In late March 2020, during the covid-19 pandemic, Serbian President Vucic's plea for help from China swept the screen overnight.
Many people's first reaction at that time was, what kind of country is Serbia? Where is it?
In fact, the name Serbia is not familiar to the chinese people, but its predecessor is known in China - Yugoslavia.
On 3 June 2006, with the official declaration of independence of the Republic of Montenegro, the Yugoslav Federation that Tito had founded in November 1943 ceased to exist and was a thing of the past.
It was from that time on that Serbia, the dominant country in Yugoslavia, lost all its coastline, lost its navy in name only, and became an inconspicuous "small country" in Europe.
The reason why the "Balkan tigers" that once made the Nazis smell different and the West did not dare to underestimate them has undergone several "separations" in the past 20 years, becoming 7 countries and regions such as Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Kosovo.
Today, Yugoslavia is inseparable from the strong intervention of nato led by the United States.
But flies don't bite seamless eggs, and they can't blame others. The disintegration of Yugoslavia was mainly due to its own problems.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > exactly, it was after the establishment of the Yugoslav state that its leader Tito made a mistake in the national policy. </h1>
After careful analysis, it is not difficult to find that the inhabitants of the Balkan Peninsula who do not have much different beliefs, except for the Albanian ethnic group in the Kosovo region, are all from a large family "Yugoslavia".
For example, the Serbs and Croats of Yugoslavia have no difference in appearance, are highly similar in blood, and can communicate with each other (although the script is different, the pronunciation is one language).
Before the independence of Yugoslavia, there was no clear demarcation between the so-called "Mu and Croats"; the "Albanians" were artificially created in response to Tito's ethnic policy.
During the Ottoman Empire, the rulers worked tirelessly in Eastern Europe to maintain stability, trying to assimilate the Yugoslavs and unite them.
Since Islam was the main religion of the Ottoman Empire, they promoted Islam in the occupied territories.
As long as they converted to Islam, the Yugoslav locals were given priority as civil servants and could also reduce taxes.
In turbulent times, the right to exist is paramount.
As a result, the highest percentage of the population, Serbs, abandoned their Orthodox faith and converted to Islam.
Even so, they are just differences in beliefs that do not change their skin, language, or ancestry.
At that time, the Yugoslavs had only geographical differences, not ethnic differences.
For example, the Yugoslavs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Yugoslavs in Bosnia, etc., without the Mu, Albanians, and Serbs, when introducing themselves with China, they will only say that they are Shaanxi or Lanzhou, but will not say what religion they believe.
Even after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a long war broke out between the Orthodox, Catholic and Islamic communities in the Balkans, the concept of nationality did not take shape.
However, after the establishment of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia "gave birth" to many nationalities.
In 1971, Tito divided the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina into Muslims.
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Tito continued to work hard and split another new ethnic group among the Serbs, the Macedonians. </h1>
There was no term "Macedonian" before, but Tito designated the region from Serbia to form the Republic of Macedonia before the modern name Macedonian was given.
In fact, there is little difference between Macedonians and Serbs, not even between themselves.
Because the two are of similar origin and have the same religion (mainly Orthodox Christianity, some people believe in Islam), both are Indo-European Slavic languages. The text is in the Slavic alphabet.
Even croats and Serbs are not fundamentally different.
It has been reported online that Croatian soldiers distinguish Serb civilians by having them recite The Bible in large sections, otherwise it would be difficult to distinguish.
It follows that there is no essential difference between the peoples of the Balkans.
Macedonians, like black Bosnians, were subconsciously Yugoslavs, and there was no difference between them.
If there is a difference, it is a geographical difference.
To be precise, they were Yugoslavs living in the Macedonian region and were not "Macedonians" at all.
Montenegro, like the Macedonians, also regarded themselves as Yugoslavs, and when introducing themselves to others, they liked to call themselves "Yugoslavs in the mountains".
The majority of the population, like the Serbs, is Orthodox.
Although in 1878 the Berlin Conference recognized Montenegro as an independent country. The Kingdom of Montenegro was established in 1910, but like the Three Kingdoms of the Eastern Han Dynasty in China, there was only a political division, not a national division.
As a result, the Yugoslavs (Serbs) of the southwestern Balkans, under Tito's leadership, were also classified as "Montenegrins".
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > federalism had strained relations between the republics, Tito thought of a trick to support national self-determination to begin to weaken the control of the federal system. </h1>
In 1974, Yugoslavia enacted a new constitution, and the two autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina in Serbia were granted more autonomy.
In fact, the Albanians in Kosovo are also Serbs, but they believe in Islam.
At that time, the central government of Yugoslavia, in accordance with the proportion of the inhabitants' beliefs, directly separated the Muslim areas from the territory of Serbia of the Constituent Republic and granted them the right to self-government, but the political status was not a republic, but a "national autonomous province".
At the same time, in order to show respect for the Albanians, the original Serbian place names were changed to Albanian.
In this way, the Yugoslav main ethnic group, Serbia, artificially shrank and the population shrank sharply.
In the early days of the state, ethnic Serbs accounted for more than sixty percent of the country's population, and by the 1980s, only about 40 percent of the population was Serbs.
But as long as the leader is strong, nothing is a problem.
It's like saddam Hussein's reign, where his Sunnis were a "minority" at home, but ruled the Shiites, who were the majority of the population, for a long time.
In addition, Yugoslavia is also a socialist country, ideology covers up national contradictions, great unity among various nationalities, and society is peaceful.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > but all this harmony changed with Tito's death in 1980. </h1>
Tito's greatest mistake was that he did not cultivate a close comrade and successor in his lifetime, and establish his authority.
Therefore, after his death, no one can rule with an iron fist like him, the government loses cohesion, ethnic relations begin to strain, and ethnic contradictions can no longer be hidden.
After Tito's death, the dragons were leaderless, no one could control the situation, and the republics and autonomous provinces began to compete fiercely, and finally reached a compromise.
To show fairness, the State no longer has a fixed President, but is rotated by representatives elected by the six Republics and two Autonomous Provinces.
The biggest losers in this contest are the Serbs, who have lost their dominance that has lasted for decades.
In 1986, the Serbian Society of Science and Arts (SANU) published a memorandum on Serbia's status in Yugoslavia, opposing the weakening of the power of the Serbian central government and beginning to incite Serb nationalist sentiments.
However, within the framework of the law, the Serbs could not compete with other ethnic groups, but could only win over the representatives of other regions such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and veto the bills proposed by the representatives of the two republics of Croatia and Slovenia.
In 1990, Serb strongman Milosevic wanted to become Tito's second, advocating a one-man, one-vote system within the highest authority. If achieved, the Serb majority will be firmly in power.
Milosevic's wishful thinking did not materialize because Slovenia and Croatia strongly opposed it.
Faced with combined pressure from Serbia and Montenegro, Slovenia and Croatia simply withdrew from the Communist League, declaring the collapse of the old system.
After 1990, all the Republics of Yugoslavia held elections, the original ruling party was all defeated, the nationalist forces came to power as they wished, and the disintegration of Yugoslavia was logical.
With the instigation of external forces, the situation in Yugoslavia began to be turbulent, "genocide" continued one after another, and "humanitarian disasters" occurred frequently, allowing the US-led NATO to find an excuse to intervene and finally dismember Yugoslavia.
If the nation has no identity, no sense of belonging, but only based on blood and religion, the state thus established is very fragile.
But building a sense of identity is a difficult and long-term task, which requires its rulers, etc., to represent the interests of all peoples and always be able to level the bowl of water.
Otherwise, like Yugoslavia, it would fall apart in a moment of crisis.
Tito did not expect that the national policy he had understood to be carried out in order to consolidate the unity of the country would eventually completely destroy this glorious and powerful Yugoslavia.