav nationhood Teachers quickly understood the value of ‘hard evidence’ of Yugoslav national consciousness. National credentials gained through membership and active participation in Yugoslav national organisations seemed particularly easy to obtain. The numerous complaints about opportunistic teachers who had simply joined one of these Yugoslav

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state associations for the sake of appearance indicate the limitations of this policy. In some cases, participation in national associations overruled doubts about political loyalty. Svetoslav Ilic´, for example, was transferred from Trnjane in the district Nisˇava, close to the Bulgarian frontier, to Rajkinac in the district Resava in central Serbia because he had allegedly supported Democratic opposition against the government during the local elections. A group of teachers and citizens of the village, including a parliamentary deputy, challenged this transfer, arguing that Ilic´ was a good teacher, that he played an active role in the local Sokol, the library, and the agricultural cooperative, and that he had four children while his wife was seriously ill. These testimonies apparently had effect because Ilic´ was transferred back to his home region.109 Similarly, a complaint against Ivan Filkovic´, principal of the elementary school in Petrinja in central Croatia, for criticising the JNS in the local newspaper was filed away because he had been evaluated positively during the latest inspections and because he was ‘nationally correct’: he participated in the activities of the local Sokol, held a lecture on St Sava’s Day, and gave literacy courses in the army.110 In other cases, national credentials were not enough. Miljko Lovcˇevic´, teacher in Halovo in the Zajecˇar district in eastern Serbia, was transferred for criticising the corruption of high state officials, the lack of freedom for the population, and the high taxes.111 This time, testimonials of his Yugoslav national consciousness and his Sokol membership had no effect.112 Regardless of the outcome, these examples show that teachers adapted well to the language of ‘national correctness’. The enormous symbolic capital of Yugoslav nationhood is confirmed by the many cases in which Yugoslav nationhood was used in much more profane and banal ways than envisaged in the idealised prescriptions about the teachers’ national mission by the highest educational authorities. Instead of being an ideal mission, Yugoslav nationhood simply became an instrument in often banal local power struggles. The case against Ðuro Cˇaic´, a teacher in Jaramica, close to the present-day Croatian–Bosnian border in western Slavonia, nicely illustrates the broad applicability of Yugoslav nationhood at the local community level. The police started an investigation against Cˇaic´ after an informant had overheard a Croatian patriotic toast he made in the local tavern. Some of the witnesses confirmed this, while others denied that Cˇaic´ had made any national claims. A Czech teacher who had been in the tavern

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explained that he had not understood a thing because they were speaking Serbo-Croatian too quickly. Cˇaic´ himself explained that he had only challenged a claim made by one of his companions that he was a better Yugoslav than Cˇaic´, replying that only a good Croat can be a good Yugoslav (indicating his solid mastering of the Yugoslav national language of the regime, although it seems doubtful that he and his companions were actually using this language in the tavern).113 In any case, the State Court for State Security acquitted Cˇaic´ for lack of evidence.114 A year later, the district chief lodged a new complaint against Cˇaic´ because he had advised villagers from Jaramica not to vote at the local elections of October 1933. As the head of the local fire brigade, Cˇaic´ had much influence and the result was that only 11 villagers had voted. Also, Cˇaic´ had verbally attacked a school inspector on duty.115 Again one year later, a new complaint was lodged against Cˇaic´, who was still working in Jaramica, because he had ridiculed a delegation of the local Yugoslav Popular Party (a spin-off of the Yugoslav National Party), which was waiting with Yugoslav flags in a local tavern to take the train to pay tribute to King Alexander by his grave in Oplenac. Allegedly, Cˇaic´ had provoked the delegation by pretending to wonder ‘to which fair all these people were going’ and had insulted them to ‘go fuck their Vlach mother’.116 However, for lack of evidence the Ministry of Education filed the case away in April 1935.117 Many accusations against teachers resulted from anonymous denunciations. The line between patriotic responsibility and opportunism was often extremely thin in such cases. These denunciations frequently juxtaposed Yugoslav nationhood to Croatian or Macedonian ‘separatism’, which indicates that the population took over the exclusionary division between the Croatian/Macedonian and the Yugoslav level of national identity to make sense of lived social interactions. According to anonymous sources, for example, Matija Tucakov, a teacher in Bacˇki Breg in Bacˇka and former secretary of the Croatian Peasant Party, continued to occupy himself with the politics of his former party and thus obstructed national and state unity.118 However, a detailed investigation by the local authorities revealed that Tucakov was unfairly accused. The head of the local Sokol club, where Tucakov was secretary, the school principal, and the village council all described Tucakov as a correct national teacher and supporter. According to Tucakov himself, the complaints had been lodged by two dismissed civil servants out of purely personal grievances.

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The district chief suggested that the case should be filed away, concluding: ‘If it is taken into consideration that Mr. Tucakov before 6 January 1929 was a member of the Croatian Peasant Party... it is a great gain of the present regime that it has turned him into a sincere Yugoslav and an enthusiastic nationalist.’119 Under the leadership of the clerk Stjepan Pavlovic´, a group of local public servants lodged a complaint against Stjepan Fabri, an elementary school teacher in Soljani in eastern Slavonia, for disseminating propaganda for the Croatian Peasant Party, forcing his pupils to join the Croatian Sokol, failing to take his pupils to church, and telling the villagers that they should not pay any taxes.120 After a long and detailed investigation, the authorities of Drina banovina decided that the complaints were without merit and that Fabri was the victim of a local political power struggle.121 However, Pavlovic´ did not give up easily and formulated a new report against Fabri with complaints adapted to the dictatorship’s obsession with nationhood. He repeated that Fabri had continued to propagate the political programme of the Croatian Peasant Party in the Croatian library but added a number of Croatian nationalist acts to prove that Fabri was not only politically but also nationally disloyal to the regime. Fabri had criticised the new orthographical guidelines of 1929 because these were solely based on the Serbian dialect and as such not suited for the Croats. He continued to hang out the Croatian ‘tribal’ flag on holidays, and he bought books with an obvious ‘tribal’ character.122 This time, however, the Ministry of Education filed away the complaint immediately.123 In the build-up to the local elections of October 1933, political opponents disturbed a public meeting of Ivan Miosˇic´, the JNS candidate for Gradac in central Dalmatia. Miosˇic´ lodged a complaint against three local teachers who had allegedly participated in the events, accusing them of national disloyalty. A report by the local authorities, however, clarified that the teachers in question had not at all participated in the obstruction of the JNS meeting. Quite to the contrary, they were known as good teachers and ‘loyal Yugoslavs’, who had been falsely accused by Miosˇic´ because they did not follow him politically and curtailed his influence in the village.124 The Department for State Security at the Ministry of Internal Affairs started an investigation against Petar Davidovic´, the director of the elementary school in Ludina in central Croatia, about a Croatian ‘tribal

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and separatist’ speech he had given on the holiday of Zrinski and Frankopan. The information was based on a denunciation by another local teacher, Mira Kosina, who added that Davidovic´ had attended a celebration on that same evening in a public tavern where both the Yugoslav flag and the Croatian ‘tribal’ flag were hung. Apparently, she considered this nationally incorrect, indicating the difficult coexistence of Croatian and Yugoslav nationhood in popular understandings of nationhood. Although Kosina was trustable as a member of the Sokol and a ‘convinced Yugoslav’, the authorities were troubled by the fact that none of the other attendants confirmed Kosina’s complaints. To end the riots that erupted in the village after Davidovic´ had been interrogated by the police, the Ministry of Internal Affairs demanded the transfer of Kosina as well as Davidovic´ and his wife.125 A particularly complex example was the case of Nikola Frankic´, a teacher in Lovrec´ in the district Imotski in the hinterland of central Dalmatia. Luka Petricˇevic´ had lodged two complaints against Frankic´. The first concerned the work of Frankic´ in the local consumer cooperative, where he had led a so-called ‘anti-national wing’. This complaint was largely denied by the district chief, who defended Frankic´ as a politically loyal teacher. In addition to being a member of the local Sokol, Frankic´ had also been member of the Democratic Party before 1929 and organised a JNS meeting. In the second complaint, Petricˇevic´ added that Frankic´ supported illegal political parties, organised secret political meetings, left the local Sokol, and was responsible for national intolerance in Lovrec´. By this time, a new district chief had been appointed, and he fully confirmed the complaint, adding that Frankic´ was in close contact with a local clerical teacher who was ‘nationally suspicious’.126 Later, a certain Zaradic´ lodged a new complaint against Frankic´, adding that Frankic´ did not come to school often, was blasphemous, and did nothing for the strengthening of Yugoslav national consciousness: ‘Instead of devoting his free time to the dissemination of Yugoslav national consciousness, teacher Frankic´ rides his motorcycle and organises secret political meetings.’127 The district chief repeated that Frankic´ maintained close contact with some prominent clericals and separatists in the area. Frankic´ allegedly did not support the Sokol actively because he had found out that the activities of the Sokol hindered his anti-national work. According to the chief, Frankic´ had then taken over the local consumer cooperative and incited school children to help

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him with his work for the cooperative instead of going to the Sokol. The district chief also referred to a police report, according to which Frankic´ had bribed and physically threatened one of the witnesses in a case against a villager who had spread anti-state flyers in the area. Finally, the district chief warned the Ministry to be careful because Frankic´ was a cunning man who could ‘puff out his chest about his Yugoslavism’.128 Frankic´ denied all accusations against him and claimed that these complaints were made up by Zaradic´ and Petricˇevic´, who opposed him in the consumer cooperative and simply wanted him out of the village.129 The school inspector of Littoral banovina found that Frankic´ should be sanctioned for neglecting the classroom, but he had not found evidence of Frankic´’s anti-national political activities.130 The whole case was finally filed away after the court had acquitted Frankic´ in the bribing case.131 If anything, Frankic´’s case perfectly illustrates the versatility and omnipresence of notions of Yugoslav nationhood and correct national behaviour under the dictatorship. All camps claimed Yugoslav national correctness, accused the opponent of anti-Yugoslav perspectives, and found Yugoslav national meaning in everything. The fact that the language of ‘national incorrectness’ was applied to make sense of banal, personal conflicts indicates that ordinary people took over the dissociation between Yugoslav and Croatian national loyalty. The return of the teacher Mato Sudeta from the Vukovar area to his home town Koprivnica in northern Croatia divided the town into two camps. Again, both camps claimed Yugoslav national consciousness to support their case. The return of Sudeta had been requested by a group of citizens from Koprivnica, who boasted that they were correct Yugoslavs ‘regardless of religion or class’. They praised Sudeta as the most agile cultural and educational worker in the town. According to them, Sudeta had been transferred on the basis of false, anonymous accusations.132 Not much later, the cabinet of Prime Minister Zˇivkovic´ received a letter from another group of self-declared ‘regular Yugoslavs’ opposing the return of Sudeta. Accordingly, Sudeta had been rightly transferred for his a-national and antiYugoslav work. He had strongly opposed the participation of Croatian teachers in the Yugoslav Teachers Association, arguing that ‘we Croats cannot be Yugoslavs – only Serbs can, because they provide ministers, governors, and generals, and we Croats are even more exploited in this state than in Austria-Hungary’.133 The district chief confirmed the accusations against Sudeta and argued that Sudeta’s return could not be tolerated,

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especially in Koprivnica, which was close to the Hungarian border, ‘where Yugoslav national consciousness was not yet fully consolidated’.134 However, the Ministry of Education considered that the case was of a purely personal nature and approved the return of Sudeta to Koprivnica.135

Teachers after the death of King Alexander The less authoritarian policy of Milan Stojadinovic´’s new government allowed teachers to vent their frustrations with the arbitrary and often inhuman treatment they suffered more openly.136 The disillusionment with the dictatorship’s educational policy, however, did not result in a complete abandonment of Yugoslav national ideals. At the Yugoslav Teachers Association’s annual congress of August 1937, President Ivan Dimnik, for example, claimed: Now more than ever, teachers should be aware of their mission with regard to tribal, religious, and political tolerance. Today more than ever the slogan should be heard: ‘I love my brother, regardless of his faith.’ Today more than ever we have to look for what binds us and not what divides us.137 However, Yugoslav-oriented teachers demanded more open and variable definitions of Yugoslav nationhood instead of the authoritarian and restricted use of Yugoslav nationhood under the dictatorship: Each activity that develops the contents of our nation and state should be seen as nationalism. Our nationalism cannot only be seen in spontaneous national sentiments, enthusiasm, or exterior expressions. We cannot allow anyone to rent nationalism and to deny it to others. We condemn national suspicion and denunciation as immoral acts. We uncompromisingly refute all nationalism that is built on brutal force and destroys social and legal justice.138 Yugoslav teachers were disillusioned with the manner in which the dictatorship had attempted to disseminate Yugoslavism through a monopoly on the correctness of nationalism and the rejection of any act which did not correspond to this politically correct national behaviour. The teachers also opposed the omnipresence of and obsession with Yugoslav nationhood under the dictatorship, demanding a more

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confined relevance for Yugoslav nationhood in education and society in general and room for national indifference and irrelevance. Marijan Tkalcˇic´, for example, criticised the dogmatic way education authorities had attempted to disseminate national consciousness in schools: When all other subjects are placed in the service of the national subjects, the latter cannot fulfil their educational function because they too often overstress and glorify certain phenomena that do not deserve this treatment. . . whereas everything that does not fall within the narrow national framework is ignored and reduced. The national subjects, as represented in the curricula, necessarily lead not only to phrasemaking but also, as the nucleus of our education, to superficiality and verbosity in all other subjects. It is in the interest of our national education that this verbosity is annulled through concrete instructions and replaced by true forces that will set our national life in motion.139 Tkalcˇic´ supported the more open and creative stimulation of cultural life in general to strengthen national identity indirectly, suggesting that more attention be paid to social sciences, which would teach the pupils how societies evolve and how they relate to other societies.140 At the same time, the political and national polarisation in the Croatian parts of the country seriously complicated the position of Yugoslav-oriented teachers. At the beginning of the school year 1935–6, for example, a group of villagers in Veliko Grablje, on the island of Hvar, retaliated against the newly appointed teacher Luka Tudor because he was a declared Yugoslavist and supporter of the government of Bogoljub Jevtic´. Under the leadership of the local priest, all but one of the villagers kept their children away from the local elementary school and demanded that a new teacher be appointed. The villager who continued to send his children to school was threatened by the other villagers, who even set fire to a stack of wood next to his house.141 The Ministry of Education complied with the request of Tudor himself and transferred him to Opanci nearby Lovrec´ in central Dalmatia.142 The district chief of Gospic´ in the Lika region reported that a majority of the parents had taken their children away from school because the teacher had severely punished pupils dressed in the colours of the Croatian flag. The teacher denied this, saying that he had mildly punished the pupils because they were waving

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Croatian flags and singing Croatian patriotic songs. In any case, from that day forward only four of the 24 pupils came to school. For this reason, the district chief demanded the transfer of the teacher.143 After the establishment of the Croatian banovina, Croatian teachers left Yugoslav teachers associations en masse, confirming the problematic position of Yugoslav associations in Croatian areas. The Croatian teachers explained their move as a rejection of the dictatorship’s policy of reducing the teaching profession to the ‘exponent of a utopian political party’ and ‘forceful and utopian experiments’, referring to the integral Yugoslav policy.144 Many of these teachers, even those who had been members of the Union of Croatian Teachers Associations in the early 1920s, had supported or at least not opposed a form of Yugoslav nation building at the beginning of the interwar period, but they rejected the politicisation, the omnipresence, and the dogmatic character of the dictatorship’s integral Yugoslav project. These developments indicate that the clear-cut Croat –Yugoslav national division, which was, as I have argued, continuously used in the Yugoslav authorities’ policy toward Croatian teachers, became an increasingly tangible and relevant societal feature in the Croatian parts of the kingdom. The rise of exclusive Croatian nationalism, which implied the rejection of Yugoslavism, was not the eruption of an inherent Croatian resistance against Yugoslavism. Instead, Croatian and Yugoslav national belonging became incompatible within the context of the institutionalisation of an exclusive Croat– Yugoslav distinction to add national logic to a broad variety of social and political divisions from the micro-level up to the macro-level of high national politics.

Teaching religion in a multi-religious, national society The conflict between the national ontology of the secularising nationstate and the religious loyalties among the broader populations also affected the work of religious teachers. Illustrating the occasionally tense character of local conflicts over religious education, on 26 April 1937, a group of 70 villagers attacked the Orthodox teacher Miladin Ivanovic´ in the elementary school in Hrtkovci in the Srem. Ivanovic´ only managed to keep off the angry villagers with a revolver. After these events, the school was closed as a precaution, but the situation remained tense, and during the night of 7 May the villagers provoked some other Serbian

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teachers in the village and smashed the windows of one of them. Apparently, the main reason for the hostility was that Ivanovic´, in the eyes of the villagers, had hindered the Catholic education of their children. On one occasion, he had forced the children to make little figures out of clay. Ivanovic´ tried to keep the children away from church on Sundays by organising all sorts of activities and also taught them to greet each other with ‘Good day’ instead of the common ‘Jesus be praised’. The main instigator of the attacks was the local Catholic priest Ante Mijakovic´, who had accordingly called for a ‘school war’ in his Sunday sermon.145 The Ministry of Education took firm measures to reestablish peace and order in the village. Although Ivanovic´ was a ‘nationally correct’ teacher, he was for his own safety transferred to a place within pre-war Serbia. The principal, Pavle Desˇalj, was transferred to a place in pre-war Serbia and was denied promotions for the next three years because he had not interfered and had even cooperated with Mijakovic´. The school inspector was sent on retirement because he had failed to take firm actions to end the unrest. The ministry complied with the request of all other teachers in the elementary school of Hrtkovci to be transferred for fear of further attacks. The ministry also requested the Bishop of Ðakovo to take action against priest Mijakovic´ and demanded that the Ministry of Internal Affairs take actions against the local police corps and some members of the village administration because they had not acted energetically against the attacks.146 The complaint lodged by Milorad Jovic´, a teacher in the civil school in Bugojno in western Bosnia, against Jovan Popovic´ and Emil Milicˇevic´, Orthodox and Catholic priest respectively and both religious teachers, illustrates the complex interplay of political, banal, ideological, and national motives in the controversies surrounding religious teachers at the local level. According to Jovic´, Popovic´ and Milicˇevic´ were typical clerical opponents of Yugoslavism: The former had claimed that the people had been better off under Austrian rule, that Serbian civil servants and politicians exploited the people, and that all Serbs from prewar Serbia should be sent back (a good example of regional divisions within the Serbian Orthodox national community). The latter had used money from the school to fund an excursion with the local Croatian reading room to a performance by a Croatian choral society. Both priests refuted the accusation and stated that Jovic´ had an extramarital affair, that he had insulted them and threatened to have them kicked out of

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school, and constantly hindered religious education. In the end, all accusations were confirmed although it was highlighted that Jovic´ was nationally correct because he gave popular lectures and was active in national associations. The school inspector suggested that all three teachers should be warned that their behaviour was intolerable but that no further measures should be taken.147 *** Considering the Catholic Church’s open hostility toward the dictatorship’s educational policy, it is perhaps not very surprising that authorities were especially suspicious of Catholic clericals. Local authorities demanded the dismissal of the priest and religion teacher Niko Kuvacˇ from the village Lukoran in the district Preko in northern Dalmatia because he was ‘imbued with tribal and religious separatism’.148 Concrete complaints against him were manifold. First, he had fervently opposed the local Sokol club, advising the pupils and their parents against entering the Sokol because it was an ‘atheist’ organisation; he then established a local Crusaders group as an alternative to the Sokol. Furthermore, Kuvacˇ frequently held sermons that violated the principles of ‘tribal’ and religious tolerance. He had once said that only Catholic teachers could teach Croatian children,149 which was seen as a threat toward a local Orthodox teacher. Another time, he had claimed that Croats had only one Croatian fatherland and that they could consequently love only Croatia. Finally, he had done everything he could to hinder the work of the local teacher Sirotkovic´, the leader of the local Sokol club and an ‘indefatigable worker in the national field, as was only desirable close to the border’.150 He had even convinced a local peasant to lodge an unfounded complaint against Sirotkovic´ and had instigated villagers to write offensive slogans on the church walls against Sirotkovic´, Prime Minister Jevtic´, and all Serbs.151 Similarly, the principal of the civil school in Mostar accused friar Martin Sopta of religious intolerance. Accordingly, Sopta had reprimanded a Catholic teacher, Stanka Samardzˇic´, claiming that she was no longer a Catholic because she was married to an Orthodox. In class, Sopta had called the ritual early rising at St George’s Day, which was customary with Serbian Orthodox, a gypsy ritual. The local Catholic authorities did not address the complaints of the principal, who then turned to the education department of Littoral banovina with an

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urgent request to dismiss Sopta as religion teacher.152 The Ministry of Education demanded an ‘energetic investigation’ against Sopta to set an example that clericals too had to follow the law.153 Sopta was fined with 500 dinars.154 Nevertheless, by excluding any trace of Catholic loyalty from the Yugoslav national sphere, the state authorities considerably narrowed the potential width of Yugoslav nationhood. Again, in many cases there is no evidence that Croatian or Catholic bias or even ethno-religious divisions in mixed regions inherently ruled out identification with the Yugoslav nation. The district chief of Sombor in the Bacˇka region opposed the appointment of the priest Antun Skenderovic´ as religion teacher in the civil school because Skenderovic´ was a ‘Croatian nationalist’. Skenderovic´’s primary fault was that he propagated Croatian nationhood among the Bunjevci, whom the district chief considered ‘Serbian Catholics’. Before 1929, Skenderovic´ had also established a local department of the Orel gymnastics movement and even demanded that the city administration of Sombor address him in the Latin alphabet instead of in Cyrillic.155 Friar Barbaric´ was forced to resign as director of Napredak’s student home in Mostar because he had referred to Croatian heroes who had died for the Croatian cause, including Radic´, in his sermon during the mass on Zrinski–Frankopan Day.156 Friar Marijan Stasˇic´ had first called suspicion on himself when he had held a sermon about pilgrims who had gone to Rome and apparently heard from the Pope that the Croats would be liberated quickly. An investigation followed suit but did not reveal further violations. In fact, the school inspector and two principals Stasˇic´ worked for argued that he did a good job as a teacher. Although he had not been a proponent of the Sokol movement, he had not actively opposed it or obstructed its work. Nevertheless, according to the district chief: Stasˇic´ is an obstinate clerical. It is clear what can be expected from such a person today, when the clerical movement in our state has taken a strictly opposite position toward our present state order. Under the mask of clericalism, it covers several separatist and defeatist elements in our state. Out of practical experiences, I think that the education authorities should remove from service all those religion teachers who do not openly demonstrate the principles of unity of state and nation.157

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Although the police in Split decided that there was too little evidence against Stasˇic´, the case was further followed by the education department of Littoral banovina.158 *** Cases involving Muslim teachers were less common. One reason for this was that there were few Muslim pupils and teachers in the Yugoslav state. In 1931, only 5.1 per cent of the elementary school pupils in Yugoslavia were Muslim, whereas their total share of the population was 11.2 per cent.159 By the end of the interwar period, there were only 2,633 Muslim secondary school students out of a total student population of 110,000; only 1,723 Muslim students studied in civil schools, and the number of Muslims in teacher-training schools was as low as 38. Only 238 Muslim students were enrolled at Yugoslav universities, and there were only 56 Muslim teachers in Yugoslav secondary schools.160 The low participation of Muslims in the state educational system should be connected to the late arrival of secular state education among Muslims in the South Slav lands and the traditional leading position Islamic institutions continued to occupy in Muslim society, not in the least in the domain of education.161 Especially in the countryside, the Muslim population remained hostile toward secularised, ‘religiously tolerant’ education. For example, the arrival of Nazif Salihovic´ as the new teacher in Koraj, a small village nearby Lopare in north-eastern Bosnia, led to great consternation among the local Muslim population because he was married to a Catholic woman and was the father of three children, of whom one had a Muslim name, one an Orthodox name, and one a Catholic name; they were the perfect example of an integral Yugoslav and religiously tolerant family. The villagers refused to send their children to school until a new teacher was appointed.162 As a result, the Ministry of Education decided that Salihovic´ should stay in the town of Bijeljina for the time being.163 A few cases against Muslim teachers confirm the complex mediation between Muslim religious identification and Yugoslav nationhood. The department for state security of Drina banovina demanded the dismissal of two religious teachers who had crossed out texts with Christian themes like St Sava and Christmas from the textbooks.164 The district chief of Kosovska Mitrovica in northern Kosovo reported to the education department of Zeta banovina that Merima Selimovic´, a

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religion teacher in the local girls’ school, had told her pupils to learn Turkish instead of Serbian because that was the only that way they could go to heaven. She even sent her pupils to the local Islamic religious school so that they would not have to learn the state language and follow the national courses in the state elementary school.165 The Islamic Religious Community interfered, arguing that school inspectors did not have the authority or the knowledge to evaluate teachers of Islam, but the Ministry did not comply and dismissed Selimovic´.166 In all these cases, the line between national polarisation, religious intolerance, and opportunism was very thin. A complaint against Franjo Miljkovic´, a Catholic school inspector in Livno in western Bosnia, for religious intolerance turned out to be completely unfounded.167 Accordingly, Miljkovic´ had spread rumours that the local teacher Muharem Sˇeremet would be transferred because he wore a fez.168 The complaint was only confirmed by Zˇivana Stanisˇic´, a local Orthodox teacher who had been transferred away from Livno, and who had probably denounced Miljkovic´. She had already attempted to discredit Miljkovic´ by arguing that he had demanded her transfer out of religious intolerance. Both the chief of the district and Miljkovic´ added that Stanisˇic´ was a ‘babbler’ and that she had made up the complaint to take revenge for the fact that Miljkovic´ had transferred her.169 As Miljkovic´ said, Stanisˇic´ stood under the influence of the Livno small-town mentality, which attempted to undermine and accuse every civil servant who did not stand under the influence of particular people but who did his job according to the law and decrees and not according to external dictates.170 Moreover, Stanisˇic´’s allegations were completely discredited by the fact that Sˇeremet did not wear a fez in the first place. Miljkovic´ guaranteed that he himself was nationally and religiously correct: ‘I have never even thought about looking whether [Sˇeremet] wears a fez or anything else.’171 The district chief added that Miljkovic´ was a good inspector, who evaluated the work of local teachers ‘regardless of religion or tribe’.172 The education department of Littoral banovina confirmed that Miljkovic´ was ‘conscientious, accurate, correct, and national’.173 ***

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Complaints against religious intolerance on the part of Orthodox teachers were remarkably absent in the documents of the Ministry of Education. It is telling that such complaints were only made by Muslim or Catholic religious authorities and never by representatives of state authority. From the early 1930s, the Islamic Religious Community demanded explanations and interventions from the Ministry of Education against local Orthodox religious teachers who violated the religious rights of Muslim pupils by obliging them to follow Christian religious education at school. In Orahovac in western Kosovo, the Orthodox teacher Gligorije Baljosˇevic´, for example, had forced the Muslim pupils to stay in class during his Orthodox religion lessons. According to the Islamic religious authorities, such acts offend the religious sentiments of Muslims and create hostility toward the school because in this way schools get a Christian and not a general national character; furthermore, they strengthen religious antagonism, which should be soothed and not strengthened and inflamed in the interests of the state.174 The leadership of the Catholic Church also intervened against acts of religious intolerance by Orthodox teachers, especially related to the celebrations of St Sava’s Day. In another case, the Catholic Archbishopric in Zagreb criticised the removal of the crucifix in the elementary school in Uljanik in the district Daruvar in central Croatia.175 The local authorities explained that this decision had been based on a prescription by the Ministry of Education stating that schools should remove all religious attributes if the teachers in mixed schools could not reach an agreement. Because the Orthodox and Catholic teachers in Uljanik had not been able to come to an agreement concerning which type of crucifix should be hung on the wall, the crucifix was removed. Although Catholic teachers had demanded it, the icon of St Sava was not removed from the walls because it ‘was not considered to be a religious attribute but a picture of a great national figure’.176 The ministry found that the local authorities had handled the situation in accordance with the prescriptions and filed away the case.177 *** These conflicts show that the strategy to give religious differences a place in Yugoslav unity by referring to the shared national character of all Yugoslav

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churches had in fact led to the questioning and complication of the compatibility of religious diversity and Yugoslav national identity. Any narrow religious act could be interpreted as an act of resistance against Yugoslav nationhood although religiously motivated opposition against the regime’s secular educational policy in many cases had little to do with nationhood. Local authorities were especially suspicious of cases of religious intolerance on the part of Croatian Catholic teachers. These complaints surely reflect how the increasing polarisation between the dictatorship and the Croatian Catholic Church also affected social relations at the local level. However, the authorities’ preoccupation with religious intolerance by Croatian Catholic teachers and especially its continuous connection with ‘tribal’ intolerance and opposition against Yugoslav nationhood were instrumental in establishing a clear division between Croatian national identity and Catholicism on the one hand and the Yugoslavism of the regime on the other. In other words, the institutionalisation of Yugoslav nationhood in the Croatian part of the kingdom increasingly relied on an exclusive boundary with Croatian and Catholic loyalties, which rejected the potential coexistence of not only Croatian and Yugoslav levels of national identity but also Catholic religiosity and Yugoslav nationhood. Catholic and Muslim religious representatives took over this conceptual framework to point to acts of religious and ‘tribal’ intolerance from the part of Serbian Orthodox teachers.

Conclusion The understanding of Yugoslav nationhood in reports on Yugoslav teachers reveals three main characteristics of the institutionalisation of Yugoslav nationhood in interwar Yugoslavia and especially during the Royal Dictatorship. First, Yugoslav nationhood was a very powerful and omnipresent as well as versatile category of practice in interwar Yugoslav society. Local authorities, teachers, and other locally influential people used distinctions between those who were nationally conscious and those who were not to make sense of a broad variety of social relationships in their lived communities, ranging from political, professional, and ideological cleavages to purely personal feuds. Consequently, the contextual salience of nationhood strongly increased to the extent that categories of nationhood were imposed on and became available for making sense of events in which the Yugoslav national element was not

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necessarily of primary interest to the actors involved. At the same time, the potential variability in meanings given to Yugoslav nationhood decreased, as it was restricted to a narrow set of often superficial criteria used to distinguish the loyal from the disloyal. Second, the exclusive and restrictive character of Yugoslav nationhood was most salient in the Croatian part of the country, where a clear distinction was made between Croatian and Yugoslav national identity. Croat– Yugoslav divisions added meaning to a broad variety of social and political divisions. Such an institutionalisation of nationhood increasingly challenged the potential compatibility of these two levels of national belonging, considering any evidence of Croatian bias as a potential act of dissociation from Yugoslav nationhood. A similar phenomenon occurred in Macedonia, where a distinction was made between correct Serbian – Yugoslav national behaviour and ‘Bulgarist’ opposition. I do not dispute the increasing disillusionment with and rejection of Yugoslavism in these regions but maintain that the incompatibility of the Croatian and Macedonian and the Yugoslav levels of national belonging was not a given but a specific development that became increasingly relevant and salient within the context of the institutionalisation of Yugoslav nationhood as an exclusive category of practice in social and political power struggles from the top level of national politics to the micro-level of lived personal interactions. Finally, the subordination of religious to national identity that was used to make sense of religious diversity within the Yugoslav nation led to the questioning of the compatibility of religious diversity and Yugoslav national unity. Reflecting the politicisation of Yugoslav nationhood and the nationalisation of political and ideological divides, the authorities interpreted the clerical opposition against the liberal educational policy along national lines as an act of resistance against Yugoslav nationhood. Such a nationalisation of liberal – clerical divisions was especially salient in conflicts with Croatian Catholic teachers and concurred with the abovementioned distinction between the Croatian and Yugoslav levels of national identity. In that regard, the exclusion of Croatian and Catholic loyalty from the Yugoslav nation cemented the Croat–Catholic alliance.

CHAPTER 10 THE COMPARATIVE AND LONG-TERM SIGNIFICANCE OF INTERWAR YUGOSLAV NATION BUILDING

The contingency of nationhood: Nation, region, and religion in Europe’s nationalising states The study of interwar Yugoslavia’s educational programme in the second part of this book shows that the state’s nation-building template recognised the need to accommodate particularist sources of collective mobilisation behind an overarching Yugoslav national framework. It especially focussed on aligning the most powerful alternative candidates of nationhood: ‘tribal’ and religious particularist loyalties. The interwar Yugoslav nationalities policy cannot be dismissed as a forceful and uncompromising attempt to impose Serbian cultural, symbolic, and political hegemony on the entire nation and repress other particularist identities. The Yugoslav case had little in common with the ‘state-nation’ process of nation forming: the long-term spread of the codified culture of a core nation to outlying regions and lower strata as a component of the modernisation of established, centralised states.1 Instead, Yugoslavia subscribed to the pluralist understanding of nationhood that had become a common if often ‘unspoken’ feature in the composite nationalising states of Europe since the mid-nineteenth century.2 A comparison with the experiences of ‘successful’ nationalising states with regional and religious divisions during the peak of mass

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nationalisation policies (between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth century) will allow us to evaluate the potentials and limitations of interwar Yugoslav nation building in more depth. A caveat is appropriate here. My comparative account of the conditional negotiation process with internal divisions in European nation-states is unavoidably condensed and leaves aside many crucial factors that explain the historical significance of each case. The point, however, is not to provide a detailed history of European nationalising states but to show that the neutralisation of sources for alternative candidates of nationhood – among which region and religion stand out – was contingent upon the institutionalisation of nationhood. Hence, I will argue, the availability of established, particularist identities cannot by itself explain the ‘failure’ of interwar Yugoslav nation building. A more fruitful line of reasoning looks at the impact of the institutionalisation of nationhood on the interrelationship between overlapping candidates of nationhood. The exemplary case study of successful consensus building between region and nation is nineteenth-century Germany. Nevertheless, historians of the early phase of German political unity clarify that there was relatively little political support or enthusiasm for the new German nation-state and that outside Prussia, state-centred nationalism ‘put down only shallow roots’.3 The political nationalism related to the new German Empire gradually strengthened, drawing on the increasing impact of the new political institutions, the unification of the legal system, the expansion of the national communication network, and the imperial expansion of the Empire. The success of German nation building, however, was the result of the legitimacy and prestige of German cultural nationalism and the neutralisation of particularist loyalties to pre-unification states and regions. In the decades preceding the unification, the German states had engaged in cultural modernisation and propaganda as part of a broader state-building agenda. The result of this successful policy was the development of a particularist identification with the states, centred on their monarchies, modernisation and progress, relation to the ancient German Sta¨mme, and cultural progress.4 The key to the success of German nation building after the political unification is that this particularist identity, although a strong candidate for nationhood, did not compete with an overarching German national identity.5 It was integrated within a well-established German cultural unit that stood apart from the German polity and the

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here-and-now of political unification and found its ultimate expression in the a-political and timeless understanding of the generic Heimat.6 The outcome of the relation between coexisting candidates of nationhood was not a predetermined hierarchy of multi-national, national, and regional currents. Spain is a particularly intriguing example of the complex and contingent interaction between regions, nations, and states. As elsewhere in Europe, there was a strong particularist current in cultural and political activism during the second half of the nineteenth century. This particularist current, however, operated within the framework of Spanish nationhood. In the political domain, both progressive and traditionalist strands resorted to historical regions and decentralism to challenge the moderate political line of the Restoration government. Political opposition either saw the region as the medium for bottom-up modernisation and democratisation or as the traditional barrier against secularisation and democracy. The flourishing cultural interest in the language, history, and folk culture of the region did not oppose Spanish national identity but affirmed it. By the turn of the nineteenth century, however, particularist movements in Catalonia, the Basque country, and later on Galicia gravitated toward opposing peripheral nationalist movements. Other strong regionalist movements continued to confirm Spanish sovereignty. No inherent or predetermining factors can explain the development of particularist identities toward regional or effective national identities. ‘[P]eripheral nationalists and regionalists were in fact playing different games with the same deck of cards.’7 Like nationalists, regionalists paid attention to historiography (even with a focus on a distinct state tradition), cultural traditions, literature, and regional economic interests to foster regionalist political claims. The only difference with the nationalist movements was that regionalists did not refute Spanish national sovereignty on the basis of this regional cultural commonality. The reasons for the development toward peripheral nationalist movements should be looked for in the short-term political and social context of strong traditionalist opposition to the liberal Spanish state, rapid socio-economic transformations, and national pessimism related to the colonial war disaster.8 *** Like regions, religions are another powerful category of collective identification that gives meaning to nationhood. This does not mean that

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successful nation building requires the subordination of religious to national interests, but nationhood should give the impression of a community of people with secular and different religious interests. The concomitant disputes between secular and religious interest groups over the essential meaning of nationhood are a recurring feature in nationalising states.9 At times, these disputes have been critical and divisive, as in the fierce battle between republican laı¨cite´ and political Catholicism in the French Third Republic. However, ‘both camps formulated their identification offers in the name of the nation’ and shared a common national framework.10 Atatu¨rk’s early Turkish Republic was notoriously secularising and nationalising. The result was that it excluded the more conservative and Islamic current within the alleged Turkish nation along with ethnic and religious minorities, leading to critical polarisations within the nation. The exclusion was, however, not definitive because the excluded elements continued to share a Turkish national perspective for securing their interests and challenged secular understandings of Turkish nationhood. Thus, ‘the greatest achievement of Atatu¨rk and his associates was that many of those excluded from the early republican national narrative came to value his legacy in its essentials’.11 In other words, Turkish nationhood continued to align secular and Islamic world views, no matter how deep the rift between both currents.12 Nationhood can accommodate not only secular and religious worldviews but also religious diversity. The model Yugoslav nationalist thinkers liked to refer to was Germany. Nonetheless, the correlation between religious diversity and national unity in post-unification Germany did not run harmoniously. During the 1870s, the German state leadership intruded into the traditional sphere of the Catholic Church (the appointment and the education of priests) and took repressive measures against Catholic monastic orders and Catholic resistance. Secular nationalist and Protestant religious thinkers and interest groups claimed the essential Protestant character of the German nation and excluded Catholicism from the nation. Religious diversity was also an increasingly pervasive feature of social life during the last decades of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century. The Kulturkampf thus reflected the ideal of a spiritually unified nation but in fact strengthened the collective counter-identification of the German Catholic community to the point that it created national frictions.13 Catholic political and organisational opposition against the Kulturkampf was essentially directed against secular intrusion into

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religious matters. Much like the division of religious and nationalist matters propagated by pro-Yugoslav Catholic and Muslim opposition to the secularising state, German Catholic thinkers demanded religious freedom in the national state. German Catholics framed their religious interests in the nationalist language of the German nation-state and provided Catholic alternatives for the dominant Protestant–liberal imagination of the German nation and state.14 By annulling the repressive measures against the Catholic Church and subordinating religious diversity and interests to the common interests of the German nation, the secular political leaders from the 1880s onwards conceded to the Catholic willingness to participate in the national sphere and neutralised the rising national frictions. Confessional animosities persisted in politics and at the local level. The Protestant, Catholic, and secular camps disputed and even marginalised each other from their own understanding of the nation-state. But even then, they agreed on German nationhood and participated in debates on the meaning of German nationhood.15 *** This short comparative excursion shows that the critical particularist divisions in interwar Yugoslavia were not extraordinary but occurred periodically in longer lasting and apparently more successful nationalising states. Particularist divisions are particularly salient in the period following the formation of nation-states. Clifford Geertz’s observation for the new states gaining independence from colonial rule that ‘the move toward national unity intensified group tensions within the society by raising settled cultural forms out of their particular contexts, expanding them into general allegiances and politicizing them’ applies equally for European nationalising states.16 Moreover, nationhood is a contested process. The legitimacy of the nation-state rests on claims of national unity and uniform national interests, yet these modern states require intense conflict-management of diverging individual and collective interests. The strength and appeal of nationhood stem precisely from its chameleon-like ability to accommodate often conflicting and always changing social, political, economic, cultural, and ideological sources of collective mobilisation behind a shared national perspective. Yet, these internal divisions also pose a slumbering threat to national unity, especially when the lines of division overlap. The key to

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keeping particularist identities in check in composite, modern nationstates lies in the legitimacy of the nation’s cultural or political commonality and the dissociation of particularist candidates of nationhood from other horizontal and vertical divisions within the nation-state. To support this argument I turn to the case of the Italian nation-state. Italy is often depicted as a failed nation. Its unification process was contingent upon international political power balances and ad hoc manoeuvring instead of the glorious outcome of a decisive, internal policy. Post-unification Italy was torn apart by socio-economic tensions, warfare and brigandage, regional divisions between the ‘backward’ South and the ‘prosperous’ North, and the religious challenge of Papal resistance to Italian temporal rule. State legitimacy was discredited by economic crises, functional shortcomings of public administration, narrow democratic representation, and failing parliamentary and governmental efficiency and integrity. These conditions seem unfavourable for maintaining the composite state’s fragile national unity, and yet, [e]ven the most committed enemies of the [post-unification] liberal order accepted the sanctity of the nation: revolutionary socialists sought to realize the ideals of the Risorgimento by democratizing, not destroying the nation, while even the Catholic Church came to stake a claim to be its true voice.17 The ‘sanctity’ of Italian nationhood revolved around the prestige and longstanding codification of Italian high culture and cultural commonality and the success of post-unification political power holders in neutralizing the potential alignment of socio-economic, regional, and political divisions in organised popular particularist movements.18 Even the ‘Southern Question’ did not give rise to popular political movements or collective organisations representing the interests of the South or challenging Italian unity. From a Yugoslav perspective, the socio-economic under-development of the South, the centralist imposition of the Piedmontese constitution, legal system, and bureaucracy to the rest of unified Italy, the historical and cultural gap between North and South, the tradition of separatist revolts in Sicily, and warfare and brigandage in the postunification years seem to provide a fertile breeding ground for particularist divisions. That southern particularisms did not materialise in Liberal Italy was the result of the backwardness of civil society and political opposition

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in the South and the political compromise between the government and southern elites, who traded conservative control and privileges at the local level for political support at the national level. This compromise guaranteed political and national unification but came at the detriment of the population of the South.19

Balancing on a thin rope: Between inclusive and exclusionary nationhood in interwar Yugoslavia The third part of this book focusses on the incompatibility between Yugoslav and particularist identities in the commemorative policy in education and social divisions surrounding education at the local level. Such an exclusionary understanding of Yugoslav nationhood strongly opposes the inclusive and synthetic approach to Yugoslav nationhood that was brought forward in curricula and textbooks. How should we understand the imbalance between the open and plural understanding of Yugoslav nationhood in outlines of the national programme in curricula and textbooks and the exclusive division between Yugoslav–Croat and Yugoslav–religious interests that informed the commemorative policy in education and social divisions surrounding education at the local level? I maintain that this imbalance was not the logical outcome of the long-term incompatibility of Yugoslav and particularist identities. To be sure, the legitimacy of Yugoslav political and cultural commonality was fragile in the immediate post-unification decades (in comparison to, for example, longstanding and prestigious German and Italian high cultures or French political unity). Yet, this fragility did not make Yugoslav nationhood incompatible with particularist identities. More significant was the institutionalisation of Yugoslav nationhood in the interwar period. The exclusionary character of Yugoslav nationhood was an integral component of (1) the centralised institutionalisation of nationhood, (2) the hegemonic hold of pre-war Serbian centres of authority on synthetic nation building, and (3) the continuous association between Yugoslav nationhood and relatively stable political, regional, and ideological divisions in the country. *** Throughout the interwar period, Yugoslav ruling elites claimed absolute authority over nationhood. Such a politicisation of Yugoslav nationhood

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was already present in the centralist–decentralist political cleavages of the 1920s but came full swing in the authoritarian nationalities policy of the Royal Dictatorship. It was part of a broader European reaction against the disturbing socio-economic and political instability of the times, that envisaged nothing less than a decisive act to stop ‘national decay’ and to ‘revitalise the nation’ through guided collective patriotism. In this line of reasoning, the Yugoslav government monopolised Yugoslav political and cultural nationalism. It did not dispute the composite nature of Yugoslav nationhood but envisaged a uniform, centrally determined understanding of the Yugoslav synthesis that was supposed to apply to the entire nation. This policy considerably narrowed the potential openness for variable definitions of what Yugoslav nationhood meant. Contradictorily, the weakness of the Yugoslav state authorities in establishing central authority over nationhood brought the most successful incentives for participation in the Yugoslav national sphere.20 The multifarious meaning of Yugoslav nationhood in textbooks was in fact the outcome of the failure of the regime to realise its policy of uniform textbooks for the entire nation. However, it is here that the best results in mediating between Yugoslav nationhood and other candidates of nationhood were attained. Croatian, Serbian, and Slovenian textbooks proposed an obviously biased understanding of national identity and had a clear subYugoslav target group, but they all in their own way agreed on the overarching Yugoslav national framework and thus participated in the Yugoslav national sphere. When the government succeeded in imposing central hegemony, Yugoslav nationhood proved highly exclusionary. The outstanding illustration is the nationwide celebration of St Sava’s Day, which displayed a broader Serbian Orthodox bias in the regime’s understanding of Yugoslav plurality and reproduced political, ideological, and particularist divisions in the Yugoslav nation-state. Comparative studies have come to similar findings that the centralisation and politicisation of nationhood in authoritarian nationalities policies failed to generate popular support and consensus because it narrowed the potential width in meanings and interests. Whereas the limited interventions of the Habsburg monarchy with voluntary and non-governmental commemorations provided many citizens with ‘commemorative space’, the monopoly of the interwar Czechoslovak government on national commemorations ‘did not contain sufficient breadth for the commemorative activities of all its citizens’ and

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‘deepened divisions within the state’.21 The appropriation and uniforming of the Day of the Tree, a popular celebration that had spread throughout Spain in the first decade of the twentieth century and mediated between the local and the nation, by the Spanish government during the 1910s and 1920s signalled the decline of the spontaneous popularity of the festivities.22 Similarly, the forceful attempt to transform the Catalan cult of the Virgin of Montserrat into an official, statewide Spanish national commemoration did not take root.23 In the first decades after the German unification, the celebration of Sedan Day (commemorating the 1870 Prussian victory over France as the decisive turning point toward unification), ultimately failed to generate popular identification with the nation because the liberal political bourgeoisie appropriated the commemoration as an expression of its exclusive political power over national identity. The holiday was in fact too unambiguous and present-oriented and thus reproduced the political and social division in German society.24 Further narrowing the openness of nationhood, the Yugoslav authorities were reluctant to accept non-governmental, civil participation in the national sphere. Civil participation is key to national conflict management. Non-governmental associations and institutions are not necessarily completely loyal to the state government or actively engaged in the national cause, yet they bring people together in the national sphere by agreeing on the nation-state as the framework for social activity. Civil society was relatively strong and well-developed in the former Habsburg part of the country. The leeway for civil participation had historically been much smaller in the centralist bureaucracy of the Ottoman Empire and its successor states.25 This historical legacy explains the strong variety in associational life in interwar Yugoslavia across the Austrian–Ottoman ‘phantom border’.26 In the Serbian part of the kingdom, the state remained the undisputed generator behind the national sphere, whereas in the former Habsburg lands, civil participation and initiative was much more vital. The interwar Yugoslav leadership, dominated as it was by pre-war Serbian monarchical, military, and political elites, continued to hold on to a state-controlled national sphere and was ill-prepared to accommodate non-governmental initiatives. The dictatorship claimed the right to represent the uniform nation, which only enforced the tendency to discard non-governmental activism. The regime perpetuated

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the pre-war Serbian state’s nationalising initiatives but did not succeed in providing viable incentives for mobilising non-Serbian (I am referring here to the pre-Balkan Wars Serbian state and not the Serbian ethno-religious nation) stakeholders into participating in the Yugoslav national sphere (although it attempted to do so with Strossmayer’s Day, the Peasant Movement of Karla Kovacˇevic´, and the Yugoslav Youth of Vardar Banovina, for example). At the same time, it curtailed existing and nascent forms of civil participation in the non-Serbian parts of the country by either transforming non-governmental associations into loyal regime agents, as in the case of the Sokol or Gajret, or banning civil initiatives and alternative centres of authority as opponents of the Yugoslav national cause. This policy in fact alienated non-Serbian political and cultural spokesmen from the Yugoslav public sphere and deepened the rift between the Serb – Yugoslav national sphere and competing national spheres. *** The controversies generated by the centralist nationalities policy of the Yugoslav state revolved around not merely its association with abstract central political rule but also the symbolic link with the hegemonic pre-war Serbian centres of authority. In the context of nineteenth-century Serbia, St Sava symbolically fitted the political interests of the Serbian state and the religious interests of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The potential religious dissociation St Sava might evoke was irrelevant in the mono-religious understanding of Serbian nationhood. However, in the fundamentally different context of the Yugoslav nationalising state, St Sava reproduced ‘tribal’ and religious divisions within the Yugoslav nation. Again, the inconsiderate choice for nation-wide symbols was no Yugoslav exception. A fate similar to that of St Sava celebrations befell the statewide commemoration in interwar Czechoslovakia of Jan Hus, the Protestant reformer who occupied a central position in Czech historical identity because of his ‘national’ resistance against Habsburg rule. Hus’s commemorations in the decisively secularising, predominantly Catholic, and regionally divided interwar Czechoslovak republic caused fierce Catholic opposition. In both Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, the alignment of religious and ‘tribal’ opposition proved a particularly

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strong challenge to the new states’ nationalising efforts. Tellingly, Slovak Catholic opposition joined forces with Slovak political autonomists and resorted to Slovak national opposition against the secular Czechoslovakist nationalities policy, while Czech Catholic leaders used Czech(oslovak) national language and participated in the national sphere to challenge the ‘anti-Catholic’ Jan Hus Day.27 It seems that where religious and particularist opposition against the nationalities policy concur, the corresponding candidates of nationhood materialise into opposing national movements. One can wonder why the secular Yugoslav political leaders picked a religious symbol to foster national unity out of all symbolic resources that were available to them. In the nineteenth century, religious symbols had carried tremendous symbolic capital as a marker of dissociation from the religiously framed authority of the Habsburg and Ottoman imperial centres, but they quickly proved divisive in the new circumstances of the affirmative, nationalising states. Apparently, political leaderships in the Habsburg and Ottoman successor states found it difficult or inopportune to abandon the attributes of their preWorld War I oppositional nationalism. This observation qualifies the malleability of the way national elites understand nationhood and urges us to take into consideration the factor of human continuity in assessing the nationalising policies of early post-World War I nationalising states.28 *** After having contextualised the relevance of the exclusionary understanding of Yugoslav nationhood against the politicisation and centralisation of nationhood and the hegemonic hold of pre-war Serbian centres of authority on nation-building incentives, it remains to be determined why precisely Croatian– Catholic dissociation from the Yugoslav nation mattered so much. This was not a given but became salient in the context of the stable constellation of political, ideological, and regional divisions within the Yugoslav nation-state. Three fault lines stand out. First, there was the political and regional division between the pre-war Serbian establishment and the decentralist challengers led by the Croatian Peasant Party. By dissociating Croatian ‘separatism’ from Yugoslav nationhood, the hegemonic pre-war Serbian

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centres of authority (governing political parties, the dictatorial regime, the monarchy, and the army) delegitimised the decentralist political challenge but also discredited Yugoslav national currents in the decentralist political camp. Tellingly, the brief crack in this political division stemming from the coalition of the Serbian political leadership and the Croatian Peasant Party in 1925 – 6 generated unprecedented potential for Yugoslav national participation precisely because it brought together both camps in the Yugoslav national sphere. Second, there was the political division within Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia during the early 1920s, which pitted ‘Croatian’ decentralists against ‘Yugoslav’ centralists. This division drew on the politicisation of Croat – Serb differentiation in the mixed regions of Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia. Although the division actually dissolved with the coalition of the Independent Democratic Party (the major political representative of Croatian Serbs) with the Croatian Peasant Party, the Yugoslav – Croat fault line remained salient in the continuing division between supporters and opponents of the central regime in the region. Finally, the Croat–Yugoslav division added nationalist logic to the increasingly assertive Catholic opposition against the secularising state along with the threat it posed to Serbian Orthodox interests. The Croat– Yugoslav fault line thus grouped various political, ideological, national, and regional interest groups in their attempt to keep intact or alter power structures. In none of the divisions was Yugoslav nationhood the primary object of contestation, but it added legitimacy in the logic of the nationalising state, both for national powerholders and the challengers.

The legacy of the Yugoslav nation-building project The institutionalisation of nationhood in interwar Yugoslavia did not succeed in subordinating political, regional, and religious divisions – divisions that were certainly formidable – or making them irrelevant to national unity. Instead of being an open template that included various interests, Yugoslav nationhood derived its meaning from the political, ideological, and particularist interests it supported and opposed. The secular– religious, political, and particularist disputes that accompanied the nationalising efforts of the Yugoslav state as elsewhere in Europe were not fought within but across the boundaries of the

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national arena. The exclusive understanding of Yugoslav nationhood thus dissociated the ‘stakeholders’ whom the synthetic approach to Yugoslav nationhood sought to mobilise in the direction of Yugoslav national unity. Moreover, the exclusionary meaning of Yugoslav nationhood informed not only elite political and cultural discussions but also the popular understanding of nationhood. This was in fact the logical consequence of the Yugoslav leadership’s search for collective patriotic activism and the tendency of individuals to conform to the national logic of the state.29 The integral nationalist line of reasoning that dominated interwar Yugoslav national thinking subjected the whole society, from the polity to the individual, to the well-being of the nation. Because the nation was everywhere, any failure to act according to the strict norm that was set out by the leadership, no matter how far removed from conscious national identification, became an act of animosity toward the nation. The final question this book seeks to answer is to what extent interwar Yugoslav nation building actually mattered? To measure the relevance of the interwar Yugoslav nation-building project in relation to its absolute failure or success is missing the point. Twenty years of indecisive and all in all not very pervasive nation building can hardly have had a great impact on the population in terms of the rate and success of Yugoslav national identification. Nation building requires more than one generation. Also, the critical internal divisions that accompanied the nationalising efforts of the First Yugoslavia should not lead us to dismiss the Yugoslav nation-building project as a failure. The Yugoslav nationalising state was no exception in that regard. Moreover, although the late 1930s certainly were a critical moment for the Yugoslav nation-state, internal power balances were shifting toward a decentralist transformation of the Yugoslav polity and inroads for Croatian participation in the Yugoslav national sphere. The outbreak of World War II, a development that surpassed the political powers of the Yugoslav state leadership, mercilessly wiped away any prospects for national conflict management this shift might have had. The historical significance of the institutionalisation of Yugoslav nationhood in the First Yugoslavia lies in its imprint on the interrelationships between various, layered candidates of nationhood. In the early 1920s, this interrelation was contingent upon the

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institutionalisation of Yugoslav nationhood in the new state. Regardless of how ‘established’ the particularist national identities might have been,30 their connection with an overarching Yugoslav category had not been determined in the pre-World War I constellation of nationalist politics and cultural activism. The paradoxical effect of the decisively synthetic Yugoslav nationalities policy of the interwar period was that it increasingly dissociated particularist identities from the Yugoslav nation. The authoritarian and government-centred nationalities policy of the hegemonic pre-war Serbian centres of authority, along with the relevance of the Croat–Yugoslav division to make national sense of political, particularist, and ideological divisions within the nation-state, challenged the coexistence of Croatian and Yugoslav national identification. The incompatibility of Croatian and Yugoslav national loyalty also considerably reduced the appeal of Yugoslav nationhood as a category of practice for other particularist interest groups and non-governmental centres of authority in Yugoslavia. Centred on Croat–Serb national unity, Yugoslav nationhood became meaningless and indistinguishable from Serbian nationhood when the Croatian nation withdrew, unlike in Spain, where Spanish nationhood continues to hold appeal despite Basque, Galician, and Catalan peripheral nationalism. Without the Croat–Serb balance, Yugoslav nationhood could hardly accommodate the political, ideological, and cultural interests of peripheral composite groups (that is, Slovenians, South Slav Muslims, Montenegrins, and Macedonians). The reluctance of the Yugoslav authorities to recognise Bosnian Muslim, Montenegrin, and Macedonian collective interests independent from Serbian ‘tribal’ interests added to the dissociation from Yugoslav nationhood. The withdrawal of particularist stakeholders finally also forced Serbian political and cultural elites to delineate the place of the Serbian nation within the Yugoslav whole. This delineation challenged the development toward permeable Serbian national boundaries that became evident in the textbooks and educational material of the 1930s and in attempts of Serbian political representatives in government and opposition to reach a political compromise with the Croatian opposition. Ironically, this hybridisation of Serbian national identity within the Yugoslav whole (in which the lines of demarcation between Serbian and Yugoslav identity became diffuse and irrelevant) precisely provided the leeway for the political and cultural participation of non-Serbian

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stakeholders in the Yugoslav national sphere that was essential to Yugoslav national conflict management. The legacy of the exclusive understanding of Yugoslav nationhood proved stronger and more applicable than the synthetic, inclusive template in the complex power structures in the federally organised Socialist Yugoslav state and the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. Regardless of the relatively promising premises of socio-economic prosperity, political decentralisation, and socio-cultural openness and regardless of the dissociation of the pluralist Socialist Yugoslav idea from the assimilationist, integral Yugoslavism of the interwar period, attempts at Yugoslav cultural rapprochement during the 1950s and early 1960s quickly faced politically backed opposition from Slovenian and Croatian intellectuals and support from Serbian intellectuals.31 The exclusive understanding of nationhood also remained relevant for political legitimation. Conservative elites in the Serbian party and the army in the late 1960s and early 1970s and again in the 1980s delegitimised and demobilised the political power of reformist challengers within the League of Communists by framing their demands in terms of Croatian and Slovenian nationalist opposition to the Yugoslav state and a threat to Serbian national interests.32 Yugoslav national unity never became a neutral force that stood above cultural, particularist, and political divisions in the country.

NOTES

Chapter 1

Introduction

1. Gu¨nter Scho¨dl, Kroatische Nationalpolitik und ‘Jugoslavenstvo’: Studien zu nationaler Integration und regionaler Politik in Kroatien-Dalmatien am Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts (Munich, Oldenbourg Verlag, 1990), pp. 13 – 56; Arnold Suppan, ‘Die Kroaten’, in Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch (eds), Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848– 1918, III: Die Vo¨lker des Reiches, vol. 1 (Vienna, Verlag der O¨sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1980), pp. 718– 25. 2. For Starcˇevic´, see Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1984), pp. 84 – 5. For Karadzˇic´ and Garasˇanin, see Holm Sundhaussen, Geschichte Serbiens: 19 – 21. Jahrhundert (Vienna, Bo¨hlau, 2007), pp. 88 – 97. 3. Jovo Bakic´, Ideologije jugoslovenstva izmed¯u srpskog i hrvatskog nacionalizma 1918– 1941 (Zrenjanin, Zˇarko Zrenjanin, 2004), pp. 99 – 222; Scho¨dl: Kroatische Nationalpolitik, pp. 234– 325; Andrew B. Wachtel, Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1998), pp. 53 – 63. 4. Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996). 5. Terry Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923– 1939 (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2001). 6. Oliver Zimmer, Nationalism in Europe 1890– 1940 (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 27 – 49. 7. Harris Mylonas, The Politics of Nation-Building. Making Co-Nationals, Refugees, and Minorities (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 21 – 3. 8. Theodora Dragostinova, Between Two Motherlands: Nationality and Emigration Among the Greeks of Bulgaria, 1900 –1949 (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2011); Carter Vaughn Findley, Turkey, Islam, Nationalism, and Modernity (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2010), chs 3 and 4; Anastasia Karakasidou,

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9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17.

NOTES TO PAGES 4 –7 Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia 1870– 1990 (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1997); Irina Livezeanu, Cultural Politics in Greater Romania: Regionalism, Nation Building, and Ethnic Struggle, 1918– 1930 (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1995); Eleftheria K. Manta, ‘The C¸ams of Albania and the Greek state (1923 – 1945)’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 29/4 (2009), pp. 523– 35; Mary Neuburger, The Orient Within: Muslim Minorities and the Negotiation of Nationhood in Modern Bulgaria (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2004), ch. 2. Findley: Turkey, chs 3 and 4. Livezeanu: Cultural Politics. Elisabeth Bakke, ‘Doomed to failure: The Czechoslovak nation-building project and the Slovak autonomist reaction 1918– 38’ (D.Phil. dissertation, University of Oslo, 1999), esp. chs 10 and 11; Alexander Maxwell, Choosing Slovakia: Slavic Hungary, the Czechoslovak Language and Accidental Nationalism (London, I.B.Tauris, 2009), pp. 166– 86. Banac: The National Question, p. 406. Ibid., p. 407. For a typical example of this approach, see Srec´ko Dzˇaja, Die politischen Realita¨t des Jugoslawismus (1918 – 1991) (Munich, Oldenbourg Verlag, 2002), pp. 7 – 31. Bakic´: Ideologije, pp. 49 – 50. Most of the historiography on Yugoslavia’s national question applies an ‘ethnicist’ theoretical approach reminiscent of Smith’s ethno-symbolism, as it stresses the pre-modern ethnic basis of nations and the longevity of nationalism (the term ‘ethnicist’ is taken from Jeremy King, ‘The nationalization of East Central Europe: Ethnicism, ethnicity, and beyond’, in Maria Bucur and Nancy M. Wingfield (eds), Staging the Past: The Politics of Commemoration in Habsburg Central Europe, 1848 to the Present (West Lafayette, Purdue University Press, 2001), pp. 123–30). Smith himself, however, stresses that the relationship between ethnie and nation is rarely a straightforward one-to-one correspondence (Anthony D. Smith, ‘Nations and history’, in Montserrat Guibernau and John Hutchinson (eds), Understanding Nationalism (Cambridge, Polity Press, 2001), pp. 19–25). Moreover, just like nationality, ethnicity is a social construct that stresses the ‘inborn’ or ‘given’ cultural similarity of its adherents and draws boundaries with others. The distinguishing mark of nationalism is the political claims that are attached to it (Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives (London, Pluto Press, 1993), p. 6). Ibid., pp. 154– 5. The most important works in this regard are Ljubodrag Dimic´’s monumental study of the cultural politics of interwar Yugoslavia (Ljudobrag Dimic´, Kulturna politika u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji (3 vols, Belgrade, Stubovi kulture, 1996– 7)), Aleksandar Ignjatovic´’s study of Yugoslav ideology in architecture (Aleksandar Ignjatovic´, Jugoslovenstvo u arhitekturi, 1904–1941 (Belgrade, grad¯evinska knjiga, 2007)), and the works by Ivana Dobrivojevic´, Predrag Markovic´, and Christian Nielsen on King Alexander’s Royal Dictatorship (Ivana Dobrivojevic´, Drzˇavna represija u doba diktature Kralja Aleksandra, 1929– 1935 (Belgrade,

NOTES TO PAGES 7 –10

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31.

32.

33.

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Institut za savremenu istoriju, 2006); Predrag Markovic´, ‘Die Legitimierung der Ko¨nigsdiktatur in Jugoslawien 1929– 1939’, in Edwin Oberla¨nder, with Rolf Ahmann, Hans Lemberg, and Holm Sundhaussen (eds), Autorita¨re Regime in Ostmittel- und Su¨dosteuropa, 1919– 1944 (Paderborn, Ferdinand Scho¨ningh, 2001), pp. 577– 631; Christian A. Nielsen, ‘One state, one nation, one king: The dictatorship of King Alexander and his Yugoslav project, 1929– 1935’ (D.Phil. dissertation, Columbia University, 2002)). Wachtel: Making a Nation, p. 73. Dejan Djokic´, Elusive Compromise: A History of Interwar Yugoslavia (London, Hurst & Co, 2007), p. 7. Rogers Brubaker, Ethnicity Without Groups (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 8. Brubaker: Nationalism Reframed, p. 21. Ibid., pp. 13 – 22; Brubaker: Ethnicity, pp. 7 – 27. Alon Confino, ‘Collective memory and cultural history: Problems of method’, The American Historical Review 102/5 (1997), p. 1400. Richard Jenkins, Social Identity (London, Routledge, 1996), p. 102. Ibid., p. 108. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Collected Essays (London, Fontana Press, 1993), p. 261. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford, Blackwell, 1983), pp. 43 – 50. See the contributions in Joost Augusteijn and Eric Storm (eds), Region and State in Nineteenth-Century Europe: Nation-Building, Regional Identities, and Separatism (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). Celia Applegate, ‘A Europe of regions: Reflections on the historiography of subnational places in modern times’, The American Historical Review 104/5 (1999), p. 1173. James C. Kennedy, ‘Religion, nation and European representations of the past’, in Stefan Berger and Chris Lorenz (eds), The Contested Nation: Ethnicity, Class, Religion and Gender in National Histories (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 109– 27. The best-documented case comes from the Czech – German borderlands at the turn of the twentieth century, see the overview of the literature in Tara Zahra, ‘Imagined noncommunities: National indifference as a category of practice’, Slavic Review 69/1 (2010), pp. 93 – 119. Alexander Maxwell, ‘Multiple nationalism: National concepts in nineteenthcentury Hungary and Benedict Anderson’s “Imagined communities”’, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 11/3 (2005), pp. 385– 414; Dominique Kirchner Reill, Nationalists Who Feared the Nation. Adriatic Multi-Nationalism in Habsburg Dalmatia, Trieste and Venice (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2012). Hilde Katrine Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia: Tito, Communist Leadership and the National Question (London, I.B.Tauris, 2012), pp. 152– 61, 183– 6; Dejan Jovic´, Yugoslavia: A State that Withered Away (West Lafayette, Purdue University Press, 2009), pp. 54 – 68.

