Serbia

Република Србија Republika Srbija Republic of Serbia
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: Bože pravde God of Justice
Location of Serbia Location of  Serbia (orange) on the European continent (white)
Capital	Belgrade 44°48′N 20°28′E
Largest city	capital
Official languages	Serbian language 1
Government	Semi-presidential republic
- President	Boris Tadić
- Prime Minister	Vojislav Koštunica
Establishment
- Formation	9th century
- First unified state	c.960
- Independence	1185
- Kingdom established	1077 (Dioclea) 1217 (Rascia)
- Empire established	1346
- Independence lost  to Ottoman Empire	1459
- First Serbian Uprising	Feb 15, 1804
- First Constitution	Feb 15, 1835
- Recognized	1878
Area
- Total	88,361 km² (113th) 34,116 sq mi
- Water (%)	0.13
Population
- 2007 estimate	10,147,398
- 2002 census	7,498,0014
- Density	115/km² 297/sq mi
GDP (PPP)	2007 estimate
- Total	$54.310 billion
- Per capita	$7,234
Currency	Serbian dinar5 (RSD)
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
- Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Internet TLD	.yu (.rs)6
Calling code	+381
1 Following the adoption of the new Constitution, Serbian Latin script is awaiting parliamentary approval alongside the official Serbian Cyrillic script. 2 Official languages of Vojvodina. 3 Official languages of Kosovo. 4 does not include the figures for Kosovo 5 The euro is used in Kosovo alongside the dinar. 6 The .rs was reserved in September 2006, should be available in 2007. .yu is still in use until the current active leases expire.

Serbia, officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: Република Србија or Republika Srbija, is a landlocked country in central and south-eastern Europe, covering the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central part of the Balkan Peninsula.

The modern state of Serbia emerged in 1817 following the Second Serbian Uprising. Later, it expanded its territory further south to include Kosovo and Metohija and the regions of Raška and Macedonia (in 1912). Finally, Vojvodina (formerly an autonomous Habsburg crown land named Voivodship of Serbia and Tamiš Banat) proclaimed its secession from Austria-Hungary, and joined Serbia in 1918.

Serbia controls one of the major land routes from Western Europe to Turkey and the Near East.

Serbia became an independent state again in 2006, after Montenegro left the union which was formed after the dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1990s.

Geography

File:Sr-map.png

Map of Serbia

Serbia's geographic components

Serbia is bordered by Hungary on the north; Romania and Bulgaria on the east; Albania and Macedonia on the south; and Montenegro, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina on the west. The 2007 borders were established following the end of World War II, when Serbia became a federal unit within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Serbia covers a total area of 34,116 square miles (88,361km²), which places it at 113th largest place in the world, or slightly larger than South Carolina in the United States.

Serbia's terrain ranges from rich, fertile plains of the northern Vojvodina region, limestone ranges and basins in the east, and in the southeast ancient mountains and hills. The Danube River dominates the north. A tributary, the Morava River flows through the more mountainous southern regions.

Mountains cover the largest parts of Central Serbia and Kosovo. Four mountain systems meet in Serbia: the Dinaric Alps in the west cover the greatest territory, and stretch from northwest to southeast. The Carpathian Mountains and the Balkan Mountains stretch in north-south direction in the eastern Serbia, west of the Morava valley. Ancient mountains along the South Morava belong to Rilo-Rhodope Mountain system. The Sar Mountains of Kosovo form the border with Albania, with one of the highest peaks in the region, Djeravica at 8714 feet (2656 meters).

Serbia varies between a continental climate in the north, with cold winters, and hot, humid summers with well distributed rainfall patterns, and a more Adriatic climate in the south with hot, dry summers and autumns and relatively cold winters with heavy inland snowfall. The difference between average temperatures in January and July in Belgrade is 40°F (22 °C). The continental climate of Vojvodina has July temperatures of about 71°F (22°C), and January temperatures of around 30°F (-1 °C). Precipitation ranges from 22 inches to 75 inches (560mm to 1900mm) a year, depending on elevation and exposure.

The Danube river flows through the northern third of the country, forming the border with Croatia and part of Romania. The Sava river forms the southern border of the Vojvodina province, flows into the Danube in central Belgrade, and bypasses the hills of the Fruška Gora in the west. Sixty kilometers to the northeast of Belgrade, the Tisa river flows into the Danube and ends its 1350 km long journey from Ukraine, and the partially navigable Timiş River (60 km/350 km) flows into the Danube near Pancevo. The Begej river flows into Tisa near Titel. All five rivers are navigable, connecting the country with Northern and Western Europe (through the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal–North Sea route), to Eastern Europe (via the Tisa–, Timiş–, Begej– and Danube–Black sea routes) and to Southern Europe (via the Sava river).

Other than reservoirs behind hydroelectric dams, Serbia has no lakes other than Lake Palic in the Vojvodina, with a surface area of less than two square miles (five square kilometers).

