Yugoslavia broke up into which states, when and why did this happen? Former Yugoslavia: general impressions

From 1918 to 2003, there was a state inhabited by Serbs, Croats and Slovenes - Yugoslavia, the capital of which was the large city of Belgrade. After the collapse of the country and the formation of 6 independent states with their capitals, this city did not lose its status and is now the economic, industrial and cultural center of Serbia.

In our article we will talk about what the former capital of Yugoslavia looks like, although it is not now the capital of the largest state of the South Slavs.

Where is Belgrade located?

Yugoslavia at one time was also considered the most mountainous country in Western Europe. It is not surprising that hilly terrain is also characteristic of Belgrade. And the highest point that the capital of Yugoslavia can boast of is Torlak Hill, rising 303 meters. To the south of the city are the picturesque mountains Kosmaj (628 m) and Avala (511 m).

The main waterways of Belgrade are the deep rivers Sava and Danube. Interestingly, this is where their merging occurs.

Unique is the fact that the city is located both in Central Europe and the Balkans. The border between the Balkan Peninsula and Central Europe also passes at this point on the Earth.

The former capital of Yugoslavia can be proud of its parks

The Sava and Danube give the ancient city an amazing flavor. On their banks there are many squares and parks. On the river islands you can also find quiet, cozy corners of nature.

The oldest of the city's parks is Topchider, located near the center of the capital. By the way, here you can see the oldest plane trees in Europe. They reach a height of 34 m! The Museum of the Serbian Uprising is also located here, as well as the White Palace - the former residence of presidents Tito and Milosevic.

And the island of Ada Tsiganliya on the Sava River is a favorite vacation spot for city residents.

Historical places of Belgrade

The former capital of Yugoslavia has a huge number of amazing places: colorful narrow streets, palaces, majestic temples, monasteries, as well as many museums (there are more than fifty of them) and exhibitions.

The Kalemegdan fortress is deservedly considered the main attraction. At one time it belonged to the Romans, and then passed from hand to hand: from the Byzantines to the Hungarians, Serbs or Turks - this piece of land was too tasty. Now here you can visit many exhibitions, a knight's tournament or admire the stunning view of the Danube from the fortress wall.

The Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava is also not to be missed. Its interior decoration is amazing. It shares with the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Savior the title of the largest operating Orthodox church.

The former capital of Yugoslavia boasts its own Montmartre. The Skadarlija quarter, which was initially chosen by the gypsies, became a refuge for artists and writers in Belgrade.

By the way, in order to once again admire the ancient city center, you can take tram number 2 and make a circle.

About transport and other features of staying in the city

You can buy a single ticket for all public transport in Belgrade (buses, trolleybuses and trams), which costs the same - 30 euro cents per trip, no matter how far you need to travel. Tickets are sold from drivers or at cigarette kiosks.

Tourists who want to save money need to know this detail: in Belgrade it is customary to bargain not only at the market, but also in private shops. Feel free to do this and pay only when you have finally agreed on the price. By the way, despite the fact that the national currency here is the Serbian dinar, many places accept euros as payment, and this is legal.

The colorful former capital of Yugoslavia (you now know the name of the capital) is sure to please travelers, making them return to its streets and squares.

The city was divided into three parts: the Muslims dug in in the center, under the mosques, the Croats - on the outskirts, closer to their church, the Serbs broke through from the river. There were corpses lying all over the place. It was impossible to walk without stepping on someone's hand or foot; blood flooded the entire pavement. They killed women, children, and old people in a row simply because some were baptized and others prayed to Allah. Not a single intact building remained - they either burned or collapsed. The old bridge was blown up and fell into the water.

"We were swimming in blood"

Taxi driver Aziz takes me through Mostar, a city in Bosnia, on its streets in 1992-1995. former citizens of the former Yugoslavia fought for every block. Some of the houses have been restored (the “Gift of the European Union” signs have been screwed in), but those that are away from the tourist paths still bear traces of bullets and shrapnel on the walls. The bridge was also restored, and now it is like new. Aziz points to the window from where he shot his Croatian neighbor.

But I didn't get it. He is more skilled and has a good machine gun. He wounded me in the shoulder.

Why did you shoot at him in the first place? Was the relationship bad?

Why? Great guy, we drank vodka together. It’s just, you know, we used to be Yugoslavs, and then somehow suddenly we started dividing the country. And yesterday's neighbor is the enemy. Believe it or not, I myself don’t understand why we suddenly grabbed knives to cut each other.

...Now Aziz drinks vodka in the evenings again - with the same neighbor who once successfully put a bullet in him. Both try not to remember the past. It should be noted that in the former Yugoslavia they generally do not like to talk about the war. Not a single person could clearly explain to me the reason why he went to kill his neighbors, friends, acquaintances who always lived next to him, side by side. Muslims against Serbs and Croats. Croats against Serbs and Muslims. Serbs against everyone. “We were swimming in blood and couldn’t stop,” the Croatian tells me Stanko Milanovic. “It was mass madness - we devoured human flesh like zombies.” During the fighting in ex-Yugoslavia, 250 thousand people died (out of a population of 20 million), 4 million fled abroad. The ex-capital Belgrade (along with dozens of other cities) was bombed by NATO aircraft, and Yugoslavia disintegrated into ten states: six “official” and four not recognized by anyone. A handful of weak dwarf countries are all that remains of a powerful power that fought against Hitler, who was not afraid to quarrel with Stalin and possessed an army of 600 thousand. Its greatness has turned to dust: some republics survive on beach tourism, others are begging and asking for money from the West, and NATO troops are comfortably stationed on the territory of Bosnia, Serbia and Macedonia.

"Russian? Get out from here!"

We were all running somewhere, he recalls. Maria Kraljic, owner of a cafe in the Bosnian city of Trebinje. - I lived in Dubrovnik, Croatia, and our house was set on fire. My husband and I jumped out the window - he was in shorts, I was in a dressing gown. They wanted to kill us just because we were Serbs. Now we are hiding here and it is clear that we will never return home again.

