From its proclamation on 6 January 1929 to the assassination of King Aleksandar on 9 October 1934, his dictatorship systematically strove to indoctrinate the diverse Yugoslav population into a rejection of their previous identities in favor of a unitary Yugoslav national identity. Through a combination of massive new legislation and zealous use of the state's repressive organs, the regime's agents monitored and coerced the entire population of the country. Extensive archival documentation permits a depiction of the effects of the regime on ordinary Yugoslav citizens, hitherto almost completely neglected in histories focusing on political and social elites. Ultimately, King Aleksandar's Yugoslav project, unique in Yugoslav history, resulted more in the construction of an elaborate police state and arguably severely damaged the long-term prospects for a voluntarily held unitary Yugoslav identity.
On 3 October 1929, King Aleksandar decreed that the kingdom would henceforth be known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Simultaneously, he effaced the historically existing labels for the constituent parts of Yugoslavia, such as Croatia, Slovenia, and Serbia, replacing them with "banovinas" (provinces) named after the major rivers and the coast of the country.
2.
Only the Serbs, the Croats, and the Slovenes were recognized as constituent peoples in interwar Yugoslavia. Branislav Gligorijević has written an extensive three-volume biography of King Aleksandar: Kralj Aleksandar Karađorđević u ratovima za nacionalno oslobođenje, Kralj Aleksandar Karađorđ ević: srpsko-hrvatski spor, and Kralj Aleksandar Karađorđ ević u evropskoj politici (Belgrade: Zavod za udžbenike i nastavna sredstva, 2002.)
3.
See "Zakonodavstvo, instrumenti i represije" in Ivana Dobrivojević, Državna represija u doba diktature kralja Aleksandra, 1929-1935 (Belgrade: Institut za savremenu istoriju, 2006), 95-220.
4.
In socialist Yugoslav historiography, the main examples are Todor Stojkov, Opozicija u vreme šestojanuarske diktature 1929-1935 (Belgrade: Prosveta, 1969), and Nedim Šarac, Uspostavljanje šestojanuarskog režima: Sa posebnim osvrtom na Bosnu i Hercegovinu (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1975). For a more recent example, see Sabrina P. Ramet, The Three Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimation, 1918-2005 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2006), 79-113.
5.
Peter Holquist , "`Information Is the Alpha and Omega of Our Work': Bolshevik Surveillance in Its Pan-European Context,"The Journal of Modern History, no. 69 (1997), 417.
6.
For an explicit call for the creation of "a new Yugoslav man," see Kam. Milošević , "Jugoslovenstvo i osnovna škola," Jugosloven, November 1931, 11.
7.
On the nexus of Stalinist ideology, totalitarian modes of governance, and modernization see Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). Even in the most totalitarian of regimes (e.g., Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union), individuals succeed in carving out and maintaining spaces for resistance, however futile such resistance may have been. On this phenomenon in the Soviet Union see Sheila Fitzpatrick, ed., Stalinism: New Directions, Rewriting Histories (London: Routledge, 2000); Jochen Hellbeck, "Laboratories of the Soviet Self: Diaries from the Stalin Era," PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 1998; Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain; Lewis and Andrei Sokolov Siegelbaum, Stalinism as a Way of Life: A Narrative in Documents (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000). For Nazi Germany, see Ian Kershaw, The "Hitler Myth": Image and Reality in the Third Reich (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).
8.
In neighboring Romania, the government had during the same period embarked on a zealous project of "reconstitution of the nation" within the borders of România Mare (Greater Romania). Irina Livezeanu, Cultural Politics in Greater Romania: Regionalism, Nation Building, & Ethnic Struggle, 1918-1930 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press , 1995).
9.
On denunciation, the short study of Vladimir A. Kozlov on the Soviet case is particularly instructive. See Vladimir A. Kozlov, "Denunciation in Soviet Governance," in Fitzpatrick, ed., Stalinism, 117-41.
10.
Sheila Fitzpatrick and Robert Gellately, eds., Accusatory Practices: Denunciation in Modern European History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).
11.
Robert Gellately focuses on this in his newest work. Robert Gellately, Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
Ivo Banac has called Pribićević a would-be "Yugoslav Mussolini." On Pribićević's role as minister of internal affairs, see Ivo Banac, "The Communist Party of Yugoslavia during the Period of Legality," in The Effects of World War I. The Class War after the Great War: The Rise of Communist Parties in East Central Europe, 1918-1921, ed. Ivo Banac, War and Society in East Central Europe, Vol. CXXXVII (Brooklyn: East European Monographs, 1983), 152-53, 186-88, 217-19, 304.
