On October 3, 1929, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was given the name by which it remained known for most of the 20th century - the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The change was not only administrative. It was part of King Alexander Karađorđević's attempt to replace the political representation of individual peoples with a unified Yugoslav identity.
The state was created on December 1, 1918, after the end of World War I. It united the Kingdom of Serbia and the South Slavic territories that had seceded from Austria-Hungary. The new kingdom included Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and other areas. However, from the beginning, the dispute over the future structure divided political life - Serbian circles defended a centralized model, while Croatian forces insisted on a federal state.
The crisis reached a parliamentary shooting
The conflict escalated in 1928. On June 20, deputy Puniša Račić shot at representatives of the Croatian Peasant Party in parliament. Two deputies were killed on the spot, and the party leader Stjepan Radić was seriously injured and died in August of that year. Croatian deputies left parliament, and the political system fell into a deep crisis.
On January 6, 1929, King Alexander repealed the Vidovdan Constitution, dissolved parliament, and banned political parties. In his proclamation, he declared: “There is and cannot be an intermediary between the people and the king.“ Thus began the period known as the Sixteenth-Century Dictatorship.
The name should create a unified state
Nine months after the establishment of personal power, the state was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The word “Yugoslavia“ means “land of the South Slavs“ and had been used unofficially for years. The new name removed from the official name the listing of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes - the three peoples who had until then been presented as the main components of the kingdom.
At the same stage, Alexander also changed the administrative map. The old 33 districts were replaced by nine banovinas, whose borders were drawn so that they did not coincide with historical national territories. They were named after rivers - Drava, Sava, Vrbas, Drina, Zeta, Danube, Morava, Vardar and Primorska. According to the Library of Congress, this reform was intended to promote the idea of a unified Yugoslav nation and to weaken old regional divisions.
The policy was called "integral Yugoslavism". It was supposed to create a common state and national identity, but in practice it caused new discontent, especially among Croatian political forces. For opponents of the regime, the name change did not resolve the main dispute - who and how should govern the multinational state.
The kingdom lasted less than 12 years
In 1931, Alexander imposed a new constitution, but it did not restore parliamentary democracy. The king retained decisive power, and political opposition remained limited. Alexander himself was assassinated on 9 October 1934 in Marseille during a state visit to France.
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia existed until April 1941, when Germany, Italy and their allies attacked and divided the country. Thus, the name, introduced on 3 October 1929 as an instrument of political unification, remains associated both with the idea of a common South Slavic state and with its most authoritarian period.
Sources: BTA