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Greater Serbia
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For other uses, see Serbia (disambiguation).

One of the visions of the borders of Greater Serbia as advocated by Vojislav Šešelj, defined
by the Virovitica–Karlovac–Karlobag hypothetical boundary to the west.

The term Greater Serbia or Great Serbia (Serbian: Велика Србија / Velika Srbija)
describes the Serbian nationalist and irredentist ideology of the creation of a Serb state which
would incorporate all regions of traditional significance to Serbs, a South Slavic ethnic group,
including regions outside Serbia that are populated by Serbs. The initial movement's main
ideology (Pan-Serbism) was to unite all Serbs (or all territory historically ruled or populated
by Serbs) into one state, claiming, depending on the version, different areas of many
surrounding countries.

The Greater Serbian ideology includes claims to various territories aside from present-day
Serbia: namely swathes of Croatia, and all of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and
North Macedonia (all formerly part of Yugoslavia). It includes Kosovo, which is a disputed
territory.[a] In some historical forms, Greater Serbian aspirations also include parts of Albania,
Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. Its inspiration comes from one-time existence of the
relatively large Serbian Empire that existed in 14th century Southeast Europe prior to the
Ottoman conquest of the Balkans.

Contents
  1 Historical perspective
 2 History
o 2.1 Obradović's Pan-Serbism
o 2.2 Garašanin's Načertanije
o 2.3 Vuk Karadžić's Pan-Serbism
o 2.4 Balkan Wars
o 2.5 Black Hand
o 2.6 World War I and creation of Yugoslavia
o 2.7 World War II and Moljević's Homogenous Serbia
 3 Role in the dissolution of Yugoslavia
o 3.1 SANU Memorandum
o 3.2 Milošević's rise to power
o 3.3 Virovitica–Karlovac–Karlobag line
o 3.4 Yugoslav wars
o 3.5 Later developments
 4 Current situation
 5 See also
 6 Notes
 7 References
 8 Literature
 9 External links

Historical perspective
See also: History of Serbs and Serbian historiography

A map of the 14th-century Serbian Empire; territories held by the Empire are used for
reasoning by the irredentists.
Following the creation of the Principality of Serbia in 1833, more than half of Serbs in the
Balkans were living in the Ottoman Empire or Austrian Empire, which created a situation that
allowed for the rise of irredentist ideals.

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.[citation needed]

The idea of territorial expansion of Serbia originally formulated 1844 in Načertanije, a secret
political program of the Principality of Serbia[citation needed], according to which the new Serbian
state could include the neighboring areas of Montenegro, Northern Albania, Bosnia and
Herzegovina.[1] 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.[2] From the creation of the
Principality until the First World War, the territory of Serbia was constantly expanding.[3]

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 Principality 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.[citation needed]

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 become a Russian ally, the decision was made to create an ethnically
mixed South Slav state, where other nationalities would balance the Serb hegemony.[citation
needed]
Miloš Milojević's 19th-century map which depicts most of the South Slavs as Serbs.

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 proponents 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.[citation needed]

During the German invasion of Yugoslavia 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.[citation needed]

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 betrayal, or exiled. Within the rest of the
Serbian population, the vast majority became strong supporters of this new Non-Aligned
Yugoslavia.[citation needed]

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.[4]

History
Obradović's Pan-Serbism

The first person to formulate the modern, linguistically based, idea of Pan-Serbism was
Dositej Obradović (1739–1811), 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 and politician and lawyer Sava Tekelija, both of whom
published works incorporating many of the aforementioned areas under a single umbrella
name of "Serbian lands".[5] 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 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 (1813–1851).[5]

Garašanin's Načertanije

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Načertanije

French map with the supposed borders of the medieval Serbian Empire marked in red, and the
Serbian populated-areas coloured green, which roughly corresponds to areas inhabited by all
South Slavs.[6]

Roots of the Greater Serbian ideology are often traced back to Serbian minister Ilija
Garašanin's Načertanije (1844).[7] Načertanije (Начертаније) was influenced by "Conseils
sur la conduite a suivre par la Serbie", a document written by Polish Prince Adam
Czartoryski in 1843 and the revised version by Polish ambassador to Serbia, Franjo Zach,
"Zach's Plan".[8][9] From the 1850s onward, this concept has had a significant influence on
Serbian politics.[citation needed]

"A plan must be constructed which does not limit Serbia to her present borders, but endeavors
to absorb all the Serbian people around her."[7]

— Ilija Garašanin, Načertanije

The work claimed lands that were inhabited by Bulgarians, Macedonians, Albanians,
Montenegrins, Bosnians, Hungarians and Croats as part of Greater Serbia.[7] Garašanin's plan
also included methods of spreading Serbian influence in the claimed lands.[10] He proposed
ways to influence Croats and Slavic Muslims, who Garašanin regarded as "Serbs of Catholic
faith" and "Serbs of Islamic faith".[7] This plan was kept secret until 1967 and has been
interpreted by some as a blueprint for Serbian national unification, with the primary concern
of strengthening Serbia's position by inculcating Serbian and pro-Serbian national ideology in
all surrounding peoples that are considered to be devoid of national consciousness.[10][8]

Vuk Karadžić's Pan-Serbism

The most notable Serbian linguist of the 19th century, Vuk Karadžić, was a follower of the
view that all south Slavs that speak the Shtokavian dialect (of Serbo-Croatian) were Serbs,
speaking the Serbian language. As this definition implied that large areas of continental
Croatia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, including areas inhabited by Roman
Catholics – Vuk Karadžić is considered by some to be the progenitor of the Greater Serbia
program. More precisely, Karadžić was the shaper of modern secular Serbian national
consciousness, with the goal of incorporating all indigenous Shtokavian speakers (Eastern
Orthodox, Catholic, Muslim) into one, modern Serbian nation.

Shtokavian dialect, whose speakers Vuk considered Serbs in the 19th century.

There are at least 5 million people who speak the same language, but by religion they can be
split into three groups ... Only the first 3 million call themselves Serbs, but the rest will not
accept the name.[11]

— Vuk Karadžić, Srbi svi i svuda (Serbs All and Everywhere)

This view is not shared by Andrew Baruch Wachtel (Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation)
who sees him as a partisan of South Slav unity, albeit in a limited sense, in that his linguistic
definition emphasized what united South Slavs rather than the religious differences that had
earlier divided them. However, one might argue that such a definition is very partisan:
Karadžić himself eloquently and explicitly professed that his aim was to unite all native
Shtokavian speakers whom he identified as Serbs. Therefore, Vuk Karadžić's central
linguistic-political aim was the growth of the realm of Serbdom according to his ethnic-
linguistic ideas and not a unity of any sort between Serbs and the other nations.

Balkan Wars

Main article: Serbia in the Balkan Wars

Greater Serbian aspirations before the Balkan wars 1912–1913, according to the Report of the
International Commission to Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars.[12]

The idea of reclaiming historic Serbian territory has been put into action several times during
the 19th and 20th centuries, notably in Serbia's southward expansion in the Balkan Wars.
Serbia claimed "historical rights" to the possession of Macedonia, acquired by Stephen Dušan
in fourteenth century.[12]:25–27

...for economic independence, Serbia must acquire access to the Adriatic Sea and one part of
the Albanian coastline: by occupation of the territory or by acquiring economic and
transportation rights to this region. This, therefore, implies occupying an ethnographically
foreign territory, but one that must be occupied due to particularly important economic
interests and vital needs.[13]

— Jovan Cvijić

Serbia gained significant territorial expansion in the Balkan Wars and almost doubled its
territory, with the areas populated mostly by non-Serbs (Albanians, Bulgarians, Turks and
others).[12]:159–164 Serbia's most important goal of the Balkan Wars was access to the open
sea.[14] so the Kingdom of Serbia occupied most of the interior of Albania and Albania's
Adriatic coast. A series of massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars were committed by the
Serbian and Montenegrin Army.[12] According to the Report of the International Commission
on the Balkan Wars, Serbia consider annexed territories "as a dependency, a sort of conquered
colony, which these conquerors might administer at their good pleasure".[12] Newly acquired
territories were subjected to military government, and were not included in Serbia's
constitutional system.[12] The opposition press demanded the rule of law for the population of
the annexed territories and the extension of the constitution of the Kingdom of Serbia to these
regions.[12]

The Royal Serbian Army captured Durazzo (Albanian: Durrës) on 29 November 1912
without any resistance.[15] Orthodox Christian metropolitan of Durrës Jakob gave a
particularly warm welcome to the new authorities.[16] Due to Jakob's intervention to the
Serbian authorities several Albanian guerrilla units very saved and avoided execution.[17]

However, the army of the Kingdom of Serbia retreated from Durrës in April 1913 under
pressure of the naval fleet of Great Powers, but it remained in other parts of Albania for the
next two months.[18]

Black Hand

Main articles: Black Hand (Serbia) and Young Bosnia

The secret military society called Unity or Death, popularly known as the Black Hand, headed
by Serbian colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević Apis, which took an active and militant stance on
the issue of a Greater Serbian state. This organization is believed to have been responsible for
numerous atrocities following the Balkan Wars in 1913.[19] In 1914, Young Bosnia member
Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, which set off an
international crisis that led to the First World War.

World War I and creation of Yugoslavia

Main articles: Creation of Yugoslavia and Serbianisation

In late November 1918, at the end of the First World War, Syrmia, Banat, Bačka and Baranja,
and Montenegro proclaimed its unification with the Kingdom of Serbia and entered into
Yugoslavia as part of Serbia (Note: the map shown – Bačka, Banat, Baranja – represents a
short time period, during military demarcation, not the actual unified territory).

