Within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Croatia had always been a highly distinctive region. For a long time, Croatia had administratively belonged to Hungary, yet it possessed a certain degree of autonomy. Croatia's relationship to Hungary was much like Hungary's relationship to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Croatia had its own parliament, government, education, legal, and religious administration systems—practically a state within a state, Hungarian-style.
The truly absurd part was that Austria had once tried to assimilate the Empire's other regions, with Hungary as its greatest obstacle. Yet Hungary, in turn, promoted the Hungarian language and culture within its own territories, including Croatia, provoking fierce opposition from the Croats.
As time passed, Croatia's awareness of national independence grew ever stronger.
Zagreb.
This was the political and cultural center of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1933, Zagreb had a population of roughly 180,000. It had expanded rapidly from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century and continued to grow during the 1930s, though the Great Depression slowed that growth.
The economic crisis dealt relatively little damage to Zagreb and Croatia as a whole, because Croatia could be considered one of the least economically developed regions within the Empire.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire itself was a semi-industrialized nation, with the Hungarian half especially centered on agriculture. Under the Hungarian government's earlier plans, Croatia had been Hungary's supplier of raw materials and agricultural products.
Thus, Croatia as a whole still belonged to an agricultural society. That could be seen from Croatia's largest political party: the Croatian Peasant Party. Its main supporters were farmers and the middle class.
But today's protagonist was not the Croatian Peasant Party, but Croatia's other smaller parties.
On the outskirts of Zagreb, a joint secret meeting was underway.
"This is Mr. Stojadinović, leader of the Yugoslav National Party.