DECLARATION ON UNIFICATION OF SOUTH SLAVS

BIJELJINA, OCTOBER 18 /SRNA/ - The National Council of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes adopted the Declaration on the Unification of the South Slavs into a single state on October 19, 1918.

A few days later, a delegation of the Council in Belgrade issued a statement on the unification of the remaining South Slavic ethnic territories of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire into a single state with Serbia and Montenegro. On December 1, 1918, Regent Aleksandar Karađorđević proclaimed the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

The country was soon renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and, after World War II, the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, later renamed the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Both Yugoslav states were established primarily as a result of the Serbs’ struggle against the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and, later, against the Nazi occupiers.

The Serbs, as a people, made by far the greatest sacrifices for the creation of both Yugoslav states, with support from Yugoslav-oriented members of other peoples.

Only Serbia and Montenegro brought their own statehood into the first Yugoslavia. The other South Slavic peoples did not have their own states; they were part of other countries.

Both Yugoslav states collapsed under foreign pressure and as a result of Croatian separatism, and, in the 1990s, Slovenian and Muslim separatism as well.