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Home , Balkanization, Banovina (region), Breakup of Yugoslavia, Brotherhood and unity, Chauvinism, Chetniks

Serbian and the Origins of the Yugoslav Crisis

Vesna Pesic

UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF CONTENTS

Summary v

1 Explaining Nationalism in 1

2 Integrative Problems: Interwar Yugoslavia and the National Ideologies 5

3 Ethno-national under Communist Rule 9

4 The Role of Ressentiment 14

5 The Breakdown of : Collapse and War 23

6 Conclusions 28

Notes 32

About the Author 40

About the Institute 41 v

cultural or political or by seceding in or- der to unite with their own national homeland. A , such as Yugoslavia, can- not attempt to resolve these questions in any one ’s favor, lest it risk the collapse of the entire state. If a resolution of the national question in Yu- goslavia appeared to tilt in favor of any one partic- ular group, the ’s internal balance would SUMMARY be upset. Thus, Yugoslavia was not only a mosaic of different ethnic , but also a system that was developed to accommodate these differences. The creation and maintenance of Yugoslavia hinged on the interdependence of and , the country’s two largest national groups. These peoples “imagined” the borders of their re- spective states as overlapping and clashing. None of the other national groups the former Yugoslavia comprised, with the exception of the , lived within clearly defined ethnic borders inside the federation. Large numbers of Yugoslav peoples lived within one of the other’s “national” territory. - posed the greatest challenge he of multinational communist to the peaceful dissolution of Yugoslavia because and the ensuing armed conflicts both Serbs and Croats lived there in large num- Tthat have emerged with their transformation bers, and because both and had his- into independent nation-states have returned the torical pretensions to the ’s territory. “national question” (i.e., the relationship of a na- Almost every one of Yugoslavia’s peoples tional or to a state that includes mul- been perceived as a threat to another national tiple ethnic groups within its territory) to the fore- group and has felt threatened itself. This general front of debates over international , law, atmosphere of ressentiment, real or imagined, and theory. The violent , in could easily be used to produce the feeling that particular, demonstrates the inability of the inter- one’s national group was threatened with extinc- national community to rely on any solid legal prin- tion as the object of another’s aggression. ciples, guidelines, or established mechanisms to Ever since the founding of Yugoslavia, two dis- avoid such chaos and mass suffering when con- tinct nationalist policies have struggled for pri- stituent parts of these types of multinational states macy in the debate over the country’s political decide to go their own way. future: Croatian striving for an inde- The former Yugoslavia was an attempt to ad- pendent state and Serbian centralism striving to dress three fundamental aspects of the “national preserve the common Yugoslav state under its do- question”: (1) the right of a nation acting to create minion. was separatist and its own state through demands for national self- oppositional, alternated be- determination; (2) the right of a national home- tween outright Serbian rule and a strict federalism land (whether or republic within a governed through central government institutions. federation) acting through its either to The Croatian policy supported the of monitor the relative status of its conationals else- power from the center outward and found support where, or to demand national unification and the among most other Yugoslav nations, which would redrawing of borders; and (3) the rights of mem- eventually articulate their own national aspira- bers of national minorities to resist the majority’s tions—Slovenian, Macedonian, Albanian, and (in formation of a new nation-state either by seeking the Bosnian experience) Muslim. vi

Both of these strident, ethnocentric, national Serbian hard-liners’ main interpretation of the ideologies preordained the failure of any attempt “Serbian tragedy” in was that ethnic Alba- to constitute Yugoslavia as a modern unitary and nians had gained control through Yugoslavia’s liberal state. For Serbia, the Yugoslav state became 1974 , and that the only way to stop nothing more than a vehicle for Serbian domina- the “” of Serbs in Kosovo was to re- tion, which, in turn, stimulated Croatian national instate Serbian domination there. In the ambiguity . The first Yugoslav state (1918–41) was surrounding the “Kosovo problem,” hard-liners or- not only unable to pacify internal conflicts and di- ganized a putsch in Serbia’s in rigid national ideologies, but its collapse in 1987, bringing the most conservative elements War II left no mechanisms in place to pre- into the party’s leadership positions. vent extreme methods of resolving the national During 1988–89, Serbia’s intelligentsia and question. Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbian Communist party The League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) clique joined forces to encourage a national revolu- played the role of “mediator” among the quarreling tion to create a “unified Serbia” by tapping social Yugoslav peoples. It promised an ideological reso- and national discontent in the republic. The na- lution of the national question through a social tionalist ideology of being threatened and hated that subsumed class and national dis- fueled this Serbian mass movement. tinctions within a socialist framework. While the This nationalist movement also mobilized Croa- country’s major ethnic groups were constituted as tian Serbs by helping to organize meetings where nations within the new federation, the arrange- they aired their demands for cultural and political ment was best expressed by the classic Soviet for- autonomy. Such meetings only further supported mula, “national in form, socialist in content.” the growth of Croatian nationalist movements, in- The tenuous supranational ideology of Yugoslav cluding the Croatian Democratic Union. communism would eventually provoke the federa- The advent of free elections in 1990 and the tion’s crisis. The weakening and disappearance of breakdown of the communist regime was the cul- ’s ideological raised perforce mination of what had already been going on for fundamental and profound questions about Yu- more than a decade in Yugoslavia following Tito’s goslavia’s existence as a state, as happened in death. Along with the process of and the . in the and the denial of that same Despite the regime’s attempts to control na- process in the federal government, central state au- tional aspirations by institutionalizing them within thority was becoming weaker, approaching a situa- the political and territorial boundaries of the titular tion of anarchy that bore an unsettling resem- republics, the more abstract aspects of nationhood blance to the collapse of the empire that used to could not be so confined. Conferring the sense of rule the . Yugoslavia’s breakup gave new statehood upon Yugoslavia’s major ethnic groups meaning to the old notion of . had far greater consequences in strengthening As communism collapsed, the strategies of the their territorial integration. political actors in each of the Yugoslav republics The immediate source of Serbian dissatisfaction were determined by specific elements of the na- in general, and the most tangible reason for the re- tional question on the one hand, and the search public’s nationalist reaction in particular, were the for an from the communist system on the constitutional provisions that undermined Ser- other. Yet, saving the communist regime remained bia’s territorial integrity. Although the institutional the one method by which conservative elites in system established under the 1974 constitution Serbia, including the Yugoslav National Army prescribed the “nativization” of all Yugoslav peo- (YNA), could simultaneously preserve the - ples within their territorial, republican frame- slav state and achieve the goal of Serbian unifica- works, Serbia was frustrated in this regard. Accord- tion within one country. ing to the constitution, Serbia was not a The dual games (national and ideological) “sovereign” negotiating party like the other re- played by all the republics to a greater or lesser ex- publics because of the “sovereignty” of its two au- tent actually precluded both of two possible paths tonomous , Kosovo and . to a resolution of the federation’s crisis. The vii

republics’ leaders were unable to either reimagine defend itself or be defended by international mili- Yugoslavia as a democratic and minimal state or tary forces. Otherwise the result is highly unstable break away peacefully by creating new, separate situations that lead to victim-states and victimized democratic states. populations. Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union shared the In the wider context of the political transforma- same types of multinational federal institutions, tion of East-Central and the former Soviet ethno-demographic mix of populations, and large Union, a more fundamental debate has been rekin- diaspora communities whose status would change dled: the right to national self-determination and significantly with the dismemberment of both fed- how this vague principle might be reconsidered eral states. Both cases involved the creation of new and clarified in order to make it a workable con- national states in which one ethnic group became cept in international law. The abuse of this right in predominant. If these and other multinational the Yugoslav case underscores the need for such states share the same broad political and ethno- an examination, as the right to self-determination demographic elements, are there lessons from the came to be equated with the right of ethnically de- Yugoslav crisis that the international community fined nations/republics to secede from the federa- can generally apply to their dissolution and avoid tion, regardless of the mass violence such an act the possibility of mass violence in their wake? would surely entail. The republics’ unilateral acts First of all, the international community should of were in turn met with internal acts of actively work with the relevant parties to arrange a secession by minority ethno-national communities temporary status quo compromise if the dismem- invoking the same principle of self-determination. berment of multinational states is not preceded by One crucial precondition for the peaceful appli- both an internal consensus on the terms for creat- cation of the right to self-determination should be ing new states, including their borders and the sta- the respect of both territorial integrity and minor- tus of minorities, and a clear conception of future ity rights. Borders cannot be changed by force or security and cooperation arrangements. without consideration of the consequences that The international community’s recognition of the redrawing of international borders would have the new states emerging from the Yugoslav federa- for all members of the state. Above all, there tion’s breakup was woefully insufficient to secure should be some international mechanism that pro- their peace and security. Not only must such recog- vides for the renegotiation of borders and that en- nition take into account the internal and external courages all sides to recognize the consequences threats involved in each case, but it must be real in of newly drawn international borders for all rele- the sense that the new state must either be able to vant parties. 1

international community may find useful in avoid- ing these kinds of conflicts in the future. For many years, Yugoslavia functioned as a nation-state by providing a peaceful compromise to the conflicting, multifaceted, and perennial “na- tional questions” posed by its constitutive parts. XPLAINING Multinational states, such as Yugoslavia, cannot at- E tempt to resolve these questions in any one na- NATIONALISM IN tion’s favor, lest they risk the collapse of the entire state. If a resolution of the national question ap- 1YUGOSLAVIA peared to tilt in favor of any one particular group, Yugoslavia’s internal balance would have been up- set. Thus, Yugoslavia was not only a mosaic of dif- ferent ethnic nations, but also a system that was developed to accommodate these differences. Joseph Rothchild emphasizes the almost unbeliev- able diversity of ethnic groups that Yugoslavia brought under one state: “By virtually every rele- vant criterion—history, political traditions, socioe- conomic standards, legal systems, religion and cul- ture—Yugoslavia was the most complicated of the new states of interwar East-, being he dissolution of multinational communist composed of the largest and most varied number federations and the ensuing armed conflicts of pre-1918 units.”2 Maintaining political balance Tthat have emerged with their transformation and diffusing ethnic tensions was the only way Yu- into independent nation-states have returned the goslavia could survive. If the Yugoslav state could “national question” to the forefront of debates over not maintain these essential functions, the “separa- international politics, law, and theory. The forces tion” of its intertwined national groups in a full- fueling the breakdown of these multinational scale war would be the probable result. states have not been exhausted with the disintegra- By its very nature, Yugoslavia has never had a tion of Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and Czecho- staatsvolk (“state-people”) that could “naturally” . Most of the successor states of these fed- dominate by its numbers and serve as the founda- erations are themselves breaking down. Whether tion on which a modern nation-state could be there will be a third phase of breakdown that will built. (As members of the most populous national require the resolution of new “national questions” group, Serbs constituted only 40 percent of the to- remains to be seen.1 tal Yugoslav population.) The creation and mainte- In this paper, I attempt to explain the disintegra- nance of Yugoslavia hinged on the interdepen- tion of Yugoslavia and why its breakup was not a dence of Serbs and Croats, the country’s two peaceful one. By way of this example, I also at- largest national groups. These peoples not only tempt to explain in general why and when the shared a common daily existence, but also “imag- demise of multinational states creates ethnic polar- ined” the borders of their respective states as over- ization that seems “resolvable” only by force and lapping and clashing. Thus, a Serbo-Croatian com- even . The violent breakup of Yugoslavia, promise represented the foundation of Yugoslavia. in particular, demonstrates the inability of the in- None of the other national groups that inhab- ternational community to rely on any solid legal ited the former Yugoslavia, with the exception of principles, guidelines, or established mechanisms the Slovenes, lived within clearly defined ethnic to avoid such chaos and mass suffering when con- borders inside the federation. Large numbers of stituent parts of these types of multinational states Yugoslav peoples or peoples of neighboring coun- decide to go their own way. In the concluding tries lived within one of the other’s “national” section of this study, I offer recommendations the territory.3 Bosnia-Herzegovina posed the greatest 2

challenge to the peaceful dissolution of Yugoslavia acquired a certain currency is “nationalism as a because both Serbs and Croats lived there in large power game,” which views the main cause of the numbers, and because the two states—Serbia and Yugoslav crisis as an ideology (in the sense of Croatia—both had historical pretensions to the re- “false consciousness”) of “aggressive nationalism,” public’s territory.4 Bosnia-Herzegovina was an “ap- perpetuated by members of the old nomenklatura ple of discord” between Serbia and Croatia, as the who seek to preserve their threatened positions of recent war over its division confirms.5 power in the face of democratic change. Given that The very existence of Yugoslavia seemed to defy these government bureaucrats, party officials, and the history of relations among its different nations, military officers were overwhelmingly concen- which had already waged one ethnic and religious trated in Serbia, this republic was the first to forge war among themselves with the collapse of the first an effective conservative coalition under the - Yugoslavia (1918–41). The feeling of resentment ner of the old Serbian ideology to inhibit a “demo- among Yugoslavia’s nations, however, did not cratic revolution” that would drive them from emerge from this experience alone. To be sure, Yu- power.8 goslavia’s national groups all share a common his- In the “nationalism as a power game” argument, tory of struggling to save their distinct identities Communist elites in Yugoslavia’s other republics and renew their lost medieval states—a history of faced similar reformist pressures and attempted to repressive domination that fostered disloyal and duplicate the Serbian leaders’ strategy in their own militant minorities and arrogant and repressive republics. By promoting their own , majorities. Almost every one of these peoples has Yugoslavia’s other republican leaders acknowl- been perceived as a threat to another national edged not only that Serbian threats—real or per- group and has felt threatened itself. This general ceived—must be countered, but that nationalism atmosphere of ressentiment, real or imagined, was the most successful card to play in maintain- could easily be used to produce ing their positions of power. In- the feeling that one’s national deed, stirring up nationalist sen- group was threatened with ex- timent seemed to be the most tinction as the object of anoth- osnia-Herzegovina convenient strategy for Yu- er’s aggression.6 Almost without goslavia’s republican political exception, every Balkan nation was an “apple of elites, particularly when they has had some territorial preten- could easily manipulate public discord” between Serbia sions or expansionist intentionsB opinion through their control of in one historical period or an- and Croatia, as the their respective republic’s major other. The region’s history has sources of information.9 witnessed successive campaigns recent war over its The problem with this ap- for “,” “Greater proach is that it treats the “na- Croatia,” “Greater ,” division confirms. tional question” as an epiphe- “Greater ,” “Greater nomenon of the struggle to ,” and “Greater preserve power and privilege. In .”7 National ressentiment doing so, it forgets that political extended into the relatively recent period of com- battles in Yugoslavia have almost always devel- munist rule, as the League of Communists of Yu- oped around the “national question.” Such an un- goslavia (embodied in Tito as the bearer of ab- derstanding of nationalism as “false conscious- solute power) frequently resolved national ness” discounts the power of national sentiment conflicts through repressive methods that were among the region’s ethnic groups. not easily forgotten. In the process of maintaining The alternative explanation views nationalism a balance of power among national groups, every in , the Balkans, and the former Yu- nation/republic had reason to believe that it had goslavia as a result of historical desires of separate been unjustly treated in the Yugoslav state. peoples to resolve their “national question.” As The sheer complexity of the former Yugoslavia’s such, nationalism is not viewed as a disingenuous current crisis has supported numerous interpreta- ploy by political elites to hold onto power, but as a tions of its origins. One explanation that has consequence of modernity in contemporary 3

international society.10 The very idea of a “multina- “nationalism” as an ideology in order to protect tional state” implies the dynamic of the “national their threatened positions of power? Or was it the question.” Multinational states significantly differ prospect of finally resolving the ever-present “na- from multiethnic states, in that the former are com- tional question,” which would be freed from the posed of separate nations that want to establish constraints of the old authoritarian political order their political autonomy in order “to ensure the full with the arrival of ? The related ques- and free development of their cultures and the best tion, in terms of the federation’s survival, was interests of their people. At the extreme, nations whether Yugoslavia could either transform itself may wish to secede, if they think their self-determi- into a genuine democratic, federal state, or break nation is impossible within the larger state.”11 up peacefully in light of: (1) conflicting national When we speak of the “communist federations” ideologies; (2) the existing collective decision- that are the subject of this work, we should keep in making structure, representing Yugoslavia’s na- mind that these states “institutionalized multina- tions (through its republics’ representatives) and tionality.”12 the working class (through its vanguard, the Yugoslavia was an institutionalized multina- League of Communists of Yugoslavia); and (3) the tional state that managed to contain, in the full enormous apparatus of power that was created by sense of the word, disparate and seemingly in- the “authentic” socialist revolution—the authoritar- tractable national questions. If we accept the ian regime and the legacy of Tito’s absolute rule? view that there are essentially three fundamental If nationalism takes the form of a quest for na- aspects of the national question, then Yugoslavia tional identity through the creation of a nation- contained all three: (1) a nation acting to create its state, the most important task is to show why and own state through demands for national self-deter- when the nation assumed such worth, thereby mination; (2) a national homeland (state or repub- making nationalist demands such a successful po- lic) acting through its diaspora either to monitor litical card to play.14 A more comprehensive analy- the relative status of its conationals in the new sis of nationalism, based on specific historical, in- states emerging from the federation, or to demand stitutional, and political factors, helps to avoid unification and the redrawing of borders; and treating nationalism as an irrational, “false” phe- (3) members of an alienated national minority suf- nomenon that can be wished away, or as a mere fering from discrimination and acting to resist the psychological template in the postcommunist majority’s formation of a new nation-state by either search for identity. Following the more compre- seeking cultural or political autonomy or seceding hensive analyses, this study will attempt to show in order to unite with their own national home- that nationalism is a weapon for a new division of land.13 power in the process of deconstructing the politi- In this respect, it should be kept in mind that all cal space of Yugoslavia and a dysfunctional prereq- these aspects of the national question existed uisite in the struggle for security among the new within one federal state, creating a specific internal states emerging from the former multinational dynamic that cannot be compared to a similar con- federation. figuration of national questions in other indepen- This analysis of nationalism’s role in Yugoslav- dent states. These national questions have emerged ia’s crisis will focus on three main factors: (1) the in their most extreme forms (secession, irreden- contradictory institutional structures of the Yugo- tism, or the expulsion of minorities) in the process slav state; (2) Serbian ressentiment; and (3) the of Yugoslavia’s disintegration. Once they were so collapse of authoritarian rule. formulated, with the understanding that their pro- The first part examines the contradictory insti- ponents could not abandon their commitment to tutional structures of Yugoslavia as a state. While their particular solution, war was more or less Yugoslavia was a practical compromise solution to inevitable. the conflicting national questions contained The question arises, then, why practically each within its borders, the Yugoslav state lacked the in- nation took the most extreme position, which, in tegrative potential necessary to create institutional essence, made Yugoslavia’s political relations a frameworks and workable procedures of demo- zero-sum game. Was the main cause of this situa- cratic rule that could accommodate the conflictual tion the ancien regime’s elites who launched relations among its different national groups. It 4

