THE TERRITORIAL DIVISION OF SREZ IN VOJVODINA FROM 1955 TO 1965

Abstract

The Autonomous Province of Vojvodina after 1945 was divided not only into the categories of city (grad) and municipality (opština) but also okrug and srez, boundaries of which were largely inherited from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. However, the introduction of self-management (samoupravljanje) brought changes to these administrative divisions with the first steps towards a communal system. The essence of such reform in political and territorial units lay in the creation of economic wholes by merging several municipalities. Simultaneous joining of srez areas also occurred, until the distinction was entirely lost. This caused several problems, such as jealousy between economic centres and ethnic misunderstandings, particularly in Vojvodina. The final steps in the reform created the system of local self-management which remains largely intact to this day.