From Brussels to Belgrade

Relevant Archives

The archives of EU institutions, instituted after the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community in the 1950s, keep records of all sorts of meetings, discussions, and adopted policies. With regard to the EC–Yugoslav relations in the period from 1968 (when the official relations between the two parties were established) to 1992 (when the Yugoslav federation ceased to exist), the archives of EU institutions provide valuable collections of primary sources focusing first on economic and then political aspects. For example, as demonstrated elsewhere, by the end of the 1970s, some fierce debates over Yugoslavia had become a frequent feature within the European Parliament and then, during the 1980s, numerous meetings, powerful statements, and disputable promises served to bring both parties’ authorities together in order to test their readiness to cooperate (Radeljić, 2012, pp. 68–92). Often mistakenly, the emphasis was on financial assistance, which was understood as the only prerequisite for Yugoslavia’s stability and progress no matter the field and, accordingly, the Community agreed to continue to support its Mediterranean partner financially, while political cooperation was almost completely ignored.

In Yugoslavia, the outbreak of the state crisis generated an uneasy period in the life of local archives and, more relevantly, their collections. As soon as some of the archives in Croatia had been affected by the war, Josip Kolanović, the then director of the Archives of Croatia in Zagreb, sent a letter to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization underlining that “[t]he sources kept in the Croatian archives are of extreme importance for history not only of Croatia, but of the Balkans as well as of the Mediterranean world” and asking for “professional and all possible help to protect the archival treasure” (Kolanović as cited in Ficović, 1992, p. 227). In Bosnia and Herzegovina, in addition to the city of Mostar, where the establishment hosting archival collections “was literally levelled by the Croat paramilitaries in 1993” (Banac, 1999, p. 218), various other archives and often their collections were also heavily damaged by the conflicting parties (Sarić, 1999). To complicate the situation further, following the official demise of the Yugoslav federation, the question of division of archival material emerged, requiring rapid solutions. As followed, in October 1997, directors of the state archives of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia met in the Archives of Yugoslavia in Belgrade to discuss the matter, agreeing to respect archival theory and international principles. They agreed on the following:

1. All the citizens of successor states of Yugoslavia would have access to archival material at the same conditions, based on the Law and other archival regulations. In respect of the access of the archival material for the needs of successor states the procedure terms could be shorter from those established in the Law; 2. In respect of archival material of former Yugoslavia the basic archival principle of provenance should be respected; 3. Respecting the principles of provenance and archival integrity, in accordance with principle of functional pertinence, we could, as an exception, discuss the question of original documents or groups of documents, relating to successor states and their work; 4. It is necessary, as soon as possible, to elaborate the archival review of record groups or fonds, and of the creators of archival material of federation, without any regard of the place where they are kept; 5. The solution of the problem of the state archives of former Yugoslavia could be accelerated if it would be taken out from other items of succession, and elaboration of the proposal of the solution would be confided to the state archives, on the basis of international archival practice and principles. (Pandžić, 1999, p. 249)

No matter whether division of archival materials related to the existence of the First (1918–1941), Second (1945–1992), or Third Yugoslavia (1992–2003) will ever satisfy everybody’s expectations, the archives in present-day Croatia and Serbia are the ones that are rather challenging to approach and explore their material. An attempt to get access and explore material in the Croatian State Archive remained just an attempt, rather than an accomplished act. Although advised by various colleagues and interviewees to visit the archive in Zagreb, in a brief e-mail dated February 15, 2008, a member of staff informed me that the archive did not actually possess anything relevant for any aspect of my research. In Serbia, in rather contrast to the Diplomatic Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which inherited the relevant diplomatic material after the collapse of Yugoslavia and now offers a number of quite useful records, the Archive of Yugoslavia represented an endless hassle and this was mainly due to the poor classification of the documents. For example, one of the folders about European affairs, while containing some details about various meetings between European and Yugoslav officials, at one point offered material about trade agreements between Cuba and the SFRY. Still, irregularities of this kind seem minor when compared to the fact that some folders that might have complemented my research were destroyed during the North Atlantic Treaty Organization intervention against Yugoslavia in 1999.

