The important feature analysed in this article is the relations between state authority and the Croatian Peasant Party The Party changed its names. At first it was the Croatian People’s Peasant Party (HPSS), but following its republican agenda the Party changed the name in 1921 into the Croatian Republican Peasant Party (HRSS). In 1925 after recognizing the monarchy the Party removed the republican from its name and continued to work as the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS). For the reasons of simplicity we use the abbreviation HSS consistently in the text. In addition, Suzana Leček mentions the Croatian Workers Union ( We do not use the term Croatia since Croatia as a political unit did not exist within the Kingdom until 1939. Instead, we use the provisional formulation ›the mostly Croatian populated areas‹. By this formulation we mean the territories of Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia and mostly Croat populated districts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Nevertheless, it has to be stated that these territories were not nationally completely homogenous. On the contrary, except Croats, there lived other ethnic groups, and Serbs were the largest one.
A general assessment of the relations between state authorities and the HSS and its para-state structures is that these structures were competing with each other during most of the time under investigation here. This is evidenced by the policy of the HSS which opposed the act of forming the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes from the very beginning, while advocating for the formation of a Croatian Peasant Republic at the same time. The HSS opposed the process of enactment and the content of the unitarian Constitution of 1921 because of this line of thinking, and pursued the policy of not recognizing the Constitution until 1925. Furthermore, the HSS refined its policy from the mid-1930s and significantly developed a system of para-state organizations. Thus, the HSS formed »the state within the state« according to Suzana Leček.
Leček: Priča o uspjehu, p. 35. For the argument about cooperation between Croats and Serbs and government and opposition cf. Marie-Janine Calic: A History of Yugoslavia, West Lafayette 2019, online: For one example of the situation when two or more normative orders coexists within the same social space cf. Matthias C. Kettemann: The Normative Order of the Internet: A Theory of Rule and Regulation Online, Oxford 2020, p. 283. On the concept of multinormativity cf. Thomas Duve: Was ist ›Multinormativität‹? – Einführende Bemerkungen, in: Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History 25 (2017), pp. 88–101, at pp. 90–99. Thomas Duve: Global Legal History – A Methodological Approach, in: Max Planck Institute for European Legal History Research Paper Series No. 2016-04, online:
The aim of the research is to draw a more complex picture of the legal order in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes/Yugoslavia on the mostly Croatian populated areas of the country. This position rests on a methodological approach which positions »our idea of law« in a broader multinormative setting. According to this approach, the law is one of the modes of normativity and a complex understanding of the law can be given only if other normativities are considered as well.
For such a broader understanding of the law, cf. Thomas Duve: European Legal History – Concepts, Methods, Challenges, in: Thomas Duve (ed.): Entanglements in Legal History: Conceptual Approaches, Global Perspectives on Legal History, Frankfurt am Main 2014, online:
The article begins with a brief analysis of the state authority and state normative order in the Kingdom. In addition, the formation of the HSS, its para-state organizations and normativity are briefly considered. The second part of the article analyses the relations between the norms created by state authority and the HSS and its organizations using a few exemplary cases: the literacy campaign, the concept of ›peasant justice‹, and the passivity of the HSS and its organizations towards the state administration and state judiciary. The research is limited as the relations between state authority and the HSS and its organizations are analysed for the mostly Croatian populated areas of the country. Therefore, the findings in the article represent only part of a broader picture about law and state authority in interwar Yugoslavia.
State authority was the central agent that produced norms in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes/Yugoslavia; it formed the corpus of state law. Main legislative power to create these norms rested with the king and the Provisional National Assembly until 1921, with the king and the National Assembly from 1921 to 1929 and with the king alone from 1929 to 1931. The king enacted laws together with the National Assembly from 1931 until 1934, while from 1934 onwards, the King’s Regency acted instead of the king because the king was a minor. In addition, the King’s Regency should enact autonomous laws together with the Croatian Diet in the realm of the autonomy of the Banovina of Croatia from 1939 onwards (although this did not happen because the elections for the Croatian Diet were never held, so the Diet never convened). Besides legislation, the governance of important normative activity was under the king and the central government, an institution that was appointed by and accountable to the king and from 1934 onwards to the King’s Regency, while in the period from 1921 to 1929 it was politically responsible to the National Assembly as well. The central government and its ministries issued various decrees and instructions, which by number and relevance often surpassed the normative activity of the National Assembly.
For instance, the normative activity of the Government in the period before enactment of the Constitution of 1921 to a large degree surpassed the normative activity of the Provisional National Assembly. Cf. Marko Pavlović: Problem izjednačenja zakona u Kraljevini Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca/Jugoslaviji, in: Zbornik Pravnog fakulteta u Zagrebu 68/3–4 (2018), pp. 493–523, at p. 496.
A closer look at the formation of state authority and the state normative order indicates that the enactment of the Constitution of 1921 was an important starting point for the consolidation of state authority and for the formation of that order.
Cf. the Constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Obnarodovan u br. 142a »Službenih Novina« na Vidovdan 28. juna 1921. god. u Beogradu, in: Ustav Kraljevine Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca [The Constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes], Beograd 1926. Cf. art. 95 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes; Cf. the map of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes with the division of provinces in Ljubo Boban: Hrvatske granice od 1918. do 1991. godine, Zagreb 1992, p. 21.
The topmost official of administration in each region was the prefect ( Cf. Eugen Pusić: Hrvatska središnja državna uprava i usporedni upravni sustavi, Zagreb 1997, p. 170. An example is the authority given to a prefect to question acts of the self-government authorities if he considered them to be a violation of the Constitution or other state laws. Cf. art. 99 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The scheme of the administrative organization according to the Constitution of 1921 see in Sabina Ferhadbegović: Prekäre Integration: Serbisches Staatsmodell und regionale Selbstverwaltung in Sarajevo und Zagreb 1918–1929, München 2008, p. 109. Cf. art. 96 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
The Constitution of 1921 affirmed the concept of one nation that consisted of three ›tribes‹: Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Furthermore, the Constitution prescribed a shortened legislative procedure that should make the unification of the system of state law much easier.
Cf. Pavlović: Problem izjednačenja zakona, pp. 498–499. One such example was the Decree on the division of the country into 33 regions issued by the central government on 26 April 1922.
An important impetus for a further unification of the state normative order came with the abolishment of the Constitution of 1921 and the proclamation of dictatorship on 6 January of 1929.
See the act on the proclamation of dictatorship in Ferdo Čulinović: Jugoslavija između dva rata, Vol. 2, Zagreb 1961, pp. 7–8. Cf. Pavlović: Problem izjednačenja zakona, p. 502; Mustafa Imamović: Normativna politika šestojanuarske diktature, in: Zbornik Pravnog fakulteta Sveučilišta u Rijeci 12 (1991), pp. 55–64, at pp. 57–58. Cf. Nedim Šarac: Uspostavljanje šestojanuarskog režima 1929. godine sa posebnim osvrtom na Bosnu i Hercegovinu, Sarajevo 1975, p. 188. Čulinović: Jugoslavija, p. 13. The territories of former Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia were now divided into a few banovinas. Specifically, the area of Syrmia was now mostly defined as part of the Danube banovina and Dubrovnik was now part of the Zeta banovina. The new setting also eradicated the former external borders of the historical Bosnia and Herzegovina which had remained intact before 1929. Cf. Pusić: Hrvatska, p. 171. Cf. this argument also in Stipica Grgić: Između režimske ideologije i potreba građana: Savska banovina 1929–1939, Zagreb 2020, p. 141. Cf. Imamović: Normativna politika, p. 62. Cf. Obnarodovan u ›Službenim novinama‹ 3. septembra 1931, in: Ustav Kraljevine Jugoslavije (The Constitution of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), Zagreb 1931. Peter Troch: Nationalism and Yugoslavia. Education, Yugoslavism and the Balkans Before World War II, London 2015, p. 34. Troch: Nationalism and Yugoslavia, p. 34. Cf. Grgić: Između režimske ideologije, p. 114.
The fundamental change in the relation to the state organization and state normative order happened in 1939 with the formation of the Banovina of Croatia, an autonomous unit within the Kingdom. From then on, the state authorities officially abandoned policies of centralization, the Croat nation was recognized and the process of a federal reorganization of the state begun. The Banovina of Croatia gained significant competences in the matters of internal administration, education, healthcare, the judiciary, finances, buildings, agriculture, industry, etc.
