Yugoslavia

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cultural diversity. Today the country is
officially composed of six republics
(proceedi'l?; fran north am west to east
and south): Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia­
Her zegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, and
Macedonia.
Thia is, of course, the perspective as
seen from Western Europe and North
America. Were we to view matters from
the Mediterranean or Middle East, the
order could as easily be reversed. The
principal language of the country can be
called Serbo-Croatian from the viewpoint
of Serbia, the numerically largest
republic. It has been called Croato­
Serbian when seen fran the perspective
of Croatians. The republic of Serbia is
further broken down into the area Serbia
proper and the autonanous areas of the
Vojvodina, north of the Danube, and
Kosovo, south of the central area of
Serbia.
The complexity of the country is further
reinforced by the fact that the six
republics and two autonomous regions
contain diverse peoples. There are three
principal religious groups: Catholic,
Orthodox, and Moslem. (There are
relatively few Protestants and even fewer
Je>os followi'l?; the extenninstion policy
of the Nazis in World War II.) Slovenia
am Croatia are the principal Catholic
aress, although there is a large Serbian
Orthodox minority in Croatia. Bosnia­
Herzegovina is the most mixed republic,
from a religious point of view,
containing substantial numbers of
Catholics, Orthodox am Moslems, often
sharing the same villages or living in
neighbori'l?; ccmnunities within the same
district. Serbia, Montenegro, and
Macedonia are principally Orthodox (there
are both Serbian and Macedonian Orthodox
Church organizations) • But there are
significant numbers of Moslems,
especially in Macedonia.
RELIGIOUS, LINGUISTIC, AND ETHNIC GROUPS
In addition to the religious diversity,
th!'!re is also linguistic diversity. The
Slovenes have their own distinctive
language. The Serbs and Croats speak
mutually intelligible variants of the
same language. The former have
historically used the Cyrillic alphabet
and the latter the Latin alphabet. The
Montenegrins share the same language,
alphabet, and religion with the Serbs and
are considered by most scholars as
historically one people.
The Macedonians have their own lS'l?;uage
and their separate branch of the Orthodox
church as noted. Macedonian became an
official language only after World war
II. Before the war this area was
considered simply South Serbia, while the
Bulgarians consider the language a
variant of their own.
The Moslems are a complex group,
consisting both of Serbo-Croatian
speakers and Albanians who live
principally in the Kosovo, but also in
Macedonia, am speak their own lS'l?;uage.
They are mainly It>slem, and a smaller
number are Catholic. They are the
largest non-South Slavic group in
Yugoslavia (1,310,000 in 1971).
The Hungarians are the second-largest
non-South Slavic group (478,000 in 1971)
and live in Serbia's autonomous area of
the Vojvodins, principally near the
border with their ancestral country.
There is also a significant Romanian
group in the same area (59,000 in 1971).
(Many of the records in the Utah Genealogical
Society derive from the
connections through Hungary and Austria
and pertain to the Vojvodina.)
The records in the Society's archives
also reflect the prewar presence of a
large . ethnic GeIman population in the
Vojvodins. (They numbered approximately
SOO,OOO in 1931 but only 13,000 in 1971.)
This population dates from settlements
planned by the Austro-Huogarian Hapsburg
monarchs in the late seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. Most ethnic
Germans fled or were forced out of
Yugoslavia followi'l?; the Gennan defest in
World War II.
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