Serbia/Serbs: Development of a Nation
How Serbia became Serbia, and how the Serbs became Serb.

How Serbs as a people, and the country of Serbia as a nation-state, evolved and materialized into current form, in terms of ancestral bloodlines, the Serbian language, borders, culture, and even how they received their name.

Ancestral Background
Development of Language
Formation of Borders
Etymology (How Name Received)
Culture
Serbia in 2008

Serbian Ancestral Background:
 

1. 3000 BC – People along the Baltic coast centered around modern Lithuania begin speaking the Proto-Balto-Slavic language, a branch off from Proto-Indo-European. This serves as the genesis of the Slavic and Baltic languages/peoples.
2. 1000 BC – A group splinters from the Proto-Balto-Slavic people, migrating southeast into modern Ukraine. This branch off group were the predecessors to Slavs, who would ultimately extend outward in all directions.
3. In the 6^th century, as Germanics migrated westward, a group of Slavs expanded southward to fill the void, inhabiting the northern border of the Byzantine Empire (continuation of the Roman Empire in the Greek world).
4. 558 – Avars, a central Asian Turkic people, driven west into Europe (through modern Ukraine) by Persians and more powerful Turkic empires, came into contact with the Byzantines. They were paid off by the Byzantines to settle the area north of the Danube River, and to subdue barbarian Germanics remaining in the territory. The Avars succeeded in driving the Germans out of area, including the Lombards, who were driven into Italy, where they become the ruling class. At this time, large groups of Slavic peoples were settled north of the Danube as well. The Avar raids forced them south into the Balkan peninsula, where they settled lands abandoned by Germanic peoples, including modern Romania and Hungary. Slavic peoples would inhabit the entire Balkan region north of the Greek-inhabited lands at the very southern portion of the peninsula by 700. The Illyrians would be driven into a remote mountainous region in modern Albania, becoming forefathers to modern Albanians, which would also include a Slavic component from intermixing.
5. By the 7^th century, Serbs would begin to come under Bulgarian control, and then under Byzantine control in 10^th century. Byzantines were the continuation of the Roman Empire among the Greeks and those under their rule. By the 7^th century, the Serbs had already developed into a distinct nationality, as they were just far enough beyond the main body of surrounding kingdoms to materialize as a cohesive yet differentiated group. By this point, the genetic composition of Serbs was largely set.
6. 1389 – Battle of Kosovo. The Muslim Ottoman Turks defeated the Serbs, taking control of the southeast portion of the Serbian Empire.
7. By 1459, virtually all of Serbia was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. The Serbs remained a distinct nation under Muslim Ottoman rule, maintaining their Christian heritage, resisting Islamization unlike other Slav nations swallowed into the Ottoman Empire, such as Bosnia and Albania, further cementing the sectarian lines between these two bordering nations of people. Serbs were instead able to further consolidate their identity through the Serbian Orthodox Church, insulated Serbs from other the original Orthodox church in Greece, which was also under Ottoman rule, but unable to project influence abroad due to its vassal status.
8. Serbia would eventually be conquered by Austria (1817), before achieving independence (1882). It would become the dominant ethnogroup in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which consolidated South Slavs after the break-up of the Austria-Hungary Empire following its defeat in 1918. The Serbs would fervently protect its preferential status, perpetuating sectarian jealousies and rivalries within Yugoslavia, which would eventually devolve into the Yugoslavia Wars, and the subsequent fragmentation of Yugoslavia along nationalistic lines. It was this sectarianism that served to keep nationalistic divisions in place.

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Development of Serbian Language:
 

1. 3000 BC – People along the Baltic coast centered around modern Lithuania begin speaking the Proto-Balto-Slavic language, a branch off from Proto-Indo-European. This serves as the genesis of the Slavic and Baltic languages/peoples.
2. 1000 BC – A group splinters from the Proto-Balto-Slavic people, migrating southeast into modern Ukraine. This branch off group were the predecessors to Slavs, who would ultimately extend outward in all directions. Their language evolves into the original Slav language, a sub-branch of Proto-Balto-Slavic, and the ancestral language to all Slav sub-branches, including Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Serbian, Croatian and others.
3. South Slav Language begins to separate from Western Slav Language in the 9^th to 10^th century, after Magyars settled into modern Hungary, separating the West Slavs (in modern Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia) from the South Slavs (territory roughly approximating the former Yugoslavia).
4. By 10^th century, Serbian begins to become a distinct language, having sufficiently diverged from other South Slav languages. It remains mutually intelligible with Bosniak and Croat.

