The Death of Yugoslavia
The Death of Yugoslavia is a BBC documentary series first broadcast in 1995, and is also the name of a book written by Allan Little and Laura Silber that accompanies the series.
It covers the collapse of the former Yugoslavia. It is notable in its combination of never-before-seen archive footage interspersed with interviews of most of the main players in the conflict. This format, pioneered by the programme's production company, Brian Lapping Associates, was very influential and the company produced many others in similar style.
There is a malicious game to play when listening, as we all have, to people sounding off with pat formulas about the terrible civil war that destroyed Yugoslavia: how many seconds before the first flat contradiction? Even the nimblest minds usually spin off the road after less than 30.
To stress that the causes of the war are complex is not to say nobody is to blame, principles are not at stake or nothing can be done - just that making sense of complexity takes time. And time is what Norma Percy of Brian Lapping Associates has taken in an excellent, if depressing, documentary. Also check out Yugoslavia: The Avoidable War.
Episodes included: Enter Nationalism, The Road to War, Wars of Independence, The Gates of Hell, A Safe Area, and Pax Americana.
After watching this documentary I must first say that I am very happy to have stumbled on this website. I intend to spend much more time here after watching this excellent presentation that I witnesses in part on TV some years ago. Then it was difficult to understand who was right and who was wrong.
I was impressed after watching this as to the true cause of this and other wars. The cause of course is pride and the sense that one's particular race or creed or whatever is superior to another's. In my opinion there is in fact morally superior cultures such as the struggle we are now engaged in as the West and most of the civilized world opposes ISIS.
In light of true causes for war such as the defence against Nazi Germany this conflict seems to be trivial. Tragically that trivia caused the death of a nation and more importantly the deaths of thousands of human beings. The moral of the story? Get along with your neighbor and do not fall for the tired line that you are somehow more important than him. Resist the temptation to follow the latest and best leader that will give you what you want. At the time of this writing a similar battle is raging between the followers of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Both groups are exact opposites but citizens of the same nation. I fear the end of this division will not be pretty just as the civil war previously fought in America was the worst bloodbath that this nation was ever engaged in, including WW1 and WW2.
Thanks for all the people who made this documentary possible. I very much appreciated the history lesson.
@carlos1234
hey i got a slovak wife too and i live with a slovak family in a slovak village with alot of slovaks and trust trust me the only thing slovaks care about yujoslavia is that they dont like people thinking that Slovakia is Slovania or that slovakia was part of yugoslavia...
Thank you for clarifying that Slovakia has never been a part of Yugoslavia. I'm Slovak and people mistake it for Slavic all the time. Drives me nuts! I always have to explain that it's Slovak as in Czechoslovakia. Duh. Your wife must be very cool. My hubby's name is Carlos as well!
where is the 3rd rike?
"Religion is a universal mass compulsive neurosis." Sigmund Freud
The root cause of the entire issue can be summed up in one word> nationalism. Suppress nationalism for peace. The second is religion which doesn't have a solution.
lol
there always has to be one stupid greek that comes in these types of threads and mentions "Skopjan Macedonia" and thessaloniki being the north of greece.
very funny.
This is the most unbiased and informational documentary I have seen and probably exists out there (on the Politics of the Yugoslavian-Wars). Although the extent and description of all the atrocities aren't described (but this is ok because there are many other books/documentaries on that).
I myself was a 3-7 year old child in Gorazde (Bosnia) during the war. I remember being frequently shelled (the horrible screaming sounds of those missiles), buildings on fire, gunfire on the hills across the Drina, hiding in the basement, not having much to eat, but at that age you're oblivious to the real extent of the situation. I have since the war made a friend, he's mother and older brother (5-6 at the time) were both killed by a missile). I have also met a guy who must of been 10 at the time, while playing with his friends in the backyard had seen one of them shot in the head by a sniper, then briefly panic and bleed to death. The number of tragedies in Gorazde were low in comparison to the rest of East Bosnia (Srebrenica, Foca, Zvornik... and to deny these atrocities can only be unprogressive.
I can personally get over the war, but for those who have truly lost, we must not forget or make rash comments which belittle these people.
The translation is slightly simplified and therefore not exactly 100% identical, but for me the meaning of the statements is almost always correctly expressed.
