Josip Broz Tito i sporovi oko jezika u Jugoslaviji 1967.

Abstract

With the publication of The Declaration on the Name and the Position of Croatian Literary Language in March 1967 which was supported by the most important Croatian scientific and cultural institutions, the language issue came to the spotlight and thus aggravated the national conflicts. This document supported the recognition of separate Croatian language and it demanded that civil servants, teachers and officials, regardless of their origin, use language of the environment where they worked for official purposes. A group of Serbian writers responded to this document with The Proposal for Thinking which accepted the separation of Serbian and Croatian language and demanded that the right to education on their language and alphabet, the use of their language and alphabet in communication with the authorities and right to found their own cultural institutions should be extended by the constitution to Croats in Serbia and Serbs in Croatia. Even though Croatian declaration had more political importance, Yugoslav government was equally disapproving both documents, sticking to the policy of the creation of symmetry in national relations and attitude that the biggest enemy of the unity of state was „the Greater Serbian“ nationalism. Josip Broz was minimalizing publicly this problem, as he used to do with the other national problems, convinced that the unity of „the working class“ in Yugoslavia would overpower nationalist conflicts supported by small group of intellectuals. He felt concerned only about the international aspect of this issue, i.e. he feared from the activities which the initiators of the Croatian declaration had abroad.

Keywords

• Josip Broz Tito
• language
• 1967
• Yugoslavia