ERIC Identifier: ED377139
Publication Date: 1993-12-00
Author: Cox, John K.
Source: ERIC Clearinghouse for Social
Studies/Social Science Education Bloomington IN.
Teaching about Conflict and Crisis in the Former Yugoslavia:
The Case of Bosnia-Hercegovina. ERIC Digest.
Since 1991, a bitter and bloody war has raged in Bosnia-Hercegovina, part of
the former country of Yugoslavia. The United Nations has tried to settle the
conflict. And leaders of the U.S. government have considered sending armed
forces to help victims of this war. This Digest provides facts and explanations
about (1) the peoples and places of the former Yugoslavia, including
Bosnia-Hercegovina; (2) the collapse of Yugoslavia and the crisis in
Bosnia-Hercegovina or "Bosnia;" and (3) the causes, conditions, and consequences
of the Bosnian war. Finally, sources of information and materials for teachers
are listed.
THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA: ITS PEOPLES AND PLACES, 1918-1990.
Yugoslavia was a country of about 23 million people located in southeastern
Europe, across the Adriatic Sea from Italy. More than 15 ethnic groups lived in
the former Yugoslavia. The majority of the population, however, belonged to one
of six related Slavic groups: Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Bosnian Muslims,
Macedonians, and Montenegrins. The Croats, Serbs, Muslims, and Montenegrins
speak a common language, referred to as "Serbo-Croatian." But religious and
other cultural differences, which have resulted from separate historical
experiences, have divided these Slavic groups.
From the Middle Ages to 1918, most of these people lived in one of two
empires, which dominated this part of Europe: the Hapsburg Empire, ruled from
Vienna, and the Ottoman Empire, ruled by the Turks from Istanbul. The Slovenes
and Croats lived under Hapsburg rule, while the Bosnians and most Serbs lived
under Turkish authority. Serbia and Montenegro, though, had small independent
kingdoms by the turn of this century. These served as a base for the
construction of Yugoslavia (Land of the South Slavs) in 1918, following World
War I, which was a monarchy headed by the Serbian ruling house.
During World War II, Yugoslavia was occupied by Germans and Italians. A
Communist, Josip Broz (Tito), organized a large resistance force known as the
Partisans. He wanted to throw out the enemy occupiers and transform Yugoslavia
into a socialist state.
After World War II, Tito became the supreme ruler of the new, second
Yugoslavia. The country was divided into six republics: Slovenia, Serbia,
Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Montenegro (Crna Gora), and Macedonia. Each
republic corresponded to one of the six South Slav ethnic groups, but all had
minorities.
THE COLLAPSE OF YUGOSLAVIA AND THE CRISIS IN
BOSNIA-HERCEGOVINA
After Tito's death in 1980, centrifugal forces gained in
strength. Inflation and unemployment rose sharply. The foreign debt climbed to
over $20 billion. Ethnic unrest spread. Tales of corruption and mismanagement in
firms all over the country racked the economy.
In 1989, revolutions toppled Communist governments throughout central and
eastern Europe. The revolutionary spirit spread to Yugoslavia and helped lead,
unfortunately, to devastating civil wars, the most tragic of which has been the
conflict in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
In April, 1990, Slovenia, one of the republics inside Yugoslavia, held free
elections. The Croats followed suit. The Communists were swept from power. In
June, 1991, the two republics declared their complete independence.
The Yugoslav National Army (JNA), dominated by Serbs, responded aggressively
to halt the disintegration of the country. After a fierce but short war, the JNA
pulled out of Slovenia. But by the end of the year, rebel Serbs in Croatia had
taken over one-third of the country. Serbs and Croats are still fighting in
three areas of Croatia. The southern republic of Macedonia has also seceded.
Ethnic tensions run high there too.
Bosnia-Hercegovina seceded from Yugoslavia in 1992. As the country's largest
ethnic group, Bosnian Muslims occupied the leading positions in the republic's
new government. At this time, the population of Bosnia was about 43 percent
Bosnian Muslim, 33 percent Serb, and 17 percent Croat. The capital, Sarajevo,
was famous as a cosmopolitan, tolerant, ethnically mixed city.
Most Serbs and Croats of Bosnia vowed that they would not live under a
government dominated by Muslims. In the spring of 1992, Serbs rebelled, with
support from the republic of Serbia, and a nasty civil war began, which has
continued to this day. Bosnian Croats soon entered the war, sometimes joining
Bosnian Muslims to resist the Serbs, but more often fighting Muslims to seize
territory, for occupation only by Croats.