Nationalism and backward thinking ideologies are a big problem in this region(Serbia/Bosnia and Herzegovina/Croatia/Kosovo). I hope with the internet, people will become more educated and realise that your nationality is not the one single most important thing in life. Peace
@rljp I hope that peace and willingness to live together will happen one day, but unfortunately I don't think it will happen any time soon... We are progressing, but there is still so much hatred.. Too bad, we have a beautiful land and so much potential..
what a sad a tragic history of conflict. I found it hard to even follow all the differing regions and religions in differing regions. I hope for all these people in the region now that the hatred has been replaced by peace and a willingness to live together to never go back to what once was.
The translation is very bad and extremely misleading.
Very sad yet interesting
hey george i was in skopje going to a club called colliseum last summer and was amazed at the sights of some, if not the most beautiful women ive ever seen in my life. What was especially crazy was that they were in groups of3-5 chicks in what seemed the hundreds - no guys with them for the most part and i dont recall 1 ugly one. i know your being sarcastic but i had to mention it since you did
From the first minute until the last of this documentary I stayed thrilled of how a civilized society that the former yugoslav was, can do great harm to herself. I knew too few about this before watching this movie, and I must say I can recommend it. I hope BBC was objective when making the movie.
As a Romanian, I'm sad that all these happened few kilometers away from were I live, in modern days.
Finally, after watching the movie I felt that it was a leadership problem more than nations' problems'.
How can you tell, in time, if your leader is blood firsty or not, in order to avoid these conflicts?
I've seen a handful of documentaries on the issues in the Balkans. It's now a matter of tit for tat in kosovo. The Albanians there are taking advantage of the bias against the serbs due to the past and treating the serbs quite bad there. So the whole point to the serbs in kosovo raising issues in the 80's and on has actually come to fruition. I am not sure why the idea of brotherhood seemed like a bad idea. True reform and regulation would have solved any issues within Kosovo and beyond. Strong arm tactics regardless of ethnic or religious loyalties never work. It would be like me as a native Texan going into New York and rousing up all of the Texans that live there to claim dominance over those in New York and vice versa. We respect that New York natives will do thier thing and we will do ours even though our attitudes and culture are different.
i think you need help
what a hell. we all know that what started the war in Balkans- the greed for money & power. no one wanted to kill each other. no serb or croatian or bosnians or albanians wanted this war.this was Milloshevici's idea to brain wash serb people and send them to war with every one. in this war no one won.there was inocent blood spelt all over yugoslavia in the name of ''NATIONALISEM'' .i tell you gentelmen from war is only politcians the people that profit from it no one else.
This very interesting documentary describes in a very vivid way, what happened in Yugoslavia in the early nineties.
I was a kid back then, I lived in Greece and i remember hearing all those names in the news: Gorazde, Vukovar, Sebrenica, Radovan Karadzic, Izetbekovitch, Milosevic, the Dayton agreement and so on. It was a time when nationalism prevailed in a very persistent manner, and Greece, although not directly involved in any armed conflict, very clearly took sides with the Serbs: against Croats, against Muslims against Skopjan Macedonia and against Nato. I remember very well that there were demonstrations in the big cities of Greek people opposing the right of the newly formed country of FYROM to be called Macedonia and using ancient Greek historic symbols.
When American NATO forces disembarked on the port of Thessaloniki in northern Greece, on their way to Serbia, some people turned the direction signs upside down and some military convoys bound for Yugoslavia found themselves driving towards Athens- the south ie the opposite direction. People in general also silently encouraged, or "viewed with feelings of understanding" a few hot blooded greek youngsters that went and fought in Serbia siding with the Bosnian Serbs. Today these people would be overall considered mentally deranged, but - hey- today the country faces a completely different spectrum of reality.
The bottom line was: Serbs are good, the rest of the game is played in favor of Turkey which builds an Islamic arch starting in the Balkans from south Bulgaria, continuing into Skopia, Kosovo, Albania, Bosnia well into the heart of central Europe with the Turkish minorities of Germany, Belgium the Netherlands and the north African Arab communities of France. Greece as a country was mainly involved in the nationalistic fervor of the days through the dispute for the name "Macedonia" and the Greeks in South Albania, called in Greece "Northern Epirus".
Things have changed since, I must say, and today nationalism is more or less discarded as an anachronism and this condemnation is very much so a politically correct statement. Having said that, I should also add that presenting the facts in such a way as "the Serbs are monsters, the rest are the victims" is not at all convincing either.
Being myself Greek, and part of a wider Balkan heritage I have been wondering over the past years what nationalism has offered to the Balkan (or any other) peoples since it first became hot, following the emergence of nation-states in the region in 1800: what is the net benefit of all that story.
