is a country of 32 million inhabitants that occupies the northern portion of the North American continent, and is the world's second largest country in area.[1] Inhabited for millennia by First Nations (aboriginal), Canada has evolved from a group of European colonies into an officially bilingual (English and French), multicultural federation, having peacefully obtained sovereignty from its last colonial possessor, Great Britain. France sent the first large group of settlers in the 17th century, but Canada came to be dominated by the British until the country attained full independence in the 20th century. Its history has been affected by its inhabitants, its geography, and its relations with the outside world.
First Peoples
Many indigenous peoples (both First Nations and Inuit) have inhabited the region that is now Canada for thousands of years and have their own diverse histories. Aside from spiritual explanations of indigenous origins, anthropologists continue to argue over various possible models of migration to modern day Canada, as well as their pre-contact populations. Indigenous peoples contributed significantly to the culture and economy of the early European colonies and as such have played an important role in fostering a unique Canadian cultural identity.
See also: List of First Nations peoples
European Contact
Viking colonisation site at L'Anse-aux-Meadows
There are a number of reports of contact made before Columbus between the first peoples and those from other continents. The case of Viking contact is supported by the remains of a Viking settlement in L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. This may well have been the place Icelandic Norseman Leifur Eiríksson referred to as Vinland around the year 1000.
The presence of Basque cod fishermen and whalers, just a few years after Columbus, has also been cited, with at least nine fishing outposts having been established on Labrador and Newfoundland. The largest of these settlements was the Red Bay station, with an estimated 900 people. Basque whalers may have begun fishing the Grand Banks as early as the 15th century.
The next European explorer acknowledged as landing in what is now Canada was John Cabot, who landed somewhere on the coast of North America (probably Newfoundland or Cape Breton Island) in 1497 and claimed it for King Henry VII of England. Portuguese and Spanish explorers also visited Canada, but it was the French who first began to explore further inland and set up colonies, beginning with Jacques Cartier in 1534. Under Samuel de Champlain, the first French settlement was made in 1605 at Port-Royal (today's Annapolis Royal), and in 1608 the heart of New-France, which later grew to be Quebec City, was established. The French claimed Canada as their own and 6,000 settlers arrived, settling along the St. Lawrence and in the Maritimes. Britain also had a presence in Newfoundland and with the advent of settlements, claimed the south of Nova Scotia as well as the areas around the Hudson Bay.
The first contact with the Europeans was disastrous for the first peoples. Explorers and traders brought European diseases, such as smallpox, which killed off entire villages. Relations varied between the settlers and the Natives. The French befriended several Algonquin nations, including the Huron peoples and nations of the Wabanaki Confederacy, and entered into a mutually beneficial trading relationship with them. The Iroquois, however, became dedicated opponents of the French and warfare between the two was unrelenting, especially as the British armed the Iroquois in an effort to weaken the French.
The first agricultural settlements in what was to become Canada were located around the French settlement of Port Royal in what is now Nova Scotia. The population of Acadians, as this group became known, reached 5,000 by 1713.
See also: Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact, French colonization of the Americas, and British colonization of the Americas
New France (Nouvelle-France) 1604-1763
Main article: New France
Map of New France made by Samuel de Champlain on 1612
After Champlain's founding of Quebec City in 1608 it became the capital of New France. The coastal communities were based upon the cod fishery, the economy along the St Lawrence River was based on farming. French voyageurs traveled deep into the hinterlands (of what is today Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba) trading guns, gunpowder, cloth, knives, and kettles for beaver furs. The fur trade only encouraged a small population, however, as minimal labour was required. Encouraging settlement was always difficult, and while some immigration did occur, by 1759 New France only had a population of some 60,000.
New France had other problems besides low immigration. The French government had little interest or ability in supporting their colony and it was mostly left to its own devices. The economy was primitive and much of the population was involved in little more than subsistence agriculture. The colonists also engaged in a long running series of wars with the Iroquois.
Wars in the Colonial Era
Main article: French and Indian Wars
While the French were well established in Canada, Britain had control over the Thirteen Colonies to the south as well as control over Hudson Bay. The British, however, with greater financial power and a larger navy, were consistently in a better position to defend and expand their colonies than the French.[citation needed] The French government gave very little support to their colonists in New France and the colonists, for the most part, had to fend for themselves.[citation needed] Britain and France repeatedly went to war in the 17th and 18th centuries, and made their colonial empires into battlefields. Numerous naval battles were fought in the West Indies; the main land battles were fought in and around Canada.
The Death of General Wolfe at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, part of the Seven Years' War.
The first areas won by the British were the Maritime provinces. After Queen Anne's War, Nova Scotia, other than Cape Breton, was ceded to the British by the Treaty of Utrecht. This gave Britain control over thousands of French-speaking Acadians. Not trusting these new subjects, who repeatedly proclaimed their neutrality, the British first tried to dilute their numbers by bringing in Protestants settlers from Europe. Finally the British ordered the Great Upheaval of 1755, deporting about 12,000 Acadians to destinations throughout their North American holdings. Many settled in southern Louisiana, creating the Cajun culture there. Some Acadians managed to hide and others eventually returned to Nova Scotia, but they were far outnumbered by a new migration of Yankees from New England who transformed Nova Scotia.
During King George's War, British colonial forces captured the French stronghold of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, but this gain was returned to France under the 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
Canada was also an important battlefield in the Seven Years' War, during which Great Britain gained control of Quebec City after the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759, and Montreal in 1760.
Canada under British Imperial Control 1764-1867
Main article: Canada under British Imperial Control (1764-1867)
Henri Julien's artistic rendition of the Battle of Chateauguay, part of the War of 1812
With the end of the Seven Years' War and the signing of the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763, France ceded almost all of its territory in North America. The new British rulers left alone much of the religious, political and social culture of the French-speaking habitants. Violent conflict continued during the next century, leading Canada into the War of 1812 and a pair of Rebellions in 1837.
In 1837, rebellions against the British colonial government took place in both Upper and Lower Canada. Their motivation was not so much anti-British and pro-Annexation (many of the rebels were themselves British in both Upper and Lower Canada). In Upper Canada, a band of Reformers under the leadership of William Lyon Mackenzie took up arms in a disorganized and ultimately unsuccessful series of small-scale skirmishes around Toronto, London, and Hamilton.
In Lower Canada, a more substantial rebellion occurred against British rule. Both English- and French-Canadian rebels, with some American backing, fought several skirmishes against the authorities. The towns of Chambly and Sorel were taken by the rebels, and Quebec City was isolated from the rest of the colony. Montreal rebel leader Robert Nelson read a declaration of independence to a crowd at Napierville in 1838. Les Patriotes, however, were defeated after battles across Quebec. Hundreds were arrested, and several villages were burnt in reprisal.
Despite the military defeat, the essential objective of the rebellions was later achieved because of the insurrections. This was when Lord Durham was sent to examine the situation and his Durham Report strongly recommended responsible government. A less well received recommendation, however, was the amalgamation of Upper and Lower Canada in order to forcibly assimilate the French speaking population; The Canadas were merged into a single, quasi-federal colony, the United Province of Canada, with the Act of Union (1840).
Once the United States agreed to the 49th parallel north as the border separating it from western British North America, the British government created the Pacific coast colonies of British Columbia in 1848 and Vancouver Island in 1849, They were eventually united in 1866.
A set of proposals called the Seventy-Two Resolutions were drafted at the 1864 Quebec Conference. They laid out the framework for an independent Canada. They were adopted by the majority of the provinces of Canada, and became the basis for the London Conference of 1866.
Post-Confederation Canada 1867-1914
Main article: Post-Confederation Canada (1867-1914)
On July 1, 1867, with the passing of the British North America Act by the British Parliament, the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia became a federation, regarded as a kingdom in her own right.[2] John A. Macdonald had spoken of "founding a great British monarchy" and wanted the newly created country to be called the "Kingdom of Canada."[3] Although had its monarch in London, the Colonial Office opposed as "premature" and "pretentious" the term "kingdom." It might antagonize the United States. The term dominion was chosen to indicate Canada's status as a self-governing colony of the British Empire, the first time it was used in reference to a country.
With the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the new country expanded East, West and North, to assert its authority over a greater territory. A major means to achieve this was the foundation of the Northwest Mounted Police (now the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) which patrolled the territories. Manitoba joined the Dominion in 1870, and British Columbia in 1871. Westward expansion encountered serious resistance from the region's Métis inhabitants, in the form of the Red River Rebellion and the North-West Rebellion. In 1905, Saskatchewan and Alberta were admitted as provinces.
Canada in World Wars and Interwar Years
Main article: Canada in the World Wars and Interwar Years
Strikers from unemployment relief camps climbing on boxcars as part of the On to Ottawa Trek
Canada's participation in the First World War helped to foster a sense of Canadian nationhood. The highpoint of Canadian military achievement came at the Battle of Vimy Ridge on April 9, 1917, in which the Canadian Corps captured a fortified German hill that had resisted British and French attacks earlier in the war. Battles such as Vimy, as well as the success of Canadian flying aces including William Barker and Billy Bishop, helped to give Canada a new sense of identity. As a result of the war, the Canadian government became more assertive and less deferential to British authority, because many Canadians were dismayed by what they saw as British command failures.
Canada is sometimes considered to be the country hardest hit by the interwar Great Depression. The economy fell further than that of any nation other than the United States. It hit especially hard in Western Canada, where a full recovery did not occur until the Second World War began in 1939. Hard times led to the creation of new political parties such as the Social Credit movement and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, as well as popular protest in the form of the On to Ottawa Trek.
Amphibious vehicles taking Canadian troops across the Scheldt in Holland, during WWII
Canada's involvement in the Second World War began when Canada declared war on Germany on September 10, 1939, one week after Britain. Canadian forces were involved in the failed defence of Hong Kong, the Dieppe Raid in August 1942, the Allied invasion of Italy, and the Battle of Normandy. Of a population of approximately 11.5 million, 1.1 million Canadians served in the armed forces in the Second World War. Many thousands more served in the merchant marine. In all, more than 45,000 gave their lives, and another 55,000 were wounded. Countless others shared the suffering and hardship of war. By the end of the war, Canada had, temporarily at least, become a significant military power. However, the Big Three paid little attention to Canada.
Conscription legislation was enacted during both wars (though on the initial promise of home-front service only in WWII), leading to increased tension between French and English Canadians. During the First World War, Prime Minister Borden's government enfranchised women who had close male relatives serving overseas, in the hopes of securing their support in the 1917 federal election.
History of Canada (1945-1960)
Main article: History of Canada (1945-1960)
Prosperity returned to Canada during Second World War. With continued Liberal governments, national policies increasingly turned to social welfare, including hospital insurance, old-age pensions, and veterans' pensions. The economic recovery led Newfoundland to consider its options. The financial crisis of the Great Depression, soured by rampant corruption, led it to relinquish responsible government in 1934 and become a crown colony ruled by a British governor. It now had the option of staying as crown colony, returning to Dominion status, or joining Canada. (It was not allowed to consider joining the U.S.) They decided to join Canada. Canada's foreign policy during in the Cold War was deeply connected to that of its neighbour to the south, demonstrated by support for NATO, entry into the Korean War the establishment an air defence system with the United States, NORAD.
History of Canada (1960-1981)
Main article: History of Canada (1960-1981)
In the 1960s, a Quiet Revolution took place in Quebec, increasing the tensions between Québécois nationalists and English Canada, until violence erupted during the 1970 October Crisis. During his long tenure in the office (1968–79, 1980–84), Prime Minister Trudeau attempted to reunify Canadian citizens.
History of Canada (1982-1992)
Main article: History of Canada (1982-1992)
As the highlight of his 1980s years as prime minister, Trudeau brought about the Patriation of the Canadian constitution in 1982, which gave Canada a Charter of Rights and final independence from Britain (though Canada had been effectively independent for many decades). The Patriation negotiations led to renewed antagonism between Quebec and the rest of Canada, which later Prime Minister Mulroney's Meech Lake Accord failed to smooth over. During the same decade, Canada engaged in violent conflict both abroad in the First Gulf War and at home, during the Oka Crisis. Also this period saw the Mount Cashel Boys Home Scandal.
History of Canada (1992-Present)
Main article: History of Canada (1992-Present)
In the past decade and a half, Canada experienced the tenure of another one of the longest continuously serving prime ministers (Jean Chrétien), a second Quebec referendum on sovereignty, and the creation of a new territory, Nunavut. While long standing issues like immigration continued to demand attention, new debates over same-sex marriage and international peacekeeping would increasingly take the forefront.
As of 2007, Stephen Harper is the Prime Minister of Canada, leading the Conservative Party in a minority government.
References
Please see Bibliography of Canadian History for an extensive list of sources.
The Dictionary of Canadian Biography(1966-2006), thousands of scholarly biographies of those who died by 1930
Bliss, Michael. Northern Enterprise: Five Centuries of Canadian Business. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1987.
Brune, Nick and Alastair Sweeny. History of Canada Online. Waterloo: Northern Blue Publishing, 2005.
J.M. Bumsted. The Peoples of Canada: A Pre-Confederation History; and The Peoples of Canada: A Post-Confederation History. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Margaret Conrad and Alvin Finkel. Canada: A National History. Toronto: Pearson Education Canada, 2003.
Margaret Conrad and Alvin Finkel, eds. Foundations: Readings in Post-Confederation Canadian History. and Nation and Society: Readings in Post-Confederation Canadian History. Toronto: Pearson Longman, 2004. articles by scholars
Gerald Hallowell, ed. The Oxford Companion to Canadian History (2004) 1650 short entries
Desmond Morton. A Short History of Canada 5th ed (2001)
Desmond Morton. A Military History of Canada (1999)
Desmond Morton. Working People: An Illustrated History of the Canadian Labour Movement (1999)
James C. Marsh, ed. The Canadian Encyclopedia 4 vol 1985; also cd-rom editions
Norrie K. H. and Owram Doug. A History of the Canadian Economy, 1991* Kenneth G. Pryke and Walter C. Soderlund, eds. Profiles of Canada. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press, 2003. 3rd edition.
M. Brook Taylor ed. Canadian History: A Reader's Guide. Vol. 1. Doug Owram, ed. Canadian History: A Reader's Guide. Vol. 2. Toronto: 1994. historiography
Statistics Canada. Historical Statistics of Canada. 2d ed., Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 1983.
Canadawiki features hundreds of stories from Canadian History as well as the CanText text library and CanLine Chronology of Canadian History.
Bliss, Michael. Northern Enterprise: Five Centuries of Canadian Business. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1987.
Thomas Thorner with Thor Frohn-Nielsen, eds. "A Few Acres of Snow": Documents in Pre-Confederation Canadian History, and "A Country Nourished on Self-Doubt": Documents on Post-Confederation Canadian History, 2nd ed. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 2003.
Mason Wade, The French Canadians, 1760-1945 (1955) 2 vol
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
History of Austria
Early Middle Ages
During the Migration Period, the Slavs migrated into the Alps in the wake of the expansion of their Avar overlords during the 7th century, mixed with the Celto-Romanic population, and established the realm of Karantania, which covered much of eastern and central Austrian territory. In the meantime, the Germanic tribe of the Bavarians had developed in the 5th and 6th century in the west of the country and in Bavaria, while what is today Vorarlberg had been settled by the Alemans. Those groups mixed with the Rhaeto-Romanic population and pushed it up into the mountains.
Karantania, under pressure of the Avars, lost its independence to Bavaria in 745 and became a margraviate. During the following centuries, Bavarian settlers went down the Danube and up the Alps, a process through which Austria was to become the mostly German-speaking country it is today.
The Bavarians themselves came under the overlordship of the Carolingian Franks and subsequently a Duchy of the Holy Roman Empire. Duke Tassilo III, who wanted to maintain Bavarian independence, was defeated and displaced by Charlemagne in 788.
An Eastern March (marchia orientalis) was established in Charlemagne's time, but it was overrun by the Magyars in 909.
Babenberg Austria
For more details on this topic, see Babenberg.
After the defeat of the Magyars by Emperor Otto the Great in the Battle of Lechfeld (955), new Marches were established in what is today Austria. The one known as the marchia orientalis was to become the core territory of Austria and was given to Leopold of Babenberg in 976 after the revolt of Henry II, Duke of Bavaria.
The Marches were overseen by a comes or dux as appointed by the Warlord. The most normal translation of these offices is count or duke, but these titles conveyed very different meanings in the Early Middle Ages, and the Latin terminology is preferable to any modern translation. In lumbardi-speaking countries, the title was eventually regularized to Margravei (German: Markgraf). (i.e. "Count of the Mark").
The first record showing the name Austria is 996 were it is written as Ostarrîchi, referring to the territory of the Babenberg March. The term Ostmark is not historically ascertained and appears to be a translation of marchia orientalis that came up only much later.
The following centuries were characterized first by the settlement of the country, when forests were cleared and towns and monasteries were founded. In 1156 the Privilegium Minus elevated Austria to the status of a duchy. In 1192, the Babenbergs also acquired the Duchy of Styria through the Georgenberg Pact. At that time, the Babenberg Dukes came to be one of the most influential ruling families in the region, peaking in the reign of Leopold VI (1198-1230).
However, with the slaughter of his son Frederick II in 1246, the line went extinct, which resulted in the interregnum, a period of several decades during which the status of the country was disputed. Otakar III of Bohemia effectively controlled the duchies of Austria, Styria and Carinthia. His reign came to an end with his defeat at Dürnkrut at the hand of Rudolf of Habsburg in 1278.
The Habsburg Monarchy (13th century-1918)
Also see: Habsburg Monarchy
Beginnings (1278-1526)
Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor portrayed by Albrecht Dürer 1519
Following the extinction of the Babenbergs in the 13th century, Austria came briefly under the rule of the Czech King Otakar II. Contesting the election of Rudolf I of Habsburg as Emperor, Otakar was defeated and killed by the German King, who took Austria and gave it to his sons in 1278. Austria was ruled by the Habsburgs for the next 640 years. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Habsburgs began to accumulate other provinces in the vicinity of the Duchy of Austria, which remained a small Duchy along the Danube, and Styria, which they had acquired from Ottokar alongside with Austria. Carinthia and Carniola came under Habsburg rule in 1335, Tyrol in 1363. These provinces, together, became known as the Habsburg Hereditary Lands, although they were sometimes all lumped together simply as Austria.
The history of the following two centuries had many ups and downs. Following the notable, but short rule of Rudolf IV, his brothers Albert III and Leopold III split the realms in the Treaty of Neuberg in 1379. Albert retained Austria proper, while Leopold took the remaining territories. In 1402, there was another split in the Leopoldinian line, when Ernest the Iron took Inner Austria (Styria, Carinthia and Carniola) and Frederick IV became ruler of Tyrol and Further Austria. The territories were only reunified by Ernest's son Frederick V (Frederick III as Holy Roman Emperor), when the Albertinian line (1457) and the Elder Tyrolean line (1490) had become extinct.
In 1438, Duke Albert V of Austria was chosen as the successor to his father-in-law, Emperor Sigismund. Although Albert himself only reigned for a year, from then on, every emperor was a Habsburg, with only one exception. The Habsburgs began also to accumulate lands far from the Hereditary Lands. In 1477, the Archduke Maximilian, only son of Emperor Frederick III, married the heiress of Burgundy, thus acquiring most of the Low Countries for the family. His son Philip the Fair married the heiress of Castile and Aragon, and thus acquired Spain and its Italian, African, and New World appendages for the Habsburgs. The Habsburgs' hereditary territories, however, were soon separated from this enormous empire when, in 1520, Emperor Charles V left them to the rule of his brother, Ferdinand.
The Reformation and Austria's Rise to Power (1526-1714)
Battle of Vienna 1683
In 1526, following the Battle of Mohács, in which Ferdinand's brother-in-law Louis II, King of Hungary and Bohemia, was killed, Ferdinand expanded his territories, bringing Bohemia and that part of Hungary not occupied by the Ottomans under his rule. Habsburg expansion into Hungary, however, led to frequent conflicts with the Turks, particularly the so-called Long War of 1593 to 1606.
Austria and the other Habsburg hereditary provinces (and Hungary and Bohemia, as well) were much affected by the Reformation. Although the Habsburg rulers themselves remained Catholic, the provinces themselves largely converted to Lutheranism, which Ferdinand I and his successors, Maximilian II, Rudolf II, and Mathias largely tolerated. In the late 16th century, however, the Counter-Reformation began to make its influence felt, and the Jesuit-educated Archduke Ferdinand, who ruled over Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, was energetic in suppressing heresy in the provinces which he ruled. When, in 1619, he was elected Emperor to succeed his cousin Mathias, Ferdinand II, as he became known, embarked on an energetic attempt to re-Catholicize not only the Hereditary Provinces, but Bohemia and Habsburg Hungary as well. Although carried out in the midst of the Thirty Years' War, which had greatly negative consequences for Habsburg control of the Empire itself, these campaigns within the Habsburg hereditary lands were largely successful, leaving the Emperors with much greater control within their hereditary power base, although Hungary was never successfully re-Catholicized.
The long reign of Leopold I (1657-1705) saw the culmination of the Austrian conflict with the Turks. Following the successful defense of Vienna in 1683, a series of campaigns resulted in the return of all of Hungary to Austrian control by the Treaty of Carlowitz in 1699. At the same time, Austria was becoming more involved in competition with France in Western Europe, with Austria fighting the French in the Third Dutch War (1672-1679), the War of the League of Augsburg (1688-1697) and finally the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), in which the French and Austrians (along with their British and Dutch allies) fought over the inheritance of the vast territories of the Spanish Habsburgs. Although the French secured control of Spain and its colonies for a grandson of Louis XIV, the Austrians also ended up making significant gains in western Europe, including the former Spanish Netherlands (now called the Austrian Netherlands, including most of modern Belgium), the Duchy of Milan in Northern Italy, and Naples and Sardinia in Southern Italy. (The latter was traded for Sicily in 1720).
