Serbia

The republic that tried to hold Yugoslavia together and ended up with less than it started with. Medieval Serbia reached its height under Dusan in the fourteenth century and lost independence after Kosovo in 1389, a defeat that became the central story of Serbian national identity, commemorated far more intensely than any victory. Ottoman rule lasted nearly four centuries; risings from 1804 won autonomy and full independence in 1878. Serbia was the nucleus of the South Slav state created in 1918 after it lost perhaps a quarter of its population in the First World War, and Serbian dominance of that state's army, court and administration is what other republics remembered. Under Milosevic, who took power in 1987 by taking up the grievances of Kosovo Serbs, Belgrade supported Serb forces in Croatia and Bosnia, and the wars ended with sanctions, hyperinflation among the worst ever recorded, NATO bombing in 1999 and the loss of Kosovo. Milosevic was handed to the Hague tribunal in 2001 and died before judgement. Montenegro left in 2006. Serbia has been an EU candidate since 2012 while keeping close ties to Russia. Belgrade sits where the Sava meets the Danube. It has been destroyed and rebuilt many times. Novi Sad and Nis are the other large cities. The Danube runs through the country for nearly six hundred kilometres. Vojvodina in the north remains an autonomous province with several official languages. Serbian is written in both Cyrillic and Latin script. Raspberries are a major export. The Nis constantinian site marks the birthplace of the emperor Constantine.

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