Serbs

• 1. Brotherhood in Milk

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  The Serbs take their name from an idea older than any alphabet. The most prominent scholarly theory traces the ethnonym back to a Proto-Slavic root meaning "to sip" or "to breast-feed." That same root appears in Lithuanian suřbti, Polish s(i)erbać, and Middle German sürfen. From it grew the concept of "brotherhood in milk," a bond powerful enough to unite non-relatives as firmly as blood. To be Serb, at its oldest, was to belong to a shared family.

  The earliest written record of Serbs in the Balkans comes from Einhard's Royal Frankish Annals, written in 822 AD. Einhard described "the Serbs, a people that is said to hold a large part of Dalmatia." From that brief diplomatic notation, the Serbs have spread across Serbia, the neighboring Balkans, and a diaspora reaching from Germany to Australia. The journey spans more than a millennium. Who built the medieval Serbian Empire? How did the Serbian Orthodox Church survive five centuries as the only permitted Serb institution? And how did the same people who launched Europe's first successful national revolution also give the world the word "vampire"?

• 2. Rise of the Nemanjić

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  Around the year 780, the first Serbian states began to take shape. Serbia and Duklja emerged as the earliest Serb polities, founded chiefly under the Vlastimirović and Vojislavljević dynasties respectively. As Duklja declined in the late 11th century, Raška gained independence and succeeded it as the most powerful Serbian state.

  Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja came to power in 1169 and ruled until 1196. He conquered the neighboring regions of Kosovo, Duklja, and Zachlumia and founded the Nemanjić dynasty that would rule Serbia for two centuries. His older son, Stefan Nemanjić, became Serbia's first recognized king. His younger son, Rastko, founded the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1219 and is known today as Saint Sava. The father built a state; the sons built its institutions.

  Over the next 140 years, Serbia expanded from scattered principalities into a unified Serbian Empire. Its culture remained deeply Byzantine in character, even as its political and military ambitions pushed against Byzantium itself. That influence produced frescoes and icons preserved in monasteries such as Studenica, Sopoćani, Mileševa, Gračanica, and Visoki Dečani, all recognized today by UNESCO. Stefan Dušan proclaimed himself Emperor in 1346. At the peak of his reign, the empire's territory included Macedonia, northern Greece, Montenegro, and almost all of modern Albania.

  Ottoman Turks began their conquest of the Balkans in the 1350s. The Battle of Maritsa in 1371 was the first major clash; the Serbs were defeated, and two key Serbian commanders died. Emperor Stefan Uroš V died later that same year, causing the empire to fragment into domains ruled by regional lords. Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović controlled Central Serbia and parts of Kosovo. Because of his marriage into the Nemanjić dynasty, Lazar was acknowledged as the Serbs' titular leader. In 1389, Lazar's forces met the Ottomans on the plain of Kosovo Polje, near modern-day Pristina. Both Prince Lazar and Sultan Murad I were killed. The battle most likely ended in a stalemate. Serbia continued resisting Ottoman conquest under Despot Stefan Lazarević until 1459. Kosovo Polje became the central event in Serbian national mythology, a loss the tradition chose to remember as a martyrdom. For centuries, the gusle, a bowed single-stringed instrument always accompanied by singing, transmitted those Kosovo epics through Serbian oral tradition.

• 3. The Ottoman Centuries

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  The Ottoman devshirme system was a form of slavery. Christian boys from the Balkans, many of them Serbs, were taken from their families and forcibly converted to Islam. They were then trained for the Janissary corps, the Ottoman elite infantry. Some Serbs who converted to Islam rose to the empire's highest ranks. Sokollu Mehmed Pasha became an Ottoman grand vizier. Omar Pasha Latas became a field marshal and war minister.

  Buda fell to the Habsburgs in 1686 during the Great Turkish War, and Serbs from the Pannonian Plain immediately joined the Habsburg side. They served as separate units known as the Serbian Militia. In the years before this, the Serbs had organized numerous uprisings against Ottoman rule. Each brought severe reprisals and the devastation of Serb territories.

