MY POSTBOX: SERBIA - Autonomous Province of Vojvodina / Аутономна Покрајина Војводина

Tuesday 1 December 2015

SERBIA - Autonomous Province of Vojvodina / Аутономна Покрајина Војводина

Vojvodina (Serbian Cyrillic: Војводина); Pannonian Rusyn: Войводина; Hungarian: Vajdaság, Romanian: Voivodina), officially the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (Serbian: Аутономна Покрајина Војводина, romanized: Autonomna Pokrajina Vojvodina; see Names in other languages), is an autonomous province of Serbia, located in the northern part of the country, in the Pannonian Plain. Novi Sad is the largest city and administrative center of Vojvodina and the second-largest city in Serbia. Vojvodina has a population of almost 2 million (nearly 27% of Serbia's population excluding Kosovo). Vojvodina is recognizable for its multi-ethnic and multi-cultural identity. There are some 26 ethnic groups in the province, and six languages are in official use by the provincial administration.

For decades, the province enjoyed only a small level of autonomy within Serbia. Under the 1974 Yugoslav constitution, it gained extensive rights of self-rule, as both Kosovo and Vojvodina were given de facto veto power in the Serbian and Yugoslav parliaments. Changes to their status could not be made without the consent of the two Provincial Assemblies. The 1974 Serbian constitution, adopted at the same time, reiterated that "the Socialist Republic of Serbia comprises the Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina and the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo, which originated in the common struggle of nations and nationalities of Yugoslavia in the National Liberation War (the Second World War) and socialist revolution".

In 1990s, during the war in Croatia in persecution of Croats in Serbia during Yugoslav Wars was organized and participated in the expulsion of the Croats in some places in Vojvodina. Under the rule of Serbian president Slobodan Milošević, a series of protests against Vojvodina's party leadership took place during the summer and autumn of 1988, which forced it to resign. Eventually Vojvodina and Kosovo had to accept Serbia's constitutional amendments that practically dismissed the autonomy of the provinces in Serbia. Vojvodina and Kosovo lost elements of statehood in September 1990 when the new constitution of the Republic of Serbia was adopted.

Vojvodina was still referred to as an autonomous province of Serbia, but most of its autonomous powers – including, crucially, its vote on the Yugoslav collective presidency – were transferred to the control of Belgrade, the capital. The province still had its own parliament and government, and some other autonomous functions as well. The fall of Milošević in 2000 created a new climate for reform in Vojvodina, with the province's ethnic minorities strongly supporting the new government in Belgrade. Following talks between the parties, the province was given increased autonomy by the omnibus law in 2002. Vojvodina adopted a new flag in 2004.