native name
conventional long name	Republic of Serbia
common name	Serbia
demonym	Serbian
image coat	Coat of arms of Serbia (since 2011).svg
map caption	Location of Serbia (green) – ''Kosovo'' (light green) on the European continent (dark grey)
national anthem	''Боже правде / God of justice''File:Serbian National Anthem instrumental.ogg
official languages	Serbian
capital	Belgrade
largest city	capital
government type	Parliamentary republic
leader title1	President
leader title2	Prime Minister
leader name1	Boris Tadić
leader name2	Mirko Cvetković
area rank	112th
area magnitude	1 E10
area km2	88 361
area sq mi	34 116
percent water	0.13(including Kosovo)
population estimate	9,496,000(including Kosovo)
population estimate year	2007
population estimate	7,276,195(excluding Kosovo)
population estimate year	2011
population density km2	107,46
population density sq mi	297
population density rank	94th
hdi year	2010
hdi	0.735
hdi rank	60th
hdi category	high
gdp ppp year	2011
gdp ppp	$83.41 billion
gdp ppp rank	75th
gdp ppp per capita	$11,255 (excluding Kosovo)
gdp ppp per capita rank	74th
gdp nominal year	2011
gdp nominal	45.6 billion
gdp nominal rank	80th
gdp nominal per capita	$6,178 (excluding Kosovo)
gdp nominal per capita rank	79th
gini	26
gini year	2008
gini category	low
sovereignty type	Formation
established event1	First State
established event2	Kingdom
established event3	Empire
established event4	Recognized as suzerain principality
established event5	De jure independence
established event6	Independent Republic
established date1	768
established date2	1217
established date3	1346
established date4	1817
established date5	1878
established date6	2006
currency	Serbian dinar
currency code	RSD
country code	RS
time zone	CET
utc offset	+1
time zone dst	CEST
utc offset dst	+2
ethnic groups	82.9% Serbs, 3.9% Hungarians, 1.8% Bosniaks, 1.4% Roma, 10.0% others(excluding Kosovo)
ethnic groups year	2002
drives on	right
cctld	.rs
calling code	381
iso 3166-1 alpha2	RS
iso 3166-1 alpha3	SRB
iso 3166-1 num	688
alt sport code	SRB
vehicle code	SRB
footnotes	1 See also regional minority languages recognized by the ECRML }}

Serbia (), officially the Republic of Serbia (}}), is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans. Serbia borders Hungary to the north; Romania and Bulgaria to the east; the Republic of Macedonia to the south; and Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro to the west; additionally, it borders Albania through Kosovo, whose status as part of Serbia is disputed. The capital of Serbia, Belgrade, is among the largest cities in Southeast Europe.

After the arrival of the Serbs to the Balkans in the 7th century, several medieval states were formed, which evolved into the Serbian Empire in the 14th century. By the 16th century, Serbia was conquered and occupied by the Ottoman Empire, at times interrupted by the Habsburgs. In the early 19th century the Serbian revolution re-established the country as the region's first constitutional monarchy, which subsequently expanded its territory and pioneered the abolition of feudalism in the Balkans. The former Habsburg crownland of Vojvodina united with Serbia in 1918. Following World War I, Serbia formed Yugoslavia with other South Slavic peoples which existed in several forms up until 2006, when Serbia regained its independence. In February 2008 the parliament of UNMIK-governed Kosovo, Serbia's southern province, declared independence, with mixed responses from international governments.

Serbia is a member of the UN, Council of Europe, PfP, BSEC and CEFTA. It is also an EU membership applicant and a self-declared neutral country.

History

Early history

The Neolithic Starčevo and Vinča cultures existed in or near Belgrade and dominated the Balkans (as well as parts of Central Europe and Asia Minor) 8,500 years ago. Some scholars believe that the prehistoric Vinča signs represent one of the earliest known forms of writing systems (dating to 6,000 – 4,000 BC).

The Paleo-Balkan peoples, such as the Thracians, Dacians, Illyrians were autochthonous inhabitants of Serbia prior to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC Greeks expanded into the south of modern Serbia in the 4th century BC, the north-westernmost point of Alexander the Great's empire, being the town of Kale-Krševica. The Celtic tribe of Scordisci settled in the 3rd century BC and built many fortifications and cities in Serbia, such as Singidunum, now known as Belgrade.

The Romans conquered parts of Serbia in 2nd century BC, in 167 BC when conquering the West, establishing the province of Illyricum and the rest of Central Serbia in 75 BC, establishing the province of Moesia Superior. Srem was conquered in 9 BC and Bačka and Banat in 106 AD after the Dacian wars. Despite its small size, the contemporary Serbia extends fully or partially over several Roman provinces such as Moesia, Pannonia, Praevalitana, Dalmatia, Dacia and Macedonia. The northern Serbian city of Sirmium was one of the capitals of the Roman Empire during the Tetrarchy. Seventeen Roman Emperors were born in present-day Serbia, second only to what is present-day Italy.

The most famous Roman Emperor born in Serbia was Constantine the Great who empowered Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. The northern Serbian city of Sirmium (''Sremska Mitrovica'') was among the top 4 cities of the late Roman Empire, serving as its capital during the Tetrarchy. Contemporary Serbia comprises the classical regions of Moesia, Pannonia, parts of Dalmatia, Dacia and Macedonia. Around the 6th century, Slavs appeared on the Byzantine borders in great numbers. The chief towns of Serbian Upper Moesia (and wider) in the principate were: Singidunum, Viminacium, Remesiana, Naissus and especially, Sirmium.

Middle Age

The beginning of the Serbian state began with the settling of the White Serbs in the Balkans led by the Unknown Archont, who was asked to defend the Byzantine frontiers from invading Avars. Emperor Heraclius granted the Serbs a permanent dominion in the ''Sclavinias'' of Western Balkans upon completing this task. By the 750s the great-grandson of the Unknown Archont, Višeslav I managed to unite several territories, which led to the founding of Raška, which lay between the crisis-struck Byzantine and the growing Frankish Empire.

At first heavily dependent on the Byzantine Empire as its vassal, Raška gained independence by the expulsion of the Byzantine troops and the major defeat of the Bulgarians around 850 AD during the rule of Vlastimir of Serbia, the founder of the first Serbian dynasty, the House of Vlastimirović. The Christianization of the Serbs was complete in 867–869 when Byzantine Emperor Basil I sent priests after Knez Mutimir had acknowledged Byzantine suzerainty. At about the same time, the remaining, mostly western Serbs were subjugated to the Frankish Empire. The First dynasty died out in 960 AD; the wars of succession for the Serb throne led to Serbian incorporation into the Byzantine Empire in 971. Around 1040 AD, an uprising in the medieval state of Duklja overthrew Byzantine rule. Duklja then assumed dominion over Serb lands during the 11th and 12th centuries. In 1077 AD, Duklja became the first Serbian kingdom following the establishment of the Catholic Bishopric of Bar. From the late 12th century onwards, Raška rose to become the dominant Serbian state. Over the 13th and 14th centuries, it ruled over the other Serb lands. During this time, Serbia began to expand eastward and southward into Kosovo and northern Macedonia and northward for the first time.

The Serbian Empire was established in 1346 by Tsar Stefan Dušan, during which time the country reached its territorial, spiritual and cultural peak, becoming the most powerful state in the Balkans. Dušan's Code, a universal system of laws, was enacted. The reign of his son Tsar Stefan Uroš V saw the Serbian Empire fragment into a confederation of principalities. Tsar Uroš died childless in December 1371, after much of the Serbian nobility had been destroyed by the Turks in the Battle of Maritsa earlier that year. The royal Houses of Mrnjavčević, Lazarević and Branković ruled the Serbian lands in the 15th and 16th centuries. Constant struggles took place between various Serbian kingdoms and the Ottoman Empire. After the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453 and the Siege of Belgrade, the Serbian Despotate fell in 1459 following the siege of the provisional capital of Smederevo. After repelling Ottoman attacks for over 70 years, Belgrade finally fell in 1521, opening the way for Ottoman penetration into Central Europe. Conversion to Islam soon became evident, especially in the southwest- Raška, Kosovo and Bosnia. To the south, the Republic of Venice expanded, gradually taking over the coastal areas.

Ottoman and Austrian rule

After the loss of independence to the Kingdom of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, Serbia briefly regained sovereignty under Jovan Nenad in the 16th century. Three Austrian invasions and numerous rebellions, such as the Banat Uprising, constantly challenged Ottoman rule. Vojvodina endured a century long Ottoman occupation before being ceded to the Habsburg Empire in the 17th–18th centuries under the Treaty of Karlowitz. As the Great Serb Migrations depopulated most of Kosovo and Central Serbia, the Serbs sought refuge across the Danube river in Vojvodina to the north and Military Frontier in the West where they were granted rights by the Austrian crown under measures such as the ''Statuta Wallachorum'' of 1630. The Ottoman persecutions of Christians culminated in the abolition and plunder of the Patriarchate of Peć in 1766. As Ottoman rule in the Pashaluk of Belgrade grew ever more brutal, the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I formally granted the Serbs the right to their autonomous crownland following several petitions.

Revolution and independence

The quest for national emancipation was first undertaken during the Serbian national revolution, in 1804 until 1815. The liberation war was followed by a period of formalization, negotiations and finally, the Constitutionalization, effectively ending the process in 1835. For the first time in Ottoman history the entire Serbian Christian population had risen up against the Sultan. The entrenchment of French troops in the western Balkans, the incessant political crises in the Ottoman Empire, the growing intensity of the Austro–Russian rivalry in the Balkans, the intermittent warfare which consumed the energies of French and Russian Empires and the outbreak of protracted hostilities between the Porte and Russia are but a few of the major international developments which directly or indirectly influenced the course of the Serbian revolt.

During the First Serbian Uprising, or the first phase of the revolt, led by the Great Karađorđe Petrović, Serbia was independent for almost a decade before the Ottoman army was able to reoccupy the country. Shortly after this, the Second Serbian Uprising began. Led by Miloš Obrenović, it ended in 1815 with a compromise between the Serbian revolutionary army and the Ottoman authorities. German historian Leopold von Ranke published his book "The Serbian revolution" in 1829. They were the easternmost bourgeois revolutions in the 19th-century world. Likewise, Serbia was second nation in Europe, after France, to abolish feudalism.

The Convention of Ackerman in 1826, the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829 and finally, the Hatt-i Sharif, recognized the suzerainty of Serbia with Miloš Obrenović I as its hereditary Prince. The struggle for liberty, a more modern society and a nation-state in Serbia won a victory under first constitution in the Balkans on 15 February 1835. It was replaced by a more conservative Constitution in 1838. In the two following decades, temporarily ruled by the Karadjordjevic dynasty, the Principality of Serbia actively supported the neighboring Habsburg Serbs, especially during the 1848 revolutions. Interior minister Ilija Garašanin published ''The Draft'' (for South Slavic unification), which became the standpoint of Serbian foreign policy from the mid-19th century onwards. The government thus developed close ties with the Illyrian movement in Croatia-Slavonia region that was a part of the Austria-Hungary. Following the clashes between the Ottoman army and civilians in Belgrade in 1862, and under pressure from the Great Powers, by 1867 the last Turkish soldiers left the Principality. By enacting a new constitution without consulting the Porte, Serbian diplomats confirmed the ''de facto'' independence of the country. In 1876, Serbia declared war on the Ottoman Empire, proclaiming its unification with Bosnia. The formal independence of the country was internationally recognized at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, which formally ended the Russo-Turkish War; this treaty, however, prohibited Serbia from uniting with Bosnia and Raška by placing them under Austro-Hungarian occupation.

From 1815 to 1903, Principality of Serbia was ruled by the House of Obrenović, except from 1842 to 1858, when it was led by Prince Aleksandar Karađorđević. In 1882, Serbia became a kingdom, ruled by King Milan. In 1903, following May Overthrow, the House of Karađorđević, descendants of the revolutionary leader Karađorđe Petrović assumed power. Serbia was the only country in the region that was allowed by the Great Powers to be ruled by its own domestic dynasty. During the Balkan Wars lasting from 1912 to 1913, the Kingdom of Serbia tripled its territory by reacquiring parts of Macedonia, Kosovo, and parts of Central Serbia. The 1848 revolution in Austria lead to the establishment of the autonomous region of Serbian Vojvodina. By 1849, the region was transformed into the Voivodeship of Serbia and Banat of Temeschwar.