By 1914 the Greater Serbian concept was eventually replaced by the Yugoslav Pan-Slavic
movement. The change in approach was meant as a means to gain support of other Slavs
which neighboured Serbs who were also occupied by Austria-Hungary. The intention to
create a south Slav or "Yugoslav" state was expressed in the Niš declaration by Serbian prime
minister Nikola Pašić in 1914, as well as in Serbia's regent Alexander's statement in 1916.
The documents showed that Serbia would pursue a policy that would integrate all territory
that contained Serbs and southern Slavs (except Bulgarians), including Croats and
Slovenes.[citation needed]

The Treaty of London (1915) of the allies would assign to Serbia the territories of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Srem, Bačka, Slavonia (against Italian objections) and northern Albania (to be
divided with Montenegro).[citation needed]

After the First World War, Serbia achieved a maximalist nationalist aspirations with the
unification of the south Slavic regions of Austria-Hungary and Montenegro, into a Serbian-
dominated Kingdom of Yugoslavia.[20] The Allies agreed to give the lands of Slovenia,
Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to Serbia. At this time Montenegro had already been
annexed by Serbia.[21][22]

Serbian and Yugoslav nationalists claimed that the peoples' had few differences and were
only separated by religious divide imposed by occupiers. It was under this belief that Serbia
believed the large annexations would be followed by assimilation. During the Kingdom of
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the government of the Kingdom pursued a linguistic Serbisation
policy towards the Macedonians in Macedonia,[23] then called "Southern Serbia" (unofficially)
or "Vardar Banovina" (officially). The dialects spoken in this region were referred to as
dialects of Serbo-Croatian.[24] Either way, those southern dialects were suppressed with
regards education, military and other national activities, and their usage was punishable.[25]

The concept of "Greater Serbia" was put in practice during the early 1920s, under the
Yugoslav premiership of Nikola Pašić. Using tactics of police intimidation and vote
rigging,[26] he diminished the role of the oppositions (mainly those loyal to his Croatian rival,
Stjepan Radić) to his government in parliament,[27] creating an environment to centralization
of power in the hands of the Serbs in general and Serbian politicians in particular.[28]

World War II and Moljević's Homogenous Serbia

Main articles: Homogenous Serbia and Chetniks

During the World War II, the Serbian royalist Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland headed by
General Draža Mihailović attempted to define its vision of a postwar future. One of its
intellectuals was the Bosnian Serb nationalist Stevan Moljević who, in 1941, proposed in a
paper entitled "Homogenous Serbia" that an even larger Greater Serbia should be created,
incorporating not only Bosnia and much of Croatia but also chunks of Romania, Bulgaria,
Albania and Hungary in areas where Serbs don't represent a significant minority. In the
territories under their military control, Chetniks applied a policy of ethnic cleansing against
ethnic Croats and Bosnian Muslims.[29][30][31]

Moljević's "Homogenous Serbia", 1941.

The Serbs today have a primary and basic duty – to create and organize a homogeneous
Serbia which must consist of the entire ethnic territory on which the Serbs live.[32]

— Stevan Moljević, Homogenous Serbia

It was a point of discussion at a Chetnik congress held in village Ba in central Serbia in
January 1944; however, Moljević's ideas were never put into practice due to the Chetniks'
defeat by Josip Broz Tito's Partisans (a predominantly Serb movement which became multi-
ethnic by this time[33]) and it is difficult to assess how influential they were, due to the lack of
records from the Ba congress. Nonetheless, Moljević's core idea—that Serbia is defined by
the pattern of Serb settlement, irrespective of existing national borders—was to remain an
underlying theme of the Greater Serbian ideal.

Role in the dissolution of Yugoslavia

SANU Memorandum

Main article: Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Dissolution of Yugoslavia (1991–2008)

The modern elaboration of Serbs' grievances and allegation of inequality in Yugoslavia was to
be developed in the Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (1986),
which was the single most important document to set into motion the pan-Serbian movement
of the late 1980s which led to Slobodan Milošević's rise to power and the subsequent
Yugoslav wars. The authors of the Memorandum included the most influential Serbian
intellectuals, among them: Pavle Ivić, Antonije Isaković, Dušan Kanazir, Mihailo Marković,
Miloš Macura, Dejan Medaković, Miroslav Pantić, Nikola Pantić, Ljubiša Rakić, Radovan
Samardžić, Miomir Vukobratović, Vasilije Krestić, Ivan Maksimović, Kosta Mihailović,
Stojan Čelić and Nikola Čobelić. Christopher Bennett, author of Yugoslavia's Bloody
Collapse: Causes, Course and Consequences, characterized the memorandum as "an
elaborate, if crude, conspiracy theory."[34]:81 The memorandum alleged systematic
discrimination against Serbs and Serbia culminating with the allegation that the Serbs of
Kosovo and Metohija were being subjected to genocide. According to Bennett, despite most
of these claims being obviously absurd, the memorandum was merely one of several similar
polemics published at the time.[34]:81

The Memorandum's central theses are:[citation needed]

 Yugoslavia is a Croatian-Slovene hegemony, in order to reduce the Serbs to a smaller

representative group, or "power-sharing".
 Serbs are, in Yugoslavia, oppressed as a nation. This oppression is especially brutal in
Serbian Autonomous Province of Kossovo-Metochia, and in Croatia, where their
status is "the worst ever as far as recorded history goes".
  Serbia is economically exploited, being subjected to the political-economical
mechanisms that drain much of her wealth and redistribute it to Slovenia, Croatia and
Kosovo
 borders between Yugoslav republics are arbitrary, drawn by dominant Croatian and
Slovene communists (motivated, supposedly, by anti-Serbian animus) and their
Serbian political lapdogs.

The Memorandum's defenders claims go as follows: far from calling for a breakup of
Yugoslavia on Greater Serbian lines claimed to be in favor of Yugoslavia. Its support for
Yugoslavia was however conditional on fundamental changes to end what the Memorandum
argued was the discrimination against Serbia which was inbuilt into the Yugoslav
constitution. The chief of these changes was abolition of the autonomy of Kosovo and
Vojvodina. According to Norman Cigar, because the changes were unlikely to be accepted
passively, the implementation of the Memorandum's program would only be possible by
force.[35]:24

Milošević's rise to power

Main articles: Anti-bureaucratic revolution, Rally of Truth, and Role of the media in the
Yugoslav wars

With the rise to power of Milošević the Memorandum's discourse became mainstream in
Serbia. According to Bennett, Milošević used a rigid control of the media to organize a
propaganda campaign in which the Serbs were the victims and stressed the need to readjust
Yugoslavia due to the alleged bias against Serbia. This was then followed by Milošević's anti-
bureaucratic revolution in which the provincial governments of Vojvodina and Kosovo and
the Republican government of Montenegro, were overthrown giving Milošević the
dominating position of four votes out of eight in Yugoslavia's collective presidency.
Milošević had achieved such a dominant position for Serbia because, according to Bennett,
the old communist authorities had failed to stand up to him. During August 1988, supporters
of the Anti-Bureaucratic Revolution were reported to have shouted Greater Serbia themed
chants of "Montenegro is Serbia!".[36]

Croatia and Slovenia denounced the demands by Milošević for a more centralized system of
government in Yugoslavia and they began to demand that Yugoslavia be made a full multi-
party confederal state.[37] Milošević claimed that he opposed a confederal system but also
declared that should a confederal system be created, the external borders of Serbia would be
an "open question", insinuating that his government would pursue creating a Greater Serbia if
Yugoslavia was decentralized.[38]

Major changes took place in Yugoslavia in 1990 when free elections brought opposition
parties to power in Croatia and Slovenia.[34]

By this point several opposition parties in Serbia were openly calling for a Greater Serbia,
rejecting the then existing boundaries of the Republics as the artificial creation of Tito's
partisans. These included Šešelj's Serbian Radical Party, claiming that the recent changes had
rectified most of the anti-Serb bias that the Memorandum had alleged. Milošević supported
the groups calling for a Greater Serbia, insisting on the demand for "all Serbs in one state".
The Socialist Party of Serbia appeared to be defenders of the Serb people in Yugoslavia.
Serbian president Slobodan Milošević, who was also the leader of the Socialist Party of
Serbia, repeatedly stated that all Serbs should enjoy the right to be included in Serbia.[39]
Opponents and critics of Milošević claimed that "Yugoslavia could be that one state but the
threat was that, should Yugoslavia break up, then Serbia under Milošević would carve out a
Greater Serbia".[40]:19

In 1990, power had seeped away from the federal government to the republics and were
deadlocked over the future of Yugoslavia with the Slovene and Croatian republics seeking a
confederacy and Serbia a stronger federation. Gow states, "it was the behavior of Serbia that
added to the Croatian and Slovene Republic's belief that no accommodation was possible with
the Serbian Republic's leadership". The last straw was on 15 May 1991 when the outgoing
Serb president of the collective presidency along with the Serb satellites on the presidency
blocked the succession of the Croatian representative Stjepan Mesić as president. According
to Gow, from this point on Yugoslavia de facto "ceased to function".[40]:20

Virovitica–Karlovac–Karlobag line

The Virovitica–Karlovac–Karlobag line (Serbian: Вировитица–Карловац–Карлобаг

линија / Virovitica–Karlovac–Karlobag linija) is a hypothetical boundary that describes the
western extent of an irredentist nationalist Serbian state.[41] It defines everything east of this
line, Karlobag–Ogulin–Karlovac–Virovitica, as a part of Serbia, while the west of it would be
within Slovenia, and all which might remain of Croatia. Such a boundary would give the
majority of the territory of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to the Serbs.

