Yugoslavia - What Really Happened

[Revolucionar]

I've been meaning to start this thread for a while, but postponed repeatedly due to the great complexity involved in painting a proper picture of what went down and my lack of time to invest in that endeavour.

I realize that my views go against the grain of the general sentiment of the group and I just want to assure everyone that my intention is not to cause any sort of conflict here, but merely to add what I consider to be crucial context to the history of the Western Balkans that I believe is missing from the facts upon which the general consensus here is based.

To give this topic it's due, I would love to write a lenghtly article going through the history and addressing misconceptions point by point, but I don't have the time to do so, unfortunately, so I hope to be able to kickstart a discussion that will allow us to go through all of that piece by piece.

To start off, I have to mention that I was born in 1988, in Dalmatia, the southern Croatian coastal province that was one of the focal points of the Yugoslav wars, called the Homeland War in Croatia.

I could approach this topic from many different angles, but the one that has been coming up again and again for me lately is the comparison with the conflict in Ukraine.

It's been noted how Ukraine was never a real country and most of its territory was gifted by the Soviet authorities over the years, and therefore Russian has a legitimate claim.
Even though there are many who attempt to negate the historical statehood of Croatia, the fact is that Croatia has existed as a kingdom, either independent or as part of different Monarchical unions for more than 1000 years, and a few centuries longer as a loose entity of competing duchies.
Throughout this time, Croatia was a distinct and fully separate entity from whatever Serbia was existing as at any given time. The cultures and politcs were almost entirely separate until around the beginning of the 19th century. This period will be shown to be crucial to what ended up hapenning in the 90s.

It's also been noted how the Ukrainian junta started a campaign against the Russian language, culture and all its citizens who dared consider themselves Russian or close to Russia, going so far as to bomb their own people.
This was not the case in 1990s Croatia. Even though Milosevic would have you believe otherwise, there was nothing at that time that was a serious indication that Croatia would infinge upon Croatian Serbs human and civil rights. It was invented whole cloth by the Yugoslav/Serbian secret services and Milosevic's administration by spinning different facts to suit their propaganda.

Ukraine never tried to implement the Minsk accords.
Croatia actually had a proposal to avoid any conflicts before the war ever started, and another before the so-called genocide of Serbs in Croatia in 1995 that ended the war. First, there was a proposal for keeping Yugoslavia intact by turning it into a confederation in 1990, well before the war and while Yugoslavia still existed with all its constituent republics. This was summarily dismissed by Serbia at the parliament with Serbia refusing to even read the proposal.
The other plan, called Z-4, in 1994, would have given the territories with majority Serbian population in Croatia autonomy, something along the lines of the Minsk accords. This was also turned down with the Serbian rebel authorities declining to even receive the document.

It's also been noted that Russia has a legitimate claim to East and South Ukraine by virtue of those territories being part of Russia less than a century ago.
Serbia has had no such claim. The territories that Serbia started the war over have never been Serbian. The Serbs living there lived there for centuries as part of the Croatian Kingdom, coming from several historical waves of refugees running from the Turkish invasions. Also, a great deal of them, quite possibly a majority were not Serbian at all, but merely Orthodox Croatians, and Vlachs.
As a matter of fact, in the first Yugoslavia, which was under the rule of the Serbian royal family, an entity called Banovina of Croatia was formed that comprised a great deal of territories that are currently either part of Serbia or the Serbian entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. One of those parts is today a satellite town of Belgrade.

Ukraine has been sponsored by the West to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, while Croatia was under an embargo and the only reason it survived the initial onsluaght of the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) is because very few officers or soldiers actually wanted to fight. In rather short order, all of the army barracks in Croatia surrendered and the personnel was allowed to leave home to their respective republics.

I'll stop here for now. I want to make it clear that I glossed over many things while also touching upon many issues that require much deeper analysis, so I invite everyone to poke holes and point out what they think I got wrong. I was certainly being onesided, but the reason is that the perspective I'm putting forth above is not one that's been explored by SOTT editors or this forum over the years.

As the thread progresses I would love to discuss the world wars, the interbellum period, the Ustashe, Partisans and Chetniks, the 19th century national renaissance movements, the Turkish invasions, Bosnia, and of course, Yugoslavia itself, together with the much ballyhooed Tito.

It's a really fascinating subject to try to unpack and I hope we can arrive at some conclusions that are closer to the truth than what is available out there at the moment.

 

[Honzap]

This was the time which opened my eyes to finally see thru the Western propaganda after communist regime fell.

On one hand Yugoslavia was a former ally from Warsaw Pact we were supposed to stand by and on the other hand guided by western propaganda or downright lies, our former president at that time aired & coined the expression "humanitarian bombing" and allowed NATO air strikes by letting their aircraft thru our air space. And he did it for the honor of one speech in US Congress?

With Soviet Union in shambles in late 90ties there was no force that could stand up to NATO or collective West forces. What was not given freely (read privatized by western billionaires or their onshore patsies) was taken by force. And what followed was nothing short of evil. Set up a puppet subject resembling nation/country and puppet leader, set former countries agaist each other on false subject and thus make them even weaker. Then force them all to recognize this abomination and you are done. I mean what would any human call a creating of the biggest (at that time) drug, prostitution, organ trafficking gig in the middle of one of the oldest Europian nations with total impunity?

Technology of power for the first time - at least for me - became clearly visible.

