YUGOSLAVIA is a new country, as countries go, born in the
map-revising days of 1918. Conceived in the maelstrom of
World War I, it was pieced together like a giant jigsaw puz-
zle from two previously independent countries and chunks
of outmoded empires. Its people were united by a common
Slav ancestry but divided by diverse cultural backgrounds
and antagonistic religions. Only a student of Balkan history
can unravel the dynastic intrigues, the religious hatreds, and
the economic conflicts that lie in the backgrounds of the
Orthodox Serbs, Macedonians, and Montenegrins, the Cath-
olic Croats and Slovenes, and the Moslem Bosnians. Vol-
umes could be, and have been, written about the Germanic,
Italian, and Turkish influences on these various peoples.
But, though the past is confusion, the postwar present shows
a surprising uniformity. Marshal Tito's program in Yugo-
slavia has made it possible to speak of the country as a whole.
For the first time the same thing--for good or bad--is happen-
ing to everybody. Religious enmities have been replaced by
class conflicts. Both Catholic and Orthodox churches have
become the butts of government oppression.

With its economic lifelines in the winding Danube and
the blue Adriatic, and its political heart given unashamedly
to Russia, Yugoslavia has guaranteed itself a place of im-
portance in future European developments. This elongated
country stretching from the Greek border to the Austrian

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