Brief History of Yugoslavia

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   The Yugoslavia which emerged from World War II was a six republic federation. From north-west to south east, the political entities were Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia. 
At various times during the past millennium, the country know known as Yugoslavia, and its surrounding countries, straddled the borders of three faith groups: Islam, Orthodox Christianity, and Roman Catholicism. Various sources give conflicting stories of the area's past. The following is our initial attempt at describing the history of Yugoslavia. Although this data came from usually reliable sources, we are uncertain about its reliability. We will attempt to improve this in the near future:

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Prior to 6^th century CE: Kosovo and the surrounding area were occupied by the Illyrian people, who became present-day Albanians. 

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6^th & 7^th centuries CE: The Serbs arrived in Kosovo and the surrounding area.

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12 & 13^th century: Rastko (1174-1236 CE) created the first Serbian national church. After a brief alliance with Rome, the church became part of Orthodox Christianity.

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14^th century: The Ottoman Turks conquered what is now Yugoslavia at the Battle of Kosovo in the Field of Blackbirds in 1389 CE. Serbian Prince Lazar could have avoided the conflict by agreeing to pay tribute to Murad I, the Turkish Sultan. However, Lazar and his army rejected this option. They swore the Kosovo Covenant. This committed them to fight to the death of the last man rather than submit to control from a foreign power. Islam was introduced by the Turks during their occupation.

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15^th century: Muslim influence was extended to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Islam expanded accordingly.

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16^th century: Slovenia and Croatia came under the influence of Austria. Roman Catholicism was introduced. Thousands of Serbs were forcibly relocated to the Croatian border with Bosnia.

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19^th century: After Russia defeated the Turks, Serbia was granted independence. But Kosovo and Macedonia remained under the control of the Turks. The Austro-Hungarians got control of Bosnia-Herzegovina and retained Croatia and Slovenia.

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Pre-World War II: With the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the collapse of the Ottoman empire, and the conclusion of World War I, Yugoslavia became a kingdom under King Alexander. His dictatorship included Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia. A fascist separatist movement, the Ustase, was established by the Croats to promote their independence.

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World War II: The Nazis over-ran Yugoslavia. The country was partitioned. The fascist Ustashe (Croatians; primarily Roman Catholics) established a puppet Nazi state, which included Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Large numbers of Serbian Orthodox believers, Jews and Roma (Gypsies) were exterminated. The killings were perpetrated by the Nazis, the Ustashe, and occasionally by the Bosnian Muslims.  The 21^st division of the German Waffen SS was recruited almost entirely from ethnic Albanians. "In the winter of 1944-45 it carried out the last ethnic cleansing exercise of the war. It did this in Kosovo, against the Serbs." ₃During the war, Jews were relatively safe in Bosnia. The Bosnian Serbs largely protected them from the Holocaust. A civil war followed World War II; as many as 1 million Yugoslavs were killed.

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1945 to 1980: Joseph Tito unified the 6 republics into a communist dictatorship, independent of Russia. He was able to suppress religious and cultural rivalries among the Roman Catholics, Serbian Orthodox and Muslims during his lifetime. But, as noted in the quotation at the start of this essay, no concerted attempt was made by the political or religious leaders to settle centuries-old religious hatreds. An opportunity was missed that might have avoided (or reduced) ethnic cleansing and genocide during the 1990's. 
Tito angered the Serbs by granting autonomy to the north-eastern province of Vojvodina and the southern province of Kosovo in 1974.

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1980's: Tito died in 1980. In 1987, while investigating allegations that the minority Serbs in Kosovo were being attacked by the ethnic Albanian majority, Slobodan Milosevic had promised his fellow Serbs that "No one will ever beat you again." Milosevic quickly became a Serbian hero, and was able to force changes to the Yugoslav constitution through its Parliament in 1989. ₂This terminated the autonomous status of the provinces of Vojvodina (in the north) and Kosovo (in the south). Milosevic "removed Kosovo's autonomy, established direct Serbian rule over the province, expelled the Albanians from the Kosovo parliament, the state bureaucracy, and state owned industries, and closed the state-run school system and most of the medical system to them." The Albanians in Kosovo became a majority with few rights in their own country. Leading Kosovo intellectual, Ibrahim Rogova, promoted a nonviolent approach to resolve the system of Apartheid under which they were persecuted.

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1990's: The unravelling of Yugoslavia accellerated. 

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1990: The north-west province of Slovenia voted the Communist party out of office. Slovenia won its independence from the rest of Yugoslavia in 1991.

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1991: Croatia made a bid for independence. Croats and Serbs started a civil war. The U.N. assisted in establishing a cease-fire, starting in 1992.

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1991: Macedonia declared independence. It was admitted to the UN under a provisional name in 1993, and was recognized by the U.S. and Russia in 1994.

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1992: Bosnia declared independence. A civil war among the Croats, Serbs and Muslims erupted. The world was horrified by new images of starving prisoners in concentration camps. The civilian population was heavily targeted by armies on all sides. Hans K�ng and Karl-Josef Kuschel commented: "Similarly, there is no doubt that the Catholic and Orthodox churches in particular have identified themselves all too much with their own political leadership in the most recent controversies and not made a commitment for peace openly, opportunely and energetically." ₁

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1995: The Dayton Accord, brokered by the U.S., established a fragile peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Representatives from Kosovo were excluded from the talks. It probably would not have been possible to get the principal parties in the Bosnian conflict to the Dayton bargaining table if Kosovo was on the agenda. The conflicts in Kosovo was not discussed; "Rugova's nonviolent strategy lost its credibility." ₂

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1996-7: Following the Dayton Accord, many ethnic Albanians in Kosovo decided that their nonviolent approach was getting nowhere. The Kosovo Liberation Army began a guerrilla campaign.

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1998: The situation had become critical. The Serb army destroyed several villages in Kosovo in order to evaluate Western reaction. The West responded with "rhetoric and...meetings," ₂but no credible threats. The Yugoslavian government then escalated the conflict.

Yugoslavia has been gradually disintegrating since the death of Tito. The country lost much of its territory and population during the 1990's as Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina achieved independence. As of 1999-APR, Yugoslavia consists of only four provinces: Vojvodina, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo. Montenegro has a large degree of local autonomy. The government and Serbian people of Yugoslavia are totally opposed to losing any more territory to independence or autonomy movements. This has recently led to a massive civil war in Kosovo, and a (currently) lower-scale program of ethnic cleansing in Vojavadina.

Quote: 

"...the peace negotiations between the Orthodox [Christian] Serbs, the Catholic Croats and the Muslim Bosnians had collapsed again. And there is no doubt that the religions that are so involved here had neglected in the period of more than forty years since the Second World War to engage in mourning, honestly confess the crimes which had been committed by all sides in the course of the centuries, and ask one another for mutual forgiveness....I think there can be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions!" Hans K�ng and Karl-Josef Kuschel, commenting in 1993 on conflict within the former Yugoslavia. ₁

Brief History of Yugoslavia

Maps of the Balkans, Yugoslavia and Kosovo: