The Yugoslav National Party and the National Question in 1935 and 1936

Abstract

The political views of the Slovene Liberals, who were incorporated in the all-national Yugoslav National Party (YNP), remained based on a consistent support of the Yugoslav popular and state unitarism, even after the formation of the Stojadinović government, on 24 June 1935, when they were no longer in power in the Yugoslav and Slovene political arena. Prior to the Second YNP Congress on 30 June 1936 in Belgrade, they had often stressed their support for unitarism, most resoundingly in the so-called Pohorje Declaration, on 19 and 20 August 1935. Thereby they demonstrated that, in any given political situation, the only valid option for them was that of Yugoslavism. This ruled out any kind of national individualism or autonomy of the Slovenes within the Yugoslav community, which was the national political ideal of the great majority of Slovenes at the time. In the face of other endeavours for resolving the fundamental questions of the Slovene national development in the first Yugoslav state, the Liberals clung to their belief in the historical superiority of the fictitious Yugoslav nation and the existing unitarian state.