Serbia

/serr"bee euh/, n.

a former kingdom in S Europe: now, with revised boundaries, a constituent republic of Yugoslavia, in the N part; includes the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. 9,660,000; 34,116 sq. mi. (88,360 sq. km). Cap.: Belgrade. Formerly, Servia.

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Constituent republic of Serbia and Montenegro, constituting 80% of its area.

The formerly autonomous provinces of Kosovo (administered by the UN since 1999) and the Vojvodina are within its borders. Area: 34,116 sq mi (88,361 sq km). Population (2001 est.): 9,993,000. Capital: Belgrade. Ethnic Serbs, Croats, Bosniacs (Muslims), and Albanians live in the republic. Language: Serbian (Serbo-Croatian; official). Religions: Serbian Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Islam. Currency: Serbian dinar. Serbia is mountainous, with forests in the central area and low-lying plains in the north. The fertile plains of the Vojvodina supply much of the country's grain, tobacco, and sugar beets, while the hilly central areas specialize in dairy, fruit, and livestock. Before the civil war in the 1990s, mining and manufacturing were the economic mainstays, with industries noted for textiles and with deposits of lead, zinc, coal, copper, and oil. Serbs settled the region in the 6th–7th centuries AD. In the 9th century the Serbs, nominally under Byzantine suzerainty, converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The Ottoman Turks triumphed at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389; after a long period of resistance, Serbia became part of the Ottoman Empire in 1459. After the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29, Serbia became an autonomous principality under Turkish suzerainty and Russian protection. It became completely independent of Turkey in 1878. After World War I, Serbia became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which was renamed Yugoslavia in 1929. In 1946 Serbia was made one of six federated republics of Yugoslavia. As the Yugoslav economy faltered in the 1980s, the country began to break apart. After an unsuccessful attempt to prevent Slovenia's secession in 1991, Serb elements of the Yugoslav armed forces began assisting Bosnian Serbs in sweeping Muslims and Croats from eastern and northern Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, after Yugoslavia's breakup, Serbia joined with Montenegro to form a new Yugoslav federation. The area remained in turmoil (see Bosnian conflict). The signing of the Dayton peace accords in 1995 ultimately brought little relief. Slobodan Milošević retained power in Serbia through the end of the century, and the push for more autonomy by Albanian Kosovars provoked another round of fighting in 1998–99 (see Kosovo conflict). As the violence escalated, NATO responded with a bombing campaign, which led to a peace accord in June 1999. A change in the Yugoslav government late in 2000 brought reinstatement in the UN, and in 2003, after the Montenegrin government threatened to declare independence, the governments of the two constituent states agreed to remain united under the name Serbia and Montenegro.

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▪ 2009

Area:

77,498 sq km (29,922 sq mi) (excluding Kosovo)

Population

(2008 est.): 7,352,000

Capital:

Belgrade

Chief of state:

President Boris Tadic

Head of government:

Prime Ministers Vojislav Kostunica and, from July 7, Mirko Cvetkovic

      International relations dominated the news in Serbia for much of 2008. On February 17 the southern province of Kosovo formally declared its independence from Serbia. (See Kosovo .) The United Nations in October approved Serbia's request that the International Court of Justice rule on the legality of Kosovo's independence. By year's end 53 countries had recognized Kosovo. Meanwhile, Serbia supported Serbs in northern Kosovo who challenged the new Kosovar government.

      At the same time, Serbia made increased efforts toward European integration. The Serbian parliament ratified the Stability and Association Agreement, a required step toward consideration for European Union membership. The country also cooperated with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY); in July Serbian authorities arrested Radovan Karadzic, the former leader of the Bosnian Serb Republic whom the ICTY had indicted in 1995 for war crimes. Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic noted that Serbia had extradited 44 out of 46 suspected war criminals sought by the ICTY and pledged to apprehend Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic, former leader of Croatia's Krajina Serbs. A report by the EU, however, noted that Serbia still needed to reform its judicial system, to combat widespread corruption, and to take stronger action against money laundering, drug abuse, and human trafficking. International monitors also criticized the country's lack of comprehensive antidiscrimination laws. There was a rising tide of attacks on Serbia's minorities in the Vojvodina and Sandzak regions. Moreover, according to the government, Serbia held 97,000 officially registered refugees—a record number for Europe—with an additional 500,000 people “facing hardships linked to refugee status.”

      Pres. Boris Tadic, leader of the pro-EU Democratic Party (DS), was reelected in February with 50.5% of the vote in the second round of polling. Tadic defeated Serbian Radical Party candidate Tomislav Nikolic, who, after being ousted by party leaders in September, went on to establish the Progressive Party. May parliamentary elections were won by the DS-led bloc For a European Serbia, which in July established a broader coalition with the Socialist Party of Serbia and several national minority parties (led by the country's Hungarians, Bosniacs, Croats, and Albanians) to form a pro-European government headed by Cvetkovic.

      Observers expressed optimism that Tadic and the new coalition government would continue to push forward economic stimulus plans, which would aid the country's progress toward membership in the EU. Several economists called Serbia a “Balkan tiger” because it had its third consecutive year of growth of more than 6%. Monthly salaries and wages between January and October 2008 were 18.96% higher (4.63% higher in real terms) than they had been during the same period in 2007. Nevertheless, unemployment remained high during the year, at around 14%.

      The most significant contributors to growth continued to be transportation, retail trade, and the financial, construction, and food processing industries. In August, Serbia requested €4.14 billion (about $6.29 billion) in international loans for the development of a modern rail network. The project would extend the construction of a large motorway and rail network linking Serbia with Croatia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. Serbia also approved the sale of 51% of its major oil company, NIS, to the Russian energy giant Gazprom and agreed to host a portion of Russia's planned South Stream natural gas pipeline. Serbia's Zastava automobile manufacturer assembled its last Yugo in November, and Italy's Fiat announced plans to begin production in 2010 in the country.

      Commerce with EU countries accounted for more than half of Serbia's foreign trade. The privatization of state-owned companies, which were seen as financially unstable, impeded foreign trade and investment, however. The trade deficit rose 29.2% between January and November.

Milan Andrejevich

▪ 2008

Area:

88,383 sq km (34,125 sq mi), including 10,887 sq km (4,203 sq mi) in the UN interim-administrated region of Kosovo

Population

(2007 est.): 9,516,000, including 2,114,000 in Kosovo

Capital:

Belgrade

Chief of state:

President Boris Tadic

Head of government:

Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica

      The deadlock between Serbs and Kosovo Albanians (Kosovars) over the future status of Serbia's restive province of Kosovo continued in 2007 amid growing tensions between the two camps and disagreement among members of the international community. Local and parliamentary elections were held in Kosovo in November. The province's Serb minority boycotted the balloting, and most Serb candidates withdrew. European media reported of a U.S. plan that would put a 12-year hold on a final decision over the political future of Kosovo and in the interim would provide billions of euros for economic development. Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica suggested Hong Kong's “two systems, one state” arrangement with China as a model for relations between Serbia and Kosovo. UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari, who earlier in the year had drafted a plan that envisioned a period of internationally supervised independence for Kosovo, repeatedly warned against attempts to alter the plan. The UN plan was backed by the U.S. and most EU member states but was rejected by Serbia, Russia, and China. The EU was considering recognition of Kosovo's independence in mid-2008. In December the UN mediator's report concluded that both sides were far from agreement. Following the report, Serbia's parliament passed a resolution condemning any attempt by Kosovar leaders to declare independence while rejecting any role the EU planned to take in Kosovo if the EU recognized the province's independence. The resolution would also put on hold any future steps that Serbia was required to take toward EU membership.

      Serbian elections were held in January. A four-party coalition government was finally established in May after the Serbian Radical Party—the single largest party in the 250-seat parliament—could not find a coalition partner. The shaky coalition lost one of its smaller partners, and amid escalating political tensions and the uncertain status of Kosovo, the government scheduled the next presidential election for early 2008, with local elections to be held later in the year.

      Serbia's economic picture was mixed. Economic growth was projected at 7.5%, while inflation stood at 8.5%. Serbia secured more than €2.6 billion in foreign investments, down from the previous year's €6 billion. Serbia sought to expand its partnership with the Russian energy giant Gazprom after having signed a nonbinding agreement in 2006 that called for Gazprom to build part of its South Stream natural-gas pipeline through Serbia. The pipeline would connect Serbia with Croatia and Bulgaria and eventually with markets in Italy, Austria, and France. Negotiations also took place with Gazpromneft, a subsidiary of Gazprom, over a privatization plan calling for a 25% stake in Serbia's oil industry. Russia also agreed to settle its Soviet-era debt to Serbia by modernizing the Djerdap hydroelectric plant, Serbia's largest energy producer, and writing off Serbia's €260 million bill for natural-gas imports.

      Kosovo's economic and social situation continued to deteriorate. According to the World Bank, 15% of Kosovo's population lived in extreme poverty, and 37% were considered poor. A UN report showed that 57% of those living in extreme poverty were under the age of 25, and unemployment for those under 25 was 40%.

      In foreign affairs Pres. Boris Tadic became the first high-ranking official from Serbia to apologize to Croatia for war crimes committed by Serbs during the 1991–95 war. His remarks were followed by improved relations with the EU and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). In November Serbia and the EU initialed the Stabilization and Association Agreement—an important step toward Serbia's eventual EU membership. The agreement, however, had to be ratified by the EU's 27 member states; in addition, a precondition for membership called for the capture of the four remaining war criminals indicted by the ICTY, including Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic.

Milan Andrejevich

▪ 2007

Area:

88,391 sq km (34,128 sq mi), including 10,887 sq km (4,203 sq mi) in the UN interim-administrated region of Kosovo

Population

(2006 est.): 10,027,000, including 2,532,000 in Kosovo (according to Kosovar source)

Capital:

Belgrade

Chief of state:

President of Serbia and Montenegro Svetozar Marovic and, from June 3, President of Serbia Boris Tadic (he had held this post since July 11, 2004)

Head of government:

Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica

 Serbia declared its independence in June 2006, shortly after Montenegro severed its federal union with Serbia. The former president, Svetozar Marovic, resigned as of June 4, and the sitting president of the Serbian republic, Boris Tadic, took over as head of the new state pending presidential elections, possibly in January 2007. A new constitution was adopted in November. Supporters said it would pave the way for Serbia's democratic development and membership in the European community; critics assailed it for its undermining of democratic credibility and its vague wording concerning broader autonomy for the northern province of Vojvodina. Analysts believed that the urgency in adopting the new constitution came from increasing pressure from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Serbia to arrest indicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladic. Belgrade's failure to fulfill its obligations to the UN court resulted in the suspension of talks on the Stabilization and Association Agreement, the first step to EU membership. Surprisingly, however, on November 29 Serbia was invited to join NATO's Partnership for Peace outreach program, considered the first step toward full NATO membership. Another important factor that led to the quick promulgation of the constitution was the prospect of an end to talks and a decision by the international community on the future status of Kosovo.

      Negotiations between Serbian and Kosovo Albanian (Kosovar) representatives on the future status of the UN-administered province began in February. Belgrade insisted that Kosovo remain an integral part of Serbia, while Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority demanded full independence. Kosovar leaders raised the possibility of Kosovo's unilaterally declaring independence if talks with Belgrade failed. They also said that Kosovo would prefer to gain independence through a widely supported UN Security Council resolution but warned that any further delay could lead to renewed violence. The Serbian leadership remained divided over how much autonomy could be granted to the restive province. Pres. Boris Tadic said Serbia was prepared to offer the Kosovars the “strongest autonomy in the world”— for example, allowing Kosovo to join international financial institutions. The two ruling centrist parties, one of them led by Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, as well as the right-wing Serbian Radical Party, maintained that Kosovo was “an indivisible part of Serbia.” The UN special envoy for Kosovo, Martti Ahtisaari, suggested that a decision on Kosovo's future might be made in March 2007.

      A report by the European Commission confirmed that Serbia had made progress in implementing political and economic measures toward EU integration but said that reform of Serbia's security forces and cooperation with the ICTY needed to be accelerated. Overall, economic recovery continued but at a slow pace. Industrial production declined by just under 1%, while GDP grew by 6.7% in the first half of 2006 owing to strong gains in the commerce, transportation, financial services, and energy sectors and a slight surplus in the budget. Foreign investments continued to expand, with the U.S. being Serbia's biggest investor. Unemployment remained high at 27%. The battle against corruption intensified, and more than a dozen key officials, including judges, businessmen, and bankers, were arrested during the year.

      Two prominent figures died in 2006: former strongman Slobodan Milosevic, (Milosevic, Slobodan ) of apparent heart failure in his cell at the ICTY in The Hague, and Kosovar leader Ibrahim Rugova (Rugova, Ibrahim ). (See Obituaries.)

Milan Andrejevich

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Introduction

Serbia, flag of   country in the west-central Balkans. For most of the 20th century, it was a part of Yugoslavia.

      The capital of Serbia is Belgrade (Beograd), a cosmopolitan city at the confluence of the Danube (Danube River) and Sava (Sava River) rivers; Stari Grad, Belgrade's old town, is dominated by an ancient fortress called the Kalemegdan and includes well-preserved examples of medieval architecture and some of eastern Europe's most renowned restaurants. Serbia's second city, Novi Sad, lies upstream on the Danube; a cultural and educational centre, it resembles the university towns of nearby Hungary in many respects.

      Beginning in the 1920s, Serbia was an integral part of Yugoslavia (meaning “Land of the South Slavs”), which embraced the republics of Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Montenegro. Long ruled in turn by the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary, these component nations combined in 1918 to form an independent federation known as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, Kingdom of). In 1929 that federation was formally constituted as Yugoslavia. Serbia was the dominant part in this multiethnic union, though after World War II the nonaligned communist government of Josip Broz Tito (Tito, Josip Broz) accorded some measure of autonomy to the constituent republics and attempted to balance contending interests by dividing national administrative responsibilities (e.g., for intelligence and defense) along ethnic lines.

      After Tito's death in 1980 and the collapse of communism in eastern Europe over the course of the following decade, resurgent nationalism reopened old rifts in Yugoslav society. Serbian (and later Yugoslav) leader Slobodan Milošević (Milošević, Slobodan) attempted to craft a “Greater Serbia” from the former union, but his policies instead led to the secession of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia and civil war in the early 1990s. The civil war caused the death or displacement of hundreds of thousands of people and prompted international sanctions against the country. In the late 1990s more blood was spilled when the Albanian-Muslim-dominated Serbian province of Kosovo declared independence, resulting in the intervention of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations, the bombing of Belgrade, and the placement of Kosovo under UN administration from mid-1999.

      Milošević was later defeated in presidential elections and arrested and tried before the International Court of Justice for war crimes, but the rump Yugoslavia remained unstable, as Montenegro threatened to declare independence before negotiating an agreement that maintained the country's unification in a loose federation. In 2003, after the ratification of the pact by the parliaments of Serbia, Montenegro, and Yugoslavia, the renamed Serbia and Montenegro replaced Yugoslavia on the European map. In 2006 this loose federation came to an end, as Montenegro and Serbia were recognized as independent nations. Meanwhile, multilateral talks to determine Kosovo's future status failed to yield a solution acceptable to both Serbs and Kosovars. Despite Serbia's opposition, Kosovo formally seceded in February 2008.

      Likening the strife and dissolution that ravaged the country during the 1990s to a children's game, Serbian poet Vasko Popa (Popa, Vasko) once wrote:

If you're not smashed to bits,

If you're still in one piece and get up in one piece,

You can start playing.

      By the early 21st century, Serbia was putting behind it the tragedy of its recent past to rebuild as a singular, independent country on a new Balkan Peninsula.

Land (Serbia)

 Bounding the country to the west are the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Slavonian region of the Republic of Croatia. Serbia adjoins Hungary to the north, Romania and Bulgaria to the east, Macedonia to the south, and Montenegro to the southwest. Kosovo, which Serbia does not recognize as an independent country, lies to the south as well, along the northwestern border of Albania.

Relief

      The landforms of Serbia, a landlocked country, fall into regional groupings that roughly parallel the republic's major political divisions. The plains of the northern Vojvodina region generally lie at elevations between 200 and 350 feet (60 to 100 metres) above sea level. The Fruška Gora hills interrupt these plains on the west, stretching along a triangle of land between the Danube (Danube River) and Sava (Sava River) rivers. Their highest point is 1,765 feet (540 metres). Much of the Vojvodina is blanketed by portions of a former plateau that rose up to 100 feet (30 metres) above the territory's floodplains; the remnants are composed of fine particles of loess deposited by winds during the last glacial period in Europe.

 Hills and high mountains characterize the central body of Serbia. Its western margins include sections of the Dinaric Alps, and its eastern borderlands are part of the Carpathian (Carpathian Mountains) and Rhodope (Rhodope Mountains) mountain systems. Between these flanking mountains lie the Šumadija hills, the core of the medieval Serbian state.

      The granite ridge of the Kopaonik Mountains, in Serbia's southwestern Dinaric zone, reaches 6,617 feet (2,017 metres). This is a tectonically active region notable for earthquakes. To the east the Carpathians are nearly as high; one peak in the Balkan Mountains (Stara Planina) bordering Bulgaria attains an elevation of more than 7,000 feet (2,100 metres). Summits of the Šumadija hills range from 2,000 to 3,500 feet (600 to 1,100 metres).

      Serbia's northeastern border follows the Iron Gate (Ðerdap) gorge of the Danube River, the most spectacular such feature in Europe. For a distance of 60 miles (100 km), the Danube flows across the Carpathian range, its bed dropping 90 feet (30 metres). The gorge consists of four narrow constrictions connected by three basins. Before the flooding that followed completion of the joint Yugoslav-Romanian Ðerdap hydroelectric dam in 1972, rocky outcrops confined the river at one point to a width of only 300 feet (90 metres). Upstream, in the Vojvodina plains, the Danube attains widths of up to 2 miles (3 km) and depths of 45 feet (14 metres) or more.

Drainage

      Serbia's drainage is primarily to the Danubian system and flows into the Black Sea. The Tisa River (Tisza River) is the most prominent tributary of the Danube in the Vojvodina, entering the province from Hungary south of the city of Szeged. Runoff from the southern slopes of the Fruška Gora flows into the Sava River, a major western tributary of the Danube.

      The Morava (Morava River), or Velika Morava, River is the largest stream entirely within Serbia. It has a length of 290 miles (470 km) and flows northward into the Danube, draining two-fifths of Serbian territory. Tributaries of the Vardar River tap a small section of southeastern Serbia; the river itself flows southward across Macedonia to the Aegean Sea. The valleys of the Morava and Vardar rivers have constituted a major route between central Europe and the eastern Mediterranean since prehistoric times. A railroad and modern highway now follow this ancient path.

      Other than reservoirs behind hydroelectric dams, Serbia has no appreciable lakes. Its largest natural body of water is Lake Palić in the Vojvodina, with a surface area of less than 2 square miles (5 square km).

Soils

      Three principal soil types characterize the region, corresponding to its major divisions in landforms and climate. The subhumid plains and tablelands of the Vojvodina north and east of the Danube are characterized by organically rich black earth soils (chernozems) derived from the decaying root systems of countless generations of native grasses. In the forested hills and mountains south of the Danube, the soils tend to be less-fertile and weakly acidic brown podzolics (Podzol). In cultivated areas these have been enriched by the incorporation of nutrients from fodder crops and animal manures. Infertile podzol soils predominate in the mountains and are characterized by an ash-coloured upper layer resulting from the leaching of all but their insoluble quartz particles by the acids generated in the slow decay of pine needles and other litter of the forest floors.

Climate

      Differences in elevation, proximity to the sea, and exposure to wind lead to significant climatic differences within Serbia. In general, however, the climate is continental, with cold, relatively dry winters and warm, humid summers. The difference between average temperatures in January and July in Belgrade is 40 °F (22 °C).

      The Vojvodina most clearly exhibits characteristics of the continental climate. July temperatures average about 71 °F (22 °C), and January temperatures hover around 30 °F (−1 °C). Summer temperatures in mountainous areas of Serbia are notably cooler, averaging about 64 °F (18 °C). Air masses from eastern and northern Europe predominate throughout the year. Only occasionally do Mediterranean air masses reach Serbia from the southeast or south.

      Precipitation in Serbia ranges from 22 to 75 inches (560 to 1,900 mm) per year, depending on elevation and exposure. The lowest amounts are found in the Vojvodina. Most precipitation falls during the warm half of the year, with maximums occurring in late spring and late autumn. Winter precipitation tends to fall as snow, with 40 days of snow cover in northern lowlands and 120 days in the mountains.

Plant and animal life

      The vegetation of Serbia forms a transition between central European and Mediterranean types. Before Austrian agricultural colonization began in the 18th century, the dry Vojvodina plains were a grassland steppe. However, it is evident that forests at one time dominated the region. Only about 5 percent of the area is now covered by trees, mostly in the higher parts of the Fruška Gora and in wetlands adjacent to the Danube and Sava.

      Up to one-third of Serbia proper is in broad-leaved forest, mostly oak and beech. The regional name Šumadija literally means “forested area,” but large areas that were formerly wooded long have been cleared and put to cultivation. In mountainous areas trees cover two-fifths or more of the territory, depending on elevation and soil thickness.

      Serbia has a rich diversity of wild animals. Among larger mammals, deer and bear abound in forested areas. Wild pigs (Sus scrofa) are a distinctive feature of beech forests in the mountains.

People (Serbia)

      Most of the population of Serbia and neighbouring Montenegro is of South Slavic origin. Slavic tribes entered the region from the north during the 5th to 7th century AD, encountering Illyrian-speaking (Illyrian language) peoples. Although the Slavs acculturated large numbers of Illyrians, many of the latter retained their distinctive language and customs in the complex hills and valleys of present-day Albania.

      Cleavages between southern Slav tribes developed over time, particularly after the establishment in the 4th century AD of the north-south “Theodosian Line” demarcating the eastern and western segments of the Roman Empire. Organization of the Christian church subsequently was based on this division. Missionaries from Rome converted Slavic tribes in the west to Roman Catholicism (these tribal groups becoming progenitors of the Slovenes and Croatians), while missionaries from Constantinople converted ancestors of Serbs and Montenegrins to Eastern Orthodoxy.

Ethnic groups

      The early Serbian homeland was in the vicinity of Serbia's Kopaonik Mountains, including the Kosovo Basin and the region around the ancient capital of Ras (near modern Novi Pazar). After Ottoman armies overran this region in the 14th century, many Serb families fled the southern basins and found shelter northward in the hills of Šumadija. Albanian tribal groups then moved into former Serbian settlements.

      More than four-fifths of the population of Serbia identifies itself as Serb. The principal minorities are Hungarians (Hungarian) and Bosniacs (Bosnian Muslims). Roma (Rom) (Gypsies) make up a small but distinctive group. Other minorities include Croats, Montenegrins, Bulgarians, and Romanians (Rom).

      Excluding the Vojvodina, Serbs make up the vast majority of the inhabitants of Serbia proper. The proportion of Serbs there grew markedly during the 1990s, owing to an influx of Serbian refugees from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Minority populations of Bosniacs, located in the southwest, and Albanians, scattered throughout Serbia proper, declined as many refugees fled to Bosnia and Kosovo.

      In the Vojvodina, Serbs constitute slightly more than half of an exceptionally diverse population. Serbian refugees from the secessionist republics account for about one-eighth of the province's total population. The second largest group is the Hungarians. At one time a large number of Germans lived in the Vojvodina, but the new communist government expelled virtually all German speakers in 1945. This group had descended from Austrian and German families brought to the Vojvodina by the Austrian empress Maria Theresa during the 18th century.

      Before violence erupted in Kosovo in the late 1990s, Albanians constituted more than three-fourths of the province's population, despite the fact that most Serbs traditionally considered Kosovo to be their cultural hearth. In the 1990s the regime of Slobodan Milošević (Milošević, Slobodan) engaged in a fierce struggle in Kosovo with Albanians who sought independence for the province after its autonomous status was revoked. Following clashes between Serbian police and military and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the Yugoslav government forced hundreds of thousands of Albanians to abandon their homes and flee to other countries, a process that came to be known as “ethnic cleansing.” In the wake of military intervention by NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), many such refugees returned. After the peace agreement between NATO and Yugoslavia, some 200,000 Serbs and Roma fled Kosovo. When Kosovo declared independence in 2008, Albanians accounted for the overwhelming majority of its population.

Languages

      Unlike Romanians or Hungarians, Serbs do not have a distinct language to set them apart from their neighbours. They speak essentially the same language as Croats, Bosniacs, and Montenegrins, although some pronunciation and vocabulary are distinctive. This language, linguistically termed Serbo-Croatian (Serbo-Croatian language), is now identified as Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, or Montenegrin, depending on the ethnicity of the speaker. It is in its written form that Serbian differs from Bosnian and Croatian. Reflecting Serbian religious heritage, it uses a modified version of the Cyrillic alphabet—a script originally developed by the Orthodox missionary brothers Saints Cyril and Methodius (Cyril and Methodius, Saints). Croatian is written in the Latin script of other Roman Catholic lands. At one time Bosnian used the Arabic alphabet, but it has also adopted the Latin alphabet. Serbian differs slightly from Montenegrin in the use of three letters, and Montenegrins use both the Cyrillic and the Latin. The Hungarian (Hungarian language) population's Uralic language (Uralic languages) is unrelated to Serbian.

Religion

      The distinguishing feature of Serbian national identity is its Eastern Orthodox (Eastern Orthodoxy) Christian heritage, though probably less than one-tenth of the population actually attended church during the communist era. Throughout history the autocephalous Serbian Orthodox Church has viewed itself as the champion of Serbian national interests. During the Ottoman period it waged a long struggle against the influence of Greek clergy based in Constantinople. Because of its nationalist activities, the Ottoman regime suppressed the Serbian church from 1766 to 1832. Hungarians (Hungarian) in the Vojvodina are divided between Roman Catholic and Calvinist Protestant groups.

Settlement patterns

Urban settlement

      For many years a steady stream of migrants left marginal parts of Serbia to settle in Belgrade and other developed areas. According to the 1948 census, only one-fifth of Serbs were urban, but by the beginning of the 21st century approximately half the population of Serbia's present territory was city-dwelling. Nevertheless, truly urban settlements in Serbia are relatively few. Belgrade achieved a population in excess of one million by virtue of its role as capital both of Serbia and of Yugoslavia (and its successor, Serbia and Montenegro). Other urban areas are market towns and centres of regional administration.

Rural settlement

 Significant differences exist between rural settlements in upland areas and those in Serbia's basins and plains. Villages in the core region of Šumadija tend to be small, lying dispersed along roads that follow the crests of ridges. Houses are mainly constructed of logs or roughly sawn planks, with roofs of shingles; plaster frequently covers outer walls. Houses are usually spaced close together. In the plains of the Vojvodina, on the other hand, villages are large and widely spaced. They are much more recent than most highland settlements, since they appeared only during the 18th and 19th centuries, when Habsburg forces secured the Hungarian Plain. Most commonly they exhibit a gridiron form, reflecting sites originally laid out by Austrian military engineers.

      Nucleated settlements of 5,000 to 10,000 inhabitants are common in the Vojvodina. Although they are larger than other rural settlements, they lack the nonagricultural activities and amenities that would classify them as urban. Their large size is derived from the early concern that farm colonists needed protection against raids from the Ottoman-controlled south; it also facilitated control of the workforce by landowners who had gained extensive farming territories. Typically, houses in villages are elongated, with ends adjacent to the streets. Fences or walls, often with elaborate gates, join adjacent houses to mark courtyards and to afford privacy and protection.

      As the threat of Ottoman border raids waned in the 19th and 20th centuries, individual farmsteads began to appear in open fields between large villages. Originally serving as shelters during harvest times, these salaj (Hungarian: tanyák) later became family homes. Such dispersed farmsteads now give parts of the Vojvodina an appearance similar to the American Midwest.

Demographic trends

      The rate of population increase differs markedly by region. Between the 1971 and 1981 censuses, the total population of Serbia grew 10 percent. However, within the country, the Vojvodina had a net growth of only about 5 percent, while Kosovo, then a province of Serbia, expanded by more than 25 percent. In the 1980s the latter's predominantly Albanian population had a birth rate double that of the rest of Serbia. Warfare in Kosovo dramatically altered population growth and settlement patterns in that region in the 1990s, with large numbers of Albanian refugees entering the province from other parts of Serbia. Today a life expectancy of about 70 years is characteristic of all parts of the country.

Economy

      In 1945 Yugoslavia adopted a socialist (socialism) economic system modeled on institutions in the Soviet Union, but, following its break with the Communist Information Bureau ( Cominform) in 1948, a system evolved that allowed increasing opportunity for individual enterprise. Most farmers were gathered into collective farms (collectivization) until this unpopular policy was abandoned after 1953. In Serbia the institution continued mainly in former German estates in the Vojvodina, where the regime had resettled migrants from mountainous regions of Serbia and Montenegro. The communist regime also nationalized existing industrial enterprises and embarked on an ambitious policy of rapidly creating more. Using funds derived from the profits of manufacturing plants in the long-developed industrial regions of Slovenia and Croatia, it created large numbers of new enterprises in Serbia and other former Ottoman parts of Yugoslavia. Many manufacturing sites, however, were selected with an eye to providing job opportunities for political constituencies rather than for inherent advantages in the production process. Such enterprises continue to be called “political factories.”

      Nevertheless, the economy of Yugoslavia grew rapidly for the ensuing three decades, although production in the southern republics significantly lagged behind that of the developed northern areas of Croatia and Slovenia. This lag largely reflected the long association of the southern regions with the Ottoman Empire, whose ineffectual bureaucracy had done little to promote investment, technology transfer, and improvements to the infrastructure within its lands. Within Serbia, only in the Habsburg-controlled Vojvodina did a commercialized economy emerge during the 19th century. Indeed, the inhabitants of Kosovo never achieved an annual per capita income greater than 15 percent of that of Slovenia during the entire period of greater Yugoslavia. Part of Kosovo's problem could be attributed to its exceptionally rapid population growth. It is estimated that income per person in Kosovo would have doubled if the province's demographic rate had slowed to that of the developed northern regions.

      After the break with the Soviet bloc in 1948, worker self-management in factories and institutions was adopted. This program, which sought to address problems inherent in the highly centralized Soviet model of socialism, was codified in the Law on Associated Labour of 1976. Each Yugoslav worker belonged to a Basic Organization of Associated Labour (BOAL) that was based on the precise role played by the worker in the production process. The BOALs elected representatives to workers' councils, which in turn created management boards and determined pay levels, investment policies, and specific goals for production. The workers' councils also selected a director of the institution, who was charged with running the organization on a day-to-day basis. This system of self-management included not only factories and retail establishments but also schools, health clinics, and other public service institutions.

