Yugoslavia Essay Research Paper Recently there has

Yugoslavia Essay, Research Paper

Recently, there has been much fighting

in the former country of Yugoslavia, involving all ethnicities and religious

groups and without making a difference between military or civilians. Diplomats

have been hard at work to attempt to resolve the differences that led to

conflict and bloodshed, but it has proven to be a very difficult thing

to do with extremely limited success. To understand the situation, it has

to be realized that a big part of the problem lies in the geography of

the region and its demography. These factors have contributed to conflicts

in the past and do so now.

Yugoslavia covers mountainous territory.

The backbone of the region is made up of the Balkans, a mountain range

that runs north-south. Continental plate movement from the south has created

an intricate landscape of plains, valleys and mountains. This led to intensive

compartmentalization of the region. As a result, there were few low-level

routes and those that existed became very important strategically. Most

notable are the Varda-Morava corridor, which connected the Aegean Sea and

the Danube, and the Iron Gates of the Danube, linking Central Europe and

the Black Sea, that controlled much of the trade between the Mediterranean

and Central Europe since ancient times. Most of the populations have lived

separated from each other geographically and culturally, developing very

strong national and tribal allegiances. This region is a frontier between

Eastern and Western European civilizations and has also been influnced

by Islam during the Turkish invasion.

The roots of the conflict in the Balkans

go back hundreds of years. Farther than recent events in the region indicate.

Dating back to Roman times, this area was part of the Roman Empire. It

was here that the divide between Eastern and Western Roman Empires was

made when it split under the Roman emperor Diocletian in A.D. 293. Along

with the split, the religions divided also into Roman Catholic and Eastern

Orthodox. This line still divides Catholic Croatians and Hungarians and

Orthodox Montengrins, Serbs, and Romanians. The Romans left behind them

excellent roads, cities that are still important political or economic

centers, like Belgrade, Cluj, or Ljubljana, and the Latin language, which

is preserved in Romanian.

The period of Turkish dominance during

the middle ages left a much diffferent imprint on the region. An alien

religion, Islam, was introduced, adding to already volatile mixture of

geography, politics, religion, and nationalism. The administration of the

Ottoman Empire was very different from that of the Romans. The Turks did

not encourage economic development of areas like Albania, Montenegro and

Romania that promised little in producing riches. They didn’t invest in

building roads or creating an infrastructure. Greeks controlled most of

the commerce and Sephadic Jews, expelled from Spain, had influence as well.

The diversity of Yugoslavia can best be

captured in this capsule recitation: “One state, two alphabets, three religions,

four official languages, five nations, six republics, seven hostile neighbors,

and eight separate countries.” This had more than a little truth. Yugoslavia

employed Latin and Cyrillic alphabets; it was home to Roman Catholics,

Eastern Orthodox, and Muslims; it’s Slavic groups spoke Serbian, Croatian,

Slovenian and Macedonian; they identified themselves as Serbs, Montenegrins,

Croats, Slovenes, and Macedonians; each had its own republic, with an additional

Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina for a mixed population of Serbs, Croats,

and Serbo-Croatian-speaking Muslims; Yugoslavia was bordered by Italy,

Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Albania, all of whom harbored

some grievances against it; and the “autonomous regions” of Hungarian Vojvodina

and Albanian Kosovo within Serbia functioned until 1990 in an independent

manner comparable to that of the six formal republics. This indeed was

a diverse state. Yugoslavia had been “a geographic impossibility, tied

together by railroads, highways, and a Serbian-dominated army.” (Poulsen,

118-9) This country is a patchwork of complicated, interconnected ethnic

and religious entities that intertwined so densely that it is probably

impossible to separate them and make everybody happy.

It was a witness to two bloody Balkan wars

that took place in 1912 and that contributed to the outbreak of World War

I. The conflict seems intrinsic to the region, with painful fragmentation

after the fall of the Hapsburg empire and further discord during and after

World War II. In fact, there was hardly any time when there was little

or no conflict.

The events that started the most recent

escalation of conflict took place in 1991. The first republic to express

anti-Serbian s

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