Yugoslavia broke up into what states. Former Yugoslavia - Your guide to @po_serbii and the Serbian language

Much more difficult than in other Eastern European countries, the transformations took place in Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY).

This country after the conflict between I.V. Stalin and Josip Broz Tito was not part of the Soviet system of alliances, maintained close trade and economic relations with the states of the West. Reforms of the 1950s-1960s consisted in the introduction of self-management in production, the development of elements of a market economy. At the same time, a monopoly on power was maintained by one party - Union of Communists of Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavia consisted of six republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro. The borders of the republics did not always coincide with the settlement of the main ethnic groups in the country: Croats, Slovenes, Serbs, Montenegrins and Macedonians. A significant part of the population were the so-called Muslims- the descendants of the Slavs who converted to Islam during the time of Turkish domination. In the past, the peoples of Yugoslavia were part of different states and for a long time developed separately from each other. Relations between them were not always successful, often aggravated due to religious differences. The political regime that existed in Yugoslavia, when power belonged to the Communist Party, headed by such a strong-willed leader as I.B. Tito, for the time being, provided the federation with international peace. However, the deep socio-economic crisis that engulfed all socialist countries in the late 1980s contributed to the emergence of ethnic and religious contradictions. Yugoslavia faced the threat of disintegration.

Serbia and Montenegro advocated the preservation of the unity of the republic and its original model of socialism. It didn't suit Croatia and Slovenia who sought to strengthen ties with Western European countries. Expressed dissatisfaction with the federation Bosnia and Herzegovina where the influence of Islam was strong, as well as Macedonia.

The crisis and dissatisfaction with the federation was actively supported by the United States and Western European countries, which did not need a strong and united Yugoslavia.

Interethnic relations exacerbated in other multinational Eastern European countries. But if separation Czechoslovakia in 1992 into two states - Czech Republic and Slovakia- passed peacefully, the territory of Yugoslavia became the scene of armed conflicts. AT 1991 Yugoslavia collapsed, the attempt of the federal authorities to preserve its integrity by force of arms was not successful.

Maintaining close ties Serbia and Montenegro created a new federal state - Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia became independent states.

But the crisis did not end there, as the Serb minority remaining in the territory of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina began the struggle for autonomy. This fight turned into armed conflict, which killed about 100 thousand people. In 1992 - 1995 he was at the center of international attention. Then the problem of the position of Muslim Albanians, who made up 90% of the population, came to the fore. Kosovo. The Serbian government's cancellation of the region's autonomy aroused their discontent. The protests turned into an armed struggle, the participants of which were no longer limited to the demand for the restoration of autonomy.

In 1999, the United States and its allies, without the sanction of the UN Security Council, launched military operations against the FRY. This led to an aggravation of relations between the United States and Russia, which condemned NATO aggression against a sovereign state.

The result of the war unleashed by the United States against Serbia was the death of about 2 thousand people. civilians. From the use of bombs with uranium filling, about 500 thousand people received radiation injuries. 2.5 million people lost necessary conditions for life (housing, drinking water etc.). The economy of the FRY suffered losses of more than 100 billion dollars, which set it back 5-7 years.

in Serbia after mass protests in support of the democratic opposition's presidential candidate Vojislav Kostunica the regime fell Slobodan Milosevic. On April 1, 2001, Milosevic was arrested, and on June 28 of the same year, at the initiative of the Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic secretly transferred The Hague International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia which angered the President Kostunitsy. Milosevic did not recognize the legitimacy of the Hague Tribunal and refused lawyers, saying that he would defend himself.

AT February 2002. Milosevic delivered a lengthy defense speech in The Hague, in which he refuted several dozen points of the accusation (and also recorded the inconsistency of this litigation a number of international legal norms - that is, in fact, its illegality in terms of international law). In addition, in his speech, Milosevic gave a detailed analysis of the background, origins and course of the NATO war against Yugoslavia. Presented evidence (including photo and video materials) of a number of NATO war crimes: the use of prohibited weapons such as cluster bombs and depleted uranium munitions, the deliberate destruction of non-military targets, numerous civilian attacks.

In his speech, Milosevic also pointed out that the bombings carried out by the alliance did not and could not have military significance: for example, as a result of all missile and bomb attacks on the territory of Kosovo, only 7 tanks of the Serbian army were destroyed. Milosevic specifically noted (citing specific, proven examples) that ethnic Albanians were the victims in a significant part of the rocket and bomb attacks on the civilian population, and by this he tried to prove the thesis that massive NATO attacks against Albanian peasants were not unintentional, but were a deliberate move designed to provoke their mass exodus from Kosovo to neighboring states. The presence of masses of Albanian refugees could, in the eyes of the world community, confirm the accusation of the Serbs in the genocide of the Albanians - the main thesis put forward by the NATO leadership as the basis for the "operation". The same goal, according to Milosevic, was served by the massacres of Albanian militants over those Albanians who did not want to leave Kosovo (from which, in particular, Milosevic concluded that the actions of the Albanian armed formations, on the one hand, and the leadership of the NATO operation, on the other.) As one of the proofs of this thesis, Milosevic pointed to leaflets in the Albanian language, which contained calls for the Albanian population to flee Kosovo (these leaflets were scattered from NATO aircraft).

The text of Milosevic's defense speech - regardless of how one relates to this political figure, gives a broad look at the dramatic events that took place in Serbia and other former Yugoslav republics in the 90s of the twentieth century. The trial in the case of Slobodan Milosevic was not completed, as he died in prison in The Hague from a myocardial infarction March 11, 2006.

June 3, 2011 appeared before the Hague Tribunal former boss Headquarters of the Army of the Republika Srpska (1992-1995) General Ratko Mladic. His capture was the main condition for Serbia's entry into the European Union. Earlier, Mladic himself said about the Hague Tribunal that this court was created only to shift all the blame on the Serbs. He even promised that he himself would come to The Hague immediately after “those generals who fought in Vietnam and bombed Yugoslavia arrive there voluntarily.”

Contradictions between Serbia and Montenegro escalated. According to the results of a referendum held by the Montenegrin authorities in 2006, it became an independent state. Yugoslavia ceased to exist.

In 2008, the Serbian province of Kosovo, occupied by NATO troops, unilaterally declared independence. Contrary to the position of the UN, the United States and a number of its allies recognized the self-proclaimed state of the Kosovo Albanians. Thus, a most dangerous precedent was set, violating the international ban on changing borders in Europe after the Second World War. Separatists in many countries considered themselves entitled to count on international support contrary to the UN Charter.