      Although self-management permitted a degree of flexibility in managerial decision making, worker involvement in the BOALs led to substantial costs in time and efficiency. Management councils in factories tended to favour short-term increases in wages at the expense of long-term capital investments in more productive equipment. Dissatisfaction with self-management, and also with the diversion of profits to less-developed regions, played a large role in the secession of Croatia and Slovenia, both of which embarked on a program of economic privatization and complete repudiation of the socialist system. Socialist self-management remained in the reduced federation, but it faced daunting economic problems. Agriculture in Serbia has shifted notably from livestock to crop production and from commercial to subsistence provision. Industry similarly has regressed from the high-technology production of consumer durables to the making of single-use commodities. Widespread criminality and corruption also have taken their toll.

      Not only did Serbia suffer from the loss of established markets and sources of raw materials in the other republics, but its labour forces exhibited markedly low discipline and productivity, which made it difficult to compete in world markets. Privatization of the economy began in 1990, but by the early 21st century only about one-third of output was derived from private production, which was largely concentrated in agriculture, retail trade, and services.

      Economic sanctions imposed by the international community in the 1990s in response to the aggressive policies of Yugoslav dictator Milošević in Bosnia and Herzegovina severely stifled the rump federation's economy, contributing to shortages of food, goods, and fossil fuels, as well as to elevated rates of inflation. Indeed, in the late 1990s some 20,000 Yugoslav companies—nearly one-third of the country's total—were declared officially insolvent.

      Air strikes by NATO in 1999 destroyed a significant portion of the transportation infrastructure and industrial facilities in Serbia, and an embargo on petroleum imports further exacerbated the federation's economic malaise. Although humanitarian aid has softened the blow, the economy has yet to fully recover. After Milošević—later arrested and tried for war crimes—was ousted from power in democratic elections in 2000, international aid began to flow back into the country and sanctions were lifted. In particular, the European Union (EU) offered Yugoslavia and other countries of the western Balkans an opportunity to open negotiations for a “Stabilization and Association Agreement,” which would permit greater opportunities for trade with the EU.

Agriculture and forestry

      Agriculture has long been the mainstay of Serbia's economy. Although fewer than one-fourth of economically active Serbs are now employed in farming (compared with nearly three-fourths in 1948), cropland occupies nearly two-thirds of Serbia's territory. The principal area of commercial agriculture is the Vojvodina region and adjacent lowlands south of the Sava and Danube rivers, including the valley of the north-flowing Morava River. Three-fourths of sown crops in Serbia are grains. Corn (maize) predominates, occupying some one-third of the cropland, and wheat is next in importance. Other noteworthy crops are sugar beets, sunflowers, potatoes, oilseeds, hemp, and flax. Fruits and vegetables are also cultivated.

      Hillsides are used mainly for raising animals. Pigs particularly forage in woodland areas. Dairy farming is a feature of the Šumadija hills south of Belgrade. Limited areas are sown with rye and oats. Orchards also are characteristic of upland areas—particularly plums, which form the basis for the production of slivovitz, a brandy that is the national drink. Owing to demand from western Europe, raspberries have become an important crop. Farming tends to be on a subsistence basis in the Serbian uplands. Rural families produce a range of crops for their own consumption. Some areas also produce tobacco commercially. In most villages vegetables are grown in garden plots adjacent to houses. Although woodlands in Serbia are plentiful, commercial forestry plays a relatively minor role.

Resources and power

Natural resources

      Serbia is endowed with substantial natural resources, but it is notably deficient in mineral fuels. Some coal has been developed in the northeast, and the possibility exists for the expansion of mining there. The little petroleum that has been discovered is located in the Vojvodina. Among metallic ores, Serbia has some of Europe's largest resources of copper. Concentrations of copper ore are located in the Carpathian Mountains near the borders with Bulgaria and Romania. Substantial amounts of iron ore also are present in this area. Northwestern Serbia, in the vicinity of the town of Krupanj, contains up to one-tenth of the world's supply of antimony, though there is now little demand for the product. Serbia's southwestern upland regions have timber and hydroelectric potential.

      Mining and copper smelting developed in northeastern Serbia around Bor and Majdanpek. Lignite and bituminous coal are mined in the Kolubara River valley southwest of Belgrade and in parts of eastern Serbia.

Energy

      Hydroelectric power and coal are the principal sources of energy in Serbia, which has no nuclear power stations. Facilities at the Ðerdap dam on the Danube generate significant electric power. The Bajina Bašta development on the Drina River ranks second as a hydroelectric generating source. Because the Drina forms part of Serbia's border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, this creates a difficult problem for allocating power production.

      Serbia's large coal-burning power stations, which burn lignite from local beds, are located southwest of Belgrade, in the Kolubara River valley near the town of Obrenovac. A small thermoelectric plant using natural gas operates in the Vojvodina capital of Novi Sad.

Manufacturing

      Manufacturing industries are concentrated in the north, particularly in the vicinity of Belgrade, which has the advantages of a long-established infrastructure, a developed labour force, the largest single market in the republic, and the greatest concentration of existing enterprises to serve as both parts suppliers and consumers of products. An industrial area lies in a belt along the Zapadna (Western) Morava River from Užice in the west through Čačak and Kraljevo to Kruševac and Niš. Among the principal products of this area are automobiles, trucks, tires, batteries, and radio and television equipment. Kragujevac is the site of Serbia's main automobile factory, built by the Italian company Fiat. Smederevo, east of Belgrade, has a major iron and steel facility, but it lacks ready access to quality coking coal. Textile production is prominent in Novi Sad and other towns of the Vojvodina.

Finance

      The National Bank of Serbia (formerly the National Bank of Yugoslavia) regulates Serbia's currency and is the central banking institution. In addition to numerous commercial and savings banks, there are many savings and loan institutions. Moreover, the Post Office Savings Bank plays a significant role in consumer savings.

      After the collapse of the Yugoslav federation in 1991, Serbia endured crippling hyperinflation and in the 1990s issued several different currencies, which were subject to significant inflationary pressures. In 2003 the Serbian dinar became the republic's official currency.

      In 1989 a stock exchange opened in Belgrade, the country's first operational exchange since 1941. Few Yugoslav companies were initially listed on the exchange, but with increasing privatization, it was anticipated that most enterprises would eventually be publicly traded.

Trade

      Italy and Germany are the country's two most important trading partners. Other important commercial partners include Macedonia, Russia, Switzerland, Greece, and Hungary. Owing to warfare and economic sanctions, exports dropped by about three-fourths in the 1990s. Manufacturing exports were particularly hard hit by sanctions, though other economic sectors also suffered losses. Similarly, imports fell by about half.

      Unlike other parts of the former Yugoslav federation, Serbia received little foreign investment. The legacy of warfare and sanctions by the United States and the EU, together with problems of infrastructure decline, loss of human capital, and corruption, left the country generally unattractive to foreign investors.

Tourism

      Tourists have long been attracted to the distinctive architecture and frescoes of Serbia's medieval Orthodox monasteries. More than 50 developed mineral springs have been another attraction, although these facilities traditionally have attracted domestic tourists. However, both domestic and international tourism declined significantly with the unrest of the 1990s.

Labour and taxation

      Industrial employment accounts for about half of total employment in Serbia, while the service sector employs about one-third of the workforce. Agriculture, which is responsible for about half the country's gross domestic product, accounts for about one-fifth of total employment. A substantial proportion of the population is either unemployed or underemployed.

      As in other socialist countries, a high proportion of Serbian women were employed outside the home. As the economy declined during the 1990s, women suffered disproportionately greater job losses as displaced men entered more stable employment areas that traditionally had been dominated by women.

      During the Milošević era organized labour was dominated by the League of Unions of Serbia (SSS), the successor to the government-created trade union organization of the communist era; it was the only labour union that could negotiate with employers. The Association of Free and Independent Trade Unions and Nezavisnost (“Independence”), with its associated United Branch Unions, have emerged to contest the SSS's predominant position.

      Principal taxes include personal and corporate income taxes, excise duties, sales taxes, property taxes, taxes on financial transactions, payroll taxes, and use taxes.

Transportation and telecommunications

Transportation

      Although Serbia has been a crossroads since it was traversed by Europe's prehistoric Amber Routes (used for trade) between central Europe and the Mediterranean, it has lagged behind other parts of the continent in developing its transportation infrastructure. Part of the difficulty in building such networks lies in Serbia's mountainous terrain and the limited commercial production that would generate the traffic necessary to justify investment in roads and railroads. After World War II the need to accommodate international freight traffic along the historic Vardar-Morava corridor, with connections to Austria and Hungary, prompted construction of modern highways. Further improvements began in the 1960s, when the number of automobiles in Serbia increased dramatically. Still, only about half of the republic's roads are paved. In some rural areas roads constructed by the Romans are still in use.

      Railroads (railroad) first appeared during the mid-19th century in the Hungarian-held Vojvodina, where lines were built to transport crops to central Europe. Rails also reached Ottoman-held Kosovo from Salonika ( Thessaloníki, Greece) in 1874. Within Serbia proper, the first rails connected Belgrade with Niš in 1884; a branch was then extended across the Sava River to Zemun near Belgrade, where it connected with the Hungarian rail system. By 1919 the famous Orient Express (Orient-Express) was using the Serbian line from Belgrade to Sofia, Bulgaria, as part of its route between Paris and Constantinople ( Istanbul). Connecting lines were constructed in subsequent years, and Serbia now has a fairly extensive rail network. The country's rail system suffered substantial damage during the 1999 NATO bombing, but much of the damage has been repaired.

      The Danube and its tributaries, the Sava and the Tisa, constitute almost the entire system of inland navigation in Serbia. The NATO bombing destruction of the Novi Sad bridge disrupted traffic on the Danube, most of which was goods transported upstream to Hungary. Freight also moved up the Sava River as far as the Croatian town of Sisak.

      Before the secessions of the early 1990s, an extensive network of air routes had been developed. Almost half of the airline passengers embarked or debarked at Belgrade, which was also the major centre of air freight transportation. Yugoslav Air Transport, the country's principal airline, maintained links with the rest of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, North America, and Australia.

Telecommunications

      Yugoslavia had established a modern telecommunications system before the onset of warfare in the 1990s. However, like much of the country's economic infrastructure, that system suffered severe damage from the NATO bombing. Part of the system has been restored through privatization, which occurred in the late 1990s, when the government sold nearly a 50 percent share to a group of Greek and Italian investors. After the lifting of sanctions against the country, the government signed accords with other European countries to expand Internet access and to utilize telecommunications satellites.

Government and society

Constitutional framework

 For more than four decades after the Partisan victory of 1945, Yugoslavia functioned as a communist federation. Its political evolution during the long presidency of Josip Broz Tito (Tito, Josip Broz) included the adoption of new constitutions in 1946, 1953, 1963, and 1974. After Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia declared independence in 1991–92, Serbia and Montenegro adopted a new constitution in 1992 that created a Yugoslav federal union comprising the two republics. However, that new constitution lasted little more than a decade. In the late 1990s there was widespread support in Montenegro for independence, though the EU and the United States voiced disapproval. In 2002, shortly before a planned referendum on independence, Montenegrin leader Milorad Djukanović negotiated an agreement (under the auspices of the EU) with Serb and Yugoslav authorities that called for greater autonomy for Montenegro in a continued loose federation with Serbia named Serbia and Montenegro. Most governmental powers under the new constitution, ratified in 2003, were reserved to the two republics, though foreign policy, defense, and individual rights fell under federal statutes. In June 2006 this federation was dissolved, as Montenegro achieved its independence. Serbia, meanwhile, continued as a successor state to the former federation of Serbia and Montenegro.

Government

      Serbia's head of state is the president, who is selected by the National Assembly but whose powers are marginal. Serbia's parliament consists of 250 members directly elected by the public.

      The Serbian republican government lost direct control over the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and the Vojvodina in 1968, when they were placed under federal authority. But over the following decades Albanians began to press for full republic status within Yugoslavia, which elicited an emotional counterreaction from Serbs, especially regarding Kosovo. The Serbs were particularly distressed at what were perceived to be pressures forcing the shrinking Serb minority to emigrate from Kosovo. In 1989 Serbia reasserted its direct control over Kosovo and the Vojvodina, which led to increased tensions that eventually erupted into armed conflict. In 1999 NATO began a 77-day bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in response to increasing violence against its Albanian population; subsequently, the Yugoslav government agreed to remove its security forces from Kosovo. The United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) then took over the administration of the territory. The Vojvodina regained nominal autonomous status in 2002, but some local groups continued to call for a more extensive form of self-rule. In 2008 Kosovo declared independence; although the United States and most countries of the EU recognized the new country, Serbia denounced the declaration as illegal.

Local government

      Local governments in Serbia's communes (opštini) serve as basic units for services and tax collection. These communes are roughly 150 square miles (400 square km) in area, with an average population of 45,000. Urban communes have larger populations, many containing more than 100,000 inhabitants. The Basic Organization of Associated Labour chapters report to local commune assemblies and also elect representatives to them.

Political process

      Until the secessions of 1991–92, Yugoslavia permitted only one political party—the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY). Like communist parties elsewhere in eastern Europe, the LCY originally maintained a monopoly on decision making. However, as branches in each republic and autonomous province grew more assertive, the party lost its monolithic character. During the period of secessions, branches of the LCY in Serbia and Montenegro adopted the name Socialist Party. Other political parties were legalized, and in 2000 an opposition alliance was even able to win the presidency.

      In the early 21st century the pro-European Democratic Party (DS) and its offshoot, the centre-right Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), emerged as leading parties. In 2007 they formed the governing coalition of newly independent Serbia. The nationalist Serbian Radical Party also enjoyed strong support. The Socialists and other smaller parties maintained seats in the parliament as well. The DS-DSS coalition did not last long; in 2008 a pro-EU bloc known as For a European Serbia, led by the DS (and excluding the DSS), won the most votes in parliamentary elections. The pro-EU bloc then joined with a Socialist-led bloc of parties to form a government.

Security

      Under the banner of the combined Serbia and Montenegro, the country's armed forces played an unusual role in the federal government, continuing a practice that has long been one of the state's distinctive institutions. Legislation adopted formally in 1982, before the secession of the other republics, established a National Defense Council, which in time of war “or any other peril” could assume sweeping police powers—even making its own determination that such a situation exists. As a result, a small number of military officers held a considerable amount of power. The council invoked its powers during the secession period of the 1990s, utilizing the Yugoslav armed forces in vain attempts to prevent Slovenian and Croatian independence.

      The armed forces of Serbia and Montenegro were led by a Supreme Defense Council composed of three presidents. The country maintained a policy of universal defense of the state. Its armed forces contain both professional military personnel and conscripts. All able-bodied males were required to serve 12 to 15 months' active duty (conscientious objection is prohibited), after which conscripts became part of a reserve force. Recruits performed their service in the territory of their own republic. Almost all citizens, including women, were organized into a civil defense organization.

      Independent Serbia continued the policy of compulsory military service, though it made plans to end the requirement. Its armed forces include an army, a navy, and an air force.

Health and welfare

      Interwar Yugoslavia was noted for the endemic presence of malaria, typhus, typhoid, syphilis, dysentery, and trachoma. By the 1980s, however, these scourges had been reduced to individual cases. Still, Serbia suffers from significant health problems. Even before the civil unrest of the 1990s, infant mortality was fairly high, especially in Kosovo. Only in the Vojvodina region did health standards approach those of central and western Europe. Despite marked improvements in medical services, the country's population suffers from crowded housing conditions, poor nutrition, and lack of sanitary services.

