18 - The Final Myth: "Yugoslavia" - Croatia: Myth and Reality - C. Michael McAdams

CROATIA: MYTH AND REALITYC. Michael McAdams

THE FINAL MYTH: "YUGOSLAVIA"

Despite the myth that the Croatians and Serbs hated each other for "a thousand years," they lived side- by-side in peace until 1918. Croatia took in thousands of Serbian refugees from the advancing Turks and supported Serbia's bid for independence from the Ottoman Empire. It was only in 1918, when Serbia annexed Croatia as part of its newly expanded Kingdom, that the hatred began.
The myth of Yugoslavia was reborn on November 1945, with the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, "a community of peoples who had freely expressed their will to remain united within Yugoslavia" despite the fact that no vote was ever taken. In 1991 and 1992, the people of Yugoslavia for the first time were allowed to vote for myth or reality. The peoples of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Macedonia voted for reality in the form of freedom in a new Europe, an end to communism and an end to multi- national empires. The peoples of Kosova and Vojvodina, enslaved in their own homelands, given no vote.

On April 26, 1992, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic proudly announced the formation of a new federation of Yugoslavia consisting of Serbia, Montenegro and the previously autonomous provinces of Vojvodina and Kosova. In 1995, almost one half of Bosnia was handed to Yugoslavia as a reward for aggression. Like the two Yugoslavias before it, this "state" was also a myth, despite creeping recognition of the third Yugoslavia by European powers in mid- 1996. "Yugoslavia" was just another term "Greater Serbia." Greater Serbia chose communism, expansion, war, and the continued myth of Yugoslavia. The Serbian leadership chose to launch an all-out war of agression against her neighbors to force them to accept myth. When the entire free world finally recognized that Yugoslavia was indeed a myth, Serbia attempted to recreated it with the stroke of a pen backed by a few thousand tanks. On April 29, 1996 Serbia solemnly declared before the World Court that it had played no part in the Bosnian War.

Some myths do not die an easy death.

INDEX



Author's Preface to the Third Edition
Introduction
Croatia and the Croatians
Myth: "Croatians asked to join Yugoslavia
Myth: "Croatian Assassinated King Alexander
Myth: "All Croatians were Fascists
Myth: "The Basket of Human Eyeballs"
Myth: "Two Million Serbs Died"
Myth: "Croatians Executed American Airmen"
Myth: "No Retribution Against Croatia"
Myth: "Borders were Drawn to Benefit Croatia"
Myth: "The Serbo-Croatian Language"
Myth: "Tudjman and Milosevic were Late Converts"
Myth: "Serbs had no Guaranteed Rights in Croatia"
Myth: "The Fascist Finders"
Myth: "The Croatian Coat of Arms is Fascist"
Myth: "The Fascist Ferret"
Myth: "Yugoslavia"
Bibliography
The Author