Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (in its own script Jugoslavia (Slavic '-j-' is pronounced like English (consonantal) '-y-') was the most important state in the Balkans after the First World War. It was created in 1918 after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, under King Peter I (1844–1921), who had been on the throne of Serbia from 1903, and was King of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes until his death in 1921. He was succeeded by his son Alexander I, who assumed dictatorship of the kingdom in 1929 with the aim of promoting internal peace and national unity. These were threatened by national/ethnic and religious disputes between Serbs (Orthodox Christians), Croats (Roman Catholic Christians), Bosniaks (Muslims) and Slovenes (Christians). (He renamed the country the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.)
- Etymological note: J[/Y]ugoslavia is composed of jug, 'south', and slavija '[land of the] Slavs'. It is not uncommon to read memoirs of British forces in the Mediterranean during World War II referring to the Yugoslav resistance as 'Jugs', like the item of table- or kitchen-ware (OED n.6 and adj., 1976).
Alexander was assassinated in France in 1934. His cousin Paul held the regency for his son Peter II (1923–1970). In 1941, the Axis powers invaded Yugoslavia, and after a Blitzkrieg campaign of 11 days, overcame it. The Nazis broke up the country, and heralded an intense war of resistance. The Yugoslav Partisans, or the National Liberation Army, were a communist organisation led by Marshal Josip Broz Tito; the Chetniks were a Serbian and royalist guerrilla force led by Draža Mihailović, whose aim of a Serbian state drew them to collaborate with ('use') the German forces from time to time. The resistance, in which the communists took a controlling lead, was probably the most successful in Europe - although the constant shifting of loyalties (for example, all the groups within the resistance seem to have collaborated to some extent with at least one of the Axis forces at one time) contributed to the pejorative meaning of Balkan.
In June 1944, Tito, with support from the royal government in exile, tried to form a unified government. King Peter, from exile, recognized Tito as leader of the National Liberation Army. By winter at the end of 1944, the Partisans controlled most of the territory of Yugoslavia, and in October, with the Red Army, they liberated Belgrade. On 29 November 1945, Marshal Josip Broz Tito proclaimed the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. This became the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia on the deposition of King Peter, the new (republican) constitution coming into force in 1946. This was a 'democratic federation' of six constituent republics: the Federal States of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. There were also the autonomous province of Vojvodina and the autonomous area of Kosovo within Serbia. The different republics were riven by disputes over ethnicity, language, religion and different records during the World War, and it is a tribute to the character, tenacity and dynamism of Tito, and his outstanding war record, that Yugoslavia survived as a unit till after his death in 1980. It was governed as a communist state, but Tito skilfully used the fact that Yugoslavia had achieved its own independence to avoid becoming a satellite of the Soviet Union. In 1948, Russia and Yugoslavia broke, to Tito's reluctance and Stalin's rage. Although the USA gave generous aid (outside the Marshall Plan), Tito did not align with the western nations. Instead, he set up the Non-Aligned Movement, becoming its first Secretary-General in 1961. Yugoslavia remained a non-aligned communist country until after Tito's death in 1980, with a presidency rotating between the constituent republics; but tensions grew. Croatia and Slovenia declared their independences in 1991, signalling the break-up of Yugoslavia. A group of wars followed, called by some 'the wars of the Yugoslav succession'. It is from 1991 that we begin to see countries described as 'from the former Yugoslavia'. "The formal breakup of Yugoslavia began with the secession of Slovenia in 1991. By 1992, all that remained within Yugoslavia was Serbia and Montenegro, which on 29 April 1992 formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In 2003, this was transformed into the Union of Serbia and Montenegro, and at this point Yugoslavia formally ceased to exist" (Riches & Palmowski, 2020).
- The languages spoken in Yugoslavia are mostly members of the Balto-Slav sub-grouping of Indo-European, specifically South Slavonic. The official language of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1918) was Serbo-Croato-Slovenian. Serbo-Croatian, Slovene and Macedonian were the officially recognized languages of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1946); after the end of Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia, previously constituent Socialist Republics in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia use Serbo-Croatian; North Macedonia, previously the constituent republic of Macedonia in Yugoslavia, uses Macedonian; Slovenia, previously the constituent republic of Slovenia in Yugoslavia, uses Slovene (also called Slovenian); Bosnia and Herzegovina use Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian; Montenegro, previously the constituent republic of Montenegro in Yugoslavia, uses Montenegrin.
- All these languages or dialects form part of a continuum of South Slavonic. They are very largely mutually intelligible, and can all be described (with some risk of giving offence) as forms of Serbo-Croatian
- The Albanian language, which is a co-official language in the Autonomous Province of Kosovo in Serbia, is an Indo-European language like the others, but is not classified as a member of the Slavonic group.. It belongs to its own branch of Indo-European.
