The Political Activities of Dr. Ivo Pilar on the Eve of the Demise of the Habsburg Monarchy (1915-1918)

On the basis of scholarly literature, archival materials and available newspapers from the period, the author reconstructs the political activities of Dr. Ivo Pilar during the final years of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy’s existence. Pilar thought the “South Slav Question” should be solved in “Croatian terms,” that is to say the unification of all Croatian lands — Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina — in one independent administrative area contained within the existing dualistic system. Even though he formally remained within the framework of dualism, he was, in fact, advocating a solution which in its main outlines was a form of “veiled trialism.” The Hungarian politicians’ rejection of a solution of the “South Slav Question” in “Croatian terms,” that is, their attempt to attach Bosnia and Hercegovina to the Hungarian part of the Monarchy as a “corpus separatum”, caused additional dissatisfaction and deepened the already serious crisis into which the Monarchy had fallen. Recognizing that one of the consequences of the World War was going to be the irreversible disappearance of the time-honoured Habsburg state from the Central European political stage, Pilar radicalized his position in terms of its internal reform, proposing that it be transformed — into a federation