Cf. art. 2 para. 1 of the Decree on the Banovina of Croatia.
Previous remarks indicate that the state organization was centralized and that the state normative order was gradually unified until 1939. While, during the period 1939–1941, decentralization was officially recognized in the form of the Banovina of Croatia and its specific normative order. However, this approach does not recognize the divergent elements that can be observed both in relation to the organization of state authority and to the formation of a state normative order. If we look at the formation of state authority, one can argue that significant diversity in the administrative organization was evident in the period before the enactment of the Constitution of 1921. This resulted from the act that the pre-1918 established administrative structures, e.g. the Provincial Government in Zagreb or the Provincial Government in Sarajevo continued to operate after 1918. Although the king and the central government forced centralization from 1918 onwards,
For instance, the king took significant steps in appointing loyal clerks and officials in the provincial administration in Croatia–Slavonia after the formation of the new state. Cf. Bosiljka Janjatović: Karađorđevićevska centralizacija i položaj Hrvatske u Kraljevstvu (Kraljevini) SHS, in: Časopis za suvremenu povijest 27/1 (1995), pp. 55–76, at pp. 58–59. In addition, the Central Government gave obligatory instructions to provincial authorities and controlled the administrative acts of the provincial governments. Cf. Ivan Beuc: Povijest institucija državne vlasti u Hrvatskoj (1527–1945), Zagreb 1969, pp. 331–332. Grgić: Između režimske ideologije, p. 56. Cf. Josip Horvat: Politička povijest Hrvatske, Vol. 2, Zagreb 1989, p. 236; Janjatović: Karađorđevićevska centralizacija, p. 63. Cf. Grgić: Između režimske ideologije, pp. 84–85. About posibility and limits of enactment of such decrees cf. Grgić: Između režimske ideologije, p. 89. Sarajevo region »concentrated initiatives« on the area of Bosnia and Herzegovina while Zagreb region was concentrated on Croatia. Ferhadbegović: Prekäre Integration, p. 329.
In addition, diversities existed within the state judiciary and they were kept on lower levels until the enactment of the Law on the Regulation of Courts of 1929.
Cf. Mirela Krešić: Zakon o javnim bilježnicima Kraljevine Jugoslavije iz 1930. Sudjelovanje javnog bilježnika u ostavinskom postupku – iskustva iz prošlosti, in: Zbornik Pravnog fakulteta u Zagrebu 63/2 (2013), pp. 353–382, at pp. 355–356. These supreme courts were the Supreme Court in Belgrade, the Table of Seven in Zagreb (with its two divisions, each of them having supreme judicial power in one of two legal areas: in the Croatian-Slavonian legal area and the Slovenian-Dalmatian legal area), the Supreme Court in Sarajevo, the Supreme Court in Podgorica and the Supreme Court in Novi Sad. Cf. art. 137 para. 4 of the Constitution of 1921; cf. Pavlović: Problem izjednačenja zakona, p. 512. Cf. Pavlović: Problem izjednačenja zakona, pp. 494–495, 513–515.
One plausible statement on the importance and relevance of political parties in interwar Yugoslavia would be that the HSS was the strongest and the most important Croatian party at that time. The Party originated already in 1904 in Croatia-Slavonia when this land was part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Founded by the brothers Antun and Stjepan Radić, the Party at first did not gain strong popular support. However, because of the extension of the franchise to all men in 1920 and its republican platform, as argues Biondich, the Party in the 1920s transformed into a mass movement that completed the process of Croat national integration.
Cf. Mark Biondich: Stjepan Radić, the Croat Peasant Party, and the Politics of Mass Mobilization, 1904–1928, Toronto, Buffalo, London, 2000, pp. 150–151. Cf. Biondich: Stjepan Radić, p. 226. Ljubo Boban: Maček i politika Hrvatske seljačke stranke 1928–1941, prva knjiga, Zagreb 1974, p. 9. Cf. Roumen Daskalov: Agrarian ideologies and peasant movements in the Bakans, in: Roumen Daskalov/Diana Mishkova (eds.): Entangled Histories of the Balkans, Volume II: Transfers of Political Ideologies and Institutions, Leiden 2014, pp. 281–353, at pp. 336–337.
