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SERBIA (officially the Republic of Serbia - Република Србија, Republika Srbija), is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central- and Southeastern Europe. Area - 88 361 sq. km. Population - 7.365.507 (2009). Capital - Belgrade. Serbia borders borders with Bosnia and Croatia in the west, Hungary in the nord; Roumania and Bulgaria in the east; Albania and Macedonia, Montenegro and Kosovo in the south. The beginning of the Serbian state starts with the White Serbs settling the Balkans led by the Unknown Archont, who was asked to defend the frontiers from invading Avars. Emperor Heraclius granted the Serbs a permanent dominion in the Sclavinias of Western Balkans upon completing their task. By early 800s., a great-grandson of the Unknown Archont- Prince Višeslav[17] has managed to temporarily unite several territories adjacent to the modern Raška region which lied between the crisis-struck Byzantine and the growing Frankish Empire. At first heavily dependent on the Byzantine Empire as its vassal, Raška gained independence by expulsion of the Byzantine troops and heavy defeat of the Bulgarian army around 850 A.D. The last and full Christianization of Serbia took place in 867–869 when Byzantine Emperor Basil I sent priests after Knez Mutimir had acknowledged Byzantine suzerainty. At about the same time, the western Serbs were subjugated to the Frankish Empire. The First dynasty died out in 960 A.D: the wars of succession for the Serb throne led to incorporation into the Byzantine Empire in 971. Around 1040 AD an uprising in the medieval state of Duklja overthrew Byzantine rule. Duklja then assumed domination over the Serbian lands between the 11–12th centuries. In 1077 A.D. Duklja became the first Serb Kingdom following the establishment of the Catholic Bishopric of Bar. From late 12th century onwards Raška rose to become the paramount Serb state. Over the 13th and 14th century, it ruled over the other Serb lands. During this time, Serbia began to expand eastward and southward into Kosovo and northern Macedonia and northward for the first time. The Serbian Empire was proclaimed in 1346 by Stefan Dušan, during which time the country reached its territorial, spiritual and cultural peak, becoming one of the most powerful states in Europe. Dušan's Code, a universal system of laws, was enacted. Dušan was succeeded by his son Uroš Nejaki, The Weak). Rather young and too incompetent to maintain a strong grip on the empire created by his father, he watched the Serbian Empire fragment into a conglomeration of principalities. Uroš died childless in December 1371, after much of the Serbian nobility had been destroyed by the Turks in the Battle of Maritsa earlier that year. The Houses of Mrnjavčević, Lazarević and Branković ruled the Serbian lands in the 15th and 16th centuries. Constant struggles took place between various Serbian kingdoms and the Ottoman Empire. After the fall of Constantinople to the Turks and the Siege of Belgrade, the Serbian Despotate fell in 1459 following the siege of the provisional capital of Smederevo. After repelling Ottoman attacks for over 70 years, Belgrade finally fell in 1521. Forceful conversion to Islam became imminent, especially in the southwest Raška, Kosovo and Bosnia. To the south, the Republic of Venice grew stronger in importance, gradually taking over the coastal areas. Ottoman and Austrian rule (1459–1791) After the loss of independence to the Kingdom of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, Serbia briefly regained sovereignty under Emperor Jovan Nenad in the 16th century. Three Austrian invasions and numerous rebellions, such as the Banat Uprising, constantly challenged Ottoman rule. Vojvodina endured a century long Ottoman occupation before being ceded to the Habsburg Empire in the 17th–18th centuries under the Treaty of Karlowitz. As the Great Serb Migrations depopulated most of Kosovo and Serbia proper, the Serbs sought refuge in the more prosperous Vojvodina in the north and Military Frontier in the West where they were granted imperial rights by the Austrian crown under measures such as the Statuta Wallachorum of 1630. The Ottoman persecutions of Christians culminated in the abolition and plunder of the Patriarchate of Peć in 1766.[24] As Ottoman rule in the Pashaluk of Belgrade grew ever more brutal, the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I formally granted the Serbs the right to their autonomous crown land following several Serbian petitions such as the one from Timisoara.[25] Serbian Revolution and Monarchy (1804–1918) The quest for national emancipation was first undertaken during the Serbian national revolution, in 1804 until 1815. The liberation war was followed by a period of formalization, negotiations and finally, the Constitutionalization, effectivelly ending the process in 1835.[26] For the first time in Ottoman history an entire Christian population had risen up against the Sultan.[27] The entrenchment of French troops in the western Balkans, the incessant political crises in the Ottoman Empire, the growing intensity of the Austro-Russian rivalry in the Balkans, the intermittent warfare which consumed the energies of French and Russian Empires and the outbreak of protracted hostilities between the Porte and Russia are but a few of the major international developments which directly or indirectly influenced the course of the Serbian revolt. During the First Serbian Uprising, or the first phase of the revolt, led by Karađorđe Petrović, Serbia was independent for almost a decade before the Ottoman army was able to reoccupy the country. Shortly after this, the Second Serbian Uprising began. Led by Miloš Obrenović, it ended in 1815 with a compromise between the Serbian revolutionary army and the Ottoman authorities. German historian Leopold von Ranke published his book "The Serbian revolution" in 1829.[28] They were the easternmost bourgeois revolutions in the 19th-century world. Likewise, the Principality of Serbia was second in Europe, after France, to abolish feudalism. The Convention of Ackerman in 1826, the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829 and finally, the Hatt-i Sharif of 1830, recognized the suzerainty of Serbia with Miloš Obrenović I as its hereditary Prince.[31][32] The struggle for liberty, a more modern society and a nation-state in Serbia won a victory under first constitution in the Balkans on 15 February 1835. It was replaced by a more conservative Constitution in 1838. In the two following decades, temporarily ruled by the Karadjordjevic dynasty, the Principality actively supported the neighboring Habsburg Serbs, especially during the 1848 revolutions. Interior minister Ilija Garašanin published The Draft (for South Slavic unification), which became the standpoint of Serbian foreign policy from the mid-19th century onwards. The government thus developed close ties with the Illyrian movement in Croatia-Slavonia region that was a part of the Austria-Hungary. Belgrade University (1808) Following the clashes between the Ottoman army and civilians in Belgrade in 1862, and under pressure from the Great Powers, by 1867 the last Turkish soldiers left the Principality. By enacting a new constitution without consulting the Porte, Serbian diplomats confirmed the de facto independence of the country. In 1876, Serbia declared war on the Ottoman Empire, proclaiming its unification with Bosnia. The formal independence of the country was internationally recognized at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, which formally ended the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78; this treaty, however, prohibited Serbia from uniting with Bosnia and Raška region by placing them under Austro-Hungarian occupation. From 1815 to 1903, Principality of Serbia was ruled by the House of Obrenović, except from 1842 to 1858, when it was led by Prince Aleksandar Karađorđević. In 1882, Serbia, ruled by King Milan, was raised to Kingdom. In 1903, the House of Karađorđević, descendants of the revolutionary leader Đorđe Petrović assumed power. Serbia was the only country in the region that was allowed by the Great Powers to be ruled by its own domestic dynasty. During the Balkan Wars lasting from 1912 to 1913, the Kingdom of Serbia tripled its territory by acquiring part of Macedonia,[34] Kosovo, and parts of Serbia proper. As for Vojvodina, during the 1848 revolution in Austria, Serbs of Vojvodina established an autonomous region known as Serbian Vojvodina. As of 1849, the region was transformed into a new Austrian crown land known as the Serbian Voivodship and Tamiš Banat. Although abolished in 1860, Habsburg emperors claimed the title Großwoiwode der Woiwodschaft Serbien until the end of the monarchy and the creation of Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918. Balkan Wars refer to the two wars that took place in South-eastern Europe in 1912 and 1913. The First Balkan War broke out when the member states of the Balkan League) attacked and divided Ottoman territories in the Balkans, in a seven-month campaign resulting in the Treaty of London. For Kingdom of Serbia this victory enabled territorial expansion into Raška (Sandžak) region and Kosovo. The Second Balkan War soon ensued when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its gains, turned