Prečani (Serbs)

Prečani (Serbian Cyrillic: Пречани)[a] was a Serbian blanket term used at the end of the 19th- and early 20th century for ethnic Serb communities located preko ("across") the Danube, Sava and Drina rivers, beyond the northern and western borders of 19th-century Serbia, that is, in Austria-Hungary-held Vojvodina, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia.

It was thus used to distinguish Serbs of Serbia ("Serbians") from those in the historical Habsburg monarchy; it was not applied to the Serbs of Montenegro or those in the Sanjak of Novi Pazar and elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire.

In 1918 the Prečani Serbs formed a notable political constituency that participated in the founding of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs as well as the joining of Banat, Bačka and Baranja with the Kingdom of Serbia.

After the invasion of Yugoslavia, they were the main target of the World War II persecution of Serbs.

The term was primarily used in the Kingdom of Serbia and was not used by the Austro-Hungarian Serbs themselves.