The importance of the HSS and its influence over Croatian peasants and society supported the para-state structures organized by the Party. The development of the Party’s para-state structures was a gradual process that began in the early 1920s with its peak in the late 1930s. At first, the HSS tried to organize its para-administrative organization called the Cf. Suzana Leček: Seljačka sloga u Slavoniji, Srijemu i Baranji (1925–1941), Slavonski Brod 2005, pp. 11–12; cf. Suzana Leček: Seljačka sloga i uključivanje žena u seljački pokret (1925–1929), in: RADOVI – Zavod za hrvatsku povijest 32–33 (1999–2000), pp. 293–298, at p. 293. Cf. Leček: Seljačka sloga i uključivanje žena, p. 293. Cf. Leček: Seljačka sloga u Slavoniji, p. 14. Cf. Leček: Seljačka sloga u Slavoniji, p. 57; cf. Leček: Priča o uspjehu, p. 39. Cf. Suzana Leček: Stjepan Hefer o sudovima dobrih i poštenih ljudi, in: Scrinia Slavonica 8 (2008), pp. 429–439, at p. 430. Leček: Seljačka sloga u Slavoniji, p. 147; Engelsfeld mentions around 12,000 cases solved during 1939. Cf. Neda Engelsfeld: Promišljanje o primjeni Zakona o odvjetništvu odnosno Zakona o advokatima od 19. ožujka 1929. u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji, in: Vladavina prava 5/2 (2001), pp. 7–49, at p. 21. Cf. Ivica Šute: Slogom slobodi! Gospodarska sloga 1935–1941, Zagreb 2010, pp. 113–114. Vlatko Maček: Memoari, Zagreb 2003, pp. 170–171; for more on the actions of the Cf. Sabrina P. Ramet: Vladko Maček i Hrvatska seljačka zaštita u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji, in: Časopis za suvremenu povijest 43/1 (2011), pp. 137–154, at p. 140; cf. Calic: A History of Yugoslavia, pp. 116–117. For the argument about competition with state Cf. Željko Karaula: Mačekova vojska – Hrvatska seljačka zaštita u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji, Zagreb 2015, p. 187, 237; Cf. Čulinović: Jugoslavija, p. 110.
One of the results of the aforementioned activities of the HSS and its para-state structures was the formation of a specific normative order. This normative order developed gradually. At first, the leadership of the HSS was the central agent that created this normative system, but from the mid-1930s, the HSS’s para-state organizations developed significant normative activity as well. The agents created various norms sometimes in a written form and sometimes in the oral form. Political declarations, instructions by the leadership of the HSS to its local party organizations and to its members can be regarded as the important sources of that normative order. Furthermore, norms issued by the HSS’s para-state organizations such as organizational rules, rules of conduct, rules on membership in such organizations, educational materials and judgments of the ›Courts of Good and Honest Men‹ represented important elements of this normative order too.
An important axis of the normative activity of the HSS was peasantism.
For general reflections on peasantism or agrarianism cf. Daskalov: Agrarian ideologies, pp. 281–293. Cf. Biondich: Stjepan Radić, pp. 63–68.
In parallel with peasantism, the second important axis of the normative activity of the HSS was the Croatian national ideology. Daskalov argues that close interweaving with a nation-building project was one of the specificities of the Croatian peasantism.
Cf. Daskalov: Agrarian ideologies, p. 325.
The close interweaving between peasantism and the Croatian national ideology affected the normative activity of the HSS and its organizations. One distinct example of such interweaving was the »Constitution« issued by the HSS in 1921, which is concerned with the formation of the Croatian peasant republic and therefore clearly combined peasantism and the Croatian state right.
For the Constitution issued by the HSS cf. Biondich: Stjepan Radić, pp. 175–176, 178.
The Constitution of 1921 defined education as a state matter and prescribed that education had to be provided on the same basis in the whole country (Cf. art. 16 paras 3 and 4). Furthermore, the Constitution stated that »all schools have to give moral education and strengthen citizen’s consciousness in the spirit of national unity and religious tolerance« (Cf. art. 16. para. 5) and that »all educational institutions are under state supervision« (Cf. art. 16. para. 11). As ›schools‹, state authorities understood also different courses, including literacy courses.
