Flag of the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia (1945-1991)
Map of the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia
This anniversary actually took place on 29th November, which is the day when I returned to blogging, and after I realised this I thought it was absolutely criminal that I mentioned nothing about this considering my ethnicity and heritage!
The founding of the Republic of Yugoslavia-the country which both my parents and myself were born in-was founded on 29th November 1943 by Marshall Josip Broz 'Tito' and his Partisans in the mountainous central Bosnian town of Jajce during the height of their self proclaimed People's Liberation War. Tito's and the Partisan's headquarters were established there and thereafter became Socialist Yugoslavia's first capital, and once the entire territory was liberated in 1945 the sovereignty soon transferred to Belgrade, which before was-and today now is once again-capital of Serbia. Tito must have shouted perhaps his most famous phrase "bratstvo i jedinstvo"-brotherhood and unity-many times on that day, and it is these words which by themselves more than any other told of his vision for the country which he would rule for more than 30 years. Hundreds of people from across former Yugoslavia still gather on the anniversary every year in Jajce to celebrate Tito and his legacy.
My own great-grandfather was part of Tito's vision, for he joined the Partisans during the Second World War and became employed by them to write up their documents due to his excellent typewriter skills. My maternal grandmother-his daughter-resided in the northern Bosnian city of Tuzla at the time with her family, and remembers the fear they felt when Nazi's would bang on their door demanding to know where her father was, and the collective joy and elation shown by the citizens when Tuzla was eventually liberated, when columns of Partisan tanks and soldiers marched through Tuzla while people cheered in the streets.
Jajce, where Tito's state began
Tito was-depending on who you talk to-a socialist dictator or a powerful statesman who wished the best for his country. But few disagree with his vision, which was to unite all the people living across the territory of former Yugoslavia-the "Jugo Slavs" or "South Slavs"-into a single state based on tolerance and mutual corporation. Today, many more people still admire rather than despise Tito and look at him favourably as a peace bringer and a man who bought peace and economic prosperity to Yugoslavia until his death in 1980. In fact his reign is sometimes seen as a bit of a "golden age" among some in the region. But with his death the vision of Yugoslavia slowly faded away, and the country crumbled in a series of civil wars starting in 1991 due to a resurgence of nationalism and nationalistic politics-barely a decade after his death. Tito was the glue which essentially bound Yugoslavia together, and without him the countries which made up Yugoslavia simply failed to function in a single entity.
It is very ironic that a country which had ethnic and religious tolerance at the centre of its values is now a region of states which has become notorious to the wider world for having racist and intollerant societies. True, Tito's vision was always ambitious-he was to rule a country with three major and several more minor religions, and with six dominant ethnic groups-the Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians, Serbs, Montenegrins, Macedonians and more than 20 established ethnic minorities, including Albanians, Hungarians, Italians and Turks. But few could have imagined that things would end up as they are in the present day, with many areas of the former Yugoslavia deeply divided and hatred running deep for the "wrong" side. Tito fought for 4 years to create the country of his vision-the Yugoslav civil wars began in 1991 and ended in 1995, meaning that in another 4 years Tito's vision was all but crumbled, blown away like dead autumn leaves in the wind.
Those 4 years of 1941-1945 were spent by Tito and his Partisans by hiding in caves and attacking the units of Nazi German occupiers by guerrilla warfare. At the time, the Nazi's-with their Croat Ustasha allies-installed a puppet "Independent State of Croatia" regime which covered much of modern Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and was headed by the notorious Ante Pavelic, who had rabid anti Jew and anti Serb views. The official policy for Serbs and other "offensive" groups such as Jews and Gypsies was to "kill a third, convert a third and deport a third"-the latter option often being to Nazi run concentration camps. In the most notorious cases, entire Serb Orthodox villages would have their villagers-including the elderly, the women and the children-forced inside the village Orthodox Church which would then be set ablaze. No one knows exactly how many Serb civillians lost their lives in this way, and the issue will probably never be resolved. However, the Jewish population of the region was almost completely wiped out, and the death toll of Serbs is somewhere in the region of hundreds of thousands. On the other hand royalist, nationalist Serbs under Draza Mihajlovic were established as the "Chetniks", who admitted only Serbs to their cause and began killing Croat and Bosnian Muslim civilians using the same tactics and brutal methods as their Ustasha counterparts. The most brutal of these massacres occurred in 1945 in the predominantly Muslim populated Bosnian Foca town region and the adjacent mostly Muslim Sandzak region in neighbouring Serbia, where some 9000 people were murdered. People who did not agree with either of these forces-and there were many such people of all ethnicities-joined Tito and his Partisans, and if they did not they at least supported him in non direct ways.
The two most crucial battles of World War II between Tito's Partisans and the Nazi Germans occurred in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The first was the "Battle of the Neretva" near the town of Jablanica, where the severely outnumbered Partisans managed to cross the River Neretva before the Nazi's and then blew up the rail bridge which they used, preventing the Germans from perusing them. The destroyed bridge was subsequently left as it stood this day and had a museum built next to it, located just outside the town of Jablanica. The second battle took place in Sutjeska, near the eastern Bosnian town of Foca. Here Tito's Partisans were once again outnumbered and were also completely surrounded by the Nazi's, who attacked them with both aerial and land bombardment. But they refused to surrender and the brave men and women who were fighting for a better tomorrow saved themselves by hiding in the vast mountains and woodlands. There were many casualties-some 3000 on the Partisan side-and Tito himself was almost killed by a German shell. But the Partisans once again switched to guerrilla warfare and the Germans were eventually forced to retreat. Subsequently the entire area was proclaimed a national park, and contains some of the most important Partisan monuments in the former Yugoslavia.
From top: Tito leading his men and women in the Battle of Sutjeska; the main monument at Sutjeska National Park, Bosnia and Herzegovina, commemorating the battle; a plaque in front of the memorial holding the grave of one of the fallen men and women who lost their lives in the battle; and the vast mountains, valleys and forests at Sutjeska where Tito hid along with his men and women
So many people died for Tito and his cause, yet it was really for nothing as what he worked so hard to avoid what occurred anyway: all out warfare and hatred between Yugoslavia's main ethnic and religious groups. The fate of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was ironically where the above mentioned two most major battles took place, has suffered the worst fate. The mountains and valleys of this beautiful republic are now littered with destroyed buildings, abandoned villages and terrible ghosts of the past, with hatred not being difficult to find. Before the war this republic epitomised everything Tito stood for, where Orthodox Serbs, Roman Catholic Croats, Bosnian Muslims and numerous ethnic minorities such as Jews lived side by side, particularly in the larger towns and cities,such as Sarajevo and Mostar, where if ever one group predominated at least one other would form a significant minority. Today some of these same once ethnically and religiously mixed towns now have one ethnic group which resides exclusively within them, the other communities being driven out by ethnic cleansing. The concept of brotherhood and unity is now as dead as Tito.
Tito's mausoleum in Belgrade today stands as an unmaintained building with an unkempt flower garden. This sad view of a once highly revered and sacred place to many reflects the sad fate-and ultimate failure-of Socialist Yugoslavia. It reflects what he and all his brave men and women fought for and for what many of them gave their lives so we-the people of the former Yugoslavia-could have peace and a better tomorrow. The memory of those days may still be fresh in the minds of many but are now tainted by darkness and sorrow by the wars and the ethnic cleansing, just as Tito's grave is now unmaintained and the once beautiful flowers in the garden no longer bloom.
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