Yugoslavia The Serbs and Serbia, Vojvodina, and Montenegro
Like the Croats, the Serbs are believed to be a purely Slavic
people who originated in the Ukraine. Some scholars now argue
that the original Serbs and Croats were Central Asian Sarmatian
nomads who entered Europe with the Huns in the fourth century
A.D. The theory proposes that the Sarmatian Serbs settled in a
land designated as White Serbia, in what is now Saxony and
Western Poland. The Sarmatian Serbs, it is argued, intermarried
with the indigenous Slavs of the region, adopted their language,
and transferred their name to the Slavs. Byzantine sources report
that some Serbs migrated southward in the seventh century A.D.
and eventually settled in the lands that now make up southern
Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Hercegovina. Rival
chiefs, or zupani, vied to control the Serbs for five
centuries after the migration. Zupan Vlastimir formed a Serbian
principality under the Byzantines around 850, and the Serbs soon
converted to Eastern-rite Christianity. The Serbs had two
political centers in the eleventh century: Zeta, in the mountains
of present-day Montenegro, and Raska, located in modern
southwestern Serbia.
The zupan of Raska, Stefan I Nemanja (1159-96), threw off
Byzantine domination and laid the foundation for medieval Serbia
by conquering Zeta and part of southern Dalmatia. His son and
successor, Stefan II Nemanja (1196-1228) transformed Serbia into
a stable state, friendly with Rome but with religious loyalty to
Constantinople. In 1218 Pope Honorius III recognized Serbian
political independence and crowned Stefan II. The writings of
Stefan II and his brother (later canonized as St. Sava) were the
first works of Serbian literature.
Later kings in the Nemanja line overcame internal rivalries
and pressure from Bulgaria and Constantinople. They also rejected
papal invitations to link the Serbian Orthodox Church with Rome,
and they ruled their country through a golden age. Serbia
expanded its economy, and Dalmatian merchants marketed Serbian
goods throughout Europe and the Levant. The Nemanje dynasty left
to Serbia masterpieces of religious art combining Western,
Byzantine, and local styles.
Serbia dominated the Balkans under Stefan Dusan (1331-55),
who conquered lands extending from Belgrade to present-day
southern Greece. He proclaimed himself emperor, elevated the
archbishop of Pec to the level of patriarch, and wrote a new
legal code combining Byzantine law with Serbian customs. Dusan
had ambitions toward a weakened Byzantine Empire, but the
Byzantine emperor suspected his intentions and summoned the Turks
to restrain him. Dusan repelled assaults in 1345 and 1349, but
was defeated in 1352. He then offered to lead an alliance against
the Turks and recognize the pope, but those gambits also were
rejected.
Rival nobles divided Serbia after the death of Dusan in 1355,
and many switched loyalty to the sultan after the last Nemanja
died in 1371. The most powerful Serbian prince, Lazar
Hrebeljanovic, raised a multinational force to engage the Turks
in the Battle of Kosovo Polje on St. Vitus Day in 1389. The Turks
barely defeated Lazar, and both he and the sultan were killed.
The defeat did not bring immediate Turkish occupation of Serbia,
but during the centuries of Turkish domination that followed, the
Serbs endowed the battle with myths of honor and heroism that
helped them preserve their dignity and sense of nationhood. Serbs
still recite epic poems and sing songs about the nobles who fell
at Kosovo Polje; the anniversary of the battle is the Serbian
national holiday, Vidovdan (St. Vitus's Day), June 28.
Civil war in the Turkish Empire saved Serbia in the early
fifteenth century, but the Turks soon reunited their forces to
conquer the last Serbian stronghold at Smederjevo in 1459 and
subjugate the whole country. Serbs fled to Hungary, Montenegro,
Croatia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia, and some formed outlaw bands. In
response to the activities of the latter, the Turks disinterred
and burned the remains of St. Sava. By the sixteenth century,
southern Hungary had a sizable Serbian population that remained
after the Turks conquered the region in 1526. Montenegro, which
emerged as an independent principality after the death of Dusan,
waged continual guerrilla war on the Turks, and never was
conquered. But the Turkish threat did force Prince Ivan of
Montenegro to move his capital high into the mountains. There, he
founded a monastery and set up a printing press. In 1516
Montenegro became a theocratic state.
Social and economic life in Serbia changed radically under
the absolute rule of the Turkish sultan. The Turks split Serbia
among several provinces, conscripted Serbian boys into their
elite forces, exterminated Serbian nobles, and deprived the Serbs
of contact with the West as the Renaissance was beginning. The
Turks used the Orthodox Church to intermediate between the state
and the peasantry, but they expropriated most church lands.
