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Kingdom of Yugoslavia

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia (Serbo-Croatian: Kraljevina Jugoslavija / Краљевина Југославија;[8] Slovene: Kraljevina Jugoslavija) was a state in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Serbo-Croatian: Kraljevina Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca / Краљевина Срба, Хрвата и Словенаца; Slovene: Kraljevina Srbov, Hrvatov in Slovencev), but the term "Yugoslavia" (literally "Land of South Slavs") was its colloquial name due to its origins.[9] The official name of the state was changed to "Kingdom of Yugoslavia" by King Alexander I on 3 October 1929.[9]

Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes
(1918–1929)
Kraljevina Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca
Краљевина Срба, Хрвата и Словенаца
Kraljevina Srbov, Hrvatov in Slovencev

Kingdom of Yugoslavia
(1929–1941)
Kraljevina Jugoslavija
Краљевина Југославија
1918–1941
Motto: Jedan narod, jedan kralj, jedna država  
Један народ, један краљ, једна држава  
"One People, One King, One State"
Anthem: Himna Kraljevine Jugoslavije
Химна Краљевине Југославије
"National Anthem of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia"
Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1930
Capital
and largest city
Belgrade
44°48′N 20°28′E / 44.800°N 20.467°E / 44.800; 20.467
Official languagesSerbo-Croato-Slovene[a][1][2]
Common languages
List
Demonym(s)Yugoslav
Government
King 
• 1918–1921
Peter I
• 1921–1934
Alexander I
• 1934–1941
Peter II[b]
Prince Regent 
• 1918–1921
Prince Alexander
• 1934–1941
Prince Paul
Prime Minister 
• 1918–1919 (first)
Stojan Protić
• 1941 (last)
Dušan Simović
LegislatureProvisional Representation
(1919–1920)
National Assembly[c]
(1920–1941)
Senate
(since 1931)
Chamber of Deputies
(since 1931)
Historical eraInterwar period • World War II
1 December 1918
28 June 1921
6 January 1929
3 September 1931
9 October 1934
• Sporazum in Croatia
25 August 1939
• Joined the Axis
25 March 1941
27 March 1941
6 April 1941
April 1941
29 November 1945
Area
1941[3]247,542 km2 (95,577 sq mi)
Population
• 1918[4]
12,017,323
• 1931[5]
13,934,000
Currency
  1. ^ Serbo-Croatian and Slovene are separate languages, but that was not officially accepted or universally acknowledged at the time, and 'Serbo-Croato-Slovene' was declared the single official language (srbsko-hrvatsko-slovenački or srbsko-hrvatsko-slovenski; also translated "Serbocroatoslovenian"). In practice it functioned as Serbo-Croatian.[6][7]
  2. ^ Peter II, still underage, was declared an adult by a military coup. Shortly after his assumption of royal authority, Yugoslavia was occupied by the Axis and the young King went into exile. In 1944, he accepted the formation of Democratic Federal Yugoslavia. He was deposed by the Yugoslav parliament in 1945.
  3. ^ Unicameral until 1931.

The preliminary kingdom was formed in 1918 by the merger of the provisional State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (itself formed from territories of the former Austria-Hungary, encompassing today's Bosnia and Herzegovina and most of today's Croatia and Slovenia) and Banat, Bačka and Baranja (that had been part of the Kingdom of Hungary within Austria-Hungary) with the formerly independent Kingdom of Serbia. In the same year, the Kingdom of Montenegro also proclaimed its unification with Serbia, whereas the regions of Kosovo and Vardar Macedonia had become parts of Serbia prior to the unification.[10]

The state was ruled by the Serbian dynasty of Karađorđević, which previously ruled the Kingdom of Serbia under Peter I from 1903 (after the May Coup) onward. Peter I became the first king of Yugoslavia until his death in 1921. He was succeeded by his son Alexander I, who had been regent for his father. He was known as "Alexander the Unifier" and he renamed the kingdom "Yugoslavia" in 1929. He was assassinated in Marseille by Vlado Chernozemski, a member of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), during his visit to France in 1934. The crown passed to his 11-year-old son Peter. Alexander's cousin Paul ruled as Prince regent until 1941, when Peter II came of age.[11] The royal family flew to London the same year, prior to the country being invaded by the Axis powers.

In April 1941, the country was occupied and partitioned by the Axis powers. A royal government-in-exile, recognized by the United Kingdom and, later, by all the Allies, was established in London. In 1944, after pressure from the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the King recognized the government of Democratic Federal Yugoslavia as the legitimate government. This was established on 2 November following the signing of the Treaty of Vis by Ivan Šubašić (on behalf of the Kingdom) and Josip Broz Tito (on behalf of the Yugoslav Partisans).[12]

Formation

 
Celebrations in Zagreb during the formation of the National Council of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, October 1918
 
Delegation of the National Council of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs led by Ante Pavelić reading the address in front of regent Alexander, 1 December 1918

Following the assassination of Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand by the Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip and the outbreak of World War I, Serbia was invaded and occupied by a combined Bulgarian, Austrian and German force on 6 October 1915. This saw the escalation of South Slavic nationalism and calls by Slavic nationalists for the independence and unification of the South Slavic nationalities of Austria-Hungary along with Serbia and Montenegro into a single State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs.[13]

The Dalmatian Croat politician Ante Trumbić became a prominent South Slavic leader during the war and led the Yugoslav Committee that lobbied the Allies to support the creation of an independent Yugoslavia.[14] Trumbić faced initial hostility from Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pašić, who preferred an enlarged Serbia over a unified Yugoslav state. However, both Pašić and Trumbić agreed to a compromise, which was delivered at the Corfu Declaration on 20 July 1917 that advocated the creation of a united state of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes to be led by the Serbian House of Karađorđević.[14]

In 1916, the Yugoslav Committee started negotiations with the Serbian Government in exile, on which they decided on the creation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, declaring the joint Corfu Declaration in 1917, the meetings were held at the Municipal Theatre of Corfu.[15]

In November 1918, the National Council of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs appointed 28 members to start negotiation with the representatives of the government of the Kingdom of Serbia and Montenegro on creation of a new Yugoslav state, the delegation negotiated directly with regent Alexander Karađorđević.[16] The negotiations would end, with the delegation of the National Council of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs led by Ante Pavelić reading the address in front of regent Alexander, who represented his father, King Peter I of Serbia, by which acceptance the kingdom was established.[17]

The name of the new Yugoslav state was Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Serbo-Croatian: Kraljevina Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca / Краљевина Срба, Хрвата и Словенаца; Slovene: Kraljevina Srbov, Hrvatov in Slovencev) or its abbreviated form Kingdom of SCS (Kraljevina SHS / Краљевина СХС).

The new kingdom was made up of the formerly independent kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro (Montenegro having been absorbed into Serbia the previous month), and of a substantial amount of territory that was formerly part of Austria-Hungary, the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. The main states which formed the new Kingdom were the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs; Vojvodina; and the Kingdom of Serbia with the Kingdom of Montenegro.

The creation of the state was supported by pan-Slavists and Yugoslav nationalists. For the pan-Slavic movement, all of the South Slav (Yugoslav) people had united into a single state. The creation was also supported by the Allies, who sought to break up the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The newly established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes participated in the Paris Peace Conference with Trumbić as the country's representative.[14] Since the Allies had lured the Italians into the war with a promise of substantial territorial gains in exchange, which cut off a quarter of Slovene ethnic territory from the remaining three-quarters of Slovenes living in the Kingdom of SCS, Trumbić successfully vouched for the inclusion of most Slavs living in the former Austria-Hungary to be included within the borders of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Nevertheless, with the Treaty of Rapallo[14] a population of half a million South Slavs,[18] mostly Slovenes, were subjected to forced Italianization until the fall of Fascism in Italy. At the time when Benito Mussolini was willing to modify the Rapallo borders in order to annex the independent state of Rijeka to Italy, Pašić's attempts to correct the borders at Postojna and Idrija were effectively undermined by the regent Alexander who preferred "good relations" with Italy.[19]

 
Mihajlo Pupin, Serbian physicist and physical chemist. He influenced the final decisions of the Paris Peace Conference when the borders of the Kingdom were drawn.

The Yugoslav kingdom bordered Italy and Austria to the northwest at the Rapallo border, Hungary and Romania to the north, Bulgaria to the east, Greece and Albania to the south, and the Adriatic Sea to the west. Almost immediately, it ran into disputes with most of its neighbours. Slovenia was difficult to determine, since it had been an integral part of Austria for 400 years. The Vojvodina region was disputed with Hungary, Macedonia with Bulgaria, Rijeka with Italy.[20]

A plebiscite was also held in the Province of Carinthia, which opted to remain in Austria. Austrians had formed a majority in this region although numbers reflected that some Slovenes did vote for Carinthia to become part of Austria. The Dalmatian port city of Zadar and a few of the Dalmatian islands were given to Italy. The city of Rijeka was declared to be the Free State of Fiume, but it was soon occupied, and in 1924 annexed, by Italy, which had also been promised the Dalmatian coast during World War I, and Yugoslavia claiming Istria, a part of the former Austrian Littoral which had been annexed to Italy, but which contained a considerable population of Croats and Slovenes.

The formation of the Vidovdan Constitution in 1921 sparked tensions between the different Yugoslav nationalities.[14] Trumbić opposed the 1921 constitution and over time grew increasingly hostile towards the Yugoslav government that he saw as being centralized in the favor of Serb hegemony over Yugoslavia.[14]

Economy

Farming

 
Slovene farmers threshing wheat (1930s)

Three-quarters of the Yugoslav workforce was engaged in agriculture. A few commercial farmers existed, but most were subsistence peasants. Those in the south were especially poor, living in a hilly, infertile region. No large estates existed except in the north, and all of those were owned by foreigners. Indeed, one of the first actions undertaken by the new Yugoslav state in 1919 was to break up the estates and dispose of foreign, and in particular Hungarian landowners. Nearly 40% of the rural population was surplus (i.e., excess people not needed to maintain current production levels), and despite a warm climate, Yugoslavia was also relatively dry. Internal communications were poor, damage from World War I had been extensive, and with few exceptions agriculture was devoid of machinery or other modern farming technologies.[21]

Manufacturing

Manufacturing was limited to Belgrade and the other major population centers, and consisted mainly of small, comparatively primitive facilities that produced strictly for the domestic market. The commercial potential of Yugoslavia's Adriatic ports went to waste because the nation lacked the capital or technical knowledge to operate a shipping industry.[22] On the other hand, the mining industry was well developed due to the nation's abundance of mineral resources, but since it was primarily owned and operated by foreigners, most production was exported. Yugoslavia was the third least industrialized nation in Eastern Europe after Bulgaria and Albania.

Debt

 
Bond of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes for the liquidation of the agro-debts from Bosnia and Herzegovina, issued 18 June 1921

Yugoslavia was typical of Eastern European nations in that it borrowed large sums of money from the West during the 1920s. When the Great Depression began in 1929, the Western lenders called in their debts, which could not be paid back. Some of the money was lost to graft, although most was used by farmers to improve production and export potential. Agricultural exports, however, were always an unstable prospect as their export earnings were heavily reliant on volatile world market prices. The Great Depression caused the market for them to collapse as global demand contracted heavily and the situation for export-oriented farmers further deteriorated when nations everywhere started to erect trade barriers. Italy was a major trading partner of Yugoslavia in the initial years after World War I, but ties fell off after Benito Mussolini came to power in 1922. In the grim economic situation of the 1930s, Yugoslavia followed the lead of its neighbors in allowing itself to become a dependent of Nazi Germany.[23]

Education

Although Yugoslavia had enacted a compulsory public education policy, it was inaccessible to many peasants in the countryside. Official literacy figures for the population stood at 50%, but it varied widely throughout the country. Less than 10% of Slovenes were illiterate, whereas over 80% of Macedonians and Bosnians could not read or write. Approximately 10% of initial elementary school students went on to attend higher forms of education, at one of the country's three universities in Belgrade, Ljubljana, and Zagreb.[24]

Political history

Early politics

 
Between 1918 and 1926, Nikola Pašić held the position of Prime Minister of Yugoslavia three times.

Immediately after 1 December proclamation, negotiations between the National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and the Serbian government resulted in agreement over the new government which was to be headed by Nikola Pašić. However, when this agreement was submitted to the approval of the regent, Alexander Karađorđević, it was rejected, producing the new state's first governmental crisis. Many regarded this rejection as a violation of parliamentary principles, but the matter was resolved when the regent suggested replacing Pašić with Stojan Protić, a leading member of Pašić's Radical Party. The National Council and the Serbian government agreed and the new government came into existence on 20 December 1918.[25][26]

In this period before the election of the Constituent Assembly, a Provisional Representation served as a parliament which was formed by delegates from the various elected bodies that had existed before the creation of the state. A realignment of parties combining several members of the Serbian opposition with political parties from the former Austria-Hungary led to the creation of a new party, The Democratic Party, that dominated the Provisional Representation and the government.

Because the Democratic Party led by Ljubomir Davidović pushed a highly centralized agenda a number of Croatian delegates moved into opposition. However, the radicals themselves were not happy that they had only three ministers to the Democratic Party's 11 and, on 16 August 1919, Protić handed in his resignation. Davidović then formed a coalition with the Social Democrats. This government had a majority, but the quorum of the Provisional Representation was half plus one vote. The opposition then began to boycott the parliament. As the government could never guarantee that all of its supporters would turn up, it became impossible to hold a quorate meeting of the parliament. Davidović soon resigned, but as no one else could form a government he again became prime minister. As the opposition continued their boycott, the government decided it had no alternative but to rule by decree. This was denounced by the opposition who began to style themselves as the Parliamentary Community. Davidović realized that the situation was untenable and asked the King to hold immediate elections for the Constituent Assembly. When the King refused, he felt he had no alternative but to resign.

The Parliamentary Community now formed a government led by Stojan Protić committed to the restoration of parliamentary norms and mitigating the centralization of the previous government. Their opposition to the former governments program of radical land reform also united them. As several small groups and individuals switched sides, Protić now even had a small majority. However, the Democratic Party and the Social Democrats now boycotted parliament and Protić was unable to muster a quorum. Hence the Parliamentary Community, now in government, was forced to rule by decree.

For the Parliamentary Community to thus violate the basic principle around which they had formed put them in an extremely difficult position. In April 1920, widespread worker unrest and a railway strike broke out. According to Gligorijević, this put pressure on the two main parties to settle their differences. After successful negotiations, Protić resigned to make way for a new government led by the neutral figure of Milenko Vesnić. The Social Democrats did not follow the Democratic Party, their former allies, into government because they were opposed to the anti-communist measures to which the new government was committed.

The controversies that had divided the parties earlier were still very much live issues. The Democratic Party continued to push its agenda of centralization and still insisted on the need for radical land reform. A disagreement over electoral law finally led the Democratic Party to vote against the government in Parliament and the government was defeated. Though this meeting had not been quorate, Vesnić used this as a pretext to resign. His resignation had the intended effect: the Radical Party agreed to accept the need for centralization, and the Democratic Party agreed to drop its insistence on land reform. Vesnić again headed the new government. The Croatian Community and the Slovenian People's Party were however not happy with the Radicals' acceptance of centralization. Neither was Stojan Protić, and he withdrew from the government on this issue.

In September 1920 a peasant revolt broke out in Croatia, the immediate cause of which was the branding of the peasants' cattle. The Croatian community blamed the centralizing policies of the government and of minister Svetozar Pribićević in particular.

Constituent assembly to dictatorship

 
Provinces of the Kingdom in 1920–1922

One of the few laws successfully passed by the Provisional Representation was the electoral law for the constituent assembly. During the negotiations that preceded the foundation of the new state, it had been agreed that voting would be secret and based on universal suffrage. It had not occurred to them that universal might include women until the beginning of a movement for women's suffrage appeared with the creation of the new state. The Social Democrats and the Slovenian People's Party supported women's suffrage but the Radicals opposed it. The Democratic Party was open to the idea but not committed enough to make an issue of it so the proposal fell. Proportional Representation was accepted in principle but the system chosen (d'Hondt with very small constituencies) favored large parties and parties with strong regional support.

The election was held on 28 November 1920. When the votes were counted the Democratic Party had won the most seats, more than the Radicals – but only just. For a party that had been so dominant in the Provisional Representation, that amounted to a defeat. Further it had done rather badly in all former Austria-Hungarian areas. That undercut the party's belief that its centralization policy represented the will of the Yugoslavian people as a whole. The Radicals had done no better in that region but this presented them far less of a problem because they had campaigned openly as a Serbian party. The most dramatic gains had been made by the two anti-system parties. The Croatian Republican Peasant Party's leadership had been released from prison only as the election campaign began to get underway. According to Gligorijević, this had helped them more than active campaigning. The Croatian community (that had in a timid way tried to express the discontent that Croatian Republican Peasant Party mobilized) had been too tainted by their participation in government and was all but eliminated. The other gainers were the communists who had done especially well in the wider Macedonia region. The remainder of the seats were taken up by smaller parties that were at best skeptical of the centralizing platform of the Democratic Party.

The results left Nikola Pašić in a very strong position as the Democrats had no choice but to ally with the Radicals if they wanted to get their concept of a centralized Yugoslavia through. Pašić was always careful to keep open the option of a deal with the Croatian opposition. The Democrats and the Radicals were not quite strong enough to get the constitution through on their own and they made an alliance with the Yugoslav Muslim Organization (JMO). The Muslim party sought and got concessions over the preservation of Bosnia in its borders and how the land reform would affect Muslim landowners in Bosnia.

The Croatian Republican Peasant Party refused to swear allegiance to the King on the grounds that this presumed that Yugoslavia would be a monarchy, something that it contended only the Constituent Assembly could decide. The party was unable to take its seats. Most of the opposition though initially taking their seats declared boycotts as time went so that there were few votes against. However, the constitution decided against 1918 agreement between the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and the Kingdom of Serbia, which stated that a 66% majority that 50% plus one vote would be needed to pass, irrespective of how many voted against. Only last minute concessions to Džemijet, a group of Muslims from Macedonia and Kosovo, saved it.

On 28 June 1921, the Vidovdan Constitution was passed, establishing a unitary monarchy. The pre–World War I traditional regions were abolished and 33 new administrative oblasts (provinces) ruled from the center were instituted. During this time, King Peter I died (16 August 1921), and the prince-regent succeeded to the throne as King Alexander I.

Ljubomir Davidović of the Democrats began to have doubts about the wisdom of his party's commitment to centralization and opened up negotiations with the opposition. This threatened to provoke a split in his party as his action was opposed by Svetozar Pribićević. It also gave Pašić a pretext to end the coalition. At first the King gave Pašić a mandate to form a coalition with Pribićević's Democrats. However, Pašić offered Pribićević too little for there to be much chance that Pribićević would agree. A purely Radical government was formed with a mandate to hold elections. The Radicals made gains at the expense of the Democrats but elsewhere there were gains by Radić's Peasant's Party.

Serb politicians around Radic regarded Serbia as the standard bearer of Yugoslav unity, as the state of Piedmont had been for Italy, or Prussia for the German Empire; a kind of "Greater Serbia". Over the following years, Croatian resistance against a Serbo-centric policy increased.

In the early 1920s, the Yugoslav government of prime minister Nikola Pašić used police pressure over voters and ethnic minorities, confiscation of opposition pamphlets[27] and other measure to rig elections. This was ineffective against the Croatian Peasant Party (formerly the Croatian Republican Peasant Party), whose members continued to win election to the Yugoslav parliament in large numbers,[28] but did harm the Radicals' main Serbian rivals, the Democrats.

Stjepan Radić, the head of the Croatian Peasant Party, was imprisoned many times for political reasons.[29] He was released in 1925 and returned to parliament.

In the spring of 1928, Radić and Svetozar Pribićević waged a bitter parliamentary battle against the ratification of the Nettuno Convention with Italy. In this they mobilised nationalist opposition in Serbia but provoked a violent reaction from the governing majority including death threats. On 20 June 1928, a member of the government majority, the Serb deputy Puniša Račić, shot five members of the Croatian Peasant Party, including their leader Stjepan Radić, after Radić refused to apologize for earlier offense in which he accused Račić of stealing from civilian population.[30] Two died on the floor of the Assembly while the life of Radić hung in the balance.

The opposition now completely withdrew from parliament, declaring that they would not return to a parliament in which several of their representatives had been killed, and insisting on new elections. On 1 August, at a meeting in Zagreb, they renounced 1 December Declaration of 1920. They demanded that the negotiations for unification should begin from scratch. On 8 August Stjepan Radić died.

6 January dictatorship

 
In 1929, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was subdivided into nine banovinas. This became eight in 1939, when two were merged to form the Banovina of Croatia.
 
In 1939, the Banovina of Croatia was founded, aimed at solving the "Croatian question". It was formed from the Sava Banovina and Littoral Banovina, with small parts ceded from the Drina, Zeta, and Danube banovinas.

On 6 January 1929, using as a pretext the political crisis triggered by the shooting, King Alexander abolished the Constitution, prorogued the Parliament and introduced a personal dictatorship (known as the "January 6 Dictatorship", Šestosiječanjska diktatura, Šestojanuarska diktatura) with the aim of establishing the Yugoslav ideology and single Yugoslav nation.[31][32][33] He changed the name of the country to "Kingdom of Yugoslavia", and changed the internal divisions from the 33 oblasts to nine new banovinas on 3 October. This decision was made following a proposal by the British ambassador to better decentralize the country, modeled on Czechoslovakia.[34] A Court for the Protection of the State was soon established to act as the new regime's tool for putting down any dissent. Opposition politicians Vladko Maček and Svetozar Pribićević were arrested under charges by the court. Pribićević later went into exile, whereas over the course of the 1930s Maček would become the leader of the entire opposition bloc.

Immediately after the dictatorship was proclaimed, Croatian deputy Ante Pavelić left for exile from the country. The following years Pavelić worked to establish a revolutionary organization, the Ustaše, allied with the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) against the state.

In 1931, Alexander decreed a new Constitution which made executive power the gift of the King. Elections were to be by universal male suffrage. The provision for a secret ballot was dropped, and pressure on public employees to vote for the governing party was to be a feature of all elections held under Alexander's constitution. Further, half the upper house was directly appointed by the King, and legislation could become law with the approval of one of the houses alone if also approved by the King.

That same year, Croatian historian and anti-Yugoslavist intellectual[35] Milan Šufflay was assassinated in Zagreb. As a response, Albert Einstein and Heinrich Mann sent an appeal to the International League of Human Rights in Paris condemning the murder, accusing the Yugoslav government. The letter states of a "horrible brutality which is being practiced upon the Croatian People". The appeal was addressed to the Paris-based Ligue des droits de l'homme[36] (Human Rights League).[37] In their letter Einstein and Mann held the Yugoslav king Aleksandar explicitly responsible for these circumstances.[37][38][39]

Croat opposition to the new régime was strong and, in late 1932, the Croatian Peasant Party issued the Zagreb Manifesto which sought an end to Serb hegemony and dictatorship. The government reacted by imprisoning many political opponents including the new Croatian Peasant Party leader Vladko Maček. Despite these measures, opposition to the dictatorship continued, with Croats calling for a solution to what was called the "Croatian question". In late 1934, the King planned to release Maček from prison, introduce democratic reforms, and attempt find common ground between Serbs and Croats.[citation needed]

However, on 9 October 1934, the king was assassinated in Marseille, France, by Bulgarian Veličko Kerin (also known by his revolutionary pseudonym Vlado Chernozemski), an activist of IMRO, in a conspiracy with Yugoslav exiles and radical members of banned political parties in cooperation with the Croatian extreme nationalist Ustaše organisation.

Yugoslav regency

Because Alexander's eldest son, Peter II, was a minor, a regency council of three, specified in Alexander's will, took over the new king's royal powers and duties. The council was dominated by the 11-year-old king's first cousin once removed Prince Paul.

In the late 1930s, internal tensions continued to increase with Serbs and Croats seeking to establish ethnic federal subdivisions. Serbs wanted Vardar Banovina (later known within Yugoslavia as Vardar Macedonia), Vojvodina, Montenegro united with the Serb lands, and Croatia wanted Dalmatia and some of Vojvodina. Both sides claimed territory in present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina populated also by Bosnian Muslims. The expansion of Nazi Germany in 1938 gave new momentum to efforts to solve these problems and, in 1939, Prince Paul appointed Dragiša Cvetković as prime minister, with the goal of reaching an agreement with the Croatian opposition. Accordingly, on 26 August 1939, Vladko Maček became vice premier of Yugoslavia and an autonomous Banovina of Croatia was established with its own parliament.

