Lifelong Yugoslav dictator "was not of Yugoslav origin"
BELGRADE -- Josip Broz Tito was "not of Yugoslav origin," a recently declassified document published on the CIA website has asserted.
Source: Mondo, Politika
Close the entire text of the article here
Broz - who came to power in the post-WW2, single-party communist Yugoslavia, and remained president until his death in 1980 - was officially of mixed Croat-Slovenian heritage.
But the paper says that the manner in which he spoke "Serbo-Croatian" - allegedly his mother tongue, but spoken with a foreign accent - meant that his true native language, "or at least one closer to him than Serbo-Croatian," was either Russian or Polish.
The authors of the lengthy analysis conclude that it would be "logical to assume" that the controversial leader was either Russian or Polish, but stress that his true identity can only be hypothesized - but that it "certainly was not Yugoslav."
They went on to assert that his non-Yugoslav origins were the reason for his "impartiality and success in solving the various problems and conflicts of ethnic groups in Yugoslavia."
The speech that was analyzed dates back to 1977, Belgrade-based Politika and Mondo media outlets are quoting the document on Monday, adding that "any further investigation of Tito's true identity would only serve academic purposes."
Yugoslavia (Union of Slavs of the South, but not everyone was a Slav) was an artificial state built upon an ancient geo-political divide, namely the division of Rome into its Eastern (later Byzantium) and Western counterparts. Tito, although respected by many world leaders, was still the head of a Communist version of the Royal Dictatorship of 1929. Had Yugoslavia been democratic,there may have been no break-up, least of all those terrible wars in the 1990s as epitomized by the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995. For Srebrenica, read Rohinga today. Tito\'s foreign policy led to the Non-aligned Movement - non-aligned against the West,that is. Please Reade the works of the late great Norah Beloff.
(Geoff Gane, 9 January 2018 12:53)
Wow, how absurd is this article on the Great WW2 hero Tito, how disrespectful & shameful & cowardly. To people with vivid, wild, unsubstantiated imaginations he was a Montenegrin, Serb, Polak, Englishman, Russian, Austrian, Bavarian German, Jew, Freemason, \\\…\\ "Bolshevik/communist\\\…\\ ", American agent, Soviet agent, British agent, Israeli agent & he had multiple professions & he died multiple times & in multiple locations & in different years. ?????. What next ????, will you all claim ?, that he wasnt actually human but was originally from the planet Mars. You are all jokes & you are embarrassing yourselves. Dont any of you have any shame ?! It doesnt take a rocket scientist to tell that the unreliable C.I.A. & all you clowns dont have a clue of what you are talking about. Tito spent years in Austria, in the Austro-Hungarian army, in a Russian goulag, in Spain, his mother who he was close to was a Slovene, they were separated for years before he returned home to her, distraught & over come with confusion & raw emotions, his Croatian father was an often absent alcoholic compulsive gambler, who forced young Tito to dress in rags & go door to door begging for money. He lived mostly in Belgrade post WW2. Tito lived a harrowing early life. Connect the dots, no wonder he spoke the way he did
(Stipe Nazorin, 22 October 2014 13:38)
wow.. It's hard to believe the CIA can be so retarded, and some of you also. When someone is abroad for a long time, where TITO was in Russia for a long time, your accent tends to mix/change. Its by no surprise that his accent sounded a bit different. He is still Croatian/Slovenian, regardless of the sound of his accent.
(Patrik, 9 January 2014 09:02)
As long as he lived we had a Beautiful country and a nice live without wars and bloodshed, now all we have is nothing but hatred toward eachother.
(Daniel, 21 August 2013 18:02)
====
You're not serious are you?
We have always had hatred in Yugoslavia, more precisely Croats hating the Serbs. Don't you know about Croatian terrorist training camps in Australia back in the 70s?
Don't you know about a group of Croatians going back to Yugoslavia in the late 70s in order to start an uprising?
I have personally seen photos of Pavelic hanging in Croatian clubs and their church halls. Was that love for their fellow Yugoslavs?
I have heard with my own ears Croatian national anthem played at their dances. I know about Serbian Orthodox churches always being targeted by the Croatians. They vandolised and defecated our churches here long before Yugoslavia broke up.
I have witnessed Macedonians singing anti Serb songs and playing their own national anthem long before Yugoslavia broke up.
What love are you talking about Daniel? How long have you lived in the west. Do you know anything about 70s and 80s and what went on in Australia?
What about Croatians storming the Yugoslav consulate resulting in one getting shot?
The only love was forced on them. Serbs never went around doing those things to them.
