Yugoslavia's Lost Country - General Knowledge Reaction

[00:00:00]Welcome back everyone. We have a general knowledge video. Of course, if you can you can read, it's about Yugoslavia. A country that doesn't exist anymore, but truly was subject of conversation in the 20th century. And even before that really with Yugoslavism, which is something we learned a little bit about thanks to Sweeney's video on the history of Serbia part two. We just reacted to so go check that out. Of course, it's tangential to this conversation most likely, but still something to to speak about. Um yeah, this is like I said, general knowledge.

[00:00:32]Yugoslavia is lost country. Jump in with me now.

[00:00:35]>> Serbian people. Can't wait for all the angry comments I'll get from Serbian people. When you look at this old map of Yugoslavia, you see eight different regions within it. Each with their own government and local parliament. But when you look at a modern map of the region, there's only seven sovereign states. One of them >> Hold on, let's back up.

[00:00:56]>> modern map >> Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:00:59]Uh Vojvodina, which they lost.

[00:01:03]Um I already know what I already know the history of this. Uh this when Hungary uh Hun- Hungary won their independence, uh they annexed this area.

[00:01:14]>> of the region, there's only seven sovereign states.

[00:01:17]>> [clears throat] >> One of them, Vojvodina, is missing.

[00:01:20]Vojvodina >> No, there's an argument to be made that Vojvodina isn't independent yet.

[00:01:25]Yugoslav nations didn't all achieve independence at the same time. First, it was Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Bosnia, then Montenegro broke away from >> Did Vojvodina ever have independence?

[00:01:38]>> Serbia, then Kosovo did too, much to their displeasure. So, maybe Vojvodina is next. Maybe it's a way for Serbia's democratic forces to oppose their repressive regime and finally join up with Europe.

[00:01:52]>> A lot of people don't like Serbia. Let me know if you're Serbian. Tell me your side of the story.

[00:01:56]>> It does, however, seem like too long has passed. And to be fair, there's no relevant movement for it as far as I know. But why? Why was Vojvodina the only major region of Yugoslavia that failed to become its own country? Let's find out.

[00:02:14]>> Let's find out.

[00:02:22]>> To understand any of this, we have to first look at what Vojvodina actually is. It's a flat, very fertile expanse of the Pannonian Plain.

[00:02:31]>> The Pannonian Plain, okay.

[00:02:33]>> Defined by the Danube River, the Tisza River, and the Sava River. Unlike the mountainous, rugged terrain of central and southern Serbia, Vojvodina is a sea of corn, sunflowers, and wheat.

[00:02:48]>> So, heavy in agriculture.

[00:02:49]>> It's very agriculture heavy. It's different from the rest of Serbia in geography, >> It's a more rural, probably has a different traditional stance and things.

[00:03:00]>> crops, but also in its history. For centuries, this patch of land was the southern frontier of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

[00:03:10]>> Yeah, mainly Hungarian, obviously in the east.

[00:03:13]>> While the rest of Serbia was under the rule of the Ottomans.

[00:03:16]>> This also makes it I'm sorry for pausing so much. It's just we just reacted to a video around this stuff, so it's very fresh on my Also, of course, the borderlands between the two makes it almost no man's land because of Christendom versus Islam in the medieval ages uh all the way up to modernity.

[00:03:33]>> This created two very different cultural identities for a while. Vojvodina became a melting pot of Serbs, sure, but also some Austrians and a lot of Hungarians, Romanians, Slovaks, Croats, and Rusyns were also part of the mix. Many people called it intellectual and cultural engine of the Serbian people during the 18th and 19th centuries. A place where Central Europeans met their Balkan neighbors.

[00:04:02]But, there's a key thing here.

[00:04:04]>> What's the biggest city in Vojvodina?

[00:04:06]>> Despite being a part of Austro-Hungary, it was full of Serbs who lived there.

[00:04:11]So, why? Back in the late 1600s, thousands of Serbian families moved north into the Habsburg lands to escape the Ottoman rule. The Austrian emperors gave them land and certain privilege at start in exchange for them acting as a sort of shield against the Turks. This area became known as the military frontier.

[00:04:32]Because the Serbs there were defending the empire, they developed a strong sense of local identity. But, it was an identity rooted in being the protectors of Serbdom rather than the protectors of the Austrian empire. Especially because, while they were invited into the region and allowed to be there, Vojvodina was a part of the Hungarian kingdom within the union. It was subject to a process of Magyarization, promoting the Hungarian language and culture, and trying to turn it >> Assimilation, basically.

[00:05:03]>> into a core province of Hungary. In a way, this fueled Serbian nationalism as well.

