Yugoslavia: The History of the Eastern European Nation from Its Founding to Its Breakup

De: Charles River Editors

Narrado por: Colin Fluxman

Yugoslavia was arguably one of the most unusual geopolitical creations of the 20th century. The Yugoslav state had never existed in any historical sense, and the ties that bound together its constituent peoples were tenuous at best. Although nominally all “Slavs,” the country was an amalgamation of languages, alphabets, cultures, religions, and traditions, which ensured its short existence was littered with splits, conflicts, and shocking violence. In a sense, it’s somewhat surprising that it lasted as long as it did.

In the wake of World War I, as the political boundaries of Europe and the Middle East were redrawn, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, initially known as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, came into existence with a monarch as its head of state. Confirmed at the 1919 Versailles Conference, the “first” Yugoslavia was a particularly fragile enterprise, and there was almost constant tension between the majority Serbs and the other Yugoslav nationalities, especially the Croats. As a result, the Kingdom was a land of political assassinations, underground terrorist organizations, and ethnic animosities. In 1929, King Alexander I suspended democracy and ruled as a dictator until he himself was assassinated in 1934.

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was particularly vulnerable to the forces that engulfed the rest of Europe at the end of the 1930s, including fascism and communism. When the Axis forces attacked in 1941, the country quickly capitulated and was dismembered by the Nazis and their allies. A separate Croatian state was formed, led by Ante Paveli, who committed some of the worst crimes and human rights abuses of the war. The Balkan region was virtually emptied of its Jewish population, victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

During his reign, Tito managed to quash the intense national feelings of the diverse groups making up the Yugoslavian population, and he did so through several methods. He managed to successfully play the two superpower rivals, the United States and Soviet Union, off against each other during the Cold War, and in doing so, he maintained a considerable amount of independence from both, even as he additionally received foreign aid to keep his regime afloat. All the while he remained defiant, once penning a legendary letter to Joseph Stalin warning the Soviet dictator, “To Joseph Stalin: Stop sending people to kill me! We've already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle... If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send a very fast working one to Moscow and I certainly won't have to send another.”

Internal issues plagued the country in its final years and Tito had tinkered with Yugoslavia’s constitution on several occasions. His final attempt, in 1974, saw the partial separation of Kosovo - crucial in the Serb national story - from the rest of Serbia.

©2018 Charles River Editors (P)2018 Charles River Editors

highly biased perspective

this book is quite heavily biased and puts Serbia in a defacto bad-guy role without offering a reason. Western intervention is portrayed as purely salvific, brutality as purely serbian, and victimization as mainly bosnian. while the last paragraph says maybe we should consider why yugoslavia lasted so long, because tito was a dictator only his shortcomings are highlighted. The facts in this book seem to be highly curated and large areas of context ignored and dismissed.

Good content…a bit academic. It gave me what I was looking for. Worth reading.

Good to know!

historical-places-events, historical-research, historical-figures, Europe, war-is-hell

The countries that became Yugoslavia were basically under siege by The Ottoman Turks and others for hundreds of years. Things changed in the 20th century with the Nazis eliminating many segments of the population. After that war, the several ethnic groups united to become Yugoslavia and prospered for a time. Then, in the 1990s, the peoples waged wars involving ethnic cleansing for nearly the whole decade until the various peoples established separate countries once again.
The presentation is clear and well done. The narration by Colin Fluxman is well presented.

Short but fascinating

It is a very short overview and could go more in depth but was very interesting none the less

Solid Primer

A solid primer on a country whose history is a mystery to many. I would have liked a little more detail on the Balkan wars of the 1990s, what each faction believed, etc.