Post-Communism as Post-Yugoslavism: The Yugoslav Non-Revolutions of 1989-1990
Post-Communism as Post-Yugoslavism: The Yugoslav Non-Revolutions of 1989-1990

Author(s): Ivo Banac
Subject(s): Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Post-Communist Transformation
Published by: CEEOL Digital Reproductions / Collections
Summary/Abstract: Unlike some of its Central European neighbors Yugoslavia has not yet entered a clear post-Communist phase. This is because postwar Yugoslavia itself is the product of Communist rule. In Yugoslavia, postcommunism also means post-Yugoslavism. Andrei Amalrik’s well-known essay Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984? written in 1969, contains the following apt thought, “Just as the adoption of Christianity postponed the fall of the Roman Empire but did not prevent its inevitable end, so Marxist doctrine has delayed the break-up of the Russian Empire—the third Rome—but it does not possess the power to prevent it.” Amalrik was wrong about the agency of the breakup (there has been no war with China), but he did not underestimate the fragility of the Soviet state—the fragility of a state brittle with national contention. Analogous rules obtain in Yugoslavia. Some will protest that the overemphasis on national conflicts obscures other factors, not least of all the power of various social forces and economic changes. Perhaps. Yet, in Yugoslavia today, one can see only the apocalyptic beasts of hate and anger. Luckier observers, living in post-Yugoslav times, will be able to study the fruits of strength and movement.

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