was particularly unsuccessful in establishing the tage of these extreme solutions as an opportunity latter, as it was constantly trying to “resolve” na- to save their positions of power and privilege. tional questions—mainly through its repressive The third factor in this analysis is the collapse of state apparatus—that were anathema to the estab- authoritarian rule, which began right after Tito’s lishment of a democratic state. The next section ex- death in 1980, and accelerated rapidly during the plores this matter in detail, comparing the first Yu- breakdown of other communist regimes through- goslavia, the centralized, liberal state created after out Eastern Europe in 1989. This collapse in- I, and the second Yugoslavia, the volved two simultaneous processes of disintegra- ethno-national federation created under commu- tion. The first was the breakdown of the value nist rule. This section attempts to show how diffi- system of socialist internationalism, which tipped culties encountered in both of these state struc- the delicate balance between socialist universalism tures became a basis for future ethnic conflicts and and ethnic particularism in favor of the latter. The the eventual disintegration of Yugoslavia. In short, second was the dissolution of the League of Com- both of these proved unable to over- munists of Yugoslavia, which brought the very ex- come the inherent antagonisms of the country’s istence of the Yugoslav state into question—particu- fundamental national question. larly if we keep in mind that socialist ideology, as The second and perhaps the most salient factor defined by the LCY, provided the main integrative of the Yugoslav crisis is Serbian ressentiment, force holding the Yugoslav state together. With the which ultimately rejected both the second Yu- disintegration of the state and its apparatus of re- goslavia and a possible “third Yugoslavia” as a con- pression, nothing could restrain the rise of nation- federation of independent states. From the mid- alism—particularly Serbian nationalism—or return , prominent segments of the Serbian it to the framework of compromise. Far from lay- intelligentsia, in conjunction with the republic’s ing the foundation for representative and respon- political and military elites, pushed Yugoslavia to- sive institutions that could accommodate the de- ward rapid disintegration with an offensive strat- mands of Yugoslavia’s nations, the introduction of egy of “finally settling accounts with ‘Tito’s mon- political pluralism and free elections at this junc- ster.’” An aggressive Serbian nationalism broke the ture created a “state of nature,” bringing unmedi- thin thread holding together Yugoslavia’s nations ated national conflicts to the stage of open warfare. in a compromise arrangement, pushing toward an Thus, the situation in Yugoslavia during extreme solution of its national question through 1990–91 can best be described as a “decisive bat- threats and warmongering: Either Yugoslavia’s var- tle” for maximal solutions to the question of na- ious nations would accept Serbia’s vision of a “nor- tional boundaries and legitimate states.15 In order mal,” unified state that served Serbian interests, or to provide a complete understanding of the events Serbs from all the republics would “join together” that led up to this battle and what they mean for and achieve their national unity by force. The polit- the future of the former Yugoslavia, I examine ical elites in all the former republics took advan- these three factors in fuller detail. 5

“national unity” in a liberal, parliamentary monar- chy. The idea of “national unity” presumed that there lived in Yugoslavia one people with three names—Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The wartime allies promoted unification of these “tribes” in a INTEGRATIVE common state as an expression of the right to self- determination on the basis of nationality, follow- PROBLEMS ing the example of the creation of the Italian and nations in the second half of the nine- Interwar Yugoslavia teenth century.16 Of course, such “Yugoslav ethnic and the Major unity” was spurious.17 Its foundation of putative 2 ethnic unity was, in essence, a joint project among National Ideologies the various South Slav nations to ward off any ter- ritorial aspirations of neighboring countries and to protect their national identities through a “unified” Yugoslavia. The state was dominated by Serbian in- stitutions (above all, the Serbian of Karad- jordjevic), including the military, the political lead- ership, and the civil . These institutions were mechanically transferred to the new parts of Yugoslavia, even though these old Serbian institu- tions lacked the integrative potential for a new ne prevalent explanation for the even- state that was five times larger than Serbia and that tual demise of the Yugoslav state is that it now brought under its dominion fragments of old Onever succeeded in constituting itself as empires that were arguably more developed than a political community, as a nation-state whose Serbia from a legal, cultural, and economic stand- identity conceptually and structurally transcended point. After the creation of Yugoslavia as a unified the various nations that it comprised. While the nation and centralized state under Serbian domi- special function and purpose of the Yugoslav state nation, the Croatian political parties entered the ideally would have accommodated a large, diverse opposition, obstructing the work of collectivity of many different ethnic groups, na- and state organs. Practically from the very found- tional minorities, and religions, as well as cultural, ing of Yugoslavia, the Croatian national question economic, and linguistic differences, the reality was opened up. was that each of Yugoslavia’s nations sought to use Even before its formation as a state, there were Yugoslavia to protect its own particular national debates over how the first Yugoslavia should be or- identity and develop its own idea about statehood. ganized, even though Serbia entered the debates The more obvious reality was that these different with a considerable advantage. Serbia had a conceptions of the Yugoslav state were decidedly stronger position in the negotiations over Yu- asymmetrical: Yugoslav statehood had to compete goslavia, largely owing to its reputation as one of with its individual nations’ desires for statehood. the victors in the (1912–13), then as a Yet the Yugoslav state itself would eventually be state on the side of the Entente during usurped by the largest nation—Serbs—to serve its (in which Serbs suffered enormous casualties), own national interest. To be sure, the creation of a and finally as an organized military force capable Yugoslav nation-state reflected Serbian interests, of blocking the pretensions of neighboring coun- while Croatian interests (and, later, those of the tries to Yugoslav lands (primarily ’s claims on other republics) fostered the ideal of a Yugoslav ). For these reasons, Serbia believed that of independent states. it had the right to speak in the name of all Yugoslav The first Yugoslavia (the Kingdom of Serbs, peoples and to influence decisively the form of the Croats, and Slovenes) enshrined the idea of state in conformity with Serbian national interests. 6

Given the historical circumstances and balance of Croatia long enjoyed an autonomous status under power, the Serbian position prevailed.18 Hungarian rule, it joined Yugoslavia as a nation Serbian politicians rejected outright the Croat- with a well-developed consciousness about the ian proposals for a federation. Such a scheme was “right of statehood,” that is, the right to an indepen- foreign to Serbian history. Moreover, anything less dent state.20 Given the circumstances at the time, than a centralized state would deprive Serbia of its Croatia was not in a position to exercise this right dominant role in ruling the new country. If Serbian or to advance the cause for a federal Yugoslavia. politicians were to accept the federal model, they Pressed by an internal Yugoslav movement (which would have to link together all of the “Serbian was especially strong in Dalmatia and among lands” so that Serbia could be assured of a domi- Croatian Serbs who were pushing for unification nant role in such a federation. The “Serbian lands with Serbia), Croatia joined Yugoslavia, but with a in -” that would be linked with Ser- strong feeling of its unequal position in the part- bia were understood to include Bosnia and Herze- nership.21 Given its ambivalent relationship to- govina, Vojvodina with Srem, and a part of Dalma- ward the unified state, and the fact that such an tia. , which had already united with arrangement was ill suited for advancing its own Serbia, also fell within these “lands.” Moreover, interests, Croatia maintained a strategic position of Serbia had already obtained Vardar Macedonia separatism regarding its conception of the Yu- and Kosovo in the Balkan Wars. As a result, the goslav state. This position alternated between a Serbian federal unit would be substantially larger pro-Yugoslav ideal of an autonomous state within a than its Croatian and Slovenian counterparts. The confederation of other South and outright se- idea of a federation created on the basis of histori- cession from the Yugoslav federation and the es- cal provinces was not up for consideration, since it tablishment of a truly independent state. Regard- would “break up the Serbian nation” and the lead- ing the latter position, Serbs posed the only ing role of Serbia.19 Serbian politicians were not obstacle to its achievement, according to the more prepared to “drown Serbia in the Yugoslav commu- extreme strains of Croatian nationalist sentiment. nity” and rejected the example of the Piedmont re- Croatian nationalist ideology and a historical long- gion, which renounced its own past for the unifica- ing for the national state it lost a thousand years tion of Italy. This is the reason why Serbia did not before gave ample support for such a position. agree to call the new state “Yugoslavia,” which Serbia’s basic objective remained the unification came only in 1929 under the of King of all Serbs in one state. Following this nationalist . ideology, Serbia entered World War I with the aim Debates over how Yugoslavia should be orga- of bringing together all Serbs and Serbian lands, nized—as either a unitary or a federal state—con- including those in , Croa- stantly plagued the first Yugoslavia, and the de- tia, and Vojvodina (all under Austro-Hungarian bates continued on into the second, communist, rule). However, Serbia officially defined its war Yugoslavia until its disintegration. But debates goal as the broader unification of all over the country’s political structure involved within one state. The idea of Serbian unification much more than arguments about the nature and was based on two principles. One reflected narrow extent of federal relations in the two Yugoslavias. Serbian interests: It envisioned a large Serbian At the heart of these debates was the ongoing bat- state that would be a center of power in the tle to resolve Yugoslavia’s national question. The Balkans after Serbian military victories and strate- opposing sides in these debates almost always di- gic with the other Balkan nations forced vided along the lines of the two historically domi- the dying Hapsburg and Ottoman empires out of nant ideologies that inevitably destroyed both Yu- the region. Serbia achieved this goal, ending Ot- goslavias: Croatian and Serbian. toman rule and annexing Macedonia and Kosovo. Well before unification, a strong political cur- The had a dual role in fulfilling rent in Croatia advocated an independent Croatia Serbian unification: providing the resources within its “historical boundaries,” which included needed to occupy a dominant position in the Bosnia-Herzegovina and parts of contemporary Balkans and focusing on the national question. Serbia (a so-called ). Because While the borders of this “Greater Serbia” were not 7

clearly drawn, Serbia’s more ardent nationalists reorganization aimed at severing ties among ethnic invoked the image of a rebirth of the medieval Ser- communities and lessening their potential for re- bian kingdom lost to the Ottoman at the sistance. This policy was not only unsuccessful, it in 1389. intensified dissatisfaction among the national The second principle was broader: namely, groups it sought to include in the monarchy’s ideal conceived in a number of ways. Yugo- of Yugoslavism, including Serbia. Such a policy slavia as a multinational enterprise, and not an ex- found support only among diaspora Serbs in Croa- panded Serbia, was more popular among promi- tia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. nent segments of the Serbian intelligentsia and With the weakening of the dictatorship in 1934, youth than in official political and military cir- pressure to resolve the Croatian question was so cles.22 The pervasiveness of Serbian ethnic bound- strong that on the eve of World War II the regime aries coincided with both the Yugoslav ideal and established the Croatian region (banovina). In ad- the cooperation established in the mid-nineteenth dition to the traditional Croatian lands, consider- century with other nations that in- able parts of Herzegovina and cluded large Serbian communities, northern Bosnia were included in principally Bosnia-Herzegovina and the new region. The establishment Croatia. However, Serbian politi- thnic of the Croatian administrative re- cians did not renounce the Pied- gion, in turn, reopened the question mont-like position of Serbia and its atrocities of where and how far the Serbian leading role in the creation of Yu- committed by the lands extended. goslavia. Toward the end of World E During Yugoslavia’s in War I, the Serbs realized their unifi- Nazi-sponsored World War II, the conflict over the cation plan with the establishment national question culminated in of Yugoslavia under the slogan “na- Croatian Ustashe ethno- and genocide in tional and state unity.” From that the fascist Independent State of time on, they considered Yugoslavia regime . . . left an Croatia (NDH), which included the permanent solution to their na- Bosnia-Herzegovina and part of pre- tional question. Accordingly, they indelible mark on sent-day Serbia, near . Eth- made great sacrifices during World nic atrocities committed by the War I, assigning themselves the role Serbian national Nazi-sponsored Croatian Ustashe of the Yugoslav “state people” and consciousness, as regime in the NDH left an indelible “liberators” of the other peoples.23 mark on Serbian national con- This dual identity remained a per- well as on the sciousness, as well as on the con- manent part of the Serbian national sciousness of peoples who suffered character up to the emergence of the consciousness of Serbian revenge. The mass liquida- Serbian national movement in the tions that were carried out by the 1980s, when this tie was broken peoples who new communist government with the rejection of Yugoslavism against so-called collaborators and and Yugoslavia as the Serbian suffered Serbian “class enemies” further traumatized homeland. the Yugoslav nations. Under the pressure of national, revenge. The scale of the massacres in the social, and economic problems, Yu- NDH and other mass executions goslavia did not survive for long as a would not allow their examination parliamentary democracy. King Alexander’s impo- in the atmosphere of “national reconciliation” that sition of dictatorship in 1929 decisively defeated followed the war. Such a possibility was further de- the idea of Yugoslavia as a liberal state based on nied by communist ideology, which rejected at- “national unity.” Through repression and persecu- tempts to define the problems of ethnic war in “na- tions, the King imposed his own version of na- tional” terms. As such, genocide and massacres tional unity, including extensive regional were not carried out by members of national 8

groups, but by “fascists,” “Ustashe,” and “Chet- Yugoslav nations, which would eventually niks.” Monuments were raised to the victims, but a articulate their own national aspirations—Sloven- veil of silence covered over the climate of fear and ian, Macedonian, Albanian, and (in the Bosnian ex- mutual distrust.24 perience) Muslim. Ever since the founding of Yugoslavia, two dis- Both of these strident, ethnocentric, national tinct nationalist policies have struggled for pri- ideologies preordained the failure of any attempt macy in the debate over the country’s political to constitute Yugoslavia as a modern unitary and future: Croatian separatism striving for an inde- liberal state. To be sure, such attempts lacked a pendent state and Serbian centralism striving to genuine appreciation for the term “liberal state.” preserve the common Yugoslav state under its For Serbia, the Yugoslav state became nothing dominion. Croatian nationalism was separatist more than a vehicle for Serbian domination, and oppositional, Serbian nationalism alternated which, in turn, stimulated Croatian national oppo- between outright Serbian rule and a strict federal- sition and, in a somewhat subsidiary fashion, ism governed through central government institu- . The position of the other tions. While the former would be nurtured by Yugoslav nations was simply not a matter for dis- economic growth through a reorientation of the cussion. The first Yugoslav state was not only un- Croatian economy, the latter would have to rely on able to pacify internal conflicts and dilute rigid na- the army and the . The Croatian policy sup- tional ideologies, but its collapse in World War II ported the devolution of power from the center left no mechanisms in place to prevent extreme outward and found support among most other methods of resolving the national question. 9

arrangement, best expressed by the classic Soviet formula, “national in form, socialist in content.” What exactly did this formula mean for the forma- tion of Yugoslavia as a state, and how exactly was the national question “resolved” according to this formula? ETHNO-NATIONAL The contradictory nature of Yugoslavia as a state was apparent from its very inception. On the one FEDERALISM UNDER hand, the Communist party was able to come to power only as a Yugoslav movement; on the other 3COMMUNIST RULE hand, it could not hope to attract the “oppressed nations” to the revolutionary cause with the promise of a Yugoslav solution to the national question. The social revolution, following the tra- dition of the Soviet experience, subsumed class and national divisions within the categories of the oppressed and the oppressor. Simply put, some of Yugoslavia’s nations were “working class,” and oth- ers ranked among the bourgeoisie. According to the LCY, the “Serbian bourgeoisie” was both a class and national oppressor. Thus, the party did not of- fer a Yugoslavia that its “exploited nations” would he disintegration of the second Yugoslavia continue to view as a Serbian creation; rather, it at- and the activity of the main actors up tempted to move the new Yugoslavian project as Tthrough the outbreak of violent conflict can far away from Serbian influence as it could. This be understood in a specific context, that of a multi- was achieved by emphasizing the revolutionary national federal state operating within a socialist right of each nation to self-determination and by framework. Both of these elements, which served offering the promise of a federal organization of as the bases of Yugoslavia’s renewal after World Yugoslavia. The resulting framework of social revo- War II, produced new problems of integration at lution (which, according to party ideologists, was the level of both the federation and the new federal coterminous with the country’s national war of lib- units, or “national states.” New contradictions eration) could only be a new, socialist Yugoslavia. emerged with the radical rejection of the civic prin- In its formulation of the new socialist project, “the ciple of citizenship as a means of integrating the party had come to acquire a sensitivity to the point Yugoslav state and its constituent parts. of view of the individual Yugoslav nationalities while at the same time being fully committed to “National in form, socialist in content” finding a Yugoslav solution to the national ques- tion.”25 How would such a Yugoslavia be consti- The renewal of the country from the start of the tuted? On what institutional assumptions would it war was taken up by the League of Communists of be based? Yugoslavia, which played the role of “mediator” According to official communist doctrine, Yu- among the quarreling Yugoslav peoples. It goslavia could not be established as a nation-state, promised a resolution of the national question, even in a federal arrangement. “Nations” were which from its ideological standpoint, could be products of , not socialism; so any at- settled only as an inseparable part of a social revo- tempt to establish administrative units based on lution. The party’s linkage of social and national historical categories, such as nations, was out of the offered a specific way to “resolve” the question. Unity in the new, socialist Yugoslavia was national question and constitute Yugoslavia as a to be realized by merging the basic differences (in- unified state. The linkage between nation and cluding national ones) among its various peoples in revolution was presented as a comprehensive an all-encompassing proletariat.26 This presumed 10

unity was not political (i.e., national) but apolitical based on an ethno-national sovereignty that would (i.e., class-based) in nature. Until the time when bear the seeds of future ethnocracies once its so- this new unity could be fully established, nations cialist framework fell apart.29 Five constitutive na- would be recognized and constituted as sovereign tions were so recognized—Croats, , states, but only until that “form” could be tran- , Serbs, and Slovenes—each of which scended by an authentic community of working was territorially and politically organized as a re- people. Of course, recognition of the nations as public in the Yugoslav federation. One republic, sovereign states was, from the start, more estab- Bosnia-Herzegovina, was not recognized under the lished on paper than in fact, particularly with re- national principle until 1971. After the recognition gard to their own national policies. The major deci- of as a separate ethno-nation, Bosnia- sions were taken in the central party organs, and Herzegovina became a republic consisting of three all state institutions, including republican govern- constitutive peoples: Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. ments, were merely “transmitters” The constitutive nations en- of these decisions. joyed the status of states (re- The formula “national in form, publics), while all of the other na- socialist in content” established he formula tional groups held the status of Yugoslavia as a state based on one “national in form, national minorities with recog- ideological project, or more pre- nized cultural rights. Later on, this cisely, the absolute and central- socialist in content” status was elevated to the level of ized power of the Communist T “nationalities” (narodnost), grant- party and its apparatus of state established Yugo- ing them proportional representa- power.27 The subjective dimen- tion at the local level, and at the sion of Yugoslavia as a state is ex- slavia as a state provincial/republican and federal pressed by “socialist ,” levels for larger minority groups which reduces its identity to that based on one (e.g., in Vojvodina). of a communist supranational Within the Serbian republic, two ideology. This tenuous concep- ideological project, autonomous provinces were tion of Yugoslavia would later pro- formed: Kosovo, populated pri- voke its crisis. The weakening and or more precisely, marily by ethnic , and disappearance of socialism’s ideo- the absolute and Vojvodina, populated by signifi- logical sovereignty raised perforce numbers of ethnic Hungari- fundamental and profound ques- centralized power of ans and other minorities.30 Under tions about Yugoslavia’s existence the 1974 constitution, both of as a state, as happened in Czecho- the Communist these regions took on a state-like slovakia and the Soviet Union. status similar to that enjoyed by As long as communist Yu- party and its the republics. goslavia could not be defined as a Despite the regime’s attempts to nation-state (“nation” defined as a apparatus of state control national aspirations by in- shared political community), nor stitutionalizing them within the its citizens as constituting a uni- power. political and territorial boundaries fied nation, its communist leaders of the titular republics, the more could safely abstract aspects of nationhood allow its composite parts to be constituted in na- could not be so confined. Conferring the sense of tional terms.28 Yugoslavia institutionalized the re- statehood upon Yugoslavia’s major ethnic groups lations among these nations through an unusual had far greater consequences in strengthening the federal arrangement based on a hierarchy of two territorial and ethnic integration of these nations. kinds of ethno-nationality. Enjoying the higher That is, their rights to be “constitutive” were recog- status were the “constitutive nations” that origi- nized not only within their respective states, but nally “joined together in the common state” and also among their conationals inhabiting the terri- theoretically enjoyed the right to be recognized as tory of other Yugoslav republics. In some cases, sovereign states. Thus, Yugoslav federalism was these ethnic diaspora communities viewed the 11

constitutive nature of Yugoslav nationhood as giv- This absolutized the political (i.e., state) criteria for ing them the right to extend the sovereignty of guarding and protecting the “nation” in the ethno- their national “homeland” to the territories they in- cultural sense. Moreover, this arrangement later habited. Such was the case with Serbs in Croatia, gave Serbia’s policy of unifying all Serbs unlimited constituting 12 percent of the republic’s popula- possibilities for playing upon Serbian discontent tion in 1991. Later, this status would produce enor- in order to escalate conflicts in Croatia or Bosnia- mous problems, giving Croatian Serbs the “right” Herzegovina. to secede from Croatia, and giving Croatia the This system was the logical consequence of re- right to deny them this status by designating them jecting the civil state as a framework for integration as a “minority” in its new constitution. An even under the socialist regime. Such a “supranational” clearer example was in Bosnia-Herzegovina, arrangement could be maintained only with the where, according to the same principle, three na- unlimited power of the Communist party, which tions held sovereignty: Serbs, Croats, and Mus- kept an eye on any and all attempts to raise na- lims.31 This principle held for Yugoslavia’s other tional consciousness to the level of nationalism nations as well, but it did not have the same conse- among Yugoslavia’s myriad ethno-national groups. quences due to the significantly smaller share of Could the new Yugoslavia have succeeded in at- other nations in their populations. tenuating the country’s two major national ideolo- Yugoslavia’s institutionalization of these two op- gies—Serbian domination and Croatian sepa- posing principles of integration—territorial-politi- ratism—that threatened the very survival of the cal and ethnic—posed an apparent contradiction Yugoslav experiment? The obvious answer is that that had two major consequences.32 First, none of it could not, but less obvious is why it could not. Yugoslavia’s constitutive nations acquired its own Was the Yugoslav experiment doomed to fail from national state (with the exception of , its inception? The key to answering this deeper which was more or less ethnically homogeneous), question once again lies in the different percep- since members of other “constitutive” nations lived tions of Yugoslavia’s two main ethno-national within their borders. The second consequence groups about the purpose of the new federation. bears on the issue of the right to self-determina- The revolutionary bases—national and social— tion. Specifically, who is the bearer of that right in underlying the legitimacy of socialist Yugoslavia the Yugoslav experience? Does self-determination can be understood as a compromise between the apply to the republics or to “peoples” as members two major national ideologies. Yugoslavia’s new of national groups? (Serbian nationalists insisted federal arrangement within a socialist context not on the latter, referring to the federal constitution, only provided all of the region’s major national which states that “nations” and not republics groups their own territorial sovereignty, but en- “joined together” to form the common state.) sured a de jure equality among the federation’s There was a third consequence whose signifi- new states. At least this was the perception among cance would become increasingly apparent in later most of the Yugoslav nations, including Croatia. conflicts: When “constitutive peoples” were in the Serbia perceived the new federation differently: Yu- minority of a particular republic, they were denied goslavia’s renewal under a strong, centralized com- the exercise of their cultural rights, since they munist order would once again fulfill Serbia’s his- already enjoyed such rights in their own titular torical quest to unify all Serbs in one state.34 Serbs republics. Thus, for example, Serbs in both Croatia accepted the new federation and the borders that and Bosnia-Herzegovina, or Croats in the latter, defined its republics and provinces only because could not carry out their own cultural policies as Yugoslavia, not the republic of Serbia, would now ethnic groups, nor could they maintain cultural be the guarantor of their national interest. In spite links with their home republics.33 Such policies of its new configuration, Yugoslavia’s basic asym- not only precluded the possibility of peacefully in- metry survived under the guise of arbitrary “na- tegrating national minorities into the majority eth- tional balancing acts” that would later serve as the nic group’s titular republic, but they prevented basis for new nationalist grievances. The most ob- these minorities from maintaining vital cultural vious of such “national balancing acts” was the linkages to their national homelands within the overrepresentation of Serbs in the federal organs territorial and political framework of that republic. of power—military, police, and administration. 12

Disproportionate numbers of Serbs outside of Ser- the revolution.” These viewpoints were judged as bia joined forces in World War II and being not only incorrect but also bureaucratic, were active in the revolution. For their efforts as a “unitarist,” and hegemonic.38 In line with such crit- loyal cadre, these Serbs were awarded state and icism, the congress witnessed a complete turn- party positions in these republics in dispropor- around in efforts to establish Yugoslavia as a na- tionate numbers. This circumstance especially tion-state. From that point on, nations/republics caused discontent among Croats, even though the were to become the real bearers of sovereignty, as numbers of Serbs did not undermine the domi- all nations have the right to do. At its next con- nant position of the Croatian cadre in its own titu- gress in 1969, the LCY followed the same pattern, lar republic. On the other hand, this circumstance transferring party power to the republican organs. “balanced off” the reduction of Serbia as a republic Thus, Yugoslavia’s Communist party practically (with its two autonomous provinces).35 disappeared as a unified organization, although it continued to function primarily because of Tito’s Centralism and decentralism sacred and absolute power. The devolution of power initiated at the Eighth Beginning in the early 1960s, the debate over cen- LCY Congress eventually produced a series of tralism versus decentralism in the federation high- comprehensive constitutional changes that culmi- lighted the differences between the two fundamen- nated in the 1974 constitution. Tito’s personal tal views of Yugoslavia’s national purpose. Serbia’s power was strengthened under Yugoslavia’s new official policy strategically sided with the center of basic law (which only served to codify the tremen- power and “Yugoslavism,” resisting until the end dous growth of his personality cult during the of the decade the push for and ), as was the political role of the Yugoslav economic reforms that would lead to a redistribu- National Army, which became the ninth member tion of power in favor of the republics and of the collective presidency of the LCY, along with provinces.36 Croatia and Slovenia extended their the eight representatives of the republics and original support of economic decentralization to provinces.39 On the other hand, the new consti- the central Yugoslav party and state apparatuses, tution also transferred power to the republics. In resisting periodic attempts by the party to renew the federal organs, decisions had to be made ac- the idea of “Yugoslavism” outside the context of cording to consensus (with each republic and “.”37 This position found sup- holding veto power). All of the republics port among the other non-Serbian republics and were represented equally in government bodies; provinces, not because of similar economic inter- the provinces had a smaller number of representa- ests, but for political reasons—namely, to weaken tives, but this did not affect their position. Repre- the central government as a Serbian stronghold. sentatives in federal organs consisted of “delega- Thus Croatia (along with Slovenia and the other tions” from the republics and provinces, and they non-Serbian republics) adopted the strategy of were accountable to these bodies for their deci- loosening and weakening the central role of the sions. Republics and provinces could develop federation, preferring that it merely represent the their own independent foreign relations, and the positions the republics and provinces had already organization of territorial defense was left up to agreed on. the republics as well. If one event foreshadowed the specter of na- The formal bearers of sovereignty in Yugoslavia tionalism in postwar Yugoslavia, it occurred in were its nations. Without the agreement and ap- 1964 at the Eighth LCY Congress, which rejected proval of the country’s eight national states (six re- the idea of “Yugoslav culture” as assimilationist. publics and the two provinces), the federation Croatia and its supporters denounced “integral could not function, as it did not have its own Yugoslavism” as a chauvinist policy advanced by autonomous source of authority.40 The need for Serbian hegemonists. Similarly, the congress re- agreement among disparate national states operat- jected the “bourgeois prejudice about the wither- ing within a framework of overlapping federal and ing away of nations” and the specious notion that confederal jurisdictions (the proscribed powers of “national differences will disappear quickly after the federation were fairly broad) meant that every 13

question was necessarily “nationalized,” inevitably political elites would begin their competition for leading to national confrontations on a regular real political power only after Tito’s death in 1980. basis.41 Under the 1974 constitution, so-called The institutionalization of Yugoslavia as an international relations were established within Yu- ethno-national federation constituted the first step goslavia.42 Every question affecting the entire fed- in dismembering Yugoslavia along ethnic lines. eration first had to be cleared in one’s own state This analysis suggests that Yugoslavia, as a multi- and returned to the federal level for final agree- national state, was formed in such a way that it ment. Since there were no federal bodies with their emerged and survived only under the aegis of au- own source of legitimacy that transcended that of thoritarian rule, and that the battle for ethno- the republics, Yugoslavia under the new constitu- national statehood results in either the construc- tion could neither frame issues in terms of their im- tion of a common “nation-state” that seeks to pacify pact on the federation as a whole, nor arrive at fed- separate national identities, disintegration into in- eral solutions that attempted to effect compromise dependent states, or the formation of a confedera- outcomes. tion (which is not a “state” in the real sense of the Finally, the 1974 constitution established a sym- term). However, neither possibility obtained in metry that precluded linking Yugoslavia’s identity postwar Yugoslavia, since asymmetrical national with any particular republic. As such, Yugoslavia interests and the very institutional structure of essentially had no citizens; rather, it was inhabited multinationality precluded these alternatives. by citizens of its respective republics. In reality, Rather, Yugoslavia’s states resorted to yet another though, the country’s political life belonged to Tito alternative—to change Yugoslavia’s internal bor- and the Yugoslav National Army. The country’s ders through prolonged, bloody conflict. 14

the mid-1980s. This crisis had its origins in the powerful nationalist movement under the leader- ship of Serbia’s Communist party. Initially, it sought the restoration of the Yugoslav federation based on the authority of the Communist party, but it soon grew into a movement for the creation of a “Greater Serbia.” With each passing day, this THE ROLE OF SERBIAN movement intensified national conflicts and pushed the crisis toward the denouement of war RESSENTIMENT that eventually engulfed all of Yugoslavia. The 4 country could have embraced a democratic re- sponse to the collapse of the communist system only under the condition that all participants pur- sue a moderate policy.44 Unfortunately, Yugoslavia was robbed of such a conditional alternative with the triumph of conservative factions in the League of Communists of Serbia and the ascension of Slo- bodan Milosevic as its leader in 1987. The Serbian crisis had multiple origins, three of which can be identified as the most profound.

hus far, this study has attempted to explain Serbia’s problematic position under the 1974 con- the fragility of the Yugoslav state in terms of stitution. As noted previously, the League of Com- Tboth the dominant national ideologies that munists of Yugoslavia was not immune to the shook its foundations from its very creation and forces that rendered federation-wide institutions the institutional frameworks within which na- ineffective in guaranteeing Yugoslavia’s existence. tional conflicts evolved. The LCY’s waning authority as the basis of Yu- Tito’s principal strategy in maintaining national goslav integration was viewed by the Serbs as jeop- peace sought to curb the power of the largest re- ardizing the Serbian national interest for all Serbs public (Serbia) and prevent the separation of the to live in one state. “Every Serb who had partici- others from the federation. After his death, such a pated in the national liberation movement became peace had little chance of surviving absent a convinced that the new Yugoslavia was becoming supreme arbiter. No legitimate political institu- an inter-nationally founded federation in which . . . tions existed in Yugoslavia to both regulate con- the ideological principle had precedence over the flicts among different national groups and support national.” This conviction, “as shown by the identi- the ideal of a unified nation-state, a common situa- fication with Yugoslavia as a formula of inter- tion for all multinational states in the communist nationalism, was the core of most Serbs’ national bloc. This circumstance was particularly conve- consciousness up until 1974. . . .”45 nient for the rise of ethno-nationalism in these This fundamental legitimacy crisis was bol- countries.43 stered by the existing constitutional arrangement that defined Yugoslavia as a state by “mutual agree- Sources of crisis in Serbia: ment” of the republics and provinces. Yugoslav The nationalist response sovereignty had been essentially seized and di- vided up among the federation’s national groups. The crisis in the former Yugoslavia, characterized The symmetry established between the republics first by the political disintegration of the country and provinces -à-vis an empty central authority and then by its descent into full-scale war to alter re- made it senseless for Serbia to maintain its “inter- publican borders, cannot be understood without nationalist” position against the “nativist” posi- an analysis of the crisis that broke out in Serbia in tions of other republics.46 Yugoslavia’s future was 15

heading toward either confederation or disintegra- provincial parliaments did not accept Serbian pro- tion as the communist system weakened. The posals, they applied only to Serbia proper. Serbian cultural and political elite did not accept Soon after adoption of the 1974 constitution, such a future, fearing that the forces propelling Yu- the Serbian leadership called for a change in the goslavia toward dissolution would also destroy the Serbian republic’s status. Why it wasn’t changed fundamental Serbian national goal—that all Serbs immediately is obvious: The constitution could live in one state. Viewed as such, Serbian national- not be changed because the federation’s members ism was a reaction to the fading of what Serbs con- could not reach an agreement regarding this mat- sidered a symbiosis between “Serbianism” and ter.48 In 1976, the Serbian leadership submitted a “Yugoslavism” that was mediated by the commu- request to change the constitutional provisions nist system. With the disappearance of this sym- specifying the republic’s composition, seeking to biosis, the problem of the Serbian diaspora clam- encompass Serbia’s provinces formally. The docu- ored to be resolved once again. ment justifying this request to change Serbia’s sta- The immediate source of Serbian dissatisfaction tus was called the “ Book” (made public only in general, and the most tangible reason for its na- in 1990). Denounced as a nationalist tract, the doc- tionalist reaction in particular, were the constitu- ument was received with “knives” by political lead- tional provisions that undermined Serbia’s territo- ers in the other republics and particularly in the rial integrity. Although the institutional system provinces.49 established under the 1974 constitution pre- The situation continued into the early 1980s, scribed the “nativization” of all Yugoslav peoples when the focus of attention shifted to Kosovo, the within their territorial, republican frameworks, Serbian province that was the scene of growing Serbia was frustrated in this regard. According to ethnic tension. The Serbian leadership at the time, the constitution, Serbia was not a “sovereign” nego- headed by , made concerted efforts tiating party like the other republics because of the to change the status of Serbia vis-à-vis its provinces “sovereignty” of its two provinces, Kosovo and with the agreement of the other federation mem- Vojvodina. bers. However, opening up discussions on this According to the 1974 constitution, the re- matter was becoming an increasingly painstaking publics and provinces were almost completely on process. In order to change the constitution, an ef- equal footing regarding rights and duties. At the fective pro-Serbian coalition was required. When federal level, provinces had veto power, equal rep- none was forthcoming, Serbia interpreted the resentation in the collective Yugoslav presidency, maintenance of the constitutional status quo as the and the right to represent their own interests with- work of an anti-Serbian coalition. After the out- out consulting the republic—most often in opposi- break of nationalist demonstrations in Kosovo in tion to it. Serbia’s representation at the federal 1981, in which ethnic Albanians demanded repub- level covered only the territory of “Serbia proper” lican status for Kosovo—which would bolster (i.e., Serbia without its autonomous provinces), claims to the right to self-determination—the ques- even though such a jurisdiction was not defined in tion of Serbia’s constitutional jurisdiction took on the constitution. In ethno-demographic terms, this even greater importance; its resolution spelled ei- meant that Serbia’s representatives in the federa- ther political survival or failure. Indeed, Kosovo’s tion could speak for only 42 percent of the Serbs threat to Serbia’s territorial integrity had been gain- living in Serbia.47 ing momentum since 1968, when the Kosovar Following the period of constitutional reform in leadership gave its support to an Albanian national the late 1960s, Serbia’s provinces seized all the at- movement in the province whose principal goal tributes of statehood—legislative, judicial, and ex- was to gain republican status for Kosovo.50 ecutive powers—even those not constitutionally granted to them. The provinces changed their own Kosovo and the “ethnic threat.” Demonstrations independently, maintained relations among Kosovo’s overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian with foreign countries (e.g., Kosovo with Albania), population were the second reason for the crisis. and created their own territorial defense. Laws Setting Kosovo apart as a de facto republic created were passed by consensus of all three units; if the the conditions for a Serbian nationalist reaction. 16

