Some observers, such as Peter Gowan, assert that the breakup and subsequent conflict could have been prevented if western states were more assertive in enforcing internal arrangements between all parties, but ultimately "were not prepared to enforce such principles in the Yugoslav case because Germany did not want to, and the other states did not have any strategic interest in doing so. Croatian Serb politicians including the Mayor of Knin met with Borisav Jovi, the head of the Yugoslav Presidency in August 1990, and urged him to push the council to take action to prevent Croatia from separating from Yugoslavia, because they claimed that the Serb population would be in danger in Croatia which was ruled by Tuman and his nationalist government. But, the US government, according to The New York Times, urged him to opt for a unitary, sovereign, independent state.[76]. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). The Yugoslav army and Serbian paramilitaries devastated the town in urban warfare and the destruction of Croatian property. The Axis powers installed the Ustae as the leaders of the Independent State of Croatia. [bettersourceneeded] Davidson agrees with Susan Woodward, an expert on Balkan affairs, who found the "motivating causes of the disintegration in economic circumstance and its ferocious pressures". On 9 March 1991, protests in Belgrade were suppressed with the help of the Army. Jovi and Kadijevi then called upon the delegates of each republic to vote on whether to allow martial law, and warned them that Yugoslavia would likely fall apart if martial law was not introduced. Political, economic and cultural relations between the two independent states are regarded as exemplary in many respects. Corrections? It was agreed to in Munich by the leading European powers of the day in the . It was viewed that that secession would be devastating to Kosovar Serbs. Czechoslovakia (1918-92) Czechoslovakia to 1945 The establishment of the republic Czechoslovakia Tom Masaryk When the new country of Czechoslovakia was proclaimed on Oct. 28, 1918, its leaders were still in exile. In the absence of real stimulus to efficiency, workers councils often raised wage levels above the true earning capacities of their organizations, usually with the connivance of local banks and political officials. [2] Hungary and Albania lost around half of their Jewish populations, the Soviet Union, Germany, Austria and Luxembourg lost over one third of its Jews, Belgium and France each saw around a quarter of their Jewish . 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 Miloevi and his allies won. Together with representatives of the Slovak national movement, they settled on a common state. Up until that time, a number of political decisions were legislated from within these provinces, and they had a vote on the Yugoslav federal presidency level (six members from the republics and two members from the autonomous provinces). Close relations between the two states were canceled after the Tito-Stalin split of 1948. The republic declared its independence from Yugoslavia in May 1992, while the Serbs in Bosnia declared . In addition, two autonomous provinces were established within Serbia: Vojvodina and Kosovo. A brief treatment of the history of Czechoslovakia follows. The 500 communes were direct agents for the collection of most government revenue, and they also provided social services. For key dates of the dissolution, see, Death of Tito and the weakening of Communism, Economic collapse and the international climate, Rise of nationalism in Serbia (19871989), Independence of the Republic of Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The 1974 constitution not only exacerbated Serbian fears of a "weak Serbia, for a strong Yugoslavia" but also hit at the heart of Serbian national sentiment. On January 1, 1993, theCzechand Slovak republics would be born. By the outbreak of war in 1941, Yugoslavia was still a poor and predominantly rural state, with more than three-fourths of economically active people engaged in agriculture. In the meantime, behind the scenes, negotiations began between Miloevi and Tuman to divide Bosnia and Herzegovina into Serb and Croat administered territories to attempt to avert war between Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs. In 1968 the Czech people attempted to exert some control over their own lives and reform the Communist system to create 'Socialism with a human face'. [27], The relaxation of tensions with the Soviet Union after Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the top position in 1985, meant that western nations were no longer willing to be generous with restructuring Yugoslavia's debts, as the example of a communist country outside of the Eastern Bloc was no longer needed by the West as a way of destabilising the Soviet bloc. This meant that the YPA would have to fire the first shot, which was fired on 27 June at 14:30 in Divaa by an officer of the YPA.