Archival Documents

With regard to the selection of documents to be used, one needs to keep in mind various aspects. As correctly suggested in the literature,

[t]he archival record doesn’t just happen; it is created by individuals and organizations, and used, in turn, to support their values and missions, all of which comprises a process that is certainly not politically and culturally neutral … Archival work is critical in shaping history. (Kaplan, 2000, p. 147)

Interview Structure

Thinking about different structures, I rarely opted for structured interviews. As defined by Isadore Newman and Keith McNeil “[t]he structured interview consists of an interviewer reading the questions, possible answers, and recording the answers. This type of interview is most appropriate when one is not interested in attitudes or personal feelings” (Newman & McNeil, 1998, p. 27). Thus, due to its highly formal and rather quick nature, this way of gaining information can easily become least interesting and useful. In fact, structured interviews are only suitable when the respondents do not have enough time for semi- or unstructured interviews. Apart from being very short in nature, structured interviews run the risk of influencing respondents’ answers.

Semi-structured or guided interviews proved to be the ones to appreciate most. These interviews included a set of questions created in advance which were however sufficiently flexible that the additional questions could arise and complement the original ones. As argued by one author, semi-structured interviews

are ones where research and planning produce a session in which most of the informant’s responses can’t be predicted in advance and where you as interviewer therefore have to improvise probably half—and maybe 80 percent or more—of your responses to what they say in response to your initial prepared question or questions. (Wengraf, 2001, p. 5)

Right Respondents

The interviewees (44 in total) were purposefully selected based on the following criteria: their direct involvement in the events and policy-making processes both within the EC and the Yugoslav federation; their indirect involvement as government officials, diplomats, advisors, academics, journalists, and clergy members, or their extensive writings that sometimes ended up published as memoires. Approaching such individuals means that sometimes they would talk about their personal experiences in their own name, whereas sometimes they would represent their respective associations, institutions, and organizations. A few respondents wanted their names to remain anonymous during and after the research process and this was respected. Interestingly, some other respondents wanted to know who had already been approached and who was next. Questions such as “Have you spoken about this with somebody else?” and “I hope I managed to help you. Who will you be talking to next?” were occasionally heard, but here, even if the previous interviewees did not mind having their names mentioned to the later ones, I maintained my personal right to decide whether to reveal any information. More precisely, the names were not disclosed as soon as there was a slight impression that the decision to reveal them could affect the overall quality of the conversation and, on the contrary, they were revealed when believing that they were not going to affect the interview in a negative way. Of course, this was not always so straightforward; for example, on a few occasions I was asked “Why do you want to talk to me if you have already talked to her/him?”—a question that required a well-framed diplomatic answer, if conducting an interview was still an option.

Policy makers offered a wider insight into what was really going on in the crucial moments determining Yugoslavia’s future. They contributed to my understanding of the relations between the EC and the Yugoslav federation as well as what importance the nonstate actors played in shaping the Community’s decisions to recognize Slovenia and Croatia as independent states. Luckily, most of them were still alive, often retired, and willing to take part in semi-structured interviews that gave them greater freedom to answer questions as they thought was best, rather than being constrained within a set of predefined “closed” questions. Accordingly, in order to gain higher quality information and crystallize their standpoint, they were asked some unconventional and puzzling questions: If both the EC and the SFRY lived very different lives (often due to Cold War dynamics), what was the crucial point that brought them closer and how did the things change after that point? What were the main issues discussed by the respective representatives? Did the nonstate actors take part in the Yugoslav state crisis due to the obvious lack of the Community’s policy or was it even before the crisis that they started lobbying for independence of Slovenia and Croatia? What contacts were established and how were they cultivated? Where did the main support (financial and moral) come from? The same method was applied to all the informants, irrespective of their background, or the group they belonged to.

Diplomats were rather enthusiastic to take a look back and reassess some of the standpoints particular policy makers had adopted and promoted as most appropriate at the time. One diplomat representing one of the Yugoslav republics and now an independent state even started crying while describing the incredible lack of knowledge that existed among Western policy makers—a problem already discussed in some previously published studies. For example, Viktor Meier writes that he

had never before encountered such a colossal jumble of political error, lazy thinking, and superficiality as [he] encountered then among the Western diplomatic corps in Belgrade …, most of whom went beyond the city limits of the capital only with great reluctance. (Meier, 1999, p. 217)