The civil war in the former Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia was a series of armed inter-ethnic conflicts that eventually led to the complete collapse of the country in 1992. The territorial claims of various peoples that had been part of the republic up to that point, and the sharp interethnic confrontation demonstrated a certain artificiality of their unification under the socialist banner of the power, which was called Yugoslavia.

Yugoslav Wars

It is worth noting that the population of Yugoslavia was very diverse. Slovenes, Serbs, Croats, Macedonians, Hungarians, Romanians, Turks, Bosnians, Albanians, Montenegrins lived on its territory. All of them were unevenly distributed among the 6 republics of Yugoslavia: Bosnia and Herzegovina (one republic), Macedonia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia.

The so-called "10-day war in Slovenia", unleashed in 1991, laid the foundation for prolonged hostilities. The Slovenes demanded recognition of the independence of their republic. During the hostilities from the Yugoslav side, 45 people were killed, 1.5 hundreds were injured. From Slovenian - 19 killed, about 2 hundred wounded. 5 thousand soldiers of the Yugoslav army were taken prisoner.

This was followed by a longer (1991-1995) war for the independence of Croatia. Its secession from Yugoslavia was followed by armed conflicts already within the new independent republic between the Serb and Croat populations. The Croatian war claimed the lives of more than 20 thousand people. 12 thousand - from the Croatian side (moreover, 4.5 thousand are civilians). Hundreds of thousands of buildings were destroyed, and all material damage is estimated at 27 billion dollars.

Almost in parallel with this, another civil war broke out inside Yugoslavia, which was falling apart into its components - the Bosnian (1992-1995). It was attended by several ethnic groups at once: Serbs, Croats, Bosnian Muslims and the so-called autonomist Muslims living in the west of Bosnia. Over 100 thousand people were killed in 3 years. The material damage is colossal: 2,000 km of roads were blown up, 70 bridges were demolished. The railroad has been completely destroyed. 2/3 of the buildings are destroyed and unusable.

In the war-torn territories, concentration camps were opened (on both sides). During the hostilities, there were egregious cases of terror: mass rape of Muslim women, ethnic cleansing, during which several thousand Bosnian Muslims were killed. All those killed were civilians. Croatian militants shot even 3-month-old children.

Crisis in the countries of the former socialist bloc

If you do not go into the subtleties of all interethnic and territorial claims and grievances, then you can give approximately the following description of the civil wars described: the same thing happened with Yugoslavia that happened at the same time with the Soviet Union. The countries of the former socialist bloc experienced an acute crisis. The socialist doctrine of "friendship of fraternal peoples" ceased to operate, and everyone wanted independence.

The Soviet Union in terms of armed clashes and the use of force in comparison with Yugoslavia literally "got off with a slight fright." The collapse of the USSR was not as bloody as it was in the Serb-Croat-Bosnian region. Following the Bosnian War, protracted armed confrontations began in Kosovo, Macedonia and Southern Serbia (or the Presevo Valley) on the territory of the already former Republic of Yugoslavia. In total, the civil war in the former Yugoslavia lasted 10 years, until 2001. The victims number in the hundreds of thousands.

The reaction of the neighbors

This war was characterized by exceptional cruelty. Europe, guided by the principles of democracy, initially tried to keep aloof. Former "Yugoslavs" had the right to find out their own territorial claims and sort out within the country. At first, the Yugoslav army tried to resolve the conflict, but after the collapse of Yugoslavia itself, it was abolished. In the first years of the war, the Yugoslav armed forces also showed inhuman cruelty.

The war has dragged on too long. Europe and, above all, the United States decided that such a tense and prolonged confrontation could threaten the security of other countries. The mass ethnic cleansing, which claimed the lives of tens of thousands of innocent people, caused particular indignation in the world community. In response to them, in 1999, NATO began to bomb Yugoslavia. Russian government clearly opposed such a solution to the conflict. President Yeltsin said that NATO aggression could push Russia to take more decisive action.

But after the collapse of the Union, only 8 years have passed. Russia itself was greatly weakened. The country simply did not have the resources to unleash the conflict, and there were no other levers of influence yet. Russia was not able to help the Serbs, and NATO was well aware of this. The opinion of Russia was simply ignored then, because it weighed too little in the political arena.

The final, second in a row, disintegration of Yugoslavia took place in 1991-1992. The first occurred in 1941 and was the result of the defeat of the Yugoslav kingdom at the beginning of World War II. The second was associated not only with the crisis of the socio-political system of Yugoslavia and its federal structure, but also with the crisis of the Yugoslav national identity.

So, if the unification of the Yugoslavs stemmed from their uncertainty in the ability to withstand and assert themselves as self-sufficient nations, being in a hostile environment, then the second disintegration was the result of this self-assertion, which, it must be admitted, happened precisely due to the existence of a federal state. At the same time, the experience of 1945–1991 also showed that stakes on collectivist interests, even under the mild regime of Yugoslav socialism, did not pay off. The “time bomb” was the belonging of the Yugoslav peoples to three mutually hostile civilizations at once. Yugoslavia was doomed to disintegration from the very beginning.

On December 18, 1989, in his report to the Parliament, the penultimate Prime Minister of the SFRY A. Markovic, speaking about the causes of the economic catastrophe in which Yugoslavia found itself, made a bitter but truthful conclusion - the economic system of "market, self-governing, humane, democratic" socialism, which created by Tito and which they have been building for more than 30 years with the help of Western loans and allies, in the conditions of 1989, without annual systematic subsidies from the IMF and other organizations, is not viable. In his opinion, in 1989 there are only two ways.

Either return to a planned economy, or open eyes carry out a complete restoration of capitalism with all the ensuing consequences. The first way, according to A. Markovich, unfortunately, is unrealistic in the conditions of 1989, because it requires Yugoslavia to rely on the strength of the socialist community and the USSR, but under the leadership of Gorbachev, the socialist countries have become so weak that not only others, but also themselves can hardly help. The second way is possible only if Western investments are provided in full.

Western capital must be given guarantees that it can buy whatever it pleases in Yugoslavia - land, factories, mines, roads, and all this must be guaranteed by a new federal law, which must be adopted immediately. Markovic turned to Western capital with a request to speed up investments and take control of their implementation.

