199-545: The Republic of Serbian Krajina or Serb Republic of Krajina ( Serbo-Croatian : Република Српска Крајина / Republika Srpska Krajina or РСК / RSK , pronounced [rɛpǔblika sr̩̂pskaː krâjina] ), known as the Serbian Krajina ( Српска Крајина / Srpska Krajina ) or simply Krajina , was a self-proclaimed Serb proto-state , a territory within the newly independent Republic of Croatia (formerly part of Socialist Yugoslavia ), which it defied, and which
398-613: A form of slavery , in which boys from Balkan Christian families were forcibly converted to Islam and trained for infantry units of the Ottoman army known as the Janissaries . The Serbian Patriarchate of Peć was extinguished in 1463, but reestablished in 1557, providing for limited continuation of Serbian cultural traditions within the Ottoman Empire, under the Millet system . After
597-609: A second language . Bosnian is spoken by 2.7 million people worldwide, chiefly Bosniaks , including 2.0 million in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 200,000 in Serbia and 40,000 in Montenegro. Montenegrin is spoken by 300,000 people globally. The notion of Montenegrin as a separate standard from Serbian is relatively recent. In the 2011 census, around 229,251 Montenegrins, of the country's 620,000, declared Montenegrin as their native language. That figure
796-478: A warm-humid continental or humid subtropical climate . In the north, the climate is more continental, with cold winters, and hot, humid summers along with well-distributed rainfall patterns. In the south, summers and autumns are drier, and winters are relatively cold, with heavy inland snowfall in the mountains. Differences in elevation, proximity to the Adriatic Sea and large river basins, as well as exposure to
995-508: A "peacekeeping" force. Milošević denied this, claiming that Babić had made it up "out of fear". The Army of Serbian Krajina frequently attacked neighboring Bihać enclave (then in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina ) with heavy artillery. With the creation of new Croatian counties on 30 December 1992, the Croatian government also set aside two autonomous regions ( kotar ) for ethnic Serbs in
1194-622: A Company of French peacekeepers, combined with international diplomacy. Hadžić sent an urgent request to Belgrade for reinforcements, arms, and equipment. In response, around 4,000 paramilitaries under the command of Vojislav Šešelj (the White Eagles ) and " Arkan " (the Serb Volunteer Guard ) arrived to bolster the VSK. General elections were held in the RSK on 12 December 1993, with a second round of
1393-617: A United Nations peace plan put forward by Cyrus Vance . A final ceasefire agreement, the Sarajevo Agreement , was signed by representatives of the two sides in January 1992, paving the way for the implementation of the Vance plan. Four United Nations Protected Areas (UNPAs) were established in Croatian territory which was claimed by RSK, and the plan called for the withdrawal of the JNA from Croatia and for
1592-489: A Yugoslav state was established. From the very beginning, there were slightly different literary Serbian and Croatian standards, although both were based on the same dialect of Shtokavian, Eastern Herzegovinian . In the 20th century, Serbo-Croatian served as the lingua franca of the country of Yugoslavia , being the sole official language in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (when it was called "Serbo-Croato-Slovenian"), and afterwards
1791-573: A civil war between royalist Chetniks commanded by Draža Mihailović and communist partisans commanded by Josip Broz Tito . Axis auxiliary units of the Serbian Volunteer Corps and the Serbian State Guard fought against both of these forces. The siege of Kraljevo was a major battle of the uprising in Serbia , led by Chetnik forces against the Nazis. Several days after the battle began
1990-504: A conservative prime minister, headed or dominated most governments until his death. King Alexander established a dictatorship in 1929 with the aim of establishing the Yugoslav ideology and single Yugoslav nation , changed the name of the country to Yugoslavia. The effect of Alexander's dictatorship was to further alienate the non-Serbs living in Yugoslavia from the idea of unity. Alexander
2189-582: A crown land, though it had some special rights in order to encourage settlement in an otherwise deserted, war-ravaged territory. The abolition of the military rule took place between 1869 and 1871. In order to attract Serbs to become part of Croatia, on 11 May 1867, the Sabor solemnly declared that "the Triune Kingdom recognizes the Serbs living in it as a nation identical and equal with the Croatian nation". Subsequently,
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#17328517149632388-596: A dictionary, and a committee of Serbian and Croatian linguists was asked to prepare a pravopis . During the sixties both books were published simultaneously in Ijekavian Latin in Zagreb and Ekavian Cyrillic in Novi Sad. Yet Croatian linguists claim that it was an act of unitarianism. The evidence supporting this claim is patchy: Croatian linguist Stjepan Babić complained that the television transmission from Belgrade always used
2587-416: A distinction between the two, and again in independent Bosnia and Herzegovina , "Bosnian", "Croatian", and "Serbian" were considered to be three names of a single official language. Croatian linguist Dalibor Brozović advocated the term Serbo-Croatian as late as 1988, claiming that in an analogy with Indo-European, Serbo-Croatian does not only name the two components of the same language, but simply charts
2786-581: A distinctive " Muslim " nationality. 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 on a large scale. 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. These changes created widespread fear among Serbs of being treated as second-class citizens . Belgrade,
2985-571: A front of some 600 km in Croatia plus 100 km along the border with the Bihać pocket in Bosnia. With 16,000 stationed in eastern Slavonia, only about 39,000 were left to defend the main part of the RSK. Overall, only 30,000 were capable of full mobilization, yet they faced a far stronger Croatian army. Also, political divisions between Hadžić and Babić occasionally led to physical and sometimes even armed confrontations between their supporters; Babić himself
3184-738: A genocidal policy of persecution of Serbs , Jews and Croats (from opposition groups), leading to the deaths of over 300,000. During this period, individual Croats coalesced around the ruling authorities or around the communist anti-fascist Partisans . Serbs from around the Knin area tended to join the Chetniks , whilst Serbs from the Banovina and Slavonia regions tended to join the Partisans. Various Chetnik groups also committed atrocities against Croats across many areas of Lika and parts of northern Dalmatia . At
3383-547: A language law that promulgated Croatian linguistic purism as a policy that tried to implement a complete elimination of Serbisms and internationalisms. On January 15, 1944, the Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia ( AVNOJ ) declared Croatian, Serbian, Slovene, and Macedonian to be equal in the entire territory of Yugoslavia. In 1945 the decision to recognize Croatian and Serbian as separate languages
3582-505: A large part of the nations have lived side by side under foreign overlords. During that period, the language was referred to under a variety of names, such as "Slavic" in general or "Serbian", "Croatian" or "Bosnian" in particular. In a classicizing manner, it was also referred to as " Illyrian ". The process of linguistic standardization of Serbo-Croatian was originally initiated in the mid-19th-century Vienna Literary Agreement by Croatian and Serbian writers and philologists, decades before
3781-660: A majority (57%) of its overall male population. Serbia suffered the biggest casualty rate in World War I . The Corfu Declaration was a formal agreement between the government-in-exile of the Kingdom of Serbia and the Yugoslav Committee (anti-Habsburg South Slav émigrés) that pledged to unify Kingdom of Serbia and Kingdom of Montenegro with Austria-Hungary's South Slav autonomous crown lands: Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia , Kingdom of Dalmatia , Slovenia , Vojvodina (then part of
3980-419: A number of Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries destroyed or damaged. On 21 May 2006, Montenegro held a referendum which showed 55.4% of voters in favour of independence, just above the 55% required by the referendum. This was followed on 5 June 2006 by Serbia's declaration of independence, marking the re-emergence of Serbia as an independent state. The National Assembly of Serbia declared Serbia to be
4179-497: A number of international analysts, Serbia has suffered from democratic backsliding into authoritarianism , followed by a decline in media freedom and civil liberties. After the COVID-19 pandemic spread to Serbia in March 2020, a state of emergency was declared and a curfew was introduced for the first time in Serbia since World War II. In April 2022, President Aleksandar Vučić
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#17328517149634378-513: A number of writing systems: The oldest texts since the 11th century are in Glagolitic , and the oldest preserved text written completely in the Latin alphabet is Red i zakon sestara reda Svetog Dominika , from 1345. The Arabic alphabet had been used by Bosniaks ; Greek writing is out of use there, and Arabic and Glagolitic persisted so far partly in religious liturgies. The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
4577-603: A part of the Glagolitic service as late as the middle of the 19th century. The earliest known Croatian Church Slavonic Glagolitic manuscripts are the Glagolita Clozianus and the Vienna Folia from the 11th century. The beginning of written Serbo-Croatian can be traced from the tenth century and on when Serbo-Croatian medieval texts were written in four scripts: Latin , Glagolitic , Early Cyrillic , and Bosnian Cyrillic ( bosančica/bosanica ). Serbo-Croatian competed with
4776-464: A quarter of a million people ( Human Rights Watch ). In the latter half of 1991, Croatia was beginning to form an army and their main defenders, the local police, were overpowered by the JNA military who supported rebelled Croatian Serbs. The RSK was located entirely inland, but they soon started advancing deeper into Croatian territory. Among other places, they shelled the Croatian coastal town of Zadar killing over 80 people in nearby areas and damaging
4975-567: A reduction of powers for the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina, where his allies subsequently took over power, during the Anti-bureaucratic revolution . This ignited tensions between the communist leadership of the other republics of Yugoslavia and awoke ethnic nationalism across Yugoslavia that eventually resulted in its breakup , with Slovenia , Croatia , Bosnia and Herzegovina , and Macedonia declaring independence during 1991 and 1992. Serbia and Montenegro remained together as
5174-500: A result of interaction between words: Also, there are some exceptions, mostly applied to foreign words and compounds, that favor morphological/etymological over phonetic spelling: One systemic exception is that the consonant clusters ds and dš are not respelled as ts and tš (although d tends to be unvoiced in normal speech in such clusters): Only a few words are intentionally "misspelled", mostly in order to resolve ambiguity: Through history, this language has been written in
5373-424: A separate Montenegrin standard. Like other South Slavic languages, Serbo-Croatian has a simple phonology , with the common five-vowel system and twenty-five consonants. Its grammar evolved from Common Slavic , with complex inflection , preserving seven grammatical cases in nouns, pronouns, and adjectives. Verbs exhibit imperfective or perfective aspect , with a moderately complex tense system. Serbo-Croatian
5572-469: A short tonic e, or leave vs. leaving? for a long tonic i, due to the prosody of final stressed syllables in English. General accent rules in the standard language: There are no other rules for accent placement, thus the accent of every word must be learned individually; furthermore, in inflection, accent shifts are common, both in type and position (the so-called " mobile paradigms "). The second rule
5771-475: A single language with two equal variants that have developed around Zagreb (western) and Belgrade (eastern)". The agreement insisted on the equal status of Cyrillic and Latin scripts, and of Ekavian and Ijekavian pronunciations. It also specified that Serbo-Croatian should be the name of the language in official contexts, while in unofficial use the traditional Serbian and Croatian were to be retained. Matica hrvatska and Matica srpska were to work together on
5970-405: A stem change. The imperfective aspect typically indicates that the action is unfinished, in progress, or repetitive; while the perfective aspect typically denotes that the action was completed, instantaneous, or of limited duration. Some Štokavian tenses (namely, aorist and imperfect) favor a particular aspect (but they are rarer or absent in Čakavian and Kajkavian). Actually, aspects "compensate" for
6169-426: A variety of ways: Cervetiis ( Servetiis ), gentis (S)urbiorum , Suurbi , Sorabi , Soraborum , Sorabos , Surpe , Sorabici , Sorabiet , Sarbin , Swrbjn , Servians , Sorbi , Sirbia, Sribia, Zirbia, Zribia , Suurbelant , Surbia , Serbulia / Sorbulia among others. These authors used these names to refer to Serbs and Sorbs in areas where their historical and current presence is not disputable (notably in
Republic of Serbian Krajina - Misplaced Pages Continue
6368-652: A view to defending itself against the expansion of the Ottoman Empire . The population was mainly Croats , Serbs and Vlachs who immigrated from nearby parts of the Ottoman Empire ( Ottoman Bosnia and Serbia ) into the region and helped bolster and replenish the population as well as the garrisoned troops in the fight against the Ottomans. The Austrians controlled the Frontier from military headquarters in Vienna and did not make it
6567-466: A vote of the members of the parliament; "Yugoslavian" was opted for by the majority and legislated as the official language of the Triune Kingdom . The Austrian Empire , suppressing Pan-Slavism at the time, did not confirm this decision and legally rejected the legislation, but in 1867 finally settled on "Croatian or Serbian" instead. During the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina ,
6766-413: Is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia , Croatia , Bosnia and Herzegovina , and Montenegro . It is a pluricentric language with four mutually intelligible standard varieties , namely Serbian , Croatian , Bosnian , and Montenegrin . South Slavic languages historically formed a dialect continuum . The turbulent history of the area, particularly due to the expansion of
6965-555: Is a pro-drop language with flexible word order, subject–verb–object being the default. It can be written in either localized variants of Latin ( Gaj's Latin alphabet , Montenegrin Latin ) or Cyrillic ( Serbian Cyrillic , Montenegrin Cyrillic ), and the orthography is highly phonemic in all standards. Despite many linguistical similarities, the traits that separate all standardized varieties are clearly identifiable, although these differences are considered minimal. Serbo-Croatian
7164-614: Is claimed between 60,000 and 70,000 people died in Serbia during the 1944–45 communist purge . Serbia became a constituent republic within the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia known as the People's Republic of Serbia , and had a republic-branch of the federal communist party, the League of Communists of Serbia . Serbia's most powerful and influential politician in Tito-era Yugoslavia
7363-510: Is likely to increase, due to the country's independence and strong institutional backing of the Montenegrin language. Serbo-Croatian is also a second language of many Slovenians and Macedonians , especially those born during the time of Yugoslavia. According to the 2002 census, Serbo-Croatian and its variants have the largest number of speakers of the minority languages in Slovenia. Outside
7562-953: Is located in the Balkan peninsula and the Pannonian Plain . Serbia lies between latitudes 41° and 47° N , and longitudes 18° and 23° E . The country covers a total of 88,499 km (34,170 sq mi); with Kosovo excluded, the total area is 77,474 km (29,913 sq mi). Its total border length amounts to 2,027 km (1,260 mi): Albania 115 km (71 mi), Bosnia and Herzegovina 302 km (188 mi), Bulgaria 318 km (198 mi), Croatia 241 km (150 mi), Hungary 151 km (94 mi), North Macedonia 221 km (137 mi), Montenegro 203 km (126 mi) and Romania 476 km (296 mi). All of Kosovo's border with Albania (115 km (71 mi)), North Macedonia (159 km (99 mi)) and Montenegro (79 km (49 mi)) are under control of
7761-406: Is normally voiced or voiceless if the last consonant is normally voiceless. This rule does not apply to approximants – a consonant cluster may contain voiced approximants and voiceless consonants; as well as to foreign words ( Washington would be transcribed as VašinGton ), personal names and when consonants are not inside of one syllable. /r/ can be syllabic, playing the role of
7960-483: Is not different from other armies of multilingual states, or in other specific institutions, such as international air traffic control where English is used worldwide. All variants of Serbo-Croatian were used in state administration and republican and federal institutions. Both Serbian and Croatian variants were represented in respectively different grammar books, dictionaries, school textbooks and in books known as pravopis (which detail spelling rules). Serbo-Croatian
8159-513: Is not strictly obeyed, especially in borrowed words. Comparative and historical linguistics offers some clues for memorising the accent position: If one compares many standard Serbo-Croatian words to e.g. cognate Russian words, the accent in the Serbo-Croatian word will be one syllable before the one in the Russian word, with the rising tone. Historically, the rising tone appeared when the place of
Republic of Serbian Krajina - Misplaced Pages Continue
8358-548: Is spoken by 10 million people around the world, mostly in Serbia (7.8 million), Bosnia and Herzegovina (1.2 million), and Montenegro (300,000). Besides these, Serbian minorities are found in Kosovo , North Macedonia and in Romania . In Serbia, there are about 760,000 second-language speakers of Serbian, including Hungarians in Vojvodina and the 400,000 estimated Roma. In Kosovo , Serbian
8557-634: Is spoken by the members of the Serbian minority which approximates between 70,000 and 100,000. Familiarity of Kosovar Albanians with Serbian varies depending on age and education, and exact numbers are not available. Croatian is spoken by 6.8 million people in the world, including 4.1 million in Croatia and 600,000 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A small Croatian minority that lives in Italy, known as Molise Croats , have somewhat preserved traces of Croatian. In Croatia, 170,000, mostly Italians and Hungarians , use it as
8756-455: Is still present even in the plural (unlike Russian and, in part, the Čakavian dialect ). They also have two numbers : singular and plural. However, some consider there to be three numbers ( paucal or dual, too), since (still preserved in closely related Slovene ) after two ( dva , dvije / dve ), three ( tri ) and four ( četiri ), and all numbers ending in them (e.g. twenty-two, ninety-three, one hundred four, but not twelve through fourteen)
8955-547: Is the only Slavic language with a pitch accent (simple tone ) system. This feature is present in some other Indo-European languages , such as Norwegian , Ancient Greek , and Punjabi . Neo-Shtokavian Serbo-Croatian, which is used as the basis for standard Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian, has four "accents", which involve either a rising or falling tone on either long or short vowels, with optional post-tonic lengths: The tone stressed vowels can be approximated in English with set vs. setting? said in isolation for
9154-401: Is typically referred to by names of its standardized varieties: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin; it is rarely referred to by names of its sub-dialects, such as Bunjevac . In the language itself, it is typically known as srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски "Serbo-Croatian", hrvatskosrpski / хрватскoсрпски "Croato-Serbian", or informally naški / нашки "ours". Throughout
9353-690: The Axis powers invaded Yugoslavia and in the aftermath the Independent State of Croatia (which included the whole of today's Bosnia and Herzegovina and parts of Serbia (Eastern Syrmia ) as well) was declared. The Germans installed the Ustaše (who had allegedly plotted the assassination of the Serbian King Alexander I of Yugoslavia in 1934) as rulers of the new country; the Ustaše authorities promptly pursued
9552-702: The Balkans and Lusatia ). However, there are also sources that have used similar names in other parts of the world (most notably in the Asiatic Sarmatia in the Caucasus ). There exist two prevailing theories about the origin of the ethnonym *Sŕbъ (plur. *Sŕby ), one from a Proto-Slavic language with an appellative meaning of a "family kinship" and "alliance", while another from an Iranian-Sarmatian language with various meanings. In his work, De Administrando Imperio , Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus suggests that
9751-557: The Battle of Vukovar . 2,000 defenders of Vukovar and civilians were killed, 800 went missing and 22,000 were forced into exile. The wounded were taken from Vukovar Hospital to Ovčara near Vukovar where they were executed. On 19 December 1991, the SAO Krajina proclaimed itself the Republic of Serbian Krajina. The Constitution of Serbian Krajina came into effect the same day. On 26 February 1992,
