The Question of the Ethnic Peculiarity of the Yugoslav Moslems in the Debate on the National Question by the Yugoslav Communists in 1923

Abstract

In the paper, the author presents the opinions of some members of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia who supported the idea of the Yugoslav Moslems as a separate ethnic group during a well known political debate on the national question in 1923. He concludes that this idea was officially accepted only in 1968 by the successor of the Communist Party, the Alliance of the Communists of Yugoslavia, when it was politically and constitutionally implemented within the framework of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He also points out that the idea of the Moslems as a separate nationality, which first emerged in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia as early as 1923, was an integral part of the ideological, political, military and international endeavours to secure equality of the Moslem nationality in the complex relations between the Southern Slav nations in the twentieth century.