The Sokol Movement from Yugoslav Origins to King Aleksandar’s 1930 All-Sokol Rally in Belgrade

Abstract

The Yugoslav Sokol movement was one of the most influential non-governmental organizations in the interwar Yugoslav Kingdom. In the course of the 1920s, it moved from an independent and idealistic organization which celebrated brotherhood between the South Slavs to being a still independent but Serb-centered organization whose version of Yugoslav integration pushed away Croats in particular. But it was only from 1929, when King Aleksandar’s royal dictatorship brought a reconstituted organization under direct state control, that it became a vehicle for official propaganda and an exponent of assimilating Serbs as well as non-Serbs under the banner of integral Yugoslavism. These efforts by the royal dictatorship in Belgrade from 1929 did not survive the king’s assassination in 1934. Helping to widen the political divide, particularly between Serbs and Croats, this official Sokol became a well-known focal point for Serb confrontation with non-Serb majorities in western and southern Yugoslavia. This article moves from the often neglected initial promise of the movement to concentrate on its role as a centerpiece in Aleksandar’s campaign to impose a Serbian-inspired Yugoslavism from Belgrade. And the centerpiece of that campaign was the all-Sokol rally organized at great expense and with great fanfare in Belgrade in 1930. This single event usefully illustrates the ambitions of the royal dictatorship to use Belgrade as a focal point for drawing the country together under a single authority.