Greater Serbia
Encyclopedia
The term Greater Serbia or Great Serbia applies to the Serbian nationalist
and irredentist
ideology
directed towards the creation of a Serbia
n land which would incorporate all regions of traditional significance to the Serbian nation. This movement's main ideology is to unite all Serbs
(or all historically ruled or Serb populated lands) into one state
, claiming, depending on the version, different areas of many surrounding countries.
The Greater Serbian ideology including claims to territories of modern day Croatia
, Bosnia and Herzegovina
, Montenegro
and Macedonia
. In some historical forms, Greater Serbian aspirations also included territories of Albania
, Bulgaria
, Hungary
and Romania
. Its inspiration comes from the memory and existence of the relatively large and powerful Serbian Empire
that existed in 14th century south-eastern Europe prior to the Ottoman invasion.
The idea of territorial expansion of Serbia originally formulated 1844 in Načertanije
, a secret political program of the Principality of Serbia, according to which the new Serbian state could include the neighboring areas of Montenegro
, Northern Albania
, Bosnia and Herzegovina
. In the early 20th century, all political parties of the Kingdom of Serbia
(except for the Social Democratic Party) planning to create a Balkan Federation
, generally accepted the idea of uniting all Serbs into one only Serbian state. From the creation of the Principality until the First World War, the territory of Serbia was constantly expanding.
After the end of the Balkan Wars
, the Kingdom of Serbia
achieved the expansion towards the south, but there was a mixed reaction to the events, for the reason that the promises of lands gaining access to the Adriatic Sea
were not fulfilled. Instead, Serbia received the territories of Vardar Macedonia
that was intended to become part of the Kingdom of Bulgaria
and the Serbian Army
had to leave those coastal territories that would become part of the newly formed Kingdom of Albania
. This event, together with the Austro-Hungarian Annexation of Bosnia, frustrated the majority of Serbian politicians, since there was still a large number of Serbs remaining out of the Kingdom.
The Serbian victory in the First World War was supposed to serve as compensation to this situation and there was an open debate between the followers of the Greater Serbia doctrine, that defended the incorporation of the parts of the defeated Austro-Hungarian Empire where Serbs lived to Serbia, opposed by the ones that supported an idea of uniting not only all the Serbian lands, but also to include other South Slav nations into a new country. Among other reasons, but also because of the fear of the creation of a bigger and stronger Orthodox Serbia
, that could eventually became a Russian
allied, the decision of making an ethnically mixed South Slav state, where other nationalities would balance the Serb hegemony, was made.
The Serbian Royal family of Karađorđević was set to rule this new state, called Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, that would be renamed to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
in 1929. Initially, the apologists of the Greater Serbia doctrine felt satisfied, since the main goal of uniting all Serbian-inhabited lands under the rule of a Serbian Monarchic dynasty was mostly achieved. During the inter-war period, the majority of Serbian politicians defended a strong centralised country, while their opponents demanded major autonomy for the regions. This tension grew to a point that led to the creation of opposing nationalistic organisations that culminated in the assassination of the King Alexander I
in 1934.
When the German invasion of Yugoslavia happened in 1941, these tensions grew to become one of the most brutal civil wars that occurred in World War II. The Royal Government soon capitulated, and the resistance was mainly made by the Četniks, who defended the restoration of the Monarchy, and the Partisans
, who supported the creation of a communist Yugoslav state. The Serbs were divided into these two factions, that fought not only the Nazi Germany
and all the other neighbour Axis allied countries which also invaded different territories of Yugoslavia — the Italians
, Hungarians
and Bulgaria
ns — but also each other. Beside this, other Yugoslav non-Serb nationalists took advantage of the situation and allied themselves with the Axis countries, regarding this moment as their historical opportunity of fulfilling their own irredentist aspirations, the Independent State of Croatia
being by far the most brutal one.
After the war, victorious Partisan leader Marshal Josip Broz Tito
became the head of state of Yugoslavia until his death in 1980. During this period the country was divided in six republics. In 1976, within the Socialist Republic of Serbia two autonomous provinces, SAP Kosovo and SAP Vojvodina, were created. During this period, most of the Greater Serbian ideology followers were incarcerated as accused of betrayall, or exiled. Within the rest of the Serbian population, the vast majority became strong supporters of this new Non-Aligned
Yugoslavia.
During the Yugoslav Wars
of the 1990s, Serbia stood accused of attempting to create the entity of a Greater Serbia through Belgrade's direct involvement with the unrecognised Serbian entities functioning in Bosnia and Herzegovina
and Croatia.
Roots of the Greater Serbian ideology are often traced back to Serbian minister Ilija Garašanin
's Načertanije
(1844). Načertanije was influenced by "Conseils sur la conduite a suivre par la Serbie", a document written by Polish
Prince Adam Czartoryski in 1843 and the revised version by Polish ambassador to Serbia, Franjo Zach, "Zach's Plan". From the 1850s onward, this concept has had a significant influence on Serbian politics.
The work claimed lands that were inhabited by Bulgarians, Macedonians, Albanians, Montenegrins, Bosnians, Hungarians and Croats as part of Greater Serbia. Garašanin's plan also includes methods of spreading Serbian influence in the claimed lands. He proposed ways to influence Croats and Slavic Muslims, who Garašanin regarded as "Serbs of Catholic faith" and "Serbs of Islamic faith". This plan was kept secret until 1967 and has been interpreted by some as a blueprint for Serbian national unification, with the primary concern of strengthening Serbia's position by inculcating Serbian and pro-Serbian national ideology in all surrounding peoples that are considered to be devoid of national consciousness.
(in the central south Slavic language group
) are Serbs who speak the Serbian language
. As this definition implied that large areas of continental Croatia, Dalmatia
,and Bosnia and Herzegovina, including areas inhabited by Roman Catholics - Vuk Karadžić is considered by some to be the progenitor of the Greater Serbia program. More precisely, Karadžić was the shaper of modern secular Serbian national consciousness, with the goal of incorporating all indigenous štokavian speakers (Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Muslim) into one, modern Serbian nation. It should be noted that this linguistic definition of nation would have excluded parts of southern Serbia where the Torlak dialect is spoken.
This negative view is not shared by Andrew Baruch Wachtel (Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation) who sees him as a partisan of South Slav unity, albeit in a limited sense, in that his linguistic definition emphasized what united South Slavs rather than the religious differences that had earlier divided them. However, one might argue that such a definition is very partisan: Karadžić himself eloquently and explicitly professed that his aim was to unite all native štokavian speakers whom he identified as Serbs. Therefore, Vuk Karadžić's central linguistic-political aim was the growth of the realm of Serbdom according to his ethnic-linguistic ideas and not a unity of any sort between Serbian, Croatian or other nations. It has often been suggested that the Muslims of Bosnia are the descendants of Serbs who converted from Orthodox Christianity
to Islam
under the rule of the Ottoman Empire
.
Svetozar Miletić
and Mihailo Polit-Desančić fiercely opposed the Greater Serbia ideology, as well as the premier Serbian socialist from Serbia proper, Svetozar Marković
. They all envisioned some sort of "Balkan confederation
" that would include Serbia, Bulgaria and sometimes Romania
, plus Vojvodina
, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, should the Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolve.
The term Greater Serbia first appears in a derogatory manner in a book authored by a Serbian socialist Svetozar Marković
in 1872. The title «Velika Srbija» (Greater Serbia) was meant to express the author's dismay at the prospect of expansion of the Serbian state without social and cultural reforms as well as possible ethnic confrontation with neighboring nations, from Croats to Bulgarians.
