Yugoslavia: next powder keg?

As I think we'll soon be talking about Yugoslavia again, here's a bit of background to try and understand this complex region.

The peoples of Yugoslavia are Slavs. You may know Eastern Slavs as Russians, or Western Slavs as Poles. In Yugoslavia, they are South Slavs, Yugoslav meaning South Slav.

But not all the inhabitants of Yugoslavia are Slavs - there are two exceptions. The Albanians who colonized Kosovo are probably descended from Illyrians (or so they claim), not Slavs. There are also Hungarians living in Vojvodina.

The Slavs of Yugoslavia are divided into several ethnic groups. The Serbs were the most important people in Yugoslavia. There are also Slovenians, Croats, Bosnians, Montenegrins and Macedonians. For a long time, Macedonians thought of themselves as Bulgarians, another Slavic people closer to the Black Sea, although their language was different. Montenegrins are in fact Serbs.

A distinction is made between Serbs and Montenegrins because these two regions freed themselves independently from the Ottoman Empire, and were separated for a long time by a strip of land still under Turkish control. Once this strip was included, Serbia and Montenegro were reunited twice, in the referendums of 1918 and 1992.

Most Bosnians are ethnically Serbs. They formed a separate nation following a decision by Tito in 1974. Originally, they were simply called Muslims, because they are Serbs whose ancestors converted to Islam.

These peoples can be distinguished by their language. Slovenians speak Slovenian and Macedonians speak Macedonian. All the others speak the same language: Serbo-Croatian, but with different varieties: Montenegrin, Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian. It's the same language, and the speakers understand each other without difficulty, but some pronunciations differ.

Serbs and Croats hate each other, but they speak the same language. Language is a political issue in this region. Serbs call their language Serbian, not Serbo-Croatian. And, of course, Serbs claim that Croats also speak Serbian, even if with an accent. And the Croats reply that it's actually the Serbs who speak Croatian.

If they speak the same language, they can be distinguished in writing by the alphabet they use.? The Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin varieties use the Latin alphabet, as does Slovenian. Serbs write in the Cyrillic alphabet, as does Macedonian.

With a common language and two alphabets to write it would still be a fairly simple region. But a discriminating criterion had been added: religion.

Croats and Slovenes are Roman Catholics and therefore attached to the Vatican. Serbs, Macedonians and Montenegrins are Orthodox. While they were all previously attached to the Serbian Orthodox Church founded by Saint Sava 1219, the Orthodox Church of Macedonia separated in 1967. Bosnians have been Muslims since the Ottoman conquest.

Bosnia remains an extremely fragmented country in religious terms, with three main communities. Bosnians make up half the population, the other communities being Serbs and Croats. Among the non-Slavic populations, the Albanians are Muslims and the Hungarians are Catholics.

In terms of ethnic distribution, the Serbs are numerous. Most of them live in Serbia, but they also spill over into neighboring countries. Large Serbian minorities live in Bosnia, Croatia and, of course, Kosovo, which was Serbian before Albanian colonization.

Thus, the Serbian people can be separated into Serbs in Serbia and Serbs living outside Serbia. This separation largely explains why the wars in Yugoslavia were so complex and bloody.

Let's turn now to history and the four crucial events that explain the violence in the region.

First event: the Great Eastern Schism of 1054

Catholics and Orthodox separate. The Croats chose to remain loyal to the Pope, and were then absorbed into the Kingdom of Hungary, which conquered them between the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This great schism separated the destinies of these two formerly friendly peoples.

Second event: the Ottoman invasion following the defeat of Kosovo Polje in 1389.

Thus were born the Muslim, Bosnian and Albanian communities.

Third event: the repopulation of the confines in the sixteenth century.

This was the great separation between the Serbian people of Serbia and those who were to be transferred to a region that had been depopulated by the wars against the Ottomans. The Habsburgs encouraged the Serbs to settle in these frontiers, which marked the limits of Christianity just before the lands of Islam, guaranteeing them respect for their language, their alphabet and their religion. The only quid pro quo was to fight the Ottomans. This warrior peasantry, fierce and armed, will be remembered throughout the region's history.

Fourth event: the Albanian colonization of Kosovo.

It's a colonization that spans three centuries, from 1690 to the present day. Kosovo has a strong symbolic charge, as it is the historic site of the Battle of Kosovo Polje. As long as Muslims live there, Serbia will consider that the Ottoman Empire has not yet been defeated, that it lives on through the Albanians.

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To recap, the Great Eastern Schism created a division between Serbs and Croats. The Ottoman invasion created a division between Christians and Muslims. The repopulation of the confines created an ethnic dispersal of the Serbs, which they then sought to exploit. The Albanian colonization of Kosovo gives the Serbs the impression that the mission entrusted to them has not been completed.

We'll come back to this powder keg later.