Before Austrian agriculture began in the eighteenth century, the dry Vojvodina plains were a grassland steppe, although forests at one time dominated the area. Up to one-third of Serbia proper is in broad-leaved forest, mostly oak and beech. Serbia has a rich diversity of wild animals, including deer, and bears.Wild pigs are a distinctive feature of beech forests in the mountains.

Serbia has five national parks: Fruška Gora, Kopaonik, Tara, Đerdap (Iron Gate), and Šar mountain.

Natural resources include oil, gas, coal, iron ore, copper, lead, zinc, antimony, chromite, nickel, gold, silver, magnesium, pyrite, limestone, marble, salt, arable land. Natural hazards include destructive earthquakes

Environmental issues include air pollution around Belgrade and other industrial cities; water pollution from industrial wastes dumped into the Sava which flows into the Danube

Belgrade, the capital city

The capital of Serbia is Belgrade, a cosmopolitan city at the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers. First settled around 4800 B.C.E., Belgrade had a population in 2002 of 1,576,124. Belgrade has the status of a separate territorial unit in Serbia, with its own autonomous city government. Other cities with populations surpassing the 100,000 mark include Novi Sad, Niš, Kragujevac, Leskovac, Subotica, Zrenjanin, Kruševac, Pančevo, Kraljevo, Čačak, and Smederevo.

The following cities in Kosovo and Metohija, with populations surpassing the 100,000 mark include Priština, Prizren, Djakovica, Peć and Kosovska Mitrovica.

History

Pre-human occupation in the Serbia region dates back 35,000 years, although dense Neolithic settlement dates from about 7000 B.C.E. to 3500 B.C.E. in the Pannonian Basin, along the Sava and Danube rivers, and spreading north into Hungary along the Tisa River, and south down the Morava-Vardar corridor.

Illyrians

Semi-nomadic pastoral people from the Russian steppes infiltrated the region from 3500 b.c.e.. They rode horses, had horse-drawn vehicles, built hill forts such as Vucedol, near Vukovar, traded amber, gold, and bronze, and had a superior military technology. These people included the Illyrians, who settled through the western Balkans. By the seventh century B.C.E., the Illyrians could work with iron, which they traded with the emerging Greek city-states and of power among the native aristocracies. In the mid-fourth century B.C.E., Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great extended their empire into the region. From 300 B.C.E., iron-skilled Celts began to settle the area. Belgrade is partly of Celtic origin.

Roman conquest

Romans seeking iron, copper, precious metals, slaves, and crops began to move into the Balkan Peninsula in the late third century B.C.E., and struggled for domination, against the fierce resistance, for 300 years. The Illyrians were finally subdued in 9 C.E., and their land became the province of Illyricum, while eastern Serbia was conquered in 29 B.C.E. and made part of the province of Moesia. Roads, arenas, aqueducts, bridges, fortifications, and towns were built. Invasions by Goths, Huns, Bulgars, Avars, and others gradually weakened Roman influence. The basic name, Serboi, describing a people living north of the Caucasus, appeared in the works of Tacitus, Plinius and Ptolemy in the first and second century C.E. Emperor Diocletian in 285 C.E. began dividing the empire along a line that ran north from the modern Albanian-Montenegrin border on the Adriatic to Sirmium, where it followed the Sava and Danube rivers. This division enabled Greek culture to penetrate the Balkans, especially after the defeat of an Avar-Persian army in 626 by the Byzantines. Christianity had been introduced during the Roman period, but the region had reverted to paganism by the time the Slavs had arrived

Serbs arrive

Serb lands in the ninth century, mostly according to De Administrando Imperio

Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (575 – 641) allied with several Slavic tribal groups to drive the Avars and Bulgars toward the east. Slavs settled widely in the Balkans, and tribes 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 Serb state was created by Vlastimir in about 850, centred on an area in eastern Montenegro and southern Serbia known as Raška. That kingdom accepted the supremacy of Constantinople. This was the start of an on-going link between the Serbian people and Orthodox Christianity. Byzantine emperor Michael III (840 - 867) sent brothers Cyril and Methodius to evangelize the Slavs, preaching in the vernacular. They invented a script based on the Slavic tongue, which was initially known as “Glagolitic”, but later revised using Greek-type characters and became known as “Cyrillic”.

Serbian golden age

Medieval Serbian Emperor Stefan Uroš IV Dušan

Tsar Dušan's Serbia, circa 1350.

A stable Slavic state appeared when Stefan Nemanja assumed the throne of Raška in 1168. In 1196, he abdicated, handing the crown to his son Stefan, who in 1217 was named by Pope Honorius III the “King of Serbia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia.” The Nemanjic dynasty ruled for 200 years, helped by the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, under the impact of the Fourth Crusade (1204). Serbia reached an apogee in economy, law, military, and religion during the rule of the House of Nemanjic, especially during Emperor Dusan (1331 - 1355). Under his reign, the state incorporated Thessaly, Epirus, Macedonia, all of modern Albania and Montenegro, a substantial part of eastern Bosnia, and modern Serbia as far north as the Danube, and was referred to as the Golden Age of their nation. Dusan promulgated the famous Zakonik (code of laws) in 1349, which fused the law of Constantinople with Serb folk custom. But by nature a soldier and a conqueror, Dušan did not make any systematic effort to stabilize or administer his gains.

Turkish conquest

By the time of Dušan's death in 1355, the Turkish advance into Europe had begun. The Serbian Empire disintegrated into rival clans, and were defeated by the Turks in 1371 at the Battle of Chernomen , and in 1389 at the historic Battle of Kosovo. That defeat was hallowed in several great heroic ballads. Stories, such as that of Maid of Kosovo, who helped the wounded and dying on the battlefield, have become symbols of Serbian nationhood. The northern Serbian territories (the Serbian Despotate) were conquered in 1459 following the siege of the "temporary" capital Smederevo. Bosnia fell a few years after Smederevo, and Herzegovina in 1482. Belgrade was the last major Balkan city to endure Ottoman onslaughts, as it joined Catholic Kingdom of Hungary, following heavy Turkish defeat in the Siege of Belgrade of 1456. It held out for another 70 years, succumbing to the Ottomans in 1521, alongside the greater part of the Kingdom of Hungary that was soon conquered. Another short-lasting incarnation of the Serbian state was the one of Emperor Jovan Nenad in the 16th-century Vojvodina, however it also collapsed and its territory was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, before finally passing to the Habsburg Empire, under which it would remain for about two centuries.

Ottoman rule

Following the collapse of Serbian Empire before historic Battle of Kosovo, most of Serbia was under Ottoman occupation between 1459 and 1804, despite three Austrian invasions and numerous rebellions (such as the Banat Uprising). Islam was in a period of expansion during this time, especially in Raška, Kosovo and Bosnia. The Ottoman period was a defining one in the history of the country; Slavic, Byzantine, Arabic and Turkish cultures suffused. Many contemporary cultural traits can be traced back to Ottoman period. The Ottoman feudal system centered on the sultan and his court in Constantinople, and revolved around extracting revenue. Under the timar system, the sultan leased areas (timarli) to a leaseholder (a spahi) who had the right to support themselves from taxes raised in their area. The spahi was expected to support and arm himself in a state of readiness for the service of the sultan.

The Ottomans ruled through local knezes, were Christian “headmen” who might act as a negotiator for taxation, as a kind of justice of the peace, as labour organizer, or as a spokesman for the Christian population,

Generally, there was no attempt to spread Islam by the sword. All Muslims were regarded as the ummah. Any person could join the ruling group by converting to Islam. Each non-Muslim religious community was called a millet. The Ottomans recognized five millets: Orthodox, Gregorian Armenian, Roman Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant. Christians were exempted from military service, and the tax burden was lighter than previously, although heavier than for the Muslim population.

Some Christian boys between the ages of 10 and 20 were conscripted, taken to Constantinople, converted to Islam, and employed in a variety of roles – some as administrators, and others as Janissaries, an elite, celibate order of infantrymen..

The majority of the Serbs managed to keep their culture and religion through the long period of Ottoman rule. The northern third of the modern country, Vojvodina, endured a century long Ottoman occupation before passing to Habsburg Empire in the end of the seventeenth century and beginning of the eighteenth century.

Austrian-Turkish wars

European powers, and Austria in particular, fought many wars against the Ottoman Empire, relying on the help of the Serbs that lived under Ottoman rule. During the Austrian–Turkish War (1593–1606), in 1594, the Serbs staged an uprising in Banat — the Pannonian plain part of Turkey, and sultan Murad III retaliated by burning the relics of St. Sava — the most sacred thing for all Serbs, honored even by Muslims of Serbian origin. Serbs created another center of resistance in Herzegovina but when peace was signed by Turkey and Austria they abandoned to Turkish vengeance. This sequence of events became usual in the centuries that followed.

Seoba Srbalja (The Moving of Serbs), a picture by Paja Jovanović

During the Great War (1683–90) between Turkey and the Holy League — created with the sponsorship of the Pope and including Austria, Poland and Venice — these three powers incited the Serbs to rebel against the Turkish authorities and soon uprisings and guerrilla warfare spread throughout the western Balkans: from Montenegro and the Dalmatian Coast to the Danube basin and Old Serbia (Macedonia, Raška, Kosovo and Metohija). However, when the Austrians started to pull out of Serbia, they invited the Serbian people to come north with them to the Austrian territories. Having to choose between Ottoman reprisal and living in a Christian state, Serbs abandoned their homesteads and headed north lead by patriarch Arsenije Čarnojević.

Another important episode in Serbian history took place in 1716–18, when the Serbian ethnic territories ranging from Dalmatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to Belgrade and the Danube basin newly became the battleground for a new Austria-Ottoman war launched by Prince Eugene of Savoy. The Serbs sided once again with Austria. After a peace treaty was signed in Požarevac, the Ottomans lost all its possessions in the Danube basin, as well as northern Serbia and northern Bosnia, parts of Dalmatia and the Peloponnesus.

