The Albanian Factor in Post-Tito Yugoslavia on the Eve of the Breakup of the Yugoslav Federation in the 1990s

Abstract

The article deals with the intensification of the struggle between the two nationalisms – the Albanian and the Serbian, throughout the 1980s and the incessant unrest in Kosovo which gave the starting basis for the disintegration of the Yugoslav federation in the early 1990s. The negative phenomena and trends in the development of Tito's Yugoslavia in its last decades and especially after the death of the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito brought the country to a serious crisis. The contradictions in the Yugoslav society, the economic and political problems and the inter-ethnic tensions were exacerbated significantly and questioned the unity of the Yugoslav federation, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) and the future of the “Yugoslav model of socialism”. In general, the Yugoslav crisis had multi-faceted dimensions. Its causes were mainly internal. Particularly acute was the political crisis. Generator of the inter-ethnic and inter-republican contradictions, but also of the nationalist trends, were issues inherited from history and the decisions on the national question from the period of Tito. A general starting point of the nationalist elements was the claim that the interests of the particular nation were neglected at the expense of the all-Yugoslav interests or those of the other republics. On the other hand, the economic crisis directly affected the strengthening of the social tensions, expressed in strikes and rallies across Yugoslavia. The economic situation of the country in those years was characterized by the federation's increased foreign debt, great inflation, reduction of labor productivity, unemployment, continued rising of prices and falling standard of living. The general crisis in Yugoslavia, which encompassed the different areas of life found expression in the extreme aggravation of the economic, social, political and interethnic relations in Kosovo. The political processes, the exacerbation of the inter-ethnic relations, the developments in Kosovo and especially the introduced emergency measures had a negative effect on the international reputation of Yugoslavia. In the late 1980s the multinational Yugoslav federation faced the problem of its further existence.