14.
The First Yugoslav Communist Congress, held in April 1919, led to the establishment of the Ujedinjena socijalisticčka radnicčka partija Jugoslavija [komunista] (United Socialist Workers' Party of Yugoslavia-Communists, or SRPJ[k]). At the Second Yugoslav Communist Congress, staged in June 1920, the Party changed its name to the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
15.
"Zakon o zaštiti javne bezbednosti i poretka u državi," Službene novine Kraljevine Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca (henceforth Službene novine), god. III, br. 170 A., 3 August 1921.
16.
Branislav Gligorijević , Parlament i politicčke stranke u Jugoslaviji, 1919-1929 (Belgrade: Institut za savremenu istoriju - Narodna knjiga, 1979), 79f.
17.
On Tomo Jancčiković, see Ljubo Boban, Dr. Tomo Jančiković -HSS između zapadnih saveznika i jugoslavenskih komunista ( Zagreb: Školska knjiga, 1996 ).
18.
Tomo Jancčiković , "Zakon o zaštiti države," Nova EvropaXVIII, no. 7 (1928): 199.
19.
Jancčiković, " Zakon o zaštiti države," 199.
20.
"Zakon o zaštiti države treba ukinuti," Riječ, 21 September 1928, 2.
21.
Gligorijević, Parlament i politicčke, 301.
22.
Nedim Šarac , Uspostavljanje šesto-januarskog režima , 199. To be fair, this merely marked the regularization of the process in the 1920s, when political parties in power had purged supporters of opposition parties from the civil service.
23.
"Zakon o zaštiti javne bezbednosti i poretka u državi ," Službene novine, god. XI, br. 9-IV, 11 January 1929, 54-56.
24.
As in the 1921 law, however, communism, anarchism, and terrorism were specifically mentioned in Article 2, which treated anti-state organizations.
25.
The inclusion of this article seemed to be at least partially a moot point, though, in light of the dispersal of all political parties shortly after 6 January 1929.
26.
"Zakon o Državnom sudu za zaštitu države ," Službene novine, god. XI, br. 9-IV, 11 January 1929, 66-67.
27.
Mustafa Imamović , "Normativna politika šestojanuarske diktature ," Zbornik pravnog fakulteta sveucčilišta u Rijeci, 12 (1991), 62.
28.
See "Zakon o zaštiti javne bezbednosti i poretka u državi," Službeni list, god.III, br. 170A., 3 August 1921, Article 19.
29.
C. Howard-Smith in Minutes to Kennard, "Law Regarding the Protection of the State," 18 January 1929. In the same minutes, Bateman commented that "the new administration is not only digging itself in. It's now putting up its barbed wire." Archive of Yugoslavia (Arhiv Jugoslavije, AJ), f. 371, film 389, frame 153, FO 371 288 13706, C 555/97/92.
30.
Slavoljub Cvetković et al., Omladinski pokret Jugoslavije, 1919-1969 ( Belgrade: Mladost, 1969), 68.
31.
For the 1925 law, see "Zakon o štampi," Službene novine, god.VII, br. 179-XXXIX, 8 August 1925, 1-10.
32.
Ivana Dobrivojević, who has extensively researched repression during King Aleksandar's dictatorship, has cited the sparse available statistics, but agrees that it is impossible to reach a definitive quantitative result. Ivana Dobrivojević, Državna represija, 148-49.
33.
For the best works on this topic, see Šarac, Uspostavljanje; Ljubo Boban, Macček i politika HSS 1928-1941. Iz povijesti hrvatskog pitanja, 2 vols. (Zagreb: Stvarnost, 1974); Tomislav Išek, Hrvatska seljacčka stranka u Bosni i Hercegovini, 1929-1941 (Sarajevo: Institut za istoriju u Sarajevu, 1991); Nadežda Jovanović, Život za slobodu bez straha (Belgrade: INIS, 2000); Stojkov, Opozicija.
34.
Toth's name is sometimes given as "Tot."
35.
District chief at Velika Gorica to Royal Banovina Administration of Sava Banovina-Section for State Protection (KBUSB-ODZ), 20 September 1932. Croatian State Archive (Hrvatski državni arhiv, HDA), f. 145, kut. 7, Str. Pov. 242/1932.
36.