[53]. [40] Yugoslavia's non-aligned status resulted in access to loans from both superpower blocs. In February 1989 ethnic Albanian Azem Vllasi, SAP Kosovo's representative on the Presidency, was forced to resign and was replaced by an ally of Miloevi. Michele Norris has a primer on the new states created in the Balkans since 1989. On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia separated peacefully into two new countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. A distinctive feature of this new Yugoslav system was workers self-management, which reached its fullest form in the 1976 Law on Associated Labour. Fundamental to the tensions were the different concepts of the new state. The dissolution of Czechoslovakia (Czech: Rozdlen eskoslovenska, Slovak: Rozdelenie eskoslovenska) took effect on December 31, 1992, and was the self-determined split of the federal republic of Czechoslovakia into the independent countries of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.Both mirrored the Czech Socialist Republic and the Slovak Socialist Republic, which had been created in 1969 as . The next day, with the party council pushed into submission to Serbia, Yugoslav army forces poured into Kosovo and Vllasi was arrested. Czechoslovakia was a member of the Warsaw Pact, a mutual defense group of nations led by the Soviet Union, and several fellow member states were alarmed by the reforms. The divide began to widen, and towards the end of the year and agreement was drafted to allow the two republics to part ways. In addition Serbia re-elected Slobodan Miloevi as president. [26][failed verification] Increasingly, demands were voiced in Serbia for more centralisation in order to force Croatia and Slovenia to pay more into the federal budget, demands that were completely rejected in the "have" republics. The other significant Serb-dominated entities in eastern Croatia announced that they too would join SAO Krajina. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, a referendum on independence took place in March 1992, but was boycotted by the Serb minority. [20], A major problem for Yugoslavia was the heavy debt incurred in the 1970s, which proved to be difficult to repay in the 1980s. Along with external pressure, this caused the adoption of multi-party systems in all the republics. The assembly only considered legislation that had already been drafted, and local government acted in effect as the transmission belt for decisions made in Belgrade. Miloevi refused to agree to the plan, as he claimed that the European Community had no right to dissolve Yugoslavia and that the plan was not in the interests of Serbs as it would divide the Serb people into four republics (Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia). This was seen by the Serbian public as a devastating blow to Serb pride because of the historic links that Serbians held with Kosovo. [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. The bordering mountain ranges can be observed on the physical map of the Czech Republic above. Upon his return to Czechoslovakia, Dubek saw his reforms rolled back, and hard-line communists restored the country to conformity with Soviet-bloc norms. Gradually, with Soviet supervision, internal opposition was crushed while the countrys industry was nationalized and its agriculture was collectivized. Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo ukanovi, at the time an ally of Miloevi, appealed to Montenegrin nationalism, promising that the capture of Dubrovnik would allow the expansion of Montenegro into the city which he claimed was historically part of Montenegro, and denounced the present borders of Montenegro as being "drawn by the old and poorly educated Bolshevik cartographers". While Yugoslavia was already in a shambles, it is likely that German recognition of the breakaway republicsand Austrian partial mobilization on the bordermade things a good deal worse for the decomposing multinational state. After initial resistance to this legal opinion (partially supported by certain Non-Aligned countries), The so-called Federal Republic of Yugoslavia accepted shared succession after the overthrow of Slobodan Miloevi. [37][38][39], In the Presidency of Yugoslavia, Serbia's Borisav Jovi (at the time the President of the Presidency), Montenegro's Nenad Buin, Vojvodina's Jugoslav Kosti and Kosovo's Riza Sapunxhiu, started to form a voting bloc.[40]. Yugoslavia, on the other hand, was dismembered in a brutal war, with hundreds of thousands of people killed and millions displaced. Such defects in the system were patched over by massive and uncoordinated foreign borrowing, but after 1983 the International Monetary Fund demanded extensive economic restructuring as a precondition for further support. Author of, Former Head, Research Unit in South East European Studies, University of Bradford, England. [14][15], The SFR Yugoslavia was a conglomeration of eight federated entities, roughly divided along ethnic lines, including six republics. With the end of Communist rule and the reemergence of true multiparty democracy (the so-called Velvet Revolution), disagreements between the two halves of the country escalated. In 2003, the country was restructured into a loose federation of two republics called Serbia and Montenegro. In addition to Vienna and Budapest, Prague was certainly the empire's third capital. et al. Updates? While France, Britain and most other European Community member nations were still emphasizing the need to preserve the unity of Yugoslavia,[69] the German chancellor Helmut Kohl led the charge to recognize the first two breakaway republics of Slovenia and Croatia. The League of Communists of Yugoslavia dissolved in January 1990 along federal lines. [78] On the other hand, Serbia and some of the international communitymost notably Russia, Spain and Chinahave not recognised Kosovo's declaration of independence. What is meant by the term former Yugoslavia is the territory that was up to 25 June 1991 known as The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). It was very different when Czechoslovakia disbanded. MICHELE NORRIS, host: There was a time when it seemed like a good idea to have a single state on the Balkan . National Security Decision Directive 133. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Velvet Revolution in 1989, the calls for independence became increasingly louder - especially in Slovakia. Both stipulated that inter-state borders in Europe should not be changed. As part of the so-called Velvet Divorce, two new countries were created, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, on January 1, 1993. The personnel manning the border posts were, in most cases, already Slovenians, so the Slovenian take-over mostly simply amounted to changing of uniforms and insignia, without any fighting. The 1921 constitution established a highly centralized state, under the Serbian Karadjordjevi dynasty, in which legislative power was exercised jointly by the monarchy and the Skuptina (assembly). 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. [73], In 1999 Social Democratic Party of Germany leader Oskar Lafontaine criticised the role played by Germany in the break up of Yugoslavia, with its early recognition of the independence of the republics, during his May Day speech. Yugoslavia supported reformist Alexander Dubek and political liberalization in Czechoslovakia which took place in the period of Prague Spring. The FR Yugoslavia was renamed on 4 February 2003 as the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. The crisis that emerged in Yugoslavia was connected with the weakening of the Communist states in Eastern Europe towards the end of the Cold War, leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. [66], In Bosnia and Herzegovina, NATO airstrikes against Bosnian Serb targets contributed to the signing of the 14 December 1995 Dayton Agreement and the resolution of the conflict. The Death of Yugoslavia. In Yugoslavia, the local leadership assumed that Moscow's assault on the CSSRa maneuver characteristic of the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine of limited sovereigntycreated a dangerous precedent. The Three Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimisation. Prior to the beginning of World War II (WWII), Czechoslovakia was annexed by Germany. Nationalist rhetoric on all sides became increasingly heated. The discovery of Croatian arms smuggling combined with the crisis in Knin, the election of independence-leaning governments in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia, and Slovenes demanding independence in the referendum on the issue suggested that Yugoslavia faced the imminent threat of disintegration. He then began a campaign against the ruling communist elite of SR Serbia, demanding reductions in the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina. This common state was by no means homogeneous: Of the 14 million people, 7 million were Czechs, 2.5 million Slovaks and more than 3 million Sudeten Germans. [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. https://www.britannica.com/place/Yugoslavia-former-federated-nation-1929-2003, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Holocaust Encyclopedia - Yugoslavia, Jewish Virtual Library - Virtual Jewish World: Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Yugoslavia - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). Its parliament was fragmented on ethnic lines into a plurality Bosniak faction and minority Serb and Croat factions. Kosovo had been administered by the UN since the Kosovo War while nominally remaining part of Serbia. In December the Communists formed a coalition government with non-Communist opposition groups. 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. The historical regions were replaced by nine prefectures (banovine), all drafted deliberately to cut across the lines of traditional regions. Propaganda by Croatian and Serbian sides spread fear, claiming that the other side would engage in oppression against them and would exaggerate death tolls to increase support from their populations. The Ustae resolved that the Serbian minority were a fifth column of Serbian expansionism, and pursued a policy of persecution against the Serbs. This eventually led to the repression of the Albanian majority in Kosovo. [1] After his death in 1980, the weakened system of federal government was left unable to cope with rising economic and political challenges. Serb paramilitaries committed atrocities against Croats, killing over 200, and displacing others to add to those who fled the town in the Vukovar massacre.[59]. The fall of Yugoslavia can be attributed to four main factors: The death of Tito, the fall of the USSR, the rise of nationalism, and (to a smaller degree) Turkish interests in the Balkans. Under the leadership of Masaryk, who served as president from 1918 to 1935, Czechoslovakia became a stable parliamentary democracy and the most industrially advanced country in eastern Europe. His death removed what many international political observers saw as Yugoslavia's main unifying force, and subsequently ethnic tension started to grow in Yugoslavia. Both Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were created in 1918, after the World War I collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Though the countries were created in a similar way after World War I, they ended up very differently. In 1921, together with the Kingdom of Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia established the Little Entente with the purpose of common defense against Hungarian revanchism and the prospect of a Habsburg restoration. Whether this would have laid the basis for a durable settlement is unclear, as the first Yugoslavia was brought to an end by World War II and the Axis Powers invasion in April 1941. Nevertheless the Czech Republic unilaterally decided to keep the old flag of Czechoslovakia as its own flag (despite being contrary to the agreement), but avoided any claim on sole succession. Serbia and Montenegro now increasingly favored a Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. In the 1995 BBC2 documentary The Death of Yugoslavia, Kuan claimed that in 1989, he was concerned that with the successes of Miloevi's anti-bureaucratic revolution in Serbia's provinces as well as Montenegro, that his small republic would be the next target for a political coup by Miloevi's supporters if the coup in Kosovo went unimpeded. On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia separated peacefully into two new countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. As a result of these events, in February 1989 ethnic Albanian miners in Kosovo organized a strike, demanding the preservation of the now-endangered autonomy. Serbian parliament speaker Borisav Jovi, a strong ally of Miloevi, met with the current President of the Yugoslav Presidency, Bosnian representative Raif Dizdarevi, and demanded that the federal government concede to Serbian demands. Don't think that you won't take Bosnia and Herzegovina into hell, and the Muslim people maybe into extinction. The disintegration and war led to a sanctions regime, causing the economy of Serbia and Montenegro to collapse after five years. 83.56% of the voters turned out, with Croatian Serbs largely boycotting the referendum. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was prevented by a UN resolution on 22 September 1992 from continuing to occupy the United Nations seat as successor state to SFRY. In the 1960s a progressively deteriorating economy discredited the government and led to grudgingly granted, and limited, reforms. The liberation of Czechoslovakia by Soviet troops during World War II helped bolster the Communist Party while hindering the numerous other parties that emerged. It was supplanted by a reciprocal trade agreement signed in Washington on March 7, 1938. [clarification needed], The influence of xenophobia and ethnic hatred in the collapse of Yugoslavia became clear during the war in Croatia. Dizdarevi argued with Jovi saying that "You [Serbian politicians] organized the demonstrations, you control it", Jovi refused to take responsibility for the actions of the protesters. 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. Shortly after the Munich verdict, Poland sent troops to annex the Teschen region. British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). [23][failed verification] The problems imposed by heavy indebtedness and corruption had by the mid-1980s increasingly started to corrode the legitimacy of the Communist system, as ordinary people started to lose faith in the competence and honesty of the elites. As a condition of receiving loans, the IMF demanded the "market liberalisation" of Yugoslavia. However, Belgrade's authorities neither intervened to prevent Macedonia's departure, nor protested nor acted against the arrival of the UN troops, indicating that once Belgrade was to form its new country (the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in April 1992), it would recognise the Republic of Macedonia and develop diplomatic relations with it. Yugoslavia supported reformist Alexander Dubek and political liberalization in Czechoslovakia which took place in the period of Prague Spring. 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. Finally, the independence of Croatia was declared on 25 June 1991. In 1986, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) contributed significantly to the rise of nationalist sentiments, as it drafted the controversial SANU Memorandum protesting against the weakening of the Serbian central government. Carrington responded by putting the issue to a vote in which all the other republics, including Montenegro under Momir Bulatovi, initially agreed to the plan that would dissolve Yugoslavia. Miloevi assured Serbs that their mistreatment by ethnic Albanians would be stopped. [17][not specific enough to verify], Meanwhile, the more prosperous republics of SR Slovenia and SR Croatia wanted to move towards decentralization and democracy. The struggle would occur in cycles of protests for greater individual and national rights (such as the Croatian Spring) and subsequent repression. Updates? Though it began similarly, Yugoslavia took a different path to disintegration. The Soviet Union, East . Conversely, the Chetniks pursued their own campaign of persecution against non-Serbs in parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Sandak per the Moljevi plan ("On Our State and Its Borders") and the orders issues by Draa Mihailovi which included "[t]he cleansing of all nation understandings and fighting". 