

The following map was published by National Geographic Vol. 178, No.2, August 1990 , less than a year before the civil wars broke in ex-Yugoslavia, on page 105. The front page of the August issue had title

Yugoslavia, A House Much Divided

The above map was designed by the National Geographic Society Cartographic Division.
Design: Bob Pratt
Research: Ross M. Emerson
Production: John L. Beeson, James E. McClelland, Jr.
Map Editor: Jon A. Sayre, Sr.
Consultants: George W. Hoffman, Charles Jelavich [a Croat]

(N.G.) NOTE: Colors represent areas where an ethnic nationality constitutes 50% or more of the population.

What should you note on the map:

  1. The Serbs, here presented in light green, are majority population over large portions of Bosnia (in 1990) as well as large portions of Tito designed "Croatia".
  2. Future "Bosniacs" (here simply "Muslims") - are, at last, presented at all as a separate "nationality". On the map they are presented in brown. They are majority population only in a small discontinuous portion of Bosnia, and in part of Serbia. Why was ENTIRE Bosnia-Hercegovina given to their control?
  3. The white areas, according to the map, are areas with "No predominant ethnic group". Note that those include:
    - Sarajevo
    - Mostar
    - Osijek/Vukovar
    These were exacly places of heavy battles between different ethnic groups. Also, the battles raged at the places of contact between majority area masses.
  4. Last but not least: The ethnic map of Yugoslavia was not secret. Here we see it in a public publication accessible to anyone interested. Those (thousands) of Western media people that repeated over and over that the Serbs "occupied", "conquered", "landgrabbed" portions of Croatia, Bosnia - had to know that they were involved in pure propaganda.

The above presented map was accompanied by a short history of the area. We will provide excerpts from a few (Quote:)

  • VOJVODINA (Province): To dilute Serbian hegemony, President Tito (1953 to 1980) promoted greater self-rule for the provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo, although they remanined subordinate to the Republic of Serbia. Though the Serbs are the largest group in Vojvodina, ethnic Hungarians constitute a large minority.
  • KOSOVO (Province): The hearland of medieval Serbia - dirt poor but mineral rich - Kosovo is home to some 1.7 million ethnic Albanians. Predominantly Islamic in faith, they are Yugoslavia's fastest growing population and a source of enmity to Serbian nationalists who view Kosovo as a kind of Serbian Palestine.
  • SERBIA: Serbs make up 40 percent of Yugoslavia's population. Determined to maintain national unity... Serbs revere the memory of their 14th-century emperor, Stefan Dus"an, who extended Serbian rule in the Balkans. Fierce fighters, the Serbs defied Turkish control and preserved the Serbian Orthodox faith through centuries of occupation.
  • MONTENEGRO: Once part of the Serbian empire, this isolated mountainous kingdom gained fame as a sanctuary for Serbian freedom fighters after the Battle of Kosovo Field. For centuries... Montenegro maintained its autonomy during the Ottoman period.
  • BOSNIA and HERCEGOVINA: Religious mavericks, Bosnians once included the wrath of popes by following a heretical sect as Bogomils. Later they and the people of Hercegovina provided the largest number of Slavic converts to Islam during Ottoman rule. Muslims were recognized as an ethnic nationality [by Tito's Communists] in 1969. Today the republic is 40 percent Islamic.
  • MACEDONIA: ...Balkan brew of Slavs... Serbian(!!!) Macedonia became a republic when the modern Yugoslav state was formed [for the second time - by the Communists] in 1946.
  • SLOVENIA: One of the "peasant nations" of the Habsburg empire... Through the centuries its cities were outposts of German culture. That the Slovene language was preserved is a tribute to continued use by the peasant population and Roman Catholic clerics.
  • CROATIA: ...flourished in 10th and 11th centuries, after which it was dominated by the Hungarian kingdom.

OUR NOTE: The country of Yugoslavia was formed in 1918. Its first name was the "Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes". Those three nations were the constituent nations of Yugoslavia. Thus, they have the right to (using peaceful means) negotiate leaving the union.

Albanians of Kosovo are NOT constituent nation of Yugoslavia. They are minority in the true sense of the term. To make a precedent and give Albanians of Kosovo "right" to secede would open a whole new Pandora's box in the international relationships.


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Last revised: May 3, 1998