District chief at Velika Gorica to KBUSB-ODZ, 20 September 1932. HDA, f. 145, kut. 7, Str. Pov. 242/1932.
37.
District chief at Velika Gorica to KBUSB-ODZ, 26 May 1932. HDA, f. 145, kut. 7, Str. Pov. 242/1932.
38.
Turopoljac had a reputation for being, in the words of one state official, "far from Yugoslav ideology." Directorate of city police in Slavonska Požega to KBUSB-ODZ, 3 July 1932. HDA, f. 180, kut. 6, pov. 997/32.
39.
Police Administration in Zagreb to KBUSB-ODZ, 8 February 1932. HDA, f. 145, kut. 60, Pov. 3453/1932.
40.
District Chief in Velika Gorica to KBUSB-ODZ, 26 May 1932. HDA, f. 145, kut. 7, Str. Pov. 242/1932.
41.
See the note "ad acta" dated 6 October 1936 on MUP-ODZ to Ministry of Education, 27 November 1934. AJ, 66 (pov.)-15-38.
42.
Toth was by no means the only one to attempt this kind of subterfuge against the state and its ideology. For a very similar case, see that of Ćiril Maštrović. AJ, 66 (pov.)-13-34.
43.
District Chief in Velika Gorica to KBUSB-ODZ, 20 September 1932. HDA, f. 145, kut. 7, Str. Pov. 242/1932.
44.
Police Chief of Osijek to KBUSB-ODZ, 7 September 1931. HDA, f. 144, kut. 152, 24690/31.
45.
Prime Minister Petar Živković to KBUSB, 9 October 1930. HDA, grupa XXI-P, kut. 35, inv. br. 2051. Cf. KBUSB circular to all regional inspectors, district chiefs, directors of city police offices, and the Zagreb police administration, 31 October 1930. HDA, grupa XXI-P, kut. 35, inv. br. 2050.
46.
Transcript of District Chief in Slunj to KBUSB-ODZ, 20 April 1930. AJ, f. 63-pov., kut. 5, fa. 6, 6-82-30.
47.
See, e.g., the dossier (exhaustingly) titled "Reports of District Chiefs of the City Police and about the Holding of Political Meetings in Private Homes Which Is Impermissible and Must Be Prevented and about All of Which Must Be Reported" from 1929 in HDA, grupa XXI-P, inv. broj. 1570.
48.
Letter from the township of Andrijevci to the district of Slavonski Brod, 9 June 1933. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 1. All documents pertaining to this case cited below can be found in this dossier.
49.
Transcription of letter from the district chief of Slavonski Brod to the District Chief of Slavonski Brod, 9 June 1933. Since the sender and recipient of this letter are identical, it appears to be a document of record. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 2. Unless otherwise noted, all transcriptions are police transcriptions.
50.
The establishment of the JRSD by the Yugoslav government took place after the introduction of a uniparty "constitutional" system in September 1931. The government claimed that only the JRSD properly represented the interests of the new "Yugoslav nation."
51.
Transcript of interrogation by gendarmerie of Petar Rusić, Andrijevci, 10 June 1933. From the interrogation record, it is unclear when the meeting in Sarajevo took place. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 2a.
52.
Transcript of letter from the district chief of Slavonski Brod to the commander of the gendarmerie company at Slavonski Brod, 10 June 1933. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 2b.
53.
Transcript of interrogation by gendarmerie of Stjepan Baumstark, Andrijevci, 11 June 1933. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 3.
54.
Baumstark, in further testimony given on June 18, said, "I did not think to say that anyone of the residents of the village of Perkovci was positively threatening me. Therefore, I cannot point to any such person." He also directly denied the gendarmerie's claims that he had been threatened with a revenge killing by Ilija Grgić and his associates. Of course, given the context of the case, a possibility exists that Baumstark's retraction was itself coerced. However, it is equally plausible that the increased short-term presence of the gendarmes in the area should have actually encouraged Baumstark to amplify his denunciation. Transcript of testimony of Stjepan Baumstark, 18 June 1933. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 29.
55.
Transcript of letter from district chief of Slavonski Brod to KBUSB-ODZ, 11 June 1933. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 3a.
56.
Transcript of letter from gendarmerie station in D. Andrijevci to the district chief of Slavonski Brod, 12 June 1933. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 4.
57.
Transcript of interrogation of Ilija Grgić by the gendarmerie, Slavonski Brod, 13 June 1933. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 5-8.
58.