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Formation of Serbian Borders:
 

1. In the 6^th century, as Germanics migrated westward, a group of Slavs expanded southward to fill the void, inhabiting the northern border of the Byzantine Empire (continuation of the Roman Empire in the Greek world).
2. 558 – Avars, a central Asian Turkic people, driven west into Europe (through modern Ukraine) by Persians and more powerful Turkic empires, came into contact with the Byzantines. They were paid off by the Byzantines to settle the area north of the Danube River, and to subdue barbarian Germanics remaining in the territory. The Avars succeeded in driving the Germans out of area, including the Lombards, who were driven into Italy, where they become the ruling class. At this time, large groups of Slavic peoples were settled north of the Danube as well. The Avar raids forced them south into the Balkan peninsula, where they settled lands abandoned by Germanic peoples, including modern Romania and Hungary. Slavic peoples would inhabit the entire Balkan region north of the Greek-inhabited lands at the very southern portion of the peninsula by 700.
3. By the 7^th century, Serbs would begin to come under Bulgarian control, and then under Byzantine control in 10^th century. Byzantines were the continuation of the Roman Empire among the Greeks and those under their rule. By the 7^th century, the Serbs had already developed into a distinct nationality, as they were just far enough beyond the main body of surrounding kingdoms to materialize as a cohesive yet differentiated group.
4. In the late 12^th century, the Serbs were still officially under control of Byzantine, but essentially operating independently. They went on to conquer Albania, Kosovo, northern Macedonia, and eastern modern Serbia. Their independence was formally recognized in 1217.
5. 1282 – As dowry for a dynastic marriage, Hungary gives its northern Serbia holdings to the monarch of Serbia, along with territory in northeast Bosnia.
6. 1389 – Battle of Kosovo. The Muslim Ottoman Turks defeated the Serbs, taking control of the southeast portion of the Serbian Empire.
7. By 1459, virtually all of Serbia was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. The Serbs remained a distinct nation under Muslim Ottoman rule, maintaining their Christian heritage, resisting Islamization unlike other Slav nations swallowed into the Ottoman Empire, such as Bosnia and Albania, further cementing the sectarian lines between these two bordering nations of people, laying the foundation for future divisions.
8. 1718 – Austria-Ottoman War: The Serbs were persuaded to join their fellow Christians from Austria in a revolt against the Muslim Ottoman Empire, gaining Northern Serbia for themselves.
9. 1817 – A Serb uprising against the Ottomans frees most of Serbia from Ottoman rule, with the exception of the capital city of Belgrade. Serbia then became a principality within the Austrian Empire.
10. 1867 – The Ottoman Empire finally withdraws from Belgrade, its last foothold in Serbia.
11. 1882 – Serbs gain independence from the Austrian Empire, establishing the Kingdom of Serbia. The northern region of Vojvodina remains an autonomous region within Austria-Hungary.
12. 1913 – Balkan Wars: Serbia captured Macedonia, while also gaining territory to the east at the expense of Bulgaria.
13. 1918 – Serbia, fighting on the Allied side, was awarded Austrian territories of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, to form the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes at the conclusion of WWI in 1918. Vojvodina (Northern Serbia) was unified with Serbia.
14. In 1929, the name of the kingdom was changed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It was conquered and sub-divided among the Axis Powers during WWII, but restored to its former borders after the war.
15. Serbia-dominated Yugoslavia remained intact until the beginning of the Yugoslavia Wars in 1990, when President Milosevic attempted to consolidate power among Serbs in lands outside of Serbia, resulting in wars of independence, and the subsequent break up of Yugoslavia. Serbia and Montenegro was one of the successor states, a union based on the traditional nations of Serbian and Montenegro.
16. 2006 – Montenegro declares independence, leaving Serbia as a stand-alone nation-state.
17. 2008 - Kosovo declares independence. Kosovo is an Albanian-majority nation that has traditionally existed within Serbian borders.

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Etymology (How Name Received):

Serb is of unknown origin, likely from the Serbian language, or at least Slav family language.

Serbian Culture:

Serbian art, architecture, music and other cultural aspects have traditionally been influenced by Eastern Orthodoxy, first under Byzantine Greek Orthodox influence. Later, the Serb Orthodox Church supplanted the Greek Orthodox as the leading influence of Serbian culture.

Serbian culture would survive the longstanding Muslim domination under the Ottoman Empire. During the existence of Yugoslavia, Serb culture was influenced by Soviet communist idealism. Since the break down of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, western influence has been on the rise.

Serbia in 2008:

Economy: Still recovering from frequent warfare during the 1990s, along with UN economic sanctions, as it was seen as the aggressor during the Yugoslavian Wars. Unemployment (18%) and national debt remain significant problems. But in the past few years, the economy has really begun to grow. Serbia is traditionally a dominant force in the Balkans, indicating the room it had to grow after suffering a low point during the Yugoslavia Wars, where the world essentially teamed against it.
Government: Democratic Republic
Religion: Serbian Orthodox 85%, Roman Catholic 6%.
Demographics: Serb 83%, Hungarian 4% (Northern Serbia historically under Hungarian rule).
Foreign Policy: Engaged in law suit filed by Bosnia & Herzegovina for war crimes and charges of genocide during Bosnian War from 1992 - 95. Currently engaged in minor border disputes with Croatia and Bosnia. Through diplomatic and other non-military means, trying to retain Kosovo province, which seceded from Serbia in 2008. Trying to gain entry into EU, as it attempts to shed its label as menace in region after the Yugoslavia Wars.
Population: 10,159,046 (2008)

 

Formation of Nations (All European Nations)

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