Serbs in the context of "Slavic Europe"

South Slavs are Slavic people who speak South Slavic languages and inhabit a contiguous region of Southeast Europe comprising the eastern Alps and the Balkan Peninsula. Geographically separated from the West Slavs and East Slavs by Austria, Hungary, Romania, and the Black Sea, the South Slavs today include Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes.

In the 20th century, the country of Yugoslavia (from Serbo-Croatian, literally meaning "South Slavia" or "South Slavdom") united a majority of the South Slavic peoples and lands—with the exception of Bulgarians and Bulgaria—into a single state. The Pan-Slavic concept of Yugoslavia emerged in late 17th-century Croatia, at the time part of the Habsburg monarchy, and gained prominence through the 19th-century Illyrian movement. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929, was proclaimed on 1 December 1918, following the unification of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs with the kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro. With the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, several independent sovereign states were formed.

The Slavs or Slavic people are a major ethnic group in Europe. They speak Slavic languages and preserve Slavic culture. There are 13 Slavic countries in Europe, which include: Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Bulgaria; the Slavs comprise a population of around 300 million people. There are three different Slavic ethnic groups: the West Slavs, the East Slavs, and the South Slavs; the Poles, Silesians, Kashubians, Sorbs, Czechs, and Slovaks are West Slavs; Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Rusyns are East Slavs; while Slovenes, Resians, Croats, Bosniaks, Serbs, Montenegrins, Torlakians, the Gorani, the Torbeši, Macedonians, and Bulgarians are South Slavs. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, and Northern Asia, though there is a large Slavic minority scattered across the Baltic states and Central Asia, and a substantial Slavic diaspora in the Americas, Western Europe, and Northern Europe.

Early Slavs lived during the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages (approximately from the 5th to the 10th century AD), and came to control large parts of Central, Eastern, and Southeast Europe between the sixth and seventh centuries. Beginning in the 7th century, they were gradually Christianized. By the 12th century, they formed the core population of a number of medieval Christian states: East Slavs in the Kievan Rus', South Slavs in the Bulgarian Empire, the Principality of Serbia, the Duchy of Croatia and the Banate of Bosnia, and West Slavs in the Principality of Nitra, Great Moravia, the Duchy of Bohemia, and the Kingdom of Poland.

In North Macedonia, the most common religion is Eastern Orthodoxy, practiced mainly by Macedonians, Serbs, and Aromanians. The vast majority of the Eastern Orthodox in the country belong to the Macedonian Orthodox Church, which declared autocephaly from the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1967.

The State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (Serbo-Croatian: Država Slovenaca, Hrvata i Srba / Држава Словенаца, Хрвата и Срба; Slovene: Država Slovencev, Hrvatov in Srbov) was a political entity that was constituted in October 1918, at the end of World War I, by Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (Prečani) residing in what were the southernmost parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although internationally unrecognised, this was the first incarnation of a Yugoslav state founded on the Pan-Slavic ideology. Thirty-three days after it was proclaimed, the state joined the Kingdom of Serbia to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

Yugoslavism, Yugoslavdom, or Yugoslav nationalism is an ideology supporting the notion that the South Slavs, namely the Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs, and Slovenes, belong to a single Yugoslav nation separated by diverging historical circumstances, forms of speech, and religious divides. During the interwar period, Yugoslavism became predominant in, and then the official ideology of, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. There were two major forms of Yugoslavism in the period, the first of which is the regime-favoured integral Yugoslavism, promoting unitarism, centralisation, and unification of the country's ethnic groups into a single Yugoslav nation, by coercion if necessary. The approach was also applied to languages spoken in the Kingdom. The main alternative was federalist Yugoslavism, which advocated the autonomy of the historical lands in the form of a federation and gradual unification without outside pressure. Both agreed on the concept of National Oneness developed as an expression of the strategic alliance of South Slavs in Austria-Hungary in the early 20th century. The concept was meant as a notion that the South Slavs belong to a single "race", were of "one blood", and had shared language. It was considered neutral regarding the choice of centralism or federalism.

The Yugoslavist idea has roots in the 1830s Illyrian movement in Habsburg Croatia, where a group of intellectuals saw the unity of South Slavs within the Austrian Empire or outside of it as a protection against Germanisation and Magyarisation. Cooperative talks began with Serbian politicians and working to standardise Serbo-Croatian as a common language with orthographer Vuk Karadžić, with limited success. Following the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, the concept was rivalled by Trialism. Control of the Balkans by the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary prevented practical implementation of Yugoslavist ideas until the Ottomans were pushed out of the Balkans in the 1912 First Balkan War and Austria-Hungary disintegrated in the final days of the First World War. During the war, preparations for unification began in the form of the Niš Declaration of Serbian war aims, the establishment of the Yugoslav Committee to represent South Slavs living in Austria-Hungary, and the adoption of the Corfu Declaration on principles of unification. The short-lived State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs was proclaimed in the South Slavic lands formerly ruled by the Habsburgs at the end of the First World War. Its leadership primarily wanted unification with Serbia on a federal basis, while Serbia preferred a centralised state.

Principality of Serbia (Modern Serbian: Кнежевина Србија / Kneževina Srbija; also known as Principality of Serbs, (Modern Serbian: Кнежевина Срба / Kneževina Srba; Latin: Principatum Serborum; Modern Greek: Πριγκιπάτο της Σερβίας) was one of the early medieval states of the Serbs, located in the western regions of Southeastern Europe. It existed from the 8th century up to c. 969–971 and was ruled by the Vlastimirović dynasty. Its first ruler known by name was Višeslav, who started ruling around 780, while by that time (starting from the years 680–681), the Bulgarian state had taken the lands to the east. Vlastimir resisted and defeated the Bulgarian army in a three-year-war (839–842), and the two powers lived in peace for some decades. Vlastimir's three sons succeeded in ruling Serbia together, although for a limited time; Serbia became a key part in the power struggle between the Byzantines and Bulgarians, predominantly allied with the Byzantines, which also resulted in major dynastic wars for a period of three decades. The principality was annexed in 924 by Simeon I and subjected to Bulgarian rule until 933 when Serbian prince Časlav was established as ruler of the Serbian land, becoming the most powerful ruler of the Vlastimirović dynasty.

An important process during this period was the Christianization of the Serbs, completed by the establishment of Christianity as state-religion in the second half of the 9th century. The principality was annexed by the Byzantines in c. 969–971 and ruled as the Catepanate of Ras. The main information of the history of the principality and Vlastimirović dynasty are recorded in the contemporary historical work De Administrando Imperio (written c. 948–949).

Serbo-Croatian, also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually intelligible standard varieties, namely Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin.

South Slavic languages historically formed a dialect continuum. The region's turbulent history, particularly due to the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, led to a complex dialectal and religious mosaic. Due to population migrations, Shtokavian became the most widespread supradialect in the western Balkans, encroaching westward into the area previously dominated by Chakavian and Kajkavian. Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs differ in religion and were historically often part of different cultural spheres, although large portions of these populations lived side by side under foreign rule. During that period, the language was referred to by various names, such as "Slavic" in general, or "Serbian", "Croatian" or "Bosnian" in particular. In a classicizing manner, it was also referred to as "Illyrian".

The First Balkan War lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and involved actions of the Balkan League (the Kingdoms of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro) against the Ottoman Empire. The Balkan states' combined armies overcame the initially numerically inferior (significantly superior by the end of the conflict) and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies, achieving rapid success.

The war was a comprehensive and unmitigated disaster for the Ottomans, who lost 83% of their European territories and 69% of their European population. As a result of the war, the League captured and partitioned almost all of the Ottoman Empire's remaining territories in Europe. Ensuing events also led to the creation of an independent Albania, which dissatisfied the Serbs. Bulgaria, meanwhile, was dissatisfied over the division of the spoils in Macedonia and attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 16 June 1913, which provoked the start of the Second Balkan War.