Izvorni znanstveni članak
The Demographic Context of the Disintegration of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia
Anđelko AKRAP
; Ekonomski fakultet u Zagrebu
Sažetak
Since the beginning of the 1980s, the Socialist Federative Republic of
Yugoslavia had entered an economic and political crisis, while the leading
intellectual, religious and political elites in Serbia — intending to implement
the “Greater Serbia” concept — emphasised the economic, demographic
and cultural endangerment of the Serbs in Kosovo, Croatia and Bosnia and
Herzegovina. For the Greater Serbia concept, the multi-party political
system was acceptable only in the event of the transformation of the
Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia into a centralistically constituted
state. The great majority of people in Kosovo were Albanians. Since 1961
— with small oscillations — the percentage of Serbs in Croatia had begun
to decrease. What is more, since 1961 the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina
had been losing the relative majority, while — as opposed to that — the
percentage of Bosniacs had been rapidly increasing. The realistic prognosis
indicated that the Bosniacs would soon reach the majority. The forseeable,
future demographic trends of the Serbs outside Serbia showed that the
territory which the Serbs — according to different criteria — claimed would
be devoid of Serbs. In that context we might suppose that the exile of non-
Serbs from the occupied territories was not the result of the turmoil of the
war, but it was a planned measure encouraged by the fear of numerical
superiority of other ethnic communities. Kosovo was a warning as —
despite the political power — the predominance of the Albanian
population was an insoluble problem. At the very beginning it was clear —
and thus also to Serbian politicians — that the peaceful realisation of the
Greater Serbia concept was not possible. Therefore, the Serbian nation had
to be made homogeneous, which was carried out by scholarly, political and
religious elites through a years-long emphasis on the economic, biological
and cultural endangerment of the Serbs. The realisation of the Greater
Serbia concept relied upon the Yugoslav National Army and upon — on
that level — politicised Croatian, and Bosnian and Herzegovinian Serbs.
The aggression that was forced upon Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina
aimed at seizing the entire or the major part of the territory. The war for
the Greater Serbia concept that started at the beginning of the 1990s
resulted in heavy casualties among the Bosniacs, Croats, Serbs, Albanians and other ethnic communities from the region of Yugoslavia. Even more
horrendous were the massacres of civilians committed in Croatia, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, and Kosovo. Regarding demography, the war left severe
short-term and long-term consequences behind. It accelerated all
unfavourable demographic processes and utterly encouraged radical
migrations of the Serbs towards Serbia and Croats towards Croatia. The
number of Serbs in Croatia — between the censuses of 1991 and 2001 —
decreased by approximately two-thirds. The number of Croats in Vojvodina
decreased by more than a half, while in Bosnia and Herzegovina it
decreased by between 30 and 40 percent. The war and aggression against
Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina left behind the tragic demographic
outcome.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
66406
URI
Datum izdavanja:
1.10.2008.
Posjeta: 2.159 *