Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
When the Austro-Hungarian Empire fell at the end of World War I, the map of Europe was
redrawnforthe20thcentury.Aftercenturiesofbeinggovernedbyforeignpowers,theSouth
Slavs began to see their shared history as more important than their differences. The Serbs
pushed for the creation of an independent South Slav state, recognizing that a tiny coun-
try of a few million Croats or Slovenes couldn't survive on its own. And so, rather than
be absorbed by a non-Slavic power, the South Slavs decided that there was safety in num-
bers, and banded together to form the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (1918),
laterknownastheKingdomofYugoslavia(LandoftheSouthSlavs—
yugo
means“south”).
“Yugoslav unity” was in the air. But this new union was fragile and ultimately bound to fail
(not unlike the partnership between the Czechs and Slovaks, formed at the same time and
for similar reasons).
From the very beginning, the various ethnicities struggled for power within the new
Yugoslavia. The largest group was the Serbs (about 45 percent), followed by the Croats
(about 25 percent). Croats often felt they were treated as lesser partners under the Serbs.
For example, many Croats objected to naming the country's official language “Serbo-
Croatian”—why not “Croato-Serbian”? Serbia already had a very strong king, Alexander
Kara
đ
or
đ
evi
ć
, who assumed that his nation would have a leading role in the federation. A
nationalistic Croat politician named Stjepan Radi
ć
, pushing for a more equitable division of
powers, was shot by a Serb during a parliamentary session in 1928. Kara
đ
or
đ
evi
ć
abolished
the parliament and became dictator. Six years later, infuriated Croat separatists killed him.
By the time World War II came to Yugoslavia, the kingdom was already on the verge of
collapse. The conflicts between the various Yugoslav groups set the stage for a particularly
complex and gruesome wartime experience.
Observers struggle to comprehend how it was possible for interethnic conflict to escalate
so quickly here in the early 1990s. Most of the answers can be found in the war that shook
Europe 50 years earlier. In the minds of the participants, the wars of the 1990s were a con-
tinuation of unresolved conflicts from World War II.
Capitalizing on a power struggle surrounding Yugoslavia's too-young-to-rule king, and
angered by a popular uprising against the tenuous deals that Yugoslavia had struck with
NaziGermany,HitlersenttheLuftwaffetoair-bombBelgradeonApril6,1941.Thisclassic
blitzkriegmaneuverwasfollowedbyagroundinvasion,andwithin11days,Yugoslaviahad
surrendered. The core of the nation (much of today's Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina) be-
came the misnamed Independent State of Croatia, which was run by a Nazi puppet govern-
mentcalledtheUstaše.Meanwhile,muchoftoday'sSerbiawasoccupiedbyNaziGermany,