CAUSES, CONDITIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE BOSNIAN WAR
Who
started the war? Opinions vary. There is no doubt that all sides are now
perpetrating heinous acts of violence. All of the ethnic groups are suffering,
at home and on the front. In the midst of Europe's biggest crisis since World
War II, one cannot put a value on the suffering of abused individuals of any
nationality. One can, however, assert that the Muslims, because of huge
campaigns of rape and "ethnic cleansing" aimed at them, have suffered the most
in quantitative terms.
To date more than 200,000 people, mostly in Bosnia, have been killed in the
civil wars. There are over two million refugees, many living in camps or with
relatives in Croatia. Large numbers of displaced persons have also fled to
Slovenia, Hungary, Austria, and Germany. Over 80 percent of Bosnia-Hercegovina
has been occupied by Serb and Croat forces, with most of this territory under
control of Serbians.
The war has been conducted viciously by all sides. We hear a great deal about
front-line casualties. There are also gruesome scenes on television of funerals
and hospitals being bombarded, marketplaces raked with machine-gun fire,
children shot in buses as they are evacuated from long-besieged cities, and
concentration camps holding abused, starving internees. The vast majority of the
casualties in these civil wars have been civilians. Repositories of vast
cultural importance, such as libraries, mosques, and monasteries have been
deliberately targeted for destruction by the warring groups, especially the
Serbs.
The extreme brutality of this war can be attributed in large part to historic
animosities and cultural divisions between contending groups. For example,
during World War II, Croatia became a Nazi satellite run by local fascists known
as Ustashe. They set up a notorious concentration camp at Jasenovac and began
ridding their country of minorities. Serbs, Muslims, Jews, and Gypsies all
suffered. Thus the long-standing rivalry between Serbs and Croats, which in
earlier centuries had had interludes of substantive literary and political
cooperation, was poisoned by viciousness on all sides in World War II. These
memories live on today.
Unfortunately, the history of struggle between Christians and Muslims in the
Balkans is longer and bloodier. Each has viewed the other as the "infidel" since
the Muslim Turks arrived in Europe as conquerors in the fourteenth century. But
the war is less religious than cultural (and of course political and economic);
identification with Islamic and Christian culture (Catholic in the Croatian
case, Orthodox in the Serbian) is more important than differences of belief.
Further, the literature and folklore of the region abound in sagas of holy war,
armed uprising against evil foreign governments, and noble bloodshed. The
tradition of the blood feud existed in many areas into the twentieth century.
All the rival groups have long memories of both real and imagined injustices
done to them throughout history, and each group seems to want revenge for past
wrongs inflicted on them by one or more of the other groups.
The numbers of deliberate civilian casualties and prevalence of "ethnic
cleansing" evoke memories of the genocide of World War II. People worry that the
world has too soon forgotten the need for preventing another Holocaust.
The war is especially important for Europe because it has created large
numbers of refugees who are an economic drain on their host countries. They also
contribute to political instability by inciting the wrath of right-wing groups
intent on finding scapegoats for Europe's economic malaise. Europe's diplomatic
impotence in the face of this huge war on its own turf also serves as a warning
that the future of the faction-ridden European Community is in doubt.
SOURCES OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS AND INFORMATION FOR
TEACHERS
The organizations listed below provide information and materials
for teaching and learning about the peoples and countries of central and eastern
Europe, including the peoples and places of the former Yugoslavia. These
recently and currently funded Title VI National Resource Centers, administered
by the U.S. Department of Education, provide assistance, which may include
lending audio-visual materials, providing outreach speakers for elementary,
secondary and college classrooms or community groups, workshops for teachers
and/or students, and textbook review. Services provided vary among centers;
several produce newsletters.
---
*
Center for Slavic and East European Studies
University
of California at Berkeley
361
Stephens Hall
Berkeley,
CA 94720
(415)
642-3230
---
*
Center for Russian and East European Studies
University
of California at Los Angeles, with the RAND
Institute
334
Kinsey Hall
405
Hilgard Avenue
Los
Angeles, CA 90024
UCLA
(213) 825-4998
---
*
Institute on East Central Europe
Columbia
University
1228
International Affairs Building
New
York, NY 10027
(212)
854-4008
---
* Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies
Duke
University
Box
90259
Durham,
NC 27708-0259
(919)
660-3142
---
*
Center for Soviet, Post-Soviet, and East European Studies
Emory
University
13
Social Sciences Building
Atlanta,
GA 30322
(404)
727-6582
---
*
Russian and East European Language and Area Center
Harvard
University
1737
Cambridge Street
Cambridge,
MA 02138
(617)
