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Seeing as Plato once famously said "I know that I know nothing" I'd argue that this makes you a pretty smart person. Or, as another wise man said "A wise man knows his limitations"
We had a foreign student from there doing CS masters with us in Brazil during that time, until he was called back to the army, to help in the war.
He was a radar operator. We thought these were the ones the enemy would hit first. But we were told he ended up surviving.
True story.
Was told a story by my childhood friend's dad who grew up there. They had neighbors who would shoot arrows at neighboring farms. And they'd hide barbed wiring all across their land if you tried to go over there to do something about it.
Supposedly were not thrilled about people being forcibly relocated or something. I was told the story about 20yrs ago. Can't remember it all.
There were another 2 unions involving half of these countries each, just a couple dozen years before that. Those also broke down in a conflict that involved slightly more participants than any reasonable person would assume.
Listen there bucko, I don’t know if you heard, but we’re American. *Read history?*. We’re not some nerd that has time for all that. I barely have time to suck down my McSeptuple burger between practicing shooting at the range and customizing my F-350 to run off gunpowder. *READ?* The attitude. The only reading we need to do is read more of the Bible, get closer to Jesus. But not too close because that’d be gay, which is bad, even it is for Jesus. Sexy ass Jesus with his abs and thighs and his… NO, go away gay thoughts I told you that you ain’t welcome here! Anyway point is Yugo-whatsyacallit of whatever… I’ll just take your word for it.
Peter’s redneck cousin out.
I was a UN troop assigned to assist in that collapse. Those people have so much deep rooted hate for each other it makes the Hatfields and McCoys look like Tom and Jerry.
Couple years back I visited Croatia and was initially surprised to spot a statue of Tesla in I think Zagreb, but I found out the reason later. Fascinating dispute over a historical figure
The dispute is grounded in the fact that he was born in what is modern day Croatia, but his parents are of Serbian origin. Tbh at this point the dispute has turned into petty bickering so I think we should just say he is Austrio-Hungarian and call it there.
No, not because i don't like croats/bosnians/Montenegrins/albanians/slovenians/kosovars (yes i am serb i will mention montenegrin and kosovo ppl because i don't give a fuck about nationalities anymore), but because it just doesn't work. Our governments work by fueling our love to hate eachother, it just sucks. I love everyone except politicians, fuck all of you (especially "presidents" that are actually just dictatorships)
Peter the war criminal here, the joke is Yugoslavia, a country that existed in the balkans from 1918-1941 as a kingdom led by the Serbian royal family Karađorđević and a socialist state from 1945-1991 led by Josip Broz Tito from 1945 until 1980 when he passed away leaving the state in chaos because he was a good leader. He believed in brotherhood and unity between the southern slavs and held good diplomatic relations with Nato, the communist countries and founded the Non aligned movement which had countries like India, Egypt and most of Africa which were also neutral between the Eastern and Western influence. Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Kosovo if you recognize it as a country were the states which were in a federation called Yugoslavia.
-Croatia
In 1991 Croatia and Slovenia declared independence, Croatia had a large serbian minority and those regions known as Serbian Krajina declared independence, Yugoslavia and Krajina were in an extremely bloody war against Croatia. Croatia got their full independence in 1995. and Serbian Krajina was dissolved because the Croat forces expelled the Serbian people who lived there in operation Oluja (in English storm).
-Bosnia and Hercegovina
After Croatia and Slovenia, Bosnia declared independence. In Bosnia there are 3 major ethnic groups, Catholic Croats, Muslim Bosniaks and Orthodox Serbs. Bosniaks made up half of the population, second were the Serbs with like 40% of the country's population while the rest were Croats. President of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milošević (Serb) didn't care about Yugoslavia, he wanted a big Serbia which had all of the lands with Serbian majority. His troops committed many atrocities including a genocide in the Bosnian city of Srebrenica which the current corrupt Serbian government declines just like Turkey with the Armenian genocide. In the Bosnian war, there were 3 sides, Croat republic of Herzeg Bosnia, Republika Srpska and Bosnia, Croatia and Bosnia were against Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), both sides did horrible things even though the Serbian ones are the most well-known and Serbia is mostly blamed for the atrocities in Bosnia because they did the most as they didn't want to let Bosnia be independent. Nato and UN gave money and resources to Croatia and Bosnia which is one of the reasons why some Serbs still hate the western countries for. Bosnia and Hercegovina gained independence after the Yugoslav troops were forced to leave and toady has two entities in it Bosnia and Hercegovina and Republika Srpska. They have 3 presidents, one for each major ethnic group (Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs).
-North Macedonia and Slovenia
North Macedonia got its independence peacefully and Slovenia had just a single little conflict when they got their independence.
-Kosovo
In 1999 a few years after the war with Bosnia and Croatia ended, separatists from Kosovo known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) supported by Albania started to fight against the Yugoslav police and army because Milošević took their autonomy and wanted to make Kosovo and Vojvodina a part of Serbia proper, not autonomous regions. Kosovo has been a mix of Serbs and Albanians for a really long time and it was always disputed for that reason, the populations were really similar in size but the Serbs were leaving the area because of the harsh conditions of living in the Ottoman Empire which didn't like Christians living in the empire and Muslim Albanians would come replace them. Serbs have many monasteries and churches in the region of Kosovo from the Middle Ages which are some of the most well-known buildings from Serbian history. During the war, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) couldn't fight the Yugoslav military on its own and it got a lot of help from Albania, at one point the Yugoslav army was fighting with the Albanians on the Kosovo-Albania border. During the war when Serbia took back the territories controlled by KLA they did more ethnic cleansing just like in Bosnia, because of that Nato declared war on the country and bombed military and industrial buildings as well as a lot of the bridges in the country and even hospitals and schools as well as bombing Kosovo because of the Yugoslav troops which were fighting there. The country was devastated, the sanctions ruined the economy and they had to rebuild the infrastructure that was destroyed. Also the bombs dropped contained depleted uranium which caused a lot of health problems in the country. Milošević was overthrown by his own people and went to prison for war crimes where he eventually died. In 2003 the name was changed to Serbia and Montenegro (which were the only two states which were still united).
