The Yugoslav Wars: Difference between revisions

{{Useful Notes}}

[[File:Yug_Collapse_9275.png|frame|"Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste, and no town or house divided against itself will stand." - [[The Bible|Matthew 25]] <ref>Yellow = Slovenia. Blue = Croatia. Purple = Macedonia. Green = Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bright Red = Yugoslavia. Dark Red = Serbia. Dark But Comparably Lighter Red = Kosovo. Gray = Montenegro.</ref>]]

 

A series of six wars encompassing [[Balkanise Me|the former]] [[Yugoslavia]] from 1991-2001:

Eventually, that war ended via Western intervention, but things got trickier as Kosovo decided that it was time to [[Balkanize Me|break ties]] with the Serbian land it was a part of. This sparked the third big conflict, the Kosovo War. What was left of Yugoslavia decided to take deadly measures in the southern region which prompted America to intervene which caused an exodus. The war only came to an end after America used diplomatic cunning and outright broke the peace treaty it just signed as soon as Yugoslav soldiers left the province. While the Albanians in Kosovo have still claimed their independence, it is not officially recognized by Serbia or the majority of the international community.

 

 

* [[Alternative Character Interpretation]]: Possible and done often.

* [[Balkanize Me]]: The [[Trope Namer]]

* [[Beardness Protection Program]]/[[Beardless Protection Program]]: A tactic used by a lot of war crime convicts while in hiding.

* [[Civil War]]: What it initially started off as.

** Played straight with ''Operation Storm'' and the Croat and Bosnian offensives that ended the war.

* [[Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy]]: Regarding the region's violent history and knowing, especially with the advantage of hindsight, the atrocities committed. Even the [[Police Are Useless|UN]] and [[What the Hell, Hero?|NATO]] [[Black and Grey Morality|can't be considered as morally white]]. The rulings of the International Tribunal of Justice for the former Yugoslavia may squarely place most of the blame on the Milošević's and Karadzić's regimes, but keep in mind that the ICTY are contested by the Serb side (see below.)

* [[Enemy Mine]]: In the early stages of the war Tuđman and Milošević made a deal to carve up Bosnia between Croatia and Serbia.

** In 1994 Croats and Bosniaks allied themselves under US pressure against the Serbs.

* [[Flame Bait]]: Mostly due to it's recent history and [[Misplaced Nationalism]].

* [[Follow the Leader]]: Franjo Tuđman had [http://www.ljubomir.de/images/tudman_156.jpg a uniform] that was similar to [http://www.bmlv.gv.at/pool/img/a01_589.jpg Tito]'s. There is even a popular joke in former Yugoslavia describing this trope: Tito and Tuđman meet each other in hell. Tuđman greets him with "Hello dictator!" while Tito replies with "Hello imitator!".

* [[Tank Goodness]]: Many different tanks were used during the wars, from [[World War II]] era T-34s to the much more modern M-84s. However, they usually proved rather ineffective for various reasons (bad terrain, lack of maintenance, lack of properly trained crews etc.).

* [[Urban Warfare]]: Sarajevo

* [[Vetinari Job Security]]: Once Tito died, the Clock started ticking on when this whole can of worms would open.

* [[War for Fun and Profit]]: The various paramilitary organizations and war profiteers like Arkan and Captain Dragan.

* [[The Woobie]]: Let's say that this is a conflict where every side sees themselves as the victims of the other.

* [[Would Not Shoot a Civilian]]: Brutally averted.

 

The primary use of the war today is as a source of modern day war criminals, as the Nazi ones are getting too old now. Because of the nature of the mass graves, many [[The Coroner|a forensic pathologist]] will have worked there.

 

== Animation and Comics ==

* In ''[[Seikon no Qwaser]]'' it serves as the backstory of Teresa who grew up in a Serbian-Orthodox monastery in the Krajna.

 

== Film ==

* ''[[Behind Enemy Lines]]'' features an American airman shot down over Bosnia, who must then fight through hostile Bosnian troops to get to safety. The villain's [[The Dragon|dragon]] in this film served as an inspiration for Niko Bellic of ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]''

* The Serbian film ''[[Underground]]'' tells the story of Yugoslavia from the Serbian resistance of World War 2 to the Yugoslav wars. This dark comedy is ultimately about the tragedy of Yugoslavia's balkanization. It was also released as a 5 1/2 hour miniseries called ''Once Upon a Time, There was a Country'', which is also the film's closing line. Although it was well-received, some critics accused it of being Serbian nationalistic propoganda and of having an overly idealistic portrayal of communist Yugoslavia.

 

== Literature ==

* Chinese Sci-Fi writer Cixin Liu's ''Butterfly of Entropy'' told the story of a Serbian meteorlogist who tries to creat heavy clouds above his hometown to spare his family from NATO bombing by starting wind current changes in some calculated points (like a butterfly generating a storm). He failed because, it seemed he already generated too much random currents and heat changes on his way.

* ''Zlata's Diary'', the diary of a young girl named Zlata Filipović documenting her experiences before and during the Siege of Sarajevo. Despite contemporary media comparisons to Anne Frank (which she was understandably uncomfortable with), she escaped the war and is now a writer and film maker in Dublin.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* An episode of ''[[Extras]]'' features [[Ben Stiller]] directing a movie set during the Yugoslav Wars and based on the life of a real survivor.

* An episode of ''[[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia]]'' features the gang working as extras on the set of a movie about the Yugoslav Wars. Frank and Dee play corpses during a scene of ethnic cleansing, but they refuse to sit still.

 

== Music ==

* ''We Burn'' by [[Sabaton]] is about the Srebrenica massacre.

* [[Marko Perkovic Thompson]]

 

== Video Games ==