Balkan Wars and World War I

The phrase ''Balkan Wars'' refers to the conflicts that took place in Southeast Europe between 1912 and 1913. The First Balkan War broke out when the member states of the Balkan League attacked and divided Ottoman territories in the Balkans in a seven-month campaign, resulting in the Treaty of London. For the Kingdom of Serbia, this victory enabled territorial expansion into Raška and Kosovo. The Second Balkan War soon ensued when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its gains, turned against its former allies, Serbia and Greece. Their armies repulsed the Bulgarian offensive and counter-attacked, penetrating into Bulgaria, while Romania and the Ottomans used the favourable time to intervene against Bulgaria to win territorial gains. In the resulting Treaty of Bucharest, Bulgaria lost most of the territories gained in the First Balkan War, with Serbia annexing Vardar Macedonia. Serbia enlarged its territory by 80% and its population by 50% within just two years; it also suffered high casualties on the eve of World War I, with around 20,000 dead.

On 28 June 1914 the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian Nationalist and member of the Young Bosnia organization, led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia. In defense of its ally Serbia, Russia started to mobilize its troops, which resulted in Austria-Hungary's ally Germany declaring war on Russia. The retaliation by Austria-Hungary against Serbia activated a series of military alliances that set off a chain reaction of war declarations across the continent, leading to the outbreak of World War I within a month.

Serbia won the first major battles of World War I, including the Battle of Cer and Battle of Kolubara – marking the first Allied victories against the Central Powers in World War I. Despite initial success, it was eventually overpowered by the joint forces of the German Empire, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria in 1915. Most of its army and some people went into exile to Greece and Corfu, where they recovered, regrouped and returned to the Macedonian front during World War I to lead a final breakthrough through enemy lines on 15 September 1918, liberating Serbia and defeating the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Bulgaria. Serbia, with its campaign, was a major Balkan Entente Power which contributed significantly to the Allied victory in the Balkans in November 1918, especially by helping France force Bulgaria's capitulation. The country was militarily classified as a ''minor Entente power''. Serbia was also among the main contributors to the capitulation of Austria-Hungary in Central Europe.

Serbia's casualties accounted for 8% of the ''total'' Entente military deaths; 58% (243,600) soldiers of the Serbian army perished in the war. The total number of casualties is placed around 1,000,000, more than 25% of Serbia's prewar size, and a majority (57%) of its overall male population.

First Yugoslavia

Syrmia region was the first among former Habsburg lands to declare union with Serbia on 24 November 1918.

Banat, Bačka and Baranja – together called ''Vojvodina'' – joined Serbia the next day.

On 26 November 1918, the Podgorica Assembly deposed the House of Petrovic-Njegos of the Kingdom of Montenegro, opting for the House of Karađorđević (the ruling dynasty of the Kingdom of Serbia), unifying the two states.

Bosnia declares its unification with Serbia.

On 1 December 1918, the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and the Kingdom of Serbia joined together and formed the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, under the reign of King Peter I.

World War II and civil war

In 1941, in spite of domestically unpopular attempts by the government of Yugoslavia to appease the Axis powers, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and other Axis states invaded Yugoslavia. After the invasion, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was dissolved and Serbia was put under a German Military administration, under a joint German-Serb government with Milan Nedić as Head of the "Government of National Salvation". Serbia was the scene of a civil war between royalist chetniks commanded by Draža Mihailović and communist partisans commanded by Josip Broz Tito. Against these forces were arrayed Nedić's units of the Serbian Volunteer Corps and the Serbian State Guard.

After one year of occupation, around 16,000 Serbian Jews were murdered in Axis-occupied Serbia, or around 90% of its pre-war Jewish population. Banjica concentration camp was established by the German Military Administration in Serbia. Primary victims were Serbian Jews, Roma, and Serb political prisoners. Other camps in Serbia included the Crveni Krst concentration camp in Niš and the Dulag 183 in Šabac. Sajmište was one of the first concentration camps for Jews in Europe. Staro Sajmište was the largest concentration camp in Axis-occupied Serbia.

Relations between Serbs and Croats in Yugoslavia severely deteriorated during World War II as a result of the creation of the Axis puppet state of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) that comprised most of present-day Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and parts of present-day Serbia. The NDH committed large scale persecution and genocide of Serbs, Jews, and Roma. The estimate of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum indicates that between 330,000 and 390,000 ethnic Serb residents of Croatia, Bosnia and parts of Serbia (primarily the Syrmia region) were murdered during the Ustaše genocide campaign; same figures are supported by the Jewish Virtual Library. reports that more than Serbs were killed overall, whereas official Yugoslav sources used to estimate more than victims, mostly Serbs. The Jasenovac memorial so far lists 75,159 names killed at the this concentration camp alone, out of around 100,000 estimated victims (75% of whom were of Serbian origin). In April 2003 Croatian president Stjepan Mesić apologized on behalf of Croatia to the victims of Jasenovac. In 2006, on the same occasion, he added that to every visitor to Jasenovac it must be clear that ''Holocaust, genocide and war crimes'' took place there. Out of roughly 1,000,000 casualties in all of Yugoslavia up until 1944, around 250,000 were citizens of Serbia of different ethnicities, according to Zundhauzen. The overall number of Serb casualties in Yugoslavia was around 530,000, out of whom up to 400,000 in the Independent State of Croatia. By late 1944, the Belgrade Offensive swung in favour of the partisans in the civil war; the partisans subsequently gained control of Yugoslavia. The Syrmia front was the last sequence of the internal war in Serbia following the Belgrade Offensive. Around 70,000 people in Serbia alone perished during the communist takeover, (including 10,000 Belgraders) whereas Ministry of Justice figures puts lower estimate around 80,000, of whom 60,000 were of Serbian origin.

Second Yugoslavia

The communist takeover by the Yugoslav Partisans resulted in abolition of the monarchy and a subsequent orchestrated constitutional referendum. A single-party state was soon established in Yugoslavia by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. All opposition was repressed and people deemed to be promoting opposition to the government or promoting separatism were given harsh prison sentences or executed for sedition. Serbia became a constituent republic within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) known as the Socialist Republic of Serbia and had a republic-branch of the federal Communist party, the League of Communists of Serbia. The republic consisted of the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo, Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, Central Serbia and the state capital, Belgrade.

Serbia's most powerful and influential politician was Aleksandar Ranković, a high-ranking official in the federal communist party and one of the "big four" Yugoslav leaders, alongside Josip Broz Tito, Edvard Kardelj, and Milovan Đilas. Ranković served as head of the UDBA internal security organization and served as vice-president of Yugoslavia from 1963 to 1966. In 1950, Ranković as minister of interior reported that since 1945 the Yugoslav communist regime had arrested five million people.

For years Ranković served as Tito's right-hand man and supported Tito's decision to break Yugoslavia away from domination by Soviet Union by having the UDBA obstruct the USSR's efforts to infiltrate state institutions and communist party. These actions resulted in the Cominform accusing the Yugoslav government of being dominated by a "Tito-Ranković clique" that they accused of being a "fascist regime". He supported a centralized Yugoslavia and opposed efforts that promoted decentralization that he deemed to be against the interests of Serb unity. Ranković sought to secure the position of the Serbs in Kosovo and gave them dominance in Kosovo's nomenklatura. Ranković's power and agenda waned in the 1960s with the rise to power of reformers who sought decentralization and to preserve the right of national self-determination of the peoples of Yugoslavia. In response to his opposition to decentralization, the Yugoslav government removed Ranković from office in 1966 on various claims, including that he was spying on Tito. Ranković's dismissal was highly unpopular amongst Serbs.

Pro-decentralization reformers in Yugoslavia, especially from Slovenia and Croatia succeeded in the late 1960s in attaining substantial decentralization of powers, creating substantial autonomy in Kosovo and Vojvodina, and recognizing a Yugoslav Muslim nationality. As a result of these reforms, there was a massive overhaul of Kosovo's nomenklatura and police, that shifted from being Serb-dominated to ethnic Albanian-dominated through firing Serbs in large scale. Further concessions were made to the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo in response to unrest, including the creation of the University of Pristina as an Albanian language institution. These changes created widespread fear amongst Serbs that they were being made second-class citizens in Yugoslavia by these changes. These changes was harshly criticized by Serbian communist official Dobrica Ćosić, who at the time claimed that they were contrary to Yugoslavia's commitment to Marxism through conceding to nationalism, especially Albanian nationalism.

In 1989 Slobodan Milošević rose to power in Serbia in the League of Communists of Serbia. Milošević promised reduction of powers for the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. This ignited tensions with the communist leadership of the other republics that eventually resulted in the secession of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia from Yugoslavia.

Multiparty democracy was introduced in Serbia in 1990, officially dismantling the single-party system. Critics of Milošević claimed that the government continued to be authoritarian despite constitutional changes as Milošević maintained strong political influence over the state media. Milošević issued media blackouts of independent media stations' coverage of protests against his government and restricted freedom of speech through reforms to the Serbian Penal Code which issued criminal sentences on anyone who "ridiculed" the government and its leaders, resulting in many people being arrested who opposed Milošević and his government.

In 1992, the governments of Serbia and Montenegro agreed to the creation of a new Yugoslav federation called the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia which abandoned the predecessor SFRY's official endorsement of communism, and instead endorsed democracy. In response to accusations that the Yugoslav government was financially and militarily supporting the Serb military forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, sanctions were imposed by the UN, during the 1990s, which led to political isolation, economic decline and hyperinflation of the Yugoslav dinar.

When the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia refused to accept municipal election results in 1997, which resulted in its defeat in the municipalities, Serbians engaged in large protests against the government. Between 1998–99, peace was broken when the worsened situation in Kosovo with continued clashes between Yugoslav security forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The confrontations led to the Kosovo War.

Political transition

In September 2000, opposition parties accused Milošević of electoral fraud. A campaign of civil resistance followed, led by the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), a broad coalition of anti-Milošević parties. This culminated on 5 October when half a million people from all over the country congregated in Belgrade, compelling Milošević to concede defeat. The fall of Milošević ended Serbia's international isolation. Milošević was sent to the ICTY on accusations of sponsoring war crimes during the breakup of Yugoslavia, where he was held on trial to until his death in 2006. The DOS announced that Serbia would seek to join the European Union. In October 2005, the EU opened negotiations with Serbia for the Stabilization and Association Agreement.

Serbia's political climate has remained tense. In 2003, the prime minister Zoran Đinđić was assassinated as result of a plot originating from circles of organized crime and former security officials. Nationalist and EU-oriented political forces in Serbia have remained sharply divided on the political course of Serbia in regards to its relations with the European Union.

From 2003 to 2006, Serbia was part of the "State Union of Serbia and Montenegro." This union was the successor to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. On 21 May 2006, Montenegro held a referendum to determine whether or not to end its union with Serbia. The next day, state-certified results showed 55.4% of voters in favor of independence. This was just above the 55% required by the referendum.

On 5 June 2006, the National Assembly of Serbia declared Serbia to be the legal successor to the former state union. In April 2008 Serbia was invited to join the intensified dialogue programme with NATO despite the diplomatic rift with the alliance over Kosovo. Serbia officially applied for EU membership on 22 December 2009.

Geography

Located at the crossroads between Central and Southern Europe Serbia is found in the Balkan peninsula and the Pannonian Plain. Including Kosovo, it lies between latitudes 41° and 47° N, and longitudes 18° and 23° E.

The Danube passes through Serbia with 21% of its overall length, joined by its biggest tributaries, the Sava and Tisza rivers. The province of Vojvodina covers the northern third of the country, and is entirely located within the Central European Pannonian Plain. Dinaric Alps, gradually rising towards south, cover most of western and central Serbia. The easternmost tip of Serbia extends into the Wallachian Plain. The eastern border of the country intersects with the Carpathian Mountain range, which run through the whole of Central Europe.

