SERBIA. – A historic region of the Balkans, forming the core of the present-day political unit of the same name, which is included as a federal republic within the Yugoslav state.
Today, Serbia corresponds to the inland country that centres on the two river basins of the Morava, a left tributary of the middle Danube, and the Vardar, which flows into the Gulf of Thessalonica after crossing a strip of Greek Macedonia. It is a mountainous country, elevated at its eastern margin (in contact with the Balkan range) and western margin (towards the Dinaric zone) in reliefs that exceed 2,000 m. and separate it from Bulgaria to the east, from Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Albania to the west. It is formed by a saddle of ancient terrains, undulating in ridges of 1,000–1,400 m., and deeply incised into closed basins or traversed by rivers that are connected to the two main currents only by passes that are perhaps not always favourable to communication. This character is accentuated in southern Serbia, where the separation into distinct small regional units is more evident: Metohija, Kosovo, the basins of Skopje, Demir Hisar, Tetovo, and Strumica (the last four pertaining to Macedonia); to the north, however, the mountainous mass (Šumadija) opens towards the alluvial plains along the Danube and the Sava. Beyond these rivers, the flat strips (Banat, Bačka) have been aggregated to Serbia, resulting in the autonomous region of Vojvodina, which wedges between Hungary and Romania.
In all, Serbia as a political unit today extends over 55.9 thousand km² (in 1911 the Kingdom of Serbia had 48 thousand) and has 4.1 million inhabitants (about 3 million in 1911), ethnically rather heterogeneous (Magyars and Romanians in the north; Albanians and Turks in the south), which is reflected in the diversity of religious confessions (Catholics prevail in the north, Muslims in the south). Population density ranges from 135 per km² in Vojvodina (12 thousand km² with 1.7 million inhabitants) to less than 70 in the extreme southwest, which forms an autonomous region (Kosovo-Metohija: 10.6 thousand km² with 728 thousand inhabitants). Agriculture favours cereals, tobacco, fruit, and vines in the south, but essentially on an extensive basis; in the north, the fertile lands of Šumadija and Vojvodina, alongside cereals, hemp, and orchards, permit flourishing livestock breeding. Two major Balkan communication routes pass through Serbia, leading from the Danube to the Aegean (Vardar) and to Constantinople (Nišava–Sofia), both followed by railways.
Historically, Serbia, after the death of Dušan the Mighty (1355) and the promulgation of the Dušanov Zakonik (the first Serbian code), saw its weak successors—from Uroš IV to Vukašin and Lazar Hrebeljanović—unable to maintain firm internal unity against external threats, represented by the Magyars in the north and the Turks in the south. At Kosovo (Kosovo) in 1389, where King Lazar died, Serbia was subjugated to the Turks, though through the skill of the widow Milica it retained a certain autonomy as a vassal state (1389–1459). Henceforth a contested ground between Magyars and Turks, Serbia, after some attempts at resistance and independent policy under George Branković, finally succumbed entirely to the Turks in 1459 upon his death. Thus began for Serbia a long period of complete subjugation, which would ease only in 1830 with the establishment of the Principality of Serbia, albeit still a vassal of the Sublime Porte. The Serbs soon adapted to the new situation, and while under the name of martolos they gained a foothold in the army—where, in the lower ranks, they became largely Serbian—so too did they advance in state administration and high military command, partly through the periodic "levies" of youths sent to Constantinople to become janissaries. The Serbian language became that of diplomacy and the Turkish court, while the Turkish conquests that reached the Hungarian plain allowed the Serbian nation, with its military colonies, to expand far to the north.
