Breakup of Yugoslavia

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On the Balkan Peninsula, in the early 1990s, war and chaos were raging yet again. However, this war, unlike the two previous Balkan wars that were fought against the occupiers, was a civil one. The member states of once great and glorified Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) turned against each other. In 1991, Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence which initiated the Breakup of Yugoslavia (Pavkovic 136). Many causes led to this outcome, some of which were death of Josip Broz Tito, the great Yugoslav leader and the fall of socialism after The Cold War, which both resulted in growing unhappiness of Yugoslav people with their country’s system. Another important factor worth focusing on was religion and its diversity inside the Federation. The three biggest states – Bosnia and Hercegovina, Croatia and Serbia had their own respective religions – Islam, Catholic Christianity and Orthodox Christianity, which were often merged with their national and cultural identities. These were the three most involved and affected states in the process of the Breakup. The notion that this was not coincidental and that these religious differences were one of the main drivers that led to the initiation of the war between these states and kept it going will be the main focus of this essay. The essay will argue that, even though the war was mainly political in nature, the religious diversity in the Balkans fully merged with nationalism and bigotry to create one of the greatest sources of hatred between the affected nations, and therefore significantly contributed towards the escalation of the conflicts and war in this region in the early 1990s. Furthermore, the essay will make a connection between the media and religion and try to a...

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...n the Balkan Wars: Ten Years after the Breakup of Yugoslavia. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Web. 2 Apr. 2014.

Pavković, Aleksandar. The Fragmentation of Yugoslavia Nationalism and War in the Balkans. New York: St. Martin's, 2000. Web. 2 Apr. 2014.

Powers, Gerard F. "Religion, Conflict and Prospects for Peace in Bosnia, Croatia and Yugoslavia." Journal of International Affairs 50.1 (1996): 221-252.

Ramet, Sabrina P. Balkan Babel: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia from the Death of Tito to the Fall of Milošević. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2002. Web. 2 Apr. 2014.

Vrcan, Srdjan. "The war in former Yugoslavia and religion." Religion, State and Society: The Keston Journal 22.4 (1994): 367-378.

Had this not been the case, the consequences of this war could have been much less horrific and devastating to the civilians of the region.

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