against its former allies, Serbia and Greece. Their armies repulsed the Bulgarian offensive and counter-attacked penetrating into Bulgaria, while Romania and the Ottomans used the favourable time to intervene against Bulgaria to win territorial gains. In the resulting Treaty of Bucharest, Bulgaria lost most of the territories gained in the First Balkan War, and Kingdom of Serbia annexed Vardar Macedonia. Kingdom of Serbia has enlarged its teritorry by 80% and its population by 50% within just two years; it has also suffered high casualties in the eve of the WWI, with around 20,000 dead in the Balkan campaigns. On 28 June 1914 the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria at Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina by Gavrilo Princip, a Yugoslav nationalist member of Young Bosnia, and an Austrian citizen, led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Kingdom of Serbia.[36] In defense of its ally Serbia, Russia started to mobilize its troops, which resulted in Austria-Hungary's ally Germany declaring war on Russia. The retaliation by Austria-Hungary against Serbia activated a series of military alliances that set off a chain reaction of war declarations across the continent, leading to the outbreak of World War I within a month. The Serbian Army won several major victories against Austria-Hungary at the beginning of World War I, such as the Battle of Cer and Battle of Kolubara – marking the first Allied victories against the Central Powers in World War I.[38] Despite initial success it was eventually overpowered by the joint forces of the German Empire, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria in 1915. Most of its army and some people went into exile to Greece and Corfu where they recovered, regrouped and returned to the Macedonian front during the World War I to lead a final breakthrough through enemy lines on 15 September 1918, freeing Serbia again and defeating Austro-Hungarian Empire and Bulgaria.[39] Serbia, with its campaign was a major Balkan Entente Power[40] which contributed significantly to the Allied victory in the Balkans in November 1918, especially by enforcing Bulgaria's capitulation with the aid of France.[41] The country was militarilly classified as a minor Entente power.[42] Serbia was also among the main contributors to the capitulation of Austria-Hungary in Central Europe. In 1941, in spite of domestically unpopular attempts by the government of Yugoslavia to appease the Axis powers, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and other Axis states invaded Yugoslavia. After the invasion, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was dissolved and Serbia was put under a German Military administration, under a joint German-Serb government with Milan Nedić as Head of the "Government of National Salvation". Serbia was the scene of a civil war between Royalist Chetniks commanded by Draža Mihailović and Communist Partisans commanded by Josip Broz Tito. Against these forces were arrayed Nedić's units of the Serbian Volunteer Corps and the Serbian State Guard. Belgrade Fairground became a Nazi-run concentration camp in 1942. After one year of occupation, around 16,000 Serbian Jews were murdered in Axis-occupied Serbia, or around 90% of its pre-war Jewish population. Banjica concentration camp was established by the German Military Administration in Serbia.[48] Primary victims were Serbian Jews, Roma, and Serb political prisoners.[49] Other camps in Serbia included the Crveni Krst concentration camp in Niš and the Dulag 183 in Šabac. Staro Sajmište was one of the first concentration camps for Jews in Europe. Staro Sajmište was the largest concentration camp in Axis-occupied Serbia. Relations between Serbs and Croats in Yugoslavia severely deteriorated during World War II as a result of the creation of the Axis puppet state of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) that comprised most of present-day Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and parts of present-day Serbia's Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. The NDH committed large scale persecution and genocide of Serbs, Jews, and Roma. The number of Serbs and others killed varies in sources, but all agree that hundreds of thousands of people were killed. The (lower) estimate by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum say that NDH authorities murdered between 330,000 and 390,000 ethnic Serb residents of Croatia, Bosnia and parts of Serbia during the period of Ustaše genocide campaign; same figures are supported by the Jewish Virtual Library. The Yad Vashem center reports that over 500,000 Serbs were killed overall in the NDH,] whereas the official Yugoslav sources used to estimate over 700,000 victims, mostly Serbs (controversial). The Jasenovac memorial so far lists 75,159 names killed in this concentration camp alone, out of around 100,000 estimated victims. In April 2003 Croatian president Stjepan Mesić apologized on behalf of Croatia to the victims of Jasenovac. In 2006, on the same occasion, he added that to every visitor to Jasenovac it must be clear that Holocaust, genocide and war crimes took place there. Out of about 1 million casualties in entire Yugoslavia until 1944,[60][61] around 250,000 were Serbia nationals of different ethnicities.