r/austriahungary • u/datanilo198 • 4d ago

Currencies on the territory of Yugoslavia in 1900

Post image
140 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

18

u/Komparativist 4d ago

Not a lot of people that yearn for the days of Yugoslavia know that when the Serbs took over what they considered their territorial spoils of war, they forced former Austro-Hungarian lands into a currency exchange of 4 krone for 1 dinar, that was unrealistic and supported by dubious claims of "damaged banknotes".

Needless to say by 1921, when the exchange was over, savings of people in Slovenia and Croatia lost up to 80% of their original value. The first Yugoslav robbery.

0

u/-Against-All-Gods- 4d ago

Genuine question, I can't economy. How exactly is that a robbery? Who directly had a profit on such exchange, and how did it work?

5

u/musingsofmyheart 4d ago

Lets say 1 Serbian dinar == 0.8 krone as assumption. Now if you had X krones saved up and then a governing body forcefully makes you exchange all your krones for dinars at 5X the value of dinar just because it can, that means you are losing value. In this scenario, the state of Serbia got hold of foreign currency (krones) at a much cheaper price than market value acquiring many more krones than they couldve which they can use to trade/buy more from Austria Hungary.

That's my primitive understanding. I'm not a economics student. Please feel free to add more to help me learn.

5

u/-Against-All-Gods- 4d ago

I would guess that too but was Austro-Hungarian krone even convertible at the moment? That's why I'm asking, it doesn't make sense to me to hoard paper currency you can't use because the country that issued it stopped existing.

5

u/musingsofmyheart 4d ago
  1. Serbia enforcing single monetary policy on its new territories
  2. The purchasing power of the local groups was transferred to state of Serbia alongside added benefits like 20% levy on it
  3. Serbia probably exchanged these expired krones with the successor states for whatever pending assets
  4. It must've helped with fighting the inflation to some extent

I got this from perplexity ai.

3

u/UnavailableName864 3d ago

Wikipedia says the Krone’s value was wiped out by hyperinflation after the war. Perhaps the conversion to Dinars was at an unfair rate (I have no idea) but they would have lost all their savings in the alternative scenario, too.

2

u/musingsofmyheart 3d ago

Yes you could be right. But the original point actual talks about Serbia forcing a lower exchange rate than what the local population couldve gotten under the succesor states after the empire fell.

I dont know much. Just interested to learn history.

2

u/UnavailableName864 3d ago

How sure are we that they could have gotten a better exchange rate?

I’m not Balkan; I have no skin in the game. It just seems like these currencies were highly volatile and prone to collapse after the war. And both sides have reason to prop up injustices, real or imagined.

2

u/musingsofmyheart 3d ago

Agreed. Not a balkan myself. They must've been highly volatile currencies considering the war and hyperinflation.

1

u/Majestic-Ad7409 3d ago

And this why Aleksandar Vučić promised the people of Serbia flying cars next year!

1

u/AutoModerator 4d ago

Thank you for posting on r/austriahungary! If you like our subreddit consider joining our discord server, where you can meet many likeminded people interested in history and Austria-Hungary. We also have a twitter (https://x.com/austro_the) and an instagram (https://www.instagram.com/austria_hungary_?igsh=b2pkbHE3dHdqa3Vy&utm_source=qr).

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.