A reasonable question may arise: why is it that the United States, and at the same time the IMF and the West as a whole, which so generously financed the Tito regime, suddenly stopped not only financial support at the end of the 80s, but also changed their policy towards Yugoslavia by 180 degrees? An objective analysis shows that in the 1950s-1980s the West needed the Tito regime as a Trojan horse in the fight against the socialist community led by the Soviet Union. But everything comes to an end. Tito dies in 1980, and closer to the mid-80s, the Yugoslav mouthpiece of anti-Sovietism becomes completely unnecessary - the West found conductors of its destructive policy in the very leadership of the USSR.

On Yugoslavia, all in debt and without reliable allies, directs its eyes, blunted until the second half of the 1980s, and now again on fire, powerful German capital. By the early 1990s, West Germany, having swallowed the GDR, was indeed becoming the leading force in Europe. arrangement internal forces in Yugoslavia by this time also favored the defeat. The partyocracy of the Union of Communists (UK) has completely lost its authority among the people. Nationalist forces in Croatia, Slovenia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina receive systematically powerful support from Germany, the United States, Western monopolies, the Vatican, Muslim emirs and bigwigs. In Slovenia, the UK received only 7% of the vote, in Croatia no more than 13%. The nationalist Tudjman comes to power in Croatia, the Islamic fundamentalist Izetbegovic in Bosnia, the nationalist Gligorov in Macedonia, and the nationalist Kucan in Slovenia.

Almost all of them are from the same deck of the reborn Titov leadership of the UK. The sinister figure of Izetbegovic is especially colorful. He fought in the Second World War in the famous Khanjardivision of the SS, which fought against Soviet army near Stalingrad, and also "famous" as a punitive formation of the Nazis in the fight against the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia. For his atrocities, Izetbegovic was tried in 1945 by the people's court, but he did not stop his activities, now in the form of a nationalist, fundamentalist, separatist.

All these odious figures, having been in opposition to the ruling elite of the Union of Communists for some time, were waiting in the wings. Tudjman and Kuchan are closely connected with German politicians and German capital, Izetbegovic - with Islamic extremists in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran. All of them, as if on command, put forward the slogans of separatism, secession from Yugoslavia, the creation of "independent" states, referring (irony of fate!) At the same time to the Leninist principle of the right of nations to self-determination up to secession.

Germany also pursued special interests. Having united itself two years before the start of the war in Yugoslavia, she did not want to see a strong state at her side. Moreover, the Germans had long-standing historical accounts with the Serbs: the Slavs never submitted to the warlike Germans, despite two terrible interventions of the 20th century. But in 1990, Germany remembered its allies in the Third Reich - the Croatian Ustashe. In 1941, Hitler gave statehood to the Croats who had never had it before. Chancellor Kohl and German Foreign Minister Genscher did the same.

The first conflict arose in mid-1990 in Croatia, when Serbs, of whom there were at least 600,000 in the republic, expressed their will to remain part of the federal Yugoslavia in response to growing demands for secession. Soon Tudjman is elected president, and in December the parliament (Sabor), with the support of Germany, adopts the country's constitution, according to which Croatia is an indivisible unitary state - despite the fact that the Serbian community, called the Serbian or Knin (after the name of its capital) Extreme, historically, with XVI century, existed in Croatia. The constitution of this former socialist republic of 1947 stated that Serbs and Croats were equal.

Now Tudjman declares the Serbs a national minority! Obviously, they do not want to put up with this, wanting to gain autonomy. In a hurry, they create police detachments to protect themselves from the Croatian "territorial defense troops". Krajina was proclaimed in February 1991 and announced its withdrawal from Croatia and joining Yugoslavia. But the neostashi did not want to hear about it. A war was looming, and Belgrade tried to curb it with the help of units of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), but the military was already on opposite sides of the barricade. Serb soldiers came to the defense of Krajina, and fighting started.

Not without bloodshed in Slovenia. On June 25, 1991, the country declared its independence and demanded that Belgrade withdraw its army; the time for playing the confederate model of the state is over. Already at that time, Slobodan Milosevic, who headed the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of Yugoslavia, declared the decision of Ljubljana hasty and called for negotiations. But Slovenia was not going to talk and again demanded the withdrawal of troops, already in the form of an ultimatum. On the night of June 27, fighting began between the JNA and Slovenian self-defense units, which tried to take key military installations by force. For a week of battles, the victims numbered in the hundreds, but then the "world community" intervened and convinced the Yugoslav government to begin the withdrawal of the army, guaranteeing its safety. Seeing that it was useless to prevent the secession of Slovenia, Milosevic agreed, and on July 18 the troops began to leave the former Soviet republic.

On the same day as Slovenia, June 25, 1991, Croatia declared its independence, in which the war had been going on for almost half a year. The number of dead speaks of the fierceness of the fighting; according to the Red Cross, their number for the year amounted to ten thousand people! Croatian troops carried out the first ethnic cleansing in Europe since the Second World War: three hundred thousand Serbs fled the country in the same year. At that time, the Russian democratic press, which had kindergarten ideas about geopolitics, blamed Milosevic for everything: if he is a communist, then he is bad, but the fascist Tudjman leads the democratic party, which means he is good. Western diplomacy also adhered to this position, accusing Milosevic of plans to create a "Greater Serbia". But this was a lie, because the president demanded only autonomy for the Serbs who had settled in Western and Eastern Slavonia for centuries.

It is characteristic that Tudjman declared Zagreb, a city located just in Western Slavonia, the capital of Croatia; less than a hundred kilometers away was Knin, the capital of the historic Serbian Krajina. Fierce battles unfolded on the Zagreb-Knin line. The Croatian government, naturally supported by NATO countries, demanded the withdrawal of Yugoslav troops. But not a single Serbian soldier would have left Krajna, seeing the atrocities of the revived Ustashe. The JNA units, transformed into the Serbian Self-Defense Forces (for Milosevic nevertheless gave the order to withdraw troops), were led by General Ratko Mladic. By November 1991, troops loyal to him laid siege to Zagreb and forced Tudjman to negotiate.

The indignation of the "world community" knew no bounds. Since that time, the information blockade of the Serbs begins: all the Western media talk about their, mostly invented, crimes, but the Serbs themselves are deprived of the right to vote. Germany and the United States with their allies decide to punish them for their willfulness: in December 1991, the Council of Ministers of the EU (not the UN!) Imposes sanctions against the Federal Yugoslavia (of which by that time only Serbia and Montenegro remained) allegedly for violating the UN ban on supply of weapons to Croatia. Somehow no attention was paid to the fact that Tudjman's gangs were armed no worse than the Serbs. Since then, the economic strangulation of Yugoslavia has begun.

The following facts speak about how the Croatian state gradually became. To begin with, the Ustasha symbols and the uniform of the army were restored. Honorary pensions were then awarded to Ustaše veterans and they received a special civil status; President Tudjman personally made one of these murderers a member of parliament. Catholicism was proclaimed the only state religion, although at least 20% of the Orthodox population still remained in the country. In response to such a "gift", the Vatican recognized the independence of Croatia and Slovenia earlier than Europe and the United States, and on March 8, 1993, the Pope of Rome cursed the Serbs from the window of his office overlooking St. Peter's Square and prayed before God for revenge! It got to the point that Tudjman began to seek the reburial of the remains of the main Croatian fascist Ante Pavelic from Spain. Europe was silent.

On November 21, 1991, the third union republic, Macedonia, declared its independence. She turned out to be more perspicacious than Slovenia and Croatia: first she got the UN to bring in peacekeeping troops, and then demanded the withdrawal of the JNA. Belgrade did not object, and the southernmost Slavic republic became the only one to secede without bloodshed. One of the first decisions of the government of Macedonia was the refusal of the Albanian minority to create an autonomous region in the west of the country - the Republic of Illyria; so the peacekeepers did not have to sit idle.

On December 9 and 10, 1991, in Maastricht, the heads of 12 states of the European economic community(EEC) decide to recognize all the new states (Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia) within the boundaries corresponding to the administrative division of the former Yugoslavia. Purely conditional borders, hastily drawn by Tito's henchmen in 1943, in order to formally not give the Serbs more rights than all other peoples, are now recognized as state. In Croatia, the Serbs did not even get autonomy! But since it actually already existed (no one lifted the siege of Zagreb, and the Ustashe turned out to be strong only in words), they assign a certain “special status” to the extreme, which from now on will be guarded by 14,000 “blue helmets” (“UN peacekeeping” troops). The Serbs, albeit with reservations, are getting their way. The war ends, and self-government bodies are formed in Krajna. This small republic lasted a little over three years...

But Maastricht laid another ethnic mine. Until now, the most ethnically complex republic of Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, has not declared its independence. The southwestern part of the country has long been inhabited by Croats; she was part historical area Dalmatia. In the north adjoining Slavonia, northwest, east (on the border with Serbia) and in most central regions the majority were Serbs. The Sarajevo region and the south were inhabited by Muslims. In total, 44% of Muslims, 32% of Orthodox Serbs, 17% of Catholic Croats, 7% of other nations (Hungarians, Albanians, Jews, Bulgarians, and so on) lived in Bosnia and Herzegovina. By "Muslims" we mean basically the same Serbs, but who converted to Islam during the years of the Turkish yoke.

The tragedy of the Serbs lies in the fact that the same people, divided by religion, shot at each other. In 1962, Tito ordered by special decree that all Yugoslav Muslims should henceforth be considered one nation. "Muslim" - has since been recorded in the "nationality" column. The situation was also difficult on the political stage. Back in 1990, in parliamentary elections, Croats voted for the Croatian Democratic Commonwealth (the Bosnian branch of the Tudjman party), Serbs for the Democratic Party (leader - Radovan Karadzic), Muslims for the Democratic Action Party (leader - Aliya Izetbegovic, he was also elected chairman of the parliament, i.e. head of state).

Regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina, on January 11, 1992, the following decision was made in Maastricht: the EEC recognizes its sovereignty if the majority of the population votes for it in a referendum. And again, according to the existing administrative boundaries! The referendum took place on February 29, 1992; he became the first page of the tragedy. Serbs did not come to vote, wishing to remain in Federal Yugoslavia, Croats and Muslims came to vote, but in total - no more than 38% of the total population. After that, in violation of all conceivable norms democratic elections, the referendum was extended by Izetbegovic for another day, and on the streets of Sarajevo immediately appeared a lot of armed people in black uniforms and green headbands - Aliya wasted no time in establishing independence. By the evening of the second day, almost 64% had already voted, of course, the absolute majority was in favor.

The results of the referendum were recognized by the "world community" as valid. On the same day, the first blood was shed: on the passing Orthodox church the wedding procession was attacked by a group of militants. The Serbian who carried the national flag (this is the Serbian wedding ceremony) was killed, the rest were beaten and wounded. Immediately, the city was divided into three districts, and the streets were blocked by barricades. The Bosnian Serbs, represented by their leader Karadzic, did not recognize the referendum and hastily, literally within a week, held their own referendum, where they voted for a single state with Yugoslavia. The Republika Srpska was immediately proclaimed with its capital in the city of Pale. The war, which seemed impossible a week ago, broke out like a stack of dry hay.

Three Serbias appeared on the map of the former Yugoslavia. The first is the Serbian Krajina in Croatia (the capital is Knin), the second is the Republika Srpska in Bosnia (the capital is Pale), the third is the Serbian Republic (the capital is Belgrade), part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, proclaimed in the spring of 1992, where Montenegro entered the second part ( capital - Podgorica). Belgrade, unlike the EEC and the US, did not recognize independent Bosnia and Herzegovina. Milosevic demanded an end to the unrest in Sarajevo and the hostilities that had begun throughout the country, demanded guarantees of autonomy for the Bosnian Serbs, and called for the UN to intervene. At the same time, he ordered the troops to remain in the barracks for the time being, but to prepare for a possible evacuation; in the case of armed attempts to seize weapons depots and other military facilities - to defend. In response to the demands of Milosevic, Izetbegovic ... declared war on Serbia, Montenegro and the JNA on April 4, 1992, while signing an order on general mobilization. Further more.

In April 1992, the Croatian regular army invades the territory of Bosnia from the West (during the conflict, its number reached 100,000 people) and commits mass crimes against the Serbs. UN Security Council Resolution 787 directs Croatia to immediately withdraw its troops from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Nothing of the sort followed. The UN was silent. But by resolution No. 757 of May 30, 1992, the UN Security Council imposes an economic embargo against Serbia and Montenegro! The trigger was an explosion in a market in Sarajevo, which most foreign observers in the city believe was carried out by Muslim terrorists.

On April 8, 1992, the United States recognized the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina; By that time, the war was already in full swing. From the very beginning of the disintegration of Yugoslavia, the US ruling circles took an open anti-Serb position and unashamedly supported all the separatists. When it came to the creation of Serbian autonomy, the United States did everything to prevent this. The reasons for this behavior are not difficult to find. First, the desire to finally destroy the communist camp; The states understood very well that the Serbian people were the unifying element in Yugoslavia, and if hard times were arranged for them, the country would fall apart. Serbs in general, as representatives of the Orthodox civilization, have never enjoyed the favor of the West.

