Yugoslavia

During its existence from 1918 to 1992, or 2003 – if one also includes the ‘remnant state’ comprising Serbia and Montenegro – the so-called Yugoslavia had various official names:

• 1918–1929: Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Kraljevstvo [ from 1921: Kraljevina] Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca),
• 1929–1941: Kingdom of Yugoslavia (Kraljevina Jugoslavija),
• 1943–1945: Democratic Federal Yugoslavia (Demokratska Federativna Jugoslavija),
• 1945–1963: Federative People’s Republic of Yugoslavia (Federativna Narodna Republika Jugoslavija),
• 1963–1992: Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Socijalistička Federativna Republika Jugoslavija),
• 1992–2003: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Savezna Republika Jugoslavija).

Yugoslavia (Serbo-Croatian: Jugoslavija) literally means ‘Southern Slavonia’ (jug = south).

Yugoslavia was a federal state in south-eastern Europe, bordering the following countries: Italy to the west, Austria and Hungary to the north, Romania and Bulgaria to the east, and Greece and Albania to the south.

Yugoslavia covered an area of 247,542 km² (1918–1941), 255,804 km² (1945–1992) and 102,350 km² (1992–2006) respectively. It spanned a diverse landscape: from the north-west to the south-west lay the Adriatic coast, with numerous small islands and a predominantly Mediterranean climate. In the north-east lay the Pannonian Plain, which encompassed the north of Serbia and the north-east of Croatia and Slovenia. The Dinaric Alps ran from Slovenia in the north to Montenegro and the border with Albania in the south. Yugoslavia’s highest peak was in Slovenia (Triglav, 2,864 metres above sea level, part of the Julian Alps). Alongside the Danube (Dunav), the Sava (Sava), the Drava (Drava) and the Morava were Yugoslavia’s most important waterways. The country’s largest lakes were situated in the border region with Albania: Lake Skadar (Montenegro), Lake Ohrid and Lake Prespa (Macedonia).

The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, established in 1918, comprised the former kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro, as well as the territories ofCroatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Carniola and Lower Styria, which had previously belonged to the Habsburg Monarchy. On 4 June 1920, the Treaty of Trianon stipulated that Hungary had to cede parts of Baranya (Branau), as well as the Bačka and the Banat – Vojvodina – to Yugoslavia. According to Zoran Janjetović, around 500,000 Germans were living in Yugoslavia in 1931, 340,000 of them in Vojvodina.^{[1] They} were also found in increasing numbers in the regions of Syrmia (Sr(j)em), Slavonia ( ), Southern Carinthia (Koroška), Lower Styria (Spodnja Stajerska), thePrekmurje region (Prekmurje) and Carniola (Kranjska), including Gottschee (Kočevje). Following the occupation by the German Wehrmacht in April 1941, the territory of Yugoslavia was divided amongst the Axis powers. Italy occupied not only Montenegro but also parts of Slovenia and Dalmatia. Whilst Bulgaria was awarded the largest part of Macedonia, Kosovo and north-western Macedonia fell to Albania, which had been an Italian protectorate since July 1939. Hungary regained the Bačka and Vojvodina regions. Croatia became an ‘Independent State’ (Nezavisna država Hrvatska) under the leadership of the Ustaša leader Ante Pavelić (1889–1959). The territory of Serbia proper was placed under German military administration, and a subordinate Serbian administration was established there.

German population in the individual regions of Yugoslavia^[2]

When the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy collapsed at the end of the First World War, – ideologically driven by Illyrianism, Pan-Slavism and the nationalist movements of the Serbs and Croats – – the Kingdom of Serbia united on 1 December 1918 with the Kingdom of Montenegro and the aforementioned former Habsburg territories to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (the so-called SHS State).

Within the kingdom, the Serbs constituted the relative majority of the population and dominated politics, administration and the military. This Serbian dominance led to mistrust and conflicts within the multi-ethnic Yugoslav state: Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians and Bosnian Muslims, who were critical of Serbian centralism, were dissatisfied with their subordinate role. In particular, the Croatian Peasants’ Party (Hrvatska Seljačka Stranka, HSS) and its leader Stjepan Radić (1871–1928) opposed Serbian dominance within the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (SHS) and resisted further centralisation of the kingdom. When Radić and two other members of the Peasants’ Party wereassassinated in June 1928 by a member of the Radical Party (Narodna Radikalna Stranka) , the opposition parties suspended the centralist constitution and boycotted the parliamentary elections, whereupon King Aleksandar I Karađorđević (1888–1934) dissolved Parliament and proclaimed the so-called ‘royal dictatorship’. In 1929, the SHS state was officially renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

Following the assassination of King Aleksandar in 1934, a Regency Council under Prince Regent Pavle Karađorđević (1893–1976) took over the reins of government, as the actual heir to the throne, Petar Karađorđević (1923–1970) was still a minor. ‘Serbo-Croatian reconciliation negotiations’ failed due to resistance from both Serbian nationalist groups and Croatian separatists.

