The languages spoken in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Montenegro (this order is by population size) are one and the same language. It is a southern slavic language, which is what the term yugoslav means. That it is not used is solely due to political correctness. God forbid that slavs should think they are one and the same, instead of constantly being at war with one another
> For Albanian speakers, Yugoslavia was a Slav-dominated project
Albanians were actually a small minority in Yugolslavia as a whole. The country was 90+% slavic. On the other hand Albanians, as an ethnic group, had unprecedented political autonomy (Kosovo) and language rights in Yugoslavia. Im certain they had more freedom and a better life than in Enver Hoxha's Albania. Also if it was not for socialist Yugoslavia, Kosovo would have just been, and hence remained, a region in a centrally governed Serbia.
As regards opposotion to Yugoslavia, it is actually more correct to say that Yugoslavia was opposed by nationalists of all ethnic groups it contained, including the Serbs, Croats, Muslims (as Bosniaks called themselves during those times and some period after), Slovenians, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Hungarians, and of course Albanians. Even though people mainly know about Greater Serbia, each of these groups wanted (wants?) a Greater <insert your nat. here>, including the Albanians
It lasted for merely 15 years, from 1974 till 1989 when Milosevic and his clique brutally removed it. This autonomy was always a thorn in the eye of the serbian establishment and they never stopped their efforts to undermine it, which they succeeded in 1989.
Please, try to promote Texas independance from USA and see how that goes.
Kosovo War happened later, not during the above mentioned period.
Then, West became involved and Clinton wanted something to distract from his little raping scandal at home. So, they decided to bomb a country fighting foreign-backed terrorists on its soil.
(greetings from Quebec, which rebelled a few times, and isn't immune to populist politicians, but nonetheless somewhat stable. I think investing into education also helps a lot, which is the opposite of what Texas is doing)
>In Quebec, 25.5% of people aged 25 to 64 had a bachelor's degree or higher in 2016
> In 2012, 26% (4.1M out of 15.8M) of adult Texans had a bachelor's degree or higher; in 2021, that percentage increased to 32% (5.9M out of 18.6M)
(As an aside, even a Texas Governor would probably not have said something close to the famous statement Parizeau made regarding "le vote ethnique" after the 1995 referendum ;). But as long as you are Quebecois, I guess the government is doing fine here I agree )
I also think education can help people understand topics such as majority/minority rights, rights/history of first nations, systemic racism, etc. many of which the current provincial government still denies (not immune to populist). Despite all that, and despite this province's completely train-wreck succession of governments since the 80s, what is taught now in schools is still better than in the 80s. That might be of an empirical feeling. My high school still had priests raping kids until the mid-90s and racism was rampant. I have a teen in a public high school, what they learn now is pretty neat. All thanks to teachers, of course, and not to governments.
Texas and other states are now burning books (and I hope we don't get to that point). One could have a PhD in CS, but be a tech-bro ignorantly erring towards fascism. I don't call that education. I think how a society treats its minorities (whether cultural or things like accessibility) is the best measure of advancement. Quebec is no model on that either, but it's probably better than Texas. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/14/texas-most-b...
> rights/history of first nations, systemic racism
Not everyone is guilty of robbing aboriginals of their land, raping them, enslaving them and trading them as though they are commodities. This is mainly an Anglo Saxon thing.
Right on, brother.
But, don't expect these Anglo-Saxons to understand, they are mostly good only at pillaging other, more peaceful nations. After they destroy your country and rob it blind for -insert reason-, they start telling you how good their democracy is.
These people don't realize that, if not for military might of NATO, people would eat them alive at every corner of the globe.
Ironically the Albanian government in Kosovo now is persuing the same Milosevic-type policies, except against Serbs, by not granting them autonomy [0]. When it comes to nationalists, especially those in the Balkans, it really is same sh*t different flag.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_Serb_Municipali...
They have lots of soul searching as well.
It's interesting how roles in Kosovo reversed. Albanians being persecuted by Serbian authorities in the 80' and 90' and Albanians taking up arms and we have Serbs today taking up arms after being persecuted by Albanian authorities. Somehow though when Albanians are doing it it's allright ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Please don't add to the hate. People there don't need this.
And since you were talking about Kosovo, one thing you often hear from Hungarians in Vojvodina is that they don’t give a shit about “Kosovo je Srbija” and they hate being associated with a country that keeps banging on about it.
https://www.index.hr/vijesti/clanak/obitelj-mlade-albanke-bi...
