Dometi i ograničenja pripadnosti državnom narodu u Kraljevini Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca: iskustva iz prečanskih krajeva

Employing archival materials from Styria and Bačka, the article investigates how (not) belonging to the titular nationality affected people’s lives in the former Austrian-Hungarian provinces of interwar Yugoslavia during the first decade of the state’s existence. As regions with substantial minority populations and significant Austro-Hungarian political, administrative, and cultural legacies, both provinces experienced a vigorous process of top-down “nationalization” after becoming part of the Yugoslav state. At the same time, due to the new state’s slow-paced consolidation, many individuals were long unable to regulate their citizenship status and lived in Yugoslavia as foreign subjects. By analyzing practical examples of interactions between the people and the political authorities surrounding the regulation of citizenship as well as the procurement of licenses in the private sector, the study shows how tensions between subjective (nationhood) and objective belonging (citizenship) defined everyday life during the first ten years of Yugoslav rule.