The Country History
Serbia has a long history of conflict. Though it had been independent at various points in time, the Ottoman conquest in 1389 kept Serbia submissive until 1878, when it re-established its independence. After the First World War, Yugoslavia was cobbled together from many small nations and peoples: Serbs, Slovenes, Croats, Bulgarians, Albanians, Macedonians, and more.
Various paramilitary bands resisted Nazi Germany's occupation and division of Yugoslavia from 1941 to 1945, but fought each other and ethnic opponents as much as the invaders. The military and political movement headed by Josip TITO (Partisans) took full control of Yugoslavia when German and Croatian separatist forces were defeated in 1945. His death in 1980 was not followed by immediate trouble -- it took the fall of communism in 1989 to destabilize the country. At that point, only Serbia and Montenegro voted for Communist rule, while Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina chose the route to independence.
The violent civil war that ensued shocked the world and required the efforts of the United Nations and NATO to bring to a still-uncertain conclusion. Montenegro held an independence referendum in 2006 under rules set by the EU. Montenegro formally declared its independence from Serbia on 3 June 2006. In October 2006, the Serbian parliament unanimously approved - and a referendum confirmed - a new constitution for the country.
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