Formation of Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia (Југославија, Jugoslavija) was a state concept among the South Slavic intelligentsia and later popular masses from the 17th to early 20th centuries that culminated in its realization after the 1918 collapse of Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I and the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. However, the kingdom was better known colloquially as Yugoslavia (or similar variants); in 1929 it was formally renamed the "Kingdom of Yugoslavia".

The first idea of a state for all South Slavs emerged in the late 17th century, a product of visionary thinking of Croatian writers and philosophers who believed that the only way for southern Slavs to regain lost freedom after centuries of occupation under the various empires would be to unite and free themselves from tyrannies and dictatorships.

In the 19th century, the Illyrian movement, as it came to be called, attracted many prominent Croatian intellectuals and politicians. It started gaining large momentum only at the end of the 19th century, mainly because of the Revolutions of 1848 and the policies against freedom movements of southern Slavs. However, ideas for a unified state did not mature from the conceptual to a practical state of planning, and few of those promoting such an entity had given any serious consideration to what form the new state should take.

As the Ottoman Empire grew weaker and Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece grew stronger after the Berlin Congress, there was new hope for sovereignty of the South Slavic peoples in Austria-Hungary, and the idea of a union between them gained momentum. Scholar Aurel Popovici proposed a reform called the "United States of Greater Austria" in 1906. Although his proposal was not acted upon by the Habsburg Emperor it was an inspiration for the peace conferences at the end of World War I.

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