  In 1688-1689 the Habsburg army advanced deep into Ottoman territory and captured Belgrade, encouraging Serbs to rise against their rulers. When the Habsburg offensive collapsed in 1690, Ottoman forces began a brutal reconquest. Serbian Patriarch Arsenije III Crnojević feared massacres and the loss of church privileges. He led tens of thousands of Serb families north across the Sava and Danube rivers into Habsburg territory. Estimates of those who moved in this Great Serb Migration range from 30,000 to 70,000. The Serb community settling in the Banat, southern Hungary, and the Military Frontier was mainly peasant refugees, alongside merchants and craftsmen. Smaller groups also reached the Russian Empire, settling in Slavo-Serbia (1751-1764) and New Serbia (1752-1764) in present-day eastern Ukraine. There they were granted land and military privileges to defend the empire's southern borders.

• 4. Europe's First Uprising

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  In 1804, a Serbian uprising began. It would become the first successful national rebellion against Ottoman rule anywhere in Europe. The Serbian Revolution unfolded in two phases over thirteen years.

  Karađorđe Petrović led the First Serbian Uprising from 1804 to 1813. During those years, the rebels built their own government, army, and institutions. They effectively ended centuries of Ottoman feudal oppression. The Ottomans crushed the First Uprising in 1813.

  Miloš Obrenović then led the Second Serbian Uprising from 1815 to 1817. Shorter but decisive, it forced the Sublime Porte to grant Serbia substantial autonomy in 1815-1816. By the early 1830s, Serbia's autonomy and borders were formally recognized, and Obrenović was acknowledged as hereditary prince. The last Ottoman troops withdrew in 1867. Full international recognition came at the Congress of Berlin in 1878.

  The revolution also produced the Serbian Civil Code of 1844. That code made Serbia the fourth modern European country to have a codified legal system, after France, Austria, and the Netherlands. A state that had lived under Ottoman feudalism for centuries now held one of the most advanced legal frameworks on the continent. The newly independent Serbia went on to fight the Balkan Wars of 1912-13. Those wars forced the Ottomans out of the Balkans entirely and doubled both the territory and the population of the Kingdom of Serbia.

• 5. One Letter Per Sound

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  In 1814, Vuk Stefanović Karadžić devised the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet on a single strict principle: one letter per sound. He achieved that phonemic clarity partly by omitting several letters found in other Slavic Cyrillic scripts. Serbian Cyrillic is today widely regarded as a key symbol of Serb cultural identity and holds the constitutional status of "official script" in Serbia.

  Ljudevit Gaj created a Latin script for Serbian, designed to match, letter for letter, the Cyrillic alphabet Karadžić had already standardized. This active digraphia, the use of two scripts simultaneously, is unusual among the world's languages. The Latin script is designated "script in official use" in Serbia for practical purposes.

  Karadžić also reformed the Serbian literary language and collected folk songs, helping launch modern Serbian literature. The language he documented carries the traces of every empire and neighbor that shaped Serbian history. Loanwords include Greek, German, Italian, and Hungarian words. The centuries of Ottoman rule brought Turkish vocabulary into Serbian. Through Turkish came Arabic terms such as alat ("tool") and sat ("hour, clock"). Persian words arrived by the same route, including čarape ("socks") and šećer ("sugar"). These borrowings are grouped in Serbian linguistics as "Orientalisms," or orijentalizmi. French terms entered especially through military vocabulary. One Serbian word made the opposite journey: "vampire," from the Serbian vampir, has entered many of the world's languages.

• 6. The Last Permitted Institution

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  During the Ottoman centuries, the Serbian Orthodox Church was the only Serb institution the empire permitted to continue. Through its monasteries and clergy, the church preserved the Serbian language, literacy, written history, and national consciousness. All other forms of statehood and education had been extinguished.

  Around 8 million people worldwide adhere to the Serbian Orthodox Church today. It is organized into metropolitanates and eparchies across Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and the Serbian diaspora. Serbs are the westernmost majority-Orthodox ethnic group in the world.

  When the Principality of Serbia gained independence from the Ottoman Empire, Orthodoxy took on an additional role: defining national identity. The Serbian language was shared by other South Slavs, but the Orthodox faith was distinctively Serb. The church had functioned as a surrogate state for so long that it became constitutive of what it meant to be Serbian.

  The family-level expression of that faith is the Slava. Every Serbian Orthodox family observes the feast day of its own patron saint. The most common celebrations include Saint Nicholas on the 19th of December and Saint George on the 6th of May. Saint John the Baptist is observed on the 20th of January. On the feast day, the family home is open to anyone who knows the date: relatives, neighbors, friends, and acquaintances are all welcomed.

  Serbia is the world's largest exporter of Šljivovica, the plum brandy present at every Slava. It accompanies every major Serbian life event, from baptism to funeral. At Easter, Serbs decorate eggs and observe the egg-tapping tradition. Christmas centers on the badnjak, a young oak log regarded as a sacred tree. Serbian traditional handicrafts include the Pirot carpet, the UNESCO-listed Zmijanje embroidery, and Zlakusa pottery, each varying in style from region to region.

• 7. From Tesla to Abramović

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  Nikola Tesla, a Serbian American mechanical and electrical engineer, is widely regarded as one of the greatest inventors in history. His work on alternating current electricity and magnetism stands as his primary legacy. Mihajlo Pupin developed the landmark theory of modern electrical filters and held numerous patents. Milutin Milanković formulated the theory of long-term climate change driven by variations in Earth's orbit and axis. That theory is now known as Milankovitch cycles.

  Mileva Marić, Albert Einstein's first wife, contributed significantly to the early development of the theory of special relativity. Her contributions extended to other foundational areas of modern physics. Pavle Savić helped lay the groundwork for the discovery of nuclear fission. Botanist Josif Pančić discovered numerous plant species, including the endemic Serbian spruce. Seven Serbian American engineers and scientists known as "Serbo 7" participated in building the Apollo spaceship.

  In literature, Nobel laureate Ivo Andrić stands as the most internationally recognized post-World War II Serbian writer. Charles Simic, a Serbian American poet, won the Pulitzer Prize and served as United States Poet Laureate. Zoran Živković's science fiction has been published in 23 countries.

  Emir Kusturica won the Palme d'Or twice, for When Father Was Away on Business and for Underground. He also took the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for Arizona Dream. He won the Silver Lion at Venice for Black Cat, White Cat. Želimir Žilnik won the Golden Bear at Berlin for Early Works. Stefan Arsenijević won the Short Film Golden Bear for Atorsion. Marina Abramović, primarily known for performance art, is the most globally recognized figure to emerge from the Serbian art scene.

• 8. Records and Gold

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  Novak Djokovic is considered the greatest tennis player of all time. He holds 101 titles, including a record 24 Grand Slam majors and a record 40 Masters titles. He has been ranked world No. 1 for a record 428 weeks. He finished as year-end No. 1 a record eight times, holds a record seven year-end championships, and has won an Olympic gold medal.

  Serbia ranks fourth among all countries for the most foreign NBA players, having produced 33 to date. Nikola Jokić has won the NBA Most Valuable Player award three times and was the 2023 NBA Finals MVP. He has been named to the All-NBA First Team five times and is a seven-time NBA All-Star. Vlade Divac is a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame. In coaching, Željko Obradović holds the record of nine EuroLeague titles. Dragan Džajić is generally recognized as the greatest Serbian footballer of all time; he ranked third in the 1968 Ballon d'Or.

  Radomir Antić is the only person ever to have managed all three of Spain's most decorated clubs: Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Atlético Madrid. Water polo player Filip Filipović has won the World Aquatics Player of the Year award four times. Handball player Nikola Karabatić, representing France, is regarded as one of the greatest handball players of all time.

  Momčilo Tapavica, competing for Hungary at the 1896 Summer Olympics, became the first Slav and the first Serb to win an Olympic medal. More than a century later, taekwondoist Milica Mandić has won two Olympic gold medals for Serbia.