Three full brothers were building a city,

Three full brothers, three Mrljavcevices:

The first brother was King Vukasin,

The second was Voivode Ugljesa,

The third was Mrljavcevic Gojko;

They were building Skadar on the Bojana,

They were building for full three years,

For three years with three hundred masons,

But they could not lay the fundament,

Much less raise up the turreted city:

What the masons built by the day

The highland oread destroyed by night.

Upon the dawn of the fourth year,

The oread cried from the mountain:

“Do not torment yourself, King Vukasin,

Torment yourself and waste your treasure;

You cannot, O king, lay the fundament,

Much less raise up the turreted city,

Until you find two kindred names,

Until you find Stoja and Stojan,

One a sister and the other brother,

And wall them up in the fundament,

So that the fundament will be maintained,

So that you will build your turreted city.”

[From a Serbian epic song “The Building of Skadar,” quoted by Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia, p. 406.]

In an essay published in September 1962, poet Pavle Stefanovic announced that in the next census he would identify himself as a Yugoslav rather than a Serb. Writing down “Serb” on official forms, Stefanovic said, had always made the sweat break out on his forehead, plunging him into “the nightmarish vision of an individual identity imposed upon me rather than chosen by my own will, one which fills me with polar opposites: pride and shame … a feeling of innocence and of culpability.” Mixed with his pride in parts of his Serbian heritage, he explained, was horror at the atrocities committed in the name of Serbdom by the Chetniks, the Serbian monarchist forces of the Second World War. Stefanovic emphasized that he was not rejecting Serbian identity because he thought the Serbian past was worse than others. Rather, he wished to throw off the symbolic weight attached to all national pasts. By declaring himself a Yugoslav, he thought, he could show that he considered nationality merely “a sort of historic-genetic address, a fact about one's origin,” and not a primary or sacred identity. In his eyes, choosing the Yugoslav identity meant asserting his own free will against the unchosen national collective, expressing his commitment to internationalism, and separating the future from a nightmare-ridden past.

In addition to rapid economic decline and the persistent political violence in the province of Kosovo, in the 1980s Yugoslavia experienced a veritable renaissance of nationalist ideologies of the “dominant nation” type. According to this kind of national ideology, its target nation is historically predetermined to be politically dominant on a given territory which is then chosen by the national ideology in question. From 1971–1972, when the Croat nationalist movement and the Serbian liberal communist elite was suppressed by Tito until the early 1980s, publication of any nationalist writings was effectively banned in all parts of Yugoslavia, except in Kosovo. While ending public polemics by national ideologues, the ban confined nationalist polemics to the closely watched realm of intellectual dissidence. At that time, intellectual dissidents aimed primarily at the delegitimisaton of the communist regime in Yugoslavia. For this purpose, nationalist—as opposed to liberal—dissidents argued that the Yugoslav communist regime not only intentionally belittled and disadvantaged their respective nations, therefore benefiting the competitor nation(s), but also that it had betrayed their respective nations’ national goals. However absurd these claims may appear when taken together, they reveal how limited the target of each national ideology was: it targeted only “its” nation, in the attempt to prove that the communist regime had failed that nation alone and should not have the right to rule over it. These “dominant nation” ideologies stood in sharp contrast to the official Yugoslav Communist Party ideology of “equal nations,” which maintained the equality of all nations and nationalities in all parts of Yugoslavia; according to the official ideology, no nation in Yugoslavia was, in theory, politically dominant in any part of Yugoslavia.

The outbreak of civil war and the disintegration of the “second Yugoslavia” was caused by many factors; however the impact of the debilitating conflict within the Yugoslav political elite, into which the ordinary citizens also were “drawn,” was crucial. This article will seek to support this hypothesis.

Today, after the signing of the peace agreement in Paris, when the end of the Yugoslav war is in sight, one frequently hears the questions: Could the war have been avoided and could a confederation have saved Yugoslavia? Namely, in late 1990 and early 1991, the republics now outside Yugoslavia (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Macedonia) proposed that Yugoslavia be reorganised as a confederation which would, as they claimed, have fulfilled their main political aspirations. The Serbian side refused resolutely, and, soon afterwards, war started in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina, which was actually their war of liberation. Now, when the republics in the territory of ex-Yugoslavia are internationally recognised, when they have largely recognised each other and when we are witnessing the restoration of economic and other relations between the peoples who shared a common state for seventy-three years, we may justifiably ask: Would it not have been better if the Serbian side had accepted a confederation and, thus, preserved some kind of Yugoslavia, than, by its persistent refusal, have lead the secessionist republics to take up arms?

The role of historical and cultural influences in recent Balkan warfare has been the subject of considerable debate among commentators both within and outside the former Yugoslavia. For example, some observers, who might be considered members of the primordial hatred school, have emphasized the cyclical role of “ancient enmities” and atavistic impulses in the Balkans. In contrast, another group of analysts, who have subscribed to the paradise lost approach, focus on the long periods during which populations of different languages, religions, and other facets of Balkan ethnic identity, managed to peacefully co-exist. This second perspective downplays historical factors and attributes the violence and savagery of recent years to nationalist leaders who whipped up antagonisms to suit their own political agendas.

Croatian President Dr. Franjo Tudjman's announcement on 12 January 1995 that, as of 31 March, he was withdrawing Croatia's “hospitality” to the 12,000-person U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR), stationed in strategic locations on its territory, was a calculated gamble. As subsequent events showed, the risk was not as great as it first appeared. The departure of the UNPROFOR buffer force seemed, on the one hand, to expose Croatia and its army, the HV, to a resumption of hostilities with the rebel Serb forces of the self-proclaimed Republika Srpska Krajina (RSK) and their Serbian allies in Bosnia (RS—Republika Srpska) and, possibly, the rump Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia-Montenegro). The UNPROFOR presence had largely kept such hostilities in check since early 1992, and the outcome of their resumption was at best uncertain.

Why do Balkan wars start and why do they finish? We know that in all Balkan wars there are significant internal factors, among them the various nationalities of the former Yugoslavia who are seeking to establish, consolidate or otherwise enhance their new nation states. However, one should not discount external factors present in the Balkans, such as the interests of other states, in particular imperial interests.

On 27 August 1991 the European Community (EC) resolved to establish a peace conference on Yugoslavia (the Brussels Declaration). Within the framework of the peace conference an Arbitration Commission was established for the purpose of resolving differences between “the relevant authorities” (not specifically identified). The Arbitration Commission consisted of five members, all being presidents of constitutional courts of EC members states and was headed by the French lawyer, Robert Badinter. The Arbitration Commission was subsequently endorsed by the United States (U.S.) and the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

On 14 December 1995, an agreement as the Elysée Treaty (earlier initialled in Dayton after weeks of difficult negotiation) was signed in Paris by the Heads of State of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. One of the witnesses at the ceremony was the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and, in a real sense, it marked the nadir of his term of office. In June 1992, amidst the euphoria of U.S. President George Bush's articulation of hopes for a new world order, Boutros-Ghali had presented a report to U.N. members entitled An Agenda for Peace which painted an ambitious picture of the opportunities for constructive involvement of the U.N. in conflict resolution. Yet ironically, this was almost the moment at which the intensification of intergroup conflict precipitated Bosnia-Hercegovina's slide into social and political disarray. The ultimate humiliation for the U.N. came in July 1995 when the massacre of Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serb forces in the U.N.-declared “safe area” of Srebrenica triggered the chain of events which saw responsibility for Bosnia-Hercegovina decisively removed from the U.N.'s grasp, and assumed by the United States and its NATO allies. The U.N. may recover from the shame of its Balkan entanglement, but the scars are likely to prove permanent.

The decay of Yugoslavia since 1990 has put an end to the experiment of a state of Southern Slavs. At the same time it has destroyed the myth of a peaceful and strong Western Europe. The continent that had displayed an impressive performance of cooperation and skillful diplomatic maneuvering during the last years of the Cold War proved to be incapable of coping with the problems in its southeastern backyard. In the beginning of the conflict, the European Community assumed responsibility for negotiating cease-fires and a peace settlement for the embattled Yugoslav states. But all efforts were fruitless. In 1995, it was primarily the interference of the United States that brought about the peace treaty of Dayton for Bosnia-Hercegovina.

Even before gaining independence in December 1991 from the former USSR, Ukraine had supported Slovenia and Croatia's drive to independence from the former Yugoslavia. In May 1991, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman paid an official visit to Ukraine where then parliamentary speaker Leonid Kravchuk expressed sympathy with Croatia's desire for independence. Tudjman pointed out how Ukraine's seat at the United Nations had given it a head start in obtaining international recognition of its independent status. On 12 December 1991, twelve days after the Ukrainian referendum on independence, Kyiv became one of the first states to diplomatically recognise Croatia and Slovenia; and further, it announced its readiness to open embassies in both countries. Ukraine was the first member of the U.N. to recognise Croatia; the second and third countries, Slovenia and Lithuania, were not members of the U.N. when they recognised Croatia.

There are two common ways of reflecting upon the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. The first one, journalistic, transmits and animates the images of horror, brutality, deprivation, and displacement. The second one, historicist—as opposed to historical—invests its energy into interpretation, construction and reconstruction of the past, attributing it with a self-explanatory power. “When and where did it all start? … So what does the past tell us?” (Sinclair-Loutit, 1994, p. 230). In this way, history is given the power to serve as an undisputed indicator and guide in the disarray of myths and facts. Both these positions share a common denominator; they both help us to assume a position of contemporary voyeurs—comfortable, distant observers who can do nothing but consume the provided imagery.