Language problem prologomena

The Serbs began settling the territory of Vojvodina, apart from Srem, where they had been present in larger numbers from the 14^th century (Popović, 1950), north of the Sava and the Danube Rivers, more intensely because they were being displaced from their medieval state territories by the Ottoman invader. They came to the territory of the Habsburg Monarchy, the "bastion of Catholicism", hoping that, as Christians, they would be equally accepted to a certain extent. Their "equality" was conditioned by the patriotism expressed for their new homeland. There were numerous opportunities for expressing patriotism, not visible only in the defence from Turkish attacks, but also in the complex European dynastic struggles. The privileges given to the Serbs during the "Great Vienna War" (Ivić, 1929) confirmed their alliance with Vienna, but, at the same time their patriotism committed to the preservation of their identity. Their stronghold was their faith and Church as the main national organization. The resistance to amalgamation with the Catholic tradition and Magyarization led to extremely tense relations among the nations co-habiting in mutual distrust, as well as with relying on the Vienna support. The capital had used its role of the arbiter in national disputes for centuries in order to realize the goals of its own imperious ambition (Gavrilović, 1986; Popović, 1959).

Although on the margins of the European idea trends, the Habsburg Monarchy succeeded in keeping abreast of modern ideas. The reform-based decisiveness of the rules from the second half of the 18^th century onwards enabled the breakthrough of the Enlightenment and the development of the critical civil thought (Marković, 2016). Its reliance on the identity strongholds in the past caused the development of a specific expression of the national idea. The Serbs accepted the challenge in order to harmonize the traditional narrative and modernization, being aware of the need for the development of the national idea and its political articulation in the unfavourable circumstances of similar national developments in the territory of the Monarchy. The Serbian citizens in the territory of Vojvodina developed under a strong influence of the Russian spiritual school, which was supposed to control the influence of the Protestant Enlightenment and to prevent religious supremacy. Hence, at the time of the Serbian language norming and the work of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, proceeding under strong professional as well as political influence of Jernej Kopitar, the "Vojvodina South Slav mentality" was recognized (Ivić, 2021, p. 20).

This specific feature, firmly rooted in the Serbian clergy of the time, pointed to the diversity of the development of modern Serbian identity and the difficulties encountered on the road of its development. Political linguistic cooperations with the intellectual centres of the Habsburg Monarchy, subsequently the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, led to the criticism of the excessive Russian influence that created the Serbian identity pattern in the territory of Vojvodina. The criticism of such approach, which reduced the Russian support to mere "newspaper articles" (Perić, 2017, p. 239), insisted on federal relations between Serbia and Austria (Perić, 2017). However, this polemic narrative did not cause any dramatization and polarization of the population in the development of Serbian identity. The polemic tone disputing the Austrian domination over Serbia, contemporarily redesigned into the form of "generous federalization", but which also rejected the "autocratic" (Novaković, 2017, p. 190) intentions of the Serbian rulers, led to the attitude that "faith was a measure in the execution of power, as well as in everything else" (Novaković, 2017, p. 191). It was a process preventing the domination of extremes in the political expression of the Serbian national idea. It was on these foundations and with huge temptations that the idea of Serbian Vojvodina was formed.