      Pregnant women, infants, and children up to age 15 receive complete health care, as do students up to age 26. All citizens also are entitled to treatment for infectious diseases and mental illness. Still, about one-fifth of the population remain outside the health care system.

      Great emphasis is placed on training doctors. Before World War II one doctor served every 12,000 inhabitants in Yugoslavia. By the 1990s the number of doctors had increased dramatically throughout the country, though Kosovo was the most poorly served region, with about half as many doctors per inhabitant as the country's other regions.

      The communist regime of Yugoslavia established a comprehensive social welfare system that continues to provide a wide range of services in Serbia. All economically active persons are entitled to retirement and disability pensions; unemployment compensation and family allowances also are provided. These activities are the responsibility of commune governments, and significant variations exist between the administrative units.

Housing

      Housing is a perennial problem, particularly for young people in urban areas. Most city dwellers live in small apartments in high-rise buildings. Although communes bear responsibility for housing construction, much of the new housing stock has been built by enterprises. Most villagers build and own their homes.

      The civil strife in the 1990s left some two-thirds of the population impoverished and hundreds of thousands homeless. Assistance from the West only partially resolved the problem of housing, feeding, clothing, and providing medical care for a significant proportion of the population.

Education

      Eight years of primary education are compulsory in Serbia, beginning at age seven. Four years of secondary education also are available, divided between two types of schools: general secondary schools, which prepare students for universities, and vocational schools, which offer training that usually leads to admission to two-year technical colleges. There are several universities; the largest is the University of Belgrade, founded in 1863.

      The communist regime of Yugoslavia made great strides toward eliminating illiteracy. In 1921 about two-thirds of Serbs and Montenegrins and nine-tenths of the country's Albanians could not read or write. By the 1950s less than half the total population was literate. Less than one-tenth now remains illiterate, ranging lower in the Vojvodina.

Cultural life

      Traditional Serbian society has a strong peasant patriarchal tradition that evolved under Ottoman domination and is still reflected in family and government structures. A distinctive feature is the zadruga, a corporate family group of 100 or more individuals that originally worked the land under the direction of family elders. The zadruga functioned as a rural tradition well into the communist era. The advent of modern public services, however, took a toll on this system. Even as elders lived increasingly longer, younger adults educated in an expanding school system chafed at patriarchal authority. By the 1970s the zadruga system had evolved into a less-onerous system of cooperative extended family groups. Nevertheless, family loyalties continue to play a major role in Serbia, where nepotism in the workplace is a recurring phenomenon.

Daily life and social customs

      The cities of Belgrade and Novi Sad offer a cosmopolitan milieu, and the people there frequent cafés and pubs, take their meals late (in the southern European tradition), and have access to a range of entertainment, from sporting events to poetry readings and gallery openings.

      As is true of rural societies elsewhere, the Serbian countryside is a great repository of old customs, traditions, folklore, and belief. Anthropologists still travel there to gather stories of vampires and ghosts, while until the 1960s scholars collected long epic poems from the guslars, or folksingers, who preserved them through memorization. Many rural women still create elaborate traditional costumes that are worn during holidays and family celebrations.

      In addition to Orthodox Christian holidays, Serbs celebrate secular holidays such as Labour Day (May 1) and Constitution Day (February 15). Belgrade hosts a range of cultural festivals, and Novi Sad is the site of a heavily attended agricultural fair held each May.

      Even the most urbane Serbs enjoy traditional cuisine, and the Skadarlija district in the heart of Belgrade abounds in restaurants serving national dishes as well as foods from all over the world. Serbian cuisine reflects its Byzantine and Ottoman heritage and resembles that of Greece and Turkey in many respects. The national dish is ćevapčići, consisting of small rolled patties of mixed ground meats that are heavily seasoned and grilled. Other popular dishes include sarma (stuffed cabbage), podvarak (roast meat with sauerkraut), and moussaka (a casserole of minced meat, eggs, and potatoes). Food is usually accompanied by domestically produced wines and slivovitz (plum brandy).

The arts

      Serbia's peasant traditions continue to exert a substantial influence on the arts, and traditional handicrafts such as the making of opanci (leather sandals) are valued as links to the past. Moreover, a significant part of contemporary Serbian painting is based on traditions developed in Serbian church frescoes and icon painting. But while folk music remains popular, particularly in rural areas, the country's vibrant culture is heavily influenced by trends from western Europe and North America. Western rock music, in particular, has a substantial following, and Serbian performers such as Fish Soup and Djordje Balaševic have used rock to make political statements. The modern Slavic music known as turbofolk, a fixture of cafés in Serbia's larger cities, combines the electric instruments of rock with traditional folk rhythms. Among the republic's most popular turbofolk singers is Svetlana Čeča. Clubs in Belgrade and other cities offer performances by musicians working in a variety of genres, including heavy metal, reggae, punk, hip-hop, and even country and western.

      The best-known Serbian writer of the 20th century was undoubtedly Ivo Andrić (Andrić, Ivo), who won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961, mostly on the basis of his novel Na Drini čuprija (1945; The Bridge on the Drina, 1959). Dobrica Čosić (Ćosić, Dobrica), another prominent writer and nationalist, served as the federal government's president in the 1990s. Among more-contemporary writers, novelists Vuk Drasković, Milorad Pavić, Vladimir Arsenijević, Mileta Prodanović, and Borislav Pekić have attracted considerable attention. Poetry has been a particularly honoured form of literary expression, rewarded in the past by handsome prizes and official positions; Desanka Maksimović, Oskar Davico, Jovan Ducić, and Vasko Popa (Popa, Vasko) are among the most highly regarded poets in the latter part of the 20th century.

      Serbia also has a long theatrical tradition and many professional theatres. The Serbian National Theatre building in Belgrade dates from 1868. Serbian cinema is also well established. Before the outbreak of World War II, motion picture companies in Belgrade produced a dozen feature films. The most spectacular, Mihail Popović's The Battle of Kosovo, was released in 1939. Filmmaking flourished in the post-World War II period; however, economic crisis and war in the 1990s greatly hindered production. (Indeed, the persistent and intensifying attempts of the government to control public communication during the 1990s damaged Serbian cultural life in general.) Serbian directors such as Dušan Makavejev have achieved international recognition; his Love Affair; or, The Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator (1969) explored the political turbulence in Yugoslavia in the 1960s, and his Montenegro (1981), which he also cowrote, was made in Sweden (though it celebrates Yugoslavia). More recently, the films of director Emir Kusturica—who was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, but continues to work in Serbia and in Montenegro—have won several prestigious awards, including the Palme d'Or (best feature film) at the Cannes Festival in France for Underground (1995). His Black Cat, White Cat (1998) also earned many international honours, as did Goran Paskaljević's The Powder Keg (1998). Belgrade hosts an annual film festival.

Cultural institutions

      Although some fell into disrepair and neglect during the tumultuous 1990s, several fine museums and galleries are housed in Belgrade, among them the National Museum, the Gallery of Frescoes, the Ethnographic Museum, and the Palace of Princess Ljubice. Novi Sad is the site of the Vojvodina Museum, and its Petrovaradin Fortress contains several galleries and exhibit halls. The oldest and most significant cultural and scientific institution in Serbia is Matica Srpska. Founded in 1826 in the Hungarian city of Pest, it moved to Novi Sad in 1864. Matica Srpska's journal, Letopis Matice Srpske, is one of the oldest cultural and scientific magazines in the world.

Sports and recreation

      Recreational activities and sports are well developed throughout the republic, with hundreds of thousands of individuals registered as active participants in sports organizations. Hunting and fishing are particularly popular, as are basketball, gymnastics, martial arts, volleyball, water polo, and football (soccer). Serbia has produced a number of notable players who have competed for the top football clubs of Europe, and Crvena Zvezda Beograd (Red Star Belgrade) is one of the sport's legendary teams.

      Gymnastics has a long history in Serbia, dating back to the Sokol (“Falcon”) societies founded during the 19th century. Within communist Yugoslavia, physical culture was always taken seriously by the state, although the advanced system that developed athletes in other Eastern-bloc countries never took root. Support for sport was generally undertaken at the republic and municipal levels and also through the armed forces.

      Serbia became a member of the International Olympic Committee in 1912, sending two participants that year to the Summer Olympic Games, and a Yugoslav team debuted at the 1920 Summer Games. Following reunification after World War II, enthusiastic support for the Olympic movement fit well with the communist government's efforts to enhance the country's international profile. Participation in international sporting events was seriously disrupted by sanctions imposed on Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

 Serbia has four national parks: Kopaonik and Tara in the southwestern mountains, Ðerdap adjacent to the Iron Gate gorge of the Danube, and Fruška Gora in the southwestern Vojvodina. Belgrade's Ada Ciganlija, a park comprising an island in the Sava River, is a popular gathering place and is the site of bicycling and running events throughout the year.

Media and publishing

      Hundreds of newspapers are published in Serbia, some of which are also published on the Internet. Politika, founded in 1904, is considered the most authoritative of the republic's dailies. Among weekly magazines the most popular is Nedeljne Informativne Novine, better known as NIN. Semimonthly and monthly journals and other serials are published in the republic. Book publishing also is active, with thousands of titles appearing annually.

      Serbia's first television transmissions began in 1958 in Belgrade. Serbian television productions are noted for an original approach to the medium, though broadcasters and producers, especially those working for Radio Television Serbia (RTS), were subject to heavy state censorship until very recently. During the last years of the Milošević regime, B92, an independent television and radio studio, provided an important source of dissent and was the target of frequent government interference. There are television studios in Belgrade and Novi Sad. Additionally, there are several dozen radio stations.

Thomas M. Poulsen Ed.

History

Antiquity

The prehistoric period

      Although there is scattered evidence of human occupation in the central Balkan Peninsula reaching back some 35,000 years, dense settlement does not appear to have taken place until about 7000–3500 BC, during the Neolithic Period. There are indications of Neolithic settlement in the Pannonian Basin, along the Sava and Danube rivers, and spreading northward into modern Hungary along the Tisa River, and southward down the Morava-Vardar corridor. Food production, based on the domestication of both plants (especially emmer wheat) and animals, developed by the end of this period and eventually reached a point at which it was possible to support some craft specialization, including pottery making and copper smelting. Small towns formed; several sites in Serbia provide insights into late Neolithic culture, particularly those at Starčevo and Vinča, near Belgrade, and at Lepenski Vir, on the Danube above the Iron Gate gorge.

      After 3500 BC the region was infiltrated by seminomadic pastoral peoples, who were believed to be speakers of Indo-European languages, migrating southward from the Russian steppes. Ruled by military aristocracies, they domesticated horses, employed horse-drawn vehicles, and constructed hill forts such as Vučedol, near Vukovar. Their extensive trade routes carried amber, gold, and bronze, which made their military technology superior to others.

      These people were divided into several loose tribal groups, including the Illyrians, who established themselves throughout the western part of the peninsula. By the 7th century BC the Illyrians had acquired the skills needed to work with iron, which became the basis of trade with the emerging Greek city-states and of power among the native aristocracies. East of the Morava-Vardar corridor, the land was periodically subordinated to the warrior kingdoms of the Dacians and Thracians. In the mid-4th century BC, Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander III (Alexander the Great) the Great briefly extended their empire into the region.

      Beginning about 300 BC, bands of Celts (Celt) began to penetrate southward. Their superiority rested in part upon their mastery of iron technology, which they used to make both swords and plowshares. The extent of Celtic settlement is indicated by coins, silverwork, and burial mounds. Singidunum (now Belgrade), the name of the settlement referred to by the Romans, is partly of Celtic origin.

The Roman Empire (ancient Rome)

      In the late 3rd century BC, the Romans began to expand into the Balkan Peninsula in search of iron, copper, precious metals, slaves, and crops. The Roman struggle for domination, against the fierce resistance of the native peoples, lasted three centuries. The Illyrians were finally subdued in AD 9, and their land became the province of Illyricum. The area that is now eastern Serbia was conquered in 29 BC and incorporated into the province of Moesia. Roads, arenas, aqueducts, bridges, and fortifications attest to Roman occupation, and the names of several modern towns reveal Roman origins, including Sremska Mitrovica (Sirmium) and Niš (Naissus).

      Roman conquest stimulated both migration and cultural assimilation; these processes continued and intensified from the 2nd century AD onward, until Roman influence gradually weakened in the face of incursions by Goths, Huns, Bulgars, Avars, and others. The division of the empire (initially by Diocletian in 285 and later completed in 395) followed a line that ran roughly northward from the modern Albanian-Montenegrin border on the Adriatic to Sirmium, where it traced a line along the Sava and Danube rivers. The division of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Byzantium as an independent power enabled Greek culture to penetrate deep into the Balkans, particularly following the defeat of a combined Avar-Persian army in 626 by the Byzantines.

The coming of the Slavs (Slav)

      The use of the term Serb to name one of the Slavic peoples is of great antiquity. Ptolemy's Guide to Geography, written in the 2nd century AD, mentions a people called “Serboi,” but it is not certain that this is a reference to the ancestors of the modern Serbs. The earliest information on the Serbs dates from the late 6th century, when they were vassals of the Avars and later clients of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius. In order to drive the Avars and Bulgars back toward the east, Heraclius concluded an alliance with several Slavic tribal groupings that had originated northeast of the Carpathian Mountains. Under Byzantine patronage, Slavs settled widely in the Balkans, reaching as far south as the Aegean Sea and even settling in parts of Asia Minor. The tribal groups known as the Serbs settled inland of the Dalmatian coast in an area extending from what is today eastern Herzegovina, across northern Montenegro, and into southeastern Serbia.

      The Slavs had become firmly established throughout the Balkans by the late 7th century, but the Slavicization of the area was a long and erratic process, as was the period of cultural assimilation under Roman rule. The area was therefore for a long time referred to as “Vlachia” and “Sclavinia.”

Medieval Serbia

The early Slav states

      The unstable situation of the Balkan Slavs, located as they were on the frontier between the Byzantine Empire and the seminomadic peoples of Asia, enabled them to assert some measure of independence. The basis of the Serbs' social organization was the zadruga, or extended family. Several zadruge were grouped locally under a župan, or chieftain. With kinship and locality playing such a pivotal role in social organization, sustained collaboration within larger groups was difficult. Several župani might, on occasion, unite under a veliki župan, or grand chieftain, who for a short time would succeed in establishing control over a substantial territory and declare himself king or emperor.

      The first such state to which Serbs trace a political identity was created by Vlastimir in about 850. This state was centred on an area in eastern Montenegro and southern Serbia known as Raška and extended over the valleys of the Piva, Tara, Lim, and Ibar rivers (or roughly between the Durmitor and Kopaonik mountain ranges). The kingdom initially accepted the supremacy of Constantinople, which was subsequently torn by contest between Simeon I, ruler of the first Bulgarian empire, and the veliki župan Česlav, leader of a rival Serb kingdom known as Zeta. After Česlav's death, Byzantium again asserted control.

      The significance of the early Serb proto-states lies in their legacy of an enduring link between the Serb people and the Slavonic liturgical tradition of Orthodox Christianity (Eastern Orthodoxy). Christianity had been introduced into the Balkans during the Roman period, but the region had largely reverted to paganism by the time the Slavs had arrived. There is some evidence that missionaries were active in the region as early as the 7th century. A more-permanent Christian presence was achieved in the late 9th century, when the Byzantine (Byzantine Empire) emperor Michael III commissioned two brothers from Thessalonica, Cyril (Constantine) and Methodius, to evangelize the Slavs. Michael encouraged Cyril and Methodius (Cyril and Methodius, Saints) to preach in the vernacular, and to facilitate this task they invented a script using the phonetic peculiarities of the Slavic tongue. Initially known as “Glagolitic (Glagolitic alphabet),” the script was subsequently revised to employ characters resembling those of the Greek and became known as “Cyrillic (Cyrillic alphabet).”

