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The author publishes an unknown document of Janko Tortic (1902-1962), Croatian Peasant Party member of the parliament. Since 1927 Tortic was the leader of the Intelligence Office of the Main Secretariate of the Croatian Peasant Party and the editor of the Party newspaper. After the putsch of general Simovic he participated in creating the independent Croatian state. During the war he collaborated with the Independent State of Croatia's authorities. Owing to his activity, many followers of the Croatian Peasant Party joined the Ustasha movement, and Tortic himself became a member of the government. After World War Two he emigrated to the USA, where he died. Tortic's document is important for the research work on the activity of the Croatian Peasant Party, especially the events which occurred immediately before the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia. The document is provided with an introduction and notes. (SOI : CSP: S. 367)

Der Autor geht von der These Carl Schmitts vom Bürgerkrieg als dem Wesen der liberalen Demokratie aus. Innere und äußere Sicherheit vor einem Kriegszustand blieben immer instabil. Der Krieg auf dem Balkan habe nun gezeigt, daß Europa nicht mehr (wie von 1945 an bis dahin) in der Lage sei, mit dem Einsatz sekundärer Mittel einen Konflikt zu lösen, da es über solche im Rahmen der bisherigen europäischen Integration nicht koordiniert verfüge und zu ihrem Einsatz auch gar nicht bereit sei. Der neue Balkankrieg müsse daher Anstoß zu einer Umorientierung der europäischen politischen Integration sein. Für das Erreichen einer Stabilität gebenden europäischen politischen Größe sei dabei eine "republikanische Korrektur der liberalen Demokratie" (S.99) unabdingbar. (SOI-Clw)

Knj. 1: Pristina: Jedinstvo. - 1992.; Knj. 2: Dnevnik. - Pristina: Grigorije Bozovic. - 1996. - 455 S. - ISBN 86-7019-175-3

The Serbo-Albanian conflict on Kosovo has had direct repercussions for the Balkan security in the last 150 years. That is why the international community would from time to time pay more attention to this conflict, but never long enough to resolve it for good. Both the Serbian and the Albanian side put in a lot of effort towards the resolution of the conflict and came up with several proposals, ranging from various modes of Kosovo autonomy to the idea of cantonisation and re-federalisation of SR Yugoslavia to the independence of Kosovo or its being turned into a protectorate. All these suggestions had mostly been one-sided, either pro-Serbian or pro-Albanian, none of them conducive to a compromise. All this eventually resulted in a military conflict and the attempt to impose solutions by force. Nevertheless, after the NATO intervention, negotiations will have to be resumed and the familiar proposals for the resolution of the Kosovo question will have to be rehashed, only this time this will require much more good will and willingness to make compromises, both on the Albanian and the Serbian side, as well as a considerable support of international community. (SOI : S. 60)

After the assassination of king Alexander (1934) the Kingdom of Yugoslavia witnessed a revival of the party and political life and confrontation between the regime and opposing forces. The new president of the government Milan Stojadinovic recognized again the existence of the Croatian question. At all political meetings the followers of Vladko Macek and of the Croatian Peasant Party all over Croatia asked the prince Pavle and the government to abolish the dictatorship. The same happened also at the meeting of Croatian Peasant Party in Sisak (1936), when one of the Party leaders, Ljudevit Tomasic, criticized the political situation in the country. Facing 12000 citizens of Sisak and peasants from the Sisak region, he asked for full sovereignty of Croatian people, Croatian Parliament in Zagreb, and said that Croats had never been nor would ever be Yugoslavs "because Yugoslavism is no nation at all". Because of this speech a criminal proceedings against Tomasic were instituted. It was a political process which included a series of state-run institutions. After the agreement between the new president of the government Dragisa Cvetkovic and Vladko Macek and after the establishment of Banovina Croatia, the procedure against Tomasic was stopped. (SOI : CSP: S. 296)

Die Funktion des kroatischen Parlaments (des Sabor) im Rahmen der Transformation des politischen Systems war zunächst ähnlich wie in den mitteleuropäischen Reformstaaten. Die ersten freien Parlamentswahlen 1990 mit ihrer klaren Wahlniederlage der Reformkommunisten hatten große symbolische Bedeutung. Im weiteren Verlauf hat sich die Entwicklung des kroatischen Parlamentarismus in manchem vom mittel- zum osteuropäischen Modell hin verlagert, mit einer Tendenz zu einem schwachen und marginalisierten Parlament. Als Hauptursachen nennt der Autor: die absolute Dominanz der mehr als politische Bewegung denn als strukturierte politische Partei zu verstehenden Regierungspartei HDZ im noch unterentwickelten Parteiensystem Kroatiens; die laut Verfassung und mehr noch in der politischen Praxis starke Stellung des Staatspräsidenten; schließlich den Einfluß des ethnischen Konflikts zwischen Kroaten und Serben, dessen Austragung sich auch durch den frühzeitigen Auszug vieler radikaler serbischer Parlamentarier aus dem Sabor schon im Sommer 1990 (dann ohne schlichtende Funktion des Parlaments) auf die militärische Ebene verlagert habe. Ansonsten analysiert der Autor die Funktionsweise des Sabor mit seinem Zweikammersystem bei der Gesetzgebung in der Verfassungswirklichkeit und die Entwicklung des Parteiensystems der Parlamentsparteien. (SOI-Clw)

This article uses archival and newspaper sources along with basic secondary literature to examine legal proceedings conducted against Stjepan Radic', the leader of Croatia's strongest opposition party - The Croatian People's Peasant Party (HPSS). During 1919 and 1920, Radic was held in custody without trial, released, then rearrested and given a harsh sentence for politically opposing the creation of a unitaristic and centralized state under the Serbian Karadjordjevic dynasty. Radic wanted the distinctiveness of the Croatian nation to be recognized, so he sought automony for Croatia as the basis for its economic, political, and cultural development. Radic's trial, carried out inspite of the fact that some jurists felt it was unlawful, revealed the crux of the conflict between the regime and the HPSS, in effect, the Croatian opposition. Radic worked to ensure that the internal organization of the state would be based on national self-determination. For him, the upcoming election of a Constituent Assembly was all-important because it would determine the nature a Slovene-Croat-Serb state. Contrary to this, the Karadjordjevic regime assumed all the main national and constitutional questions had been settled on December 1, 1918, when a common kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes had been proclaimed. As far as the government was concerned, only the formality of writing a constitution had to be handled by the Constituent Assembly. Even though he was released on the very day of the election, Radic's trial showed that the Karadjordjevic' regime intended to solve political problems by the use of force, and not according to the rule of law. (SOI : CSP: S. 126f.)