In Trebinje itself, the old center with Ottoman mosques is empty - the Serbs expelled Muslim residents from the city. Dubrovnik, where Maria fled, is now a luxurious seaside resort, with hotel prices higher than in Moscow. On the outskirts, far from tourists, lurk empty Serbian churches - smoked by fire, with broken windows, painted with graffiti. As soon as you point the camera, well-wishers appear: “Russian? It was you who supported the Serbs. Get out of here while you're still alive! This is not bad - in Kosovo, Orthodox churches are simply blown up. In the capital of Bosnia, Sarajevo, when in 1995 the city was divided into two parts, Serbian and Muslim, the Serbs went to “their” side, even taking the coffins of their fathers and grandfathers from cemeteries so that their bones would not be desecrated by infidels. The war ended, and the neighbors, who overnight became enemies, made peace with difficulty, but did not forgive each other for the massacre. Hell, where the flames have gone out, still remains hell... even if it is cool there now.

Can you tell me how to get to Bill Clinton Boulevard?

Yes, it’s in the very center...see that idol over there? Monument to a former lover Monica Lewinsky It's hard to miss in Pristina. Albanian separatists in Kosovo are extremely grateful to the US President for the decision to bomb Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999. Two million Serbs fled to the north of the republic and are huddled there in shabby houses. Walking down the street, we talk with the Montenegrin driver in a whisper: for speaking Serbian in Kosovo they can kill you - just like that, for no reason. The owner of the hotel in Pec looks at my passport with a double-headed eagle (the same one on the coat of arms of Serbia) and quietly says: “If you were the devil himself, I need guests. Move in, just don’t say anywhere that you’re Russian.”

...Perhaps the only thing that now unites the inhabitants of a country torn to shreds is a passionate love for its founder Marshal Josip Broz Tito. “We will never live as cool as we lived under Tito,” sighs the Albanian Hasan, driving me to the Serbian border guards checkpoint. “You never dreamed of this in the Soviet Union,” echoes the Bosnian Jasko. “It was a real paradise: shops are full of food, you can travel to Germany and France without a visa, there is almost no crime.” “In Europe we were respected, but now they consider us to be poor relatives,” the Croatian spits Stephen. “Tito was a great man.” According to polls, if the leader of Yugoslavia, who died in 1980, wished to become the head of state now, 65 (!) percent of the population would vote for him. But the dead are prohibited from running for president - and the country itself is already dead...

“The scenario for the collapse of Yugoslavia was also prepared for the USSR, and is now being planned for Russia.”

Introduction

Declaration of independence: June 25, 1991 Slovenia June 25, 1991 Croatia September 8, 1991 Macedonia November 18, 1991 Croatian Commonwealth of Herzeg-Bosna (Annexed to Bosnia in February 1994) December 19, 1991 Republic of Serbian Krajina February 28, 1992 Republika Srpska April 6, 1992 Bosnia and Herzegovina September 27, 1993 Autonomous Region of Western Bosnia (Destroyed as a result of Operation Storm) June 10, 1999 Kosovo under UN “protectorate” (Formed as a result of the NATO War against Yugoslavia) June 3, 2006 Montenegro February 17, 2008 Republic of Kosovo

During the civil war and disintegration, four of the six union republics (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia) separated from the SFRY at the end of the 20th century. At the same time, UN peacekeeping forces were introduced into the territory of first Bosnia and Herzegovina, and then the autonomous province of Kosovo.

In Kosovo and Metohija, to resolve, in accordance with the UN mandate, the interethnic conflict between the Serbian and Albanian populations, the United States and its allies conducted a military operation to occupy the autonomous region of Kosovo, which became a UN protectorate.

Meanwhile, Yugoslavia, which at the beginning of the 21st century remained two republics, turned into Lesser Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro): from 1992 to 2003 - Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), from 2003 to 2006 - confederal State Union of Serbia and Montenegro (GSSC). Yugoslavia finally ceased to exist with the withdrawal of Montenegro from the union on June 3, 2006.

The declaration of independence on February 17, 2008 of the Republic of Kosovo from Serbia can also be considered one of the components of the collapse. The Republic of Kosovo was part of the Socialist Republic of Serbia with autonomy rights, called the Socialist Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija.

1. Opposing parties

The main parties to the Yugoslav conflicts:

The Serbs, led by Slobodan Milosevic;

Bosnian Serbs, led by Radovan Karadzic;

Croats, led by Franjo Tudjman;

Bosnian Croats, led by Mate Boban;

Krajina Serbs, led by Goran Hadzic and Milan Babic;

Bosniaks, led by Alija Izetbegovic;

Autonomist Muslims led by Fikret Abdić;

Kosovo Albanians, led by Ibrahim Rugova (actually Adem Jashari, Ramush Hardinaj and Hashim Thaci).

In addition to them, the UN, the USA and their allies also took part in the conflicts; Russia played a noticeable but secondary role. The Slovenes took part in an extremely fleeting and insignificant two-week war with the federal center, while the Macedonians did not take part in the war and gained independence peacefully.

1.1. Basics of the Serbian position

According to the Serbian side, the war for Yugoslavia began as a defense of a common power, and ended with a struggle for the survival of the Serbian people and for their unification within the borders of one country. If each of the republics of Yugoslavia had the right to secede on national lines, then the Serbs as a nation had the right to prevent this division where it included territories inhabited by a Serbian majority, namely in the Serbian Krajina in Croatia and in the Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina

1.2. Basics of the Croatian position

The Croats argued that one of the conditions for joining the federation was the recognition of the right to secede from it. Tudjman often said that he was fighting for the embodiment of this right in the form of a new independent Croatian state (which some evoked associations with the Ustase Independent State of Croatia).

1.3. Basics of the Bosnian position

Bosnian Muslims were the smallest group fighting.

Their position was rather unenviable. The President of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Alija Izetbegovic, avoided taking a clear position until the spring of 1992, when it became clear that the old Yugoslavia no longer existed. Then Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence based on the results of a referendum.

