Greater Serbia - Historical Perspective

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.

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 Nazi Germany and all the other neighbour Axis allied countries which also invaded different territories of Yugoslavia — the Italians, Hungarians and Bulgarians — 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.