131-579: Yugoslavia ( / ˌ j uː ɡ oʊ ˈ s l ɑː v i ə / ; lit. ' Land of the South Slavs ' ) was a country in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 to 1992. It came into existence following World War I , under the name of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes from the merger of the Kingdom of Serbia with the provisional State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs , and constituted
262-526: A new constitution and relinquished his dictatorship in 1931. However, Alexander's policies later encountered opposition from other European powers stemming from developments in Italy and Germany, where Fascists and Nazis rose to power, and the Soviet Union , where Joseph Stalin became absolute ruler. None of these three regimes favored the policy pursued by Alexander I. In fact, Italy and Germany wanted to revise
393-566: A Kosovar republic. This angered Serbia's leadership which proceeded to use police force and later, federal police troops to restore civil order. In January 1990, the extraordinary 14th Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia was convened, where the Serbian and Slovenian delegations argued over the future of the League of Communists and Yugoslavia. The Serbian delegation, led by Milošević, insisted on
524-450: A close relationship between the two Communist countries, and enable Yugoslavia to start a civil war in Greece and use Albania and Bulgaria as bases. Stalin vetoed this agreement and it was never realised. The break between Belgrade and Moscow was now imminent. Yugoslavia solved the national issue of nations and nationalities (national minorities) in a way that all nations and nationalities had
655-577: A common state for all South Slavic peoples, emerged in the late 17th century and gained prominence through the Illyrian Movement of the 19th century. The name was created by the combination of the Slavic words jug ("south") and Slaveni / Sloveni (Slavs). Moves towards the formal creation of Yugoslavia accelerated after the 1917 Corfu Declaration between the Yugoslav Committee and
786-603: A constituent nation. The war broke out when the new regimes tried to replace Yugoslav civilian and military forces with secessionist forces. When, in August 1990, Croatia attempted to replace police in the Serb-populated Croat Krajina by force, the population first looked for refuge in the Yugoslav Army barracks, while the army remained passive. The civilians then organised armed resistance. These armed conflicts between
917-575: A dubious traffic incident after he started to complain about Tito's politics. Minister of the interior Aleksandar Ranković lost all of his titles and rights after a major disagreement with Tito regarding state politics. Some influential ministers in government, such as Edvard Kardelj or Stane Dolanc , were more important than the Prime Minister. First cracks in the tightly governed system surfaced when students in Belgrade and several other cities joined
1048-523: A federation (this date was celebrated as Republic Day after the war). The Yugoslav Partisans were able to expel the Axis from Serbia in 1944 and the rest of Yugoslavia in 1945. The Red Army provided limited assistance with the liberation of Belgrade and withdrew after the war was over. In May 1945, the Partisans met with Allied forces outside former Yugoslav borders, after also taking over Trieste and parts of
1179-503: A foothold), and France ( Cathars ). Carinthia came under Germanic rule in the 10th century and came permanently under Western (Roman) Christian sphere of influence. What is today Croatia came under Eastern Roman (Byzantine) rule after the Barbarian age, and while most of the territory was Slavicized, a handful of fortified towns, with mixed population, remained under Byzantine authority and continued to use Latin. Dalmatia, now applied to
1310-638: A free fall and social programmes collapsed; creating within the population an atmosphere of social despair and hopelessness. This was a critical turning point in the events to follow. After Tito's death on 4 May 1980, ethnic tensions grew in Yugoslavia. The legacy of the Constitution of 1974 threw the system of decision-making into a state of paralysis, made all the more hopeless as the conflict of interests became irreconcilable. The Albanian majority in Kosovo demanded
1441-532: A minimum: Serbia proper, then-loyal Montenegro, Vojvodina, and Kosovo. As a result of these events, ethnic Albanian miners in Kosovo organised the 1989 Kosovo miners' strike , which dovetailed into an ethnic conflict between the Albanians and the non-Albanians in the province. At around 80% of the population of Kosovo in the 1980s , ethnic-Albanians were the majority. With Milošević gaining control over Kosovo in 1989,
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#17328411766471572-626: A policy of "one person, one vote" which would empower the plurality population, the Serbs . In turn, the Slovenian delegation, supported by Croats, sought to reform Yugoslavia by devolving even more power to republics, but were voted down. As a result, the Slovene and Croatian delegations left the Congress and the all-Yugoslav Communist party was dissolved. The constitutional crisis that inevitably followed resulted in
1703-409: A primitive life and living in scattered huts, often changing their residence. Procopius said they were henotheistic , believing in the god of lightning ( Perun ), the ruler of all, to whom they sacrificed cattle. They went into battle on foot, charging straight at their enemy, armed with spears and small shields, but they did not wear armour. While archaeological evidence for a large-scale migration
1834-501: A revival of greater Serbian hegemonism. Through a series of moves known as the " anti-bureaucratic revolution ", Milošević succeeded in reducing the autonomy of Vojvodina and of Kosovo and Metohija, but both entities retained a vote in the Yugoslav Presidency Council. The very instrument that reduced Serbian influence before was now used to increase it: in the eight-member Council, Serbia could now count on four votes at
1965-518: A rise of nationalism in all republics: Slovenia and Croatia voiced demands for looser ties within the federation. Following the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, each of the republics held multi-party elections in 1990. Slovenia and Croatia held the elections in April since their communist parties chose to cede power peacefully. Other Yugoslav republics—especially Serbia—were more or less dissatisfied with
2096-613: A shared "Slavonic-time ancestry". The 2014 IBD analysis comparison of Western Balkan and Middle Eastern populations also found negligible gene flow between 16th and 19th century during the Islamization of the Balkans. According to a 2014 admixture analysis of Western Balkan, the South Slavs show a genetic uniformity. Bosnians and Croatians were closer to East European populations and largely overlapped with Hungarians from Central Europe. In
2227-480: A very high number of common ancestors dated to the migration period approximately 1,500 years ago with Poland and Romania-Bulgaria cluster among others in Eastern Europe. It is concluded to be caused by the Hunnic and Slavic expansion, which was a "relatively small population that expanded over a large geographic area", particularly "the expansion of the Slavic populations into regions of low population density beginning in
