The Principality of Serbia was a state in the Balkans that came into existence as a result of the Serbian revolution which lasted between 1804 and 1817. Despite brutal oppression and retaliation by the Ottoman authorities, the revolutionary leaders, first Karađorđe and then Miloš Obrenović, succeeded in their goal to liberate Serbia after centuries of Turkish rule.
At first, the principality included only the territory of the former Pashaluk of Belgrade, but in 1831–1833 it expanded to the east, south, and west. In the first decades of the principality, the population was about 85% Serb and 15% non-Serb. Of those, most were Vlachs, and there were some Turkicized Muslim Albanians, which were the overwhelming majority of the Muslims that lived in Smederevo, Kladovo and Ćuprija. The new state aimed to homogenize its population, especially after two Great Migrations of the Serbs also known as the Great Exoduses of the Serbs, in 1690 and in 18th century, between 1718 and 1739, from various territories under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, particularly the Kosovo Vilayet, to the Kingdom of Hungary under the Habsburg monarchy.[2][3] As a result, from 1830 to 1876, it has been estimated that up to 150,000 Albanians that lived in the territories of the Principality of Serbia emigrated or were expelled.[4]
In 1867 the Ottoman army garrisons retreated from the Principality, securing its de facto independence.[5] Serbia expanded further to the south-east in 1878, when it won full international recognition at the Congress of Berlin.
The Serbo-Bulgarian War erupted on November 14, 1885, and lasted until November 28 of the same year. The war ended in defeat for Serbia, as it had failed to capture the Slivnitsa region which it had set out to achieve. Bulgarians successfully repelled the Serbs after the decisive victory at the Battle of Slivnitsa and advanced into Serbian territory taking Pirot and clearing the way to Niš.
When Austria-Hungary declared that it would join the war on the side of Serbia, Bulgaria withdrew from Serbia leaving the Serbo-Bulgarian border precisely where it had been prior to the war. The peace treaty was signed on February 19, 1886, in Bucharest. As a result of the war, European powers acknowledged the act of Unification of Bulgaria which happened on September 6, 1885.
Territorial expansion of the Kingdom of Serbia in 1913Serbia in 1918 (27 November – 1 December, during de facto military demarcation)
Negotiations between Russia, Serbia and Bulgaria led to the Serbian-Bulgarian Treaty of Alliance of March 1912, which aimed to conquer and to divide the Ottoman held Macedonia. In May, a Serbian-Greek alliance was reached and in October 1912, a Serbia-Montenegro alliance was signed.[10]
After the war started, Serbia, together with Montenegro, conquered Pristina and Novi Pazar. At the Battle of Kumanovo Serbs defeated the Ottoman army and proceeded to conquer Skopje and the whole of Kosovo vilayet. The region of Metohija was taken by Montenegro. At Bitola and Ohrid Serbian army units established contact with the Greek army.
Populations of ethnic Serbs and Albanians tended to shift following territorial conquests. As a result of the multi-ethnic composition of Kosovo, the new administrations provoked a mixed response from the local population. Serbs considered this a liberation.[11]
On November 29, 1913, the Drač County of the Kingdom of Serbia was established on the part of the territory of Albania taken from the Ottoman Empire during the First Balkan War. Serbian Drač County had four districts (Serbian: срез): Drač (Durrës), Lješ (Lezhë), Elbasan and Tirana.[12][13]
After the First Balkan War of 1912, territories of Kosovo and north-western Macedonia were internationally recognised as a part of Serbia[14] and northern Metohija as a part of Montenegro at the Treaty of London of May 1913.[15] In a report to Rome, Lazër Mjeda, Archbishop of Skopje, estimated that 25,000 Albanians were killed by Serbian forces during and after the conflict.[16]
The old disagreements regarding the territory of Macedonia among the members of the Balkan League and primarily Serbia and Bulgaria, led to the Second Balkan War. Here, Serbia, Greece, Romania, the Ottoman Empire, and Montenegro fought against Bulgaria in 1913.
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo (then part of Austria-Hungary) brought the tensions between Austria-Hungary and Serbia to a head. Behind the assassination in Sarajevo was the secret Serbian officers organization Black Hand.[17] The assassins were supported by an "underground railroad" of Serbian civilians and military officers that provided transportation and hid them; members of the Serbian military that trained them, encouraged them, and provided weapons, maps, and other information. After the assassination, the conspirators were arrested in Bosnia-Herzegovina and tried in Sarajevo in October 1914.
