Udruženje rezervnih oficira i ratnika 1919-1941
Society Of The Reserve Officers And Warriors 1919–1941

Summary/Abstract: The article explores the activity of the Society of the Reserve Officers and Warriors which functioned from 1919 until 1941. This society at first represented most of the veterans of the former Serbian army, but gradually this organization expanded their activities also on Croatia and Slovenia accepting some of the ex Austro-Hungarian officers. In time the Society attracted the newly formed reserved officers, the ones just coming out of the Yugoslav army schools. The Society of the Reserve Officers and Warriors had a whole range of activities including various commemorations regarding the Great War and other Serbian military traditions. Also, they were fighting for improvement their material status and moral respect. Consequently, they managed to build several ossuaries and monuments as well as the monumental building called the Warriors Hall. One of the successes was also the appropriate treatment of the years spent in the war regarding the peacetime career progress or pension benefits. Nevertheless, due to the centralized way of functioning and overambitious projects this society suffered a crippling blow which manifested itself in 1933 with the culmination of the management’s internal conflicts and finally had its epilogue in the introduction of the special state’s supervisor, who acted as the president of the organization. By the March of 1941 the Society tried for several times to regain its strength, nevertheless during the last days of the Kingdom the organization was still under tutelage and was far less powerful then it was in the 1920s . Thus, the work of this organization shows that the presence of the veteran groups in public was one of the war’s consequences and regarding the work of this particular society, its history shows all the setbacks in the Yugoslav treatment of this type of war legacy.

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