Hugh Poulton, "The Largest Nation - Serbs," chpt 2 of his The Balkans: Minorities and States in Conflict, Minority Rights Publications, London, 1991, pp. 15-27

The background

The largest single Yugoslav national group, although still a minority, are the Serbs. According to the 1981 census there were 8,140,507 Serbs in Yugoslavia or 36.3% of the total population of 22,427,585. Serbs live mainly in the Republic of Serbia, where they made up 85.4% of the populatoin, without taking into consideration the Autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina where they constituted 13.2% and 54.4%, respectively in 1981, and also in the republics of Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croatia where they constitute 32% and 11%, respectively, of the population.

Serbs settled in the Balkan Peninsula in the 7th Century. By the 12th Century the Serbs established their own state which reached the height of its power in the 14th Century based in the present-day territory of Kosovo, which although today is populated overwhelmingly by Albanians, remains emotionally part of the Serbian heartland. From the mid-15th Century until the early 1800s Serbia was occupied by the Ottoman Turks and large numbers of Serbs migrated northwards to the Vojvodina, then part of the Kingdom of Hungary in the Hapsburg Empire, to escape Ottoman domination. The Vojvodina was a mosaic of 10 ethnic groups due to the desire of the Hapsburg Empire to settle different national groups there to create a bulwark against the Ottomans.

After a series of bloody uprisings, Serbia was granted autonomy within the Ottoman Empire in 1815, and in 1878 it became formally independent. However, the placing of Bosnia-Hercegovina with its large Serb population under the Hapsburg Protectorate in 1878 meant that the fledgling Serbian state, denied expansion to the north-west, looked south instead. The insistence by the Great Powers, notably Austria-Hungary, of the Ottoman Empire retaining the Sandjak of Novibazar (the Sandzak) so as to prevent Serbian unification with the Principality of Montenegro, further pointed Serbian aspirations at Macdeonia.

After the Balkan Wars of 1912/3, Serbia expanded its territory. Following the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June 1914, Serbia defied an Austrian ultimatum and was attacked by the central powers, triggering off World War I. After great loss of life Serbia emerged as one of the victors when the new map of Europe was drawn up after the war.

Their experience of independence and heritage as well as being the largest single group, allowed the Serbs to dominate the new kingdom which became known as Yugoslavia. This led to considerable tension, especially with the Croats and after World War II there was a consistent effort to limit Serbian dominance of the new state. This was especially so after the fall in 1966 of Alexander Rankovic, a Serb, Vice-President of Yugoslavia and chief of the powerful state security police, leading eventually to the constitution of 1974 which truly made Yugoslavia a federation and, some even say, a confederation.

However, since 1988/9, especially as a result of the situation regarding the Albanians in Kosovo, there was been a Serbian backlash against what many Serbs see as discriminatory measures in the Yugoslav federation which adversely affected them, most notably the powers granted to the autonomous provinces under the 1974 constitution despite their ostensibly being part of the Serbian Republic. Also many Serbs regard the distinction between Serbs and Montenegrins as artificial.

The leadership of the League of Communists of Serbia, appealing to this resurgent national sentiment, has committed itself to reasserting Serbian control over the autonomous provinces, and also Montenegro, and in 1988 there were mass demonstrations and rallies throughout Serbia and in certain other parts of the country in support of these aims. A result of this pressure was the unprecedented downfall in 1988 of party leaderships opposed to Serbian aspirations in the autonomous provinces and in the republic of Montenegro.

Within the republic itself, the resurgent nationalism was used by the Communist Part led by Slobodan Milosevic. The growth of democracy enabled Albanian nationalist aspirations in Kosovo to move away from the sphere of 'illegal' groups to the mainstream Albanian political and cultural life. Faced with the prospect of the overwhelming majority of the province voting for at least autonomy for the Albanians (and almost certainly more in the form of equal - i.e. republican - national rights for the two million strong minority) the Serbian authorities clamped down hard. In this they were supported by Serbian public opinion and the majority of Serbian opposition parties were, if anything, even more anti-Albanian and nationalistic than Milosevic and his party.