2358-529: Is "dated to 500-900 CE or a bit later with over 40-50% among Bulgarians, Romanians, and Hungarians". The 2015 IBD analysis found that the South Slavs have lower proximity to Greeks than with East and West Slavs and that there's an "even patterns of IBD sharing among East-West Slavs–'inter-Slavic' populations ( Hungarians , Romanians and Gagauz )–and South Slavs, i.e. across an area of assumed historic movements of people including Slavs". The slight peak of shared IBD segments between South and East-West Slavs suggests
2489-466: Is lacking, most present-day historians claim that Slavs invaded and settled the Balkans in the 6th and 7th centuries. According to this dominant narrative, up until the late 560s their main activity southward across the Danube was raiding, though with limited Slavic settlement mainly through Byzantine colonies of foederati . The Danube and Sava frontier was overwhelmed by large-scale Slavic settlement in
2620-600: The Glagolitic script and the first Slavic written language, Old Church Slavonic , which they used to translate Biblical works. At the time, the West and South Slavs still spoke a similar language. The script used, Glagolitic , was capable of representing all Slavic sounds, however, it was gradually replaced in Bulgaria in the 9th century, in Russia by the 11th century Glagolitic survived into
2751-702: The History by Theophylact Simocatta ( c. 630 ). DAI mentions the beginnings of the Croatian, Serbian and Bulgarian states from the early 7th to the mid-10th century. MSD and Theophylact Simocatta mention the Slavic tribes in Thessaly and Macedonia at the beginning of the 7th century. The 9th-century Royal Frankish Annals (RFA) also mention Slavic tribes in contact with the Franks . By 700 AD, Slavs had settled in most of Central and Southeast Europe, from Austria even down to
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#17328411766472882-510: The Non-Aligned Movement in 1961, which remained the official affiliation of the country until it dissolved. On 7 April 1963, the nation changed its official name to Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Josip Broz Tito was named President for life . In the SFRY, each republic and province had its own constitution, supreme court, parliament, president and prime minister. At the top of
3013-592: The Yugoslav Wars . From 1993 to 2017, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia tried political and military leaders from the former Yugoslavia for war crimes , genocide, and other crimes committed during those wars. After the breakup, the republics of Montenegro and Serbia formed a reduced federative state, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). This state aspired to
3144-617: The secession of some republics from SFRY preserved its existence, as Serbia and Montenegro claimed, or caused its dissolution with all the republics being equal successors to the SFRY. The commission replied on 29 November 1991, "the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia is in the process of dissolution". On 20 November 1991 Lord Carrington asked: "Does the Serbian population in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina , as one of
3275-537: The 10th and 11th centuries the Old Church Slavonic led to the creation of various regional forms like Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian . Economic, religious and political centres of Ohrid and Preslav contributed to the important literary production in the Bulgarian Empire . The Bogomil sect, derived from Manichaeism, was deemed heretical, but managed to spread from Bulgaria to Bosnia (where it gained
3406-929: The 16th century in Croatia, used by Benedictines and Franciscans, but lost importance during the Counter-Reformation when Latin replaced it on the Dalmatian coast. Cyril and Methodius' disciples found refuge in already Christian Bulgaria , where the Old Church Slavonic became the ecclesiastical language. Early Cyrillic alphabet was developed during the 9th century AD at the Preslav Literary School in Bulgaria . The earliest Slavic literary works were composed in Bulgaria , Duklja and Dalmatia. The religious works were almost exclusively translations, from Latin (Croatia, Slovenia) and especially Greek (Bulgaria, Serbia). In
3537-528: The 1974 constitution as weakening Serbia's influence and jeopardising the unity of the country by allowing the republics the right to separate. According to official statistics, from the 1950s to the early 1980s, Yugoslavia was among the fastest growing countries, approaching the ranges reported in South Korea and other countries undergoing an economic miracle . The unique socialist system in Yugoslavia, where factories were worker cooperatives and decision-making
3668-443: The 2015 analysis, Bosnians and Croatians formed a western South Slavic cluster together with Slovenians, in opposition to an eastern cluster formed by Macedonians and Bulgarians, with Serbians in between the two. The western cluster has an inclination toward Hungarians, Czechs, and Slovaks, while the eastern ones lean toward Romanians and, to some extent, to Greeks. The modeled ancestral genetic component of Balto-Slavs among South Slavs
3799-550: The 7th century and remains qualitatively different from the "Slavic culture" found north of the Danube . In the mid-6th century, the Byzantines re-asserted their control of the Danube frontier, thereby reducing the economic value of Slavic raiding. This growing economic isolation, combined with external threats from the Avars and Byzantines, led to political and military mobilisation. Meanwhile,
3930-560: The Albanians of Kosovo and Hungarians of Vojvodina. Both provinces were afforded much of the same status as the six republics of Yugoslavia, though they could not secede. Vojvodina and Kosovo formed the provinces of the Republic of Serbia but also formed part of the federation, which led to the unique situation in which Central Serbia did not have its own assembly but a joint assembly with its provinces represented in it. Albanian and Hungarian became nationally recognised minority languages, and
4061-502: The Avar envoys slain. By the 580s, as the Slav communities on the Danube became larger and more organized, and as the Avars exerted their influence, raids became larger and resulted in permanent settlement. Most scholars consider the period of 581–584 as the beginning of large-scale Slavic settlement in the Balkans. F. Curta points out that evidence of substantial Slavic presence does not appear before
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4192-670: The Badinter Commission's interpretation of the SFRY Constitution. Apart from principles of international law, the Badinter Commission sought to justify the relevance of the Badinter Borders Principle by reference to article 5 of the 1974 Constitution of the Yugoslavia. The Commission said that the Badinter Borders Principle applies all the more readily to the Republics since the second and fourth paragraphs of Article 5 of
4323-569: The Balkans however diminished by the early 7th century and they were finally defeated and disappeared as a power at the turn of the 9th century by Bulgaria and the Frankish Empire . The first South Slavic polity and regional power was Bulgaria , a state formed in 681 as a union between the much numerous Slavic tribes and the bulgars of Khan Asparuh . The scattered Slavs in Greece, the Sklavinia , were Hellenized. Romance-speakers lived within
4454-618: The Byzantine Empire was stretched, defending its rich Asian provinces from Arabs, Persians and others. This meant that even numerically small, disorganised early Slavic raids were capable of causing much disruption, but could not capture the larger, fortified cities. The first Slavic raid south of the Danube was recorded by Procopius, who mentions an attack of the Antes, "who dwell close to the Sclaveni", probably in 518. Sclaveni are first mentioned in
