May 5, 1980. A train travels through Yugoslavia. He carries the remains of Marshal Tito. Striking images of a people who mourn the death of the one who was the symbol of their unity. They are all there. Serbs, Croatians, Slovenes, Bosniaks, Montenegrins, Macedonians, Kosovars. Eleven years later, Yugoslavia died a second time. It disintegrates into the most barbaric violence. Between 1991 and 1995, there were 150,000 deaths, mostly civilians, 2/3 of which were in Bosnia. And 2 million people thrown onto the roads. What happened? Why has the neighbor, the friend, become the Other, the eternal enemy, the one
who must be moved, cleaned, killed? Why has the purity of blood, this blood which flows in Slavic veins, established itself as the only standard of identity? To try to understand, we must go back in time, unravel the threads of tragedy, seek the elusive truth under the rubble of dogmas and certainties. What if this desire for “unity and fraternity ” to use Tito’s motto had only been an illusion, an impossible dream? What if this desire to impose a single state on such diverse peoples had been the original sin of Tito like that of his predecessor, King
Alexander? Because it was to destroy the very idea of Yugoslavia that the Balkans went up in flames in the 1990s. Even today, hatred remains tenacious and ardent. As if the myth of this multi-ethnic country never ceases to die and stir up passions. It is in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, that we must begin the journey and rediscover the memory of a distant era where this whole story began. The time of the first unified Yugoslavia, the Yugoslavia of the monarchy. At the end of 1918, the First World War ended. Finally. The Kingdom of Serbia, independent since
1881, was one of the victors. With the help of France and Italy, the Serbian army, led by Prince Alexander, liberated the Balkans. It’s him, Alexander, this young man in uniform who walks among his generals. He is only 30 years old, and he is already a man of great experience. His father, sick and tired, entrusted him with the regency of the country at the start of the war in 1914. He is truly considered a military hero. He fought throughout the First World War. He is usually photographed in uniform. It became a symbol of Yugoslav unity and
was as popular with Serbs as with non-Serbs, particularly Croats and Slovenes. The victory of 1918 had a bitter taste. 1.2 million people disappeared during the conflict, or a quarter of the population. With the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian, German and Ottoman empires, the Balkans are in the process of being recomposed. The political elites of the region decide to create a new state. On December 1, 1918, the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was born. And naturally, Prince Alexander takes the lead. At the Versailles conference which opened in January 1919, the Greats recognized the new group. It
must be said that the Serbian people paid such a heavy price for the Allied victory. And then, it corresponds to the strategic interests of the moment. The main purpose of the Versailles system established after World War I was to prevent the restoration of the Habsburg Empire and a powerful Germany. Likewise, the general aim was to create a cordon humaine against the Soviet Union, so the interest of the great European powers, and France in particular, was the establishment of powerful states in Central and Western Europe. Eastern Europe. In 1920, the borders of the new state were
finally fixed. They extend over the Kingdom of Serbia, Montenegro, as well as regions belonging to the defeated Austro-Hungarian Empire: Croatia, Bosnia and Slovenia. Macedonia, a Possession of the former Ottoman Empire, is also one of them. For the first time in history, the South Slavic peoples form a single country. The main promoters of Yugoslavia, at the time of its creation in 1918, saw this country as a nation state, even if this nation was not yet formed. But that shouldn’t have been a problem. Because they are South Slavs who live there, they speak the same language, and
they have never before had the opportunity to live in the same state. When Yugoslavia was formed, everyone was in favor. All Serbian politicians, almost all Slovenian politicians, as well as the majority of Croatians. This country was a promise, religious freedom was guaranteed. The politicians were liberal, enlightened, many were Freemasons. They therefore believed that the country would overcome religious and ethnic problems. If the new kingdom achieves consensus, the task of Prince Alexander is immense. His country now has three religions, two alphabets, four Languages, and even more minorities and nationalities scattered throughout the territory. The whole thing
seems as fragile and improbable as the Austro-Hungarian or Ottoman empires, from which it partly emerged. From the outset, a question arises: what institutional form should the new ensemble take? At that time, Croatian ideologists considered it necessary to organize Yugoslavia as a kind of confederation or federation, which would be composed of five federal units, or even more. Regardless, Yugoslavia had to be divided in such a way that it was made up of as many federal states as possible so that the Serbs would be in the minority everywhere. Serbia was a very homogeneous state before the First
World War, the Serbs did not know what a federation was. They simply did not understand the problems of the Croats, while they, the Croats, had learned in Austria-Hungary to continually fight for their own rights. In fact the great problem of the Yugoslav question is then the following – which of these two great nations would succeed in imposing its hegemony in Yugoslavia, is it the Croats or the Serbs? In 1921, the Constitution was proclaimed: the new state would be a centralized, parliamentary monarchy . Alexander will rule over a single nation made up of three different peoples.
No specific rights are therefore granted to anyone, including Serbs, Croats or Slovenes. From 1921, the authority of the new kingdom was contested. Or ? In a small mountainous region located in the south of Serbia, the heart of the Balkans, in Kosovo. The population, made up of 60% Muslim Albanians, demands its attachment to neighboring Albania. This is the insurrection of the so-called “Katchaks” movement. It is for this reason that violent clashes between the security organs, the army and the gendarmerie on one side, and the Kachaks on the other, often took place. And each of these actors,
army and police on one side, rebels on the other, Carried out reprisal operations. Basically, during the time of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, until the mid-twenties, the Kachaks movement was very active because it represented one of the means and one of the methods of realizing the Albanian National Program. Kosovo is in fact the cradle of Albanian nationalism whose distant ancestors were the first inhabitants. This region also occupies a central place in the Slavic imagination, especially Serbian. It was here that in 1389, a Serbian prince lost a famous battle against the Ottoman Empire. For the Serbs, this
lost fight illustrates the heroism of their ancestors, defenders of Christianity in the face of the Muslim invader. And this day became “Vidovdan”, the Serbian national holiday. It is therefore in the name of their respective historical precedence on this small piece of territory, poor and landlocked, that Serbs and Albanians will not stop opposing each other until today. By violently repressing the Katchaks, King Alexander therefore marked the pre-eminence of the Serbs in Kosovo and throughout the kingdom. Despite the seriousness of these events, it is in Croatia that the challenge to the monarchy is most threatening for the
future of the regime. The Croatian question, from the beginning, was the issue around which Croatian political parties organized, gathered and developed political platforms. And in relation to this, the kingdom did not extend its hand, everything that came from Belgrade was increasingly harsh. I will give you an example which is only illustrative. Perhaps it would have helped if at one point one of the kingdom's prime ministers was of Croatian origin. Maybe that would have been a positive step. One man embodies this opposition, it is Stjepan Radic, the leader of the Croatian Peasants' Party, the main actor
on the political scene in Croatia. What did the Croatian Peasant Party want? What did party leader Stjepan Radic want? There is no obvious answer to this question because Radic was known for his flip-flops. No doubt at some point in 1919 he wanted Croatian independence. But during the 1920s he preferred a kind of federation in which Croatia would have greater autonomy. What Croatia means to him is unclear. What is certain is that it includes Bosnia. He believes that Bosnia or a large part of Bosnia is among the historical territories that should return to Croatia. The borders
he desires are not those of Croatia at the time. Towards the end of the 1920s, I will say that the Croats consider Radic as their king, but a king without a crown. Radic ’s political trajectory will come to a sudden halt. On June 20, 1928, in Belgrade, at the seat of Parliament, a Montenegrin deputy shot several Croatian deputies in the middle of a session. Seriously injured, Stiepan Radic died a few weeks later. The history of the monarchy is changing. His assassination in 1928 constituted the most dramatic event of this period, and the Croatian people have
never digested it. When we read the press of the time after this tragedy, That is to say after the attack against Radic, then following his death, we understand that this whole affair was going to become much more complicated to resolve. What must be understood is that this attack was experienced by the Croats in the following way: it was as if the Croatian state itself had been shot at. Stepjan Radic would later become one of the great icons of Croatian nationalism. His figure will be claimed as much in the 1940s by the ideologues of the Ustashi
state, the Croatian state allied with the Nazis, as by Franio Tudjman, the nationalist president of Croatia in the 1990s. For now, Alexander must resolve the Croatian question. He decides to establish dictatorship. The Constitution is abolished, Parliament is dissolved and political parties are banned. Dictatorship is an ill-fated attempt to overcome ethnic differences. King Alexander wanted to create Yugoslav citizens, belonging to a new nation, the Yugoslav nation. It is for this reason that the name of the country was changed. Before the dictatorship, It was called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. In 1929, the king named
it Kingdom of Yugoslavia. This means that the country brings together one and the same people. To shape this Yugoslav citizenship, vast gatherings in which all the youth of the kingdom took part were organized, the famous sokols. The objective: to overcome old identities and exalt patriotism towards the new nation. Later, Tito would draw inspiration from this tradition with parades as grandiose as they were disproportionate, all to his glory. And as for Alexander, it will be the way to celebrate the unity of Yugoslavia, but socialist this time. Despite these gatherings, the king will not succeed in imposing
this new Yugoslav identity. There is a big discussion around this political project. Was it a utopia? It seems that it indeed was. The differences between the people were such that their integration did not work. This was the time when the national identities of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes were already solidified. It was therefore impossible to expect this unified kingdom to remain. With the establishment of the dictatorship, debates became more radical in Croatia. It was at this time that a certain Ante Pavelic appeared on the political scene. Ante Pavelic was a minor politician in the 1920s. He
was very briefly a member of the Croatian Peasant Party but he was actually part of a more radical far right of the Croatian political class, which was a minority at that time. He founded the Croatian revolutionary organization, Ustasha. Ustacha means “participant in the uprising ” or rebel if you prefer. They are not very numerous, the figures vary depending on the sources. But there were never more than 400 or 500, maybe 200 or 300 official members. Pavelic's project is radical: to create a Croatian state on racial grounds. The means to achieve this: assassinate Alexander to bring
down the kingdom. On October 9, 1934, King Alexander arrived in France. In Marseille. He knows he is threatened but this official visit is crucial. The two countries want to strengthen their alliance to better oppose the territorial ambitions of Hitler and Mussolini in Europe. In the middle of an enthusiastic crowd, protected by the presence of 2000 police officers, the king begins his journey through the city. Half an hour later, a man rushed into the official procession and shot Alexander at point blank range. These images will go around the world. This is the first time that the