. Serbia claimed "historical rights" to the possession of Macedonia
, acquired by Stephen Dušan in fourteenth century.
Serbia gained significant territorial expansion in the Balkan Wars and almost doubled its territory, with the areas populated mostly by non-Serbs (Albanians
, Bulgarians
, Turks
and others). The Kingdom of Serbia temporarily occupied most of the interior of Albania and Albania's Adriatic coast. A series of massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars
were committed by the Serbian
and Montenegrin Army. According to the Report of the International Commission on the Balkan Wars
, Serbia consider annexed territories "as a dependency, a sort of conquered colony, which these conquerors might administer at their good pleasure". Newly acquired territories were subjected to military government
, and were not included in Serbia's constitutional system. The opposition press demanded the rule of law
for the population of the annexed territories and the extension of the constitution of the Kingdom of Serbia to these regions.
, headed by Serbian colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević Apis, which took an active and militant stance on the issue of a Greater Serbian state. This organization is believed to have been responsible for numerous atrocities following the Balkan Wars
in 1913. In 1914, Bosnian Serb Black Hand member Gavrilo Princip
was responsible the assassination of Habsburg Archduke Franz Ferdinand
in Sarajevo
, which set off an international crisis that led to the First World War.
movement. The change in approach was meant as a means to gain support of other Slavs which neighboured Serbs who were also occupied by Austria-Hungary. The intention to create a south Slav or "Yugoslav" state was expressed in the Niš declaration by Serbian premier Nikola Pašić
in 1914, as well as in Serbia's regent Aleksandar's statement in 1916. The documents showed that Serbia would pursue a policy that would integrate all territory that contained Serbs and southern Slavs, including Croatians, Slovenes and Bosnian Muslims.
In 1918, the Triple Entente
(Britain, France, and Russia) defeated Germany and Austria-Hungary. Serbia, which was allied with the Entente, pressured the allies to give Serbia the territory it requested. After the First World War, Serbia achieved a maximalist nationalist aspirations with the incorporation of the south Slavic regions of Austria-Hungary
and Montenegro
, into a Serbian-dominated Kingdom of Yugoslavia
. The Allies agreed to give the lands of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to Serbia. At this time Montenegro had already annexed by Serbia.
Serbian and Yugoslav nationalists claimed that the peoples' had few differences and were only separated by religious divide imposed by occupiers. It was under this belief that Serbia believed the large annexations would be followed by assimilation
. During the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the government of the Kingdom pursued a linguistic Serbisation policy towards the Macedonians in Macedonia
, then called "Southern Serbia" (unofficially) or "Vardar Banovina" (officially). The dialect
s spoken in this region were referred to as dialects of Serbo-Croatian
.
Either way, those southern dialects were suppressed with regards education, military and other national activities, and their usage was punishable.
The concept of "Greater Serbia" was put in practice during the early 1920s, under the Yugoslav premiership of Nikola Pašić
. Using tactics of police intimidation and vote rigging, he diminished the role of the oppositions (mainly those loyal to his Croatian rival, Stjepan Radić
) to his government in parliament, creating an environment to centralization of power in the hands of the Serbs in general and Serbian politicians in particular.
attempted to define its vision of a postwar future. One of its intellectuals was the Bosnian Serb nationalist Stevan Moljević
who, in 1941, proposed in a paper entitled "Homogeneous Serbia" that an even larger Greater Serbia should be created, incorporating not only Bosnia and much of Croatia but also chunks of Romania
, Bulgaria
, Albania
and Hungary in areas where Serbians don't represent even a significant minority. In the territories under their military control, chetniks applied policy of ethnic cleansing
against ethnic Croats
and Bosniaks
.
It is alleged to have been a significant point of discussion at a Chetnik congress held in village Ba in central Serbia in January 1944; however, Moljević's ideas were never put into practice due to the Chetniks' defeat by Josip Broz Tito
's Partisans
(also predominantly Serb resistance movement
) and it is difficult to assess how influential they were, due to the lack of records from the Ba congress. Nonetheless, Moljević's core idea—that Serbia is defined by the pattern of Serbian settlement, irrespective of existing national borders—was to remain an underlying theme of the Greater Serbian ideal. Also: Moljević's excursus into cartography has become a standard reference tool in modern Serbian nationalist repertory, ranging from a familiar image of Greater Serbia map frequently appearing in the mass media to the programme of the Serbian Radical Party
.
The modern elaboration of Serbs' grievances and allegation of inequality in Yugoslavia was to be developed in the Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
(1986), which was the single most important document to set into motion the pan-Serbian movement of the late 1980s which led to Slobodan Milošević
's rise to power and the subsequent Yugoslav wars. The authors of the Memorandum included the most influential Serbian intellectuals, among them: Pavle Ivić
, Antonije Isaković
, Dušan Kanazir, Mihailo Marković
, Miloš Macura, Dejan Medaković
, Miroslav Pantić, Nikola Pantić, Ljubiša Rakić, Radovan Samardžić, Miomir Vukobratović
, Vasilije Krestić
, Ivan Maksimović, Kosta Mihailović, Stojan Čelić and Nikola Čobelić. Christopher Bennett, author of Yugoslavia's Bloody Collapse: Causes, Course and Consequences, characterized the memorandum as "an elaborate, if crude, conspiracy theory." The memorandum alleged systematic discrimination against Serbs and Serbia culminating with the allegation that the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija
were being subjected to genocide. According to Bennett, despite most of these claims being obviously absurd, the memorandum was merely one of several similar polemics published at the time.
The Memorandum's central theses are:
The Memorandum's defenders claims go as follows: far from calling for a breakup of Yugoslavia on Greater Serbian lines claimed to be in favor of Yugoslavia. Its support for Yugoslavia was however conditional on fundamental changes to end what the Memorandum argued was the discrimination against Serbia which was inbuilt into the Yugoslav constitution. The chief of these changes was abolition of the autonomy of Kosovo
and Vojvodina
. According to Norman Cigar, because the changes were unlikely to be accepted passively, the implementation of the Memorandum's program would only be possible by force.
in which the provincial governments of Vojvodina and Kosovo and the Republican government of Montenegro
, were overthrown giving Milošević the dominating position of four votes out of eight in Yugoslavia's collective presidency. Milošević had achieved such a dominant position for Serbia because, according to Bennett, the old communist authorities had failed to stand up to him. This changed first in 1990 when free elections brought opposition parties to power in Croatia and Slovenia.
By this point several opposition parties in Serbia were openly calling for a Greater Serbia, rejecting the then existing boundaries of the Republics as the artificial creation of Tito's partisans. These included Šešelj's Serbian Radical Party
, claiming that the recent changes had rectified most of the anti-Serb bias that the Memorandum had alleged. Milošević supported the groups calling for a Greater Serbia, insisting on the demand for "all Serbs in one state". The Socialist Party of Serbia
appeared to be defenders of the Serb people in Yugoslavia. Serbian president Slobodan Milošević
, who was also the leader of the Socialist Party of Serbia, repeatedly stated that all Serbs should enjoy the right to be included in Serbia. Opponents and critics of Milošević claimed that "Yugoslavia could be that one state but the threat was that, should Yugoslavia break up, then Serbia under Milošević would carve out a Greater Serbia".
