Antiquity
Together with east-central
Europe, the Balkans formed the heartland of an Old European civilization that
flourished between 7000 and 3500 BC. There is evidence of dense settlement,
particularly in the Pannonian Basin, along the Sava and Danube
rivers, and spreading northward into modern Hungary along the Tisa and southward
down the Morava-Vardar corridor. Food production had developed to the point that
it was possible to support a measure of craft specialization, including pottery
making and the smelting of copper, and small towns were formed. Several
important sites in Serbia provide insights into Old European culture,
particularly those at Starcevo and Vinca, near Belgrade, and at Lepenski Vir, on
the Danube above the Iron Gate.
After 3500 BC the region
was gradually infiltrated by seminomadic pastoral peoples, believed to be
speakers of languages of the Indo-European family, who came southward and
westward from the Russian steppes. Their extensive trade routes carried amber,
gold, and the bronze that was the basis of their superior military technology.
These peoples were divided into tribal groups, one of which, the Illyrians,
became firmly established throughout the western part of the peninsula. By the
7th century BC they had acquired the capacity to work with iron, and this skill
became the basis both of their extensive trade with the emerging Greek city-states
and of the power of the native aristocracies. East of the Morava-Vardar the land
was periodically subordinated to the warrior kingdoms of the Dacians and
Thracians.
Beginning about 300 BC,
bands of Celts began to penetrate southward. Their superiority rested in part on
their mastery of iron technology, which they used to beat both swords and
plowshares. The extent of Celtic expansion is indicated not only by their
material remains but also by place-names. The name Singidunum, by which the
Romans knew the settlement on the site of Belgrade, is at least partly of Celtic
origin.
The Roman
Empire
At the end of the 3rd
century BC the Romans began their expansion into the Balkan Peninsula in search
of iron, copper, precious metals, slaves, and agricultural produce. The Roman
struggle for domination, against the fierce resistance of the native peoples,
lasted three centuries. The Illyrians were finally subdued in AD 9, and their
land became the province of Illyricum. The area that is now eastern Serbia was
conquered by Crassus, proconsul of Macedonia, in 29 BC and incorporated into the
Roman province of Moesia. Roads, arenas, aqueducts, bridges, and fortifications
attest to the thoroughness of Roman occupation. The names of several modern
towns reveal Roman origins, including Sremska Mitrovica (Sirmium) and Nis (Naissus).
In 395 a fundamental and permanent division was imposed on the empire along a
line that ran roughly northward from the modern Montenegrin-Albanian border on
the Adriatic to Sirmium, whence it followed the line of the Sava and Danube
rivers. This line created a cultural
boundary that has had profound consequences for the development of the entire
Balkan Peninsula.
The
Coming of the Slavs to Balkans
Roman domination in the
region was of relatively short duration. Military clashes with the Goths began
early in the 2nd century, and the Goths were followed by Huns, Bulgars, and
Avars over the next 200 years. The collapse of the Western Empire in the face of
the advancing Germanic Ostrogoths at the end of the 5th century left the Balkans
nominally under the rule of Constantinople, but the disruption of imperial
administration in reality had gone so far that effective control was no longer
possible.
Along with other
seminomadic peoples during this time, there began to move into the area tribes
of Slavs, a group of Indo-European-speaking peoples who had long been settled in
central Poland but who moved southward to occupy the sparsely populated areas
left by the raids of the more warlike peoples. The relative strength of the
forces in the area is suggested by the Slavs' effective vassalage to the Avars,
a Turkic people of warrior-nomads who led their Slavic subjects in raids against
cities of the Byzantine Empire.
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It was not until the
defeat of a combined Avar-Persian invasion in 626 that Byzantium was able to
reassert its strength. The emperor Heraclius formed an alliance with two of the
stronger Slavic tribes, the Serbs and the Croats, who at that time were settled
north of the Carpathian Mountains. With the aid of the Byzantine navy the Serbs
and Croats occupied the hinterland of the Dalmatian coast before pushing the
Avars and Bulgars eastward.
The division of the Roman
Empire between Roman and Byzantine rule--and subsequently between the Latin and
Orthodox churches (see the article on Great Schism) --was marked by a
line that ran northward from Skadar through modern Montenegro, symbolizing the
status of this region as a perpetual marginal zone between the economic,
cultural, and political worlds of the Mediterranean peoples and the
Slavs. During
the decline of Roman power, this part of the Dalmatian coast suffered from
intermittent ravages by various seminomadic invaders, especially the Goths in
the late 5th century and the Avars during the 6th century. These were soon
supplanted by the Slavs, who became widely established in Dalmatia by the middle
of the 7th century. Because of the extreme ruggedness of the terrain and the lack
of any major sources of wealth such as mineral riches, the area that is now
Montenegro became a haven for residual groups of earlier settlers, including
some tribes who had escaped Romanization.
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Approaching Novo Brdo - the largest Serb medieval town in Kosovo |
Medieval
Serbian State
The basis of social
organization among the Serbs--indeed, among all the South Slavs--was the
zadruga, a large extended family governed by a fairly democratic consensus
of its adult members under the leadership of a patriarch. The zadruge
were typically united on a village basis around a single lineage under a headman.
Larger political units covering a district might be gathered under a zupan,
or chieftain, who would sometimes have his seat at a particular fortified strong
point, called a grad.
Because the zadruga system was based on ties of kinship and locality, it
militated against the sustained collaboration of larger groups, although several
zupani might on occasion be gathered under the uneasy leadership of a
veliki zupan, or "grand zupan," who might manage to establish control over a
substantial part of the territory and even declare himself king or emperor.
The first Serb state
emerged about 850 when a zupan called Vlastimir led a union of southern
Serbs in resistance to Bulgarian expansion. His acknowledgment of the suzerainty
of the Byzantine emperor was significant in that the Serbian court then became
an important channel for the spread of the Eastern tradition of Christianity.
The emperor Michael III commissioned two brothers from Thessalonica, Cyril (Constantine)
and Methodius, to undertake the task of evangelizing the Slavs. Michael
encouraged them to preach in the vernacular, and, to facilitate this task, Cyril
invented a script that was based upon Greek but adapted to suit the phonetic
peculiarities of the Slavonic tongue. He used as his standard the dialect spoken
by the Slav tribes of Macedonia, which thus was preserved as Old Church Slavonic.
The dissemination of
Christianity to the Slavs was not actually begun by the "apostles to the Slavs,"
but it received an enormous stimulus from the translation of the scriptures and
liturgy, and the wider significance of their work was considerable. Not only was
the influence of the Eastern church permanently assured over the greater part of
the Balkans, but the Cyrillic alphabet also became one of the most visible
cultural badges separating the Serbs (together with other Orthodox Slavs) from
the Croats and Slovenes.
The
Nemanjic Dynasty
Following the death of
Vlastimir, his successors lost ground, initially to the first Bulgarian empire,
then to the Macedonian empire of Samuel, and finally to Byzantium. Some time
toward the end of the 11th century, there arose a new Serb state known as Raska,
based on the settlement of Ras in the region of modern Novi Pazar. In 1169
Stefan Nemanja became veliki zupan of Raska, and, seizing the opportunity
offered by a disputed succession in Constantinople, he began to extend his
territory. By the time of his retirement to a monastery in 1196, he had
consolidated control over the rival Serb realm of Zeta, centered in what is now
Montenegro. His son, Stefan Prvovencani (the "First-Crowned"), became the first
Serbian king in 1217. As the Byzantine and second Bulgarian empires
disintegrated, the Serbian Nemanjic rulers expanded their holdings southward.
