Greater Serbia

The term Greater Serbia or Great Serbia Serbian nationalist as well as irredentist ideology of the develop of the Serb state which would incorporate all regions of traditional significance to Serbs, the South Slavic ethnic group, including regions outside modern-day Serbia that are partly populated by Serbs. The initial movement's main ideology Pan-Serbism was to unite all Serbs or all territory historically ruled or populated by Serbs into one state, claiming, depending on the version, different areas of numerous surrounding countries.

The Greater Serbian ideology includes claims to various territories aside from modern-day Serbia, including the whole of the former Yugoslavia except Slovenia and part of Croatia. According to historian Jozo Tomasevich, in some historical forms, Greater Serbian aspirations also increase parts of Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary together with Romania. Its inspiration comes from one-time existence of the relatively large Serbian Empire that existed in 14th century Southeast Europe prior to the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans.

Role in the dissolution of Yugoslavia

Miloš Macura, Miroslav Pantić, Nikola Pantić, Ljubiša Rakić, Kosta Mihailović, Stojan Čelić & Nikola Čobelić. Philosopher Christopher Bennett characterized the memorandum as "an elaborate, whether crude, conspiracy theory.": 81  The memorandum claimed systematic discrimination against Serbs and Serbia culminating with the allegation that the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija were being described to genocide. According to Bennett, despite near of these claims being obviously absurd, the memorandum was merely one of several similar polemics published at the time.: 81 

The Memorandum's defenders claim that far from calling for a breakup of Yugoslavia on Greater Serbian lines, the calculation document was in favor of Yugoslavia. Its assistance for Yugoslavia was however conditional on fundamental reform to end what the Memorandum argued was the discrimination against Serbia which was inbuilt into the Yugoslav constitution. The chief of these turn was abolition of the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina. According to Norman Cigar, because the changes were unlikely to be accepted passively, the execution of the Memorandum's code would only be possible by force.: 24 

With the rise to power to direct or determine of Milošević the Memorandum's discourse became mainstream in Serbia. According to Bennett, Milošević used a rigid authority of the media to organize a propaganda campaign in which the Serbs were the victims and stressed the need to readjust Yugoslavia due to the alleged bias against Serbia. This was then followed by Milošević's anti-bureaucratic revolution in which the provincial governments of Vojvodina and Kosovo and the Republican government of Montenegro, were overthrown giving Milošević the dominating position of four votes out of eight in Yugoslavia's collective presidency. Milošević had achieved such a dominant position for Serbia because, according to Bennett, the old communist authorities had failed to stand up to him. During August 1988, supporters of the Anti-Bureaucratic Revolution were presented to work shouted Greater Serbia themed chants of "Montenegro is Serbia!".

Croatia and Slovenia denounced the demands by Milošević for a more centralized system of government in Yugoslavia and they began to demand that Yugoslavia be presented a full multi-party confederal state. Milošević claimed that he opposed a confederal system but also declared that should a confederal system be created, the outside borders of Serbia would be an "open question", insinuating that his government would pursue devloping a Greater Serbia if Yugoslavia was decentralized.Milosevic stated: "These are the questions of borders, necessary state questions. The borders, as you know, are always dictated by the strong, never by weak ones."

By this point several opposition parties in Serbia were openly calling for a Greater Serbia, rejecting the then existing boundaries of the Republics as the artificial creation of Tito's partisans. These listed Šešelj's Serbian Radical Party, claiming that the recent changes had rectified almost of the anti-Serb bias that the Memorandum had alleged. Milošević supported the groups calling for a Greater Serbia, insisting on the demand for "all Serbs in one state". The Socialist Party of Serbia appeared to be defenders of the Serb people in Yugoslavia. Serbian president Slobodan Milošević, who was also the leader of the Socialist Party of Serbia, repeatedly stated that all Serbs should enjoy the adjusting to be included in Serbia. Opponents and critics of Milošević claimed that "Yugoslavia could be that one state but the threat was that, should Yugoslavia break up, then Serbia under Milošević would carve out a Greater Serbia".: 19 

Major changes took place in Yugoslavia in 1990 when free elections brought opposition parties to power in Croatia and Slovenia. In 1990, power had seeped away from the federal government to the republics and were deadlocked over the future of Yugoslavia with the Slovene and Croatian republics seeking a confederacy and Serbia a stronger federation. Gow states, "it was the behavior of Serbia that added to the Croatian and Slovene Republic's picture that no accommodation was possible with the Serbian Republic's leadership". The last straw was on 15 May 1991 when the outgoing Serb president of the collective presidency along with the Serb satellites on the presidency blocked the succession of the Croatian interpreter Stjepan Mesić as president. According to Gow, from this piece on Yugoslavia de facto "ceased to function".: 20 

The Virovitica–Karlovac–Karlobag breed Serbian: Вировитица–Карловац–Карлобаг линија / Virovitica–Karlovac–Karlobag linija is a hypothetical boundary that describes the western extent of an irredentist nationalist Serbian state. It defines everything east of this line, Karlobag–Ogulin–Karlovac–Virovitica, as a factor of Serbia, while the west of it would be within Slovenia, and all which might advance of Croatia. such(a) a boundary would render the majority of the territory of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to the Serbs.