murder of a head of state has been recorded by a camera. A few minutes before dying, the king will say: “Keep Yugoslavia for me.” The assassin is a Macedonian separatist in the service of Pavelic. The assassination of King Alexander caused the opposite effect to that expected by his murderers. The country united in grief. The king's body was brought back by boat to Split, Where tens of thousands of people greeted him in tears. His remains were then transported by train to Belgrade and then to Oplenac, a town in central Serbia where he was buried. As the
train passed, thousands of people mourned the death of the king. Exactly like the death of Tito in 1980. Peter, Alexander's son, is only 11 years old, he cannot reign. It was one of his uncles, Prince Paul, who became regent. He understands that the authoritarian Yugoslavism desired by Alexander will not work. So he liberalizes the institutions and grants elections. To resolve the Croatian question, the key to the stability of the country, he agreed to change the nature of the kingdom. In 1939, he granted large autonomy to the Croats: this is the Banovina of Croatia. This Croatian
Banovina was the beginning of the federalization of the state. This means that if it had not been for the Second World War, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia would undoubtedly have become a federation, as was later the case with communist Yugoslavia. In Europe, events are moving forward. And Yugoslavia will experience the most dramatic period in its history. March 1941. Hitler, while dominating a large part of Europe, prepares the invasion of his Soviet ally. To secure its southern flank, it must control Yugoslav space. On March 4, 1941, he received Regent Paul in Berlin, who, totally isolated on the
continent, did not resist Nazi demands for long. After four hours of discussions, an agreement was reached. Paul sides with the Axis. In exchange, Hitler agrees not to transit his troops through Yugoslavia. On March 25, the agreement was signed. But two days later, the population of Belgrade refused this alliance. She rises up to cries of: “rather war than the Pact”. Unique, even improbable, images of a disarmed Serbian people who dare to challenge a triumphant Nazi Germany on all European battlefields. Who are the protesters? Well, everyone, including the communists. After 1945, official Yugoslav historiography claimed that the
communists were behind the protests but we now know that this was not the case. In reality, communists joined the movement. Taking advantage of this insurrectional climate, the army overthrew Paul and denounced the signing of the Pact. Hitler's reaction was immediate. It's war. Ten days later, on April 17, 1941, monarchical Yugoslavia capitulated. Belgrade is in German hands. Yugoslavia no longer exists. The victory is total. The Axis and its allies share the Balkans. Nazi Germany integrates Slovenia into the Reich and makes Serbia a puppet state. Italy, which annexed Albania, Seizes Kosovo and Montenegro. Macedonia is partly attached
to Bulgaria. Finally, Hitler created a great Croatia and put Ante Pavelic, the leader of the Ustasha, at its head. The heart of every Croatian is filled with love for the one who brought independence and who will build a happy country blessed by God. NEVER A SLAVE! LET’S FIGHT FOR A UNITED EUROPE Many Croatians welcome the idea of creating this independent Croatia. It must be said that this idea dates back to the time of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and that it was defended by many politicians at the time. So at that time, most Croatians supported the birth
of this state even if it was linked to the Axis powers. This does not mean that they accepted the idea of an Ustasha government. It became very Quickly evident that this government was going to become violent. A very violent group which would organize the legitimacy of terror. The violence was first directed against the Serbs. Very quickly, in a few days, in a few weeks, they introduced racial laws that required Serbs to wear a sort of yellow headband marked, instead of “Jew,” the letter “P” for “Pravoslavni,” Orthodox. This was very similar to what was happening to
Jews in Nazi Germany. Obviously there were also anti-Semitic measures. Throughout the duration of the war, Pavelic led a policy of eliminating with incredible violence all the enemies of the Croatian race: Serbs, Jews, Gypsies through the installation of a vast concentration camp system. The Jasenovac extermination camp will be its darkest symbol. Unlike the Nazis, the Ustashe will not set up an industrial process to cause Death. Hangings and bladed weapons will be the main tools of their destructive madness. Even today, it is impossible to know the precise number of victims of this regime. No doubt at least
600,000 Serbs, 60,000 Jews, 40,000 Gypsies, and tens of thousands of Croatian, Slovenian, Bosnian or Montenegrin opponents. In April 1941, at the time of the collapse of Yugoslavia, a Serbian officer, a veteran of the First World War, refused the defeat and disappearance of the kingdom. He puts himself at the service of young Pierre, the son of Alexander, living in London. This man; This is Colonel Draja Mihailovic. He created the first resistance movement in Europe against the Nazis, the Chetnik movement. He claimed to represent the Yugoslav army. Eventually, the Yugoslav government in exile which had arrived in
London in the summer of 1941 heard of a small group of officers and soldiers who were resisting in western Serbia, and came into contact with them. At the end Of the year, Mihailovic was promoted to general and at the beginning of 1942, also appointed minister of war of the government in exile. But he remained in Yugoslavia. Praised by the Allies, nicknamed the Eagle of the Balkans, Mihailovic was named Man of the Year in 1942 by Time magazine. During the summer of 1941, another resistance appeared, the Partisan movement, led by a certain Josip Broz, known as
Tito. Aged 49, Tito already has a long career as a communist activist behind him. Born in a small Croatian village, he participated in the First World War in the Austro-Hungarian army. Taken prisoner, he escaped, discovered Bolshevism and joined the Red Army in 1917. He then joined the Yugoslav Communist Party in the early 1920s, even though it was banned. A talented orator, a fine tactician, and above all close to Stalin, he quickly rose through the ranks. And he took charge in 1937. From the end of 1941, partisans and Chetniks entered into competition. Very quickly it becomes
obvious that these two groups had major ideological but also strategic differences. To quickly summarize, Mihailovic's ideology is to restore the Yugoslav monarchy and protect the populations until the arrival of the Western allies. The communist partisans want to establish a Soviet-type socialist republic on the territory of Yugoslavia. And Tito, the leader of the Partisans, decides, very intelligently, to downplay the idea of communism. He speaks of the liberation of the peoples of Yugoslavia, he speaks of fraternal unity. And he managed to win the support of all, almost all groups in Yugoslavia. While the Chetniks remain mainly Serbs.
