The 1991–99 violent dismemberment of the Yugoslavian state (see related story, P. 24) took most of the world by surprise. The seemingly peaceful and prosperous nation degenerated into the bloodiest conflict on the European continent since World War II. The tensions that erupted to the surface in 1991, however, were as long-standing as they were complex.
When the pope and the patriarch divided Europe between Catholic and Orthodox Christianity in the Great Schism of 1054, the boundary passed right through the middle of what would later become Yugoslavia. The Slovenes and Croats north of the boundary embraced Catholicism, while the Serbs to the south accepted the Orthodox religion. In the late 14th century the Ottomans conquered the region, occupying it for the next 500 years and establishing a substantial Muslim minority, particularly in Bosnia.
However, as Alastair Finlan explains in The Collapse of Yugoslavia, it was during World War II the real damage was done. During that conflict Yugoslavs fought two simultaneous wars, one against the German invaders and the other between various domestic factions, including Croatian nationalists, Bosnian Muslims, Serbian royalists and communist partisans. In the end the pro-Allied communist partisans under Yosip Broz (aka Marshal Tito) emerged as the rulers of post–World War II Yugoslavia.
Factional nationalism began to re-emerge as communist rule eroded after Tito’s death in 1980. Croats
