The Image of Power in the “Constitution of the Neutral Peasant Republic of Croatia” (1921)

Abstract

There is a tendency in Croatian historiography to present the government Stjepan Radić, who headed the Croatian (Republican) Peasants’ Party, as the forerunner of modern liberal democracy. The argument is the so-called Constitution of the Neutral Peasant Republic (1921), which provided for universal suffrage, government responsibility to the representative body, separation of powers, and so on. However, its other provisions do not align well with liberalism and, in general, with “modern” ideas about the state-legal structure. The Constitution should be viewed not as a draft law, but as a propaganda tool that appealed to the patriarchal-traditional views of the target audience. The state appeared as an enlarged model of a “peasant’s house” or “zadruga”, at the head of which was a strict but fair father of the people. He was endowed with not only secular, but also spiritual power over his “children”. S. Radić perceived the totality of his own slogans as a “reborn Christian religion”, and his activity as an “apostolate” or “preaching the liberation of the peasant people”. In the late 1930s Radić’s associates, who stood at the helm of power in Banovina Croatia, had the opportunity to embody their own ideas about the optimal state structure. Practice had little in common with theory, which is something that characterised many utopian national-state projects of the interwar period. The article deals with the ideological evolution of the party, which was predonimated by the changing historical context in which it had to act. The speeches and texts of S. Radić are considered not only as an expression of a credo, but also as a utilitarian tool for the political mobilization of the masses.