[00:05:08]>> Because of the disdain of being forced?

[00:05:11]>> This is the first major reason why Vojvodina never became a separate country. Its historical mission was to be the cradle of Serbian national revival, not to be something else entirely. While the Serbs in the south were fighting guerrilla wars for independence, the Serbs in Vojvodina were building schools, printing books, and drafting the blueprints for a modern Serbian state. That state was, interestingly, first achieved in the south. Those guerrilla movements secured autonomy within the Ottoman empire, and as the empire weakened, they achieved full independence in 1878, consolidating it in the Balkan Wars. The northern Serbs saw this as an incredible opportunity. They started moving south to Belgrade to help build a new government and its bureaucracy. They didn't stay up north and tried to declare a separate independence.

[00:06:03]Instead, they provided the intellectual backbone for a Pan-Serbian movement that would get to eventually annex Vojvodina itself, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina, where many Serbs lived in the eastern part >> So, the Greater Serbia, right? This is what we saw in the other video as well.

[00:06:18]So, the Greater Serbia is a in my opinion, based on what I've seen through this point, please disagree if you if you may, is a combination of Yugoslavism and the heavenly Serbia idealism, which is either hijacking one of the two or combining the two to create a more uh you know, a Greater Serbia, per se, lack of a better word.

[00:06:41]>> which had kind of recently been annexed by the Austro-Hungarians. In fact, the start of World War I is, as you probably know, connected to this. The attack on Serbia, protected by Russia, came after a Serb student assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Bosnia.

[00:06:59]>> Yeah, and not just a student, but part of the Black Hand Young Bosnia, which is part of the overarching government of Serbia via proxy, right?

[00:07:07]>> When World War I ended and the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed in 1918, the people of Vojvodina had a choice. There was a brief moment where things could have gone very differently, but the local Great People's Assembly in Novi Sad voted to join the kingdom >> I guess Novi Sad is the greatest city.

[00:07:23]>> of Serbia directly, instead of considering independence or remaining within Austria or Hungary. Remaining was never really a possibility nor a desire.

[00:07:33]The Treaty of Trianon, which broke Hungary apart, had already established they would lose their former territory.

[00:07:40]But, Serbs in Vojvodina didn't even wait for the rest of the South Slavs to figure out the details of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes that would go on to become Yugoslavia.

[00:07:51]It was still being formed after the war.

[00:07:53]They wanted in with Belgrade immediately. At the time, the idea of a separate Vojvodinian nation didn't exist. They were just Serbs who lived in the north and wanted to be unified with their brothers in the south, >> [music] >> even if there was another union on top of that. And they achieved it within that Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. During World War II, however, Hungary re-annexed [music] Vojvodina, at least part of it.

[00:08:20]>> Dang.

[00:08:23]Okay. And many Serbs were persecuted, with Serbia/Yugoslavia only regaining it after the end of the war. And interestingly, up until recent times, Hungary maintained a tactic of soft power over the region still, accepting Serbian sovereignty, but keeping strong cultural and economic connections with Vojvodina, even granting Hungarian passports to people of Hungarian heritage that live there.

[00:08:48]>> Wow.

[00:08:50]So, special preference uh uh so, special privileges.

[00:08:56]Residents of Vojvodina can obtain a Hungarian passport through Hungary or sorry, Hungary's simplified naturalization process if they have ancestors born in the region before 1920.

[00:09:06]And can prove prove conversational proficiency in Hungarian.

[00:09:12]Wow.

[00:09:13]Not lying.

[00:09:14]>> Now that Hungary's regime is changing, that strategy might change, too. But, let's get back to the story.

[00:09:20]Fast forward to the Tito era in Yugoslavia. This is where the modern failure to achieve statehood, or the lack of a push for it, really takes shape. It's also where the idea that it could have happened is planted for an outside viewer, like myself. Tito realized that Serbia was the largest and most powerful entity in Yugoslavia. And to keep the federation stable, he needed to balance that power. And he did this by creating a new constitution that introduced two autonomous provinces within Serbia, Kosovo in the south and Vojvodina in the north. This gave Vojvodina its own parliament, its >> Of course, this is the Cold War side of things.

[00:10:02]>> own government, and its own seat at the federal table. It's why we see it as a sort of separate nation within Yugoslavia in that first map. And for a few decades, Vojvodina did function almost like a republic. It was wealthy, stable, and highly autonomous. And during that period, a specific Vojvodinian regional identity did start to grow. People weren't necessarily saying that they weren't Serbs or Hungarians for some of them, but they were starting to feel that being from the north meant something a little different. The turning point was the late 1980s when Slobodan Milošević came to power. He saw the autonomy of Vojvodina and especially Kosovo as a threat to Serbian unity.

