SERBIA. - Historical region of the Balkans, forming the core of the present-day unit of the same name included as a federal republic in the Yugoslav state.
S. today corresponds to the inland country centered on the two river basins of the Morava, a left tributary of the middle Danube, and of the Vardar, which empties into the Gulf of Salonica after crossing a strip of Greek Macedonia. It is a mountainous country, raised at its two margins — eastern (in contact with the Balkan arc) and western (toward the Dinaric zone) — into reliefs that exceed 2,000 m. and separate it from Bulgaria to the E., from Herzegovina, Montenegro and Albania to the W., and formed by a block of ancient terrains undulating into ridges of 1,000-1,400 m. and deeply cut into closed basins, or traversed by rivers that are linked to the two main courses by gorges and ravines not always favorable to communication. This character is accentuated in southern S., where the separation into small distinct regional units is more evident: the Metohija, the Kosovo, the basins of Skopje, of Monastir, of Tetovo and of the Strumica (these last four pertaining to Macedonia); to the N., by contrast, the mountainous mass (Šumadija) opens toward the alluvial plains along the Danube and the Sava. Beyond the two rivers, the flat strips (Banat, Bačka) have been aggregated to S., from which results the autonomous region of the Vojvodina, which wedges in between Hungary and Romania.
On the whole, S. as a political unit today extends over 55.9 thousand sq. km. (in 1911 the Serbian Kingdom had 48 thousand) and counts 4.1 million inhabitants (about 3 in 1911), ethnically rather little homogeneous (Magyars and Romanians in the N.; Albanians and Turks in the S.), which is reflected in the diversity of religious confessions (in the N. Catholics prevail, in the S. Mohammedans). The density falls from 135 per sq. km. of the Vojvodina (12 thousand sq. km. with 1.7 million inhabitants) to less than 70 in the extreme SW., constituted as an autonomous Region (Kosovo-Metohija: 10.6 thousand sq. km. with 728 thousand inhabitants). Agriculture favors in the S. cereals, tobacco, fruits and the vine, but essentially with an extensive character; in the N. the fertile lands of the Šumadija and of the Vojvodina allow, alongside cereals, hemp and orchards, a flourishing livestock raising. Through S. pass the two great lines of the anti-Balkan communications that lead from the Danube to the Aegean (Vardar) and to Constantinople (Nišava-Sofia), both followed by railways that they meet at Niš (51,000 inhabitants). Belgrade (390,000 inhabitants) represents Serbia's outlet on the Danube. In the Voivodina are Subotica (113,000 inhabitants) and Novi Sad (77,000 inhabitants); the capital of Kosovo-Metohija is Priština (20,000 inhabitants).
(from K. Hölscher, Jugoslavien, Berlin 1966, (av. 178)
Bibliography2 works
Giuseppe Caraci
HISTORY
Serbia first emerged with a distinct character of its own in the second half of the 12th century, as the inheritance of Raška, the mountainous region between the Lim and Dioclea.
With Stefan Nemanja (1170-96) the small grand principality of Raška began to expand and to pursue a resolute policy of its own against Byzantium, which, thanks to Manuel Komnenos, had consolidated itself in the country, above all as a base for action against Venice. Stefan inserted himself into the struggles between the Empire and Venice, relying on the latter and forming an alliance with Hungary. This Western-oriented course was continued, albeit with some vacillation, by his son Stefan who, in receiving the royal crown in 1217 from Pope Honorius III (hence the appellation "First-Crowned"), showed that he keenly felt, even if only as hostility to Byzantium, the expediency of linking himself to Rome. Nevertheless, a reaction was not lacking, far more serious and substantial, since the monastic and ecclesiastical element — which would remain through the centuries the greatest conservative force of the Serbian national individuality — intervened to rebalance the situation: the monk Sava, brother of the King and later a saint of the Serbian Church, in 1219, with the glad consent of the emperor of Nicaea and of the patriarch, founded the autocephalous Serbian Church, which would remain bound to the Byzantine schism down to our own days. The lack of a clear order of succession opened frequent struggles within the Nemanja dynasty that weakened the Serbian State and made it waver, according to the moment, between Byzantium and Bulgaria, or else Venice, Hungary and the Papacy. From this weak and ambiguous position, and beyond this ambivalence of allegiances, it was drawn by Stefan Dušan (1345-55) who, in opposing himself jointly to Byzantium and to Hungary, was the true creator of the great Serbia. Just as Constantinople, "Roma saecunda", could be the bearer only of an imperial idea, so in the face of the chronic decline of the Byzantine Empire Stefan Dušan, besides seeking the elevation of the exarchate to a patriarchate, sought by conquest to assume its heritage in full: on 16 April 1346 he was anointed "crowned emperor of the Serbs and the Greeks" by the patriarchs of Serbia and of Bulgaria. Shortly afterwards he extended his dominion to Epirus and Thessaly, but death (20 Dec. 1355) cut short his imperial dream.
After this great figure of a sovereign (who promulgated with the Dušanov Zakonik the first Serbian code), the weak successors — from Uroš IV to Vukašin, to Lazar Hrebeljanović — opposed no firm internal unity to the external danger, represented by the Magyars in the north and by the Turks in the south; at Kosovo, in 1389, where King Lazar died, Serbia was bowed to the Turks and only through the ability of his widow Milica did it maintain a certain autonomy as a vassal State (1389-1459). By then a ground of contention and clash between Magyars and Turks, Serbia, after some pretensions of resistance and of independent policy under George Branković, with his death (1456) bowed entirely to the Turks in 1459. Thus there opened for Serbia a long period of complete subjection that would be lightened only in 1830 with the formation of the principality of Serbia, albeit still a vassal of the Sublime Porte. The Serbs soon adapted to the new situation and, if under the name of martolosi they made their way in the army, which in its lower ranks became for the most part Serbian, they likewise gained ground in the direction of the State and in the high command of the army, owing to the periodic "levies" of young boys sent to Constantinople to become janissaries there, etc. The Serbian language became that of diplomacy and of the Turkish Court, while precisely thanks to the Turkish conquests that reached the Magyar plain, the Serbian nation, with its military colonies, expanded greatly towards the north. The subsequent reconstitution of the Serbian patriarchate of Peć, brought about by the grand vizier (of Serbian origin) Mehmed Sokolović (1557), who placed his brother Macarius on the patriarchal throne, was an act of great political and religious importance for Serbia, since the patriarchate assumed a national mission of broad scope. By Byzantine tradition and by Turkish legal customs, the Serbian Church gradually became a powerful national organization: the separation of the temporal from the spiritual was wholly alien to the political conception of the Turks, and the patriarch necessarily had to become for them the supreme head not only spiritual but also, in a certain sense, civil of the Christians. The Church relied, in accordance with Byzantine tradition, on the State, repaying its support by making itself an instrument of control over the Serbs in the political sphere, and, as it were, a guarantor of their loyalty. From the 16th century onwards the term "Serbian lands" designated those territories religiously subject to the patriarchate of Peć and which extended from Macedonia as far as the Banat and the Bačka. Thanks to the Turkish conquest and to the recognized jurisdiction of the Serbian national patriarchate, the Serbs acquired an ethnic extension never possessed in the past and would be in a position in the 19th century to have a leading role in the national revival of the South Slavs. From the peripheral "Serbian lands", in fact, the first signs of resurgence began to appear as, after Passarowitz (1718), Turkey shrank into a simple defensive position. By the early 19th century the Serbs were ripe for a general revolt: between 1804 and 1815 the insurrections began one after another, bringing to prominence two families, those of Karadjordje Petrović and of Miloš Obrenović, who would contend for power in Serbia, by dagger strokes, down to the early 20th century.
Miloš (who in 1817 had had Karadjordje assassinated) on 29 Aug. 1830, thanks to Russian support, obtained recognition of the title of prince (knez). An absolute monarch no different from the Ottoman pashas, Miloš began to insert himself, as far as he could, into the contrasts between the powers, with the aim of advancing Serbia along the path of independence. In June 1839, not wishing to govern with the limit of a life-tenured Chamber with very extensive powers, imposed by Russia and Turkey, the protecting powers, he abdicated in favour of his son Milan; the latter having died after two weeks, he was succeeded by the second-born Michele, who, continuing his father's policy, was deposed in 1842 by an armed insurrection. Thus the family of the Karadjordjević was called to the throne, in the person of Alexander. Under him his prime minister I. Garašanin set out in the Načertanije what would be, for seventy years, Serbia's foreign-policy program, as the "Piedmont of the Balkans" and unifying center of the South Slavs, beyond every internal dynastic dispute. Alexander remained on the throne until 1858 and gave the country an administrative structure of its own, 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 men's minds from him. Expelled in 1858, the old Miloš Obrenović was recalled to the throne, and, on his death, in 1860 he was succeeded by his son Michael. Adopting Garašanin's program as his own, he entered into the play of European politics, created an army and, supported by France and Sardinia (later Italy), reduced to almost nothing the ties of dependence on the Porte, urging Montenegrins, Croats, Bosnians, etc., toward unification. Assassinated in 1868 by an emissary of the Karagjorgjević, in 1872 he was succeeded by Milan Obrenović. With the Congress of Berlin Serbia obtained notable enlargements, which raised its importance in the Balkans, so much so that Milan was able to assume the title of king. The defeat suffered against Bulgaria and internal dissensions forced him to cede the throne to his son Alexander. When the latter was done away with in 1903, together with Queen Draga, by a military conspiracy, Peter Karagjorgjević ascended the throne, under whom Serbia gave itself a habit of parliamentary life. By now decisively oriented against Austria and Turkey, especially after the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by Austria (1908), Serbia emerged enlarged from the Balkan Wars (1912-13). The killing of the heir to the throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, by the Bosnian G. Princip (28 June 1914) opened the way to the First World War, at the end of which — following the declaration of Corfu (20 July 1917) — Croats and Slovenes united with Serbia under the scepter of Alexander Karagjorgjević to form the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later called Yugoslavia. In it Serbia — and the Serb national element — have had until today a directive position, often one of national and religious oppression, so much so as to keep alive with the Catholic Croats a bitter dissension that exploded during the Second World War, taking on the appearance of a grave and bloody war of a national character. With the advent of Tito's regime, Serbia from 1945 constitutes one of the six republics of federal Yugoslavia. For legal relations with the Holy See, literature and art, v. JUGOSLAVIA. - See plate XXII.
