History of the Modern Serbs

[Epirot]

At which time?

I am speaking here for XVIII-XIX century period. Trust me or not, Serbs had no ethnic conscionous about themselves. As I wrote in my reply to Onur, Serbs identified themselves as part of the Orthodox community. I can back up my claim even with many other proofs that emphasize the multi-ethnic profile of Pashaluk of Beograd. Only a insignificant partion of the population called themselves as 'Serbs'. The rest were beyond any doubt, Vlachs, Turks and even Albanians (i.e Arnauts). With the estabilishing of Serbian Kingdom, the 'Serbian' leaders promoted their doctrines of ethno-religionism (Everyone who is Orthodox is Serbian = Everyone who is Serbian is Orthodox). As a result, all Muslims (Albanians, Turks and even Slavic Muslims) were deported in territories of Ottoman empire (Vilayet of Kosova, Thessaloniki, modern Turkey, etc). Does this recall any analogy with Greece? I am sure yes.

Even 'Greek' leaders that were inspired by their blind ethno-religion doctrines of 'Hellenism' (what a fluid term) displaced a sizable part of population: Muslim Albanians, Turks, etc.

[Soldier of Macedon]

I can back up my claim even with many other proofs that emphasize the multi-ethnic profile of Pashaluk of Beograd. Only a insignificant partion of the population called themselves as 'Serbs'. The rest were beyond any doubt, Vlachs, Turks and even Albanians (i.e Arnauts).

Back it up, you owe readers that much if you're going make such assertions.

[Epirot]

Back it up, you owe readers that much if you're going make such assertions.

You want the proof...Take it!

With a continuous excess of births over deaths, and of male over female children, the population of Servia rose from 2,161,961 in 1890 to 2,493,770 in 1900, and to about 2,750,000 in 1910. More than four-fifths of this number belong to the Serbo-Croatian branch of the Slavonic race; while the remainder is composed of about 160,000 Rumans, 47,000 gipsies, 8000 Austro-Hungarians and Germans, and 5000 Jews. Many Servian emigrants returned, after 1878, to the territories which the Treaty of Berlin restored to their country. These territories had been occupied, under Turkish rule, by Albanians, west of the Morava, and by Bulgarians, along the Nishava; but, after 1878, the Albanians withdrew, and the Bulgarians were absorbed. The Rumans reside principally in the north-east, near the borders of their native land, and are peasant farmers, like the Serbs. The gipsies occasionally settle down, forming separate camps or villages, but in most cases they prefer a wandering life. They are often admirable artisans and musicians, almost every town possessing a gipsy band. The Germans and AustroHungarians control a large share of the commerce of the country; the Jews, as elsewhere in the Balkans, are retail traders. AntiSemitism is not prevalent in Servia, owing to the smallness of the Jewish communities. The stature and features of the Serbs vary in different regions; but the northern peasantry are generally fairer and shorter than the mountaineers of the south. Those of the Shumadia are blue-eyed or grey-eyed. In many parts the prevailing types have been modified by intermarriage with Bulgars, Albanians and Vlachs; so that, along the Timok, for instance, it is impossible to make physiognomy a test of nationality. Even language does not afford a sure criterion, so nearly akin are many spoken dialects of Servian and Bulgarian.

http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Servia

My conclusions:

1. In the province of Servia (which encompassed mainly the lands of Pashaluk of Belgrade) there was a mixture of various people like: Vlachs, Albanians, Germans, Jews, Gypsies, etc. I find very significant the following extract: In many parts the prevailing types have been modified by intermarriage with Bulgars, Albanians and Vlachs; so that, along the Timok, for instance, it is impossible to make physiognomy a test of nationality.

2. The very fact that 'northerners' were anthropologically quite different from 'southerners' (with obvious highlander features) make very likely that Serbs were created by the mixture of Albanians (?), Vlach shepherds and Northern Slavic communities!!!!

Take a look how Serbia drastically increase its territories:

[Soldier of Macedon]

You want the proof...Take it!

Is there a reason why you're so excited, or do you always respond to simple questions with exclamation marks?!!!! This is what you intially said:

Only a insignificant partion of the population called themselves as 'Serbs'. The rest were beyond any doubt, Vlachs, Turks and even Albanians (i.e Arnauts).

Your statement is a paradox. What one calls themselves at a particular time and what their ethnic heritage is, does not always correlate. The Albanians of Greece who now call themselves 'Greek' are a typical example.

Anyway, the paragraph of the text you cited states that Serbian "territories had been occupied, under Turkish rule, by Albanians, west of the Morava, and by Bulgarians, along the Nishava; but, after 1878, the Albanians withdrew, and the Bulgarians were absorbed". The fact that Bulgarians are mentioned is no suprise, as the 'Bulgarian' name was often applied to Slavic-speaking peoples in the Ottoman Empire. But the Albanians west of the Morava occupied that area while it was under Turkish rule - which further corroborates the fact that Albanians significantly expanded as an opportunistic people after the majority of them wholesale converted to Islam within a short period of time. This is why you have Albanian 'pashas' from Belgrade to Cairo. There were no Albanian communities there prior to the Turks.

The stature and features of the Serbs vary in different regions; but the northern peasantry are generally fairer and shorter t[U]han the mountaineers of the south. Those of the Shumadia are blue-eyed or grey-eyed. In many parts the prevailing types have been modified by intermarriage with Bulgars, Albanians and Vlachs; so that, along the Timok, for instance, it is impossible to make physiognomy a test of nationality.

Racial mixing in the Balkans? Who would have known. Are Albanians more consistent than Serbs where it concerns physical appearance?

Take a look how Serbia drastically increase its territories:

Yeah, not too different from how Albanians are drastically increasing 'their' territories.

[Epirot]

Is there a reason why you're so excited, or do you always respond to simple questions with exclamation marks?!!!! This is what you intially said:

I'm neither excited, nor emotionalized when I am replying to you. I'm sorry you got such a impression for me. You're dead wrong if you think that I respond to simple questions with exclamation marks. I always responded with courtesy, maturity and educate to every question you addressed to me.

What one calls themselves at a particular time and what their ethnic heritage is, does not always correlate.

That Serbs perceived themselves as religious community is beyond any doubt, which is why they were categorized by the Ottomans as 'milet' (a religious community with gathered all who confess the same religion).

But the Albanians west of the Morava occupied that area while it was under Turkish rule - which further corroborates the fact that Albanians significantly expanded as an opportunistic people after the majority of them wholesale converted to Islam within a short period of time.

Yes but this encyclopedia fails to bring up any relevant proof to back up such claim. For the sake of truth, let accept that Albanians expanded in the Morava valley during Ottoman period. I guess you're already acquainted with the very fact that Albanians made up the majority in a large portion of Sandjak of Nish. I'm wondering how Albanians could be the majority in a region where Serbs are supposed to be the majority? I'm wondering why Ottoman chroniclers were so blind that they did not see any major migration of Albanians toward 'Serbia'?

There were no Albanian communities there prior to the Turks.

Back it up, please!

Racial mixing in the Balkans? Who would have known. Are Albanians more consistent than Serbs where it concerns physical appearance?

This wasn't exactly my point. Actually, I was saying that Serbian nation was created as a result of assimilation of non-Serb peasants like Turks, Albanians, Vlachs, etc. Secondly, the physical stature of southern 'Serbs' (as the encyclopedia describe) is very similar to that of Albanians.

[Soldier of Macedon]

You're dead wrong if you think that I respond to simple questions with exclamation marks.

The symbol in the following brackets (!) is an exclamation mark. You used it. If you're denying that you used it, then there's nothing I can do to help you.

That Serbs perceived themselves as religious community is beyond any doubt, which is why they were categorized by the Ottomans as 'milet' (a religious community with gathered all who confess the same religion).

Are you suggesting that there was a 'Serbian millet' at the time of the creation of modern Serbia?

I guess you're already acquainted with the very fact that Albanians made up the majority in a large portion of Sandjak of Nish.

No, I'm not. Can you show me some evidence of this? How many Albanian place-names are there in Nish?

Back it up, please!

Are you kidding me? If you're suggesting that Albanians lived in Belgrade and Cairo prior to the Ottoman Empire, then the onus is on you to prove it. And I am really interested in seeing if there is even a shred of proof.

This wasn't exactly my point. Actually, I was saying that Serbian nation was created as a result of assimilation of non-Serb peasants like Turks, Albanians, Vlachs, etc. Secondly, the physical stature of southern 'Serbs' (as the encyclopedia describe) is very similar to that of Albanians.

Another paradox, so I will ask you again - are Albanians more consistent than Serbs where it concerns physical appearance? If not, how can you even claim that 'southern Serbs' are similar to Albanians in physical stature? What defines the Albanian physical stature?

[Epirot]

No, I'm not. Can you show me some evidence of this? How many Albanian place-names are there in Nish?

