Soviet Model for Yugoslav Post-War Legal Transformation: Divorce Panic and Specialist Debate
Soviet Model for Yugoslav Post-War Legal Transformation: Divorce Panic and Specialist Debate

Summary/Abstract: This paper explores the Yugoslav legal transformation and the specialist debate regarding divorce following the Second World War. Yugoslav post-war legal transformations were deeply influenced by the Soviet model, and by placing the issue of divorce at the fore, the paper examines how and which Soviet models were transferred. The focus of the analysis will be two crucial and interconnected problems regarding divorce practice: the enforcement of alimony payments and the panic over rising divorce rates. The paper argues that new post-war legislation was a progressive force that replaced very old legal codes and challenged well-established cultural practices. Resistance to new divorce practice was widespread, while powerlessness in ensuring alimony payments and the protection of dependants was one of the first failures of the Party’s post-war gender project.

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