Various other interviewees such as diaspora representatives, journalists, and clergy members contributed by telling stories they considered relevant for this type of research. Talking about diaspora funding and greater involvement during the crisis clarified the idea as to how home governments (Slovenian and, to a lesser extent, Croatian) and diaspora groups strengthened their links and worked toward their final goal—independence. Media experts identified major themes that propaganda relied on and elaborated on uses and abuses of media power. Here, although I largely benefited from the existing media materials in various media agencies, the interviews primarily managed to convince me how cautious any researcher has to be when selecting media sources due to their biased and often erroneous reporting. For example, without trying to understand the essence of the problem, the influential Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung attributed pro-European values to the republics of Slovenia and Croatia, in contrast to their treatment of Serbia. From a completely different perspective, the major Serbian newspapers—Politika and Večernje novosti—insisted on the victimization of the Serbs without considering their own ever-increasing involvement and responsibility for crimes committed outside the Republic of Serbia. Clergy members talked about religious aspects that preceded and characterized the Yugoslav state crisis. In this respect, lengthy discussions about the shift of the Vatican’s policy from initially supporting the unity of Yugoslavia to supporting its disaggregation were of great use.

Finally, but perhaps equally importantly, academics were approached. Jürgen Habermas (2009, p. 52) sees an intellectual as someone who “seeks out important issues, proposes fruitful hypotheses, and broadens the spectrum of relevant arguments in an attempt to improve the lamentable level of public debates.” Intellectuals often provide fresh questions and encourage further thinking about the issues one tries to examine. Very often, while perceiving them as the ones who possess the ultimate knowledge due to the endless research they have committed themselves to, I used every opportunity to ask questions that had already been asked elsewhere and get a better chance of identifying a truthful answer. Sometimes the “new” answers fully confirmed the already obtained ones, sometimes not. Many academics were occupying reputable positions even before the Yugoslav crisis and its outbreak was an opportunity to apply for various research projects aimed at establishing what really went wrong with Yugoslavia; however, depending on who the funding bodies were, the advertized calls for projects were often supposed to serve some agenda (departmental or institutional), meaning to support one side or the other, without sincerely questioning the very nature of the Yugoslav state crisis and respective responsibilities. This, of course, resulted in the polarization of academic scholarship and consequent labeling of academics as being almost exclusively pro-Western (including pro-Slovenian and Croatian) or pro-Serbian (often implying pro-Milošević). With this in mind, it was very important to be aware of the background, research profile, and public engagement of academics to be approached, as to what their point of view was like before the outbreak of the crisis, how it evolved, and which direction it took during and immediately after the crisis. Accordingly, some academics never abandoned (or wanted to compromise) their originally adopted viewpoint, whereas some others occasionally changed their position, resulting in the appreciation of actors they previously criticized or vice versa.

Challenges and Possible Solutions

The previous two sections have outlined some of the practical challenges encountered while conducting research on the relations between the EC and Yugoslavia and the consequent European involvement in the Yugoslav state crisis and the role of nonstate actors. Being granted access to one archive rather than the other is not a big problem as long as relevant official documents are found and properly acknowledged. In this respect, it is important to note that the archives of the EU institutions (given the supranational dimension of the EU itself) are remarkably well coordinated, meaning that documents originally produced in one institution are often copied and stored in other institutions. By contrast, the post-Yugoslav space has been characterized by disputes over the right to archival material.

More worryingly for the construction of examination of EC-SFRY relations, while comparing the documents stored in the archives of EU institutions and the present Diplomatic Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia, it becomes apparent that there is a significant difference between the two sites with regard to the documents they store. While it is evident that the EC and the SFRY produced their own documents, they also often translated and stored each other’s documents talking about the relations between them (unless marked top secret), the two however carefully selected which material they wanted to translate and make available in their depositories. As it happened to be the case, the Community tended to avoid translating documents and debates in which the Yugoslav authorities criticized it for what they viewed as discriminatory policies, limiting Yugoslavia’s access to the European market. Still, much more dramatically, the Yugoslav leadership exercised its power to review and decide not to translate and store almost anything that criticized it for the country’s overall mismanagement, including economic performance, political issues, and societal problems (Radeljić, 2015). The decision to ignore numerous sources of crucial political relevance is a very good illustration of the existence of an undeniable link between archives and politics. For example, European Parliament debates about the future of Yugoslavia after the death of President Josip Broz Tito was ignored and, in fact, never translated. Similarly, some other debates, clearly outlining the European concerns and criticism directed toward the Yugoslav leadership for its mistreatment of the Kosovo Albanian population, were simply not dealt with by the Yugoslav authorities and archivists. With this in mind, any research about the relations between the EC-SFRY should be based on the documents found in the archives of EU institutions or, even better, in both sites, as the decision not to do so could easily generate misleading impressions and wrong knowledge.