Uros II (reigned 1282-1321) occupied Skopje and made it his capital.
The youngest son of Stefan
Nemanja became a monk at Mount Athos, under the name Sava. In 1219 Sava was
consecrated archbishop of Zica, near modern Kraljevo, at the confluence of the
Ibar and Zapadna Morava rivers, where an autocephalous Serbian church was
separated from the Bulgarian-influenced archbishopric of Ohrid. He was later
canonized as St. Sava. To escape the constant harassment of raiding parties of
Tatars, however, the seat of Nemanjic ecclesiastical order was moved south to
Pec, in the Metohija Basin. In 1375 it was elevated to a patriarchate.
Under Stefan Dusan (reigned
1331-55), the ninth ruler in the dynasty, the Nemanjic empire attained its
greatest extent, incorporating Thessaly, Epirus, Macedonia, all of modern
Albania and Montenegro, a substantial part of eastern Bosnia, and modern Serbia
as far north as the Danube.
Ironically, it is
conceivable that the greatest achievement of the Nemanjic dynasty was not its
territorial expansion but its success in developing for the first time a unified
"high culture" for all Serbs, based largely on religious cohesion. The court was
committed to the Orthodox church, acting to suppress Bogomilism and ending
attempts at the Latinization of the western areas. Many churches and monasteries
were built that have remained among the architectural glories of the Orthodox
church; Milesevo (c. 1235), Pec (1250), Moraca (1252), Sopocani (c. 1260),
Decani (1327), and Gracanica (1321) are the most renowned. The frescoes of the
Raska school are known for their capacity to blend a reverential sense of the
awe in which secular authority is held with a deep sense of religious devotion.
Literary work extended beyond the copying of a considerable number of
manuscripts to include pieces of independent creative merit, such as the
manuscript biography of Stefan Nemanja prepared by St. Sava and his brother
Stefan. Courtly culture became a religious culture, and both church and state
benefited from their close partnership. The ecclesiastical authorities acquired
prestige and influence, while the court was given powerful symbolic support and
was "civilized" in every sense.
During the 13th and 14th
centuries the level of economic development rose, although during times of armed
strife considerable damage was suffered by the population. Crops such as hemp,
flax, grapes, and oil-yielding plants became more widespread. The plains of
Kosovo and Metohija in particular became areas of dense population and fairly
intensive cultivation, probably supporting more people than today.
Mining grew considerably
in importance. Copper, tin, silver, and gold had all been exploited in Roman
times, but production intensified as the demand for coins and luxury goods
expanded in the new imperial courts and the centers of ecclesiastical authority.
Trade also expanded, particularly in the hands of Ragusan and Italian merchants,
who led caravans along the old Roman routes. Administration improved; the high-sounding
titles adopted by officials ("despot," "caesar," or "sebastocrat") were more
than mere mimicry of Byzantium. An important step in the direction of separating
administration from the personal whim of the ruler was taken by Dusan, who in
1349 promulgated his Zakonik, or code of laws.
Medieval
Zeta
In this part of the
Adriatic littoral, from the time of the arrival of the Slavs up to the 10th
century, these local magnates were often brought into unstable and shifting
alliances with other larger states, particularly Bulgaria, Venice, and Byzantium.
Between 931 and 960 one such zupan, Ceslav, operating from the zupanija of Zeta
in the hinterland of the Gulf of Kotor (modern Montenegro), succeeded in
unifying a number of neighbouring Serb tribes and extended his control as far
north as the Sava River and eastward to the Ibar. Zeta and its neighbouring
zupanija of Raska (roughly modern Kosovo) then provided the territorial nucleus
for a succession of Serb kingdoms that, in the 13th century, were consolidated
under the Nemanjic dynasty.
Although the Serbs have
come to be identified closely with the Eastern Orthodox tradition of
Christianity, it is an important indication of the continuing marginality of
Zeta that Michael, the first of its rulers to claim the title king, had this
honour bestowed upon him by Pope Gregory VII in 1077. It was only under the
later Nemanjic rulers that the ecclesiastical allegiance of the Serbs to
Constantinople was finally confirmed. On the death of Stefan Dusan in 1355, the
Nemanjic empire began to crumble, and its holdings were divided among the knez (prince)
Lazar Hrebeljanovic, the short-lived Bosnian state of Tvrtko I (reigned
1353-91), and a semi-independent chiefdom of Zeta under the house of Balsa, with
its capital at Skadar. Serb disunity coincided fatefully with the arrival in the
Balkans of the Ottoman armies, and in 1389 Lazar fell to the forces of Sultan
Murat I at the Battle of Kosovo.
After the Balsic dynasty
died out in 1421, the focus of Serb resistance shifted northward to Zabljak (south
of Podgorica). Here, a chieftain named Stefan Crnojevic set up his capital.
Stefan was succeeded by Ivan the Black, who, in the unlikely setting of this
barren and broken landscape and pressed by advancing Ottoman armies, created in
his court a remarkable if fragile centre of civilization. Ivan's son Djuradj
built a monastery at Cetinje, founding there the see of a bishopric, and
imported from Venice a printing press that produced after 1493 some of the
earliest books in the Cyrillic script. During the reign of Djuradj, Zeta came to
be more widely known as Montenegro (this Venetian form of the Italian Monte Nero
is a translation of the Serbo-Croatian Crna Gora, "Black Mountain").
UP
Turkish
Occupation
The Ottoman Empire gained
a foothold on the European mainland in 1354, and by the time of Dusan's death in
1355 the Turkish march northward had already begun. Dusan's successors were
unable to sustain his achievements, and almost immediately the state began to
disintegrate under rival clan leaders. The fall of Adrianople (modern Edirne,
Tur.) to Turkish troops shocked the several factions into momentary unity under
Vukasin, the king of the southern Serbian lands, and his brother John Ugljesa,
the despot of Serres (modern Sérrai, Greece), but their forces were defeated in
1371 at the Battle of Cernomen, on the Marica River, where both were killed.
The Ottoman conquest of
the Balkan Peninsula was not a smooth progression. Slav leaders were not
infrequently willing to ally themselves with the Ottomans in the hope of
securing aid against rivals. In this way they were able to retain a nominal
independence for some years in return for a variety of forms of vassalage. (One
of the most celebrated of these leaders was Marko Kraljevic, the son of Vukasin
and a chieftain of Prilep, who is immortalized in many of the heroic Serbian
folk ballads.) In 1387 or 1388 a combined force of Serbs, Bosnians, and
Bulgarians inflicted a heavy defeat on the Ottoman army at Plocnik, but a
turning point came when the Bulgarian tsar Ivan Shishman broke with the alliance
of Slavonic powers and accepted Ottoman suzerainty. No longer threatened from
the east, the armies of Sultan Murat I were able to concentrate their weight
against Serb resistance. Led by the Serb Prince Lazar Hrebeljanovic (he did not
claim Dusan's imperial title), the Serbian army met Murat's forces in battle. On
St. Vitus' Day (Vidovdan), June 28 (June 15, Old Style), 1389, on the Kosovo
Polje, the Serbs suffered a defeat that has become hallowed in several great
heroic ballads. The vision of Lazar on the eve of the battle, the alleged
betrayal by the Bosnian Vuk Brankovic, and the killing of Murat by Milos Obilic
have been given assured immortality in Serbian folk literature.
