Religious Minorities as Important Agents of Cultural Transfer During the Interwar Period: The Case of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia

The following chapter has two main objectives: first, to offer a systematic overview of existing literature and secondary sources on the role of religious minorities in facilitating cultural transfer within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia during the interwar period; and second, to enrich current knowledge with new insights derived from previously unexplored documents and first-hand historical sources. The chapter aims to provide a thorough and comprehensive reassessment of the topic while introducing fresh research findings. It employs cultural transfer theory and the associated cultural transfer methodological frame- work, which includes various research methods used in historiography, ethnography and related fields, such as archival research, document and discourse analysis, comparative analysis and process tracing. The concluding remarks highlight that, prior to the advent of electronic mass media, religious minorities were crucial in introducing and disseminating foreign ideas domestically through their interactions and material exchanges with others of their faith. In the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, such activities were frequently met with suspicion and illiberal responses from official state authorities, with the nature of these reactions varying across time and depending on the political context.