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Yugoslavia Ethnic Composition
Serbs comprised more than a third of the total population in
the 1981 census. They were followed by the Croats (19.7 percent),
Muslim Slavs (8.9 percent), Slovenes (7.8 percent), Albanians
(7.7 percent), Macedonians (6.0 percent), Montenegrins (2.6
percent), and Hungarians (1.9 percent). In the 1981 census, about
1.2 million people, or 5.4 percent of the country's population,
declared themselves to be ethnic Yugoslavs, a fourfold increase
since 1971. Yugoslav scholars disagree about the reason for this
rise in avowed Yugoslavism. Demographers have attributed the
increase to an upswing in popular identification with Yugoslavia
as a state following the death of Tito in 1980 and to minority
group members declaring themselves Yugoslav nationals. Given the
national tensions of the late 1980s, analysts eagerly awaited the
1991 census for new trends in Yugoslav national identification.
Yugoslavia's overall ethnic makeup did not change drastically
in the seventy years after the country was founded in 1918,
despite the fact that the population grew by more than 70 percent
during that time. Exceptions to this pattern of stability were
the marked increase of the Albanian population and a steep
decline in the numbers of Jews, ethnic Germans, and Hungarians
after World War II.
Most of Yugoslavia's six republics and two provinces showed
significant ethnic diversity. Only Serbia proper, Slovenia, and
Montenegro were largely homogeneous. Croatia had a substantial
Serbian minority of about 12 percent. Macedonia had Turks,
Vlachs, and a fast-growing Albanian population. Muslim Slavs,
Serbs, and Croats made up the population of Bosnia and
Hercegovina, but no single group predominated. Kosovo was
predominantly Albanian with Serbian, Montenegrin, and Muslim Slav
minorities; and a Serbian majority shared Vojvodina with
Hungarians (at 24 percent, the largest minority in that
province), Croats, and many less numerous groups (see
table 5, Appendix).
Complicating the ethnic situation was the fact that most
nationalities were not confined within the borders of the
country's republics, provinces, or districts (opstine, the
next largest jurisdiction). For example, in 1981 about 98 percent
of all Yugoslavia's Slovenes lived in Slovenia and about 96
percent of its Macedonians lived in Macedonia; but only 60
percent of the Serbs lived in Serbia proper, and only 70 percent
of the Montenegrins lived in Montenegro. In the postwar era, the
share of a republic's population that belonged to that republic's
dominant national group generally declined. Thus, in Slovenia,
where Slovenes accounted for 98 percent of the population in
1948, they accounted for only 90 percent in 1981.
Yugoslavia's federal and republican constitutions guarantee
equal rights for all ethnic groups, including the right to
participate in public life, government, and the armed forces.
Minority nationalities have the right to organize groups to
exercise their cultural rights and promote their national
interests. Article 119 of the federal criminal code, however,
prohibits propaganda and other activities aimed at inciting or
fomenting national, racial, or religious intolerance, hatred, or
dissension between nations and nationalities. The federal and
republican constitutions also provide for proportional
representation of the nations and nationalities in assemblies,
commissions, the highest levels of the army's officer corps, and
other government institutions.
Data as of December 1990
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