evidence: Beginning in the 1920s, Serbia was an integral part of Yugoslavia (meaning "Land of the South Slavs"), which included the modern countries of Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Montenegro. Long ruled in turn by the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary, these component nations combined in 1918 to form an independent federation known as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. In 1929 that federation was formally constituted as Yugoslavia. Serbia was the dominant part in this multiethnic union, though after World War II the nonaligned communist government of Josip Broz Tito accorded some measure of autonomy to the constituent republics and attempted to balance contending interests by dividing national administrative responsibilities (e.g., for intelligence and defense) along ethnic lines. [...] Bounding the country to the west are the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Slavonian region of the Republic of Croatia. Serbia adjoins Hungary to the north, Romania and Bulgaria to the east, North Macedonia to the south, and Montenegro to the southwest. Kosovo, which Serbia does not recognize as an independent country, lies to the south as well, along the northeastern border of Albania.