Forced to accept the
position of vassals to the Turks, Serb despots continued to rule a diminished
state of Raska, at first from Belgrade and then from Smederevo. Serbian
resistance cannot be considered to have ended until the fall of Smederevo in
1459.
The
Ottoman Period
When the Serb people fell
under Ottoman control, they became a part of one of the great empires of world
history. At the centre of the Turkish system was the sultan and his court--often
referred to as "the Sublime Porte" (or simply "the Porte")--based in
Constantinople. The origins of the empire in conquest were reflected in its
administrative structure, which revolved around the extraction of revenues
principally in order to support a military caste. All authority and the right to
enjoy possessions were regarded as deriving from the sultan, who "leased" them
to subordinates at his own will and for his benefit. The most common of these
relationships was the timar. The timarli held the right to support themselves
from taxes raised in their area. Typically, the holder of such a position was a
spahi, or mounted warrior, and from his territory he was expected to support and
arm himself in a state of readiness for the service of the sultan.
All Muslims were regarded
as belonging to a single community of the faithful, the ummah, and any person
could join the ruling group by converting to Islam. Each non-Muslim religious
community was called a millet, and Ottoman administration
recognized five such groups: Orthodox, Gregorian Armenian, Roman Catholic,
Jewish, and Protestant. Each group was under the direction of its religious head.
Thus, the Serbs, being Orthodox, had as their titular head the patriarch of
Constantinople. With the passage of time, however, national consciousness was
recognized by the Ottoman authorities, and Constantinople became a specifically
Greek centre. The Serbs had their own patriarchate at Pec. Ecclesiastical
authorities were expected to assume many civil functions, including the
administration of justice, the collection of taxes, and later also education.
The situation of the
Christian population was not one of unmitigated oppression. Christians were
exempted from military service, and in some regions the tax burden was lighter
than it had previously been, although they were taxed more heavily than the
Muslim population. It was even possible for subject peoples to rise, on
condition of their conversion, to the highest positions in the system. By far
the most typical route of advancement was the system of devsirme, which involved
the conscription of Christian boys between the ages of 10 and 20 approximately
every five years. The boys were taken to Constantinople, forcibly converted to
Islam, and employed in a variety of posts. The most able would be trained for
administrative positions, while the others joined the corps of Janissaries (yeniçeri).
The Janissary corps was an elite, celibate order of infantrymen that, as
firearms became more significant in warfare, came to be the most effective part
of the Ottoman military.
Ottoman society was
principally rural in character, the majority of the population living on small,
mixed farms that produced little marketable surplus or in small pastoral
communities. Trade and manufacture were not particularly encouraged by the
Ottomans, whose principal concerns were with the extraction of revenue through
taxation and the maintenance of order. Commerce was regarded only as a possible
source of excise duty. Levels of literacy remained low for the indigenous
peoples.
A few knew a little Greek--the lingua franca of trade--and knowledge of Old
Church Slavonic was mostly confined to the clergy. Culturally, therefore, the
population remained highly differentiated, living most of their lives within the
confines of local peasant communities, with their own dialects--the vehicle for
folk songs and poetry--dress, and customs.
Decline
of the Ottoman Empire
The territorial expansion
of the Ottoman Empire was brought to a halt during the 17th century, which
reduced the need for a large, completely dedicated, and highly mobile corps of
Janissaries. Having lost their specifically military function, the Janissaries
began to look for opportunities to obtain land or office. The declining flow of
booty shifted the burden of the revenue needs of the empire onto the system of
taxation. This in turn led to both a steady rise in the level of exactions from
the Christian population, through a spread of tax farming, and a growth in the
number of holders of former timarli who tried to turn their holdings into
agricultural estates.
The disintegration of the
old system brought with it growing dissatisfaction on the part of the Christian
population. Armed uprisings by the peasantry were particularly common in the
northern areas, where imperial control was weakest and the Janissaries least
disciplined. The greatest of these took place in 1690, when Serbs rose in
support of an Austrian invasion after the Turks' unsuccessful siege of Vienna.
However, the subsequent retreat of the Austrians left the native population
seriously exposed to Turkish reprisals, and in 1691 Archbishop Arsenije III
Crnojevic of Pec led a migration of 30,000-40,000 families from Old Serbia (Kosovo,
Metohija and Raska region) and southern Bosnia across the Danube. As a
consequence, parts of the Austrian Military Frontier came to contain some of the
major centers of Serbian culture. At the same time, the spread of Albanian
Muslims into lands left vacant by the great migration was to provide a
continuing source of communal tension. It was also the period of intensive
islamization when a considerable number of Christians were forced to convert to
Islam in order to evade heavy taxation and reprilals.
By the middle of the 18th
century, the disintegration of Ottoman rule produced a highly unstable situation
in Serbia. In an attempt to hellenize the church within the empire, the
patriarchate at Pec was abolished and the Serbian church brought under the
control of the Greek patriarch. In northern Serbia, local Janissaries were
virtually beyond the control of the Porte, and their exactions passed from the
collection of taxes to open plunder. When war broke out between Turkey and an
Austro-Russian alliance in 1787, the Austrian emperor called on the discontented
Serbs to rise against their overlords, and this they did with some success. The
treaties of Sistova (1791) and Jassy (1792) that concluded hostilities included
a defense of Serb civil rights. The Janissaries were expelled from the pashalic
of Belgrade, but they soon returned, and a period of endemic political disorder
set in.
In 1804 an uprising broke
out in the Sumadija region, south of Belgrade. It was led by George Petrovic,
called Karageorge (Black George), a successful trader, who had served with the
Austrians in the war against Turkey in 1787-88. In 1805 a Skupstina (Assembly)
was summoned by Karageorge, and it submitted a list of proposals to the sultan.
The proposals included a number of concessions to local autonomy that were
unacceptable to the sultan, and a large force was sent to quell the rebellion.
The Serbs continued to hold out, however, and they were strengthened by the
arrival of Russian reinforcements in 1808. However, threatened by Napoleonic
invasion in 1812, the tsar Alexander I concluded a treaty with the Turks. The
withdrawal of Russia left the Serbs open to Ottoman reprisals, and by the end of
1813 Karageorge and the remainder of his followers were compelled to retreat
across the Danube.
The return of the Turks
was accompanied by a widespread reign of terror. Preoccupied with the business
of the Congress of Vienna, the major powers showed little interest in the fate
of the Christian population, which rose again in self-defense in April 1815, led
by Milos Obrenovic. The Turks were driven from a wide area of northern Serbia,
and they were soon forced to negotiate. The fall of Napoleon meant that Russian
interest was rekindled, and under threat of Russian intervention several
important concessions were made to the rebels, including the retention of their
arms, considerable powers of local administration, and the right to hold their
own assembly. The region remained a Turkish principality, with a resident pasha
and Turkish garrisons in the principal towns, but in effect an independent
Serbian state dates from this time.
