BALKAN DONBASS
Объясняет Readovka
Lessons from the Serbian Krajina for Russia
Everything in history has happened before. The problem of Russia and the Russian republics of Donbass is not unique, and the nearest analogue we find is not at all far away. The Serbian Krajina is a republic that is not on the map these days. It was destroyed by the Croatian armed forces in 1995. However, before Croatia defeated the Serbian insurgency, the Serbs defeated themselves. From the sad history of Krajina we can learn something important for ourselves: the leaders of the Serbian republic and "big" Yugoslavia, bogged down in negotiations, contractual arrangements and corruption schemes, were powerless to confront the challenge that had confronted them.
A house divided – The lands along the south-eastern borders of present-day Croatia long served as the border between the Ottoman Empire and Austria. Serbs who fled from under the Sultan's heavy hand acquired a status similar to the Cossacks in Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - they enjoyed rights and privileges in exchange for military service and protection of their new homeland from the Turks.
However, in the nineteenth century, when national consciousness began to grow across Europe and the Austrian government demilitarized the border, a rift naturally developed between the Serbs and Croats living in the area. The Croats perceived the Serbs as newcomers (even though they had been living there for centuries), whereas the Serbs were proud of their own history of living in the area.
World War II left scars that were simply impossible to eradicate. What was done to the Serbs who lived in Croatia could be boldly qualified as genocide. The Croatian nationalist movement of the Ustashas carried out a massacre in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed.
