Serbo-Bulgarian Yugoslavia

Why not Yugoslavia? In otl, we had Yugoslavia without Bulgaria or Albania being part of it, although everyone agrees on Bulgarians being South Slavs, and many consider Albanians being South Slavic for the large part (well, at least the guys over at Paradox Interactive do, as seen in EU IV) .
Yes you have a point. I guess Austria wouldn't be happy with the name. They could see it as a provocation. Perhaps the new Yugoslav government would think it is wiser to choose a name that will create less diplomatic tensions, especially if they have interests toward the east & south. No need to also have a front to the west.

I must commend you your idea of a Serbo-Bulgarian Yugoslavia is one of the most original Balkan related threads I've seen so far. I forgot to mention that in my previous post.

Would they try to conquer Bosnia from Austria ?
Depends on whether the Orthodox population in Bosnia considers themselves as Serbs in this alternate timeline, since the language is not similar anymore. Maybe they go for some kind of regional Bosnian identity.

The point of this WI, as I understand it, is that the different linguistic makeup of this Yugoslavia would make Bosnia less attractive a target for expansion relative to Greece/Thrace.
Exactly. People need to forget what happened in OTL. This Yugoslavia is a totally different animal.
 
I must commend you your idea of a Serbo-Bulgarian Yugoslavia is one of the most original Balkan related threads I've seen so far. I forgot to mention that in my previous post.
Not usually one to toot my own horn but here's a flag challenge scenario I did last year ;)
The United Kingdom of Bulgaria and Serbia

Brief History

The United Kingdom has its roots in the Great War where the Hungarian Empire had coopted Slavic nationalism in its Serbian and Bulgarian provinces in order to destabilise the Slavic provinces within the Turkish Empire. With the defeat of the Turks but the collapse of Hungary the Western Allies obtained the creation of the Kingdoms of Serbia and of Bulgaria as buffer states.
Both Kingdoms survived the Socialist Wars by embracing South-Slavic Nationalism, and thus a closer alliance, becoming founder members of the Yugoslav Confederation in opposition to the Socialist Codominion [of Ardelia, Hungary, and Wallachia].
The withdrawal of Illyria and the Serbian Succession Crisis almost broke the Confederation however Prince Milutin of Macedonia popularised public opinion to continue further political union and the resultant Referendum for a Complete Union was comfortably won by the unionists; thereafter King Boris II of Bulgaria accepted the title of Tsar of Yugoslavia.

Flag

The original Confederal flag was a triband of the 3 founders:
  • Illyria - white 6pt star on red
  • Serbia - blue cross and firesteels on white
  • Bulgaria - red cross on white bordered in red with gold roundels
The UK flag merges elements from both the Serbian and Bulgarian flags in a new way.
It is a blue cross edged in white over a red field; each corner bears a golden firesteel; over the centre is a circular version of the Tsar's (new) simple arms - a black cross pattee on gold bordered in black with 12 golden roundels.

View attachment 327737
 
I think you'd likely see this Orthodox Yugoslavia ending up rejected by the Catholic South Slavs in favor of forming their own Illyrian Kingdom, which the Austrians would likely support as a way to both keep the Catholic Slavs in the empire out of fear of Yugoslavia and to weaken the Hungarians by establishing a new Kingdom of Illyria - consisting of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia - outside their control. Sacrificing Slovenia to neutralize Hungarian influence over Croatia and Bosnia is a pretty good trade, I'd say.

So we end up with a Greater Croatia called Illyria backed by Austria, a Greater Bulgaria called Yugoslavia almost certainly backed by Russia, and the Greeks and Albanians on the sidelines. I do wonder where Slovenia would be in all this; you might end up with a Croatian language using Kajkavian as its standard due to butterflies, in which case Slovenia will probably identify itself as part of Croatia. I also wonder if the Orthodox Shtokavian-speakers in Illyria would still identify as Serbs here or if they'd adopt an Orthodox Croat or Bosnian identity, perhaps even considering themselves Montenegrins in those regions near Montenegro.

I imagine this Yugoslavia would focus more on pushing Serbian and Bulgarian claims on Macedonia and Thrace than on trying to conquer Bosnia, and would probably have more success with that than either Serbia or Bulgaria on their own did. That probably means it's less likely to cause a world war, since it's focus is on weaker targets everyone else would be more willing to throw under the bus - Greece and the Ottomans, maybe Albania - rather than on Austria and its German ally. It may still want to integrate Montenegro, though, which Illyria also may wish to do so that might be a point of conflict between Yugoslavia and Russia versus Illyria and Austria, especially if Orthodox Shtokavian speakers in Serbia itself end up identifying with Montenegro - or, more generally, simply as something separate from the (presumably Torlakian-speaking) Serbs - and opposing what they view as a foreign occupier.