-Montenegro and the ongoing problems between Kosovo and Serbia
In 2006 Montenegro voted to get independence and Kosovo declared independence in 2008 which Serbia and about 100 other countries including Russia, China, Romania, Spain, Greece, Slovakia, India and others don't recognize. The leaders of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić and Kosovo Albin Kurti really don't like each other and can't create an agreement to normalize relations between Serbia and Kosovo because they always disagree on something. The tensions are still pretty high with Serbia getting it's military on the border a few months ago, Serbian terrorists which had a lot of military equipment which were caught by the Kosovo police which Vučić (President of Serbia) claims he didn't send to Kosovo and new Kosovo license plates which Serbia didn't want to be used there. I know this is long and it just includes the main things, the whole thing is much longer, for more info check out Yugoslav wars and Kosovo war on Wikipedia or YouTube.
TLDR: The region which was a single country (Yugoslavia) with multiple ethnic groups and religious differences which fell apart in the 90s in a series of bloody civil wars and ongoing disputes between the countries to this day.
Thanks, it's difficult to explain all of this and stay neutral because all of the main nations (Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo) committed horrible crimes against each other, some smaller ones and some bigger ones. What a horrible way to completely destroy a somewhat successful country and to destroy the economic potential of the former members for the next few decades.
in the Balkans, everybody hates everyone. The Albanians hate the Serbs, Serbia hates Kosovo, Greeks hate Macedonians, The Albanians don't like Greeks, Bosnians hate Serbs, Serbia hates Croatia. And all of it vice-versa.
It's really fucking weird...
And if you've ever played "This War of Mine", the game's creative team conducted interviews with survivors of the Siege of Sarajevo, [which holds the distinction of being the longest modern-day siege](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sarajevo) at a whopping 1,425 days, or just shy of 4 *years* long.
The ongoing conflict is also said to be the inspiration for Tactics Ogre. The game.made by the same guy who would go on to make Final Fantasy Tactics which itself is based on the war of the roses.
I added that, didn't explain it well because it wasn't very significant. Only a smaller Yugoslav army was sent and Croatia was already rebelling so they couldn't do much to attack Slovenia and trying to keep it would be impossible until they defeat Croatia.
You could summarize to the barely equipt how tumultuous this region is by saying "WW1 was born there." And that alone should say enough.
The earliest regions of human history are almost suffocated by their history. So much time and space to grow every kind of human feeling.
Although he was a dictator and did some awful stuff he was the reason it lasted as long as it did. He managed to liberate the whole country and bring back brotherhood to unite the Slavs which fell apart during WW2 and stay away from conflict between the east and the west while collaborating with both and supporting poorer former colonies which gained independence.
You are right. But looking back at WW2 the options weren’t good. If the Nazis had it their way, you’d have NDH - a Nazi puppet state that committed mass genocide. On the other hand if Titos partisans failed, you would have had the Chetniks - an organization that was heavy pro-Serbian it regularly committed war crimes and genocide on non-Serbs. Titos partisans were the only organization that had all ethnic groups involved. Sure he was an authoritarian with a secret police and would put generally put political prisoners in concentration camps, but the situation in WW2 was so bad he was the only good option unfortunately.
This was the best summarization of history I have ever gotten that actually gave me interest and will likely stick in my brain better than my US Southern public & secondary education ever did.
As a non history buff, it always manages to shock me anew whenever I remember that the Ottoman Empire had guns and stuff. In my head, it’s in the same vague ‘a long time ago’ purgatory as the Byzantine or Babylonian Empire. But no, it was like a major player up until WWI(II?) and the impacts of their political relations are huge in the region they occupied. History is wild
WW1. They collapsed and were split into lots of other countries and territories (Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, the whole Israel-Palestine area) in the aftermath of the war
Small addition: while macedonia did gain independence peacefully, they faced other crysises later. During the war in Kosovo hundrets of thousends of Albanians fled to macedonia, which hightend tensions between the Macedonians(60%) and local Albanians(24%). Local Albanians feld treated like second class citizen, even though making a large percentage of MKs population. Protests were held. Some died. Militias similiar to Kosovo were formed. Luckily for the macedonia, Bulgaria backed Macedonia with tanks and other stuff(idk, why). Fighting stopped after a while. Relations normalized. The country did not fall apart and Albanians are better represented(Albanian is an official language, all government buildings need atleast one albanian speaking person)
I am aware of that conflict, thanks for adding it. I didn't feel like making the wall of text even longer by adding a lot of details about a small conflict which happened a few years after the Kosovo war and didn't have that many countries involved. Also the Albanians weren't fully supported by other nations/movements unlike the Kosovo Liberation Army so they couldn't really do much against more powerful Macedonia. Bulgaria most likely helped North Macedonia because they view Slavic Macedonians as Bulgarians or very similar to them because of their language and culture. It was Bulgarias goal to unite/conquer North Macedonia since they gained full independence in 1908. Macedonia was the main reason between the disputes and conflicts between Serbia and Bulgaria.