Tito betrayed Serbs in many ways and I am glad he is gone. I just don't get why they still honour his tomb in Belgrade. Dig him up and ship him back to his own people.
(Peggy, 26 August 2013 00:48)
I see myself as both a Yugoslav and a serb and Titos regime had nothing to do with Vojvodina nor Kosovo. Vojvodina still belongs to Serbia and more than 75%of the population are serbs. Kosovo was lost because of the nationalists that tore Yugoslavia apart after Titos death. Yes Kosovo was a poor part of Serbia even when Tito was alive but it still was a part of Serbia and the albanians and serbs lived in peace side by side unlike nowadays. Tito was the greatest leader we ever had and after his death it all fell apart like a house of cards.
(Daniel, 22 August 2013 11:54)
Well good for you. My old man is a die hard communist and still to this day considers himself a Yugoslav even though he's ethnic Albanian. I admire his beliefs and convictions even though I do not share them.
My take on Tito is this, when one wants to evaluate his rule, all one needs to do is look at his legacy i.e. Serbia and ex YU today.
TM you should be ashamed of yourself for writing such a derigatory comment about the greatest leader of them all. SHAM ON YOU!
(Daniel, 23 August 2013 12:39)
These "Tito" topics should not be happening anymore. Does Serbia want to remember their communist days really? Whoever he was, I have no respect for him and what he did. Who care what nationality he was - he is gone and thank god for that!
(tm, 22 August 2013 14:19)
So do you see yourself as a Yugoslav or a Serb. If you are a Yugoslav this would mean that Draza was the ultimate traitor. If you are a Serb then Tito's Communist regime was no good as it took away Vojvodina & Kosovo. Please explain.
(Bam Bam, 22 August 2013 01:24)
I see myself as both a Yugoslav and a serb and Titos regime had nothing to do with Vojvodina nor Kosovo. Vojvodina still belongs to Serbia and more than 75%of the population are serbs. Kosovo was lost because of the nationalists that tore Yugoslavia apart after Titos death. Yes Kosovo was a poor part of Serbia even when Tito was alive but it still was a part of Serbia and the albanians and serbs lived in peace side by side unlike nowadays. Tito was the greatest leader we ever had and after his death it all fell apart like a house of cards.
(Daniel, 22 August 2013 11:54)
@Daniel...As long as he lived we had a Beautiful country and a nice live without wars and bloodshed, now all we have is nothing but hatred toward each other.
So do you see yourself as a Yugoslav or a Serb. If you are a Yugoslav this would mean that Draza was the ultimate traitor. If you are a Serb then Tito's Communist regime was no good as it took away Vojvodina & Kosovo. Please explain.
(Bam Bam, 22 August 2013 01:24)
Yes, we have all been told he was half this and half that but if you ever get to hear him speaking on any archives you will be more inclined to believe he was not Yugoslav.
I had no choice but to accept what we were all told but I do have my suspicions.
(Peggy, 20 August 2013 03:51)
Maybe you should learn more about how people from his part of Croatia speak, he spoke exactly like them. Not only was he A Yugoslav, he was the greatest of them all. Dont you all have any respect at all, the man is dead let him be for christs sake!
As long as he lived we had a Beautiful country and a nice live without wars and bloodshed, now all we have is nothing but hatred toward eachother.
(Daniel, 21 August 2013 18:02)
Grandma Anna from Poland you talking about Tchausesku Romanian lider He and his family was killed.
My former president Tito was Great lider and I realy dont care what he was but Yugoslavia that time was stronger than any other country in Europa.
(Kovach, 20 August 2013 07:26)
It does kind of make sense that he'd be Russian or something. According to the writer Milovan Djilas, the Broz clan originated in Montenegro, so it's possible that this allegedly concocted identity given to Tito even included a subtle Montenegrin Serb component. If true, we'd have a fictitious ethnic background covering the entire South Slavic spectrum of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Anyway, this surely comes as no surprise to anyone, for Tito's Serbo-Croat was famously bad. You can try to blame that on an illiterate upbringing in a household where two languages could be heard spoken, but I think a lot of Slovenes - even those without a Croatian or Serbian parent, which Tito supposedly had - spoke Serbo-Croat fluently even before the First Yugoslavia. So personally, I believe he was a foreigner, and politically, it would be logical.
(Nenad, 20 August 2013 05:35)
Wikipedia has a large entry for his history. He was born in Croatia, his mother was Slovenian, his father was Croatian. The CIA didn't know that?
(Paul, 19 August 2013 22:35)
===…==
Have you ever heard him speak?
Yes, we have all been told he was half this and half that but if you ever get to hear him speaking on any archives you will be more inclined to believe he was not Yugoslav.
I had no choice but to accept what we were all told but I do have my suspicions.
(Peggy, 20 August 2013 03:51)
What was a Yugoslav anyway? He could have been Serbia, Croatian, Albanian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Slovenian, Roma, and more, so this is a bit of silly news. Based on his accent, the CIA believes he was either Russian or Polish. I don't think he was Polish, but he was certainly an evil enough communist to be Russian.
(winston, 20 August 2013 02:31)
The real Tito died in a German air raid in Drvar 1943. This could not be revealed at that the time due to lowering the morale of the Partizan fighters. The Russians brought in another clown from Moscow. The real Tito was missing his little finger due to a childhood tractor accident. The fake Tito gave a sppech in 1946 which had no 'Kajkavski' in it at all. Tito was a fake and the truth needs to be revealed. It's most likely that so called Partizan diehards continue today to visit an empty coffin in Beograd. KGB files would tell a better picture !
(Bam Bam, 20 August 2013 02:07)
"As for hard evidence, there has never been any. What is not in doubt, however, is that many Yugoslavs felt that Tito never spoke his native language very well, including people in Kumrovec who didn’t seem to recognize him. He made regular grammatical errors and used malapropisms that normal Croats wouldn’t say. To many, his pronunciation sounded a bit … Russian. When Dragoljub Mihajlovic, leader of the Serbian nationalist Chetnik resistance during WWII, first met Tito in 1941, he thought that he actually was a Russian – and Mihajlovic was far from the last to wonder."
I've really enjoyed this article. So far we've had: he was Russian,Polish, Italian, maybe even English - the truth is he was Australian.
(Darko, 20 August 2013 01:42)
Josip Broz was a fake leader of a fake nation. Adolf Hitler was not German, Napolean wwas not French, joseph Stalin was not russian and Josip Broz was not a Yugoslav. Tito served the will of Western overlords just as Serbias modern leaders do.
(March2499, 20 August 2013 00:49)
Wikipedia has a large entry for his history. He was born in Croatia, his mother was Slovenian, his father was Croatian. The CIA didn't know that?
(Paul, 19 August 2013 22:35)
He was Polish indeed. I clearly remember him. It was in 1916 or 1917 he spoke to me in Polish and I was so proud when he become lider. It was such a tragedy for me and my family when they killed him with his wife in Bucaresti.
(Grandma Anna from Poland, 19 August 2013 21:36)
based upon your most recent statements, 'truth', it would seem that you're not actually interested in truth persay, but a subset of truth, a subset that you personally care about. in the hunt for truth, all truths are equally valued for their truthiness.
my $0,02
(in search of, 19 August 2013 19:49)
What is yugoslav? Albanians are no way related to south slavs. This has no bearing what so ever on Albanians, since we have nothing in common with Slavic speaking people. I don't give a hut what he was. BS news article.
(the truth, 19 August 2013 17:34)
"any further investigation of Tito's true identity would only serve academic purposes."
If Tito was not Josip Broz, but a foreigner instead, then maybe he was also an agent of a foreign country. If so. then that country would be liable to assume the entire foreign debt of the former Yugoslavia and would also be liable to pay compensation for the murders committed by Tito in the 1940s and 50s when his regime consolidating its power.
Tito’s tomb should be opened and DNA samples taken; this would at least establish if he was from Yugoslavia.
I doubt if his body lies in Belgrade. My guess is that it was brought back to England for burial.
(Michael Thomas, 19 August 2013 15:37)
This is nothing new. After the war and in the 1950s particular Tito gave many gave speeches and listening to him it was abundantly clear that this man was not a Yugoslav. Naturally over time his speech improved. During a visit to his birthplace to see his mother it was purported that she said who is this man? This is not my son.
(sj, 19 August 2013 15:07)
This is nothing new. After the war and in the 1950s particular Tito gave many gave speeches and listening to him it was abundantly clear that this man was not a Yugoslav. Naturally over time his speech improved. During a visit to his birthplace to see his mother it was purported that she said who is this man? This is not my son.
(sj, 19 August 2013 15:07)
"any further investigation of Tito's true identity would only serve academic purposes."
If Tito was not Josip Broz, but a foreigner instead, then maybe he was also an agent of a foreign country. If so. then that country would be liable to assume the entire foreign debt of the former Yugoslavia and would also be liable to pay compensation for the murders committed by Tito in the 1940s and 50s when his regime consolidating its power.
Tito’s tomb should be opened and DNA samples taken; this would at least establish if he was from Yugoslavia.
