Yugoslav War

Yeah, history teachers don't touch on this so I don't know much about it either.
Wasn't it just a European form of Africa? Bunch of people of different ethnic backgrounds slammed together and then it all eventually fell apart; balkanization?

EDIT: From a quick glance of Wikipedia, ethnic conflict was a major cause but not the only one.
Very complicated matter.

 

Albania wasn't part of Yugoslavia.

Essentially Yugoslavia is the Slavic parts of Europe colonized by the Ottomans plus Serbia which was an independent kingdom. For 400 years Ottomans, Serbs, and Austrians wrestled over supremacy, and then WWI happened, and Woodrow Wilson made them free. The result was a lot like happened in places in the ME like Lebanon when Europeans suddently packed up and left after ruling with an iron fist. It just was delayed by the communist era. During the entire Ottoman rule, tension was always about to boil over into open conflict, but was suppressed. After came Nazis and communists, who were both good at brutal suppression. Then, one day, the suppression wasn't there, like opening a pressure cooker at full boil.

Essentially, Serbians ran Yugoslavia at the end of communism. The Serb leaders in power at the time liked this setup, and all the individual ethnic groups weren't so keen.

I'm posting from my phone, so I'm simplifying and making terse, but that's the basic idea.

 

Yep Albania wasn't part of Yugoslavia but Kosovo was a province of Serbia and that province had a majority Albanian population.

 

I was curious as to why the subject interests you. Are you taking a history class? I spent some time in Yugoslavia, mostly with a family in Belgrade (met their son on the train, who was returning from working in France, and was invited), back when it was under Marshall Tito and a Communist country, the most "liberal" around. That was in March of 1971 and snow covered the ground. The people I met couldn't have been friendlier, although there was a clear prejudice against Gypsies. I haven't been back since. Going to the various parts of the former Yugoslavia (excepting Serbia, which I saw quite a bit of) is high on my list of future destinations. The food was fantastic!

 

To clarify a little bit, what eventually became Yugoslavia was essentially on the border between Christianity and the Ottoman Turks. Most of Bosnia was strongly under Ottoman rule, and so converted to Islam. Croatia retained its Catholicism, and Serbia was Orthodox. A significant portion of Croatia served as the military frontier of the Hapsburg empire and for centuries was populated mainly by soldiers and a few farmers. A lot of Croats still see Croatia as part of the West, which in their view excludes Serbia and Bosnia.

The idea of a unified state for all South Slavs was around for centuries before Yugoslavia finally formed, but was impossible until the member republics were independent of foreign rule. Pretty soon after Yugoslavia formed in the wake of World War I, Serb politicians began to show tendencies toward domination of the other republics. This led to a more aggressive form of nationalism in Croatia, which in 1928 culminated in the fatal shooting of Croat politician Stjepan Radić on the floor of Parliament.

Fast forward to World War II, when the Yugoslav government conceded to Germany the right to move its soldiers through Yugoslavia. The government was immediately overthrown by the outraged citizens of Belgrade, prompting a brutal invasion by Hitler. In the meantime, an Italian-backed Fascist government (the Ustashe) under Ante Pavelić came to power in Croatia, and immediately set out persecuting ethnic and other minorities. The Pavelić regime set up concentration camps, most infamously Jasenovac, where a very large number of Serbs were killed.

After the war, Tito and his Communist government oversaw several decades of stability, with occasional struggles over national autonomy, linguistic integrity, and other ethnicity-based issues. A disproportionately large part of the military and the Communist Party consisted of Serbs, which caused unease in the other republics. After Tito died, the ideology of Greater Serbia (advocating a nation for Serbs comprising most of Yugoslavia) became increasingly influential among the Serb leadership, and a proponent, Slobodan Milošević, came to power. Milošević used propaganda to ratchet up hatred against non-Serb ethnic groups.

The wars began with Slovenia's declaration of independence. The Yugoslav army (now effectively the army of Serbia) was sent to suppress the independence movement, as it would later be sent into the other republics. Slovenia won a ceasefire (and effectively its independence) after 10 days, and Croatia after about a year. Most of the media attention in the US was focused on Bosnia, which was a hodgepodge of Muslim, Croat, and Serb populations. Entire villages were massacred by the Serb military, most infamously at Srebrenica, and the capital city of Sarajevo was largely destroyed in a massive four-year assault by Serb military and paramilitary forces. The fighting was incredibly brutal, with snipers and artillery intentionally targeting civilians. Meanwhile, Croatia and Bosnia ended up in conflict over Herzegovina, which had a large Croat population. A large number (possibly as many as 200,000) Serbs were pushed out of parts of Croatia in which there had been a Serb separatist movement.

So this ended up being a pretty long post, but the gist of it is that it was a very complicated set of conflicts rooted in generations of grievances and mistrust, waged by groups that, aside from religion, had far more commonalities than differences. I think it's important to note that the conflict was not really seen as inevitable by many Yugoslavs. On the contrary, a lot of people (for instance in Sarajevo) never would have thought a war would break out.

For a good overview of Croatian history, I would recommend Croatia: A Nation Forged by War, by Marcus Tanner. And if you're a basketball fan, you definitely need to watch the documentary "Once Brothers", which shows some of the human side of the story and also has some incredible footage of the Yugoslav team.

 

Then I'm glad you're seeking more information. Clearly, at least in my opinion as a lover of history, American universities could do a better job of teaching the subject. The two posts by Ottomaton and bucket were excellent.

