yugoslavias implosion

the unification of all Serbs. The Serbs had accomplished their aims
by war. Biljana Plavšić, the vice-president of Republika Srpska, said
that she expected the Serbian intellectuals to lend their support to
unification because a decision to the contrary could “create a wrong
impression about the desires of the majority of the Serb people and
disappoint our fighters, who are risking their lives in order to realize
the centuries-old dream of the Serbs to live in one state, to exercise
their universal talents and to create a democratic, progressive
and integral Serb country.” Addressing the gathering, Ekmečić said
that “following its destruction through no fault of our own, Yugoslavia
is now subordinated to the unification of the Serb people in
its national state, at least until we have all of us licked our wounds
clean. If Yugoslavia is fated again—it will be created in a more propitious
day and age.” 146
Academic Pavle Ivić said that there was a “positive side to the
war in that it had reinforced among the Serbs an awareness of the
need for Serb unity and awakened dormant energies. The total unification
of the Serbs, not only political but also economic, cultural,
linguistic, has become the ideal of the people who have come to realize
that there is no survival without reliance on the mother country
to the east of the River Drina. What has been achieved in Republika
Srpska is possible only in such exceptional situations. We are talking
of a unique historical chance.” 147
In the opinion of academic Miodrag Jovičić, the secession of
Croatia on the one hand and of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the other
jeopardized the very core of the Serbian national being:
For this reason, the way it was carried out, it was unacceptable to the
Serb people … At the beginning of 1992 the Serb people made the decision
to establish a separate Serb Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
146 ‘Srpsko pitanje danas’ (the Serb Question today), Second
Congress of Serbian Intellectuals, Belgrade 1995 .
147 Ibid .
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