Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation - Case Study Example

Yugoslavia has a multicultural and multiethnic society that has undergone tumultuous transformation since its inception in 1928, immediately after the WWI1. The strife ridden regional economies, within the country, have maintained a constrained relationship with each mainly to avoid external aggression. Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro, have time and again faced external threat from the neighboring countries who have tried to gain leverage in terms of increasing their territory and local resources to strengthen their own economy and political power. The realignment of territorial provinces of Yugoslavia after the World War II, have shown the volatility of the socio political environment because of the historical and ethnic factors. Comprising of a diversity of ethnic population which includes Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Montenegrins, and Bosnians, the conflicting socio religious ideologies of the populace made disintegration of Yugoslavia, a foregone conclusion, in future. Hence, the recent wars in Yugoslavia were inevitable which precipitated the Balkan crisis and facilitated further disintegration of Yugoslavia on the basis of regional political ideologies. The role of international agencies and their vested interests in the local polity was a major factor that was designed to gain political mileage out of the internal strife of the socio political environment of Yugoslavia. The historical background of the political instability of Balkan region, in the last hundred years, aided and abetted the cause and consequences of the recent wars. Before the World War I, greater part of Balkan region was ruled by large empires. Serbia and Bosnia was under the rule of Ottoman Turks and greater part of Croatia was dominated Austria-Hungary jointly. Serbia became the first Slavic region to revolt against the bad administration and looked at Russia for military support. Though the Turks suppressed the uprising, they realized that further discontent among the Serbs may influence Russia to give support so in 1829, they gave more autonomy to them. The autonomous status provided to Serbia, made it more politically ambitious and it had its eyes on Croatia and Bosnia so that it could gain access to sea route and thereby become economically independent. In 1876, when the agrarian discontent led to violent revolt by the peasant communities in Bosnia killing thousands of people and several hundred of thousands fled to Serbia and neighboring places. “The main basis of hostility was not ethnic or religious but economic: the resentment felt by the members of a mainly (but not exclusively) Christian peasantry towards their Muslim landowners. This hostility was not some absolute or irreducible force: it varied as economic circumstances changed, and was also subject to political pressures which significantly altered the attitude of the landowning class during the first half of the nineteenth century.”2 Serbia finally saw its opportunity to gain sea route. With the help of Montenegro, it attacked Bosnia, which was still under the Turkish Ottoman but was defeated ignominiously because of inadequate military warfare and lack of disciplined force. The economic dependency also played a vital role. But its complete collapse was prevented due to timely support of Russia. With Russian Influence in the region, Russians became bolder and attacked Turks, winning some of its territory. The imbalance of power, forced the international community to come forward with Berlin settlement, whereby some of territory won Russians was given to Serbia and Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina went back to Austria-Hungary alliance. This infuriated Serbs and at the same time, the Bosnians wanted separate identity and hence their revolt against the new rulers. Meanwhile, Croats’ sentiments regarding independence arose which further complicated the regional politics and Austrian Hungary hold. Serbs made efforts to unify the Balkan region against the empires and made strategic alliances with Bulgaria and Greece and the first Balkan war had significantly increased the Serbian control over a large part of the region. The London Treaty in 1913 was short lived leading to short second war of Balkan which ultimately led to WWI. WWI facilitated temporary unity among the Serbs, Bosnia and Croatia so they could fight the superior power of Austria-Hungary but Serbia could not survive the onslaught of the joint power. WWI was all about power and territorial gain and had involved almost all the political powers including Bulgaria, Greece etc. By the end of WWI, ‘Kingdom of Serbs, Croat and Slovenes’ was created which included Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, and Macedonia. This was later established as Yugoslavia. The Serbs dominated the politics of Yugoslavia right from its inception which fueled resentment and discontentment among the rest of the groups as they saw that their interests were ignored. King Alexander formally renamed the kingdom as Yugoslavia and democratize it by dividing it into “nine provinces, called banovinas, the boundaries of which were drawn with the intention of weakening or destroying traditional loyalties”.3 Alexander did provide an explanation to his subjects: “he presented the dictatorship as a necessary evil, unwillingly imposed. It was, he explained, a selfless act to prevent the tension provoked by Stjepan Radic’s death from tearing the country apart.”4 Each of the ethnic identity saw it as a measure to subjugate it. When Hitler rose to power in Germany, Alexander forged trade alliance with them but after his assassination in 1934, Prince Regent Paul took over. Paul was moderate and tried to give more voice to Croats but it did not prevent the disintegration of Yugoslavia when Germany attacked it and divided parts of it between itself and Italy. The party that still opposed the Germans was the communist party of Yugoslavia. When Germany attacked Soviet Union, all communist states were called in for support and communist party of Yugoslavia led by Tito came to the forefront, occupying a strategic part of Serbia. He advocated a universal Slav ideology which helped to unify Croats, Bosnia and Serbs to jointly fight against the German and fascist forces. In 1943 AVNOJ5 led by Tito, declared the Government of Yugoslavia. Military pact with Russia enabled Tito to wage war against the enemies, during and after WWII, leading Yugoslavia to consolidate its territory to include Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia. Tito maintained peace by fomenting the nationalist sentiments. He firmly believed that one community would not dominate the politics and wanted to unite the people through the sentiments of patriotism of war time struggle for independence. To counteract the regional politics “most of the 1960s and 1970s, a disproportionately influential role in the federal center was played by the cadres from the smaller republics of Macedonia and Slovenia. The same was the case with economic policy.”6 On the other hand Serbs and Montenegrins dominated the officer corps, and Serbs dominated the political police. Croats were routinely resentful of the police because up until 1990, Serbs formed about seventy percent of the police force but only twelve percent of Croatia’s total population.7 It was this deliberate policy that did not allow dominance of one ethnic group in a region. Each group resented the powers of the other group and thereby creating stronger feelings of antipathy and extreme animosity against the other. This feeling of alienation from main organs of power was one of major reasons of fostering ethnic imbalances that were ultimately responsible for creating strong regional sentiments of nationality and ethnic and religious unity. Another factor that played key role in bringing forth strong discontent was the state policy of bridging the economic disparities “whereby the poorest republics like Macedonia, Montenegro, and Bosnia-Herzegovina—would get the most federal aid while the richest republics—Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia—would contribute the most back to the government”8. This increased the resentment of the rich republics that needed their resources for their own regional development. Tito also viewed the ethnic problems as the personal ones and instead of accepting it as a major political problem and solved the ethnic clashes arbitrarily and often suppressing them with harsh measures. “Tito was frequently likened to a great oak tree, in the shade of whose immense branches nothing else could grow.”9 Historians view the repressive acts of Tito with the rising of region based nationalist sentiments and say that “when they emerged from hibernation in the mid and late 1980s, they had lost their modernizing and liberal characteristics.” 10 Tito’s strong leadership was the main plan that kept the Yugoslavia united in spite of strong undercurrents of regional imbalances in terms of democratized representation of the various ethnic communities. Though the simmering discontent and feelings of antipathy did not rear their head but in a subtle way, each of those communities, were developing their own nationalistic agenda. After his death in 1980, Yugoslavia lost the only leader who had a national stature. The vacuum created by his strong presence was temporarily filled by Milosevic who played dirty politics at the expense of national interest. Each of the republic started making efforts for self independence. Croatia was the first followed by Bosnia who was spurred by regional politics of ethnic disparities and wanted to establish an independent and distinct identity in the Balkan. The Serbs, on the other hand, ferociously wanted to guard their territorial dominance over Bosnia and the rest of the strategically sensitive regions. Milosevic was a weak leader who would not openly side with the Serbs but obtrusively promote their cause. This whole rigmarole of political byplays became highly violent leading to bloody clashes and mass killing of ethnic communities. The whole scenario of political turmoil, after the death of Tito, was highly volatile with internal strife reaching their saturation point and widespread corruption and atrocities against weaker ethnic groups. Hence the recent wars in Yugoslavia were imminent. The over ambitious Serbs and the wealthy Croats and the Bosnian strong ethnic sentiments made the situation in the Balkan region very volatile and the ensuing bloodbath of recent wars, necessitated intervention by the international communities who ultimately disintegrated Yugoslavia into Croatia and Yugoslavia which had Serbia and Montenegro through the Dayton Treaty. Hence, it can be successfully concluded that the recent set of wars in former Yugoslavia was historically inevitable. The violent events leading to the recent disintegration will always remind the future generation of the repercussions of religious and ethnic intolerance which made peaceful coexistence a nightmare for the populace. The fostered hatred led to inhuman atrocities which would shame the human race in the times to come. The years of regional instability and forced coexistence for sort period was not designed for stable and peaceful coexistence of diverse ethnic population of Yugoslavia. This was the crucial reason that with the first sign of lack of strong leader, the ugly head of regional politics reared its head, culminating in bloody war. Reference Bennett, Christopher. Yugoslavia’s Bloody Collapse: Causes, Course, and Consequence. New York: New York University Press, 1995. Denitch, Bogdan. Ethnic Nationalism: The Tragic Death of Yugoslavia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994. Dragnich, Alex N. Tito’s Promised Land Yugoslavia. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1954. Glenny, Misha. Balkans: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers, 1804-1999. New York: Penguin Group, 1999. Jelavich, Barbara. History of the Balkans: Twentieth Century, Vol 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Malcolm, Noel. Bosnia: A Short History. New York: New York University Press, 1996. Silber, Laura and Allan Little. Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation. New York: Penguin Group USA, 1995. Read More