Dissolution of Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia's dissolution (1991-1992) was the first European state collapse since WWII and the most violent, producing four wars (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo) over a decade and the genocide at Srebrenica. The federal state, held together since 1945 by Tito's communist authority and an institutional balancing of the six republics and two autonomous provinces, began to fracture under economic crisis (inflation 1,000% in 1989) and the rise of Serbian nationalism under Milosevic, who used the 1989 Kosovo Polje speech to position Serbia as a victim that needed to reassert control over its provinces. Slovenia and Croatia declared independence in June 1991; the EU recognised them in January 1992 over US objections. Bosnia's independence (April 1992) triggered a 3.5-year siege of Sarajevo and the Bosnian War, in which Serbian forces under General Ratko Mladic carried out systematic ethnic cleansing and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre (8,000 men and boys executed). NATO's 1995 bombing (Operation Deliberate Force) forced the Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the war but institutionalised the ethnic divisions it had produced.
- Year: 1991 CE
- Category: Political
