In May 1999, countless Chinese people poured into the streets, holding banners protesting American atrocities.
Just that month, two US missiles hit the mainland embassy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, causing heavy casualties.
Countless Chinese momentarily felt extremely angry and took to the streets to condemn the actions of the United States.
This incident was regarded as a "national shame" by the people of the time, and it also brought a southern European country into people's eyes.
The country is called the "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" and was split from the former Yugoslav Republic.
In the official documents of the mainland, it is simply called the "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia".
However, the country that was once in the world's spotlight is no longer there.
After several civil strife and struggles, the original Yugoslavia has long been dismantled by the Western world.
The former Republic of Yugoslavia was split overnight into six countries and regions.
The effects of this "political crisis" remain undiminished to this day.
Well, what exactly divided the once powerful Republic of Yugoslavia?
In the process of the continuous division of Yugoslavia, what kind of pain and struggle did the local people experience?
After many years of separation, what happened to the countries that gained independence from Yugoslavia?
Let's break it down.
From the "Kingdom of Darkness" to the "Red Power"
The Republic of Yugoslavia, as it is often referred to, was born out of a dark "Kingdom of Yugoslavia".
Like many European countries, the Yugoslav region maintained a "monarchy" after World War I.
And the position of Yugoslavia is very important, and it has naturally become a "wrestling field" for the confrontation between various powers.
However, compared to other countries, the Yugoslav monarchy had some peculiarities.
Since several ethnic groups have always lived in the Yugoslav region, it is difficult to unify politically.
Therefore, since the establishment of the Yugoslav state in 1918, the king of Yugoslavia set up a parliament in order to maintain the unity of the country.
In this way, all communities living in Yugoslavia could send people representing their political positions to the Parliament.
On the surface, the country looks unified.
However, at that time, ordinary people in the Yugoslav region lived in great pain.
As a result of the exploitation of the ruling class, the Yugoslav people paid almost two-thirds of their income to the state every year.
Moreover, when electing parliamentarians everywhere, ordinary people have no right to vote at all.
After all, these seemingly high-sounding "political systems" are just a game for the rich.
(Map of Yugoslavia)
Parliamentarians cannot represent the will of the people, and the demands of the people at the bottom have long been ignored by the ruling class.
As a result, a vigorous "movement" became inevitable.
In 1928, a parliamentarian representing Croatia was openly shot dead in Parliament.
This serious political incident immediately triggered a strong confrontation between various ethnic groups in Yugoslavia.
No one from all walks of life obeyed anyone, and some areas even took the opportunity to stir up independence movements.
Seeing this, King Alexander I of Yugoslavia immediately ordered the abolition of the constitution and the beginning of a dictatorship in order to control the increasingly serious domestic situation.
However, nine months later, King Alexander I was assassinated by assassins in France.
Yugoslavia suddenly lost its backbone, and the forces of all parties became even more intense.
In an emergency, Crown Prince Peter II of Yugoslavia announced his succession, but Prince Paul, the king's cousin, also jumped out to "seize power" with him.
Finally, after consultations, all affairs in Yugoslavia were temporarily decided by Prince Paul, and Peter II was emptied.
(Stamp bearing "King Alexander I")
In 1939, faced with the iron feet of Nazi Germany, Prince Paul chose to hide with the tiger in order to preserve his glory and wealth.
This was immediately strongly opposed by Peter II and others.
Subsequently, Peter II regained power with the support of the English and declared himself on the side of Britain and France.
On April 6, 1941, Nazi Germany blatantly invaded the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and Peter II had to flee in a hurry.
After occupying Yugoslavia, Hitler "unloaded eight pieces" the whole of Yugoslavia like a cake.
In this way, Yugoslavia was divided into several parts, such as Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, and Croatia.
These separated places were occupied by Nazi Germany, the Italian fascist government, Bulgaria and other forces.
Yugoslavia has since fallen into an even darker "period of humiliation".
However, the Yugoslav people, in the midst of darkness, never gave up their resistance.
In 1945, with the help of the Soviet Red Army, the Yugoslav revolutionary armed forces led by Tito won the final victory.
After the victory, Tito carried out a series of reforms in Yugoslavia, liberating many people from the bottom.
(Peter II, the "last king" of Yugoslavia)
Tito was well aware of the complex national conditions of Yugoslavia, so he creatively built Yugoslavia into a "federal socialist state", which has never been seen in human history.
At that time, the official name of Yugoslavia was "People's Republic of Yugoslavia".
In 1963, they changed the name of the country to "Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia", which was used until 1991.
In order to distinguish it from the "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia", later people often referred to it as the "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia".
The newly formed Yugoslavia has shown great vitality, showing an unprecedented unity from the government to the people.
But the internal contradictions of Yugoslavia as a whole were not completely resolved.
The confrontation between all walks of life only turned from the front of the stage to the background, which also planted a "time bomb" for the fate of the country of Yugoslavia.
(Nazi German troops during the occupation of Yugoslavia)
The "third force" in the Cold War
After becoming the leader of Yugoslavia, Tito deeply realized the inevitability of confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Therefore, after the liberation of Yugoslavia, Tito deliberately distanced himself from the Soviet Union.
No matter what Stalin hinted at Tito, his Yugoslavia was unwilling to become a puppet of the Soviets.
This attitude also directly annoyed Stalin, and later Tito's diplomatic strategy was also called "Titoism".
In the 60s of the last century, the national consciousness of Yugoslavia was further awakened.
Tito and others led the huge "Non-Aligned Movement" around the world.
The countries participating in this campaign did not completely fall towards the United States and did not fully support the USSR, everything proceeded from their own national interests.
Therefore, the nascent emergence of the "Non-Aligned Movement" has attracted the attention of several countries, including the mainland.
But such an attitude is certainly extremely dangerous in Europe in the context of the Cold War.
In the fifties and sixties of the last century, the Soviet Union ran amok in Eastern Europe, and even openly sent troops to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.
Tito knew that in order to ensure that Yugoslavia had a sufficient say in the international political arena, it must attach importance to its own development.
(Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement)
So, under the leadership of Tito, Yugoslavia began to use its advantages to develop industrialization.
Because Yugoslavia had previously received assistance from the Soviet Union and later actively developed diplomatic relations with other countries, the economic situation in Yugoslavia was greatly improved.
By the seventies of the last century, the national life in Yugoslavia had reached the level of a moderately developed country.
By 1976, more than 36 percent of the Yugoslav population owned their own cars, and almost every two households owned a television.
Moreover, in Yugoslavia during the same period, all children from the age of 7 to 15 received free and compulsory education.
Compared to the socialist countries such as China and North Korea at the same time, the standard of living of the Yugoslav people is simply enviable.
It can be said that Yugoslavia under Tito developed its economy to a point that everyone was stunned.
Both the Soviet Union and the United States had to recognize the development achievements of Yugoslavia over the years.
With the development of the economy, Yugoslavia also has more and more say in the international arena.
(Tito, the "father of the nation" in Yugoslavia)
However, there were also many problems in Yugoslavia at that time.
The first is the problem of the gap between the rich and the poor in the country, and the problem of uneven development between the Yugoslav regions is very serious.
The streets of Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia, are almost full of traffic.
But in the southern regions of Kosovo and Macedonia, people's material life is very scarce.
In the context of the rapid economic development of Yugoslavia, Kosovo and Macedonia have always been called "the poorest regions in Europe".
As a result, the long-dormant ethnic contradictions were exposed in the face of increasingly obvious differences in economic development.
Many people in the south believed that the central government of Yugoslavia had abandoned them and deliberately denied them the opportunity to develop.
Still others put the issue of economic development as a "national label" and began to encourage everyone to rebel against the Yugoslav central government.
For a time, the domestic situation in Yugoslavia became precarious.
In May 1980, Tito died of illness, and Yugoslav domestic politics suddenly lost control.
During Tito's lifetime, the political clique of the Yugoslav state was highly dependent on its personal prestige.
Now that Tito has died, all kinds of contradictions have also erupted in a concentrated manner.
(Yugoslav "military parade")
After Tito's death, Yugoslav politics fell into chaos of "you sing and I appear".
The previously highly developed national economy has also been forced back to the level of decades ago by the turbulent political situation.
Overnight, the Yugoslav people became the biggest victims of a series of political struggles after Tito's death.
But this chaotic situation was only the beginning for Yugoslavia.
With the further changes in the situation in Eastern Europe, the country of Yugoslavia is once again sitting on the "powder keg of the times".
In order to increase its influence in Eastern and Southern Europe, the United States frantically fanned nationalist sentiments in Yugoslavia.
After manipulation by Western countries, civil unrest in the Yugoslav region broke out completely.
(Flag of the Republic of Yugoslavia)
III The Yugoslav "Elegy"
Historically, Serbs, Croats, Macedonians, Albanians and other ethnic groups in Yugoslavia have been at odds for a long time.
During his lifetime, Tito was able to pacify the country's political leaders with his personal prestige.
In 1980, there was a large-scale chaos in the political situation in Yugoslavia, and the West cultivated "political agents" everywhere.
Overnight, various groups under the banner of "national independence" suddenly sprang up in Yugoslavia.
The Yugoslav leaders of the time lacked the political toughness to control the deteriorating form.
In 1989, the Soviet Union gradually lost control of its original sphere of influence, and a large number of Western ideas were introduced to Eastern and Southern Europe.
The opposition forces in Yugoslavia took the opportunity to form their own political parties.
In wave after wave of cries, the Yugoslav government hierarchy gradually lost its way.
They dreamed of "coexistence with the opposition", which further deteriorated the situation in the country.
Since Yugoslavia was a "federal state", it enjoyed some autonomy between regions.
Such a provision was originally intended to reconcile the contradictions between various ethnic groups, but in the end it became a "sharp weapon" to divide Yugoslavia.
(Members of the "Yugoslav Partisans")
Between 1991 and 1992, Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence in the former Yugoslav territories.
The central government of Yugoslavia is now in name only.
By April 1992, the original regions had been divided into two factions according to the political system, and Yugoslavia was officially dissolved.
Following the breakup of Yugoslavia, the leaders of Serbia and Montenegro believed that the old system still had merit.
In the same year of their dissolution, they formed a new state, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The country was later collectively referred to as the "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" in various official documents on the mainland.
However, after the establishment of the FRY, it still aroused the alarm of the United States and other Western countries.
At that time, in order to ensure the country's political stability, the FRY announced the implementation of "electoral politics with one-party advantage."
But such behavior is still considered by some politicians in the United States to be a "political system leaning towards socialism."
Therefore, from the first day of the establishment of the company in the FRY, the Americans have been planning to further dismantle the FRY.
(Yugoslav "Armed Forces")
In 1999, the US-led NATO took advantage of the ethnic contradictions within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to provoke the "Kosovo War."
A great war at the turn of the century once again reduced this devastated fertile land of southern Europe to rubble.
During this war, the United States and its NATO "servant countries" bombed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for more than 70 days.
During this period, he also "cleverly blew up the mainland embassy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia," arousing strong indignation among the Chinese people.
Through this war, the Kosovo region within the FRY gained de facto independence.
As a result of Kosovo's independence, a new round of crises has begun to erupt in other parts of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
At this time, the people of the FRY no longer trusted their government.
The war was like a giant hand that dragged Yugoslavia into the bottomless abyss.
In 2002, the Parliament of the FRY formally adopted the so-called Charter of Serbia and Montenegro.
Since then, the last country to try to maintain a "quasi-socialist system" in southern Europe has disintegrated.
After the dissolution, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia became today's Republic of Serbia and Montenegro.
The great red ideal of the past was replaced by the "nationalist narrative" in reality, and the whole country fell into an unprecedented state of confusion.
To this day, extremely serious conflicts still break out in southern Europe because of various ethnic contradictions and religious issues.
This has also made the region a "priority for the United Nations".
Well, thirty full years have passed since the dissolution of the Republic of Yugoslavia.
What has become of the countries and regions that split from Yugoslavia?
(Ordinary people in the Kosovo war)
IV. "Sighs" on the Ruins
In fact, long before the breakup of Yugoslavia, someone raised a "shocking question":
If everyone breaks away from the Yugoslav family, can they really be guaranteed to have a better life than they are now?
However, this issue did not receive enough attention in Yugoslavia, where nationalism was rampant at the time.
Even many countries, after independence, simply do not know how to promote their own development.
As a result, for quite some time after the breakup of Yugoslavia, the development of all countries was not very smooth.
The first is Slovenia, the original industrial base of Yugoslavia.
After the country gained independence from Yugoslavia, it lost its close ties with the original regions.
For a while, Slovenia's industrial products were out of sale, and many large companies, factories and mines had to go out of business.
As a result, a large number of unemployed people appeared in Slovenia after independence.
These people take to the streets every day to shout slogans, protest against the government's policies, and want to return to their old lives.
However, that "red Yugoslavia" is no longer there, and all that they did was doomed to be in vain.
(Nature in Slovenia)
Later, the leader of Slovenia simply chose to join NATO.
Such an approach by Slovenia can be said to have completely upset the political-military balance in South Asia.
As a result, the country has also received a lot of assistance from the United States and Western European countries.
Slovenia repeatedly found the "wealth code" and has since moved closer and closer to Western countries.
Today's Slovenia has a wealth of development opportunities through political speculation.
Later, Slovenia directly became a developed country.
This outcome is the "best" of the many former Yugoslav regions.
However, several other countries and regions do not have the same good fortune as Slovenia.
(Scenery of Bosnia and Herzegovina today)
After the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the ethnic contradictions in the country are still very acute.
Soon after, a serious civil war broke out again in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Because of the fighting, hundreds of thousands of waves of blacks were forced to flee elsewhere to earn a living.
At the end of 1995, the three-year civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina came to an end.
Those who had fled the war have returned to their homes.
However, looking at the ruins and debris all over the ground, they did not have the slightest joy for the rest of their lives.
The war has brought heavy burdens and pains to the nascent nation.
To this day, the economic situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina is very bad.
(View of North Macedonia)
And Macedonia was immediately recruited by "NATO" after independence.
After joining NATO, politicians in the Macedonian parliament changed the name of their country to "North Macedonia".
But that hasn't saved their country from economic disadvantages.
Before the breakup of Yugoslavia, the economy of Macedonia was in very poor shape.
At that time, many people secretly went to Italy to make a living in order to make a living.
This situation has not improved to this day.
North Macedonia's political situation has been chaotic for many years due to border conflicts and ethnic issues left over from the "Kosovo War".
The economic development of the entire country has also stagnated due to the chaotic political situation.
This approach to development has made an already fragile economic situation precarious.
Today's North Macedonians have to find their way through endless bickering.
After the Republic of Montenegro broke away from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, it also began to develop its own economic industry.
However, the industrial base here was already very weak, and in the Yugoslav period, it basically relied on "industrial complementarity" to barely develop.
Now that Yugoslavia has disintegrated, Montenegro can only rely on its own "aluminum industry" to drive economic development.
While developing industry, Montenegro has also engaged in "tourism development" with its former brother Serbia.
I have to say that this is already a very good result for a small country.
(Famous attraction in Montenegro - Boad Island)
After independence, Serbia basically inherited the international status and some influence of the former Yugoslavia.
Today, there are many people on the Chinese Internet who are willing to regard Serbia as China's "good brother in Europe".
However, Serbia's development path after independence has not been smooth.
After the Kosovo war in 1999, the economic infrastructure in Serbia was "devastated".
In the end, not only were they unable to defend their territory, but they were also subjected to economic sanctions from the United States and Western Europe.
At the height of the economic sanctions, Serbia's economy was almost on the verge of collapse.
But in the end, the Serbian people still relied on hard work to win a glimmer of life for their country.
After entering the twenty-first century, Serbia's economy has finally developed.
By 2019, Serbia's GDP per capita had reached 6,557 euros.
After several economic and medical cooperations, Serbia's relations with the mainland have also attracted increasing attention from the international community.
(Serbia's "coastal scenery")
The Kosovo region, which became independent from Serbia, is still facing a "political crisis".
Due to long-term political manipulation by the United States and Western European countries, Kosovo and Albania have also become one of the most unstable regions in all of Europe.
Today's political leaders in Kosovo have become completely Western "tool men."
Ordinary people in Kosovo continue to live in constant turmoil and panic.
Just in the summer of 2022, serious armed clashes broke out in Kosovo.
Many people's lives have been severely affected, and days like this are likely to continue.
No one knows how long the unrest in Kosovo's areas will last.
As long as the turmoil is not completely over, economic development will always be a "utopia".
The historical tragedy of Yugoslavia has undoubtedly sounded the alarm for all countries of the world.
Only when a country achieves political stability can it seek further economic development.
Otherwise, even if people have made temporary development achievements, these achievements will be completely "broken" by the volatile situation.
("Riots" in Kosovo)
Fortunately, we were born into a peaceful and strong country.
Today's China has always adhered to the strategy of peaceful development and win-win cooperation in handling its relations with various countries.
In the new diplomatic arena, our country has also shown more and more voice and leadership.
This makes every Chinese of us proud and proud!
The stability and development of the country is the cornerstone of our happy life.
Maintaining the tranquility of the country is the unshirkable responsibility of every citizen in the context of the new era.
Let us join hands to create more brilliant achievements together on the great deeds left by our revolutionary predecessors.
In the future, China will surely soar in the east of the world, and the Chinese nation will surely become an indispensable "key force" in the process of world development!
Bibliography:
A Review of Domestic Studies on the Roots of the Breakup of Yugoslavia, Gu Yahong
"Analysis of the Successes and Mistakes of the Yugoslav Communist Union——— One of the Reasons for the Disintegration of Yugoslavia" Ma Xiaopu
"Causes of the Breakup of Yugoslavia" is strict
"The Reasons for the Breakup of Yugoslavia and the Lessons of the Failure of the Yugoslav Communist Union (Part I)——— Visit to Wen Xigui, Former Chinese Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina," Xu Pengtang
"Analysis of the Causes of the Disintegration of the Former Yugoslavia" by Li Wei
"The Right of Peoples to Self-Determination, Human Rights and Sovereignty: From the Breakup of Yugoslavia" by Cui Zhiyuan
"The Breakup of Yugoslavia and the Question of the Flag", Ma Xiaopu
"The Economic Roots of the Disintegration of the Former Yugoslavia" Xu Wanming