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Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

I’ve spent a lot of time in the Balkans, and one interesting real world equivalent to this domain is that a lot of older ex-Yugoslavians, especially ones that went abroad in the 90s, still identify themselves primarily as Yugoslavians and not as Serbians, Croats, etc. Maybe a bit of it is nostalgia, but I think a similar thing might happen if America broke up into separate countries. You’d still have a sizable amount of people that identify more as Americans than as Californians/New Yorkers/etc.

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There are enough people who still identify as Yugoslavs in some way that articles can be written about this as a thing. However, as one who speaks BCMS and Albanian and travels the region for months each year talking with random people about these things, my own experience is that is merely a subculture, not anything representative.

A lot of people going abroad in the 1990s, or as gastarbeiter before that, were coming from Bosnia, the Sanjak, or Kosovo and they understandably are loath to identify with a state they saw as dominated by the Serbs, who committed atrocities against them. For Albanian speakers, Yugoslavia was a Slav-dominated project in general. As for Croatia, significant opposition to Yugoslavia began already by the early 1970s and it only got worse after the 1991 war.

For sure, it’s not representative or a majority opinion, but there are enough people for it to “be a thing.” Especially for people that had mixed families.

Article describing Yugonostalgia for anyone interested to read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/25/everyone-loved...

> However, as one who speaks BCMS

The languages spoken in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Montenegro (this order is by population size) are one and the same language. It is a southern slavic language, which is what the term yugoslav means. That it is not used is solely due to political correctness. God forbid that slavs should think they are one and the same, instead of constantly being at war with one another

> For Albanian speakers, Yugoslavia was a Slav-dominated project

Albanians were actually a small minority in Yugolslavia as a whole. The country was 90+% slavic. On the other hand Albanians, as an ethnic group, had unprecedented political autonomy (Kosovo) and language rights in Yugoslavia. Im certain they had more freedom and a better life than in Enver Hoxha's Albania. Also if it was not for socialist Yugoslavia, Kosovo would have just been, and hence remained, a region in a centrally governed Serbia.

As regards opposotion to Yugoslavia, it is actually more correct to say that Yugoslavia was opposed by nationalists of all ethnic groups it contained, including the Serbs, Croats, Muslims (as Bosniaks called themselves during those times and some period after), Slovenians, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Hungarians, and of course Albanians. Even though people mainly know about Greater Serbia, each of these groups wanted (wants?) a Greater <insert your nat. here>, including the Albanians

> On the other hand Albanians, as an ethnic group, had unprecedented political autonomy (Kosovo) and language rights in Yugoslavia.

It lasted for merely 15 years, from 1974 till 1989 when Milosevic and his clique brutally removed it. This autonomy was always a thorn in the eye of the serbian establishment and they never stopped their efforts to undermine it, which they succeeded in 1989.

Because that is what countries do when a part of them rebels and starts doing terror attacks on police.

Please, try to promote Texas independance from USA and see how that goes.

> Because that is what countries do when a part of them rebels and starts doing terror attacks on police.

Kosovo War happened later, not during the above mentioned period.

Yes, it happened after the initial response by Serbian anti-terrorist groups.

Then, West became involved and Clinton wanted something to distract from his little raping scandal at home. So, they decided to bomb a country fighting foreign-backed terrorists on its soil.

The Clinton scandal at the time of the bombing of Serbia was about a consensual relationship (his two-year extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky). While Clinton did have other sex scandals, those came well before 1999. Your writing about a “little raping scandal” suggests you do not have a good knowledge of this history and your posts on the subject cannot be taken seriously.

Clintons are plain cringe even if Kosovo deifies them

Yeah, disregard my facts about the Clinton family's war crimes just because a known rapist for once did not rape a woman.

For facts, one prefers to listen to people who don’t make basic factual errors. Also, that you are still commenting in this HN thread two days after it was posted, suggests you have an unhealthy ideological fixation with this topic.

In normal democracies, parties usually reach a balance that protects regional interests, and the interests of minorities in those regions. It's not easy, but when done in good faith, can be very effective at lowering support for violent rebellion.

(greetings from Quebec, which rebelled a few times, and isn't immune to populist politicians, but nonetheless somewhat stable. I think investing into education also helps a lot, which is the opposite of what Texas is doing)

Quebec is investing in education? Hahaha I'm not sure if that was a joke...

>In Quebec, 25.5% of people aged 25 to 64 had a bachelor's degree or higher in 2016

> In 2012, 26% (4.1M out of 15.8M) of adult Texans had a bachelor's degree or higher; in 2021, that percentage increased to 32% (5.9M out of 18.6M)

(As an aside, even a Texas Governor would probably not have said something close to the famous statement Parizeau made regarding "le vote ethnique" after the 1995 referendum ;). But as long as you are Quebecois, I guess the government is doing fine here I agree )

Probably an accurate stat of today, but misses the point and context. I said "I think" that education helped people from Quebec to negotiate a better situation, rather than doing so by arms (up to the 1970s with the FLQ). I do think that squashing rebellions is a counter-productive way of solving conflicts, as Yugoslavia did (I also lived a few years in the Balkans, in a neighbouring country, and had a few good friends from ex-Yu with identity issues in the early 2000s).

I also think education can help people understand topics such as majority/minority rights, rights/history of first nations, systemic racism, etc. many of which the current provincial government still denies (not immune to populist). Despite all that, and despite this province's completely train-wreck succession of governments since the 80s, what is taught now in schools is still better than in the 80s. That might be of an empirical feeling. My high school still had priests raping kids until the mid-90s and racism was rampant. I have a teen in a public high school, what they learn now is pretty neat. All thanks to teachers, of course, and not to governments.

Texas and other states are now burning books (and I hope we don't get to that point). One could have a PhD in CS, but be a tech-bro ignorantly erring towards fascism. I don't call that education. I think how a society treats its minorities (whether cultural or things like accessibility) is the best measure of advancement. Quebec is no model on that either, but it's probably better than Texas. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/14/texas-most-b...

From kindergarten through to university, education in Yugoslavia was at a very high standard, accross all ethnic groups and sexes. Much higher than public education in the West. This is because the socialist government put very high investments into education. Moreover, there were always constant social campaigns promoting tolerance, brotherhood, and unity. Most of the nationalist groups (many of which were ex nazis) were actually funded from Western sources. Yugoslavia is actually a good case study of how a well educated society goes completely bannanas

> rights/history of first nations, systemic racism

Not everyone is guilty of robbing aboriginals of their land, raping them, enslaving them and trading them as though they are commodities. This is mainly an Anglo Saxon thing.

"Most of the nationalist groups (many of which were ex nazis) were actually funded from Western sources. Yugoslavia is actually a good case study of how a well educated society goes completely bannanas"

Right on, brother.

But, don't expect these Anglo-Saxons to understand, they are mostly good only at pillaging other, more peaceful nations. After they destroy your country and rob it blind for -insert reason-, they start telling you how good their democracy is.

These people don't realize that, if not for military might of NATO, people would eat them alive at every corner of the globe.

My point was that they lived better and more freely in socialist (pre Milosevic) Yugoslavia than in quite litteraly Stalinist Albania.

Ironically the Albanian government in Kosovo now is persuing the same Milosevic-type policies, except against Serbs, by not granting them autonomy [0]. When it comes to nationalists, especially those in the Balkans, it really is same sh*t different flag.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_Serb_Municipali...

Serbia is refusing to give autonomy to Preseva Valley too (Luigina e Presheves). Also, Hungarians minorities in the north don’t have it either.

They have lots of soul searching as well.

it seems like nationalism brings a vicious cycle of crazyness for everyone

There are absolutely zero issue with Hungarian minority in Serbia. Presevo valley is whole other issue due to Kosovo and issues there where Serbs are regularly persecuted on a daily basis. Also, Albanians in the south of Serbia have higher autonomy than Serbs in Kosovo at the moment for example.

It's interesting how roles in Kosovo reversed. Albanians being persecuted by Serbian authorities in the 80' and 90' and Albanians taking up arms and we have Serbs today taking up arms after being persecuted by Albanian authorities. Somehow though when Albanians are doing it it's allright ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Please don't add to the hate. People there don't need this.

Hungarians in Vojvodina don't actively pursue separatism, but if claim there is "zero issue", you obviously don't speak Hungarian. Just talking to random people in Subotica or wherever in their own language, it doesn't take more than a few minutes for an ethnic Hungarian to complain about being part of Serbia. Bitterness about Trianon, and even hopes for a Greater Hungary someday, are as commonly met in Vojvodina as in Hungary, Slovakia, Transcarpathia, or Transylvania.

And since you were talking about Kosovo, one thing you often hear from Hungarians in Vojvodina is that they don’t give a shit about “Kosovo je Srbija” and they hate being associated with a country that keeps banging on about it.

I think there is more seperatism amongst Albanians, not because Albanians are somehow more persecuted whether in Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, Montenegro, or anywhere else, but because of Albanian practice of cultural segragation. For example there is a recent news article of a mother organizing her daughter's kidnapping because she did not approve of her partner being a Croat, despite the fact that croats and albanians "like eachother" and her daughter having a Croatian citizenship (so technically a Croat too).

https://www.index.hr/vijesti/clanak/obitelj-mlade-albanke-bi...

I also speak Serbo-Croatian and travelled the Balkans extensively. I think to call it just a subculture is a bit harsh. There's definitely a significant chunk of the population that does miss Yugoslavia and bratstvo i jedinstvo. In my experience, the sentiment is actually strongest in Bosnia, which makes sense, as it is the most mixed of the successor states and also the one that suffered the most from petty nationalism.

Personally, I also think that Yugoslavia was a good idea that was killed by right wing gangsters. We're all much more similar than we're different and we should focus on that instead of on what Freud called the narcissism of small differences. If Munich and Berlin can be in the same country, why can't Zagreb and Belgrade?

We speak the same language (even tho some don't want to admit it - I usually use "po našu" when referring to the language, meaning "in our language", thus avoiding the nationalist names and pettiness), eat mostly the same foods, have similar mentalities etc.

I agree with you on the ethnic Albanians though - they never made sense in Yugoslavia, the state of the South Slavs. Kosovo should be part of Albania and the Serbs need to shut up about it already.

Interesting that your experience says Bosnia is the most yugonostalgic. The most batshit crazy Greater Serbia talk I hear, even to the point where Yugoslavia is viewed as an anti-Serb mistake, is always among older men in villages in the Republika Srpska. They outdo their peers over in Serbia, and they might even be ahead of their coethnics in northern Kosovo. In the Federation, Muslims often express happiness at being independent, they just wish their independent state didn’t have such a dysfunctional system. I have seldom interacted with Croatians in the Federation, though.

My own experience has found that ethnic Macedonians are the most yugonostalgic, which might be understandable since 1) they had linguistic autonomy outside the acrimonious quarrel over "Serbo-Croatian", and 2) they avoided the wars. But all this is anecdotal and I can see how others might have very divergent experiences.

I definitely meant the Federation and not Srpska. I haven't dared to show up in Srpska, as I also understand it to be a hotbed of nationalist extremism.

I encountered a lot of Yugonostalgia especially amongst the more secular muslims of Bosnia. Hell, I went to a museum that had a photo op for "Your picture with comrade Tito"! https://imgur.com/a/7cMCgjH

> I definitely meant the Federation and not Srpska. I haven't dared to show up in Srpska, as I also understand it to be a hotbed of nationalist extremism.

Relax nothing will happen to you.

"Yugoslavia is viewed as anti-Serb mistake"

It is fascinating that nationalist Serbs and nationalist Croats think that Yugoslavia was a mistake and benefited the other side?? Someone must be wrong I guess.

Well, neither could win over the other side while the pesky Yugoslavia kept them from each other's throats. So they are both right, in a sad way.

Both are wrong, or right, depending on your viewpoint. Yugoslavia forced equality, when they wanted supremacy.

"In the Federation, Muslims often express happiness at being independent, they just wish their independent state didn’t have such a dysfunctional system"

Muslims want their own Greater Bosnia, and Republika Srpska to be only a bad memory.

Hence, the patriotism of Serbs in Bosnia is naturally stronger, to counter a threat to the existance of their "entity".

>>Bosnians (Muslims) want their own Greater Bosnia, and Republika Srpska to be only a bad memory.

This is true that Ethnic Bosnians want their own state. Also, it's racist to call Bosnians Muslims instead of Bosnians. Please correct yourself.

> I agree with you on the ethnic Albanians though - they never made sense in Yugoslavia, the state of the South Slavs. Kosovo should be part of Albania and the Serbs need to shut up about it already.

That was the intention of the people gathered around Bujan Conference [0] during WWII. But their decision was replaced with another one later which was more "marxist".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bujan_Conference

There are so many places all over Europe where majority of population is not of same ethnicity as the rest of the country. Italians in Istria, Croatia. Basque people in Navarra, Spain. Hungarians in southern Slovakia or Vojvodina, northern Serbia. In all of the places I've mentioned and been to, there's a great level of autonomy for those ethnical minorities. Bilingual street signs, schools in native languages, churches etc.

This is what Kosovo had in Yugoslavia, and this is what Kosovo should have in Serbia, for ethnic Albanians.

apropos language, yes they are definitely mutually intelligible.. but there are some grammatical and definitely a lot of lexicographical differences to consider them to an extent separate. This is quite evident by if you watch younger generations trying to understand the other language, since they weren't exposed to it all as we older generations did. Even I have to look up a lot of words when I'm exposed to foreign media.