Kosovo was considered the cradle of Serbian me- that their brethren in Kosovo suffered increasing dieval culture and the symbol of national history persecution, evidenced by continued Serbian emi- and mythology.51 During the first years after the gration from the province.58 1981 Albanian demonstrations and the imposition The main role in defining the situation in of in Kosovo, the LCY provided the of- Kosovo was taken over by an organized movement ficial, socialist interpretation of the disturbances, of Serbs from Kosovo that had the support of the branding them as instances of “counterrevolution” Orthodox Church and the Serbian intelligentsia. by Albanian separatists. Viewed in such a way, the These Serbs’ demands were almost always aimed Yugoslav leadership avoided identifying ethnic fac- at constitutional changes that would establish a tors as the cause of unrest. united Serbia, but they endeavored even more to A starkly different interpretation of these events change the ethnic domination in Kosovo. Their emerged from the Serbian main interpretation of party leadership, which capi- the “Serbian tragedy” in talized on the symbolic Kosovo was that the eth- meaning of Kosovo and la- osovo demonstrated that nic Albanians had gained tent Serbian nationalism in ethnic conflicts could be control through the 1974 order to strengthen its argu- constitution, and that the ments for changing Serbia’s invented and exacerbated only way to stop the “eth- constitutional status. The K nic cleansing” of Serbs in Serbian Communist party re- through media . Kosovo was to reinstate defined Kosovo as an ethnic Serbian domination threat, tapping national This effective tool became the there.59 myths surrounding Kosovo Both interpretations and the history of the great principal mechanism for of the problem, the con- Serbian medieval state. The stitutional position of federal government toler- intensifying ethnic conflicts in Serbia as an unequal ated Serbia’s ethnic reaction, party in the federation which centered on the possi- Yugoslavia. and the matter of ethnic ble loss of Kosovo as a “holy Albanian domination in land.”52 The “Albanian ene- Kosovo, distanced Serbs my’s” goal, according to the Serbian party leader- from a diagnosis of the republic’s real problem: de- ship, was being realized by the forced expulsion of termining the basis of Serbia’s political community Serbs from Kosovo,53 while ethnic Albanians es- and its political identity. To be sure, the same prob- caped prosecution from a sympathetic provincial lem applied to Yugoslavia as a whole, but it is not government for crimes such as rape, murder, theft, an exaggeration to say that the locus of Yugoslavi- desecration of Serbian graves, and various other a’s demise was in Kosovo. The federation was po- types of intimidation.54 Serbian emigration from litically unequipped to protect its citizens—Serbs Kosovo came to be viewed by Serbia as nothing and ethnic Albanians in this case—because it had short of an exodus under the pressure of Albanian no nonviolent instrument (above all, the rule of nationalism, although clearly there were other fac- law) at its disposal to neutralize and pacify these tors at work.55 Anyone who dared to mention types of ethnic conflicts. these other reasons (economic, educational, etc.), The ethnic politicization of Kosovo increased particularly if the person was from another Yu- the number of interpretations of the conflict, de- goslav republic, was ruthlessly attacked and de- pending on who was speaking: “genocide” (the nounced as an enemy of the Serbs.56 Serbian griev- Serbian interpretation), “normal migration” and ances were not thoroughly investigated, since the “vehicles of Serbian nationalism” (Slovenian), “dis- very act of checking suggested doubts about the possession of ethnic Albanians and political ter- Serbs’ claims of victimization.57 Not even repres- ror” (Albanian). These interpretations strained re- sion of the “rebellious” Albanians, the military oc- lations among the republics. On the one hand, cupation of Kosovo, or the imprisonment of Slovenia and Croatia backed the Albanian nation- hundreds of Albanians changed Serbs’ opinion alist movement. On the other hand, Serbian 17

responses increasingly acquired overtones of with its “evaluations of the situation” that charac- nationalism, repression, propaganda, and outright terized the “soft communist” reformers as agents of lies.60 Kosovo demonstrated that ethnic conflicts the “new world order,” whose goal was to deny “so- could be invented and exacerbated through media cialism [the ability] to rectify its mistakes and show propaganda. This effective tool became the princi- its strength.”63 The Western countries (especially pal mechanism for intensifying ethnic conflicts in ) were routinely denounced as enemies Yugoslavia. In essence, the media dramatically of Yugoslavia for both undermining socialism and staged reality for millions of Serbs and turned destroying the Soviet Union as a state and military whatever potential existed in Serbia for ethnic ha- power. In fact, the army was an instrument not of tred into a self-fulfilling prophesy. the state, but of the party; as such, it was the main political force (together with the Serbian party fac- The antidemocratic coalition. The third factor in tion that maintained its power) posing the most the Yugoslav crisis involved the concentration of formidable obstacle to change. When communism the old regime’s conservative forces in Serbia. The began to split along all its seams, the army rushed privileged layer of central and local Communist in first to help defend the system. Its actions party bureaucrats and members of the state’s should come as no surprise, since it was defending power apparatus (military and police) viewed with its own privileges. Officers in the YNA joined Yu- concern the nascent democratic changes taking goslavia’s conservative apparatchiks in dragging place in the Soviet Union under Gorbachev. De- Serbia into an “antimodern” revolution, which be- mocratization of the “first country of socialism” came the social and political background for de- threatened Yugoslavia’s status quo and the privi- fending the Serbian national question.64 leges and positions these elites enjoyed. They were By the end of the 1980s, a powerful and effective threatened by domestic liberal opposition as well, antidemocratic coalition was firmly in control of which was strongest in Belgrade at the time. In the Serbia’s political scene. One side consisted of ex- ambiguity surrounding the “Kosovo problem,” treme nationalist elements in the Serbian Ortho- these conservative political elites organized a dox Church and the Serbian intelligentsia, whose putsch in the Serbian Communist party in 1987, role was to produce propaganda and formulate na- bringing to the forefront the party’s most conserva- tionalist ideology. The other side consisted of the tive elements, led by Slobodan Milosevic. conservative party apparatus, the army, and the The party conservatives’ support of the military police, who used this nationalist ideology to hold apparatus was not hidden. General Ljubicic, one of onto their positions of power. Although their mo- the most influential officers in the Yugoslav Na- tives were different, the members of this “national- tional Army, greeted Milosevic’s candidacy as pres- ist-communist” coalition65 complemented each ident of the Serbian Communist party with this en- other and jointly pursued an aggressive policy of comium: “Slobodan has committed himself to the tearing down Yugoslavia and recasting it in their battle against nationalism, against , and own mold: Either Yugoslavia would become a against all forms of counterrevolution in country according to Serbian (i.e., Serbian Com- Belgrade.”61 Criticism of the moderate wing in the munist party) standards, or else Serbia would em- League of Communists of Serbia as being unfaith- bark on the path toward creating a “Greater ful to Tito’s politics was accurately read as an accu- Serbia” by force. In the end, the new country sation of having betrayed national interests. On would encompass all of Yugoslavia’s Serbs and both tracks—defending Tito’s cult of personality keep the members of the ancien regime in their and resolving the Kosovo problem—a power strug- privileged positions. gle took place through party purges, consolidating the party’s victorious faction, establishing control Escalation of the conflict: over the most influential media outlets, and - The Serbian offensive strategy ing the liberal opposition.62 Serbia’s conservative power apparatus tapped The principal mechanism for escalating intereth- new sources of energy and support in the well- nic conflicts in a multinational state begins when spring of Serbian national frustration. The Yu- political elites in tenuous positions of power goslav National Army excelled in this technique, successfully portray their ethno-nation as being 18

threatened by another.66 The political players will of “nation-building,” including descriptions of “na- then manipulate this “ethnic threat” to advance tional treasures” and cultural uniqueness.72 They their interests in holding onto political power encouraged the Serbian national community to and/or vanquishing competing elites. Members of imagine itself as an “endangered species” that ur- Serbia’s broad coalition of conservative political, gently needed its own state in order to protect it- military, and cultural elites pushed each other to- self from other “species.” The basic emotion upon ward an extremist definition of the “national which Serbian was built was the threat,” creating a constant escalation of the con- enmity of other Yugoslav peoples.73 This is best il- flict among all the other Yugoslav nations. The lustrated in the words of the writer and “father of more this coalition emphasized the perception the Serbian nation,” Cosic: “The enemies that the Serbian nation was threatened, the more of the Serbs made Serbs Serbs.”74 Another well- the other ethnic nations perceived threats to their known Serbian writer expressed the same thought: own security. This defensive reaction was, in turn, “The Serbian issue was started and opened by oth- used to confirm the threat to Serbia, giving it the ers. They straightened us out by blows, made us right to increase the level of its “defense.”67 sober by offenses, woke us up by injustices, This vicious circle of defending against ethno- brought light and united us by coalitions. They national threats began in the 1980s with the “eth- hate us because of Yugoslavia, and now it seems nic threat” in Kosovo and the uncertainty over the they do not leave her, but us.”75 survival of Yugoslavia’s state and society. The con- Ressentiment—the dominant sentiment of being flict developed in the context of a preemptive vi- threatened and hated throughout Yugoslavia—in- sion of Yugoslavia’s disintegration, which incited formed Serbian nationalism, which consisted of the struggle for power and security among all of its two basic components. One was entirely for do- nations’ political leaders. Reality was becoming mestic purposes, providing the conservative Ser- more and more a daily fabrication based on mu- bian leadership with a convenient taxonomy of tual name-calling and consciously crafted lies. Eth- real and fabricated Serbian grievances against Yu- nic clashes were becoming more frequent and goslavia’s other nations. By constantly returning to more intense in a political scene whose script was this repertoire of current and historical wrongs, becoming increasingly predictable.68 the Serbian leadership was able to keep nationalist For its part, Serbia used three offensive strate- passions running high. gies for grabbing power while working to ensure The second, external, component contained a Yugoslavia’s disintegration and, at the same time, revision of Serbian relations with other nations beginning the process of nation- and state-build- and with Yugoslavia as a whole. This new set of re- ing. The Serbian leadership’s new vision of state- lations appeared for the first time in 1986 with the building now relied on mass nationalist move- unofficial publication of the Serbian Academy of ments that coalesced around the idea of redividing Sciences and Arts’ draft “Memorandum,” which the Yugoslav space and creating a powerful, all- was an attempt to present systematically the situa- encompassing Serbian state.69 This new vision in- tion of the Serbs as a whole nation. Based on that formed the Serbian intelligentsia’s redefinition of document and many positions taken by well- Serbia’s national identity, as reflected in regularly known Serbian writers and members of the Ser- repeated media images and historical myths.70 bian and Arts appearing daily in the Serbian media, seven key themes of Serbian Serbian ressentiment. The very expression of Ser- ressentiment are identified here.76 bian nationalism and the new vision of the Serbian 1. Yugoslavia is a Serbian delusion. According state invoked by Serbian nationalist intellectuals to this theme, Serbs were naively duped into ac- aggravated ethnic tensions.71 The task of redefin- cepting Yugoslavism and the fraternal bonds of its ing the Serbian nation was undertaken by both the other nations, while those “brothers” were contin- conservative faction of the Serbian intelligentsia ually building their ethno-national states on the and the in collaboration bones of dead Serbs who fought in wars of libera- with the political leadership, which had control tion. Only the Serbs love Yugoslavia, they were the over the mass media. The reawakening of Serbian only ones to fight for her, they were the only ones national consciousness followed classic methods to abdicate their Serbian nationality in the name of 19

Yugoslavian unity. They lost considerable “histori- One gets a picture of an oppressed and neglected cal time” in coming to the realization that Yu- economy in the Yugoslav space. . . . The situation of goslavia was a Serbian delusion. They had every- Serbia should be observed within the pattern of thing to lose in accepting the Yugoslav project, and the political and economic domination of Slovenia other nations had everything to gain. The Serbs and Croatia, who were the initiators of changes in were the victims of their own futile Yugoslavism: all of the previous systems.”80 “The contemporary Serbian national conscious- 4. Serbs are the losers, because they are the ness is soiled by ideological fraud . . . with its only ones who do not have a state proper. They strongest spiritual footing in its national defeats, win at war, but lose in peace. All their war victories the illusory Yugoslavian. . . . The contents and were canceled out in peace settlements (i.e., two forms of national consciousness of other Yugoslav Balkan wars and two world wars). Serbs, along nations are a priori anti-Yugoslav.”77 But now, with the Montenegrins, sacrificed their earlier “there is a growing consciousness that Yugoslavia states for the foundation of Yugoslavia. “The na- is a mass grave of the Serbian people. . . .”78 tion which after a long and bloody struggle came 2. The conspiracy once again to have its state against the Serbs. During [that is, after the long Ot- their entire Yugoslav his- toman occupation], which tory, Serbs were exposed he principal mechanism for alone fought for and ac- to the conspiracy of the escalating interethnic quired democracy, and Comintern, the LCY, and which in two world wars Tito (the Croat) and conflicts in a multinational lost 2.5 million compatri- Kardelj (the Slovene), whoT ots, lived to see that a party played the leading roles in state begins when political commission created by the Yugoslav decision making party apparatus found that and who implemented Yu- elites in tenuous positions of after four decades in the goslavia’s anti-Serbian pol- new Yugoslavia it was the icy. As part of its social rev- power successfully portray only nation that did not olution and the struggle have its own state. A worse against Serbian hege- their ethno-nation as being historical fiasco in peace- monism, the LCY acted to threatened by another. time could not be imag- reduce Serbia to the Turk- ined.”81 ish pasha’s outpost in Bel- 5. Serbs are exposed to grade and promoted the the hatred that all Yu- disintegration and assimilation of the Serbian peo- goslav people have toward them. Hatred toward ple: “Austro-Hungarian and Comintern ideology Serbs is a dominant theme in the writings of Ser- united in . In setting up republican-politi- bian intellectuals, expressed in many different cal territories, developing republican etatisms . . . ways. Each Yugoslav nation has its own distinct ha- and instituting the 1974 constitution, Titoism was tred toward Serbs. For instance: “Macedonian doing everything to disintegrate the Serbian na- Communists have simply ‘Macedonized’ Serbs tion, and it succeeded in doing so.”79 (i.e., they have committed ethnocide against Serbs 3. Serbia is exploited. Serbia was economically in their republic).” And so it goes for each nation. exploited by Croatia and Slovenia, which explains This theme in Serbian ressentiment contends that its economic backwardness. The largest part of the the republic had to endure “the unequal and hu- Serbian Academy’s “Memorandum” was devoted miliating position of the Serbian people in the pre- to this theme, formulated in the following way: sent-day Yugoslavia under the rule of an anti-Serb “During the entire postwar period, the economy of coalition, especially of ‘Serbophobia,’ which in the Serbia was exposed to nonequivalent exchange. . . . last decades has grabbed wide layers of Slovenian, There is not the slightest degree of suspicion that Croatian, Albanian peoples, and some parts of the the relative retardation of Serbia primarily resulted Macedonian intelligentsia and Moslems. . . . The because of smaller investments per capita, and not Albanian national minority for longer than two because of the effectiveness of investments. . . . decades from its motherland hounds the most 20

