Ratko Mladić’s Death: The War That Broke Yugoslavia, the Rise of Serbian Nationalism and the Unfinished Peace in Bosnia
The death of Ratko Mladić on August 27, 2026, in The Hague has reopened one of the deepest wounds in modern European history.
Mladić, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, died while serving a life sentence for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. He was 83/84, depending on the source’s reporting, and had been detained under the authority of the UN tribunal. His death has produced sharply contrasting reactions: grief and admiration in parts of Serbia and Republika Srpska, and anger and renewed pain among survivors and victims’ families in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Serbian Justice Minister Nenad Vujić has announced that Mladić will receive military and state honours, although the exact funeral arrangements and location remain dependent on the family and procedures surrounding the transfer of his body from The Hague.
That decision is politically explosive.
Why would a European state honour a man convicted of genocide?
To understand the answer, it is necessary to go back—not merely to the 1990s, but to the construction of Yugoslavia, the death of Tito, the economic crisis, the rise of nationalism, the collapse of communism and the fundamentally different historical memories of Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks.
1. Yugoslavia was not simply a country of people who “always hated each other”
One of the most persistent myths about the Yugoslav wars is that Serbs, Croats and Muslims had been enemies for centuries and were simply waiting for an opportunity to fight.
Reality was much more complicated.
Socialist Yugoslavia was an extraordinarily mixed society. Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks often lived in the same cities and villages, attended the same schools, worked in the same factories and married one another.