Virovitica-Karlovac-Karlobag line

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Virovitica-Karlovac-Karlobag line

The Virovitica-Karlovac-Karlobag line is a hypothetical geographic line often used to describe the extent of Greater Serbia. Everything east of the line is Greater Serbia, while the west of it would be Croatia and Slovenia. Such a line would give the majority of the territory of the SFRY to the Serbs.

The line was coined by an action of the Yugoslav King Alexander. In 1927 the King asked Stjepan Radic, the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party which areas Radic would consider Croatian in order to give them some sort of autonomy. Radic responded by saying that all lands that had been part of Austria-Hungary were Croatian, thus this would be Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Hercegovina, Vojvodina, Dubrovnik and Kotor. The king refused to even consider this, since this would turn the kingdom into a federal state composed of two parts the autonomous Croatian area that would consist of all former Austrian-Hungarian lands prior to World War I, and the rest would be what used to be the Kingdom of Serbia prior to World War 1. The autonomous area that would be the area that was claimed by a National Council in Zagreb as the area of the State of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (not to be confused with the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes), a state that was supported by the Croatian Peasant Party.

In 1929 prior to the suspension of all political parties and introduction of the banovinas, the King asked Stjepan Radic's successor which areas he would consider Croatian. After getting a similar response he took out a map and he drew a line from Virovitica to Karlovac to Karlobag and he said that from that line northward (which he drew on a map) to the Dravska Banovina could there be an autonomous Croatia. The king reportedly made a decree regarding this, but it never came into force since he discarded it.

This line was referenced by Chetnik officer Stevan Moljević [1] to describe how the country should be split up - everything north of the line would be given to an independent Slovenian state, although the map used differed slightly from the original line. In the 1990s this line was frequently mentioned by Vojislav Šešelj [2]. Some Serbian nationalists supported the line and a greater Serbian state for national and economical reasons. It would give Serbia a large coastline, heavy industries, agricultural farmland, natural resources and all of the crude oil (mostly found in the Pannonian Plain), particularly in the Federal Republic of Croatia part of the then Yugoslavia. Also, it would put over 98% of Serbs of Yugoslavia in one state. In his speeches and books, Seselj claimed that all of the population of these areas are in fact ethnic Serbs, of Orthodox, Catholic or Muslim faith, which constitutes quite an extreme position that even most Serbian nationalists do not take seriously. However, outside of Seselj's Serbian Radical Party, that in recent years abandoned actively advocating the line, though it still officially considers it a "long term" goal, the line was never promoted in recent Serbian political life.