Surviving Yugoslavia and its identity?

Yugoslavia had very real tensions. Whether the breakup was inevitable is harder to say, however. It was structurally unstable, but the economic crisis of the early 1990s, a simultaneous constitutional crisis, the rise of nationalists, and the breakup of the USSR all played a role.

One thing to keep in mind is that constitutional structures were a real impediment. The Yugoslav constitution was already highly decentralized, and it made it difficult for any central government to coordinate or act. Ante Markovic, the last pre-breakup president of Yugoslavia (and a Croat) was extremely popular throughout the entire country early in his tenure, but his reforms stalled when blocked by the Serb and other republican governments. While Yugoslavia needed a real federal system, there needed to be a more effective federal government and national elections.

This btw is not unrelated to the Soviet-style structure of the state. It's telling that for all the balkanization tropes in Alternative History, the only modern post-WWI examples are the three major Communist federations: the USSR, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, all of which were on paper extremely loose confederations which invested a lot of sovereignty (and even the right to secede) in their constituent republics but were held together by centralized party bureaucracies.

One additional factor in the breakup was the Soviet Union's breakup. Soviet collapse, for a number of reasons, encouraged European and Western governments to back secessionist regimes. A surviving USSR would almost certainly have opposed recognition of Slovene and Croat independence, and would likely have prevented European governments (primarily Germany) from supporting them. This might have led to a negotiated outcome in 1991, perhaps with a similar structure to the later State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. Obviously, given what I said above, this would not have been an ideal solution for Yugoslavia, but it may have held it together long enough to get through the early 1990s crisis, and if it had been included in EU enlargement in the late 1990s or early 2000s, it's unlikely a full breakup would have occurred (though secessionists would likely still be a major factor, similar to Catalonia or Scotland).

It's also worth pointing out that even today, the majority of the public in most of the former Yugoslav republics regret Yugoslavia's breakup, the exceptions being Kosovo and (admittedly major) Croatia. Even in Slovenia, the figure regretting the breakup is surprisingly high.
 
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So, what government would be the best for Yugoslavia? Something federal like Germany or centralized like France?

Probably something along German lines. There needs to be some clear federalism - relatively powerful states, but a central government that is clearly supreme. The problem is it's difficult to see how you actually get that from the Tito era. Tito's constitutions already laid out a fairly decentralized structure, and given the ethnic and community pressures that emerged during the 1960s and 1970s, the 1974 constitution was even more decentralized.

I don't know how you reverse those pressures. Maybe backing from a continuing USSR and the US - making aid contingent on constitutional reforms to strengthen Markovic. But others probably know better than me.
 
So, what government would be the best for Yugoslavia? Something federal like Germany or centralized like France?

For a truly succesful Yugoslavia you probably need 19th century POD. After first Yugoslavia and then WW2, dissolution was only matter of time. Tito kept Yugoslavia united with force, charisma, fanatical loyalty of Party, military and secret services. In addition, specific situation in which Yugoslavia was during the Cold War was also in his favor. After his death it was only a matter of time when the state would collapse.

Croatian and Serbian concept of Yugoslavia are diametrically opposed. And any attempt to reach a consensus has ended with war.

Main problem is that there is no Yugoslav nation. Only 5% of Yugoslav population considered themselves as Yugoslavians.
 
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For a truly succesful Yugoslavia you probably need 19th century POD. After first Yugoslavia and then WW2, dissolution was only matter of time. Tito kept Yugoslavia united with force, charisma, fanatical loyalty of Party, military and secret services. In addition, specific situation in which Yugoslavia was during the Cold War was also in his favor. After his death it was only a matter of time when the state would collapse.

Croatian and Serbian concept of Yugoslavia are diametrically opposed. And any attempt to reach a consensus has ended with war.

Main problem is that there is no Yugoslav nation. Only 5% of Yugoslav population considered themselves as Yugoslavians.

Well, there wouldn't be a Yugoslav nation immediately. It would develop gradually with each new generation bringing with it more 'Yugoslavs'. Plus, maybe Yugoslavia can start off with better leadership that treats all ethnicities equally rather than be biased towards Serbs.

Anyway, how would you go about forming Yugoslavia in the 19th century?
 
Anyway, how would you go about forming Yugoslavia in the 19th century?
Exactly. I think if we are looking at a 19th century POD, a more reasonable thing to angle for is survival of Austria-Hungary in some form, hopefully more humane and more economically dynamic, and then "Yugoslavia" as such is off the table, in favor of a big Empire most of the territories we think of as "Yugoslav" are part of with distinct, separate identities of their own as provinces of that Empire. Mind, if the notion of surviving AH is inseparable from German/Magyar supremacy, I want no part of it, but I keep holding out hope the Empire could have evolved in a more cosmopolitan direction.
 

BigBlueBox

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So, what government would be the best for Yugoslavia? Something federal like Germany or centralized like France?
A French-style model of strong centralized government and arbitrarily drawn local subdivisions was tried by the Kingdom and failed. A federal model using ethnic/historical boundaries was tried by the Communists and failed. The only solution that wasn't tried was federalism but with small weak, states. For example, instead of having a Croatian state there could be separate Dalmatian, Slavonian, and Herzegovinian states. Instead of BiH you would have the aforementioned Herzogovina, Serb Bosnia, and Muslim Bosnia. Vovjodina could be its own state instead of an autonomous province. Kosovo Albanians aren't Slavs and the only way to keep them in is by force, so they shouldn't get any form of autonomy or concessions, and any attempt at armed resistance from them should be crushed with brute force.
 
