Arrival of the Slavs Early Slavs, especially
Sclaveni and
Antae, including the
White Serbs, invaded and settled
Southeastern Europe in the 6th and 7th century. Up until the late 560s, their activity consisted primarily of raiding across the Danube, although Slavic settlement remained limited and occurred mainly through Byzantine
foederati colonies. The
Danube and
Sava frontier was overwhelmed by large-scale Slavic settlement in the late 6th and early 7th century. The area that is now central Serbia was an important geostrategic province through which the
Via Militaris passed. The numerous Slavs mixed with and assimilated the descendants of the indigenous population
Illyrians,
Thracians,
Dacians, as well as
Romans and
Celts. The White Serbs from
White Serbia settled primarily in the region between the
Dinaric Alps and the
Adriatic coast, although during their migration some groups temporarily reached as far as the area near
Thessaloniki (modern
Servia). The region of
Raška was the center of Serb settlement and Serb tribes also occupied most of modern-day
Herzegovina and
Montenegro.
Middle Ages from
Serbian Orthodox Patriarchate of Peć monastery depicting the family tree of the
Nemanjić dynasty, the leading dynasty of
medieval Serbia. The first Serb states,
Serbia (c. 780–960) and
Duklja (c. 825–1120), were formed chiefly under the
Vlastimirović and
Vojislavljević dynasties, respectively. The other Serb-inhabited lands, or principalities, that were mentioned included the "countries" of
Zachlumia,
Travunia, and
Pagania. As the Serbian state of Duklja declined in the late 11th century, Raška gained independence and succeeded it as the most powerful Serbian state. Grand Prince
Stefan Nemanja (r. 1169–96), founder of the
Nemanjić dynasty which ruled Serbia until the 14th century, conquered the neighbouring regions of
Kosovo, Duklja, and Zachlumia. Nemanja's older son,
Stefan Nemanjić, became Serbia's first recognized king, while his younger son, Rastko, founded the
Serbian Orthodox Church in the year 1219, and became known as
Saint Sava. Over the next 140 years, Serbia expanded its borders from numerous smaller principalities into a unified
Serbian Empire. Its culture remained deeply Byzantine in character, despite political and military ambitions directed against
Byzantine Empire itself. The medieval power and influence of Serbia culminated in the reign of
Stefan Dušan (1331–1355), who proclaimed himself Emperor in 1346. At its height under his rule, the empire’s territory included Macedonia, northern Greece, Montenegro, and almost all of modern
Albania.
Ottoman Turks began their conquest of the Balkans in the 1350s, sparking a major conflict with the Serbs. The first major battle was the
Battle of Maritsa (1371), in which the Serbs were defeated. The deaths of two key Serbian commanders in the battle, followed by the death of Emperor
Stefan Uroš V later that year, caused the Serbian Empire to fragment into several smaller domains. These states were ruled by regional lords:
Zeta by the
Balšić noble family; Raška, Kosovo, and northern Macedonia by the
Branković noble family; and Prince
Lazar Hrebeljanović, who controlled modern-day
Central Serbia and parts of Kosovo. Because of his marriage to a member of the Nemanjić dynasty, Lazar was acknowledged as the titular leader of the Serbs. In 1389 the Serbs faced the Ottomans at the
Battle of Kosovo on the plain of
Kosovo Polje, near modern-day
Pristina. Both Prince Lazar and Sultan
Murad I were killed. The battle most likely ended in a stalemate, and
Serbia thereafter enjoyed a period of relative prosperity under Despot
Stefan Lazarević while resisting Ottoman conquest until 1459.
Early modern period The Ottoman
devshirme system was a form of slavery in which Christian boys from the Balkans, many of them Serbs, were taken from their families, forcibly converted to
Islam, and trained for elite infantry units of the
Ottoman army known as the
Janissary corps. A number of Serbs who converted to Islam (either through the devshirme or later) rose to the highest ranks of the Ottoman Empire, including the
Ottoman grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and the field marshal and war minister
Omar Pasha Latas. The Serbs had taken an active part in the wars fought in the Balkans against the Ottoman Empire and had also organized numerous uprisings. Because of this, they suffered persecution and their territories were devastated, resulting in major migrations from Serbia into Habsburg territory. After allied Christian forces had
captured Buda from the Ottoman Empire in 1686 during the
Great Turkish War, Serbs from the Pannonian Plain (present-day
Hungary, the
Slavonia region in present-day Croatia, and the
Bačka and
Banat regions in present-day Serbia) joined the troops of the Habsburg monarchy as separate units known as the
Serbian Militia. Serbs, as volunteers, massively joined the Austrian side. from Ottoman territories to the Habsburg monarchy at the end of the 17th century;
1896 painting by
Paja JovanovićIn 1688–1689 the Habsburg army, advancing deep into the Ottoman Balkans during the
Great Turkish War,
captured Belgrade and much of present-day Serbia, encouraging Serbs to rise against Ottoman rule. When the Habsburg offensive collapsed in 1690 and Ottoman forces began a brutal reconquest accompanied by reprisals against the rebel population, Serbian Patriarch
Arsenije III Crnojević feared massacres and loss of church privileges. He therefore led in 1690 tens of thousands of Serb families (estimates range from 30,000 to 70,000 people) north across the Sava and Danube rivers into Habsburg territory in what became known as the
Great Serb Migration. The large Serb community concentrated in the
Banat, southern Hungary, and the
Military Frontier consisted of merchants and craftsmen in the cities, but mainly of peasant refugees. Smaller groups of Serbs also migrated to the
Russian Empire, and settled in the newly established frontier regions of
Slavo-Serbia (1751–1764) and
New Serbia (1752–1764), located in present-day eastern
Ukraine, where they were granted land and military privileges to defend the empire’s southern borders.
Modern period , the first
Allied victory in the
World War I.The
Serbian Revolution (1804–1817) was the first successful national uprising against Ottoman rule in Europe and consisted of two phases: the
First Serbian Uprising (1804–1813) led by
Karađorđe Petrović, which created an independent Serbian state for almost a decade, and the shorter but decisive
Second Serbian Uprising (1815–1817) led by
Miloš Obrenović. During the First Uprising, the rebels established their own government, army, and institutions, effectively ending centuries of Ottoman feudal oppression. Although the Ottomans crushed the First Uprising in 1813, the Second Uprising forced the
Sublime Porte to grant Serbia substantial autonomy in 1815–1816; in the early 1830s Serbia’s autonomy and borders were formally recognised with Miloš Obrenović acknowledged as hereditary prince, the last Ottoman troops withdrew in 1867, and full international recognition of independence finally came at the
Congress of Berlin in 1878. The revolution not only laid the foundations of modern Serbia but also abolished feudalism early and inspired subsequent national movements across the Balkans. The revolution as a consequence also produced one of Europe’s earliest codified legal systems, the Serbian Civil Code of 1844, making Serbia the fourth modern-day European country, after France, Austria and the Netherlands, to have a codified legal system. Serbia fought in the
Balkan Wars of 1912–13, which forced the Ottomans out of the Balkans and doubled the territory and population of the
Kingdom of Serbia. In 1914, a
Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, provoking the outbreak of
World War I. In the fighting that ensued, Serbia was invaded by
Austria-Hungary. Despite being outnumbered, the
Serbian Army defeated the Austro-Hungarian forces at the
Battle of Cer, which marked the first
Allied victory over the
Central Powers in the war. Further victories at the battles of
Kolubara and the
Drina meant that Serbia remained unconquered as the war entered its second year. However, joint invasion by the forces of
Germany,
Austria-Hungary, and
Bulgaria overwhelmed Serbia in the winter of 1915, and a subsequent withdrawal by the Serbian Army through Albania took the lives of more than 240,000 soldiers and civilians. Serbian Army spent the remaining years of the war fighting on the
Macedonian front in Greece, before liberating Serbia from
Austro-Hungarian occupation in 1918. Serbia suffered
the biggest casualty rate in World War I. Following the victory in World War I, the Serbs formed the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later renamed Kingdom of Yugoslavia) together with other
South Slavic peoples (except Bulgarians). The country was reigned over by the Serbian
House of Karađorđević, most notably by King
Alexander I from 1921 to 1934. '', a monument dedicated to the victims of
Jasenovac concentration camp, a major site of the
Genocide of Serbs during the World War II. During
World War II, Yugoslavia was invaded in 1941 by the
Axis powers and subsequently divided, with Serbia placed under direct German occupation. Serbs in
occupied Yugoslavia subsequently formed a resistance movement known as the
Yugoslav Army in the Homeland, or the Chetniks. The Chetniks had the official support of the
Allies until 1943, when Allied support shifted to the Communist
Yugoslav Partisans, a multi-ethnic resistance movement, formed in 1941. Although Serbs constituted the majority of Yugoslav Partisan fighters in the first two years of the war, other ethnic groups joined in larger numbers after the Italian capitulation in 1943. Over the entire course of the war, the ethnic composition of the Yugoslav Partisans was approximately 53 percent Serb. Serbs in the
Independent State of Croatia were targeted for extermination as part of a
genocide carried out by the Croatian fascist
Ustaše regime and suffered among the highest casualty rates in Europe during World War II. The Ustaše view of ethnic and racial identity, as well as the theory of Serbs as an
inferior race, was under the influence of
Croatian nationalists and intellectuals from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century.
Jasenovac concentration camp was notorious for the barbaric practices which occurred in it.
Sisak and
Jastrebarsko concentration camps were specially
established for children. Humanitarian
Diana Budisavljević carried out rescue operations and saved more than 15,000, mostly Serb, children, from Ustaše camps.
Contemporary period At the end of the war, the Partisans, led by
Josip Broz Tito, emerged victorious. They abolished the monarchy, and established the
Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia (renamed Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1963) as a federation of six republics:
Slovenia,
Croatia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Serbia,
Montenegro, and
Macedonia. Tito’s Yugoslavia pursued a unique path of "
socialist self-management", broke with
Stalin and the Soviet bloc in 1948, co-founded the
Non-Aligned Movement, and maintained relative political independence and a higher standard of living than most communist countries, while suppressing nationalism and holding the multi-ethnic state together through the strength of the
League of Communists of Yugoslavia and Tito's personal authority. After Tito's death in 1980, economic stagnation, rising debt, and resurgent ethnic nationalism weakened the federal system throughout the 1980s, setting the stage for the violent break-up of the country in the early 1990s. Yugoslavia
disintegrated in the early 1990s, triggering the
Yugoslav Wars that ultimately produced five successor states. The most intense fighting took place in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, where parts of the Serb population, supported by Serbia, rebelled and proclaimed independent entities. The
Croatian War of Independence ended in 1995 when
Operation Storm, a Croatian military offensive, crushed the self-proclaimed
Republic of Serbian Krajina, resulting in the exodus of 200,000 ethnic Serbs. The
Bosnian War concluded the same year with the
Dayton Agreement, which divided Bosnia and Herzegovina along ethnic lines into two entities (one of them being Serb entity,
Republika Srpska). In 1998–1999, escalating conflict in Kosovo between Serbian security forces and the
Kosovo Liberation Army seeking independence culminated in a 78-day
NATO air campaign that forced the withdrawal of Serbian forces from the province, resulting in yet another exodus of ethnic Serbs. In 2008, Kosovo
unilaterally declared independence, an act Serbia has never recognized. ==Demographics==