 

[Nević Nenad]

I've been meaning to start this thread for a while, but postponed repeatedly due to the great complexity involved in painting a proper picture of what went down and my lack of time to invest in that endeavour.

I realize that my views go against the grain of the general sentiment of the group and I just want to assure everyone that my intention is not to cause any sort of conflict here, but merely to add what I consider to be crucial context to the history of the Western Balkans that I believe is missing from the facts upon which the general consensus here is based.

To give this topic it's due, I would love to write a lenghtly article going through the history and addressing misconceptions point by point, but I don't have the time to do so, unfortunately, so I hope to be able to kickstart a discussion that will allow us to go through all of that piece by piece.

To start off, I have to mention that I was born in 1988, in Dalmatia, the southern Croatian coastal province that was one of the focal points of the Yugoslav wars, called the Homeland War in Croatia.

I could approach this topic from many different angles, but the one that has been coming up again and again for me lately is the comparison with the conflict in Ukraine.

It's been noted how Ukraine was never a real country and most of its territory was gifted by the Soviet authorities over the years, and therefore Russian has a legitimate claim.
Even though there are many who attempt to negate the historical statehood of Croatia, the fact is that Croatia has existed as a kingdom, either independent or as part of different Monarchical unions for more than 1000 years, and a few centuries longer as a loose entity of competing duchies.
Throughout this time, Croatia was a distinct and fully separate entity from whatever Serbia was existing as at any given time. The cultures and politcs were almost entirely separate until around the beginning of the 19th century. This period will be shown to be crucial to what ended up hapenning in the 90s.

It's also been noted how the Ukrainian junta started a campaign against the Russian language, culture and all its citizens who dared consider themselves Russian or close to Russia, going so far as to bomb their own people.
This was not the case in 1990s Croatia. Even though Milosevic would have you believe otherwise, there was nothing at that time that was a serious indication that Croatia would infinge upon Croatian Serbs human and civil rights. It was invented whole cloth by the Yugoslav/Serbian secret services and Milosevic's administration by spinning different facts to suit their propaganda.

Ukraine never tried to implement the Minsk accords.
Croatia actually had a proposal to avoid any conflicts before the war ever started, and another before the so-called genocide of Serbs in Croatia in 1995 that ended the war. First, there was a proposal for keeping Yugoslavia intact by turning it into a confederation in 1990, well before the war and while Yugoslavia still existed with all its constituent republics. This was summarily dismissed by Serbia at the parliament with Serbia refusing to even read the proposal.
The other plan, called Z-4, in 1994, would have given the territories with majority Serbian population in Croatia autonomy, something along the lines of the Minsk accords. This was also turned down with the Serbian rebel authorities declining to even receive the document.

It's also been noted that Russia has a legitimate claim to East and South Ukraine by virtue of those territories being part of Russia less than a century ago.
Serbia has had no such claim. The territories that Serbia started the war over have never been Serbian. The Serbs living there lived there for centuries as part of the Croatian Kingdom, coming from several historical waves of refugees running from the Turkish invasions. Also, a great deal of them, quite possibly a majority were not Serbian at all, but merely Orthodox Croatians, and Vlachs.
As a matter of fact, in the first Yugoslavia, which was under the rule of the Serbian royal family, an entity called Banovina of Croatia was formed that comprised a great deal of territories that are currently either part of Serbia or the Serbian entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. One of those parts is today a satellite town of Belgrade.

Ukraine has been sponsored by the West to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, while Croatia was under an embargo and the only reason it survived the initial onsluaght of the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) is because very few officers or soldiers actually wanted to fight. In rather short order, all of the army barracks in Croatia surrendered and the personnel was allowed to leave home to their respective republics.

I'll stop here for now. I want to make it clear that I glossed over many things while also touching upon many issues that require much deeper analysis, so I invite everyone to poke holes and point out what they think I got wrong. I was certainly being onesided, but the reason is that the perspective I'm putting forth above is not one that's been explored by SOTT editors or this forum over the years.

As the thread progresses I would love to discuss the world wars, the interbellum period, the Ustashe, Partisans and Chetniks, the 19th century national renaissance movements, the Turkish invasions, Bosnia, and of course, Yugoslavia itself, together with the much ballyhooed Tito.

It's a really fascinating subject to try to unpack and I hope we can arrive at some conclusions that are closer to the truth than what is available out there at the moment.

Why should anyone who regard her/himself to be working on her/himself pay any attention to any sectarian war?

For any croatian "argument" you could have two serb "arguments", and vice versa, and so on . . . I think that's enough to know (and understand, if there is capacity for that) the mechanism and machinations behind such issues. But no need to go deeper than that.

It really is irrelevant and pointless. Its time to go beyond that.

 

[T.C.]

I've been meaning to start this thread for a while, but postponed repeatedly due to the great complexity involved in painting a proper picture of what went down and my lack of time to invest in that endeavour.

I realize that my views go against the grain of the general sentiment of the group and I just want to assure everyone that my intention is not to cause any sort of conflict here, but merely to add what I consider to be crucial context to the history of the Western Balkans that I believe is missing from the facts upon which the general consensus here is based.

To give this topic it's due, I would love to write a lenghtly article going through the history and addressing misconceptions point by point, but I don't have the time to do so, unfortunately, so I hope to be able to kickstart a discussion that will allow us to go through all of that piece by piece.

To start off, I have to mention that I was born in 1988, in Dalmatia, the southern Croatian coastal province that was one of the focal points of the Yugoslav wars, called the Homeland War in Croatia.

I could approach this topic from many different angles, but the one that has been coming up again and again for me lately is the comparison with the conflict in Ukraine.

It's been noted how Ukraine was never a real country and most of its territory was gifted by the Soviet authorities over the years, and therefore Russian has a legitimate claim.
Even though there are many who attempt to negate the historical statehood of Croatia, the fact is that Croatia has existed as a kingdom, either independent or as part of different Monarchical unions for more than 1000 years, and a few centuries longer as a loose entity of competing duchies.
Throughout this time, Croatia was a distinct and fully separate entity from whatever Serbia was existing as at any given time. The cultures and politcs were almost entirely separate until around the beginning of the 19th century. This period will be shown to be crucial to what ended up hapenning in the 90s.

It's also been noted how the Ukrainian junta started a campaign against the Russian language, culture and all its citizens who dared consider themselves Russian or close to Russia, going so far as to bomb their own people.
This was not the case in 1990s Croatia. Even though Milosevic would have you believe otherwise, there was nothing at that time that was a serious indication that Croatia would infinge upon Croatian Serbs human and civil rights. It was invented whole cloth by the Yugoslav/Serbian secret services and Milosevic's administration by spinning different facts to suit their propaganda.

Ukraine never tried to implement the Minsk accords.
Croatia actually had a proposal to avoid any conflicts before the war ever started, and another before the so-called genocide of Serbs in Croatia in 1995 that ended the war. First, there was a proposal for keeping Yugoslavia intact by turning it into a confederation in 1990, well before the war and while Yugoslavia still existed with all its constituent republics. This was summarily dismissed by Serbia at the parliament with Serbia refusing to even read the proposal.
The other plan, called Z-4, in 1994, would have given the territories with majority Serbian population in Croatia autonomy, something along the lines of the Minsk accords. This was also turned down with the Serbian rebel authorities declining to even receive the document.

It's also been noted that Russia has a legitimate claim to East and South Ukraine by virtue of those territories being part of Russia less than a century ago.
Serbia has had no such claim. The territories that Serbia started the war over have never been Serbian. The Serbs living there lived there for centuries as part of the Croatian Kingdom, coming from several historical waves of refugees running from the Turkish invasions. Also, a great deal of them, quite possibly a majority were not Serbian at all, but merely Orthodox Croatians, and Vlachs.
As a matter of fact, in the first Yugoslavia, which was under the rule of the Serbian royal family, an entity called Banovina of Croatia was formed that comprised a great deal of territories that are currently either part of Serbia or the Serbian entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. One of those parts is today a satellite town of Belgrade.

Ukraine has been sponsored by the West to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, while Croatia was under an embargo and the only reason it survived the initial onsluaght of the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) is because very few officers or soldiers actually wanted to fight. In rather short order, all of the army barracks in Croatia surrendered and the personnel was allowed to leave home to their respective republics.

I'll stop here for now. I want to make it clear that I glossed over many things while also touching upon many issues that require much deeper analysis, so I invite everyone to poke holes and point out what they think I got wrong. I was certainly being onesided, but the reason is that the perspective I'm putting forth above is not one that's been explored by SOTT editors or this forum over the years.

As the thread progresses I would love to discuss the world wars, the interbellum period, the Ustashe, Partisans and Chetniks, the 19th century national renaissance movements, the Turkish invasions, Bosnia, and of course, Yugoslavia itself, together with the much ballyhooed Tito.

It's a really fascinating subject to try to unpack and I hope we can arrive at some conclusions that are closer to the truth than what is available out there at the moment.

Hi, Revolucionar

I’ll start by saying that I’ve never actually read up on what happened in the Balkans. I have heard it mentioned a few times recently though, as you say, in relation to what’s happening in Ukraine.

So rather than contribute to the thread from a perspective of what actually happened, I do just want I offer some feedback from a Work standpoint.

It's been noted how Ukraine was never a real country and most of its territory was gifted by the Soviet authorities over the years, and therefore Russian has a legitimate claim.

This point that you make, it seems a bit off. And the flavour of it seems to me to continue throughout the rest of your post.

This argument, about Russia having some sort of claim to the territory of Ukraine for historical reasons, is not at all relevant to what has happened there objectively. I would guess that you know this? I give you that much credit, my friend.

Yet, you use this narrative in order to try to make a point. This is a red flag for me.

What this demonstrates is that this is obviously a subject that you’re highly identified with - for better or for worse. So bear in mind everything you know about beliefs, subjectivity, the various ways we can fool ourselves and the tricks our minds can play on our perceptions.

Make sure you ask yourself those questions which are a few layers deeper in the onion than the subject of the thread: how you feel about it; why you want to explore it; is there any buried pain or anger that might be coming out through intellectualisation; how is the war in Ukraine and the coverage of it affecting you emotionally, etc.

 

[Petar]

I've been meaning to start this thread for a while, but postponed repeatedly due to the great complexity involved in painting a proper picture of what went down and my lack of time to invest in that endeavour.

I realize that my views go against the grain of the general sentiment of the group and I just want to assure everyone that my intention is not to cause any sort of conflict here, but merely to add what I consider to be crucial context to the history of the Western Balkans that I believe is missing from the facts upon which the general consensus here is based.

To give this topic it's due, I would love to write a lenghtly article going through the history and addressing misconceptions point by point, but I don't have the time to do so, unfortunately, so I hope to be able to kickstart a discussion that will allow us to go through all of that piece by piece.

