Anton Korošec

Anton Korošec (Slovene pronunciation: [anˈtóːŋ kɔˈɾóːʃəts], Serbo-Croatian: [ǎntoːŋ korǒʃets]; 12 May 1872 – 14 December 1940) was a Yugoslav politician, a prominent member of the conservative People's Party, a Roman Catholic priest and a noted orator.

In 1907, Korošec was elected to the Reichsrat as a member of the Slovenian People's Party, where, as president of the Yugoslav Club, he read out the May Declaration, which called for all South Slavs to be unified in one state unit within the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

Earlier, Korošec and Nikola Pašić had agreed on the terms of the Geneva Declaration, in which the Kingdom of Serbia recognized the equal rights of the different components of such a state should it join with it in a confederation.

Following Stjepan Radić’s assassination in 1928, in order to ensure more peace between ethnic groups the king called Korošec to lead the first government of Yugoslavia without a Serbian Prime Minister, but the monarch soon dismissed him when the January 6th Dictatorship was proclaimed.

In opposition, Korošec drew up the Slovenian Declaration (Slovenska deklaracija) which called for a new multinational union of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs.

While serving Interior Minister in the Yugoslav government, Korošec, declared "all Jews, Communists, and Freemasons as traitors, conspirators, and enemies of the State".