🇷🇸 Serbia

These cultures dominated much of Southeast Europe as well as parts of Central Europe and Anatolia. Sites such as Lepenski Vir and Vinča-Belo Brdo near the Danube remain among the region's most important archaeological legacies.

Greek cultural and political expansion brought the local Iron Age tribes of the territory into the historical record. The encounter marked the region's first sustained integration into Mediterranean political networks.

The Scordisci formed a tribal state and built several fortifications, including their capital Singidunum and Naissos, the present-day Niš. These sites became the enduring urban anchors of the territory.

Roman conquest of much of the territory took place in the 2nd century BC, with Illyricum formally established in 167 BC. This began centuries of Roman administration that left contemporary Serbia straddling several former imperial provinces.

The remaining lands were subdued around 75 BC and organised as the province of Moesia Superior. Roman provincial structures shaped settlement, roads and urban life across the central Balkans.

The modern Srem region was brought under Roman control in 9 BC. It extended imperial administration to the Sava-Danube confluence.

Following the Dacian Wars, Bačka and Banat were incorporated into the empire. With this the whole of modern Serbia's territory lay within or adjacent to Roman provincial administration; seventeen Roman emperors were later born in the area, second only to Italy.

The partition placed most of the territory under the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, while northwestern parts fell to the Western Roman Empire. This division set the enduring cultural and religious orientation of the Serbian lands towards Constantinople.

Slavic settlers moved in large numbers into the Byzantine-held provinces covering present-day Serbia. They merged with the local Romanised population, which was gradually assimilated, establishing the ethnic foundation of the later Serbian state.

By the beginning of the 9th century the Serbs, who had settled between the Sava river and the Dinaric Alps, had attained recognisable statehood. This was the first indigenous political organisation of the Serbian lands.

The gradual Christianisation of Serbia was finalised by the middle of the 9th century. It bound the emerging state to the Christian ecumene and remains the basis of Serbia's predominantly Orthodox religious identity.

In the mid-10th century the Serbian state fell. Serbian polities subsequently spent the 11th and 12th centuries in frequent warfare with the neighbouring Byzantine Empire.

Under the Nemanjići the Serbian state was elevated to a kingdom in 1217 and to an empire in 1346 under Stefan Dušan. Monuments of the period survive in monasteries and fortifications, several inscribed as World Heritage sites.

Recognition by both Rome and Constantinople confirmed Serbia's elevation from principality to kingdom. It gave the Nemanjić state international legitimacy between the Latin and Byzantine worlds.

Through Sava's efforts, later the country's patron saint, the Serbian Church gained self-governing status. Ecclesiastical independence became a durable pillar of Serbian statehood and identity.

Serbia reached its greatest territorial extent and was elevated to an empire in 1346. In the same year the Serbian Church was raised to a Patriarchate, completing the state's imperial pretensions.

After 1371 the once-powerful state broke into competing principalities. The fragmentation left the Serbian lands unable to withstand Ottoman expansion.

The battle near Pristina, in which the Serbian prince Lazar and the Ottoman sultan Murad I were both killed, became a foundational episode in Serbian national memory. Ottoman expansion into the Balkans continued in the following century.

With Ottoman pressure from the south, Serbia's political stronghold shifted northwards to the newly established Despotate centred on Belgrade. The capital moved again to Smederevo in 1430, the Despotate holding under the double vassalage of Hungary and the Ottomans.

The fall of Smederevo on 20 June 1459 ended the Serbian Despotate. It symbolically marked the extinction of the medieval Serbian state and the start of centuries of Ottoman rule.

With native nobility eliminated and the peasantry enserfed, the abolition of the Patriarchate removed the last autonomous Serbian institution. Much of the clergy fled or was confined to isolated monasteries.

Successive campaigns brought the northern Serbian lands under Ottoman control. Serbian resistance had continued under titular despots until 1537 and popular leaders such as Jovan Nenad in 1526–1527.

The restored Patriarchate operated within the Ottoman millet system. It provided limited but crucial continuation of Serbian ecclesiastical and cultural traditions under foreign rule.

The uprising was one of the most significant rebellions against Ottoman rule and formed part of the Long War of 1593–1606 between the Habsburgs and Ottomans. Such revolts kept the prospect of Christian liberation alive in the Serbian lands.