242

NOTES TO PAGES 10 –12

34. Aleksa Djilas, The Contested Country: Yugoslav Unity and Communist Revolution, 1919– 1953 (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1991). 35. Xavier Bougarel, ‘Od “Muslimana” do “Bosˇnjaka”: Pitanje nacionalnog imena bosanskih muslimana’, in Husnija Kamberovic´ (ed.), Rasprava o nacionalnim identitetu Bosˇnjaka: Zbornik radova (Sarajevo, Institut za istoriju, 2009), pp. 117–35. 36. Pieter Troch, ‘From “and” to “either/or”: Nationhood in Montenegro during the Yugoslav twentieth century’, East European Politics and Societies 28/1 (2014), pp. 25 – 48. 37. Stefan Troebst, ‘Yugoslav Macedonia, 1944– 1953: Building the party, the state and the nation’, in Melissa Bokovoy, Jill Irvine, and Carol Lilly (eds), State – Society Relations in Yugoslavia 1945– 1992 (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 1997), pp. 243–66. For detailed accounts of the Montenegrin, Muslim, and Macedonian nation-building policies of the Yugoslav Communist authorities, see Ulf Brunnbauer and Hannes Grandits (eds), The Ambiguous Nation: Case Studies from Southeastern Europe in the 20th Century (Munich, Oldenbourg Verlag, 2013); Ksenija Cvetkovic´-Sander, Sprachpolitik und nationale Identita¨t im sozialistischen Jugoslawien (1945 – 1991) (Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag, 2011); Haug: Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia. 38. Gellner bases his argument about the emergence of the modern nation as a structural requirement for the functioning of industrial societies on the crucial role of the centralised, state-controlled educational system for transmitting universal high culture (Gellner: Nations, esp. pp. 19 – 38). 39. For the conflicting political and ideological views on national history education in modern Spain, see Carolyn P. Boyd, Politics, History, and National Identity in Spain, 1875 –1975 (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1997). These conflicts were not only settled in high politics and universities but also had an impact on the village schoolhouse. For an account of the tensions between representatives of different centres of authority (parish priests, schoolmasters, local notables, politicians, the bureaucracy, and the village authorities) over the village schoolhouse in late Austrian Galicia, see Keely Stauter-Halsted, The Nation in the Village: The Genesis of Peasant National Identity in Austrian Poland, 1848– 1914 (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2001), ch. 7. 40. Not coincidentally, schools and teachers take a prominent place in sociological and historical studies of the impact of nationhood on ordinary people (Rogers Brubaker, Margit Feischmidt, Jon Fox, and Liana Grancea, Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2006), pp. 269– 76; Pieter Judson, Guardians of the Nation: Activists on the Language Frontiers of Imperial Austria (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006); Tara Zahra, Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2008). 41. Jon Fox and Cynthia Miller-Idriss, ‘Everyday nationhood’, Ethnicities 8/4 (2008), pp. 536 – 63; Maarten Van Ginderachter and Marnix Beysen (eds), Nationhood from Below: Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

NOTES TO PAGES 17 –21

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Chapter 2 Yugoslavism and the Politics of Interwar Yugoslavia 1. Ferdo Cˇulinovic´ (ed.), Dokumenti o Jugoslaviji. Historijat od osnutka zajednicˇke drzˇave do danas (Zagreb, Sˇkolska knjiga, 1968), p. 47. 2. Branislav Gligorijevic´, Parlament i politicˇke stranke u Jugoslaviji (1919 – 1929) (Belgrade, Institut za savremenu istoriju, 1979), p. 110. 3. Dejan Djokic´, Elusive Compromise: A History of Interwar Yugoslavia (London, Hurst & Co, 2007), p. 45. 4. Cˇulinovic´: Dokumenti, p. 172. 5. All rough election results in this chapter are based on Gligorijevic´: Parlament and Ferdo Cˇulinovic´, Jugoslavija izmed¯u dva rata (2 vols, Zagreb, JAZU, 1961). 6. Branislav Gligorijevic´, Demokratska stranka i politicˇki odnosi u Kraljevini Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca (Belgrade, Institut za savremenu istoriju, 1970), pp. 29 – 81. 7. For the Slovenian Liberals, see Jurij Perovsˇek, Liberalizam in vprasˇanje slovenstva: Nacionalna politika liberalnega tabora v letih 1918– 1929 (Ljubljana, Modrijan, 1996), pp. 28 – 70; Carol Rogel, The Slovenes and Yugoslavism, 1890– 1914 (Boulder, East European Monographs, 1977), pp. 49, 81 – 2; Momcˇilo Zecˇevic´, Na istorijskoj prekretnici: Slovenci u politici jugoslovenske drzˇave 1919– 1929 (Belgrade, Prosveta / Institut za savremenu istoriju / Insˇtitut za zgodovino delavskega gibanja, 1985), pp. 83 –99, 139– 41. For the Croat – Serb Coalition, see Nicholas Miller, Between Nation and State: Serbian Politics in Croatia Before the First World War (Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997) and Gu¨nter Scho¨dl, Kroatische Nationalpolitik und ‘Jugoslavenstvo’: Studien zu nationaler Integration und regionaler Politik in Kroatien-Dalmatien am Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts (Munich, Oldenbourg Verlag, 1990). For the Independent Radicals in pre-war Serbia, see Mira Radojevic´, ‘O jugoslovenstvu samostalnih radikala’, Istorija 20. veka 16/2 (1998), pp. 17 –31. 8. Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1984), pp. 178–89; Gligorijevic´: Demokratska stranka, pp. 253–8. 9. Djokic´: Elusive Compromise, pp. 53 – 60; Gligorijevic´: Demokratska stranka, pp. 258– 66, 287– 312, 356– 440. 10. Hrvoje Matkovic´, Svetozar Pribic´evic´ i Samostalna demokratska stranka do sˇestojanuarske diktature (Zagreb, Institut za hrvatsku povijest, 1972), pp. 69 – 99. 11. Djokic´: Elusive Compromise, pp. 40 – 68; for a detailed study of the Popular Radical Party in Yugoslav governments, see Gligorijevic´: Parlament. 12. Jovo Bakic´, Ideologije jugoslovenstva izmed¯u srpskog i hrvatskog nacionalizma 1918– 1941 (Zrenjanin, Zˇarko Zrenjanin, 2004), pp. 298– 9. 13. Bakic´: Ideologije, pp. 318– 49; Banac: The National Question, pp. 162– 7. 14. Hrvoje Matkovic´, ‘Hrvatska zajednica: Prilog proucˇavanja politicˇkih stranaka u staroj Jugoslaviji’, Istorija 20. veka 5 (1963), pp. 5 –136.

244

NOTES TO PAGES 21 – 26

15. Banac: The National Question, pp. 260– 70; Jure Krisˇto, ‘Katolicˇko priklanjanje ideologiji jugoslavenstva’, Cˇasopis za suvremenu povijest 24/2 (1992), pp. 25 – 45; Zlatko Matijevic´, ‘Politika katolicˇkog jugoslavenstva’, in Hans-Georg Fleck and Igor Graovac (eds), Dijalog povijesnicˇara –istoricˇara, vol. 1 (Zagreb, Hrvatski institut za povijest, 1998), pp. 155– 70. 16. Mark Biondich, Stjepan Radic´, the Croat Peasant Party, and the Politics of Mass Mobilization, 1904– 1928 (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2000); Matkovic´: Svetozar Pribic´evic´, pp. 204– 42. 17. Biondich: Stjepan Radic´, pp. 91– 114, 163. 18. Matkovic´: Svetozar Pribic´evic´, pp. 214– 23; quotation on p. 215. 19. Ibid., pp. 223– 37. 20. Rogel: The Slovenes, pp. 28 – 39, 92 – 8; Zecˇevic´: Na istorijskoj prekretnici, pp. 18 – 40, 59 – 83. 21. For a detailed study of the Slovenian People’s Party during the 1920s, see Zecˇevic´: Na istorijskoj prekretnici. 22. Ibid., pp. 327– 9. 23. The distinction between musliman, which refers to the religious category ‘Muslim’, and Musliman, which refers to the national category ‘Bosnian Muslim’/’Bosˇnjak’, is lost in the English translation. In the interwar period, the term Muslim (musliman) was not used with a national meaning and only referred to the religious category. 24. Atif Purivatra, Jugoslovenska muslimanska organizacija u politicˇkom zˇivotu Kr. SHS (Sarajevo, Svetlost, 1974). 25. Quoted in ibid., p. 596. 26. Xavier Bougarel, ‘Farewell to Ottoman legacy? Islamic reformism and revivalism in Bosnia-Herzegovina’, in Nathalie Clayer and Eric Germain (eds), Islam in Inter-War Europe (London, Hurst & Co, 2008), p. 340. Bougarel calls this a ‘neo-millet strategy’. In the Ottoman Empire, millets were non-territorial institutions, which provided non-Muslim religious population groups autonomy in religious, educational, and judicial affairs. 27. Purivatra: Jugoslovenska muslimanska organizacija, pp. 538– 78. 28. Christian A. Nielsen, ‘One state, one nation, one king: The dictatorship of King Alexander and his Yugoslav project, 1929–1935’ (D.Phil. dissertation, Columbia University, 2002), pp. 108–12; Nedim Sˇarac, Uspostavljanje Sˇestojanuarskog rezˇima 1929. godine, sa posebnim osvrtom na Bosnu i Hercegovinu (Sarajevo, Svjetlost, 1975), pp. 146–86. 29. Viktor Manakin (ed.), Almanah Kraljevine Jugoslavije. IV. Jubilarni svezak (Zagreb, Glavno urednisˇtvo almanaha Kraljevine Jugoslavije, 1932), p. 130. 30. Robert Hazan, ‘Integral nationalism’, in Athena S. Leoussi (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Nationalism (New Brunswick, Transaction Publ., 2001), pp. 153– 4. On the authoritarian regimes in Central and South-Eastern Europe, see the contributions to Erwin Oberla¨nder, with Rolf Ahmann, Hans Lemberg, and Holm Sundhaussen (eds), Autorita¨re Regime in Ostmittel- und Su¨dosteuropa 1919– 1944 (Paderborn, Ferdinand Scho¨ningh, 2001); and Joseph Rothschild, East

NOTES TO PAGES 26 –32

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

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Central Europe between the Two World Wars (Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1974). Holm Sundhaussen, ‘Die Ko¨nigsdiktaturen in Su¨dosteuropa: Umrisse einer Synthese’, in Oberla¨nder, Ahmann, Lemberg, and Sundhaussen (eds): Autorita¨re Regime, pp. 337– 48. Bakic´: Ideologije, p. 84. Ivana Dobrivojevic´, Drzˇavna represija u doba diktature Kralja Aleksandra, 1929– 1935 (Belgrade, Institut za savremenu istoriju, 2006), pp. 96 – 105. Ljubodrag Dimic´, Nikola Zˇutic´, and Blagoje Isailovic´ (eds), Zapisnici sa sednica Ministarskog saveta Kraljevine Jugoslavije 1929– 1931 (Belgrade, Sluzˇbeni list SRJ / Arhiv Jugoslavije, 2002), p. 100. Archives of Yugoslavia, fond 74, fascikl 38, arhivska jedinica 56 (henceforth AJ, f. 74/38/56), p. 71: speech by King Alexander to the new parliament and senate, 18 January 1932. Nielsen: ‘One state’, pp. 173– 8. AJ, f. 74/38/56, p. 70: speech by King Alexander to the new parliament and senate, 18 January 1932. Nielsen: ‘One state’, pp. 129– 32. Sˇarac: Uspostavljanje, p. 190, f.10. John Lampe, Yugoslavia as History. Twice There Was a Country, 2nd edn (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 165. Todor Stojkov, Opozicija u vreme ˇsestojanuarske diktature, 1929 –1935 (Belgrade, Prosveta, 1969), p. 84. Nielsen: ‘One state’, pp. 246– 56. Ibid., pp. 290– 5. ‘Mome dragom narodu’, Jugoslovenski dnevnik, 4 September 1931, p. 1. Nielsen: ‘One state’, p. 386. Dobrivojevic´: Diktatura, pp. 92– 8; Nielsen: ‘One state’, pp. 387– 9. Ibid., pp. 70 – 1; Nielsen: ‘One state’, pp. 389– 96. Milica Bodrozˇic´, ‘Obrazovanje Jugoslovenske radikalno-seljacˇke demokratije’, Istorijski glasnik 17/2– 3 (1964), pp. 39 – 96. ‘Nacˇela Jugoslovenske nacionalne stranke’, Jugoslovenski dnevnik, 22 September 1933, pp. 2 –3. Nielsen: ‘One state’, pp. 396– 406; Stojkov: Opozicija, pp. 135– 43. Dobrivojevic´: Diktatura, pp. 131–3. Stojkov: Opozicija, pp. 117–24. Ibid., pp. 144– 77. Dobrivojevic´: Diktatura, pp. 244–7; Stojkov: Opozicija, pp. 208– 18. Ljubo Boban, Macˇek i politika Hrvatske seljacˇke stranke (1928 – 1941), vol. 1 (Zagreb, Liber, 1974), pp. 92 – 4. Dobrivojevic´: Diktatura, pp. 233–5. Djokic´: Elusive Compromise, pp. 121– 37; Stojkov: Opozicija, pp. 218 –47. Dobrivojevic´: Diktatura, pp. 156 – 300, 333 – 6; Nielsen: ‘One state’, pp. 337 – 84.

246

NOTES TO PAGES 33 – 39

59. Djokic´: Elusive Compromise, pp. 137– 47; Stojkov: Opozicija, pp. 293 –311. 60. Bakic´: Ideologije, pp. 354– 63; Todor Stojkov, Vlada Milana Stojadinovic´a, 1935– 1937 (Belgrade, Institut za savremenu istoriju, 1985), pp. 54 – 5. 61. Ibid., p. 360. 62. Ibid. 63. Quoted from Slovenec, the daily associated with the Slovenian People’s Party in Jurij Perovsˇek, ‘Slovenci in Jugoslavija v tridesetih letih’ in Peter Vodopivec (ed.), Slovenska trideseta leta (Ljubljana, Slovenska matica, 1997), p. 24. 64. Djokic´: Elusive Compromise, pp. 115– 20. 65. The SZ was a predominantly Serb party with a fair showing in pre-war Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The party had strong links with the Democratic Party, but demanded a more radical solution to the agrarian question (Banac: The National Question, pp. 189– 93). 66. Mira Radojevic´, Ujedinjena opozicija, 1935– 1939 (Belgrade, Institut za savremenu istoriju Srbije, 1994), pp. 140– 2, 158– 76. 67. Aleksandar Jakir, Dalmatian zwischen den Weltkriegen. Agrarische und urbane Lebenswelt und das Scheitern der jugoslawischen Integration (Munich, Oldenbourg Verlag, 1999), pp. 422– 6. 68. Boban: Macˇek, pp. 290– 3. 69. Ibid., pp. 366– 7; Djokic´: Elusive Compromise, pp. 173– 86. 70. Ibid., pp. 186– 8. 71. Ibid., pp. 119– 227; Jakir: Dalmatien, pp. 427– 47. 72. Miroslav Stiplovsˇek, Banski svet Dravske banovine 1930– 1935 (Ljubljana, Znanstvenoraziskovalni insˇtitut Filozofske fakultete, 2006), pp. 304– 14. 73. Jurij Perovsˇek, ‘Jugoslovanska nacionalna stranka in vprasˇanje slovenske banovine 1939– 1941’, Prispevki za novejsˇo zgodovino 42/3 (2002), pp. 54 – 8. 74. Marko Bulatovic´, ‘Struggling with Yugoslavism: Dilemmas of interwar Serb political thought’, in John R. Lampe and Mark Mazower (eds), Ideologies and National Identities: The Case of Twentieth-Century Southeastern Europe (Budapest, Central European University Press, 2004), pp. 254– 76. 75. Djokic´: Elusive Compromise, pp. 230– 2. 76. Ibid., pp. 238– 49. 77. Ljubodrag Dimic´, Kulturna politika u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji, vol. 1 (Belgrade, Stubovi kulture, 1996), pp. 507– 8. 78. Ibid., pp. 524– 61. 79. Slobodan Jovanovic´, Jugoslovenska misao u prosˇlosti i buduc´nosti (Belgrade, Biblioteka srpskog kulturnog kluba, 1939), p. 13. 80. Ibid., pp. 9 – 16. 81. Mustafa Imamovic´, Historija Bosˇnjaka (Sarajevo, BZK Preporod, 1997), pp. 520– 1; Ibrahim Kemura, Uloga Gajreta u drusˇtvenom zˇivotu Muslimana (Sarajevo, Veselin Malesˇa, 1986), pp. 241– 62. 82. Sˇerbo Rastoder, Politicˇke borbe u Crnoj Gori 1918– 1929 (Belgrade, Zaduzˇbina Andrejevic´, 1996); Dimitrije Vujovic´, Crnogorski federalisti, 1919–1929 (Titograd, CANU, 1981).

NOTES TO PAGES 39 – 44

247

83. Sekula Drljevic´, Centralizam ili federalizam? (Zemun, M. Mlađan, 1926), pp. 19 – 21; Vujovic´: Crnogorski federalisti, pp. 121– 4, 186–7. 84. Pieter Troch, ‘From “and” to “either/or”: Multiple nationhood in Montenegro during the Yugoslav twentieth century’, East European Politics and Societies 28/1 (2014), pp. 25 –48. 85. Banac: The National Question, pp. 291– 328; Nada Bosˇkovska, Das Jugoslawische Makedonien 1918– 1941: Eine Randregion zwischen Repression und Integration (Vienna, Bo¨hlau, 2009), pp. 39 – 91; Vladan Jovanovic´, Jugoslovenska drzˇava i juzˇna Srbija 1918– 1929 (Belgrade, Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, 2002), pp. 173– 208. 86. V. Jovanovic´: Jugoslovenska drzˇava. 87. Bosˇkovska: Das Jugoslawische Makedonien; Vladan Jovanovic´, Vardarska banovina 1929– 1941 (Belgrade, Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, 2011). 88. Ibid., pp. 111– 64; V. Jovanovic´: Vardarska banovina, pp. 261– 71. 89. Banac: The National Question, p. 329. 90. Aleksa Djilas, The Contested Country: Yugoslav Unity and Communist Revolution, 1919– 1953 (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1991), pp. 58 –65. 91. Ibid., pp. 65 – 76. 92. Ibid., pp. 89 – 102. 93. S. Jovanovic´: Jugoslovenska misao, pp. 1 – 8.

Chapter 3 Modernity will be Yugoslav: The Organisation of the Yugoslav Education System 1. For a detailed overview of the state and organisation of the educational systems of the South Slav lands in Austria-Hungary, see the chapters on Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs in Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch (eds), Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, III: Die Vo¨lker des Reiches (Vienna, Verlag der O¨sterreiches Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1980); Janko Pleterski, ‘Die Slowenen’, in ibid., pp. 818–23; Arnold Suppan, ‘Die Kroaten’, in ibid., pp. 703–14; Dimitrije Djordjevic´, ‘Die Serben’, in ibid., pp. 744–6. Charles Jelavich, South Slav Nationalisms: Textbooks and Yugoslav Union Before 1914 (Columbus, Ohio State University Press, 1990) remains an indispensable study of the national function of education in the South Slav lands before World War I. 2. For a detailed overview of the state and organisation of the educational system in Bosnia-Herzegovina, see Srec´ko Dzˇaja, Bosnien-Herzegowina in den o¨sterreichisch-ungarischen Epoche (1878 –1918): Die Intelligentsia zwischen Tradition und Ideologie (Munich, Oldenbourg Verlag, 1994), pp. 65 – 80; Robin Okey, ‘Education and modernisation in a multi-ethnic society: Bosnia 1850– 1918’, in Janusz Tomiak, Knut Eriksen, Andreas Kazamias, and Robin Okey (eds), Schooling, Educational Policy and Ethnic Identity (Dartmouth, New York

248

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

NOTES TO PAGES 44 – 48 University Press, 1992), pp. 319– 42. For Serbia, see Holm Sundhaussen, Geschichte Serbiens 19.– 21. Jahrhundert (Vienna, Bo¨hlau, 2007), pp. 168– 70. For Montenegro: Zˇivko Andrijasˇevic´ and Sˇerbo Rastoder, Istorija Crne Gore (Podgorica, Centar za iseljenike, 2006), pp. 231– 4. Vlad. T. Simic´, ‘Narodno prosvec´ivanje’, in Jubilarni zbornik zˇivota i rada Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca 1.XII.1928, vol. 1 (Belgrade, Matica zˇivih i mrtvih SHS, 1928), p. 410. Jovan P. Jovanovic´, ‘Zadaci ucˇiteljske organizacije u ujedinjenoj domovini Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca’, Ucˇitelj 3/1 (1922), p. 7. Quoted in Dusˇan Mrđenovic´ (ed.), Ustavi i vlade Knezˇevine Srbije, Kraljevine Srbije, Kraljevine SHS i Kraljevine Jugoslavije 1835– 1941 (Belgrade, Nova knjiga, 1988), p. 211. AJ, f.66/2053/2041: letter from UJU to the Ministry of Education, 20 November 1926; decision by the Ministry of Education, 29 November 1926. Ljubodrag Dimic´, Kulturna politika u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji, vol. 1 (Belgrade, Stubovi kulture, 1996), pp. 213– 47. ‘Zakon o narodnim sˇkolama’, Sluzˇbene novine 11 (1929), pp. 2159– 76. ‘Zakon o srednjim sˇkolama’. Sluzˇbene novine 11 (1929), pp. 1589– 602. ‘Zakon o građanskim sˇkolama’, Sluzˇbene novine 13 (1931), pp. 1891– 6. ‘Zakon o ucˇiteljskim sˇkolama’, Sluzˇbene novine 11 (1929), pp. 1851– 8. ‘Zakon o univerzitetima’, Sluzˇbene novine 12 (1930), pp. 1387– 93. Ljubodrag Dimic´, Nikola Zˇutic´, and Blagoje Isailovic´ (eds), Zapisnici sa sednica Ministarskog saveta Kraljevine Jugoslavije 1929– 1931 (Belgrade, Sluzˇbeni list SRJ / Arhiv Jugoslavije, 2002), p. 35. ‘Obrazovanje analfabetskih tecˇajeva pri domac´icˇkim tecˇajevima’, Prosvetni glasnik 49 (1933), p. 125; ‘Organizovanje i otvaranje analfabetskih tecˇajeva uz sve narodne sˇkole u zemlji’, Prosvetni glasnik 46 (1930), pp. 1194– 201. AJ, f.66/295/519: decree by the Ministry of Education on popular universities, 1 January 1932. Ibid. AJ, f.66/121/393: ‘Pravilnik o emisionim programima radio-stanica u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji’, 27 March 1933. ‘Centralni presbiro zavodi od 3 septembra nacionalni cˇas na svima jugoslovenskim radio-stanicima’, Jugoslovenski dnevnik, 26 August 1934, p. 4. Ljubodrag Dimic´, Kulturna politika u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji, vol. 2 (Belgrade, Stubovi kulture, 1997), pp. 240– 4. Dimic´: Kulturna politika, vol. 2, pp. 158– 9. Martin Mayer, Elementarbildung in Jugoslawien (1918 – 1941). Ein Beitrag zur gesellschaftlichen Modernisierung? (Munich, Oldenbourg Verlag, 1995), p. 111. Dragutin Pazman, ‘Sˇkolstvo i prosvjeta u Hrvatskoj izmed¯u dva rata’, in Dragutin Frankovic´ (ed.), Povijest sˇkolstva i pedagogija u Hrvatskoj (Zagreb, Pedagosˇki –knjizˇevni zbor, 1958), p. 343. Jozo Tomasevich has estimated that the Yugoslav population grew by 31 per cent between January 1921 and the end of 1939. This population growth was the

NOTES TO PAGES 48 –52

24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

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highest in Europe, except for Albania and Greece. According to the census of 1931, 34.6 per cent of the Yugoslav population was younger than 15 (Jozo Tomasevich, Peasants, Politics and Economic Change in Yugoslavia (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1953), pp. 288–9). Dimic´: Kulturna politika, vol. 2, pp. 240– 4. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 130. Mayer: Elementarbildung, p. 101. Dimic´: Kulturna politika, vol. 2, pp. 11, 61. Ibid., p. 175. Ibid., pp. 100, 102, 175. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 109, 144. John Lampe, Yugoslavia as History: Twice There Was a Country, 2nd edn (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 129–200; Tomasevich: Peasants. Wolfgang Ho¨pken, ‘Strukturkrise oder verpasste Chance? Zum Demokratiepotential der su¨dosteuropa¨ischen Zwischenkriegsstaaten Bulgarien, Jugoslawien und Ruma¨nien’, in Hans Lemberg (ed.), Ostmitteleuropa zwischen den beiden Weltkriegen (1918 – 1939): Sta¨rke und Schwa¨che der neuen Staaten, nationale Minderheiten (Marburg, Verlag Herder-Institut, 1997), pp. 73–127; John Lampe, Balkans into Southeastern Europe: A Century of War and Transition (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 63–140.

Part 2

The Possibilities: The Inclusive Approach to Yugoslav National Identity

1. Andrew B. Wachtel, Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1998), pp. 81 – 2. 2. Stuart Foster and Keith Crawford, ‘The critical importance of history textbook research’, in Stuart Foster and Keith Crawford (eds), What Shall We Tell the Children? International Perspectives on School History Textbooks (Greenwich, Information Age Publishers, 2006), p. 12. 3. Oliver Zimmer has coined the term ‘symbolic resources’ to denote the facts from the domains of ‘political values/institutions, culture, history and geography’, which ‘provide the symbolic raw material, as it were, which social actors can use as they define national identities in public discourse’ (Oliver Zimmer, ‘Boundary mechanisms and symbolic resources: Towards a processorientated approach to national identity’, Nations and Nationalism 9/2 (2003), pp. 179 – 80). 4. A list of the curricula I consulted is given in the bibliography. 5. Foster and Crawford: ‘The critical importance’, pp. 11 – 14. 6. Charles Jelavich, South Slav Nationalisms: Textbooks and Yugoslav Union Before 1914 (Columbus, Ohio State University, 1990).

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NOTES TO PAGES 53 –55

7. ‘Stecˇaj za izradu bukvara i cˇitanaka za osnovne sˇkole u Kraljevini Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca’, Prosvetni glasnik 40 (1923), pp. 147– 8. 8. ‘Odobreno sˇtampanje bukvara i cˇitanaka drzˇavnog i privatnog izdanja, a po misˇljenju Glavnog Prosv. Saveta’, Osnovna nastava 1/25 (1925), pp. 890– 1. 9. ‘Obavezni udzˇbenici u osnovnim sˇkolama’, Prosvetni glasnik 42 (1926), p. 363; ‘Odobreni udzˇbenici za osnovne sˇkole vazˇe za josˇ godinu dana’, Prosvetni glasnik 43 (1927), p. 621. 10. ‘Zakon o udzˇbenicima za narodne, građanske, ucˇiteljske i srednje sˇkole’, Sluzˇbene novine 11 (1929), pp. 1858– 9. 11. ‘Konkurs za izradu udzˇbenika nacionalne grupe predmeta’, Prosvetni glasnik 51 (1935), pp. 166– 72; ‘Konkurs za izradu udzˇbenika iz nastavnih predmeta drzˇavnih osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini Jugoslavije’, Prosvetni glasnik 51 (1935), pp. 173– 8. 12. Milic´ R. Majstorovic´, ‘Problem udzˇbenika u nardonoj sˇkoli Kraljevine Jugoslavije’, in Milic´ R. Majstorovic´ (ed.), Pedagosˇka Jugoslavija (Belgrade, Privrednik Zˇiv. D. Blagojevic´, 1939), p. 209. 13. ‘Spisak udzˇbenika koji su sada u upotrebi u narodnim, građanskim, ucˇiteljskim i srednjim sˇkolama’, Prosvetni glasnik 54 (1938), pp. 1122– 73; ‘Postupak pri donosˇenju odluka o upotrebi udzˇbenika u narodnim, domac´icˇkim, građanskim, srednjim, ucˇiteljskim i drugim srednjim i srednjim strucˇnim sˇkolama u resoru Ministarstva prosvete’, Prosvetni glasnik 55 (1939), p. 384. 14. This approach has been applied successfully in Katharine Kennedy’s study of the building of German nationhood through regionally differentiated reading books in Wilhelmine Germany (Katherine Kennedy, ‘A nation’s readers: Cultural integration and the schoolbook canon in Wilhelmine Germany’, Paedagogica Historica 33/2 (1997), pp. 459–80).

Chapter 4 The Serbo-Croato-Slovenian National Language 1. Raymond Detrez, ‘Language or nation: What came first?’, in Radovan Lucˇic´ (ed.), Lexical Norm and National Language: Lexicography and Language Policy in South-Slavic Languages after 1989 (Munich, Verlag Oto Sagner, 2002), p. 11. 2. Dusˇan Mrđenovic´ (ed.), Ustavi i vlade Knezˇevine Srbije, Kraljevine Srbije, Kraljevine SHS i Kraljevine Jugoslavije (1835 – 1941) (Belgrade, Nova knjiga, 1988), p. 209, p. 249. The government of Nikola Pasˇic´ had suggested to the constitutional assembly that the state language would be termed SerboCroatian, adding that in Slovenian regions the Slovenian dialect could be used. This proposal was rejected by the Slovenian jurist and politician Bogumil Vosˇnjak, member of the Yugoslav Committee during World War I and signer of the Corfu declaration. To indicate his strong Yugoslav national consciousness, Vosˇnjak had changed his first name from the Slovenian Bogomil to the Croatian Bogumil. He argued that the government’s suggestion for the name of the state language would only strengthen separatist

NOTES TO PAGES 55 –62

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

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opposition in Slovenia. Instead, he proposed the term Serbo-Croato-Slovenian (Ljubodrag Dimic´, Kulturna politika u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji, vol. 3 (Belgrade, Stubovi kulture, 1997), pp. 380– 1; Jurij Perovsˇek, Liberalizam in vprasˇanje slovenstva: Nacionalna politika liberalnega tabora v letih 1918– 1929 (Ljubljana, Modrijan, 1996), pp. 182–3). Ervin Dolenc, Kulturni boj: Slovenska kulturna politika v Kraljevini SHS (1918 – 1929) (Ljubljana, Cankarjeva zalozˇba, 1996), pp. 131– 3; Perovsˇek: Liberalizam, pp. 151– 61. Dolenc: Kulturni boj, pp. 108– 11, quotation on p. 110. Fran Ilesˇic´, ‘Jezik u nacionalnom razvoju Slovenaca’, Knjizˇevni jug 1/2 (1918), pp. 69 – 70. Matija Murko, ‘Slovenacˇki knjizˇevni jezik’, Nova Evropa 5/5 (1922), pp. 132 – 40. Milan C´urcˇin, ‘Slovenacˇko pitanje’, Nova Evropa 5/5 (1922), pp. 129– 32. Laza Popovic´, ‘Slovenci kao Jugosloveni’, Nova Evropa 7/6 (1923), pp. 169– 71, quotations on p. 169. Vladimir Dvornikovic´, Nasˇa kulturna orijentacija u danasˇnjoj Evropi (Zagreb, 1931), p. 125. Petar Bulat, ‘Pitanje jugoslovenskog knjizˇevnog jezika i Slovenci’, Narodna odbrana 7/48 (1932), p. 755. ‘Za jedan knjizˇevni jezik i azbuku’, Jugoslovenski dnevnik, 10 January 1930, p. 1. ‘Quod non!’, Slovenec, 28 December 1932, p. 1. Josip Vidmar, Kulturni problem slovenstva (Ljubljana, Tiskovna zadruga, 1932), esp. pp. 49 – 60. ‘Slovenski jezik’, Jugoslovan, 31 October 1930, p. 2. Ivan Lah, ‘Nasˇe kulturno jedinstvo’, Glasnik jugoslovenskog profesorskog drusˇtva 11 (1931), p. 536. Ervin Dolenc, Med kulturo in politiko: Kulturnopoliticˇna razhajanja v Sloveniji med svetovnima vojnama (Ljubljana, Insˇtitut za novejsˇo zgodovino, 2010), pp. 114 – 15. Ibid., pp. 141– 9. Vidmar: Kulturni problem, pp. 56 – 60. Jovan P. Jovanovic´, ‘Zadaci ucˇiteljske organizacije u ujedinjenoj domovini Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca’, Ucˇitelj 2/3 (1922), p. 34, emphasis mine. ‘Rezolucije komisije za izradu drzˇavnog prosvetnog programa’, Prosvetni glasnik 44 (1928), p. 166. Pavle Popovic´, Jugoslovenska knjizˇevnost (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1927 [1918]), p. 3. Ibid., pp. 95 – 105. The Serbo-Croatian language is sub-divided in three dialects: Kajkavian, Cˇakavian, and Sˇtokavian, named after the divergent forms of the interrogative pronoun ‘what?’ (kaj, cˇa, sˇto). The Serbo-Croatian literary language is based on the sˇtokavian dialect, which is divided in three variants: Ekavian, Ijekavian, and Ikavian, based on the reflex of the Proto-Slavonic vowel jat’ (-e,-(i)je, -i). The Ikavian variant is not used in the literary language. The Ekavian literary

252

24.

25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

NOTES TO PAGES 62 –65 variant of Belgrade has become a marker of Serbian linguistic identity, the Ijekavian literary variant, which is used in Zagreb, has become a marker of Croatian linguistic identity, although the latter is spoken by Croats, Serbs, Muslims, and Montenegrins (Robert Greenberg, Language and Identity in the Balkans (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 32 – 9). This suggestion had been made by Jovan Skerlic´, the tremendously influential literary critic and professor of Serbian literature at the University of Belgrade, in a lecture and later article from 1913. It envisaged a compromise: Croats would give up ‘their’ Ijekavian pronunciation for the ‘Serbian’ Ekavian variant, Serbs would in turn switch from ‘their’ Cyrillic to the ‘Croatian’ Latin alphabet (Dimic´: Kulturna politika, vol. 3, pp. 373– 5). Bogumil Vosˇnjak, Pobeda Jugoslavije: Nacionalne misli i predlozi (Belgrade, Sveslovenska knjizˇara, 1930), p. 92. ‘Pravilnik o cenzuri filmova’, Sluzˇbene novine 14 (1932), pp. 132– 6, art. 3. ‘Izmene i dopune pravilnika o cenzuri filmova’, Sluzˇbene novine 14 (1932), pp. 342 –3, art. 3. ‘O izjednacˇenju knjizˇevnog jezika’, Glasnik jugoslovenskog profeskorskog drusˇtva 4/1 (1924), pp. 26 – 30. AJ, f. 66/123/398: Aleksandar Belic´, ‘Povodom naredbe g. Ministra prosvete o ujednacˇenju pravopisa u srednjoj sˇkoli’ (unpublished report, 1929). AJ, f. 66/319/537: ‘Izvesˇtaj Gospodinu Ministru prosvete o radu komisije za izjednacˇenje srpskohrvatskog pravopisa’, no date. ‘Pravopisno uputstvo za sve osnovne, srednje i strucˇne sˇkole u Kraljevini SHS’, Sluzˇbene novine 11 (1929), pp. 1525– 40. Ibid., p. 1534. Greenberg: Language and Identity, pp. 44 – 7; Snjezˇana Kordic´, Jezik i nacionalizam (Zagreb, Durieux, 2010), pp. 161–3, 277–86. Kordic´: Jezik, p. 163. ‘Iz Banovine Hrvatske’, Narodna prosveta, 19 December 1940, pp. 2 – 3. Dimic´: Kulturna politika, vol. 3, p. 406– 10. Jovan Erdeljanovic´, ‘Etnicˇki polozˇaj Srba Stare Srbije i Makedonije izmed¯u Juzˇnim Slovenima’, Nova Evropa 10/11 (1924), p. 331. Nada Bosˇkovska, Das Jugoslawischen Makedonien 1918– 1941: Eine Randregion zwischen Repression und Integration (Vienna, Bo¨hlau, 2009), pp. 169– 71; Ljubodrag Dimic´, Kulturna politika u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji, vol. 2 (Belgrade, Stubovi kulture, 1997), p. 107; Vladan Jovanovic´, Vardarska banovina 1929– 1941 (Belgrade, Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, 2011), pp. 211– 12. Ibid., pp. 332– 9. Bosˇkovska: Das Jugoslawischen Makedonien, p. 338. Prosvetni glasnik 38/3 (1921), pp. 53 – 4. ‘Stecˇaj za izradu bukvara i cˇitanaka za osnovne sˇkole u Kraljevini Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca’, Prosvetni glasnik 40 (1923), pp. 147– 8. ‘Zakon o udzˇbenicima za narodne, građanske, ucˇiteljske i srednje sˇkole’, Sluzˇbene novine 11 (1929), pp. 1858– 9.

NOTES TO PAGES 65 –68

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44. ‘Konkurs za izradu udzˇbenika nacionalne grupe predmeta’, Prosvetni glasnik 51 (1935), pp. 166–72; ‘Konkurs za izradu udzˇbenika iz nastavnih predmeta drzˇavnih osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini Jugoslavije’, Prosvetni glasnik 51 (1935), pp. 173– 8. Note that by this time the authorities refrained from referring to Slovenian as a ‘dialect’. 45. Charles Jelavich, ‘Education, textbooks and South Slav nationalisms in the interwar era’, in Norbert Reiter and Holm Sundhaussen (eds), Allgemeinbildung als Modernisierungsfaktor (Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag, 1994), p. 135. 46. The textbook ignored an earlier prescription that references to the ‘Serbian people’, ‘Serbian Kingdom’, and ‘Serbian King’ in the Serbian hymn should be neutralised to ‘our people’, ‘our Kingdom’, and ‘our King’ and that the Yugoslav state hymn should consist of one strophe of the Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian hymn, ‘until a final decision would be taken’ (Kosta V. Aranicki and Stevan Karadzˇic´ (eds), Jugoslovenski ucˇiteljski zbornik svih zakona, uredaba, pravilnika, pravila, resˇenja, odluka i raspisa izdatih od oslobod¯enja do danas, koji se odnose na narodne sˇkole i narodne ucˇitelje/-ice u celoj Jugoslaviji a i danas su u vazˇnosti (Pancˇevo, Napredak, 1935), p. 159). 47. Milosˇ Ivkovic´ and Vojislav Jovanovic´, Srpska cˇitanka za I razred srednjih sˇkola, 15th edn (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1927), pp. 159–60; Ljubomir Protic´ and Vlad. D. Stojanovic´, Srpska cˇitanka: trec´a knjiga za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini SHS, 10th edn (Belgrade, Drzˇavna sˇtamparija, 1923), p. 9; Milan Sˇevic´, Srpska ˇcitanka za srednje sˇkole u Kraljevini SHS, vol. 1, 3rd edn (Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1922), pp. 60–1. Slava feasts celebrate the family’s patron saint. Prince Marko goes back to the ruler over a small territory in western Macedonia in the second half of the fourteenth century. He is tremendously popular in South Slav oral literature as the not only powerful but also cunning, comical, and wry nevertheless just defender of the normal people. Milosˇ Obilic´ was the alleged assassin of the Ottoman Sultan Murad during the Battle of Kosovo. 48. Ivkovic´ and Jovanovic´: Srpska cˇitanka za I razred, p. 160. 49. Protic´ and Stojanovic´: Srpska cˇitanka: trec´a knjiga, p. 127. 50. Ibid. 51. Milan Sˇevic´, Srpska cˇitanka za srednje sˇkole u Kraljevini SHS, vol. 4, 2nd edn (Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1923), pp. 140– 2. 52. Quoted in Vladeta Tesˇic´, Sto godina prosvetnog saveta Srbije (Belgrade, Zavod za udzˇbenike i nastavna sredstva, 1980), pp. 109– 10. 53. Paschalis Kitromilides, ‘“Imagined communities” and the origins of the national question in the Balkans’, European History Quarterly 19/2 (1989), pp. 156 –9. 54. Anthony D. Smith, ‘Nations and history’, in Montserrat Guibernau and John Hutchinson (eds), Understanding Nationalism (Cambridge, Polity Press, 2001), pp. 19 – 25. 55. ‘Referat komisije za pregled i ocenu cˇitanaka za osn. sˇkole, podnesenih na raspisani stecˇaj koji je objavljen odlukom O.n. br 19156/23 g’, Osnovna nastava 1/28 (1925), p. 1010.

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56. ‘Referat komisije za pregled i ocenu cˇitanaka za osn. sˇkole, podnesenih na raspisani stecˇaj koji je objavljen odlukom O.n. br 19156/23 g’, Osnovna nastava 1/29 (1925), pp. 1076, 1081. 57. ‘Jugoslovencˇe, list – preporuka’, Prosvetni glasnik 47 (1931), p. 713. 58. ‘Ðacˇe Povardarcˇe’, Jugoslovencˇe 1/3 (1931), p. 1. 59. N. Sˇkovrlj, ‘Zastavo sveta’, Jugoslovencˇe 3/2 (1933), p. 3. 60. Ljubomir Protic´ and Vladimir Stojavonvic´ (revised by Branislav Miljkovic´), Cˇitanka za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji, 14th edn (Belgrade, Drzˇavna sˇtamparija, 1931), pp. 156– 7, emphasis mine. 61. Ljubica Jankovic´, Iz slovenacˇke knjizˇevnosti (Belgrade, Profesorsko drusˇtvo, 1928), p. 64. 62. Ibid. 63. Ibid., p. 68. 64. Ibid., pp. 67 – 76. 65. The first quotation is from Zora Vulovic´, Cˇitanka za IV razred srednjih sˇkola (Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1926), p. 247; the second quotation is from Atanasije Mladenovic´, Cˇitanka za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji, 2nd edn (Belgrade, Jovanovic´ i Vujic´, 1940), pp. 20 – 1. 66. Jasˇa Prodanovic´, Cˇitanka za I razred srednjih sˇkola (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1928). 67. Wachtel: Making a Nation, pp. 31 – 8. 68. Vladimir Dvornikovic´, Karakterologija Jugoslovena (Belgrade, Prosveta, 2000 [1939]), p. 180. 69. Vladimir Vujic´, ‘Stvarno jugoslovenstvo: misli o jugoslovenskoj knjizˇevnosti’, Narodna odbrana 7/17 – 18 (1932), p. 282– 3. 70. Milosˇ Ðuric´, ‘Kulturna misija Slovena’, Srpski knjizˇevni glasnik 11/7 (1924), pp. 523 –30; 11/8 (1924), pp. 605– 12. 71. Jovan Cvijic´, ‘Osnovi jugoslovenske civilizacije’, Nova Evropa 6/7 (1922), pp. 212 –18. 72. Wachtel: Making a Nation, p. 102. 73. Antun Barac, ‘Knjizˇevno jedinstvo’, Knjizˇevni jug 3/4 (1919), p. 151. 74. Ðord¯e And¯elic´, Istorijski pregled jugoslovenske knjizˇevnosti (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1933), pp. 191– 224; Ðorđe Lazarevic´, Istorija Jugoslovena, vol. 2, 6th edn (Belgrade, Narodna prosveta, 1933), p. 111– 18. 75. Suzana Lecˇek and Tihana Petrovic´ Lesˇ, Znanost i svjetonazor. Etnologija i prosvjetna politika Banovine Hrvatske 1939– 1941 (Zagreb, Srednja Europa, 2010), p. 15. 76. Ljubodrag Dimic´, Kulturna politika u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji, vol. 1 (Belgrade, Stubovi kulture, 1996), p. 406. 77. ‘Referat komisije za ocenu Bukvara i Cˇitanaka za osn. sˇkole, pisanih latinicom podnesenih na raspisani stecˇaj odlukom O.n. br. 19.156/23 g’, Osnovna nastava 1/30 (1925), pp. 1134– 6. 78. ‘Referat o cˇitankama pisanim latinicom’, Osnovna nastava 1/31 (1925), p. 1190. Less than 20 years later, Cˇajkovac was appointed president of the Croatian Pedagogical Council in the Croatian banovina. By this time, he had

NOTES TO PAGES 72 –76

79. 80. 81. 82. 83.

84. 85. 86.

87. 88. 89.

90. 91. 92.

93. 94. 95.

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abandoned the Yugoslav national idea, arguing that education should express and preserve the true Croatian national spirit of the peasantry (Sigismund Cˇajkovac, ‘Temeljna nacˇela za sˇkolski zakon’, Ucˇitelj 20/6 (1940), pp. 330– 43, 20/7 – 8 (1940), pp. 455–65). Sigismund Cˇajkovac, Cˇitanka za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini SHS (Zagreb, Narodne novine, 1926), p. 135. Ibid. Cˇitanka za II razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini SHS (Zagreb, Narodne novine, 1926), pp. 133– 4. Jelavich: South Slav Nationalisms, p. 104. Sigismund Cˇajkovac, Cˇitanka za III razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini SHS (Zagreb, Narodne novine, 1926), pp. 3 – 9. Vladimir Nazor and Antun Barac, Cˇitanka iz hrvatskosrpskoga jezika (4 vols, Zagreb, Profesorsko drusˇtvo, 1930). Vladimir Nazor was one of the most important Croatian poets and novelists of the first half of the twentieth century. Cˇajkovac: Cˇitanka za IV razred, pp. 107– 12. Zˇivko Jakic´, Istorija Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca, za srednje sˇkole. II dio, od kraja XV. stoljec´a do nasˇih dana (Zagreb, 1929), p. 17. Sigismund Cˇajkovac, Stjepan Bosanac, Vladimir Nazor, and Stjepan Ratkovic´, Cˇitanka za III razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji (Zagreb, Tipografija, 1937), pp. 83 – 4; Sigismund Cˇajkovac, Stjepan Bosanac, Vladimir Nazor, and Stjepan Ratkovic´, Cˇitanka za IV razred osnovnih ˇskola u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji (Zagreb, Hrvatski tiskarni zavod, 1937), pp. 82 – 4. Cˇajkovac: Cˇitanka za IV razred, pp. 198– 9. Cˇajkovac, Bosanac, Nazor, and Ratkovic´: Cˇitanka za IV razred, pp. 134– 5. Engelbert Gangl, Druga ˇcitanka (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1923), p. 119. This reading book was part of a new series of Slovenian reading books for elementary schools published and approved by the Slovenian regional government in 1921 and 1922. In August 1925, this series of reading books won the state competition for Slovenian textbooks. Ljudevit Cˇernej, Tretja cˇitanka (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1925), p. 154; Gangl: Druga cˇitanka, pp. 116– 18; Andrej Rape, Cˇetvrta cˇitanka (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1923), pp. 39 –44, 293–5. Gangl: Druga cˇitanka, p. 124. Kristina Hafner and France Locˇnisˇkar, Tretje slovensko berilo (Ljubljana, banovinska zaloga sˇolskih knjig in ucˇil, 1940), p. 16; Pavle Flere, Josip Jurancˇicˇ, Andrej Skulj, and Ernest Vranc, Za vse leto: Cˇitanka za drugi razred osnovnih sˇol (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1938), pp. 11–14. Gangl: Druga cˇitanka, p. 12. Flere, Jurancˇicˇ, Skulj, and Vranc: Za vse leto, pp. 49 – 50. Tomo Jedrlinicˇ, Druga srbska ali hrvatska cˇitanka za slovenske sˇole (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1923); Tomo Jedrlinicˇ, Tretja srbska ali hrvatska cˇitanka za slovenske visˇje narodne, mesˇcˇanske ali drugi strokovne sˇole (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1932); Ivan Lesica, Druga srbska ali hrvatska cˇitanka za 1 in 2 razred

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96. 97.

98. 99.

100.

NOTES TO PAGES 76 –81 visˇjih narodnih sˇol (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1932); Ivan Lesica and Rudolf Mole, Prva srbska ali hrvatska cˇitanka (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1929). Rape: Cˇetvrta cˇitanka, p. 191. Valter Bohinec, Maks Miklavcˇicˇ, and Roman Savnik, Zemljepis za IV razred srednjih sˇol: Kraljevina Jugoslavija (Ljubljana, Jugoslovanska knjigarna, 1938), p. 52; Janko Orozˇen, Zemljepis Kraljevine Jugoslavije za IV razred srednjih sˇol (Ljubljana, Tiskarna Merkur, 1937), pp. 45 – 6; Anton Melik, Jugoslavija: Zemljepisni pregled (Ljubljana, Tiskovna zadruga, 1921), pp. 148– 50. Gangl: Druga cˇitanka, p. 126. Bogdan Binter and Vojteh Sˇtrukelj, Zgodovina Jugoslovanov. Za cˇetrti razred srednjih sˇol (Ljubljana, Jugoslovensko profesorsko drusˇtvo, sekcija Ljubljana, 1939), p. 103; Anton Melik and Janko Orozˇen, Zgodovina Jugoslovanov, vol. 2 (Ljubljana, Jugoslovanska knjigarna, 1929), p. 78. Wachtel: Making a Nation, p. 33. King Matjazˇ is a legendary king in folk poems and stories in parts of Slovenia, Croatia, and Hungary. His characterisation relies on historical material from the period of autonomous Carantania, the counts of Celje, and especially the fifteenth-century King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. Folk poems and stories depict King Matjazˇ as a just and heroic defender of the common people against the Ottomans and the nobility, and the bringer of a golden age of prosperity.

Chapter 5 Merging ‘Tribal’ Histories 1. AJ, f.66/1281/1527: ‘Opsˇta i posebna metodska uputstva za sve narodne sˇkole u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji’, 1933, p. 19. 2. Ibid., p. 17. 3. Wendy Bracewell, ‘National histories and national identities among the Serbs and the Croats’, in Mary Fullbrook (ed.), National Histories and European History (London, UCL Press, 1994), pp. 141– 54. 4. Josip Sˇkavic´, ‘Jedinstvena obucˇna osnova za osnovne sˇkole’, Ucˇitelj 3/4 (1923), pp. 266– 73, quotation on p. 272. 5. AJ, f.66/1281/1527: ‘Opsˇta i posebna metodska uputstva za sve narodne sˇkole u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji’, 1933, p. 20. 6. Programi i metodska uputstva za rad u srednjim sˇkolama (Belgrade, Drzˇavna sˇtamparija, 1936), pp. 179– 80. 7. Ibid., p. 180. 8. Vladimir C´orovic´, Istorija Jugoslavije (Belgrade, Narodno delo, 1933), p. 1. 9. Ibid., p. 20. 10. Monika Baa´r, Historians and Nationalism: East-Central Europe in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 224– 55. 11. Milosˇ Rakic´, ‘Nacionalno bud¯enje’, in Aleksa Jovanovic´ (ed.), Spomenica dvadesetpetogodisˇnjice oslobod¯enja Juzˇne Srbije (1912– 1937) (Skopje, 1937),

NOTES TO PAGES 81 –84

12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

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p. 227. This statement referred to the rule of the Tatar tribe of the Bulgars over the South Slavs in the eastern half of the Balkan peninsula in the earliest phase of the settlement of the Slavs in the region and their gradual assimilation with the Slavonic population. This fact was listed in the curricula of the period to substantiate claims of an imagined, primordial distinction between the ‘foreign’ Bulgarians and the ‘pure’ Yugoslavs. Ibid., pp. 227– 8. C´orovic´: Istorija, p. 38. Vladimir C´orovic´, ‘Nacionalni razvoj Bosne i Hercegovine u prosˇlosti (do 1875. godine)’, in Pero Slijepcˇevic´ (ed.), Napor Bosne i Hercegovine za oslobod¯enje i ujedinjenje (Sarajevo, Narodna odbrana, 1928), p. 18. C´orovic´, Istorija, pp. 163– 4, 193– 4; Vladimir Dvornikovic´, Karakterologija Jugoslovena (Belgrade, Prosveta, 2000 [1939]), pp. 854– 6; Viktor Novak, Antologija jugoslovenske Misli i narodnog jedinstva (Belgrade, Drzˇavna sˇtamparija, 1930), pp. 1 –2. The latter work is an anthology of written statements of Yugoslav national unity. The royal title of King Tvrtko over Bosnia, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Rasˇka (the predecessor of the medieval Serbian kingdom) was presented as the first written statement of Yugoslav national unity. Milica Bakic´-Hayden, ‘National memory as narrative memory: The case of Kosovo’, in Maria Todorova (ed.), Balkan Identities: Nation and Memory (London, Hurst & Co, 2010), pp. 25 – 40. Wolfgang Ho¨pken, ‘Zwischen nationaler Zinnstiftung: Jugoslawismus und “Erinnerungschaos”’, O¨sterreichische Osthefte 47 (2005), pp. 350– 3. Andrew B. Wachtel, Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1998), pp. 53 – 63. C´orovic´: Istorija, p. 196. Ibid., pp. 279– 82, quotation on p. 282. Ibid., pp. 300– 4. Ibid., p. 223. The First Serbian Uprising broke out in 1804 and was led by Ðorđe Petrovic´, commonly referred to by his nickname Karađorđe, the founder of the dynasty of Karađorđevic´. Serbian insurgents took control of the region of Sˇumadija, but the uprising was crushed by the Ottomans in 1813. The Second Serbian Uprising broke out in 1815 and was led by Milosˇ Obrenovic´, the founder of the dynasty of Obrenovic´. This time the Ottomans, under strong Russian pressure, granted Serbia autonomy. Against the background of the long-lasting struggle between both dynasties for the Serbian leadership, the Second Uprising obviously occupied a less prominent position in the interwar Yugoslav historical narrative. Whereas Karađorđe’s uprising was presented as a revolution of the Serbian people against the Turks, Obrenovic´’s uprising was presented as a gradual evolution, which made use of ‘cowardly’ diplomatic lobbying rather than ‘heroic’ outright rebellion. Also, it was stressed that Obrenovic´ was never really popular among the Serbs, not during the Second Uprising and certainly

258

24. 25.

26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

NOTES TO PAGES 84 –91 not during his authoritarian rule afterwards (C´orovic´: Istorija, pp. 451– 2, pp. 475– 7). Ferdo Sˇisˇic´, Jugoslovenska misao: Istorija ideje jugoslovenskog narodnog ujedinjenja i oslobod¯enja od 1790– 1918 (Belgrade, Balkanski institut, 1937), p. 44. ‘Nastavni plan i program za osnovne sˇkole u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji’, in Kosta Aranicki and Stevan Karadzˇic´ (eds), Jugoslovenski ucˇiteljski zbornik svih zakona, uredaba, pravilnika, pravila, resˇenja, odluka i raspisa izdatih od oslobod¯enja do danas, koji se odnose na narodne sˇkole i narodne ucˇitelje/-ice u celoj Jugoslaviji a i danas su u vazˇnosti (Pancˇevo, Napredak, 1935), p. 59. ‘Nj. V. Kralj o znacˇaju Sˇumadije’, Politika, 16 February 1933, p. 1. Ibid., pp. 1 – 2. AJ, f.66(pov)/91/261: letter from the Association for the Study of the History of Montenegro to the Ministry of Education, 2 October 1935; letter from the Association for the Study of the History of Montenegro to the Ministry of Education, 28 March 1936. Ibid.: letter from Novica Popovic´ and Mihailo Bosˇkovic´ to the Ministry of Education, 18 October 1935. Quoted from the speech given by the chief of the Ljubljana district. ‘Pozdravni nagovor zˇupana dr. Puca’, Ponedeljek, 14 October 1929, p. 1. Ibid., see also the speech of Minister of Defence Stevan Hadzˇic´, ‘Beseda zastopnika vlade ministra Hadzˇic´a’, Ponedeljek, 14 October 1929, p. 2. ‘Francosko jugoslovensko slavlje v Ljubljani’, Ponedeljek, 14 October 1929, pp. 1 – 2. Viktor Novak, ‘Evand¯elista jugoslovenstva’, Narodna odbrana 3/2 (1928), p. 37. ‘U slavu Vuka Karadzˇic´a. Svecˇano vecˇe u pozorisˇtu’, Politika, 7 November 1937, p. 6; ‘Na svecˇan nacˇin jucˇe je u Beogradu otkriven spomenik koji je Vuku podigao srpski narod’, Politika, 8 November 1937, p. 5. Milorad Pavlovic´, ‘Vukova dalekovidost’, Narodna odbrana 7/16 (1932), p. 252. ‘Na svecˇan nacˇin jucˇe je u Beogradu otkriven spomenik koji je Vuku podigao srpski narod’, Politika, 8 November 1937, p. 5. C´orovic´: Istorija, p. 474. Novak: Antologija, p. xx; Sˇisˇic´: Jugoslovenska misao, p. 78. C´orovic´: Istorija, pp. 471– 4; Novak: Antologija, pp. 53– 4, 87. Ibid., pp. 483– 99. Ibid., p. 490. Ibid., p. 492; Novak: Antologija, pp. 134– 5, 158– 9. Sˇisˇic´: Jugoslovenska misao, pp. 98 – 111. Holm Sundhaussen, Geschichte Serbiens: 19. – 21. Jahrhundert (Vienna, Bo¨hlau, 2007), pp. 115– 20. Novak: Antologija, pp. 101– 3; Sˇisˇic´: Jugoslovenska misao, pp. 88 – 9. Ibid., pp. xxiii – iv; Sˇisˇic´: Jugoslovenska misao, pp. 111– 15. C´orovic´: Istorija, pp. 506– 9, 520– 1; Sˇisˇic´: Jugoslovenska misao, pp. 131– 42. Ibid., p. 473; Novak: Antologija, p. 97. ‘Mogocˇno pocˇasˇcˇenje Levstikovega spomina’, Jutro, 27 July 1931, p. 2.

NOTES TO PAGES 91 – 96

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50. Olga Manojlovic´-Pintar, ‘Tradicija Prvog svetskog rata u beogradskoj javnosti 1918– 1941’ (MA thesis, University of Belgrade, 1996), pp. 29 – 30. 51. ‘Proslava proboja fronta u celoj zemlji’, Politika, 8 October 1928, p. 7. 52. ‘Proslava proboja Solunskog Fronta’, Prosvetni glasnik 44 (1928), pp. 820– 1. Dobro Polje was the place where the allies broke through the Bulgarian lines on 15 September 1918. 53. For the typical historical narrative on Bosnian resistance against AustriaHungary, see Pero Slijepcˇevic´ (ed.), Napor Bosne i Hercegovine za oslobod¯enje i ujedinjenje (Sarajevo, Narodna odbrana, 1929). 54. Olga Manojlovic´-Pintar, ‘Ideolosˇko i politicˇko u spomenicˇkoj arhitekturi Prvog i Drugog svetskog rata na tlu Srbije’ (D.Phil. dissertation, University of Belgrade, 2004), p. 207. 55. Ibid. ‘Vladarski spomenici u Ljubljani 1908– 1940’, Godisˇnjak za drusˇtvenu istoriju 4/2 – 3 (1997), pp. 203– 15. 56. Ivana Dobrivojevic´, Drzˇavna represija u doba diktature Kralja Aleksandra (1929 – 1935) (Belgrade, Institut za savremenu istoriju, 2006), pp. 323– 42; Christian A. Nielsen, ‘One state, one nation, one king: the dictatorship of King Alexander and his Yugoslav project (1929 – 1935)’ (D.Phil. dissertation, Columbia University, 2002), pp. 185 – 91. 57. AJ f.74/38/56: speech from representatives of a fealty delegation from Sava and Littoral banovina to King Alexander, 22 April 1930, pp. 5 – 7; speech from representatives of a fealty delegation from Vardar banovina to King Alexander, 25 December 1929, pp. 39 – 40. 58. ‘Izmena pomenutih odredaba u Pravilniku o praznovanju praznika’, Prosvetni glasnik 44 (1928), pp. 1076 –7. 59. Melissa Bokovoy, ‘Scattered graves, ordered cemeteries. Commemorating Serbia’s wars of national liberation, 1912– 1918’, in Maria Bucur and Nancy M. Wingfield (eds), Staging the Past. The Politics of Commemoration in Habsburg Central Europe, 1848 to the Present (West Lafayette, Purdue University Press, 2001), pp. 236– 54. 60. Tatjana Popovic´, Prince Marko: The Hero of South Slav Epics (Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 1988), pp. 1 – 43. 61. Stanoje Stanojevic´, Istorija srpskoga naroda, s pregledom hrvatske i slovenacˇke istorije, vol. 1, 6th edn (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1923), pp. 17 –18; Stanoje Stanojevic´, Istorija srpskoga naroda, s pregledom hrvatske i slovenacˇke istorije, vol. 2, 6th edn (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1924), pp. 92 – 105. 62. ‘Nastavni plan i program za osnovne sˇkole’, in Zbornik zakona i vazˇnijih raspisa, odluka i naredaba Odeljenja za osnovnu nastavu i narodno prosvec´ivanje Ministarstva prosvete u 1918/19 i 1919/20 sˇkoljskoj godini, 1 knjiga (Belgrade, Drzˇavna sˇtamparija, 1921), pp. 122– 3. 63. Dragoljub Ilic´, Narodna istorija Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca (Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1927), pp. 12 – 14, 18 – 23. 64. Jovan P. Jovanovic´, ‘Nastava iz narodne istorije u nasˇim narodnim sˇkolama’, Ucˇitelj 3/3 – 4 (1922 – 23), pp. 233– 42, Ucˇitelj 3/5 (1922 – 23), pp. 313– 19.

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NOTES TO PAGES 96 –104

65. Ðorđe Lazarevic´, Istorija Jugoslovena, vol. 1 (Belgrade, Narodna prosveta, 1931), p. 53. 66. Dusˇan Prica, Istorija jugoslovenskog naroda za IV razred osnovne sˇkole (Belgrade, Jovanovic´ i Vujic´, 1937), pp. 147–52. 67. Zˇivojin Ðord¯evic´ and Dragoljub Stranjakovic´, Istorija Jugoslovena za IV razred osnovne sˇkole (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1940), p. 57. 68. Prica: Istorija, pp. 108–26, quotations on pp. 122, 124. 69. Lazarevic´: Istorija, p. 19. 70. Prica: Istorija, p. 67. 71. Ðord¯evic´ and Stranjakovic´: Istorija, p. 40. 72. Ibid., p. 41. 73. ‘Referat o cˇitankama pisanim latinicom’, Osnovna nastava 1/31 (1925), p. 1192. 74. Sigismund Cˇajkovac, Cˇitanka za III razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini SHS (Zagreb, Narodne novine, 1926), p. 139. 75. Ibid.: Cˇitanka za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini SHS (Zagreb, Narodne novine, 1926), p. 179. 76. Zˇivko Jakic´, Istorija Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca, za srednje sˇkole. I dio, od najstarijih vremena do kraja XV. stoljec´a (Zagreb, 1929), p. 52. 77. Cˇajkovac: Cˇitanka za IV razred, pp. 151– 2. 78. Ibid.: Cˇitanka za III razred, p. 148. 79. Ibid., p. 157. 80. Zˇivko Jakic´, Istorija Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca, za srednje sˇkole. II dio, od kraja XV. stoljec´a do nasˇih dana (Zagreb, 1929), p. 31. 81. Cˇajkovac: Cˇitanka za IV razred, pp. 188– 9. 82. Ibid., pp. 207– 13, quotation on p. 209. 83. Sigismund Cˇajkovac, Stjepan Bosanac, Vladimir Nazor, and Stjepan Ratkovic´, Cˇitanka za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji (Zagreb, Hrvatski tiskarski zavod, 1937), pp. 95 – 6, quotation on p. 96. 84. Cˇajkovac: Cˇitanka za IV razred, p. 152; Cˇajkovac, Bosanac, Nazor, and Ratkovic´: Cˇitanka za IV razred, p. 99. 85. Andrej Rape, Cˇetvrta cˇitanka (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1923), p. 279. Raja refers to the lower class subjects in the Ottoman Empire. 86. Ibid., pp. 278– 84. 87. Anton Melik and Janko Orozˇen, Zgodovina Jugoslovanov, vol. 2 (Ljubljana, Jugoslovanska knjigarna, 1929), pp. 41 – 2.

Chapter 6 Making Sense of the Yugoslav National Territory 1. Josip Sˇkavic´, ‘Jedinstvena obucˇna osnova za osnovne sˇkole’, Ucˇitelj 3/3 (1923), pp. 171– 6. 2. Jovan P. Jovanovic´, ‘Novi nastavni plan za osnovne sˇkole’, Ucˇitelj 8/3 (1927), pp. 276– 7.

NOTES TO PAGES 104 –110

261

3. AJ, f.66/1281/1527: ‘Privremeni nastavni program za I, II, III i IV razred osnovne sˇkole u Kraljevini Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca’, 3 October 1927. 4. ‘Nastavno gradivo iz zemljopisa za III i IV razred osnovnih sˇkola ima se obrađivati po banovinama’, Prosvetni glasnik 47 (1931), p. 908. 5. Quoted from a governmental resolution, adopted by the Council of Ministers on 4 July 1930. ‘Znacˇajna sednica Ministarskog Saveta’, Politika, 5 July 1930, p. 1. 6. Miroslav Stiplovsˇek, Banski svet Dravske banovine (1930 – 1935) (Ljubljana, Znanstvenoraziskovalni insˇtitut filozofske fakultete, 2006), pp. 18 – 20. 7. Aleksandar Ignjatovic´, Jugoslovenstvo u arhitekturi 1904 – 1941 (Belgrade, Građevinska knjiga, 2007), pp. 369– 98. 8. Nada Bosˇkovska, Das Jugoslawischen Makedonien 1918– 1941: Eine Randregion zwischen Repression und Integration (Vienna, Bo¨hlau, 2009), pp. 115–19, 356–61. 9. Ibid., p. 358. 10. Mihailo Stanojevic´, Zemljopis Kraljevine Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca (Belgrade, Valozˇevic´, 1920); Milorad Vujanac, Zemljopis za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1923). 11. Urosˇ Blagojevic´ and Mihailo Stanojevic´, Cˇitanka za III razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1921), pp. 20 –1. 12. Ibid., Cˇitanka za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1922), p. 52. 13. Mihailo Jovic´, Srpska istorija sa kratkim istorijom Hrvata i Slovenaca za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1921), p. 4; Stanoje Stanojevic´, Istorija srpskoga naroda, s pregledom hrvatske i slovenacˇke istorije, vol. 1 (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1923), p. 16. 14. Sigismund Cˇajkovac, Cˇitanka za III razred osnovnih ˇskola u Kraljevini SHS (Zagreb, Narodne novine, 1926), pp. 69 – 89. 15. ‘Referat o cˇitankama pisanim latinicom’, Osnovna nastava 1/31 (1925), p. 1192. 16. Zˇivko Jakic´, Istorija Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca, za srednje sˇkole. II dio, od kraja XV. stoljec´a do nasˇih dana (Zagreb, 1929), pp. 63 – 4. 17. Ibid. I dio, od najstarijih vremena do kraja XV. stoljec´a (Zagreb, 1929), pp. 71, 111. 18. Sigismund Cˇajkovac, Stjepan Bosanac, Vladimir Nazor, and Stjepan Ratkovic´, Cˇitanka za III razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini Jugoslavije (Zagreb, Tipografija, 1937). 19. Ibid., Cˇitanka za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini Jugoslavije (Zagreb, Tipografija, 1937). 20. The reading books foreshadowed the amendments to the territorialisation of national identity in the curriculum for elementary schools in the Croatian banovina, which prescribed that pupils first learned about the Croatian banovina as the primary level of territorial identification (‘Iz Banovine Hrvatske’, Narodna prosveta, 19 December 1940, pp. 2 – 3). Cˇajkovac’s 1940 textbook for the third year included a sub-chapter on Bosnia-Herzegovina in the geographical overview of the Croatian banovina, containing Croatian

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21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26.

NOTES TO PAGES 110 –113 patriotic poems and references to ‘our Muslims’, as well as a sub-chapter on Croatian areas outside the Croatian banovina: Frusˇka Gora, Vojvodina, and the Bay of Kotor (Sigismund Cˇajkovac, Stjepan Bosanac, Vladimir Nazor, and Stjepan Ratkovic´, Cˇitanka za III razred pucˇkih sˇkola u Banovini Hrvatskoj (Zagreb, Naklada sˇkolskih knjiga i tiskanica Banovine Hrvatske, 1940), pp. 85–97). Cˇajkovac, Bosanac, Nazor, and Ratkovic´: Cˇitanka za III razred, p. 46. Ibid., p. 80. Andrej Rape, Cˇetvrta cˇitanka (Ljubljana, ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1923), p. 191, emphasis mine. Ibid., emphasis mine. For definitions of the Slovenian homeland, reading books did not follow the Yugoslav state borders but included all Slovenian historical regions and especially focussed on those regions that were not part of the Yugoslav kingdom, i.e. Carinthia, which had been allotted to the Austrian Republic after the Carinthian plebiscite of October 1920, and the Slovenian Littoral, Gorisˇka, and western Carniola, which had become part of Italy with the Treaty of Rapallo. Valter Bohinec, Maks Miklavcˇicˇ, and Roman Savnik, Zemljepis za IV razred srednjih sˇol: Kraljevina Jugoslavija (Ljubljana, Jugoslovanska knjigarna, 1938); Janko Orozˇen, Zemljepis Kraljevine Jugoslavije za IV razred srednjih sˇol (Ljubljana, Tiskarna Merkur, 1937).

Chapter 7 Religious Diversity and Yugoslav Nationhood 1. James C. Kennedy, ‘Religion, nation and European representation of the past’, in Stefan Berger and Chris Lorenz (eds), The Contested Nation: Ethnicity, Class, Religion and Gender in National Histories (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 109– 27. 2. Rogers Brubaker, ‘Religion and nationalism: Four approaches’, Nations and Nationalism 18/1 (2012), pp. 11 –12. 3. Ibid., pp. 16 – 17. 4. See the various case studies in Martin Schulze Wessel (ed.), Nationalisierung der Religion und Sakralisierung der Nation im o¨stlichen Europa (Stuttgart, Franz Steiner, 2006). 5. Milutin Jaksˇic´, ‘Uloga crkve u ujedinjenoj drzˇavi’, Nova Evropa 7/1 (1923), pp. 1 – 6. 6. Jovo Zubovic´, ‘Jugoslovenski cˇovek’, Nova Evropa 10/6 (1924), p. 153. 7. Vladimir Dvornikovic´, Karakterologija Jugoslovena (Belgrade, Prosvjeta, 2000 [1939]), p. 973. 8. Ibid., Borba ideja (Belgrade, NIU Sluzˇbeni list SRJ, 1995 [1937]), pp. 76 – 82, quotation on p. 77. Bogomilism was a dualist and social-critical Christian sect which arose in the Bulgarian Empire in the mid-tenth century and gained influence throughout the Balkans. Dvornikovic´ here interprets it as a typical Slav, non-institutional form of Christianity.

NOTES TO PAGES 114 –118

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9. Quoted in Ljubodrag Dimic´, Nikola Zˇutic´, and Blagoje Isailovic´ (eds), Zapisnici sa sednica Ministarskog saveta Kraljevine Jugoslavije 1929– 1931 (Belgrade, Sluzˇbeni list SRJ/Arhiv Jugoslavije, 2002), p. 50. 10. Klaus Buchenau, Auf russischen Spuren. Orthodoxe Antiwestler in Serbien, 1850– 1945 (Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag, 2011), pp. 409– 36. 11. Quoted in Dusˇan Mrđenovic´ (ed.), Ustavi i vlade Knezˇevine Srbije, Kraljevine Srbije, Kraljevine SHS i Kraljevine Jugoslavije 1835– 1941 (Belgrade, Nova knjiga, 1988), pp. 21, 251. 12. ‘Pravila o vrsˇenju verskih duzˇnosti ucˇenika narodnih sˇkola’, Prosvetni glasnik 51 (1935), pp. 728– 33; ‘Cˇitanje obaveznih molitava u narodnim sˇkolama pre i posle ucˇenja; upotreba verskih znakova – radnja’, Prosvetni glasnik 52 (1936), pp. 658 –9. 13. ‘Privremeni nastavni plan i program za visˇe razrede realnih gimnazija u Kraljevini Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca’, Prosvetni glasnik 43 (1927), pp. 426– 8, quotation on p. 427. 14. Klaus Buchenau, ‘Katholizismus und Jugoslawismus. Zur Nationalisierung der Religion bei den Kroaten, 1918– 1945’, in Hartmut Lehmann and Michael Geyer (eds), Religion und Nation, Nation und Religion. Beitra¨ge zu einer unbewa¨ltigten Geschichte (Go¨ttingen, Wallstein Verlag, 2006), pp. 226– 7. 15. ‘Pravilnik o praznovanju praznika u osnovnim, srednjim i strucˇnim sˇkolama u Kraljevini Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca’, Prosvetni glasnik 44 (1928), p. 796. 16. Stefan Rohdewald, ‘Figures of (trans-)national religious memory of the Orthodox southern Slavs before 1945: An outline on the examples of SS. Cyril and Methodius’, Trames 12/3 (2008), pp. 287– 98. 17. Buchenau: ‘Katholizismus und Jugoslawismus’, pp. 228–33; Geert van Dartel, C´irilometodska ideja i Svetosavlje (Zagreb, Krsˇc´anska sadasˇnjost, 1984), pp. 33–66. 18. AJ, f.66(pov)/46/85: speech given by Napredak’s President Ante Alaupovic´ at the annual meeting of 5 July 1931, quoted in a report by the Sarajevo district authorities of 27 July 1931. This report noted the Croatian interpretation of Cyril and Methodius, as well as Alaupovic´’s nationally and religiously framed birthday wishes to Archbishop of Sarajevo Ivan Sˇaric´ and his provocative urging to the attendants not to sing the ‘forbidden’ Croatian hymn. 19. ‘Pravilnik o praznovanju praznika’, p. 796. 20. Bojan Aleksov, ‘Nationalism in construction: The memorial church of St Sava on Vracˇar Hill in Belgrade’, Balkanalogie 7/2 (2003), pp. 49 – 51; Klaus Buchenau, ‘Svetosavlje und Pravoslavlje. Nationales und Universales in der serbischen Orthodoxie’, in Wessel (ed.): Nationalisierung, pp. 206 – 9; Stefan Rohdewald, ‘Sava, Ivan von Rila und Kliment von Ohrid. Heilige in nationalen Diensten Serbiens, Bulgariens und Makedoniens’, in Stefan Samerski (ed.), Die Renaissance der Nationalpatrone in Ostmitteleuropa im 20./21. Jahrhundert (Cologne, Bo¨hlau, 2007), p. 186. 21. A typical example is ‘Jedna godisˇnjica’, Prosveta 14/2 (1930), pp. 41 – 3. 22. Vladimir C´orovic´, Istorija Jugoslavije (Belgrade, Narodno delo, 1933), p. 108; Aleksandar Donkovic´, ‘Sava Nemanjic´’, Nova Evropa 28/3 (1935), pp. 67 – 77;

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23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29.

30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35.

36. 37.

NOTES TO PAGES 118 –120 Pero Slijepcˇevic´, O Sv. Savi. Popularno predavanje sa 12 slikama (Sarajevo, Obod, 1924). Bozˇidar Kovacˇevic´, ‘Sveti Sava pre i posle smrti’, Srpski knjizˇevni glasnik 44/3 (1935), pp. 193– 201. Josip Smodlaka, ‘Sveti Sava, preporoditelj nasˇega drusˇtva’, Nova Evropa 4/7 (1922), p. 201; Slijepcˇevic´: O Sv. Savi, pp. 19 –22. Donkovic´: ‘Sava’, p. 77. Frano Ivanisˇevic´, Pobjeda glagolice kroz tisuc´ljetnu borbu (Split, Hrvatska sˇtamparija gradske sˇtedionice, 1929), pp. 5 – 60. The Glagolitic alphabet was the alphabet initially codified and used by Sts Cyril and Methodius in their missionary work. It was quickly replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet but remained in use in liturgy in parts of the Croatian Littoral and Dalmatia. Grga Novak, ‘Grgur Ninski’, Nova Evropa 20/1– 2 (1929), pp. 9 – 15. Ivanisˇevic´: Pobjeda glagolice, pp. 61 – 75. For parallelism with St Sava, see the speech made by Ivo Tartaglia, governor of Littoral banovina. ‘Pred Mesˇtrovic´evim Grgurom Ninskim. Recˇ dra Tartalje pred kraljevim izaslanikom Nj. V. Knezom Pavlom pre otkric´a spomenika’, Jadranska strazˇa 7/11 (1929), pp. 296– 7. Niko Bartulovic´, ‘Grgur Ninski’, Srpski knjizˇevni glasnik 28/1 (1929), p. 23. ‘Izmena pomenutih odredaba u pravilniku o praznovanju praznika P.br. 15.791 od 22. septembra 1928. god.’, Prosvetni glasnik 44 (1928), p. 1075. Viktor Novak, Antologija jugoslovenske Misli i narodnog jedinstva (Belgrade, Drzˇavna sˇtamparija, 1930), pp. 215– 29; Ferdo Sˇisˇic´, Jugoslovenska misao: Istorija ideje jugoslovenskog narodnog ujedinjenja i oslobod¯enja od 1790– 1918 (Belgrade, Balkanski institut, 1937), pp. 117– 30. Stjepan Roca, ‘Dve crkve – jedna vera’, Narodna odbrana 12/27 (1937), pp. 419 –22. Frano Ivanisˇevic´, ‘Dva velika narodna svetionika’, Narodna odbrana 10/8 (1935), pp. 113– 14. For an overview of the antemurale motif in Croatian symbolic identity, see Ivo Zˇanic´, ‘The symbolic identity of Croatia in the triangle Crossroads-BulwarkBridge’ in Pa˚l Kolstø (ed.), Myths and Boundaries in South-Eastern Europe (London, Hurst & Co, 2005), pp. 35 – 58. For the negative treatment of South Slav converts to Islam by Serbian historians, see Bojan Aleksov, ‘Adamant and treacherous. Serbian historians on religious conversions’, in Kolstø (ed.): Myths and Boundaries, pp. 158– 75. S. Ljubincˇic´, ‘Muslimani’, Nova Evropa 7/15 (1923), pp. 443– 7. The Bosnian Church designates a regional church that existed in Bosnia between the thirteenth and fifteenth century. The church’s status and political and societal influence remains disputed (Bogomil heretic, Orthodox, or a schismatic branch of the Catholic Church), but its existence certainly indicates the weakness of Orthodox and Catholic church organisations in the region (Robert J. Donia and John V. Fine, Bosnia and Hercegovina: A Tradition Betrayed (London, Hurst & Co, 1994), pp. 17 – 44). Interwar Yugoslav historiography

NOTES TO PAGES 120 –122

38. 39. 40. 41.

42. 43. 44.

45.

46. 47. 48. 49.

265

interpreted the Bosnian Church as another Yugoslav national church, which preserved a ‘national’ hierarchy and the ‘national’ language and originated as a ‘national’ reaction against the ‘foreign’ influence of Hungarian Catholic missionaries (Vladimir C´orovic´, ‘Nacionalni razvoj Bosni i Hercegovine u prosˇlosti (do 1875. godine)’, in Pero Slijepcˇevic´ (ed.), Napor Bosne i Hercegovine za oslobod¯enje i ujedinjenje (Sarajevo, Narodna odbrana, 1929), pp. 16 – 17). It served as a parallel to the national Orthodox Church in Serbia and the national tradition of Catholicism among the Croats. C´orovic´: Istorija, p. 287. Hasan Rebac, ‘Nasˇi građani muslimanske vere’, Gajret 9/17 – 18 (1925), pp. 282 –3. Edhem Miralem, ‘Nasˇa rasna snaga’, Gajret 12/24 (1929), p. 377. Jovan Cvijic´, Balkansko poluostrvo i juzˇnoslovenske zemlje (Belgrade, Zavod za izdavanje udzˇbenika socijalisticˇke republike Srbije, 1966 [1922]), pp. 408–17; Tihomir Ðord¯evic´, ‘Preislamski ostaci među jugoslovenksim muslimanima’, Srpski knjizˇevni glasnik 32/3 (1931), pp. 217–27; 32/4 (1931), pp. 304–11; Stefan Rohdewald, ‘Der heilige Sava und unsere Muslime – Albanische, tu¨rkische bzw. muslimische Verehrung christlicher Heiliger aus serbischer und bulgarischer Perspektive (20. Jahrhundert)’, in Thede Kahl and Cay Lienau (eds), Muslime und Christen. Interethnische Koexistenz in su¨dosteuropa¨ischen Peripheriegebieten (Mu¨nster, LIT-Verlag, 2009), pp. 161–70. Milica Bakic´-Hayden, ‘Nesting Orientalisms: The case of former Yugoslavia’, Slavic Review 54/4 (1995), pp. 917– 31. Mary Neuburger, The Orient Within. Muslim Minorities and the Negotiation of Nationhood in Modern Bulgaria (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2004), pp. 5–6. Aleksov: ‘Adamant and treacherous’, pp. 162– 75; Srec´ko Dzˇaja, BosnienHerzegowina in den o¨sterreichisch-ungarischen Epoche (1878 – 1918): Die Intelligentsia zwischen Tradition und Ideologie (Munich, Oldenbourg Verlag, 1994), pp. 192– 218; Robin Okey, ‘Overlapping national historiographies in Bosnia-Herzegovina’, in Tibor Frank and Frank Hadler (eds), Disputed Territories and Shared Pasts: Overlapping National Identities in Modern Europe (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 351–62. Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1984), pp. 359– 67; Stijn Vervaet, ‘Izmed¯u hrvatstva, srpstva i panislamizma: knjizˇevna periodika i izgradnja nacionalnog identiteta bosanskih muslimana uocˇi Prvog svetskog rata’, Sveske Zaduzˇbine Ive Andric´a 27 (2010), pp. 52 – 75. Osman Nurij Beg Firdus, ‘O nacijonalnom opredeljenju bosanskohercegovacˇkih muslimana’, Nova Evropa 11/10 (1925), pp. 293– 300. Atif Purivatra, Jugoslovenska muslimanska organizacija u politicˇkom zˇivotu Kr. SHS (Sarajevo, Svetlost, 1974), pp. 538– 78. Ibid., p. 555. Hamza Humo, ‘Tradicija i progres nasˇih muslimana’, Jugosloven 1/3 (1931), p. 137.

266

NOTES TO PAGES 122 –125

50. Ibid., p. 138. 51. ‘Privremeni nastavni plan i program za visˇu narodnu sˇkolu u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji’ in Kosta V. Aranicki and Stevan Karadzˇic´ (eds), Jugoslovenski ucˇiteljski zbornik svih zakona, uredaba, pravilnika, pravila, resˇenja, odluka i raspisa izdatih od oslobod¯enja do danas, koji se odnose na narodne sˇkole i narodne ucˇitelje/-ice u celoj Jugoslaviji a i danas su u vazˇnosti (Pancˇevo, Napredak, 1935), p. 79; ‘Nastavni plan i program za realne i klasicˇne gimnazije i realke u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji’, in Programi i metodska uputstva za rad u srednjim sˇkolama (Belgrade, Drzˇavna sˇtamparija, 1936), p. 184. 52. Hasan Rebac, ‘Nacionalna uloga Gajreta’, Srpski knjizˇevni glasnik 25/1 (1928), p. 40. 53. Ibrahim Kemura, Uloga Gajreta u drusˇtvenom zˇivotu Muslimana (Sarajevo, Veselin Malesˇa, 1986), pp. 159– 62, 176– 87. 54. Ibid., Znacˇaj i uloga Narodne uzdanice u drusˇtvenom zˇivota Bosˇnjaka 1923– 1945 (Sarajevo, Bosˇnjacˇki institut, 2002), pp. 15 – 32. 55. Ibid., pp. 51 – 2. Gajret lobbying quickly neutralised this demand. 56. Kemura: Uloga Gajreta, pp. 198– 215, 265– 74. 57. Typical examples are ‘Rođendan Nj. V. Kralja Aleksandra’, Gajret 12/22 (1931), pp. 497–8; Hajrudin C´uric´, ‘Vazˇnost ujedinjenja za jugoslavensku drzˇavu, narod i Sokolstvo’, Gajret 15/13 (1934), pp. 171– 2. 58. Kemura: Znacˇaj i uloga Narodne uzdanice, pp. 38 –50, 108–9, 118. 59. Ibid., pp. 109– 10, 122. 60. Kemura: Uloga Gajreta, pp. 241– 8. 61. ‘Gajretov dan’, Gajret 11/16– 17 (1930), pp. 449– 50; Edhem Miralem, ‘Rasna snaga jugoslovenskih muslimana’, Gajret 14/1 (1933), pp. 6 – 8. 62. Gajret 13/14 – 15 (1932), p. 227. 63. AJ, f.66(pov)/46/85: report from Gajret to the authorities of Drina banovina, 14 January 1933; decision by the Ministry of Education, 22 March 1933. 64. Ibid.: report from the district authorities of Rogatica to the provincial authorities of Drina banovina, 12 February 1932. 65. Mihailo Jovic´, Cˇitanka za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1921), p. 13. 66. Damnjan V. Rasˇic´, ‘Jugoslovenski velikani – Sveti Sava’, Jugoslovencˇe 2/5 (1933), pp. 12–14. 67. Dragoljub Ilic´, Istorija Jugoslovena (Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca) za III razred osnovne sˇkole, 15th edn (Belgrade, C´ukovic´, 1938), p. 24; Jovan Popovic´, Cˇitanka za III razred osnovnih sˇkola, 2nd edn (Belgrade: Jovanovic´ i Vujic´, 1936), p. 61. 68. Atanasije Mladenovic´, Cˇitanka za III razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini Jugoslavije, 2nd edn (Belgrade, Jovanovic´ i Vujic´, 1940), pp. 45 – 9, 74 – 83; Atanasije Mladenovic´, Cˇitanka za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini Jugoslavije, 2nd edn (Belgrade, Jovanovic´ i Vujic´, 1940), pp. 51 – 3; Zora Vulovic´, Cˇitanka za IV razred srednjih sˇkola (Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1926), pp. 3 – 46. 69. Damnjan V. Rasˇic´, ‘C´irilo i Metodije’, Jugoslovencˇe 2/1 (1932), pp. 9– 10.

NOTES TO PAGES 126 –127

267

70. Dusˇan Prica, Istorija jugoslovenskog naroda za IV razred osnovne sˇkole, 11th edn (Belgrade, Jovanovic´ i Vujic´, 1937), p. 84. 71. Buchenau: Auf russischen Spuren, pp. 348– 407; Zoran Milutinovic´, Getting over Europe. The Construction of Europe in Serbian Culture (Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2011), pp. 81 – 118, 147– 80. 72. Dvornikovic´: Borba, p. 82, emphasis mine. It was this implication in the Yugoslav commemorations of Gregory of Nin that was refuted by Croatian intellectuals. The novelist Milutin Cihlar Nehajev, for example, argued that the ‘national church’ of Gregory of Nin was naively romantic and doomed to fail in the political circumstances of the period. In fact, if Gregory had succeeded in preserving the autonomy of the Croatian Catholic Church, the Croatian Kingdom would have been immediately conquered by Hungary, Venice, or the Byzantine Empire. Therefore, the decision made by the Croatian Kings Tomislav and Kresˇimir to install Latin as the language of liturgy had been the only politically correct decision (Milutin Cihlar Nehajev, ‘Oko Grgura Ninskoga’, Hrvatska revija 2/9 (1929), pp. 534– 9). 73. Zˇivojin Ðord¯evic´ and Dragoljub Stranjakovic´, Istorija Jugoslovena za IV razred osnovne sˇkole (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1940), p. 14. 74. Milan Rabrenovic´, Istorija nasˇega naroda za III razred osnovnih sˇkola, 7th edn (Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1930), p. 14. 75. Borivoje Josimovic´, ‘Josip Juraj Sˇtrosmajer’, Jugoslovencˇe 4/6 (1935), pp. 1 – 2. 76. Andrija Ognjanovic´ and Branko Magarasˇevic´, Cˇitanka za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Drzˇavna sˇtamparija, 1939), pp. 146– 8, quotation on p. 147. 77. Mihailo Stanojevic´ and Zˇivko Stefanovic´, Cˇitanka za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola, 5th edn (Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1924), pp. 75 – 8. See also Urosˇ Blagojevic´ and Mihailo Stanojevic´, Cˇitanka za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola, 5th edn (Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1922), p. 58 or the story ‘Brothers Meet Abroad’ about an encounter between a Serbian Orthodox and two Bosnian Muslims in a foreign city. The Muslims explained that they had understood that they were Serbs of the Muslim faith after they started talking to a Turk but could not comprehend him (Ljubomir Protic´ and Vladimir Stojanovic´, Srpska cˇitanka: trec´a knjiga za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini SHS, 10th edn (Belgrade, Drzˇavna sˇtamparija, 1923), pp. 100– 2). 78. Milorad Vujanac, Zemljopis za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1923), pp. 67 – 8. 79. Jasˇa Prodanovic´, Cˇitanka za III razred srednjih sˇkola (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1928), pp. 234– 7; Milan Sˇevic´ and Milan C´ukovic´, Cˇitanka za I razred srednjih sˇkola, 3rd edn (Sarajevo, Hrvatska tiskara, 1926), pp. 36–9, 139–40; D.J. Filipovic´, ‘Alahu ekbar’, Jugoslovencˇe 1/7 – 8 (1932), p. 1; Isaije Mitrovic´, ‘Ferhatpasˇina dzˇamija u Banjoj Luci’, Jugoslovencˇe 4/8 (1935), pp. 12 – 13; Nazif Resulovic´, ‘Nepoznati spasilac’, Jugoslovencˇe 3/8 (1934), pp. 8 – 9; Nazif Resulovic´, ‘Careva dzˇamija u Sarajevu’, Jugoslovencˇe 4/5 (1935), pp. 12 – 13. 80. Milosˇ Matovic´, Cˇitanka za III razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini Jugoslavije (Belgrade, J. Dzˇelebdzˇic´, no year), pp. 105– 9, 111– 14.

268

NOTES TO PAGES 127 –130

81. The theory that especially families of landlords converted to Islam, which was typically put forward in textbooks of the period, has been refuted in recent scholarship that has found no family continuities between Bosnia’s medieval and its post-conquest Muslim landed aristocracy (Donia and Fine: Bosnia and Hercegovina, p. 41; Mustafa Imamovic´, Historija Bosˇnjaka (Sarajevo, BZK Preporod, 1997), pp. 152–8). John Fine explains the conversion to Islam as a result of the absence of strong Catholic, Orthodox, or even Bosnian Church organisations (John V. Fine, The Bosnian Church. Its Place in State and Society from the Thirteenth to the Fifteenth Century (London, SAQI, 2007), pp. 299–308). 82. Ðord¯evic´ and Stranjakovic´: Istorija, p. 52. 83. Radisˇa Stefanovic´, Istorija za IV razred osnovne sˇkole (Belgrade, Privreda, 1939), p. 33. 84. Ðord¯e Lazarevic´, Istorija Jugoslovena, vol. 2, 6th edn (Belgrade, Narodna prosveta, 1933), p. 5. 85. Jovan Erdeljanovic´, Osnove etnologije (Belgrade, Zadruga profesorskog drusˇtva, 1932), p. 174. 86. Prica: Istorija, p. 81. 87. Sigismund Cˇajkovac, Cˇitanka za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini SHS (Zagreb, Narodne novine, 1926), p. 140. 88. Cˇajkovac: Cˇitanka za IV razred, pp. 147– 51; Zˇivko Jakic´, Istorija Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca, za srednje sˇkole, od najstarijih vremena do kraja XV. stoljec´a, vol. 1 (Zagreb, 1929), pp. 30 –2, 81 – 2. 89. Jakic´: Istorija, vol. 1, p. 38. 90. Cˇajkovac: Cˇitanka za IV razred, p. 154. 91. Sigismund Cˇajkovac, Cˇitanka za III razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini SHS (Zagreb, Narodne novine, 1926), pp. 118– 20, 124–5; Cˇajkovac: Cˇitanka za IV razred, pp. 131– 3. 92. ‘Iz Banovine Hrvatske’, Narodna prosveta, 19 December 1940, p. 3. 93. Cˇajkovac: Cˇitanka za IV razred, p. 151. 94. Ibid., pp. 150– 1. 95. Zˇivko Jakic´, Istorija Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca, za srednje sˇkole, od kraja XV. stoljec´a do nasˇih dana, vol. 2 (Zagreb, 1929), p. 13. 96. Ibid., p. 71. 97. AJ, f.66(pov)/15/39: report from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Education, 13 February 1934; report from the educational department of Drina banovina to the Ministry of Education, 5 March 1934. 98. Ibid.: report from the educational department of Drina banovina, 28 August 1933. 99. AJ, f.66(pov)/63/167: letter from Cˇausˇevic´ to the district chief of Sarajevo, 28 October 1926. 100. ‘Kongres muslimana intelektualaca’, Gajret 9/19– 20 (1928), p. 292. 101. ‘Pitanje sˇkolskih udzˇbenika’, Gajret 13/19 (1932), pp. 321– 2; ‘Pitanje udzˇbenika’, Gajret 14/10 (1933), p. 162; report on the annual congress of Gajret on 16 July 1933 in Sarajevo, Gajret 14/17 – 18 (1933), p. 281;

NOTES TO PAGES 130 –142

102. 103. 104. 105. 106.

107. 108. 109.

269

AJ, f.66(pov)/46/85: letter from Gajret to the Prime Minister, 25 July 1934, forwarded in a report to the Ministry of Education, 28 July 1934. AJ, f.66(pov)/46/85: report from Gajret to the Ministerial Council, 8 February 1935. AJ, f.66(pov)/63/167: letter from Cˇausˇevic´ to the Sarajevo district chief, 28 October 1926. ‘Zavrsˇetak kongresa muslimana intelektualaca’, Gajret 9/21 (1928), p. 349. AJ, f.66(pov)/46/85: report from Gajret to the Ministerial Council, 8 February 1935. Quoted and translated from a 1935 article by Cˇausˇevic´ in Xavier Bougarel, ‘Farewell to Ottoman legacy? Islamic reformism and revivalism in BosniaHerzegovina’, in Nathalie Clayer and Eric Germain (eds), Islam in Inter-War Europe (London, Hurst & Co, 2008), p. 341. Kemura: Uloga, pp. 193– 5. AJ 66(pov)/68/173: report from Arif Nozˇic´ to the central leadership of Gajret, 7 September 1929; decision by the Ministry of Education, 31 December 1929. Kemura: Uloga, p. 253.

Conclusion 1. Xose´-Manoel Nu´n˜ez, ‘Historiographical approaches to sub-national identities in Europe: A reappraisal and some suggestions’, in Joost Augusteijn and Eric Storm (eds), Region and State in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 26 – 7.

Chapter 8

The Divisive Use of Yugoslavism in Historical and Religious Commemorations

1. John R. Gillis, ‘Memory and identity: The history of a relationship’, in John R. Gillis (ed.), Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 5. 2. Much of the material and the argument of this section has been published earlier in Pieter Troch, ‘The intertwining of religion and nationhood in interwar Yugoslavia: The school celebration of St Sava’s Day’, The Slavonic and East-European Review 91/2 (2013), pp. 235– 61. 3. ‘Zakon o praznicima’, Sluzˇbene novine 11 (1929), pp. 1882– 3. 4. ‘Pravilnik o praznovanju praznika u osnovnim, srednjim i strucˇnim sˇkolama u Kraljevini Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca’, Prosvetni glasnik 44 (1928), pp. 796– 8. 5. ‘Vidov-dan, praznik narodnog prosvec´ivanja’, Prosvetni glasnik 43 (1927), p. 158; Wolfgang Ho¨pken, ‘Zwischen nationaler Zinnstiftung, Jugoslawismus und “Erinnerungschaos”’, O¨sterreichische Osthefte 47 (2005), pp. 352– 3. 6. ‘Predavanje u svima osnovnim sˇkolama na Vidovdan o Samodrezˇi crkvi i o cˇinu koji je u njoj obavljen uocˇi Kosovske bitke’, Prosvetni glasnik 44 (1928), p. 570.

270

NOTES TO PAGES 143 –145

7. The Croatian flag (the red-white-blue horizontal tricolour with the red-white check board motif) was an important political symbol of the Croatian Peasant Party and thus symbolised opposition to the regime. The official Yugoslav flag was the blue-white-red horizontal tricolour (the Pan-Slavic tricolour). The interwar Yugoslav state did not, however, completely ban the Croatian check board motif; it was part of the official coat of arms alongside the Serbian and Slovenian coats of arms. The Vidovdan constitution explicitly spoke of the Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian coats of arms; the 1931 constitution simply described them without ‘tribal’ terminology (Dusˇan Mrđenovic´ (ed.), Ustavi i vlade Knezˇevine Srbije, Kraljevine Srbije, Kraljevine SHS i Kraljevine Jugoslavije 1835 – 1941 (Belgrade, Nova knjiga, 1988), pp. 209, 249). The controversies around the Croatian flag indicate the growing incompatibility of Croatian and Yugoslav symbols of national identification in the context of political division between the Croatian Peasant Party and the Belgrade authorities. 8. AJ, f.66(pov)/13/34: report from the Metkovic´ district police of 2 July 1932, forwarded from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Education on 21 September 1932. 9. Ibid.; letter from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Education, 21 September 1932; report from the Metkovic´ district authorities to the educational department of Littoral banovina, 19 October 1932; report from the educational department of Littoral banovina to the Ministry of Education, 31 October 1932; report from the Metkovic´ district police to the educational department of Littoral banovina, 9 May 1933. The teacher somehow managed to return to the district Metkovic´ at the beginning of the school year 1934 – 5 but was immediately transferred back to western Serbia upon complaints by local authorities (AJ, f.66(pov)/13/34: report from the authorities of Littoral banovina to the Ministry of Education, 29 November 1935). 10. ‘Izmena pomenutih odredaba u pravilniku o praznovanju praznika P.br. 15.791 od 22. septembra 1928. god.’, Prosvetni glasnik 44 (1928), p. 1075; ‘Izmena pomenutih odredaba u pravilniku o praznovanju praznika P.br. 15.791 od 22. septembra 1928. god.’, Prosvetni glasnik 44 (1928), pp. 1076–7. 11. ‘Proslava Sv. Save, nacˇin izvođenja’, Prosvetni glasnik 45 (1929), pp. 11 – 12, quotation on p. 11. 12. Ibid., p. 12. 13. ‘Pravila o vrsˇenju verskih duzˇnosti ucˇenika narodnih sˇkola’, Prosvetni glasnik 51 (1935), p. 729. 14. Mark Biondich, ‘Radical Catholicism and fascism in Croatia’, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 8/2 (2007), pp. 384– 5; Klaus Buchenau, ‘Katholizismus und Jugoslawismus. Zur Nationalisierung der Religion bei der Kroaten’, in Hartmutt Lehmann and Michael Geyer (eds), Religion und Nation, Nation und Religion. Beitra¨ge zu einer unbewa¨ltigten Geschichte (Go¨ttingen, Wallstein Verlag, 2006), pp. 229– 33; Jure Krisˇto, ‘Katolicˇko

NOTES TO PAGES 145 –147

15.

16. 17. 18.

19. 20.

21. 22. 23.

24. 25.

271

priklanjanje ideologiji jugoslavenstva’, Cˇasopis za suvremenu povijest 24/2 (1992), pp. 25 – 45; Zlatko Matijevic´, ‘Politika katolicˇkog jugoslavenstva’, in Hans-Georg Fleck and Igor Graovac (eds), Dijalog povijesnicˇara – istoricˇara, vol. 1 (Zagreb, Hrvatski institut za povijest, 1998), pp. 155– 70. Xavier Bougarel, ‘Farewell to Ottoman legacy? Islamic reformism and revivalism in Bosnia-Herzegovina’, in Nathalie Clayer and Eric Germain (eds), Islam in Inter-War Europe (London, Hurst & Co, 2008), pp. 313 – 43; Fabio Giomi, ‘Reforma – The organization of progressive Muslims and its role in interwar Bosnia’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 29/4 (2009), pp. 495 – 510. Maria Falina, ‘Pyrrhic victory: East Orthodox Christianity, politics and Serbian nationalism in the interwar period’ (D.Phil. dissertation, Central European University, 2011), pp. 89–100. Buchenau: ‘Katholizismus und Jugoslawismus’, pp. 233–8. Klaus Buchenau, ‘Svetosavlje und Pravoslavlje. Nationales und Universales in der serbischen Orthodoxie’, in Martin Schulze Wessel (ed.), Nationalisierung der Religion und Sakralisierung der Nation im o¨stlichen Europa (Stuttgart, Franz Steiner, 2006), pp. 215– 24; Buchenau: Auf russischen Spuren, pp. 391– 407; Maria Falina, ‘Svetosavlje: A case study in the nationalization of religion’, Zweitserische Zeitschrift fu¨r Religion- und Kulturgeschichte 101 (2007), pp. 520–5; Falina: ‘Pyrrhic victory’, pp. 191–204; Zoran Milutinovic´, Getting over Europe. The Construction of Europe in Serbian Culture (Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2011), pp. 147–67. Bougarel: ‘Farewell to Ottoman legacy’, pp. 341– 2. AJ, f.66(pov)/15/39: letter from the Ulema medzˇlis in Sarajevo, the highest religious council responsible for the interpretation of Koran teaching in Bosnia-Herzegovina, to the authorities of Drina banovina, 29 July 1931. AJ, f.66/258/500: letter from Cˇausˇevic´ to the authorities of Drina banovina, 20 January 1930; letter from the Ulema medzˇlis to the authorities of Drina banovina, 23 January 1931. Christian A. Nielsen, ‘One state, one nation, one king: The dictatorship of King Alexander and his Yugoslav project, 1929– 1935’ (D.Phil. dissertation, Columbia University, 2002), pp. 220– 2. AJ, f.66/258/500: letter from Cˇausˇevic´ to Minister of Education Bozˇidar Maksimovic´, 23 January 1930. Denis Bec´irovic´, ‘O polozˇaju Islamske vjerske zajednice u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji (1929–1941)’, Historijska traganja 2 (2008), pp. 191–5; Ibrahim Kemura, Uloga Gajreta u drusˇtvenom zˇivotu Muslimana (Sarajevo, Veselin Malesˇa, 1986), pp. 198–203; Dragan Novakovic´, ‘Organizacija i polozˇaj Islamske verske zajednice u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji’, Teme 27/3 (2003), pp. 456–62. Nielsen: ‘One state’, pp. 282– 8; Atif Purivatra, Jugoslovenska muslimanska organizacija u politicˇkom zˇivotu Kr. SHS (Sarajevo, Svetlost, 1974), pp. 173– 83. ‘Svecˇano ustolicˇenje Reis ul uleme g. Maglajlic´a’, Politika, 1 November 1930, pp. 1 – 3.

272

NOTES TO PAGES 147 –150

26. AJ, f.66(pov)/15/39: report from the educational department of Drina banovina to the Ministry of Education, 14 September 1931. 27. Ibid.: complaint from the Ulema medzˇlis to the authorities of Drina banovina, 29 July 1931. 28. Ibid.: complaint from Alija Selmanagic´ to the authorities of Drina banovina, 27 June 1931. 29. Ibid.: complaint from the Ulema medzˇlis to the authorities of Drina banovina, 29 July 1931; report from the educational department of Drina banovina to the Ministry of Education, 14 September 1931; decision from the Ministry of Education, 21 September 1931. 30. Quoted in AJ, f.66/260/500: internal report by the Ministry of Education on the commemoration of St Sava, 29 March 1934. 31. Nielsen: ‘One state’, p. 226; ‘Ucˇenici islamske veroispovesti pri odrzˇavanju đacˇkih akademija, zabava i slicˇno ne mogu ucˇestvovati u horovima koji pevaju crkvene i pobozˇne pesme’, Prosvetni glasnik 47 (1931), p. 127; AJ, f.66(pov)/15/39: letter from Governor Velimir Popovic´ to the local authorities in Drina banovina, 15 January 1931. 32. Bougarel: ‘Farewell to Ottoman legacy’; Sabina Ferhadbegovic´, ‘Fes oder Hut? Der Islam in Bosnien zwischen den Weltkriegen’, Wiener Zeitschrift zur Geschichte der Neuzeit 5/2 (2005), pp. 69 – 85. 33. ‘Kongres muslimana intelektualaca’, Gajret 9/19– 20 (1928), p. 292. 34. ‘Zavrsˇetak kongresa muslimana intelektualaca’, Gajret 9/21 (1928), p. 349. 35. ‘Proslava Sv. Save, nacˇ in izvođenja’, Prosvetni glasnik 49 (1933), pp. 16 – 17. 36. ‘Pravila o vrsˇenju verskih duzˇnosti ucˇenika narodnih sˇkola’, Prosvetni glasnik 51 (1935), p. 729. 37. AJ, f.66(pov)/49/85: resolution of the Ilmija, 10 October 1935. 38. Bec´irovic´: ‘O polozˇaju’, pp. 197– 201; Adnan Jahic´, ‘Obnova autonomije Islamske zajednice u Bosni i Hercegovini 1936. godine’, Prilozi 37 (2008), p. 101, f.18; Novakovic´: ‘Organizacija’, pp. 469– 72. 39. AJ, f.66(pov)/15/40: report from the educational department of Vrbas banovina to the district authorities, 10 February 1930. 40. AJ, f.66(pov)/15/39: interrogation of Krste Stosˇic´, 16 April 1931. 41. Ibid.: report from the district chief of Sˇibenik to the educational department of Littoral banovina, 17 April 1931. 42. AJ, f.66(pov)/12/32: letter from the teacher Dusˇan Dadasovic´ to principal Gustav Ricˇl, 11 May 1932. 43. In this context, ‘Vlachs’ is a pejorative designation of Orthodox Serbs. 44. AJ, f.66(pov)/12/32: report from Gustav Ricˇl to the Koprivnica district authorities, 20 May 1932. 45. Ibid. 46. ‘Podizanje hrama sv. Save u Beogradu – predavanja i skupljanje priloga na dan 10 maja ove godine’, Prosvetni glasnik 48 (1932), p. 33. The church in question is the Church of St Sava on Vracˇar Hill in Belgrade, for which the first plans were

NOTES TO PAGES 150 –153

47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53.

54. 55. 56. 57.

58. 59. 60. 61.

273

made at the end of the nineteenth century; the church is presently still unfinished. AJ, f.66/59/500: letter from Patriarch Varnava to the Minister of Education, 2 January 1932. Ibid.: letter from Archbishop Antun Bauer to the Minister of Education, 30 April 1932. Ibid.: letter from the Archbishopric of Sarajevo to the authorities of Drina banovina, 13 January 1934. Ibid.: letter from Archbishop Bauer to the Ministry of Education, 10 December 1933. Krisˇto: ‘Katolicˇko priklanjanje’, pp. 25 – 45; Jure Krisˇto, Hrvatski katolicˇki pokret 1903–1945 (Zagreb, Glas Koncila/Hrvatski institut za povijest, 2004), pp. 103–20. Krisˇto: Hrvatski katolicˇki pokret, pp. 153 –82, 233– 42. AJ, f.66/59/500: letter from Minister of Education Kojic´ to Archbishop Bauer, 4 May 1932; internal report by the Ministry of Education on the commemoration of St Sava, 29 March 1934; letter from the Ministry of Education to Archbishop Bauer, 22 January 1934. Suzana Lecˇek and Tihana Petrovic´ Lesˇ, Znanost i svjetonazor. Etnologija i prosvjetna politika Banovine Hrvatske 1939– 1941 (Zagreb, Srednja Europa, 2010), p. 90. AJ, f.66/59/500: internal report by the Ministry of Education on the commemoration of St Sava, 29 March 1934. Buchenau: Auf russischen Spuren, p. 395. At the time of the formation of the Kingdom of SCS, there were three independent Orthodox churches in the region: the Serbian Orthodox Metropolitanate in the Kingdom of Serbia, the Serbian Orthodox Metropolitanate in Montenegro, and the Serbian Orthodox Patriarchate in Sremski Karlovci. The Orthodox churches in Bosnia-Herzegovina, southern Serbia and Macedonia, and Dalmatia enjoyed autonomy under the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In 1920, these churches were united in the Serbian Orthodox Patriarchate, with seat in Belgrade (Falina: ‘Pyrrhic victory’, pp. 82 – 6; Aleksandar Jakir, Dalmatian zwischen den Weltkriegen. Agrarische und urbane Lebenswelt und das Scheitern der jugoslawischen Integration (Munich, Oldenbourg Verlag, 1999), pp. 124– 9). Falina: ‘Pyrrhic victory’, pp. 89 – 95. Jovan Byford, Denial and Repression of Antisemitism. Post-Communist Remembrance of the Serbian Bishop Nikolaj Velimirovic´ (Budapest, Central European University Press, 2008), pp. 29–30. ‘Dimitriju Patriarhu svih srpskih i pomorskih zemalja mnogaja ljeta’, Politika, 29 August 1924, p. 1. Ibid. The national discourse of the Serbian Orthodox Church, however, did not concur neatly with that of the state authorities. In the high dictatorship, Minister of Justice Milan Srsˇkic´ attempted to reduce the narrow Serbian

274

62.

63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71.

72. 73.

74. 75. 76. 77. 78.

NOTES TO PAGES 153 –159 character of the Serbian Orthodox Church. In discussions about the new church constitution, Srsˇkic´ suggested that ‘Serbian’ would be deleted from the name of the Church, that Serbian symbols would be removed from the Church’s coat of arms, that the Church’s language would be termed SerboCroato-Slovenian instead of Serbian, and that the Latin alphabet would be introduced as the Church’s official alphabet. The government quickly withdrew this plan after sharp criticism from the Serbian Orthodox leaders and the threat that the Church would turn against the dictatorship (Buchenau: Auf russischen Spuren, pp. 342– 4). Drago Roksandic´, ‘Karakterologija Jugoslovena Vladimira Dvornikovic´a i njezina recepcija u srpskoj i hrvatskoj kulturi (1939 – 1941)’, in Drago Roksandic´ (ed.), Srpska i hrvatska povijest i nova kultura (Zagreb, Stvarnost, 1991), pp. 275– 7. Ibid., p. 277. Buchenau: Auf russischen Spuren, pp. 409– 36. AJ, f.66/260/500: letter from Patriarch Varnava to the Ministry of Education, 23 January 1933. Ibid.: letter from the Serbian Patriarchate to the Ministry of Education, 26 November 1934. Ibid.: letter from the Minister of Education to Patriarch Varnava, 26 December 1934. ‘Proslava Sv. Save’, Prosvetni glasnik 51 (1935), p. 8; ‘Uputstva u vezi sa svetosavskom godinom’, Prosvetni glasnik 51 (1935), pp. 8 – 9. Buchenau: ‘Svetosavlje und Pravoslavlje’, pp. 209– 14. Ibid., pp. 215–24; Buchenau: Auf russischen Spuren, pp. 391– 407; Falina: ‘Svetosavlje’, pp. 520– 5; Falina: ‘Pyrrhic victory’, pp. 191– 204. Christopher Clark and Wolfram Kaiser (eds), Culture Wars: Secular – Catholic Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003); Martin Conway, Catholic Politics in Europe, 1918– 1945 (London, Routledge, 1997). Claire Nolte, The Sokol in the Czech Lands to 1914: Training for the Nation (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). Tomazˇ Pavlin, ‘“Zmaga-svoboda”. Sokolsko jugoslovaniziranje’, in Bojan Balkovec (ed.), Jugoslavija v cˇasu: devetdestet let od nastanka prve jugoslovanske drzˇave (Ljubljana, Oddelek za zgodovino Filozofske fakultete, 2009), pp. 213 – 27. Nielsen: ‘One state’, pp. 191–208; Tomazˇ Pavlin, ‘Razvoj sokolstva v Sloveniji med leti 1929–1941’ (D.Phil. dissertation, University of Ljubljana, 2000). Nolte: The Sokol, pp. 154– 5. Ervin Dolenc, Kulturni boj. Slovenska kulturna politika v Kraljevini SHS 1918– 1929 (Ljubljana, Cankarjeva zalozˇba, 1996), pp. 311–15. Conway: Catholic Politics, pp. 40 – 4. Sandra Prlenda, ‘Young, religious and radical: The Croat Catholic youth organizations, 1922– 1945’, in John Lampe and Mark Mazower (eds), Ideologies

NOTES TO PAGES 159 –162

79.

80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88.

89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95.

96.

275

and National Identities: The Case of Twentieth-Century Southeastern Europe (Budapest, Central European University Press, 2004), p. 88. See for example the reaction of the Sokols against the intervention of some Catholic bishops at the Ministry of Education against its decision to prohibit pupils and students from becoming members of the Orel: ‘Signal za opreznost’, Sokolski glasnik 3/3 (1921), pp. 71–2, or a reaction against anti-Sokol writings in Clerical journals: ‘Klerikalni bijes na Sokolstvo’, Sokolski glasnik 3/12 (1921), pp. 440–1. Ervin Dolenc, Med kulturo in politiko: kulturnopoliticˇna razhajanja v Sloveniji med svetovnima vojnama (Ljubljana, Insˇtitut za novejsˇo zgodovino, 2010), pp. 136 – 53. Nielsen: ‘One state’, pp. 418– 20. ‘Izjava Saveza Sokola kraljevine Jugoslavije na pastirski list katolicˇkog episkopata protiv Sokolstva’, Sokolski glasnik 4/4 (1933), p. 1. ‘Pastirski list katolicˇkog episkopata protiv Sokolstva’, Sokolski glasnik 4/3 (1933), pp. 1 – 2; ‘Politicˇka strana biskupske poslanice’, Sokolski glasnik 4/6 (1933), p. 1. Ljubodrag Dimic´, Kulturna politika u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji, vol. 2 (Belgrade, Stubovi kulture, 1997), pp. 440– 6; Nielsen: ‘One state’, pp. 415– 27. Dimic´: Kulturna politika, vol. 2, p. 450. AJ, f.66(pov)/74/202: letter from the Ministry of Defence to the Ministry of Education, 17 June 1930; AJ, f.66/288/2153: report from the authorities of Drava banovina to the Ministry of Education, 16 August 1932. AJ, f.66(pov)/16/41: report from the Sinj district authorities, 8 June 1932; decision by the Ministry of Education, 29 June 1932. AJ, f.66(pov)/12/32: report from the Sanski Most district authorities to the authorities of Vrbas banovina; with accompanying letter from the educational department of Vrbas banovina to the Ministry of Education, 8 August 1934. AJ, f.66(pov)/16/41: report from the authorities of Sava banovina to the Ministry of Education, 9 December 1934. AJ, f.66(pov)/12/32: letter from Dragutin Radovic´ to the Ministry of Education, 4 April 1933. Ibid.: report from the district authorities of Fuzˇine, 1 May 1933. Ibid.: decision of the educational department of Sava banovina, 4 May 1933. Jakir: Dalmatien, pp. 114– 16. Krisˇto: Hrvatski katolicˇki pokret, pp. 91 – 3, 97. Anka Vidovicˇ-Miklavcˇicˇ, Mladina med nacionalizmom in katolicizmom: pregled razvoja in dejavnosti mladinskih organizacij, drusˇtev in gibanj v liberalno-unitarnem in katolisˇkem taboru v letih 1929 –1941 v jugoslovanskem delu Slovenije (Ljubljana, Sˇtudentska organizacija Univerze, 1994), pp. 39, 63; Spominski zbornik Slovenije. Ob dvajsetletnice Kraljevine Jugoslavije (Ljubljana, 1939), pp. 198–9. Prlenda: ‘Young, religious and radical’, pp. 90–3; Vidovicˇ-Miklavcˇicˇ: Mladina, pp. 101–3.

276

NOTES TO PAGES 162 –167

97. ‘Rezolucija o Orlovskoj organizaciji’, Hrvatski sokol 8/8 (1926), pp. 290– 1. 98. ‘Organizirani napadaj orlova na hrvatske Sokole u Cˇitluku’, Hrvatski sokol 9/4 (1927), pp. 184– 6. 99. Hrvatski sokol 7/7 (1925), pp. 209– 10. 100. Prlenda: ‘Young, religious and radical’, pp. 94 –5, quotation on p. 95. 101. Vidovicˇ-Miklavcˇicˇ: Mladina, pp. 98 – 9. 102. Nielsen: ‘One state’, p. 420. 103. AJ, f.66(pov)/12/32: report and instruction from the district authorities of Metkovic´ to the school principal of the elementary school in Metkovic´, 2 February 1933. 104. Ibid.: report from the school principal to the district authorities of Metkovic´, 11 February 1933. 105. Ibid. 106. Ibid. 107. AJ, f.66(pov)/12/32: report of the Metkovic´ district authorities to the authorities of Littoral banovina, 9 May 1933. 108. Ibid.: letter from the Ministry of Education to Archbishop Bauer, 12 August 1933. 109. Much of the material and the argument in this section has been published in Pieter Troch, ‘Interactive nationhood: The relation between Croatian and Yugoslav national identity in the interwar period’, Nations and Nationalism 19/4 (2013), pp. 781– 98. 110. Mira Kolar-Dimitrijevic´, ‘Povijest gradnja spomenika kralju Tomislavu u Zagrebu 1924. do 1947. godine’, Povijesni prilozi 16 (1997), pp. 243– 8. The sculptor Robert Frangesˇ-Mihanovic´ finished the bronze sculpture in 1933. Due to financial and political difficulties and discussions about the artistic value and the position and direction of the monument, the final unveiling only took place in 1947. 111. Ibid., p. 274. 112. Ibid., p. 281. 113. ‘II. Hrvatski svesokolski slet u Zagrebu prigodom 1000-godisˇnjice hrvatskog kraljevstva’, Hrvatski sokol 7/12 (1925), pp. 400– 7. 114. Ibid., pp. 411– 12. 115. Ferdo Sˇisˇic´, Povijest Hrvatske u vrijeme narodnih vladara (Zagreb, 1925), pp. v–vi. 116. Zlatko Matijevic´, ‘Ministar Pavle Radic´ na “Napretkovoj” proslavi tisuc´godisˇnjice hrvatskog kraljevstva u Sarajevu 1925. godine’, Cˇasopis za suvremenu povijest 36/3 (2004), p. 1133. 117. ‘II. Hrvatski svesokolski slet u Zagrebu prigodom 1000-godisˇnjice hrvatskog kraljevstva’, Hrvatski sokol 7/12 (1925), p. 408; ‘Mogila hiljadugodisˇnjice’, Politika, 17 August 1925, p. 2. 118. ‘Triumf ideje narodnog sporazuma’, Politika, 16 August 1925, pp. 1 – 4. 119. ‘Zrinsko – Frankopanska proslava u Sarajevu’, Napredak 11/5 (1936), p. 49. 120. Napredak 7/6 (1932), p. 74. 121. ‘Pravilnik o praznovanju praznika’, p. 797.

NOTES TO PAGES 168 –172

277

122. Viktor Novak, ‘Znacˇaj Zrinsko – Frankopanske zavere u hrvatskoj istoriji’, Narodna odbrana 3/18 (1928), p. 327. 123. ‘Obljetnica Zrinskih i Frankopana’, Seljacˇka sloga 1/3 (1936), p. 69. 124. Filip Lukas (ed.), Zbornik Matice hrvatske: hrvatskome narodu, njegovima prosˇlim narasˇtajima na spomen, sadasˇnjim i buduc´im na pobudu o tisuc´oj godisˇnjici hrvatskog kraljevstva (Zagreb, Matica hrvatska, 1925), n.p. 125. Ivo Goldstein, Holokaust u Zagrebu (Zagreb, Novi Liber, 2001), pp. 90 – 3, pp. 191 –5. 126. Filip Lukas, ‘Geografijska osnovica hrvatskoga naroda’, in Lukas (ed.): Zbornik Matice hrvatske, pp. 80 – 8, quotation on p. 86. 127. AJ, 66(pov)/52/110: report from the district authorities of Bihac´ to the local town authorities, 7 August 1922; report from the district authorities of Bihac´ to the regional government for Bosnia-Herzegovina, 13 October 1922. 128. For the skirmishes during the 1922 Yugoslav Sokol jamboree in Zagreb, see Sokolski glasnik 4/7 (1922), pp. 214– 7; ‘Hrvatsko sokolsko slavlje u Sˇestinama’, Hrvatski sokol 4/6 –7 (1922), pp. 103– 4; ‘Progoni hrvatskih sokolova’, Hrvatski sokol 4/6– 7 (1922), p. 112. For riots during the 1924 Yugoslav Sokol jamboree, see ‘Sokolski dnevi v Zagrebu’, Sokolski glasnik 6/16 – 18 (1924), p. 252; ‘Komunikej Starjesˇinstva Hrvatskih Sokolskih drusˇtava u Zagrebu’, Hrvatski sokol 6/9 (1924), pp. 254– 6. 129. ‘Pribic´evic´ brani hrvatskim djacima vjezˇbati u Hrvatskom Sokolu’, Hrvatski sokol 4/10 –11 (1922), pp. 165– 6. 130. Milan Decˇak, ‘Raspust Hrvatskog Sokola u Zagrebu’, Hrvatski sokol 4/6 –7 (1922), pp. 105– 9. 131. Krisˇto: Hrvatski katolicˇki pokret, p. 130; ‘Uspostava Hrvatskog Sokola u Zagrebu’, Hrvatski sokol 5/2 (1923), pp. 33 – 42. 132. AJ, f.66/258/500. 133. Hrvatski sokol 8/8 (1926), pp. 304– 10. 134. Hrvatski sokol 11/8 (1929), pp. 372– 8. 135. ‘Sokolski sporovi u Zagrebu’, Sokolski vjesnik 4/1 (1922), p. 7; ‘Uspostava Hrvatskog Sokola u Zagrebu’, Hrvatski sokol 5/2 (1923), pp. 33 – 4. 136. Hrvatski sokol 6/8 (1924), p. 239. ‘Jugoslovinac’ has a pejorative connotation and denotes those Croats who declared themselves Yugoslavs out of opportunistic motives. 137. Hrvatski sokol 8/8 (1926), pp. 304– 10; 8/10 (1926), pp. 409–12. 138. Hrvatski sokol 7/9 (1925), pp. 296– 7; 7/10 (1925), p. 346. 139. Ibid., p. 307. 140. Hrvatski sokol 8/8 (1926), pp. 310– 12. 141. Hrvatski sokol 5/2 (1923), p. 81. 142. Ibid., p. 82. 143. ‘Jugoslovenskom Sokolstvu’, Sokolski glasnik 4/3 (1922), pp. 65 –71. 144. ‘U borbu’, Sokolski glasnik 4/3 (1922), pp. 71 – 5. 145. AJ, f.66/258/500: report from the Osijek district authorities, 25 October 1926. 146. Ibid.

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NOTES TO PAGES 172 –178

147. Hrvatski sokol 9/6 (1927), pp. 269– 70. 148. ‘Proglas Hrvatskog sokola u Donjem Miholjcu’. Hrvatski sokol 4/12 (1922), pp. 180 –1. 149. ‘925 – 1925’, Hrvatski sokol 7/2 (1925), p. 28. The author did not fully master the Yugoslav discourse. The Yugoslav nation was ‘three-named’ and consisted of three ‘tribes’; there was no ‘three-named tribe’. 150. Ibid. 151. Hrvatski sokol 9/10 (1927), pp. 429– 31. 152. Hrvatski sokol 10/7 (1928), p. 320. 153. ‘Sokolski sporovi u Zagrebu’, Sokolski vjesnik 4/1 (1922), pp. 4 – 8, quotation on p. 8. 154. ‘Sokol na Wilsonovom trgu Jugoslovenskom Sokolskom Savezu’, Sokolski vjesnik 4/1 (1922), pp. 3 –4. 155. Quoted in Sokolski glasnik 1/8 –9 – 10 (1919), p. 318. 156. Sokolski glasnik 1/6 – 7 (1919), pp. 276–7, emphasis mine. 157. Vladimir Petz, ‘Nacijonalno-kulturni zadatak Hrvatskog Sokolstva’, Hrvatski sokol 7/1 (1925), pp. 10 – 12, quotations on pp. 10, 12. 158. Hrvatski sokol 8/9 (1926), p. 343. 159. Hrvatski sokol 8/8 (1926), pp. 308– 9, 311. 160. ‘Prilog karakteristici Nejugoslovesnkog Sokolstva’, Sokolski glasnik 4/4 (1922), p. 112. 161. ‘Proslava tisuc´godisˇnjice Hrvatskoga kraljevstva u Zagrebu, dne 7. i 8. septembra 1925’, Sokolski glasnik 7/19 – 20 (1925), pp. 146–9. 162. ‘Nasˇe stanovisˇte’, Sokolski glasnik 7/17 –18 (1925), pp. 137– 40. 163. ‘Narod i sokolstvo’, Sokolski glasnik 8/20 (1926), pp. 194– 5. 164. A. Malovic´, ‘Hrvatsko sokolstvo na Strossmayerovoj slavi’, Hrvatski sokol 8/12 (1926), p. 466. 165. ‘Josip Juraj Strossmayer’, Hrvatski sokol 7/4 (1925), pp. 76 – 7. 166. Sokolski glasnik 8/23 (1926), p. 241. 167. ‘Narod i sokolstvo’, Sokolski glasnik 8/20 (1926), p. 195. 168. ‘Sokol na Wilsonovom trgu Jugoslovenskom Sokolskom Savezu’, Sokolski vjesnik 4/1 (1922), p. 2. 169. AJ, f.66/258/500. 170. AJ, f.66(pov)/59/150: report from the district chief in Karlovac to the Ministry of Education, 5 May 1929. 171. Ibid.: report from the Ministry of Internal affairs, 1 May 1929; decision by the Ministry of Education, 11 May 1929. 172. Ibid.: report from the district chief of Karlovac to the Ministry of Education, 15 July 1929; decision by the Ministry of Education, 16 August 1929. 173. Ibid.: report from the principal of the Vukovar gymnasium to the Ministry of Education, January 1927. 174. Rudolf Herceg, Nova abecedarka za poucˇavanje odraslih i nepismenjaka (Zagreb, Narodne novine, 1929), pp. 45 – 7.

NOTES TO PAGES 178 –185

279

175. Suzana Lecˇek, ‘Organizacija i oblici djelovanja Seljacˇke sloge 1925– 1929’, Cˇasopis za suvremenu povijest 28/3 (1996), pp. 357– 78. 176. ‘Seljacˇka Sloga i dalje tako napred. Deveta redovna glavna skupsˇtina Seljacˇke Sloge’, Seljacˇka sloga 4/7 (1939), pp. 180– 1. 177. Lecˇek and Petrovic´ Lesˇ: Znanost, pp. 85 –93, 125–7. 178. Suzana Lecˇek, ‘Selo i politika. Politizacija hrvatskog seljasˇtva 1918– 1941’, in Ljubomir Antic´ (ed.), Hrvatska politika u XX. stoljec´u (Zagreb, Matica hrvatska, 2006), pp. 136– 8; ‘Tjedan Matije Gubca i dra Ante Radic´a’, Seljacˇka sloga 1/3 (1936), pp. 68 – 9; ‘Viestnik Seljacˇke sloge’, Seljacˇka sloga 2/2 (1937), p. 45. 179. AJ, f.66(pov)/15/39: report from the educational department of Sava banovina to the Ministry of Education, 27 February 1936; decision by the Ministry of Education, 4 June 1938. 180. For the literacy campaign, see Suzana Lecˇek, ‘Suradnja HKD Napredak i Seljacˇke sloge u kampaniji opismenjivanja’, Cˇasopis za suvremenu povijest 36/3 (2004), pp. 1101– 25. For a typical example of political support to the Croatian Peasant Party, see Jure Sˇutej, ‘Pater patriae’, Napredak: Hrvatski narodni kalendar za prestupnu 1936 godinu (1935), pp. 25 – 6. 181. ‘Velicˇanstvena proslava 100-godisˇnjice Hrvatskog preporoda i Hrvatske himne u Sarajevu’, Napredak 10/12 (1935), p. 145. 182. Ibid., pp. 145– 6. 183. Napredak 11/2 (1936), p. 22. 184. AJ, f.66/318/535: letter from President of JAZU Albert Bazala to the Ministry of Education, 1 July 1935. 185. ‘Proslava stogodisˇnjice hrvatske himne’, Politika, 25 November 1935, p. 6. 186. AJ, f.66(pov)/12/32: Preko district police report, 6 March 1936; report by the district authorities of Preko to the authorities of Littoral banovina, 7 May 1936; decision by the authorities of Littoral banovina, 31 December 1936. 187. Ibid.: appeal by Ante Lovrovic´, 6 March 1937. 188. Ibid.: decision by the Ministry of Education, 10 August 1937.

Chapter 9 The Popular Resonance of Nationhood: Yugoslav Teachers as National Educators 1. Marnix Beyen and Maarten Van Ginderachter, ‘General introduction: Writing the mass into a mass phenomenon’, in Maarten Van Ginderachter and Marnix Beyen (eds), Nationhood From Below. Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 3– 22. 2. Michael Herzfeld, Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State, 2nd edn (New York, Routledge, 2005), pp. 9 – 10. 3. Ljubomir Petrovic´, ‘Jugoslovenski ucˇitelji izmed¯u ideolosˇke i drusˇtvene odgovornosti’, Tokovi istorije 2005/1– 2, pp. 48 – 9.

280

NOTES TO PAGES 185 –188

4. Branko Sˇusˇtar, ‘Povezivanje slovenskega ucˇiteljstva v novi drzˇavi med 1918 in 1921’, in Bojan Balkovec (ed.), Jugoslavija v ˇcasu: Devetdeset let od nastanka prve jugoslovenske drzˇave (Ljubljana, Znanstvena zalozˇba Filozofske fakultete, 2009), pp. 229 –53. 5. AJ, f.66(pov)/59/149: report from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Education, 21 November 1923; decision by the Ministry of Education, 17 January 1924. 6. Ibid., 14 May 1924. 7. AJ, f.66(pov)/59/150: report from the district chief of Zeta to the Ministry of Education, 11 January 1927. 8. Nada Bosˇkovska, Das Jugoslawische Makedonien 1918– 1941: Eine Randregion zwischen Repression und Integration (Vienna, Bo¨hlau, 2009), p. 268. 9. Miodrag Ristic´, ‘Zagrebacˇka skupsˇtina srednjesˇkolskih nastavnika’, Prosvetni glasnik 37 (1920), pp. 42 – 50; Miodrag Ristic´, ‘Julska skupsˇtina hrvatskih srednjesˇkolskih nastavnika’, Prosvetni glasnik 37 (1920), pp. 187– 90; Ivan Tomasˇic´, ‘Borba za stalesˇke tekovine hrvatskog ucˇiteljstva’, Hrvatski ucˇitelj 3/2 (1923), pp. 54 – 6; 3/3– 4 (1923), pp. 112– 14; 3/8– 9 – 10 (1923), pp. 209– 14; 3/11 – 12 (1923), pp. 272– 87. 10. Danilo Milanovic´, Udruzˇenje jugoslovenskog ucˇiteljstva od 1920. – 1930. godine. Jubilarna knjiga povodom desetogodisˇnjice ujedinjenja ucˇiteljskih udruzˇenja u Jugoslaviji (Belgrade, UJU, 1930), p. 64. 11. Dusˇan Bajagic´, ‘Stjepan Radic´ kao ministar prosvete Kraljevine Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca’, Tokovi istorije 2006/4, p. 142; Milosav Janic´ijevic´, Stvaralacˇka inteligencija med¯uratne Jugoslavije (Belgrade, Institut drusˇtvene nauke / Centar za sociolosˇka istrazˇivanja, 1984), pp. 138– 9. 12. ‘Hrvatsko ucˇiteljstvo pod obznanom’, Hrvatski ucˇitelj 4/11–12 (1924), pp. 236– 7. This decision was annulled as soon as Radic´ became Minister of Education (‘Ministar Radic´ ukida obznanu’, Hrvatski ucˇitelj 4/11–12 (1924), p. 238). 13. Hrvatski ucˇitelj 2/9 – 10– 11 (1922), pp. 281– 4. The tamburica is a specific type of lute that was especially popular in Slavonia, Vojvodina, and Hungary. 14. Ibid., pp. 284– 6. 15. Ibid., pp. 289– 91. 16. Ibid., pp. 292– 3. 17. AJ, f.66(pov)/52/110: report from the district chief of Trebinje to the regional government for Bosnia-Herzegovina, 25 June 1922. 18. Ibid.: report from the regional government for Bosnia-Herzegovina to the Ministry of Education, 15 July 1922; decision by the Ministry of Education, 28 July 1922. 19. AJ, f.66(pov)/59/153: report from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Education, 27 July 1928. 20. Hrvatski ucˇitelj 2/9 – 10 –11 (1922), p. 283. 21. Quoted from a resolution by the Presidency of the Croatian Bloc dated 8 September 1921, published in Hrvatski ucˇitelj 2/7– 8 (1922), p. 256. 22. Tomasˇic´: ‘Borba’, p. 213.

NOTES TO PAGES 189 –192

281

23. AJ, f.66/2053/2041: letter of UJU to the Ministry of Education, 13 October 1928. 24. Mirko Popovic´, ‘Zapisnik IX redovnog kongresa’, Glasnik jugoslovenskog profesorskog drusˇtva 8/10 (1924), p. 636. 25. Ljubodrag Dimic´, Nikola Zˇutic´, and Blagoje Isailovic´ (eds), Zapisnici sa sednica Ministarskog saveta Kraljevine Jugoslavije 1929– 1931 (Belgrade, Sluzˇbeni list SRJ / Arhiv Jugoslavije, 2002), p. 35 26. Ibid. 27. Ucˇitelj 12/1 (1931), p. 3. 28. From a speech by Maksimovic´ to the Council of Ministers, quoted in Dimic´, Zˇutic´, and Isailovic´ (eds): Zapisnici, p. 35. 29. ‘Zakon o narodnim sˇkolama’, Sluzˇbene novine 11 (1929), p. 2165. 30. ‘Vansˇkolski rad nastavnika’, in Kosta V. Aranicki and Stevan Karadzˇic´ (eds), Jugoslovenski ucˇiteljski zbornik svih zakona, uredaba, pravilnika, pravila, resˇenja, odluka i raspisa izdatih od oslobod¯enja do danas, koji se odnose na narodne sˇkole i narodne ucˇitelje/-ice u celoj Jugoslaviji a i danas su u vazˇnosti (Pancˇevo, Napredak, 1935), pp. 155– 7. 31. Ibid., p. 155. 32. ‘Zakon o narodnim sˇkolama’, Sluzˇbene novine 11 (1929), p. 2167. 33. ‘Podnosˇenje polugodisˇnjih nadzornicˇkih izvesˇtaja’, Prosvetni glasnik 45 (1929), pp. 303– 8; ‘Ocenjivanje nastavnika prilikom zavrsˇnog pregleda narodnih sˇkola’, Prosvetni glasnik 46 (1930), pp. 536– 7; ‘Uredba o vrsˇenju nadzornicˇke sluzˇbe’, Prosvetni glasnik 51 (1935), pp. 273– 94. 34. ‘Obrada nacionalnih predmeta i nacionalno vaspitanje ucˇenika u narodnim sˇkolama’, Prosvetni glasnik 46 (1930), p. 1322. 35. AJ, f.66(pov)/13/33: report by the district authorities of Gracˇanica, 15 November 1930, forwarded to the education department of Vardar banovina on 1 April 1931; letter from Milorad Popovic´ to the Ministry of Education, 4 March 1931. 36. Ibid.: report by the education department of Vardar banovina, 28 July 1931. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid.: decision by the Ministry of Education, 31 July 1931. 39. AJ, f.66(pov)/13/36: report from the district chief of Karlovac to the authorities of Sava banovina, forwarded by the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Education, 30 May 1933. 40. AJ, f.66(pov)/16/41: report from the district chief of Velika Gorica, 24 November 1931; decision by the Ministry of Education, 23 January 1932. 41. AJ, f.66(pov)/13/36: report from the authorities of Morava banovina to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, forwarded to the Ministry of Education, 26 April 1933. 42. AJ, f.66/2054/2041: letter from Vojislav Gligoric´ to the Yugoslav Teachers Association, 13 August 1935. 43. AJ, f.66(pov)/13/33: report from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Education on contact between the teacher Bogosav Ivanovic´ and the leaders of the former Agricultural Union, 2 April 1931; decision by the Ministry of Education, 20 April 1931; report from the governor of Morava

282

44. 45. 46. 47.

48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

NOTES TO PAGES 192 –196 banovina to the Ministry of Internal Affairs on contact between the teacher Cˇedomir Milosˇevic´ and the leaders of the former Agricultural Union, forwarded to the Ministry of Education on 16 September 1933. Ibid.: report from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Education, 26 January 1931. Ibid.: report of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Education, 11 June 1934; decision by the Ministry of Education, 24 August 1934. Ibid.: report from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Education, 3 July 1933. Ibid., 8 October 1934; decision by the Ministry of Education, 30 May 1935. Milosˇevic´ had already been involved in an escalating feud with two colleagues, leading to their transfer (AJ, f.66(pov)/13/36: report from the school inspector of Morava banovina, 21 December 1933). Ivana Dobrivojevic´, Drzˇavna represija u doba diktature Kralja Aleksandra, 1929– 1935 (Belgrade, Institut za savremenu istoriju, 2006), pp. 287– 9. AJ, f.66(pov)/12/32: report by the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Education, 16 July 1932, 13 March 1933, 20 July 1933; decision by the Ministry of Education, 10 November 1933. Quotation from the report of 20 July 1933. AJ, f.66(pov)/13/34: report by the district chief of Zagreb, 19 August 1932. AJ, f.66(pov)/12/32: report of the provincial authorities in Zagreb to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, forwarded to the Ministry of Education, 12 August 1930. AJ, f.66(pov)/13/34: report from the district authorities of Varvarin to the provincial authorities, 1 October 1935. Ibid.: decision by the disciplinary court at the Ministry of Education, 15 February 1936. Ibid.: report by the Ministry of Education, 5 July 1933. Ibid.: report by the authorities of Littoral banovina to the Ministry of Education, 3 September 1935. AJ, f.66(pov)/15/39: interpellation of Rudolf Plesˇkovicˇ and Karel Dobersˇek to the Ministry of Education. Ibid.: third answer of the education department of Drava banovina to the Ministry of Education, 18 May 1936. An officer and prominent member of the local Sokol, for example, denounced the local school principal and the teacher Franc Erjavec for leading a ‘separatist’ group in the village of Kodeljevo-Moste, nearby Ljubljana. They held frequent political meetings in the local cinema because the authorities could not check them there. The officer suggested that the teachers in question should be transferred and replaced by Yugoslav-oriented teachers (AJ, f.66(pov)/12/32: anonymous letter to the Ministry of Education, 24 February 1933). Erjavec was transferred to Vucˇitrn in northern Kosovo but returned to a position with the provincial authorities of Drava banovina after the formation of the Yugoslav Radical Union government (AJ, f.66(pov)/15/39: report in response to the questions of Plesˇkovicˇ and Dobersˇek, 18 May 1936).

NOTES TO PAGES 196 –200

283

59. AJ, f.66(pov)/15/39: fourth answer of the education department of Drava banovina to the Ministry of Education, 18 May 1936. 60. AJ, f.66(pov)/12/32: report by the Department for State Security to the Ministry of Education, 13 March 1931; report by the education department of Sava banovina to the Ministry of Education, 10 July 1931; decision by the Ministry of Education, 6 August 1931. 61. Ibid.: report by the education department of Sava banovina to the Ministry of Education, 20 April 1931. 62. Ibid.: report by the authorities of Sava banovina, forwarded to the Ministry of Education by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 4 August 1930. 63. Ibid.: report by the education department of Sava banovina to the Ministry of Education, 10 July 1931. 64. Ibid.: report by the education department of Sava banovina to the Ministry of Education, 10 July 1931. It should be noted that educational authorities did not look only at national behaviour when evaluating teaching personnel. The same report of 10 July 1931 also demanded the dismissal of two principals because they did not have the formal skills for the position. 65. Ibid.: report by the Department for State Security of Sava banovina to the Ministry of Education, 26 December 1931. 66. Ibid.: decision by the Ministry of Education, 1 March 1933. 67. Ibid.: reply by the governor of Sava banovina to the Ministry of Education, 25 March 1933. 68. Ibid.: report from the cabinet of Prime Minister Zˇivkovic´ to the Ministry of Education, 21 February 1930; decision by the Ministry of Education, 1 April 1930. 69. Ibid.: report by the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Education, 6 April 1931. 70. Ibid.: report by the Department for State Security of Sava banovina, forwarded to the Ministry of Education by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 10 October 1932. 71. Ibid.: report by school inspector Radoje Stepanac, 23 June 1934. 72. Ibid.: report by the district chief of Osijek, 3 July 1934. 73. Ibid. 74. Ibid.: report by the school inspector of Osijek, 20 July 1935. 75. Ibid.: report by the Ministry of Education, 30 December 1935. 76. Max Bergholz, ‘Sudden nationhood: The microdynamics of intercommunal relations in Bosnia-Herzegovina after World War II’, The American Historical Review 118/3 (2013), pp. 679– 707; Tone Bringa, Being Muslim the Bosnian Way: Identity and Community in a Central Bosnian Village (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 65 – 84. 77. AJ, f.66(pov)/12/32: report from the authorities of Drina banovina to the Ministry of Education, including a report by inspector Drag. Stojkovic´ of 3 July 1932, 22 July 1932.

284

NOTES TO PAGES 201 – 205

78. AJ, f.66(pov)/15/39: report by the authorities of Drina banovina to the Ministry of Education, with statements by Katarina Crvenkovic´, Marija Rajber, and Ivan Tomas, 17 October 1932. 79. Ibid.: letter from Mara Bosˇkovic´ to the education department of Drina banovina, 17 September 1932. 80. Ibid.: reports by the district authorities of Brcˇko, 26 September 1932, 5 October 1932, and 10 October 1932; reports by the authorities of Drina banovina, 21 September 1932 and 8 October 1932. 81. Ibid.: report of the Brcˇko district chief, 5 October 1932. 82. Ibid.: report of the education department of Drina banovina to the Ministry of Education, 7 November 1932. 83. Ibid.: decision by the Ministry of Education, 23 November 1932. 84. Ibid.: report by the Slavonska Pozˇega district authorities, 9 May 1939. 85. AJ, f.74/11/20: complaint from the Croatian choral society to the Royal Chancellery, 21 July 1931; response from the authorities of Drina banovina to the Ministry of Interior, 27 August 1931. 86. Bojan Todosijevic´, ‘Why Bunjevci did not become a nation: A case study’, East Central Europe 29/1 – 2 (2002), pp. 59 – 82. 87. ‘Jedan nacionalni zlocˇin’, Jugoslovenski dnevnik, 23 March 1930, p. 1; for similar arguments, see ‘Setimo se najvec´eg Bunjevca-Jugoslovena’, Jugoslovenski dnevnik, 13 February 1930, p. 1. 88. Ibid.; ‘Bunjevci, Hrvati i Srbi’, Jugoslovenski dnevnik, 28 March 1930, p. 2. 89. AJ, f.66(pov)/59/153: report from the school inspector of Subotica to the Ministry of Education, 9 July 1929. 90. AJ, f.66(pov)/15/39: report by the Podunavski district authorities, 11 January 1938. 91. Ibid.: letter from Nikola Nikic´ to the Minister of Education, 2 March 1933. 92. Ibid.: report of the school inspector of Danube banovina, 17 April 1933. This report also included the minutes of interrogations of witnesses and Rajkovic´ himself. 93. Ibid.: report by the Ministry of Education, 28 September 1933. 94. AJ, f.66(pov)/15/32: anonymous letter to Prime Minister Zˇivkovic´ against Slavko Modrijan in a report of the provincial authorities in Zagreb to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, forwarded to the Ministry of Education on 12 August 1930. 95. AJ, f.66(pov)/15/40: report from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Education, 27 July 1933. 96. Bosˇkovska: Das Jugoslawische Makedonien, pp. 311– 12; Vladan Jovanovic´, Vardarska banovina 1929– 1941 (Belgrade, Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, 2011), pp. 211– 12. 97. The celebration of the family’s patron saint’s name day (slava) in Macedonia was typically quoted as evidential of the Serbian national character of popular culture in the region (Jovan Erdeljanovic´, ‘Etnicˇki polozˇaj Srba Stare Srbije i Makedonije izmed¯u Juzˇnim Slovenima’, Nova Evropa 10/11 (1924), pp. 331–2).

NOTES TO PAGES 205 –209

285

98. Bosˇkovska: Das Jugoslawische Makedonien, pp. 268– 76; Jovanovic´: Vardarska banovina, pp. 209– 12. 99. Jovanovic´: Vardarska banovina, p. 212 100. Bosˇkovska: Das Jugoslawische Makedonien, p. 268. 101. Ljubodrag Dimic´, Kulturna politika u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji, vol. 2 (Belgrade, Stubovi kulture, 1997), p. 107. 102. Jovanovic´: Vardarska banovina, pp. 208– 9. 103. Dimic´: Kulturna politika, vol.2, pp. 107–10; Jovanovic´: Vardarska banovina, pp. 211 –12. 104. Martin Mayer, Elementarbildung in Jugoslawien (1918– 1941). Ein Beitrag zur gesellschaftlichen Modernisierung? (Munich, Oldenbourg Verlag, 1995), p. 109. 105. Jovanovic´: Vardarska banovina, p. 211. 106. Before World War I, Truhelka had been the director of the Bosnian Agricultural Museum in Sarajevo. He had published a book about ‘Croatian Bosnia’, in which he had argued that Croats and Muslims were identical in genetical make-up, whereas Serbian Orthodox represented a distinct, physically degenerate type of Vlach descent (Rory Yeomans, ‘Of “Yugoslav barbarians” and Croatian gentlemen scholars: nationalist ideology and racial anthropology in interwar Yugoslavia’, in Marius Turda and Paul J. Weindling (eds), Blood and Homeland: Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeast Europe, 1900– 1940 (Budapest, Central European University Press, 2007), pp. 103–5, 113). 107. Bosˇkovska: Das Jugoslawische Makedonien, pp. 297 –304; Vladan Jovanovic´, Jugoslovenska drzˇava i juzˇna Srbija 1918 –1929 (Belgrade, Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, 2002), pp. 330–40. 108. Tara Zahra, ‘Imagined noncommunities: National indifference as a category of practice’, Slavic Review 69/1 (2010), p. 97. 109. AJ, f.66(pov)/13/33: report from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Education, 30 September 1933; letters in support of Ilic´, December 1933; decision by the Ministry of Education, 13 September 1934. 110. AJ, f.66(pov)/13/36: letter from Albert Kramer to Minister of Education Radenko Stankovic´, 18 January 1934; report from the Petrinja district chief to the provincial authorities, 3 August 1934; decision by the Ministry of Education, 18 August 1934. 111. Ibid.: report from the district chief of Zajecˇar to the authorities of Morava banovina, 3 November 1934; report from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Education, 14 November 1934 and 31 December 1934; report from the Ministry of Defence to the Ministry of Education, 11 December 1934; report from the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army to the Ministry of Education, 14 December 1934; decision by the Ministry of Education, 15 April 1935. 112. Ibid.: letter from deputy Milosˇ Dragovic´ to Minister of Education Stevan C´iric´ and to Prime Minister Bogoljub Jevtic´, 26 December 1934. 113. Ibid.: Novska district police report against Ðuro Cˇaic´, 29 November 1932. 114. Ibid.: report by the State Court for State Security, 3 December 1932.

286

NOTES TO PAGES 209 –213

115. Ibid.: report from the Novska district chief, 25 November 1933; report from the authorities of Sava banovina to the Ministry of Education, 7 December 1933 and 15 December 1933. 116. Ibid.: Novska district police report, 30 November 1934. 117. Christian A. Nielsen, ‘One state, one nation, one king: The dictatorship of King Alexander and his Yugoslav project, 1929– 1935’ (D.Phil. dissertation, Columbia University, 2002), p. 368. 118. AJ, f.66(pov)/13/33: report by the Ministry of Education to the education department of Danube banovina, 20 September 1930. 119. Ibid.: report by the district chief of Bacˇki Breg to the authorities of Danube banovina, 10 October 1930. 120. AJ, f.66(pov)/13/34: letter from a group of villagers, 2 June 1928. 121. Ibid.: report by the authorities of Drina banovina to the Ministry of Education, 14 March 1930. 122. Ibid.: report by Stjepan Pavlovic´ to the Zˇupanje district authorities, 2 July 1930. 123. Ibid.: decision by the Ministry of Education, 12 July 1930. 124. AJ, f.66(pov)/13/36: report by the district authorities of Makarska, 9 November 1933; decision by the Ministry of Education, 16 November 1933. 125. AJ, f.66(pov)/12/32: report by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 4 August 1930. 126. Ibid.: report by the education department of Littoral banovina to the Ministry of Education, 28 July 1934. 127. Ibid.: letter of Zaradic´ to the Ministry of Education, 6 September 1934. 128. Ibid.: report of the district chief of Imotski to the provincial authorities, 21 November 1934; Imotski district police report, 25 January 1935. 129. Ibid.: interrogation of Nikola Frankic´, 10 December 1934. 130. Ibid.: report of school inspector Nikola Zelic´ to the provincial authorities, 13 December 1934. 131. Ibid.: report by the district chief of Imotski, 28 December 1934. 132. Ibid.: letter from a group of inhabitants of Koprivnica to the Ministry of Education, 1 October 1931. 133. Ibid.: letter from a group of ‘regular Yugoslavs’ to the Prime Minister, forwarded by the Ministry of Education to the education department of Sava banovina, 26 November 1931. 134. Ibid.: report by the district authorities of Koprivnica, 26 October 1931. 135. Ibid.: decision by the Ministry of Education, 10 December 1931. 136. See for example ‘Rezolucija XV glavne skupsˇtine Jugoslovenskog ucˇiteljskog udruzˇenja odrzˇane u dane 22, 23 i 24 avgusta 1935 godine u Sarajevu’, Narodna prosveta, 4 September 1935, p. 2; Glasnik jugoslovenskog profesorskog drusˇtva 17 (1936), pp. 216– 18. 137. Ivan Dimnik, ‘XVII glavna ucˇiteljska skupsˇtina, govor pretsednika JUU’, Narodna prosveta, 2 September 1937, p. 1.

NOTES TO PAGES 213 –219

287

138. ‘Deklaracija o smeru stalesˇke politike Jugoslovenskog ucˇiteljskog udruzˇenja’, Ucˇitelj 16/1 (1935), p. 4. 139. Marijan Tkalcˇic´, ‘Problemi nastavnog programa’, Glasnik jugoslovenskog profesorskog drusˇtva 16/8 (1936), pp. 686– 7. 140. Ibid. 141. AJ, f.66(pov)/13/34: report by the authorities of Littoral banovina to the Ministry of Internal Affairs; internal report of the authorities of Littoral banovina, 11 October 1935. 142. Ibid.: report by the authorities of Littoral banovina to the Ministry of Education, 18 October 1935; decision by the Ministry of Education, 16 December 1935. 143. AJ, f.66(pov)/15/39: report by the district authorities of Gospic´ to the educational department of Littoral banovina, 24 February 1936. 144. Based on articles by Franjo Marinic´, the leader of the section of the Yugoslav Teachers Association for Sava banovina, quoted in Suzana Lecˇek and Tihana Petrovic´ Lesˇ, Znanost i svjetonazor. Etnologija i prosvjetna politika Banovine Hrvatske 1939–1941 (Zagreb, Srednja Europa, 2010), p. 72. 145. AJ, f.66(pov)/15/39: report from the Ministry of Defence to the Ministry of Education, 8 May 1937. 146. Ibid.: report of the Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Defence, 8 June 1937. 147. AJ, f.66(pov)/102/302: report from school inspector Josip Karaman to the Ministry of Education, the complaint by Milorad Jovic´ was dated 6 November 1937. 148. Ibid.: letter from the district authorities of Preko to the authorities of Littoral banovina, 14 May 1935. 149. The Catholic Episcopate had demanded that in schools with a Catholic majority only Catholic teachers would be allowed to teach (AJ, f.66/259/500: letter from the Catholic Episcopate to the Minister of Education, 2 March 1932). 150. AJ, f.66(pov)/15/39: letter from the district authorities of Preko to the authorities of Littoral banovina, 14 May 1935. 151. Ibid. 152. Ibid.: letter from the principal of the civil school in Mostar to the education department of Littoral banovina, 9 May 1931. 153. Ibid.: instructions from the Ministry of Education, 25 May 1931. 154. AJ, f.66(pov)/15/40: decision by the Ministry of Education, 28 May 1931. 155. AJ, f.66(pov)/12/32: letter from the district chief of Sombor to the education department of Danube banovina, no date given. 156. AJ, f.66(pov)/91/261: report by the authorities of Drina banovina about Napredak’s annual meeting of 5 July 1933, 14 July 1933. 157. AJ, f.66(pov)/12/32: letter of district authorities to the police in Split, 4 August 1933. 158. Ibid.: Split district police report, 14 September 1933.

288

NOTES TO PAGES 219 –224

159. Mayer: Elementarbildung, p. 196. 160. Ibrahim Kemura, Uloga Gajreta u drusˇtvenom zˇivotu Muslimana (Sarajevo, Veselin Malesˇa, 1986), p. 313. 161. Sabina Ferhadbegovic´, ‘Fes oder Hut? Der Islam in Bosnien zwischen den Weltkriegen’, Wiener Zeitschrift fu¨r Geschichte des Neuzeit 5/2 (2005), pp. 69 – 85; Mayer: Elementarbildung, pp. 196– 7. 162. AJ, f.66(pov)/15/39: report from the district authorities of Bijeljina to the authorities of Drina banovina, 18 February 1933. 163. Ibid.: decision from the Ministry of Education, 6 March 1933. 164. Ibid.: report from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Education, 13 February 1934. 165. Ibid.: report from the district authorities of Kosovska Mitrovica to the education department of Zeta banovina, 16 January 1935. 166. Ibid.: letter from the Islamic Religious Community to the Ministry of Education, 5 March 1935; decision by the Ministry of Education, 10 April 1935. 167. Ibid.: decision by the Ministry of Education, 23 May 1931. 168. The fez and the veil were salient markers of ‘backward’ and ‘fanatic’ Islam. They occupied a key position in disputes between reformist and conservative Islamic currents (Ferhadbegovic´: ‘Fes oder Hut?’; Fabio Giomi, ‘Reforma— The organization of progressive Muslims and its role in interwar Bosnia’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 29/4 (2009), pp. 495– 510). I have not found state decisions concerning wearing fezzes by public servants. 169. AJ, f.66(pov)/15/39: interrogation of Franjo Miljkovic´ by the Livno district authorities, 12 March 1931. 170. Ibid. 171. Ibid. 172. Ibid.: report by the Livno district chief, 5 April 1931. 173. Ibid.: report by the education department of Littoral banovina, 11 May 1931. 174. Ibid.: letter from Grand Mufti Ibrahim Maglajlic´ to the Ministry of Education, 28 July 1933. 175. Ibid.: report from the Ministry of Education to the district authorities of Daruvar, 3 May 1938. 176. Ibid.: response from the Daruvar district authorities to the Ministry of Education, 10 May 1938. 177. Ibid.: decision by the Ministry of Education, 18 May 1938.

Chapter 10 The Comparative and Long-Term Significance of Interwar Yugoslav Nation Building 1. Miroslav Hroch, ‘Typology of nation-forming processes in Europe’, in Athena S. Leoussi (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Nationalism (New Brunswick, Transaction Publ., 2001), pp. 289–90.

NOTES TO PAGES 224 –229

289

2. Joost Augusteijn and Eric Storm (eds), Region and State in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). 3. Abigail Green, Fatherlands: State-Building and Nationhood in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 334. 4. The terminological and conceptual similarity between Stamm –Volk – Nation in the German case and pleme – narod– nacija in the Yugoslav case is too striking to be coincidental, although I have not found evidence of the direct and conscious adoption of the German terminology among Yugoslav national thinkers. In both cases, the modern ‘tribe’ goes back to an ancient social unit of the people and an immediate pre-unification political unit of the nation; the ‘people’ refer to a timeless, ethnic – cultural community, the ‘nation’ to a modern, political unit that is closely related to the nation-state. 5. Green: Fatherlands. 6. Celia Applegate, A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990), especially ch. 3; Alon Confino, The Nation As a Local Metaphor: Wu¨rttemberg, Imperial Germany, and National Memory, 1871– 1918 (Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1997), especially pt 2; Green: Fatherlands, ch. 8; Siegfried Weichlein, Nation und Region: Integrationsprozesse im Bismarckreich (Du¨sseldorf, Droste, 2006), especially chs 5 and 6. 7. Xose´-Manoel Nu´n˜ez, ‘The region as essence of the fatherland: Regionalist variants of Spanish nationalism (1840 – 1936)’, European History Quarterly 31/4 (2001), p. 504. 8. Ibid., pp. 483– 518. 9. Christopher Clark and Wolfram Kaiser (eds), Culture Wars: Secular–National Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003). 10. Daniel Mollenhauer, ‘Symbolka¨mpfe um die Nation: Katholiken und Laizisten in Frankreich (1871–1914)’, in Heinz-Gerhard Haupt and Dieter Langewiesche (eds), Nation und Religion in Europa: Mehrkonfessionelle Gesellschaften im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt, Campus, 2004), pp. 202–30, quote on p. 228. 11. Carter Vaughn Findley, Turkey, Islam, Nationalism, and Modernity (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2010), p. 304. 12. Ibid., pp. 415– 21. 13. Frank-Michael Kuhlemann, ‘Konfessionalisierung der Nation? Deutschland im 19. und fru¨hen 20. Jahrhundert’, in Haupt and Langewiesche (eds): Nation und Religion, pp. 31 – 45; Helmut Walser Smith, German Nationalism and Religious Conflict: Culture, Ideology, Politics, 1870– 1914 (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1995), pt 1. 14. Walser Smith: German Nationalism, pp. 61 – 78. 15. Ibid., pt 2, ch. 7. 16. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Culture: Selected Essays (London, Fontana Press, 1993), p. 245. 17. John A. Davis, ‘Introduction: Italy’s difficult modernization’, in John A. Davis (ed.), Italy in the Nineteenth Century 1796– 1900 (New York, Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 19.

290

NOTES TO PAGES 229 –237

18. Ibid., pp. 18 – 20. 19. Ibid., pp. 20–2; Lucy Riall, ‘Garibaldi and the South’, in Davis: Italy, esp. pp. 152–3. 20. The national sphere is the aggregate of public cultural and political activities through which people give meanings to nationhood. These activities range from politicised attempts at national mobilisation and legitimation, over nongovernmental associational activism, to more banal forms of popular culture (Keely Stauter-Halsted, The Nation in the Village: The Genesis of Peasant National Identity in Austrian Poland, 1848– 1914 (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2001), p. 6). 21. Nancy M. Wingfield, Flag Wars and Stone Saints: How the Bohemian Lands Became Czech (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2007), p. 197. 22. Alejandro Quiroga, Making Spaniards: Primo de Rivera and the Nationalization of the Masses, 1923– 1930 (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 120– 1. 23. Ibid., pp. 152– 5. 24. Confino: The Nation As a Local Metaphor, pt 1. 25. Karen Barkey, ‘Thinking about consequences of empire’, in Karen Barkey and Mark Von Hagen (eds), After Empire: Multiethnic Societies and Nation-Building. The Soviet Union and the Russian, Ottoman, and Habsburg Empires (Boulder, Westview Press, 1997), pp. 109–12. 26. I take over this term from the ‘Phantomgrenzen im Ostmitteleuropa’ research network. See http://phantomgrenzen.eu. 27. Elisabeth Bakke, ‘Doomed to failure? The Czechoslovak nation project and the Slovak autonomist reaction 1919– 1938’ (D.Phil. dissertation, University of Oslo, 1999), pp. 327–32; Cynthia J. Paces, ‘“The Czech nation must be Catholic!” An alternative vision of Czech nationalism during the First Republic’, Nationalities Papers 27/3 (1999), pp. 407–28; Cynthia J. Paces, ‘Religious heroes for a secular state: Commemorating Jan Hus and Saint Wenceslas in 1920s Czechoslovakia’, in Maria Bucur and Nancy M. Wingfield (eds), Staging the Past: The Politics of Commemoration in Habsburg Central Europe, 1848 to the Present (West Lafayette, Purdue University Press, 2001), pp. 210–21. 28. This argument is inspired by the conclusion in Paces: ‘Religious Heroes’, pp. 230– 2. 29. Theodora Dragostinova, Between Two Motherlands: Nationality and Emigration Among the Greeks of Bulgaria, 1900 –1949 (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2011), pp. 184– 90. 30. The canonical argumentation that Serbian and Croatian national identities were crystallised by the time the Yugoslav state was formed remains Ivo Banac’s The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1984). Dejan Djokic´ finds it ‘debatable whether Serbian and Croatian nationalisms had been formed by 1918, and whether they remained immune to evolution following the creation of Yugoslavia’ (Dejan Djokic´, Elusive Compromise: A History of Interwar Yugoslavia (London, Hurst & Co, 2007), p. 7). My own position leans toward the latter. This does not imply that I hold

NOTES TO PAGES 237 –238

291

that Serbian, Croatian, or other candidates of nationhood in the region could be replaced by Yugoslav nationhood but that their relationship with the Yugoslav category of national identification was contingent upon the institutionalisation of nationhood in interwar Yugoslavia. 31. Ksenija Cvetkovic´-Sander, Sprachpolitik und nationale Identita¨t im sozialistischen Jugoslawien (1945–1991) (Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag, 2011), pp. 103–21, 187–245; Hilde Katrine Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia: Tito, Communist Leadership and the National Question (London, I.B.Tauris, 2012), chs 6, 7, and 10. 32. V.P. Gagnon Jr., The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2004), ch. 3.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Unpublished I use the conventional numeration for references to sources from the Archives of Yugoslavia, which consists of three numbers: the first number refers to the fond, the second to the fascicle (fascikla), and the third to the archival unit (arhivska jedinica). Arhiv Jugoslavije (Archives of Yugoslavia), Belgrade [AJ]. AJ 66: Ministarstvo Prosvete (Ministry of Education). AJ 74: Kraljev Dvor (Royal Court).

Curricula For elementary education

Decree P.br. 7,823, 27 June 1925 (AJ, f.66/254/495). Decrees O.n. br. 8,120 and O.n. br. 11,959, 9 and 23 August 1926 (AJ, f.66/1281/1527). Decree O.n. br. 45,131, 3 October 1927 (AJ, f.66/1281/1527). Decree O.n. 48,491, 17 July 1933 (Aranicki and Karadzˇic´ (eds): Jugoslovenski ucˇiteljski zbornik, pp. 54 – 69).

For higher popular schools

Decree O.n. br. 65,764, 15 August 1932 (Aranicki and Karadzˇic´ (eds): Jugoslovenski ucˇiteljski zbornik, pp. 70 – 108).

For secondary schools

Decree P. Br. 7,824, 27 June 1925 (Prosvetni glasnik 42 (1926), pp. 40 – 51, for the third and fourth year). Decrees S.n. br. 27,761 and S.n. br. 28,688, 14 and 25 November 1924 (AJ, f.66/653A, only for the first two years).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

293

Decree S.n. br. 74,217, 26 June 1926 (AJ, f.66/653A, for the higher years). Decree S.n. br. 11,982, 3 May 1927 (Prosvetni glasnik 43 (1927), pp. 153 –4). Decree S.n. br. 23,921, 12 August 1927 (Prosvetni glasnik 43 (1927), pp. 425– 82, only for the higher years). Decrees S.n. br. 28,311 and S.n. br. 28,873, 1930 (Programi i metodska uputstva za rad u srednjim sˇkolama (Belgrade, Drzˇavna sˇtamparija, 1936), pp. 30 – 2)).

For civil schools

Decree P. br. 7,824, 27 June 1925 (Osnovna nastava 1/22 (1925), pp. 761–2, for the first two years). Decree O.n. br. 8,122, 9 August 1926 (Prosvetni glasnik 42 (1926), p. 266). Decree O.n. br. 14,872, 4 September 1926 (AJ, f.66/2092). Decree S.n.br. 16,814, 11 May 1936 (AJ, f.66/653A).

For teacher-training schools

Decree P. br. 7,825, 27 June 1925 (Osnovna nastava 1/22 (1925), pp. 773– 84, for the first two years). Decree O.n. br. 21,874, 1 October 1926 (AJ, f.66/2182/2978). Decree S.n. br. 28,375, 27 August 1931 (Prosvetni glasnik 47 (1931), pp. 710– 11). Decree S.n br. 28,313, 12 September 1939 (Prosvetni glasnik 46 (1939), pp. 1052 – 68).

Textbooks Elementary education Reading books

Blagojevic´, Urosˇ and Mihailo Stanojevic´. Cˇitanka za III razred osnovnih ˇskola, 7th edn (Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1921). ———. Cˇitanka za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola, 5th edn (Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1922). Cˇajkovac, Sigismund. Cˇitanka za I/II/III/IV razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini SHS (4 vols, Zagreb, Narodne novine, 1926). ———, Stjepan Bosanac, Vladimir Nazor, and Stjepan Ratkovic´. Cˇitanka za I/II/ III/IV razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini Jugoslavije (4 vols, Zagreb, Tipografija, 1937). ———. Cˇitanka za III razred pucˇkih sˇkola u Banovini Hrvatskoj (Zagreb, Naklada sˇkolskih knjiga i tiskanica Banovine Hrvatske, 1940). Cˇernej, Ljudevit. Tretja cˇitanka, 2nd edn (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1925). Flere, Pavle. Peta cˇitanka (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1935). ——— and Josip Jurancˇicˇ, Andrej Skulj, and Ernest Vranc. Za vse leto. Cˇitanka za drugi razred osnovnih sˇol (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1938). ——— and Josip Jurancˇicˇ, Andrej Skulj, and Ernest Vranc. Lepa nasˇa domovina. Cˇitanka za cˇetrti razred osnovnih sˇol (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1940). Gangl, Engelbert. Druga cˇitanka (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1923). Hafner, Kristina and France Locˇnisˇkar. Tretje slovensko berilo (Ljubljana, Banovinska zaloga sˇolskih knjig in ucˇil, 1940).

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Jedrlinic´, Tomo. Druga srbska ali hrvatska cˇitanka za slovenske sˇole (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1923). ———. Tretja srbska ali hrvatska cˇitanka za slovenske visˇje narodne, mesˇcˇanske ali drugi strokovne sˇole (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1932). Jovic´, Mihailo. Cˇitanka za I/II/III/IV razred osnovnih sˇkola (4 vols, Novi Sad, Natosˇevic´, 1920– 2). Lesica, Ivan. Druga srbska ali hrvatska cˇitanka za 1 in 2 razred visˇjih narodnih sˇol (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1932). ——— and Rudolf Mole. Prva srbska ali hrvatska cˇitanka (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1929). Matovic´, Milosˇ. Cˇitanka za I/II/III/IV razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini Jugoslavije (4 vols, Belgrade, J. Dzˇelebdzˇic´, 1933– 4). Milovanovic´, Svetomir and Jovan Milosˇevic´. Cˇitanka sa gramatikom: za III/IV razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1938). Mladenovic´, Atanasije. Cˇitanka za III/IV razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini Jugoslavije, 2nd edn (Belgrade, Jovanovic´ i Vujic´, 1940). Obradovic´, Stevan. Cˇitanka za I razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini Jugoslavije, 9th edn (Belgrade, Drzˇavna sˇtamparija, 1935). ———. Cˇitanka za III razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini Jugoslavije (Belgrade, Jovanovic´ i Vujic´, 1938). Ognjanovic´, Andrija and Branko Magarasˇevic´. Cˇitanka za II/III/IV razred osnovnih sˇkola (3 vols, Belgrade, Drzˇavna sˇtamparija, 1938). Popovic´, Jovan. Cˇitanka za II razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1922). ———. Cˇitanka za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Jovanovic´ i Vujic´, 1935). ———. Cˇitanka za III razred osnovnih sˇkola, 2nd edn (Belgrade, Jovanovic´ i Vujic´, 1936). Protic´, Ljubomir and Vlad. D. Stojanovic´. Srpska cˇitanka: prva/druga/trec´a knjiga za II/III/IV razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini SHS (3 vols, Belgrade, Drzˇavna sˇtamparija, 1921– 3). ——— (revised by Branislav Miljkovic´). Cˇitanka za III/IV razred osnovnih sˇkola u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji (Belgrade, Drzˇavna sˇtamparija, 1930– 1). Rape, Andrej. Cˇetrta cˇitanka (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1924). Stanojevic´, Mihailo and Zˇivko Stefanovic´. Cˇitanka za III/IV razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1923– 4). Vujanac, Milorad. Srpska cˇitanka za I/II razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1920). ———. Cˇitanka za III/IV razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1924).

Geography

Cvejic´, Konstantin and Ðorđe Obrenovic´. Zemljopis Jugoslavije: za IV razred osnovne sˇkole (Belgrade, Narodna prosveta, 1933). Ivkovic´, Sima. Zemljopis sa atlasom Kraljevine Jugoslavije: za ucˇenike IV razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Milojevic´ i Pavlovic´, 1938). Popovic´, Cvetko. Zemljopis Kraljevine Jugoslavije za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1939). Popovic´, Milan. Zemljopis Kraljevine Jugoslavije za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, J. Dzˇelebdzˇic´, 1939).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

295

Rabrenovic´, Milan and Vladimir Simic´. Zemljopis Kraljevine Jugoslavije (Belgrade, C´ukovic´, 1935). Stanojevic´, Mihailo. Zemljopis Kraljevine Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca (Belgrade, Valozˇevic´, 1920). Stevanovic´, Blagoje. Zemljopis Kraljevine Jugoslavije za IV razred osnovne sˇkole, 7th edn (Belgrade, Narodna prosveta, 1936). Vujanac, Milorad. Zemljopis za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1923).

History

Ðord¯evic´, Zˇivojin and Dragoljub Stranjakovic´. Istorija Jugoslovena za III/IV razred osnovne sˇkole (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1936– 40). Dragovic´, Mirko and Sava Pavic´evic´. Istorija Jugoslovena: za IV razred narodnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Kosta Mihailovic´, 1939). Ilic´, Dragoljub. Narodna istorija Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca (Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1929). ———. Istorija Jugoslovena (Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca) za III razred osnovne sˇkole, 15th edn (Belgrade, C´ukovic´, 1938). Josimovic´, Borivoje and Jovan Malezanovic´. Istorija za III razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Jov. Mihailovic´, 1939). Jovanovic´, Jovan P. Istorija Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca (Ljubljana, Ucˇiteljska tiskarna, 1923). Jovic´, Mihailo. Srpska istorija sa kratkim istorijom Hrvata i Slovenaca za IV razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1921). ———. Narodna istorija Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca za III razred osnovnih ˇskola (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1928). Matovic´, Milosˇ. Istorija Jugoslovena za III razred osnovne sˇkole (Belgrade, J. Dzˇelebdzˇic´, 193?). Prica, Dusˇan. Istorija jugoslovenskog naroda za III/IV razred osnovne ˇskole (Belgrade, Jovanovic´ i Vujic´, 1938– 7). Rabrenovic´, Milan. Istorija Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca za III razred osnovnih sˇkola, 3rd edn (Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1928). ———. Istorija nasˇega naroda za III/IV razred osnovnih sˇkola (Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1930– 1). Rakocˇevic´, Risto and Ðorđe Lazarevic´. Istorija Jugoslovena za III razred osnovne sˇkole, 11th edn (Belgrade, Prosveta, 1940). Stefanovic´, Radisˇa. Istorija za IV razred osnovne sˇkole (Belgrade, Privreda, 1939).

Secondary education Reading books

Alimpic´, Dobrivoje and Milosˇ Veljkovic´. Srpskohrvatska cˇitanka za I/IV razred srednjih sˇkola (Belgrade. K. Mihailovic´, 1939). Bajec, Anton, Rudolf Kolaricˇ, Mirko Rupel, Anton Sovre, and Jakob Sˇolar. Slovenska cˇitanka in slovnica za I/II/III/IV razred srednjih in sorodnih sˇol (4 vols, Ljubljana, Banovinska zaloga sˇolskih knjig in ucˇil, 1931– 9). Ivkovic´, Milosˇ and Vojislav Jovanovic´. Srpska cˇitanka za I/II/III/IV razred srednjih sˇkola (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1919– 20).

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———. Srpska cˇitanka za I/II/III/IV razred srednjih sˇkola (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1927– 8). Magarasˇevic´, Branka, Kresˇimir Georgijevic´, and Mladen Leskovac. Srpskohrvatska cˇitanka za I/II/III/IV razred srednjih sˇkola (4 vols, Belgrade, Profesorsko drusˇtvo, 1938). Nazor, Vladimir and Antun Barac. Cˇitanka iz hrvatskosrpskoga jezika za I/II/III/IV razred srednjih sˇkola (4 vols, Zagreb, Profesorsko drusˇtvo, 1929– 37). Pavlovic´, Milivoj and Dragoslav Ilic´. Cˇitanka sa gramatikom srpskohrvatskog jezika, za I/II/III/IV razred srednjih sˇkola (4 vols, Belgrade, Profesorsko drusˇtvo, 1930 –4). Prodanovic´, Jasˇa. Cˇitanka za I/II/III/IV razred srednjih sˇkola (4 vols, Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1928– 9). Sˇevic´, Milan. Srpska cˇitanka za srednje sˇkole u Kraljevini SHS (4 vols, Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1920– 3). ——— and Milan C´ukovic´. Cˇitanka za I razred srednjih sˇkola, 3rd edn (Sarajevo, Hrvatska tiskara, 1926). ———. Cˇitanka za II razred srednjih sˇkola, 3rd edn (Sarajevo, Profesorsko drusˇtvo, 1931). Vulovic´, Zora. Cˇitanka za I/II/III/IV razred srednjih sˇkola (4 vols, Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1926– 8).

Literature history

And¯elic´, Ðorđe. Istorijski pregled jugoslovenske knjizˇevnosti (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1933). Grafenauer, Ivan, Janko Bezjak, and Anton Breznik. Slovenska ˇcitanka za visˇje razrede srednjih in njim slicˇnih sˇol, vols 2 and 3 (Ljubljana, Kr. zaloga sˇolskih knjig in ucˇil, 1922, 1925). Jankovic´, Ljubica. Iz slovenacˇke knjizˇevnosti (Belgrade, Profesorsko drusˇtvo, 1928). Jotic´, Aranđel. Istorija slovenacˇke knjizˇevnosti (Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1920). ———. Istorija knjizˇevnosti Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca (3 vols, Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1921– 4). Veljkovic´, Momir and Milosˇ Savkovic´. Jugoslovenska knjizˇevnost (3 vols, Belgrade, Profesorsko drusˇtvo, 1932– 9).

Geography

Bohinec, Valter, Maks Miklavcˇicˇ, and Roman Savnik. Zemljepis za IV razred srednjih sˇol: Kraljevina Jugoslavija (Ljubljana, Jugoslovanska knjigarna, 1938). Ðord¯evic´, Dimitrije and Pavle Sokolovic´. Nasˇa Kraljevina i Balkanska poluostrvo, 4th edn (Belgrade, Profesorsko drusˇtvo, 1928). ———. Balkansko poluostrvo i Kraljevina SHS, 6th edn (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1930). Erdeljanovic´, Jovan. Osnove etnologije (Belgrade, Zadruga profesorskog drusˇtva, 1932). Juras, Ivo. Zemljopis Jugoslavije, Kraljevine Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca (Zagreb, Hrv. sˇtamparski zavod, 1922). Milojevic´, Borivoje. Kraljevina Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca za VIII razred (Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1923). ———. Nasˇa domovina, za IV razred (Belgrade, Rajkovic´ i C´ukovic´, 1923). Milojevic´, Sima and Ilija Sindik. Kraljevina Jugoslavija, za IV razred srednjih sˇkola (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1932).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

297

Orozˇen, Janko. Zemljepis Kraljevine Jugoslavije za IV razred srednjih sˇol (Ljubljana, Tiskarna Merkur, 1937). Radivojevic´, Todor. Balkanska poluostrvo i Kraljevina SHS, 6th edn (Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1925). ———. Kraljevina Jugoslavija s ilustrovanom geografskom cˇitankom, za IV razred srednjih sˇkola, 13th edn (Belgrade, Jovanovic´ i Vujic´, 1935).

History

Binter, Bogdan and Vojteh Sˇtrukelj. Zgodovina Jugoslovanov (2 vols, Ljubljana, Jugoslovensko profesorsko drusˇtvo, sekcija Ljubljana, 1938– 9). Jakic´, Zˇivko. Istorija Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca, za srednje sˇkole (2 vols, Zagreb, 1929). Lazarevic´, Ðord¯e. Istorija Jugoslovena (2 vols, Belgrade, Narodna prosveta, 1931–3). Melik, Anton. Zgodovina Srbov, Hrvatov in Slovencev (2 vols, Ljubljana, Tiskovna zadruga, 1919– 20). ——— and Janko Orozˇen. Zgodovina Jugoslovanov (2 vols, Ljubljana, Jugoslovanska knjigarna, 1928 –9). Stanojevic´, Stanoje. Istorija srpskoga naroda, s pregledom hrvatske i slovenacˇke istorije (2 vols, Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1923– 4). ———. Istorija Jugoslovena (Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca) (2 vols, Belgrade, Geca Kon, 1930– 1). Vukicˇevic´, Milenko. Istorija Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca: za srednje i strucˇne sˇkole (2 vols, Belgrade: Z. Spasojevic´, 1927).

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INDEX

Adriatic Sea, 107 Agricultural Union, 35, 192– 3 Alaupovic´, Ante, 263 (n.18) Antic´, Borisav, 106 Bakic´, Jovo, 6, 34 Baljic´, Salih, 29 Baljosˇevic´, Gligorije, 221 Balkan Wars, 91, 95, 100, 101 Banac, Ivo, 5 – 6, 291 (n.30) banovina, 27 – 8, 34, 104– 5, 107–8, 109– 10, 111 Barac, Antun, 71, 73 Barbaric´, 218 Barjaktarovic´, Petar, 192–3 Bauer, Antun, 150– 1, 160 Belic´, Aleksandar, 63, 67 Blagojevic´, Urosˇ, 106 Bleiweis, Janez, 70, 87, 90, 97 Bogomilism, 113, 262 (n.8) Boranic´, Dragutin, 63 Bosanac, Stjepan, 74, 203 Bosˇkovic´, Dusˇan, 192 Bosˇkovic´, Mihailo, 86 Bosˇkovska, Nada, 106 bosˇnjasˇtvo, 146 Bosnian Church, 120, 264– 5 (n.37) Bosnia-Herzegovina 1908 annexation of, 92

medieval state in, 81, 108 political autonomy, 32, 39, 132 ‘tribal’ affiliation of the territory of, 106 –7, 109, 261– 2 (n.20) uprisings of 1875– 6, 90, 108 Braun, Micika, 198 Brothers of the Croatian Dragon, 181, 197, 207 Brubaker, Rogers, 8 bugarasˇi, 204– 6 Bulat, Petar, 57, 58, 187 Bunjevci, 202– 3, 218 Butarac, Josip, 187 Cˇaic´, Ðuro, 208– 9 Cˇajkovac, Sigismund, 72, 74, 98, 108, 182 Carantania, 80 – 1 Catholic Action, 159 Catholic Church in Yugoslavia ban on the use of Old Slavonic, 126, 128 educational clubs in Slovenia, 161– 2, 163 as foreign church, 126, 153– 4 Glagolitic tradition, 118, 126, 128–9 as national church, 118– 19, 125– 6, 128– 9

INDEX and nationhood, 144– 5, 151– 2, 156– 7, 162–4 opposition against dictatorship, 119, 235 opposition against Sokol movement, 157– 64 religion teachers, 217– 19 and St Sava’s Day, 149– 52 Cˇausˇevic´, Mehmed Dzˇemaludin, Grand Mufti of the Islamic Religious Community, 130, 131, 146– 7, 148 Celje, counts of, 84, 97 C´epulic´, Drago, 187, 188 Cetin, Croatian Parliament on, 84 Christianisation of South Slavs, 116, 125 coat of arms, 270 (n.7) Communist Party of Yugoslavia, 10, 40 – 1 Concordat, 114, 152, 154 Constitution of 1931, 29, 114 Vidovdan, 18, 24, 28, 45, 114, 143 Corfu, declaration of, 17 C´orovic´, Vladimir, 79 – 80, 120 Croatia Independent State of, 152 medieval state of, 81, 95, 165– 7, 168, 173, 175 Croatian banovina, 36 – 8, 129 language, 63 – 4 national territory, 109– 10, 163, 165, 170 political autonomy, 22 – 3, 31 –2, 33, 35, 36 – 7 Croatian Bloc, 187 Croatian Catholic Movement, 144, 151 Croatian Party of Rights, 21, 194 Croatian Peasant Party commemorations, 166, 168, 178–9, 182 political role, 21 – 3, 31, 33, 35, 36, 37, 234– 5

311

and teachers, 169, 181, 182, 186– 7, 193– 5, 209– 10 Croatian Popular Party, 21, 145, 162, 164 Croatian Republican Peasant Party, see Croatian Peasant Party Croatian Union, 21 Croat – Serb Coalition 2, 92 crucifix, 221 Crusaders, 161, 163 Crvenkovic´, Katarina, 200– 1 C´urcˇin, Milan, 57 curriculum geography, 103– 4 history, 78 – 94, 115– 20, 122, 129 language, 55, 60 – 1, 63, 64 literary history, 61– 2 policy, 45 religious education, 115 Cvetkovic´, Dragisˇa, 36, 114 Cvetkovic´ –Macˇek Agreement, 36– 7, 41 Cvijic´, Jovan, 71 Cyril and Methodius, Sts and language, 61 as national saints, 93, 115, 116– 17, 125, 126 school commemoration, 116, 142, 148 Cyrillic alphabet, see Serbo-Croatian, alphabet question in Slovenian education, 60, 76 Czechoslovakia, nation building in, 4– 5, 233– 4 Dalmatia part of the Croatian national territory, 109 regional identity, 107 Davidovic´, Ljubomir, 19, 193 Davidovic´, Petar, 210– 11 Decˇak, Milan 165, 174 Democratic Party, see Yugoslav Democratic Party

312

NATIONALISM

Desˇalj, Pavle, 216 Ðikic´, Osman, 108, 123 Dimitrije, Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, 153 Dimnik, Ivan, 213 Djokic´, Dejan, 7, 291 (n.30) Dobersˇek, Karel, 195– 6 Dobro Polje, Battle of, 92 Ðorđevic´, Dragoslav, 34 Drava banovina, see Slovenian territory Drljevic´, Sekula, 39 Dubrovnik, ‘tribal’ affiliation, 106 Ðuric´, Milosˇ, 71, 74 Dusˇan, Emperor of medieval Serbia, 81, 82, 92, 98, 153, 175, 200 Dvornikovic´, Vladimir, 57, 70, 113, 126, 153, 187 Dzˇemijet, 18 education, before World War I, 43 –4 budget for, 49 legislation, 46 – 7 Ekavian, see Serbo-Croatian, variants of elections, 1931, 29 – 30, 31 1935, 33, 35 1938, 36, 39 Erjavec, Fran, 283 (n.58) ethnicism, 68, 240 (n.15) ethno-symbolism, 6, 68 Fabri, Stjepan, 210 fealty delegations to King Alexander, 92 fez, 220 Filkovic´, Ivan, 208 film, subtitles, 62 flag, 32, 68, 172, 211, 214 – 15, 270 (n.7) Flere, Pavle, 76 folk literature, 66, 70 –1, 73 – 4, 77 France, religion and nationhood, 227 Frangesˇ-Mihanovic´, Robert, 276 (n.110) Frankic´, Nikola, 211– 12

AND

YUGOSLAVIA

Frankopan, Fran Krsto, 170 see Zrinski –Frankopan Frankov, Juraj, 194 Gaj, Ljudevit, 59, 71, 74 – 5, 87 Gajret, 122– 5, 130, 132, 148, 233 Gangl, Engelbert, 76, 77, 174 Garasˇanin, Ilija, 2, 89 Geertz, Clifford, 228 Gellner, Ernest, 9 Germany, region and nationhood, 225– 6, 232 religious division in, 227– 8 Gligoric´, Vojislav, 192 Glisˇic´, Milovan, 193 Gorupic´, Stjepan, 197 Gospa Sveta, Field of, 80, 92, 95 Gregory of Nin, 118– 19, 125, 126, 128 Gubec, Matija, 84, 97, 178– 9 Habsburg Empire, South Slav resistance against, 83, 84, 88, 97, 99, 102 Hadzˇic´, Hakija, 187– 8 Hajdukovic´, Filip, 186 hajduks, 83 Handzˇic´, Mehmed, 145 Heinzel, Vjekoslav, 166 holidays 1 December, 76, 142 17 December, 142, 205 see also Cyril and Methodius, Sts see also Sava, St see also Strossmayer see also Vidovdan see also Zrinski– Frankopan Horvat, Ivan, Governor of medieval Croatia, 99 Horvatic´, Marko, 187 Hrvatski jezik, 64 Humo, Hamza, 122 Hungarian Kingdom, South Slav resistance against, 83, 84, 88, 89, 99

INDEX hymn, 66, 68 – 9, 76, 180, 181, 187, 253 (n.46), 263 (n.18) Ijekavian, see Serbo-Croatian, variants of, Ilesˇicˇ, Fran, 56 – 7 Ilic´, Dragoljub, 95 Ilic´, Svetoslav, 208 illiteracy, 44, 46 Illyrian Movement, 2, 59, 74 – 5, 88, 96 centennial commemoration, 179– 81, 183 Illyrian Provinces, 85, 86, 96, 97 Independent Democratic Party, 20, 22, 45 – 6, 158, 235 Slovenian representatives of, see Slovenian Liberals International Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation, 33, 40 Islam, heritage, 107, 127 South Slav conversion to, 120, 127– 8, 129 Islamic Religious Community legal framework, 114, 146– 7, 149 and nationhood, 145– 6, 148, 157 religion teachers, 219– 20 and St Sava’s Day, 146– 9 Italy, nation building, 229– 30 Ivanovic´, Miladin, 215– 16 Ivekovic´, Serafima, 160 Ivkovic´, Milosˇ, 66 Ivsˇic´, Stjepan, 63, 64 Jakic´, Zˇivko, 74, 98, 99, 129 Jaksˇic´, Milutin, 123 Janic´ije, Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, 153 Jankovic´, Ljubica, 69 –70 Jareb, Marica, 195 Jelacˇic´, Josip, 88, 89, 96 Jelakovic´, 197 Jerkovic´, Radovan, 163

313

Jevtic´, Bogoljub, 33, 149 Jovanovic´, Ðorđe, 87 Jovanovic´, Dragoljub, 193 Jovanovic´, Jovan P., 44, 95, 104 Jovanovic´, Milorad, 193 Jovanovic´, Slobodan, 38, 42 Jovanovic´, Vojislav, 66 Jovic´, Milorad, 216– 17 Jugoslovan, 58 Jugosloven, 122 Jugoslovencˇe, 68, 127 Jugoslovenski dnevnik, 58, 203 Kac
aks, 40 Kajmakcˇalan, Battle of, 92 Karađorđe, 85, 93, 149, 153, 200, 257–8 (n.23) Karađorđevic, Alexander, Prince of Serbia, 89 Karađorđevic, Alexander I, King of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes; King of Yugoslavia assassination of, 33, 154– 5, 209 in history curricula, 91, 92, 93 as royal dictator, 25, 28 in textbooks, 72, 75 Karađorđevic´, Paul, Prince Regent of Yugoslavia, 33, 118 Karađorđevic´, Peter I, King of Serbia, King of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, 91, 92, 93, 108, 149 Karađorđevic´, Peter II, Prince, King of Yugoslavia, 123 Karadzˇic´, Vuk Stefanovic´, 2, 59, 63, 71, 75, 87 Kasˇtelan, Antun, 195 Klaric´, Slavica, 188 Klicˇar, Mica, 198 Knjizˇevni jug, 62 Kolar, Vilko, 198 Kopitar, Jernej, 88 Korbut, Sakib, 122 Korosˇec, Anton, 24, 29, 31, 32, 45, 170 Kosina, Mira, 211

314

NATIONALISM

Kosovo, Battle of, 66, 82 – 3, 92, 97, 99, 115, 168 commemoration of, see Vidovdan Kosovo Maiden, 101 Kovacˇ, Ivana, 198– 9 Kovacˇ, Niko, 217 Kovacˇevic´, Karla, 29, 233 Krbava Field, Battle at, 83, 97, 99 Krizˇ, Lacko, 173 Krlezˇa, Miroslav, 63 Krsˇic´, Jovan, 59, 60 Kulenovic´, Ðafer, 39 Lah, Ivan, 58 Latin alphabet, see Serbo-Croatian, alphabet discussion Lazar, Prince of Serbia, 82, 83, 99, 101, 200 Lazarevic´, Ðorđe, 96 Lekic´, Katica, 201 Levstik, Fran, 90 – 1 Levstik, Vladimir, 90 liberation of South Slav parts of AustriaHungary, school commemoration of, 93 Lika Uprising, 194 literacy courses, 46, 49, 190, 191, 208 Ljudevit Posavski, Duke of Pannonian Croatia, 82, 95, 97, 98, 100, 170, 200 Lovcˇevic´, Miljko, 208 Lovrovic´, Ante, 181 Lucˇ, 105 Lukas, Filip, 168– 9 Lulic´, Milan, 192 Macedonia language, 64 – 5, 105, 137, 205, 207 regional/national individuality, 11, 40, 41, 105– 6, 137, 186, 204– 5 political autonomy, 40, 106 Serbian/Yugoslav claims to, 64, 81, 107– 8 teachers, 65, 186, 204– 6

AND

YUGOSLAVIA

Macˇek, Vladimir, 31, 33, 36, 140, 180, 195 Macenauer, Sˇtefica, 202 Maglajlic´, Ibrahim, Grand Mufti of the Islamic Religious Community, 147 Main Educational Board, 53 Maksimovic´, Bozˇidar, 47, 190 Maretic´, Tomo, 62, 64 Marinkovic´, Vojislav, 30 Marko, Kraljevic´, see Marko, Prince Marko, Prince, 66, 73, 77, 93, 253 (n.47) Markovic´, Franjo, 197 Matica hrvatska, 168, 203 Matjazˇ, King, 77, 256 (n.100) Matovic´, Milosˇ, 127 May Assembly in Sremski Karlovci, 88, 96 Mazˇuranic´, Ivan, 61, 70, 71 Mazzura, Lav, 174 Medvesˇcˇak, Iva, 192 Mesˇtrovic´, Ivan, 2, 118, 175 Mihanovic´, Antun, 181 Mijakovic´, Ante, 215 Miletic´, Svetozar, 90 Milicˇevic´, Emil, 216– 17 Miljkovic´, Franjo, 220 millet, 244 (n.26) Milosˇevic´, Maks, 177 Milosˇevic´, Marko, 193 Miosˇic´, Ivan, 210 Miralem, Edhem, 121 Mirovic´, Dragutin, 193 Misˇkulin, Mile, 174 Mitic´, Todor, 186 Modrijan, Slavko, 194 Montenegrin autonomy, 31, 39 – 40 regional/national identity, 11, 39 – 40, 41, 137 statehood, 85 – 6, 89, 102, 107, 108, 137 Montenegrin Party, 39

INDEX Mulabdic´, Mehmed, 124 Murad I, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, 82 Murko, Matija, 57 Muslims, Bosnian/South Slav inclusion in public education, 219 religious/national individuality, 11, 137, 145– 6, 244 (n.23) ‘tribal’ affiliation of, 25, 121– 5, 127– 8, 131–2, 177, 187– 8, 202 Yugoslav national belonging of, 24 –5, 119–21, 126–7, 129– 32 Mylonas, Harris, 3 – 4 Napredak, 116, 167– 8, 179, 180, 182 Narodna uzdanica, 123– 5 Nasˇ list, 65 nationhood, civic vs. ethnic, 133 everyday, 12 multiple, 10 multiple vs. hybrid, 136 and region, 225– 6 and religion, 9 – 10, 112–13, 226– 8 Nazor, Vladimir, 73, 74, 203, 255 (n.83) Nehajev, Milutin Cihlar, 267 (n.72) Nemanjic´ dynasty, 81 Nikic´, Fedor, 58 Nisˇ, JNS meeting in, 30 –1 Njegosˇ, Petar Petrovic´, 61, 70, 71, 89, 129 Nova Evropa, 57 Novak, Grga, 187 Novak, Viktor, 168, 175 Novakovic´, Stojan, 66 Novine horvatske, 179 Nozˇic´, Arif, 132 Nurij Beg Firdus, Osman, 122 Obilic´, Milosˇ, 66, 82, 253 (n.47) Obrenovic´, Michael, Prince of Serbia, 90, 97

315

Obrenovic´, Milosˇ, Prince of Serbia, 153, 257–8 (n.23) Opposition Bloc, 19, 22 Orasˇac, 85 Orel, 158– 9, 162, 218 Organisation of Yugoslav Nationalists (ORJUNA), 171 Ottoman Empire, expulsion from the Balkans, 89, 90, 101 South Slav resistance against, 82 – 4, 97, 99, 101, 102, 173 Pasˇic´, Nikola, 20, 186 Pavelic´, Ante, 33 Pavlakovic´, Ivan, 194 Pavlovic´, Milorad, 87 Pavlovic´, Stjepan, 210 Peasant– Democratic Coalition, 22 – 3, 25, 31, 35, 36, 39 Pejakovic´, Ivan, 176– 7 Pekic´, Petar, 203 Petricˇevic´, Luka, 211– 12 Petrovic´, Julijana, 199 Petrovic´ Njegosˇ, Peter I, Prince of Montenegro, 85 Petrovic´ Njegosˇ, Peter II, Prince of Montenegro, see Njegosˇ, Petar Petrovic´ Petz, Vladimir, 174 Plecˇnik, Jozˇe, 86 Plesˇkovicˇ, Rudolf, 195– 6 Politika, 166 Popovic´, Dusˇan, 203 Popovic´, Jovan, 216– 17 Popovic´, Laza, 57 Popovic´, Milorad, 191– 2 Popovic´, Novica, 86 Popovic´, Pavle, 61, 87 Popovic´ Tekelija, Sava, 88 Popovic´, Velimir, 124 Popular Radical Party, 18, 20 – 1, 28, 32, 33, 34, 45, 166, 185– 6 Predavec, Josip, 194

316

NATIONALISM

Prelog, Milan, 187 Presˇeren, France, 59, 60, 61, 70, 71, 77 Pribic´evic´, Svetozar, 19, 20, 22, 23 curricula policy, 45, 95 as minister of education, 46, 62 and Sokol movement, 169, 170, 176 and Union of Croatian Teachers Associations, 187 Prica, Dusˇan, 96, 97 Prodanovic´, Jasˇa, 70 Prosv(j)eta, 117 Protic´, Ljubomir, 66, 67, 68, 69 Rabrenovic´, Milan, 126 Racˇki, Franjo, 89 – 90, 116 Radic´, Antun, 178, 179 Radic´, Stjepan, 21 – 3, 166 as minister of education, 186–7 as symbolic resource, 92, 143, 162, 170, 179, 195, 203– 4 Radical Party, see Popular Radical Party Radicˇevic´, Branko, 61 radio, 47 Radovic´, Sˇtefanija, 160– 1 Rajacˇic´, Josip, Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, 88 Rajber, Marija, 200– 1 Rajkovic´, Radomir, 203 Rakic´, Milosˇ, 81 Rape, Andrej, 75, 101 Ratkovic´, Stjepan, 74 Rebac, Hasan, 120– 1, 123 Rein, Eugen, 187 region, and nationhood, see nationhood, and region religious institutions, legislation on, 114 Romania, nation building, 4 Romic´, Cvetko, 198 Rosic´, Cvetanka, 204 Sadar, V., 76 Salihovic´, Nazif, 219 Samardzˇic´, Stanka, 217 Sambrajlo, Nikola, 187

AND

YUGOSLAVIA

Samo, King, 80, 95, 175 Samodrezˇa, Orthodox church in, 142 Samuel, Emperor of medieval Bulgaria, 81 Sˇantic´, Aleksa, 108 Saracˇevic´, Hasan, 169 Sˇaric´, Ivan, 151– 2, 180 Sava, St, 93, 117– 18, 119, 125, 126, 205, 219 Church of, 150– 1, 152, 154 commemorative year 1935, 154– 5 Day, 94, 117, 129, 142, 146– 57, 163– 4, 221, 231, 233 Selimovic´, Merima 219– 20 Seljacˇka sloga, 178, 179, 182, 194 Seniorat, 145 Sˇenoa, August, 167 Serbia, medieval state, 81, 85, 89, 107, 108, 128 tradition of statehood, 82, 84 – 5, 89, 95 – 6, 99, 102 Serbian historical commemorations, 93 – 4, 164– 5, 182 language, 2, 64, 65, 67, 188 migrations, 83, 115 political autonomy, 37 –9 territory, 106–8 Serbian Cultural Club, 38 Serbian Orthodox Church, legal framework, 273– 4 (n.61) as national church, 96, 115, 117– 18, 125, 153, 154 and nationhood, 145, 153, 155, 156–7 religion teachers, 221 and St Sava’s Day, 152– 5, 156 unification of, 115, 273 (n.57) Serbian Uprisings, 84 – 5, 86, 186, 257 (n.23) Serbo-Croatian alphabet question, 57, 58, 62–3, 65– 6, 72–3, 76, 171, 201, 203, 218 dialects of, 88, 251– 2 (n.23)

INDEX orthography, 57, 62 – 4, 70, 210 variants of, 58, 62 – 4, 65 – 6, 72 –3, 76, 171, 187, 188, 251– 2 (n.23) Serbo-Croato-Slovenian, 55, 60, 198 – 9 Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, Kingdom of, formation of, 2, 17, 91, 95 name, 21 Serbs from Croatia, 19, 20, 23, 36, 38 Sˇeremet, Muharem, 220 Sˇevic´, Milan, 67 Sˇimatovic´, Janja, 198 Simeon, Emperor of medieval Bulgaria, 99, 173 Sirotkovic´, 217 Sˇisˇic´, Ferdo, 85, 166 Sˇkavic´, Josip, 79, 104 Skenderovic´, Antun, 218 Skerlic´, Jovan, 252 (n.24) Skopje, Philosophical Faculty, 205–6 slava, 125, 205, 206, 253 (n.47) Slomsˇek, Anton, 67, 185 Slomsˇek Union, 185 Slovenec, 58, 244 (n.63) Slovenian banovina, 37 as a dialect of Serbo-Croatian, 57 –9, 60, 65, 67, 69, 76 language, 24, 56 –61, 65, 66, 69, 73, 75 –7, 90, 97, 135, 163 national individuality, 24, 34 – 5, 56 –60, 75 –7, 135 political autonomy, 32 teachers, 185, 195– 6 territory, 104, 110– 11, 135– 6 Slovenian Clericals, see Slovenian People’s Party Slovenian Liberals, 19, 24, 37, 185, 195– 6 Slovenian Peasant Party, 18 Slovenian People’s Party, 18, 19, 22, 23 – 4, 29, 32, 33, 34 Smith, Anthony, 6 Sˇokci, 202– 3

317

Sokol before World War I, 158 of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, 158, 172, 176, 182, 200, 211– 12 vs. Orel, 159 Union of Croatian Sokol Clubs, 158, 162, 165– 6, 169– 77, 200 Yugoslav Sokol Union, 158, 169–77, 182, 200 Sokolovic´, Mehmed, 120, 124, 128 Sopta, Martin, 217– 8 Spaho, Mehmed, 24, 39 Spain, region and nationhood, 226, 232, 237 Srsˇkic´, Milan, 30 Stanisˇic´, Zˇivana, 220 Stanojevic´, Mihajlo, 106 Stanojevic´, Stanoje, 95 Starcˇevic´, Ante, 2, 170, 179, 187 Stasˇic´, Marijan, 218 Sˇtedimlija, Savic´ Markovic´, 39 Stefan Nemanja, Grand Prince of medieval Serbia, 96, 98, 108, 115 Stevan Prvovencˇani Nemanjic´, King of medieval Serbia, 200 Stojadinovic´, Milan, 33 – 4, 36 Stojanovic´, Ljubomir, 63 Stojanovic´, Vladimir, 66, 67, 68, 69 Strossmayer, Josip Juraj, 2, 89 – 90, 93, 97, 116, 119, 125, 153– 4, 170 Day, 90, 119, 143, 152, 160, 182, 233 statue in Zagreb, 175–6, 183 Sudeta, Mato, 212 Susˇic´, Mirko, 177 Svacˇic´, Petar, 83 Svetosavlje, 145, 155 Teachers Association, Union of Croatian, 186, 187, 188, 194, 196– 8, 206, 207, 215 Union of Slovenian, 185 Yugoslav, 44, 194, 196– 8, 207, 212, 213, 215

318

NATIONALISM

textbooks, before World War I, 52, 66, 73 competitions for state publication, 53, 65, 68, 72 legislation, 52 – 3 Thessaloniki Front, 91, 92 Tkalcˇic´, Marijan, 214 Tomec´ak, Bartol, 197, 207 Tomislav, King of medieval Croatia, 81, 98, 99, 101, 128, 200 millennial commemoration, 165– 7, 168, 173, 175 statue in Zagreb, 165, 276 (n.110) Tomislav Karađorđevic´, Prince of Yugoslavia, 123 tribes, 5, 10, 14, 289 (n.4) Trifunovic´, Milosˇ, 45 Trubar, Primozˇ, 69 – 70, 77, 126 Truhelka, C´iro, 206 Tudor, Luka, 214 Turkey, nation building, 4, 227 Tvrtko, King of medieval Bosnia, 81, 82, 97, 98, 109, 170 Ujevic´, Tin, 63 United Opposition, 33, 35, 36, 39 United Slovenia programme, 89, 90 uskoks, 83 Ustasˇa, 33, 168, 194 Uzunovic´, Nikola, 30 Valdman, Franjo, 195 Varnava, Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, 91, 150, 152, 154 Velimirovic´, Nikolaj, 152, 153, 155 Vidmar, Josip, 58, 59 – 60 Vidovdan, 82 – 3, 94, 142– 3, 148 Vodnik, Branko, 187 Vodnik, Valentin, 61, 87 Vosˇnjak, Bogumil, 62, 250– 1 (n.2) Vraz, Stanko, 59, 60, 61, 70, 77, 88

AND

YUGOSLAVIA

Vujic´, Vladimir, 70 Vukic´evic´, Velimir, 24 Wachtel, Andrew, 51 World War I, 75, 91 –3, 95, 100 school commemoration of, 94 see also Dobro Polje see also Kajmakcˇalan see also liberation of South Slav parts of Austria-Hungary see also Thessaloniki Front Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Sciences, 90, 180 Yugoslav Committee, 17, 92 Yugoslav Democratic Party, 18 – 19, 28, 32, 33, 35 and education policy, 45 –6 and teachers, 185– 6, 192–3 and the Yugoslav Sokol movement, 158, 169– 70, 173, 174 Yugoslav Muslim Organisation, 18, 19, 24– 25, 29, 32, 33, 34, 39, 122, 123, 124, 149, 188 Yugoslav National Party, 30, 36, 37, 192, 196, 210 Yugoslav Peasant Movement, 29, 233 Yugoslav Popular Party, 209 Yugoslav Radical Union, 33 – 4, 36, 37 Yugoslav Radical – Peasant Democracy, 30 Yugoslav Youth of Vardar Banovina, 105, 233 Yugoslavia, Kingdom of, name change, 21, 27 Yugoslavia, Socialist Federal Republic of, 1, 10, 50, 238 Yugoslavism before the establishment of the Yugoslav state, 1 – 2 compromised, 21, 27 historiography of, 5 – 7 integral, 27, 30, 64, 68, 133, 136, 236 real, 34

INDEX Zagreb Points, 31, 32, 160 Zagreb University, 186– 7 Zajc, Ivan, 167 Zaradic´, 211– 12 Zelic´, Ante, 160 Zˇivkovic´, Jovan, 192 Zˇivkovic´, Petar, 27, 28, 29, 30, 33, 123

319

Zrinski– Frankopan, conspiracy of, 84, 92, 97 Day, 167– 8, 169, 187, 218 Zrinski, Nikola Sˇubic´, 83, 84, 93, 99, 200 Zrinski, Petar, 170 see also Zrinski– Frankopan