[00:10:46]In 1988, he orchestrated what became known as the yogurt revolution.

[00:10:51]It sounds a little funny, but it wasn't.

[00:10:53]It was a massive political upheaval where protesters, many of them from other places, but whatever, threw cartons of yogurt at the provincial government buildings in Novi Sad and filled the local leadership resigned.

[00:11:07]>> Milošević That's interesting. Never heard of that.

[00:11:09]>> then stripped Vojvodina of any real power and autonomy. This was the moment where a separatist movement could have been born, similar to what happened in Slovenia or Croatia or Kosovo, but it didn't happen. The reason why is pretty simple. It's because Vojvodina was too ethnically mixed and more importantly, it had a massive Serbian majority. And like the Croats or Slovenian.

[00:11:33]>> Very different from Kosovo.

[00:11:34]>> The Serbs in Vojvodina weren't going to fight a war to separate from their own ethnic kin in Belgrade, no matter how much they hated the central government's economic or political policies. At most they were opposed to that government and wanted to replace it. Throughout the 1990s while Yugoslavia was tearing itself apart in very bloody wars, Vojvodina remained relatively quiet.

[00:11:57]There were some anti-war protests and the regionalist like the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina gained some >> Yeah, to his point like they're very kin.

[00:12:06]They're very much kin to the Serbian.

[00:12:08]>> political ground but the demand was always peace and autonomy rather than independence. They wanted essentially their money back. Vojvodina was always the bread basket and the wallet of Serbia but they weren't looking to build a border on the >> Literally because of the agriculture.

[00:12:25]>> and become independent. The lack of a distinct Vojvodinian identity and ethnicity was the biggest structural barrier to nationhood. In the Balkans the path to a country usually requires a unique language, a unique religion or a deep-seated ethnic historical grievance against a neighbor or occupier.

[00:12:45]Vojvodina has plenty of grievances about taxes, infrastructure, even some political aspects but it's hard to build a national identity on we want better management of our agricultural subsidies for instance.

[00:12:58]>> Yeah.

[00:12:59]>> Another big factor is the demographic shift. Over the last century especially after the World Wars and the Wars of the 90s, the population of Vojvodina >> Yeah, mainly [clears throat] Serbian.

[00:13:09]>> changed a lot. Many Germans were expelled after World War II. Many Hungarians left for political >> Oh, this is a 25-year difference.

[00:13:17]>> economic reasons and hundreds of thousands of Serb refugees from Croatia >> Didn't really change.

[00:13:22]>> and Bosnia moved in. These newcomers brought a much more pro-Serbia and outlook with them.

[00:13:29]>> Why is Albania omitted? Is it because Albania wasn't part of Yugoslavia?

[00:13:33]>> They didn't have the centuries of Pannonian history that the old Lala, which apparently is a nickname for the local Vojvodinians and their families had. This diluted the regionalist sentiment. If you ask a refugee who settled in a village near Vršac for instance in 1995 if Vojvodina should be a country, they're probably going to think you're crazy to even ask. To them, Vojvodina is the land that saved them and brought them back into the Serbian nation.

[00:14:01]>> There's there's still probably a lot of greater Serbia individuals you're saying?

[00:14:06]>> But let's play a little bit of the what if game. What would happen if Vojvodina would achieve statehood? How could they do it in some alternate reality or the distant future? I don't think it would happen through a war of independence.

[00:14:20]It's not the style of the region, although it's definitely the style of the Balkans.

[00:14:25]I think in modern times it would have to be an exit based purely on economic and political divergence.

[00:14:31]>> Like EU-esque, NATO-esque thing?

[00:14:34]Esque, not not true to that, but esque.

[00:14:37]>> If Serbia were to permanently stall in its European integration or fall into a prolonged period of economic collapse and political isolation, if the regime tightens its authoritarian grip, the business elites and the youth in Novi Sad might start looking at the border with Hungary and Croatia with envy, especially when Hungary has just recently replaced their own semi-dictator.

[00:15:02]You could see a scenario where a Vojvodina republic is pitched >> [music] >> as a way to fast-track into democracy and the European Union. In this sort of speculative future, the movement would have to be civic, not ethnic. It would have to be a sort of citizens republic where being Vojvodinian is an identity based on living in the region and respecting its multi-ethnic heritage and European identity, rather than being a Serb or a Hungarian. They would have to lean very heavily on the Central European-ness of their history. The >> Ah. Well, I mean, I feel like that's that's a stretch. I feel the EU thing makes sense, though.