4585-720: The Conference on Yugoslavia (commonly known as Badinter Arbitration Committee ) was an arbitration body set up by the Council of Ministers of the European Economic Community (EEC) on 27 August 1991 to provide the conference on Yugoslavia with legal advice. Robert Badinter was appointed to President of the five-member Commission consisting of presidents of Constitutional Courts in the EEC. The Arbitration Commission has handed down fifteen opinions on "major legal questions" raised by
4716-455: The Constitution of the SFRY stipulated that the Republics' territories and boundaries could not be altered without their consent. Article 5 stipulates: (1) The territory of the SFRY is indivisible and consists of the territories of its socialist republics. (2) A republic's territory cannot be altered without the consent of that republic, and the territory of an autonomous province — without
4847-656: The Croatian Defence minister Martin Špegelj and two unidentified men. The video, filmed by the Yugoslav counter-intelligence ( KOS, Kontra-obavještajna služba ), showed Špegel announcing that they were at war with the army and giving instructions about arms smuggling as well as methods of dealing with the Yugoslav Army's officers stationed in Croatian cities. Serbia and JNA used this discovery of Croatian rearmament for propaganda purposes. Guns were also fired from army bases through Croatia. Elsewhere, tensions were running high. In
4978-474: The Croatian armed forces ("police") and civilians mark the beginning of the Yugoslav war that inflamed the region. Similarly, the attempt to replace Yugoslav frontier police by Slovene police forces provoked regional armed conflicts which ended with a minimal number of victims. A similar attempt in Bosnia and Herzegovina led to a war that lasted more than three years (see below). The results of all these conflicts were
5109-519: The Dalmatian coast towards the interior almost a year before Croatian leadership made any move towards independence. These uprisings were more or less discreetly backed by the Serb-dominated federal army (JNA). The Serbs in Croatia proclaimed "Serb autonomous areas", which were later united into the Republic of Serb Krajina . The federal army tried to disarm the territorial defence forces of Slovenia (the republics had their local defence forces similar to
5240-522: The European Community was initially reluctant to accept the recommendations because of Greek opposition . The Commission recommended for the European Community to recognise Slovenia. The Commission rejected Serbian and Montenegrin objections to its competence to respond to three references that it had received from Lord Carrington, which resulted in Opinions 8, 9 and 10. The Commission decided that
5371-452: The Home Guard) in 1990 but was not completely successful. Still, Slovenia began to covertly import arms to replenish its armed forces. Croatia also embarked upon the illegal importation of arms, (following the disarmament of the republics' armed forces by the federal army) mainly from Hungary. These activities were under constant surveillance and produced a video of a secret meeting between
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5502-532: The Marshall plan. However, in 1948 Tito broke decisively with Stalin on other issues, making Yugoslavia an independent communist state. Yugoslavia requested American aid. American leaders were internally divided, but finally agreed and began sending money on a small scale in 1949, and on a much larger scale 1950–53. The American aid was not part of the Marshall plan. Tito criticised both Eastern Bloc and NATO nations and, together with India and other countries, started
5633-549: The Ottoman period. Slovene is South Slavic but has many features shared with West Slavic languages. The Prekmurje Slovene and Kajkavian are especially close, and there is no sharp delineation between them. In southeastern Serbia, dialects enter a transitional zone with Bulgarian and Macedonian, with features of both groups, and are commonly called Torlakian . The Eastern South Slavic languages are Bulgarian and Macedonian. Bulgarian has retained more archaic Slavic features in relation to
5764-732: The Peloponnese of Greece, and from the Adriatic to the Black Sea, with the exception of the coastal areas and certain mountainous regions of the Greek peninsula. The Avars , who arrived in Europe in the late 550s and had a great impact in the Balkans, had from their base in the Carpathian plain, west of main Slavic settlements, asserted control over Slavic tribes with whom they besieged Roman cities. Their influence in
5895-504: The President of Croatia wrote to Badinter to give assurances that the deficit would be remedied, and the European Community then recognized Croatia. The Commission recommended for the European Community to accept the request of the then Republic of Macedonia for recognition, as the Republic had given the necessary guarantees to respect human rights and international peace and security. However,
6026-581: The Republic of Venice which held it until the 18th century. Hungary governed Croatia through a duke, and the coastal towns through a ban . A feudal class emerged in the Croatian hinterland in the late 13th century, among whom were the Kurjaković , Kačić and most notably the Šubić . Dalmatian fortified towns meanwhile maintained autonomy, with a Roman patrician class and Slavic lower class, first under Hungary and then Venice after centuries of struggle. Ibn al-Faqih described two kinds of South Slavic people,
6157-511: The SFRY leadership. After the SFRY allied government agreed to the mediation of the European Community, the latter conducted a series of negotiations and consultations with the warring parties. On July 7, 1991, the Brioni Agreement was signed, ending the war in Slovenia, from whose territory all Yugoslav army units were withdrawn. The agreement provided for a moratorium on the entry into force of
6288-505: The SFRY. Based upon the above analysis of the reasoning of the Badinter Commission in Opinion No 3 Radan concludes that neither the international law principles of respect for the territorial status quo and uti possidetis nor the provisions of article 5 of the Constitution of the SFRY 1974 provides any justification for the Badinter Borders Principle" and that in redrawing the new borders between independent states "it may even be necessary to facilitate orderly and voluntary transfers of parts of
6419-493: The Sclaveni continued to raid the Balkans. In 558 the Avars arrived at the Black Sea steppe, and defeated the Antes between the Dnieper and Dniester. The Avars subsequently allied themselves with the Sclaveni, although there was an episode in which the Sclavene Daurentius ( fl. 577–579 ), the first Slavic chieftain recorded by name, dismissed Avar suzerainty and retorted that "Others do not conquer our land, we conquer theirs [...] so it shall always be for us", and had
6550-425: The Serbo-Croat of Bosnia and Montenegro altered to a form based on the speech of the local people and not on the standards of Zagreb and Belgrade. In Slovenia the recognized minorities were Hungarians and Italians. The fact that these autonomous provinces held the same voting power as the republics but unlike other republics could not legally separate from Yugoslavia satisfied Croatia and Slovenia, but in Serbia and in