Secondly, the oppression of the Serbs undermined the authority of Russia, which was unable to protect its historical allies; By doing this, the States showed to all countries oriented towards the former Soviet Union that now they are the only superpower in the world, and Russia no longer has any weight.

Thirdly, the desire to find the support and sympathy of the Islamic world, with which tense relations were maintained due to the American position on Israel; oil prices directly depend on the behavior of the countries of the Middle East, which, due to American imports of petroleum products, have a significant impact on the US economy.

Fourth, support for Germany's position on the former Yugoslavia, in order to prevent even a hint of a divergence of interests among NATO countries.

Fifthly, the expansion of its influence in the Balkan region, which is one of the steps in the plan to create a new world order in which the United States will have absolute power; The writings of the ideologists of American imperialism such as Z. Brzezinski, F. Fukuyama, and so on testify to the fact that such sentiments dominate a part of American society. For this, it was supposed to create several "pocket" Balkan states, burdened with constant inter-ethnic conflicts. The existence of these midgets would be supported by the US and its instrument of the UN in exchange for a pro-American policy. Relative peace would be maintained by NATO military bases, which would have absolute influence over the entire Balkan region. Assessing the situation today, we can say that the United States has achieved what it wants: NATO reigns supreme in the Balkans...

At the turn of 1980-1990, only in Serbia and Montenegro, progressive forces, having dissociated themselves from the rotten leadership of the Union of Communists, torn apart by nationalist aspirations and unable to make any constructive decisions to save the country from collapse, took a different path. Having organized the Socialist Party, they came out under the slogan of maintaining a united, indivisible Yugoslavia and won the elections.

The Union of Serbia and Montenegro lasted until May 2006. In a referendum organized by the ardent Westerner Djukanovic, President of Montenegro, its population voted by a narrow majority for independence from Serbia. Serbia has lost access to the sea.

The next piece that will inevitably be torn away from Serbia is its historical core of Kosovo and Metohija, where there is practically no Serbian population left. It is also possible to separate from Serbia Vojvodina, in which the percentage of the Hungarian population is significant. Macedonia is also on the verge of collapse, having once accepted a large number of Albanians, who are now actively demanding autonomy.

Serbs and Russians during the collapse of the SFRY and the USSR: are the discrepancies really accidental?

The history of the collapse of Yugoslavia is relevant in that it is interpreted only by political scientists, and not by economists-investors Moreover, only one pro-Western interpretation of events has become dominant, blaming all the troubles and problems of the SFRY exclusively on the Serbs, placing on them all the political and criminal responsibility for the collapse of Yugoslavia, for the numerous crimes and bloody atrocities that accompanied this drama, including .h. for the destruction and loss of investors in this country. For Western European politicians and ordinary citizens, they have long become the embodiment of evil, real criminals and incorrigible villains. And therefore, in the prison of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, as the main war criminals of that tragedy, there were mainly Serbs - Slobodan Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic and others (all of them were immediately announced in the Western press as another “Serbian Butcher”). This year marks the 20th anniversary of not only the disintegration of Yugoslavia, but also of Yugoslavia. The collapse of the state is a force majeure for investors. What lessons can be learned from 20 years of history so as not to repeat the mistakes of others when investing in this or that country, which will suddenly be drawn into a civil war and then fall apart?

Only very recently have there been calls (for example, Tad Galen Carpenter in the article "Stop demonizing the Serbs" published in the highly influential American magazine "The National Interest") to move away from the simplified mythology of those dramatic events, to provide a balanced approach to the coverage of the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, etc., so that in 20 years we can calmly sort it out and learn lessons.

Indeed, why are myths needed today when the country has already been wiped off the face of the earth, including by NATO bombings. But seriously, as the experts of the Academy and Masterforex-V exchange trading explained, quite rational explanations can be found for the then, to put it mildly, inflexible behavior of the Serbs and their leadership. Notice, not an excuse, but an explanation. It is best to conduct this analysis by comparing their actions with the behavior of the Russians and the leadership of the RSFSR, who avoided a bloody scenario during the collapse of the USSR. Moreover, in those days only the lazy did not draw such parallels and did not set the Serbs as an example. Let's start by stating the obvious: the actions of these two peoples in those dramatic days for the fate of the SFRY and the USSR differed significantly, but the point, of course, is not in "good Russians" and "bad Serbs", but in significant historical, geographical, demographic, economic, foreign policy differences between the two peoples.

How is the collapse of the SFRY different from the collapse of the USSR? "Fathers ate sour grapes, and children have set teeth on edge"

The main difference is that in the USSR, in most cases, there were no global national contradictions caused by the "legacy of blood" in the relationship between peoples. Of course, there was everything in the USSR (as, indeed, in most multinational states) - what are at least the same Stalinist mass deportations of 1944 (2.7 million people - Karachays, Germans, Chechens, Ingush, Kalmyks, Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians, Germans, etc.). There were long-standing antagonisms, for years, decades, insults and misunderstandings accumulated, but nevertheless, in the USSR, peoples coexisted quite peacefully with each other. Thus, according to the KGB, in 1957-1986, out of 24 conflicts that took place on the territory of the USSR, only 5 (according to other sources, 12) were ethnic in nature. Note that this is 30 years old. A wave of national-ethnic conflicts began with perestroika.

The existence of Yugoslavia was literally weighed down by an unkind historical memory. This legacy of the past can be explained by several factors:

- geographical. The Balkans are the gates of Europe or, if you like, the bridge between West and East, Europe, Asia and Africa;

- civilizational. It was through the Balkans that Islam attacked Europe, and it was here that it was stopped. Because of this, in the former Yugoslavia, peoples, cultures, religions, traditions were bizarrely intertwined, in general, a unique historical junction of three civilizations arose - Catholic, Orthodox and Islamic;

- historical. For many centuries, different parts of Yugoslavia were part of different states - Byzantium, Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece, that is, for many centuries, its peoples lived separately, having almost nothing in common with each other. It is no coincidence that the term "Balkanization" has become synonymous with the repeated redrawing of the territory: they were constantly captured, annexed, detached and divided. In general, behind the shoulders of the peoples of the former Yugoslavia there was a whole millennium of a completely different historical experience. Perhaps only here the saying could be born: "The best friend is my neighbor's neighbor."

When in 1918, at the behest of the victorious Entente in the war, the "fragments" of the defeated Austria-Hungary united around Serbia and created a new state - the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, Slovenes (since 1929 - Yugoslavia), Serbian dynasty Karageorgievich became its ruling dynasty. Almost until World War II, the country was unitary, centralized (governors, police, command posts in the army were mainly occupied by Serbs), any separatism, especially Croatian, was severely suppressed in it.

In World War II, the Croatian Ustashe (“rebels” - Croatian nationalists) recouped the Serbs more than in full. In the vassal "independent" Croatian state formed in 1941, they quickly declared all "non-Aryan citizens" - Serbs, Gypsies, Jews (Croats, of course, were equated with Aryans) outside the law, in order to "protect the Aryan blood and honor of the Croatian people" interethnic marriages were banned, the Cyrillic alphabet fell under the ban, they built concentration camps, shot, burned alive, buried alive in the ground and cut Serbs into pieces. The Ustaše even invented a special knife for ripping the throat, which they called the "serb cutter". Even the Germans and Italians who occupied Yugoslavia were embarrassed by such inhuman cruelty of the Ustashe. Naturally, all this caused a backlash among the Serbs, so the famous Chetniks appeared - participants in the nationalist partisan movement. Soon, World War II in Yugoslavia acquired the features of a national-religious one: Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims, Chetniks, Ustashe and Muslim SS divisions. It's hard to imagine, but out of the 1 million 700 thousand Yugoslavs who died then, the vast majority were killed not by the invaders, but by their compatriots (305 thousand people died on the battlefields). There is a telling historical anecdote. When former king Yugoslavia was asked how he felt about Broz Tito, he replied that he was very sympathetic: "I alone know how to lead all these peoples who hate each other." After the war, Tito forbade even mentioning the words “Chetniks”, “Ustashees”, but the memory preserved all this, stimulating ethnic hatred in 1991.

Do investors need to know about this? Yes, to understand what the news media and investment funds do not tell, offering investors to place their capital in such an explosive region, where memory and revenge are passed down from generation to generation for centuries.

Why is the breakup of Yugoslavia more painful for Serbs than the end of the USSR for Russians? "The disease is small, but the disease is great"

For the Serbs, the breakup of Yugoslavia was more painful than for the Russians. The fact is that even after the collapse of the USSR, the Russians had enough living space:

- almost 50% of the population of the USSR lived in the RSFSR;

- Russia, even without the 14 other union republics, remained the 1st in the world in terms of territory(76% of the area of ​​the USSR);

- had enormous natural resources. The RSFSR accounted for about 2/3 of the electricity of the entire USSR, over 4/5 of oil production, about 2/5 of gas, more than 1/2 of coal, over 9/10 of wood, etc. We will not bore our reader with the continuation of this list;

- dominant economic position in the USSR. Russia possessed 60% of the national wealth, produced more than 66% of industrial and over 46% of agricultural products of the Soviet Union. Let us pay attention to the self-sufficiency of the Russian economy, almost all industries (except textile) developed on the local resource base.

Serbian opportunities, after the collapse of Yugoslavia, significantly narrowed, they de facto ceased to be a "great nation", having a state with which both Europe and the world were considered:

- ethnicity. Ethnic proportions in the SFRY were different than in the USSR. So, the Serbs made up 38% of the country's population, and if we take into account that Serbia is one of the most colorful in terms of ethnic composition states in the Balkans (in Vojvodina, the non-Serb minority - Hungarians, Croats, Slovaks, Romanians, etc. - makes up almost half of the population, about 90% of the population of Kosovo is Albanian), then these proportions become simply critical;

- territory. The territory of Serbia was only a third larger than Croatia or Bosnia and Herzegovina;

- economy. Serbia's economic potential in Yugoslavia was much more modest than Russia's in the USSR. Slovenia was the most industrialized in the SFRY, followed by Croatia. Serbia provided about 2/5 of the national income and 1/3 of the industrial output of Yugoslavia. But what is there, suffice it to say that after the declaration of independence by Montenegro, the Serbs simply did not have access to the Adriatic;

- Serbs were the most "scattered" people in Yugoslavia, 1/3 of all ethnic Serbs then lived outside Serbia (however, 25 million Russians turned out to be outside the RSFSR). The fact is that Broz Tito, the son of a Croat and a Slovene (by the way, for him his ethnic origin did not matter, he felt like the leader of all the peoples of Yugoslavia, but for the Serbs it was sensitive), dealt harshly with any nationalism. He considered the nationalism of the dominant nation, that is, Serbian, to be the most dangerous for the unity of the country (after all, the largest ethnic group, the largest republic, the capital of the country was in Serbian Belgrade), therefore, he consistently implemented the principle “weak Serbia - strong Yugoslavia”. In this regard, when the Yugoslav federation was created, some Serbian lands were ceded to other republics, 2 autonomous regions were literally imposed on it - Vojvodina and Kosovo (at the same time, for some reason, they did not create Albanian autonomy in Montenegro or Macedonia, where there were also enough Albanians), later they were actually equated with the union republics, that is, they were taken out of Serbia, etc.

Hence, when it became clear that the collapse of Yugoslavia was inevitable, the Serbian leadership tried to implement the project of "Great Serbia" - all Serbs should live in one state. Slobodan Milosevic easily said goodbye to Slovenia and Macedonia, where there were practically no Serb population and Serbian lands, but he did not want to let go of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, where there were many Serbs.

What is the difference between Russian and Serbian elite? "Not everyone has a disease - to death"

The different behavior of the political classes of Serbia and the RSFSR during the collapse of the allied states is literally striking. This is explained by the fact that the Russian elite gained a lot with the collapse of the USSR, while the Serbian lost the same amount.

The problem was that the largest Soviet republic, because of this, was practically completely deprived of economic and political independence, the RSFSR had the least developed republican state institutions: it was the only one until 1990 that did not have its own Communist Party, the KGB, the Academy of Sciences, the RSFSR Council of Ministers ruled only 7% of economic resources, the rest were in union control, only its territory was reduced in favor of neighboring union republics (during the existence of the USSR, it decreased by about a third). Hence, by the way, the famous "Leningrad case" of the late 1940s - early 1950s, then the Leningrad leadership was accused, among other things, of trying to move the capital of the RSFSR to Leningrad, of wanting to create the Communist Party of the RSFSR, that is, of forming a parallel center of power in the country. For our story, all this meant that the RSFSR did not have its own ethnic elite. The ruling class in the USSR was multi-ethnic, international, supra-republican. It was entirely and completely the Soviet political elite. Russian ruling class will arise at the end of perestroika, and having appeared, of course, it will begin to consider national movements in other Soviet republics as their allies in the fight against the center and Mikhail Gorbachev. For example, in the memoirs one can read about an alleged agreement between Boris Yeltsin and Chairman of the Supreme Council of Lithuania Vytautas Landsbergis that in exchange for support the latter would aggravate Lithuania's relations with the Kremlin to the maximum and not enter into serious negotiations with Gorbachev. Hence, among other things, the benevolent attitude of Yeltsin, the Russian leadership to the proclamation of their statehood by the republics. As you know, on August 24, 1991, Yeltsin, bypassing the authority of the President of the USSR Gorbachev, will declare the recognition of the independence of the Baltic countries.

