Introduction

The present book is dedicated to a country that today is once more called Serbia. During most of its long history Serbia was part of larger imperial entities, namely the Byzantine, Ottoman, and Habsburg empires. Between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, Serbia was a thriving medieval kingdom which survived until the Ottoman conquest in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Subsequently, Serbia remained under the Ottoman Empire for almost five centuries, becoming an independent principality (1832) after two successive anti-Ottoman insurrections (1804, 1815). Serbia became an internationally recognized state in 1882, partially in the aftermath of the Congress of Berlin (1878) and partially as a result of decisions made by the great European powers. Between 1888 and 1918, Serbia was a constitutional monarchy with a parliament, political parties, and an independent press. On 1 December 1918, Serbia stood at the forefront of the foundation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes which subsequently changed its name into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1929–41).1 After World War II, Serbia and its two autonomous provinces (Vojvodina and Kosovo) became one of the six republics of the Socialist Federal Republic (SFR) of Yugoslavia.