Yugoslavia always seemed to me to be a sensible country. But I accept that most of those who lived there after the death of Tito took a different view.
I am talking about events that took place before I was born, and so must defer to you - the master - in these matters.
Still, the impression that I have is this: a united Yugoslavia was a sensible concept at the time for several reasons, many of which would have been acknowledged by Croats, Slovenes and others. However, the practical implementation of the concept created ethno-religious inequalities between the federation’s constituent parts and effectively established a Serb ascendancy.
On the other hand, in relative terms, postwar Yugoslavia was also more “open” to the West than other communist countries, partly as a result of Tito’s very independent stance in the Cold War. Nonetheless, it was still a communist system with all the ills that such a system entails.
Yugoslavia always seemed to me to be a sensible country. But I accept that most of those who lived there after the death of Tito took a different view.
I am talking about events that took place before I was born, and so must defer to you - the master - in these matters.
Still, the impression that I have is this: a united Yugoslavia was a sensible concept at the time for several reasons, many of which would have been acknowledged by Croats, Slovenes and others. However, the practical implementation of the concept created ethno-religious inequalities between the federation’s constituent parts and effectively established a Serb ascendancy.
On the other hand, in relative terms, postwar Yugoslavia was also more “open” to the West than other communist countries, partly as a result of Tito’s very independent stance in the Cold War. Nonetheless, it was still a communist system with all the ills that such a system entails.