These changes satisfied neither Serbs who were concerned with the status of the Serb minority in the new Banovina of Croatia and who wanted more of Bosnia and Herzegovina as Serbian territory, nor the Croatian nationalist Ustaše who were also angered by any settlement short of full independence for a Greater Croatia including all of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Downfall

 
Occupation and partition of Yugoslavia, 1941–43
 
Occupation and partition of Yugoslavia, 1943–44

Fearing an invasion by the Axis powers, Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact on 25 March 1941, pledging cooperation with the Axis. Massive anti-Axis demonstrations followed in Belgrade.

On 27 March, the regime of Prince Paul was overthrown by a military coup d'état with British support. The 17-year-old Peter II was declared to be of age and placed in power. General Dušan Simović became his Prime Minister. The Kingdom of Yugoslavia withdrew its support for the Axis de facto without formally renouncing the Tripartite Pact. Although the new rulers opposed Nazi Germany, they also feared that if German dictator Adolf Hitler attacked Yugoslavia, the United Kingdom was not in any real position to help. Regardless of this, on 6 April 1941, the Axis powers launched the invasion of Yugoslavia and quickly conquered it. The royal family, including Prince Paul, escaped abroad and were kept under house arrest in British Kenya.[40]

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was soon divided by the Axis into several entities. Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria annexed some border areas outright. A Greater Germany was expanded to include most of Slovenia. Italy added the Governorship of Dalmatia, part of Macedonia and Kosovo, Montenegro, southerly part of Croatia, and more than a third of western Slovenia to the Italian Empire. An expanded Croatia was recognized by the Axis as the Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH). On paper, the NDH was a kingdom and the 4th Duke of Aosta was crowned as King Tomislav II of Croatia, but in reality the King was merely a figurehead and the real power was held by Poglavnik Ante Pavelić. The rump Serbian territory became a military administration of Germany run by military governors and a Serb civil government led by Milan Nedić. Nedić attempted to gain German recognition of Serbia as a successor state to Yugoslavia and claimed King Peter II as Serbia's monarch. Hungary occupied several northern regions.

Following the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy, Tomislav II abdicated from his Croatian throne and Pavelić assumed direct control over the NDH, annexing the Italian Governorate of Dalmatia in the process. After the invasion of Italy by the Axis powers in September 1943, the Italian governorates in Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia and Slovenia were occupied by the Germans and placed under direct Reich control.

Exile of the king

King Peter II, who had escaped into exile, was still recognized as King of the whole state of Yugoslavia by the Allies. From 13 May 1941, the largely Serbian "Yugoslav Army of the Fatherland" (Jugoslovenska vojska u otadžbini, or JVUO, or Chetniks) resisted the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia. This resistance movement, which was both anti-German and anti-communist, was commanded by Royalist General Draža Mihailović. For a long time, the Chetniks were supported by the British, the United States, and the Yugoslavian royal government in exile of King Peter II.

However, over the course of the war, effective power changed to the hands of Josip Broz Tito's Communist Partisans. In 1943, Tito proclaimed the creation of the Democratic Federative Yugoslavia (Demokratska federativna Jugoslavija). The Allies gradually recognized Tito's forces as the stronger opposition forces to the German occupation. They began to send most of their aid to Tito's Partisans, rather than to the Royalist Chetniks. On 16 June 1944, the Tito–Šubašić agreement was signed which merged the de facto and the de jure government of Yugoslavia.

In early 1945, after the Germans had been driven out, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was formally restored, however real political power was held by Tito's Communist Partisans. On 29 November, King Peter II was deposed (and the monarchy abolished) by Yugoslavia's Communist Constituent Assembly while he was still in exile. On 2 December, the Communist authorities claimed the entire territory as part of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia. The new Yugoslavia covered roughly the same territory as the Kingdom had, now a federal republic ruled by the Communist Party rather than a unitary monarchy.

Foreign policy

Pro-Allied government

The Kingdom nourished a close relationship with the Allies of World War I. This was especially the case between 1920 and 1934 with Yugoslavia's traditional supporters of Britain and France.

Little Entente

From 1920, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia had formed the Little Entente with Czechoslovakia and Romania, with the support of France. The primary aim of the alliance was to prevent Hungary from regaining the territories it had lost after the First World War. The alliance lost its significance in 1937 when Yugoslavia and Romania refused to support Czechoslovakia, then threatened by Germany, in the event of military aggression.

Balkan alliances

In 1934, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia formed a Balkan Bloc with Greece, Romania, and Turkey that was intent on keeping balance on the Balkan peninsula. The alliance was formalized and entrenched on 9 February 1934 when it became the "Balkan Entente". In 1934, with the assassination of King Alexander I by Vlado Chernozemski in Marseille and the shifting of Yugoslav foreign policy, the alliance crumbled.

Italian coalition

The Kingdom of Italy had territorial ambitions against the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Relations between Italy and the kingdom's predecessors, the Kingdom of Serbia and the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs became sour and hostile during World War I, as Italian and Yugoslav politicians were in dispute over the region of Dalmatia which Italy demanded as part of Italy. These hostile relations were demonstrated on 1 November 1918, when Italian forces sunk the recently captured Austro-Hungarian battleship SMS Viribus Unitis being used by the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. Italy formed a coalition against it with states with similar state designs, heavily influenced by Italy and/or fascism: Albania, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria which lasted from 1924 to 1927.

The 1927 cooperation with Britain and France made Italy withdraw from its anti-Yugoslav alliance. Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini accepted the extreme Croatian nationalist Ustase movement of Ante Pavelić to reside in Italy and use training grounds in Italy to prepare for war with Yugoslavia. Hungary also permitted such Ustase training camps as well. Mussolini allowed Pavelić to reside in Rome.

Friendship agreement

In 1927, in response to the growing Italian expansionism, the royal government of Yugoslavia signed an agreement of friendship and cooperation with the United Kingdom and France.

1935–1941

 
1939 Yugoslav postage stamp featuring King Peter II

Officially, the last words of King Aleksandar had been "Save Yugoslavia, and the friendship with France". His successors were well aware of the need to try and do the first, but the second, maintaining close ties with France, was increasingly difficult. There were several reasons for this. By the mid-1930s, France, internally divided, was increasingly unable to play an important role in Eastern Europe and support its allies, many of whom had suffered badly from the economic crisis of that period. By contrast, Germany was increasingly willing to get into barter agreements with the countries of south east Europe. In the process those countries felt it was against their interests to closely follow France. An additional motive to improve relations with Italy and Germany was Italy's support of the Ustase movement. As Maček intimated Italy would support Croatian secession from Yugoslavia, First Regent Prince Paul judged closer relations with Italy were inevitable. In an effort to rob the HSS from potential Italian support, a treaty of friendship was signed between the two countries in 1937. This diminished the Ustasa threat somewhat since Mussolini imprisoned some of their leaders and temporarily withdrew financial support. In 1938, Germany, annexing Austria, became a neighbour of Yugoslavia. The feeble reaction of France and Britain, later that year, during the Sudeten Crisis convinced Belgrade that a European war was inevitable and that it would be unwise to support France and Britain. Instead, Yugoslavia tried to stay aloof, this in spite of Paul's personal sympathies for Britain and Serbia's establishment's predilections for France. In the meantime, Germany and Italy tried to exploit Yugoslavia's domestic problems, and so did Maček. In the end, the regency agreed to the formation of the Banovina of Croatia in August 1939. This did not put an end to the pressures from Germany and Italy, and Yugoslavia's strategic position deteriorated by the day. It was increasingly dependent on the German market, about 90% of its exports went to Germany, and in April 1939 Italy invaded and annexed Albania. In October 1940 it attacked Greece, by when France had already been eliminated from the scene, leaving Britain as Yugoslavia's only potential ally – given that Belgrade had not recognized the Soviet Union. London however wanted to involve Yugoslavia in the war, which it rejected.

From late 1940, Hitler wanted Belgrade to unequivocally choose sides. Pressure intensified, culminating in the signing of the Tripartite Pact on 25 March 1941. Two days later, Prince Paul was deposed in a coup d'état and his nephew Peter II was proclaimed of age, but the new government, headed by General Simović, assured Germany it would adhere to the Pact. Hitler nonetheless ordered the invasion of Yugoslavia. On 6 April 1941, Belgrade was bombed; on 10 April, the Independent State of Croatia was proclaimed; and on 17 April, the weak Yugoslav Army capitulated.

1941–1945

After the invasion, the Yugoslav royal government went into exile and local Yugoslav forces rose up in resistance to the occupying Axis powers. Initially the monarchy preferred Draža Mihailović and his Serb-dominated Četnik resistance. However, in 1944, the Tito–Šubašić agreement recognised the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia as a provisional government, with the status of the monarchy to be decided at a later date. Three regents – Srđan Budisavljević, a Serb; Ante Mandić, a Croat; and Dušan Sernec, a Slovene – were sworn in at Belgrade on 3 March 1945. They appointed the new government, to be headed by Tito as prime minister and minister of war, with Šubašić as foreign minister, on 7 March.[41]

On 29 November 1945, while still in exile, King Peter II was deposed by the constituent assembly. The Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia was internationally recognized as Yugoslavia and Peter II became a pretender.

Demographics

Ethnic groups

 
Passport of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia

The small middle class occupied the major population centers and almost everyone else were peasants engaged in subsistence agriculture. The largest ethnic group were Serbs followed by Croats and Slovenes, as three constitutive peoples of the Kingdom, while Montenegrins, Bosnian Muslims and Macedonians were not recognized as distinctive ethnic groups; further historical minority groups included Germans, Italians, Hungarians, Slovaks, Jews and Rusyns. Religion followed the same pattern with half the population following Orthodox Christianity, around 40% Roman Catholicism and most the rest Sunni Islam. Beside "Serbo-Croato-Slovene", the most widely spoken languages by number of speakers were Macedonian, Albanian, Italian, Hungarian, German, Slovak and Rusyn.

In a multiethnic, multireligious and multilinguistic society, ethnic tensions and regional interests commonly surfaced in both politics and daily life, especially between the two largest and most influential groups who monopolized all political power in the country, the Serbs and Croats. Other quarrels were those between Serbs and Macedonians, as the Yugoslav government had as its official position that the latter were ethnic Serbs from "Old Serbia" (Serbo-Croatian: Stara Srbija). In the early 20th century the international community viewed the Macedonians predominantly as regional variety of Bulgarians on the basis on linguistics and cultural similarities, but during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Allies sanctioned the Serbian control of Vardar Macedonia and its view, that Macedonian Slavs were in fact Southern Serbs.[42] Bulgarian politicians later interpreted the decision as punishment for it being a Central Power during World War I and as sanctioned Serbian irredentism.

Rights of the Muslim minority were never enshrined in law but concessions were made to accommodate for religious relativism. Some regions of the country were allowed to exist as enclaves of Islamic law.[43]

Aside from Vlachs, the Yugoslav government awarded no special treatment to non-Slavic ethnic minorities in terms of respect for their language, culture, or political autonomy.

With the language of the country being institutionalized and mandatory, ethnic minorities were expected to gradually assimilate into the Yugoslav panethnic identity.

Kingdom of Yugoslavia's ethnic structure, 1918[44]
Ethnic group Number Percent
Serbs (including Montenegrins) 4,665,851 38.8%
Croats 2,856,551 23.8%
Slovenes 1,024,761 8.5%
Bosnian Muslims 727,650 6.1%
Macedonians[45] or Bulgarians[44] 585,558 4.9%
Other Slavs 174,466 1.5%
Germans 513,472 4.3%
Hungarians 472,409 3.9%
Albanians 441,740 3.7%
Romanians, Vlachs and Cincars 229,398 1.9%
Turks 168,404 1.4%
Jews 64,159 0.5%
Italians 12,825 0.1%
Others 80,079 0.7%
Total 12,017,323 100%
1 Source: Banac, Ivo (1992). The National Question in Yugoslavia. Origins, History, Politics (2nd printing ed.). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. p. 58. ISBN 9780801494932.
(The table represents a reconstruction of Yugoslavia's ethnic structure immediately after the establishment of the kingdom in 1918.)

Until 1929, Serbs, Croats and Slovenes were the constitutional nations, when they were merged into a single "Yugoslav" nationality.

Languages

The following data, grouped by first language, is from the 1921 population census:

Based on language, the Yugoslavs (collectively Serbs, Croats, Slovenes and other South-Slavic groups in the kingdom) constituted 82.9% of the country's population.

Religious groups

Class and occupation

Education

The Kingdom had three universities: the University of Belgrade, University of Zagreb and the University of Ljubljana, located in what were then the most developed cities in the country.

Vital statistics (1919–1940)

Average population[49] Live births[49] Deaths[49] Natural change[49] Crude birth rate (per 1,000)[49] Crude death rate (per 1,000)[49] Natural change (per 1,000)[49] Total fertility rate[49] Female fertile population (15–49 years)[49]
1919 11,706,957 347,748 258,638 89,110 29.7 22.1 7.6
1920 11,881,764 422,267 250,090 172,177 35.5 21.0 14.5
1921 12,059,178 442,530 252,104 190,426 36.7 20.9 15.8
1922 12,239,245 420,910 254,478 166,432 34.4 20.8 13.6
1923 12,421,997 432,779 252,543 180,236 34.8 20.3 14.5
1924 12,607,480 442,835 254,527 188,308 35.1 20.2 14.9
1925 12,795,732 437,070 239,429 197,641 34.2 18.7 15.4
1926 12,986,796 459,035 244,761 214,274 35.3 18.8 16.5
1927 13,180,709 451,617 276,294 175,323 34.3 21.0 13.3
1928 13,377,523 437,523 272,606 164,917 32.7 20.4 12.3
1929[50] 13,577,272 452,544 286,249 166,295 33.3 21.1 12.2
1930 13,780,006 489,270 261,497 227,773 35.5 19.0 16.5
1931 13,982,000 470,275 276,840 193,435 33.6 19.8 13.8
1932 14,174,000 465,935 272,180 193,755 32.9 19.2 13.7
1933 14,369,000 452,229 243,717 208,512 31.5 17.0 14.5
1934 14,566,000 460,913 248,882 212,031 31.6 17.1 14.6
1935 14,767,000 441,728 248,978 192,750 29.9 16.9 13.1
1936 14,970,000 435,861 240,879 194,982 29.1 16.1 13.0
1937[51] 15,172,000 424,448 242,337 182,111 28.0 16.0 12.0
1938[52] 15,384,000 411,381 240,303 171,078 26.7 15.6 11.1
1939[53] 15,596,000 403,938 233,196 170,742 25.9 15.0 10.9
1940 15,811,000
Average population Live births Deaths Natural change Crude birth rate (per 1000) Crude death rate (per 1000) Natural change (per 1000) Total fertility rate Female fertile population (15–49 years)

Marriages and divorces (1919–1940)

Average population Marriages Divorces Crude marriage rate (per 1000) Crude divorce rate (per 1000) Divorces per 1000 marriages
1919 11,706,957 225,605 19.3
1920 11,881,764 185,954 5,687 15.7 0.5 30.6
1921 12,059,178 157,055 6,720 13.0 0.6 42.8
1922 12,239,245 131,776 6,548 10.8 0.5 49.7
1923 12,421,997 129,796 6,492 10.4 0.5 50.0
1924 12,607,480 114,896 5,508 9.1 0.4 47.9
1925 12,795,732 123,005 5,481 9.6 0.4 44.6
1926 12,986,796 124,249 4,940 9.6 0.4 39.8
1927 13,180,709 124,104 5,254 9.4 0.4 42.3
1928 13,377,523 121,334 5,580 9.1 0.4 46.0
1929 13,577,272 128,120 6,070 9.4 0.4 47.4
1930 13,780,006 138,322 5,826 10.0 0.4 42.1
1931 13,982,000 126,072 6,393 9.0 0.5 50.7
1932 14,174,000 111,059 5,231 7.8 0.4 47.1
1933 14,369,000 111,503 5,500 7.8 0.4 49.3
1934 14,566,000 99,704 5,520 6.8 0.4 55.4
1935 14,767,000 110,129 5,561 7.5 0.4 50.5
1936 14,970,000 109,528 5,022 7.3 0.3 45.9
1937 15,172,000 117,717 6,547 7.8 0.4 55.6
1938 15,384,000 121,605 6,466 7.9 0.4 53.2
1939 15,596,000 123,817 7,103 7.9 0.5 57.4
1940 15,811,000
Average population Marriages Divorces Crude marriage rate (per 1000) Crude divorce rate (per 1000) Divorces per 1000 marriages

Rulers

Kings

  • Peter I (1 December 1918 – 16 August 1921; Prince regent Alexander ruled in the name of the King)
  • Alexander I (16 August 1921 – 9 October 1934)
  • Peter II (9 October 1934 – 29 November 1945; in exile from 13/14 April 1941)
    • Regency headed by Prince Paul (9 October 1934 – 27 March 1941)

Prime Ministers 1918–1941

Prime Ministers-in-exile 1941–1945

Subdivisions

The subdivisions of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia existed successively in three different forms. From 1918 to 1922, the kingdom maintained the pre–World War I subdivisions of Yugoslavia's predecessor states. In 1922, the state was divided into thirty-three oblasts (provinces). In 1929, after the establishment of the January 6 Dictatorship, a new system of nine banovinas (regions) was implemented by royal decree. In 1939, as an accommodation to Yugoslav Croats in the Cvetković-Maček Agreement, a single Banovina of Croatia was formed from two of these banovinas (and from sections of others).[citation needed]

Sport

The most popular sport in the Kingdom was association football. The Yugoslav Football Association was founded in Zagreb in 1919. It was based in Zagreb until the 6 January Dictatorship, when the association was moved to Belgrade. From 1923, a national championship was held annually. The national team played its first match at the 1920 Summer Olympics. It also participated in the inaugural FIFA World Cup, finishing fourth.[citation needed]

Other popular sports included water polo, which was dominated nationally by the Croatian side VK Jug.[citation needed]

The Kingdom participated at the Olympic Games from 1920 until 1936. During this time, the country won eight medals, all in gymnastics and six of these were won by Leon Štukelj, a Slovene who was the most nominated gymnast of that time.[citation needed]

See also

References

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  2. ^ Mesić, Milan (2004). Perspectives of Multiculturalism: Western and Transitional Countries. Zagreb: FF Press. p. 322. a triple-named language, called officially Serbo-Croato-Slovene
  3. ^ Tomasevich, Jozo (1975). War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945: The Chetniks. Stanford University Press. p. 93. ISBN 978-0804708579. from the original on 27 March 2019. Retrieved 2 October 2021.
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  6. ^ Alexander, Ronelle (2013). "Language and Identity: The Fate of Serbo-Croatian". In Daskalov, Rumen; Marinov, Tchavdar (eds.). Entangled Histories of the Balkans: Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies. Koninklijke Brill NV. p. 371. ISBN 978-9004250765. from the original on 15 May 2016. Retrieved 25 October 2015. Now, however, the official language of the new state, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, bore the unwieldy name Serbo-Croato-Slovene (srbsko-hrvatsko-slovenački or srbsko-hrvatsko-slovenski).
  7. ^ Wojciechowski, Sebastian; Burszta, Wojciech J.; Kamusella, Tomasz (2006). Nationalisms across the globe: an overview of nationalisms in state-endowed and stateless nations. Vol. 2. School of Humanities and Journalism. p. 79. ISBN 978-8387653460. from the original on 11 May 2016. Retrieved 25 October 2015. Similarly, the 1921 Constitution declared Serbocroatoslovenian as the official and national language of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenians.
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  • Pavle Vujević (1930). Kraljevina Jugoslavija: geografski i etnografski pregled. Štamparija "Davidović" Pavlovića i druga. from the original on 17 June 2016. Retrieved 25 October 2015.
  • Marko Pavlović (2012). Časlav Ocić (ed.). "Jugoslovenska kraljevina prva evropska regionalna država" (PDF). Zbornik Matice srpske za društvene nauke. Novi Sad: Matica srpska. 141: 503–521. ISSN 0352-5732. (PDF) from the original on 15 October 2020. Retrieved 27 April 2020.