There is no doubt that Kosovo (or Kosovo-Metohija as the province was renamed by Serbia in 1990 in a symbolic reinforcement of Serbian claims on the territory) occupies a place in the Serbian national psyche which at times defies rationality. The claim that the Serbian minority in the province (a minority within a minority) was subject to Albanian repression was taken up by the Serbian intelligentsia in the mid-1980s. They and the Serbian Orthodox Church began to use the highly emotive term of 'genocide' to describe the alleged atrocities committed against Serbs, of which the most highly publicized was the case of Djordje Martinovic in May 1985 who claimed to have had a beer bottle forcibly pushed up his anus by Albanian attackers. In the ensuing climate, any inter-ethnic incident, especially rapes of Serbian women, fuelled the nationalist fires.

[note: The Declaration by the Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church against the genocide inflicted by the Albanians on the indigenous Serbian population, together with the sacrilege of their cultural monuments in their own country - 14 September 1988.]

It is especially regrettable that the Serbian intelligentsia has played such a prominent role in whipping up ethnic tension which politicians like Milosevic have used for their own ends. In comparison to Bulgaria where the authorities' attempt to forcibly discriminate against the ethnic Turks (the Bulgarians' traditional enemy) has been publicly criticized by leading members of the Bulgarian intelligentsia, in Serbia the reverse appears to be the case, with the laudable exception of some noteworthy individuals such as the Yugoslav Helsinki Federation member, Tanya Petovar.

Two examples of this trend are Vuk Draskovic, the renowned novelist and leader of The Serbian Renewal Movement whose Serbian nationalism is not only directed at Kosovo Albanians but also at Macedonia which he classifies as South Serbia in line with pre-war Great Serb policies, and Vojislav Seselj - a Serb who was sentenced in Sarajevo in 1984 to six years' imprisonment for his courageous stand against local Stalinist bureaucracy, but who has since his release shown himself to be an extreme nationalist and leader of the Serbian Chetnik movement, with similar views to Draskovic on the Yugoslav national question.

The Belgrade intellectuals' petition of January 1986

While it is unfair to paint the whole Serbian intelligentsia with the Draskovic/Seselj brush, intellectual opponents of the rising tide of Serbian nationalism have increasingly become politically marginalized. An important point in this process was the 'genocide' petition of January 1986. This crucial document signalled the real beginning of the rise of Serbian nationalism which Slobodan Milosevic has been so successful in riding.

The petition, signed by some 200 prominent Belgrade intellectuals constituting a highly representative cross-section of the Belgrade intelligentsia and professional middle classes including Orthodox priests and retired army officers, was sent to the Yugoslav and Serbian national assemblies. It accused the authorities of condoning national treason and 'genocide' against the Serb minority in Kosovo. Among the signatories were Zaga Golubovic, Mihajlo Markovic and Ljubo Tadic, soon to be joined Milan Kangrga - all former editors of Praxis, the theoretical Marxist publication which hitherto had been so critical of nationalism. In the late 1960s these same editors had roundly condemned the Croatian Maspok. Their signatures on the petition along with people like Dobrica Cosic, the renowned Serbian novelist, gave a clear signal that Serbian nationalism was a force to be reckoned with and encompassed the whole political spectrum of the Serbian intelligentsia. Its clear call not only for protection of the Serb minority in Kosovo, but also for changes in the relationship between Kosovo and the Vojvodina and Serbia, prsaged the future limiting of the autonomy of the provinces.

As noted above, there is some justice in the Serb claim that the position of the autonomous regions as defined in the 1974 constitutional arrangement was anomalous. Likewise the claims of Seselj and others that the nations of Moslems, Montenegrins and even Macedonians are artificial and work to the disadvantage of the Serbian nation - there is perhaps more to such claims as regards the Montenegrins, less regarding the Muslims of Bosnia and very little regarding the Macedonians. However, this cannot justify the almost 'laagar' mentality which has become prevalent among Serbs which manifests itself in almost complete disregard for anyone else - even to the extent of apparently not caring about the adverse publicity caused by local Serb officials in Kosovo arresting and expelling international human rights observers like those from the International Helsinki Federation.