I also speak German and I can promise you that the differences of German even within countries (Southern vs Northern Germany, Eastern vs Western Austria), are much more significant than the differences between various forms of Serbo-Croatian.

Sure, there's different dialects. But most languages that are old enough have those.

It depends, I also speak German so I know what you're saying. It's a spectrum where narrower band is between Croatia and Serbia and Bosnia (although lexicopgrahical difference is quite there!) and a wider band between let's say Slovenia and Macedonia. Not talking about dialect, just grammar and especially lexicon - since dialects within ye olde republics is also quite something (zagorski, dalmatinski, šumandinski..). Good thing you've mentioned german though, since they have Hochdeutsch. We had it as well "srpsko-hrvatski ili hrvatsko-srpski" (actual full name not to offend anyone lol), but that died after Yugoslavia and ever since divergence grew even moreso.

I think the most correct way to put it is that srpsohrvatski or whatever you want to call it is a pluricentric language with a few mutually intelligible standards the same way German is.

Austrian High German is different from German High German is different from Swiss High German.

For example, Austrians refer to bread rolls as "Semmeln", while Germans call them "Brötchen". Austrians tend to avoid the Preterite in spoken language, while Germans use it pretty frequently etc etc.

"Ich holte mir eine Tüte Brötchen" vs "Ich habe mir ein Sackerl Semmeln geholt", for a practical example.

And yet we consider it the same language.

And now you're making the fallacy of differentiating by the German-Austrian border and not the Danube.

Source: Am Bavarian, we're officially nearly a fourth of Germany and the Austrians talk like we do ;)

More seriously, I couldn't tell you if anything about tenses is written (and differently) in Austrian school books, or if it's just the dialect creeping up.

What I can tell you that your example sounds kinda made up, although of course I know it's proper German.

Yes, Austro-Bavarian is one language group. That being said, I was talking about formalized language standards, not spoken language.

It's called BCMS, Bosnian Croatian, Macedonian Serbian. Ili da ti prevedem Bosanski, Hrvatski, Makedonski I Sr..

Sorry, but I prefer to stay with the Yugoslav term - adding more and more letters is just another expression of petty nationalism.

Also, the M in BCMS is Montenegrin, the latest made-up language, not Macedonian (which is separate). Seems like not even the defenders of linguistic seperatism can keep up with the insanity ;-)

I wrote BCMS in my original post because it saves me the most trouble. If I say "Serbo-Croatian", a lot of people bristle at that. As a foreigner, I can't say "naški". And if I name the specific variety that I learned years ago when I had to buy a textbook, people might accuse me of having political sympathies with that country. (I get a lot of grief from people about this when I am in the region: "as a foreigner, why did you choose to speak with vocabulary typical of that country and not our country?").

I understand where you're coming from. I'd love if we could just call it the Yugoslav Language, or Yugoslavian, but that might just be me :-)

You're trying and that is respectable. People that do "govore po našem" or speak ours can and do often push their version most suited for their aims. Notice there is no "nas" or us in that version.

Hey wait - I know that Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian are very similar. But Macedonian is basically a dialect of Bulgarian and Slovenian has a much more complicated grammar than BCS, it still has the dual and stuff like that. Slovenian and Macedonian are definitely different languages. Most Slavic languages are actually still reasonably close anyway - if you have a little exposure you can at least get the gist. My wife is a native Polish speaker and grew up during communism so learned Russian in school. She can more or less understand Czech and Slovak (as they are both reasonably close to Polish), and also Russian and Ukrainian (including the more Western dialects like Lemko.) By extension, she has a pretty good grasp of the basics of the other Slavic languages. That doesn't make any of those languages a dialect of Polish though.

Yes, BCMS and Slovenian and Macedonian/Bulgarian are generally regarded as different languages, but historically the region had dialect continuums and mutual intelligibility can go across those languages.

The Torlak dialect of Serbian is so transitional to Bulgarian/Macedonian that it could fairly be called a dialect of the latter. Even outside that dialect, it's not at all unusual to see Macedonians and Serbs in general converse, each person speaking his own language.

Similarly, the Croatian dialect spoken in the northwest of Croatia (which has become increasingly fashionable after independence) is transitional to Slovenian and there is greater mutual intelligibility than with standard Croatian.

>differences of German [...] are much more significant than the differences between various forms of Serbo-Croatian.

Maybe, but it adds no argument to the issue of the same lang vs different langs. There's no clear purely linguistical distinction between dialect and language. As an old joke goes a language is a dialect with an army. In other words when it has a separate political status, and governed by a separate body - it's a language, no matter how similar it is to other languages. The reason is that a literary/official language is defined by rules, and as rules are defined by separate entities, existing differences will be preserved, and new will emerge, and multiply eventually.

It actually does. German has three armies, yet is one language.

It does only if you prefer to take the "army" part absolutely literally. Which you shouldn't because, as clearly stated, it's a joke. Literary German is governed by the one regulatory body - Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung - recognized not by three, but seven European countries. And this what makes German one language. If tomorrow, say, Liechtenstein decides it's not going to follow the same rules, there will be two.

> There's definitely a significant chunk of the population that does miss Yugoslavia and bratstvo i jedinstvo. In my experience, the sentiment is actually strongest in Bosnia, which makes sense, as it is the most mixed of the successor states and also the one that suffered the most from petty nationalism.

I'm from Bosnia, and while there are people who pay lip service to the idea that they miss Yugoslavia, in 95% of cases, these same people didn't vote for political parties that wanted to preserve Yugoslavia. Instead, they voted for nationalistic parties. Now that they've been disappointed by those nationalistic dreams (as it turns out, politicians/criminals don't actually care who they are robbing), they say they miss Yugoslavia. However, they still vote for the same political parties that advocated for independence.

> I agree with you on the ethnic Albanians though - they never made sense in Yugoslavia, the state of the South Slavs. Kosovo should be part of Albania and the Serbs need to shut up about it already.

Kosovo was part of Serbia before Yugoslavia came into existence, and it will be again. Last time, it took us a few hundred years to return; this time, it will happen much faster.

From what I have heard a Kosovo-Albania union has a sort of cheery superficial support among Albanians, completely unbacked by any serious desire or ambition, on either side.

How would power be shared in such a constellation? It's not self-evident.

Especially in southern Albania, where the population is Orthodox Christian, and in a country where any religious observance significantly faded under socialism, there’s some wariness about political union because Kosovars are viewed as extreme Muslims. (Both Serbs and Republic-of-Albanians tend to be oblivious to the Roman Catholic Kosovar Albanians about Gjakovë, though granted they are a tiny minority.) I have repeatedly heard people in Korçë or Pogradec give the standard Albanian platitude that all Albanians everywhere are brothers, only for them to disparage Kosovars in nearly the same breath.

This matches what I have heard too. And I just remembered, Kosovar tourists in Albania are wary of violent crime, like muggings under gun threat. They see Albania as less safe than Kosovo in general.

I would be surprised if those fears among Kosovars were still common now years after the motorway was built and throngs of Kosovars come to Albania every summer and see it firsthand. Certainly I personally have never heard such concerns in the last decade.

> If Munich and Berlin can be in the same country, why can't Zagreb and Belgrade?

Munich is more similar to Vienna than it is to Berlin. And yet Munich and Vienna should definitely not be in the same country, because people who argue like this, also tend to argue that Kaliningrad under its former name was pretty similar to Berlin after all.

> I agree with you on the ethnic Albanians though - they never made sense in Yugoslavia, the state of the South Slavs. Kosovo should be part of Albania and the Serbs need to shut up about it already.

Many countries have an ethnic component as part of their official country name, eg. France and Germany. Yugoslavia recognised nationalities as constituent. Five nationalies were seen as constituent: Serbs, Croats, Muslims, Slovenians, and Macedonians. However citizenship was not restricted to these. Bosnia and Herzegovina inherrited this system of constituent nationalities as part of the Dayton Peace Agreement, and as a qonsequence has one of the most wild government structures in the world

Whenever state was dominated by Serbs is debatable, given that Tito was Croat. I would argue that communism did us all great deal of damage and that Yugoslavia was mistake.

But implying that Serbs committed atrocities against other people during peaceful times is simply not true. Once civil war started, atrocities were committed by all sides, not just Serbs. I have lost family members in war and I have friends who as kids had to escape from Sarajevo in early days of war to save their they lives (while their only crime was being born as Serbs).

Unfortunately, today everything is presented in simple black/white, good vs bad guys way without ever scratching under the surface.

> But implying that Serbs committed atrocities

My post reported the perceptions that non-Serbs often have about Serbs, and how this can hinder yugonostalgia. This is a separate issue from who committed what, and your trying to bring up that debate is not helpful to this discussion.

> My post reported the perceptions that non-Serbs often have about Serbs, and how this can hinder yugonostalgia

I was driven by an Albanian taxi driver abroad, who loves ethnonationalist Albanian politician Albin Kurti, but at the same time believed that Yugoslavia was amazing and that he wished that it never split.

I can use many examples like that that can hinder your NATO flavoured narrative.

It goes both ways.

Serbs did commit atrocities and ethnic cleansing

Ethnic cleansing occurred during the Bosnian War (1992–95) as large numbers of Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) and Bosnian Croats were forced to flee their homes or were expelled by the Army of Republika Srpska and Serb paramilitaries.[6][7][8][9] Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs had also been forced to flee or were expelled by Bosnian Croat forces, though on a restricted scale and in lesser numbers. The UN Security Council Final Report (1994) states while Bosniaks also engaged in "grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and other violations of international humanitarian law", they "have not engaged in "systematic ethnic cleansing"".[10] According to the report, "there is no factual basis for arguing that there is a 'moral equivalence' between the warring factions".[10]

I should remind you Tito died in 1982 and that resulted with instability, inflation and war. I was there. Felt it all. Tito fought croats and serbs since we they both had radical groups. But we all fought wars against one nation. Wonder why. Guess we were all bad.

Tito passed away in 1980 at the age of 88, and his influence had been waning for at least a decade before his death. His final significant power move occurred in 1972 when he dismissed the Croatian leadership. However, it's worth noting that he also dismissed the Serbian leadership, seemingly in an effort to maintain a semblance of parity. The constitutional changes in 1974 paved the way for Yugoslavia's eventual disintegration, and it became a question of whether the republic leaderships could come to any agreements.

As for concerns about Serb domination in Yugoslavia, it's important to consider that each political reform in Yugoslavia since the end of World War II had weakened the federal administration while strengthening the republic administrations. By the time the last constitution was established in 1974, each republic had its own president, government with various ministries, police, secret police, and some form of military forces (territorial defense). On the federal level, each of these institutions had become a mere shadow of what they were just 20 years earlier. To pass any decision at the federal level, a majority vote was required and Serbia had one vote just like everybody else (that will change once Milosevic got control over two autonomous provinces in Serbia but that happened only in 1989-1990).

In the case of Serbia proper, by 1974, two autonomous provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo, had gained so much autonomy that they had voting power on the federal level. These two regions of Serbia already possessed legislative autonomy, meaning they could pass laws for their own territories without consulting the rest of Serbia. Consequently, there was a central part of Serbia that found itself somewhat beholden to these two autonomous provinces.

It is possible for all of that to be true (I believe it) and for Serb domination to be a thing, too. (Empires can crumble while trying to adapt, too. There were parallels in the Soviet union break-up.)

Yeah, the issue is too complex to summarize in a single post. Why that country was created, the influences that shaped it, the varying desires of its constituent parts, and what might have happened if the Warsaw Pact had continued to exist...

Another aspect, often forgotten nowadays, is that after World War II, communism was the defining characteristic of the ruling class. They were Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, but above all, they were communists. Over time, this was gradually replaced by thinly veiled nationalism. It's not coincidental that many of the politicians who emerged as party leaders, and later as state leaders, after the collapse of communism were, at some point, members of the communist party.

1980, not 1982. What kind of yugoslav are you not to know that? :)

The one with quite selective memory, obviously)

>But implying that Serbs committed atrocities against other people during peaceful times is simply not true.

This is true. Serbs did commit ethnic cleansing and atrocities across Bosnia and Croatia. Please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_in_the_Bosnia....

Croats committed ethnic cleansing against Serbs, which led to mass exodus: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Storm#Refugee_cris...

Interestingly, Croatian football hooligans still using this fact to insult Serbs in 2023.

Kosovo's Albanians committed war crimes against Serbs: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_Liberation_Army#Massa...

Those are the facts, and I don't understand what's the point in denying it.

You must have missed the part that says: `According to the report, "there is no factual basis for arguing that there is a 'moral equivalence' between the warring factions"`

Serbs committed many bad acts against everyone involved and there is no moral equivalence.

Unpopular opinion maybe, but albanians (whether from Albania or Kosovo) weren't ever really a part of Yugoslavia. "They" were always alien to the prevailing culture and a minority.

-a Albanians from Albania have nothing to do with Yugoslavia, it's like saying Italians from italy weren't ever really a part of France. -b From the comments it looks like Albanians from Kosovo weren't the only ones who didn't like the government of Yugoslavia from that period. If the government doesn't foster inclusion and cooperation, then fractures happen, whether you're "part" of the prevailing culture or not. Albanians were not a minority in Kosovo, the same way that Slovenes are not a minority in Slovenia (and I think you'll agree that the size of the population is similar).

> -a Albanians from Albania have nothing to do with Yugoslavia, it's like saying Italians from italy weren't ever really a part of France.

No, not really. More like Italians from New York were never part of USA (they were). Albanians were a minority throughout ex-yu and always showed inclination towards the eagle state, never yu. But you already knew what I was talking about because you rightly said:

> Albanians were not a minority in Kosovo

which I guess is true (I don't know by heart stats) since it was always considered kind of alien culture to all of the others including Vojvodina; Never integrated, always closer to Albania. However this might be just my perspective from Croatia.

> More like Italians from New York were never part of USA (they were).

Please re-read my statement that you quoted. Italians from New York is completely different from Albanians from Albania. Albania is a country where the overwhelming majority is Albanian.

> Never integrated, always closer to Albania.

Whether the Albanian population in ex-Yu showed inclination towards Albania can be argued either way, but I don't see the Albanian population in Macedonia do the same thing (took up arms and fought at the risk of losing their lives for independence). Considering someone alien makes it much easier to segregate, ostracize, denigrate, punish and abuse them. Ask yourself whether the ex-Yu government would have been able to do the things they did to Kosovo if they have called them our brothers (or even called them citizens of Yugoslavia) or if they called them "those Kosovo aliens that don't want to integrate".

Not only nostalgia. Many families from former Yugoslavia don't fit in narrow national identities of new Balkan states. e.g. one parent from Serbia, the other from Croatia. Would be nice to also have some sort of an umbrella nationality like British or American.

My parents left inthe 60s and met abroad, had 4 kids, my grandma came out to them in the 80s to help raise the kids.

The first time my grandma was supposed to return after the civil war she returned with her yogoslavian passport. They actually had a situation at the border where the border guards had to tell my grandma "I'm sorry madam, but this country no longer exists" :D

«Mr. Navorski, Krakozhia no longer exists»

Know someone who fled Bosnia during 90s to Germany. No more Yugoslavia so this person had a Bosnian passport in Germany. He had a kid in Germany, so his kid had a German passport. His parents fled to Serbia, his dad had a Serbian passport and mum - because of her 'nationality' - Croatian passport. Four members of the same family, same surname, four passports. Made for some interesting border crossings when they travelled together.

This kind of thing happens with language too. Areas which historically had a lot of immigration sometimes end up with immigrant communities that still speak "the old way". I know some Brazilians of Japanese descent who've moved "back to" Japan. They take Japanese language lessons and the instructors always know to tell these folks "don't talk like your parents/grandparents", since the lingo on the mainland has shifted significantly.

I've also heard the rumor that this is why the US and UK speak differently, and that the US is actually how Britain used to sound, but I've also seen people say it's BS.

It's not a rumour, it's a linguistic fact. It's not exactly the same, as the American English shifted as well -- but many obvious differences, like rhoticism, used to be a norm in the UK as well. In fact, they are still very present in some British accents (just remember the stereotypical Scottish accent), but have changed in "official" accents like RP.

What's the evidence? I've seen people go back and forth about it, but never seen any actual convincing arguments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticity_in_English

The rumor the OP mentions that often gets dismissed as bullshit, might be the one that “in a valley in West Virginia/on an island off the Eastern seaboard, people still speak Elizabethan English!”. And that irks people who are knowledgeable because, as you state, American English is a mix of some archaisms along with boatloads of innovations of its own.

This is BS and sold to outsiders. "Ne našima". People born there know what happened and who did what. Just a little excerpt from Wiki

I see so much being cited from Wikipedia, and that is not a reliable source.

One only has to look at an article in different languages, clearly authored by different sets of people. For example, if you look up "Kosovo", the English version states "Kosovo ... is a country in Southeast Europe with partial diplomatic recognition" whereas the one in Serbian states (which I will translate):

"Република Косово је званични назив једнострано проглашене државе на територији Републике Србије, противно Уставу Србије.[5] Према Резолуцији 1244 Савета безбедности УН цела територија Косова и Метохије, правно гледано, налази се у саставу Србије док не буде постигнуто коначно решење"

translated as:

"Kosovo is a formal name for a one-sidedly declared country on the territory of Republic of Serbia, to the objection of Serbia. According to the resolution 1244 from the Security Council of the UN, the entire territory of Kosovo and Metohija, in terms of the law, belongs to Serbia until a final resolution is reached."

Wikipedia is essentially a he-said/she-said website on politically charged matters, and I really wish people would stop treating it as the source of truth.

Please look up the term "ethnic cleansing" where it originated and the parties involved. I'll save you a bit of time, term ethnic cleansing was coined during Bosnian Civil War and is used to describe forceful removal of ethnic population through violent means think murder at concentration camp scale. Serbs ethnically cleansed Bosnians during Bosnian War. To save you even more time.