Bibliography:

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Yugoslavia - history, collapse, war.

Events in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s shocked the whole world. The horrors of civil war, the atrocities of “national cleansing”, genocide, mass exodus from the country - since 1945, Europe has not seen anything like it.

Until 1991, Yugoslavia was the largest state in the Balkans. Historically, the country has been home to people of many nationalities, and differences between ethnic groups have increased over time. Thus, the Slovenes and Croats in the northwestern part of the country became Catholics and USED the Latin alphabet, while the Serbs and Montenegrins who lived closer to the south. accepted the Orthodox faith and used the Cyrillic alphabet for writing.

These lands attracted many conquerors. Croatia was captured by Hungary. 2 subsequently became part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; Serbia, like most of the Balkans, was annexed to the Ottoman Empire, and only Montenegro was able to defend its independence. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, due to political and religious factors, many residents converted to Islam.

When the Ottoman Empire began to lose its former power, Austria captured Bosnia and Herzegovina, thereby expanding its influence in the Balkans. In 1882, Serbia was reborn as an independent state: the desire to free the Slavic brothers from the yoke of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy united many Serbs.

Federal Republic

On January 31, 1946, the Constitution of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (FPRY) was adopted, which established its federal structure consisting of six republics - Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro, as well as two autonomous (self-governing) regions - Vojvodina and Kosovo.

Serbs constituted the largest ethnic group in Yugoslavia, accounting for 36% of the inhabitants. They inhabited not only Serbia, nearby Montenegro and Vojvodina: many Serbs also lived in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Kosovo. In addition to the Serbs, the country was inhabited by Slovenes, Croats, Macedonians, Albanians (in Kosovo), a national minority of Hungarians in the Vojvodina region, as well as many other small ethnic groups. Fairly or not, representatives of other national groups believed that the Serbs were trying to gain power over the entire country.

Beginning of the End

National issues in socialist Yugoslavia were considered a relic of the past. However, one of the most serious internal problems has been tensions between different ethnic groups. The northwestern republics - Slovenia and Croatia - prospered, while the standard of living of the southeastern republics left much to be desired. Massive indignation was growing in the country - a sign that the Yugoslavs did not at all consider themselves a single people, despite 60 years of existence within one power.

In 1990, in response to events in Central and Eastern Europe, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia decided to introduce a multi-party system in the country.

In the 1990 elections, Milosevic's socialist (formerly communist) party won large numbers of votes in many regions, but achieved a decisive victory only in Serbia and Montenegro.

There were heated debates in other regions. Tough measures aimed at crushing Albanian nationalism met with decisive resistance in Kosovo. In Croatia, the Serb minority (12% of the population) held a referendum in which it was decided to achieve autonomy; Frequent clashes with the Croats led to a rebellion among the local Serbs. The biggest blow for the Yugoslav state was the referendum in December 1990, which declared the independence of Slovenia.

Of all the republics, only Serbia and Montenegro now sought to maintain a strong, relatively centralized state; in addition, they had an impressive advantage - the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), which could become a trump card during future debates.

Yugoslav War

In 1991, the SFRY disintegrated. In May, Croats voted to secede from Yugoslavia, and on June 25, Slovenia and Croatia officially declared their independence. There were battles in Slovenia, but the federal positions were not strong enough, and soon the JNA troops were withdrawn from the territory of the former republic.

The Yugoslav army also acted against the rebels in Croatia; in the war that broke out, thousands of people were killed, hundreds of thousands were forced to leave their homes. All attempts by the European community and the UN to force the parties to cease fire in Croatia were in vain. The West was initially reluctant to watch the collapse of Yugoslavia, but soon began to condemn the “Great Serbian ambitions.”

The Serbs and Montenegrins accepted the inevitable split and proclaimed the creation of a new state - the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The hostilities in Croatia were over, although the conflict was not over. A new nightmare began when national tensions in Bosnia worsened.

UN peacekeeping forces were sent to Bosnia, and with varying degrees of success they succeeded in stopping the massacre, easing the fate of the besieged and starving population, and creating “safe zones” for Muslims. In August 1992, the world was shocked by revelations of the brutal treatment of people in prison camps. The United States and other countries openly accused the Serbs of genocide and war crimes, but still did not allow their troops to intervene in the conflict; later, however, it turned out that not only the Serbs were involved in the atrocities of that time.

Threats of UN air attacks forced the JNA to surrender its position and end the siege of Sarajevo, but it was clear that peacekeeping efforts to preserve multi-ethnic Bosnia had failed.

In 1996, a number of opposition parties formed a coalition called Unity, which soon organized mass demonstrations against the ruling regime in Belgrade and other major cities in Yugoslavia. However, in the elections held in the summer of 1997, Milosevic was again elected president of the FRY.

After fruitless negotiations between the government of the FRY and the Albanians - the leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (blood was still shed in this conflict), NATO announced an ultimatum to Milosevic. Starting from the end of March 1999, missile and bomb attacks began to be carried out almost every night on the territory of Yugoslavia; they ended only on June 10, after representatives of the FRY and NATO signed an agreement on the deployment of international security forces (KFOR) to Kosovo.

Among the refugees who left Kosovo during the hostilities, there were approximately 350 thousand people of non-Albanian nationality. Many of them settled in Serbia, where the total number of displaced people reached 800 thousand, and the number of people who lost their jobs reached about 500 thousand people.

In 2000, parliamentary and presidential elections were held in the FRY and local elections in Serbia and Kosovo. Opposition parties nominated a single candidate, the leader of the Democratic Party of Serbia, Vojislav Kostunica, for the presidency. On September 24, he won the elections, gaining more than 50% of the vote (Milosevic - only 37%). In the summer of 2001, the former president of the FRY was extradited to the International Tribunal in The Hague as a war criminal.

On March 14, 2002, through the mediation of the European Union, an agreement was signed on the creation of a new state - Serbia and Montenegro (Vojvodina had recently become autonomous). However, interethnic relations are still too fragile, and the internal political and economic situation in the country is unstable. In the summer of 2001, shots were fired again: Kosovo militants became more active, and this gradually developed into an open conflict between Albanian Kosovo and Macedonia, which lasted about a year. Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who authorized the transfer of Milosevic to the tribunal, was killed by a sniper rifle shot on March 12, 2003. Apparently, the “Balkan knot” will not be untangled anytime soon.

In 2006, Montenegro finally separated from Serbia and became an independent state. The European Union and the United States made an unprecedented decision and recognized the independence of Kosovo as a sovereign state.

Collapse of Yugoslavia

Like all countries of the socialist camp, Yugoslavia in the late 80s was shaken by internal contradictions caused by the rethinking of socialism. In 1990, for the first time in the post-war period, free parliamentary elections were held in the republics of the SFRY on a multi-party basis. In Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia, the communists were defeated. They won only in Serbia and Montenegro. But the victory of the anti-communist forces not only did not soften inter-republican contradictions, but also colored them in national-separatist tones. As with the collapse of the USSR, the Yugoslavs were caught off guard by the suddenness of the uncontrolled collapse of the federal state. If the Baltic countries played the role of a “national” catalyst in the USSR, then in Yugoslavia Slovenia and Croatia took on this role. The failure of the State Emergency Committee and the victory of democracy led to the bloodless formation of state structures by the former republics during the collapse of the USSR.

The collapse of Yugoslavia, unlike the USSR, took place according to the most ominous scenario. The democratic forces that were emerging here (primarily Serbia) failed to prevent the tragedy, which led to dire consequences. As in the USSR, national minorities, sensing a decrease in pressure from the Yugoslav authorities (increasingly making various kinds of concessions), immediately requested independence and, having received a refusal from Belgrade, took up arms; further events led to the complete collapse of Yugoslavia.

A. Markovich

I. Tito, a Croat by nationality, creating a federation of Yugoslav peoples, sought to protect it from Serbian nationalism. Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had long been the subject of disputes between Serbs and Croats, received a compromise status as a state of first two and then three peoples - Serbs, Croats and ethnic Muslims. As part of the federal structure of Yugoslavia, Macedonians and Montenegrins received their own national states. The 1974 Constitution provided for the creation of two autonomous provinces on Serbian territory - Kosovo and Vojvodina. Thanks to this, the issue of the status of national minorities (Albanians in Kosovo, Hungarians and over 20 ethnic groups in Vojvodina) on the territory of Serbia was resolved. Although the Serbs living on the territory of Croatia did not receive autonomy, according to the Constitution they had the status of a state-forming nation in Croatia. Tito was afraid that the state system he created would collapse after his death, and he was not mistaken. The Serb S. Milosevic, thanks to his destructive policy, the trump card of which was playing on the national feelings of the Serbs, destroyed the state created by “old Tito”.

We must not forget that the first challenge to the political balance of Yugoslavia was posed by the Albanians in the autonomous province of Kosovo in southern Serbia. By that time, the population of the region consisted of almost 90% Albanians and 10% Serbs, Montenegrins and others. In April 1981, the majority of Albanians took part in demonstrations and rallies, demanding republican status for the region. In response, Belgrade sent troops to Kosovo, declaring a state of emergency there. The situation was also aggravated by the Belgrade “recolonization plan,” which guaranteed jobs and housing for Serbs moving to the region. Belgrade sought to artificially increase the number of Serbs in the region in order to abolish the autonomous entity. In response, Albanians began to leave the Communist Party and carry out repressions against Serbs and Montenegrins. By the fall of 1989, demonstrations and unrest in Kosovo were ruthlessly suppressed by the Serbian military authorities. By the spring of 1990, the Serbian National Assembly announced the dissolution of the government and people's assembly of Kosovo and introduced censorship. The Kosovo issue had a distinct geopolitical aspect for Serbia, which was concerned about Tirana's plans to create a "Greater Albania" that would include territories populated by ethnic Albanians such as Kosovo and parts of Macedonia and Montenegro. Serbia's actions in Kosovo gave it a very bad reputation in the eyes of the world community, but it is ironic that the same community said nothing when a similar incident occurred in Croatia in August 1990. The Serbian minority in the city of Knin in the Serbian Region decided to hold a referendum on the issue of cultural autonomy. As in Kosovo, it turned into unrest, suppressed by the Croatian leadership, which rejected the referendum as unconstitutional.

Thus, in Yugoslavia, by the end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s, all the prerequisites were created for national minorities to enter the struggle for their independence. Neither the Yugoslav leadership nor the world community could prevent this except by armed means. It is therefore not surprising that events in Yugoslavia unfolded with such rapidity.

Slovenia was the first to take the official step of breaking relations with Belgrade and defining its independence. Tensions between the “Serbian” and “Slavic-Croatian” blocs in the ranks of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia reached its climax in February 1990 at the XIV Congress, when the Slovenian delegation left the meeting.

At that time, there were three plans for the state reorganization of the country: confederal reorganization put forward by the Presidiums of Slovenia and Croatia; federal reorganization of the Union Presidium; “Platform on the future of the Yugoslav state” - Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. But the meetings of the republican leaders showed that the main goal of the multi-party elections and referendum was not the democratic transformation of the Yugoslav community, but the legitimation of the programs for the future reorganization of the country put forward by the leaders of the republics.

Since 1990, Slovenian public opinion began to look for a solution in Slovenia's exit from Yugoslavia. The parliament elected on a multi-party basis adopted the Declaration of Sovereignty of the Republic on July 2, 1990, and on June 25, 1991, Slovenia declared its independence. Serbia already agreed in 1991 with Slovenia's secession from Yugoslavia. However, Slovenia sought to become the legal successor of a single state as a result of “disunion” rather than secession from Yugoslavia.

In the second half of 1991, this republic took decisive steps towards achieving independence, thereby largely determining the pace of development of the Yugoslav crisis and the nature of the behavior of other republics. First of all, Croatia, which feared that with Slovenia’s exit from Yugoslavia, the balance of power in the country would be disrupted to its detriment. The unsuccessful end of inter-republican negotiations, the growing mutual distrust between national leaders, as well as between the Yugoslav peoples, the arming of the population on a national basis, the creation of the first paramilitary forces - all this contributed to the creation of an explosive situation that led to armed conflicts.

The political crisis culminated in May–June with the declaration of independence of Slovenia and Croatia on June 25, 1991. Slovenia accompanied this act by seizing border control points where the state insignia of the republic was installed. The government of the SFRY, led by A. Markovic, recognized this as illegal and the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) took protection of the external borders of Slovenia. As a result, from June 27 to July 2, battles took place here with well-organized units of the Republican Territorial Defense of Slovenia. The Six-Day War in Slovenia was short and inglorious for the JNA. The army did not achieve any of its goals, losing forty soldiers and officers. Not much compared to the future thousands of victims, but proof that no one will give up their independence just like that, even if it has not yet been recognized.

In Croatia, the war took on the character of a clash between the Serbian population, who wanted to remain part of Yugoslavia, on whose side were the JNA soldiers, and the Croatian armed units, who sought to prevent the separation of part of the territory of the republic.

The Croatian Democratic Community won the Croatian parliamentary elections in 1990. In August–September 1990, armed clashes between local Serbs and Croatian police and guards in the Klin Region began here. In December of the same year, the Croatian Council adopted a new Constitution, declaring the republic “unitary and indivisible.”

The Union leadership could not come to terms with this, since Belgrade had its own plans for the future of the Serbian enclaves in Croatia, in which a large community of Serbian expatriates lived. Local Serbs responded to the new Constitution by creating the Serbian Autonomous Region in February 1991.

On June 25, 1991, Croatia declared its independence. As in the case of Slovenia, the government of the SFRY recognized this decision as illegal, declaring claims to part of Croatia, namely the Serbian Krajina. On this basis, fierce armed clashes took place between the Serbs and Croats with the participation of JNA units. In the Croatian war there were no longer minor skirmishes, as in Slovenia, but real battles using various types of weapons. And the losses in these battles on both sides were enormous: about 10 thousand killed, including several thousand civilians, more than 700 thousand refugees fled to neighboring countries.

At the end of 1991, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution to send peacekeeping forces to Yugoslavia, and the EU Council of Ministers imposed sanctions against Serbia and Montenegro. In February-March 1992, on the basis of the resolution, a contingent of UN peacekeeping forces arrived in Croatia. It also included a Russian battalion. With the help of international forces, military actions were somehow contained, but the excessive cruelty of the warring parties, especially towards the civilian population, pushed them to mutual revenge, which led to new clashes.

On the initiative of Russia, on May 4, 1995, at an urgently convened meeting of the UN Security Council, the invasion of Croatian troops into the separation zone was condemned. At the same time, the Security Council condemned the Serbian shelling of Zagreb and other centers of concentration of the civilian population. In August 1995, after the punitive operations of the Croatian troops, about 500 thousand Krajina Serbs were forced to flee their lands, and the exact number of victims of this operation is still unknown. This is how Zagreb solved the problem of a national minority on its territory, while the West turned a blind eye to Croatia’s actions, limiting itself to calls for an end to the bloodshed.

The center of the Serbo-Croat conflict was moved to territory that had been disputed from the very beginning - Bosnia and Herzegovina. Here the Serbs and Croats began to demand the division of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina or its reorganization on a confederal basis by creating ethnic cantons. The Muslim Democratic Action Party, led by A. Izetbegovic, which advocated a unitary civil republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, did not agree with this demand. In turn, this aroused the suspicion of the Serbian side, which believed that we were talking about the creation of an “Islamic fundamentalist republic”, 40% of the population of which were Muslims.

All attempts at a peaceful settlement, for various reasons, did not lead to the desired result. In October 1991, Muslim and Croat deputies of the Assembly adopted a memorandum on the sovereignty of the republic. The Serbs found it unacceptable for themselves to remain with minority status outside of Yugoslavia, in a state dominated by the Muslim-Croat coalition.

In January 1992, the republic appealed to the European Community to recognize its independence; Serbian deputies left parliament, boycotted its further work and refused to participate in the referendum, in which the majority of the population supported the creation of a sovereign state. In response, local Serbs created their own Assembly, and when the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina was recognized by the EU countries, the USA, and Russia, the Serbian community announced the creation of the Serbian Republic in Bosnia. The confrontation escalated into an armed conflict, with the participation of various armed groups, ranging from small armed groups to the JNA. Bosnia and Herzegovina had a huge amount of equipment, weapons and ammunition on its territory, which were stored there or left behind by the JNA that left the republic. All this became excellent fuel for the outbreak of armed conflict.

In her article, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher wrote: “Terrible things are happening in Bosnia, and it looks like it will be even worse. Sarajevo is under continuous shelling. Gorazde is besieged and is about to be occupied by the Serbs. Massacres will probably begin there... This is the Serbian policy of “ethnic cleansing”, that is, the expulsion of the non-Serb population from Bosnia...

From the very beginning, the supposedly independent Serb military formations in Bosnia operate in close contact with the Serbian army high command in Belgrade, which actually maintains them and supplies them with everything they need to fight the war. The West should present an ultimatum to the Serbian government, demanding, in particular, to stop economic support for Bosnia, sign an agreement on the demilitarization of Bosnia, facilitate the unhindered return of refugees to Bosnia, etc.”

An international conference held in London in August 1992 led to the fact that the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, R. Karadzic, promised to withdraw troops from the occupied territory, transfer heavy weapons to UN control, and close the camps in which Muslims and Croats were kept. S. Milosevic agreed to allow international observers into the JNA units located in Bosnia, and pledged to recognize the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina and respect its borders. The parties kept their promises, although the peacekeepers more than once had to call on the warring parties to stop the clashes and truce.

