Suchergebnisse

The issue of regionalism and the autonomy of certain areas is mainly related
to the ethnic composition of the population. The idea of the autonomy of
Vojvodina as a Serbian region in the Habsburg Monarchy was created back in
1690. It came into being 150 years later by the decision of the 1848 May
Assembly. In a significantly different form, it lasted ten years as the
Serbian Voivodship and Temisvar (Timisoara) Banat. In the next fifty years, a
autonomous Serbian Vojvodina was just a dream. At the end of World War I the
areas of Vojvodina, on the basis of the right to self-determination, entered
the Kingdom of Serbia and thus became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats
and Slovenes, i.e. Yugoslavia. The idea of the autonomy of Vojvodina was then
discarded. Some liberal politicians, supported by the Croats, tried to
restore it in the interwar period but this option did not receive any support
of voters at the elections. The illegal Communist Party politically promoted
the idea of the autonomy of Vojvodina in a federalized Yugoslavia, which was
achieved during World War II. At the end of the war, the autonomous Vojvodina
remained part of Serbia, and according to the 1974 Constitution, it became a
part of federal Yugoslavia. During the disintegration of Yugoslavia, the
autonomy of Vojvodina within Serbia was preserved but recently, after the
so-called democratic changes of 2000, domestic and foreign (EU and NATO)
political engagement in Serbia has been more directed towards the greater
autonomy of Vojvodina, and even its separation from Serbia, despite the
two-thirds Serbian majority living in the Province.

The author presents the Bibliography of Periodicals of 'The Independent State of Croatia' (ISC) 1941 -1945, which was compiled in the former Archive for the History of Labour Movement in Zagreb and whose one copy is kept in The Museum of Srem in Sremska Mitrovica (Historical Section, Collection of Documents, reg. no 1615/62). The authors of the Bibliography particularly underlined that it includes 'all periodical journals and publications published in the territory of ISC', and that the material 'was for internal use only'. The majority of the listed periodical publications is kept in the University Library in Zagreb (237), and the remaining ones (44) in different libraries in the Republic of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Most of these publications are printed in the Croatian language, and a smaller number in German and Italian languages. One publication was published in the Hungarian language. All publications were printed in the Latin script and none of them in the Cyrillic script, even though the Serbs, whose primary script it was, at the beginning made half of the population of 'The Independent State of Croatia'. In the Ustashas' ISC the Cyrillic script was forbidden, and the Serbs underwent a genocide. This Bibliography - which does not include a single publication with the adjective 'Serbian' - testifies about that. .

The paper deals with the issue of Yugoslav ideology and its role in suppressing the Serbian Cyrillic script. There were two different approaches in the concept of Yugoslavism as developed on the grounds of Illyrism (Lj. Gaj) in the midnineteenth century: the Croatian and the Serbian ones. The Croatian Yugoslavism (J.J. Strossmayer) was of a pro-Catholic and anti-Serbian character language and writing, it was manifested through annulling of Serbian language in the domain of "Croatian state legislation" and supression, prohibition and persecution of Serbian Cyrillic script. On the other hand, Serbian approach to Yugoslavism (T. Pavlovic, J. Subotic etc) was a tolerant one: the lingual diversity of the south Slavic peoples opposing the need for their co-operation. By the beginning of the 20th century the Croatian variant of Yugoslavism (with its three-tribal nation concept) prevailed over the Serbian one and became the grounding ideology for the new, common state. Its lingual union basing on the domination of the eastern ? ekavian ? pronunciation variant (from the Serbian language) and Latin letters (from the Croatian) was disadvantageous to both spoken and written Serbian language: the Serbs have accepted Latin writing and the Croats have never accepted the so-called eastern pronunciation. The consequences have not for diminished the Serbian Cyrillic script with the decline of the Yugoslav ideology (which was first abandoned by the Croats) nor with the falling apart of the Yugoslav state.