Why did Yugoslavia Collapse

 

Yugoslavia.

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