Serbia in Yugoslavia, like all other republics, had its own elite (for example, there was the Union of Communists of Serbia, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts), which also occupied a central position in the country, so it lost a lot with the collapse of the SFRY. This is also why it actively resisted the destruction of the federation.

In addition, in the USSR, representatives of the republics in Belovezhskaya Pushcha On December 8, 1991, they agreed, albeit in general terms, on the boundaries of national minorities, which unambiguously took the edge off many of the problems that caused bloody conflicts in Yugoslavia. And what happened in the SFRY? There was a unilateral and uncompromising declaration of independence by the ethnocratic leadership of Slovenia and Croatia, without the slightest attempt to establish cooperation between the former republics of the SFRY along the lines of the CIS. And the collapse without prior agreement, as you know, is fraught with serious conflicts and endless wars.

The behavior of Serbian communities in the national republics during the collapse of the SFRY. "Don't ask the sick for health"

The behavior of the Serbs in Croatia was seriously different, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Russians in the republics of the USSR. As already noted, in the Soviet Union for many decades there were no serious ethnic clashes in the republics where Russians lived, so they in their bulk supported the independence of the republics. Although skeptics believe that the Russians who lived outside the RSFSR were simply well aware that they would not be supported by Yeltsin's Russia.

In Yugoslavia, things were different. Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia created their autonomies, and the Serbian leadership actively helped the Bosnian and Croatian Serbs. Let's take Croatia. The Croatian leadership, fearing their Serbs, did not think of anything better than to deny them even cultural autonomy, a campaign began to test the loyalty of the Serbs to the new republic, this was followed by their mass dismissals from state institutions, accusations of all mortal sins, searches and beatings. Today, by the way, many already admit that the Croats openly discriminated against the Serbs, frankly wanting to get them out of the republic. In general, when it was decided to hold a referendum on independence in Croatia in 1991, local Serbs boycotted it, in the Serbian Krajina enclave (1/4 of the territory of Croatia) they proclaimed their republic, declared separation from Croatia and joining Serbia. In the summer of 1991, a full-scale war will begin, in which more than 26 thousand people will become victims on both sides. In 1995, the Croats did crush the Serbian Krajina, driving out almost 250,000 Serbs. So Croatia solved its historical task - to clear the country of the Serbs.

A similar situation with Croatia was in Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the local Serb community (1/3 of the population) did not want to submit to the Muslim authorities in Sarajevo, which headed for secession from Yugoslavia, boycotted the independence referendum (1992) and proclaimed the creation of the Republika Srpska as an integral part of Yugoslavia, a bloody war began, which claimed the lives of 100 thousand people.

In Kosovo, by that time 90% Albanianized, already Serbs, responding to mass riots Albanians, in 1991 they deprived it of the status of an autonomous province (replaced autonomous region, however, the fate of Vojvodina was the same), banned the use of the Albanian language in official documents, arrested the leadership of Kosovo, etc. After a while, in 1998, the Kosovo Liberation Army will start hunting for the Serbs. And on the other hand, how should the central government react to unilateral declarations of independence of its component parts? Doesn't she have the right to protect her territorial integrity? I remember the "brilliant" war between Britain and Argentina (1982) for the Falkland Islands, a tiny archipelago of sheep farmers, located at a distance of 1/3 from Great Britain the globe, on which about 2 thousand people, 750 thousand sheep and several million penguins then lived permanently. But when the Argentines landed on the island, Thatcher began a war for this rotten swamp and wild pasture. Jorge Luis Borges will call it a fight between two bald men over a comb. About a thousand people will die on both sides, but Thatcher will not make any concessions, and victory in London will be met with stormy patriotic applause and chanting in the streets of "Rule Britannia".

Conclusion for investors: "What is allowed to Jupiter is not allowed to the bull", the ancients said. The same logic of behavior of states of different "weight" and influence in the world leads to diametrically opposite consequences for investors in these countries.

Intervention of third forces in the collapse of the SFRY and the USSR. "We undertake to treat others, but we ourselves are sick"

It's time to talk about outside intervention in the Yugoslav conflict. This is another discrepancy in the history of the collapse of the USSR and the SFRY. There was not and could not be direct military intervention in the Soviet Union foreign countries.

Firstly, no one will dare to climb into a country with 30 thousand nuclear warheads without an invitation. And most importantly, why? As you know, after the signing of the Belovezhskaya agreement on the dissolution of the USSR, Yeltsin first called US President George W. Bush. As Andrey Kozyrev, then Minister of Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR, told a press conference, the response was "positive statements from the State Department ... The United States is encouraged and delighted." So, as Mikhail Zadornov says, the Americans tried for a long time to destroy our country, and we outwitted them and destroyed the USSR ourselves.

As for outside interference in the affairs of Yugoslavia, then Masterforex-V Academy experts believe that we should talk not only about the straightforward maliciousness of Western countries, but also about their inept intervention in the civil war, dictated by the desire to stop bloody ethnic cleansing, about the very simplicity, which, as you know, is worse than theft .

Let's start with the end cold war the former bloc system of states disappeared. For Yugoslavia, this meant the loss of a unique status - a kind of “gray” neutral zone between NATO and the Warsaw Pact (all these years, being a socialist, it was not part of the Warsaw Pact, moreover, in contrast to it, it created the Non-Aligned Movement, was just an associate member of the regularly received cash loans from Western countries, which sometimes reached half of the annual budget, with a Yugoslav passport it was possible to freely visit the developed countries(because of this it was called "all-terrain vehicle"), etc.). It is no coincidence that the United States assigned the SFRY the role of an icebreaker of the socialist bloc. In general, all parties were interested in its stability in one way or another. It is no coincidence that 208 delegations from 126 countries arrived at the funeral of Broz Tito in 1980, even those politicians, who couldn’t stand each other for spirit (for example, Leonid Brezhnev and Margaret Thatcher).

