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The National Minority Policy of Today's Yugoslavia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Thaddeus Z. Gasinski*
Affiliation:
Russian University of Hawaii at Manoa

Extract

Today's Yugoslav policy toward a score of national minorities, officially called nationalities, essentially amounts to what the ruling League of Communists of Yugoslavia publicly says and what is actually done by the appropriate organs at the federal, republic, provincial, and commune levels with respect to ethnically non-Yugoslav citizens. Although the Yugoslav national minorities (nationalities) make up only twelve percent of the entire population, their real impact on the Yugoslav multinational society is much stronger. This is due to the uneven economic and cultural development of various geographical regions in the past and to the compact settlement of national minorities in the sensitive border regions, where in some cases, they de facto enjoy the status of majority.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1980 Association for the Study of Nationalities of Eastern Europe 

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References

Notes

1. Popovski, Dušan, “Respect for the Right of Ethnic Minorities,” Socialist Thought and Practice, 16:12(1976): 5871.Google Scholar

2. Further, Cynthia W. Frey's study “Yugoslav Nationalism and the Doctrine of Limited Sovereignty,” East European Quarterly, 9:1(1977): 79108 and 9:4(1977): 497-457.Google Scholar

3. Johnson, A. Ross, “Total National Defense in Yugoslavia,” Rand Collection, P-4746 (December 1971): 113.Google Scholar

4. Cf. Marijan Filipović's ABC Leksikon osnovnog znanja, Zagreb: Vlastita naklada, 1961, p. 206, who defines the Šiptars as “a national group that lives in the Autonomous Province of Kosovo-Metohija” and the Albanians as “the descendants of the ancient Illyrians in the Balkans.”Google Scholar

5. There may be some parallelism between this development and the old Habsburg army.Google Scholar

6. The above and subsequent quotations of the 1974 Constitutions of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Socialist Republic of Croatia are this writer's direct translations of the corresponding passages from the Ustav Socijalističke Federativne Republike Jugoslavije, Ustav Socijalističke Republike Hrvatske, Zagreb: Narodne novine, 1976, 3d ed., 294 pp.Google Scholar

7. Mihovilović, Maroje et al, Sukob s Inforbiroom, Zagreb: Izbadačko poduzeće “August Cesarec,” 1976, pp. 7072.Google Scholar

8. Jončić, Koča, The National Minorities in Yugoslavia, Belgrade: Jugoslavija, 1960, p. 46.Google Scholar

9. Bromlei, Iu. and Kashuba, M.S., “Nekotorye aspekty etnicheskikh protsessov v Jugoslavii,” Sovetskaia etnografiia, 1(1969): 5967.Google Scholar

10. McDonald, Gordon C., Area Handbook for Yugoslavia, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office (DA Pam 550-99), 1973, p. 306.Google Scholar

11. Staar, Richard F., “Yugoslavia—Land of Southern Slavs,” The Communist Regimes of Eastern Europe, Stanford, CA: The Hoover Institute on War, Revolution, and Peace, 1971, Second Revised Edition, pp. 181214.Google Scholar

12. It is reported that Kossovo has the highest birthrate in Europe. This is due to the fact that all Yugoslav Albanians are Moslems.Google Scholar

13. I am informed that the Albanians do not like to migrate to Belgrade.Google Scholar

14. Pantić, Dragomir, “Ethnic Distance in Yugoslavia,” Yugoslav Facts and Views, No. 53(1969): 17.Google Scholar

15. Johnson, A. Ross, “Italy and Yugoslav Security,” Rand Collection, P-5848 (June 1977): 1 Google Scholar