History of the Serbs

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.

Earliest historical records of names similar to "Serb"

Here are a few of the earliest quotations from well known ancient geographers and historians:

Rig Veda - ancient religious Sanskrit text (3000-1500 b.c.)in book VIII., 32., 2.:

"2 Strong God, he slew Anarsani, Srbinda, Pipru, and the fiend, Ahisuva, and loosed the floods." From all the European peoples the Serbs are the only race from the construction of the wording of their name, according to the Austrian sanskritologist Walter Wust who are composed in the Vedic hymns as the characteristic SRBINDA, in which almost letter to letter is identical to the modern form SRBENDA used by Balkan Serbs.

In the Vedic manuscripts, Wust interprets, SRBINDA as its own original to say patented name with a predetermined meaning. Which is in complete harmony to thinking of todayâ€™s SRBENDA expression in Serbs, because Srbenda is always the best, the most respected, most brave, the greatest for respecting tradition: in short a man who is used and shown as an example to others.

Herodotus (11,6) (5th century BC), and Diodor from Sicily (1,30) mention the lake named Serbonis (Σερβυνιδοζ) in lower Egypt. However taking the large distances into the account it is highly unlikely that today's Serbs have anything to do with that particular toponym.

Strabo (63 - 19 BC): "the river Kanthos/Skamandros is called Sirbis (Sirbika) by the natives." ( Strabonis rerum geographicarum libri septendicini, Basileza 1571 s. 763).

Tacitus (ca. 50 AD): described the Serboi tribe near the Caucasus, close to the hinterland into the Black Sea. Many consider this theory as a very probable one taking some distant linguistic similarities with today's Caucausus people's such as Ingushi, Chechens etc.

Pliny (69-75 AD): "beside the Cimerians live Meotics, Valians, Serbs (Serboi), Zingians, Psesians." (Historia naturalis, VI, c. 7 & 19 Leipzig 1975). It coincides with the Tacitus's view on Serbian ancient homeland among the Iranian peoples of the Caucasus.

Ptolemy (150 AD): "between the Keraunian mountains and the river Pa, live the Orineians, Valians and Serbs." (Geographia V, s. 9). Ptolemy also mention the city in Pannonia named Serbinum (present day GradiÅ¡ka in Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina). This well known ancient scientist one more time points out to the Caucasus placing Serbs close to Black Sea riviera.

In the third century Roman emperor Licinius referred to the Carpathians as 'Montes Serrorum' ("Serb mountains"). This also sounds reasonable taking that South Carpathians end in Eastern Serbia, colliding with the Balkan Mountains.

Medieval history

The Serbs migrated from White Serbia and settled in the Balkans in 630.

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

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

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.

Maps

The territorial placement of Serbs in Yugoslavia according to the 1981 census data

The territorial placement of Serbs in Yugoslavia according to the 1981 census data
Serbs in Serbia as per 2002 census data for Central Serbia and Vojvodina, and 1991 census data for Kosovo
Serbs in Montenegro as per 2003 census data
Serbs (red) in Bosnia and Herzegovina as per 2005 data