 If you haven't watched the first part of this series, I highly suggest you do that first, just to have some context for the upcoming video. In the 1980s, after Tito's death, the economy of Yugoslavia was in shambles. Unemployment and inflation grew sharply, and many Yugoslavians wished to seek asylum in West Germany as a result of this and other factors which will be explained in greater detail. The country also suffered from political instability. A multi-person presidency succeeded Tito, with the president of the presidency being changed every year. Members of this presidency included delegates from each of the republic's autonomous regions and the League of Communists in Yugoslavia. Without a uniting leader like Tito in the country, this quickly rotating position of highest leadership led to political instability, especially considering the many regional backgrounds of the leadership. Aside from the political and economic instability, nationalism was also on the rise. Many wished to create their own nation-states, independent from Belgrade. This couldn't be more apparent in places like Slovenia and Croatia, the wealthiest parts of the country, where most of the industry was concentrated. These two republics did not feel they were obliged to aid the economies of poor republics, such as Bosnia, Montenegro, and Macedonia. Additionally, they did not want the money from their industry being sent to Belgrade. Nationalism also had grown among Serbs. Due to a 1974 reform giving the autonomous republics of Serbia more autonomy, many Serbs felt this move did not serve their best interests and rallied around the Serbian identity as a result. Serbs were the largest ethnic group in Yugoslavia, spanned across most of the republics, so they wished for Yugoslavia to remain united so all Serbs could be in one country. There were huge disputes between the Croats and Serbs of Yugoslavia, especially starting in 1990, where Croatia wished to be independent, and the Serbs warned of the atrocities that happened to their people as a result of Croatian independence during World War II. Cue the Yugoslav Wars. Slovenia, unlike most of the republics, did not host a large Serb population in its borders. Its leadership and people believed that they would be better off if they left Yugoslavia, and that's what they did. On June 25th, 1991, both Slovenia and Croatia declared independence, but for now I'm just going to focus on Slovenia. The army of Yugoslavia, known as the People's Army of Yugoslavia, prepared for a standoff against the new Slovenian government, who now had control over all major buildings and areas of the country, as those who ran government buildings were Slovenians already supportive of independence. On June 27th, the first shot was fired by a Yugoslavian officer, leading to a 10-day war, with one side consisting of patriotic Slovenians and the other of disinterested Yugoslavian soldiers, those of which who were not Serbian ended up deserting the cause in the end. Henceforth, the Yugoslavian People's Army was now mostly Serbian in ethnicity. After the 10-day conflict, Slovenia secured its independence. Croatia's road to independence was not as clean, in fact as it was extremely bloody. Though they declared independence on June 25th, 1991, fighting in the country had been going on since April of that year. This was mainly due to the large presence of Serbs living there, on the borders of Bosnia and Serbia. The Serbian rebels were supported by the Serb majority YPA, directed by Slobodan Milosevic, who sent as many as 70,000 troops to fight the Croats. Cities like Dubrovnik and Vukovar experienced major fighting and shelling, as well as many civilian deaths. The Olfcada massacre, a killing of ethnic Croat POWs by the YPA, happened on November 20th, 1991, resulting in at least 200 deaths. Though the war mostly kept these borders starting in 1992, Croatia was able to capture all of the territory that constitutes the country today in 1995, except for eastern Slovenia, which was peacefully handed over in 1998. Before I get to the Bosnian War, I should quickly note that North Macedonia, known at the time as simply Macedonia, if you want to light the commons on fire, or the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, if you want to do the same thing, declared independence from Yugoslavia peacefully on the 8th of September 1991, though it would experience an Albanian insurgency in its northwest in 2001, though I already explained this in another video so I won't get into too much detail about it. Let's just set the record straight, the Bosnian War was a complete clusterfuck. Three different entities tried to claim overlapping territories all at once, which would lead to, you guessed it, all-out war. The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which claimed the whole of the former Bosnian Socialist Republic, was proclaimed by the Muslim Bosniak population of the country. Republika Srpska was proclaimed by the Bosnian Serbs, who, backed