To start off, I have to mention that I was born in 1988, in Dalmatia, the southern Croatian coastal province that was one of the focal points of the Yugoslav wars, called the Homeland War in Croatia.

I could approach this topic from many different angles, but the one that has been coming up again and again for me lately is the comparison with the conflict in Ukraine.

It's been noted how Ukraine was never a real country and most of its territory was gifted by the Soviet authorities over the years, and therefore Russian has a legitimate claim.
Even though there are many who attempt to negate the historical statehood of Croatia, the fact is that Croatia has existed as a kingdom, either independent or as part of different Monarchical unions for more than 1000 years, and a few centuries longer as a loose entity of competing duchies.
Throughout this time, Croatia was a distinct and fully separate entity from whatever Serbia was existing as at any given time. The cultures and politcs were almost entirely separate until around the beginning of the 19th century. This period will be shown to be crucial to what ended up hapenning in the 90s.

It's also been noted how the Ukrainian junta started a campaign against the Russian language, culture and all its citizens who dared consider themselves Russian or close to Russia, going so far as to bomb their own people.
This was not the case in 1990s Croatia. Even though Milosevic would have you believe otherwise, there was nothing at that time that was a serious indication that Croatia would infinge upon Croatian Serbs human and civil rights. It was invented whole cloth by the Yugoslav/Serbian secret services and Milosevic's administration by spinning different facts to suit their propaganda.

Ukraine never tried to implement the Minsk accords.
Croatia actually had a proposal to avoid any conflicts before the war ever started, and another before the so-called genocide of Serbs in Croatia in 1995 that ended the war. First, there was a proposal for keeping Yugoslavia intact by turning it into a confederation in 1990, well before the war and while Yugoslavia still existed with all its constituent republics. This was summarily dismissed by Serbia at the parliament with Serbia refusing to even read the proposal.
The other plan, called Z-4, in 1994, would have given the territories with majority Serbian population in Croatia autonomy, something along the lines of the Minsk accords. This was also turned down with the Serbian rebel authorities declining to even receive the document.

It's also been noted that Russia has a legitimate claim to East and South Ukraine by virtue of those territories being part of Russia less than a century ago.
Serbia has had no such claim. The territories that Serbia started the war over have never been Serbian. The Serbs living there lived there for centuries as part of the Croatian Kingdom, coming from several historical waves of refugees running from the Turkish invasions. Also, a great deal of them, quite possibly a majority were not Serbian at all, but merely Orthodox Croatians, and Vlachs.
As a matter of fact, in the first Yugoslavia, which was under the rule of the Serbian royal family, an entity called Banovina of Croatia was formed that comprised a great deal of territories that are currently either part of Serbia or the Serbian entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. One of those parts is today a satellite town of Belgrade.

Ukraine has been sponsored by the West to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, while Croatia was under an embargo and the only reason it survived the initial onsluaght of the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) is because very few officers or soldiers actually wanted to fight. In rather short order, all of the army barracks in Croatia surrendered and the personnel was allowed to leave home to their respective republics.

I'll stop here for now. I want to make it clear that I glossed over many things while also touching upon many issues that require much deeper analysis, so I invite everyone to poke holes and point out what they think I got wrong. I was certainly being onesided, but the reason is that the perspective I'm putting forth above is not one that's been explored by SOTT editors or this forum over the years.

As the thread progresses I would love to discuss the world wars, the interbellum period, the Ustashe, Partisans and Chetniks, the 19th century national renaissance movements, the Turkish invasions, Bosnia, and of course, Yugoslavia itself, together with the much ballyhooed Tito.

It's a really fascinating subject to try to unpack and I hope we can arrive at some conclusions that are closer to the truth than what is available out there at the moment.

It is all most impossible to stay objective if you are engaged in any way with the materia that you want to brake into peaces and analyse. Its good that you aware of your limitations and that you asking for help from others from this forum but reading your post I couldn't help but noticed that you already have the answers obviously guided by wishful thinking or want to get some conformationhere.
I'm not trying to criticise you, but you should know by now that you can't learn/see the truth by following mainstream media and so it wash better to be start without asummptions.
If you are following what is going on in our world, how PTB operates,
I wonder how you came to conclusion that there is any difference in the roles that have been played than and now, and who's have been orchestring all of that?

 

[Revolucionar]

This point that you make, it seems a bit off. And the flavour of it seems to me to continue throughout the rest of your post.

This argument, about Russia having some sort of claim to the territory of Ukraine for historical reasons, is not at all relevant to what has happened there objectively. I would guess that you know this? I give you that much credit, my friend.

Yet, you use this narrative in order to try to make a point. This is a red flag for me.

Hi T.C., the reason I touched upon this particular point about Ukraine is not because it has any real bearing on the conflict over there, but because this argument had been used in relation to Croatia by the Serbian nationalists since forever. The typical Serbian argument is that Croats are merely catholicised Serbs, with the possible exception of the Croatian island and some of the coastal population. I've seen this similar argument repeated in different ways in articles carried by SOTT over the years.

Make sure you ask yourself those questions which are a few layers deeper in the onion than the subject of the thread: how you feel about it; why you want to explore it; is there any buried pain or anger that might be coming out through intellectualisation; how is the war in Ukraine and the coverage of it affecting you emotionally, etc

Thanks for the reminder. I'm trying my best to stay objective about this and I'm double checking everything that I thought I know about the relevant history.