Obviously, we Greeks have not fared very well as a state, and now we are all in remorse, admitting to ourselves among others that we have made grave mistakes in term of managing our state, being as we are in the brink of financial collapse. And having been around as a people for a long time now, one cannot help but to wonder whether being Greek comes down to being a part of a bigger picture than being a citizen of a Greek state, with all its totemic symbols: flag, football, national anthem and the military in proud parade. What I mean is that being Greek is a sound identity; Greek citizenship comes very much in question. This remark might extend to other Balkan peoples as well.
Over the past years I have been leaning towards the idea, that all the region which we call the Balkans may well have lived better in a multi-ethnic state organisational structure, as it has done for many centuries in the past, under Byzantine or Ottoman rule. Having said that I want to clarify that I do not mean a Greek dominated Byzantine-like structure, nor obviously do I mean an ottoman revival state which as we all know embodies a lot of anachronistic attitudes, and after all no European people has ever been proud of its ottoman past.
But there were good things in living together, or more correct, there must have been good things, as I wasn't there at the time. We are kind of alike all us Mediterranean, and in specific Balkan peoples. We have some relatively common sense of humor, we share the same traditional values (family, neighbor, day to day humanism, and of course weather and food). There should be a better environment for us all, based more on talent, valor and imagination, a truly honest agreement, consisting of people living together in a simple and human way. Unfortunately what the Yugoslavian war showed is that people can also be aggressive, primitive, shortsighted and in a constant negative predisposition: men are not only angel, they are (?most of the time) devil... Or at least played upon and naive.
We should all have been, I believe, more vigilant to preserve our commonalities and similarities: the areas were we could co exist, rather than letting ourselves be played by cheap politicians who bet their careers in easy to arouse nationalistic sentiments. We should have tried harder to make something better for ourselves.
Maybe we still can...
the translation of the Serbian into English is ridiculous and false, changing words such as "organizing" into "running" is so manipulative and twisting it around. Half of the stuff translated is twisted around! Especially at 44.12
just to show you how the truth can vary let's put some simple facts about first part of the doc in which serbs say how they are 'deprived of their rights in kosovo' in 1990 there were app 10%!! serb population in kosovo and they held more than 90% of all political and social functions (lawyers, teachers, politicians...) that's what is (was) all about. Slovenia and Croatia wanted independence because more than 50% functions in all yougoslavia were held by serbs, and in the army and political functions the numbers were even greater. It is always about the money and the power, who believes in monasteries nowadays
I just finished this documentary. I think it's probably the best one on the Yugoslav Wars, because even though it's dated (came out in 1995, so we don't get to see any post-Dayton problems like Kosovo), you get interviews from some of the biggest names who were involved. I don't understand how it's 'biased,' because if anything, it's showing what this war was really about. Every side thought they were right and no one wanted to admit they were wrong. Everyone committed atrocities: the Serbs, Croats, and the Bosniaks. You can't blame any one side because it was everyone involved that was wrong.
@carlos1234
Maybe you don't care about Yugoslavia, but may I remind you that WWI started in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Hercegovina.
What I want to say this might have started WWIII!!
Excellent Documentary, One of the best I've seen in a while. Yugoslavia should still be Yugoslavia.
...Well , I just finished watching the series ,and then began reading the comments.
The first comment made me sad-- because I felt pain for anyone who had gone through the wars I'd just watched (or any war situation or tragedy )who might also have read the comment.
These historical documentaries aren't made to entertain us...or to alleviate our boredom .They are made to educate us into a state by which the knowledge we gain can cause our species to evolve to a point where we don't do this to each other any more , and bring us to where compassion comes into focus before hatred is stirred.
I wish I could express to all the victims on all sides of this wars and all others , past, present and (hopefully not) future -- how sorry I am for what they have been through . And the animals and the environment that suffer as well .
When one sees the types of leaders ( MEN , in most cases...) who dragged it all down ...it makes the tragedy even more senseless and embarrassing somehow.
Thanx again Vlatko for putting this documentary out for us to see. I never understood the issues before.
whatever you may think -yugoslavia was the beautiful country to live in (personally i think it will take many centuries to create again a system like it was in Yu, on the global scale! it was communism with free market -thus combining the very best from the both 'worlds' east and west) and like every war this one was cooked by politics
this is all wrong, theese series talks about milosevic as a hero, he was nothing but a terrorist who terrorised innicent women nd children, and the rest of the serb crew. it does not show who really started the war or nothing like that.