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TheSerbian Wikipedia (Serbian:Википедија на српском језику,Vikipedija na srpskom jeziku) is theSerbian-language version of the free online encyclopediaWikipedia. Created on 16 February 2003, it reached its 100,000th article on 20 November 2009 before getting to another milestone with the 200,000th article on 6 July 2013, and then another milestone with the 500,000th article on 13 January 2018.
It currently has 533,836 registered users (1,979 active ones) and 716,438 articles, making it the fourth largest Wikipedia in a Slavic language and the 24th-largest Wikipedia. By 2023, bots contributed to 53% of the total edits and created 49% of the articles.[1] The Serbian Wikipedia uses ZhengZhu's character mapping program to convert between Cyrillic and Latin scripts.
In 2024 and 2025, Serbian Wikipedia facedcriticism forideological bias, including the promotion ofSerbian nationalist narratives andhistorical revisionism, particularly in coverage of theYugoslav Wars. Investigations have also raised concerns about bias in articles related to current political events in Serbia, such asanti-corruption protests, where language and framing have aligned with pro-government perspectives.
Serbian Wikipedia was created on 16 February 2003. The main page was translated from English into Serbian on 22 April 2003 by an unknown user with IP address80.131.158.32 (possibly fromFreiburg, Germany), and userNikola Smolenski finished the translation on 24 May.
During September 2003, Smolenski prepared the main page along with creating some basic article stubs. In the October 2003 issue of the Serbian IT magazineSvet kompjutera his article aboutwikis andWikipedia got published, leading to a surge of new users, both registered and anonymous.[2] Around the same time, Smolenski also translated the user interface page into Serbian.
Serbian uses twoalphabets,Cyrillic andLatin. It also has two officialaccents:Ekavian andIjekavian. Combining the scripts and accents give four written variants (Ekavian Cyrillic, Ijekavian Cyrillic, Ekavian Latin, and Ijekavian Latin).
The Cyrillic-Latin transliteration interface.
When the Serbian Wikipedia was founded, it used only the Cyrillic alphabet, and both standard dialects. However, since both alphabets are widely used by Serbian native speakers, an effort began to enable the parallel usage of both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. The first attempt was to use abot for dynamic transliteration of every article. About 1,000 articles were transliterated before the action was stopped due to technical difficulties. This concept was later abandoned in favor of a model used by theChinese Wikipedia. After a few months, the software was completed and now every visitor has the option to choose between two alphabets using tabs at the top of each article. There are special tags used to indicate those words which should not be transliterated (for example, names and words written in foreign languages). Anti-transliteration tags in use are:
-{text here}-, which prevents transliteration of the article text, and
__NOTC__ or__БЕЗКН__, which prevents transliteration of the article's name.
Though there are still minor technical issues, Cyrillic-Latin transliteration is working successfully.
Ekavian–Ijekavian conversion, however, is much more complicated, and its implementation is not yet complete (it will probably require extensive tables of words in Ekavian and Ijekavian forms). However, despite the difficulties, this is probably the first successful attempt to develop the software which will allow parallel work on all four variants of Serbian.
Third annual regional Wikimedia conference at theBelgrade Youth Center in December 2008.
Ever since the inaugural meeting on Tuesday, 15 February 2005, members of the Serbian wiki community have been holding regular gatherings. As of September 2013, 253 meetings took place — mostly in Belgrade, with about a dozen taking place inNovi Sad, along with a few inNiš,Pančevo, andPirot.
At first congregating at each other's apartments, bars, restaurants, and public parks, by late 2005 community members began gathering at theBelgrade Youth Center, which provided meeting space free of charge. At the first of these Youth Center meetings on Saturday, 3 December 2005, the community members founded theWikimedia Foundation's local chapter forSerbia and Montenegro called Wikimedia Serbia and Montenegro (Викимедија Србије и Црне Горе /Vikimedija Srbije i Crne Gore). At the time, it was only the fifth local Wikimedia Foundation chapteranywhere in the world.
Following the May 2006Montenegrin referendum whose outcome led to the breakup of the Serbia and Montenegro state union, the local chapter modified its name to Wikimedia Serbia (Викимедија Србије /Vikimedija Srbije). It is registered as a non-governmental, non-partisan, and non-profit organization and its stated goals include promotion of the creation, gathering and multiplication of free content in Serbian as well as promotion of the idea that everyone should have equal access to knowledge and education. Later that year in December, the Serbian chapter hosted the very first Wikimedia regional conference for Southeast Europe.
Three more regional conferences were put together over the next several years, all of them hosted by Wikimedia Serbia.
In February 2012, Wikimedia Serbia organized an event called Open Wiki GLAM of Serbia as part of the bigger project of the same name. Standing for Galleries, Libraries, Archives & Museums, GLAM is devoted to the topics of Serbian cultural and historical heritage as well as protection of intellectual property and copyright on the Internet. Later that year in December, Wikimedia Serbia got its own office space located in downtown Belgrade at the beginning of theKing Aleksandar Boulevard where most of the Serbian wiki community meetings now began to take place.
Serbian Wikipedia ranked #1 in the global1Lib1Ref campaign in 2020.[3]
In 2024, the weekly magazineVreme reported that Serbian Wikipedia includes content reflecting elements ofSerbian nationalism andhistorical revisionism, particularly in articles related to theYugoslav Wars. The report states that certain articles minimize or relativizeSerbian war crimes and portray contentious historical figures (including war criminals) in a favorable light. Additionally, it described the use of passive language and editorial choices that obscure the accountability of domestic actors, leading to concerns about Serbian Wikipedia's adherence to its neutrality policy.[4]
A 2025 investigation byRadar raised questions about Serbian Wikipedia's coverage of ongoing political events in Serbia, specifically the large-scaleanti‑corruption protests. According to the article, Serbian Wikipedia included language and framing aligned with pro‑government narratives. For example, protests were described using terms such as "an attempt at acolour revolution", with vague attribution, and associations were made between protests and separatist movements in Serbia. This kind of framing was described as a possible indication ofpolitical bias within editorial practices.[5]