[00:15:43]>> Habsburg legacy, the cafe culture, the orderly urban planning to differentiate themselves from the Balkan south. They would probably use the 1974 constitution as a legal jumping point, arguing that their autonomy was illegally taken away, and that they are reverting to the natural state as a federal entity that >> But, how far-fetched is this? It seems like it's very far-fetched. Like, feels like they're not moving anytime soon.

[00:16:08]>> no longer has a federation to belong to.

[00:16:11]But, how would they do as an independent country? Honestly, I think pretty well.

[00:16:15]They are a landlocked territory, which is a downside, but they control the most important stretch of the Danube River, which is one of the main arteries for trade within Europe.

[00:16:25]>> Yeah.

[00:16:25]>> It has some of the most fertile soil in the world. It's the famous black earth.

[00:16:30]It has oil and gas deposits in Banat, which was >> And for all these reasons, Serbia would not let it go.

[00:16:36]>> all not on a, I don't know, Saudi Arabia level, they're enough to give a small country a massive head start.

[00:16:42]Economically, Vojvodina is already the most developed part of Serbia outside of the capital of Belgrade. If it didn't have to send its tax revenue to the central treasury to fund projects in the south or pay off >> Yeah, but can I go both ways, right? The military of greater military of Serbia helps the infrastructure of the greater Serbia. Cuz if you combine the 866, so yeah, what is that? 12, 20, 37. I mean, you're you're three times smaller than the rest of Serbia. So, and that's probably changed. That's 8 years ago. So, honestly, most likely it would not make sense necessarily unless something crazy happened to to separate >> national debts. It would likely see a massive spike in its standard of living.

[00:17:29]Novi Sad would become a real regional capital. It would attract embassies, international banks, more corporate headquarters, and investment. The multi-ethnic nature of the region, which is currently a barrier to separatist unity, would become its biggest selling points to an international community. A Vojvodina Republic would be marketed as a perfect mini Europe, a place where five or six official languages can coexist peacefully. It would be the antithesis to the war-torn authoritarian stereotype and Serbia's pro-Russia and seemingly >> Like I said, very anti-Serbia, uh this guy. Well, maybe not this guy, most people. So, if you are Serbian, tell yourself a story.

[00:18:11]>> anti-Europe government.

[00:18:12]>> Which I've already heard a little bit about the Serbian history, and I know it's very trouble, but anyway.

[00:18:16]>> But even if there was a local will to do it, there would be other massive obstacles. The biggest one would be Belgrade. No Serbian >> Yeah, they would occupy it immediately.

[00:18:26]>> whether liberal or conservative, would ever let Vojvodina go without a fight.

[00:18:30]>> They're used to fighting.

[00:18:32]>> Belgrade and Novi Sad are physically and economically fused together. Thousands of people commute between them every day. The infrastructure is deeply integrated. Serbia without Vojvodina would feel lost, losing its most productive land and and its historical link to Central Europe. Furthermore, the international community doesn't seem to have an appetite for more border changes and disputes in the Balkans. After the messy independence of Kosovo, the EU and the US are generally in a status quo mode when it comes to the region. They don't want to deal with another small landlocked state that might create more instability or trigger a domino effect in places like Bosnia. I mean, if If lost Vojvodina, they might actually try to annex Republica Srpska from their neighbors. Without external backing, a Vojvodinan independence movement would likely fail. But, in the end, Vojvodina failed to become a country because it was never really trying to be one.

[00:19:26]>> I mean, it's Serbian ethnically.

[00:19:27]>> It was always caught between two roles, being the northern shield of the Serbian people and being a distinct multicultural entity. [music] Most people there seem to have settled for a middle ground. They want to be part of Serbia, but they want Serbia to look more like Vojvodina, more organized, more prosperous, more democratic, and more European. The dream of an independent Vojvodina remains a very fringe idea, maybe discussed in some cafes in Novi Sad, but as long as the tractors are moving in the fields and that the Danube keeps flowing and trade keeps coming, the region seems content to remain Serbia's unique, slightly frustrated, but ultimately loyal northern half.

[00:20:08]>> Interesting stuff here. Yeah. I I don't I don't I mean, everything mentioned it seems like they're going to stay Serbian unless something crazy happens within a divide of like maybe like Serbia like goes pro-Russia uh like totally and they you know feel like I I'm I'm not even sure Serbia part of the EU? It doesn't sound like they are.

[00:20:30]I you know, I need to do some refreshing there. The Balkans are very tricky. The Balkans are very tricky. Let me know your thoughts below.

[00:20:38]I'll see you guys next time. Peace out.

[00:20:39]And bye-bye.