0:00:00.114,0:00:04.507 Understanding the ethnic and religious commonalities and differences 0:00:04.538,0:00:08.256 in the state or the region that used to be Yugoslavia can be quite confusing. 0:00:08.271,0:00:11.318 But, what I want to do in this video is try to give a primer on it. 0:00:11.318,0:00:14.528 It's really key to understanding some of the triggers of World War I 0:00:14.528,0:00:19.205 and to, obviously, understand the breakup of Yugoslavia, which was quite ugly 0:00:19.226,0:00:24.528 during the fall of communism in the late 80s and early 90s. 0:00:24.528,0:00:26.704 So, first of all, it's a good idea to understand 0:00:26.704,0:00:30.443 where the word Yugoslavia comes from. 0:00:30.443,0:00:33.867 It's literally referring to the southern Slavic states 0:00:33.867,0:00:35.971 So, "Yugo" is referring to southern 0:00:35.971,0:00:38.635 and "slavia" is talking about the Slavic states. 0:00:38.635,0:00:41.278 When people talk about Slavic languages, they're talking about 0:00:41.278,0:00:43.612 the languages that are spoken in this region, but also 0:00:43.612,0:00:48.781 much of eastern Europe and what is now Russia. 0:00:48.781,0:00:54.302 Now, what we have here in blue is we have shaded in where 0:00:54.302,0:00:58.984 Serbo-Croation is spoken. 0:00:58.984,0:01:05.305 Which is the dominant Slavic language in this region. 0:01:05.305,0:01:08.156 And, there are multiple dialects, some people will say 0:01:08.156,0:01:12.308 "that's croation, or montenegran, or serbian" or whatever it might be. 0:01:12.308,0:01:15.311 But, most linguists say they're pretty close to each other. 0:01:15.311,0:01:17.823 And you can kind of categorize them as one language, 0:01:17.823,0:01:20.823 as Serbo-Croation. 0:01:20.823,0:01:22.977 And you see that it's now spoken in modern day 0:01:22.977,0:01:28.156 Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Montenegro. 0:01:28.156,0:01:33.648 That is the commonality here, the thing that ties together this region. 0:01:33.648,0:01:37.489 Now on top of that, the slovenian language is also Slavic 0:01:37.489,0:01:40.757 it's closely related to Serbo-Croation. 0:01:40.757,0:01:43.225 In Macedonia they also speak a Slavic language. 0:01:43.225,0:01:46.313 It's closer to Bulgarian, but it has some close ties, 0:01:46.313,0:01:48.896 it's not completely different than Serbo-Croation. 0:01:48.896,0:01:52.429 So you have this linguistic connection throughout this area. 0:01:52.429,0:01:57.822 Now, what divides this area is really religion and history. 0:01:57.822,0:02:00.419 So, this area, if you go back hundreds of years, 0:02:00.419,0:02:03.561 it was under the control of various empires. 0:02:03.561,0:02:06.089 The Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire. 0:02:06.089,0:02:09.397 With the Austro-Hungarian Empire, you're talking about 0:02:09.397,0:02:10.564 a Roman Catholic Empire. 0:02:10.564,0:02:12.219 When you're talking about the Ottomans, 0:02:12.219,0:02:13.477 you're dealing with a Muslim Empire. 0:02:13.477,0:02:17.895 And they held different parts of this territory for hundreds of years. 0:02:17.895,0:02:22.293 And so what ends up is really a mix of religions, 0:02:22.293,0:02:27.762 and that often gets tied to what people percieve as their ethnicity. 0:02:27.762,0:02:32.308 And so what I have here is kind of a religious breakdown 0:02:32.308,0:02:36.219 of the former state of Yugoslavia. 0:02:36.219,0:02:39.490 So, in this pinkish color right over here, I have the areas that are 0:02:39.490,0:02:41.478 predominantly Roman Catholic. 0:02:41.478,0:02:43.154 And I say predominantly because it really is 0:02:43.154,0:02:44.971 all mixed together. 0:02:44.971,0:02:47.821 So, Slovenia, Croatia, primarily Roman Catholic. 0:02:47.821,0:02:53.645 If you look at Serbia, and Montenegro, primarily Eastern Orthodox. 0:02:53.645,0:03:00.489 In Kosovo, you have a strong Muslim majority, right over there. 0:03:00.489,0:03:05.021 And Kosovo, before its breakup was kind of part of 0:03:05.021,0:03:10.355 Serbia and Montenegro, despite it having this very different religious makeup. 