I doubt if his body lies in Belgrade. My guess is that it was brought back to England for burial.
(Michael Thomas, 19 August 2013 15:37)
Josip Broz was a fake leader of a fake nation. Adolf Hitler was not German, Napolean wwas not French, joseph Stalin was not russian and Josip Broz was not a Yugoslav. Tito served the will of Western overlords just as Serbias modern leaders do.
(March2499, 20 August 2013 00:49)
The real Tito died in a German air raid in Drvar 1943. This could not be revealed at that the time due to lowering the morale of the Partizan fighters. The Russians brought in another clown from Moscow. The real Tito was missing his little finger due to a childhood tractor accident. The fake Tito gave a sppech in 1946 which had no 'Kajkavski' in it at all. Tito was a fake and the truth needs to be revealed. It's most likely that so called Partizan diehards continue today to visit an empty coffin in Beograd. KGB files would tell a better picture !
(Bam Bam, 20 August 2013 02:07)
It does kind of make sense that he'd be Russian or something. According to the writer Milovan Djilas, the Broz clan originated in Montenegro, so it's possible that this allegedly concocted identity given to Tito even included a subtle Montenegrin Serb component. If true, we'd have a fictitious ethnic background covering the entire South Slavic spectrum of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Anyway, this surely comes as no surprise to anyone, for Tito's Serbo-Croat was famously bad. You can try to blame that on an illiterate upbringing in a household where two languages could be heard spoken, but I think a lot of Slovenes - even those without a Croatian or Serbian parent, which Tito supposedly had - spoke Serbo-Croat fluently even before the First Yugoslavia. So personally, I believe he was a foreigner, and politically, it would be logical.
(Nenad, 20 August 2013 05:35)
These "Tito" topics should not be happening anymore. Does Serbia want to remember their communist days really? Whoever he was, I have no respect for him and what he did. Who care what nationality he was - he is gone and thank god for that!
(tm, 22 August 2013 14:19)
Wikipedia has a large entry for his history. He was born in Croatia, his mother was Slovenian, his father was Croatian. The CIA didn't know that?
(Paul, 19 August 2013 22:35)
===…==
Have you ever heard him speak?
Yes, we have all been told he was half this and half that but if you ever get to hear him speaking on any archives you will be more inclined to believe he was not Yugoslav.
I had no choice but to accept what we were all told but I do have my suspicions.
(Peggy, 20 August 2013 03:51)
based upon your most recent statements, 'truth', it would seem that you're not actually interested in truth persay, but a subset of truth, a subset that you personally care about. in the hunt for truth, all truths are equally valued for their truthiness.
my $0,02
(in search of, 19 August 2013 19:49)
He was Polish indeed. I clearly remember him. It was in 1916 or 1917 he spoke to me in Polish and I was so proud when he become lider. It was such a tragedy for me and my family when they killed him with his wife in Bucaresti.
(Grandma Anna from Poland, 19 August 2013 21:36)
What is yugoslav? Albanians are no way related to south slavs. This has no bearing what so ever on Albanians, since we have nothing in common with Slavic speaking people. I don't give a hut what he was. BS news article.
(the truth, 19 August 2013 17:34)
Wikipedia has a large entry for his history. He was born in Croatia, his mother was Slovenian, his father was Croatian. The CIA didn't know that?
(Paul, 19 August 2013 22:35)
Grandma Anna from Poland you talking about Tchausesku Romanian lider He and his family was killed.
My former president Tito was Great lider and I realy dont care what he was but Yugoslavia that time was stronger than any other country in Europa.
(Kovach, 20 August 2013 07:26)
What was a Yugoslav anyway? He could have been Serbia, Croatian, Albanian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Slovenian, Roma, and more, so this is a bit of silly news. Based on his accent, the CIA believes he was either Russian or Polish. I don't think he was Polish, but he was certainly an evil enough communist to be Russian.
(winston, 20 August 2013 02:31)
I've really enjoyed this article. So far we've had: he was Russian,Polish, Italian, maybe even English - the truth is he was Australian.
(Darko, 20 August 2013 01:42)
As long as he lived we had a Beautiful country and a nice live without wars and bloodshed, now all we have is nothing but hatred toward eachother.
(Daniel, 21 August 2013 18:02)
====
You're not serious are you?
We have always had hatred in Yugoslavia, more precisely Croats hating the Serbs. Don't you know about Croatian terrorist training camps in Australia back in the 70s?
Don't you know about a group of Croatians going back to Yugoslavia in the late 70s in order to start an uprising?
I have personally seen photos of Pavelic hanging in Croatian clubs and their church halls. Was that love for their fellow Yugoslavs?
I have heard with my own ears Croatian national anthem played at their dances. I know about Serbian Orthodox churches always being targeted by the Croatians. They vandolised and defecated our churches here long before Yugoslavia broke up.
I have witnessed Macedonians singing anti Serb songs and playing their own national anthem long before Yugoslavia broke up.
What love are you talking about Daniel? How long have you lived in the west. Do you know anything about 70s and 80s and what went on in Australia?
What about Croatians storming the Yugoslav consulate resulting in one getting shot?
The only love was forced on them. Serbs never went around doing those things to them.
Tito betrayed Serbs in many ways and I am glad he is gone. I just don't get why they still honour his tomb in Belgrade. Dig him up and ship him back to his own people.
(Peggy, 26 August 2013 00:48)
"As for hard evidence, there has never been any. What is not in doubt, however, is that many Yugoslavs felt that Tito never spoke his native language very well, including people in Kumrovec who didn’t seem to recognize him. He made regular grammatical errors and used malapropisms that normal Croats wouldn’t say. To many, his pronunciation sounded a bit … Russian. When Dragoljub Mihajlovic, leader of the Serbian nationalist Chetnik resistance during WWII, first met Tito in 1941, he thought that he actually was a Russian – and Mihajlovic was far from the last to wonder."
So do you see yourself as a Yugoslav or a Serb. If you are a Yugoslav this would mean that Draza was the ultimate traitor. If you are a Serb then Tito's Communist regime was no good as it took away Vojvodina & Kosovo. Please explain.
(Bam Bam, 22 August 2013 01:24)
I see myself as both a Yugoslav and a serb and Titos regime had nothing to do with Vojvodina nor Kosovo. Vojvodina still belongs to Serbia and more than 75%of the population are serbs. Kosovo was lost because of the nationalists that tore Yugoslavia apart after Titos death. Yes Kosovo was a poor part of Serbia even when Tito was alive but it still was a part of Serbia and the albanians and serbs lived in peace side by side unlike nowadays. Tito was the greatest leader we ever had and after his death it all fell apart like a house of cards.
(Daniel, 22 August 2013 11:54)
TM you should be ashamed of yourself for writing such a derigatory comment about the greatest leader of them all. SHAM ON YOU!
(Daniel, 23 August 2013 12:39)
Yes, we have all been told he was half this and half that but if you ever get to hear him speaking on any archives you will be more inclined to believe he was not Yugoslav.
I had no choice but to accept what we were all told but I do have my suspicions.
(Peggy, 20 August 2013 03:51)
Maybe you should learn more about how people from his part of Croatia speak, he spoke exactly like them. Not only was he A Yugoslav, he was the greatest of them all. Dont you all have any respect at all, the man is dead let him be for christs sake!
As long as he lived we had a Beautiful country and a nice live without wars and bloodshed, now all we have is nothing but hatred toward eachother.
(Daniel, 21 August 2013 18:02)
I see myself as both a Yugoslav and a serb and Titos regime had nothing to do with Vojvodina nor Kosovo. Vojvodina still belongs to Serbia and more than 75%of the population are serbs. Kosovo was lost because of the nationalists that tore Yugoslavia apart after Titos death. Yes Kosovo was a poor part of Serbia even when Tito was alive but it still was a part of Serbia and the albanians and serbs lived in peace side by side unlike nowadays. Tito was the greatest leader we ever had and after his death it all fell apart like a house of cards.
(Daniel, 22 August 2013 11:54)
Well good for you. My old man is a die hard communist and still to this day considers himself a Yugoslav even though he's ethnic Albanian. I admire his beliefs and convictions even though I do not share them.
My take on Tito is this, when one wants to evaluate his rule, all one needs to do is look at his legacy i.e. Serbia and ex YU today.
Yugoslavia (Union of Slavs of the South, but not everyone was a Slav) was an artificial state built upon an ancient geo-political divide, namely the division of Rome into its Eastern (later Byzantium) and Western counterparts. Tito, although respected by many world leaders, was still the head of a Communist version of the Royal Dictatorship of 1929. Had Yugoslavia been democratic,there may have been no break-up, least of all those terrible wars in the 1990s as epitomized by the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995. For Srebrenica, read Rohinga today. Tito\'s foreign policy led to the Non-aligned Movement - non-aligned against the West,that is. Please Reade the works of the late great Norah Beloff.
(Geoff Gane, 9 January 2018 12:53)
Wow, how absurd is this article on the Great WW2 hero Tito, how disrespectful & shameful & cowardly. To people with vivid, wild, unsubstantiated imaginations he was a Montenegrin, Serb, Polak, Englishman, Russian, Austrian, Bavarian German, Jew, Freemason, \\\…\\ "Bolshevik/communist\\\…\\ ", American agent, Soviet agent, British agent, Israeli agent & he had multiple professions & he died multiple times & in multiple locations & in different years. ?????. What next ????, will you all claim ?, that he wasnt actually human but was originally from the planet Mars. You are all jokes & you are embarrassing yourselves. Dont any of you have any shame ?! It doesnt take a rocket scientist to tell that the unreliable C.I.A. & all you clowns dont have a clue of what you are talking about. Tito spent years in Austria, in the Austro-Hungarian army, in a Russian goulag, in Spain, his mother who he was close to was a Slovene, they were separated for years before he returned home to her, distraught & over come with confusion & raw emotions, his Croatian father was an often absent alcoholic compulsive gambler, who forced young Tito to dress in rags & go door to door begging for money. He lived mostly in Belgrade post WW2. Tito lived a harrowing early life. Connect the dots, no wonder he spoke the way he did
(Stipe Nazorin, 22 October 2014 13:38)
wow.. It's hard to believe the CIA can be so retarded, and some of you also. When someone is abroad for a long time, where TITO was in Russia for a long time, your accent tends to mix/change. Its by no surprise that his accent sounded a bit different. He is still Croatian/Slovenian, regardless of the sound of his accent.
(Patrik, 9 January 2014 09:02)
@Daniel...As long as he lived we had a Beautiful country and a nice live without wars and bloodshed, now all we have is nothing but hatred toward each other.
So do you see yourself as a Yugoslav or a Serb. If you are a Yugoslav this would mean that Draza was the ultimate traitor. If you are a Serb then Tito's Communist regime was no good as it took away Vojvodina & Kosovo. Please explain.
(Bam Bam, 22 August 2013 01:24)
What is yugoslav? Albanians are no way related to south slavs. This has no bearing what so ever on Albanians, since we have nothing in common with Slavic speaking people. I don't give a hut what he was. BS news article.
(the truth, 19 August 2013 17:34)
So do you see yourself as a Yugoslav or a Serb. If you are a Yugoslav this would mean that Draza was the ultimate traitor. If you are a Serb then Tito's Communist regime was no good as it took away Vojvodina & Kosovo. Please explain.
(Bam Bam, 22 August 2013 01:24)
I see myself as both a Yugoslav and a serb and Titos regime had nothing to do with Vojvodina nor Kosovo. Vojvodina still belongs to Serbia and more than 75%of the population are serbs. Kosovo was lost because of the nationalists that tore Yugoslavia apart after Titos death. Yes Kosovo was a poor part of Serbia even when Tito was alive but it still was a part of Serbia and the albanians and serbs lived in peace side by side unlike nowadays. Tito was the greatest leader we ever had and after his death it all fell apart like a house of cards.
(Daniel, 22 August 2013 11:54)
What was a Yugoslav anyway? He could have been Serbia, Croatian, Albanian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Slovenian, Roma, and more, so this is a bit of silly news. Based on his accent, the CIA believes he was either Russian or Polish. I don't think he was Polish, but he was certainly an evil enough communist to be Russian.
(winston, 20 August 2013 02:31)
He was Polish indeed. I clearly remember him. It was in 1916 or 1917 he spoke to me in Polish and I was so proud when he become lider. It was such a tragedy for me and my family when they killed him with his wife in Bucaresti.
(Grandma Anna from Poland, 19 August 2013 21:36)
wow.. It's hard to believe the CIA can be so retarded, and some of you also. When someone is abroad for a long time, where TITO was in Russia for a long time, your accent tends to mix/change. Its by no surprise that his accent sounded a bit different. He is still Croatian/Slovenian, regardless of the sound of his accent.
(Patrik, 9 January 2014 09:02)
Wikipedia has a large entry for his history. He was born in Croatia, his mother was Slovenian, his father was Croatian. The CIA didn't know that?
