Today we're going to crack open the case on Yugoslavia.
Or should I say, YugosLEAVEia.
(chuckles)
I'm gonna kill myself.
Hello, and welcome to Feature History
featuring the fall of Yugoslavia and most likely a shitstorm in the comments.
Now this video, or videos are going to be quite long and complicated.
So I'm not going to pad this intro out too long,
like I'm doing right now. Should really stop.
The series of wars that saw the end of Yugoslavia
brought a close on an era and opened a new one alongside the dawn of a new millennium.
This new era began in an orgy of violence, war crimes, and geopolitics. Great stuff.
But first, I should bring us back to the old era.
Then the older era.
Maybe even the older-er era.
Get something to eat, this will be a long one.
The Balkans, for a measurably long-ass time,
has been an ethnically diverse region in Europe.
It served as a border of Western, Eastern, and Islamic worlds.
Its long history consists of many independent kingdoms
as well as even more empires attempting to conquer the region.
The Byzantines, Ottomans, and Austrians all took their shot at the region.
But as nationalism took hold in the late 19th century, things would change.
Yugoslavia: a unified kingdom of southern Slavs
was a dream of their intellectuals as early as the 17th century.
It'd be the ticket to their independence,
a state united and a state that could resist foreign tyranny.
Near the end of WWI, the southern Slavs under Austrian/Hungarian rule
broke away as a state of Slovians, Croats, and Serbs.
The whole thing was a bit of a mess.
And they turned to the only person who had an army in the area: the Kingdom of Serbia.
They willingly entered a state of union with Serbia and Montenegro,
forming the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovians on December 1st, 1918.
It was later retitled to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929,
considering the old name was shit.
Time passed, and the kingdom was... alright.
But in the late 1930s, the province of Croatia was pressured by Nazi Germany
and Fascist Italy into pushing for more autonomy, and perhaps even independence.
In 1941, the kingdom was invaded, divided, and conquered.
The Croatians were offered an independent state by the Germans.
Under a checkered flag, the separatist Croatians
were encouraged to begin a genocide against the Serbs,
inspired by old religious rivalries.
Throughout the war, royalists and partisans fought against the occupation.
Communist revolutionary Josip Broz Tito
distinguished himself when he lead the partisans to victory.
Tito's partisans were devoted to him.
And so the former monarch of Yugoslavia was to remain in exile,
as Tito, with some support from the Soviets,
established the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1945.
The country was organized as a federation of six socialist republics:
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia,
Montenegro, Slovenia, and Serbia.
In addition, Serbia held the two autonomous states of Kosovo and Vojvodina.
And hosted the country's capital of Belgrade.
Under Tito, the country was a dictatorship.
A one-party state with a president for life.
It operated on propaganda and doing whatever was necessary
to maintain brotherhood and unity.
Due to disagreements with Stalin and risking a near-war with the Soviets,
Yugoslavia became a strange blend of east and west
in a time when that wasn't a good idea.
It was a great idea, though, as foreign aid came in from both sides
and the country began to liberalize and form a unique brand of socialism known as Titoism.
Tito would evoke his former life as a poor farmer and his reputation as a war hero
to remain relatable and beloved with the people he reigned over.
He was quick to crack down on nationalistic sentiment and so held the country together firmly.
But all knew it couldn't last.
Tito died on May 4th 1980, aged 87.
The old man had left the people, and so what was after Tito?
Well... Tito.
The presidency was decentralized and became collective,
made up of representatives and a mostly symbolic president of the presidency.
They tried to pretend for almost a decade that Tito was living on.
And then when the Cold War ended, the foreign air ceased,
and the economy came tumbling down did the people realize Tito was gone.
The problems caused people to search for someone to blame.
In Kosovo, the blame was put on the Albanians living in the area.
Kosovar Serbs claimed Kosovar Albanians were pushing them out of the country
and began a counter movement against this.
President of Serbia, Ivan Stambolic,
decided he would send his right-hand man, Slobodan Milosevic,
to quell the unrest in '87.
When he arrived, however, he spoke only what the Kosovar Serbs wanted to hear.
He created himself a devoted following.
In what would be called the Anti-Bureaucratic Revolution,
he used his supporters to force governments in Vojvodina, Montenegro, and Kosovo
to be replaced with his allies.
Eventually, Stambolic was forced to resign in favor of Milosevic in '89.
With he and his allies in control of many areas in Yugoslavia,
his representative in the presidency, Borisav Jovic, led a voting bloc,
the powers used to erode the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina.
The Albanian miners of Kosovo collaborated in a strike against this in '89.
Milosevic had federal police troops moved in.
With this, he could crack down on the Albanians.
This kind of action did not sit well with the republics of Croatia and Slovenia.
Slovenia's media ran with stories of Milosevic "the fascist."
Milosevic deemed that this was only spreading unfounded fear of Serbia
and attempted to see authorities restrict Slovenia's press,
only driving further sentiment that Slovenia must escape Serbia's influence.
Milosevic attempted to use his Kosovar Serbs to depose Slovenia's dissident president,
Milan Kucan.
Croatia backed up Slovenia, refusing passage to the protesters.
The political stalemate led to the 14th congress being convened
in January 1990.
The congress was attended by delegates from all republics and provinces.
The debate was reform:
Whether to offer more autonomy to the republics of Yugoslavia,
or to build a stronger state of brotherhood and unity.
Every proposal from Kucan was shot down by the Serbian voting bloc.
The climate became tense, and very, very frustrating.
The Slovenian delegation walked, leaving the congress.
While Milosevic attempted to continue without them,
Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina walked too.
There was no unity to be found.
When each republic held their first ever free election,
nationalist parties began to defeat the former communist ones
in Macedonia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia.
In Croatia, the controversial Franjo Tudman had come to power
under the promise to protect them from Milosevic.
His nationalistic sentiment and his readiness to embrace the old checkered flag
brought back painful memories of the genocides that had scarred many Serbian families.
The Croatian Serbs refused to let this happen again, and rose up in Knin in August,
securing small arms and barricading roads.
They demanded that if Croatia chose to secede, the Serbian-majority areas,
or as they would later proclaim themselves, the Republic of Serbian Krajina, would not.
Borisav Jovic, now head of the Yugoslav presidency,
was ready to offer support to the Croatian Serb's concerns.
Tudman, however, would not accept this,
and had helicopters dispatch to Knin ready to put down the rebellion.
Jovic showed his hand when two Yugoslav fighter jets intercepted the helicopters
and forced them to return to base.
Serbia's influence had now consumed[?] the Yugoslav People's Army,
and so Tudman would have to find his own way to fight.
Hungarian arms began to be smuggled into Croatia, and at the same time,
Slovians held a referendum asking the people if they desired independence.
The people answered yes.
The results of the referendum, and later in '91, the exposure of Croatian arms smuggling,
led to the army commander requesting the presidency to enact a state of emergency.
Croatian representative Stjepan Mesic strongly debated the army head and Jovic.
He accused the two of attempting to create a greater Serbia,
whereas the army head insisted foreign powers were conspiring to destroy Yugoslavia.
Regardless if either were true or not, it would mean war.
The vote was places in the Bosnian representative's hands,
and after some serious umming and erring, it was rejected.
Things had calmed very, very slightly.
But when Jovic's term came to an end in May and it was time that Mesic took head,
he was blocked, and the title offered to another Milosevic loyalist.
The Croatians responded with an independence referendum that won in a landslide,
most likely because the Croatian Serbs didn't show up to vote.
On June 25th 1991, both the republics of Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence,
beginning the very violent government collapse of Yugoslavia.
The fighting in Croatia had been on for some time.
But now with the official declarations, the YPA saw fit to involve themselves.
They moved an army to Slovenia's border, which immediately prompted reactions from the Slovians.
The meant-to-be (but they totally didn't) decommissioned Territorial Defenses
prepared resistance on boarder checkpoints and important roads,
repelling the relatively small Yugoslav Force.
A short war with little casualites, a rarity in future,
the conflict would be creatively named the Ten-Day War.
The European community placed pressure on the belligerence to open negotiations,
leading to the Brioni Agreement on July 7th, '91.
Croatia, Slovenia, and Yugoslavia agreed to withdraw the YPA from Slovenia
and allowed Slovenia to take control of their boarders,
given that Croatia and Slovenia suspend their declarations for three months.
This three months barely fazed the fighters battling in Croatia.
But Slovenia used this time to make themselves into an actual country
while the YPA prepared an invasion into their country that couldn't fail.
The plan was scrapped, though, on the reason that it's Slovenia, who gives a shit?
And so Slovenia had slipped away.
But at the cost of leaving Croatia in the YPA's sights.
Tudman's fight stemmed from his insistence that he'd "defend every inch of Croatia."
In spite of it, though, the rebels had made great successes,
securing many Serb majority towns and then some.
Yugoslavia offered support as well, giving the rebels equipment and artillery.
Later, the YPA itself arrived to the boarder as peace keepers.
Peace keepers that allow the rebels to push forward and siege[?] Vukovar in August.
Things looked fairly bleak in Yugoslavia.
So bleak that Macedonia passed a referendum and left.
Just like that.
That makes everything seem a bit dramatic.
The bleakness also caught the attention of a Hague,
who arranged a peace conference with all six presidents.
Tudman insisted Croatia had the right to secede.
Milosevic countered that then Krajina should, too.
Lord Carrington, head of the conference, asked if Milosevic would be prepared
to accept Croatian independence if it was subject to the human rights
of Serbs living outside of Serbia.
Milosevic answered yes.
When the written deal arrived, though, it stated that all six republics would take this route.
Milosevic could not agree. He had no intentions of breaking up Yugoslavia.
By November, Vukovar fell, and those who had resisted were subject to massacre.
By the dawn of 1992, a U.N. ceasefire would put a pause to the pain.
However, another conflict had been brewing alongside the battle of Vukovar.
Yep, that's enough of that.
I nearly would have gone and spoiled you, there.
Part two will be out around the end of the month, if I actually stick to schedule.
So expect it next month. See ya.