[Yugoslavia Memory of a disaster] 1914-1990 A land with a turbulent history

(B2) A turbulent history. Coming partly from the former Austro-Hungarian empire and Turkish condominiums, and autonomous states (Serbia), the first Yugoslavia was created in 1918, in the form of a Kingdom. Managing to remain neutral until 1941, it was dismembered by the Germans who created three more or less puppet states there: in Croatia, under the thumb of the far-right leader, Ante Pavelic and his Ustashi; in Serbia, under General Nedic, and in part of Macedonia. The resistance is divided between the Chechniks, royalists, and the communist partisans who win... with the support of the British. Between the massacres and the war, there are a million deaths in the country.

Mosaic
Yugoslav. The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, created in 1945, counted, in 1989, six Republics (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro) and two autonomous provinces attached to Serbia (Kosovo and Vojvodina). To the territorial division is added a national division. Six main nations (Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Macedonians and Muslims) are recognized there, the distribution of its peoples not systematically corresponding to the territorial division (except in Slovenia, the only homogeneous Republic). To this mosaic are added the three official languages ​​(Slovene, Serbo-Croatian - spoken in Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia - and Macedonian), not to mention Albanian and Hungarian, spoken by the two main minorities in Serbia; as well as two alphabets (Cyrillic and Latin) and the practice of three religions: Catholicism (especially among Croats and Slovenes), Orthodoxy (especially among Serbs and non-Albanian Macedonians) and Islam (especially in Kosovo , Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia).

Tito's death in 1980 is concomitant with the public irruption of the crisis, underlying for years, both economic and nationalities. Demonstrations by Kosovo Albanians demanding republic status within Yugoslavia were severely repressed in 1981. In 1986, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts published a memorandum redefining Serbian identity. Milosevic acceded to the head of the League of Communists in Serbia and, from then on, would never stop developing nationalist themes, leading to clashes against the other “Nations” of Yugoslavia, particularly in Kosovo.

In 1989, Yugoslavia is one of the "communist" countries closest to Western Europe. Leader of the movement of “non-aligned” countries, it pursues a pragmatic policy from a political and economic point of view and has signed a cooperation agreement with the EEC.

All turn signals are red. In this country, where it could be good to live (the sea, the sun, the mountains), which lives largely thanks to the income of foreign currencies from tourism, road transit (the royal road between Europe and the Middle East ) and its immigrants - largely present in Germany, Italy or France - the beginnings of the crisis are visible. A triple crisis - economic, political, of nationalities - threatens. All witnesses have been notified. But international gazes, in 1989-1990, were turned elsewhere: towards Eastern Europe which regained its autonomy (1989), towards Iraq and the first Gulf War (1990), towards the USSR which was imploding (1991).

(NGV)

(photo: © NGV)