Yugoslavia. For many, a long-forgotten failed nation. For others, an all-too painful, and recent,
memory. A once-united federation made up of six neighboring
republics, Yugoslavia’s existence was never a simple one. With constant ethnic and religious division,
it seems that it was only a matter of time before a breakup would be imminent. But was that the only cause of Yugoslavia’s
collapse? And how did the ethnic disputes actually lead
to the destruction of an entire federation?... The presence of division and discord between
the different ethnic groups within the borders of Yugoslavia had existed for a long while. This was not by any means a new development
within the years before the collapse of the federation, but the matter did worsen following
World War Two… Previously, Yugoslavia had actually been the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia, made up of the Kingdom of Serbia and the State of Slovenes, Croats
and Serbs. This Kingdom was then transformed temporarily
into the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia, and shortly after, the Socialist Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia. It was at this time that Yugoslavia became
a union between Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Slovenia. Before the expansion of republics and particularly
ethnic groups within Yugoslavia, there was already significant disunity between the Serbs
and other ethnic categories, which served as a shaky foundation from the start. While nationalism was a raging problem within
the federation from day one, there was a short stint of partial harmony thanks to President
Josip Broz Tito. Tito was a wonderful promoter of unity and
brotherhood, and his efforts to curb the dangerous nationalism within his federation were impressively
effective for some time. Moreover, during Tito’s term as president,
Yugoslavia became a regionally powerful nation industrially and had a well-effective economy. It appeared that the troubles of Yugoslavia
were a thing of the past - until Josip Tito died… Leading up to the president’s death, the
growing economy had begun to show favor to only some regions within the federation, and
though Tito supported brotherhood, it appears he may have gone too far to support the individual
republics’ right to national self-determination. The end of Tito’s administration also came
around a time of economic trouble for the federation as a whole. Yugoslavia was now heavily in debt after the
1973 oil crisis and trade barrier complications with the West, which quickly reversed the
success that the federation’s economy had originally achieved. This also exacerbated the ethnic divisions,
most notably between the south of the federation, which was viewed as vastly unproductive and
undeveloped, and the entities of Slovenia and Croatia. With these new challenges and the death of
the president who worked so hard to create unity within the federation, the ethnic divide
was now the center point of Yugoslavia. One of the main causes of this was the fact
that each republic failed to be split along ethnic lines, meaning that there were different
groups within every border, and oftentimes each ethnic group was quite nationalistic. Furthermore, there was also a creation of
two autonomous provinces within Serbia itself, known as Kosovo and Vojvodina, that complicated
matters even more. When protests broke out in the late 1980s,
as ethnic Serbs throughout Serbia and the autonomous provinces tried to fight back against,
particularly, the Albanian majority of Kosovo, the thought was that Serbia’s communist
leader, Slobodan Milosevic, would react by creating some type of unity. Instead, he justified the Serbs’ outrage
directed at the Albanians and began to push for reduced autonomy of both Kosovo and Vojvodina. Eventually, after a series of protests known
as the “Rallies of Truth”, supporters of Milosevic managed to oust the governments
in both autonomous provinces, which then cleared the way for allies of Milosevic to be put
in their place. The leadership of Montenegro was also deposed
in 1989 after a second coup d’etat, and there too was placed a supporter of Milosevic. This was only the beginning of the conflict
between Serbs and Albanians… Croatia and Slovenia were now joining the
Kosovo dispute, coming to the support of the Albanian majority, which greatly angered the
Serbs. Protests continued to be held and both police
and military forces were called in to deal with what the Serbs viewed as an attack against
Serbia and Yugoslavia as a whole - mostly in reaction to Kosovo’s calls to become
the 7th republic within the federation. One Bosnian politician and current President
of Yugoslavia, Raif Dizdarec, tried to calm the tensions in 1989 with a heartfelt speech
