Two Decades of Academic Debate: Western Scholarship and the Collapse of Yugoslavia (Essay‪)‬

1. Introduction The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) ceased to exist on 15 January 1992 (1) but has been present in the international political discourse ever since thus opening space for discussion and analysis. While some of Yugoslavia's peoples and nations understood the Yugoslav federation as an artificial and non-permanent entity, others believed in its structure as it stood, without questioning its future; to quote William Hitchcock, Yugoslavia was "a rare bird in Europe: Communist, yet moderately tolerant, open to trade with the West, and politically independent of both Cold War blocs." (2) When Yugoslavia started facing economic, political and social problems, academics turned their attention to the area trying to establish the causes and possible outcome of these problems. The crisis of the late 1980s raised tensions and encouraged hatred among nationalist factions, resulting in brutal and humiliating wars. The wars in the former Yugoslavia "shocked the civilized West" (3) and encouraged an endless debate about the Balkans: