Why was the break up of the former Yugoslavia accompanied by so much bloodshed - and even genocide? It seems to me an important question, but one on which there is very little readily available.

Was the original Yugoslavia, cobbled together at the end of WWI, fundamentally misconceived from the outset? Was it structurally unsound with its attempt to "overcome" ethnic, religious and cultural diversity by having a rigidly centralized unitary state?

As is well known, Yugoslavia is one the few countries where the Nazis pursued a successful policy of "divide and rule" instead of simply treating the entire population as "sub-human". For example, the Croat Fascists (Ustasi) were accorded the status of rather superior Slavs.

It is sometimes said that postwar Yugoslavia was built on a flasehood: namely, that the explosion of ethnic hatred under Nazi and Italian rule had been overcome and that the various groups were reconciled and living together in relative harmony. Is there anything in this claim that the postwar Yugoslav state rested largely on a lie?

Tito was holding the lot together and yet he was also the cause of the problem, particularly regarding Kosovo. He allowed mass immigration both legal and illegal from albania. The inhabitants of Serbia were less than pleased to have such old and recent wartime enemies coming back in such numbers but with the strongman in charge there was little they could do. The ancient hatred the Serbs and other states had for the muslim invaders was held at bay by only by Tito, and only whilst he lived.
World war 2
When the Italian army moved into Kosovo they were joined by albanians and yet another "purge" of Serbs from the area began. Most of the atrocities during this time were commited by albanian militia groups known as kachak. The brutalitity of these militia shocked the Italians and they were forced to actually fire upon the militia to stop them at times.
"The Serbian population in Kosovo should be removed as soon as possible. Serbian settlers should be killed." (Albanian fascist leader Mustafa Kroja, June 1942.)
Of course the jews were also a main target for the albanian forces there as well. They took part in the "final solution" with no encouragment needed.
One fact that still amazes is that Tito was the leader of the Partisans, and yet he let albania,the country that treated Serbs and others in such an inhumane manner, the country that was allied to Italy and Germany[the Serbian/albanian fighting in that region didn`t actually stop till 1951],slowly take control over the Kosovo region once again.

The bloodshed extended well beyond Kosovo. There was vicious fighting between the Serbs and Croats, culminating in the mass expulsion of Serbs from southern Croatia and other areas near the border with Bosnia. Some of the Serbian families expelled from this region had farmed there since the 1690s. Why, suddenly, 300 years later were the Croats overcome by the urge to expel them?

In a BBC TV documentary made in the 1990s some seasoned mercenaries fighting in the area were interviewed, and some of them said that they were appalled by the gratuitous violence. It was said that some of the murdered Serbs looked as if they might as well have been victims of Jack the Ripper. That suggests frenzied hatred.

Then there was Bosnia, too, where the bloodshed was horrific - and on a more muted scale, Macedonia.

Was Yugoslavia doomed from the outset, I wonder? Why did it have to rely on one dictator to hold it together? It all strikes me as both very odd and disturbing - and hard to explain. Surely, it can't simply have been a "final reckoning" for wrongs done by various ethnic groups to one another in WWII.

A WONDERFUL book that explains a lot of this is "Blood and Vengeance" by Chuck Sudetic. He wrote newspaper articles as all the problems started happening and looks at the history, mythology and the cultures in Bosnia.

As for the comment about it being a final reckoning for WWII - the history goes much farther back than that, it didn't start in WWII.

If you're interested in this subject, I can't recommend the above book enough.

Mnay thanks for the recommendation, ladymacb. I'll try to get a copy of the book as the problem is something that I find bewildering.

No problem - I got the book at one of those book outlet places and the narrative starts out slow for a chapter (when they're talking about hundreds of years ago), but it soon becomes wonderful, infusing what's really happening overall with what happens to the family.

Bloomsby I was never going to leave it at just one post here but rather thought I might cover different aspects one at a time and in no particular time frame order.
I`m enjoying researching the history of that ancient land btw.