Habsburg forces controlled much of Serbia from 1688 to 1690, but the Ottoman army reconquered a large part in the winter of 1689/1690, accompanied by a brutal massacre of civilians. The war began Habsburg expansion towards Central Serbia while securing a foothold in Vojvodina.

Fleeing Ottoman reprisals, several tens of thousands of Serbs resettled in Habsburg Hungary. The migration shifted the Serbian ecclesiastical centre to the Metropolitanate of Karlovci and created the substantial Serbian population of Vojvodina.

After several petitions, the emperor formally guaranteed the refugee Serbs freedom of religion. These privileges underpinned Serbian communal and church autonomy within the Habsburg lands for generations.

After a century of Ottoman occupation, the area of modern Vojvodina began passing to Habsburg rule. The transfer was completed by the Treaty of Požarevac in 1718.

The treaty finalised the cession of modern Vojvodina to Habsburg rule. The province thereafter developed under Central European administration, distinguishing it from Ottoman-ruled central Serbia.

Habsburg administration briefly reorganised central Serbia as a crownland. The gains were lost by the Treaty of Belgrade in 1739, when the Ottomans retook the region.

The treaty reversed two decades of Habsburg rule in Central Serbia. Only Vojvodina remained Habsburg, though central Serbia was again occupied by the Habsburgs in 1788–1792.

Following the northward shift of the Serbian ecclesiastical centre, the Ottomans suppressed the Patriarchate a second time. Serbian religious leadership was thereafter concentrated in Habsburg Karlovci.

The alphabet was reformed so that each sound is represented by a single consistent letter. A 2014 poll found 47% of the population using the Latin alphabet more often, 36% Cyrillic and 16% both equally.

The First Serbian Uprising began in 1804 under Đorđe Petrović, known as Karađorđe; under the vožd Serbia was effectively independent for almost a decade before the Ottoman army reoccupied the country. The Second Uprising followed in 1815 under Miloš Obrenović, securing self-government recognised by the Sultan by 1817. The revolt opened the eleven-year Serbian Revolution and made Serbia one of the first Balkan nations to abolish feudalism; full independence followed later in the century.

The uprising ended with a settlement between Serbian revolutionaries and Ottoman authorities, establishing the Principality of Serbia. It created the region's first modern autonomous Serbian polity, ruled by the House of Obrenović until 1903.

The Akkerman Convention of 1826, the Treaty of Adrianople of 1829 and finally the Hatt-i Sharif recognised the suzerainty of Serbia. These instruments internationally entrenched Serbian autonomy under nominal Ottoman overlordship.

The library holds around 4 million items and is the second largest in the country after the National Library of Serbia. Its founding predates Serbian statehood institutions in the principality.

Founded in 1835, it is the country's oldest continuously operating theatre, part of a theatrical tradition dating to the early 19th century. Joakim Vujić is regarded as the founder of modern Serbian theatre.

Promulgated on 15 February 1835, the constitution made Serbia the region's first constitutional monarchy. The date is now commemorated as Statehood Day, a public holiday.

The museum houses one of the largest art collections in Southeast Europe and heads a network of 31 art museums. Its creation marked the institutionalisation of national culture in the young principality.

Revolutionary upheaval produced an autonomous Serbian territory within the Habsburg monarchy. By 1849 it was reorganised as the Voivodeship of Serbia and Banat of Temeschwar.

Following clashes between the Ottoman army and Serbs in Belgrade in 1862 and pressure from the Great Powers, the last Turkish soldiers left the Principality by 1867. Serbian diplomats confirmed this de facto independence by enacting a new constitution in 1869 without consulting the Porte.

Serbia sided with the ongoing revolts in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Bulgaria. The war fed into the wider Russo-Turkish conflict that ended Ottoman suzerainty over Serbia.

The Congress of Berlin, ending the Russo-Turkish War, internationally recognised Serbia's full independence from the Ottoman Empire, confirming sovereignty that had been won in practice earlier in the century. It also barred Serbia from uniting with other Serbian regions by placing Bosnia and Herzegovina under Austro-Hungarian occupation, alongside occupation of Raška. Serbia was proclaimed a kingdom in 1882 under Milan I.

Serbia's elevation to a kingdom under Milan I confirmed its standing as a fully sovereign European state. The Kingdom of Serbia endured as the official name until 1918.

