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- See also: Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
General location of the political entities known as Yugoslavia. The precise borders varied over the years
Yugoslavia ("Jugoslavija" in Serbo-Croatian (Latin alphabet) and Slovenian; "Југославија" in Serbian (Cyrillic alphabet); English: "South Slavia", or literally The Land of South Slavs) describes three political entities that existed successively on the Balkan Peninsula in Europe, during most of the 20th century.
The first country to be known by this name was the "Kingdom of Yugoslavia", which before 3 October 1929 was known as the "Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes". It was established on 1 December 1918 by the union of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and the Kingdom of Serbia. It was invaded by the Axis powers in 1941, and because of the events that followed, was officially abolished in 1945.
The second country with this name was the "Democratic Federal Yugoslavia", proclaimed in 1943 by the communist resistance movement in World War II.
It was renamed to the "Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia" in
1946, when a communist government was established. In 1963, it was
renamed again to the "Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" (SFRY). The constituent Socialist Republics that made up the country, from north to south, were: SR Slovenia, SR Croatia, SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, SR Montenegro, SR Serbia (including the autonomous provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo and Metohija, later simply Kosovo) and SR Macedonia. Starting in 1991, the SFRY disintegrated in the Yugoslav Wars which followed the secession of most of the republic's constituent entities.
The last country to bear the name was the "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" (FRY) established on March 27, 1992. It was a federation on the territory of the two remaining (non-secessionist) republics of Serbia (including the autonomous provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo) and Montenegro. On February 4, 2003, it was renamed to the "State Union of Serbia and Montenegro", and officially abolished the name "Yugoslavia." On June 3 and June 5, 2006 respectively, Montenegro and Serbia declared independence, thereby ending the Yugoslav state.
Background
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The idea for a single state for all South Slavs emerged in the late 17th century and gained prominence in the 19th century Illyrian Movement but never came to culmination.
During the early period of World War I, a number of prominent political figures from South Slavic lands under the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire fled to London, where they began work on forming the Yugoslav Committee to represent the Southern Slavs of Austria-Hungary. These "Yugoslavs" were Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes
who identified themselves with the movement toward a single Yugoslav or
South Slavic state and the committee's basic aim was the unification of
the South Slav lands with the Kingdom of Serbia (which was independent although occupied at the time).
With the defeat of the Central Powers
in World War I and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, various
South Slavic territories were quickly grouped together to form the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes which was proclaimed on 1 December 1918 in Belgrade .
The new kingdom was made up of the formerly independent kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro (which had unified in the previous month), as well as a substantial amount of territory that was formerly part of Austria-Hungary, the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. The lands previously in Austria-Hungary that formed the new state included Croatia, Slavonia and Vojvodina from the Hungarian part of the Empire, Carniola, part of Styria and most of Dalmatia from the Austrian part, and the crown province of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
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1918-1928
Yugoslavia 1936, physical
King Alexander's Period
King Alexander I
banned national political parties in 1929, assumed executive power and
renamed the country Yugoslavia. He hoped to curb separatist tendencies
and mitigate nationalist passions. However, Alexander's policies soon
ran into the obstacle of opposition from other European powers stemming from developments in Italy and Germany, where Fascists and Nazis rose to power, and the Soviet Union, where Stalin became absolute ruler. None of these three regimes favored the policy pursued by Alexander I. In fact, Italy and Germany
wanted to revise the international treaties signed after World War I,
and the Soviets were determined to regain their positions in Europe and
pursue a more active international policy.
Alexander attempted to create a genuine Yugoslavia. He decided to
abolish Yugoslavia's historic regions, and new internal boundaries were
drawn for provinces or banovinas. The banovinas were named after
rivers. Many politicians were jailed or kept under tight police
surveillance. The effect of Alexander's dictatorship was to further
alienate the non-Serbs from the idea of unity.
The king was assassinated in Marseille during an official visit to France in 1934 by an experienced marksman from Ivan Mihailov's Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization in the cooperation of the Ustaše, a Croatian separatist organization. Alexsandar was succeeded by his eleven year old son Peter II and a regency council headed by his cousin Prince Paul.
The 1930s in Yugoslavia
The international political scene in the late 1930s was marked by
growing intolerance between the principal figures, by the aggressive
attitude of the totalitarian
regimes and by the certainty that the order set up after World War I
was losing its strongholds and its sponsors were losing their strength.
Supported and pressured by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, Croatian leader Vlatko Maček and his party managed the creation of the Croatian banovina
(administrative province) in 1939. The agreement specified that Croatia
was to remain part of Yugoslavia, but it was hurriedly building an
independent political identity in international relations.
