Serbia, officially the Republic of Serbia, is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe. It is bordered by Hungary to the north, Romania to the northeast, Bulgaria to the southeast, North Macedonia to the south, Croatia to the northwest, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the west, Montenegro to the southwest, and it also claims a border with Albania through the disputed territory of Kosovo. Serbia has about 6.5 million inhabitants, with its capital, Belgrade, being its largest city.
Continuously inhabited since the Paleolithic age, the territory of modern-day Serbia, then part of the Roman Empire, experienced Slavic migrations in the 6th century. The first Serb proto-state was established in the 7th century and by the 9th century had developed into a more stable principality, recognized as a tributary state to the Byzantine Empire. The Serbian Kingdom was established in 1217, reaching its territorial apex in 1346 as the Serbian Empire. By the mid-16th century, the Ottoman Empire annexed the entirety of modern-day Serbia; their rule was at times interrupted by the Habsburg Empire, which maintained a foothold in the northern part of the country from the early 18th century. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Serbian Revolution established the Principality of Serbia, which developed into a constitutional monarchy and gained international recognition of its independence in 1878 before being proclaimed a kingdom in 1882. Emerging victorious from World War I, Serbia incorporated the former Habsburg crownland of Vojvodina into its territory in 1918, before uniting that same year with Croats and Slovenes to form the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, ending its existence as a separate political entity. Serbia was re-established after World War II as one of six federal units of socialist Yugoslavia. During the breakup of Yugoslavia, it formed a union with Montenegro, which was dissolved in 2006, subsequently restoring Serbia's independence. In 2008, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence, receiving mixed responses from the international community, while Serbia continues to regard it as part of its sovereign territory.
Serbia is a parliamentary republic, with its constitution ensuring the separation of powers between the executive (with president and government headed by the prime minister), legislative (with unicameral parliament), and judiciary branches. The country is a member of the United Nations and numerous other international organizations and has been negotiating its accession to the European Union. It exerts regional influence as a small power in Europe, particularly in neighboring Southeast Europe. An upper-middle-income economy, Serbia provides universal health care as well as free primary and secondary education and subsidized tertiary education to its citizens.
Etymology
The name Serbia derives from the ethnonym Serb. The origin of the ethnonym Serb itself is unclear. There exist two prevailing theories about the origin of the ethnonym *Sŕbъ (plur. *Sŕby), one from a Proto-Slavic language with an appellative meaning of a "family kinship" and "alliance", while the other is from an Iranian-Sarmatian language with various meanings.
The earliest mention of the Serbs are from 7th-century Chronicle of Fredegar, which describes Dervan as "the duke of the Serb people, who are of Slavic descent" (Latin: Dervanus dux gente Surbiorum, que ex genere Sclavinorum erant), and Einhard's Royal Frankish Annals, written in the 8th and 9th centuries, which mention "the Serbs, a people that is said to hold a large part of Dalmatia" (ad Sorabos, quae natio magnam Dalmatiae partem obtinere dicitur). Authors in the early Middle Ages referred to the Serbs and the lands they inhabited in a variety of ways: gentis (S)urbiorum, Suurbi, Soraborum, Sorabi, Sorabos, Sorabici, Sorabiet, Sorbi, Servetiis, Surpe, Sarbin, Swrbjn, Servians, Sirbia, Sribia, Zirbia, Zribia, Suurbelant, Surbia, Serbulia, Sorbulia, among others.
In the medieval period, Serbia was known as the Serbian Kingdom from 1217 to 1346, followed by the Serbian Empire from 1346 to 1371, and finally the Serbian Despotate from 1402 to 1459. In the modern period, the official name of the country was the Principality of Serbia from 1815 to 1882, followed by the Kingdom of Serbia from 1882 to 1918. In the contemporary period, the official name was the People's Republic of Serbia from 1945 to 1963, the Socialist Republic of Serbia from 1963 to 1990, and, since 1990, the Republic of Serbia.
History
Prehistory and antiquity
Archaeological evidence of Paleolithic settlements on the territory of present-day Serbia is scarce. A fragment of a hominid jaw found in Mala Balanica Cave is believed to be up to 525,000 years old.
Around 6500 BC, during the Neolithic, the Starčevo and Vinča cultures were present in the region of modern-day Belgrade. They were widespread across much of Southeast Europe as well as parts of Central Europe and Anatolia. Several important archaeological sites from this era, including Lepenski Vir and Vinča-Belo Brdo, exist along the banks of the Danube.
During the Iron Age, the Greeks encountered local tribes of Triballi, Dardani, and Autariatae as they expanded culturally and politically into the region from the 5th to the 2nd century BC. The Celtic tribe of Scordisci settled throughout the area in the 3rd century BC. They established a tribal state and built several fortified settlements, including Singidunum (present-day Belgrade) and Naissos (present-day Niš).
The Romans conquered much of the territory in the 2nd century BC. In 167 BC, the Roman province of Illyricum was established, covering modern-day western Serbia. The territory of eastern and southern Serbia was conquered around 75 BC, forming the Roman province of Moesia Superior; the modern-day Syrmia region was conquered in 9 BC, while Bačka and Banat in 106 AD after the Dacian Wars. Some historians believe 18 Roman emperors were born in the territory of modern-day Serbia, the second-highest number of any modern country after Italy. The most famous of these was Constantine the Great, the first Christian Emperor, who issued an edict ordering religious tolerance throughout the Empire. When the Roman Empire was divided in 395, most of present-day Serbia became part of the Byzantine Empire.
Middle Ages
By the 6th century, early Slavs migrated into the Byzantine territory in large numbers merging with the local romanised population that was gradually assimilated. White Serbs, an early Slavic tribe eventually settled in an area between the Sava river and the Dinaric Alps. The first Serbian proto-state was established in the 7th century and was based largely on tribal and kinship structures, but by the beginning of the 9th century it had developed into a more stable principality with more centralized institutions, while remaining a Byzantine vassal state throughout. It was completely conquered and annexed by the Byzantine Empire in the late 10th century and ceased to exist as an independent polity for almost a century.
At the end of the 11th century, Serbia re-emerged as the grand principality, which was consolidated under Stefan Nemanja, the founder of the Nemanjić dynasty. Under the Nemanjić dynasty, Serbia gradually expanded its territory, emerging from a regional principality into one of the major powers in the Southeastern Europe. Its territorial growth culminated in the 13th and 14th centuries, when Serbia became a kingdom (in 1217) and later an empire (in 1346), extending its rule over large parts of the Balkans.
Following the fall of the Serbian Empire in 1371, the Serbian lands fragmented among several regional rulers as the Ottoman Empire expanded into the Balkans. The Battle of Kosovo in 1389, fought between Serbian forces and the Ottomans, was one of the most consequential events in Serbian history and became a central element of national mythology. The battle resulted in the establishment of Ottoman suzerainty over the Serbian lands, although Serbian statehood was subsequently revived in the form of the despotate. Caught between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary, Serbian Despotate alternated between Ottoman and Hungarian vassalage as political circumstances changed, until the fall of its capital, Smederevo, to the Ottomans in 1459 marked the end of the independent medieval Serbian state.
Ottoman and Habsburg rule
In all Serb lands conquered by the Ottomans, the native nobility was eliminated and the peasantry was enserfed to Ottoman nobles, including aghas and beys, while much of the clergy retreated to isolated monasteries. Under the Ottoman millet system, Christians were classified as rayah and subjected to heavy taxation, while a portion of the Serbian population underwent islamisation. The Patriarchate of Peć was abolished in 1463 and restored in 1557, allowing for the limited continuation of Serbian cultural traditions within the Ottoman Empire.
