The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF

would decide their differences. Deeply offended by the haughty and overbearing behaviour of the Magyars, the Serbs turned again to their old idea of a separate territory with national autonomy. Founding their claims on the legal enactments of King Matthew and King Vladislav, as well as upon the privileges of 1690 and 1691, they at their national assembly in 1848, at Karlovci, formulated the demand for a Serbian duchy which should include the Banat, Backa, Baranya and Syrmia. Only now the Serbs worked in close agreement with the Croats and proposed that the Serbian Voivoda should be elected by the deputies of the Croatian Diet at Zagreb, whose president should be the Ban of Croatia and whose vice-president the Serbian Voivoda. In June 1848 the Croatian Diet approved and accepted all these demands of the Serbian National Assembly, “‘ as their own, and therefore they will support them before the Crown and everywhere else and heartily work for their realisation.”

This unity of the Serbo-Croats was manifested outwardly on many important occasions. At the installation of the new Ban of Croatia, even the Serbo-Croats of Turkey sent an envoy asking for an invitation to the ceremony, which had not taken place for several centuries. Deputations arrived from Carniola, Styria and Carinthiaexemplifying the solidarity of the Slovenes—and also from other Southern Slav countries. To

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