In 1990, power had seeped away from the federal government to the republics and were deadlocked over the future of Yugoslavia with the Slovene and Croatian republics seeking a confederacy and Serbia a stronger federation. Gow states, "it was the behavior of Serbia that added to the Croatian and Slovene Republic's belief that no accommodation was possible with the Serbian Republic's leadership". The last straw was on 15 May 1991 when the outgoing Serb president of the collective presidency along with the Serb satellites on the presidency blocked the succession of the Croatian representative Stjepan Mesić
as president. According to Gow, from this point on Yugoslavia de facto
"ceased to function".
of the 1990s, the concept of a Greater Serbia was widely seen outside of Serbia as the motivating force for the military campaigns undertaken to form and sustain Serbian states on the territories of the breakaway Yugoslav republics of Croatia (the Republic of Serbian Krajina
) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (the Republika Srpska
). From the Serb point of view, the objective of this policy was to assure Serbs' rights by ensuring that they could never be subjected to potentially hostile rule, particularly by their historic Croatian enemies (cf. Ustaše
).
The war crimes charges against Milošević are based on the allegation that he sought the establishment of a "Greater Serbia". Prosecutors at the Hague argued that "the indictments were all part of a common scheme, strategy or plan on the part of the accused [Milošević] to create a 'Greater Serbia', a centralized Serbian state encompassing the Serb-populated areas of Croatia
and Bosnia and all of Kosovo, and that this plan was to be achieved by forcibly removing
non-Serbs from large geographical areas through the commission of the crimes charged in the indictments. Although the events in Kosovo were separated from those in Croatia and Bosnia by more than three years, they were no more than a continuation of that plan, and they could only be understood completely by reference to what had happened in Croatia and Bosnia."
The Hague Trial Chamber found that the strategic plan of the Bosnian Serb leadership consisted of "a plan to link Serb-populated areas in BiH together, to gain control over these areas and to create a separate Bosnian Serb state, from which most non-Serbs would be permanently removed". It also found that media in certain areas focused only on Serbian Democratic Party
policy and reports from Belgrade
became more prominent, including the presentation of extremist views and promotion of the concept of a Greater Serbia, just as in other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina the concept of a Greater Croatia
was openly advocated.
The concept of a Greater Serbia has been widely criticised by other nations in the former Yugoslavia as well as by foreign observers. The two principal objections have been:
Vuk Draskovic
, leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement
, called for the creation of a Greater Serbia which would include Serbia, Kosovo, Vojvodina, Macedonia and Montenegro, as well as regions within Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia with high concentrations of Serbs. Jovan Marjanovic of the Serbian Renewal Movement
asked that "the Yugoslav Army
must come into Croatia and occupy the line Benkovac
–Karlovac
–Pakrac
–Baranja
". About 160,000 Croats were expelled from territories Serbian forces sought to control.
Much of the fighting in the Yugoslav Wars
of the 1990s was the result of an attempt to keep Serbs unified. Mihajlo Markovic, the Vice President of the Main Committee of Serbia's Socialist Party, rejected any solution that would make Serbs outside Serbia a minority. He proposed establishing a federation consisting of Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Serbs residing in the Serbian Autonomous Region of Krajina
, Slavonia
, Baranja
, and Srem
.
within a sovereign Bosnia-Hercegovina, the UN Administration of Kosovo, the retreat of Serbs from their former (occupied) territories in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo and the indictment of some Serbian leaders for war crimes have greatly discredited the Greater Serbian ideal in Serbia as well as abroad. Western
countries claim that atrocities of the Yugoslav Wars have prompted them to take a much stronger stance against the Greater Serbian goal.
Slobodan Milošević
and many other Serb leaders were accused by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) of crimes against humanity including murder, forcible population transfer
, deportation
and "persecution
on political, racial or religious grounds". Tribunal prosecutor's office has accused Milosevic of "the gravest violations of human rights in Europe since the Second World War and genocide." Milosevic died in prison before sentencing.
However, the idea of a Greater Serbia is still seen by many Croats, Bosniaks, and Albanians as a barrier to good relations and unity between Serbs and other neighbouring peoples.
In 2008, Aleksandar Vučić
, a former member of the Serbian Radical Party
, which advocated for a Greater Serbia, declared that the Greater Serbian project was unrealistic.
with Serbia
.
The Bosnian Muslims and Croats
see this as an act of breaking the Dayton Agreement
, while Serbs see it as an example of self-determination
.
website:
From Croatian Information Centre website:
International sources
Serbian nationalism
Serbian nationalism refers to the ethnic nationalism of Serbs. Originally arising in the context of the general rise of nationalism in the Balkans under Ottoman rule, under the influence of Serbian linguist Vuk Stefanović Karadžić and Ilija Garašanin....
and irredentist
Irredentism
Irredentism is any position advocating annexation of territories administered by another state on the grounds of common ethnicity or prior historical possession, actual or alleged. Some of these movements are also called pan-nationalist movements. It is a feature of identity politics and cultural...
ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
directed towards the creation of a Serbia
Serbia
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...
n land which would incorporate all regions of traditional significance to the Serbian nation. This movement's main ideology is to unite all Serbs
Pan-Serbism
Pan-Serbism is a movement begun in the 18th century that aimed at unity of all the Serbian people spread over the Balkans.- Overview :The first person to formulate the modern, linguistically based, idea of Pan-Serbism was Dositej Obradović, a writer and thinker who dedicated his writings to the...
(or all historically ruled or Serb populated lands) into one state
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
, claiming, depending on the version, different areas of many surrounding countries.
The Greater Serbian ideology including claims to territories of modern day Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
, Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
and Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
. In some historical forms, Greater Serbian aspirations also included territories of Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
and Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
. Its inspiration comes from the memory and existence of the relatively large and powerful Serbian Empire
Serbian Empire
The Serbian Empire was a short-lived medieval empire in the Balkans that emerged from the Serbian Kingdom. Stephen Uroš IV Dušan was crowned Emperor of Serbs and Greeks on 16 April, 1346, a title signifying a successorship to the Eastern Roman Empire...
that existed in 14th century south-eastern Europe prior to the Ottoman invasion.
Historical perspective
Following the growing nationalistic tendency in Europe from the 18th century onwards, such as the Unification of Italy, Serbia - after first gaining its principality within the Ottoman Empire in 1817 - experienced a popular desire for full unification with the Serbs of the remaining territories, mainly those living in neighbouring entities.Nacertanije
Načertanije is a document drawn up by the Serbian politician Ilija Garašanin in 1844, aimed at uniting the Serbian people, living under the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. It represents the first formalization of the political program of Serbia....
, a secret political program of the Principality of Serbia, according to which the new Serbian state could include the neighboring areas of Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
, Northern Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Herzegovina
Herzegovina is the southern region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. While there is no official border distinguishing it from the Bosnian region, it is generally accepted that the borders of the region are Croatia to the west, Montenegro to the south, the canton boundaries of the Herzegovina-Neretva...
. In the early 20th century, all political parties of the Kingdom of Serbia
Kingdom of Serbia
The Kingdom of Serbia was created when Prince Milan Obrenović, ruler of the Principality of Serbia, was crowned King in 1882. The Principality of Serbia was ruled by the Karađorđevic dynasty from 1817 onwards . The Principality, suzerain to the Porte, had expelled all Ottoman troops by 1867, de...
(except for the Social Democratic Party) planning to create a Balkan Federation
Balkan Federation
The Balkan Federation was a project about the creation of a Balkan federation or confederation, based mainly on left political ideas.The concept of a Balkan federation emerged at the late 19th century from among left political forces in the region...
, generally accepted the idea of uniting all Serbs into one only Serbian state. From the creation of the Principality until the First World War, the territory of Serbia was constantly expanding.
