Croat-Serb Coalition
Hrvatsko-srpska koalicija |
|
---|---|
Leader |
Frano Supilo Svetozar Pribičević |
Founded | 1905 |
Dissolved | 1918 |
Headquarters | Zagreb |
Political position | centre right |
The Croat-Serb Coalition (Serbo-Croatian: Hrvatsko-srpska koalicija/Хрватско-српска коалиција) was a major political alliance in Austria-Hungary during the beginning of the 20th century that governed the Croatian lands (crownlands of Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia). It represented the political idea of a cooperation of Croats and Serbs in Austria-Hungary for mutual benefit. Its main leaders were, at first Frano Supilo and then Svetozar Pribićević alone.
The Coalition governed the Croatian lands from 1903 until the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy in 1918 and the Yugoslav unification, when it was by large integrated into the Yugoslav Democratic Party.
The previous incarnation of Croat-Serb cooperation in the historical Croatian lands under Austro-Hungarian rule had happened sixty years earlier in the Illyrian movement, but that idea came to an abrupt end with the revolution of 1848.
The underlying reason for the formation of the Coalition in the early 1900s was the mass realization that the Hungarian and Austrian governments as well as the Italian irredentists all profit from the divisions between the Croats and the Serbs. This became particularly apparent following the popular demonstrations against the Croatian ban Khuen Hedervary in 1903, where the masses of Croat peasants were joined by Serb peasants, and achieved a greater effect.