Yugoslavia was a prominent country in the last century: although not a world-class superpower, as a regional power in the Balkans, it once maintained an independent foreign policy between the two camps of the United States and the Soviet Union at that time and advocated the Non-Aligned Movement worldwide. In the 1970s, Yugoslavia's per capita GDP exceeded that of all other socialist countries, roughly at the same level as Greece, Portugal, Spain and other countries in the capitalist developed countries. In the 1970s Yugoslavia had achieved 36% of car ownership.
This means that if you count a family of 3, almost every family in Yugoslavia has its own car. As early as the 1960s, the penetration rate of television in Yugoslavia had reached 50%, which means that almost half of the households in Yugoslavia had already owned television in the 1960s, and by the 70s, the penetration rate of television in Yugoslavia had reached 70%, while about one in every 2 Yugoslav families would have their own refrigerator. All children between the ages of 7 and 15 receive 8 years of compulsory education free of charge.
After World War II, Yugoslavia built an army of nearly a million people, and also had about 2 million reserve troops. Until the 1990s, with more than 1,100 tanks, more than 600 anti-tank self-propelled guns, 1,300 armored vehicles of various types, and tens of thousands of guns, the Yugoslav Army was still regarded as one of the "strongest ground armed forces in Europe". At its peak, the Yugoslav Navy had 10,000 officers and 80 ships of various types, as well as indigenous submarines; the Yugoslav Air Force had 32,000 officers and men, more than 400 fixed-wing aircraft, and more than 200 helicopters.
The Yugoslav army was so well-equipped and well-trained that even the Soviet Union at that time was afraid of Yugoslavia, while European and American countries praised Yugoslavia as the "Tiger of the Balkans". Yugoslavia under Tito became politically one of the leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement; economically created an economic miracle rarely seen in socialist countries; and militarily known as the "Balkan Tiger". However, the seemingly powerful Yugoslavia moved towards disintegration at the end of the 1990s. The disintegration of Yugoslavia in the course of the upheavals in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was actually much more tragic than the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was in fact a peaceful dissolution on the premise of agreement among the constituent republics; in the process of disintegration, a series of civil wars broke out in Yugoslavia, thus leaving behind all kinds of ethnic hatreds, and to this day there are still problems between the countries that have been divided from the former Yugoslavia. The per capita income levels of Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia are almost at the bottom in europe, where rich countries are concentrated, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has long been plagued by civil war after independence, has not escaped the shadow of ethnic conflict.
Among the countries that were divided from the former Yugoslavia, only Slovenia and Croatia developed relatively well. In contrast, Slovenia's per capita income level is higher than That of Croatia, but Slovenia's land area and population size are too small, so it is still stronger in terms of overall strength. What kind of country is Croatia, which thrives among the countries of the former Yugoslavia? If we look at the map of Europe, we will find that there are two countries that are incredibly "overbearing" in shape.
Coincidentally, both countries are located on the Balkan Peninsula: one is Greece and the other is Croatia. Greece's "alternative" is reflected in the division of the sea with neighboring Turkey: in between, there are more than 2,500 islands in the Aegean Sea, but more than 2,400 of them belong to Greece, which means that turks can mistakenly enter Greek territorial waters if they swim. Croatia's "chic" is more reflected in its own shape – most of the coastline in the former Yugoslavia after the collapse of Yugoslavia was occupied by Croatia.
The oldest remains of human activity currently found in Croatia are Neanderthal fossils from the middle Paleolithic period. During the Iron Age, ancient Illyrians and ancient Celts also entered the area. The Roman Empire conquered the region in 168 BC. After the decline of the Roman Empire, the area was conquered by the Huns, Ostrogoths, and byzantine Empires. In the 7th century AD, a group of southern Slavic peoples moved here, and they became the ancestors of today's Croats. In the 9th century, Croatia basically converted to Christianity.
From 925 onwards Croatia began to appear in historical records as an independent kingdom. The Croatian state reached its peak in the first half of the 10th century AD: during this period Croatia occupied the Pannonia Plain and parts of the territory of present-day Venice, Italy. Croatia at this time had 100,000 infantry, 60,000 cavalry, and 180 warships, which was definitely an armed force that should not be underestimated in medieval Europe. While the Kingdom of Croatia was booming, the Hungarians in the middle of the Danube Valley were also in a period of great power.
Originally a nomadic people from the steppes of North Asia, the Hungarians, after migrating to the Danube Valley in Europe, used well-preserved Roman roads to quickly advance into Germany, Italy, Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire. Croatia became their stepping stone on their way to the Adriatic Sea, and war inevitably broke out: King Tomislav led the Croats to the other side of the Danube, uniting the Sava River valley in the north with the Dalmatian cities in the south as a unified Croatian state.