The political influence of the German minority was restricted in the First Yugoslavia. According to Böhm, the situation of the German population was even under threat culturally and socially: ‘Since the founding of the SHS state, the Belgrade governments have waged a systematic campaign against the cultural foundations of the German minority, in particular through the confiscation of German association assets and the facilities of German schools […].’^[3] The Swabian-German Cultural Association, founded in 1920 in Neusatz/Novi Sad with the aim of preserving German customs and traditions, was, for example, banned from 1924 to 1927.

At the start of the Second World War, the Yugoslav government initially declared its neutrality; however, surrounded by the Axis powers and their allies, it came under ever-increasing pressure in its foreign policy, to which Prince Pavle yielded in March 1941. A group of Serbian officers then staged a coup against the agreement with the Axis powers and overthrew the government, whereupon Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) ordered German Wehrmacht troops to march into Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941 and began the bombardment of Belgrade/Beograd. The so-called First Yugoslavia capitulated on 17 April 1941, was subsequently dismantled and partitioned amongst the Axis powers – Germany and Italy – and their allies, Hungary and Bulgaria. After the royal government had fled into exile in London, Serbia was placed under German military administration and governed by a puppet Serbian administration led by the former Yugoslav Minister of War, Milan Nedić (1878–1946).

With the support of the German National Socialists, the ‘Independent State of Croatia’ was established. Thousands of men, women and children, mostly Serbs but also Jews, Roma and communists, died in the Ustaše’s extermination camps. However, the number of people murdered at the Jasenovac camp is disputed and has been exploited for propaganda purposes by both the Serbian and Croatian sides. The death toll is thought to be ‘between 70,000 and several hundred thousand’.^[4]

On 29 November 1945, the ‘Federative People’s Republic of Yugoslavia’ (from 1963: ‘Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia’) was proclaimed by the Communist Party. At the conference of Communist parties in Bucharest/Bucureşti on 27 June 1948, a rift developed between Tito and Stalin (1878–1953), which led to Yugoslavia’s expulsion from the Cominform (Information Bureau of the Communist Workers’ Parties). Until then, however, the Stalinist restructuring of the Yugoslav state had been rapidly driven forward:

Consequently, for reasons of ‘legitimacy’, the Yugoslav Communists found themselves compelled to develop an independent model of socialism. Yet the break with Stalinism proceeded only extremely slowly and against stubborn resistance within the party. The establishment and development of the SV model [SV = self-management], accompanied by countless experiments, periods of stagnation and setbacks, continued until the fourth post-war constitution of 1974 and the ‘Law on United Labour’ of 1976.^[9]

In terms of foreign policy, Tito’s regime henceforth sought a ‘third way’ between the blocs. Together with the Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970) and the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964), Tito founded the ‘Non-Aligned Movement’ in June 1956.

On the domestic front, the so-called ‘national question’ posed a major challenge to Tito’s regime. This became particularly apparent in the late 1960s and 1970s, when nationalist forces in the various constituent republics began to campaign for greater autonomy and sovereignty. The protests began as student unrest in Belgrade and Agram/Zagreb, but soon spread – particularly in Croatia – into a mass movement (‘Croatian Spring [Hrvatsko proljeće]’). The demonstrators protested against the disadvantages that Croatia, as an economically strong constituent republic, was forced to endure, and demanded greater rights and sovereignty for the country. Tito’s intervention finally brought the protests to an end in late 1971, and this was followed by a sweeping purge within the Communist Party.

Population of Yugoslavia by nation (narod) and nationality (narodnost)^[10] (1948 and 1971)^[11]

The 1974 constitutional amendment, which granted Vojvodina and Kosovo extensive internal self-government within Serbia and placed them on an almost equal footing with the six Yugoslav constituent republics, provoked nationalist Serbian voices that openly criticised the government over the autonomous status of the two regions. Albanian nationalists, on the other hand, felt the changes did not go far enough; following Tito’s death, they called for the creation of an independent republic of Kosovo. In the spring of 1981, bloody clashes broke out in Kosovo between Kosovo Albanians and the Yugoslav police and army.