During 1943, the Allies abandoned Mihailovic and exclusively supported Tito, whose supporters proved much more effective in the fight against the Germans. Between war of liberation and civil wars, the entire Yugoslav space then falls into the greatest chaos. We find ourselves facing a multidimensional conflict. There is, on the first level, a war of resistance against the foreign occupiers, Germans, Italians, Albanians, Bulgarians and Hungarians. On another level, an ideological civil war between the communists and the non-communists, the monarchists. On a third level, an ethnic war between the Serbian Chetniks and the Croatian Ustashas who also fought both
against the communists, the Partisans, who were mainly Serbs during the first two years of the conflict and gradually became multinational and Yugoslav. The Second World War in Yugoslavia was very brutal, with more than a million people losing their lives. And this war gave rise to another tragedy: most of these victims died in conflicts between the different Yugoslav factions taking part in the war. On October 20, 1944, the Partisans liberated Belgrade with the help of the Soviets. It's the end of the war. After four long years of fighting, Tito no longer has any competitors on the
Yugoslav scene. May 20, 1945. He is in Zagreb, a huge crowd cheers him. On this day he celebrates the first anniversary of what he calls his “rebirth”. A year earlier, to the day, he had miraculously escaped the Germans. May 25 is now the official date of his birthday. In a country ravaged by war and barely liberated, more than 12,000 young Yugoslavs took turns to travel 9,000 kilometers and give Tito sticks decorated with birthday wishes, the famous “staféta”. This ceremony, each time more grandiose and disproportionate, will take place every year of his reign and will continue
even after his death. This cult of personality that Tito initiated at the end of the war was also a way for him to unify the country within the framework of a new system. Without a Strong and radiant Yugoslavia, no strong and radiant Croatia, no strong and radiant Serbia, no Slovenia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina. His vision of Yugoslavia was radically different from what Yugoslavia was in the interwar period, between 1918 and 1941. He tried to transform Yugoslavia into the exact opposite of what it was at that time- there. It was a kingdom, he made it a republic.
It was a unitary country, he made it a federation. There is a distinction that is made (..) between Yugoslav citizenship with the hope that belonging to a Yugoslav state which would ensure a rise in the standard of living, industrialization, would make it possible to overcome national divisions, but in at the same time, recognition for at least at the beginning, with the hope that it would disappear, but at least at the beginning, it was also necessary to recognize the multiplicity of national identities. The new Yugoslavia thus recognizes the existence of five nations. Institutionally, the country is
made up of six republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia and Serbia. There are also two autonomous provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo, both attached to the Republic of Serbia. This complex system is above all very centralized. It was the Yugoslav Communist Party which then exercised most of the power. And to definitively establish his authority, Tito settles the accounts of the war. Major trials were organized in Belgrade in June 1946. On the dock, authentic collaborators and criminals rub shoulders with General Mihailovic, the leader of the Chetniks. All were condemned or executed, Mihailovic in the lead. An
official story is required: only Tito's supporters resisted, only they are therefore legitimate to exercise power. It is sometimes suggested that Tito's Yugoslavia tried to forget what happened during the Second World War, I will say that This is partly true. It was sort of a fragmented memory. Only the memory that suited the new authorities, that of the victory and the sacrifice of the Partisans, was put forward. To overcome the divisions of war, Tito made unity and fraternity, the motto of the regime, the new pillars of the common future of the Yugoslavs. He then created the labor
brigades. From 1945, hundreds of thousands of men and women of all ages and conditions rebuilt the country in an immense collective effort. He hi, the brigades He hi, the arms of youth He hi, the brigades They build the country with the heart Tito knows that this unity he wants for his country, he must also offer it to the entire region. National issues are so numerous and intertwined that they make any stability impossible. In 1948, he therefore considered creating a Balkan league, that is to say a sort Of rapprochement with neighboring countries. What Tito wanted to
do is both controversial. Because there was a hesitation between a federalist and confederalist project, that is to say something which would integrate several republics which would be those emanating from the former Yugoslavia on the one hand, but which could extend with the Albania and which could possibly expand towards Bulgaria or Greece. Aware of Tito's great popularity in Yugoslavia but also beyond, Stalin saw in this Balkan project a threat, the possible emergence of a competing communist model . And there is no question of it. The break will come from Moscow through the imposition, on the one
hand, of total isolation on the economic level, and the denunciation of the regime, in a completely false way, as being a pro-capitalist regime or as being a foreign infiltration in the Soviet camp, somewhere, something like that. Dear comrades, this is an attack On the unity of our country. It is a call for the destruction of everything we have built so far. This is a call for civil war, a call to destroy our country. End of 1948. The break is complete. In the Soviet Union, pro-Tito people, called Titoists, were deported to the gulag. In Yugoslavia, thousands
of Stalinists and enemies of the regime were arrested and disappeared, sometimes for years, in prison camps. The most sinister symbol of this policy is on the prison island of Goli-Otok, along the Croatian coast. Until the end of the 1950s, nearly 30,000 opponents were locked up there in atrocious conditions. At least 4,000 of them will never return. This repression takes place in absolute secrecy. Thus, Tito does not hesitate to discover, a few kilometers from Goli-Otok, a dream Yugoslavia, that of Brioni, his paradise island. There, world leaders and movie stars crowd around the great man, the hero
of The war, the one who dared to say no to Stalin. Without knowing anything about the fate of the regime's damned. Despite the violence of the repression which fell on the internal enemies, the rupture of 1948 marked the true birth of the regime. It will be one of the essential elements of Tito's heroic image, his popularity, his independence and the success of the new model that he will put in place. Well, in 1948, during the great dispute between Stalin and Tito, in Yugoslavia, it was necessary to invent a new economic system. We invented what we
call self-management, the idea of social ownership, which left its mark for the entire duration of the Yugoslav system. Workers will be able to manage all aspects of the business themselves. Hierarchy and intermediaries will be eliminated. Thanks to the courage of Tito and the party, Yugoslav workers will begin the great battle Of self-management with the law awarding factories to workers. This is the idea which is inspired by the Paris Commune and socialist and communist ideals, that in a socialist project, it is the workers who should become the direct responsible, the direct managers of the product of
their work. So thousands of workers who will find themselves involved in a process at the level of their company, of discussion by general assembly on the organization of work, on choices. It is therefore an original economic and social model which combines socialist aspects such as planning, the disappearance of the very notion of capital with the granting of rights to workers and the recognition of small private agricultural and craft property. And it works. Until the mid-1960s, the economy exploded, with more than 6% growth per year. And the regime also allows a certain cultural and intellectual freedom.