      The translation of the scriptures and liturgy was a key aspect of the dissemination of Christianity among Serbs. The influence of the Eastern church was assured over the greater part of the Balkans, and the use of the Cyrillic alphabet became one of the most visible cultural aspects separating Serbs (together with Bulgarians, Macedonians, and Montenegrins) from Croats and Slovenes.

The Golden Age

      Although Serb historians trace the foundation of a Serbian state to the principality of Raška, a stable and continuous Slavic state appeared in this area only under Stefan Nemanja. Stefan assumed the throne of Raška in 1168, but he continued to acknowledge the supremacy of Byzantium until 1185. In 1196 he abdicated in favour of his son Stefan (known as Prvovenčani, or the “First-Crowned”), who in 1217 secured from Pope Honorius III the title of “King of Serbia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia.” Under the Nemanjić Dynasty, which was to rule the Serb lands for the next 200 years, a powerful state emerged to dominate the entire Balkan Peninsula. It was founded, in part, on the ability and administrative capacity of its rulers and also on the establishment of a link between church and state.

      The rise of the Nemanjić dynasty was facilitated by the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, under the impact of the Fourth Crusade (1204), and the creation of a short-lived Latin Empire. Even after the fortunes of Byzantium were revived after 1261, the primary frontier of Nemanjić expansion lay to the south. Power was seized and consolidated through opportunities offered by a weak Constantinople, and the kingdom extended its authority over an assortment of peoples. Skopje in Macedonia was taken in 1282 by Stefan Uroš II and became the Serb capital. Under the reign of Stefan Dušan (1331–55), the Nemanjić state reached its greatest extent, incorporating Thessaly, Epirus, Macedonia, all of modern Albania and Montenegro, a substantial part of eastern Bosnia, and modern Serbia as far north as the Danube. Dušan adopted the title of emperor at his coronation in Skopje in 1346 (later “Emperor and Autocrat of the Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians, and Albanians”), but he is more commonly remembered by Serbs as Dušan Silni, or “Dušan the Mighty.” To this day the Serbs consider the empire of Dušan Silni as the Golden Age of their nation. All the Balkan states during the Middle Ages modeled themselves on, and saw themselves as the supplanters of, Byzantium. This was no less true for the Serbian state, as reflected in the titles that its monarchs took for themselves and bestowed on their subordinates and as evidenced in the famous Zakonik (code of laws) that Dušan promulgated in 1349, which fused the law of Constantinople with Serb folk custom.

      Through the union of church and state, the Serb emperors strove to imitate and ultimately rival the status of the ecumenical patriarch in Constantinople. An autocephalous church was declared in 1219, with its seat at Žiča, near modern Kraljevo, and Sava (Sava, Saint), the youngest son of Stefan Nemanja, was named archbishop and later was canonized as St. Sava. (The monastery he built there was later designated a World Heritage site by UNESCO.) The Serbian church thus separated from the Bulgarian-influenced archbishopric of Ohrid. In order to escape the harassment of Tatar-raiding parties, the seat of the ecclesiastical order of Nemanjić was later moved southward to Peć, in the Metohija Basin. In 1375 the archbishop of Peć was raised to the status of patriarch, in spite of the anathema of Constantinople. During this time great churches and monasteries were endowed—particularly those at Mileševo (c. 1235), Peć (1250), Morača (1252), Sopoćani (c. 1260), Dečani (1327), and Gračanica (1321). These have subsequently come to constitute important symbolic monuments for Serbs. The frescoes (fresco painting) of the Raška school, in particular, are known for their capacity to blend secular authority with a deep sense of devotion. Literary work extended beyond copying manuscripts to include pieces of independent creative merit, such as the biography of Stefan Nemanja prepared by St. Sava and his brother Stefan Prvovenčani. Courtly culture became religious culture; both church and state benefited from this partnership and created a “civilization” of their own.

      Economic development also contributed to the consolidation of Nemanjić power. Such crops as hemp, flax, grapes, and oil-yielding plants became more widespread. The plains of Kosovo and Metohija became areas of fairly dense population and intensive agriculture, and mining grew considerably in importance. Not only gold and silver but also copper and tin had been exploited since Roman times, but production rose to meet the new demands of imperial courts and centres of ecclesiastical authority. Although this wealth supported a remarkably modest court, it also sustained substantial mercenary armies. Trade expanded, particularly in the hands of Ragusan and Italian merchants, who led caravans along the old Roman routes.

Conquest by the Turks

      The glories of the Nemanjić empire were short-lived. In 1354 the Ottoman Empire gained a foothold on the European mainland, and, by the time of Dušan's death in 1355, the Turkish march northward had already begun. Dušan's successors were unable to sustain his achievements, and almost immediately the state began to disintegrate under rival clan leaders. The fall of Adrianople (modern Edirne, Turkey) to Turkish troops shocked the several factions into briefly uniting under Vukašin, the king of the southern Serbian lands, and his brother John Uglješa, the despot of Serres (modern Sérrai, Greece); their forces were eventually defeated in 1371 at the Battle of Chernomen (Maritsa River, Battle of the), on the Maritsa River, where both were killed.

      The Ottoman conquest of the Balkan Peninsula was not a smooth progression. Slav leaders were frequently willing to ally themselves with the Ottomans in the hope of securing aid against rivals. In this way they were able to retain a nominal independence for some years in return for a variety of forms of vassalage. One of the most celebrated of these leaders was Marko Kraljević, the son of Vukašin and a chieftain of Prilep, who was immortalized in many of the heroic folk ballads of Serbia and Macedonia. In 1387 or 1388 a combined force of Serbs, Bosnians, and Bulgarians inflicted a heavy defeat on the Ottoman army at Pločnik, but a turning point came when the Bulgarian tsar Ivan Shishman broke with the alliance of Slavic powers and accepted Ottoman suzerainty. No longer threatened from the east, the armies of Sultan Murad I were able to concentrate their weight against Serb resistance. Led by the Serb knez, or prince, Lazar Hrebeljanović (he did not claim Dušan's imperial title), a combined army of Serbs, Albanians, and Hungarians met Murad's forces in battle. On St. Vitus's Day (Vidovdan), June 28 (June 15, Old Style), 1389, on the Kosovo (Kosovo, Battle of) Polje, the Serbs and their allies suffered a defeat that has become hallowed in several great heroic ballads. The vision of Lazar on the eve of the battle, the alleged betrayal by the Bosnian Vuk Branković, the killing of Murad by Miloš Obilić, the succour brought to the wounded on the battlefield by the Maid of Kosovo—these and other stories have been immortalized in Serbian folk literature. They have become lenses through which subsequent creators of national mythology have come to see their past, endow it with deep metaphysical import, and imagine the attributes of the nation in essentially spiritual terms. Kosovo became (especially during the 19th century) the Jerusalem of the Serbs.

      Forced to accept the position of vassals to the Turks, Serb despots continued to rule a diminished state of Raška, at first from Belgrade and then from Smederevo. Serbian resistance did not end until the fall of Smederevo in 1459.

The Ottoman period

Life under the Turks

      The period of Ottoman domination is often dismissed by Serb historians as the centuries of “Turkish night,” but it remains significant for the manner in which it shaped Serb national consciousness and influenced the future development of the Serbian state.

      Two centuries of military struggle for the control of the Balkan Peninsula had depopulated large tracts of the former Serb lands. Other peoples moved into these areas (either spontaneously or under Turkish sponsorship), whose job it was to till the land and support the spahis, a dispersed levy of armed horsemen on which the Ottoman feudal system depended. At the centre of the system was the sultan and his court—often referred to as “the Sublime Porte” (Sublime Porte) (or simply “the Porte”)—based in Constantinople after its capture in 1453. The administrative structure of the system revolved around the extraction of revenues principally in order to support the court and its attendant military caste. All authority and the right to enjoy possessions were regarded as deriving from the sultan, who “leased” them to subordinates at his own will and to whom these rights reverted upon the death of the lessee. The most common leasing arrangement was the timar. The tımarlı held the right to support themselves from taxes raised in their area. Typically, the holder of such a position was a spahi, who from the income of his territory was expected to support and arm himself in a state of readiness for the service of the sultan.

      With some local exceptions, no attempt was made to spread Islam (Islām) by the sword in the conquered territories. There was again a long and slow process of assimilation of sections of the Slavic-speaking population (including the aristocracy) to Islam. All Muslims were regarded as belonging to a single community of the faithful, the ummah, and any person could join the ruling group by converting to Islam. Each non-Muslim religious community was called a millet, and Ottoman administration recognized five such groups: Orthodox, Gregorian Armenian, Roman Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant. Each group was under the direction of its religious head. The Serbs, being Orthodox, had as their titular head the patriarch of Constantinople. With the passage of time, however, national consciousness was recognized by the Ottoman authorities, and Constantinople became a specifically Greek centre. The Serbs had their own patriarchate at Peć. Ecclesiastical authorities were expected to assume many civil functions, including administering justice, collecting taxes, and later, education.

      The Ottoman authorities also ruled through local knezes, who were Christian “princes” or “headmen.” A knez might act as a negotiator for taxation with the authorities, as a kind of justice of the peace, as an intermediary in the organization of labour obligations, or as a spokesman for the Christian population in dispute with the local aga or bey. In times of civil disturbance, despite the normal interdiction on the bearing of arms by Christians, a knez might even be responsible for raising detachments of loyal subjects to fight for the Porte. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the institution of the knez became one of the most important symbolic focuses and practical resources around which Christian resistance grew.

      The situation of the Christian reaya (literally “flock”) was not one of unmitigated oppression. Christians were exempted from military service, and in some regions the tax burden was lighter than it had been previously, although they were taxed more heavily than the Muslim population. It was even possible for subject peoples to rise within the system, provided that they converted, and there were several notable grand viziers of Slavic origin. One common route of advancement was the system of devşirme, which involved the periodic conscription of Christian boys between the ages of 10 and 20. The boys were taken to Constantinople, converted to Islam, and employed in a variety of posts. The most able would be trained for administrative positions, while the others joined the corps of Janissaries (Yeniçeri). The Janissary corps was an elite, celibate order of infantrymen that, as firearms became more significant in warfare, came to be the most effective part of the Ottoman military.

      Ottoman society was principally rural in character, the majority of the population living on small family farms or in pastoral communities that produced little marketable surplus. Towns were with very few exceptions small, and in the Serb lands their culture was shaped by non-Serb groups, such as the Turks (in military, administrative, or craft occupations) and Greeks, Ragusans, Vlachs, or Jews (in commerce). The Ottoman authorities did little to encourage trade or manufacturing, regarding these principally as sources of excise duty. Literacy was generally confined to the clergy. As a consequence, the majority of the population remained differentiated into local peasant communities characterized by their own dialects, dress, and customs.

The disintegration of Ottoman rule

      Ottoman conquest did not mean the end of armed resistance on the part of the Slavic peoples. Poor harvests and a rapacious nobility frequently brought on local revolts by the reaya; in addition, individuals accused of crimes or protesting injustice would characteristically head for the hills or forests to live the life of the haiduk, or outlaw. Both of these forms of resistance increased from the 17th century, when the territorial expansion of the Ottoman Empire was reversed and Ottoman warriors withdrawing toward the core of the empire found themselves in growing competition with one another for inelastic resources. Armed uprisings by the peasantry were particularly common in northern areas such as the Morava River valley, where imperial control was weakest and the Janissaries least disciplined. The greatest of these revolts took place in 1690, when Serbs rose in support of an Austrian invasion. The Habsburg (Habsburg, House of) forces, unable to sustain their advance, retreated back across the Sava, leaving the native population seriously exposed to Turkish reprisals. In 1691 Archbishop Arsenije III Crnojević of Peć led a migration (human migration) of 30,000–40,000 families from “Old Serbia” and southern Bosnia across the Danube and Sava. There they were settled and became the basis of the Austrian Militärgrenze, or Military Frontier. (The Slavic name for the region, Vojna Krajina, was used 300 years later in the title given to the areas of Croatia that local Serb majorities attempted to claim for Serbia following the secession of Croatia from Yugoslavia.) Also dating from the time of the great migration of 1691 was the gradual conversion of Kosovo-Metohija into a predominantly Albanian region, as Albanians filled the space left by the displaced Serbs.

      Partly because of the support regularly given by Serb clergy to their insubordinate flock, the patriarchate of Peć was abolished in 1766, and an attempt was made to Hellenize the Serbian church. In response, newly established monasteries in Srem, a region between the Sava and Danube under Austrian control, took on part of the role of Peć as a centre of ecclesiastical authority. The town of Sremski Karlovci, in particular, grew to be a primary centre of learning and of Serb cultural identity.

      When war (Russo-Turkish wars) broke out between the Ottomans and an alliance of Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1787, the Austrian emperor called upon the Serbs to rise once more against the Turks, which they did with some success. The Treaties of Sistova (1791) and Jassy (Jassy, Treaty of) (1792), which concluded hostilities, included guarantees of the rights of the Serb population, including the expulsion of the Janissaries from the pashalic of Belgrade. These provisions were never fully respected, however, and the region steadily sank into disorder.

The nascent Serbian state

      By the last quarter of the 18th century, the disintegration of Ottoman rule produced a highly unstable situation in Serbia. In northern Serbia local Janissaries were virtually beyond the control of the Porte, and their exactions passed from the collection of taxes to open plunder. In 1804 an uprising broke out in the Šumadija region, south of Belgrade; it was led by Djordje Petrović, called Karadjordje (“Black George”), a successful pig trader who had served with the Austrians in the war against Turkey in 1787–88. In 1805 a Skupština (Assembly) was summoned, and it submitted a list of proposals to the sultan. The proposals included a number of demands for local autonomy that were unacceptable to the sultan, and a large force was sent to quell the rebellion. The rebels continued to hold out and were strengthened by the arrival of Russian reinforcements in 1808. Threatened by Napoleon (Napoleon I)'s invasion in 1812, however, Tsar Alexander I concluded a treaty with the Turks. The withdrawal of Russia left the Serbs open to Ottoman reprisals, and Karadjordje and his men were compelled to retreat across the Danube.

      The return of the Turks was accompanied by a widespread reign of terror, and the Christian population rose again in self-defense in April 1815. Under the leadership of another knez, Miloš Obrenović (Obrenović dynasty), this rebellion succeeded in driving the Turks from a wide area of northern Serbia. Faced with renewed Russian intervention following the defeat of Napoleon, the Porte made several important concessions to the rebels, including the retention of their arms, considerable powers of local administration, and the right to hold their own assembly. The firmans granted to Miloš did not amount to the creation of an independent state, however. The region remained a Turkish principality, with a resident pasha and Turkish garrisons in the principal towns.

      Nationalist (nationalism) romantics of the 19th and 20th centuries and socialist historians of the post-World War II era have represented the Serb uprisings as spontaneous outbursts of national sentiment welling up from among the common people. In many respects, however, the rudimentary state founded by these uprisings resembled a renegade Ottoman pashalic. The knezes, who undoubtedly provided the impetus to action, were actually a privileged group endowed with resources, knowledge of arms and warfare, and experience in the exercise of authority, and they were in regular contact with Austrian forces north of the Danube.

