State Authority and Competing Arrangements in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes/Yugoslavia (1918–1941)

The important feature analysed in this article is the relations between state authority and the Croatian Peasant Party (Hrvatska seljačka stranka) (hereinafter HSS) with its para-state structures in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, for the period 1929–1941.

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.

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.

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: http://doi.org/10.12946/gplh1 (04. 01. 2021), pp. 29–66, p. 58.

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.

The topmost official of administration in each region was the prefect (veliki župan), a chief official appointed by the king based on the proposal of the minister of internal affairs.

Cf. Eugen Pusić: Hrvatska središnja državna uprava i usporedni upravni sustavi, Zagreb 1997, p. 170.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Peasant Community already in 1920 but it failed in this attempt due to the unwillingness of the state administration to recognize the formation of branches of this organization. However, after the political compromise between the Radical Party and the HSS, the state administration allowed the registration of branches of the Peasant Community after the HSS entered the government in 1925.

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.

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.

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.

In parallel with state authorities, the HSS and its Peasant Community pursued their own literacy campaign and took a significant role in the field of education in the mostly Croatian populated territories of the Kingdom in the mid-1930s. The campaign was aimed at illiterate adults, and brought the Peasant Community into competition with educational measures provided by state authorities. In the campaign, the Peasant Community made lists of illiterate persons, appointed teachers and funded participants who had no money.

Leček: Seljačka sloga u Slavoniji, p. 55.

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.

During the mid-1930s, the Peasant Community in its literacy campaign promoted values, norms and loyalties that were partly different from those promoted by the state schools and state courses. While the state schools and state literacy courses provided Croatian but also Yugoslav and other ›tribal‹ content, meaning here Serbian and Slovenian narratives, the courses led by the Peasant Community provided adult education in the spirit of peasantism and a separate Croatian nation and identity and did not mention Yugoslavism and other ›tribal‹ narratives. In this way, the courses led by the Peasant Community accentuated normative diversity within the Kingdom. It seems that the content which was taught in these courses partly correlated with educational programs applied on the territory of Croatia-Slavonia before 1918.

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 Peasant Community and, as a way of support, instructed teachers employed in public schools to take part in these campaigns.

Cf. Leček: Seljačka sloga u Slavoniji, pp. 60–61.

The HSS from the mid-1930s formed a specific system of courts called the ›Courts of Good and Honest Men‹ that operated within the Peasant Community, and had to work in parallel with the state judiciary. As intended by the leadership of the HSS, the courts should help to re-establish ›old honesty‹ which had been disrupted by the state law.

That was vision of some prominent members of the HSS. Cf. Leček: Stjepan Hefer, p. 430.

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.

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.

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 Seljačka sloga, the newspaper of the HSS. According to the report, the case emerged in 1938 and the protagonists in the case were Mara M. and Mijo M., both from Skupica, a village near the city of Karlovac. The case was about a 2,000 dinar loan that Mara M. lent to Mijo M. in 1929. Since Mijo M. did not repay the borrowed money in full, Mara M. filed the case for justice in the ›Court of Good and Honest Men‹. During the court hearing, Mijo M. accepted the debt to be paid, but also stated a few interesting points which illustrate why he did not repay the debt in full. The debtor pointed out that the money lender had been rude towards him and threatened him seriously many times. In addition, the debtor pointed out that the money lender had unsuccessfully sued him in the state court in Karlovac and pointed out that state law on the protection of peasants liberates peasants from 50 per cent of their debt. The court determined that Mijo M. had already repaid 300 dinars and delivered a judgement that imposed on him the obligation to pay the money lender 900 dinars in money and 900 dinars in kind (wine and meat). Also, the money lender had to promise that he would not be rude anymore towards the debtor. Finally, after the court resolved the dispute, both parties had to sign a statement which stated that »from now on they will live in mutual friendship as conscious members of the Croatian peasant movement«.

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 Peasant Community prescribed rules that stated that members of the organization were obliged to primarily resolve their disputes in these courts, while going to state courts could only be secondary.

See the example of Valpovo in Leček: Seljačka sloga u Slavoniji, p. 148.

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.

Several examples can be used to elaborate this theory. The first is the example of the HSS and its Croatian Civil and Croatian Peasant Protection. Specifically, the leadership of the HSS issued instructions to members of the Protections to be passive towards the state authorities. As an illustration, we can mention a case in March 1937. The protagonist in the case was Franjo Novaković, an emissary of the leader of the HSS Vladko Maček. Novaković’s task was to help to form a local branch of the Croatian Peasant Protection in the villages of Virovski Konaci and Molve. While doing so, he instructed members of the Croatian Peasant Protection in these villages not to respond to the district authorities.

Karaula: Mačekova vojska, p. 119. See more such instructions in Karaula: Mačekova vojska, pp. 132–133.

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.

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 Peasant Community in the case of the literacy campaign as well as in the case of ›peasant justice‹.

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 Peasant Community in the 1920s only after the state authorities approved its formation. Similarly, the intensification of the normative activity of the HSS and its para-state organizations from 1935 onwards was partly due to the relaxation of the regime. Another point that showed the interdependency between the normative orders and state and para-state structures was the mentioned example of reasoning before the ›Court of Good and Honest Men‹ which took into account the state normative order as well. Although the development of the para-state structures and their normative order was dependent upon state authorities, it is evident that the normativity produced by the HSS and its structures could affect the functioning of the system of state administration as well. The »Instructions« issued by Vlatko Maček illustrates this problem which put heads of municipalities into a complex position as they had to take into account state norms but also the HSS’s normative order. It seems that the normative activity of the HSS and its organizations produced fissures within the state normative order and state organization that had a possible effect on their destabilization. However, even if we do not consider whether the activity of the HSS and its organizations destabilised the state normative order, it is possible to argue that competition of normativities put the state normative order under heavy pressure.

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 Croatian Civil and Croatian Peasant Protection as official organization of the Banovina of Croatia. Finally, an example of interweaving between normative orders is the official support of the Banovina of Croatia for the literacy campaign carried out by the Peasant Community.