As the title says (to make up eight characters)
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To be honest, the first time I learned about the Yugoslav Wars was because of Liu Cixin’s reactionary short story. Later, I learned some details about the Yugoslav Wars because of the vulgar political memes related to Radovan Karadžić, the bourgeois war criminal of the “Republika Srpska.” At that time, I didn’t understand the relationship between internal and external causes and thought that all ethnic groups in Yugoslavia were “like one family” during Tito’s era, blaming the American invasion for destroying that unity. My knowledge of Yugoslavia was indeed very limited; I basically didn’t understand the situation. I only knew that Yugoslavia under Tito also implemented policies of ethnic inequality, and when Milošević came to power, he directly promoted Greater Serbian nationalism, causing widespread grievances among various ethnic groups, which quickly led to the country’s disintegration.
Actually, I always found it strange why the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was formed after World War I. It seemed that Serbia, Croatia, and the other countries had rarely been unified under one state throughout history; politically, they had little connection, and there were linguistic and cultural differences. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Kosovo, and others were even more complicated, with intertwined ethnic and religious relations involving Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians, and others. Many of these ethnic groups had only briefly been unified under one state historically, so I couldn’t understand what political and economic foundations created such a country. Also, during World War II, Yugoslavia experienced disintegration, so I wondered what reasons later led to the country’s restoration.
Now, after the civil wars following Yugoslavia’s breakup, it seems that the peoples of the successor states no longer see any need to restore Yugoslavia, except for some reactionaries in Serbia. I truly do not understand the political and economic foundations that once united these countries, nor why that foundation was destroyed. I would need someone more knowledgeable to explain this to me.
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And regarding why the bourgeoisie of various ethnic groups in the former Yugoslavia ended up with unequal shares during the breakup of Yugoslavia, unlike the bourgeoisie of the Soviet revisionist ethnic groups who experienced a “peaceful breakup,” and ultimately chose to “resolve the issue through war,” I am also somewhat puzzled. Perhaps more investigation and research will be needed in the future.