Along with the rise of Serbian nationalism and the political domination of Slobodan Milosevic has been the decline in objectivity of the main Serb media which have become more and more propaganda vehicles for Milosevic and rabidly pro-Serb in their reporting. Partly as a reaction to this, the media in other republics, especially Slovenia and Croatia, has tended to become more and more anti-Serb but has not fallen to the levels of the Serb media. The decline in standards of newspapers like the Belgrade Politika and the weekly NIN following Milosevic's takeover of the Serbian political apparatus in the second half of the 1980s, can only be regretted and the almost hysterical tone of their reportage have helped keep Serbian nationalist passions used by Milosevic at fever pitch. Belgrade's journalists have protested at the blatant editorial manipulation, and in December, a week before Milosevic was re-elected president of Serbia, journalists from Politika and Belgrade's main radio and television stations demonstrated for the immediate dismissal of their editors - a hopeful sign.

However, the overwhelming success of the former Serbian Communist Party, now called the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) led by Milosevic in the December 1990 elections - the SPS won 194 of the 250 seats with Draksovic's party, the Serbian Renaissance Movement coming second with 19 - and Milosevic's successful re-election as president does not bode well for the immediate future. Milosevic appears to have ridden the nationalist tiger and subjugated the Serbian press in an almost Stalinist manner. It is likely that he will continue to play the demagogue to Serbian nationalism, and unsubstantiated stories with headlines like 'Fascist Terrorists Sent to Subjugate Serbs' will continue to feature in the main Serbian media and further inflame passions.

Milosevic quickly showed his attitude to the Yugoslav federation in December 1990 by passing a secret law enabling the unauthorised issue of over $18 million worth of money - an amount almost half of all the loans to banks in the country - planned to be raised from the money issue in 1991. This measure was roundly condemned by the Fedeeral Executive Council and obliged the Yugoslav National Bank to take measures to combat it. On 30 January, a group of Serbia's leading opposition figures initiated the formation of the Pan-Serbian Council for National Salvation which called for either an integral Yugoslavia with no republican border or a united Serb state of Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Hercegovina and parts of Macedonia showing again the strength of Serbian nationalism.

The Serbs as minorities

Serbs living outside of the republic of Serbia in 1981 in every case except Montenegro had a higher percentage of Communist Party members than their percentage of the population. Taking 100 to indicate parity between the two percentages, the figures for Serbs and Montenegrins were as follows:

Another way of putting it is that one out of every four Montenegrins was a Communist Party member, nearly one out of every six Serbs, one out of every six or seven 'ethnically uncommitted' (i.e. those declaring themselves to be Yugoslavs), similarly for Macedonians, then every seventh or eighth Muslim, every 10th or 11th Croat, every 11th Albanian and Slovene, and finally less than every 12th Hungarian.

Similarly in the JNA (the Yugoslav army) professional command, Serbs and Montenegrins predominate. Taking into account the similarity between Serbs and Montenegrins it is hard to escape the conclusion that the post-war communist Yugoslav state was supported by Serbs (and Montenegrins) more than by other groups. The success of the Communist Part in Serbia and Montenegro and its failure elsewhere reinforces this view.

Serbs in Kosovo

The situation of the Serb minority in Kosovo, and repeated petitions and demonstrations by Kosovo Serbs in Belgrade has ben instrumental in the rise of Serbian nationalism and has acted as a catalyst to Serb sensibilities. The constitutional changes which have reduced the autonomy of the province and effectively incorporated it into the body of the Serbian republic have turned the legal position of the Serb minority there into that of part of the majority of Serbia. However, Serb (and Montenegrin) emigration from Kosovo continues despite political leaders' statements of mass repatriation of Serbs back to Kosovo to counter the swelling Albanian presence there.

Within Kosovo itself a Serb nationalist group, Bozur, led by Bogdan Kecman and based in Kosovo Polje outside Pristina, is attempting to put these words into action and aims at a 50% ethnic split in Kosovo between Serbs and Albanians. Such policies appear to be totally unrealistic even with the possible implementation of the Serbian government's proposal to settle some of Romania's 50,000 Serbs from the Banat in Kosovo, and little more than empty rhetoric from the likes of Milosevic to his Serbian audience. It is as likely that Serbs (and Albanians) are emigrating for economic reasons - Kosovo being extemely backward with high unemployment - as for reasons of ethnic tension although these must surely play a part.