This is the golden age of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia is therefore the only country in Eastern Europe where the avant-garde reigned in literature and the visual arts. It was the only country where the state financed abstract art, modernism in literature, and rock and roll. It was a socialist country that had an entirely Western culture. For example, when the student riots broke out in ’68, our students were more like the students of the Sorbonne and Berkeley than those of Warsaw or Moscow. They read Sartre, Erich Fromm, Marcuse. Unlike other socialist countries, Yugoslav borders began to open. And we
were completely free to travel anywhere in Europe. We certainly needed a visa but it was also required by the countries opposite. Basically, we traveled like the inhabitants of other European countries. It is certain that the reason for this opening of the borders is economic. Migrant workers sent billions, almost 20% of the gross national product came from them.” On the international scene too, Tito defends an original model. Thanks to the rupture of 1948, he made his country the only independent actor in the socialist world. He can then benefit greatly from financial aid from the United States,
for whom Yugoslavia represents a bridgehead in the cold war they are waging against the Soviet Union. And by taking the lead of the non-aligned movement in 1956, Tito intended to stay away from bloc logic and defend his autonomy. In no time, Tito managed to establish himself as a useful and important player on the world political stage, and Americans said of him: "He wants his bread spread on both sides." It was like that during the times of socialist Yugoslavia. But the regime's successes struggle to conceal social tensions and growing inequalities between republics that the federal system
put in place by Tito hoped to be able to overcome. At the end of the 1960s, a wave of political, economic and identity protests shook the entire Yugoslav model. It was in Belgrade, Serbia, that the movement began. THE REVOLUTION IS NOT OVER! WE DEMAND SOCIAL EQUALITY, WORK FOR THE UNEMPLOYED, RESPECT AND AUTONOMY OF UNIVERSITIES Look how these aristocrats of the revolution behave with us. We are entitled to wonder if they have not robbed the people! In the wake of the Prague Spring and the events of May 68, Serbian intellectuals and students revolted. Their target: the
economic model that has become too commercial, too unequal and corrupt. What they are demanding is a return to the orthodoxy of the system, that is to say a more democratic and fairer self-management. THE PROCESS OF EVENTS IN PRISTINA THE ENEMY SHOWED HIS TRUE FACE CRIMINAL ACTIONS OF THE PROTESTERS MASSIVELY CONDEMNED DEMONSTRATIONS THE CHAUVINIST CHARACTER OF THE DEMONSTRATIONS Then it was the turn of Kosovo, the poorest region of the federation and which belongs to the republic of Serbia, to burst into flames. There are no images of these events. The press of the time reported on it
in its own way. The Albanians, who now represent 80% of the population, demand to be granted rights identical to citizens of other republics. I think the Albanians were trying to find their place within Yugoslavia, but over time they began to wonder why they were being treated differently from others. I called the year 1968 a “founding stone” because at the time, the Albanians did not have their university. Given that they were deprived of a fundamental human right to education, it can be concluded that they Were discriminated against. The Albanians needed emancipation on the intellectual level. On
the road to social and economic progress, workers and citizens of Kosovo celebrated the inauguration of the province’s university. Many guests attended the opening session of the university in Pristina. The federal government therefore agrees to cede ground. The University of Pristina opened its doors in 1969. But there was no question of going further and granting Kosovo the republic status demanded by part of the population. Why was Kosovo, which had two million inhabitants, not a republic, and Montenegro with its six hundred thousand inhabitants? It was not easy to answer them: “because Montenegro is a Slavic country, and
you are not Slavic”. This situation was Strange, because socialism should not privilege nations, nor pay attention to whether a nation is Slavic or not. He had to favor equality despite nationalities. Finally in 1971, the movement reached Croatia, one of the richest republics . It’s Croatian spring. Some of the leaders are demanding more economic freedom, more autonomy. They demand to be able to freely dispose of the revenues of their Republic rather than having to redistribute them within the federation. The students follow and go on strike. The movement is hardening. Tito’s very authority is directly called into
question. This movement is without compromise. Sovereign statehood is a right of the Croatian people. Anyone who refutes it is only a traitor. Beyond the economic demands of the ruling class, it is indeed the Croatian question, which resurfaces in the public debate 25 years after the end of the Second World War. There is at the same time, indeed, also the rise certainly within all of this of resurgences and elements of renewal of a Croatian nationalism which will claim more Croatian nationalist separatist projects such as we will see again, and who will claim to be including the
first Ustasha experiences , therefore Croatian, who will not express themselves completely freely in 71 but whose reappearance will be seen much more clearly in the years 80. Faced with these multiple and contradictory demands, which threaten the unity of the country, Tito reacts in his own way. He massively repressed Serb, Croat and Kosovar protesters. There are tens of thousands of arrests across the country. And it also cedes new rights, within the framework of the 1974 constitution. The autonomy of the province of Kosovo is expanded. But the status of a republic was refused to it. At the
federal level, self-management, planning and Party authority are Strengthened. But at the same time, the new constitution grants broad autonomy to each republic. Tito therefore tries to reconcile the irreconcilable to save Yugoslavia. And this combination will not give coherence to the system and on the contrary it will produce great distrust, in particular, from intellectuals who were rather favorable to the regime and who will switch towards nationalism, towards liberalism in the following years. And also conflicts with the youth and also the rise of corruption within the single party system, of clientelism if you like, which is found
in all the single party systems in the region. Belgrade, May 25, 1979. Like every year since 1945, the Yugoslav people come together to celebrate Tito's birthday. Nothing can shake this country and these people. Neither today nor tomorrow. Never ! Long live our dear comrade Tito! Behind the inevitable annual staging of the “stafetas” ceremony, the reality is very different since the Serbian, Kosovar and Croatian uprisings. With the 1974 Constitution, the country moved, almost insidiously, from a federal system to a deeply ineffective confederal system. No one wants to recognize that the Yugoslav model, after 34 years of
