This remarkable book combines analysis and memoir to offer the unique perspective of an informed insider who lived through Yugoslavia's demise. Cvijeto Job's powerful and provocative story of Yugoslavia's birth, rise, and brutal destruction is intertwined with his family history as he probes deeply into the causes and legacies of Yugoslavia's ruin. The result is a sober assessment of the successes and unflinching critique of the failures of Tito's Yugoslavia and how policies that were intended to ameliorate the country's ethnic tensions were corrupted or abandoned, ending in its undoing. Job argues passionately for the intervention of the international community in Yugoslavia and offers concrete suggestions for preventing future ethnic atrocities. Anyone reading his book will come to think more deeply about the ways in which the web of history and collective political culture weave the fates of nations and individuals in times of crisis.

This book examines the relationship between nationalism and the rise and fall of Yugoslavia under the rule of Josip Broz Tito. It deals particularly with the interactions between communist and intellectual elites. The authors analyze elites’ initial enthusiasm about the Yugoslav federation and how, with time, they found themselves unable to suppress the nationalists in Yugoslavia. Other scholars have argued that, in a certain sense, Tito’s Yugoslavia proved to be a “hatchery” for the nations that once constituted Yugoslavia, making them ever closer to “completeness.” However, as the authors highlight in this study, this process was one of conflict. The personal role of Tito as an arbiter was essential, although, for the majority of his time in power, he did not act as a dictator. His departure was strongly felt in the 1980s, when ethnic entrepreneurial activity began to flourish—and when ethnic and political relations had gone out of control. While a significant part of this book follows the chronology of ethnic elite interaction in communist Yugoslavia, the global context of Yugoslavia’s rise and fall is taken into account. The authors also use Yugoslavia as a case study to test the validity of nationalism studies more generally.

A discussion of the political illusion created by the humanitarian bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 that tests popular beliefs

Essays by Muslim, Croatian, and Serbian journalists.

Charting the path from intervention to integration Europe and the Post-Yugoslav Space examines the role of Europeanization on the development of the countries of the former Yugoslavia. Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo may have a shared history but their experiences, views and attitudes to European integration vary dramatically. Opinion within each state is often equally as keenly divided as to the benefits of active membership. The debate within each country and their comparative differences in approach provide fascinating case studies on the importance and relevance of the EU and the effectiveness of Europeanization. A wide range of contributors with significant experience gained within the EU as well as their country of origin use their expert understanding of the language and cultures of the countries concerned to provide detailed and rich insights into the troubled history and potential of the post-Yugoslav space.

The dissolution of Yugoslavia and the tragic wars that followed continue to engage scholars throughout the region and the world. Ever since the fall of Slobodan Miloševic, the Scholars’ Initiative, an international consortium of over 250 scholars, has endeavored to study the period 1986-2000 as critically and objectively as possible. It believes that ongoing research, discussion, and publication of its work will help bridge the chasm that separates serious historical scholarship from those interpretations that nationalist politicians and media in the former Yugoslavia have impressed on their populations. This collection of articles reflects new research by ten of the Initiative’s scholars and offers analysis of a wide spectrum of issues. It examines the roots of the violent collapse of Yugoslavia, considers the impact of the dissolution on minority groups, tackles some of the controversies concerning Kosovo, evaluates the most recent evidence in the controversy concerning responsibility for the deadly artillery attacks against civilians during the long siege of Sarajevo, assesses the performance of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in its trial of Miloševic, and examines the very sensitive process in Serbia of facing its violent past in the aftermath of the tragedy. This book was previously published as a special issue of Nationalities Papers.

Heritage became a target during the Yugoslav Wars as part of ethnic cleansing and urbicide. Out of the ashes of war, pasts were remodelled, places took on new layers of meaning, and a wave of new memorialization took hold. Three decades since the fall of Vukovar and the end of the siege of Sarajevo, and more than a decade since Kosovo’s Declaration of Independence, conflict has shifted from armed confrontations to battles about the past. The former Yugoslavia has been described on the one hand as a bastion of plurality and multiculturalism, and on the other, as a territory of antagonism and radical nationalisms, echoing imaginaries and narratives relevant to Europe as a whole. With Croatia having entered the EU in 2013 and the continuous political contestation in the region, wounds in the memory fabric of the former Yugoslavia have once more come to the world’s attention. Thus, there is the question what will happen when the former republics are ‘reunited’ once more under the EU umbrella, itself beset by increasing populisms, nationalisms, and the looming prospects of territorial fragmentation. This collection scrutinizes the role of heritage in ‘conflict-time’, inquires what role the past might have in creating new identities at the local, regional, national, and supra-national levels, and investigates the dynamics of heritage as a process.