Another idea that may help to back up the Yugoslav Identity...

Serbs and Croats turn irreligious. Why? Both people have their religion of their identity that keeps them apart. Having a common identity might bring them together.
 
Preserving Yugoslavia is a difficult enough task without the further more difficult task of incorporating Bulgaria. And some of the suggestions here are greatly counterproductive to this succeeding.


Would the subdivisions look like? Say, some reformist with good intentions wants to disolve the old Serb vs Croat, by breaking up all the constituent countries within Yugoslavia into smaller provinces, like Istria, Dalmatia, Vojvodina, etc. Maybe some of the smaller ones like Montenegro can stay as one unit. Bulgaria would also have to be broken up if included. Would this all be helpful for unity and equality among all south slavs or would it backfire horribly?

This is how you basically guarantee implacable opposition to Bulgaria's presence in Yugoslavia. This method worked badly enough in interwar Yugoslavia (forcing eventually the Yugoslav government to agree to an autonomous Croatia) but it's going to be unacceptable in a country that has existed for decades as a united unit.


Again, how does this compare to German? Bavarian is quite different from Holsteinien. If in this Yugoslavia Serbo-Croatian is the official language, why can't Slovenian and Bulgarian just be considered "funny diverging dialects"? Just like how in Germany, Bavarian is quite different from standard German.

Because they're not dialects: speakers of Serbo-Croatian as a rule can't understand these languages. More importantly, few Bulgarians would stand their language, with its established writing and literary tradition, to be labeled as a dialect. Especially when the claim that Bulgarian was just "degraded Serbian" was a frequent staple of Serbian propaganda.


Well, if a Yugoslav conlang was established, do you think that would have a reverse influence on the all the natural dialects?

And how could this be done? Try combining the Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian grammar for a start. More than likely, such conlang would be little more than Serbo-Croatian with token elements from the other languages, so it's unlikely to gain much popularity in Bulgaria and Slovenia.


Like, say a Bulgarian is travelling to Sarajevo for job opportunities. He buys an appartment, but all his roommates are Slovenes and Serbs. They would still talk in their native dialects, but they would also use Yugoslav conlang words to patch up areas of difference. After spending years in this situation, he eventually adopts many conlang words into his vernacular.

Just because the hypothetical Yugoslav authorities might falsely call separate languages dialects, doesn't mean that they should be imitated. And language learning doesn’t work in this way. If there is a conlang, people will use it to communicate with speakers of other languages but they would speak their own languages with the people who share their native language.

This is just one example, but with all the internal migration, more people would end up adopting each others vocabulary and the linguistic differences between the regions would wane. Is this plausible?

Not likely, as the OTL Yugoslav experience shows. Especially with more divergent languages.

Some words might spread beyond the conlang, but they won’t merge into one language.


Bulgaria isn't too difficult I don't think. Just have ww1 play out differently.

No outcome of WWI could result in Bulgaria becoming part of Yugoslavia. There isn’t really way for Serbia to conquer Bulgaria and the Allies are not simply going to give it to them. Which the Serbs wouldn’t want anyway.


Anyway, the script is an easy problem to solve, just use both latin and cyrillic like otl Serbia.

This is nearly as bad as the other two suggestions of incorporating Bulgaria in Yugoslavia. There is no justification for writing Bulgarian in the Latin alphabet, since unlikely there is no nearly identical language written in the Latin alphabet. There isn't the existing tradition of using Latin (as among the Serbs in Austria-Hungary) while there is much stronger attachment to the Cyrillic alphabet, what with it being created in Bulgaria and being considered a symbol of Bulgarian culture.


Yeah... Bulgaria is a bit difficult. They were an independent state ever since 1908, existed since 1878. Their roots are too deep. But... Bulgaria as well might be divided in two parts: Bulgaria proper and former East Rumelia. They might as well be named Bulgaria and Thrace just to keep them divided.

So not only replicating the hated Berlin congress divisions, but choosing a name that implies Thrace is not really part of Bulgaria? If the objective was to think was to think of the worst possible idea to keep Bulgaria in Yugoslavia, you would have won.
 
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Oh. So, no Bulgaria then?

So, you are saying is that all these ideas could only work in a Yugoslavia that that restricted to the Serbo-Croatian core?
Depends on what ideas you mean. Yugoslavia already has a common language spoke by the majority of the population, but even that wasn't enough of an unifying factor, especially as both sides would rather focus on the minor differences between Serbian and Croatian. Splitting up the country in geographic subdivisions, rather than those based on ethnicity, helped little when it was tried in the interwar period.
I think the best way to keep Yugoslavia was already suggested - keep the Cold war going on. In this case, both sides have an interest in propping up an intact Yugoslavia as a buffer state.
 
Depends on what ideas you mean. Yugoslavia already has a common language spoke by the majority of the population, but even that wasn't enough of an unifying factor, especially as both sides would rather focus on the minor differences between Serbian and Croatian. Splitting up the country in geographic subdivisions, rather than those based on ethnicity, helped little when it was tried in the interwar period.
I think the best way to keep Yugoslavia was already suggested - keep the Cold war going on. In this case, both sides have an interest in propping up an intact Yugoslavia as a buffer state.
I did not propose making subdivisions based purely on geography. I mean smaller historical rejions like Vojvldina or Slavonia
 
I think the solution could be to kill off Tito earlier like in the mid 60ties, next have the oil crisis result in democratic reforms, next have Democratic Yugoslavia join EEC in the late seventies or early eighties, this won’t make the problem go away, but it will create a incentive for people not to rock the boat.
 
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