Group Pushes Recognition of Yugoslav Nationality

The Association Nasa Jugoslavija [Our Yugoslavia Alliance] established the Savez Jugoslovena on March 21, 2010.

In a press statement it said that people of Yugoslav nationality have the right to protect their identity and cultural, artistic, linguistic and literary inheritance.  

The group wants to open public discussion on the rights of Yugoslav nationals and their “active role in democratisation”.  

The statement added that “Yugoslavs still exist and they are proud of their position as the only alternative to nationalism.”

The alliance aims to band all Yugoslavs, “no matter their political, religious, sexual or any other” determination, where ever they live.  

“The Alliance is determined that it is necessary to work actively and directly on erasing all the national divisions and bringing together all the people who were separated by the wars that took place in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, SFRY, as the country dissolved."

In their press statement, they also wrote that hate speech had to be overcome and a new language “of love and reconciliation” be established.

“Special attention should be given to the open reconsideration of the causes of the previous wars, with the goal to analyse the causes and allow disagreements to be overcome and confidence to be established.”

The SFRY was established on November 29, 1943 in Jajce as a union of 5 peoples and 6 republics, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia. Slovenia and Croatia proclaimed independence in 1991, and eventually all the republics separated from Yugoslavia, amidst war and ethnic cleansing.