Sjengster said:
Not to be pedantic, but it's Croatia, not Yugoslavia (I should imagine most Croatians aren't keen on being labelled as Yugoslavs - I believe that's how Goran first created a stir in the early 90s by insisting he play under the flag of the newly-created Croatian state).
I was about to address the same point.
Cat, do you not read the news? Yugoslavia, as a state, no longer exists. Furthermore, Croatia broke away from Yugoslavia 12 years ago
Yugoslavs Shrug Off Their Country's End
By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, February 5, 2003; Page A20
BELGRADE, Serbia and Montenegro, Feb. 4 -- The country that gave the world Tito, Cold War nonalignment, the Yugo car and a lesson in how a European multi-ethnic country could live as one and how it could be smashed, is no more.
What's left of threadbare Yugoslavia changed its name to Serbia and Montenegro today and adopted a new legal charter. The federal parliament ratified previous decisions from assemblies in both republics, thereby ending a tumultuous history.
The news was received with indifference here. In effect, Yugoslavia died when four of six republics seceded more than a decade ago. Slovenia got out without much fighting and Macedonia exited peacefully. But Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina left only in the midst of horrendous ethnic warfare.
Serbia, under Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, remained, upholding the myth of a federal Yugoslavia. Yet all the while it tried to create Serbs-only territories in neighboring lands through military force. Montenegro made a few feints at leaving, but under pressure from the European Union, is staying with Serbia in the new and awkward union.
Kosovo, composed largely of ethnic Albanians, remains formally an autonomous province of Serbia within the new creation, but since the 1999 NATO-led war on Yugoslavia, is independent in all but name.
"It's not important what this country is at all," said Ognjen Pribicevic, a political analyst. "It's mainly a European idea to keep Serbia and Montenegro together, just to stop the further disintegration of southeast Europe. Better late than never, you might say."
It's an odd fit of unequal parts that will have more autonomy than under the Yugoslav model. Serbia without Kosovo holds a population of 10 million; Montenegro, just 600,000. Serbia's official currency remains the dinar, but Montenegro uses the euro. The national army will remain intact, and there will be a single president here in Belgrade, the once and future capital. But the president will be in charge only of defense, foreign affairs and general economic planning. The real day-to-day decisions on daily life will be in the hands of the Serbian and Montenegrin legislatures.
The plan provides for each population to get a chance to leave the union by referendum within three years, so longevity is not guaranteed. Left in the dust is an idea of a unified Balkans region, a concept born in the 19th century and made real after World War I, when the Kingdom of Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia was formed. In 1929, it changed its name to Yugoslavia. Its founding principle was that the population was a single people related by language and culture, a myth.
First the myth was kept alive by a king, and then by a Communist dictator, Josip Brod Tito. But as communism short-circuited throughout Eastern Europe, nationalist passions swept the Balkans. "Ethnic cleansing" replaced the Yugoslavia idea.
"Twelve years ago, if you asked me, I would say I was a Yugoslav person," said Dragan Djilas, 35, an advertising executive. "I was surprised that it fell apart so quickly. Now, I've taken the Serb option. I'm Serb. This new country is a stupid thing."
Tonight, the Yugoslav president, Vojislav Kostunica, was supposed to appear for the early evening declaration of the new country, but without explanation, he stayed away. He will lose his job in March when the parliament votes in a replacement from Montenegro. Speaker Dragoljub Micunovic announced the new entity's creation to light applause: "I hereby declare the constitutional charter of Serbia and Montenegro adopted."
On the streets of Belgrade, it was hard to get anyone to comment on what was, officially at least, a historic day. One young man said he felt "no emotion whatsoever." His girlfriend said she "didn't know it was happening today."
Yet it was possible to find lingering nostalgia for Yugoslavia.
Yugoslavs took pride in standing up to the Soviet Union. Never mind that Tito operated his own political prisons and torture chambers. Non-alignment gave Yugoslavia political cachet beyond its borders. In 1984, it hosted the Sarajevo Olympics; its automobile industry enjoyed a brief export boom that put Yugos on the streets of many countries. And until the 1990s, its people enjoyed a higher standard of living than their neighbors.
"There will be no Yugoslavia, but there will be Yugoslavs," predicted Stevan Mirkovic, 76, who was Yugoslav army chief of staff before the breakup of the country. "A mother dies but the sons live on."
But Branka Prpa , a historian, suggests that it's time to leave all that behind. She opposes the new union on the grounds that Montenegro and Serbia might as well try to make it on their own. "Dissolution should go all the way," she said. "Finish it."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