The Southern Carpathians meet the Balkan Mountains, following the course of the Great Morava, a 500 km long river. The Midžor peak is the highest point in eastern Serbia at 2156 m. In the southeast, the Balkan Mountains meet the Rhodope Mountains. The Šar Mountains of Kosovo form the border with Albania, with one of the highest peaks in the region, Đeravica, reaching 2656 meters at its peak. Dinaric Alps of Serbia follow the flow of the Drina river, overlooking the Dinaric peaks on the opposite shore in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

National parks

Over 31% of Serbia is covered by forest. National parks take up 10% of the country's territory. Serbia has 5 national parks and 22 nature reserves.

Wetlands

{| class="wikitable" style="width:50%;" |- !Name !Designated !Municipality !Area (km²) |- |Gornje Podunavlje||2007||Vojvodina||align=right|224,8 |- |Labudovo okno||2006||Bela Crkva||align=right|37,33 |- |Ludaš Lake||1977||Subotica||align=right|5,93 |- |Obedska bara||1977||Pećinci||align=right|175,01 |- |Peštersko polje||2006||Sjenica||align=right|34,55 |- |Slano Kopovo||2004||Vojvodina||align=right|9,76 |- |Stari Begej – Carska Bara||1996||Zrenjanin||align=right|17,67 |- |Vlasina Lake||2007||Surdulica||align=right|32,09 |}

Climate

Most of Serbia's surface belongs to the humid subtropical climate (Köppen classification Cfa). Serbia's climate varies between a moderate climate in the north, with cold winters, and hot, humid summers with well distributed rainfall patterns, and a more Adriatic climate in the south with hot, dry summers and autumns and relatively cold winters with heavy inland snowfall in the mountains. Differences in elevation, proximity to the Adriatic Sea and large river basins, as well as exposure to the winds account for climate differences. Vojvodina possesses typical continental climate, with air masses from northern and western Europe which shape its climatic profile. South and South-west Serbia is subject to Mediterranean influences. However, the Dinaric Alps and other mountain ranges contribute to the cooling down of most of the warm air masses. Winters are quite harsh in Sandžak because of the mountains which encircle the plateau.

Mediterranean micro-regions exist throughout southern Serbia, in Zlatibor and the Pčinja District around valley and river Pčinja. The average annual air temperature for the period 1961–90 for the area with an altitude of up to is . The areas with an altitude of have an average annual temperature of around , and over of altitude around . The lowest recorded temperature in Serbia was on 13 January 1985, Karajukića Bunari in Pešter, and the highest was , on 24 July 2007, recorded in Smederevska Palanka.

Environment

Serbia's environment is monitored by the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning and protected by the Serbian Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA). The NATO bombings of 1999 caused lasting damage to the environment of Serbia, with several thousand tons of toxic chemicals stored in targeted factories being released into the soil, atmosphere and water basins affecting humans and the local wildlife. Recycling is still a fledgeling activity in Serbia, with only 15% of its waste being turned back for re-use, steps are being taken on improving the situation.

Rivers and lakes

Spanning over 588 kilometers across Serbia, the Danube river is the largest source of fresh water. Other main rivers are Sava, Morava, Tisza, Drina and Ibar. Almost all of Serbia's rivers drain to the Black Sea, by way of the Danube river. One notable exception is the Pčinja which flows into the Aegean. The largest natural lake is Belo Jezero, located in Vojvodina, covering 25 square kilometers. The largest artificial reservoir, Iron Gate (Đerdap), covers an area of 163 square kilometers on the Serbian side, and it has a total area of 253 square kilometers. The largest waterfall, Jelovarnik, located in Kopaonik, is 71 meters high.

!	! River	! Km in Serbia	! Total length(km)	! Number of countries
1	Danube	588	2783	9
2	Great Morava	493	493	1
3		250	272	2
4	Drina	220	346	3
5	Sava	206	945	4
6		202	202	1
7		168	966	4
8	Nišava	151	218	2
9		118	359	2
10		75	244	2

Politics

Serbia formally regained its independence in 2006, after 88 years in various federations, the parliament announced a constitutional referendum that would replace the former Yugoslav-era constitution and created the new framework for the country by ratifying a new constitution. Serving his second term as President, Boris Tadić is the leader of the center-left Democratic Party. His second reelection was won with a narrow 50.5% majority in the second round of the presidential election held on 4 February 2008.

Parliamentary elections were held in May 2008. The coalition ''For a European Serbia'' led by Boris Tadic, claimed victory, but was significantly short of an absolute majority. Following the negotiations with the leftist coalition centered around the Socialist Party of Serbia, an agreement was reached to form a new government, headed by Mirko Cvetković. Present-day Serbian politics are fractiously divided on different issues, such as the European Union and the role of government.

Kosovo has been governed since 1999 by UNMIK, a UN mission. The Provisional Institutions of Self-Government, has an assembly and a president. Although the assembly has declared independence from Serbia, Serbia does not recognise the move.

Administrative divisions

Serbia has two autonomous provinces: Vojvodina in the north and Kosovo and Metohija in the south. The area that lies between Vojvodina and Kosovo is called Central Serbia. Central Serbia is not an administrative division (unlike the provinces), and it has no regional authority of its own.

Serbia is divided into 150 municipalities and 24 cities, which are the basic units of local self-government. Of the 150 municipalities, 83 are located in Central Serbia, 39 in Vojvodina and 28 in Kosovo. Of the 24 cities, 17 are in Central Serbia, 6 are in Vojvodina and 1 in Kosovo. Municipalities and cities are gathered into districts, which are regional centers of state authority, but have no assemblies of their own; they present purely administrative divisions. Serbia is divided into 29 districts (17 in Central Serbia, 7 in Vojvodina and 5 in Kosovo), while the city of Belgrade presents a district of its own.

Demographics

As of January 2011, Serbia (without Kosovo) had an estimated population of 7,276,195 (not including over 200,000 internally displaced persons from Kosovo, who will be counted as a permanent population in the next census, taking place in 2011). The 2002 census was not conducted in Kosovo, which was under United Nations administration at the time. According to CIA estimates, Kosovo has around 1.8 million inhabitants, the majority of them Albanian with Kosovo Serbs coming in second.

Serbs are the largest ethnic group in Serbia, representing 83% of the total population, excluding Kosovo. With a population of 290,000, Hungarians are the second largest ethnic group in Serbia, representing 3.9% (and 14.3% of the population in Vojvodina). Other minority groups include Bosniaks, Roma, Albanians, Croats, Bulgarians, Montenegrins, Macedonians, Slovaks, Vlachs, Romanians, and Chinese. According to UN estimates, around 500,000 Roma live in Serbia. The German minority in the northern province of Vojvodina was more numerous in the past (336,430 in 1900, or 23.5% of the population).

Serbia has the largest refugee population in Europe. Refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Serbia form between 7% and 7.5% of its population – about half a million refugees sought refuge in the country following the series of Yugoslav wars, mainly from Croatia, and to a lesser extent from Bosnia and Herzegovina and the IDPs from Kosovo, which are currently the most numerous at over 200,000.

Meanwhile, it is estimated that 300,000 people left Serbia during the 1990s alone, and around 20% of those had college or higher education. Serbia has a comparatively old overall population (among the 10 oldest in the world), mostly due to low birth rates. In addition, Serbia has among the most negative population growth rates in the world, ranking 225th out of 233 countries overall.

{{bar box | width=300px | title=Ethnic groups in Serbia (excluding Kosovo) in 2002 | titlebar=#ddd | bars= }}

Largest cities

Religion

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For centuries straddling the religious boundary between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, joined up later by Islam, Serbia remains one of the most diverse countries on the continent. While formation of the nation-state and turbulent history of 19th and 20th century has left its traces on the religious landscape of the country: Vojvodina is still 25% Catholic or Protestant, while Central Serbia and Belgrade regions are over 90% Orthodox Christian. Kosovo consists of an 89% Albanian Muslim majority.

Among the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Serbian Orthodox Church is the largest in the country. According to the 2002 Census, 82% of the population of Serbia, excluding Kosovo, or 6,2 million people declared their nationality as Serbian, who are overwhelmingly adherents of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Other Orthodox Christian communities in Serbia include Romanians, Vlachs, Macedonians and Bulgarians. Together they comprise about 84% of the entire population.

Catholicism is mostly present in Vojvodina, especially its northern part, which is home to minority ethnic groups such as Hungarians, Slovaks, Croats, Bunjevci, and Czechs. There are an estimated 388,000 baptized Catholics in Serbia, roughly 6.2% of the population, mostly in northern Serbia.

Protestantism accounts for about 1.1% of the country's population, chiefly among Reformist Hungarians and Slovaks in Vojvodina. Islam has a strong historic following in the southern regions of Serbia – southern Raška and Preševo Valley municipalities in the south-east. Bosniaks are the largest Muslim community in Serbia with 140,000 followers or 2% of the total population, followed by Albanians, whereas some Roma are Muslim.

With the exile of Jews from Spain during the Inquisition era, thousands made their way through Europe to the Balkans. A good number settled in Serbia and became part of the general population. They were well-accepted by the Serbs and in the ensuing generations the majority assimilated or became secular. Later on, the wars that ravaged the region resulted in a great part of the Serbian Jewish population emigrating from the region. Today, there are 1,185 Jews living in Serbia. The only functioning synanogue remains the Belgrade Synagogue. Famously, this synagogue was saved from destruction, at the hands of the Nazis, by the Serbs living in Nazi-occupied Serbia during World War II.

Economy

With a GDP (PPP) for 2011 estimated at $83.41 billion or $11,255 per capita (PPP), Serbia is an upper-middle income economy. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in 2006 was $5.85 billion or €4.5 billion. FDI for 2007 reached $4.2 billion while real GDP per capita figures are estimated to have reached $6,178 in April 2011. The GDP growth rate showed increase by 6.3% in 2005, 5.8% in 2006, reaching 7.5% in 2007 and 8.7% in 2008 as the fastest growing economy in the region. According to Eurostat data, Serbian (PPS) GDP per capita stood at 37% of the EU average in 2008.

The economy has a high unemployment rate of 14% and a unfavourable trade deficit. The country expects some major economic impulses and high growth rates in the next years. Given its recent high economic growth rates, which averaged 6.6% in the last three years, foreign analysts have sometimes labeled Serbia as the "Balkan Tiger".

Apart from its free-trade agreement with the EU as its associate member, Serbia is the only European country outside the former USSR to have free trade agreements with Russia and Belarus.

Serbia grows about one-third of the world's raspberries and is the leading frozen fruit exporter.

In July 2010, the credit rating agency Dun & Bradstreet rated Serbia's economy at DB4d, which remained the same since the last rating. There was expressed concern for the slower-than-expected recovery of the economy from the global financial crisis, along with the continuous high business risk due lowered credit capabilities, increasing company bankruptcy and generally poor economic prospects. The Agency also expressed concern for the high credit debt and large number of foreign banks in the financial sector, creating increased risk of instability.

Telecommunication

89% of households in Serbia have fixed telephone lines, and with over 9.60 million users the number of cell-phones surpasses the number of total population of Serbia itself by 30%. The largest cellphone provider is Telekom Srbija with 5.65 million subscribers, followed by Telenor with 3.1 million users and Vip mobile with just over 1 million. 50.4% of households have computers, 39% use the internet, and 42% have cable TV, which puts the country ahead of certain member states of the EU. Serbia is ranked 59th in the world in terms of internet usage out of 216 states. 55.9% of the population uses the internet, placing Serbia ahead of all Balkan countries.

Transport

There are 4 international airports in Serbia: Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport, Niš Constantine the Great Airport, Vršac International Airport and Pristina International Airport.

The valley of the Morava, is sometimes considered "the crossroads between East and West", which is one of the primary reasons for its turbulent history. The Morava valley route, which avoids mountainous regions, is the easiest route of travel from continental Europe to Greece and Asia Minor. Modern Serbia was the first among its neighbors to buy railroads- in 1858 the first train arrived to Vršac, then Austria-Hungary (by 1882 route to Belgrade and Niš was completed). Serbian Railways handles the entire railway links in Serbia.

European routes E65, E70, E75 and E80, as well as the E662, E761, E762, E763, E771, and E851 pass through the country. The E70 westwards from Belgrade and most of the E75 are modern highways of motorway / autobahn standard or close to that. As of 2005, Serbia has 1,481,498 registered cars, 16,042 motorcycles, 9,626 buses, 116,440 trucks, 28,222 special transport vehicles, 126,816 tractors, and 101,465 trailers.

Although landlocked, there are around 2000 km of navigable rivers and canals, the largest of which are: the Danube, Sava, Tisa, joined by the Timiş River and Begej, all of which connect Serbia with Northern and Western Europe through the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal and North Sea route, to Eastern Europe via the Tisa, Timiş, Begej and Danube Black Sea routes, and to Southern Europe via the Sava river. The two largest Serbian cities – Belgrade and Novi Sad, as well as Smederevo – are major regional Danubian harbours. The Danube River, central Europe's connection to the Black Sea, flows through Serbia. Through Danube-Rhine-Main canal the North Sea is also accessible. Tisza river offers a connection with Eastern Europe while the Sava river connects her to western former Yugoslav republics near the Adriatic Sea.

Energy

Most of the energy is currently produced comes from coal or hydroelectric dams. Energy consumption is expected to exceed energy production by 2012 and Elektroprivreda Srbije, Serbia's largest energy producer, is expected to develop Đerdap III, a hydroelectric dam with approximately 2.4 gigawatts of power.

Naftna Industrija Srbije, Serbia's largest oil producer was acquired by Russian energy giant Gazprom Neft. The two companies, are planning to build the Serbian portion of the South Stream gas pipeline. The two companies are also building a 300 million cubic meter gas storage at Banatski Dvor, located approximately 60 kilometers northeast of Novi Sad. The South Stream gas pipeline project will be the largest since the 19th century railway construction through Serbia.

Tourism

Tourism in Serbia mainly focuses on the villages and mountains of the country. The most famous mountain resorts are Zlatibor, Kopaonik, and the Tara. There are also many spas in Serbia, one the biggest of which is Vrnjačka Banja. Other spas include Soko Banja and Niška Banja. There is a significant amount of tourism in the largest cities like Belgrade, Novi Sad and Niš, but also in the rural parts of Serbia like the volcanic wonder of Đavolja varoš, Christian pilgrimage across the country and the cruises along the Danube, Sava or Tisza. There are several popular festivals held in Serbia, such as EXIT, proclaimed to be the best European festival by UK Festival Awards 2007 and Yourope, the European Association of the 40 largest festivals in Europe and the Guča trumpet festival. 2,2 million tourists visited Serbia in 2007, a 15% increase compared to 2006.

Education

Education in Serbia is regulated by the Ministry of Science and Education. Education starts in either pre-schools or elementary schools. Children enroll in elementary schools at the age of seven, and remain there for eight years. After compulsory education students have the opportunity to either attend a high school for another four years, specialist school, for 2 to 4 years, or to enroll in vocational training, for 2 to 3 years. Following the completion of high school or a specialist school, students have the opportunity to attend university.

In Serbia, some of the largest universities are:

University of Belgrade

University of Kragujevac

University of Niš

University of Novi Sad

University of Pristina

University of Novi Pazar

The University of Belgrade is the oldest and currently the largest university in Serbia. Established in 1808, it has 31 faculties, and since its inception, has trained an estimated 330,000 graduates. Other universities with a significant number of faculty and alumni are those of Novi Sad (founded 1960), Kragujevac (founded 1976) and Niš (founded 1965).

The roots of the Serbian education system date back to the 11th and 12th centuries when the first Catholic colleges were founded in Titel and Bač, in Vojvodina province. Medieval Serbian education, however, was mostly conducted through the Serbian Orthodox monasteries of Sopoćani, Studenica, and Patriarchate of Peć. Serbian Orthodox education starting from the rise of Raška in 12th century, when Serbs overwhelmingly embraced Orthodox Christianity. The oldest college faculty within current borders of Serbia dates back to 1778; founded in the city of Sombor, then Habsburg Empire, it was known under the name ''Norma'' and was the oldest Slavic Teacher's college in Southern Europe.

Culture

For centuries straddling the boundaries between East and West, Serbia had been divided among: the Eastern and Western halves of the Roman Empire; between Kingdom of Hungary, Bulgarian Empire, Frankish Kingdom and Byzantium; and between the Ottoman Empire and the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary, as well as Venice in the south. The result of these overlapping influences are distinct characters and sharp contrasts between various Serbian regions, its north being more tied to Western Europe and south leaning towards the Balkans and the Mediterranean Sea.

The Byzantine Empire's influence on Serbia was profound, through the introduction of Greek Orthodoxy from the 7th century onwards to today, the Serbian Orthodox Church has an overwhelming influence on the makeup of cultural objects in Serbia. Different influences were also present- chiefly the Ottoman, Hungarian, Austrian and also Venetian, also known as coastal Serbs. Serbs use both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets.

The monasteries of Serbia, built largely in the Middle Ages, are one of the most valuable and visible traces of medieval Serbia's association with the Byzantium and the Orthodox World, but also with the Romanic Western Europe that Serbia had close ties with back in Middle Ages. Most of Serbia's queens still remembered today in Serbian history were of foreign origin, including Hélène d'Anjou, a cousin of Charles I of Sicily, Anna Dondolo, daughter of the Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, Catherine of Hungary, and Symonide of Byzantium.

Serbia has eight cultural sites marked on the UNESCO World Heritage list: Stari Ras and Sopoćani monasteries added to the Heritage list in 1979, Studenica Monastery added in 1986, the Medieval Serbian Monastic Complex in Kosovo, comprising: Dečani Monastery, Our Lady of Ljeviš, Gračanica and Patriarchate of Pec, monestaties were added in 2004, and put on the endangered list in 2006, and Gamzigrad – Romuliana, Palace of Galerius, was added in 2007. Likewise, there are 2 literary memorials added on the UNESCO's list as a part of the Memory of the World Programme: Miroslav Gospels, handwriting from the 12th century, added in 2005, and Nikola Tesla's archive added in 2003.

The most prominent museum in Serbia is the National Museum of Serbia, founded in 1844; it houses a collection of more than 400,000 exhibits, over 5,600 paintings and 8,400 drawings and prints, and includes many foreign masterpiece collections and the famous Miroslav Gospels. The museum is currently under reconstruction.

Art

There are cultural traces in Serbia from prehistory. The most famous neolithic culture on the territory of Serbia is the culture of Lepenski Vir. There were many famous royal cities and palaces in Serbia at the time of Roman Empire and early Byzantine Empire, traces of which can still be found in Sirmium, Gamzigrad and Justiniana Prima. Serbian medieval monuments, which survived until our days, are mostly Monasteriesand churches. Most of these monuments have walls painted with frescoes. The most original monument of Serbian medieval art is the Studenica (around 1190). This monastery was a model for later monasteries, like: Mileševa, Sopoćani and Visoki Dečani. The most famous Serbian medieval fresco is the "Mironosnice na grobu" (or the "white angel") from the Mileševa monastery.

Icon-painting is also part of Serbian medieval cultural heritage. The influence of Byzantine art was increased after the fall of Constantinople into the hands of crusaders in 1204, when many artists went to Serbia. Their influence is seen in the building of the church Our Lady of Ljeviš and many other buildings, including Gračanica. The monastery Viski Dečani was built between 1330 and 1350. Unlike other Serbian monasteries, this one was built in romantic style, under the authority of grand master Vita from Kotor. On the frescoes of this monastery there are 1.000 portrets depicting the most important episodes from the New Testament. Another style of architecture followed in Serbia is that of the end of the 14th century, near the river Morava (Moravic school). A characteristic of this style was the wealthy decoration of frontal church-walls. The frescoes in the monastery Manasija depict religious scenes in which people with Serbian medieval clothes are shown. During the time of Turkish occupation art virtually died. The most important Serbian painters of the 20th century were: Milan Konjović, Marko Čelebonović, Petar Lubarda, Vladimir Veličković and Mića Popović.

Literature

The start of Serbian literacy relates to the activity of brothers Cyril and Methodius in the Balkans. There are monuments of Serbian literacy from the early 11th century and, written Glagolitic. Back in the 12th century, there are books written in Cyrillic. From this epoch is the oldest Serbian Cyrillic book editorial, Gospel Zahumian prince Miroslav, brother of Stefan Nemanja. The Miroslav Gospel is the oldest book of Serbian medieval history.

In the era of national revival, in the first half of 19th century Vuk Stefanović Karadžić translated the New Testament in Serbian and reformed the Serbian language and spelling. These were the foundations laid for the Serbian literature of recent times. The first half of the 19th century was dominated by Romanticism, with Branko Radičević, Petar II Petrović-Njegoš, Laza Kostić, Đura Jakšić and Jovan Jovanović Zmaj being the most notable representatives, while the second half of the century was marked by realist writers: Milovan Glišić, Laza Lazarević, Simo Matavulj, Stevan Sremac, Branislav Nušić, Radoje Domanović and Borisav Stanković. The 20th century has been given to the prose writers: Ivo Andrić, Isidora Sekulić, Miloš Crnjanski, Meša Selimović, Borislav Pekić, Dobrica Ćosić, Danilo Kiš, Aleksandar Tišma, Milorad Pavić, though there were valuable poetic achievements: Milan Rakić, Jovan Dučić, Desanka Maksimović, Miodrag Pavlović, Vladislav Petković Dis, Branko Miljković, Vasko Popa, and others.

In the last decade of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century, the most popular authors are: David Albahari, Milorad Pavić, Momo Kapor, Goran Petrović, Svetlana Velmar-Janković and Svetislav Basara.

Music

Serbia has long tradition in music. A kind of dance, named kolo is most favorite type of folklore, and it is different from region to region. The most popular are those from Užice and Morava region. Traditional Serbian music include various kinds of bagpipes, flutes, horns, trumpets, lutes, psalteries, drums and cymbals. Sung epic poetry has been an integral part of Serbian and Balkan music for centuries. In the highlands of Serbia these long poems are typically accompanied on a one-string fiddle called the gusle, and concern themselves with themes from history and mythology.

Composer and musicologist Stevan Stojanović Mokranjac is considered one of the most important founders of modern Serbian music. Born in 1856, Mokranjac taught music, collected Serbian traditional songs and did the first scholarly research on Serbian music. He was also the director of the first Serbian School of Music and one of the founders of the Union of Singing Societies. His most famous works are the ''Song Wreaths''. The Serbian composers Petar Konjović, Stevan Hristić and Miloje Milojević, all born in the 1880s, were the most eminent composers of their generation. They maintained the national expression and modernized the romanticism into the direction of impressionism. The best-known composers born around 1910 studied in Europe, mostly in Prague. Ljubica Marić, Stanojlo Rajicić, Milan Ristić took influence from Schoenberg, Hindemith and Haba, rejecting the "conservative" work of prior Serbian composers, seeing it as outdated and the wish for national expression was outside their interest. Other famous classical Serbian composers include Isidor Bajić, Stanislav Binički, and Josif Marinković

The former Yugoslav rock scene, which Serbian rock scene was a part of during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, was well developed and covered in the media, which included numerous magazines, radio and TV shows. With the breakout of Yugoslav wars, former Yugoslav rock scene ceased to exist. During the 1990s popularity of rock music declined in Serbia, and although several major mainstream acts managed to sustain their popularity, an underground and independent music scene developed. The first decade of the 21st century saw the revival of the mainstream scene. The most notable Serbian rock acts include Bajaga i Instruktori, Disciplina Kičme, Đorđe Balašević, Ekatarina Velika, Električni Orgazam, Galija, Idoli, Korni Grupa, Partibrejkers, Pekinška Patka, Rambo Amadeus, Riblja Čorba, Smak, Šarlo Akrobata, YU grupa, Van Gogh, and others.

Some of the most popular Serbian pop music performers are Zdravko Čolić, Željko Joksimović, Aleksandra Kovač, Aleksandra Radović, Ana Stanić, Jelena Tomašević, and others. Marija Šerifović won the first place at the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Molitva", and Serbia was the host of the 2008 contest.

The so called "novokomponovana muzika" (''newly composed music'') can be seen as a result of the urbanization of folk music. In its early times, it had a professional approach to performance, used accordion and clarinet and typically included love songs or other simple lyrics. of the genre's best performers also play forms imported from even further abroad. These include Šaban Šaulić, Toma Zdravković, Silvana Armenulic and. At a later stage, the popular performers such as Lepa Brena, Vesna Zmijanac and Dragana Mirković used more influences from pop music, oriental music, and other genres, which led to the emergence of turbo folk.

Turbo-folk (a term coined by rock musician Rambo Amadeus) music emerged during the breakup of Yugoslavia. Turbo-folk used Serbian folk music and "novokomponovana" as the basis, and added influences from rock, pop and electronic dance music. In the first decade of the 21st century turbo-folk featured even more pop music elements, and some of the performers were labeled as pop-folk. Some of the best known turbo-folk performers include Seka Aleksić, Jelena Karleuša, Aca Lukas, Ceca Ražnatović, Dragana Mirković and others.

Brass bands, known as "trubači" (трубачи, ''trumpeters'') are popular in Central and Southern Serbia where they originated. The music is traditional from the First Serbian Uprising. The trumpet was used as a military instrument to wake and gather soldiers and announce battles, the trumpet took on the role of entertainment during downtime, as soldiers used it to transpose popular folk songs. When the war ended and the soldiers returned to the rural life, the music entered civilian life and eventually became a music style, accompanying births, baptisms, weddings, slavas, farewell parties for those joining military service, state and church festivals, harvesting, reaping, and funerals. In 1831 the first official military band was formed by Prince Miloš Obrenović. Roma people have adopted the tradition and enhanced the music, and today most of the best performers are Roma.

The best known Serbian brass musicians are Goran Bregović, Fejat Sejdić, and Boban Marković and are also the biggest names in the world of modern brass band bandleaders. Guča trumpet festival is one of the most popular and biggest music festivals in Serbia, with over 300,000 visitors annually.

Theatre and cinema

Serbia has a well-established theatrical tradition with many theaters. The Serbian National Theatre was established in 1861 with its building dating from 1868. The company started performing opera from the end of the 19th century and the permanent opera was established in 1947. It established a ballet company. Bitef, Belgrade International Theatre Festival, is one of the oldest theatre festivals in the world. New Theatre Tendencies is the constant subtitle of the Festival. Founded in 1967, Bitef has continually followed and supported the latest theater trends. It has become one of five most important and biggest European festivals. It has become one of the most significant culture institutions of Serbia.

Cuisine

Serbian cuisine is varied, the turbulent historical events influenced the food and people, and each region has its own peculiarities and differences. It is strongly influenced by the Byzantine-Greek, Mediterranean, Oriental and Austro-Hungarian styles. Many of the traditional Serbian foods like ćevapčići, soup, pljeskavica, gibanica, are enjoyed even today.

Sports

Sports in Serbia revolve mostly around team sports: football, basketball, volleyball, handball, water polo, and, most recently, tennis.

Milorad Čavić and Nađa Higl in swimming, Olivera Jevtić, Dragutin Topić in athletics, Aleksandar Karakašević in table tennis, Jasna Šekarić in shooting are also very popular athletes in Serbia. The two main football clubs in Serbia are Red Star Belgrade and FK Partizan, both from capital Belgrade. Red Star is the only Serbian and former Yugoslav club that has won a UEFA competition, winning the 1991 European Cup in Bari, Italy. The same year in Tokyo, Japan, the club won the Intercontinental Cup. Partizan is the first Eastern European football club which played European Cup final (in 1966). The matches between two rival clubs are known as "Eternal derby". Serbia's national football team made their first appearance during the qualifying rounds for Euro 2008 although they did not qualify for Euro 2008. During the qualifying tournament for the World Cup 2010, Serbia won the first place in its group and consequently qualified directly for the 2010 World Cup Championship. Serbian SuperLiga, is the highest professional league in the country. The 2009/2010 season champion was FK Partizan, followed by Red Star Belgrade in the second place, and FK Vojvodina in the third.

Serbia is one of the traditional powerhouses of world basketball, winning various FIBA World Championships, multiple EuroBasket and Olympic medals (albeit as FR Yugoslavia). Serbia's national basketball team is considered the successor to the successful Yugoslavia national basketball team. Serbia has won FIBA world championships five times and won second place in the 2009 European championship. Players from Serbia made deep footprint in history of basketball, having success both in the top leagues of Europe and in the NBA. Many Serbians have played in the NBA such as Vlade Divac, Predrag Stojaković, Nenad Krstić, Darko Miličić, and Vladimir Radmanović.

Basketball League of Serbia is the highest professional basketball in Serbia. For the eighth consecutive year, KK Partizan is currently the reigning champion of the league, followed by KK Crvena Zvezda. KK Partizan was the European champion in 1992 with curiosity of winning the title, although playing all but one of the games (crucial quarter-final game vs. Knorr) away from home; FIBA decided not to allow teams from Former Yugoslavia play their home games at their home venues, because of open hostilities in the region. KK Partizan was not allowed to defend their title in the 1992–1993 season, because of UN sanction.

Serbian tennis players Novak Djokovic, Ana Ivanović, Jelena Janković, Nenad Zimonjić, Janko Tipsarević and Viktor Troicki are very successful and led to a popularisation of tennis in Serbia. Novak Djokovic, in particular, is currently the World number 1 tennis player and was the founder of an ATP tennis tournament, Serbia Open. Other well-known players are Monika Seles and Jelena Dokić. The Serbia men national team won the 2010 Davis Cup

Serbia and Italy were host nations at 2005 Men's European Volleyball Championship. The Serbia men's national volleyball team is the direct descendant of Yugoslavia men's national volleyball team. Serbia won the bronze medal at the 2007 Men's European Volleyball Championship held in Moscow, Russia.

Serbia men's national water polo team is the reigning Water polo world champion winnig the 2009 World Championships in Rome, Italy. Serbia has won three European Championships (2001, 2003 and 2006), finished as runner-up in 2008, won two World Championships (2005 and 2009) and won bronze medal at 2008 Summer Olympics held in Beijing.

See also

Outline of Serbia

International rankings of Serbia

References

External links

Category:Article Feedback Pilot Category:Serbia Category:European countries Category:Balkans Category:Slavic countries Category:Serbo-Croatian-speaking countries Category:Republics Category:Liberal democracies Category:Landlocked countries Category:States and territories established in 2006 Category:Member states of the United Nations

ace:Sèrbia af:Serwië als:Serbien am:ሰርቢያ ang:Serbia ar:صربيا an:Serbia arc:ܣܪܒܝܐ roa-rup:Sãrghia frp:Sèrbie ast:Serbia gn:Sevia az:Serbiya bn:সার্বিয়া zh-min-nan:Srbija be:Сербія be-x-old:Сэрбія bcl:Serbya bi:Serbia bar:Serbien bo:སེར་བྷི་ཡ། bs:Srbija br:Serbia bg:Сърбия ca:Sèrbia cv:Серби ceb:Serbya cs:Srbsko co:Serbia cy:Serbia da:Serbien de:Serbien dv:ސާބިއާ dsb:Serbiska et:Serbia el:Σερβία es:Serbia eo:Serbio ext:Sérbia eu:Serbia ee:Serbia fa:صربستان hif:Serbia fo:Serbia fr:Serbie fy:Servje ga:An tSeirbia gv:Yn Serb gag:Serbiya gd:An t-Sèarb gl:Serbia - Србија xal:Серпудин Орн ko:세르비아 haw:Seripia hy:Սերբիա hsb:Serbiska hr:Srbija io:Serbia ilo:Serbia bpy:সার্বিয়া id:Serbia ia:Serbia ie:Serbia os:Серби is:Serbía it:Serbia he:סרביה jv:Serbia kl:Serbia ka:სერბეთი ks:सर्बिया csb:Serbskô kk:Сербия kw:Serbi rw:Seribiya kbd:Сербиэ sw:Serbia kv:Сербия kg:Serbie ht:Sèbi ku:Serbistan koi:Сӧрбия krc:Сербия la:Serbia lv:Serbija lb:Serbien lt:Serbija lij:Serbia li:Servië ln:Serbia jbo:serbias lmo:Serbia hu:Szerbia mk:Србија mg:Serbia ml:സെർബിയ mt:Serbja mi:Serbia ltg:Serbeja mr:सर्बिया arz:صيربيا ms:Serbia mn:Серби nah:Serbia na:Terbiya nl:Servië nds-nl:Servië ne:सर्बिया ja:セルビア nap:Serbia ce:Серби frr:Serbien pih:Serbya no:Serbia nn:Serbia nrm:Sèrbie nov:Serbia oc:Serbia mhr:Сербий uz:Serbiya pnb:سربیا pap:Serbia ps:سربيا pms:Serbia nds:Serbien pl:Serbia pnt:Σερβία pt:Sérvia kaa:Serbiya crh:Sırbistan ty:Terepia ro:Serbia rm:Serbia qu:Sirbya rue:Сербія ru:Сербия sah:Сербия se:Serbia sm:Serbia sa:सर्बिया sc:Sèrbia sco:Serbie stq:Serbien sq:Serbia scn:Serbia simple:Serbia ss:ISebhiya sk:Srbsko cu:Срьбїꙗ sl:Srbija szl:Syrbijo so:Serbia ckb:سربیا sr:Србија sh:Srbija fi:Serbia sv:Serbien tl:Serbya ta:செர்பியா tt:Сербия te:సెర్బియా th:ประเทศเซอร์เบีย tg:Сербия chr:ᏎᎸᏈᏯ tr:Sırbistan tk:Serbiýa uk:Сербія ur:سربیا ug:Sérbiye vec:Servia vi:Serbia vo:Särbän fiu-vro:Serbiä zh-classical:塞爾維亞 war:Serbia wo:Seerbi wuu:塞尔维亚 yi:סערביע yo:Sérbíà zh-yue:塞爾維亞 diq:Sırbıstan bat-smg:Serbėjė zh:塞尔维亚

Name	Serbo-Croatian
Nativename
States	''''
Ethnicity	Serb, Croat, Bosniak, Montenegrin
Region	the Western Balkans
Speakers	16.3 million
Familycolor	Indo-European
Fam1	Indo-European
Fam2	Balto-Slavic
Fam3	Slavic
Fam4	South
Fam5	Western
Stand1	Serbian
Stand2	Croatian
Stand3	Bosnian
Stand4	Montenegrin
Stand5	Standard Serbo-Croatian (defunct)
Dia3	Štokavian (standard)
Dia1	Čakavian
Dia2	Kajkavian
Dia4	Torlakian
Script	Latin alphabetCyrillic alphabet
Iso1	sh (deprecated)
Iso2	scr, scc (deprecated)
Iso3	hbs
Lc1	srp|ld1Serbian|ll1Serbian language
Lc2	hrv|ld2Croatian|ll2Croatian language
Lc3	bos|ld3Bosnian|ll3Bosnian language
Lingua	53-AAA-g
Nation	(as Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian) (as Croatian)'''' (as Serbian) (as Montenegrin) (as Serbian)
Agency	Council for Standard Croatian Language Norm Board for Standardization of the Serbian Language
Map	Serbo croatian language2005.png
Mapcaption	---- Note: a Kosovo independence disputed, see 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence
Notice	IPA }}

Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS), is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. Croats and Serbs differ in religion and have historically lived under different empires, and have adopted slightly different literary forms as the official languages of their respective republics. Since independence, Bosnian has likewise been established as an official standard in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Currently, there is a movement to create a Montenegrin language, separating it from Serbian. Thus Serbo-Croatian generally goes by the ethnic names Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin. All four standards are based on the same dialect, which had served as the official language of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and later of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, from 1918 to 1991.

The basis of the modern standards was established in the late 19th century, when the Eastern Herzegovinian subdialect of the Štokavian dialect was selected as a unified literary language of the Serbian and Croatian peoples. Later Yugoslav standard Serbo-Croatian was based on both literary traditions, Serbian (unofficially called "Eastern") and Croatian (unofficially called "Western"), as these were never fully unified. The dissolution of Yugoslavia spelled the end of attempts at a unified standard, and social conceptions of the language separated on ethnic and political lines.

Name

The term ''Serbo-Croatian'' was officially established with the joint Vienna Literary Agreement of 1850 while Serb and Croat lands were still part of the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires. Officially, the language was called variously ''Serbo-Croat, Croato-Serbian, Serbian and Croatian, Croatian and Serbian, Serbian or Croatian, Croatian or Serbian.'' From the end of the 1960s until the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Serbs and Croats typically called the language "Serbian" or "Croatian", respectively, without implying a distinction between the two, and indeed in newly independent Bosnia and Herzegovina, "Croatian", "Bosnian", and "Serbian" were considered to be three names of a single official language. Today, use of the term "Serbo-Croatian" is controversial due to memories of Yugoslav politics and the variable meanings of the word ''language''. It is still used for lack of succinct alternative, though alternate names have been used, such as ''Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian'' (BCS), which is often seen in political contexts such as the Hague War Crimes tribunal.

History

Throughout the history of the South Slavs, the vernacular, literary, and written languages of the various regions and ethnicities developed and diverged independently. Prior to the 19th century, these languages, self-referred to themselves as "Illyric", "Slavic", "Slavonian", "Bosnian", "Serbian" or "Croatian", were unstandardized despite the presence of an extensive vernacular literature developed in the different local dialects.

The term ''Serbo-Croatian'' was mentioned for the first time by Slovene philologist Jernej Kopitar in a letter from 1836, although it cannot be ruled out that he had become acquainted with the term by reading the Slovak philologist Pavel Jozef Šafárik's manuscript "Slovanské starožitnosti" printed 1837. In the mid 19th century, Serbian (led by self-taught writer and folklorist Vuk Stefanović Karadžić) and most Croatian writers and linguists (represented by the Illyrian movement and led by Ljudevit Gaj and Đuro Daničić), proposed the use of the most widespread Štokavian dialect as the base for their common standard language. Karadžić standardised the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, and Gaj and Daničić standardized the Croatian Latin alphabet, on the basis of vernacular speech phonemes and the principle of phonological spelling. In 1850 Serbian and Croatian writers and linguists signed the Vienna Literary Agreement, declaring their intention to create a unified standard. Thus a complex bi-variant language appeared, which the Serbs officially called "Serbo-Croatian" or "Serbian or Croatian" and the Croats "Croato-Serbian", or "Croatian or Serbian". Yet, in practice, the variants of the conceived common literary language served as different literary variants, chiefly differing in lexical inventory and stylistic devices. The common phrase describing this situation was that Serbo-Croatian or "Croatian or Serbian" was a ''unified'' language.

With unification of the first Kingdom of Yugoslavia – the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes – the approach of Karadžić and the Illyrians became official. The official language was called "Serbo-Croato-Slovene" until the very end of that kingdom. Because of the unitarian politics of King Aleksandar I Karađorđević, as of 1929, the "Yugoslavian language" was the official language of Yugoslavia, the country's name was changed, and all ethnic denominations were erased. On January 15, 1944, the Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) declared Croatian, Serbian, Slovene, and Macedonian to be equal in the entire territory of Yugoslavia. In 1945 the decision to recognize Croatian and Serbian as separate languages was reversed in favor of a single Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian language. In the Communist-dominated second Yugoslavia, ethnic issues eased to an extent, but the matter of language remained blurred and unresolved. In 1954, every major Serbian and Croatian writer, linguist and literary critic, backed by Matica srpska and Matica hrvatska signed the Novi Sad Agreement, which in its first article stated: "The national language of the Serbs, Croats, and Montenegrins is a single language. And thus, the literary language which has developed on its foundation in two major centers, Belgrade and Zagreb, is a unity with two dialects, Ijekavian and Ekavian."

It was later argued that this act was less of an agreement than a political document signed under political pressure, as many writers later asserted (e.g. the signers of the 1967 Declaration on the Status and Name of the Croatian Literary Language, with prominent Croatian intellectuals such as Miroslav Krleža). The Novi Sad agreement became the basis of language politics in the second Yugoslavia; however, many Croats were uneasy, viewing the merging of languages as the attempted "Serbianisation" of their Croatian idiom with markedly Serbian words or phrases. Also, many Serbian idiomatic constructs replaced Croatian idiomatic constructs in media and politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina and, gradually, in the vernacular speech. Some viewed it as proof of Serbian hegemony in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and some as a "natural" process of language change.

After the ethnic tensions of the 1970s, and after the easing of political pressure in the 1990s and the democratisation of the Yugoslav political system, the policy of forced merging of these languages was finally allowed to end, and speakers could call their languages whatever they wanted. Croatians officially returned to using the name they had used for the language before the dissolution of Yugoslavia (officially, they had called it Croatian until the mid 1970s). The Serbs officially called it ''Serbo-Croatian'' until 1997, when the Matica srpska made the ''Dictionary of the Serbian language''. Since then Serbs have called it Serbian, but unofficially. The Constitution of Serbia (1990–2006) called the official language ''Serbo-Croatian'', while the Constitution of Montenegro (1993–2007) called it ''Serbian with ijekavian pronunciation''.

Present situation

Contemporary names

Except during the period that extended roughly from the 1920s through the 1980s, people have not called the language ''Serbo-Croatian'', but have tended to use their ethnic/national names.

Most Bosniaks refer to their language as ''Bosnian''.

Most Croats refer to their language as ''Croatian''.

Most Serbs refer to their language as ''Serbian''.

Montenegrins refer to their language either as ''Serbian'' or ''Montenegrin''.

Ethnic Bunjevci refer to their language as ''Bunjevac''.

For more information, see Differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has specified different Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) numbers for Croatian ''(UDC 862,'' abbreviation hr) and Serbian ''(UDC 861'', abbreviation sr), while the cover term ''Serbo-Croatian'' is used to refer to the combination of original signs (''UDC 861/862,'' abbreviation sh). Furthermore, the ''ISO 639'' standard designates the Bosnian language with the abbreviations bos and bs.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia considers what it calls ''BCS'' (Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian) to be the main language of all Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian defendants. The indictments, documents, and verdicts of the ICTY are not written with any regard for consistently following the grammatical prescriptions of any of the three standards be they Serbian, Croatian, or Bosnian.

For utilitarian purposes, the Serbo-Croatian language is often called "''Naš jezik''" ("Our language") by native speakers. This politically correct term is frequently used to describe the Serbo-Croatian language by those who wish to avoid nationalistic and linguistic discussions.

Views of linguists in the former Yugoslavia

Serbian linguists

The majority of mainstream Serbian linguists consider Serbian and Croatian to be one language, that is called Serbo-Croatian (''srpskohrvatski'') or Croato-Serbian (''hrvatskosrpski''). A minority of Serbian linguists are of the opinion that Serbo-Croatian did exist, but has, in the meantime, dissolved. Before 1900 and also now, a minority agree that a "Serbo-Croatian" language has never existed and that this term designates a Croatian variant of the Serbian language.

Croatian linguists

The majority of Croatian linguists think that there was never anything like a unified Serbo-Croatian language, but two different standard languages that overlapped sometime in the course of history. Also, they claim that the language has never dissolved, since there was never a Serbo-Croatian standard language. A minority of Croatian linguists deny that the Croatian standard language is based on the Neoštokavian dialect. A more detailed discussion, incorporating arguments from the Croatian philology and contemporary linguistics, would be along the following lines:

:''Serbo-Croatian is a language'' :One still finds many references to Serbo-Croatian, and proponents of Serbo-Croatian who deny the existence of Croatian (as well as Serbian and Bosnian) as a separate standard language. The usual argument generally goes along the following lines: :*Standard Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian are almost completely mutually ''intelligible'', and the use of two alphabets that almost perfectly match each other (Latin and Cyrilic), thanks to Ljudevit Gaj and Vuk Karadžić. Nonetheless, beyond the "first 100" words, there are numerous small and large lexical differences presented in "Razlikovni rječnik srpskog i hrvatskog jezika" (Matica Hrvatska). Croats exclusively use Latin script and Serbs equally use both Cyrillic and Latin. Although Cyrillic is taught in Bosnia, most Bosnians, especially non-Serbs (Bosniaks and Croats), favor Latin. :*Typologically and structurally, these languages have virtually the same ''subequal'' grammar, i.e. morphology and syntax :*The Serbo-Croatian language was "created" in the mid 19th century, and all subsequent attempts to dissolve its basic unity have not succeeded. :*The affirmation of distinct Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian languages is ''politically'' motivated :*According to phonology, morphology and syntax, these languages are essentially one language because they are based on the same, Štokavian dialect.

:''Serbo-Croatian is not a language'' :Similar arguments are made for other official standards which are nearly indistinguishable when spoken, such as Malaysian, and Indonesian (together called Malay), or Standard Hindi and Urdu (together called Hindustani or Hindi-Urdu). However, some argue that these arguments have flaws:

:*Phonology, morphology, and syntax are not the only dimensions of a language: other fields (semantics, pragmatics, stylistics, lexicology, etc.) give different theoretical linguistic descriptions and prescriptions for Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian. A comparison is made to the closely related North Germanic languages (or dialects, if one prefers), though these are not fully mutually intelligible as the Serbo-Croatian standards are. A closer comparison may be General American and Received Pronunciation in English, which are closer to each other than the latter is to other dialects which are subsumed under "British English". :*Since the Croatian language as recorded in Držić and Gundulić's works (16th and 17th centuries) is virtually the same as the contemporary standard Croatian (understandable archaisms apart), it is evident that the 19th century formal standardization was just the final touch in the process that, as far as the Croatian language is concerned, had lasted more than three centuries. The radical break with the past, characteristic of modern Serbian (whose vernacular was likely not as similar to Croatian as it is today), is a trait completely at variance with Croatian linguistic history. In short, formal standardization processes for Croatian and Serbian had coincided chronologically (and, one could add, ideologically), but they haven't produced a unified standard language. Gundulić did not write in "Serbo-Croatian", nor did August Šenoa. Marko Marulić and Marin Držić wrote in a sophisticated idiom of the Croatian language, some 300/350 years before the "Serbo-Croatian" ideology appeared. Marulić explicitly calls his Čakavian-written ''Judita'' as ''u uerish haruacchi slosena'' ("arranged in Croatian stanzas") in 1501, and Štokavian grammar and dictionary of Bartol Kašić written in 1604 unambiguously identifies ethnonyms ''Slavic'' and ''Illyrian'' with ''Croatian''.

Politics often becomes a major part of linguistic debates in this area.

The topic of language with the writers from Dalmatia and Dubrovnik prior to the 19th century is somewhat blurred by the fact they by and large placed more emphasis on whether they were Slavic rather than Italian, given that Dalmatian city-states were then inhabited by those two main groups. There was less notable distinction being made between Croats and Serbs, and this, among other things, has been used as an argument to state that these people's literature is not solely Croatian heritage, thus undermining the argument that modern-day Croatian is based on Old Croatian.

However, the major part of intellectuals and writers from Dalmatia who used the Štokavian dialect and were of Catholic faith had explicitly expressed Croatian national affiliation, as far back as the mid 16th and 17th centuries, some three hundred years before the Serbo-Croatian ideology had appeared. Their loyalty was first and foremost to the Catholic Christendom, but when they professed ethnic identity, they called it "Slovin" and "Illyrian" (a sort of forerunner of Catholic baroque pan-Slavism) and Croat these 30-odd writers in the span of ca. 350 years themselves never mentioned Serb ethnic affiliation any time. It should also be noted that, in the pre-national era, a Catholic religious orientation did not necessarily equate with Croat ethnic identity in Dalmatia. A Croatian follower of Vuk Karadžić, Ivan Broz, noted that the Serbian affiliation was as foreign as Macedonian and Greek appellation at this time. Vatroslav Jagić pointed out in 1864:

: "As I have mentioned in the preface, history knows only two national names in these parts—Croatian and Serbian. As far as Dubrovnik is concerned, the Serbian name was never in use; on the contrary, the Croatian name was frequently used and gladly referred to" : "At the end of the 15th century [in Dubrovnik and Dalmatia], sermons and poems were exquisitely crafted in the Croatian language by those men whose names are widely renowned by deep learning and piety."

