| The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a Balkan state which existed from December 1, 1918 to mid-April 1941.
History
The kingdom was formed in 1918 under the name Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Serbo-Croatian latin: Kraljevina Srba, Hrvata i
Slovenaca cyrillic: Краљевина Срба,
Хрвата и Словенаца, Slovenian Kraljevina Srbov, Hrvatov in Slovencev, short name
Kraljevina SHS, Краљевина СХС).
On December 1, 1918 it was proclaimed
by Alexander Karađorđević,
Prince-Regent for his father King Petar (Peter), who was
formerly King of Serbia. The new Kingdom was made up of the formerly independent
kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro, as well as a substantial amount of territory
that was formerly part of Austria-Hungary, the State of Slovenes, Croats and
Serbs. The lands previously in Austria-Hungary that formed the new state included Croatia, Slavonia and Vojvodina from the Hungarian part of the Empire, Carniola, part of Styria and
most of Dalmatia from the Austrian
part, and the Crown province of Bosnia and
Herzegovina.
A plebiscite was also held in the Province of Carinthia, which opted to remain in Austria. The Dalmatian port city of Zadar and a few
of the Dalmatian islands were given to Italy. The city of Rijeka was declared a free city-state, but it was soon occupied, and in 1924
annexed, by Italy. Tensions over the border with Italy continued, with Italy claiming more of the Dalmatian coast, and Yugoslavia
claiming Istria, part of the former Austrian coastal province which had been annexed to
Italy, but which contained a considerable population of Croats and Slovenes.
The new government tried to integrate the new country politically as well as economically, a task made difficult because of
the great diversity of languages, nationalities, and religions in the new state, the different history of the regions, and great
differences in economic development among regions.
In 1921, the Constitution was
passed, which established a unitary monarchy. Serb politicians regarded Serbia as the
standardbearer of Yugoslav unity, as the state of Piedmont had
been for Italy, and the nation of Prussia for
the German empire. Over the following years, Croat resistance against a Serbocentric
policy increased. Stjepan Radić, head of the Croatian Peasant Party, was imprisoned due to political
reasons. After he was released in 1925, and returned to parliament, but only until 1928, when he made a critical speech and was subsequently shot on the parliament floor together
with two other deputies from his party by a Montenegrin deputy Puniša Račić.
Not long after that, following the ethnic tensions triggered by the shooting, on January 6, 1929, King Alexander abolished the Constitution, prorogued the
Parliament and introduced personal dictatorship (the so-called January 6th Dictatorship, Šestojanuarska diktatura).
He also changed the name of the country to Kingdom of Yugoslavia and changed the internal divisions to use
banovinas on October 3.
It was only in 1931 that the King passed a new Constitution and allowed de jure
elections, so tensions grew. On October 9, 1934, the king was assassinated in Marseille, France by Yugoslav exiles, radical members of the political parties that he banned five years earlier
(primarily the VMRO). His duties were taken over by his brother Prince Paul, (Pavle) acting as a regent for Peter II, the eldest son of Alexander.
In 1941 the Axis powers invaded the
state and divided it. In 1945, the Soviet
Russia-backed Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia came into being, covering roughly the
same territory as the Kingdom had.
List of Kings
- King Petar I (1 Dec 1918 - 16 Aug 1921) (Regent Prince
Aleksandar ruled in the name of the King)
- King Aleksandar (16 Aug 1921 - 9 Oct 1934)
- Regency headed by Prince Pavle (9 Oct 1934 - 27 Mar
1941)
- King Petar II (27 Mar 1941 - 29 Nov 1945) *exile
from 13/14 Apr 1941
Internal divisions
Internally, the Kingdom was divided into provinces from 1929 onwards, each of them called banovina. Their borders were
intentionally drawn so that they wouldn't correspond neither to boundaries between ethnic groups, nor to the pre-WWI imperial
borders. They were named after various rivers. The capital of the kingdom was
Belgrade.
- Dravska banovina
(Banovina of Drava), with its capital in Ljubljana
- Savska banovina
(Banovina of Sava), with its capital in Zagreb
- Vrbaska banovina (Banovina of Vrbas), with its capital in Banja Luka
- Primorska banovina
(Seaside Banovina), with its capital in Split
- Drinska banovina (Banovina of Drina), with its capital in Sarajevo
- Zetska banovina
(Banovina of Zeta), with its capital in Cetinje
- Dunavska banovina (Banovina of Danube), with its capital in Novi Sad
- Moravska banovina
(Banovina of Morava), with its capital in Niš
- Vardarska banovina (Banovina of Vardar), with its capital in Skopje
- The City of Belgrade, together with Zemun and Pančevo was also an administrative unit
In 1939 the Banovina Hrvatska (Banovina of Croatia) was formed from the Primorska and
Savska banovinas, with some border alterations. Like Savska, its capital was Zagreb.
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