Fall Of Yugoslavia

The December of 1991 marked the end of the Soviet Union—and with it, an entire era. Like the February Revolution of 1917 that ended tsardom, the events leading up to August 1991 took place in rapid succession, with both spontaneity and, to some degree, retrospective inevitability. To understand the demise of Soviet Union is to understand the communist party-state system itself. Although the particular happenings of the Gorbachev years undoubtedly accelerated its ruin, there existed fundamental flaws within the Soviet system that would be had been proven ultimately fatal. The USSR became a past chapter of history because it was impossible to significantly reform the administrative

After the First World War country was united with other Slav territories to form Yugoslavia. At the time, the population of Bosnia consisted of over 1,300,000 Serbs which were Orthodox Catholic Christians, million Muslim Bosnians and around 700,000 of Croats. They all were strong attached to this land by the historical and local claims. After the death of Josip Broz Tito, elections in 1990 brought nationalists to power in Slovenia, Macedonia and Croatia, which declared independence in 1991 and were recognised internationally. The Leader of Bosnia’s, Alija Izetbegovic called for independence too, and the country was recognised as independent by the USA and the EU in 1992. However, Bosnia’s Serbs weren’t happy because they wanted to be part of “Greater Serbia”. a Serbian named Slobodan Milosevic, a former Communist responded to Bosnian’s declaration of independence by attacking and bombarding the capital city, Sarajevo. Serbs shot down civilians in the streets, including over 3,500 children.

One of the youngest nations of Europe, Yugoslavia was created after World War I as a homeland for several different rival ethnic groups. The country was put together mostly from remnants of the collapsed Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary. Demands for self-determination by Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, and others were ignored. Yugoslavia thus became an uneasy association of peoples conditioned by centuries of ethnic and religious hatreds. World War II aggravated these rivalries, but Communist dictatorship after the war controlled them for 45 years. When the Communist system failed, the old rivalries reasserted themselves; and in the early 1990s the nation was rent by secessionist movements and civil war. Within several years these conflicts

Which country did NOT become politically controlled by the Soviet Union after World War II? *Yugoslavia*

Also, during this time “Ethnic Fault Lines” were created resulting in stronger violence along these areas. Reference the attached map of Yugoslavia in the Cited Sources section to view the map of ethnic majorities within the Yugoslavian region. This is a perfect example of how all the ethnicities were spread out across the region and not simply contained to one area allowing for the violent ethnic fault lines. Along with the historical perspective of ethnic tensions causing nationalism in Yugoslavia, new evidence from historians have shown that the Bosnian Civil War was not a one-time deal in the area. This had been considered a very active region, in the case of violence, during the 20th century making some historians to think that this conflict was bound to happen as it had occurred various other times in the past. Historically, another reason for the ethnic tensions occurred due to the fall of Communism. Although this is somewhat indirect, different ethnicities side with different governmental views causing deeper tensions to rise after the vacuum of the major world power in the Eastern Europe region. As stated earlier, Slobodan Milosevic believed he could push his agenda without any international policing of his actions due to the recent fall of communism and power vacuum. On this note, governmental influences are also another way that nationalism caused the Bosnian Civil War.

After Bosnia-Herzegovina became independent, Bosnian Serb Radovan Karadzic set up his own government. Known as the “Serbian National Assembly” (“Bosnian Genocide” par. 3), this government was loyal to Yugoslavia. Backed by the Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, Karadzic had a vision of both “Bosnia and Croatia becoming part of a larger Serbian state. In 1992,

It all began with a new president, Slobodan Milosevic (a Serbian who turned to nationalism and religious hatred to gain his power) being elected. He ignited long-standing tensions between the Serbs and the Muslims. When Slovenia and Croatia both declared

Many different ethnic and religious groups resided together for at least 40 years under Yugoslavia’s repressive communist government. During the World War II Yugoslavia was invaded by the Nazi Germany. The Serb who was opposing the breakup of Yugoslavia started a war against the Slovenians. In the year of 1945, Yugoslavia began to economically develop differently than its socialist counterparts by creating a unique form of decentralized market socialism based on workers that are self- management. The first goal of the Serb was to completely wipe out he educated wealthy and any other type of non - serbs who actively opposed their rule. Tito was a strong leader who maintained ties with the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War. Tit did manage to keep ethnic friction at a minimum for a long period of time. Then Tito died in 1980. By the late 1920’s a new leader a Serbian named Slobodan

For the third engaged activity, I decided to attend a lecture on April 24th by Martin Previsic, a professor at the University of Zagreb who specializes in Croatian history. Previsic’s lecture was titled “The Yugoslav Gulag: The Goli otok (Barren Island) Labor Camp, 1949-1956.” Previsic’s lecture revolved around the time period of the “Tito-Stalin split”, which was an era marked as being the end of mutual relations between the Soviet Union and the former country of Yugoslavia. The spit, initially occurring shortly after WWII in 1948, was caused due to conflicting political interests of Yugoslavia’s leader Josip Tito and the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin. Though they had relations prior, Tito and the Yugoslavian government no longer wanted

Bosnia-Herzegovina was made up of three main ethnic groups, Bosniak Muslim, Serb, and Croat (Bosnia-Herzegovina). Before Bosnia declared independence from Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia had a history of political, economic, and cultural conflict. Towards the end of World War II, Tito, a communist, ran Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia’s government fell apart and each nation had its own self-rule to be apart of the

In 1990 Yugoslavia started to weaken from a multitude of political upheavals and other conflicts. Later resulting in the total separation of Yugoslavia, which was the main cause for why the war started.

Furthermore, these wars cannot be fully understood without a basic knowledge of the former Yugoslavia. Formally known as the Soviet Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, it was a federation that was comprised of six socialist republics: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. Additionally, two autonomous provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo, were established in Serbia. Many different ethnic groups called Yugoslavia home, namely the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Bosniaks, Albanians, and Montenegrins. However, the presence of large ethnic minorities across republic lines made things complicated, especially with the advent of rising nationalism among these different peoples. The borders of the republics had originally been of little significance; Josip Tito, the beloved leader of the Communist Party in Yugoslavia, decided the borders with little opposition from anyone, as the federation was supposed to be a centralized “dictatorship of the proletariat”. Only with later decentralization and democratization would any concern for the individual republics and nationalities be voiced and nationalism become an issue. Tito’s death in 1980 seemed to suddenly remind all the Yugoslav peoples that they had in fact retained their separate ethnic identities and that the ethnic identity of Tito’s successor would certainly affect them, whether positively or negatively, and inter-republic relations began deteriorating quickly. Tito and his communist

Under Mikhail Gorbachev the Soviet Union underwent massive social, political and economic reform that drifted away from communist ideology and this ultimately lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union and failure of communism in Eastern Europe. This essay will focus on how the Perestroika reform and Glasnost policy programs as well as other external and internal pressures contributed to the failure of communism under Gorbachev. The aim of the Perestroika and Glasnost reforms was to restructure and strengthen the Soviet political and economic system and provide more freedom and democracy within the Soviet Union while strengthening Communism. However, these changes had achieved exactly what they aimed to prevent when they were first elaborated and led to the failure of communism and collapse of the Soviet Union. While focusing on the policies this essay will also focus on the major increase in nationalism that occurred in the Soviet Republics as a result of the Glasnost. External pressure from the western world was also a factor and the role that the United States and the Ronald Reagan administration played in the downfall of communism under Gorbachev will be examined. The essay will also discuss how the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the 1991 Coup d’état led to the failure of the policies and failure of communism.

Kosovo used to be part of Yugoslavia, but it was an autonomous province within Serbian borders. It had its own governing body, which could make its own decisions, but there was still tension between the Serbs and ethnic Albanians. After the break up of Yugoslavia, Albanians of Kosovo wanted independence, but Slobodan Milošević took away their autonomy, which led Albanian separatists to declare Kosovo independent, but it was not officially recognized (Chronology of Events

According to Alan Thornett, after the death of Tito, Slobodan Milosevic wanted to expand its Serbian territory and make a greater Serbia, by gathering together all regions that are inhabited by Serbs. This would mean that Serbia would have more power contrasting everyone else, and a little or no