Kingdom of Yugoslavia

History

Epic of Prince Marko and South Slavic Unity

Across the Balkans, South Slavic oral epics celebrate Prince Marko (Kraljević Marko) and his legendary steed Šarac, a protector of the common people said to slumber in a mountain cave until his sword rises from the rock to awaken him in a time of great peril. Following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires in 1918, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Bosnians, and Montenegrins united under the Serbian Karađorđević dynasty to form the state that became known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia ('Land of the South Slavs').

Multi-Ethnic Tensions and the March 1941 Coup

Encompassing diverse faiths and traditions, the kingdom struggled to balance central authority in Belgrade with regional autonomy. In March 1941, when Regent Prince Paul signed the Axis Tripartite Pact under German pressure, military officers and citizens in Belgrade staged a coup d'état rallying around young King Peter II under the slogan 'Better the grave than a slave.'

Axis Invasion and Partisan Liberation

In April 1941, Nazi Germany - The totalitarian German state ruled by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party from 1933 to 1945, which initiated World War II in Europe., the Kingdom of Italy - The Italian state founded by national unification in 1861, ruled by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime from 1922 to 1943 before becoming a republic in 1946., and Hungary invaded and partitioned Yugoslavia. From the rugged Dinaric Alps, Josip Broz Tito organized the multi-ethnic Yugoslav Partisans, which grew into an army of hundreds of thousands of fighters that tied down numerous Axis divisions and liberated most of the country by 1945.