THE NEW “OLD COUNTRY” THE KINGDOM OF YUGOSLAVIA AND THE CREATION OF A YUGOSLAV DIASPORA 1914-1951 BY ETHAN LARSON DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2020 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Maria Todorova, Chair Professor Peter Fritzsche Professor Diane Koenker Professor Ulf Brunnbauer, University of Regensburg ABSTRACT This dissertation reviews the Kingdom of Yugoslavia’s attempt to instill “Yugoslav” national consciousness in its overseas population of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, as well as resistance to that same project, collectively referred to as a “Yugoslav diaspora.” Diaspora is treated as constructed phenomenon based on a transnational network between individuals and organizations, both emigrant and otherwise. In examining Yugoslav overseas nation-building, this dissertation is interested in the mechanics of diasporic networks—what catalyzes their formation, what are the roles of international organizations, and how are they influenced by the political context in the host country. The life of Louis Adamic, who was a central figure within this emerging network, provides a framework for this monograph, which begins with his arrival in the United States in 1914 and ends with his death in 1951. Each chapter spans roughly five to ten years. Chapter One (1914-1924) deals with the initial encounter between Yugoslav diplomats and emigrants. Chapter Two (1924-1929) covers the beginnings of Yugoslav overseas nation-building. Chapter Three (1929-1934) covers Yugoslavia’s shift into a royal dictatorship and the corresponding effect on its emigration policy. Chapter Four (1929-1939) deals exclusively with political parties from Yugoslavia that aspired to organize overseas Yugoslav subjects. Chapter Five (1934-1941) deals with Yugoslav overseas nation building and cultural outreach after King Alexander’s death. Chapter Six (1941-1945) covers the formation of a Yugoslav diaspora organization, the United Committee of South Slavic Americans, during the Second World War. Lastly, Chapter Seven (1945-1951) covers the disintegration of the Yugoslav diaspora in Cold War Era America. This dissertation draws five major conclusions. First, there was, for a period in history, a “Yugoslav” diaspora rather than just a Serb, Croat, and Slovene diaspora. Secondly, this diaspora ii emerged due to factors specific to interwar America: closed border policies, America’s reputation as a “melting pot,” and the cultural pluralist movement, all of which had a centripetal effect on Serb, Croat, and Slovene organizations and gave them a reason to cooperate. Third, the Yugoslav nationalism espoused by these organizations was distinct from Yugoslavism in Yugoslavia, exhibiting syncretism with the nationalism of the host country, the United States. Fourth, old-country tourism—and travelers more broadly—are crucial to the formation of diasporic networks, (re)awakening national consciousness and giving the traveler symbolic capital within emigrant organizations. And fifth, the strength of diasporic networks lies not in their ability to shape “old country” politics, but in their ability to resist “old country” control. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project would not have turned out as it did without the contributions of a host of people. First, I would like to thank my academic advisor, Maria Todorova, who has provided me with support and guidance every step of the way. Not only did she read and provide feedback on chapter drafts, her own “transnational network” helped connect me with people in this acknowledgements section that I would not have met otherwise. I would also like to thank the members of my dissertation committee, Diane Koenker, Peter Fritzsche, and Ulf Brunnbauer, for pushing me out of my box as an Eastern-Europeanist to see Yugoslav history as a subset of global history. I am also grateful for their kindness and flexibility in agreeing to be on my committee despite their own dispersion around the globe. In addition, I am grateful to everyone who has given me comments at conferences, including, but not limited to: Miha Zobec, Nikolina Židek, Marie Štěpánová, and Ana Toroš. Thanks as well to Lidija Nikočević for inviting me on an “anthropological expedition.” I am also grateful to my parents, David and Deborah Larson, who read my early drafts and were a constant source of encouragement. I would also like to thank all the members of the University of Illinois Eastern European Reading Group: Stefan Djordjević, Stefan Peychev, Peter Wright, Agata Chmiel, Damir Vučićević, Liridona Veliu, Pelin Tiglay, Noyan Coskun, and others for reading my drafts, minding