I have no issues with the general stance about the Ukraine conflict here.
And about any buried pain or anger, I think I worked through that years ago. I had to accept certain truths about my country that weren't obvious to me before, but even though for awhile I was trying to align myself with and find evidence for the accepted narrative that Serbia was a victim of western hegemony and Croatia ultimately the bad guy, I can't see any good evidence for that other than the heuristic thinking that since Serbia was at a certain point obviously wronged by the west and was opposed to its dictates, that that automatically means that they were in the right from the start and it was all a conspiracy to harm Serbia.
The evidence doesn't bear this out.

My only motivation for starting this thread is to bring forth a different part of the story from what formed the basis of the consensus here and on SOTT, which in my opinion is putting members in a position of believing lies which we know is no bueno.
I felt I would be doing a disservice to everyone if I hadn't pointed those lies out.

 

[Revolucionar]

This is a double post from the Albanian thread.

I think we can safely conclude that Tudjman was all those things and all others that served his enormous thirst for power and Tito complex he suffered from. It is a historical fact that he basically betrayed Croatian people of Vukovar.
From the get go he clearly was flirting with the worst Croatian Nazi emigration and taking their money regardless of the fact that he fought them in WWII. Man of principle he was certainly not.

How can we safely conclude that? What's the evidence? I don't see how his alleged betrayal of Vukovar proves anything (not betrayed, but a strategic military decision to not attempt to break the siege). He was flirting. Not the same as being one. He took their money because Croatia had no other way of funding the defence of the country as it wasn't getting any funding from the west and was also under an arms embargo set in place by the west.

Btw, can we safely conclude the same for Milosevic who fomented ethnic tensions for years before the war even began?

I am not familiar with this quote or context. But if there was no ethnic cleansing as you say then this full statement disproves it.

It's from that article and it's being used to smear him as a racist. IMHO, this clearly shows your bias against the man. The meaning of what he said is obvious to anyone who is thinking. He was quite obviously talking about the events of WW2 when Jews and Serbs were being killed by the Nazi puppet regime of NDH. Why not ask yourself about why the author of that article decided to outright lie about his words?

In my home city almost all streets carrying the names not just of prominent revolutionaries or war heroes but also Serbian authors or scientists were changed. Even Croatian writers who were pro Yugoslav.
It happened with my street too.
To be fair, there is a lot of historical censorship going on in Croatia even in present days.

Many partisan names were not changed. Tito still has one of the most prominent squares in the capital as his namesake. How many of these streets changed names under the Tito regime who wanted to erase any national history? Does Croatia not have a right to call its streets by the names of important historical figures who the communists worked to erase from the national consciousness? There were certainly some stupid decisions about street naming made at the local level, but this doesn't prove anything.
Btw, how many streets in Belgrade carry the names of Croatian writers or scientists (other than the ones that they claim are actually Serbian)?

Actually there was a lot of flirting with Nazi puppet state of independent Croatia(NDH) history from the beginning and the original intention was to have similar coat of arms but this was changed due to international pressure- even wikipedia says so:
“The first-field-white variant was adopted by the Republic of Croatia and used briefly in 1990.[10] According to constitutional changes which came into effect on 26 June 1990 the red star in the flag of SR Croatia was to be replaced by the "historical Croatian coat of arms with 25 red and white fields", without specifying order of fields.[11] The first-field-white variant was used at the official flag hoisting ceremony on 25 July and was later occasionally used on par with the first-field-red variant until 21 December 1990 when the current coat of arms was officially adopted.”

Here's the flag of Banate of Croatia from 1939.
View attachment 97373
Here's a flag of the Kingdom of Croatia in use up to 1918.
View attachment 97374
Are we really talking about what color field comes first? As you say, it actually wasn't defined, but then they defined it to make sure it's not connected to NDH.
Was Croatia supposed to throw away all of its history because a military junta of Nazi puppet terrorists took over the government and commited attrocities for a few years.

This happened during the Nazi puppet state, reinstating the same currency was IMO not very clever move. Unless you deliberately want to scare largest minority whose ancestors were slaughtered when this currency appeared for the first time.

Well, this is very simplistic. The image of the kuna was used on old coinage since around the 13th century. Again, Croatia is supposed to completely eradicate its history to wash itself of the crimes of a minority during WW2? Besides, the introduction of the Kuna only came in '93, so it certainly had no effect on starting the war.

I wonder who is disingenuous? Serbs are pretty much ethnically cleansed from Croatia these days, see the population figures I quote below.

How can you be so sure? Have you actually been there while it was happening?

If not - lets stick to recognised official data:

-There are approximately 400.000 Serbs less in Croatia between 1991 and 2011 census.
Between these two censuses percentage of Serbs in Croatia fell from 12.2 to 4.4 percent.
- According to Serbian Orthodox Church in Croatia, in last 3 decades over 30k children have been converted to Catholicism by their parents. Main reason bring societal pressures of various kind.

This is not evidence of ethnic cleansing. The Croatian Serb population dwindled by about 66% between 91 and 01. The Serbian Croat population dwindled by about 80% between 1961 and 2022. Is that evidence that the Serbs have continually worked on the ethnic cleansing of Croats for 60 years?
The Oluja operation was very well documented and it was done in front of the entire world. It's well known how it was conducted and there's no question that the intention was not ethnic cleansing. There were some individual cases of war crimes that have been prosecuted and the Serbs left en masse because they had been told by Serbian leaders that the Croats want to kill them all for years.
What @Mari quoted here about the Albanian exodus is exactly what happened in Croatia with the Serbs:

Ordinary civilian ethnic Albanians...had been told it was their patriotic duty to leave because the world was watching. This was their one big opportunity to make Kosovo part of Albania...NATO was there, ready to come in, and anybody who failed to join this exodus was somehow not supporting the Albanian cause...They were frightened of the bombing, they were frightened of the KLA, they didn't really want to leave their homes." .....