The Serbian Orthodox Church has been in the forefront of alleging outrages against the local Serbs by ethnic Albanians often with little attempt at impartiality - any offence which involves the two nationalities however trivial, is seen as part of a deliberate anti-Serb Albanian master plan of 'genocide.' While in the deteriorating climate in Kosovo it would be ingenuous to say that there have been no provocations by ethnic Albanians against Serbs, there appears to be no basis for the highly emotive charge of 'genocide.' The current situation whereby the ethnic Albanians are denied all autonomy and the province is under effective Serbian-dominated military rule with local Serbs in control cannot last indefinitely, and seems certain to make any rapprochement between ethnic Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo even harder in the future. Appeals to ancient history are not sufficient. If and when the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo are allowed their real autonomy, it is likely that the exodus of the Serb minority will accelerate, not slow down, and the minority may even effectively disappear.

Serbs in Bosnia-Hercegovina

The Serbs in BOsnia-Hercegovina make u over 30% of the population of the republic. They constitute an absolute majority in all of eastern Bosnia-Hercegovina (Bileca, Gacko, Ljubinje, Nevesinje and Trebinje). They also constitute majorities or relative majorities in parts of western Bosnia in the opstinas of Bosanska Grahovo (85.7%), Titov Drvar (88.4%), Bosanski Petrovac (68%), Banja Luka (50.9%), Bosanska Dubica (66.3%), Bosanska Gradiska (56.5%), Bosanski Novi (59.6%), Celinac (86.3%), Glamoc (78.7%), Kljuc (51.9%), Laktasi (78.2%), Mrkonjic-Grad (78.7%), Prnjavor (70.9%), Skender Vakuf (69.5%), Srbac (85.8%), and Sipovo (79.5%). These Serb-dominated areas are divided by the solidly Muslim opstinas of Velika Kladusa (88.4% Muslim), Bihac (61%), Cazin (97%), and Bosanska Krupa (67.7%).

In July 1990 the Serbian Democratic Party of Bosnia-Hercegovina (SDS-BH) was founded in Sarajevo with the objective of reviving Serbian political life in the republic. This party was an offshoot of the main rallying force for Serbs outside of Serbia - the Serbian Democratic Party in Croatia. Young Bosnia, a more radical group of Serbs with para-military overtones (named after the group which was responsible for the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in 1914), was also in operation and had close ties with Vuk Draskovic's SPO but its numbers and influence were small.

SDS-BH leader Radovan Karadzic in an interview with NIN, the Belgrade weekly, clearly outlined the Bosnian Serbs' grievances which had built up over some time. These were that the Serbs of Bosnia-Hercegovina were an integral part of the Serb nation and that the Serbs in particular had been forced to give up more than other national groups in post-war Yugoslavia. In Bosnia-Hercegovina this meant 'giving up their very substance, names, national culture, traditions, they [Serbs] have had to turn their backs on their Serbian Orthodox Church in ruins.... This resulted in the exile of several hundreds of thousands of Serbs from Bosnia-Hercegovina.' He also alleged that Serbian regions had ben deliberately partitioned to weaken them and gve the xample of Ozren, 'a compact and well-defined Serbian region partitioned among five municipalities'.

SDS-BH on 11 October announced the formation of a Serbian National Council to be held at an all-Serbian assembly in Banja Luka on 13 October. At the same time the SDS-BH voiced its concern at the inadequacies of social self-defence in the event of a future civil war. In the elections of December 1990 the SDS-BH confirmed its leading role as the political expression of the Serbs in Bosnia-Hercegovina by winning 72 of the 85 seats one by Serbs out of the 240 seats to both chambers.

Despite the ethnic voting in Bosnia-Hercegovina, and at times, the hard-line rhetoric there were signs of rapprochement between the leaders of the three groups immediately after the elections, and Muslim leaders Alija Izetbegovic and Muhamed Filpovic were both speakers at the founding SDS-BH meeting welcoming the new organization. Such signs give some cause for encouragement in this area where there has been so much mutual bloodshed in the recent past. If Yugoslavia is to survive in any form at all then such mutual understanding in Bosnia-Hercegovina will be crucial. A less encouraging note was struck by reports of Serbs fleeing Hercegovina after alleged harassment in western regions by Croats - such reports are hard to assess.

