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Yugoslavia: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia emerged from the ashes of World War I as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, a fragile experiment in uniting South Slavic peoples who had spent centuries under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy. The concept of a common state for all South Slavs had been brewing since the late 17th century, gaining momentum through the 19th-century Illyrian Movement, but it was the 1917 Corfu Declaration that accelerated the formal creation of the nation. On the 13th of July 1922, the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris granted international recognition to the new state, which was officially renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia on the 3rd of October 1929. King Alexander I, who ruled from 1921 until his assassination in 1934, sought to centralize the country by abolishing historic regions and drawing new internal boundaries called banovinas, named after rivers. His attempt to curb separatist tendencies and mitigate nationalist passions ultimately failed, as he was assassinated in Marseille by Vlado Chernozemski, an experienced marksman from the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, with the cooperation of the Ustaše, a Croatian fascist revolutionary organization. The assassination of Alexander I left his eleven-year-old son Peter II to inherit the throne, with a regency council headed by his cousin, Prince Paul, leading the state through a period of political crisis that culminated in the 6th of January Dictatorship.
The Partisan Resistance
On the 6th of April 1941, German, Italian, and Hungarian forces invaded Yugoslavia, marking the start of World War II in the region. The German Air Force bombed Belgrade and other major cities, and by the 17th of April, representatives of Yugoslavia's various regions signed an armistice with Germany, ending eleven days of resistance. More than 300,000 Yugoslav officers and soldiers were taken prisoner, and the Axis powers occupied and split the country. The Independent State of Croatia was established as a Nazi satellite state, ruled by the fascist militia known as the Ustaše, which persecuted and murdered around 300,000 Serbs, along with at least 30,000 Jews and Roma. From the start, the Yugoslav resistance forces consisted of two factions: the communist-led Yugoslav Partisans and the royalist Chetniks. The Partisans, led by Josip Broz Tito, initiated a guerrilla campaign that developed into the largest resistance army in occupied Western and Central Europe. The Chetniks, led by Draža Mihajlović, were initially supported by the exiled royal government and the Allies, but they soon focused increasingly on combating the Partisans rather than the occupying Axis forces. By the end of the war, the Chetnik movement transformed into a collaborationist Serb nationalist militia completely dependent on Axis supplies. The Partisans were able to expel the Axis from Serbia in 1944 and the rest of Yugoslavia in 1945, with the Red Army providing limited assistance with the liberation of Belgrade. The official Yugoslav post-war estimate of victims in Yugoslavia during World War II is 1,704,000, though subsequent data gathering in the 1980s by historians Vladimir Žerjavić and Bogoljub Kočović showed that the actual number of dead was about 1 million.
When was Yugoslavia officially renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia?
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was officially renamed on the 3rd of October 1929. This change occurred after the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris granted international recognition to the new state on the 13th of July 1922.
Who assassinated King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and when did it happen?
King Alexander I was assassinated in Marseille by Vlado Chernozemski, an experienced marksman from the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. The assassination took place in 1934 with the cooperation of the Ustaše, a Croatian fascist revolutionary organization.
What was the official Yugoslav post-war estimate of victims in Yugoslavia during World War II?
The official Yugoslav post-war estimate of victims in Yugoslavia during World War II is 1,704,000. Subsequent data gathering in the 1980s by historians Vladimir Žerjavić and Bogoljub Kočović showed that the actual number of dead was about 1 million.
When did Slovenia and Croatia declare independence from Yugoslavia?
Slovenia and Croatia became the first republics to declare independence from Yugoslavia on the 25th of June 1991. The following day, the 26th of June, the Federal Executive Council ordered the army to take control of the internationally recognized borders, leading to the Ten-Day War.
When did the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina end and what were the results?
The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina lasted more than three years and resulted in the almost total emigration of the Serbs from all three regions. The conflict also caused the massive displacement of the populations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the establishment of three new independent states.
When did Montenegro become an independent nation and what happened to Serbia and Montenegro?
Montenegro became an independent nation in June 2006 after the results of a May 2006 referendum. This event rendered Serbia and Montenegro no longer existent, and Serbia became the legal successor of Serbia and Montenegro.
Yugoslavia distanced itself from the Soviet Union in 1948, breaking decisively with Joseph Stalin on issues that made the country an independent communist state. Tito, at first, went along with the Soviet rejection of the Marshall Plan aid in 1947, but in 1948, he broke with Stalin, making Yugoslavia an independent communist state. The country requested American aid, and American leaders, though internally divided, finally agreed and began sending money on a small scale in 1949, and on a much larger scale from 1950 to 1953. The American aid was not part of the Marshall Plan. Tito criticized both Eastern Bloc and NATO nations and, together with India and other countries, started the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961, which remained the official affiliation of the country until it dissolved. The constitution was heavily amended to replace the emphasis on democratic centralism with workers' self-management and decentralization. The Communist Party was renamed to the League of Communists and adopted Titoism at its congress the previous year. All the Communist European Countries had deferred to Stalin and rejected the Marshall Plan aid in 1947. Tito, at first, went along and rejected the Marshall plan. However, in 1948 Tito broke decisively with Stalin on other issues, making Yugoslavia an independent communist state. Yugoslavia requested American aid. American leaders were internally divided, but finally agreed and began sending money on a small scale in 1949, and on a much larger scale 1950, 53. The American aid was not part of the Marshall plan.
The Economic Miracle and Crisis
From the 1950s to the early 1980s, Yugoslavia was among the fastest-growing countries, approaching the ranges reported in South Korea and other countries undergoing an economic miracle. The unique socialist system in Yugoslavia, where factories were worker cooperatives and decision-making was less centralized than in other socialist countries, may have led to the stronger growth. However, even if the absolute value of the growth rates was not as high as indicated by the official statistics, both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were characterized by surprisingly high growth rates of both income and education during the 1950s. The period of European growth ended after the oil price shock in the 1970s. Following that, an economic crisis erupted in Yugoslavia due to disastrous economic policies such as borrowing vast amounts of Western capital to fund growth through exports. At the same time, Western economies went into recession, decreasing demand for Yugoslav imports thereby creating a large debt problem. In 1989, 248 firms were declared bankrupt or were liquidated and 89,400 workers were laid off according to official sources. During the first nine months of 1990 and directly following the adoption of the IMF programme, another 889 enterprises with a combined work-force of 525,000 workers suffered the same fate. In other words, in less than two years, the trigger mechanism under the Financial Operations Act had led to the layoff of more than 600,000 workers out of a total industrial workforce of the order of 2.7 million. An additional 20% of the work force, or half a million people, were not paid wages during the early months of 1990 as enterprises sought to avoid bankruptcy. The largest concentrations of bankrupt firms and lay-offs were in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Kosovo. Real earnings were in a free fall and social programmes collapsed, creating within the population an atmosphere of social despair and hopelessness. This was a critical turning point in the events to follow.
The Constitutional Paralysis
After Tito's death on the 4th of May 1980, ethnic tensions grew in Yugoslavia, and the legacy of the Constitution of 1974 threw the system of decision-making into a state of paralysis. The Albanian majority in Kosovo demanded the status of a republic in the 1981 protests in Kosovo while Serbian authorities suppressed this sentiment and proceeded to reduce the province's autonomy. In 1986, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts drafted a memorandum addressing some burning issues concerning the position of Serbs as the most numerous people in Yugoslavia. The largest Yugoslav republic in territory and population, Serbia's influence over the regions of Kosovo and Vojvodina was reduced by the 1974 Constitution. Because its two autonomous provinces had de facto prerogatives of full-fledged republics, Serbia found that its hands were tied, for the republican government was restricted in making and carrying out decisions that would apply to the provinces. Since the provinces had a vote in the Federal Presidency Council, an eight-member council composed of representatives from the six republics and the two autonomous provinces, they sometimes even entered into coalitions with other republics, thus outvoting Serbia. Serbia's political impotence made it possible for others to exert pressure on the 2 million Serbs, 20% of the total Serbian population, living outside Serbia. After Tito's death, Serbian communist leader Slobodan Milošević began making his way toward the pinnacle of Serbian leadership. Milošević sought to restore pre-1974 Serbian sovereignty. Other republics, especially Slovenia and Croatia, denounced his proposal as a revival of greater Serbian hegemonism. Through a series of moves known as the anti-bureaucratic revolution, Milošević succeeded in reducing the autonomy of Vojvodina and of Kosovo and Metohija, but both entities retained a vote in the Yugoslav Presidency Council. The very instrument that reduced Serbian influence before was now used to increase it: in the eight-member Council, Serbia could now count on four votes at a minimum: Serbia proper, then-loyal Montenegro, Vojvodina, and Kosovo.
