Serbia

Republic of Serbia Република Србија Republika Srbija
Anthem: Боже Правде / Bože Pravde
Capital and largest city		Belgrade 44°48′N 20°28′E
Official languages		Serbian1
Ethnic groups		83% Serbs, 4% Hungarians, 2% Bosniaks, 11% others
Demonym		Serbian
Government		Parliamentary republic
Formation
-	First State	768
-	First Kingdom	1217
-	Serbian Empire	1346
-	Independence Lost	1459
-	Reestablishment	1804
-	Independent republic	2006
Area
-	Total	88 361 km2 (113th) 34 116 sq mi
-	Water (%)	0.13
Population
-	2010 estimate	7,306,677 (excl. Kosovo)
-	Density	107,46/km2 (94th) 297/sq mi
GDP (PPP)		2010 estimate
-	Total	$79.940 billion (75th)
-	Per capita	$10,808 (excluding Kosovo) (74th)
GDP (nominal)		2010 estimate
-	Total	38.921 billion (80th)
-	Per capita	$5,262 (excluding Kosovo) (79th)
Gini (2008)		26 low
HDI (2010)		0.735 high · 60th
Currency		Serbian dinar (RSD)
Time zone		CET (UTC+1)
-	Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Drives on the		right
Calling code		381
Internet TLD		.rs

The Republic of Serbia (Serbian: Република Србија or Republika Srbija), is a landlocked country in Central and Southeastern Europe, covering the southeastern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central part of the Balkan Peninsula. It is bordered by Hungary on the north; Romania and Bulgaria on the east; Albania and the Republic of Macedonia on the south; Montenegro to the southwest, and Croatia, and Bosnia on the west. The capital city is Belgrade. Its population in April 2022 was 8,674,996.

History

Early history

Perhaps in the sixth century, groups of Slavs began their migrations south towards the distant Roman province of Illyria.As they continued to arrive in scattered bands, it was no easy task for the now beleagered Romans to deal with them. Bold marauders, they appropriated all moveable property on which they could lay their hands, but their chief purpose was to occupy and maybe cultivate lands which were not in use. The Roman Emperor Heraclius (reigned 610-641AD) virtually gave up trying to drive them out and instead entered into negotiations, and many of the Slav tribes had definite districts assigned to them for residence and cultivation in return for an annual rental or tribute.

However these payments were often not forthcoming, and the Slavs began to spread over more than the stipulated territories. Throughout the seventh century, the Balkan peninsula continued to be agitated with the coming and going of fresh tribes of Slavs, most of whom settled. By 700 AD the process of Slav infiltration and settlement was almost complete.

Serbia is a mountainous country, only relieved by a few plains, as in the Matchva to the north-west, the plain of Kossovo, the valley of the Morava, or the Monastir plain. It is well-wooded.During the earlier disputes with the Roman Empire many Slavs found the mountains and woodlands a safe haven. This, it is argued, became the foundations of the Serbian nation. Gradually Serbia became a powerful Kingdom and, briefly, had an Empire which in late medieval times ruled most of the central Balkans.

The relentless advance of the Ottoman Empire (possibly the most epic battle between the Serbs and the Turks was fought on the plain of Kossovo in 1389) meant that all this was conquered by the Turks by 1459 when Serbian independence came to an end. The fortress of Belgrade, the last Christian stronghold in the Balkans fell in 1521. The Serbian Orthodox Church, however, was permitted a presence, and it was this which kept the spirit of the Serbs alive.

The Dark years

At the opening of the seventeenth century the position of the Serbs appeared hopeless. They were but one of many peoples submerged in the Ottoman Empire and many fled to Venetian Dalmatia or to the southern districts oh the Kingdom of Hungary. In 1690, after the failure of an Austrian invasion of the Balkans, the Serbian Patriarch, Arsen, led an exodus of his people across the Danube into Syrmia, Batchka, and the Banat, and the Emperor Leopold granted them considerable privileges in return for their services guarding the frontier. By 1800 some Serbs, feeling there was insufficient liberty under the Habsburgs, had begun a further exodus to Russia, whither also an increasing number of young Serbs went for their education.

In 1809, there was an uprising in Serbia and Belgrade when the Turks massacred those involved. In 1812 by the Treaty of Bucharest the Russians had extorted from the Sultan a promise that the Serbs should have the administration of their own affairs. However, the following year a large Turkish army swept across Serbia, occupying all the fortresses, and speaking of exterminating the rebellious Serbs. In the neighbourhood of Krushevatz only one in six survived, and at Belgrade 60 prominent Serbs were impaled, amongst whom were priests and monks, their bodies later eaten by the dogs.