With regard to the interviews, practical challenges were mostly related to the time and place of the meeting. The option to choose actually meant that apart from meeting the respondents in their offices, we occasionally met in nearby coffee shops or even McDonald’s restaurants. Such meeting points are benign enough and thus unlikely to affect the quality of interview; interestingly, some of the most insightful interviews focusing on the European and Yugoslav elites occurred outside working environments, away from personal secretaries and assistants. After having realized that listening, observing, and writing down notes simultaneously was a rather difficult task, using a voice recorder proved to be a good idea. Twice, in Belgrade and London, the use of my Olympus gadget was not allowed: While in Belgrade, security provisions of the embassy that hosted the interview did not allow any kind of electronic device, in London, the respondent suggested to have a rather informal talk first and then meet again within couple of weeks when it would be possible to record the interview. Unfortunately, none of the attempts to get in touch with the respondent and to arrange for our second session was successful.

However, the main challenges encountered were ethical in nature. Ethical dilemmas and obligations to protect the rights of participants have gradually strengthened their position in the literature on qualitative research (Babbie, 1989; Frey, Botan, Friedman, & Kreps, 1991; Kvale, 1996; Lindlof & Taylor, 2002; Lipson, 1994; Neuman, 1997; Reynolds, 1982). Such contributions are especially relevant if we think that sometimes the very first stages of research are characterized by the sole objective of producing an original piece of scholarship, without paying much attention to the possible (and unforeseen) negative consequences. According to Juliene Lipson, the most common issues to bear in mind while conducting and presenting research are “informed consent; deception or covert research; the researcher’s responsibility to informants, sponsors and colleagues; risks versus benefits; and, to a lesser extent, reciprocity and intervention” (Lipson, 1994, p. 343).

First and foremost, in order to avoid any sort of damage, none of the respondents should suffer harm (social, emotional or, more extremely, physical) as a consequence of taking part in (any) research. This means that identities and locations of participants should be presented in anonymized form and disclosed only upon their own consent. In the very beginning, I thought that my analysis was going to look like an incomplete piece of work if the individuals providing insightful comments and ideas were not clearly named. However, the more the interviewing part of the research process was advancing, the more it became obvious how sensitive for some of my respondents the researched topic was. For example, some of them held important positions during the Yugoslav crisis and have managed to preserve them since then which meant that revealing their names could potentially harm them socially and, of course, emotionally. As they put it pragmatically, they were not keen on receiving court invitations to witness against various statesmen, directly involved in the Yugoslav wars. Still, when accepting to share their experience, they should be aware of Maurice Punch’s observation that “many institutions and public figures are almost impossible to disguise, and, if they cooperate in research, may have to accept a considerable measure of exposure, particularly if the popular media pick up on research” (Punch, 1994, p. 92). Second, both background and temperament of the researcher can condition her or his position while conducting research. Given that the Slovenian and Croatian authorities, supported by various Western leaders, often insisted that the Serbian side was the only one culpable for the outbreak of the Yugoslav state crisis, it can be quite a challenge for researchers with Serbian background to approach the other side and obtain necessary information. With this in mind, it was useful to try to make clear that my understanding was significantly different from the one adopted by the Serbia’s leading figures that resulted in a set of fatal policies and consequent international isolation. With regard to temperament, talking about politics and policy making can easily generate feelings ranging from anger to perplexity and amusement, but this is something to be reduced to an absolute minimum, as it can affect the quality of research.

The previous challenges can appear at any stage while dealing with the data. For example, John Seidel (1998) recognizes three compulsory aspects when approaching them: noticing, collecting, and thinking. Similarly, Catherine Marshall and Gretchen Rossman, while noting that investigation, context, and interpretation are the greatest strengths of qualitative data, talk about seven phases: “(a) organizing the data, (b) immersion in the data, (c) generating categories and themes, (d) coding the data, (e) offering interpretations through analytic memos, (f) searching for alternative understandings, and (g) writing the report or other format for presenting the study” (Marshall & Rossman, 2006, p. 156). It is usually much easier to explain various stages once the research process has fully terminated, by looking back and seeing retrospectively what occurred and when.

