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Serbs and Croats: The Struggle in Yugoslavia
For Yugoslavia, the triumph of independent statehood following World War I became a tragedy seventy years later. Yugoslavia was born in 1918 as the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, with King Alexander as its sovereign. In 1929 the country was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. After the Nazi invasion in World War II, Slovenia became part of Greater Germany, Croatia a Fascist state ruled by the Ustashi. Mass killings by the Ustashi followed, in concentration camps, churches, and homes, of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies. Killings of Serbs by Croats--both Slavic peoples and neighbors, speaking the same language but divided by religion and cultural allegiances. In this highly informative and lucid account, Professor Dragnich discusses the ideals and hopes that the South Slavs brought to Yugoslavia, their tortured attempt to create a workable political system, and the reasons behind the chaos and violence. Serbs and Croats, a story of cruel ironies
202 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 27, 2015
So, this is a polemic. The point is that the Balkan Wars were the Croats' fault, really everything, ever was the fault of the Croats (like that half-Croat Tito). And the Serbs are martyrs and victims. These are all Milosevic's arguments with the veneer that this is a history book. But Dragnich doesn't try very hard to even sound objective, which is odd because he was a Vanderbilt professor so should have had enough craft to produce better propaganda. I googled Dragnich and he is the son of two Serbian immigrants, which explains his bias if not his poor scholarship.
Most of the books I've been reading about the Balkan Wars were written contemporaneously and with an objective - to create international pressure in the hope of getting aid, to provide more historical detail to counteract the propaganda or whatever. There is so much out there. Skip this one.
Most of the books I've been reading about the Balkan Wars were written contemporaneously and with an objective - to create international pressure in the hope of getting aid, to provide more historical detail to counteract the propaganda or whatever. There is so much out there. Skip this one.
June 20, 2025
A short history of Yugoslavia is of interest to me since traveling there only once in 1970. What happened? Where did it go? Why does is no longer exist? These and many more questions are addressed in this book. Well written and informative, I like his take on history.
August 24, 2010
I knew that this account was written with an eye on defending Serbia, and I think that in some ways Dragnich did an admirable job discussing the motives of most parties. Unfortunately, what he most neglected was Serbia itself: despite his attempts to sound even-handed and fairly analyze actions of which he clearly disapproved from Croatia and Slovenia, he gave no thought to Serbia's own actions. When I looked up major players mentioned in the book, I found accusations (real or not) that were not even addressed by Dragnich.
Basically, this book helped to give me a good idea of how many Serbians may see their recent history, and to develop some impression of what actually happened. And while I believe that Dragnich has an agenda, I don't believe that he intended simply to force it upon people with this book. He obviously has a level of dissatisfaction with much of the recent history of the area and its leaders - Serb, Croat, and otherwise. But whatever the facts, he does Serbia a disservice in ignoring the larger issues and accusations against the country. It denies him the opportunity to properly address those accusations, and lends the whole book an air (hopefully undeserved) of propaganda.
I am looking for another book at this point that will address the issue with a more historical and detached approach. Open to suggestions.
Basically, this book helped to give me a good idea of how many Serbians may see their recent history, and to develop some impression of what actually happened. And while I believe that Dragnich has an agenda, I don't believe that he intended simply to force it upon people with this book. He obviously has a level of dissatisfaction with much of the recent history of the area and its leaders - Serb, Croat, and otherwise. But whatever the facts, he does Serbia a disservice in ignoring the larger issues and accusations against the country. It denies him the opportunity to properly address those accusations, and lends the whole book an air (hopefully undeserved) of propaganda.
I am looking for another book at this point that will address the issue with a more historical and detached approach. Open to suggestions.
December 16, 2024
Others have commented on the content of the book. I'll rather leave my impression on why it was a failed project from the beginning.
Who are the Serbs? It is a Slavophone people belonging to the Eastern Christianity of a specific, Saint Sava’s religious-historical culture, speaking the West South Slavic dialect continuum plus, in part, the Torlak dialects that form the Bulgarian-Serbian Sprachbund. The Nemanjić dynasty played a key role in constituting this people at the end of the Middle Ages, as well as the mythized past about the Battle of Kosovo, Obilić & other anti-Ottoman real & imagined heroes, etc. So, for Serbs, the case is simple - the Balkan Orthodox people, who came into contact with Western culture during their migrations towards the north and the west, enriching itself through the process - but that did not change their essential national physiognomy.
Who are the Croats? And why can't Serbs, even when they are well disposed, understand anything about Croats? The thing is that the Croatian identity is multi-layered and for something as simple or different as the Serbian ethnicity - it is actually inconceivable. Croats are a Slavophone people belonging to Western Christianity, inheriting the traditions of the early medieval Croatian state through the institution of Parliament, and the old Bosnian polity, marginally, through the Franciscan order. Croats speak West South Slavic dialects, but their identity is multi-layered. Also - Croats are the only Catholic Slavic people having a Cyril and Methodius / Church Slavonic tradition, which other similar peoples (Slovenes, Czechs, Poles ... - do not possess).
For Croats, everything comes in threes: the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia; three scripts historical culture: Glagolitic, Croatian or Bosnian Cyrillic, Roman; trilingual historical culture: Latin, Old Church Slavonic, Croatian; three dialects Croatian language: Čakavian, Štokavian and Kajkavian; belonging to three cultural circles or civilizations: Mediterranean, Central European and Balkan-Oriental. It is precisely the complexity of the Croatian identity that makes it impossible for even the most well-meaning Serbs to comprehend, since it doesn’t fit in any concept of nationality they can conceptualize & understand.
Incompatibility of temper and national beings.
As crystallized in the last 200+ years, the Serbian dominant world-view is about integrating all Serbs into one state. Theoretically, this is not wrong per se. Just, those Serbs living outside of Serbia proper are/were scattered among other, generally South Slavic peoples who didn’t want to live in some pan-Serbian state. True, the 19th C Croats invented Yugoslav world-view, but that was just one ideology accommodating Croats who had centuries long experience of living with other peoples in multi-national states & empires. For Serbs, it was always either an outright pan-Serbian state or, in Yugoslavia, a chance to expand Serbian influence, demographics, power…. over other peoples. So, in hindsight- any type of Yugoslavia was doomed because various peoples, possessing history & identity and belonging to different civilizations, simply wouldn’t tolerate others’, in this case, Serbian imposition. So, psychos aside, as far as I know, virtually all Serbian intellectuals who are academicians, historians, linguists, political scientists, sociologists, authors, culture historians…are either explicit enemies of everything Croatian, or- if not- they just don’t “get” who Croats are, and are incapable of any consensus with them on basic matters.
There is a clear hatred of everything Albanian; also some contempt, but with nuances, of Bosnian Muslims/Bosniaks…just, with Croats, it is different. In their view, Croats have defeated them historically & killed them en masse (unlike Slovenes, Albanians, Bosniaks,..). Jasenovac = Oluja, and that’s it (in their mind). In this world-view, Pavelić (out of blue) killed ca. 1.5 million of them; then Broz Tito, a secret Croatian nationalist, destroyed them even more by granting Kosovo the AP status, establishing republics of Montenegro, Macedonia & Bosnia Herzegovina & supposedly favoring Croatian (con)federalist ideas about socio-political functioning in Yugoslavia; and finally, Tuđman finished them off, mostly. These are cartoons, but they reflect that attitude.
Therefore, I don’t think there could be any type of reconciliation with Serbs, anytime in the next 50 to 100 years.
Their experts in those fields- I’ve read some of these works & have skimmed through many of them - are all the same. Their self-definition is inseparable from denial of Croathood (or in such a reductionist view that Croatian identity is, historically, some marginal, fake or almost irrelevant). That’s the world-view of their either recently deceased or still alive professors, academicians,..: Čedomir Popov, Dušan Bataković, Milorad Ekmečić, Slavenko Terzić, Pavle Ivić, Aleksandar Milanović, Zlata Bojović, Irena Arsić, Čedomir Antić, Miloš Ković, Predrag Piper, Dejan Medaković, Smilja Avramov, Dinko Davidov, Miloš Kovačević, Jovan Deretić (literary historian), Miro Vuksanović, Dragoljub Dragojlović, Milo Lompar, Dragoljub Pavlović, Kosta Čavoški, Milorad Pavić, Miroslav Pantić, Dejan Ristić, Momčilo Spremić, Radoš Ljušić, Miroljub Jeftić, Vasilije Krestić, ….
Even those who are not aggressive & share humanist values like Latinka Perović, fundamentally misunderstand Croats & the entire “Yugoslav or South Slavic question”. Historians like Tibor Živković or Boris Nilević, who made significant contributions to the medieval history, simply didn’t address modern historical controversies.
