Republic of Serbia (federal)
Encyclopedia
The Republic of Serbia was a federal unit of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...

 from 1990 to 1992, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1992 to 2003 and the state union of Serbia and Montenegro
Serbia and Montenegro
Serbia and Montenegro was a country in southeastern Europe, formed from two former republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia : Serbia and Montenegro. Following the breakup of Yugoslavia, it was established in 1992 as a federation called the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia...

 between 2003 and 2006. With Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...

's secession from the union with 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...

 in 2006, both respective states became sovereign in their own right.

After the League of Communists of Yugoslavia
League of Communists of Yugoslavia
League of Communists of Yugoslavia , before 1952 the Communist Party of Yugoslavia League of Communists of Yugoslavia (Serbo-Croatian: Savez komunista Jugoslavije/Савез комуниста Југославије, Slovene: Zveza komunistov Jugoslavije, Macedonian: Сојуз на комунистите на Југославија, Sojuz na...

 collapsed in 1990, Socialist Republic of Serbia
Socialist Republic of Serbia
Socialist Republic of Serbia was a socialist state that was a constituent country of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It is a predecessor of modern day Serbia, which served as the biggest republic in the Yugoslav federation and held the largest population of all the Yugoslav...

 led by Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...

's Socialist Party
Socialist Party of Serbia
The Socialist Party of Serbia is officially a democratic socialist political party in Serbia. It is also widely recognized as a de facto Serbian nationalist party, though the party itself does not officially acknowledge this...

 (formerly Communists
League of Communists of Serbia
The League of Communists of Serbia was the Serbian branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, the sole legal party of Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1990. Under a new constitution ratified in 1974, greater power was devolved to the various republic level branches. In the late 1980s, the party was...

) adopted a new constitution, declaring itself a constituent republic with democratic institutions within Yugoslavia, and the "Socialist" adjective was dropped from the official title. As the Yugoslavia broke up, in 1992 Serbia and Montenegro formed a new federation, called Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and since 2003, Serbia and Montenegro.

Although Serbia managed—at least nominally—to stay out of the Yugoslav wars
Yugoslav wars
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of wars, fought throughout the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995. The wars were complex: characterized by bitter ethnic conflicts among the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, mostly between Serbs on the one side and Croats and Bosniaks on the other; but also...

 until 1999 when the Kosovo war
Kosovo War
The term Kosovo War or Kosovo conflict was two sequential, and at times parallel, armed conflicts in Kosovo province, then part of FR Yugoslav Republic of Serbia; from early 1998 to 1999, there was an armed conflict initiated by the ethnic Albanian "Kosovo Liberation Army" , who sought independence...

 broke out, the 1990s were marked by economic collapse (including the world record hyperinflation
Hyperinflation
In economics, hyperinflation is inflation that is very high or out of control. While the real values of the specific economic items generally stay the same in terms of relatively stable foreign currencies, in hyperinflationary conditions the general price level within a specific economy increases...

) shadow of the wars in the neighborhood and refugee crisis, and authoritarian rule of Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...

. After the democratic opposition overtook the power in 2000, the country began gradual economic and democratic transition
Transition economy
A transition economy or transitional economy is an economy which is changing from a centrally planned economy to a free market. Transition economies undergo economic liberalization, where market forces set prices rather than a central planning organization and trade barriers are removed,...

, a decade later than most other east European countries.

History

With the collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...

 (SFRY) in 1992, the two remaining constituent republics of Serbia and Montenegro
Republic of Montenegro (federal)
The Republic of Montenegro was a federal unit of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia between 1992 and 2006...

 agreed to form a new Yugoslav state which officially abandoned communism in favour of forming a new Yugoslavia based upon democratic institutions (although the republic retained its communist coat of arms). This new rump Yugoslavia was known as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The Socialist Republic of Serbia
Socialist Republic of Serbia
Socialist Republic of Serbia was a socialist state that was a constituent country of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It is a predecessor of modern day Serbia, which served as the biggest republic in the Yugoslav federation and held the largest population of all the Yugoslav...

 became known as the Republic of Serbia in 1990 after the League of Communists of Yugoslavia
League of Communists of Yugoslavia
League of Communists of Yugoslavia , before 1952 the Communist Party of Yugoslavia League of Communists of Yugoslavia (Serbo-Croatian: Savez komunista Jugoslavije/Савез комуниста Југославије, Slovene: Zveza komunistov Jugoslavije, Macedonian: Сојуз на комунистите на Југославија, Sojuz na...

 collapsed, though former Communist politicians would exercise influence for the first ten years, as the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia
Socialist Party of Serbia
The Socialist Party of Serbia is officially a democratic socialist political party in Serbia. It is also widely recognized as a de facto Serbian nationalist party, though the party itself does not officially acknowledge this...

 was directly descended from the League of Communists of Serbia
League of Communists of Serbia
The League of Communists of Serbia was the Serbian branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, the sole legal party of Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1990. Under a new constitution ratified in 1974, greater power was devolved to the various republic level branches. In the late 1980s, the party was...