0:03:10.355,0:03:14.287 And then Bosnia and Herzegovina is where it gets really really mixed up. 0:03:14.287,0:03:19.156 Roughly half of the population, and it's been moving over the centuries, 0:03:19.156,0:03:23.229 but the dominant religion there is Islam. 0:03:23.229,0:03:25.419 And, in general this is where it can be confusing. 0:03:25.419,0:03:30.888 When people talk about a Bosniak, they're talking about 0:03:30.888,0:03:35.800 a Bosnian Muslim. 0:03:35.800,0:03:40.574 But, Bosnia and Herzgovina also has significant fractions of 0:03:40.574,0:03:44.368 Serbs, who are Eastern Orthodox, and that's why 0:03:44.368,0:03:46.966 I put the brown here as well, it's about a third of the population 0:03:46.966,0:03:50.117 and it also has a pretty sizeable Roman Catholic population 0:03:50.117,0:03:53.300 or we can say Bosnian-Croats. 0:03:53.300,0:03:55.899 So, just to be clear here - it can be very confusing, even when you hear 0:03:55.899,0:03:58.236 a history of it, or you hear it on the news - I remember 0:03:58.236,0:04:01.232 in the 90s, hearing the news and getting very confused. 0:04:01.232,0:04:04.368 If someone is talking about a Bosnian Muslim, or a Bosniak, 0:04:04.368,0:04:07.839 that's a Muslim living in Bosnia, that's what they tend 0:04:07.839,0:04:10.172 to be referring to. If they say a 0:04:10.172,0:04:19.171 Bosnian-Croat, this would be an ethnically Croat, who is 0:04:19.171,0:04:24.235 living in Bosnia. And they would tend to be Roman Catholic. 0:04:24.235,0:04:30.103 And then if you have a Bosnian Serb, this is someone who 0:04:30.103,0:04:34.833 ethnically identifies themselves as a Serbian, or as a Serb, 0:04:34.833,0:04:39.235 who lives in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but is probably 0:04:39.235,0:04:42.173 going to be Eastern Orthodox. 0:04:42.173,0:04:44.242 So, you can imagine, you have these strong linguistic 0:04:44.242,0:04:50.830 and even ethnic ties, but at some point, because of the religion, 0:04:50.830,0:04:53.983 and dialect changes, there's also a significant 0:04:53.983,0:04:56.634 amount of differences here, especially when things got ugly, 0:04:56.634,0:04:59.120 as you had the fall of Communism. 0:04:59.120,0:05:01.366 So, hopefully this lays a groundwork of the commonalities 0:05:01.366,0:05:03.166 and the differences here. 0:05:03.166,0:05:06.298 And it will help us understand what got us into World War I, 0:05:06.298,0:05:08.431 or what triggered World War I, and also some of the 0:05:08.431,0:05:11.785 ugliness that was seen in the early 90s. 0:05:11.785,0:05:14.901 And just to finish up, with just a little bit of context, 0:05:14.901,0:05:19.633 this was not a unified state until World War I was, 0:05:19.633,0:05:22.705 to some degree was precipitated by a desire to make this a unified state. 0:05:22.705,0:05:28.914 This ethnic grouping, this linguistic grouping, tended to be 0:05:28.914,0:05:31.923 broken up with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, 0:05:31.923,0:05:34.699 entering into World War I you have this decline of the 0:05:34.699,0:05:38.919 Ottoman Empire which started to allow these people to start 0:05:38.919,0:05:43.700 to have more energy behind their desire to form a unified state. 0:05:43.700,0:05:46.042 World War I was essentially the catalyst that allowed 0:05:46.042,0:05:49.496 the state of Yugoslavia to unify. 0:05:49.496,0:05:53.767 And, in different forms, it stayed unified until the fall of Communism. 0:05:53.767,0:05:57.507 And, even though it was a socialist state, a communist state, 0:05:57.507,0:06:01.588 during the Cold War, it actually always had a strange, 0:06:01.588,0:06:04.435 and distant relationship with the Soviet Union. 0:06:04.435,0:06:07.699 But, after the fall of Communism, that was kind of holding it together, 0:06:07.699,0:06:10.366 especially these religious differences, 0:06:10.366,0:06:14.976 and these ethnic and religious differences broke it apart.