Serbian Flag

Serbian Flag

Serbian Flag

Having once been ruled by the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, a kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was formed in December 1918, with Montenegro joining soon after. In 1929, under the Serbian king, Alexander I, the country was renamed Yugoslavia, meaning 'Land of the Southern Slays'. After World War II, Josip Broz (Marshall Tito), the leader of the country's resistance movement, proclaimed the formation of the Yugoslav Federal Republic, which consisted of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. Ethnic tensions, coupled with economic crisis, led to the collapse of the federation in 1991, however, and civil war followed as the former constituent countries began declaring their independence. In the following year, Serbia and Montenegro formed what they claimed to be a successor state to Yugoslavia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Prior to the formation of Yugoslavia in 1929, nearly all of its constituent states had flown the red, white and blue Pan-Slavic flag, so in order to distinguish the flag of the newly united Yugoslavia from them, the horizontal order of its stripes was set at blue, white and red, with the royal arms being added to the centre. During the period of communist rule, the arms were replaced by a red, gold-fimbriated 'Partisan Star', which was dropped after the federation was dissolved in 1991, Serbian flag now being left plain.