"Nobody asked people if they wanted Yugoslavia to break up"

"Those who do not respect history will not be respected by history," says Joska Broz, the grandson of lifelong president of Yugoslavia (SFRJ) Josip Broz Tito.

Joska Broz spoke on the anniversary of the founding of the former state, where November 29 was celebrated as Republic Day.

He told Belgrade-based TV Pink that "nobody asked the people whether or not they wanted Yugoslavia to break up - it was a decision made by several powerful figures."

"More and more people are Yugo-nostalgic... I celebrate this day, as a slava (Serbian family patron saint day), I have no other slava. And this day is celebrated more and more, it's just not reported about," Broz said.

According to him, citizens in Yugoslavia "had it all."

"Vacations, spas, security, free health care, free education... there were also some mistakes, every system has them. We were a part of one of the greatest organizations in the world that gathered two thirds of humankind, we were the founders," he said, apparently referring to the Non-Aligned Movement, and added:

"Yugoslavia had a great reputation, especially in Africa."

Had it survived, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRJ) would have turned 74 today - on Republic Day, one of its biggest holidays.

The day was chosen to mark November 29, 1943 and the Second Session of AVNOJ (the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia), when members of the Partisan resistance abolished the monarchy and declared a federal republic - and the assembly to bring the constitution of the Federal People's Republic (FNRJ, predecessor of SFRJ), held on the same day in 1945.