Pan-Serbism is a movement begun in the 18th century that aimed at unity of all the Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

n people spread over the Balkans

Balkans

The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

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Overview

The first person to formulate the modern, linguistically based, idea of Pan-Serbism was Dositej Obradović

Dositej Obradovic

Dositej Dimitrije Obradović was a Serbian author, philosopher, linguist, polyglot and the first minister of education of Serbia...

, a writer and thinker who dedicated his writings to the "Slavoserbian people", which he described as "the inhabitants of Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Dalmatia, Croatia, Syrmium, Banat, and Bačka", and who he regarded as all his "Serbian brethren, regardless of their church and religion". Other proponents of Pan-Serbism included historian Jovan Rajić

Jovan Rajic

Jovan Rajić was a Serbian writer, historian, traveller, and pedagogue, considered one of the greatest Serbian academics of the 18th century...

 and politician and lawyer Sava Tekelija

Sava Tekelija

Sava Tekelija was the first Serbian doctor of law, president of the Matica srpska, philanthropist, noble, and merchant. Tekelija founded in Budapest the Tekelijanum in 1838 for Serb students studying in the city. Tekelija, the patron of the Matica Srpska, opened also a Matica library in the...

, both of whom published works incorporating many of the aforementioned areas under a single umbrella name of "Serbian lands".

The concept of Pan-Serbism espoused by these three was not an imperialist one, based upon the notion of Serbian conquest, but a rationalist one. They all believed that rationalism

Rationalism

In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...

 would overcome the barriers of religion that separated the Slavs into Orthodox Christians, Catholics, and Muslims, uniting the peoples as one nation.

The idea of a unification and homogenization by force was propounded by Petar II Petrović-Njegoš

Petar II Petrovic-Njegoš

Petar II Petrović-Njegoš , was a Serbian Orthodox Prince-Bishop of Montenegro , who transformed Montenegro from a theocracy into a secular state. However, he is most famous as a poet...

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