The Serbs' national movement and its emancipation in Vojvodina

The surge of national and civil revolutions (Taylor, 2001), as well as the preserved status of privileges, with the contentious personal status (Ćirković, 1972) led to directing the development of the Serbs' interests in the territory of Vojvodina towards national emancipation and political-territorial autonomy (Popović, 1963). It was the "foundation of the political thought and... armed struggle of the Serbs... in the exercise of their national rights" (Krkljuš, 2010, p. 7). "Voivodeship as the essence" of the Serbian nation, as stated by one of the most eminent figures of the political and national development of the Serbs, Svetozar Miletić, in his most famous article "On 5^th January" (Miletić, 1939), had already been supported in the decisions of the May Assembly enacted in Sremski Karlovci in 1848 (Gavrilović, 2021). The decisions emphasize as follow: "... Rights to all nations", including the Serbs, to "nationality, language, autonomy, religion, homeland, freedom of thought and freedom of expressing thought to others in one's own letters or alphabet..." (Građa, 1952, p. 155). The liberal, i.e., broad-minded process of the national idea development was prevented by the restoration of the conservative response of the Habsburg Monarch. The Monarchy opted for controlled reforms in which national emancipation was a privilege of Germans and Hungarians. Vojvodina was abolished in 1860, while national emancipation encountered old challenges of assimilation, presented in a new form of educational and school supremacy, ultimately aimed at one "political nation". This doctrine was insisted on although it was a "fiction" (Miletić, 1999, p. 236). The beginning of the 20^th century witnessed the resistance of the Kingdom of Serbia to the colonial status from the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Such resistance was directed towards the development of own independence, which was characterized by political and cultural misunderstanding and impugnment by the Monarchy. The tendency of the Serbs in the Monarchy towards national development of the Kingdom of Serbia contributed to the intensification of repressive activities of the authorities (Mikavica, 2018). They culminated in the abolition of national-school autonomy in 1912, and by militarization of the society through the war in 1914. This definitely put an end to the process of the Serbs' national emancipation in the territory of the Monarchy. The process was prevented due to the denial of the Serbs' national rights, while the idea of Vojvodina/"Voivodeship" constituted its failing political, legal and territorial expansion in given historical circumstances in the Austrian Empire, which denied those rights.

In such circumstances, the statement that from the May Assembly onwards, "the awareness persisted of the historical name of Vojvodina, of the need for its individuality, territorial borders and specific identity characteristics – which will all be the basis for the aspirations of its liberal citizens in the Yugoslav stage for the defence of the right to self-government, no longer as Serbian, but supra-national autonomy of Vojvodina" (Bešlin, 2017, p. 283), constituted an insufficiently substantiated ideological ruin on the historiographical foundation negating at least three sober interpretations.

First of all, the term "Vojvodina", in relation to this historical moment, represents an expression of the national struggle of the Serbs in the Austrian Empire, while behind it not the categorization of the "historical" determination did not "persist", but of the "national" determination instead. It was an expression of a breakthrough of modern European ideas of the Serbs' national emancipation and struggle for political rights of both individuals and the nation. Only as such it became a historical attainment, which is skilfully disputed in the above-mentioned statement without a national prefix.

Another interpretation is a witness to the context of the creation of the newly-formed Yugoslav state in the territory of Vojvodina. It was formed after years-long conflict in which the imperialism of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, driven by the nationalist intentions of anti-Serb sentiment, was defeated thanks to the liberation movement of the Serbs in the territory of South Hungary (who were openly proud of their Vojvodina identity in the desire to show the Serbian character of their struggle), as well as the army of the Kingdom of Serbia, including many volunteers (Mikavica, Vasin, Ninković, 2018). Political emancipation of this national solidarity was articulated by the Great National Assembly held on 25^th November 1918 (Marković, 2021). Although enacted in the atmosphere of national euphoria, quite understandable because after repression, restrictions, nationalist passion and prohibition, the moment finally came for the Serbs to decide freely about their national and state status, it did not deny different approaches. However, pragmatism deriving from the complex and uncertain situation in the field still prevalent at the time of the imminent war danger, reflected Serbian national unity complemented by the support of the Slav population of Vojvodina.

Last, but not least, the already important idea permeating the previous two interpretations is the idea of the Yugoslav state as an expression of the emancipation of Serbian national interests, in which its "supra-national" character was not created in the opposition to the Serbian national idea, but was an expression of the voluntary Serbian national "demobilization" (Stanković, 1985) to the benefit of the potential equal multinational development of the state.