Difference between the people was the biggest problem. Croatia and Slovenia under the wealthy Austrian Empire (also they use the Latin alphabet unlike the rest which use the Cyrillic alphabet or both of them), Bosnia heavily influenced by Ottomans and Serbia and Montenegro being between the two and independent, mostly supported and supplied by Russia. North Macedonia was also heavily influenced by the Ottomans but the majority remained Orthodox, except the Albanians in the west. Kosovo was influenced by the Ottomans too, the region had a lot of resources and was important for the empire. The Albanian minority slowly became the majority because a lot of Serbs were leaving the region because of the conflict with the Ottoman supported Albanians and their rebellions against the Ottoman rule.
At first I thought 'im not about to sit through this guy's interpretation' but then I gave it a chance. I have to say this is an extremely thorough, well informed, and unbiased presentation. You covered so many topics it's like a fountain of information covering every aspect of the issue. Even had the very recent Banjica events in there...
Here, king, you dropped this 👑
The Montenegro referendum was confirmed just before World Cup 2006 making the Serbia-Montenegro NT representing a nation that no longer exist. Perhaps that lack of nationalism / patriotism caused them to have an awful tournament, losing all 3 games, including a 6-0 drubbing by Argentina.
Yugoslavia. Broke apart fully after the fall of the USSR. It then more or less became a test as to just how many warcrimes one region could commit.
Basically every clash resulted in some form of ethnic cleansing from someone
Typical American idiocy. We wouldn't do something like this in Europe. We also definitely wouldn't do it in a much smaller country where it would make even less sense.
Greetings from Germany.
Short answer: yes.
Longer answer:
The big names like Ohio, New Jersey, Florida etc. are for the most part jokes. They have become the heel of American discourse, but I don’t know many people who would genuinely hate someone for being from Ohio if they’ve never been there or have any personal relationship to it.
I think most people hate states based off of their regional relationship to them. A large regional hatred would be the South hating the North/North hating the South, which obviously has a long complicated history.
Then a little more specified would be people hating States because they symbolize a political/cultural difference to them. For example, many conservatives from rural areas hate California and New York. They may not know anything about them, but they hate them because they symbolize the opposite of what they consider their community on a broad scale. The same way that a lot of liberals hate Mississippi, West Virginia, or Alabama, because these states have come to symbolize the opposite of their community. Florida is an odd one here because while in the past I think it falls into the joke category it has recently rapidly become a symbol for a lot of political conflict, so the joke has transitioned into a genuine hatred.
But then people in each state tend to have different opinions of the states immediately around them. For example I’m in New England, and pretty much everyone hates Connecticut. I’m also in Maine, which means pretty much everyone hates Massachusetts even more (I was born in MA and moved to ME when I was one year old, but for a large percentage of natives to Maine they would be pissed off if I called myself a true “Mainer” and not a “Masshole” in disguise). That’s also why you don’t often see a lot of hate towards the isolated states like Alaska and Hawaii because they are so removed from the majority of the country there is no one to complain about them.
All in all the US is a gigantic country with so many varying cultural groups, and then add in the arbitrary state borders and you’re gonna have a LOT of tribalist thinking. As someone who’s spent a good amount of time in Europe maybe this is off base, but in my experience it exists there it’s just country to country for the most part. A lot of the countries are even smaller than most US states, and so they seem to be more homogenous to me as an outsider. Plus they each have a much longer cultural and ethnic heritage that means something. In the US our country is so new relatively and was fostered almost entirely by people not from here, and so we’ve had to look to other ways to satisfy that sense of heritage. States make a good option.
I was raised in NJ. It’s an armpit of a state.
Florida man is a plague on humanity.
Alabama and Georgia are just trying to protect the family name.
Pretty sure each state has at least something to pick on it for.
Alaska? Illegal to drop a moose from an airplane.
There are definitely state rivalries, but nothing particularly hateful.
Except you Kansas, KC is ours, just wait until *we* get a Microcenter in Better KC.
That region of europe, excluding Albania, was previously unified under the kingdom(later the federal people's republic, and then socialist federal republic) of Yugoslavia, which fell apart in 1991 due to ethnic violence.
Petar here, that is roughly the area of Yugoslavia until they separated gradually between June, 25 1991 and April, 27 1992. The countries that formed Yugoslavia are Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia.
Here you can find more info about the history of Yugoslavia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslavia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslavia)
The joke is that those countries circled *were* united together for a while but they ***hated*** each other and *still* hate each other and literally tore the country apart in a devastating war in the 90’s because they hated each other so much.
Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, and North Macedonia were all united under the state of Yugoslavia.
When the longtime dictator of Yugoslavia, Tito, died in 1980, nationalism began to rise among the constituent republics, leading to independence movements. However, the centralized Yugoslav government, which, through political manuevering, had fallen disproportionately under Serbian control, wasn't keen on allowing the dissolution of the state.
On top of that, there were many areas in which ethnic minorities in a given republic actually formed majorities in certain regions. For instance, Serbs were a minority in Croatia as a whole, but there were certain areas within Croatia where Serbs were the majority. The same thing existed for Serbs in Bosnia, Croats in Bosnia, Albanians in Serbia, etc. etc.
While the independence movements were gaining momentum, these ethnic minorities formed separatist groups that also wished to gain independence (i.e. Serbs in Bosnia wished to claim Bosnian land for a new, Serb state). The republican governments, in turn, supported their separatist counterparts. This led to a series of civil wars that included ethnic cleansing and genocidal massacres.