[62] The overall number of ethnic Serb casualties in Yugoslavia was around 530,000, out of whom up to 400,000 in the NDH genocide campaign.[63] By late 1944, the joint Soviet and Bulgarian invasion swung in favour of the partisans in the civil war; communists were subsequently established as the ruling elite, whereas the Karadjordjevic dynasty was banned from returning to Serbia. The Syrmia front was the last sequence of the internal war in Serbia following the Soviet-led Belgrade Offensive. Around 70,000 people in Serbia alone perished as the consequence of communist takeover (1944–1946), (around 10,000 of whom were Belgraders) whereas Ministry of Justice figures puts lower estimate around 80,000, of whom 60,000 were of Serbian origin. The communist takeover resulted in abolition of the Kingdom, ban on the royal family's return and a subsequent orchestrated constitutional referendum on the republic-socialist type of government.[69] In the aftermath of the victory of the communist Yugoslav Partisans, a totalitarian single-party state was soon established in Yugoslavia by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. All opposition was repressed and people deemed to be promoting opposition to the government or promoting separatism were given harsh prison sentences or executed for sedition. Serbia became a constituent republic within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia known as the Socialist Republic of Serbia and had a republic-branch of the federal Communist party, the League of Communists of Serbia. The republic consisted of Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo, Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, and Central Serbia. Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia during World War II, including Communist Yugoslav Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito (fourth from left) and Serbian Communist Partisan Aleksandar Ranković (to the right of Tito). Ranković was a prominent official in Serbia and Yugoslavia until the 1960s. One of Serbia's most powerful and influential politicians in this period was Aleksandar Ranković, a high-ranking official in the federal Communist party who was considered one of the "big four" Yugoslav Communists, alongside Josip Broz Tito, Edvard Kardelj, and Milovan Đilas and who was popular in Serbia.[70] Ranković served as head of the UDBA internal security organization and served as vice-president of Yugoslavia from 1963 to 1966.[70] In 1950, Ranković as minister of interior reported that since 1945 the Yugoslav communist regime had arrested five million people.[71] For years Ranković served as Tito's right-hand man and supported Tito's decision to break Yugoslavia away from domination by Soviet Union by having the UDBA obstruct the USSR's efforts to infiltrate state infrastructure and the Yugoslav Communist party.[72] These actions resulted in the USSR-led Cominform accusing the Yugoslav government of being dominated by a "Tito-Ranković clique" that they accused of being a fascist regime.[73] He supported a centralized Yugoslavia and opposed efforts that promoted decentralization that he deemed to be against the interests of Serb unity.[70] Ranković sought to secure the position of the Serbs in Kosovo and gave them dominance in Kosovo's nomenklatura.[70] Ranković's power and agenda waned in the 1960s with the rise to power of reformers who sought decentralization and to preserve the right of national self-determination of the peoples of Yugoslavia.[74] In response to his opposition to decentralization, the Yugoslav government removed Ranković from office in 1966 on various claims, including that he was spying on Tito. Ranković's dismissal was highly unpopular amongst Serbs. After the ouster of Ranković, the agenda of pro-decentralization reformers in Yugoslavia, especially from Slovenia and Croatia succeeded in the late 1960s in attaining substantial decentralization of powers, creating substantial autonomy in Kosovo and Vojvodina, and recognizing a Muslim Yugoslav nationality.[74] As a result of these reforms, there was a massive overhaul of Kosovo's nomenklatura and police, that shifted from being Serb-dominated to ethnic Albanian-dominated through firing Serbs in large scale.[74] Further concessions were made to the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo in response to unrest, including the creation of the University of Pristina as an Albanian language institution.[74] These changes created widespread fear amongst Serbs that they were being made second-class citizens in Yugoslavia by these changes.[75] These changes was harshly criticized by Serbian communist official Dobrica Ćosić, who at the time claimed that they were contrary to Yugoslavia's commitment to Marxism through conceding to nationalism, especially Albanian nationalism. Slobodan Milošević rose to power in Serbia in 1989 in the League of Communists of Serbia through a series of coups against incumbent governing members. Milošević promised reduction of powers for the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. This ignited tensions with the communist leadership of the other republics that eventually resulted in the secession of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia from Yugoslavia. Multiparty democracy was introduced in Serbia in 1990, officially dismantling the former one-party communist system. Critics of the Milošević government claimed that the Serbian government continued to be authoritarian despite constitutional changes as Milošević maintained strong personal influence over Serbia's state media. Milošević issued media blackouts of independent media stations' coverage of protests against his government and restricted freedom of speech through reforms to the Serbian Penal Code which issued criminal sentences on anyone who "ridiculed" the government and its leaders, resulting in many people being arrested who opposed Milošević and his government. A crowd of students in the anti-Milošević 1996–1997 protests in Serbia. This was one of a number of large scale protests that took place against the Serbian government during Milošević's rule. The period of political turmoil and conflict marked a rise in ethnic tensions and between Serbs and other ethnicities of the former Communist Yugoslavia as territorial claims of the different ethnic factions often crossed into each others' claimed territories[81] Serbs who had criticized the nationalist atmosphere, the Serbian government, or the Serb political entities in Bosnia and Croatia were reported to be harassed, threatened, or killed by nationalist Serbs.[82] Serbs in Serbia feared that the nationalist and separatist government of Croatia was led by Ustase sympathizers who would oppress Serbs living in Croatia. This view of the Croatian government was promoted by Milošević, who also accused the separatist government of Bosnia and Herzegovina of being led by Islamic fundamentalists. The governments of Croatia and Bosnia in turn accused the Serbian government of attempting to create a Greater Serbia. These views led to a heightening of xenophobia between the peoples during the wars. In 1992, the governments of Serbia and Montenegro agreed to the creation of a new Yugoslav federation called the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia which abandoned the predecessor SFRY's official endorsement of communism, and instead endorsed democracy. In response to accusations that the Yugoslav government was financially and militarily supporting the Serb military forces in Bosnia & Herzegovina and Croatia, sanctions were imposed by the United Nations, during the 1990s, which led to political isolation, economic decline and hardship, and serious hyperinflation of currency in Yugoslavia. Milošević represented the Bosnian Serbs at the Dayton peace agreement in 1995, signing the agreement which ended the Bosnian War that internally partitioned Bosnia & Herzegovina largely along ethnic lines into a Serb republic and a Bosniak-Croat federation. When the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia refused to accept municipal election results in 1997, which resulted in its defeat in the municipalities, Serbians engaged in large protests against the Serbian government and government forces held back the protesters. Between 1998 and 1999, peace was broken when the worsened situation in Kosovo with continued clashes in Kosovo between the Yugoslav security forces and Kosovo Liberation Army, locally known as the Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës, or the KLA. The confrontations led to a multi-nation conflict called the Kosovo War. Money system: 1 Yugoslav dinar (YD) = 100 paras.
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