This article presents the
history of the Serbs from the first mention of the people by Roman historians to events in the 20th century. Serbs (
Serbian: Срби or
Srbi) are a
South Slavic people who live mainly in
Serbia,
Montenegro,
Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, to a lesser extent, in
Croatia. They are also a significant minority in the
Republic of Macedonia and
Slovenia. A
Serbian diaspora dispersed people of Serbian descent to
Germany,
Switzerland,
Austria, the
United States and
Canada.
Early references
The tribal designation Serboi first appears in the 1st century, in the works of the historian Tacitus (ca. 50 AD) and geographer Pliny (Plinius) (69-75 AD), and also in the 2nd century in the Geography of Ptolemy (book 5, 9.21) to designate a tribe dwelling in Sarmatia, probably on the Lower Volga River. Ptolemy also relates the name Serbs to the city of Serbinum in present day Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The name reappears, in the form Serboi, in the 10th century scholar-emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos’s advice on running an empire, De administrando imperio (32.1-16), and in the continuation of Theophanes' history, the Theophanes Continuatus (288.17-20), usually in the same context as the Croatians, Zachlumians, and other peoples of Pannonia and Dalmatia.
The name of the Serbs has been identified with the earliest verifiable historical reference to a Slavic people comes from Procopius, who describes a group of people called Spali or Spori. The name Spori is thought by some to be related related to the Sorbs of Lusatia (Germany) and the Serbs of Balkans. However this theory is based on controversial linguistic analysis.
In the manuscript of the anonymous Bavarian geographer was written: "...Zeruiani (the Serbs), whose kingdom is so great, that from them all the Slav peoples came into being and are said to originate from them."
Constantine VII gives an unlikely derivation of the name from the Latin 'servi', which he explains as 'douloi' (slaves) of Roman emperors. He relates that the "Serbloi" (Σερβλων) are descended from the "unbaptized" (pagan) White Serbs (ασπροι), who lived in the place called Boiki, (the White Serbia) near Frankia (Φραγγία), and that they claimed the protection of Emperor Heraclius (reigned 610-641), who settled them in the province of Thessalonica[1]. Constantine's assertion is regarded with some scepticism by modern scholars; since the 19th century it has been commonly held that Serbs came to the Balkan peninsula in the 6th century. Kekaumenos, the 11th century Byzantine general, locates the Serboi on the Sava River (268.28), as does The Chronicle of Nestor, but this is not considered particularly reliable.
A mention of the Serbian name in 680 is about a city of Gordoservon in Asia Minor where "some Slavic tribes" have settled. Gordoservon appears to be a distorted spelling of Grad Srba, "City of Serbs" in Serbian.
Their settlement in the Balkans appears to have taken place between 610 and 640. Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos writes in De Administrando Imperio that the Serbs received in Rascia / Raska, Zachumlie/Zahumlje, Trebounia/Travunia, Zeta/Duklja, Bosnia/Bosna and Pagania/Paganija. Serbia was then ruled mostly by the House of Vlastimirovic which, under Caslav Klonimirovic managed to unite these lands into a confederacy by the early 10th century. The first certain data on the state of the Serboi, Serbia, dates to the 9th century. The episcopal lists of Leo VI the Wise mention bishops of Drougoubiteia and the Serboi. Envoys of the Serboi arrived at the court of the Emperor Basil II, around 993.
In the 11th century there was probably a thema of Serbia: a seal impression of Constantine Diogenes, strategos of Serbia, is preserved. Around 1040 Theophilos Erotikos was the governor of the Serboi until he was expelled by Stefan Voislav, who reportedly conquered the territory of the Serboi and became its 'archon'. T. Wasilewski (1964) surmised that this theme was the same as Sirmium, whereas Dj. Radojcic (1966) thinks that it was Raska, only temporarily governed by the Byzantines.
Medieval history
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The Serbs were Christianized in several waves between the 7th and 9th century with the last wave taking place between 867 and 874.
During and after that period, Serbs struggled to gain independence from the Byzantine. The first Serb states were Rascia or Raska and Zeta. Their rulers had a varying degree of autonomy, until virtual independence was proclaimed in an anti-Byzantine rebellion in 1086. Under Saint Sava, who became the first head of the Serb Orthodox Church and his brother Stefan Prvovencani, who became the first true Serb king-(note that Serbian king of Zeta, Konstantin Bodin, was the king of Zeta and Dalmatia around 1050)- Serbia became religiously independent from Byzantium as well. Serbia did not exist as a state of that name but was, rather, the region inhabited by the Serbs; its kings and tsars were called the "King of the Serbs" or "Tsar of the Serbs", not "King of Serbia" or "Tsar of Serbia". The medieval Serbian state is nonetheless often (if anachronistically) referred to as "Serbia".
Serbia reached its golden age under the House of Nemanjic, with the Serbian state reaching its apogee of power in the reign of Tsar Stefan Uros Dusan, when Serbian Empire dominated the Balkans. Serbia's power subsequently dwindled amid interminable conflict between the nobility, rendering the country unable to resist the steady incursion of the Ottoman Empire into south-eastern Europe. The Battle of Kosovo in 1389 is commonly regarded in Serbian national mythology as the key event in the country's defeat by the Turks, although in fact Ottoman rule was not fully imposed until some time later. After Serbia fell, the kings of Bosnia used the title of "King of the Serbs" until Bosnia was also overrun.
Ottoman domination
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As Christians, the Serbs were regarded as a "protected people" under Ottoman law but in practice were treated as second-class citizens and often harshly treated. They were subjected to considerable pressure to convert to Islam; some did, while others migrated to the north and west, to seek refuge in Austria-Hungary.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the First Serbian Uprising succeeded in liberating at least some Serbs, for a limited time. The Second Serbian Uprising was much more successful, creating a powerful Serbia that became a modern European kingdom.
20th century
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At the beginning of the 20th century, many Serbs were still under foreign rule – that of the Ottomans in the south and of the Austrians in the north and west. The southern Serbs were liberated in the First Balkan War of 1912, while the question of Austrian Serbs' independence was the spark that lit the First World War two years later. A Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip killed the Austro-Hungarian archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, initiating a chain of declarations of war that produced a continent-wide conflict. During the war, the Serbian army fought fiercely, eventually retreated through Albania to regroup in Greece and launched a counter-offensive through Macedonia. Though they were eventually victorious, the war devastated Serbia and killed a huge proportion of its population – by some estimates, over the half of the male Serbian population died in the conflict, influencing the region's demographics to this day.
After the war, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later called Yugoslavia) was created. Almost all Serbs now finally lived in one state. The new state had its capital in Belgrade and was ruled by a Serbian king; it was, however, unstable and prone to ethnic tensions. An interesting, if somewhat pro-Serb, window on Yugoslavia between the wars is provided by Rebecca West's classic of travel literature, "Black Lamb & Grey Falcon".
During Second World War, the Axis Powers occupied Yugoslavia, dismembering the country. Serbia was occupied by the Germans, while in Bosnia and Croatia Serbs were put under the rule of the Italians and the fascist Ustase regime in the Independent State of Croatia. Under Ustase rule in particular, Serbs and other non-Croats were subjected to systematic genocide in which hundreds of thousands were killed.
After the war, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was formed. As with the pre-war Yugoslavia, the country's capital was at Belgrade. Serbia was the largest republic, however, the Communist regime of Josip Broz Tito diluted its power by establishing two autonomous provinces in Serbia, Kosovo and Vojvodina.
Communist Yugoslavia collapsed in the early 1990s, with four of its six republics becoming independent states. This led to several bloody civil wars as the large Serbian communities in Croatia and Bosnia attempted to remain within Yugoslavia, which now consisted of only Serbia and Montenegro. Another war broke out in Kosovo (see Kosovo War) after years of tensions between Serbs and Albanian Terrorists. About 200,000 Serbs left Croatia during the "Operation Storm" in 1995, and another 200,000 left Kosovo after the Kosovo War, and settled mostly in Central Serbia and Vojvodina as refugees.
