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Yugoslavia Students and Youth
Students were a perennial source of concern for Yugoslavia's
communist regime. They often assumed the viewpoint of pure
Marxism in criticizing the inequality of the socialist
self-management system; in general, students far surpassed their
elders in demanding reform. Student unrest erupted in 1968 at
several universities, in 1971 at Zagreb University, and in 1981
at Pristina University. In 1968 students in Belgrade, Zagreb,
Ljubljana, and Sarajevo protested the "embourgeoisement" of
Yugoslav socialism and the failure of self-management to create
an egalitarian society. The later unrest in Zagreb and Pristina
was largely an expression of the respective nationalistic goals
of the Croats and the Kosovans.
In the late 1980s, youth publications, especially in
Slovenia, provided an important public platform for frank debate
of sensitive issues and taboo topics, such as nuclear energy,
government corruption, and resistance to military service
(see The Media
, ch. 4). With the collapse of communism throughout
Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, student activists on Yugoslav
campuses focused on issues of ecology, nationalism, women's
rights, and peace. Polling data, however, showed a high degree of
apathy among Yugoslavia's young people. In a youth opinion poll
conducted in the port city of Split, 83 percent of the
respondents said that nepotism and connections were essential to
success; 53 percent answered that knowledge and intelligence had
no influence whatsoever on social status, advancement, or success
in life.
Data as of December 1990
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