This website was created as a class project for HIST 190, taught by Dr. Chad Bryant. It covers the history of Eastern Europe from 1939 to the present. Construction of a country website is the final assignment in the course and is intended to give students an opportunity to apply the analytical skills learned in class in assessing and using sources, in constructing an informative and reputable website and in understanding and relating the latest issues facing the countries of study.

      Our group's challenge was to relate the history of Serbia, arguably one of the most controversial countries that emerged out of Eastern Europe, in a concise and structured manner. In an effort to limit the website to a manageable size we provided a very brief overview of Serbia's history spanning several hundred years and focused more specifically on current political and economic issues. In addition, we included the review of a film that we would recommend to those interested in learning more about issues challenging Serbia.

   The theme of outside influence emerged very distinctly from our historical narrative and in the overview of current events. The interplay and conflict between the domestic and international issues shapes the current development of the country.

      Due to the limited nature of our project we inevitably had to leave some important themes and events out of our narrative. Particularly, we didn't cover in detail the issues of Serb nationalism, ethnic cleansing, wars in Bosnia and Hercegovina and in Kosovo and the plight of thousands of refugees that suffered in the course of the 1990s. Over 250,000 people died in the two conflicts, in Bosnia and Hercegovina and in Kosovo, and thousands more were displaced and became refugees. Their stories deserve attention we could not possibly grant them in the limited framework of this project.

      We tried to present a critical and objective view of Serbia, its past and its present, trying to avoid moral imperatives. We did not engage the social factor in the analysis of the events that accompanied the political and institutional transformations. Instead, politicians and state structures are assigned chief agency in our narrative in explaining the course that Serbia took in the 1990s.

The members of the group responsible for the implementation of this project are:

Katie Grim - web design and construction
Shannon Hennessy - current issues
Polina Kozak - political and economic developments since 1991
Elliot Murray - geography and history from 1945 to 1991
Graham Wilkins - recommended document and history up to 1945

April 2004
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill