Croats and Serbs
"CROATS AND SERBS: TWO OLD AND DIFFERENT NATIONS"
Dr. O. Dominik Mandic
PREFACE
The constitution of present-day Yugoslavia generally recognizes that Yugoslavia is a multinational state in which there are several nations: Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Macedonians, as well as national minorities: Albanians, Rumanians, Hungarians, Germans and Italians. A separate republic was created in 1945 for every nation in Yugoslavia and allowed by the constitutional law to secede from the common federative state of Yugoslavia on the condition that petition be sought by due process of law.
The avowed purpose of this constitution was to correct one of the major prejudices of the intellectual elite of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, who had formulated the theory that the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins and Macedonians are one nation and accordingly should form a common state.
This theory based on a false assumption gained the general approval of public opinion during the First World War and by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 the unified State of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was established. It was given the name of Yugoslavia only in 1929. Thus was born the first Yugoslavia, created on false political and historical assumptions. The nations that had been incorporated with this state summarily and against their expressed consent did not find in Yugoslavia the realization of their national aspirations. National life and cultural development became stifled. Consequences soon began to follow. Individual national groups showed continuous signs of dissatisfaction. The central authorities reacted by instating a police regime. These signs of internal strife finally culminated in the assassination of Stjepan Radic in the Belgrade parliament of 1928 and of king Alexander I in Marseilles in 1934. They broke out with renewed fury during the years 1941 to 1945 when the Serbs and the Croats indulged in fratricidal massacres.
The Second Yugoslavia
Dr. O. Dominik Mandic
PREFACE
The constitution of present-day Yugoslavia generally recognizes that Yugoslavia is a multinational state in which there are several nations: Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Macedonians, as well as national minorities: Albanians, Rumanians, Hungarians, Germans and Italians. A separate republic was created in 1945 for every nation in Yugoslavia and allowed by the constitutional law to secede from the common federative state of Yugoslavia on the condition that petition be sought by due process of law.
The avowed purpose of this constitution was to correct one of the major prejudices of the intellectual elite of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, who had formulated the theory that the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins and Macedonians are one nation and accordingly should form a common state.
This theory based on a false assumption gained the general approval of public opinion during the First World War and by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 the unified State of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was established. It was given the name of Yugoslavia only in 1929. Thus was born the first Yugoslavia, created on false political and historical assumptions. The nations that had been incorporated with this state summarily and against their expressed consent did not find in Yugoslavia the realization of their national aspirations. National life and cultural development became stifled. Consequences soon began to follow. Individual national groups showed continuous signs of dissatisfaction. The central authorities reacted by instating a police regime. These signs of internal strife finally culminated in the assassination of Stjepan Radic in the Belgrade parliament of 1928 and of king Alexander I in Marseilles in 1934. They broke out with renewed fury during the years 1941 to 1945 when the Serbs and the Croats indulged in fratricidal massacres.
The Second Yugoslavia