Apart from the Second World War, there was peace in Yugoslavia between 1919 and 1980. Why was there peace during this period?

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Question 1:

Apart from the Second World War, there was peace in Yugoslavia between 1919 and 1980. Why was there peace during this period?

Peace in Yugoslavia meant unity. The country was a drawing together of different groups, which held together from 1919 to the 1980. Before the First World War the Austria ruled the individual countries of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia as well as other countries such as Hungary as part of the Hapsburg Empire. The other big empire was the Turkish Ottoman Empire. All the individual areas had different ethnic groups and religions. The Croats were Roman Catholic, people living in Bosnia were mainly Muslim, as were people living in Kosovo. Serbia was a separate independent country, ruled by its own King. The Serb religion was Christian Orthodox.

The Treaty of Versailles created the “Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes”, (Yugoslavia) following World War I (in which both Austria and Turkey were defeated). It ruled that Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia would become a united country, because it was believed that a large country would have a better chance of survival than a collection of small ones and also would provide a greater threat to nearby Germany. As Serbia had been independent before the war, its leaders believed that it should be the most important part of the new Kingdom. Serbs had huge amounts of control over the other ethnic groups from the beginning – the Serbian King (King Peter I) was appointed King of the new country, and the Serbian capital city Belgrade became the capital of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Serbs held the top posts in the army and in the Government. However, other groups did benefit from the Treaty – they now lived in an independent country - this was better than living under Austrian control. The different ethnic groups shared a common spoken language, but the different groups wrote it in different alphabets (the European/Roman alphabet or the Russian Cyrillic alphabet) - they could now be educated in their own (spoken) language (as opposed to German).

King Peter ruled until his death in 1921, when his son, who became King Alexander I, replaced him. King Alexander had a Government dominated by Serbs, which made all of the decisions. He refused to listen to wishes of Slovenes and Croats and would not give them any say in decisions concerning their regions. In 1929, Alexander changed the country’s name from the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and the Slovenes and dismissed parliament so he could run the country as a dictatorship. He used his Serb dominated Secret Police to deal with protests in Croatia and Slovenia. Members of other ethnic groups were angered by the Kings dictatorship (especially the Croats who wanted more control over their regions). A Croat resistance movement (formed as a result of the removal of parliament) murdered Alexander during a visit to France in on 9th October 1934. He had, however, been a strong King, with definite ideas about how he had wanted to run the country. His dictatorship – unpopular as it had been with some groups, did help hold Yugoslavia together.

Following King Alexander’s assassination, his brother Prince Paul ruled the country, on behalf of his nephew, who was too young to become monarch. Paul continued the dictatorship his brother had begun in 1929, with the Secret Police still maintaining discipline. At the start of World War Two, Paul declared neutrality in a bid to keep Yugoslavia out of the war. However, when, in 1941 the Germans threatened to invade, the country agreed to join the Tripartite Pact with Germany, Italy, and Japan. Many in the country (including Prince Paul’s nephew the young King Peter) opposed this move. The Government was overthrown, Prince Paul was forced to step down and Yugoslavia withdrew from the pact. King Peter and the people who had disapproved of siding with the Germans quickly formed a Government dedicated to maintaining neutrality.

 In April 1941, the German army invaded and King Peter fled, along with most of the Government, leaving the outnumbered Yugoslav army to surrender and the country to be taken over by the Germans. Yugoslavia was split up and German armies occupied both Croatia and Serbia. A Nazi sympathizer ran Croatia and had a Secret Police force called the Ustasa. A Nazi and Ustasa resistance group (made up of Serbs) calling themselves Cetniks built up, as did a more powerful and more successful Communist group called Partisans. They drew members from all groups. By 1942 the Partisans had control of most of Bosnia. By the end of the war they had an army of 100, 000 men and with the help of the British army had control of a large part of Yugoslavia. Josip Broz was the leader of the Partisans but was better known as Tito.

Tito was appointed as the leader of a provisional Government at the end of the Second World War, effectively making him leader of Yugoslavia. The King had spent the whole of the war hiding out in Britain, whereas Tito had stayed and fought – he was a war hero and considerably more popular than the Royal Family. By August 1945 (less than 3 months after the end of the war), the monarchy in Yugoslavia was abolished and in the November elections Tito won 80% of the votes (although other political parties had been banned) and Tito became official leader of Yugoslavia – which was declared the Federal People’s Republic in 1946. Communist Ministers now dominated the new Government and a new dictatorship was established. The Government nationalized many industries and newspapers that dared to criticize were shut down. Leaders of the Serb movement the Cetniks were put on trial and executed.

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Yugoslavia suffered severe agricultural problems, due to drought and opposition to Government plans to turn farms into collective units. In a country where a large proportion of the population was peasant farmers, this created a problem. Yugoslavia had to rely on shipments from the USSR and the USA to survive.

Tito built up industry and created thousands of jobs for Yugoslavs. By the 1960’s many families had refrigerators and even televisions – a huge triumph for a country where less than 20 years before almost everybody had been peasant farmers. People suddenly had good wages and savings ...

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