Personally, I also think that Yugoslavia was a good idea that was killed by right wing gangsters. We're all much more similar than we're different and we should focus on that instead of on what Freud called the narcissism of small differences. If Munich and Berlin can be in the same country, why can't Zagreb and Belgrade?
We speak the same language (even tho some don't want to admit it - I usually use "po našu" when referring to the language, meaning "in our language", thus avoiding the nationalist names and pettiness), eat mostly the same foods, have similar mentalities etc.
I agree with you on the ethnic Albanians though - they never made sense in Yugoslavia, the state of the South Slavs. Kosovo should be part of Albania and the Serbs need to shut up about it already.
My own experience has found that ethnic Macedonians are the most yugonostalgic, which might be understandable since 1) they had linguistic autonomy outside the acrimonious quarrel over "Serbo-Croatian", and 2) they avoided the wars. But all this is anecdotal and I can see how others might have very divergent experiences.
I encountered a lot of Yugonostalgia especially amongst the more secular muslims of Bosnia. Hell, I went to a museum that had a photo op for "Your picture with comrade Tito"! https://imgur.com/a/7cMCgjH
Relax nothing will happen to you.
It is fascinating that nationalist Serbs and nationalist Croats think that Yugoslavia was a mistake and benefited the other side?? Someone must be wrong I guess.
Muslims want their own Greater Bosnia, and Republika Srpska to be only a bad memory.
Hence, the patriotism of Serbs in Bosnia is naturally stronger, to counter a threat to the existance of their "entity".
This is true that Ethnic Bosnians want their own state. Also, it's racist to call Bosnians Muslims instead of Bosnians. Please correct yourself.
That was the intention of the people gathered around Bujan Conference [0] during WWII. But their decision was replaced with another one later which was more "marxist".
This is what Kosovo had in Yugoslavia, and this is what Kosovo should have in Serbia, for ethnic Albanians.
Sure, there's different dialects. But most languages that are old enough have those.
Austrian High German is different from German High German is different from Swiss High German.
For example, Austrians refer to bread rolls as "Semmeln", while Germans call them "Brötchen". Austrians tend to avoid the Preterite in spoken language, while Germans use it pretty frequently etc etc.
"Ich holte mir eine Tüte Brötchen" vs "Ich habe mir ein Sackerl Semmeln geholt", for a practical example.
And yet we consider it the same language.
Source: Am Bavarian, we're officially nearly a fourth of Germany and the Austrians talk like we do ;)
More seriously, I couldn't tell you if anything about tenses is written (and differently) in Austrian school books, or if it's just the dialect creeping up.
What I can tell you that your example sounds kinda made up, although of course I know it's proper German.
Also, the M in BCMS is Montenegrin, the latest made-up language, not Macedonian (which is separate). Seems like not even the defenders of linguistic seperatism can keep up with the insanity ;-)
The Torlak dialect of Serbian is so transitional to Bulgarian/Macedonian that it could fairly be called a dialect of the latter. Even outside that dialect, it's not at all unusual to see Macedonians and Serbs in general converse, each person speaking his own language.
Similarly, the Croatian dialect spoken in the northwest of Croatia (which has become increasingly fashionable after independence) is transitional to Slovenian and there is greater mutual intelligibility than with standard Croatian.
Maybe, but it adds no argument to the issue of the same lang vs different langs. There's no clear purely linguistical distinction between dialect and language. As an old joke goes a language is a dialect with an army. In other words when it has a separate political status, and governed by a separate body - it's a language, no matter how similar it to other languages. The reason is that a literary/official language is defined by rules, and as rules are defined by separate entities, existing differences will be preserved, and new will emerge, and multiply eventually.
I'm from Bosnia, and while there are people who pay lip service to the idea that they miss Yugoslavia, in 95% of cases, these same people didn't vote for political parties that wanted to preserve Yugoslavia. Instead, they voted for nationalistic parties. Now that they've been disappointed by those nationalistic dreams (as it turns out, politicians/criminals don't actually care who they are robbing), they say they miss Yugoslavia. However, they still vote for the same political parties that advocated for independence.
> I agree with you on the ethnic Albanians though - they never made sense in Yugoslavia, the state of the South Slavs. Kosovo should be part of Albania and the Serbs need to shut up about it already.
