Др Никола Стојановић између српства и југословенства

Abstract

One of the big unsearched questions of the Serbian historiography represents the fact that Bosnia and Herzegovina did not unite with Serbia directly, as it happened with Montenegro and Vojvodina. It is especially unclear when we bear in mind that there was an evident wish to do so, not only in Serbian Orthodox population of B&H but in its Catholic and Muslim parts as well. Representatives of the Serbian intellectual elite from B&H in the Yugoslav committee, Nikola Stojanović and Dušan Vasiljević are among the most responsible for such development of events. After spending time in London, Paris and Geneva during World War I, the two of them and especially Nikola Stojanović, showed an obvious political mutation to the pre-war political standpoints and goals of “Narod”’s group they belonged to. They changed sharply from being inclined towards Serbian interests to partiality to Yugoslavia. It seems as if acceptance of the Republican ideas and, probably, the entering one of the Masonic lodges, were the key elements in Nikola Stojanović’s political and ideological pendulum of opinion during the war. It was during the Solunski process that he entered into an open animosity towards Pašić and Serbian government which led to serious implications during the unification of 1918. All this would leave long and deep consequences on Serbian population in Bosnia.