Serbia History

Serbia (National Flag)

the current flag of Serbia was introduced in 1992 as the flag of Yugoslavia. The pan-Slavic colors, blue, white and red, originate from the flag of Russia. The colors were first used in the 1800's. during the slave revolt against the Turks, and their current order dates back to 1918, when Yugoslavia was formed. 1946-92, the flag also contained the red star of communism.

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The state flag also contains Serbia's coat of arms.

Serbia - history

The first known Serbian principality was formed in part of Montenegro and Herzegovina in the second half of 1000-t. under the name of Zeta, but it was soon subdued by the Byzantine emperor. It was not until the weakening of the Byzantine Empire in the 1180's that an independent Serbian principality was formed, this time in Raška in present-day southwestern Serbia under the leadership of Stefan Nemanja. His son, Stefan Prvovenčani 'the First Crown', became Serbia's first king in 1217.

In 1219, King Stefan's brother, Archbishop Sava (1174-1237), obtained the Byzantine patriarch's recognition of the Serbian Church as an independent Orthodox church. Orthodox Christianity has since formed a central part of Serbian identity.

The Serbian Empire expanded greatly during the 1200's. and first half of 1300-t. and came to include Kosovo and the present Republic of Macedonia. King Stefan Uroš 4. Dušan took the title of tsar, emperor in 1346, and made the Serbian Church patriarch at all. At his death in 1355, Dušan ruled from the Danube to far down in Greece and out to the Adriatic Sea from north of Dubrovnik to the Gulf of Corinth as well as over almost all of present-day Albania.

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However, the kingdom did not have a long life. Dušan's son and successor, Stefan Uroš 5. (d.1371), was deposed in 1371, and the same year the real ruler, King Vukašin (co-ruler 1355-71), fell against the Ottomans in a battle on the Marica River, whereupon the kingdom disintegrated. In 1389, Prince Lazar assembled a large coalition of Serbs and other peoples to oppose the Ottomans, but suffered defeat and fell in battle on the plain of Kosovo.

The political center of the Serbs then moved north, to the Morava Valley and the Danube. The last Serbian principality, with its capital in Smederevo, was conquered by the Ottomans in 1459. The majority of Serbs retained their orthodox Christian faith under the Ottomans. In 1566, the Serbian Patriarchate was restored in Peć, Kosovo.

In 1689, the Serbs in this area rebelled against the Ottomans in connection with an Austrian invasion of the Balkans. When the Austrians withdrew, the patriarch Arsenije III caused a large part of the Serbian population in Kosovo to move north across the Danube, where they were granted asylum in present-day Vojvodina.

New Serbian uprisings in the early 1800's, led by Karađorđe, were defeated by the Ottomans, but in 1817 Miloš Obrenović succeeded in being recognized as a partially independent prince of a small Serbian principality with Belgrade as its capital. In 1830 Serbia gained autonomy under Ottoman sovereignty, and in 1835 the country gained a constitution and a parliament, Skupština, but plagued by internal conflicts. Territorial expansions to the south were first granted to the Serbs in connection with a war against the Ottomans 1877-78, which also gave the country full independence from the sultan, and in 1882 the parliament gave Prince Milan Obrenović the royal title. A bloody coup in 1903 brought the Karađorđević family to power. Under Peter I, Serbia approached Russia, especially after the formal annexation by Austria-Hungary in 1908 of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which Serbia claimed. Serbia achieved major territorial expansions to the south during the First Balkan War of 1912-13, in which half of Sandžak Province, Kosovo and the present Republic of Macedonia were incorporated. Serbia, however, did not gain access to the sea, and from Belgrade nationalist circles worked to destabilize the Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Serbian student murder 28.6. 1914 on the Austro-Hungarian succession to the throne triggered an Austro-Hungarian invasion of the country, which in turn triggered World War I, with Russia and later also France and Britain supporting Serbia, while Germany and later Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire supported Austria-Hungary. World War I was catastrophic for Serbia, which was occupied by Germans and Bulgarians and lost well¹/₃ of its male population aged 18 to 45 years. But Serbia's allies won the war, giving the country not only its independence but also the territorial compensation that made it the core of the 1.29.1918 Established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, from 1929 Yugoslavia, which included almost all of the South Slavs. areas which had hitherto belonged to Austria-Hungary, including Bosnia-Herzegovina. In Yugoslavia, Serbia disappeared as an independent entity, but the leadership lay predominantly in Serbian hands to the great displeasure of the Croats in particular; Croatian nationalists were thus behind the assassination of Yugoslav King Alexander of Marseille in 1934.

