yugoslavia

A former country in the Balkans, formed following the First World War. Originally a monarchy until the Second World War, when a Communist regime came to power largely (and then fully) independent of Soviet influence. Broke up during the 1990s in a series of wars caused by economic issues and ethnic tension, from which the countries of Slovenia, Croatia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia (and Kosovo) emerged (the latter three remaining together and using the Yugoslavia name until 2003, when the state became just Serbia and Montenegro, before the latter left in 2006, and Kosovo declared independence in 2008).