External links

Coordinates: 44°49′14″N 20°27′44″E / 44.82056°N 20.46222°E / 44.82056; 20.46222

kingdom, yugoslavia, this, article, about, form, yugoslavia, from, 1918, 1943, country, whole, yugoslavia, confused, with, state, slovenes, croats, serbs, socialist, federal, republic, yugoslavia, federal, republic, yugoslavia, serbo, croatian, kraljevina, jug. This article is about the form of Yugoslavia from 1918 to 1943 For the country as a whole see Yugoslavia Not to be confused with State of Slovenes Croats and Serbs Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or Federal Republic of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia Serbo Croatian Kraljevina Jugoslavija Kraљevina Јugoslaviјa 8 Slovene Kraljevina Jugoslavija was a state in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941 From 1918 to 1929 it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs Croats and Slovenes Serbo Croatian Kraljevina Srba Hrvata i Slovenaca Kraљevina Srba Hrvata i Slovenaca Slovene Kraljevina Srbov Hrvatov in Slovencev but the term Yugoslavia literally Land of South Slavs was its colloquial name due to its origins 9 The official name of the state was changed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia by King Alexander I on 3 October 1929 9 Kingdom of Serbs Croats and Slovenes 1918 1929 Kraljevina Srba Hrvata i SlovenacaKraљevina Srba Hrvata i SlovenacaKraljevina Srbov Hrvatov in SlovencevKingdom of Yugoslavia 1929 1941 Kraljevina JugoslavijaKraљevina Јugoslaviјa1918 1941Flag Greater coat of armsMotto Jedan narod jedan kralj jedna drzava Јedan narod јedan kraљ јedna drzhava One People One King One State Anthem Himna Kraljevine JugoslavijeHimna Kraљevine Јugoslaviјe National Anthem of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia source source track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1930Capitaland largest cityBelgrade44 48 N 20 28 E 44 800 N 20 467 E 44 800 20 467Official languagesSerbo Croato Slovene a 1 2 Common languagesList Without official status German Hungarian Albanian Macedonian Romani Romanian LadinoDemonym s YugoslavGovernmentUnitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy 1918 1929 1931 1939 Unitary absolute monarchy under royal dictatorship 1929 1931 Federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy 1939 1941 King 1918 1921Peter I 1921 1934Alexander I 1934 1941Peter II b Prince Regent 1918 1921Prince Alexander 1934 1941Prince PaulPrime Minister 1918 1919 first Stojan Protic 1941 last Dusan SimovicLegislatureProvisional Representation 1919 1920 National Assembly c 1920 1941 Upper houseSenate since 1931 Lower houseChamber of Deputies since 1931 Historical eraInterwar period World War II Established1 December 1918 Vidovdan Constitution28 June 1921 6 Jan Dictatorship6 January 1929 Octroic Constitution3 September 1931 King assassinated9 October 1934 Sporazum in Croatia25 August 1939 Joined the Axis25 March 1941 Coup d etat27 March 1941 Axis invasion6 April 1941 Government in exileApril 1941 Monarchy abolished29 November 1945Area1941 3 247 542 km2 95 577 sq mi Population 1918 4 12 017 323 1931 5 13 934 000CurrencyYugoslav krone 1918 1920 Yugoslav dinar 1920 1941 Preceded by Succeeded byKingdom of SerbiaState of Slovenes Croats and SerbsKingdom of Hungary portion Kingdom of Italy portion Kingdom of Bulgaria German occupied SerbiaItalian governorate of MontenegroIndependent State of CroatiaKingdom of ItalyKingdom of BulgariaKingdom of HungaryItalian protectorate of AlbaniaNazi GermanyYugoslavgovt in exile Serbo Croatian and Slovene are separate languages but that was not officially accepted or universally acknowledged at the time and Serbo Croato Slovene was declared the single official language srbsko hrvatsko slovenacki or srbsko hrvatsko slovenski also translated Serbocroatoslovenian In practice it functioned as Serbo Croatian 6 7 Peter II still underage was declared an adult by a military coup Shortly after his assumption of royal authority Yugoslavia was occupied by the Axis and the young King went into exile In 1944 he accepted the formation of Democratic Federal Yugoslavia He was deposed by the Yugoslav parliament in 1945 Unicameral until 1931 The preliminary kingdom was formed in 1918 by the merger of the provisional State of Slovenes Croats and Serbs itself formed from territories of the former Austria Hungary encompassing today s Bosnia and Herzegovina and most of today s Croatia and Slovenia and Banat Backa and Baranja that had been part of the Kingdom of Hungary within Austria Hungary with the formerly independent Kingdom of Serbia In the same year the Kingdom of Montenegro also proclaimed its unification with Serbia whereas the regions of Kosovo and Vardar Macedonia had become parts of Serbia prior to the unification 10 The state was ruled by the Serbian dynasty of Karađorđevic which previously ruled the Kingdom of Serbia under Peter I from 1903 after the May Coup onward Peter I became the first king of Yugoslavia until his death in 1921 He was succeeded by his son Alexander I who had been regent for his father He was known as Alexander the Unifier and he renamed the kingdom Yugoslavia in 1929 He was assassinated in Marseille by Vlado Chernozemski a member of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization IMRO during his visit to France in 1934 The crown passed to his 11 year old son Peter Alexander s cousin Paul ruled as Prince regent until 1941 when Peter II came of age 11 The royal family flew to London the same year prior to the country being invaded by the Axis powers In April 1941 the country was occupied and partitioned by the Axis powers A royal government in exile recognized by the United Kingdom and later by all the Allies was established in London In 1944 after pressure from the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill the King recognized the government of Democratic Federal Yugoslavia as the legitimate government This was established on 2 November following the signing of the Treaty of Vis by Ivan Subasic on behalf of the Kingdom and Josip Broz Tito on behalf of the Yugoslav Partisans 12 Contents 1 Formation 2 Economy 2 1 Farming 2 2 Manufacturing 2 3 Debt 2 4 Education 3 Political history 3 1 Early politics 3 2 Constituent assembly to dictatorship 3 3 6 January dictatorship 3 4 Yugoslav regency 3 5 Downfall 3 6 Exile of the king 4 Foreign policy 4 1 Pro Allied government 4 1 1 Little Entente 4 1 2 Balkan alliances 4 1 3 Italian coalition 4 1 3 1 Friendship agreement 4 2 1935 1941 4 3 1941 1945 5 Demographics 5 1 Ethnic groups 5 2 Languages 5 3 Religious groups 5 4 Class and occupation 5 5 Education 5 6 Vital statistics 1919 1940 5 7 Marriages and divorces 1919 1940 6 Rulers 6 1 Kings 6 2 Prime Ministers 1918 1941 6 3 Prime Ministers in exile 1941 1945 7 Subdivisions 8 Sport 9 See also 10 References 11 Sources 12 External linksFormation EditMain article Creation of Yugoslavia Celebrations in Zagreb during the formation of the National Council of the State of Slovenes Croats and Serbs October 1918 Serbian Army in Zagreb s Ban Jelacic Square in 1918 Delegation of the National Council of the State of Slovenes Croats and Serbs led by Ante Pavelic reading the address in front of regent Alexander 1 December 1918 Following the assassination of Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand by the Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip and the outbreak of World War I Serbia was invaded and occupied by a combined Bulgarian Austrian and German force on 6 October 1915 This saw the escalation of South Slavic nationalism and calls by Slavic nationalists for the independence and unification of the South Slavic nationalities of Austria Hungary along with Serbia and Montenegro into a single State of Slovenes Croats and Serbs 13 The Dalmatian Croat politician Ante Trumbic became a prominent South Slavic leader during the war and led the Yugoslav Committee that lobbied the Allies to support the creation of an independent Yugoslavia 14 Trumbic faced initial hostility from Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pasic who preferred an enlarged Serbia over a unified Yugoslav state However both Pasic and Trumbic agreed to a compromise which was delivered at the Corfu Declaration on 20 July 1917 that advocated the creation of a united state of Serbs Croats and Slovenes to be led by the Serbian House of Karađorđevic 14 In 1916 the Yugoslav Committee started negotiations with the Serbian Government in exile on which they decided on the creation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia declaring the joint Corfu Declaration in 1917 the meetings were held at the Municipal Theatre of Corfu 15 In November 1918 the National Council of the State of Slovenes Croats and Serbs appointed 28 members to start negotiation with the representatives of the government of the Kingdom of Serbia and Montenegro on creation of a new Yugoslav state the delegation negotiated directly with regent Alexander Karađorđevic 16 The negotiations would end with the delegation of the National Council of the State of Slovenes Croats and Serbs led by Ante Pavelic reading the address in front of regent Alexander who represented his father King Peter I of Serbia by which acceptance the kingdom was established 17 The name of the new Yugoslav state was Kingdom of Serbs Croats and Slovenes Serbo Croatian Kraljevina Srba Hrvata i Slovenaca Kraљevina Srba Hrvata i Slovenaca Slovene Kraljevina Srbov Hrvatov in Slovencev or its abbreviated form Kingdom of SCS Kraljevina SHS Kraљevina SHS The new kingdom was made up of the formerly independent kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro Montenegro having been absorbed into Serbia the previous month and of a substantial amount of territory that was formerly part of Austria Hungary the State of Slovenes Croats and Serbs The main states which formed the new Kingdom were the State of Slovenes Croats and Serbs Vojvodina and the Kingdom of Serbia with the Kingdom of Montenegro The creation of the state was supported by pan Slavists and Yugoslav nationalists For the pan Slavic movement all of the South Slav Yugoslav people had united into a single state The creation was also supported by the Allies who sought to break up the Austro Hungarian Empire The newly established Kingdom of Serbs Croats and Slovenes participated in the Paris Peace Conference with Trumbic as the country s representative 14 Since the Allies had lured the Italians into the war with a promise of substantial territorial gains in exchange which cut off a quarter of Slovene ethnic territory from the remaining three quarters of Slovenes living in the Kingdom of SCS Trumbic successfully vouched for the inclusion of most Slavs living in the former Austria Hungary to be included within the borders of the new Kingdom of Serbs Croats and Slovenes Nevertheless with the Treaty of Rapallo 14 a population of half a million South Slavs 18 mostly Slovenes were subjected to forced Italianization until the fall of Fascism in Italy At the time when Benito Mussolini was willing to modify the Rapallo borders in order to annex the independent state of Rijeka to Italy Pasic s attempts to correct the borders at Postojna and Idrija were effectively undermined by the regent Alexander who preferred good relations with Italy 19 Mihajlo Pupin Serbian physicist and physical chemist He influenced the final decisions of the Paris Peace Conference when the borders of the Kingdom were drawn The Yugoslav kingdom bordered Italy and Austria to the northwest at the Rapallo border Hungary and Romania to the north Bulgaria to the east Greece and Albania to the south and the Adriatic Sea to the west Almost immediately it ran into disputes with most of its neighbours Slovenia was difficult to determine since it had been an integral part of Austria for 400 years The Vojvodina region was disputed with Hungary Macedonia with Bulgaria Rijeka with Italy 20 A plebiscite was also held in the Province of Carinthia which opted to remain in Austria Austrians had formed a majority in this region although numbers reflected that some Slovenes did vote for Carinthia to become part of Austria The Dalmatian port city of Zadar and a few of the Dalmatian islands were given to Italy The city of Rijeka was declared to be the Free State of Fiume but it was soon occupied and in 1924 annexed by Italy which had also been promised the Dalmatian coast during World War I and Yugoslavia claiming Istria a part of the former Austrian Littoral which had been annexed to Italy but which contained a considerable population of Croats and Slovenes The formation of the Vidovdan Constitution in 1921 sparked tensions between the different Yugoslav nationalities 14 Trumbic opposed the 1921 constitution and over time grew increasingly hostile towards the Yugoslav government that he saw as being centralized in the favor of Serb hegemony over Yugoslavia 14 Economy EditFarming Edit Slovene farmers threshing wheat 1930s Three quarters of the Yugoslav workforce was engaged in agriculture A few commercial farmers existed but most were subsistence peasants Those in the south were especially poor living in a hilly infertile region No large estates existed except in the north and all of those were owned by foreigners Indeed one of the first actions undertaken by the new Yugoslav state in 1919 was to break up the estates and dispose of foreign and in particular Hungarian landowners Nearly 40 of the rural population was surplus i e excess people not needed to maintain current production levels and despite a warm climate Yugoslavia was also relatively dry Internal communications were poor damage from World War I had been extensive and with few exceptions agriculture was devoid of machinery or other modern farming technologies 21 Manufacturing Edit Manufacturing was limited to Belgrade and the other major population centers and consisted mainly of small comparatively primitive facilities that produced strictly for the domestic market The commercial potential of Yugoslavia s Adriatic ports went to waste because the nation lacked the capital or technical knowledge to operate a shipping industry 22 On the other hand the mining industry was well developed due to the nation s abundance of mineral resources but since it was primarily owned and operated by foreigners most production was exported Yugoslavia was the third least industrialized nation in Eastern Europe after Bulgaria and Albania Debt Edit Bond of the Kingdom of Serbs Croats and Slovenes for the liquidation of the agro debts from Bosnia and Herzegovina issued 18 June 1921 Yugoslavia was typical of Eastern European nations in that it borrowed large sums of money from the West during the 1920s When the Great Depression began in 1929 the Western lenders called in their debts which could not be paid back Some of the money was lost to graft although most was used by farmers to improve production and export potential Agricultural exports however were always an unstable prospect as their export earnings were heavily reliant on volatile world market prices The Great Depression