Word: tito
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...communism was a strong center: it was from there that the orders and the troops came. A single ruler could intimidate or punish the farthest corner of his domain. The Yugoslavs used to say, "We have six republics, five ethnic groups, four languages, three religions, two alphabets -- and one Tito." Now that there is no Tito, things fall apart; the center cannot hold...
...Tito's mastery at playing off East against West left him free to quash uppity subjects at home. Now that the East is out of the game, his successors must heed remonstrations from Bonn and Brussels. Among other things, that's where the money is. And Belgrade, like Moscow, is desperate for financial help...
...representatives of all six republics and the two Serbian provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo), Jovic, backed by the army chief of staff, had pressed for a military crackdown. "Milosevic is a fighting man," said Milovan Djilas, a dissident communist who was jailed repeatedly by Marshal Josip Broz Tito in the 1950s and '60s. "He won't go for a fundamental change of policy...
...Serbs, who threw off Turkish rule in the 19th century, are Christian Orthodox; the Croatians, who were subjugated by the Habsburg Empire, are Catholics. Their mutual hatred and distrust keep growing more virulent as nationalist ambitions seethe throughout Eastern Europe. Only the suzerainty of socialism imposed by Josip Broz Tito after World War II managed for a time to keep the rivalry in check...
Stripped of ethnic and regional antagonisms, Yugoslav nationalism could be a positive force. It helped Tito maintain autonomy against the aggressive designs of Stalin -- and in that sense was an early harbinger of the freedom Eastern Europe has now found. "Nationalism is not necessarily a bad thing," argues Miroslav Hroch, a historian at Prague's Charles University. He believes after four decades of communism it is inevitable that people will seek a national identity. "An old order has collapsed, and people have to belong to something," he says. "There is nothing wrong with their rallying to the flag." True...