Balkan Wars
The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe in 1912 and 1913.By the early 20th century, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia, the countries of the Balkan League, had achieved their independence from the Ottoman Empire, but large parts of their ethnic...
, the Kingdom of Serbia
Kingdom of Serbia
The Kingdom of Serbia was created when Prince Milan Obrenović, ruler of the Principality of Serbia, was crowned King in 1882. The Principality of Serbia was ruled by the Karađorđevic dynasty from 1817 onwards . The Principality, suzerain to the Porte, had expelled all Ottoman troops by 1867, de...
achieved the expansion towards the south, but there was a mixed reaction to the events, for the reason that the promises of lands gaining access to the Adriatic Sea
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
were not fulfilled. Instead, Serbia received the territories of Vardar Macedonia
Vardar Macedonia
Vardar Macedonia is an area in the north of the Macedonia . The borders of the area are those of the Republic of Macedonia. It covers an area of...
that was intended to become part of the Kingdom of Bulgaria
Kingdom of Bulgaria
The Kingdom of Bulgaria was established as an independent state when the Principality of Bulgaria, an Ottoman vassal, officially proclaimed itself independent on October 5, 1908 . This move also formalised the annexation of the Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia, which had been under the control...
and the Serbian Army
Serbian Army
-Objectives:The Serbian Army is responsible for:* deterring armed threats* defending Serbia's territory* participation in peacekeeping operations* providing humanitarian aid and disaster relief-Personnel:...
had to leave those coastal territories that would become part of the newly formed Kingdom of Albania
Kingdom of Albania
The Kingdom of Albania, or Regnum Albaniae, was established by Charles of Anjou in the Albanian territory he conquered from the Despotate of Epirus in 1271. He took the title of "King of Albania" in February 1272. The kingdom extended from the region of Durrës south along the coast to Butrint...
. This event, together with the Austro-Hungarian Annexation of Bosnia, frustrated the majority of Serbian politicians, since there was still a large number of Serbs remaining out of the Kingdom.
The Serbian victory in the First World War was supposed to serve as compensation to this situation and there was an open debate between the followers of the Greater Serbia doctrine, that defended the incorporation of the parts of the defeated Austro-Hungarian Empire where Serbs lived to Serbia, opposed by the ones that supported an idea of uniting not only all the Serbian lands, but also to include other South Slav nations into a new country. Among other reasons, but also because of the fear of the creation of a bigger and stronger Orthodox Serbia
Serbia
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...
, that could eventually became a Russian
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
allied, the decision of making an ethnically mixed South Slav state, where other nationalities would balance the Serb hegemony, was made.
The Serbian Royal family of Karađorđević was set to rule this new state, called Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, that would be renamed to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
in 1929. Initially, the apologists of the Greater Serbia doctrine felt satisfied, since the main goal of uniting all Serbian-inhabited lands under the rule of a Serbian Monarchic dynasty was mostly achieved. During the inter-war period, the majority of Serbian politicians defended a strong centralised country, while their opponents demanded major autonomy for the regions. This tension grew to a point that led to the creation of opposing nationalistic organisations that culminated in the assassination of the King Alexander I
Alexander I of Yugoslavia
Alexander I , also known as Alexander the Unifier was the first king of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as well as the last king of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes .-Childhood:...
in 1934.
When the German invasion of Yugoslavia happened in 1941, these tensions grew to become one of the most brutal civil wars that occurred in World War II. The Royal Government soon capitulated, and the resistance was mainly made by the Četniks, who defended the restoration of the Monarchy, and the Partisans
Partisans (Yugoslavia)
The Yugoslav Partisans, or simply the Partisans were a Communist-led World War II anti-fascist resistance movement in Yugoslavia...
, who supported the creation of a communist Yugoslav state. The Serbs were divided into these two factions, that fought not only the Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and all the other neighbour Axis allied countries which also invaded different territories of Yugoslavia — the Italians
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Hungarians
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
and Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
ns — but also each other. Beside this, other Yugoslav non-Serb nationalists took advantage of the situation and allied themselves with the Axis countries, regarding this moment as their historical opportunity of fulfilling their own irredentist aspirations, the Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...
being by far the most brutal one.
After the war, victorious Partisan leader Marshal Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
became the head of state of Yugoslavia until his death in 1980. During this period the country was divided in six republics. In 1976, within the Socialist Republic of Serbia two autonomous provinces, SAP Kosovo and SAP Vojvodina, were created. During this period, most of the Greater Serbian ideology followers were incarcerated as accused of betrayall, or exiled. Within the rest of the Serbian population, the vast majority became strong supporters of this new Non-Aligned
Non-Aligned Movement
The Non-Aligned Movement is a group of states considering themselves not aligned formally with or against any major power bloc. As of 2011, the movement had 120 members and 17 observer countries...
Yugoslavia.
During the Yugoslav Wars
Yugoslav wars
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of wars, fought throughout the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995. The wars were complex: characterized by bitter ethnic conflicts among the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, mostly between Serbs on the one side and Croats and Bosniaks on the other; but also...
of the 1990s, Serbia stood accused of attempting to create the entity of a Greater Serbia through Belgrade's direct involvement with the unrecognised Serbian entities functioning in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
and Croatia.
Garašanin's Načertanije
Ilija Garašanin
Ilija Garašanin was a Serbian politician and statesman, serving as Interior Minister and Prime Minister ....
's Načertanije
Nacertanije
Načertanije is a document drawn up by the Serbian politician Ilija Garašanin in 1844, aimed at uniting the Serbian people, living under the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. It represents the first formalization of the political program of Serbia....
(1844). Načertanije was influenced by "Conseils sur la conduite a suivre par la Serbie", a document written by Polish
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
Prince Adam Czartoryski in 1843 and the revised version by Polish ambassador to Serbia, Franjo Zach, "Zach's Plan". From the 1850s onward, this concept has had a significant influence on Serbian politics.
The work claimed lands that were inhabited by Bulgarians, Macedonians, Albanians, Montenegrins, Bosnians, Hungarians and Croats as part of Greater Serbia. Garašanin's plan also includes methods of spreading Serbian influence in the claimed lands. He proposed ways to influence Croats and Slavic Muslims, who Garašanin regarded as "Serbs of Catholic faith" and "Serbs of Islamic faith". This plan was kept secret until 1967 and has been interpreted by some as a blueprint for Serbian national unification, with the primary concern of strengthening Serbia's position by inculcating Serbian and pro-Serbian national ideology in all surrounding peoples that are considered to be devoid of national consciousness.
Vuk Karadžić's pan-Serbism
The most notable Serbian linguist of the 19th century, Vuk Karadžić, was a follower of the view that all south Slavs that speak the štokavian dialectShtokavian dialect
Shtokavian or Štokavian is the prestige dialect of the Serbo-Croatian language, and the basis of its Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and Montenegrin standards...
(in the central south Slavic language group
Serbo-Croatian language
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
) are Serbs who speak the Serbian language
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
. As this definition implied that large areas of continental Croatia, Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
,and Bosnia and Herzegovina, including areas inhabited by Roman Catholics - Vuk Karadžić is considered by some to be the progenitor of the Greater Serbia program. More precisely, Karadžić was the shaper of modern secular Serbian national consciousness, with the goal of incorporating all indigenous štokavian speakers (Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Muslim) into one, modern Serbian nation. It should be noted that this linguistic definition of nation would have excluded parts of southern Serbia where the Torlak dialect is spoken.