caused the market for them to collapse as global demand contracted heavily and the situation for export oriented farmers further deteriorated when nations everywhere started to erect trade barriers Italy was a major trading partner of Yugoslavia in the initial years after World War I but ties fell off after Benito Mussolini came to power in 1922 In the grim economic situation of the 1930s Yugoslavia followed the lead of its neighbors in allowing itself to become a dependent of Nazi Germany 23 Education Edit Although Yugoslavia had enacted a compulsory public education policy it was inaccessible to many peasants in the countryside Official literacy figures for the population stood at 50 but it varied widely throughout the country Less than 10 of Slovenes were illiterate whereas over 80 of Macedonians and Bosnians could not read or write Approximately 10 of initial elementary school students went on to attend higher forms of education at one of the country s three universities in Belgrade Ljubljana and Zagreb 24 Political history EditEarly politics Edit Between 1918 and 1926 Nikola Pasic held the position of Prime Minister of Yugoslavia three times Immediately after 1 December proclamation negotiations between the National Council of Slovenes Croats and Serbs and the Serbian government resulted in agreement over the new government which was to be headed by Nikola Pasic However when this agreement was submitted to the approval of the regent Alexander Karađorđevic it was rejected producing the new state s first governmental crisis Many regarded this rejection as a violation of parliamentary principles but the matter was resolved when the regent suggested replacing Pasic with Stojan Protic a leading member of Pasic s Radical Party The National Council and the Serbian government agreed and the new government came into existence on 20 December 1918 25 26 In this period before the election of the Constituent Assembly a Provisional Representation served as a parliament which was formed by delegates from the various elected bodies that had existed before the creation of the state A realignment of parties combining several members of the Serbian opposition with political parties from the former Austria Hungary led to the creation of a new party The Democratic Party that dominated the Provisional Representation and the government Because the Democratic Party led by Ljubomir Davidovic pushed a highly centralized agenda a number of Croatian delegates moved into opposition However the radicals themselves were not happy that they had only three ministers to the Democratic Party s 11 and on 16 August 1919 Protic handed in his resignation Davidovic then formed a coalition with the Social Democrats This government had a majority but the quorum of the Provisional Representation was half plus one vote The opposition then began to boycott the parliament As the government could never guarantee that all of its supporters would turn up it became impossible to hold a quorate meeting of the parliament Davidovic soon resigned but as no one else could form a government he again became prime minister As the opposition continued their boycott the government decided it had no alternative but to rule by decree This was denounced by the opposition who began to style themselves as the Parliamentary Community Davidovic realized that the situation was untenable and asked the King to hold immediate elections for the Constituent Assembly When the King refused he felt he had no alternative but to resign The Parliamentary Community now formed a government led by Stojan Protic committed to the restoration of parliamentary norms and mitigating the centralization of the previous government Their opposition to the former governments program of radical land reform also united them As several small groups and individuals switched sides Protic now even had a small majority However the Democratic Party and the Social Democrats now boycotted parliament and Protic was unable to muster a quorum Hence the Parliamentary Community now in government was forced to rule by decree For the Parliamentary Community to thus violate the basic principle around which they had formed put them in an extremely difficult position In April 1920 widespread worker unrest and a railway strike broke out According to Gligorijevic this put pressure on the two main parties to settle their differences After successful negotiations Protic resigned to make way for a new government led by the neutral figure of Milenko Vesnic The Social Democrats did not follow the Democratic Party their former allies into government because they were opposed to the anti communist measures to which the new government was committed The controversies that had divided the parties earlier were still very much live issues The Democratic Party continued to push its agenda of centralization and still insisted on the need for radical land reform A disagreement over electoral law finally led the Democratic Party to vote against the government in Parliament and the government was defeated Though this meeting had not been quorate Vesnic used this as a pretext to resign His resignation had the intended effect the Radical Party agreed to accept the need for centralization and the Democratic Party agreed to drop its insistence on land reform Vesnic again headed the new government The Croatian Community and the Slovenian People s Party were however not happy with the Radicals acceptance of centralization Neither was Stojan Protic and he withdrew from the government on this issue In September 1920 a peasant revolt broke out in Croatia the immediate cause of which was the branding of the peasants cattle The Croatian community blamed the centralizing policies of the government and of minister Svetozar Pribicevic in particular Constituent assembly to dictatorship Edit Provinces of the Kingdom in 1920 1922 Oblasts of the Kingdom of Serbs Croats and Slovenes One of the few laws successfully passed by the Provisional Representation was the electoral law for the constituent assembly During the negotiations that preceded the foundation of the new state it had been agreed that voting would be secret and based on universal suffrage It had not occurred to them that universal might include women until the beginning of a movement for women s suffrage appeared with the creation of the new state The Social Democrats and the Slovenian People s Party supported women s suffrage but the Radicals opposed it The Democratic Party was open to the idea but not committed enough to make an issue of it so the proposal fell Proportional Representation was accepted in principle but the system chosen d Hondt with very small constituencies favored large parties and parties with strong regional support The election was held on 28 November 1920 When the votes were counted the Democratic Party had won the most seats more than the Radicals but only just For a party that had been so dominant in the Provisional Representation that amounted to a defeat Further it had done rather badly in all former Austria Hungarian areas That undercut the party s belief that its centralization policy represented the will of the Yugoslavian people as a whole The Radicals had done no better in that region but this presented them far less of a problem because they had campaigned openly as a Serbian party The most dramatic gains had been made by the two anti system parties The Croatian Republican Peasant Party s leadership had been released from prison only as the election campaign began to get underway According to Gligorijevic this had helped them more than active campaigning The Croatian community that had in a timid way tried to express the discontent that Croatian Republican Peasant Party mobilized had been too tainted by their participation in government and was all but eliminated The other gainers were the communists who had done especially well in the wider Macedonia region The remainder of the seats were taken up by smaller parties that were at best skeptical of the centralizing platform of the Democratic Party The results left Nikola Pasic in a very strong position as the Democrats had no choice but to ally with the Radicals if they wanted to get their concept of a centralized Yugoslavia through Pasic was always careful to keep open the option of a deal with the Croatian opposition The Democrats and the Radicals were not quite strong enough to get the constitution through on their own and they made an alliance with the Yugoslav Muslim Organization JMO The Muslim party sought and got concessions over the preservation of Bosnia in its borders and how the land reform would affect Muslim landowners in Bosnia The Croatian Republican Peasant Party refused to swear allegiance to the King on the grounds that this presumed that Yugoslavia would be a monarchy something that it contended only the Constituent Assembly could decide The party was unable to take its seats Most of the opposition though initially taking their seats declared boycotts as time went so that there were few votes against However the constitution decided against 1918 agreement between the State of Slovenes Croats and Serbs and the Kingdom of Serbia which stated that a 66 majority that 50 plus one vote would be needed to pass irrespective of how many voted against Only last minute concessions to Dzemijet a group of Muslims from Macedonia and Kosovo saved it The Vidovdan Constitution On 28 June 1921 the Vidovdan Constitution was passed establishing a unitary monarchy The pre World War I traditional regions were abolished and 33 new administrative oblasts provinces ruled from the center were instituted During this time King Peter I died 16 August 1921 and the prince regent succeeded to the throne as King Alexander I Ljubomir Davidovic of the Democrats began to have doubts about the wisdom of his party s commitment to centralization and opened up negotiations with the opposition This threatened to provoke a split in his party as his action was opposed by Svetozar Pribicevic It also gave Pasic a pretext to end the coalition At first the King gave Pasic a mandate to form a coalition with Pribicevic s Democrats However Pasic offered Pribicevic too little for there to be much chance that Pribicevic would agree A purely Radical government was formed with a mandate to hold elections The Radicals made gains at the expense of the Democrats but elsewhere there were gains by Radic s Peasant s Party Serb politicians around Radic regarded Serbia as the standard bearer of Yugoslav unity as the state of Piedmont had been for Italy or Prussia for the German Empire a kind of Greater Serbia Over the following years Croatian resistance against a Serbo centric policy increased In the early 1920s the Yugoslav government of prime minister Nikola Pasic used police pressure over voters and ethnic minorities confiscation of opposition pamphlets 27 and other measure to rig elections This was ineffective against the Croatian Peasant Party formerly the Croatian Republican Peasant Party whose members continued to win election to the Yugoslav parliament in large numbers 28 but did harm the Radicals main Serbian rivals the Democrats Stjepan Radic the head of the Croatian Peasant Party was imprisoned many times for political reasons 29 He was released in 1925 and returned to parliament In the spring of 1928 Radic and Svetozar Pribicevic waged a bitter parliamentary battle against the ratification of the Nettuno Convention with Italy In this they mobilised nationalist opposition in Serbia but provoked a violent reaction from the governing majority including death threats On 20 June 1928 a member of the government majority the Serb deputy Punisa Racic shot five members of the Croatian Peasant Party including their leader Stjepan Radic after Radic refused to apologize for earlier offense in which he accused Racic of stealing from civilian population 30 Two died on the floor of the Assembly while the life of Radic hung in the balance The opposition now completely withdrew from parliament declaring that they would not return to a parliament in which several of their representatives had been killed and insisting on new elections On 1 August at a meeting in Zagreb they renounced 1 December Declaration of 1920 They demanded that the negotiations for unification should begin from scratch On 8 August Stjepan Radic died 6 January dictatorship Edit Main article 6 January Dictatorship In 1929 the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was subdivided into nine banovinas This became eight in 1939 when two were merged to form the Banovina of Croatia In 1939 the Banovina of Croatia was founded aimed at solving the Croatian question It was formed from the Sava Banovina and Littoral Banovina with small parts ceded from the Drina Zeta and Danube banovinas On 6 January 1929 using as a pretext the political crisis triggered by the shooting King Alexander abolished the Constitution prorogued the Parliament and introduced a personal dictatorship known as the January 6 Dictatorship Sestosijecanjska diktatura Sestojanuarska diktatura with the aim of establishing the Yugoslav ideology and single Yugoslav nation 31 32 33 He changed the name of the country to Kingdom of Yugoslavia and changed the internal divisions from the 33 oblasts to nine new banovinas on 3 October This decision was made following a proposal by the British ambassador to better decentralize the country modeled on Czechoslovakia 34 A Court for the Protection of the State was soon established to act as the new regime s tool for putting down any dissent Opposition politicians Vladko Macek and Svetozar Pribicevic were arrested under charges by the court Pribicevic later went into exile whereas over the course of the 1930s Macek would become the leader of the entire opposition bloc Immediately after the dictatorship was proclaimed Croatian deputy Ante Pavelic left for exile from the country The following years Pavelic worked to establish a revolutionary organization the Ustase allied with the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization IMRO against the state In 1931 Alexander decreed a new Constitution which made executive power the gift of the King Elections were to be by universal male suffrage The provision for a secret ballot was dropped and pressure on public employees to vote for the governing party was to be a feature of all elections held under Alexander s constitution Further half the upper house was directly appointed by the King and legislation could become law with the approval of one of the houses alone if also approved by the King That same year Croatian historian and anti Yugoslavist intellectual 35 Milan Sufflay was assassinated in Zagreb As a response Albert Einstein and Heinrich Mann sent an appeal to the International League of Human Rights in Paris condemning the murder accusing the Yugoslav government The letter states of a horrible brutality which is being practiced upon the Croatian People The appeal was addressed to the Paris based Ligue des droits de l homme 36 Human Rights League 37 In their letter Einstein and Mann held the Yugoslav king Aleksandar explicitly responsible for these circumstances 37 38 39 Croat opposition to the new regime was strong and in late 1932 the Croatian Peasant Party issued the Zagreb Manifesto which sought an end to Serb hegemony and dictatorship The government reacted by imprisoning many political opponents including the new Croatian Peasant Party leader Vladko Macek Despite these measures opposition to the dictatorship continued with Croats calling for a solution to what was called the Croatian question In late 1934 the King planned to release Macek from prison introduce democratic reforms and attempt find common ground between Serbs and Croats citation needed However on 9 October 1934 the king was assassinated in Marseille France by Bulgarian Velicko Kerin also known by his revolutionary pseudonym Vlado Chernozemski an activist of IMRO in a conspiracy with Yugoslav exiles and radical members of banned political parties in cooperation with the Croatian extreme nationalist Ustase organisation Yugoslav regency Edit Main article Yugoslav regency Because Alexander s eldest son Peter II was a minor a regency council of three specified in Alexander s will took over the new king s royal powers and duties The council was dominated by the 11 year old king s first cousin once removed Prince Paul In the late 1930s internal tensions continued to increase with Serbs and Croats seeking to establish ethnic federal subdivisions Serbs wanted Vardar Banovina later known within Yugoslavia as Vardar Macedonia Vojvodina Montenegro united with the Serb lands and Croatia wanted Dalmatia and some of Vojvodina Both sides claimed territory in present day Bosnia and Herzegovina populated also by Bosnian Muslims The expansion of Nazi Germany in 1938 gave new momentum to efforts to solve these problems and in 1939 Prince Paul appointed Dragisa Cvetkovic as prime minister with the goal of reaching an agreement with the Croatian opposition Accordingly on 26 August 1939 Vladko Macek became vice premier of Yugoslavia and an autonomous Banovina of Croatia was established with its own parliament These changes satisfied neither Serbs who were concerned with the status of the Serb minority in the new Banovina of Croatia and who wanted more of Bosnia and Herzegovina as Serbian territory nor the Croatian nationalist Ustase who were also angered by any settlement short of full independence for a Greater Croatia including all of Bosnia and Herzegovina Downfall Edit Main article Invasion of Yugoslavia Occupation and partition of Yugoslavia 1941 43 Occupation and partition of Yugoslavia 1943 44 Fearing an invasion by the Axis powers Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact on 25 March 1941 pledging cooperation with the Axis Massive anti Axis demonstrations followed in Belgrade On 27 March the regime of Prince Paul was overthrown by a military coup d etat with British support The 17 year old Peter II was declared to be of age and placed in power General Dusan Simovic became his Prime Minister The Kingdom of Yugoslavia withdrew its support for the Axis de facto without formally renouncing the Tripartite Pact Although the new rulers opposed Nazi Germany they also feared that if German dictator Adolf Hitler attacked Yugoslavia the United Kingdom was not in any real position to help Regardless of this on 6 April 1941 the Axis powers launched the invasion of Yugoslavia and quickly conquered it The royal family including Prince Paul escaped abroad and were kept under house arrest in British Kenya 40 The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was soon divided by the Axis into several entities Germany Italy Hungary and Bulgaria annexed some border areas outright A Greater Germany was expanded to include most of Slovenia Italy added the Governorship of Dalmatia part of Macedonia and Kosovo Montenegro southerly part of Croatia and more than a third of western Slovenia to the Italian Empire An expanded Croatia was recognized by the Axis as the Independent State of Croatia Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska NDH On paper the NDH was a kingdom and the 4th Duke of Aosta was crowned as King Tomislav II of Croatia but in reality the King was merely a figurehead and the real power was held by Poglavnik Ante Pavelic The rump Serbian territory became a military administration of Germany run by military governors and a Serb civil government led by Milan Nedic Nedic attempted to gain German recognition of Serbia as a successor state to Yugoslavia and claimed King Peter II as Serbia s monarch Hungary occupied several northern regions Following the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy Tomislav II abdicated from his Croatian throne and Pavelic assumed direct control over the NDH annexing the Italian Governorate of Dalmatia in the process After the invasion of Italy by the Axis powers in September 1943 the Italian governorates in Montenegro Kosovo Macedonia and Slovenia were occupied by the Germans and placed under direct Reich control Exile of the king Edit King Peter II who had escaped into exile was still recognized as King of the whole state of Yugoslavia by the Allies From 13 May 1941 the largely Serbian Yugoslav Army of the Fatherland Jugoslovenska vojska u otadzbini or JVUO or Chetniks resisted the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia This resistance movement which was both anti German and anti communist was commanded by Royalist General Draza Mihailovic For a long time the Chetniks were supported by the British the United States and the Yugoslavian royal government in exile of King Peter II However over the course of the war effective power changed to the hands of Josip Broz Tito s Communist Partisans In 1943 Tito proclaimed the creation of the Democratic Federative Yugoslavia Demokratska federativna Jugoslavija The Allies gradually recognized Tito s forces as the stronger opposition forces to the German occupation They began to send most of their aid to Tito s Partisans rather than to the Royalist Chetniks On 16 June 1944 the Tito Subasic agreement was signed which merged the de facto and the de jure government of Yugoslavia In early 1945 after the Germans had been driven out the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was formally restored however real political power was held by Tito s Communist Partisans On 29 November King Peter II was deposed and the monarchy abolished by Yugoslavia s Communist Constituent Assembly while he was still in exile On 2 December the Communist authorities claimed the entire territory as part of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia The new Yugoslavia covered roughly the same territory as the Kingdom had now a federal republic ruled by the Communist Party rather than a unitary monarchy Foreign policy EditMain article Foreign relations of Yugoslavia Pro Allied government Edit The Kingdom nourished a close relationship with the Allies of World War I This was especially the case between 1920 and 1934 with Yugoslavia s traditional supporters of Britain and France Little Entente Edit From 1920 the Kingdom of Yugoslavia had formed the Little Entente with Czechoslovakia and Romania with the support of France The primary aim of the alliance was to prevent Hungary from regaining the territories it had lost after the First World War The alliance lost its significance in 1937 when Yugoslavia and Romania refused to support Czechoslovakia then threatened by Germany in the event of military aggression Balkan alliances Edit In 1934 the Kingdom of Yugoslavia formed a Balkan Bloc with Greece Romania and Turkey that was intent on keeping balance on the Balkan peninsula The alliance was formalized and entrenched on 9 February 1934 when it became the Balkan Entente In 1934 with the assassination of King Alexander I by Vlado Chernozemski in Marseille and the shifting of Yugoslav foreign policy the alliance crumbled Italian coalition Edit The Kingdom of Italy had territorial ambitions against the Kingdom of Yugoslavia Relations between Italy and the kingdom s predecessors the Kingdom of Serbia and the State of Slovenes Croats and Serbs became sour and hostile during World War I as Italian and Yugoslav politicians were in dispute over the region of Dalmatia which Italy demanded as part of Italy These hostile relations were demonstrated on 1 November 1918 when Italian forces sunk the recently captured Austro Hungarian battleship SMS Viribus Unitis being used by the State of Slovenes Croats and Serbs Italy formed a coalition against it with states with similar state designs heavily influenced by Italy and or fascism Albania Hungary Romania and Bulgaria which lasted from 1924 to 1927 The 1927 cooperation with Britain and France made Italy withdraw from its anti Yugoslav alliance Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini accepted the extreme Croatian nationalist Ustase movement of Ante Pavelic to reside in Italy and use training grounds in Italy to prepare for war with Yugoslavia Hungary also permitted such Ustase training camps as well Mussolini allowed Pavelic to reside in Rome Friendship agreement Edit In 1927 in response to the growing Italian expansionism the royal government of Yugoslavia signed an agreement of friendship and cooperation with the United Kingdom and France 1935 1941 Edit This section possibly contains original research Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations Statements consisting only of original research should be removed November 2012 Learn how and when to remove this template message 1939 Yugoslav postage stamp featuring King Peter II Officially the last words of King Aleksandar had been Save Yugoslavia and the friendship with France His successors were well aware of the need to try and do the first but the second maintaining close ties with France was increasingly difficult There were several reasons for this By the mid 1930s France internally divided was increasingly unable to play an important role in Eastern Europe and support its allies many of whom had suffered badly from the economic crisis of that period By contrast Germany was increasingly willing to get into barter agreements with the countries of south east Europe In the process those countries felt it was against their interests to closely follow France An additional motive to improve relations with Italy and Germany was Italy s support of the Ustase movement As Macek intimated Italy would support Croatian secession from Yugoslavia First Regent Prince Paul judged closer relations with Italy were inevitable In an effort to rob the HSS from potential Italian support a treaty of friendship was signed between the two countries in 1937 This diminished the Ustasa threat somewhat since Mussolini imprisoned some of their leaders and temporarily withdrew financial support In 1938 Germany annexing Austria became a neighbour of Yugoslavia The feeble reaction of France and Britain later that year during the Sudeten Crisis convinced Belgrade that a European war was inevitable and that it would be unwise to support France and Britain Instead Yugoslavia tried to stay aloof this in spite of Paul s personal sympathies for Britain and Serbia s establishment s predilections for France In the meantime Germany and Italy tried to exploit Yugoslavia s domestic problems and so did Macek In the end the regency agreed to the formation of the Banovina of Croatia in August 1939 This did not put an end to the pressures from Germany and Italy and Yugoslavia s strategic position deteriorated by the day It was increasingly dependent on the German market about 90 of its exports went to Germany and in April 1939 Italy invaded and annexed Albania In October 1940 it attacked Greece by when France had already been eliminated from the scene leaving Britain as Yugoslavia s only potential ally given that Belgrade had not recognized the Soviet Union London however wanted to involve Yugoslavia in the war which it rejected From late 1940 Hitler wanted Belgrade to unequivocally choose sides Pressure intensified culminating in the signing of the Tripartite Pact on 25 March 1941 Two days later Prince Paul was deposed in a coup d etat and his nephew Peter II was proclaimed of age but the new government headed by General Simovic assured Germany it would adhere to the Pact Hitler nonetheless ordered the invasion of Yugoslavia On 6 April 1941 Belgrade was bombed on 10 April the Independent State of Croatia was proclaimed and on 17 April the weak Yugoslav Army capitulated 1941 1945 Edit After the invasion the Yugoslav royal government went into exile and local Yugoslav forces rose up in resistance to the occupying Axis powers Initially the monarchy preferred Draza Mihailovic and his Serb dominated Cetnik resistance However in 1944 the Tito Subasic agreement recognised the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia as a provisional government with the status of the monarchy to be decided at a later date Three regents Srđan Budisavljevic a Serb Ante Mandic a Croat and Dusan Sernec a Slovene were sworn in at Belgrade on 3 March 1945 They appointed the new government to be headed by Tito as prime minister and minister of war with Subasic as foreign minister on 7 March 41 On 29 November 1945 while still in exile King Peter II was deposed by the constituent assembly The Federal People s Republic of Yugoslavia was internationally recognized as Yugoslavia and Peter II became a pretender Demographics EditSee also Demographics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Ethnic groups Edit See also Ethnic groups in Yugoslavia Passport of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia The small middle class occupied the major population centers and almost everyone else were peasants engaged in subsistence agriculture The largest ethnic group were Serbs followed by Croats and Slovenes as three constitutive peoples of the Kingdom while Montenegrins Bosnian Muslims and Macedonians were not recognized as distinctive ethnic groups further historical minority groups included Germans Italians Hungarians Slovaks Jews and Rusyns Religion followed the same pattern with half the population following Orthodox Christianity around 40 Roman Catholicism and most the rest Sunni Islam Beside Serbo Croato Slovene the most widely spoken languages by number of speakers were Macedonian Albanian Italian Hungarian German Slovak and Rusyn In a multiethnic multireligious and multilinguistic society ethnic tensions and regional interests commonly surfaced in both politics and daily life especially between the two largest and most influential groups who monopolized all political power in the country the Serbs and Croats Other quarrels were those between Serbs and Macedonians as the Yugoslav government had as its official position that the latter were ethnic Serbs from Old Serbia Serbo Croatian Stara Srbija In the early 20th century the international community viewed the Macedonians predominantly as regional variety of Bulgarians on the basis on linguistics and cultural similarities but during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 