ABSTRACT
A state on the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe, Yugoslavia existed from 1918 to 1991, w h e n political and ethnic conflicts dissolved the state. It was first called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes but was renamed Yugoslavia in 1929. Yugoslavia emerged after the First World War when the South Slavs (Yugoslavia means South Slavia), who had until then lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, joined with the kingdom of Serbia in 1918. After the Second World War it became a federal republic comprising six federal units. It fell apart in 1991-1992, when four of t hem -- Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and (Slavic) Macedonia proclaimed their independence. T h e name Yugoslavia has been used since that time by the union of Serbia and Montenegro.
