The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

structured, and the monarch was given power in a constitutive, rather
than a parliamentary monarchy. With the establishment of the principle
“We are all Yugoslavs”, all supporters of a union of several states with
equal rights were treated as enemies of the constitution. The constitution
accorded only Serbs, Croats and Slovenes the status of “constitutive
peoples of the state”; the others were not mentioned. Albanians
and Macedonians who fought for their national rights were combated
like terrorists or criminals, by force of arms. By decree of King Alexander,
the names of these peoples and their symbols were proclaimed abo -
lished; only the name “Yugoslav peoples” was permitted. Thus, historic
and traditional identities of various natures were denied, which led to
discontent amongst all peoples, including the Serbs.
After having propagated the idea of “ancient Serbian territory” for decades,
Serb politicians could imagine Yugoslavia only as an enlarged Serbia.
The recognition of independent Slovene and Croat nations, the
respect for the rights of self-determinations of the Albanians, Macedonian
and the non-Serbian population in Bosnia-Herzegovina was no long -
er communicable in Serbia. The Albanians, whose ancestors had been
pushed into the mountains in the sixth century by the Slavs, had settled
in Kosovo in large number again shortly after the arrival of the Turks, and
many had converted to Islam. They were considered intruders by the
Serbs, and treated as such. There were times in between in which these
two peoples, in accordance with their leaders, respected and supported
each other, and of course spoke both languages, Serbian and Albanian.
The disagreement over the type of state, which had already led to dissonance
at the time of the founding of the common state, could never be
overcome. On the Serbian side was the desire for a modern state on the
classical French model – “one state, one nation”; on the Croatian side,
by contrast, was the idea of “national self-determination”. However, because
of the mixed ethnic structure, no clear border between various nations
could be drawn. In the discussion about territorial claims, the right
of national self-determination was frequently projected into the past. In
the mind of the nationalists, the nations had already existed in their respective
medieval kingdoms. They derived their territorial claims from pre-
Ottoman times, and demanded the restoration of their historic rights.
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