the Allies sanctioned the Serbian control of Vardar Macedonia and its view that Macedonian Slavs were in fact Southern Serbs 42 Bulgarian politicians later interpreted the decision as punishment for it being a Central Power during World War I and as sanctioned Serbian irredentism Rights of the Muslim minority were never enshrined in law but concessions were made to accommodate for religious relativism Some regions of the country were allowed to exist as enclaves of Islamic law 43 Aside from Vlachs the Yugoslav government awarded no special treatment to non Slavic ethnic minorities in terms of respect for their language culture or political autonomy With the language of the country being institutionalized and mandatory ethnic minorities were expected to gradually assimilate into the Yugoslav panethnic identity Kingdom of Yugoslavia s ethnic structure 1918 44 Ethnic group Number PercentSerbs including Montenegrins 4 665 851 38 8 Croats 2 856 551 23 8 Slovenes 1 024 761 8 5 Bosnian Muslims 727 650 6 1 Macedonians 45 or Bulgarians 44 585 558 4 9 Other Slavs 174 466 1 5 Germans 513 472 4 3 Hungarians 472 409 3 9 Albanians 441 740 3 7 Romanians Vlachs and Cincars 229 398 1 9 Turks 168 404 1 4 Jews 64 159 0 5 Italians 12 825 0 1 Others 80 079 0 7 Total 12 017 323 100 1 Source Banac Ivo 1992 The National Question in Yugoslavia Origins History Politics 2nd printing ed Ithaca NY Cornell University Press p 58 ISBN 9780801494932 The table represents a reconstruction of Yugoslavia s ethnic structure immediately after the establishment of the kingdom in 1918 Until 1929 Serbs Croats and Slovenes were the constitutional nations when they were merged into a single Yugoslav nationality Languages Edit The following data grouped by first language is from the 1921 population census Serbo Croatian 8 911 509 74 4 Serbs and Montenegrins 44 6 Croats 23 5 Muslims of Yugoslavia 6 3 Slovene 1 019 997 8 5 German 505 790 4 2 Hungarian 467 658 3 9 Albanian 439 657 3 7 Romanian 231 068 1 9 Turkish 150 322 1 3 Czech and Slovak 115 532 1 0 Ruthenian 25 615 0 2 Russian 20 568 0 2 Polish 14 764 0 1 Italian 12 553 0 1 Others 69 878 0 6 46 47 Based on language the Yugoslavs collectively Serbs Croats Slovenes and other South Slavic groups in the kingdom constituted 82 9 of the country s population Religious groups Edit Christian 10 571 569 88 2 Eastern Orthodox 5 593 057 46 7 Roman Catholic 4 708 657 39 3 Protestant 229 517 1 9 Greek Catholic 40 338 0 3 Sunni Muslim 1 345 271 11 2 Jewish 64 746 0 5 others 1 944 nil atheists 1 381 nil 46 Class and occupation Edit Agriculture forestry and fishing 78 9 Industry and handicrafts 9 9 Banking trade and traffic 4 4 Public service free profession and military 3 8 Other professions 3 1 48 Education Edit The Kingdom had three universities the University of Belgrade University of Zagreb and the University of Ljubljana located in what were then the most developed cities in the country Vital statistics 1919 1940 Edit Average population 49 Live births 49 Deaths 49 Natural change 49 Crude birth rate per 1 000 49 Crude death rate per 1 000 49 Natural change per 1 000 49 Total fertility rate 49 Female fertile population 15 49 years 49 1919 11 706 957 347 748 258 638 89 110 29 7 22 1 7 61920 11 881 764 422 267 250 090 172 177 35 5 21 0 14 51921 12 059 178 442 530 252 104 190 426 36 7 20 9 15 81922 12 239 245 420 910 254 478 166 432 34 4 20 8 13 61923 12 421 997 432 779 252 543 180 236 34 8 20 3 14 51924 12 607 480 442 835 254 527 188 308 35 1 20 2 14 91925 12 795 732 437 070 239 429 197 641 34 2 18 7 15 41926 12 986 796 459 035 244 761 214 274 35 3 18 8 16 51927 13 180 709 451 617 276 294 175 323 34 3 21 0 13 31928 13 377 523 437 523 272 606 164 917 32 7 20 4 12 31929 50 13 577 272 452 544 286 249 166 295 33 3 21 1 12 21930 13 780 006 489 270 261 497 227 773 35 5 19 0 16 51931 13 982 000 470 275 276 840 193 435 33 6 19 8 13 81932 14 174 000 465 935 272 180 193 755 32 9 19 2 13 71933 14 369 000 452 229 243 717 208 512 31 5 17 0 14 51934 14 566 000 460 913 248 882 212 031 31 6 17 1 14 61935 14 767 000 441 728 248 978 192 750 29 9 16 9 13 11936 14 970 000 435 861 240 879 194 982 29 1 16 1 13 01937 51 15 172 000 424 448 242 337 182 111 28 0 16 0 12 01938 52 15 384 000 411 381 240 303 171 078 26 7 15 6 11 11939 53 15 596 000 403 938 233 196 170 742 25 9 15 0 10 91940 15 811 000Average population Live births Deaths Natural change Crude birth rate per 1000 Crude death rate per 1000 Natural change per 1000 Total fertility rate Female fertile population 15 49 years Marriages and divorces 1919 1940 Edit Average population Marriages Divorces Crude marriage rate per 1000 Crude divorce rate per 1000 Divorces per 1000 marriages1919 11 706 957 225 605 19 31920 11 881 764 185 954 5 687 15 7 0 5 30 61921 12 059 178 157 055 6 720 13 0 0 6 42 81922 12 239 245 131 776 6 548 10 8 0 5 49 71923 12 421 997 129 796 6 492 10 4 0 5 50 01924 12 607 480 114 896 5 508 9 1 0 4 47 91925 12 795 732 123 005 5 481 9 6 0 4 44 61926 12 986 796 124 249 4 940 9 6 0 4 39 81927 13 180 709 124 104 5 254 9 4 0 4 42 31928 13 377 523 121 334 5 580 9 1 0 4 46 01929 13 577 272 128 120 6 070 9 4 0 4 47 41930 13 780 006 138 322 5 826 10 0 0 4 42 11931 13 982 000 126 072 6 393 9 0 0 5 50 71932 14 174 000 111 059 5 231 7 8 0 4 47 11933 14 369 000 111 503 5 500 7 8 0 4 49 31934 14 566 000 99 704 5 520 6 8 0 4 55 41935 14 767 000 110 129 5 561 7 5 0 4 50 51936 14 970 000 109 528 5 022 7 3 0 3 45 91937 15 172 000 117 717 6 547 7 8 0 4 55 61938 15 384 000 121 605 6 466 7 9 0 4 53 21939 15 596 000 123 817 7 103 7 9 0 5 57 41940 15 811 000Average population Marriages Divorces Crude marriage rate per 1000 Crude divorce rate per 1000 Divorces per 1000 marriagesRulers EditKings Edit Peter I 1 December 1918 16 August 1921 Prince regent Alexander ruled in the name of the King Alexander I 16 August 1921 9 October 1934 Peter II 9 October 1934 29 November 1945 in exile from 13 14 April 1941 Regency headed by Prince Paul 9 October 1934 27 March 1941 Prime Ministers 1918 1941 Edit 1918 1919 Stojan Protic 1919 1920 Ljubomir Davidovic 19200 0 0 0 0 Stojan Protic 1920 1921 Milenko Vesnic 1921 1924 Nikola Pasic 19240 0 0 0 0 Ljubomir Davidovic 1924 1926 Nikola Pasic 1926 1927 Nikola Uzunovic 1927 1928 Velimir Vukicevic 1928 1929 Anton Korosec 1929 1932 Petar Zivkovic 19320 0 0 0 0 Vojislav Marinkovic 1932 1934 Milan Srskic 19340 0 0 0 0 Nikola Uzunovic 1934 1935 Bogoljub Jevtic 1935 1939 Milan Stojadinovic 1939 1941 Dragisa Cvetkovic 19410 0 0 0 0 Dusan Simovic Prime Ministers in exile 1941 1945 Edit 1941 1942 Dusan Simovic 1942 1943 Slobodan Jovanovic 19430 0 0 0 0 Milos Trifunovic 1943 1944 Bozidar Puric 1944 1945 Ivan Subasic 19450 0 0 0 0 Josip Broz TitoSubdivisions EditMain article Subdivisions of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia The subdivisions of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia existed successively in three different forms From 1918 to 1922 the kingdom maintained the pre World War I subdivisions of Yugoslavia s predecessor states In 1922 the state was divided into thirty three oblasts provinces In 1929 after the establishment of the January 6 Dictatorship a new system of nine banovinas regions was implemented by royal decree In 1939 as an accommodation to Yugoslav Croats in the Cvetkovic Macek Agreement a single Banovina of Croatia was formed from two of these banovinas and from sections of others citation needed Sport EditThe most popular sport in the Kingdom was association football The Yugoslav Football Association was founded in Zagreb in 1919 It was based in Zagreb until the 6 January Dictatorship when the association was moved to Belgrade From 1923 a national championship was held annually The national team played its first match at the 1920 Summer Olympics It also participated in the inaugural FIFA World Cup finishing fourth citation needed Other popular sports included water polo which was dominated nationally by the Croatian side VK Jug citation needed The Kingdom participated at the Olympic Games from 1920 until 1936 During this time the country won eight medals all in gymnastics and six of these were won by Leon Stukelj a Slovene who was the most nominated gymnast of that time citation needed See also EditList of Finance Ministers of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia 1923 Kingdom of Serbs Croats and Slovenes parliamentary election Republic of Prekmurje Slovene March Kingdom of Hungary References Edit Busch Birgitta Kelly Holmes Helen 2004 Language Discourse and Borders in the Yugoslav Successor States Multilingual Matters p 26 ISBN 978 1853597329 Archived from the original on 26 April 2016 Retrieved 25 October 2015 the official language of the Kingdom was Serbo Croato Slovenian Mesic Milan 2004 Perspectives of Multiculturalism Western and Transitional Countries Zagreb FF Press p 322 a triple named language called officially Serbo Croato Slovene Tomasevich Jozo 1975 War and Revolution in Yugoslavia 1941 1945 The Chetniks Stanford University Press p 93 ISBN 978 0804708579 Archived from the original on 27 March 2019 Retrieved 2 October 2021 Banac Ivo 1992 The National Question in Yugoslavia Origins History Politics 2nd printing ed Ithaca NY Cornell University Press p 58 ISBN 978 0801494932 Archived from the original on 25 November 2021 Retrieved 14 November 2020 Myers Paul F Campbell Arthur A 1954 The Population of Yugoslavia U S Government Printing Office p 152 ISBN 978 0598678454 Archived from the original on 30 September 2021 Retrieved 30 September 2021 Alexander Ronelle 2013 Language and Identity The Fate of Serbo Croatian In Daskalov Rumen Marinov Tchavdar eds Entangled Histories of the Balkans Volume One National Ideologies and Language Policies Koninklijke Brill NV p 371 ISBN 978 9004250765 Archived from the original on 15 May 2016 Retrieved 25 October 2015 Now however the official language of the new state the Kingdom of Serbs Croats and Slovenes bore the unwieldy name Serbo Croato Slovene srbsko hrvatsko slovenacki or srbsko hrvatsko slovenski Wojciechowski Sebastian Burszta Wojciech J Kamusella Tomasz 2006 Nationalisms across the globe an overview of nationalisms in state endowed and stateless nations Vol 2 School of Humanities and Journalism p 79 ISBN 978 8387653460 Archived from the original on 11 May 2016 Retrieved 25 October 2015 Similarly the 1921 Constitution declared Serbocroatoslovenian as the official and national language of the Kingdom of Serbs Croats and Slovenians Kamusella Tomasz 2009 The politics of language and nationalism in modern Central Europe Palgrave Macmillan pp 228 297 ISBN 978 0230550704 Archived from the original on 18 May 2016 Retrieved 25 October 2015 a b Kraljevina Jugoslavija Novi naziv nase drzave No mi smo itak med seboj vedno dejali Jugoslavija cetudi je bilo na vseh uradnih listih Kraljevina Srbov Hrvatov in Slovencev In tudi drugi narodi kakor Nemci in Francozi so pisali ze prej v svojih listih mnogo o Jugoslaviji 3 oktobra ko je kralj Aleksander podpisal Zakon o nazivu in razdelitvi kraljevine na upravna obmocja pa je bil naslov kraljevine Srbov Hrvatov in Slovencev za vedno izbrisan Nas rod Our Generation a monthly Slovene language periodical Ljubljana 1929 30 st 1 str 22 letnik I Yugoslavia from a Historical Perspective PDF YU Historija Archived 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formed Institute of Croatian History ISSN 0353 295X volume 26 issue 1 1993 pp 187 198 Budisavljevic Srđan Stvaranje Drzave Srba Hrvata i Slovenaca Creating the State of Serbs Croats and Slovenes Zagreb 1958 pp 170 175 Hehn Paul N 2005 A Low Dishonest Decade Italy the Powers and Eastern Europe 1918 1939 Archived 15 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine Chapter 2 Mussolini Prisoner of the Mediterranean Cermelj L 1955 Kako je prislo do prijateljskega pakta med Italijo in kraljevino SHS Archived 6 May 2022 at the Wayback Machine How the Friendsjip Treaty between Italy and the Kingdom of SHS Came About in 1924 Zgodovinski casopis 1 4 p 195 Ljubljana Friedrich Ebert Stiftung 2013 Serbian Bulgarian Historical Ties PDF ISAC Fund Archived PDF from the original on 21 January 2022 Retrieved 7 December 2020 Farming as a Way of Life Yugoslav Peasant Attitudes Archived from the original on 25 June 2021 Retrieved 7 December 2020 The Adriatic Sea PDF European Commission Archived PDF from the original 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Kingdom of Yugoslavia 1918 1941 Fascism 6 63 doi 10 1163 22116257 00601003 Troch 2017 Grgic 2018 Nielsen 2009 Pavlovic 2012 p 512 sfn error no target CITEREFPavlovic2012 help Bartulin Nevenko 2013 The Racial Idea in the Independent State of Croatia Origins and Theory Brill Publishers p 124 ISBN 978 9004262829 Archived from the original on 27 July 2020 Retrieved 8 May 2020 Realite sur l attentat de Marseille contre le roi Alexandre Archived 26 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine a b Einstein accuses Yugoslavian rulers in savant s murder Archived 13 July 2018 at the Wayback Machine New York Times 6 May 1931 mirror Archived 8 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine Raditch left tale of Yugoslav plot New York Times 23 August 1931 p N2 Archived from the original on 19 October 2012 Retrieved 6 December 2008 mirror Archived 14 January 2017 at the Wayback Machine Nevada Labor Yesterday today and tomorrow Nevadalabor com Archived from the original on 16 February 2012 Retrieved 3 September 2012 Prince 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Bulgarian national project they were increasingly becoming separate regional community The National Question in Yugoslavia Origins History Politics Cornell University Press 1988 p 327 ISBN 978 0801494932 a b Group of Authors 1997 Istorijski atlas 1st ed Zavod za udzbenike i nastavna sredstva amp Geokarta Belgrade p 91 ISBN 8617055944 Kraљevina Јugoslaviјa definitivni rezultati popisa stanovnishtva od 21 јanuara 1921 god Saraјevo Drzhavna Shtampariјa 1932 p 3 Archived from the original on 3 November 2013 Retrieved 1 November 2013 Group of Authors 1997 Istorijski atlas 1st ed Zavod za udzbenike i nastavna sredstva amp Geokarta Belgrade p 86 ISBN 8617055944 a b c d e f g h i Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia Archived from the original on 4 December 2019 Retrieved 8 May 2020 Statistical Yearbook of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia 1929 PDF Archived PDF from the original on 2 August 2020 Retrieved 8 May 2020 Statistical Yearbook of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia 1937 PDF Archived PDF from 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Retrieved 27 April 2020 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kingdom of Yugoslavia Full text of the 1931 Constitution at the Wayback Machine archived 21 October 2009 in English Coordinates 44 49 14 N 20 27 44 E 44 82056 N 20 46222 E 44 82056 20 46222 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Kingdom of Yugoslavia amp oldid 1131036824, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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