9950-664: The Danube . During the Iron Age , local tribes of Triballi , Dardani , and Autariatae were encountered by the Ancient Greeks during their cultural and political expansion into the region, from the 5th up to the 2nd century BC. The Celtic tribe of Scordisci settled throughout the area in the 3rd century BC. It formed a tribal state, building several fortifications, including their capital at Singidunum (present-day Belgrade) and Naissos (present-day Niš ). The Romans conquered much of
10149-637: The Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), a broad coalition of anti-Milošević parties. This culminated on 5 October when half a million people from all over the country congregated in Belgrade, compelling Milošević to concede defeat. The fall of Milošević ended Yugoslavia's international isolation . Milošević was sent to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia . The DOS announced that FR Yugoslavia would seek to join
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#173285171496310348-718: The European Union . In 2003, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was renamed Serbia and Montenegro ; the EU opened negotiations with the country for the Stabilisation and Association Agreement . Serbia's political climate remained tense and in 2003, Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić was assassinated as result of a plot originating from organised crime and former security officials. In 2004 unrest in Kosovo took place, leaving 19 people dead and
10547-651: The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). However, according to the Badinter Commission , the country was not legally considered a continuation of the former SFRY, but a new state. Fueled by ethnic tensions, the Yugoslav Wars (1991–2001) erupted, with the most severe conflicts taking place in Croatia and Bosnia , where the large ethnic Serb communities opposed independence from Yugoslavia. The FRY remained outside
10746-550: The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Republika Srpska (in Bosnia and Herzegovina ). The government of Krajina had de facto control over central parts of the territory while control of the outskirts changed with the successes and failures of its military activities. The territory was legally protected by the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR). Its main portion was overrun by Croatian forces in 1995 and
10945-444: The First Serbian Uprising (1804–1813), led by vožd Karađorđe Petrović , Serbia was independent for almost a decade before the Ottoman army was able to reoccupy the country. The Second Serbian Uprising began in 1815, led by Miloš Obrenović ; it ended with a compromise between Serbian revolutionaries and Ottoman authorities. Serbia was one of the first nations in the Balkans to abolish feudalism . The Akkerman Convention in 1826,
11144-432: The Great Powers , by 1867 the last Turkish soldiers left the Principality, making the country de facto independent. By enacting a new constitution in 1869, without consulting the Porte, Serbian diplomats confirmed the de facto independence of the country. In 1876, Serbia declared war on the Ottoman Empire, siding with the ongoing Christian uprisings in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Bulgaria . The formal independence of
11343-403: The Habsburg Empire , which began expanding towards Central Serbia from the end of the 17th century while maintaining a foothold in Vojvodina . In the early 19th century, the Serbian Revolution established the nation-state as the region's first constitutional monarchy , which subsequently expanded its territory. In 1918, in the aftermath of World War I , the Kingdom of Serbia united with
11542-451: The Independent State of Croatia and sought refuge in German-occupied Serbia, seeking to escape the large-scale persecution and Genocide of Serbs , Jews, and Roma being committed by the Ustaše regime. The number of Serb victims was approximately 300,000 to 350,000. According to Tito himself, Serbs made up the vast majority of anti-fascist fighters and Yugoslav Partisans for the whole course of World War II . The Republic of Užice
11741-403: The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia . In the 9th century , Old Church Slavonic was adopted as the language of the liturgy in churches serving various Slavic nations. This language was gradually adapted to non-liturgical purposes and became known as the Croatian version of Old Slavonic. The two variants of the language, liturgical and non-liturgical, continued to be
11940-430: The Kingdom of Serbia as crownland . Those gains were lost by the Treaty of Belgrade in 1739, when the Ottomans retook the region. Apart from territory of modern-day Vojvodina which remained under the Habsburg Empire, central regions of Serbia were occupied once again by the Habsburgs in 1788–1792 . The Serbian Revolution for independence from the Ottoman Empire lasted eleven years, from 1804 until 1815. During
12139-433: The Maslenica Bridge that connected northern and southern Croatia, in the Operation Coast-91 . They also tried to overtake Šibenik , but the defenders successfully repelled the attack by JNA, in the Battle of Šibenik . The main city theatre was also bombed by JNA forces. The city of Vukovar , however, was completely devastated by JNA attacks. The city of Vukovar that warded off JNA attacks for months eventually fell, ending
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#173285171496312338-405: The Medak pocket in southern Krajina in a push to regain Serb-held Croatian territory. The rebel Croatian Serbs brought reinforcements forward fairly quickly, but the strength of the Croatian forces proved superior. The Croatian offensive was halted by a combination of a battalion of Canadian peacekeepers from the second battalion of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI) reinforced by
12537-406: The Ottoman Empire , resulted in a patchwork of dialectal and religious differences. Due to population migrations, Shtokavian became the most widespread supradialect in the western Balkans, intruding westwards into the area previously occupied by Chakavian and Kajkavian . Bosniaks , Croats , and Serbs differ in religion and were historically often part of different cultural circles, although
12736-471: The Podgorica Assembly deposed the House of Petrović-Njegoš and united Montenegro with Serbia. On 1 December 1918, in Belgrade, Serbian Prince Regent Alexander Karađorđević proclaimed the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes , under King Peter I of Serbia . King Peter was succeeded by his son, Alexander, in August 1921. Serb centralists and Croat autonomists clashed in the parliament, and most governments were fragile and short-lived. Nikola Pašić ,
12935-456: The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet , and Gaj and Daničić standardized the Croatian Latin alphabet , on the basis of vernacular speech phonemes and the principle of phonological spelling. In 1850 Serbian and Croatian writers and linguists signed the Vienna Literary Agreement , declaring their intention to create a unified standard. Thus a complex bi-variant language appeared, which the Serbs officially called "Serbo-Croatian" or "Serbian or Croatian" and
13134-432: The Syrmian Front was the last major military action of World War II in Serbia. A study by Vladimir Žerjavić estimates total war-related deaths in Yugoslavia at 1,027,000, including 273,000 in Serbia. The victory of the Communist Partisans resulted in the abolition of the monarchy and a subsequent constitutional referendum. A one-party state was soon established in Yugoslavia by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia . It
13333-435: The Treaty of Adrianople in 1829 and finally, the Hatt-i Sharif , recognised the suzerainty of Serbia. The First Serbian Constitution was adopted on 15 February 1835, making the country one of the first to adopt a democratic constitution in Europe. 15 February is now commemorated as Statehood Day , a public holiday . Following the clashes between the Ottoman army and Serbs in Belgrade in 1862, and under pressure from
13532-486: The UN , CoE , OSCE , PfP , BSEC , CEFTA , and is acceding to the WTO . Since 2014, the country has been negotiating its EU accession , with the possibility of joining the European Union by 2030. Serbia formally adheres to the policy of military neutrality . The origin of the name Serbia is unclear. Historically, authors have mentioned the Serbs ( Serbian : Srbi / Срби) and the Sorbs of Eastern Germany ( Upper Sorbian : Serbja ; Lower Sorbian : Serby ) in
13731-405: The Valun tablet , dated to the 11th century, written in Glagolitic and Latin; and the Inscription of Župa Dubrovačka , a Glagolitic tablet dated to the 11th century. The Baška tablet from the late 11th century was written in Glagolitic. It is a large stone tablet found in the small Church of St. Lucy, Jurandvor on the Croatian island of Krk that contains text written mostly in Chakavian in
13930-423: The Wolves of Vučjak and White Eagles , funded by the Serbian secret police, were also a key component of this structure. A wider-scale war was launched in August 1991. Over the following months, a large area of territory, amounting to a third of Croatia, was controlled by the rebel Serbs. The Croatian population suffered heavily, fleeing or evicted with numerous killings, leading to ethnic cleansing . The bulk of
14129-445: The Yugoslav constitutions of 1965 and 1974 did give substantial rights to national minorities - including to the Serbs in SR Croatia. The Serbian "Krajina" entity to emerge upon Croatia's declaration of independence in 1991 would include three kinds of territories: Large sections of the historical Military Frontier lay outside of the Republic of Serbian Krajina and contained a largely Croat population - these including much of Lika ,
14328-551: The Zagreb government, and began implementing its own currency system, army regiments, and postal service. Croatia held a referendum on independence on 19 May 1991 , in which the electorate—minus many Serbs, who chose to boycott it—voted overwhelmingly for independence with the option of confederate union with other Yugoslav states - with 83 percent turnout, voters approved the referendum by 93 percent. On 25 June 1991, Croatia and Slovenia both declared their independence from Yugoslavia. As
14527-408: The former Habsburg crownland of Vojvodina ; later in the same year it joined with other South Slavic nations in the foundation of Yugoslavia , which existed in various political formations until the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. During the breakup of Yugoslavia , Serbia formed a union with Montenegro , which was peacefully dissolved in 2006, restoring Serbia's independence as a sovereign state for
14726-558: The laws and customs of war . After he was sentenced in 2004, Babić was found dead in his prison cell in The Hague in March 2006, in an apparent suicide. Former RSK president Milan Martić was indicted for war crimes by the ICTY in 2005 was convicted of war crimes on 12 June 2007 and sentenced to 35 years in prison where he was transferred to in 2009. He is serving his sentence in Estonia. According to
