Obavezno telesno vaspitanje - skrivena predvojnička obuka u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji

Abstract

In the 1930s, the European continent was dominated by the fear of a new war, so almost all countries began to pay special attention to war preparations. In this context, great attention was paid to youth and their physical and military training. The Kingdom of Yugoslavia, faced with many recruits unfit for military service, joined the European trend by introducing compulsory physical education into the social life of students and out-of school youth. This wording concealed the true nature of the new institution, namely pre-military education. Although the legislative solution was ideal in theory, in practice it had several weaknesses that did not allow the development of compulsory physical education. The legislature overlooked several important issues. First, there was a lack of trained teachers to teach the inmates. In addition, the law placed an excessive burn on the municipalities, which were unable to solve all the problems of organizing compulsory physical education, especially the material ones, since they were responsible for providing space and compensating teachers. The army also did not do everything in its power to provide the best possible support for pre-military training especially since the question of equipping the courses with weapons was not settled until before the April War began. Finally, the young people looked for ways to avoid the new obligation, so that less than half of the obligated participated the holiday courses. For this reason, the work results achieved were also not satisfactory.