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Nicola Pasic and Ante Trumbic: The book will provide the first parallel biographies of two key Yugoslav politicians of the early 20th century: Nikola Pasic, a Serb, and Ante Trumbic, a Croat. It will also offer a brief history of the creation of Yugoslavia (initially known as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes), internationally accepted at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919-20 (at the Treaty of Versailles). Such an approach will fill two major gaps in the literature - scholarly biographies of Pasic and Trumbic are lacking, while Yugoslavia's formation is due a reassessment - and to introduce the reader to the central question of South Slav politics: Serb-Croat relations. Pasic and Trumbic's political careers and their often troubled relationship in many ways perfectly epitomize the wider Serb-Croat question.

This volume explores historical, political, social, diplomatic, and economic aspects of the Yugoslav idea—"Yugoslavism"—between the creation of the nation in 1918 and its dissolution in the early 1990s. The key theme that emerges is that Yugoslavism was a fluid concept, understood differently at different times by various leaders, social groups, and the member states that comprised Yugoslavia. There never was a single definition of who and what was (or was not) "Yugoslav," and this contributed to the ultimate failure of the Yugoslav idea and the Yugoslav state. These essays, by scholars from the former Yugoslavia and from the West, look at the interplay of the states and peoples of Yugoslavia and at the roles played by intellectuals, leaders, and institutions, both secular and religious.