The Epilogue of the Yugoslav Crisis of Peasant Indebtedness in the Thirties and Comparison with some European Countries

Abstract

Yugoslavia, like other European countries, recorded an enormous indebtedness by the peasantry during the years of the Recession. This indebtedness, which put a large percentage of the population under the threat of bankruptcy, was unbearable economically, socially and, not the least, politically. Although the Yugoslav government introduced counter measures contemporaneously with some other European countries it had taken four and a half years from the declaration in 1932 of a moratorium on peasant debts, before the problem of peasant indebtedness was finally solved. The Yugoslav method of releasing peasants from their debts and of rehabilitating financial institutions through conversion had already been adopted as a principle in 1932 and was, in essence, no different from other European models. It is, therefore, difficult to understand the delay in its execution which had manifold negative consequences on the "domestic courtyard".