The last Austrian-Ottoman war was the so-called Dubica War (1788–91), when the Austrians urged the Christians in Bosnia to rebel. No wars were fought afterwards until the twentieth century that marked the fall of both mighty empires.

Principality of Serbia

Karađorđe Petrović, leader of the First Serbian uprising in 1804.

The First Serbian Uprising of 1804–1813, led by Đorđe Petrović (also known as Karađorđe or "Black George"), and the Second Serbian Uprising of 1815 resulted in autonomy and self-governance of the new Principality of Serbia (previously Pashaluk of Belgrade) from the Porte. As it was semi-independent from the Ottoman Empire, it is considered to be the precursor of the formation of modern Serbia. After the Ottomans were definitely expelled in 1867, Serbia de facto secured its sovereignty, which was formally recognised internationally at the Congress of Berlin in 1878.

From 1815 to 1903, the Serbian state was ruled by the House of Obrenović, except from 1842 to 1858, when Serbia was ruled by Prince Aleksandar Karađorđević. In 1903, the House of Obrenović was replaced by the House of Karađorđević, who were descendants of Đorđe Petrović.

Austrian and Ottoman Serbia in 1849.

In 1848, Serbs in the northern part of present-day Serbia, which was ruled by the Austrian Empire, established an autonomous region known as the Serbian Vojvodina. As of 1849, the region was transformed into a new Austrian crownland known as the Vojvodina of Serbia and Tamiš Banat. Although the crownland was abolished in 1860, the Serbs from the Vojvodina region gained another opportunity to achieve their political demands in 1918.

Independent Kingdom

The struggle for liberty, modern society and a nation-state in Serbia lasted almost three decades and was completed with the adoption of the constitution on February 15, 1835. In 1876, Montenegro, Serbia, and Bosnia declared war against the Ottoman Empire and proclaimed their unification. However, the Treaty of Berlin, 1878, which was signed at the Congress of Berlin by the Great Powers, granted complete independence only to Serbia and Montenegro, leaving Bosnia and Sanjak of Novi Pazar to Austria-Hungary, who blocked their unification until the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 and World War I.

File:Kralj Petar I Karadjordjevic.jpg

King Peter I of Yugoslavia, Serbian leader in the First World War.

World War I

On June 28, 1914, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria at Sarajevo in Austria-Hungary by Gavrilo Princip, a South Slav unionist, Austrian citizen and member of Young Bosnia, led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia. The Russian Empire started to mobilize its troops in defence of its ally Serbia, which resulted in the German Empire declaring war on Russia in support of its ally Austria-Hungary. However, as German military planners wished to avoid a war on two fronts against both Russia and France, they attacked France first. This eventually culminated in all the major European Powers being drawn into the war. The Serbian Army won several major victories against Austria-Hungary at the beginning of World War I, but it was overpowered by the joint forces of the German Empire, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria in 1915. Most of its army and some people went to exile to Greece and Corfu where it healed, regrouped and returned to the Macedonian front to lead a final breakthrough through enemy lines on September 15, 1918, freeing Serbia again and ending the World War I on November 11. In World War I, Serbia had 1,264,000 casualties — 28 percent of its total population, and 58 percent of its male population.

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia

Serbia, 1918.

A successful Allied offensive in September 1918 secured the liberation of the occupied Serbian territories (November 1918). The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was formed in 1918. A Serb representative opened fire on the opposition benches in the Parliament, killing two outright and mortally wounding the leader of the Croatian Peasants Party, Stjepan Radić in 1928. Taking advantage of the resulting crisis, King Alexander I of Yugoslavia banned national political parties in 1929, assumed executive power, and renamed the country Yugoslavia. However, in Italy and Germany, Fascists and Nazis rose to power, and Stalin became the absolute ruler in the Soviet Union. None of these three states favored the policy pursued by Alexander I..

During an official visit to France in 1934, the king was assassinated in Marseille by a member of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization — an extreme nationalist organization in Bulgaria that had plans to annex territories along the eastern and southern Yugoslav border — with the cooperation of the Ustaše — a Croatian fascist separatist organization. Croatian leader Vlatko Maček and his party managed to extort the creation of the Croatian banovina (administrative province) in 1939.

World War II

File:Serbia1941 1944.png

Serbia and Banat, 1941-1944

The reigning Serbian monarch signed a treaty with Hitler (as did Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary). However a popular uprising amongst the people rejected this agreement, and the King fled. In April 1941, the Luftwaffe bombed Belgrade and other major cities. Ground forces from Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria invaded Yugoslavia. After a brief war, Yugoslavia surrendered unconditionally. The western parts of the country together with Bosnia and Herzegovina were turned into a Nazi puppet state called the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) and ruled by the Ustashe. Serbia was set up as another puppet state under Serbian army general Milan Nedić. Hungary annexed the northern territories, Bulgaria annexed eastern and southern territories, while Albania, which was under the sponsorship of fascist Italy, annexed Kosovo and Metohia. Montenegro lost territories to Albania and was then occupied by Italian troops. Slovenia was divided between Germany and Italy, which also seized the islands in the Adriatic.

