Breaking Up Is Hard To Do – The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats & Slovenes (Lost Lands #116a)

“For me it was a lot harder to come to terms with the death of my grandfather than it was to come to terms with what's happened to the former Yugoslavia.” - Téa Obreht

Some relationships are natural, others are forced. The natural ones are what we seek without ever really knowing it. They just seem to arrive as a gift, both magical and mystical. These relationships just feel right. They are the definition of “it was meant to be.” The opposite is true with forced relationships. These arise from the pursuit of an unfulfilled need or something we think we need. When formed, these relationships might make sense, but as time goes on, they leave us asking ourselves what were we thinking? The answer is we were not. Emotion plays a crucial and unpredictable role in forced relationships. They can blind us to the truth. We see not so much what we want to see, as what we need to see.

Often what went wrong in a forced relationship was apparent from the very beginning, but we chose to ignore our intuition. The relationship becomes something we could never have imagined. The object of disaffection is not who we thought they were. Neither were we what we thought we were. These relationships take work just to keep them going. The problems are chronic and go unresolved. They are exhausting. Only after suffering the consequences will the truth finally be acknowledged. Most important is when that truth is accepted. The breaking point leads to upheaval. The end of a forced relationship comes as a relief.

Get In Line - The Established Order

Forced relationships teach us valuable lessons, more about ourselves than our partners. They can teach us who we really are and who we?want to?be. How we get there is up to us? A forced relationship can be a disaster or a detour. Austria-Hungary was a forced relationship that disintegrated a year before its golden anniversary. The Kingdom of Hungary’s relationship with its ethnic minorities was a forced relationship. The result was the Treaty of Trianon, a divorce contract that has created more than a century of separation anxiety. And then there was Yugoslavia. One of the most famous and failed forced relationships. A nation born from war and ended by another one. An amalgamation of ethnic groups that through various inducements, threats, and violence was held together. A group of nations held within the prison of one.

The reasons for Yugoslavia’s failure could fill an encyclopedia. Before I leave Serbia as part of my lost lands beyond Hungary’s borders itinerary, I want to focus on one trivial but telling aspect of Yugoslavia’s failure. The problems that led to its disintegration were present at the creation. Something as simple as the country’s initial name - Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes?- shows that power politics was already in play when it first formed. The ethnic pecking order was there for all to see. I did not notice this at first. The name seemed to be a fancy way of saying Yugoslavia or so I thought. I imagined that the name was shortened to Yugoslavia as an exercise in semantics. Why make the name more complicated than it needed to be? I should have known to scrutinize it more closely. Behind the fa?ade of Yugoslavia were seething ethnic tensions. The same was true of its predecessor, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, but the latter was fundamentally different from Yugoslavia in very important ways.?

Forcing The Issue - State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs

Any history of the lost lands beyond Hungary’s borders in the Balkans will spill a good bit of ink on the formation of a south Slav state. This state was ostensibly created to unify the south Slav peoples in order for them to break away from Austria-Hungary. World War I had given these ethnic groups an unprecedented opportunity at independence. Paradoxically, this independence was predicated on unifying to create a viable state. As the war drew to a cataclysmic conclusion for Austria-Hungary, the first iteration of a south Slav state formed as the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs. The was different from the kingdom that would later be created. The Slovenes, who were the smallest of the three groups, were in first. Then came the Croats, who were more numerous. The Serbs found themselves listed last. This was not a coincidence.

When the incipient state was formed, it represented all but those who lived in the Kingdom of Serbia and Montenegro. The Serbs were the heavyweight of this group. Their absence showed where their loyalties lay, predominantly with themselves. The same was true of the other groups, but they were smaller in number. The Serbs that were represented in the state’s name lived in areas outside the Kingdom of Serbia. Whether the other groups liked it or not, bringing all Serbs into the new state was vital for it to receive legitimacy. The Serbs had fought on the victorious power’s side throughout the war. Meanwhile, the Croats and Slovenes had been locked away in that prison of nations, otherwise known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Many of them fought in the army. By war’s end they were as disenchanted with the empire as everyone else. In October 1918, this led to the formation of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs to serve their interests. Though this did not gain recognition from the allies, this first attempt at a state was the starting point for the eventual formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

Balkanization - The Kingdom of Inequality

Once the Serbs unified around the concept of a south Slav state, they became the dominant force in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. With their numerical superiority, the Serbs could afford to be more uncompromising than the other groups. The Serbs needed the others, as well as Bosnians, Macedonians, Montenegrins and Kosovars, to make the state viable. The Serbs could bully the other groups except for the Croats who were well organized and did not like the idea of being ruled from Belgrade. Promises of autonomy failed to materialize and corruption was endemic. This alienated the Croats who were a politically formidable force. They wanted to renegotiate their position within the state. The Serbs were not going to allow that. Tension seethed throughout the 1920’s. as Croats felt disrespected and persecuted. The Kingdom did work well for all of its ethnic groups. The situation would come to a head on June 20, 1928, when shots rang out in the parliament. This sounded the death knell of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. And the beginning of Yugoslavia.