In my opinion, Croatian “political & mental elites” have become too self-satisfied & don’t pay too much attention to the “east”. And this is a crucial mistake. One should always- without paranoia- keep an eye on what is going on east (sometimes west & north) of Croatia’s borders.
So- one should fight fabrications & distortions, just- other people’s world-view will not be changed. Good fences make good neighbors.
Who are the Serbs? It is a Slavophone people belonging to the Eastern Christianity of a specific, Saint Sava’s religious-historical culture, speaking the West South Slavic dialect continuum plus, in part, the Torlak dialects that form the Bulgarian-Serbian Sprachbund. The Nemanjić dynasty played a key role in constituting this people at the end of the Middle Ages, as well as the mythized past about the Battle of Kosovo, Obilić & other anti-Ottoman real & imagined heroes, etc. So, for Serbs, the case is simple - the Balkan Orthodox people, who came into contact with Western culture during their migrations towards the north and the west, enriching itself through the process - but that did not change their essential national physiognomy.
Who are the Croats? And why can't Serbs, even when they are well disposed, understand anything about Croats? The thing is that the Croatian identity is multi-layered and for something as simple or different as the Serbian ethnicity - it is actually inconceivable. Croats are a Slavophone people belonging to Western Christianity, inheriting the traditions of the early medieval Croatian state through the institution of Parliament, and the old Bosnian polity, marginally, through the Franciscan order. Croats speak West South Slavic dialects, but their identity is multi-layered. Also - Croats are the only Catholic Slavic people having a Cyril and Methodius / Church Slavonic tradition, which other similar peoples (Slovenes, Czechs, Poles ... - do not possess).
For Croats, everything comes in threes: the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia; three scripts historical culture: Glagolitic, Croatian or Bosnian Cyrillic, Roman; trilingual historical culture: Latin, Old Church Slavonic, Croatian; three dialects Croatian language: Čakavian, Štokavian and Kajkavian; belonging to three cultural circles or civilizations: Mediterranean, Central European and Balkan-Oriental. It is precisely the complexity of the Croatian identity that makes it impossible for even the most well-meaning Serbs to comprehend, since it doesn’t fit in any concept of nationality they can conceptualize & understand.
Incompatibility of temper and national beings.
As crystallized in the last 200+ years, the Serbian dominant world-view is about integrating all Serbs into one state. Theoretically, this is not wrong per se. Just, those Serbs living outside of Serbia proper are/were scattered among other, generally South Slavic peoples who didn’t want to live in some pan-Serbian state. True, the 19th C Croats invented Yugoslav world-view, but that was just one ideology accommodating Croats who had centuries long experience of living with other peoples in multi-national states & empires. For Serbs, it was always either an outright pan-Serbian state or, in Yugoslavia, a chance to expand Serbian influence, demographics, power…. over other peoples. So, in hindsight- any type of Yugoslavia was doomed because various peoples, possessing history & identity and belonging to different civilizations, simply wouldn’t tolerate others’, in this case, Serbian imposition. So, psychos aside, as far as I know, virtually all Serbian intellectuals who are academicians, historians, linguists, political scientists, sociologists, authors, culture historians…are either explicit enemies of everything Croatian, or- if not- they just don’t “get” who Croats are, and are incapable of any consensus with them on basic matters.
There is a clear hatred of everything Albanian; also some contempt, but with nuances, of Bosnian Muslims/Bosniaks…just, with Croats, it is different. In their view, Croats have defeated them historically & killed them en masse (unlike Slovenes, Albanians, Bosniaks,..). Jasenovac = Oluja, and that’s it (in their mind). In this world-view, Pavelić (out of blue) killed ca. 1.5 million of them; then Broz Tito, a secret Croatian nationalist, destroyed them even more by granting Kosovo the AP status, establishing republics of Montenegro, Macedonia & Bosnia Herzegovina & supposedly favoring Croatian (con)federalist ideas about socio-political functioning in Yugoslavia; and finally, Tuđman finished them off, mostly. These are cartoons, but they reflect that attitude.
Therefore, I don’t think there could be any type of reconciliation with Serbs, anytime in the next 50 to 100 years.
