The 1905 Parliamentary Crisis in Serbia

Abstract

This paper examines the 1905 May crisis in Serbia that emerged from the conflict between the parliament and Cabinet. It places this particular crisis in the context of development of parliamentarianism in Serbia in the period from the 1903 coup to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. This process reflected the application of parliamentary system of government, as it was replicated from the British and French examples, to the circumstances prevailing in Serbia during the challenging period of building a democratic government after the autocracy under the Obrenović dynasty. The case of the May 1905 crisis demonstrated that parliamentary democracy in Serbia was making progress despite the legacy of the “old regime” and the lack of tradition to build on. Hence the crisis remained strictly within parliamentary bounds.