There are many different explanations and theories for the collapse of the Yugoslav state: for example, reference has been made to the historical continuity of the Balkans as a traditional conflict zone (‘Europe’s powder keg’)^[14] or the origins of the conflicts have been attributed to ‘differing civilisational and cultural influences’ and to the ‘contrast between Western Catholic and Eastern Orthodox/Islamic civilisations’^[15]. The final collapse of the Second Yugoslavia was heralded by the declarations of independence by Slovenia and Croatia on 25 June 1991 and the subsequent deployment of the Yugoslav People’s Army to the Slovenian border. The war waged by the Yugoslav People’s Army against Slovenia was over after ten days. Macedonia’s secession in August 1991 took place without military conflict. In Croatia, however – and following the declaration of independence by Bosnia and Herzegovina on 2 March 1992 – the violence escalated, leading to wars lasting several years. In this context, the term ‘Yugoslav Civil Wars’^[16] or ‘Balkan Wars’^[17] is also used. With the Dayton Peace Agreement, which was negotiated on 21 November 1995 at the US air base and signed on 14 November by Presidents Slobodan Milošević (1941–2006), Franjo Tuđman (1922–1999) and Alija Izetbegović (1925–2003), the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was officially declared to be over. Bosnia and Herzegovina was divided into two political entities – the Bosnian-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska. However, the Dayton Agreement failed to find a ‘solution to the conflict for the entire Balkan region’^[18]. The situation in some of the successor states of Yugoslavia remained fraught with conflict, as demonstrated by the subsequent conflicts in Kosovo (1998/1999) and in Macedonia (2001). Research estimates that 400,000 people were killed and approximately 4 million were displaced,^[19] having lost their lives or been driven from their homes as a result of the ethnic ‘cleansing’ during the post-Yugoslav wars.^[20] The political leaderships in Serbia and the Republika Srpska were held primarily responsible for the escalation of these conflicts. Since 1993, the InternationalCriminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), based in The Hague, has been investigating the war crimes and human rights violations committed during the post-Yugoslav wars.

On 24 April 1992, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed. This ‘remnant state’, comprising Serbia and Montenegro, claimed to be the legal successor to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. As early as the spring and summer of 1992, the European Community and the UN Security Council imposed far-reaching sanctions against the remnants of Yugoslavia, and on 22 September 1992 it was expelled from the UN General Assembly.

At the beginning of 1998, the conflict between the UÇK (Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës [Kosovo Liberation Army]) and the police and military forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia began to escalate. From March to June 1999, NATO forces carried out air strikes on targets in Serbia, which played a decisive role in forcing Serbian troops to withdraw from Kosovo. The territory, which was under United Nations administration, declared itself an independent state in 2008; however, this is not recognised by Serbia or a number of other European states.

On 4 February 2003, the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro succeeded the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia thus disappeared from the political map for good. Serbia and Montenegro existed until Montenegro’s declaration of independence on 3 June 2006.

Just under 10,000 Germans now live in the successor states of Yugoslavia. In Croatia, where they are recognised as an official minority, there were 2,965 Germans living there in 2011.^[21] In Serbia, too, a National Council of the German National Minority has existed since 2007, which guarantees their recognition as a minority and enables them to have a say in political matters. According to the 2011 census, 4,064 Germans live in Serbia, most of whom are known as Swabians (Švabe).^[22] In Slovenia, by contrast, the German-speaking minority is neither officially recognised nor does it have political representation. The 2002 census listed 499 people as Germans and 181 as Austrians.^[23]

Perceptions of communist Yugoslavia in the West were shaped by several factors: during the 1960s, against the backdrop of a large post-war class of baby boomers coming of age and the release of labour through economic reforms, the emigration of workers was officially permitted in Yugoslavia; in 1965, recruitment agreements were concluded with various Western European countries. The growing number of Yugoslav migrant workers in Western Europe influenced perceptions of Yugoslavia there in that, according to Mira Beham, contact with these migrant workers contributed to “Yugoslavia being placed in the context of the ‘poor South’ ’”.^[24]

The fact that, as early as the 1950s, Yugoslavia was the only communist country to begin opening up to commercial tourism from the West in turn created a different image of the state, which became a well-known holiday destination for many tourists from Western Europe and North America.

