Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.22586/ss.21.1.5
Teacher and Politics: The Case of Ivan Trdić (First Part: In the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes)
Ivica Miškulin
; Hrvatsko katoličko sveučilište, Zagreb
Abstract
The descriptive analysis and analytical assessment show that Ivan Trdić’s crucial basic idea was the political ideology of the Yugoslav unitarism. Embodied by its belonging first to the Democratic and later the Independent Democratic Party as well as by the loyalty to Svetozar Pribičević, it was also characterized by the assimilationism, the denial of ethnic and other realities, ahistoricism, favouritism towards Serbia and the Serbs as well as by exclusiveness and violence. In view of the fact that Croatian rural communities (particularly Nova Kapela) reacted equally sharply to the intrusive and repressive Yugoslavism, by identifying exclusively with Croatian political parties and at times using violence, Trdić’s position in these parties was from the beginning rather delicate. After the first electoral defeats had put the democrats in the position of an isolated minority identified with violent Serbianisation and regime violence, they responded with still more vehement reliance on the machinery of government, which naturally produced an even deeper hostility among the local Croatian peasantry. Once the circuit of radical exclusiveness was closed, it fed upon itself, and Trdić’s role in its establishment in a Croatian rural community in the western Slavonian area was an excellent illustration of processes that also unfolded in other regions. The political weaknesses of the democrats and independent democrats prevented Trdić from going beyond the local scope; however, the characteristic inclination of both Trdić and his associates to administrative violence to a large extent affected the educational system. Firstly, he used Pribičević’s political influence to expel real and imaginary enemies from the majority of primary schools in the Nova Gradiška district and to enrol supporters and members of the Democratic party; subsequently he was appointed school principal in Nova Kapela. Trdić enjoyed his heyday only for a short time: in line with the fall of Pribičević, he was transferred from Nova Kapela and for several years he was relatively passive in Stražeman; certain issues, typical of his employment in Nova Kapela, arose during that period. At the beginning of 1929 Aleksandar Karađorđević’s dictatorship provided new opportunities for Yugoslav nationalists, among others also for Trdić; more on this subsequently.
Keywords
Democratic Party; Independent Democratic Party; Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes; Association of Yugoslav Teachers; Ivan Trdić
Hrčak ID:
266534
URI
Publication date:
15.12.2021.
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