The balkans: a battleground BEtween the East and West
The location of this story is as crucial as its main characters. It’s the Balkans, known since the beginning of time, as a crossroad of cultures, where East meets West and where Islam collides with Christianity. Throughout history, the people of the Balkans are shoulder-bearers of greater global conflicts:
Battleground of Empires
Alexander the Great's Macedonian Empire
Persians Empire
Roman Empire
Byzantine Empire
Mongol Empire
Ottoman Empire
Austro-Hungarian Empire
Nazi German Reich
The Soviet Sphere
The birth of the Yugoslavia confederation
The independent, democratic kingdom of Yugoslavia (Serbo-Croatian words 'yugo' for southern and 'slavia' for the nation of slavic people) formed in 1918 at its victory and division from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In World War Two the country was again occupied by a foreign force, the Nazi Third Reich. With the help of the Soviet Red Army, Yugoslav Partisan rebel forces dispelled the Germans and established the Socialist Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (FPRY) in 1945.
Josip Tito, a partisan war hero and head of communist party, lead the country through a tumultuous post-war period, aligning with the socialist zeitgeist of the East Bloc but eventually breaking ties with Stalin and the Soviet grip to finally establish a once again independent Yugoslavia.
Once the country had autonomy its composite ethnic and religious groups, Christian Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats, Catholic Slovenes, Muslim Albanians, and Christian and Muslim Bosnians, eventually sought the same.
Kosovo -- the epicenter of collapse
At the time of this story, Kosovo was a province of Christian Serbia, one of the republics of Yugoslavia. Kosovo borders Muslim Albania. Serbian ancestors in the area are noted as far as Roman Emperor Heraclius’ recordings (610-641). Serbian Prince Nemanja secured the Kosovo region by the end of the 12th century with Christian Serbs as a majority of the population. Kosovo is the seat of Christian Orthodox Patriarchate.
After WWII Albanians arrived en masse, to Kosovo to escape the oppressive communist dictatorship in their country. Tensions rose as the Serbians and an explosive Albanian population clashed on religion, political views, and representation in local government.
To escape the growing terrorism in Kosovo the Christian Serbs fled-- over 200,000 in the 1990's. Kosovo is now less than 2% Serbian.
Tito's Death, Civil War, Break up
Tito ruled with an iron fist, keeping ethnicities relatively united under the pressure of resisting Cold War forces-- to keep Yugoslavia independent. When Tito, and the height of the Cold War, came to pass Yugoslavia fell under intense economic hardship. Kosovar-Albanians called for autonomy.
1989 - milosevic takes control
Following Tito's death, Slobodan Milosevic came to power. He campaigned on a promise to protect Christian Serbians in Kosovo from terrorism. Milosevic used the conflict as an opportunity to eliminate political enemies, consolidate power, repress civil rights, and forcibly expand a 'greater Serbia' under his control. The only thing standing between him and absolute power was a group of young college students from Belgrade, a non-violent movement named OTPOR! (Resistance!)
OTPOR: The Students' Resistance
Fed up with corruption, a spiraling economy, poverty, hunger, censorship of media, state suppression of universities, and fraudulent elections a small group of students from the University of Belgrade avalanched into a countrywide movement to remove Milosevic from power and re-establish democracy.
OTPOR used humor as a weapon to discredit the regime and win the affection of the population. Concerts, campaign rallies, strikes, boycotts, and public theater won hearts and minds and rapidly crumbled Milosevic's political base.
The movement was on track to overthrowing the dictator without a shot fired. Then NATO commenced its aerial campaign and bombed Belgrade for 78 consecutive days.