Added to this was the fact that the Yugoslav model was regarded as a liberal and more humane version of communism. This perception was based primarily on the Third Way that Yugoslavia had embarked upon since its break with Stalin. Tito himself was also viewed very positively in the West: ‘The ruler of this Yugoslavia […] was regarded as a great statesman who knew how to guide his country along a unique path through the maelstroms of history.’^[25]

During the post-Yugoslav wars, perceptions of Yugoslavia changed fundamentally. The post-Yugoslav region was now perceived by the global public primarily as a region characterised by wars and ethnic and religious hatred.

In the successor states of Yugoslavia, however, an interesting phenomenon has been observed in recent times: so-called ‘Yugo-nostalgia’. This is evident, for example, in the opening of bars, restaurants, museums and so on, which not only focus on Yugoslavia but also seek to revive memories of it. According to Zala Volcic, this kind of nostalgia enables a particular way of coming to terms with Yugoslavia’s past and its tragic end: “It is as if the Yugoslavs had to destroy their country in order to truly appreciate its possibilities by confronting the prospect of living without them.”^[26] However, the ‘dark’ sides of Yugoslavia, such as the imprisonment of political opponents and dissidents, are overlooked in this kind of nostalgia.

• Leslie Benson: Yugoslavia: A Concise History. Houndmills, 2000.
• Marie-Janine Čalić: The History of Yugoslavia in the 20th Century. Munich 2010.
• Dejan Djokić, James Ker-Lindsay (eds.): New perspectives on Yugoslavia: Key issues and controversies. London 2011.
• Sabrina Petra Ramet: The Three Yugoslavias: A History of State Formation and its Problems. Munich 2011.
• Holm Sundhaussen: A History of Yugoslavia. Stuttgart 1982.

• Robert M. Hayden: From Yugoslavia to the Western Balkans: Studies of a European Disunion, 1991–2011. Leiden 2012.
• Robert Hudson (ed.): After Yugoslavia: Identities and Politics within the Successor States. Houndmills 2012.
• Wolfgang Libal: The End of Yugoslavia: Chronicle of a Self-Destruction. Vienna, Zurich 1991.
• Holm Sundhaussen: Yugoslavia and its Successor States 1943–2011: An Unusual History of the Ordinary. Vienna 2012.

• Carl Bethke: German and Hungarian Minorities in Croatia and Vojvodina 1918–1941. Concepts of Identity and Ethnopolitical Mobilisation. Wiesbaden 2009.
• Johann Böhm: The German Ethnic Group in Yugoslavia 1918–1941. Frankfurt am Main 2009.
• Zoran Janjetović: Between Hitler and Tito – The Disappearance of the Vojvodina Germans. Belgrade 2005.
• Herbert Prokle, Danube Swabian Cultural Foundation, Munich (ed.): Genocide of the Ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia, 1944–1948. 2nd ed. Munich 2006 (1st ed. 2003).
• Ingomar Senz: The Danube Swabians. Munich 2005.
• Hans-Ulrich Wehler: Nationality Policy in Yugoslavia: The German Minority 1918–1978. Göttingen 1980.

[1] Zoran Janjetović: The Danube Swabians in Vojvodina and National Socialism. In: Mariana Hausleitner, Harald Roth (eds.): The Influence of Fascism and National Socialism on Minorities in East-Central and Southern Europe. Munich 2006 (Publications of the Institute for German Culture and History of South-Eastern Europe at LMU Munich, Academic Series: History and Contemporary History 107), pp. 219–235, here p. 220.

[2] Böhm: The German Ethnic Group, p. 67. Cited in: Alfred Bohmann: Population and Nationalities in South-Eastern Europe. Cologne 1969, p. 236.

[3] Böhm: The German Ethnic Group, p. 161.

[4] Herwig Roggemann: ‘From the Yugoslav Constitutional Conflict to the New Balkan War’. In: Holm Sundhaussen (ed.): South-Eastern Europe at the Beginning of the 1990s. Reforms, Crises and Conflicts in the Formerly Socialist Countries. Berlin 1993, pp. 109–147.

[5] Cf. Janjetović: The Danube Swabians (note 1), p. 234.

[6] See Edgar Hösch, Karl Nehring, Holm Sundhaussen (eds.): Encyclopaedia of the History of South-Eastern Europe. Vienna 2004, p. 204.

[7] Immo Eberl: Associations of Displaced Persons: Origins, Function, Change. In: Mathias Beer (ed.): On the Integration of Refugees and Displaced Persons in South-West Germany after 1945. An Assessment and Research Perspectives. Sigmaringen 1994, pp. 211–234, here p. 223.

[8] Website of the ‘Haus der Donauschwaben Sindelfingen’: www.haus-donauschwaben.de/wordpress/ (18 December 2014).

[9] Hösch, Nehring, Sundhaussen (eds.): Encyclopaedia (note 6), p. 323.

[10] Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Macedonians and, from the 1960s onwards, Muslims (Bosniaks) were regarded as nations (narod) in Yugoslavia. Albanians, Hungarians, Germans, etc., on the other hand, had only the status of a ‘nationality’ (narodnost), as they possessed their own nation-state outside Yugoslavia.

[11] From: Sundhaussen: History of Yugoslavia, p. 218.

[12] Florian Bieber: Nationalism in Serbia from the Death of Tito to the End of the Milošević Era. Vienna 2005 (Vienna Eastern European Studies 18), p. 17.

[13] Pascal Goeke: Refugees from the former Yugoslavia in Europe since 1991. In: Klaus J. Bade, Pieter C. Emmer, Leo Lucassen, Jochen Oltmer (eds.): Encyclopaedia of Migration in Europe. From the 17th Century to the Present. Zurich 2007, pp. 578–585, here p. 578.

[14] See also: Robert Kaplan: *Balkan Ghosts. A Journey through History*. New York 2005 [first edition 1993].

[15] Peter Imbusch: ‘The State Collapse of Yugoslavia’. In: Ibid., Ralf Zoll (eds.): Peace and Conflict Studies. An Introduction. Wiesbaden 2006, pp. 221–248, here p. 222.

[16] According to Imbusch, terms such as ‘civil war’ and ‘brotherly war’ obscure the fact that ‘the gradual recognition of the constituent republics as sovereign states by the international community’ turned it into ‘an international conflict’ (Imbusch: State Collapse [note 15], p. 221).

[17] Maria Todorova, for her part, criticised the fact that the post-Yugoslav wars were perceived as ‘Balkan’ conflicts – and were even referred to as the Balkan Wars – even though the hostilities were confined to the territory of the successor states of Yugoslavia. See Maria Todorova: *Imagining the Balkans*. 2nd ed. Oxford 2009 [1997], p. 136.

[18] Edgar Hösch: History of the Balkan Countries. From Early Times to the Present. Munich 2008, p. 283.

[19] Imbusch: Staatszerfall (note 15), p. 232.

[20] The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that 2.5 million people fled Bosnia and Herzegovina. Around 1.3 million were internally displaced persons. Some 500,000 people found refuge in neighbouring countries and 700,000 refugees went to Western Europe. See UNHCR: The State of the World’s Refugees – UNHCR Report 2000/2001. Bonn 2000, p. 249.

[21] Croatian Bureau of Statistics: Population by ethnicity, by towns/municipalities. In: 2011 Population Census, Households and Dwellings. Zagreb 2006–2014. URL: www.dzs.hr/default_e.htm (accessed 28 October 2014).

[22] Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia: Chapter 4: Religion, Mother Tongue and Ethnicity. In: 2011 Census of Population, Households and Dwellings in the Republic of Serbia. Data by municipalities and cities. Belgrade 2013, p. 33, p. 100. URL: pod2.stat.gov.rs/ObjavljenePublikacije/Popis2011/Knjiga4_Veroispovest.pdf (accessed 28 October 2014).

[23] Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia: 7. Population by Ethnic Affiliation, Slovenia Censuses 1953, 1961, 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2002. In: Census of Population, Households and Housing 2002. Ljubljana 2003, p. 4. URL: www.stat.si/popis2002/gradivo/si-92.pdf (accessed 28 October 2014).

[24] Mira Beham: War Drums. Media, War and Politics. Munich 1996, p. 157.

[25] Cf. Beham: Drums of War (note 24), pp. 157–158.

[26] Zala Volcic: Serbian Spaces of Identity. Narratives of Belonging by the Last ‘Yugo’ Generation. New York 2011, p. 131.

Kathrin Pavic: Yugoslavia. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2014. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32625 (accessed 25 January 2022).