Public Opinion in Poland and the Establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918

Abstract

Public opinion in Poland was much interested in the developments concerning the South Slavs in the final phase of World War I. Poland was still partitioned at that time, so there was no Polish national press. However, Polish newspapers and periodicals published under Russian, German, and Austro-Hungarian administration, as well as those published in already independent Poland, welcomed the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes as the realisation of the natural law of small nations to independence and thus cheered the efforts of the Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs to build their own state. There were more absorbing issues at the time, with Poland herself in the dramatic process of reclaiming independent statehood, and there was no involvement with the South Slavs, so the topic did not make it to the front pages. Nevertheless, public opinion in Poland was well versed in the activity of leading Slovenian, Serbian, and Croatian politicians and the Italian challenge to the negotiation of the borders of the newly-established state. It was also aware of the state’s religious heterogeneity—Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Muslims—as a potential threat to national unity. No particular side was favoured. Even before the unification of the Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs in a common state, the nations of Southeastern Europe were often referred to as Yugoslavia and the people as Yugoslavs. Occasionally, news concerning the South Slavs were printed in bold to emphasise the topic’s importance to Polish editors and readers.