to the Serbian protestors. “Our fathers died to create Yugoslavia. We will not go down the road to national conflict. We will take the path of Brotherhood and Unity,”
he said. Though the protestors reacted to his speech
positively, it failed to end the protests - likely given the fact that the Serbs saw
the actions of the Kosovo Albanians as the root of this national conflict. The lines were now clear - it was the Serbs
against the Albanians, Croats, Slovenes, and even the leaders of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The conflict was nowhere near over… As the bickering republics aimed to resolve
the disputes politically, the divide seemed to only widen, and Yugoslavia was forced into
a multi-party system across all six republics. This was a major blow to the communists in
the federation, as most of them were beaten by the end of the 1990 elections. The fall of communism coincided with the same
decline throughout the neighboring Soviet Union and its other allies and pushed the
nationalistic identity within the Yugoslav federation even further. This sparked even more ethnic tension because
there were minorities within each republic, such as the 12.2% of Serbs in Croatia, that
were suddenly being threatened by their home’s opposition to their ethnic identity. In this specific instance, the new Croatian
leader, Franjo Tudman, claimed that he would protect the Croatian people from Milosevic
and the Serbian threat, which created backlash from the ethnic Serbs in Croatia. These Serbs established a new separatist organization
known as the SAO Krajina, in which they demanded to be reunified with Serbia in the case of
Croatian succession from the federation. This soon triggered what was nicknamed the
“Log Revolution”, where Serbs in Croatia attempted to take control of the Serbian majority
town of Khin and appealed to the federal military for support. When Croatian helicopters filled with armed
special forces were sent in to quell the revolt, the Yugoslav Air Force decided to intervene
and ordered the Croatian helicopters to turn back and stay away from Khin or else they
would be shot down. The Croatians followed the command and returned
to their base in Zagreb. As tensions continued to boil over, a period
known as the Yugoslav Wars broke out in 1991 throughout the federation. Yugoslavia was now doomed, and the efforts
that had been made by dominant Serbia and any other supporters of the union were now
appearing to be completely in vain. In June of that same year, both Slovenia and
Croatia officially declared their independence, despite disapproval from other republics. This independence was delayed by three months
through the Brijuni Agreement but was nonetheless imminent. Macedonia declared independence in September
of the same year. On January 9, 1992, the Republic of Serbian
people of Bosnia and Herzegovina was founded and Bosnia and Herzegovina as a whole declared
independence on March 3rd. The Serbian Republic within was to follow,
after which point they laid siege to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, sparking a new stretch
of the Yugoslav Wars… All that was now left of the once six-republic-strong
federation was Serbia and Montenegro. Yugoslavia was rapidly dissolving and there
was no hope for recovery. In addition to the ethnic disputes and now
full-blown wars, the effects of communism collapsing and the struggling Yugoslav economy
had also contributed to the decay of the federation. Still, no factor seemed quite as obvious nor
relevant as the ethnic divide. This is what led to the utter chaos within
the dying union, and what would eventually cause the official dissolution of Yugoslavia,
now only made up of Serbia and Montenegro, on February 4, 2003. The federation transformed into the State
Union of Serbia and Montenegro, which was no more successful or stable than its predecessor,
and itself broke up on June 3, 2006… As far as the conflict with Kosovo, its autonomy
and status as an independent nation continues to be debated throughout the world. Many countries, such as the United States,
do recognize Kosovo as its own nation, but Serbia and its close allies beg to differ
- a sign that the ethnic conflict sadly did not disappear with the dissolution of Yugoslavia
itself. These disputes and wars made the existence
of a unified federation in the Balkans more or less impossible. Each individual nation had its own, strong
national identity, and the inability to properly place border lines to separate each ethnic
group proved to be an untameable issue for all of Yugoslavia. While the economic and political challenges that
the federation faced were clear exacerbating forces pushing toward the final collapse,
it was truly the ethnic division and lack of brotherhood that destroyed Yugoslavia from
the inside-out...
