Serbs

Serbs (SRB, SORB), col1ective name of the Southern division of the Slav race (Yugo-Slavs), whose original home was the region of the Carpathians. Here many survived till the 9th or 10th century, and in Alfred's time the Surpe (Surfe) were still seated on the Oder (Orosius, i. 12); but the great bulk of the nation had already, in the 7th century, passed south of the Danube, where they rapidly overran a great part of the Balkan Peninsula, penetrating almost to the southernmost extremity of Greece. Later, through pressure of the Byzantines on the east, of the Bulgars on the north, and of the Albanians on the west, the Serb domain was gradually contracted to its present limits, comprising the whole of Servia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, Dalmatia, Montenegro, and part of Istria, with collective population over 8,000,000. Although politically dismembered, the Serb race preserves a strong national sentiment, which must form a potent factor in the future reconstitution of the Balkan Peninsula. This fellow-feeling is largely due to a community of traditions, usages, and especially language and literature, which present great uniformity throughout the whole of the Serb domain. Serbo-Croatian, as the common language is called, is the softest and most harmonious of all Slavonic tongues. Its well-preserved phonetic system gives it an important place in the family, and its literature is especially rich in national songs. A great number of these pjesma, as tbey are called, have been collected and published; many are undoubtedly very old, and the form in which they still exist shows how little the language has changed during the course of centuries.