This was later seconded by the merchant Ivan Benić, who thought that Rusić and the other local JRSD members had planned acts of violence against non-JRSD members. Benić also corroborated all of Grgić's comments. Transcript of interrogation of Ivan Benić by the gendarmerie, Slavonski Brod, 13 June 1933. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 9-10. The plowman Bartol Bošnjaković testified that Pavle Benić had deceived people by getting them to sign up as JRSD members, when they in fact thought that they were signing a petition for a new village road. Bošnjaković and Ilija Grgić thereupon spearheaded an effort to lodge a protest with the banovina administration. Transcript of interrogation of Bartol Bošnjaković by the gendarmerie, Slavonski Brod, 13 June 1933. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 14.
59.
Transcript of interrogation of Ilija Grgić by the gendarmerie, Slavonski Brod, 13 June 1933. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 5-8.
60.
Transcript of interrogation of Ivan Benić by the gendarmerie, Slavonski Brod, 13 June 1933. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 12.
61.
Transcript of interrogation of Andrija Orešković by the gendarmerie, Slavonski Brod, 13 June 1933. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 20.
62.
Testimony (probable transcript) of district judge Dr. Josip Rucner given to gendarmerie, Slavonski Brod, 13 June 1933. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 25-26.
63.
Transcript of testimony of district health clerk Dr. Eduard Hrdlicčka given to gendarmerie, Slavonski Brod, 13 June 1933. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 27.
64.
Transcript of testimony of village elder Lovro Zmaić given to gendarmerie, Perkovci, 18 June 1933, HDA grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476. See also the transcript of the group testimony of the JRSD members of Perkovci, 18 June 1933. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 38.
65.
Transcript of group declarations by citizens of Perkovci to authorities of Perkovci, 18 June 1933. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 40-41.
66.
Transcript of letter from district chief of Slavonski Brod to the commander of the gendarmerie company at Slavonski Brod, 19 June 1933. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 42. Although it is not stated anywhere explicitly, it is possible that the parties to the dispute in Perkovci reached an agreement at least partially to avoid expensive forced expenditures on the gendarmerie. These villagers would have been familiar with the relevant provisions of the law.
67.
Transcript of letter from district chief of Slavonski Brod to gendarmerie station at Andrijevci, 21 June 1933. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 43.
68.
This suspicion was articulated most clearly by Lovro Zmajić. Transcript of testimony of Lovro Zmajić given to the gendarmerie in Perkovci, 18 June 1933. HDA, grupa VI, kut. 10, inv. br. 476, 38.
69.
Presidential Office of the Royal Prosecutorial Directorate to General Vojin Maksimović, 26 January 1929. HDA, grupa XXI-P, kut. 25, inv. br. 1456.
70.
Ministry of Army and Navy to the Minister of Justice Milorad Vujicčić, 10 April 1928. AJ, 63-pov., kut. 4, fasc. 4.
71.
The gendarmes were particularly exercised about the director of the school located 200 meters across the border in an Austrian village. Although the director, Josip Zupanc, had a Slovenian name, the gendarmes described him as "a renegade of ours from Maribor . . . who for our people of this region has no other expression than `Slovenian swine.'" Students of Austria in World War II will recognize a pattern here; some of the most fanatical German nationalists in Austria bore Slavic surnames. Gendarmerie company of Maribor to commander of Drava divisional region, 21 May 1932. AJ, 66-2322-2190.
72.
Gendarmerie company of Maribor to commander of Drava divisional region, 21 May 1932. AJ, 66-2322-2190.
73.
This refers to the efforts of the German minority in the area to establish a separate grade in each school for students who wanted to study in German. The Yugoslav authorities regarded this campaign as the spearhead of a separatist movement. The Minister of the Army and Navy, General Dragomir Ž. Stojanović referred in glowing terms to the role of Adam Srdocč. See Minister of the Army and Navy General Dragomir Ž. Stojanović to Prime Minister Srškicč (for eyes only), 9 September 1932. AJ, 66-116-373.
74.
See handwritten order dated 21 March 1933 of Chief of Personnel Section, Department for Elementary Instruction, Ministry of Education on Minister of the Army and Navy General Dragomir Ž. Stojanović to Prime Minister Srškić (for eyes only), 9 September 1932. AJ, 66-116-373.
75.
Report of Ministry of Education, 1935. AJ, 66-2322-2190.
76.
While the State Court for the Protection of the State did function and try numerous cases each year, the authorities usually resorted to this institution only when prosecuting former politicians, intellectuals, and communist cells.
