(Neuralgic) Contact Points of the Political Cooperation of the Slovene People’s Party and the National Radical Party between the Two World Wars

Abstract

The paper challenges the established opinion that the national question was an essential element of political imaginary in the King- dom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and poses the question as to what were the actual contents of the autonomist bearing of the SPP (Slovene People’s Party), which was one of the best organized and innerly coherent parliamentary parties in the first Yugoslav state. It ascertains that the party’s access to the key levers of power was made possible due to its active cooperation with the NRP National Radical Party) as the strongest Serbian political party, and with the Serbian royal dynasty. This cooperation was explained as a con- dition for the consolidation of relations between Slovenes and Serbs, and was never entirely presented to the Slovene public since it was (is) discordant with the self-perception of Slovenes as a nation.