The noticing stage implies selecting and organizing the most relevant data out of the voluminous collection of documents and recorded interviews. More importantly, reduction of data helps crystallize already existing, but to some extent unclear, concepts. In his study on the use of documentary sources in social research, John Scott (1990) suggests to apply four criteria when considering a document: authenticity, credibility, representativeness, and meaning. Documents released by the institutions of the EU as well as the ones released by the archives of the former Yugoslavia needed to satisfy the four criteria in order to avoid any misinterpretation about the events and policy-making processes. Further on, during the crucial moments determining the future of the Yugoslav federation, the EU’s institutions released various statements and therefore it is important to be capable of identifying the most accurate source and its position and relevance within the given political and social context. Scott’s criteria can also be applied to interviews and this can explain why the content of some interviews is reduced by half or even by 95%. Still, this is not to indicate that some of the interviews were almost pointless, but that their content was already heard before and thus they were more relevant for the validity purposes or as a guidance for further research. With regard to the EC-SFRY relations and later European involvement in the Yugoslav crisis, some interviewees provided only partial information (intentionally or not) that could then easily be questioned or rejected as insufficient. This is where repeating the same set of questions to respondents coming from and supporting different sides (thus being pro-Slovenian and pro-Croatian or pro-Serbian) helps, as it facilitates the identification of the most appropriate, truthful, answers.

The collecting or sorting stage consists of allocation of data to different sections of the research in progress. By doing so, each section becomes work in progress on its own that will receive equal amount of attention and thus avoid the risk of being labeled as underresearched in comparison to some other sections. In my case, I opted for five sections, focusing on (1) the type of EC-SFRY cooperation before and after 1968, the year when official relations between the two were established; (2) the topics dominating official meetings and debates about the Yugoslav federation (economic, political, and social), and the response of individual EC Member States to the outbreak of Yugoslav crisis (what they said and how they changed their opinion from supporting the unity of Yugoslavia to supporting its dismemberment); (3) the involvement of diaspora communities (in terms of how they positioned themselves to act on behalf of their homeland and try to influence policy-making processes); (4) the reporting of the media (with a particular attention paid to the use of victimization propaganda and efforts to promote the most accurate coverage of what was happening and what should be done by the international community); and (5) the rhetoric of the Vatican and the Catholic clergy in general (as to how they offered support to the predominantly Catholic republics of Slovenia and Croatia). It is important to note that separating and coding the data can tell a lot about sequence of events and thus explain the final outcome—the collapse of the Yugoslav federation.

The thinking stage is about valuable statements that deserve proper acknowledgment and enough space in the final product. From comparing and contrasting various arguments to making sense and establishing relationships across the sections, it is the researcher’s responsibility to develop and prove her or his ideas that accompany the overall theme of conducted research. In the context of doctoral studies, this stage is of crucial relevance, as it is supposed to convince the examiners that the conducted research makes a significant contribution to the literature. Even though many topics have already been examined in depth (and this is also true when thinking about the material discussing the collapse of Yugoslavia), it is the qualitative method that is likely to offer a new niche and a completely new interpretation. More precisely, when Scott’s four criteria (authenticity, credibility, representativeness, and meaning) are combined with Charlotte Epstein’s (2008) elaboration on the power of words in International Relations, it is possible to offer some fresh conclusions with regard to the EC-SFRY relations and the consequent mismanagement that cost Yugoslavia its existence.

The final challenge relates to the understanding and presence of bias. It has generally been argued that the researcher’s personal views can easily affect almost any research in the social sciences. This is particularly obvious when talking about history and political science. As correctly observed by Robert Hayden,

[a]cademic debates on the former Yugoslavia are as polarized as those surrounding the creation of Israel or the partitioning of Cyprus, with criticism of a study often depending more on whether the work supports the commentator’s predetermined position than on the coherence of its theory or the reliability and sufficiency of its arguments. When one side in such a conflict wins politically, it usually also wins academically, because analyses that indicate that a politics that won is, in fact, wrong tend to be discounted. Political hegemony establishes intellectual orthodoxy. (Hayden, 1999, p. 19)

The above outlined challenges are inevitable when applying qualitative research methodologies. From the archival material to various interviewees and back, it is the researcher’s role to try to obtain and balance the obtained information. Research that combines history and political science is characterized by various emotions, especially when it involves dealing with sensitive data and directly involved actors. With regard to European involvement in the Yugoslav state crisis, it is possible to argue that it is much easier to discuss the whole process from the present, with the benefit of hindsight afforded by the passing of two decades, and when some of the consequences have also become known. For example, as many documents and participants revealed, not many EC officials believed that at the time when Slovenia and Croatia were recognized as independent states, in January 1992, the war was going to transfer to the neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina, in April 1992. Today, taking a look back from a serene position makes more sense not only because it provides an opportunity for a more balanced interpretation of events and consequent decisions but also it help us to assess the lessons learned, hopefully useful for the future.