14925-649: The " Vinodol Codex " of 1288, both written in the Chakavian dialect. The Shtokavian dialect literature, based almost exclusively on Chakavian original texts of religious provenance ( missals , breviaries , prayer books ) appeared almost a century later. The most important purely Shtokavian vernacular text is the Vatican Croatian Prayer Book ( c. 1400 ). Both the language used in legal texts and that used in Glagolitic literature gradually came under
15124-558: The "1994 dinar", first issued on 1 January 1994, and equal to 1,000,000,000 October dinar. The RSK's weakness also adversely affected its armed forces, the Vojska Srpske Krajine (VSK). Since the 1992 ceasefire agreement, Croatia had spent heavily on importing weapons and training its armed forces with assistance from American contractors. In contrast, the VSK had grown steadily weaker, with its soldiers poorly motivated, trained and equipped. There were only about 55,000 of them to cover
15323-455: The 1921 constitution. In 1929, the constitution was suspended, and the country was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia , while the official language of Serbo-Croato-Slovene was reinstated in the 1931 constitution. In June 1941, the Nazi puppet Independent State of Croatia began to rid the language of "Eastern" (Serbian) words, and shut down Serbian schools. The totalitarian dictatorship introduced
15522-532: The Appeals Chamber of the ICTY overturned their convictions, acquitting them. Both of them were accused of being part of the "criminal enterprise" but the Court concluded there was no such conspiracy. After the war, a number of towns and municipalities that had comprised the RSK were designated Areas of Special State Concern . According to the indictment of prosecutor Carla Del Ponte against Slobodan Milošević at
15721-581: The Balkans, there are over two million native speakers of the language(s), especially in countries which are frequent targets of immigration, such as Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, and the United States. Serbo-Croatian is a highly inflected language . Traditional grammars list seven cases for nouns and adjectives : nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , vocative , locative , and instrumental , reflecting
15920-559: The Byzantine territory in large numbers. They merged with the local Romanised population that was gradually assimilated. White Serbs, an early Slavic tribe from White Serbia eventually settled in an area between the Sava river and the Dinaric Alps . By the beginning of the 9th century, Serbia achieved a level of statehood. Christianization of Serbia was a gradual process, finalized by
16119-550: The Constitution and law." In 2017, the " Declaration on the Common Language " ( Deklaracija o zajedničkom jeziku ) was signed by a group of NGOs and linguists from former Yugoslavia . It states that all standardized variants belong to a common polycentric language with equal status. About 18 million people declare their native language as either 'Bosnian', 'Croatian', 'Serbian', 'Montenegrin', or 'Serbo-Croatian'. Serbian
16318-460: The Croatian angular Glagolitic script. The Charter of Ban Kulin of 1189, written by Ban Kulin of Bosnia, was an early Shtokavian text, written in Bosnian Cyrillic. The luxurious and ornate representative texts of Serbo-Croatian Church Slavonic belong to the later era, when they coexisted with the Serbo-Croatian vernacular literature. The most notable are the " Missal of Duke Novak" from
16517-625: The Croatian Army and police. The parts of the former RSK in eastern Croatia (along with the Danube ) remained in place, in what was previously the SAO Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia . In 1995, Milan Milanović, formerly a Republic of Serbian Krajina official, signed the Erdut Agreement as a representative of the Serbian side. This agreement, co-signed by the representative of
16716-683: The Croatian Government, was sponsored by the United Nations, and it set up a transitional period during which the United Nations Transitional Authority for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES) peacekeeping mission would oversee a peaceful reintegration of this territory into Croatia, starting on 15 January 1996. In 1998, the UNTAES mission was complete and the territory was formally returned to Croatia. Based on
16915-458: The Croatian side insists on applying Badinter Arbitration Committee decisions. In 1995 a Croatian court sentenced former RSK president Goran Hadžić in absentia to 20 years in prison for rocket attacks on Šibenik and Vodice . In 1999 he was sentenced to an additional 20 years for war crimes in Tenja , near Osijek , and in 2002 Croatia's state attorney brought another indictment against him for
17114-440: The Croatian variant because their languages are also Ekavian. This is a common situation in other pluricentric languages, e.g. the variants of German differ according to their prestige, the variants of Portuguese too. Moreover, all languages differ in terms of prestige: "the fact is that languages (in terms of prestige, learnability etc.) are not equal, and the law cannot make them equal". The 1946, 1953, and 1974 constitutions of
17313-611: The Croatian weekly journal Forum published the Declaration again in 2012, accompanied by a critical analysis. West European scientists judge the Yugoslav language policy as an exemplary one: although three-quarters of the population spoke one language, no single language was official on a federal level. Official languages were declared only at the level of constituent republics and provinces, and very generously: Vojvodina had five (among them Slovak and Romanian, spoken by 0.5 per cent of
17512-533: The Croats "Croato-Serbian", or "Croatian or Serbian". Yet, in practice, the variants of the conceived common literary language served as different literary variants, chiefly differing in lexical inventory and stylistic devices. The common phrase describing this situation was that Serbo-Croatian or "Croatian or Serbian" was a single language. In 1861, after a long debate, the Croatian Sabor put up several proposed names to
17711-763: The Dictionary for being unitaristic that were written by Croatian linguists. And finally, Croatian linguists ignored the fact that the material for the Pravopisni rječnik came from the Croatian Philological Society. Regardless of these facts, Croatian intellectuals brought the Declaration on the Status and Name of the Croatian Literary Language in 1967. On occasion of the publication's 45th anniversary,
17910-648: The EU. Serbia officially applied for membership in the European Union on 22 December 2009, and received candidate status on 1 March 2012, following a delay in December 2011. Following a positive recommendation of the European Commission and European Council in June 2013, negotiations to join the EU commenced in January 2014. In 2012 Aleksandar Vučić and his Serbian Progressive Party came to power. According to
18109-676: The Emperor Leopold I formally granted Serbs from the Habsburg monarchy a first set of "privileges", primarily to guarantee them freedom of religion. As a consequence, the ecclesiastical centre of the Serbs also moved northwards, to the Metropolitanate of Karlovci , and the Serbian Patriarchate of Peć was once-again abolished by the Ottomans in 1766. In 1718–39, the Habsburg monarchy occupied much of Central Serbia and established
18308-609: The Erdut Agreement, the Joint Council of Municipalities was established in the region in 1997. After the peaceful reintegration, two Croatian islands on the Danube, the Island of Šarengrad and the Island of Vukovar , remained under Serbian military control. In 2004, the Serbian military was withdrawn from the islands and replaced with Serbian police. The islands remain an open question as
18507-687: The German forces committed a massacre of approximately 2,000 civilians in an event known as the Kraljevo massacre , in a reprisal for the attack. Draginac and Loznica massacre of 2,950 villagers in Western Serbia in 1941 was the first large execution of civilians in occupied Serbia by Germans , with Kragujevac massacre and Novi Sad Raid of Jews and Serbs by Hungarian fascists being the most notorious, with over 3,000 victims in each case. After one year of occupation, around 16,000 Serbian Jews were murdered in
18706-472: The ICTY, in the amended indictment, he "helped organize an ethnic cleansing campaign of Croats and other non-Serbs from Krajina and virtually the entire non-Serb population was forcibly removed, deported or killed". Between 2001 and 2012, the ICTY had prosecuted Croatian generals Ante Gotovina , Mladen Markač and Ivan Čermak in the Trial of Gotovina et al for their involvement in crimes committed during and in
18905-814: The ICTY, the Croat and non-Serb population from the 1991 census was approximately as follows: Thus Serbs comprised 52.3% and Croats 35.8% of the population of SAO Krajina respectively in 1991. According to data set forth at the meeting of the Government of the RSK in July 1992, its ethnic composition was 88% Serbs, 7% Croats, 5% others. As of November 1993, less than 400 ethnic Croats still resided in UNPA Sector South, and between 1,500 and 2,000 remained in UNPA Sector North. Towns which were at one point part of RSK or occupied by
19104-426: The JNA attempted unsuccessfully to suppress Slovenia's independence in the short Slovenian War , clashes between revolting Croatian Serbs and Croatian security forces broke out almost immediately, leaving dozens dead on both sides. Serbs were supported by remnants of the JNA (whose members were now only from Serbia and Montenegro), which provided them weapons. Many Croatians fled their homes in fear or were forced out by
19303-623: The Kingdom of Hungary) and Bosnia and Herzegovina in a post-war Yugoslav state. It was signed on 20 July 1917 on Corfu. As the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, the territory of Syrmia united with Serbia on 24 November 1918. Just a day later, the Great People's Assembly of Serbs, Bunjevci and other Slavs in Banat, Bačka and Baranja declared the unification of these regions ( Banat , Bačka , and Baranja ) with Serbia. On 26 November 1918,
19502-529: The Kosovo border police. Serbia treats the 352 km (219 mi) border with Kosovo as an "administrative line"; it is under shared control of Kosovo border police and Serbian police forces. The Pannonian Plain covers the northern third of the country (Vojvodina and Mačva ) while the easternmost tip of Serbia extends into the Wallachian Plain . The terrain of the central part of the country consists chiefly of hills traversed by rivers. Mountains dominate
19701-472: The Latin alphabet — which was true, but was not proof of unequal rights, but of frequency of use and prestige. Babić further complained that the Novi Sad Dictionary (1967) listed side by side words from both the Croatian and Serbian variants wherever they differed, which one can view as proof of careful respect for both variants, and not of unitarism. Moreover, Croatian linguists criticized those parts of
