In Yugoslavia, what began as a noble idea ended in war, destruction and poverty. As the remnant of the old Yugoslavia legislates itself into extinction, Tim Judah traces the story of a troubled country.
By Tim Judah
Last updated 2011-02-17
In Yugoslavia, what began as a noble idea ended in war, destruction and poverty. As the remnant of the old Yugoslavia legislates itself into extinction, Tim Judah traces the story of a troubled country.
Out of the wreckage of the old Yugoslavia a new union is currently being formed between Serbia and Montenegro. This act of creation is a sign that a great experiment in the 'land of the south Slavs' (which is what Yugoslavia means) is finally over.
The great experiment in this Slavic nation was based on a noble idea.
This decision in Belgrade's federal parliament to create a new loose union between the two republics, called simply Serbia and Montenegro, and to finally consign the name of Yugoslavia to history, shows how the legislators have bowed to reality. The real Yugoslavia perished in the 1990s, during the wars that consumed it.
The great experiment in this Slavic nation was based on a noble idea. Its proponents thought that south Slavs, that is to say people with much in common, especially their languages, who lived in a great arc of territory from the borders of Austria almost to the gates of Constantinople (now Istanbul), should unite and form one great strong south Slav state.
Ideas for a union of the southern Slavs had begun circulating at least as early as the 1840s. In the regions that were to become part of modern Croatia, thinkers dreamed of a new Illyria - a name harking back to the days of the Roman Empire. Amongst Serbs, however, such notions were less prevalent. Serbian nationalist thinkers dreamed of recreating, first a Serbian state and then perhaps a Serbian empire.
Dreams of a union, state or empire came easily to the lands of the south Slavs because all of the people who lived in what was to become Yugoslavia were then the subjects of others. And the fault-lines of empire divided the south Slavs from one another.
By 1912, however, the first of the wars that were to convulse this region periodically throughout the 20th century was about to begin. Two small Serbian and Montenegrin states had already emerged and become independent - having shaken off the Ottoman Turkish yoke - but the rest of what was to become Yugoslavia was still part of either the Ottoman or the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Serbian nationalist thinkers dreamed of recreating, first a Serbian state and then perhaps a Serbian empire.
With the first Balkan war of 1912 all that began to change. The new small states of Serbia and Montenegro, fighting alongside Greece and Bulgaria, managed to push the Turks back to Constantinople. Serbia and Montenegro conquered Kosovo, and Serbia took a large share of Macedonia. For many Serbs and other Slavs living within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Serbia was their champion. Inspired, and also helped, by Serbia's secret services, one of these young radicals took a pot-shot at the heir to throne of Austro-Hungary, Franz Ferdinand, who was visiting Bosnia on 28 June 1914.
Within months the old order was gone. The assassination in Sarajevo sparked off World War One, which in its wake destroyed the Austro-Hungarian Empire. What was to replace it? Many Croat, Serb and other south Slav soldiers remained loyal to Austria-Hungary during the war, but there were also some who did not.
Indeed, some of its politicians feared that as Austria-Hungary crumbled Italy would seize as much of the coast of Dalmatia as it could, while Serbia would create a new greatly enlarged Serbian state, including Bosnia and parts of what are now Croatia - especially those areas that were then heavily inhabited by Serbs. The politicians felt that a deal must be reached with Serbia. A new union was to be proclaimed. The Serbian Army would save Croatia and Slovenia from the territorial ambitions of the Italians, and union would also save Croatia from Serbia itself. The kingdom was formed on 1 December 1918. Serbia's royal family, the Karadjordjevics, became that of the new country, which was officially called the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes until 1929 - when it became Yugoslavia.
The country was carved up.
Immediately it became clear that the union was not a happy one. Many Croats especially resented it, because they felt they had exchanged the domination of Vienna for that of Serbian Belgrade. Kosovo's Albanian population was restive too. Albanians were not Slavs and were bitter that Kosovo had not been able to join the newly independent Albania (which proclaimed its independence in 1912). Macedonian nationalists also resented the new state.
So Yugoslavia lurched from crisis to crisis until finally it collapsed, with barely a fight, in 1941 - when attacked by Nazi Germany and Mussolini's fascist Italy. The country was carved up. A tiny extreme fascist quisling clique, known as the Ustashas, was installed in power in the Croatian capital Zagreb. They began a campaign of terror and genocide directed especially at the Serbs of Croatia and Bosnia.
Resistance soon began to emerge. In Serbia so-called Chetnik forces loyal to the old Serbian-dominated Yugoslav order began to fight, and so did a communist dominated resistance under the half-Slovene half-Croat Josip Broz - also known as Tito.
The war years were a nightmare of inter-ethnic bloodletting, fighting and wars within wars. While Yugoslavia was occupied and resistance was directed against the occupiers, in fact the majority of those who died, did so in fighting between nationalists of various stripes - royalists, communists, quislings and so on.
By 1945 Tito's forces were victorious...
Tito's forces, however, soon gained the recognition and help of the Allies. They also offered an ideal - a dream of 'brotherhood and unity' - that would link the nations or peoples of Yugoslavia. By 1945 Tito's forces were victorious, and crucially, although the Soviet Red Army had helped in the struggle, it had now moved on to central Europe. So Tito, not Moscow, would shape the new state.