There is a plethora of historical facts emphasizing Albanian character of the above-mentioned region. I'm quite surprised how an educated Macedonian like you has no knowledge for something that is so self-evident.
Well...let not waste time more. Here I shall present some informative and impartial accounts written by renowned authorities accredited on that matter:

The Serbian army expelled those Albanians living in the region stretching from Leskovac to Nis, which they annexed to Serbia. The Albanian population was driven deeper into the Kosova region...

The Albanians: a modern history - Page 29, Miranda Vickers - 1999

Prior to the Second Serbo-Ottoman War (1877-78), Albanians were the majority population in some areas of Sanjak of Nis (Toplica region), while from the Serb majority district of Vranje Albanian-inhabited villages were emptied after the 1877-78 war...

Kosovo and Metohija: living in the enclave
Dušan T. Bataković - 2007

Muslim Albanians were obliged to flee Kursumlija in 1878 after Serbia expanded into the four southern districts of Nis, Pirot, Toplica, and Vranje

The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina: their historic development from ... - Page 132, Mark Pinson - 1996

http://books.google.com/books?id=Yl3...page&q&f=false

In response, the Albanian population living in Niš, Vranje, Prokuplje and Leskovac was kicked out forcefully by the victorious Serbian army.

Kosovo - Google Books Result
Gail Warrander, Verena Knaus - 2011

Almost all the Muslims were expelled from the Morava valley region: there had been hundreds of Albanian villages there, and significant Albanian populations in towns such as Prokuplje, Leskovac, and Vranje. A Serbian schoolmaster in Leskovac later recalled that the Muslims had been driven out in December 1877 at a time of intense cold: ‘By the roadside, in the Gudelica gorge and as far as Vranje and Kumanovo, you could see the abandoned corpses of children, and old men frozen to death.’... By the end of 1878 Western officials were reporting that there were 60,000 families of Muslim refugees in Macedonia, ‘in a state of extreme destitution’, and 60-70,000 Albanian refugees from Serbia ‘scattered’ over the [Ottoman] vilayet of Kosovo.... This was not, it should be said, a matter of spontaneous hostility by local Serbs. Even one of the Serbian Army commanders had been reluctant to expel the Albanians from Vranje, on the grounds that they were a quiet and peaceful people. But the orders came from the highest levels in Belgrade.

http://books.google.com/books?id=GGQ_AQAAIAAJ&q=of+Albanian+villages+there,+and+significant+Albanian+populations+in+towns+such+as+Prokuplje,+Leskovac+and+Vranje.+...&dq=of+Albanian+villages+there,+and+significant+Albanian+populations+in+towns+such+as+Prokuplje,+Leskovac+and+Vranje.+...&hl=en&ei=sve7Tb-SGIresgat8t2JBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA

Sanjak of Niš it was a administrative unit of the Ottoman Empire based in Niš, in the Albanian province of Toplica. In some parts of Sanjak of Niš, especially in that of Prokuple and Kurshumli, Albanians constituted the majority of population. At the time of serbian invasion in this region almost all Albanians were displaced in Kosovo, Macedonia, Turkey and other countries .This harsh situation was confirmed also by the Commissary of the Serbian border John Ross who, apart from others when dealing with the situation he had seen, wrote the following:

"Almost all the inhabitants of the western part of the Sanjak of Niš,occupied from Serbia, were Albanians of the Muslim religion..., therefore, when this district was occupied by Serbian military, the population could not stand up to the invaders. All of them left for the Vilayet of Kosovo".

It is estimated that there were "60,000 Albanian refugees spread out in the Vilayet of Kosovo in 1878. They have never gone back to their former villages, as most of them had lost everything...About the number of Albanians who had lived in the Sanjak of Niš,(Prokuple,Kurshumli, Niš,Leskovac, Vranje ,Pirot)there are various records and statistics, which are considerably controversial. The Turkish administration has left notes, in which the population was divided on the basis of religion, Christians and Muslims. Some statistical notes of Serbian and Bulgarian are different and not real, and in some German or English sources the number of Albanians appear much larger.According to Vidosava Nikolic-Stojançevic number of houses and residents in the Sanjak of Niš it was: Nis had 3500 Christian houses and 2000 Turkish-Albanian;Pirot 3000 Christians houses and 400 Turkish-Albanian houses;Leskovac 2500 Christian and 1000 Turkish-Albanian houses; Prokuplje 140 Chrisstian houses and 650 Turkish-Albanian; Vranje 2500 Christian houses and 800 Turkish-Albanian ;Kurshumlia 150 Albanian houses. According to Piliqit Nicholas and his records at work "Oslobodenje juzne Srbije 1877 to 1878" Belgrade, p. 1977. 232 Toplica on the eve of occupation has had 18333 inhabitants, of whom: The district of Prokuple 4618 Serbian, 6207 Turkish and Albanian ; district Kosanica 6708 inhabitants (757 Serb, 5951 Albanian and Turkish and 800 Cerkez).Turkish Population was more concentrated in Nis and Pirot, while in Prokuple, Krushumli, Leskovac and Vranje the majority of the population was Albanian.Even Vidosava Nikolic Stojançeviq states itself that in towns ,in most cases dominant population belonged to the Albanian language, except in Nis and Pirot, where they spoke more Turkish rather than Albanian.According to registration of the Serbian government made on 1 February 1878 Prokuple had 51 Serb houses in 1049 villages, 22 villages were of mixed Serb and Albanian population (822 Albanian houses and 858 Serbian ), only 74 villages with 1538 houses were with Albanian population (for 14 villages there are no notes). For these 14 villages was later confirmed that they had 245 Albanian houses. According to Vidosava Nikolic Stojançevic only 51 villages had Serb population. But based on Muhaxhir surnames who were expulsed to Kosovo, Albanians lived also in the serbian inhabited villages.For instance; Breznica came from the village of Breznica, Devqët from village of Devqa, Kostanicët from Costa-Nica village, Lepajët from Lepaja village, Pojatët from Pojata, etc.According to the information about the language spoken among the Muslims in the cities, we can see of which nationality they were. So, the Muslim population of Niš and Pirot consisted mostly of Turks ; in Vranje and Leskovac they were Turks and Albanians ; Muslims in Prokuplje and Kuršumlja were mostly Albanians.On the basis of abundant data of various sources (Turkish, Serbian, Britain, German, Albanian, etc.) dealing with the number of the immigrated Albanians from south Serbia, one can conclude that there were around 700 villages in that region inhabited once by the Albanians.


Houses and whole villages reduced to ashes, unarmed and innocent populations massacred en masse, incredible acts of violence, pillage and brutality of every kind — such were the means which were employed and are still being employed by the Serbo-Montenegrin soldiery, with a view to the entire transformation of the ethnic character of regions inhabited exclusively by Albanians.

– Report of the International Commission

Are you suggesting that there was a 'Serbian millet' at the time of the creation of modern Serbia?

More or less.



Prvi osnovi slovenske književnosti među balkanskim Slovenima", izdatoj u Beogradu 1893. godine, Stojan Novaković





Vladimir Karić, 1887

Another paradox, so I will ask you again - are Albanians more consistent than Serbs where it concerns physical appearance?

I don't know because I'm not competent in anthropology field. But if you ask me if Albanians as nation are more consistent than Serbs, my Answer would be YES. Albanians never perceived their religious bonds as component of their community. Albanians were consolidated as an ethnic group which trace back its origin to the Illyrians and the Epirotes.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Back to the topic of Serbian history. Draza Mihailovic is considered a hero by many Serbs, at least post Yugoslavia. He has been decorated with honours by the US for helping some of their lost soldiers return to safety. Yet, he also often collaborated with the Axis forces against the Communists. He also issued his famous 'instructions' in 1941, in which the following was written (keep in mind that to this individual, Macedonia is also considered a part of Serbia):

“ The mission of our units is:

The struggle for the freedom of all of our people under the scepter of His Majesty, the King Peter II;
The creation of Greater Yugoslavia, and within it Greater Serbia, ethnically clean within the borders of Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Srem, Banat, and Bačka;
The struggle for the incorporation into our social structure of those non-liberated Slovenian territories under Italy and Germany (Trieste, Gorizia, Istria, and Carinthia), as well as Bulgaria and Northern Albania with Skadar;
The cleansing of all national minorities and anti-state elements from state territory;
The creation of direct common borders between Serbia and Montenegro, as well as Serbia and Slovenia by cleansing the Muslim population from Sandžak, and the Muslim and Croat populations from Bosnia and Herzegovina;
The punishment of all Ustashas and Muslims who have mercilessly destroyed our people in these tragic days;
The settlement of the areas cleansed of national minorities and anti-state elements by Montenegrins (to be considered are poor, nationally patriotic, and honest families).

I don't ever recall a document from any Macedonian revolutionary organisation that promotes and condones such a brutal approach.

[Droog]

Isn't it ironic that he accused the ustase, although they both had the same employer?

[Soldier of Macedon]

Very ironic. Guess who else worked for that same Nazi 'employer' - the Bali Kombetar and SS Skanderbeg Division. And guess what their ethnicity was? The same as yours. Albanian. The irony never ceases to amaze.

[Droog]

Very ironic. Guess who else worked for that same Nazi 'employer' - the Bali Kombetar and SS Skanderbeg Division. And guess what their ethnicity was? The same as yours. Albanian. The irony never ceases to amaze.

Balli Kombetar never worked with the "Nazis" or the Italians. You may want to read some of their documents about that. Yeah, sure there was a SS Skanderbeg Division, but it wasn't exactly "functional" since most of its recruits left the unit and didn't even want to fight. I should also remind you that Albania was one of the few occupied countries(if not the only one) that didn't engage in antisemitic activities.

On another note you do know that Balli Kombetar got rid of the Italians in Struga and liberated the city, don't you?

EDIT: What I mean is that everywhere in the Balkans there were some collaborationists, but ustase and the chetniks are really not comparable with failed units like SS Skanderbeg

[Onur]

Draza Mihailovic is considered a hero by many Serbs, at least post Yugoslavia. He also issued his famous 'instructions' in 1941, in which the following was written

This is no different than what Germans said and did in WW-2. How come a person who said these words can be considered as a hero?

As soon as Serbs gained their independence from Ottoman empire, they followed policies of ethnic cleansing of Hungarians, Croats and Bosnians, relocation of communities inside Yugoslavia and creation of new settlements. You can read Serbian leaders announcements in 1910s, talking about ethnically cleansing Bosnian muslims.

I am glad about one thing tough; Croats gained the most from the relocation and new settlement policies of Serbs since Croats expanded to the east, in to the territories of formerly populated by Bosnians and Hungarians. And Croats took possession of these places in 1990s. So, these new settlement policies of Serbians has been backfired to them in the end.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Balli Kombetar never worked with the "Nazis" or the Italians. You may want to read some of their documents about that.

You really are in a state of denial about anything that could be perceived negative towards Albanians, aren't you? Now the Bali Kombetar had never worked with the Nazis?? A 10 year old could corroborate that fact. Get off the drugs or stop wasting my time.

Yeah, sure there was a SS Skanderbeg Division, but it wasn't exactly "functional".......

Oh, it was functional, at least for a little while, it just wasn't competent, because its members spent most of their time robbing and looting.

I should also remind you that Albania was one of the few occupied countries(if not the only one) that didn't engage in antisemitic activities.

Albania hardly had any Jews, and it was under Italian occupation for the most part. The Italians were nowhere near as anti-Semitic as the Germans. I understand that some Jews considered it a safe haven and the Jewish population in your country increased from 200 to 2,000, but we are talking small numbers, hardly a national sacrifice on your part. Furthermore, if your German buddies were there we would have seen how sympathetic your people really were towards the Jews. The Bulgarians like to claim a moral high ground in this regard also, even though they too, like your Albanians, collaborated with the Nazis at some point. They usually fail to mention that, while they helped save the Jews in Bulgaria, they rounded up the Jews in Macedonia and sent them off to death camps.

On another note you do know that Balli Kombetar got rid of the Italians in Struga and liberated the city, don't you?

You know what, after all of the half-truths I have read from you since you came to this forum, both in public and private correspondence between ourselves, I am inclined to question things that are even slightly trivial. If you want to make statements like the above, don't give me a "you do know", give me some proof.

What I mean is that everywhere in the Balkans there were some collaborationists, but ustase and the chetniks are really not comparable with failed units like SS Skanderbeg

All of you collaborated with the Nazis at one point or another, and all of you carried out dispicable war crimes. Saving a couple hundred Jews doesn't diminish that fact.

[Droog]

Much military equipment was also seized in Diber, which was liberated by the joint action of the forces of Balli Kombetar and of Haxhi Lleshi, who had been operating in Drin valley. Balli Kombetar forces also took control of Struga where there was a weak enemy garrison.

[Onur]

A Croat historian`s point of view about Avars, Bulgars and Croats;

AVARS, BULGARS AND CROATS

a) The cornerstone of Croatian history is the statement, made by Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the 10th century, that the Croats, originating from the "White Croats" in the North, arrived in Dalmatia in the reign of emperor Heraclius. On the emperor's order they supposedly took up arms, expelled the Avars from the land, and settled in it themselves (De administrando imperio XXXI). It was, of course, during the reign of Heraclius (610-641) that the Avars were defeated at Constantinople, that the above-mentioned Avar-Bulgar conflict broke out in Pannonia, and that Kubrat established Great Bulgaria in the North Pontic Area. Hence, suggestions have existed for a long time that there might have been cause and effect factors relating these events to the Croat migration, and that there even might be an ethnogenetical link between the Avars, Bulgars and Croats.

b) A major point in the theories has been a migration legend that is recorded in the corpus of Porphyrogenitus' work. As the legend goes: a tribe of the White Croats, led by five brothers - KLOUKAS, LOBELOS, KOSENTZES, MOUHLO and HROBATOS, and two sisters named TOUGA and BOUGA (b/v transliteration can be changed in the Byzantine Greek text) come to Dalmatia, where they found the Avars holding the land. After a time of warring they were able to defeat the Avars and subjugated them, but some of the descendants of the Avars survived in Croatia, and - as the text says explicitly - it can be seen that they are Avars (the idea is that the descendants of the Avars preserved some type of Mongoloid appearance, distinct from the Croat population) (De administrando imperio XXX).

c) Even today this legend has been generally taken as authentic, i.e. as an authentic legend reflecting more complex history, not exact history itself. For one thing it was recorded quite early (i.e. in the 10th century), at a time when the Medieval Croatian Kingdom was still relatively powerful, and without doubt a country about which the Byzantines wanted to gather various strategic details (the report of as much as 100.000 foot soldiers and 60.000 horsemen in the DAI is, of course, exaggerated to stress the importance). Several authors have assumed that the legend was first conveyed to the Byzantines by some member of the Croat nobility, who knew it from oral tradition. This is a real possibility, for a time-span of 300 years, although a bit stretched, is not too much for some oral tradition, especially in a society in which laws and other social traditions are still being transmitted by word of mouth (as was the case in Medieval Croatia), and especially in the nobility, which as a rule preserves memories of its origins much longer than the general population. Another indicative detail concerns one of the names of the brothers "Kosentzes" is in fact nothing other then the title "kosez", written with an Old Slavic nasal /e/. Quite genuine, since the "kosezi" truly were a noble class, well distributed in the Slovenian lands and in parts of northern Croatia, and especially in a region of Old Carantania that was known in the 11-12th century as Pagus Chrouuat. Kosentzes and Hrobat (whose name is an obvious eponym of the Croats) are the two most important brothers in the legend.

d) If the two sisters mentioned in the legend are excluded - as has for often been done! - The story fundamentally tells of FIVE brothers from a foreign land (the location of "White Croatia", despite the details, is still disputed) coming and defeating the Avars, in the first part of the 7th century. Hence, both recently, and in the past, there have been serious attempts to link the story with that of the Bulgar khan Kubrat and his FIVE SONS! Furthermore, it has been noted that Kubrat's name appears in Greek, Latin, Arabic and Slavic sources in several variations: Koubratos, Kobratos, Krobatos, Kouber (his son?), Crobatus, Chudbadr, Chubraat, Quetrades, Kour't?. Equating the form Krobatos, with the Hrobatos in the Croat tradition, the English historian J. Bury was once quick in concluding: "This Croatian legend has a strong family resemblance to the Bulgarian legend of Krobat (or Kubrat) and his five sons, and I therefore think that we should hardly hesitate to take Krobat and Hrobat as the same prehistoric hero of the Hunnic people..." (unfortunately my translation back to English of a Croatian translation of Bury's words - for the original see: J. Bury. A History of the later Roman empire from Arcadius to Irene (395-800). vol II London, 1889, 275-275). In his following sentences, Bury attempted also to derive the Croatian title "ban" (governor, viceroy) from Bayan, the name of the Avar khan who had led his people to Pannonia, or even from Batbayan, the eldest son of Kubrat. This type of concluding quickly led to the birth of the "Turkic" theory of Croatian origins.

e) However the two sisters, as I said, were excluded from most interpretation. To this day it seems that almost nobody takes them seriously, yet they might throw some light on another detail that was noticed at the turn of the 19-20th century that was to influence future research. Namely, at this time A.I. Pogodin indicated the relevance of that two stone plates from the former Greek colony Tanais at the mouth of the Don, dated from the 2nd-3rd centuries, on which were the names Khoroathos and Khorouathos, along with the comment that a Khoroathos or Khorouathos had been an arkhontos in Tanais during the reign of Julius Sauromatus (175-211). If the name was derived from an ethnonym, as seemed very plausible, and since a Turkic presence at the mouth of the Don in the 2nd-3rd was not deemed possible, the most likely conclusion was that the name must be Iranian, i.e. Sarmatian (or Alanic). However, there were also some attempts at finding a Caucasian etymology, and one author, in the same context, even tried to derive the name of the other brother "Kosentzes", or "Kosez", from the "Kasogs" appearing in the Russian Primary Chronicle and in the Poem of Prince Igor. But that the Croatian ethnonym itself could have been indigenous to the Don-Azov area was further strengthened by a high concentration of ethnonyms with an -at suffix in this area. Along with various Iranian and other speculations as to what it meant, Trubachev finally suggested that it might be derived from *xarva(n)t, meaning in Iranian something like "those that have women". Such an interpretation was supported by the indications of a higher status of women among the (Iranian) Sarmatians, and maybe of some form of matrilineal descent, if not actual "matriarchy". Even the Greek myth of the Amazons, and their supposed geographic location by the Black Sea was pertinent in this regard. Thus, it would seem that the sisters in the Croat ethnogenetic legend may perhaps not be only a casual variation.

f) Interestingly, Paul the Deacon, in this History of the Langobards (that I have already mentioned in connection with the Bulgars in Molise), wrote that the Langobards, on the way to Pannonia, had to fight a group of Amazons at a river crossing and right after that they were confronted by a group of Bulgars! (Historia Langobardorum, I: 16-17). Would it be too much to see in this half-mythical/half-historical reference a faint indication of a Croat, Proto-Croat or Iranian groups that might have been in some sort of close relationship with a tribe of Bulgars? Most probably it would, at least until we have more information. But for me it is intriguing to think about it.

g) I must add that besides the Turkic and Iranian theories on the origins of the Proto-Croats, there has also been a Gothic theory, an indigenous "Illyrian" theory and obviously a Slavic, or more precisely "purely Slavic" theory. Each of these interpretations corresponded to a certain time, and to the needs of the time. Thus the Gothic theory appeared in the 12-13th century in the "Historia Salonitana" of Thomas the Archdeacon and in Chronicle of the Priest of Dioclea (Pop Dukljanin), who both equated Croats with Goths. Personally, although not excluding the possibility of a Germanic trace in the Croat ethnogenesis, I believe that the Gothic theory was a new dynastic myth, that replaced the original (i.e. authentic) legend of the five brothers and two sisters, precisely at a time when the Croatian kings were trying to reaffirm their political right to the land they were ruling. In the late 11th century, after the schism in Christianity, Croatia was moving away from former ties with Byzantium, in which dynastic affirmation could be based on the story of Heraclius allowing the Croats to settle in Dalmatia as "foederati" of the Empire. Therefore it was more opportune to invent a Gothic genealogy, just as the Romans had once invented a Trojan genealogy, and the Britons had in their turn invented a Roman genealogy (cf. Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of the British Kings"). But why pick Goths? Croatia had in fact once been part of Theodorik's Ostrogoth Kingdom, but the reason is most likely not this. Rather, of all the "barbarians" Theodorik's Goths had somehow left the best imagine of themselves in the medieval vision, to the point of being credited with doing God's work in eliminating the "sinful" Roman Empire. In this light, as Herwig Wolfram noted, even at the Council of Basil (1431-1449) the Austrians and Swedes were still arguing about which of them were the true descendants of the Goths (H. Wolfram, The History of the Goths. University of California Press, 1988. p. 2). It was only during the Renaissance that "Gothic" became a distasteful term, maybe because it had been used as positive in the era the Renaissance people were turning away from. Then typically, Croatian "literati" followed the trend and soon invented an illustrious Illyrian origin for the Croats, going back to the Roman days. This type of Illyrianism, soon expanded to include other Slavic-speaking peoples as well, and by the early 19th century it began to merge fully with Pan-Slavism, and eventually with "Yugoslavism" (which is only a subvariation of Pan-Slavism, with certain peculiar traits of its own).

h) Now, while it is truly impossible (and silly) to try to deny the dominant role of Slavs in Croatian ethnogensis, it was another problem when Pan-Slavist ideology, taken to the extreme, tried a priori to refute any possibility of non-Slavic elements being involved in the ethnogenesis of either the Croats, or any other Slavic-speaking people (cf. the fate of the Norman theory in Russia, that finally resulted in willful destruction of Scandinavian archaeology material in that country). In our case, the problem was compounded by Yugoslav state ideology, where Gothic, Turkic, Iranian theories were officially regarded not only as necessarily false, but also as subversive. True, the attempts to revive Gothicism were highly problematic (to say the least), since they were in some cases inspired by the racist views of Nordic and/or Germanic superiority that were being strongly in the first part of the 20th century. Gothicism taken literally, not in the way I tried to describe it in the previous paragraph, ALMOST became the official doctrine in Croatia during the wartime pro-Nazi regime. It was therefore logical that after W.W.II Gothicism was banned in the new Communist Yugoslavia, to the point of negating that any Germanic groups might have left some traces in the Croatian ethnogenesis. Likewise, there was no discussion on the Turkic and Iranian theories, except to say how impossible and ridiculous they were. Thus, it came rather as shock, when about ten years ago the state media mentioned that some historians were claiming that "Croats were not Slavs". In fact, the late Nada Klai? (who was at the end of her career and had already earned herself the image of an iconoclast) had favorably commented the works of O. Kronsteiner ("Gab es unter den Alpenslawen eine kroatische etnische Gruppe", etc.), and W. Pohl ("Das Avarenreich und die kroatischen Ethnogenesen"), published some time earlier in the Weiner slavistisches Jahrbuch (vol 24 B, 1978). Kronsteiner and Pohl were claiming that the first Croats (Proto-Croats) were an Avaric warrior class or category among the Alpine Slavs. Besides the title "ban" that I already noted, other significant Mediaeval titles were added to this thesis: "cacatius" (kagan) used as a title among the Carantanian princes, the above mentioned "kosez" - apparently from Turkic gaziz/chaziz/haziz, and even župan, first noted in the sources in 777 in the Latinised form "jopan", relating to the Carantania. Obviously, since the Slovenes had with much justification claimed the historical legacy of the Mediaeval Carantanian state this Avaric-Croat-Carantanian reinterpretation hit their ethnovision as well. There had, of course, been earlier attempts to link the beginning of Slovene political organisation with a Croat group (e.g. by Ljudmil Hauptmann before W.W.II), but in the ideology of the Yugoslav state such suggestions were avoided, since they were seen as overt expressions of Croatian nationalism.

i) As for the Iranian theory, it was confined for some time only to "political emigrants" living abroad. S. Saka?, who had upheld it in 1937, presented a new elaboration in an émigré journal in 1945. Only in the late 1980s did it become better known in Croatia. I am somewhat pleased to say that the journal "Migration Themes" of which I am the editor-in-chief published a short paper by Ivo Goldstein, Nada Klai?'s successor as the head of the Dept. of Mediaeval History at the University of Zagreb, in which he described the Iranian theory as "the least unlikely" (see: "O etnogenezi Hrvata u ranom srednjem vijeku", Migracijske teme, 1989, br. 2-3, pp. 221-227). Today, however, the Iranian theory is well on its way to becoming almost official in Croatia. It is mentioned explicitly in textbooks, and is nicely depicted in the secondary school historical atlas (see: Hrvatski povijesni zemljovidi. Zagreb, Školska knjiga, 1993. p. 7). Unfortunately, the extreme Iranism that was developed among our émigrés abroad is also very present, so that the search for roots often ends up in Afghanistan or Iran proper, at any rate in Achaemenian antiquity, i.e. in the 6-5th centuries BCE, where there was once a region called in the Avestan texts Xarauvati, and in Greek - Arakhosia. This seems to be good example of how in a relatively small modern nation, or more precisely in a nation who feels itself to be small, an illustrious ancestry is once again being invented, to fill the need of a genuine identity that has been repressed by decades of ideological violence.

h) I personally do believe that an Iranian component in Proto-Croat ethnogenesis is likely (not to say "least unlikely"), but here one cannot go much further than Tanais and the Don, and likewise such Iranism is nothing exceptional in the Slavic-speaking world. As to the Turkic theory, which even Trubachev later adopted, I can't rule it our either, yet I am pretty certain that some of the words or titles suggested as Avaric or Turkic, such as župan (which has cognates in Polish and Baltic), most probably have a different origin. If people on this list will be interested I will attempt to gather a list of possible Avar, Bulgar or Old Turkic loans in Croatian but this might take some time. On the other hand, the reasons why the Turkic theory was not received with hardly as much "public favour" in Croatia, as the Iranian interpretation was, probably lies also in deep-rooted and very unfortunate prejudices, that can be traced to Mediaeval visions of Gog and Magog, Tatars and Tartarus, and to memories preserved in the chronicles and epic poems of battles with the Huns, Avars, Magyars, Tatars and Ottoman Turks. Croatia was often at the endpoint of all these invasions, and the historical coat-of-arms of my country, a red and white checkerboard shield (now in the middle of our national flag), symbolizes in heraldry a battlefield (just as it does in the game of chess). Interestingly enough, an even older symbol that can also be seen on our coat-of-arms (in the present version) is a moon and star on a blue night sky. However, this is probably irrelevant.

by Emil Heršak
Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies,
22.09.1996
Zagreb, Croatia.

[email protected]

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