The political objective of the assassination was to break the southern Slav provinces off from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand triggered a chain of international events that embroiled Russia and the major European powers in the conflict.
At the end of the war and the collapse of Austria-Hungary, Serbia experienced a loss of 28 percent of its pre-war population[18] and went through radical changes after the liberation, all within days. On November 28, 1918, it absorbed the Kingdom of Montenegro at the Podgorica Assembly.[19][20]
In 1888 People's Radical Party led by Sava Grujić and Nikola Pašić came to power and a new constitution, based on the liberal Constitution of Belgium was introduced. The lost war and the Radical Party's total electoral victory were some of the reasons why King Milan I abdicated in 1889. His son Alexander I assumed the throne in 1893 and in 1894 dismissed the constitution.
Jews from modern-day North Macedonia got their citizen rights after the region became a part of Kingdom of Serbia.[22]
King Alexander I of Serbia and his unpopular wife Queen Draga were assassinated inside the Royal Palace in Belgrade on the night of 28–29 May 1903. Other representatives of the Obrenović family were shot as well. This act resulted in the extinction of the House of Obrenović, which had been ruling Serbia since 1817.
After the May Coup the Serbian Skupština invited Peter Karađorđević to assume the Serbian crown as Peter I of Serbia. A constitutional monarchy was created with the military Black Hand society operating behind the scenes. The traditionally good relations with Austria-Hungary ended, as the new dynasty relied on the support of the Russian Empire and closer cooperation with Kingdom of Bulgaria.
In April 1904 the Friendship treaty and in June 1905 the customs union with Bulgaria were signed. In response Austria-Hungary imposed a Tariff War (Pig war) of 1906–1909. After the 1906 elections the People's Radical Party came to power. In 1908 Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia, where Serbia had hoped to expand its territory.
Austria-Hungary had ambitions of imperialistic expansion and saw the Balkans in the same way that other colonial powers saw Africa or Asia. This idea was severely opposed by the Serbian public and intelligentsia, mainly gathered around Serbian Literary Herald (Srpski književni glasnik).[23]
Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Britain, the Kingdom of Italy, Serbia, the Principality of Montenegro, German Empire and France took an interest in these events. In April 1909, the 1878 Treaty of Berlin was amended to accept the new status quo and bringing the crisis to an end. The crisis permanently damaged relations between Austria-Hungary on the one hand and Russia and Serbia on the other. The annexation and reactions to the annexation were some of the contributing causes of World War I.
Peter I after his coronation on September 21, 1904
During its existence, the Kingdom was ruled by two competing dynasties: the House of Obrenović and the House of Karađorđević. KingMilan Obrenović ruled from 6 March 1882 to 6 March 1889, when he abdicated the throne. He was succeeded by his son, Aleksandar Obrenović, who ruled from 6 March 1889 to 11 June 1903, when he was killed by a group of officers. The slaughter of the royal couple (the king and Queen Draga) by the Black Hand shocked Europe. This opened the way for the descendants of Karađorđe (Karageorge), regarded by Serbs throughout the Balkans as the man who threw off the Turkish yoke, to return to the throne. Petar Karađorđević was initially reluctant to accept the crown, disgusted as he was by the coup d'état. However, he finally did accept and was the Kingdom's sovereign from 15 June 1903 to 1 December 1918, the day that the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was proclaimed.
Demographics
Cities
The largest cities in the Kingdom of Serbia were (with population figures from c. 1910–1912):
Serbia was geographically located in the path of several trade routes linking Western and Central Europe with Middle East. Morava Valley was in the strategically important terrestrial route that linked Central Europe with Greece and Constantinople. During the 19th century major efforts were made to improve the transport in this connections. At the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Austria-Hungary helped Serbia to gain new territories, conditioning Serbia, however, to sign a new convention. The convention obliged Serbia to construct the railway line from Belgrade to Vranje and Turkish and Bulgarian borders in three years. In addition, the obligation to sign commercial contracts was imposed on Serbia, as well as a claim to carry out regulation works in Đerdap. Serbian Government approved this treaty by adopting the Law on Proclamation of the convention. Consequently, Serbian Railways were formed in 1881. The regular traffic on the railway line Belgrade–Niš started in 1884.[24]
^Bataković, Dušan T. (2011). Minorities in the Balkans: state policy and interethnic relations (1804–2004): Les minorites dans les Balkans. Balkanološki institut SANU. p. 98. ISBN9788671790680.
^Rama 2019, p. 72:The outcome of this policy was that since the beginning of the war in 1876, according to, Braha and Brestovci, about 150,000 Albanians living there had been gradually expelled from the Serb state or emigrated from there
^Olivera Milosavljević; (2002) U tradiciji nacionalizma ili stereotipi srpskih intelektualaca XX veka o "nama" i "drugima"(in Serbian) p. 80; Helsinški odbor za ljudska prava u Srbiji [1]Archived 2022-10-06 at the Wayback Machine
^Geniş & Maynard 2009, pp. 556–557."Using secondary sources, we establish that there have been Albanians living in the area of Nish for at least 500 years, that the Ottoman Empire controlled the area from the fourteenth to nineteenth centuries which led to many Albanians converting to Islam, that the Muslim Albanians of Nish were forced to leave in 1878, and that at that time most of these Nishan Albanians migrated south into Kosovo, although some went to Skopje in Macedonia.
^Daskalovski 2003, p. 19. "The Serbian-Ottoman wars 1877/1878, followed mass and forceful movements of Albanians from their native territories. By the end of 1878 there were 60,000 Albanian refugees in Macedonia and 60,000–70,000 in the villayet of Kosova. At the 1878 Congress of Berlin, the Albanian territories of Niš, Prokuple, Kuršumlia, Vranje and Leskovac were given to Serbia."
^Stefanović 2005, pp. 469–470:Despite some voices of dissent, the Serbian regime 'encouraged' about 71,000 Muslims, including 49,000 Albanians, 'to leave'. The regime then gradually settled Serbs and Montenegrins in these territories. Prior to 1878, the Serbs comprised not more than one half of the population of Nis, the largest city in the region; by 1884 the Serbian share rose to 80 per cent. (..) The 1878 cleansing was a turning point because it was the first gross and large-scale injustice committed by Serbian forces against the Albanians. From that point onward, both ethnic groups had recent experiences of massive victimization that could be used to justify 'revenge' attacks. Furthermore, Muslim Albanians had every reason to resist the incorporation into the Serbian state.
^Bogdanović, Dimitrije; Radovan Samardžić (1990). Knjiga o Kosovu: razgovori o Kosovu. Književne novine. p. 208. ISBN9788639101947. Archived from the original on October 6, 2022. Retrieved August 2, 2011. На освојеном подручју су одмах успостављене грађанске власти и албанска територија је Де Факто анектирана Србији : 29. новембра је основан драчки округ са четири среза (Драч, Љеш, Елбасан, Тирана)....On conquered territory of Albania was established civil government and territory of Albania was de facto annexed by Serbia: On November 29 was established Durres County with four srez (Durres, Lezha, Elbasan, and Tirana)
^Strachan, Hew (2001) The First World War Volume 1: To Arms (p. 46). Oxford University Press. Oxford. ISBN0-19-926191-1
^Sulović, V; Pavlović, B (September 1998). "[125 years' of the Serbian Medical Society]". Srpski Arhiv Za Celokupno Lekarstvo. 126 (9–10): 402–407. PMID9863416.
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Radovanović, Bojan, and Mioljub Veličković. 110 years of the National Bank: 1884–1994: establishment and beginning of operation of the Privileged National Bank of the Kingdom of Serbia. National bank of Yugoslavia, 1994.
Stefanović, Djordje (2005). "Seeing the Albanians through Serbian eyes: The Inventors of the Tradition of Intolerance and their Critics, 1804–1939". European History Quarterly. 35 (3): 465–492. doi:10.1177/0265691405054219. hdl:2440/124622. S2CID144497487.
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Šojić, Milan, and Ljiljana Đurđević. "Dinar Exchange Rate in the Kingdom of Serbia 1882–1914." The Experience of Exchange Rate Regimes in Southeastern Europe in a Historical and Comparative Perspective, ONB Workshop. No. 13. 2007.
Stavrianos, L.S. The Balkans Since 1453 (1958), major scholarly history; online free to borrow
f Annexed by Italy (1941–1943) and Germany (1943–1944). Smaller part annexed by the Independent State of Croatia (1941–1944).
g North Macedonia's official and constitutional name was the Republic of Macedonia until 2019. It was known in the United Nations as the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia because of a naming dispute with Greece.
h Free Territory was established in 1947. Its administration was divided into two areas (Zone A) and (Zone B). Free Territory was de facto taken over by Italy and SFRY in 1954.
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