COLUMN ONE : Europe’s Humpty Dumpty : In Yugoslavia, ethnic nationalism has been carried to extremes. People say they couldn’t put the country back together even if they wanted to, which they don’t.

Croatia Airlines has only two planes, a handful of destinations and little name-recognition after less than a week in the air.

But there’s an appeal to Croatia Airlines, unmatched by any other carrier, that has been filling every flight since its inauguration on Monday.

For all its puny size, the airline is a symbol of Croatian independence, and Croatian nationalists revel in symbolism.

Like most aspects of life in disintegrating Yugoslavia, air travel has broken down along ethnic lines.

From their choice of literature to vacation destinations to historical figures for whom streets are named, the fractious peoples of Yugoslavia are accelerating the federation’s breakup by spurning rival offerings to patronize their own.

Nationalism that was tamped down by Communist leaders for more than four decades burst out last year in the guise of democratic freedom. The Balkan interpretation holds that having long been denied national identity, each ethnic group is now entitled to expression in the extreme.

Croatian lingerie shops offer no elasticized stockings because they’re made only in Serbia. Serbian appliance stores no longer sell export-quality stoves and dishwashers because they are manufactured by secessionists in Slovenia. Montenegro resorts are never mentioned in Slovenian or Croatian literature on Adriatic travel.

So few ties have survived to bind Yugoslavia’s six battling republics and its dozen peoples that the federation is now widely viewed by its own citizens as a political Humpty Dumpty, a nonsensical country they couldn’t put back together even if they wanted to, which they don’t.

“Almost everything now comes down to nationality,” said a Zagreb sociologist, Benjamin Perasovic. “It’s making us ridiculous. We’ve even got ethnically exclusive clubs for punk rock enthusiasts and Rastafarians.”

Republic sports clubs, like the Rijeka boxing team of Croatia, refuse to compete within Yugoslav sports federations, seeking recognition of republic sovereignty and admittance to international competition.

Separate television stations beam the news of the world with an appropriately nationalist spin for each republic. Newspapers and radio networks also mold their contents to feed the hate and mistrust that has frayed Yugoslav bonds.

Railroad tracks have been dynamited and roads barricaded by militant Serbian and Croatian nationalists seeking to cut off rival villages from crucial transport and supplies.

Economic boycotts have made it impossible to sell Serbian-made cars in Croatia, or to import raw materials from Montenegro for manufacturing in Slovenia.

Croatian is the official language of Croatia, and Serbia’s tongue is now called Serbian. Yet the languages are nearly identical, differing only in occasional inflection and the fact that Serbs write in Cyrillic and Croats in Latin letters. In Western universities they are taught as one, Serbo-Croatian.

“It’s a difference everyone is focusing on that really is hardly any difference at all,” observed a Western diplomat who speaks the language. “It’s not even a different dialect. It’s like saying Americans from the South speak a language that is different from English.”

Each nationality is cleansing its cuisine of rival ethnic influences. Serbs believe they invented what is now known as the hamburger because for centuries the peoples of the Balkan peninsula have eaten meat patties in buns known as pljeskavica. In Croatia, the Western term hamburger is now the only one palatable.

Fanatical focus on differences that separate the nationalities has not only mortgaged Yugoslavia’s future; it has raised what seems to be an irrepressible specter of civil war.

“The problem with Yugoslavia is that there is no dialogue, only a lot of monologues. Everyone is talking and no one is listening,” said Zarko Modric, a Croatian editor with the Tanjug news agency based in Belgrade. “No one knows how to deal with the fact that no matter how you divide Yugoslavia, there will be a lot of angry and frightened people.”

Despite occasional lulls in the saber-rattling, life for most of Yugoslavia’s 24 million citizens is now perpetually surreal.

Street and square names change overnight, as nationalist governments seek to honor more appropriate heroes.

Zagreb’s main Republic Square was rededicated in October to Ban Josip Jelacic, whose claim to fame in Croatian history was challenging Hungarian rulers over church autonomy in the last century.

What was once the Square in Memory of the Victims of Fascism is now the Square of Croatian Giants--a renaming that has raised questions about the Zagreb leadership’s recognition of wartime atrocities. Hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies were slaughtered by fanatic Ustashas--Croatian terrorists--during the Nazi puppet regime created in 1941.

Even relatively respectful revolutionaries, such as the Brothers Kavurica, commemorated with a central street on which the U.S. Consulate stands, have been displaced by more politically fashionable figures, outdating many businesses’ stationery and personal address books. The street was recently renamed in honor of Croatian nationalist Andrij Hebrango, who died at the hands of Communist partisans after World War II.

Faced with such a menacing future, many deal with the current recession by borrowing heavily to live well. Sidewalk cafes and restaurants in the major cities are thronged with people discussing the absurdity of trying to survive while on a collision course with destruction.

“You have to laugh, otherwise you would cry,” explained Milena Radic, a Serb who has lived her whole life in Croatia.

Prices rise almost daily as the federation again slides into hyper-inflation, stirring memories of the 3,000% gallop suffered in 1989.

The dinar, the Yugoslav currency that only a year ago was stable and convertible, has lost more than half of its buying power in two months due to devaluations forced by a foundering economy.

Slovenia, the most affluent and Westernized republic, accuses Serbia of “financial terrorism” for printing $1.4 billion worth of new dinars last December and setting in motion the inflationary juggernaut.

Zagreb and Belgrade are both placid, but only an hour’s drive from either capital armed civilians have barricaded their villages against the other side. Ethnic violence stemming from the standoffs has killed 20 people, some grotesquely mutilated to drive home the degree of mutual hatred.

“I couldn’t believe this kind of brutality was happening in the 20th Century,” said Velda Brdar, a Zagreb Croat married to a Serb. “When I saw those pictures (of the mutilated victims), I felt like I was in a science fiction story where savage hordes from the past are somehow transported to modern times.”

The threat of being caught up in the ethnic melees has made travel around Yugoslavia increasingly difficult and raised fears of terrorism.

Insecurity breeds further distrust, encouraging each ethnic group to patronize its own services, as seems to be happening with the newly launched Croatia Airlines.

“We expected a lot of passenger interest, but we are nevertheless surprised. All of our flights to Split have been absolutely full,” said Suada Derviskadic, manager of the Croatia Airlines office in central Zagreb, which has been flooded with ticket-buyers all week.

“People in Croatia have for a long time wanted their own airline,” Derviskadic said, insisting that the desire was in no way political. “They just like to hear their own language.”

Serbs tend to prefer JAT, the Yugoslav national carrier based in Belgrade--that is, when JAT is not on strike and other republic airports allow its planes to land.

Slovenes usually take Adria Airways, a republic-owned line that has been flying to other Yugoslav destinations for 25 years and recently began competing with JAT for passengers traveling to Western cities such as Vienna, London and Zurich.

And Croats are now flocking to the sleek marble-lined offices of Croatia Airways to put their dinars where their hearts are.

“Why should we give our money to the Serbian airline when they don’t even pay us for using our airports?” a young mother, who gave her name only as Maria, replied when queried about her choice of carriers.

JAT was forbidden to land and denied airport services from mid-March until early May, as the nearly bankrupt carrier hadn’t paid its bills to Zagreb airport for months. Airline workers, who hadn’t received their salaries in weeks, also have been staging periodic strikes since April.

Like most other services dependent on support from the federal government, JAT finds itself in a perpetual financial crisis, partly due to Croatian and Slovenian refusal to ante up their republics’ share of federal expenses.

There used to be six JAT flights a day between Belgrade and Zagreb, the respective capitals of rival Serbia and Croatia. Now, on a good day, there might be one.

“At the moment, that’s enough. We don’t have many passengers on that route,” observed an information clerk at the cavernous and empty JAT office in Zagreb.

Croatia Airlines flies to several islands and ports along the Adriatic coast but has deliberately omitted service to Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital and largest city.

So despite the emergence of Yugoslavia’s third major airline, it remains tricky business to fly between the federation’s two largest cities.

Asked if he could arrange an air ticket to Belgrade for a guest, the concierge at Zagreb’s Hotel Esplanade appeared bemused.

“Generally there are flights,” he said. “But then, Yugoslavia is only generally a country.”