Zagreb Resolution

The Zagreb Resolution (Zagrebačka rezolucija) was a political declaration on the need for political unification of the Croats, the Slovenes and the Serbs living in Austria-Hungary. It was adopted by representatives of opposition political parties in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia presided by Ante Pavelić in a meeting held in Zagreb on 2–3 March 1918. The declaration relied on the right of self-determination and called for establishment of an independent democratic state respecting rights of individuals and historically established polities joining the political union. It also called for ensuring cultural and religious equality in such a union. The Zagreb Resolution established a preparatory committee tasked with establishment of the National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs intended to implement the resolution. The National Council was established on 5 October in proceedings described by Pavelić as a continuation of the Zagreb conference that March. Background During the First World War, pressure developed in the parts of Austria-Hungary inhabited by South Slavic population – the Croats, the Serbs, the Slovenes, and the Muslim Slavs (Bosniaks) – in support of a trialist reform, or establishment of a common state of South Slavs independent of the empire. The latter was meant to be achieved through realisation of Yugoslavist ideas, and unification with the Kingdom of Serbia. Motivation for the pro-unification pressure was twofold. Slovenian political leaders were dissatisfied with fragmentation of the Slovene Lands within Cisleithania (the Austrian part of the empire). Their Croatian counterparts objected to division of the proposed Triune Kingdom to Croatia-Slavonia and the Kingdom of Dalmatia assigned to the Hungarian-dominated Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen and Cisleithania respectively. Dissatisfaction with the status of Bosnia and Herzegovina – an Austrian and Hungarian condominium, separate from Croatia-Slavonia – was another grievance. Serbia considered the war an opportunity for territorial expansion. A committee tasked with determining war aims produced a programme to establish a Yugoslav state by addition of South Slav-inhabited parts of the Habsburg lands – Croatia-Slavonia, Slovene Lands, Vojvodina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Dalmatia. In the Niš Declaration, the National Assembly of Serbia announced the struggle to liberate and unify "unliberated brothers".