FROM THE ZITZER CLUB TO THE BATTLE OF LASLOVO. The involvement of the Hungarian minorities in the 1991-1995 Yugoslav wars

• Main Author: Szabolcs LÁSZLÓ
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: National University of Political Science and Public Administration, Bucharest 2012-12-01
• Series: Romanian Journal of Society and Politics
• Subjects: Yugoslavia; Baranja; Vojvodina; minorities; ethnic conflict; ethnic manipulation; conscription; anti-war demonstrations; cognitive frames
• Online Access: http://rjsp.politice.ro/files/December2012/hunagrian_minorities.pdf
• ISSN: 1582-5795; 2393-3224

The paper addresses a ‘blind-spot’ of the scholarly works dealing the 1991- 1995 wars in former Yugoslavia, namely: examining the involvement of the Hungarian minorities of the Baranja and Vojvodina regions in the armed conflicts of the war in Croatia. It starts with a short presentation of the demographic and political situation of the Hungarian communities living in the two regions. The following comparative analysis will embed the issue in the ongoing scholarly discussions on ethnicity formation and ethnic conflict, giving a conceptualization of the phenomenon discussed, and explaining the nature of the involvement of the Hungarian minority in the war. The case of the Hungarian minorities reinforces the perspective that the armed conflict was not an ‘ethnic war’, but an artificially imposed aggression and polarizing force that went against the ‘normal’ frame of mind and social behavior of a multiethnic federal state.