Would Yugoslavia been more stable if the majority of population viewed themselves as Yugoslavs

would Yugoslavia been more stable if the majority of population viewed themselves as Yugoslavs

  • yes

    Votes: 39 95.1%
  • no

    Votes: 2 4.9%

  • Total voters
    41
It goes without saying that if the peoples of Yugoslavia saw themselves as belonging to a single people, the country would hold together. How could it not?

The problem is the question of how you create a single Yugoslav people. I'm not sure that's something easily achievable, given the antiquity of (particularly) Croat and Serb identities.
 
You might need a pre-1900 POD for this. Perhaps at some point the Turks successfully conquer Slovenia and Croatia, and the Croats, Serbs and Slovenes come to see themselves as united against the common enemy. (Even then, you'd still have the Bosnian Muslims as the odd ones out.)
 
It goes without saying that if the peoples of Yugoslavia saw themselves as belonging to a single people, the country would hold together. How could it not?

The problem is the question of how you create a single Yugoslav people. I'm not sure that's something easily achievable, given the antiquity of (particularly) Croat and Serb identities.
Also non Slavic identities.
 
I think if the Austrians had kept Serbia in the 18th century, we would think of Serbo-Croats as a single people and so would they themselves.
 
I don't think there is any single nation in the world that has both catolic and ortodox 'parts' of Christianity in major percentages (30+ each).

The Albanians, Macedonians and Slovenians are a lost cause in building a Yugoslav identity.

They probably are, the Albanians are not even Slavs to begin with.
 
Few outsiders hear any difference between Serbs and Croats. Between 1945 and the 1990s, Serbs and Croatians identified as Yugoslavian first and they did not care which church their neighbor attended. Serbs and Croats often inter-married.

It was only when Serbian politicians stirred things up (1990s) that differences created miserable massacres.

I have only heard Western Europeans say nasty things about Moslems from the Turkish corner of Europe.
 
It's actually unclear what percentage did so regard themselves:

"In retrospect it is difficult to assess to what degree the citizens of Yugoslavia identified themselves as Yugoslavs. One source we can turn to in this matter is census data. When analysing such data, however, we should bear in mind that they only give a limited picture as identity issues in reality are complex, and multiple identities are likely to coexist.

It may be safe to assume that the identity chosen in a census is often the one that is most politically useful. Furthermore, in order to interpret the choices made, we have to take into consideration the options given by the census. In the case of the Bosniak nation this is particularly important as Bosniaks were not able to choose their own nationality in any census before 1971..." https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057/978-1-137-45063-0_2.pdf
 
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