LOGORI ZA IZOLACIJU POLITIČKIH PROTIVNIKA NA TLU JUGOSLAVIJE 1918-2000
CONFINEMENT CAMPS FOR POLITICAL OPPONENTS IN YUGOSLAVIA 1918-2000

Summary/Abstract: This article deals with the interpretation of Yugoslav history (1918-1992) through the analysis of a specific historical phenomenon: mass isolation of political opponents (real or assumed). Ten theses are offered as criteria for defining this phenomenon, followed by a classification in three levels, according to the makeup and treatment of those who were confined. Thus a theoretical model is set, with which local cases can be compared, specifically those manifested in the course of Yugoslavia’s history. In the 81 year long history of this state, mass isolation of political opponents existed for a total of 23 years, regardless of the type of regime currently in power. Confinement camps for political opponents existed in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (Yugoslavia), during the country’s occupation in the Second World War, in the course of establishing the communist regime, and during the country’s subsequent dissolution. Growth in the number of confinement camps coincided with the most important events of the 20th century: the world wars and the end of the cold war. It seems logical to conclude that factors of foreign policy and their influence on social and political circumstances in Yugoslavia stand in close relation to this phenomenon. It has been determined that the practice of setting up political confinement camps in Yugoslavia was a continuation of the Habsburg monarchy’s treatment of its Slavic and Romantic subjects, to the point that several specific solutions were directly taken over from that model. In Yugoslavia the camps were often one of the instruments used in settling ethnic questions, despite the occasional attempts to mask this basic purpose behind ideological justifications. Such camps can be considered a factor of continuity between the disintegrated monarchy and the state which inherited those of its territories inhabited mostly by the South Slavs.

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