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Stjepan Radić: Slavic politics in the Habsburg monarchy
- Central European University Press
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STJEPAN RADIĆ: SLAVIC POLITICS IN THE HABSBURG MONARCHY Title: Slovanská politika v habsburgské monarchii (Slavic politics in the Habsburg monarchy) Originally published: Prague, author’s own edition, 1902. Language: Czech The excerpts used are from the second edition in Croatian, Stjepan Radić, Slavenska politika u habsburžkoj monarkiji (Zagreb: Matica Hrvatska, 1906), pp. 15–18, 55. About the author See Stjepan Radić, Speech at the night assembly of the National Council on 24 November, 1918 Context The turn-of-the-century emergence of German imperial Drang nach Osten politics, geared towards the political subjugation of the European east, the crisis of dualism in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, and the subsequent Hungarian pressure on Croatia, forced Croatian politicians to abandon the mainstream anti-dualist and anti-Yugoslav politics of Stranka prava (Party of Rights) as it proved to be inefficient under the new circumstances. Hence, a minor faction of the party adopted the concept of a ‘Greater Croatia,’ which was to encompass all South Slavic territories in the Habsburg Monarchy. At the same time, they advocated the anti-Hungarian centralist vision propagated by Archduke Franz Ferdinand. In the meanwhile, the major faction of the party endorsed the idea of an independent South Slavic state known as the ‘Politics of the New Course,’ and promoted by the new generation of Croatian and Serbian politicians (see Frano Supilo, The memorandum to Sir Edward Grey). These politicians mostly belonged to the Napredna omladina 304 FEDERALISM AND THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRES (Croat-Serb progressive youth), a fin de siècle group of Croatian students from Prague influenced by Tomáš G. Masaryk’s political thought. Although Radić was a prominent member of the Omladina, he rejected its idea of unification with Serbia due to the alleged cultural differences between the Croats and the Serbs, expressed as the West and East respectively. Subsequently , Radić envisioned Croatian political emancipation as an outcome of an alliance with the Czechs and Poles within the monarchy. Thus, in his ‘Slavic politics in the Habsburg Monarchy,’ firstly published in Prague, he advocated the idea of ‘Austro-Slavism.’ However, the political pressure exerted by the Omladina prevented its republication in Zagreb. Radić advocated his Austro-Slavist idea until the final disintegration of the Monarchy in 1918, when he was finally forced to adopt the notion of ‘Yugoslavism.’ The idea of ‘Austro-Slavism’ was introduced to Croatian politics by the Narodna stranka (People’s Party) (see Franjo Rački, Yugoslavism) in the nineteenth century. Although inspired by František Palacký, the Narodna stranka did not elaborate on the idea of Austro-Slavism, but just used it as a strategy to get a more autonomous position in the Hungarian part of the monarchy . This was understood to be a transitional step leading to the party’s final aim of creating an independent South Slavic state. Thus, the project mostly maintained the claim of an ‘asymmetric’ federalization of the monarchy , whereby Croatia would constitute a federal unit within Hungary. Radić, on the other hand, developed Palacký’s idea along both political and economic lines, trying to reconcile the project for national emancipation with the idea of preserving the monarchy in the shape of a ‘Danubian Alliance of Nations and States.’ Hence, Radić inherited Palacký’s idea of the construction of federal units based upon a combination of historical and natural rights. Subsequently, in order to enhance his federalist vision, he integrated into his arguments the idea, which he had picked up in Prague, that the interests of the Viennese court and the Slavs were identical but were jeopardized by German expansionism. Moreover, he developed a program for the social emancipation of the peasantry through the implementation of an economic corporatism. This was inspired by the Austrian Christian socialist idea of transforming capitalist businesses into partnerships between owners and workers, thus removing tensions that were typical of capitalist society. Hence, he also refused the Austro-Marxist idea of reconstituting the AustroHungarian Empire by giving cultural autonomy to the nations without reshaping the existing political units. This model was to be supplemented with the principle of the personal autonomy of each individual to use national rights, something which Radić saw as curtailing the natural rights of the na- [18.213.4.140] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 12:24 GMT) STJEPAN RADIĆ: SLAVIC POLITICS IN THE HABSBURG MONARCHY 305 tion (see Karl Renner, State and nation). Radić also refused Aurel Popovici ’s idea of an entirely ethnic construction of federal units, seeing in it a possible source...