Prince Paul submitted to the fascist pressure and signed the Tripartite Treaty in Vienna on March 25, 1941,
hoping to still keep Yugoslavia out of the war. But this was at the
expense of popular support for Paul's regency. Senior military officers
were also opposed to the treaty and launched a coup d'état when the king returned on March 27. Army General Dušan Simović seized power, arrested the Vienna delegation, exiled Paul, and ended the regency, giving 17 year old King Peter full powers.
The beginning of World War II in Yugoslavia
Hitler then decided to attack Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941, followed immediately by an invasion of Greece where Mussolini had previously been repelled. (As a result, the launch of Operation Barbarossa was delayed by four weeks, which proved to be a costly decision.)[citation needed]
Yugoslavia during World War II
- See also: Participants in World War II#Yugoslavia
The invasion of Yugoslavia
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At 5:12 a.m. on April 6, 1941, German, Italian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces attacked Yugoslavia. The German Air Force (Luftwaffe) bombed Belgrade and other major Yugoslav cities. On April 17,
representatives of Yugoslavia's various regions signed an armistice
with Germany at Belgrade, ending eleven days of resistance against the
invading German Army (Wehrmacht Heer). More than three hundred thousand Yugoslav officers and soldiers were taken prisoner.
The Axis Powers occupied Yugoslavia and split it up. The Independent State of Croatia was established as a Nazi puppet state, ruled by the fascist militia known as the Ustaše that came into existence in 1929, but was relatively limited in its activities until 1941. German troops occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as part of Serbia and Slovenia, while other parts of the country were occupied by Bulgaria, Hungary, and Italy. During this time the Independent State of Croatia created concentration camps for anti-fascists, communists, Serbs, Gypsies and Jews. One such camp was Jasenovac. A large number of men, women and children, mostly Serbs, were executed in these camps.[1]
Resistance movements
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Yugoslavs opposing the Nazis organized a resistance movement. Those inclined towards supporting the old Kingdom of Yugoslavia joined the Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland, also known as the Chetniks, Serb royalist guerrilla army led by Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović. Those inclined towards supporting the Communist Party (Komunistička partija), and were against the King, joined the Yugoslav National Liberation Army (Narodno Oslobodilačka Vojska or NOV), led by Josip Broz Tito,
a Croatian national. Chetniks were allies of United States in Europe
and they saved over 150 American pilots during operation : "Vazdušni
Most".
The NOV initiated a guerrilla
campaign which was developed into the largest resistance army in
occupied Western and Central Europe. The Chetniks initially made
notable incursions and were supported by the exiled royal government as
well as the Allies, but were soon restrained from taking wider actions because of German reprisals against the Serb civilian population.
For every killed soldier, the Germans executed 100 civilians, and
for each wounded, they killed 50. Regarding the human cost as too high,
the Chetniks terminated war activities against the Germans, and the
Allies eventually switched to support the NOV.
However, NOV carried on its guerrilla warfare. The demographic loss is estimated at 1,027,000 individuals by Vladimir Zerjavic and Bogoljub Kočović, an estimate accepted by the United Nations, while the official Yugoslav authorities claimed 1,700,000 casualties. Very high losses were among Serbs who lived in Bosnia and Croatia, as well as Jewish and Roma minorities, high also among all other non-collaborating population.
ca. 70,000 Soviet and Allied personnel were awarded the medal for the liberation of Belgrade from 21st June 1961.
During the war, the communist-led partisans were de facto rulers on the liberated territories, and the NOV organized people's committees to act as civilian government. In Autumn of 1941, the partisans established the Republic of Užice in the liberated territory of western Serbia. In November 1941, the German troops occupied this territory again, while the majority of partisan forces escaped towards Bosnia.
On November 25, 1942, the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia (Antifašističko Vijeće Narodnog Oslobođenja Jugoslavije) was convened in Bihać, Bosnia. The council reconvened on November 29, 1943, in Jajce, also in Bosnia
and established the basis for post-war organisation of the country,
establishing a federation (this date was celebrated as Republic Day
after the war).
The liberation of Yugoslavia
The NOV was able to expel the Axis from Serbia in 1944 and the rest of Yugoslavia in 1945. The Red Army aided in liberating Belgrade
as well as some other territories, but withdrew after the war was over.
In May 1945, NOV met with allied forces outside former Yugoslav
borders, after taking over also Trieste and parts of Austrian southern provinces Styria and Carinthia. This was territory populated predominantly by Italians and Slovenes. However, the NOV withdrew from Trieste in June of the same year.
Western attempts to reunite the partisans, who denied supremacy of the old government of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and the emigration loyal to the king, led to the Tito-Šubašić Agreement in June 1944, however Tito was seen as a national hero by the citizens, so he gained the power in post-war independent communist state, starting as a prime minister.
The Second Yugoslavia
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Classical
from 
