Brotherhood and unity
Fraternity and unit ( Serbokroatisch Bratstvo i jedinstvo / Братство и јединство, Slovenian Bratstvo in enotnost , macedonian Братство и единство, albanian Vëllazërim dhe bashkim , Italian Fratellanza e unità , Hungarian Testvériség és egysé ) was the currency of the LCY and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia .
The term was coined in 1941 by Josip Broz Tito as the motto of the Yugoslav people's liberation struggle against the Axis powers , which divided Yugoslavia in April 1941. Tito was also inspired by the motto of the French Revolution - " Freedom, Equality, Fraternity ". Above all, however, "brotherhood and unity" was the communists' alternative to the systematic efforts of the occupiers and their nationalist supporters to sow hatred between the ethnic and religious groups of Yugoslavia. The federalization of Yugoslavia, which was decided in 1943 at the second session of the Anti-Fascist Council for National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) in Jajce , was an essential element in the realization of the principle of brotherhood and unity.
After the war, the motto became the official policy of relations between the Yugoslav nationalities ( Croats , Macedonians , Montenegrins , Muslims , Serbs , Slovenes ) and national minorities ( Albanians , Bulgarians , Italians , Romanians , Hungarians and others). According to the principle of brotherhood and unity, all these groups were on an equal footing with one another and were supposed to expand their similarities and mutual dependencies in the common federal state in order to permanently overcome ethnic conflicts and national hatred. To implement the principle, quota systems were also introduced for all public institutions, according to which the nationalities and minorities were represented according to the ethnic composition of their republic or autonomous province.
Numerous companies, schools and sports clubs throughout Yugoslavia were named according to the motto “brotherhood and unity”. The Ljubljana - Zagreb - Belgrade - Skopje ( Autoput ) motorway also bore this name, as did a high order for heroes of the partisan movement.
Numerous nationalist criticism of the regime were sentenced to prison terms for “attacks on brotherhood and unity”, for example the two future presidents of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, Franjo Tuđman and Alija Izetbegović .