19900-612: The Lika region in northwestern Croatia (1368), "Evangel from Reims" (1395, named after the town of its final destination), Hrvoje's Missal from Bosnia and Split in Dalmatia (1404), and the first printed book in Serbo-Croatian, the Glagolitic Missale Romanum Glagolitice (1483). During the 13th century Serbo-Croatian vernacular texts began to appear, the most important among them being the "Istrian land survey" of 1275 and
20099-655: The Military Frontier was incorporated into Habsburg Croatia on 1 August 1881 when the Ban of Croatia Ladislav Pejačević took over from the Zagreb General Command. Following the end of World War I in 1918, the regions formerly forming part of the Military Frontier came under the control of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia , where they formed part of the Sava Banovina , along with most of the old Croatia-Slavonia. Between
20298-590: The Ottoman army reconquered a large part of Serbia in the winter of 1689/1690, leading to a brutal massacre of the civilian population by uncontrolled Albanian and Tatar units. As a result of the persecutions, several tens of thousands of Serbs, led by the patriarch, Arsenije III Crnojević , fled northwards to settle in Hungary , an event known as the Great Migration of 1690 . In August 1690, following several petitions,
20497-414: The Ottomans, the native nobility was eliminated and the peasantry was enserfed to Ottoman rulers, while much of the clergy fled or were confined to the isolated monasteries. Under the Ottoman system, Serbs and Christians were considered an inferior class and subjected to heavy taxes, and a portion of the Serbian population experienced Islamization . Many Serbs were recruited during the devshirme system,
20696-471: The RSK's army: Serbian Krajina has been described as a " proto-state " and " parastate ". Serbo-Croatian language Serbo-Croatian ( / ˌ s ɜːr b oʊ k r oʊ ˈ eɪ ʃ ən / SUR -boh-kroh- AY -shən ) – also called Serbo-Croat ( / ˌ s ɜːr b oʊ ˈ k r oʊ æ t / SUR -boh- KROH -at ), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian ( SCB ), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian ( BCS ), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian ( BCMS ) –
20895-536: The Republic of Serbian Krajina was ultimately disbanded as a result; a rump remained in eastern Slavonia under UNTAES administration until its peaceful reintegration into Croatia in 1998 under the Erdut Agreement . The name Krajina (meaning "frontier") stemmed from the Military Frontier which the Habsburg monarchy carved out of parts of the crown lands of Croatia and Slavonia between 1553 and 1578 with
21094-607: The SAO Western Slavonia and SAO Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia were added to the RSK, which initially had only encompassed the territories within the SAO Krajina. The Army of the Republic of Serb Krajina (Srpska Vojska Krajine, SVK) was officially formed on 19 March 1992. The RSK occupied an area of some 17,028 km at its greatest extent. Under the Vance plan , signed in November 1991, Presidents Tuđman and Milošević agreed to
21293-514: The Serb exodus are complex. Some had to leave because the Serb army had forced them to, while others feared the revenge of the Croatian army or of their former Croat neighbors, whom they had driven away and whose homes they had mostly looted (and it was later shown that this fear was far from groundless)". Most of the refugees fled to today's Serbia, Bosnia, and eastern Slavonia. Some of those who refused to leave were murdered, tortured and forcibly expelled by
21492-517: The Serbs originated from White Serbia near Francia . From 1815 to 1882, the official name for Serbia was the Principality of Serbia . From 1882 to 1918, it was renamed to the Kingdom of Serbia , later from 1945 to 1963, the official name for Serbia was the People's Republic of Serbia. This was again renamed the Socialist Republic of Serbia from 1963 to 1990. Since 1990, the official name of
21691-561: The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia did not name specific official languages at the federal level. The 1992 constitution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia , in 2003 renamed Serbia and Montenegro , stated in Article 15: "In the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Serbian language in its ekavian and ijekavian dialects and the Cyrillic script shall be official, while the Latin script shall be in official use as provided for by
21890-508: The South as an expression of their secession from Croatia. This effectively cut Croatia in two, separating the coastal region of Dalmatia from the rest of the country. The Constitution of Croatia was passed in December 1990, which reduced the status of Serbs from "constituent" to a "national minority" in the same category as other groups such as Italians and Hungarians. Some would later justify their claim to an independent Serb state by arguing that
22089-460: The Yugoslav federation, claiming that the situation in Kosovo was genocide, and complained about alleged discrimination of Serbs at the hands of the Croatian authorities. Among the claims that it makes is that 'except for the time under the Independent State of Croatia , the Serbs in Croatia have never been as jeopardized as they are today'. Tension was further fueled by the overthrow of Vojvodina and Montenegro's government by Milošević's loyalists, and
22288-642: The abrogation of Kosovo's and Vojvodina's autonomy in 1989, which gave Milošević 4 out of 8 votes on the Yugoslav Federal Presidency, thus gaining the power to block every decision made by the Presidency. Furthermore, a series of Serb nationalist rallies were held in Croatia during 1989, under pressure from Serbia. On 8 July 1989, a large nationalist rally was held in Knin, during which banners threatening JNA intervention in Croatia, as well as Chetnik iconography
22487-462: The accent shifted to the preceding syllable (the so-called "Neo-Shtokavian retraction"), but the quality of this new accent was different – its melody still "gravitated" towards the original syllable. Most Shtokavian (Neo-Shtokavian) dialects underwent this shift, but Chakavian, Kajkavian and the Old-Shtokavian dialects did not. Accent diacritics are not used in the ordinary orthography, but only in
22686-413: The aftermath of Operation Storm. The indictment and the subsequent trial on charges of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war described several killings, widespread arson and looting committed by Croatian soldiers. In April 2011, Gotovina and Markač were convicted and given prison sentences, while Čermak was acquitted. Gotovina and Markač appealed the verdict and in November 2012
22885-474: The application of the law which allowed autonomy would be temporarily suspended. In 2000 this part of the law was formally repealed. The partial implementation of the Vance Plan drove a wedge between the governments of the RSK and Serbia, the RSK's principal backer and supplier of fuel, arms, and money. Milan Babić strongly opposed the Vance Plan but was overruled by the RSK's assembly. On 26 February 1992, Babić
23084-462: The area centered around the city of Bjelovar , central and south-eastern Slavonia. The Serb-populated regions in Croatia were of central concern to the Serbian nationalist movement of the late 1980s, led by Slobodan Milošević . In September 1986 the Serbian Academy's memorandum on the status of Serbia and Serbs was partially leaked by a Serbian newspaper. It listed a series of grievances against
23283-713: The area of modern-day Serbia, second only to contemporary Italy. The most famous of these was Constantine the Great , the first Christian Emperor, who issued an edict ordering religious tolerance throughout the Empire . When the Roman Empire was divided in 395, most of Serbia remained under the Byzantine Empire , and its northwestern parts were included in the Western Roman Empire . By the 6th century, South Slavs migrated into
23482-474: The area, or around 90% of its pre-war Jewish population during The Holocaust in Serbia . Many concentration camps were established across the area. Banjica concentration camp was the largest concentration camp and jointly run by the German army and Nedić's regime, with primary victims being Serbian Jews, Roma , and Serb political prisoners. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Serbs fled the Axis puppet state known as
23681-543: The areas of Krajina: However, Serbs considered this too late, as it was not the amount of autonomy they wanted, and by now they had declared de facto independence. The districts never actually functioned since they were located within the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina. The existence of the Autonomous District of Glina was also provided in the draft of the Z-4 plan , that was rejected. After Operation Storm ,
23880-559: The assassination of a Croatian leader , Stjepan Radić , in the parliament, and repression by the Serb-dominated security structures. Between 1939 and 1941, in an attempt to resolve the Croat-Serb political and social antagonism in first Yugoslavia, the Kingdom established an autonomous Banovina of Croatia incorporating (amongst other territories) much of the former Military Frontier as well as parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina . In 1941,
24079-526: The capital of FPR Yugoslavia and PR Serbia, hosted the first Non-Aligned Movement Summit in September 1961, as well as the first major gathering of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) with the aim of implementing the Helsinki Accords from October 1977 to March 1978. The 1972 smallpox outbreak in SAP Kosovo and other parts of SR Serbia was the last major outbreak of smallpox in Europe since World War II. In 1989, Slobodan Milošević rose to power in Serbia. Milošević promised
24278-426: The capital of the newly established Serbian Despotate was transferred to Belgrade in 1403, before moving to Smederevo in 1430. The Despotate was then under the double vassalage of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. The fall of Smederevo on 20 June 1459, which marked the full conquest of the Serbian Despotate by the Ottomans, also symbolically signified the end of the Serbian state. In all Serbian lands conquered by
24477-428: The conflicts, but provided logistic, military and financial support to Serb forces in the wars. In response, the UN imposed sanctions against Yugoslavia which led to political isolation and the collapse of the economy (GDP decreased from $ 24 billion in 1990 to under $ 10 billion in 1993). Serbia was in the 2000s sued on the charges of alleged genocide by neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia but in both cases
24676-611: The country has been the Republic of Serbia. Archaeological evidence of Paleolithic settlements on the territory of present-day Serbia is scarce. A fragment of a hominid jaw found in Sićevo (Mala Balanica ) is believed to be up to 525,000–397,000 years old. Approximately 6,500 BC, during the Neolithic , the Starčevo and Vinča cultures existed in the region of modern-day Belgrade. They dominated much of Southeast Europe as well as parts of Central Europe and Anatolia . Several important archaeological sites from this era, including Lepenski Vir and Vinča-Belo Brdo , still exist near
24875-403: The country was internationally recognised at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, which ended the Russo-Turkish War ; this treaty, however, prohibited Serbia from uniting with other Serbian regions by placing Bosnia and Herzegovina under Austro-Hungarian occupation, alongside the occupation of the region of Raška . From 1815 to 1903, the principality was ruled by the House of Obrenović , save for
25074-426: The creation of an independent Croatia. On 30 May 1990, the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) of Jovan Rašković broke all ties to the Croatian parliament. The following June in Knin, the SDS-led Serbs proclaimed the creation of the Association of Municipalities of Northern Dalmatia and Lika. In August 1990, the Serbs began what became known as the Log Revolution , where barricades of logs were placed across roads throughout
25273-517: The creation of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) was authorised by the UN Security Council for an initial period of a year, to provide security to the UNPAs. The agreement effectively froze the front lines for the next three years. Croatia and the RSK had effectively fought each other to a standstill. The Republic of Serbian Krajina was not recognized de jure by any other country or international organization. Nevertheless, it gained support from Serbia's allies, like Russia . UNPROFOR
25472-400: The early Middle Ages and were at times recognised as tributaries to the Byzantine , Frankish and Hungarian kingdoms. The Serbian Kingdom obtained recognition by the Holy See and Constantinople in 1217, reaching its territorial apex in 1346 as the Serbian Empire . By the mid-16th century, the Ottomans annexed the entirety of modern-day Serbia; their rule was at times interrupted by
25671-401: The end of World War II in 1945, the communist-dominated Partisans prevailed and the Krajina region became part of the People's Republic of Croatia until 7 April 1963, when the federal republic changed its name to the Socialist Republic of Croatia . Josip Broz Tito suppressed the autonomous political organizations of the region (along with other movements such as the Croatian Spring ); however,
25870-442: The fighting occurred between August and December 1991 when approximately 80,000 Croats were expelled (and some were killed). Many more died and or were displaced in fighting in eastern Slavonia (this territory along the Croatian/Serbian border was not part of the Krajina, and it was the JNA that was the principal actor in that part of the conflict). The total number of exiled Croats and other non-Serbs range from 170,000 ( ICTY ) up to
26069-460: The first time since 1918. In 2008, representatives of the Assembly of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence , with mixed responses from the international community while Serbia continues to claim it as part of its own sovereign territory . Serbia is an upper-middle income economy and provides universal health care and free primary and secondary education to its citizens. It is a unitary parliamentary constitutional republic , member of
26268-462: The following decades, and accepted by Croatian Zagreb grammarians in 1854 and 1859. At that time, Serb and Croat lands were still part of the Ottoman and Austrian Empires . Officially, the language was called variously Serbo-Croat, Croato-Serbian, Serbian and Croatian, Croatian and Serbian, Serbian or Croatian, Croatian or Serbian. Unofficially, Serbs and Croats typically called the language "Serbian" or "Croatian", respectively, without implying
26467-463: The genitive singular is used, and after all other numbers five ( pet ) and up, the genitive plural is used. (The number one [ jedan ] is treated as an adjective.) Adjectives are placed in front of the noun they modify and must agree in both case and number with it. There are seven tenses for verbs: past , present , future , exact future, aorist , imperfect , and pluperfect ; and three moods : indicative , imperative , and conditional . However,
26666-594: The government. In 1998, continued clashes between the Albanian guerilla Kosovo Liberation Army and Yugoslav security forces led to the short Kosovo War (1998–99), in which NATO intervened, leading to the withdrawal of Serbian forces and the establishment of UN administration in the province. After the Yugoslav Wars, Serbia became home to highest number of refugees and internally displaced persons in Europe. After presidential elections in September 2000, opposition parties accused Milošević of electoral fraud . A campaign of civil resistance followed, led by
26865-401: The history of the South Slavs, the vernacular , literary, and written languages (e.g. Chakavian, Kajkavian, Shtokavian) of the various regions and ethnicities developed and diverged independently. Prior to the 19th century, they were collectively called "Illyria", "Slavic", "Slavonian", "Bosnian", "Dalmatian", "Serbian" or "Croatian". Since the nineteenth century, the term Illyrian or Illyric
27064-411: The imminent threat of a Croatian genocide perpetrated on the Serbs in Croatia, thus creating an atmosphere of hatred and fear of Croats." The rebel Croatian Serbs established a number of paramilitary militia units under the leadership of Milan Martić , the police chief in Knin. In August 1990, a referendum was held in Krajina on the question of Serb "sovereignty and autonomy" in Croatia. The resolution
27263-410: The influence of the vernacular, which considerably affected its phonological , morphological , and lexical systems. From the 14th and the 15th centuries, both secular and religious songs at church festivals were composed in the vernacular. Writers of early Serbo-Croatian religious poetry ( začinjavci ) gradually introduced the vernacular into their works. These začinjavci were the forerunners of
27462-449: The judicial system. The country was chosen to host international specialised exposition Expo 2027 . The Serbian government is working with Rio Tinto corporation on a project which aims to develop Europe's biggest lithium mine. Mining lithium became a matter of debate in the society and several protests against mining took place. A landlocked country situated at the crossroads between Central and Southeastern Europe, Serbia
27661-424: The language of all three nations in this territory was declared "Bosnian" until the death of administrator von Kállay in 1907, at which point the name was changed to "Serbo-Croatian". With unification of the first the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes – the approach of Karadžić and the Illyrians became dominant. The official language was called "Serbo-Croato-Slovenian" ( srpsko-hrvatsko-slovenački ) in
27860-419: The latter three tenses are typically used only in Shtokavian writing, and the time sequence of the exact future is more commonly formed through an alternative construction. In addition, like most Slavic languages, the Shtokavian verb also has one of two aspects : perfective or imperfective . Most verbs come in pairs, with the perfective verb being created out of the imperfective by adding a prefix or making
28059-418: The legal successor to the former state union. The Assembly of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008. Serbia immediately condemned the declaration and continues to deny any statehood to Kosovo. The declaration has sparked varied responses from the international community. Status-neutral talks between Serbia and Kosovo-Albanian authorities are held in Brussels , mediated by
28258-425: The limits of the region in which it is spoken and includes everything between the limits ('Bosnian' and 'Montenegrin'). Today, use of the term "Serbo-Croatian" is controversial due to the prejudice that nation and language must match. It is still used for lack of a succinct alternative, though alternative names have emerged, such as Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS), which is often seen in political contexts such as
28457-401: The linguistic or language-learning literature (e.g. dictionaries, orthography and grammar books). However, there are very few minimal pairs where an error in accent can lead to misunderstanding. Serbo-Croatian orthography is almost entirely phonetic. Thus, most words should be spelled as they are pronounced. In practice, the writing system does not take into account allophones which occur as
28656-423: The loss of statehood to the Ottoman Empire, Serbian resistance continued in northern regions (modern Vojvodina), under titular despots (until 1537), and popular leaders like Jovan Nenad (1526–1527). From 1521 to 1552, Ottomans conquered Belgrade and regions of Syrmia, Bačka, and Banat. Wars and rebellions constantly challenged Ottoman rule. One of the most significant was the Banat Uprising in 1594 and 1595, which
28855-523: The lowest point of just 17 metres (56 feet) near the Danube river at Prahovo . The largest lake is Đerdap Lake (163 square kilometres (63 sq mi)) and the longest river passing through Serbia is the Danube (587.35 kilometres (364.96 mi)). The climate of Serbia is under the influences of the landmass of Eurasia and the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea . With mean January temperatures around 0 °C (32 °F), and mean July temperatures of 22 °C (72 °F), it can be classified as
29054-431: The main charges against Serbia were dismissed. Multi-party democracy was introduced in Serbia in 1990, officially dismantling the one-party system. Despite constitutional changes, Milošević maintained strong political influence over the state media and security apparatus. When the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia refused to accept its defeat in municipal elections in 1996 , Serbians engaged in large protests against
29253-408: The middle of the 9th century. In the mid-10th-century, the Serbian state experienced a fall. During the 11th and 12th century, Serbian state frequently fought with the neighbouring Byzantine Empire. Between 1166 and 1371, Serbia was ruled by the Nemanjić dynasty , under whom the state was elevated to a kingdom in 1217, and an empire in 1346, under Stefan Dušan . The Serbian Orthodox Church
29452-412: The more established literary languages of Latin and Old Slavonic. Old Slavonic developed into the Serbo-Croatian variant of Church Slavonic between the 12th and 16th centuries. Among the earliest attestations of Serbo-Croatian are: the Humac tablet , dating from the 10th or 11th century, written in Bosnian Cyrillic and Glagolitic; the Plomin tablet , dating from the same era, written in Glagolitic;
