All pages are scanned from this book:

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The Medieval Bosnian state was autonomous until it was conquered by the Turkish Ottoman Empire back in 1463, an invasion lead by a major historical figure, Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror.

The population was mainly affiliated with the Bogumil religion; they did not recognise rule by the Catholic Pope, nor did they recognise the Orthodox Church.

Before ultimately falling under Turkish rule, two major powerful forces were scrambling to take Bosnia: the Hungarian and the Turkish Empires. Placed in-between the hammer and the anvil, too small and too weak to defend itself, but also divided by religious intolerance, the Bosnian state finally fell under the Turkish Empire, which would continue its rule for the next 500 years.

Once the Bosnian kingdom fell, the last Bosnian royal dynasty also fell. Throughout its tumultuous history, even after the departure of the Turks, Bosnia would be ruled by many states, and various ideologies would refract across its territory.

Sarajevo professor, archeologist and historian Enver Imamovic, from the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo, recently completed a genealogical tree of the Bosnian royal families. The project was presented to the public, attracting huge interest.

During its statehood, Bosnia’s ruling family was the Kotromanics. Imamovic’s tree shows all of the kings, queens, and their children — princesses and princes.

“Even before me, a number of historians clearly determined that the Kotromanic family dynasty is of fully domestic roots in Bosnia. They were our rulers, rooted in the early Middle Ages, on the territory of the present Central Bosnia, in the area surrounding the towns of Fojnica, Kresevo and Kiseljak,” Imamovic said.

“This area used to be called ‘royal land’ in the Middle Ages. This was royal property, and because the area was exceptionally rich in the Medieval period, involving mines of gold, silver, copper, iron and lead, this family first grew economically, and then politically. The kingdom expanded until the whole of Bosnia was unified,” he said.

The result of many years of research was presented in an artistic placard showing the history of Bosnia in the period spanning the past 700 years. Two academic painters from Sarajevo were also involved in the project.

The documents required to put the placard together came from the archives of Dubrovnik, Ankara, Italy, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria.

“I spared [neither] effort nor money and I can see it has all paid off. We have a wonderful document, very significant, from the historical, political, educational and artistic aspect. I have been told that kindergartens are interested in purchasing this placard, because children want to see Bosnian princesses,” the professor said.

‘Bosna i Hercegovina i ustavne uredbe’ 1911. godine piše austro-ugarski diplomat A. Sheck:

“Kada se jednom srpskom /pravoslavnom/ seljaku postavi pitanje šta je, on samosvjesno odgovcara: ‘Srbin, gospodine’, a kad se to isto pitanje postavi katoličkom seljaku, on stidljivo odgovara da je katolik. Ni od jednog bosanskog seljaka nisam čuo da je Hrvat. Nasuprot tome, bosanski intelektualci, zanatlije, trgovci katoličke vjere priznaju se bez izuzetka Hrvatima”

To pokazuje da širenje hrvatske nacionalne ideje još 1911. nije uzelo maha kod Bosnjackih katolika na selu.

Fratar Jukic banjalucanin u svom “Kolu” veli da Bosnjaci ne znadu za ime Hrvatsko.

Katolicki svecenik Matija Katancic

“Uvjericeš se najzad da se hrvatsko ime u Dalmaciji, Bosni i Srbiji narocito propagiralo, ali se ilirski narodi u ovom predjelu nikada nijesu tim imenom nazivali“.

Bošnjak katolicke vjeroispovijesti Ivan Frano Jukiæ ce zabilježiti da u Bosni, u 19. stoljecu, “katolici ne znaju šta znaci rijec Hrvat, a kamoli da se oni osjecaju pripadnicima hrvatske nacije”.

Slicno kao i Srbi Hrvati su samo jedan konglomerat razlicitih naroda i plemena kojima je jedino zajednicko ime (koje je turskog porijekla),cak i dan danas da se jasno primjetiti ta izrazita nehomogenost Hrvata kao naroda sto se najasnije moze uociti ako se osmotri njihov narodni jezik,koji je i vise nego nehomogen.Ako bi smo sastavili zajedno Dalmatinca,Zagorca,Istrana i Slavonca i dali im zadatak da govore narodnim jezikom,tu niko nikog ne bi nista razumio.LOOOOOOOOL

Prije Karataya, to azijsko porijeklo Hrvata nazreli su mnogi historicari,a posebno hrvatski historièari i etnopsiholozi.

Poznati hrvatski historièar Niko Županiæ je napisao djelo “Prvobitni Hrvati”, gdje kaže:

“Prvobitni Hrvati, mislim, nisu bili Sloveni, veæ tuðe pleme iz Azijske Sarmatije, koje je u oluji Seobe Naroda udes bacio u transkarpatsku slovensku domovinu, pa je sebi podvrglo neki dio puka, a taj se poèeo nazivati Hrvatima”.

Nada Klaiæ, poznati hrvatski historièar, nalazi da su Avari èinili veliki dio prve zajednice Hrvata:

“Hrvati su našli Avare u posjedu te pokrajine (Dalmacije). Pošto su neko vrijeme meðusobno ratovali, pobijedili su Hrvati, neke su od Avara poklali, ostale prisilili da se pokore. Otada su u toj pokrajini zavladali Hrvati. I sada još ima u Hrvatskoj potomaka Avara i vidi im se da su Avari“.

Mladen Lorkoviæ:

“Èitava stara hrvatska povijest shvatljiva je samo uz pretpostavku da su vladajuæi Hrvati bili neslovenska naslaga koja je prekrila i organizovala slovenske mase.”

John V.A Fine

When Ethnicity Did Not Matter in the Balkans

“In the period prior to 1102, the overwhelming majority
of references to people in the area that is now Croatia
call these people ”Slavs.„. In fact, all the early sources
do so, and references to ”Croats„ in the seventh and eighth century come from later sources lika Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who wrote
in the mid-tenth century. This absence of early evidence, as noted, even led one Croat Scholar, L Margetic, to reject Constantine’s migration account and to postulate that the Croats arrived in the western Balkans not in the seventh century but the late eighth.” (J. Fine, When Ethnicity Did Not Matter in the Balkans, page 63)

€These documents from 1102 to about 1340, which we have examined, contain many references to Croatia and to its nobility; but I have not uncovered a single reference to €žCroats as a possible ethnic label, unless one should construe in that way Thomas’ mention of the two sons of Butkov, who attacked the village of Ostrog.” (J. Fine, When Ethnicity Did Not Matter in the Balkans - Slavonia, Dalmatia and Velebitia€ after 1102, page 109)

Izlaganje Antuna Radica u „Domu” od 10.11.1904.

Lako vam je danas govorit moj gospodine! Ali da ste vi jos prije 20 godina dosli tamo dalje u Hrvatsku, npr u Vinkovce, pa da ste rekli da ste Hrvat i da su oni ljudi tamo Hrvati- vi biste sretni bili kad bi vam se sav svijet smijao, jer biste lako bili dobili i batina. Ali nije tako bilo samo medu gospodom, nego jos vise među seljacima: i to su bili ”Rasci„ i ”Sokci„- a Hrvatima kakovim ni traga. A tko je to učinio, da su danas i gospoda po Slavoniji većinom Hrvati, te ime i seljaka, koji ponosno kažu da su Hrvati, hrvatski seljaci? Tko je to učinio?
Tko je te Hrvate tako rekuc stvorio?
To je učinila Stranka prava. Nauka Ante Starcevica ona je od nesvjesne mase stvorila Hrvate! Tako je to moj gospodine, a lako vama danas govoriti!”

Antun Radic u „Domu”od 3.12.1903 objašnjava kako su Slovenci pretvoreni u Hrvate.

„U staro vrijeme, i još pred 300 do 400godina nije oko Zagreba, Krizevaca,Siska, Pozege itd uopce u Hrvatskoj s druge strane gore Velebita do mora, u cijeloj toj zemlji nije bilo ni jednog Hrvata: Hrvati su bili preko Velebita, blize moru, a oko Zagrba itd pa na zapad sve preko Ljubljane i dalje dolje uza Savu sve su to bili Slovinci ili Slovenci. a DANAS SU TU HRVATI! A GDJE SU SLOVENCI? JESU LI SLOVENCI PROPALI? SUDITE, jesu li propali: kad je hr vlada i država preko Velebita pri moru propala, preselili su se hravstki bani među Slovence, u Zagreb ali su se svejdeno zvali hr bani, i vlada se njihova zvala hrvatska. I tako su Slovenci imali hr bana, ali to njima nije bio tudji ban, jer su Slovinci govorili slično, ili posve jednako kao i Hrvati. Ali kad imadu hr bana i hr valdu, poceli su ljudi sve po malo govoriti da je to i narod hrvatski. I tako su se Slovenci sve po malo provzali Hrvatima - izgubili su svoje ime, tako da danas ni 1 seljak oko Zagreba ne zna sto je to slovenac ili slovinac, nego kaže da je hrvat.

Poznati turski historièar, dr Osman Karatay smatra da su Hrvati èisto tursko pleme, te da “iranska” i “kavkaska” teorija pada u vodu,jer nema nikakvog naucnog uporista. Za razliku od toga, on navodi sijaset dokaza u svojoj knjizi “U potrazi za izgubljenim plemenom”, što se može proèitati i na “Globusovoj” stranici,vidi sljedeci link:

www.globus.com.hr/Clanak.aspx?BrojID=37&ClanakID=516&Stranica=2

“U potrazi za izgubljenim plemenom”

Osman Karatay u svojoj knjizi “U potrazi za izgubljenim plemenom” opisuje kako su tursko pleme, Kurbati (Bijeli Oguri), u drugoj polovici 6. stoljeæa Avari protjerali iz njihove tadašnje postojbine na sjeveru Kaspijskog mora, pa su oni došli u Galiciju, na jugu današnje Poljske. Nekoliko godina kasnije Avari su ih opet poèeli ugrožavati s juga, iz današnje Maðarske i Slovaèke. Kurbati Oguri, koji su, da bi vladali brojnijim Slavenima, morali primiti neke njihove obièaje i jezik, organiziraju Slavene u borbi protiv Avara, a posljednja etapa tog otpora bio je prodor u Dalmaciju, iz koje su tada èak i protjerali Avare, u zajednièkoj akciji s Bizantom i Francima. Ti malobrojni Turci, Oguri, s vremenom su se sasvim poslavenili, ali su svoje tradicionalno ime - Kurbat - “dali” novostvorenom narodu, tzv.”Hrvatima”.

Hrvati nisu južni Slaveni

- Genetika je dokazala da su se narodi kroz povijest jako miješali, ali su ipak ostali dominantni markeri. Gdje smo se mi to u povijesti susreli s današnjim Nijemcima još nije jasno, kao i to zašto mi Hrvati imamo samo 10 posto prakeltskog faktora, a Nijemci čak 38 posto hrvatskog dinarskog faktora? Zanimljivo je da niti Srbi nisu južni Slaveni, već spadaju u skupinu Sibiraca. S druge strane, Mađari, za koje se to nikad ne bi reklo prema kulturi, su genetički - Slaveni.
Na tribini Matice hrvatske Čakovec nedavnom je gostovao prof. dr. Ivan Biondić iz Zagreba. Tema tribine bila je: “Etnogeneza Hrvata: između znanosti i ideologije”. U svojem je izlaganju dr. Biondić, a na temelju otkrića biogenetike izrekao mnogo toga što je u direktnoj suprotnosti s našim uobičajenim spoznajama o porijeklu Hrvata. To je i razlog što što smo ga zamolili da pojasni što je to u najnovije vrijeme otkrila genetička znanost.
- Možete li ukratko sažeti što to donose nove spoznaje uz pomoć biogenetike o porijeklu Hrvata?
- Biogenetika je doista u zadnjih nekoliko godina otkrila mnogo toga što zapanjuje i nas znanstvenike. Ukratko, biogenetika, a to znači stroga znanstvena istraživanja koja se mogu provjeravati, dokazala su da Hrvati nisu Južni Slaveni! Ta će spoznaja tek za godinu ili dvije doći do ušiju svih kojih se to tiče. Drugim riječima, ako vam sad neki profesor ili nastavnik ili akademik kaže da su Hrvati Južni Slaveni, možete ga slobodno optužiti da je - rasist. Probajte, naime, na primjer Njemcima reći da su recimo - Rusi, ili recite Francuzima da su recimo Šveđani, pa ćete vidjeti što će vam odgovoriti. Iz istog razloga ne može se više tvrditi da su Hrvati Južni Slaveni, kao što to piše u svim udžbenicima naše povijesti i u Hrvatskoj enciklopediji.
- Na čemu temeljite takve spoznaje?
- Te su spoznaje temeljene na znanstvenim istraživanjima više skupina svjetskih genetičara koji su napravili takozvanu gensku tablicu za sve narode svijeta i genetičko stablo čovjeka. Konkretno, temeljni izvor za spoznaje o kojima govorim su radovi Zoe H. Rossera i čak 87 koautora iz 2000. godine, što je objavljeno u American Journal of Human Genetics broj 67 na stranicama 1526-1543, kao i spoznaje skupine znanstvenika objavljene u časopisu Science 2000. godine. Zatim, na temelju radova P. A. Underhilla iz 2001. godine, kao i drugih autora i izvora koji se bave otkrićima genetike. Od hrvatskih autora tim se otkrićima bavi dr. Primorac kao genetičar, a kao povjesničar Andrija-Željko Lovrić i drugi.
- Što je genetika otkrila kad je riječ o Hrvatima?
- Prema genskoj tablici biokemijske srodnosti 47 europskih naroda ono što upada u oči je to, da je gotovo svaka skupina odnosno ono što zovemo narod tijekom povijesti pomiješana sa drugim skupinama. Ovdje dakako ne govorim o kulturama, nego o genetici, konkretnije o takozvanim “markerima” u genetici, kojima su ustanovljene razlike među narodima.
Kad je riječ o Hrvatima, znanstveno je dokazano da Hrvati nisu Slaveni sa 71 posto, a da takozvanog slavenskog faktora odnosno markera EU-19, kojim se to utvrđuje, imaju samo 29 posto.
- Što su na kraju Hrvati?
- Prema genetičkim istraživanjima, Hrvati imaju čak 45 posto takozvanog genetskog markera Eu-7 koji je nazvan Dinarskim, oni su naime posebna skupina među europskim narodima. Zatim, imaju 10 posto prakeltske “krvi” odnosno markera koji je karakterističan za Kelte odnosno Prakelte (Eu-18), 2 posto markera HG-2, koji je nazvan sibirskim faktorom, 2 posto markera Eu-16 koji je nazvan avarskim faktorom. Hrvati također imaju 7 posto biokemijske srodnosti s Hamitima (faktor Eu-4), te 5 posto faktora HG-9, koji označava Semite.
- S kojim su narodima ili skupinom naroda Hrvati najsrodniji, ako se može tako reći?
- Na to genetika daje zanimljiv odgovor. Kako su Hrvati posebna skupina ili imaju svoj genetski “marker” Eu-7 kojega od svih naroda imaju najviše, može se pitati koji narodi imaju isti genetski marker i u kojem postotku.
Najviše srodnosti s Hrvatima, odnosno najviše takozvanog dinarskog markera Eu-7, što je za neke začuđujuće, imaju Nijemci, čak 38 posto, s tim da kod njih s 50 posto dominira prakeltski marker. Prema postotku, srodnost s Hrvatima pokazuju dalje: Laponci s 32 posto, Nizozemci s 22 posto, Poljaci s 21 posto, Albanci s 20 posto, Makedonci s 19 posto, Francuzi sa 17 posto, Ukrajinci sa 17 posto, Englezi sa 16 posto, Mađari s 11 posto, a srodnost s ostalim narodima je manja od 10 posto.
Ovdje dakako ne treba zaboraviti da Hrvati imaju 29 posto slavenskog markera, ali on nije dominantan, već 71 postotni neslavenski markeri s dominatnim Eu-7.
- Hrvatska historiografija i jezikoslovlje godinama i desetljećima govori o srodnosti Hrvata i Srba, barem su nas tako učili u školi. Koliko smo genetski srodni sa Srbima?
Prema istim istraživanjima dokazano je da su Srbi narod koji ima 84 posto neslavenskog i 16 posto slavenskog faktora. Od 84 posto neslavenskog faktora, njihov je dominantan faktor HG-2 s čak 49 posto, što je oznaka za sibirsku skupinu naroda. U tu skupinu naroda spadaju na primjer: Srbi, Bugari, Gruzijci, Gotlandi i Šveđani, a u njima srodnu podskupinu i američki indijanci, te Turci. Označavaju ih genski markeri HG-2, Eu-21 i Eu-22. To zapravo znači da niti Srbima ne smijemo reći da su Južni Slaveni.
- Koji narodi spadaju u izvorne Slavene?
- U Europi su izvorni Slaveni (marker Eu-19) samo Rusi, Ukrajinci, Poljaci, Česi, ali sad slijedi iznenađenje, Letonci, Mađari i Kirgizi. Mađari imaju čak 60 posto slavenskog markera, što ih je tako pogodilo da su obavili više istraživanja da potvrde rezultate jer su bili, blago je reći, iznenađeni. No uvijek bi dobili isti rezultat.
- Prema genetskom stablu čovječanstva iz Y kromosoma, gdje bi se po povijesnom nizu svrstali Hrvati?
Znanost je definitivno dokazala je su ljudi odonosno hominidi, a govorimo o Homo sapiensu, potekli iz Afrike. Direktni potomci Homo sapiensa su pak današnji Bušmani odnosno Pigmeji u ravnoj liniji. Za nas je zanimljiva velika grana stabla koja se opet dijeli na Negroide (crne Afrikance) te neimenovanu granu. Ta neimenovana grana stabla zatim se dijeli na dvije grane od kojih je jedna grupa Pacific, a druga nema naziva. Ta manja grana bez naziva dijeli se pak na Euroazijce i Jafetide. Jafetidi se pak dijele na Semite i Praindoeuropljane, koji se pak granaju na Vedoarijce i Dinaroide. Dinaroidi su, rekli smo već, Hrvati-Dinarci.
Germani imaju 38 posto hrvatskog markera iako su oni dominantno Prakelti, ali ih zbog visokog postotka možemo svrstati u ovdje, te Rusini iz Galicije, a zanimljivo je i Tirenci iz Sardinije i Korzike. Gdje smo se mi to u povijesti susreli s današnjim Nijemcima još nije jasno, kao i to zašto mi Hrvati imamo 10 posto prakeltskog faktora, a Nijemci 38 posto hrvatskog dinarskog faktora.
U nama blisku skupinu koje zajedničkim imenom zovemo Vedoarijci, s kojom dijelimo zajedničko praindoevropsko porijeklo, spadaju narodi kao što su Gruzini na Kavkazu, narodi sjeveroistočnog Irana, Tadjikistana, Baludjistana i narodi jugozapadne Indije. Kao posebna skupina Vedoarijaca su u direktnoj liniji i Romi odnosno Cigani.
Zanimljivo je da bi se Slavonce odnosno Hrvate iz sjevernih krajeva po istom istraživanju moglo svrstati u skupinu Baltoslavena koji s Prakeltima dijele svoje porijeklo koje se zajednički naziva: Europeidi. Ti bi Hrvati bili srodniji sa Slovencima, Česima, Ukrajincima, Rusima, ukratko Slavenima.
- Da se nakon genetičke vratimo kulturnoj povijesti. Takozvano “iransko” porijeklo Hrvata često je zanemarivano ili se o njemu govorilo s podsmjehom?
- Genetika nas je uvjerila da Hrvati-Dinarci dominantno nisu Slaveni već da dolaze od Praindoeuropljana, da je dakle takozvana iranska hipoteza koja je do sada najčešće bila prešućivana, imala svoje duboke temelje. To je ovih dana utvrdila tek genetika. Ovo naravno nipošto ne znači da su Hrvati najsrodniji današnjim Irancima, već je tu samo riječ o takozvanoj “iranskoj” hipotezi u znanosti.
U Hrvatskoj nitko nije vjerovao u tu iransku hipotezu. Primjera radi, kad su ruski carski arheolozi otkopali Tanajske ploče koje potječu iz 2. i 3. stoljeća naše ere i na kojima se spominje ima Hrvat, to tadašnju Jugoslavensku akademiju znanosti i umjetnosti u Zagrebu nije zanimalo.
Knjiga ruskog arheologa stajala je u JAZU; današnja HAZU, neraspakirana (nerazrezanih stranica) gotovo 100 godina! Tek prije nekoliko godina ta je knjiga u HAZU pročitana! No zato su otvorene sve knjige koje su nas uvjeravale da smo južni Slaveni, a politika je u tom smjeru pogreškom stvorila hrvatsko-srpski jezik. Mi čak 100 godina nismo imali niti slike Tanajskih ploča. Prvi Hrvat koji je dodirnuo te ploče prije desetak godina, koje se čuvaju u ruskom muzeju, je veleposlanik Hido Biščević. Nakon toga napravili smo gipsane odljeve koji dugo nisu imali mjesta u HAZU, da bi se tek nedavno dogodilo da budu ipak postavljeni na ulazu HAZU. Otkrivanjem Tanajskih ploča, uspostavlja se nova paradigma etnogeneze Hrvata, naspram ideološke jezično-slovenske, koja će umnogome promijeniti sliku o nama. Hrvati su zapravo narod koji je u korijenu Europe, odnosno mogu se smatrati kao jedan od najstarijih europskih naroda, koji o tome ima i kamene dokaze.
Promijenit će sliku i iznutra, više ćemo tragati za svojim korijenima, pa bi ponovno trebali postati interesantni kajkavski i čakavski. Stručnjaci kažu da se najviše staroga sačuvalo u nekim varijantama kajkavskog jezika, tako na primjer u bednjanskom kajkavskom izgovoru u Hrvatskom zagorju. Naravno, nitko ne može tražiti da svi sad govorimo bednjanski kajkavski ili inačicama istarskog, koji također ima dosta starina, no to je dobro znati za budućnost jezika. Jer, jezik se mijenja i važno je u kojem pravcu ide.
Godinama su nas uvjeravali da su hrvatski i srpski jedan jezik. Danas je svima očito da su to dva jezika, s tim da je hrvatski štokavski standard umjetni jezik nastao zbog političke situacije. Drugim riječima, zaboravili smo svoj jezik i pitanje je hoćemo li ga ikad vratiti. Ono što možemo vratiti je smjer, važno je znati da su i kajkavski i čakavski bitniji za hrvatski standard nego se to do sada mislilo, da je to naša važna baština i kulturna povijest. Jedno od pitanja na tu temu koje će brzo uslijediti je i ovo: ako u školama učimo engleski ili mrtvi latinski te umjetno stvoreni književni standard, zašto ne učimo svoj maternji jezik, kajkavski ili čakavski?
Na kraju mogu reći da je genetika otvorila možda i više pitanja nego što je za sada dala odgovora, ali će sve to skupa izazvati revoluciju u društvenim znanostima. Promatrajte što će se sve zbiti u svijesti samo za godinu ili dvije, pa će biti jasnija dalekosežnost promjena.

PROF. DR. IVAN BIONDIĆ, Medjimurske Novine

http://www.vjesnik.hr/Pdf/2003%5C09%5C27%5C12A12.PDF

• Vaša je proza, kako mnogi kažu, “smeštena u jezik”. Na književnoj večeri ste rekli da ne pišete na dijelektima, već na jezicima. Šta zapravo to znači?- Smatram to jako važnim, jer je dosadašnja, ona udžbenička lingvistika, sledila političarsku lingvistiku, koja naravno nije lingvistika, pa se u Hrvatskoj stalno govori da su čakavski i kajkavski - dijalekti. Naravno, treba se pitati kojeg to jezika. Svakako, to nisu dijalekti štokavstine. Ti jezici su zbog unitarizma, kao nekad u Jugoslaviji, potiskivani na nekakvu ravninu dijalekta. I tako su i tretirani. Ne postoji televizijski i radio program na tim jezicima, i tako dalje. Tvrdim da se radi o samostalnim jezicima koji imaju svoju povijest, svoje govornike, svoju književnost i gramatiku. Naravno da tu zalazim u političke nezgodne stvari, jer politika bi jako rado da sve funkcionira prema odnosu - “jedan narod, jedan jezik, jedna religija, jedan vođa”

  Da, postoje tri jezika u Hrvatskoj, a kajkavski je jedan od njih. Ja na njemu pišem. Premda nisam kajkavac. Ja sam štokavac, ali štokavski standard je razoran. Osim toga, danas su štokavci jedna invazivna polugansterska struja, odnosno govornici tok jezika su invazivna, gansterska struktura i ja se borim protiv njih tako što sam odabrao svoj jezik, a to je kajkavski.

  BORIVOJ RADAKOVIĆ, KNJIŽEVNIK.

Naspram izvorne i veæinske štokavske ikavice, čijom bi divergencijom bilo omogućeno stvaranje samostalnog hrvatskog jezika i političke samosvojne
nacije (kroatizam), izborom politièki nametnute srpsko-hrvatske štokavske
ijekavice (u Hrvata manjinske!), modelom je konvergencije uspostavljen
(jugoslavizam), odnosno danas se uspostavlja (euroslavizam) etnojezièna
nacionalna identifikacija, što će se pokazati kao lažna i tragična utopija

http://www.vjesnik.hr/Pdf/2003%5C09%5C27%5C12A12.PDF

http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/gralis/2.Linguarium/BKS/Stokavski_dijalekti.jpg

Crveno je štokavska ikavica.

“Hrvati uvedoše i sami jezik štokavski,
akoprem ih je to stalo i stoji neizmjerno
truda jer i od svagdašnjeg domaćeg govora
daleko im je doći”.
(Vežić, Neven, 1855; Milosavljević, II 2

“Oni se nadaju odoljeti ako pravopis i
gramatiku budemo imali odijeljenu od srbske”
Miškatović piše Jagiću
(Jagić, Spomeni mojega života, 62).

“pravi Hrvati preko Kupe stanuju”.
(Danica 1847, hrvatski pisac A. Tkalčević)

“hrvaština stupiv preko Save, a poglavito
preko Kupe počima…”
(Ivan Kukuljević Arhiv, IX, 318; Đeric 15

“Krajem XV. stoljeća uslijedila je velika tragedija
hrvatskog naroda. Čakavski govor potisnut je u usko
priobalno područje, Kvarner i Istru, dok je novo vlaško
stanovništvo, pristiglo s osmanlijskim osvajačima, popunilo
‘očišćen’ prostor, donijevši sa sobom svoju tradiciju i jezik
(štokavštinu).

Značajka tog nametnutog nam jezika je (i)jekavski
izgovor i specifican rječnik s obiljem turcizama,
te preko turskog jezika preuzete arapske i perzijske
riječi. U tom smislu suvremeni književni jezik ima
manje-više neprekinutu tradiciju još od XVI stoljeća,
kada Dubrovčani razvijaju bogatu književnost na štokavskom
narječju ijekavskog izgovora, koji se potom nameće i
Hrvatima pretežno ikavskog izgovora. Ujednačavanju
hrvatskog književnog jezika na štokavskom narječju
mnogo doprinose franjevci koji su djelovali u Dalmaciji,
Bosni i Slavoniji te već od polovice XVIII. stoljeća imaju
svoj jezični standard. Tek nastojanjem Ilirskog pokreta
ujedinjuju se svi Hrvati u jedan književni jezik štokavskog tipa.

Lingvisticko oblikovanje hrvatskog književnog jezika
u XIX. stoljeću, u znaku je zagrebačke jezikoslovne
škole. ‘Zasluge’ i nastojanja Vuka S. Karadžica nagrađene
su 1861. kada je izabran za počasnog građanina grada Zagreba
i Požeške županije, čak je i biskup J.J. Strossmayer donirao
1000 forinti za tiskanje Vukovih još neizdanih spisa.

Taj jezik (štokavski), u osnovi vukovski nije bio
darovan već usvojen hrvatskom pomirljivošću i naivnošću.
Istovremeno, potpomognut politikom plemenskog ‘rvatstva’,
stvorio je neprirodnog blizanca – srpskog doppelgangera.
Čakavica je uzmicala, povlačila se; izvorni jezik tisućljetne
tradicije gubio je već svaku bitku i smesturan u narječje
padao je u zaborav. Međutim, zastor još nije pao, moć pamćenja je moć života.

Čakavica se grijala uz domaće kameno ognjišće, skrito
tinjala pod pepelom i iskra se nije nikad ugasila. Možda
ju je upravo to spasilo: iskonska ljubav za našu domaću
besdu i – strpljenje, ona slabasna nada da sve na koncu
prođe. Rano je veseliti se, jer bilo bi bolje da je do
kraja pokrije zaborav, nego da se uruči na razinu neukusnih
festivalskih blesavljenja ili da postane ‘oružje i stigma’
lokalnog revolta.

Andrej Urem
U ISKONU GLAGOLJICE
Dec 06, 04

Bosna i Bosnjaci
Bog Bosna i Bosnjastvo

Najstarije je prvorazredno vrelo koje spominje ime hrvatskog naroda u danasnjoj Hrvatskoj Branimirov natpis u kojem se on naziva dux Cruatorum. Toj vijesti moze se s velikim stupnjem vjerojatnosti pribrojiti i isprava o tzv. Trpimirovoj darovnici, koja je nazalost sacuvana samo u ne osobito pouzdanom prijepisu iz 1568. godine. U njoj stoji: Trpimir dux Chroatorum.
Mozemo dodati jos i ispravu Muncimira, takoder sacuvanu u prijepisu iz 1568, gdje se on naziva dux Croatorum.
Nijedno drugo prvorazredno vrelo 7, 8, i prve polovice 9. vijeka ne spominje Hrvate.
I sami ugledni Hrvatski povijesnicar Lujo Margotic tvrdi sljedece:(copy/paste)

Druga točka na koju bismo ovdje željeli upozoriti jest datiranje spomenute Trpimirove darovnice. Ono glasi: Regnante in Italia piissimo Lothario Francorum rege per indictionem XV suh die IIII Nonis Martii. O kojoj je godini riječ? Nakon Dümmlerovih analiza autori su se složili da je riječ o godini 852, jedinoj s 15. indikcijom u doba Trpimirova vladanja. Ipak, takvo rješenje sadrži nepremostive poteškoće. Naime, odmah nakon smrti svoga oca 840. godine Lotar je otišao iz Italije i nije se u nju više nikada vratio. Nadalje, on je 15. VI. 844. dao okruniti svoga sina Ludovika II. za talijanskoga kralja, tako da je od te godine u Italiji bio kraljem Ludovik II. i stvarno i pravno. Nemoguće je da se to ne bi znalo u Hrvatskoj. Zato treba indikciju kao element datiranja odbaciti.

Uostalom, do nas je došao samo nepouzdani prijepis iz 1568. — a znamo da su greške u indikciji u prijepisima bile vrlo česte. Usto, čak i neke izvorne Lotareve isprave sadrže pogrešnu indikciju, i to navedenu čak slovima, a ne brojevima! Još važnije od toga je okolnost da se Lotar nakon 833. uvijek i beziznimno nazivao carem, imperator augustus, a nikada kraljem.Naziv »kralj«, a ne imperator, ima zbog toga svoj dublji smisao koji valja povezati s Trpimirovim naslovom dux Ckroatorum iuvatus numere divino. Trpimir želi naglasiti da je on došao na vladarsku stolicu »po božjoj milosti« i da ne ovisi od kralja (ne imperatora!) Lotara.

Kako je u 839. godini u Hrvatskoj vladao Mislav, a Ludovik II. bio u Italiji kralj od 844, analizirana isprava morala je biti ispostavljena između te dvije godine.
Isprava je poučna i zbog toga što Trpimir potvrđuje Mislavovo darovanje — što dokazuje njihovu dinastičku povezanost — i usto daruje salonitanskoj crkvi dio regale territorium što se nalazi na hrvatskom tlu te desetinu s kraljevskoga posjeda kod Klisa. To nedvojbeno upućuje na vrlo prijateljske odnose Hrvatske i Splita. Pa ipak, znamo s jedne strane iz tzv. Taktiken Uspenski da je Dalmacija oko 842. bila arhontija, ti. takvo područje koje je priznavalo bizantsko vrhovništvo, ali u kojem nije bila stacionirana bizantska vojska. S druge strane doznajemo iz Gottschalka da odnosi između Trpimira i Bizanta nisu bili nimalo prijateljski. Je li riječ o međusobno protuslovnim vijestima? Mislimo da ne. Neobično je važno da je arhont Dalmacije u Taktikonu Uspenski imao razmjerno nizak rang spatarokandidata. Usto, u Taktikonu Uspenski govori se samo o jednom arhontu, dok je u Draču, na Kreti i Kersonu zabilježeno više arhonta — na Kreti čak jedan arhont s visokim rangom protospatora, a drugi s nižim rangom spatarokandidata. To se može vrlo dobro objasniti time da je arhont s visokim rangom bio ujedno gradski načelnik (prior) glavnoga grada arhontije, a da su ostali arhonti s nižim rangom bili priori drugih gradova iste arhontije. Neobična okolnost da je u Dalmaciji spomenut samo jedan arhont, i to nižega ranga, znači da se arhontija Dalmacija sastojala samo od jednoga jedinoga grada (Zadra) dok ostali gradovi Dalmacije nisu priznavali bizantsku vlast pa zbog toga njihovi arhonti nisu ni ulazili u bizantsku hijerarhiju i zato ih Taktiken Uspenski i ne spominje. Kako su uskoro nakon 842. odaslane u Dalmaciju (nedvojbeno u Zadar) bizantske vojne jedinice, arhontija je Dalmacija na taj način pretvorena u temu, pa je bizantski strateg Dalmacije morao držati jednom od svojih prvih i najvažnijih zadaća da proširi bizantsku vlast i na druge dalmatinske gradove, u prvom redu Split Pritom je očito morao naići na vrlo energičan otpor hrvatskoga vladara Trpimira, koji nije želio izgubiti svoj utjecaj na Split Gottschalkovu vijest daje Trpimir izvojevao pobjedu nad bizantskim strategom valja dakle interpretirati tako da je vlast bizantskog stratega ostala ograničena na Zadar, možda čak do stupanja na vlast cara Bazilija.

Pokušajmo učiniti još jedan korak dalje. Upada u oči da između Mislava i Trpimira, dakle u četvrtom desetijeću 9. stoljeća postoji očita i dokaziva veza o kojoj nas izvještava već i Trpimirova darovnica. Isto to vrijedi i za odnos Borne i Vladislava u trećem desetijeću 9. stoljeća. Naprotiv, izvori ne govore ni o kakvoj vezi između Vladislava i Mislava. Svakako ne može biti slučaj da upravo u vrijeme koje pada između te dvije dinastije možemo utvrditi dva vrlo važna događaja. Jedan od njih je prodor Bugara uzvodno duž Drave. Vrela javljaju da su Bugari nametnuli tamošnjim Slavenima svoje vladare i expulsis eorum ducibus super eos rectores constituerunt. I doista od toga vremena nestaju dokazi o bilo kakvoj stvarnoj franačkoj vlasti nad tim područjima. Druga okolnost je vrlo koristan i nimalo dvojben podatak što ga donosi Konstantin Porfirogenet, naime da su dalmatinski gradovi »osobito u vrijeme vladanja cara Mihajla II.«, tj. do 829, bili potpuno samostalni. Riječ »osobito« hoće očito reći da je u vrijeme vladavine cara Mihajla II. ugled Bizanta u Dalmaciji pao na najniže grane i da se, dakle, položaj Bizanta pod carevima Teofilom i Mihajlom III. ponovno za Bizant poboljšao — ali, dakako, to Konstantin nije htio priznati. Tako su dakle oko 829. stvari stajale u Dalmaciji vrlo loše i za Franke i za Bizant. Upravo u to vrijeme dolazi do uspona nove dinastije s Mislavom i Trpimirom i ujedno — po prvi puta - pojavljuje se ime Hrvat na razmjerno pouzdan način. Vladar se sada zove dux Croatorum ili dux Sclavorum. Prvi naziv odnosi se očito na vladajući sloj, drugi na cijeli narod. Tako i Konstantin Porfirogenet piše:

υίοτεοώ δττ τουξ Χροβάτσυξ κατουζ Λοι/ιτουζ Σκλαβ&ξοώταζ οι του κάτροώ Ραοώοώ οίκήτορεζ (…) διειτέραταώ εώ Λαγοώβαργία«

Vladajući hrvatski sloj bio je, dakako, vojnički organiziran. Pitanje o podrijetlu toga vladajućega sloja nećemo ovdje analizirati. Svakako, težište starije vlasti pod Bornom nalazilo se negdje u Lici i njezinoj okolini, na što upućuje Bornin naslov dux Guduscanorum, spomen Liburnije u njegovu naslovu Dalmatiae et Liburniae, kao i njegovi »pretorijanci« Guđuscani. Naprotiv, nova hrvatska država imala je svoje središte među rijekama Zrmanjom i Cetinom. Tamo je bik ujedno jezgra novoga hrvatskoga vladajućeg sloja. Područje južno od Zrmanje zvalo se još mnogo kasnije »Hrvati«.
Jedno je sigurno. Kako nijedno prvorazredno franačko ih* bizantsko (ili bilo koje drugo) vrelo ne spominje Hrvate do 9. stoljeća, isključeno je da bi Hrvati došli na molbu, poziv ili nalog bilo Franaka bilo Bizanta. Pojavu Hrvata u današnjoj Hrvatskoj treba dakle objasniti isključivo u sklopu odnosa unutar avarsko-slavenske države. Ako uopće hoćemo pridati bilo kakvu vjerojatnost ili uvjerljivost vijestima cara Konstantina, za tzv. dolazak Hrvata dolazi po našem mišljenju u obzir samo kraj 8. stoljeća. Ali, čak i sama hrvatska narodna predaja ograničava hrvatsko ime samo na jednu od pet glavnih i dvije pomoćne čete. I ta okolnost dovodi nas do zaključka da je do stvaranja hrvatske države došlo tek mnogo kasnije — u vrijeme Mislava i Trpimira. Tada su, čini se, povoljne okolnosti omogućile da nastane država s hrvatskim imenom, koje je temelj bio hrvatski narod.

This is an account of the war in the Balkans during the 1990s. As the only member of NATO and the European Union to support Slobodan Milosevic’s regime in the conflict following the breakup of Yugoslavia, Greece broke ranks with its western allies, frustrating their efforts to impose sanctions against Serbia. The work looks at Greek-Serbian relations and tackles the difficult question of how the Greek people could ignore Serbian aggression and war crimes. Journalistic accounts are combined with anecdotes and personal interviews to show a pattern of Greek support for Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic that implicates Greek politicians from all parties, as well as the Greek Orthodox Church, the Greek media, and ultimately the Greek people themselves. The evidence and conclusions presented aim to question the opinion that a new liberal order replaced the ideological standoff of the Cold War, but it will not surprise those who suspected that older allegiances have now claimed loyaties of many of the world’s peoples.

“what seemed incomprehensible during the Bosnia and Kosovo wars was not so much that Greece sided with Serbia, but that it sided with Serbia’s darkest side” (p. 4).

These waves have not reached Greece, though, a country that was rejoicing after the “fall” of Srebrenica in July 1995 at the hands of Bosnian Serbs and their allies, Greek paramilitaries. The latter in fact raised the Greek flag in Srebrenica after its capture: for those who may try to contest this fact, a photo is provided (p. 22),

Another revealing part of the Dutch report on Srebrenica is the reference to the support of the Bosnian Serb army by the Greek (alongside Israeli and Ukrainian) secret services which provided them with arms and ammunition. Michas’ book makes this look even more credible when it reveals that NATO military secrets on the August 1995 air strikes were passed on to Mladic on direct orders of then socialist Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou: the author’s source is none other than Papandreou’s personal intermediary with Karadzic and Milosevic, the -then and now-President of Greek-Serbian Friendship Association, who was carrying out the mission (pp. 38-39)TAKIS MICHAS is a Greek journalist and author of books and articles on Greek political history and modern philosophy. .

Ron James is the author of Weapons transfers and violations of the laws of war in Turkey (New York : Human Right[s] Watch, 1995) . Contents: Institutional settings and violence — Bosnian frontier formation —Ethnic cleansing on the Bosnian frontier —Ethnic harassment in the Serbian core — Kosovo’s changing institutional fate — Creating the Palestinian ghetto — Policing the ghetto — Alternatives to policing. Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. Subjects: State-sponsored terrorism–Yugoslavia–Serbia. State-sponsored terrorism–Israel. Serbia–Ethnic relations–Political aspects. Serbia–Politics and government–1992- Israel–Ethnic relations–Political aspects. Israel–Politics and government–1993-

James J. Sadkovich, The U.S. Media and Yugoslavia, 1991-1995, (Praeger Publishers. Westport, Conn. 1998), 296 pp.

“Sadkovich has compiled a truly masterly assessment of the US media’s biased and generally inept, if perhaps well-intentioned, efforts to make sense of [the unraveling of Yugoslavia]. What emerges is a searing indictment of the manner in which American media — press, radio, and television — go about reporting information, layered with bias, stereotypes, agenda-setting, and judgmental ethnic evaluations of morality. A useful bibliography and chapter notes provide a valuable mine of information. Recommended for undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty.”

Michael P. Scharf, William A. Schabas, Slobodan Milosevic on trial : a companion (New York : Continuum, 2002) 178 p. ;

Raju G.C. Thomas, Yugoslavia unraveled : sovereignty, self-determination, intervention, Lanham, Md. : Lexington Books, 2003.

Contents: Sovereignty, self-determination, and secession : principles and practice / Raju G.C. Thomas — The future of nationalism / Michael Mandelbaum — Transnational causes of genocide, or, How the West exacerbates ethnic conflict / Alan J. Kuperman — Religion and war : fault lines in the Balkan enigma / P.H. Liotta — Economic aspects of Yugoslavia’s disintegration / Milica Z. Bookman — International policy in southeastern Europe : a diagnosis / Gordon N. Bardos — Wars, humanitarian intervention, and international law : perceptions and reality / Raju G.C. Thomas — The use of refugees as political and military weapons in the Kosovo conflict / Kelly M. Greenhill — Propaganda system one : from Diem and Arbenz to Milosevic / Edward S. Herman — Biased justice : “humanrightism” and the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia / Robert M. Hayden — Illegal wars, collateral damage, and international criminal law / Michael Mandel — Intervention in ethnic civil wars and exit strategies : lessons from South Asia / Maya Chadda — Reflections on the Yugoslav wars : a peacekeeper’s perspective / Satish Nambiar.

Ed Vulliamy “Middle Managers of Genocide” (Bosnian Genocide)
Marla Stone “Bosnia’s Untenable Peace”

Srebrenica Report 1999 (PDF file): “Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to General Assembly resolution 53/35: the fall of Srebrenica” A/54/549 presented 15 November 1999. Written in accordance with resolution 53/35 approved by the General Assembly on November 30, 1998, Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s report says the UN Security Council should have approved “more decisive and forceful action to prevent the unfolding horror” in Bosnia and that ‘’safe areas” should never be established again without credible means of defence.” The report refers to an “attempted genocide” in Bosnia. Since the conviction of perpetrators for genocide at the Hague in August 2001, the Srebreniica crime as become widely recongized as genocide.

“Srebrenica, a ’safe’ area - reconstruction, background, consequences and analyses of the fall of a safe area” April 15, 2002. Read the Summary, Conclusion and Epilogue from the Report that caused the the entire Dutch Government to resign. Also read Four UN reports on Srebrenica, Rwanda and Genocide Prevention.

Burning the Evidence in Kosovo: 25 Jan 2001 During the war in Kosovo in 1999, war-crimes investigators suspected that Serbian forces were hiding evidence of atrocities by removing bodies of murdered Albanians from graves and execution sites. This is the story of a secret and grisly operation by Serbian security forces to destroy evidence of possible war crimes in an industrial furnace in northern Kosovo. http://www.americanradioworks.org

Behind Enemy Lines 106 min. John Moore “ Set in war-torn Bosnia, the film portrays a mass grave where victims of genocide lie decomposing in the mud. Violence ranges from deafening mine and tank explosions to point-blank shootings and spattering blood. A near-catatonic child sits amid the destruction in one scene. Owen Wilson plays Lt. Burnett, a cocky but amiable naval aviator flying reconnaissance missions over Bosnia. He and his pilot photograph something sinister and are shot down. Stranded, Burnett is hunted and marked for death by Serbs in the middle of a supposed cease-fire. Back on the aircraft carrier, the admiral (Gene Hackman) who once thought Burnett was a hotdog tries to mount a mission to save him, but NATO wants the United States to back off. The film derides NATO’s good intentions but does better with the metaphor of a lone American caught between factions in a foreign war.”.Jane Horwitz Wash. Post, 30 Nov 2001

Integrative Problems: Interwar Yugoslavia and the Major National Ideologies

One prevalent explanation for the eventual demise of the Yugoslav state is that it never succeeded in constituting itself as a political community, as a nation-state whose identity conceptually and structurally transcended the various nations that it comprised. While the special function and purpose of the Yugoslav state ideally would have accommodated a large, diverse collectivity of many different ethnic groups, national minorities, and religions, as well as cultural, economic, and linguistic differences, the reality was that each of Yugoslavia’s nations sought to use Yugoslavia to protect its own particular national identity and develop its own idea about statehood. The more obvious reality was that these different conceptions of the Yugoslav state were decidedly asymmetrical: Yugoslav statehood had to compete with its individual nations’ desires for statehood. Yet the Yugoslav state itself would eventually be usurped by the largest nation–Serbs–to serve its own national interest. To be sure, the creation of a Yugoslav nation-state reflected Serbian interests, while Croatian interests (and, later, those of the other republics) fostered the ideal of a Yugoslav confederation of independent states.

The first Yugoslavia (the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes) enshrined the idea of “national unity” in a liberal, parliamentary monarchy. The idea of “national unity” presumed that there lived in Yugoslavia one people with three names–Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The wartime allies promoted unification of these “tribes” in a common state as an expression of the right to self-determination on the basis of nationality, following the example of the creation of the Italian and German nations in the second half of the nineteenth century.16 Of course, such “Yugoslav ethnic unity” was spurious.17 Its foundation of putative ethnic unity was, in essence, a joint project among the various South Slav nations to ward off any territorial aspirations of neighboring countries and to protect their national identities through a “unified” Yugoslavia. The state was dominated by Serbian institutions (above all, the Serbian House of Karadjordjevic), including the military, the political leadership, and the civil service. These institutions were mechanically transferred to the new parts of Yugoslavia, even though these old Serbian institutions lacked the integrative potential for a new state that was five times larger than Serbia and that now brought under its dominion fragments of old empires that were arguably more developed than Serbia from a legal, cultural, and economic standpoint. After the creation of Yugoslavia as a unified nation and centralized state under Serbian domination, the Croatian political parties entered the opposition, obstructing the work of parliament and state organs. Practically from the very founding of Yugoslavia, the Croatian national question was opened up.

Even before its formation as a state, there were debates over how the first Yugoslavia should be organized, even though Serbia entered the debates with a considerable advantage. Serbia had a stronger position in the negotiations over Yugoslavia, largely owing to its reputation as one of the victors in the Balkan Wars (1912-13), then as a state on the side of the Entente during World War I (in which Serbs suffered enormous casualties), and finally as an organized military force capable of blocking the pretensions of neighboring countries to Yugoslav lands (primarily Italy’s claims on Dalmatia). For these reasons, Serbia believed that it had the right to speak in the name of all Yugoslav peoples and to influence decisively the form of the state in conformity with Serbian national interests. Given the historical circumstances and balance of power, the Serbian position prevailed.18

Serbian politicians rejected outright the Croatian proposals for a federation. Such a scheme was foreign to Serbian history. Moreover, anything less than a centralized state would deprive Serbia of its dominant role in ruling the new country. If Serbian politicians were to accept the federal model, they would have to link together all of the “Serbian lands” so that Serbia could be assured of a dominant role in such a federation. The “Serbian lands in Austria-Hungary” that would be linked with Serbia were understood to include Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vojvodina with Srem, and a part of Dalmatia. Montenegro, which had already united with Serbia, also fell within these “lands.” Moreover, Serbia had already obtained Vardar Macedonia and Kosovo in the Balkan Wars. As a result, the Serbian federal unit would be substantially larger than its Croatian and Slovenian counterparts. The idea of a federation created on the basis of historical provinces was not up for consideration, since it would “break up the Serbian nation” and the leading role of Serbia.19 Serbian politicians were not prepared to “drown Serbia in the Yugoslav community” and rejected the example of the Piedmont region, which renounced its own past for the unification of Italy. This is the reason why Serbia did not agree to call the new state “Yugoslavia,” which came only in 1929 under the dictatorship of King Alexander.

Debates over how Yugoslavia should be organized–as either a unitary or a federal state–constantly plagued the first Yugoslavia, and the debates continued on into the second, communist, Yugoslavia until its disintegration. But debates over the country’s political structure involved much more than arguments about the nature and extent of federal relations in the two Yugoslavias. At the heart of these debates was the ongoing battle to resolve Yugoslavia’s national question. The opposing sides in these debates almost always divided along the lines of the two historically dominant ideologies that inevitably destroyed both Yugoslavias: Croatian and Serbian.

Well before unification, a strong political current in Croatia advocated an independent Croatia within its “historical boundaries,” which included Bosnia-Herzegovina and parts of contemporary Serbia (a so-called Greater Croatia). Because Croatia long enjoyed an autonomous status under Hungarian rule, it joined Yugoslavia as a nation with a well-developed consciousness about the “right of statehood,” that is, the right to an independent state.20 Given the circumstances at the time, Croatia was not in a position to exercise this right or to advance the cause for a federal Yugoslavia. Pressed by an internal Yugoslav movement (which was especially strong in Dalmatia and among Croatian Serbs who were pushing for unification with Serbia), Croatia joined Yugoslavia, but with a strong feeling of its unequal position in the partnership.21 Given its ambivalent relationship toward the unified state, and the fact that such an arrangement was ill suited for advancing its own interests, Croatia maintained a strategic position of separatism regarding its conception of the Yugoslav state. This position alternated between a pro-Yugoslav ideal of an autonomous state within a confederation of other South Slavs and outright secession from the Yugoslav federation and the establishment of a truly independent state. Regarding the latter position, Serbs posed the only obstacle to its achievement, according to the more extreme strains of Croatian nationalist sentiment. Croatian nationalist ideology and a historical longing for the national state it lost a thousand years before gave ample support for such a position.

Serbia’s basic objective remained the unification of all Serbs in one state. Following this nationalist ideology, Serbia entered World War I with the aim of bringing together all Serbs and Serbian lands, including those in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Vojvodina (all under Austro-Hungarian rule). However, Serbia officially defined its war goal as the broader unification of all South Slavs within one state. The idea of Serbian unification was based on two principles. One reflected narrow Serbian interests: It envisioned a large Serbian state that would be a center of power in the Balkans after Serbian military victories and strategic alliances with the other Balkan nations forced the dying Hapsburg and Ottoman empires out of the region. Serbia achieved this goal, ending Ottoman rule and annexing Macedonia and Kosovo. The Serbian diaspora had a dual role in fulfilling Serbian unification: providing the resources needed to occupy a dominant position in the Balkans and focusing on the national question. While the borders of this “Greater Serbia” were not clearly drawn, Serbia’s more ardent nationalists invoked the image of a rebirth of the medieval Serbian kingdom lost to the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389.

The second principle was broader: namely, Yugoslavism conceived in a number of ways. Yugoslavia as a multinational enterprise, and not an expanded Serbia, was more popular among prominent segments of the Serbian intelligentsia and youth than in official political and military circles.22 The pervasiveness of Serbian ethnic boundaries coincided with both the Yugoslav ideal and the cooperation established in the mid-nineteenth century with other nations that included large Serbian communities, principally Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. However, Serbian politicians did not renounce the Piedmont-like position of Serbia and its leading role in the creation of Yugoslavia. Toward the end of World War I, the Serbs realized their unification plan with the establishment of Yugoslavia under the slogan “national and state unity.” From that time on, they considered Yugoslavia the permanent solution to their national question. Accordingly, they made great sacrifices during World War I, assigning themselves the role of the Yugoslav “state people” and “liberators” of the other peoples.23 This dual identity remained a permanent part of the Serbian national character up to the emergence of the Serbian national movement in the 1980s, when this tie was broken with the rejection of Yugoslavism and Yugoslavia as the Serbian homeland.

Under the pressure of national, social, and economic problems, Yugoslavia did not survive for long as a parliamentary democracy. King Alexander’s imposition of dictatorship in 1929 decisively defeated the idea of Yugoslavia as a liberal state based on “national unity.” Through repression and persecutions, the King imposed his own version of national unity, including extensive regional reorganization aimed at severing ties among ethnic communities and lessening their potential for resistance. This policy was not only unsuccessful, it intensified dissatisfaction among the national groups it sought to include in the monarchy’s ideal of Yugoslavism, including Serbia. Such a policy found support only among diaspora Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

With the weakening of the dictatorship in 1934, pressure to resolve the Croatian question was so strong that on the eve of World War II the regime established the Croatian region (banovina). In addition to the traditional Croatian lands, considerable parts of Herzegovina and northern Bosnia were included in the new region. The establishment of the Croatian administrative region, in turn, reopened the question of where and how far the Serbian lands extended.

During Yugoslavia’s partition in World War II, the conflict over the national question culminated in ethno-religious war and genocide in the fascist Independent State of Croatia (NDH), which included Bosnia-Herzegovina and part of present-day Serbia, near Belgrade. Ethnic atrocities committed by the Nazi-sponsored Croatian Ustashe regime in the NDH left an indelible mark on Serbian national consciousness, as well as on the consciousness of peoples who suffered Serbian revenge. The mass liquidations that were carried out by the new communist government against so-called collaborators and “class enemies” further traumatized the Yugoslav nations.

The scale of the massacres in the NDH and other mass executions would not allow their examination in the atmosphere of “national reconciliation” that followed the war. Such a possibility was further denied by communist ideology, which rejected attempts to define the problems of ethnic war in “national” terms. As such, genocide and massacres were not carried out by members of national groups, but by “fascists,” “Ustashe,” and “Chetniks.” Monuments were raised to the victims, but a veil of silence covered over the climate of fear and mutual distrust.24

Ever since the founding of Yugoslavia, two distinct nationalist policies have struggled for primacy in the debate over the country’s political future: Croatian separatism striving for an independent state and Serbian centralism striving to preserve the common Yugoslav state under its dominion. Croatian nationalism was separatist and oppositional, Serbian nationalism alternated between outright Serbian rule and a strict federalism governed through central government institutions. While the former would be nurtured by economic growth through a reorientation of the Croatian economy, the latter would have to rely on the army and the police. The Croatian policy supported the devolution of power from the center outward and found support among most other Yugoslav nations, which would eventually articulate their own national aspirations–Slovenian, Macedonian, Albanian, and (in the Bosnian experience) Muslim.

Both of these strident, ethnocentric, national ideologies preordained the failure of any attempt to constitute Yugoslavia as a modern unitary and liberal state. To be sure, such attempts lacked a genuine appreciation for the term “liberal state.” For Serbia, the Yugoslav state became nothing more than a vehicle for Serbian domination, which, in turn, stimulated Croatian national opposition and, in a somewhat subsidiary fashion, Slovenian nationalism. The position of the other Yugoslav nations was simply not a matter for discussion. The first Yugoslav state was not only unable to pacify internal conflicts and dilute rigid national ideologies, but its collapse in World War II left no mechanisms in place to prevent extreme methods of resolving the national question.

Ethno-national Federalism under Communist Rule

The disintegration of the second Yugoslavia and the activity of the main actors up through the outbreak of violent conflict can be understood in a specific context, that of a multinational federal state operating within a socialist framework. Both of these elements, which served as the bases of Yugoslavia’s renewal after World War II, produced new problems of integration at the level of both the federation and the new federal units, or “national states.” New contradictions emerged with the radical rejection of the civic principle of citizenship as a means of integrating the Yugoslav state and its constituent parts.

“National in form, socialist in content”

The renewal of the country from the start of the war was taken up by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, which played the role of “mediator” among the quarreling Yugoslav peoples. It promised a resolution of the national question, which from its ideological standpoint, could be settled only as an inseparable part of a social revolution. The party’s linkage of social and national revolutions offered a specific way to “resolve” the national question and constitute Yugoslavia as a unified state. The linkage between nation and revolution was presented as a comprehensive arrangement, best expressed by the classic Soviet formula, “national in form, socialist in content.” What exactly did this formula mean for the formation of Yugoslavia as a state, and how exactly was the national question “resolved” according to this formula?

The contradictory nature of Yugoslavia as a state was apparent from its very inception. On the one hand, the Communist party was able to come to power only as a Yugoslav movement; on the other hand, it could not hope to attract the “oppressed nations” to the revolutionary cause with the promise of a Yugoslav solution to the national question. The social revolution, following the tradition of the Soviet experience, subsumed class and national divisions within the categories of the oppressed and the oppressor. Simply put, some of Yugoslavia’s nations were “working class,” and others ranked among the bourgeoisie. According to the LCY, the “Serbian bourgeoisie” was both a class and national oppressor. Thus, the party did not offer a Yugoslavia that its “exploited nations” would continue to view as a Serbian creation; rather, it attempted to move the new Yugoslavian project as far away from Serbian influence as it could. This was achieved by emphasizing the revolutionary right of each nation to self-determination and by offering the promise of a federal organization of Yugoslavia. The resulting framework of social revolution (which, according to party ideologists, was coterminous with the country’s national war of liberation) could only be a new, socialist Yugoslavia. In its formulation of the new socialist project, “the party had come to acquire a sensitivity to the point of view of the individual Yugoslav nationalities while at the same time being fully committed to finding a Yugoslav solution to the national question.”25 How would such a Yugoslavia be constituted? On what institutional assumptions would it be based?

According to official communist doctrine, Yugoslavia could not be established as a nation-state, even in a federal arrangement. “Nations” were products of capitalism, not socialism; so any attempt to establish administrative units based on historical categories, such as nations, was out of the question. Unity in the new, socialist Yugoslavia was to be realized by merging the basic differences (including national ones) among its various peoples in an all-encompassing proletariat.26 This presumed unity was not political (i.e., national) but apolitical (i.e., class-based) in nature. Until the time when this new unity could be fully established, nations would be recognized and constituted as sovereign states, but only until that “form” could be transcended by an authentic community of working people. Of course, recognition of the nations as sovereign states was, from the start, more established on paper than in fact, particularly with regard to their own national policies. The major decisions were taken in the central party organs, and all state institutions, including republican governments, were merely “transmitters” of these decisions.

The formula “national in form, socialist in content” established Yugoslavia as a state based on one ideological project, or more precisely, the absolute and centralized power of the Communist party and its apparatus of state power.27 The subjective dimension of Yugoslavia as a state is expressed by “socialist patriotism,” which reduces its identity to that of a communist supranational ideology. This tenuous conception of Yugoslavia would later provoke its crisis. The weakening and disappearance of socialism’s ideological sovereignty raised perforce fundamental and profound questions about Yugoslavia’s existence as a state, as happened in Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union.

As long as communist Yugoslavia could not be defined as a nation-state (”nation” defined as a shared political community), nor its citizens as constituting a unified nation, its communist leaders could safely allow its composite parts to be constituted in national terms.28 Yugoslavia institutionalized the relations among these nations through an unusual federal arrangement based on a hierarchy of two kinds of ethno-nationality. Enjoying the higher status were the “constitutive nations” that originally “joined together in the common state” and theoretically enjoyed the right to be recognized as sovereign states. Thus, Yugoslav federalism was based on an ethno-national sovereignty that would bear the seeds of future ethnocracies once its socialist framework fell apart.29 Five constitutive nations were so recognized–Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs, and Slovenes–each of which was territorially and politically organized as a republic in the Yugoslav federation. One republic, Bosnia-Herzegovina, was not recognized under the national principle until 1971. After the recognition of Muslims as a separate ethno-nation, Bosnia-Herzegovina became a republic consisting of three constitutive peoples: Serbs, Croats, and Muslims.

The constitutive nations enjoyed the status of states (republics), while all of the other national groups held the status of national minorities with recognized cultural rights. Later on, this status was elevated to the level of “nationalities” (narodnost), granting them proportional representation at the local level, and at the provincial/republican and federal levels for larger minority groups (e.g., Hungarians in Vojvodina). Within the Serbian republic, two autonomous provinces were formed: Kosovo, populated primarily by ethnic Albanians, and Vojvodina, populated by significant numbers of ethnic Hungarians and other minorities.30 Under the 1974 constitution, both of these regions took on a state-like status similar to that enjoyed by the republics.

Despite the regime’s attempts to control national aspirations by institutionalizing them within the political and territorial boundaries of the titular republics, the more abstract aspects of nationhood could not be so confined. Conferring the sense of statehood upon Yugoslavia’s major ethnic groups had far greater consequences in strengthening the territorial and ethnic integration of these nations. That is, their rights to be “constitutive” were recognized not only within their respective states, but also among their conationals inhabiting the territory of other Yugoslav republics. In some cases, these ethnic diaspora communities viewed the constitutive nature of Yugoslav nationhood as giving them the right to extend the sovereignty of their national “homeland” to the territories they inhabited. Such was the case with Serbs in Croatia, constituting 12 percent of the republic’s population in 1991. Later, this status would produce enormous problems, giving Croatian Serbs the “right” to secede from Croatia, and giving Croatia the right to deny them this status by designating them as a “minority” in its new constitution. An even clearer example was in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where, according to the same principle, three nations held sovereignty: Serbs, Croats, and Muslims.31 This principle held for Yugoslavia’s other nations as well, but it did not have the same consequences due to the significantly smaller share of other nations in their populations.

Yugoslavia’s institutionalization of these two opposing principles of integration–territorial-political and ethnic–posed an apparent contradiction that had two major consequences.32 First, none of Yugoslavia’s constitutive nations acquired its own national state (with the exception of Slovenia, which was more or less ethnically homogeneous), since members of other “constitutive” nations lived within their borders. The second consequence bears on the issue of the right to self-determination. Specifically, who is the bearer of that right in the Yugoslav experience? Does self-determination apply to the republics or to “peoples” as members of national groups? (Serbian nationalists insisted on the latter, referring to the federal constitution, which states that “nations” and not republics “joined together” to form the common state.)

There was a third consequence whose significance would become increasingly apparent in later conflicts: When “constitutive peoples” were in the minority of a particular republic, they were denied the exercise of their cultural rights, since they already enjoyed such rights in their own titular republics. Thus, for example, Serbs in both Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, or Croats in the latter, could not carry out their own cultural policies as ethnic groups, nor could they maintain cultural links with their home republics.33 Such policies not only precluded the possibility of peacefully integrating national minorities into the majority ethnic group’s titular republic, but they prevented these minorities from maintaining vital cultural linkages to their national homelands within the territorial and political framework of that republic. This absolutized the political (i.e., state) criteria for guarding and protecting the “nation” in the ethno-cultural sense. Moreover, this arrangement later gave Serbia’s policy of unifying all Serbs unlimited possibilities for playing upon Serbian discontent in order to escalate conflicts in Croatia or Bosnia-Herzegovina.

This system was the logical consequence of rejecting the civil state as a framework for integration under the socialist regime. Such a “supranational” arrangement could be maintained only with the unlimited power of the Communist party, which kept an eye on any and all attempts to raise national consciousness to the level of nationalism among Yugoslavia’s myriad ethno-national groups.

Could the new Yugoslavia have succeeded in attenuating the country’s two major national ideologies–Serbian domination and Croatian separatism–that threatened the very survival of the Yugoslav experiment? The obvious answer is that it could not, but less obvious is why it could not. Was the Yugoslav experiment doomed to fail from its inception? The key to answering this deeper question once again lies in the different perceptions of Yugoslavia’s two main ethno-national groups about the purpose of the new federation.

The revolutionary bases–national and social–underlying the legitimacy of socialist Yugoslavia can be understood as a compromise between the two major national ideologies. Yugoslavia’s new federal arrangement within a socialist context not only provided all of the region’s major national groups their own territorial sovereignty, but ensured a de jure equality among the federation’s new states. At least this was the perception among most of the Yugoslav nations, including Croatia. Serbia perceived the new federation differently: Yugoslavia’s renewal under a strong, centralized communist order would once again fulfill Serbia’s historical quest to unify all Serbs in one state.34 Serbs accepted the new federation and the borders that defined its republics and provinces only because Yugoslavia, not the republic of Serbia, would now be the guarantor of their national interest. In spite of its new configuration, Yugoslavia’s basic asymmetry survived under the guise of arbitrary “national balancing acts” that would later serve as the basis for new nationalist grievances. The most obvious of such “national balancing acts” was the overrepresentation of Serbs in the federal organs of power–military, police, and administration. Disproportionate numbers of Serbs outside of Serbia joined Partisan forces in World War II and were active in the revolution. For their efforts as a loyal cadre, these Serbs were awarded state and party positions in these republics in disproportionate numbers. This circumstance especially caused discontent among Croats, even though the numbers of Serbs did not undermine the dominant position of the Croatian cadre in its own titular republic. On the other hand, this circumstance “balanced off” the reduction of Serbia as a republic (with its two autonomous provinces).35

Centralism and decentralism

Beginning in the early 1960s, the debate over centralism versus decentralism in the federation highlighted the differences between the two fundamental views of Yugoslavia’s national purpose. Serbia’s official policy strategically sided with the center of power and “Yugoslavism,” resisting until the end of the decade the push for decentralization and economic reforms that would lead to a redistribution of power in favor of the republics and provinces.36 Croatia and Slovenia extended their original support of economic decentralization to the central Yugoslav party and state apparatuses, resisting periodic attempts by the party to renew the idea of “Yugoslavism” outside the context of “socialist patriotism.”37 This position found support among the other non-Serbian republics and provinces, not because of similar economic interests, but for political reasons–namely, to weaken the central government as a Serbian stronghold. Thus Croatia (along with Slovenia and the other non-Serbian republics) adopted the strategy of loosening and weakening the central role of the federation, preferring that it merely represent the positions the republics and provinces had already agreed on.

If one event foreshadowed the specter of nationalism in postwar Yugoslavia, it occurred in 1964 at the Eighth LCY Congress, which rejected the idea of “Yugoslav culture” as assimilationist. Croatia and its supporters denounced “integral Yugoslavism” as a chauvinist policy advanced by Serbian hegemonists. Similarly, the congress rejected the “bourgeois prejudice about the withering away of nations” and the specious notion that “national differences will disappear quickly after the revolution.” These viewpoints were judged as being not only incorrect but also bureaucratic, “unitarist,” and hegemonic.38 In line with such criticism, the congress witnessed a complete turnaround in efforts to establish Yugoslavia as a nation-state. From that point on, nations/republics were to become the real bearers of sovereignty, as all nations have the right to do. At its next congress in 1969, the LCY followed the same pattern, transferring party power to the republican organs. Thus, Yugoslavia’s Communist party practically disappeared as a unified organization, although it continued to function primarily because of Tito’s sacred and absolute power.

The devolution of power initiated at the Eighth LCY Congress eventually produced a series of comprehensive constitutional changes that culminated in the 1974 constitution. Tito’s personal power was strengthened under Yugoslavia’s new basic law (which only served to codify the tremendous growth of his personality cult during the 1970s), as was the political role of the Yugoslav National Army, which became the ninth member of the collective presidency of the LCY, along with the eight representatives of the republics and provinces.39 On the other hand, the new constitution also transferred power to the republics. In the federal organs, decisions had to be made according to consensus (with each republic and province holding veto power). All of the republics were represented equally in government bodies; the provinces had a smaller number of representatives, but this did not affect their position. Representatives in federal organs consisted of “delegations” from the republics and provinces, and they were accountable to these bodies for their decisions. Republics and provinces could develop their own independent foreign relations, and the organization of territorial defense was left up to the republics as well.

