Serbia held the "Shield 2022" military capability demonstration event, and The Chinese FK3 system made its debut. Recently, this news has made all netizens and military fans pay special attention, and today we will talk about Serbia, a country that is particularly close to China.
Serbia is one of the few countries in South-Eastern Europe that has taken the socialist line, and the current Serbia is not the same as the former Yugoslavia. Today's Serbia is a small country in southeastern Europe, and its maverick social system is clearly distinguished from that of the surrounding European countries, so it is impossible for the EU to rescue it when the crisis comes. Although Serbia's presence in southeastern Europe is low, it has established a powerful dynasty in history, what caused Serbia to fall from a southeastern European empire to a small country? Today we will analyze the history of Serbia's development...
In Roman times, Europe produced three major ethnic groups: Slavs, Germans, and Celts. Serbia was a branch of the Slavs, and from the fourth century AD, the Slavs migrated towards the edges of Europe, where the Yugoslavs migrated to the Balkans and settled in river valleys and inland areas, and by the seventh century AD, the distribution of The Yugoslavs in the Balkans gradually stabilized, and many descendants were produced and multiplied here.
At that time, the Balkan Peninsula was occupied by the Byzantine Empire, and the Yugoslavs who came here also followed the customs and obeyed their rule. But The Byzantines were good at using religious influence to expand their territory, they promoted the Orthodox Church, and the Yugoslavs who settled here often had differences and quarrels because of the differences in settlements and ethnic cultures, so they again divided into many small tribes, and among these small tribes were the rudiments of the Serbs, who had ruled the Byzantine Empire for hundreds of years.
Later, with the rise of Turkish power, they launched attacks on the Byzantine Empire, and under repeated attacks, Byzantium lost much territory and its control over the peninsula was weakening. In the twelfth century, fighting broke out within Byzantium, external forces took advantage of the fire, the holy city of Palestine was forcibly occupied by the Arabs, and western European forces launched a war with the Arabs to seize the city, and the Crusaders sent by Western Europe suffered heavy losses during the crusade and owed Venice high shipbuilding costs. Lured by the Venetian doge, the Crusaders turned their guns to the wealthy imperial city of Constantinople, where they fought a fierce battle against the imperial defenders in order to pay off their debts. During the byzantine Empire's internal and external difficulties, the Serbs developed a sense of independence, they expanded their territory and established a state as king, and Grand Duke Stephaniemanya became the first king of the Kingdom of Serbia.
During the reign of Nemanya, there was no attack on Byzantium until 1331, when Stephen Duchamp came to power, and began to attack the fragile Byzantine Empire. Under Duchamp's rule, Serbia annexed large swathes of territory in the north-central part of the peninsula. In 1345 Serbia entered the imperial era, a period during which Byzantium was unable to recover after losing its capital, while Serbia developed day by day, and during Duchamp's reign, Serbia developed into one of the most powerful countries in Europe, with absolute control over a large area of Europe.
After Duchamp's death, the weakness of the successor emperor did not allow the glory of the empire to continue, and like the Byzantine Empire, it was coveted by foreign enemies in times of internal chaos, at which time the Hungarians and Turks repeated their old path of claiming the title of emperor. The Turks took the lead, they shrugged off their opponents, completely destroyed Byzantium, and then extended their power to the Bagan Peninsula, and the Serbian kingdom, which had long been a foreign power, was destroyed, after which the Serbian Empire was ended and became a province under Ottoman Turkey.
The advent of the modern industrial revolution put the West on the road of foreign expansion, and many Western countries wanted to closely link the East and the West, but the Ottoman Empire still stood still and controlled the communication arteries between the East and the West. To this end, the Western countries and the Ottoman Empire fought again, and the backward and conservative Turkey could not withstand the impact of the advanced society in the West and gradually declined in the confrontation.
Taking advantage of the coming of foreign troubles, Serbia launched a national independence movement at home, and the Ottoman Empire was powerless to conquer them and had to recognize their independence. But Turkey is also well aware of the principle of returning the tiger to the mountains, they have not allocated much territory to Serbia, the narrow land area is not even as good as the provinces of the Serbian Empire, for people with "imperial" dreams, such a result is obviously not satisfied, so Serbia once again rose up and once again fought for the ottoman territory of the country.
After the Berlin Conference in 1878, Serbia's independent status was internationally recognized, but the desire to expand its territory was unanimously rejected by the Western powers, and Serbia's territorial war entered a stage of stranding.
In 1908, Bosnia and Herzegovina fell under the Austro-Hungarian offensive and was followed by plundering the rest of the Balkans. However, the reunification of the Balkan Peninsula to realize the Dream of the Empire was the dream of the Serbs, and the banditry of the Austro-Hungarian Empire completely angered them, and under the spread of the "Greater Serbia Dream", they united to form a secret organization "Mafia", which assassinated Archduke Ferdinand, the core of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, on June 28, 1914, which directly provoked the war between the two countries.
After the war, Serbia was unexpectedly victorious, and the provinces under the rule of the empire became independent, and Serbia feared that there would be a comeback of great powers in the future, so it joined forces with Slovenia and Croatia to establish a federal state, which is the origin of 'Yugoslavia'.
After the establishment of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, there was no national equality as in law, Serbia dominated the regime, and Serbs also enjoyed many preferential treatment over Croatians and Slovenes, in fact, people in these two regions had different cultural backgrounds from Serbs, and the reason why they joined Yugoslavia was to avoid the fate of being annexed by foreign powers again, and Serbia's condescending posture made them feel wronged.
At the end of the nineteenth century, Yugoslavia joined the socialist camp and completed the victory of the National Liberation War, the excessive intervention of the Soviet Union in Yugoslavia, let Yugoslavia break with the "big brother", in the 20 years after the breakup, under the leadership of Tito, Yugoslavia quickly completed industrialization, military strength is only inferior to a few Western European powers, although the reborn Yugoslavia became a Western power, but the situation of Serbian hegemony in the country still makes everywhere dissatisfied.
Tito's slogan of "brotherhood and unity" allowed member states to maintain a peaceful scene in the short term, and after Tito's death, domestic contradictions finally broke out in a long period of repression, and "division" became the result that most people wanted to see. The contradictions turned into civil wars, Slovenia and Croatia took the lead in abandoning the alliance for independence, after which Yugoslavia began a continuous movement to disintegrate and independence, and the final departure of Montenegro and Kosovo made Serbia truly a "loner". After Yugoslavia "disappeared", although "Yugoslavia" no longer prospered, its relationship with China has never changed.