Nationalizing the Slovene Part of Yugoslavia after the First World War

• In Event: Habsburg Successor States as Nationalizing States: Between Ideology and Pragmatism

Abstract

Since its founding in 1918, Yugoslavia has defined itself as a nation-state, a state of the tripartite Slovene-Croat-Serb nation, and has pursued a policy of nationalization from the very beginning. Minority groups were perceived as foreign and targeted for either assimilation or expulsion. In the Slovene part of the state, this led to a wholesale "nationalization" of the administration and judiciary. Within weeks of the proclamation of independence, civil servants and judges identified as Germans were summarily dismissed. At the same time, Slovene nationalists who administered the Slovene part of Yugoslavia proceeded to nationalize the educational system, cultural institutions, local government, and the economy. While the German-speaking population was the primary target of these policies, some Slovene nationalists saw the creation of Yugoslavia as an opportunity to exclude the small Jewish population from the newly "liberated" nation as well. By focusing on this aspect of nationalization, this paper will show that these antisemitic initiatives were inextricably linked to the increasingly widespread biological understanding of the nation.

Author

• Rok Stergar, U of Ljubljana (Slovenia)