But this is exactly what you are doing. See what you wrote below.

I'm merely presenting the facts. I am not putting the blame on the Serbian people at large. There was no good reason for the Serbian government to foment an ethnic uprising and then proceed to attack Croatia. Especially if we take into account the fact that Croatia was pushing for a change in the constitution to make it a Confederacy and keep Yugoslavia together in a different, more equitable form.

I think you have pretty much black and white view of the situation.

I think the same of you.

And you tend to paint Croatian side white whenever you can.

This is true, because what I'm saying about this has no representation on the forum. I have plenty of criticism to level against Croatia, but that's mostly been covered by others, albeit often inaccurately.

Also many loads were discharged in Adriatic sea because planes couldn’t land back in Italy with them.

This is true, but this wasn't depleted uranium. It was missiles that were left unused on planes that then couldn't land back on their aircraft carriers, so they dumped them in the Adriatic. The catastrophic fire that killed a dozen Croatian firemen in Kornati was most likely caused by one of those missiles. The Croatian government decided to cover it up and lay the blame on the Fire Department Chief, probably to help NATO's image.

 

[Mari]

IDK, @Revolucionar but opening up that topic yet again is for me pointless.

I agree with TC here:

What this demonstrates is that this is obviously a subject that you’re highly identified with - for better or for worse. So bear in mind everything you know about beliefs, subjectivity, the various ways we can fool ourselves and the tricks our minds can play on our perceptions.

Make sure you ask yourself those questions which are a few layers deeper in the onion than the subject of the thread: how you feel about it; why you want to explore it; is there any buried pain or anger that might be coming out through intellectualisation; how is the war in Ukraine and the coverage of it affecting you emotionally, etc.

It´s been a year now since your last post and you are obviously still stuck on it.
I think that some of us engaged in the parallel thread on Albania because the guy there is relatively new to the work and once a person step out of an echo chamber and starts interacting with the network, usually is faced with shocks and mirrors and smashing programs. But you are a long time member and I think that you should explore this subject more deeply inside you - why is it still such a trigger.

I had to accept certain truths about my country that weren't obvious to me before, but even though for awhile I was trying to align myself with and find evidence for the accepted narrative that Serbia was a victim of western hegemony and Croatia ultimately the bad guy....

If you want to search for victims - WE ARE ALL victims!
It was brother-killing-brother war! That by itself it such a massive tragedy, let alone everything else.

As Nenad already said:

For any croatian "argument" you could have two serb "arguments", and vice versa, and so on . . . I think that's enough to know (and understand, if there is capacity for that) the mechanism and machinations behind such issues. But no need to go deeper than that.

It really is irrelevant and pointless. Its time to go beyond that.

And it´s done and it´s in the past and we can learn from it and not to fall again for the tricks again. Or apparently not, by the look of the politics in the current Balkan in general. They are all slaves to their western masters. What good did any of the countries get now that they are all, oh so, independent? On that note, ARE they independent? I don´t think so...

I´m more interested in undiging so called Paleo-Balkan history and solving that puzzle as I think that Austro-Hungarian empire had a nice time forgering a lot of Balkan´s history that is accepted today by default, and therefore finding and having firm roots whatever they might be, than re-running the wars and whose fault was what.

My 2ct...

 

[Revolucionar]

IDK, @Revolucionar but opening up that topic yet again is for me pointless.

Why would talking about history be pointless? We're happy to talk about the history of all kinds of nations and conflicts, but discussing this particular conflict always seems to end up with people saying, I don't want to talk about it.

It´s been a year now since your last post and you are obviously still stuck on it.
I think that some of us engaged in the parallel thread on Albania because the guy there is relatively new to the work and once a person step out of an echo chamber and starts interacting with the network, usually is faced with shocks and mirrors and smashing programs. But you are a long time member and I think that you should explore this subject more deeply inside you - why is it still such a trigger.

I started this thread to discuss the history of the conflict and the region. It didnt get much traction and I didn't have the time to keep it going so I stopped posting. I'm not stuck on it. It's just a topic that, in my opinion, this forum doesn't have a complete grasp on and has been influenced by a bunch of misapprehensions, which crop up every time the topic comes up. If the goal is to not believe in lies, I'd like to help out as best I can. I'm sure I don't have the whole banana, but I think my stance on this is closer to the truth than what the general consensus on the forum is at the moment. How do you see me being triggered by this?

If you want to search for victims - WE ARE ALL victims!
It was brother-killing-brother war! That by itself it such a massive tragedy, let alone everything else.

That's not the point. We are all victims. We're talking about how it happened.

And it´s done and it´s in the past and we can learn from it and not to fall again for the tricks again. Or apparently not, by the look of the politics in the current Balkan in general. They are all slaves to their western masters. What good did any of the countries get now that they are all, oh so, independent? On that note, ARE they independent? I don´t think so...

Again beside the point. We're talking about the history of it. We could say the same about any other event in history. It's done, let's move on and not talk about it at all.

I´m more interested in undiging so called Paleo-Balkan history and solving that puzzle as I think that Austro-Hungarian empire had a nice time forgering a lot of Balkan´s history that is accepted today by default, and therefore finding and having firm roots whatever they might be, than re-running the wars and whose fault was what.