populous Yugoslav people.”82 The Serbian nation and the right to exist for the Serbian ethnos as the is “surrounded by hatred, which made its peace whole of its spiritual, cultural, and historical iden- more tormenting than the war.”83 tity, irrespective of the present-day republican 6. Serbs are exposed to genocide, again perpet- boundaries and the Yugoslav Constitution. If this uated by their enemies’ enduring and immutable freedom and the right are not respected, then the anti-Serb policies.84 The motive of Serbia’s leaders historical goal of the Serbian people—unification of in provoking fear and ethnic clashes was to re- all Serbs in one state—is not realized.”91 mind Serbs of genocide’s ever-present proximity These nationalist themes, which were perpetu- and to prevent a new genocidal campaign against ated by the Serbian intelligentsia through the re- Serbs. This theme was renewed in a variety of public’s major media outlets, would not have been ways, but mainly through the display of pho- entirely successful if they had not been taken up tographs and accounts of Ustashe atrocities by Serbia’s political and military elites as part of against Serbs in all of the republic’s major newspa- their daily activity, although they did not publicly pers and on television programs.85 An exhibit de- express such views. Serbia’s conservative intellec- voted to Serbian genocide traveled around Serbia tuals and, later on, the republic’s nationalist oppo- for months. sition parties, were the voice of official nationalist Orthodox priests demanded that they be al- policy. At the beginning of 1991, it was officially lowed to take Serbian victims murdered in World disclosed that Slobodan Milosevic accepted the War II out of mass graves and to rebury them with right of all peoples to self-determination, but he dignity.86 Exhuming mass graves and the reburial did not accept the existing republican borders. In of remains has a symbolic role of defining the bor- March 1991, at a closed meeting with the leaders of ders of the Serbian state: Where there are Serbian all Serbian , Milosevic stated the graves, there are also Serbian borders. The number possibility that Serbs could “live alone”: of past genocide victims increased every day dur- Borders, as you know, are always dictated by the ing this particular Serbian nationalist campaign, strong, they are never dictated by the weak. There- which led to disputes with Croatia over the exact fore it is basic for us to be strong. We simply be- number of Serbs murdered. The number of victims lieve that the legitimate right and interest of the was, in fact, overstated in order to force the Croats Serbian people is to live in one state. That is the to publicly deny the inflated numbers. In such a beginning and the end. That legitimate interest of fashion, the Serbs could conclude that Croats the Serbian people does not threaten the interest wanted to hide their genocidal crimes against of any other nation. Anyway, why would they Serbs in order to deflect attention from prepara- need those Serbs who bother them so much in tions for another future campaign: “It seems to me , , , , Banija, , that that which disrupts relations between Serbs Baranja, if this problem is of such magnitude? And, if we have to fight, God help us, we will. I and Croats now is connected to the genocide hope they will not be so crazy to fight with us. Be- which was perpetrated against the Serbian people cause, if we cannot work and produce well, at by [the Croatian Ustashe regime]. . . . We can con- least we know how to fight.92 clude that this hiding of genocide represents an appeal to history for a repeat. . . .”87 Thus, “Serbs are the people who are constantly exposed to Political : The “antibureaucratic revo- genocide.”88 lution” and the unification of Serbia. The only way 7. A national state of all Serbs. An identity cre- out of this “national catastrophe,” according to Ser- ated from others’ hatred meant that inevitably Serbs bia’s intelligentsia, was by encouraging a Serbian would want to “clean their house” of all those who uprising. The hope was for a national revolution in hated them: “After genocide, . . . after the 1974 con- which the Serbs would again be able to create their stitution, . . . it is difficult to understand why Serbs own national state. This so-called antibureaucratic today do not reasonably and obstinately aspire to a revolution, which was organized from above by state without national problems, national hatreds, Milosevic’s party clique with the help of Serbs and Serbophobia.”89 “We Serbs have to learn to from Kosovo and the secret police, drew upon the think that we can live alone.”90 Thus, the issue of a nationalist ideology of “being threatened and Serbian national state is seen as an “issue of freedom hated.” During 1988–89, the revolutionary forces 21

took shape as a mass movement to create a “uni- walked out, thus signaling the end of Yugoslavia’s fied Serbia,” successfully tapping social and na- Communist party. tional discontent in the republic, especially over the situation in Kosovo. Political mobilization de- Mobilization of the Serbian diaspora: The Croat- veloped through mass “meetings of ” ian nationalist response. Serbia’s third strategic with Serbs from Kosovo. These meetings were move involved the mobilization of the Serbian di- used as an extra-institutional way of tearing down aspora in Croatia by directly linking its loyalty to the leaderships in Serbia’s provinces (Vojvodina Serbia’s survival. Ethnic skirmishes using diaspora and Kosovo) and in Montenegro. More than sixty Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were such meetings were held across Serbia, in which planned with the idea of tearing the republics 3.5 million people participated. There were few apart along ethnic lines. In the climate of national- places in the republic where these “meetings of ist hysteria surrounding a “unified Serbia,” the Ser- truth” were not held. Although the slogans varied bian nationalist coalition had little trouble spread- from place to place, they were all distinctly nation- ing rumors of possible genocidal campaigns alist and even racist in content. For the first time, directed at the Serbian diaspora communities in people appeared at these meetings dressed in these republics. Such rumors were largely in- Chetnik regalia.93 At the November 1988 meeting tended to mobilize the diaspora Serbs, and they of “,” held in Belgrade and would not have been successful had there been no attended by more than one million people, calls recognizable strain of Ustashe nationalism in for hounding Slovenia out of Yugoslavia were pub- Croatia’s official policy. If Croatia had not fallen licly heard for the first time. At the same gathering, victim to its own national , Serbia’s en- Milosevic spoke in ominous tones about the use of tire strategy would have failed. force: Slovenia was the first to clash with Milosevic, at- This is not the time for sorrow; it is time for strug- tacking him for destroying the leaderships in Voj- gle. This awareness captured Serbia last summer vodina and Montenegro. These attacks were wel- and this awareness has turned into a material comed with open arms, since they rallied Serbs force that will stop the terror in Kosovo and unite around anti-Slovenian sentiment. At the same Serbia. . . . People will even consent to live in time, Slovenia was using Milosevic to justify its poverty but they will not consent to live without plans to secede from Yugoslavia. In fact, secession freedom. . . . Both the Turkish and the German in- was already under way in 1989, when the Slovenes vaders know that these people win their battles proclaimed that federal laws were valid in Slovenia for freedom. . . . We shall win despite the fact that only if they conformed with Slovenian law. The Serbia’s enemies outside the country are plotting Croatian Communist party kept silent because of against her. . . . We tell them that we enter every the republic’s Serbian minority, ever aware that an battle with the aim of winning it.94 attack on Milosevic would cause a major rift with Just a few short months after Milosevic’s speech, Croatian Serbs. Yet, the silence could not last Serbia seemed to be preparing for such a battle. forever. The republic enacted a series of sweeping repres- Serbia’s mobilization of Croatian Serbs started sive measures in Kosovo in March 1989. A coup with an unsuccessful attempt to organize a meet- d’état brought a Serbian puppet regime to power ing of solidarity in Knin with Serbs and Montene- in Montenegro. At the same time, the populist and grins from Kosovo. Belgrade inundated the Knin authoritarian Serbian national movement invested gathering with constant messages, and the Serbian its national leader with absolute power, thereby Orthodox Church assisted by publishing a text making democratization and a clear break with the that claimed the situation of Serbs in Croatia was ancien regime impossible.95 worse than that of Serbs in Kosovo and that such In the already weakened Yugoslav presidency, terror would force Serbs to migrate toward the Serbia could no longer count on a majority of votes east.96 The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in the collective body. The attempt of the Serbian also contributed by organizing a conference on the Communists to dominate the LCY failed at its ex- Croatian war memorial at Jasenovac, once more traordinary (and last) congress in 1990, heating up the unavoidable theme of the Croatian when the Slovenian and Croatian representatives genocide of the Serbs; an accompanying tract 22

accused Croatia of assimilating Serbs living in the of Ustashe émigrés and Croats waving their na- republic. The Serbian Writers Association also or- tional , Tudjman delivered his well-known re- ganized a meeting in 1989 with the theme of “Ser- mark that the “Independent State of Croatia [un- bophobia,” where Croatian genocide was once der the Ustashe regime] was not only a chauvinist again featured prominently. Finally, all kinds of state, but also the result of specific historic facts Serbian emissaries were sent to Knin to incite and the will of the Croatian people to create their Croatian Serbs, and the response this time seemed own state.”98 promising. The meeting was set for , During this short period, Croatian Serbs be- 1989. Well-trained “advance people” came from came tightly organized. They formed their own Serbia, shouting out Slobodan Milosevic’s name party and began to express their territorial preten- and carrying posters with his visage looking out sions. First, they expressed these ideas as the need over the crowd, waving the Serbian national flag, for cultural and then political autonomy; finally, and singing nationalist hymns.97 they threatened secession if Croatia were to be- Soon after this event, the Croatian Democratic come an independent state. Meetings were held Union appeared on Croatia’s political scene. Dur- throughout the republic at which young men ap- ing the creation of the nationalist party, its leader, peared in Chetnik regalia, shouting “This is Franjo Tudjman, accused the Croats of being Serbia!” silent, and attacked the system in which the “sover- Tudjman won the elections in Croatia. This was eignty of the Croatian people” had been made an the greatest gift that Milosevic and the rest of Ser- impossible goal. In the republic’s parliament just a bia’s nationalist coalition could have received. Af- couple of days later, it was suggested that the Croa- ter Tudjman’s victory, unremitting media propa- tian Constitution be changed so that it would no ganda from both sides further exacerbated the longer stipulate that Croatia was also a state of the conflict. Now Serbs were really threatened, and Serbian people. Thus, the process of Croatia’s eth- war was no longer a remote possibility. The labels nic homogenization began. that each side had attached to the other had in fact Finally, at the February 24, 1990 inauguration become their identities: Both and of the Croatian Democratic Union, in the presence Ustashe had reappeared in Yugoslavia. 23

states, and Serbs were struggling for their own uni- fication within one state. How could history repeat itself in such a stereotypical fashion? What hidden mechanism accounted for this repetition? Had five decades of communist rule had no effect on the “national question”? As stated at the beginning of THE BREAKDOWN OF this study, the Communist party combined two el- ements to create the Yugoslav state: 1) resolution COMMUNISM of the national question, and 2) social revolution. In order to understand the most recent Balkaniza- 5Collapse and War tion of the region, both elements must be taken into account. As communism collapsed, the strate- gies of the political actors in each of the Yugoslav republics were determined by specific elements of the national question on the one hand, and the search for an exit from the communist system on the other. After five decades during which Yugoslavia’s Communist leaders preoccupied themselves with “external” and “internal” enemies of the regime that could threaten their privileged positions, the enemy suddenly had become real. That this enemy y the late 1980s, the emerging democratic came from the “first socialist country,” where movements across Eastern Europe were Gorbachev granted “permission” to all the commu- Bgathering momentum. In Yugoslavia, by nist countries to choose their own way, was the contrast, national movements were gearing up to clearest sign that communism was losing its ideo- establish their own states. The breakdown of the logical ability to maintain these leaders in power. communist regime and the advent of free elections Various strategies for dealing with the impend- was the culmination of what had already been go- ing downfall of communist regimes typically ing on for almost a decade in Yugoslavia. Along framed the responses to nationalist conflicts with the process of democratization in the re- throughout the region during the 1980s, but Yu- publics and the denial of that same process in the goslavia’s republican elites could not agree on a federal government, central state authority was be- joint policy for managing the mounting threats to coming weaker, approaching a situation of anar- their multinational system. At its last congress in chy that bore an unsettling resemblance to the col- January 1990, the Serbian Communist party, led lapse of the empire that used to rule the Balkans. by Milosevic and supported by the Yugoslav Na- Yugoslavia’s breakup gave new meaning to the old tional Army, sought to reinforce the communist notion of Balkanization.99 regime’s role of holding Yugoslavia together; but At first glance, it could be concluded that Balka- other republican leaders, particularly in Slovenia nization was the predictable outcome of the col- and Croatia, did not want to continue down that lapse of communism and the end of the path. They clearly perceived that a departure from balance of power. This allegedly “natural” state of the communist system could serve as their path affairs in the region, which had long suffered from away from Yugoslavia and toward the establish- unresolved national questions and old conflicts ment of their own independent states. Thus, each among the three founding nations of Yugoslavia of the republics was pursuing a separate policy, (Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes), generally has been combining the national cause with ideological regarded as the explanation for the country’s on- choice. going violence. Nationalist antagonisms in post- Saving the communist regime remained the one communist Yugoslavia appeared to confirm method by which conservative elites in Serbia, in- Nietzsche’s “eternal return”: Once again, Slovenes cluding the YNA, could simultaneously preserve and Croats were fighting for their independent the Yugoslav state and achieve the goal of Serbian 24

unification within one country. After the conserva- political reform, Serbia had no choice but to accept tives took power in 1987, they saw little advantage multiparty elections. The League of Communists in democratic change. This is unfortunate. In fact, of Serbia rechristened itself the in the only way that Serbia could have successfully re- July 1990. Although all of the communist parties in solved its national question of all Serbs living the various republics entered their respective mul- within one state would have been for it to take the tiparty elections under new names, only in Serbia leading role in democratization, offering a multi- and Montenegro did these renamed communist party system, a liberal federation, and a free- parties win, and only then with the support of the . Such was the path taken by other YNA. At that time, the YNA openly supported the republics, first by Slovenia and Croatia, and then Serbian side—or, more precisely, Milosevic’s Social- to some extent by the other republics. The conser- ist Party of Serbia. The three main tenets of this vative Serbian elite believed it was left with few op- coalition were: 1) both partners were against lib- tions: It defended the old regime and opposed po- eral and democratic changes; 2) both viewed the litical pluralism and economic reform.100 new Yugoslavia as a vehicle for advancing Serbian The dual games (national and ideological) and military interests; and 3) both had majority played by all the republics to a greater or lesser ex- participation of Serbs. The other republics’ new tent actually precluded both of two possible paths parties were able to push the Communists into the to a resolution of the federation’s crisis. The re- opposition, and in doing so the republics could as- publics’ leaders were unable to either reimagine sert that they had become “” by virtue Yugoslavia as a democratic and minimal state or to of having overthrown their communist predeces- break away peacefully by creating new, separate, sors. In Serbia, on the other hand, a combination democratic states. These games led to the final of communism and nationalism won out. stage of Yugoslavia’s disintegration, which went The most important fact about these first free through four phases: (1) introducing varying de- elections was that they confirmed the power of the grees of political pluralism, which fostered and in offensive strategy of defending national interests. some cases even maximized the interests of the dif- Bosnia-Herzegovina’s first and only elections were ferent republics; (2) giving precedence to national particularly instructive when viewed from this goals over economic interests and political reform; standpoint. The had a chance to vote for (3) establishing national states as ethnocracies, the liberal and of the then Yugoslav that is, differentiating citizens’ rights and obliga- prime minister, Ante Markovic. Indeed, his party tions along ethnic lines; and (4) negotiating the seemed to be the most popular in Bosnia- age-old question of Yugoslavia’s political form. Herzegovina. But it turned out that the people Taken together, these four phases amounted to a from each of the three national communities were prelude to war. afraid to take the chance to vote for the civic par- ties, fearing that the others might vote for national- Political pluralism ist ones—a typical “prisoner’s dilemma.” Thus, the results of the elections mirrored the national cen- The republics witnessed the formation of a variety sus; almost all citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina of new political parties during 1989–90. Since voted according to their national affiliation. Na- most of these parties to varying degrees advanced tionalist parties won in all of the republics, except nationalist programs, political pluralism in Yu- Macedonia.101 goslavia was strongly by nationalism from Maximal nationalist programs became en- the very start. In April 1990, Slovenia and Croatia shrined as state policy in the main rival republics, held their first free elections; the Communists lost Serbia and Croatia. In both republics, opposition in both cases. Meanwhile, Serbia’s official policy re- parties decided to expand nationalist agendas mained at the level of reform rhetoric; Serbian rather than devise alternative programs that would leaders continued to advocate political pluralism strike some balance between nationalist and de- without actually introducing a multiparty system. mocratic goals, between extremist and moderate However, once all of the other governments in the national policies. Some of the ultranationalist op- region had squarely embarked on the path of position parties, in cooperation with their 25

respective state governments, set up their own might succeed in acquiring a new lease on life. armies and paramilitary formations, which eventu- With his liberal political outlook and substantial ally would be responsible for horrible crimes. economic success, Markovic represented a real The centrality of ethnicity in Yugoslavia’s politi- chance for the various nations to avoid the path of cal life grew as the victorious nationalist parties war and destruction and, instead, turn toward a fu- spread beyond their borders, serving the interests ture based on modernization and eventual - of their conationals, or “constituent peoples,” who pean integration. During 1990, the standard of liv- lived in other republics. Thus, Franjo Tudjman’s ing rose as hard-currency reserves swelled to $7.1 Croatian Democratic Union opened billion, twice their 1989 level. The branches for Croats living in Bosnia- country’s foreign debt decreased Herzegovina and Vojvodina. Simi- and repayments took place on larly, Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina ome of the schedule. and Croatia formed local branches ultranation- Markovic’s economic and politi- of the Serbian Democratic Party cal program ran counter to the na- with guidance from Belgrade.102 alist opposition tionalist politics pursued by the vari- The Muslim Party of Democratic S ous republics. Markovic eschewed Action, led by Alija Izetbegovic, orig- parties, in the endless discussions about Yu- inated in Bosnia-Herzegovina but goslavia’s future political form, in- soon expanded to Serbia and Mon- cooperation with sisting that the term used for such a tenegro to support the Muslims liv- form (i.e., federation or confedera- ing in Sandzhak. Moreover, larger their respective tion) was not important. What mat- national minorities, such as the tered most to Markovic was main- Albanians and Hungarians, estab- state govern- taining a consensus on the lished their own ethnic-based politi- usefulness of an integrated, well- cal parties, first in Kosovo and Mace- ments, set up functioning state that would facili- donia and then in Vojvodina, their own armies tate economic reform. To consoli- respectively. Thus, the whole space date political support for his ideas, of Yugoslavia and the republics and paramilitary Markovic founded his own political themselves were divided up by eth- party, the of Reform Forces nic parties with their various public formations, of Yugoslavia, in July 1990. Unfortu- and hidden agendas. nately, this came after the formation which eventually of the nationalist parties and the The priority of national over and Croatia, economic interests would be too late to influence developments in these two breakaway republics. At the beginning of 1990, the new responsible for Markovic founded his party in Yugoslav prime minister (who horrible crimes. Bosnia as a symbol of Yugoslavia’s would also be its last), Ante ethnic diversity and as a concrete Markovic, introduced a dynamic embodiment of the multiethnic idea program of economic reform, suc- of “living together.” ceeding in reducing the galloping rate of inflation Curiously, Markovic’s program was both suc- from an annual 2,600 percent to zero in about six cessful and popular in all the republics, including months. He offered a vision of a new economic sys- Serbia, but he was unable to convert this popular- tem governed by market principles and privatiza- ity into electoral support for his party. He failed in tion, making room for a of a new, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, and Montenegro, and democratic Yugoslavia. Markovic attained consid- had relatively little success in Macedonia. There erable popularity throughout the country, even su- was little doubt that the decisive factor in perseding in this respect the “fathers” of its domi- Markovic’s defeat was insecurity about for nant nations, Milosevic and Tudjman. Indeed, for a someone who did not represent one’s own ethnic time it seemed as though a united Yugoslavia community; too many people believed that voting 26

only for their own national leaders would guaran- revolts, mass demonstrations, and the eventual, tee their safety. complete alienation of the Albanian minority. In Although practically none of the republican January 1990, approximately forty thousand stu- leaders (except those in Macedonia) supported dents staged demonstrations in Kosovo, demand- him, Markovic faced an especially ruthless attack ing both an end to the extraordinary political mea- from Serbia. Slobodan Milosevic clearly intended sures and the release of Azem Vlasi, a Kosovar to destroy this unpredictable obstacle to his own political leader who was on trial. By the beginning political plan for restructuring Yugoslavia’s politi- of February, Kosovo was on the brink of civil war. cal space.103 When Markovic proposed constitu- The Yugoslav National Army intervened against tional changes to embrace further economic re- the demonstrators, killing twenty-seven ethnic Al- form and to make room for federal elections, banians and wounding many more.104 In July Slovenia and Croatia joined Serbia in blocking his 1990, ethnic Albanian delegates to Kosovo’s proposals. The republics thus decisively precluded provincial assembly submitted a declaration pro- the possibility of an economic and democratic re- claiming Kosovo a republic. A few days later, the construction of the federal state and a democratic Serbian legislature dismissed Kosovo’s provincial dialogue about Yugoslavia’s future. After the politi- assembly. The ethnic Albanians of Kosovo then cal leaders squandered this opportunity, national boycotted the to show that they conflicts gained momentum. The country was did not recognize Serbia as their country. Finally, swiftly moving from one crisis to yet another. they created their own shadow government and held a “secret” referendum on the question of an Ethnocracies and war from inside the independent Kosovo. republics Croatia’s failure to provide adequate minority rights guarantees fueled the fires of rebellion The new republican governments produced their among Croatian Serbs, who had already been own internal instabilities by discriminating against strongly supported from Belgrade and had raided national minorities (or groups sharing the ethni- local police stations to supplement their arms city of peoples from other constituent republics). caches.105 The new Croatian government con- This discrimination created a vicious circle: In or- fronted armed resistance when it set out to take der to realize their desire for national sovereignty, over and change the ethnic composition of the po- the newly elected governments developed power- lice stations in predominantly Serbian areas of the ful and militant nationalist movements backed by republic. The violence started in Knin in August propaganda, discriminatory policies, and viola- 1990, when Croatian government officials began tions of human and civil rights. Backed by the re- gathering arms from the police stations and pre- publican political leaders, these movements pro- vented Serbs from taking them. In the largely Serb- duced disaffected and separatist minority groups populated region of Croatia, Serbs were that, in turn, posed a real “disturbance” to the re- preparing to hold a referendum on their political publics’ national sovereignty and territorial in- autonomy, a prospect that inflamed tempers tegrity. In reaction to the militant separatist behav- throughout the rest of Croatia. The government in ior of these minority groups, the republics quickly Belgrade encouraged the discontented Croatian acquired the highly centralized, authoritarian ma- Serbs, spreading propaganda about the inevitable chinery of states that were ill suited to the hetero- repetition of the Ustashe genocide against the geneous composition of their population. The gov- Serbs in World War II. With the rejuvenation of ernments of Serbia and Croatia were typical of this these memories, Serbia’s leaders promoted the fear situation, the former in relation to the Albanian mi- of a complete return to the past among Croatia’s nority in Kosovo and the latter in relation to its Serbs, pushing them even closer to the precipice of Serbian minority. war.106 In mid-1991, conflicts escalated in those ar- Armed conflicts first broke out in Kosovo after eas of Croatia populated by large numbers of Serbia abolished its autonomy. Subsequent repres- Serbs, who were openly supported in their efforts sive measures in Kosovo then provoked fresh by the Yugoslav National Army.107 27

Negotiations, collapse, war were under way long before direct negotiations started. Slovenia and Croatia were preparing to After seventy years of existence, the circle was gain their —by force, if necessary.113 closed: Yugoslavia found itself repeating the same The Serbian side was preparing for a war to estab- historical debate about what form the Yugoslav lish a Serbian national state, but not within the ex- state should take. Just as had occurred seventy isting “communist” borders.114 years before, a number of different proposals were Finally, federal agencies started to collapse with on the table again. Slovenia and Croatia proposed the withdrawal from the Federal Assembly of first confederation, an arrangement that was to be con- the Slovenian and Croatian members and then the strued as resembling the structure of the European representatives from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Union. The proposed confederation would consist Macedonia. By September 1991, the Yugoslav pres- of sovereign and internationally recognized states idency was reduced to a “rump” composed of only that would regulate matters of joint interest, such Serbian and Montenegrin representatives. This as a common market, defense and security, human process paralleled the individual republics’ refer- rights, and .108 Serbia and enda on independence (beginning with Slovenia Montenegro proposed a “democratic federation,” and ending with Bosnia-Herzegovina) and their which in practice would have meant the termina- subsequent declarations of independence. Croatia tion of the confederal elements introduced by the and Slovenia declared their independence in June 1974 Yugoslav constitution.109 The proposal ad- 1991. The Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herze- umbrated a set of classical federal principles, in- govina and the Serbian Republic of Krajina de- cluding the sovereignty of citizens at both the fed- clared their independence in December 1991. eration and republican levels.110 The third and War erupted in Slovenia in June 1991 when most conciliatory solution was advanced jointly by Slovenes removed federal signs along the Sloven- Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, which envi- ian border and occupied the border outposts and sioned Yugoslavia retaining its identity as a state customs offices. The Yugoslav federal government and its republics as sovereign entities.111 All three sent a unit of the YNA to replace Yugoslav border proposals failed, since the protagonists—Slovenia signs and return the federal customs officers to and Croatia on the one hand, and Serbia on the their posts. The YNA decided to fulfill this task by other—were in no mood to compromise. The com- moving into Slovenia with tanks and carrying out promise solution aimed at saving Yugoslavia pro- their orders with force. Slovenian Territorial De- posed by Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina was fense units responded by attacking the YNA de- rejected just weeks before the war started. tachments, which were defeated in a few short Direct negotiations between the national lead- days. The YNA then quickly withdrew from ers began in the spring of 1991. The talks produced Slovenia. no results in part because the leading republics Immediately thereafter, war broke out in Croa- had already decided unilaterally and in secret tia between the rebellious Serb population and the coalitions to follow their own particular interests. Croatian police guard. The YNA sided with the Slovenian and Serbian leaders came to an agree- Croatian Serbs under the pretext of protecting the ment that Slovenia could secede and that Serbs Serb population from genocide and ensuring its had a right to live in one state. Another secret right to self-determination. The YNA practically agreement between Tudjman and Milosevic, cre- waged a war against Croatia, as it would do later in ated as far back as March 1991 in Karadjordjevo Bosnia-Herzegovina; the Croatian forces also (Serbia), formed an alliance against Markovic and joined in the latter conflict. So began the long and divided up Bosnia-Herzegovina between Serbia tragic division of Bosnia-Herzegovina by Serbs and and Croatia.112 These so-called reserve alternatives Croats.115 28

conflicts over borders (for example, Nagorno- Karabakh in the former Soviet republic of Azerbai- jan, and the Krajina region in Croatia). Secession that does not entail a change of either borders or minority-majority status (as was the case with Slovenia, a uniquely homogeneous republic in the Yugoslav federation) might still lead to an imbal- ance in the ethno-national composition of the rest CONCLUSIONS of the multinational federation, encouraging other ethnically mixed regions or republics to claim the 6 right to self-determination in order to avoid the po- tential domination of one of the remaining federal units. Therefore, the first conclusion we can draw from the case of Yugoslavia is that the international com- munity should treat the dismemberment of multi- national states with great caution, attempting to moderate the tempo of state dissolution and thus avoid an all-or-nothing result. Otherwise, it is virtu- ally impossible to establish procedures for peaceful decision making. Here, too, it is important for the international community to avoid spurious as- have confined my analysis of the Yugoslav crisis sumptions in deciding how it should respond to to the internal factors that led to both the col- the crisis (for example, the convenient assumption Ilapse of the state and the onset of war. The in- that nationalism is a benign ally in the struggle ternational community has had an important influ- against communist regimes). ence on the crisis and a decisive impact on the Although Yugoslavia never succeeded in creat- dynamics of the conflict. A proper treatment of the ing a wholly legitimate and democratic state, nei- conflict itself, important though it may be, would ther did it comprise an “empire” in which all its con- go beyond the framework of this study. Neverthe- stituent nations had the same desire for less, based upon my analysis of the internal factors independence from the center. As I have argued in of Yugoslavia’s breakdown, I offer some recom- this study, Yugoslavia was a patchwork of ethni- mendations in the form of conclusions that may be cally mixed regions, and it contained just as many useful for international decision making on ways to “national questions” as there were approaches to avert such conflicts in the future. I offer these broad resolving them. Not all of these approaches in- recommendations despite the fact that the Yu- volved the kind of ethnic symmetry necessary for a goslav case is unique, just as the factors contribut- successful political outcome. Some of Yugoslavia’s ing to the breakdown of all multinational federa- republics, like Slovenia and Croatia, were more in- tions are unique. Still, we can draw some important clined to push for the complete devolution of the lessons from Yugoslavia’s demise, especially with federal state. Serbia, on the other hand, played the regard to the critical ethnic problems that still role of the state’s guardian, trying to maintain the plague the former Soviet Union and East-Central power of the center for its own interests. The inter- Europe. ests of Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were Yugoslavia and the USSR shared the same type somewhere in between these two dominant posi- of multinational federal institutions, ethno- tions. Creating independent, ethno-national states demographic mix of populations, and large dias- from the disintegrating federation was highly prob- communities whose status would change sig- lematic from the very beginning, since the maximal nificantly with the dismemberment of both federal solutions proposed for most of Yugoslavia’s vari- states. Both cases involved the creation of new na- ous national questions were in fundamental con- tional states in which one ethnic group became pre- flict with one another. The all-or-nothing nature of dominant. The politics of ethnic unification invites these solutions, leavened with the nationalist 29

fervor with which Yugoslavia’s republican political express much enthusiasm for the plan, apparently leaders pursued them, made war and gross viola- because it would have required an uncertain—and tions of natural accompaniments. undesirable—degree of U.S. military participation This scenario applies throughout the region. to bring the plan to fruition. When a maximal solution is proposed for one na- Because there was no internal consensus in the tional question, then all other competing national Yugoslav case, two messages should have been claims emerge in the same extreme form. In these sent by the international community to Yugoslavi- predictable and potentially lethal conditions, such a’s republican leaders: (1) that no unilateral deci- conflicts require early preventive actions that aim sions about secession would be accepted, and (2) at inhibiting the rise of extreme solutions and the that the use of military force would be met with a escalation of nationalist responses. military response. Asking the antagonists to re- A major problem with the dismemberment of spect human rights, democratic institutions, and Yugoslavia, as executed by extreme nationalist international law was tantamount to doing noth- political elites, was the apparent ing to prevent conflict. If the absence of alternative solutions various leaders of Yugo- that would have prevented (or slavia’s warring factions stopped altogether) the war he experience in Bosnia- observed these rights and and reestablished peace and principles in the first place, security in the region. Thus, Herzegovina has dis- they would not have found I offer as another recommenda- themselves suddenly trying tion that the international com-Tcredited the concept of to vanquish one another. munity actively work with the To be sure, the interna- relevant parties to arrange a collective security. tional community’s recogni- temporary status quo compro- tion of these new states was mise if the dismemberment of woefully insufficient to multinational states is not pre- secure their peace and ceded by both an internal consensus on the terms security. Not only must such recognition take into for creating new states, including their borders account the internal and external threats involved and the status of minorities, and a clear conception in each case, but it must be real in the sense that of future security and cooperation arrangements. the new state must either be able to defend itself or This last item gives rise to the question of be defended by international military forces. Oth- whether reaching agreement on procedures that erwise, the international community produces enable the conflicting parties to arrive at any sort highly unstable situations that lead to victim-states of consensus is even feasible in such profound and victimized populations. The experience in crises. What happens if the parties can find no Bosnia-Herzegovina has discredited the concept of common ground to work out the decision-making collective security, and has severely undermined rules and institutions—or, short of these, compro- the credibility of the UN and NATO. Similarly, the mise solutions—that will govern the dismember- conflict has weakened the Organization for Secu- ment of the country? Absent such common rity and Cooperation in Europe and has clouded ground, solutions typically appear as a fait accom- the otherwise bright prospects for future Euro- pli; and once they are under way, workable politi- pean integration and its institutional machinery cal solutions and peaceful attempts to prevent or overall. stop violent conflicts are almost impossible to find. In the wider context of the political transforma- Thus, the Vance-Owen proposal for ending the tion of East-Central Europe and the former Soviet hostilities in Bosnia-Herzegovina came too late; Union, a more fundamental debate has been rekin- that is, after the Bosnian Serbs already held more dled: the right to national self-determination and than 70 percent of Bosnian territory. At the same how this vague principle might be reconsidered time, the international community did not really and clarified in order to make it a workable con- for acceptance of the plan, since its members cept in international law. The abuse of this right in could not reach a firm consensus among them- the Yugoslav case points up the need for such an selves. The , for example, did not examination, as the right to self-determination 30

came to be equated with the right of ethnically self-determination be a viable political community defined nations/republics to secede from the fed- in which the full rights of citizenship do not de- eration, regardless of the mass violence such an act pend upon membership in the dominant ethno- would surely entail. The republics’ unilateral acts national group and whose democratically ex- of secession were in turn met with internal acts of pressed will for independence transcends the secession by minority ethno-national communi- ethnic base of the state. ties, invoking the same principle of self-determina- As preconditions for the peaceful application of tion. The international community, meanwhile, the right to self-determination, one other factor did very little to clarify the situation. should be present when invoking In fact, its actions during the early this right: the respect of both territo- stages of Yugoslavia’s dissolution rial integrity and minority rights. probably contributed more than any bove all, This does not mean that the bound- other factor to dashing the aries between states are immutable. prospects of the multinational feder- there It does mean, however, that they ation’s giving birth to sovereign, in- cannot be changed by force or with- dependent states in a peaceful Ashould be some out consideration of the conse- fashion, as its recognition of the new quences that the redrawing of inter- states was based more on strategic international national borders would have for calculations and risk-aversion than mechanism that other members of the state. Above on an established international legal all, there should be some interna- principle. The failure to develop provides for the tional mechanism that provides for guidelines for the application of this the renegotiation of borders and principle only served to exacerbate renegotiation of that encourages all sides to recog- conflicts and provide the justifica- nize the consequences of newly tion for nationalist pathologies, such borders and that drawn international borders for all as so-called ethnic cleansing, and relevant parties. the violent eruption of emerging encourages all The right to self-determination -states. ought not be exercised at the ex- This is not the place to develop sides to recognize pense of the rights of others, partic- either a new concept of self-determi- ularly those who will become mi- nation or the criteria for the recogni- the consequences norities in the new states. This tion of this right by the international of newly drawn means that plebiscites, referenda, community. Rather, a more practica- and ethno-national coalitions— ble endeavor would be simply to international which, by their very nature, exclude suggest that the international com- the voices of newly created minori- munity discourage claims to collec- borders for all ties—are not adequate foundations tive rights that infringe upon the for the formation and recognition of enjoyment of individual ones, espe- relevant parties. new states. Indeed, in the case of Yu- cially in East-Central Europe and the goslavia, they became a treacherous former Soviet Union, whose citizens road to war. Various new forms of are still making democracy’s requisite psychologi- national self-expression, autonomy, and political cal transition from collective to individual rights representation must be developed to fit the new and the observance of civil liberties. Future discus- situations arising in complex, multiethnic states to- sions about the notion of self-determination day. But none of these variations should be so en- should start from an investigation of the specific cumbered by collective national ideologies as to characteristics of new cases emerging in the post- override the liberal ideal of individual liberties and communist era. Drawing on the arguments elabo- civil rights. rated in this study, I would suggest that a minimal I have described here a typical case of ethno-na- precondition for the international community’s tionalism, which is characterized by a rigid ideol- support of a nation’s claims to the right of ogy and the aggressive politicization of national 31

identities. Another important conclusion that can undemocratic regimes, economic backwardness, be derived from this case is that the interpretation and overlapping national goals. The old regime’s of both national membership (i.e., citizenship) and more conservative element grabbed the chance to the nation itself plays a key role in shaping policies achieve Serbian unification and preserve itself in conducive to the establishment of a democratic na- power at the same time. In Croatia, new elements tion-state. Human collectivities that define them- of the authoritarian regime were added to the old selves in organic terms, as “superfamilies” in which in the service of defending a “young democracy” myths about blood ties provide the predominant and creating a new nation-state. In order to estab- image of communal identity, find it difficult to es- lish a permanent peace and to reconstruct the re- tablish universal, democratic rules of governance. gion in economic, political, and cultural terms, the Their goal of creating a state for “their people” will current elites will have to be replaced by new de- always be out of reach, as other people “get in the mocratic leaders capable of introducing innovative way” and must be removed—by force, if necessary. ideas and visions that will foster the development It is impossible in this part of the world to create a of each of these countries and of the region as a stable state on the basis of the sovereignty of one whole. Such a perspective is necessary as the only particular ethnically defined group. way to eliminate the conditions that produce uni- This outcome was particularly likely in multi- tary national identities and their destructive politi- national Yugoslavia, which suffered from cal manipulation. 32

