The King of
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Alexander I, a freshly self-proclaimed
dictator, declared it on October 1929. It was a union of East and
West, the Orthodox and the Catholic, Ottoman residues with Austro-
Hungarian structures, the heart and the mind. Inevitably, it stood
no chance. The Croats and the Slovenes - formerly fiery proponents
of a Yugo (Southern) Slav federation - were mortified to find
themselves in a Serb-dominated "Third World", Byzantine polity.
This was especially galling to the Croats who fiercely denied both
their geography and their race to cling to the delusion of being a
part of "Europe" rather than the "Balkans". To this very day, they
hold all things Eastern (Serbs, the Orthodox version of
Christianity, Belgrade, the Ottoman Empire, Macedonia) with
unmitigated contempt dipped in an all-pervasive feeling of
superiority. This is a well known defence mechanism in nations
peripheral. Many a suburban folk wish to belong to the city with
such heat and conviction, with such ridiculous emulation, that they
end up being caricatures of the original.
And what original! The bloated, bureaucracy-saddled, autocratic and
sadistic Habsburg empire. Hitler's Germany. Mussolini's Italy.
Unable to ignore the common ethnic roots of both Serbs and Croats -
one tribe, one language - the Croats chose to believe in a vast
conspiracy imposed upon the Serbs by corrupt and manipulative
rulers.
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