At this time Croatia stretched from the Drava River to the Adriatic Sea, from Lasha to Slieme, drina and Zakhumle, and also included the islands of Vis, Brac, Hvar and the cities of Dalmatians. The bulk of Croatia's territory during this period was located along the coast of Dalmatia in the eastern Adriatic Sea. The islands of this region are dotted with peninsulas, and the Kingdom of Croatia has taken advantage of this to make its trade prosperous and prosperous. At this time, Croatia had a long coastline of the Adriatic Sea and many natural harbors.
This is very beneficial to the development of the Croatian economy and the migration of Croats into Dalmatia. Dalmatia began to gradually Croatize. At the same time as the territory expanded, the Croatian state became increasingly powerful: the Croatian navy had 80 large ships and 100 small ships, each equipped with 10 to 40 sailors. However, the flowers are not red – the fortunes of the country are like the tides rising and falling: the Hungarian Arpad dynasty conquered Croatia in the early 12th century. In 1526 the ottoman Turkish Empire's army defeated Hungary at the Battle of Mohac.
Much of post-war Hungary was occupied by the Ottoman Empire, while the relatively remote Croatia was taken over by the Austrian Habsburgs. Croatia was once occupied by France during the Napoleonic Wars, but after Napoleon's defeat, Croatia was restored to the Austrian Habsburg dynasty according to the decision of the European powers at the Vienna Conference in 1815. From then until 1918 Croatia remained under the Austrian Empire and its reorganized Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1918, world war I finally ended: the Allied camp led by Germany and Austria was defeated.
After the war, the defeated Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed due to national problems at home: Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Slovenia, Croatia and other places became independent states. After independence on December 1, 1918, Slovenia and Croatia merged with Serbia to form the "Kingdom of Serbs,Croats and Slovenes". In 1929, Prince Alexander succeeded him as King and changed the name of the country to kingdom of Yugoslavia. Until then Yugoslavia was only a collective term for the southern Slavic peoples, more of a geographical and cultural concept than a unified political entity.
The birth of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was the first time in history that the term "Yugoslavia" was used in the name of a country. Although Yugoslavia appeared before the eyes of the world as a unified State, it was impossible to hide the contradictions that lurked between the regions that made up the country. In fact, Slovenia and Croatia have always been dissatisfied with Serbia's centralized policy and fear that Yugoslavia will eventually become a "Greater Serbian state". At the end of the 1930s, Serbs and Croats planned to establish ethnically differentiated federal administrative districts.
Serbia wants Macedonia, Vojvodina and Montenegro to merge with Serbia, while Croatia wants to merge with Dalmatia and part of Vojvodina. Both sides claimed sovereignty over Bosnia and Herzegovina, which have a majority of Bosnian Muslims. On 26 August 1939, the Croatian province was established with its own independent parliament, which included present-day Croatia and northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the local Serbs became a minority. Nazi Germany began to expand when the two major ethnic groups within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia were at odds with each other.
The King of Yugoslavia at this time was Peter II, the youngest son of King Alexander, and because he was too young to take on the burden of governing the country, a regent, headed by Prince Paul, King Alexander's cousin, was actually in charge of The affairs of Yugoslavia. Prince Paul, fearing that the Axis powers led by Nazi Germany would attack Yugoslavia, signed the Tripartite Pact on 25 March 1941: promising to cooperate with the Axis powers. However, the move sparked massive demonstrations within Yugoslavia.
On 27 March, the 18-year-old Peter II, with the support of the British, launched a military coup d'état to overthrow the princely regime. Although the new Yugoslav government was pro-British and indeed pursued a pro-British diplomatic line, it did not dare to openly express its opposition to the Axis powers out of fear of an Axis invasion. However, the Axis invaded Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941, and as a result Yugoslavia resisted for only 11 days before surrendering to Nazi Germany. Peter II fled with his royal family to London, England.
The Axis powers then divided up the territory of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia: Hungary and Bulgaria occupied part of the border areas; the Independent State of Croatia was formed; and the "Government of Salvation" formed by General Milan Nedic ruled the remaining territories of Serbia and recognized Peter II as king. Croatia, an independent state during this period, was ruled by the Ustaše regime. The regime was established on 20 April 1929 in sofia, Bulgaria, with the goal of gaining Croatia's independence from Yugoslavia, and its leader, Pavicci, had close ties with Mussolini's Italian Fascist Party and received its allowances.