This line was frequently referenced by Serbian politician Vojislav Šešelj.[42][43] The line is
based on the failed 1915 Treaty of London.[citation needed]

A greater Serbian state was supported for national and economical reasons, as it would give
Serbia a large coastline, heavy industries, agricultural farmland, natural resources and all of
the crude oil (mostly found in the Pannonian Plain), particularly in the Socialist Republic of
Croatia, by various Serbian politicians associated with Slobodan Milošević in the early 1990s
who publicly espoused such views: Mihalj Kertes, Milan Babić, Milan Martić, Vojislav
Šešelj, Stevan Mirković.[44]

Also, it would gather over 98% of Serbs of Yugoslavia in one state. In his speeches and
books, Šešelj claimed that all of the population of these areas are in fact ethnic Serbs, of
Orthodox, Roman Catholic or Muslim faith. However, outside of Šešelj's Serbian Radical
Party, the line as such was never promoted in recent Serbian political life.

Yugoslav wars

Main article: Serbia in the Yugoslav Wars

The distribution of Serbs and Montenegrins in Yugoslavia in 1981.

Territories of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Croatia controlled
by Serb forces 1992–1995.

Milošević believes he now has the historic opportunity to, once and for all, settle accounts
with the Croats and do what Serbian politicians after World War I did not – rally all Serbs in
one Serbian state.[39]

— Belgrade newspaper Borba, August 1991.

During the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, the concept of a Greater Serbia was widely seen
outside of Serbia as the motivating force for the military campaigns undertaken to form and
sustain Serbian states on the territories of the breakaway Yugoslav republics of Croatia (the
Republic of Serbian Krajina) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (the Republika Srpska).[45] From
the Serb point of view, the objective of this policy was to assure Serbs' rights by ensuring that
they could never be subjected to potentially hostile rule, particularly by their historic Croatian
enemies (cf. Ustaše).[citation needed]

The war crimes charges against Milošević are based on the allegation that he sought the
establishment of a "Greater Serbia". Prosecutors at the Hague argued that "the indictments
were all part of a common scheme, strategy or plan on the part of the accused [Milošević] to
create a 'Greater Serbia', a centralized Serbian state encompassing the Serb-populated areas of
Croatia and Bosnia and all of Kosovo, and that this plan was to be achieved by forcibly
removing non-Serbs from large geographical areas through the commission of the crimes
charged in the indictments. Although the events in Kosovo were separated from those in
Croatia and Bosnia by more than three years, they were no more than a continuation of that
plan, and they could only be understood completely by reference to what had happened in
Croatia and Bosnia."[45]

The Hague Trial Chamber found that the strategic plan of the Bosnian Serb leadership
consisted of "a plan to link Serb-populated areas in BiH together, to gain control over these
areas and to create a separate Bosnian Serb state, from which most non-Serbs would be
permanently removed".[46] It also found that media in certain areas focused only on Serb
Democratic Party policy and reports from Belgrade became more prominent, including the
presentation of extremist views and promotion of the concept of a Greater Serbia, just as in
other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina the concept of a Greater Croatia was openly
advocated.[47]

The concept of a Greater Serbia has been widely criticised by other nations in the former
Yugoslavia as well as by foreign observers. The two principal objections have been:
  Questionable historical justifications for claims to territory; for instance, during the
Croatian War of Independence, Dubrovnik and other parts of Dalmatia were claimed
as a historically Serbian territory — claims which were opposed by Croatian
authorities, and by high-profile international governments.[citation needed]
 The coercive nature of creating a Greater Serbian state against the will of other
nations; before the wars, the peoples of Yugoslavia were highly intermingled and it
was physically impossible to create ethnic states without taking in large numbers of
other ethnic groups against their will. An answer to this was the widespread use of
ethnic cleansing to ensure that mono-ethnic territories could be established without
opposition from potentially disloyal minority groups. A converse argument is used
against the upgrading the status of Croatia and of Bosnia and Herzegovina from
republics to independent states—taking in large numbers of other ethnic groups
against their will in the process.[citation needed]

Vuk Draskovic, leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement, called for the creation of a Greater
Serbia which would include Serbia, Kosovo, Vojvodina, Macedonia and Montenegro, as well
as regions within Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia with high concentrations of Serbs.[39]
Jovan Marjanovic of the Serbian Renewal Movement asked that "the Yugoslav Army must
come into Croatia and occupy the line Benkovac–Karlovac–Pakrac–Baranja".[48] About
160,000 Croats were expelled from territories Serbian forces sought to control.[49]

Much of the fighting in the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s was the result of an attempt to keep
Serbs unified. Mihajlo Markovic, the Vice President of the Main Committee of Serbia's
Socialist Party, rejected any solution that would make Serbs outside Serbia a minority. He
proposed establishing a federation consisting of Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Macedonia and Serbs residing in the Serbian Autonomous Region of Krajina,
Slavonia, Baranja, and Srem.[39]

Later developments

Main article: International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

Vojislav Šešelj, president of the Serbian Radical Party, is one of the staunchest advocates of
Greater Serbia.