6. “Ressentiment refers to a psychological state result- NOTES ing from suppressed feelings of envy and hatred (existential envy) and the impossibility to act them out. . . .” Liah Greenfield and Daniel Chirot, “Na- tionalism and Aggression,” Theory and Society 23, no. 1 (February 1994): 84. The authors argue that in the case of “collectivistic and ethnic national- ism,” which is characteristic of all the peoples of 1. also poses the question of whether we the former Yugoslavia, ressentiment plays a key for- will be faced with a process in which every ethnic mative role. group seeks its own national state. See his “Prison- 7. Pesic and Julie Mostov, “A New Challenge ers of the State,” International Social Science Jour- for Conflict Resolution: The Case of Yugoslavia,” in nal 44, no. 3 (August 1992): 329–42. Yugoslav War, ed. T. Kuzmanovic and A. Truger 2. East Central Europe Between the Two World (Schlaining, Austria: Austrian Study Center for Wars (Seattle: University of Washington Press, Peace and Conflict Resolution, 1992), 38. 1974), 201. 8. V.P. Gagnon, Jr., “Serbia’s Road to War,” Journal of 3. According to the last Yugoslav census, conducted Democracy 5, no. 2 (April 1994): 118. in 1991, the ethnic makeup by republics consisted 9. One of the most thorough studies of the manipula- of the following. Serbia: Serbs, 65.9%; Albanians, tion of public opinion through control of the mass 17.1%; Hungarians, 3.5%; and Muslims, 2.5%. media in all of the Yugoslav republics involved in Montenegro: Montenegrins, 61.85%; Muslims, the war is Mark Thompson’s study for Article 19 of 14.6%; Serbs, 9.3%; and Albanians, 6.6%. Bosnia the International Centre Against . See and Herzegovina: Muslims, 43.7%; Serbs, 31.3%; his Forging War: The Media in Serbia, Croatia, Croats, 17.3%; and “,” 5.5%. Macedonia: and Bosnia-Herzegovina (Avon: The Bath Press, Macedonians, 66.5%; Albanians, 22.9%; and oth- 1994). ers, 12%. Croatia: Croats, 77.9%; Serbs, 12.2%; and others, 10%. Slovenia: Slovenes, 90%; and others, 10. Charles Tilly thinks that the modern era legiti- 10%. mated the principle “that states should correspond to homogeneous peoples, that members of homo- 4. Bosnia-Herzegovina’s ethnic diversity goes beyond geneous peoples owe strong loyalties to the states the number of different ethnic groups living there that embody their heritage, and that the world and their relative size. Before the onset of the con- should therefore consist of nation-states having flict, one-third of its population lived in towns strongly patriotic citizens.” Charles Tilly, “States whose residents—to a significant degree—were the and Nationalism in Europe, 1492–1992,” Theory products of mixed marriages. The ethnic distribu- and Society 23, no. 1 (February 1994): 133. tion of the rural population was markedly differ- ent, with two-thirds inhabiting different ethnically 11.Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal homogeneous in close proximity to one Theory of Minority Rights (New York: Oxford Uni- another. As such, the republic had very few ethni- versity Press, 1995), 16. cally homogeneous regions. See Srdjan Bogosavlje- 12. According to Rogers Brubaker, the “Soviet Union vic, “Bosna i Hercegovina u ogledalu statistike,” in was a multinational state not only in ethnodemo- Bosna i Hercegovina izmedu rata i mira, ed. Du- graphic terms—not only in terms of the extraordi- san Janjic and Paul Shoup (Beograd: Dom omla- nary ethnic heterogeneity of its population—but, dine/Forum za etnicke odnose, 1992), 40–41. more fundamentally, in institutional terms.” Rogers 5. It is no longer a secret that Presidents Milosevic Brubaker, “Nationhood and the National Question and Tudjman agreed to divide up Bosnia- in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Eurasia: An In- Herzegovina in the spring of 1991. In a hearing on stitutional Account,” Theory and Society 23, no. 1 Yugoslavia’s breakup before the House Foreign Af- (February 1994): 49. fairs Committee, Secretary of State James Baker 13. Ibid., 64. stated: “We know that the leadership of Serbia and Croatia held long conversations about how to di- 14.For a definition of nationalism as a desire for con- vide up Bosnia.” NIN, January 20, 1995. gruity of nation and state, see Ernest Gellner, Na- 33

tions and Nationalism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell 24. Croatia’s communist-imposed silence on genocide University Press, 1983), 1, 7, and 43. See also Liah aided Belgrade’s propaganda in eventually pushing Greenfeld, “Transcending the Nation’s Worth,” Croatian Serbs into war, and ’s propaganda Daedalus 122, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 47–62. helped to confirm Serbia’s suspicions. See Bette Denich, “Dismembering Yugoslavia: Nationalist 15.Claus Offe, “Ethnic Politics in Eastern European Ideologies and the Symbolic Revival of Genocide,” Transitions” (paper presented at the conference on American Ethnologist 21, no. 2 (May 1994): “Nationalisms in Europe Revisited” at Tulane Uni- 367–90. versity, New Orleans, , 27–29 March 1995), 34. In this analysis of nationalism in Eastern 25. Paul Shoup, Communism and the Yugoslav Na- Europe, Offe discusses the role of the “decisive bat- tional Question (New York: Columbia University tle”: “It is well understood by the ethnic groups in Press, 1968), 55. Eastern Europe that this is the decisive time at 26. Gregory Gleason, Federalism and Nationalism: which a new game is being started and the ‘original The Struggle for Republican Rights in the USSR endowment’ of territorial and legal resources is be- (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1992), 35. ing distributed, which will determine the relative Jugoslavija pred iskusen- position of the actors involved for the indefinite fu- 27. See Slobodan Samardzic, jem Federalizma ture. Both of these assessments, the absence of a (Belgrade: Strucna Knjiga, 1990). stable equilibrium and the urgency of the issues in- See also Robert Hayden, “Constitutional National- Slavic Re- volved, are apt to inflame ethnic and chauvinistic ism in the Former Yugoslav Republics,” view sentiments and to provoke unilateral preemptive 51, no. 4 (Winter 1991): 654–73. strikes.” 28. Brubaker, “Nationhood and the National Ques- 16. Basically, this was only one current—the so-called tion,” 52. integral Yugoslavs—which was not popular among 29. On ethnocracy, see Julie Mostov, “Endangered Citi- the masses in Serbia, Croatia, or Slovenia. It was zenship,” in and East Europe in Transition, not accepted by any of their official representatives ed. Kraus and Ronald Liebowitz (Boulder, who were involved in negotiations over the new Colo.: Westview Press, forthcoming). state. See Vasa Cubrilovic, Istorija politicke misli u 30. Using census data, it is possible to chart the Srbiji XIX veka (Belgrade: Nolit, 1954), 450. changes in the ethnic structure of Kosovo. In 1921, 17. Branko Petranovic, “Modernizacija u uslovima na- 65.8% of Kosovo’s population was Albanian and cionalno nestabilnog drustva,” in Srbija u modern- 26% was Serbian. The first postwar census in 1948 izacijskim procesima XX veka, ed. Latinka Perovic shows that the percentage of Albanians grew and (Belgrade: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, 1994), that of the Serbs decreased. In 1948, Serbs were 18. 23.6% of the population, while in 1981 they stood at only 13.2%. Because ethnic Albanians boycotted 18. See Djordje Stankovic, Pasic, Saveznici i the last census in 1991, there are only estimates of stvaranje prve Jugoslavije (Belgrade: Nolit, 1984). the population’s ethnic breakdown for that year: 19. See Cubrilovic, Istorija politicke, 461–65. Albanians, 81.6%; Serbs, 9.9%. Nacionalni sastav stanovnistva SFRJ (Belgrade: Savremena adminis- 20. Latinka Perovic, Od centralizma do federalizma tracija, 1991) and Bilten No. 1934 (Belgrade: (Zagreb: Globus, 1984), 125–42. Savezni zavod za statistiku, 1992). 21. Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia The majority of the population of the Au- (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984), tonomous Province of Vojvodina was Serbian. 115–40. They made up 57.3% of the population; Hungari- ans, 16.9%; Croats, 3.7%; , 3.2%; Montene- 22. Cubrilovic, Istorija politicke, 463. grins, 2.2%; , 1.9%; and others, 14.8%. 23. According to some sources, about one million 31. After the formation of the Muslim nation, there was Serbs were killed in the Balkan Wars (1912–13) a discussion about whether to recognize its status and in World War I. See Jozo Tomashevich, - regionally—that is, within Bosnia and Herzegovina ants, Politics, and Economic Change in Yu- only—or for all Muslims wherever they live—that is, goslavia (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, in Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, etc. It 1955), 225. was decided to recognize the Muslims’ status as a 34

“constitutive” people over the whole territory of changed Serbia’s traditional centralist policy. Tito’s Yugoslavia. For an interesting discussion of this extensive purges of “liberals” in both Serbia and question, as well as the unwillingness to recognize Croatia in 1972 aided conservatives’ efforts to the “ethnic Muslims” by individual republics, see reverse the process of decentralization and reform Sabrina P. Ramet, Nationalism and Federalism in with “more nationalism and more authoritarian- Yugoslavia, 1962–1991, 2d ed. (Bloomington, ism.” On the struggles among the republics over Ind.: University of Indiana, 1991), 177–86. economic decentralization and economic reform as a major source of conflict over different national 32. Rogers Brubaker contends that “In regions with interests, see Dennison Rusinow, Yugoslav Experi- highly intermixed ethnocultural communities, . . . ment, 1948–1974 (Berkeley: University of Califor- where political borders cannot be drawn to coin- nia Press, 1977). cide with ethnocultural frontiers, the territorial- political and ethnocultural models of nationhood 37. The idea of “Yugoslavism” was not clear and was are not so easily reconciled. Widely dispersed eth- subject to different interpretations from the stand- nocultural nations, as well as those that overlap point of different national interests. At the begin- with other ethnocultural nations in inextricably in- ning of the 1950s, the accent was on national unity termixed frontier ‘shatter zones,’ cannot be neatly and “Yugoslavism,” as was evident in the constitu- ‘territorialized,’ cannot easily acquire their own ter- tional changes in 1953 and in later discussions ritorial states. And territorial polities that include about “Yugoslav culture” based on the closeness of substantial and self-conscious national minorities the Yugoslav peoples. A 1954 declaration establish- cannot, in the age of nationalism, be easily ‘nation- ing Yugoslav cultural and scientific institutions as- alized,’ i.e., ‘nationally homogenized.’” Brubaker, serted that the Serbian, Croatian, and Montenegrin “Nationhood and the National Question,” 56. were one. On this occasion, efforts were undertaken to compile a Serbo-Croatian dictio- 33. Thus, for example, the old cultural institutions of nary. But by the beginning of the 1960s, there was Serbs in Croatia were abolished soon after the war, a backlash from Croatia and Slovenia, rejecting the with the explanation that a constitutive people is idea of “Yugoslavism” as an attempt at “cultural as- not a minority and thus is not entitled to minority similation.” See Shoup, Communism and the Yu- cultural rights. This fact later enabled Serbian na- goslav National Question, 194–212. tionalists to assert that Serbs in Croatia had fewer rights than under Austro-Hungarian rule and were 38. Veljko Vlahovic, Referat na Osmom Kongresu SKJ “subject to assimilation.” See Predrag Tasic, Kako je (“Report to the Eighth Congress of the LCY”) (Bel- ubijena druga Jugoslavija (: Stamparia grade: Komunist, 1964), 141–142; cited in Vesna Katje, 1994), 181. Pesic, Kratki kurs o jednakosti (Belgrade: Soci- olosko drustvo Srbije, 1988), 73. 34. Serbs outside of Serbia accepted Yugoslavia as their national state. “If you awake an average Serb from 39. See James Gow, Legitimacy and the Military: The Croatia in the middle of the night and ask him Yugoslav Crisis (New York: St. Martin’s Press, what is his national state, he will say ‘Yugoslavia.’ If 1992), 59. you wake a Croat and ask him the same, he will say 40. See Julie Mostov, “Democracy and Decisionmak- ‘Croatia.’” Dusan Biladzic, “Skriven nacionalni pro- ing,” in Yugoslavia: A Fractured Federalism, gram u SKJ,” Filozofija i drustvo IV (Belgrade: Uni- ed. Dennison Rusinow (Washington, D.C.: verzitet u Beogradu i Institut za drustvenu teoriju, Center Press, 1988), 105–119. 1993), 119. 41. “national interests” tend toward a political 35. See Walker Connor, The National Question in “zero-sum” game. Slobodan Samardzic calls this Marxist-Leninist Theory and Strategy (Princeton: kind of federalism “combative.” See Samardzic, Ju- Princeton University Press, 1984), 334–36. goslavija pred iskusenjem Federalizma , 34. 36. Serbian “liberals,” who led the Serbian Communist 42. Ramet correctly asserts that the Yugoslav system party at the end of the 1960s, provided an official can be studied in the context of a “balance of outlet for Serbia’s political and economic elites power” approach (i.e., within the context of inter- who were critical of Yugoslavia’s centralism and au- national systemic theories). Nationalism and Fed- thoritarianism (including Tito’s). Based on their eralism in Yugoslavia, 1962–1991, xvii. ideas about Serbia’s modernization and , the “liberal” platform briefly 35

43. See Ernest Gellner, “Nationalism in the Vacuum,” dency owing to the opposition of representatives in Thinking Theoretically About Soviet Nationali- from other republics and provinces. For a more de- ties, ed. Alexander Motyl (New York: Columbia tailed discussion of the “Blue Book,” see Veljko University Press, 1992), 243–54. Vujacic, “Communism and Nationalism in Russia and Serbia” (Ph.D. diss., University of , 44. Here I use Renée de Nevres’s definition of “modera- Berkeley, 1994), 176–78. tion” in the context of democratization: “Modera- tion means avoidance of extremism and hostility in 50. Lenard J. Cohen, Broken Bonds—The Disintegra- developing positions vis-à-vis other ethnic groups.” tion of Yugoslavia (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, Renée de Nevres, “Democratization and Ethnic 1993), 51. Conflict,” in and International Se- curity, ed. Michael E. Brown (Princeton: Princeton 51. The Battle of Kosovo, which pitted Serbs against University Press, 1993), 70. on , 1389, symbolizes the loss of the medieval and still re- 45. Dobrica Cosic, “The Serbian People’s Great Illu- mains the central event in all of Serbian history. sion,” , January 10, 1991. The Battle of Kosovo also shapes a large part of Ser- bian national consciousness and culture, serving 46. Underlying the Serbs’ “internationalism” was a de- as an inspiration for that has cidedly nationalist position, which explains why been passed down throughout the centuries. they did not have an organized nationalist move- ment—as long as the LCY maintained Yugoslavia 52. The Serbian Orthodox Church was the most atten- under centralized rule. Other nations, holding tive and immediately accepted the chance to cast onto their “nativist” positions, went through their off its marginalized role. The revitalization of the own nationalist experience: the extensive Croatian church was essentially linked to the “dangers” that movement at the beginning of the 1970s, the were hanging over the nation. Kosovo became the Slovenian affair at the end of the 1960s, cornerstone of its strategy to take over the repre- and the Albanians’ numerous demonstrations in sentation of the Serbian people as a whole. The Kosovo. church’s support in this affair was rewarded by the government in 1984, when approval was given to 47. Connor believes that the intention of Yugoslavia’s build St. church in Vracar and a complex of Communist party was “to gerrymander the Serbian buildings for the School of Theology. Radmila community” that was constitutionally recognized Radic, “Crkva i ‘srpsko nacionalno pitanje,’ “within the new Serbian Republic as well.” In order 1980–1995,” Republika, no. 121–22 (August to achieve a balance between Croatia and Serbia, 1995): iv–v. provinces were created in Serbia alone. Connor stresses that the Serbian community in Serbia was 53. The population of Serbs and Montenegrins was reduced by one-fifth (i.e., 1.1 million people). See permanently on the decline, which I indicated ear- Connor, The National Question in Marxist-Lenin- lier. (See note 30.) The number of Serbs who left ist Theory and Strategy, 336. Kosovo from 1981 to 1985 reached 17,600. See Tasic, Kako je ubijena druga Jugoslavija, 64. 48. Ramet contends that the provinces were put on 54. My research on rapes in Kosovo indicates that as of equal footing with the republics with the helpful 1987, there was not a single “interethnic” rape (i.e., assistance of Slovenia and the Croatian nationalists a Serbian raped by an Albanian), although in power at the time the amendments were made. such cases were constantly mentioned in the press. For more details on the constitutional struggle be- Under enormous public pressure regarding the tween Serbia and its provinces, see Ramet, Nation- rape of “Serbian women,” new criminal proceed- alism and Federalism in Yugoslavia, 1962–1991, ings were introduced if the rape involved individu- 76–78. als of “different nationalities.” In addition, the rate 49. The appearance of the “Blue Book” spelled the end of such sexual assaults in Kosovo was the lowest to the confederal compact in which republican lists compared to other Yugoslav republics, and the of cadres for candidates to the presidency of the greatest number of rapes in Kosovo occurred League of Communists of Yugoslavia were auto- within the same ethnic groups. See Vesna Pesic, matically accepted. Dragoslav Markovic, who was “O krivicnom delu silovanja: Uporedna analiza sa in charge of the “Blue Book” on behalf of the Ser- SFRJ, uzu Srbiju, Kosovo i Vojvodinu,” in Kosovski bian leadership, was not elected to the LCY presi- cvor: dresiti ili seci? (Belgrade: Chronos, 1990), 47. 36

