Original scientific paper
THE TRIAL OF STJEPAN RADIĆ IN 1920
Bosiljka Janjatović
; Croatian Institute of History, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
This article uses archival and newspaper sources along with basic secondary literature to examine legal proceedings conducted against Stjepan Radić, the leader of Croatia's strongest opposition party - The Croatian People's Peasant Party (HPSS). During 1919 and 1920, Radić was held in custody without trial, released, then rearrested and given a harsh sentence for politically opposing the creation of a unitaristic and centralized state under the Serbian Karadjordjević dynasty. Radić wanted the distinctiveness of the Croatian nation to be recognized, so he sought autonomy for Croatia as the basis for its economic, political, and cultural development. Radić's trial, carried out in spite of the fact that some jurists felt it was unlawful, revealed the crux of the conflict between the regime and the HPSS, in effect, the Croatian opposition. Radić worked to ensure that the internal organization of the state would be based on national self-determination. For him, the upcoming election of a Constituent Assembly was all-important because it would determine the nature a Slovene-Croat-Serb state. Contrary to this, the Karadjordjević regime assumed all the main national and constitutional questions had been settled on December 1, 1918, when a common kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes had been proclaimed. As far as the government was concerned, only the formality of writing a constitution had to be handled by the Constituent Assembly.
Eventhough he was released on the very day of the election, Radić's trial showed that the Karadjordjević regime intended
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
213973
URI
Publication date:
5.5.1997.
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