Poorly trained Serbian priests strove to maintain the decaying
national identity. In 1459 the sultan subordinated the Serbian
Church to the Greek patriarch, but the Serbs hated Greek
dominance of their church, and in 1557 Grand Vizier Mehmed Pasha
Sokolovic, a Serb who had been inducted into the Turkish army as
a boy, persuaded the sultan to restore autonomy to the Serbian
Church. Turkish maltreatment and exploitation grew in Serbia
after the sixteenth century, and more Serbs fled to become
mountain outlaws, or hajduci. Epic songs of the
hajduci kept alive the Serbs' memory of the glorious
independence of the past.
From 1684 to 1689, Christian forces attempted to push the
Turks from the Balkans, inciting the Serbs to rebel against their
Turkish overlords. The offensive and the rebellion ultimately
failed, exposing the Serbs south of the Sava River to the revenge
of the Turks. Fearing Turkish reprisals, the Serbian patriarch
Arsenije III Carnojevic emigrated in 1690 to Austrian-ruled
southern Hungary with as many as 36,000 families. The Austrian
emperor promised these people religious freedom and the right to
elect their own vojvoda, or military governor, and
incorporated much of the region where they settled, later known
as Vojvodina, into the military border. The refugees founded new
monasteries that became cultural centers. In Montenegro, Danilo I
Petrovic of Njegos (1696-1737) became bishop-prince and
instituted the succession of the Petrovic-Njegos family. His
efforts to unify Montenegro triggered a massacre of Muslims in
1702 and subsequent reprisals.
Austrian forces took Serbian regions south of the Sava from
Turkey in 1718, but Jesuits following the army proselytized so
heavily that the Serbs came to hate the Austrians as well as the
Turks. In the eighteenth century, the Turkish economy and social
fabric began deteriorating, and the Serbs who remained under the
Ottoman Empire suffered attacks from bands of soldiers. Corrupt
Greek priests who had replaced Serbian clergy at the sultan's
direction also took advantage of the Serbs. The Serbs in southern
Hungary fared much better. They farmed prosperously in the
fertile Danubian plain. A Serbian middle class arose, and the
monasteries trained scholars and writers who inspired national
pride, even among illiterate Serbs.
The eighteenth century brought Russian involvement in
European events, particularly in competition with Austria for the
spoils of the Turkish collapse. The Orthodox Serbs looked to the
tsar for support, and Russia forged ties with Montenegro and the
Serbian Church in southern Hungary. In 1774 Russia won the
diplomatic right to protect Christian subjects of the Turks;
later it used this right as a pretext to intervene in Turkish
affairs. When Russia and Austria fought another war with Turkey
in 1787 and 1788, Serbs fought guerrilla battles against the
Turks. Austria abandoned the campaign, and the Serbs, in 1791. To
secure their frontier, the Turks granted their Serbian subjects a
measure of autonomy and formed a Serbian militia. Montenegro
expanded in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
Bishop-Prince Petar I Njegos (1782-1830) convinced the sultan to
declare that the Montenegrins had never been Turkish subjects,
and Montenegro remained independent through the nineteenth
century.
In 1804 renegade Turkish soldiers in Belgrade murdered
Serbian leaders, triggering a popular uprising under Karadjordje
("Black George") Petrovic, founder of the Karadjordjevic dynasty.
Russia supported the Serbs, and in 1806 the sultan granted them
limited autonomy
(see
fig. 3). But internal discord weakened the
government of Karadjordje, and the French invasion of Russia in
1812 prevented the tsar from protecting the Serbs. In 1813 the
Turks attacked rebel areas. Karadjordje fled to Hungary, then
Turkish, Bosnian, and Albanian troops plundered Serbian villages.
The atrocities sparked a second Serbian uprising in 1815 that won
autonomy under Turkish control for some regions. The corrupt
rebel leader Milos Obrenovic (1817-39) had Karadjordje murdered
and his head sent to the sultan to signal Serbian loyalty.
In 1830 Turkey recognized Serbia as a principality under
Turkish control, with Milos Obrenovic as hereditary prince. The
sultan also granted the Serbian Church autonomy and reaffirmed
the Russian right to protect Serbia. Poor administration,
corruption, and a bloody rivalry between the Karadjordjevic and
Obrenovic clans marred Serbian political life from its beginning.