In Serbia, the German occupation authorities organized several concentration camps for Jews and members of the partisan resistance movement. The biggest ones were Banjica and Sajmište near Belgrade, where, according to the most conservative estimates, around 40,000 Jews were killed. In all those camps, some 90 percent of the Serbian Jewish population perished. In the Bačka region annexed by Hungary, numerous Serbs and Jews were killed in 1942 raid by the Hungarian authorities. The persecutions against ethnic Serb population also occurred in the region of Syrmia, which was controlled by the Independent State of Croatia and in the region of Banat, which was under direct German control.

Various paramilitary bands resisted Nazi Germany's occupation and division of Yugoslavia from 1941 to 1945, but fought each other and ethnic opponents as much as the invaders. The communist military and political movement headed by Josip Broz Tito (Partisans) took full control of Yugoslavia when German and Croatian separatist forces were defeated in 1945. Yugoslavia was among the countries that had the greatest losses in the war: 1,700,000 (10.8 percent of the population) people were killed and national damages were estimated at $9.1-billion.

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Serbia in 1945.

Josip Broz Tito became the first president of the new Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Creating one of the most dogmatic of the eastern European communist regimes, Tito and his lieutenants abolished organized opposition, nationalized the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and set up a central planning apparatus. State and party functions were closely interlocked. Socialist Yugoslavia was established as a federal state comprising six republics: Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro and two autonomous regions within Serbia — Vojvodina and Kosovo and Metohija. The Serbs were both the most numerous and the most widely distributed of the Yugoslav peoples.

Despite this Soviet-style “dictatorship of the proletariat,” relations with the Soviet Union turned bitter, and in June 1948, Yugoslavia was expelled from the Communist Information Bureau, the Soviet bloc's apparatus of communist internationalism, and boycotted by the socialist countries. Once a predominantly agricultural country, Yugoslavia was transformed into a mid-range industrial country, and acquired an international political reputation by supporting the decolonization process and by assuming a leading role in the non-aligned movement.

Tito forced the collectivization of peasant agriculture (which failed by 1953) while initiating a self-management system which involved a looser system of planning control, with more initiative devolved to enterprises, local authorities, and a decentralized banking structure. A new constitution, in 1963, extended self-management to social services and political administration, and moved the country toward “market socialism” by abolishing price controls and requiring enterprises to compete.

A movement toward political and ideological liberalization in the early 1970s was crushed when the “Croatian Spring” raised a perceived threat that Croatia would secede The Croatian reformers were purged by 1972, and by 1974 the leading advocates of liberalization had been ousted in Belgrade. The 1974 constitution, which made Tito president for life, produced a significantly less centralized federation, increasing the autonomy of Yugoslavia's republics as well as the autonomous provinces of Serbia. After Tito’s death in 1980, authority was vested in a collective presidency made up of representatives of the republics. A rotating presidency led to a further weakening of ties between the republics. During the 1980s the republics pursued significantly different economic policies, with Slovenia and Croatia allowing significant market-based reforms, while Serbia kept to its existing program of state ownership.

The reforms of the 1950s and '60s meant Yugoslavia became a tourist destination, while industrialization and urbanization transformed the backward peasant economy of the pre-war years. But Slovenia, Croatia and the Vojvodina became more prosperous than Serbia, which remained at or about the average in Yugoslav economic indices, while Kosovo, was always at the bottom of the scale. In a bid to resolve the disparity, a Federal Fund for the Development of the Underdeveloped Areas of Yugoslavia was set up to redistribute wealth. Enormous amounts of money were redistributed between 1965 and 1988, without having any impact on the problem. Wealthier regions resented Serbia taking wealth they generated, and resented the use of federal power against republican autonomy. Kosovo’s continued underdevelopment brought the perception that funds were being disbursed more for political reasons.

The break-up of Yugoslavia

File:Tvrdjava1.jpg

The Niš Fortress.

By 1983, the unsupervised taking of foreign loans had made Yugoslavia one of the most heavily indebted states of Europe. Yugoslavia's creditors called in the International Monetary Fund, which demanded economic and political liberalization. Since Serbs were dispersed throughout the Yugoslav republics, they feared multiparty democracy might challenge their rights of citizenship in those republics. Within Serbia, the Albanian minority demanded adequate representation. Slobodan Miloševic, a former business official, who from 1986 rose to power through the League of Communists of Serbia, became president of the Serbian Republic in 1989. His ultra-nationalist calls for Serbian domination contributed to the violent break-up of Yugoslavia along ethnic lines. When Serbia was compelled to hold multiparty elections in December 1990, the League of Communists was renamed the Socialist Party of Serbia., and leader Miloševic ensured, through controlling the media and heavy-handed police methods, that no opposition emerged. His party won a large majority in the Skupstina.

But Miloševic's reluctance to institute a multiparty political system meant that both Serbia and the federation were left behind when other republican governments were re-establishing their roles through popular election. Deepening divisions led to the collapse of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in January 1990.

