What was the Yugoslavia war in the 1990s all about?
To understand what was going on in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, you need to have a little background. During the decline of the Roman Empire, there were a large number of Slavic-speaking tribes that moved into large areas of Eastern Europe, stretching from the modern borders of Greece up as far north as the Baltic Sea and further east. The Slavs that settled in Illyria (what would much later become Yugoslavia) were right on the border between the Eastern and Western Roman Empires. They eventually converted to Christianity and became better integrated with the people already there. Some (mostly in what would become Slovenia and Croatia) were drawn more to the Western Empire. They tended to become Roman Catholics, and eventually wrote their language with Latin letters. Others (mostly in what would become Serbia) were drawn more to the Eastern Empire. They tended to become Orthodox Christians, and eventually wrote their language with a modified version of the Greek alphabet called Cyrillic. S
