Serbia

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Serbia, located in Southeast Europe, has a rich history dating back to the 7th century. The Slavs first settled in the region and established the medieval Serbian state in the 9th century under the rule of the Vlastimirović dynasty. One of the most significant figures in Serbian history is Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović, who led the Serbian army against the Ottoman Turks in the famous Battle of Kosovo in 1389. Although the battle resulted in a Serbian defeat and the death of Prince Lazar, his bravery and sacrifice have become a symbol of national heroism and resistance against foreign invaders. In the early 20th century, Serbia became a part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, led by the famous Serbian politician and diplomat, Nikola Pašić. Pašić played a vital role in the unification of the Yugoslav nations and the creation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

The districts of Serbia

Serbia is divided into 29 districts, 24 of which are situated in central Serbia, and 5 in the autonomous province of Vojvodina. Kosovo, which unilaterally declared independence, is also considered a part of Serbia by the Serbian government:

Central Serbia:

Vojvodina:

26. West Bačka District

Serbian history

In ancient times, groups such as the Thracians and Illyrians controlled much of the region approximating to modern-day Serbia. Alexander the Great’s Macedonian empire just about stretched into southern Serbia in the fourth century BCE. The Romans later infiltrated the region in the middle of the second century BCE as part of the wider Macedonian Wars which brought Greece and the southern Balkans under their control. Thereafter the region was fully incorporated in a gradual fashion until it was finally created into the province of Moesia during the reign of Emperor Caesar Augustus.^[1]

The history of the Serb people’s involvement here began in the sixth century CE when the Serbs, a South Slavic people, arrived to the area as part of the wider migrations of the late antique and early medieval periods. For several centuries the Serbs, who intermixed with other groups here such as the Thracians, Illyrians and Getae to form the modern Serb people through ethnogenesis, were largely under the rule of the Byzantine Empire in Constantinople. That is until Stefan Nemanja, the Grand Prince of the Serbian Grand Principality, began establishing the Kingdom of Serbia in the late twelfth century. This polity reached its peak in the fourteenth century when Dusan the Mighty ruled over the Serbian Empire, which covered much of the southern and western Balkans. Nevertheless, this period of ascendancy was short-lived and in the course of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries Serbia was largely conquered by the emergent Ottoman Empire.^[2]

Serbia remained under Ottoman rule until the mid-nineteenth century when, like many other Balkan states, it began exercising a growing autonomy, eventually achieving full independence in 1867.^[3] Like many of its newly emergent neighbors such as Romania and Bulgaria, Serbia held a desire to create a large state which would mimic the power of the medieval Serbian Empire. But unlike its neighbors, Serbia was able to successfully realize this ambition when it emerged as one of the victors of the First World War. As a result, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia came into being in 1918 (officially known as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes until 1929). In addition to Serbia, this covered modern-day Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo and even parts of Hungary and Macedonia.^[4]

Yugoslavia was occupied by the Nazis and Italians during the Second World War. After the conflict, the leader of the resistance movement during the war, Josip Broz Tito, emerged as the leader of Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, a communist state which hewed its own path during the Cold War distinct from the Soviet Union, with Tito generally being characterized as a less authoritarian and brutal dictator than those who ruled within the Soviet bloc. Following his death in 1980, Yugoslavia struggled economically and politically through the 1980s.^[5]

With the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, Yugoslavia began to fragment as Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence from Serb control in Belgrade in 1991. The Yugoslav Wars followed as Serbia attempted to maintain control of Bosnia and Herzegovina in particular, a conflict which led to Serbian acts of atrocity and genocide against the Bosniak people. A war was also fought to try to maintain control of Kosovo, a small mountainous enclave which is primarily comprised of ethnic Albanians. All of these initiatives failed and with the secession of Montenegro from Serbia in 2006, the country has been reduced to one-third of the territory it held as Yugoslavia. Despite becoming a candidate for membership of the European Union in 2012, Serbia remains unreformed politically in many respects and has maintained close ties to Russia even after the extension of the war against Ukraine in 2022.^[6]

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Serbian history

Serbian geography

Serbia is a country with contrasting geographical regions. The north and north-west of the country lie in a low-lying region which constitutes the southern end of the Pannonian Basin, part of the Great Hungarian Plain. But south of this the vast majority of Serbia is hilly and mountainous, dominated by a number of different ranges including the southern edges of the Carpathian Mountains in the north-east of Serbia and the Balkan Mountains and Rhodope Mountains in the east and south-east. These are all eclipsed, though, by the Dinaric Alps, which dominate the western, central and southern parts of Serbia. There are fifteen peaks in the country over 1,800 meters.^[7] In terms of the human geography of Serbia, Belgrade or Beograd eclipses all others, with over 1.3 million people living here or nearly 20% of the country’s population of 6.8 million. Other than Belgrade, only Novi Sad and Niš have more than 200,000 inhabitants, with populations of 277,000 and 260,000 respectively.^[8]

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Serbian geography

Researching family history in Serbia

There are many sources extant for the study of family history in Serbia, notably church records and administrative data compiled by the Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, these are not systematic accounts of the demographics of the country which do not appear until national censuses were carried out in the nineteenth century. The first such population censuses date to the first half of the nineteenth century, but even these only list the heads of households. As such, the first modern, complete census was that undertaken in 1863. Enumerations of the population were relatively frequent in Serbia thereafter and there are others for 1866, 1874 and 1884.^[9] Many of these records, including a census specific to the city of Belgrade which was carried out in 1733 and 1734, are found in the State Archives of Serbia in Belgrade.^[10]

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Researching family history in Serbia

There are several types of records that can be useful in tracing family history, including birth, marriage, and death records, census records, military records, and immigration and naturalization records. These records are typically held by government and church archives, as well as local and regional archives. It's important to note that many records in Serbia are not digitized or readily accessible online, so researchers may need to visit archives in person or work with a local researcher to access these records. Additionally, language barriers and changes in borders can make research more complex.

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Serbian ethnicity

Serbia is a diverse country with a mix of ethnicities, the largest of which are Serbs and Hungarians. Other significant ethnic groups include Bosniaks, Croats, Slovaks, Montenegrins, and Albanians. These ethnicities have different cultural traditions, languages, and religious beliefs, which contribute to Serbia's cultural richness and diversity.

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Serbian surnames

Serbian surnames can provide insight into an ancestor's origin or profession. For example, the suffix "-ić" signifies a patronymic naming tradition indicating "son of". Identifying the meanings and conventions of Serbian surnames can help people with Serbia ancestors successfully trace and identify family lines. Serbian surnames usually consist of a given name followed by a family name. Like most European naming systems, Serbian surnames follow unique yet complex structuring, lettering, composition, and naming customs. Many Serbian surnames are derived from Slavic words. Familiarity with common Serbian surnames and their historical origins can significantly aid in tracing one's family lineage and uncovering ancestral connections.

Examples of different Serbian surnames:

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References

[1] ttps://www.unrv.com/provinces/moesia.php

[2] ttps://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/dusan-mighty-0014139

[3] ttps://royalfamily.org/about-serbia/history-of-serbia-from-1815-to-1868/

[4] ttps://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Yugoslavia

[5] ttps://jacobin.com/2023/03/socialist-yugoslavia-tito-soviet-union-nato-imperialism-non-alignment-independence

[6] ttps://www.voanews.com/a/timeline-of-balkan-wars/4129662.html

[7] ttps://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Serbia

[8] ttps://www.worldatlas.com/articles/biggest-cities-in-serbia.html

[9] ttps://popis2022.stat.gov.rs/en-us/0-popisi/

[10] ttps://arhivsrbije.rs/en

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