Charles VI and Maria Theresa (1711-1780)
Maria Theresia as a young woman 1727
The latter part of the reign of Emperor Charles VI (1711-1740) saw Austria relinquish many of these fairly impressive gains, largely due to Charles's apprehensions at the imminent extinction of the House of Habsburg. Charles was willing to offer concrete advantages in territory and authority in exchange for other powers' worthless recognitions of the Pragmatic Sanction that made his daughter Maria Theresa his heir. The most notable instance of this was in the War of the Polish Succession whose settlement saw Austria cede Naples and Sicily to the Spanish Infant Don Carlos in exchange for the tiny Duchy of Parma and Spain and France's adherence to the Pragmatic Sanction. The latter years of Charles's reign (1736-1739) also saw an unsuccessful war against the Turks, which resulted in the Austrian loss of Belgrade and other border territories.
And, as many had anticipated, when Charles died in 1740, all those assurances from the other powers proved of little worth to Maria Theresa. The peace was initially broken by King Frederick II of Prussia, who invaded Silesia. Soon other powers began to exploit Austria's weakness. The Elector of Bavaria claimed the inheritance to the hereditary lands and Bohemia, and was supported by the King of France, who desired the Austrian Netherlands. The Spanish and Sardinians hoped to gain territory in Italy, and the Saxons hoped to gain territory to connect Saxony with the Elector's Polish Kingdom. Austria's allies -- Britain, Holland, and Russia, were all wary of getting involved in the conflict. Thus began the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748), one of the more confusing and less eventful wars of European history, which ultimately saw Austria holding its own, despite the permanent loss of most of Silesia to the Prussians. In 1745, following the reign of the Bavarian Elector as Emperor Charles VII, Maria Theresa's husband Francis of Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany, was elected Emperor, restoring control of that position to the Habsburgs (or, rather, to the new composite house of Habsburg-Lorraine).
For the eight years following the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle that ended the War of the Austrian Succession, Maria Theresa plotted revenge on the Prussians. The British and Dutch allies who had proved so reluctant to help her in her time of need were dropped in favour of the French in the so-called Reversal of Alliances of 1756. That same year, war once again erupted on the continent as Frederick, fearing encirclement, launched a pre-emptive invasion of Saxony. The Seven Years' War, too, was indecisive, and saw Prussia holding onto Silesia, despite Russia, France, and Austria all combining against him, and with only Hanover as a significant ally on land.
The end of the war saw Austria, exhausted, continuing the alliance with France (cemented in 1770 with the marriage of Maria Theresa's daughter Archduchess Maria Antonietta to the Dauphin), but also facing a dangerous situation in Central Europe, faced with the alliance of Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia. The Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774 caused a serious crisis in east-central Europe, with Prussia and Austria demanding compensation for Russia's gains in the Balkans, ultimately leading to the First Partition of Poland in 1772, in which Maria Theresa took Galicia from Austria's traditional ally.
Over the next several years, Austro-Russian relations began to improve. When the War of Bavarian Succession erupted between Austria and Prussia in 1777 following the extinction of the Bavarian line of the Wittelsbach dynasty, Russia refused to support its ally, and the war was ended, after almost no bloodshed, on May 13, 1779 when Russian and French mediators at the Congress of Teschen negotiated an end to the war. In the agreement Austria receive the Innviertel from Bavaria.
The Reigns of Joseph II and Leopold II (1780-1792)
Joseph II (right) with his brother and successor Leopold II (left)
On Maria Theresa's death in 1780, she was succeeded by her son Joseph II, already Holy Roman Emperor since Francis I's death in 1765. Joseph was a reformer, and is often considered the foremost example of an eighteenth century enlightened despot. Joseph attempted to bring under control the Roman Catholic Church and the various provincial nobilities of his lands, which led to widespread resistance, especially in Hungary and the Austrian Netherlands, which were used to their traditional liberties.
Joseph's foreign policy was equally ambitious, and equally unsuccessful. He pursued a policy of alliance with Catherine the Great's Russia, which led to a war with the Ottoman Empire in 1787. Austria's performance in the war was distinctly unimpressive, and the expense involved led to further resistance. By the time of Joseph's death in 1790, all his plans seemed ruined, with both Hungary and the Netherlands in open revolt and the war in the Balkans dragging on and seeming impossible to finish, given Russia's commitment to continuing the war.
Joseph's death proved a boon, as he was succeeded by his more sensible brother, Leopold II, previously the reforming Grand Duke of Tuscany. Leopold knew when to cut his losses, and soon cut deals with the revolting Netherlanders and Hungarians. He also managed to secure a peace with Turkey in 1791, and negotiated an alliance with Prussia, which had been allying with Poland to press for war on behalf of the Ottomans against Austria and Russia.
Unfortunately, Leopold's reign also saw the acceleration of the French Revolution. Although Leopold was sympathetic to the revolutionaries, he was also the brother of the French queen. Furthermore, disputes involving the status of the rights of various imperial princes in Alsace, where the revolutionary French government was attempting to remove rights guaranteed by various peace treaties, involved Leopold as Emperor in conflicts with the French. The Declaration of Pillnitz, made in late 1791 jointly with the Prussian King Frederick William II and the Elector of Saxony, in which it was declared that the other princes of Europe took an interest in what was going on in France, was intended to be a statement in support of Louis XVI that would prevent the need from taking any kind of action. However, it instead inflamed the sentiments of the revolutionaries against the Emperor. Although Leopold did his best to avoid war with the French, he died in March of 1792. The French declared war on his inexperienced son Francis II a month later.
The Era of the French Revolution and Napoleon (1792-1814)
Victorious Archduke Charles of Austria during the Battle of Aspern-Essling (May 21-22, 1809)
The war with France, which lasted until 1797, proved unsuccessful for Austria. After some brief successes against the utterly disorganized French armies in early 1792, the tide turned, and the French overran the Austrian Netherlands in the last months of 1792. While the Austrians were so occupied, their erstwhile Prussian allies stabbed them in the back with the Second Partition of Poland, from which Austria was entirely excluded. This led to the dismissal of Francis's chief minister, Philipp von Cobenzl, and his replacement with Franz Maria Thugut.
At around the same time, the increasing radicalization of the French Revolution, as well as the French occupation of the Low Countries, brought Britain, the Dutch Republic, and Spain into the war, which became known as the War of the First Coalition. Once again, there were initial successes against the disorganized armies of the French Republic, and the Netherlands were recovered. But in 1794 the tide turned once more, and Austrian forces were driven out of the Netherlands again - this time for good. Meanwhile, the Polish Crisis again became critical, resulting in a Third Partition (1795), in which Austria managed to secure important gains. The war in the west continued to go badly, as most of the coalition made peace, leaving Austria with only Britain and Piedmont-Sardinia as allies. In 1796, the French Directory planned a two-pronged campaign in Germany to force the Austrians to make peace, with a secondary thrust planned into Italy. Although Austrian forces under Archduke Charles, the Emperor's brother, were successful in driving the French back in Germany, the French Army of Italy, under the command of the young Corsican General Napoleon Bonaparte, was brilliantly successful, forcing Piedmont out of the war, driving the Austrians out of Lombardy and besieging Mantua. Following the capture of Mantua in early 1797, Bonaparte advanced north through the Alps against Vienna, while new French armies moved again into Germany. Austria sued for peace. By the terms of the Treaty of Campo Formio of 1797, Austria renounced its claims to the Netherlands and Lombardy, in exchange for which it partitioned the territories of the Republic of Venice with the French. The Austrians also provisionally recognized the French annexation of the Left Bank of the Rhine, and agreed in principle that the German princes of the region should be compensated with ecclesiastical lands on the other side of the Rhine.
The peace did not last for long. Soon, differences emerged between the Austrians and French over the reorganization of Germany, and Austria joined Russia, Britain, and Naples in the War of the Second Coalition in 1799. Although Austro-Russian forces were initially successful in driving the French from Italy, the tide soon turned - the Russians withdrew from the war after a defeat at Zürich (1799) which they blamed on Austrian fecklessness, and the Austrians were defeated by Bonaparte, now First Consul at Marengo, which forced them to withdraw from Italy, and then in Germany at Hohenlinden. These defeats forced Thugut's resignation, and Austria, now led by Ludwig Cobenzl, to make peace at Lunéville in early 1801. The terms were surprisingly mild - the terms of Campo Formio were largely reinstated, but now the way was clear for a reorganization of the Empire on French lines. By the Imperial Deputation Report of 1803, the Holy Roman Empire was entirely reorganized, with nearly all of the ecclesiastical territories and free cities, traditionally the parts of the Empire most friendly to the House of Austria, eliminated.
Map of Europe in 1811 after several French victories
With Bonaparte's assumption of the title of Emperor of the French in 1804, Francis, seeing the writing on the wall for the old Empire, took the new title of Emperor of Austria as Francis I, in addition to his title of Holy Roman Emperor. Soon, Napoleon's continuing machinations in Italy, including the annexation of Genoa and Parma, led once again to war in 1805 - the War of the Third Coalition, in which Austria, Britain, Russia, and Sweden took on Napoleon. The Austrian forces began the war by invading Bavaria, a key French ally in Germany, but were soon outmaneuvered and forced to surrender by Napoleon at Ulm, before the main Austro-Russian force was defeated at Austerlitz on December 2. By the Treaty of Pressburg, Austria was forced to give up large amounts of territory - Dalmatia to France, Venetia to Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy, the Tyrol to Bavaria, and Austria's various Swabian territories to Baden and Württemberg, although Salzburg, formerly held by Francis's younger brother, the previous Grand Duke of Tuscany, was annexed by Austria as compensation.
The defeat meant the end of the old Holy Roman Empire. Napoleon's satellite states in southern and western Germany seceded from the Empire in the summer of 1806, forming the Confederation of the Rhine, and a few days later Francis proclaimed the Empire dissolved, and renounced the old imperial crown.
Over the next three years Austria, now led by Philipp Stadion, attempted to maintain peace with France, but the overthrow of the Spanish Bourbons in 1808 was deeply disturbing to the Habsburgs, who rather desperately went to war once again in 1809, this time with no continental allies. Stadion's attempts to generate popular uprisings in Germany were unsuccessful, and the Russians honored their alliance with France, so Austria was once again defeated, although at greater cost than Napoleon, who suffered his first battlefield defeat in this war, at Aspern-Essling, had expected. The terms of the Treaty of Schönbrunn were quite harsh. Austria lost Salzburg to Bavaria, some of its Polish lands to Russia, and its remaining territory on the Adriatic (including much of Carinthia and Styria) to Napoleon's Illyrian Provinces.
Klemens von Metternich, the new Austrian foreign minister, aimed to pursue a pro-French policy. The Emperor's daughter, Marie Louise, was married to Napoleon, and Austria contributed an army to Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. With Napoleon's disastrous defeat in Russia at the end of the year, and Prussia's defection to the Russian side at the beginning of 1813, Metternich began slowly to shift his policy. Initially he aimed to mediate a peace between France and its continental enemies, but when it became apparent that Napoleon was not interested in compromise, Austria joined the allies and declared war on France in August 1813. The Austrian intervention was decisive. Napoleon was defeated at Leipzig in October, and forced to withdraw into France itself. As 1814 began, the Allied forces invaded France. Initially, Metternich remained unsure as to whether he wanted Napoleon to remain on the throne, a Marie Louise regency for Napoleon's young son, or a Bourbon restoration, but he was eventually brought around by British Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh to the last position. Napoleon abdicated on April 3, 1814, and Louis XVIII was restored, soon negotiating a peace treaty with the victorious allies at Paris in June.
The Nineteenth Century (1815-1918)
For more details, see Austrian Empire, Austria-Hungary and Congress of Vienna.
Under the control of Metternich, the Austrian Empire entered a period of censorship and a police state in the period between 1815 and 1848 (Biedermaier or Vormärz period). However, both liberalism and nationalism were on the rise, which resulted in the Revolutions of 1848. Metternich and the mentally handicapped Emperor Ferdinand I were forced to resign to be replaced by his young nephew Franz Joseph. Separatist tendencies (especially in Lombardy and Hungary) were suppressed by military force. A constitution was enacted in March 1848, but it had little practical impact. However, one of the concessions to revolutionaries with a lasting impact was freeing of peasants in Austria. This facilitated industrialization, as many flocked to the newly industrializing cities of the Austrian domain. (Industrial centers were Bohemia, Lower Austria with Vienna, and Upper Styria). Social upheaval led to increased strife in ethnically mixed cities, leading to mass nationalist movements.
In 1859, the defeats at Solférino and Magenta against the combined forces of France and Sardinia led to the loss of Lombardy and Tuscany to the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was striving to create a unified national Italian state.
Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war in Russia, 1915
The defeat at Königgrätz in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 resulted in Austria's exclusion from Germany; the German Confederation was dissolved. The monarchy's weak external position forced Franz Joseph to concede also internal reforms. To appease Hungarian nationalism, Franz Joseph made a deal with Hungarian nobles, which led to the creation of Austria-Hungary in the compromise, or Ausgleich, in 1867. The western half of the realm (Cisleithania) and Hungary (Transleithania) now became two realms with different interior policy, but with a common ruler and a common foreign and military policy.
The Austrian half of the dual monarchy began to move towards constitutionalism. A constitutional system with a parliament, the Reichsrat was created, and a bill of rights was enacted also in 1867. Suffrage to the Reichstag's lower house was gradually expanded until 1907, when equal suffrage for all male citizens was introduced. However, the effectiveness of parliamentarism was hampered by conflicts between parties representing different ethnic groups, and meetings of the parliament were ceased altogether during World War I.
The decades until 1914 generally saw a lot of construction, expansion of cities and railway lines, and development of industry. During this period, now known as Gründerzeit, Austria became an industrialized country, even though the Alpine regions remained characterized by agriculture.
In 1878, Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia-Hercegovina, which had been cut off from the rest of the Ottoman Empire by the creation of new states in the Balkans. The territory was annexed in 1907 and put under joint rule by the governments of both Austria and Hungary.
Nationalist strife increased during the decades until 1914. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was the presumed heir of Franz Joseph as Emperor, in Sarajevo by a Serb nationalist group triggered World War I. The defeat of the Central Powers in 1918 resulted in the disintegration of Austria-Hungary. Emperor Karl of Austria, who had ruled since 1916, went into exile.
German Austria and the First Republic (1918–1934)
See also: First Austrian Republic, German Austria
Following the defeat of Austria-Hungary in World War I, in the Aftermath of World War I the Empire was broken up based loosely on national grounds. Austria, with its modern borders, was created out of the main German speaking areas. On November 12, 1918, Austria became a republic called German Austria. The newly formed Austrian parliament asked for union with Germany. Article 2 of its provisional constitution stated: Deutschösterreich ist ein Bestandteil der Deutschen Republik (German Austria is part of the German Republic). Plebiscites in the countries of Tyrol and Salzburg 1919-21 yielded majorities of 98 and 99% in favour of a unification with Germany. It was feared that small Austria was not economically viable. In the end France and Italy prevented the merger, and demanded the construction of an independent Austria that had to remain autonomous for at least 20 years. The Treaty of Saint Germain included a provision that prohibited political or economic union with Germany and forced the country to change its name from the "Republic of German Austria" to the "Republic of Austria," i.e. the First Republic. The German-speaking bordering areas of Bohemia and Moravia (later called the "Sudetenland") were allocated to the newly founded Czechoslovakia. Many Austrians and Germans regarded this as hypocrisy since U.S. president Woodrow Wilson had proclaimed in his famous "Fourteen Points" the "right of self-determination" for all nations. In the democratic German Weimar constitution the aim of unification was codified in article 61: „Deutschösterreich erhält nach seinem Anschluß an das Deutsche Reich das Recht der Teilnahme am Reichsrat mit der seiner Bevölkerung entsprechenden Stimmenzahl. Bis dahin haben die Vertreter Deutschösterreichs beratende Stimme.“ (German Austria has the right to participate in the Reichsrat (Germany) (the constitutional representation of the federal German states) with a consulting role according to its number of inhabitants until the unification with Germany.").
Although Austria-Hungary had been one of the Central Powers, the allied victors were much more lenient with a defeated Austria than either Germany or Hungary. Representatives of the new Republic of Austria convinced them that it was unfair to penalize Austria for the actions of a now dissolved Empire, especially as other areas of the Empire were now perceived to be on the "victorious" side, simply because they had renounced the Empire at the end of the war. Austria never did have to pay reparations because allied commissions determined that the country could not afford to pay. It was also the only defeated country to acquire new territory as part of border adjustments -- a small land tract to the east that belonged to Hungary.
High inflation led to a change of currency from the old Krone to the new Schilling in 1925
On October 20, 1920, a plebiscite in the Austrian state of Carinthia was held in which the population chose to remain a part of Austria, rejecting the territorial claims of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes to the state. The German-speaking parts of western Hungary, now christened Burgenland, joined Austria as a new state in 1921, with the exception of the city of Sopron, whose population decided in a referendum (which is sometimes considered by Austrians to have been rigged) to remain with Hungary. However, the Treaty of Saint Germain also meant that Austria lost significant German-speaking territories, most of all South Tyrol to Italy and the German-speaking areas within Bohemia and Moravia to Czechoslovakia.
Between 1918 and 1920, there was a coalition government including both left and right-wing parties, which enacted progressive socioeconomic and labour legislation. In 1920, the modern Constitution of Austria was enacted. The interwar years were socio-economically difficult for Austria, partly because the newly created borders tore apart what had been a common economic area.
Austrian politics were characterized by intense and sometimes violent conflict between left and right from 1920 onwards. The Social Democratic Party of Austria, which pursued a fairly left-wing course known as Austromarxism at that time, could count on a secure majority in "Red Vienna", while right-wing parties controlled all other states. Since 1920, Austria was ruled by the Christian Socialist Party, which had close ties to the Roman Catholic Church. It was headed by a Catholic priest named Ignaz Seipel (1876-1932), who served twice as Chancellor (1922-1924 and 1926-1929). While in power, Seipel was working for an alliance between wealthy industrialists and the Roman Catholic Church.
Both left-wing and right-wing paramilitary forces were created during the 20s, namely the Heimwehr in 1921-1923 and the Republican Schutzbund in 1923. A clash between those groups in Schattendorf, Burgenland, on January 30, 1927 led to the death of a man and a child. Right-wing veterans were indicted at a court in Vienna, but acquitted in a jury trial. This led to massive protests and fire at the Justizpalast in Vienna. In the July Revolt of 1927, 89 protesters were killed by the Austrian police forces. Political conflict escalated until the early 1930s. Engelbert Dollfuß of the Christian Social Party became Chancellor in 1932.
Austrofascism (1934–1938)
Main articles: Austrian Civil War, Austrofascism
Under the Christian Social Party, the Austrian government was moving towards centralization of power in the Fascist model.
In March 1933 the Dollfuss cabinet took advantage of a formal error during a vote on a bill in parliament. As the vote was very narrow, all of the three presidents of the National Council stepped down because they were not allowed to vote themselves while in office. This was an unforeseen event but it could have been resolved according to the rules of procedure. However, the cabinet declared that the parliament had ceased to function and forcibly prevented the National Council from reassembling. The executive then took over legislative power by using an emergency provision which had been enacted during World War I. Even after this putsch, the socialist party hesitated and tried to resolve the crisis in a peaceful way.
On February 12, 1934 the new Austrofascist regime provoked the Austrian civil war by ordering search warrants for the headquarters of the socialist party. At that time the socialist party structures were already weakened and the uprising of its supporters was quickly defeated. Subsequently the socialist party and all its ancillary organisations were banned.
On May 1, 1934, the Dollfuss cabinet approved a new constitution that abolished freedom of the press, established one party system (known as "The Patriotic Front") and created a total state monopoly on employer-employee relations. This system remained in force until Austria became part of the Third Reich in 1938. The Patriotic Front government frustrated the ambitions of pro-Hitlerite sympathizers in Austria who wished both political influence and unification with Germany, leading to the assassination of Dollfuss on July 25, 1934. His successor Schuschnigg maintained the ban on pro-Hitlerite activities in Austria, but was forced to resign on March 11, 1938 following a demand by Hitler for power-sharing with pro-German circles. Following Schuschnigg's resignation, German troops occupied Austria with no resistance.
Part of Nazi Germany (1938–1945)
Main articles: Anschluss and Nazi Germany
On March 12th, 1938 German troops march into Austria
Although the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of St. Germain had explicitly forbidden the unification of Austria and Germany, Nazi Germany was striving to annex Austria during the late 1930s, which was fiercely resisted by the Austrian Schuschnigg dictatorship. When the conflict was escalating in early 1938, Chancellor Schuschnigg announced a plebiscite on the issue on March 9, which was to take place on March 13. On March 12, German troops entered Austria, who met celebrating crowds, in order to install Nazi puppet Arthur Seyss-Inquart as Chancellor. With a Nazi administration already in place and the country integrated into the Third Reich, a referendum on April 10 approved of the annexation with a majority of 99.73%. This referendum is, however, believed by many observers and historians to have been rigged.
