Deca careva, pastočad kraljeva: Nacionalne manjine u Jugoslaviji 1918-1941

The study gives a synthetic overview of the national minorities of interwar Yugoslavia. The author traces the legacies of the minority issue in the new state, inherited both from the Habsburg and Ottoman Empire and the ways this question was addressed in the new Yugoslav legal, political and societal framework. It exposes the policies undertaken by Yugoslav authorities directed towards exclusion of the minorities from the political life of the new polity. The author analyses the ways the minorities were perceived and categorized, their legal position, social structure and participation in the economy and political life as well as the educational institutes for minorities, their publishing activities and religious associations. Using these general criteria, the author can differentiate between the various approaches taken towards different minority groups. The author concludes that the interwar Yugoslav state conceived of itself as a national state and has pursued policies accordingly, whereas in reality its multiethnic composition would have called for a different approach. This cleavage was resolved by constant pressure on minority groups and their effective exclusion from the state affairs, and has in turn caused their alienation. The author presents this dynamics in the broader framework of minority policies of the interwar period in Europe.