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Modern nation states have grown out of
the simple but revolutionary idea that
they represent ‘the people’ better than the
states from which they emerged – usually
empires. However, once established,
nation states also have to fend off chal-
lengers. They are stable only as long as
they suppress rivals within their borders
who claim to represent the people better
than they do. The new nation states
created a century ago in eastern Europe
are prime examples of these patterns.
Yugoslavia is particularly instructive.
It came together rapidly after the First
World War as a constitutional Kingdom
of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. It quickly
faced challenges because the peoples on
this new state’s territory had lived under
different imperial regimes : Bosnians and
most Serbs under the Ottomans, some
Serbs and almost all Croats and Slovenes
under the Habsburgs.
The idea that these diverse peoples
should live in one state was initially justYugoslavia
Why shared Slavic identity couldn’t save an
idealised nation from fracture and bloodshed
by John Connelly
Memorials to the fallen
A man digs graves in Sarajevo for
victims of the war in Bosnia, 1992.
Linguistic links between Balkan
Slavic peoples weren’t enough
to paper over tensions in an
ethnically diverse nation stateclaim territories they considered their
own – needed the Serb army to defend
them. In late 1918, it was decided that
their countries should join a Kingdom
of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, before
Slovene or Croat peasants could be asked
if they wanted to belong to this expanded
state. There was not even time to negoti-
ate a constitution that might have given
these peoples limited autonomy.Cracks appear
By the mid-1920s, it was clear something
was amiss. A popular movement had
formed among Croats, demanding full
independence. Its leaders claimed that
Serbs were corrupt and ‘Turkified Ori-
entals’ who were exploiting Croatia for
their own purposes, preferring to milk
the ‘more civilised’ Croats than work
hard themselves. If such complaints even
registered among them, Serbs noted that
Yugoslavia had been a Croat idea, and
that it had been Croat leaders who had Æthat: an idea. It formed in the minds of
young eastern European intellectuals
of the 1820s who had studied under
German philosophers and believed that
nations were communities united by
culture and language.
They knew that language connected
the South Slavic peoples. In village after
village along the Balkan peninsula,
from Austria to the Black Sea, people
understood each other. This suggested a
common origin in Slavic tribes who had
settled the peninsula in the sixth and
seventh centuries. Philosophy posited
that people speaking one tongue had a
common spirit: thus these small South
Slav peoples, speaking a language later
designated Serbo-Croatian, seemed
destined to form the Yugoslav nation.
The Yugoslav state that patriots had
dreamed of came together so quick ly
because, after the Habsburg monarchy
collapsed, Croat and Slovene politicians- fearing that Italy or Hungary might