Understanding Yugoslavia Shots by Alessandro Rocchi
Everyone in the former Yugoslavia seems to have a slightly different version of events, and mildly plausible (but specious) conspiracy theories run rampant. A very wise Bosniak once told me, “Listen to all three sides — Muslim, Serb, and Croat. Then decide for yourself what you think.” A Serb told me a similar local saying: "You have to look at the apple from all sides." That’s the best advice I can offer. When the Austro-Hungarian Empire fell at the end of World War I, the map of Europe was redrawn for the 20th century. After centuries of being governed by foreign powers, the South Slavs began to see their shared history as more important than their differences. The Serbs pushed for the creation of an independent South Slav state, recognizing that a tiny country of a few million Croats or Slovenes couldn’t survive on its own. And so, rather than be absorbed by a non-Slavic power, the South Slavs decided that there was safety in numbers, and banded together to form the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (1918), later known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (Land of the South Slavs —yugo means “south”). “Yugoslav unity” was in the air. But this new union was fragile and ultimately bound to fail (not unlike the partnership between the Czechs and Slovaks, formed at the same time and for similar reasons).
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Medjugorie 2015 - repairing from the sun 6
Medjugorie 2015 - carpenters at work
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MONSTAR 2015 - view from left side of Mostar bridge
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MONSTAR 2015 - view from right side of Mostar bridge
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the sign of war on the front of a residential building in Sarajevo
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