sequestration In law, a writ authorizing a law-enforcement official to take into custody the property of a defendant in order to enforce a judg¬ ment or to preserve the property until a judgment is rendered. In some civil-law jurisdictions, contested property may be deposited with a third party until it is determined to whom it properly belongs.
sequoia See redwood
sequoia, giant See big tree
Sequoia National Park National park. Sierra Nevada range, Cali¬ fornia, U.S. The park, with an area of 629 sq mi (1,629 sq km), was set aside in 1890 to protect groves of big trees (Sequoiadendron giganteum) that are among the world’s largest and oldest living things. The largest tree in the park is thought to be 2,300-2,700 years old. Kings Canyon National Park adjoins Sequoia park to the north; Mount Whitney is on the eastern boundary.
Sequoyah or Sequoya or Sequoia \si-'kwoi-3\ (b. c. 1760/1770, Taskigi, North Carolina colony—d. August 1843, near San Fernando, Mex.) Creator of the Cherokee writing system. Sequoyah was probably the son of a British trader. Convinced that the secret of the white people’s power was written language, Sequoyah set about developing a Cherokee system. Adapting letters from English, Greek, and Hebrew, he created a system of 86 symbols representing all the syllables of the Cherokee lan¬ guage. Most Cherokee quickly became literate as a result. Sequoyah never learned to speak, read, or write English.
Seram See Ceram
seraph Vser-9f\ In Jewish, Christian, and Islamic literature, a celestial being with two or three pairs of wings who guards the throne of God. In Christian angelology, seraphim are the highest-ranking in the hierarchy of angels. In art they are often painted red, symbolizing fire. They appear in the Old Testament in a vision of Isaiah as six-winged creatures praising God. See also cherub.
Serbia Vs3r-be-,ya\ Constituent republic of Serbia and Montenegro, con¬ stituting about 80% of its area. The formerly autonomous provinces of Kosovo (administered by the UN since 1999) and the Vojvodina are within its borders. Area: 34,116 sq mi (88,361 sq km). Population (2001 est.): 9,993,000. The capital is Belgrade. Serbia is mountainous, with forests in the central area and low-lying plains in the north. Serbs settled the region in the 6th-7th centuries ad. In the 9th century the Serbs, nominally under Byzantine suzerainty, converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The Ottoman Empire triumphed at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389; after a long period of resistance, Serbia became part of the empire in 1459. After the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-29, Serbia became an autonomous principal¬ ity under Ottoman suzerainty and Russian protection. It became com¬ pletely independent of the Ottoman Empire in 1878. After World War I, Serbia became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which was renamed Yugoslavia in 1929. In 1946 Serbia was made one of six federated republics of Yugoslavia. As the Yugoslav economy faltered in the 1980s, the country began to break apart. After an unsuccessful attempt to prevent Slovenia’s secession in 1991, Serbian elements of the Yugo¬ slav armed forces began assisting Bosnian Serbs in sweeping Bosniacs (formerly designated Muslims) and Croats from eastern and northern Bos¬ nia and Herzegovina. In 1992, after Yugoslavia’s breakup, Serbia joined with Montenegro to form a new Yugoslav federation. The area remained in turmoil (see Bosnian conflict). The signing of the Dayton peace accords in 1995 ultimately brought little relief. Slobodan Milosevic retained power in Serbia through the end of the century, and the push for more autonomy by Albanian Kosovars provoked another round of fighting in 1998-99 (see Kosovo conflict). As the violence escalated, NATO responded with a bombing campaign, which led to a peace accord in June 1999. A change in the Yugoslav government late in 2000 brought reinstatement in the UN, and in 2003, after the Montenegrin government threatened to declare independence, the governments of the two constituent states agreed to remain united under the name Serbia and Montenegro.
Serbia and Montenegro Federated country, west-central Balkans region, southern Europe. It consists of two republics: Serbia and Montene¬ gro. Area: 39,449 sq mi (102,173 sq km). Population (2005 est.): 9,960,000. Administrative centre: Belgrade. The population comprises Ser¬ bian, Albanian, Montenegrin, Hungarian, and other ethnic groups. Lan¬ guages: Serbian (Serbo-Croatian), Albanian. Religions: Christianity (mostly Eastern Orthodox; also Roman Catholic), Islam. Currencies: Ser¬ bian dinar (Serbia); euro (Montenegro). The southern two-thirds of Serbia
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
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and Montenegro is mountainous, with the Dinaric Alps in the west and the Balkan Mountains in the east. Rivers include the Danube, Ibar, Morava, Timis, and Tisza. The country has oil, gas, coal, copper, lead, zinc,
and gold deposits. Its industries include machine building, metallurgy, mining, electronics, and petroleum products, while its agricultural products include com, wheat, potatoes, and fruit. The country is a federation with a president and a unicameral legislature, but most power resides with the governments of the two republics. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slov¬ enes was created after the collapse of Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I. The country signed treaties with Czechoslovakia and Romania in 1920-21, marking the beginning of the Little Entente. In 1929 an absolute monarchy was established, the country’s name was changed to Yugoslavia, and it was divided without regard to ethnic boundaries. Axis powers invaded Yugoslavia in 1941, and German, Italian, Hungarian, and Bulgar¬ ian troops occupied it for the rest of World War II. In 1945 the Federal Peo¬ ple’s Republic of Yugoslavia was established; it included the republics of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slo¬ venia. Its independent form of communism under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito provoked the Soviet Union and led to its expulsion from the Com- inform in 1948. Internal ethnic tensions flared up in the 1980s, causing Yugoslavia to collapse. In 1991-92 independence was declared by Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina; the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (containing roughly 45% of the population and 40% of the area of its predecessor) was proclaimed by Serbia and Mon¬ tenegro. Still fueled by long-standing ethnic tensions, hostilities continued into the 1990s (see Bosnian conflict; Kosovo conflict). In 2003, after rati¬ fication of an accord by the governments of Serbia, Montenegro, and Yugo¬ slavia, the country was renamed Serbia and Montenegro.
Serbo-Croatian language South Slavic language spoken by some 21 million people in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia and Montenegro. As the dominant language of pre-1991 Yugoslavia, it was used or understood by most ethnic groups of the federation. The Central Neo-Shtokavian dialect forms the basis for both Standard Serbian and Standard Croatian. Historically, Serbia’s literary language was the Ser¬ bian recension of Church Slavonic (see Old Church Slavonic language). In the 19th century a new literary language based on colloquial Serbian was successfully promulgated by Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic. Croatian writ¬ ten in the Latin alphabet first appears in the mid-14th century. In the 19th century the Zagreb-based Illyrian political movement, which aimed at a union of all South Slavs, turned to the Central Neo-Shtokavian dialect as the basis for a literary language that would unite Croatians and bring them closer to their Slavic compatriots. The move toward a unified “Serbo- Croatian” was supported by the politically unified Yugoslav kingdom