The military defeat of the Republic of Serbian Krajina, the creation of the Republika Srpska
within a sovereign Bosnia, the UN Administration of Kosovo, the retreat of Serbs from their
formerly controlled territories in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo and the indictment of some
Serbian leaders for war crimes have greatly discredited the Greater Serbian ideal in Serbia as
well as abroad. Western countries claim that atrocities of the Yugoslav Wars have prompted
them to take a much stronger stance against the Greater Serbian goal.[citation needed]
So I say: if a Greater Serbia should be held by committing crime, I would never accept it; may
Greater Serbia disappear, but to hold it by crime – no. If it were necessary to hold only a small
Serbia by crime, I would not accept it. May small Serbia disappear, but to hold it by crime –
no. And if there is only one Serb, and if I am that last Serb, to hold on by crime – I do not
accept. May we disappear, but disappear as humans, because then we will not disappear, we
will be alive in the hands of the living God.[50]

— Serbian Patriarch Pavle

Slobodan Milošević and many other Serb leaders were accused by the International Criminal
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of crimes against humanity including murder,
forcible population transfer, deportation and "persecution on political, racial or religious
grounds". Tribunal prosecutor's office has accused Milosevic of "the gravest violations of
human rights in Europe since the Second World War and genocide."[49] Milošević died in
prison before sentencing.

However, the idea of a Greater Serbia is still seen by many Croats, Bosniaks, and Albanians
as a barrier to good relations and unity between Serbs and other neighbouring peoples.[51]

In 2008, Aleksandar Vučić, a former member of the Serbian Radical Party, which advocated
for a Greater Serbia, declared that the Greater Serbian project was unrealistic.[52]

Current situation
Main article: Proposed secession of Republika Srpska

Currently, there is a movement calling for the unification of Republika Srpska with Serbia.
The Bosniaks and Croats see this as an act of breaking the Dayton Agreement, while Serbs
see it as an example of self-determination.[53]

See also
 Serbia portal

 Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on Yugoslavia

 Anti-Serb sentiment

Notes
1.

1. Kosovo is the subject of a territorial dispute between the Republic of Kosovo and the
Republic of Serbia. The Republic of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence on 17
February 2008, but Serbia continues to claim it as part of its own sovereign territory.
The two governments began to normalise relations in 2013, as part of the 2013
Brussels Agreement. Kosovo is currently recognized as an independent state by 99 out
of the 193 United Nations member states. In total, 112 UN member states recognized
Kosovo at some point, of which 13 later withdrew their recognition.
References
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  Banac 1988, p. 110.
  Anzulovic 1999, p. 89
  Šešelj ICTY Case information sheet
  Anzulovic 1999, p. 71–73
  Thiers, Henri (1862). La Serbie: Son Passé et Son Avenir. Dramard-Baudry.
  Cohen 1996, p. 3.
  Anzulovic 1999, p. 91
  Trencsényi, Balázs (2006). Discourses of Collective Identity in Central and Southeast
Europe (1770–1945), Texts and Commentaries, Volume I. Central European University
Press. p. 240. ISBN 963-7326-60-X.
  Cohen 1996, pp. 3–4.
  Danijela Nadj. "Vuk Karadzic, Serbs All and Everywhere (1849)". Hic.hr. Retrieved
2010-08-04.
  Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1914). Report of the International
Commission to Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan War. Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace.
  Danijela Nadj. "Jovan Cvijić, Selected statements". Hic.hr. Retrieved 2010-08-04.
  Antić 2010.
  Antić, Čedomir (January 2, 2010). "Kratko slavlje u Draču" [Short celebration in
Durres]. Večernje Novosti (in Serbian). Retrieved August 5, 2011. Velika luka došla je bez
otpora pod vlast Kraljevine Srbije... The big port fell into hands of Kingdom of Serbia without
any resistance
  Antić, Čedomir (January 2, 2010). "Kratko slavlje u Draču" [Short celebration in
Durres]. Večernje Novosti (in Serbian). Retrieved August 5, 2011. Novu vlast je posebno
srdačno dočekao drački pravoslavni episkop Jakov. ... New authorities were particularly
worm welcomed by Orthodox metropolitan Jakov
  Petros-Emmanouil, Oikonomopoulos; Πέτρος-Εμμανουήλ, Οικονομόπουλος (2016), Ο
Μητροπολίτης Μυτιλήνης Ιάκωβος ο από Δυρραχίου: από την Εθναρχούσα Εκκλησία στην
Εθνική (in Greek), Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης (ΑΠΘ). Σχολή Θεολογική.
Τμήμα Θεολογίας. Τομέας Εκκλησιαστικής Ιστορίας, Χριστιανικής Γραμματείας Αρχαιολογίας
και Τέχνης, p. 80, hdl:10442/hedi/42197
  Antić, Čedomir (January 2, 2010). "Kratko slavlje u Draču" [Short celebration in
Durres]. Večernje Novosti (in Serbian). Retrieved August 5, 2011. VeĆ u aprilu 1913. postalo
je izvesno da je kraj "albanske operacije" blizu. Pod pritiskom flote velikih sila srpska vojska
je napustila jadransko primorje. U Albaniji je, međutim, ostala još dva meseca... In April
1913 it was obvious that end of "Albanian operation" was close and army of Serbia retreated
from Adriatic coast remaining in Albania for two more months.
  Report of the International Commission to Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the
Balkan Wars, p. 169
  Hall, Richard C. (2000). Richard C Hall, The Balkan Wars 1912–1913.
ISBN 9780415229470. Retrieved 2010-08-04.
  Littlefield, Walter (1922-04-16). "Montenegrins' Effort to Prevent Annexation of Their
Country to Serbia" (PDF). New York Times. Retrieved 2010-08-04.
  "Serbs wipe out royalist party in Montenegro". Archived from the original on 2010-03-
02. Retrieved 2010-08-04.
  "An article by Dimiter Vlahov about the persecution of the Bulgarian population in
Macedonia". newspaper "Balkanska federatsia", No. 140, Aug.20, 1930, Vienna, original in
Bulgarian. Retrieved 2007-08-03.
  Friedman, V (1985). "The sociolinguistics of literary Macedonian". International
Journal of the Sociology of Language. 1985 (52): 31–57. doi:10.1515/ijsl.1985.52.31.
  "By the Shar Mountain there is also terror and violence". newspaper "Makedonsko
Delo", No. 58, Jan. 25, 1928, Vienna, original in Bulgarian. Retrieved 2007-08-03.
  Balkan Politics, Time magazine, March 31, 1923
  Elections, Time magazine, February 23, 1925
  The Opposition, Time magazine, April 6, 1925
  Malcolm, Noel (1996). Bosnia: A Short History. New York University Press. p. 188.
ISBN 0-8147-5561-5.
  Lampe, John R. (2000). Yugoslavia as History. Cambridge University Press. pp. 206,
209, 210. ISBN 0-521-77401-2.
  Glenny, Misha (2001). The Balkans: Nationalism, War & the Great Powers, 1804–1999.
Penguin Books. pp. 494–495. ISBN 0-14-023377-6.
  Danijela Nadj. "Stevan Moljevic, Homogeneous Serbia (1941)". Hic.hr. Retrieved 2010-
08-04.
  Mark Pinson (1996). The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina: Their Historic Development
from the Middle Ages to the Dissolution of Yugoslavia. Harvard CMES. pp. 143, 144.
ISBN 978-0-932885-12-8. Retrieved 2 October 2013.
  Bennett, Christopher (1995). Yugoslavia's Bloody Collapse: Causes, Course and
Consequences. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. ISBN 1-85065-232-5.
  Cigar, Norman (1995). Genocide in Bosnia: The Policy of "Ethnic Cleansing". Texas
A&M University Press. ISBN 0-89096-638-9.
  Ramet 2006, pp. 351.
  Ramet 2006, pp. 355.
  Ramet 2006, pp. 359.
  Bassiouni, Cherif (28 December 1994). "Final Report of the Commission of Experts
Established Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780". United Nations. Archived from the
original on 4 May 2012. Retrieved 10 May 2010.
  Gow, James (1997). Triumph of the Lack of Will: International Diplomacy and the
Yugoslav War. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. ISBN 1-85065-208-2.
  "Granice (srpske)". Biografija :: Pojmovnik (in Serbian). Vojislav Šešelj official website.
April 1992. Retrieved 2012-12-21. Srpske granice dopiru do Karlobaga, Ogulina, Karlovca,
Virovitice.
  "Case information sheet" (PDF). (IT-03-67) Vojislav Šešelj trial. ICTY. Retrieved 2012-
12-21. He defined the so-called Karlobag-Ogulin-Karlovac-Virovitica line as the western
border of this new Serbian state which he referred to as "Greater Serbia" and which included
Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and considerable parts of Croatia and Bosnia and
Herzegovina.
  Međimorec, Miroslav (September 2002). "Footnotes" (PDF). National Security and the
Future. Zagreb, Croatia: St. George Association / Udruga sv. Jurja. 3 (3–4). ISSN 1332-
4454. Archived from the original on 2012-12-21. Retrieved 2012-12-21. 8. "The Virovitica-
Karlovac-Karlobag line" – the amputation line which was intended to come into being by the
imposed Yugoslav king Alexander after the assassination of Croatian national tribune Stjepan
Radić in 1928. The remains of thus amputated Croatia "would be seen from the Zagreb
Cathedral's tower". That line is also mentioned in Četniks' plans during WW2 (Moljević,
Dražža Mihajlović), the line mentioned by Serb radical politicians (Šešelj) and by the JNA
military strategists as the western border of "Greater Serbia".
  "Converting the Army". Vreme New Digest Agency (in Serbian) (3). 1991-10-14.
Retrieved 2012-12-21. The projected future frontiers of the "Great Serbia" are derived from
the recent Army offensives and extrapolated from the public statements of Serbian politicians
known to be "the mouthpiece of Milosevic". [...] The line Karlovac–Virovitica incidentally
covers the only oilfields in Yugoslavia. The entire Slavonia represents probably the best
agricultural soil in Europe.
  Decision of the ICTY Appeals Chamber; 18 April 2002; Reasons for the Decision on
Prosecution Interlocutory Appeal from Refusal to Order Joinder; Paragraph 8
  "Prosecutor v. Radoslav Brđanin – Judgement" (PDF). United Nations International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. 2007-04-03. Retrieved 2009-11-03.
  "Prosecutor v. Duško Tadić – Judgement" (PDF). United Nations International Criminal
Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. 1997-07-14. Retrieved 2009-11-03.
  International Centre Against Censorship. "Forging War: The Media in Serbia, Croatia
and Bosnia-Herzegovina". International Centre Against Censorship, Article 19. Avon, United
Kingdom: Bath Press, May 1994. P79.
  Smydo, Joe (2004-08-29). "Atrocities in Yugoslavia unraveled much later". Post-
gazette.com. Retrieved 2010-08-04.
  "Interview with Patriarch Pavle (Serbian)". Dverisrpske.com. Retrieved 2010-08-04.
  MacDonald, David Bruce (2002). David Bruce MacDonald, Balkan holocausts?:
Serbian and Croatian victim-centred propaganda. p. 106. ISBN 9780719064678. Retrieved
2010-08-04.
  "Vučić sad nije za veliku Srbiju". Blic Online. Retrieved 30 August 2011.

53.  "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-05-14. Retrieved 2012-10-25.

Literature
 Greater Serbia: from ideology to aggression. Croatian Information Centre. 1993.
 Sinisa Malesevic (11 January 2013). Ideology, Legitimacy and the New State:
Yugoslavia, Serbia and Croatia. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-34176-2.
 Charles Jelavich (1983). Serbian textbooks: toward greater Serbia or Yugoslavia.
 Svetozar Marković (1872), Serbija na istoku (Serbia in the East), Novi Sad
 Anzulovic, Branimir (1999). Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide. New York
University Press. ISBN 0-8147-0671-1.
 Philip J. Cohen; David Riesman (1996). Serbia's Secret War: Propaganda and the
Deceit of History. Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 978-0-89096-760-7.
 Ramet, Sabrina P. (2006). The Three Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimation,
1918–2005. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34656-8.
 Ivo Banac (2015) [1988]. The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History,
Politics. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-1-5017-0193-1.
o Banac, Ivo (1988). Nacionalno pitanje u Jugoslaviji: porijeklo, povijest,
politika. Globus.

External links
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to Greater Serbia.

From Project Rastko website:

 Ilija Garasanin's "Nacertanije": A Reasessment, including full translation of the

document to English language
 Full Memorandum SANU (73 pages) (in Serbian)
 Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts – Answers to Criticism

From Croatian Information Centre website:

 "Greater Serbia – from Ideology to Aggression", book of excerpts of influential

Serbians supporting the idea
 Henri Pozzi:Black Hand Over Europe
 Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
 Stevan Moljević:Homogenous Serbia
 An end to the myth of "Greater Serbia"? A rebuttal by a grandson of the man who
coined the term

International sources

 The policy creating greater Serbia (UN report)

 Greater Serbia in modern times: Paul Garde's opinion
 Bosnia: a single country or an apple of discord?, Bosnian Institute, 12 May 2006
 Serbian-Greek Confederation as proposed by Slobodan Milošević and Karadžić
 The End of Greater Serbia By Nicholas Wood-The New York Times
 Globalizing the Holocaust: A Jewish 'useable past' in Serbian Nationalism – David
MacDonald, University of Otago

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Categories:

 Irredentism
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 Serbian nationalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina
  Serbian nationalism in Croatia
 Serbian nationalism in Kosovo
 Serbian nationalism in Montenegro
 Serbian nationalism in North Macedonia
 Political terminology of Serbia

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