Essay: Report on The Fall of Yugoslavia by Misha Glenny

In the memoir The Fall of Yugoslavia, journalist Misha Glenny gives his audience a unique perspective of what happened in the Balkans during the 1990’s. The original book was published in 1992 and was rushed so a complete version was later released in 1996. Glenny received a Sony Gold Award for Broadcasting Excellence because of this book.
In 1991, eastern Europe begin to experience social issues amongst the citizens of Yugoslavia. After World War II Yugoslavia was created and consisted of six different republics: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia. President Josip Tito ruled the country and kept everything harmonious until his death in 1980. For the next decade Yugoslavia slowly started to leave its communist government and during this time there was an emergence of nationalist and democrats.
The memoir begins in 1991 with Glenny arriving in Knin, Croatia. From there Glenny travels across Yugoslavia. Glenny’s reason for going to Croatia is to investigate. The biggest problem Yugoslavia faced was citizens of the same ethnic group not all being in one area. For example, Bosnia-Herzegovina had just as many Serbians and Croatians as they did Bosniaks. In June 1991, Slovenia becomes the first republic to leave the kingdom and the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) intervened but failed. The bloodshed was little to none, but this was not the case with Croatia. Technically, Croatia declared independence the same day as Slovenia but there was resentment from the Serbian minority in Croatia which led to the JNA and Croatian Serbs capturing a third of Croatia’s territory. Serbia began ethnically cleansing Bosnian Muslims. An ethnical cleanse is a genocide. The United Nations gets involved and was also attacked. While this happened, Glenny met with leaders of the different republics and experienced firsthand what a war zone is. The crumbling of Yugoslavia stared when Bosnia declared independence, but after the ethnic cleansing began there was no longer a way to reunite the Yugoslav kingdom. By 1995, most of the republics have ended their fighting and were working on unifying their own countries.
Misha Glenny decides to focus on the region’s infamous landmarks, like Knin, to connect leaders and their goals. Glenny’s portrayal of Yugoslavia is descriptive and neutral. At times his view of Serbia is slightly negative but only because Serbia was the first to offensively attack. The purpose behind writing this book was to inform the world about what was really happening in Yugoslavia, but also to persuade nations to become more involved in unethical conflicts globally. Glenny being British is not seen as a threat, and he speaks Serbo-Croat which is a language spoken greatly in the Balkans. By the end, Glenny has provided a comprehensive analysis of the catoptric ramifications of forcing citizens together with unique backgrounds. While being in the middle of a war, Glenny saw many disturbing scenes. Glenny was able to travel most places and that led him to finding different truths about Yugoslavia. Overall, his ability to show different perspectives helps keep his credibility reliable.