Kosovo was part of Serbia before Yugoslavia came into existence, and it will be again. Last time, it took us a few hundred years to return; this time, it will happen much faster.
Go back to your nationalistic hole and learn history. Are you going to say Bosnia should be part of Greater Serbia? Maybe Bosnian Kings want their region back (Serbia). In any case stay away from here spewing nationalistic garbage.
By the way, regarding Bosnian kings, here's[0] the first Bosnian king, Stephen Tvrtko I, who claimed to be the heir of Serbia's Nemanjić dynasty. According to the same Wikipedia article:
> In early 1377, Tvrtko successfully plotted with the Travunians to take over Trebinje, Konavli, and Dračevica, marking his final conquests of the Serbian lands.
So, it appears that Serbs lived in that area long before Bosnia had its first king.
Bosnians in Bosnia called themselves and still do Bosnians but do omit the "dobri" these days.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C5%A1njani The term good Bosnian (dobri Bošnjanin / добри Бошњанин) was not a geographical reference for the inhabitants along the Bosna River, but it was referred to the population of the entire medieval Bosnia, regardless of religion, which can be seen in various charters of the 14th and 15th centuries during the reign of ban Stjepan II Kotromanić, ban Tvrtko I Kotromanić, King Stjepan Ostoja, etc. In these charters, Bosnian rulers mention good Bosniaks as witnesses.[4
> In early 1377, Tvrtko successfully plotted with the Travunians to take over Trebinje, Konavli, and Dračevica, marking his final conquests of the Serbian lands.
This is exactly what I said, Bosnian King Tvrtko, you omit the part of Tvrtko being Bosnian, living in Bosnia speaking Bosnian language conquered Serbia. Do Bosnians get Serbia now?
No one, except for you, has mentioned 'dobri.' Furthermore, you seem to have overlooked the fact that Tvrtko considered himself the heir of the Nemanjić dynasty, which was Serbian.
Interestingly, you also assert that Tvrtko conquered a part of Serbia, specifically Trebinje, which is now part of Bosnia. I'm not sure this supports your argument very effectively.
Bosnians speak of themselves as Bosnians, that's it. Bosnians have been in Bosnia from time immemorial, as long as there were people in Bosnia they called themselves Bosnians.
>No one, except for you, has mentioned 'dobri.' 'Dobri' meaning 'good', is what Bosnians were described by others and still do. >Furthermore, you seem to have overlooked the fact that Tvrtko considered himself the heir of the Nemanjić dynasty, which was Serbian. Tvrtko declared himself heir of Nemanjic dynasty to secure his position.
No one wins with this endless reaching back in to history. if you search long and hard enough everyone can find some valid (well, "valid") reason to be upset with pretty much everyone else. And all about some people who are long dead.
How would power be shared in such a constellation? It's not self-evident.
Munich is more similar to Vienna than it is to Berlin. And yet Munich and Vienna should definitely not be in the same country, because people who argue like this, also tend to argue that Kaliningrad under its former name was pretty similar to Berlin after all.
Many countries have an ethnic component as part of their official country name, eg. France and Germany. Yugoslavia recognised nationalities as constituent. Five nationalies were seen as constituent: Serbs, Croats, Muslims, Slovenians, and Macedonians. However citizenship was not restricted to these. Bosnia and Herzegovina inherrited this system of constituent nationalities as part of the Dayton Peace Agreement, and as a qonsequence has one of the most wild government structures in the world
But implying that Serbs committed atrocities against other people during peaceful times is simply not true. Once civil war started, atrocities were committed by all sides, not just Serbs. I have lost family members in war and I have friends who as kids had to escape from Sarajevo in early days of war to save their they lives (while their only crime was being born as Serbs).
Unfortunately, today everything is presented in simple black/white, good vs bad guys way without ever scratching under the surface.
My post reported the perceptions that non-Serbs often have about Serbs, and how this can hinder yugonostalgia. This is a separate issue from who committed what, and your trying to bring up that debate is not helpful to this discussion.
I was driven by an Albanian taxi driver abroad, who loves ethnonationalist Albanian politician Albin Kurti, but at the same time believed that Yugoslavia was amazing and that he wished that it never split.
I can use many examples like that that can hinder your NATO flavoured narrative.
It goes both ways.
