3. Serbia: A Historical Survey

The Serbs settled in present-day Serbia and wider Balkans in the early seventh century and created their early medieval states there. From the twelfth to fifteenth century, Serbia prospered under the rule of the Nemanjić dynasty, expanding her territory to the south at the expense of the Byzantine Empire. Serbia became an Empire at the height of her power and the Serbian Orthodox Church rose to the rank of Patriarchate. In the fifteenth century, Serbia fell under the Ottoman yoke and it was not before the nineteenth century that the country regained her independency through insurgency against the Ottomans and diplomatic struggle against the background of the Great Eastern Crisis. Serbia then struggled to maintain her independent status as her mighty neighbor Austria-Hungary strove to reduce her to a client state. This conflict was resolved through the ordeal of the First World War in which Serbia lost a quarter of her population and suffered material destruction but emerged victorious. Serbia liberated the South Slav lands of the defunct Habsburg Empire and formed the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (renamed Yugoslavia after 1919). The Yugoslav Kingdom was dismembered during the Second World War and became a stage for the most brutal civil war under the occupation. The communists won power at the end of the war and established the “second” Yugoslavia which broke up in another civil war during the 1990s. After a short-lived union with Montenegro, Serbia again became an independent country in 2006.