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. It was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1938-45 and was under Soviet domination from 1948 to 1989. On 9 January 1992, the Bosnian Serb assembly proclaimed a separate Republic of the Serb people of Bosnia and Herzegovina (the soon-to-be Republika Srpska), and proceeded to form Serbian autonomous regions (SARs) throughout the state. For full treatment, including a discussion of the region prior to 1918, see Czechoslovak history. [18], The historian Basil Davidson contends that the "recourse to 'ethnicity' as an explanation [of the conflict] is pseudo-scientific nonsense". On 25 . [36], A group of Kosovo Serb supporters of Miloevi who helped bring down Vllasi declared that they were going to Slovenia to hold "the Rally of Truth" which would decry Milan Kuan as a traitor to Yugoslavia and demand his ousting. This second Yugoslavia covered much the same territory as its predecessor, with the addition of land acquired from Italy in Istria and Dalmatia. [58] The international media gave immense attention to bombardment of Dubrovnik and claimed this was evidence of Milosevic pursuing the creation of a Greater Serbia as Yugoslavia collapsed, presumably with the aid of the subordinate Montenegrin leadership of Bulatovi and Serb nationalists in Montenegro to foster Montenegrin support for the retaking of Dubrovnik. Miloevi pretended not to hear the demand correctly but declared to the crowd that anyone conspiring against the unity of Yugoslavia would be arrested and punished. Twenty-five years ago this weekend, the fates of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were sealed. [21] Yugoslavia's debt load, initially estimated at a sum equal to $6 billion U.S. dollars, instead turned out to be equivalent to $21 billion U.S. dollars, which was a colossal sum for a poor country. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Greece, Yugoslavia, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, and Latvia each had over 70% of their Jewish population murdered. After the Nazi seizure of powerin 1933, Germany demanded the "return" of the ethnic German population of Czechoslovakiaand the land on which it livedto the German Reich. The stance of the international community was that Yugoslavia had dissolved into its separate states. During the Austro-Hungarian time the Charles University in Prague and other Czechoslovak institutions of higher education became important center of higher education for South Slavic students with students and graduates including Veljko Vlahovi, Ratko Vujovi, Aleksandar Deroko, Nikola Dobrovi, Petar Drapin, Zoran orevi, Lordan Zafranovi, Momir Korunovi, Branko Krsmanovi, Emir Kusturica, Ljubica Mari, Goran Markovi, Predrag Nikoli, Stjepan Radi, Nikola Tesla and other. But the status of ethnic Serbs outside Serbia and Montenegro, and that of ethnic Croats outside Croatia, remained unsolved. Czech position was that an even looser federation is unviable, and it's better to split in that case. Under the constitution of 1974, the assemblies of the communes, republics, and autonomous provinces consisted of three chambers. 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. The countrys new Communist leaders concentrated on making the state-run economy more productive while also stifling internal political dissent. The official Yugoslav post-war estimate of victims in Yugoslavia during World WarII was 1,704,000. After a decade of acrimonious party struggle, King Alexander I in 1929 prorogued the assembly, declared a royal dictatorship, and changed the name of the state to Yugoslavia. In Serbia, there was great resentment towards these developments, which the nationalist elements of the public saw as the "division of Serbia". So this happened, not because it was a preferred solution for either side, but let's say second best. An independent Czechoslovak state was declared by Tom Masaryk, Edvard Bene, and other leaders on October 28, 1918, and was quickly recognized by France and other Allied opponents of Austria. [54] During these three months, the Yugoslav Army completed its pull-out from Slovenia. Another concern was the unemployment rate, at 1 million by 1980. Please select which sections you would like to print: Also known as: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Professor of History, University of Maryland. Coeditor of. [10] Prior to 1991, Yugoslavia's armed forces were amongst the best-equipped in Europe.[11]. Republican communist organisations became the separate socialist parties. Here, too, the basic idea was to unite several related peoples and their traditional settlements in one state. In January 1991, the Yugoslav counter-intelligence service, KOS (Kontraobavetajna sluba), displayed a video of a secret meeting (the "pegelj Tapes") that they purported had happened some time in 1990 between the Croatian Defence Minister, Martin pegelj, and two other men. After a split with the Soviet Union in 1948, Yugoslavia had by the 1960s come to place greater reliance on market mechanisms.

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