Their experts in those fields- I’ve read some of these works & have skimmed through many of them - are all the same. Their self-definition is inseparable from denial of Croathood (or in such a reductionist view that Croatian identity is, historically, some marginal, fake or almost irrelevant). That’s the world-view of their either recently deceased or still alive professors, academicians,..: Čedomir Popov, Dušan Bataković, Milorad Ekmečić, Slavenko Terzić, Pavle Ivić, Aleksandar Milanović, Zlata Bojović, Irena Arsić, Čedomir Antić, Miloš Ković, Predrag Piper, Dejan Medaković, Smilja Avramov, Dinko Davidov, Miloš Kovačević, Jovan Deretić (literary historian), Miro Vuksanović, Dragoljub Dragojlović, Milo Lompar, Dragoljub Pavlović, Kosta Čavoški, Milorad Pavić, Miroslav Pantić, Dejan Ristić, Momčilo Spremić, Radoš Ljušić, Miroljub Jeftić, Vasilije Krestić, ….
Even those who are not aggressive & share humanist values like Latinka Perović, fundamentally misunderstand Croats & the entire “Yugoslav or South Slavic question”. Historians like Tibor Živković or Boris Nilević, who made significant contributions to the medieval history, simply didn’t address modern historical controversies.
In my opinion, Croatian “political & mental elites” have become too self-satisfied & don’t pay too much attention to the “east”. And this is a crucial mistake. One should always- without paranoia- keep an eye on what is going on east (sometimes west & north) of Croatia’s borders.
So- one should fight fabrications & distortions, just- other people’s world-view will not be changed. Good fences make good neighbors.
December 29, 2022
Excellent analyses up through 1992 of 700 years of the tragic recurring conflict between the Slavic cousins. 30 years later the conflict and strife continue.
July 2, 2016
In his introduction Dargnich sets out three objectives for Serbs and Croats: 1) to present a treatment of the civil war that erupted in Yugoslavia during World War II; 2) an analysis of the Communist regime that followed; and 3) to assess whether in 1992 Germany was seeking to impose a new settlement on Yugoslavia, just as they did at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and the Congress of Berlin in 1878.
While Dragnich presents an informative overview of the history of Yugoslavia, ultimately this book fails to achieve the three objectives specified in the introduction.
The chapter on Yugoslavia in World War 2 is woefully short. Although the April War / Operation 25 lasted only two weeks, Draganich’s commentary lasts only one paragraph. There is only limited analysis on the extended British efforts to involve Yugoslavia on the Allied side and no commentary on the ethnic factors driving the placement of divisions at the borders rather than the more easily defended mountain regions.
The analysis of Tito’s regime is more informative, highlighting the mass murders and Stalin-esque brutality of Tito’s regime that have often been overlooked in the cold war battle over Yugoslavia’s allegiance. Dragnich notes that "Tito’s revolution was not mild or benevolent… it was fully as brutal as the Soviet ..revolution". However too often Dragnich lapses into a litany of facts, is light on analysis, with little commentary on the ethnic tensions during this time. His conclusion that Tito demolished "the South Slav people’s moral fibre" seems a weak abrogation of responsibility for the ethnic purges committed by former Yugoslavians during the bloody civil wars in the 1990s, particularly when set against the bloody Balkan history of the previous centuries.
The commentary on Germany in 1992 is even weaker. The evidence Dragnich puts forward to link German actions in 1815, 1878, 1941 and 1992 is flimsy at best. For example, he tries to link German proposals in the nineteenth century for a Berlin-to-Baghdad railway with German pressure on the European Community in 1992 to recognise Slovenia and Croatia..
Written in 1992, Dragnich’s book also provides little insight into the series of brutal wars throughout the 1990s which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 140,000 people: the War in Slovenia (1991), the Croatian War (1991-95), the Bosnian War (1992-95), the Kosovo War (1998-99), the Presevo Valley Insurgency (1999-2001) and the Macedonian Insurgency (2001). Dragnich’s pro-Serbian commentary provides no explanation of why Serbia was involved in all of these, or why Serbian regular and irregular forces were consistently involved in mass murder, organised rape camps and other atrocities.
Dragnich concludes that "Those who contributed to the formation of Yugoslavia were motivated by expectations that were unrealistic. Yugoslavia may have been a dream that could not be realized…".
Overall, this book goes some way to providing readers with an insight on why Yugoslavia failed but leaves some key questions unanswered or unexplored and no insight into the brutal wars at the end of the twentieth century.
While Dragnich presents an informative overview of the history of Yugoslavia, ultimately this book fails to achieve the three objectives specified in the introduction.
The chapter on Yugoslavia in World War 2 is woefully short. Although the April War / Operation 25 lasted only two weeks, Draganich’s commentary lasts only one paragraph. There is only limited analysis on the extended British efforts to involve Yugoslavia on the Allied side and no commentary on the ethnic factors driving the placement of divisions at the borders rather than the more easily defended mountain regions.