For instance, the first law on public schools enacted in 1929 regulated elementary education, kindergartens and different courses, including literacy courses. Cf. Dubravka Miljković: Iz povijesti osnovne škole u Hrvatskoj u razdoblju od 1918. do 1941., Odgojne znanosti 9/1 (2007), pp. 135–150, at p. 141.
The constitutional norms provided indicate that the state authorities perceived a state monopoly on education as an important instrument in strengthening the »common national consciousness«.
For such argument cf. Suzana Leček / Tihana Petrović Leš: Znanost i svjetonazor: Etnologija i prosvjetna politika Banovine Hrvatske 1939–1941, Zagreb 2010, p. 7; Troch: Nationalism and Yugoslavia, p. 45.
However, at that time the idea of »common national consciousness« was still partly vague. As Wachtel argues, in the 1920s, »even the greatest partisans of Yugoslav unity were constrained to note that concepts such as Yugoslav culture, the Yugoslav person and the Yugoslav nation needed to be sharpened«.
Andrew Baruch Wachtel: Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia, Stanford 1998, p. 107. Troch: Nationalism and Yugoslavia, p. 45. On different educational programes in the Yugoslav lands before 1914 cf. Charles Jelavich: Južnoslavenski nacionalizmi: Jugoslavensko ujedinjenje i udžbenici prije 1914, Zagreb 1992, pp. 257–266. Cf. Troch: Nationalism and Yugoslavia, pp. 46–50. Cf. Troch: Nationalism and Yugoslavia, pp. 74–75, 101, 110. By ›tribal‹ character, we mean that educational materials positioned Croatian narrative together with Serbian and Slovenian narratives and often combined them together. For the combination of narratives in Croatian textbooks after 1935 cf. Troch: Nationalism and Yugoslavia, pp. 74–75, 100–101, 109–110. Cf. Miljković: Iz povijesti osnovne škole, pp. 147–148. Troch: Nationalism and Yugoslavia, p. 184 and further.
In parallel with state authorities, the HSS and its Leček: Seljačka sloga u Slavoniji, p. 55. Cf. Rudolf Herceg (ed.): Hercegova abecedarka za poučavanje odraslih nepismenjaka, Zagreb 1937; Rudolf Herceg (ed.): Hercegova abecedarka za poučavanje odraslih nepismenjaka, Zagreb 1940.
The analysis of the textbook indicates that the literacy campaign had two main goals. The first goal consisted of reducing illiteracy while the second goal was to promote values and norms that were in line with the political agenda of the HSS. This is proven by the textbook content which clearly speaks of peasant culture and the peasant way of life and also promotes the ›old values‹ of peasant society. These ›old values‹ included home, fairness, justice, God and life in mutual harmony.
Compare the first part of the textbook. Herceg: Hercegova abecedarka 1937, pp. 3–16. Cf. Herceg: Hercegova abecedarka 1937, pp. 22–30. Cf. Herceg: Hercegova abecedarka 1937, pp. 30–45. Cf. Herceg: Hercegova abecedarka 1937, pp. 39–42; interestingly, after the formation of the Banovina of Croatia in 1939 (which included a significantly smaller territory) this map and text were removed. Cf. Herceg: Hercegova abecedarka 1940. Cf. Herceg: Hercegova abecedarka 1937, back cover.
During the mid-1930s, the For educational programs in Croatia—Slavonia before 1914 cf. Jelavich: Južnoslavenski nacionalizmi, pp. 107–143, 164–178, 208–239.
Normative diversity in educational policies meant that Croatian peasants had to take into account two normative systems: one is official and protected by state law and state administration and implemented by public schools, its teachers and the state literacy campaign, and the other an unofficial normative system not recognized by the state or regional administration until 1939. These two systems of norms coexisted separately, while shifting between them occurred during the Banovina of Croatia. The shifting happened because during the Banovina of Croatia, its authorities - controlled by the HSS - strongly supported the literacy campaign led by the Cf. Leček: Seljačka sloga u Slavoniji, pp. 60–61. Some of these members were Izidor Škorjač, Zlatko Špoljar and Slava Kovač. Cf. Leček/Petrović Leš: Znanost i svjetonazor, pp. 21–22, 33.
The HSS from the mid-1930s formed a specific system of courts called the ›Courts of Good and Honest Men‹ that operated within the That was vision of some prominent members of the HSS. Cf. Leček: Stjepan Hefer, p. 430. Tomašić, Dinko. Politički razvitak Hrvata, Zagreb, 1997, pp. 133–134 cited by: Engelsfeld: Promišljanje o primjeni Zakona o odvjetništvu, p. 20. The principle of ›peasant concord‹ was one of the Party’s objectives. Cf. Biondich: Stjepan Radić, p. 84.
The ›Courts of Good and Honest Men‹ developed and applied a specific normative order that was different from state law. Their normative order was based on the concept of ›peasant justice‹ and followed the peasant ideology propagated by the HSS.
The aforementioned phenomena of ›peasant justice‹, as a set of specific normativities, and the ›Courts of Good and Honest Men‹, as a set of specific organizational structures in the field of the judiciary, have at least two interrelated dimensions. One concerns material law and the understanding of the concept of ›peasant justice‹ and its relation to state law. The other is an organizational one and it is related to the structure and scope of activities of the ›Courts of Good and Honest Men‹ and their relation to the state judiciary. The possible collisions and interconnections of normative orders represent situations when multinormativity emerges. In addition, the coexistence of two jurisdictional structures represents an example of »jurisdictional multiplicity«.
Wim Decock: Collaborative Legal Pluralism: Confessors as Law Enforcers in Mercado’s Advice on Economic Governance (1571), in: Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History 25 (2017), pp. 103–114, at p. 107. Decock: Collaborative Legal Pluralism, p. 107.
When discussing issues related to collisions and interactions of normativities, one should point out the concept of ›peasant justice‹ as a central point of reference. However, the concept itself was vague even to contemporaries. As one of the leaders of the HSS, the lawyer Stjepan Hefer, noted, the courts would disclose peasant understanding of law through practice.
Leček: Seljačka sloga u Slavoniji, p. 148. On the other hand, formation of procedural rules was mostly dependent on incentive taken by the prominent members of the HSS. Cf. some rules in Leček: Stjepan Hefer, pp. 435–438.
Considering the lack of the research on the topic of ›peasant justice‹ one should say that the concept still needs to be researched properly. Therefore, the following case serves only as an indication of the concept of ›peasant justice‹ and as an illustration of efforts taken by the HSS in promoting the work of its courts. The report of the court case was published in Sa suda dobrih i poštenih ljudi, in: Seljačka sloga 3/7 (1938), p. 218.
The aforementioned case indicates that the concept of ›peasant justice‹ and rulings based on it were not bound by the state law. However, this does not mean that the state normative order did not affect the decision making process. An example for this is the argument used by the debtor Mijo M. in which he points out that state law on the protection of peasants liberates him from 50 per cent of his debt towards the money lender. By using this argument before the ›Court of Good and Honest Men‹, the peasant clearly pointed out the existence of another state normative system that should also be taken into consideration when a decision was made by this court.
Similar to the competition of normativities, the competition of jurisdictions played an important role. Some local branches of the See the example of Valpovo in Leček: Seljačka sloga u Slavoniji, p. 148. This as an important characteristic of the ›Courts of Good and Honest Men‹ is mentioned by Suzana Leček. Cf. Leček: Stjepan Hefer, p. 430.
As already pointed out, the HSS established the ›Courts of Good and Honest Men‹ as a structure that had to work in parallel to the state judiciary. However, this does not mean that these structures were independent of the state judiciary. In fact, actions taken by and before the ›Courts of Good and Honest Men‹ were partly dependent on the actions taken by state courts, and vice versa. We can conclude this based on the previously analysed case where the money lender filed the case before the ›Court of Good and Honest Men‹ only after he unsuccessfully sued the debtor before the state court. Therefore, if the case had been positively resolved in the state court, the money lender would not have gone to the ›Court of Good and Honest Men‹.
Finally, although the relations between the ›Courts of Good and Honest Men‹ and the state judiciary were initially competitive, there are indications that competitive relations changed after the formation of the Banovina of Croatia. From that formation onwards, we can observe, to some extent, an interweaving of jurisdictions. This is because state authority officially recognized some of these courts. A good example is the recognition of the ›Court of Good and Honest Men‹ in the city of Zagreb as a special municipal court funded by the city budget.