55. Ruza Petrovic and Marina Blagojevic, Seobe Srba i if the slightest doubt was expressed over Milose- Crnogorca sa Kosova i iz Metohije (Belgrade: Ser- vic’s policies. Such doubt was likened to hatred of bian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 1989). the Serbian people. 56. Tasic, Kako je ubijena druga Jugoslavija, 71. 63. General Kadijevic, Yugoslavia’s secretary of defense and the head of the republic’s military high com- 57. The Slovenes in particular were criticized for not mand from 1989 to 1992, maintains in his book understanding the Serbian problem in Kosovo. that the reformers in power in socialist countries “The Serbs understood the Slovenes when the Ger- were part of the U.S. strategy to defeat commu- mans ousted them from their homes during the nism. These “reformers” had been prepared long in Second World War, and thus gave them shelter in advance “so that it seemed as though the process of Serbia.” They did not ask for “proof” that the Ger- destroying the system by way of reforms was being mans had truly ousted them. Tasic, Kako je ubijena led by internal Party forces.” Moje vidjenje ras- druga Jugoslavija, 89. pada—Vojska bez drzave (Belgrade: Politicka iz- 58. Ivan Jankovic, “Krivicno pravna represija politicki davacka delatnost, 1993), 13. nenasilnih ponasanja na Kosovu: 1979–1988,” in 64. In “The Crisis of Modernity” (Republika, No. 8: Kosovski cvor: dresiti ili seci?, 63. “The Slavs and the ,” January 1994), Srdja 59. This interpretation of the conflict was publicly ex- Popovic accurately emphasizes that the conserva- pressed for the first time at the funeral of Alek- tive coalition in Serbia “found its social base in sander Rankovic, the former Yugoslav minister of primitive rural regions which have always been internal affairs. After his downfall in 1966, the situ- threatened by the effort and discipline that mod- ation in Kosovo changed drastically when ethnic ernism requires. . . . Its main opponent is the mid- Albanians assumed power. His funeral in 1983 was dle class and the urban population, the mainstay of “transformed into a nationalistic event,” which was , commercialism, science, and attended by more than 100,000 people. Beneath rationality.” the din of thousands of Serbs shouting out his 65. For the similarities and coalitions between the name, the subtext of the gathering was clear: communists and nationalists in Serbia and Russia, “When Rankovic was on the job, the Albanians see Vujacic, “Communism and Nationalism in Rus- were peaceful.” Slavoljub Djukic, Izmedju slave i sia and Serbia.” anateme—Politicka biografija Slobodana Milose- vica (Belgrade: Filip Visnjic, 1994), 36. 66. William Bloom, Personal Identity, National Iden- tity and International Relations (Cambridge: Cam- 60. The “Keljmendi Case,” regarding the Albanian sol- bridge University Press, 1990), 74. dier who killed four sleeping soldiers from differ- ent ethnic groups and wounded several others, 67. Barry R. Posen, “The Security Dilemma and Ethnic was headlined in the Serbian press as “Shooting at Conflict,” in Ethnic Conflict and International Se- Yugoslavia” and stirred up extreme anti-Albanian curity, 194. sentiment. Commentaries in Politika implied that 68. Miodrag Stanisavljevic, Zveckanje Oklopnika the Albanians hated not only the Serbs, but all Yu- (: Republika, 1994), 25. goslav ethnic groups. Daily accounts of the case pointed up so many contradictions that one could 69. Dobrica Cosic emphasizes the subordinate role of not help but get the impression that the barracks national ideology to state-building with the follow- massacre had been orchestrated. See Tasic, Kako je ing: “Slobodan Milosevic became a politican hav- ubijena druga Jugoslavija, 99–100. ing the characteristics of a charismatic leader not with nationalism as an ideology, but with state- 61.Djukic, Izmedju slave i anateme, 36. hoodness as a national goal.” Promene (: 62. The most influential and prestigious daily newspa- , 1992), 141. per, Politika, was put into the service of nationalist 70. On the relationship between “nation” and “state,” policy in order to create a cult of the new “national see Katharine Verdery, “From Parent-State to Fam- leader.” The played a key role in the cre- ily Patriarchs: Gender and Nation in Contempo- ation of national intolerance through its aggressive rary Eastern Europe,” East European Politics and column “Odjeci i Reagovanja” (“Repercussions and Societies 8, no. 2 (Spring 1994): 225–55. Reactions”). It spoke with the voice of “the people,” attacking individuals—and even the entire nation— 37

71.The issue here is the ethnic interpretation of a na- 80. “Memorandum,” quoted in Osmica, February 12, tion, which is closest to the definition offered by 1989. Anthony Smith: “Ethnic concepts of the nation fo- cus on the genealogy of its members, however 81. Ibid. fictive; on the popular mobilization of ‘the folk’; on 82. Cosic, Knjizevne novine, December 1, 1988. native history and customs; and on the vernacular culture.” When politically mobilized, ethnic nation- 83. Cosic, Promene, 259. alism tends to conceive of the nation based on 84. Croatian genocide against the Serbs is regarded as 1) its natural qualities, renewing “pre-existing eth- an enduring historical phenomenon: “It is certain nic ties”; 2) the politicization of culture, which re- that for the genesis of the genocidal acts upon news the ethno-historical tradition; and 3) ethnic Serbs in Croatia one has to look to the times when purification, which leads to “segregation, expul- the so-called Orthodox Vlasi (i.e., Serbs under the sion, , and even extermination of pressure of Turkish rule in the 16th and 17th cen- aliens.” Anthony Smith, “The Ethnic Sources of Na- turies) started to populate Croatian lands. . . . The Ethnic Conflict and International Se- tionalism,” in idea of genocide of Serbs was completely finished curity , 36 and 38. in the framework of Austria-Hungary, before World 72. Yael Tamir, “The Right to National Self-Determina- War I started. . . . The long-lasting fermentation of tion,” Social Research 58, no. 3 (Fall 1991): 577. the idea of genocide in Croatian society . . . took root in the conscience of many generations.” 73. Jack Snyder points out that “nationalist criteria for Vasilje Krestic, Knjizevne novine, September 15, political identity and alignment are, to some ex- 1986. tent, inherently conflictual. Any intensification of 85. For instance, over the course of four months in nationalist sentiment is likely to contribute to an 1985, different daily were full of sto- intensification of the conflict with other national ries about crimes that Andrija Artukovic, “the groups.” See his “Nationalism and the Crisis of the Himmler of the Balkans,” and the Ustashe perpe- Post-Soviet State,” in Ethnic Conflict and Interna- trated on the Serbs. For months, Serbia’s major tional Security, 93. newspapers ran serials with like: “From the 74. Politika, July 27, 1991. History of the Ustashe State,” “I Fled from Ar- tukovic’s Torture Chamber at Jasenovac,” “Andrija 75. Matija Beckovic, Politika, August 2, 1991. Artukovic—The Greatest Living War Criminal,” “Pavelic’s Secret Chambers,” and so on. The “Voice 76. The other face of ressentiment is chauvinism and of the Church” also published a great number of se- aggressiveness. The poisoning of the Serbs by oth- rials about genocide against the Serbs, accompa- ers’ hatred resulted in their hatred toward the nied by photographs of decapitated and mutilated other nations. Thus Serbian nationalism acquired corpses. the classic traits of ethnic “reductionism”—ethnic purification and chauvinism. Alexander Motyl 86. Throughout 1990, reports regularly arrived from points out that chauvinistic nationalism presup- Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia about religious poses the situation in which “nations must be chanting and services for the victims of genocide, brought into contact and competition, in which including the exhumation of the victims’ remains some lose and others win.” See Alexander Motyl, and their reburial. The reports were usually fol- “The Modernity of Nationalism: Nations, States, lowed by detailed descriptions of the way the vic- and Nation-States in the Contemporary World,” tims were killed. At the same time the ministry of Journal of International Affairs 45, no. 2 (Winter the Serbian Orthodox Church sent a warning from 1992): 313. Bosnia-Herzegovina that there was a broadening of the “ Ustashe” atmosphere even there. Be- Knjizevne novine 77. Dobrica Cosic, , December 1, fore the war of 1991, there was a commemoration 1988. of the fifty years of suffering of the Serbian Ortho- 78. Dobrica Cosic, Promene (Novi Sad: Dnevnik, dox Church and genocide and the ongoing work of 1992), 62, 72, and 75. priests and others to unearth the remains of the in- nocent victims. This is still being done throughout 79. Cosic, Politika, July 27, 1991. Bosnia. See Radic, “Crkva i ‘srpsko nacionalno pi- tanje,’ 1980–1995,” xiv. 38

87. Jovan Raskovic, Politika, March 25, 1990. 102. In these republics, Serbs did not take the name of Milosevic’s party in order to avoid being associated 88. Radovan Samadzic, Politika, August 7, 1992. with “communists.” They thus adapted to the situa- 89. Dobrica Cosic, Knjizevne novine, July 15, 1989. tion in these republics. Just before the war, the idea of a Serbian state was 103. Prime Minister Markovic had to face a number of propagated much more openly. Cosic is most clear vitriolic attacks, including those from politically ac- about this matter: “The Serbian people have today tive members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences all the historical, national, and democratic reasons and Arts. Mihailo Markovic declared: “Ante and rights to live in one state. . . . If other peoples Markovic is making a deal with our enemies about do not want such a Yugoslavia, then the Serbian na- how to destroy Yugoslavia and Serbia,” Politika, Oc- tion will be forced to live freely in its state and after tober 11, 1991. “We are a country of cleavages and two centuries of struggle will solve for good its ex- hatred—national, religious, and social,” said Do- istential question.” Politika, , 1991. brica Cosic, “[and] it is difficult to understand why 90. Antonije Isakovic, Politika, May 25, 1990. Markovic is ignoring the political reality of Yugoslavia, and it is even less understandable how 91. Cosic, Politika, January 21, 1991. he thinks that that reality can be overcome through 92. Quoted in Djukic, Izmedju slave i anateme, 187. elections.” Politika, August 4, 1990. 93. Tasic, Kako je ubijena druga Jugoslavija, 124. 104. Slobodanka Kovacevic, “Hronologija jugoslovenske krize: 1990–1992,” Medjunarodna politika, nos. 94. Quoted in Ramet, Nationalism and Federalism in 1–2 (1992): 110. Yugoslavia, 1962–1991, 229–230. 105. Ibid., 111. Jovan Raskovic, the leader of the Serbian 95. Nebojsa Popov, “Srpski populizam,” , no. Democratic Party in Croatia, anticipated armed re- 133 (May 24, 1993). bellion on June 25, 1990, when the Assembly of 96. Tasic, Kako je ubijena druga Jugoslavija, 152. Serbs in Croatia passed a declaration proclaiming the sovereignty and autonomy of the republic’s 97. Ibid., 157. Serbs and established a Serbian National Council 98. Ibid., 187. to serve as a state-like body to represent their au- tonomy. Raskovic characterized these acts as 99. Balkanization is “a process and possibly a cycle of “Serbs’ rebellion without arms.” empire disruption, small countries creation, local instability, and a new (or old) empire moving in. . . . 106. On the discrimination against Serbs and the acts of The balkanization process was characterized par- the Croatian government that rekindled Serbian ticularly by the attempts of the Balkan nations at memories of the Ustashe-run Independent State of autonomous state creation and by wars erupting Croatia, see , The Fall of Yugoslavia: between them.” Vladimir Gligorov, Why Do Coun- The Third Balkan War (New York: Penguin Books, tries Break Up? (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upp- 1992), 12–14. Also see Denich, “Dismembering saliensis, 1994), 18. Yugoslavia.” 100. This unfortunate choice was obvious when the old 107. For more details, see Kadijevic, Moje vidjenje ras- apparatus created its own political organization, pada, 122–144. which played an important role in fomenting the 108. , October 6–7, 1990. armed conflicts. It was known as the “Generals’ Party”; its formal name was The League of Commu- 109. “Democratic federation” as a concept was inimical nists—Movement for Yugoslavia. to the precepts of Serbian nationalism. The ficti- tious character of that proposal was unacceptable 101. Although the nationalist party in Macedonia re- even to those republics whose interests were coter- ceived the most votes of any single party, it did not minous with the federal organization of Yugoslavia get a majority of all votes cast. The nationalist party (i.e., Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina). got 31.67%; the “reformed” communists, 25.83%; the Albanian minority party (PDPM), 14.17%; and 110. Borba, October 8, 1990. the Alliance of Reformist Forces of Macedonia 111. Borba, June 4, 1991. (Ante Markovic’s party), a mere 9.17%. 112. See Djukic, Izmedju slave i anateme, 187 and 190. 39

113.According to the 1974 constitution, each republic started to buy arms secretly from foreign sources. had its “Territorial Defense” (TD), which was inde- See ’s interview with Spegelj in Er- pendent from the federal Yugoslav National Army. azmus 9 (1994): 42 and 45. Martin Spegelj, Croatia’s defense minister and for- 114. Latinka Perovic defines Serbia’s war objectives in mer YNA general, understood TD as serving the “se- the following way: “Revision of internal boundaries, curity of the republics against the domination of the exchange of populations, and restructuring of the majority people” (Serbs). Under his organization, Balkan political space.” Latinka Perovic, “Yugo- Croatia’s TD could mobilize 180,000 armed troops slavia Was Defeated from Inside,” in Yugoslavia, in 1982. When the broke up, the YNA Collapse, War Crimes, ed. (Belgrade: took control over the TD system. In 1991, the YNA Center for Antiwar Action and Belgrade Circle, partially disarmed the Croatian TD. But, after the 1993), 63. elections in Croatia and Slovenia, these republics 40 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

115. On June 14, 1991, Belgrade’s daily paper Borba disclosed that President Tudjman had informed the British officials that the Serbian and Croat- ian governments had agreed to divide up Bosnia-Herzegovina between themselves. The article also mentioned that in the “circles of Eu- ropean politics such a possibility was already considered as one of the options.” 41 ABOUT THE INSTITUTE

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan federal institution created by Congress to promote research, education, and training on the peaceful resolution of international conflicts. Established in 1984, the Institute meets its congressional mandate through an array of programs, including research grants, fellowships, professional training programs, conferences and workshops, library services, publications, and other educational activities. The Institute’s Board of Directors is appointed by the Presi- dent of the United States and confirmed by the Senate.

Chairman of the Board: Chester A. Crocker Vice Chairman: Max M. Kampelman President: Richard H. Solomon Executive Vice President: Harriet Hentges Board of Directors

Chester A. Crocker (Chairman), Distinguished Research Professor of Diplomacy, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University Max M. Kampelman, Esq. (Vice Chairman), Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver and Jacobson, Washington, D.C. Dennis L. Bark, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University Theodore M. Hesburgh, President Emeritus, University of Notre Dame Seymour Martin Lipset, Hazel Professor of Public Policy, George Mason University Christopher H. Phillips, former U.S. ambassador to Brunei Mary Louise Smith, civic activist; former chairman, Republican National Committee W. Scott Thompson, Professor of International Politics, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University Allen Weinstein, President, Center for Democracy, Washington, D.C. Harriet Zimmerman, Vice President, American Public Affairs Committee, Washington, D.C.

Members ex officio Ralph Earle II, Deputy Director, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Toby Trister Gati, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Ervin J. Rokke, Lieutenant General, U.S. Air Force; President, National Defense University Walter B. Slocombe, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Richard H. Solomon, President, United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting) Other titles in the Peaceworks series:

Turkey’s Role in the : A Conference Report by Patricia Carley (Peaceworks No. 1) Central Asians Take Stock: Reform, Corruption, and Identity by Nancy Lubin (Peaceworks No. 2) From the Managing Chaos conference: Keynote by and Ted Koppel (Peaceworks No. 3) Sources of Conflict: G.M. Tamás and Samuel Huntington on “Identity and Conflict,” and Robert Kaplan and Jessica Tuchman Mathews on “‘The Coming Anarchy’ and the Nation-State under Siege” (Peaceworks No. 4) NGOs and Conflict Management by Pamela R. Aall (Peaceworks No. 5) Humanitarian Assistance and Conflict in Africa by David R. Smock (Peaceworks No. 6) Self-Determination: Sovereignty, Territorial Integrity, and the Right to Secession by Patricia Carley (Peaceworks No. 7)

Peaceworks No. 8. First published April 1996.

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