Kingdom of Dalmatia in the context of "Serb Independent Party"

Prečani (Serbian Cyrillic: Пречани) was a Serbian blanket term used at the end of the 19th- and early 20th century for ethnic Serb communities located preko ("across") the Drina, Sava and Danube rivers, beyond the western and northern borders of the Principality of Serbia and later Kingdom of Serbia, that is, in Austria-Hungary-held Vojvodina, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. It was thus used to distinguish Serbs of Serbia, Srbijanci ("Serbians") from those in the Austria-Hungary; it was not applied to the Serbs of Montenegro or those in the Ottoman Empire.

In the Habsburg lands – in Kingdom of Dalmatia, the Serbs established the Serb People's Party, while in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia they established the Serb Independent Party. In 1918 the Prečani Serbs formed a notable political constituency that participated in the founding of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs as well as the joining of Banat, Bačka and Baranja with the Kingdom of Serbia. In the first Yugoslavia, their political party, the Independent Democratic Party was important in national politics. After the invasion of Yugoslavia, they were the main target of the World War II persecution of Serbs.

The Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen (Hungarian: a Szent Korona Országai, lit. 'Countries of the Holy Crown'), informally Transleithania (meaning the lands or region "beyond" the Leitha River), were the Hungarian territories of Austria-Hungary, throughout the latter's entire existence (30 March 1867 – 16 November 1918), and which disintegrated following its dissolution. The name referenced the historic coronation crown of Hungary, known as the Crown of Saint Stephen of Hungary, which had a symbolic importance to the Kingdom of Hungary.

According to the First Article of the Croatian–Hungarian Settlement of 1868, this territory, also called Arch-Kingdom of Hungary (Archiregnum Hungaricum, pursuant to Medieval Latin terminology), was officially defined as "a state union of the Kingdom of Hungary and the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia". Though Dalmatia actually lay outside the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen, being part of Cisleithania, the Austrian half of the empire, it was nevertheless included in its name, due to a long political campaign seeking recognition of the Triune Kingdom, which consisted of a united Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia.

The Triune Kingdom (Croatian: Trojedna kraljevina) or Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia (Croatian: Trojedna Kraljevina Hrvatske, Slavonije i Dalmacije) was the concept—advocated by the leaders of the 19th-century Croatian national revival—of a united kingdom between Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, which were already within the Austrian Empire under one king, who was also the Emperor of Austria, but were politically and administratively separate entities. This concept had roots in the high medieval period, as a successor to the historical Kingdom of Croatia which was made up of those regions.

After 1867, Croatia and Slavonia were within the Hungarian half of Austria-Hungary and were united in 1868 as the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, where the name Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia became official. However, Dalmatia, being located in the Austrian half, still remained de facto separate. Until the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, several Croatian political parties and groups sought recognition of the Triune Kingdom and the incorporation of Dalmatia into Croatia-Slavonia. The Croatian intelligentsia, especially lawyers and historians, played a key role in interpreting historical sources so as to legitimize the demand for the Triune Kingdom.

Gaj's Latin alphabet (Serbo-Croatian: Gajeva latinica / Гајева латиница, pronounced [ɡâːjeva latǐnit͡sa]), also known as abeceda (Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic: абецеда, pronounced [abet͡sěːda]) or gajica (Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic: гајица, pronounced [ɡǎjit͡sa]), is the form of the Latin script used for writing all four standard varieties of Serbo-Croatian: Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian. It contains 27 individual letters and 3 digraphs. Each letter (including digraphs) represents one Serbo-Croatian phoneme, yielding a highly phonemic orthography. It closely corresponds to the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet.

The alphabet was initially devised by Croatian linguist Ljudevit Gaj in 1835 during the Illyrian movement in ethnically Croatian parts of the Austrian Empire. It was largely based on Jan Hus's Czech alphabet and was meant to serve as a unified orthography for three Croat-populated kingdoms within the Austrian Empire at the time, namely Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia, and their three dialect groups, Kajkavian, Chakavian and Shtokavian, which historically utilized different spelling rules. The alphabet's final form was defined in the late 19th century.

The Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia or the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia (Croatian: Trojedna Kraljevina Hrvatska, Slavonija i Dalmacija; Hungarian: Horvát-Szlavónország or Horvát–Szlavón Királyság; German: Königreich Kroatien, Slawonien und Dalmatien) was a nominally autonomous kingdom and constitutionally defined separate political nation within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was created in 1868 by merging the kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia following the Croatian–Hungarian Settlement of 1868. It was associated with the Kingdom of Hungary within the dual Austro-Hungarian state, being within the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen, also known as Transleithania. While Croatia had been granted a wide internal autonomy with "national features", in reality, Croatian control over key issues such as tax and military issues was minimal and hampered by Hungary. It was officially referred to as the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, also simply known as the Triune Kingdom, and had claims on Kingdom of Dalmatia, which was administered separately by the Austrian Cisleithania. The city of Rijeka, following a disputed section in the 1868 Settlement known as the Rijeka Addendum [hr], became a corpus separatum and was legally owned by Hungary, but administered by both Croatia and Hungary.

The Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia was ruled by the emperor of Austria, who bore the title King of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia and was confirmed by the State Sabor (Parliament of Croatia-Slavonia or Croatian-Slavonian Diet) upon accession. The King's appointed steward was the Ban of Croatia and Slavonia. On 21 October 1918, Emperor Karl I, known as King Karlo IV in Croatia, issued a Trialist manifest, which was ratified by the Hungarian side on the next day and which unified all Croatian Crown Lands. One week later, on 29 October 1918, the Croatian State Sabor proclaimed an independent kingdom which entered the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs.

Serb People's Party (better known as Serb People's Party in/on Primorje, Serbian: Српска народна странка у/на Приморју / Srpska narodna stranka u/na Primorju, "Serb People's Party in/on the Littoral") was political party in the Kingdom of Dalmatia during the time of Austria-Hungary.

Significant early members of the Serb Party were Stjepan Mitrov Ljubiša (d. 1878), Nikodim Milaš, Ljubomir Vujnović, Uroš Desnica, Vladimir Simić. In political efforts, Ljubiša he fought against the ethnic Italian domination in Dalmatian politics and culture, for the equality of religions and languages, for the emancipation of Serb populace in Dalmatia, the economic benefit of the province but also for the autonomy of Dalmatia and against the unification with Croatia-Slavonia. Ljubiša had been the President of the Dalmatian parliament between 1870 and 1878 when he was overthrown by the clerical Croat fraction in the People's Party led by Mihovil Pavlinović.

The May Declaration (Slovene: Majniška deklaracija, Croatian: Svibanjska deklaracija, Serbian: Majska deklaracija/Мајска декларација) was a manifesto of political demands for unification of South Slav-inhabited territories within Austria-Hungary put forward to the Imperial Council in Vienna on 30 May 1917. It was authored by Anton Korošec, the leader of the Slovene People's Party. The document was signed by Korošec and thirty-two other council delegates representing South-Slavic lands within the Cisleithanian part of the dual monarchy – the Slovene Lands, the Dalmatia, Istria, and the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The delegates who signed the declaration were known as the Yugoslav Club.

The May Declaration was generally favourably greeted by Croat politicians in Croatia-Slavonia, but was met with opposition or indifference by the Bosniaks, the Bosnian Serbs, and the Croatian Serbs. The declaration also applied pressure on the government of the Kingdom of Serbia which saw the objectives of the declaration as a threat to fulfilment of its First World War goals in terms of territorial expansion. This led the Kingdom of Serbia government to give priority to the drafting of the Corfu Declaration, with the Yugoslav Committee outlining the principles of unification of a common state for all South Slavs living in Austria-Hungary, Serbia, and Montenegro at the time. The advocation of the May Declaration was banned by Austro-Hungarian authorities in May 1918.