Yugoslavia was a country in southeastern Europe that existed, in various forms, for most of the 20th century. It brought the South Slavic peoples of the Balkans into a single state, and its violent breakup in the 1990s redrew the map of the region.
It began in 1918 as a kingdom, became a socialist federation of six republics under Josip Broz Tito after the Second World War, and covered about 255,804 km². At its height it bordered Italy, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania. The name finally disappeared in 2003.
Key Takeaways
- It started as a kingdom in 1918. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was proclaimed on 1 December 1918 and renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929.
- Tito built a socialist federation. After the Second World War it became the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a federation of six republics led by Josip Broz Tito until his death in 1980.
- It broke apart in the 1990s. Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia declared independence in 1991 and Bosnia in 1992, triggering a series of wars as the federation collapsed.
- The name ended in 2003. A rump Yugoslavia of Serbia and Montenegro lasted until 2003, when it was renamed Serbia and Montenegro. That union itself split in 2006.
- It left seven states. Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia and the partially recognised Kosovo.
How Yugoslavia Was Formed
Yugoslavia grew out of the collapse of empires. As the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires fell apart around the First World War, the South Slavic lands they had ruled looked for a future together.
On 1 December 1918, Serbia united with the South Slav territories that had left Austria-Hungary to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. In 1929, King Alexander I renamed it the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, meaning the land of the South Slavs.
World War II and Yugoslavia
In April 1941 the Axis powers, Germany, Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria, invaded and carved up Yugoslavia. The king and government fled into exile, and the country was occupied and divided among the invaders and their puppet regimes.
Two resistance movements emerged: the royalist Chetniks and the communist Partisans led by Josip Broz Tito. The Partisans grew into a large, effective army and won the backing of the Allies from 1943.
By 1945 the Partisans had liberated the country. On 29 November 1945 the monarchy was abolished and the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed. A new constitution in 1963 renamed it the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY).
Tito’s Yugoslavia and the Slow Unravelling
Under Tito, socialist Yugoslavia was a federation of six republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia, plus two autonomous provinces inside Serbia (Vojvodina and Kosovo). Tito kept its many nationalities together and steered a path independent of the Soviet bloc.
Tito died on 4 May 1980, and the glue that held the federation together began to weaken. The 1974 constitution had already handed the republics wide powers, and through the 1980s they drifted apart amid a deepening economic crisis and mounting debt.
Ethnic tensions grew. Protests in Kosovo in 1981 spread unease across the country, and later in the decade the rise of Slobodan Milošević in Serbia sharpened the divisions between the republics.
The Breakup of Yugoslavia
The federation came apart in a rush. Slovenia and Croatia declared independence on 25 June 1991, and Macedonia followed after a referendum in September 1991. Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence in early 1992 and was recognised internationally that April.
The declarations were met with war. A brief conflict in Slovenia was followed by far bloodier wars in Croatia and, above all, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as Belgrade and local Serb forces fought to hold territory. The wars of the 1990s were the deadliest in Europe since 1945.
Serbia and Montenegro, the two republics that remained, joined together as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in April 1992, keeping the old name alive for another decade.
The Successor States
The name Yugoslavia finally ended in 2003, when the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was renamed Serbia and Montenegro. That union lasted only three more years: Montenegro voted for independence in 2006, leaving Serbia as a separate state.
Serbia’s province of Kosovo declared independence in 2008. It is recognised by many countries but not all, so its status remains disputed.
In total, seven states emerged from the country: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Kosovo. One name has changed since the breakup: in 2019, Macedonia was renamed North Macedonia under an agreement with Greece.
The Flag of Yugoslavia
The Yugoslav flag was a horizontal tricolour of blue, white and red. The colours are the Pan-Slavic colours, adopted at the 1848 Pan-Slav Congress in Prague to symbolise the unity of the Slavic peoples.
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia flew the plain blue-white-red tricolour. After the Second World War, the socialist federation added a red star in the centre, a symbol of communism, and that version flew until the country broke apart in the early 1990s.