That last part is something I'd only really see that happening if either Croatia still standardizes itself based on Shtokavian - in which case you'd have Catholic Shtokavian speakers as Croats, Muslim Shtokavian speakers as Bosniaks, and Orthodox Shtokavian speakers as Montenegrins - or if the local Orthodox Shtokavian speakers end up with a Bosnian identity somehow. An Illyria dominated by both Catholicism and Kajkavian-standard Croatian is unlikely to appeal to Orthodox Shtokavian-speakers any more than a Greater Bulgaria would, since at least the Bulgarians are also Orthodox.

This timeline probably makes Russia very happy. Austria would be happy too if someone showed them how the alternative OTL turned out for them, but ITTL they probably won't be too appreciative since they'd see Yugoslavia as a threat.
 
Here's a map I made incorporating some ideas in this thread:

upload_2018-6-28_9-7-55.png


Yugoslavia: Serbia, Bulgaria, Thrace and Albania north of Tirana.
Illyria: Croatia, Bosnia and Slovenia.
Greece: Greece and southern Albania.

Yugoslavia creates a pact with Greece to annex northern Albania whereas Greece gets southern Albania. Getting an Adriatic shoreline is very important to Yugoslavia, being able to access the Mediterranean sea without going through Greece, so I imagine Greece getting Tirana as leverage.

Montenegro becomes a battlefield between Yugoslavia and Illyria, both wanting to claim the lands and the Slavic population there.

Constantinople remains out of Yugoslavian rule, to not upset the great powers too much.

We could probably see a conflict in the future between Yugoslavia and Greece trying to claim parts, if not whole of Greek Macedonia.

My bet is that with this setup Yugoslavia gets massively screwed like Bulgaria OTL, with Greece, Illyria and Austria, probably Turkey/Ottomans as well, ganging up on it.
 
I don't really understand we're all assuming the Orthodox Shtokavian-speakers of Bosnia/Vojvodina/the Krajina would be excluded from this Serbo-Bulgarian alt-Yugoslavian identity - because if we're excluding all Orthodox Shtokavian-speakers, then more than half of OTL Serbia would also be excluded, including the entirety of independent Serbia pre-Treaty of Berlin. To avoid this alt-Yugoslavia becoming just a Greater Bulgaria plus some Serbian lands, Orthodox Shtokavian speakers need to be included in the alt-Yugoslavian identity - even if the 'national' or 'prestige' dialect isn't Shtokavian.
IMO if you want to make this alt-Yugoslavia as coherent as possible, the linguistic aspect should be de-emphasised entirely - focus on the shared Orthodoxness of Serbia and Bulgaria, and make it a Yugoslavia for all Orthodox South Slavs - whether they speak Shtokavian or Bulgarian - and then a constructed Serbobulgarian national dialect can be imposed from above, justified by the need to unite all Orthodox South Slavs.

I mean look at this map of South Slavic languages - all the pink and purple is Bulgarian, the dark purple in southeast Serbia is the intermediary Torlakian dialect, while all the blue, green and yellow is Shtokavian.
Dialectos_de_las_lenguas_eslavas_meridionales.PNG


Compare it to this map of independent Serbia pre-Treaty of Berlin:
Serbia1817.png


The reason Karadzic picked Shtokavian as the dominant dialect of Serbia was because practically all of independent Serbia spoke Shtokavian - and that's difficult to change.

IMO a really easy way to prevent this problem and get a more Balkan-focused Serbia would be to prevent Serbia from gaining independence so much earlier than the rest of the Balkans - have the Serbian revolution be crushed, and then the Serbs would be much more connected to the Bulgarians in their struggle for independence from the Ottomans, and a more Orthodox-focused South Slavic Yugoslavianism can be built, without discriminating by dialect - and during that struggle for independence, a 'national dialect' can be built/chosen which unifies Shtokavian and Bulgarian speakers. Bosnia and Vojvodina would still be important territorial goals (as I'm pretty sure the populations of these areas would be deeply tied to Serbia in any scenario), as well as Macedonia and Thrace.
 
I don't really understand we're all assuming the Orthodox Shtokavian-speakers of Bosnia/Vojvodina/the Krajina would be excluded from this Serbo-Bulgarian alt-Yugoslavian identity

That's true. I think this thread is over-estimating the importance of linguistics for nationalism and national identity in the Balkans. Look at the Croatian example - picking the Shtokavian dialect for standardization did not split Chakavians or Kajkavians apart from the Croat nation. Nor did the Serbian language's Shtokavian standardization prevent the Torlaks from identifying as Serbs.

So a reform of the Serbian language isn't even necessary for this scenario - it's just an interesting possible side-effect. A Serbo-Bulgarian "Yugoslavia" could be created either way. And, either way, the Serbs in Herzegovina and Bosnia would still consider themselves Serbs and be oriented towards this "Yugoslavia".

On the other hand, the Orthodox religion would be an important part of "Yugoslavia's" shared identity, so they probably won't be thinking about unification with Croatia and Slovenia.
 
Top