Obviously, the international community should have demanded that Slovenia, Croatia and then Bosnia and Herzegovina give certain guarantees to the national minorities living on their territory. In December 1991, while the war was raging in Croatia, the EU adopted criteria for the recognition of new states in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, in particular, “guarantees of the rights of ethnic and national groups and minorities in accordance with CSCE commitments; respect for the inviolability of all boundaries, which cannot be changed except by peaceful means with general consent.” This criterion was not very strictly observed when it came to Serbian minorities.

Interestingly, the West and Russia at this stage could have prevented violence in Yugoslavia by formulating clear principles for self-determination and putting forward preconditions for the recognition of new states. The legal framework would be of great importance, since it has a decisive influence on such serious issues as territorial integrity, self-determination, the right to self-determination, and the rights of national minorities. Russia, of course, should have been interested in developing such principles, since it faced and still faces similar problems in the former USSR.

But what is especially striking is that after the bloodshed in Croatia, the EU, followed by the US and Russia, repeated the same mistake in Bosnia, recognizing its independence without any preconditions and without taking into account the position of the Bosnian Serbs. The ill-considered recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina made war there inevitable. And although the West forced Bosnian Croats and Muslims to coexist in one state and, together with Russia, tried to put pressure on the Bosnian Serbs, the structure of this federation is still artificial, and many do not believe that it will last long.

The EU's biased attitude towards the Serbs as the main culprits of the conflict also makes one think. At the end of 1992 - beginning of 1993. Russia has raised the issue of the need to influence Croatia several times in the UN Security Council. The Croats initiated several armed clashes in the Serbian Region, disrupting a meeting on the Krajina problem organized by UN representatives, they tried to blow up a hydroelectric power station on Serbian territory - the UN and other organizations did nothing to stop them.

The same tolerance characterized the international community's treatment of Bosnian Muslims. In April 1994, the Bosnian Serbs were subject to NATO air strikes for their attacks on Gorazde, interpreted as a threat to the safety of UN personnel, although some of these attacks were instigated by Muslims. Encouraged by the leniency of the international community, Bosnian Muslims resorted to the same tactics in Brcko, Tuzla and other Muslim enclaves under the protection of UN forces. They tried to provoke the Serbs by attacking their positions, because they knew that the Serbs would again be subjected to NATO air raids if they tried to retaliate.

By the end of 1995, the Russian Foreign Ministry was in an extremely difficult situation. The state's policy of rapprochement with the West led to the fact that Russia supported almost all the initiatives of Western countries to resolve conflicts. The dependence of Russian policy on successive foreign currency loans led to the rapid advancement of NATO in the role of a leading organization. And yet, Russia’s attempts to resolve conflicts were not in vain, forcing the warring parties to periodically sit down at the negotiating table. Carrying out political activity within the boundaries allowed to it by its Western partners, Russia has ceased to be a factor determining the course of events in the Balkans. Russia at one time voted for establishing peace by military means in Bosnia and Herzegovina using NATO forces. Having a military training ground in the Balkans, NATO no longer imagined any other way to solve any new problem other than an armed one. This played a decisive role in resolving the Kosovo problem, the most dramatic of the Balkan conflicts.

Yugoslavia - history, collapse, war.

Events in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s shocked the whole world. The horrors of civil war, the atrocities of “national cleansing”, genocide, mass flight from the country - since 1945, Europe has not seen anything like it.

Federal Republic

Serbs made up the largest ethnic group in Yugoslavia with 36% of the inhabitants. They inhabited not only Serbia, nearby Montenegro and Vojvodina: many Serbs also lived in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Kosovo. In addition to the Serbs, the country was inhabited by Slovenes, Croats, Macedonians, Albanians (in Kosovo), a national minority of Hungarians in the Vojvodina region, as well as many other small ethnic groups. Fairly or not, representatives of other national groups believed that the Serbs were trying to gain power over the entire country.

Beginning of the End

In 1990, in response to events in Central and Eastern Europe, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia decided to introduce a multi-party system in the country. In the 1990 elections, Milosevic's socialist (formerly communist) party won large numbers of votes in many regions, but achieved a decisive victory only in Serbia and Montenegro.

Yugoslav War

Threats of UN air attacks forced the JNA to surrender its position and end the siege of Sarajevo, but it was clear that peacekeeping efforts to preserve multi-ethnic Bosnia had failed.

After fruitless negotiations between the government of the FRY and the Albanian leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (blood was still shed in this conflict), NATO announced an ultimatum to Milosevic. Starting from the end of March 1999, missile and bomb attacks began to be carried out almost every night on the territory of Yugoslavia; they ended only on June 10, after representatives of the FRY and NATO signed an agreement on the deployment of international security forces (KFOR) to Kosovo.

In 2000, parliamentary and presidential elections were held in the FRY and local elections in Serbia and Kosovo. Opposition parties nominated a single candidate - the leader of the Democratic Party of Serbia, Vojislav Kostunica - for the presidency. On September 24, he won the elections with more than 50% of the votes (Milosevic - only 37%). In the summer of 2001, the former president of the FRY was extradited to the International Tribunal in The Hague as a war criminal.

Attention! Kosovo still remains only a partially recognized state, and Russia does not recognize it. But since this state actually exists (like the DPR, Nagorno-Karabakh, Taiwan or Somaliland), exercises border control and establishes its own order in a certain territory, it is more convenient to call it a separate state.

Short review

They like to compare Yugoslavia with the Soviet Union, and its collapse with the collapse of the USSR. I will take this comparison as a basis and tell briefly about the main peoples of the former Yugoslavia by analogy with the peoples of the former Union.

Serbs are like Russians, an imperial-forming Orthodox people who united everyone and then did not want to let go. The Serbs also believed that the whole world hated them, that they were a stronghold of the true faith and an outpost against the corrupting influence of the West. But after a decade of bloody wars with their neighbors, they somehow calmed down, stopped believing that the main thing in life was the greatness of Serbia and the protection of the Serbian people, and began to organize their country. In 2000, Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic was overthrown, a sane government came to power, and since then Serbia has been developing like all normal countries.

