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Yugoslavia Historical Setting
YU010001.
Patriarchal Monastery near Pe , Kosovo; from thirteenth to
eighteenth century, served as seat of administration for Serbian
Orthodox Church
YUGOSLAVIA IS THE COMPLEX PRODUCT of a complex history. The
country's confusing and conflicting mosaic of peoples, languages,
religions, and cultures took shape during centuries of turmoil
after the collapse of the Roman Empire. By the early nineteenth
century, two great empires, the Austrian and the Ottoman, ruled
all the modern-day Yugoslav lands except Montenegro. As the
century progressed, however, nationalist feelings awoke in the
region's diverse peoples, the Turkish grip began to weaken, and
Serbia won its independence.
Discontent with the existing order brought calls for a union
of South Slav peoples: Slovenian and Croatian thinkers proposed a
South Slav kingdom within the Austrian Empire, while Serbian
intellectuals envisaged a fully independent South Slav state. By
the end of the century, the Ottoman Empire was disintegrating,
and Austria-Hungary, Serbia, and other powers vied to gain a
share of the empire's remaining Balkan lands. The conflict of
those ambitions unleashed the forces that destroyed the old
European order in World War I.
The idea of a South Slav kingdom flourished during World War
I, but the collapse of Austria-Hungary eliminated the possibility
of a South Slav kingdom under Austrian sponsorship. Fear of
Italian domination drove some leaders of the Slovenes and Croats
to unite with Serbia in a single kingdom under the Serbian
dynasty in 1918. Political infighting and nationalist strife
plagued this kingdom during the interwar years. When democratic
institutions proved ineffectual, Serbian dictatorship took over,
and the kingdom collapsed in violence after the Axis powers
invaded in 1941.
During World War II, communist-led Partisans waged a
victorious guerrilla struggle against foreign occupiers, Croatian
fascists, and supporters of the prewar government. This led to
the rebirth of Yugoslavia as a socialist federation under
communist rule on November 29, 1945. Under Josip Broz Tito,
Yugoslav communists were faithful to orthodox Stalinism until a
1948 split with Moscow. At that time, a Soviet-bloc economic
blockade compelled the Yugoslavs to devise an economic system
based on Socialist self-management. To this system the Yugoslavs
added a nonaligned foreign policy and an idiosyncratic, one-party
political system. This system maintained a semblance of unity
during most of Tito's four decades of unquestioned rule. Soon
after his death in 1980, however, long-standing differences again
separated the communist parties of the country's republics and
provinces. Economic turmoil and the reemergence of an old
conflict between the Serbs and the ethnic Albanian majority in
Kosovo exacerbated these differences, fueled a resurgence of
nationalism, and paralyzed the country's political decisionmaking
mechanism.
Data as of December 1990
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