UP
Montenegro under the prince-bishops
The year 1516 saw a shift
in the constitution of Montenegro that many historians regard as having ensured
its survival as an independent state. The last of the Crnojevic dynasty retired
to Venice (he had married a Venetian) and conferred the succession upon the
bishops of Cetinje. Formerly, the loyalty of minor chieftains and of the
peasantry to their rulers had been unstable. It was not unusual for political
control throughout the Balkans to pass from Slav rulers to the Turks, not
because of the defeat of the former in battle but because of the failure of
local magnates to secure the support of their subjects. In
Montenegro the position of vladika, as the prince-bishop was known, brought
stability to that country's leadership. The link between church and state
elevated it in the eyes of the peasantry, gave it an institutionalized form of
succession that prevented its becoming a matter of contest between minor
chieftains, and excluded the possibility of compromising alliances with the
Turks.
Nevertheless, this period
was a difficult one for the small, landlocked Montenegrin state, which was
almost constantly at war with the Ottoman Empire. Cetinje itself was captured in
1623, in 1687, and again in 1712. Three factors explain the failure of the Turks
to subdue it completely: the obdurate resistance of the population, the
inhospitable character of the terrain (in which it was said that "a small army
is beaten, a large one dies of starvation"), and the adept use of diplomatic
ties with Venice.
From 1519 until 1696 the
position of vladika was an elective one, but in the latter year Danilo Nikola
Petrovic was elected to the position (as Danilo I) with the significant novelty
of being able to nominate his own successor. Although Orthodox clergy in general
are permitted to marry, bishops are required to be celibate; consequently,
Danilo passed his office to his nephew--founding a tradition that lasted until
1852.
During the reign of Danilo
two important changes occurred in the wider European context of Montenegro: the
expansion of the Ottoman state was gradually reversed, and Montenegro found in
Russia a powerful new patron to replace the declining Venice. The decline of
Turkish power, however, was accompanied by a gradual stabilization of
Montenegro's Orthodox identity. Catholicism retained a toehold in the area, and
only recently have Catholics identified themselves as Croats.
The replacement of Venice
by Russian patronage was especially significant, since it brought financial aid
(after Danilo I visited Peter the Great in 1715), modest territorial gain, and,
in 1799, formal recognition by the Ottoman Porte of Montenegro's independence as
a state under Petar Petrovic Njegos (Peter I). Russian support at the Congress
of Vienna in 1815, following the final defeat of Napoleon, failed to secure for
Montenegro an outlet to the sea, even though Montenegrins had participated in
the seizure of the Gulf of Kotor from French control in 1806.
Modern
Serbia
The French Revolution and
the Napoleonic era signaled the beginning of the transformation of the feudal
order throughout the Balkans. The wars of this period precipitated changes in
international relations, and in their aftermath entirely new social and
political processes began to shape the lives of the South Slav peoples. They
remained overwhelmingly peasant societies, but the old chiefly and aristocratic
dynasties were increasingly challenged by the rising middle classes, who saw "national
interest" in different terms.
One of the principal
consequences of the wars for the Serbs was the extension and deepening of
channels of communication between the Serbs living in Serbia itself and those
living in a Diaspora across the Danube and throughout the Habsburg lands. The
latter had prospered as traders, members of the free professions, and soldiers
and in several cases had been accepted into the ranks of the nobility. There was
therefore a substantial Serbian middle class in these areas that was lacking in
the lands which had long remained under Ottoman tutelage, and this middle class
played a crucial role in the growth of national consciousness.
Dositej Obradovic
(1743-1811), a philosopher and linguist, came from this group. Attempting to
introduce philosophical ideas to his countrymen in their own tongue, Obradovic
wrestled with the problems of standardizing a Serbian literary language. He was
followed in this endeavour by Vuk Karadzic, who had participated in the uprising
of 1804 and fled across the Danube with Karageorge in 1813. Karadzic conceived a
grand project for the creation of a Serb literary language, which included the
revision of its orthography, the collection of songs, poems, folk sayings, and
stories in the living language of the people, the compilation of a grammar and
dictionary, and a demonstration that this language could be used as the vehicle
for great literature. Karadzic's revised orthography abandoned letters in the
Old Church Slavonic alphabet that had no function in the living language and
devised new signs to represent sounds of the Serbian language for which there
were no existing letters. These proposals met with bitter resistance in
ecclesiastical circles, but they were sympathetically received by influential
secular intellectuals such as Obradovic, the Slovene Jernej Kopitar, and the
Croat Ljudevit Gaj. Karadzic's contacts with these other great figures in the
development of the literary languages of the South Slavs helped to create a
sense of cultural cohesion throughout the region that contributed significantly
to the emergence of political unity. In Serbia itself, the process of political
unification that Milos Obrenovic initiated, along with the growth of political
and economic cooperation between Serbs on both sides of the Danube and the Sava,
brought the inevitable triumph of Karadzic's reforms.
Liberation of Serbia
In June 1817 Karageorge
returned from exile. He and Milos had never enjoyed an easy relationship, and,
when Karageorge was murdered in mysterious circumstances, Obrenovic's complicity
was suspected. A feud erupted between the Karageorgevic and the Obrenovic
families that continued throughout the century.
Almost in spite of its rulers, the Serbian state expanded steadily through
its first half century. In 1830 the Ottoman government granted the Serbian
principality full autonomy, Milos was recognized as hereditary prince, and the
Serbian church was given independent status. In 1833 Milos used the pretext of
restoring order across the southern border to annex further territory. He
attempted a program of domestic reform, but his tendency to behave like a pasha
aroused great opposition. He abdicated in 1839, but neither of his sons (Milan
and Michael) managed to control the dissenting chieftainly factions and gangs of
bandits. A coup d'état in 1842 brought the Karageorgevic family to power. The
Skupstina elected Alexander, the third son of Karageorge, as prince. Alexander's
studied neutrality between Austria and Russia made him unpopular, and he was
deposed in 1859. The aged Milos was recalled from retirement, and in 1860 he was
succeeded by his son Michael, who continued the work of consolidating the state
and modernizing its administration. Michael was assassinated in 1868, probably
by supporters of the Karageorgevic dynasty. They did not reap the reward for
their efforts, however, as the Skupstina called his cousin Milan to the throne.
Still a minor, and a highly Westernized young man, Milan took little interest in
his task and was very unpopular. It may be said that he was saved by the Bosnian
insurrection in 1875.
In Bosnia, where the local
Muslim nobility were more repressive of their reaya than were Turks elsewhere,
the whole province burst into revolt after a particularly bad harvest the
previous year. Hoping for an opportunity for liberation of the Christian
population, Serbia had been encouraging dissent, and in July 1876, in order to
defend the church and Orthodox Christians from repression, Serbia and Montenegro
declared war on Turkey; they were joined by Russia in 1877. Following the defeat
of the Turks, the Treaty of San Stefano (March 1878) proposed a radical
redrawing of the frontiers of the Balkan states, including the creation of a
large Bulgarian state extending westward to include Ohrid. For a variety of
reasons this solution was unacceptable to all the Great Powers, and a revision
was undertaken in the Treaty of Berlin (July 1878). The new treaty reduced the
territory of the Bulgarian state and allowed additional territory to Serbia and
Montenegro, but it also placed Bosnia and Herzegovina under Austrian
administration and allowed Austrian garrisons in the sanjak of Novi Pazar, thus
ensuring the separation of Serbia and Montenegro and keeping alive Austrian
hopes for the development of a strategically and economically important railway
to Constantinople.
