Breakup of Yugoslavia

Breakup of Yugoslavia
45 languages
 Article
 Talk
 Read
 Edit
 View history
Tools











From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the events entailing the 1991 and 1992 dissolution of the
Yugoslav state. For key dates of the dissolution, see Timeline of the breakup of
Yugoslavia. For the 1941 breakup, see Invasion of Yugoslavia.
Breakup of Yugoslavia
Part of the Cold War, the Revolutions of
1989 and the Yugoslav Wars
show
Animated series of maps showing
the breakup of the SFR Yugoslavia from 1989 through 2008. The
colors represent the different areas of control.

Date 25 June 1991 – 27 April 1992
(10 months and 2 days)
Location former SFR Yugoslavia:
 → Croatia
 → Slovenia
 → Bosnia and Herzegovina
 → Macedonia
 → FR Yugoslavia
o → Serbia
o → Montenegro
show
Unrecognized breakaway states:
Outcome  Breakup of Yugoslavia and formation of
independent successor states
 Continuation of the Yugoslav Wars
show
 v
 t
 e
Yugoslav Wars
The breakup of Yugoslavia occurred as a result of a series of political upheavals

and conflicts during the early 1990s. After a period of political and economic crisis in
the 1980s, constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia split
apart, but the unresolved issues caused bitter inter-ethnic Yugoslav wars. The wars
primarily affected Bosnia and Herzegovina, neighbouring parts of Croatia and, some
years later, Kosovo.
After the Allied victory in World War II, Yugoslavia was set up as a federation of six
republics, with borders drawn along ethnic and historical lines: Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. In addition,
two autonomous provinces were established within Serbia: Vojvodina and Kosovo.
Each of the republics had its own branch of the League of Communists of
Yugoslavia party and a ruling elite, and any tensions were solved on the federal
level. The Yugoslav model of state organisation, as well as a "middle way"
between planned and liberal economy, had been a relative success, and the country
experienced a period of strong economic growth and relative political stability up to
the 1980s, under Josip Broz Tito.[1] After his death in 1980, the weakened system of
federal government was left unable to cope with rising economic and political
challenges.
In the 1980s, Albanians of Kosovo started to demand that their autonomous province
be granted the status of a constituent republic, starting with the 1981 protests. Ethnic
tensions between Albanians and Kosovo Serbs remained high over the whole
decade, which resulted in the growth of Serb opposition to the high autonomy of
provinces and ineffective system of consensus at the federal level across
Yugoslavia, which were seen as an obstacle for Serb interests. In 1987, Slobodan
Milošević came to power in Serbia, and through a series of populist moves
acquired de facto control over Kosovo, Vojvodina, and Montenegro, garnering a high
level of support among Serbs for his centralist policies. Milošević was met with
opposition by party leaders of the western constituent republics of Slovenia and
Croatia, who also advocated greater democratisation of the country in line with
the Revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe. The League of Communists of
Yugoslavia dissolved in January 1990 along federal lines. Republican communist
organisations became the separate socialist parties.
During 1990, the socialists (former communists) lost power to ethnic
separatist parties in the first multi-party elections held across the country, except
in Serbia and Montenegro, where Milošević and his allies won. Nationalist rhetoric on
all sides became increasingly heated. Between June 1991 and April 1992, four
constituent republics declared independence (only Serbia and Montenegro remained
federated). Germany took the initiative and recognized the independence of Croatia
and Slovenia. But the status of ethnic Serbs outside Serbia and Montenegro, and
that of ethnic Croats outside Croatia, remained unsolved. After a string of inter-ethnic
incidents, the Yugoslav Wars ensued, first in Croatia and then, most severely, in
multi-ethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina. The wars left economic and political damage
in the region that is still felt there decades later. [2]
Background[edit]
Yugoslavia occupied a significant portion of the Balkan Peninsula, including a strip of
land on the east coast of the Adriatic Sea, stretching southward from the Bay of
Trieste in Central Europe to the mouth of Bojana as well as Lake Prespa inland, and
eastward as far as the Iron Gates on the Danube and Midžor in the Balkan
Mountains, thus including a large part of Southeast Europe, a region with a history of
ethnic conflict.
The important elements that fostered the discord involved contemporary and
historical factors, including the formation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the first
breakup and subsequent inter-ethnic and political wars and genocide during World
War II, ideas of Greater Albania, Greater Croatia and Greater Serbia and conflicting
views about Pan-Slavism, and the unilateral recognition by a newly reunited
Germany of the breakaway republics.
Before World War II, major tensions arose from the first, monarchist Yugoslavia's
multi-ethnic make-up and relative political and demographic domination of the Serbs.
Fundamental to the tensions were the different concepts of the new state.
The Croats and Slovenes envisaged a federal model where they would enjoy greater
autonomy than they had as a separate crown land under Austria-Hungary. Under
Austria-Hungary, both Slovenes and Croats enjoyed autonomy with free hands only
in education, law, religion, and 45% of taxes.[3] The Serbs tended to view the
territories as a just reward for their support of the allies in World War I and the new
state as an extension of the Kingdom of Serbia.[4]
Tensions between the Croats and Serbs often erupted into open conflict, with the
Serb-dominated security structure exercising oppression during elections and the
assassination in the National Assembly of Croat political leaders, including Stjepan
Radić, who opposed the Serbian monarch's absolutism.[5] The assassination and
human rights abuses were subject of concern for the Human Rights League and
precipitated voices of protest from intellectuals, including Albert Einstein.[6] It was in
this environment of oppression that the radical insurgent group (later fascist
dictatorship) the Ustaše were formed.
During World War II, the country's tensions were exploited by the occupying Axis
forces which established a Croat puppet state spanning much of present-
day Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Axis powers installed the Ustaše as
the leaders of the Independent State of Croatia.
The Ustaše resolved that the Serbian minority were a fifth column of Serbian
expansionism, and pursued a policy of persecution against the Serbs. The policy
dictated that one-third of the Serbian minority were to be killed, one-third expelled,
and one-third converted to Catholicism and assimilated as Croats. Conversely,
the Chetniks pursued their own campaign of persecution against non-Serbs in parts
of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Sandžak per the Moljević plan ("On Our
State and Its Borders") and the orders issues by Draža Mihailović which included
"[t]he cleansing of all nation understandings and fighting".
Both Croats and Muslims were recruited as soldiers by the SS (primarily in
the 13th Waffen Mountain Division). At the same time, former royalist, General Milan
Nedić, was installed by the Axis as head of the puppet government and local Serbs
were recruited into the Gestapo and the Serbian Volunteer Corps, which was linked
to the German Waffen-SS. Both quislings were confronted and eventually defeated
by the communist-led, anti-fascist Partisan movement composed of members of all
ethnic groups in the area, leading to the formation of the Socialist Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia.
The official Yugoslav post-war estimate of victims in Yugoslavia during World
War II was 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. Of that number, 330,000 to 390,000 ethnic Serbs perished from all causes
in Croatia and Bosnia.[7] These same historians also established the deaths of
192,000 to 207,000 ethnic Croats and 86,000 to 103,000 Muslims from all affiliations
and causes throughout Yugoslavia.[8][full citation needed][9]
Prior to its collapse, Yugoslavia was a regional industrial power and an economic
success. From 1960 to 1980, annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth
averaged 6.1 percent, medical care was free, literacy was 91 percent, and life
expectancy was 72 years.[10] Prior to 1991, Yugoslavia's armed forces were amongst
the best-equipped in Europe.[11]
Yugoslavia was a unique state, straddling both the East and West. Moreover, its
president, Josip Broz Tito, was one of the fundamental founders of the "third world"
or "group of 77" which acted as an alternative to the superpowers. More importantly,
Yugoslavia acted as a buffer state between the West and the Soviet Union and also
prevented the Soviets from getting a toehold on the Mediterranean Sea.
The central government's control began to be loosened due to increasing nationalist
grievances and the Communist's Party's wish to support "national self
determination". This resulted in Kosovo being turned into an autonomous region of
Serbia, legislated by the 1974 constitution. This constitution broke down powers
between the capital and the autonomous regions in Vojvodina (an area of Yugoslavia
with a large number of ethnic minorities) and Kosovo (with a large ethnic-
Albanian population).
Despite the federal structure of the new Yugoslavia, there was still tension between
the federalists, primarily Croats and Slovenes who argued for greater autonomy,
and unitarists, primarily Serbs. The struggle would occur in cycles of protests for
greater individual and national rights (such as the Croatian Spring) and subsequent
repression. The 1974 constitution was an attempt to short-circuit this pattern by
entrenching the federal model and formalising national rights.

Breakup of Yugoslavia

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Breakup of Yugoslavia

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Breakup of Yugoslavia

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Breakup of Yugoslavia

Part of the Cold War, the Revolutions of

1989 and the Yugoslav Wars

Animated series of maps showing

the breakup of the SFR Yugoslavia from 1989 through 2008. The

colors represent the different areas of control.

(10 months and 2 days)

Location former SFR Yugoslavia:

 → Bosnia and Herzegovina

Unrecognized breakaway states:

Outcome  Breakup of Yugoslavia and formation of

 Continuation of the Yugoslav Wars

The breakup of Yugoslavia occurred as a result of a series of political upheavals

You might also like