Posted on 12/29/2007 2:17:31 PM PST by joan
As Slovenia prepares to take on the presidency of the European Union growing numbers of Slovenes are yearning for the old Yugoslavia.
The phenomenon of Jugonostalgija has come to Slovenia despite the country's successful entry to the euro, the first of the new EU countries to join, and after 17 years of independence.
Slovenia is hailed as a great Balkan success story and a glowing EU example for the other countries of the former Communist Yugoslavia that collapsed amid civil war in the 1990s.
But many Slovenes look back longingly with "Yugo-nostalgia" to the days before EU membership.
Marco Sporar, a 21-year-old business student who studies in the capital Ljubljana, said he understood why posters of Yugoslavia's founding leader and Second World War hero Marshal Josip Broz Tito are appearing again on the walls of many Slovene homes.
"I have a picture of Tito at home, my mother worships him," he said. "It was easier to get a job then, now everything is about money."
Doubts remain about whether the EU will bring Balkans countries, such as Slovenia and Serbia, together or heal the wounds of past conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.
"The EU is not united like Yugoslavia. Then every country, under Tito, had a voice. In the EU the biggest countries have the biggest say," said Mr Sporar.
Drinking mulled wine at a Christmas street stall, Jernej Bricelj also hailed Tito as the man who bound Yugoslavia together before his creation was torn apart by ethnic conflict a decade after his death.
"He was the only guy who could join so many nations, he was great," said the 29-year-old sales manager for an American telecoms company.
"We got more out of Yugoslavia than the Austro-Hungarian Empire and I am not convinced we will get as much out of the EU."
For others, such as Sandra Piskur, who was five years old when Yugoslavia collapsed, it is more about a nostalgia for cheesy music and the days when a family summer holiday in Croatia did not mean border checkpoints and security.
"I grew up with the old songs when we went on holiday, before Croatia became a different country with a new frontier," said the 21-year-old student.
"Many of the songs were romantic and national folk songs. I know all the lyrics and I like to sing them. I think young people are nostalgic with happy memories of the old days."
Ditto mainland Chinese.
The Slovenes used threats againts the family members of the Yugoslav soldiers and also had many in the Yugoslav army leadership who defected with the army plans.
Basically there wasn't much fighting or interest in fighting to keep Slovenia.
Additionally Britain had sent the Slovenes with millions of military communication equipment shortly before the war broke out and there was smuggling of other weapons and help from other countries.
The Slovenes actually had it the best in Yugoslav because they had the leadership positions and even moved a lot of the choice industry from Serbia to Slovenia.
Now they are "independent" under EU dictates rather than ruling the roost in Yugoslavia and they are unhappy about that.
Slovenes want control over all of former Yugoslavia? Nice try.
Yugoslavia was a Serbian empire from start to finish.
It’s the Serbs who hang onto Montenegro with their teeth.
Slovenes will take EU membership over Balkan swampland any day.
Montenegro has separated from Serbia and the Serbs don't really mind - as long as the Serb population isn't being ethnically cleansed there, and it isn't so things are actually going fine between Montenegro and Serbia now.
But even that was done with western puppet government manipulation - not allowing Montenegrins working in Serbia to vote while flying in ethnic Albanians from Michigan and New York (who'd been born in Montenegro decades ago) to vote and even allowing some in Albanian (near the border of Montenegro) and Kosovo to vote, lowering the requirement for separation to barely over 50%, etc.
Horosho izlojil(uchites,Kisa) ;-)
Slovenes are free people. There’s nothing Srbs can do about it except annex with Belarus maybe.
Yeah, right! Does delusion run in you family?
a friend of mine here in socal emigrated from slovenia
to the states, and he says yugoslavia sucked.
these wimps are like the russians that look back to the good ol’
days of stalin.
“Does delusion run in you family?”
What you be tellin me bro?
Kak?
You lost me after Horosho. LOL!
:)
One of Slovenian pre-WWII politicians said “Serbia gave us a parade horse. We will return them worn jade”. By that he meant that Serbia gave Slovenia place in Kingdom of Yugoslavia and that they will destroy Yugoslavia to get out.
It was carried out exactly like that. Slovenian propagandists
(with the help of BND specialists) prepackaged Austro-Hungarian propaganda and depicted Serbs as evil people who torment poor innocent Slovenes, Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Albanians etc.
This propaganda effort presented the core of Anti-Serbian hysteria, from the time of Slovene violent illegal seccession onwards.
Beside this, Slovenes helped bloody breakup of Yugoslavia with smuggling of weapons for Croatians and Muslims.
Despicable behavior to boot.
Now, when they are in EU, they are not content again. Austro-Hungarian Empire was not good enough to them, Kingdom of Yugoslavia was not good enough to them, post-WWII Yugoslavia was not good enough for them, EU is not good enough to them.
They show penchant for destruction, not for creativity.
Try to read it again :-)
What? Are you smoking something?
Ping!
I’d probably rather be called a Jug than a Slov.
Interestingly enough, my Great-Grandfather's papers when he entered this country in 1906 say "Austria" even though he was ethnically Polish.
He’s telling you that have no idea what you’re talking about.
“We got more out of Yugoslavia than the Austro-Hungarian Empire and I am not convinced we will get as much out of the EU.”
Slovenia was a poor and neglected province of Austria before Yugoslavia existed.
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