Fašizam u Jugoslaviji (1918 – 1941)
Fascism in Yugoslavia (1918 – 1941)

Summary/Abstract: Author argues that conservative and fascist Yugoslavism appeared as well as other European fascist movements after WWI as a form of reaction to crisis of European capitalism. There were two periods of fascist Yugoslavism: during 1920s and during 1930s. In the first period, fascism was the strongest in Dalmatia. In atmosphere of Italian fascist challenge many Dalmatians, Croats and Serbs, were close to apply fascist answer coloured with Yugoslav “integral” nationalism. That was only proto-fascist movement because there were not any strong organization and leadership. Nevertheless, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes witnessed dangerous struggle very close to civil war on ethnic basis between ORJUNA (proto-fascist organization supported by Svetozar Pribicevic) and HANAO (Croatian proto-fascist organization) and SRNAO (Serbian proto-fascist organization) as well. In the second period, fascist movement got a leader Dimitrije Qotic and stronger organization Zbor. Yet, this organization was relatively unpopular not only in Croatia: the best though not impressive results on elections were in Slovenia and in Smederevo (town in Serbia where D. Qotic was born). Croatian nationalists were not in a situation to use any ideology of Yugoslavism in ethnic competition with Serbs between 1918 and 1941. They had to use only Croatian nationalism as such. On the contrary, Yugoslavism was a powerful instrument of Serbian nationalist in ethnic competition with Croats. That is why fascist Yugoslavism appeared dominantly in Serbian regions of Yugoslavia. Fascist Yugoslavism was an instrument of forced but completely unsuccessful assimilation of Croats in Yugoslavs.

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