You might find the history below interesting.



http://www.amazon.com/The-Balkans-Nationalism-Powers-1804-1999/dp/0140233776/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_c#_

 

I have a friend who was a tank driver in Bosnia during the war. He doesn't like to talk about it, but he said he had to fight his neighbors and friends. I've never asked him if he killed anyone, don't think that's appropriate.

You won't get much info about the war from this, but watch the 30 for 30 "Two Brothers" I think that's what it's called. It's really sad, but really good.

 

Beyond a general Wiki/headline reading level of knowledge, I know nothing about the region except Tito was a sumbitch who kept a damper on things. That said, there are probably all sorts of intricacies and influences that we don't comprehend about the former Yugolavia, some of which were surely exacerbated by Tito.

 

I was 7 years old when the war started, ended couple of years after that. Can't say I know much about why it happened, some says it was about dividing Bosnia between Serbia and Croatia, some says it started because of murder on a wedding day, Slovenia proclaiming independence...

Kinda offtopic - One of my best childhood friends was refugee from Bosnia (his mother was from my town, his father was General in the Bosnian Army - Croatian). Remember one day he came to school with his head wrapped in bandage, we thought someone beat the hell out of him, but actually after 2 years of not seeing his father, his father came in my town, my friend was on a tree high 3 meters (10 feet?), when he saw him he just fell from the tree directly on his head, rushing to his father all covered in blood.

Macedonia never went to war and our president was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize.

Maybe my post is not D&D worthy, but just my 2 cents. Just watch No Man's Land, there's scene like trueroxfan said. One of the most ****tiest war ever fought.

 

Nonsense Turp, you have the first person knowledge about the subject we don't get over here. Any information you provide on the subject could only help advance his (and our's) knowledge.

Does the overview from bucket sound right to you? I know you said you were too young to remember, but i assume you learned of the history of the region in school, which would be more accurate than what we learn in the US.

 

I actually thought "not D&D worthy" meant not filled with hateful insults.

By "stable", I meant free of armed conflict. Definitely not meant as a comment on governance or civil rights under Tito. Just wanted to be clear that Yugoslavia wasn't at all similar to a former colony being left to its own devices and immediately descending into chaos. Yugoslavia was founded by its subjects, and held together for over forty years.

 

Turpis, thanks for sharing. It's impossible to get a sense of all the small and large ways in which everyday people were impacted just from books and documentaries.

 

Before anything, I suggest figuring out who is involved and why. The time before the war is usually more important than what happens during the war. Once war begins, there is little rationality involved, so it's hard to decipher people's real intentions.

Then read about it using each of the sides as a separate potential source of info. Give all sides of the story a fair chance. Read it from Kosovan, Croat, etc perspective. Even from a Albanian perspective, since many Albanians were involved.

There are excellent books out there and great advice such as those offered in this thread. But at the end of the day, if you want to be closest to truth, you have to cross-check each side's story and understand where they are coming from.

With war, remember, everyone has a story, but only the winner decides which story is publicisized, glorified and enshrined in history. The winners aren't necessarily good people. The fact that someone is a winner in the act of killing people and destroying property doesn't make them credible sources, but unfortunately they tend to be the ones who write history. A great example is if you discuss the Islamic empire with a Muslim or the baffling inconsistency in stories regarding the start, end and outcome of the Vietnam-US war.

IMO this applies to everyone, every war, every nation, every culture, etc.

Good luck, and thanks for making me interested in learning more about this topic.

 

Just had a talk with my pops.

Basically the war started because of Slovenia independence. After that JNA (Yugoslav National Army) went over there to take control but wasn't successful and after couple of weeks left from there.

Bosnia tried to proclaim independence too but because Bosnia & Herzegovina was mixed country the Serbs (who were great in numbers throughout the country) who lived there didn't want to be independent state, wanted to stay together with Yugoslavia. Day before the referendum there was murder on a Serbian wedding in Bosnia which political figures used to block the referendum and after that the war started.

3 years ago i found out that my Uncle (my mother cousin) went to the war to fight for Yugoslavia (to stay together bla-bla-bla, actually was fighting for Serbia). He was in the paratroops fighting against Croats and Muslims, was wounded in the leg and came home. As a kid I remember my uncle having bandages on his leg, but never knew what was that about, until 3 years ago. My close family everyday were ringing on the JNA hotline to check on his status and first they were checking the "killed" book. "He's not on the deceased/killed list". "He's not on the wounded list". "We have no idea where he is". Couple of weeks later - "He's on the wounded list, he's at the hospital in (some city).".

A lot of people from my hometown went to the war to "fight" but my dad just said to me they were there to ****ing ROB homes which were left unattended. I was in shock, but remembered one scene from the Serbian movie "Wounds" (Rane) when main actor came home from a battlefield with a pickup full of TV's, washing machine, drier... His wive asked him "Where's the microwave?!" and his reply was "I'm going back in few days, just make a list of what you want"...

Thing about this war is that the only war criminals portrait in the western media were the Serbs, as the Croats and the Muslims were innocent. All three sides were guilty for ruining Yugoslavia. I realized how great would this country be if still together nowadays in the Eurobasket held last year in Lithuania. All 6 of Ex-Yugoslav Republic were contestants (Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia&Herzegovina and most importantly Macedonia which went to the semifinals and lost to Spain).