That was part of the reason for this thread. There's a lot we could say about that and it also informs the history of more recent times.

What sort of thing did AH empire forge in terms of Balkan history?

 

[Mari]

What sort of thing did AH empire forge in terms of Balkan history?

I.e. when you look at Illyrian movement in 1835–1863 (there is some disagreement regarding the official dates from 1835 to 1870) and you read Wiki and if you ignore the end of the articles (as one version in one language says it was Serb´s fault it didn´t survived, another that the Croats had nationalistic ideas, so let´s ignore the blaming part of it ), what I think is exactly what Saric said - it was AH that banned the movement and all mentioning of Illyrians, and also flared nationalistic divisions (resulting Balkan, especially ex-Yu we know today) so they can claim the land in their attempt of "Drang nach Osten". AH was apparently also first to fully develop the idea (fabrication) that South Slavs arrived to these lands in 7th century - if Serbs/Croats/.... are not native to the territory of the ex-Yu it means it´s not theirs by birth right and AH can come in and continue with their imperialistic plans.
I mean, it´s not very crazy idea - look at what Israel is doing in Palestine and on what pretences.

Check out this video (unfortunately no English subtitles):

Saric is grandiose in many things he says, and sometimes it feels like "we (Slavs) are the centre of the universe", but let´s not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Illyrian movement also means that being an Illyrian was still in South Slav´s consciousness at least until the late 1800s, which is only, what, +150 or so years in the past!
Quoting from Wiki:

The name Illyrian (Slavic) had already been used in reference to the South Slavic dialects spoken there at the time.

Also, why would prominent South Slavs authors bother with....

....their linguistic manuals (Babukić's 1836 Osnova slovnice slavjanske narěčja ilirskoga, "The basics of Slavic grammar of the Illyrian dialect"; extended edition as 1854 Slovnica ilirska, "Illyrian grammar"; Mažuranić's 1839 Temelji ilirskoga i latinskoga jezika, "The foundation of the Illyrian and Latin language")

...if that wasn´t the language that was spoken.
Which means that Illyrian was in fact South Slavic language.

Ljudevit Gaj's 1835 Proclamation states:

There can only be one true literary language in Illyria... It is not found in a single place, or a single country, but in the whole of Illyria... Our grammar and our dictionary is the whole of Illyria. In that huge garden there are beautiful flowers everywhere: let us gather everything of the best in one wreath, which will never wither.
— Ljudevit Gaj, Proclamation, 1835[8]

I mean, this is a huge topic and I have notes as I´m gathering stuff, a lot of this is hard to doublecheck as internet is web-washed and written by people with agenda, so, this is only bits and pieces of a theory. And it deserves a whole new thread name.

 

[Joe]

I had to accept certain truths about my country that weren't obvious to me before, but even though for awhile I was trying to align myself with and find evidence for the accepted narrative that Serbia was a victim of western hegemony and Croatia ultimately the bad guy, I can't see any good evidence for that other than the heuristic thinking that since Serbia was at a certain point obviously wronged by the west and was opposed to its dictates, that that automatically means that they were in the right from the start and it was all a conspiracy to harm Serbia.
The evidence doesn't bear this out.

My only motivation for starting this thread is to bring forth a different part of the story from what formed the basis of the consensus here and on SOTT, which in my opinion is putting members in a position of believing lies which we know is no bueno.

For the record, I don't subscribe to the idea that Serbia was all good or the victim and all others were tools of NATO. I subscribe to the idea that since Serbia was the largest and most populated republic in the SFRY and had the Yugoslav capital in Belgrade, it naturally sought to call the shots after the breakup and during the war. My thoughts on NATO is that it opportunistically entered and perpetuated the war for the purpose of seizing as much control of the area as possible. Of course in most situations where ethnic groups/former nations states are vying for independence, there will always be some level of conflict. I think however, that if NATO and the West in general had stayed out of the conflict, it would have been far better for all concerned. That might be naive, but we'll never know I suppose.

 

[Revolucionar]

@Revolucionar thank you for sharing your views, I think it would be pointless to engage further about these topics.

That's up to you, of course, but I don't agree that it's pointless. Who knows where this discussion can lead us. I invite you to engage with the discussion in this thread. There's obviously a lot of emotion connected to this topic and I think that whenever there's such an emotional reaction, there's something there to examine closely. I would be happy to continue our exchange here. Of course, you're not obligated in any way to engage further.

 

[Z...]

That's up to you, of course, but I don't agree that it's pointless. Who knows where this discussion can lead us. I invite you to engage with the discussion in this thread. There's obviously a lot of emotion connected to this topic and I think that whenever there's such an emotional reaction, there's something there to examine closely. I would be happy to continue our exchange here. Of course, you're not obligated in any way to engage further.

Thank you.
To be honest It is slightly painful for me to revisit the past and dissect it ad nausem.

All this stirs some strange and somewhat dark emotions that I would rather leave asleep.

As far as I am concerned what happened in Ex Yugoslavia was inevitable and it will keep happening until we face our demons and slay them. For now all of us - both those scattered in all 4 corners of the world and those living in present banana republics have to live with consequences of collective slumber or stupor.

I would like to leave here some quotes (translation mine) from the book Illyria the holly land by Domagoj Nikolic here as it best represents how I feel about the subject.