When the Slovene and Croatian governments withdrew from the federation on June 25, 1991, a 10-day war was fought between the Yugoslav Peoples Army (JNA) and Slovene militia and civilian reserves. The clash ended when the Yugoslav army withdrew into Croatia, where the JNA troops fought Croatian paramilitary groups. Germany quickly recognized the new independent states of Slovenia and Croatia. Serbia backed local Serbs in civil wars hoping to retain some parts of the republics within Yugoslavia.

A Republic of the Serbian Krajina was formed along Croatia’s border with Bosnia and adjoining the Vojvodina. The Croatian city of Vukovar surrendered to Serb forces in November 1991. In January 1992 a UN-sponsored cease-fire was negotiated. Serb militias carved out several autonomous regions in Bosnia, which were consolidated in March 1992 into the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A war broke out between forces loyal to the government of Bosnia, Croatian units attempting to create a union between Croatia and Croat-majority areas, and a secessionist Serb army. “Ethnic cleansing”, or the practice of depopulating areas of a particular ethnic group, by irregular Serb troops, created a flood of refugees. Serb forces besieged Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, from May 1992 to December 1995.

Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Golubac fortress overlooking the Danube river.

A new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was inaugurated on April 27, 1992, comprising Serbia and Montenegro. It was not recognized by many nations, and tight economic sanctions caused a rapid economic decline. Under Miloševic's leadership, Serbia led various military campaigns to unite ethnic Serbs in neighboring republics into a "Greater Serbia." These actions led to Yugoslavia being ousted from the UN in 1992, but Serbia continued its - ultimately unsuccessful - campaign until signing the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995.

The Miloševic government began to rebuild the wrecked Serbian economy. Miloševic and the SPS retained power despite huge opposition in November 1996 elections, although the government conceded that there had been large-scale electoral fraud, provoking months of demonstrations. In July 1997 Miloševic, barred by the constitution from service as Serbia's president, engineered his election to the federal presidency, and went on to clash with the leadership of Montenegro. On October 5, 2000 after demonstrations and fighting with police, elections were held and he was overthrown by losing to the candidate of the Democratic opposition of Serbia Vojislav Koštunica. Following parliamentary elections in January 2001, Zoran Đinđić became Prime Minister. Đinđić was assassinated in Belgrade on March 12, 2003 by assailants believed to be connected with organized crime. Immediately after the assassination, a state of emergency was declared under Nataša Mićić, acting President for the Republic of Serbia. International sanctions were lifted, Miloševic was arrested and extradited to The Hague to be prosecuted for war crimes.

Kosovo conflict

Kosovo-Metohija and Vojvodina were given distinctive constitutional status as autonomous regions when the republic was created in 1945. The Muslim Albanians of Kosovo always resisted the ambition of a Yugoslav identity. A revolt had broken out in 1945 in Uroševac in support of the unification of Kosovo with Albania. Thousands of Albanian Muslims were deported to Turkey. From then, the Kosovo problem was contained rather than solved, and containment repeatedly broke down in disorder in 1968, 1981, 1989, and 1998–99.

In 1989, Ibrahim Rugova, the leader of the Kosovo Albanians, had launched a nonviolent protest against the loss of provincial autonomy. When the autonomy question was not addressed in the Dayton Accords, the Kosovo Liberation Army emerged during 1996. Sporadic attacks on police escalated by 1998 to a substantial armed uprising, which provoked a Serbian counterinsurgency campaign that resulted in massacres and massive expulsions of ethnic Albanians living in Kosovo by Yugoslav forces and Serb paramilitaries. The Miloševic government's rejection of a proposed international settlement led to NATO's bombing of Serbia in the spring of 1999 and to the eventual withdrawal of Serbian military and police forces from Kosovo in June 1999. UNSC Resolution 1244 in June 1999 authorized the stationing of a NATO-led force (KFOR) in Kosovo to provide a safe environment for the region's ethnic communities, created a UN Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) to foster self-governing institutions, and reserved the issue of Kosovo's final status for an unspecified date in the future.

Serbia and Montenegro

From 2003 to 2006, Serbia was part of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, into which the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had been transformed. On 21 May 21, 2006, Montenegro held a referendum to determine whether or not to end the union with Serbia. The next day, state-certified results showed 55.5 percent of voters in favor of independence, which was just above the 55 percent required by the referendum. On [[5 June 5, 2006, the National Assembly of Serbia declared Serbia the legal successor to the State Union.

Government and politics

File:BorisTadicPress.jpg

Boris Tadić, president of Serbia

On 4 February 2003 the parliament of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia agreed to a weaker form of cooperation between Serbia and Montenegro within a confederal state called Serbia and Montenegro. The Union ceased to exist following Montenegrin and Serbian declarations of independence in June 2006.

After the ousting of Slobodan Milošević on 5 October 2000, the country was governed by the Democratic Opposition of Serbia. Tensions gradually increased within the coalition until the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) left the government, leaving the Democratic Party (DS) in overall control. Nevertheless, in March 2004 the DSS gathered enough support to form the new Government of Serbia, together with G17 Plus and coalition SPO–NS, and the support of the Socialist Party of Serbia, who do not take part in the government, but in exchange for the support hold minor government and justice positions and influence policies. The Prime Minister of Serbia is Vojislav Koštunica, leader of the Democratic Party of Serbia.