77.
"Govor predsednika vlade" [Speech of the Prime Minister], Politika, 7 August 1930, 2.
78.
See, e.g., the anonymous denunciation made to the Ministry of Education and Prime Minister Živković in May 1930 by "one who wants that the riffraff be completely excluded from state service and that thus also this [the state service] take a correct and uncorrupted path." AJ, 66 (pov.)-34-73. See also the case of the teacher Ljubomir Popović in AJ, 66 (pov.)-44-83.
79.
For an eccentric sampling of the variety of such denunciations during Aleksandar's dictatorship, see Dobrivojević , Državna represija, 145.
80.
The term consciously Yugoslav was in fact used in some petitions. E.g., in March 1934, a group of villagers from Gajić near Batina in the region of Baranja asked for a new teacher. They disliked their present teacher, a "magyarized Swabian [ethnic German]," who taught the children that they were Croats and not Yugoslavs. The citizens instead requested that the state forthwith dispatch "conscious Yugoslavs" to the area. Citizens' petition to the Minister of Education Ilija Šumenković, March 1934. AJ, 66 (pov.)-13-34.
81.
Minister of Education, Department of Elementary Instruction to KBU of Danube Banovina, Department of Education, 20 September 1930. AJ, 66 (pov).-13-33.
82.
Interrogation record of Matija Tucakov, 8 October 1930. AJ, 66 (pov.)-13-33.
83.
Interrogation record of Bena Trskić, administrator of elementary school in Bacčki Breg, 8 October 1930. AJ, 66 (pov.)-13-33.
84.
School inspector Milutin Nikolić, Sombor to KBU of Danube Banovina, 10 October 1930. AJ, 66 (pov.)-13-33. Tucakov encountered problems again in 1931, when the authorities in Bacčki Breg suspected him of "belittling the dynasty." See AJ, 66 (pov.)-44-83.
85.
Gendarmerie Station at Lipovljani, criminal arraignment of Gjuro Čaić , 29 October 1932. AJ, 66 (pov.)-13-36.
86.
Minutes of interrogation of Gjuro Čaić at the office of the district chief of Novska, 7 November 1932. AJ, 66 (pov.)-13-36. The accompanying documents make it clear that the teacher Ivan Gjuroković was the confidant in question.
87.
District Chief of Novska to Disciplinary Court of Sava Banovina , 18 July 1933. AJ, 66 (pov.)-13-36.
88.
Čaić had allegedly sent villagers out to collect construction materials for the building of the local firefighters society, of which he was president. KBUSB-ODZ to KBUSB, Department of Education, 25 November 1933. AJ, 66 (pov.)-13-36. Čaić had also raised the ire of officialdom by harshly criticizing the school inspector's evaluation of his teaching and for allegedly cursing a fealty delegation and the royal banovina administration. See KBUSB, Department of Education to Ministry of Education (unclassified), 15 December 1933; Minutes of interrogation of Adolf Jung, Novska, 18 December 1934. AJ, 66 (pov.)-13-36.
89.
Čaić's conduct makes it possible to ascertain whether he was indeed guilty of any of the charges against him. Certainly, his later admission, in 1934, that he cursed the banovina administration makes it possible that his 1932 comment about his "Yugoslav" identity was disingenuous. Yet it is equally plausible that he lashed out at the banovina administration for relentlessly pursuing a minor investigation for so long. By 1935, the Ministry of Education washed its hands of the matter and decided to let the banovina administration hand out a minor punishment. Minister of Education to KBUSB, Department of Education, 1 April 1935. AJ, 66 (pov.)-13-36.
90.
Transcription of notary in the township of Cerna to the district chief at Vinkovci, 11 December 1930. AJ, 66 (pov.)-15-40.
91.
See minutes of student interrogations, 10 January 1931 and Penal order of the KBU of Drina Banovina, 14 March 1931. AJ, 66 (pov.)-15-40. Note also that these elementary school students were being asked to recall the conduct of a teacher at a rally that had taken place approximately one month before the interrogations.
92.
Kurt Klugentreter to King Aleksandar, 13 May 1934. AJ, 74-55-76, 221,223.
93.
Translation of Klugentreter's letter into Serbian, with note from translator, May 1934. AJ, 74-55-76, 222. The authorities also wondered how Klugentreter, with his poor command of the "Yugoslav language" could have understood the insults shouted by Nikolov. The fact that Nikolov immediately cursed Klugentreter's "German mother," indicates that the insult might have been placed in German-or that the denouncer in fact understood Serbian. In Nikolov's defense, it can be said that local officials in formerly Ottoman areas were not known for their prowess in the German language.