With the end of the Cold War, as historians rightly point out, Yugoslavia was no longer needed for a balance between West and East, and it was thrown into disintegration. What guided powers of the world this, intervening in an ethnic conflict on the territory of a sovereign state? How did it happen that Yugoslavia and the Yugoslavs became a pawn, a bargaining chip in the hands of powerful players on the "big chessboard"?

The European Union, intervening in the affairs of Yugoslavia, in addition to preventing further bloodshed, simultaneously solved several important tasks:

- demonstrated itself as the new center of world power;

- sought immediate peace in the Balkans, so necessary for the further enlargement of the EU;

- took control of the transport arteries. It is known that it is easier to control them through the system of protectorates, which were soon created in the post-Yugoslav space;

- completed the destruction of the "world red danger", in this regard, Serbia was perceived as "the last stronghold of communism in Europe." So red Serbia received the status of "black sheep". The EU took the side of "its own" Catholic Croatia and Slovenia, for a long time were part of the Austrian Empire, objectively gravitating towards Austria, Germany, Italy, the "non-communist republics" of Yugoslavia;

- recognizing Orthodox Serbs, historically acting as an ally of Russia in the Balkans "alien", indirectly weakened the already weakened Russia.

Germany. The new, note, united, was the first to recognize the independence of Croatia and Slovenia in December 1991, which immediately led to the division of Yugoslavia into 6 parts. Thus, her readiness for an independent foreign policy was demonstrated to the whole world. The world felt the weight of the new Germany for the first time. In addition, let's not forget, she has always had special interests in this region - access to the warm Mediterranean and Black Seas.

As for the declared comparison of Serbs and Russians, then, despite all the significant differences in their behavior, the most important thing is that both Yugoslavia and the USSR collapsed. So, by and large, what difference does it make whether Danila died or the sore crushed him, and there was enough blood in the post-Soviet space.

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) was formed in 1945 as a result of the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany. Partisans of many nationalities, peoples, who later became part of the new state, made a great contribution to this on their own land. It is worth recalling that the liberation army, merciless to the Nazis, under the leadership of the only marshal (1943) Josip Broz Tito, the permanent leader of Yugoslavia until his death in 1980, was fundamentally different from the French Resistance, the significance of which is greatly exaggerated, including in order to taste delicious feeding, in every way appeasing the German occupiers, at the end of World War II, France suddenly miraculously, in an incomprehensible way, entered the close circle of victorious countries, becoming a permanent member of the UN Security Council with the right of veto (!) On a par with the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition -, Great Britain, the United States, indeed, seriously , who fought hard with the Empire of Japan, China. What states did Yugoslavia break up into? Part of the answers to this difficult question can be found if you remember how it was created.

Words from the poem by A.S. Pushkin "Poltava" fully reflect what socialist Yugoslavia was, created, directed and "wisely" led communist party countries.

The peoples and nationalities included in its composition were too different - Serbs, related Montenegrins, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Bosnians, Albanians, as well as Slovaks, Hungarians, Romanians, Turks. Some were Orthodox Christians, others were Catholics, others professed Islam, and others did not believe in anything or anyone. For the majority, Cyrillic was their native language, and for the rest, it was Latin.

The SFRY included six socialist republics:

• Serbia. The leader of the united Yugoslavia, including because 40% of the population of the new state were ethnic Serbs. By the end of the country's existence in 1991, other members of the Federation did not like it very much. Conflicts and strife began in the country on any, at least slightly significant occasion.
• Croatia.
• Slovenia.
• Montenegro.
• Macedonia.
• Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• As well as two autonomous regions - Kosovo and Vojvodina, where the first was mainly inhabited by Albanians, and the second - by Hungarians.

During the years of Yugoslavia's existence (1945–1991), its population grew from 15.77 to 23.53 million people. It must be said that ethnic and religious strife has become one of the main reasons for the collapse of a single country into separate, independent states. A good example: basically, only children from mixed marriages, which in 1981 accounted for 5.4% of the total population of the SFRY, officially recognized, defined themselves as Yugoslavs, in contrast to the remaining 94.6% of citizens.

For many years, the SFRY was on a par with the GDR the leader of the socialist part of Europe, often called Eastern, both geographically and in figuratively, opposed to the West, led by the FRG, and other satellites of the United States. The economy, the standard of living in Yugoslavia and the GDR favorably differed from most countries that were part of the socialist "European Union", united as part of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the military Warsaw Pact. The army of Yugoslavia was a well-armed, trained formidable force, reaching a maximum of 600 thousand soldiers and officers during the years of the country's existence.

The general economic, ideological decline, later called stagnation, which struck the Soviet Union and other countries of the socialist camp, could not bypass Yugoslavia. All the problems (inter-ethnic, economic, ideological) kept under the veil of a rigid state broke free in 1990, when nationalists came to power as a result of local elections throughout the country. The centrifugal forces that are destroying the state, ideological foundations, successfully fueled by the West, began to rapidly gain momentum.

This multinational, multi-confessional state (Orthodox, Catholics, Muslims) could not resist the collapse in 1991. However, to our great regret, simultaneously with the "big brother" - the Soviet Union. The most daring, such long-awaited aspirations of the enemies of the Slavic world have come true. Fortunately, the fate of the SFRY did not befall the RSFSR, from which modern Russia was reborn, a worthy successor to the might of the USSR and the Russian Empire.

From one SFRY, at first six independent states turned out:

With the withdrawal in early 2006 of Montenegro from Lesser Yugoslavia, the union state - the successor, the last territorial remnant of the SFRY, the former Yugoslavia finally ceased to exist.

Later in 2008, after years of armed conflict between Serbs and ethnic Albanians, Kosovo seceded, which was an autonomous province within Serbia. This became largely possible as a result of brazen, unprincipled pressure on Serbia, starting in 1999 during the war in Kosovo, accompanied by "high-precision" bombing of Yugoslavia, including Belgrade, by NATO led by the United States, which was the first to recognize the absolutely illegitimately created public education on par with the extremely democratic but duplicitous European Union.

This example, as well as the situation with the armed pro-fascist seizure of power in Ukraine, inspired by the unanimous non-recognition of Crimea as part of Russian Federation, the introduction of economic sanctions against our country clearly showed the rest of the world how convenient it is to be, in every sense, a tolerant "common" European or North American, with an outwardly customizable, selective worldview.

The answer to the question "Into what states did Yugoslavia break up?" simple and complex at the same time. After all, behind him are the fates of millions of fellow Slavs, whom Russia, torn apart by its own problems, could not help in its time.