The Breakup of Yugoslavia

On 25 October 2026 Serbia votes in a snap election after two years of protests. Serbia was once the largest part of a bigger country that no longer exists. This film tells how Yugoslavia was formed in 1918, torn apart in the Second World War, rebuilt by Tito’s Partisans as a federation of six republics, and kept apart from both Cold War blocs; how debt, the death of Tito and rival nationalisms cracked it in the 1980s; how it broke apart in the wars of 1991 to 1999, including the Srebrenica genocide; and what the courts and the map look like now.

One country, seven states

How Yugoslavia was built, and how it came apart.

A kingdom of South Slavs

Born from the end of the First World War.

Occupation and civil war

A country invaded, divided, and at war with itself.

Tito’s Yugoslavia

A communist country that would not take Moscow’s orders.

The cracks

No leader, a heavy debt, and rival nationalisms.

The wars of the 1990s

One country becomes five, then seven.

After Yugoslavia

Kosovo, Montenegro, and a name that disappears.

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