The official end of Yugoslavia (1918-2003) seemed anticlimactic, less an event than the ghost of an event.
Tuesday's vote simply ratified something that had already happened;"Yugoslavia" as a meaningful concept basically ended in 1992.
Today the name usually connotes two things: spasms of interethnic fighting, and a low-quality compact car. The Yugo, and the jowly face of Slobodan Milosevic. A joke (which can still be dredged up for a cheap laugh now and then) and something serious and horrible. Yet this dichotomy can be turned around. There were qualities of absurdity in the Yugoslav conflict. I remember, for instance, a news photo of Bosnian Serb warlord Radovan Karadzic in a beauty salon, being ministered to by a stolid-looking blonde. I found this, for some reason, amusing in its incongruity – war going on, unthinkable atrocities, and the thug's taking time out to get his hair done.
The car, meanwhile, was taken very seriously in then-Yugoslavia. It was the "Work of the Century." Little Yugoslavia poised to conquer the largest market in the world. It also meant employment for workers in industrial parts of Serbia. The war halted exports and the main factory was bombed in the 1999 air campaign.
After 85 years, the name "Yugoslavia" has now been removed from circulation. It's a little strange when something like that happens – reality has shifted, a change in the order of things has occurred. But it's not a long-lived sensation. The new names get picked up, taken into the flow. The names of old countries, like those of their leaders, quickly lose power.
The Yugo, meanwhile, is set for a comeback.
10:29:44 AM 
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