Spain–Yugoslavia relations were post-

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

historical foreign relations between

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

( Restoration Spain,

Second Spanish Republic The Spanish Republic (), commonly known as the Second Spanish Republic (), was the form of democratic government in Spain from 1931 to 1939. The Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931 after the deposition of Alfonso XIII, King Alfonso XIII. ...

Francoist Spain Francoist Spain (), also known as the Francoist dictatorship (), or Nationalist Spain () was the period of Spanish history between 1936 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death i ...

or Spanish Republican government in exile and contemporary kingdom till 1992) and the now

divided Division is one of the four basic operations of arithmetic. The other operations are addition, subtraction, and multiplication. What is being divided is called the ''dividend'', which is divided by the ''divisor'', and the result is called the ...

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

( Kingdom or

Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (commonly abbreviated as SFRY or SFR Yugoslavia), known from 1945 to 1963 as the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as Socialist Yugoslavia or simply Yugoslavia, was a country ...

History

Interwar period and the Spanish Civil War

During the interwar years, famous Serbian poet

Jovan Dučić Jovan Dučić ( sr-Cyrl, Јован Дучић, ; 15 February 1872 – 7 April 1943) was a Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serb poet-diplomat and academic. He is one of the most influential Serbian lyricists and Modernist poetry, modernist poe ...

(1919-1921) and

Ivo Andrić Ivo Andrić ( sr-Cyrl, Иво Андрић, ; born Ivan Andrić; 9 October 1892 – 13 March 1975) was a Yugoslav novelist, poet and short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961 Nobel Prize in Literature, 1961. His writ ...

(1928-1929, 1961 recipient of the

Nobel Prize in Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in ...

) were serving as ambassadors of the newly founded

Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe, Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () h ...

to Spain. At the same time

Kalmi Baruh Kalmi Baruh ( sr-cyrl, Калми Барух; 26 December 1896 – 1945) was a Bosnian Jewish scholar in the field of Judeo-Spanish language, pioneer of the Sephardic studies and Hispanic studies in former Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Life and a ...

was in Spain on scholarship received from the Spanish Government studying for the post-doctoral historical studies in the Spanish center of Historical Studies, Madrid.

Yugoslav volunteers in the Spanish Civil War The Yugoslav volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, known as Spanish fighters (, , sr-Cyrl-Latn, Шпански борци, separator=" / ", Španski borci) and Yugoslav brigadistas (), was a contingent of volunteers from the Kingdom of Yugoslav ...

, known as Spanish fighters was a contingent of approximately 2000 volunteers that fought for the

during the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

World War II

Some Spaniards were imprisoned in a subcamp of the

Mauthausen concentration camp Mauthausen was a German Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 f ...

at the

Ljubelj Pass Ljubelj may refer to: * Ljubelj Pass, a mountain pass in the Alps between Austria and Slovenia * Ljubelj, Croatia, a village near Ljubešćica * Ljubelj Kalnički, a village near Ljubešćica Ljubeščica is a village and municipality in Croatia ...

in German-occupied Yugoslavia.

Cold War period

Department of Hispanic Studies of the

University of Belgrade The University of Belgrade () is a public university, public research university in Belgrade, Serbia. It is the oldest and largest modern university in Serbia. Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it me ...

was founded in 1971 while

Luis Miguel Dominguín Luis Miguel González Lucas (9 November 1926 – 8 May 1996), better known as Luis Miguel Dominguín, was a bullfighter from Spain and the son of the noteworthy bullfighter, Domingo Dominguín. Dominguín adopted his father's name to gain popul ...

bull fight (event protested against by an animal welfare group) attracted 5000 spectators in the same year. Yugoslavia refused to establish formal relations with Franco's regime which postponed appointment of the first Spanish ambassador in Belgrade till 1977. The first official visit of the

Spanish monarch The monarchy of Spain or Spanish monarchy () is the constitutional form of government of Spain. It consists of a Hereditary monarchy, hereditary monarch who reigns as the head of state, being the highest office of the country. The Spanish ...

to Yugoslavia was organized in 1985.

Yugoslav Wars

In 1991 Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain

Francisco Fernández Ordóñez Francisco Fernández Ordóñez (22 June 1930 – 7 August 1992) was a Spanish politician who was the minister of foreign affairs in the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) government of Felipe González from 1985 until shortly before his de ...

proposed to the Foreign Affairs Council of the

European Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisbo ...

to initiate a quick recognition and enlargement procedure with Yugoslavia as the only way to prevent the breakup of the country. Spain preferred to be perceived as the neutral player in the region during the conflict but its foreign policy was generally sympathetic towards Serbia which was perceived as the core state of former multinational and diverse Yugoslav state. It was against Spanish political instincts to recognize

independence of Croatia The independence of Croatia was a process started with the changes in the political system and the constitutional changes in 1990 that transformed the Socialist Republic of Croatia into the Republic of Croatia, which in turn proclaimed the Chr ...

and

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

at the time of

Breakup of Yugoslavia After a period of political and economic crisis in the 1980s, the constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia split apart in the early 1990s. Unresolved issues from the breakup caused a series of inter-ethnic Yugoslav ...

, yet as a new member state of the European Community country was reluctant to break the European unity.

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Spain-Yugoslavia relations Bilateral relations of Yugoslavia

Bosnia and Herzegovina–Spain relations Croatia–Spain relations Montenegro–Spain relations North Macedonia–Spain relations Serbia–Spain relations Slovenia–Spain relations