Yugoslavia was created at the end of WWI when Croat, Slovenian, and Bosnian territories that had been part of the Austro Hungarian empire united with the Serbian Kingdom. The country broke up under Nazi occupation during WWII with creation of a Nazi-allied independent Croatian state, but reunified at the end of the war when the communist-dominated partisan force of Josip Broz Tito liberated the country
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Josip Broz Tito
- He was in and out of jail for political reasons, or living incognito as an agent for the Soviet Union, going by the name “Walter” at first, then “Tito”
- Tito gained a reputation in World War II as the country's liberator for his role in driving out the invading Axis forces, and by 1945 he was the de facto leader of the new republic of Yugoslavia.
- Tito pursued a policy of “non-alignment” during the Cold War, breaking with the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin in 1948, but pursuing an independent path to socialism that caused the U.S. to keep him at arm’s length.
- He tamped down various nationalistic urges in a united Yugoslavia Led the country to an economic boom in the 1960s and '70s
- Tito was named President for Life in 1974 after a reformed Constitution was enacted, but he held that post for only a little more than five years
The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989, unification of Germany in 1990, and the imminent collapse of the Soviet union all served to erode Yugoslavia’s political stability.West’s attention focused away from
- Yugoslavia and undermined the extensive economic and financial support necessary to preserve a Yugoslav economy already close to collapse as eastern European states moved away from communist and toward free election and market.
- The absence of a Soviet threat to the integrity and unity of Yugoslavia and its constituent parts meant that a powerful incentive unity and cooperation was removed