Yugoslavia Essay Research Paper One of the

Yugoslavia Essay, Research Paper

One of the youngest nations of Europe, Yugoslavia was created after World War I as a homeland for several different rival ethnic groups. The country was put together mostly from remnants of the collapsed Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary. Demands for self-determination by Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, and others were ignored. Yugoslavia thus became an uneasy association of peoples conditioned by centuries of ethnic and religious hatreds. World War II aggravated these rivalries, but Communist dictatorship after the war controlled them for 45 years. When the Communist system failed, the old rivalries reasserted themselves; and in the early 1990s the nation was rent by secessionist movements and civil war. Within several years these conflicts had drastically altered the size of the country.

As it existed in 1990, Yugoslavia was bounded on the north by Austria and Hungary, on the northeast by Romania, on the east by Bulgaria, on the south by Greece, and on the west by Albania, the Adriatic Sea, and Italy. It was 600 miles from north to south and 250 miles from west to east at its widest part. Its total area was 98,766 square miles. Three years later the country s area had been reduced by 60 percent and its population of 23 million cut by more than half. The provinces of Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina had seceded, leaving Serbia and Montenegro as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The description below covers Yugoslavia, as it existed prior to disintegration.

Yugoslavia has a mountainous terrain. The northwestern area consists of the Karawanken and Julian alps in Slovenia. The latter range contains Mount Triglav at 9,396 feet. The Dinaric Alps occupy much of the west with peaks reaching more than 8,000 feet. To the south the Sar Mountains and adjacent ranges belong to the Rhodope massif, which extends southward into Greece. The major area of flatland lies in the northeast and is part if the large Mid-Danube, or Pannonian, Plain. Along the shore of the Adriatic Sea is a small coastal plain known as the Dalmatian coast.

The longest river in Yugoslovia is the Sava, which flows from the Austrian border eastward for 584 miles to join the Danube at Belgrade. The Danube flows for 367 miles through Croatia and Serbia. Its major tributaries are the Sava, Drava, Tisa, and Morava. Other rivers are the Drina, Bosna, Neretva, and the Vardar. There are more than 200 lakes of which the largest is Lake Scutari on the Albanian border.

The mountainous nature of the country causes considerable climatic differences from one place to another. The Dalmatian coast has a typical Mediterranean climate with hot, dry summers and mild, rainy winters. The Mid-Danube Plain has a continental climate with cold winters, hot summers, and moderate precipitation. The mountain regions have on the whole colder and shorter summers and more severe winters compared with other regions.

The major environment hazard in Yugoslovia is earthquakes. The whole region is subject to earthquakes of considerable severity, and in 1963 the city of Skopje was almost entirely destroyed by one.

Yugoslavia has numerous deposits of lignite, or brown coal, exist, but there is little good-grade black coal. There are some small petroleum and natural gas field. The major source of energy is waterpower, which provides about one third of the country s electricity. Yugoslavia is a major European producer of lead and copper. Other minerals include iron ore, zinc, silver, gold, nickel, mercury, and antimony.

About 37 percent of the country is forest covered. The predominant species are oak, beech, and other deciduous trees, with such evergreens as pine and fir in the mountains. The soils of the Mid-Danube Plain are the best in the country for farming. Yugoslavia has a wide range of animals, including deer, foxes, wolves, jackals, bears, and rarely, lynxes. Birds include grouse, partridge, swans, buzzards, woodpeckers, and pelicans. The Adriatic Sea contains anchovies, sardines, mackerel, tuna, and other fishes.

The inhabitants of Yugoslavia were of varied ethnic origins. According to the 1981 census the largest group was the Serbs, who numbered 8.1 million, or 36 percent of the population. Like the majority of Yugoslavs, they speak a Slavic language. They belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Croats totaled 4.4 million, 20 percent of the population. They speak a language similar to that of the Serbs but are Roman Catholics. The Slovenes totaled 1.8 million and lived in the northwestern corner of the country. They have their own Slavic language and are Roman Catholics. Other Slavs include the Macedonians 1.3 million and the Montenegrins 600 thousand. Both groups are Eastern Orthodox. There were about 2 million Muslims, descended from Slavs who converted to Islam during the long Turkish occupation. In 1991 the census showed a total population of 23,475,887, with the ethnic proportions remaining about the same.

A non-Slavic people, the Albanians, live in the southern part of the country. They number about 1.7 million and are the fastest-growing ethnic group. Many are Muslims. There are smaller groups of Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, Slovaks, Czechs, and others who live mostly in the northeastern province of Vojvodina.

The largest city is Belgrade, in Serbia, with about 1.6 million inhabitants. Zag