The formal bearers of sovereignty in Yugoslavia were its nations. Without the agreement and approval of the country’s eight national states (six republics and the two provinces), the federation could not function, as it did not have its own autonomous source of authority.40 The need for agreement among disparate national states operating within a framework of overlapping federal and confederal jurisdictions (the proscribed powers of the federation were fairly broad) meant that every question was necessarily “nationalized,” inevitably leading to national confrontations on a regular basis.41 Under the 1974 constitution, so-called international relations were established within Yugoslavia.42 Every question affecting the entire federation first had to be cleared in one’s own state and returned to the federal level for final agreement. Since there were no federal bodies with their own source of legitimacy that transcended that of the republics, Yugoslavia under the new constitution could neither frame issues in terms of their impact on the federation as a whole, nor arrive at federal solutions that attempted to effect compromise outcomes.

Finally, the 1974 constitution established a symmetry that precluded linking Yugoslavia’s identity with any particular republic. As such, Yugoslavia essentially had no citizens; rather, it was inhabited by citizens of its respective republics. In reality, though, the country’s political life belonged to Tito and the Yugoslav National Army. The country’s political elites would begin their competition for real political power only after Tito’s death in 1980.

The institutionalization of Yugoslavia as an ethno-national federation constituted the first step in dismembering Yugoslavia along ethnic lines. This analysis suggests that Yugoslavia, as a multinational state, was formed in such a way that it emerged and survived only under the aegis of authoritarian rule, and that the battle for ethno-national statehood results in either the construction of a common “nation-state” that seeks to pacify separate national identities, disintegration into independent states, or the formation of a confederation (which is not a “state” in the real sense of the term). However, neither possibility obtained in postwar Yugoslavia, since asymmetrical national interests and the very institutional structure of multinationality precluded these alternatives. Rather, Yugoslavia’s states resorted to yet another alternative–to change Yugoslavia’s internal borders through prolonged, bloody conflict.

http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/early/pesic/pesic2.html

The Role of Serbian Ressentiment

Thus far, this study has attempted to explain the fragility of the Yugoslav state in terms of both the dominant national ideologies that shook its foundations from its very creation and the institutional frameworks within which national conflicts evolved.

Tito’s principal strategy in maintaining national peace sought to curb the power of the largest republic (Serbia) and prevent the separation of the others from the federation. After his death, such a peace had little chance of surviving absent a supreme arbiter. No legitimate political institutions existed in Yugoslavia to both regulate conflicts among different national groups and support the ideal of a unified nation-state, a common situation for all multinational states in the communist bloc. This circumstance was particularly convenient for the rise of ethno-nationalism in these countries.43

Sources of crisis in Serbia: The nationalist response

The crisis in the former Yugoslavia, characterized first by the political disintegration of the country and then by its descent into full-scale war to alter republican borders, cannot be understood without an analysis of the crisis that broke out in Serbia in the mid-1980s. This crisis had its origins in the powerful nationalist movement under the leadership of Serbia’s Communist party. Initially, it sought the restoration of the Yugoslav federation based on the authority of the Communist party, but it soon grew into a movement for the creation of a “Greater Serbia.” With each passing day, this movement intensified national conflicts and pushed the crisis toward the denouement of war that eventually engulfed all of Yugoslavia. The country could have embraced a democratic response to the collapse of the communist system only under the condition that all participants pursue a moderate policy.44 Unfortunately, Yugoslavia was robbed of such a conditional alternative with the triumph of conservative factions in the League of Communists of Serbia and the ascension of Slobodan Milosevic as its leader in 1987.

The Serbian crisis had multiple origins, three of which can be identified as the most profound.

Serbia’s problematic position under the 1974 constitution. As noted previously, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia was not immune to the forces that rendered federation-wide institutions ineffective in guaranteeing Yugoslavia’s existence. The LCY’s waning authority as the basis of Yugoslav integration was viewed by the Serbs as jeopardizing the Serbian national interest for all Serbs to live in one state. “Every Serb who had participated in the national liberation movement became convinced that the new Yugoslavia was becoming an inter-nationally founded federation in which . . . the ideological principle had precedence over the national.” This conviction, “as shown by the identification with Yugoslavia as a formula of inter-nationalism, was the core of most Serbs’ national consciousness up until 1974. . . .”45

This fundamental legitimacy crisis was bolstered by the existing constitutional arrangement that defined Yugoslavia as a state by “mutual agreement” of the republics and provinces. Yugoslav sovereignty had been essentially seized and divided up among the federation’s national groups. The symmetry established between the republics and provinces vis-à-vis an empty central authority made it senseless for Serbia to maintain its “internationalist” position against the “nativist” positions of other republics.46 Yugoslavia’s future was heading toward either confederation or disintegration as the communist system weakened. The Serbian cultural and political elite did not accept such a future, fearing that the forces propelling Yugoslavia toward dissolution would also destroy the fundamental Serbian national goal–that all Serbs live in one state. Viewed as such, Serbian nationalism was a reaction to the fading of what Serbs considered a symbiosis between “Serbianism” and “Yugoslavism” that was mediated by the communist system. With the disappearance of this symbiosis, the problem of the Serbian diaspora clamored to be resolved once again.

The immediate source of Serbian dissatisfaction in general, and the most tangible reason for its nationalist reaction in particular, were the constitutional provisions that undermined Serbia’s territorial integrity. Although the institutional system established under the 1974 constitution prescribed the “nativization” of all Yugoslav peoples within their territorial, republican frameworks, Serbia was frustrated in this regard. According to the constitution, Serbia was not a “sovereign” negotiating party like the other republics because of the “sovereignty” of its two provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina.

According to the 1974 constitution, the republics and provinces were almost completely on equal footing regarding rights and duties. At the federal level, provinces had veto power, equal representation in the collective Yugoslav presidency, and the right to represent their own interests without consulting the republic–most often in opposition to it. Serbia’s representation at the federal level covered only the territory of “Serbia proper” (i.e., Serbia without its autonomous provinces), even though such a jurisdiction was not defined in the constitution. In ethno-demographic terms, this meant that Serbia’s representatives in the federation could speak for only 42 percent of the Serbs living in Serbia.47

Following the period of constitutional reform in the late 1960s, Serbia’s provinces seized all the attributes of statehood–legislative, judicial, and executive powers–even those not constitutionally granted to them. The provinces changed their own constitutions independently, maintained relations with foreign countries (e.g., Kosovo with Albania), and created their own territorial defense. Laws were passed by consensus of all three units; if the provincial parliaments did not accept Serbian proposals, they applied only to Serbia proper.

Soon after adoption of the 1974 constitution, the Serbian leadership called for a change in the Serbian republic’s status. Why it wasn’t changed immediately is obvious: The constitution could not be changed because the federation’s members could not reach an agreement regarding this matter.48 In 1976, the Serbian leadership submitted a request to change the constitutional provisions specifying the republic’s composition, seeking to encompass Serbia’s provinces formally. The document justifying this request to change Serbia’s status was called the “Blue Book” (made public only in 1990). Denounced as a nationalist tract, the document was received with “knives” by political leaders in the other republics and particularly in the provinces.49

The situation continued into the early 1980s, when the focus of attention shifted to Kosovo, the Serbian province that was the scene of growing ethnic tension. The Serbian leadership at the time, headed by Ivan Stambolic, made concerted efforts to change the status of Serbia vis-à-vis its provinces with the agreement of the other federation members. However, opening up discussions on this matter was becoming an increasingly painstaking process. In order to change the constitution, an effective pro-Serbian coalition was required. When none was forthcoming, Serbia interpreted the maintenance of the constitutional status quo as the work of an anti-Serbian coalition. After the outbreak of nationalist demonstrations in Kosovo in 1981, in which ethnic Albanians demanded republican status for Kosovo–which would bolster claims to the right to self-determination–the question of Serbia’s constitutional jurisdiction took on even greater importance; its resolution spelled either political survival or failure. Indeed, Kosovo’s threat to Serbia’s territorial integrity had been gaining momentum since 1968, when the Kosovar leadership gave its support to an Albanian national movement in the province whose principal goal was to gain republican status for Kosovo.50

Kosovo and the “ethnic threat.” Demonstrations among Kosovo’s overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian population were the second reason for the crisis. Setting Kosovo apart as a de facto republic created the conditions for a Serbian nationalist reaction. Kosovo was considered the cradle of Serbian medieval culture and the symbol of national history and mythology.51 During the first years after the 1981 Albanian demonstrations and the imposition of martial law in Kosovo, the LCY provided the official, socialist interpretation of the disturbances, branding them as instances of “counterrevolution” by Albanian separatists. Viewed in such a way, the Yugoslav leadership avoided identifying ethnic factors as the cause of unrest.

A starkly different interpretation of these events emerged from the Serbian party leadership, which capitalized on the symbolic meaning of Kosovo and latent Serbian nationalism in order to strengthen its arguments for changing Serbia’s constitutional status. The Serbian Communist party redefined Kosovo as an ethnic threat, tapping national myths surrounding Kosovo and the history of the great Serbian medieval state. The federal government tolerated Serbia’s ethnic reaction, which centered on the possible loss of Kosovo as a “holy land.”52 The “Albanian enemy’s” goal, according to the Serbian party leadership, was being realized by the forced expulsion of Serbs from Kosovo,53 while ethnic Albanians escaped prosecution from a sympathetic provincial government for crimes such as rape, murder, theft, desecration of Serbian graves, and various other types of intimidation.54 Serbian emigration from Kosovo came to be viewed by Serbia as nothing short of an exodus under the pressure of Albanian nationalism, although clearly there were other factors at work.55 Anyone who dared to mention these other reasons (economic, educational, etc.), particularly if the person was from another Yugoslav republic, was ruthlessly attacked and denounced as an enemy of the Serbs.56 Serbian grievances were not thoroughly investigated, since the very act of checking suggested doubts abo