Yugoslav ideological scene

This historical hope faced reality. The contradictions of the newly-formed state were numerous, and their reduction to acceptable cohabitation of diversities was supposed to be an expression of the polemic approach, national tolerance, decent party struggle, democratization and institutional development of the state. All these requirements were exposed to the challenges of the insufficient readiness for dialogue, prevailing political and national distrust and authoritarian tendencies for achieving state and political goals. Unification and unwilling abandonment of traditional political activities, as well as deflecting from changes in the rhetoric and political action in complex circumstances of the new state, caused distrust, initiated populism, daily political pamphleteering and elaborated demagogy, The consequence was the national, constitutional and political uncertainty of the Yugoslav state restricted by numerous failed expectations.

Instead of the pragmatic and democratic process, ideology assumed primacy in political action. It implied that solutions to controversial constitutional, national and political issues should be imposed in line with the strength of the centres of political, state, legal and financial power supporting them. In the Yugoslav monarchy, the ruler had the most significant influence, and his openly Yugoslav orientation only partially justified his tendency to use great constitutional, almost autocratic authorities in problem-solving and insufficient appreciation of the criticism of such approach.

The political representatives of the Serbs from the territory of Vojvodina also encountered these problems. Relying on the tradition of their broadminded political action, they criticized the monarch's exclusionary approach, deeply convinced that the dictatorship as a manner of putting a stop to national antagonisms could not make a long-term contribution to the stabilization of the state and the democratization of the society. However, this critical attitude is not a consequence of the claim that "the autonomy of Vojvodina was already in conflict with the idea of the national state" (Končar, 2013, p. 15) because in the centre of its interest was not the national question, but constitutional and functional organization of the state. As a matter of fact, the starting point was that national emancipation of the Serbs had been realized through the formation of the state, but that there was still a debate about its organization. Therefore, initiating the idea of "Vojvodina to Vojvodina People", first in Sombor Resolution and then in Novi Sad Resolution in 1932 (Marković, 2020), was not a Serbian antinational phenomenon of its actors, but on the contrary, emancipation of the Serbian national struggle towards the creation of the productive and functional Yugoslav state, to the formation of which the Serbs had contributed most significantly by their national struggle and sacrifice (Marković, 2011).

In such complex circumstances, moderation and tolerance of the Serbian national idea were opposed both to its discreditation and the intention of achieving national domination of the Serbs, which was observed by some political actors. The critical attitude to the latter exclusivity did not imply any underestimation of the Serbian character of Vojvodina identity and its need for joint state development with the remaining territories of the Serbian nation, neither did it imply giving up the search for an optimal concept of the state organization that could proceed towards the federalization of the Yugoslav state. This is reasonably witnessed by the most important representative of these events, Joca Lalošević, when emphasizing his "Serbian patriotism and allegiance to Vojvodina" (Marković, 2011, 2021).

From the perspective of the historiographic approach, this context of the development of the Yugoslav monarchy, with a strong consensus about Yugoslav emancipation of the Serbian national idea, which was burdened by numerous omissions and faults, such as those about the excessive economic exploitation of Vojvodina, did not go towards the creation of the "broad autonomist front" that should change the status of "this historical province" (Bešlin, 2017, p. 289). This approach overlooks the fact about modest accomplishments of the "Vojvodina front" in the election process (Marković, Gavrilović, 2013), but at the same time it promotes the construct of the "historical province" with no justification. It was omitted due to its unsustainability at this historical moment, without the Serbian national prefix.

However, in this opinion, we are entitled (taking into account the traditional need for measuring and considering the circumstances in the specific historical epoch in order to make the effect of our modern moment and our affections as bearable as possible and reduce it to the minimum risk in making historiographic conclusions) to neglect the needs of the post-war ideology and its heritage in the form of controlled historiography (Stanković, Dimić, 1996). It entails the emancipation of Vojvodina solely as a "historical province" in historical processes during the last two centuries. Its national characteristic is neglected, although research shows that those are not opposed processes in the given historical epochs, but the processes in which autonomy affirms the creation and development of the national state, with the intention of developing its democratic capacity, integration and multinational tolerance (Marković, 2021).