Cf. Karaula: Mačekova vojska, p. 221.
The HSS used the literacy campaign and the concept of ›peasant justice‹ as a way of promoting its values and norms. Besides this, as Suzana Leček argues, the HSS promoted a specific policy towards state authorities which can be described as a policy of passivity and not cooperation.
Cf. Leček: Priča o uspjehu, pp. 33–35. Cf. Leček: Priča o uspjehu, p. 34.
Several examples can be used to elaborate this theory. The first is the example of the HSS and its Karaula: Mačekova vojska, p. 119. See more such instructions in Karaula: Mačekova vojska, pp. 132–133. Cf. Karaula: Mačekova vojska, p. 260.
The other example is the passivity of peasants towards the state repressive organs when these organs conducted searches. The HSS leadership instructed peasants to be passive in such situations and not to cooperate with the state authorities. There are many cases which testify to how villagers refused to be present during searches as witnesses and made the searches illegal this way.
Cf. Karaula: Mačekova vojska, p. 133.
Using passivity as a means of weakening state power in the field of the judiciary could be cited as another example. The leadership of the HSS instructed peasants not to go to the state courts but to resolve disputes at the ›Courts of Good and Honest Men‹.
The priority of the ‘Courts of Good and Honest Men’ over state courts was advocated by Stjepan Hefer, one of the leaders of the HSS and one of the most prominent persons in the formation of these courts. Cf. Leček: Seljačka sloga u Slavoniji, p. 148.
Finally, a good example of the policy of not cooperating with the state authorities was the municipalities in the period from 1936 until the formation of the Banovina of Croatia.
For some reflections and examples of non-cooperation between the municipalities and the state authorities, including the non-application of state law in some municipalities, cf. Stipica Grgić: Hrvatska seljačka stranka i lokalne samouprave Savske banovine (1935–1939), in: Zorislav Lukić / Hrvoje Petrić (eds.): 110 godina Hrvatske seljačke stranke, Zagreb 2015, pp. 99–112, at pp. 105–110. Cf. Suzana Leček: Borba Hrvatske seljačke stranke za općinsku samoupravu 1936–1939, in: Časopis za suvremenu povijest 40/3 (2008), pp. 999–1032, at pp. 1001–1004. Cf. Šute: Slogom slobodi, pp. 317–318. Cf. art. 79 of the Law on Municipalities of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia of 1933, in Ignjat M Tolić: Zakon o opštinama, Tisak i naklada Jugoslavenske štampe, Zagreb 1933, p. 38; The Constitution of Yugoslavia defined municipalities not just as self-governing unit but as part of the state administration as well. Cf. art. 82 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
An analysis of the formation of state authority and the state normative order indicates that the tendency of state authorities to build a centralized state organization and uniform legal order was dominant. However, a closer look into the development of the state administration and judiciary as well as of other components of the Yugoslav normative order shows that the process of unification did not go smoothly. On the contrary, diversities existed within the state organization and the state normative order and were the result of different normative traditions applied before 1918 on specific legal areas.
Apart from that, various agents complicated the situation by producing multinormativity within the legal order and within the administration and judiciary. Although certainly they were not the only ones, the analysis indicates that important agents that produced normativity, at least in the Croatian populated areas, were the HSS and its para-state organizations. These structures emphasised normative diversity by creating normativities that were, at least until 1939, in competition with and in certain measure in conflict with the state normative order. Moreover, the analysis indicates that the HSS to some extent supported normativities that had already existed within society. The HSS accomplished this by giving institutional support to these normativities in the form of the
Furthermore, the research indicates that the normative orders and structures under study, although divided in principle, were interconnected and interdependent at the same time. As stated in the article, the HSS managed to form its
Finally, the conducted research indicates that the relations between the two administrative and judicial structures and the two normative orders changed after the formation of the Banovina of Croatia. After this formation, the focus shifted from competition and conflict towards cooperation. A notable example of interweaving between judicial structures is the conversion of the ›Court of Good and Honest Men‹ in the city of Zagreb from being a non-state and non-municipality actor to a court recognized by the city administration and moreover funded from the city budget. Another example of interweaving between administrative structures is the recognition of the