The analysis of Tito’s regime is more informative, highlighting the mass murders and Stalin-esque brutality of Tito’s regime that have often been overlooked in the cold war battle over Yugoslavia’s allegiance. Dragnich notes that "Tito’s revolution was not mild or benevolent… it was fully as brutal as the Soviet ..revolution". However too often Dragnich lapses into a litany of facts, is light on analysis, with little commentary on the ethnic tensions during this time. His conclusion that Tito demolished "the South Slav people’s moral fibre" seems a weak abrogation of responsibility for the ethnic purges committed by former Yugoslavians during the bloody civil wars in the 1990s, particularly when set against the bloody Balkan history of the previous centuries.
The commentary on Germany in 1992 is even weaker. The evidence Dragnich puts forward to link German actions in 1815, 1878, 1941 and 1992 is flimsy at best. For example, he tries to link German proposals in the nineteenth century for a Berlin-to-Baghdad railway with German pressure on the European Community in 1992 to recognise Slovenia and Croatia..
Written in 1992, Dragnich’s book also provides little insight into the series of brutal wars throughout the 1990s which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 140,000 people: the War in Slovenia (1991), the Croatian War (1991-95), the Bosnian War (1992-95), the Kosovo War (1998-99), the Presevo Valley Insurgency (1999-2001) and the Macedonian Insurgency (2001). Dragnich’s pro-Serbian commentary provides no explanation of why Serbia was involved in all of these, or why Serbian regular and irregular forces were consistently involved in mass murder, organised rape camps and other atrocities.
Dragnich concludes that "Those who contributed to the formation of Yugoslavia were motivated by expectations that were unrealistic. Yugoslavia may have been a dream that could not be realized…".
Overall, this book goes some way to providing readers with an insight on why Yugoslavia failed but leaves some key questions unanswered or unexplored and no insight into the brutal wars at the end of the twentieth century.
December 18, 2010
I was impressed with the detailed history of the formation, history and difficulties of Yugoslavia explored in the first section of this book. However my impression is that it began to repeat the same reasons for Serb actions rather too often, and seemed to lose balance and clear interpretation in the latter part of the book.
I am no expert on the history or problems of the Serbs and Croats, not to speak of the Slovenes, Hungarians, Gypsies, Albanians and Romanians contained within the parts that went to make up Yugoslavia, but there appeared to me to be a strong Serb bias, and a lack of exploration of the things which took place during the conflicts of the early '90s.
My best friend was born in Yugoslavia, has a Croat mother and a Serb father and I shall ask her to read the book, and comment on it herself, as I believe she is in a better position to judge the factual contents of the book. However I learned much about the stresses and strains of the Tito years.
I am no expert on the history or problems of the Serbs and Croats, not to speak of the Slovenes, Hungarians, Gypsies, Albanians and Romanians contained within the parts that went to make up Yugoslavia, but there appeared to me to be a strong Serb bias, and a lack of exploration of the things which took place during the conflicts of the early '90s.
My best friend was born in Yugoslavia, has a Croat mother and a Serb father and I shall ask her to read the book, and comment on it herself, as I believe she is in a better position to judge the factual contents of the book. However I learned much about the stresses and strains of the Tito years.
July 13, 2015
Macedonia, Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria =Balkans. As I try to learn more about the Balkans I ended up discovering how little I knew even though I lived through this era of when Yugoslavia dismantled. There are some things while reading this book that ended up confusing me more which I guess may be a good thing but at the same time I think I have to read other books to try to understand this entire region. The amount of issues they all had to endure to fight for their freedoms is still continuing to a certain extent. Certain countries/people will always continue to have issues w/ other countries/people. Trying to keep track of how this all started many years ago as separate countries then became Yugoslavia & then broke apart again was something I never knew. There is so much to the story & it seems like I am just scratching the surface on this Balkans history.
March 3, 2009
This book is a very comprehensive little volume about relations between Serbs and Croats from WWI to around 2000, and how they influenced the creation, history, and breakup of Yugoslavia. As with Noel Malcolm's book on Bosnia -- which this book should be read right after -- I learned a lot about Yugoslavia, but this time from a more straightforwardly historical perspective. Dragnich nicely captures what life in Tito's Yugoslavia was like, and gives more context to how and why Yugoslavia broke up.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews