Nationalism and Yugoslavia : Education, Yugoslavism and the Balkans before World War II

Created after World War I, ''Yugoslavia'' was a combination of ethnically, religiously, and linguistically diverse but connected South Slav peoples - Slovenes, Croats and Serbs but also Bosnian Muslims, Macedonians, and Montenegrins - in addition to non-Slav minorities. The Great Powers and the country''s intellectual and political elites believed that a coherent identity could be formed in which the different South Slav groups in the state could identify with a single Balkan Yugoslav identity. Pieter Troch draws on previously unpublished sources from the domain of education to show how the state''s nationalities policy initially allowed for a flexible and inclusive Yugoslav nationhood, and how that system was slowly replaced with a more domineering and rigid ''top-down'' nationalism during the dictatorship of King Alexander I - who banned political parties and coded a strongly politicised Yugoslav national identity. As Yugoslav society became increasingly split between the ''pro-Yugoslav'' central regime and ''anti-Yugoslav'' opposition, the seeds were sown for the failure of the Yugoslav idea.
Nationalism and Yugoslavia provides a valuable new insight into the complexities of pre-war Yugoslavia.