(From ''The History of the Croatian language'', Zagreb, 1864.)

On the other hand, the opinion of Jagić from 1864 is argued not to have firm grounds. When Jagić says "Croatian" he refers to few cases of referring to the Dubrovnik vernacular as ''ilirski'' (Illyrian). This was a common name for all Slavic vernaculars in Dalmatian cities among the Roman inhabitants. In the meantime, other written monuments are found that mention ''srpski'', ''lingua serviana'' (= Serbian), and also some that mention Croatian. By far the most competent Serbian scientist on Dubrovnik language issue, Milan Rešetar, who was born in Dubrovnik himself, wrote behalf of language characteristics: "The one who thinks that Croatian and Serbian are two separate languages, must confess that Dubrovnik always (linguistically) used to be Serbian."

On the third hand, the former ''medieval'' texts from Dubrovnik and Montenegro dating before 16th century were not true Štokavian nor Serbian, but mostly specific Yekavian-Čakavian that was nearer to actual Adriatic islanders in Croatia.

Political connotations

Nationalists have rather conflicting views about the language(s). The nationalists among the Croats conflictingly claim either that they speak an entirely separate language from Serbs and Bosnians or that these two peoples have, due to the longer lexicographic tradition among Croats, somehow "borrowed" their standard languages from them. Bosniak nationalists claim that both Croats and Serbs have "appropriated" the Bosnian language, since Ljudevit Gaj and Vuk Karadžić preferred the Neoštokavian-Ijekavian dialect, widely spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the basis for language standardization, whereas the nationalists among the Serbs claim either that any divergence in the language is artificial, or claim that the Štokavian dialect is theirs and the Čakavian Croats'— in more extreme formulations Croats have "taken" or "stolen" their language from the Serbs.

Proponents of unity among Southern Slavs claim that there is a single language with normal dialectal variations. The term "Serbo-Croatian" (or synonyms) is not officially used in any of the successor countries of former Yugoslavia.

In Serbia, the Serbian language is the official one, while both Serbian and Croatian are official in the province of Vojvodina. A large Bosniak minority is present in the southwest region of Sandžak, but the "official recognition" of Bosnian language is moot. Bosnian is an optional course in 1st and 2nd grade of the elementary school, while it is also in official use in the municipality of Novi Pazar. However, its nomenclature is controversial, as there is incentive that it is referred to as "Bosniak" (''bošnjački'') rather than "Bosnian" (''bosanski'') (see Bosnian language for details).

Croatian is the official language of Croatia, while Serbian is also official in municipalities with significant Serb population.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, all three languages are recorded as official but in practice and media, mostly Bosnian and Serbian are applied. Therefore, confrontations have on occasion been absurd. The academic Muhamed Filipović in an interview to Slovenian television told of a local court in a Croatian district requesting a paid translator from Bosnian to Croatian before the trial could proceed.

Dialects

The primary dialects are named after the most common question word ''what'' they use: Shtokavian uses the pronoun ''što'' or ''šta'', Chakavian uses ''ča'' or ''ca'', Kajkavian (''kajkavski''), ''kaj'' or ''kej''. The Yugoslav standard language and all four contemporary standard languages are based on the Eastern Hercegovinian subdialect of Neo-Shtokavian, the other dialects not taught in schools or used by the state media. Often the Torlakian dialect is added to the list, though scholars nowadays usually classify it as a transitional dialect between Shtokavian and the Bulgaro-Macedonian (East South Slavic) dialect continuum.

{| | | | |} The Serbo-Croatian dialects differ not only in the question for they're named after, but also heavily in phonology, accentuation and intonation, case endings and tense system (morphology) and basic vocabulary. In the past, Chakavian and Kajkavian dialects were spoken on a much larger territory, but have subsequently been replaced by Štokavian during the period of migrations caused by Ottoman Turkish conquest of the Balkans in the 15th and the 16th century. These migrations caused the koinéisation of the Shtokavian dialects, that used to form the West Shtokavian (more closer and transitional towards the neighbouring Chakavian and Kajkavian dialects) and East Shtokavian (transitional towards the Torlakian and the whole Bulgaro-Macedonian area) dialect bundles, and their subsequent spread at the expense of Chakavian and Kajkavian. As a result, Štokavian now covers an area larger than all the other dialects combined, and continues to make its progress in the enclaves where subliterary dialects are still being spoken.

The difference among the dialects can be illustrated on the example of Schleicher's fable. Diacritic signs are used to show the difference in accents and prosody, which are often quite significant, but which are not reflected in the usual orthography.

style="font-size:90%;" :Neoštokavian Ijekavian/Ekavian

: Čakavian (Matulji near Rijeka):

: Kajkavian (Marija Bistrica):

: English language

: The Sheep and the Horses

:[On a hill,] a sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load, and one carrying a man quickly.

: The sheep said to the horses: "My heart pains me, seeing a man driving horses".

: The horses said: "Listen, sheep, our hearts pain us when we see this: a man, the master, makes the wool of the sheep into a warm garment for himself. And the sheep has no wool".

: Having heard this, the sheep fled into the plain.

Division by ''jat'' reflex

The basic distinction among the 3 basic dialects and their respective speeches (sub-dialects) is in the long reflex of Common Slavic vowel ''jat'', usually transcribed as */ě/: depending on the reflex the dialects are divided into Ikavian (with /i/ as a reflex of ''jat''), Ekavian (with /e/ as a reflex of ''jat'') and Ijekavian (with disyllabic /ije/ or diphthongal /ie/ as a reflex). The long and short ''jat'' is reflected as long or short */i/ and /e/ in Ikavian and Ekavian dialects, but Ijekavian dialects introduce ''ije''/''je'' alternation to retain a distinction.

Standard Croatian and Bosnian are based on the Ijekavian, whilst Serbian uses both Ekavian and Ijekavian forms (Ijekavian for Bosnian Serbs, Ekavian is used in the most of Serbia though). Influence of standard language throughout the state media and education has caused non-standard varieties to increasingly lose ground to the literary forms.

The jat reflection rules are not without exceptions, for example: when short ''jat'' is preceded by ''r'', in most Ijekavian dialects it was reflect as /re/ or, occasionally, /ri/. Also, prefix ''prě-'' ("trans-, over-") when ''jat'' is long passed to ''pre-'' in eastern Ijekavian dialects and to ''prije-'' in western; in Ikavian, it also evolved into ''pre-'' or ''prije-'' due to potential ambiguity with ''pri-'' ("approach, come close to"). For verbs that had ''-ěti '' in their infinitive, the past participle ending ''-ěl'' evolved into ''-io'' in Ijekavian Neoštokavian.

The following are some examples:

!English	!Predecessor	!Ekavian	!Ikavian	!Ijekavian	!Ijekavian formation
beautiful	*lěp	lep	lip	lijep
time	*vrěme	vreme	vrime	vrijeme
faith	*věra	vera	vira	vjera	short ''ě'' → ''je''
crossing	*prělaz	prelaz	prеlaz ''or''prijelaz	prеlaz ''or''prijelaz	''pr'' + long ''ě'' → ''prije''
times	*vrěmena	vremena	vrimena	vremena
need	*trěbati	trebati	tribat(i)	trebati
heat	*grějati	grejati	grijati	grijati	''r'' + short ''ě'' → ''ri''
saw	*viděl	video	vidio	vidio	''ěl'' → ''io''
village	*selo	selo	selo	selo	''e'' in root, not ''ě''

Grammar

Serbo-Croatian is a highly inflected language. Traditional grammars list seven cases for nouns and adjectives: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, locative, and instrumental, reflecting the original seven cases of Proto-Slavic, and indeed older forms of Serbo-Croatian itself. However, in modern Štokavian the locative has almost merged into dative (the only difference is based on accent in some cases), and the other cases can be shown declining; namely:

For all nouns and adjectives, Instr. = Dat. = Loc. (at least orthographically) in the plural: ženama, ženama, ženama; očima, očima, očima; riječima, riječima, riječima.

There is an accentual difference between the Gen. sing. and Gen. plural of masculine and neuter nouns, which are otherwise homonyms (seljaka, seljaka) except that on occasion an "a" (which might or might not appear in the singular) is filled between the last letter of the root and the Gen. plural ending (kapitalizma, kapitalizama).

The old instrumental ending "ju" of the feminine consonant stems and in some cases the "a" of the genitive plural of certain other sorts of feminine nouns is fast yielding to "i": noći instead of noćju; borbi instead of boraba; and so forth.

Almost every Štokavian number is indeclinable, and numbers after prepositions have not been declined for a long time.

Like most Slavic languages, there are mostly three genders for nouns: masculine, feminine, and neuter, a distinction which is still present even in the plural (unlike Russian and, in part, the Čakavian dialect). They also have two numbers: singular and plural. However, some consider there to be three numbers (paucal or ''dual,'' too), since (still preserved in closely-related Slovene) after two (''dva'', ''dvije''/''dve''), three (''tri'') and four (''četiri''), and all numbers ending in them (e.g., twenty-two, ninety-three, one hundred four) the genitive singular is used, and after all other numbers five (''pet'') and up, the genitive plural is used. (The number one [''jedan''] is treated as an adjective.) Adjectives are placed in front of the noun they modify and must agree in both case and number with it.

There are seven tenses for verbs: past, present, future, exact future, aorist, imperfect, and plusquamperfect; and three moods: indicative, imperative, and conditional. However, the latter three tenses are typically used only in Štokavian writing, and the time sequence of the exact future is more commonly formed through an alternative construction.

In addition, like most Slavic languages, the Štokavian verb also has one of two aspects: perfective or imperfective. Most verbs come in pairs, with the perfective verb being created out of the imperfective by adding a prefix or making a stem change. The imperfective aspect typically indicates that the action is unfinished, in progress, or repetitive; while the perfective aspect typically denotes that the action was completed, instantaneous, or of limited duration. Some Štokavian tenses (namely, aorist and imperfect) favor a particular aspect (but they are rarer or absent in Čakavian and Kajkavian). Actually, aspects "compensate" for the relative lack of tenses, because aspect of the verb determines whether the act is completed or in progress in the referred time.

Writing systems

Through history, this language has been written in a number of writing systems: Angled, Round, and Triangled Glagolitic alphabet, chiefly in Croatia. Arabic alphabet (mostly in Bosnia). Cyrillic alphabet, and its transition to Glagolitic (called ''Bosančica''). various modifications of the Latin and Greek alphabets.

The oldest texts since 11th century are in Glagolitic, and the oldest preserved text written completely in the Latin alphabet is "Red i zakon sestara reda Svetog Dominika", from 1345. Arabic alphabet formerly was used by Bosnian Muslims; Greek writing recently is out of use there, and Arabic and Glagolitic persisted so far partly in religious liturgies.

Today, it is written in both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets. Serbian and Bosnian variants use both alphabets, while Croatian uses the Latin only.

The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was revised by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić in the 19th century.

The Croatian Latin alphabet (''Gajica'') followed suit shortly afterwards, when Ljudevit Gaj defined it as standard Latin with five extra letters that had diacritics, apparently borrowing much from Czech, but also from Polish, and inventing the unique digraphs "lj", "nj" and "dž".These diagraphs are represented as "ļ, ń and ǵ" respectively in the "Rječnik hrvatskog ili srpskog jezika", published by the former Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb. The latter diagraphs, however, are unused in the literary standard of the language. All in all, this makes Serbo-Croatian the only Slavic language to officially use both the Latin and Cyrillic scripts, albeit the Latin version is more commonly used.

In both cases, spelling is phonetic and spellings in the two alphabets map to each other one-to-one:

Latin to Cyrillic

a а

A

|

B

b

C

c

Č

č

Ć

ć

D

d

Dž

dž

Đ

đ

E

e

F

f

G

g

H

h

I

i

J

j

K

k

А

|

Б

б

Ц

ц

Ч

ч

Ћ

ћ

Д

д

Џ

џ

Ђ

ђ

Е

е

Ф

ф

Г

г

Х

х

И

и

Ј

ј

К

к

l л

L

|

Lj

lj

M

m

N

n

Nj

nj

O

o

P

p

R

r

S

s

Š

š

T

t

U

u

V

v

Z

z

Ž

ž

Л

|

Љ

љ

М

м

Н

н

Њ

њ

О

о

П

п

Р

р

С

с

Ш

ш

Т

т

У

у

В

в

З

з

Ж

ж

Cyrillic to Latin

а a

А

|

Б

б

В

в

Г

г

Д

д

Ђ

ђ

Е

е

Ж

ж

З

з

И

и

Ј

ј

К

к

Л

л

Љ

љ

М

м

A

|

B

b

V

v

G

g

D

d

Đ

đ

E

e

Ž

ž

Z

z

I

i

J

j

K

k

L

l

Lj

lj

M

m

н n

Н

|

Њ

њ

О

о

П

п

Р

р

С

с

Т

т

Ћ

ћ

У

у

Ф

ф

Х

х

Ц

ц

Ч

ч

Џ

џ

Ш

ш

N

|

Nj

nj

O

o

P

p

R

r

S

s

T

t

Ć

ć

U

u

F

f

H

h

C

c

Č

Č

Dž

dž

Š

š

{|class="wikitable" border=1 style="float:right; margin-left:1em" ! colspan="4" | Sample collation |- ! colspan="2" | Latin collation order ! rowspan = 6 |   ! rowspan = "2" | Cyrilliccollationorder |- !Latin !Cyrillicequivalent |- |Ina |Ина | rowspan="4" | Ина Инверзија Инјекција Иње |- |Injekcija |Инјекција |- |Inverzija |Инверзија |- |Inje |Иње |}

The digraphs ''Lj'', ''Nj'' and ''Dž'' represent distinct phonemes and are considered to be single letters. In crosswords, they are put into a single square, and in sorting, lj follows l and nj follows n, except in a few words where the individual letters are pronounced separately, for instance "nadživ(j)eti" (''to outlive''), which is composed of the prefix nad- and the verb živ(j)eti. The Cyrillic version avoids the ambiguity by providing a unique single letter for each sound.

''Đ'' used to be commonly written as ''Dj'' on typewriters, but that practice led to too many ambiguities. It is also used on car license plates. Today ''Dj'' is often used again in place of ''Đ'' on the Internet as a replacement due to the lack of installed Serbo-Croat keyboard layouts.

Phonology

Vowels

The Serbo-Croatian vowel system is simple, with only five vowels in Štokavian. All vowels are monophthongs. The oral vowels are as follows:

! Latin script	! Cyrillic script	help:IPA>IPA	! Description	! English approximation
				''father''
				''den''
				''seek''
				''lord''
				''pool''

The vowels can be short or long, but the phonetic quality doesn't change depending on the length. In a word, vowels can be long in the stressed syllable and the syllables following it, never in the ones preceding it.

Consonants

The consonant system is more complicated, and its characteristic features are series of affricate and palatal consonants. As in English, voice is phonemic, but aspiration is not.

! Latin script	! Cyrillic script	help:IPA>IPA	! Description	! English approximation
! colspan="6"
			alveolar trill	rolled (vibrating) r as in ''carramba''
approximants
			labiodental approximant	roughly between ''vortex'' and ''war''
			palatal approximant	''year''
! colspan="6"
			lateral alveolar approximant	''light''
			palatal lateral approximant	roughly ''battalion''
! colspan="6"
			bilabial nasal	''man''
			alveolar nasal	''not''
			palatal nasal	''news'' or American ''canyon''
fricatives
			voiceless labiodental fricative	''five''
			voiceless alveolar fricative	''some''
			voiced alveolar fricative	''zero''
			voiceless postalveolar fricative	''sharp''
			voiced postalveolar fricative	''television''
			voiceless velar fricative	''loch''
affricates
			voiceless alveolar affricate	''pots''
			voiced postalveolar affricate	roughly ''eject''
			voiceless postalveolar affricate	roughly ''check''
			voiced alveolo-palatal affricate	roughly ''Jews''
			voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate	roughly ''choose''
plosives
			voiced bilabial plosive	''book''
			voiceless bilabial plosive	''top''
			voiced alveolar plosive	''dog''
			voiceless alveolar plosive	''it''
			voiced velar plosive	''good''
			voiceless velar plosive	''duck''

In consonant clusters all consonants are either voiced or voiceless. All the consonants are voiced (if the last consonant is normally voiced) or voiceless (if the last consonant is normally voiceless). This rule does not apply to approximants a consonant cluster may contain voiced approximants and voiceless consonants; as well as to foreign words (''Washington'' would be transcribed as ''VašinGton''/''ВашинГтон''), personal names and when consonants are not inside of one syllable.

can be syllabic, playing the role of the syllable nucleus in certain words (occasionally, it can even have a long accent). For example, the tongue-twister ''navrh brda vrba mrda'' involves four words with syllabic . A similar feature exists in Czech, Slovak, Macedonian and Serbian. Very rarely other sonorants can be syllabic, like (in ''bicikl''), (surname ''Štarklj''), (unit ''njutn''), as well as and in slang.

Pitch accent

Apart from Slovene, Serbo-Croatian is the only Slavic language with a pitch accent (simple tone) system. This feature is present in some other Indo-European languages, such as Swedish, Norwegian, Limburgish, Spanish spoken in Chile and Colombia (to a lesser extent), and Ancient Greek. Standard Neoštokavian Serbo-Croatian, which is used a basis for standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian, has four "accents", which involve either a rising or falling tone on either long or short vowels, with optional post-tonic lengths:

+Serbo-Croatian accent system
symbol!!International Phonetic Alphabet>IPAsymbol!!Description
	>
	>
	>
	>
	>
	>

The tone stressed vowels can be approximated in English with ''set'' vs ''setting?'' said in isolation for a short tonic ''e,'' or ''leave'' vs ''leaving?'' for a long tonic ''i,'' due to the prosody of final stressed syllables in English.

General accent rules in the standard language:

# Monosyllabic words may have only a falling tone (or no accent at all – enclitics); # Falling tone may occur only on the first syllable of polysyllabic words; # Accent can never occur on the last syllable of polysyllabic words.

There are no other rules for accent placement, thus the accent of every word must be learned individually; furthermore, in inflection, accent shifts are common, both in type and position (the so-called "mobile paradigms"). The second rule is not strictly obeyed, especially in borrowed words.

Comparative and historical linguistics offers some clues for memorising the accent position: If one compares many standard Serbo-Croatian words to e.g. cognate Russian words, the accent in the Serbo-Croatian word will be one syllable before the one in the Russian word, with the rising tone. Historically, the rising tone appeared when the place of the accent shifted to the preceding syllable (the so-called "Neoštokavian retraction"), but the quality of this new accent was different – its melody still "gravitated" towards the original syllable. Most Štokavian dialects (Neoštokavian) dialects underwent this shift, but Čakavian, Kajkavian and the Old Štokavian dialects did not.

Accent diacritics are not used in the ordinary orthography, but only in the linguistic or language-learning literature (e.g. dictionaries, orthography and grammar books). However, there are very few minimal pairs where an error in accent can lead to misunderstanding.

Orthography

Serbo-Croatian orthography is supposed to be almost completely phonetic. Thus, every word is allegedly spelled exactly as it is pronounced. In practice, the writing system does not take into account allophones which occur as a result of interaction between words:

bit će pronounced ''biće'' (and only written separately in Croatian) od toga pronounced ''otoga'' (in many vernaculars) iz čega pronounced ''iščega'' (in many vernaculars)

Also, there are some exceptions, mostly applied to foreign words and compounds, that favor morphological/etymological over phonetic spelling:

postdiplomski (postgraduate) pronounced ''pozdiplomski''

One systemic exception is that the consonant clusters ds and dš do not change into ts and tš (although ''d'' tends to be unvoiced in normal speech in such clusters):

predstava (show)

odšteta (damages)

Only a few words are intentionally "misspelled", mostly in order to resolve ambiguity:

šeststo (six hundred) pronounced ''šesto'' (to avoid confusion with "šesto" [sixth]) prstni (adj., finger) pronounced ''prsni'' (to avoid confusion with "prsni" [adj., chest])

Demographics

The total number of persons who declared their native language as either 'Bosnian', 'Croatian', 'Serbian', 'Montenegrin', or 'Serbo-Croatian' in countries of the region is about 16 million.

Serbian is spoken by about 9 million mostly in Serbia (6.7m), Bosnia and Herzegovina (1.4m), and Montenegro (0.4m). Serbian minorities are found the Republic of Macedonia and Romania. In Serbia, there is about 760,000 second-language speakers of Serbian, including Hungarians in Vojvodina and the 400,000 estimated Roma. Familiarity of Kosovo Albanians with Serbian in Kosovo varies depending on age and education, and exact numbers are not available..

Croatian is spoken by roughly 4.7 million including some 575,000 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A small Croatian minority lives in Italy known as Molise Croats have somewhat preserved traces of the Croatian language. In Croatia, 170,000 mostly Italians and Hungarians use it as a second language.

Bosnian is spoken by 2.2 million people, chiefly Bosniaks, including about 220,000 in Serbia and Montenegro.

Notion of Montenegrin as a separate standard from Serbian is relatively recent. In the 2003 census, around 150,000 Montenegrins, of the country's 620,000, declared Montenegrin as their native language. That figure is likely to increase since, due to the country's independence and strong institutional backing of Montenegrin language.

Serbo-Croatian is also a second language of many Slovenians and Macedonians, especially those born during the time of Yugoslavia. According to the 2002 Census, Serbo-Croatian and its variants have the largest number of speakers of the minority languages in Slovenia.

Outside of the Balkans, there are over 2 million native speakers of the language(s), especially in countries which are frequent targets of immigration, such as Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Sweden and the United States.

Differences between the standards

See also

Serbo-Croatian grammar

Serbo-Croatian phonology

Serbo-Croatian kinship

A language is a dialect with an army and navy

Notes

References

Further reading

Banac, Ivo: ''Main Trends in the Croatian Language Question'', Yale University Press, 1984

Branko Franolić, Mateo Zagar: ''A Historical Outline of Literary Croatian & The Glagolitic Heritage of Croatian Culture'', Erasmus & CSYPN, London & Zagreb 2008 ISBN 978-953-6132-80-5

Franolić, Branko: ''A Historical Survey of Literary Croatian'', Nouvelles éditions latines, Paris, 1984.

Franolić, Branko: ''Language Policy in Yugoslavia with special reference to Croatian'', Paris, Nouvelles Editions Latines 1988

Ivić, Pavle: ''Die serbokroatischen Dialekte'', the Hague, 1958

Magner, Thomas F.: ''Zagreb Kajkavian dialect''. Pennsylvania State University, 1966

Magner, Thomas F.: ''Introduction to the Croatian and Serbian Language'' (Revised ed.). Pennsylvania State University, 1991

Murray Despalatović, Elinor: ''Ljudevit Gaj and the Illyrian Movement''. Columbia University Press, 1975.

Zekovic, Sreten & Cimeša, Boro: ''Elementa montenegrina'', Chrestomatia 1/90. CIP, Zagreb 1991

External links

Ethnologue 15th edition of the Ethnologue (released 2005) shows changes in this area:

*Previous Ethnologue entry for Serbo-Croatian

*Ethnologue 15th Edition report on south/western Slavic languages.

Integral text of Novi Sad Agreement (In Serbo-Croatian).

IKI Translate: Translating different dialects of Serbo-Croatian one to another

Serbian and Croatian alphabets at Omniglot.

Sean McLennan: Sociolinguistic Analysis of Serbo-Croatian (in PDF format)

Juhani Nuorluoto: The Notion of Diasystem in the Central South Slavic Linguistic Area.

Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Or Montenegrin? Or Just 'Our Language'?, ''Radio Free Europe'', February 21, 2009

Category:Serbo-Croatian language Category:South Slavic languages Category:Languages of Serbia Category:Languages of Montenegro Category:Languages of Vojvodina Category:Languages of Kosovo Category:Languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina Category:Languages of Croatia Category:Languages of Slovenia

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