6681-415: The Serbs (having in mind Croatian Serbs) should also have a right to self-determination. South Slavs South Slavs are Slavic people who speak South Slavic languages and inhabit a contiguous region of Southeast Europe comprising the eastern Alps and the Balkan Peninsula . Geographically separated from the West Slavs and East Slavs by Austria , Hungary , Romania , and the Black Sea ,
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#17328411766476812-454: The South Slavs today include Bosniaks , Bulgarians , Croats , Macedonians , Montenegrins , Serbs and Slovenes . In the 20th century, the country of Yugoslavia (from Serbo-Croatian , literally meaning "South Slavia" or "South Slavdom") united a majority of the South Slavic peoples and lands—with the exception of Bulgarians and Bulgaria—into a single state. The Pan-Slavic concept of Yugoslavia emerged in late 17th-century Croatia, at
6943-562: The Yugoslav government were the President (Tito), the federal Prime Minister, and the federal Parliament (a collective Presidency was formed after Tito's death in 1980). Also important were the Communist Party general secretaries for each republic and province, and the general secretary of Central Committee of the Communist Party. Tito was the most powerful person in the country, followed by republican and provincial premiers and presidents, and Communist Party presidents. Slobodan Penezić Krcun, Tito's chief of secret police in Serbia, fell victim to
7074-401: The actual number of dead was about 1 million. On 11 November 1945, elections were held with only the Communist-led People's Front appearing on the ballot, securing all 354 seats. On 29 November, while still in exile, King Peter II was deposed by Yugoslavia's Constituent Assembly , and the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia was declared. However, he refused to abdicate. Marshal Tito
7205-407: The almost total emigration of the Serbs from all three regions, the massive displacement of the populations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the establishment of the three new independent states. The separation of Macedonia was peaceful, although the Yugoslav Army occupied the peak of the Straža mountain on Macedonian soil. Serbian uprisings in Croatia began in August 1990 by blocking roads leading from
7336-453: The army. On March 31, 1991, there was a clash between Croatian police and armed forces from the Croatian Serb -established SAO Krajina at the Plitvice Lakes National Park in which two men were killed. These events culminated in a minor armed conflict in Slovenia and the beginning of the war in Croatia . In early 1991, the European Community , anticipating an imminent armed conflict in Yugoslavia, offered its mediation assistance to
7467-428: The central ones ( Edessa , Kilkis ) as either Macedonian or transitional between Macedonian and Bulgarian. Balkan Slavic languages are part of a " Balkan sprachbund " with areal features shared with other non-Slavic languages in the Balkans. According to the 2013 autosomal IBD survey "of recent genealogical ancestry over the past 3,000 years at a continental scale", the speakers of Serbo-Croatian language share
7598-422: The codification of several distinct standards: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin. These Serbo-Croatian standards are all based on the Shtokavian dialect group. Other dialect groups, which have lower intelligibility with Shtokavian, are Chakavian in Dalmatia and Kajkavian in Croatia proper . The dominance of Shtokavian across Serbo-Croatian speaking lands is due to historical westward migration during
7729-506: The commission concluded on 11 January 1992, "The boundaries between Croatia and Serbia, between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, and possibly other adjacent independent states may not be altered except by agreement freely arrived at.... Except where otherwise agreed, the former boundaries become frontiers protected by international law". The Commission was asked whether the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina should be recognised. The Commission decided against recognition because, unlike
7860-400: The conflict between several republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). In 1990-1991, contradictions between Serbia and other republics within the federal Yugoslavia ( Slovenia and Croatia ), economic, political and then ethno-territorial conflicts began to grow. In the 1990 Slovenian independence referendum , an overwhelming majority of the inhabitants voted for
7991-402: The consent of that autonomous province. (3) A border of the SFRY cannot be altered without the concurrence of all republics and autonomous provinces. (4) A border between republics can only be altered on the basis of their agreement, and in the case of a border of an autonomous province — on the basis of its concurrence. In referring to article 5, his criticism is that the Badinter Commission
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#17328411766478122-457: The constituent peoples of Yugoslavia, have the right to self-determination ?" The commission concluded on 11 January 1992 "that the Serbian population in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia is entitled to all the rights concerned to minorities and ethnic groups .... Republics must afford the members of those minorities and ethnic groups all the human rights and fundamental freedoms recognized in international law , including, where appropriate,
8253-413: The constitution was heavily amended to replace the emphasis on democratic centralism with workers' self-management and decentralization . The Communist Party was renamed to the League of Communists and adopted Titoism at its congress the previous year . All the Communist European Countries had deferred to Stalin and rejected the Marshall Plan aid in 1947. Tito, at first went along and rejected
8384-421: The contact zones. The diminished pre-Slavic inhabitants, also including Romanized native peoples, fled from the barbarian invasions and sought refuge inside fortified cities and islands, whilst others fled to remote mountains and forests and adopted a transhumant lifestyle. The Romance-speakers within the fortified Dalmatian city-states managed to retain their culture and language for a long time. Meanwhile,
8515-403: The context of the Yugoslav state whose own territorial integrity and borders remained in place. According to Radan, a republic seeking to violate the provisions of paragraphs 1 and 3 of article 5 could hardly reap the guarantees contained within paragraphs 2 and 4. Consequently, he argues that article 5 provides no support for the application of the Badinter Borders Principle to the fragmentation of
8646-515: The context of the military policy on the Danube frontier of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565). Throughout the 6th century, Slavs raided and plundered deep into the Balkans, from Dalmatia to Greece and Thrace, and were also at times recruited as Byzantine mercenaries, fighting the Ostrogoths . Justinian seems to have used the strategy of ' divide and conquer ', and the Sclaveni and Antes are mentioned as fighting each other. The Antes are last mentioned as anti-Byzantine belligerents in 545, and
8777-414: The control of the Communist Party, and on recognition of the multiple nationalities. The flags of the republics used versions of the red flag or Slavic tricolor , with a red star in the centre or in the canton. Tito's regional goal was to expand south and take control of Albania and parts of Greece. In 1947, negotiations between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria led to the Bled agreement , which proposed to form