Serbs of Croatia

Serbs make up about 12% of the population of Croatia according to the 1981 census. They live in concentrated areas mostly bordering on Bosnia-Hercegovina to which they migrated mostly in the 17th Century to escape Ottoman pressure. Their Orthodox faith helped to keep them distinct from their Catholic Croat neighbours. As noted above, they have held a disproportionately high number of key posts in the republic, especially after the ending of the Croatian Maspok. As shown in the table above, in 1981 Serbs were over-represented in the Communist Party by a factor of two. Other more recent figures indicate higher numbers. According to Franjo Tudjman, immediately prior to the elections in April 1990, Serbs made up 40% of the Croatian Communist Party, eight out of 12 senior editors in Radio Zagreb and 60% of the police, and the Sarajevo daily, Oslobodjenje, of 11 August 1990, stated that 67% of Croatia's police force were Serbs.

When the political relaxation came to Croatia in late 1989 and early 1990, the Serbs saw themselves faced with resurgent Croatian nationalism which the Communist Party seemed powerless to combat, and quickly began to organize themselves. Serbs saw new Croatian parties formed and tended to see a 'purge' of Serbs at the top levels of the Croatian party.

Again Kosovo was used as a symbol of Serbianism. With the Croatian leadership becoming increasingly unwilling to support Serbia's repressive policies in Kosovo, 'letters of truth' - from the 'Kordun children' (Serb colonists who had moved from the Kordun region to the Vojvodina) - were circulated calling on ethnic Serbs from Kordun and Karlovac to gather in Karlovac bus station on 4 February 1990 so that they could be told 'the real truth about Kosovo'. A Serbian cultural society, Zora, was set up and plans for a similar one in Topusk to be called Savl Mrkali were made. At a meeting in Lika in Donji Lapac, attended by Zora's president, Jovan Opacic, and other Zora directors, the genesis of a new party was created. The moving spirit behind it was the undoubted leader of the Serbs in Croatia, Sibenik psychiatrist Dr. Jovan Raskovic, and in February 1990 the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) was founded in Knin - a Serb stronghold with Raskovic as leader and Opacic as vice-president.

During the election campaign Tudjman pledged that Croatia's Serbs would have cultural autonomy but said that the HDZ would stop short of granting them political autonomy. Following his election triumph, Tudjman, in a statesmanlike manner offered Raskovic the vice-presidency of the Croatian parliament. Raskovic dragged out negotiations and eventually refused but the Serb Simo Rajic, a former communist functionary, was appointed instead.

However, this was not enough to allay Serb fears. Tudjman has so fara significantly failed to be seen as president of Croatia as opposed to president of the Croations and failed to visit Serb majority areas after the election. A new flag and other symbols helped stir already present Serb fears of a return to the Ustasha period. Many Serbs left the police force and their replacements, inevitably predominantly Croat, and new uniforms and names, further revived Serb memories of the war period. Tension increased throughout the summer and finally exploded in Knin.

The unrest in Knin and beyond

Knin has for some years been a centre of tension between Serbs and Croats with a number of nationalist incidents between the different nationalities. The Serbs, especially in and around Knin, rely almost entirely on Belgrade media which, with the rise of Milosevic, has become more and more partial to the point of broadcasting outright lies. A central point in Belgrade's disinformation campaign was the allegation that Tudjman was an Ustasha and was planning genocide against Croatia's Serbs. Similarly the Croatian press tended to give a less extreme version, but often one-side view, of the events which were very critical of Serbia and Serbs in Croatia.

In late July 1990 the Serbian National Council (SNC), an unofficial parliament of Serbs in Croatia, first declared autonomy for Croatia's Serbs. On 1 August Serb activists called for a referendum on Serbian autonomy to be held in Serb majority areas. On 3 August the Croatian authorities banned the referendum but the Serbs went ahead anyway. The Croatian authorities further antagonized Serb sensibilities by ordering the removal of Cyrillic signs.

A virtual insurrection followed. Armed Serb civillians patrolled the streets of the Knin-Benkovac areas on 16-18 August with some complicity by the Serb-dominated officer corps of the JNA but not as much as some initial reports indicated (reporting on events from Knin and other Serb areas in Croatia has often been highly suspect). For a short period control of these areas had passed to Serb irregular forces and civil war appeared to be beckoning. On the more radical wing of the SDS this was definitely envisaged. Dusan Zelenbaba, deputy for Knin, said at a meeting in Banja Luka in early August that Serbs in Croatia were already arming and would soon form a Serbian Dinaric Corps to topple the 'Ustasha' government.

In the event major hostilities did not happen and the referendum was held from 19 August to 2 September with ballot slips distributed which merely stated 'For Serbian Autonomy: Yes or No.' Despite the deliberately vague wording the organizers of the referendum described it as referring to cultural autonomy (providing Yugoslavia remained a federation) in the shape of Serbian schools using the Cyrillic script and teaching Serbian history, and a television station serving the Serb majority areas of Knin-Benkovac, Lika, Kordun, Banija and Slavonija. The organizers explicitly held that the referendum would also declare territorial autonomy if Yugoslavia became a confederation.

The Croatian authorities rejected this referendum and ordered that arms of police reserve units in the Serb-dominated areas be reduced by 60%. This sparked off Serbian riots on 28 and 29 September involving several hundred people in Petrinja, Dvor na Uni and Donji Lapac near Knin. Quantities of arms were taken by the rioters and telephone lines were cut in Knin. On 29 September in Petrinja a crowd of Serbs went to the police barracks requesting JNA protection and the Croatian Interior Ministry reported that police had been shot at. Again the spectre of civil war loomed large with broadcasts by Radio Knin of the formation of a 'Council of National Resistance' which said, 'The Serbian nation has not risen against the Croatian nation, but will resist the Ustashas until the last drop of blood.' Belgrade media again stirred up passions by announcing that 360 people ('innocent Serbs') had been arrested in the Sisak region but this was denied and the actual figure was 22, of whom 19 were immediately released.

On 1 October at Srb the SNC announced the results of the referendum. In Croatia 567,317 people took part of hom 567,127 voted for and 144 against, with 46 invalid ballots. The SNC also announced that the referendum had ben prevented by Croatian police in areas including Split, Sibenik and other areas so that over 150,000 Croatian Serbs were unable to participate. A statement signed by Milan Babic, Knin's mayor and SNC president, declared 'Serbian autonomy on the ethnic and historic territories populated by the Serbian people within the existing borders of the Republic of Croatia, as a federal unit of the SFRJ.' On 12 December the presidium of municipalities in Croatia with a Serb majority approved the 'Outline of a Staqtute of the Community of Municipalities of Northern Dalmatia and Lika - a Serbian Autonomous Region (Prefecture)'. This move was speedily and predictably annulled by the Croatian Constitutional Court. Undeterred, Croatia's Serbs continued to assert their autonomy and on 4 January 1991 the 'Serbian Region of Krajina in Croatia' - unrecognized by the Croatian authorities - announced the formation of its own Internal Affairs Secretariat. On 26 January, Raskovic announced a forthcoming Serbian Assembly to be founded in Croatia with one representative for every 5000 Serbs and representatives from the Serbian Orthodox Church. How evvective the January 1991 federal ban on armed groups outside the army has been in the Serb regions of Croatia is debatable.

Thus, the Serbs of Croatia have now claimed what Serbia has denied the far more numerous ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. A moot point is how close is the SDS to the Milosevic camp. Raskovic has given conflicting statements on this: at times he has denied that Serbia had anything to do with organizing the referendum and even disagreeing with Serbia's policies towards Croats in Serbia; while at other times he has praised Milosevic as the 'paradigm of all that is Serbian' and similar sentiments.

The situation remains extremely tense. Milosevic confirmed that if Yugoslavia was to become a confederation, then the borders would have to be reconsidered. The inference is clear - a Greater Serbia including those areas of Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croatia where Serbs make a majority but where large numbers of Croats and Muslims also live. The threat of outright civil war remains. An encouraging sign was the recent action by a group of Catholic and Orthodox priests in Prakac appealing for mutual understanding - this in marked contrast to the hitherto position of the Serbian Orthodox Church which, similarly in Kosovo, has hysterically accused the Croats of violent persecution and oppression against Serbs. However, with the resignation on 5 January of Simo Rajic - the remaining Serb in high office in the republic - complaining of Croatian domination, the outlook does not look promising.