Abstract
This second introductory chapter helps to clarify the background for the subsequent presentation of new findings in a threefold way. First, it explains historic milestones and turning points, against which readers will be able to locate descriptions of collective experiences. Second, it enables the contextualisation of social and psychological processes by highlighting the importance of institutional, political and international factors in the outbreak of violent conflict. Third, it invites to discuss the construction of collective memories the ways in which historical events are recounted across post-war former Yugoslavia. It covers political and social changes in the 1980s, the war events of the 1990s and different (or similar) paths Yugoslav countries had once new borders, entities and administrations were established. The chapter relies on a broad literature dealing with the break-up of Yugoslavia, different collections of public sources and newspapers articles (especially collections prepared by HINA, Croatian News Agency Documentation Centre). Its most innovative part deals with the late 1980s and is based on the documents from three private collections, created by Josip Vrhovec, former Federal Secretary for Foreign Relations (1978–1982) and member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia (until 1989), Budimir Lončar, the last Federal Secretary for Foreign Relations (1988–1992) and Yugoslav ambassador, and Ms. Milka Planic, the prime minister of Yugoslavia (from 1982 to 1986). On the basis of these documents from the collective chief of state, the author shows how the federation lost influence in the international arena and was increasingly incapable of solving pressing problems at home, how republics were becoming increasing powerful and, finally, how these dynamics led to a series of bloody wars following the break-up of Yugoslavia.
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Notes
- 1.
Milka Planinc was president of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Croatia (1972–1982) and president of the Federal Executive Council (1982–1986).
- 2.
Josip Vrhovec was the editor in chief of the daily Vjesnik; the secretary and president of the Central Committee, League of Communists of Croatia; the Federal Secretary of Foreign Relations (1978–1982); and a Croatian member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia (1984–1988).
- 3.
Between 1981 and 1987, more than 20,000 Serbs and Montenegrins departed from Kosovo. The percentage of the population that was composed of Albanians, which had the highest birth rate in Europe, increased from 69 to 77 % in only 33 years.
- 4.
Despite popular belief, Bosnia and Herzegovina society was not as mixed as sometimes thought. The percentage of mixed marriages, for example, was 12 %, which is no larger than in other parts of Yugoslavia and is actually smaller than in Vojvodina or certain parts of Croatia (Bugarel 2004).
- 5.
Odbor za prikupljanje građe o genocidu nad srpskim i drugim narodima u Drugom svetskom ratu (in Serbian).
- 6.
In 2005, the number of Jasenovac concentration camp victims who had been fully identified with names and histories, if incomplete, was established at 80,022 people. Overall, the number of Serbs killed in the so-called Independent State of Croatia (approximately the combination of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina) during the war was approximately 330,000 (Goldstein 2008). The overall demographical losses in Yugoslavia during Second World War—including those killed and unborn children—was 1,027 million people. At the time when the inflation spree began, no one was interested in these arguments. There were many taboo subjects in Yugoslav history; however, many topics were politicised, and even when certain issues were addressed using seemingly logical arguments with good intentions, these debates eventually proved to be merely another component of the political strife.
- 7.
For example, individuals such as Radovan Samardzic, Dobrica Cosic, Ljuba Tadic, and Mihajlo Markovic.
- 8.
The first two signers were Mića Popović and Tanasije Mladenović, but among the 19 co-signers were some of the most prominent intellectual allies of Slobodan Milošević as well as some of his critics and those who regarded him as too weak. For example, Dobrica Čosić, Vojislav Koštunica, Kosta Čavoški, Matija Bećković, Ljubomir Tadić, Gojko Nikolis, Borislav Mihajlović Mihiz, Mladen Srbinović, Andrija Gams, Zagorka Golubovic, Ivan Janković, Neca Jovanov, Dragoslav Mihailović, and Radovan Samardžić all signed the document.
- 9.
The Yugoslav constitution of 1974 (which was the longest constitution in the world at the time) was viewed as the product of an anti-Serb conspiracy in Belgrade circles, but was regarded as a positive guarantee of the national rights of many other republics, especially the most prosperous (Bilandzic 2006).
- 10.
Budimir Lončar was the Yugoslav ambassador to Indonesia, the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States (1979–1984) and was the last Federal Secretary of Foreign Relations (1988–1992).
- 11.
As Budimir Lončar, the Federal Secretary of Foreign Relations, subsequently explained, Baker’s visit was viewed differently by major actors. Ante Marković had concluded that America strongly supported the unity of Yugoslavia. “Having said that, he had turned to me and said: ‘Isn’t that so, Leko’. Lončar was not that convinced. America was against secession, but also against the use of force.” (Budimir Lončar, March 18, 2006, personal communication).
- 12.
Indicted by the War Crimes Tribunal in former Yugoslavia in The Hague, General Mladić was finally arrested and brought to the Court in 2011 after years of hiding in Serbia.
- 13.
Franjo Tuđman and Veljko Kadijevic, the last Yugoslav minister of defence, had been colleagues in the Yugoslav General Staff of the Armed Forces. In Slovenia, the same politicians remained in charge until the twenty-first century, and in Montenegro, they remain in power today.
- 14.
In many respects, however, changes are occurring in some countries. After all, the Balkans are not only a part of Europe; they are also a central and integral part of the Old Continent, and their problems are not entirely different from those of other European countries.
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Jakovina, T. (2014). Collective Experiences and Collective Memories: Writing the History of Crisis, Wars, and the “Balkanisation of Yugoslavia”. In: Spini, D., Elcheroth, G., Corkalo Biruski, D. (eds) War, Community, and Social Change. Peace Psychology Book Series, vol 17. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7491-3_2
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