Very soon it became clear that everything that happened to us is nothing accidental. It is the millennium old policy of our annihilation which when impossible to be physically executed is implemented through lies and establishment of untruths. In other words I understood that something happened in our country so big and horrific that it had to be hidden at any cost. But it still lurks in our collective subconsciousness. Constantly bubbling to the surface bringing ever new atrocities. Blurred archetypal images easily push emotional triggers woven into our psyche and things easily escalate.

We have to establish new historical, linguistic and anthropological context which will enable us to see ourselves and world around us in proper way. Context based on the thesis that Illyria is a holly land, that we are here since the time immemorial.

This context is not just controversial but subversive since it shakes the world view foundations not just for us but much wider. It is currently a tabu which has to be ignored whenever possible, and when it is not we employ sophisms, dogma and even brutal force. Let us remember how many of our scholars from Markantun to Katancic and many other known and unknown perished because of this.

Behind this tiptoeing around the truth a deep and horrific trauma is hidden, so powerful and horrible that it has to suppressed. Buried derp in our subconscious it rules our characterology, constantly voices itself and manifests itself as our collective faith, string of tragedies, stumbling, horrors and demises like the ones we witnessed several times in 20th century only. This tabu is the fear of dangerous relationships even in literal sense in the form of mixed marriages.

Our victories as well as our defeats are both so incomprehensibly glorious and horrendous. All that really matters here happened in archaic times, our final defeat took place in the time between Diocletian and the fall of Rome. Everything after that which is in some ways conveyed by our official history is just echoes of those ancient and obscured happenings. I would dare to say that our conscience is ruled by our subconscious in the same fashion that our daily events are ruled by our history. But this is not real history but instead untold story or what I like to call subhistory. And this we can contrast with the sense that we are just discovering.

Not to end on a gloomy note I will end this post with a poem by Petar Gudelj which somehow always evokes positive emotions.
This poem best describes a feeling that is arises whenever my bare feet touch the holly land or i feel Dalmatian sun on my skin no matter how far I’ve been running from that cluster fck our homeland is now reduced to.

"Am I not Pelasgian,
sprung from Adriatic red soil,
don't I carry hidden under my Croatian and Serbian language, my primeval Illyrian mother tongue,
in which I converse with wolves and karst vipers, in which I dream?"

"Zar nisam Pelazg, koji je niknuo iz jadranske crljenice, zar pod svojim hrvatskim i srpskim jezikom ne nosim svoj pramaterinski ilirski jezik, kojim razgovaram s vucima i poskocima, na kojem sanjam?"
Petar Gudelj

Nothing like some good old national ethos and romanticism, if only we nurtured it properly.

 

[Joe]

I would like to leave here some quotes (translation mine) from the book Illyria the holly land by Domagoj Nikolic here as it best represents how I feel about the subject.

Very soon it became clear that everything that happened to us is nothing accidental. It is the millennium old policy of our annihilation which when impossible to be physically executed is implemented through lies and establishment of untruths. In other words I understood that something happened in our country so big and horrific that it had to be hidden at any cost. But it still lurks in our collective subconsciousness. Constantly bubbling to the surface bringing ever new atrocities. Blurred archetypal images easily push emotional triggers woven into our psyche and things easily escalate.

We have to establish new historical, linguistic and anthropological context which will enable us to see ourselves and world around us in proper way. Context based on the thesis that Illyria is a holly land, that we are here since the time immemorial.

This context is not just controversial but subversive since it shakes the world view foundations not just for us but much wider. It is currently a tabu which has to be ignored whenever possible, and when it is not we employ sophisms, dogma and even brutal force. Let us remember how many of our scholars from Markantun to Katancic and many other known and unknown perished because of this.

Behind this tiptoeing around the truth a deep and horrific trauma is hidden, so powerful and horrible that it has to suppressed. Buried derp in our subconscious it rules our characterology, constantly voices itself and manifests itself as our collective faith, string of tragedies, stumbling, horrors and demises like the ones we witnessed several times in 20th century only. This tabu is the fear of dangerous relationships even in literal sense in the form of mixed marriages.

Not to end on a gloomy note I will end this post with a poem by Petar Gudelj which somehow always evokes positive emotions.
This poem best describes a feeling that is arises whenever my bare feet touch the holly land or i feel Dalmatian sun on my skin no matter how far I’ve been running from that cluster fck our homeland is now reduced to.

"Am I not Pelasgian,
sprung from Adriatic red soil,
don't I carry hidden under my Croatian and Serbian language, my primeval Illyrian mother tongue,
in which I converse with wolves and karst vipers, in which I dream?"

"Zar nisam Pelazg, koji je niknuo iz jadranske crljenice, zar pod svojim hrvatskim i srpskim jezikom ne nosim svoj pramaterinski ilirski jezik, kojim razgovaram s vucima i poskocima, na kojem sanjam?"
Petar Gudelj

Nothing like some good old national ethos and romanticism, if only we nurtured it properly.

Sounds like all "Illyrians" of pure genetic stock (determined by DNA tests of course) should, on confirmation of said purity, be immediately elevated to global philosopher kings and queens and thenceforth lead the world into a new era of peace and glory.

Alternatively, you could all just become Jewish. They seem to have a similar self-image.

 

[Joe]

There seems to be an argument that "Illyrian people" (who spoke "Illyrian") extend from Bohemia all the way over to the Black sea and down to the borders of Greece. So y'all should just unite under the Ilyrian identity and invade Western Europe. As long as you don't support Israel and transgenderism, we'll totally welcome you!