by Milosevic and the YPA, wanted to control the Serb-populated areas of the country. This group briefly was willing to divide the Bosniak area of the country with the Croatian Republic of Herzegovina, which was, obviously, Croat-led. Now since we've set the stage, it's time to see what exactly happened. Bosnia declared independence from Yugoslavia on March 1st 1992, and fighting began almost immediately. The war officially began on the 19th of June, beginning with the Siege of Sarajevo, which lasted nearly the entire length of the war. Ethnic cleansing campaigns were carried out in the country against Muslim Bosniaks by the Bosnian Serb army. One of the most notable was the Srebenica massacre, where thousands of Bosniaks were killed, most of the men. Though the Bosniak and Croat armies mostly collaborated in the beginning of the war, their alliance fell into war, starting in January 1993. The Croat-Bosniak war ceased in 1994, after a US-brokered peace deal called the Washington Agreement. Speaking of the US and NATO, who were allied with the Croats and Bosniaks against the Serbs, if I haven't made that somewhat clear, they had their fair share of atrocities too. Bosnian Serb armies, and sometimes civilians, were systematically targeted by NATO airstrikes, killing hundreds of people. By 1995, everyone was getting a little tired of the war, which had been going on for three years, and resulted in mass atrocities by both sides. I should note that I've probably missed several of them, this is a very brief overview, I'm aware. The Dayton Agreement was signed on December 14, 1995, making Bosnian independent country made up of two entities, the Federation of Bosnian Herzegovina, representing the Bosniaks and Croats, and the Republika Serbska, representing the Bosnian Serbs of the country. I have a little segment on the Bosnian government in one of my videos, but if you want more detail, then you should check out my fellow YouTuber living ironically in Europe's video on it. I have advertised his channel here before, so if you haven't already, go subscribe to him. He makes great content, mainly about Eastern European government and life. Anyways, back to the video. By 1996, the former Yugoslavia looked like this. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, consisting of Montenegro and Serbia, still existed, though not in its previous communist form. But after all this fighting, there was still more to come. Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo had been fighting with the Yugoslavian authorities, which would ultimately lead to a demand for an independent Kosovo in 1998. A failed ceasefire signed in October 15 of that year led to the full-scale fighting between the Kosovo Liberation Army and Yugoslavia. This war, like the Bosnian War, was filled with war crimes. The Ratchak massacre in January 1991 led to the systematic killing of 45 ethnic Albanians. NATO, who had been aiding the Albanians, began bombing raids on major Yugoslav cities, mainly targeted at Yugoslav populations. Human Rights Watch estimated the civilian deaths to be around 500, but Yugoslav estimates are much higher, ranging from 1,000 to 5,000. The war ended on June 9, with the Kumanova Agreement, handing Kosovo over to the United Nations Peacekeeping Force and the Kosovo Force, though still technically remaining part of Yugoslavia. The war led up to 700,000 Serbs being internally displaced, many of whom fled Kosovo. Fighting still continued between ethnic Albanians and Yugoslavia on border regions of Kosovo, from 1999 to 2001, leading to an Albanian defeat. The intent of this insurgency was to add these areas to Kosovo. Two more major things happened to divide the former Yugoslavia after these events. Montenegro declared independence from Serbia in 2006, following a referendum, which passed with 55% of the vote. Finally, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008, though this declaration was unilateral and was not recognized by Serbia. To this day, only half of UN member states recognize Kosovo's independence. So to get away from the wars and division for these final minutes, let's see where the former Yugoslav Republics are today. Most western-oriented countries, Slovenia and Croatia, integrated into Western alliances relatively quickly. Slovenia joined NATO in the EU in 2004, while Croatia joined NATO in 2009 and the EU in 2013. Montenegro interestingly enough joined NATO in 2017 and North Macedonia joined in 2020. All former Yugoslav countries that haven't already joined the EU are trying to do so currently, with Serbia and Montenegro being the farthest along in the process. That just about wraps up this way too brief presentation of the history of Yugoslavia, so thanks for watching. If you know something about Yugoslavia that I missed, feel free to comment. Anyways, we are within 50 subscribers of reaching the huge milestone of 1000, so every way you can help share my content is greatly appreciated. Thanks again and I'll see you next time.