Valdai Club

On July 4, the Valdai Club hosted a discussion featuring Borisav Jovic, the President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia in 1990-1991, who observed firsthand the dramatic disintegration of the country. He offered his perspective of those developments and told the audience about his book, “A Lost Century: the Serbian Position in the Breakup of Yugoslavia.” In their turn, Russian experts shared their view of Russia’s position in the Balkan Peninsula and the outlook for relations between Russia and Serbia.

The disintegration of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which largely coincided with that of the USSR, was one of the main political disasters of the late 20^th century. It radically changed the Balkan Peninsula, affecting the fates of other countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Although historians agree on the main factors that led to these developments, they are perceived differently among the former Yugoslav republics. One of these perspectives was presented by the Valdai Club’s guest.

According to Borisav Jovic, international propaganda has been distorting the role of the Serbian people in the breakup of Yugoslavia for the past thirty years. This is the position expressed in his book. He stated that they bear no guilt for this tragic event or for the civil war. “My book is a kind of self-defense of the Serbian people, which was written because they are presented as the major culprit in the breakup of Yugoslavia,” he said. “Until recently, the facts were hidden from the public, but now they have been revealed and show the position of the Serbs in a conflict with those who wanted the country to collapse. So we have to find the real culprit, and it will certainly happen in the near future”.

In his opinion, the decision on the breakup of Yugoslavia was taken a long time before it really happened. He assign a major share of responsibility for the country’s fate to the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and to Josip Broz Tito personally. According to Jovic, Tito had not enjoyed the total support of Yugoslav leadership, but he created an absolute power system that allowed him to take decisions independently. Even earlier, the party decided that the country shall be erased from the map, but implementation of this decision was postponed. “This is not mentioned in any official documents”, Jovic claimed, “but it was accomplished”. Another decisive step in the collapse of the country was the adoption of the 1974 Constitution, according to which its republics could declare independence. “The creators of this terrible text, Josip Broz Tito and his minions, are responsible not only for the breakup of Yugoslavia, but also for the civil war,” the speaker said.

Matija Bečković, a full member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, delivered a laudatory review of the book penned by the former President of the Presidium. “Borisav Jovic’s work is the first century of the unwritten history of the Serbs”, he said. “His merit is in breaking the seal of silence and speaking about what had not yet been talked about. This book is a bold and patriotic testimony about the events he participated in. If the truth, which is unknown, is not revealed, Serbia will have neither freedom nor salvation,” the academician stated.

Experts from Russia approached the topic of the breakup of Yugoslavia differently. Their speeches were about the impact these events had on Russia. Ekaterina Entina, associate professor at the Moscow-based Higher School of Economics and senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Europe, addressed the topic of what place Russia, which is a traditional actor in the Balkans, occupies in the region today, as well as what awaits it in the near future. “Although our relationship has existed for centuries, the foreign policy of Russia and Serbia is largely based on the implications of the breakup of Yugoslavia. Since the beginning of the 2000s, we have developed our relations with the Balkans in a pragmatic and apolitical way. Thus, we are implementing a policy of situational reactions”, the expert explained. “However, this purely pragmatic approach is has exhausted, and we must decide what Russia’s interest in the Balkans is”, she said.

According to Entina, this is not only about bilateral relations, but also about the geopolitical game. On the one hand, China is increasing its presence in the Balkans. On the other hand, Britain and the United States have resumed pursuing of their own national interests, in the region, which increases the conflict potential of the situation. “Although Moscow cannot formulate its interests”, she said, “our Western partners regard that the contradictions are increasing. Whether we want it or not, we have to give an answer on what we want in the region and to involve in the processes that began after the breakup of Yugoslavia”.

Having agreed with Ekaterina Entina, Georgy Engelhardt, a research fellow at the Department of Modern Central and South-Eastern European History at the RAS Institute of Slavic Studies, said that even if we take into account the continuity between Yugoslavia and Serbia, and the USSR and Russia, these are different countries. “The inexorable course of history led to the fact that Russia only developed pragmatic, stable and positive relations with Serbia and Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Only one capital is intended to keep up its relations with Russia. The current development, which is to decrease Russian presence in the region, is not an initiative of the Balkan countries, but the external influence from the West”.

Hence, despite the situational nature of Russia’s policy in the Balkans, it will have to make its position firmer. Considering the fragmentation of the region, which took place after the breakup of a country that had existed for more than 70 years, this will not be easy to do, but that is the challenge.