World War II and the National Question: The Origins of the Autonomous Status of Vojvodina in Yugoslavia

For help on the way, thank you to Jovo Bakić, Živan Berisavljević, Sara Bernard, Milivoj Bešlin, Cathie Carmichael, Dejan Djokić, Franziska Exeler, Mary Heimann, Vladimir Ilić, and to Alexander Kamenskii, Siniša Korica, Judit Molnar, Jana Osterkamp, Dragan Plavšić, Anita Prazmowska and David Smith. Special thanks to the Centre of Advanced Studies and the School of History at the National Research University—Higher School of Economics, Moscow, for a funded mini-sabbatical to undertake research on this topic.

Abstract

This essay investigates the origins of the autonomous status of Vojvodina in post-war Serbia and Yugoslavia. It charts the formation of national and regional consciousness among Vojvodina’s Serbs, Germans and Hungarians, from Habsburg times to World War II. It then argues that Nazi Germany’s racial war radicalised national tensions in Vojvodina. Nazi defeat resulted in the brutal expulsion of Vojvodina’s Germans, making Serbs for the first time a majority. Consequently, the region’s claim to autonomous status after the war clashed with the national-territorial principle applied to federalism by the victorious Communist Party of Yugoslavia, causing frequent friction and instability.

Notes

For help on the way, thank you to Jovo Bakić, Živan Berisavljević, Sara Bernard, Milivoj Bešlin, Cathie Carmichael, Dejan Djokić, Franziska Exeler, Mary Heimann, Vladimir Ilić, and to Alexander Kamenskii, Siniša Korica, Judit Molnar, Jana Osterkamp, Dragan Plavšić, Anita Prazmowska and David Smith. Special thanks to the Centre of Advanced Studies and the School of History at the National Research University—Higher School of Economics, Moscow, for a funded mini-sabbatical to undertake research on this topic.

¹ Thank you to Cathie Carmichael for suggesting this translation of opstanak.

² Only four issues were published in the 1940s. They were later published as Vojvođanka u borbi: organ Antifašističkog fronta žena za Vojvodinu (Novi Sad, Matica srpska, 1963).

³ Vojvođanka u borbi, 4, June–July 1944, p. 16, in Vojvođanka u borbi: organ Antifašističkog fronta žena za Vojvodinu (Novi Sad, Matica srpska, 1963).

⁴ Arhiv Jugoslavije (hereafter AJ), 507, 1943/304. Thanks to Bartul Ĉović for help in locating this document.

⁵ AJ J 507-III, ‘Zapisnik sa sednice Izvršnog komiteta Centralnog komiteta SKJ održane 27. februara 1957. godine u Beogradu’.

⁶ AJ 507-III/7, ‘Stenografske beleške sa proširene sednice Izvršnog komiteta Centralnog Komiteta SK Jugoslavije održane 6. februara 1958. godine u Beogradu’.

⁷ Arhiv Srbije, Dj. 2, Central Committee, Executive Committee, F.2, ‘Zapisnik sa sednice Izvršnog komiteta CK SK Srbije održane 10.X.1960’.

⁸ See also, Bjelica (2015, pp. 121–48).

⁹ AJ 507, III/88, 14–16.III.1962, 121–22.