Due to the long history of Habsburg rule, the Croatian way of life is more Westernized and Catholic, which is somewhat out of step with Serbia, which has a strong Orthodox tradition. The Ustasha regime gained the support of German and Italian fascist forces and the Catholic Church. After Croatia's independence, the Ustaše regime established more than ten concentration camps on its territory, killing 93,000 Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. At the same time, the Serb Chetnik group also carried out genocide against Croats.
In this mutual genocide, the feud between the two sides is growing. It was not until November 29, 1945, when the People of Yugoslavia, driven out the Germans under Tito,announced the establishment of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, and Croatia became part of Yugoslavia led by Tito again. In the process of Yugoslavia's development, there has always been a major crisis: the regional gap between rich and poor in Yugoslavia has always been very serious - the most developed Slovenia has a similar economic level with neighboring Austria and Italy, while Macedonia and Kosovo are one of the poorest regions in Europe.
The combination of the disparities between the rich and the poor and the existing contradictions between the various ethnic groups within Yugoslavia further exacerbated the centrifugal tendencies of the republics towards the central government: Slovenia and Croatia, which had the highest standard of living, had always been dissatisfied with the central government in Belgrade collecting heavy taxes from them to support Macedonia, Kosovo and other places. This discontent has been on the rise since the 1980s. The victory of the Croatian Democratic Union, which advocated autonomy in the first referendum in Croatia in 1990, further exacerbated the contradictions between ethnic groups.
The match between Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade in zagreb, the capital of Croatia, on 13 May 1990 was seen as a contest between two ethnic groups by the sharply conflicted Croats and Serbs, during which the Zagreb team believed that the referee was deliberately biased in favor of the Belgrade team from the Serb region, so it clashed with the referee and the management of the stadium, and soon things went out of control - the Zagreb team began to beat people and clashed with the police who immediately came to maintain order.
Zagreb's Zvonimir Boban, who was subjected to a long-term ban for violent attacks on the police, should have punished this kind of violence that violated sportsmanship and national law, but in the context of acute ethnic contradictions at the time, this incident was oppressed by the Serb honor guard state power, which was regarded by the Croats as the dominant ethnic group in Yugoslavia. In December 1990, the Republic of Croatia enacted a Constitution in which Croatia's right to self-determination and sovereignty were enshrined, while the official language of Croatia was changed from Serbo-Croatian to Croatian.
On 19 May 1991, Croatia held an independence referendum, and the side that supported Croatian independence won by an absolute margin of 78%. On 25 June, the Croatian Parliament passed a resolution declaring independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. After Croatia declared its independence, armed conflict broke out with the Yugoslav Federal Army, and for historical reasons there were 12.2 per cent of Serbs in Croatia who were reluctant to separate from Yugoslavia and believed that post-independence Croatia would not treat them fairly.
Croatia must therefore face the double whammy of both the Yugoslav Federal Army and the internal Serb population. As early as September 1990, before Croatia had officially declared its independence, the Serbs, who had gathered on the Croatian border near Bosnia and Herzegovina, had foreseen under acute ethnic contradictions that Croatia might move towards independence, and they declared the establishment of the Republic of Kraina of Serbia before Croatia declared its independence. The West Slavonia region in eastern Croatia has also established autonomous Serb organizations such as East Slavonia, Balaya and Sisrem.
On 2 March 1991, croatian police forces and Yugoslav federal forces confronted each other in Paklaž, West Slavonia, and on 31 March 1991, a gun battle between the Croatian police force and the local ethnic Serb population at the same location resulted in casualties. After croatia's declaration of independence on 25 June 1991, clashes resumed between the Croatian police force and the Serb population remaining in Croatia. On the day of Croatia's independence, Slovenia, another Yugoslav republic, also declared its independence, and the Yugoslav People's Army could no longer receive military expenses and soldiers from both places.
At this time, only the two republics of Serbia and Montenegro remained within the Yugoslav Federation, and the Yugoslav People's Army, which was dominated by Serbs, naturally supported the latter in the conflict between Croatia and its internal Serb population. Beginning in late July 1991, Serb forces launched a larger offensive in the Paranya region, and although the Croatian army was numerically superior, the Serb forces were supported by the People's Army, which was a former Yugoslav regular army, and it was clear that the Croatian hastily formed army was not a rival to the Yugoslav People's Army.
The Croatian army suffered consecutive defeats under the blows of the Serb armed forces and the Yugoslav People's Army. By November 18, 1991, when the Yugoslav People's Army had captured Vukovar, which had held out on the Croatian side for three months, the 204th Brigade of the Croatian National Guard was wiped out, and some 1,000 Croatian soldiers were killed, 1,000 captured, and 2,000 surrendered. Eastern Slavonia fell entirely into the hands of the Confederates. Just when the situation in Croatia was precarious, it had the support of the United States and Western European countries and dragged the war until 1995.
This year, Croatia tried to delay the time on the one hand by showing interest in the peace proposal proposed by the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations to grant the Serbs a certain degree of autonomy, and on the other hand, because the time limit for the United Nations peacekeeping forces for the Serbian occupied areas was approaching, so it strongly demanded that the peacekeeping forces withdraw as soon as possible. Shortly after the proposal to reduce the size of the peacekeeping force's activities was agreed, the Croat army raided West Slavonia to drive out the Serbs. The storm operation, which was then carried out on 3 August, targeted Knin, the capital of the Republic of Krajna, Serbia.
The Croatians captured Knin only three days after the battle began. In August 1995, Croatian government forces occupied parts of the Serb Republic of Kraina, and in December the two sides officially ended the conflict by signing the Dayton Agreement. In 1998, all Serb areas were returned to Croatia. Croatia has since regained its historical map, which we see today, which allowed Croatia to occupy 90 per cent of the coastline of the former Yugoslavia: on the one hand, the territory of Croatia historically, and on the other hand, the result of Croatia's watering with iron and blood.
During the entire Croatian war, about 6788-8784 soldiers and 4508-7186 civilians died and disappeared in Croatia; 4,177 soldiers and 2,650 civilians were killed or missing in the Republic of Krajina, Serbia; and 1,279 soldiers died in the Yugoslav People's Army. The war had a significant impact on the demographic and ethnic distribution of Croatia: the population of Croatia fell from 4.75 million to 4.4 million between 1992 and 1995, and remained at approximately 4.4 million since 2003, with no resurgence to the pre-war population.
At the same time, the share of Croats in the total Croatian population rose from 78.1 per cent in 1991 to 89.63 per cent, while the share of the Serb population fell from 12.2 per cent to 4.54 per cent. The war also wreaked havoc on the Croatian economy, which was not restored to pre-war 1990 standards until 2003. Fortunately, occupying 90% of the coastline of the former Yugoslavia, Croatia can use the coastal ports every year to obtain huge benefits from overseas trade. Croatia, located in the northwestern Balkans, is geographically closer to economically advanced Western Europe.
When Croatia became independent, it was supported by Western countries. After independence, Croatia joined NATO in 2009 and the European Union in 2013, thus sharing the economic dividends of the European integration process. In 2005, Croatia's gross national production reached $12,364, second only to Slovenia among the countries of the former Yugoslav Federation. As of 2018, Croatia ranked among the high-income market economies with a total GDP of US$54.849 billion and a GDP per capita of US$13,295.
In addition to achieving a thriving economic development among the former Yugoslavia, Croatia is also widely concerned by football fans around the world. Once upon a time, the history of football in Yugoslavia could be written as a glorious epic that could be sung and wept. One of the most colorful chapters is the "Golden Generation" that was active in the late 1980s and early 1990s. At the 1987 World Youth Championships, the Yugoslav national youth team won the championship after the traditional strengths of Brazil, East Germany and West Germany. Three years later, at the World Cup in Italy, the Yugoslav national team was even predicted by pele, the king of the ball, and even predicted that it might win the championship.
The golden age players of Yugoslav football are mainly from the two republics of Serbia and Croatia. The feud between the two peoples also affected the football field: in 1987, Croat stars Stimać and Serb star Mihajlovic fought side by side in Yugoslav national youth team jerseys, but in the "Marshal Tito Cup" final on May 8, 1991, the two were both sent off with red cards for violent clashes during the match. The clash between the two of them is just a microcosm of football's political influence.
On the eve of the collapse of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav football team has become a mess: Serb players do not pass the ball to Croat players, Croat players do not pass to Serb players. If the mother is a Croat and the father is a Serb player, he has no idea who to pass the ball to. The glory of Yugoslav football finally came to an abrupt end amid the guns of the disintegration of the civil war. After the collapse of Yugoslavia, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and other countries are still internationally renowned football powers, which can also be proved the strength of Yugoslavia's football in that year.
It is Croatia that has really inherited Yugoslavia's former football glory. Croatia's first World Cup appearance after independence in 1998 wowed the world: in this World Cup, Croatia finished third after a 3–0 win over Germany in the quarterfinals under the leadership of 30-year-old striker Souk. After 20 years in the World Cup in Russia, Croatia made it all the way to the finals. Although Croatia, which lost 2-4 to France in the finals, could only finish second, the Tartans once again showed their strength to the world.