Nationalism and the International Order : re-interpreting the politics of banal Croatia, 1908-1918

Abstract

The subject of this thesis is the fundamental alteration of state allegiance, political claims and their respective legitimating arguments by political elites in Banal Croatia during the last ten years of the Habsburg Monarchy. The thesis has sought to make a contribution to the study of nationalism by conceptualising nationalist claims as an event that occurs within a specific temporal and geographical framework rather than as essential propositions derived from a static nationalist ideology. The analytical approach suggested by the thesis attempts to move beyond the main paradigmatic debates of the literature of nationalism studies by conducting a theoretically informed historical analysis that seeks to contextualise local events within the wider framework of the international order. The argument has been developed by following a chronological narrative that incorporates a comparative analysis of the main political parties and actors in the Croatian parliament between 1908 and 1918. The gradual erosion of allegiance to the Monarchy was a long and protracted process that saw the gradual abandonment of the concept of Croatian state right for the principle of ethno-national self-determination. But the main objectives of all variants of Croatian nationalism remained the reform of the constitutional arrangements in Austria-Hungary until almost the very end of its existence. It was only with the realisation that the Monarchy would cease to exist that the decision to accept unification with Serbia became an acceptable option. By showing how contingency and external events shape the preferences, claims and arguments of local elites, the argument hopes to highlight the need to focus on case studies that include the international dimension as an integral component of the field of nationalism studies. From a historiographical point of view, the emphasis on the lack of inevitability of outcomes hopes that this analysis will sit uncomfortably with the grand narratives that have emerged about the creation of the first Yugoslavia, be it those who see as inevitable and those who see it as inherently bound to fail from the outset.