After the sultan began allowing foreign governments to send
diplomats to Serbia in the 1830s, foreign intervention further
complicated the situation. Despite these obstacles and his
autocratic manner, however, Milos Obrenovic stimulated trade,
opened schools, and guided development of peasant lands. He
abdicated in 1838 when Turkey imposed a constitution to limit his
powers.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Serbian culture
made significant strides. Dositej Obradovic, Vuk Karadzic, and
other scholars accelerated a national renaissance. Through his
translations and autobiography, Obradovic spread the
Enlightenment to the Serbs. Collections of Serbian folk songs and
poems edited by Karadzic awoke pride in national history and
traditions. Karadzic also overcame clerical opposition to reform
the Cyrillic alphabet and the Serbian literary language, and he
translated the New Testament. His work widened the concept of
Serbian nationhood to include language as well as religious and
regional identifications.
The European revolution of 1848 brought more ferment in
relations between the Serbs and their neighbors. As part of their
revolutionary program, the Hungarians threatened to Magyarize the
Serbs in Vojvodina. Some Serbs there declared their independence
from Hungary and proclaimed an autonomous Vojvodina; others
rallied behind the Austrian-Croatian invasion of Hungary. The
Serbs nearly declared war, but Russians and Turkish diplomacy
restrained them. The Serbs in Hungary gained nothing from helping
Austria to crush the revolution. Vienna ruled Vojvodina harshly
after 1850 and silenced Serbian irredentists there. When Austria
joined Hungary to form the Dual Monarchy in 1867, Vienna returned
Vojvodina and its Serbs to Hungary. Meanwhile, Peter II Njegos of
Montenegro (1830-51), who was also a first-rate poet, reformed
his administration, battled the Turks, and struggled to obtain a
seaport from the Austrians. His successor Danilo II (1851-60)
abolished the Montenegrin theocracy.
Prince Mihajlo Obrenovic (1860-68), son of Milos, was an
effective ruler who further loosened the Turkish grip on Serbia.
Western-educated and autocratic, Mihajlo liberalized the
constitution and in 1867 secured the withdrawal of Turkish
garrisons from Serbian cities. Industrial development began at
this time, although 80 percent of Serbia's 1.25 million people
remained illiterate peasants. Mihajlo sought to create a South
Slav confederation, and he organized a regular army to prepare
for liberation of Turkish-held Serbian territory. Scandal
undermined Mihajlo's popularity, however, and he was eventually
assassinated.
Political parties emerged in Serbia after 1868, and aspects
of Western culture began to appear. A widespread uprising in the
Ottoman Empire prompted an unsuccessful attack by Serbia and
Montenegro in 1876, and a year later those countries allied with
Russia, Romania, and Bulgarian rebels to defeat the Turks. The
subsequent treaties of San Stefano and Berlin (1878) made Serbia
an independent state and added to its territory, while Montenegro
gained a seacoast. Alarmed at Russian gains, the growing stature
of Serbia, and irredentism among Vojvodina's Serbs,
Austria-Hungary pressed for and won the right to occupy Bosnia,
Hercegovina, and the Novi Pazar in 1878. Serbia's Prince Milan
Obrenovic (1868-89), a cousin of Mihajlo, became disillusioned
with Russia and fearful of the newly created Bulgaria. He
therefore signed a commercial agreement in 1880 that made Serbia
a virtual client state of Austria-Hungary. Milan became the first
king of modern Serbia in 1882, but his pro-Austro-Hungarian
policies undermined his popularity, and he abdicated in 1889.
A regency ruled Serbia until 1893, when Milan's teenage son,
Aleksandar (1889-1903), pronounced himself of age and nullified
the constitution. Aleksandar was widely unpopular in Serbia
because of scandals, arbitrary rule, and his position favoring
Austria-Hungary. In 1903 military officers, including Dragutin
"Apis" Dimitrijevic, brutally murdered Aleksandar and his wife.
Europe condemned the killings, which were celebrated in Belgrade.
Petar Karadjordjevic (1903-14), who knew of the conspiracy,
returned from exile to take the throne, restored and liberalized
the constitution, put Serbian finances in order, and improved
trade and education. Petar turned Serbia away from
Austria-Hungary and toward Russia, and in 1905 Serbia negotiated
a tariff agreement with Bulgaria hoping to break the
Austro-Hungarian monopoly of its exports. In response to a
diplomatic disagreement, Vienna placed a punitive tariff on
livestock, Serbia's most important export. Serbia, however,
refused to bend, found new trade routes and began seeking an
outlet to the sea. In 1908 Austria-Hungary formally annexed
Bosnia and Hercegovina, frustrating Serbian designs on those
regions and precipitating an international crisis. The Serbs
mobilized, but under German pressure Russia persuaded Belgrade to
cease its protests. Thereafter, Belgrade maintained strict
official propriety in its relations with Vienna; but government
and military factions prepared for a war to liberate the Serbs
still living under the Turkish yoke in Kosovo, Macedonia, and
other regions.
Data as of December 1990
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