Germany's attack on Yugoslavia in 1941 totally divided the country. A "Rest Serbia", not much larger than the principality of 1817-78, was created as a German vassal state. A royalist resistance movement had some success for a time, but gradually lost the confidence of the Western powers because it was suspected of collaborating with the Germans against the anti-fascist partisans of the Croatian Tito. In 1945, Tito recreated Yugoslavia. Serbia was also re-created, now as one of the federal states' six republics. Macedonia was separated and the provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo, with large non-Serbian minorities, gained local autonomy; a new constitution from 1974 almost equated these two provinces with the republics, what seemed particularly provocative to the Serbs in Kosovo. The conflict escalated after Tito's death in 1981 with Kosovo Albanian demands for full republican status. In 1988, in violation of the Constitution, the autonomy of Vojvodina was abolished, and in 1989 Kosovo, which did not have the support of the federal organs. Serbia's monopoly strengthened similar trends in the other republics, and in the first Yugoslav multi-party election in 1990, nationalist parties won everywhere. In 1991, Slovenia and Croatia wanted Yugoslavia transformed into a federation, while Serbian President Slobodan Milošević called for a tighter federal state, dominated by Serbia, or alternatively an expansion of Serbia with areas of Serbian population in connection with the dissolution of Yugoslavia. In the war that erupted immediately after Slovenia's and Croatia's declarations of independence on June 25, 1992, the principally neutral federal army soon became an instrument of Serbian interests. Slovenia was abandoned, however or alternatively an enlargement of Serbia with areas of Serbian population in connection with the dissolution of Yugoslavia. In the war that erupted immediately after Slovenia's and Croatia's declarations of independence on June 25, 1992, the principally neutral federal army soon became an instrument of Serbian interests. Slovenia was abandoned, however or alternatively an enlargement of Serbia with areas of Serbian population in connection with the dissolution of Yugoslavia. In the war that erupted immediately after Slovenia's and Croatia's declarations of independence on June 25, 1992, the principally neutral federal army soon became an instrument of Serbian interests. Slovenia was abandoned, however¹/₃ of Croatia came under Serb control, formally a Serbian breakaway republic, Republika Srpska Krajina. The same pattern was repeated in Bosnia, where a referendum on independence was boycotted by the Bosnian Serbs, who then formed their own breakaway republic, Republika Srpska. On April 27, 1992, Serbia and Montenegro formed a new Yugoslavia. Formally, Serbia was then a non-warring nation, while actually providing support to the Serbian breakaway republics. This triggered international sanctions against Yugoslavia, which led to high inflation, which impoverished large sections of the population.

Domestically, the 1990's were marked by strong tensions. The introduction of a multi-party system in 1990 secured Milošević the presidency, but not a majority for his reformed Communist Party, the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS); in his wife, Mirjana Markovićs (b. 1942), Left Union (JUL), however, he had a firm support. The other parties, however, were at odds with each other. In 1997, Milošević was unable to gather the 67% of the votes in the Serbian parliament needed to amend the constitution so that he could be elected president for the third time. Only with great difficulty did Milošević succeed in having his candidate elected as his successor. Immediately after, Serbia was in a parliamentary crisis because the SPS and JUL could not form a government alone, but had to join one of the opposition parties in the government. It became the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS), led by Vojislav Šešelj (b. 1954), who joined the Serbian government in March 1998. In the same month, operations against the Kosovo Albanian guerrilla army UÇK, which had been carrying out a series of armed operations in Kosovo since January, escalated.

The deteriorating situation in Kosovo triggered new sanctions when Milošević and the Serbian government denied foreign mediation in the conflict. Following further escalation and threats from NATO over airstrikes, a ceasefire was reached in October 1998, which lasted only until the New Year. In March 1999, NATO launched an air campaign against Yugoslavia, primarily Serbia, to force the Serbian government to hand over control of Kosovo to an international force led by NATO. Serbia agreed to this in June 1999. Since then, most opposition parties and the Serbian Orthodox Church have demanded the departure of Milosevic, while Montenegro threatened secession from Yugoslavia.

Serbia (History - Yugoslavia finally)

Serbia's power plants, bridges and major factories were largely destroyed during NATO's air campaign, and Western countries declared that no reconstruction aid would be granted to the country as long as Milošević was in power. Milošević was ousted in October 2000, and in the subsequent parliamentary elections in Serbia in 2001, Zoran Đinđić, leader of the Democratic Party (DS), formed a government along with the other 16 parties in Serbia's Democratic Opposition (DOS). Cooperation with Milošević's successor as Federal President, Vojislav Koštunica, developed negatively, not least in the matter of the fate of the fallen leader. On the last day before Yugoslavia would lose its support from the EU (28.6.2001), Đinđić had him extradited without the approval of the Federal President. When Đinđić was assassinated in the spring of 2002, the country was thrown into a political crisis. Zoran Živković (b. 1960) from the DS took over the post of Prime Minister and fought back strongly against the paramilitary groups believed to be behind the assassination.

The transformation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia into Serbia and Montenegro finally fell into place in March 2003. However, a new parliamentary crisis led to the call of new elections in December 2003. The big winner of the election with 27.7% of the vote was the Serbian Radical Party (SRS). led by the ultranationalist Tomislav Nikolić (b. 1952). However, a minority government was formed outside the SRS and DS, but supported by the SPS (Milošević's old party). After long negotiations, the Prime Minister became former Federal President Koštunica. The presidential election dragged on, but a solution was eventually reached by abolishing the rule of at least 50% of the vote. Tomislav Nikolić won the first round of the election, but in the second round Boris Tadić (b. 1958), the new leader of the DS, won with the support of both the left and center parties. The outcome of the election was partly due to warnings from the EU about the political isolation that Serbia would get into if Nikolić was elected. Tadić, on the other hand, emerged as a confidence-building factor in relation to the EU and NATO, through his efforts as Secretary of Defense.

Prime Minister Koštunica tried to persuade the EU to prevent Montenegro's secession, but the EU insisted that 55% of the votes cast would be enough to approve a dissolution of the union if the total turnout was at least 50%. The referendum ended with 55.5% voting in favor of Montenegro's secession with a turnout of 86.5. The remnants of the federation's administration were taken over by Serbia, which formally stands as the successor to both the old and the later Yugoslavia, where nothing else is decided. It was also Serbia that came to stand alone with the question of Kosovo's future. The province declared independence in 2008; independence was immediately recognized by a number of Western countries; Serbia has not recognized Kosovo's independence. See also Montenegro.

With the arrests and extraditions of war criminals Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić in respectively. In 2008 and 2011, significant obstacles to Serbia's rapprochement with the outside world disappeared.

A weak economy, widespread corruption and a 24% unemployment rate in 2012 led to Tadić losing the presidential election to Tomislav Nikolić. Nikolić had since 2008 changed his policy to a more EU-friendly conservatism and has signaled that he wants Serbia to become a member.