The Former Yugoslavia And Albania

Yugoslavia was the nation that existed from 1918, the end of the First World War, to the 1990s. It was formed from the breakup of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, plus Serbia. The nation was originally called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and, Slovenes. The name was changed to "Yugoslavia" in 1929.

There is sometimes said to have been two successive Yugoslavias. The first was the Kingdom, formed after the First World War. The second is the Communist Yugoslavia, after the Second World War with the monarchy abolished.

Yugoslavia had a liberal interpretation of Communism, which greatly annoyed the Stalinist Communists in Moscow. Yugoslavia proclaimed itself as neutral during the Cold War and refused to join the Warsaw Pact.

After the abolition of the Yugoslav Monarchy the driving personality behind Communist Yugoslavia was Josef Broz Tito. He had originally been an autoworker and the country would produce the popular "Yugo" car.

I used to read about a theme park, after the breakup of the country, dedicated to remembering the former Yugoslavia. People reminisced such as "We weren't rich but we had what we needed and everybody had a good time".

The name of Yugoslavia means "Land of the Southern Slavs", and was compromised of six internal republics. These were, from north to south, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro and, North Macedonia. The Slavic people had arrived in the area in the Sixth Century.

The primary language of the country was Serbia-Croatian. It is a mixed language that is generally spoken in one way but can be written in two ways. This is because Croatians use the Latin Alphabet while Serbians use the Cyrillic, or Russian, Alphabet.

Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia, which is the northernmost of the former Yugoslav republics. The city is built around a castle on high ground. This is the castle with the city visible in the background.

Slovenia is where America's former first lady, Melania Trump, is from. Here is the city of Ljubljana. The first scene, from Google Earth, is of the striking orange roofs.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow. After clicking on the up arrow you can then hide previews of successive scenes, if you so wish.

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Zagreb is the capital city of the former Yugoslav Republic, and now independent nation, of Croatia. It has, like Venice, a St. Mark's Square and Church. The first two scenes are from Google Earth.

 

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Rijeka is a Croatian city on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It was once the main port of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, and was an independent city-state. Like Trieste there was a controversy over whether the city should belong to Italy or Yugoslavia. It's Italian name is Fiume.

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Sarajevo is the major city of Bosnia. It dates back to ancient times but became an important city during rule by the Ottomans. There was a lot of industrialization during the time of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Sarajevo is associated with conflict. It was where the First World War began. When Yugoslavia came apart in the 1990s, the combat was between Serbs and Croatians, and it looked like Bosnia might avoid it. But that was not to last and Sarajevo later became the focal point of the conflict.

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Belgrade is the capital of Serbia and was the capital of the united Yugoslavia. Belgrade is in a strategic location and was originally built around a Fortress, shown here from Google Earth.

Belgrade was located on the frontier of the Roman Empire. Attila the Hun is buried there. It was later located on the frontier between the Habsburgs and Ottoman Empires. Sulieman the Magnificent captured Belgrade for the Ottomans in 1521. Here is Belgrade Fortress.

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One well-known Serb is Nicola Tesla. Electrical inventors like Thomas Edison were using direct current, where the direction of current flow remains the same, to provide large-scale electrical power. But Tesla favored alternating current, where the direction of current flow alternates.

Tesla turned out to be right. The advantage of alternating current is that voltage and current can be exchanged, by means of a transformer, with total power remaining the same. Loss of power when electricity is transmitted over a distance is much less if the voltage is stepped up. It can be stepped back down at the other end. Transformers only work effectively with alternating current. Electrical power can thus be sent over much greater distances than otherwise.

The name of Tesla is very important in the Buffalo-Niagara area. There is a statue of him on each side of Niagara Falls. From Google Street View this is the statue on the U.S. side.

In a way, Buffalo is where Tesla proved victorious over Edison. The transmission of alternating current from Niagara Falls to the Pan-American Exposition of 1901 was a spectacular success. There was little loss of power over the distance, something that would not have been possible with Edison's direct current.

Tesla himself had nothing to do with the electric car and solar power conglomerate that bears his name, it was named in honor of him. From Google Earth this is the Tesla factory in Buffalo.

 This is more of Belgrade.

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Kragujevac was sometimes the capital of Serbia. It is not an ancient city but originated in medieval times. This is where the Zastava Auto Company, related to Fiat, made the Yugo car that was popular in the U.S. This car also illustrates, of course, how loosely Yugoslavia interpreted Communism.

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Skopje, pronounced "scope-ya" is an ancient city that is now the capital of North Macedonia. It has been an important city to the Romans, the Byzantines and, the Ottomans. Skopje Fortress was built by the Byzantines in the Sixth Century. The Ottomans built the Old Bazaar in the city, which was it's center of trade. After independence the country had a disagreement with Greece over the name of Macedonia, which the Greeks claimed belonged to them.

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Tirana is the capital city of Albania, which is a separate country that was not part of the federation of Yugoslavia.

Albania had been a medieval kingdom and principality, before being ruled by Venice and then the Ottomans. It returned as an independent nation in 1912.

Like neighboring Yugoslavia, Albania was a Communist country that did not always adhere to the Soviet model, but for a very different reason. In the 1970s ultra-hardline Communists were beginning to emerge in countries like Albania and Cambodia. At the same time the Soviet Union, the original Communist country, was beginning to moderate. Albania was one of the hard-line countries that broke relations with the Soviet Union, considering it as a "disgrace" to Communism.

The driving personality behind Albanian Communism was Enver Hoxha, pronounced "ho-ja". His government built many bunkers around the country, to guard against invasion, which have found their way into other uses.

When I was a young boy I remember hearing that a country in Europe had declared itself as the world's first officially atheist nation, where any expression of religion was illegal. In other Communist countries religion was more or less discouraged, but wasn't actually illegal.

How ironic that this same atheist nation had produced the famed Mother Theresa.

Muhammad Ali, who founded the Pasha Dynasty that brought about modern Egypt that we saw in our visit to "Cairo", was from an Albanian family.

After the end of Communism, there was a near-civil war in Albania when so many people lost money that had been invested in pyramid schemes.

Petrele Castle was built by the Byzantines and Tirana became an important city to the Ottomans. This scene is from Google Street View.

The Grand Mosque of Tirana is another of the many domed Ottoman Mosques modeled on the Hagia Sophia. We saw the Hagia Sophia in "The House Of Holy Wisdom, Where The Modern World Began". Scenes from Google Street View.

Tirana has it's center at Skanderbeg Square. Skanderbeg was a Fifteenth Century military leader that was victorious against the Ottomans. The first scene is from Google Street View.

 

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This is more of Tirana.

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Shkoder is the major city of northern Albania. It is a very ancient city that has been a part of the Roman, Byzantine and, Ottoman Empires.

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THE BREAKUP OF YUGOSLAVIA

At the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, after the end of the First World War in 1918, Austria and Hungary were reduced to small countries. The remaining territories in the north became the new nation of Czechoslovakia, and some to the revived nation of Poland. The territories in the south became the new nation of Yugoslavia, which also included Serbia. Transylvania was given to Romania.

Neither new nation would last forever. Czechoslovakia would ultimately come apart peacefully. Yugoslavia, unfortunately, wouldn't.

The driving personality of Communist Yugoslavia, after the end of the monarchy, had been that of Josep Broz Tito. He was born in Croatia. Tito died in 1980 and a difficult economic decade followed. Communism ended in eastern Europe in 1989.

Serbia was the core of Yugoslavia. It's capital of Belgrade had been the country's capital and it's former king had been from the Serbian royal dynasty. The area that was now Yugoslavia had historically been divided by religion. Serbs were Orthodox Christians while Croatians and Slovenes were Catholic. A long period of Ottoman rule had brought Islam, and Bosnia was primarily Moslem.

Of the six Yugoslav republics, the two small republics at opposite ends of the country, Slovenia in the north and Macedonia in the south, declared independence. The Serb-dominated Yugoslav military was unable to hold Slovenia.

The trouble with the Yugoslav republics declaring independence is that a lot of ethnic mixing had taken place. There were many Serbs living in Croatia and Bosnia and Croatians living in Bosnia. When the republic declared independence, these minorities either didn't want to leave or wanted to break away themselves.

What began with the independence of Slovenia in 1991 turned into major combat when Croatia declared independence. There were areas of Serbs within Croatia. The area in eastern Croatia was called Krajina. Warfare centered around the cities of Dubrovnik in western Croatia and Vukovar in eastern Croatia.

At first, it seemed like the conflict would involve the Serbs living in Croatia, and that Bosnia might be spared. But that was not to be.  By far the worst combat would end up being in Bosnia. The southern part of Bosnia is called Herzegovina, and it became a familiar name in the news.

Bosnia declared its independence following a 1992 referendum. The many Serbs within Bosnia didn't want to go and declared their own nation out of Bosnia, called Republika Srpska. It's first president would be Radovan Karadzic, and most infamous general would be Ratko Mladic. The Yugoslav Army withdrew from Bosnia but left it's weapons to Srpska. The Bosnian Serbs began a siege of the city of Sarajevo that would last until 1996. NATO bombed their positions in 1995.

Almost all of the combat in the Yugoslav Wars was the other republics against Serbs. The Serbs did not so much aim to keep Yugoslavia together as to create a "Greater Serbia". But there were also Croatians living in Bosnia, and they proclaimed the Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia.

Combat ended in Croatia, with Croatian military offensives in 1995, but continued on in Bosnia. There would be infamous concentration camps, atrocities and mass killings. Of the about 140,000 people that would be killed in the Yugoslav Wars, the vast majority would be in Bosnia.

There was shock and disbelief across Europe that something like this could be happening here.

Toward the end of the 1990s, another name became familiar on the news. Kosovo was part of Serbia and had not itself been a Yugoslav republic. But it was the part of Serbia bordering Albania and had a concentration of ethnic Albanians, who sought independence from Serbia.

The ensuing Kosovo War would result in the aerial bombing of Serbia by NATO in 1999. There would be a temporary diplomatic crisis when the Chinese Embassy was bombed in error.

The only Yugoslav republic that remained federated with Serbia was Montenegro. It ultimately separated peacefully.

Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, president and top general of Republika Srpska, the Serbs in Bosnia, were tried and convicted. Ratko Mladic remained the most wanted man in the world for a decade and a half. At first he was certainly shielded by the Serbian establishment, but later the country moved on.

High-profile fugitives are so often given away by family connections. According to one story that I read, while Mladic's family was being closely watched it was noticed that his granddaughters were taken to the yard of a farmhouse but no attempt was made to enter the house.

A guess was made that maybe Mladic was hiding in that house, and had requested to see his granddaughters through the window. The guess turned out to be correct.

The president of Serbia itself, Slobodan Milosevic, was ultimately put on trial but died before the trial was complete.

A vast amount of weapons and munitions from the Yugoslav Wars found their way all over the world.