The Berlin settlement was
vital for the subsequent political development of the region. First, it produced
a momentous change in Serbia's opinion of Austria, which previously had been
generally favorable. Thenceforth, the two were bitter rivals. The treaty also
sowed the seeds of acute Serb-Bulgarian conflict, so that these two states
became rivals for the remainder of Turkey-in-Europe.
In Croatia, progress toward a unified state had been stalled by the Ausgleich
of 1868, which established the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. Dalmatia was
now ruled from Vienna, while Croatia-Slavonia was subordinated to Budapest. In
the latter region Croats were exposed to a campaign of Magyarization. The
abolition of the Military Frontier in 1881 brought large numbers of Serbs into
an expanded civil Croatia. Extreme Croatian nationalists saw them as a threat
rather than as potential allies against the Magyars, who had no difficulty in
playing the Slav parties off against one another. To the east, Serbs living under
the Austrian crown had been rewarded for their participation in an army that
quelled the Magyar revolution of 1848-49 by the creation of the semiautonomous
Vojvodina ("Duchy"). This included part of the former Banat of Temesvár, most of
Backa, and a small part of Baranja (Baranya)--all of which had long been
integral parts of the Hungarian kingdom. Even during the time of Turkish
occupation, this region had begun to receive Serb migrants, and these had
increased in importance after the Ottomans were forced back across the Danube.
Also, Magyar nobles had introduced large numbers of peasant colonists from the
Rhineland and Upper Austria, adding further to the ethnic mix. The Ausgleich
eradicated the autonomous status of the Vojvodina and exposed Serbs also to the
full force of Magyar attempts at assimilation. Extensive land reclamation was
coupled with colonization by Hungarian speakers. Railway construction
strengthened the economic ties with Budapest, and industrialization brought with
it Hungarian entrepreneurs, technicians, and officials. Stimulated by improved
communications, large estates underwent rapid commercialization. Agricultural
wage labor replaced the traditional peasantry, so that socially and
economically the region acquired much of its modern character. Indeed, during
the last quarter of the 19th century, the Vojvodina became known as the
"breadbasket of the empire." After the restoration of the Karageorgevic dynasty
in 1903, the Serb population began to turn to Serbia for their political future,
rather than trying to defend their identity within a Hungarian state.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina,
the Austrian protectorate had dramatic consequences. Railway and road
construction, linked to the rapid expansion of mineral extraction, advanced.
There were improvements in administration, communications, health, and public
order. None of this made for social peace, however, for conflict over land
reform was closely linked to lines of religious conflict.
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In Serbia itself political life went through a period of acute disorder
following the Bosnian uprising. In 1881 King Milan entered into a secret
agreement with Austria by which Serbia gained valuable export conditions for
agricultural goods on the understanding that, if Serbia refrained from
interfering in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austrian support would be forthcoming for
Serbian expansion into Macedonia. Encouraged by this, Milan undertook a
disastrous expedition against Bulgaria in 1885. Its failure, together with the
scandals of his personal life, led to Milan's abdication in 1889. After a
confused regency, his son Alexander assumed control of the government in 1893,
but the factionalism and corruption of the court did not abate. In the face of
massive popular and official hostility, Alexander married his mistress Draga
Masín in 1900. The royal couple were brutally assassinated by officers in the
palace in Belgrade in 1903, bringing to an end the Obrenovic dynasty. The
Parliament invited Peter Karageorgevic to return, and a period of reform and
economic development was instituted.
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Traditional Serbian Coat of Arms
A double-headed eagle with a golden cross |
Opposition to the
Obrenovics had been in part economic. The state had become heavily paternalistic
toward the peasantry. A combination of population growth and the steady
commercialization of agriculture left many peasants in debt. The failure to
address the problems of agriculture led to the rapid emergence of the Serbian
Radical Party and the Agrarian Socialists, both expressing widespread rural
dissatisfaction.
Modernization of Montenegro
The accession of Peter II
in 1830 heralded an era of modernization and political integration, in spite of
further wars against the Turks. The suppression of a brief civil war (in 1847)
resulted in significant attenuation of the vestiges of tribal chieftainships.
The otiose position of "civil governor" was replaced by a senate, and much
progress was made in the suppression of blood feuding.Upon Peter's death in 1851
a major constitutional change was introduced by his nephew, Danilo II. Because
he was already betrothed, Danilo was precluded from becoming vladika; therefore,
he assumed the title of gospodar (prince) and, by making it a hereditary office,
separated the leadership of state from the Episcopal office. Danilo also
introduced a new and modernized legal code. The first Montenegrin newspaper
appeared in 1871.
A turning point in the
fortunes of Montenegro came with the Serbian declaration of war against Turkey
in 1876, which Montenegro (under Nicholas I) joined immediately and Russia the
following year. Although the territorial gains awarded to Montenegro by the
Treaty of San Stefano were reduced at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, the state
virtually doubled in area and, for the first time, its borders were enshrined (albeit
rather vaguely) in an international treaty. Most significantly, Montenegro
secured vital access to the sea at Antivari (modern Bar) and Dulcigno (Ulcinj).
Although the hostility of the other Great Powers to a Russian naval presence in
the Mediterranean placed restrictions on the use of these ports, Montenegro was
now far more open to communication with the developing capitalist economies of
western Europe. Trade expanded, the cultivation of tobacco and vines began; a
bank was founded; motor roads were built; a postal service was initiated; and in
1908 the first railway (from Bar to Virpazar on Lake Skadar) was opened. The
majority of the investment in these developments was by foreign (especially
Italian) interests. Economic openness had its other side, however, in the
swelling flow of emigrants, especially to Serbia and the United States.
The steady expansion of
educational opportunity and contact with the outside world produced pressure
further to modernize the constitution, with the result that the legal code was
thoroughly revised in 1888 and parliamentary government introduced in 1905--although
Prince Nicholas' autocratic disposition made for frequent conflict between
parliament and the crown. (Nicholas took the title of king in 1910.)
The peaceful economic
expansion that the country experienced after 1878 was terminated by the Balkan
Wars of 1912-13, in which Montenegro sided with Serbia and the other Balkan
League states to oust Turkey from its remaining European
possessions. The Treaty of London (1913) brought territorial gains on the
Albanian border and in Kosovo, and it also resulted in a division of the old
Turkish sanjak of Novi Pazar (Raska region) between Serbia and Montenegro. This
brought Montenegro to its greatest territorial extent and for the first time
gave the two Serb states a common border. Discussions began about the possible
union of the two countries, but these were interrupted by World War I, when
Austrian troops drove Nicholas into exile in Italy. Following the end of
hostilities in November 1918, the Assembly in Cetinje deposed the king and
announced the union of the Serbian and Montenegrin states. Consequently,
although Montenegrin representatives had had little contact with the Yugoslav
Committee or with the Serbian government-in-exile of Nikola Pasic during the war,
Montenegro was taken into the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Of
all the constituent parts of this newly unified state, Montenegro had suffered
conspicuously the greatest proportionate loss of life during World War I.
UP
The
Balkan Wars and World War I
In the spring of 1908 it
became known that the British and Russians were corresponding about the
possibility of setting up an independent Macedonia. In an attempt to forestall
the division of the empire, a group of Young Turks, junior military
officers, staged a coup d'état, overthrowing Sultan Abdülhamid II and declaring
a new constitution. Taking advantage of the situation, Austria, with the secret
agreement of the Russian foreign minister, annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina. The
Serbs were enraged and threatened war, but, when it became clear that the
Russians were not willing to support them, they were forced to resign themselves
to the annexation. Serb anxieties were heightened in September when Prince
Ferdinand declared Bulgaria's formal independence, with himself as tsar. Taken
together, these developments reinforced Serbian determination to liberate the
areas inhabited by the Serbian population in Macedonia.
The closing decades of the
19th century had seen deepening conflict and confusion in Macedonia, as the
Turkish capacity to keep order decayed and the ambitions of the Great Powers and
the surrounding states sharpened. Despite their competing
expectations of territorial expansion in the area, Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro,
and Greece concluded in 1912 a series of secret treaties creating a Balkan
League, the explicit intention of which was to eject the Turks from Europe. On
Oct. 8, 1912,
Montenegro declared war on Turkey, precipitating the First Balkan War. The
Turkish army was defeated with a rapidity that surprised most observers. By the
Treaty of London (May 1913) Turkish possessions in Europe were confined to a
small area of eastern Thrace. The situation was unstable, however, for several
unresolved issues were left for arbitration by the Great Powers and Bulgaria was
greatly dissatisfied by its share of Macedonia. The Bulgarians opened
hostilities against Serbian and Greek forces in June but were forced to an
armistice by the end of July.
By the Treaty of Bucharest (August 1913), Montenegro expanded to a common
frontier with Serbia, doubling its population. Serbia was awarded substantial
territories to the south, including central and northern Macedonia. On Austrian
insistence, however, Serbia and Montenegro were forced to yield part of the
territory they had occupied to form a newly independent Albanian state. Because
Greece obtained Salonika, Kavála, and coastal Macedonia, the Serbs were denied
the direct outlet to the sea for which they had hoped. The international
situation was therefore, if anything, more dangerous at the end of 1913 than in
1911. The Austrians saw in the emergence of a strong Serbia an end to their own
Drang nach Osten ("drive to the east"), while Serbian animosity against Austria
was intensified. During a visit to Sarajevo on June 28 (Vidovdan; Serbia's
national day), 1914, the Austrian archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife were
assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, an adherent of Young Bosnia organization.
Seeing in the event official Serbian complicity, the Austrians issued a
precipitate and ill-considered ultimatum that included demands for the
suppression of anti-Austrian newspapers and the dismissal of anti-Austrian
teachers and military officers. The Serbian reply, though conciliatory, was
considered unsatisfactory, and in July the two countries went to war.
The Austrian offensive of
Aug. 14, 1914, was forced back within two weeks; after desperate fighting a
second attack in November was also repelled. In the winter of 1914-15, however,
a terrible outbreak of typhus struck Serbia, devastating both the civilian
population and the military. When the German field marshal August von Mackensen
opened a third offensive in October 1915, assisted by the Bulgarians, the Serbs,
deprived of reinforcements and supplies and weakened by disease, were forced to
retreat across the mountains to the Adriatic coast, whence they were shipped to
the safety of Corfu suffering great casualties on the way.
The rise to power of the Greek prime minister Eleuthérios Venizélos in
November 1916 brought the Greeks into the war on the Allied side. It became
possible to open a new front against the Bulgarian-German forces in Macedonia,
with the Serbian army playing a key part alongside British, French, and Greek
units. After two weeks of hard fighting, the Bulgarians surrendered. The
collapse of the Macedonian front was one of the most important factors
precipitating the end for the Central Powers. Following the recapture of
Belgrade on Nov. 1, 1918, the Austro-Hungarian forces agreed to an armistice.
During the early period of
the war, a number of prominent political figures from Slav lands under the Dual
Monarchy fled to London, where they set up a Yugoslav Committee with the aim of
conducting propaganda on behalf of their compatriots.
One of the committee's most important achievements was the discovery by Franjo
Supilo of the Treaty of London, a secret document drawn up in April 1915 by
which the Italians were promised Istria and large areas of Slovenia and Dalmatia
in return for their participation on the Allied side. In spite of the apparent
connivance of the Serbs in this agreement, the stagnation of the war during 1916
and early 1917, added to the general indifference of the major Allied powers to
the fate of the national minorities within Austria-Hungary, slowly compelled the
Yugoslav Committee to seek common defense with the Serbian government-in-exile.
In July 1917 representatives of the two groups met in Corfu and signed the Corfu
Declaration, which called for a single state governed by a democratic and
constitutional monarchy, in which there would be equality for the two alphabets,
three national names and flags, and religious toleration. The details were left
to a future constituent assembly, and in particular no mention was made as to
whether its structure was to be federal or unitary. At the same time, on
Habsburg territory, Croatian and Slovene deputies to the diets in Vienna and
Budapest began preparing the ground for independence through a National Council.
On Oct. 29, 1918, as Serbian troops marched to the Danube, the Sabor in Zagreb
declared the union with Hungary to be severed.
From this date there was a
state that united within itself Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the state was
not yet Yugoslavia. Serbia and Montenegro had made no commitment to it. Indeed,
in spite of the Corfu Declaration the Serbian leader Nikola Pasic regarded the
new state with some dismay. The Serbs' war aims had been concerned principally
with the defense of their territorial gains of 1912-13, and if they thought of
expansion at all it was only in terms of a "Greater Serbia" that might encompass
the Serbian parts of Bosnia. Nonetheless, as it became apparent that the
Italians were not content with the territories allocated to them by the 1915
Treaty of London, the "Yugoslavs" sought the effective support of the advancing
Serbian army. All sides were constrained by the major Allied powers to reach an
accommodation, and a conference held in Geneva on November 6-9 concluded with a
declaration of union by representatives of the Yugoslav Committee, the National
Council, and the Serb political parties. In September the Montenegrins rose
against Austrian occupation, and on November 26 a national assembly in Podgorica declared for union with Serbia under the Karageorgevic
dynasty. On Dec. 1, 1918, a delegation from the National Council invited the
prince regent Alexander to proclaim the new union, and on December 4 the Kingdom
of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was announced to the world.
The South
Slav Monarchy
The new kingdom faced
major problems at its birth. More than 12 percent of the citizens of this "South
Slav state" spoke non-Slavonic tongues--mostly Albanian, Hungarian, and German.
The Christian population was mainly divided between adherents of the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, but more than one-tenth
of the total population were Muslims. Parts of the kingdom had already begun to
industrialize and to commercialize, but most of its subjects were still living
in primitive and isolated communities dependent on subsistence agriculture. No
modern rail or road link connected Belgrade and Zagreb; in fact, the rudimentary
Serbian rail system pointed toward the Greek port of Salonika, whereas that of
the northern regions was integrated with the Austrian and Hungarian systems.
Elections in November 1920
produced a constituent assembly made up of no fewer than 15 parties, most with
specifically ethnic constituencies. The fundamental divergence of opinion
between them concerned the choice between a unitary or a federal state. Serb
experience had always revolved around the creation of a strong state, that of
the Croats and Slovenes around the struggle to defend the nation against too
strong a state. The defeat in principle of the federal idea led to the
withdrawal of the Croatian Peasant Party under the leadership of Stjepan Radic,
and, following the assassination of a minister by a young communist in 1921, the
Communist Party was declared illegal. This allowed an alliance of the principal
Serb parties, together with the Muslims, to press through a highly centralized
constitution, modeled on that of prewar Serbia. It was promulgated on Vidovdan,
June 28, 1921.
With few exceptions, the
decade 1919-29 was characterized by growing bitterness on the part of non-Serb
groups. When in June 1928 a Montenegrin deputy shot two Croatian deputies to
death in the Skupstina and mortally wounded Radic, the days
of the Vidovdan constitution were numbered. It became evident that the Serbs
were unwilling to contemplate a federal state at any price, while the Croats
were unprepared to consider anything else. Frustrated by the inability of the
politicians to make progress, on Jan. 6, 1929, King Alexander dissolved the
Skupstina and declared a personal dictatorship. In an attempt to weaken
traditional regional loyalties, the name of the state was changed to Yugoslavia,
and the former regions were reorganized into nine banovine (governorships)
and the prefecture of Belgrade. In spite of the popular appeal of some of
Alexander's measures, others only exacerbated hostility to the regime, including
the suppression of patriotic gymnastic societies, interference with the
judiciary, the suppression of the free press, and the arrest and even torture of
many critics of royal centralism.
A new constitution was
promulgated in 1931. It nominally returned the country to representative
government, but its provisions were so heavily centralist that it failed to
secure the support of the Croats and of many liberal groups. During a state
visit to France in 1934, the king was assassinated by an agent of the Croatian
terrorist organization, the Ustasa. A regency was established, headed by Prince
Paul, the uncle of the heir to the throne, Peter II. Discussions between the
government and Croatian Peasant Party leader Vladimir Macek resulted in the
Sporazum ("Agreement") of August 1939, which granted Croatia a new and semi-independent
status under its own ban and Sabor. There was a revival of hope that a solution
to Yugoslavia's constitutional problems might be found, but this hope was dashed
by the onset of war in 1941.
Notwithstanding its
tempestuous politics, the period immediately following World War I was a
prosperous one for the Yugoslav kingdom. The growing demand for food both at
home and abroad gave a strong stimulus to agriculture. One of the earliest
measures announced in 1918 was a program of land reform that abolished serfdom
and announced the expropriation of large estates. The redistribution of land was
not coupled effectively either with investment or with the rationalization of
holdings. Nevertheless, the reform ensured that Yugoslavia would remain a
country of small farmers even after World War II.
Industrialization was a
consistently enunciated policy of all postwar governments. Extractive industries,
forestry, power generation, and metallurgical concerns were built up with
foreign capital. Some manufacturing (notably textiles) developed with the aid of
tariff protection, and machinery was acquired as war reparation from the Central
Powers.
The Western financial
crisis of 1929 left Yugoslavia relatively untouched. It was not until 1931 that
real economic difficulties set in, as the cushion of war reparation was removed,
the German banking system collapsed, French economic support was withdrawn, and
Britain departed from the gold standard. Yugoslavia gradually was drawn into a
more binding relationship with Germany, which began to recover under the Nazis.
Favorable terms were extended to Yugoslav exports, and Yugoslav companies were
incorporated into German cartels. By 1938 trade with Germany accounted for 53
percent of exports and 65 percent of imports.
Since 1933 the king had
taken the initiative in building closer ties with Yugoslavia's Balkan neighbors--a
policy that bore fruit in the Balkan Entente with Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, and
Turkey. However, by the late 1930s it became clear that this
modest measure of collective security was no match for the real threat to the
independence of the state: German expansion. Following the 1938 Anschluss, the
Yugoslavs worked hard to maintain a position of independence, but German
pressure to associate with the Axis powers grew with the fall of Czechoslovakia,
the Italian invasion of Albania, and the German- Soviet Nonaggression Pact of
August 1939. In March 1941 Prince Paul and his ministers finally agreed to sign
the Tripartite Pact.
The response was one of public outrage, especially in Belgrade. In a
bloodless coup d'état led by several air force officers, the regents and their
senior ministers were sent into exile. King Peter's majority was proclaimed
prematurely, and, amid massive and emotional demonstrations of popular support,
a government of national unity was formed.
UP
World War
II
Yugoslav bravado
threatened to spoil Germany's plan for an attack against the Soviet Union, and
on April 6, 1941, German troops invaded. Within two weeks Yugoslav resistance
was crushed. King Peter and his ministers fled, later setting up a
government-in-exile in London.
Parts of the kingdom were
divided among Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria. A puppet regime was
installed in a greatly diminished Serbia under a former minister of war, Milan
Nedic, and an enlarged Independent State of Croatia, which included Bosnia and
Herzegovina, was headed by the leader of the
Ustasas, Ante Pavelic. The Croatian regime set about a policy of "racial
purification" and open genocide that went beyond even Nazi practices in its
extermination of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. From 1941 to 1945 more than million of
Serbs were brutally exterminated in numerous concentration camps run by Ustasas
(Jasenovac
concentration camp). The Croatian Roman Catholic clergy headed by Archbishop
Stepinac openly collaborated with Ustasa movement taking part in great scale
forceful conversion of the Orthodox Serbs to Roman Catholicism. There were
almost no protests from the Roman Catholic Church authorities against the
genocide against the Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. (The
genocide over the Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia).
Although the Yugoslav
Royal Army disintegrated rapidly in the face of the Axis attack, groups of its
personnel did not surrender but went into hiding with their weapons. Under the
name Chetnik (Cetnik), a term that recalled the groups of armed units who
harassed the Turks during the 19th century, these groups emerged under the
leadership of Dragoljub Mihailovic, an experienced and respectable officer who
had fought in the Balkan Wars and World War I. A second armed resistance
movement was created by the Communist Party; it came to be known as the
Partisans (Partizani) and was headed by a former metalworker and infamous
communist organizer from Zagreb named Josip Broz, who now operated under the
code name Tito. The Chetnik organization was almost exclusively composed of
Serbs whose vision of the future of Yugoslavia was of a strongly unified country
in which Serbia and its royal dynasty would play the leading role. The Partisans,
on the other hand, were firmly led by the Communist Party, which soon showed
that it intended to overthrow the monarchy and create a socialist and a
communist state like Soviet Union. The two groups were soon fighting each other
with as much hostility as they were the occupiers.
A series of offensives by
German and Italian forces, with the collaboration of Ustasa units, forced the
partisans to remain on the move, mostly in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the
meanwhile the communists organized a "temporary government" in competition with
the exiled royalist government in London. Under British pressure, King Peter
withdrew support from general Mihailovic. On Oct. 20, 1944, Belgrade fell to a
combined operation of Yugoslav communist and Soviet troops. After the conquest
of the city massive series of retaliation against all anti-communists ensued.
Thousands of Serbs all over Serbia were executed by the communist police.
Even after German forces
in Yugoslavia surrendered in May 1945, Mihailovic was unwilling to give up the
struggle, but his force was beaten and dispersed in central Bosnia. Mihailovic
himself evaded capture until March 1946. He was tried by communists for alleged
treason and executed in July. This event finally marked the beginning of
unrestrained communist dictatorship.
The
Communist Federation
A new constitution
establishing the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia was promulgated on Jan.
31, 1946, replacing the monarchy with a federation of six republics and the two
autonomous Serbian provinces of Kosovo- Metohija (Kosmet) and the Vojvodina. The
"loyal opposition" was quickly but relatively gently eased from power, but those
suspected of collaborating with the former enemy were punished or killed and
their property confiscated. The major productive forces and means of
communication and exchange were nationalized, and a rigid central planning
apparatus was put in place, power being exercised by the Communist Party through
a close interlocking of state and party functions.