This negative view is not shared by Andrew Baruch Wachtel (Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation) who sees him as a partisan of South Slav unity, albeit in a limited sense, in that his linguistic definition emphasized what united South Slavs rather than the religious differences that had earlier divided them. However, one might argue that such a definition is very partisan: Karadžić himself eloquently and explicitly professed that his aim was to unite all native štokavian speakers whom he identified as Serbs. Therefore, Vuk Karadžić's central linguistic-political aim was the growth of the realm of Serbdom according to his ethnic-linguistic ideas and not a unity of any sort between Serbian, Croatian or other nations. It has often been suggested that the Muslims of Bosnia are the descendants of Serbs who converted from Orthodox Christianity
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
to Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
under the rule of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
.
Early criticism
Serbian writers and politicians in Austria-HungaryAustria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
Svetozar Miletić
Svetozar Miletic
Svetozar Miletić was an advocate, politician, mayor of Novi Sad, and the political leader of Serbs in Vojvodina. He was the oldest of seven children born to Sima and Teodosija Miletić in the village of Mošorin in Šajkaška, the Serbian Military Frontier, on February 22, 1826...
and Mihailo Polit-Desančić fiercely opposed the Greater Serbia ideology, as well as the premier Serbian socialist from Serbia proper, Svetozar Marković
Svetozar Markovic
Svetozar Marković was an influential Serbian political activist and literary critic. He developed an activistic anthropological philosophy with a definite program of social change.-Early life:...
. They all envisioned some sort of "Balkan confederation
Confederation
A confederation in modern political terms is a permanent union of political units for common action in relation to other units. Usually created by treaty but often later adopting a common constitution, confederations tend to be established for dealing with critical issues such as defense, foreign...
" that would include Serbia, Bulgaria and sometimes Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, plus Vojvodina
Vojvodina
Vojvodina, officially called Autonomous Province of Vojvodina is an autonomous province of Serbia. Its capital and largest city is Novi Sad...
, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, should the Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolve.
The term Greater Serbia first appears in a derogatory manner in a book authored by a Serbian socialist Svetozar Marković
Svetozar Markovic
Svetozar Marković was an influential Serbian political activist and literary critic. He developed an activistic anthropological philosophy with a definite program of social change.-Early life:...
in 1872. The title «Velika Srbija» (Greater Serbia) was meant to express the author's dismay at the prospect of expansion of the Serbian state without social and cultural reforms as well as possible ethnic confrontation with neighboring nations, from Croats to Bulgarians.
Balkan Wars
The idea of reclaiming historic Serbian territory has been put into action several times during the 19th and 20th centuries, notably in Serbia's southward expansion in the Balkan WarsBalkan Wars
The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe in 1912 and 1913.By the early 20th century, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia, the countries of the Balkan League, had achieved their independence from the Ottoman Empire, but large parts of their ethnic...
. Serbia claimed "historical rights" to the possession of Macedonia
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...
, acquired by Stephen Dušan in fourteenth century.
Serbia gained significant territorial expansion in the Balkan Wars and almost doubled its territory, with the areas populated mostly by non-Serbs (Albanians
Albanians
Albanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Albania and neighbouring countries. They speak the Albanian language. More than half of all Albanians live in Albania and Kosovo...
, Bulgarians
Bulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
, Turks
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
and others). The Kingdom of Serbia temporarily occupied most of the interior of Albania and Albania's Adriatic coast. A series of massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars
Massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars
A series of massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars were committed by the Serbian and Montenegrin Army and paramilitaries, according to international reports....
were committed by the Serbian
Serbian Army
-Objectives:The Serbian Army is responsible for:* deterring armed threats* defending Serbia's territory* participation in peacekeeping operations* providing humanitarian aid and disaster relief-Personnel:...
and Montenegrin Army. According to the Report of the International Commission on the Balkan Wars
Report of the International Commission on the Balkan Wars
Report of the International Commission to Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars is a document published in the Washington D.C...
, Serbia consider annexed territories "as a dependency, a sort of conquered colony, which these conquerors might administer at their good pleasure". Newly acquired territories were subjected to military government
Military government
Military government can refer to conditions under either Military occupation, or Military dictatorship.-Military Government:Military government is the form of administration by which an occupying power exercises governmental authority over occupied territory.The Hague Conventions of 1907 specify...
, and were not included in Serbia's constitutional system. The opposition press demanded the rule of law
Rule of law
The rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application...
for the population of the annexed territories and the extension of the constitution of the Kingdom of Serbia to these regions.
Black Hand
Extremist Greater Serbian nationalist groups included the secret society called the Black HandBlack Hand
Unification or Death , unofficially known as the Black Hand , was a secret military society formed by members of the Serbian army in the Kingdom of Serbia, which was founded on September 6, 1901. It was intent on uniting all of the territories containing significant Serb populations annexed by...
, headed by Serbian colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević Apis, which took an active and militant stance on the issue of a Greater Serbian state. This organization is believed to have been responsible for numerous atrocities following the Balkan Wars
Balkan Wars
The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe in 1912 and 1913.By the early 20th century, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia, the countries of the Balkan League, had achieved their independence from the Ottoman Empire, but large parts of their ethnic...
in 1913. In 1914, Bosnian Serb Black Hand member Gavrilo Princip
Gavrilo Princip
Gavrilo Princip was the Bosnian Serb who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914...
was responsible the assassination of Habsburg Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria
Franz Ferdinand was an Archduke of Austria-Este, Austro-Hungarian and Royal Prince of Hungary and of Bohemia, and from 1889 until his death, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. His assassination in Sarajevo precipitated Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia...
in Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
, which set off an international crisis that led to the First World War.
First World War and creation of Yugoslavia
By 1914 the Greater Serbian concept was eventually replaced by the Yugoslav Pan-SlavicPan-Slavism
Pan-Slavism was a movement in the mid-19th century aimed at unity of all the Slavic peoples. The main focus was in the Balkans where the South Slavs had been ruled for centuries by other empires, Byzantine Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Venice...
movement. The change in approach was meant as a means to gain support of other Slavs which neighboured Serbs who were also occupied by Austria-Hungary. The intention to create a south Slav or "Yugoslav" state was expressed in the Niš declaration by Serbian premier Nikola Pašić
Nikola Pašic
Nikola P. Pašić was a Serbian and Yugoslav politician and diplomat, the most important Serbian political figure for almost 40 years, leader of the People's Radical Party who, among other posts, was twice a mayor of Belgrade...
in 1914, as well as in Serbia's regent Aleksandar's statement in 1916. The documents showed that Serbia would pursue a policy that would integrate all territory that contained Serbs and southern Slavs, including Croatians, Slovenes and Bosnian Muslims.
In 1918, the Triple Entente
Triple Entente
The Triple Entente was the name given to the alliance among Britain, France and Russia after the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907....
(Britain, France, and Russia) defeated Germany and Austria-Hungary. Serbia, which was allied with the Entente, pressured the allies to give Serbia the territory it requested. After the First World War, Serbia achieved a maximalist nationalist aspirations with the incorporation of the south Slavic regions of Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
and Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
, into a Serbian-dominated Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
. The Allies agreed to give the lands of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to Serbia. At this time Montenegro had already annexed by Serbia.
Serbian and Yugoslav nationalists claimed that the peoples' had few differences and were only separated by religious divide imposed by occupiers. It was under this belief that Serbia believed the large annexations would be followed by assimilation
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
. During the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the government of the Kingdom pursued a linguistic Serbisation policy towards the Macedonians in Macedonia
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...
, then called "Southern Serbia" (unofficially) or "Vardar Banovina" (officially). The dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s spoken in this region were referred to as dialects of Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian language
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
.
