Charles River Editors

Much has been written about Western intervention during the breakup of Yugoslavia, and whether it made matters worse, prevented worse atrocities, or was simply ineffective. In early 1992, however, what was clear was that Europe was hopelessly divided over the best course of action to take towards Yugoslavia, and after several years of fighting, the Bosnian War was one of the most violent conflagrations in Europe since the end of World War II.

That war had been the byproduct of centuries of tensions in the Balkans, and an attempt in the wake of World War I to redraw the political boundaries of Europe and the Middle East. That included forming the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, initially known as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, a particularly fragile enterprise, and there was almost constant tension between the majority Serbs and the other Yugoslav nationalities, especially the Croats. As a result, the Kingdom was a land of political assassinations, underground terrorist organizations, and ethnic animosities. In 1929, King Alexander I suspended democracy and ruled as a dictator until he himself was assassinated in 1934.

Depending on the source, many authors have focused on different catalysts for Yugoslavia’s demise, but Vesna Drapac may have succinctly summed the situation up when he wrote that by the end, the state “lacked a reason to exist.” There is certainly something in this sentiment, but the disintegration came at an enormous cost. Given what happened in Yugoslavia, it should be little surprise the area that eventually became the modern nation of Montenegro has had a turbulent history for millennia, with shifting borders, different degrees of autonomy, and various conflicts occurring within it.

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