The current President of Serbia is Boris Tadić, leader of the Democratic Party (DS). He was elected with 53% of the vote in the second round of the Serbian presidential election held on 27 June 2004, following several unsuccessful elections since 2002.

Serbia held a two-day referendum on October 28 and October 29, 2006, that ratified a new constitution to replace the Milošević-era constitution.

Serbia held Parliamentary elections on 21 January 2007. The Serbian Radical Party claimed victory, but no party has won an absolute majority.

On 8 May 2007, Tomislav Nikolić was elected Speaker of the Serbian Parliament, which sparked a great deal of speculation about Serbia's political future, particularly from the European Union, the United States and international media. [1] Following last-minute negotiations on the part of the DS and DSS political parties, an agreement was reached on the make-up of the country's new government on 11 May 2007 between DS, DSS and G17 Plus.[2] This led to Nikolić's resignation two days later on 13 May 2007. [3]

Administrative subdivisions

File:Srbija okruzi.png

Political map of Serbia

Serbia is divided into 29 districts plus the City of Belgrade. The districts and the city of Belgrade are further divided into municipalities. Serbia has two autonomous provinces: Kosovo and Metohija in the south (5 districts, 30 municipalities), which is presently under the administration of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, and Vojvodina in the north (7 districts, 46 municipalities).

The part of Serbia that is neither in Kosovo nor in Vojvodina is called Central Serbia. Central Serbia is not an administrative division, unlike the two autonomous provinces, and it has no regional government of its own. In English this region is often called "Serbia proper" to denote "the part of the Republic of Serbia not including the provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo", as the Library of Congress puts it. This usage was also employed in Serbo-Croatian during the Yugoslav era (in the form of "uža Srbija", literally: "narrow Serbia"). Its use in English is purely geographical, without any particular political meaning being implied.

Negotiations are currently underway to determine the final status of Kosovo. The Contact Group has postponed the completing of the status process until after Serbian parliamentary elections in January 2007.

Demographics

File:Slovaci u Srbiji.jpg

Slovaks in Serbia

Population statistics of Serbia (Estimate May 2005)

• Serbia (total): 9,396,411
  • Vojvodina: 2,116,725
  • Central Serbia: 5,479,686
  • Kosovo: 1,800,000

Serbia (excluding Kosovo) in 2002
Serbs			82.86%
Hungarians			3.91%
Bosniaks			1.82%
Roma			1.44%
Yugoslavs			1.08%
other			9.79%

Serbia is populated mostly by Serbs. Significant minorities include Albanians (who are a majority in the province of Kosovo), Hungarians, Bosniaks, Roma, Croats, Slovaks, Montenegrins, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Romanians, etc. The two provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo, are ethnically and religiously diverse.

According to the last official census data collected in 2002, ethnic composition of Serbia is:

• Total: 7,498,001
  • Serbs: 6,212,844 (82.86%)
  • Hungarians: 293,172 (3.91%)
  • Bosniaks: 136,464 (1.82%)
  • Roma: 107,971 (1.44%)
  • Yugoslavs: 80,978 (1.08%)
  • Others (each less than 1%): 666,572 (8.89%)

The census was not conducted in Serbia's southern province of Kosovo, which is under administration by the United Nations. Its population is estimated to 2,100,000 inhabitants, of whom 92% are Albanians, 5.3% Serbs and others form 2.7% of its population.^{[citation needed]}

Refugees and IDPs in Serbia form between 7% and 7.5% of its population. With over half a million refugees (from Croatia mainly, to an extent Bosnia and Herzegovina too and internally displaced personal from Kosovo), Serbia takes the first place in Europe with the largest refugee crisis, as a result of the Yugoslav wars.^{[citation needed]}

Religion

Serbia (excluding Kosovo) in 2002
religion			percent
Eastern Orthodoxy			84.1%
Roman Catholicism			6.24%
Islam			4.82%
Protestantism			1.44%

According to the 2002 Census [4], 82% of the population of Serbia (excluding Kosovo) or 6,2 million people declared their nationality as Serbian, who are overwhelmingly adherents of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Other Orthodox Christian communities in Serbia include Montenegrins, Romanians, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Vlachs etc. Together they comprise about 84% of the entire population.

Catholicism is mostly present in Vojvodina (mainly in its northern part), where almost 20% of the regional population (belonging to different ethnic groups such as the Hungarians, Slovaks, Croats, Bunjevci, Czechs, etc) belong to this Christian denomination. There are an estimated 433,000 baptised Catholics in Serbia, roughly 6,2% of the population, mostly bounded to the northern province and Belgrade area.

Protestantism accounts for about 1,5 % of the country's population.

Islam has a strong historic populous in the southern regions of Serbia - Raska region, several municipalities in the south-east, and especially in the southern province of Kosovo. Bosniaks are the largest Muslim community in Serbia (excluding Kosovo) at about 140,000 (2%), followed by Albanians (1%), Turks, Arabs etc.