Modern Serbia

The passing of the old order

      The French Revolution and the Napoleonic era signaled the beginning of the transformation of the feudal order throughout the Balkans. The wars of this period precipitated changes in international relations, and in their aftermath entirely new social and political processes began to shape the lives of the South Slav peoples. They remained overwhelmingly peasant societies, but the old chiefly and aristocratic dynasties were increasingly challenged by the rising middle classes, who saw “national interest” in different terms.

      In many respects the most vigorous developments in Serbian national consciousness received their strongest impulse from outside the borders of Serbia. One of the principal consequences of the wars of 1804–15 was an extension and deepening of channels of communication between the Serbs living in Serbia and those living in diaspora across the Danube and throughout the Habsburg lands. The latter had prospered as traders, members of the free professions, and soldiers and in several cases had been accepted into the ranks of the nobility. A substantial Serb middle class thus thrived in these areas and not in those lands that had long remained under Ottoman tutelage, and this middle class played a crucial role in the growth of Serb national consciousness.

      One figure from this class was Ilija Garašanin (Garašanin, Ilija), the son of a merchant from the Banat of Temesvár. Garašanin became Serbia's minister of the interior in 1843, and in 1844 he prepared a memorandum outlining the principles upon which he believed the foreign policy of the state should be based. In this document, known as the Načertanije, or “Draft Plan,” Garašanin argued that the primary impediment to Serbian growth was its relationship with Austria, in that the Habsburgs had a stranglehold on Serbia's trade. The solution was to create a new outlet to the Adriatic, with Serbia controlling the ports between the Gulf of Kotor (in Montenegro) and Durrës (in Albania). This plea for a thrust to the southwest set Serbian foreign policy on a momentous course, the consequences of which have continued to be felt to this day.

      The role of outsiders in the forging of national consciousness is also illustrated by the efforts of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (Karadžić, Vuk Stefanović) to produce a standardized literary language (Serbo-Croatian language). Drawing on the inspiration of the philosopher and linguist Dositej Obradović, Karadžić conceived a grand plan that included revising the old ecclesiastical orthography to reflect the language of the people, compiling a grammar and dictionary, displaying the riches of the language by collecting folk songs, poetry, and other materials, and demonstrating the literary power of the vernacular by translating the New Testament. Karadžić's work was hampered by the staunch opposition of cultural traditionalists, especially within the church. Consequently, in spite of the personal sympathy for his ideas among a number of influential figures in Serbia, the state was unwilling to back them unconditionally. For a good part of his career Karadžić depended on the patronage of wealthy Serbs living in the Habsburg empire and the support of other South Slav intellectuals such as the Slovene Jernej Kopitar and the Croat Ljudevit Gaj.

      Both Garašanin and Karadžić derived their intellectual framework from their education within a primarily Germanic tradition and from their exposure to ways of looking at the world that were fundamentally foreign to Serbia itself.

Consolidation of the state

      Throughout the 19th century, the new Serbian state lay at the periphery of European capitalism, but it was not untouched by economic growth and change. The country developed as a centre for the export of primary products, mainly agricultural goods. This process was linked to the emergence of a new class created by the expulsion of the Turks. Former Turkish estates were transferred to peasant proprietors, but the nature of the transfer produced a new class of rentiers whose control of peasant credit was absolute. Serbian society was thus transformed by the elevation of the former knezes into a new type of elite whose wealth and power rested on the control of trade and credit and on the patronage of state employment.

      In some respects, however, the new state was rather primitive, and the process of constructing the nation was somewhat retarded by its underdevelopment. In June 1817 Karadjordje returned from exile. He and Miloš had never enjoyed an easy relationship, and, when Karadjordje was murdered in mysterious circumstances, Obrenović's complicity was suspected. A feud erupted between the Karadjordjević (Karadjordjević dynasty) and Obrenović families that continued throughout the century, dividing Serbian society between supporters of the rival clans.

      In 1830 the Ottoman government granted the Serbian principality full autonomy, and the Serbian church was given independent status. Miloš was recognized as a hereditary prince, but his tendency to behave like a pasha, ruling by force of will rather than through consent, aroused great opposition. He was compelled to abdicate in 1839, but neither of his sons (Milan and Michael) managed to control the dissenting chiefly factions or suppress the gangs of bandits. In 1842 the Skupština elected Alexander, the third son of Karadjordje, as prince, but his neutrality between Austria and Russia made him unpopular, and he, too, was deposed in 1859. The aged Miloš was recalled from retirement, and in 1860 he was succeeded by his son Michael (Michael III), who continued the work of consolidating the state and modernizing its administration. Michael was assassinated in 1868, probably by supporters of the Karadjordjević dynasty. They did not reap the reward for their efforts, however, as the Skupština called his cousin Milan (Milan IV (or II)) to the throne. As a highly Westernized young man, Milan took little interest in his task and was not popular. It has been said that he was saved by the Bosnian insurrection of 1875.

The scramble for the Balkans

      In Bosnia, where the local Muslim nobility often repressed their reaya more harshly than Turks did elsewhere, a revolt broke out in 1875 after a particularly bad harvest. Serbia, looking for an opportunity to expand its territory in the area and using the pretext of defending the Orthodox church, joined Montenegro in declaring war on Turkey (Serbo-Turkish War); Russia entered the conflict in 1877. Following the defeat of the Turks, the Treaty of San Stefano (San Stefano, Treaty of) (March 1878) proposed a radical redrawing of frontiers in the Balkans, including the creation of a large Bulgarian state extending westward to Lake Ohrid (Ohrid, Lake). This solution was unacceptable to the other Great Powers, and a revision was undertaken four months later in the Treaty of Berlin (Berlin, Congress of). The new treaty reduced the territory of the Bulgarian state but allotted additional territory to both Serbia and Montenegro. It also placed Bosnia and Herzegovina under Austrian (Austria-Hungary) administration and permitted Austrian garrisons in the Sandžak (sanjak) of Novi Pazar, a strip of land that separated Serbia from Montenegro and through which the Austrians hoped eventually to build a strategically and economically important railway to Constantinople.

      The Austrian protectorate had dramatic effects in Bosnia, especially in the rapid expansion of road and rail communications linked to areas where minerals and forests were being exploited. The administration attempted to buttress its position by courting the Muslim landlords, and therefore divided the indigenous Slavic population. Within the Habsburg lands north of the Sava and Danube, political change also redefined the situation of the Serb diaspora. The Ausgleich of 1867, establishing the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary, tied Dalmatia to Vienna while subordinating civil Croatia and Slavonia to Budapest. In the latter regions Croats were exposed to a regime of Magyarization, which in turn stimulated Croat nationalism. The old Military Frontier, with its large Serb population, was abolished in 1881, bringing the Serbs into an expanded civil Croatia. In an attempt to consolidate their own power, the Magyars were not above playing the Slavic groups off against each other, thus provoking for the first time a significant Croat-Serb hostility.

      To the east, Serbs had been rewarded for their participation in an army that quelled a Magyar rebellion in 1848–49 by the creation of a semiautonomous Vojvodina (“Duchy”). This included part of the former Banat of Temesvár, most of Bačka (between the Danube and Tisa rivers), and a small part of Baranja (between the Danube and Drava rivers)—all of which had long been integral parts of the Hungarian kingdom. Even during the time of Turkish occupation, the region had begun to receive Serb migrants, and their numbers had increased significantly after the Ottomans were forced back across the Danube. Also, Magyar nobles had introduced peasant settlers from the Rhineland and Upper Austria, adding further to the ethnic mix. The Ausgleich eradicated the autonomous status of the Vojvodina and exposed Serbs also to the full force of Magyar attempts at assimilation. Extensive land reclamation and railway construction brought Hungarian colonists, entrepreneurs, technicians, and officials. Stimulated by improved communications, large estates underwent rapid commercialization. Agricultural wage labour replaced the traditional peasantry, so that socially and economically the region acquired much of its modern character. Indeed, during the last quarter of the 19th century, the Vojvodina became known as the “breadbasket of the empire.”

      In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and the Vojvodina, therefore, the political position of the Serb population was increasingly foregrounded in such a way as to highlight the potential or actual clash of interests between Serbs and other local groups or between the new Serbian state and the Dual Monarchy. In Serbia itself, political life went through a period of acute disorder following the Bosnian uprising. In 1881 King Milan (Milan IV (or II)) entered into a secret agreement with Austria by which Serbia gained valuable export conditions for its agricultural goods on the understanding that if Serbia refrained from causing further disorder in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria would support Serbian expansion into Macedonia. Encouraged by this, Milan undertook a disastrous expedition against Bulgaria in 1885. Its failure, together with the scandals of his personal life, led Milan to abdicate in 1889. His son, Alexander, assumed the throne in 1893, but factionalism and corrupt court life continued. In the face of massive popular and official hostility, Alexander married his mistress, Draga Mašín, in 1900. The royal couple was brutally assassinated by officers in the palace in Belgrade in 1903, bringing an end to the Obrenović dynasty.

      The Skupština invited Peter Karadjordjević (Peter I) to return, and the new regime attempted to embark on a program of reform and economic development. Peter's government proved unequal to the task of addressing the problems of rapidly commercializing agriculture, burgeoning population growth, and burdensome rural indebtedness. The emergence of the Serbian Radical Party and the Agrarian Socialists attested to widespread dissatisfaction.

      The fragility of the state's authority was also underlined by the infamous Crna Ruka (“ Black Hand”; or, alternatively, Ujedinjenje ili Smrt, “Unification or Death”). This secretive organization emerged from the conspiracy of 1903 and was composed largely of military officers. It penetrated government to the extent that its chief, Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević (Dimitrijević, Dragutin), was appointed head of intelligence of the Serbian General Staff in 1913. Crna Ruka despised the civilian government and was involved in nationalistic work in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia.

      The deteriorating relationship between Serbia and Austria-Hungary (especially over Bosnia) was further strained in 1906 when tariffs were imposed on Serbian exports through Austria-Hungary as part of the so-called Pig War. Two years later the protectorate established in Bosnia was transformed into outright annexation. This shift of Serbia's external circumstances had a dramatic effect on its foreign policy, in that there was a sudden “discovery” of Macedonia. Bulgaria and Greece had been competing for the remaining Turkish holdings in Thrace and Macedonia since the 1870s, but it was the Ilinden Uprising of 1903 that captured the imagination of Serbs and signaled to Belgrade the opportunities for advancing Serbia's interests in the region. Serb aspirations for southward territorial aggrandizement grew following the Young Turk revolution of 1908. This growing engagement in Macedonia brought Serbia into deepening conflict with Austria-Hungary because between the boundaries of Serbia and Macedonia lay the Sandžak of Novi Pazar, Kosovo, and Metohija—the heartland of medieval Raška and the home of the moldering ecclesiastical relics of Serbia's Golden Age. The recovery of Kosovo, in particular, took on the aura of national destiny.

The “Ten Years' War”

      Ten years of almost continuous war began with the onset of the Balkan Wars in October 1912 and lasted—at least for Serbia—through World War I and to the resolution of the status of Albania in May 1922. This decade was decisive both in shaping the modern Serbian state and in forming Serb national consciousness.

      Despite their competing expectations of territorial expansion in the area, Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Greece concluded in 1912 a series of secret treaties creating a Balkan League, the explicit intention of which was to eject the Turks from Europe. On Oct. 8, 1912, Montenegro declared war on Turkey (Ottoman Empire), precipitating the First Balkan War. The Turkish army was driven back to the gates of Constantinople in a matter of weeks. Bulgaria's refusal to accept the division of spoils instigated a brief Second Balkan War in 1913, the result of which was that Serbia divided the Sandžak with Montenegro and acquired Kosovo and Metohija and the lion's share of Macedonia. Its area was expanded by some four-fifths and its population by more than half. Turkish possessions in Europe were confined to a small area of eastern Thrace.

The outbreak of World War I

      The situation was unstable, however, for on Austrian insistence Serbia and Montenegro were forced to yield part of the territory they had occupied to form a newly independent Albanian state. Because Greece obtained Salonika, Kavála, and coastal Macedonia, the Serbs were denied a direct outlet to the sea for which they had hoped. The Austrians, meanwhile, saw in the emergence of a strong Serbia an end to their own Drang nach Osten (“drive to the east”). The rivalry between the two states reached a peak of bitterness. On June 28, 1914, the Austrian archduke Francis Ferdinand (Francis Ferdinand, archduke of Austria-Este) attended a military review in Sarajevo—a rather pointed provocation on Vidovdan, Serbia's national day. He and his wife were assassinated by adherents of the secret society Mlada Bosna (“Young Bosnia”), who were aided and abetted by Crna Ruka. The Austrian authorities issued a precipitate and ill-considered ultimatum that included demands that anti-Austrian newspapers be suppressed and anti-Austrian teachers and military officers be dismissed. The Serbian reply, though conciliatory, was considered unsatisfactory, and in July the two countries went to war; Germany joined the Austrian side a short time later.

      The Austrian offensive of August 1914 (World War I) was forced back, as was a second attack in November. In the winter of 1914–15, however, a terrible epidemic of typhus struck Serbia, devastating both the civilian population and the military. When the German field marshal August von Mackensen (Mackensen, August von) opened a third offensive with the assistance of the Bulgarians in October 1915, the weakened Serbs were unable to sustain a defense on two fronts and were forced to retreat across Albania to the Adriatic coast. Devastated by the ravages of winter in the mountains, the remnants of the Serbian army were shipped by the British and French navies to the safety of Corfu, a Greek island in the Ionian Sea.

      The rise to power of the Greek prime minister Eleuthérios Venizélos (Venizélos, Eleuthérios) in November 1916 brought the Greeks (Greece, history of) into the war on the Allied side. It became possible to open a new front against the Bulgarian-German forces in Macedonia, with the Serbian army playing a key part alongside British, French, and Greek units. After two weeks of hard fighting, the Bulgarians surrendered. The collapse of the Macedonian front was one of the most important factors precipitating the end for the Central Powers and the end of the Great War. After Belgrade was recaptured on Nov. 1, 1918, the forces of Austria-Hungary agreed to an armistice.

The Corfu Declaration

      Following its evacuation in 1915, the Serbian government had worked from exile on Corfu for the reconstitution of its state. During the early part of the war, a number of prominent political figures from the South Slav lands under the Dual Monarchy had fled to London where they had set up a “Yugoslav Committee.” Aided by sympathetic British intellectuals, the committee had worked to improve the position of Slavs within the Monarchy in any postwar settlement. One of the most important achievements of the committee was its discovery of the Treaty of London—a secret document drawn up in April 1915 by which the Italians were promised Istria and large areas of Slovenia and Dalmatia in return for their participation on the Allied side. The stagnation of the war during 1916 and early 1917 added to the general indifference of the major Allied powers to the fate of the Slavic minorities within Austria-Hungary; thus the Yugoslav Committee and the Serbian government-in-exile decided to seek a common defense. In July 1917 representatives of the two groups met in Corfu and signed the Corfu Declaration, which called for a single democratic South Slav state to be governed by a constitutional monarchy. At the same time, on Habsburg territory, Croatian and Slovene deputies to the diets in Vienna and Budapest began preparing the ground for independence through a National Council.

