United Serb Youth


The United Serb Youth, known as Omladina, was a Serbian political movement active between 1866 and 1872. It was founded in Novi Sad, Habsburg Monarchy, and was pan-Slavist. Its slogan was "Srpstvo sve i svuda". When the organization was banned in the Principality of Serbia and in Austria-Hungary, the seat of Omladina became Cetinje, in the Principality of Montenegro. Their ideas were propagated in Glas Crnogorca, Cetinjski Vjesnik, and Pančevac. The Association for Serb Liberation and Unification was founded by members of the United Serbian Youth and other people from all over the Serbian lands. United Serbian Youth, modeled after Giuseppe Mazzini's Giovane Italia, with whom they directly collaborated, was one of the first organizations to raise the question of women's emancipation. The first Serbian women's society was established in Novi Sad, then part of Hungarian-controlled Vojvodina in 1864. After that a new, powerful political group also of liberal political orientation was formed by the Serbs of Vojvodina, with its leader Svetozar Miletić, which appeared at assemblies in Sremski Karlovci. Miletić's supporters collaborated with the liberal Jovan Djordjević's journal Srbski dnevnik, spreading their ideas, like Miletić's own journal Zastava as well as founding various societies preceding the United Serbian Youth. The most important among these was the first society of pupils and students, Preodnica, founded in Pest in 1861 as well as the imitator of the United Serbian Youth, the society Zora, founded in Vienna in 1862.

Members

In 1866, some 400 representatives of Serb youth from Serbian-populated territories met in Novi Sad and founded the United Serb Youth. Among notable members were: