Serbia and Montenegro

Serbia was at one time part of the ancient country of Illyria. The Romans conquered it in AD 44 and governed it as the province of Moesia. The Goths began attacking the area in the 3rd century, but after 395 it was part of the Byzantine Empire. During the 7th century, Serbs settled in the area west of the Morava River and subsequently gave allegiance to the Byzantines. Ottoman Control The Serbs were united by Stefan Nemanja, who established the first kingdom of Serbia about 1168. Serbia gradually expanded until, under Stefan Dušan (reigned 1331-1355), it controlled much of what is now the FRY, in addition to Albania and Greece. At the same time, however, the Ottoman Empire, based in what is now Turkey, was also expanding. In 1389 the Serbian army was defeated by the Ottomans at Kosovo in the Battle of Kosovo. Sporadic fighting continued until 1459, when the Ottomans captured Smederevo, south of Belgrade. Serbia then came under direct Ottoman rule. After 345 years of subjugation, the Serbs were reunited under Djordje Petroviç, known as Karadjordje. Beginning in 1804 they waged a nine-year revolt, but the Ottomans regained control in 1813. Two years later a second revolt was led by Miloš Obrenoviç. Within a few months most of Serbia was free of Ottoman domination. Obrenoviç was recognized as hereditary prince in 1817, and Serbia was granted limited self-government. Following the Russo-Turkish War of 1828 and 1829 (see Russo-Turkish Wars), Serbia gained greater autonomy, and the number of Ottoman garrisons was reduced. Obrenoviç had been implicated in the 1817 assassination of Karadjordje. This led to an intense rivalry between the two dynasties. An arbitrary ruler, Obrenoviç was forced to abdicate in 1839. He was succeeded by two of his sons. In 1842 Karadjordje's son, Aleksandar, acceded to the throne, but he was deposed in 1858, and the Obrenoviç dynasty was restored. Mikhail Obrenoviç, son of Miloš, engineered a total Ottoman withdrawal from Serbia in 1867. However, in 1868 he was assassinated, and his young cousin Milan gained the throne. Austro-Hungarian Control During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 and 1878, Serbia and Russia joined forces to defeat the Ottomans in the Balkans. The 1878 Congress of Berlin recognized Serbian independence, but in effect made the country subservient to Austria-Hungary. With Austro-Hungarian support, Milan proclaimed himself king in 1882, and in 1885 he declared war on Bulgaria, which he sought to subjugate, along with Eastern Rumelia (now part of Bulgaria). The Serbs were quickly routed but saved from conquest by Austrian intervention. The Bulgarian fiasco antagonized the powerful Radical Party, a liberal reform group, which in 1889 wrote a more liberal constitution and forced Milan to abdicate. Milan's son, Aleksandar I Obrenoviç, who was first proclaimed king under a regency, assumed the throne in 1893. However, his reactionary and generally corrupt regime made him extremely unpopular, and he was assassinated in 1903. The Serbian legislature then selected Petar Karadjordjeviç as king. He liberalized the government, and his friend Nikola Pašiç, founder of the Radical Party, took control of foreign policy as premier. Serbian relations with Austria deteriorated badly during the so-called Pig War (1905-1907), a customs dispute, and worsened after 1908 when Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1912 and 1913 Serbia took an active part in the Balkan Wars, by which it gained both prestige and territory in Macedonia; it also received the district of Novi Pazar and Kosovo-Metohija. Austria-Hungary then became alarmed by Serbia's growing strength in the Balkans. World War I Tension was already extremely high on June 28, 1914, when the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and his wife were assassinated by a Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, at Sarajevo, Bosnia. The Austro-Hungarian government, holding Serbia responsible, declared war and in August invaded Serbia. The Serbs repelled the invaders until October 1915, when Bulgaria also invaded. By December the country had been occupied by the Central Powers; the Serbian army and government fled to the Greek island of Corfu (Kérkira) in 1916. Union with Yugoslavia The government in exile agreed to the terms of the Corfu Declaration calling for Slavic unity. After the war, in 1918, the leaders of Serbia, Croatia, and Montenegro proclaimed the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which became the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. During World War II, in 1941, the Germans invaded Serbia and established a pro-Fascist puppet state, headed by Milan Nediç. After the defeat of the Axis Powers in 1945, a Yugoslav republic was declared, and Serbia became a constituent republic with limited powers. Beginning in 1989, Serbia tried to impose its control over the other republics of Yugoslavia. Slovenia and Croatia immediately resisted, followed subsequently by Macedonia and the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Delegations from the republics tried during 1990 and early 1991 to work out a compromise. Serbia showed no signs of willingness to compromise, however, and Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence in June 1991. Serbia then demanded that the existing borders be changed, in order to allow it to annex strategically key areas. The Serbian leadership used the presence of ethnic Serbs in these areas to justify its demands. Macedonia declared its independence in November 1991, with the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina following suit in 1992. Serbia and Montenegro subsequently declared themselves the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, but the international community refused to recognize the country and denied Serbia and Montenegro Yugoslavia's seat in the United Nations (UN), insisting that the federation reapply for UN membership. By May 1996 the federation had been recognized as a country by the European Union (EU) but had not yet been recognized by a number of other countries, including the United States. Under the leadership of Slobodan Miloševiç, who became president of Serbia in 1989, the Serbian government played an active role in the conflicts in Bosnia and Croatia (See Yugoslav Succession, Wars of). During and after the wars, there was mounting evidence that Miloševiç had been involved throughout the war in providing financial and military backing to the nationalist Serb campaigns in both republics, and he received international criticism for atrocities committed by Serbs against Muslims and Croats. Miloševiç and his party, the SPS, have maintained a strong hold on power in Serbia, imprisoning or ousting political rivals and tightly controlling the media, including the Belgrade daily newspaper, Borba, which was brought under state control in January 1995. Politika, Belgrade's most influential newspaper, had been under Miloševiç's influence since early 1988. The Miloševiç government has also been criticized for its treatment of ethnic minorities in Serbia, especially in the minority-dominated areas of Kosovo, Vojvodina, and Sand"ak. In Kosovo, which has been under military occupation since 1989, many Albanians have been fired from their jobs, evicted from their homes, or subjected to other forms of discrimination. Albanian children have frequently been prevented from attending state schools, as during the period from September 1990 to September 1994. As a result, thousands of Albanians have fled Serbia, and many others in Kosovo have agitated for independence or union with Albania. Serbia's Muslim inhabitants, who are concentrated in the Sand"ak region, and ethnic Hungarians, who live primarily in Vojvodina, have also been persecuted by Miloševiç's regime, and thousands have fled the republic. In August 1994 Miloševiç broke ties with the Serb leadership in Bosnia and closed the border between the two republics. In November 1995 he represented the Bosnian Serbs in peace talks, and in December he signed the Dayton peace accord along with Bosnian president Alija Izetbegoviç and Croatian president Franjo Tudjman. In the fall of 1996 Miloševiç and Izetbegoviç agreed to establish full diplomatic relations between Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Miloševiç proclaimed Yugoslavia's respect for Bosnia's territorial integrity, and Izetbegoviç agreed to recognize the FRY as the successor to the former Yugoslavia. In November Miloševiç annulled the results of Serbian municipal elections after early returns showed the SPS losing to the opposition Zajedno (Together) coalition, which includes both Serbian nationalists and liberal reformers. The nullification produced widespread protests in Belgrade and other cities, with demonstrators marching daily and calling for Miloševiç to recognize the election results. The protests were the largest ever faced by the Serbian president. Bowing to domestic and international pressure, Serbia's parliament voted in February 1997 to reinstate the opposition victories.