The need to separate and antagonistically place these two terms has been inherited from the ideological epoch of socialist development and creation of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina within the new Yugoslav state. As a "product of the regime of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia" (Group of authors, 2014, p. 65) it is created on the standpoint of clamping down on the representatives of the Serbian movement who, on the basis of individual controversial trials and the civil war, are uniformly attributed with passionate nationalism, collaboration and pro-Nazi activities. In that manner, the national idea is reduced to a rigid conservative ideology that with its development opposes the idea of Vojvodina autonomy as the only and unique way of the alleged democratization of the Yugoslav society in which the Serbian national idea is not entitled to its own manifestation because in all of its forms it is pretentious and imperial and, for that reason, historically discredited. That is how we come to the narrative that autonomy is a deflection from the national state and the intention of recognizing it in the past. Hence the reduction in the approach to the past and the of this ideological intention of the new socialist political nomenclature as identical with the tendency of developing autonomy as a historical need of the peoples living in the territory of Vojvodina and opposing nationalist supremacy. In that context, the Hungarian supremacy over autonomous requests for the development of the Serbian national idea from the period before 1914 was seen the same as the alleged ambition of the Serbs to realize an identical nationalist type of domination in the Yugoslav state.

The affirmation of cultural societies of all nations in the territory of Vojvodina, as well as their political and party activism in the interwar period, deny these observations (Antolović, 2017; Marković, 2010, 2013, 2021). Nevertheless, they prevail in the public ideological discourse represented as historiographic, and successfully stimulate interests of communist oligarchy in Vojvodina with the aim of their keeping power and state prerogatives. Such process suggests an idea about Vojvodina as a "historical province" and them as its valid and successful successors because even at the time of illegal activities, the representatives of the Communist Party had already rejected the "nationalist matrix" and remained consistent in it (Кončar, 1971).

Ideological constructs of socialism

However, this matrix was not abandoned at the time of "socialist construction" either, when the leaders of the Communist Party of Serbia, headed by Aleksandar Ranković and Slobodan Penezić, disputed the statists ambition of the province's communist organization and its representatives in in power. The dispute and debate, which rhetorically sometimes resembled a conversation of opposed extremes, was identified with the nationalist narrative that disputed the historical status of Vojvodina, while actually it was a conflict within the Communist party, whose republic oligarchy was against the usurpation of own influence because of the functioning of the provincial oligarchy. All this was skilfully concealed in mutual accusations that "those others" did not implement the politics of the socialist development of the society, and that those in Belgrade represented the defeated nationalist forces, while those in Novi Sad represented the constructed statism and provincial bureaucratism. In that way, internal Yugoslav party divergences were justified by accusations that never belonged to the communist perspective, but, allegedly, individuals inside the party became dissidents and representatives of the defeated ideas of "Great Serbian nationalism" (Dimić, 2001, 1998).

This was a false accusation because the motivating thought both of the criticized and the coitizing ones for such nationalist overturn did not recognize the development of the Serbian national idea and its historical process, but the accusations for the nationalist act were integral part of the stigmatization of the national idea both by the accusers and the accused. Ideological hypocrisy undermined every sober approach to the development of the national idea, and the socialist disguise ("façade statehood order" Nikolić, 2017, p. 208), regarding the development towards the communist society of justice permanently labelled every expression of the national idea as nationalist paroxysm. Mutual intolerance of the party leaders in Belgrade and Novi Sad was shown as a conflict of reactionary forces that, by attacking "those others", discredited the socialist development. Essentially it was the process of conflicts of power-loving oligarchies and domination of power inside the ideological society that had long rejected democracy and pluralist idea development as a matrix of modernization and development of the society and the state. The tendency of polarization and misunderstanding was established in legislation by enacting the constitution of the federal state in 1974. This constitution regulated the status, rights and duties of the autonomous provinces, "so that Serbia did not have a chance to determine their position, although, formally speaking, they were their integral parts" (Dimić, 2001, p. 436). Such statism of the provinces in relation to the Republic of Serbia, as well as constitutional interventions and legal authorities and court prerogatives, made the federation formal and unnecessary, which was actually the realization of Edvard Kardelj's idea of the confederal concept of the state with the provinces becoming autonomous states. It was the only manner of preventing and disputing the Serbian influence in the state, even though it occurred through the activities of the Communist Party, regardless of the fact that its members of Serbian origin persistently and intensely rejected their national affiliation. Professor Mihailo Đurić's warning that the Constitution created "several independent, autonomous and even hostile national states" (Trkulja, 2005) encountered misunderstanding and a court epilogue. At the same time, the events towards the creation of a Serbian territorial unit in the territory of the Republic of Croatia were disputed due to the "mixed" national situation in the field (Bilandžić, 1999, p. 622).

