Serbia is, with Montenegro, one of the two republics constitutive of the new federal republic of Yugoslavia, founded on on April 27th, 1992. It is limited to north by Hungary, the east by Romania and Bulgaria, to the south by Macedonia and Albania, in the west by Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzégovine and Croatia. Serbia, whose capital is Belgrade, includes two provinces with special statute: Voïvodine in north, and Kosovo in the south.
With the Middle Ages
At the beginning of the VII E century, the first Slavic tribes come from north penetrate in Balkans - initially the Sloveniens, then the Serb ones and the Croats. Serb and Croatian are established then, with the agreement of the Héraclius emperor, in the north-western part of the peninsula of Balkans. The Serb ones populate thus not only Serbia but also Bosnia, Herzégovine and Montenegro, the Croats being distributed between Croatia, the Slavonia and Dalmatie. Serb and Croatian are one and even people, and they speak the same language, resulting from the slavon.
But the Croats are roman catholics and employ the Latin alphabet; the Serb ones, them, were christianized by the Slavic apostles Cyrille and Method, who used the Cyrillic alphabet to translate the Holy Scripture; they are thus Greek orthodoxes and are vassal Byzantine Empire. Thus, the Roman Church will exert its influence on the littoral, while Constantinople will radiate on the interior grounds.
Birth of Serbia
In 1159, one of the local leaders, Stefan (Etienne) Nemanja, manages to extend its authority on the whole of the Slavic groups and founds the dynasty of Nemanja, which shakes in 1180 the Byzantine supervision; although defeated, it keeps nevertheless the right to reorganize his State and his Church. In 1217, his/her son and successor, Stephan, take the first the title of kral (“king”), while towards 1219, holy Sava, another of the sons of Stefan Nemanja, becomes the first archbishop of the new Serb Greek Orthodox Church. It is under the reign of Etienne IX Douchan (or DuUan, 1331-1355) that medieval Serbia reaches its apogee.
In 1346, Etienne IX proclaims emperor of Serb and the Greeks with Skoplje, his new capital. It is during this period that Serb art knows its golden age; talented Greek artists work with the construction and the decoration of many monasteries, like those of Studenica, DeIani or GraIanica. It is also the time of the apogee of the port of Raguse. The empire does not survive its founder: it bursts quickly in rival principalities which clash, with the broken up elements of old Byzance, under the glance of the sultans.
The fight against the Othomans
The Serb State becomes vassal Turks following the invasion of 1370, sanctioned by the defeats of Serb in Maritsa (1371) and Kosovo (1389), where Serb prince Lazare loses the life, decapitated by the Othomans; in 1459, Serbia becomes a Turkish province. However, the Serb language and the religion are preserved, and constitute the base of the nationalism, which can develop owing to the decomposition of the Ottoman Empire to the XIX E century. One long period of resistance is opened by the atrocities of the janissaries: in 1804, Karageorges takes the head of rising against the Turks, but it is made assassinate by its rival, Miloch Obrenovitch. In 1815, under the direction of this last, the Serb ones tear off with the Sublime Door an semi-autonomy; Serbia becomes vassal principality of the sultan in 1833 (thanks to the diplomatic intervention of Russia).
In 1844, the Serb Minister for the Interior, Illija GaraUanin, works out a document-program, Nacertanije, “the Draft”; directed against the Othomans, this proclamation lays down the gathering of all Slavic South in the same State placed under the direction of the Serb ones. In 1856, the treaty of Paris guarantees the privileges acquired by Serbia. In 1861, Serbia, which was hitherto theoretically the vassal one of the Ottoman Empire, begins its walk towards independence by organizing its own army and its own education system; Istanbul retorts by bombarding Belgrade in 1862, but the Othomans are constrained to give up in fact Serbia in 1867. During this period, Serbia, by tying contacts with its Greek neighbors, Montenegrins, Rumanian and Bulgarian, aims at forming a Balkan confederation directed against the “sick Man of Europe”.
In 1875, disorders burst in Bosnia-Herzégovine; Serbia and Montenegro, which wish to limit the possible expansion of Bulgarian lately released, declare the war with the Ottoman Empire on on July 2nd, 1876. Defeated, the Serb ones, making profitable the Russo-Turkish war started to a large extent under the influence of the Pan-Slavism which dominates then in Moscow, take again the weapons, and obtain their independence supplements in 1878, by the treaty of Berlin. The Serb nationalist push is not isolated: everywhere the Ottoman Empire is constrained to yield at the same time under the influence of its own reformers, who hope to save the empire by making it evolve, and under the push of the various nationalists, encouraged by the weakness of their suzerain and the reforms themselves, which they regard as a new proof of this weakness.
In 1912, Serbia is combined with Bulgaria and Greece against the Ottoman Empire; it is the first of the Balkan wars. Defeated, Othomans must to give up totality of their territories of Europe, whose difficult division starts in 1913 a new war between the old allies at the end which Serbia, which is essential like first power of Balkans, its territory widens towards the south.
The fight against the Austro-Hungarian Empire
The activities of Serb within the Austro-Hungarian Empire are also determining in the birth of a powerful national feeling. The difficulties encountered by Habsbourgs in second half of the XIX E century, even after they had subdued risings of 1848, are indeed the occasion for Serb which live within the limits of the empire to initially support the claims of the Croats, who seek to obtain either autonomy within the empire, or the creation of a Yugoslav State (“of Slavic of the South”) gathering Serbes and Croatian. But the Yugoslav movement weakens in the last years of the XIX E century, which leads the Croats to be opposed little by little to the Serb ones, so much so that occur clashes violent one.
In 1885, the war started by Serbia against Bulgaria, with an aim of being opposed to the rise to power of the latter, results in principal to reinforce the Austrian influence in Balkans; indeed, the Serb ones, defeated, are constrained to call upon Austria-Hungary so that it intervenes to put a term at the conflict.
But the consecutive inversion of alliances to the assassination of king de Serbie, Alexandre Ier Obrénovitch, pro-Austrian, by the nationalist group the black Hand (1903), and the introduction of the Triple Alliance (France, Great Britain, Russia, 1904) causes to increase the tension between Vienna and Belgrade, which is seen again constant by a power coalition. Pierre Ier Karageorges goes up on the throne, while propaganda for Large Serbia carried out by the chief of the government, Nikola PaUi6, intensifies.
The international context is consequently extremely tended, and at the time of the annexation of Bosnia-Herzégovine by Austria in 1908, Serbia gives up the war only on the council pressing of Russia. The Balkan wars devote the role of Serbia like federator of the aspirations of the whole of Slavic of the South, and Belgrade is from now on the principal obstacle with the policy of Vienna in the area.
The turning of 1914
The attack of Sarajevo, on on June 28th, 1914, made by a Serb nationalist of the black Hand, Gavrilo Princip, provides to Austria the pretext of an military intervention in Serbia. Serbia rejects the Austrian ultimatum, in particular the condition which requires that Belgrade authorize imperial investigators to carry out their research on the Serb territory. The declaration of war of Austria in Serbia decides Russia then to enter in war, involving by the play of alliances France, Great Britain and Germany in the first world war. The fight between Serbes and Austrian remains undecided, until the Germans and the Bulgarian ones unite with the imperial forces, and crush the Serb ones.
In 1916, the Serb army must make retirement towards the southernmost ports where it is evacuated, like many civilians, by the French ships; thereafter, the Serb ones take again share with the engagements at the time of the Anglo-French attack conducted starting from Salonique - these two episodes are at the origin of a feeling of narrow friendship between France and Serbia which will continue throughout the century.
In Balkans, the final victory of the Agreement on the central Empires is translated on on December 1st, 1918 by the creation of the kingdom of Serb, the Croats and the Sloveniens, become the kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929 and which constitutes itself in 1945 in federative socialist republic of Yugoslavia. This Yugoslavia disappeared between 1991 and on on April 27th, 1992, dates to which Serbia and Montenegro constituted the federal republic of Yugoslavia.