29651-416: The murder of almost 1,300 Croats in Vukovar, Osijek, Vinkovci, Županja and elsewhere. On 4 June 2004, the ICTY indicted him on 14 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity . In 2011 he was arrested and extradited to the Hague, where his initial trial hearing was held on 25 July the same year. In 2014 he was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer ; he died two years later at the age of 57. The ICTY trial
29850-496: The new constitution contradicted the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution , because, in their view, Croatia was still legally governed by the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia , although this ignores the fact that Serbia's constitution, promulgated three months before Croatia's, also contained several provisions violating the 1974 Federal Constitution. Serbs in Croatia had established a Serbian National Council in July 1990 to coordinate opposition to Croatian independence. Their position
30049-413: The official language of four out of six republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . The breakup of Yugoslavia affected language attitudes, so that social conceptions of the language separated along ethnic and political lines. Since the breakup of Yugoslavia, Bosnian has likewise been established as an official standard in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and there is an ongoing movement to codify
30248-402: The original seven cases of Proto-Slavic , and indeed older forms of Serbo-Croatian itself. However, in modern Shtokavian the locative has almost merged into dative (the only difference is based on accent in some cases), and the other cases can be shown declining; namely: Like most Slavic languages, there are mostly three genders for nouns: masculine, feminine, and neuter, a distinction which
30447-400: The population), and Kosovo four (Albanian, Turkish, Romany and Serbo-Croatian). Newspapers, radio and television studios used sixteen languages, fourteen were used as languages of tuition in schools, and nine at universities. Only the Yugoslav People's Army used Serbo-Croatian as the sole language of command, with all other languages represented in the army's other activities—however, this
30646-528: The presidential election on 23 January 1994. Martić received 54,000 fewer votes than Babić in the first round, but went on to win the second round with 104,234 votes. Following the rejection by both sides of the Z-4 plan for reintegration, the RSK's end came in 1995, when Croatian forces gained control of SAO Western Slavonia in Operation Flash (May) followed by the biggest part of occupied Croatia in Operation Storm (August). The Krajina Serb Supreme Defence Council met under president Milan Martić to discuss
30845-441: The previous existence of the Croatian inhabitants of the Krajina. Milan Babić later testified that this policy was driven from Belgrade through the Serbian secret police—and ultimately Milošević—who he claimed was in control of all the administrative institutions and armed forces in the Krajina. This would certainly explain why the Yugoslav National Army took the side of the rebelled Croatian Serbs in spite of its claims to be acting as
31044-435: The rebel Serbs. The European Union and United Nations unsuccessfully attempted to broker ceasefires and peace settlements. Around August 1991, the leaders of Serbian Krajina and Serbia allegedly agreed to embark on a campaign which the ICTY prosecutors described as a " joint criminal enterprise " whose purpose "was the forcible removal of the majority of the Croat and other non-Serb population from approximately one-third of
31243-427: The region was transformed into the Voivodeship of Serbia and Banat of Temeschwar . In the First Balkan War in 1912, the Balkan League defeated the Ottoman Empire and captured its European territories , which enabled territorial expansion of the Kingdom of Serbia into regions of Raška, Kosovo , Metohija , and Vardarian Macedonia . The Second Balkan War soon ensued when Bulgaria turned on its former allies, but
31442-408: The relative lack of tenses, because verbal aspect determines whether the act is completed or in progress in the referred time. The Serbo-Croatian vowel system is simple, with only five vowels in Shtokavian. All vowels are monophthongs . The oral vowels are as follows: The vowels can be short or long, but the phonetic quality does not change depending on the length. In a word, vowels can be long in
31641-434: The return of refugees to their homes in the UNPAs. The JNA officially withdrew from Croatia in May 1992 but much of its weaponry and many of its personnel remained in the Serb-held areas and were turned over to the RSK's security forces. Refugees were not allowed to return to their homes and many of the remaining Croats and other nationalities left in the RSK were expelled or killed in the following months. On 21 February 1992,
31840-457: The rich literary production of the 16th-century literature, which, depending on the area, was Chakavian-, Kajkavian-, or Shtokavian-based. The language of religious poems, translations, miracle and morality plays contributed to the popular character of medieval Serbo-Croatian literature. One of the earliest dictionaries, also in the Slavic languages as a whole, was the Bosnian–Turkish Dictionary of 1631 authored by Muhamed Hevaji Uskufi and
32039-417: The rule of Prince Aleksandar Karađorđević between 1842 and 1858. In 1882, Principality of Serbia became the Kingdom of Serbia, ruled by King Milan I . The House of Karađorđević , descendants of the revolutionary leader Karađorđe Petrović, assumed power in 1903 following the May Overthrow . The 1848 revolution in Austria led to the establishment of the autonomous territory of Serbian Vojvodina ; by 1849,
32238-411: The rump Yugoslavia, which had the effect of importing that country's hyperinflation . The economic situation soon became disastrous. By 1994, only 36,000 of the RSK's 430,000 citizens were employed. The war had severed the RSK's trade links with the rest of Croatia, leaving its few industries idle. With few natural resources of its own, it had to import most of the goods and fuel it required. Agriculture
32437-399: The situation. A decision was reached at 16:45 to "start evacuating the population unfit for military service from the municipalities of Knin , Benkovac , Obrovac , Drniš and Gračac ." The RSK was disbanded and most of its Serb population (from 150,000 to 200,000 people) fled. Only 5,000 to 6,000 people remained, mostly the elderly. Croatian historian Ivo Goldstein wrote, "The reasons for
32636-487: The southern third of Serbia. Dinaric Alps stretch in the west and the southwest, following the flow of the rivers Drina and Ibar . The Carpathian Mountains and Balkan Mountains stretch in a north–south direction in eastern Serbia. Ancient mountains in the southeast corner of the country belong to the Rilo-Rhodope Mountain system. Elevation ranges from the Midžor peak of the Balkan Mountains at 2,169 metres (7,116 feet) (the highest peak in Serbia, excluding Kosovo) to
32835-403: The stressed syllable and the syllables following it, never in the ones preceding it. The consonant system is more complicated, and its characteristic features are series of affricate and palatal consonants. As in English, voice is phonemic , but aspiration is not. In consonant clusters all consonants are either voiced or voiceless. All the consonants are voiced if the last consonant
33034-447: The syllable nucleus in certain words (occasionally, it can even have a long accent). For example, the tongue-twister navrh brda vrba mrda involves four words with syllabic /r/ . A similar feature exists in Czech , Slovak , and Macedonian . Very rarely other sonorants can be syllabic, like /l/ (in bicikl ), /ʎ/ (surname Štarklj ), /n/ (unit njutn ), as well as /m/ and /ɲ/ in slang . Apart from Slovene , Serbo-Croatian
33233-527: The territory in the 2nd century BC. In 167 BC, the Roman province of Illyricum was established; the remainder was conquered around 75 BC, forming the Roman province of Moesia Superior ; the modern-day Srem region was conquered in 9 BC; and Bačka and Banat in 106 AD after the Dacian Wars . As a result of this, contemporary Serbia extends fully or partially over several former Roman provinces, including Moesia , Pannonia , Praevalitana , Dalmatia , Dacia , and Macedonia . Seventeen Roman Emperors were born in
33432-423: The territory of the Republic of Croatia, an area he planned to become part of a new Serb-dominated state." According to testimony given by Milan Babić in his subsequent war crimes trial, during the summer of 1991, the Serbian secret police (under Milošević's command) set up "a parallel structure of state security and the police of Krajina and units commanded by the state security of Serbia". Paramilitary groups such as
33631-417: The two World Wars , the Serbs of the Croatian and Slavonian Krajina , as well as those of the Bosnian Krajina and of other regions west of Serbia , organized a notable political party, the Independent Democratic Party under Svetozar Pribićević . In the new state there existed much tension between the Croats and Serbs over differing political visions, with the campaign for Croatian autonomy culminating in
33830-423: The two countries became tense. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip , a member of the Young Bosnia organisation, led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia, on 28 July 1914, setting off World War I. Serbia won the first major battles of the war, including the Battle of Cer , and the Battle of Kolubara . Despite initial success, it
34029-416: The west, and Montenegro to the southwest. Serbia claims a border with Albania through the disputed territory of Kosovo . Serbia has about 6.6 million inhabitants, excluding Kosovo. Its capital Belgrade is also the largest city . Continuously inhabited since the Paleolithic Age, the territory of modern-day Serbia faced Slavic migrations in the 6th century. Several regional states were founded in
34228-406: The winds account for climate variations. Southern Serbia is subject to Mediterranean influences. The Dinaric Alps and other mountain ranges contribute to the cooling of most of the warm air masses. Winters are quite harsh in the Pešter plateau, because of the mountains which encircle it. One of the climatic features of Serbia is Košava , a cold and very squally southeastern wind which starts in
34427-449: Was Aleksandar Ranković , one of the "big four" Yugoslav leaders. Ranković was later removed from the office because of the disagreements regarding Kosovo's nomenklatura and the unity of Serbia. Ranković's dismissal was highly unpopular among Serbs. Pro-decentralisation reformers in Yugoslavia succeeded in the late 1960s in attaining substantial decentralisation of powers, creating substantial autonomy in Kosovo and Vojvodina, and recognising
34626-427: Was re-elected . In December 2023, President Vučić won a snap parliamentary election . The election resulted in protests, with opposition supporters claiming that the election result was fraudulent. On 16 January 2022, a Serbian constitutional referendum took place in which citizens chose to amend the Constitution concerning the judiciary. The changes were presented as a step toward reducing political influence in