94.
District Chief of Vrbovsko to the Regional Inspector (eyes only) in Ogulin, 13 December 1932. HDA, grupa XXI-P, kut. 53, inv. br. 3289.
95.
District Chief of Vrbovsko to the Regional Inspector in Ogulin, 26 January 1933. HDA, grupa XXI-P, kut. 53, inv. br. 3289. Cf. AJ, 66 (pov.)-15-39 for a case in which a Serb teacher in Hrtkovci in Danube Banovina stands accused of "tribal intolerance" against Croats but is not disciplined.
96.
Minister of Education, Department for Elementary Instruction, to KBU of Vardar Banovina, 23 March 1931. AJ, 66 (pov.)-15-38. The authorities demanded the use of the "strictest measures" to ensure that this joke would not be further disseminated. Vidić claimed that he had heard the joke from a student in a literacy course he was teaching. In light of Vidić's previously clean record, the ban of Vardar Banovina let him go with a reprimand. Order of Ban Živojin Lazić, 8 June 1931. AJ, 66 (pov.)-15-38.
97.
In at least one instance, a banovina councilor raised the issue of denunciations and condemned the practice. This took place in January 1931, when Ivan Štrcčin, the president of the township of Kaplja vas in Drava Banovina-who had himself been denounced-spoke out on the topic. "I believe that no offences to the state were intended by this proceeding, and that this was also not intended by the royal manifesto of 6 January. We Slovenes all love our ruler, we love our state and therefore we have to do away with that disgrace-[the practice of] denunciations." Stenographic Records of Third Meeting, First Session, 22 January 1931. ARS, f. 77, fa. 1.
98.
While professing their absolute loyalty to "the idea of Yugoslav unity," the members of the Drina Banovina Section of the Jugoslovensko ucčiteljsko udruženje (Yugoslav Teachers' Association, or JUU) demanded consistency in the handling of disciplinary cases and denunciations. They also asked that "all anonymous accusations be discarded as unworthy and not be taken into [consideration for disciplinary] proceedings." From paragraph 27 of the draft resolution (transcription) of the Drina Banovina Section of the JUU, Sarajevo, 5 July 1933. AJ, 66-2321-2188. A similar incident transpired at the 13th Regular Congress of the Jugoslovensko profesorsko društvo (Yugoslav Professorial Society) when a certain Professor Moskovljević opined that "there are too many gendarmes, police officers, and agents. The budget of the Administration of the city [of Belgrade] has 120 agents, and then he added: `and surely there are some of them among you here.'" MUP's report further noted that "a large number" of the delegates present had approved of the tone of Moskovljević's speech, even though the president of the congress admonished him for raising "political" matters. MUP-ODZ to Cabinet of Ministry of Education, 25 July 1932. AJ, 66-116-373.
99.
Martin Mayer writes of the Ministry of Education: "It happened that dossiers were dormant for months or completely disappeared." This was doubtlessly no less the case in other government ministries and agencies. Martin Mayer, Elementarbildung in Jugoslawien (1918-1941). Ein Beitrag zur gesellschaftlichen Modernisierung? Südosteuropäische Arbeiten (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1995), 70.
100.
Here it bears reminding that as of 1932 less than half of all civil servants had educations befitting their positions in the bureaucracy. Mayer, Elementarbildung, 70.
101.
Dobrivojević, Državna represija, 157.
102.
As quoted by William M. Johnston, The Austrian Mind: An Intellectual and Social History, 1848-1938 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 50.
103.
This having been said, any resulting generalizations must be taken with a very large grain of salt. In his devastating examination of Western scholars' portrayals of Soviet Islam, Mark Saroyan provided ample words of caution for those analysts who would extrapolate entire organized social movements out of the Soviet press reports on pilgrimages, rituals, etc. Deduction can never fully substitute for empirical evidence. Mark Saroyan, Minorities, Mullahs, and Modernity: Reshaping Community in the Former Soviet Union (Berkeley: University of California at Berkeley , 1997), 10-15.
104.
AJ, f. 371, film 389, FO 288 13706, frame 208, C 905/97/92, Report of Acting Consul at Zagreb in Kennard to FO, "Attitude of the Croats and Slovenes towards the New Régime in Yugoslavia," 30 January 1929.