The restoration of the Serbian patriarchate of Peć, effected by the Grand Vizier (of Serbian origin) Mehmed Sokolović (1557), who installed his brother Macarius on the patriarchal throne, was a matter of great political and religious importance for Serbia, as the patriarchate assumed a broad national mission. Through Byzantine tradition and Turkish legal customs, the Serbian Church gradually became a powerful national organization: the separation of the temporal from the spiritual was entirely foreign to Turkish political conceptions, and the patriarchate necessarily became for them not only the spiritual but also, in a certain sense, the civil head of the Christians. The Church, following Byzantine tradition, supported the state, and in return became an instrument of control over the Serbs in political matters and, as it were, a guarantor of their loyalty. From around 1500, the term "Serbian lands" designated those territories subject to the patriarchate of Peć, extending from Macedonia to the Banat and Bačka. Thanks to the Turkish conquest and the recognized jurisdiction of the Serbian national patriarchate, the Serbs acquired an ethnic expanse they had never had before and would, in the 19th century, be in a position to play a leading role in the national resurgence of the South Slavs. From the peripheral "Serbian lands," the first signs of recovery began to appear as, after the Treaty of Passarowitz (1718), Turkey was reduced to a purely defensive stance.
By the early 19th century, the Serbs were ready for a general uprising: between 1804 and 1815, a series of insurrections began, in which two families emerged—those of Karađorđe Petrović and Miloš Obrenović—who would contend for power in Serbia by dagger blows until the early 20th century.
Miloš (who in 1817 had Karadorđe assassinated) obtained on 29 August 1830, with Russian support, recognition of the title of prince (knez). An absolute monarch not unlike the Ottoman pashas, Miloš began to insert himself, as far as possible, into the rivalries among the great powers, with the aim of advancing Serbia toward independence. In June 1839, unwilling to govern under the constraint of a lifelong Chamber with extensive powers imposed by Russia and Turkey, the protecting powers, he abdicated in favour of his son Milan; when Milan died after two weeks, he was succeeded by his second son, Michael, who, continuing his father’s policy, was deposed in 1842 by an armed insurrection. Thus the Karadorđević dynasty was called to the throne, in the person of
Serbia – Lake of Ohrid.
Alexander. Under him, his first minister I. Garašanin outlined in the *Načertanije* what would be, for seventy years, the foreign policy program of Serbia, as the “Piedmont of the Balkans” and the unifying center of the South Slavs, beyond any internal dynastic disputes. Alexander remained on the throne until 1858, gave the country its own administrative structure, but in foreign policy his submissiveness toward Austria and Turkey (despite the fact that from 1856 the Russian protectorate had been replaced by the guarantee of the Powers) alienated public opinion. He was indeed deposed in 1858, and the elderly Miloš Obrenović was recalled to the throne; upon his death in 1860, his son Michael succeeded him. The latter, adopting Garašanin’s program, engaged in European politics, created an army, and with the support of France and Sardinia (later Italy), reduced almost to nothing the ties of dependence on the Sublime Porte, encouraging the unification of Montenegrins, Croats, Bosnians, etc. Assassinated in 1868 by an agent of the Karageorgević dynasty, in 1872 Milan Obrenović succeeded him. At the Congress of Berlin, Serbia obtained notable territorial gains, which elevated its importance in the Balkans to such an extent that Milan could assume the title of king. Defeated by Bulgaria and beset by internal strife, he was forced to cede the throne to his son Alexander. When this latter was replaced in 1903, along with Queen Draga, by a military conspiracy, Peter Karageorgević ascended the throne, under whom Serbia established a parliamentary system of government. By now decisively oriented against Austria and Turkey—especially after Austria’s annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (1908)—Serbia emerged enlarged from the Balkan Wars (1912–13). The killing of the heir presumptive Archduke Francis Ferdinand by the Bosnian G. Princip (28 June 1914) opened the path to the First World War, at the end of which—following the Corfu Declaration (20 July 1917)—Croats and Slovenes joined Serbia under the scepter of Alexander Karageorgević to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later called Yugoslavia. In this state, Serbia—and the Serbian national element—has held a leading position, often marked by national and religious oppression, to the point of maintaining a bitter dispute with Catholic Croats that erupted during the Second World War in the form of a grave and bloody national war. With the advent of Tito’s regime, since 1945 Serbia has constituted one of the six republics of the Federal Yugoslavia. For legal relations with the Holy See, literature, and art, see Yugoslavia. – See pl. XXII.
SERCAI, GYÖRGY JUSTINIANUS – Portrait.