The Bosnian Civil War: Important Terms to Know

Between March 1992 and November 1995, the Former Republic of Yugoslavia broke up violently in a devastating civil war, leading to the current nations of Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia. In order to understand the nature of this conflict, it is important to know a few key terms.

Tudjman: An ardent nationalist, Franjo Tudjman was the president of Croatia from 1990 to his death in 1999. Tudjman, who is generally considered comparable to Slobodan Milosevic in terms of responsibility for the breakup of Yugoslavia and the war itself, supported Bosnian Croats throughout the war and allegedly met secretly with Slobodan Milosevic to discuss the division of Bosnia between Croatia and Serbia.

Kostunica: Although Vojislav Kostunica is currently the prime minister of Serbia, where he has recently raised international concern by jailing a prominent political opponent, his most important historical moment was when he beat Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia's 2000 presidential elections. When Milosevic refused to recognize the results of the poll, massive protests organized partially by the Otpor student movement forced him to step down on October 5.

Kosovo Polje: Also known as the Field of Blackbirds, Kosovo Polje was the site of the historic battle in 1389 in which the Serb army was crushed by the Turks. For that and other reasons, Serbs consider Kosovo Polje and Kosovo in general to have special significance to their culture, and have long resented the overwhelming Albanian majority there (a fact that Slobodan Milosevic capitalized on when he launched his political career from there by making a nationalistic speech to a large crowd in 1987).

Krajina: Before the war, Krajina (a region of Croatia that borders Bosnia) was mostly populated by Croatian Serbs. During the conflict, Croatian Serbs formed a quasi-independent (though unrecognized) state called the Republic of Serbian Krajina; however, in 1995, Croatian forces drove the vast majority of Croatian Serbs out of Krajina in a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing.