yugoslavias implosion

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ChApter 1
and the administrative apparatus alone, but only by “Serb nationalism
combined with Croat nationalism.”) 13
In response to the Cvetković-Maček agreement, Stevan Moljević,
a lawyer from Banja Luka and a prominent adviser to Chetnik
leader Draža Mihailović, argued for the creation of an ethnically
homogeneous Serbia to encompass the entire ethnic space inhabited
by Serbs. 14 The frontiers of the Serbian state as defined by Moljević
were almost identical to those of Yugoslavia, leaving out only Slovenia
and parts of Croatia (around Zagreb and in Istria). This project
became the official political program of Draža Mihailović, leader of
the Chetnik movement founded in 1941 from remnants of the Yugoslav
Army defeated by Germany in April of that year. On December
20, 1941, Mihailović sent instructions to the commanders of the Chetnik
detachments, ordering them to “cleanse the state territory of all
national minorities and non-national elements.” 15 In effect, this was
the implementation of the Moljević program. The idea was resurrected
forty years later in a document that became known as “the
Memorandum” and that helped set the stage for the wars of the 1990s.
TITO’S YUGOSLAVIA
World War II and Its Aftermath
The 1941 occupation of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers, the establishment
of the Independent Fascist State of Croatia, and the installation
of a puppet regime in Serbia gave rise to an anti-Fascist
movement with the Communist Party at its head. Serbs and Croats
strove to realize their respective nation-states by relying on the
13 Slobodan Jovanović’s lecture at the Serbian Cultural Club, Srpski glas, no . 4, December 7, 1939 .
14 Stevan Moljević, “Homogeneous Serbia” (1941) . Reproduced in Srpski
nacionalni program, DMP and Grafomark, Belgrade, 2000, p . 57 .
15 Mirsad Abazović, Kadrovski rat za BiH, Savez logorasa BiH, CID, Sarajevo, 1999 .