existence, is now on its last legs, undermined by divisions, inconsistencies and the resurgence of national tensions. And no one admits that Tito is the only one who can maintain the unity of the country. But when he disappears, will the system he put in place to bring together so many peoples survive? With the death of Tito on May 4, 1980, Yugoslavia discovered an institutional situation unprecedented since its creation in 1945. The person on whom the entire system was based is no longer, the country enters the unknown. The federal government found itself in a very difficult situation
after Tito's death, since it was ultimately the government that decided in cases of ideological conflicts or divergent interests between the republics. He was, in a way, the supreme arbiter. He derived his legitimacy from this particular role that he had granted himself. In fact, he was above the political system itself. His place and his role were so special that the constitution, after his disappearance, prohibited anyone from having so much power. And after his death, the republics and provinces found themselves in the unprecedented situation of having to negotiate with each other, and that was already problematic in
itself. Less than a year later, the country experienced its first institutional and political crisis. Where? In Kosovo. Since the constitution of 1974, this province, which depends on the Republic of Serbia, has enjoyed broad autonomy. It was granted by Tito the same powers as those exercised by the other Republics but without obtaining the status. And The Albanians, who now represent nearly 80% of the population, can no longer stand this. For its part, the Republic of Serbia has never accepted the autonomy of Kosovo. The autonomous province of Kosovo was represented in the Serbian parliament, but Serbia had
no representation in the Kosovo parliament. There was therefore an imbalance in favor of Kosovo, and the Albanians demanded that Kosovo should not be a province but a republic. It was a constitutional difference that had some significance. There was resistance from Serbia, as you can imagine. States faced with an independence movement do not react very well. In March 1981, the province was set ablaze. Riots break out in Pristina, the capital. If the economic situation in Kosovo, the least developed region in all of Yugoslavia, also exacerbates tensions, for many Albanians, their fight is of a completely different
dimension. I don't think these economic differences were the only cause of the Albanians' desire To separate. I think that the Albanians demanded above all their autonomy and independence because many of them considered that the creation of Yugoslavia, that is to say the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, was an artificial product created by Versailles to the detriment of the Albanians. This is truly a story of cultural differences. In this way of seeing, we have on one side the South Slavs, and on the other the Albanians who are not Slavs at all. Kosovo should be a
republic, like other republics, i.e. an enhancement of Kosovo. On this occasion, they began to chant strongly nationalist slogans which worried many Serbs, but also other Yugoslavs. The Yugoslav presidency, which had 8 members and took joint decisions, decided to engage the Yugoslav People's Army against the protesters in Kosovo. For what? Because it was considered that the creation of a republic was only a step towards secession. None of the six republics, no more than Serbia, is ready to accept a split from Yugoslavia. The repression carried out by the federal army is brutal. Dozens of Albanians are killed,
a state of emergency is imposed and the Kosovo Assembly is suspended. The unity of Yugoslavia is preserved. For now. Another evil threatens the cohesion of the country, an evil deeper and more insidious than Albanian separatism. An evil which will, in a few years, fracture Yugoslav society: the economic crisis. The Yugoslavs lived very well in the 1970s but largely with a lot of borrowed money, so there was a substantial foreign debt. And the country was not able to repay it on the initial terms. The International Monetary Fund came and put Yugoslavia under what is now called
“an austerity regime .” And an austerity regime causes a lot of economic and social suffering. In Yugoslavia at the beginning of the 1980s, People were suddenly faced with this, they experienced a shortage of consumer products, something they had not seen in Yugoslavia since the 1960s in fact. From that time I remember the traffic restrictions, even and odd days. If your car's plate bore an odd number, you had, for example, the right to drive on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. If you had an even number, you could ride on Tuesday, Thursday and alternating Saturday and Sunday. The
Yugoslav authorities thought that rationing would not work. They gave out tickets, but that didn’t work either. So they rationed by price which means they let prices rise, and of course everyone complained about inflation, but they had to buy coffee, they had to buy sugar, they had to buy laundry detergent, so they made do. Yugoslavia is sinking into crisis, unemployment is increasing, strikes are breaking out everywhere and inflation is exploding, it goes from 18% in 1981 To 1250% in 1989, and even 2600% the following year! Under this austerity regime, you had regions that were doing better
economically than others. Slovenia and Croatia were economically more developed. They derived significant advantages from Yugoslavia's position, and its operating system. Slovenia in particular, since it bordered with Austria and Italy on one side and the rest of Yugoslavia on the other. The closed market of Yugoslavia worked very well. Goods could be sold at high prices within Yugoslavia and then offered at knockdown prices in countries like Italy. You have a complex link that exists between the social protest that characterized the 1980s, the strikes, the demonstrations and the awakening of nationalism. This complex link, you can understand it
if you put at the heart of the analysis all the systems of reallocation of resources that exist in the federation. Quarrels over the economy, the question Of which republic exploits the others, were constant. While Slovenes believed they were giving too much money to the Fund for Underdeveloped Republics and Provinces, Serbs, Bosnians and Macedonians claimed that Slovenia was exploiting others. It was a very unhealthy situation. Society was really going down a bad path. Faced with the inability of the federal authorities to reform the system inherited from Tito and to fight the crisis, each republic turns in
on itself and begins to consider the future according to its own interests. The poison of nationalism is spreading throughout Yugoslavia. We can therefore say that at that time Yugoslavia had already disintegrated as an economic entity. The total dismantling will take place during the summer of 1990. So Yugoslavia first disintegrated economically before disintegrating politically. In 1987, a certain Slobodan Milosevic entered the scene. Aged 46, he is one of the main leaders of the League of Communists of Serbia. The general public does not yet know him. He was just a relatively quiet communist apparatchik, a civil servant
who had worked in banks, he could have become a reformer. If we read the articles in the New York Times or the analyzes of Western diplomats during the first stage of his career, we see that some saw in him the potential Gorbachev of Yugoslavia. At the end of April 87, Milosevic was in Kosovo Polje, a small town located a few kilometers from Pristina. It comes to reassure the Serb minority in Kosovo, worried about its future. The gathering goes wrong. The police, made up mainly of Albanians, are accused by demonstrators of hitting the crowd. These few
words spoken in front of a television camera change everything. This is the first time that a Serbian leader in Belgrade has publicly associated his fate with that of the Kosovo Serbs. Nothing will ever be the same again. In Yugoslavia, the rule was to only talk about the nationalism of one's country, not that of Others. If you were Croatian, you could discuss Croatian nationalism and criticize it. Serbs could criticize Serbian nationalism. But Milosevic began to criticize Albanian nationalism, he broke a taboo and with that he began to use nationalism as political and strategic capital. This is
what catapulted him into the political orbit. From that moment on, he was no longer just a communist apparatchik like until then, but a man in whom ordinary Serbs, not just communists, began to trust. For them, it’s something new. That day Milosevic became the new hero of the Kosovo Serbs. His emergence on the political scene owes nothing to chance. In Belgrade, many are ready to follow him. An explosive text then circulated in Serbian intellectual and political circles. It is a memorandum, written by members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. This document was, on the
one hand, a criticism of Yugoslav economic policy, but also A criticism of national policy, or more precisely a description of the insufficient rights of Serbs in Yugoslavia, from their point of view. The document itself was very boring, it had lots of communist expressions, but it contained a problematic term that appeared far too often, that of "genocide". There was clearly a nationalist intention behind the use of the word “genocide.” The claim that Serbs were exposed to a cultural genocide in Croatia and Kosovo was not justified at all and was very far from reality. This document therefore
testifies to the fact that the Serbian nation then considered itself a victim and that it had developed a nationalist narrative around this feeling of victim. Milosevic will draw direct inspiration from the nationalist theses developed in the memorandum to build his strategy for conquest of power. With a simple message: the Serbs are threatened everywhere today, in Kosovo and in the other republics, as they were yesterday during the Second World War. Only he will know how to Protect them. To convey his message, he begins to get his hands on the media. The media was the key instrument
of Milosevic’s power . And it was not in the first place the print press, but television. Because in Serbian villages no one buys newspapers, people watch television, mainly the national television channel. He devoted much of his energy to taking control of television. He who controls the past can control the present. In this sense, in the mid-1980s, intellectuals in Belgrade began to “unearth” secrets that the communists had covered up. For the first time, we are starting to talk publicly about the genocide against the Serbs in Croatia during the Second World War, at the time of the
independent state of Croatia, this puppet state, the Ustasha state. It was then that we began to use the past for manipulation purposes. From 1987, Belgrade television increased the number of Programs intended to remind us that the Serbs are a martyred people, mistreated by History. A documentary, entitled “Here are our children” broadcast in 1991, is a typical example of this trend. This film recounts a campaign of excavations carried out in Bosnia by speleologists who exhume Serbian victims killed during the Second World War by the Ustasha regime. In 32 days, nearly 3,000 bodies came to the surface.
They will later be buried in the presence of high dignitaries of the Orthodox Church. Everything is done to glorify the Serbian soul and awaken in the collective memory of viewers the feeling of persecution. Thus, the entire Croatian people are criminalized, those of yesterday for what they did between 1941 and 1945, as well as those of today for what they might be tempted to do again. Through the use of tragedies of the past, Milosevic hopes to become the new Master of all Yugoslavia, a new Tito, a Serbian Tito. Slobodan Milosevic wanted what most Serbian politicians wanted:
he wanted to strengthen Serbia's position in Yugoslavia and he wanted to create a more centralized federation. On the other hand, the Croatian and Slovenian communists wanted a somewhat "soft" federation of Yugoslavia, a hybrid of federation or a sort of confederation, in fact what Yugoslavia already was in accordance with the 1974 constitution. March 89, Milosevic had the Serbian Parliament vote for the suppression of the autonomy of Kosovo, the new leaders of which were obviously on his side. In just a few months, he took over almost half of Yugoslavia. Milosevic could count on four votes within the
federal presidency: on the vote of the Serbs, Vojvodina, Kosovo and Montenegro. The federal presidency Had 9 members, 8 who each represented a republic or province, and the ninth was the president of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. Milosevic believed that if he won power in the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, he could count on five votes out of nine in the federal presidency. And once he has obtained this 5th vote, he will be in the majority and will be able to change Yugoslav institutions. On June 28, 1989, Slobodan Milosevic once again visited Kosovo. It comes
to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo Polje, this famous battle of 1389 which made Kosovo the sacred land of the Serbs. Hundreds of thousands of people come to commemorate the courage and heroism of their distant ancestors. Above all, they come to celebrate Milosevic's recent victories and those to come. It is the triumph of Serbian nationalism. I think the key to his success is due to the fact that he managed to satisfy two distinct groups: those who spoke For a Serbian national state and those who spoke of saving Yugoslavia. He thus solved the
squaring of the circle. His success was not always equal with both groups, but he is the only one who managed to have it both ways. At the end of the 80s, there was this coalition of nationalists and supporters of Yugoslavia, these two groups supported Milosevic. While nothing and no one seems to be able to stop Milosevic's triumphant authoritarianism, it is a completely different story unfolding in the rest of Eastern Europe. In Sofia, Budapest or Prague the communist world is cracking. Everywhere, men and women are demanding what they have been deprived of for decades: freedom. This
ongoing revolution will find its final outcome in December 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the official end of the Cold War. In Yugoslavia, Slovenia is the first to follow this movement. A Slovenian nationalism is emerging, very different from that advocated by Belgrade. In May 1989, The intellectuals became the spokespersons for the population and made a public declaration. What Slovenian civil society wants is political pluralism, a market economy and freedom of expression. The ethnic composition of this republic favors such an evolution. From a national point of view we were a very homogenous country.
Being the most developed, we had a large number of workers coming from southern Yugoslavia – people came to work in construction….- but we had no national minorities. Or, rather, we only have a small Hungarian minority and a small Italian minority. Other than that we were a very homogeneous country. It was of course very important in 1990. Because it was much easier than in a state which was not homogeneous from the point of view of its nationalities. Milan Kucan, the president of the League of Slovenian Communists, took the lead in the movement. At the end of
September 1989, he had the Ljubljana parliament adopt a declaration of sovereignty. From now on, Slovenian laws take precedence over Federal laws. The idea of independence begins to emerge. The Croatian political class naturally follows the movement. It must be said that from the autonomy of the 1930s to the Croatian spring of the 1970s, it has always sought to free itself from the role, too important in its eyes, played by Belgrade. Croatian nationalism traditionally has two enemies. One is Yugoslavia as such, the other is the Serbs in general and the Croatian Serbs in particular. This idea comes
from the thesis that the Serbs, who form the largest nation, still represent a danger to the development of Croatia and that Croatia is potentially still in a disadvantaged position, that of a weaker nation. In 1989, the League of Croatian Communists authorized a multi-party system. More than thirty political parties will appear, twice as many as in Slovenia. Meetings are multiplying everywhere. A certain Franjo Tudjman created the HDZ, the Croatian Democratic Union, a resolutely Nationalist organization. Aged 67, he was one of Tito's youngest generals in the 1950s, he became a historian and, above all, a nationalist activist.
He hopes that thanks to the current climate, he and his friends will be able to impose their ideas. Bosnia-Herzegovina, for its part, does not want to enter into a logic of confrontation with Serbia. The composition of its population does not allow it. Unlike other republics, no ethnic group is in the majority there. It’s a real mosaic. In 1991, there were 40% Muslims, 31% Serbs and 17% Croats. Not counting other minorities. And so the Bosnians are very aware that if Yugoslavia collapses, it will be very dangerous for them, and they are also aware that if everyone
plunges into nationalism, they will have a problem because there is no of a predominantly Bosnian nation that they could invoke, and there are some politicians very happy to take advantage of that. Muslim politicians will invoke a Muslim nation, Serbian politicians a Serbian nation, Croatian politicians will invoke a Croatian nation. And if we look at a map of Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is surrounded on two sides by Croatia, and on one side by Serbia. Which is inherently very dangerous and very unstable. The political elites of BiH will ultimately fall back on a somewhat vain defense of
Titoite dogma. That is to say, we are defending the 1974 constitution. Period! On the one hand, because we fear losing, in all cases if we touch this order, and on the other hand, because we also fear that if we touch this order, we are going to divide the LCBH itself. Belgrade. January 22, 1990. 14th Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. For Milosevic, this is the moment of truth. If he manages to have one of his close friends elected to the presidency of the League, he will obtain the famous 5th vote that he lacks
within the federal presidency. And no one will be able to oppose him anymore. Sociological research carried out within the Party, among members of the Communist League of Yugoslavia, showed that Milosevic was very popular within the ranks of the Party. Within the Party, the ethnic structure was much more favorable to Serbia. That is, there were more Serbs in the Party than there were among the population, and some peoples like the Slovenes were underrepresented, while the Montenegrins were strongly represented because they were already under the influence of Milosevic. But the next day, on the second day of
the congress, the Slovenian and Croatian delegations left the room. They refuse Milosevic’s coup. The congress is adjourned. It will never come back. The League of Communists of Yugoslavia ceases to exist. The strongman from Belgrade lost his bet. He will not rule over the whole of Yugoslavia. He will have to revise his ambitions and act differently. From now on, the federation is divided in two. Serbia and its allies on the one hand form a centralizing and authoritarian bloc. On the other hand, Croatia and Slovenia, with Macedonia, Advocate a confederal evolution of the system. The antagonism is
total. Isolated, the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina refuses to choose. The disintegration of Yugoslavia is underway. Two months later, in April 90, people voted in Slovenia. These are the first free elections held in Yugoslavia since 1945. Milan Kucan, the leader of the Slovenian League of Communists, is elected president of the republic. The Slovenian government of 1990 aimed to establish capitalism. That was one of the objectives. The second goal was to become independent. Except that independence was not yet perfectly defined. Slovenia had the idea that its status would simply change. This was the time when it was becoming
practically clear that Yugoslavia would cease to exist as a state. And we were still only wondering what form the dislocation would take, would it be peaceful or would it involve war? In Croatia too, the democratic process is taking its course. On May 6, 1990, The HDZ won the legislative elections and Franjo Tudjman became president. He will be able to implement his program: build a Croatian state, reserved for Croatians only. However, more than 20% of the population is Serbian, Slovenian, Hungarian or Muslim. Like Milosevic's Serbia, Tudjman's new Croatia questions the historical dogmas of Tito's era and
manipulates memory for partisan ends. But in the opposite direction. The victims of great History are no longer Serbian. Now they are Croatian. Ethnic nationalism takes hold.