The War of Independence
On the 25th of June 1991, Slovenia and Croatia became the first republics to declare independence from Yugoslavia. The federal customs officers in Slovenia on the border crossings with Italy, Austria, and Hungary simply changed uniforms since most of them were local Slovenes. The following day, the 26th of June, the Federal Executive Council specifically ordered the army to take control of the internationally recognized borders, leading to the Ten-Day War. As Slovenia and Croatia fought towards independence, the Serbian and Croatian forces indulged in violent and perilous rivalry. The Yugoslav People's Army forces, based in barracks in Slovenia and Croatia, attempted to carry out the task within the next 48 hours. However, because of misinformation given to the Yugoslav Army conscripts that the Federation was under attack by foreign forces and the fact that the majority of them did not wish to engage in a war on the ground where they served their conscription, the Slovene territorial defence forces retook most of the posts within days with minimal loss of life on both sides. A ceasefire was eventually agreed upon. According to the Brioni Agreement, recognized by representatives of all republics, the international community pressured Slovenia and Croatia to place a three-month moratorium on their independence. During these three months, the Yugoslav Army completed its pull-out from Slovenia, but in Croatia, a bloody war broke out in the autumn of 1991. Ethnic Serbs, who had created their own state Republic of Serbian Krajina in heavily Serb-populated regions, resisted the police forces of the Republic of Croatia who were trying to bring that breakaway region back under Croatian jurisdiction. In some strategic places, the Yugoslav Army acted as a buffer zone; in most others, it was protecting or aiding Serbs with resources and even manpower in their confrontation with the new Croatian army and their police force. In September 1991, the Republic of Macedonia also declared independence, becoming the only former republic to gain sovereignty without resistance from the Belgrade-based Yugoslav authorities. 500 US soldiers were then deployed under the UN banner to monitor Macedonia's northern borders with the Republic of Serbia. Macedonia's first president, Kiro Gligorov, maintained good relations with Belgrade and the other breakaway republics.
The Bosnian Tragedy
A similar attempt in Bosnia and Herzegovina led to a war that lasted more than three years. The results of all these conflicts were the almost total emigration of the Serbs from all three regions, the massive displacement of the populations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the establishment of the three new independent states. The separation of Macedonia was mostly peaceful. Tomasz Kamusella argues that Serbian leaders expected they could engage in practices of ethnic cleansing with impunity, given that no international reaction had occurred in 1989 when communist Bulgaria had expelled 360,000 of its Turks and Muslims. A Bosnian Serb referendum that asked citizens whether they wanted to remain within Yugoslavia was held on 9 and the 10th of November 1991, passing in favor of staying within a common state. The parliamentary government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a clear Bosniak and Croat majority, asserted that this plebiscite was illegal, but the Bosnian Serb assembly acknowledged its results. On the 21st of November 1991, the Assembly proclaimed that all those municipalities, local communities, and populated places in which over 50% of the people of Serbian nationality had voted in favor of remaining in a joint Yugoslav state, would be territory of the federal Yugoslav state. On the 9th of January 1992, the Bosnian Serbs proclaimed the Republic of the Serbian People in Bosnia-Herzegovina. From the 29th of February to the 1st of March 1992, a European Community-backed Bosnian referendum was held in which 99.7 percent voted for independence. The turnout was only 63.4 percent, as it was boycotted by most Bosnian Serbs. The republic's government declared its independence on the 5th of April. The war in Bosnia followed shortly thereafter. The United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted UN Security Council Resolution 721 on the 27th of November 1991, which paved the way to the establishment of peacekeeping operations in Yugoslavia. The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina lasted more than three years, and the results of all these conflicts were the almost total emigration of the Serbs from all three regions, the massive displacement of the populations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the establishment of the three new independent states.
The Aftermath and Legacy
As the Yugoslav Wars raged through Bosnia and Croatia, the republics of Serbia and Montenegro, which remained relatively untouched by the war, formed a rump state known as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1992. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia aspired to be a sole legal successor to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, but those claims were opposed by the other former republics. The United Nations also denied its request to automatically continue the membership of the former state. In 2000, Milošević was prosecuted for atrocities committed in his ten-year rule in Serbia and the Yugoslav Wars. Eventually, after the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević from power as president of the federation in 2000, the country dropped those aspirations, accepted the opinion of the Badinter Arbitration Committee about shared succession, and reapplied for and gained UN membership on the 2nd of November 2000. From 1992 to 2000, some countries, including the United States, had referred to the FRY as Serbia and Montenegro as they viewed its claim to Yugoslavia's successorship as illegitimate. In April 2001, the five successor states extant at the time drafted an Agreement on Succession Issues of the Former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Marking an important transition in its history, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was officially renamed Serbia and Montenegro in 2003. In June 2006, Montenegro became an independent nation after the results of a May 2006 referendum, therefore rendering Serbia and Montenegro no longer existent. After Montenegro's independence, Serbia became the legal successor of Serbia and Montenegro, while Montenegro re-applied for membership in international organizations. In February 2008, the Republic of Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, leading to an ongoing dispute on whether Kosovo is a legally recognized state. Republic of Kosovo is not a member of the United Nations, but a number of states, including the United States and various members of the European Union, have recognized Republic of Kosovo as a sovereign state. Remembrance of the time of the joint state and its positive attributes is referred to as Yugo-nostalgia. Many aspects of Yugo-nostalgia refer to the socialist system and the sense of social security it provided. There are still people from the former Yugoslavia who self-identify as Yugoslavs, this identifier is commonly seen in demographics relating to ethnicity in today's independent states.