The Republic of Serbia with the autonomous provinces became a confederation modelled after the status of a federal state and, apart from the "loyalty to the home republic" (Dimić, 2001, p. 437), it could not count on any legal regulation of the state unity. This historical process, realized in the ideological atmosphere of successful development at the expense of opposing and doing away with Serbian nationalism among the leaders in Vojvodina (Bjelica, 2015) moved towards the identification of Central Serbia with a threat, because its communist leadership was the bearer of a backward and traitorous idea or "dark past" (Nikolić, 2017, p. 199) jeopardizing the future of Yugoslavia. That idea of distancing from the Serbian sentiment was even stronger because the reformist direction of the so-called liberal leaders ("social revolutionaries", Nikezić, 2003, p. 53) of Serbia increasingly showed its readiness for reforming the society and the state and the affirmation of the dialogue and debate about the country's democratization, economic progress and educational growth. Those ambitions, seriously and responsibly committed to social change, were assessed as a retrograde attack on self-government and an attempt of capitalist counter-revolution (Perović, 2016). This rigid attitude was in line with the mythologized charisma of Josip Broz who, regardless of all the rhetoric and action, was a "conservative political especially resenting democratization" and "seeing the greatest danger in critical intelligence" (Nikolić, 2017, p. 206).

Division of the power-loving ones

In this narrative, where "Yugoslav political oligarchy... thought only of staying in power and keeping the acquired privileges" (Nikolić, 2017, p. 206), which nowadays leads to the conditional interpretations of the past, speaks of an intention of "unitarization by the Serbian leadership", pointing to the fact that "autonomy originated from Serbia, and from the historical, national and other specific features of Vojvodina" (Bešlin, 2017, p. 304). It provoked increasing tension in the relations between the province and republic communist oligarchy, with a tendency of further aggravation of these relations. While some undermined the existing ideological approach about the meta-ethnic character of the Yugoslav society through a controversial return to Serbian national models, the others tried to stay loyal to it by reducing the national-historical context of the development of Vojvodina autonomy to a mere historical process, opposed to the national development of the Serbs, despite the fact that it was its initiator and decisive factor (Jović, 2003).

The intensification of such polarization was enticed by the statement that the historical processes confirming the "polycentric development" of the Serbian national idea were ignored (Dimić, Radojević, 2014), and thus the specific nature of its development in the territory of Vojvodina, which implies the political-territorial autonomy of the Voivodeship as national emancipation of the Serbs, with the respect of historical circumstances and multi-ethnic structure of the population.

The representatives of the provincial authorities in Vojvodina increasingly presented the existing specific features, as well as the unique process of historical development in relation to the remaining part of the Serbian people, as an indisputable difference that should define the future of Vojvodina as a "historical province" ready to create the "Vojvodina nation" (Dimić, 2001, p. 437, Bjelica, 2011, p. 519). In contrast to this extreme, which instrumentalized the approach to historical processes, in the "mantra" (Kuljić, 2012) of post-Tito era in the Yugoslav state, a response of identical vocation was developed in Central Serbia, pointing to the "provincial natiocracy and… power-lovers" (Bešlin, 2017, p. 315) that supported the Albanian irredentist movement and secession (Bojanić, 2017, p. 179) in Kosovo and Metohija and that, together with anti-Serbian ambitions of other republic leaders, created the "anti-Serbian axis Zagreb – Novi Sad – Ljubljana". This narrative was particularly pronounced at the time of decisive changes in the political course of the communist leaders headed by Slobodan Milošević – "father of the nation" (Jović, 2001, p. 7), which founded its reform concept on the need for defending Serbian national interests in Kosovo and Metohija, but also in the Yugoslav state by resisting the constitutional order (Petranović, Zečević, 1987).

In that manner, the state ignored the most significant potential of the crisis – its economic content. Therefore, the crisis affecting the society due to irresponsible and arbitrary marginalization of economic matters, for the purpose of maintaining ideological platitudes about the Yugoslav meta-ethnic character, was replaced by the national narrative that adjusted its rhetoric, with the crisis becoming more and more serious, to the exclusive expression, while it offered new "social stability" (Antonić, 2002) that had to be worked on. The Serbian society was in a situation of replacing one ideology with another, while skilfully ignoring the real problem of stagnation and arrears in the development, as well as the work on its pragmatic removal. Because of increasingly open demonstrations of Albanian separatism and irredentist ambitions, open polemic tones evolved about the use of the republic unity. The naked discussion, reduced to the paraphrases, spoke of the need for "trimming the provinces" (Bjelica, 2021, p. 3). The leaders were committed to the development of the Yugoslav society, but they also emphasized their own views of "democratic centralism", which aspired towards the appreciation of own role in autonomy, i.e., in republic authorities. That is how "autonomous aspirations... ended up in a sort of quasi- Yugoslav centralism" (Stambolić, 1995). The increasingly evident divergence of the leaders went towards the utter tension in mutual relations – "the road to nowhere", as it was vividly described (Stambolić, 1995). Numerous debates, such as the one in Čortanovci in 1986, were a failure. "Soon the disputes over Vojvodina autonomy moved from the assembly and committee halls to the streets of Novi Sad and other places in Vojvodina" (Bjelica, 2021, p. 13). The consequence of "anti-bureaucratic" and "yoghurt" revolutions was that the entire provincial leadership resigned under the intense pressure of the media campaign, as well as the pronounced political will of the population. The amendments to the Constitution of 28^th March 1989 abolished the state authorities of the provinces. It was the final stage of the populist struggle for the accomplishment of national interests of the Serbian people. Its success depended on the political support of the population. Based on the suggestive propaganda campaign, as well as actual national threats, it was undoubtedly present. It may reduce its democratic character, but it is much more difficult to dispute its national potential as it has been done by ideological Yugoslav unity developed in line with the motto "weak Serbdom, strong Yugoslavia".

Ideological (no) way out, or instead of a conclusion

Insisting on mass support, unsuccessfully controlled exaltation of the national sentiment, institutional reductio in decision-making, contradictory reforms and reduction of interests to the preservation of political power in the atmosphere of communist nostalgia and the absence of understanding of international geopolitical changes, have affected the ambivalent character of the recovery of the Serbian national idea, as well as its appearance and content. In the gap of its divided expression and due to the absence of the intention of rejecting its predominantly superficial content, blurred and simultaneously enriched by pamphlets and banality, and of filling it with valuable contents relying on the forbidden civil and internal-national pluralism of attitudes and ideas, the idea persisted about unjust suppression of the Vojvodina identity, the statist one, which had been defeated in the "event of the nations". Both ideas were simulacrums that complemented each other and mutually owed their persistence over political realism. In that manner, they contributed to the anti-historical approach to Vojvodina, and not only this concept, but also the preservation of ideological platitudes, in particular those ignoring everything else, except for its exclusively national character, defined at the modern and rather impassioned moment and transferred to historical events, both those that criticized the nationalist contents and rejected the democratic character of the Serbian national idea and its threshold of national tolerance, which was crucial in the realization of its national and historical character in Vojvodina. Between "national revolutionaries" and "social revolutionaries", Vojvodina Serbs most frequently chose national responsibility and social safety for all inhabitants.