PRIBICEVIC, SVETOZAR

born Oct. 26, 1875, Karlovac, Croatia, Austria-Hungary died Sept. 15, 1936, Prague, Czech. Yugoslav politician, leader of the Serbs within Austria-Hungary before the empire's dissolution at the end of World War I. Initially Pribicevic favoured a centralized Yugoslav nation rather than a federation of the South Slav peoples; as minister of the interior, he jailed Stjepan Radic, head of the Croatian Peasant Party, who urged a pluralistic state. In 1927, however, Pribicevic became converted to federalism and espoused the democratic rather than the authoritarian ideal. On Jan. 5, 1929, he and Vladimir Macek (successor to Radic as Croatian Peasant Party chief) urged Alexander I, king of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, to establish a federal system, but the king reacted by proclaiming a dictatorship the next day. Pribicevic retained his leadership of the Independent Democratic Party, which he had founded in 1924.