Yugoslavs

Yugoslavs or Yugoslavians (Serbo-Croatian: Jugoslaveni/Jugosloveni, Југославени/Југословени;[a] Slovene: Jugoslovani; Macedonian: Југословени, romanized: Jugosloveni) is an identity that was originally conceived to refer to a united South Slavic people.

It identified South Slavs with ancient Illyrians and sought to construct a common language based on the Shtokavian dialect.

An amalgamation of the most fertile qualities of our three tribes [Serbs, Croats, Slovenes] will come forth every more strongly, and thus will be constructed the type of single Yugoslav civilization-the final and most important goal of our country.

"[18] In late 19th and early 20th century, influential public intellectuals Jovan Cvijić and Vladimir Dvorniković advocated that Yugoslavs, as a supra-ethnic nation, had "many tribal ethnicities, such as Croats, Serbs, and others within it.

"[18] On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne, and his wife, in Sarajevo.

Princip was a member of Young Bosnia, a group whose aims included the unification of the Yugoslavs and independence from Austria-Hungary.

The preamble stated that the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes were "the same by blood, by language, by the feelings of their unity, by the continuity and integrity of the territory which they inhabit undivided, and by the common vital interests of their national survival and manifold development of their moral and material life."

In 1929, King Alexander sought to resolve a deep political crisis brought on by ethnic tensions by assuming dictatorial powers in the 6 January Dictatorship, renaming the country "Kingdom of Yugoslavia", and officially pronouncing that there is one single Yugoslav nation with three tribes.

Changes in Yugoslav politics after King Alexander's death in 1934 brought an end to this policy, but the designation continued to be used by some people.

[22] Unitary policies implemented by the authorities of the early 20th century Kingdom of Yugoslavia aimed at creating a single Yugoslav ethnic identity that speaks one South Slavic language were met with heavy resistance by majorities of the country's citizens.

The country with the highest number of people and percentage of population identifying as Yugoslav is Serbia, while North Macedonia is the lowest on both.

As part of the research project "Strategies of Symbolic Nation-building in South Eastern Europe", a study was conducted from 2010 to 2014 on the entire former Yugoslav territory with the exception of Slovenia.

In all six examined states, majority of the interviewees expressed that they either never or no longer felt so, ranging from ~70–98%, with Serbia being on the lowest end and Kosovo on the highest.

Bosnia and Herzegovina had the highest percentage of interviewees stating that they no longer feel Yugoslav at ~48%, followed closely by Montenegro and Serbia.