Becoming Yugoslav: a Slovene perspective on Yugoslav state-building examined through the political career of Dr Anton Korošec 1918-28

Abstract

My thesis explores the political career of the Slovene politician and Catholic priest Dr Anton Korošec within the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes 1918-1928. As leader of the Slovene People’s Party (SLS), Korošec entered the Yugoslav period envisioning an autonomous Slovene unit within a decentralised state structure as the ideal solution to the Slovene national question. After this vision was shattered by the adoption of the highly centralist Vidovdan Constitution in 1921, Korošec dedicated himself to securing a degree of administrative autonomy for the Slovene regions throughout the remainder of the decade. Alongside this Slovene agenda, however, he was also a committed Yugoslav statesman – indeed, possibly the only true Yugoslav statesman the kingdom possessed. He appreciated the importance of a stable, harmonious Yugoslav state in order to preserve the Slovenes as a small national entity within the hostile context of post-war Europe. I argue that Korošec entered into the Yugoslav period invested not only in Slovene national development, but in the interests of the Yugoslav population as a whole. My thesis illustrates how he struck a careful balance between his dual Slovene and Yugoslav political agendas throughout the kingdom’s first decade, using the various ministerial posts he held, as well as his 1928 premiership, to eradicate corruption and implement socio-economic reform across the state as a whole. Korošec understood that within the unstable, bitterly divided and often volatile context of 1920s Belgrade politics, the best method of achieving his Slovene autonomy ambitions was making himself and his SLS an invaluable source of Skupština support for the kingdom’s major political parties. As a result, he spent the first eight years of his Yugoslav career forming close relationships with his new colleagues, as well as strengthening his existing connections developed during his pre-Yugoslav political career in Vienna. This political long game ultimately paid off well. By 1927, the Serb Radical 4 Party had come to view him as a suitably Yugoslav-minded political figure who could be relied upon to put the broader state ahead of his Slovene agenda when necessary. On this basis, they granted him concessions towards a degree of devolved government in the Slovene regions, in return for the SLS’s support of their governments. In this way, Korošec’s role within 1920s Yugoslav politics challenges the traditional view amongst historians that this period was dominated by Serb and Croat politicians and destabilised by a lack of willingness to compromise on the part of the state’s key political figures. His conduct proves that compromise and political partnerships between parties whose visions for Yugoslav statehood drastically opposed one another was indeed possible in 1920s Yugoslavia, and that the pursuit of Yugoslav and national group-specific interests could be mutually inclusive.

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