Descendants of the revolutionary leader Karađorđe Petrović replaced the Obrenović dynasty after the coup. The change of dynasty reoriented Serbian foreign policy and ended nearly a century of Obrenović rule.

Founded in 1904, it is widely regarded as Serbia's newspaper of record. Serbia was ranked 96th of 180 countries in the 2025 Press Freedom Index.

It was among the earliest feature films produced in Central and Eastern Europe. The Yugoslav Film Archives, with more than 100,000 prints, is among the five largest film archives in the world.

The Balkan League defeated the Ottoman Empire and captured its European territories, enabling Serbian expansion into Raška, Kosovo, Metohija and Vardarian Macedonia. Serbia enlarged its territory by 80% and its population by 50% in two years.

Bulgaria turned on its former allies and was defeated, with gains confirmed by the Treaty of Bucharest. Serbia's rise alarmed Austria-Hungary, which feared it as an anchor for South Slav unification; more than 36,000 Serbs died in the two wars.

The killing on 28 June 1914 by a member of the Young Bosnia organisation triggered Austro-Hungarian action against Serbia. It set in motion the crisis that became the First World War.

Vienna declared war on Serbia on 28 July 1914 following the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Bosnian Serb nationalist, opening the Balkan front of what became the First World War. Serbia won the first major battles, including Cer and Kolubara, before being overpowered; it suffered occupation and among the highest proportional wartime death tolls in Europe.

Despite early victories Serbia was defeated in 1915 and occupied. Most of its army and some civilians retreated to Greece and Corfu, suffering immense losses on the way.

Signed on 20 July 1917, the agreement committed Serbia and Montenegro to unite with Austria-Hungary's South Slav lands. It provided the political blueprint for the Kingdom created in 1918.

On 15 September 1918 the reconstituted army broke through enemy lines, defeating Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary. Serbia was a major Balkan Entente power in the Allied victory of November 1918, but lost around 700,000 people, over 16% of its prewar population, the highest casualty rate of the war.

Syrmia united with Serbia on 24 November 1918, and a day later the Great People's Assembly of Serbs, Bunjevci and other Slavs declared the unification of Banat, Bačka and Baranja. The Habsburg crownland of Vojvodina thereby entered the Serbian state.

On 26 November 1918 the assembly ended Montenegrin independent statehood. The union immediately preceded the creation of the wider Yugoslav kingdom.

On 1 December 1918 in Belgrade, Prince Regent Alexander Karađorđević proclaimed the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes under King Peter I of Serbia, uniting Serbia with the former South Slav territories of Austria-Hungary. Serb centralists and Croat autonomists soon clashed in parliament, producing fragile and short-lived governments; the state was renamed Yugoslavia in 1929.

Alexander suspended normal politics to impose a single Yugoslav national ideology. The effect was to further alienate non-Serbs from the idea of unity.

The IMRO member killed the king during an official visit to France. Alexander was succeeded by his eleven-year-old son Peter II, under a regency.

The accord addressed Croatian grievances by granting territorial autonomy within Yugoslavia. It came too late to stabilise the state before the Axis invasion.

Despite Yugoslav attempts at neutrality, the country was invaded and dismembered between Hungary, Bulgaria, the Independent State of Croatia, Greater Albania and Montenegro, with the remainder under Nazi German military administration. Serbian puppet governments were led by Milan Aćimović and Milan Nedić, assisted by Dimitrije Ljotić's Zbor.

Royalist Chetniks under Draža Mihailović and communist Partisans under Josip Broz Tito fought each other as well as the occupiers, while Axis auxiliaries such as the Serbian Volunteer Corps and Serbian State Guard opposed both. The internal conflict determined who would rule post-war Yugoslavia.

Reprisals included around 2,000 civilians killed at Kraljevo and 2,950 villagers at Draginac and Loznica, the first large execution of civilians in occupied Serbia. The Kragujevac massacre and the Hungarian-perpetrated Novi Sad Raid each claimed over 3,000 victims.

After one year of occupation about 16,000 Serbian Jews had been killed. Banjica, the largest concentration camp, was run jointly by the German army and Nedić's regime, its victims chiefly Jews, Roma and Serb political prisoners.

Hosting the international specialised exposition is intended to raise Serbia's global profile and drive infrastructure investment. It accompanies major motorway and high-speed rail construction programmes.