Serbian priest and his friend.Neighborhoods of Mokra Gora (Serbia)

Montenegrins are like Belarusians. A people who are calmer and less concerned about the great mission, so close to the Serbs that it’s even difficult to say what the difference is between them. Only Montenegrins (unlike Belarusians) have a sea, but (again, unlike Belarusians) do not have their own language. The Montenegrins stayed with the Serbs longer than others. Even when the Serbs finally admitted that Yugoslavia had collapsed, the Montenegrins formed a confederate state with them - the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. And only in 2006, in a referendum, slightly more than half of Montenegrins decided to leave the confederation and form a new state.

Montenegrin truck driver. On the way from Cetinje to Kotor (Montenegro).

Croats are like Ukrainians, or rather even Western Ukrainians. Although the Croats are close in language and culture to the Serbs and Montenegrins, they long ago accepted Catholicism, considered themselves part of Europe and always considered themselves superior to any Orthodox cattle. They even had their own analogue of “Bandera” - the so-called “Ustashi” (Croatian fascists who helped the Hitlers) and their own analogue of “Novorossiya” (the so-called Serbian Krajina - a region of Croatia inhabited by Serbs and which declared independence in the early 1990s. ). However, the Croats crushed separatism faster and more successfully than the Ukrainians and moved to Europe. Croatia has already become a member of the European Union and looks like a fairly prosperous and civilized country.

Croatian policemen and saleswoman. Zagreb (Croatia)

Slovenes are like our Baltic people. Among the Yugoslavs, they have always been a more developed, civilized and European-oriented people. It seems that even the Serbs agreed with this, so they gave them independence relatively easily. Slovenians have been in the European Union and the Eurozone for a long time, they have a clean, pleasant, developed and safe country.

Former mayor of the Slovenian town of Canal and director of the hitchhiking museum in the city of Bled (Slovenia)

It is difficult to compare Bosnia and Herzegovina with anything, because a similar conflict did not occur in the history of the USSR. However, it is imaginable. Imagine purely hypothetically that in the early 1990s in Kazakhstan, the Russian population of the north of the country declared an independent republic and started a war with the south, populated mainly by Kazakhs. At the same time, the Ukrainians living in Kazakhstan remembered their independence and, in their places of compact residence, began to fight both the Kazakhs and the Russians. Later, the country would be divided into two autonomous parts - Russian and Kazakh-Ukrainian, and in the Russian part no one would still recognize the government of Kazakhstan, hang Russian flags and wait for a reason to finally secede. Something like this happened in Bosnia: first, a mutual war between Serbs, Bosnian Muslims and Croats, and then the division of the country into two parts - Serbian and Muslim-Croatian.

Passengers of the city tram. Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

Macedonians - I don’t even know what it is. One could compare them with Moldovans or Georgians - also Orthodox peoples living in small and poor countries. But Moldova and Georgia fell into several parts, and Macedonia still retained its integrity. Therefore, let's say that Macedonia is like Kyrgyzstan, only Orthodox. The Serbs didn’t even fight here: Macedonia separated - and God bless it. The Yugoslav war reached here in the early 2000s: in 2001, clashes took place in the country between the Macedonian majority and the Albanian minority, which demanded greater autonomy. Well, much like in Kyrgyzstan, there were several clashes between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz.

Our friend is an Albanian from the Macedonian city of Tetovo (right) and his friend

Well, Kosovo is obviously Chechnya. A region that could not officially secede from Serbia, but which nonetheless resisted long and stubbornly. The result was formally different (Kosovo achieved actual independence, but Chechnya did not), but both there and there peace and tranquility were established and you can go there completely without fear.

Street corn vendor in Pristina (Kosovo)

Albania does not belong to Yugoslavia, but has always been close to this region. Josip Broz Tito, the leader of socialist Yugoslavia, even wanted to annex Albania to Yugoslavia as another federal republic. There is a version that he allowed the Albanians to live in Kosovo in order to show them the benefits of living in his country, after which all of Albania, in one impulse, should have entered Yugoslavia. As a result, Albania never visited Yugoslavia, but was always considered a congenial and eternally poor neighbor. In general, Albania is for Yugoslavia what Mongolia is for the Soviet Union.

Albanian girl. City of Durres (Albania)

For a deeper dive into the history of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav, I recommend Leonid Mlechin’s wonderful documentary “The Yugoslav Tragedy.” The film has no biases in the pro-Serbian or anti-Serbian side, does not paint anyone as white and fluffy, and fairly honestly tries to tell about the time when in the former Yugoslavia people went crazy en masse and started killing each other.

Relation to the past

Yugoslavia was, by socialist standards, a very developed country. It had the highest standard of living among socialist countries, not counting the GDR. In Russia, the older generation can still remember that a trip to Yugoslavia was almost equivalent to a trip to a capitalist country.

Then in the early 90s there was war, economic recession and unemployment. Therefore, many people still treat the socialist past normally and even with nostalgia. It is clear that socialism is remembered more warmly in less developed countries (Bosnia, Serbia, etc.), while in more developed countries (Slovenia and Croatia) it is rather viewed negatively.

Graffiti on a wall in Cetinje (Montenegro)

Even before the trip, I heard that the Balkan peoples still respect Josip Broz Tito, the leader of Yugoslavia from 1945-1980, despite the fact that in the early 1990s. His inheritance was so actively destroyed. This is true - in many cities in the former Yugoslavia, including Croatian, Macedonian and Bosnian ones, there are Tito streets and squares.

Tito, although he was a dictator, was soft by the standards of the 20th century. He carried out repression only against his political opponents, and not against entire ethnic groups or social groups. In this regard, Tito is more like Brezhnev or Franco than Hitler and Stalin. Therefore, in people's memory his image is rather positive.

Josip Broz Tito's grave in the Museum of Yugoslav History in Belgrade (Serbia)

It is interesting that Tito, the son of a Croatian and a Slovenian, actively mixed the population, encouraged interethnic marriages and the cohabitation of different peoples. His goal was to create a new nation - the "Yugoslavs". We have met such people several times - those who were born from mixed marriages or are married to a representative of another nation. But he failed to complete the job. During the collapse of the country, it became clear that the Yugoslavs did not exist, just as the “Soviet people” did not exist, but there were different peoples.