8908-411: The country and responded in a manner to appease both Croats and Serbs: he ordered the arrest of the Croatian Spring protestors while at the same time conceding to some of their demands. Following the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution , Serbia's influence in the country was significantly reduced, while its autonomous provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo were granted greater autonomy, along with greater rights for
9039-436: The country were occupied by Bulgaria , Hungary, and Italy. From 1941 to 1945, the Croatian Ustaše regime persecuted and murdered around 300,000 Serbs, along with at least 30,000 Jews and Roma; hundreds of thousands of Serbs were also expelled and another 200,000-300,000 were forced to convert to Catholicism . From the start, the Yugoslav resistance forces consisted of two factions: the communist-led Yugoslav Partisans and
9170-523: The decision, while all other republics, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, voted against. The tie delayed an escalation of conflicts, but not for long. Following the first multi-party election results, in the autumn of 1990, the republics of Slovenia and Croatia proposed transforming Yugoslavia into a loose confederation of six republics. By this proposal, republics would have right to self-determination. However Milošević rejected all such proposals, arguing that like Slovenes and Croats,
9301-462: The declarations of independence of Slovenia and Croatia for a period of three months, as well as the need to begin negotiations on the future structure of Yugoslavia. However, the agreement had no impact on the cessation of hostilities in Croatia. Between late 1991 and the middle of 1993, the Arbitration Commission handed down 15 opinions on legal issues arising from the fragmentation of Yugoslavia. On 20 November 1991 Lord Carrington asked whether
9432-486: The democratisation in two of the republics and proposed different sanctions (e.g. Serbian "customs tax" for Slovene products) against the two, but as the year progressed, other republics' communist parties saw the inevitability of the democratisation process. In December, as the last member of the federation, Serbia held parliamentary elections confirming the rule of former communists in the republic. Slovenia and Croatia elected governments oriented towards greater autonomy of
9563-549: The distribution, variance and frequency of the Y-DNA haplogroups R1a and I2 and their subclades R-M558, R-M458 and I-CTS10228 among South Slavs are in correlation with the spreading of Slavic languages during the medieval Slavic expansion from Eastern Europe, most probably from the territory of present-day Ukraine and Southeastern Poland . [REDACTED] Media related to South Slavs at Wikimedia Commons Badinter Arbitration Committee The Arbitration Commission of
9694-637: The exiled royal government and the Allies , but they soon focused increasingly on combating the Partisans rather than the occupying Axis forces. By the end of the war, the Chetnik movement transformed into a collaborationist Serb nationalist militia completely dependent on Axis supplies. The Chetniks also persecuted and killed Muslims and Croats , with an estimated 50,000-68,000 victims (of which 41,000 were civilians). The highly mobile Partisans, however, carried on their guerrilla warfare with great success. Most notable of
9825-697: The first millennium AD, with its precise location debated by archaeologists, ethnographers and historians. None of the proposed homelands reaches the Volga River in the east, over the Dinaric Alps in the southwest or the Balkan Mountains in the south, or past Bohemia in the west. Traditionally, scholars place it in the marshes of Ukraine, or alternatively between the Bug and the Dnieper ; however, according to F. Curta,
9956-433: The first of swarthy complexion and dark hair, living near the Adriatic coast, and the other as light, living in the hinterland. Through Islamization, communities of Slavic Muslims emerged, which survive until today in Bosnia, south Serbia, North Macedonia, and Bulgaria. While Pan-Slavism has its origins in the 17th-century Slavic Catholic clergymen in the Republic of Venice and Republic of Ragusa, it crystallized only in
10087-634: The first union of South Slavic peoples as a sovereign state , following centuries of foreign rule over the region under the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy . Peter I of Serbia was its first sovereign . The kingdom gained international recognition on 13 July 1922 at the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris . The official name of the state was changed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 3 October 1929. The kingdom
10218-611: The fortified Dalmatian city-states . Traditional historiography, based on DAI, holds that the migration of Serbs and Croats to the Balkans was part of a second Slavic wave, placed during Heraclius' reign. Inhabiting the territory between the Franks in the north and Byzantium in the south, the Slavs were exposed to competing influences. In 863 to Christianized Great Moravia were sent two Byzantine brothers monks Saints Cyril and Methodius , Slavs from Thessaloniki on missionary work. They created
10349-538: The government of the Kingdom of Serbia . The country was formed in 1918 immediately after World War I as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by union of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and the Kingdom of Serbia . It was commonly referred to at the time as a " Versailles state". Later, King Alexander I renamed the country to Yugoslavia in 1929. On 20 June 1928, Serb deputy Puniša Račić shot at five members of
10480-461: The homeland of the southern Slavs mentioned by 6th-century writers was just north of the Lower Danube . Little is known about the Slavs before the 5th century, when they began to spread out in all directions. Jordanes ( fl. 6th century CE ), Procopius ( c. 500 - c. 565 ) and other late Roman authors provide the probable earliest references to southern Slavs in
10611-515: The independence of the republic, similar results were seen in the 1991 Croatian independence referendum , and on June 25, 1991, both republics declared independence. In early March 1991, there were armed clashes in Pakrac between Croats and Serbs. Units of the Yugoslav People's Army were brought into the city to prevent further clashes. On March 9, 1991, protests in Belgrade were suppressed by
10742-564: The international treaties signed after World War I, and the Soviets were determined to regain their positions in Europe and pursue a more active international policy. Alexander attempted to create a centralised Yugoslavia. He decided to abolish Yugoslavia's historic regions, and new internal boundaries were drawn for provinces or banovinas. The banovinas were named after rivers. Many politicians were jailed or kept under police surveillance. During his reign, communist movements were restricted. The king
10873-539: The invading German forces. More than 300,000 Yugoslav officers and soldiers were taken prisoner. The Axis Powers occupied Yugoslavia and split it up. The Independent State of Croatia was established as a Nazi satellite state, ruled by the fascist militia known as the Ustaše that came into existence in 1929, but was relatively limited in its activities until 1941. German troops occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as part of Serbia and Slovenia , while other parts of