      The Corfu Declaration required that both parties to the agreement reorient their war aims. Serbs from the Habsburg lands had previously aspired to greater autonomy for Slavs within the empire. Serbs from the Kingdom of Serbia, meanwhile, had seen the war as a defense of their gains of 1913—and even as a possibility that these gains might be extended. Indeed, the Serbian leader Nikola Pašić (Pašić, Nikola) regarded the new alliance with dismay, as he saw Serbia's freedom potentially compromised within a new political unit in which Serbs could be outnumbered by other constituent nations. Nonetheless, as it became apparent that the Italians were not content with the territories allocated to them by the 1915 Treaty of London, the “Yugoslavs” sought the effective support of the advancing Serbian army. All sides were constrained by the major Allied powers to reach an accommodation, and a conference held in Geneva in November 1918 concluded with a declaration of union by representatives of the Yugoslav Committee, the National Council, and the Serb political parties. The Montenegrins had risen against Austrian occupation in September, and on November 26 a national assembly in Podgorica declared for union with Serbia under the Karadjordjević dynasty. In October the Sabor in Zagreb had declared the union with Hungary to be severed, and on December 1, 1918, a delegation from the National Council invited the prince regent Alexander to proclaim the new union; four days later the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, Kingdom of) was announced to the world.

Serbia in the South Slav monarchy

      The particular form that unification took in 1918 was not part of the original war aims of any of the South Slav peoples. Nevertheless, the need to respond rapidly to the collapse of Habsburg and Ottoman power led the various political leaders to conclude that the kingdom offered the best possible opportunity for realizing their own peoples' aspirations. Elections in November 1920 produced a constituent assembly made up of no fewer than 15 parties, most with specifically ethnic constituencies. The main difference of opinion among them regarded the choosing between a unitary or a federal state. Serb experience had always revolved around the creation of a strong state, that of the Croats and Slovenes around the struggle to defend the nation against too strong a state. The defeat in principle of the federal idea led to the withdrawal of the Croatian Peasant Party under the leadership of Stjepan Radić (Radić, Stjepan). This allowed an alliance of the principal Serb parties, together with the Muslims, to press through a highly centralized constitution modeled on that of prewar Serbia; it was promulgated on Vidovdan, June 28, 1921.

Conflict with Croatia

      With few exceptions, the decade of 1919–29 was characterized by growing bitterness on the part of non-Serb groups. In June 1928 when a Montenegrin deputy shot two Croatian deputies to death in the Skupština and mortally wounded Radić, the days of the Vidovdan constitution were numbered. It became evident that the Serbs were unwilling to contemplate a federal state at any price, while the Croats were unprepared to consider anything else. King Alexander (Alexander I), frustrated by the inability of the politicians to make progress, dissolved the Skupština in January 1929 and declared a personal dictatorship. In an attempt to weaken traditional regional loyalties, the name of the state was changed to Yugoslavia, and the former regions were reorganized into nine banovine (governorships) and the prefecture of Belgrade. The king won a certain amount of support for his aims, but the draconian character of their implementation—including suppressing patriotic gymnastic societies, interfering with the judiciary and the press, and arresting and torturing political opponents—aroused deep hostility. During a state visit to France in 1934, Alexander was assassinated by an agent of the Croatian terrorist organization, the Ustaša. A regency was established, headed by Prince Paul (Paul Karadjordjević, Prince), the uncle of Peter II, the heir to the throne. Discussions between the Serb leader Dragiša Cvetković and Croatian Peasant Party leader Vladimir Maček (Maček, Vladimir) resulted in the Sporazum (“Agreement”) of August 1939, on the eve of World War II, which made provision for a partially self-governing Croatian banovina. Whether this prefigured a peaceful reconciliation of the Serb-Croat conflict remains unclear, as Yugoslavia was invaded and broken up by the Axis powers in April 1941.

      The political instability of the interwar years is often attributed to the Serb-Croat conflict, but Serb energies were absorbed during this time by the consolidation of the “national” identity of the new lands—Macedonia, Kosovo, and the Sandžak—acquired in 1913. An armed presence was sustained in the first two of these areas throughout the two interwar decades. A campaign to encourage the “repatriation” of “Turks”—actually the expulsion of any Muslims regardless of language or national consciousness—resulted in the forcible expulsion of many thousands of Serbo-Croatian-speaking Muslims as well as Albanians and “Turks.” The process of ethnic consolidation was aided by a land reform program, initiated in 1919, in which land expropriated from large proprietors, religious foundations (especially Islamic charities), and expellees was redistributed to Serb colonists. An analogous process took place on the estates of former Magyar proprietors in the Vojvodina.

Economic modernization

      In spite of its tempestuous politics, the interwar period was one of significant moves toward economic modernization. Serbia's peasant farmers (with the exception of those working on the large estates of the Vojvodina) were relatively unaffected by problems that afflicted the international grain market. Industrialization was a consistently enunciated policy of all governments of the period, and the victory of a “Danubian orientation” (as opposed to an “Adriatic orientation”) in development policy meant that northern and central Serbia benefited more than other regions from the foundation of infant industries—financed partly by war reparation from the Central Powers and protected by tariffs on imports. The Western financial crisis of 1929 left Yugoslavia relatively untouched. It was not until after 1931 that real difficulties set in, when the cushion of war reparations was withdrawn and the German banking system collapsed. As Germany began to recover economically under the Nazis, Yugoslavia was gradually drawn into a German economic orbit: Yugoslavia was granted favourable terms for its exports, and local companies were incorporated into German cartels.

Revolution and the antifascist (World War II) struggle

      Throughout the interwar years the king had attempted to build diplomatic links, initially with France and Czechoslovakia and, after 1933, through the Balkan Entente with Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and Turkey. During the late 1930s, however, Yugoslavia found itself facing an embarrassing gap between its closest economic partners (Germany and the other Axis powers) and its diplomatic friends. Following the German-Austrian Anschluss of 1938, the Yugoslav government attempted strenuously to sustain a position of independence while being pressured to ally itself ever more closely with Germany. When, on March 25, 1941, the regents succumbed to Axis pressure and signed the Tripartite Pact, the news was greeted by demonstrations of protest, especially in Belgrade. On March 27 the regency was replaced in a coup headed by senior officers, who declared the majority of Prince Peter and repudiated the pact. Belgrade was immediately bombarded and the country invaded by Germany and its allies. Resistance collapsed with surprising speed in view of the size, reputation, and equipment of the royal Yugoslav army. On April 14 the king and government fled to Athens.

      Yugoslavia was divided into an array of puppet states, with these new creations being placed under German or Italian zones of military control. A rump Serbia was set up under German military supervision, from the Vojvodina in the north and of most of the territorial gains of 1913 in the south. A client regime was established in Belgrade under General Milan Nedić. Serbs were radically divided in their responses to occupation, moving in any of three directions. First, the Nedić regime was tolerated by many Serbs and even received the active and enthusiastic support of some. Second, some loyal Serb units of the Yugoslav army set up a resistance movement under a former officer, Colonel Dragoljub Mihailović (Mihailović, Dragoljub). Adopting the label Chetnik (Četnik) and appealing to a long history of Serb irregular forces, these units were for a time recognized as the Yugoslav Royal Army and Mihailović named minister of war.

      The third direction in which Serbs responded to occupation was support for the communist Partisans (Partisan) (Partizani). The Communist Party of Yugoslavia had developed into a significant political force after 1937, when its leadership had been entrusted to a former Zagreb metalworker, Josip Broz (Tito, Josip Broz), who came to be better known during the war under his code name, Tito. In September 1941 the party led an uprising in the western Serbian town of Užice. This Užička Republika (Užice Republic) was short-lived, and communist forces were driven into Bosnia and Herzegovina. There the workers and intellectuals who had formed the core of the movement joined forces with communist units from Montenegro. They also recruited heavily among minority groups—including Serbs—who were suffering persecution by the Ustaša within the puppet Independent State of Croatia, which at that time incorporated Bosnia and Herzegovina.

      In 1942 the communists formed the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia, a self-declared “temporary government,” which linked the acknowledgment of the ethnic plurality of the peoples of Yugoslavia with the reconstitution of Yugoslavia as a federation. At that time communist forces in Serbia proper were relatively weak, but following their rout in 1941, they returned at the end of the war with the Western Allies and support from the advancing Soviet Red Army to conquer a basically anticommunist Serbia (represented by Nedić's forces and Mihailović's Chetniks). Mihailović himself evaded capture until March 1946; he was tried for treason and executed in July. The final roundup of royalist dissidents was completed only in the early 1950s.

      When a new constitution was promulgated in January 1946, the political development of Serbia was once again merged with that of Yugoslavia. This time the monarchy was replaced by a federation of six republics, of which Serbia was only one.

The socialist federation

      After liberation, the leaders of the new Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia moved to create one of the most dogmatic of the eastern European communist regimes, abolishing organized opposition, nationalizing the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and setting up a central planning apparatus. State and party functions were closely interlocked. Despite their adoption of this Soviet-style “dictatorship of the proletariat,” Yugoslav communists had never had an easy relationship with the Soviet Union, dating to Tito's independence in conducting the “national liberation struggle.” Relations soon turned bitter, the Yugoslavs being accused of ideological, economic, and political indiscipline and they in turn protesting the misconduct of Soviet advisers. In June 1948 Yugoslavia was expelled from the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform), the Soviet bloc's apparatus of communist internationalism, and a diplomatic and economic boycott was initiated by the socialist countries.

The “Yugoslav road to socialism”

      Yugoslavia responded by vigorously embarking on the forced collectivization of peasant agriculture, on a distinctive “Yugoslav road to socialism.” One significant development was the movement of nonaligned countries, in which Tito's active involvement legitimated his independence from the Soviet Union while underlining the respect for national identity that had become so central to his domestic policy. In June 1950 the Basic Law on the Management of State Economic Enterprises by Working Collectives took the first steps toward what came to be known as workers' self-management. Largely the creation of Yugoslavia's leading ideologist, the Slovene Edvard Kardelj (Kardelj, Edvard), self-management involved a looser system of planning control, with more initiative devolved to enterprises, local authorities, and a highly decentralized banking structure. A new constitution, adopted in 1963, strengthened self-management and extended it beyond industrial organizations into social services and political administration. Related to this constitutional reform was a series of economic measures designed to move the country toward “ market socialism” by abolishing many price controls and requiring enterprises to compete more effectively with one another and within the “international division of labour.”

      Within the Serbian republic, the communist seizure of power in 1945, the struggle against the Cominform in 1948, and the ill-starred attempt to enforce the collectivization of agriculture (which collapsed by 1953) created a markedly conservative and bureaucratic political apparatus exemplified by such party stalwarts as Alexander Ranković and Mijalko Todorović. Although Ranković was deposed in 1966 and a new reform-minded political culture began to develop, the politics that Ranković symbolized remained more firmly rooted in Serbia than in some other parts of Yugoslavia. Thus, the general movement toward political and ideological liberalization (exemplified at the University of Belgrade by the demands of the Praxis group of intellectuals for “socialism with a human face”) met its sternest opposition in Serbia. The movement for reform took a different guise in Zagreb, where the “Croatian Spring” adopted a clearly national colour. The perceived threat of secessionism in Croatia was used as a stick with which to beat advocates of structural change. The Croatian reformers were purged by 1972, and by 1974 the leading advocates of liberalization had been ousted in Belgrade.

      The reformers won a peculiar victory, however, for the process of constitutional revision tended to shift power in the direction of the republics at the expense of the federation. “Nationalism” had been rebuffed, but at the cost of strengthening republican freedom to pursue local self-interest. These changes were consolidated in the new constitution of 1974, which made Tito president for life but after his death in 1980 vested authority in a collective presidency made up of representatives of the republics. In 1976 the self-management system was reconstructed under the Law on Associated Labour. In spite of its rhetoric of economic development, the law actually helped to maintain the power of an older and more conservative cohort of leading communists. These leaders were represented in Serbia by Peter Stambolić, chairman of that republic's League of Communists.

Conflict in Kosovo

      Greater autonomy for the Serbian republic threw into sharper definition the problematic position of Albanians. When in 1945 the six republics had been created, two areas within Serbia had been accorded distinctive constitutional status—the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina and the Autonomous Region of Kosovo-Metohija. (The latter also was made an autonomous province under the constitutional revision of 1963.) The creation of the autonomous provinces was intended to reflect their special circumstances as areas of ethnic complexity, rather than any status as quasi-republics that might serve as “homelands” for the Hungarians (Magyars) or Albanians. In the decade after World War II, the communist regime considered its acknowledgment of ethnicity to be just a way-stage on the route to the eventual creation of a broader Yugoslav identity. The Albanians of Kosovo always presented an uncompromising threat to this ambition. Even before the war's end, a revolt had broken out in Uroševac in support of the unification of Kosovo with Albania, and it was suppressed only in the summer of 1945. Under the direction of Ranković, many thousands of Albanian Muslims (Islāmic world) were subsequently deported to Turkey, their religious affiliation being used to justify their “repatriation.” Thereafter the problem of Kosovo was always at best contained rather than solved, and containment repeatedly broke down in disorder (particularly in 1968, 1981, 1989, and 1998–99).

Economic developments

      Measured in economic growth rates, the reforms of the 1950s and '60s were a success, and there was unparalleled prosperity. Yugoslavia emerged as a major international tourist destination, and some manufactures, such as metal goods and textiles, became highly profitable on both the domestic and foreign markets. Industrialization and urbanization created a society that was radically different from the economically backward peasant economy of the prewar years.

      Yet beneath this growth were certain fundamental weaknesses. Most seriously, the country's northern republics of Slovenia and Croatia and also the Vojvodina became steadily more prosperous than the others. Across a wide range of economic indexes, Serbia was invariably at or about the Yugoslav average. Kosovo, on the other hand, was almost invariably at the bottom of the scale. An attempt to resolve these disparities was made through a Federal Fund for the Development of the Underdeveloped Areas of Yugoslavia. After enormous revenues were redistributed between 1965 and 1988, however, this controversial body was abandoned, no appreciable impact having been made upon the problem it was set up to address. Serbia's role as the “hinge” of the redistribution process placed it in a particularly sensitive position. To the developed regions, which resented the diversion of profits from their enterprises, Serbia came to be identified with the use of federal power against republican autonomy. Within Kosovo itself, the experience of continuing underdevelopment suggested that the funds were being disbursed more for political reasons than for economic effectiveness. As a result, Serbs were placed on the defensive at both levels—a situation that intensified into open struggle with the onset of further economic crisis.

      By 1983 the unsupervised pursuit of foreign loans at the federal, republican, and local levels had made Yugoslavia one of the most heavily indebted states of Europe. Yugoslavia's creditors requested the intervention of the International Monetary Fund, which demanded liberalization, precipitating a period euphemistically described as stabilizacija (“stabilization”), in which the federal government groped toward economic and political restructuring. The self-management system had already acknowledged market mechanisms in Yugoslavia to a greater degree than in most socialist states, but the federation was nevertheless a long way from being a market economy—partly because of the manner in which decentralization had created de facto local (republican) monopolies. Serbia particularly resisted a rapid extension of the market, owing to the continuing strength of its “Stalinist” political culture and to the obsolescence of a good deal of its industrial base.

The rise of Slobodan Milošević (Milošević, Slobodan)

      Another threat to Serbs appeared when it was suggested that the monopoly of the League of Communists ought to give way to a freely competitive political system. As the most dispersed among the peoples of Yugoslavia, the Serbs tended to fear that multiparty democracy might challenge their rights of citizenship in the other republics. Within Serbia itself, democratization manifested itself primarily in strident demands by the Albanian minority for adequate representation or even republican status. These tensions were utilized skillfully by Slobodan Milošević, a former business official, who beginning in 1986 rose to power through the League of Communists of Serbia and brushed aside the establishment of Ivan Stambolić and his associates with a demand for “antibureaucratic revolution.” Milošević countered the federal government's plan for economic liberalization with a model of more modest reform executed at a slower pace. To the concerns of Serbs regarding the republican ambitions of the autonomous provinces, he responded with constitutional reforms in 1990 that abolished the provinces' autonomy in all but name. When Serbia was eventually compelled to hold multiparty elections in December 1990, the League of Communists was renamed the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and won a large majority in the Skupština. Through a combination of effective control over the communications media and more heavy-handed police methods, Milošević was able to ensure that no truly effective electoral counterforce emerged.