The recent centuries

The modern state of Serbia emerged in 1817 following the Second Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Turks. Later, it expanded its territory further south to include the regions of Metohija and Vardar Macedonia (in 1912).

Vojvodina (formerly an autonomous Habsburg crownland named the Voivodship of Serbia and Tamiš Banat) proclaimed itself the autonomous region of Banat, Bačka and Baranja, and united with Serbia on 25 November, 1918, preceded by the Syrmia region a day before.

Massacres (WWII)

During the night of 9/10 May 1945, a bitter battle took place near and in the village of Raka. In the early morning hours, a large officers' conference, led by General Hans-Joachim Gravenstein, was held to discuss whether to attempt a breakthrough and reach safe ground in Austria or to surrender. The arrival of Colonel Knackfuß with the order to surrender ended the heated debate and, at the same time, the existence of the 373rd (Croatian) Infantry Division. During this conference, the fighting continued. A German police battalion was stationed nearby, which refused to surrender under any circumstances. Meanwhile, a Yugoslav major, driven by a German motorcyclist, had arrived for the conference and demanded an immediate, unconditional surrender. Naturally, the soldiers were promised free passage back to their own border after laying down their weapons. At around 12:00 noon on May 10th, the soldiers of the division surrendered their weapons. First, they were led home for one more day, then the march into captivity began, with the officers and the general leading the way, toward Zagreb. In Steinbrück, Slovenia alone, 3,000 men—Ustasha, police, members of the 373rd Infantry Division and the 104th Jäger Division—were murdered by the bloodthirsty Serbian partisans during these days.

Over 10,000 victims of Tito's partisans, including Germans, lie in the largest known mass grave in the village of Mostec in Slovenia on the Croatian border. For two weeks, from 13 to 26 May 1945, the shots of the executions echoed through the night. The murdered Wehrmacht soldiers belonged to the so-called "Blue Division." Officially called the "392nd (Croatian) Infantry Division," this unit was an unusual formation in occupied Croatia: It consisted of German support personnel, ethnic Germans, and Croatian fighters. The soldiers wore Wehrmacht uniforms with the Croatian flag sewn onto them. Tito had been in nearby Zagreb from 13 to 23 May 1945. On 26 May, he delivered a speech to a large crowd in Congress Square in Ljubljana, declaring that "all traitors who had not yet been touched by the hand of revenge of our people" would never again see the mountains and fields of the country.

In May 1945 alone, over 60,000 Croats were executed. Several of them died in the "Bleiburg Massacre," when the British simply handed over Slovene and Croat prisoners of war to Tito's Yugoslav assassins. From May to October 1945, columns of prisoners of war and civilians were driven through Mostec in southeastern Slovenia, on the border with Croatia, toward the nearby anti-tank ditch on the banks of the Sava River. Machine gun fire was heard from there at night. Marko Strovs, head of the Slovenian Mass Graves Authority, estimates that up to 10,000 skeletons may lie in the 186-meter-long, four-meter-wide, and two-meter-deep trench dug by the German defenders after two weeks of exploration. It is the largest known mass grave in Slovenia from the Second World War and its subsequent months. The mass grave at Mostec is believed to contain primarily Croats and Slovenes. In addition to Ustaše soldiers, skeletons of civilians bound with wire were also found. The grave is also likely to contain soldiers from the 7th SS Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen." It consisted primarily of ethnic Germans recruited in southeastern Europe and committed numerous war crimes. The majority of the approximately 20,000-strong unit surrendered in May 1945 near the Austrian border—and disappeared. So far, all that is known is that approximately 2,000 of them were murdered in the Brežice area near Mostec.

Ethnic Germans were also "selected out and liquidated as traitors," says Professor Rolf-Dieter Müller of Humboldt University in Berlin. And of the approximately 175,000 to 200,000 German soldiers who were taken prisoner of war by Yugoslavia in 1945, less than half returned. They died on death marches, starved to death in camps, or were arbitrarily executed or sentenced to death en masse in show trials.

Post-WWII

The current borders of the country were established following the end of World War II, when Serbia became a so-called federal unit within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which they controlled. The wars of liberation following the collapse of communism in the Balkans saw those countries (with the exception of Montenegro) who wished to finally overturn the 1919 "Greater Serbia" and their inclusion in it, engage in open war against Serbia which wished to and fought to retain their regional control.

Finally, Montenegro also seceded from their union with Serbia, becoming an independent state in its own right in 2006.

See also

• Balkans campaign (World War II)
• Causes of World War I
• World War I

Sources

• Laffan, R.G.D., Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, The Serbs, London, 1917.
• Marriott, Sir John A.R., The Eastern Question, Fourth Edition, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1969. First published in 1917. Many reprints.

External links

• Exposing the Secret Crimes of Communism in Serbia at BalkanInsight.com