Who Paid the Price of Modernisation? Some Remarksto the Bićanić-Prica Debate and the Regional Disparities in Royal Yugoslavia

Bíró, László and Demeter, Gábor (2024) Who Paid the Price of Modernisation? Some Remarksto the Bićanić-Prica Debate and the Regional Disparities in Royal Yugoslavia. In: Юбилеен сборник на Българо-унгарската историческа комисия / Anniversary Collection of the Bulgarian-Hungarian History Commission. Institut za istoricheski izsledvaniia pri BAN; HUN-REN Bölcsészettudományi Kutatóközpont, Történettudományi Intézet, Budapest, Sofia, pp. 387-400.

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Abstract

The Bićanić-Prica debate was one of the politicized historical debates of Interwar Yugoslavia over the supposed inequal distribution of financial burdens and political profits. In their arguments the Croatians, unsatisfied with the political system, claimed that their contribution to the state (in financial terms too) was over-represented to their share from population, especially to their share from advantages, and it was also higher than the political core, Serbia’s share. The Serbs, using different indicators tried to falsify this statement ending in serious debates. However, neither of the quarelling parties tried to compare state taxes and deprivations with income levels, like GDP, which would give a more accurate result. And it might be an intentional decision, because this indicator was unfavourable for both parties. In this article, by reconstructing incomes and burdens at province/banovina levels, we concluded that the burden measured to incomes had been higher in Slovenia and Vojvodina, than in Croatia or Serbia (or banovinas covering their territory).

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