But Tito was a communist, loyal to Stalin. He wanted to model his country on the Soviet Union, so a federal state of six republics was proclaimed (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia). Stalin was wary of Tito, however, and in 1948 the two fell out. Yugoslavia was expelled from the communist bloc but Tito did not fall from power, as many had expected. He survived, and began to chart an independent course for the nation he ruled.
Over the next 40 years Yugoslavia changed beyond recognition. It developed its own brand of socialism, and a society far more open than that of its communist neighbours. For them, and for many communists around the world, Yugoslavia seemed to be a paradise on earth. At home the federation appeared to have solved the bitter national questions of the past, living standards were high and, unlike in other communist countries, citizens were free to travel to the west, either to work or to take holidays.
Tito's Yugoslavia also gained enormous prestige as a founder of the non-aligned movement, which aimed to find a place in world politics for countries that did not want to stand foursquare behind either of the two superpowers.
Even liberal communism had its limits...
Despite all this, and although there was much substance to Tito's Yugoslavia, much was illusion too. The economy was built on the shaky foundations of massive western loans. Even liberal communism had its limits, as did the very nature of the federation. Stirrings of nationalist dissent in Croatia and Kosovo were crushed. The federation worked because in reality the voice of only one man counted - that of Tito himself.
When Tito died in 1980, Yugoslavs were shocked and apprehensive. They had been prepared for his demise with the slogan 'After Tito - Tito'. But there was no new Tito. Without him the state began to unravel, as the governments of the republics began to exercise the powers that were due to them under the constitution. Dissent began to grow. Serbs complained of persecution at the hands of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Croats and Slovenes resented the fact that money earned from tourists in their republics went to subsidise poorer parts of Yugoslavia, such as Kosovo. Albanians there demonstrated for their own republic, and even for secession and union with Albania.
...by the late 1980s some people began to sense that communism itself was in question.
Managing these strains and crises was hard enough, but by the late 1980s some people began to sense that communism itself was in question. And if it was, what was to replace it? For Slobodan Milosevic, an up-and-coming politician in Serbia, the answer was nationalism. Seizing on the delicate issue of Kosovo, Milosevic came to supreme power. And so, Yugoslavia began to crumble. In 1989 Milosevic abolished Kosovo's autonomy. Croats and Slovenes feared that they were next in line.
In this way a spiral of competitive and mutually fearful nationalisms began to destroy the country. Politicians fanned the embers of all the old divisions - Serbs versus Croats, Orthodox Christians versus Catholics versus Muslims, and so on.
Milosevic clearly wanted to dominate all of the old Yugoslavia, but when he realised that he could not, he switched to another option, that of a Greater Serbia. History had scattered the Serbs especially, well outside the borders of Serbia. Milosevic argued that the federation meant that nations could secede from it, but not republics. So, he said, Slovenia - with no indigenous minorities - and Croatia could leave Yugoslavia if they wished - but then Croatia could not take its Serb areas with it. The stage was set for war.
The stage was set for war.
The story of those conflicts in Slovenia, in Croatia, in Bosnia, in Kosovo, and finally NATO's war in Yugoslavia, has been told many times.
Now, prosperous Slovenia is looking forward to EU and NATO membership. Croatia is recovering from war, and its territory is intact, although most of its Serbs have fled or been driven out. Bosnia is divided into two, a shattered land still struggling to overcome the legacy of the war. Macedonia has been riven by ethnic conflict - but spared all-out war - between ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians returned to Kosovo after the war there, but then 230,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians were forced to flee.
Whether two republics of such unequal size can work together in one federation remains to be seen.
Serbia and Montenegro have been impoverished by the wars and even today - as their new union is being formed - their future state is far from assured. Serbs and Montenegrins have much in common, especially their common Orthodox heritage, but Serbia is a land of some eight million people, and Montenegro has only 650,000 citizens. Whether two republics of such unequal size can work together in one federation remains to be seen. The new deal is for a loose union for three years, after which either republic can opt for independence. On paper it is a sensible compromise. In reality it will be hard, but not impossible, to make it work - if there is enough goodwill.
The new deal, however, makes no provision for Kosovo, a UN protectorate since 1999, but still nominally part of Yugoslavia - or now its successor state. Its majority Albanian population has no intention of ever entering any new union with Belgrade, while its Serbs have no intention of permitting it to take the path of independence. If they can't prevent independence they (and the policymakers in Belgrade), would probably like to partition it, with the northern Serbian inhabited areas staying within Serbia. So, the final disintegration of the old Yugoslav state is not yet complete.
Having taken their different paths, the people of the former Yugoslavia will look back on the past with different and mixed emotions. The final end of Yugoslavia will barely be noticed in much of the old country, and in Serbia and Montenegro most people are simply too exhausted by the conflicts of the past and the difficulties of life to really care.
The final end of Yugoslavia will barely be noticed in much of the old country...
But throughout the old Yugoslavia, and especially amongst those who grew up under Tito (except perhaps the Kosovo Albanians), the passing of its name will leave many with a wistful feeling - a feeling for which, indeed, they already have a name: Yugonostalgia.
Books
The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics by Ivo Banac (Cornell University Press, 1993)
The Balkans 1804-1999: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers by Misha Glenny (Penguin, 2001)
The Death of Yugoslavia by Laura Silber and Allan Little (Penguin, 1996)
Tim Judah is the author of The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia and Kosovo: War and Revenge.
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