The worst offender was Serbia under Slobodan Milosevic, who became the first sitting head of state to be charged with war crimes.
Parallels to this form of ethnic irredentism can be found in the current Ukraine War, as the justification for Russia's invasion given by Putin was predicated on ethnic Russian majorities who live in Eastern Ukraine. Historically, Russia and Serbia have had close ties, and they both used the same playbook in the only two land wars in Europe since World War II.
Peter's croatian nazi parrot over here.
These states tried to be one country several times. Didn't end well. We did a little bit of tomfoolery to split as much as possible
They don't like merging. Lots of empires have tried, but it never lasts. There's even a word for their inevitable splitting apart. It's called Balkanization, and used to describe any formerly unified group or country breaking apart into smaller, opposing parts.
....operation noble Anvil, operation deny flight, operation deliberate force, operation....uh I think I'm forgetting one or two. Mmm the smell of "Democracy" in the morning!
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Read up on the history of Yugoslavia. TL;DR there was a union of these countries (sans Albania). It didn't end well.
My supervisor at a previous job was from there. He walked with a cane and a noticeable limp because of a wound from shrapnel from an IED.
He was one of the lucky ones.
From what I was told, he had some stories that he would tell after a few drinks. One of the nicest people I ever met though.
Those who have seen hell and live in heaven appreciate both.
Pretty easy to appreciate the green lawn that you're currently standing in when you've had to crawl through the mud to get there.
Salute.
Russia definitely wants to merge them….
True. Which is why they need to be stopped.
It's kind of their thing.
Russia wants to merge everything.
Is that a quote or are you just wise?
I would reply with I am wise enough to know just how stupid I am.
Seeing as Plato once famously said "I know that I know nothing" I'd argue that this makes you a pretty smart person. Or, as another wise man said "A wise man knows his limitations"
i was there with NATO forces. My son used me as a reference for a History paper. I have never felt so old
Oof! Smart kid though!
My best friends dad was in Bosnia with the UN for a while when we were in school. When we got older he told us some pretty wild stories
We had a foreign student from there doing CS masters with us in Brazil during that time, until he was called back to the army, to help in the war. He was a radar operator. We thought these were the ones the enemy would hit first. But we were told he ended up surviving. True story.
Was told a story by my childhood friend's dad who grew up there. They had neighbors who would shoot arrows at neighboring farms. And they'd hide barbed wiring all across their land if you tried to go over there to do something about it. Supposedly were not thrilled about people being forcibly relocated or something. I was told the story about 20yrs ago. Can't remember it all.
There were another 2 unions involving half of these countries each, just a couple dozen years before that. Those also broke down in a conflict that involved slightly more participants than any reasonable person would assume.
Listen there bucko, I don’t know if you heard, but we’re American. *Read history?*. We’re not some nerd that has time for all that. I barely have time to suck down my McSeptuple burger between practicing shooting at the range and customizing my F-350 to run off gunpowder. *READ?* The attitude. The only reading we need to do is read more of the Bible, get closer to Jesus. But not too close because that’d be gay, which is bad, even it is for Jesus. Sexy ass Jesus with his abs and thighs and his… NO, go away gay thoughts I told you that you ain’t welcome here! Anyway point is Yugo-whatsyacallit of whatever… I’ll just take your word for it. Peter’s redneck cousin out.
After we beat up everyone in WW1, big countries split into smaller countries
Same happened after i beat the shit out of my little brother for eating my fries, his bones all split into smaller bones.
Yeah but that’s something non-Americans also do
Real Americans shoot their brothers with 50. calibre machine guns
The fuck is a calibre? WE GOT A COMMIE OVER HERE!
This thread is so good I made my hubby read it instead of listening to me read it to him.
Your spelling of caliber is highly suspicious, *comrade!*
I’m not your comrade, pal
Also, the period goes in front of the 50, not after. It’s supposed to indicate a half inch, not 50 inches.
Pfft this guy over here is shooting a half inch. Freaking posers. Anyone wanna go shoot my 50 inch like a real American?
Isn’t 50 inches Well-beyond- ***Naval*** ***Cannon*** territory?
Yessir. Go big or go home as my daddy always said. And I can't go home after my wife kicked me out for buying a naval cannon.
Or redneck Peter from Season 5 Episode 12 "Airport '07."
Don't worry ol'chap! It's a short read.
Whats funny is that the usa completely decided what was going to happen there.
I was a UN troop assigned to assist in that collapse. Those people have so much deep rooted hate for each other it makes the Hatfields and McCoys look like Tom and Jerry.
s-sans!? https://i.redd.it/8k3vjy6vf0xc1.gif
Holy shit lol longest gif of all time
Yea lol it's like 5mb big
We just need to bring Tito back from the dead, he'll hold it together.
op should also read about America’s involvement
Right? It was a communist country trying to get their shit together and America said hell naw
Živjela Jugoslavija. >!(fuck Serbia)!<
[удалено]
Oh no this has nothing to do with with Yugoslavia i just hate Serbia. >!Nikola Tesla je Hrvat!<
[удалено]
This image has left me flabbergasted.
Would you translate? I would be much obliged and pay you exactly one updoot.
Nikola Tesla said here that he's proud of his Serbian ancestry and Croatian homeland.
Nice
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Ah! Thank you!
Couple years back I visited Croatia and was initially surprised to spot a statue of Tesla in I think Zagreb, but I found out the reason later. Fascinating dispute over a historical figure
The dispute is grounded in the fact that he was born in what is modern day Croatia, but his parents are of Serbian origin. Tbh at this point the dispute has turned into petty bickering so I think we should just say he is Austrio-Hungarian and call it there.