. Serbia appeared to be the dominant republic in the FRY given the vast size and population differences between the republics; internally however, the two entities functioned independently whilst the with regard to foreign affairs, the federal government had comprised Montenegrins as well as Serbians.

Federal Republic of Yugoslavia


The politics of Serbia in the FRY continued to support Serbian interests in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...

 and Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

 whose Serb populations wanted to remain in Yugoslavia. Since 1989, Serbia had been led by Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...

, a former Communist who promised to defend and promote Serb interests in Yugoslavia. In 1992, he and Montenegrin President Momir Bulatović
Momir Bulatovic
Momir Bulatović , formerly served as a Yugoslavian and Montenegrin politician. Bulatović became federal President of Montenegro while Montenegro was part of a Yugoslav federation, and also Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia...

 formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Many critics on the international stage saw Serbia as the dominant internal unit of the FRY, in which Serbian President Milošević seemed to have more influence on federal politics than the Yugoslav President (the first federal president, Dobrica Ćosić
Dobrica Cosic
Dobrica Ćosić is a Serbian writer, as well as a political and Serb nationalist theorist. He was the first president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1992 to 1993...

 was forced to resign for opposing Milošević). The Milosevic government did not have official territorial claims on the Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...

. Others have claimed that Milosevic only advocated self-determination
Self-determination
Self-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference...

 of self-proclaimed Serbs who wished to remain in Yugoslavia.

During the Yugoslav Wars in Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina, Milošević supported Serb separatists who wished to secede from these newly created states. This support extended to controversial figures such as Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić
Radovan Karadžic
Radovan Karadžić is a former Bosnian Serb politician. He is detained in the United Nations Detention Unit of Scheveningen, accused of war crimes committed against Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats during the Siege of Sarajevo, as well as ordering the Srebrenica massacre.Educated as a...

, and accusations by some international figures claimed that Milošević was in charge of the Serb factions during the war and had authorized war atrocities to occur.

In 1995, Milošević represented the Bosnian Serbs during the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement. Milošević continued to be President of Serbia until 1997 when he retired as Serbian President in 1997 and became Yugoslav President. Milan Milutinović
Milan Milutinovic
Milan Milutinović is a former President of Serbia. He served as Director of the National Library of Serbia , Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to Greece, Yugoslavia's Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs , and as President of Serbia from 1997 until 2002.After his presidential term...

 took over as Serbian President from Milošević that year.

From 1996 to 1999, severe political instability erupted in the Albanian-populated province of Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...

 in Serbia. This caused the Kosovo War
Kosovo War
The term Kosovo War or Kosovo conflict was two sequential, and at times parallel, armed conflicts in Kosovo province, then part of FR Yugoslav Republic of Serbia; from early 1998 to 1999, there was an armed conflict initiated by the ethnic Albanian "Kosovo Liberation Army" , who sought independence...

 and in 1999, Serbia and Montenegro were bombed by NATO aircraft which included the Serbian and federal capital of Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

. Afterwards, Belgrade agreed to relinquish control of the province of Kosovo to a United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 autonomous mandate
Mandate (international law)
In international law, a mandate is a binding obligation issued from an inter-governmental organization like the United Nations to a country which is bound to follow the instructions of the organization....

.

The aftermath of the Yugoslav Wars
Yugoslav wars
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of wars, fought throughout the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995. The wars were complex: characterized by bitter ethnic conflicts among the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, mostly between Serbs on the one side and Croats and Bosniaks on the other; but also...

 resulted in a failing economy in Serbia and anger at the federal presidency of Milošević. The wars and their aftermath saw the rise of Serbian ultranationalist parties, such as the Serbian Radical Party
Serbian Radical Party
The Serbian Radical Party is a far-right Serbian nationalist political party in Serbia, founded in 1991. Currently the second-largest party in the Serbian National Assembly, it has branches in three of the nations that currently border Serbia – all former federal republics of Yugoslavia...

 led by Vojislav Šešelj
Vojislav Šešelj
Vojislav Šešelj, JD is a Serbian politician, writer and lawyer. He is the founder and president of the Serbian Radical Party and was vice-president of Serbia between 1998 and 2000...

, who in his rhetoric, promoted the idea of Serbs
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...

 continuing to live in a single state. Šešelj participated in the ethnic Serbian campaign against Croats and Bosniaks during the Yugoslav Wars. Šešelj was twice arrested in 1994 and 1995 by the Yugoslav government, but eventually became Vice-President of Serbia from 1998 to 2000. In 2000, Serbian citizens protested against elections when Milošević refused to stand down from the Yugoslav Presidency following elections as allegations of voter fraud existed. Milošević was ousted on October 5, 2000, and officially resigned the following day. He was later arrested in 2001 by federal authorities for alleged corruption whilst in power, but was soon transferred to The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...

 to face war crimes charges.

After the overthrow of Milošević, Serbian politician Vojislav Koštunica
Vojislav Koštunica
Vojislav Koštunica is a Serbian politician, statesman and the president of the Democratic Party of Serbia. He was the last President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, succeeding Slobodan Milošević and serving from 2000 to 2003...

 became the federal president. In 2002, Milošević's ally, Serbian President Milutinović resigned, thus ending twelve years of some form of political leadership of the Socialist Party of Serbia
Socialist Party of Serbia
The Socialist Party of Serbia is officially a democratic socialist political party in Serbia. It is also widely recognized as a de facto Serbian nationalist party, though the party itself does not officially acknowledge this...

 over the republic. Boris Tadić
Boris Tadic
Boris Tadić is the President of Serbia and leader of the Democratic Party. He was elected to a five-year term on 27 June 2004, and was sworn into office on 11 July. He was re-elected for a de facto second five-year term on 3 February 2008 and was sworn in on 15 February...

 of the Democratic Party of Serbia
Democratic Party (Serbia)
The Democratic Party is a political party in Serbia. It is described as a social liberal or social democratic party.-Pre-war history:The Democratic Party was established on 16 February 1919 from unification of Sarajevo parties independent radicals, progressives, liberals and the Serbian part of...

 replaced Milutinović.

Serbia and Montenegro

In 2003, following the reconstitution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, Serbia became one of the constituent states within it along with Montenegro
Republic of Montenegro (federal)
The Republic of Montenegro was a federal unit of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia between 1992 and 2006...

. The state union arose as Montenegrin nationalism was growing. Montenegro had for some years used external currency as legal tender, this began with the German Mark, and since 2002, became the Euro. Serbia, accepting this, reprinted Yugoslav Dinar notes, and renamed them Serbian dinar
Serbian dinar
The dinar is the currency of Serbia. An earlier currency also called dinar was used in Serbia between 1868 and 1918. The earliest use of the dinar date to 1214. Today's Serbian dinar is a continuation of the last Yugoslav dinar...

, and the national bank became National Bank of Serbia replacing the National Bank of Yugoslavia. Serbia's attachment to the state union would be its final subordination until its independence was declared in 2006 following Montenegro's declaration of independence from the union following a referendum on independence shortly prior.

Between 2003 and 2006, Serbia was faced with internal political strife over the direction of the republic, Serbian politicians were divided over the decision to create the loose state union in the first place. Zoran Đinđić who was seen as a major proponent of the state union was criticized by the former Yugoslav President Koštunica. The anger of nationalists over Đinđić's positions resulted in sudden assassination in March 2003 which caused a state of emergency to be declared. In 2004, pro-European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

 political forces united against nationalist forces who opposed Serbia's entry into the EU until the EU recognized Serbia's sovereignty in Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...

.

In 2006, Serbia faced the implications of a referendum on independence from the state union by Montenegro. Most Serbians wished to keep Montenegro in a state union due to the previous close ties which the two nations had and that Montenegrins were considered in Serbia to be the same as Serbs culturally and ethnically. Despite a hard fought campaign by pro-unionists, pro-independence forces narrowly won the referendum with just over the 55 per cent threshold demanded by the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

. With Montenegro's independence granted, Serbia declared itself to become an independent state, the first time it had been so since 1918.

See also

  • Socialist Republic of Serbia
    Socialist Republic of Serbia
    Socialist Republic of Serbia was a socialist state that was a constituent country of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It is a predecessor of modern day Serbia, which served as the biggest republic in the Yugoslav federation and held the largest population of all the Yugoslav...

  • Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina
    Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina
    Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina , also known shortly as SAP Vojvodina , was one of the two socialist autonomous provinces of the Socialist Republic of Serbia from 1963 to 1990 and one of the federal units of the Socialist Federal...

  • Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo
    Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo
    Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo was one of the two socialist autonomous areas of the Socialist Republic of Serbia incorporated into the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1974 until 1990...

  • Serbia in the Yugoslav Wars
    Serbia in the Yugoslav Wars
    Serbia was involved in the Yugoslav Wars in the period between 1991 and 1999 - the war in Slovenia, the war in Croatia, the war in Bosnia and the war in Kosovo. During this period, Slobodan Milošević was the authoritarian leader of Serbia, which was in turn part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia...

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