11004-548: The itinerant form of agriculture (lacking crop rotation ) may have encouraged micro-regional mobility. Seventh-century archaeological sites show earlier hamlet-collections evolving into larger communities with differentiated zones for public feasts, craftmanship, etc. It has been suggested that the Sclaveni were the ancestors of the Serbo-Croatian group while the Antes were those of the Bulgarian Slavs , with much mixture in
11135-574: The late 1930s was marked by growing intolerance between the principal figures, by the aggressive attitude of the totalitarian regimes, and by the certainty that the order set up after World War I was losing its strongholds and its sponsors their strength. Supported and pressured by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany , Croatian leader Vladko Maček and his party managed the creation of the Banovina of Croatia (Autonomous Region with significant internal self-government) in 1939. The agreement specified that Croatia
11266-513: The late 6th and early 7th century. What is today central Serbia was an important geo-strategical Byzantine province, through which the Via Militaris crossed. This area was frequently intruded upon by barbarians in the 5th and 6th centuries. From the Danube, the Slavs commenced raiding the Byzantine Empire on an annual basis from the 520s, spreading destruction, taking loot and herds of cattle, seizing prisoners and capturing fortresses. Often,
11397-411: The legal process of the dissolution of the SFRY had completed and so the SFRY no longer existed. The Commission considered state succession, resulting from the cessation of the SFRY, should be resolved. It ruled that it should be resolved by mutual agreement between the several successor states, with an equitable division of the international assets and obligations of the former SFRY. It also decided that
11528-510: The membership of the SFRY in international organizations could not be continued by any successor state, but each state would have to apply for membership anew. In this decision, the Commission ruled that the FRY (Serbia and Montenegro) could not legally be considered a continuation of the former SFRY, but it was a new state. Thus, the European Community should not automatically recognize the FRY but apply
11659-525: The mid-19th century amidst rise of nationalism in the Ottoman and Habsburg empires. The South Slavic languages , one of three branches of the Slavic languages family (the other being West Slavic and East Slavic ), form a dialect continuum . It comprises, from west to east, the official languages of Slovenia , Croatia , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Montenegro , Serbia , North Macedonia , and Bulgaria . The South Slavic languages are geographically divided from
11790-581: The narrow strip with Byzantine towns, came under the Patriarchate of Constantinople, while the Croatian state remained pagan until Christianization during the reign of Charlemagne , after which religious allegiance was to Rome. Croats threw off Frankish rule in the 9th century and took over the Byzantine Dalmatian towns, after which Hungarian conquest led to Hungarian suzerainty, although retaining an army and institutions. Croatia lost much of Dalmatia to
11921-501: The new autonomous province of Kosovo, reaction was different. Serbs saw the new constitution as conceding to Croat and ethnic Albanian nationalists. Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo saw the creation of an autonomous province as not being enough, and demanded that Kosovo become a constituent republic with the right to separate from Yugoslavia. This created tensions within the Communist leadership, particularly among Communist Serb officials who viewed
12052-503: The numerous Slavs mixed with and assimilated the descendants of the indigenous population. Subsequent information about Slavs' interaction with the Greeks and early Slavic states comes from the 10th-century text De Administrando Imperio (DAI) written by Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus , from the 7th-century compilations of the Miracles of Saint Demetrius (MSD) and from
12183-487: The opposition Croatian Peasant Party in the National Assembly , resulting in the death of two deputies on the spot and that of leader Stjepan Radić a few weeks later. On 6 January 1929, King Alexander I got rid of the constitution , banned national political parties , assumed executive power , and renamed the country Yugoslavia. He hoped to curb separatist tendencies and mitigate nationalist passions. He imposed
12314-526: The original residency changed drastically leaving only a minimum number of Serbians in the region. The number of Serbs in Kosovo was quickly declining for several reasons, among them the ever-increasing ethnic tensions and subsequent emigration from the area. Meanwhile, Slovenia , under the presidency of Milan Kučan , and Croatia supported the Albanian miners and their struggle for formal recognition. Initial strikes turned into widespread demonstrations demanding
12445-661: The other languages. Bulgarian has two main yat splits. Macedonian was codified in Communist Yugoslavia in 1945. The northern and eastern Macedonian dialects are regarded as transitional to Serbian and Bulgarian, respectively. Furthermore, in Greece there is a notable Slavic-speaking population in Greek Macedonia and Western Thrace . Slavic dialects in western Greek Macedonia ( Kastoria , Florina ) are usually classified as Macedonian , those in eastern Greek Macedonia ( Serres , Drama ) and Western Thrace as Bulgarian and
12576-438: The other republics seeking independence, Bosnia and Herzegovina had not yet held a referendum on independence. The Commission considered the application of Croatia for the recognition of its independence. The Commission ruled that Croatia's independence should not yet be recognized because the new Croatian Constitution did not incorporate the protections for minorities required by European Community. In response, to this decision,
12707-587: The public protest and incarcerated the leaders, though many key Croatian representatives in the Party silently supported this cause. As a result, a new Constitution was ratified in 1974, which gave more rights to the individual republics in Yugoslavia and provinces in Serbia. After the Yugoslav Partisans took over the country at the end of WWII, nationalism was banned from being publicly promoted. Overall relative peace
12838-511: The regions of Kosovo and Vojvodina was reduced by the 1974 Constitution. Because its two autonomous provinces had de facto prerogatives of full-fledged republics, Serbia found that its hands were tied, for the republican government was restricted in making and carrying out decisions that would apply to the provinces. Since the provinces had a vote in the Federal Presidency Council (an eight-member council composed of representatives from
12969-460: The republics (under Milan Kučan and Franjo Tuđman , respectively). Serbia and Montenegro elected candidates who favoured Yugoslav unity. The Croat quest for independence led to large Serb communities within Croatia rebelling and trying to secede from the Croat republic. Serbs in Croatia would not accept the status of a national minority in a sovereign Croatia since they would be demoted from the status of
13100-478: The rest of the Slavic languages by areas where Germanic (Austria), Hungarian and Romanian languages prevail. South Slavic standard languages are: West: Serbo-Croatian ( pluricentric ) ( Serbian , Croatian , Bosnian , Montenegrin ) Slovene East: Bulgarian Macedonian The Serbo-Croatian varieties have strong structural unity and are regarded by most linguists as constituting one language. Today, language secessionism has led to
13231-425: The right to choose their nationality ". The opinion also extended the principle of uti possidetis to the former Yugoslavia for the first time. On 20 November 1991 Lord Carrington asked: "Can the internal boundaries between Croatia and Serbia and between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia be regarded as frontiers in terms of public international law ?" Applying the principle of uti possidetis juris ,
13362-467: The royalist Chetniks , with the former receiving Allied recognition at the Tehran conference (1943). The heavily pro-Serbian Chetniks were led by Draža Mihajlović , while the pan-Yugoslav oriented Partisans were led by Josip Broz Tito . The Partisans initiated a guerrilla campaign that developed into the largest resistance army in occupied Western and Central Europe. The Chetniks were initially supported by
13493-468: The same criteria as for the recognition of the other post-SFRY states. The text of the first ten opinions of the Badinter Commission has been published in the European Journal of International Law . Opinions 1-3 are reproduced in 3 EJIL 1 (1992) pp. 182ff. Opinions 4-10 are reproduced in 4 EJIL 1 (1993) pp. 74ff. Peter Radan, an Australian legal academic of Serbian descent, has criticised
13624-602: The same fate. In other words, in less than two years "the trigger mechanism" (under the Financial Operations Act) had led to the layoff of more than 600,000 workers out of a total industrial workforce of the order of 2.7 million. An additional 20% of the work force, or half a million people, were not paid wages during the early months of 1990 as enterprises sought to avoid bankruptcy. The largest concentrations of bankrupt firms and lay-offs were in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Kosovo. Real earnings were in
13755-533: The same month, the Army leaders met with the Presidency of Yugoslavia in an attempt to get them to declare a state of emergency which would allow for the army to take control of the country. The army was seen as an arm of the Serbian government by that time so the consequence feared by the other republics was to be total Serbian domination of the union. The representatives of Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Vojvodina voted for
13886-454: The same rights. However, most of the German minority of Yugoslavia, most of whom had collaborated during the occupation and had been recruited to German forces, were expelled towards Germany or Austria. The country distanced itself from the Soviets in 1948 (cf. Cominform and Informbiro ) and started to build its own way to socialism under the political leadership of Josip Broz Tito. Accordingly,
14017-479: The same time, Western economies went into recession, decreasing demand for Yugoslav imports thereby creating a large debt problem. In 1989, 248 firms were declared bankrupt or were liquidated and 89,400 workers were laid off according to official sources. During the first nine months of 1990 and directly following the adoption of the IMF programme, another 889 enterprises with a combined work-force of 525,000 workers suffered
14148-601: The second half of the 6th century. Procopius described the Sclaveni and Antes as two barbarian peoples with the same institutions and customs since ancient times, not ruled by a single leader but living under democracy, while Pseudo-Maurice called them a numerous people, undisciplined, unorganized and leaderless, who did not allow enslavement and conquest, and resistant to hardship, bearing all weathers. They were portrayed by Procopius as unusually tall and strong, of dark skin and "reddish" hair (neither blond nor black ), leading
14279-567: The six republics and the two autonomous provinces), they sometimes even entered into coalitions with other republics, thus outvoting Serbia. Serbia's political impotence made it possible for others to exert pressure on the 2 million Serbs (20% of the total Serbian population) living outside Serbia. After Tito's death, Serbian communist leader Slobodan Milošević began making his way toward the pinnacle of Serbian leadership. Milošević sought to restore pre-1974 Serbian sovereignty. Other republics, especially Slovenia and Croatia, denounced his proposal as
14410-463: The sixth century" and that it is "highly coincident with the modern distribution of Slavic languages". According to Kushniarevich et al. 2015, the Hellenthal et al. 2014 IBD analysis also found "multi-directional admixture events among East Europeans (both Slavic and non-Slavic), dated to around 1,000–1,600 YBP" which coincides with "the proposed time-frame for the Slavic expansion". The Slavic influence
14541-574: The southern Austrian provinces of Styria and Carinthia . However, the Partisans withdrew from Trieste in June of the same year under heavy pressure from Stalin, who did not want a confrontation with the other Allies. Western attempts to reunite the Partisans, who denied the supremacy of the old government of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia , and the émigrés loyal to the king led to the Tito-Šubašić Agreement in June 1944; however, Marshal Josip Broz Tito
14672-480: The status of a republic in the 1981 protests in Kosovo while Serbian authorities suppressed this sentiment and proceeded to reduce the province's autonomy. In 1986, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts drafted a memorandum addressing some burning issues concerning the position of Serbs as the most numerous people in Yugoslavia. The largest Yugoslav republic in territory and population, Serbia's influence over
14803-568: The status of sole legal successor to the SFRY, but those claims were opposed by the other former republics. Eventually, it accepted the opinion of the Badinter Arbitration Committee about shared succession and in 2003 its official name was changed to Serbia and Montenegro. This state dissolved when Montenegro and Serbia each became independent states in 2006, with Kosovo having an ongoing dispute over its declaration of independence in 2008. The concept of Yugoslavia , as
14934-570: The territories of Istria , Rijeka , and Zadar from Italy . Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito ruled the country from 1944 as prime minister and later as president until his death in 1980. In 1963, the country was renamed for the final time, as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). The six constituent republics that made up the SFRY were the socialist republics of Bosnia and Herzegovina , Croatia , Macedonia , Montenegro , Serbia , and Slovenia . Within Serbia were
15065-480: The time part of the Habsburg monarchy , and gained prominence through the 19th-century Illyrian movement . The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes , renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929, was proclaimed on 1 December 1918, following the unification of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs with the kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro . With the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, several independent sovereign states were formed. The term " Yugoslavs "
15196-779: The treaty and launched a coup d'état when the king returned on 27 March . Army General Dušan Simović seized power, arrested the Vienna delegation, exiled Prince Paul, and ended the regency, giving 17-year-old King Peter full powers. Hitler then decided to attack Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941, followed immediately by an invasion of Greece where Mussolini had previously been repelled. At 5:12 a.m. on 6 April 1941, German , Italian and Hungarian forces invaded Yugoslavia . The German Air Force ( Luftwaffe ) bombed Belgrade and other major Yugoslav cities. On 17 April, representatives of Yugoslavia's various regions signed an armistice with Germany in Belgrade, ending eleven days of resistance against
15327-404: The two socialist autonomous provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina , which following the adoption of 1974 Yugoslav Constitution were largely equal to the other members of the federation. After an economic and political crisis and the rise of nationalism and ethnic conflicts following Tito's death in 1980, Yugoslavia broke up along its republics' borders, at first into five countries, leading to
15458-561: The victories against the occupying forces were the battles of Neretva and Sutjeska . On 25 November 1942, the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia was convened in Bihać , modern day Bosnia and Herzegovina . The council reconvened on 29 November 1943, in Jajce , also in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and established the basis for post-war organisation of the country, establishing
15589-639: The worldwide protests of 1968 . President Josip Broz Tito gradually stopped the protests by giving in to some of the students' demands and saying that "students are right" during a televised speech. However, in the following years, he dealt with the leaders of the protests by sacking them from university and Communist party posts. A more severe sign of disobedience was so-called Croatian Spring of 1970 and 1971, when students in Zagreb organised demonstrations for greater civil liberties and greater Croatian autonomy, followed by mass protests across Croatia. The regime stifled
15720-622: Was invaded and occupied by the Axis powers in April 1941. In 1943, Democratic Federal Yugoslavia was proclaimed by the Partisan resistance . In 1944, King Peter II , then living in exile , recognised it as the legitimate government. After a communist government was elected in November 1945, the monarchy was abolished, and the country was renamed the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. It acquired
15851-543: Was and sometimes is still used as a synonym for "South Slavs", but it usually excludes Bulgarians since Bulgaria never formed part of the former Yugoslavia. The South Slavs are known in Serbian, Macedonian, and Montenegrin as Južni Sloveni ( Cyrillic : Јужни Словени ); in Bulgarian as Yuzhni Slavyani ( Cyrillic : Южни славяни ); in Croatian and Bosnian as Južni Slaveni ; and in Slovene as Južni Slovani . The Slavic root *jug- means 'south'. The Slavic ethnonym itself
15982-491: Was assassinated in Marseille during an official visit to France in 1934 by Vlado Chernozemski , an experienced marksman from Ivan Mihailov 's Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization with the cooperation of the Ustaše , a Croatian fascist revolutionary organisation. Alexander was succeeded by his eleven-year-old son Peter II and a regency council headed by his cousin, Prince Paul . The international political scene in
16113-435: Was between 55 and 70%. In the 2018 analysis of Slovenian population, the Slovenian population clustered with Croatians, Hungarians and was close to Czech. The 2006 Y-DNA study results "suggest that the Slavic expansion started from the territory of present-day Ukraine, thus supporting the hypothesis that places the earliest known homeland of Slavs in the basin of the middle Dnieper ". According to genetic studies until 2020,
16244-484: Was guilty of selective quoting. Radan's reason for this opinion is that in relying on paragraphs 2 and 4 of article 5, the Badinter Commission ignored the provisions of paragraphs 1 and 3. In doing so it was justifying the division of the SFRY and the alteration of its international borders in violation of paragraphs 1 and 3. Radan argues that the territorial integrity of republics and the sanctity of their borders referred to in paragraphs 2 and 4 of article 5 only applied in
16375-417: Was in control and was determined to lead an independent communist state, starting as a prime minister. He had the support of Moscow and London and led by far the strongest Partisan force with 800,000 men. The official Yugoslav post-war estimate of victims in Yugoslavia during World War II is 1,704,000. Subsequent data gathering in the 1980s by historians Vladimir Žerjavić and Bogoljub Kočović showed that
16506-650: Was less centralized than in other socialist countries, may have led to the stronger growth. However, even if the absolute value of the growth rates was not as high as indicated by the official statistics, both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were characterized by surprisingly high growth rates of both income and education during the 1950s. The period of European growth ended after the oil price shock in 1970s. Following that, an economic crisis erupted in Yugoslavia due to disastrous economic policies such as borrowing vast amounts of Western capital to fund growth through exports. At
16637-473: Was now in full control, and all opposition elements were eliminated. On 31 January 1946, the new constitution of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia , modelled after the Constitution of the Soviet Union , established six republics , an autonomous province, and an autonomous district that were a part of Serbia. The federal capital was Belgrade. The policy focused on a strong central government under
16768-469: Was retained under Tito's rule, though nationalist protests did occur, but these were usually repressed and nationalist leaders were arrested and some were executed by Yugoslav officials. However, the Croatian Spring protests in the 1970s were backed by large numbers of Croats who complained that Yugoslavia remained a Serb hegemony. Tito, whose home republic was Croatia, was concerned over the stability of
16899-493: Was then used by the Habsburg monarchy and France , and notably adopted by the 19th-century Croatian Illyrian movement . Eventually, the idea of Yugoslavism appeared, aimed at uniting all South Slav-populated territories into a common state. From this idea emerged Yugoslavia —which, however, did not include Bulgaria . The Proto-Slavic homeland is the postulated area of Slavic settlement in Central and Eastern Europe during
17030-459: Was to remain part of Yugoslavia, but it was hurriedly building an independent political identity in international relations. Prince Paul submitted to fascist pressure and signed the Tripartite Pact in Vienna on 25 March 1941, hoping to continue keeping Yugoslavia out of the war. However, this was at the expense of popular support for Paul's regency. Senior military officers were also opposed to
17161-493: Was used by 6th-century writers to describe the southern group of Early Slavs (the Sclaveni ); West Slavs were called Veneti and East Slavs Antes . The South Slavs are also called Balkan Slavs . Another name popular in the early modern period was Illyrians , using the name of a pre-Slavic Balkan people, a name first adopted by Dalmatian intellectuals in the late 15th century to refer to South Slavic lands and population. It
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