With the Exile of Jews from Spain during the infamous Inquisition era thousands of both individuals and families escaping that horror made their way through Europe to the Balkans. A goodly number settled in Serbia and became part of the general population. They were well accepted and during the ensuing generations the majority assimilated or became traditional or secular rather than remain orthodox Jews as had been the original immigrants. Later on the wars that ravaged the region resulted in a great part of the Serbian Jewish population either being killed or escaping to other regions for hopefully safer abodes in Yugoslavia and Austria-Hungary.

Economy

Serbia has an economy based mostly on various services, industry and agriculture. In the late 1980s, at the beginning of the process of economic transition, its position was favorable, but it was gravely impacted by UN economic sanctions 1992–95, the damage to infrastructure and industry during the NATO air strikes in 1999, as well as having problems from losing the markets of ex-Yugoslavia and Comecon. Main economic problems include high unemployment and an insufficient amount of economic reforms.

Serbia grows about one-third of the world's raspberries and is the leading frozen fruit exporter.

File:100RSD front.jpg

Nikola Tesla on 100 Serbian dinar banknote

After the ousting of former Federal Yugoslav President Milošević in October 2000, the country experienced faster economic growth (the amount of economic growth in 2006 was 6.3 percent), and has been preparing for membership in the European Union, its most important trading partner. Serbia suffers from high export/import trade deficit and considerable national debt. The country expects some major economic impulses and high growth rates in the next years. Serbia has been occasionally called a "Balkan tiger" due to its recent high economic growth rates, a reference to the East Asian Tigers.

Serbia has been very successful in economic reforms since the 2000 revolution, especially in the past three years in which growth has averaged 6 – 7 percent, and foreign direct investment is at record levels. The nation is expected to reach its pre-1990 level of GDP within a short time frame.^{[citation needed]}

Estimated GDP of Serbia for 2006 is $50.688 billion which is $6 771 per capita Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), $4 220 (nominal). GDP growth rate in 2006 is 5.8%. Growth in 2005 was 6.3% FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in 2006 was $5.85 billion or €4.5 billion.

Culture

The White Angel in Mileševa monastery

Serbia is one of Europe's most culturally diverse countries. The borders between large empires ran through the territory of today's Serbia for long periods in history: between the Eastern and Western halves of the Roman Empire; between Kingdom of Hungary, Bulgarian Empire and Byzantium; and between the Ottoman Empire and the Austrian Empire (later Austria-Hungary). As a result, while the north is culturally "Central European", the south is rather more "Oriental". Of course, both regions have influenced each other, and so the distinction between north and south is artificial to some extent.

The Byzantine Empire's influence on Serbia was perhaps the greatest. Serbs are Orthodox Christians with their own national church — the Serbian Orthodox Church. They use both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, as a result of both Eastern and Western influences. The monasteries of Serbia, built largely in the Middle Ages, are one of the most valuable and visible traces of medieval Serbia's association with the Byzantium and the Orthodox World, but also with the Romanic (Western) Europe that Serbia had close ties with back in Middle Ages. Most of Serbia's queens still remembered today in Serbian history were mostly of foreign origin: Helen d'Anjou (a cousin of Charles I of Sicily), Anna Dondolo (daughter of the Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo), Catherine of Hungary, Symonide of Byzantium.

Education

Education in Serbia is regulated by the Serbian Ministry of Education and Sports. Education starts in either pre-schools or elementary schools. Children enroll in elementary schools (Serbian: Osnovna škola / Основна школа) at age of 7 and it lasts for eight years.

Tourism

File:HramSvetogSave.jpg

Temple of Saint Sava, the largest Orthodox church in the world.

Tourism in Serbia is mostly based in mountains and villages. The most famous mountain resorts are Zlatibor, Kopaonik, and the Tara. There also are a lot of spas in Serbia, one the biggest of which is the Vrnjačka Banja. There is significant tourism in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Niš. There are also two very popular festival called the Exit Festival and the Guča trumpet festival. In 2006, there have been over 2 million tourists arrivals in Serbia.

Music

Serbia won the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki and will host the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest. The winning song was "Molitva" ("Prayer" in English) sung by Marija Šerifović.

Serbian holidays

Date	Name	Notes
January 7	Orthodox Christmas
January 13 / January 14	Pravoslavna Nova Godina (Православна Нова Година)	Orthodox New Year
February 15	Dan državnosti Srbije (Дан државности Србије)	Serbian National Day
April 6	Orthodox Good Friday	Date for 2007 only
April 8	Orthodox Easter	Date for 2007 only
April 9	Orthodox Easter Monday	Date for 2007 only
May 1 / May 2	Labour Day
May 9	Victory Day
June 28	Vidovdan	See linked page

Infrastructure

Communications

89% of households in Serbia have static telephone lines, 49% have computers, 27% use the internet, 42% have cable TV and 90% of the population have cell phones.[5],[6],[7].