Disintegration of the federation

      Milošević's reluctance to institute a multiparty political system delayed any movement in that direction not only in Serbia but more importantly in the federation. During 1989 and 1990, therefore, when the federation was in greatest need of relegitimizing itself, and when other republican governments were successfully reestablishing their roles through popular election, the federal government was left with no means of forming a mandate for its own program of change. In return, other republican leaders refused to sanction continuing Serbian repression in Kosovo. Deepening divisions along these lines led to the collapse of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in January 1990, and over the next 12 months the federation slid into war.

      Serbian policy during the war of Yugoslav succession hovered uneasily between a need to protect the specific interests of the Serbian republic and a desire to defend the wider Serb diaspora, the choice of which was usually shaped by the tactics the SPS used to defend its position. When the Slovene and Croatian governments implemented their threat to withdraw from the federation on June 25, 1991, a 10-day war was fought between the multiethnic Yugoslav People's Army (the JNA) and Slovene militia and civilian reserves. The clash ended with the ignominious withdrawal of the Yugoslav army into Croatia, where the JNA troops then squared off with Croatian paramilitary groups. Germany's quick recognition of the new independent states of Slovenia and Croatia killed any hope that the breakup of Yugoslavia could be stalled or prevented. Serbian nationalists viewed this act as an unnecessary interference in a regional conflict that only exacerbated an already tense situation.

      From the Serbs' perspective, the loss of Slovenia could be countenanced as very few Serbs lived there; for the same reason, the independence of Macedonia in September 1991 went uncontested. Croatia and Bosnia, however, were a different matter: there Serbs constituted 12 percent and 31 percent of the population, respectively. Serbia backed local Serbs in civil wars with the aim of retaining some areas of the republics within the rump of Yugoslavia.

      Parts of Croatia along its border with Bosnia and adjoining the Vojvodina were formed into the Republic of the Serbian Krajina. The Croatian city of Vukovar surrendered to Serb forces in November 1991. In January 1992 a UN-sponsored cease-fire was negotiated between the Croatian National Guard and the Serb forces, which permitted patrols by a UN Protection Force.

      Initially, with the assistance of the Yugoslav People's Army, local Serb militias carved out several autonomous regions in Bosnia, which were consolidated in March 1992 into the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A bitter and protracted war broke out between the forces that were loyal to the government of Bosnia, Croatian units attempting to secure a union among Croatia and Croat-majority areas of the republic, and a secessionist Serb army. The destructive use of “ethnic cleansing” (depopulating areas of a particular ethnic group) by irregular Serb troops to gain a stronghold in places with a mixed population created a flood of refugees. Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, was besieged by Serb forces from May 1992 to December 1995, during which its citizens endured severe privations and losses.

John B. Allcock

The “third” Yugoslavia

      On April 27, 1992, a new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was inaugurated, though only comprising Serbia and Montenegro. Its capital and assembly were both placed in Belgrade. The new state was not recognized by the entire international community, however, because of its continued military involvement in other republics of the former Yugoslavia. Stricter economic sanctions than those that had been imposed in 1991 were established by a United Nations (UN) security council resolution in May 1992, precipitating a rapid economic decline in the new federation.

      Despite the hardships the population experienced and massive antigovernment demonstrations, Milošević still managed to win the election in December 1993. The SPS remained the largest party in the Skupština, and it was able to hang onto the government through coalitions formed with extreme nationalist groups by promising them continued commitment to the autonomist movements in Croatia and Bosnia. By 1994 Milošević was able to form a new coalition with members of the democratic opposition. This gave him the freedom to adopt a new stance with respect to the international community. Thus, when a Croatian offensive in the spring and summer of 1995 stripped the Krajina of virtually its entire Serb population, Serbia did not intervene (although many of the expelled Serbs were resettled in Kosovo and the Vojvodina). Serbia also failed to come to the aid of Bosnian Serbs when a Croat-Bosniac (Muslim) alliance scored a series of victories during the summer.

      The collapse of Bosnian Serb military resistance, together with the withdrawal of Serbia's support and pressure from the United States, forced the Bosnian Serbs to accept a series of agreements negotiated in December 1995 in Dayton, Ohio. The vigorous backing of the Dayton Accords by Milošević secured the removal of most of the economic sanctions that had been imposed on the new federation. Serbia's slow movement toward international mediation was aided when it concluded an agreement in January 1996 that provided for demilitarizing and returning to Croatian control the Serb-occupied region of eastern Slavonia.

      Reconstruction by the Milošević government of the wrecked Serbian economy began with a currency reform introduced in January 1994. The manufacturing and marketing sectors were rejuvenated, and the rampant black market and racketeering were brought under control. Attempts to stabilize the economy were constantly undermined, however, by the determination of Milošević and the SPS to retain power in spite of overwhelming opposition. Elections in November 1996 returned the SPS to power, in coalition with minority parties. The government eventually conceded that there had been large-scale electoral fraud, provoking three months of demonstrations. In response, Milošević set up a series of measures that increased inflation, with the result that gangsterism and political assassinations returned.

      As the SPS continued to introduce additional repressive reforms, it strained relations between Serbia and Montenegro. The Montenegrins were anxious to integrate their economy with that of the international community, but they were increasingly antagonized by the central government in Belgrade. In July 1997 Milošević, debarred by the constitution from further service as Serbia's president, engineered his election to the federal presidency, and elections in October returned an opposition candidate, Milo Djukanović, as president of Montenegro. The two units of the federation then embarked on a succession of clashes that resulted in Montenegrin representatives losing their federal powers, leaving the federation largely operative in name only. With the economy faltering, Milošević was defeated by Vojislav Koštunica in the Yugoslav presidential election in 2000, after which international sanctions against the country were lifted. Milošević was soon arrested and extradited to The Hague to be prosecuted for war crimes.

The Kosovo conflict

      The most serious threat to both the internal stability and international rehabilitation of Serbia was the deteriorating situation in the province of Kosovo. In 1989 Ibrahim Rugova, leader of the Kosovo Albanians, had initiated a policy of nonviolent protest against the loss of provincial autonomy. The refusal of the international community to address the situation in Kosovo in Dayton lent support to the arguments of Rugova's more radical opponents; the changes they demanded could not be secured by peaceful means. A new organization, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), emerged during 1996, and its sporadic attacks on Serbian police units steadily escalated, leading by 1998 to a substantial armed uprising. The drive by the Yugoslav government to reassert its control over the region was accompanied by atrocities that were well publicized, and a wave of refugees began fleeing the area. Concern grew in the international community, but this did not deter the Yugoslav army and Serbian forces from launching a major offensive against the KLA in February 1999. Negotiations that had quickly been convened in Rambouillet, France, to resolve the crisis broke down and were followed in March by NATO air strikes against Serbian military targets. The Serbian response to the NATO action, however, was to drive out all of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, displacing hundreds of thousands of refugees into neighbouring Albania, Macedonia, and Montenegro.

      In June 1999, after weeks of air strikes, the Yugoslav government accepted a proposal for peace that had been mediated by representatives from Russia and Finland. Federal troops quickly evacuated the region, along with most of Kosovo's Serb civilians, while nearly all of the displaced Albanians returned. UN (United Nations) peacekeeping forces were deployed to the region, which then came under UN administration.

The federation of Serbia and Montenegro

      In the late 1990s secessionists gained ground in Montenegro and called for independence from the Yugoslav federation and their much larger Serbian neighbour. Despite the popularity of independence within Montenegro, international leaders, particularly those in the European Union (EU), believed that further political instability in Yugoslavia might unleash violence once again, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. In 2001 Montenegro's pro-independence governing coalition announced that it would hold a referendum on independence, but in 2002 Javier Solana, the EU's foreign minister, was able to forestall the plebiscite, brokering an agreement between Yugoslav President Vojislav Koštunica, Montenegrin President Milo Djukanović, and Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjić that would maintain the federation. The accord, which would rename the country Serbia and Montenegro, called for a loose federation between the two republics. The federal government would have jurisdiction over foreign and defense policy and coordinate international economic relations, but the republics would retain autonomy in most other policy spheres. It also allowed each republic to hold a referendum on independence after the agreement had been in effect for three years. The historic pact was ratified in early 2003 by the Serbian, Montenegrin, and Yugoslav parliaments, and in February the name Yugoslavia was once again relegated to the annals of history. In turn, the federation of Serbia and Montenegro ceased to exist in 2006; Montenegro held a referendum in the spring of that year that resulted in its formal declaration of independence and its separation from Serbia on June 3.

Independent Serbia

      During the breakup of Serbia and Montenegro, the contentious matter of Kosovo's future remained at the forefront of Serbian politics. Talks begun in 2005 resulted in a plan—proposed by the UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari (Ahtisaari, Martti) in 2007 and supported by the United States and most members of the EU—that called for independence for Kosovo, albeit under international supervision. Serbia rejected the plan, however, and months of further talks between Serbian and Kosovar leaders were inconclusive. With the support of the EU and the United States, Kosovo declared independence in February 2008. Serbia, backed by Russia, refused to recognize Kosovo as a sovereign country.

      In the wake of Kosovo's secession, Serbia's governing coalition—composed of the pro-European Democratic Party (DS) and its offshoot, the centre-right Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS)—collapsed. For a European Serbia, a pro-EU bloc led by Serbian president and DS leader Boris Tadic, won nearly 40 percent of the vote in the May 2008 parliamentary elections. However, the nationalist Serbian Radical Party captured nearly 30 percent, making the formation of a pro-EU governing coalition less certain. Nevertheless, in July the pro-EU alliance joined with a Socialist-led bloc of parties to form a new government whose stated goal was to obtain EU candidacy for Serbia.

Ed.

Additional Reading

General

Glenn E. Curtis (ed.), Yugoslavia: A Country Study, 3rd ed. (1992), is an informative all-around handbook on the larger federation, with sections on geography, economy, government, defense, and history. Detailed maps and extensive explanatory text (in Serbo-Croatian) are incorporated in Stipe Pojatina and Ivan Bertic (eds.), Veliki Geografski Atlas Jugoslavije (1987). Economic and political issues are considered by Fred Singleton, Twentieth-Century Yugoslavia (1976). Geography is discussed in F.W. Carter and H.T. Norris (eds.), The Changing Shape of the Balkans (1996).A classic study of Serbian village life is Joel M. Halpern and Barbara Kerewsky Halpern, A Serbian Village in Historical Perspective (1972, reissued with changes, 1986).The role of literature in the breakup of Yugoslavia is the subject of Andrew Baruch Wachtel, Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia (1998).Thomas M. Poulsen Ed.

History of Yugoslavia

General surveys of Yugoslavia's history include Steven K. Pavlowitch, Yugoslavia (1971); and Fred Singleton, A Short History of the Yugoslav Peoples (1985, reissued 1988).Ivo J. Lederer, Yugoslavia at the Paris Peace Conference: A Study in Frontiermaking (1963), treats the formation of the kingdom at the end of World War I. The formation of the new multinational state in the period between World War I and World War II is dealt with in Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics (1984, reissued 1988); and Aleksa Djilas, The Contested Country: Yugoslav Unity and Communist Revolution, 1919–1953 (1991, reissued 1996). Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia, 2 vol. (1941, reissued in 1 vol., 1994), is a classic pre-World War II historical and geographic study. The impact of World War II is covered by Dragiša N. Ristić, Yugoslavia's Revolution of 1941 (1966); Frank C. Littlefield, Germany and Yugoslavia, 1933–1941: The German Conquest of Yugoslavia (1988); Ilija Jukić, The Fall of Yugoslavia (1974); Mark C. Wheeler, Britain and the War for Yugoslavia, 1940–1943 (1980); and Walter R. Roberts, Tito, Mihailović, and the Allies, 1941–1945 (1973, reprinted 1987).General discussions of the post-World War II period are found in Branko Horvat, An Essay on Yugoslav Society (1969; originally published in Serbo-Croatian, 1969); Dennison Rusinow, The Yugoslav Experiment, 1948–1974 (1977); and Harold Lydall, Yugoslav Socialism: Theory and Practice (1984). The gathering socioeconomic crisis leading to the disintegration of the socialist federation is covered in Harold Lydall, Yugoslavia in Crisis (1989); Dijana Pleština, Regional Development in Communist Yugoslavia: Success, Failure, and Consequences (1992); Sabrina P. Ramet, Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia, 1962–1991, 2nd ed. (1992); and John B. Allcock, John J. Horton, and Marko Milivojević (eds.), Yugoslavia in Transition: Choices and Constraints (1992).Aspects of the breakup of Yugoslavia are treated in John B. Allcock, Explaining Yugoslavia (2000); Branka Magaš, The Destruction of Yugoslavia: Tracking the Break-up, 1980–92 (1993); Bogdan Szajkowski (ed.), Political Parties of Eastern Europe, Russia, and the Successor States (1994); Lenard J. Cohen, Broken Bonds: Yugoslavia's Disintegration and Balkan Politics in Transition, 2nd ed. (1995); Laslo Sekelj, Yugoslavia: The Process of Disintegration, trans. from Serbo-Croatian (1993); and Susan L. Woodward, Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution After the Cold War (1995). The Yugoslav conflict is also explored in Misha Glenny, The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War, 3rd rev. ed. (1996); John R. Lampe, Yugoslavia as History: Twice There Was a Country, 2nd ed. (2000); Laura Silber and Allan Little, Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation, rev. and updated ed. (1997); and Gale Stokes, Three Eras of Political Change in Eastern Europe (1997).

History of Serbia

The creation of the Serbian state and its development to World War I are dealt with in Leopold Ranke, A History of Servia and the Servian Revolution (1847, reissued 1973; originally published in German, 1829); Harold W.V. Temperley, History of Serbia (1917, reprinted 1970); R.G.D. Laffan, The Guardians of the Gate: Historical Lectures on the Serbe (1918; also published as The Serbs, 1989); Michael Boro Petrovich, A History of Modern Serbia, 1804–1918, 2 vol. (1976); David MacKenzie, The Serbs and Russian Pan-Slavism, 1875–1878 (1967); Gale Stokes, Politics as Development: The Emergence of Political Parties in Nineteenth-Century Serbia (1990); and Wayne S. Vucinich, Serbia Between East and West: The Events of 1903–1908 (1954, reprinted 1968).Of particular interest with respect to the development of Serbian language and literary culture are Duncan Wilson, The Life and Times of Vuk Stefanović Karadzić, 1787–1864: Literacy, Literature, and National Independence in Serbia (1970, reprinted 1986); and Anne Pennington and Peter Levi (trans.), Marko the Prince: Serbo-Croat Heroic Songs, with notes by Svetozar Koljevi (1984).Serbia's role in World War I is discussed by Crawfurd Price (W.H. Crawfurd Price), Serbia's Part in the War (1918); and in World War II by Jozo Tomasevich, The Chetniks (1975); and Lucien Karchmar, Draža Mihailović and the Rise of the Četnik Movement, 1941–1942, 2 vol. (1987). Serb nationalism is discussed in Tim Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth, and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, 2nd ed. (2000).John B. Allcock Ed.

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