495-4037
---
*
Russian and East European Center
University
of Illinois
104
International Studies Building
910
S. Fifth St.
Champaign,
IL 61820
(217)
333-1244
---
*
Russian and East European Institute
Indiana
University
Ballantine
Hall 565
Bloomington,
IN 47405
(812)
855-7309
---
*
Russian and East European Studies
University
of Kansas
108
Lippincott Hall
Lawrence,
KS 66045
(913)
864-4236
---
*
Center for Russian and East European Studies
University
of Michigan
210
Lane Hall
Ann
Arbor, MI 48109-1290
(313)
764-0351
---
*
Center for Russian and East European Studies
Middlebury
College
Middlebury,
VT 05753
(802)
338-3711
---
*
Center for Russian and East European Studies
University
of North Carolina
Chapel
Hill, NC 27599
(919)
962-0901
---
*
Center for Slavic and East European Studies
Ohio
State University
344
Oxley Hall
1712
Neil Ave.
Columbus,
OH 43210-1219
(614)
292-8770
---
*
Russian and East European Studies Center
University
of Oregon
c/o
The Department of Political Science
Eugene,
OR 97403
(503)
686-4877
---
*
Russian and East European Studies Center
University
of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia,
PA 19174
(215)
898-8704
---
*
Center for Russian and East European Studies
University
of Pittsburgh
4E-23
Forbes Quad.
Pittsburgh,
PA 15260
(412)
624-3973
---
*
Russian and East European Center
Stanford
University
Stanford,
CA 94305
(415)
497-9468
---
*
Center for Post-Soviet and East European Studies
University
of Texas
Geography
106
Austin,
TX 78712
(512)
471-7782
---
*
Center for Russian and East European Studies
University
of Virginia
103
Levering Hall
Charlottesville,
VA 22903
(804)
924-3033
---
*
Russian and East European Language and Area Center
University
of Washington
Thompson
Hall 504, DR-05
Seattle,
WA 98195
(206)
543-4852
---
*
Russian and East European Studies Program
University
of Wisconsin
Madison,
WI 53706
(608)
262-9632
---
*
Council on Russian and East European Studies
Yale
University
Box
13 A Yale Station
New
Haven, CT 06520
(203)
432-3423
WEB LINKS
History of Bosnia and
Herzegovina - Offers a good overview to the history of Bosnia and
Herzegovina.
History of
Serbia and Montenegro - Provides a good summary of the history of
Serbia and Montenegro.
History of Croatia - Gives a good look at the history of Croatia.
REFERENCES AND ERIC RESOURCES
The following list includes
references used to prepare this Digest and related documents. The items followed
by an ED number are available in microfiche and/or paper copies from the ERIC
Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). For information about prices, contact
EDRS, 7420 Fullerton Road, Suite 110, Springfield, Virginia 22153-2842;
telephone numbers are (703) 440-1400 and (800) 443-3742. Entries followed by an
EJ number, annotated monthly in CURRENT INDEX TO JOURNALS IN EDUCATION (CIJE),
are not available through EDRS. However, they can be located in the journal
section of most larger libraries by using the bibliographic information
provided, requested through Interlibrary Loan, or ordered from University
Microfilms International.
Chan, Adrian. FREE TO CHOOSE: A TEACHER'S RESOURCE AND ACTIVITY GUIDE TO REVOLUTION AND REFORM IN EASTERN EUROPE. Stanford, CA: SPICE, 1991. ED 351 248.
Cohen, Lenard J. BROKEN BONDS: THE DISINTEGRATION OF YUGOSLAVIA. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 1993.
Dragnich, Alex N. SERBS AND CROATS. THE STRUGGLE IN YUGOSLAVIA. New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992.
Gutman, Roy. A WITNESS TO GENOCIDE. THE 1993 PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING DISPATCHES ON THE "ETHNIC CLEANSING" OF BOSNIA. New York: Macmillan, 1993.
Harris, Judy J. "Yugoslavia Today." SOUTHERN SOCIAL STUDIES JOURNAL 16 (Fall
1990): 78-101. EJ 430 520.
Jelavich, Barbara. HISTORY OF THE BALKANS: EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH
CENTURIES. Volume 1. New York: American Council of Learned Societies, 1983. ED
236 093.
Jelavich, Barbara. HISTORY OF THE BALKANS: TWENTIETH CENTURY. Volume 2. New
York: American Council of Learned Societies, 1983. ED 236 094.
Murray, Elinor, and Others. THE STRUGGLE FOR PEACE IN BOSNIA: CONSIDERING
U.S. OPTIONS. Providence, RI: Center for Foreign Policy Development of Brown
University, 1992. ED 371 965.
