SERBIAN NATIONAL YOUTH (SRNAO): IDEOLOGY - PRACTICE - OUTCOME

Abstract

The Serbian National Youth (SRNAO), a non-partisan organization that stood for Serbian nationalism and the defense of Serbian cultural and state traditions, is an under-researched topic in contemporary historiography. Through the analysis of program texts in the SRNAO press, we reconstructed its ideology and attitudes towards key political issues and events that shaped the political life of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes during the 1920s. The central theme of the paper is the attitude of the ideologists of the SRNAO towards Yugoslavism as a state and national idea. We paid special attention to the internal conflicts within the leadership of the SRNAO and their connection with the activities of the People’s Radical Party. We have investigated in detail one of the specific features of the daily political activities of the SRNAO – the systematic use of terror in dealing with political dissenters. Finally, we examined the SRNAO’s attitudes towards the political parties of the first Yugoslav state – primarily its ambivalent relations with the People’s Radical Party and the Serbian Party.