Either way, those southern dialects were suppressed with regards education, military and other national activities, and their usage was punishable.
The concept of "Greater Serbia" was put in practice during the early 1920s, under the Yugoslav premiership of Nikola Pašić
Nikola Pašic
Nikola P. Pašić was a Serbian and Yugoslav politician and diplomat, the most important Serbian political figure for almost 40 years, leader of the People's Radical Party who, among other posts, was twice a mayor of Belgrade...
. Using tactics of police intimidation and vote rigging, he diminished the role of the oppositions (mainly those loyal to his Croatian rival, Stjepan Radić
Stjepan Radic
Stjepan Radić was a Croatian politician and the founder of the Croatian Peasant Party in 1905. Radić is credited with galvanizing the peasantry of Croatia into a viable political force...
) to his government in parliament, creating an environment to centralization of power in the hands of the Serbs in general and Serbian politicians in particular.
Chetniks Greater Serbian project
During the Second World War, the largely Serbian royalist Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland headed by General Draža MihailovićDraža Mihailovic
Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović was a Yugoslav Serbian general during World War II...
attempted to define its vision of a postwar future. One of its intellectuals was the Bosnian Serb nationalist Stevan Moljević
Stevan Moljevic
Dr Stevan Moljević was Serbian and Yugoslav politician, lawyer and publicist, president of the Yugoslav-French Club, president of the Yugoslav-British Club, president of Rotary International Club of Yugoslavia and member of the Central National Committee of Yugoslavia in World War II...
who, in 1941, proposed in a paper entitled "Homogeneous Serbia" that an even larger Greater Serbia should be created, incorporating not only Bosnia and much of Croatia but also chunks of Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
and Hungary in areas where Serbians don't represent even a significant minority. In the territories under their military control, chetniks applied policy of ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
against ethnic Croats
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
and Bosniaks
Bosniaks
The Bosniaks or Bosniacs are a South Slavic ethnic group, living mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a smaller minority also present in other lands of the Balkan Peninsula especially in Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia...
.
It is alleged to have been a significant point of discussion at a Chetnik congress held in village Ba in central Serbia in January 1944; however, Moljević's ideas were never put into practice due to the Chetniks' defeat by Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
's Partisans
Partisans (Yugoslavia)
The Yugoslav Partisans, or simply the Partisans were a Communist-led World War II anti-fascist resistance movement in Yugoslavia...
(also predominantly Serb resistance movement
Resistance movement
A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...
) and it is difficult to assess how influential they were, due to the lack of records from the Ba congress. Nonetheless, Moljević's core idea—that Serbia is defined by the pattern of Serbian settlement, irrespective of existing national borders—was to remain an underlying theme of the Greater Serbian ideal. Also: Moljević's excursus into cartography has become a standard reference tool in modern Serbian nationalist repertory, ranging from a familiar image of Greater Serbia map frequently appearing in the mass media to the programme of the Serbian Radical Party
Serbian Radical Party
The Serbian Radical Party is a far-right Serbian nationalist political party in Serbia, founded in 1991. Currently the second-largest party in the Serbian National Assembly, it has branches in three of the nations that currently border Serbia – all former federal republics of Yugoslavia...
.
SANU Memorandum
Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
The Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts was a draft document produced by a 14-member committee composed by members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts from 1985 to 1986, presided by Kosta Mihailović...
(1986), which was the single most important document to set into motion the pan-Serbian movement of the late 1980s which led to Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...
's rise to power and the subsequent Yugoslav wars. The authors of the Memorandum included the most influential Serbian intellectuals, among them: Pavle Ivić
Pavle Ivic
-Biography:Professor Pavle Ivić was a leading South Slavic and general dialectologist and phonologist. Both his field work and his synthesizing studies were extensive and authoritative...
, Antonije Isaković
Antonije Isaković
Antonije Isaković was a Serbian writer and member of Serbian Academy of Science and Arts. He won NIN Prize in 1982 for his novel Tren 2. He was one of authors of Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts...
, Dušan Kanazir, Mihailo Marković
Mihailo Markovic
Mihailo Marković, PhD was a Serbian philosopher. He was born in Belgrade, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes...
, Miloš Macura, Dejan Medaković
Dejan Medakovic
Dejan Medaković was a Serbian writer, historian and professor who resided in Belgrade...
, Miroslav Pantić, Nikola Pantić, Ljubiša Rakić, Radovan Samardžić, Miomir Vukobratović
Miomir Vukobratovic
Miomir Vukobratović is a Serbian mechanical engineer and pioneer in humanoid robots. His major interest is in the development of efficient modeling and control of robot dynamics.-Education:He received the B.Sc. and Ph.D...
, Vasilije Krestić
Vasilije Krestic
Vasilije Krestić is an intellectual and historian, and a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.As a historian, he focuses on the history of the Serbs of the Habsburg Monarchy...
, Ivan Maksimović, Kosta Mihailović, Stojan Čelić and Nikola Čobelić. Christopher Bennett, author of Yugoslavia's Bloody Collapse: Causes, Course and Consequences, characterized the memorandum as "an elaborate, if crude, conspiracy theory." The memorandum alleged systematic discrimination against Serbs and Serbia culminating with the allegation that the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
were being subjected to genocide. According to Bennett, despite most of these claims being obviously absurd, the memorandum was merely one of several similar polemics published at the time.
The Memorandum's central theses are:
- Yugoslavia is a Croatian-Slovene hegemony, in order to reduce the Serbs to a smaller representative group, or "power-sharing".
- Serbs are, in Yugoslavia, oppressed as a nation. This oppression is especially brutal in Serbian Autonomous Province of Kossovo-Metochia, and in Croatia, where their status is "the worst ever as far as recorded history goes".
- Serbia is economically exploited, being subjected to the political-economical mechanisms that drain much of her wealth and redistribute it to SloveniaSloveniaSlovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
, Croatia and Kossovo-Metochia. - borders between Yugoslav republics are arbitrary, drawn by dominant Croatian and Slovene communists (motivated, supposedly, by anti-Serbian animus) and their Serbian political lapdogs.
The Memorandum's defenders claims go as follows: far from calling for a breakup of Yugoslavia on Greater Serbian lines claimed to be in favor of Yugoslavia. Its support for Yugoslavia was however conditional on fundamental changes to end what the Memorandum argued was the discrimination against Serbia which was inbuilt into the Yugoslav constitution. The chief of these changes was abolition of the autonomy of Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
and Vojvodina
Vojvodina
Vojvodina, officially called Autonomous Province of Vojvodina is an autonomous province of Serbia. Its capital and largest city is Novi Sad...
. According to Norman Cigar, because the changes were unlikely to be accepted passively, the implementation of the Memorandum's program would only be possible by force.
Milošević's rise to power
With the rise to power of Milošević the Memorandum's discourse became mainstream in Serbia. According to Bennett, Milošević used a rigid control of the media to organize a propaganda campaign in which the Serbs were the victims and stressed the need to readjust Yugoslavia due to the alleged bias against Serbia. This was then followed by Milošević's anti-bureaucratic revolutionAnti-bureaucratic revolution
Anti-bureaucratic revolution as a term, refers to a series of mass protests against governments of Yugoslavian republics and autonomous provinces during 1988 and 1989, which led to resignations of leaderships of Kosovo, Vojvodina and Montenegro, and the capture of power by politicians close to...
in which the provincial governments of Vojvodina and Kosovo and the Republican government of Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
, were overthrown giving Milošević the dominating position of four votes out of eight in Yugoslavia's collective presidency. Milošević had achieved such a dominant position for Serbia because, according to Bennett, the old communist authorities had failed to stand up to him. This changed first in 1990 when free elections brought opposition parties to power in Croatia and Slovenia.
Serbian Radical Party
The Serbian Radical Party is a far-right Serbian nationalist political party in Serbia, founded in 1991. Currently the second-largest party in the Serbian National Assembly, it has branches in three of the nations that currently border Serbia – all former federal republics of Yugoslavia...
, claiming that the recent changes had rectified most of the anti-Serb bias that the Memorandum had alleged. Milošević supported the groups calling for a Greater Serbia, insisting on the demand for "all Serbs in one state". The Socialist Party of Serbia
Socialist Party of Serbia
The Socialist Party of Serbia is officially a democratic socialist political party in Serbia. It is also widely recognized as a de facto Serbian nationalist party, though the party itself does not officially acknowledge this...
appeared to be defenders of the Serb people in Yugoslavia. Serbian president Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...
, who was also the leader of the Socialist Party of Serbia, repeatedly stated that all Serbs should enjoy the right to be included in Serbia. Opponents and critics of Milošević claimed that "Yugoslavia could be that one state but the threat was that, should Yugoslavia break up, then Serbia under Milošević would carve out a Greater Serbia".
In 1990, power had seeped away from the federal government to the republics and were deadlocked over the future of Yugoslavia with the Slovene and Croatian republics seeking a confederacy and Serbia a stronger federation. Gow states, "it was the behavior of Serbia that added to the Croatian and Slovene Republic's belief that no accommodation was possible with the Serbian Republic's leadership". The last straw was on 15 May 1991 when the outgoing Serb president of the collective presidency along with the Serb satellites on the presidency blocked the succession of the Croatian representative Stjepan Mesić
Stjepan Mesić
Stjepan "Stipe" Mesić is a Croatian politician and former President of Croatia. Before his ten-year presidential term between 2000 and 2010 he held the posts of Speaker of the Croatian Parliament , Prime Minister of Croatia , the last President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia , Secretary General...
as president. According to Gow, from this point on Yugoslavia de facto
De facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
"ceased to function".
Yugoslav wars
During the Yugoslav warsYugoslav wars
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of wars, fought throughout the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995. The wars were complex: characterized by bitter ethnic conflicts among the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, mostly between Serbs on the one side and Croats and Bosniaks on the other; but also...
of the 1990s, the concept of a Greater Serbia was widely seen outside of Serbia as the motivating force for the military campaigns undertaken to form and sustain Serbian states on the territories of the breakaway Yugoslav republics of Croatia (the Republic of Serbian Krajina
Republic of Serbian Krajina
The Republic of Serbian Krajina was a self-proclaimed Serb entity within Croatia. Established in 1991, it was not recognized internationally. It formally existed from 1991 to 1995, having been initiated a year earlier via smaller separatist regions. The name Krajina means "frontier"...
) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (the Republika Srpska
Republika Srpska
Republika Srpska is one of two main political entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina...
). From the Serb point of view, the objective of this policy was to assure Serbs' rights by ensuring that they could never be subjected to potentially hostile rule, particularly by their historic Croatian enemies (cf. Ustaše
Ustaše
The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
).
The war crimes charges against Milošević are based on the allegation that he sought the establishment of a "Greater Serbia". Prosecutors at the Hague argued that "the indictments were all part of a common scheme, strategy or plan on the part of the accused [Milošević] to create a 'Greater Serbia', a centralized Serbian state encompassing the Serb-populated areas of Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
and Bosnia and all of Kosovo, and that this plan was to be achieved by forcibly removing
Deportation
Deportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. Today it often refers to the expulsion of foreign nationals whereas the expulsion of nationals is called banishment, exile, or penal transportation...
non-Serbs from large geographical areas through the commission of the crimes charged in the indictments. Although the events in Kosovo were separated from those in Croatia and Bosnia by more than three years, they were no more than a continuation of that plan, and they could only be understood completely by reference to what had happened in Croatia and Bosnia."
The Hague Trial Chamber found that the strategic plan of the Bosnian Serb leadership consisted of "a plan to link Serb-populated areas in BiH together, to gain control over these areas and to create a separate Bosnian Serb state, from which most non-Serbs would be permanently removed". It also found that media in certain areas focused only on Serbian Democratic Party
Serbian Democratic Party
The Serbian Democratic Party is a political party in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is led by Mladen Bosić...
policy and reports from Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
became more prominent, including the presentation of extremist views and promotion of the concept of a Greater Serbia, just as in other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina the concept of a Greater Croatia
Greater Croatia
Greater Croatia is a term applied to certain currents within Croatian nationalism. In one sense, it refers to the territorial scope of the Croatian people, emphasising the ethnicity of those Croats living outside Croatia...
was openly advocated.
The concept of a Greater Serbia has been widely criticised by other nations in the former Yugoslavia as well as by foreign observers. The two principal objections have been:
- Questionable historical justifications for claims to territory; for instance, during the Croatian War of IndependenceCroatian War of IndependenceThe Croatian War of Independence was fought from 1991 to 1995 between forces loyal to the government of Croatia—which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia —and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People's Army and local Serb forces, with the JNA ending its combat...
, DubrovnikDubrovnikDubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea coast, positioned at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Adriatic, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Its total population is 42,641...
and other parts of DalmatiaDalmatiaDalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
were claimed as a historically Serbian territory — claims which were opposed by Croatian authorities, and by high-profile international governments. - The coercive nature of creating a Greater Serbian state against the will of other nations; before the wars, the peoples of Yugoslavia were highly intermingled and it was physically impossible to create ethnic states without taking in large numbers of other ethnic groups against their will. An answer to this was the widespread use of ethnic cleansingEthnic cleansingEthnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
to ensure that mono-ethnic territories could be established without opposition from potentially disloyal minority groups. A converse argument is used against the upgrading the status of Croatia and of Bosnia and Herzegovina from republics to independent states—taking in large numbers of other ethnic groups against their will in the process.
Vuk Draskovic
Vuk Draškovic
Vuk Drašković , leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement, is a Serbian politician who served as the Deputy Prime Minister of Yugoslavia and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of State Union of Serbia and Montenegro and Serbia.He graduated from the University of Belgrade's Law School in 1968...
, leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement
Serbian Renewal Movement
The Serbian Renewal Movement is a political party in Serbia.It was founded in 1990.In 1997 a dissident group abandoned the party and formed New Serbia....
, called for the creation of a Greater Serbia which would include Serbia, Kosovo, Vojvodina, Macedonia and Montenegro, as well as regions within Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia with high concentrations of Serbs. Jovan Marjanovic of the Serbian Renewal Movement
Serbian Renewal Movement
The Serbian Renewal Movement is a political party in Serbia.It was founded in 1990.In 1997 a dissident group abandoned the party and formed New Serbia....
asked that "the Yugoslav Army
Yugoslav Army
Aside from the Yugoslav People's Army, the terms Yugoslav Army, Army of Yugoslavia, or Military of Yugoslavia may refer to:* Yugoslav Partisans , the Yugoslav resistance army during World War II...
must come into Croatia and occupy the line Benkovac
Benkovac
Benkovac is a town and municipality in the interior of Zadar County, Croatia.- Geography :Benkovac is located where the plain of Ravni Kotari and the karstic plateau of Bukovica meet, 20 km from the town of Biograd na Moru and 30 km from Zadar. The Zagreb-Split motorway and Zadar-Knin...
–Karlovac
Karlovac
Karlovac is a city and municipality in central Croatia. The city proper has a population of 49,082, while the municipality has a population of 59,395 inhabitants .Karlovac is the administrative centre of Karlovac County...
–Pakrac
Pakrac
Pakrac is a town in western Slavonia, Croatia, population 4,852, total municipality population 8,482 . Pakrac is located on the road and railroad connecting the regions of Posavina and Podravina.-Name:...
–Baranja
Baranya (region)
Baranya or Baranja is a geographical region between the Danube and the Drava rivers. Its territory is divided between Hungary and Croatia...
". About 160,000 Croats were expelled from territories Serbian forces sought to control.
Much of the fighting in the Yugoslav Wars
Yugoslav wars
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of wars, fought throughout the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995. The wars were complex: characterized by bitter ethnic conflicts among the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, mostly between Serbs on the one side and Croats and Bosniaks on the other; but also...
of the 1990s was the result of an attempt to keep Serbs unified. Mihajlo Markovic, the Vice President of the Main Committee of Serbia's Socialist Party, rejected any solution that would make Serbs outside Serbia a minority. He proposed establishing a federation consisting of Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Serbs residing in the Serbian Autonomous Region of Krajina
Krajina
-Etymology:In old-Croatian, this earliest geographical term appeared at least from 10th century within the Glagolitic inscriptions in Chakavian dialect, e.g. in Baška tablet about 1105, and also in some subsequent Glagolitic texts as krayna in the original medieval meaning of inlands or mainlands...
, Slavonia
Slavonia
Slavonia is a geographical and historical region in eastern Croatia...
, Baranja
Baranya (region)
Baranya or Baranja is a geographical region between the Danube and the Drava rivers. Its territory is divided between Hungary and Croatia...
, and Srem
Srem
Śrem is a town on the Warta river in central Poland. It has been situated in the Greater Poland Voivodeship since 1999; from 1975 to 1998 it was part of the Poznań Voivodeship...
.
Failure of the Greater Serbian project
The military defeat of the Republic of Serb Krajina, the creation of the Republika SrpskaRepublika Srpska
Republika Srpska is one of two main political entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina...
within a sovereign Bosnia-Hercegovina, the UN Administration of Kosovo, the retreat of Serbs from their former (occupied) territories in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo and the indictment of some Serbian leaders for war crimes have greatly discredited the Greater Serbian ideal in Serbia as well as abroad. Western
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
countries claim that atrocities of the Yugoslav Wars have prompted them to take a much stronger stance against the Greater Serbian goal.
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...
and many other Serb leaders were accused by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, more commonly referred to as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or ICTY, is a...
(ICTY) of crimes against humanity including murder, forcible population transfer
Population transfer
Population transfer is the movement of a large group of people from one region to another by state policy or international authority, most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion...
, deportation
Deportation
Deportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. Today it often refers to the expulsion of foreign nationals whereas the expulsion of nationals is called banishment, exile, or penal transportation...
and "persecution
Persecution
Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another group. The most common forms are religious persecution, ethnic persecution, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these terms. The inflicting of suffering, harassment, isolation,...
on political, racial or religious grounds". Tribunal prosecutor's office has accused Milosevic of "the gravest violations of human rights in Europe since the Second World War and genocide." Milosevic died in prison before sentencing.
However, the idea of a Greater Serbia is still seen by many Croats, Bosniaks, and Albanians as a barrier to good relations and unity between Serbs and other neighbouring peoples.
In 2008, Aleksandar Vučić
Aleksandar Vucic
Aleksandar Vučić is a Serbian politician, Deputy President of the Serbian Progressive Party. He is a former secretary-general of the Serbian Radical Party and was President of the Serbian Radical Party's city parliamentary club before joining the Serbian Progressive Party. Besides Serbian,...
, a former member of the Serbian Radical Party
Serbian Radical Party
The Serbian Radical Party is a far-right Serbian nationalist political party in Serbia, founded in 1991. Currently the second-largest party in the Serbian National Assembly, it has branches in three of the nations that currently border Serbia – all former federal republics of Yugoslavia...
, which advocated for a Greater Serbia, declared that the Greater Serbian project was unrealistic.
Current situation
Currently, there is a movement calling for the unification of Republika SrpskaRepublika Srpska
Republika Srpska is one of two main political entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina...
with Serbia
Serbia
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...
.
The Bosnian Muslims and Croats
Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina
The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the two political entities that compose the sovereign country of Bosnia and Herzegovina . The two entities are delineated by the Inter-Entity Boundary Line...
see this as an act of breaking the Dayton Agreement
Dayton Agreement
The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement, Dayton Accords, Paris Protocol or Dayton-Paris Agreement, is the peace agreement reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio in November 1995, and formally signed in Paris on...
, while Serbs see it as an example of self-determination
Self-determination
Self-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference...
.
See also
- Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on the former YugoslaviaArbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on the former YugoslaviaThe Arbitration Commission of the Conference on Yugoslavia was a commission set up by the Council of Ministers of the European Economic Community on 27 August 1991 to provide the Conference on Yugoslavia with legal advice...
- Persecution of Serbs
- Serbian war crimesSerbian war crimesSerbian war crimes may refer to:* Serbian war crimes in the Balkan Wars* Serbian war crimes in World War II* Serbian war crimes in the Yugoslav Wars...
- SerbianisationSerbianisationSerbianisation or Serbification or Serbisation is the spread of Serbian culture, people, or politics, either by integration or assimilation.-Serbianisation:...
Literature
- Branimir Anzulovic: Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide, NYU Press, 1999.
- Philip J. Cohen: Serbia's Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History (Eastern European Studies, No 2), Texas A & M University Press, Reprint Edition, February 1997.
- Ivo Banac: The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics, Cornell University Press, Reprint edition, 1988.
External links
From Project RastkoProject Rastko
Project Rastko — Internet Library of Serb Culture is a non-profit and non-governmental publishing, cultural and educational project dedicated to Serb and Serb-related arts and humanities...
website:
- Ilija Garasanin's "Nacertanije": A Reasessment, including full translation of the document to English language
- Full Memorandum SANU (73 pages)
- Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts - Answers to Criticism
From Croatian Information Centre website:
- "Greater Serbia - from Ideology to Aggression", book of excerpts of influential Serbians supporting the idea
- Henri Pozzi:Black Hand Over Europe
- Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
- Stevan Moljević:Homogenous Serbia
- An end tp the myth of "Greater Serbia"? A rebuttal by a grandson of the man who coined the term
International sources
- The policy creating greater Serbia (UN report)
- Greater Serbia in modern times: Paul Garde's opinion
- Bosnia: a single country or an apple of discord?, Bosnian InstituteBosnian InstituteThe Bosnian Institute is an organisation principally devoted to providing information on, and promoting the common good of, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It publishes a quarterly online magazine. It is directed by Quintin Hoare....
, 12 May 2006 - http://www.aimpress.ch/dyn/trae/archive/data/199402/40227-006-trae-beo.htmSerbian-Greek Confederation as proposed by Slobodan MiloševićSlobodan MiloševićSlobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...
and KaradžićRadovan KaradžicRadovan Karadžić is a former Bosnian Serb politician. He is detained in the United Nations Detention Unit of Scheveningen, accused of war crimes committed against Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats during the Siege of Sarajevo, as well as ordering the Srebrenica massacre.Educated as a...
] - The End of Greater Serbia By Nicholas Wood-The New York Times
- Globalizing the Holocaust: A Jewish ‘useable past’ in Serbian Nationalism - David MacDonald, University of Otago