Despite their adoption of
this Soviet-style "dictatorship of the proletariat," Yugoslav communists had
never had an easy relationship with the Soviet Union, dating to Tito's
independence in conducting the "national liberation struggle." Relations soon
turned acrimonious, the Yugoslavs being accused of ideological, economic, and
political indiscipline and they in turn protesting the misconduct of Soviet
advisers. In June 1948 Yugoslavia was expelled from the Communist Information
Bureau (Cominform), the Soviet bloc's apparatus of communist internationalism,
and a diplomatic and economic boycott was begun by the socialist countries.
Yugoslavia responded by
embarking on a distinctive "Yugoslav road to socialism." One significant
development was the movement of nonaligned countries, in which Tito's active
involvement legitimated his independence from the Soviet Union while underlining
the respect for national identity that had become so central to his domestic
policy. In June 1950 the Basic Law on the Management of State Economic
Enterprises by Working Collectives took the first steps toward what came to be
known as socialist self-management. Largely the creation of Yugoslavia's leading
ideologist, the Slovene Edvard Kardelj, self-management involved a looser system
of planning control, with more initiative devolved to enterprises, local
authorities, and a highly decentralized banking structure. At the same time,
revision of the constitutional law began a process of political decentralization,
giving enormous powers in revenue collection and the provision of social
services to the opstina (commune). A new constitution, adopted in 1963,
strengthened self-management and extended it beyond industrial organizations
into services and the administration; it also gave greater importance to the
republics and autonomous provinces. Related to this constitutional reform was a
series of economic measures designed to move the country toward "market
socialism" by abolishing many price controls and requiring enterprises to
compete more effectively with one another and within the "international division
of labor."
Measured in growth rates,
the reforms were a success, in that the 1950s and '60s were years of
unparalleled economic prosperity. Yugoslavia emerged as a major international
tourist destination, and some branches of manufacture, such as metal goods and
textiles, became highly profitable on both the domestic and foreign markets.
Industrialization and urbanization created a society that was radically
different from the economically backward peasant economy of the prewar years.
Yet beneath this growth
were certain fundamental weaknesses. Instead of creating a genuine market, the
strength of the republics resulted in a series of local monopolies in many
products. More seriously, the country's prosperity followed deeply rooted
historical cleavages, with the northern republics of Slovenia and Croatia
drawing steadily away from the others. Efforts to correct this imbalance through
the diversion of resources into projects in the poorer regions were resented by
the more-developed republics. By the late 1960s, unemployment and inflation had
become chronic, and all these problems were aggravated by the rapid rise of
prices in the 1970s.
Growing economic crisis
contributed to the sharpening of political conflict. Within Serbia itself, a
purge of liberals from the League of Communists culminated in the expulsion of
the Praxis group of philosophers from the University of Belgrade. In a bid to
reaffirm party authority, a new constitution in 1974 vested Tito with a lifetime
presidency; afterward, leadership was to pass to a collective presidency
composed of one representative from each of the republics and autonomous
provinces, with a new chairman selected each year.
The post-war communist
period proved to be fatal for the Serbian people. The Serbian national and
religious tradition was deliberately suppressed both in education and in state
controlled media. The Orthodox Church was formally given freedom but in reality
it was under great pressure and many priests suffered imprisonment and various
kinds of threats because of their pastoral activity among the people. All
spheres of public life were strictly controlled by the Communist Party and any
kind of free and democratic activity was forbidden. This situation caused a
general exodus of many young and educated people to the countries of Western
Europe and America.
Disruption of ex-Yugoslavia and the Civil War
Tito's death in May 1980
marked the beginning of the rising ethnic tensions. It was obvious that neither
the problem of Yugoslavia's ethnic diversity nor that of its economic management
could be easily solved. By 1983 the foreign debt had become so large that the
International Monetary Fund was asked to intervene with Yugoslavia's creditors.
Partly under its guidelines, the government under Ante Markovic embarked on yet
another reform of self-management, this one including the freeing of technical
and managerial functions from political interference and the closing of
unprofitable enterprises. Implementation of the reforms drove unemployment even
higher, precipitating a series of strikes and street demonstrations, and they
were vigorously resisted by communist officials from regionsthat might have
greater difficulty in competing in an open market.
The largest of these regions was Serbia, where
the leadership of the party and the presidency of the republic were assumed by
Slobodan Milosevic, a banking official from Belgrade . Attacking the entrenched
communist establishment for having lost touch with the real concerns of the people and seeking a restoration of
Serbian national consciousness, Milosevic used various measures to strengthen
his political power in Serbia and Montenegro. The parallel processes began in
Croatia and other republics. Soon it was evident that there was no real
restoration of democracy and civil society in Yugoslavia and the country was
plunged into severe ethnic strives. Matters came to a head in May 1991 when
relations between the ex-Yugoslav republics became very tense. In June the
Slovene and Croatian governments implemented their earlier threats to withdraw
from the federation. Macedonia followed suit in September.
The Yugoslav People's Army
attempted to seize control of Slovenia's international borders in order to
prevent the disruption of the federation, but the largely conscript federal
troops were outmaneuvered by the Slovene national guard and withdrew to Croatia.
There, communities of Serbs, seriously threatened by the rising Croatian
nationalism and revived Ustasa national ideology, had been organizing their own
self-governing krajine (regions) in which they demanded the right to retain
union with the rest of the federation. The krajine were successfully defended
against Croatian forces until the negotiation of a cease-fire in May 1992, which
was subsequently policed by United Nations (UN) troops in four protected areas
that covered almost one-third of Croatian territory. In 1995, after the
intensive military operations these areas, which were predominantly inhabited by
the Serbs, were occupied by the Croatian Army and reintegrated into Croatia.
More than 200.000 Serbian refugees were forced to leave the areas in which they
had lived since the 15th century.
In February and March
1992, Muslims and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina approved a referendum calling
for secession from Yugoslavia disregarding the political will of the Serbian
population who wanted to retain the union with Serbia and Montenegro. In the
meanwhile the rising Moslem fundamentalist ideas, openly supported by the
highest Bosnian authorities, made additional threats to the Serbs who strongly
disliked the idea of living in a Moslem dominated country. Here, Serbs were
interspersed throughout the population in a mixed pattern that did not permit
the defense of coherent krajine. Instead, a bitter and protracted civil war
erupted in which regular forces and irregular armed bands expelled entire
populations from areas brought under their control. Defying a series of economic
sanctions brought against Serbia and Montenegro through the UN, calling the
bluff of international military intervention, and ignoring sustained exposure by
international news media, Bosnian Serb forces continued their campaign until (by
mid-1993) they held effective control over roughly two-thirds of Bosnian
territory. By linking these areas to the Serb krajine in Croatia, the Serbs laid
the foundations (although at a hideous cost in atrocities and refugees) for the
unification into one political formation of all people who considered themselves
to be Serbs. As the nucleus of such a state, a new Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia, comprising Serbia and Montenegro, was proclaimed in April 1992. The
civil war in ex-Yugoslavia was finished in 1996 by the Dayton Agreement in which
the Bosnian Serbs were granted a separate Serbian entity - Republika Srpska -
within the internationally recognized Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the end of
the civil war Serbia and Montenegro were found in a difficult political and
economic situation with more than 600.000 Serbian refugees from all parts of ex-Yugoslavia
and rather unstable situation in Kosovo and Metohija.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britanica
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