(Paul, 19 August 2013 22:35)
Wow, how absurd is this article on the Great WW2 hero Tito, how disrespectful & shameful & cowardly. To people with vivid, wild, unsubstantiated imaginations he was a Montenegrin, Serb, Polak, Englishman, Russian, Austrian, Bavarian German, Jew, Freemason, \\\…\\ "Bolshevik/communist\\\…\\ ", American agent, Soviet agent, British agent, Israeli agent & he had multiple professions & he died multiple times & in multiple locations & in different years. ?????. What next ????, will you all claim ?, that he wasnt actually human but was originally from the planet Mars. You are all jokes & you are embarrassing yourselves. Dont any of you have any shame ?! It doesnt take a rocket scientist to tell that the unreliable C.I.A. & all you clowns dont have a clue of what you are talking about. Tito spent years in Austria, in the Austro-Hungarian army, in a Russian goulag, in Spain, his mother who he was close to was a Slovene, they were separated for years before he returned home to her, distraught & over come with confusion & raw emotions, his Croatian father was an often absent alcoholic compulsive gambler, who forced young Tito to dress in rags & go door to door begging for money. He lived mostly in Belgrade post WW2. Tito lived a harrowing early life. Connect the dots, no wonder he spoke the way he did
(Stipe Nazorin, 22 October 2014 13:38)
Grandma Anna from Poland you talking about Tchausesku Romanian lider He and his family was killed.
My former president Tito was Great lider and I realy dont care what he was but Yugoslavia that time was stronger than any other country in Europa.
(Kovach, 20 August 2013 07:26)
TM you should be ashamed of yourself for writing such a derigatory comment about the greatest leader of them all. SHAM ON YOU!
(Daniel, 23 August 2013 12:39)
As long as he lived we had a Beautiful country and a nice live without wars and bloodshed, now all we have is nothing but hatred toward eachother.
(Daniel, 21 August 2013 18:02)
====
You're not serious are you?
We have always had hatred in Yugoslavia, more precisely Croats hating the Serbs. Don't you know about Croatian terrorist training camps in Australia back in the 70s?
Don't you know about a group of Croatians going back to Yugoslavia in the late 70s in order to start an uprising?
I have personally seen photos of Pavelic hanging in Croatian clubs and their church halls. Was that love for their fellow Yugoslavs?
I have heard with my own ears Croatian national anthem played at their dances. I know about Serbian Orthodox churches always being targeted by the Croatians. They vandolised and defecated our churches here long before Yugoslavia broke up.
I have witnessed Macedonians singing anti Serb songs and playing their own national anthem long before Yugoslavia broke up.
What love are you talking about Daniel? How long have you lived in the west. Do you know anything about 70s and 80s and what went on in Australia?
What about Croatians storming the Yugoslav consulate resulting in one getting shot?
The only love was forced on them. Serbs never went around doing those things to them.
Tito betrayed Serbs in many ways and I am glad he is gone. I just don't get why they still honour his tomb in Belgrade. Dig him up and ship him back to his own people.
(Peggy, 26 August 2013 00:48)
The real Tito died in a German air raid in Drvar 1943. This could not be revealed at that the time due to lowering the morale of the Partizan fighters. The Russians brought in another clown from Moscow. The real Tito was missing his little finger due to a childhood tractor accident. The fake Tito gave a sppech in 1946 which had no 'Kajkavski' in it at all. Tito was a fake and the truth needs to be revealed. It's most likely that so called Partizan diehards continue today to visit an empty coffin in Beograd. KGB files would tell a better picture !
(Bam Bam, 20 August 2013 02:07)
"any further investigation of Tito's true identity would only serve academic purposes."
If Tito was not Josip Broz, but a foreigner instead, then maybe he was also an agent of a foreign country. If so. then that country would be liable to assume the entire foreign debt of the former Yugoslavia and would also be liable to pay compensation for the murders committed by Tito in the 1940s and 50s when his regime consolidating its power.
Tito’s tomb should be opened and DNA samples taken; this would at least establish if he was from Yugoslavia.
I doubt if his body lies in Belgrade. My guess is that it was brought back to England for burial.
(Michael Thomas, 19 August 2013 15:37)
These "Tito" topics should not be happening anymore. Does Serbia want to remember their communist days really? Whoever he was, I have no respect for him and what he did. Who care what nationality he was - he is gone and thank god for that!
(tm, 22 August 2013 14:19)
Yes, we have all been told he was half this and half that but if you ever get to hear him speaking on any archives you will be more inclined to believe he was not Yugoslav.
I had no choice but to accept what we were all told but I do have my suspicions.
(Peggy, 20 August 2013 03:51)
Maybe you should learn more about how people from his part of Croatia speak, he spoke exactly like them. Not only was he A Yugoslav, he was the greatest of them all. Dont you all have any respect at all, the man is dead let him be for christs sake!
As long as he lived we had a Beautiful country and a nice live without wars and bloodshed, now all we have is nothing but hatred toward eachother.
(Daniel, 21 August 2013 18:02)
Wikipedia has a large entry for his history. He was born in Croatia, his mother was Slovenian, his father was Croatian. The CIA didn't know that?
(Paul, 19 August 2013 22:35)
===…==
Have you ever heard him speak?
Yes, we have all been told he was half this and half that but if you ever get to hear him speaking on any archives you will be more inclined to believe he was not Yugoslav.
I had no choice but to accept what we were all told but I do have my suspicions.
(Peggy, 20 August 2013 03:51)
This is nothing new. After the war and in the 1950s particular Tito gave many gave speeches and listening to him it was abundantly clear that this man was not a Yugoslav. Naturally over time his speech improved. During a visit to his birthplace to see his mother it was purported that she said who is this man? This is not my son.
(sj, 19 August 2013 15:07)
It does kind of make sense that he'd be Russian or something. According to the writer Milovan Djilas, the Broz clan originated in Montenegro, so it's possible that this allegedly concocted identity given to Tito even included a subtle Montenegrin Serb component. If true, we'd have a fictitious ethnic background covering the entire South Slavic spectrum of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Anyway, this surely comes as no surprise to anyone, for Tito's Serbo-Croat was famously bad. You can try to blame that on an illiterate upbringing in a household where two languages could be heard spoken, but I think a lot of Slovenes - even those without a Croatian or Serbian parent, which Tito supposedly had - spoke Serbo-Croat fluently even before the First Yugoslavia. So personally, I believe he was a foreigner, and politically, it would be logical.
(Nenad, 20 August 2013 05:35)
@Daniel...As long as he lived we had a Beautiful country and a nice live without wars and bloodshed, now all we have is nothing but hatred toward each other.
So do you see yourself as a Yugoslav or a Serb. If you are a Yugoslav this would mean that Draza was the ultimate traitor. If you are a Serb then Tito's Communist regime was no good as it took away Vojvodina & Kosovo. Please explain.
(Bam Bam, 22 August 2013 01:24)
I see myself as both a Yugoslav and a serb and Titos regime had nothing to do with Vojvodina nor Kosovo. Vojvodina still belongs to Serbia and more than 75%of the population are serbs. Kosovo was lost because of the nationalists that tore Yugoslavia apart after Titos death. Yes Kosovo was a poor part of Serbia even when Tito was alive but it still was a part of Serbia and the albanians and serbs lived in peace side by side unlike nowadays. Tito was the greatest leader we ever had and after his death it all fell apart like a house of cards.
(Daniel, 22 August 2013 11:54)
Well good for you. My old man is a die hard communist and still to this day considers himself a Yugoslav even though he's ethnic Albanian. I admire his beliefs and convictions even though I do not share them.
My take on Tito is this, when one wants to evaluate his rule, all one needs to do is look at his legacy i.e. Serbia and ex YU today.
based upon your most recent statements, 'truth', it would seem that you're not actually interested in truth persay, but a subset of truth, a subset that you personally care about. in the hunt for truth, all truths are equally valued for their truthiness.
my $0,02
(in search of, 19 August 2013 19:49)
Josip Broz was a fake leader of a fake nation. Adolf Hitler was not German, Napolean wwas not French, joseph Stalin was not russian and Josip Broz was not a Yugoslav. Tito served the will of Western overlords just as Serbias modern leaders do.
(March2499, 20 August 2013 00:49)
Yugoslavia (Union of Slavs of the South, but not everyone was a Slav) was an artificial state built upon an ancient geo-political divide, namely the division of Rome into its Eastern (later Byzantium) and Western counterparts. Tito, although respected by many world leaders, was still the head of a Communist version of the Royal Dictatorship of 1929. Had Yugoslavia been democratic,there may have been no break-up, least of all those terrible wars in the 1990s as epitomized by the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995. For Srebrenica, read Rohinga today. Tito\'s foreign policy led to the Non-aligned Movement - non-aligned against the West,that is. Please Reade the works of the late great Norah Beloff.
(Geoff Gane, 9 January 2018 12:53)
I've really enjoyed this article. So far we've had: he was Russian,Polish, Italian, maybe even English - the truth is he was Australian.
(Darko, 20 August 2013 01:42)
"As for hard evidence, there has never been any. What is not in doubt, however, is that many Yugoslavs felt that Tito never spoke his native language very well, including people in Kumrovec who didn’t seem to recognize him. He made regular grammatical errors and used malapropisms that normal Croats wouldn’t say. To many, his pronunciation sounded a bit … Russian. When Dragoljub Mihajlovic, leader of the Serbian nationalist Chetnik resistance during WWII, first met Tito in 1941, he thought that he actually was a Russian – and Mihajlovic was far from the last to wonder."