I don't need Wikipedia to tell me anything about Bosnian War, but people here need sources. You coming in and saying Wikipedia is not a reliable source without citing anything makes you uninformed at best.

I gave a very specific example of the inconsistency between different language versions of the same wiki page, which is prevalent in every wiki page where there is a potential for political influence. Based on what you said, I'm fairly certain you did not even read my comment.

> but I think a similar thing might happen if America broke up into separate countries. You’d still have a sizable amount of people that identify more as Americans than as Californians/New Yorkers/etc.

And yet, invariably when you meet an American in some other country, and ask him where is he from, he will answer "I'm from California/New York/Alabama/Ohio".

Back when I lived in Europe and had a lot of contact with international people, I used to pull the leg when that happened. If an American introduced himself like that, I will introduce myself in a similar way: "I am from Campeche" ... let HIM try to guess what that meant haha.

All ex-Yugoslav republics are speaking the same Serbo-Croatian language, despite calling it Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian etc. Even today, after 20 years of separation, their languages are closer to each other than some South and North Italian dialects. Genetically they are mostly the same population too. Only Albanians in Kosovo and Metohia are exception in both cases.

So, technically Bosniaks, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs, and Slovenians are South Slavs, or literally Yugo-Slavs.

Similar with Czechoslovakia, although it is limited to older people who spent their formative years during that time.

Given the American identity is much older than either of these 2 examples and there aren't even these underlying nations like in e. g. Yugoslavia, I'd expect this effect to be way stronger and persistent in America.

What's the name of the continent where "America" is? :D

From a European perspective, American means from the continent America, and not specifically from the US. To me a Brazilian is as much American as a US citizen.

I'm pretty sure it's only in English and Japanese that "America" and "American" mean "the US" and "someone from the US". Everyone in Latin America also agrees that "americano" is the demonym for the continent.

>From a European perspective, American means from the continent America, and not specifically from the US.

I don't think this is true for most of Europe.

For at least three different EU countries that I lived in, America and American is used exclusively for "the US" and "person from the US". "Person from Mexico" and "person from Brazil" would be Mexican and Brazilian, not American.

And geographically, the continents are North America and South America, so North Americans and South Americans is used too, in that context. But I don't think I've ever heard Americans to refer to both North and South Americans as a group of people.

Yep, I'm from central Europe and we would call Canadian a North-American, but not American.

I get the argument against it, but this is how the language is used.

I'm European and to me American means from the USA.

In the UK, "America" always refers to the USA. North America and South America together are called "The Americas", never "America". It may be different in continental languages.

>What's the name of the continent where "America" is?

In all seriousness, North America.

My sample size is pretty small but I've heard Croatians in Germany the 90s identify themselves as much as Croatians than as Yugoslavians, at least to my recollections, was a kid then.

I never understood the thing in the US to call yourselves "Americans", there's a whole continent of Americans.

How do you call your countrymen?

It should be USofAians, of course.

I'm sure you understand it perfectly as it's been commonly used this way for a couple of centuries now.

I agree. This is why my circle of friends call each other 'Yankees'

a lot of older ex-Yugoslavians

Hm, more like "some", probably "very few", definitely not "a lot."

In my experience these people are from very mixed families, for example: has a Muslim mum, Slovak dad who was a Yugoslav communist bureaucrat, born in Belgrade, married to a Slovenian army man, lives in Vienna and is 75 years old.

Everyone else finds one branch of their ethnic composition to identify with.

I would continue to identify myself as "American" if USA broke up and each state became it's own country regardless of whether I went abroad prior to that or any other situation of that sort.

Some states that cause residents to have conversations like this:

Me: "I'm American. Freedom flavored." (don't make assumptions, anyone from North or South America is American) You: "Cool, which state?" Me: "A united state!" You: "What in the actual fuck? They're all united. What specific state do you reside in and/or originate from? (Smartass...)" Me: "Look... If you sweat all the small shit you're gonna die from a heart attack in your 50s." You: "Holy shit... So... Florida?" Me: "Worse." You: "Ah... Question retracted."

This ignores that such a breaking up of the US would very likely be based on similar dynamics as "balkanizations" that see smaller groups put their own identidy above that of the bigger group.

Sentiments that will be reinforced during a civil war when these groups keep trading violence and atrocities with each other, that creates a lot of bad blood and tends to make people identify in ways that differentiate them from "the enemy".

Not even Americans are immune to that, it's an issue latent to this day whenever state rights vs federal government comes up.

It's already happened to some extent but with virtual states - Dem & Rep.

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