34825-416: Was a kind of soft standardisation. However, legal equality could not dampen the prestige Serbo-Croatian had: since it was the language of three quarters of the population, it functioned as an unofficial lingua franca. And within Serbo-Croatian, the Serbian variant, with twice as many speakers as the Croatian, enjoyed greater prestige, reinforced by the fact that Slovene and Macedonian speakers preferred it to
35024-425: Was a major Balkan Entente Power which contributed significantly to the Allied victory in the Balkans in November 1918, especially by helping France force Bulgaria's capitulation . Serbia's casualties accounted for 8% of the total Entente military deaths; 58% (243,600) soldiers of the Serbian army perished in the war. The total number of casualties is placed around 700,000, more than 16% of Serbia's prewar size, and
35223-410: Was a short-lived liberated territory established by the Partisans and the first liberated territory in World War II Europe, organised as a military mini-state that existed in the autumn of 1941 in the west of occupied Serbia . By late 1944, the Belgrade Offensive swung in favour of the partisans in the civil war; the partisans subsequently gained control of Yugoslavia. Following the Belgrade Offensive,
35422-411: Was active during the Croatian War of Independence (1991–95). It was not recognized internationally. The name Krajina ("Frontier") was adopted from the historical Military Frontier of the Habsburg monarchy ( Austria-Hungary ), which had a substantial Serb population and existed up to the late 19th century. The RSK government waged a war for ethnic Serb independence from Croatia and unification with
35621-433: Was assassinated in Marseille , during an official visit in 1934 by Vlado Chernozemski , member of the IMRO . Alexander was succeeded by his eleven-year-old son Peter II . In August 1939 the Cvetković–Maček Agreement established an autonomous Banate of Croatia as a solution to Croatian concerns. In 1941, in spite of Yugoslav attempts to remain neutral, the Axis powers invaded Yugoslavia. The territory of modern Serbia
35820-401: Was assaulted and beaten in an incident in Benkovac . In January 1993 the revitalized Croatian army attacked the Serbian positions around Maslenica in southern Croatia which curtailed their access to the sea via Novigrad . In mid-1993, the RSK authorities started a campaign to formally create a United Serbian Republic. In a second offensive in mid-September 1993, the Croatian army overran
36019-488: Was confined exclusively to Serbs so it passed by an improbable majority of 99.7%. As expected, it was declared illegal and invalid by the Croatian government, who stated that Serbs had no constitutional right to break away from Croatian legal territory - as well as no right to limit the franchise to one ethnic group. Babić's administration announced the creation of a Serbian Autonomous Oblast of Krajina (or SAO Krajina ) on 21 December 1990. On 16 March 1991, another referendum
36218-408: Was defeated, resulting in the Treaty of Bucharest . In two years, Serbia enlarged its territory by 80% and its population by 50%, it also suffered high casualties on the eve of World War I, with more than 36,000 dead. Austria-Hungary became wary of the rising regional power on its borders and its potential to become an anchor for unification of Serbs and other South Slavs, and the relationship between
36417-437: Was deployed throughout the region to maintain the ceasefire, although in practice its light armament and restricted rules of engagement meant that it was little more than an observer force. It proved wholly unable to ensure that refugees returned to the RSK. Indeed, the rebel Croatian Serb authorities continued to make efforts to ensure that they could never return, destroying villages and cultural and religious monuments to erase
36616-433: Was deposed and replaced as President of the RSK by Goran Hadžić , a Milošević loyalist. Babić remained involved in RSK politics but as a considerably weaker figure. The position of the RSK eroded steadily over the following three years. On the surface, the RSK had all the trappings of a state: army, parliament, president, government and ministries, currency and stamps. However, its economy was wholly dependent on support from
36815-427: Was devastated, and operated at little more than a subsistence level. Professionals went to Serbia or elsewhere to escape the republic's economic hardships. To make matters worse, the RSK's government was grossly corrupt and the region became a haven for black marketeering and other criminal activity. It was clear by the mid-1990s that without a peace deal or support from Yugoslavia the RSK was not economically viable. This
37014-403: Was displayed. The Croatian pro-independence party victory in 1990 made matters more tense, especially since the country's Serb minority was supported by Milošević. At the time, Serbs comprised about 12.2% (581,663 people) of Croatia's population (1991 census). Serbs became increasingly opposed to the policies of Franjo Tuđman, elected president of Croatia in April 1990, due to his overt desire for
37213-399: Was divided between Hungary, Bulgaria, the Independent State of Croatia, Greater Albania and Montenegro, while the remainder was placed under the military administration of Nazi Germany , with Serbian puppet governments led by Milan Aćimović and Milan Nedić assisted by Dimitrije Ljotić 's fascist organization Yugoslav National Movement (Zbor). The Yugoslav territory was the scene of
37412-462: Was especially evident in Belgrade, where the RSK had become an unwanted economic and political burden for Milošević. Much to his frustration, the rebel Croatian Serbs rebuffed his government's demands to settle the conflict. In July 1992 the RSK issued its own currency, the Krajina dinar (HRKR), in parallel with the Yugoslav dinar . This was followed by the "October dinar" (HRKO), first issued on 1 October 1993 and equal to 1,000,000 Reformed Dinar, and
37611-496: Was eventually overpowered by the Central Powers in 1915 and Austro-Hungarian occupation of Serbia followed. Most of its army and some people retreated to Greece and Corfu , suffering immense losses on the way. After the Central Powers' military situation on other fronts worsened, the remains of the Serb army returned east and led a final breakthrough through enemy lines on 15 September 1918, liberating Serbia and defeating Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary. Serbia, with its campaign ,
37810-587: Was held which asked: "Are you in favor of the SAO Krajina joining the Republic of Serbia and staying in Yugoslavia with Serbia, Montenegro and others who wish to preserve Yugoslavia?". With 99.8% voting in favor, the referendum was approved and the Krajina assembly declared that "the territory of the SAO Krajina is a constitutive part of the unified state territory of the Republic of Serbia". On 1 April 1991, it declared that it would secede from Croatia. Other Serb-dominated communities in eastern Croatia announced that they would also join SAO Krajina and ceased paying taxes to
38009-413: Was organized as an autocephalous archbishopric in 1219, through the effort of Sava , the country's patron saint, and in 1346 it was raised to the Patriarchate . Monuments of the Nemanjić period survive in many monasteries (several being World Heritage sites ) and fortifications . During these centuries the Serbian state (and influence) expanded significantly. The northern part (modern Vojvodina ),
38208-435: Was part of the Long War (1593–1606) between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans. The area of modern Vojvodina endured a century-long Ottoman occupation before being ceded to the Habsburg monarchy , partially by the Treaty of Karlovci (1699), and fully by the Treaty of Požarevac (1718). During the Habsburg-Ottoman war (1683–1699) , much of Serbia switched from Ottoman rule to Habsburg control from 1688 to 1690. However,
38407-459: Was reversed in favor of a single Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian language. In the Communist -dominated second Yugoslavia , ethnic issues eased to an extent, but the matter of language remained blurred and unresolved. In 1954, major Serbian and Croatian writers, linguists and literary critics, backed by Matica srpska and Matica hrvatska signed the Novi Sad Agreement , which in its first conclusion stated: "Serbs, Croats and Montenegrins share
38606-429: Was revised by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić in the 19th century. Serbia Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Southeast and Central Europe , located in the Balkans and the Pannonian Plain . It borders Hungary to the north, Romania to the northeast, Bulgaria to the southeast, North Macedonia to the south, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to
38805-422: Was ruled by the Kingdom of Hungary . The period after 1371, known as the Fall of the Serbian Empire saw the once-powerful state fragmented into several principalities, culminating in the Battle of Kosovo (1389) against the rising Ottoman Empire . By the end of the 14th century, the Turks had conquered and ruled the territories south of the Šar Mountains . The political center of Serbia shifted northwards, when
39004-403: Was terminated upon his death. Former RSK president Milan Babić was indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 2004 and was the first ever indictee to plead guilty and enter a plea bargain with the prosecution, after which he was sentenced to 13 years in prison. He was charged with five counts of crimes against humanity and violations of
39203-417: Was that if Croatia could secede from Yugoslavia, then the Serbs could secede from Croatia. Milan Babić , a dentist by profession from the southern town of Knin , was elected president. At his ICTY trial in 2004, he claimed that "during the events [of 1990–1992], and in particular at the beginning of his political career, he was strongly influenced and misled by Serbian propaganda, which repeatedly referred to
39402-427: Was used quite often (thus creating confusion with the Illyrian language ). Although the word Illyrian was used on a few occasions before , its widespread usage began after Ljudevit Gaj and several other prominent linguists met at Ljudevit Vukotinović 's house to discuss the issue in 1832. The term Serbo-Croatian was first used by Jacob Grimm in 1824, popularized by the Viennese philologist Jernej Kopitar in
39601-402: Was written in the Arebica script. In the mid-19th century, Serbian (led by self-taught writer and folklorist Vuk Stefanović Karadžić ) and most Croatian writers and linguists (represented by the Illyrian movement and led by Ljudevit Gaj and Đuro Daničić ), proposed the use of the most widespread dialect, Shtokavian , as the base for their common standard language. Karadžić standardised
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