City of Travnik (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

Then the “Yugoslav War” occurred - a series of armed conflicts in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Macedonia. It was the bloodiest war on the European continent since World War II, with more than 100 thousand people killed. The level of mutual hatred between peoples who had recently lived peacefully next to each other increased to an extreme degree. It’s amazing how quickly people are able to divide into “us” and “strangers” and violently destroy each other. Unfortunately, there are always gopniks who will only be glad that it has become possible to kill, rob and rape, and not just like that, but for a high idea - say, for Allah or for the Orthodox faith.

People in the Balkans became obsessed with national and religious hatred very quickly, but, fortunately, they came to their senses just as quickly. The conflict did not turn into an eternal smoldering conflict, as in some Palestine or Nagorno-Karabakh. When the main troglodyte cannibals left power, the new governments quickly settled into constructive cooperation. For example, in 2003, the presidents of Croatia and Serbia formally apologized to each other for what their predecessors had done.

City of Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

And this is the most pleasing thing when traveling through the former Yugoslavia - the former enmity has almost been forgotten and people have gradually become accustomed to the fact that not enemies live nearby, but exactly the same people. Today, Serbs, Croats, and Bosnian Muslims peacefully coexist and travel to visit each other, on business, and to visit relatives. The worst thing they told me was that some car with Serbian license plates in Croatia could have its door scratched.

Probably the same feelings would have existed in Western Europe in the 1960s. The war seems to have happened quite recently, but there is no mutual hatred and people are worried about completely different issues.

True, some tension is still felt in Serbian areas outside of Serbia. The Serbs living in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, it seems, still have not come to terms with the fact that they have become a national minority in a foreign state. Perhaps the same thing is happening with the Serbs in Croatia. They do not like or recognize these new states of theirs; they hang Serbian flags everywhere and scold both the government of their current states and the Serbian government (they say that Serbia betrayed and forgot them). But even in these places it is now safe - for example, Serbs can easily travel to Albanian areas and vice versa. So let's hope that sooner or later all these contradictions will be resolved.

Bridge over the Serbian and Albanian parts of the city of Mitrovica (Kosovo)

Economy and level of development

What is most surprising about Yugoslavia is how good its constituent countries look. Of course, they are far from Western Europe, but they are still noticeably ahead of the countries of the former Union. There are very good roads here, including expressways, good and beautiful houses rise in the villages, all the fields are sown, new trams and buses run through the cities, the cities have clean and well-maintained streets.

Residential area of Novi Sad (Serbia)

A characteristic feature is that in the former Yugoslavia almost everywhere is very clean. In cities, different surfaces don’t have a layer of dirt or dust on them, like here, and you can almost always sit on a curb or steps without worrying about the cleanliness of your pants. There are no clouds of dust rising from passing cars, and there are no dirt roadsides on country roads, so you can safely put down your backpack when you catch a car.

In short, although the Yugoslavs are also Slavs and also experienced socialism, for some reason they know simple rules thanks to which the cities remain clean. Those interested in this topic can read Varlamov’s post “How to make sidewalks correctly” and Lebedev’s post “Russian drist”; it describes in detail and clearly why our cities are dirty, while European cities are not.

Berat city center (Albania)

This picture is floating around the Balkan Internet.

Translation: “Ships and planes disappear in this triangle. And in this triangle, young people, investments, happiness and the future disappear.”

It seems to me that the Balkans (if they were the ones painting the picture) are too self-critical. All these countries are developing and look quite good. Especially when compared with our Slavic triangle Russia - Ukraine - Belarus, where over the past few years investments and the future have really been disappearing.

The poorest country in the region is Albania, but it also looks relatively good. The outback there is generally much better than the Russian one. Things are somewhat better in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Serbia and Kosovo. It’s even better in Croatia, and very good in Slovenia.

Village in eastern Serbia

People and mentality

The Balkans are inhabited mainly by Slavs who have lived through several decades of socialism. Therefore, in their character you can find a lot in common with us. As I already said, people here are not particularly religious, and passion for Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Islam has become more of a fashion than a deeply conscious choice. The Albanian with whom we stayed in Pristina convinced us that all the problems in Europe are from Muslims, and if it were his will, he would expel all Muslims from Europe. To my question: “Aren’t Albanians Muslims?” he replied: “Come on, these are European Muslims! We are completely different, we have no religious fanaticism!”

Rules of behavior in the mosque. Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

People here have a slightly more disregard for the law than Western Europeans. This, of course, has its advantages for the traveler - for example, a car can stop and pick you up in a place where stopping is prohibited. But there are also disadvantages - for example, the same car in the city will park on the sidewalk and interfere with pedestrians.

Our Belgrade acquaintance, a completely pro-Western guy with a European mindset, nevertheless said that you don’t have to pay for travel on the bus, “and if they come to check your tickets, go to the door, stand with your back to the controllers and don’t react to their comments - they , most likely, will quickly fall behind.” A very familiar attitude towards established rules.

It’s sad that many people are starting to scold America (they say, it has quarreled everyone in the Balkans) and praise Putin (here, they say, he’s a normal leader, we need one like him). This infantile attitude towards politics is a little annoying - like one big guy came and ruined everything, but another big guy should come and fix everything, and we have nothing to do with it here at all.

Putin, as usual, is loved here much more than in Russia itself - and not only by Serbs, but even by some Croats, Albanians and representatives of other nationalities. One would think that they were saying this out of politeness, but no - when we answered that we ourselves had a cool attitude towards Putin, people were surprised. How can you not love him, he fights America so bravely? True, T-shirts with Putin are sold only where Serbs live; in other places it is somehow not customary to display this.

Sale of T-shirts in Banja Luka (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

In general, with Yugoslavs there is almost always a common language and topics for conversation. Even if people have completely different political views, the cultural code, so to speak, is still common: they understand our problems, and we understand their problems. You drive through the former Yugoslavia, almost like you drive through your native land, but which looks and develops much better.