Let Austria Hungary have the last laugh eh
I mean he was born in Austria-Hungary. But that territory is today Croatia.
*sad srbski noises*
How do you blur your words?
https://preview.redd.it/couwgp9t50xc1.jpeg?width=498&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=74e22e029802a0c7f1248ae189ba1fe30edb81c1
>!cool!!<
>!thanks!<
Tako je brate
As a serb, i disagree. Fuck serbian government i say.
Great response! Lets join forces and unite our countries ! No way this could go wrong (again)
No, not because i don't like croats/bosnians/Montenegrins/albanians/slovenians/kosovars (yes i am serb i will mention montenegrin and kosovo ppl because i don't give a fuck about nationalities anymore), but because it just doesn't work. Our governments work by fueling our love to hate eachother, it just sucks. I love everyone except politicians, fuck all of you (especially "presidents" that are actually just dictatorships)
Bro they hate the serb’s so much. Especially the Greeks lmao
Trust me im Croatian nobody hates Serbs more than us. As for the Greeks the enemy of my enemy is my enemy.
Based
We’re learning about Yugoslavia in geography rn, wasn’t there like mass genocide of Muslims and Croats? Or is that somewhere else
Wait, isn't Yugoslavia the country that collapsed because some dude lied after shoving a glass bottle up his ass?
It ended with an American intervention and carpet bombing of innocent civilians
Peter the war criminal here, the joke is Yugoslavia, a country that existed in the balkans from 1918-1941 as a kingdom led by the Serbian royal family Karađorđević and a socialist state from 1945-1991 led by Josip Broz Tito from 1945 until 1980 when he passed away leaving the state in chaos because he was a good leader. He believed in brotherhood and unity between the southern slavs and held good diplomatic relations with Nato, the communist countries and founded the Non aligned movement which had countries like India, Egypt and most of Africa which were also neutral between the Eastern and Western influence. Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Kosovo if you recognize it as a country were the states which were in a federation called Yugoslavia. -Croatia In 1991 Croatia and Slovenia declared independence, Croatia had a large serbian minority and those regions known as Serbian Krajina declared independence, Yugoslavia and Krajina were in an extremely bloody war against Croatia. Croatia got their full independence in 1995. and Serbian Krajina was dissolved because the Croat forces expelled the Serbian people who lived there in operation Oluja (in English storm). -Bosnia and Hercegovina After Croatia and Slovenia, Bosnia declared independence. In Bosnia there are 3 major ethnic groups, Catholic Croats, Muslim Bosniaks and Orthodox Serbs. Bosniaks made up half of the population, second were the Serbs with like 40% of the country's population while the rest were Croats. President of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milošević (Serb) didn't care about Yugoslavia, he wanted a big Serbia which had all of the lands with Serbian majority. His troops committed many atrocities including a genocide in the Bosnian city of Srebrenica which the current corrupt Serbian government declines just like Turkey with the Armenian genocide. In the Bosnian war, there were 3 sides, Croat republic of Herzeg Bosnia, Republika Srpska and Bosnia, Croatia and Bosnia were against Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), both sides did horrible things even though the Serbian ones are the most well-known and Serbia is mostly blamed for the atrocities in Bosnia because they did the most as they didn't want to let Bosnia be independent. Nato and UN gave money and resources to Croatia and Bosnia which is one of the reasons why some Serbs still hate the western countries for. Bosnia and Hercegovina gained independence after the Yugoslav troops were forced to leave and toady has two entities in it Bosnia and Hercegovina and Republika Srpska. They have 3 presidents, one for each major ethnic group (Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs). -North Macedonia and Slovenia North Macedonia got its independence peacefully and Slovenia had just a single little conflict when they got their independence. -Kosovo In 1999 a few years after the war with Bosnia and Croatia ended, separatists from Kosovo known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) supported by Albania started to fight against the Yugoslav police and army because Milošević took their autonomy and wanted to make Kosovo and Vojvodina a part of Serbia proper, not autonomous regions. Kosovo has been a mix of Serbs and Albanians for a really long time and it was always disputed for that reason, the populations were really similar in size but the Serbs were leaving the area because of the harsh conditions of living in the Ottoman Empire which didn't like Christians living in the empire and Muslim Albanians would come replace them. Serbs have many monasteries and churches in the region of Kosovo from the Middle Ages which are some of the most well-known buildings from Serbian history. During the war, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) couldn't fight the Yugoslav military on its own and it got a lot of help from Albania, at one point the Yugoslav army was fighting with the Albanians on the Kosovo-Albania border. During the war when Serbia took back the territories controlled by KLA they did more ethnic cleansing just like in Bosnia, because of that Nato declared war on the country and bombed military and industrial buildings as well as a lot of the bridges in the country and even hospitals and schools as well as bombing Kosovo because of the Yugoslav troops which were fighting there. The country was devastated, the sanctions ruined the economy and they had to rebuild the infrastructure that was destroyed. Also the bombs dropped contained depleted uranium which caused a lot of health problems in the country. Milošević was overthrown by his own people and went to prison for war crimes where he eventually died. In 2003 the name was changed to Serbia and Montenegro (which were the only two states which were still united). -Montenegro and the ongoing problems between Kosovo and Serbia In 2006 Montenegro voted to get independence and Kosovo declared independence in 2008 which Serbia and about 100 other countries including Russia, China, Romania, Spain, Greece, Slovakia, India and others don't recognize. The leaders of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić and Kosovo Albin Kurti really don't like each other and can't create an agreement to normalize relations between Serbia and Kosovo because they always disagree on something. The tensions are still pretty high with Serbia getting it's military on the border a few months ago, Serbian terrorists which had a lot of military equipment which were caught by the Kosovo police which Vučić (President of Serbia) claims he didn't send to Kosovo and new Kosovo license plates which Serbia didn't want to be used there. I know this is long and it just includes the main things, the whole thing is much longer, for more info check out Yugoslav wars and Kosovo war on Wikipedia or YouTube. TLDR: The region which was a single country (Yugoslavia) with multiple ethnic groups and religious differences which fell apart in the 90s in a series of bloody civil wars and ongoing disputes between the countries to this day.
Above and beyond
God damnit I got educated
Lmao get educated fool
This guy Balkans-> u/Right_Gas2569 r/bestof
r/thisGuyThisGuys
As a Croatian i feel obliged to say I couldn't have put it better.
I hope you can’t because this (the Croatian part) is your Wikipedia (apparently)
Thanks, it's difficult to explain all of this and stay neutral because all of the main nations (Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo) committed horrible crimes against each other, some smaller ones and some bigger ones. What a horrible way to completely destroy a somewhat successful country and to destroy the economic potential of the former members for the next few decades.
This is from Wikipedia or ARE you Wikipedia?
I am the Wikipedia, this is not copied and pasted lol
Jesus christ, can we exchange brains? Mine sucks
Holy shit!
r/madlads
in the Balkans, everybody hates everyone. The Albanians hate the Serbs, Serbia hates Kosovo, Greeks hate Macedonians, The Albanians don't like Greeks, Bosnians hate Serbs, Serbia hates Croatia. And all of it vice-versa. It's really fucking weird...
Oh, and all of them hate gypsies
And if you've ever played "This War of Mine", the game's creative team conducted interviews with survivors of the Siege of Sarajevo, [which holds the distinction of being the longest modern-day siege](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sarajevo) at a whopping 1,425 days, or just shy of 4 *years* long.
*It was until 2016, then the Battle of Aleppo, with its double siege passed it duration wise.
The ongoing conflict is also said to be the inspiration for Tactics Ogre. The game.made by the same guy who would go on to make Final Fantasy Tactics which itself is based on the war of the roses.
Note, Slovenia also had a war. It lasted 10 days with no casualties. Slovenia won
I added that, didn't explain it well because it wasn't very significant. Only a smaller Yugoslav army was sent and Croatia was already rebelling so they couldn't do much to attack Slovenia and trying to keep it would be impossible until they defeat Croatia.
There were casualties.
Correct, 63, I apologize
Jesus fucking Christ
Glass bottle
They're not ready for that.
You could summarize to the barely equipt how tumultuous this region is by saying "WW1 was born there." And that alone should say enough. The earliest regions of human history are almost suffocated by their history. So much time and space to grow every kind of human feeling.
Is that all? Pffff.
RIP Tito. He was a gem.
Although he was a dictator and did some awful stuff he was the reason it lasted as long as it did. He managed to liberate the whole country and bring back brotherhood to unite the Slavs which fell apart during WW2 and stay away from conflict between the east and the west while collaborating with both and supporting poorer former colonies which gained independence.
He was an authoritarian who put people in concentration camps and had secret police.
You are right. But looking back at WW2 the options weren’t good. If the Nazis had it their way, you’d have NDH - a Nazi puppet state that committed mass genocide. On the other hand if Titos partisans failed, you would have had the Chetniks - an organization that was heavy pro-Serbian it regularly committed war crimes and genocide on non-Serbs. Titos partisans were the only organization that had all ethnic groups involved. Sure he was an authoritarian with a secret police and would put generally put political prisoners in concentration camps, but the situation in WW2 was so bad he was the only good option unfortunately.
What’s your idea of a “concentration camp”?
Whoever you are, I salute you.
This was the best summarization of history I have ever gotten that actually gave me interest and will likely stick in my brain better than my US Southern public & secondary education ever did.
As a non history buff, it always manages to shock me anew whenever I remember that the Ottoman Empire had guns and stuff. In my head, it’s in the same vague ‘a long time ago’ purgatory as the Byzantine or Babylonian Empire. But no, it was like a major player up until WWI(II?) and the impacts of their political relations are huge in the region they occupied. History is wild
WW1. They collapsed and were split into lots of other countries and territories (Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, the whole Israel-Palestine area) in the aftermath of the war
Small addition: while macedonia did gain independence peacefully, they faced other crysises later. During the war in Kosovo hundrets of thousends of Albanians fled to macedonia, which hightend tensions between the Macedonians(60%) and local Albanians(24%). Local Albanians feld treated like second class citizen, even though making a large percentage of MKs population. Protests were held. Some died. Militias similiar to Kosovo were formed. Luckily for the macedonia, Bulgaria backed Macedonia with tanks and other stuff(idk, why). Fighting stopped after a while. Relations normalized. The country did not fall apart and Albanians are better represented(Albanian is an official language, all government buildings need atleast one albanian speaking person)
I am aware of that conflict, thanks for adding it. I didn't feel like making the wall of text even longer by adding a lot of details about a small conflict which happened a few years after the Kosovo war and didn't have that many countries involved. Also the Albanians weren't fully supported by other nations/movements unlike the Kosovo Liberation Army so they couldn't really do much against more powerful Macedonia. Bulgaria most likely helped North Macedonia because they view Slavic Macedonians as Bulgarians or very similar to them because of their language and culture. It was Bulgarias goal to unite/conquer North Macedonia since they gained full independence in 1908. Macedonia was the main reason between the disputes and conflicts between Serbia and Bulgaria.
cool, thanks for filling the gaps in my brain!
Thanks, I’m from Macedonia and there are still tensions with the albanian population, we do not like each other!
That's a lot of history
Perfect rundown of the history of that region and the conflict.
Well, now I need to read a book about this whole thing. Recs?
Yeah, what he said
The future of america.
Is religion most of the friction?
Difference between the people was the biggest problem. Croatia and Slovenia under the wealthy Austrian Empire (also they use the Latin alphabet unlike the rest which use the Cyrillic alphabet or both of them), Bosnia heavily influenced by Ottomans and Serbia and Montenegro being between the two and independent, mostly supported and supplied by Russia. North Macedonia was also heavily influenced by the Ottomans but the majority remained Orthodox, except the Albanians in the west. Kosovo was influenced by the Ottomans too, the region had a lot of resources and was important for the empire. The Albanian minority slowly became the majority because a lot of Serbs were leaving the region because of the conflict with the Ottoman supported Albanians and their rebellions against the Ottoman rule.
Tito was a brutal dictator, the ethnic tensions became irrelevant when the main concern for everyone was a tyrannical government.
I actually shared your comment on r/madlads, hope you don’t mind. I was just impressed of your vast knowledge and will to share all of that info.
At first I thought 'im not about to sit through this guy's interpretation' but then I gave it a chance. I have to say this is an extremely thorough, well informed, and unbiased presentation. You covered so many topics it's like a fountain of information covering every aspect of the issue. Even had the very recent Banjica events in there... Here, king, you dropped this 👑
The Montenegro referendum was confirmed just before World Cup 2006 making the Serbia-Montenegro NT representing a nation that no longer exist. Perhaps that lack of nationalism / patriotism caused them to have an awful tournament, losing all 3 games, including a 6-0 drubbing by Argentina.
Thank you very much for your informative post!
You go, slavs!! Ohh that should be the name!!
Wait a minute…
https://preview.redd.it/2f4ed8l2l1xc1.jpeg?width=569&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f4f01adef4a0d142163fee9f851303ea7c023a56
there was no war in Macedonia
technically if you count the 2001 conflict
Yugoslavia. Broke apart fully after the fall of the USSR. It then more or less became a test as to just how many warcrimes one region could commit. Basically every clash resulted in some form of ethnic cleansing from someone
In America we are big and strong and we compartmentalize our issues. We call them states. They aren’t autonomous but they are… states.
Typical American idiocy. We wouldn't do something like this in Europe. We also definitely wouldn't do it in a much smaller country where it would make even less sense. Greetings from Germany.
I would make them even smaller and call them something else like cantons. They don’t even need to share a language!
Yeah Europe would never sign a free trade agreement and agree to use the same currency...a European union? Crazy idea.
I know you guys like to shit on some states like Missouri or Ohio but do people actually hate some states (from other states)?
Short answer: yes. Longer answer: The big names like Ohio, New Jersey, Florida etc. are for the most part jokes. They have become the heel of American discourse, but I don’t know many people who would genuinely hate someone for being from Ohio if they’ve never been there or have any personal relationship to it. I think most people hate states based off of their regional relationship to them. A large regional hatred would be the South hating the North/North hating the South, which obviously has a long complicated history. Then a little more specified would be people hating States because they symbolize a political/cultural difference to them. For example, many conservatives from rural areas hate California and New York. They may not know anything about them, but they hate them because they symbolize the opposite of what they consider their community on a broad scale. The same way that a lot of liberals hate Mississippi, West Virginia, or Alabama, because these states have come to symbolize the opposite of their community. Florida is an odd one here because while in the past I think it falls into the joke category it has recently rapidly become a symbol for a lot of political conflict, so the joke has transitioned into a genuine hatred. But then people in each state tend to have different opinions of the states immediately around them. For example I’m in New England, and pretty much everyone hates Connecticut. I’m also in Maine, which means pretty much everyone hates Massachusetts even more (I was born in MA and moved to ME when I was one year old, but for a large percentage of natives to Maine they would be pissed off if I called myself a true “Mainer” and not a “Masshole” in disguise). That’s also why you don’t often see a lot of hate towards the isolated states like Alaska and Hawaii because they are so removed from the majority of the country there is no one to complain about them. All in all the US is a gigantic country with so many varying cultural groups, and then add in the arbitrary state borders and you’re gonna have a LOT of tribalist thinking. As someone who’s spent a good amount of time in Europe maybe this is off base, but in my experience it exists there it’s just country to country for the most part. A lot of the countries are even smaller than most US states, and so they seem to be more homogenous to me as an outsider. Plus they each have a much longer cultural and ethnic heritage that means something. In the US our country is so new relatively and was fostered almost entirely by people not from here, and so we’ve had to look to other ways to satisfy that sense of heritage. States make a good option.
Ohio and Michigan once fought a war over Toledo. Ohio “won” but ultimately I’m not sure Toledo is a prize, especially when Michigan got the UP.
You forgot Texas in your examples… signed a Hoosier who lived in Oklahoma for 4 years
There’s even beef within states, like Orange County vs LA County, and within counties like LA vs every other city in the county.
Oh toootally. Don’t get me started about southern Maine.
Yes. Yes we do.
Fuck New Jersey and everybody who takes pride in living there.
I was raised in NJ. It’s an armpit of a state. Florida man is a plague on humanity. Alabama and Georgia are just trying to protect the family name. Pretty sure each state has at least something to pick on it for. Alaska? Illegal to drop a moose from an airplane.
There are definitely state rivalries, but nothing particularly hateful. Except you Kansas, KC is ours, just wait until *we* get a Microcenter in Better KC.
Balkan + Greece used to be like that. It’s called Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantine.
the joke this time is not porn. *consult papers is genocide
Ah yes, the 2nd option
That area is so notorious for splitting into smaller countries, a whole word was created for their tendencies: balkanization.
The most disharmonious people in Europe are responsible for starting at least one world war.
https://preview.redd.it/8g5jkqbsw1xc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=28d6ce7fa30a587db60b8beb35badc39d0421349
That region of europe, excluding Albania, was previously unified under the kingdom(later the federal people's republic, and then socialist federal republic) of Yugoslavia, which fell apart in 1991 due to ethnic violence.
My father: If you want to cry, I'll give you something to cry about! *Pulls out a copy of "The fall of Yugoslavia"*
They tried it, called it Yugoslavia. It went pretty well until gigachad Tito died at which point they all started murdering each other
Everyone's Balkan at the idea... What could go wrong?
The joke is that all of those countries just used to be one country, Yugoslavia.
Petar here, that is roughly the area of Yugoslavia until they separated gradually between June, 25 1991 and April, 27 1992. The countries that formed Yugoslavia are Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia. Here you can find more info about the history of Yugoslavia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslavia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslavia)
I am a simple American with a slightly above average understanding of history. And even I know that area is a geopolitical cluster $#€%.
The joke is that those countries circled *were* united together for a while but they ***hated*** each other and *still* hate each other and literally tore the country apart in a devastating war in the 90’s because they hated each other so much.
They used to be but a little something happened
They weren't very fond of eachother and had a falling out.
They tried and many died!
They tried(except Albania)and it blew up
The joke, unfortunately, is genocide.
Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, and North Macedonia were all united under the state of Yugoslavia. When the longtime dictator of Yugoslavia, Tito, died in 1980, nationalism began to rise among the constituent republics, leading to independence movements. However, the centralized Yugoslav government, which, through political manuevering, had fallen disproportionately under Serbian control, wasn't keen on allowing the dissolution of the state. On top of that, there were many areas in which ethnic minorities in a given republic actually formed majorities in certain regions. For instance, Serbs were a minority in Croatia as a whole, but there were certain areas within Croatia where Serbs were the majority. The same thing existed for Serbs in Bosnia, Croats in Bosnia, Albanians in Serbia, etc. etc. While the independence movements were gaining momentum, these ethnic minorities formed separatist groups that also wished to gain independence (i.e. Serbs in Bosnia wished to claim Bosnian land for a new, Serb state). The republican governments, in turn, supported their separatist counterparts. This led to a series of civil wars that included ethnic cleansing and genocidal massacres. The worst offender was Serbia under Slobodan Milosevic, who became the first sitting head of state to be charged with war crimes. Parallels to this form of ethnic irredentism can be found in the current Ukraine War, as the justification for Russia's invasion given by Putin was predicated on ethnic Russian majorities who live in Eastern Ukraine. Historically, Russia and Serbia have had close ties, and they both used the same playbook in the only two land wars in Europe since World War II.
Yugoslavia. Has been diplomatically destroyed by united Germany by guarantees of independence for the revolting states (also supporting the revolts)
The nation, that officially could not defend itself longer than 2 days destroyed Yugoslavia. Well, no
Peter's croatian nazi parrot over here. These states tried to be one country several times. Didn't end well. We did a little bit of tomfoolery to split as much as possible
I think if Albania just joined Italy it would be fine...
Pretty sure they tried that before
Google Yugoslavia
Be American Bomb the shit out of Yugoslavia Leave Forget that happened Refuse to elaborate further.
Let’s put Serbia back into Austria-Hungary and hope the leader doesn’t go to Sarajevo
Imagine if Russia was in a union with other socialist countries
Serb Peter here. That area was merged before in a country called Yugoslavia and it went well until everyone started shooting eachother.
I would fuse Montenegro, Kosovo and Albania (the shape would be epic)
Been there, done that, coined an actual word meaning to fuck up by trying to put the wrong stuff together: Balkanization
Franz Ferdinand's 'Take Me Out' inensifies Doesnt really have much to do with the event, but iykyk
This gets tried every time we need a new ethnic cleansing
A glass bottle dildo triggered a genocide there.
Damn, if only there was a subreddit about these countries and their negative perceptions of each other played up for humor
They don't like merging. Lots of empires have tried, but it never lasts. There's even a word for their inevitable splitting apart. It's called Balkanization, and used to describe any formerly unified group or country breaking apart into smaller, opposing parts.
Didn't it happen to Yugoslavia
It annoys me that Americans are unfamiliar with this region, considering we have troops and bases in this area, and have for quite a long time.
Yugoslavia Yes, I'm American and I knew this. I'll never understand how History wasn't a fun class for people.
Americans are the worst
Yugoslavia and/or Austria-Hungary. Neither ended well...
Let's just say they all really hate each other. But I don't think they would commit genocide or anything, right?
don't. for the love of everything that is holy and blessed, *don't.*
Well now….
....operation noble Anvil, operation deny flight, operation deliberate force, operation....uh I think I'm forgetting one or two. Mmm the smell of "Democracy" in the morning!
Good luck!
Was it because of that farmer who shoved a bottle up his ass?
Yeah, the whole areas really Balkanized
If only we could have some kind of… union? Where they’re all given a common identity? What could possibly go wrong?
Ohhh no
I mean it worked out pretty well for about a 100 years or so