As a result, Austria ceased to exist as an independent country during World War II. Technically, this annexation was forced by military invasion, but large parts of the Austrian population were in favour of the Nazi regime. Many Austrians participated in its crimes. The large Jewish population (about 200,000 Jews were living in Vienna at that time), which had had considerable significance for science and culture at that time, was killed or forced into exile, as were many socialist and Catholic Austrian politicians. There were some Austrian resistance groups, but none of them were very successful.
At the end of the war, Austria was overrun by Allied forces. On March 28, 1945, American troops set foot on Austrian soil; the Red Army crossed the eastern border two days later, capturing Vienna by April 13. American and British forces occupied the western and southern regions, preventing Soviet forces from completely controlling the country. The Allied occupation put an end to Nazi rule.
The Second Republic (since 1945)
Allied occupation
Occupation zones in Austria
Under the Allied Commission established by an agreement on July 4, 1945, the country was occupied by the Allies from May 9, 1945 until July 27, 1955. Like Germany, Austria was divided in four zones, each of which was controlled by one of the four allied powers, with Vienna being also divided into four zones. Austria participated in the Western European "economic miracle", with the benefit of the Marshall Plan.
In April 1945, the Soviet government allowed the establishment of government including socialists, conservatives and communists, but led by the socialist elder statesman Karl Renner. This government was recognized by the western allies later that year. Even though under occupation, the Austrian government was officially permitted to conduct foreign relations with the approval of the four occupying governments under the agreement of June 28, 1946. As part of this trend, Austria was one of the founding members of the Danube Commission formed on August 18, 1948.
Contrary to the First Republic, which had been characterized by sometimes violent conflict between the different political groups, the Second Republic became a stable democracy. The two largest leading parties, the Christian-conservative Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) remained in a coalition led by the ÖVP until 1966. The communists (KPÖ), who had hardly any support in the Austrian electorate, remained in the coalition until 1950 and in parliament until 1959. For much of the Second Republic, the only opposition party was the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), which included pan-German and liberal political currents. It was founded in 1955 as a successor organisation to the short-lived Federation of Independents (VdU).
Independence and political development during the Second Republic
Austrian State Treaty is shown to the public in 1955
The two major parties strove towards ending allied occupation and restoring a fully independent Austria. The Austrian State Treaty was signed on May 15, 1955. Upon the termination of allied occupation, Austria was proclaimed a neutral country, and "everlasting" neutrality was incorporated into the Constitution on October 26, 1955.
The political system of the Second Republic came to be characterized by the system of Proporz, meaning that posts of some political importance were split evenly between members of the SPÖ and ÖVP. Interest group representations with mandatory membership (e.g. for workers, businesspeople, farmers etc.) grew to considerable importance and were usually consulted in the legislative process, so that hardly any legislation was passed that did not reflect widespread consensus. The Proporz and consensus systems largely held even during the years between 1966 and 1983, when there were non-coalition governments.
The ÖVP-SPÖ coalition ended in 1966, when the ÖVP gained a majority in parliament. However, it lost it in 1970, when SPÖ leader Bruno Kreisky formed a minority government tolerated by the FPÖ. In the elections of 1971, 1975 and 1979 he obtained an absolute majority. The 70s were then seen as a time of liberal reforms in social policy. Today, the economic policies of the Kreisky era are often criticized, as the accumulation of a large national debt began, and non-profitable nationalized industries were strongly subsidized.
Following severe losses in the 1983 elections, the SPÖ entered into a coalition with the FPÖ under the leadership of Fred Sinowatz. In Spring 1986, Kurt Waldheim was elected president amid considerable national and international protest because of his possible involvement with the Nazis and war crimes during World War II. Fred Sinowatz resigned, and Franz Vranitzky became chancellor.
In September 1986, in a confrontation between the German-national and liberal wings, Jörg Haider became leader of the FPÖ. Chancellor Vranitzky rescinded the coalition pact between FPÖ and SPÖ, and after new elections, entered into a coalition with the ÖVP, which was then lead by Alois Mock. Jörg Haider's populism and criticism of the Proporz system allowed him to gradually expand his party's support in elections, rising from 4% in 1983 to 27% in 1999. The Green Party managed to establish itself in parliament from 1986 onwards.
Recent years
The SPÖ-ÖVP coalition persisted until 1999. Austria joined the European Union in 1995 (Video of the signing in 1994), and Austria was set on the track towards joining the Eurozone, when it was established in 1999.
In 1993, the Liberal Forum was founded by dissidents from the FPÖ. It managed to remain in parliament until 1999. Viktor Klima succeeded Vranitzky as chancellor in 1997.
In 1999, the ÖVP fell back to third place behind the FPÖ in the elections. Even though ÖVP chairman and Vice Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel had announced that his party would go into opposition in that case, he entered into a coalition with the FPÖ – with himself as chancellor – in early 2000 under considerable national and international protest. Jörg Haider resigned as FPÖ chairman, but retained his post as governor of Carinthia and kept pulling the strings in his party behind the scenes.
In 2002, disputes within the FPÖ resulting from losses in state elections caused the resignation of several FPÖ government members and a collapse of the government. Wolfgang Schüssel's ÖVP emerged as the winner of the subsequent election, ending up in first place for the first time since 1966. The FPÖ lost more than half of its voters, but reentered the coalition with Schüssel. Since then, the FPÖ has been losing dramatically in almost all local and state elections. Disputes between "traditional" nationalist and more pragmatic members of the party resulted in a split-off of a new party including the latter group, which is called Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) and again led by Jörg Haider. Since all FPÖ government members and most FPÖ members of parliament decided to join the new party, the Schüssel coalition remained in office (now in the constellation ÖVP/BZÖ, with the remaining FPÖ in opposition) until the elections of 1st October 2006. The SPÖ won the elections and negotiations and formed a grand coalition with the ÖVP, which is in office since January 11, 2007 and Alfred Gusenbauer became the new Chancellor of Austria. For the first time in nationwide elections, the Green Party of Austria came in at 3rd place, however with only a few hundred votes more than the FPÖ.
During the Migration Period, the Slavs migrated into the Alps in the wake of the expansion of their Avar overlords during the 7th century, mixed with the Celto-Romanic population, and established the realm of Karantania, which covered much of eastern and central Austrian territory. In the meantime, the Germanic tribe of the Bavarians had developed in the 5th and 6th century in the west of the country and in Bavaria, while what is today Vorarlberg had been settled by the Alemans. Those groups mixed with the Rhaeto-Romanic population and pushed it up into the mountains.
Karantania, under pressure of the Avars, lost its independence to Bavaria in 745 and became a margraviate. During the following centuries, Bavarian settlers went down the Danube and up the Alps, a process through which Austria was to become the mostly German-speaking country it is today.
The Bavarians themselves came under the overlordship of the Carolingian Franks and subsequently a Duchy of the Holy Roman Empire. Duke Tassilo III, who wanted to maintain Bavarian independence, was defeated and displaced by Charlemagne in 788.
An Eastern March (marchia orientalis) was established in Charlemagne's time, but it was overrun by the Magyars in 909.
Babenberg Austria
For more details on this topic, see Babenberg.
After the defeat of the Magyars by Emperor Otto the Great in the Battle of Lechfeld (955), new Marches were established in what is today Austria. The one known as the marchia orientalis was to become the core territory of Austria and was given to Leopold of Babenberg in 976 after the revolt of Henry II, Duke of Bavaria.
The Marches were overseen by a comes or dux as appointed by the Warlord. The most normal translation of these offices is count or duke, but these titles conveyed very different meanings in the Early Middle Ages, and the Latin terminology is preferable to any modern translation. In lumbardi-speaking countries, the title was eventually regularized to Margravei (German: Markgraf). (i.e. "Count of the Mark").
The first record showing the name Austria is 996 were it is written as Ostarrîchi, referring to the territory of the Babenberg March. The term Ostmark is not historically ascertained and appears to be a translation of marchia orientalis that came up only much later.
The following centuries were characterized first by the settlement of the country, when forests were cleared and towns and monasteries were founded. In 1156 the Privilegium Minus elevated Austria to the status of a duchy. In 1192, the Babenbergs also acquired the Duchy of Styria through the Georgenberg Pact. At that time, the Babenberg Dukes came to be one of the most influential ruling families in the region, peaking in the reign of Leopold VI (1198-1230).
However, with the slaughter of his son Frederick II in 1246, the line went extinct, which resulted in the interregnum, a period of several decades during which the status of the country was disputed. Otakar III of Bohemia effectively controlled the duchies of Austria, Styria and Carinthia. His reign came to an end with his defeat at Dürnkrut at the hand of Rudolf of Habsburg in 1278.
The Habsburg Monarchy (13th century-1918)
Also see: Habsburg Monarchy
Beginnings (1278-1526)
Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor portrayed by Albrecht Dürer 1519
Following the extinction of the Babenbergs in the 13th century, Austria came briefly under the rule of the Czech King Otakar II. Contesting the election of Rudolf I of Habsburg as Emperor, Otakar was defeated and killed by the German King, who took Austria and gave it to his sons in 1278. Austria was ruled by the Habsburgs for the next 640 years. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Habsburgs began to accumulate other provinces in the vicinity of the Duchy of Austria, which remained a small Duchy along the Danube, and Styria, which they had acquired from Ottokar alongside with Austria. Carinthia and Carniola came under Habsburg rule in 1335, Tyrol in 1363. These provinces, together, became known as the Habsburg Hereditary Lands, although they were sometimes all lumped together simply as Austria.
The history of the following two centuries had many ups and downs. Following the notable, but short rule of Rudolf IV, his brothers Albert III and Leopold III split the realms in the Treaty of Neuberg in 1379. Albert retained Austria proper, while Leopold took the remaining territories. In 1402, there was another split in the Leopoldinian line, when Ernest the Iron took Inner Austria (Styria, Carinthia and Carniola) and Frederick IV became ruler of Tyrol and Further Austria. The territories were only reunified by Ernest's son Frederick V (Frederick III as Holy Roman Emperor), when the Albertinian line (1457) and the Elder Tyrolean line (1490) had become extinct.
In 1438, Duke Albert V of Austria was chosen as the successor to his father-in-law, Emperor Sigismund. Although Albert himself only reigned for a year, from then on, every emperor was a Habsburg, with only one exception. The Habsburgs began also to accumulate lands far from the Hereditary Lands. In 1477, the Archduke Maximilian, only son of Emperor Frederick III, married the heiress of Burgundy, thus acquiring most of the Low Countries for the family. His son Philip the Fair married the heiress of Castile and Aragon, and thus acquired Spain and its Italian, African, and New World appendages for the Habsburgs. The Habsburgs' hereditary territories, however, were soon separated from this enormous empire when, in 1520, Emperor Charles V left them to the rule of his brother, Ferdinand.
The Reformation and Austria's Rise to Power (1526-1714)
Battle of Vienna 1683
In 1526, following the Battle of Mohács, in which Ferdinand's brother-in-law Louis II, King of Hungary and Bohemia, was killed, Ferdinand expanded his territories, bringing Bohemia and that part of Hungary not occupied by the Ottomans under his rule. Habsburg expansion into Hungary, however, led to frequent conflicts with the Turks, particularly the so-called Long War of 1593 to 1606.
Austria and the other Habsburg hereditary provinces (and Hungary and Bohemia, as well) were much affected by the Reformation. Although the Habsburg rulers themselves remained Catholic, the provinces themselves largely converted to Lutheranism, which Ferdinand I and his successors, Maximilian II, Rudolf II, and Mathias largely tolerated. In the late 16th century, however, the Counter-Reformation began to make its influence felt, and the Jesuit-educated Archduke Ferdinand, who ruled over Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, was energetic in suppressing heresy in the provinces which he ruled. When, in 1619, he was elected Emperor to succeed his cousin Mathias, Ferdinand II, as he became known, embarked on an energetic attempt to re-Catholicize not only the Hereditary Provinces, but Bohemia and Habsburg Hungary as well. Although carried out in the midst of the Thirty Years' War, which had greatly negative consequences for Habsburg control of the Empire itself, these campaigns within the Habsburg hereditary lands were largely successful, leaving the Emperors with much greater control within their hereditary power base, although Hungary was never successfully re-Catholicized.
The long reign of Leopold I (1657-1705) saw the culmination of the Austrian conflict with the Turks. Following the successful defense of Vienna in 1683, a series of campaigns resulted in the return of all of Hungary to Austrian control by the Treaty of Carlowitz in 1699. At the same time, Austria was becoming more involved in competition with France in Western Europe, with Austria fighting the French in the Third Dutch War (1672-1679), the War of the League of Augsburg (1688-1697) and finally the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), in which the French and Austrians (along with their British and Dutch allies) fought over the inheritance of the vast territories of the Spanish Habsburgs. Although the French secured control of Spain and its colonies for a grandson of Louis XIV, the Austrians also ended up making significant gains in western Europe, including the former Spanish Netherlands (now called the Austrian Netherlands, including most of modern Belgium), the Duchy of Milan in Northern Italy, and Naples and Sardinia in Southern Italy. (The latter was traded for Sicily in 1720).
Charles VI and Maria Theresa (1711-1780)
Maria Theresia as a young woman 1727
The latter part of the reign of Emperor Charles VI (1711-1740) saw Austria relinquish many of these fairly impressive gains, largely due to Charles's apprehensions at the imminent extinction of the House of Habsburg. Charles was willing to offer concrete advantages in territory and authority in exchange for other powers' worthless recognitions of the Pragmatic Sanction that made his daughter Maria Theresa his heir. The most notable instance of this was in the War of the Polish Succession whose settlement saw Austria cede Naples and Sicily to the Spanish Infant Don Carlos in exchange for the tiny Duchy of Parma and Spain and France's adherence to the Pragmatic Sanction. The latter years of Charles's reign (1736-1739) also saw an unsuccessful war against the Turks, which resulted in the Austrian loss of Belgrade and other border territories.
And, as many had anticipated, when Charles died in 1740, all those assurances from the other powers proved of little worth to Maria Theresa. The peace was initially broken by King Frederick II of Prussia, who invaded Silesia. Soon other powers began to exploit Austria's weakness. The Elector of Bavaria claimed the inheritance to the hereditary lands and Bohemia, and was supported by the King of France, who desired the Austrian Netherlands. The Spanish and Sardinians hoped to gain territory in Italy, and the Saxons hoped to gain territory to connect Saxony with the Elector's Polish Kingdom. Austria's allies -- Britain, Holland, and Russia, were all wary of getting involved in the conflict. Thus began the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748), one of the more confusing and less eventful wars of European history, which ultimately saw Austria holding its own, despite the permanent loss of most of Silesia to the Prussians. In 1745, following the reign of the Bavarian Elector as Emperor Charles VII, Maria Theresa's husband Francis of Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany, was elected Emperor, restoring control of that position to the Habsburgs (or, rather, to the new composite house of Habsburg-Lorraine).
For the eight years following the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle that ended the War of the Austrian Succession, Maria Theresa plotted revenge on the Prussians. The British and Dutch allies who had proved so reluctant to help her in her time of need were dropped in favour of the French in the so-called Reversal of Alliances of 1756. That same year, war once again erupted on the continent as Frederick, fearing encirclement, launched a pre-emptive invasion of Saxony. The Seven Years' War, too, was indecisive, and saw Prussia holding onto Silesia, despite Russia, France, and Austria all combining against him, and with only Hanover as a significant ally on land.
The end of the war saw Austria, exhausted, continuing the alliance with France (cemented in 1770 with the marriage of Maria Theresa's daughter Archduchess Maria Antonietta to the Dauphin), but also facing a dangerous situation in Central Europe, faced with the alliance of Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia. The Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774 caused a serious crisis in east-central Europe, with Prussia and Austria demanding compensation for Russia's gains in the Balkans, ultimately leading to the First Partition of Poland in 1772, in which Maria Theresa took Galicia from Austria's traditional ally.
Over the next several years, Austro-Russian relations began to improve. When the War of Bavarian Succession erupted between Austria and Prussia in 1777 following the extinction of the Bavarian line of the Wittelsbach dynasty, Russia refused to support its ally, and the war was ended, after almost no bloodshed, on May 13, 1779 when Russian and French mediators at the Congress of Teschen negotiated an end to the war. In the agreement Austria receive the Innviertel from Bavaria.
The Reigns of Joseph II and Leopold II (1780-1792)
Joseph II (right) with his brother and successor Leopold II (left)
On Maria Theresa's death in 1780, she was succeeded by her son Joseph II, already Holy Roman Emperor since Francis I's death in 1765. Joseph was a reformer, and is often considered the foremost example of an eighteenth century enlightened despot. Joseph attempted to bring under control the Roman Catholic Church and the various provincial nobilities of his lands, which led to widespread resistance, especially in Hungary and the Austrian Netherlands, which were used to their traditional liberties.
Joseph's foreign policy was equally ambitious, and equally unsuccessful. He pursued a policy of alliance with Catherine the Great's Russia, which led to a war with the Ottoman Empire in 1787. Austria's performance in the war was distinctly unimpressive, and the expense involved led to further resistance. By the time of Joseph's death in 1790, all his plans seemed ruined, with both Hungary and the Netherlands in open revolt and the war in the Balkans dragging on and seeming impossible to finish, given Russia's commitment to continuing the war.
Joseph's death proved a boon, as he was succeeded by his more sensible brother, Leopold II, previously the reforming Grand Duke of Tuscany. Leopold knew when to cut his losses, and soon cut deals with the revolting Netherlanders and Hungarians. He also managed to secure a peace with Turkey in 1791, and negotiated an alliance with Prussia, which had been allying with Poland to press for war on behalf of the Ottomans against Austria and Russia.
Unfortunately, Leopold's reign also saw the acceleration of the French Revolution. Although Leopold was sympathetic to the revolutionaries, he was also the brother of the French queen. Furthermore, disputes involving the status of the rights of various imperial princes in Alsace, where the revolutionary French government was attempting to remove rights guaranteed by various peace treaties, involved Leopold as Emperor in conflicts with the French. The Declaration of Pillnitz, made in late 1791 jointly with the Prussian King Frederick William II and the Elector of Saxony, in which it was declared that the other princes of Europe took an interest in what was going on in France, was intended to be a statement in support of Louis XVI that would prevent the need from taking any kind of action. However, it instead inflamed the sentiments of the revolutionaries against the Emperor. Although Leopold did his best to avoid war with the French, he died in March of 1792. The French declared war on his inexperienced son Francis II a month later.
The Era of the French Revolution and Napoleon (1792-1814)
Victorious Archduke Charles of Austria during the Battle of Aspern-Essling (May 21-22, 1809)
The war with France, which lasted until 1797, proved unsuccessful for Austria. After some brief successes against the utterly disorganized French armies in early 1792, the tide turned, and the French overran the Austrian Netherlands in the last months of 1792. While the Austrians were so occupied, their erstwhile Prussian allies stabbed them in the back with the Second Partition of Poland, from which Austria was entirely excluded. This led to the dismissal of Francis's chief minister, Philipp von Cobenzl, and his replacement with Franz Maria Thugut.
At around the same time, the increasing radicalization of the French Revolution, as well as the French occupation of the Low Countries, brought Britain, the Dutch Republic, and Spain into the war, which became known as the War of the First Coalition. Once again, there were initial successes against the disorganized armies of the French Republic, and the Netherlands were recovered. But in 1794 the tide turned once more, and Austrian forces were driven out of the Netherlands again - this time for good. Meanwhile, the Polish Crisis again became critical, resulting in a Third Partition (1795), in which Austria managed to secure important gains. The war in the west continued to go badly, as most of the coalition made peace, leaving Austria with only Britain and Piedmont-Sardinia as allies. In 1796, the French Directory planned a two-pronged campaign in Germany to force the Austrians to make peace, with a secondary thrust planned into Italy. Although Austrian forces under Archduke Charles, the Emperor's brother, were successful in driving the French back in Germany, the French Army of Italy, under the command of the young Corsican General Napoleon Bonaparte, was brilliantly successful, forcing Piedmont out of the war, driving the Austrians out of Lombardy and besieging Mantua. Following the capture of Mantua in early 1797, Bonaparte advanced north through the Alps against Vienna, while new French armies moved again into Germany. Austria sued for peace. By the terms of the Treaty of Campo Formio of 1797, Austria renounced its claims to the Netherlands and Lombardy, in exchange for which it partitioned the territories of the Republic of Venice with the French. The Austrians also provisionally recognized the French annexation of the Left Bank of the Rhine, and agreed in principle that the German princes of the region should be compensated with ecclesiastical lands on the other side of the Rhine.
The peace did not last for long. Soon, differences emerged between the Austrians and French over the reorganization of Germany, and Austria joined Russia, Britain, and Naples in the War of the Second Coalition in 1799. Although Austro-Russian forces were initially successful in driving the French from Italy, the tide soon turned - the Russians withdrew from the war after a defeat at Zürich (1799) which they blamed on Austrian fecklessness, and the Austrians were defeated by Bonaparte, now First Consul at Marengo, which forced them to withdraw from Italy, and then in Germany at Hohenlinden. These defeats forced Thugut's resignation, and Austria, now led by Ludwig Cobenzl, to make peace at Lunéville in early 1801. The terms were surprisingly mild - the terms of Campo Formio were largely reinstated, but now the way was clear for a reorganization of the Empire on French lines. By the Imperial Deputation Report of 1803, the Holy Roman Empire was entirely reorganized, with nearly all of the ecclesiastical territories and free cities, traditionally the parts of the Empire most friendly to the House of Austria, eliminated.