The agreement opens the first phase of Serbia's nuclear power programme, three years after parliament lifted a 35-year moratorium on atomic energy. Officials aim to choose a technology by 2027 and connect a first reactor by 2040.

The suspect, linked to a Novi Sad cybersecurity firm, is accused of breaching Croatia's interior ministry, tax administration and other agencies from April 2026 onwards. Belgrade has not confirmed widely reported suspicions of links to Serbian intelligence.

The electronic media regulator REM had lacked a functioning council since its previous mandate expired, drawing criticism from press-freedom monitors and EU officials over stalled oversight of broadcasters during the protest period.

The states cited concerns over democratic backsliding and the handling of the previous year's mass protests. Serbia has opened 22 of 35 negotiating chapters and has set an unofficial goal of concluding talks by the end of 2026.

The announcement followed months of student-led protests that grew into the largest anti-government movement since 2000, triggered by a November 2024 railway station canopy collapse that killed 16 people. Under the constitution Vucic could not have sought a further presidential term regardless.

The French rail manufacturer will deliver a fully automated 15-kilometre line with 15 stations, part of a wider project financed partly through borrowing from the French treasury. Belgrade remains Europe's largest city without an underground railway.

The AI-driven auto insurance startup reached unicorn valuation, a first for the Serbian technology sector. It signalled the maturation of the country's digital economy.

An estimated 100,000 people gathered in Novi Sad a year after a railway station canopy collapse killed 16 people and triggered Serbia's largest protest wave since 2000. Some students walked over 300 kilometres from southern towns to attend.

The report criticised excessive use of force against protesters, pressure on civil society and a lack of accountability over corruption, noting growing polarisation since the mass protests began in November 2024.

The Anglo-Australian miner shelved development a year after Serbia's constitutional court overturned a 2022 government ban imposed following nationwide environmental protests. The site had been billed as a major potential lithium source for European electric-vehicle supply chains.

The measures targeted Gazprom and Gazprom Neft's majority stake in NIS, threatening fuel shortages and prompting President Vucic to warn the refinery could shut down. Belgrade pressed for a sale of the Russian stake to avert a fuel crisis.

The project aims to develop the largest lithium mine in Europe, a potentially transformative resource asset. Mining lithium became a matter of public debate and several protests against it took place.

Mass demonstrations, some violent, erupted against corruption in government. They followed earlier protests over disputed elections and over the Rio Tinto lithium mining project.

The vote of 16 January 2022 amended constitutional provisions on the courts. The changes were presented as a step towards reducing political influence in the judicial system.

The census, excluding Kosovo, showed Serbs at 80.6%, Hungarians 2.8% and Bosniaks 2.3%. Having completed its demographic transition by the early 1990s, Serbia faces below-replacement fertility, negative natural increase, ageing and average annual net migration loss of about 12,000 people.

The pipeline reinforced Serbia's role as a transit country for Russian gas. Serbia imports most of its gas, with only 17% from domestic production.

The pandemic reached Serbia in March 2020, prompting the first curfew since the Second World War. It marked an exceptional exercise of emergency powers in the modern state.

The purchase placed Serbia's principal copper producer in Chinese ownership, supporting output that makes Serbia the world's 23rd largest copper producer. Chinese Hesteel similarly owns the Smederevo steel mill behind the country's near 2 million tonnes of raw steel in 2018.

Terrestrial broadcasting nonetheless accounts for only a marginal share of reception, as about 94% of households use subscription platforms. This makes Serbia one of the world's most highly penetrated pay-television markets.

The most disastrous floods on record inflicted damage of over 1.5 billion euros. Potential flooding threatens over 500 larger settlements and 16,000 square kilometres, particularly in Central Serbia.

Serbian-Russian ties are habitually described as a centuries-old religious, ethnic and political alliance. Following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Serbia drew international scrutiny for not joining EU sanctions, citing its own past suffering under sanctions.

The EU-brokered Brussels Agreement set out principles governing the normalisation of relations between Serbia and Kosovo. Both sides began implementing its provisions in the years that followed.

Observer status in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation sat alongside Serbia's EU candidacy and declared neutrality. It illustrates Serbia's balancing between Moscow and Brussels.

According to a number of international analysts, Serbia has since suffered backsliding into authoritarianism with declining media freedom and civil liberties. Vučić became president after the 2017 election, was re-elected in April 2022 and won a snap parliamentary election in December 2023 that prompted fraud protests.

Following a late-2010 EU-drafted UN General Assembly resolution that acknowledged the ICJ's opinion and called for talks on practical issues rather than status, an EU-moderated dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina opened in March 2011.

Mandatory military service ended, leaving an all-volunteer force of some 28,000 active troops with large reserves. In 2024 the president approved its reintroduction, with 75-day service planned from 2026.

At Serbia's request the UN General Assembly sought an ICJ advisory opinion in October 2008 on whether Kosovo's unilateral declaration accorded with international law. In a non-binding opinion of 22 July 2010, considered unfavourable to Serbia, the court found that international law did not prohibit declarations of independence; Serbia nonetheless continues to regard the declaration as illegal and illegitimate.

The application was lodged on 22 December 2009, followed by candidate status on 1 March 2012 after a delay in December 2011. Accession negotiations opened in January 2014 following positive recommendations from the Commission and Council.

Growth averaging 4.45% a year gave way to −3% in 2009, with further contractions of −1% in 2012 and −1.8% in 2014. Serbia has nonetheless attracted over $40 billion in foreign direct investment since 2000.

The Assembly of Kosovo in Pristina unilaterally declared statehood on 17 February 2008, a move Belgrade rejected as illegal and continues to reject. Kosovo has since been recognised by more than 100 states, but Serbia, Russia and China do not recognise it; status-neutral talks are held in Brussels under EU mediation and Serbia treats the 352 km boundary as an administrative line.

The Russian company took over NIS, which operates the modern Pančevo refinery and 334 filling stations covering 74% of the domestic market. The sale deepened Serbian energy dependence on Russia.

A resolution adopted in December 2007 made accession to any military alliance contingent on a popular referendum, a stance acknowledged by NATO. A resolution of 26 December 2007 also declared any recognition of Kosovo independence a gross violation of international law.

Serbia began cooperation and dialogue with NATO through the Partnership for Peace and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council. It participates in the Individual Partnership Action Plan but has no intention of joining the alliance.

A referendum on 21 May 2006 returned 55.4% for independence, just above the required threshold, allowing Montenegro to leave the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, and Serbia declared its own independence on 5 June 2006. The National Assembly declared Serbia the legal successor of the former union and a new constitution was adopted the same year; Serbia became an independent state in its own right for the first time since 1918.

The centre has since become one of the company's largest software engineering sites in Europe. It anchored an ICT sector that now contributes about 8.5% of GDP and is Serbia's largest export category, with $5.3 billion of ICT services exports in 2025.

Widespread violence in Kosovo in March 2004, predominantly targeting ethnic Serbs, killed 19 people and destroyed or damaged a number of Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries. It hardened Serbian positions and led to more intense international pressure to address the province's status; the UN began facilitating status talks in 2006.

The killing exposed the entrenchment of wartime security structures in the post-Milošević state. It severely disrupted Serbia's reform trajectory.

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was restructured into a loose state union of its two remaining republics, Serbia and Montenegro, and the EU opened negotiations on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement. It proved a transitional arrangement on the way to full separation.

After the September 2000 presidential election was denounced as fraudulent, a campaign of civil resistance led by the Democratic Opposition of Serbia culminated on 5 October when half a million people converged on Belgrade and crowds stormed the federal parliament. Milošević conceded defeat days later and was extradited to the ICTY at The Hague; his fall ended Yugoslavia's international isolation and the DOS announced the country would seek EU membership.

After clashes between the Kosovo Liberation Army and Yugoslav security forces escalated into war, NATO conducted 78 days of air strikes from March to June 1999, without UN Security Council authorisation, over the crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Serbian forces withdrew and the province passed to UN administration under Resolution 1244; the bombing also caused serious environmental damage as toxic chemicals from targeted factories entered soil and water, leaving a lasting popular rejection of NATO membership.

An ethnic Albanian insurgency in the formerly autonomous province of Kosovo provoked a Serbian counterinsurgency campaign that resulted in massacres and massive expulsions of ethnic Albanians living there.

Large demonstrations followed the annulment of opposition victories in local elections. The protests foreshadowed the broader civil resistance that ended Milošević's rule.

Serbia's military campaigns to unite ethnic Serbs in neighbouring republics into a 'Greater Serbia' were ultimately unsuccessful and, after international intervention, ended with the Dayton Peace Accords signed in late 1995.

Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia declared independence in 1991 and Bosnia followed in 1992, breaking up Yugoslavia, and in April 1992 the two remaining republics, Serbia and Montenegro, declared a new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Badinter Commission held that the FRY was not a legal continuation of the SFRY but a new state; under Milošević's leadership Serbia led military campaigns to unite ethnic Serbs in neighbouring republics.

The UN Security Council imposed sweeping sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro over Belgrade's role in the wars accompanying Yugoslavia's break-up, isolating the newly formed Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. They brought political isolation, hyperinflation and economic collapse, with GDP falling from $24 billion in 1990 to under $10 billion in 1993 and industry the hardest-hit sector; the experience still shapes Serbian resistance to sanctions policy.

The FRY stayed formally outside the conflicts but provided logistic, military and financial support to Serb forces. Serbia was later sued for alleged genocide by Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia in the 2000s, though the main charges were dismissed.

Around half a million ethnic Serb refugees arrived from Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo during the dissolution wars. The same decade saw a further wave of emigration abroad caused by instability and sanctions.

Constitutional change formally ended communist monopoly and the country was renamed the Republic of Serbia. Milošević nonetheless retained strong influence over state media and the security apparatus.

Slobodan Milošević rose to power as president of Serbia and, in the anti-bureaucratic revolution, curtailed the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina, where his allies took over, putting four of the eight federal units under his control. This ignited conflict with the leaderships of the other Yugoslav republics, and his ultranationalist calls for Serbian domination led to the violent break-up of Yugoslavia along ethnic lines in the early 1990s.

From October 1977 to March 1978 the city convened the first major follow-up meeting of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe. It confirmed Yugoslavia's diplomatic standing between the Cold War blocs.

The 1972 outbreak in Kosovo and other parts of Serbia was the last major smallpox epidemic in Europe since the Second World War. Its containment was a landmark for Yugoslav public health capacity.

The constitutional reordering of Yugoslavia changed the republic's official title. The name endured until 1990.

As capital of federal Yugoslavia and of Serbia, Belgrade convened the founding summit of the Non-Aligned Movement. The archives of the summit are inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World programme.

The award recognised works such as The Bridge on the Drina and brought Serbian literature global recognition. It remains the country's foremost literary distinction.

From the late 1960s through the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of thousands emigrated as guest workers, driven by unemployment and bilateral labour agreements between Yugoslavia and destination countries. This established the large Serbian diaspora in Western Europe.

Reforms in the late 1960s decentralised federal powers, created strong provincial autonomy and recognised a distinctive Muslim nationality. Kosovo's nomenklatura and police shifted from Serb to ethnic Albanian dominance and the University of Pristina was created as an Albanian-language institution, generating widespread Serb fears of second-class status. The dismissal of Aleksandar Ranković, Serbia's most powerful politician, over Kosovo and Serbian unity was highly unpopular among Serbs.

Predominantly Serb settlers from Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were moved into Vojvodina after the war, alongside tens of thousands of wartime refugees from the Independent State of Croatia. Migration of ethnic Serbs from other Yugoslav republics continued throughout the socialist era.

A constitutional referendum followed the Partisan victory and a one-party state was established. Serbia became a constituent republic of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia with its own League of Communists, bearing the name People's Republic of Serbia until 1963.

The military and political movement headed by Josip Broz Tito took power when its domestic rivals and the Axis occupiers were defeated in 1945. Although communists, Tito and his successors steered their own path between the Warsaw Pact nations and the West for the next four and a half decades; Tito died in 1980.

It is claimed that between 60,000 and 70,000 people died in Serbia during the communist purge. The violence accompanied the consolidation of one-party rule.

By late 1944 the offensive swung the civil war decisively in the Partisans' favour. The Syrmian Front was the last major military action of the war in Serbia; a study by Vladimir Žerjavić estimates 1,027,000 war-related deaths in Yugoslavia, including 273,000 in Serbia.

This short-lived military mini-state existed in the autumn of 1941 in western occupied Serbia. It became a founding legend of the communist movement that later took power.

Refugees sought escape from large-scale persecution and genocide of Serbs, Jews and Roma; Serb victims numbered approximately 300,000 to 350,000. The influx reshaped Serbia's population and fed post-war resettlement of Vojvodina.