Ethnic cleansing occurred during the Bosnian War (1992–95) as large numbers of Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) and Bosnian Croats were forced to flee their homes or were expelled by the Army of Republika Srpska and Serb paramilitaries.[6][7][8][9] Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs had also been forced to flee or were expelled by Bosnian Croat forces, though on a restricted scale and in lesser numbers. The UN Security Council Final Report (1994) states while Bosniaks also engaged in "grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and other violations of international humanitarian law", they "have not engaged in "systematic ethnic cleansing"".[10] According to the report, "there is no factual basis for arguing that there is a 'moral equivalence' between the warring factions".[10]
As for concerns about Serb domination in Yugoslavia, it's important to consider that each political reform in Yugoslavia since the end of World War II had weakened the federal administration while strengthening the republic administrations. By the time the last constitution was established in 1974, each republic had its own president, government with various ministries, police, secret police, and some form of military forces (territorial defense). On the federal level, each of these institutions had become a mere shadow of what they were just 20 years earlier. To pass any decision at the federal level, a majority vote was required and Serbia had one vote just like everybody else (that will change once Milosevic got control over two autonomous provinces in Serbia but that happened only in 1989-1990).
In the case of Serbia proper, by 1974, two autonomous provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo, had gained so much autonomy that they had voting power on the federal level. These two regions of Serbia already possessed legislative autonomy, meaning they could pass laws for their own territories without consulting the rest of Serbia. Consequently, there was a central part of Serbia that found itself somewhat beholden to these two autonomous provinces.
Another aspect, often forgotten nowadays, is that after World War II, communism was the defining characteristic of the ruling class. They were Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, but above all, they were communists. Over time, this was gradually replaced by thinly veiled nationalism. It's not coincidental that many of the politicians who emerged as party leaders, and later as state leaders, after the collapse of communism were, at some point, members of the communist party.
This is true. Serbs did commit ethnic cleansing and atrocities across Bosnia and Croatia. Please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_in_the_Bosnia....
Ethnic cleansing occurred during the Bosnian War (1992–95) as large numbers of Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) and Bosnian Croats were forced to flee their homes or were expelled by the Army of Republika Srpska and Serb paramilitaries.[6][7][8][9] Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs had also been forced to flee or were expelled by Bosnian Croat forces, though on a restricted scale and in lesser numbers. The UN Security Council Final Report (1994) states while Bosniaks also engaged in "grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and other violations of international humanitarian law", they "have not engaged in "systematic ethnic cleansing"".[10] According to the report, "there is no factual basis for arguing that there is a 'moral equivalence' between the warring factions".[10]
Interestingly, Croatian football hooligans still using this fact to insult Serbs in 2023.
Kosovo's Albanians committed war crimes against Serbs: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_Liberation_Army#Massa...
Those are the facts, and I don't understand what's the point in denying it.
Serbs committed many bad acts against everyone involved and there is no moral equivalence.
No, not really. More like Italians from New York were never part of USA (they were). Albanians were a minority throughout ex-yu and always showed inclination towards the eagle state, never yu. But you already knew what I was talking about because you rightly said:
> Albanians were not a minority in Kosovo
which I guess is true (I don't know by heart stats) since it was always considered kind of alien culture to all of the others including Vojvodina; Never integrated, always closer to Albania. However this might be just my perspective from Croatia.
Please re-read my statement that you quoted. Italians from New York is completely different from Albanians from Albania. Albania is a country where the overwhelming majority is Albanian.
> Never integrated, always closer to Albania.
Whether the Albanian population in ex-Yu showed inclination towards Albania can be argued either way, but I don't see the Albanian population in Macedonia do the same thing (took up arms and fought at the risk of losing their lives for independence). Considering someone alien makes it much easier to segregate, ostracize, denigrate, punish and abuse them. Ask yourself whether the ex-Yu government would have been able to do the things they did to Kosovo if they have called them our brothers (or even called them citizens of Yugoslavia) or if they called them "those Kosovo aliens that don't want to integrate".
A lot of people going abroad in the 1990s, or as gastarbeiter before that, were coming from Bosnia, the Sanjak, or Kosovo and they understandably are loath to identify with a state they saw as dominated by the Serbs, who committed atrocities against them. For Albanian speakers, Yugoslavia was a Slav-dominated project in general. As for Croatia, significant opposition to Yugoslavia began already by the early 1970s and it only got worse after the 1991 war.