Map of Europe in 1811 after several French victories
With Bonaparte's assumption of the title of Emperor of the French in 1804, Francis, seeing the writing on the wall for the old Empire, took the new title of Emperor of Austria as Francis I, in addition to his title of Holy Roman Emperor. Soon, Napoleon's continuing machinations in Italy, including the annexation of Genoa and Parma, led once again to war in 1805 - the War of the Third Coalition, in which Austria, Britain, Russia, and Sweden took on Napoleon. The Austrian forces began the war by invading Bavaria, a key French ally in Germany, but were soon outmaneuvered and forced to surrender by Napoleon at Ulm, before the main Austro-Russian force was defeated at Austerlitz on December 2. By the Treaty of Pressburg, Austria was forced to give up large amounts of territory - Dalmatia to France, Venetia to Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy, the Tyrol to Bavaria, and Austria's various Swabian territories to Baden and Württemberg, although Salzburg, formerly held by Francis's younger brother, the previous Grand Duke of Tuscany, was annexed by Austria as compensation.
The defeat meant the end of the old Holy Roman Empire. Napoleon's satellite states in southern and western Germany seceded from the Empire in the summer of 1806, forming the Confederation of the Rhine, and a few days later Francis proclaimed the Empire dissolved, and renounced the old imperial crown.
Over the next three years Austria, now led by Philipp Stadion, attempted to maintain peace with France, but the overthrow of the Spanish Bourbons in 1808 was deeply disturbing to the Habsburgs, who rather desperately went to war once again in 1809, this time with no continental allies. Stadion's attempts to generate popular uprisings in Germany were unsuccessful, and the Russians honored their alliance with France, so Austria was once again defeated, although at greater cost than Napoleon, who suffered his first battlefield defeat in this war, at Aspern-Essling, had expected. The terms of the Treaty of Schönbrunn were quite harsh. Austria lost Salzburg to Bavaria, some of its Polish lands to Russia, and its remaining territory on the Adriatic (including much of Carinthia and Styria) to Napoleon's Illyrian Provinces.
Klemens von Metternich, the new Austrian foreign minister, aimed to pursue a pro-French policy. The Emperor's daughter, Marie Louise, was married to Napoleon, and Austria contributed an army to Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. With Napoleon's disastrous defeat in Russia at the end of the year, and Prussia's defection to the Russian side at the beginning of 1813, Metternich began slowly to shift his policy. Initially he aimed to mediate a peace between France and its continental enemies, but when it became apparent that Napoleon was not interested in compromise, Austria joined the allies and declared war on France in August 1813. The Austrian intervention was decisive. Napoleon was defeated at Leipzig in October, and forced to withdraw into France itself. As 1814 began, the Allied forces invaded France. Initially, Metternich remained unsure as to whether he wanted Napoleon to remain on the throne, a Marie Louise regency for Napoleon's young son, or a Bourbon restoration, but he was eventually brought around by British Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh to the last position. Napoleon abdicated on April 3, 1814, and Louis XVIII was restored, soon negotiating a peace treaty with the victorious allies at Paris in June.
The Nineteenth Century (1815-1918)
For more details, see Austrian Empire, Austria-Hungary and Congress of Vienna.
Under the control of Metternich, the Austrian Empire entered a period of censorship and a police state in the period between 1815 and 1848 (Biedermaier or Vormärz period). However, both liberalism and nationalism were on the rise, which resulted in the Revolutions of 1848. Metternich and the mentally handicapped Emperor Ferdinand I were forced to resign to be replaced by his young nephew Franz Joseph. Separatist tendencies (especially in Lombardy and Hungary) were suppressed by military force. A constitution was enacted in March 1848, but it had little practical impact. However, one of the concessions to revolutionaries with a lasting impact was freeing of peasants in Austria. This facilitated industrialization, as many flocked to the newly industrializing cities of the Austrian domain. (Industrial centers were Bohemia, Lower Austria with Vienna, and Upper Styria). Social upheaval led to increased strife in ethnically mixed cities, leading to mass nationalist movements.
In 1859, the defeats at Solférino and Magenta against the combined forces of France and Sardinia led to the loss of Lombardy and Tuscany to the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was striving to create a unified national Italian state.
Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war in Russia, 1915
The defeat at Königgrätz in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 resulted in Austria's exclusion from Germany; the German Confederation was dissolved. The monarchy's weak external position forced Franz Joseph to concede also internal reforms. To appease Hungarian nationalism, Franz Joseph made a deal with Hungarian nobles, which led to the creation of Austria-Hungary in the compromise, or Ausgleich, in 1867. The western half of the realm (Cisleithania) and Hungary (Transleithania) now became two realms with different interior policy, but with a common ruler and a common foreign and military policy.
The Austrian half of the dual monarchy began to move towards constitutionalism. A constitutional system with a parliament, the Reichsrat was created, and a bill of rights was enacted also in 1867. Suffrage to the Reichstag's lower house was gradually expanded until 1907, when equal suffrage for all male citizens was introduced. However, the effectiveness of parliamentarism was hampered by conflicts between parties representing different ethnic groups, and meetings of the parliament were ceased altogether during World War I.
The decades until 1914 generally saw a lot of construction, expansion of cities and railway lines, and development of industry. During this period, now known as Gründerzeit, Austria became an industrialized country, even though the Alpine regions remained characterized by agriculture.
In 1878, Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia-Hercegovina, which had been cut off from the rest of the Ottoman Empire by the creation of new states in the Balkans. The territory was annexed in 1907 and put under joint rule by the governments of both Austria and Hungary.
Nationalist strife increased during the decades until 1914. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was the presumed heir of Franz Joseph as Emperor, in Sarajevo by a Serb nationalist group triggered World War I. The defeat of the Central Powers in 1918 resulted in the disintegration of Austria-Hungary. Emperor Karl of Austria, who had ruled since 1916, went into exile.
German Austria and the First Republic (1918–1934)
See also: First Austrian Republic, German Austria
Following the defeat of Austria-Hungary in World War I, in the Aftermath of World War I the Empire was broken up based loosely on national grounds. Austria, with its modern borders, was created out of the main German speaking areas. On November 12, 1918, Austria became a republic called German Austria. The newly formed Austrian parliament asked for union with Germany. Article 2 of its provisional constitution stated: Deutschösterreich ist ein Bestandteil der Deutschen Republik (German Austria is part of the German Republic). Plebiscites in the countries of Tyrol and Salzburg 1919-21 yielded majorities of 98 and 99% in favour of a unification with Germany. It was feared that small Austria was not economically viable. In the end France and Italy prevented the merger, and demanded the construction of an independent Austria that had to remain autonomous for at least 20 years. The Treaty of Saint Germain included a provision that prohibited political or economic union with Germany and forced the country to change its name from the "Republic of German Austria" to the "Republic of Austria," i.e. the First Republic. The German-speaking bordering areas of Bohemia and Moravia (later called the "Sudetenland") were allocated to the newly founded Czechoslovakia. Many Austrians and Germans regarded this as hypocrisy since U.S. president Woodrow Wilson had proclaimed in his famous "Fourteen Points" the "right of self-determination" for all nations. In the democratic German Weimar constitution the aim of unification was codified in article 61: „Deutschösterreich erhält nach seinem Anschluß an das Deutsche Reich das Recht der Teilnahme am Reichsrat mit der seiner Bevölkerung entsprechenden Stimmenzahl. Bis dahin haben die Vertreter Deutschösterreichs beratende Stimme.“ (German Austria has the right to participate in the Reichsrat (Germany) (the constitutional representation of the federal German states) with a consulting role according to its number of inhabitants until the unification with Germany.").
Although Austria-Hungary had been one of the Central Powers, the allied victors were much more lenient with a defeated Austria than either Germany or Hungary. Representatives of the new Republic of Austria convinced them that it was unfair to penalize Austria for the actions of a now dissolved Empire, especially as other areas of the Empire were now perceived to be on the "victorious" side, simply because they had renounced the Empire at the end of the war. Austria never did have to pay reparations because allied commissions determined that the country could not afford to pay. It was also the only defeated country to acquire new territory as part of border adjustments -- a small land tract to the east that belonged to Hungary.
High inflation led to a change of currency from the old Krone to the new Schilling in 1925
On October 20, 1920, a plebiscite in the Austrian state of Carinthia was held in which the population chose to remain a part of Austria, rejecting the territorial claims of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes to the state. The German-speaking parts of western Hungary, now christened Burgenland, joined Austria as a new state in 1921, with the exception of the city of Sopron, whose population decided in a referendum (which is sometimes considered by Austrians to have been rigged) to remain with Hungary. However, the Treaty of Saint Germain also meant that Austria lost significant German-speaking territories, most of all South Tyrol to Italy and the German-speaking areas within Bohemia and Moravia to Czechoslovakia.
Between 1918 and 1920, there was a coalition government including both left and right-wing parties, which enacted progressive socioeconomic and labour legislation. In 1920, the modern Constitution of Austria was enacted. The interwar years were socio-economically difficult for Austria, partly because the newly created borders tore apart what had been a common economic area.
Austrian politics were characterized by intense and sometimes violent conflict between left and right from 1920 onwards. The Social Democratic Party of Austria, which pursued a fairly left-wing course known as Austromarxism at that time, could count on a secure majority in "Red Vienna", while right-wing parties controlled all other states. Since 1920, Austria was ruled by the Christian Socialist Party, which had close ties to the Roman Catholic Church. It was headed by a Catholic priest named Ignaz Seipel (1876-1932), who served twice as Chancellor (1922-1924 and 1926-1929). While in power, Seipel was working for an alliance between wealthy industrialists and the Roman Catholic Church.
Both left-wing and right-wing paramilitary forces were created during the 20s, namely the Heimwehr in 1921-1923 and the Republican Schutzbund in 1923. A clash between those groups in Schattendorf, Burgenland, on January 30, 1927 led to the death of a man and a child. Right-wing veterans were indicted at a court in Vienna, but acquitted in a jury trial. This led to massive protests and fire at the Justizpalast in Vienna. In the July Revolt of 1927, 89 protesters were killed by the Austrian police forces. Political conflict escalated until the early 1930s. Engelbert Dollfuß of the Christian Social Party became Chancellor in 1932.
Austrofascism (1934–1938)
Main articles: Austrian Civil War, Austrofascism
Under the Christian Social Party, the Austrian government was moving towards centralization of power in the Fascist model.
In March 1933 the Dollfuss cabinet took advantage of a formal error during a vote on a bill in parliament. As the vote was very narrow, all of the three presidents of the National Council stepped down because they were not allowed to vote themselves while in office. This was an unforeseen event but it could have been resolved according to the rules of procedure. However, the cabinet declared that the parliament had ceased to function and forcibly prevented the National Council from reassembling. The executive then took over legislative power by using an emergency provision which had been enacted during World War I. Even after this putsch, the socialist party hesitated and tried to resolve the crisis in a peaceful way.
On February 12, 1934 the new Austrofascist regime provoked the Austrian civil war by ordering search warrants for the headquarters of the socialist party. At that time the socialist party structures were already weakened and the uprising of its supporters was quickly defeated. Subsequently the socialist party and all its ancillary organisations were banned.
On May 1, 1934, the Dollfuss cabinet approved a new constitution that abolished freedom of the press, established one party system (known as "The Patriotic Front") and created a total state monopoly on employer-employee relations. This system remained in force until Austria became part of the Third Reich in 1938. The Patriotic Front government frustrated the ambitions of pro-Hitlerite sympathizers in Austria who wished both political influence and unification with Germany, leading to the assassination of Dollfuss on July 25, 1934. His successor Schuschnigg maintained the ban on pro-Hitlerite activities in Austria, but was forced to resign on March 11, 1938 following a demand by Hitler for power-sharing with pro-German circles. Following Schuschnigg's resignation, German troops occupied Austria with no resistance.
Part of Nazi Germany (1938–1945)
Main articles: Anschluss and Nazi Germany
On March 12th, 1938 German troops march into Austria
Although the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of St. Germain had explicitly forbidden the unification of Austria and Germany, Nazi Germany was striving to annex Austria during the late 1930s, which was fiercely resisted by the Austrian Schuschnigg dictatorship. When the conflict was escalating in early 1938, Chancellor Schuschnigg announced a plebiscite on the issue on March 9, which was to take place on March 13. On March 12, German troops entered Austria, who met celebrating crowds, in order to install Nazi puppet Arthur Seyss-Inquart as Chancellor. With a Nazi administration already in place and the country integrated into the Third Reich, a referendum on April 10 approved of the annexation with a majority of 99.73%. This referendum is, however, believed by many observers and historians to have been rigged.
As a result, Austria ceased to exist as an independent country during World War II. Technically, this annexation was forced by military invasion, but large parts of the Austrian population were in favour of the Nazi regime. Many Austrians participated in its crimes. The large Jewish population (about 200,000 Jews were living in Vienna at that time), which had had considerable significance for science and culture at that time, was killed or forced into exile, as were many socialist and Catholic Austrian politicians. There were some Austrian resistance groups, but none of them were very successful.
At the end of the war, Austria was overrun by Allied forces. On March 28, 1945, American troops set foot on Austrian soil; the Red Army crossed the eastern border two days later, capturing Vienna by April 13. American and British forces occupied the western and southern regions, preventing Soviet forces from completely controlling the country. The Allied occupation put an end to Nazi rule.
The Second Republic (since 1945)
Allied occupation
Occupation zones in Austria
Under the Allied Commission established by an agreement on July 4, 1945, the country was occupied by the Allies from May 9, 1945 until July 27, 1955. Like Germany, Austria was divided in four zones, each of which was controlled by one of the four allied powers, with Vienna being also divided into four zones. Austria participated in the Western European "economic miracle", with the benefit of the Marshall Plan.
In April 1945, the Soviet government allowed the establishment of government including socialists, conservatives and communists, but led by the socialist elder statesman Karl Renner. This government was recognized by the western allies later that year. Even though under occupation, the Austrian government was officially permitted to conduct foreign relations with the approval of the four occupying governments under the agreement of June 28, 1946. As part of this trend, Austria was one of the founding members of the Danube Commission formed on August 18, 1948.
Contrary to the First Republic, which had been characterized by sometimes violent conflict between the different political groups, the Second Republic became a stable democracy. The two largest leading parties, the Christian-conservative Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) remained in a coalition led by the ÖVP until 1966. The communists (KPÖ), who had hardly any support in the Austrian electorate, remained in the coalition until 1950 and in parliament until 1959. For much of the Second Republic, the only opposition party was the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), which included pan-German and liberal political currents. It was founded in 1955 as a successor organisation to the short-lived Federation of Independents (VdU).
Independence and political development during the Second Republic
Austrian State Treaty is shown to the public in 1955
The two major parties strove towards ending allied occupation and restoring a fully independent Austria. The Austrian State Treaty was signed on May 15, 1955. Upon the termination of allied occupation, Austria was proclaimed a neutral country, and "everlasting" neutrality was incorporated into the Constitution on October 26, 1955.
The political system of the Second Republic came to be characterized by the system of Proporz, meaning that posts of some political importance were split evenly between members of the SPÖ and ÖVP. Interest group representations with mandatory membership (e.g. for workers, businesspeople, farmers etc.) grew to considerable importance and were usually consulted in the legislative process, so that hardly any legislation was passed that did not reflect widespread consensus. The Proporz and consensus systems largely held even during the years between 1966 and 1983, when there were non-coalition governments.
The ÖVP-SPÖ coalition ended in 1966, when the ÖVP gained a majority in parliament. However, it lost it in 1970, when SPÖ leader Bruno Kreisky formed a minority government tolerated by the FPÖ. In the elections of 1971, 1975 and 1979 he obtained an absolute majority. The 70s were then seen as a time of liberal reforms in social policy. Today, the economic policies of the Kreisky era are often criticized, as the accumulation of a large national debt began, and non-profitable nationalized industries were strongly subsidized.
Following severe losses in the 1983 elections, the SPÖ entered into a coalition with the FPÖ under the leadership of Fred Sinowatz. In Spring 1986, Kurt Waldheim was elected president amid considerable national and international protest because of his possible involvement with the Nazis and war crimes during World War II. Fred Sinowatz resigned, and Franz Vranitzky became chancellor.
In September 1986, in a confrontation between the German-national and liberal wings, Jörg Haider became leader of the FPÖ. Chancellor Vranitzky rescinded the coalition pact between FPÖ and SPÖ, and after new elections, entered into a coalition with the ÖVP, which was then lead by Alois Mock. Jörg Haider's populism and criticism of the Proporz system allowed him to gradually expand his party's support in elections, rising from 4% in 1983 to 27% in 1999. The Green Party managed to establish itself in parliament from 1986 onwards.
Recent years
The SPÖ-ÖVP coalition persisted until 1999. Austria joined the European Union in 1995 (Video of the signing in 1994), and Austria was set on the track towards joining the Eurozone, when it was established in 1999.
In 1993, the Liberal Forum was founded by dissidents from the FPÖ. It managed to remain in parliament until 1999. Viktor Klima succeeded Vranitzky as chancellor in 1997.
In 1999, the ÖVP fell back to third place behind the FPÖ in the elections. Even though ÖVP chairman and Vice Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel had announced that his party would go into opposition in that case, he entered into a coalition with the FPÖ – with himself as chancellor – in early 2000 under considerable national and international protest. Jörg Haider resigned as FPÖ chairman, but retained his post as governor of Carinthia and kept pulling the strings in his party behind the scenes.
In 2002, disputes within the FPÖ resulting from losses in state elections caused the resignation of several FPÖ government members and a collapse of the government. Wolfgang Schüssel's ÖVP emerged as the winner of the subsequent election, ending up in first place for the first time since 1966. The FPÖ lost more than half of its voters, but reentered the coalition with Schüssel. Since then, the FPÖ has been losing dramatically in almost all local and state elections. Disputes between "traditional" nationalist and more pragmatic members of the party resulted in a split-off of a new party including the latter group, which is called Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) and again led by Jörg Haider. Since all FPÖ government members and most FPÖ members of parliament decided to join the new party, the Schüssel coalition remained in office (now in the constellation ÖVP/BZÖ, with the remaining FPÖ in opposition) until the elections of 1st October 2006. The SPÖ won the elections and negotiations and formed a grand coalition with the ÖVP, which is in office since January 11, 2007 and Alfred Gusenbauer became the new Chancellor of Austria. For the first time in nationwide elections, the Green Party of Austria came in at 3rd place, however with only a few hundred votes more than the FPÖ.
History of Bulgaria
history of Bulgaria as a separate country began in the 7th century with the arrival of the Bulgars and the foundation of the First Bulgarian Empire together with the local seven Slavic tribes, a union recognized by Byzantium in 681. A country in the middle of the ethnically, culturally and linguistically diverse Balkan Peninsula, Bulgaria has seen many twists and turns in its long history and has been a prospering empire stretching to a coastline on the Black, Aegean and Adriatic Seas and a cultural centre of Slavic Europe, but also a land long dominated by a foreign state, once by the Byzantine Empire and once by the Ottoman Empire.
Bulgars
Main article: Bulgars
The Bulgars arrived in the Balkans in the 7th century from central Asia, a Central Asian Iranian or Turkic people, merged with the local Slavic inhabitants in the late 7th century to form the first Bulgarian state.
The Bulgars were governed by hereditary khans. There were several aristocratic families whose members, bearing military titles, formed a governing class. Bulgars were monotheistic, worshipping their supreme deity Tangra.
The migration of Bulgars to the European continent started as early as the 2nd century when branches of Bulgars settled on the plains between the Caspian and the Black Sea. Between 351 and 389, some of these crossed the Caucasus and settled in Armenia. They were eventually assimilated by the Armenians.
Swept by the Hunnish wave at the beginning of the 4th century, other numerous Bulgarian tribes broke loose from their settlements in central Asia to migrate to the fertile lands along the lower valleys of the Donets and the Don rivers and the Azov seashore. Some of these remained for centuries in their new settlements, whereas others moved on with the Huns towards Central Europe, settling in Pannonia.
Old Great Bulgaria
Main article: Old Great Bulgaria
In the 632, the Bulgars, led by Khan Kubrat formed an independent state, often called Great Bulgaria (also known as Onoguria), between the lower course of the Danube river to the west, the Black Sea and the Azov Sea to the south, the Kuban river to the east, and the Donets river to the north. The capital was Phanagoria, on the Azov.
Pressure from peoples further east (such as the Khazars) led to diminiton of Great Bulgaria in the later 7th century. One Bulgar tribe migrated to the confluence of the Volga River and Kama River and formed a new state called Volga Bulgaria.
Another Bulgar tribe, led by Khan Asparuh, the successor to Khan Kubrat, moved west, occupying today’s southern Bessarabia. After a successful war with Byzantium in 680, Asparuh’s khanate conquered Moesia and Dobrudzha and was recognised as an independent state under the subsequent treaty signed with the Byzantine Empire in 681. That year is usually regarded as the year of the establishment of present-day Bulgaria.
But another theory suggests that the date may be considered 632, since the state of Great Bulgaria may have been continuous withing the Dunabian Bulgarian state. The theory is that although Great Bulgaria lost much territory to the Khazars, it managed to defeat them in the early 670s, and Khan Asparuh conquered Moesia and Dobrudzha from Byzantium in 680.
First Bulgarian Empire
Main article: First Bulgarian Empire
The First Bulgarian Empire's greatest territorial extent during the reign of Tsar Simeon
During the late Roman Empire, the land of present-day Bulgaria was organised in several Roman provinces: Scythia (Scythia Minor), Moesia (Upper and Lower), Thrace, Macedonia (First and Second), Dacia (Coastal and Inner, both south of Danube), Dardania, Rhodope and Hemimont, and had a mixed population of Greeks, Thracians and Dacians, most of whom spoke either Greek or a Latin-derived language known as Romance. Several consecutive waves of Slavic migration throughout the 6th and the early 7th century led to a dramatic change of the demographics of the region and its almost complete "Slavonisation".
Under the warrior Khan Krum (802-814), Bulgaria expanded northwest and south, occupying the lands between the middle Danube and Moldova rivers, all of present-day Romania, Sofia in 809 and Adrianople in 813, and threatening Constantinople itself. Krum implemented law reform intending to reduce poverty and strengthen social ties in his vastly enlarged state.
During the reign of Khan Omurtag (814-831), the northwestern boundaries with the Frankish Empire were firmly settled along the middle Danube. A magnificent palace, pagan temples, ruler's residence, fortress, citadel, water-main and bath were built in the Bulgarian capital Pliska, mainly of stone and brick.
Under Boris I, Bulgarians became Christians, and the Ecumenical Patriarch agreed to allow an autonomous Bulgarian Archbishop at Pliska. Missionaries from Constantinople, Cyril and Methodius, devised the Glagolitic alphabet, which was adopted in the Bulgarian Empire around 886. The alphabet and the Old Bulgarian language gave rise to a rich literary and cultural activity centered around the Preslav and Ohrid Literary Schools, established by order of Boris I in 886.
Ceramic icon of St Theodore from around 900, found in Preslav
In the early 10th century, a new alphabet — the Cyrillic alphabet — was developed at the Preslav Literary School, based on the Greek and the Glagolitic cursive. An alternative theory is that the alphabet was devised at the Ohrid Literary School by Saint Climent of Ohrid, a Bulgarian scholar and disciple of Cyril and Methodius.
By the late 9th and early 10th centuries, Bulgaria extended to Epirus and Thessaly in the south, Bosnia in the west and controlled all of present-day Romania and eastern Hungary to the north. A Serbian state came into existence as a dependency of the Bulgarian Empire. Under Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria (Simeon the Great), who was educated in Constantinople, Bulgaria became again a serious threat to the Byzantine Empire. Simeon hoped to take Constantinople and become emperor of both Bulgarians and Greeks, and fought a series of wars with the Byzantines through his long reign (893-927). The war boundary towards the end of his rule reached Peloponnese in the south. Simeon proclaimed himself "Tsar (Caesar) of the Bulgarians and the Greeks," a title which was recognised by the Pope, but not of course by the Byzantine Emperor.
Under Byzantine rule
Main article: Byzantine Empire
Byzantium ruled Bulgaria from 1018 to 1185, subordinating the independent Bulgarian Orthodox Church to the authority of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople but otherwise interfering little in Bulgarian local affairs.
After the death of the soldier-emperor Basil II, the empire entered into a period of instability. There were rebellions against Byzantine rule in 1040-41 at the wars with the Normans and the 1070s and the 1080s, at the time of the wars with the Seljuk Turks. After that the Komnenas dynasty came into succession and reversed the decline of the empire. During this time the empire experienced a century of stability and progress, though it was the time of the Crusades.
In 1080 the last of the capable Komnenas - Manuel I Komnenas died, and was replaced by the relatively incompetent Angeloi dynasty, allowing Bulgarians to regain their freedom.
Second Bulgarian Empire
Main article: Second Bulgarian Empire
In 1185 Peter and Asen, leading nobles of supposed and contested Bulgarian, Cuman, Vlach or mixed origin, led a revolt against Byzantine rule and Peter declared himself Tsar Peter II (also known as Theodore Peter). The following year the Byzantines were forced to recognise Bulgaria's independence. Peter styled himself "Tsar of the Bulgars, Greeks and Vlachs".
Resurrected Bulgaria occupied the territory between the Black Sea, the Danube and Stara Planina, including a part of eastern Macedonia and the valley of the Morava. It also exercised control over Wallachia and Moldova. Tsar Kaloyan (1197-1207) entered a union with the Papacy, thereby securing the recognition of his title of "Rex" although he desired to be recognized as "Emperor" or "Tsar". He waged wars on the Byzantine Empire and (after 1204) on the Knights of the Fourth Crusade, conquering large parts of Thrace, the Rhodopes, as well as the whole of Macedonia. The power of the Hungarians and to some extent the Serbs prevented significant expansion to the west and northwest. Under Ivan Asen II (1218-1241), Bulgaria once again became a regional power, occupying Belgrade and Albania. In an inscription from Turnovo in 1230 he entitled himself "In Christ the Lord faithful Tsar and autocrat of the Bulgarians, son of the old Asen". The Bulgarian Orthodox Patriarchate was restored in 1235 with approval of all eastern Patriarchates, thus putting an end to the union with the Papacy. Ivan Asen II had a reputation as a wise and humane ruler, and opened relations with the Catholic west, especially Venice and Genoa, to reduce the influence of the Byzantines over his country.
However, weakened 14th-century Bulgaria was no match for a new threat from the south, the Ottoman Turks, who crossed into Europe in 1354. In 1362 they captured Philippopolis (Plovdiv), and in 1382 they took Sofia. The Ottomans then turned their attentions to the Serbs, whom they routed at Kosovo Polje in 1389. In 1393 the Ottomans occupied Turnovo after a three-month siege. It is thought that the south gate was opened from inside and so the Ottomans managed to enter the fortress. In 1396 the Kingdom (Tsardom) of Vidin was also occupied, bringing the Second Bulgarian Empire and Bulgarian independence to an end.
Ottoman Bulgaria
Main article: History of Ottoman Bulgaria
The Ottomans reorganised the Bulgarian territories as the Beyerlik of Rumili, ruled by a Beylerbey at Sofia. This territory, which included Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia, was divided into several sanjaks, each ruled by a Sanjakbey accountable to the Beylerbey. Significant part of the conquered land was parcelled out to the Sultan's followers, who held it as feudal fiefs (small timars, medium ziyamet and large hases) directly from him. That category of land could not be sold or inherited, but reverted to the Sultan when the fiefholder died. The rest of the lands were organized as private possessions of the Sultan or Ottoman nobility, called "mülk", and also as economic base for religious foundations, called "vakιf". Bulgarians gave multiple regularly paid taxes as a tithe ("yushur"), a capitation tax ("dzhizie"), a land tax ("ispench"), a levy on commerce and so on and also various group of irregularly collected taxes, products and corvees ("avariz").
The Ottomans did not normally require the Christians to become Muslims. Nevertheless, there were many cases of individual or mass forced islamization, especially in the Rhodopes. Non-Muslims did not serve in the Sultan's army. The exception to this were some groups of the population with specific statute, usually used for auxiliary or rear services, and the famous "tribute of children" (or blood tax), also known as the "devsirme", whereby every fifth young boy was taken to be trained as a warrior of the Empire. These boys went through harsh religious and military training that turned them into an elite corps subservient to the Sultan. They made up the corps of Janissaries (yenicheri or "new force"), an elite unit of the Ottoman army.
Vasil Levski (1837-1873), one of the key figures of the Bulgarian liberational movement of the 19th century and the national hero of Bulgaria
National awakening
Main article: National awakening of Bulgaria
Bulgarian nationalism emerged in the early 19th century under the influence of western ideas such as liberalism and nationalism, which trickled into the country after the French Revolution, mostly via Greece. The Greek revolt against the Ottomans which began in 1821 (see History of Ottoman Greece), also influenced the small Bulgarian educated class. But Greek influence was limited by the general Bulgarian resentment of Greek control of the Bulgarian Church, and it was the struggle to revive an independent Bulgarian Church which first roused Bulgarian nationalist sentiment. In 1870 a Bulgarian Exarchate was created by a Sultan edict, and the first Bulgarian Exarch (Antim I) became the natural leader of the emerging nation. The Constantinople Patriarch reacted by excommunicating the Bulgarian Exarchate, which reinforced their will for independence.
In April 1876 the Bulgarians revolted in the so-called April Uprising. The revolt was poorly organized and started before the planned date. It was largely confined to the region of Plovdiv, though certain districts in northern Bulgaria, in Macedonia and in the area of Sliven also took part in it. The uprising was crushed with cruelty by the Ottomans who also brought irregular Ottoman troops (bashi-bazouks) from outside the area. Countless villages were pillaged and tens of thousands of people were massacred, the majority of them in the insurgents towns of Batak, Perushtitsa and Bratsigovo in the area of Plovdiv. The massacres aroused a broad public reaction led by liberal Europeans such as William Gladstone, who launched a campaign against the "Bulgarian Horrors". The campaign was supported by a number of European intellectuals and public figures. The strongest reaction, however, came from Russia. The enormous public outcry which the April Uprising had caused in Europe gave the Russians a long-waited chance to realise their long-term objectives with regard to the Ottoman Empire.
Having its reputation at stake, Russia had no other choice but to declare war on the Ottomans in April 1877. The Romanian army and a small contingent of Bulgarian exiles also fought alongside the advancing Russians. The Coalition was able to inflict a decisive defeat on the Ottomans at the Battle of Shipka Pass and at the Pleven, and, by January 1878 they had liberated much of the Bulgarian lands.
Kingdom of Bulgaria
Main article: History of Independent Bulgaria
Borders of Bulgaria according to the Preliminary Treaty of San Stefano and the subsequent Treaty of Berlin
The Treaty of San Stefano of March 3, 1878 provided for an independent Bulgarian state, which spanned over the geographical regions of Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia. However, trying to preserve the balance of power in Europe and fearing the establishment of a large Russian client state on the Balkans, the other Great Powers were reluctant to agree to the treaty.
As a result, the Treaty of Berlin (1878), under the supervision of Otto von Bismarck of Germany and Benjamin Disraeli of Britain, revised the earlier treaty, and scaled back the proposed Bulgarian state. An autonomous Principality of Bulgaria was created, between the Danube and the Stara Planina range, with its seat at the old Bulgarian capital of Veliko Turnovo, and including Sofia. This state was to be under nominal Ottoman sovereignty but was to be ruled by a prince elected by a congress of Bulgarian notables and approved by the Powers. They insisted that the Prince could not be a Russian, but in a compromise Prince Alexander of Battenberg, a nephew of Tsar Alexander II, was chosen. An autonomous Ottoman province under the name of Eastern Rumelia was created south of the Stara Planina range. The Bulgarians in Macedonia and Eastern Thrace were left under the rule of the Sultan. Some Bulgarian territories were also given to Serbia and Romania.
Balkan Wars
Main article: Balkan Wars
Balkan Wars boundaries
In 1911 the Nationalist Prime Minister, Ivan Geshov, formed an alliance with Greece and Serbia to jointly attack the Ottomans. In February 1912 a secret treaty was signed between Bulgaria and Serbia, and in May 1912 a similar treaty with Greece. Montenegro was also brought into the pact. The treaties provided for the partition of Macedonia and Thrace between the allies, although the lines of partition were left dangerously vague. After the Ottomans refused to implement reforms in the disputed areas, the First Balkan War broke out in October 1912. The allies defeated the Ottomans. (See Balkan Wars.)
Bulgaria sustained the heaviest casualties of any of the allies, and so felt entitled to the largest share of the spoils. The Serbs in particular did not agree, and refused to vacate any of the territory they had seized in northern Macedonia (that is, the territory roughly corresponding to the modern Republic of Macedonia), saying that the Bulgarian army had failed to accomplish its pre-war goals at Adrianople (to capture it without Serbian help) and that the pre-war agreement on the division of Macedonia had to be revised. Some circles in Bulgaria inclined toward going to war with Serbia and Greece on this issue.
In June 1913 Serbia and Greece formed a new alliance against Bulgaria. The Serbian Prime Minister, Nikola Pasic, told Greece it could have Thrace if Greece helped Serbia keep Bulgaria out of Serbian part of Macedonia, and the Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos agreed. Seeing this as a violation of the pre-war agreements, and discretely encouraged by Germany and Austria-Hungary, Tsar Ferdinand declared war on Serbia and Greece and the Bulgarian army attacked on June 29. The Serbian and the Greek forces were initially on the retreat on the western border, but soon took the upper hand and forced Bulgaria to retreat. The fighting was very harsh, with many casualties, especially during the key Battle of Bregalnitsa. Soon Romania entered the war and attacked Bulgaria from the north. The Ottoman Empire also attacked from the south-east.
The war was now definitely lost for Bulgaria, which had to abandon most of its claims of Macedonia to Serbia and Greece, while the revived Ottomans retook Adrianople. Romania took southern Dobruja.
World War I
Main article: Bulgaria during World War I
In the aftermath of the Balkan Wars, Bulgarian opinion turned against Russia and the western powers, whom the Bulgarians felt had done nothing to help them. The government of Vasil Radoslavov aligned Bulgaria with the German Empire and Austria-Hungary, even though this meant becoming an ally of the Ottomans, Bulgaria's traditional enemy. But Bulgaria now had no claims against the Ottomans, whereas Serbia, Greece and Romania (allies of Britain and France) held lands perceived in Bulgaria as Bulgarian.
Bulgaria sat out the first year of World War I, recuperating from the Balkan Wars. But when Germany promised to restore the boundaries of the Treaty of San Stefano, Bulgaria, which had the largest army in the Balkans, declared war on Serbia in October 1915. Britain, France and Italy then declared war on Bulgaria.
Main article: Serbian Campaign (WWI)
In alliance with Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans, Bulgaria won military victories against Serbia and Romania, occupying much of Macedonia (taking Skopje in October), advancing into Greek Macedonia, and taking Dobruja from Romania in September 1916.
But the war soon became unpopular with most Bulgarians, who suffered great economic hardship and also disliked fighting their fellow Orthodox Christians in alliance with the Muslim Ottomans. The Agrarian Party leader, Aleksandur Stamboliyski, was imprisoned for his opposition to the war. The Russian Revolution of February 1917 had a great effect in Bulgaria, spreading antiwar and anti-monarchist sentiment among the troops and in the cities. In June Radoslavov's government resigned. Mutinies broke out in the army, Stamboliyski was released and a republic was proclaimed.
World War II
Main article: Bulgaria during World War II
Upon the outbreak of World War II, the government of the Kingdom of Bulgaria under Bogdan Filov declared a position of neutrality, being determined to observe it until the end of the war, but hoping for bloodless territorial gains, especially in the lands with a significant Bulgarian population occupied by neighbouring countries after the Second Balkan War and World War I. But it was clear that the central geopolitical position of Bulgaria in the Balkans would inevitably lead to strong external pressure by both sides of World War II. Turkey had a non-aggression pact with Bulgaria.
Bulgaria succeeded in negotiating a recovery of Southern Dobruja, part of Romania since 1913, in the Axis-sponsored Treaty of Craiova on 7 September 1940, which reinforced Bulgarian hopes for solving territorial problems without direct involvement in the war.
But Bulgaria was forced to join the Axis powers in 1941, when German troops prepared to invade Greece from Romania reached the Bulgarian borders and demanded permission to pass through Bulgarian territory. Threatened by direct military confrontation, Tsar Boris III had no choice but to join the fascist bloc, which officially happened on 1 March 1941. There was little popular opposition, since the Soviet Union was in a non-aggression pact with Germany.
People's Republic of Bulgaria
Main article: History of Communist Bulgaria
During this time (1944-1989), the country was known as the "People's Republic of Bulgaria" (PRB) and was ruled by the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP). The BCP transformed itself in 1990, changing its name to "Bulgarian Socialist Party", and is currently part of the governing coalition government.
Although Dimitrov had been in exile, mostly in the Soviet Union, since 1923, he was far from being a Soviet puppet. He had shown great courage in Nazi Germany during the Reichstag Fire trial of 1933, and had later headed the Comintern during the period of the Popular Front. He was also close to the Yugoslav Communist leader Tito, and believed that Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, as closely related South Slav peoples, should form a federation. This idea was not favoured by Stalin, and there have long been suspicions that Dimitrov's sudden death in July 1949 was not accidental, although this has never been proven. It coincided with Stalin's expulsion of Tito from the Cominform, and was followed by a "Titoist" witchhunt in Bulgaria. This culminated in the show trial and execution of the Deputy Prime Minister, Traicho Kostov. The elderly Kolarov died in 1950, and power then passed to an extreme Stalinist, Vulko Chervenkov.
Bulgaria's Stalinist phase lasted less than five years. Agriculture was collectivised and peasant rebellions crushed. Labor camps were set up and at the height of the repression housed about 100,000 people. The Orthodox Patriarch was confined to a monastery and the Church placed under state control. In 1950 diplomatic relations with the U.S. were broken off. The Turkish minority was persecuted, and border disputes with Greece and Yugoslavia revived. The country lived in a state of fear and isolation. But Chervenkov's support base even in the Communist Party was too narrow for him to survive long once his patron, Stalin, was gone. Stalin died in March 1953, and in March 1954 Chervenkov was deposed as Party Secretary with the approval of the new leadership in Moscow and replaced by Todor Zhivkov. Chervenkov stayed on as Prime Minister until April 1956, when he was finally dismissed and replaced by Anton Yugov.
Republic of Bulgaria
Main article: History of Bulgaria since 1989
By the time the impact of Mikhail Gorbachev's reform program in the Soviet Union was felt in Bulgaria in the late 1980s, the Communists, like their leader, had grown too feeble to resist the demand for change for long. In November 1989 demonstrations on ecological issues were staged in Sofia, and these soon broadened into a general campaign for political reform. The Communists reacted by deposing the decrepit Zhivkov and replacing him with Petar Mladenov, but this gained them only a short respite. In February 1990 the Party voluntarily gave up its claim on power and in June 1990 the first free elections since 1931 were held, won by the moderate wing of the Communist Party, renamed the Bulgarian Socialist Party. In July 1991 a new Constitution was adopted, in which there was a weak elected President and a Prime Minister accountable to the legislature.
Like the other post-Communist regimes in eastern Europe, Bulgaria found the transition to capitalism more painful than expected. The anti-Communist Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) took office and between 1992 and 1994 carried through the privatisation of land and industry through the issue of shares in government enterprises to all citizens, but these were accompanied by massive unemployment as uncompetitive industries failed and the backward state of Bulgaria's industry and infrastructure were revealed. The Socialists portrayed themselves as the defender of the poor against the excesses of the free market. The reaction against economic reform allowed Zhan Videnov of the BSP to take office in 1995. But by 1996 the BSP government was also in difficulties, and in the presidential elections of that year the UDF's Petar Stoyanov was elected. In 1997 the BSP government collapsed and the UDF came to power. Unemployment, however, remained high and the electorate became increasingly dissatisfied with both parties.
A number of prominent personalities in Bulgarian history are commemorated by having their names given to geographical features in Antarctica.
Bulgars
Main article: Bulgars
The Bulgars arrived in the Balkans in the 7th century from central Asia, a Central Asian Iranian or Turkic people, merged with the local Slavic inhabitants in the late 7th century to form the first Bulgarian state.
The Bulgars were governed by hereditary khans. There were several aristocratic families whose members, bearing military titles, formed a governing class. Bulgars were monotheistic, worshipping their supreme deity Tangra.
The migration of Bulgars to the European continent started as early as the 2nd century when branches of Bulgars settled on the plains between the Caspian and the Black Sea. Between 351 and 389, some of these crossed the Caucasus and settled in Armenia. They were eventually assimilated by the Armenians.
Swept by the Hunnish wave at the beginning of the 4th century, other numerous Bulgarian tribes broke loose from their settlements in central Asia to migrate to the fertile lands along the lower valleys of the Donets and the Don rivers and the Azov seashore. Some of these remained for centuries in their new settlements, whereas others moved on with the Huns towards Central Europe, settling in Pannonia.
Old Great Bulgaria
Main article: Old Great Bulgaria
In the 632, the Bulgars, led by Khan Kubrat formed an independent state, often called Great Bulgaria (also known as Onoguria), between the lower course of the Danube river to the west, the Black Sea and the Azov Sea to the south, the Kuban river to the east, and the Donets river to the north. The capital was Phanagoria, on the Azov.
Pressure from peoples further east (such as the Khazars) led to diminiton of Great Bulgaria in the later 7th century. One Bulgar tribe migrated to the confluence of the Volga River and Kama River and formed a new state called Volga Bulgaria.
Another Bulgar tribe, led by Khan Asparuh, the successor to Khan Kubrat, moved west, occupying today’s southern Bessarabia. After a successful war with Byzantium in 680, Asparuh’s khanate conquered Moesia and Dobrudzha and was recognised as an independent state under the subsequent treaty signed with the Byzantine Empire in 681. That year is usually regarded as the year of the establishment of present-day Bulgaria.
But another theory suggests that the date may be considered 632, since the state of Great Bulgaria may have been continuous withing the Dunabian Bulgarian state. The theory is that although Great Bulgaria lost much territory to the Khazars, it managed to defeat them in the early 670s, and Khan Asparuh conquered Moesia and Dobrudzha from Byzantium in 680.
First Bulgarian Empire
Main article: First Bulgarian Empire
The First Bulgarian Empire's greatest territorial extent during the reign of Tsar Simeon
During the late Roman Empire, the land of present-day Bulgaria was organised in several Roman provinces: Scythia (Scythia Minor), Moesia (Upper and Lower), Thrace, Macedonia (First and Second), Dacia (Coastal and Inner, both south of Danube), Dardania, Rhodope and Hemimont, and had a mixed population of Greeks, Thracians and Dacians, most of whom spoke either Greek or a Latin-derived language known as Romance. Several consecutive waves of Slavic migration throughout the 6th and the early 7th century led to a dramatic change of the demographics of the region and its almost complete "Slavonisation".
Under the warrior Khan Krum (802-814), Bulgaria expanded northwest and south, occupying the lands between the middle Danube and Moldova rivers, all of present-day Romania, Sofia in 809 and Adrianople in 813, and threatening Constantinople itself. Krum implemented law reform intending to reduce poverty and strengthen social ties in his vastly enlarged state.
During the reign of Khan Omurtag (814-831), the northwestern boundaries with the Frankish Empire were firmly settled along the middle Danube. A magnificent palace, pagan temples, ruler's residence, fortress, citadel, water-main and bath were built in the Bulgarian capital Pliska, mainly of stone and brick.
Under Boris I, Bulgarians became Christians, and the Ecumenical Patriarch agreed to allow an autonomous Bulgarian Archbishop at Pliska. Missionaries from Constantinople, Cyril and Methodius, devised the Glagolitic alphabet, which was adopted in the Bulgarian Empire around 886. The alphabet and the Old Bulgarian language gave rise to a rich literary and cultural activity centered around the Preslav and Ohrid Literary Schools, established by order of Boris I in 886.
Ceramic icon of St Theodore from around 900, found in Preslav
In the early 10th century, a new alphabet — the Cyrillic alphabet — was developed at the Preslav Literary School, based on the Greek and the Glagolitic cursive. An alternative theory is that the alphabet was devised at the Ohrid Literary School by Saint Climent of Ohrid, a Bulgarian scholar and disciple of Cyril and Methodius.
By the late 9th and early 10th centuries, Bulgaria extended to Epirus and Thessaly in the south, Bosnia in the west and controlled all of present-day Romania and eastern Hungary to the north. A Serbian state came into existence as a dependency of the Bulgarian Empire. Under Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria (Simeon the Great), who was educated in Constantinople, Bulgaria became again a serious threat to the Byzantine Empire. Simeon hoped to take Constantinople and become emperor of both Bulgarians and Greeks, and fought a series of wars with the Byzantines through his long reign (893-927). The war boundary towards the end of his rule reached Peloponnese in the south. Simeon proclaimed himself "Tsar (Caesar) of the Bulgarians and the Greeks," a title which was recognised by the Pope, but not of course by the Byzantine Emperor.
Under Byzantine rule
Main article: Byzantine Empire
Byzantium ruled Bulgaria from 1018 to 1185, subordinating the independent Bulgarian Orthodox Church to the authority of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople but otherwise interfering little in Bulgarian local affairs.
After the death of the soldier-emperor Basil II, the empire entered into a period of instability. There were rebellions against Byzantine rule in 1040-41 at the wars with the Normans and the 1070s and the 1080s, at the time of the wars with the Seljuk Turks. After that the Komnenas dynasty came into succession and reversed the decline of the empire. During this time the empire experienced a century of stability and progress, though it was the time of the Crusades.
In 1080 the last of the capable Komnenas - Manuel I Komnenas died, and was replaced by the relatively incompetent Angeloi dynasty, allowing Bulgarians to regain their freedom.
Second Bulgarian Empire
Main article: Second Bulgarian Empire
In 1185 Peter and Asen, leading nobles of supposed and contested Bulgarian, Cuman, Vlach or mixed origin, led a revolt against Byzantine rule and Peter declared himself Tsar Peter II (also known as Theodore Peter). The following year the Byzantines were forced to recognise Bulgaria's independence. Peter styled himself "Tsar of the Bulgars, Greeks and Vlachs".
Resurrected Bulgaria occupied the territory between the Black Sea, the Danube and Stara Planina, including a part of eastern Macedonia and the valley of the Morava. It also exercised control over Wallachia and Moldova. Tsar Kaloyan (1197-1207) entered a union with the Papacy, thereby securing the recognition of his title of "Rex" although he desired to be recognized as "Emperor" or "Tsar". He waged wars on the Byzantine Empire and (after 1204) on the Knights of the Fourth Crusade, conquering large parts of Thrace, the Rhodopes, as well as the whole of Macedonia. The power of the Hungarians and to some extent the Serbs prevented significant expansion to the west and northwest. Under Ivan Asen II (1218-1241), Bulgaria once again became a regional power, occupying Belgrade and Albania. In an inscription from Turnovo in 1230 he entitled himself "In Christ the Lord faithful Tsar and autocrat of the Bulgarians, son of the old Asen". The Bulgarian Orthodox Patriarchate was restored in 1235 with approval of all eastern Patriarchates, thus putting an end to the union with the Papacy. Ivan Asen II had a reputation as a wise and humane ruler, and opened relations with the Catholic west, especially Venice and Genoa, to reduce the influence of the Byzantines over his country.
However, weakened 14th-century Bulgaria was no match for a new threat from the south, the Ottoman Turks, who crossed into Europe in 1354. In 1362 they captured Philippopolis (Plovdiv), and in 1382 they took Sofia. The Ottomans then turned their attentions to the Serbs, whom they routed at Kosovo Polje in 1389. In 1393 the Ottomans occupied Turnovo after a three-month siege. It is thought that the south gate was opened from inside and so the Ottomans managed to enter the fortress. In 1396 the Kingdom (Tsardom) of Vidin was also occupied, bringing the Second Bulgarian Empire and Bulgarian independence to an end.
Ottoman Bulgaria
Main article: History of Ottoman Bulgaria
The Ottomans reorganised the Bulgarian territories as the Beyerlik of Rumili, ruled by a Beylerbey at Sofia. This territory, which included Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia, was divided into several sanjaks, each ruled by a Sanjakbey accountable to the Beylerbey. Significant part of the conquered land was parcelled out to the Sultan's followers, who held it as feudal fiefs (small timars, medium ziyamet and large hases) directly from him. That category of land could not be sold or inherited, but reverted to the Sultan when the fiefholder died. The rest of the lands were organized as private possessions of the Sultan or Ottoman nobility, called "mülk", and also as economic base for religious foundations, called "vakιf". Bulgarians gave multiple regularly paid taxes as a tithe ("yushur"), a capitation tax ("dzhizie"), a land tax ("ispench"), a levy on commerce and so on and also various group of irregularly collected taxes, products and corvees ("avariz").
The Ottomans did not normally require the Christians to become Muslims. Nevertheless, there were many cases of individual or mass forced islamization, especially in the Rhodopes. Non-Muslims did not serve in the Sultan's army. The exception to this were some groups of the population with specific statute, usually used for auxiliary or rear services, and the famous "tribute of children" (or blood tax), also known as the "devsirme", whereby every fifth young boy was taken to be trained as a warrior of the Empire. These boys went through harsh religious and military training that turned them into an elite corps subservient to the Sultan. They made up the corps of Janissaries (yenicheri or "new force"), an elite unit of the Ottoman army.
Vasil Levski (1837-1873), one of the key figures of the Bulgarian liberational movement of the 19th century and the national hero of Bulgaria
National awakening
Main article: National awakening of Bulgaria
Bulgarian nationalism emerged in the early 19th century under the influence of western ideas such as liberalism and nationalism, which trickled into the country after the French Revolution, mostly via Greece. The Greek revolt against the Ottomans which began in 1821 (see History of Ottoman Greece), also influenced the small Bulgarian educated class. But Greek influence was limited by the general Bulgarian resentment of Greek control of the Bulgarian Church, and it was the struggle to revive an independent Bulgarian Church which first roused Bulgarian nationalist sentiment. In 1870 a Bulgarian Exarchate was created by a Sultan edict, and the first Bulgarian Exarch (Antim I) became the natural leader of the emerging nation. The Constantinople Patriarch reacted by excommunicating the Bulgarian Exarchate, which reinforced their will for independence.
In April 1876 the Bulgarians revolted in the so-called April Uprising. The revolt was poorly organized and started before the planned date. It was largely confined to the region of Plovdiv, though certain districts in northern Bulgaria, in Macedonia and in the area of Sliven also took part in it. The uprising was crushed with cruelty by the Ottomans who also brought irregular Ottoman troops (bashi-bazouks) from outside the area. Countless villages were pillaged and tens of thousands of people were massacred, the majority of them in the insurgents towns of Batak, Perushtitsa and Bratsigovo in the area of Plovdiv. The massacres aroused a broad public reaction led by liberal Europeans such as William Gladstone, who launched a campaign against the "Bulgarian Horrors". The campaign was supported by a number of European intellectuals and public figures. The strongest reaction, however, came from Russia. The enormous public outcry which the April Uprising had caused in Europe gave the Russians a long-waited chance to realise their long-term objectives with regard to the Ottoman Empire.
Having its reputation at stake, Russia had no other choice but to declare war on the Ottomans in April 1877. The Romanian army and a small contingent of Bulgarian exiles also fought alongside the advancing Russians. The Coalition was able to inflict a decisive defeat on the Ottomans at the Battle of Shipka Pass and at the Pleven, and, by January 1878 they had liberated much of the Bulgarian lands.
Kingdom of Bulgaria
Main article: History of Independent Bulgaria
Borders of Bulgaria according to the Preliminary Treaty of San Stefano and the subsequent Treaty of Berlin
The Treaty of San Stefano of March 3, 1878 provided for an independent Bulgarian state, which spanned over the geographical regions of Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia. However, trying to preserve the balance of power in Europe and fearing the establishment of a large Russian client state on the Balkans, the other Great Powers were reluctant to agree to the treaty.
As a result, the Treaty of Berlin (1878), under the supervision of Otto von Bismarck of Germany and Benjamin Disraeli of Britain, revised the earlier treaty, and scaled back the proposed Bulgarian state. An autonomous Principality of Bulgaria was created, between the Danube and the Stara Planina range, with its seat at the old Bulgarian capital of Veliko Turnovo, and including Sofia. This state was to be under nominal Ottoman sovereignty but was to be ruled by a prince elected by a congress of Bulgarian notables and approved by the Powers. They insisted that the Prince could not be a Russian, but in a compromise Prince Alexander of Battenberg, a nephew of Tsar Alexander II, was chosen. An autonomous Ottoman province under the name of Eastern Rumelia was created south of the Stara Planina range. The Bulgarians in Macedonia and Eastern Thrace were left under the rule of the Sultan. Some Bulgarian territories were also given to Serbia and Romania.
Balkan Wars
Main article: Balkan Wars
Balkan Wars boundaries
In 1911 the Nationalist Prime Minister, Ivan Geshov, formed an alliance with Greece and Serbia to jointly attack the Ottomans. In February 1912 a secret treaty was signed between Bulgaria and Serbia, and in May 1912 a similar treaty with Greece. Montenegro was also brought into the pact. The treaties provided for the partition of Macedonia and Thrace between the allies, although the lines of partition were left dangerously vague. After the Ottomans refused to implement reforms in the disputed areas, the First Balkan War broke out in October 1912. The allies defeated the Ottomans. (See Balkan Wars.)
Bulgaria sustained the heaviest casualties of any of the allies, and so felt entitled to the largest share of the spoils. The Serbs in particular did not agree, and refused to vacate any of the territory they had seized in northern Macedonia (that is, the territory roughly corresponding to the modern Republic of Macedonia), saying that the Bulgarian army had failed to accomplish its pre-war goals at Adrianople (to capture it without Serbian help) and that the pre-war agreement on the division of Macedonia had to be revised. Some circles in Bulgaria inclined toward going to war with Serbia and Greece on this issue.
In June 1913 Serbia and Greece formed a new alliance against Bulgaria. The Serbian Prime Minister, Nikola Pasic, told Greece it could have Thrace if Greece helped Serbia keep Bulgaria out of Serbian part of Macedonia, and the Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos agreed. Seeing this as a violation of the pre-war agreements, and discretely encouraged by Germany and Austria-Hungary, Tsar Ferdinand declared war on Serbia and Greece and the Bulgarian army attacked on June 29. The Serbian and the Greek forces were initially on the retreat on the western border, but soon took the upper hand and forced Bulgaria to retreat. The fighting was very harsh, with many casualties, especially during the key Battle of Bregalnitsa. Soon Romania entered the war and attacked Bulgaria from the north. The Ottoman Empire also attacked from the south-east.
The war was now definitely lost for Bulgaria, which had to abandon most of its claims of Macedonia to Serbia and Greece, while the revived Ottomans retook Adrianople. Romania took southern Dobruja.
World War I
Main article: Bulgaria during World War I
In the aftermath of the Balkan Wars, Bulgarian opinion turned against Russia and the western powers, whom the Bulgarians felt had done nothing to help them. The government of Vasil Radoslavov aligned Bulgaria with the German Empire and Austria-Hungary, even though this meant becoming an ally of the Ottomans, Bulgaria's traditional enemy. But Bulgaria now had no claims against the Ottomans, whereas Serbia, Greece and Romania (allies of Britain and France) held lands perceived in Bulgaria as Bulgarian.
Bulgaria sat out the first year of World War I, recuperating from the Balkan Wars. But when Germany promised to restore the boundaries of the Treaty of San Stefano, Bulgaria, which had the largest army in the Balkans, declared war on Serbia in October 1915. Britain, France and Italy then declared war on Bulgaria.
Main article: Serbian Campaign (WWI)
In alliance with Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans, Bulgaria won military victories against Serbia and Romania, occupying much of Macedonia (taking Skopje in October), advancing into Greek Macedonia, and taking Dobruja from Romania in September 1916.
But the war soon became unpopular with most Bulgarians, who suffered great economic hardship and also disliked fighting their fellow Orthodox Christians in alliance with the Muslim Ottomans. The Agrarian Party leader, Aleksandur Stamboliyski, was imprisoned for his opposition to the war. The Russian Revolution of February 1917 had a great effect in Bulgaria, spreading antiwar and anti-monarchist sentiment among the troops and in the cities. In June Radoslavov's government resigned. Mutinies broke out in the army, Stamboliyski was released and a republic was proclaimed.
World War II
Main article: Bulgaria during World War II
Upon the outbreak of World War II, the government of the Kingdom of Bulgaria under Bogdan Filov declared a position of neutrality, being determined to observe it until the end of the war, but hoping for bloodless territorial gains, especially in the lands with a significant Bulgarian population occupied by neighbouring countries after the Second Balkan War and World War I. But it was clear that the central geopolitical position of Bulgaria in the Balkans would inevitably lead to strong external pressure by both sides of World War II. Turkey had a non-aggression pact with Bulgaria.
Bulgaria succeeded in negotiating a recovery of Southern Dobruja, part of Romania since 1913, in the Axis-sponsored Treaty of Craiova on 7 September 1940, which reinforced Bulgarian hopes for solving territorial problems without direct involvement in the war.
But Bulgaria was forced to join the Axis powers in 1941, when German troops prepared to invade Greece from Romania reached the Bulgarian borders and demanded permission to pass through Bulgarian territory. Threatened by direct military confrontation, Tsar Boris III had no choice but to join the fascist bloc, which officially happened on 1 March 1941. There was little popular opposition, since the Soviet Union was in a non-aggression pact with Germany.
People's Republic of Bulgaria
Main article: History of Communist Bulgaria
During this time (1944-1989), the country was known as the "People's Republic of Bulgaria" (PRB) and was ruled by the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP). The BCP transformed itself in 1990, changing its name to "Bulgarian Socialist Party", and is currently part of the governing coalition government.
Although Dimitrov had been in exile, mostly in the Soviet Union, since 1923, he was far from being a Soviet puppet. He had shown great courage in Nazi Germany during the Reichstag Fire trial of 1933, and had later headed the Comintern during the period of the Popular Front. He was also close to the Yugoslav Communist leader Tito, and believed that Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, as closely related South Slav peoples, should form a federation. This idea was not favoured by Stalin, and there have long been suspicions that Dimitrov's sudden death in July 1949 was not accidental, although this has never been proven. It coincided with Stalin's expulsion of Tito from the Cominform, and was followed by a "Titoist" witchhunt in Bulgaria. This culminated in the show trial and execution of the Deputy Prime Minister, Traicho Kostov. The elderly Kolarov died in 1950, and power then passed to an extreme Stalinist, Vulko Chervenkov.
Bulgaria's Stalinist phase lasted less than five years. Agriculture was collectivised and peasant rebellions crushed. Labor camps were set up and at the height of the repression housed about 100,000 people. The Orthodox Patriarch was confined to a monastery and the Church placed under state control. In 1950 diplomatic relations with the U.S. were broken off. The Turkish minority was persecuted, and border disputes with Greece and Yugoslavia revived. The country lived in a state of fear and isolation. But Chervenkov's support base even in the Communist Party was too narrow for him to survive long once his patron, Stalin, was gone. Stalin died in March 1953, and in March 1954 Chervenkov was deposed as Party Secretary with the approval of the new leadership in Moscow and replaced by Todor Zhivkov. Chervenkov stayed on as Prime Minister until April 1956, when he was finally dismissed and replaced by Anton Yugov.
Republic of Bulgaria
Main article: History of Bulgaria since 1989
By the time the impact of Mikhail Gorbachev's reform program in the Soviet Union was felt in Bulgaria in the late 1980s, the Communists, like their leader, had grown too feeble to resist the demand for change for long. In November 1989 demonstrations on ecological issues were staged in Sofia, and these soon broadened into a general campaign for political reform. The Communists reacted by deposing the decrepit Zhivkov and replacing him with Petar Mladenov, but this gained them only a short respite. In February 1990 the Party voluntarily gave up its claim on power and in June 1990 the first free elections since 1931 were held, won by the moderate wing of the Communist Party, renamed the Bulgarian Socialist Party. In July 1991 a new Constitution was adopted, in which there was a weak elected President and a Prime Minister accountable to the legislature.
Like the other post-Communist regimes in eastern Europe, Bulgaria found the transition to capitalism more painful than expected. The anti-Communist Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) took office and between 1992 and 1994 carried through the privatisation of land and industry through the issue of shares in government enterprises to all citizens, but these were accompanied by massive unemployment as uncompetitive industries failed and the backward state of Bulgaria's industry and infrastructure were revealed. The Socialists portrayed themselves as the defender of the poor against the excesses of the free market. The reaction against economic reform allowed Zhan Videnov of the BSP to take office in 1995. But by 1996 the BSP government was also in difficulties, and in the presidential elections of that year the UDF's Petar Stoyanov was elected. In 1997 the BSP government collapsed and the UDF came to power. Unemployment, however, remained high and the electorate became increasingly dissatisfied with both parties.
A number of prominent personalities in Bulgarian history are commemorated by having their names given to geographical features in Antarctica.
History of Kosovo
The present borders of Kosovo were arranged in 1945 after the annexation of communes Preševo and Bujanovac. They were previously ajoined to Kosovo. The Leposavic and Zubin Potok communes were placed within Kosovo's borders in exchange. Before then, the Kosovo territory had various rulers. These had included Italy, Serbia, Montenegro, the Ottoman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, Bulgaria and the Roman Empire. Many historians have even suggested that Kosovo was a single distinctive region since ancient times formerly known as Dardania in Roman historic records. Kosovo's population has been ethnically diverse over the years, with the province's complex ethnic map including Ladins, Turks, Roma, Bosniaks, Gorans, Jews, Janjevs, Serbs, and Albanians.
Kosovo from prehistory to 1455
Little is known about Kosovo before about the 11th century AD. The region was certainly inhabited in prehistoric times, it appears, by two different cultures: Bronze and Iron Age tombs have been found only in Metohia, and not in Kosovo.[1] After the Indo-European invasion, Kosovo became inhabited by Illyrian and Thracian tribes, such as the Dardani and the Triballi. Later, the whole territory of Kosovo became part of the Roman Empire, although it is not clear whether it was part of the province of Moesia or was divided between Dalmatia and Moesia (a view which is supported by some archaeological evidence).[1]
Slavic peoples
According to most historians, Slavic peoples entered the Balkans around the late 6th or early 7th century AD, possibly migrating from the northern Caucasus where Ptolemy placed the "Serboi" in the 2nd century. After 850 Kosovo was part of the Bulgarian Empire until the 13-th century when the territory was taken by the Serbs. The initial spread of the Slavic population of the Balkans was much larger than today, reaching well into Greece and Albania. Placenames derived from Slavic root words are still widespread in the remaining non-Slav Balkan countries and particularly northern Albania - or "Kamenica" - to this day. Even so, names of Albanian origin are also present throughout Dalmatia, Serbia and Greece.
Albanian peoples
The origins of the Albanians are sometimes contested. Some historians claim that they are descended from the Illyrians, ancient inhabitants of the western Balkans in Roman times, although some Romanian historians have suggested that they may alternatively be descended from the ancient Thracians, who inhabited the eastern and central Balkans. Albanian historians, however, claim that in around the 6th century the Illyrians were forced south into what is now Albania by the Slavs.
Ruling states
Classical Balkans
The Kosovo region has been taken, retaken, and ruled by several empires. It lay both on the outer fringes of the Byzantine Empire and directly in the path of Slavic expansion. From about the 850s until about 1014, it was ruled by Bulgaria. Byzantine control was subsequently reasserted by the forceful emperor Basil II. Serbia at this time was not a united empire: a number of small Serbian kingdoms lay to the north and west of Kosovo, of which Raška (central modern Serbia) and Duklja (Montenegro and northern Albania) were the strongest. In the 1180s, the Serbian ruler Stefan Nemanja seized control of Duklja and parts of Kosovo. His successor, Stefan Prvovenčani took control of the rest of Kosovo by 1216, creating a state incorporating most of the area which is now Serbia and Montenegro.
Map: "Kosovo: History of a Balkan Hot Spot", 1998
During the rule of the Nemanjić dynasty, many Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries were built throughout Serbian territory. The Nemanjić rulers alternatively used both Prizren and Priština as their capitals. Large estates were given to the monasteries in Dukagjin (Western Kosovo) (which included parts of Albania and Montenegro). The most prominent churches in Kosovo - the Patriarchate at Pec, the church at Gračanica and the monastery at Visoki Dečani near Dečani - were all adopted during this period. Kosovo was economically important, as the modern Kosovo capital Priština was a major trading centre on routes leading to ports on the Adriatic Sea. As well, mining was an important industry in Novo Brdo and Janjevo which had its communities of émigré Saxon miners and Ragusan merchants.
The ethnic composition of Kosovo's population during this period is a controversial issue among Serbian and Albanian historians. Serbs, Albanians, and Vlachs were all clearly present, as all three groups were named explicitly in Serbian monastic charters or chrysobulls along with a token number of Greeks, Armenians, Saxons, and Bulgarians. A majority of the names given in the charters are overwhelmingly Slavic rather than Albanian. This has been interpreted as evidence of an overwhelming Serbian majority. However, the chrysobulls show Serbian named sons to Albanian-named fathers and vice-versa. Albanian historians have suggested that this is evidence of cultural assimilation of an alleged pre-Ottoman Albanian population in Kosovo yet this is undermined by records of Serbian-named fathers giving sons Albanian names (which would surely not have happened if the assimilation was a one-way process) and the fact that such cases of mixed names represent a small fraction of less than a twentieth of all the names. This Serbian claim seems to be supported by the Turkish cadastral tax-census (defter) of 1455 which took into account religion and language and found an overwhelming Serb majority.
Ethnic identity in the Middle Ages was somewhat fluid throughout Europe and people at that time do not appear to have defined themselves rigidly by ethnic group. Those of Serbian ethnicity appear to have been the dominant population culturally, and were probably a demographic majority as well.
In 1355, the Serbian state fell apart on the death of Tsar Stefan Dušan and dissolved into squabbling fiefdoms. The timing fell perfectly within the Ottoman expansion. The Ottoman Empire took the opportunity to exploit Serbian weakness and invaded.
Battles of Kosovo
First Battle of Kosovo
The First Battle of Kosovo occurred on the field of Kosovo Polje on June 28, 1389, when the puling knez (prince) of Serbia, Lazar Hrebeljanović, marshalled a coalition of Christian soldiers, made up of Serbs, but also of Bosnians, Magyars, Albanians, and a troop of Saxon mercenaries. Sultan Murad I also gathered a coalition of soldiers and volunteers from neighboring countries in Anatolia and Rumelia. Exact numbers are difficult to come by, but most reliable historical accounts suggest that the Christian army was heavily outnumbered by the Ottomans. The combined numbers of the two armies are believed to be less than 100,000. The Serbian-led armies were defeated and Lazar was slain, although Murad I was killed by the Miloš Obilić, whose origin is disputed. Although the battle has been mythologised as a great Serbian defeat, at the time opinion was divided as to whether it was a Serbian defeat, a stalemate or possibly even a Serbian victory. Serbia maintained its independence and sporadic control of Kosovo until a final defeat in 1455, following which Serbia and Kosovo became part of the Ottoman Empire and a Turkish ally.
Second Battle of Kosovo
The Second Battle of Kosovo was fought over the course of a two-day period in October 1448, between a Hungarian force lead by John Hunyadi and an Ottoman army lead by Murad II. Significantly larger than the first battle, with both armies numbering twice that of the first battle, the ending was the same, and the Hungarian army was defeated in the battle and pushed from the field. Contray to popular myth, the Albanian hero Skanderbeg did not take part in the battle. When his Albanian troops moved to join the Hungarian army, they were delayed by the ambush of Đurađ Branković and never reached the battlefield. Although the loss of the battle was a setback for those resisting the Ottoman invasion of Europe at that time, it was not a 'crushing blow to the cause'. Hunyadi was able to maintain Hungarian resistance to the Ottomans during his lifetime.
Significance
Both of these battles were significant in the overall resistance against the Ottoman advance through the Balkans. Had the Serbian and Hungarian-led coalition armies been victorious in either or both of the battles, it could have changed the course that Kosovo eventually took under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. The First Battle of Kosovo sealed the fate of the Serbian resistance, and became a national symbol for heroism and the admirable 'fight against all odds'.
Although he lost the Second Battle of Kosovo, eventually Hunyadi was victorious in his resistance and defeat of the Ottomans in the Kingdom of Hungary. Skanderbeg was also successful in his resistance in his home country of Albania (which then included large portions of Kosovo), a cause that was lost following his death in 1468. Both of these leaders were significant (as was Wallachian leader Vlad III Dracula) in that their resistance gave Austria and Italy greater time to prepare for the Ottoman advance.
Kosovo from 1455 to 1912
Vilayet of Kosovo, 1875-1878
Vilayet of Kosovo, 1881-1912
The territory of today's province was for centuries ruled by the Ottoman Empire. During this period several administrative districts (known as sanjaks ("banners" or districts) each ruled by a sanjakbey (roughly equivalent to "district lord")) have included parts of the territory as parts of their territories. Despite the imposition of Muslim rule, large numbers of Christians continued to live and sometimes even prosper under the Ottomans. A process of Islamisation began shortly after the beginning of Ottoman rule but it took a considerable amount of time - at least a century - and was concentrated at first on the towns. It appears that many Christian Albanian inhabitants converted directly to Islam, rather than being replaced by Muslims from outside Kosovo. A large part of the reason for the conversion was probably economic and social, as Muslims had considerably more rights and privileges than Christian subjects. Christian religious life nonetheless continued, with churches were largely left alone by the Ottomans, but both the Serbian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches and their congregations suffered from high levels of taxation.
Around the 17th century, there is evidence of an increasingly visible Albanian population initially concentrated in Metohia. It has been claimed this was the result of migrations out of the south-west (i.e. modern Albania), and that the putative migrants brought Islam with them. There is certainly evidence of migration: many Kosovo Albanians have surnames characteristic of inhabitants of the northern Albanian region of Malësi. However, many others do not. It is also clear a small number of Slavs - presumably members of the Serbian Orthodox Church - converted to Islam under Ottoman rule. Today, most Slavic Muslims of Serbia live in the Sandžak region of southern Serbia, northwest of Kosovo. Historians believe that there was probably a pre-existing population of probably Catholic Albanians in Metohia who mostly converted to Islam, but remained strictly a minority in a still largely Serb-inhabited region.
In 1689 Kosovo was greatly disrupted by the Great Turkish War (1683-1699), in one of the pivotal events in Serbian national mythology. In October 1689, a small Habsburg force under Margrave Ludwig of Baden breached the Ottoman Empire and reached as far as Kosovo, following their earlier capture of Belgrade. Many Serbs and Albanians pledged their loyalty to the Austrians, some joining Ludwig's army. This was by no means a universal reaction; many other Serbs and Albanians fought alongside the Ottomans to resist the Austrian advance. A massive Ottoman counter-attack the following summer drove the Austrians back to their fortress at Niš, then back to Belgrade, then finally back across the Danube into Austria.
The Ottoman offensive was accompanied by savage reprisals and looting, prompting many Serbs - including Arsenije III, Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church - to flee along with the Austrians. This event has been immortalised in Serbian history as the Velika Seoba or "Great Migration". It is traditionally said to have accounted for a huge exodus of hundreds of thousands of Serbian refugees from Kosovo and Serbia proper, which left a vacuum filled by a flood of Albanian immigrants. Arsenije himself wrote of a figure of "30,000 souls" (i.e. individuals) who fled with him to Austria, a figure confirmed by other sources.
In 1878, one of the four vilayets with Albanian inhabitants that formed the League of Prizren was Vilayet of Kosovo. The League's purpose was to resist both Ottoman rule and incursions by the newly-emerging Balkan nations.
In 1910, an Albanian insurrection, which was possibly aided surreptitiously by the Young Turks to put pressure on the Sublime Porte, broke out in Priština and soon spread to the entire vilayet of Kosovo, lasting for three months. The Ottoman sultan visited Kosovo in June 1911 during peace settlement talks covering all Albanian-inhabited areas.
20th century
Following the First Balkan War of 1912, Kosovo was internationally recognised as a part of Serbia and Metohia as a part of Montenegro at the Treaty of London in May 1913. In 1918, Serbia became a part of the newly-formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Between the two World Wars the Yugoslav government tried to evacuate the Albanian population from Kosovo and Macedonia by sending them to Turkey and Albania and then recolonizing it with Serbs. On March 7, 1937 a memorandum was presented to the government by Vaso Čubrilović from the Serbian Academy named Expulsion of the Albanians.
The partition of Yugoslavia by the Axis Powers from 1941 and 1945 awarded most of the territory to the Italian-occupied Greater Albania, and a smaller part of it to German-occupied Serbia and Greater Bulgaria. During the occupation, thousands of Kosovo Serbs were expelled by armed Albanian groups, notably the Vulnetari militia. It is still not known exactly how many fell victim to this, but Serbian estimates put the figures at 10,000-40,000 killed with 70,000-100,000 expelled.
Kosovo durin World War I (1914/15)
Following the end of the war and the establishment of Tito's Communist regime, Kosovo was granted the status of an autonomous region of Serbia in 1946 and became an autonomous province in 1963. The Communist government did not permit the return of many of the refugees.
With the passing of the 1974 Yugoslavia constitution, Kosovo gained virtual self-government. The province's government has applied Albanian curriculum to Kosovo's schools: surplus and obsolete textbooks from Enver Hoxha's Albania were obtained and put into use.
Throughout the 1980s tensions between the Albanian and Serb communities in the province escalated.[2][3] The Albanian community favoured greater autonomy for Kosovo, whilst Serbs favoured closer ties with the rest of Serbia. There was little appetite for unification with Albania itself, which was ruled by a Stalinist government and had considerably worse living standards than Kosovo. Beginning in March 1981, Kosovar Albanian students organized protests seeking that Kosovo become a republic within Yugoslavia. Those protests rapidly escalated into violent riots "involving 20,000 people in six cities"[4] that were harshly contained by the Yugoslav government.
Serbs living in Kosovo were discriminated by the provincial government, notably by the local law enforcement authorities failing to punish reported crimes against Serbs.[5] The increasingly bitter atmosphere in Kosovo meant that even the most farcical incidents could become causes célèbres. When a Serbian farmer, Đorđe Martinović, turned up at a Kosovo hospital with a bottle in his rectum and a story about being assaulted in his field by "masked men", 216 prominent Serbian intellectuals signed a petition declaring that "the case of Đorđe Martinović has come to symbolize the predicament of all Serbs in Kosovo." Martinović's subsequent confession that his "assault" had been a botched act of self-gratification did nothing to defuse the ethnic tension that his case had produced.[citation needed]
Perhaps the most politically explosive complaint levelled by the Kosovo Serbs was that they were being neglected by the Communist authorities in Belgrade.[6] In August 1987, during the dying days of Yugoslavia's Communist regime, Kosovo was visited by Slobodan Milošević, then a rising politician. He appealed to Serb nationalism to further his career. Having drawn huge crowds to a rally commemorating the Battle of Kosovo, he pledged to Kosovo Serbs that "No one should dare to beat you", and became an instant hero of Kosovo's Serbs. By the end of the year Milošević was in control of the Serbian government.
In 1989, the autonomy of Kosovo and the northern province of Vojvodina was drastically reduced by a Serbia-wide referendum. The referendum implemented a new constitution which allowed a multi-party system, introduced freedom of speech and promoted human rights. Even though in practice it was subverted by Milošević's government, which resorted to rigging elections, controlled much of the news media, and was accused of abusing human rights of its opponents and national minorities, this was a step forward from the previous Communist constitution. It significantly reduced the provinces' rights, permitting the government of Serbia to exert direct control over many previously autonomous areas of governance. In particular, the constitutional changes handed control of the police, the court system, the economy, the education system and language policies to the Serbian government.
The new constitution was strongly opposed by many of Serbia's national minorities, who saw it as a means of imposing ethnically-based centralised rule on the provinces. Kosovo's Albanians refused to participate in the referendum, portraying it as illegitimate: as it was a Serbia-wide referendum and Albanians are a minority in Serbia as a whole, their participation would not have changed the outcome of the referendum whichever way they voted.
The provincial governments also opposed the new constitution. It had to be ratified by their assemblies, which effectively meant voting for their dissolution. Kosovo's assembly initially opposed the constitution but in March 1989, when the assembly met to discuss the proposals, tanks and armored cars surrounded the meeting place, forcing the delegates to accept the amendments.
The 1990s
After the constitutional changes, the parliaments of all Yugoslavian republics and provinces, which until then had MPs only from the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, were dissolved and multi-party elections were held for them. Kosovo Albanians refused to participate in the elections and held their own, unsanctioned elections instead. As election laws required (and still require) turnout higher than 50%, the parliament of Kosovo could not be established.
The new constitution abolished the individual provinces' official media, integrating them within the official media of Serbia while still retaining some programs in the Albanian language. The Albanian-language media in Kosovo was suppressed. Funding was withdrawn from state-owned media, including that in the Albanian language in Kosovo. The constitution made creating privately owned media possible, however their functioning was very difficult because of high rents and restricting laws. State-owned Albanian language television or radio was also banned from broadcasting from Kosovo [1]. However, privately owned Albanian media outlets appeared; of these, probably the most famous is "Koha Ditore", which was allowed to operate until late 1998 when it was closed after it published a calendar which was claimed to be a glorification of ethnic Albanian separatists.
The constitution also transferred control over state-owned companies to the Serbian government (at the time, most of the companies were state-owned and de jure they still are). In September 1990, up to 123,000 Albanian workers were fired from their positions in government and the media, as were teachers, doctors, and workers in government-controlled industries [2], provoking a general strike and mass unrest. Some of those who were not sacked quit in sympathy, refusing to work for the Serbian government. Although the government claimed that it was simply getting rid of old communist directors, the sackings were widely seen as a purge of ethnic Albanians.
The old Albanian educational curriculum and textbooks were revoked and new ones were created. The curriculum was (and still is, as that is the curriculum used for Albanians in Serbia outside Kosovo) basically the same as Serbian and that of all other nationalities in Serbia except that it had education on and in Albanian language. The new textbooks were (and still are) basically the same as those in Serbian, except that they were in the Albanian language. Education in Albanian was withdrawn in 1992 and re-established in 1994. [3] At the Priština University, which was seen as a centre of Kosovo Albanian cultural identity, education in the Albanian language was abolished and Albanian teachers were also sacked en masse. Albanians responded by boycotting state schools and setting up an unofficial parallel system of Albanian-language education.
Kosovo Albanians were outraged by what they saw as an attack on their rights. Following mass rioting and unrest from Albanians as well as outbreaks of inter-communal violence, in February 1990, a state of emergency was declared, and the presence of the Yugoslav Army and police was significantly increased to quell the unrest.
Unsanctioned elections were held in 1992, which overwhelmingly elected Ibrahim Rugova as "president" of a self-declared Republic of Kosovo; however these elections were not recognised by Serbian nor any foreign government. In 1995, thousands of Serb refugees from Croatia settled in Kosovo, which further worsened relations between the two communities.
Albanian opposition to sovereignty of Yugoslavia and especially Serbia had surfaced in rioting (1968 and March 1981) in the capital Priština. Ibrahim Rugova advocated non-violent resistance, but later when it became apparent that this was not working, opposition took the form of separatist agitation by opposition political groups and armed action from 1996 by the "Kosovo Liberation Army" (Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës, or UÇK).
The KLA launched a low-intensity guerrilla war characterised by regular bomb and gun attacks on Serbian security forces, state officials and civilians accused of "collaborating" with the Serbian government. In March 1998 Yugoslav army units joined Serbian police to fight the separatists, using military force on a large scale. In the months that followed, hundreds of Albanian civilians were killed and more than 500,000 fled their homes; most of these people were Albanians. Many Albanian families were forced to flee their homes at gunpoint, as a result of fighting between Serbian and KLA forces and also as the result of expulsions instigated by the Serbian security forces and associated paramilitary militias. The UNHCR estimated that 460,000 people had been displaced from March 1998 to the start of the NATO bombing campaign in March 1999. [4]
There was violence against ethnic Serbs as well: UNHCR reported (March 1999) that over 90 mixed villages in Kosovo "have now been emptied of Serb inhabitants" and other Serbs continue leaving, either to be displaced in other parts of Kosovo or fleeing into central Serbia. The Yugoslav Red Cross estimated there were more than 30,000 non-Albanian displaced in need of assistance in Kosovo, most of whom are Serb. [5]
Kosovo Refugees in Kukes, Albania (1999)
Following the breakdown of negotiations between Serbian and Albanian representatives, under North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) auspices, NATO intervened on March 24, 1999 without United Nations authority. NATO launched a campaign of heavy bombing against Yugoslav targets (like bridges in Novi Sad). A full-scale war broke out as Albanian fighters continued to attack Serbian forces and Serbian/Yugoslav forces continued to fight Albanian rebels amidst a massive displacement of the population of Kosovo, which most human rights groups and international organisations regarded as an act of ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the government forces. A number of senior Yugoslav government officials and military officers, including President Milošević, were subsequently indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes for which they were allegedly responsible during the war.
The United Nations estimated that during the Kosovo War, nearly 640,000 Albanians fled or were expelled from Kosovo between March 1998 and the end of April 1999. Most of the refugees went to Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, or Montenegro. Government security forces confiscated and destroyed the documents and licence plates of many fleeing Albanians in what was widely regarded as an attempt to erase the identities of the refugees, the term "identity cleansing" being coined to denote this action. This made it difficult to distinguish with certainty the identity of returning refugees after the war. Serbian sources claim that many Albanians from Macedonia and Albania - perhaps as many as 300,000, by some estimates - have since migrated to Kosovo in the guise of refugees. The entire issue may be moot, however, due to the survival of birth and death records.
Kosovo from June 10, 1999
The war ended on June 10, 1999 with the Serbian and Yugoslav governments signing the Kumanovo agreement which agreed to transfer governance of the province to the United Nations. A NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) entered the province following the Kosovo War, tasked with providing security to the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Before and during the handover of power, an estimated 100,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians, mostly Romas, fled the province for fear of reprisals. In the case of the non-Albanians, the Roma in particular were regarded by many Albanians as having assisted the Serbs during the war. Many left along with the withdrawing Serbian security forces, expressing fears that they would be targeted by returning Albanian refugees and KLA fighters who blamed them for wartime acts of violence. Thousands more were driven out by intimidation, revenge attacks and a wave of crime after the war as KFOR struggled to restore order in the province.
Large numbers of refugees from Kosovo still live in temporary camps and shelters in Serbia proper. In 2002, Serbia and Montenegro reported hosting 277,000 internally displaced people (the vast majority being Serbs and Roma from Kosovo), which included 201,641 persons displaced from Kosovo into Serbia proper, 29,451 displaced from Kosovo into Montenegro, and about 46,000 displaced within Kosovo itself, including 16,000 returning refugees unable to inhabit their original homes. [6][7] Some sources put the figure far lower; the European Stability Initiative estimates the number of displaced people as being only 65,000, with another 128,000 Serbs remaining in Kosovo. The largest concentration is in the north of the province above the Ibar river, but an estimated two-thirds of the Serbian population in Kosovo continues to live in the Albanian-dominated south of the province. [8]
In March 17, 2004, serious unrest in Kosovo led to several deaths, and the destruction of a large number of Orthodox churches and monasteries in the province, as Albanians clashed with Serbs. Several thousand more Kosovo Serbs were reported to have left their homes to seek refuge in Serbia proper or in the Serb-dominated north of Kosovo proper.
Since the end of the war, Kosovo has been a major source and destination country in the trafficking of women, women forced into prostitution and sexual slavery. The growth in the sex trade industry has been fuelled by NATO forces in Kosovo. [9] [10] [11]
The treaty allowing UN troops into Kosovo in 1999 stipulated that the province remains part of Serbia. However, in November 2005, a United States Department of State official hinted that the independence is possible, just that the Albanians "have to prove that they're worthy of it" and that negotiations on the status of the province would begin in January 2006. [12]
Most of province's Albanian inhabitants support the independence movement, while Serbs fear it would be a preliminary to further ethnic cleansing and the formation of a "Greater Albania". The Kosovo parliament issued a resolution supporting independence since the "political will of Kosovo people for independence is non negotiable". In the meantime, the Serbian cabinet adopted a resolution opposing full independence for Kosovo. [13]
Kosovo from prehistory to 1455
Little is known about Kosovo before about the 11th century AD. The region was certainly inhabited in prehistoric times, it appears, by two different cultures: Bronze and Iron Age tombs have been found only in Metohia, and not in Kosovo.[1] After the Indo-European invasion, Kosovo became inhabited by Illyrian and Thracian tribes, such as the Dardani and the Triballi. Later, the whole territory of Kosovo became part of the Roman Empire, although it is not clear whether it was part of the province of Moesia or was divided between Dalmatia and Moesia (a view which is supported by some archaeological evidence).[1]
Slavic peoples
According to most historians, Slavic peoples entered the Balkans around the late 6th or early 7th century AD, possibly migrating from the northern Caucasus where Ptolemy placed the "Serboi" in the 2nd century. After 850 Kosovo was part of the Bulgarian Empire until the 13-th century when the territory was taken by the Serbs. The initial spread of the Slavic population of the Balkans was much larger than today, reaching well into Greece and Albania. Placenames derived from Slavic root words are still widespread in the remaining non-Slav Balkan countries and particularly northern Albania - or "Kamenica" - to this day. Even so, names of Albanian origin are also present throughout Dalmatia, Serbia and Greece.
Albanian peoples
The origins of the Albanians are sometimes contested. Some historians claim that they are descended from the Illyrians, ancient inhabitants of the western Balkans in Roman times, although some Romanian historians have suggested that they may alternatively be descended from the ancient Thracians, who inhabited the eastern and central Balkans. Albanian historians, however, claim that in around the 6th century the Illyrians were forced south into what is now Albania by the Slavs.
Ruling states
Classical Balkans
The Kosovo region has been taken, retaken, and ruled by several empires. It lay both on the outer fringes of the Byzantine Empire and directly in the path of Slavic expansion. From about the 850s until about 1014, it was ruled by Bulgaria. Byzantine control was subsequently reasserted by the forceful emperor Basil II. Serbia at this time was not a united empire: a number of small Serbian kingdoms lay to the north and west of Kosovo, of which Raška (central modern Serbia) and Duklja (Montenegro and northern Albania) were the strongest. In the 1180s, the Serbian ruler Stefan Nemanja seized control of Duklja and parts of Kosovo. His successor, Stefan Prvovenčani took control of the rest of Kosovo by 1216, creating a state incorporating most of the area which is now Serbia and Montenegro.
Map: "Kosovo: History of a Balkan Hot Spot", 1998
During the rule of the Nemanjić dynasty, many Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries were built throughout Serbian territory. The Nemanjić rulers alternatively used both Prizren and Priština as their capitals. Large estates were given to the monasteries in Dukagjin (Western Kosovo) (which included parts of Albania and Montenegro). The most prominent churches in Kosovo - the Patriarchate at Pec, the church at Gračanica and the monastery at Visoki Dečani near Dečani - were all adopted during this period. Kosovo was economically important, as the modern Kosovo capital Priština was a major trading centre on routes leading to ports on the Adriatic Sea. As well, mining was an important industry in Novo Brdo and Janjevo which had its communities of émigré Saxon miners and Ragusan merchants.
The ethnic composition of Kosovo's population during this period is a controversial issue among Serbian and Albanian historians. Serbs, Albanians, and Vlachs were all clearly present, as all three groups were named explicitly in Serbian monastic charters or chrysobulls along with a token number of Greeks, Armenians, Saxons, and Bulgarians. A majority of the names given in the charters are overwhelmingly Slavic rather than Albanian. This has been interpreted as evidence of an overwhelming Serbian majority. However, the chrysobulls show Serbian named sons to Albanian-named fathers and vice-versa. Albanian historians have suggested that this is evidence of cultural assimilation of an alleged pre-Ottoman Albanian population in Kosovo yet this is undermined by records of Serbian-named fathers giving sons Albanian names (which would surely not have happened if the assimilation was a one-way process) and the fact that such cases of mixed names represent a small fraction of less than a twentieth of all the names. This Serbian claim seems to be supported by the Turkish cadastral tax-census (defter) of 1455 which took into account religion and language and found an overwhelming Serb majority.
Ethnic identity in the Middle Ages was somewhat fluid throughout Europe and people at that time do not appear to have defined themselves rigidly by ethnic group. Those of Serbian ethnicity appear to have been the dominant population culturally, and were probably a demographic majority as well.
In 1355, the Serbian state fell apart on the death of Tsar Stefan Dušan and dissolved into squabbling fiefdoms. The timing fell perfectly within the Ottoman expansion. The Ottoman Empire took the opportunity to exploit Serbian weakness and invaded.
Battles of Kosovo
First Battle of Kosovo
The First Battle of Kosovo occurred on the field of Kosovo Polje on June 28, 1389, when the puling knez (prince) of Serbia, Lazar Hrebeljanović, marshalled a coalition of Christian soldiers, made up of Serbs, but also of Bosnians, Magyars, Albanians, and a troop of Saxon mercenaries. Sultan Murad I also gathered a coalition of soldiers and volunteers from neighboring countries in Anatolia and Rumelia. Exact numbers are difficult to come by, but most reliable historical accounts suggest that the Christian army was heavily outnumbered by the Ottomans. The combined numbers of the two armies are believed to be less than 100,000. The Serbian-led armies were defeated and Lazar was slain, although Murad I was killed by the Miloš Obilić, whose origin is disputed. Although the battle has been mythologised as a great Serbian defeat, at the time opinion was divided as to whether it was a Serbian defeat, a stalemate or possibly even a Serbian victory. Serbia maintained its independence and sporadic control of Kosovo until a final defeat in 1455, following which Serbia and Kosovo became part of the Ottoman Empire and a Turkish ally.
Second Battle of Kosovo
The Second Battle of Kosovo was fought over the course of a two-day period in October 1448, between a Hungarian force lead by John Hunyadi and an Ottoman army lead by Murad II. Significantly larger than the first battle, with both armies numbering twice that of the first battle, the ending was the same, and the Hungarian army was defeated in the battle and pushed from the field. Contray to popular myth, the Albanian hero Skanderbeg did not take part in the battle. When his Albanian troops moved to join the Hungarian army, they were delayed by the ambush of Đurađ Branković and never reached the battlefield. Although the loss of the battle was a setback for those resisting the Ottoman invasion of Europe at that time, it was not a 'crushing blow to the cause'. Hunyadi was able to maintain Hungarian resistance to the Ottomans during his lifetime.
Significance
Both of these battles were significant in the overall resistance against the Ottoman advance through the Balkans. Had the Serbian and Hungarian-led coalition armies been victorious in either or both of the battles, it could have changed the course that Kosovo eventually took under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. The First Battle of Kosovo sealed the fate of the Serbian resistance, and became a national symbol for heroism and the admirable 'fight against all odds'.
Although he lost the Second Battle of Kosovo, eventually Hunyadi was victorious in his resistance and defeat of the Ottomans in the Kingdom of Hungary. Skanderbeg was also successful in his resistance in his home country of Albania (which then included large portions of Kosovo), a cause that was lost following his death in 1468. Both of these leaders were significant (as was Wallachian leader Vlad III Dracula) in that their resistance gave Austria and Italy greater time to prepare for the Ottoman advance.
Kosovo from 1455 to 1912
Vilayet of Kosovo, 1875-1878
Vilayet of Kosovo, 1881-1912
The territory of today's province was for centuries ruled by the Ottoman Empire. During this period several administrative districts (known as sanjaks ("banners" or districts) each ruled by a sanjakbey (roughly equivalent to "district lord")) have included parts of the territory as parts of their territories. Despite the imposition of Muslim rule, large numbers of Christians continued to live and sometimes even prosper under the Ottomans. A process of Islamisation began shortly after the beginning of Ottoman rule but it took a considerable amount of time - at least a century - and was concentrated at first on the towns. It appears that many Christian Albanian inhabitants converted directly to Islam, rather than being replaced by Muslims from outside Kosovo. A large part of the reason for the conversion was probably economic and social, as Muslims had considerably more rights and privileges than Christian subjects. Christian religious life nonetheless continued, with churches were largely left alone by the Ottomans, but both the Serbian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches and their congregations suffered from high levels of taxation.
Around the 17th century, there is evidence of an increasingly visible Albanian population initially concentrated in Metohia. It has been claimed this was the result of migrations out of the south-west (i.e. modern Albania), and that the putative migrants brought Islam with them. There is certainly evidence of migration: many Kosovo Albanians have surnames characteristic of inhabitants of the northern Albanian region of Malësi. However, many others do not. It is also clear a small number of Slavs - presumably members of the Serbian Orthodox Church - converted to Islam under Ottoman rule. Today, most Slavic Muslims of Serbia live in the Sandžak region of southern Serbia, northwest of Kosovo. Historians believe that there was probably a pre-existing population of probably Catholic Albanians in Metohia who mostly converted to Islam, but remained strictly a minority in a still largely Serb-inhabited region.
In 1689 Kosovo was greatly disrupted by the Great Turkish War (1683-1699), in one of the pivotal events in Serbian national mythology. In October 1689, a small Habsburg force under Margrave Ludwig of Baden breached the Ottoman Empire and reached as far as Kosovo, following their earlier capture of Belgrade. Many Serbs and Albanians pledged their loyalty to the Austrians, some joining Ludwig's army. This was by no means a universal reaction; many other Serbs and Albanians fought alongside the Ottomans to resist the Austrian advance. A massive Ottoman counter-attack the following summer drove the Austrians back to their fortress at Niš, then back to Belgrade, then finally back across the Danube into Austria.
The Ottoman offensive was accompanied by savage reprisals and looting, prompting many Serbs - including Arsenije III, Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church - to flee along with the Austrians. This event has been immortalised in Serbian history as the Velika Seoba or "Great Migration". It is traditionally said to have accounted for a huge exodus of hundreds of thousands of Serbian refugees from Kosovo and Serbia proper, which left a vacuum filled by a flood of Albanian immigrants. Arsenije himself wrote of a figure of "30,000 souls" (i.e. individuals) who fled with him to Austria, a figure confirmed by other sources.
In 1878, one of the four vilayets with Albanian inhabitants that formed the League of Prizren was Vilayet of Kosovo. The League's purpose was to resist both Ottoman rule and incursions by the newly-emerging Balkan nations.
In 1910, an Albanian insurrection, which was possibly aided surreptitiously by the Young Turks to put pressure on the Sublime Porte, broke out in Priština and soon spread to the entire vilayet of Kosovo, lasting for three months. The Ottoman sultan visited Kosovo in June 1911 during peace settlement talks covering all Albanian-inhabited areas.
20th century
Following the First Balkan War of 1912, Kosovo was internationally recognised as a part of Serbia and Metohia as a part of Montenegro at the Treaty of London in May 1913. In 1918, Serbia became a part of the newly-formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Between the two World Wars the Yugoslav government tried to evacuate the Albanian population from Kosovo and Macedonia by sending them to Turkey and Albania and then recolonizing it with Serbs. On March 7, 1937 a memorandum was presented to the government by Vaso Čubrilović from the Serbian Academy named Expulsion of the Albanians.
The partition of Yugoslavia by the Axis Powers from 1941 and 1945 awarded most of the territory to the Italian-occupied Greater Albania, and a smaller part of it to German-occupied Serbia and Greater Bulgaria. During the occupation, thousands of Kosovo Serbs were expelled by armed Albanian groups, notably the Vulnetari militia. It is still not known exactly how many fell victim to this, but Serbian estimates put the figures at 10,000-40,000 killed with 70,000-100,000 expelled.
Kosovo durin World War I (1914/15)
Following the end of the war and the establishment of Tito's Communist regime, Kosovo was granted the status of an autonomous region of Serbia in 1946 and became an autonomous province in 1963. The Communist government did not permit the return of many of the refugees.
With the passing of the 1974 Yugoslavia constitution, Kosovo gained virtual self-government. The province's government has applied Albanian curriculum to Kosovo's schools: surplus and obsolete textbooks from Enver Hoxha's Albania were obtained and put into use.
Throughout the 1980s tensions between the Albanian and Serb communities in the province escalated.[2][3] The Albanian community favoured greater autonomy for Kosovo, whilst Serbs favoured closer ties with the rest of Serbia. There was little appetite for unification with Albania itself, which was ruled by a Stalinist government and had considerably worse living standards than Kosovo. Beginning in March 1981, Kosovar Albanian students organized protests seeking that Kosovo become a republic within Yugoslavia. Those protests rapidly escalated into violent riots "involving 20,000 people in six cities"[4] that were harshly contained by the Yugoslav government.
Serbs living in Kosovo were discriminated by the provincial government, notably by the local law enforcement authorities failing to punish reported crimes against Serbs.[5] The increasingly bitter atmosphere in Kosovo meant that even the most farcical incidents could become causes célèbres. When a Serbian farmer, Đorđe Martinović, turned up at a Kosovo hospital with a bottle in his rectum and a story about being assaulted in his field by "masked men", 216 prominent Serbian intellectuals signed a petition declaring that "the case of Đorđe Martinović has come to symbolize the predicament of all Serbs in Kosovo." Martinović's subsequent confession that his "assault" had been a botched act of self-gratification did nothing to defuse the ethnic tension that his case had produced.[citation needed]
Perhaps the most politically explosive complaint levelled by the Kosovo Serbs was that they were being neglected by the Communist authorities in Belgrade.[6] In August 1987, during the dying days of Yugoslavia's Communist regime, Kosovo was visited by Slobodan Milošević, then a rising politician. He appealed to Serb nationalism to further his career. Having drawn huge crowds to a rally commemorating the Battle of Kosovo, he pledged to Kosovo Serbs that "No one should dare to beat you", and became an instant hero of Kosovo's Serbs. By the end of the year Milošević was in control of the Serbian government.
In 1989, the autonomy of Kosovo and the northern province of Vojvodina was drastically reduced by a Serbia-wide referendum. The referendum implemented a new constitution which allowed a multi-party system, introduced freedom of speech and promoted human rights. Even though in practice it was subverted by Milošević's government, which resorted to rigging elections, controlled much of the news media, and was accused of abusing human rights of its opponents and national minorities, this was a step forward from the previous Communist constitution. It significantly reduced the provinces' rights, permitting the government of Serbia to exert direct control over many previously autonomous areas of governance. In particular, the constitutional changes handed control of the police, the court system, the economy, the education system and language policies to the Serbian government.
The new constitution was strongly opposed by many of Serbia's national minorities, who saw it as a means of imposing ethnically-based centralised rule on the provinces. Kosovo's Albanians refused to participate in the referendum, portraying it as illegitimate: as it was a Serbia-wide referendum and Albanians are a minority in Serbia as a whole, their participation would not have changed the outcome of the referendum whichever way they voted.
The provincial governments also opposed the new constitution. It had to be ratified by their assemblies, which effectively meant voting for their dissolution. Kosovo's assembly initially opposed the constitution but in March 1989, when the assembly met to discuss the proposals, tanks and armored cars surrounded the meeting place, forcing the delegates to accept the amendments.
The 1990s
After the constitutional changes, the parliaments of all Yugoslavian republics and provinces, which until then had MPs only from the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, were dissolved and multi-party elections were held for them. Kosovo Albanians refused to participate in the elections and held their own, unsanctioned elections instead. As election laws required (and still require) turnout higher than 50%, the parliament of Kosovo could not be established.
The new constitution abolished the individual provinces' official media, integrating them within the official media of Serbia while still retaining some programs in the Albanian language. The Albanian-language media in Kosovo was suppressed. Funding was withdrawn from state-owned media, including that in the Albanian language in Kosovo. The constitution made creating privately owned media possible, however their functioning was very difficult because of high rents and restricting laws. State-owned Albanian language television or radio was also banned from broadcasting from Kosovo [1]. However, privately owned Albanian media outlets appeared; of these, probably the most famous is "Koha Ditore", which was allowed to operate until late 1998 when it was closed after it published a calendar which was claimed to be a glorification of ethnic Albanian separatists.
The constitution also transferred control over state-owned companies to the Serbian government (at the time, most of the companies were state-owned and de jure they still are). In September 1990, up to 123,000 Albanian workers were fired from their positions in government and the media, as were teachers, doctors, and workers in government-controlled industries [2], provoking a general strike and mass unrest. Some of those who were not sacked quit in sympathy, refusing to work for the Serbian government. Although the government claimed that it was simply getting rid of old communist directors, the sackings were widely seen as a purge of ethnic Albanians.
The old Albanian educational curriculum and textbooks were revoked and new ones were created. The curriculum was (and still is, as that is the curriculum used for Albanians in Serbia outside Kosovo) basically the same as Serbian and that of all other nationalities in Serbia except that it had education on and in Albanian language. The new textbooks were (and still are) basically the same as those in Serbian, except that they were in the Albanian language. Education in Albanian was withdrawn in 1992 and re-established in 1994. [3] At the Priština University, which was seen as a centre of Kosovo Albanian cultural identity, education in the Albanian language was abolished and Albanian teachers were also sacked en masse. Albanians responded by boycotting state schools and setting up an unofficial parallel system of Albanian-language education.
Kosovo Albanians were outraged by what they saw as an attack on their rights. Following mass rioting and unrest from Albanians as well as outbreaks of inter-communal violence, in February 1990, a state of emergency was declared, and the presence of the Yugoslav Army and police was significantly increased to quell the unrest.
Unsanctioned elections were held in 1992, which overwhelmingly elected Ibrahim Rugova as "president" of a self-declared Republic of Kosovo; however these elections were not recognised by Serbian nor any foreign government. In 1995, thousands of Serb refugees from Croatia settled in Kosovo, which further worsened relations between the two communities.
Albanian opposition to sovereignty of Yugoslavia and especially Serbia had surfaced in rioting (1968 and March 1981) in the capital Priština. Ibrahim Rugova advocated non-violent resistance, but later when it became apparent that this was not working, opposition took the form of separatist agitation by opposition political groups and armed action from 1996 by the "Kosovo Liberation Army" (Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës, or UÇK).
The KLA launched a low-intensity guerrilla war characterised by regular bomb and gun attacks on Serbian security forces, state officials and civilians accused of "collaborating" with the Serbian government. In March 1998 Yugoslav army units joined Serbian police to fight the separatists, using military force on a large scale. In the months that followed, hundreds of Albanian civilians were killed and more than 500,000 fled their homes; most of these people were Albanians. Many Albanian families were forced to flee their homes at gunpoint, as a result of fighting between Serbian and KLA forces and also as the result of expulsions instigated by the Serbian security forces and associated paramilitary militias. The UNHCR estimated that 460,000 people had been displaced from March 1998 to the start of the NATO bombing campaign in March 1999. [4]
There was violence against ethnic Serbs as well: UNHCR reported (March 1999) that over 90 mixed villages in Kosovo "have now been emptied of Serb inhabitants" and other Serbs continue leaving, either to be displaced in other parts of Kosovo or fleeing into central Serbia. The Yugoslav Red Cross estimated there were more than 30,000 non-Albanian displaced in need of assistance in Kosovo, most of whom are Serb. [5]
Kosovo Refugees in Kukes, Albania (1999)
Following the breakdown of negotiations between Serbian and Albanian representatives, under North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) auspices, NATO intervened on March 24, 1999 without United Nations authority. NATO launched a campaign of heavy bombing against Yugoslav targets (like bridges in Novi Sad). A full-scale war broke out as Albanian fighters continued to attack Serbian forces and Serbian/Yugoslav forces continued to fight Albanian rebels amidst a massive displacement of the population of Kosovo, which most human rights groups and international organisations regarded as an act of ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the government forces. A number of senior Yugoslav government officials and military officers, including President Milošević, were subsequently indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes for which they were allegedly responsible during the war.
The United Nations estimated that during the Kosovo War, nearly 640,000 Albanians fled or were expelled from Kosovo between March 1998 and the end of April 1999. Most of the refugees went to Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, or Montenegro. Government security forces confiscated and destroyed the documents and licence plates of many fleeing Albanians in what was widely regarded as an attempt to erase the identities of the refugees, the term "identity cleansing" being coined to denote this action. This made it difficult to distinguish with certainty the identity of returning refugees after the war. Serbian sources claim that many Albanians from Macedonia and Albania - perhaps as many as 300,000, by some estimates - have since migrated to Kosovo in the guise of refugees. The entire issue may be moot, however, due to the survival of birth and death records.
Kosovo from June 10, 1999
The war ended on June 10, 1999 with the Serbian and Yugoslav governments signing the Kumanovo agreement which agreed to transfer governance of the province to the United Nations. A NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) entered the province following the Kosovo War, tasked with providing security to the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Before and during the handover of power, an estimated 100,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians, mostly Romas, fled the province for fear of reprisals. In the case of the non-Albanians, the Roma in particular were regarded by many Albanians as having assisted the Serbs during the war. Many left along with the withdrawing Serbian security forces, expressing fears that they would be targeted by returning Albanian refugees and KLA fighters who blamed them for wartime acts of violence. Thousands more were driven out by intimidation, revenge attacks and a wave of crime after the war as KFOR struggled to restore order in the province.
Large numbers of refugees from Kosovo still live in temporary camps and shelters in Serbia proper. In 2002, Serbia and Montenegro reported hosting 277,000 internally displaced people (the vast majority being Serbs and Roma from Kosovo), which included 201,641 persons displaced from Kosovo into Serbia proper, 29,451 displaced from Kosovo into Montenegro, and about 46,000 displaced within Kosovo itself, including 16,000 returning refugees unable to inhabit their original homes. [6][7] Some sources put the figure far lower; the European Stability Initiative estimates the number of displaced people as being only 65,000, with another 128,000 Serbs remaining in Kosovo. The largest concentration is in the north of the province above the Ibar river, but an estimated two-thirds of the Serbian population in Kosovo continues to live in the Albanian-dominated south of the province. [8]
In March 17, 2004, serious unrest in Kosovo led to several deaths, and the destruction of a large number of Orthodox churches and monasteries in the province, as Albanians clashed with Serbs. Several thousand more Kosovo Serbs were reported to have left their homes to seek refuge in Serbia proper or in the Serb-dominated north of Kosovo proper.
Since the end of the war, Kosovo has been a major source and destination country in the trafficking of women, women forced into prostitution and sexual slavery. The growth in the sex trade industry has been fuelled by NATO forces in Kosovo. [9] [10] [11]
The treaty allowing UN troops into Kosovo in 1999 stipulated that the province remains part of Serbia. However, in November 2005, a United States Department of State official hinted that the independence is possible, just that the Albanians "have to prove that they're worthy of it" and that negotiations on the status of the province would begin in January 2006. [12]
Most of province's Albanian inhabitants support the independence movement, while Serbs fear it would be a preliminary to further ethnic cleansing and the formation of a "Greater Albania". The Kosovo parliament issued a resolution supporting independence since the "political will of Kosovo people for independence is non negotiable". In the meantime, the Serbian cabinet adopted a resolution opposing full independence for Kosovo. [13]
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