my č's and ć's, and making sure King Alexander I of Yugoslavia remained dead after 1934. Special thanks as well to Damir for showing me his collection of Louis Adamic memorabilia that (for now) exceeds my own. In addition, I am grateful to Dubravka Stojanović and Mirjana Pavlović at the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences for their perspectives on the historiographical literature, as well as for their generosity in giving me some of it. Apropos of books that are difficult to obtain, I am also indebted to Interlibrary Loan for tolerating both my requests for esoteric books and my tendency to return them several months overdue. I would also like to thank the archivists at the Archive of Yugoslavia, Croatian State Archives, Immigration History Research Center, Hoover Institution, and NARA for their assistance locating various primary sources. In addition, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to those iv archivists—you know who you are—who handwaved away the daily photography fees. Lastly, I am indebted to Marina Filipović, without whose instruction in Bosno-Serbo-Croatian none of this would have been possible. All errors are my own. Ethan Larson Champaign, Illinois v TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER ONE: THE NEW ‘OLD COUNTRY’ ..................................................................................... 30 CHAPTER TWO: ANSWERING THE ‘EMIGRATION QUESTION’ .................................................... 78 CHAPTER THREE: THE DICTATORSHIP AND THE ‘TENTH BANOVINA’ ................................. 125 CHAPTER FOUR: YUGOSLAV POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE ‘TENTH BANOVINA’ ............................................................................................................................................ 178 CHAPTER FIVE: ON THEIR OWN: YUGOSLAV CULTURAL POLITICS FROM 1934-1941 ........ 249 CHAPTER SIX: YUGOSLAVS UNITE!: THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND THE YUGOSLAV DIASPORA ..................................................................................................... 307 CHAPTER SEVEN: THE YUGOSLAV DIASPORA DISINTEGRATES ............................................. 365 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................................... 407 APPENDIX A: STATISTICAL OVERVIEW OF YUGOSLAVS IN THE UNITED STATES ............. 415 vi INTRODUCTION In April 2017, while in Buenos Aires for a conference, I, along with two sociologists from Croatia, attended an event organized by the Union of Croats in Argentina. My Croatian companions referred to this, tongue-in-cheek, as “an anthropological expedition,” as if we were going to observe the customs of a remote uncontacted tribe rather than my colleagues’ co- nationals. The reason for their witticism soon became apparent, as it turned out that the morning and afternoon’s entertainment were the 76th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a genocidal fascist state established in 1941 after the Nazis invaded and dismembered Yugoslavia. Following a Catholic Mass held in a nearby chapel, a flag-waving procession, and speeches in a nearby ethnic club in Croatian and Spanish condemning Yugoslavia (a state that has been defunct since 1992), we listened to a choir of around fifteen youths in Croatian folk costume singing folk songs. Afterwards, the adults communed in the back for plum brandy and gossip. In the program I saw advertisements for Croatian language schools, bars, radio stations, and podiatrists. At the time, I was struck by the banality of the event—less a fascist rally than a high school concert. The banality of fascism is hardly a fresh observation.1 But my companion’s quip— “an anthropological expedition”—was more than a witticism; it hinted at a deeper insight. After all, the kind of diaspora nationalism there was foreign to all of us: to me, because I was an American, and to my Croatian colleagues because Argentina’s Croats had a reputation of being further to the right than Croats in Croatia. Argentina, after all, was where Ante Pavelić, the leader of the NDH, fled in 1948. There, Pavelić founded the Croatian Liberation Movement, the grandfather of several far-right groups that carried out several acts of terrorism in the 1960s and 1 Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil (New York: Penguin Books, 1964). 1 1970s, causing communist authorities to start referring to the “enemy Yugoslav migration.”2 The relationship between Yugoslavia and “its” diaspora was not always thus. Traces of a forgotten period of Yugoslav activism can still be found in the United States today: two sculptures