Liz and Jim Patton

The very first story we hear from our Croatian driver Pepo was the saga of the defense of Dubrovnik from the Serb attack of 1991.

On October 1, the JNA (once the ‘Yugoslav People’s Army,’ but at this point, simply a Serbian army commanded by Slobodan Milosevic) attacked Dubrovnik. The onslaught was unexpected – virtually no Serbs lived in Dubrovnik, and there were not JNA military facilities to “protect” – and it was complete. The few young men available to defend the town fled in the face of overwhelming numbers and went up the mountain above the city to an old French fort bringing only the few weapons they owned, while the Serbs completed their capture and marched through the local countryside, looting first, and then burning, every house. They captured everything up to the walls of the old town, which were heavily fortified.

Pepo and the others who had climbed the hill on October 1 numbered 163 and called themselves the163 Brigade. They shot at the troops as best they could, but the Serbs prevailed, stationing themselves around the walled Old Town and proceeding to shell and bomb the buildings and churches inside until it was destroyed. As a last measure, in November, they destroyed every private boat in the harbor.

The Serbs also fired at the defenders on the hill, but were pushed back and never took over the fort. Eventually, as the destruction of the city that Byron had called the “Pearl of the Adriatic” became notorious around the world, funds came to them from the US, Israel and other countries and they were able to buy more munitions to shell the intruders more aggressively. Croatian soldiers left the JNA and joined the Brigade. The siege of Dubrovnik ended after 9 months. Official accounts say that the destruction of the city was enough for the Serbs and that the war effort had shifted to Bosnia-Herzogovina. But, according to Pepo, 163 Brigade pushed them into the Bosnian hills.

It was a satisfying story, told on a rainy ride around the countryside and finished in a rural restaurant drinking Croatian wine. But this area, once Yugoslavia and now multiple countries, has been a complex mix of religions and ethnicities for more than a millennium, and the issues among its peoples are multilayered and intractable. Here’s a quick analysis from a chart on one of our guidebooks:

• Serbs: Orthodox
• Croats: Catholic
• Bosniaks: Muslim
• Slovenes: Catholic
• Macedonians (like Bulgarians)
• Montenegrins (like Serbs)

But….. not really. For example, Bosnia is 40% Muslim, 37% Serb and 20% Croat.

Additionally, rulers have changed often, even recently. Pepo, a Croat who is from a family that is Catholic and has always been Catholic, and always lived in the same area of Croatia, gave us rundown of his own family history:

Grandfather, born 1875 into the Austro-Hungarian Empire; Father, born 1920 into the Kingdom of Serbians, Croatians and Slovenians; Pepo, born 1966 into Yugoslavia; Pepo’s son Carlo, born 2004 into Croatia

How did this all happen?

A Quick History

The Balkan Peninsula – just across the Adriatic Sea from Italy – is populated by Slavs who migrated to this region during the 6^th and 7^th Centuries, becoming the Croats, Slovenes, Serbians and Bosniaks of today.

The region was at the interface of three major religions. The Christianity found here by the coming Slavs was in two forms – Roman Catholic in the west and Byzantine Orthodox in the east. The Muslim Ottoman Empire invaded the south Balkans, home of the Serbs, winning the Battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389. This forced the Serbs north into Croatia and Bosnia, angering the Croats. The Hapsburgs forced the Orthodox Serbs to stay at the border with the Ottomans, using them as a human shield to protect Catholic Austria and Croatia, angering the Serbs. When the Ottoman Empire finally died out, the Austrians took over everything. The Serbs felt pushed around and wanted their own homeland, so Serb Gavrilo Princip shot Austrian Duke Franz Ferdinand inadvertently triggering WWI.

After WWI ended, the country united into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians, but still, not everyone was happy. The Kingdom was run by Alexander Karadordevic, a Serb, which angered the Croats. The Croat leader, Stepan Radic, initially opposed the union, but was forced by the world to concede. He fought the Serbs at every turn, and finally they shot him in 1928. The Croats got their revenge by shooting Karadordevic in 1934, and the country was ready to collapse by the beginning of WWII.

After Hitler’s Luftwaffe brought the area to submission, Croatia (and Bosnia-Herzogovina) was run by a puppet government, the Ustase, Serbia was occupied by the Nazis, Slovenia had its own puppet government, and Montenegro was occupied by Italy. It was a mess. The Ustase in Croatia set up their own concentration camps, and slaughtered Jews, Romas and hundreds of thousands of Serbs. (The Serbs used this as excuse for their treatment of the Croats and Dubrovnik in the 1990’s.)

After WWII, Tito rose to power and held the country together until his death in 1980. He was a heavy-handed dictator as he came to power, brutally eliminating opposition, then put on a warm and fuzzy face as he worked to unite the disparate parts of the country and walk a line between Russian Communism and the Western Powers. But, things unraveled quickly after his death.