After the loss of statehood to the Ottoman Empire, Serbian resistance continued in the northern regions. From 1521 to 1552, the Ottomans conquered conquered Belgrade and the regions of Syrmia, Bačka, and Banat. Wars and rebellions repeatedly challenged Ottoman rule, most notably the Banat Uprising of 1594–1595, which was part of the Long Turkish War between the Habsburg Empire and the Ottomans. The regions of Syrmia, Bačka, and Banat remained under Ottoman rule for about a century before being ceded to the Habsburgs, partially under the Treaty of Karlovci of 1699 and completely under the Treaty of Požarevac of 1718.
During the Great Turkish War, large parts of central and southern Serbia briefly came under Habsburg control. However, the Ottomans eventually reconquered the territory in 1689–1690, amid widespread violence and persecution of the civilian population. Tens of thousands of Serbs fled northwards to settle north of the Danube and Sava rivers towards present-day Vojvodina, Slavonia and Military Frontier in a series of migrations known as the Great Migrations of the Serbs. The Habsburg Empire granted the settled Serbs a set of privileges, primarily guaranteeing them freedom of religion. As a consequence, the ecclesiastical centre of the Serbs also moved northwards to Karlovci with the establishment of the Metropolitanate of Karlovci, and the Patriarchate of Peć was once again abolished by the Ottomans in 1766. The Habsburgs occupied much of central Serbia from 1718 to 1739, establishing Serbia as a Habsburg crownland, before losing the territory under the Treaty of Belgrade in 1739, when the Ottomans retook the region.
Revolution and independence
The Serbian Revolution was a series of events spanning three decades, from 1804 to 1835, that resulted in the re-emergence of the Serbian state after centuries of Ottoman rule. The first part of the period, from 1804 to 1817, was marked by two armed uprisings. During the First Serbian Uprising, led by Karađorđe Petrović, insurrectionists established de facto independence for almost a decade before the Ottomans regained control of the territory. The Second Serbian Uprising began in 1815 under the leadership of Miloš Obrenović and eventually ended with a compromise that recognized Ottoman sovereignty while granting limited autonomy to the nascent Principality of Serbia. The later period saw the peaceful consolidation of Serbia's autonomy, culminating in the recognition of hereditary rule for the Serbian princes in 1830 and 1833 and the adoption of the first constitution in 1835 which formally prohibited serfdom, thus making Serbia the first nation in Eastern Europe to abolish feudalism.
The last Ottoman garrisons left in 1867, while a new constitution was enacted in 1869 without consulting the Ottoman government; taken together, these developments marked Serbia's de facto independence. In 1876, Serbia went to subsequent wars with the Ottoman Empire, siding with the ongoing Herzegovina uprising, a revolt of ethnic Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina against Ottoman rule. The wars were militarily inconclusive and ended with the Congress of Berlin in 1878, which formally recognized Serbia's independence. The provisions of the treaty granted Serbia relatively modest territorial gains, while preventing the unification of Bosnia and Herzegovina with Serbia by placing the region under Austro-Hungarian administration while retaining nominal Ottoman sovereignty. Shortly after international recognition of its independence, in 1882, Serbia was proclaimed a kingdom under the rule of the House of Obrenović, which had ruled the principality for most of its existence. The rival House of Karađorđević, descendants of the revolutionary leader Karađorđe Petrović, assumed power in 1903 following the May Coup.
Balkan Wars and World War I
Serbia together with Greece, Montenegro and Bulgaria formed the Balkan League and went to war with the Ottoman Empire in 1912–13 in what became known as the First Balkan War. They defeated the Ottomans and captured most of its European territories, enabling Serbia to expand into the regions of Raška, Kosovo, and Vardar Macedonia. The Second Balkan War soon followed when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with the division of Macedonia, attacked its former allies Serbia and Greece but was defeated. Within two years, Serbia had enlarged its territory by 80% and its population by 50%.